The Daily - Our Film Critic on Why He’s Done With the Movies

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

A.O. Scott started as a film critic at The New York Times in January of 2000. Next month he will move to the Book Review as a critic at large.After 23 years as a film critic, Mr. Scott discusses why he is done with the movies, and what his decision reveals about the new realities of American cinema.Guest: A.O. Scott, a longtime film critic for The New York Times.Background reading: A.O. Scott conducts his own exit interview as he moves to a new post after more than two decades of reviewing films.A.O. Scott’s review of “65.”For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Hey Tony. I hope you're not too cold. No, not at all. How are you? I'm good, I'm good. I just addressed you as Tony, but most people will know you as A.O. Scott, chief film critic at the New York Times. Yes. And can you describe where we are and what we're doing here? Yeah, so we're at Madison Avenue outside of the building that currently houses the Sony

Screening Room. The Sony Screening Room used to be about exactly 30 blocks north at Madison and 55th, and I probably saw 700 or 800 movies there. Today we have a very special circumstance. We're about to see the movie 65, starring Adam Driver. In space? In space or coming from space. I don't know. I try not to know too much. I try to keep an open mind. I haven't watched the trailers. I think there's some dinosaurs. You've just said that you've seen over like 700 of these screenings. Oh, that was just in that one room. Just in that one room. Yeah. No, I've probably seen, you know, more like five or 6,000 movies in screening rooms

over the years. And this is a momentous occasion because... Well, this is sort of, this is the end of the line. I have this one now I have one this evening and that's it well it had better be a good movie given that it's your your penultimate one yes it is but good or bad it's you know it's a job and it's job I'm certainly happy to do and why are you leaving the profession? Well, that's a long story. From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

Today, A.O. Scott on why, after 23 years as a film critic at the Times, he's now done with the movies, and what his decision reveals about the new realities of American cinema. It's Thursday, March 23rd. It's Thursday, March 23rd. Hi. Hi. I'm Michael. Tony.

Tony. Great to meet you. No, I've never met him before. That's funny. You know, you can go a long time without, you know, at this building without meeting somebody. 15 years as it happens. Yeah.

Welcome. Thank you. Very nice to be here. You are now the second New York Times critic that we have had come into the studio to talk about basically a mid-career crisis of confidence in less than three months. The first, of course, was our restaurant critic, Pete Wells. So I suppose we have distinguished ourselves in the realm of occupational therapy. And the New York Times is just a place that burns out its critics. Right. So in reality, this all started a few weeks ago with a job announcement that came

over the transom within the New York Times company email system that you, A.O. Scott, company email system that you, A.O. Scott, a.k.a. Tony, long-time co-chief film critic, are leaving this job to do something else, book criticism and writing as it happens. And when my colleagues here at The Daily saw that announcement, we decided to reach out to you to talk about this decision. Because after all, who gives up the job of being chief film critic, right? I mean, it's like abdicating the papacy of culture. It doesn't make any sense. That makes me the Benedict XVI. It makes you.

I know, it just happens. It's a movie criticism. No one abdicates the papacy except for like a couple years ago for the first time in 400 years. And when we talk to you about this off mic, the story that you told us about why you're leaving this job, that's the story that we want to talk to you about today. Because it's a big and complicated and nuanced journey that in a lot of ways isn't just about you.

It's about the state of American cinema. So can you remember when you started going to the movies? started going to the movies? I would say if sort of looking back, there was a decisive moment or period that kind of maybe, although I didn't know it at the time, set me on the path toward film criticism. It was probably when I was 15 years old,

my mother had a work obligation that took her to Paris for a few months. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Nice work. And she took me with her and it was just the two of us in a little apartment and she was working all day and I didn't know anybody and was just sort of a lonely teenager. And so I went and took French classes in the morning and then in the afternoon, I just sort of had the freedom of the city, which was

great. And one of the things that I found myself doing was gravitating toward these little independent movie theaters that are kind of scattered across the left bank. They showed a lot of old American movies. Don't try to be a hero. You don't have to be a hero, not for me. And so I went, you know, a few times a week, whenever I was bored, which was a lot, and just sort of wandering in off the street.

You never let me have any fun. No fun? You have all the fun in the world. To see Stanley Kubrick's Lolita. We have fun together, don't we? Whenever you want something, I buy it for you automatically. I take you to concerts, to museums, to movies. I do all the housework. Who does the tidying up? I do. Who does the cooking? I do. You and I, we have lots of fun, don't we, Lolita? Come here.

