The Big Picture - Top Five “One Crazy Night” Movies and ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

Joanna Robinson joins Sean to dig into A24’s new Gen Z horror-comedy-whodunit ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ (0:00) and to share their five favorite “one crazy night” movies (1:00). Then, Halina Reijn, the Dutch actress and director of ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies,’ talks with Sean about how she transitioned to working behind the camera full-time (1:12:00). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Joanna Robinson and Halina Reijn Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Call me sentimental, but to me, the most joyful moment in sports is the soccer goal. And when that goal happens at the World Cup, well, it's pretty good. I'm Brian Phillips. With the 2022 Men's World Cup approaching, I'm making a podcast called 22 Goals on the Ringer Podcast Network. It's about 22 of the most fire emoji goals in the history of the tournament. We're going to have so much fun. Say hello to Tim Selects, Tim's everyday value menu.

Enjoy the new spinach and feta savory egg pastry or our roasted red pepper and Swiss pinwheel starting at only $2.99 plus tax. Try one or try our full Tim Selects lineup. Terms apply. Prices may vary at participating restaurants in Canada. It's time for Tim's. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about one crazy night.

That's the setup for one of the year's most entertaining new movies, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by its director, Helena Raine, to talk about how the Dutch actress transitioned behind the camera and came to direct this Gen Z horror comedy, whodunit, what's it? First, joining me to talk about Bodies, Bodies, Bodies and our favorite One Crazy Night movies, Joanna Robinson. Hi, Jo. Hi, I'm so thrilled to be here on an episode where you already said the word, what's it? I mean, it can only get wilder from here. Well, I've been trying to wrap my head around Bodies, Bodies, Bodies.

I've made mention of it on the show elusively in the past couple of months since I first saw it. And, you know, I'm a fan of the A24 brand and this is their newest sort of horror movie. And I'm curious to see how this movie performs. I know that I enjoyed it, but I saw it in an atmosphere in which I was surrounded by very eager 20-somethings at a very powerful agency in Hollywood. It was like a coming out party for all of the young talent connected to this film. It was a

fun way to see the movie, but I've also been a little bit skeptical of my own feelings about it. So I'm glad you're here to kind of interrogate some of those feelings. And I want to hear your feelings as well. So let's just start there. Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, what did you think of this movie? I really loved it. I really, really loved it. I'm a big whodunit fan in general. So you know, this is sort of right up my alley., you know, we'll get into some of the things that it reminds us of. But in terms of the Gen Z nature of it, you know, the youth centric, does this capture the voice of a generation sort of discourse around this movie. I think more importantly for me, it taps into something that goes beyond like purely one generational, one generation's look at something like this. Something, the word that Helena likes to use, and I'm sure she said it to you in your conversations, primal, this like primal thing that she's trying to tap into that transcends generations. How about you, Sean? Yeah, I liked it.

I thought it was very entertaining. I thought it effectively wrong-footed me a couple of times. I'm the kind of person who's trying to constantly solve movies as I'm watching them, so I enjoyed that. I guess for the listeners out there who haven't seen this movie, as it is expanding into more and more movie theaters when they're hearing this now, it's about a group of rich 20-somethings

who are planning a hurricane party, which is not something I'd ever heard of, but apparently exists, at a remote family mansion. And the party goes awry when they start to play a game called Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, which is sort of like a mafia-esque, Clue-esque home game. And then the party goes kind of haywire and violence ensues and mayhem ensues. And what seems like a bit of a sort of newfangled Fast Times at Ridgemont High turns into something a little bit closer to Scream and then a little bit closer to the other side of that equation. It's an interesting thing trying to make a movie about young people in 2022. And I've been kind of fascinated by this in part because I'm not a young person anymore.

I'm like deeply not young. And so I'm trying to figure out what's the, what's the, what's the fairest and most thoughtful way to dig into a film like this? You know, Helena is not necessarily 25 either, but the bulk of the cast is, you know, the story is written by Kristen Rupinian, who is the author of Cat Person, but the screenplay was written by Sarah DeLapp. And as I understand it, the screenplay changed quite a bit from the originally conceived story. And, you know, I think Cat Person is an interesting

portal into this conversation because that is a you know a piece of fiction that was you know widely shared and i guess i don't know if it was controversial but it was much discussed and on the one hand yeah yeah and on the one hand i think it had like a a um kind of razor's edge satire to it but also a kind of like rawness in the sincerity of the story that was being told i feel like this movie is trying to do something similar. It's trying to simultaneously satirize and empathize with its characters. And then we can discuss whether or not we feel like more broadly with a generation. I'm curious like where you think this movie falls.

Is it tightly focused on this group of people? Or is it trying to say something a little bit bigger about being rich in 23 in America in 2022? Well, I think if you look at the fingerprints of these various storytellers, Christian Rapinian and Sarah DeLapp, Rapinian's story, Cat Person, for, I don't know, the five people who weren't obsessed with it that one day on Twitter, is about an intensive text message-based relationship that blossoms over text and then falls apart when the people meet in real life and at least one person understands that their expectations were misaligned with who this person is. So that idea of social media facades, whether intentional or not, or are the whole people we create out of our various bits and clues we have of them, that DNA is obviously strongly in this film. And then also Sarah

DeLapp wrote this great play, The Wolves, which is about a group of teenage girls, high school soccer players, getting ready for a game. And that has a lot of this in there. But to your point, in terms of capturing that younger voice, what I've heard a lot of the young actresses say, and there was a lot of improv on the set and a lot of my favorite lines that felt very Gen Z to me. And I obviously I'm very far away from Gen Z. I only know about Gen Z from my like anthropological TikTok adventures or whatever, but it felt very authentic to my ears, mostly because I think they got to craft a lot of that very specific language. So like a favorite line of mine is he's a Libra moon. That one really slayed me. And that, you know, that that really that was an improvised line and it really struck me as of a specific generation. So is it just focused on this group of people or does it have something larger to say? is one that came to mind just in terms of like a great fun horror movie that folks should check

out that has something on its mind about class. And there's some parallels here in terms of like one character at this party is not from a privileged background sort of thrown in among the wolves, or maybe two. But this has so much more on its mind than Ready or Not, and that's not a slight on Ready or Not. This just has like so much more it its mind than ready or not. And that's not a slight on ready or not. This just has like so much more. It feels like it wants to say whether or not you agree that it says it in a way that, that comes through to you.

That's, but I think it's definitely trying to say something larger, but to my earlier point, I think it's trying to say something also non-generational and just consistent about human nature. Yeah. So, you know,

in the film, when things start to go haywire, when, when it's, it's been revealed that there is someone dangerous in the house, it becomes a kind of analysis of the bonds between these, mostly these young women and a couple, and a couple of men are in the film too.

But, and the thing I've been trying to turn over in my head is, is the film ultimately, if not criticizing, at least trying to deeply analyze the fragility of some of these relationships and maybe all youthful relationships? Or is it somewhat more in support and just trying to point out the fact that this is a truly traumatic circumstance and kind of using what could be defined as a bracing and maybe not authentic, but dangerous trauma against the language of trauma that so many young people have come to learn. And like, even in the trailer to this film, you see that there is a kind of like, you're silencing me. Like there's a phraseology that is being used throughout it. And it's almost like, what if kids who spent all day kind of moaning on social media actually were being stalked by a murderer? Like how would they

then communicate to the world? Or would they at least then use the language that they've come to know about you know microaggressions in their day-to-day life which i think is a really funny idea and i would say hits like 70 of the time for me and then there's 30 where it feels like deeply self-conscious that being said i keep trying to flag myself on the age thing because like when I saw the movie Scream and I was 15 years old, I was like, this is perhaps the greatest film ever made and a film that really speaks to what it's like to be a movie obsessed loser living in the suburbs. You know what I mean? So I wonder like, will young people see something in this movie that I don't necessarily see or don't have the same self-consciousness that is bugging me too as something I'm turning over at the moment.

Well, I mean, there's that, you know, you and I are of similar age and I think there is that whole like the Kevin Williamson core era of like Scream and Dawson's Creek and I Know What You Did Last Summer and all of that. But then, you know, I assume because I think we grew up with similar relationship to movies. Like I watched a ton of eighties movies, eighties teen movies in the nineties. And, and you know, you in our notes here,

you have Heather's, which was the number one reference that, that came up for me when watching this movie. And Heather's is something that that was a group of teens that was not, is not my generation is slightly above my generation, but I was obsessed with that movie. I love that movie. And I think there is something again,

to use that word primal or, or just sort of really consistent, like the things may change and there may be specific nuances to these relationships, especially to a generation brought up with social media. But I think there are also just inherent truths to the way that teens and maybe specifically teenage girls relate to each other that Heather's captures and that this captures. And I think that there is something that goes beyond some of those more surface

social media trappings that this gets to. Like, for example, in your early 20s, the group of friends that you grew up with, there's a comfort to people who have known you for so long. But there's also something stifling about it because can you change who you are? Can you grow with a group of people who hold expectations, resentments? Also, you know, they put you in a box. One of our main characters, played by Amanda Stenberg, is like actively, seemingly trying to make a change in

her life can you do that when you're surrounded by people who have known you that long um and is that the time that's a time when a lot of people start breaking out and finding different friends who better match who they are as an adult versus who they were as a kid um that seems eternal to me you know that's such an astute observation that's clearly the driving you know sub theme of the story is like do you outgrow the people that helped you learn to be who you are which is a fascinating a fascinating setup for a movie and i think maybe gets lost at times in the movie because it is so kinetic and so surprising at times where the story is being told but that's definitely what's driving the narrative around the key characters um i do think

there's an interesting conversation about whether or not this movie is um i guess what the new york times described as glamorizing youthful nihilism is a pretty big takedown in the new york times of this movie which i found a little bit surprising um but i i that there will be some criticism from audiences too, that this movie maybe doesn't necessarily have a ton to say and is maybe just poking fun at a kind of privileged class and then dropping the ball. I didn't read it that way. I don't know what you, what do you make of that? Yeah, that's not my read either. Like I, that feels like a very, actually, I don't know who wrote that Times piece, so I don't want to like get personal, but it, it feels like a very, actually, I don't know who wrote that Times piece, so I don't want to like get personal, but it feels like a surface read to me. And I think that there is something else going on here in terms of, especially this idea of honesty, because like, so this game Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, or as you called it, Mafia, or as some people call it, like Werewolves is another version.

