The Big Picture - Top Five Movies of 1999, Plus David Modigliani on ‘Running With Beto’ | Discussion

Episode Date: March 26, 2019

Now 20 years removed, we convene to discuss and share our top five movies from 1999—the year many believe was the greatest year of movies ever (1:00). Then, a conversation with ‘Running With Beto��� director David Modigliani from SXSW (1:08:00). Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Amanda Dobbins, Chris Ryan, and David Modigliani Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Liz Kelley. As we approach the final season of Game of Thrones on April 14th, the Ringer is providing you with a deep dive on the show's first seven seasons and what to expect from season eight. Up on the website, staff writers like Alison Herman, Alyssa Bresnak, Zach Cram, and many more are analyzing what loose ends the show needs to address in the last season. Up on the video side, our resident Game of Thrones experts, Mallory Rubin and Jason Concepcion are breaking down the show's top 25 moments in the 25 days

leading up to the finale. You can find each day's videos up on our social channels like Facebook and Twitter and the compilation videos on youtube.com slash The Ringer at the end of each week. And make sure to keep an eye out for even more Thrones coverage coming from us as we get closer to April 14th. I'm Sean Fennessy, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about what many have called the best movie year ever. I am joined by Amanda Dobbins and Chris Ryan. Hello guys. Hi Sean. Hey man. So we are talking about the year 1999, which we and many other people, including some friends of ours who've written books, are calling the best movie year ever. We're celebrating it on the site. Please stay tuned after our conversation. I'll

be having a conversation with the documentarian David Modigliani, who made the movie Running with Beto. He and I sat down at South by Southwest earlier this month. But right now we're going to talk about a more pressing matter, which is 20 years ago. Chris, Amanda, I was hoping we could start this conversation before breaking down our top five movies from this era. I'm just describing for you where you were at in your life in 1999. What was young Amanda Dobbins doing in that year? So I believe young Amanda Dobbins was a freshman in high school and was learning a lot about a lot of things, including pop culture. I feel like, and my list will reflect this a little bit. I was young and high school is when you start learning that there are artistic worlds and cultural worlds outside of what's on the three networks on television and what your parents have shown to you.

And I was possibly a little slower than some in high school to be learning some of that stuff. And I do think 1999 was a year where I was exposed to some things that I certainly wouldn't have been before. Many of them were by various boys that I knew in my life, which, you know, we'll talk about. There's a whole class of movies on this list that is like movies that dudes made me watch, which says something about the movies and also says something about me. Hard to believe you work at the ring. Yeah, but it was, I was learning a lot of things. It was an Amanda in transition.

How about that? Some might say I still am, but it started then. Chris, what transition were you experiencing at that time in your life? Man, I mean, much like Beto O'Rourke, I was really immersed in the subculture of punk rock at the time. Wow. You guys are contemporaries, contemporary leaders in the American thought process. Yeah, I should start tucking my shirt into my khakis and just kind of walking around doing a lot of hand gestures. I was 21, 22 in 1999, and I was living in Boston.

And I was very, very, very involved with like underground music at the time, but was like an avid, avid moviegoer. It was something that me and my friends did at the time, but was like an avid, avid moviegoer. It was something that me and my friends did all the time. And the thing that I remember most about this year was, I don't know that I'll ever have a better movie going year in terms of the experiences that I had at the theater and the sort of elation and euphoria that I felt after the movies that I would see in the theater. And you could feel that, you know, we've talked a lot. You guys talk all the time about the sort of the war on the theater going experience and the kind of degradation of that experience.

But that was, I mean, putting aside whether the theaters themselves were nice in Boston in 1999, I really do remember a collective kind of wonder at a bunch of these movies. And weirdly, since then, since movies have gotten bigger and crazier and more CGI filled and more IP galaxies, these movies feel comparatively small

to say an Avengers movie. But the impact that they had on me and the impact that I think they had on my fellow theater goers was immense. What about you, man? I was a junior and then a senior in high school. So it's notable on me and the impact that I think they had on my fellow theater goers was immense. What about you, man? I was a junior and then a senior in high school. So it's notable to me that the three of us are at three unique, they're kind of clustered time periods, but they're also highly formative in different ways.

You know, when you're 21 and 22, you seemingly feel like you understand a lot more about what it's like to live in this world and to consume art and to be an adult. When you're a senior in high school, there's like all of this anticipation and anxiety, but also a great deal of personal freedom because you're exiting this one stage. When you're a freshman in high school, there's a lot of fear. There's a lot of confusion. So those three touch points feel very appropriate for this conversation. I was struck going down the calendar list of movies over the weekend at how many movies I saw in theaters

that were bad and on like dates, you know, because you're always trying to find sort of like a compromise for a date movie, especially as a person that like, this is before I started dating my now wife. And it was always like at first sight, you know, the movie where Val Kilmer is blind and Elizabeth Shue has to walk him through this earth. Um, you know, that's just an absolutely terrible movie, but I specifically remember going to see that movie at the expense of going to see the matrix, which came out around the same time. Um, and yeah, I mean, I did get owned by my desire to be on a date and it's just, it's an interesting way. I wish I'd known that was an option.

Well, yeah, I was, perhaps I was a slightly more desperate than you were in high school. I wanted to talk a little bit though about kind of like the themes of the year too, before we do the top fives. There's a lot of different, interesting historical touch points here. And, you know, our friend Brian Raftery wrote this really great book called Best Movie Year Ever that's coming out next month that is all about this year. And I would highly encourage people to check it out. And he organizes the book in an interesting way.

He kind of clusters some movies and he lets others stand on their own. And one of the chapters very early on in the book is about Sundance that year. It's notable because I'm sure we're going to talk about the Blair Witch Project in some form or fashion. That movie did not premiere at Sundance, though it's considered this great indie,

provocative, seminal moment. It premiered at Slamdance. And the big movie that premiered at Sundance that year was a movie called Happy Texas. Have you guys seen that movie? I heard of it. It's a Steve Zahn comedy that sold for $10 million. This is 20 years ago. Movies sold for $10 million this year. People were like, well, that's too much money. So 20 years ago, that much money for a movie like that is crazy. That movie of course flopped. But at that time, Sundance is sort of making this change over from this radical new place to find filmmakers to, oh, there's this incredible bloat going on in the industry.

I assume as a freshman in high school, you were not closely tracking this stuff, Amanda. No, especially for something like Blair Witch. I'm trying to remember. I think I saw it after the fact. And I remember being very aware of the is it real phenomena surrounding it and then I think by the time it made it to me someone was like this isn't real so don't be scared like it had gone through the cultural process before it filters down to like sad 15 year olds who can't drive to the theater that's the other thing I couldn't drive for any of these movies so I saw a lot of them after the fact and

or with a parent which really just changes everything. I got to tell you. Chris, what about you? Were you closely tracking in the likes of Premiere Magazine and Entertainment Weekly what was what was popping at Sundance? No, I don't think I mean, I think I would read like movie line and premiere when I could. My dad was a movie critic, so I would kind of get a sense of what he was seeing and what he was reviewing just from talking to him and reading his stuff. Would he say you got to check this out to you about something? Yeah, but like about a Merchant Ivory movie, we've thought a lot about that. So that was mostly, you know, he was much more into adult costume dramas and stuff that

had a certain degree of class. And I was more into Fight Club. I think we'll get into that a little bit. The other thing that I wanted to note is this is a very interesting Oscars year. American Beauty won four out of the five major awards, and that just hasn't aged well in the parlance of Bill Simmons because that movie is not very good. And it's also incredibly fraught given everything that's happened to some of the people who were involved in the making of it. But it does make me think a little bit about how a lot of the movies at the time that we were told were important have kind of faded from view. And a lot of the movies at the time that we were told were important have come kind of faded from

view and a lot of the movies that we were like oh that's like a nice trifle live on in a hugely significant way like office space has this major standing in the minds of people who were born between the age the years like 1975 and 1990 but a movie like the green mile or girl interrupted or the hurricane and specifically american beauty like I just feel like those movies are kind of forgotten or they're hated. It was an interesting time in film media because it was pre the sort of democratization of the internet really hit that industry. So you kind of had like three or four tastemakers. And if they decided that something like Rob Reiner's North was an important movie, you just had to kind of go along with it until you actually saw it and you were like,

that is not an important movie. That's the Elijah Wood movie, right? Yeah. Yeah, I had a birthday party at that movie. But that had like a five-page premiere magazine script. That's why we went to the birthday party. It was quite a notorious bomb too.

But like that, I feel like some of that stuff was a product of, well, we've just decided Green Mile and it's going to be the fall to Shawshank and it's going to be a super important moment for a lot of people's lives. And it was just like, this is just like a bad hang. Yeah. I think it's like a really boring movie, but at the time it was a big hit and it was Oscar nominated for things. But upon reflection, it just doesn't, I don't know. It just didn't matter. The one other thing that I think is really key to talking about some of this stuff, and I don't think this movie is going to show up on any of our lists, but I think that the return of Star Wars is really important because as you say,

Chris, like we weren't totally in this moment of like franchise overload, but it kind of kickstarts that as the way to think about what modern movies are going to become in the next, in the next century. And so that year you have Star Wars, The Phantom Menace, Toy Story 2, The Matrix, American Pie, which in its way really became a franchise. Austin Powers 2, which was a bigger hit than Austin Powers 1. The Spy Who Shagged Me. The Spy Who Shagged Me. That's right. I look forward to see where that is on your list, Chris. The Mummy, a James Bond movie, and Pokemon, the first movie, which of course, later this year, we will get Pokemon Detective Pikachu. I don't know what a Pokemon is.

Amanda is super excited about it, as you guys can tell. Yeah, it's funny. So it's interesting because I do think that this is a little bit of an indicator of where we're going. That being said, most of those movies are pretty bad or not that meaningful. It's because these companies haven't figured out yet how to make this a part of our life, how to trick us into continuity as an idea of movie going. I think that Phantom Menace to me, even though it was obviously wound up being a real hero ball moment for George Lucas to the extent that some might argue that it really only interested George

Lucas, was a real example of fan culture, the rise of fan culture, of people just being like, I just demand it, make more Star Wars movies. And that winds up being kind of the defining thing for the next 20 years, because that's where we live now, where people are just like, I ship this idea and I'm going to make it into a real thing by the power of the internet. And that to me is like the first big bang of that. Had you seen any of the Star Wars movies when The Phantom Menace premiered? No. And then I saw the original because they did a re-release in theaters.

That's right. And so my parents took me to see the original Star Wars and not The Phantom Menace, which I'm not sure. I've seen clips of it. That's Jar Jar, right? That's Jar Jar. Yeah, so that's a tough look for everyone. It's interesting how many of these movies,

not just Star Wars, but certainly as Chris was talking about fan culture, it's interesting how 1999 introduces all of these phenomenon that are so familiar as to be exhausting now, from fan culture to the whole, the marketing aspect of Blair Witch and everything that has to surround a movie to movies about toxic masculinity.

