The Big Picture - Top Five Vampire Movies and ‘Morbius'

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

With the release of ‘Morbius,’ Van Lathan joins Sean to discuss the new Spider-Man-adjacent Jared Leto vampire thriller (1:00). Then, they share their five favorite bloodsucker movies (25:00). Then, Sean is joined by Charlie McDowell to discuss ‘Windfall,’ his pivot back to film, and the art of the all-in-one-setting movie (48:00). Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Van Lathan Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Dave Chang and Chris Ying. We are the hosts of Recipe Club. You may have listened to it before, but we are now back on the air, new and improved, with the same hosts that lose every week. I still don't know what the rules are, because they've changed as well. Chris, can you give a quick rundown? Every week, we debate the best way to cook the things you want to eat. We take a user, listener-submitted recipe recipe and we all cook it with our friends, Priya Krishna, Rachel Kong, Brian Ford, and John DeBerry. And then we talk about what went right and what went wrong. No, I actually really don't want to do this podcast. And they are hardly our friends. They are enemies. They are enemies. It's Dave's civil disobedience. If you want to see Dave Chang in an act of civil disobedience, tune into Recipe Club where he will not follow the recipe. I'm contractually obligated to make this podcast.

But I'm here to have a good time. So listen to Recipe Club every week on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about bloodsuckers. Later in this episode, I'll have a conversation with Charlie McDowell. He's the director of Windfall, slick, entertaining new noir on Netflix starring Jesse Plemons and Lily Collins. I hope you'll stick around for that chat. First, Van Lathan is back. We're talking about vampires. We're talking about Morbius. Van, what's up? What is going on, Sean?

How are things? Things are wonderful. You know, it's been an interesting week in the world of movies and popular culture. I'm so excited to be not talking with you about Will Smith, if I'm being perfectly honest. We're going to talk about a Sony Marvel film starring Jared Leto. Before we get into Morbius, which I'll just, I'll preface by saying is getting very bad reviews. Do you have any relationship to the character of Morbius? A little bit. Yeah. So Spider-Man has this extended universe and in this extended universe

are all of these characters that Spider-Man is really the only solo character, I would say, in Marvel to have spawned an extended universe this vast. I know somebody's going to come in and go, no! But Spider-Man has, in his world, Blade. Blade has a connection to Morbius. He has in his world Kraven the Hunter. He has in his world all these other guys who are interesting characters on their own. And Michael Morbius like one of those characters uh anti-hero started off as a villain to spider-man a villain to blade a villain to other guys in that situation but as

time went on as you see a lot of times with vampire lore the vampire or werewolf sort of archetype becomes is this a person who is an evil blood-sucking menace to the world, or is this a person that is cursed by something that compels them to do something that we all believe to be ghastly? And that ends up being sort of like an expression on humanity itself. We all are trying to do our best, but we're cursed with these vices. And what if your vice was sucking blood it's not too different than morbius except for he's super powered has all these other things so he's kind of escaped spider-man the spider-man world uh to a degree and and had his own very very

important um a very very relevant existence in comic books for the last some odd decades but yeah so if you know spider-man and you read a lot of spider-man you probably know uh at least a passing grade amount about michael morbius yeah and if you're a fan of the spider-man movies you probably should at least be aware of the morbius movie because now that sony has officially taken hold of the spider-man property and it seems like they're going to be making their own universe of Spider-Man movies. We've seen Venom. We've seen Venom Let There Be Carnage. We talked about that movie on this show.

Both of those movies were big hits. So we're getting more Spider-Man extended universe movies. This is the latest one. It's directed by Daniel Espinosa, and it stars Leto, as I said. And I thought this movie was not good man I thought it was quite poor uh I I I had assumed it would be this was this film was originally supposed to come out in the summer of 2020 it has been delayed many times in part because of the pandemic also in part because I believe there were many reshoots on the movie I I saw a tweet last night that I thought

indicated that you liked Morbius. Did you like Morbius? I did. Tell me about it. Tell me why you liked it. So number one, there is, I saw it later than everyone at the ringer, right? You guys have already seen it. And so expectations obviously work both ways if you have super high expectations about something the the line is razor thin about whether or not they can disappoint you

if you have super low expectations about something like super low then the movie just doesn't have to do that much now i'll have to watch it in a vacuum at some other point. But last night, I'm not going to act like I didn't walk into the movie with these super terrible putrid expectations and then go, hey, that wasn't that bad. Also, you guys saw it in screener crowds and I saw it with a group of folk at the AMC. Morpads? Did you go with some Morpads? There were some Morpads in there a little bit. I'm going to be honest with you.

And if need be, I bring Kalika in here to corroborate this. The movie ended last night, and there was some applause wow i'm not even joking i promise you there was some applause and after the second of the two most mediocre uh post-credit scenes we've seen in movie history there were people going yeah so i'm not saying that people are going to like this movie by the way pack theater on theater on a Thursday night. Packed theater. Packed theater on a Thursday night. I'm not going to say that this film is going to outperform or that it's getting a bad rap or anything like that.

I am going to say that it ain't that bad is what I'd say. I'm with you on that. I think, one, I'm not surprised to hear it was a packed theater. I think this movie is going to be very successful. I think one, I'm not surprised that here was a packed theater. I think this movie is going to be very successful. I think that the brand is really strong right now for movies like this.

Even the extended movies. Let There Be Carnage was one of the biggest movies of 2021. That was like an 89 minute sequel to one of the strangest superhero movies ever made. This movie,

I don't think most people know about its troubled production history. I don't think people really care about that. I think they're excited about more stories in the Spider-Man world. I agree with you about those stingers, which are borderline absurd. I felt like I was being punked when I was watching them.

Not very good. You ever see a scene where you're watching the scene and you go, that's so-and-so actor. How'd they get him to do this? But, you know, it's like one thing to take some kid, whatever, he's on his way. You plucked him right off, right out of the Arrowverse. And this is his first big movie that he's ever going to make.

But I'm watching that and I'm like, how did someone get Michael Keaton? How did someone get Michael Keaton to do this? This is fucking intensely bad, you know? So those sequences, I think, are actually a good entry point into why some of the movie doesn't work for me at all, which is that this whole movie,

which is essentially about Dr. Michael Morbius, who's kind of a genius prodigy biochemist stricken by a rare blood disease. And he becomes, while trying to cure himself, a living vampire. Morbius is the living vampire. That's the character name. Leto plays Morbius. Matt Smith is in the movie. Ty movie, but are essentially an entree into what I guess will be some sort of Sinister Six-style movie where we see this collection of Spider-Man villains coming together. There's a lot to unpack with the Michael Keaton aspect.

He, of course, played the Vulture in... That was the first Spider-Man movie, right? Homecoming? Yeah, Spider-Man Homecoming. Yeah, right. But that was in a different... Wasn't that in a different universe? Wasn't that in a different...

That's in the MCU, yeah. So he had to be teleported into this other dimension. So that... You see the sky broke. The sky broke as it did at the end of Spider-Man No Way Home. So when you saw the sky break... Sean, stop. I just hate when the sky break, Sean, stop. I just hate when the sky breaks like that.

It's just such a bummer. You wake up on a Thursday, you're getting your coffee going, and then the sky breaks, and you're like, damn, I'm a villain in another universe. Sean, okay. You don't want to be a William Zabka 80s villain here. Okay. Okay.

Ro Williams Zabka reprised Just One of the Guys. A forgotten movie that's really good. I love Just One of the Guys. Love Just One of the Guys. Joyce Heiser, we should discuss her one day. Yeah, definitely. But yeah, so

if you remember Spider-Man No Way Home, the multiverse had broken at the end of the movie and you saw those villains coming through. It breaks in just that same way. That's probably the moment that that was happening. And somehow, Adrian Toomes made his way from the MCU-verse to the Sony-verse. That's the thing.