It's a game I played a lot during the pandemic over Zoom with friends, actually. No kidding. Yeah. It's really fun. Like a fun way to keep in touch with people you can't see is you can play it over Zoom week to week. It's really fun. But that's a game about lying to your friends' faces, right? And so that idea of honesty as it ties into the people that we project ourselves to be on social media.

You know, many smarter people, you know, have talked about this. Gia Tolentino's Trick Mirror is a great, you know, exploration of that theme. That feels slightly generational. The idea of this generation brought up on like Reddit theories and true crime podcasts and like QAnon vulnerable sort of minds is an interesting aspect of this film that it has going on. And I think also that idea of like in the age of social media, who is, what is friendship and how does it change when it's not just as it was, I guess when we, when you and I were much younger, who you hang out with day to day or who you talk to for a long time on the phone at night, maybe.

This is, is your friend someone you like comment on their Instagram? Yeah, there are people I follow on Instagram who I feel like I know more about their lives than some of the people I see day to day just because I'm constantly being fed updates about them. The idea of like friendship and connection is morphing and changing and more, maybe more fragile than ever. And I think that's something that it has on its mind. So I think that's all there for the taking if you want it, you know? In that same vein, I was reminded as I was reading that piece, though maybe not while watching the movie, about that old canard about the Coen brothers, does this film like its characters?

You know, the Coen brothers are often accused of being sort of unsparing towards their protagonists with the occasional Marge Gunderson exception here or there. Do you think this movie, I think that this, obviously the filmmakers love their actors and they love this story

that they've told. Do you think they have contempt for bratty rich kids who can't look past their noses? Or do you think that there's more empathy in the storytelling? I don't know. I found a lot of empathy here.

Like I didn't, the exception, I didn't hate him. But like Pete Davidson is a presence that is never worked for me in any way, shape or form. So that's a character I had a hard time wrapping my arms around. But in terms of everyone else, I feel like there's something there, especially like these young women who are put in an extremely vulnerable position where not only their

insecurities are exposed because when they start sniping at each other, maybe in this very specific Gen Z language kind of way, but just in general, when it all sorts of breaks down, there's one moment where someone's one character says to another character, like, no one even likes you. When you ask me all the time, does anyone like me? The answer is no, no one likes you. That's just huge vulnerabilities sort of wide open. And these bodies, bodies, bodies are vulnerable. But more importantly, these girls' inner fears and insecurities are ripe for the picking here and attacked by the people who know them maybe the best. And that's the deepest cut. So I think that there is, I've definitely seen movies about characters who I despise and don't want to spend more time with. And that wasn't here for me. Even when a character holds up an uncomfortable mirror to me and exclaims like a podcast is hard and I work really hard at it. I'm like, oh no, I'm in this image and I don't like it. I don't know. I think there's a, I mean, what do you think?

Do you think there's empathy here? Well, quick sidebar before I answer that question. One, there's something going on now with people who are making movies and listening to podcasts and trying to make that a part of the vernacular of films. You know, this was a meme in the aftermath of the most recent Godzilla vs. Kong movie. Inacular of films. You know, this was a meme in the aftermath

of the most recent Godzilla vs. Kong movie. In the last Ghostbusters movie, there was a character called Podcast. There's a film in theaters right now written and starring BJ Novak called Vengeance that is about an aspirant podcaster. Rachel Sennett's character is a podcaster in this movie. I really appreciate that filmmakers are listening to podcasts.

I really appreciate when filmmakers are listening to podcasts i really appreciate when filmmakers come on this podcast podcasting is an inherently static and uninspiring line of work i love our work i love working with you you are a brilliant podcaster it is not cinematic it is my request to hollywood remove podcasting from one of the many jobs that your characters can have because it's dull and it feels insular and it feels very coastal and i am really bored by the convention that's a good joke in bodies bodies bodies but in general i don't this shouldn't be the new like he works at an advertising agency like in every movie in the 80s you know what i mean yeah when the poet when the point is coastal elites it's funny right um yeah i i haven't seen some of those movies but i will say my glancing

relationship with the sex in the city reboot as it relates to podcasting is like one of the most bizarre depictions of podcasting well that's the other the other thing too, is it's got the wire season five problem where it's like everything in the storytelling is immaculate until you start trying to portray the job that I do. And now I have a lot of problems with how you're doing it.

And so obviously there are biases at play with my half tongue in cheek advisory to all filmmakers trying to write about podcasting. I will say the characters in the movie, I felt like the word primal that you keep going back to is correct, which is that nobody knows you better than the friends that you've known since you were 10 11 12 years old and so they can cut more deeply and then the the emotion

and the expression is always going to be more raw i'm still close to a few people that i was really close to when i was an 8 9 10 years old and when we're busting each other's balls it is the meanest thing i am around it is the most toxic, but also kind of like, it is kind of fun in a way, you know, there is like a safety in the danger of that kind of a close friendship. And so like, I recognize that in this movie, obviously in this movie, things get violent. So it's not that safe, but otherwise I didn't feel like they hated any of these characters. No. And I don't feel like it's punching down either in a way that I don't think it's sneering at these women or punching down at them. And I think that especially because of that collaborative sort of theatrical about how the actors would rehearse until they know their

lines. They're allowed to improvise if they want. They're allowed to move around. There's no static blocking. And then the camera's going to rove around wherever it wants to. And that was what happened here. There's a lot of handheld. Jasper Wolf, a cinematographer, was putting his camera up the nose of some of these, but not in a way that felt Blair Witchy or anything like that, but just sort of like the camera's moving around, it can swing around to any actor at any given time. So you have to behave as if you're in a stage play. And because of that, I just think that there is a lot of like naturalistic intimacy is what it,

it was what it felt like to these and all these people felt like real people, parodies of, of certain things, people felt like real people parodies of of certain things but also like real fully foreign people and again to that point of insecurity this movie starts with a character saying i love you and then essentially no worries if not you know like you don't have to say no worries if not and like does that is that i love you genuine we can ask that question but is that immediate like oh don't worry you don't have to say it back which is you know not an you know uncommon sort of thing to say but just to start the film with that no worries if not putting like putting a protective sort of layer back up is uh i think a really important clue to what this movie has on its

mind. You know, we haven't really mentioned the cast of this movie very much, and I think it's probably the best thing about the film. And so I just want to go through it very quickly with you and kind of give me your sense of whether or not you think this person is a movie star or not, which is a banal game, but also I think is relevant because these are a lot of young faces, some of whom have been working for a long time, some of whom are a little bit newer to the scene. But I would describe this as a very, quote, hot cast. This is, you know, this is a young Hollywood cast with one particular exception. And I'm curious about your take on all of them. So Amanda Listenberg, who you already mentioned, is the ostensible lead of this movie. She's been around for quite a while at this this point but she's now clearly making a transition to significantly

more adult roles this is probably her most mature part yet do you like her are you in on her do you see her as having a big career do you like her in this film yeah i so i really very recently for no reason whatsoever finally saw the dear evan h movie, which is a terrible movie, as everyone has said eloquently. But I actually think she's quite good in it. Agreed. And so that was like something that really bumped her stock for me. Like if you can stand out in a pretty dismal movie, then I've got my eye on you. And I think she's fantastic here. here there's a lot of connective tissue between her character and Zendaya's character and euphoria

in terms of like addiction and toxicity and all that sort of stuff but I think she does a really good job of not making you constantly think about Rue which is you know a trick a tough trick to pull off I think she's fantastic in this yeah you just you know you raise the specter of euphoria and we probably should have come up sooner in this conversation because, you know, on a previous episode this week, I mentioned the idea of the zillennial panic movie, you know, this like this generational collection of films that have been coming out over the last five to 10 years. I use that phrase somewhat wryly, but also somewhat sincerely because it seems to be primarily about kids who are born between like 1998 and 2004 and so it's this sort of like mid middle generation almost

between z and y and there have been a lot of movies some of which are very serious some of which are not very serious almost all of which are about being online all the time and how that infects you and using genre tropes to tell stories about the anxiety that that kind of a lifestyle provokes. And Euphoria is similarly situated in a young person's life in which there are all kinds of addictions present. There are all kinds of anxieties and intentions present. Sam Levinson is kind of the, I'm not sure, is he the Brecht of this category? I'm not sure what role he plays, but he is obsessed with this, even though I think he's our age and Assassination Nation is about this, Euphoria is about this. I'm sure The Idol, his forthcoming HBO series will have tinges of this as well, given the age of many of the people

in the cast of that film. In fact, Rachel Sennett, who's the next person I want to talk about, is also in that series. And she is emerging as a significant figure in these kinds of films. She was in Shiva Baby last year, which was one of my favorite movies of that year. That movie was directed by Emma Seligman. I would say she is also a significant filmmaker in this vein and has another big movie coming out about high school kids next year that is also similarly in this vein there is something brewing in this type of film you mentioned 80s teen comedies that we grew up on this is kind of a similar way if the films are less commercial they're less overtly um kind of goofy and approachable they're much more about like tension and fear but there's something going on there and consistent with it Rachel sent it to me um I

think this movie doesn't work without her because I she gets all of the laugh lines and I think if you did not have a character like this she's kind of the Randy from Scream in a lot of ways where she's almost like speaking to the audience about the absurdity of each situation I really love her I've really fallen for her in the in the last few movies that I really love her. I've really fallen for her in the last few movies that I've seen her in. I'm curious, where do you stand on her? Let's not curse her with a Jamie Kennedy career. I'm sorry. No. You put zillennial panic into the notes here, and I was really curious to hear you talk about

it and how you really qualified it. And I didn't think about Shiva Baby under that category, but Shiva Baby is like the most anxious I've ever been watching a movie. I felt, and I watched that at home. I can't imagine watching it in the theater. I felt like palm sweaty, sick to my stomach watching that movie and nothing that bad happens except for it's just this thrumming anxiety. And Rachel said it is incredible in the movie. And she so I agree in my audience. Pete Davidson got a lot of laughs and I wasn't necessarily hanging with that. But I laughed at everything Rachel said. I thought she was incredible in this movie.