There are a lot of things that really start in 1999 that were new and exciting and surprising at the time. And I'm fighting, not fighting, but it is extremely familiar now, all of it. It just had a lot of templates. I mean, in the aftermath of the release of Us, it's notable that this is the year when The Sixth Sense was released. It had a very similar, you got to go see it, you got to go, don't spoil the twist kind of feeling too, which is The Sixth Sense is not the first time that that happened, but it was really at a fever pitch around that movie. I remember I didn't see The Sixth Sense in theaters. I may have told the story before, I don't remember. But it was spoiled for me by Frank DiGiacomo, who was the

de facto film critic on The Daily Show, who spoiled it like three or four weeks after it was released on The Daily Show. And I was like, that guy should die. That guy should be publicly executed. Admittedly, I was 16 at the time, but when he did that, I was absolutely mortified. And that's where toxic masculinity

was born. Exactly. I invented and destroyed spoiler culture in one minute. You know, the other thing too is just that on the site, we have ranked all of these movies from 50 to 1. And we did leave a few off, though those are bad. And we're covering all of them in various forms. There are people on the site making the case for which movie is the best movie and why.

And there's some features about some of these movies. I encourage you to check them out on TheRinger.com. But now we're going to do our own personal rankings. And I'm curious. I wonder how different this would be at the end of the year 1999 versus today for each of you guys. You know, like what has moved? What has become more important? What has become less important?

Tragically, not much. Really? Yeah. I think there's been some movement, but I think that my top three are my top three. Why is that tragic? Well, it's because I haven't evolved much as a human being. You're still the knuckle-dragging nativist that you always were. Okay. And what about you, Amanda? I try to honor the spirit of, I mean, it was an abandoned transition, but also as many people in my life would tell you, I have always been myself and nothing has changed. So I'm trying to honor that spirit.

I think, you know, I was young, so I think it would have been more of the teen movies and which there was a huge boom in teen movies this year that we'll talk more about. And there are some movies on this list that I think I discovered in college or kind of in early life that have become more important to me than they would have been at 15. Like Bowfinger? Yeah, like Bowfinger. How'd you know? You should be rain, man. Okay, Amanda, why don't we start with you? Yeah.

You're number five. All right. The Thomas Crowe Affair! You don't think they'd simply cut a check for a hundred million dollars, do you? So you get them things When there's this much money involved it usually means I get them someone's head and who's heading you after yours Good evening, mr. Crown

All right, I just I really needed to so this is my favorite movie. I love this movie. I don't think that I. Is it number five? How can it be your favorite movie? Because I'm trying to do like fidelity to a list, you know? Okay. I don't know what that means, but sure. Because you have to make an argument for all of it.

Five's the spot for your personals. Yeah. This is my personal favorite. I have harassed everyone in my life about this movie for pure enjoyment. Let's be clear, by the way. So obviously this is a podcast about 1999, but this is the Thomas Crown Affair from 1999 and not the original. It's a remake directed by John McTiernan starring Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo, and the most beautiful clothes you've ever seen in your entire life. I think what it means to be a professional woman, it was like pretty much defined by Rene Russo wearing like chunky sleeveless turtlenecks in the Thomas Crown Affair for me. You know, the spirit. I don't really, I live in Los Angeles, so I can't wear chunky turtlenecks. Maybe when I move back to New York. This is a delightful heist movie and it is slick and sexy and well-paced and you don't have to think too much about it. Though I do think the heist itself holds up. I was in a conversation the other day

with an Uber driver about heat technology and how it's used to set up the first heist in this movie, you know, because they make the video cameras are heat censored. So they raise the heat in the museum gallery and then you can't, the video shut off because you canensored, so they raise the heat in the museum gallery, and then the video's shut off because you can't tell the people in the air. Very clever. There's a literal Trojan horse in it. It's just, there's the greatest vacation scene, for my money, in all of movies. Like, if I really, really had to pick one vacation house,

it would be Pierce Brosnan's house on Martinique in The Thomas Crown Affair. Just really, it's at the top of the island. There's no one around. It's just for pure pleasure. This is really up there for me. So Chris, I thought of this movie a little bit as I was thinking through the year over the weekend. And the reason I did is because it fits a theme that is probably going to be very offensive to Amanda, but I'm going to underline the theme right now, which is that I thought this was a fascinating year for beloved directors releasing forgettable movies or sort of like lesser than movies.

So no disrespect to the Thomas Crown Affair, but I would say it is running at least in third place in terms of the most memorable John McTiernan movies. Well, sure. Behind Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October. Yes. Yeah. And so, you know, among them, you've also got Martin Scorsese releasing Bringing Out the Dead.

You've got Spike Lee releasing Summoner of Sand, which is a movie that I like, but in the grand scale of Spike Lee movies. You would never ever defend it in a bar. No. Yeah. You've got Wes Craven releasing Music of My Heart, which is not even a horror movie. You've got Clint Eastwood releasing True Crime. You've got Tim Burton releasing Sleepy Hollow. Sidney Lumet releasing Gloria.

Michael Mann releasing The Insider, which is an incredible movie, but I don't think what, I think most people would say it's not even in his top five. I'm sure you'll get to that later in this podcast, Chris. Albert Brooks releasing The Muse. David Lynch releasing The Straight Story.

Sidney Pollack releasing Random Hearts. John McTiernan, as we mentioned. Lawrence Kasdan, Mumford. And then there's a James Bond movie, which is The World Is Not Enough, which is one of the worst James Bond movies. And directed by Michael Apted. Yes. And so, that's just kind of a fascinating thing. And here's what it made me think of.

They just used to make a lot of movies and they don't make as many movies now. They just don't make as many, they don't give to filmmakers like this the room to make movies like this. I don't know that our best filmmakers are as prolific, probably because it's harder. They have to wait around for Megan Ellison to cut them a check now. Yes, exactly.

And that is worrying. Now, I do think actually the Thomas Crown Affair is sort of a cut above a bunch of those movies that we just listed and is a very fun and entertaining movie. I would argue a little bit unnecessary as a remake. The original is very good, also sort of revolutionary,

but that's a whole other conversation. Sure, yeah, yeah. I mean, the original is good for the film nerds and this one is good for people who just like like having fun sorry fair enough chris what's your number five go this is the real thing pharmaceutical grade not that crunchy herbal rave shit don't let anybody double dose you'll be frying eggs off them in the emergency room one hit per headbanger. Understood. Yeah, I love Go. Yeah.

I think that Go might be aging better as a time capsule of Los Angeles life than Swingers. Wow. In some ways. Same filmmaker.

I remember when I saw this movie in 1989 I was pretty cynical about it because at the end of 99 or by 99

you'd kind of gone through a decade of underground culture being co-opted by mainstream culture for the most part and being repackaged and resold to people. And Go felt like the endpoint of that, like it was a Hollywood version of rave culture. And, you know, like it was sort of their redo of pulp fiction even though it was just two years later but when you actually watch it the especially the sarah polly timothy oliphant katie holmes section is like an amazing movie now there's a whole chunk of other movie there the scott wolf jay moore undercover undercover soap actors or actors bit, and then Breckin Meyer and Taye Diggs on a trip to Vegas.

But the actual, we need to buy ecstasy, who should we get ecstasy from? Now we have to sell all this ecstasy part is just like an amazing romp. And I absolutely love One Crazy Night as the structure of a movie, like the after hours, like it can't get any weirder or,

or, you know, we can't fall in love any harder than this night. So we have a feature about this movie coming on the site later this week. And one of the interesting tidbits about it is that originally the script started as just that part. John August wrote it as just, I think it was called X.

Yes. And it's based on this, uh, Ralph's that's on Sunset that I guess after the bars would close at two would become like full of people who were just hammered, trying to buy a liquor for after hours parties and buy like Doritos. And that's where Sarah Polly's character is supposed to be working. Yeah. It's a really fun movie. Doug Lyman in this story said that it's, he thinks his best movie, which is interesting because that's the guy who made Mr. and Mrs. Smith

and Edge of Tomorrow and Swingers, as you mentioned, and Go. And American Made. Yes, and American Made, which is a movie I like. Yeah, Go is very... Do you like Go? No, you're giving us the look like you don't like Go. No, I just have such a specific memory of watching this movie, which might become a theme in this podcast,

but it was literally at a slumber party. And the girl who brought it was just the real tryhard of the group. And I just remember her being like, we have to watch this movie. It's my favorite movie. We have to watch it. It's so cool. And I was just like, I want to die. That's good character work by you. You gotta bring that girl back. And I just remember being irritated by the fact that I had to take it so seriously, which is never a way to watch any movie, but is definitely a theme of, I think a lot of the movies on this list

were brought to me being like, this is the most important thing that's ever happened. It's funny. I feel like that movie works a lot better if you don't take it seriously. Yes, of course. The less don't take it seriously yes of course the less seriously you take it the

more you'll enjoy it I also will say as a 16 year old boy a movie starring Sarah Polly and Katie Holmes my goodness yeah they were really in

their their apex of affection from young men like I was Katie Holmes right when she was starring in Dawson's Creek and I would also say that as a as a

22 year old at the end of the 90s have you guys heard about ecstasy do you know where we can buy ecstasy was like 53 of the conversations i had in 1999 is this ecstasy do you think it's cut with anything i heard this guy fried his brain on it it was like it was such a huge thing for young people at that time of like, did you hear about this drug that makes you want to like hold hands for three hours? That's not what I was told.

It makes you want to do, but Peter, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you,

did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you,

did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you,

did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you,

did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you,

did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you,

did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you,

did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, do you believe that my being stronger or faster has anything to do with my muscles in this place? You think that's air you're breathing now? Chris, is this movie on your list?

