The Big Picture - Welcome to Dumpuary: Breaking Down a Bad Movie Buffet | The Big Picture

Episode Date: February 18, 2020

The Oscars are a distant memory, but we are still trapped in February, a typically scary time for movie lovers. Sean and Amanda explore the good, the bad, and the ugly of the 2020 Dumpuary movie slate so far this season, including 'Sonic the Hedgehog,' 'Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey,' 'To All the Boys I've Loved Before P.S. I Still Love You,' and 'Fantasy Island' (1:11). Then Sean is joined by Oscar-winning screenwriters and directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash to talk about 'Downhill,' their American remake of the Swedish film 'Force Majeure,' and working with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell (68:54). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, it's Liz Kelley. We have a new podcast launching this week exclusively on Spotify with Chris Ryan and Chuck Klosterman called Music Exists. Here's the trailer. Hello, this is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at TheRinger.com. Hello, this is Chuck Klosterman. I'm a friend of Chris Ryan and The Ringer. And this is Music Exists, a podcast where we talk about how we think about music. Yeah, this is not a podcast where we tell you what music to listen to, or we necessarily comment on what's happening in the culture right now, or what you should be listening to tomorrow before your friends do.

This is a podcast about thinking about music, even when it's not playing. Yeah, how does music shape the world you see around you, the world you feel around you? How does it make you feel about yourself? Yeah, particularly if the music that world you feel around you? How does it make you feel about yourself? Yeah, particularly if the music that makes you feel things about yourself is Steely Dan or Black Sabbath. Or Radiohead. Yeah, that happens. That comes up a lot. Music Exists, a podcast about Radiohead.

Available exclusively on Spotify. I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about dumpuary. That's right. We've hit that point in the movie calendar when the trash is beginning to pile up, Amanda. We have gone to the trouble of seeing a bunch of films, maybe so the listeners of this show don't have to. And I think we're going to go through each film, film by film, and talk about what works and what doesn't work and maybe a little bit more of what doesn't work. Yeah, why not? This is a podcast about movies.

It truly is. Later in the show, I'll have an interview with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, the co-writers and directors of Downhill, the new remake of Ruben Ostlund's Force Majeure. The movie stars Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. It's very entertaining. It's quite a bit different in tone and execution from Force Majeure, so if you're interested in that, please stick around.

But first, Amanda, let's talk about Dumpuary. What is Dumpuary in your mind? It's the time when the bad movies come out. Yes. Well, see, now historically, that is January and February. But as we get older and movies get arguably worse, Dumpuary exists across many months. It's true.

There are a couple seasons. There is the January, February, and then traditionally it was August was another. Truly. I don't know what the portmanteau is for bad movies in August. Garbugsd. Okay, great. Okay. Truly. I don't know what the portmanteau is for bad movies in August. Garbugs. OK, great. OK. Congratulations. But now people have seen that August is a time to maybe release an interesting movie. And so the bad movies sometimes now come out in June. Last year, it was actually May. And sometimes it corresponds to the quality of the movie. And sometimes it corresponds to just like box office totals

and when people feel like going to the movies. But there is a traditional understanding that if a movie is scheduled for late January or early February and it's not like a theme movie, it's not like a romance for Valentine's Day or I guess there is usually some horror counter-programming for Valentine's Day. But if guess there is usually some horror counter-programming for Valentine's Day. But if it's just a movie that's coming out in the first quarter, there's a reason.

Especially if it seems like a big movie. If it seems like a big, noisy tentpole movie that you've been hearing about for a long time, and it arrives in February, that means it's been punted to February, more than likely. Now, the movie calendars changed a lot. Like the first two to three weeks of October is now this really important corridor where movies like Joker and A Star is Born go in there with the expectation they can be big hits. That wasn't true 10 years ago. So the calendar is always evolving. And we've had some good Februaries in the past. You know, I mean, February, I believe, is when Get Out was released. So it's not like there aren't great movies potentially released into this period. But the other thing that is going on here is that we have a truncated Oscar season.

So normally on this show, at this time, on this date, we would be doing predictions. Yeah. You know, it would be if we were leaning into this weekend coming forward. But with Oscars being moved up, we've got this vast open window before whatever the next like MCU movie is. Which is a bit later this year also, because in the past few years there had been MCU creep and that started in April and then even March. I think Captain Marvel was March last year. I think you're right. So it's a real vacuum. It really is.

And that's the other thing. There's one other version of Dumpy Worry, which is all of the movies surrounding the biggest movie of the year. So if you look at the release schedule last year around the time of Avengers Endgame, not super great. And if you were forced to make, say, podcast episodes about movies around that time and not talk about Endgame, you'd have a tough time. Yeah. We have a lot of movies here to discuss. I guess I just want to talk a little bit more clearly about what is going on at the box office. So generally speaking, coming off of its big Oscar win, Parasite had a great box office performance.

It's made over $200 million internationally, which is just extraordinary and an amazing achievement. A film that we've talked about on the show, Bad Boys for Life, continues to chug along. It is significantly bigger than I expected it to be. It's going to make well over $300 million. 1917, still drawn, folks. Sure. All the Deacons heads, they're watching Rango at home first. Yeah.

And then they're checking out 1917. Could I share a movie-going anecdote with you? Certainly. So yesterday, I was dropped off at my local movie theater to see a movie that we'll be discussing later. Don't want to spoil it. How exciting. And I had about, it was about 20 minutes early because, I don't know, logistics in Los Angeles. And so I decided to check out the Arclight like restaurant and cafe for the first time.

No free ads, but let's just talk about the Arclight Cafe. And I was drawn into a really special community at the Arclight Cafe. I made friends with everyone there. They wanted to know what I was seeing. It's not like I was trying to make friends. It's the group of about 10 people. But famous podcaster Amanda Dobbins was flagged down? No, they didn't know who I was.

They just wanted to hang. Yes. I walked up and I hadn't eaten lunch, so I was ordering a little food. And every single person there was like, oh, what are you seeing? Have you seen Parasite? We're about to see Parasite. But everyone did want to make sure that I had seen Parasite there, which was very sweet. And I was just kind of like, you know, I have. I've actually seen it a couple of times, but just trying to go with the flow. But there was an older couple there who were very diligently going through the Oscar slate now. And they were there yesterday to see

Joker, which I didn't say anything because I was trying to be part of a positive community. And then they were planning to see Parasite the next day and they had just seen 1917. So it was very cute. They were just ticking off all their little theater going boxes for the Oscars a week to three months late. Yeah, our home field, the ArcLight Hollywood,

is a fascinating place right now for movies because half of the slate is what you just described. If you want to catch up on the Oscar movies, they're all still playing in theaters. You want to see JoJo, you can see it there. You want to see Ford vs. Ferrari, I think it's even playing there. All those movies are still playing there. And then you got all this other stuff, which is not Oscar movies. When I had to tell this really friendly elderly couple which movie I was seeing and then explain to them what it was, it wasn't my most confident, proudest self.

Yeah, well, I don't think we felt good about how we spent a lot of our time this weekend. I apologize to my wife and partner in life for dragging her to some of these movies, for making her endure some of this stuff. Before we get there, let's just talk about a couple of things. One, this weekend is really the first big kickoff weekend of the year movie release-wise. Three studio features were being released, plus a big Netflix movie all came to audiences. And things are not really getting better. I mean, the next few weeks, if you listen to this show, we're going to be making some creative leaps to keep the content churning because, I mean, next weekend is Brahms' The

Boy 2. Did you see The Boy 1? No, I didn't. I didn't see The Boy 1 either. So it's going to be a little tough for me to check out Brahms. Does this have anything to do with, like, the composer Brahms' The Boy 2. Did you see The Boy 1? No, I didn't. I didn't see The Boy 1 either. So it's going to be a little tough for me to check out Brahms. Does this have anything to do with like the composer Brahms? I don't believe so. Okay, I'm a big Brahms fan.

The composer. I think it's more about a doll that comes to life. Okay. That's not the answer I was looking for. No. There's also a movie called The Call of the Wild. Yeah, there is. This is a movie starring Harrison Ford, who's a wonderful movie star,

who's interacting with CGI dogs. That's the Wild. This is a movie starring Harrison Ford, who's a wonderful movie star, who interacting with CGI dogs. That's the movie. Harrison Ford hangs out with CGI dogs. What I would give to be just on that green screen set as he interacts with the dog. I just only released the outtakes of Call of the Wild and I'll pay $30 in theaters opening night. Did you see any of that behind the scenes footage of him interacting with the man in the green screen suit acting as the dog? No. So Terry Notary, who is, you know, an Andy Serkis-like CGI performer, motion capture performer, who is perhaps best known for working on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes, and famously is in Ruben Ostlund's The Square as the man who impersonates the ape at the dinner. Oh. That very famous thing. He plays the dog in this adaptation of Jack London's The Call of the Wild.

Only the best CGI for Harrison Ford. Truly. I mean, this is one of the most seasoned mocap performers in the world. The video is fucking ridiculous. I can't. It's so crazy. 80-year-old Harrison Ford. The silliest person in the world. God bless him. Why did he make this movie? It's such a straight. I mean, it might be good. I don't know. I don't know. Okay. Do you remember the video of,

do you remember the David Blaine Maddox special? Certainly. When Harrison Ford is in his kitchen. That's good stuff. David Blaine pulls the thing, gets a dollar out of an orange. And Harrison Ford, I don't want to cast any aspersions, but perhaps he'd been having a nice Saturday afternoon before the cameras arrived. And it's like, he is so wild. If Call of the Wild were just that

Harrison Ford for two hours, I would also be really excited. If you told me the premise of Call of the Wild is a super stoned Harrison Ford hangs out with a dog, I would watch it. And it might be that.

We just don't know what to expect. So I don't want it to be all doom and gloom through this conversation. There are some movies that have come out this year that are good. So what we're going to do is recommend those movies very quickly to people. The first, of course, is Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Yes. We've talked about it a couple of times on the show in brief. Yes.

I interviewed Celine Sciamma, the filmmaker behind the movie. This movie only is, I think, is only in four or five theaters across the country, but it made half a million dollars over the weekend. That's a good sign. Yeah. That means people are interested. Is there anything you want to say about it

that won't spoil it for the movie audience? I've said everything that I can say without talking about the details, both of the movie itself and also the meta text. I've just really gotten into like deep Celine Sciamma, Adele Hanel conversations with other people who have seen it. If you know of any French gossip blogs that I can read, like please point them my way. One of the personally rewarding experiences of my weekend was discovering that my interview with Celine went viral on the Sciamma Hive on Tumblr, which is a thing that exists. Is that where I should be looking?

