The Watch - ‘A Murder at the End of the World’ and ‘The Killer’

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Chris and Andy talk about the news that Pedro Pascal will likely be cast as Reed Richards in the next ‘Fantastic Four’ movie (1:00), then touch on the new ‘Madame Web’ trailer (16:29). They also talk about the first two episodes of ‘Murder at the End of the World’ and how it seems unevenly split between two plotlines (23:03), before talking about the newest David Fincher movie, ‘The Killer’ (51:55). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Ask your doctor about Trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line.

Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the run. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at Thebringer.com.

And joining me in the studio, the podcaster at the end of the world. It's Andy Greenwald. Do you ever think about how Kaya holds all the receipts for everything we say before we record and everything we say after we remember? I stand by everything I say on and off mic. It's incredible. Yeah. You've got to have a certain kind of moral rectitude to get this far in life. If and when the Philly Media has.

your ring camera. You would have nothing to hide? No, it would just be me standing outside of my porch with a cup of coffee. And just saying to no one, you know, I genuinely did like aspects

of the island. Just to prove that everything you say is... I will say, I feel like... It would just be me picking up an Amazon package and saying,

you guys make the best U.S. in the whole streaming game and then singing, I'm a freak! Yeah! That's just you in the morning? Yeah. Is that before?

after you run over your neighbors. What's up, man? Our takes are genuine. I do think that that's... The one criticism that rankles is when people think we're just like, you know, staking out positions for clout or whatever.

Like, I run hot. I run hot about stuff and you have sometimes bad taste. No. So that's... I think I just... I think it's just so strange that it is we've gotten older,

and now I'm almost as old as you are. Yeah, happy birthday tomorrow. That, like, I've just, like, I've seen it all, you know? and I just have much more, I see the gray, and you only see black and white. Well, it's what keeps me young, right?

But I still have a very militant response. Yes. To culture. It's one of the most interesting things about you is you never come away from a piece of popular culture and say, that was okay. Well, I mean, that's how I'm a born podcaster. Yeah, right?

This is the medium that I should always exist in. It's wonderful to see you. It's wonderful to see Kaya who braved, what's left of the 10 freeway to come join us today at Ringer HQ? It really is end times out here, not because... Because it rained once? Well, that was awful, but no. I mean, people don't and shouldn't care, but there was damage to a freeway,

and everyone's like, oh, no, because that does really affect people's commutes, and that is people's lives, whatever. But the bigger issue is the cause of the fire was that, like, people were stashing pallets of unused COVID-era hand sanitizer underneath the freeway. Why? You didn't hear this? And then some arsonists lit the hand sannie on fire. An arsonist did this?

Yes. You didn't see it. I haven't been keeping up with this. There's a lot of stuff going on in the news right now. Yeah, this is really what happened. This is, it is so like, chat, GPT, write me a scenario for end times in Los Angeles. This is how it would begin. Do you still have lots of bottles of hand sanitizer?

No. No, I drank them all 2021. Just to feel to get rid of COVID the first time. Yeah, that's how I've stayed clean, baby. Andy, today we're going to talk about a murder at the end of the world. The first two episodes of which are up on FX on Hulu. You can watch them on the streaming service

known as Hulu. And we're also going to talk about David Fischer's The Killer, which is the number one movie on Netflix, I believe. Is it? I hope so. Had just a sensational opening week for Netflix. And honestly, you know, Bill has been talking about this a lot, about the monoculture sort of power of Netflix. I will say anecdotally

that if David, for as much as I think everybody should see the killer in the theaters, I do not think I would have had as many the killer conversations in the last week had it just been in theaters. It does seem like almost every person I know has seen the killer now, which is something. We can get to that when we get to the movie itself. I would say most of the people who have seen it were not at the 120 people. screening in a movie theater on Monday. Yes. When I,

Netflix subscriber, paid to buy a ticket for. Well, you're a trooper, and you're a soldier of cinema. I love art. Yeah. I feel like that's an underrated thing about me. Talk to me.

What's going on? What's in your mind? You want to talk about Pedro Pascall? I so don't. I was hoping you'd come in with like, a lot of alt headlines to riff on because I don't. There's really nothing. There's really nothing.

I'm actually, sometimes I get scared about the future of television because there seems to be no news other than this news. People are probably like, will you two shut the fuck up about Marvel? And it's like, I would love to. Believe me. If they cast Marri of East Town season two, if

we got some white-loadie updates, I would love to tell you all about it. Those will be coming soon. There will be some casting stuff because things are going real fast now in terms of the return shows. When you say real fast, is it in a good way? Oh yeah. I mean, I assume like Mike White is famously a fast writer.

I'm sure he put pen to paper on White Lotus episode 301. It's a super-sized season now. Two weeks ago. Yeah. I'm sure he, that's all he's, I'm sure he just started. Pends up. And, yeah, I think they're set, I think I announced they're going to film in Thailand

starting in February. So they got to get that. I'm sure the casting is probably essentially done. I also think, and I've heard this anecdotally, there are a lot of exciting, though there are still some, there were a lot of announcements that were like on the runway in terms of like the deals weren't papered, as they say, or things weren't official in March, April, May that all got held until the strikes were resolved. So I do think that even though we are now entering into, entering into, I mean, Hollywood went on vacation for Thanksgiving around

Halloween, but there will be more news than usual over the next few weeks of casting and things and maybe some projects that seem dormant will roar back to life. There will be other things to talk about other than Marvel, but, you know, we are caught in this moment where the Marvel's tanked. And so all of the stories are about what's the future of it. And, And then there's a competing narrative to say, hey, hey, there is a future. But there's also a competing narrative to say, we don't really know what the future is. Because our guy, Dustin Creighton, has... He exited Avengers as a director.

He's consciously uncoupled himself from Avengers, the Kang. But stays in a thruple with Wonder Man and Shang Shi. And our colleague, Joanna Robinson, broke a little... She got aggregated, wind horse style. She was talking... I think she might have been talking on the big picture about this. pretty sure she was about the possibility that they're going to get,

they're going to untangle themselves from the Kang stuff. Yep. And that part of the reason why maybe Destin left is that they're going a different direction with this feature of the MCU. We'll see. And he loves Kang. I feel like let's get aggregated by saying that.

That his one, Destin's one thing is just like, when I began this Hollywood journey with the masterpiece short term 12, I saw it as one tile in the larger mosaic of the Kang Dynasty. Just a variant. Yeah. And if you take Kang away from the next Avengers movie, what do you have? I don't know, but I'm sure they can figure it out.

Because if you read Joanna's book, you realize that a lot of the stuff they've been doing over the last 20 years has been a little bit by the seat of their pants. So just the fact that, like, they said it's going to be called the Kang Dynasty in 2021 or 22 or whenever they announced that, doesn't mean it has to be that movie in 2025. I mean, like, they can really make the decisions how are they see fit?

Yeah, and I think that even just going off of the titles and everything we've seen up to now, it was pretty clear that Kang Dynasty would be like, they were setting up another Infinity War into endgame, too, for where Kang Dynasty would be like, let's fight Jonathan Major's variant throughout multiverses. Yeah. And then they lose or win.

And the result of that is not unlike what happened in Jonathan Hickman's secret wars. All of the universes crash into each other, and there's only one universe left, which is basically like a pan-ge continent of alternate Marvel characters who all fight. And that's where they keep the hand sanitizer?

That's where they keep it. And then they finally ignite it all. And what comes out of that is the one true next MCU. Right. And it's Hugh Jackman. And it's... I was really not... I know we've been covering this ad nauseum, but I kind of was not aware

that Marvel has just quietly exited 2024 except for Deadpool 3. Yeah. Which is going to be like, everybody kind of like those Fox movies, right? Yes. That's what it's going to be. Yeah. And we still haven't talked about the Marvels, but I feel like they are keeping their options open.