Yeah, it's my number two. Amanda, is this movie on your list? Believe it or not, it's not on the list. Amanda, do you like The Matrix? Yeah, sure. I don't know Amanda have you seen the Matrix I have seen the Matrix this is like a classic high school boyfriend my first boyfriend made me watch this movie uh and I think I remember being like huh

I have no idea what's going on and oh wow that must be what the internet looks like and they're flying through the air I think kind of the visual aspects of it and the mystery or the conspiracy mystery of it all I was I was like 16 sure I haven't revisited it I would say though you know you guys did a rewatchables about the matrix in Austin and as you were sitting there talking about it I remember that I didn't really remember the plot of the matrix at all but there were just a lot of visual cues that have become embedded in our culture and just like shots that I could remember. So in that sense, I respect it. I don't spend a lot of time being like, am I in The Matrix? No, I don't either. That's actually not what I like about it. I mean, Chris and I, as you said, just did this podcast recently. I don't feel

the need to necessarily explicate the plot of The Matrix or even really defend it or explain why it's so significant. I rewatched it twice earlier this month, and I was completely taken by the way that it's structured and the way that it's shot and the story that it's trying to tell, even with the understanding that it has been, would say manipulated its meaning has been distorted yeah I think a lot of these movies have yeah that's a good point and I'm unaffected by that and my appreciation for it

is unaffected by that I just think it was a genuinely innovative and audacious approach to a kind of action science fiction that has ideas and those ideas are really strong but even if you are annoyed or bored by the concept of digging into those ideas it it's just a purely entertaining movie. It's a great action

movie. It's a very good Kung Fu movie. It's a fascinating evocation of technology. Like all of those things are just really effective. And it also was, I mentioned this when we did the rewatchables, it was my first DVD. It was the first DVD I ever owned. And so because of that, I watched it a lot. I've seen it. I've probably seen it a hundred times. It was my first DVD. It was the first DVD I ever owned. And so because of that, I watched it a lot. I've seen it. I've probably seen it a hundred times. It was one of those things where you just wake up to the sound of the menu screen every, you know, the following morning after putting an ongoing event, you know what I mean?

You have those certain songs that are kind of embedded in your brain. Chris, anything you want to note about the Matrix? No, I mean, my mom has this apocryphal story of being pregnant with me and seeing A New Hope in 1977. And when the first ship kind of flies over the screen in the opening sequence, she was just like, your father and I knew that movies were going to be different forever. And I remember being obsessed with Star Wars, but I don't ever remember the first time I saw it. Seeing the Matrix for the first time was the closest thing I think is to that feeling where I was like in the theater and I was just like, this is just about as entertained as I can get. Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it.

Amanda, what's your number four? I'm going with election. Good. You might think it upset me that Paul Metzler had decided to run against me, but nothing could be further from the truth. He was no competition for me. It was like apples and oranges. I had to work a little harder, that's all. You see, I believe in the voters. They understand that elections aren't just popularity contests. Yeah. I don't have this on my list,

but I am excited to talk about it. Let's talk about Tracy Flick. Tracy Fl flick is a important character um do you identify with tracy flick this i feel like this is a key personality test yeah of course you do but i mean you know it's it's a character it's a it's a crystallization of certain character traits explored to their worst uh and i certainly recognize the character traits i'm gonna get you a button making machine yeah i mean it's so good and so i identify and it is also it's exciting especially i saw this movie probably in high school you don't see that many we're going to talk about a lot of other teen movies on this list and in this year and their characterizations of women, which are quite different than Tracy Flick. So the ambition and it's just a different archetype. And I certainly recognize that at least, even though, you know, I try to keep the Tracy Flick at bay. Don't we all? Yeah, there are certainly parts of my personality that are flickish.

Chris, would you say, I don't, You don't strike me as much of a flick. I'm pretty Chris Klein in this movie. You're pretty good. But yeah, I think it's a tricky thing because I was re-watching a scene that you shared with us and trying to imagine if Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, who wrote the movie and Payne directed it, how much they empathize with their characters.

And that was a kind of a stormy debate at this time around some of the figures in movies, where they're sort of like, are they making fun of people? You hear this about the Coen brothers all the time. Are they making fun of their characters? Or is there something in them that they see? Or are they just trying to tell a story?

And there's something kind of ugly about every single figure in election. And there's something kind of beautiful about every single character in election. And they do bad things, and they do things that are inspiring or interesting and I think I at the time I I remember feeling a little indicted because I'm a little type a like like Tracy yeah and he felt indicted by election yeah yeah and I think I think some other people were like their genuine reaction was like this bitch you know like they were like this

is unbelievable and similarly about Chris Clinton they were just like this dumb jock i hate dumb jocks and you know you know what i'm getting driving it it's so funny now that i think about it i mean i was such a goody goody i i don't think i had even totally unleashed my tracy flick and that i like i didn't know that you could be mean or throw people under the bus or you were allowed to do those sorts of things. You just had to do exactly what you were told and study and do everything. I mean, maybe a lot of young women will relate to that, but I certainly was a suck up. So in that sense, I was just like, wow, the power of, you know, it was like using everything that i had been told that i had to do but uh to seize control i like so i didn't feel indicted as much i was just like oh my god there's so much

possibility in the world which is bad but when you're a teenager um it was like freeing in a way i guess if you ever want an excuse to uh stay faithful in your. Just watch the subplot where Matthew Broderick cheats on his wife in the movie Election. It's like the all-time don't think you're bigger and more important than you are series of storylines. The other thing that we have to talk about Election that was Reese Witherspoon. Yeah. Because this year between Cruel Intentions and Election, it's just like the beginning of Reese Witherspoon, which is certainly an important figure to me and also to cinema. Is this your favorite Reese performance?

No, I think it's essential to understanding Reese and in many ways is like the best distillation of what is powerful about her because there's like a little bit of Tracy Flick lurking in every other character from Legally Blonde to Big Little Lies to, you know, basically the only one that isn't is June Carter in Walk the Line, which she won an Oscar for because I guess you always won Oscars for your kind of least representative movies. But I think it's kind of like the source code to Reese, but maybe not my favorite. That's a good way to put it. Chris, you hate election? No, I like election quite a bit.

I actually think Amanda's point is really good. I think you could make the argument that Reese's Big Little Lies character is like the sister character to Tracy Flick in some ways. And in some ways, what Reese does that's so amazing is she can make unlikable characters likable. And in the intervening time after election, she spends a lot of time just being likable. And even if she's underestimated she's still like incredibly likable um whereas so i would love to see her play with the darkness a little bit more uh is there any darkness in your number four pick fuck yeah it's a Blair Witch project yeah no mike it's not the same log it's not the same log mike look it's not it's not the same look

uh i don't think that re-watchability is the only metric for how good a movie is and sometimes i think we get a little carried away obviously we're here're here at the ringer. Yeah. It's like, how much do you watch a movie? How well it's aged? How much it has to say about the contemporary times you're living in. But Blair Witch Project, singular theater going experience of my life. I did not know really anything about it. We'd seen posters, I think, if I remember correctly. And I'm going to say conservatively that like 65 to 70% of the people who walked out of, I think it was Kendall Square Theater that night, which was the opening weekend of Blair Witch Project, were like, that was a documentary. And we were fucked up.

Like, I can't explain how disturbed we were by it. Like, we just didn't have a vocabulary for that kind of horror filmmaking at the time um that idea that you could sit there and be like intimately involved with these people's deaths and with this incredible mystical evil was was not something that i think even people who would watch texas chainsaw massacre or watch poltergeist like you don't really have that that that vocabulary for that kind of filmmaking and so when we saw it for the first time especially in 1999 i think that there was just a degree to which you were shattered i don't necessarily think the movie has aged great although i think it plays better than maybe you do um i just haven't seen it in a long time and i think the problem with it

is that as a story it's actually just like super depressing and watching these people get lost and then increasingly becomes evident that they are trapped in something much greater than they are than, than, than any, than any of them accounted for is just really depressing and terrifying. It's still a really effective horror movie though. Yeah. It's, it's interesting to think about. I would encourage people to buy Brian's book just for the chapter on this movie, which is really interesting about how the movie was made. I'm sure that there was a lot of coverage of it at the time, but I was not aware necessarily

of how the filmmakers subject the three actors to this intense experience to provoke the performances that they got out of them. It's sort of an incredibly active movie. And Joshua Leonard has kind of gone on to be a well-known actor, but the other two actors have not really had big careers and so there is this feeling like these are real people even if you watch it now because you just you're not you're not drawing from any previous experience of seeing them um the thing that is interesting

though I think is something that Amanda alluded to which is the way that the movie was marketed and the fact that you were saying most of the people in the room walked out thinking, is that real? Is that a documentary? Makes me long for a time when there was just less information at my fingertips. And that movie actually plays up that fact in the film itself because the film, the great fear of the film is not the witch, it's getting lost. And that is something that I think we pretty much lost about five years after this, three years after this movie, whenever GPS technology just starts becoming more and more widely distributed. And you can just be like, oh, I checked my phone. I'm okay. Or I just have to turn around and go back to the other exit. Now in the woods, I don't know necessarily that it can

help you out that much, but just as a sensation, like if you went on road trips in the nineties and you missed your exit, like sometimes it went on road trips in the nineties and you missed your exit, like sometimes it was really difficult to figure out where you were. And, uh, that really tapped into that in this movie. Like I had friends who would go on tours with their bands and stuff like that. And they would just be like, yeah, man, we got lost and we basically lost like half a day. So, uh, on Friday, Chris, you, and I were together, and Amanda shared a very provocative take about her life, which is that it turns out that for Amanda, horror movies are actually not scary.

For many years, I've known Amanda. I was wondering if this take was going to be made public. This is sort of the Bill Barr summary of this take. Well, it was a very bold move to make such a claim, and you and I responded vociferously. I know how to provoke both of you. Yes, yes. That's my job.

Here I am. It was a great dinner fodder conversation. We were some nerds because we were just like, don't you want to get scared? I'll show you some scary movies. Do you want to hang out and watch scary movies?

Which is just like a great summary from my experience to this whole list. But yeah. But I have to assume that Blair Witch scared you. Well, again, as I said, I think by the time I saw it,

I knew it wasn't real. But did that matter? Was that the only valence for scary scary to defend myself and to defend the take that you just kind of explained we talked about it for a while and I think what I was trying to explain that the difference between being scared versus being upset or disturbed or like angry I think when I watch a lot of things that are really screwed up, my response is like anger. Like why, why'd you make me watch that? That's really like, that's fucked up. No, thank you. And, but the fear comes from the unknown. The fear comes from not knowing what's

going to happen or, and so I don't think so. Cause I was like, Oh, this isn't real. Um, I think I also just knew a lot about it. That's one of those things where I knew too much. And so it doesn't have, you know, everything that I've read about Blair Witch. And I think even the way it was like passed down to younger kids. Oh, my God, this is so dope. This is the, you know, this is the real horror movie. You know, I know that it had a lot of situational effect on people. And I just didn't watch it that way.

My number four will probably be scary to you both. It's South Park, Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. Have you guys seen this movie? Chris, no. I don't think so. Amanda? I don't think so. Amanda. I don't know. I had to, at the time, I worked at a record store that was basically like underwritten by the sale of South Park memorabilia.

So I sold so many stuffed poop guys. Like, what was that character? Why are you looking at me? What was the character? Was it Mr. Hankey? The poop. Yeah. Sure. Can I just... are you looking at me what was the character was it mr hanky the poop yeah sure is mr hanky i had to sell those all day long and so i really turned me off to south park

you mean like like you just had like 10 000 of them behind you in a cash register and you were just handing them to customers one by one all day? Essentially. Yeah. And then every once in a while, someone would be like, is the new Fregasi good? And I'd be like, yeah, thank you. You made my day. So this informed your experience with South Park? I just, people who I love and respect love South Park. And I just, it never really spoke to me partially because I was so intimately involved in the merchandising.