Yes. Okay. I would go to Tumblr. Yes. There is a crazy portrait of a lady on fire hive. Of course there is. I can't believe it didn't occur to me to look there already.

It is truly where that movie belongs, and I mean that in a good way. Now, other movies that are out in the world, Il Traditore, a.k.a. The Traitor, which is Marco Bellocchio's gangster epic that I would highly recommend to people. It's very long, very deep, very Italian, very well made, and sort of funny and bizarre, and not exactly like the gangster movies that you have seen before. This is not like Goodfellas or Scarface. It is a little bit more of a mood piece and a little bit more of a historical document about organized crime in Italy, which is not something I know about.

It's all entirely based on a real person and a real experience in the Cosa Nostra. Would recommend people check that out. Also, The Assistant, which is a very good movie that I saw at Telluride that is largely—have you seen it? I had a chance to see this one. I have, and also recommend it. It's very good. It's directed by a woman named Kitty Green who actually made the JonBenet Ramsey sort of meta documentary on Netflix a few years ago. This is a fictional film that is essentially largely about a woman who works for a Harvey Weinstein-esque figure.

And the key to the movie is that it's seen completely through her lens. It's entirely with her, the entire film. It's very tense. It's pretty upsetting. What did you make of it? So, a tremendous performance by Julia Garner, who is the woman in question, the assistant. I thought it was a great movie. It does have wine scene overtones.

And obviously that's something that a lot of people will be interested in with good reason right now. I thought it was just also such an interesting portrait of what it is to be a young person, particularly a young woman in a workplace and the powerlessness that goes into that and all the different ways that that manifests itself and all the different characters that you meet in that workplace. It's very closely observed and it is upsetting. You're right. Kind of defeating. It is defeating. What a recommendation. Yeah. I can't say you're not going to walk out and want to go have drinks with your pals at the Arclight bar. It's not that kind of movie, but it is very effective, and there's obviously a great amount

of care that went into it. I think we would both recommend that. I thought Horse Girl was pretty interesting. It's on Netflix. I wouldn't give it a full-blown recommendation. It's from Jeff Baina, who has directed a bunch of indie films in the last few years, like Joshie and a couple of others. This movie stars Alison Brie as a woman who works in an arts and crafts store and slowly

comes to grips with her family's personal history of mental health. It's also extremely confounding and visually interesting. And I liked the chances it was taking. And I quit the movie twice before finally deciding to finish it a third time. It's that kind of movie. Okay. I thought the final 30 minutes was doing something that was worthwhile. The first hour I didn't really, I couldn't catch into. I don't know if you know this, but like five times

in the last month as part of a conversation, you've just been like, you seen Horse Girl to me? And I like, I have not known what to do with that at all because I haven't known anything about this movie. What have you responded with? I don't know. I'm just like, no. And you're like, get out of my face. No. And you're always like trying to make some sort of indictment of me by being like, you seen Horse Girl? Well, it's just right there on Netflix. Okay. It's just on Netflix for you. Anyway, maybe I'll see Horse Girl.

What you just said about the movie was a better recommendation than you just being like, you seen Horse Girl? To me. Yeah. That's the New York in me coming out. Every once in a while, I'm sure you've heard me say it to you before, but every once in a while, I'll be like, let me tell you something. Yeah, no, I know. And that is just an affliction of being surrounded by people who were born and raised in Queens in the Bronx for 20 years.

Downhill. I liked this movie a little bit more than you. I think it's an interesting document. A lot of people, I heard from some people over the weekend who were just like, this sucks. I didn't feel that way. I think anytime Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell are in the center of a movie, I'm going to find things to like about it. But as you mentioned on one of our Sundance pods, it's not as acid tipped as Ruben Ostlin's

original film. Correct. It is more American in all senses of that word. And I was looking for more viciousness, as you made me confess on a podcast. But I was. That said, I do also really like Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell, and there are worse ways to spend your time than in their company. I was hoping we could talk about the photograph just for a couple of minutes here. Yeah. You know, we did not include the photograph in the list of Dumpy Worry movies, because I don't think it's worthy of that designation. It's an interesting movie, and I saw Doreen St. Felix from The New Yorker

tweeting about it this morning. And I thought what she had to say was sort of in concert with how you and I felt about the movie. So the movie is directed by a woman named Stella McGee. It is produced by Will Packer, who has overseen a great many successful, largely African-American focused releases by black filmmakers starring black actors and actresses. And he is a mainstream producer. He makes movies with Universal largely. The Photograph stars Issa Rae and Lakeith Stanfield. And it is a mainstream producer. He makes movies with Universal largely. The Photograph stars Issa Rae and Lakeith Stanfield. And it is a classical romance.

It's been called the Black Notebook by some people, perhaps lazily. But it uses a... A similar structure. Yes. An object. It goes back and forth from the past into the present. It shows a kind of glamorous, middle class urbane lifestyle that frankly like black characters

don't get to exist in all the time I think Lakeith Stanfield and Issa Rae are like wonderful I don't know if they're wonderful together yes

Lakeith in particular I'm very admiring of the kind of career he's carving out for himself which is that he can play anybody he is doing a thing now

where he can be the weirdest guy in the movie or the straightest guy in the movie or the straightest guy in the movie. And I enjoy him. I think this movie is like what I wrote down is it's a mood in search of a movie. I thought it was pleasant. I thought it was well made. I don't understand how it got to be a movie because there's like no tension in the movie whatsoever. Right. The tension is the main issue. I agree with you specifically about the Keith Stanfield,

who just kind of really has a presence and in this movie just fills the screen with the kind of leading man, especially a romantic lead that not that many young men get to play anymore. Yes. And not that many young men do well. And he succeeds at that. Also production design, which you mentioned, but just great apartments and just there's a loft and there's a brownstone and then there's also a it's great her place is awesome yeah yeah and then i liked her mother's place as well and you know it's about the setup in addition to being very notebook ask and that it's uh two timelines the the present day and then an older couple and both couples are trying to get over hurdles in order to find love but it it's about a photographer and her work. And so I liked that there was the artistic element of it.

I also just really enjoyed Lakeith Stanfield plays a journalist, which typically it's the woman in the romance or the romantic comedy who is like, who's playing the journalist and at the end writes a very personal essay about what they've learned and how to open themselves up to love. And Lakeith Stanfield had to do that, which I thought that was very charming. I have thought a lot about this movie. It's a romance instead of a romantic comedy. It's not funny at all.

No, it's not funny at all. And I think there are usually a few more. There are hurdles in a romance, too, but it's kind of like romance novels it clearly owes a debt to that and that's just like a genre that I don't seek out as much and I think those are usually a bit more like long-summering and pining which this movie is leaning towards and I agree that that sacrifices some tension and some basic movie element it's has melodramatic plot elements without being a melodrama which in a lot a melodrama, which in a lot of ways I think is great because you don't necessarily want a ridiculous melodrama. Yeah, the only

difference is just that melodrama almost by its definition has this sort of high stakes, ecstatic feeling of conflict, of pain, of fear. This movie is just kind of ambles. You know, it really just like moves leisurely through its mild misunderstandings or confusions. And it's not necessarily like a massive criticism. I just think to keep people involved in a movie like this for an hour and 15 minutes, it's more of a challenge because like it never really feels like anybody's going to break up or anything's going to end or there's any crisis.

There's a little bit of crisis in the back story, but in the present story between Issa Rae and, you know, Issa Rae, it's interesting. She's also attempting to make a shift not just into movie stardom, but into a slightly more serious kind of acting. And she is a buoyant comic actor. Yes. Like her eyes are so expressive and she, the character that she represents on Insecure and even in the movies that she represents on Insecure, and even in the movies that she's been making, she's about to be in another romantic comedy called The Lovebirds with Kumail Nanjiani later this year.

That totally just feels like her lane. This is not quite her lane. And, you know, that's nothing against her. It's just like, I don't know if she necessarily has the tools that even like Nia Long 20 years ago had to succeed in a movie like this. And again, I think also any movie like this, whether it's romantic comedy or romance, it does rely on chemistry. And it's not that Issa Rae and Lakeith Stanfield don't have chemistry, but they are just a little bit in different movies tonally because she is more inclined,

I think, to that nervous comedic energy that lends itself to a rom-com. And he is a mood. He is truly a mood. Yeah. So it's a sort of like a mild, if you like these people, check it out kind of half recommendation. Definitely not a bad movie. No. And, you know, it was time to Valentine's Day, and I like that.

And I think that there's definitely a market for that as well. I don't think it counts as Dumpuary because there's also a reason calendar-wise for it. It's a great point. A few movies we will not be discussing here because I think it's safe to say neither of us has seen any of these movies. But this is an example of the movies that kind of usually find their way here.

So The Grudge, which was a remake of The Grudge, which was a remake of another movie called The Grudge, which is not great and not what you want. I haven't seen this one. It's made by a guy named Nicholas Pesky, who has made a couple of very traumatic and interesting horror movies. And he got dragooned into the major studio horror remake bin. I'm sure I'll watch it at some point. Underwater, yet another in the long line of Kristen Stewart bombs. Yikes, yeah.

This one is also kind of an underwater horror movie. Will you ever see this? No. Okay. But I support Kristen Stewart. The Lodge, also a horror movie? Yeah. This played at Sundance in 2019, I want to say.

Well over a year ago. It's been done for a long time. From the filmmakers who brought you Goodnight Mommy, which is one of the more upsetting movies of the last 25 years. I heard this film was not good. I don't know what else to say about it. The rhythm section, which I would have liked to have seen. It just didn't work out. It just vanished from theaters in two weeks.

I probably would have seen it this weekend if I could have seen it, but that was not available to me. This is, of course, Blake Lively and Reed Morano's, I don't know, stripped down, vicious kind of revenge killer movie. Not exactly what you would expect from Blake Lively. If we knew any more about it, we would let you know right here. Unfortunately, we did not make it to theaters in time. We did not. Paramount removed it from theaters after two weeks. C'est la vie. Gretel and Hansel, I assume you won't be checking this movie out. This is also a horror reimagining of the Hansel and Gretel story.

