The Press Box - This Week in Ringer Culture (Nov 6, 2017 - Nov 10, 2017) (Ep. 379)

Episode Date: November 11, 2017

In the first installment of ‘This Week in Ringer Culture’ we feature ‘Damage Control’ on Taylor Swift's new album, ‘The Watch’ on ‘Thor: Ragnarok,’ ‘House of Carbs’ with Adam Rapoport on prepping for Thanksgiving, ‘Larry Wilmore: Black on the Air’ with Carl Reiner on the Trump administration, ‘The Press Box’ on the entertainment media’s coverage of the Weinstein and Louis C.K. scandals, and ‘The Big Picture’ with Richard Linklater on his filmmaking process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to this week in Ring Your Culture. I'm Liz Kelly here to bring you a compilation of the best offerings from the culture side of things here at the Ring Your Podcast Network. First up, we have Justin Charity and Cam Collins on Damage Control, giving their thoughts on Taylor Swift's new album reputation. Taylor Swift's new album reputation is boring. It is hardly a Taylor Swift album. It did not really get much of a rise out of me one way or another. I will cop to liking one song, and it wasn't one of the singles. I will copped to liking Endgame.

The one that had Ed Sheeran on it. I don't even know what's... Endgame featuring Ed Sheeran. I don't even know what to say. And the rapper future. I don't know what to say. That's your pick. I apologize.

That's your critic's choice? That's what this album has done to me. Charity, help me with this album because you wrote about this as well this week. Went into this album. having at least among our friends collectively agreed that we were preparing for it to be a failure because the singles look what you made me do etc were just not they were provoking something that was not provocative they were just not interesting they were bad songs but more importantly they're putting forward a persona that just the old tailor is dead I don't know what to say

who is that I want to reiterate what you just said they're like we were expecting some bullshit but this isn't the bullshit we expected yeah I think that's it except I kind of did expect it because I will say it to be boring well so you you pointed out that the singles are just all over the place and not great and people were panning them and people they they sort of bricked relative to the 1989 single certainly which they're serving they went number one and they stayed number one and that's what they did and these songs are debuting high but they're just dropping like flies in terms of the fact as far as the bullshit that one did or did not

expect goes the second single from this album is a song called ready for it, which may be a promo single, actually. Right. It's the opening track on the album. The second song we got to hear on the internet from this album is Ready for It. And Ready for It is a song that every time I try to listen to it and watch the music video, I just struggle to understand what, not only what the song is about, but what the emotional through line of it is.

It seems so musically confused and emotionally confused that I, And emotional throughlines are Taylor's thing. Right, that's the thing. That's her talent. Like, you know what the emotional through line of blank spaces. Well, to be fair, she has the same emotional through line that she's had since she was 12. Sure. But, right, it's legible.

I get it. She is not the first child talent, though, to have to grow up and have a musical career. You know what I mean? No, she's not the first to fail to grow up. That's also true. That's also true. But I find this album frustrating because everything about it, on the individual. song level and then on the level of how songs relate to each other, everything about it sounds

like it's made by a person who doesn't know, she sounds like somebody who doesn't know what a Taylor Swift song is supposed to sound like anymore. She's lost in the sauce. I would never call myself a Taylor Swift stand, but I've also always had to concede, despite always being suspicious of her persona, that she can write a hook. But I don't know what to do with this album in which nothing stands out really about her, right? Like, these songs could belong to anybody. I think pop stars get to hide behind persona and narrative a lot. Yes.

So I'll say that... We encourage it. You know, take 1989, which is a hugely successful Taylor Swift album, released three years ago, had massive singles. So let's take one of the biggest singles from that album. Bad Blood, which I think is a horrible song. You think... Okay.

I think that song is horrible. But constitutionally, I get what that song is. It's petty, brady, combative, rah-wah anthem song. Got it. Okay, I get what this is. It's a combative pop song. Sure. And I just am like, where is that, where do that clarity go?