I see. Well, that's a weird way to ignore culture, I guess, in a way by commodifying it. South Park, Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. It was a huge hit. It was released just two years after the show became a cultural phenomenon on Comedy Central. The origin of that show I always find amusing, which is that Trey Parker and Matt Stone essentially created a short film that was used as a Christmas card and passed around Hollywood by folks like George Clooney, who got behind it, and that led to the creation of the show. The reason that I like the movie so much, and I loved it at the time, and I watched it yesterday, and I still love it now, is twofold. One, the South Park guys are notoriously prescient about everything. The conversation around censorship, the conversation around the anxiety of political influence,

the conversation about small town life, the conversation about friendship, about youth, like all of the themes that they're hitting on still resonate, still work. They're obviously always operating in a kind of vulgar mode. And that I think turns a lot of people off. This movie is extraordinarily vulgar. It is like with the safety off. Every song is fucked up. Very funny and very clever. But it's really like an ode to movie musicals.

And I don't know. I would encourage you guys to watch it to see if you could appreciate that. But the movie has like a series of different Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim-esque set pieces. And it's linked together. It's only like-esque set pieces. And it's linked together. It's only like a 79-minute movie.

And it's all linked together by these seven or eight songs. Now, sometimes those songs are sung by Satan. Sometimes they're sung by Saddam Hussein. Sometimes they're sung by the young boys who populate the town of South Park. It's like a crazy, ridiculous, silly movie that I think is also about stuff. Now, frequently on this show, I advocate for an animated movie and I say, this movie is really about something. This is about human themes. And if we take it on its face, we can learn something new about ourselves or see our society reflected in these animated figures. And every time either Chris or Amanda or Chris and Amanda look at me like I am the world's greatest you should

just start cartoon corner as a subdivision of the big picture I we don't want to deny you of but as I just passionately shared that exegesis on the importance of South Park you guys that was the most withering contempt I've ever seen can I engage with this for a second? Because I think this might explain some of the cartoon origin story. So I believe when South Park debuted, I was too young or my parents were too strict and I wasn't allowed to watch it because I think it was crude and deemed vulgar. And that was just not the type of entertainment that my parents were wanting to subject me to. And so I think, you know, eventually I've seen clips, maybe I've even seen this movie, but it was certainly through like some dude that I went to school with being like, yo, you should really check this out. And I'm sure there are parts of South Park that are very funny

to me. But when you were like, wow, it's like really just a movie musical. I was fine with the original movie musicals and I don't need like some teenage boyification of them to enjoy them. And that's kind of why I'm just like,'m good I like the original source thanks that's what people who don't want culture to go forward say about everything that's a very dangerous attitude that is deeply regressive I mentioned if Bob Fosse was told we're all set here we've got Oklahoma Bob we don't need cabaret no need to make that right Chris we got to go forward guys there's a whole plot in this movie about how Canadians are a pox on society and there's an immigration scare that's breaking you let's just go to number three if you haven't seen South Park Bigger Longer and Uncut please go there

number three Amanda so there as mentioned before there are just an extraordinary number of teen movies. In 1999, you've got She's All That, American Pie, Cruel Intentions, Never Been Kissed, Varsity Blues, Jawbreaker, and 10 Things I Hate About You. We were putting together clips last night, you know, scenes we wanted to talk about in the movie, and I was going through Cruel Intentions, and frankly, I couldn't find a movie scene that I felt comfortable sending to a Slack chat involving Sean and Bobby. I was like, this is, you know what? That's a line. That's a proof.

I just don't want to go there. You should be fine. Yeah, but you know what? Like every single one, I was just like, this is an HR violation waiting to happen, even among three of my closest friends. So I didn't go with Cruel Intentions. Ultimately, I went with 10 Things I Hate About You. I love you baby and if it's quite alright which for me

I think I still would have gone with this as kind of like the exemplary teen comedy anyway it's part of a trend of of remaking all the Shakespeare movies, which was a weird thing that we were doing in the late 90s, but I certainly saw all of them, even like, oh, the Othello one, quite bad.

Quite bad. Julia Stiles is a real late 90s for me. And then the Heath Ledger performance has just, when he's singing Can't Take My Eyes Off of You or cross, you know, and dancing around the stadium. That had a profound effect on me as a teenager and what high school should be like and what cool people, what actually cool people should do. My favorite movie star moment is the time right before they break big that they do the role that could have gone to 50 other people and they make it something special. And I think that that's

kind of what I love about his performance in 10 Things I Hate About You. It's always awesome when you go back and you check out like even if it's like Tom Cruise in Taps or something like that and you're like, holy shit, who is this guy? Who's that guy? Yeah. And that's how I mean, even as just like a casual person, like know in in a there was obviously tons of tragic things about heath

ledger heath ledger's death but you know he never really made anything like this again did he like it was mostly relatively dark or period piece or you know like it wasn't ever just like i'm just gonna be like a super charming movie star. It's also just kind of right there with The Dark Knight and Brokeback as his best movie and his best performance, you know, and it's really his first big movie. He just didn't make a lot of movies. I mean, he only made about 10 or 12 movies in his short life. And a lot of them are good.

And a lot of them are kind of like these overwrought attempts to make important movies, you know, like The Four Feathers and Ned Kelly and The Brothers Grimm and movies that like sound good in the description and then you see them and they're not that great. 10 Things I Hate About You, I think you could easily discount as like a frivolous teen movie.

But as you say, it is based on Shakespeare and it's just full of really all great performances. I like all of it. Even Andrew Keegan, who can't act his way out of a paper bag. Wonderful. So funny in this one. It is also, just looking at the rest of the teen movies um they

have not aged well like never been kissed deeply problematic i'll be coming back to never been kissed actually is that your number one no yeah uh cruel intentions was supposed to be provocative and like certainly succeeded and i think there is is so self-aware that it's okay for the most part uh but i again didn't want to share that experience with any of you she's all that just some really tough jokes at various people's expenses i think it's straight up bad yeah like it has charm like charm appeal from the time like nostalgia but she's all that is like bad it's badly made it's not the acting is bad it's not funny it's so i think 10 things is sort of just our best emissary it's certainly, the acting is bad. It's not funny. So I think 10 Things is sort of just our best emissary.

It's certainly the most rewatchable now. It holds up just in terms of basic story and performances. Shakespeare kind of knew what he was doing, it turns out. Turns out. Yeah. Chris, number three. The Insider. So Michael Mann movie starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino.

Al Pacino plays Lil' Bergman, a CBS 60 Minutes producer who works with Mike Wallace, who's played by Christopher Plummer. And he comes across a treasure trove of documents from inside of Philip Morris about everything we now know to be true about cigarettes. Obviously, they were already on to the case back then in the 90s that they were bad for you. But he needs somebody to translate these documents. And he meets Jeffrey Wigand, who's played by Russell Crowe, who works at a company called Brown and Williamson. And he's like sort of an executive vice president

who works a lot on the science side of the tobacco industry. And he becomes a whistleblower on the tobacco industry and especially about the tobacco industry and Brown and Williamson tweaking nicotine delivery systems and basically making people who smoke cigarettes into addicts uh that is kind of entirely besides the point this movie is not like a civil action it's not really like um a china syndrome in you know whistleblower movie there's nothing really revelatory about cigarettes which is what makes this movie still so interesting it's essentially about what makes people do the right or the wrong thing.

And obviously, especially in the last couple of years, we've seen a lot of debate about what the right and wrong thing is in the public sector and whether or not we should be operating under sort of a moral imperative to do the right thing, and how often doing the right thing is an act of self-harm, and doing the wrong thing is an act of self-preservation. It is told with the typical Michael Mann level of detail, so that you just feel like you are in the CBS building, or you are standing in the Bahamas with Al Pacino, or you are stuck in this sort of cookie-cutter Louisville suburb with Russell Crowe. And I don't really know if there's ever been a movie that I've seen that really

is so breathtakingly about the interior lives of its characters when it comes to something that should be so mainstream like this. It's essentially shot from like Russell Crowe's lapel. Most of the shots are not just over the shoulder, but on his neck. You just wind up boring down deep into what it must have been

like for these people to be in such an intense situation. At one point, Mike Wallace makes fun of Russell Crowe and his wife. He's sort of just like, basically, these are hicks. Al Pacino's character is like these are ordinary people under extraordinary pressure and

it's just a that really is like what the best dramas are and I find this movie compulsively watchable and breathtaking to look at it's notable to me that

this is the only non-action movie Michael Mann movie yeah yeah it is you're right you know maybe Thief but even that is about a physical action robbing yeah non-action movie Michael Mann movie. Yeah. Yeah, it is. You're right. You know, maybe Thief.

But even that is about a physical action. Robbing. Yeah. The Insider is the only movie he's ever made. There's no separation in The Insider. There's a,

and there's really not that many conventional Hollywood moments in this movie. There's the courtroom scene, which features an incredible Bruce McGill performance. And that's pretty much it.

I mean, like there's a couple of really great CBS scenes where it's Al Pacino, Philip Baker Hall, Christopher Plummer, Plummer and Gina Gershon and Stephen Tobolowsky arguing with each other about whether or not they should air this segment on 60 minutes. But yeah, for the most part,

it's just like a bunch of guys talking on phones. Sounds like great cinema. I love the insider. My number three cinema. I love The Insider. My number three is Three Kings. The way this works is you do the thing you're scared shitless of and you get the courage after you do it, not before you do it. That's a dumbass way to work. It should be the other way around.

I know. That's the way it works I think that Three Kings is the best movie of the year of that of this particular year though it is not my favorite and I'm writing about that for the site later this week but I think it is the movie that is both the most modern and has the most to say about its you know preceding decade at the same time so Three Kings is essentially a heist movie inside of a war movie about four soldiers who attempt to rob Saddam Hussein's army

of Kuwaiti gold that Saddam Hussein has taken. And it is an extremely irreverent movie starring George Clooney, I think, at the very height of his charismatic powers. Ice Cube before he is a full-blown movie star that can open his own movies together. Mark Wahlberg at a very precise post-Boogie Nights period of Mark Wahlberg's career, and Spike Jonze as the fourth guy.

Spike Jonze who had never acted in a movie before. And it's made by David O. Russell. It's David O. Russell's third movie. It is one of the more notorious movie shoots in history. David O. Russell and George Clooney literally got into a fistfight during the making of this movie. If you want to learn about it, I encourage you to dig into the archives. They have both discussed this incident and the various incidents many times. David O. Russell, of course, is notoriously hysterical on his sets. And I don't mean that in the comedy way. And sometimes that kind of hysteria, I think creates a vibrancy and an excitement that is very difficult to capture in a movie.