Or Dr. Strang's love. Oh, hey, you're war room. You're my son, boy. Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room. This is where Hitchcock moved. It's not as if she were a maniac, a raving thing.

She just goes a little mad sometimes. There are all of these things that I didn't really know very much about, I hadn't heard about, especially some of the older classic American movies.

The westerns. He not only plays, he can shoot, too. The film noir. I just want to tell you all how happy I am to be back in the studio making a picture again. The way that people dress, the way that people talk, the sort of the sublimated sexuality that you could always feel. You see, this is my life. It always will be.

There's nothing else. Just us. And the cameras. And those wonderful people out there in the dark. Alright, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up. Those are really weird movies.

Right. Those take place in a very strange world, and a world that if you didn't kind of grow up in it and grow up on those movies, might be very bewildering, but also just fascinating. Fascinating. How did you feel when you'd walk out of these theaters, swimming in American cinema,

and then spilling out into the Paris streets at 15? Well, it felt very, I mean, I felt very aesthetically inflamed, you know. But also the world just looked different. There's something that happens when you see a movie, when you go to a movie and you walk out of the darkness from what is always a twilight world in the movie theater. And you walk out and the world just looks a little bit strange. It looks uncanny.

And if you're the kind of kid that I was who tends to daydream and narrate and kind of make up stories in my head the way I did and still do, then you start to feel like your own life is a movie, that the walk home or the ride on the metro is part of some film, is a piece of cinema, and I guess that's when movies really got into my head. I do think that that was the point at which my movie-going changed from something casual to something that I was more ardent about. I mean, I started reading movie criticism as a way of, in effect, having someone to talk to, to have some kind of conversation, since I was often going to movies alone.

You needed to talk to someone. So you talked to the critics who weren't talking back to you, but who were writing about the shows. Right, and who were seeing what I had seen in different ways, which was always very interesting to me, to go see a movie that I thought was great and then read it. Have it unlocked for you. Right, right. Have it unlocked or have my regard for it challenged. Having, you know, Pauline Kael saying, well, this is the worst movie I've ever seen.

I would have to say, oh, okay. Hmm. But I kind of liked it, Pauline. And having the imaginary argument in my head. And I've always thought that that's what criticism is, and that's what a critic is. Not necessarily an expert or an authority, but a companion.

Hmm. So fast forward to this time when film actually becomes your profession. You become a film critic here at the Times in, I think, 2000. 2000. Right? What's the state of American film at that time when you take on that post? I was really walking in at a high point in the film industry.

Now, 1999 is looked back on as one of the great years, up there with 1939 and 1962 and 1974, in the canon of magic years of cinema. And I think what had happened through the 90s was the flowering of what's sometimes called the indie boom of independent American filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Todd Haynes, Lisa Cholodenko, Julie Dash, Cheryl Dunye. And there's a long list of names. And I think by the end of the 90s, there was a sense that this formerly adventurous, often politically provocative and socially conscious filmmaking was really maturing and was taking its place in the Hollywood mainstream. So give us some examples from 99. For example, so 99, you had David O. Russell's Three Kings.

Why'd they blow up that milk truck? They're trying to starve the people out. Why? Bush told the people to rise up against Saddam. They thought they'd have our support. They don't. Really a movie that came to feel very prescient. It's set during the first Gulf War. It's kind of meditation on Middle Eastern oil.

Yeah, on how American global good intentions can go terribly awry. There were odd personal movies that, like Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. Oh, the broad, plunging sky. odd personal movies that like Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. Magnolia, a very divisive movie, one that I like quite a lot. A lot of people didn't like it when the frogs fell out of the sky. I actually burst into tears when the frogs fell out of the sky. This happens. This is something that happens.

This is something that happens. The movies were just this extraordinarily varied and interesting landscape. And by the time I started working here in 2000, my mission was to try to connect movies with their audiences, to let readers know about what was out there that might be the kind of movie that they didn't think they were interested in. Because for me, moviegoing had always been about taking chances. had always been about taking chances. While not, you know, saying that everyone should just surrender to random chance, I kind of wanted to make the case to readers that...