When you are watching a movie like this, are you getting invested in Michael Morbius' story, in his pain pain in the journey that he's trying to take to not be a vampire i mean that in that way this movie is very similar to a lot of vampire movies it does have that curse aspect that you're talking about on the other hand i felt like um every character in this movie was pretty razor thin like are you when you say it's it wasn't that bad are you getting invested in the story or is it just,

it is kind of an easy movie to watch and let wash over you. So what was it that was appealing to you? I'll go back to one thing you said before. Okay, you're getting all dressed. This is what Morbius the movie did. It let Spider-Man get them into the party. Think about it.

You're about to go to a club or a party. You're all dressed up. You're like, hey, I'm Sean Finnegan. They're going to let me into this party. I'm Van Latham. They're going to the Uber. You know what I mean? Your jacket got wrinkled. You get there. It's like you're texting with the people that are supposed to help you out. They're not getting back to you. You're stressed. The production of you getting into this party is not going well.

All right. Then when you get there, you see somebody you know, and they're walking in. And you go, fuck it, pry to the side, I'm just going to latch on to this person and walk in with them. It's not about me being myself anymore. It's about the fact that there's somebody cooler that I know that's going to get me in here. That's the way I look at Morbius. Morbius stopped trying to be a movie and started trying to be Spider-Man Jr. post No Way Home because they realized they couldn't get into the movie-making party. It wasn't going to happen.

They thought that they could, which in 2020 would have definitely been a different situation. Even 2021, obviously, you know, pandemic had some stuff to do with that as well. But they thought they were launching something. And this is Jared Leto reaching out again for some comic book type of uh credibility which i'm not sure why he's doing that but it yeah i guess for the money um so this is jared leto like reaching

out for that he want he wanted that because he's taking this film very seriously he seems to be the dallas bias club 2 colon michael morbius so so you know what I mean? So he's going for it. But so the movie definitely, definitely, and as evidenced by those cut scenes, is living in the realm of, you know Spider-Man, you love Spider-Man, wait till you see Morbius. You know what I mean?

Now, having said that, I think that these are the things that I like about the movie. Number one, there are certain tropes that just work on me. And trope is i'm sick i'm trying to save my life so there's a scene in the movie that i felt to be weirdly effective it's like an actually well-directed scene and there's one scene in this movie that's well-directed wilder the fucking four stars for four stuff four stars Wow Jesus Christ um and there's a scene I'm not spoiling

anything where Michael Morby is he's a vampire so he has a hungry as a thirst and he'll revert back to his sickly body if he doesn't drink blood during a certain amount of time. And there's a representation of that that they shoot from a rear angle when you see his body becoming

like what it is that it was before. Right, atrophying. Yeah, the atrophying. They did a fantastic job of making him and not only him but his best friend in this film look really sick and helpless and hopeless by this disease so watching him come out of it and then setting the stakes about what he'd do to stay

strong and what he'd go through and the curse that he'd bear in order to be this uh this best version of himself kind of worked for me you know it's not something that we see like explored too much in vampire tales you know what i mean uh people delving into the curse of it i mean you we see it but we don't see it in terms of something that they elected to do that much we have the familiars and blade we don't see very much as people going i'm sick i'm going to die make me a i'm I'm a vampire now. And that's going to sustain me forever and ever and ever and ever. So for some reason that worked.

And I didn't mind. I know people had a really, really huge problems with the effects when he was Morbius. I don't know. For some reason, it didn't bother me that much. You know, it was, it was different. I hadn't seen it. Are you on the Morbius payroll? Just tell me here. I'm not on the Morbius payroll just tell me here on the pod

I'm not on the Morbius payroll did you just say the effects were good I didn't say they were good see here's the deal here's Sean double talk fantasy I never said that they were good what I said was that

I didn't mind them as much you make some really good points I think one of the things that's really cool about the character is was that I didn't mind them as much. So, yeah. You make some really good points. I think one of the things that's really cool about the character is the character is a true blend of science fiction and horror. You know, Morbius is a scientist,

so he's taking the tropes of the vampire story and kind of integrating this concept of like the quest for a cure and being tortured by not being able to control himself. That stuff is very interesting. A lot of that is in the core text of the original character the the tricky part is i thought the effects actually were were pretty pretty bad pretty laughable but even more so the the whole like welcome to the the spider-man club you know metaphor that you're using here to explain feeling comfortable is the tone of this

movie is totally different from any of the spider-man movies and the venom tone is a little different from the spider-man movies but the venom movies are actually quite funny and they know they're quite funny even if they're a little bit over the top this movie you said it it's kind of trying to be dallas byers club too it's very serious But then he turns into a vampire and like kind of a cheesy looking vampire at that. And this is a hard R comic book movie that has no sex, no sensuality, frankly, very few human connections that are understandable. It's just purely violent. And I don't really have a problem with the violence, but it is cartoonish violence because of the way that the effects work. And so as I was watching the movie, I was like, this is what I deserve.

You know, I waited all my life for the Marvel universe to come to movies. And now we're at the stage where we're digging into second and third tier Spider-Man characters. And we're entrusting them to people who are not as gifted as some of the folks that run the Marvel movies. And so we're getting this tone, brain dead, mediocre effects, Oscar winning actors slumming it for the payday stuff. And is it watchable? It is watchable. You're not wrong about that. I didn't get up to go to the bathroom. I wasn't looking at my phone. I wasn't mad when I was watching it. But when it ended, I was like, I'm wasting my life. And so as we get deeper and deeper into these worlds, and as we get ready for Craven the Hunter, and we figure out

what other stories they're going to tell here, I guess like, is this just a standalone issue, or this is a movie that was maybe a little troubled and maybe doesn't have the right tone, or is it that do we need a Spider-Man universe here that we spend the next five years of our lives obsessing over on the Midnight Boys on this podcast and elsewhere? You probably don't need the Spider-Man universe, but that's neither here nor there. You're going to get it. Okay. People who don't know the business of this, Sony has an option on Spider-Man where they have to make a new Spider-Man movie every five years or else they lose the character. And I want you guys to tell me right now, any other characters that can

carry the tentpole for so many right now, there are none. They're not going to do that. You're going to get Spider-Man every five years inside of that in perpetuity. Well, there's one other answer there, which is, unfortunately, also Tom Holland in Uncharted. They're attempting to build the Uncharted

universe. No? Not going to happen. Not going to happen. I saw it. They missed missed okay you know i still haven't seen it it's like the one movie this year i haven't seen not horrible but it's not gonna it's not gonna it's not hitting like they want it to hit you know what i mean better or worse than morbius oh it's better than morbius you being pro morbius is one of my favorite things in a while it's better than morbius look i just i i i don't know man you know i've been beaten down by travel i've been on the road lately maybe i just i was just happy to be back in la but but um but no so this is the thing what the mcu has shown us is that there's enough story to make any of these characters into a good

movie there just really is yep The Guardians of the Galaxy, no one cares about the Guardians of the Galaxy in the comic book. They're a quirky group of space-faring jollies that pop up at different times. And people have had some good runs with them. You know what I mean? Doctor Strange is an incredibly important character

in the Marvel universe in comic books. He's had some amazing times huge different stuff i'm not saying that but when we were doing comics in the 90s and when i say doing comics i mean me all the rest of my comic nerds everything was so colored by the x-men the x-men was such a large force and not just comic books but in culture that uh a lot of these other characters themselves were second right i could make an argument to you that captain america has always been a second rate comic book character i think for people of our generation that is true i think you can make an argument