And there's a lot of unorthodox choices with the making of the movie. It's all very much handheld and steadicam shots. Like that's the whole movie. It's like Martin Scorsese meets a Verite documentary inside of a heist movie. And if you look at it from that perspective, it says a lot about what the idea of masculinity in the 90s is all about we're going to get into that a little bit more with another movie we're going to talk

about but there's clearly like a bunch of guys who were asked to go to war got to war and then realized there was no war to fight they very quickly dispatched the Iraqi army and there is something pent up inside of them about getting what they came for. And the way that they reckon with that and they reckon with their anxiety about that is just a fascinating evocation of pretty much everything that men do in the 90s, from Bill Clinton to the grunge movement to everything that that period of time is all about. And it's very smartly told. And it's weird that it had to be told by a bunch

of guys who were fighting each other while making the movie. That says a lot about what this movie really is. I've kind of talked myself into the meaning of the movie, but it is ultimately what it feels like. Amanda, have you seen Three Kings? I have. Did you ever consider it as a thesis on dying masculinity at the end of the century? I'm not sure I did at the moment, but it's funny as you were talking about it, I was thinking a lot about it's triple frontier, but good. And it is like, it really is. And we'll save the masculinity talk, but that there is certainly, there are many films on this list that are about that idea at the late nineties and how it's all falling apart a bit. And, you know know again i i don't know that i was

i don't think i saw three kings until later in life but even in my early 20s i'm not sure i was like oh this is about the crisis of masculinity um that only comes with age what a treat but but yeah it's certainly part of the same theme i definitely just saw it as a heist movie at the time i didn't i didn't i couldn't really understand what it was also i mean it's so such an in-between movie because it kind of comes after Saving Private Ryan, I think Band of Brothers, but I'm not positive. But like that was a time period when I think that there was a lot of reverence for military service,

even though it was military service for at the time, 50 some years ago. And then 9-11 happens, which kind of completely changes our outlook on the Middle East in general. So it kind of gets lost to both film and actual history. So I'm glad to see you reviving some interest in it. Yeah, I think it's a good companion with a movie like M.A.S.H. Where it's sort of like war doesn't have to be this overwrought, sentimentalized, experiential thing.

It can be just the setting for a genre movie with bigger themes. this overwrought, sentimentalized, experiential thing. It can be just the setting for a genre movie with bigger themes. Much like Triple Frontier. Sure. Number two, Amanda. My number two is a little film called The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Another American friend tonight, here on stage, Tom Ripley! Tom, welcome! Welcome! Come on! Get it out here! Yeah!

Wow, we watched this last week and it really, really holds up and is upsetting. And it was so interesting to me to reflect upon the aspects of Talented Mr. Ripley that have stayed with me and the aspects of the Talented Mr. Ripley that are actually there on film, which is in many cases both the theme of the movie and what's effective about the movie. It is obviously just the landscapes and the, I think I literally, I was in charge of planning my honeymoon. My husband planned the wedding. I planned the honeymoon and the theme was the talented Mr. Ripley minus the murder. But just on the Mediterranean and Gwyneth Paltrow and the high-waisted swimsuits and like literally everything Jude Law wears and the apartments and that, you know, it is just so lush and visually.

It's very much on trend, but just like beautiful, amazing taste. The music being a part of it. It's just it's a really sensual, experiential film. And then it's a movie about coveting things and coveting other people and the terror is involved in that. So it's and is like the second half is just really, really grim. It is it is about the dark side of of longing in the many forms. So, you know, and that doesn't stay with me at all. I'm just like, oh, my God, like vacation, my summer, you know, which is a testament to the movie.

The performances are amazing. Jude Law, holy cow. He was nominated for an Oscar. I mean, this movie made Jude Law, but it's still amazing to watch 20 years later. I think Damon's fantastic in it. Oh, yeah. And it's like an expression of Damon that you don't really get anymore. I think it's his best performance.

Yeah. And it just it really solidifies him. He's edited this part of his acting ability out his best performance. Yeah. And it just, it really solidifies him. He's edited this part of his acting ability out of his career. Yeah. But it's there and it's fantastic. The only time you see it is Linus in, in the oceans movies. Sure.

That's sort of like aspirational. Like I wish I could be as cool as these guys, you know, there's obviously less murderous intent there. No, I think Bourne changes all that for him. Like once he does Bourne, he's just like, yeah, you know,

now I'm an action star. Great Gwyneth, great Cate Blanchett. When Cate Blanchett is the fourth most important person in your movie, like, you know, you're kind of... Are we sure she's not the fifth after Phil Hoffman? I was about to say,

even after Phil Hoffman. I mean, it's just... Tom, how's the peeping? It's stacked. So, yeah. It's so funny how like, especially with your favorites, like you start to

basically assemble the version of it in your head that is the one that you like and it's like it's like everything the postcards

of Ripley but not like the dark shit that you just would like why would I watch this on a regular basis I do that all the time with my favorites where I'm like

let's just forget about the Natalie Portman subplot of heat you know but I think you're supposed to in this movie that's part of the appeal which I mean you know I do that all the time with my favorites. I'm like, let's just forget about the Natalie Portman subplot of heat. But I think you're supposed to in this movie. That's part of the appeal, which I mean, you know, Anthony Minghella is extremely talented for that reason, but it is playing with the idea of yearning and aspiration and what that means. Is there any yearning and aspiration in your number two?

My number two is The Matrix. So there isn't. I mean, I yearn for reality, I guess. My number two is The Matrix. So there isn't. I mean, I yearn for reality, I guess. My number two is Magnolia. There's definitely no yearning in Magnolia. There's like maybe yearning for a peace, a peace of mind. There's yearning for connection. That's the entire movie. That's true. Or is it the acceptance that it is impossible to connect at all costs? Wow. Magnolia, also a wonderful, much like Go, wonderful Los Angeles movie, a movie that makes a lot more sense to me now that I've lived in Los Angeles for a time,

because Los Angeles, of course, is beautiful. And there's an extraordinary amount of opportunity here. And it is the loneliest place in the world. And Magnolia is about people who are alone and don't know how to connect to people. And often these people in this film have experienced extraordinary trauma in their lives, and they're finding ways to process it in various ways it's a real emotional freak out it's like a three and a half hour emotional freak out it's fascinating that paul thomas anderson who as many of you know is my favorite filmmaker makes boogie nights is told he's a genius is the next scorsese and his reaction to that is to just dump all of his feelings into the longest movie ever made. And it's an amazingly messy, imperfect, beautiful, extraordinarily ambitious movie that's really just trying to say everything at the same time.

And we've been having this conversation of late, especially about us, about what a movie is trying to say to you. And it's easy for me to say, well, this movie is about, like you say, Chris, the yearning for connection or life after trauma or why is it raining frogs but magnolia it doesn't bend to the will of your interpretation as easily as a lot of movies like it which is one of the things that i like about it it's similarly a movie whose legacy i think is in its difficulty you know the fact that it kind of failed, that the making of it was so hard that it's easy for us to say now, like, oh, David O. Russell, we know he yelled at Lily Tomlin on a movie set once. So, like, he's a crazy person.

But it's very evident that PTA during the making of this movie was, like, pretty crazy and trying to figure out, like, what it would mean to be a great filmmaker. And he kind of misses. And the missing is what is so nice to me. The movies he goes on to make later are the evident masterpieces, you know, that there will be bloods and the phantom threads.

But in some ways, like he goes on to start speaking in code. Like he starts using these sort of period pieces as stand-ins for personal experience and even something that is obviously as deeply personal as Phantom Thread. He's using like these kind of like little paper dolls

that he's moving around in a diary. Poisoned with Daddy. Which I think is amazing but is ultimately like Magnolia is truly the fucking the freebasing the therapist notebook.

The sequence I will listen to it right now of Tom Cruise finally sitting down with his father Earl Partridge played by the late Jason Robards is just one of the most emotionally unnerving scenes I've ever seen in my life. sitting down with his father, Earl Partridge, played by the late Jason Robards, is just one of the most emotionally unnerving scenes I've ever seen in my life.

Because it's the most famous person on earth who also has, in real life, a complicated relationship with his father, who died and he was not there when he died. I'm not going to cry for you. You cocksucker, I know you can hear me. I want you to know that I hate your fucking guts. You could just fucking die, you fuck.

And I hope it hurts. I fucking hope it hurts. Paul Thomas Anderson wrote that moment for him, knowing that about his biography and having a complete and utter breakdown on camera. It's like, it's very, it's the sort of thing you only see like an experimental film or in very small films. And it's full of a movie, full of movie stars.

What are your for Tom? It is amazing. It's nice. Cause it's like Tom Cruise does Eyes Wide Shut Magnolia. Philip Baker Hall's in The Insider and Magnolia. Philip Seymour Hoffman is in Talents of Risk, Mr. Ripley and Magnolia. Philip Baker Hall's in The Insider and Magnolia. Philip Seymour Hoffman is in Talents of Risk and Mr. Ripley and Magnolia. There's a lot of I did good work

this year, which is always one of my sort of favorite things to notice. No question. If you haven't seen Magnolia, please go see it. I don't think any of us are going to talk about Eyes Wide Shut, are we? No. I wasn't planning it. Not because I don't love it, but just it wasn't on my list. I love it too. I think it's also similarly like an imperfect movie in that list of the great

Kubrick movies. It's pretty far down the list, but that's in the same way that I think Magnolia is about like the real Tom Cruise in some ways. Eyes Wide Shut is also definitely about the real Tom Cruise.

What a surprise. You just shut up shop after this year. Yeah. I mean, it says a lot because he really exposed himself and he gave away a lot of himself

to audiences and then nobody gave him an Oscar, which is so fucking stupid. And then he stopped and much the same way that pta reconvened and decided to use metaphor and literary adaptation to tell personal stories tom cruise was like now i jump out of planes for 20 years which was just so interesting it's kind of sad he's good at jumping out of planes he's great at it i mean he's literally the best at it i mean you can't lay yourself out that much some might argue that it was all right it's it's that's a very intimate uncomfortable i i like a little more uh form and rigor around like my deep confessional it's just you know which says as much about me as it does about the movie but i

i don't think you can ask that of one person that often do you you like Eyes Wide Shut? Um, I don't know whether like is like a, I'm not sure that I have an emotional reaction to it. I just, it's such a fascinating case study of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in that moment. And is, I have a more cerebral than like emotional reaction to it, if that makes any sense. Let's hear a scene from that movie where I think in real time, you can hear Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's marriage coming apart. Women don't, they basically just don't think like that. Millions of years of evolution, right?