Get out of their comfort zone. And get out of their comfort zone and see something new and see something that could surprise them, that could show them an aspect of the world or an aspect of movies that they hadn't felt was there before. There's a flip side to that or a negative side to that, which is that you also want to be, as a critic, the antidote to hype. Every movie comes on a tide of marketing

and publicity and advertising, and you want to be the independent alternative to that. So what's an early example of you challenging the Times reader to step out of their comfort zone? I mean, I think my favorite example and the most extreme example is from my earliest years as a critic when there was a movie called Freddy Got Fingers. I'm going to be a famous animator like Charles Schultz. I'm going to be fine.

No, I'm going to be like Charles Schultz. That's my boy. I apologize for the title, but not really. It sucks. The drawings are pretty good, but the characters are lame. Which starred and was directed by the Canadian comedian Tom Green. Loser! I wish I was dead! Wait, wait, wait, listen, listen, listen.

You know, in which he played, I think, an aspiring artist, but basically a sort of couch potato loser. I'm being creative. Now, if you'll excuse me, I still have some work to do. Daddy, would you like some sausage? Daddy, would you like some sausages? It was a very repellent movie, in a way, on purpose. And I saw it, and I thought it was really interesting.

I thought that it was conceptually interesting, and I thought it wasn't just gross-out humor in a way, but that there was a kind of rigor and inventiveness and ingenuity to some of these comic set pieces. The backwards man, the backwards man, the backwards man, the backwards man. I can walk backwards fast as you can. I can walk backwards fast as you can.

But making the case for Freddy Gottfinger to the readers of the New York Times is a bit of a challenge. And I said that I thought it was a work of art. And you know what? I think I have been vindicated. I think that the movie is regarded as something of

a work of art, but you're taking a little bit of a chance. Whether or not a reader sees the movie, you're taking a little bit of a chance. Whether or not a reader sees the movie, you're pushing them to the edge of their comfort zone with you. Mm-hmm. And the challenge for a critic is to be able to challenge your readers,

but also retain your credibility, have them still trust you, and at least say, you know, that movie sounds like nothing I ever want to see, but he might have a point. Right. I mean, ultimately what you're describing here is a world where you are chief curator of the options that we, the reading public, have to go see a movie. And what I've always felt about reading your reviews was that you gave us a window into your kind of cinematic brain right and when does all this start to change for you right i mean because here we are we know the end of this movie you're leaving the job right when do we start to see the changes in this

industry and in your relationship to it because Because this is all pretty good stuff, this period we're talking about. Yeah. When do we start to see these changes that bring us to where we are right now? This last hours of your time as critic. I mean, I think that certainly one of the biggest changes that I've witnessed is the rise of,

or the real kind of world domination of... I'm Batman. Franchise movies, or what are called often IP-driven movies. I don't have friends. I got family. I'm putting together a team. The Avengers. Where you have something that is a brand, like Marvel. That's what we call ourselves.

Sort of like a team. Earth's Mightiest Heroes type thing. Or DC, or even to some extent, Pixar now. What's like your mission log? We've destroyed the Zurg ship and Zurg himself. Superhero movies. Yeah, superhero movies. Basically what is now called the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

I'm glad. I don't care. And by the middle and end of the 2000s, it did just seem like we were in this superhero glut. My name is Optimus Prime. I am Iron Man. I'm Spider-Man. There was Spider-Man 1, 2, 3. Spider-Man!

There were the revived Batman movies. Where is Harvey Dent? The X-Men, Fantastic Four, Green Lantern. I'm a Green Lantern. Various attempts to do the Hulk. That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry.

And it just went on and on, and it just seemed to be sucking up a lot of the oxygen in the movie world. But every movie, well... Was a blockbuster. Was a blockbuster, but also wasn't necessarily a movie in the way that I had grown up thinking about and writing about movies, which is sort of a singular object in time and space with a beginning, a middle, and an end that you can write about as a whole.