And I completely agree that it doesn't work without her because there is she's just naturally very funny and also if you watch her in interviews she just is like that's just very much her personality but also there is there is she's probably the most ridiculous of the characters if you want to you know put it that way but I also still just have she's also extremely affectionate in her ridiculousness. And so there's like a beating heart of the movie that also resides in her. Yeah. I loved her in this huge movie star.

I agree. I just caught up with one of my favorite shows, first episode industry and the lead of that show. Myla Harold is one of the stars of this film as well. She's an interesting one. She's a far more reserved performer and is quieter,

is diminutive, and they use that as a counterpoint in industry. The big swinging dicks of the finance world of London and the assholes who run that world and this young, short woman kind of attempting to disrupt and you know enter the fray and destroy it from within I think it's such a great it's

such a great stroke of casting in that show and I like her performance a lot this one is an interesting one because it's the first time I've seen her in a film I'm not sure if she's been in other films but the person she really reminded me of is Sarah Polly who's actually going to come up as we go into our list here on a film that you've chosen because she is more reserved, a little bit more monotone in an appealing way where you're almost trying to figure out what is on her mind or what her motivations are, which works really well for a whodunit. And when she snaps, she can snap hard, but she doesn't do it too often. She's such a counterpoint to Stenberg, to Senate, to a couple of other people in this cast, certainly to Pete Davidson, who are these like balls of flame, you know, who are bursting through the movie at all times.

How about Harold? What do you think of her? I hope Rachel Senate is listening to this and she's like, I got the Jamie Kennedy comparison. But it's the Sarah Polly, one of my favorites of all time. I think the way that her character, Jordan, I think is her character's name, is like coiled throughout this movie is really interesting. And as you point out, I think it's a very different thing from what she's doing in industry in that I think there's just a lot more aggression and anger that's on a leash here and that comes off the leash sometimes and um as you say i think it's a really really integral um ingredient for uh this whodunit this locked locked mansion sort of type of whodunit um yeah i liked her a lot she wasn't like the standout of the movie to me but i liked her a lot here yeah wasn't like the standout of the movie to me, but I liked her a lot here.

Chase, who he wonders, is someone I've never seen before who is in this film, who I guess is going to be appearing in a lot of other upcoming films. I had a filmmaker recently tell me that they had cast Chase in the movie. I thought she was notable. She's dating Pete Davidson in this film, who I'll say, I don't,

the jury's still out for me on Pete. Pete has done things that I've enjoyed. Pete has done things that I have found kind of cringy um his comic persona I think makes a lot of sense whether or not I want to spend a lot of time with it I'm not totally sure I like him in this movie in part because he is the biggest dipshit and he's he has a an affinity for dipshittery and so yeah i i i was able to rock with him yeah yeah exactly yeah he's used well here i think um a friend of mine who worked on the movie was really encouraging me to see it and the main question i had was like but if i don't jive with pete david Davidson am I gonna like rock with this movie and she's like yeah I think you'll be okay and I I think that he's used well I just he's just someone that

I just don't get it I don't see it whatever other people see whatever Lorne Michael season and whatever like his millions of fans see in him I don't see it um I'd like to understand it but I but I don't and Chase Soey me wonders um a great kind of character i think in this she's the actress um they keep mentioning this production of had a gabler that she did which is just like really a really funny running bit it's a great joke yeah yeah um you know lee pace is in this movie i don't want to reveal too much about his character because it's fun the way that it plays out but i will say he is a gigantic human and cast alongside these all of these you know i guess they're normal

sized women but they seem like very small women in relation to his huge body he's like he looks like what is his character's name from um the guardians films uh ronan ronan yeah he's like he's like ronan minus the makeup you know he has this kind of like world conquering physicality that i thought was just a really funny gag in this movie um yeah he's great is a huge person well so he's representing gen x right so if if uh we're gonna get to like one more uh character last but not least i'm sure but like that person's an outsider in one way and he's an outsider generationally. And he has this constant like, it reminds me of the John Mulaney bit about being scared of like children taunting you, right? And so he bumps up against like a couple different moments where he's like, oh, you're fucking with me. Like the scariness of a generation

you don't quite understand. And you're like, I want to be in on. Is this a joke? Am I in on a joke? Or is someone actually being an asshole to me? Or like, what's going on? And I think his presence here, that outsider-ness of the generation is important to almost like framing what the generation is by the difference. It was really fun listening to Lee Pace talk about this movie because the Gen Z performers in this movie are saying, I don't think this is

that much of a Gen Z movie. I think it's a little reductive to call it Gen Z only. And Lee Pace is like, listen. He was like, I don't even know what a group chat is. I don't do that. I'm 43. I don't text people. I don't know what

it is he's like so this is more of a gen z movie than i think you guys think it is and i thought that was an interesting perspective i think he's correct um the last person on the list before we dig into our top five one crazy night movies is maria bakalova now this is the first really significant role that she has appeared in since breaking through in the last borat film academy award nominated for her work in the last borat film and i went in very curious about this because it's a little hard to tell whether what she was doing in that last film was the genius of sasha baron cohen kind of putting her in a position or if she was more of like a candid camera style performer was she a quote-unquote real actress i'd never seen any of the other films that she

had made in bulgaria or in europe prior to this so i was really fascinated now she has a very unusual part and she is the hardest character to read in this movie and i'm still kind of turning over in my mind whether or not I thought that this worked. And what I even make of her as a performer. What did you think about Maria Bakalova in the movie? And what do you make of her as an actress? I mean, we didn't say up top. But, you know, we've been trying very assiduously not to spoil anything about this movie.

But I will say, like, in a locked mansion murder mystery um in a gossard park or an in a and then there were none there's usually like one character you're with who you're pretty sure didn't do it and so you're you know you're you're sort of latched onto them as you navigate all the other people around you and she sort of is a pov character at the beginning of the movie at least it seems like we are with her yeah there's that moment where she goes back to the car and everything else you know and we're not in the party until she enters the party and stuff like that um the um but as a pov character she's also an interesting cipher and i can't tell if that's down to performance or or if it's saying something about how we squeeze ourselves into different shapes, especially when we're, she's in such an intimidating position.

She's in a new relationship. She's meeting her new girlfriends, friends who've all known each other their whole lives, except for giant manly pace. And, uh, you know, and she's, she's working class background, you know, like the first question people ask her, like, where did you go to college? Like all this sort of stuff. Who are you? What's your story? She's not American either. So there's all these, she has no context.

And again, that's what works so well in the film Ready or Not. But like Samara Weaving is doing something very different in that movie. And that movie is doing something different. I don't know. It is an interesting little puzzle box at the center of this. And I'm with you that I can't tell if this is a great performance or not, or if this is an intentionally like sort of blank person. There is a,

there's a moment. I think I can say this. There's a moment in, in the midst of the madness where her character, these women are spattered in blood sort of throughout this movie, and there's where she changes her clothing and she puts on lip gloss. And it is a deeply bizarre move, but a move that you're sort of like, well, this is a deeply traumatized person who's trying to figure out what to do. I found that move so interesting. And I found her performance of

that moment. And then when that moment is called out by everyone else who's like, what a weird thing to do. That to me just feels like that anxiety of being around people you don't know and you don't know what to do. And you're like, is this right? Do I do this in this circumstance? So her character is super super interesting but in terms of the performance and i haven't even seen her oscar-nominated borat performance so i have nothing to compare it to um i will ask that question along with you i don't know i need more evidence i i want to see more that she can do because on the one hand she is an alien to this world and the most alienated character and so the idea of being more withholding and sort of blank as you say yeah it seems like a purposeful

choice on the other hand i have no idea how to grade a performance like that and when she does do some curious things throughout the movie and every character throughout the movie you're sort of like is this person the killer is this person the killer? Is this person the killer? That's the purpose of the film. But her in particular, there's something like almost unnerving that extends beyond the Borat to unnerving that I don't know. I've rarely encountered a new performer who I've been unable to kind of put my finger on what it is that they're doing

and they're after and what their sort of persona is on screen. So she's a fascinating one and we spend the most time with her. So she's relevant to this conversation in a big way. Look, I thought Bodies, Bodies, Bodies was a lot of fun. You know, this has been a little bit of a bleak summer, honestly. And I think this movie is a blast.