that iron man was a b-lister that like thor all of these guys were these were the b-list characters these weren't the x-mans and the spider-mans because those were the ones that were really carrying marvel i'm not saying they didn't have awesome arcs because the infinity war itself in the comic books was really hugely an avengers story as you know but um but the avengers themselves second to the x second to the x-men i'm saying all of this stuff is like you can make a really compelling morbius movie you can make a really compelling cravenius movie. You can make a really compelling Craving the Hunter movie. The MCU has proven that. The MCU made a very decent and watchable

and a lot of fun Ant-Man movie. And had Edgar Wright made it, it probably would have been a masterpiece Ant-Man movie. But that's just going to take an inventive an inventive take on the character and a real artistic drive and vision which kevin feige has for his universe and sony doesn't you know like the the same problems to be honest with you that sony's having are the same problems that DC is having. You know, it's funny you say that because the thing that this movie reminded me of a little bit is the early days of the MCU when you would get something like Kenneth Branagh's Thor,

which had not yet locked into basically what Favreau and Tony Stark created tonally in Iron Man, which then kind of became the tone of all MCU movies. And it would move in one direction or another, and the barometer would shift from time to time to slightly more serious or slightly more daffy. But this kind of like uber-quippy, very bright action set pieces, can't-go-more-than-five-minutes-without-a-joke style of storytelling, the Spider-Man movies also have that tone even though

they can be quite serious at times this movie is the opt i mean there's like one and a half jokes in morbius and they're not funny and it's it's an interesting turn because what happens when morbius shows up in a spider-man movie we're going to be like this doesn't click at all like there's the tonality is going to be so interestingly different and whether or not they change that they probably will they probably will you know find a way to make all the pieces fit together but even hearing michael keaton and jared leto talk to each other at the end of the stinger the second stinger i'm like these two people they don't belong together like they're not even from the same worlds and yet we're supposed to believe that they're gonna and they

are i guess not from the same worlds but we're supposed to believe that they're gonna and they are i guess not from the same worlds but we're supposed to believe that they're gonna team up and have a like-minded interest it's just i feel i feel a victim he's talking to vulture why i don't know that's the whole thing like what what what what why does morbius give a fuck about spider-man who does who does that kid that's not what morbius cares about morbius cares about being able to walk straight and solving blood problems. Yeah, getting blood. He's a blood solver. Blood. He cares about blood. Was Spider-Man got some blood on Locke, two for five?

No. I don't know. Did you just say that you said that Spider-Man's a blood dealer? I mean, you tell me. I'm like, what does Morbius care? That part, it just doesn't make any sense. But, you know, once again, if the movie was in any way,

they could have written that, they could have set that up. They could have set that up in some specific way. It could have worked. It's just not going to work unless you understand what you're there to do.

And Venom had that same problem, but Venom was just so kooky. Venom was so kooky that you could go long swaths of the movie and forget that Venom, that this is even what you're doing. Venom could have been a movie completely based outside of any comic book lore, and it would have worked

because it's a crazy fucking romp. It's a romp. But this movie- It was in a different city too like i think venice being in san francisco this movie being in new york was seeing the daily bugle that was really the only thing throughout this movie that ties it to spider-man until you get to the end and so it just felt like a lot of hack work you know like and i get it this happens in some of these movies the connective tissue is important but is important. But I get annoyed when these movies actively insult the viewer's intelligence. And they're like, just accept that we believe you're a moron and you'll accept this because you really want to see Sinister Six in 2027.

I find that a little bit frustrating, personally. I've never understood the appeal of a Sinister Six movie. Sinister Six, Senator Six. Senator Six from the great state of Montana. Of a Sinister Six movie. Senator Six, Senator Six. Senator Six from the great state of Montana. Of a Senator Six movie. They've been trying to do this for a long time. They set this up at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Yep.

And tried to get us hyped for Paul Giamatti as Rhino. And you know what I mean? It's like, get your characters right. By the way, before we move on what you just said about the mcu in terms of the tone that they struck if you go back and you watch sam ramey spider-man uh of course spider-man 3 was a debacle but if you go watch go back and you watch sam ramey spider-man he was able to do that exact same thing you're right he was able to do this thing to where these movies had this incredible emotional weight with

this insane spectacle of action pieces but they were also funny you know green goblin's talking to spider-man he pulls up next to him slacks him on the head like let's talk old buddy and it's just you like the best superhero movies don't run away from the fact that they're superhero movies yeah there has to be you have to laugh a little bit if you're watching a 100 year old soldier from 1945 lead a billionaire in a mech suit alongside of an asgardian guard with a guy who literally only has a bow and arrow that's funny so if you if you try to run away from it it's not gonna work i think that's part of the problem with morbius i think we've probably spent more time in morbius than i ever expected to in my adult life um i i can't say i would recommend people see it but if you're

interested in the connective tissue perhaps you can watch the cut scenes uh when they hit youtube in about six months let's talk about vampires though because one thing this movie is a it is a real vampire movie and it certainly is yeah and maybe that's part of the issue is that it's trying to do a tone that it can't do because of the nature of vampire movies and the vampire movie that i thought of the most while watching this and when i was even when i was hearing you talk about it was actually interview with the vampire in which he kind of is the brad pitt character you know he's cursed he has a self-awareness about this curse he's trying to break it he's trying to create this universe in which the world knows that he is struggling with this but he doesn't want to hurt

people and obviously some vampire stories have have dug into those waters before do you like vampire movies is it a category you care about love them them. I knew it. This is why I asked you to do this. So tell me about why you like them. Well, a couple of reasons. Number one, my early experiences with vampire movies, they were both terrifying and oddly comforting. Like when I was a kid, my grandmother used to, she used to know this guy named Calvin Lockhart. Okay. Okay. Yeah. There's pictures of them.

I don't really want to talk about it. But. Was Calvin a vampire? Where's this story going? He was Blackula. Oh, of course. Mm-hmm. Oh, so she knew in quotes?

She knew Blackula. Wow. What? So. My word. And so that got me. It's just this this beautiful picture i'm gonna show it to you one day of my of my my grandmother and calvin lockhart this is a gorgeous it looks like two perfect people my grandmother's so beautiful calvin lockhart they're just standing together i'm like wow interesting so they are they're um so i watched blackula right blackula was actually the first vampire movie i saw okay i thought dracula was

actually coming after blackula i thought blackula right white people appropriating once more yeah you know what i mean i was like they got their own dracula too um so and then i also saw salem's lot that's that's it that's a big one which scared the shit out of me if you go back and you watch salem's lot they got the yellow eyes bro i remember i don't see how they put that on tv back in the day. That was so scary. And so I thought they were some kind of thing. My mother was like, they're vampires. I'm like, oh, they're different types of vampires. And then from there, it goes to the Monster Squad.

And all of these movies with vampires in them. And then I get to, it gets to a point to where I'm really into the differing types of, werewolves as well, the differing types of vampire lore that they have. I get to be about 12, 13, interview with the vampire come out. So then you had Bram Stoker's Dracula drop from Francis Ford Coppola. So you had these really heady, amazing, sort of almost super serious cinematic vampire movies. And then you also had your basic vampire bullshit that was down at the bottom.

I think Nicolas Cage was in a movie called Vamp or something like that. I can't remember. I think he was in Vampire's Kiss. Vampire's Kiss. Vampire's Kiss was the movie. So, and I'm seeing all of this stuff. Jim Carrey, Once Bitten.

That's right. But like all of these different things about uh fright night and and so i'm getting this whole different sort of uh backdrop of vampires then i started coming into the movies that i really love a little bit later so it's just it was it's a it's a concept that a lot of filmmakers have had uh a lot of differ, amazing takes on. And I'm into that. I'm into taking something like that and everybody having their own take on it and it being this connective tissue of the lore itself. So I got into all of these films heavily, but it started with Blackula. That's really interesting. I mean,

you said a lot of the same connections that I have to it i love that it's the stories are so malleable so that you could get you can get a blackula and you can get a i'll give you some of the my favorites on the list but you mentioned salem's lot salem's lot was it's technically a mini-series it was a mini-series i think aired on abc based on on a huge uh stephen king bestseller but one of the greatest vampires in movie history in that movie. The effects, and directed by Toby Hooper, who made Texas Chainsaw Massacre, one of the great horror directors ever.