Well, you're disgust, if we can go that far, with this franchise phase of film, especially the Avenger franchise, becomes clear and culminates in this essay you wrote about the avengers and i'm just going to read a little bit okay you write this genre though it is still in a period of commercial ascendancy has also entered a phase of imaginative decadence you actually go on to say do you want to fight about it if you do i'll meet you at the top of the New York Times building with my death ray suit. You go on to say, the secret of the Avengers is that it is a snappy little dialogue comedy dressed up as something else. That something else being a giant ATM for Marvel and its new studio overlords, the Walt Disney Company. So you're really saying this is kind of crap and it's making these companies a lot of money and I disapprove. What was the reaction to that pretty acerbic assessment

you had delivered of the Avengers? Well, Mr. Samuel L. Jackson, Nick Fury in the Avengers, an actor who I greatly admire, went on Twitter and tweeted, Avengers fans, we need to find A.O. Scott a new job, one he can actually, all caps, do. And this was my first encounter with like a real Twitter swarm. Right. Because you literally poked the bear of an international, you know, juggernaut and fans. And it's fans. And the fandoms are very sensitive and quite powerful and to some extent intimidating. I mean, these movies, I think, are designed to be critic proof.

intimidating. I mean, these movies, I think, are designed to be critic-proof. You create something so enormous and so powerful that seems like such a, just a fact of nature, almost, that it just sort of crushes any dissenting voice or point of view and doesn't give you a lot to talk about. I mean, I guess I come back to that. If what criticism is, is having an argument with or about a movie, the attempt to create argument-proof movies that no one will argue about, that no one will argue with, I think that's very troubling to me. And I do feel that there is embedded in... the superhero universe,

a very strong and visible anti-democratic or authoritarian tendency. That is, that what fandom is to me, and people will be mad, but I'm going to say it. Fandom is about obedience and about conformity. It's not challenging yourself.

It's not stepping out of your cinematic comfort zone. Exactly. It's saying, I like this, and if you don't like this, I'm going to, you know, I'm mad at you, I hate you. I'm going to beat the crap out of you on Twitter. You're a hater. It's not really about having an argument or even about regarding the thing that you are devoted to that you supposedly love as worth arguing about. So it's not just critic-proof. It literally undermines the very notion, the very idea, the very point of criticism.

By design. And that's its intention. That is, I think, what's the most sinister aspect of it, is that that's the world it imagines. And unfortunately for you, it happens to be the most profitable wing of American cinema. a lot of the comedies or the literary adaptations or just the adventurous personal films that were so much a part of my movie going and movie reviewing experience have been really squeezed out it's harder for audiences to find movies worth taking a chance on and it's harder for me to find movies worth taking a chance on. And it's harder for me to find those movies

to write about, those occasions where I can say, hey, listen, here's something, here's a movie, and not an esoteric, out-of-the-way, teeny-tiny indie movie, but here's a Hollywood movie that's powerful, that's ambitious, that's surprising, that's doing something new, that you should go out and see. And I need to have a certain amount of those to do my job and to enjoy my job and to feel like my job is fulfilling and meaningful. We'll be right back. So, Tony, at this point, you're feeling outmatched by the rise of the superhero films. You can't defeat the Avengers, no matter how muddy the movie's plot is. So what's the next change that complicates your work?

The big change, and the one that is still rippling out now, is the rise of streaming. Oh, hello. I'd like to tell you about Netflix. And the beginning of this change was in 2012 when Netflix, which had been a mail-order DVD company, switched over to streaming. You watch Netflix on your PC or on your TV through a game console or other devices connected to the internet. And to original programming. And first what they were making was television. There are two types of vice presidents, doormats and matadors. Which do you think I intend to be?

House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. Right. Look at you, Blondie. What'd you do? Aren't you not supposed to ask that question? I read aren't you not supposed to ask that question i read that you're not supposed to ask that you read that well you studied for prison they were competing for for emmys with amc and hbo and fx and with the whole emerging universe of what was called then prestige TV. I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger. A guy opens his door and gets shot and you think that of me? No.

I am the one who knocks. Which had been another threat to the movies in a way. Right, because who needed to go to the movies when you had, you know, Sopranos and Batman? It's your job. I give you money, you give me ideas. You never say thank you. That's what the money is for. So Netflix entered that world in the TV mode.

It was making series and it was competing with cable. But... Aja, we are animal lovers. Our plan is to expose Miranda, rescue Okja, and bring her back to you. At a certain point, that began to shift. I would say, you know, when Netflix started investing in movies. Designed for what? The papacy. The chair of St. Peter,

the bishopric of Rome. I'm going to renounce all of them. And not just in, like, 12 Christmas movies. 12 Netflix original Christmas movies. But, you know, going after and funding work like Alfonso Cuaron's Roma. Mm-hmm. Or Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story.

I can't believe I have to know you forever! Martin Scorsese's The Irishman. We're brothers, right? That's right. We're brothers. We're brothers? You're brothers. We're brothers. I'm not arguing with you.