Isn't the original a horror story? In a way, sure. Was childhood a horror forimagining of the Hansel and Gretel story. Isn't the original a horror story? In a way, sure. Was childhood a horror for you? Sure, yes. But also, I mean, don't they, they're just lost in the woods and then a witch is going to eat them. I mean, is that not a horror story? Certainly. Okay.

It has nothing to do with my childhood. Well, I'm just curious. I'm trying to get to know you better. Yeah. I mean, let's keep it moving. And then The Turning, which is also a movie that bombed, that was also,

frankly, directed by a woman and it's a big studio movie and it's a remake of The Turning of the Screw and it features, I believe, is the actress's name

Brooklyn Prince, the young woman who was in The Florida Project? This movie just kind of came and went. That's seven horror movies that have been released

so far already this year and in a couple of weeks we have The Invisible Man, which I don't know if I'm embargoed or whatever, but it's very, very good. And perhaps the first good movie of the year that is being formally released in this year and didn't play festivals or any of that stuff. The first actual mainstream down the middle, this is for a lot of audiences, movie is The Invisible Man. It's good. Should we talk about the movies in Dumpuary that we're analyzing?

Let's do it. How did you feel about the order in which I chose to discuss these films, these four dynamite features? You're just going to monologue at the end, which I guess that's how I felt about it. You can leave if you want at the end. You've arranged it in a way

where you will just be like standing on a soapbox, like yelling at me about something I didn't see. I saw three out of four. I won't spend very much time on the last film, I promise you. So as always, I saw this as a psychological referendum on you. Okay, great. The first movie we're going to talk about is called Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic the Hedgehog is a massive success. They had to readjust the box office grosses on Monday to reflect that it made more than $70 million over the holiday weekend. I would expect a sequel announcement imminently.

This movie is a big fat hit. Now, you mentioned when we spoke last week that you did not play Sonic the Hedgehog on Sega Genesis and you don't know anything about Sonic the Hedgehog. Is that right? That is true. I've since learned a little bit because you did confirm for me that it was on Sega Genesis. And then I learned that I guess other people had access to Sega. And I guess I, as I said, wasn't allowed to play video games. All my friends had Nintendos. So that's what I knew because, you know, my goal was just to get to a friend's house with a video game system so that I could then play it.

Now is a chance to accost your parents if you'd like about how they kept video games from you. No, I'm actually okay with it. It's fine. I don't really feel like I'm missing out on anything. But what I knew is that Sonic rolls into a ball and he goes really fast. And that I do actually remember trying to play it once or twice. But if you don't have video games and you're really bad at video games and he kind of moved too fast for me to control. So it was never fun to play. Interesting. The first Sonic came out in 1991, which would have made me about nine years old. That's kind of a peak video game time. At least it was in my life. I had virtually every system.

I was very lucky. My parents were divorced and were like, I just don't want to deal with you. We're just like, what I'll do is I'll get you NES. I'll get you Sega Genesis. I'll get you PlayStation. I'll get you all the things that you need to leave me alone so that I can go out and try to meet people in this world. And I appreciate that they did that. Right. And then you just stayed at home playing video games, which is quite apparent to everybody. Here's me when I was nine years old. Video games. Yeah. Violent movies. Rap. That was who I was.

So Sonic was a big part of my youth in a lot of ways. I played Sonic, the Sonic sequels. I played a bunch of the games. I really have not thought like one iota about Sonic in 25 years. I mean, it's been a long time since I cared about this at all. There isn't, and unlike a lot of the stuff that we talk about on this show where it's like, Sean knows about the history of this thing and Amanda doesn't know about it because she didn't have it when she was growing up. There's not really like mythology here. Okay. Thank the Lord. There's nothing like to explain to you. There's nothing to explain to the audience of the movie. It's just sort of like he's an alien hedgehog and he's fast. Yeah. And in the movie, he came to Earth. But in the Sonic games, he's in whatever fucking

Sonic land he's in. Okay. Racing along to get golden rings. Yeah. Why I don't know, attempting to defeat Dr. Robotnik. Does it frustrate you why i don't know attempting to defeat dr robot does it frustrate you that you don't know i never thought about it because i was just a moron nine-year-old right i was like sonic go fast because i have to say the fact that there isn't a lot of backstory lends itself to the movie very well the movie very ably explained all of that in like a two minute prologue and i was like okay i got it Now I know who this guy is, and I understand the function of the major MacGuffin and his motivation, and I know where I am. Cool. The fact that we've gotten you to a place where you have to think about Sonic the Hedgehog's motivation is extraordinary. We did it. I'm not happy about it, but...

You did it, everybody. Congratulations to all of you, I guess. So, you know, it's a good point. And I wonder if that specific aspect of it is part of what made this movie so successful where other video game movies have failed. You know, Ben Lindbergh has written about this a lot on The Ringer over the years. But like the list of DOA video game movies is really long. I mean, Super Mario Brothers, there are a lot of Resident Evil movies

that are sort of successful, but I don't think anybody thinks they're really good. The Tomb Raider movies, two different iterations, one with Angelina Jolie, one with Alicia Vikander. The Mortal Kombat movies, Doom, Rampage, Silent Hill, Assassin's Creed, which is particularly not good,

starring Michael Fassbender. Prince of Persia, which basically reoriented Jake Gyllenhaal's career. Max Payne, The Need for Speed, the list goes on. There are tons of video game movies that are not just not successful,

but bad. This movie, by all accounts, should have been a total disaster. Last spring, when the trailer for the movie was released, and Sonic didn't look like how Sonic was supposed to look according to certain people who care about how Sonic looks, there was an outcry. There were petitions that Paramount and the producers and animators of the film go back and change the way that Sonic looks. They make him, I guess, look less real, less like an actual hedgehog and more like the video game character was the complaint.

There was a lot of concern about Sonic's teeth. Did you follow this at all? I remember reading Slack messages from The Ringer about people talking about it. So yes, I did follow it. That's the extent of it. Is there any way that they could have animated Sonic when you saw the movie that you would have thought this is outrageous? Well, if it had looked like cats instead of like the way it did, I would have been very

upset. And I think what we've learned is that we actually don't want realistic, like animatronic, whatever things we want, cartoons we want. And we also want like the characters that we're familiar with. This is a nostalgia play and or a kid play, which we can talk more about. And it is a rare example of, you know, when we talked about Star Wars, I thought you very clearly clarified that the fans were sort of driving the decision making in the films and that that was a bad thing,

that that led to the rise of Skywalker, which did not work. In the case of Sonic, the fans were like, absolutely not. The studio and the animators and the filmmakers went back and they were like, okay, we're going to put more money into it. We're going to change the animation. That means they have to change virtually every frame of the movie because Sonic is in every frame of the movie except for when James Marsden is eating donuts. And that costs a lot of money.

And they changed it. And then the movie was successful. And so the fans got what they wanted. And then the fans got what they wanted. And that's just very unusual. That doesn't say anything about whether the movie is any good or not. I don't think it's very good. I thought it was fine.

I thought it was a movie for children. And I thought it was like a pretty straightforward, easy to follow movie for children with some anti-tech parables in there. Because why not? That's so weird. We got to get drones out of movies. And life, I guess. But I thought it was fine.

I mean, it was a movie for children. This movie does something that another movie that we're going to talk about here also does. That is becoming very common. Which is what I'm going to call the record scratch, you're probably wondering how I got here movie, where the movie starts in media res and a character is in the middle of a conflict or a race or a fight or some sort of issue right at the very beginning. And the movie is very noisy and loud. And then you hear voiceover and you get a freeze frame and the character says, I bet

you're wondering how I got into this crazy situation being chased by Dr. Robotnik. Let's go back. Let's go back five days, 10 years, six millennia. I hate this strategy. Now, I liked it when it happened in Deadpool. And this is really where it started in a big way, where Ryan Reynolds started narrating things as they were happening wryly. And people were like, bravo. We've broken the fourth wall, the meta text.

And I was like, bravo. I like those movies. Those movies fucked everything up. Okay. Because now it's in kids movies. It's in big action movies. It's in comic book movies. It's in all kinds of movies.

Imagine if Portrait of a Lady on Fire started with the last scene, that incredible final scene. I would be really upset. I mean, I don't like this at all. And then we heard Naomi Merlin say, I bet you're wondering how I got here. No, I would not like it. I don't like voiceover at all. I hate this stuff.

I should credit my husband, Zach, who saw a different movie on this list and called it Podcast Brain. And this idea of someone suddenly in voiceover being like, you probably want to know about this, but first I need to tell you this. But before we do that, we need to go back here so I can explain this, that to you. And it really does have kind of the narrative serial, like to quote Chris, hi, I'm Sarah Koenig. Yes. Element to it. But I do think that I thought that that was a very smart observation by him in terms of like how we think about stories now and how we want to relate to who is telling the story? I guess we expect a narrator.

I think it's because we don't trust our stories. Yeah. So we feel like we have to put this glaze of narration, this glaze of artifice around the storytelling. Now, obviously, it's not a crisis. It's not like the Hedgehog movie. It's a silly movie for kids. You're 100% right.

And it's also a movie that is plying nostalgia for people like me in a big way. And I didn't find the movie unpleasant in any way. I actually found it pretty engaging, especially relative to some of the other movies on this list. It's like a silly movie, but everybody actually seems to be kind of giving it their best, which I know that that's a silly way to grade something. But, you know, James Marsden and Jim Carrey are really the stars of this movie. They're trying. They're trying. They're pretty, they're like not bad.

Jim Carrey in particular, obviously a very important person to me. This is probably exactly what Jim Carrey in his 50s should be doing. Yeah. Which is

making a kid's movie, recreating a video game character, having a lot of fun, bringing his antic energy to it, probably improvising a lot. It's an interesting comparison to put Jim Carrey in this movie next to Robert Downey Jr. in Doolittle,

just in terms of what's working and what's not and who's engaged with it and who is not. And I thought he had a nice time. I liked his little, his evil person dance. The dance scene was funny. It was very good. I don't know if I necessarily understood it. No, but I liked it. You made a good point about the drones. And there's also an insinuation very early in the film that Dr. Robotnik, who is Jim Carrey's character,

was somehow responsible for instituting a coup in Pakistan. I don't know if you noticed that trenchant political analysis in the middle of the Sonic movie. It is also like, in addition to him being kind of like the tech overlord and using drones and monitoring everyone and machines, what went all, that there's a whole thing about how James Marsden character wants to move to San Francisco, which is the headquarters of the Silicon Valley. And then at the end, it's like, no, no, we don't want to go to San Francisco. We want to stay right where we are. Yes. It's pretty funny. Shades of the Maleficent 2 criticism of a divided nation. You know, anytime you can get like a deep thought into a kid's movie, you got to do it, I guess. I think I actually understand

why this movie is successful and it's not offensive to me. I think it's not so dissimilar from a lot of kids movies that came 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. It is based on a video game character that really doesn't have, like, any deep backstory. And they kind of invent one for him about being lonely and wanting to be a part of a family. Yeah, I thought that he wanted to have a friend. I thought that's nice as far as these things go. Yeah, sure. Was Sonic good?