And you could also have fun with the movies. Like one of my other favorites is From Dusk Till Dawn, which is like one of the funniest movies of that era. And is a great action movie, is a great vampire movie.

The vampires are different. The way that they look, the mythology around them their powers are different you get incredibly serious film no sferatu is one of the most important movies ever made german movie in the 1920s but that movie is riffing on bram stoker's dracula but isn't dracula like everything is so redefinable interchangeable malleable that we're going to be getting vampire stories probably forever it's it's like it's a subgenre that never ever expires there's rumors that both karen kusama and robert eggers are making either dracula or nosferatu stories in the next couple of years 100 years later this is a hundred year anniversary of nosferatu so it's something that totally does not expire um is there is there anything you you look for or that you really want

out of a story like this or is it just you know kind of whatever the filmmaker wants to do to tell the story this is the thing that i love about vampire movies the most unafraid humans does that mean john carpenter's vampires is on your list? Yep. That's my favorite one. What? Wow. That's my favorite one.

That's my favorite one. Because they're not afraid of those vampires. They're not afraid. So this is, so like, I was obsessed with Abraham Van Helsing. Why? You can't win, dummy.

Like, you know what I mean like it was but and this this led me into by the way which you know me as a kid i am legend those characters are a little bit more clearly vampires in the book yeah and even in omega man which is the uh the heston one yeah the heston one they're a little bit more clearly vampires they're by the time will gets it he slaps the shit out of the movie and they become dark seekers you know what i mean um so they seem more like zombies and a little zombie type of situation even though the sunlight still bothers them but john copper to his vampires it's not the best vampire movie ever made but it is this weird from dusk till dawn sort of it's it's got that but it's also got the catholic church in there it's got some very traditional vampire elements in there also with this new funky way of viewing them and i always feel like vampires they're more of a test for

humanity than they are sometimes for the creatures themselves because they have all of these people who are dedicated to stopping these tremendously powerful, unafraid, like ridiculously bloodlust-thirsty, sexy creatures, you know what I mean? And so like you got James Wood, Adam Baldwin in that movie. I just like the idea of it being somebody's job every single day

to attack the supernatural and find out new ways and new technologies. The battle between man and vampire in many ways, like I said before, is a battle between man and the worst parts of himself. So I love to see that on the screen.

Interview with the vampire is good to me. I like it. But it's one of the Vampire is good to me. I like it. But it's one of the least compelling vampire movies to me because it's really just all about the vampires. Which I like the interplay between vampire and man.

Between not just vampire and the man that man used to be, but between vampire and the man that is now. So although I like that movie and it's a beautiful movie and it's really, really well done, I like to see vampires versus humans a lot yeah that's interesting i mean interview with the

vampires iterative right it's like it's a movie that's reflecting on hundreds of years of vampire stories sure and then go and and kind of define that thing that you're talking about but i love john carpenter's vampires was didn't make didn't make my final list but um i think chris and i might have even talked about it on the show before it's got uh it's got like a mean-spirited like john wayne western kind of attitude of course it's like i'm gonna blow your head off kind of movie while also having the vampire lore also thomas ian griffith a great like big bad the dude from karate kid part three i mean i was with you when he popped up in that movie i was like oh shit it's terry silver yes you know what i mean like the great vampire and he could do like martial arts um okay what are some of your other favorites i'll give

you a couple of mine i mentioned from dust till dawn and salem's lot those are two big ones for me one that i just checked out for the first time in a while and honestly i had forgotten how hip hop this movie is is the addiction have you seen that one with lily tay I have not. Oh man. So it's an Abel Ferrara movie from the mid-90s. It's shortly after King of New York and a handful of those movies he made. And the soundtrack, it's set in New York. It's a young woman going to college, I think studying philosophy.

And she has an encounter very early on with a vampire. She gets bit. And the movie, it kind of treats the movie not dissimilar from Morbius actually, where she thinks she has a sickness of some kind and she comes to find out that she is becoming a vampire, but the soundtrack is

Cypress Hill and Onyx, and that's it. To what? And I want... What's Cypress movie? It's called The Addiction. I believe it's on Shudder right now. Highly recommend it.

I think you'd really dig it. Yeah. Fredro stars in the movie. Spoiler alert, he gets bit by Lily Taylor it has one of the craziest kill scenes set in like a

it's almost like a college reunion or like a professor's gathering and it's just an all out mayhem in this one sequence and it's enabled for our movie so it's like real nasty

real grimy shot on the streets of New York no permits real ground level movie I love it I like real nasty, real grimy, shot on the streets of New York, no permits, real ground level movie. I love it. I hadn't seen it probably in 20 years. Produced by Russell Simmons.

I've never seen or heard of this film. What the hell was I doing? I think you will. I think you will love it. Obviously, it hit me at like the perfect time for my interest being like a weird kid who went to the library and read books about monsters and also just listening to rap all day. So I was like, wow, they made this for me. But that's a very good one

if people haven't seen it. What else? What's another one you dig? The Lost Boys, of course. Speak on it. The Lost Boys is a perfect 80s film. Perfect. Once again, it has the dynamic that I like. Vampire against humans humans except this time it's your little brother your annoying little brother is now the one who is fighting vampires

you got the two cories you got great looking people and you also have the feeling of being an outsider and the question is what would you do to fit in in a new place where you are to get that girl to get all of these things? Would you give up your forever? It's such a teenage question. Like, oh, my God, I would be a vampire forever just to be able to go to cool parties in a cave. But the movie still works even today. You know what I mean?

And it's such an unremovable, unshakable part of my youth, that film, because it's right in the middle of the vampire era. Looks great. Sounds great sounds great also huge twist the nice guy is a vampire you got a tubby vampire in there a vampire that's like not super good looking and anything but still wants to have sex with your mom you know what i mean yeah yeah so uh new place people do it's it's really not just one of my favorite vampire movies you know joe schumacher is back and forth as far as a filmmaker people feel about joe but he's in his bag in this one you got great schumacher thoughts you got schumacher thoughts right there so many i mean we we actually just i think we talked about batman forever recently on a pod you and i I. I was unkind to it.

I kind of love Joel Schumacher, even though he's made some mediocre movies. Lost Boys, he was born to make a vampire movie. Of course. You know, the style and the melodrama that he's always interested in. He literally goes back and forth between some of my favorite movies of all time and some of the worst movies of all time. My guy went The Client, then Batman Forever, then A Time to Kill kill then batman and robin then eight millimeter he almost is like toggling a fucking roller coaster ride he really was a roller coaster he's almost like the nicholas

cage of directors yeah you know how cage like you look through Cage and you go, shit, he was in the adaptation? You know what I mean? Like, you go through and then you'll go, oh, my God. But then after, you know, like, Nick goes up, Nick goes down. People, we'll talk. I want to do a whole part with you on Nicolas Cage's career. Have you guys done it? You are invited.

It's happening later this month because there is a movie called The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent just saw it this week so funny you bring that up so come do it with me because he his hall of fame is the hardest to build ever like picking 10 movies of his because he's made 30 atrocious movies but he's also made 20 classics so classics i know it's it's a classic he would and his his vampire movie is insane vampires kisses he is so over the top is is crazy it's a tricky one. Classics. And his vampire movie is insane. Vampire's Kiss. He is so over the top. It's crazy. It's a roach in it. But yeah, so The Lost Boys is another one of my favorites. Obviously, I love From Dusk Till Dawn.