Everybody's a brother. That's right. You're a brother. You're his brother. I'm not, but you guys are, So that's why I would like to just... All right. Okay. We're brothers. We're brothers. And doing what the studios wouldn't do, which is give filmmakers a lot of money

to make the projects that they wanted to make. How is this a challenge for you, then? This is wondrous. Right? This seems wondrous. And those movies, I'm very glad. I'm a big fan of all of the three movies. And I think one of the problems is that by taking those movies out of theatrical circulation or distributing them in a very limited way on theater screens, Netflix has, in a way, blunted their impact.

Because what happens to movies on streaming is that they go into the algorithm. So you can find them. They're there. But they don't have, I think, the same kind of cultural presence that movies used to or that even traditionally distributed movies still do. Right. And that algorithm is very much tied to personal habit. Yes. To personal habit and to a kind of passivity. Because also you're working on a subscription model. So Netflix doesn't care what you watch on Netflix, as long as you're watching Netflix.

So as soon as you're done watching one thing, then the next thing will start. And if you don't pick it, they'll pick it for you. Right, and they're not doing what A.O. Scott does. They're not picking a film to challenge you. Exactly. And that encourages, I think, a kind of passivity. And also, the fact that you know all that stuff is there, that you can get around to it someday, makes know, you had a week to see it in, you would be

more likely, I would say, to see it than if it's sitting there in your Criterion Channel subscription and you can get to it anytime. But, you know, tonight I'm just a little, let's just watch some episodes of The Office. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's not like you always have to be watching, you know, John Dielman peeling potatoes and, you know, sitting at the edge of your seat, forcing yourself through difficult cinema on the way to aesthetic transcendence. You know, that's not everybody's Tuesday night.

But the danger is that those experiences get more marginalized, get lost, fall out of people's repertoire of experiences that they seek out. Right. And what you're really describing is another very challenging situation for you, right? Which is- Let's make this all about me. Which is this kind of algorithmic march toward the middle. Yes.

The quote from the famous Lester Bangs of Almost Famous. And, you know, personally, this is how I can account for the fact that I've watched 10 Liam Neeson assassin flicks. I'm embarrassed to say, but they're there and they're comforting. And in this universe, your recommendations, your exposing your brain on the page and challenging me to go see a movie in the theater is it has a

very small chance of working right yeah and you you might not need it or or want it as much right i guess i'm trying to understand if this is truly a crisis for film or a crisis for film critic for film critic? It's a very good question. And is it a crisis just for this particular film critic? Right? I mean, there are lots of movies out there.

There are a lot of people writing about movies. There are many of them writing wonderful and insightful things. So I'm not here to proclaim the death of cinema or the death of criticism.

But I have found that the way that I've practiced it has gotten harder to do. And also, the feeling of disconnection, you know, between the critic and the audience feels much stronger. And the gulf feels much wider. I mean, the whole point of writing for the New York Times about movies is to spread the news. But, Tony, couldn't you take another viewpoint of all this, which is perhaps that all these forces you're describing, superhero films, Netflix, on-demand, everything, the clapback culture of Twitter, where fans of Samuel L. Jackson, they're the ones who have the last word. Is all of this maybe not actually a bad thing? I mean, are they collectively democratizing forces

in the film world that are giving people what they want? And is it possibly true that the old Hollywood that you are fond of was a little snobby and a little insular? I would say worse than that. I mean, I would say that Hollywood was notorious for most of its history for being at times actively racist and always exclusionary of people of color, of religious minorities, of queer and transgender people. I mean, Hollywood was for a very long time ruled by a production code that mandated a very narrow, very distorted, very conservative view of what the world was like. And it took a very long time to start to emerge from that.

And I think it's only started to emerge from that very recently. So we've seen, you know, in the last few years only, maybe in the last decade, an expansion of opportunities for women, women being nominated in Oscar categories that they hadn't been nominated in before, in Oscar categories that they hadn't been nominated in before, you know, Black and Asian directors and actors finally getting a chance and getting their due. So I certainly don't want to turn back the clock on any of that. But I also think that we should be wary of trusting the corporations that control Hollywood, that control what we see, to be democratic. And that the interesting work, the ambitious work that has emerged has always happened in spite of that corporate dominance. So I hope that that continues.