Where did that clarity of who she is? It went into the song titles. Right, yo, totally. Can we read some of these songs? Can we read some of the song titles actually? Can we get, yeah, can we please read some of the song titles actually? End game. Call it what you want.

Which you made me do, the lead single. I did something bad. Don't blame me. So it goes. Call it what you want. I look at the track list and I'm like, okay, this is going to be fuck the haters, the album from Taylor Swift. That's an album that we've all heard before for many people. It's a legitimate lane for an album.

It's an album that I appreciate. Totally. And I think she got the song titles right. That's the thing. But that's what I mean when I say that pop stars can hide behind. They can hide behind persona and marketing in a way that that that clarifies. on a marketing level, on a presentation level, and the gulf between how just, again, emotionally just confused

and unsure and musically unsure and muddled it all sounds. And yet, I just have a feeling that by the end of this day, which is the first release day for the album, I don't know, I feel like the critical tide is basically people saying, oh, something's decent. Thor Ragnarok, which premiered earlier this month, crossed 500 million in the global box office,

putting it on pace to be the most successful Thor movie to date. On the watch, Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald share their reviews on the film and the absurd comedic elements introduced by director Tycho Wattiti. This movie was pure pleasure for me. I think it is exactly what a comic book movie should be. I think that not just because, and we can talk about the how's and wise of this,

but not just because it breaks from the tradition of either the overly important or the overly destructive or violent or dark trend that has dominated a lot of the movies over the last decade. But what it has is that very, very specific mix of yes, humor, but also righteous teenage wonder that is what attracts people to stories like Thor, to the art of Jack Kirby or Walt Simons and all these other. people who worked on Thor and made Thor cool, even though, you know, one of the arguments I'm

hearing from a lot of people, including our friend and colleague Sean Fennacy, who has an absolutely terrific podcast interview with Thor's director, Tycho YTT. He asked, he, he can, they both copped to this, thinking we never liked Thor at all, even though maybe we liked comic books. Sure. It works when you steer the absurdity meter up to 200 and it becomes something glorious. As soon as those first notes of immigrant songs start playing, as soon as you, you see, see Tessa Thompson on a winged Pegasus about to hurl a sword at Kate Blanchette.

Right. Let's go. Yes, it is both ridiculous and glorious, and it has absolutely no shame in straddling that divide. And in fact, not just straddling a divide, if I may, building a rainbow bridge between the Bifrost Bridge. Yeah, look, this movie was, this movie is pure pleasure, and I'm blown away by it. I loved it. Okay.

I didn't dislike the movie while I watched it. Okay. And I don't feel particularly strongly about not liking it. Okay. But I didn't particularly care for this movie. This is a strong, strong ground you're staking out for a podcast. I didn't,

no, I mean, like what I'm saying is like, you're not going to see me protesting outside the arc late because of this and I'm not like trying to sap anybody's good time. But I didn't really like this movie very much. Okay. I feel like it was like a Pixar movie where it basically was like four children,

except for the jokes were for the parents who brought them there. Okay. Interesting. So I kind of just thought it was pretty much nonsense. and a little bit like everybody involved was definitely like we don't really like Thor

which is like fine I disagree with that I just think like everything from like it's fine it was like a lot of it was about sort of being like do we really want to make like the same old Thor movie which I don't think you should when the first two movies were not particularly good no so even from like they're cutting the hair

which I thought it was like symbolically like a gesture of kind of like this is not like the old movies we're kind of updating this character Shouts to Stan Lee for they finally gave him something to do. Yeah, right. I thought that it had a kind of, the sense of humor was sort of like everybody in front of and behind the camera kind of thinks this is a joke. And that's fine. But it still there is like, it is part of a social contract between movie grower and filmmaker where you're like, yeah, yeah, you know, like, I'm giving you this money because you believed in what you were making.