The one movie that as a kid that age that a trailer got me to go see because of our very great friend Salma Hayek. I also love two movies that I don't think, one movie that's definitely a vampire movie and another movie that is on the cusp. I think I've brought this movie up before on the podcast before. I'm not sure if you know it. So one movie that's obviously a vampire movie that I love is Vampire in Brooklyn.

It's not one of Eddie Murphy's better movies but I love it as a vampire film it like it works and it holds up really like weirdly well the more you watch it is it because you did bring this up when we talked about coming to america the second coming to america movie what is do you think that movie would be better if it wasn't an eddie murphy if it wasn't eddie murphy or an Eddie Murphy movie? Right? That's really kind of the issue. Yeah. Yeah. Not that Eddie isn't great, but it's like you're expecting something different when you're watching him and he doesn't really give it to you.

Doesn't give it to you at all. And I think he thought that we were ready for him to completely play it straight as a vampire. And we weren't really there yet. You know what I mean? We weren't there to watch eddie completely play it straight as a vampire give us more of a kind of traditional vampire movie even when you're talking about his relationship with angela bassett and the film and everything's kind of like a traditional vampire affair so but i really enjoy the movie

and another movie is a film called death by temptation i have it in my honorable mentions i'm so glad you brought this up okay so death by temptation is a movie is a film called Death by Temptation. I have it in my honorable mentions. I'm so glad you brought this up. Okay, so Death by Temptation is a movie. It stars a black actor named James Bond. That's the guy's name, which I believe that James Bond also wrote and directed the film. I'm not sure. He did.

James Bond III. James Bond III is this guy's name. Samuel L. Jackson, Kadeem hardison it seemed like one of those movies that new york actors just got together and were like hey we're gonna make a movie together and it's gonna be death by temptation still to me is one of the scariest movies i've ever seen this is a really great movie that for many years was super hard to find i feel like i recommended it like a year or two ago on a horror movies episode that we did but you're right it's really good it's actually shot by ernest dickerson right in the time when he was shooting spikes movies like in the early 90s so it looks really good it's really scary

it's really weird it's um it's also an aids movie you know it's set in the time during the aids crisis and it uses aids as like uh kind of a to tell a story about fear of blood and a blood disease. And also has a great soundtrack. Also set in that kind of like hip-hop world of vampires. It's a really good recommendation. I'm going to give you my number one. Well, I'll just say I have to give a shout out to the original Dracula. The Todd Browning 1931 adaptation.

Bell Lugosi. Still one of the most captivating things I ever saw. I was definitely seven or eight years old first time I saw it. One of those movies that kind of got me hooked on movies because of how

entrancing it is. But my favorite is Near Dark. I don't know, have you seen Near Dark? Do you know Near Dark? I have not. Okay, this is a great one.

Directed by Catherine Bigelow. Also features one of the most incredible kill sequences in a bar that you'll ever see super duper violent it's become a cult movie over the years stars adrian pasdar and lance henriksen and bill paxton interesting yeah and it basically follows like a it's like a family or or like a

collection of like vampire nomads who are driving across ok, just killing people left and right. And a farmer's son gets trapped by these vampires. And then they get locked in this kind of like, will they or won't they battle of vampirism where it's like, is this guy fully going to turn himself over to the vampire lifestyle? Is he going to kill himself? He keeps finding himself trapped in this situation. He falls in love with one of the vampires on the trip.

So intense. Tangerine Dream soundtrack. Sort of like ethereal and otherworldly. Love that. And Catherine Bigelow right before point break kind of figuring out

how to become one of the best directors in the world. Beautiful movie. Still kind of a tough movie to track down but one that scared the shit out of me.

If nothing else just watch the bar scene that i'm talking about because it is messed up and when i was nine years old and i saw it it changed me forever why were we doing this to ourselves i don't i don't know we were kids man is like there's a scene of death by temptation that i won't watch even till this day the kadeem hardison scene where he gets i it is terrifying. Another movie that has a lot of bar deaths, actually. A lot of bar deaths because they're sitting there at the bar. Like I was watching this stuff as a kid.

We were kids. I was like nine, 10 years old looking at this. You know what? I've said this before, but one of the reasons why I love horror, I wonder if this rings true for you, is I'm pretty cynical. And I know movies so well

that it's hard to surprise me or to get me to feel things when I watch a lot of stuff. And horror movies is the only genre really that gets me feeling deeply. I love to be scared. I love to feel the intensity. I love to be shocked by something. Very few kinds of movies can do that. But horror to this day, vampire movies, obviously a big part of that. You're more of like, I feel like you're a little bit more enthusiastic sometimes about movies. You're still willing to be surprised by other things that are not like horror. But does that ring true to you at all?

Well, I think that there's this. Yeah, it does. In short, I think that there's this thing to where I can't stop. Horror movies challenge my intrigue because I'm such a slave to my intrigue, right? I'm such a slave to my curiosity in almost all forms of life. It's interesting when that curiosity is going to scare the shit out of you.

Can you stop yourself about being curious from something that's like, is who you know is going to scare you and that's been something that's been the thing that horror movies do for me is like on the other side of that damn do i need to be watching this and then like you get scared and you're like fuck you know what i mean it's like i want to see what's going to happen like that kadeem hardison scene that i'm talking about in death by temptationemptation, he starts off, the demon vampire's trying to get him, and he's watching himself on the television as himself

walking into this scene, and it's him against him. It's almost like something out of Freddy Krueger, and in there, it's like it's so fucking trippy, and even as a kid, I used to be like, shit, but I could not look away.

I just couldn't look away. And I think that's kind of what gets me about horror movies. The fact that I can't pull myself away from something that I know is going to scare the shit out of me. Let me ask you one final question.

Because this is something I've toggled with over the years. And even though I am cynical, pragmatist, realist, I believe in science, all those things, there's a little part of me inside. Very small.

But every once in a while, it echoes are vampires real they are could they are real i knew i knew you would be with me on this yeah they're out there right they're they're out there sean and and i have this whole thing we'll get into it over a drink one day where i've moved to la and i thought that my neighbors were vampires I'm being totally serious like unironically because LA is the place where they live Sean this is where they live there's no vampires in Baton Rouge let's just keep it gangster they're not like they're not they're not in Baton Rouge there's no there's not a good quality of blood it's blood is very fatty you know but but in a place like New York Los los angeles this is where they are i i kind of feel

like this is i'll give you a robust six percent chance robust that they're actually real we're so we're so on the same page i i six percent is like the perfect number of how much if you if there was a a report in the new york, I got an alert on my phone. They were like, breaking news. Vampires are real. I'd be like, I knew it. I knew it. I fucking knew it. Van, you're the best.

Thanks for doing this. No problem. Listen to the Midnight Boys on the Ring Reverse podcast. Listen to Higher Learning. Incredible Will Smith breakdown. Oh, thank you very much. Amazing episode. Let's do it again soon.