Is that where we're going with this? As far as a kids' movie goes, yes. I was talking with a friend yesterday who his son is probably nine or ten. And apparently there are a lot of like Sonic phone app games that kids love. So he and his wife were kind of like, who's going to take our son to see Sonic? You know, because it's like, who's going to draw the short end of the stick? I texted him. I was like, honestly, you could do worse. You'll be fine at Sonic.

I agree. It's not that bad. It's not good. And I won't be returning to Sonic. Would you go to a Sonic sequel? No. I mean, unless I have to for this dumb podcast that we do. Okay, fair enough. We have three more movies to discuss, but before we do that, let's take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsor. Today's episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Masterclass. Masterclass lets you learn from the best with exclusive access to online classes taught by masters of their craft. For example, you can listen to Martin Scorsese explain to you how to be a great filmmaker. That doesn't mean you'll be one, but it means you can learn

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Today's episode is also brought to you by Peroni. Italians know how to live life, great food, familia, celebrating beauty and style around them. What other lessons could we take from Italians? We could slow down from our busy lives, Amanda. We could watch more movies or just enjoy a moment of being alive. Imagine that. Peroni was born in Italy in 1963 by the Peroni family. Their vision was to create a beer that would embody Italian values of quality, craftsmanship, and style.

This is a delicious beer. In fact, when I was on stage during the Rewatchables Live at the Sundance Film Festival, I had a couple of Peronis and I would say that it elevated my mood and it made me more excited to talk to Bill and Chris

and to the audience of the show and communicate about how much I love the movie. So thank you to Peroni for that. Look for Peroni for your next happy hour or as the Italians call it, aperitivo. Find it in cans and bottles at your local grocery

store and follow them on Instagram at PeroniUSA. Peroni Italia, whatever you do, do it beautifully. For people over the age of 21, only 2020. Imported by Biro Peroni International, Washington, D.C. And we are back talking about Dumpuary. And frankly, this has been a fairly posy podcast. I appreciate your spirit. Thanks. You seem very happy. Would you say you're going to bring some positivity to all the boys I've loved? P.S. I still love you.

Medium positivity, sure. Wow. What a twist. So I have written down here. I was in charge of this section of the outline somehow. I appreciated you filling in. And what I have written down was I thought this was fine. And my reaction to it was a little bit colored by a lot of people who watched it the day that it was released on Netflix, because that's what you do when a movie's on Netflix. And they

were, didn't seem to be pleased. I would not say that the buzz on this was great off day one. It was unusually negative, I think, for a Netflix movie, which let's unpack why that is. I mean, obviously, the first to all the boys I've loved before was by Netflix standards, a huge hit, arguably a kind of, I mean, this is a strong word, but like a revolutionary kind of movie. It seemed to insinuate what the future of Netflix movies should be after people like you and I were sort of like, what are they doing? What is the point of all this stuff? And, you know, we talk about Marriage Story and The Irishman during Oscar season. You got the impression a lot of people watched To All the Boys I've Loved Before. You did.

And it identified, like, not by any means a new Netflix audience, but a Netflix audience that I think pundits and industry watchers had not been paying attention to. When you talk about kind of the state of the romantic comedy in 2019 and 2020 and whether it's being saved, like To All the Boys I Loved Before is always one of the things that everyone points to. And it was also better than average. It was. It was better than average. For both a Netflix rom-com and also just a Netflix movie in general. And it kind of crossed a lot of different audiences. I think both like younger teenage audiences really loved it. I really loved it. I think you recognize that

this was actually well made. Yeah. And it also did something that I think a lot of great romantic comedies historically do, which is immense new stars. And Lana Condor, who plays Lara Jean and Noah Centineo, who plays Peter Kavinsky, kind of just came out of nowhere. I mean, I certainly had never seen them before. But I think, obviously, you know, Alyssa Bresnak's written about this on the site, the way that Netflix could mint a new young star and how exciting that seemed. Now, to all the boys I've loved before, I wouldn't put it in that sort of like top 100 of romantic comedies or of teen slash high school movies. But for where we are in the genre, it seemed to be a bomb for people. And so naturally, when a movie like this takes off, it tends to get a sequel. We got a sequel.

Some changes were made in this sequel. For example, Susan Johnson, who directed the original, did not direct this movie. A man named Michael Fimagnari directed this movie. I think the choice to move from a woman to a man making the movie was a bit of an odd choice. I can't say I know why that happened. The other thing that changed here is that the first movie had a plot and narrative tension, and this movie does not. This movie had a plot. Did it? Here's the thing. This movie, especially given the expectations and everything we just said about the original To All the Boys I Loved Before, which was a sensation, this movie had a lot to live up to, and it does not live up to any of those.

And I think a lot of people were really upset by that. Yes, of course it had a sensation. This movie had a lot to live up to, and it does not live up to any of those. And I think a lot of people were really upset by that. Yes, of course it had a plot. I actually thought in terms of sequels, it's kind of one of the more natural premises for a sequel that I've seen, because let me remind you of the plot of To All the Boys I Loved Before. Lara Jean writes five love letters

and her little sister mails them all out against her will. They're meant to be kept private. Yes, exactly. And in the original movie, and her little sister mails them all out against her will. They're meant to be kept private. Yes, exactly. And in the original movie, four of those letters are answered and one is not. So in the sequel, the remaining letter is finally answered. I mean, at least in the universe of the movie, that makes sense. You didn't have to totally make something up out of nothing.

Where are you at on Noah Centineo? Do you think he's worthy of this? Yes, actually. Do you know what my major revelation was? I was like, they know what to do with Noah Centineo in this movie. And I've seen him in other things, including Charlie's Angels, where he was fine in Charlie's Angels, but he doesn't have the little sparkle that he does in this movie. Wouldn't say he strikes me as the next Daniel Day-Lewis. No, but I think he's very good in this. They know what to do with him. They have, he's playing the right character.

I think that he and Lana Condor also do have chemistry. They do. Which brings us to like the actual major problem of this movie to me, which is that, so the person who answers that fifth letter is John Ambrose is his name? That's his name.

And he's meant to be a rival love interest. She's confused. Should she be with Peter Kavinsky or should she be with John Ambrose? And I just have to say that she does not have chemistry with the new guy on the scene who is played by Jordan Fisher. And it's not Jordan Fisher's fault. Again, a central part of any romance or romantic comedy is do the people have chemistry? And there's not chemistry here, to me anyway. Again, no disrespect to Jordan Fisher. There's a reason why he's in this movie. And that reason is he has 2.4 million followers on Instagram and nearly half a million followers on Twitter.

He's a well-known famous Disney person and has come out of youth acting. And this movie, whereas I felt like Lana Condor and Noah Centineo came to us out of whole cloth, this feels very strategized and organized. And I felt the music cues trying to work me. And I felt the structure in a way that I didn't feel in the first movie where I was just on the ride with my friends. That's bad. Like, I thought this movie was very, very boring and very perfunctory and very much sequel-itis. You know, it had a lot of the same problems that you get in Marvel movies and a lot of sort of like the Expendables 2 kind of movies where it's just like, we know the playing field, we know the main characters, they have to introduce a new character to create a new tension,

but we know ultimately everything's going to work out just fine for the original characters. Can I tell you something? The only way in which this movie worked is that there were three minutes where I thought that it was not going to work out the way that I wanted it to work out. And I was mad. You got tricked. Well, but that means that the movie is succeeding on some level. That I'm at least invested enough to be like, wait a second. Are you serious? Because if this happens, this is bullshit. And then three minutes later,

I was like, phew, okay. So a funny thing happened when I was chatting with Isaac Lee, who's producing our show today. He didn't think the movie was great, but Isaac, what did you ask me? Do you think it made a lot of money? Yeah. Which is an interesting question because on the one hand, it's not making any money because there's no box office tracking and this movie did not play in one movie theater. However, it did do something and I think Isaac put his finger on something, which is it kept people subscribed to Netflix in anticipation of the sequel that's coming. And we haven't seen a ton of sequels out of Netflix. This is perhaps marking a new stage of what they're up to.

We've seen obviously seasons two, three, four of Stranger Things, but not in movies. And if they're able to kind of fast and furious-a-size all of their movie products, that might actually be a little bit closer to what the Netflix movie looks like going forward. What do you think about that? I think that's perceptive, and there is a third to all the boys on the way. It's already been— Oh, it's a go. Yeah. Which to me was a signal. I think everything that you just said about keeping people subscribed, like, yes, and people will be invested in that.

To me, it was also just a signal that this is not a romantic comedy. It's a YA series and a YA movie, which it always was. And I think the success of the first movie is that, you know, it was like a Hunger Games or a Twilight where even adults kind of responded to the major themes and wanted to be a part of it. But this movie is like the second movie in the Twilight series, even down to the introducing the new love interest. And then there's going to be a love triangle. And are you like Team Edward or Team Jacob or whatever? And I just I can't. This is meant for teens. That became very clear to me when they kept having conversations about what it felt like in sixth grade. And I mean, I have all the respect in the world for sixth graders, and I know it's really hard to be in sixth grade.