Do you know what I mean? But based on like the way, not only like what happens at the end of the Marvel's post-credit sequence, but in general, I think that Marvel is like, let's just see how the chips fall. Do you feel, and the other news to bounce off of was that, you know, there are rumors. and then there's like rumors that seem to have some like gravitational force to them. Yes. And this was the latter that Pedro Pascal is in final negotiations to play. Mephisto? Your favorite character.

Mephisto? I think it's Mephisto. But I call him Mephisto. And Magneto. Just like in head cannon that all makes sense. Mephisto is the guy who is always in the background of Dave Chang videos because he's about to feast. Oh, emphasis on feast. Did you see, I wish I had this in front of me, but I really recommend everyone,

to Google this New York Times story the other day about you're going to love this. An art restorer that basically there was this painting. What's up with you? Listen, I read the newspaper. My hands are so chapped and raw from sanitizing them. No, there was this painting

and it's just like, it's a biblical scene, it's like the death of somebody, and everyone's, it's kind of boring. It's just like a dead guy and people being like, oh, oh, snap, he's dead. But the art restorer was like, there's something under here by his head and they like scraped away the paint

and there was a demon. Oh, what? There was a little like two-thing demon. Oh, wow. And apparently, the painter was like, you know what this biblical death scene needs is an actual demon hosting, like feasting mefeasting on this guy's soul as it leaves his body? And he hung it up. And everyone in like 17th century was like, this sucks. You can't draw demons.

He was like, oh, right, excuse me. And he painted over the demon. and now they found the demon. That's cool. And now is the demon getting sort of like a sort of critical reevaluation? The demon is now re-prepped at CAA. That's great. The demon is getting into the content space.

I thought you were going to say that they found this painting and they kind of did a scan or scrape some of it off. And they found the original recipe for Alice and Romans Dilley Parker Rules. And that's why it was Mephisto. It was a, what was the things that I was learning yesterday? Not yesterday. Last week. Was it Molly Baz? Is that the person?

Yeah, you were learning about... You learned who Molly Bass was. Yeah, and she's just like, hmm, koshe salts. What does she say? She's like, Koshe Salts. I can't really knock anybody for shortening words. I feel like Molly Baz and I are in a race to see who can most inappropriately shorten things. Okay, so...

A giant... A brief thing. Sheds... Is this it? Is this the thing about the demon? Oh, no. Okay. What are we doing today?

We have, like, a ton of stuff to talk to, but I feel like we're free associating. I'm still talking about Patriot Pascal, but I just want to show you. This is the New York Times. A demon that lurked in a 1789 painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Look at his face. I don't know that we should. I don't know if this was like the smartest thing we've done. What?

Reveal the demon? Yes, thank you. You've seen more horror movies than I do. But once you reveal the demon, I'm showing you the demon. The demon is a little disturbing. I hope I make it to 46. You've got 24 hours, buddy. Where are you on Pedro Pascal in this?

because genuinely... Great pivot. Here's what I want to say. Chris, God damn it. What do you think of re-rich? Let me reveal my demon, if you will, metaphorically and say, he seems like a great guy. And I enjoy him in everything that he's in.

He never, to my mind, has given a bad performance that I've seen. I think he's really good. He's... I don't ever think I think he's better than really good. And this is not concerned trolling. I just wonder about this world where everyone's like,

We need X type, not X like mutant X, but just a blank. We need to fill this role. And he needs to be like acceptable to all quadrants. And he needs to be able to have the bona fides in the geek community to do this sort of thing. And he gets all of the parts. So you were hoping for Daniel Day Lewis to get Richard. I thought that's what Brad LeCooper was talking to him about when he went walking him at. No, I just, does that move the needle for you?

I don't think it matters. The movie might be really fun. I'm not trying to like make a big deal about it. I'm just curious if all roles going. If what they're saying is true, which is that the fantastic forecasting is Pedro Pescal, Vanessa Kirby, is that what they're saying? Joseph Quinn and Evan Moss backwreck. If that is like the fantastic four, I think that's a pretty good fantastic fort.

That's a friend of the pod right there. Yeah. Okay. So I'm into that. Yeah. Vanessa Kirby, friend of the pod. I mean, that would be a great pod for us. So yeah, I think that your point is well taken.

And I enjoy it when there's. adventurous casting or when they get somebody who seems maybe even overqualified to do some of this stuff. This seems like it's just like, goddamn, we had Zach Wheeler going in Game 6 right here. You know, dependable, you know?

And Pedro is actually, at this point, with Last of Us, Mando and this, is, I mean, like, he is pretty bold, you know, in terms of like, I think the way the fan community feels about him. Yeah, he is beloved.

I think that I guess I don't really have a take because this the void where Fantastic Four is the negative zone if you will Chris I'll explain that off mic to you later is so vast at this point

because of what this movie has to be and what everyone wants it to be and I'll put myself in that category as well I would like this to be a really fun well-made movie. Are they a big deal to you? Fantastic Four? Not especially. They weren't ever my favorite comic to read

but I think that more so than X-Men, which was the thing that I loved, but I think is a harder translation into movies and it's going to be a bigger challenge for Figey than I think maybe some people realize people who are like, oh, he's just got this slam dunk waiting in the wings. I think Fantastic Four, like Iron Man,

like Captain America, has a very simple hook that I think he will be able to distill and communicate to audiences. I mean, they're a family. That's the story. And that's what makes them unique. And I think that the people involved,

Matt Jackman is a really talented director, will probably be able to bring that out. But is the marketplace that that movie is being released into one where, hey, this is pleasant, is enough, whether for their own corporate needs or for where they are in the culture, I don't know. Yeah, I'll be interested to see what...

The casting of Pedro obviously differs from... It's closer to, like, the first Fantastic Four cinematic adaptation that they had where they were more like middle-aged characters rather than the... younger, like the sort of early 20s that was Miles Teller and Kate Mara and Jamie, Jamie Bell and Michael Jordan. I think that everything we've heard suggests that they are going to be, we're going to be

meeting these characters in Media Res, kind of like we met Spider-Man, the Tom Holland Spider-Man, that they're not going to do the big origin story, that they're going to be in their pocket universe where they're a big deal, and then they're going to be noticing all the things crashing into each other and leading to Secret Horse. Okay. Oh, I remember. None of this matters, because the only movie that matters. to my mind with the Marvel logo on it in

2024 is Madam Webb. Yeah. Yeah. Go off, King. I honestly can't. I just said it and then I just started thinking about that trailer more. So this is a one of three Sony Spider-Man and Chase No Mali Baz movies coming out next year. I believe it is this Craven the Hunter and Venom 3 are all scheduled for next year. Right. So a big bet on Spider-Man movies without Spider-Man

from the homies at Sony. And these movies have been traditionally, I think with the exception of Morbius, Mobius, Morbius? Yep. Didn't see that one. Have been incredibly successful despite the critical reception. Well, when you say these, Venom. Venom movies have been very successful.

I thought that this Madam Webb trailer was incredibly funny unintentionally. Yes. the amount of information that they have asked somebody who could not give less of a fuck like Dakota Johnson, I have no doubt that she was incredibly committed to this role as Madam Webb. Yep. But her being like,

he was in the jungle with my mother when my mother was looking for spiders. Studying spiders before she died in the jungle. I watched that clip many, many, many times. Yeah. This may be the lead contender for the Joe Pesci voice you were serious about that. Like, this feels like a bet that someone just like,

like, let's see how far they go with this. And then they took their eye off the ball. And Amy Pascal is like fully committed to producing this for $200 million. What's crazy about this, and I think here's the thing that I find interesting about this, because this movie looks terrible. This trailer is a crime. But maybe the movie's good. We don't know.