We'll talk about Nicolas Cage later this month. I would love to love to love to love to love to okay buddy let's go now to my conversation

with Charlie McDowell Charlie McDowell is here it's been five years since we spoke Charlie I was thinking about this actually, because I just talked to the director Ty West and he had this six year gap between films. And in that time, he spent a lot of that time directing episodic TV and you were doing something similar. And I was thinking about it as, you know, the discovery and

the time between for this film, Windfall. And why no movie in that five years why did you spend that time working on tv projects yeah well it's funny because actually ty who have who i have never met but i'm a big fan of we both did uh an episode of tales from the loop which is uh an amazon show that uh that i was my favorite experience that i had in tv and and um and ty did such an incredible episode on that but yeah um honestly it's the answer is one i the best material that i read was in television and i think that there was like this mass kind of movement towards all stories are now told in an eight hour, you know, period of time. And and I kind of got sucked up into that because I was sent stuff that was really interesting and cool to me. And and I wanted to explore it um

looking back on that and actually this film uh windfall is a result of like of having enough of of that experience and wanting to kind of take back um ownership and control of of my own, you know, creative ideas and thoughts. And, you know, TV is interesting because unless you are the creator, and I have really good friends, Zal and Brent, who created the OA. Like, when I see the OA, that is their signature stamp. It is all them, you know. You really feel it and um a lot of the experiences that i had in tv i was coming into something that i didn't create from the ground up um and

and it's interesting as a director and i'd be curious to talk to other directors that have come done like a pilot or something but you're you're asked to bring you as as a filmmaker like they're hiring you because you you have something that they're interested in either visually or the way that you you know direct actors or whatever it is and then once you finish you hand over well you have about four days to edit and then you hand over your pilot to other people and then they decide what the show is you know and um i've had some some really positive experiences and some really negative experiences and i think for me i i sort of especially when the pandemic hit i almost went back to the way i made my first movie you know and and and made it very similarly you know it was in fact we shot at a house a mile away from where we shot the one I love. So it was like, it was so similar in the

experience. But the difference was, when we made the one I love for very little money, one location, two actors, that was a result of first time director, I can't get a movie financed. And I had Mark Duplass say, like, I believe in you, I'll bet on you to do this, you know? And then this experience with windfall was the world has shut down. Uh, everything is uncertain. Telling stories is uncertain how we tell them, can we tell them and also our sort of creative energy. Like it was really friends getting together, being like, where do we put our creativity? And, and,

and so then this film came out of that, you know, it was really like, again, let's contain it to one location, very few actors, but we're doing that because we can keep people safe. We can bubble a crew.

We can keep it really small um but what that allowed for was a similar experience as to why i wanted to make movies to begin with which is i have this bizarre idea in my head i want to explore it with actors i want to i wanted to feel like a just a little bubble of like people that trust each other you know and um and so we we we had the opportunity to do that again you know and and so that was it's sort of like it got me really excited about making movies again. And I realized that I had kind of fallen into this like machine of like, oh, I can do this. Oh, they want me to come do this pilot or this really cool TV show. And it's flattering.

And oh, I love the creator. I love the actors, whatever it is. And then after doing this, I'm like, okay, no, I really like to create something from the ground up that most likely if I pitched people wouldn't make, you know, like the one I love is like, that was an experience. It was truly an experiment. You know, like we had no idea if that was going to work.

We didn't even know if like the special effects side of things, could even pull off on a shoestring budget you know and this was this was similar in that it's like we're making something that's like you know one location it's kind of a play it sort of has a modern day noirish feel um it goes to a interesting place you know which i won't which I won't give away. But it's like, if you pitch these things, and also all the actors are kind of working against what they're known for. And so if you pitch these ideas, people just wouldn't make the movie. But when you take control and you just go do it, that's how we were able to get it done and also what just got me excited about it it's funny hearing you describe the pilot process and working in that environment because it sounded a little bit almost like 23 and me where you're like you know you're

getting something out of it you're learning some information there's something a little bit revelatory but like you're giving up some of your dna and then someone else just like has it you're learning some information there's something a little bit revelatory but like you're giving up some of your dna and then someone else just like has it you know and and i imagine when you have a movie like this especially it sounds like crew that you're tight with obviously working with jason again working with your co-writer that you've worked with you have like a crew of people that you can kind of realign with and be in control i guess more yeah and like i realized and i don't know if of other directors feel this way but like my my best version of me as a filmmaker and storyteller is if i like really just trust everyone and feel like i can totally fail in front of them. And what's, it's a different hat with TV because you're coming into something where it's like, yes, there are good and bad TV

directors, but like, if you fuck up, you're still, it's still getting done. Like it's moving forward no matter what. And, and so there, there's a propeller, there's a, there's a studio there. There's all these people that are like pushing this thing forward and you're kind of joining that group. But like when you build something like this, it's like windfall, the, you know, we're making this in the pandemic. It's a year ago from right now. Uh, the DP and I, Dante and I went to the house that we're making this in the pandemic it's a year ago from right now uh the dp and i dante and i went to the house that we shot at and stayed there for three weeks he and i just he and i and we just walked through every scene and blocked out every scene the way in which we imagined it

we didn't even talk about where the camera what the camera was doing yet we just talked about like how the actors interact with each other probably how one would start the process of of a play and um and then from there we just started to i mean dante on his phone has the entire movie shot with me playing all the parts and like holding up a pillow you know as the back of someone's head and like and and we just we just kind of talked through how photographically we wanted this film to feel and how much we wanted to focus on blocking like that was the with each project i always look at it as like what's the thing i want to try to tackle that i haven't really done and this this film was blocking for me it was something that i hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about i had kind of like gone in

with ideas and then let the actors kind of just move around and play. And this was like, I really had a, I really like told the actors where they were going, you know, and then let them find everything within that space, you know? So it's, the creativity of it, I think is endless because you have no one telling you what it's supposed to be it's it's completely up to you as to the direction and tone in which it takes which which is really exciting to me it's funny because there are a few very legendary all-in-one location movies but maybe not as many as you might imagine because what you're describing just,

it sounds like something that there should be like five of these a year where you're getting a handful of really well-known actors and putting them in a space and then letting a small crew kind of run wild and do as much as you can in that space. You know, did you have to like sell anybody to finance this movie?

Like, how do you get it paid for? Is it Netflix from the jump? movie? How do you get it paid for? Is it Netflix from the jump? How do you get it made right away? What was cool about this project, and it was a real shift for me, because prior to this film, I was trying to make another film for, it was like two and a half, three years almost,

in the writing all the way through. We had a cast, and we had a cast and we had a finance then we lost finance you know went through the whole kind of indie machine and um this one was interesting because we were keeping the budget so low knowing that we were it was so contained and we had jason on board from the beginning jason jason is is actually the one who came up with the one line idea of what this movie was and and also a character in which he was interested playing and um so it was the easiest movie to get financed because when you go to financiers and basically say, we're going to make this with or without you,

if you want to be a part of it, then jump on this moving train, you know, like, and, and, and let's hear your idea and proposal of how we do it. Because when you,

when you start to add up everyone involved, you have Andrew Kevin kevin walker is a writer who gets an absurd amount of money to write a movie because he's a huge studio writer you have jason siegel who equals x amount of money you know and then and then once jesse and lily came on board it's like this movie equals if we're if we're breaking it down in numbers equals a lot of money we're making it for way less and this is before netflix is involved at this point so i went out to just a few people that that i was interested in working with and essentially said this is what we're doing we're keeping it the costs very low in order to just go make this.

Um, if you want to be involved, like give me your pitch, you know, essentially like what, what can you do? What can you bring? And, and so all the previous experiences was me like begging people for money. please please like we need a little bit more money and and uh and uh this experience was like it was interesting once you kind of like just say you're gonna go do it and you move the ball forward as if you are then it starts to attract people of like okay i want to go play with these guys and see what they're up to you know and and that was also the experience uh in casting jesse who who i'd worked with before but jesse's not jesse's someone who like he needs to find a way

into the character because he's not like you can track every movie he's done every show that he's someone who like he needs to find a way into the character because he's not like you can track every movie he's done every show that he's done and you can track that it is he found a way into that character he had an idea and he went for it you know and and and is genius in every role that he takes on. And so this was, we originally wrote this character as an older CEO, like more of a kind of traditional older guy that we picture in this role and not a sort of younger tech guy. And there was a moment when we were trying to figure out, you know, who the trio is going to be and and also that's like that's a big thing not just in terms of who's performing but who's coming into this like tiny little space with very few people like who feels comfortable doing that, you know, and, and, and I, I knew Jesse would really love and excel in that space.