You should see with friends. It is definitely inspired by and very much in the framework of the One Crazy Night movie. The sort of like, this is all happening in one place. It's happening night movie um the sort of like this is all happening in one place it's happening in a very confined period of time and wild shit's gonna happen would you agree with that yeah but i wanted i mean i'm so excited to talk about one crazy night movies because i love them but i want to talk to you a little bit about like the taxonomy of a one crazy night movies i feel like there's different flavors, right? I think a lot of horror movies,

slasher movies, like Halloween is technically a one crazy night movie, right? Or the one that I keep setting ready or not. A lot of those you're locked in here with me kind of movies take place over one night. There's the teen party movie that we've alluded to a couple of times, like 16 Candles or Can't Hardly Wait. We're hanging with these teens for one night of a party. night there's the teen party movie that we've alluded to a couple times like 16 candles or can't hardly wait you know like we're hanging with these teens for one night of a party um a ticking clock movie like where the surroundings aren't necessarily foreign but there is just like a tension in terms of a clock running out which pushes your characters to something extreme but i think and i don't think this movie counts as as one of

this specific flavor but i think the most pure and specific flavor of the one crazy night movie is where like a mundane character preferably like a nebbishy man probably is just like shoved wildly out of their comfort zone and then they roam all around somewhere versus like you're locked in one place. It's like the wandering all around and encountering wild things along the way. So like One Crazy Night umbrella is really fun to talk about, but there's like a whole bunch of different flavors within it. I don't know, what do you think?

I tried to have a little bit of variance on my list, although there is invariably at least two movies featuring a nebbishy man who goes on a journey with wild characters surrounding him um i think i think that it's two strands the one strand is what uh you know the sort of the the wizard of oz style journey the sort of like i've been swooped up into this world and i'm i'm i'm trapped but i'm also fascinated yeah house in wonderland exactly it's that kind of framework where you're sort of like experiencing all of these new adventures and then the other

one is like the locked door story the you know we're all trapped here and we can't get out um I think Ready or Not is very apt I think it's also you know one thing when you were referring to Ready or Not earlier I was thinking a lot about the most recent scream from the same filmmakers um Bettinelli and Olpin. They directed the new Scream movie, which is obviously connected to the previous Scream movie, which is like all of these movies exist in the same kind of orbit, the same sort of star system. And for the films that I picked, I tried to have a combination. I tried to have one crazy genre movie, which I'll get to very shortly. A couple of movies that really entranced me in the late 90s and early 2000s

when I was falling in love with movies and maybe identifying with some of these nebuchadnezzar dudes looking for an adventure. And then a couple of anxiety builders. That feeling of being in a straitjacket while watching a movie. I mean, Shiva Baby is a one crazy day absolutely and a straight jacket movie for sure where you're just trapped in this house basically and the house is just creating more and more tension as the film goes along so what i okay one last thing i want to say i think you have a cheat on your list but i also have a cheat on my

list because like how strict are we being with one solitary crazy night um so i'm to let you get away with your cheat cause I want to get away with my cheat. Okay. Deal. And I love to be called out. So definitely call me out on my, I don't even know what my cheat is by looking at my list. So that's great. Um, okay. Joe, why don't you start? What's your number five? Oh yeah. Okay. So number five on my list is, uh, featuring the aforementioned Sarah Polly. It's the great movie Go, directed by Doug Liman. I was obsessed with this movie when it came out. I loved it so much. I used to, because I'm that person and I would constantly be revising

what are my top five favorite movies of all time, Go was on my list for a really long time, 1999. This has, Sarah Polly's the lead, but it's a great ensemble. And it's got like, you know, Sarah Polly is the lead, but it's a great ensemble and it's got like, uh, you got, you got that Kevin Williamson WB infusion of like Katie Holmes is here. Scott Wolf is here. This is, I think where I first met and fell in love with Timothy Oliphant, who does a great job as the drug dealer in this. Um, William Fichtner is here.

Tate Diggs is here and this is about a group of young 20-somethings who work in a convenience store and there's just a long over the course of one night plot about trying to sell some drugs and it's a bit of an anthology you check in with

different stories and different characters and it all sort of weaves together this is my cheat movie because there's an interlude that happens in Vegas which I think kind of breaks

the one crazy night umbrella of this. But I'm going to let me get away with it because this movie is so good. If people hadn't seen it, I definitely think they should. I will allow it. Boy, I love this movie. This is a real late millennial classic. You know, if you're an old millennial and you were in high school when this movie came out, the soundtrack the cast the style of filmmaking that lyman was after i

think this is the first film he made after swingers so for me it was much anticipated and sarah polly right at the center of it katie holmes kind of in the in the in the high times of that dawson's great katie hol think that's great Katie Holmes performance. Really good performance, yeah. Really, really fun movie. Really energetic. Also a very like, a subtly very good movie about Hollywood. A subtly very good movie about LA. I'm a big fan.

I love this. Okay, my number five. I wonder how many times this film has appeared on the top five on episodes I've done on this show. Maybe a listener can call me on this one. Yeah, hopefully someone's keeping a spreadsheet. From Dusk Till Dawn, directed by Robert Rodriguez, starring George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino

and Harvey Keitel and Juliette Lewis and a handful of others. Is this my cheat? Nope. Okay, good to know. It does take place a little bit during the day. It certainly opens during the day, but then it evolves as two bank robber criminals

on the run take a family in an RV hostage and are attempting to get to a meeting point in Mexico with their criminal enterprise. And they get to this strip club slash bar at the edge of Tijuana and they have a couple of drinks. And then all of a sudden it's revealed that this strip club is in fact a centuries old vampire den. And one of the craziest vampire movies of all time ensues. And again, another movie I saw in high school and I was like,

this is what fucking movies are, man. This is what I want. This movie is rock and roll to the core. And I still love it to this day. It's a little goofy. It's a little over the top, but all very purposefully. I always thought this was a fascinating choice

by George Clooney at the height of his fame on TV to take on a movie like this, like a real core genre movie from a real core genre filmmaker like Robert Rodriguez. Still works just as well to this day for me, and people haven't seen From Dusk Till Dawn. I don't know. Has this movie kind of slipped through the cracks in the rodriguez tarantino universe of creativity

yeah i definitely think so i think it's not like considered a major work um it's hard to describe uh in the year of our lord 1996 like the chokehold that salma hayek had on the populace and like her in this movie is quite an experience, but yeah, Clooney shows up with like the Caesar bangs and the, and the like neck tattoo. And it's just like, it's such a look, such a vibe.

Um, I have not seen this movie in a while, so I don't know how well it's aged, but I have nothing but fond memories. I mean, it's like in the dull parlance of our times, it's like deeply problematic. But who gives a shit? It's like a vampire movie in Tijuana.

That's the whole point, right? Like Salma Hayek's character is named Satanico Pandemonio. Like that's that kind of movie. That's that's what you're watching. The other thing, too, that I like about it is it's a portal movie for for taste. So some of the other characters, the sort of supporting characters in the bar include Cheech Marin and Danny Trejo and Tom Savini, the great effects maestro and actor and Fred Williamson, the sort of blaxploitation hero. And so if you see a movie like this and you see an

older actor and he seems very important, you're sort of like, why is this? Who is that guy? Why is he in this movie with George Clooney? And then you start looking at their CV and what they've done in their careers, and then you start watching their movies. And I've always loved movies like that, that lead you down rabbit holes. And Rodriguez and Tarantino do that so well, where they're like, here's this actor we've plucked. And you're like, okay, I see you've featured this person. I now feel like I should know who this person is. But I, unlike Quentin Tarantino, did not work the late shift at a video store, so I haven't watched these movies yet. What's your number four, Jo? Okay, so next on my list is a movie that I just saw the first time this week because I knew we were doing this.

I know your eyebrows went all the way up. Love it. I knew we were doing this and I knew I was going to get kicked off the ringer.com if I hadn't seen this movie. That's not true. This is Michael Mann's 2004 film Collateral. I don't know. I think the reason I didn't see this at the time and the reason I still haven't seen

and will refuse to see Public Enemies is I felt very anti-digital grain, anti what Mann was doing at the time with digital. It looked ugly to me in in trailers um and so i just didn't see it and then i sort of missed it um this is a phenomenal movie so good what an iconic tom cruise maybe right up shoots up the list of my favorite tom cruise performances of all time taps into something that tom cruise has simmering on all of his stuff and just lets off again lets off the leash like in this role he should do this more

often it's so so much fun great great jamie foxx performance and in terms of that like one crazy night um you know jamie foxx plays uh max a cab driver who picks up a fare and that fair turns out to be a contract killer played by Tom Cruise. And they're driving around LA over the course of one night with Max obviously wanting to not be aiding and abetting a hitman, but sort of trapped, being held hostage as he goes around. And Jada Pickett-Smith also has a role to play

in the beginning and the end of the movie. Max is not quite the sort of nebbish, but close enough. He's pretty close. Yeah, this sort of every man who's thrust into a wild circumstance. The various hits that they, you know, takes you to various strata of nighttime LA. There's one K-Town sequence that's like really incredible. So I really love this. Also like an impossibly young Mark looking Mark Ruffalo is here too.

So yeah, great, great movie. I can't believe you'd never seen it before. I know. I'm glad this compelled you to check it out. Yeah. This, I think this is my second favorite michael man movie after after thief um which i know people are like what about you what about you i knew i had to watch it but it's like tom cruise in a in a michael man movie and tom cruise still at sort of at the very end

of his fuck it let's try it phase his sort of like I still want to push myself and, and redefine my screen persona. And obviously we were now in a 10 to 15 year period of the same kind of cruise in every movie, which I'm honestly not complaining about. I'm loving it. But this was very surprising in movie theaters. When you saw it, the intensity,

the tonality of his performance, how he looked, how violent and dangerous he was. He's never been more violent in a movie, even including like interview with the Vampire. So I freaking love this movie. Yo, homie, is that my briefcase? Is one of my favorite lines in movie history.

It's right off the back of Magnolia, right? Right back to back, you know? And I think an era where he's trying to redefine himself and also Oscar winner, Tom Cruise, can we make it happen? And they were like, no, but I have to wonder,

I couldn't find any answer to this. I looked around, but you remember the story about Henry Cavill's mustache and mission impossible. And the main reason that Tom Cruise wanted him to have it was so that kids watching that movie wouldn't think of like Superman as a villain. And so he was like, it's very important to me that Henry Cavill have a mustache in the movie. I was wondering if that's why he has the white hair in this movie. Cause he was like, it's very important to me that Henry Cavill have a mustache in the movie.