You have all the respect in the world for sixth graders? Sure. I think it's very hard to be 12, and you're working through a lot of hormones, and no one really takes you seriously. What about 12-year-old boys? You know, I don't want to spend a ton of time around them personally right now, though it would be weird if I did, I think. So that's a defensible position. What I'm trying to say is I respect them. I want the best for them. I don't want to watch a drama about what people were feeling in sixth grade. I don't care. Like I just, as soon as they were like, in sixth grade, I thought you felt this. And I was like, oh, this isn't for me. This is for teenagers. One could argue that none of the movies we're talking about here for us. But that is true. But I think this really

doubled down on its specific audience. This is for teens. It did. I'm sure it was a huge success by Netflix standards. It was not a huge success by me standards. By me standards, I was like, God, this is the longest one hour and thirty 39 minutes that I've experienced. And I saw four other movies over the weekend, none of which were very good. I did some internet shopping while I watched it. I enjoyed the fact that John Corbett was finding love. That's great. Yeah, he's great. He's charming. He's charming. As a salve on this, on Saturday night, I watched Deep Cover, the 1991 thriller starring Lawrence Fishburne, which I was thought of because of some stuff that Quentin Tarantino had to say about the rewatchables on the King of New York episode. And this is a great movie directed by Bill Duke and it features this extraordinary Jeff Goldblum performance. Unlike any other Jeff Goldblum, he's a really nasty drug dealer.

And I was like, oh yeah, there are still good movies in the world. You just got to go out and find them. You just can't always find them in the movie theater or on Netflix. OK. Which is increasingly our problem is, is that we are surrounded by OK movies. I thought the next movie we're going to talk about was worse than OK. And I'm prepared for the blowback around this conversation. And it became clear to me over the weekend that there was going to be blowback. You're not going to get it from me. But of course, there's going to be a blowback because there's blowback about every single one of these types of movies.

And by these types of movies, I mean superhero movies. You're right. So the name of this movie or the names, as it were, is Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, which was then subsequently, after the movie bombed at the box office in its opening weekend, changed via SEO to Harley Quinn colon Birds of Prey. It's a bad sign. It is, though I will never criticize anyone for doing SEO movie naming because you got to do what you got to do to get yourself in front of audiences. I also, by the way, to all the boys I've loved before, P.S. I still love you.

I don't, that's too many words. Just one more thing. We just, we need to be simpler and better about name-made movies. There was an easy solution there, which was T.W.O. the boys I've loved before. Okay, great. Come on. Sure, but then you have to say T.W.O. the boys I've loved before every single time you're talking about it. Nah, you can do whatever you want.

All right. They did follow your Ford versus Ferrari rule on Harley Quinn colon Birds of Prey. And I don't like this movie. I realize why a white guy

who got on a podcast and praised Aquaman and what I thought was good about Aquaman makes that theoretically problematic. But I'm hoping that we can talk about this movie in sincere terms

and explain why it just did not work for me at all. Sure. I don't like this movie either, so you don't have to feel bad about that. I know. I'm trying to be aware of the dialogue around it while also just setting the movie on its own terms.

So on its own terms, I think it actually has the same problem that a lot of DC movies have, which is it's kind of ugly to look at. It's like colorful in quotation marks but mostly just brown the pacing i thought was very bad i didn't really understand what a lot of the characters wanted in the movie and it employs all those same things that we criticize sonic for which is this weird time skipping this weird as your husband said podcast brain execution of storytelling and i was

just frankly very bored in a similar way to the way that I was bored during Cats, where I was like, I get what you're going for. I know this is air quotes outrageous. It's really just not well done. And I can see the seams all throughout the movie. And it's clearly a movie that started out as one movie. And then they went in and did a bunch of reshoots. And that doesn't change that some people are kind of giving funny performances or how exciting it is to see someone like Harley Quinn at the center of the frame, as opposed to Aquaman or, you know, Superman or Batman or anybody else in this universe. I just thought that the movie was boring and noisy and not fun. And I know that a lot of

people thought it was fun. So I'm trying to figure out what they thought was fun about it. And I can't figure it out. I did like the performances, even though I would like to talk more about Harley Quinn as a character. And also you pointed this out to me, but it's called Birds of Prey. But then the people who are the birds of prey aren't in the movie together as the quote birds of prey until the very last scene. And I, a person who doesn't know anything, they all got together. And I was like, oh, that's what the birds of prey are. Yes. And I would have liked to see you guys together doing things, which the movie just doesn't deliver on. So. No, and I, in fact, I think I said it to you when I first saw it. I

thought the first 15 or rather the last 15 to 20 minutes of the movie were pretty good and pretty effective and much more like what I wished the movie was, which is there was basically an hour and 20 minutes of throat clearing about Harley Quinn's kind of sort of backstory and the introduction of this whole universe that I just didn't think we needed. And what I wanted to see was Jurnee Smollett and Margot Robbie and Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Rosie Perez interacting with one another and fighting and having banter

and doing all the things that we let the Avengers do and we let the Justice League do. They were just as worthy of that and it would have worked well if that were the movie. And it felt like a similar problem that we have with a lot of superhero movies, which is just like we always have to start at the origin story, even though we've already seen Harley Quinn in a movie. So who is Harley Quinn? It's an interesting question. She's basically a character created on Batman the Animated Series. She's not really originally a comic book character. She has since become a comic book character. And she is the mall, the girlfriend, the kind of stick of dynamite in the hand of the Joker. So in the Suicide Squad movie, we see that. We see that she's been like pushed

into a vat of acid, just like the Joker was. And then she becomes Harley Quinn. She'd previously been, I think, a therapist. That's what it says in the cartoon thing that introduces this. Yes. That's the other thing, too. It's like, let's do an animated explanation of everything that happened to me that you already saw in the last movie, and then also let's refer back to it a million times during the movie, which, like, people are smart. Just trust us. I actually, and this is incredible coming from me, but the animated thing, I didn't remember everything that was going on. I liked that they were trying something. And to the extent that this movie was trying stylistic and visual tricks beyond the garbage DC palette, I appreciated the effort.

I was like, oh, this is interesting. And at least you have some visual ideas here. So that was not my number one problem. But to then have that be the only basis for character development throughout the rest of the movie was limiting. It is. And Margot Robbie is giving a performance that is basically the crazy version of her Wolf of Wall Street performance. It's the same hard Bronx accent. What was her name? The

Duchess of Bay Ridge in that movie. That sounds right. And I didn't really find it like all that funny or charming. And I didn't really find it like she's exciting. My wife was saying that she was like, she's so charismatic to look at. And that character is so interestingly conceived visually. But then she starts doing stuff. And I just thought it was kind of a drag. There's a lot of interaction with a young kid in the movie. I don't think the kid, nothing against this child, is a good actor at all. Oh, I didn't mind that part. I couldn't.

Just that whole part of the movie, I couldn't wrap my head around. I thought Rosie Perez was just a little bit miscast in this movie. I love Rosie Perez. I would watch Rosie Perez in almost anything. Didn't really think that her character made sense. I don't know why there was not more Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Who I love. I find that Margot Robbie is magnetic as a presence, which even though I didn't really

understand what was or really care about what was going on with the character, actually, I did care. But, you know, I thought her performance, separate from what she was like asked to do or say, was good. I would watch her on screen. And I think that is why she's so successful. I find the character so depressing and such a kind of summary of where we are with these movies. And I know that a lot of people really like the character. And you said that you, you know, wrote on Twitter that you didn't care for this movie. And a lot of people wrote back being like, if you like Harley Quinn, you'll like this movie.

But I just found it, you know, it's the girlfriend who was, I suppose, created. I don't even know of what purpose, but she's a girlfriend who's not allowed to do anything, is just like an agent of chaos, no character. And then to have your girl power gang movie revolve around not giving this character any identity, but a breakup and then being kind of a nutcase. I just, and that like your definition of girl power is suddenly being like well i'm not dating him anymore so now i'm just a zero character crazy person on my own terms uh it didn't work for me yeah i mean it's right

there in the title it's clearly purposeful the fantabulous emancipation um it's understood i think it's i think it's good a good idea for there to be movies about that idea, about freeing yourself from the throes of a bad relationship. I just didn't think it necessarily jived with the rest of the story that they were trying to tell here. In addition to that, like I said, it just felt like a very choppily made. So to have a big theme and a big idea in a movie that clearly has been kind of like torn to shreds and then stitched back together, I found a little bit difficult to kind of wrap my mind around what the movie was actually trying to say. Now, you've said this to me many times before.

I may be thinking a little bit too hard about a Birds of Prey movie. No, because I was also so bored during the movie that I was thinking about it as well. And I think there's just this uncomfortable, this is a very nihilistic movie and character paired with this effort to be a girl power movie that bummed me out and that I was thinking about and reconciling because otherwise they were just doing,

I don't even remember what they were doing in the movie. It was pretty boring. So like we said, there has been this wave of vocal appreciation on the internet for the movie. Now the movie did very poorly in its opening weekend. I think it made $33 million, which there's really just no getting around it. Like that's very bad. This is a hundred million dollar superhero movie starring Margot Robbie, who was just nominated for an Oscar, who's very famous. Harley Quinn's a very famous character. And the movie, whether it was because it was rated R, which is also a choice that the movie made that I don't think totally works all the time, or because it wasn't marketed well, or because there's a bad hangover effect from the Suicide Squad,

which did pretty well at the box office, but most people hate, myself included. I think that's a very bad movie. I'm not sure what it was, but it just didn't take off and so what happened is is like it oddly it feels like the first superhero movie as cult object where people are like I have to get into this hive and yell at people who don't get it maybe maybe it reminds me a little bit of Batman versus Superman and all of that like in the Snyder Cut stuff that we've talked about I was gonna say it reminds me so much of Snyder Cut, but it's in the opposite direction. It's defending the actual vision as opposed to believing that there is some better, purer vision of it. But I think it is the same mentality. I think it's just that the birds of

prey defenders have attached themselves to a movie about a female superhero and that is, you know, made by a most like a female director and a mostly female cast. And so there is there's kind of a righteousness to the argument, even if the movie itself is not good, that I think we're programmed to take a bit more seriously than Snyder Cut, which is specific. Yeah, the Snyder Cut thing has always struck me as just bananas. And if you look at the way that the people involved in the Snyder Cut, theoretically involved in it, have sort of like used it as like sort of a gimmick, sort of a joke, like Ben Affleck tweeting about it, originally indicated to me that something was real and now indicates to me that that was like all a gag. I could be wrong. I'm sure people are gonna be mad about it. Originally indicated to me that something was real and now indicates to me that that was like all a gag. I could be wrong. I'm sure people are going to be mad about that.

This is different because it is people authenticating what their experience was. I'm not going to take that away from them. We should say the movie is directed by Kathy Yen. It's written by Christina Hodson. No superhero movies get to be directed and written by women solely. It just does not happen. So this is a meaningful

moment. It just doesn't make it a good movie. And I think that's okay. And in many ways, as we've said before on the show, that's a kind of progress that you also got to make a kind of bad movie under these strictures. Now, the concern, I think, justifiably, is if you say too many negative things about a movie like this, another woman won't get a chance to make these movies.