And so I called him and I just said, look, I have this project and you're going to read it and you're going to be confused because it's not, you're not going to know how to play the part as written because he's written as older, but I think think you're gonna see what we're going for here and the ideas and themes we're exploring and i think we can rework this part for you because i just i just kept picturing him like no matter what i just pictured justy and i didn't know what he was gonna do but i knew it was gonna be electric and funny and dark and weird and kind of all the shades that I wanted it to be and so anyway he he read it and he had that exact reaction he was like I don't know man like I don't I don't know the way into it and then we just kept exploring and

then at a certain point I think it just all clicked and he was like yeah let's go let's go play you know and it was before the scorsese project so i think it was almost like like i'm gonna warm up and get ready for scorsese and and come do you know this little movie with you guys and um and yeah it was a it was just this incredible experience to work with those three actors that all approach, they all approach it so differently. And yet, we were all so close and such good friends and such good collaborators. Like, it was the best collaboration I've ever had with actors. It was just so in sync and so creative. And we were changing stuff in the moment.

And Jesse was pitching ideas to Lily about her character in a scene a week from the day. And it was just like, yeah, it felt like camp. It was like a creative camp of people that was just like, let's go for it. Let's take a swing and see what we do, you know? I had written down here that Jesse plays a real asshole in this movie. And he's played like weirdos and he's played even like psychopaths, but like a true blue asshole so that was fun to watch him do that you know you mentioned lily obviously you're now married to lily too so i'm curious like what that's like when you're in these close quarters working very closely you know there's a huge difference between being in a

relationship romantically and being in a relationship creatively like what was that like for you guys and also to have two other actors kind of like watching you work together yeah it's it's funny because i didn't well one we were we were engaged when we you know so it really could have gone gone south had we had a huge risk man yeah um so we were like planning a wedding at the same time but it's funny it's like it shows you how powerful storytelling uh and stories really are because when i worked with lily the second we're in the scene i'm that it's not my fiance now wife that i'm watching. It's really not like, I don't, I don't view her in that way. It's like, she is the character I am looking out for the performance and,

and what she's doing in every scene. Of course, you know, in the back of my mind, especially, you know, from the beginning and through to the end i am making sure that i am supporting her in a way that it's like okay hopefully she can

she's going to give her significant other the best performance she can give and that i don't fail her like that that was something i thought about a lot but in terms of in terms of the scenes like it she she was an actor that i was working with you know and and that's really how i viewed it and and like i said we were all so close and it's so much about the three of them that so much of the discussion, like it was very rare that we would kind of like, I would have conversations with like one person at a time, you know, it was like, it was a collective, this is the scene.

What if we try this or let's go more in this direction. It was a sort of collective thing. And so, yeah, so it was a sort of collective thing. And so, yeah, so it was, I think the idea of it of working with your partner is much more daunting than, than actually doing it. Because I think very quickly we fell into the, like I'm the director, you're the actress, we're working together and that's our role. And then, and then the

weird part is then you leave and you were like we're going back to the same space you know so so it was more like it was like funny logistical stuff where it was like I had to go in 15 minutes early you know to go set up a shot and she was like well let's not go in the same car because i want to sleep 15 minutes later and i'm like yeah but let it's then we can go together and we can like have our coffee in the car you know it's like more stuff like that than anything else but uh but no it was it was really um it was an amazing experience to work with her. And also, you know, Lily is like, obviously I'm biased, but Lily is like a real chameleon of a performer and as a human. You know, she's, I think people think they know who she is or they see her in a certain way or they see her in a role and i remember like because we were together when she was filming mink and

i i would you know say goodbye to her five in the morning as she went to work and she'd come back and she was like bubbly happy lily you know and that doesn't sound like someone who came back from the fincher school of acting i know so it's like so in my mind i'm like oh she's just like not she's not like connecting to the thing you know whatever i'm just like i'm having i'm making assumptions in my head and and then well one then then i i know um fincher and and see on his wife and producer and kind of that whole group really well and and and knowing fincher and and and his reactions to a lot of people like he's he's you know he's not the easiest nut to crack. And I heard and then saw when I went to set that he was so impressed with Lily and what Lily was doing. And then when I saw the film, I got really emotional because I was like, wait, you were leaving me in the morning and doing this?

This is the work you were like, and she just, she's so unassuming. Like, she just like, she just kind of dives into something and like channels something that you don't always see, you know, that she's not a tortured artist. She doesn't like live and breathe in this thing like she goes and does it and then she's like her beautiful self afterwards you know and and so it was really cool to make this with her because i thought she she really found a lot of small subtle moments with this character that were quite powerful and then by the end um you know she a lot a lot was on her shoulders you know and and i think she did a really incredible job and and and really blew me away and so yeah it was i was really proud of her i know that's weird to say

but like i was really proud of what she did and and proud of working with her i think if if people um are only familiar with her from mank or emily in paris they will also be a little surprised by yeah character it's an interesting pivot which is what we wanted for all of you know it's like and and when jason pitches the kernel of the idea of like you know what what if we do this it's like you know it's it's also with jason it's like jason is i mean jason is just such an incredible actor and and i've loved working with him multiple times. And what is so great about Jason is he really can do anything. So he can, he's one of the funniest people I know. And then he can do a dramatic turn in real life and,

and on screen that, um, that is just really powerful and, and, and fascinating to watch. Like I, I love watching him perform and, and with this, with this film too, it's like, he's known for a certain thing and he's done it really well for a very long

period of time. And then, you know, in the last, however many years he's focused on other projects other ideas other stories and he's done some really incredible work some of which is is underrated and hasn't been seen as much as it should be and and others he's gotten a lot of praise for but but this was definitely a character where like when this, when this film was announced,

I read all the comments online and people being like, well, obviously Jesse's the robber and Jason and Lily are the couple. Like, I don't even need to see the movie. I already know what it is, that kind of thing. And I loved that.

I mean, I loved reading that. Cause I was like, okay, well wait till they see that it's actually not who they are. And, and so Jason, you know, jason even

just physically looks different and like with his like his facial hair and that the facial hair came to be because we had been isolated for so long in covid and then he came up we decided to zoom and he came up on my zoom and he had like a beard and i was like jason what i was like i haven't seen you for months clearly and and then when we started to talk about the character i was like i want him to look like how you are right now um and he was like oh you mean like i haven't left my house in like three months and i was like yes i want you to look like that so it was fun to kind of play against type with all with all the actors quickly tell me about the shooting in one place thing did you study any other movies that that tried to deploy similar

strategies like did you figure did you was this all pure invention yeah i mean well here this this is such a like um ridiculous kind of ego answer, but I don't mean it to be, but I hadn't, I hadn't rewatched the one I love in like, since it came out, um, since the premiere, I hadn't seen it. And cause I really do like when I finished something, I like, I really do just like, it's done now for me and i have to put my mind into something else and i was curious because i remember when we made that film we had a 10 minute rule where every 10 minutes we had to introduce a new idea or something changed or shifted in the film in order to keep the audience's attention and we really did we were like quite

specific about we we felt like it was 10 minutes we had people and then we needed something else for one location and so we didn't have that same rule with this but i did re-watch that to sort of see um what we did i think to keep the film interesting in one space and like really maximize this sandbox that we knew we had, you know? Um, and then in terms of one reference, which I think you'll understand,

but it's, it's such a different film. Um, but I rewatched, uh, force majeure, which is a film I really loved, like one of my favorite films in the last decade. And, and what I thought was brilliant was in that film is you have a setup

and it's very simple. And once you realize what, once that setup happens and sort of goes into effect then you see the ripples of how it affects relationship and character and and also and again it's totally very different from windfall but also they are in kind of like one space they're at a ski vacation place you you know? And, um, so I thought that that was interesting to watch just in terms of like, we have a setup and without this setup, these characters would not be affected by anything to do with their, uh, their character traits and how they interact or communicate with each other. But because this happened,