I was wondering if that's why he has the white hair in this movie, because he's like, it's very important to me that kids, not that kids should be watching Collateral, but people look at this and don't think Tom Cruise. They think that guy with the white hair. It's kind of the genius of Tom Cruise,

because that's like a real monkey brain idea where it's like, bad guy must have different hair. But it's 100% right. It's black hat white hot white hat in movies you know there's something very um very primal like we were talking about earlier about bodies bodies bodies or it's just sort of like human recognition understands color and shape and so you need to know we need to signal quite clearly to audiences this guy is no good anyway

it's very effective in this movie. I love Go. In a similar vein, maybe even in the same year, what year was Panic Room? Maybe that was 05. Panic Room is my number four. No, it was 02. But this was actually at a time when thrillers felt like very important

subgenres of movies. I'm not sure if thrillers feel like very important subgenres of movies these days, but they were back then. This is David Fincher's all-in-one night classic about a young recent divorcee played by jodie foster and her daughter played by kristen stewart moving into a new apartment i guess it's sort of more of a brownstone than it is an apartment now that i think about it um in the aftermath of that divorce and then a few home invaders enter

the house and attempt to steal something from inside the house. Absolute bravura performance from David Fincher as the filmmaker, somebody who is kind of getting inside the walls and moving through all of the spaces around this three floor apartment. And just a scintillating piece of cinema, you know, just a very, a simple, but deeply complicated execution. I really like stories like this. I really like the performances in this movie. We did a rewatchables about it. I want to say earlier this year holds up and still looks great.

Also shot digitally. And, you know, has that kind of like, has that new grain, you know, that new fuzziness that new grain, that new fuzziness that the man film has as well. I love this one.

A lot of grays and blues. Yeah, good, great Kristen Stewart performance in it. Kristen Stewart. And then, so sometimes the One Crazy Night movie can have nothing on its mind but just throwing unexpected what's going to happen next, what's going to happen next. But I think the genius of putting Jodie Foster as a recent divorcee and her daughter and their complicated relationship in the locked room center of this movie is so brilliant. I mean, similarly to Collateral, you're watching Collateral and you're like, what's going to happen?

But also these characters are peeling back the layers of each other over the course of this night. And similarly with Panic Room, you get stripped down to something primal in a situation like this. It's really, it's a great movie. Yeah. Okay. What's your number it's a great movie. Yeah. Okay.

What's your number three? Because we are journalists, I am honor of duty bound to put the great Howard Hawks, group all comedy, his girl Friday. I feel like I've almost talked to you about this for maybe, maybe I have, maybe I haven't, but you know, this is a, this is a film based on a stage play, then a, then a movie with two male leads and then brilliantly gender flip with

Rosalind Russell and the co-lead about two, two paper men. I'm going to use that, that phrase for her anyway. And in this case, married couple, Carrie Grant, Rosalind Russell,

she wants a divorce. She wants to marry someone new. He does not wants a divorce. She wants to marry someone new. He does not want a divorce. And so he sort of engineers a story that she couldn't possibly resist to sort of keep her around and stymie the divorce. And this is that ticking clock thing that I mentioned before, where it's like, we're not going a lot of places because it's based on a stage play. It all essentially takes place in a newsroom and then the jailhouse across the street um that's that's it it's one of the best grubel comedies of all time the rapid patter like it never gets more rapid or pattery or than in uh his girl friday and um that that

ticking clock that adrenaline of chasing the story and making a deadline i think is a really fun engine behind uh this particular plot so yeah this is a really fun engine behind this particular plot. So yeah, this is a movie that I've watched one million times. One of my favorite movies of all time. I have too. I love it. We've talked about it a few times on this show. I guess I never thought about it as a one crazy night movie,

but you're right. It just doesn't... I feel like many screwball comedies are one crazy night movies, you know, where people are getting... Yeah, Bringing a Baby probably is. That's what I was thinking of. They get in these... At least where like 50 to 60 minutes of the film is kind of happening

all in this one contained sequence, you know, like, I mean, it happened one night is the one crazy night movie. You know, all of those films have that very confined framework where people, you know, they meet cute and then they're forced into these complicated circumstances. His Girlfriend is probably my favorite of all of those movies. So it's a great pick. My number three is sort of a relative of His Girl Friday and Bringing Up Baby.

This is my cheat? Yeah. Is it because it starts early in the day? No, it's one crazy weekend. It's like at least two nights. Is it really? Yeah. Because I always think of,

so the movie is Something Wild, which is directed by the great jonathan demme um stars jeff daniels and melanie griffith jeff daniels is our our nebbish and melanie griffith is our our pipe bomb the person who enters his life and blows it up over a weekend i guess i didn't revisit it for this podcast so i apologize so if i'm cheating you'll allow it um absolutely a screwball comedy and I what the reason I always think of this as one crazy night is because that you know Ray Liotta famously enters this movie more than halfway through and is one of the scariest characters in movie history and it

sort of like sets up a career of scary characters for Ray Liotta and I always think of that moment when the film sort of turns from night to morning and the chase is happening near the end of the film. And so I always think of that as the conclusion of the story, but you're probably right, it is a weekend. Nevertheless, the thing I like about most Jonathan Demme movies is he takes what seem on paper to be very ordinary premises and he inserts unusual pacing, dialogue, framing, framing performance and specifically collaborators into these stories so what looks like it could be any old zany 80s comedy is also scored by laurie anderson and john kale is shot by the great tak fujimoto you know features actors you never see in these kinds of films sister carol plays a character in this movie. Charles Napier plays a character in this movie.

It's a very exciting boiling pot of melting pot of character story, music. Every Jonathan Demme movie is a feast. This one is one of his most commercial. It's one of his most exciting, propulsive. And I don't know. What's your favorite Melanie Griffith? Do you have a version of her that you like best that's so funny okay so i rewatched because i saw this was on your list i rewatched it i thought i was watching the first time and then i realized i had seen it um when i

was younger on like comedy central which is so probably heavily edited oh yeah and probably not where you should watch something wild but i'm reasonably sure that's where i saw it um as a kid and um watching this movie like i don't know if it's just like the the dark wig with the bangs that she wears at the start of the movie but like she's never reminded me more of her daughter uh this is like this feels like something dakota johnson would definitely do my favorite melly griffith is working girl that's just like the epitome of of her for me is this is this the epitome of Melanie for you you know I've been on a Paul Newman journey of late because of the last movie stars um and she is so good in nobody's fool uh which is a late period film and is so is beyond

like her like ingenue phase you know she's sort of like moving into the second phase of her career in that movie and so i really like the kind of the ease of that performance you know where she doesn't have to be doing the judy holiday born yesterday routine through a lot of her films this is one of my favorites working girl of course total classic um are they are they remaking working girl did i read that right is it working is it selena gomez and working girl oh uh with love and respect to selena gomez hell no that just seems like a bad idea anyway um i really like this one i i really like a lot of melanie griffith performances she's one of the only good things about fire the vanities in my opinion she's really great in a stranger among us very underrated uh city limit movie anyway uh she's

great something wild is great. People should check that out if they haven't had a chance to see it. There's a beautiful Criterion Collection edition of this movie available. I loved watching it, re-watching it yesterday, and I think that it is that epitome of the genre, which we'll talk about

again higher up on our list, but I think it, I'm so glad you picked it, because it's perfect. And I think that, so taking the Neva Shijav Daniels out of his comfort zone, like, you know, and smearing his face with red lipstick and like all this very stuff. There is a bad version of this movie

where Melanie Griffith's character is like a manic pixie dream girl, right? Where like, it's just like a cardboard person who just comes and breaks this guy out of his comfort zone and that's not what this movie is because she is so much going on herself and ray leota is completely related to her plot and not his and all that sort of stuff like that so this is like a great version of a story that i think we've seen told not as well elsewhere agreed completely um Okay. Number two. Two for you.

It's not wacky or zany. No. But it is before sunrise. And I feel like at least one of the link later before movies should hop in here. This is the walk and talk. There's no external drama, right? It's not even like, are we going to make the train the next morning? There's no external drama.

It's all internal drama. And it's all about these characters, Julie, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke walking around, breaking down each other's boundaries and barriers and really making a connection, like sparking an attraction to something more that is then developed over these,

the course of these three films. Like it's hard to talk about one without talking about the other two. And it's hard to watch this movie without the weight and the importance of the other two, because knowing that this is not just one crazy night for these characters, but the start of a lifelong something for these characters, retroactively gives this movie so much more. I mean, it's just, it's a wonderful, beautiful, excellent Richard Linklater joint. And I think there's no better walk and talk movie than Before Sunrise. Some days I like Before Sunset better than Before Sunrise, but why not put original flavor on here? Yeah, I'm a Before Sunset over Before Sunrise person, but it's like arguing between milk

chocolate and dark chocolate you know they're both good i like them both you know they some days you want one some days you want the other um i i'm glad you put this on i this is a complete oversight by me because i made my list before you and then i saw that you put it on and i was like okay that would have been bad if we did this episode and didn't mention one of those movies so thank you for doing that uh my number two is the movie that i thought of a lot while watching Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, and that is Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. This is Mike Nichols' directorial debut after a hallowed run in the theater.

It's based on the Edward Albee play. It stars Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, and Sandy Dennis. It is a true four-hander that takes place all in one house over one night, and it is tension-filled and loud and scary and emotionally traumatizing. I saw this movie when I was 13 years old. And I was like, is this how humans are? Is this how I'm supposed to act? Should I ever?