Right. It's interesting that you are feeling these feelings of, let's call them disaffection, disillusionment. Because from what I can tell, based on some conversations I've been having with our colleagues, there are elements of the film industry that are feeling a bit the same way. And they're feeling it, and I'm not saying this to flatter you, in part because you're leaving this job. And here I want to cite the observations of a colleague of ours, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Times Magazine writer, TV writer now, who has been in L.A. And she described this phenomenon. She said she had been in L.A. where, she writes,

quote, the only question people had for me all week when she was there was what happened to A.O. Scott and why he's leaving, and is it a referendum on the movies? And if they could say what was on their faces, Taffy goes on to say, it would be, what is our future? What does this mean? What could they have done better to please Tony Scott?

So, I mean, assuming there's a little bit of hyperbole in there, to the degree that there's truth in there, does that hearten you? I mean, I've never written for the industry. That's not my primary obligation, is to write for the readers of the New York Times, and for the audience. I mean, the audience is whose side I'm on in this whole game.

But I do think that there are people in, and I've met some of them over the years, although I've always paid for my own dinner whenever I've... Of course, of course you did. Those are the rules of the New York Times, and I respect and abide by them. But there are a lot of people in the movie industry who care about movies in the same way that I care about them,

who are in it not for fans or for money, but for some belief in the power of the art form and in its future. So, you know, and I've thought of myself as basically an ally for those people, which isn't to say that I always like their movies or always give them good reviews or always kind to them in print, but just that, that we believe in the same things, um, that we have some of the same values. So I'm not surprised to hear that reading between the lines of, of what Tappy said, that, that they feel

some of the same things that I'm feeling. You know, it's not just that they see my leaving as an alarming sign, but as maybe evidence or confirmation of something that they already suspect. And I haven't lost faith in movies. I still love movies. I will still go to movies. But I do, you know, I do worry still and going forward. And I worry about my fellow critics and I worry about the state of the art form that we all care so much about.

You care about 15-year-old A.O. Scott. Yeah, I mean, I'm still him. You know, I'm still that person, and I still feel that same passion and ardor and amazement and bewilderment, but not, you know, not on a professional basis. Well, Tony, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Thank you, Michael. It was a lot of fun. As the movie was wrapping up, I heard you chuckle. I mean, yeah, it's just a lot of questions. Yeah, what did you think? Well, I wouldn't say it's a good movie. You know, which is just a kind of adventure action movie. It doesn't need to be particularly profound or original, but it should just sort of take care of its narrative business a little bit better.

It's just like all of the beats just seem to happen in this very rote way. So here come these dinosaurs, and then they're going to kill these dinosaurs. Oh my God, she swallowed a bug. And the berries are poisonous. And the berries are poisonous. And we have 12 hours till the meteor strikes. And he's mourning his daughter and do something. I mean, the characters have to have personalities, which they didn't. They really didn't. Is this how you kind of imagined ending your career in film criticism? Not with a bang but a whimper

or with the bang of asteroids striking the earth. I mean, in a way, I think it is to some degree an anti-climax but also just thinking about there are always lots of movies and there is kind of the grind of reviewing and is, I think it's fitting in a way because that's been a lot of it. Most movies are quickly forgotten and so it's good to be reminded of that. Not everything we do is for the ages.

It's newspaper writing, which means it's, you know, to put it in the old technological terms, it will be wrapping fish the next morning. So... Who on earth would care what I think of it? Like this movie is clearly, you know, connecting with its audience in a very powerful and visceral and exciting way. And that audience is not the middle-aged guy sitting there taking notes. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.

In a closely watched decision on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by a quarter point despite fears that previous interest rate hikes contributed to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the larger banking crisis that's still underway. The rate increase reflects the Fed's need to balance the health of the banking industry with the threat of inflation,

which rising interest rates are designed to counter by making it more expensive to borrow money. And... I want to open by stating how deeply sorry I am for the impact this derailment has had on the citizens of East Palestine and the surrounding communities. On Wednesday, the chief executive of the railroad

company Norfolk Southern, whose train derailed last month in East Palestine, Ohio, told a Senate committee that the company would provide long-term financial support to residents of the town. That support, according to the CEO, Alan Shaw, will include a medical compensation fund to address health risks from the accident and another program to ensure that homes in East Palestine don't lose their value because of the accident. Norfolk Southern is here for the long haul, and we won't be finished until we make this right. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today. I look forward to your questions. It was edited by Michael Benoit and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Alishaba Etube.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow. Thank you.