because this situation happened, now we are analyzing, well, now wife is analyzing her husband's CEO and she is looking at him differently. And she probably never would have had this situation not happen. So I thought that that was kind of an interesting thing to look at um and then i did look at like a film like knife in the water where you have three characters one space and again that was like all that was really for like blocking purposes like i i really liked in that film how especially with like two guys and a woman,

how the blocking shifted sometimes with like the woman being closer to the guy, the younger guy, and then being disconnected from her husband and like how they visually did that with the frame, but also just in terms of how they, how they're positioned with each other. So I looked at that film and then just, I think, an overall inspiration of, like, classic noir,

which I didn't want to try to replicate. I wanted to do, like, what I felt was a sort of modern day-ish version, but yeah, like classic noir and that a lot of the way in which they aren't over complicating it with uh emotion you know emotion from the the hand that is in charge of of the film you know so i think a lot of indie films now today tend to like have a sort of a roaming camera that gets really close to the actors and like they're creating emotion, you know? And, and that works a lot of times, but, but sometimes I think it's, it feels too manipulative. And this was like, I wanted to make something where the camera, well, especially in the first half,

the camera moved only based on the actors moving to a space. So it's just like a dolly in a pan and then it stops and then they keep talking. And then an actor comes and lands in a closeup. The frame hasn't moved. It's just stayed there. Like I really wanted to, to focus on like how i could make that interesting and a compelling way to shoot the movie without without it feeling like i was generating a feeling an emotion you know and and there was a moment like two days or three days into shooting i i

called my dp dante and i was like are we making something really boring like are we shooting this in a really boring way and and he was like he's like let's stay the course like we just spent three weeks building this like let's stay the course and and i'm really happy with, um, with how we shot the movie. Like I, I really, I'm proud of it. Cause I think it's, I think it's purposeful and we have intention behind it. And it feels like there are like,

there is spontaneity to it. It feels like there's energy, but it isn't, we're not just like finding the moments in the editing room, you know? What are you going to do next? Are you going to keep making movies? I am. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, to me, it's all about the story and the idea and the characters that take place in the story. Like it's all, and it's random.

I'm really not someone where it's like, I have, I'm not Wes Anderson where it's like, I have a style. I have a thing that I do. And, and, and so,

but you do, I was going to, I was going to mention this to you though. You do a little bit, which is like, you're still doing original effect essentially dramatic storytelling with like very very light like not quite science fiction but there's like a kind of unease in all of the stories that you tell so like you have i i don't want to give you a brand but like you have

a little bit of a brand yeah yeah yeah that is true yeah and i do i do have a weird slightly sadistic thing of like of making stuff that makes people feel uncomfortable yeah yeah i think i i guess what it is for me is there's a lot of great storytellers um and there's a lot of content being made and so a part of my job is like what is my place in that and why why is what i'm telling do i need to be telling it you know and that and that's what i look for so i typically respond to or if we're writing something from the ground up something that isn't safe or perfect like i i really don't have any desire to make something perfect i have way more desire to explore something that makes an audience think bring the makeup of their life into the film, debate with each other, question, you know, like,

and so I do think I've made stuff that has pissed some people off, you know, like it has, like I've definitely, I can see on Twitter when people write to me sometimes. And I had to like early on be okay with that because I really like playing in that space. I'm not going to be a filmmaker that has a perfect polished movie that is universally going to be loved. Maybe one day I will, but for right now it's like i don't know i'm

i'm just searching for stuff you know it's like what are the things that like that makes me think differently or just even just you look at today it's like and with windfall it's like we i felt like trapped in a space you know and, and I wanted to make a movie that made you like capture the feeling of being imprisoned to your own space, which, which I always thought was a very safe place, you know, and, and I'm a homebody. So I love my space, but then I started to like get scared in it and I started to get sad in it. And I started, you know, I like went through all these emotions.

And so I was like, Oh, how do like, I started to get sad in it and I started you know I like went through all these emotions and so I was like oh how do like I want to capture that you know and I don't want it to be about the pandemic but I want to capture that feeling and so so we went down that rabbit hole you know and and so for me it's kind of like well what's the thing that that sparks the like the thing that i feel like i need to tell you know um and i really do like i know i will veer away from this but i really do like single location movies um now you're talking about a brand there you you go. Yeah, I kind of am with that. But I think what is, and you said it earlier, there's not a lot of them. And what I think more people should do is like, when you read a script, especially, and then obviously when you see it in a film,

but when you read a script, you're just like, cut to cafe, you know, they're eating at a cafe, blah, blah, blah, blah blah blah blah and then it's a two-page scene and it's like okay now cut to and they're in a bedroom of an apartment and there's like there's not much thought or regard to like the space you know it's just like okay well now we're going somewhere else and these characters are here now and i'm interested in like finding the arc of the characters and then finding the arc of the space you know and like for instance in windfall the opening shot is setting up this kind of beautiful you know idyllic house and this you know beautiful building and grounds and then we come back to that same shot an hour into the movie literally the same frame but something bad has happened and it's

still the same house still beautiful still sunny but now we view that space because of what has happened in it totally differently than we did when we first saw it. That's really interesting to me. Like that's like quite powerful that then the space becomes a three-dimensional character, you know. And so I don't think I'm done telling single location films yet because I'm quite I'm quite into that like I really do and I find it to be a challenge you know and then at a certain point I think you do have to like if I want to tell bigger stories I'm gonna have to branch out of that but but I do the single location could be Central Park though you. You know, you can think bigger. There's a whole park there.

That's a lot to explore. Yeah, I don't know. I think that that's, I find that interesting. And I do, whenever I go talk at like a film school or something, I'm like, go find your version of that. You know, like go, because one, you're able to contain it. It's much easier to go make. But also, it's not such a daunting... It's not like the world is your oyster. You can do anything. It's like, here's what you have.

Now maximize that. You can be the master of enforced limitations. That is a great career. I'll take that title. Charlie, we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen seen anything good lately oh um the worst person in the world yeah let's go why'd you like it um i think he's a master storyteller and there's i just think it was so it's so beautifully shot first of all in a way that's like not so obvious you know there's movies that are obviously shot well and and everyone

recognized them and i just thought that this was so inventive and the tone of it was like, he created this, I don't know his own like feeling and tone. I just like, hadn't felt, hadn't seen something like that in a long time. And I thought the performances were amazing. I don't know. It just really affected me emotionally.

And then I was completely in awe and jealous of the storytelling you know like I was like oh that's like like I can't I mean his career I will now just like I can't wait to see everything that he makes you know and and then and then also power of the dog which um you know which which is so exciting for me because it's like it's it's my friends you know it's like and i know i know cody a little bit too so it's like i know a lot of the people involved and and i just like kirsten who i who i made spent six months making a TV show with, and obviously Jesse. Jesse and Kirsten are two of the greatest actors in Hollywood, in my opinion. And they have both been overlooked, I think.

And to see them get praise from this community and bigger, you know, outside of this community. Um, I'm just really happy for them because they're, they're such incredible performers and, and this film just really got to me. I thought it was such a beautiful film.

So yeah, those are the two. Um, and then one other that i just saw recently was hand of god which i just like that was so weird and funny and i just like all of his films are they are and i just like i don't know i just and they're like quite mood dependent it's like what mood are you in when you watch it and i was just like ready to eat that up you know and and so yeah those are the three that kind of like i think really shook me this year those are great charlie thanks so much for doing the show

congrats on windfall thanks sean it's really great to chat with you and i i love uh i love your podcast and i listen to it all the time. So I feel honored to be on it. Thank you.