Right? Men have to stick it in every place they can but for women women it is just about security and commitment and whatever the fuck else a little oversimplified alice but yes something like that if you men only knew amanda do you want to give us your number one yeah this is kind of a decent segue, actually, in terms of movie stars putting parts of themselves in their movies. I made an Amanda choice here. My number one movie is Notting Hill. Don't forget,

I'm also just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her. This is a perfect movie. Yeah, I mean, it's a perfect movie. And I think some of that as a student and a disciple of the romantic comedy, this is really up there for me. It's written by Richard Curtis, who wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral and wrote the screenplay for Bridget Jones Diary and other movies that are extremely important to me. end of the Julia Roberts decade. And in many ways is her engaging with her own celebrity and fame and many of the nasty rumors about her and what it means to be famous. And I mean, I love a meta-tax on fame. It also has, you know, up there in terms of the romantic declaration moments, I think I'm just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her is maybe one of the most famous at this point.

A great Hugh Grant performance that kind of cements him as he's my favorite romantic leading guy, I would say. And it has, you know, it's set in a place like the nodding hill of it all that you like you want a romantic comedy that takes you somewhere else um it's just doing a lot beyond the basic romance of it though a pretty great romance at the end you love to be transported i do yeah you love to be like taken away to like a faraway land that is like but is like reachable yes yeah exactly it's like that high school in election. That's right. That's far away land. That's right.

I think it also has just really stood the test in the romantic comedy genre. It has also, that's a movie that is both, obviously remains because of its star performances, but it's the supporting character performances that I think I always love going back to. Reese Ifans in this movie

is actually still as funny as the first time I saw it and his like t-shirts and them going through the refrigerator and being like is this yogurt and he's like that's not yogurt it's just it still cracks me up every time it's a great plane movie if you ever if you ever just like looking to kill two hours I wanted more for Reese Iphans what what happened I mean I think he works a lot does he yeah wonderful in human nature I think sometimes we have a little bit of a habit on movie podcasts

at the ringer when like we're just like not sure what another guy what a guy did we'll just be like what happened like did he did he kill like

a Mossad agent or something he's fine he's like actually works like in two things a year he's in five year engagement you know I just wanted him

in more big projects the whole supporting cast in this movie are British character actors who have been... I mean, you just see them all the time. And to Chris's point, every time I see them, I'm like, oh, it's so-and-so from Notting Hill. This will always be their number one role. It's like half the bodyguard is in Notting Hill.

I just wanted more for Julia Roberts. Why couldn't she have had more? Chris, what's your number one? It's Fight Club. We're the middle children of history man No purpose or place We have no great war No great depression

Our great war is a spiritual war Our great depression Is our lives That's my number one too Here we go What a shocker Yeah Yeah This movie has a lot to answer for lives. That's my number one too. Here we go. What a shocker. Yeah.

This movie has a lot to answer for and that's why I think it's the best movie of the year. I think that it says more about 2019 than it does about 1999 and that might be somewhat of this movie's fault. That's a heavy burden. That is a heavy burden.

I'm not sure that that's true. I wouldn't put it on that movie but I think that in a heavy burden. That is a heavy burden. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not sure that that's true. I wouldn't put it on that movie, but I think that the, in a lot of the ways in which you were talking about with South Park, about prescience of like what's bubbling up underneath the surface here. I thought that fight club, not even for me, did articulate the idea that,

you know, you, we were increasingly able to live, um, a public and a private life and that you were able to live like the life that you show everybody and then the life that you really have inside um and i think that the life of the mind well more of the body i mean what happens when those things get crossed up and we've been obviously witness to like this sort of like bifurcation of people's personas over the last like 10 years in terms of like I can be this person through a computer screen and I can be this person out in the real world. And I don't necessarily think that Fight Club predicts social media necessarily, but I do think it predicts like everybody having a personality crisis for the next 20 years. The thing that resonated the most with me, looking at it again, is the concept of a generation of

guys raised by television and their mothers and not their fathers. And that's definitely where Chuck Palahniuk's book comes in, and there's an absentee masculinity. That's what the whole movie is about. It's like these guys hitting each other to feel like they know how to fix their car, which is kind of immature. And it's certainly adolescent, but it feels very authentic at the same time. Like it's not an unearned feeling. Now, inevitably, what comes out of that, all of the bad action that comes out of like, I just want to hit somebody in the face and get hit is like destructive it is literally the stuff of like

a war like people in this country on the flip side if you just remove all the meaning and you just talk about the movie it's just a crazy good movie yeah it's just an incredibly well-made weird funny odd staggeringly well shot movie and it's a director and two stars at their pinnacle, at the height of their like, fuck it, we're going for it. And they were like so intimately involved with the crafting of the movie, which I think it shows, you know. 100%. Yeah.

Are you more of a Jack or a Tyler Durden, Amanda? I mean I think everything that you said about the quality of the movie and it's a and it is Brad Pitt at his best and I think what we wish

he would lean into more and there are these things as they were in 1999 versus how we've reacted to them which you guys were just speaking about

but as you guys were talking like honestly my thought was imagine being a young woman dating men in the time of Fight Club, which I was like, imagine being 18 and going to college. And some dude being like, yo, here's what we need to watch because this is like really this is what it's about. And, you know, and that point at your life for better and not for better, but for worse. But young women tend to like follow what guys think is cool and like oh these are the I mean I just was I'm sad for a young man it's like the only way while

while totally understanding and recognizing that this is like an actual film achievement um I just no it's great it's great and I think the thing about Fight Club is how we talk about it and respond to it is kind of what has lingered more than the actual movie which is a shame because the movie's good yeah I mean the movie is just like movie making as at like it's absolute top notch from like across the board from the way it looks to the Dust Brothers soundtrack to the performances to the writing to like Jared Leto and Meatloaf and Holt McElhinney and especially Helena Bonham Carter who my favorite little tidbit about this movie is that Brad

Pitt insisted she play Marla after seeing Wings of the Dove. Yeah. It's great stuff. Incredible piece of trivia but yeah I think to me it's like Durden has just sort of become the quite literally the poster boy where he's on the

poster in everybody's dorm room for a while. But this is such a fascinating Norton performance. And the sort of dual trajectories of these guys afterwards is... There's a lot of 1999 actors that you kind of wonder like, oh, I wonder what would have happened if they had gone on this path. You know, I was even thinking about this for Sarah Polly. You know, like she... What would have happened if Sarah Polly on this path you know i was even like even thinking about this for sarah polly you know like she what would have happened if sarah polly had just kept making like kind of hollywood movies because she does a really good job when she's in them and

norton kind of just kind of like works himself into corners i think where it's like if you want him to be in a movie he just needs to have so much creative control over most of what's happening that people are just like it's's not worth it. Um, but this is kind of like the best possible use of him. And you're just like, ah, it's like the best actor of his generation. I don't know if he ever really lived up to his potential with the work that he did. It's hard to say he has an adaptation of motherless Brooklyn coming out, uh, later this year, which is really one of the more exciting major movie studio projects, um, down the road. But yeah, there's been this feeling of, I wrote about this at Grantland like six years,

seven years ago, that just his career and where he went. It's funny though, I think of this movie specifically as sort of like the Che Guevara poster of its time.

Like, everything that it's, I think it's trying to say is not really the lesson that the like, dumb frat bro took from it. You know,

it's very like, anti-capitalist and, but not in specifically the like we should blow up the credit card buildings way. It's much more about thinking about why you want the things that you want, which is that is what is in Chuck Palahniuk's book. Like I don't really care for Chuck Palahniuk's writing. I'm not

a huge fan of his novels, but there's obviously this sort of native tension that he's trying to get out in the movie and it's not about punching somebody in the face. It's about emptiness and like why we feel empty and recognizing it. I think that's still very powerful and persuasive. Yeah. And I also think that like the idea that you could be part of a generation or a group of people, not even necessarily defined by gender that where you just feel like completely overlooked

or underutilized or, you know, like your life has no meaning, you know, that's, that's a universal concept, I think. But yeah, I mean, the ultimately at the end of the day,

it's just like a incredibly entertaining movie. Which is it? Is it life has no meaning or this movie rules? Can it be both? It's a, it's a, it's a timeless question that we should definitely use to end this podcast soon. Is there anything else that you guys want to say about 99?

Inevitably, people, if they've listened this far, are going to be like, why didn't you talk about X? Why didn't you talk about Y? I mean, I was thinking about Office Space as you guys were talking. And I think also we should note that the top three movies on the Ringer's ranking were Fight Club, The Matrix, and Office Space,

which is quite a trilogy about a certain experience and a certain type of awakening in 1999. Most definitely. Why do I want the things that I want? Yes. Is definitely the core theme of all three of those movies. Yeah. And it's interesting in some ways they totally apply 20 years later. And in many ways they feel particularly Gen X, which was just an interesting thing.

I feel like that is when the 15-year-oldness of it all really expresses itself to me, that some aspects of it do feel like a different way of looking at these problems. You know, it's funny too we talk about movies right now as being made for teenage boys and that the superhero wave and the jurassic park wave that we're experiencing in this moment is all for teenage boys but if you go down the list of movies here even the most significant movies not just those sort of three that are really larded with overwhelming thought but ultimately is about like feeling 16 years old and um and either like horny or covetous. You know, it's a sports movie year. You've got like Any Given Sunday and For Love of the Game and Varsity Blues and Mystery Alaska. And you've also got all of those teen movies,

some of which you mentioned, Amanda, but like, you know, American Pie or like Big Daddy, which is the most kind of regressive adulthood movie ever made. There's some great creature features. There's like Deep Blue Sea and Lake Placid and just like some really great B movies. Yeah. And it is like, it is a time for getting teenagers into theaters.

You know, it's not, it's not, we think of it as this incredibly sophisticated time. You can be like, well, this is about Run, Little Run and All About My Mother and American Beauty and The Green Mile. But likewood is trying to get young people into movie theaters that is what has always been trying to do and there's this like i think right before the internet becomes widely popularized and sped up so that you can access it wherever you want and much faster than we probably were used to in the

early days of the internet with dial-up like movies were still where uh you could go find illicit stuff like cruel intentions and like the drug abuse and go and like uh you know like eyes wide shut and some of like the sort of sexual dreamscapes that are going on there this is before like basically like widespread distribution of pornography and the wide and like the way that we kind of like turn to youtube and and different things for like different kinds of humor like that's found in the movies back then. So they carried a lot more cultural. I wouldn't say responsibility, but a lot more. It was doing a lot more stuff than it's doing now. Amanda, any final thoughts? Is this the best year? It's certainly there is so much happening. I mean, there is all of the toxic masculinity stuff. There are the teen movies. There's the, you know, you read off earlier in the podcast, just a huge number of major

directors making not that great movies. But there are just so many movies. It does really feel like the last crest before, as Chris was saying, like the internet and then Netflix and kind of just the changing business models. So it could be the best just because there's the most to choose from. It is just such a key study. It is also such like an interesting time in America right before 9-11, right before the internet changes everything. So it's certainly the most interesting. How about that? That's a credible answer. Chris, yay or nay? Yeah, I like that answer. Okay, guys. Well,

thank you for journeying back two decades into the past to speak specifically about our present day. Thank you again to Chris Ryan and Amanda Dobbins for chatting about the movies of 1999. Now, let's go to my conversation with the documentarian, David Modigliani. David has a new film coming in may on hbo called running with beto in which he follows the presidential candidate

now announced presidential candidate beto o'rourke as he sought a seat in the senate in texas last year of course beto did not win that seat but the story is fascinating the film is a really interesting over-the-shoulder look at what it's like to run a campaign in America in this century. So let's go right to that conversation with David. This is David Modigliani. Please give him a hand. Thank you. Has anyone here seen Running with Beto this week?