So we're just talking about the trailer. But the thing about it that I do think is interesting. is that they have chosen the single most bat-shit Spider-Man story to make canon in their Sony Pocket universe with this movie. Okay. So, and this I find interesting, both because I think it's insane, but also because what is their other play?

Because, as you were saying, Sony is basically said, we will not give you this ball back. And as long as we keep making movies, we don't have to give Spider-Man back to Marvel. But Spider-Man can't be in these movies, right? Correct. Okay.

And they are also all being made in a world that feels inevitable, and I don't even know where it currently lands, where Tom Holland Spider-Man or Spider-Man himself is no longer Marvel connected. Remember there was that moment after Endgame when their agreement had broken down. Yeah.

Yeah. And so Marvel was not going to be involved in the movie that eventually became No Way Home. They then extended, they figured it out, they made it work because it was in the best interest of everyone. But that trilogy is now over. And so what's, going to happen next is remains in flux.

So all of these are without Kevin Faggy. They're without any connection to the MCU. What makes that challenging is the single thing, you know, the thing I was talking about with Fantastic Four, the thing that makes Spider-Man special is that he is an independent contractor and has his rogues gallery in his world, but he's

always just, he's a guy who's stressed out about money and his relationships and all this stuff. Yeah. Two storylines in the last 10, now 20 years have attempted to kind of undo that. One was the rise of like multiverse, spider verse stuff, which has led to, truly, I just, I rewatched across the spider verse with my kids this weekend. It's so, so, so good.

The other story is this one, which said, basically, it suggested and then started to build out this idea, that Peter Parker was not an ordinary kid who was bitten by a radioactive spider and then became Spider-Man. that he is the sion of a decades-long legacy or centuries-long legacy of magical spider people whose avatars like come from the jungle and that there have been spider people always and he was fated to become a spider person. And that's the guy who your man from a prophet.

Tohar Rahim. He plays this character that was created by the writer Jay Michael Shrewinsky, who also did Babylon 5, when he was doing this very controversial run on the Spider-Man comics, where he's just like, aha, like, runes of spiders and like spider legacies and spider people. Okay.

And all this shit is that. So they're basically saying. So Dakota Johnson is one of these faded people? Yes. And then in this movie, she also is now, like, they're kind of like weirdly, through myth, creating their own live action spider verse because the other characters like her pals,

like Sidney's character, is a spider woman, at least has the same name as a comic book character. who is a spider woman. And another character is a Latina spider woman character called Aranya, I believe. So this is what they're doing. You have such a deep bag, Andy.

It's just fucking amazing. It's just like people are like, why do you talk about this stuff if you don't like it? It's like you're going J. Michael Strzinski. I'll fucking do it? Yeah. Because here's the thing that, here's the sad thing.

Yeah. For my, like, this is the sad thing. Tell me all about it. Because you know how there was this period from like the birth of my first child until, I don't know, six weeks ago, where I was like completely aware of all sports results but didn't watch the games. You still are.

Well, but now I watch. You watched. Yeah. Now I watch the Eagles and I watch and I got league pass because I believe in Taylor's Maxie. Only have one since you got league pass. I knew you would mention it. But I watch more of the games now. This is what I was like with comic books for like 20 years.

You just don't read them, but you're always up on them. I'm just like up on the boards being like, oh, really? I don't agree. No, I'm like, I'm always looking for a good text. Your post, your post text. And that's not entirely true, but we've talked about the things that I've liked, like Matt Fractions runs on whatever, Hickman, like I've gone back in to read this stuff. This Spider-Man stuff is real, seems real dumb to me.

But it's also interesting, I think, from a corporate storytelling perspective, where they're like, how do we make a universe out of a singular thing that we sometimes share with another company? Speaking of Matt Fraction. I'd love to. Corporate storytelling universes. and you really investing in text. We have a monarch coming up on Apple this weekend.

So I think probably next week's show, we'll just do one for the Thanksgiving week. We'll touch on a little bit of Godzilla. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely a franchise I've seen nothing of ever. Well, it sounds like you could become like an old master at it just by looking at a couple of to-ho boards for a while.

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first. Or is there some other Madam Webb stuff you wanted to get into? Thanks for asking, Chris. I really do. No, you choose. You pick your poison. I'm excited to talk about both of these topics. Let's do a murder at the end of the world. Okay. Okay. So this is not much delayed, but a

delayed FX release that was supposed to come out. I believe in September, maybe. It was only delayed by a couple weeks, a month. Oh, was it? Okay. Month and a half. Because I I mean, I assumed because of the strikes and they wanted, you know, the performers, Emma Corrin, Clive Owen, Britt Marling to be able to promote it

on late night shows and across the internet. So we finally get it. The first two episodes went out. It's several shows in one show. That was my big thing. And in so much that it is that, I don't mind. I guess I don't, it's not that I don't mind it. It's that both of the shows that are within one show

are interesting to me. And I think if this television show had been about two lovers on the run, on the road, looking for answers to unsolved crimes. Yeah. I'm in. Yeah, that's a good job. I think it's really cool.

Emma Corrin plays a character named Darby, who by the time we meet this character, Darby, we are told that they're like the Gen Z Sherlock Holmes and that they've sort of risen out of Reddit to become this incredible sleuth. and they've written a best-selling non-fiction like true crime book. Now, Emma Corrin in their life goes by they-them pronouns on the show.

Darby goes by she, her, or is referred to as such so. You just want to be careful. Just want to be careful. But when I'm talking about Emma, I will try to adhere to those pronouns as best I can because we're flipping back and forth between Darby and Emma.

In any case, there is a whole plot line in a murder at the end of the world about this character. Darby and her beginnings as a true crime enthusiast to actual detective. And she's partnered with a character named Bill, who's played by Harris Dickinson, who people might remember from Triangle of Sadness. And he's in the upcoming wrestling movie Iron Claw as kind of an emerging star. And he plays her partner in this detective, in this sleuthing, but also we find out is something

of like a Banksy style underground artist. Eventually. Eventually. They meet, like, they meet cute on the boards. Yeah. And then form a, you know, early 2000s, 20 teens, online friendship. Yes. And then they start sleuthin.

Yes. And then so... Haken and Sleuthan. The contemporary plot line is Darby being invited to a tech conference, like a sort of really elite level, just about a dozen people, at an Icelandic resort, owned and run by... Clive Owens' tech empressario character who is sort of like a

kind of Steve Jobs meets I don't know like Warren Buffett like I don't Steve Jobs meets Dr. Manhattan from Washington. Yeah kind of because he has like almost a superheroic quality who's married to this and and you may think like man you guys are really zig and zagging and all over the place this is how the show feels

he is married to Brett Marling's character who is named Lee who is a legendary hacker I know. Darby goes to this resort. There is a murder at this resort, and we are sort of following her investigation of this murder in real time at the resort, and then in the past,

her origin stories as a detective, which I'm sure at some point we will have some union between the two plot lines, at least I hope so. Andy, we can get into spoiler territory now and after that general kind of intro, but what did you think of the first two episodes? Well, I'm torn because I think, and this is much like this show.

There's no spoilers here to say, give me ambition. Please, please, please, give me ambition. I tried to find a way to articulate this last week, and I still think I'm not quite there when we were talking about the curse, which is I just feel like our meters are broken by the last 10 years of wild expansion and streaming when anything was possible and everybody got a green light. I think the sort of, quote unquote, simplistic down the middle. shows are too simplistic, and I'm starting to think these ambitious shows are too ambitious.