And I don't know necessarily whether or not the narrative surrounding Tycho Attee's. involvement in the movie, which was sort of like, I don't really know anything about some of the superhero stuff. My job is to create a kind of atmosphere of absurd humor on the set. And it plays very improv. It plays very loose. I feel like a lot of the characters were really a little bit more like, what's the funny thing I can say here rather than anything relating to like my character. Now, that being said, I also don't particularly enjoy the Guardians of the Galaxy volume two part, which is basically like people staring at each other and being like this is what friends and family do. No.

You know, like there's like a couple of throwaway lines about like this is what heroes do in Thor. Yeah. Ragnarok, but I don't know, man. And I think also like I might also, you know, I was talking with Sean you about this just before we went on. I think I immediately get a little bit like if somebody tells me something super funny. I'm just like, okay?

Like how funny is it? Yeah. You know? But yeah. I just, I think I felt like the, ultimately, if this movie was just the running man on the prison planet, it would have been dope, but they get off

Sikar, and they're still like an hour to go. And they have to have like a fight with a wolf. As Tika said in the interview with Sean, to him, this movie is after hours with with gods. That's cool. You know, that's a great, great line. But like, it's still another hour. Thanksgiving and your in-laws are coming in two weeks,

but don't fret. On House of Carbs, Joe House and Adam Rappaport cover Thanksgiving prep from table setting to proper bird prep. You know what you're doing the day before Thanksgiving, Joe? Drinking? Well, yes. Playing golf? Yes. I'm doing both of those things.

You're also setting the table. Oh, whoa! Get all that stuff out of the way. Like, you want to make sure you have, like, oh, wait, we have 12 people coming over. We only have nine wine glasses because, like, we had 10, but then House broke one. I did. But there's all those sorts of things, like make sure you have everything. Also, get all the platters out.

Like, do you have enough serving platters? Do you have enough serving spoons? Because, like, everyone always calls and asks, oh, what can I bring? And you're like, you know what? Can you bring a big bowl for the mashed potatoes? Because I just realized we don't have one. So you got to do all those, all that logistical stuff. This mapping.

Yeah, you don't want to worry about it. Do you have enough chairs? I don't know if you have enough chairs, Joe? I probably don't. No. Well, you know, we have benches at my house. We get some benches. We bring benches from all over.

I'm a big bench guy. Yeah. This stage of life. There are not enough benches. in my life. It goes back to, you know, we can go all the way back

to my... Back when you used to sit on the bench in high school. Exactly. That it harkens back. Okay, look, I didn't mean to hijack from November the 7th

all the way up to November the 22nd. In between those two crucial dates. Also, have you ordered your turkey yet? That's hugely important. Well, so let's talk about that. Ordering versus going to your local butcher versus going to your whole foods.

What's the... A couple of things. All right. If you're going to go to a butcher, just call or say, hey, I have a place, Florence Meat Market in New York. I go to a lot. I call Maria. I'm saying, hey, I want a 14-pound bird. I'll pick it up on Tuesday before Thanksgiving. If you're going to do the frozen grocery store bird, like the traditional butterball bird, you better give yourself time for that thing to defrost. Because that takes days.

Right, right, right. So you can't buy one on Wednesday and think it's going to be defrosted by Thursday. So buy it over that weekend prior, let it gradually come to temperature in your fridge. Got it. Okay. Good. And then in terms of the types of birds, like a good organic bird, if you're going that whole sort of free-rangedy wild turkey, like that, is it, what they're going to call it? But that's a different, like the heritage breed, like that's a different type of bird, smaller breast meat, more sort of muscular. That's going to be a different taste. It's been a year since Donald Trump was elected in office, which caused airstorm on Twitter from supporters and detractors. One of those detractors on Twitter is Hollywood legend Carl Reiner. He spoke with Larry Wilmore on Black on the Air about his activity. Well, one last thing, Carl, do you have any other thoughts about this current administration or anything you want to say that you can't fit in a tweet? Because a tweet, they do give you 280 characters now.