Exactly. Should I consider falling in love and destroying my life? Obviously, one of the most brilliantly blocked movies of all time, the way that it's shot and something that you would not expect from a young filmmaker, but that's part of what makes it so dynamic is, you know, the ability to move from two shots to close-ups to master shots to moving through this home and this living room in particular, where most of the film takes place. In Mark Harris's Mike Nichols, A Life Book, there's a great detail about how Nichols conceived of this movie and i highly recommend people check out that book um you know this is a this is an

an american film classic it was nominated for 13 academy awards um it is often cited but it is not necessarily cited in this mold and in a way if you watch it in this context as a one crazy night movie it feels more like a genre movie than it does like some Tony adapted from a, you know, important play story. So it feels a little bit more like a horror movie. Honestly, Elizabeth Taylor in particular is giving a horror movie performance.

You know, she is at the top of her register throughout the film and kicking off an era in which she and Richard Burton would kind of only operate at the top of their register throughout the 1960s. This is, I think by far the best of the films that they made together. So if you have not seen, who's afraid of Virginia Wolf,

give it a shot. You fan of this one. Yeah. And I think that idea, I mean, which I brought up with his girl Friday, I think there probably is a lot of play adaptations that might be one crazy night or at least one crazy day,

you know, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, of course, you know, makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it does. Yeah. But yeah, of course, incredible film, similar to like Shiva Baby or this film where you're just feeling a lot of anxiety

being trapped with these people and you just want to leave. Yeah, fantastic. Fantastic choice. Guess what? We share a number one. Yeah, we did it. Did you know when I pitched this concept to you that this was going to be your number one?

Yes. Yeah, I did too. What is it? I mean, I think it's so it's After Hours by Martin Scorsese. I've never heard of him. I think this is the epitome of the One Crazy Night movie. And I think most One Crazy Night movies are chasing what Scorsese does with this film. This is a film I actually only saw fairly recently. It's like a lesser,

not lesser known Scorsese, and I think its stock has certainly been on the rise a lot in the last several years. I was looking at like an old list that someone had made of One Crazy Night from like 2013, and they were like, a little known Martin Scorsese film. I was like, I don't think that's the case anymore in 2022. I think as we consider his filmography after hours has has sort of risen up uh the ranks but this is like a good pair with something wild the 19 it's 1985 our nebbish in question is griffin dunn and he's on a dark night of the soul journey through Soho with a wild cast of characters, including Rosanna Arquette, Terry Garr, Catherine O'Hara, Cheech Marin's back to Cosmo and Trouble's Chong is also here, of course. I saw this movie and I liked it. And then I started digging into a lot of people's analysis of this movie and what it means, what it's trying to say about being an artist. And then I loved it. So yeah,

After Hours, I think it's fantastic. Very kooky 85 film. How do you feel about it? Yeah, it's one of my favorite movies. I think you're right that it has emerged as, I think for lack of a better phrase, a kind of hipster pick. It's sort of like, here's the Scorsese movie you haven't seen that is great because it happens in this kind of down moment in his career, kind of between the Raging Bull success and the Goodfellas, I guess, comeback for lack of a better word, Color of Money, Goodfellas comeback. And it's mired in this Last Temptation of Christ period where he's trying to get that movie off the ground. And so he's taking on these i don't know i guess smaller movies there's a few things that recommend it it's like it's it's absolutely a film noir it's absolutely a screwball

comedy it's also very clearly in the yuppie nightmare cycle you know that it's like a real indictment of new york city at the time it's a real indictment and also a love letter to new york city at the time it's where you could just sort of like get into trouble no matter what door you entered on any street corner. It is a beautiful movie to look at. It's just amazingly shot, you know, the wet pavement of New York and the neon lights and the sort of the artist's enclaves

that he's constantly entering and exiting. And the idea of using this you know kind of dull middle class button pusher as an entree into what's really happening underneath the surface of new york city is such a clever concept um great not even like a really good guy no no he's kind of a kind of a shit heel you know he's like kind of a little bit of like a womanizer and like a little bit of very much out for himself and it's kind of like constant sense of like victimization that he is playing into throughout the movie but oh my god is it well cast rosanna arquette verna bloom terry guard john heard like so many people who i just love i love to watch

in movies um dynamite script by Joseph Minion. Like, I love this movie. It's, you know, it's almost surreal at times. It reminds you of a lot of, like, postmodern fiction, like Thomas Pynchon, like, what, you know, am I along, like, I've thought a lot about The Crying of Lot 49. It's like, is there a vast conspiracy going on here? Or is this just, you know, one crazy night? The visuals that you

talked about, there's like, Terry Garr has this like bright yellow associated with her character that is so beautiful. And I think in terms of, I read, I devoured all these essays and all these video essays about this film afterwards and not all agree with each other about what this movie is about, but that's how much of a rich tech like all of them were interesting and that's how much of a rich text this film is um that that you can lay a lot of different interpretations on top of it um you know so it's it's a wizard of oz alice in wonderland odyssey sort sort of type of text. It's fantastic. It's also, this has been observed before, but it's Martin Scorsese's David Lynch movie, you know,

and not just because of the overt Wizard of Oz homage. You know, like there is that famous scene between Rosanna Arquette and Griffin Dunn when they're at the diner and she tells the story about her husband who is a movie freak and that he watched the Wizard of Oz over and over again and how he had like a psychosexual relationship to the movie wizard of oz which of course you know david lynch has a psychosexual relationship to the movie wizard the wizard of oz like it is

in almost every david lynch film and and lynch and scorsese are kind of contemporaries they have admiration for one another and you can almost feel him processing what lynch had been up to and then you could feel like you can feel lynch watching this movie and then iterating upon it in future films so i just love that relationship that kind of friction between these two greats of that generation making movies alongside one another um and it is also like it is probably the truest bluest one crazy night like definition like you said so that's our list if you haven't seen any of these movies you got to watch them because i don't think we named a bad film no can i drop two honorable mentions of course that almost made my list all right um i i just

talked about this recently on the ringer verse i won't go too long on it but game night uh which a couple years ago just like such a solid comedy no one has ever had a bad time with game night i think it's wildly underrated and underseen and i just like to champion solid comedy no one has ever had a bad time with game night i think it's wildly underrated and underseen and i just like to champion it so game night big fan but not like top five necessarily but great film and then what was in the number five slot before i uh watched collateral for the first time was four rooms um you know more robert rodrig Rodriguez love yeah more more Tarantino love of a a mid-90s anthology film that takes place in a hotel room and it is in the vein of From Dusk Till Dawn a very like sort of gonzo kind of what's going on but the cast is incredible and just uh I was remembering my I

texted a friend of mine I was like Charlie do you remember that you brought four rooms to school and he was like yeah taped off stars on VHS and I was like, Charlie, do you remember that you brought Four Rooms to school? And he was like, yeah, taped off stars on VHS. And I was like, and we watched it in a classroom. And he was like, yeah, that's what we did. So I have a lot of fondness for Four Rooms. Four Rooms and After Hours haunt me because they just have not released Blu-ray editions of these films in the United States of America. And so I just cannot have the version of them that I want to have. And I'm hopeful that someone will do that soon um I have a couple of honorable mentions as well a couple of recent a bunch of recent films honestly have fit this mold and I think this is a great way for independent cinema to keep thriving is write scripts that take place in one location in one night and make sure that

the dialogue is razor sharp you know um The Invitation the great Conor Kusama movie, is one of these films. Green Room, the Jeremy Saulnier thriller, is a harrowing version of one of these films. You know, all the Purge movies are One Crazy Night movies. Good Time, the Safdie Brothers film, is more or less a One Crazy Night, One Crazy Afternoon into Night movie. There are a lot of, I mean, Superbad is a One Crazy Night movie. There are a lot of, I mean, Superbad is a one crazy night movie. You know, like there are a lot of movies

that fit the book smart. Absolutely. You've seen, we've seen a lot of them over the years because I think they're much easier to accomplish. Die Hard is a one crazy night movie. Wow.

There's one other one that I want to shout out that I don't know if people have seen. I might've mentioned it in the past and I mentioned recently that I've been on a nuclear panic kick as well. I've been watching a lot of movies about in preparation for oppenheimer um films about the looming atomic doom that could we could be or could not be headed for i was gonna

say you're you're recommending a lot of anxiety films yeah are you okay little window into what excites me you know i'm so dead. I need to be animated by fear. Miracle Mile, which is a 1988 movie starring Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham directed by Steve Desjardins that is like, was a little lost to time

for a while and then became a video store classic and that I saw, I watched during COVID and didn't make me feel better, but was very exciting and very fun. So that's a lot of movies.

And they're married now. They are married now. I think this is where they met. That's where they met. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really fun movie.

It's a nuclear panic meet cute movie. That sounds great. Jo, thanks for doing this. Great as always. Thanks for having me. What a thrill. Let's go to my conversation now have Helena Rain here on the show. Hi, Helena. How are you?