Like, I feel like there is a fine line here. Not to say that artist's ambitions should be curtailed, but I think in the development process, best case scenario, they are guided into receptacles that serve their needs better. And my genuine, genuine bump here is not Britt Marling and her creative partner, Zalbottman, Lee's their ambition and what they like to do. It's really, more that there's two full shows here and episodes are 64 minutes long and I don't find either of the individual strands as compelling as I would like to. I think of each of them as half a show that does not add up to an entire show that draws me it. So I'm bumping against that even while I am struggling with that bump because yeah, this is the direction I want. I wish there

was more TV like this. Yes. I am happy that coming off of the OA, which was their series for Netflix, which was bat-shit crazy. And honestly, unmissable because of that. Do I think it was good? I don't even think that's the right word. Yeah. But coming off of the OA, I'm really happy that their experience wasn't people being like, well, we let you try that once. No, they're letting them do something different. And this, I think to them, this is more conventional. But it's confounding in ways that are more so far through two episodes. The ways that I find it to be confounding are more frustrating than they are surprising and exhilarated.

I have a couple of things I wanted to say. Your point, though, about Britain's Al's kind of specific vibe and how you're glad that that wasn't, that the OA didn't mean the end of them being able to do their thing. And they made a series of independent films before that. Yeah, so I actually was a pretty big fan of Sound of My Voice in the East and another Earth and the features that they made, which I would say, range from thriller to really heady sci-fi, but I always thought

had a kind of just a kind of directness of tone that I really liked and a real like they really understood the sort of visual and sonic and storytelling worlds that they wanted to put forward and that they had an almost inimitable style in a lot of ways.

A lot of them were centered around like a Brit Marling central character who is kind of a savior martyr in some cases, with the exception of the East maybe. But for the most part, like, not even the East, I would say that that's the case. For the most part, though, just really, really excellent independent features that interrogated genre and sort of cliches in those ways. The TV stuff has been, I think I would almost compare it weirdly to Mike Flanagan's TV stuff,

where it's not for everybody and it has got its own rhythm. And if you can get into that rhythm, like if you... the people who like the OA love the OA more than anything. Yes. You know, it's like,

it's like one of those things where it's like, they only have 10 fans, but those 10 fans started bands kind of thing. It's like people love the OA. My wife loves the first stage the other way.

It's like the way I talked about shoe gaze last week. That's right. That's right. So it's interesting to see them sort of try this out in a way where, honestly,

all of the things that are in show feel very like popular keywords, you know? Totally. Like, even the format of the, there's something has gone wrong at this resort or retreat. I think the show was originally called the retreat. It was. Has been sort of kicked around a couple of times,

like four or five times on shows in the last three or four years. From White Lotus to nine perfect strangers to the, what was the peacock show, the resort. Yes. And now this were. And it's glass onion. And glass onion. Yeah, exactly.

It definitely has like an Agatha Christie quality. to it. And then on top of it, you've got the sort of true crime phenomenon of people who are kind of democratically electing themselves as, or maybe not democratically, like, as investigators. And this character Darby, her father was a coroner, so she's been around crime scenes for most of her life. And that sort of gives her an upper hand when it comes to investigating some of these Jane Doe's been investigating. I should also say up front that, and this is no fault of the creators of the show, the buzzwords you're talking about are things that I find

pretty deeply uninteresting. Like, I am not a true crime person. Not a big resort culture guy? No, well, I'm a world of Hyatt guy, as we know. And I feel like this facility... You're always at home when you're at Hyatt? Is that what you're thinking? I'm saying the lax security

at this place in Iceland makes me think that it's Bonvoy, frankly. So, you know... We'll talk about that after the podcast. Enjoy it. No, I'm not interested in true crime stuff. I'm not not books, podcasts, TV shows, docs. That's just never been my thing.

And this, and the subgenre of not just the, not just the, you know, like internet sleuthing, but shows about internet sleuth. There's also, based on a true story is on Peacock, which has a similar thing to. That was a Kali Kuliko show, right? Yes. Where they get super into that podcast and, yeah. And then do their own thing. Yeah, like that, that's a world that has its fans, and I'm not particularly interested in it.

The other thing is tech geniuses talking about the future. That was my least interesting, that was the least interesting. that was the least interesting thing to me about devs. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. And, you know, just the sort of, like the kind of boilerplate of like a diverse, and I mean, don't mean that just in terms of culture or racial background. I mean, in terms of the career, people being like, well, we all know,

we only have 19.1 years left on this planet before it's hellfire. And they're all like, you know, like, I, true. I mean, there's probably only enough hand sanitizer left to Kindle it all in other cities other than L.A. but like, and then musing about AI. I don't know. It kind of leaves me cold. So it's setting up to be something that I didn't necessarily love. And it's because I didn't love those tent poles within the show, I was hoping for more vibrancy in the characters or the mystery or the spirit or the vibes, which, to be fair, to again, to the creators, this is their spirit and their vibes. This is 100% the types of show that they make, which has its moments of just, when I say surprise, I don't mean surprise in that, there's a murder. I mean, surprise that within the first 10 minutes of the show, three of those minutes are devoted to two characters you've just met lip syncing to Annie Lennox's 1996 song, No More I Love You.

Yeah. I'm not mad at that. I am 100% not mad at that. That is discomforting in a cool and unique way. You hear me struggling. I'm not clicking on the larger thing. So one of the things I think is challenging about, especially shows of this length, to be completely candid, is how much of a chance you want to give it? You know, and so I'm now two hours and ten minutes of murder at the end of the world in. And that's two episodes. And that's two episodes. And I think that the second episode has a lot more going on than the first episode.

The first episode is just like, every character is like, Darby? Best-selling author, Darby? I am a award-winning filmmaker. And this is an astronaut. Like, it honestly does feel kind of like Mad Libby after a while where it's like the way that people have to talk with the amount exposition that they're doing. Sure. Because to get from the point where you start with Darby,

to also have flashbacks of what made Darby Darby, and then get to the murder at the end of the first episode that you need to get to so that you can have the show where there is a murder at the end of the world, the end of the world being Iceland slash perhaps the oncoming apocalypse of AI and climate change, like you have to do a lot of work to get there. Did you know AI as a tool? Just checking. No, I agree. I think that the two, the dynamic that I've struggled with is, you know, we were talking about this and we were talking about the Netflix show Bodies the other week, which is just like it starts five times with five different shows. But that is actually built into the show's like storytelling engine. I'm not comparing them. And I'm also not saying just like drawing, you know, just clearing the table with a sweep of my arm being like, no, I will not accept shows that exist in two different timelines. I think it's a balance thing where one timeline. to my mind should feel like the compelling one

and the other one should feel like the explaining one. And thus far through two episodes, the two timelines are equally balanced, meaning my level of interest in them is about the same. Yeah. And so as we jump from one to the other, I am not particularly compelled with either yet. I would imagine that, again, this is building.

If there's one thing the OA taught us is that these guys make stuff at their own pace. Sure. You cannot come into it expecting a certain kind of rhythmic cadence. And you, if the OA is anything to go by, I think that it's interesting to see them working in a mystery kind of more of a glass onion, Agatha Christie kind of way, because there needs to be a payoff for that. The OA had an almost, I mean, explicitly spiritual payoff that may have been confusing for people, although I guess if you have, you know, if it's the original angel is what. the OA stands for. It's not that crazy to understand. But I, yeah, I'm, I'm very compelled by the show. It was funny. Like, I was watching it with my wife and she was just like, well, now I feel like we're pot committed.