I don't know if you know that. Well, you know, I think what I've been tweeting lately is basically what's happening is that he's imploding. Although those people are coming forward are being investigated in closed sessions. And some of them risked jail time. A few of them are wearing ankle bracelets now, the manifold. And when you read about the amount of deals he made through the ears and the Russian connection, which is now shown to be absolute, I mean, they've got all the proof they need that they colluded to get Hillary, you know,

thrown at, and him saying lock her up and all that, he was hideous. No, don't even get me started. You know, I saw a Hillary being interviewed on some. show lately. The difference and somebody who knows, I mean, she was the Secretary of State. She really knows how government works. There's one thing about Hillary that really endears me to her. When she was 16 years old, this is a kid.

She became interested in indigent children who had no parents. And she started a little thing where she helped young little kids who needed parenting or needed food. And she had an organization going when she was a kid. And one of her professors when college said, this is the single brightest woman, he's ever graduated from that. And she's going to go on to be something great.

And she was. I mean, when you hear her speak now, and then one of the things, one of the ugliest things I've ever seen was the debate number three where she's talking to the audience. Oh, yeah. And there's a,

a beaimuth behind her. Yeah. Every place she walked, he walked two feet behind it. That was bizarre. That was just kind of creepy, right? That was the creep. We have the creepiest president we've ever had. His ratings now are the lowest in the history of the country. Yeah.

So that's the thing I, what was the question? No, you answered it. Believe me. You answered it. On the press box, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker discussed the Harvey Weinstein and Louis C.K. scandals and how they've changed entertainment journalism. Let's start here with Louis C.K. Because we now live in a universe.

You remember like nine months ago when we lived in the universe where we were just waiting every day at like Five Eastern for a Maggie Haberman, Glenn Thrush piece to drop in the time? Scoops o'clock. I remember it well. Now we've transitioned to a new universe where we wait for a tale of sexual harassment and or abuse from a famous Hollywood person to drop. In this case, this had been rumored for a number of weeks. It was preceded this morning on Twitter by news that Louis C.K.'s new movie has been canceled from a New York film festival because the Timespeas was coming out.

And then just before we got on the air here, the Timespeas came out. It is titled Louis C.K. crossed a line into sexual misconduct, five women say. And you want to just read the push notification, which is maybe easier than summarizing this thing. The New York Times push notification on my phone. I haven't even opened from my home screen yet, although I've read the piece of my laptop, to be clear, says from the New York Times, the comedian, Louis C.K., masturbated in front of two female comics in 2002, the women said, three others described separate sexual misconduct. So let's leave that right there. And let me pivot to a slightly bigger point, which is that I think I'm amazed at how Harvard. Weinstein and all the other people that have come out in these various investigations now,

now including Louis, have basically changed the orientation of entertainment writing. You open these sections now, and it's almost like entertainment writing SVU, where so many of the resources and so much of the labor is devoted to catching the next predator or talking about what the old predator was doing in the case of Ronan Farrow's latest New Yorker bombshell. And I feel that the whole just notion, at least temporarily, of entertainment journalism, has changed. What do you think?

I mean, it's indisputable. Our wonderful boss slacked around a picture a week ago of just like what the Hollywood reporter's homepage looked like right at that moment. And like 11 out of 12 were stories of alleged sexual harassment or assault or proven. I mean, in some cases, I guess. but like it was, it's a little bit just halting to see, well, I mean, on the one hand, the degree to which this sort of like horror is permeating Hollywood culture and just our culture at large, but also just to, I mean, it's, it's, you know, shocking to see a place like the Hollywood Reporter totally be taken over by that sort of story. It really is. And speaking of the Hollywood Reporter, I was calling around doing some reporting this week just on how much, how many resources are devoted. these things. Here's amazing. Hollywood Reporter has, they told me about seven reporters, more or less

working full-time on this beat. The Matthew Bologna, the magazine's editorial director, said about a half, 50% of his time is spent on these stories. This is during traditional award season stuff. Their directorial roundtables, right, all those kinds of things that they do. Variety has that many or more reporters working on the story. We saw an interesting thing this week, too, or last week, which was BuzzFeed, purged part of its entertainment. editorial staff. And one of their stated reasons was because they'd fallen behind on the Weinstein story. And then like the next day or two days later, they published the first Kevin Spacey story,

which then took that story into that trajectory. So it's not just that these stories are so big, but they are, I think, you know, consuming the laborer of these various publications. This week's Big Picture podcast with their editor-in-chief, Sean Fennacy, featured Richard Linklater, director of Dazed and Confused and the Before Friends. on his approach to filmmaking. Is it easier for you personally to make films? On the set, like in my day-to-day.