I don't totally think that's true. Patty Jenkins is coming back up to bat in a couple of months with the Wonder Woman movie, which will probably be good. It's just, we've reached an interesting stage where I sent you a tweet last night

from the Exhibitor Box Office Relations Twitter account, which is like a Twitter account that I follow, perhaps with some regret, but has a lot of information about what's going on at the box office.

We got to work on the puns, but anyway. There's a lot of puns in that regret, but has a lot of information about what's going on at the box office. We got to work on the puns. But anyway. There's a lot of puns in that account. There's a lot of information. There's some analysis. There was some analysis in this tweet that I sent you about the drop off from the first weekend to the second weekend for Birds of Prey. And it was critical. Now, I think that some of the data that was used reminds me a little bit of the conversation around the voting totals in New Hampshire.

It was sort of like the precedents we're using here are perhaps not totally rational, but I'll read the tweet for the sake of this conversation so we can discuss it briefly. Harley Quinn and her flighty birds of prey dropped 48% in its sophomore session. Is that good? Let's huddle up and compare it to other drops this holiday weekend, shall we? Jumanji plus 3%. Bad Boys minus 6%. 1917, minus 12%. Doolittle, minus 23%.

Class Dismissed. Now, none of these movies are in their second week of release, but this is a holiday weekend, so the audience is bigger for a weekend like this. And movies like Sonic did very well. I don't think that that comparison point is necessarily totally fair. And in fact, there's usually a pretty significant drop off in box office for superhero movies from week to week because big audiences come out in the first weekend. A big audience did not come out for Birds of Prey.

But if you look at the replies to this person's tweet, people are fucking mad. It looks like politics Twitter in a way that even film Twitter does not look like politics, Twitter. It is people who are like, how dare you falsely compare Birds of Prey, which is a comic book movie made by a major corporation that is pure product. It is not a belief system. It is a movie. And people are really fucking pissed off at the exhibitor relations Twitter account i mean but this to me is not new this is just like this is honestly slightly more accessible because i think you and i can relate to not relate to but understand what these people are advocating for whereas like i have a very hard time understanding why people are advocating for Rise of Skywalker and like angrily in Twitter threads for days and weeks and months.

And like, how dare you? I mean, it actually is a similar tone for all of kind of fan Twitter. You're right. And this is just this is about facts for once and how or and how facts are presented and whether they are being presented. I think they're being presented accurately, but also with editorialization. And that's where people are always going to meet and argue. But to me, it's not that different from any other conversation. It's just the type of people and the type of argument is possibly different.

I don't even know whether the type of argument is possibly different. I don't even know whether the type of fan is that different. It's just from what you can understand, like, okay, well, they want to advocate for this female superhero movie with a female director and a female screenwriter. Part of the discourse that struck me, and you're right when I say this, this also won't be new specifically, but it struck me in this context. There are people in that thread who are talking just to each other. They're not even talking to the main account. And they're quibbling over what was the budget of the movie? How much was spent on marketing?

What is ultimately the P&L on the whole project? How much money do the theaters get versus how much money do the studios get? How much did the reshoots cost? They brought in Chad Stahelski who made the John Wick movies and who has a stunt production coordinator company. And they were working on the film. And then in August of 2019,

they were brought in to clearly reshoot all the fight sequences. So they were more John Wick. And the fight sequences are okay, especially at the end of the movie. I like the roller skate one. That one was good.

That's clearly a Chad Stahelski project. You can see it. And one of the conversations that I thought Kathy Ann has been having about the movie, which was smart, was that women would fight differently than men. And too often when women are fighting in a movie, it looks like a guy fighting. And Harley Quinn would fight differently. And that was something in the movie that I appreciated. Nevertheless, bringing in Chad Stahelski and his whole team to do big reshoots over two or three weeks in the middle of August costs more money.

Everybody in the thread was like, I know exactly how this works. The movie costs $93 million. Here's the link to the Google result that tells me how much it costs. Marketing is usually between $60 and $80 million. Just speculating that marketing is between $60 and $80 million, there's a $20 million crevice right in the middle of those two numbers. That's insane. None of these people in these threads know anything.

They don't know anything about how much the movie costs, how much Warner Bros. is going to write down. And I feel very minimally responsible for this because I'm always fucking talking about box office and the state of the industry and all this stuff. But looking at people communicate about this so angrily and so sure of themselves. That happens for every single one of these movies. Yeah. I mean, like, Rise of Skywalker was that times, like, 400 million. But it was, like, probably with worse faith arguments and with people with even lesser understanding of, like, basic box office. You know, that sounds like a nightmare.

I stopped reading Twitter basically for things like that because of people who don't know what they're talking about kind of arguing at length and just wasting time. But I do admire that they're at least like trying to to puzzle things out based on some sort of fact, whatever. I don't know. I would rather be in this conversation than anything having to do with Snyder Cut or Rise of Skywalker. Rise of Skywalker is a is a calming counter counter example that that discourse was horrible. And I just do think any movie that has a fan base like DC or Marvel or Star Wars or, you know, insert whatever, somewhere on the Internet, people are doing this. It is very strange that they decided to do it in like the exhibitor relations box office, Twitter. That's new.

I'm sure you can find it elsewhere. Yeah. How many Portrait of a Lady on Fire burner accounts do you have? Well, I just have to go to- Or should I say burn her accounts? Oh, wow. That's good.

Thank you. Well, I have to reactivate my Tumblr is what I've learned today. So- Do you have a Tumblr? I did like in 2009, like everybody else. How exciting. But I deleted it because I'm smart.

The quest begins to find Amanda's Tumblr right now. I'm going to start a new one so I could read the French gossip blogs. If you are, listen to this podcast and somehow like are also fluent in French

and can translate the gossip blogs for me, please get in touch because I just, I want to read everything. That's where I am. Shall I briefly speak to you about Fantasy Island?

Sure. I just love Fantasy Island. It's a Blumhouse movie. It's an IP clone baby. Okay. All of these movies that we were talking about here are based on other things. Sonic the Hedgehog is based on a video game. To all the boys I've loved before, P.S. I still love you.

Horrible title. T.W.O. Is a sequel. Birds of Prey is a sequel to Suicide Squad and an adaptation of Harley Quinn stories. Fantasy Island's based on a 70s TV series. A high camp, low grade, entertaining TV series. I've seen a few episodes in my life.

It was a popular show at the time. It's basically an anthology show with this sort of like O'Henry-ish twist. This sort of like careful what you wish for kind of aspect to every episode. This movie has been changed into a PG-13 high concept horror movie. It's very bad. It's not scary. It's not smart. It's not really all that well-made. It feels unfinished. There's two kinds of Blumhouse movies. There's the, this movie, is it going to be at the center of the culture? Like Get Out, like The Purge, maybe like The Invisible Man. Movies the, this movie, is it going to be at the center of the culture? Like Get Out,

like The Purge, maybe like The Invisible Man. Movies that have an idea, the idea is explored thoroughly and feature good performances in strong direction. This is not one of those movies. And every single person who's in the movie feels like a C-grade version of a much more famous person. There's a crappy Ryan Gosling in the movie. There's a crappy Anne Hathaway in the movie. There's a crappy, you know, it's just up and down the line. You can just see it's like Blumhouse famously very smart about how they spend their money. They're probably going to make plenty of money on Fantasy Island because it's just going to cost probably between $7 and $12 million to make. It's from this guy, Jeff Wadlow, who made the Truth or Dare movie, which

is also a high concept horror movie it's not that well made it's pretty bad also starred Lucy Hale from Pretty Little Liars this is not worthy of the same level of discussion that Birds of Prey or It's All the Boys or even Sonic the Hedgehog is but it's a little bit it's a little depressing and it takes us to

a depressing end point of this conversation which is is it just dumpuary or are we in this very terrible state where the only movies like this that can go forward have to be based on 70s TV shows or video games or YA adult series that have already been made on Netflix? I mean, both, I think. I think we know that everything has to have some sort of IP or SEO recognizability at this point. And not everything, but most things do in order to pave the way for the portraits of a lady on fire and marriage stories and parasites.

And I'm trying to think of an original movie that was made in the U.S. last year. It's already been wiped clean. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Thank you. Us. Yeah upon a time in Hollywood. Once upon a time in Hollywood. Thank you. Us. Yeah, and we know that.

And we sometimes get really depressed about it. And it's easy to get depressed in a month like this where you really are just getting the bad stuff. It is also just temporary. And there have always been movies that don't work. You know, sometimes movies don't work. I do feel like we have to remember that every single time we have one of these conversations that movies are hard to make and sometimes they're just really bad. And the bad movies and the mediocre movies have always paved the way for the larger movies. I love an ambitious failure, though. I don't feel like we've gotten one of those yet. No, I mean, it is temporary. This is when we see all the bad movies and we feel sad and then we get to to the fall and we're like, oh my God, movies.

I appreciate you opening up your heart and your weekend to a lot of these movies. You've really come on the journey with us. I think, you know, we have a reward for people who endured this. I think hopefully the next episode of this show. Are we calling that a reward? Which is a little bit of an endurance test. It's a long episode with a special guest

featuring a game. A game. But I think if you love movies and you love movie history, it's a fun episode. And also, if you just want to question or examine how you think about movies and what you've seen and how you see them, I will say I have thought a lot about this very long podcast episode that we did since we recorded it. It was interesting and has made me, not question, but just kind of to think about my relationship to things. So it's good. It reminds you the movies are good. I suspect that that's the part of the reason for that is that our special guest took a keen interest in your point of view of the world. He had quite a few questions for how you felt,

but I hope people enjoy that as much as we did. Please stick around now for my conversation with Jim Rash and Nat Faxon about Downhill. Delighted to be joined by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. Guys, thank you for doing this. Absolutely. Thanks for having us. Glad to be here. Guys, why has it been seven years since you directed a film? Exactly. Thank you.

What have you been doing in that time? Have you been trying to do other films? We were in movie jail, I guess. We've been fighting. Yeah, fighting for our lives. Scrapping. We've had a lot of up to bat that just didn't, not surprisingly, things fall apart. So we took a lot of journeys that just didn't quite make it to the finish line.