It's like, we've done these two episodes. Now I want to keep going. And I was like, this is sort of my weakness is that when I start a mystery, it has to be almost like a tonal for me to not want to know the end of the mystery. I think that on a very basic, and I mean this not just basic because it's like foundational, but I mean like, this is basic B commentary. Like, I wish I liked any the characters more. I wish any of them popped for me through two episodes where I was like,

oh, hey, Joan Chen is saying this. Yeah, Raulisparza and Alice Braga. I like Alice Braga a lot. There's an earnestness and an expository earnestness to a lot of the characters that, as you said, is familiar to when a lot of people showed up in the O.A. And then later maybe they diversified their

performance or the character changed or developed. but at this moment, yeah, like even the tension or would-be tension or relationship between Clive Owen, who's an actor I always love, because he's always sort of playing against type in a way that I find really interesting. His interactions with Darby, and they're nominally the leads of the series, feel like missed opportunities. They feel muted to me.

They don't really speak until after this murder has happened. And he has very little to do other than sort of posture and say, ah, Darby, I'm sad about this happening. Why is she there? We don't know. So again, it strikes me as a circumstance of filmmakers who have their own pace of revelation and the language of TV that sometimes runs counter to that. A good example of what you're talking about is there are two of my sort of favorite moments so far have been things that feel like when the show feels most of life. So spoilers for these first two episodes going forward. But the murder victim at this retreat, and I'm sure there will be more just because that's how these...

It's not called murders at the end of the world. But that's how the Agatha Christie model kind of works sometimes, is that like maybe there won't be. But the murder victim is Bill slash Fangs, the underground artist who's like this huge sensation played by Harris Dickinson, right? That's just so a way, though, that like this kid who was examining murders with her is now Banksy? Yeah. Okay.

But as she runs to his room, she sees him through his window in a, clearly distress and dying. So she runs back around from outside of the hotel through the halls of the hotel to get to his room. There's a whole fun thing with like, you can only get into the rooms with these personalized rings that they give you. And as she's running,

I think she bumps into the hotel like manager. Yes. Who's like walking the other way. They don't stop to say, what's he doing here or anything else? And his behavior towards her is a bit odd. And that's the shit. I love is the underground kind of like subterranean tremors of narrative mystery that eventually

come to the surface over the course of a mystery series. So I like that. And there is also a very small moment when there's the first night of having dinner and Darby is at the table. She just found out that Bill is there because he's Banksy. So he has been invited to a tech conference on solving the world's problems. And Zuma, Clive Owens' child with Britt Marling, runs over to Bill and is like playing with him and Bill is about to give him some like non-bred or something and Clyvon's like no no no don't feed him

and I'm like damn you got a gremlin up in here like what's up with your kid and I thought that was like really interesting is Zuma like AI like can Zuma not take gluten like what's going on? I think can Zuma not take gluten this is where this, look at how far this podcast has fallen we used to be like

Breaking Bad is sick this week Walter White has been exposed as Heisenberg and you're like yo, hold up. This little doll fan. This six-year-old Zuma. Keep the bobbing grandmas away from Zuma. Absolutely.

Nothing crusty and crackly for him. A hot bowl of rice pasta for my young lord. Wow. Like the moments I love best is really figuring out the dietary restrictions of children. Five-year-old children on television shows. That was me watching it with my wife. like, pause. Take note.

I really hope that we can bracket this era of podcasts. If we take Zoom in a Jersey Mikes, it's an allergy, not a preference. Do you ever go to Jersey Mikes? I don't. They're really nice about gluten-free bread there. They're like, is that an allergy or a preference? Oh, so they don't judge you? Yeah, no way.

What do you say? I say preference. You say it's a lifestyle. You don't like gluten? I like gluten, but I do recognize that, like, if you get a gluten-free sandwich, it doesn't knock you out the same way. but you're also eating plastic? Like, do you like the texture?

Is gluten-free bread made of plastic? No. No, it tastes bad. It does, but like... Remember, you're like, I'm old enough to live in the gray area now. You're like, you're swinging between pleasure and despair. You know what another thing is like, I gotta say... I think I'm going to let myself off the hook on plastic.

Oh, okay. Everybody's like microplastics. Like, don't microwave that Trader Joe's instant frozen, like the instant rice because it's got microplastics. It's like, you know what? I'm going to get you a right. I made it this too fast. I've made it this far.

Yeah, you're fine. Yeah. You're fine. You're not going to be like the large whale with beaches itself and they go inside of it. They find the demon from the 17th century. But the demon is holding all the Amazon packages that you opened on your porch. Okay. Yeah.

Remember for like two days you're like, I don't use Amazon. You do, right? No, I don't. You don't use Amazon. For books or for anything? I use it for almost nothing. Almost nothing. I would say I would use it maybe like two to four times a year for items.

Okay. Yeah. Cool. I don't think I'm saving the world. I don't like it. Okay. But I was with you for a minute, first of all. We are zigging and zagging.

I don't understand that like I would rather have something that tastes bad because I think that maybe my tummy will be less in flame. No, it's not even, it's not, it's not, it's, I don't have any inflammation issues. It's literally energy. It's literally like, I, I feel like I've kind of entered this part of my life. where the breakfast and lunch meals, like, don't really matter. I just want fuel. I don't really want.

I don't have, like, ever on Mike. I really want to have a great long lunch. I'm not French. I'm not going to do that. I will also say, though, as someone who makes lunch for children most days or many days of the week, other days they're fasting. Because that's what Tallulah and, you know, little, no. L.A. elementary school rules. No.

you know, with like reusable snack bags and things. I think you're going to be like reusable bread. Children. I was like, let me hear about this. You scoop out the bread bowl and you make little breadballs for... I can't believe Kaya had to come in for this. She loves it. I was just going to say that I am taking myself off the hook for occasionally using like

Ziploc bags because I watch Top Chef and I see the way they use plastic in an industrial kitchen. Yeah. Like fight the real enemy. Yeah, because like people are like, oh, you should use reusable ziplocks, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sometimes. Eh. But also, I'm not the bad guy here, guys. I wasn't the one storing hand sanitizer under the 10. Yeah. Seriously. I'm fine. Yeah.

I'm just being honest about my crippling dependency on microplastics. You think they're delicious. Yeah. So what are we doing here? So here's my question about, I don't mean, I mean, it's a fair question. I think there's two ways to move forward on this topic before you move on to the killer. One is you're committed. So you're going to watch more.

Yeah. I think like I also almost as like a science experiment, I think it's fascinating to see what is essentially two shows grafted on to one. Yeah. And I kind of think that the creators of this TV show when they make their stuff, like I think that they probably get a pretty wide berth to be like, this is the TV show you want to make. However, the flashback element of it makes me feel like possibly they were like,

we don't know if we've got enough here with just the. this murder at a retreat thing. And I don't know, maybe that is because over the course of the development, Nine Perfect Strangers and White Lotus and these other shows were coming out, and Glass, and Knives Out did come out. And like, there's been a little bit more sort of like dinner party mystery action going on.