Hi. I'm very happy to be on the show. So, Helena, I think if people know you, especially in the States, they'll know you as an actor, I think. And you've been making this transition over the last few years to feature film director and your first American film is Bodies, Bodies, Bodies. Can you tell me how you've been making that transition? What it's been like for you? First of all, I don't think anybody in the US will know me, but maybe some really like hardcore theater lovers do. But making the transition has been amazing for me personally and super scary. I really enjoyed a wonderful career as an actress in Europe, working mainly on stage with Eva van Hoven, doing some films here

and there. But I've always dreamed of being a little more in charge. And then I made this film Instinct, which is about a therapist who falls in love with a serial rapist so it's a very extreme dark film and then um somehow a24 found me and that's how i got to go to the u.s which was always my dream i have to be honest with you i always dreamed since i was a very small little uh toddler to um come to the u.s to to make it to make it in the US I think you have made it you can proudly say that you pulled it off. No not at all but I do enjoy

being here and working here and the transition has been very empowering and just lovely I do think that if you have a certain talent you can do it doesn't really matter if you make a painting or if you're on the stage or if you're directing i think in the end it all comes from the same source so that's how i i try to see it let's go back to that part where a24 found you um how does that work they just called you out of

the blue and said we saw instinct we know you want to make films we have a script that you could be right for what tell me how that process operates a little bit like that i mean my film instinct went to a lot of festivals and um that's how you then agents start to call you and of course the wonderful system here in america is very different than in europe but that agents are very active you know and they so they introduce you to all kinds of studios and and that's uh and of course i've always like a lot of people uh loved a24 and being a big fan of their films and and also me coming from this very art housey background i always thought well if you're gonna go to hollywood

then they are the people who you know work with interesting filmmakers and make weird crazy films that they do sell to audiences which I think is pretty important at the same time and so they had the script yes and they uh sent me the script and at first um I was a little bit like oh whoa because up until then I made one film and one tv show and both of them came from my brain you know initially and this so this would be the first time that I would ever work on something that was not initially mine. So I thought that was a little bit scary and it made me a little nervous. But then when they gave me the freedom, which is, of course, their whole brand, which they do, to make it my own and to rewrite it with Sarah DeLapp, who's a wonderful playwright, a New York-based playwright. That's when it really started to become, yeah, i was just obsessively in love for the project

from that moment on the movie feels a bit like a perfect covet 19 production and i wonder did it go because of that because it's all set in one house it's a fairly small cast it's contained did that help yeah i mean it did i do think that it helped us to pull it off you know because under those circumstances everybody was dealing with. But no, it wasn't necessarily, because they already had this project for a long, long time before I came on board. So they already, you know,

were interested in doing that specific story. So no, it didn't have anything to do with it, but you're right, it was all very contained and we all lived in the bubble. And I think you can see that the film really pulls it off that that friend group actually becomes believable however you know they're the most seductive but at the same time annoying and narcissistic friend group you will ever see and and and they didn't know each other at all and because we were literally working and living together I think that really helped with um really making it believable,

the way they speak to each other, the way that they share that history, the humor that is in the film. So yeah, so I think that did help. I'm going to ask you this question, answer as honestly as you can. And if you haven't thought about it, it's okay, but I suspect you have. Do you see Bodies, Bodies, Bodies as a horror movie, movie a black comedy or a satire because i've been trying to figure out which of the three it is primarily in it by its makers so i see it as again being a totally fresh person on the block because i am not even a trained filmmaker i see it completely

as a genre by itself i i always say is's Lord of the Flies meets Mean Girls. So it has nothing to do with horror or whatever to me at all. But I think if you want to put a genre on it, it's way more a black comedy than necessarily a horror, although it has violence and it has death in there. I think it's a comedy, way more, with a very dark undertone. So the film is really interested in language

and relationships between young people and how they communicate and maybe how social media warps how one communicates and sense of self. What's your relationship to all of these things? Because these characters are obviously, they're younger than we are.

This feels like a very Gen Z kind of a story. Well, you look very young, but thank you for... Don't be deceived. Okay, so they are very much younger than I am. I'm 46 for the record.

So, of course, first of all, I knew when I was making this film that I wanted to really work very, very closely to the actors because they are that world. And also I'm an actress myself. I'm a collaborator. So that so I needed their input.

But also Sarah Delep is a very young writer. So I work closely with her as well to make it as authentic as possible. And I yeah, I really think we were able to do that. But on the other hand, I also have to admit to you, I am completely and utterly addicted to my phone. Like literally watching the screen of my phone the whole time. If you don't, like if I don't do anything about it. And so I also wanted to make this film as a fun, cautionary tale for myself. I think the only way to make films,

Paul Verhoeven, who was a director that I used to work with, people might know him from Basic Instinct or Black Book, the film that me and carissa read he always thought i was always like i want to make a film myself and he would always say well you can but you need a question you need to have an urgent question and with my first film it was why do i do things that are bad for me why am i attracted to bad boys so that's why i made instincts and then with this film i'm like why am i constantly looking at my phone instead of looking in your eyes in the moment be together and actually look at what is going on around me so uh you know so i basically make films for myself as therapy it never works but the films

come out quite okay so it works as like to make good films but it never really teaches me anything that's a sad thing so you don't get answers at the end of the films. You don't know why you look at your phone all the time. The irony of the whole thing is that both me and Sarah went on TikTok because of course, me being 46, I'm like, TikTok, what? So I had no idea what that was. And then I became completely addicted. So now I'm in this whole TikTok thing that only makes it worse so in the end it didn't really help me uh at all to to get rid of my addiction but I think it you know it literally you you saw the film if if they would like pause for one moment and look at what was really going on instead of being distracted and living in it completely then the film would stop

you know what I mean so I think I think that's sort of the little hidden message in there. And besides that, I just love pressure cookers. I love psychological warfare. I love, you know, all these characters being trapped and imprisoned in this house together. And just, you know, the stakes are very high and, you know, bodies are literally dropping. But on the other hand, they're talking about you know who's who's cheating on who and so i think that is what

life really is it's super banal even in the face of war and and horrible things that are happening at the same time we're all worrying about the stupidest things so that's also what i wanted to put in the film were you the last piece of the puzzle added to the film was the cast in place when you joined no there was nothing no gas okay so tell me because i think piece of the puzzle added to the film? Was the cast in place when you joined? No, there was nothing, no cast. Okay, so tell me, because I think some of the people will be very familiar. Some of the people will be a little bit familiar. Some of the people will be not familiar at all. How did you go about picking and choosing who your housemates would be during this hurricane party?

Yeah, that was, of course, the biggest challenge because I knew that, as also with my first film, my films also really rest on the shoulders of the actors you know because my whole setup is that i'm gonna like work with them collaborate with them but also my dp the camera guy that i use from holland who's a genius we work in a way that we take really long takes which means that they have to know all their lines and you know it's heavy pressure on them so very theatrical too your setup of the film is very theatrical in a way i just i just approach it as a play because i have no clue i know way more about theater than about film so i just take that approach and bring it to film which is fun for actors but it's super challenging and hard um and so not being so

familiar with this country and being a little older, I'm not that familiar with the younger generation. So the first person we cast was Amandla Stenberg, who's this amazing talent. And not only is she a great actor, but also she is, you know, she's very smart and she can be much more to the project than just a talent. You know, she can think about the story and really give me input in the music and everything so that was amazing I love her uh and she she was in Hunger Games like she has a huge history of acting so I loved her and then I knew right away that I wanted Pete Davidson

like I I knew even in Europe he was before Kim Kardashian already famous and I I like I saw him in a couple of films and I always thought I loved him in those films but I was always like he's always so goofy and like the goofy friendly guy and I wanted to make to use his darker masculine side and I thought he has that and I want to use it and I can really work with him so and he came on board release quickly and then Maria Bakalova who people might know from Barat you know, got an Oscar nomination for that role. And the funny thing about her is you think, oh, everything's improvised, it's all real.

But then she turned out to have this theater background, really classical training in Europe. And of course, you know, me being a sucker for that. So that was amazing. And then we found Maya Hala, which is the star of Industry, which is an HBO show. And she's also a wonderful actress and then chase uh sweet wonders who um is just coming up in the industry really i'd never seen her before she was wonderful she i saw an audition tape for for my film and i was just blown away and

you see a lot of tapes right so it's kind of like you're kind of watching them and you try to be and i saw her i was like who is this her energy everything she and she was just graduating from harvard you know they all come from such different corners of the world like in not literally but like the kind of worlds that they grew up in and and it's just been a wonderful group and then we have lee pace who's way older and he is very like a pro like he did huge parts on stage and he does he does huge films and very much older than them and i i was completely overwhelmed that he said yes to it um but that character to me is very important because he's of course also a little bit my eyes because he sees it from my generation he's trying to figure out what they're how they interact with each other

and he wants to like be part of them. Like I do. It wants to belong to them, but he doesn't really belong to them. And I think his character is one of the funniest characters of the whole film. And then we have Rachel Sennett, who you might know from Shiva baby,

which is a great film. And she is a genius. She's a total genius. So funny. So, so funny, but also capable of making like a hardcore joke and the whole audience will like but then at the same time being super real and crying with real tears and

it's an absolute animal like i i'm totally in love with her and also she's capable like they all are of really thinking about more than just their own role and that is to me super important that's also my theater background, of course, where you, you are there for the story and you're not there. Oh, who's my character?

No, it's not about you. It's about all of us. You know, we're, we're, we're together. We're carrying this story.

So I thought you really nailed it with the actors. And you mentioned Lee's character being kind of a portal, maybe for folks our age into the characters. I got to tell you, I have to be very um confessional with you about this when i saw the film it was one of the first films i think i've ever seen in my life and i've been covering movies for a very long time now where i was like this was not made either for me or by someone who is my generation and i felt like for a long time i was young enough younger than the people

who are making films and now i feel because of the references the energy the tone the way that the script was written the way that it's shot it felt faster more intense more sort of inside baseball i don't know if you know that phrase inside baseball um like a lot of inside jokes and i was a little surprised to learn that you had directed it because i don't think i knew that no that's not what i mean but just someone who's not from america somebody who's not 22 years old and i i'm wondering like how did you authenticate it how did you make it feel and maybe it's not even authenticated because i'm not 22 but how did how did you make it feel like it was that because it seemed like that's what you were after that was what i was after because i i like nothing more than to put myself into

other subgroups if you will like i you know you could put me into a cult for a couple of days i would love that like whatever it is like i want to always know like what is that group and what is that um and so i think my curiosity helped a lot. But again, I think my main thing in everything I do is collaboration. I really don't like to be the boss. I don't believe in hierarchy in that sense. I was raised in communes. So that's how I think.