So how did Downhill become the one that got to the finish line? Me, really? Yeah, I was responsible for it. It's weird that you'd say that right next to me, but keep going with this. I'd like to hear how that worked. No, as Jim pointed out, we've been trying to make a bunch of different movies for a long time and just the typical Hollywood roller coaster of almost happening and not happening and falling apart at the last minute. And then this sort of came across our desks by way of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who's a producer

on the film. And she had worked with Searchlight on Enough enough said and they wanted to work together on something else and um they jesse armstrong uh wrote a few you know the first draft and a couple passes and then it came to us and so you know with jesse and julia and searchlight and a you know a bunch of people that we either had worked with before and then will yeah came in after that yeah was will on board before you guys came on board he was there was sort of like a little bit of a hiccup where we were on the project for a little while and then we thought this other movie that we'd written was going to happen getting up to bat we thought another one was so we sort of jumped off because

it was sort of getting the timing was conflicting and then when that movie didn't go we were able to come back to downhill and so at and at that point will was already attached okay were you guys familiar with force majeure when you were introduced like had you seen it when it came out and yes i had already seen it by the time which obviously would have been much years before this all started but but i had already seen it were Were you, so that script that Jesse had written, you know, did it hew very closely to the original film or did you guys, you know, was there a lot of turns and twists from what that film was?

In a way, yeah, I mean. For the most part, I mean, you know, this, because with Julia attached, it's all started there. So, you know, the first sort of mandate, I think, for the adaptation other than the obvious. Now it's Americans, you know, it turns out to be Austria. You got a fish out of water element that you're writing for. But I think with Julia, it was really also diving a little deeper into her character, which is not as much in Force Majeure, which I think deals a little bit

more with masculinity and cowardice and all these other themes. And without losing that, I think, you know, already Jesse was starting to get into that space before we came aboard. Obviously, major plot points, and Avalanche was still there. The repercussions of that are still there. It was just about sort of changing the direction of some of the way the characters were processing it. And I like to talk to writing and directing duos. How do you guys write together? As far away as possible. You're not

back-to-back in an office, you know? I like back-to-back. Yes, I would do that. I'm happy to look at them, sure. I typically nap and let Jim kind of work things out. Sure. And then I kind of come in and say, no, I don't love this.

And then I go, why? I don't know. I don't really know. It just doesn't feel right. Try again. I'm going to turn around. Go back to sleep. We do, I mean, I think this was a little bit different because, I mean,

when we were writing something from scratch, yes, I would say that I get started maybe because I'm a little bit different because I mean when we're writing something from scratch yes I would say that I get started maybe because I'm a little bit of a control freak we also don't live totally near each other in LA

don't interrupt I'm not controlling you right now and our lives are different he has a family with three kids and I can I have a little bit more time

to at least get something going but we always break the story together I think the where we're starting and where we're outlining for the most part that's you know we come from an improv background so there's no purpose there's no reason not to bounce things around and then with this you're sort of diving into a to a something that's there that just needs to be

honed a little bit more and the only only reason we jumped in was Jesse started second season of Succession's Writer's Room. So he had to obviously go off and make magic over there. So help me understand the rewrite process a little bit more. I feel like people who, at least people who listen to this show

are fascinated by the idea of like, there's a document and you guys have to tune it up or change it or improve it or redefine it somehow. What is that like? It's not the first time you've actually done that, I imagine, in your careers. No.

I mean, we've rewritten only one other thing that wasn't ours, you know, as far as like we had nothing involved with it other than that. But, you know, obviously we've rewritten ourselves many times. I think I kind of like that process better. I think the first pass is the most difficult. I think with rewriting, it's fun because then the problems start to be more obvious. And while the solutions might not be right there, you can start cracking that. So I think the first thing is sort of just reading it straight through.

If it's our own stuff, give yourself a break before it. If it's something else, read it straight through and digest it as a whole, and then start to figure it out from there and then start chipping away. Some people I've been told, I don't always do this, but some people start by rewriting the third act first. And kind of the reason for it sometimes is if your third act and second act for that matter get in good shape, all the answers for your first act are there. So then you can go back to your first act

and make sure, I want to set up this stuff and make sure I've done that correctly. One thing about this movie is that it is quite beautiful. It feels like a real, even a step up from your first film. How did you guys go about

building out the team of people who would work on it? How did you assemble the you know, the way that it was meant to look? Knowing that we were shooting in Austria, you know, there were certain, not limitations, but there were advantages, I would say, to using European-based crew members. And so we sort of went about it initially by looking at, you know, English, you know, European crew members that could kind of help kind of see this vision all the way through. And we lucked out with Danny Cohen, our cinematographer, who's based out of london um our production designer dave warren also in england uh and then our line producer and all our production team was based out of ireland and dublin and then we had a ton of german austrian crew um and so you know we really wanted to establish, obviously, capture the majestic, expansive views that exist in the Alps and in Austria.

And we loved the idea that this family is isolated amongst this incredible backdrop. And all their problems, they're sort of suffocating within themselves despite being in this like incredible environment. Um, and we also really worked with the themes of white and snow, you know, in, in our discussions with our costume designer, Kathleen Felix Hager, you know, making other people wear white around them, such as Charlotte. We discussed it with Dave Warren, our production designer about outfitting all the couches to be white so it sort of felt like they were experiencing an avalanche uh you know snow was always the snow was always present of that they're still not in it they're still trying to navigate their way out of it as a couple interesting and you guys were sort of like julian will's characters then to americans surrounded by europeans in a way and during this yes for the

most part was that was that unusual to be working with non-american filmmakers behind the scenes folks i mean anything lost in translation there no i mean no i don't think so i mean the only the only things that got lost in tradition maybe sometimes we're with our location manager who sort of would say yeah you can you know they were very little bit more relaxed with what we could have and what we couldn't you know so we would sort of say so we're okay to shoot at this lift in a couple of days you know yeah sure that's fine you know and then you'd get there and they'd be like well they don't want you to shut down the lift you know just so you just have to work around it and you're like oh

okay so those were the only sort of moments okay well and then you've all right that's the problem we'll solve it and so then became sort of like a sort of a nascar scene scene where we're changing the you know the camera getting that fam our family characters back on the lift and then up again and while we are in our minds are like, God, that was fast. And the mind of German skiers or any skiers from who came to Austria that particular time, it was not a short period of time. They were just a line of people waiting for us to start it back up again. And so then we would have them ride up and down and get the scene a few times and that sort of camera set up and then do it again. Again, a bunch of skiers congregate.

And we're chanting something in German, but I'm pretty sure it was not. We love movies. Yeah, it was fuck those Americans. So we always hear about how difficult it is to shoot on water, sometimes in the desert. Is it difficult to shoot in a snow setting? There aren't a lot of ski movies.

No, it's true. It was remarkably not as difficult as maybe we had anticipated and i i don't you know i say whether that was yeah i constant though yes yes it's unclear but you know we did have uh an amazing line producer in joe homewood who was um just a great person and very patient and flexible and willing to make changes, you know, at the 11th hour if needed. And so a lot of our decisions were weather based decisions, you know, whether we're going to have nice weather, and we needed continuity to, you know, continue a scene that we had shot before,

or we needed a snowstorm to happen. So we were pretty nimble as far as that. And then the challenges were a snowcat can bring you to your location, but then once the mountain is open, can't return until the mountain closes, essentially. So they sort of bring you up there at like 7 in the morning, drop you off, and then they'll come and pick you up at around 4.30. So you are where you are. You are where you are. There's no like, oh, let's go relax.

Let's warm up. There's no video village. There's no craft services, so to speak. It's like someone will bring you food at some point. Yes. You don't even have like one of those cabins that Julia's character visits. No, no.

There were days where. We have snowmobiles you know and occasionally you'd get like uh the craft service guy in a snowmobile like bringing you a soup you know like on a like a drive-by yeah um sounds very elegant yes but you just need you know crew and cast that are kind of gung-ho to what what it is and they all were do you guys like snow and skiing and that culture because that's a lot of work you do. I do. Yeah.

I love skiing and I would bring my skis every single day. Really? And we would shoot on the mountain and then, you know, you wrap at 4 or 4.30 because the sun goes down. The sun goes down. And then I would have one last run all the way down to go home. So it was, you know, a great way to finish the day. That's cool.

One of the things that I really like about Ruben's movie and about your movie is there's a very specific tone. There are different tones from the films. In your movie, it feels like sometimes when the story is verging on something that could turn into slapstick, it gets more subtle and a little bit more delicate in the way that the, you know, the emotions are being conveyed in the story. Yeah. How do you guys determine like what the exact tone of this movie should be it's uh it is a delicate thing because you know you you uh some of that comes into editing in a process because you we shot some stuff that didn't make it for that very reason not that it couldn't fit there it just felt like okay this might shift the tone too much and take us out of where we want to be because i think we we wanted to, while have a, certainly a different tone, uh, than force majeure, as far as that was so specific and so

wonderful for that story. Uh, we, with ours, we didn't want to lose awkwardness, cringe, silence, um, uncomfortableness at times, uh, where you're sort of hopefully laughing because you're uncomfortable, which I think we can all identify when we're in, you know, certainly in the middle of the movie is a scene that's present in both, which is basically the altercation, the calling it out in front of two relative strangers and ours, a little bit less strangers, at least for one of the characters is a stranger, I think more to them uh but still not something you should be privy to and um i think that that those moments even when you try to find some levity there some maybe it's a nice little improvised moment but we always had

zach and and uh zach woods and and um and the and zoe chow's characters there to be us so with that you have the benefit of having you know wonderful lines added by zach you know in the moment as he tries to make the situation better there's a great sea cucumber joke that is that's that just shows you what zach knows and so that is his brain um that scene is amazing julie in particular so that's some of the best acting i feel like she's ever done yeah um what's it like to work with two people especially in julie and will who are you know essentially legendary as comic performers and bring a lot and julie is a producer on the film and will you know has such an outsized movie persona you know like what are you what are you guys talking about how are you conveying what you want their performance to be? And then how much room are you giving them?