Well, even conceiving them, I feel like conception is a big part of your process, too, for lack of a better word. The idea is always a thing. Sure is. There's a sentence in your films that you're like, oh, he's doing it this way. So many films I make are the conception usually comes years and years ago, but I'll have a big idea, but it takes me years to kind of craft that idea. and think about it or, you know, often there's a 10-year gap there. So the good news is I have a bunch of ideas and things that, you know, a big stack of scripts and things I'm working on.

So I think I'm overwhelmed way into the future with film projects and stories I want to tell and things. But a lot of these, I'd say three of the last four movies I've done, have been long gestating, you know, something like this. It's 10-year gestation. Everybody wants them, the one right before. Same thing, about a 10-year gap between wanting to get it. made and actually getting it made. Boyhood, obviously, we shot it over a short time from conception to shooting, but then a long conceptual shoot. The before series obviously has its own big

conception behind the whole thing that's 20 whatever years old at this point. So, yeah, movies are, I think it really lives and dies at that very first idea. I think you have a lot of ideas and the ones that sort of flitter away are probably the ones you shouldn't make. You know, they're not, they don't have the depth or they're not that interesting or funny. Maybe there's a lot of clever ideas and there's obviously a million stories. We all encounter just a ton of stories every day of our lives that could be a movie or, you know, but it's like, well, what should be a movie? Two different things. And so what should be a movie that I want to spend that kind of time and effort and resources and live with it the rest of your life, you know? So it's nothing you take

lightly. The idea has run through the gauntlet of my mind for years before. I'm actually doing it. I wonder, you know, you've been creative about how to execute ambitious ideas before. So Scanner Darkly or Boyhood, these, in a different, with a different filmmaker in a different environment, those could be expensive or elaborate productions, and you've managed to do them in your specific grounded way. Is there something that is a bigger and above that that you've always wanted to do but have not either been able to do or had the time?

Yeah, do I have any, like, great. grand epic films in my head that I have. I do, but they're kind of big stories, and there's something I've been working on for about 20 years, but I'm realizing now, and it's good timing, that that film I had my head that just keeps sprawling and growing and, you know, I'm doing research. It's a big historical thing.

But when you realize it's over 10 hours long, you have to go, okay, well, you know, I'm living in the age of there's a great form for that, you know, long form storytelling. How do you feel about the prospect of doing something? that big. Oh, good. Yeah. I'm excited about telling a pretty lengthy multi-character thing. And, you know, movies have a pace you have to kind of adhere to. You know, the format, the feature film format, I love it. It's how I think. But it's kind of strict in its own way, pacing and hooking an audience in.

I think TV, kind of one of the beauties of it is you can kind of hang out with it and get to know people. And it's kind of what I do in film. And I've had, believe me, I've had, networks and presidents and people saying, you know, your style is, you would be very good at TV because you just, you know, dialogue and people. I go, I know, I know. I just haven't, don't have the idea. Yeah, you mentioned earlier that your three guys talking on a road trip is your kind of movie. And I think a lot of people perceive that as like, that's my kind of TV show. I know.

I know. I'm in the wrong era because like when people say, oh, I want to go to a movie that like, well, let's go to Star Wars or Thor or, you know, big movies. Big, you know, big is movie theater, intimate, human, adult is TV, which I so disagree with, but you can't. People are sort of training themselves into this niche. So studios certainly believe that. That's it for this week in Ringer Culture. Thanks for listening. You can subscribe and find all of our shows at theringer.com slash podcasts.