And I think that is my biggest, yeah, how do you say that? Quality, if you will, without sounding that i want to brag about it at all but that just works in this way because if you if you if you are almost like a leech you know you're like a fly on the wall and you i literally would go to dinner with them and write down everything they're saying and of course i would ask their permission afterwards like hey you said that and can i please put that can i put that in the script and they were always fine with that and also just i think if you prepare really really really really extremely well for something from like like really obsessively prepare then you're able in the moment to let go and to be really open to other people's ideas and to actually say to pete like hey can you improv

here for a while you know if you because that will make you less scared of letting go. And I think I was capable of doing that. And that made it really feel young. But I also feel my DP, so the cameraman who, you know, who designs the lighting with me and all of that, I think that also really helps. I think his style is very extreme and radical and animalistic and sensuous and primal.

And I think that also gives you the feeling that um that that is really their world you know and then they came up with all the music and i asked my composer who's called disaster piece which i think is a very interesting name he um i worked very closely with him and i told him i don't know if you know this german movie called rum lola rum and that well that's for us older people and it's a very like high energy movie and they have like almost like a club techno soundtrack and i said to him like listen we need something like that where it is their world but of course we are going to distort it a little bit because we're also just witnessing their world but it can

never stop because again the moment they start to reflect the film would stop right these are these animals that the whole film is a reaction the whole film is just you know human behavior when crisis occurs and they have no clue how to deal with it um yeah so that's how we how we made it feel i think young and real and authentic but there's also something distant in the film that i really like that you're watching these almost insects all eat each other in an aquarium and you're on the outside you're like what who are what are they what is what the what wait what is happening and that was also my intention I kind of kind of enjoy that myself did anything change about either the script or even the way that you wanted to shoot it once

you got inside that house and started doing it because sometimes you know you seem to have a lot of um you preconceive a lot of this and it seems like there's a lot of intentionality in the choices they are making but sometimes you get in a room and it doesn't look the way that you thought it was going to look or it doesn't feel the way you thought it was going to feel what was did it evolve as you were making it yeah i think i mean that goes for every everything you create of course that is one some some famous filmmakers say is one big disappointment you know from the moment you write something in your little room you're like oh it's going to be a tiger and it's going to be so of course i already conditioned myself into that mindset like it's all about letting go

right like life itself but this is also with these kind of dreams that you have and ideas but I do think finding this house was key like I said that I wanted I mean again I'm a tourist right I'm from I'm coming from Amsterdam so I said I want a house that represents like a house that Trump would like like it needs for me it needs to like represent this narcissism this like American dream thing like greed and then we find this house that was insanely expensive. Nobody wanted to buy it. So it had been empty for so long that it was kind of already like, there was mold in it.

It was, there were like mice floating in the pool. Of course we clean it all up before the actress went in there. And we just outside basketball court, inside basketball, crazy house, crazy, crazy. I've never seen a big house like that. And so that house inspired me. But of course, we changed things accordingly. But we also were able, because it was so insanely big,

to actually find every space that Sarah and I wrote in the script to find that back in that building. And it also gave me the opportunity to use it as a theater almost. Everybody had their space there. All the actors had their rooms there. The technicians put all their gear there. So nobody had had to leave we didn't have to go anywhere else i think that really helped with the atmosphere of the film and the pressure cooker it was literally a pressure cooker for us as well you know i really like one crazy night movies i don't know if that's a

sub-genre that you thought much about as you were preparing to do this um or if there's any that were any inspirations or things you thought about as you were preparing to do this? Or if there's any that were any inspirations or things you thought about as you were preparing it? Yeah, we, I was inspired by a lot of films. I like, I also like movies that have sort of unity of place and time, you know, that actually like, and the pressure cooker feeling, I think my first film Instinct has a little bit of that because it takes place in a prison. And this is one house. And of course, again,

that's also very much theatrical, you know, it's just one space where everything takes place in one sort of go. But I was very inspired by a movie called Don's Plum. This is a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio in it. How did you even see this movie? You can't even see it anymore. In Europe, you can find it in like a very like obscure little like shop. You know, you find thed and you have to but i was i i saw this

movie and this was my biggest inspiration for bodies bodies bodies and basically i mean uh it's about young people you know they're just talking they're going to the bathroom they're using drugs or having sex and they keep on talking talking talking lots of language um and i just love how real and raw and and and funny that film was. So yes, that's something I was very much inspired by, but also Heathers. I don't know if you know the film Heathers with Wynonna Ryder. This is all old people talk.

That has been a great inspiration because that's a horror movie with great twists and turns and just fun. And I also really wanted to make something super entertaining, because coming from having played Hedda Gabler, The Taming of the Shrew, and all these huge strategies, I was like, give me, I want to do something that people just laugh and just are so entertained that they don't even feel that time is going by.

So I watched also just a lot of horror films, of course, and black comedies. Reservoir Dogs, weirdly, was an inspiration for me too. I could see that being trapped in one place with a couple of psychos. Yeah, and the way they speak and the humor. And so, yeah, all those films I thought were inspiring. And Ari Aster, of course, I mean, I'm only saying that in all humbleness. It has nothing to do with bodies, bodies, bodies bodies but it does inspire you to think out of the box and think theatrically about things

that might not seem theatrically on the page i will assure you that you are the first filmmaker to cite don's plum in the history of this show that's that was incredible uh i like i like that it has a it has a lifespan in europe because it does not anymore in the united states it's been it's been abolished for some reason no it's fascinating to me that it that it has a it has a lifespan in europe because it does not anymore in the united states it's been it's been abolished for some reason you know it's fascinating to me that it that it i did i wasn't aware of it to be honest when i saw it for the first time that it was sort of forbidden i still don't really understand why also of course kids you know which is of course a totally different film because it's a very serious subject matter and our films total comedy total you know way more open to an audience but But Kids is, of course,

one of the best films ever. And it also is capable of really going into their world. And that's what I liked about it. You're really speaking my language. I feel like that would be an interesting film to show the characters in your movie

and wonder how they would feel about the way that those characters are portrayed versus the way that you're portraying your characters and the way that maybe movies are portrayed versus the way that you're portraying your characters and the way that maybe movies have changed and not changed so much um yeah those are great that's great i would love to be there when my characters watch kids it's a great that's such a wonderful idea yeah and also times have changed of course i mean as we started the conversation with social media and just narcissism and vanity and it goes for all of us it goes

through generations you know it has nothing to do with just a young group of people, but that's just how we live right now. Do you have another film lined up? What are you doing next? Yeah, well, I am working, I'm writing my new film as we speak. And yeah, I'm continuing to work with A24 and I just really found my home there.

And yeah, that feels that is like the best space and they are very supportive of me really creating my own stuff. And yeah, so I want to, I want to continue on that path. When you mentioned that A24 actually sells their films, you know,

they actually get audiences to show up, especially the kind of art house genre movies, like the ones that they make. Is that something that you think about, that you care about? Like, are you interested in the business aspect of how the film performs? Do you track that stuff? Or is that secondary to just making it? No, that's totally something that's completely on my mind. And that is also something weirdly, I learned from my director, Eva von Hofe, who even that we did theater, which is, of course, way more niche than film he was

always like whatever we make it needs to be a sold-out house and he was like of course we're making high art or whatever that is but there needs to be a sold-out house that's like a goal um and so that's has always been on my mind even in my career before this um and with Instinct me and Carice who's my best friend, Carice van Hout, who was also in Game of Thrones, we really made it almost like a game to sell the movie. And even though the movie was hardcore

and radical and dark and sexual, we wanted to sell it. I was like, I love that. I think that's great. And with this film in particular, this is also, for me, a great exercise in trying to be more commercial. You know, I was like, how can I live in that world without selling out?

Like, I really feel that I'm very proud of this film and of Bodies, Bodies, Bodies. And I'm really excited about it. But of course, no, I'm very much that's very much on my mind. But it also scares me, of course, because this is a very big stage, America. And I want to do really well and i want to also make everybody proud so i'm also trying to not be too obsessed by it you know because i'm afraid to get hurt but i i hope and also because now i feel so proud of the film and i feel i finally made something that everybody can see instead of that i'm like oh well this is you know a little too dark maybe for my neighbor now I made something for everyone and so I now I get this feeling like I

want everybody to buy a ticket so I need to call myself that are you done with acting yes I'm I'm fully retired I don't want to be nobody can seduce me back in is what I'm saying now but of course maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe in the future but I'm so enjoying this But of course, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe in the future. But I'm so enjoying this now. And I think if I want to take this seriously, which I, of course, am,

I really need to focus on it, you know, and I really need to do this for a while. Yeah. Helena, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen?

Oh, my God god what have you seen recently that you love okay i'm watching and i'm in the middle of it so i'm not allowed to speak of it but i'm going to speak to um a broadcast news and again i'm such a granny sorry it's not your it's not your first time watching it is it it is it is i I feel so embarrassed. So this, no, I love it. And I love it. It's Holly Hunter. And she's such,

it's such a great, and William Hurd and Jack Nichols. I can't, I can't even like, I'm blushing because I'm embarrassed that it's my first time, but it's my first time. So I'm watching that. Actually,

I interrupted myself watching it to talk to you. So I'm going to finish it. Cause I'm watching it. We better end this interview ASAP. Cause you got to finish it. It's one of my favorites. That's great. Hey, congrats on Bodies, Bodies, Bodies. I look forward to all the films you make in the future. And thanks for doing the show. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks to Helena and thanks to Joanna. Thank you to Bobby Wagner for his production work on this episode. We're off next week on The Big Picture,

but we will be back with a fun new movie draft after that. See you all soon.