Will famously likes to flex and try stuff. So what was that like? I think it starts with, before you even get into any of the acting stuff, it just starts with personality. We've had the benefit in most of the stuff we've done to work with really good people. And that makes a huge difference because you can, you know, they are both while being humongous, you know, legendary

stars, they're very approachable. They're very nice. They're just good people. And so you can have conversations and Jim and I met at the Groundlings Theater where, where we'll perform for a long time. And obviously Julia has, you know, a very, you know, incredible background in comedy. So we, you know, do a lot of bits together. We make each other laugh and you have sort of a good time. And then, you know, at a certain point you settle into, you know, whether it's notes or just a conversation about, you know, the scene and the characters. And I think from the very beginning, we all wanted to make the same movie, which is, you know, something that was felt real and honest and authentic and tonally kind of rode that line between drama and comedy. And, you know, the benefit of that major 11 page scene was that

we just shot it all the way through every single time and without breaking it up so it did feel like we were doing theater and when you're running something that long over three days you know you just inevitably are going to find different little nuances and subtleties to add in and we are as you know hopefully collaborative, you know, as they are to us. So we allow them the sort of space to, you know, make choices and try things. And I think Will was excited to come into this world, you know, and play this character. And I also think, you know, one of the things that was sort of great about having him, it's sort of the same reason that we fell in love and ended up having – lucky enough to have Sam Rockwell, of course, as well. Lucky to have him. But Steve Carell in our patriarch sort of role as the boyfriend mainly because it was on the paper a very horrible sort of character.

It says some really horrible – what he doesn't think horrible things and there's a likability that's innate in in steve and in will and that gives this character a little undercurrent of that i think especially for you know as pete is obviously also doing making choices that can easily make you not like him so i think it gives you a little bit of you know it was fun to see that sort of underlayer there yeah it's a great it's a great tone for him um even as we're having our conversation here i see that you guys are even though you're needling each other are very generous to each other saying you take this one and you take this one and you're dividing things carefully

when you're making a movie how does that work are you having a solo conversation with will and you're talking to julia do you strategize for who will handle what on set? On podcasts, we're great. On set, we fight and talk over each other like this. And we say, forget what he said, listen to my note. My note. It was way better. Do you have to conference before giving a note to someone?

What is that like? We have known each other for way too long and so uh we you know have a very symbiotic relationship you know and friendship and what comes with that is often um sharing the same sensibility and ideas and you know types of comedy um i think so we trust each other you know we don't always have to conference before going over to talk to an actor but if there's um something you know one of us wants to try maybe we'll talk about that and say i should you know and have a discussion and usually we are trusting and patient enough with one another to allow you know the other to give a note you

know if and and try something you know because you you do don't ever really know until you're editing and then sometimes you're thankful you have that weird one you know so it is um you know it's it is about sort of thinking with one brain and one you know mind as much as possible on the set when you're talking to cast and when you're talking to crew and we don't split up and we don't divide duties in any way. We just sort of walk around together attached at the hip.

And then sometimes because one of your brains is going to die and you want the other one to be alert. So why not walk around together in case you start talking to an actor and they're like, what are you talking about? And the other person can pick up the baton

and fix it. When you guys were getting ready to do The Way Way Back, did you have to go through the DGA paces of showing how you split your duties to get the right credit? I'm always interested in that part of it. No. They want you to be a unified vision, really. So they want you to do everything together. They do not want one person to go do this and the other person to go do that or split up and say, I'll go scout this location. You go scout – they're very protective of one unifying vision.

So we did have to go to the DGA and – After the way-way back. After the way-way back. Oh, after. Yeah. So we weren't in the DGA during that. Okay. Non-union, yeah. So we weren't in the DGA during that. Yeah, we were non-union for the way, way back because we didn't have any prior work to show that we worked as a team.

Because we weren't siblings and we were not married yet. Even siblings, though, I feel like they have to somehow. I think that. I don't know. Is that not the case? I think it's automatic. I don't know. That's so strange.

I think so. I know. I don't know that for sure, the case? I think it's automatic. I don't know. That's so strange. I think so. I know. I don't know that for sure, but I feel like that's in my brain because that's the reason we went. But we did have to go in front of the board and basically sort of state our case and have letters from actors that we'd worked with and sort of proving that we worked as a team and not separate. Is there one thing that one of you is better than the other at? Do you say, well, he's better in the edit or he's better with sound? I've talked to some duos who have said, well, this is my specialty, even though you can't break apart the unified vision.

My instinct is to say I'm better at everything. I'm not going to lie and argue with you you are kind of better everything but yet everybody kind of likes me better that i will absolutely not dispute that is also a skill unto itself i don't know i think i think uh i think we do weirdly on acting front i think we're pretty much on the same page you know we've obviously been on as actors we've been on set we we've been experienced to get notes you know and understand the way that part works so i think and then plus especially when you've really had your hand on the script you have a good sense uh of of being able to talk about specifically what the characters are at this place so that you can have a nice dialogue with your actors to sort of see.

Let them, of course, take the reins with that idea, but at least to talk about where the character is navigating at that point. Nat is much better at keep asking questions about lenses, and I hover in the background because it becomes crazy because I keep getting confused. He seems to be hell bent on on mastering that so i just sort of hover so i just go i don't know a shot the close yay big this one you're the camera guy i'm the camera guy sure i you know, yeah. Jim is.

I'm just saying you have a curiosity. I do have a curiosity. But sometimes his framing ideas are terrible. Yes. Maybe I lean more technical and Jim probably more creative. He's an incredible writer and he's very good in the editing room. So I ride his coattails in those departments. I thought this was a really good theatrical comedy,

which is not, there are not a lot of theatrically released comedies anymore. It's true. No, there aren't. I'm wondering if you guys could reflect on that a little bit, why you think that might be and what even your experiences have been like just trying to get stuff off the ground. I know.

I mean, I would say, we come from a sketch background with the groundlings in LA and so we're not we are we do love broader you know moments that are just silly and that make you laugh I would say though in our film careers we've sort of leaned more towards, you know, sort of choosing those identifiably tragic, dramatic moments that release you into some comedy, you know, that the comedy is sort of taking that tension away in those choice moments that are effective because of that so um i think we do sort of like to toe the line there and there you're right there aren't that you know there's not a ton of movies in that genre um but i don't know why because it feels more right it feels like you either go full-out comedy super broad right or you go full drama is what we're gonna say that middle ground you know um is it harder to to pitch the world on something that is in the middle ground i don't know that's a good question because i think

i think you know there's there's there's an argument for all the right pieces being in place with that in mind you know we do live in a world where uh certain talent is going to be able to rise and help a let's call it a dramedy for this argument get to the finish line faster whether it's through theater i mean obviously whether it's a theatrical release or through something like searchlight or it's to a streaming service or whatever i i do think it's about the collective the whole the whole package So I think that it might not be so much about, right now it does feel like straight to marketable, bigger comedies where it's very clear what the tone is, drama, it's very clear what the tone is.

And sometimes in the middle ground, just from sometimes the marketing of it all, it's a very deft sort of hand when it comes to that. So again, if it's big talent, even with this, you know, we have two huge sort of known for comedy content, you know, although both of them have already dipped be fortunate enough to be at Sundance with this because I think that that obviously lets people know where this sits, you know, with those two. So I think it all depends on the package, I think. Do you guys start on the next thing? Do you know what you're doing next? Well, as we started this, it's the idea of hope to get to bat on a couple of things, actually make it to the end. But we have a couple of things that we're hoping.

One is one that we've long been doing. It was the one that fell apart and the reason we got back to downhill. We've had this movie, The Heart, that we're crossing our fingers on. Because it would be returning with Sam rockwell um who we adore so i i don't know we're sort of hellbent on making that happen but it comes down to what i was just talking about the money and then where you go from there can you yeah go ahead no no i was gonna say and it's it's a you know a dark kind of action comedy with some drama in it. So it's not-

It's its own world. Right. It's like Raising Arizona, if you will, in that kind of vein. With Sam Rockwell? Yeah. Sam Rockwell, yeah. That sounds good.

Yeah. Why is Sam Rockwell the most universally liked person? Every filmmaker comes on here. I hang out with them for like an evening and you'll know because another genuinely good person yeah and i also think great dancer and great dancer great dancer i love i love about sam uh and i don't know if this is really the answer why he's so beloved but i do think he is so game for anything and i also think he is generally a good person but i love the fact he, because he's returning to theater this season, I believe for the top of this year, and he loves it. And I don't think he's stopped doing plays. And I don't think he stops doing, you know, he's obviously done television limited series, and he's done films, and he always sort of surprises us. So I think he's just, Allison Jane is another one of those.

They should be headlining their own things, but they're also in their own right. Just great people to have on board. And there's just such an authenticity to their characters. They feel very real. All the people that they play just feel grounded, real real people no matter what

it is and they've done incredible i have high you know just a huge range of characters from comedic to dramatic and they always feel between the two so well yeah they always just feel authentic feels like a commercial for sam rockwell and house very kind of you i hope you guys get to make your movie with him god God, I hope so. Guys, we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen? The last great thing you've seen. You're not seeing anything at Sundance,

but what about anything from 2019 that you loved? I'll tell you, among many things like Parasite, I had a visceral just enjoyment of 1917. I think I just saw that probably right before I left for here. like Parasite, I had a visceral, like, just enjoyment of 1917. Yeah. I think I just saw that probably right before I left for here. One, you're marveling at how, you know, and I went home right away and looked for behind the scenes just so I could see it. And once I saw that, it added another layer to it. But also the fact that I just hooked right into the task of it all.

I just thought the structure of the screenplay, I was like, yes, to me. So those just happened to be the last things I saw. What about you, Nat? I agree. I mean, I'm sort of in the TV world. I'm late to the game on everything. So I finally got through Succession. My apologies to Jesse, which I loved very much.

So I'm not in the minority there. So that's not surprising. Yeah, I would say on the film side, I really enjoyed Parasite. And then I finally watched that documentary, The Biggest Little Farm. Is that what it's called? Yeah, that's what it's called. Yeah. That was at Sundance here last year.

Yes, which I loved. What did you like about it? Just the story of that family and how it just, they sort of took on this project and the sustainability and the environmental, you know, just the, that they were thinking about every little detail, you know, they just the, um, that they were thinking about every little detail, you know, it, I feel like I learned a lot from watching it, you know, that I didn't know before. So I was sort of, uh, I was just invested because it felt personal and yet it felt like a science lesson. Yeah. Those are great. Well, thanks guys. I appreciate you doing the show. Absolutely. Thanks for having Yeah. Yeah. Those are great. Well, thanks guys. I appreciate you doing the show.

Absolutely. Thanks for having us. Thanks so much. you