And they're like, no, we need to embellish this and give it depth by having this sort of cross-country road trip to find a serial killer taking place six years in the past. I think that's an interesting way to, To consider it, I think that going by the body of work that the filmmakers have already given us, my feeling is they're like, if we had just done the dinner party, it would be a movie and we're in TV, and this way we can do everything. And we can be bigger and bigger. I do think it'll be interesting

to look back on this era as a time, not when we have to be in the trenches watching all of these things, but looking at some of the shows that came out over these five-year period. And just from a purely like formalist perspective of people really trying to change the shape of television or are moving. the margins of what a show can do, what an episode can do. And I think it'll be worth considering or remembering fondly when in 2025 we're watching shows called police headquarters and office reboot and hospital, which is what is coming. And read Richards at home, the Disney Plus show. Read sketchbook. I also think it's worth considering in this conversation and maybe we'll have more to say about it in the weeks and months to come. But it's worth looking at FX right now.

not just because it is a moving part as essentially as it moves off of its linear existence and becomes part of Hulu and Hulu is now being bought by Disney, Disney, and Hulu is going to be folded into Disney Plus and et cetera, et cetera. But whenever we talk about the places that still value artistic vision and work to develop creatives and things, we talk about HBO and we talk about FX. And both of these places are in deep flux. FX we haven't paid as much attention to because there's been less product and it's not as noisy generally as HBO. But also because they have, and I think this is the envy of a lot of networks of services, they have some reliable engines, whether it's their comedy development, like what we do in the shadows, just it's always sunny, they just make episodes of the show. Whether it's, you know, it's connections with interesting left-of-center filmmakers that end up giving us things like reservation dogs or the bear,

or they have a comedy coming out, or at least a pilot that they made with a guy called Brian Jordan Alvarez, who's very funny on the internet and there's a show called English teacher that's coming. So they make these low cost, lower profile deals that can turn into big things. And they also have their

Ryan Murphy anthologies and now more of them like American Sports Story, et cetera. This is Aaron Hernandez show. But can I, but can you tell me the one on,

currently FX has one ongoing drama series. One. Can you name it? Do you consider Dave an ongoing drama? No, that's comedy, half hour. I don't know. The old man. Oh, I guess, yeah, right?

And even that, exactly. I guess. It felt like a miniseries. Well, I guess because it felt like a miniseries. I was surprised when I covered me. And also it's star-heavy, so it's not going to be on a yearly schedule. But snowfall is now gone off the air. And, you know, we've talked about Fargo's coming back in the next week or so.

But what is their drama? Is it this? Is it murder at the end of the world? Not really. Is it Class of 09, which just got memory holes? because that was a very interesting, and I would say, but ultimately kind of a failure. Right. But it was evidence that the old model of let's invest in people on the drama side,

the way we've been investing people on the comedy side, in this case it's Britt Marling. You know, Class of 09 is actually a pretty good comparison to murder at the end of the world because of that same kind of contemporary, like that seems two stories like Russian nesting doll competing narratives. Exactly. And also they gave Tom Rob's. Smith the bag and the empty you know the like go for it and you want

to see people take big swings but it is also extremely unwieldy and just kind of didn't work and I don't think that especially now I don't think any network was ever in the noble failure business but especially at this moment so I'm not saying like doom I'm not you know predicting doom

for a great programming teaming network but it's interesting right that like the engine of these places used to be drama series and everyone's like what's ongoing series now. And FX, I'm sure there's development we don't know about, but what we do know about is Shogun, which could be incredible,

but is unlimited. What's the future of drama, of episodic drama? I wonder whether or not, you know, I mean, you talk about the last five years as an era, but we can't talk about it without talking about what happened for three years of COVID. You know, essentially three years when you get down to the years of stopped production,

slower production, delayed releases. A boarded productions. Yeah, boarded productions. Yeah. And so, Now I feel like we are only now coming out of that era. But then in terms of those five years, you see mergers, you see people who are like retreating from terrestrial television to come to streamer only like FX. FX is part of Hulu. Is it now going to be part of Disney plus Hulu?

Like I don't know what Disney's going to do if they go through with purchasing the rest of Hulu from Comcast. I mean, we kind of know. We haven't really talked about the story, but there's going to be one thing. Can I ask, though? I mean, I know nothing. But if you were Disney and you saw what happened with Max when they merged Discovery with HBO and Max, are you tripping over yourself to make a one-stop shop

where you get your Marvel and your Class of 09? I don't know. I don't know. And your presumably your Abbott Elementary reruns? I don't know what's going to happen. But I don't think whatever happens will involve the Hulu app just becoming a dinosaur on your home. homepage the way HBO Max is.

And go. And I know I have so many HBO alts on my, I don't think that it'll suddenly go away. There will also still be a freestanding ESPN tile or app. But I do think that at some point next year, when we fire up, when we fire up the pluse, there will be a tile for Hulu. There may be a tile for ESPN. Okay. People have, international travelers, such as yourself, have reported back that when you open up Disney

anywhere else in the world, there's a tile for Star, which is where all the Hulu content and FX content goes. So that's coming. But yeah, your other point, we'll punt that for our next big industry talk, but like, I don't know what the results are for anything other than Netflix saying, we have

it all. Yeah. I don't know how consistent that's been. Speaking of Netflix, talk about the killer. David Fincher's new film released in theaters a couple weeks ago, released on Netflix last Friday. And we just got done expanding on a expanding on a show where it's like everything is kind of like we're trying to we're trying to

pull everything into like one container and be like oh but this thread is going here and this threat is going there and I wonder if they they needed to tighten this up and then you get the david fincher experience which is essentially a nuclear submarine headed to your face and it has no leaks uh it doesn't make any noise it is a perfect in my mind a perfect piece of storytelling like it is just completely and totally a cohesive vision. I adore this film. This is probably my favorite movie of the year. What did you think of it?

I loved it. I also want to say, not to be that guy, but I'm already down that road. Like, I'm really glad I saw it in the theater. Yeah. I'm really interested in how it's being received on Netflix because it is kind of an interesting two-step.

There's a version of an interaction with this movie where it's fine. It's a little talky, but it's essentially, it's a Liam Neeson action movie in lesser hands, right? You can watch it casually and be like, oh, okay. That was it, you know, I enjoyed it. You could think of it as a strong B plus. Or I think if you can, you focus on it and you were just completely committed to it.

And obviously, seeing on a big theater screen helps. When you, that allowed me to really zero in on how odd it is, how comedic at times it is, how subversive it. I don't want to say it is, but at times. that it is. And so my experience with it was, I think, an interesting mixture of I absolutely just dialed in, loved it until the, and I think we'll spoil a little bit, right, until the Tildas went and scene, which felt like the high point for me of the movie I thought I was watching. And then I kind of retreated and was watching it from a more critical distance for the last

section in Chicago. And then the end kind of knocked me sideways in a different way and made me reconsider the whole movie. Right. So big picture takeaway This is a really fascinating and worthwhile thing And I'm I kind of just want to have a conversation with you about it

Because I am I loved it Why don't we start at the ending? Because I assume that people have If they're listening to this They've watched the killer So we don't have to worry about spoilers The killer is obviously an almost episodic

Kind of show in some ways It is sneakily made well For I want to watch 20 minutes of this And then go do something else I would hate for that to have with this film, but it is the case that you could watch the New Orleans section and then get up and go make yourself a sandwich and then come back and watch the Florida section. Yeah, and drinks up 40 with some sleeping pills.

This film goes, essentially follows like a very familiar arc of everything from Melville films to John Wick movies, which is essentially an assassin exacting revenge on the people who have double-crossed him. In this case, it's Michael Fastbender who fucked up a hit that he was supposed to execute in France. If it's just the first 20 minutes, then we would be talking about it on a podcast. Like if that was just a weird short about...

A guy doing yoga and listening to the Smiths. I mean, yes. But also in his 40s. Yeah. But also a perfectionist who has cleaned the clutter from every aspect of their life to do their repetitive, lonely work like David Fincher. And fucks up.