Yeah? Okay. This is also a really wonderful movie that I'm excited to talk to you about. David, thanks for being here. Thank you. Pleasure. David, this is an obvious question, but why did you make a movie about running with Beto O'Rourke? Well, like many great things in life, it starts with baseball. I met Beto at first base during a Sandlot baseball game. I'm a founding member of the Texas Playboys Baseball Club, which is an independent team here in Austin. Wow. You're still actively playing

baseball? Yeah. Yeah. Holy shit. And we'll have friends in other cities that will form teams and come play us. And so we had some friends from El Paso, Texas that formed Los Diablitos de El Paso. And they came to Austin in April of of 2017 and they had a lanky center fielder with a funny name uh who happened to be a u.s congressman and had announced he was running for senate like six weeks prior um and so he got a nice little opposite field single and i was playing first base so we little chat and then during the seventh inning stretch he like got up on this hay bale and brushed his sweaty locks aside you know in his dirty uniform and started talking and it was like holy shit this guy is really compelling and i had been kind of since the 2016 election feeling how much we

dehumanize each other through politics and how much that sort of causes people to tune out and and not to participate and was eager to try to tell a story that might re-humanize politics in some way or be an invitation to the democratic process. And here was this guy that was going to sort of test the theory of the case of like, what if you ran this campaign that was just this human to human approach of going to every county in Texas, you know, not taking PAC money, having no consultants or pollsters, not apologizing for his policy positions. And that sounded like a really interesting kind of odyssey that would be really great to follow. And he was also running against kind of this,

you know, epic foil that you couldn't draw up in a fictional script of sort of, you know, if Beto is everything that politics, you know, could be or might be, if Cruz sort of representing everything that people from, I think, both sides of the aisle, you know, really dislike about politics. So had a chance after that to pitch him over breakfast and got to spend a few days on the campaign trail with him, just with no crew and no camera. And that, I think, allowed us to get to know each other a little better and then get to the point of getting access. And so it started rolling in November of 17. So we filmed the last 12 months of the campaign.

Let's go back to that period in your career. So you'd made two features, I guess, by the time you met Beto at first base. What were you going to do? What was your plan? Were you just looking for a project? Yeah, yeah. I think I really, I love the intersection of the personal and the political and finding different ways to tell

stories about politics and felt like I wanted to do something in the upcoming election cycle. But, you know, so many campaign docs are so similar that it really took someone as unique as him. And I think particularly just the type of campaign that he was running to feel like, okay, this is it. Let's try and make it happen. What are the pitfalls of a campaign documentary? Which I don't think you fell into them. So I'm curious if you had to identify them ahead of time. I think a big one is, because for us, plan A really was that he was going to lose. And it was really hard to convince people. Did he lose? Spoiler alert.

Yeah. Although sometimes someone said to me after a screening today, like, man, I thought he might just pull it out this time. Narrative tension. Right. Well, and I think while the narrative tension in a campaign fill, of course, will be the sort of natural chronological structure that's going to unfold. And yes, we have this high stakes decision that's going to impact the character's life, it's about setting up what is the dramatic question of the film. So the dramatic question of the film needs to not be, is this guy going to win? And so when we were, you know, as we were shooting and also in the editing room, thinking a lot more about a dramatic question in this case being, can this guy reignite politics

in Texas? Can he get people involved in a state that is 50th in the country in in voter turnout um and there's other questions in there as well can he navigate this relationship with his family that when he's hardly home you know at all for two years can these first-time campaign workers that are suddenly dealing with the onslaughts of national media like hold it together you So we tried to set the film up both in production and in post with a question that was different than will he win or lose? There's something very dignified about Beto in general. And even if you don't agree with him, I think it'd be hard to say he's a bad man. It's very evident while watching the movie. He's

a good father. He's a very thoughtful person. You may disagree with this policy, but I think that that leads to a kind of emotional reaction that people have to him. And I wonder what's kind of the dividing line for you between this is a journalistic piece that's trying to capture a moment in time versus I'm kind of falling for this person, or I have this huge sentimentality towards this person. And how do you balance those two feelings in the film? I think it comes back to it being a human story and not a political story. And part of the draw of him and especially the access that he allowed us to have, you know, it's one thing to say, you're going to be this radically transparent candidate. And it's another thing to agree to

a film over which they had no creative control, no access to the footage um and let us be so close you know with them in such intimate moments um and so i i think that was like a a big part of um of being able to make the film remind me the question again i just How do you balance trying to have a sort of objective perspective on a person? Yeah. And so I think it was really important to us to showcase the conflict within the film. And so you've seen that there's some moments where he does not look like a prince, whether it's tension with his campaign staff, whether it's, you know, how difficult it is for his family that he seems to, you know, sort of be in touch with that, it's, you know, how difficult it is for his family that he seems to, you know,

sort of be in touch with that, but sometimes, you know, not as much. And to try to make a film that, although it had a very constrained point of view, you are looking at it through the lens of him and his family and his team is still a balanced film in the sense of how it portrays him as a person. And we also knew that, you know, this film was not going to come out before the election, right? So like what we were making was going to have absolutely no impact on whether he won or lost this campaign. And we were much more interested in being part of the 2020 cycle, not in the sense that, you know, when we set out, we had no idea that he would be somebody who's being that, you know, when we set out, we had no idea that he would be somebody who's being considered, you know, as a potential candidate, but more the idea that in

the run, that by telling the story, both of his approach to politics, this sort of candor that he had, the transparency, especially the no PAC money, which is now a position that's been adopted by a lot of people in the democratic field in a very short period of time has sort of become this default position um that that all of those things telling that story in the run-up to 2020 that we we might have something to add to the conversation um in that way rather than as some kind of like political vehicle or you know partisan uh approach to the film but it was something we had to really keep in mind and we knew that we would be subject to that kind of criticism and so happily i think people are finding a lot of conflict in the film. Yeah, there's a particular moment where he is sort of kindly but sincerely castigating his staff. And it's definitely not a side of him that has been portrayed. And the sort of Beto going viral being a decent man, not it's a different he's a different guy he was uh during the he he came

with his family and his team to the to the premiere here at south by southwest and during that scene he was sitting across the aisle from his team and he was kind of like waving at them like hey you know um so yeah yeah um i'm really interested in brokering access to someone like this so you talked about the breakfast and maybe you can talk us a little bit through the kind of the early stages of it but then you know he better became a phenomenon in a lot of ways and i'm wondering if that changed the way that you made the movie midway through yeah i mean you know that the access from the outset um he was sort of he was pretty open to it at the premiere the other day someone asked him and he was like, we were running and I just said, what the fuck? And then Amy was like, stop swearing.

It's part of his charm. It is. But, you know, his team was then, you know, his campaign chief, David Wysong asked me, so remind me again why this isn't a total distraction that does nothing to help us win the election. You know, so it was like tough questions. I went to El Paso the election? You know, so it's like tough questions.

I went to El Paso and I met his mom, got to visit his congressional office, to talk with his best friend and that kind of, you know, kicking the tires a bit myself, knowing that when you do this, it's going to be a couple of years of your life and he seemed great, but like, let's, you know, get a little bit beneath the surface, but also letting them get to know me. And I think him getting sort of positive reports from the front, from people that he trusted, uh, around him, um, probably loosen things up a little bit for him and, and for his team. Um, and then kind of, like I said, of, of just getting out there with no camera, I think a lot of filmmakers and certainly myself earlier in my career might've been like, okay, here we go. He said, he's pretty open to it. Like let's get the crew and we're just going to like start doing it. But it was clear that it was a long game. And as we wanted to

work our way, particularly into the trust with his family and so on, that spending some time without anything mediating the experience and connecting as human beings first would be a way to facilitate that access. To your question, as far as like, you know, when shit got haywire, it was really challenging. There were camera crews from South Korea, France, you know, in Paducah, Texas, population 300. Like it just, and they were sort of like this rock band that had made it big, but had no additional roadies, no additional, you know, support team. And it was really him and a staff of two or three, and they were just inundated. We couldn't get back into the van leaving venues.

It was hard to pull out, you know, because people were banging on the car. So it was wildly exhilarating, but super intense for them. And I think there is that mentality sort of circle the wagons at that point, because there are just so many people trying to penetrate the inner circle. And so I honestly had to have a bit of a moment of truth about two months out where I wrote an email to Beto, Amy, and their team and just said, hey, we're in position to make a film that could really capture the legacy of this campaign unless it goes from a behind-the-scenes film to outside

looking in. And one of the benefits of having started editing the film six months prior in May was that we were at least able to think, okay, let's just ask them for what we know we really need. And so we were able to sort of say, here's the six things, like we got to get in the green room for the debate. We have to be able to be with you somehow on election night. We need each of you to give us 10 minutes of interview time when you're on the road. And by making those specific asks, I think it was helpful. And they came through. And as you see in the film, probably the most special moment of my filmmaking career was that after they had lost the election, they allowed us to come into their kitchen on election night with their kids to sit down. And we have this conversation on camera with Beto and Amy, really kind of processing the loss for the first time. And that the way that they came through for us in that

moment was just extraordinary. And, you know, David Mamet has a story thing I love of like, get in late and get out early. And I was so afraid of like, what's the denouement that's going to have to sort of unfold when we back with them the next day and whatever. And it was like, when we got that moment, it was like, oh, great. Like, that's it. You know, we'll just, we'll cut it right there. So. I wanted to ask about amy and the kids i don't there have been plenty of campaign movies i want to ask you about some campaign movies that you think are interesting or effective but i don't think i've ever seen children reckon with the idea of their parent as a political candidate and these kids are seven eight nine years old yeah they're sort of eight

ten and twelve the three of them and they're like pretty sophisticated about the process but even still i mean you really literally on camera have them talking so i'm curious you know were amy and beto concerned about the idea of putting them in front of the camera and how do you talk to a kid about something like this and this is a very dynamic and complex election yeah so i think it comes back to sports again so ulysses despite growing up in El Paso, Texas, turned out to be a Boston Celtics fan. And I am also, I'm from Boston originally, lived in Texas for 15 years. So big Celtics fan. So I was not immune to some degree of, you know, flattery and gift giving. So when I showed up, I had a book for Beto, a book for Amy,

and I had a Kyrie jersey for Ulysses O'Rourke. So, that was an opportunity for us to bond a little bit. And you see him playing basketball in the film with his dad and so on. And so, you know, I think it's, part of it again is about how they watch the kids react to me. And so, you know, something I like worked at a summer play school for three to five-year-olds and the woman there taught me something very simple, which is like when you're greeting a kid to get down on their level, and I'm six, two and a half. So like to get down on a knee and just like, look kids in the eyes. And, you know, and so I had the chance to do that a bit. And I think probably as they saw the kids feel more comfortable around me they began to feel more comfortable about them being on camera and ultimately it is it is a really special part of this film because I think

much like you're seeing Beto and these three first-time activists whose story we also tell in the film who are all sort of people that are allowing themselves to be vulnerable and try something new as relates to politics. And then you have these kids that are literally trying it for the first time and you see them block walking with their family. And as you say, sort of navigating this experience of their dad running and becoming this phenomenon. And so through their eyes, we're able to sort of see politics in a fresh way and kind of their indoctrination to all of this. And so I'm just super grateful. I know they were, I think that was probably one of their biggest stressors or fears for Beto and Amy when

they first saw it was sort of how that came through. And I think they're happy about that part. Yeah, they come off great. You mentioned sort of the other supporters, the people who are interested in Beto. I feel like an under-discussed aspect of documentary is casting, that that is actually a factor. Absolutely. And you have chosen these people.