Uh-huh. That alone had me. Yes. And then it goes on It's basically like the character, the nameless assassin, goes through essentially a series of stops across the globe, both try to get back home. And then when he gets back home, he finds that his girlfriend has been attacked and that like this job is sort of blown up in his face. And then he goes on a rampage across the United States looking for the people that were involved. So his boss played by Charles Parnell.

My guy. The two hit people were played by Tilda Swinton. I can't remember who the brute is. And then eventually the... I know he played Sauron in Mocap. Did he? And Lord of the Rings. Good for him.

And then once he gets to the end, the character that Andy was referring to is a Titan of Industry played by Arles Howard wearing a beanie and a subpop t-shirt at the top of a Chicago skyscraper. Sala Baker. Okay. By the way, we have to do a whole podcast about T-shirts. You haven't seen our friend Sam S-Males movie yet, but I will say that Ethan Hawk wears a bikini-kill t-shirt in it.

I saw that in a picture. there was like a press release. Something's going on here. Yeah. So let's start at the end because I actually, I did a big picture episode about the killer, so I don't want to repeat myself too much, but obviously like having a free-flown conversation, I didn't get to talk about the last scene very much. And there is one school of thought that it's like the most cynical ending of a hitman movie possible,

that what this guy deserves is everything that all these other characters have gotten, the clean justice that he has given everyone else. and then he gets to the end and you realize that while Charles Parnell and Tilda Swinton have all like kind of had these monologues to tell him about why he doesn't understand what's happening or why they

did what they did, Arles Howard's character just does know what the fuck is going on. He made a phone call one day and then kind of suggested that something could happen and paid for it and then was told it went wrong and that he would get it would be made well. It's a customer service issue.

And he was just like, I have no idea who you are or why you're here. And then as it dawns on him, he's essentially just like, oh, shit. And for what, you know, the reasons that can be debated, Michael Fastbender's killer character lets him live. Yes. And that for me, well, two things. I also want to shout out, Adam Neiman wrote, I thought, just an absolutely brilliant piece on this movie on The Ringer. It really helped my processing of it. And I think people should check it out. For me, that's not the last scene that was as confounding as the very last moment. And again, it's not confounding. Like, What you're talking about works because the reason why I think this movie is elevated isn't just the performers and the performances and the precision of the direction and the incredible soundtrack and score and sound design and production design and the costume that he wears to look like a German tourist because no one wants to talk to German tourists and the budget to travel all around the world.

It's not just that. We end up at this moment where everything is essentially customer service. that, you know, it's very intentional that the place that he does his first hit from is an abandoned WeWork. It's very intentional that he undoes massive billionaire securities by buying a fob replicator on Amazon

and gets it from a Dropbox. Those are your guys. It's your squad. Bezos hive. You know, this idea that they're, everybody's just working, ultimately everybody's just working. Everybody's an Uber driver with no creed or country, and there's no rhyme or reason or fairness to it.

Yeah, one of my favorite moments is when he buys the guns in Chicago out of the back of that guy's trunk, and there's very little difference between that guy and the guy who's working at the Equinox gym. Yeah. Yeah, the Echinox Gym, yeah. I think the thing that I was undone by was maybe this is just sort of my slow watching of it, but, like, I didn't know that was his girlfriend. Okay. I wasn't clear if this was someone who, like, his maid or someone who just stays there for him

and watches his stuff because his reactions to everything and the person we've met up to that point would suggest he has no earthly attachments, which is intentional and interesting. So that when it ends up being, oh, they just touched the only thing that he cares about. And then the ending, he's giving all these grandiose monologues

that are kind of funny often. Worth mentioning internal monologues. Internal monologues, yes. But his thinking, the way he delivers truths to us has the self-confidence of, I mean, it's a little, little buffoonie. Yes.

At times. And that he's saying, like, the few versus the many, and we're kind of used to this, even like in a fight club sense, like this internal monologue of like why my struggle matters and my struggle and the few versus the many. And then at the end, he says that he's one of the many. And what the ending actually is is the Goodfell is ending because he's a schnuck. Is he? I think maybe that was the take.

That's what I want to talk to you about. I found that really interesting. Yeah. Maybe it's a misread, but that was my takeaway. that he's not special. You know, it's hard to ascribe that kind of armchair quarterback or Baxie driving to an assassin in a film that's entirely told from his subjective perspective. You could say that at the end, he realized that killing this rich guy is actually the only

thing you can't do. Yes, that's the lesson. And that if he wants truly to go back to the Dominican Republic and and have boat drinks with his girlfriend by the pool. And it's a really nice house and he's got great taste in music. Then what he needs to do is walk away and have this marker on this guy for the rest of his life. So I think in some ways it's an efficient ending. What it says about what he does before that and whether or not he could have let Toltaulder, Charles Parnell or Charles Parnell secretary live, is, I think, part of what's very, like, complex about this film morally in a lot of

ways. Yes, but it also, it's both complex and also just kind of damning that rich people are invulnerable. And there's always someone. I mean, this is a guy whose life is basically built around convenience. He talks, or not convenience, but efficiency. He talks about eating McDonald's for the pure protein. He only... By the way, he's like you. He throws away the bun. He just eats the egg and meat because he knows at our age and Fastbender is the same age as us that... He and I have very similar physiques, too. We're dealing with the same kind of engineering. Yeah, like I think that this is a guy who essentially is like trying to get from A to B with the least amount of stress. And when he realizes that probably killing the Arles Howard character means a life on the run and never really being able to go back to San Diego or wherever, if that's, that was my reading of it.

And also just that like it's really more fuss than it's worth. I think that's right. I think that's, I think it stayed with me in a way I didn't expect because so much of the movie, is almost Trojan horses, this like, adrenalized, just expertly made genre movie. And I just, for as much as I'm really compelled by the politics of the movie and also, you know, all the specific details,

I don't want to move off of that fact, which is it's incredibly cool when filmmakers over the course of their career just continue to tell you who they are and that even if they choose many different movies, they're really telling one story again and again. And for Fincher, it's obsession. Yeah.

And it's chasing something. And that story has changed as he has changed and gotten older and gotten deeper. And there's even, you know, Fight Club is like a little bit, it's certainly cynical. But there is a hollowness at the core of this that is different. You know, I feel it. And I think that's worth examining. But regardless, it's just the, speaking about efficiency, the efficiency with which he makes the type of movie that we like, and I think a lot of people will always like is really dazzling.

Well, I mean, that's funny that you should say efficiency because the whole thing, the mythology of Fincher is that he takes like 94 takes for somebody to sit down at a table. So you could say that that's inefficient. And in some ways, it mirrors a lot of the things that happen to characters in his movies, which is that there work

slowly drives them insane. There are some people who work with him that are like, I completely understand why we need to do this this way. And when you're doing a David Fincher movie, like you'd much rather be acting than sitting. Like, I'm happy to be doing this stuff. That's what Kim Dickens told me when we talked about it, that she loved Gone Girl because she was

like, this is awesome. I want to act, I want to keep acting until I get it right too. And he's my partner in that. Yeah. Other people famously didn't feel that way. And there's, so there's an element to it where, so I'm kind of like a, I really, really enjoy Fincher lore. Yeah. And there's an article, I can't remember the publication. It's with, it's an interview with Eric Messerschmitt, who's the cinematographer for this and for Mank. And he essentially was talking about the way that they constructed the opening Paris sequence, which is, the Michael Fastbender character in Abandon WeWork looking at a

Parisian hotel across the street where he's going to assassinate somebody. And you're watching it, and it's pretty seamless when you're watching it. There's something otherworldly about it, but you're like, yeah, this seems like a guy looking out the window. And it turns out that David Fincher individually

filmed each one of the hotel rooms and then assembled those rooms as like a plate. And it's basically all VFX, and that's done on a sound stage. He built the place. He built the location. Yes. Like out of, it's essentially like an incredible special effect and that they were actually able to time like when somebody was doing something in a hotel room that Michael Fastbender is observing. They were able to time it in playing it for Michael

Fastbender so that he could react to it in real time. But it's like that level of like, you know, is there, are there another 10,000 people in the world who care about that besides me? I don't, a thousand. Like, but you're doing it, you're doing that level of craftsmanship and that level of exactitude. I don't know if that's efficient. Is that a madman? I don't know. And that's the same sort of question you're asking when you're watching this assassin. Is this the best assassin in the world?