How did you go about finding people that would be a part of it? I mean, Shannon Gay, I think her name is, is just like a movie star in a lot of ways. She's just such a great part of the film how'd you go about finding those people yeah so i mean from the outside i think first was just the notion that we wanted to include um you know these three characters that would have a story arc of their own and part of that frankly was again about um kind of an insurance policy to be be honest, which is like, what if Beto does just shut the door on us? What if he loses by 15 points? And it's sort of kind of interesting. And so knowing if we could get some stories of people whose lives were going to be impacted in real time

throughout that same time period, that same electoral cycle, we'd have some other storylines we could lean further into. It was important to me, we had this feeling that the national conversation was going to run through the heart of this race through Texas, even before Beto blew up, in part because of Cruz, obviously, and his name ID, but also because immigration, guns really being two of the key issues that are national, but of course are closest to home in many ways in the state of Texas. And so one notion was let's cast characters whose lives are touched by these issues. So we have this 17-year-old gun safety activist, a kid who lived through a shooting rampage at his church, who connects with some of the victims from Santa Fe High School in Texas,

a shooting that happened there during the course of the campaign. And we see him getting involved in politics for the first time. We have a woman from McAllen, Texas on the border there whose life is impacted by immigration. And so through them, we were able to tap into some of the issues with the campaign, instead of seeing Beto giving a stump speech and listing his four-point plan about, you know, X, Y, Z. So that was one approach. As far as finding them, two of them we found on the trail. So we would be, like, while we were at these town halls traveling across Texas, we'd be always watching for people that were asking questions people that seemed compelling or interesting my team and i would

just try to chat up as many people as possible and so we found two of them that way and marcel we actually found online which gave us an opportunity that you see in the film which is that we started filming with him before he ever met Beto. And so, and he had some skepticism about him. And so you sort of see him progress in his arc in relation to Beto. But that was kind of the approach. It was theoretical, categorical in the sense of like thinking about the characteristics we wanted. And then of course, I think with docs, like if you find characters that you will watch them do anything on screen, that's it. I mean, you could have people that seem particularly interesting, but they do.

They have to have that movie star quality in a way. And I think you have to be rigorous about casting it and really finding... The same way as if you were writing a script. Are you excited and really hooked by these characters before you move forward? How many people make a movie like this? Who is with you while you're shooting? Yeah, it takes a village from various executive producers and funders that when this was just an idea, were willing to get us going. The team on the road is pretty small. We had four or five people usually. I shot a little bit and then otherwise we'd have camera, sound, producer, me, maybe an AP.

And, you know, keeping that small footprint was so important because like we already had more people than them. He was sort of allergic to rolling up with a posse because he was wanting to not be, you know, that guy. And so we kept it pretty small on the road. However, we had, um, for example, on election night, we had seven crews across the state because we were with those three characters. We were at campaign headquarters in Austin. We had multiple crews with the Beto team. Um, we had folks at the cruise watch party. We paid them extra. And they drew straws. And so we had, our producers had done a really good job of rotating because we were, we, they were working hard. You know, it was like 110 degrees or it was pouring rain. There were long days. Team Beto didn't really

stop for lunch. And so so people we needed to rotate people in and out and by doing that by election night we were able to send six people out you know in these crews to shoot who had all kind of been worked with me some had a feel for the shooting style the story we were trying to tell and so we kind of like you know quote unquote train people up in a way throughout production for that big night, which represents probably 15 or 20 minutes of the film. Um, and so that was, that was a good, good approach. Uh, other folks, we had two full-time editors starting six months before the election, big assistant editor, 700 hours of footage. Um, and that is a lot just for the record. And, um, and, uh, you know, so, so so but that's sort of the core the core team and

then of course in in post working with you know sound color um an amazing we're very efficient with our uh our our music and scoring process this extraordinary guy david garza who played more than 25 instruments himself on the score. So we kept that team, you know, pretty small. But it's a big group and it takes a lot of people and a lot of help. Did you and the crew sit down and watch anything before you embarked on this? Or do you have any like flashpoints that you wanted to point out? Yeah. I mean, sit down and sort of watch other films. Yeah. I did have a little list I gave them. Will you share it?

Yeah, I'm trying to remember. I mean, so two films that I referenced a lot, particularly, you know, we were talking about this thing of like that he was likely to lose. And so how do you get people interested in supporting a film when that's the case? Because the instinct, of course, is like, oh, this would be a good film if he wins

and pulls off this underdog Cinderella, you know, upset um and so um i wanted them to watch both street fight which is uh marshall curry's film about cory booker's first mayoral campaign which he loses uh the film was nominated for an academy award the next year booker goes on the year after that to win the the mayorship and then of course has gone on um to to bigger things after that. And then there's Mitt, which was about Mitt Romney's failed 2012 campaign, sort of captured his family and their experience. And I liked that, not just because he lost, but I also felt as someone that, you know, maybe didn't align perfectly with Mitt Romney's politics, but I felt invited into that film, that I got something out of it, that it was not partisan, that it was about the human experience and not a political story. And that was something I really wanted to do with this film. And

we've had screenings for feedback screenings with 15 self-identified conservative Republicans. And like, we really want to bring people in this film so i wanted the team um to see that the war room of course d.a penny baker's um great political film so great for the way that it focuses on staffers and we wanted that you know to be part of the story as well bill clinton's kind of the of that you know he's just off stage like he's not you know it's about the day players over here um uh the um i'm trying to think what others made those were really the key ones i'd say yeah on the list is it do you have a sort of a story in mind even when you're making a documentary where you say we're going to hit this this narrative arc it's going to go this way because as you say you anticipated the loss but you know especially since you started editing

so early do you have like an outline of where you think the sort of what the first act is, the second act, the third act as you're, as you're shooting? Yeah, I think to, to a degree, um, I think a lot of it's again about the questions, the dramatic questions you're asking to help that be a guiding force, both in the, in the shooting and in the, in the early, um, editing. And so we knew, you know, first and foremost, we want it to be a human story. We knew we wanted the family's arc to be part of it. We knew we had these three other characters. This question of, can this guy be successful with no PAC money? Which turned out, you know, he started this thing and people were like, that's really cute that you're doing this,

but you know, you have to raise like 25 million bucks to even be competitive with Cruz. And so eventually you're going to have to take back money if you're going to do this. He refused to do that and raised 80 million dollars, which was more than any Senate campaign in history. So that sort of storyline, you know, was unfolding. And then I think just that very simple, you know, to go from 10 people at the rally to 100 to 1,000 to 10,000. And just to sort of track that visually throughout the story was a big part of it. But I think the story shifts and moves and changes. We tried to set as many arcs in motion as possible

and then sort of pick the ones that felt like they played out most fully. Yeah. David, what's the last great thing you've seen? The last great thing that I've seen was the Celtics blowing out the warriors uh on uh on their home court second person at this festival that has answered with an nba game as they answer that's true i was thinking about because of ulysses and my love for the

celtics but um you know honestly a friend pointed me back to a film that i should have put on the list for the crew which is called crisis um it's a It's a doc. I think Penny Baker shot some of it. The Maisels brothers were involved. It basically chronicles when Robert Kennedy as attorney general and JFK as president are navigating the situation on the ground in Alabama where the University of Alabama is being integrated. And George Wallace sort of famously says he's going to go and block the door to the first two African-American students who are going to enroll in classes on the first day. And they get access to Wallace. They're with Bobby Kennedy and with JFK. And I i mean these guys like built their own

cameras and their own sound rigs they were really figuring all this out for the first time um but it's a gripping extraordinary situation where they've got they have to figure out whether to bring in the national guard or not and um how wallace is going to react and behave um it's a super built-in tension of of what's going to unfold um and i and you see jfk and bobby kennedy and really um an unfiltered um um you know scenario so um it's a it's a it's a really great film the i'll add one more sure if i can um which is um the film don't look back so this is da penny baker's film about bob Bob Dylan's first big tour of the UK. And that probably film has influenced me the most

as far as making Running with Beto. Very similar kind of approach to a person at this stage in their life. Exactly, right? Like somebody sort of like an unorthodox truth teller that winds up kind of lighting the world on fire and then has to navigate that experience of going up kind of lighting the world on fire and then has to navigate that experience of going from kind of unknown to this sensation. And I think the sort of casual intimacy

that Penny Baker has in that film with Dylan and that fly on the wall verite approach was just super compelling to me. There's a kineticism where it's not about talking heads. It's scene to scene. And that's really how we wanted to make this film. We had this amazing moment where we screened another feedback screening in New York in January. And through a friend, D.A. Pennybaker came to the screening. How old is he? 93 years old.

Rolled up, no hearing aids and was totally dialed in and he really liked the film and had some thoughts and it was amazing to see someone that was like a hero of mine

that got to see this film. So it was really special but Don't Look Back is a big recommendation for sure. David, congrats on Running with Beto. Thanks for doing this.

Thank you. Congrats on the pod. I'm a big fan fan it's an honor to be here thank you thanks again for listening to this week's episode of the big picture thank you to amanda dobbins and chris ryan and of course david modigliani please tune into this feed in the future because later this week we're going to be starting a new series in the run-up to the movie avengers endgame which may or may not be the biggest movie of all time when it's released at the end of april what we're going to be doing is we're going to be looking at five different mcu movies and seeing how they shaped this moment in moviedom how they changed the way that we see these movies where the filmmakers come from how the stars evolved, and the way that these stories are told. So tune in later this

week where we will be tackling our first movie, Captain America, the first Avenger. See you then.