Right. Or is he actually like a fuck up? Because that was one of my takeaways that I was trying to track that. Because I was like, the interesting thing, the interesting nugget that I'm taking out of this opening sequence is that what if he's bad at this? Yeah. He's told us who he is for 20 minutes and he's bad. And I was wondering throughout.

And then I think your point is really interesting. We don't know the difference. Right. Because it's told from his perspective. So when you and I are podcasting, we're like, we're the best out. Look at us. I say that about you. Kaya says it about neither of us.

Can I ask you, before we move on from this and move on to the rest of our day, I want to ask you about FastBender. Yeah, sure. I find him so fascinating. And his career is really interesting because he basically just took half a decade off to race cars. I think he is continuing to do. take time off to race cars. He made one movie in 2019, which is yet to come out. Which is coming out now. Which is next goal wins.

And then he had like, he even says in this behind the scenes video, he was like, we were able to find a time when I wasn't racing. To do this. To do this. And I did it. He is excellent as he often is in this movie. And, you know, as is often the case.

And this is also exciting when filmmakers get to a certain point in their career where Fincher's casting only the people he wants to cast for his own reasons. And that's how you get interesting choices for this supporting cast. That's how you get the great Charles Parnell or you get Arles Howard playing these parts. And in Naiman's piece,

he talks about Arles Howard's role in Mank and how there's parallels here. It's really interesting stuff. But Fastbender is so fascinating to me because he looks, and people have been saying this about him since he burst onto our screens, you know, like in glorious bastards. Oh, this is a movie star.

Look at the way he, look at his good looks. Yeah, if you see him in hunger, you're like, I guess Daniel Day Lewis is here again. Yes. Yeah. There's also something disturbingly hollow about him and remote about him. But my favorite fast-bender role is still David from Prometheus.

It's incredible. Shooting hoops. Did you ever criticize the hoops in that? Well, no, because that's a robot from the future. So it's not like... Well, okay, all right. We should revisit this. But I want to do an exercise with you where do you think... Or maybe the whole exercise is...

It has no point. Because I was wondering if there are any other actors that you would have liked to have seen in this movie. if it would have made it appreciably better or worse or different in it. And I have a list to throw at you, but I guess the first question is, do you accept the challenge?

Okay. And some of these are people who have worked with Fincher before. And some of them are people who will never work with them again. Okay. Downey. I would not want to see him as the killer.

Well, I mean, I would want to watch Downey do anything, but I think it's a different movie, and I think Downey's chitter-chatter would immediately make it so that you were like, it has a different effect. You're charmed by him in a different way. You're not sort of just being berated by him. Christian Bale.

I'm open to it. I'm open to it. Can we table it and hear the rest? Okay. I put Jillen Hall on the list, even though he famously, those guys are not working together again. Probably not.

Because of his, like when he does this, he's a little too manic. He's a little too much, it's almost in the downy zone because the current Jillen Hall is more... I think it's a different character, but I think that there's something about the age of the Fastbender character

that sort of resonates with me. And I'm saying, well, because it's literally our age or soon will be for you tomorrow. Yeah, I think that there's something about Jill and Hall that still has like a kind of boyishness. So go ahead.

Mahershullah. And I'm saying, I just saw this last night. I saw him and he's incredible and leave the world behind. Okay. So this is a yes for you. Yeah. Yes.

Just on nature. Any particular... I think he has that, I mean, like if you see True Detective Season 3, like he has that quality. He has that like 1,000-yard stare. He really does.

does. And he has a, and it's not a secret charm, but he just has, he has a kind of charm. It would be a fucking incredible what if. Right? Yeah. That's a good one. Uh, Gosling. He's done this too many times. Like, he's, I feel like he does this like every other movie. Like, he either does Ken or he does Blade Runner, you know, so. Okay. Yeah. Uh, driver. Yeah. Although I would say for me, the funny thing about FastBetter in this movie is he just disappears. And that's the whole point. And driver. is so striking. This is exactly what I was going to say too. I'm glad you picked that up on that. Driver is striking. He's, his looks are noteworthy. He's tall. He draws attention.

The remarkable thing about Fastbender is that he's kind of ciphery and candy. Look at that Dutch guy or Irish guy or, yeah. Or German guy. I guess he is actually Irish, but he's played a lot of different types of people. This person couldn't get the movie Greenlit, but Dan Stevens? Sure. I mean, I think in a different version of this, be pretty interesting, yeah. I still think he's a really interesting actor that doesn't get a lot of as many chances

as I'd like to see him in. Either of the Affleck Damon, either of them. Not Damon. Affleck would be interesting, but I think that, I think I still go Fastbender here. Me too,

because I think Affleck, I mean, Affleck has been a movie. Damon, I just think, has done this too many times. Like, I mean, I just wouldn't want to play another assassin. And Affleck has been a movie star and has the ego charisma of a movie star when he's on screen. I don't know if he can lose that again.

Yeah. I don't know if you can... Very few actors can do that genuinely and it's a skill and then lower their wattage. Right. Like even when Tom Cruise is in Magnolia, he's still Tom Cruise.

Yeah, Ben Affleck is Ben Affleck. Always. Yeah. You know, when you see Err, he's like, oh, there's Ben Affleck, yeah. And last one, friend, you know, not just, I mean, he's been on the pod, but we just love him on the pod.

Hawk. Ethan Hawk. Too sweet. Yeah. Yeah. I think one thing that's interesting, and we'll talk about this when we talk about Sam's movie

and just maybe when we talk about Res Dogs again. But like Hawk has really dialed into the kind of crumbling gooey center of himself these days and that's not right for this part. Yeah. Okay, so what do we come away with? Marjorie. You paused on bail.

Oh, bail, but like bail kind of me, like to me is kind of done versions of this in some ways. I mean, this is not that far from American Psycho. Yeah. I would go with Marjorcella. But isn't it interesting, though, to end up like, and I think this is often the case when you're talking about filmmakers who call, their own shots, they cast the right person because they make the movie around that person.

And so ultimately, I was really struck by like, we might not get another Michael Fastbender movie for a bunch of years, right? Yeah. Unless it's just an F1 documentary. Or unless it's the killer part two. You ready for that? Yeah. Would the L's become the numeral two?

Yes. The couture? Look, this is why you're in the business that you're in. Just pitch it. Well, should wrap it up. It's been a long one. Kaya, thank you so much. Kaya can be our murder at the end of the world correspondent.

She liked it. We both, Kaya and I both liked it. She's in. Yeah. She's smiling. Talk to you. Well, okay, so Tuesday, I think we'll probably put up our pod because you have to travel. I'm traveling a little bit next week.

All right. We'll figure it out because I'm traveling Tuesday. But we'll come down with something. You're traveling too, eh? Well, well. Let's talk about this off mic. Talk to you soon. Thank you for listening.

Happy birthday, Chris. Everybody hit up Chris on his social scene. Loves it. Click like. to subscribe.