The Watch - Ep. 15: 'The Watch'

Episode Date: January 26, 2016

On today's episode Andy and Chris discuss the new 'Game of Thrones' teasers, Kanye's new album, the return of the X-Files (9:00), London Spy (22:00) and the rise and fall of Ryan Kavanaugh (37:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Man, the 90s were a weird time, right? The 90s. The time of no alternative. No, no alternative. A pearl jam unplugged. Should we just do that for an hour? We can do that. You want to talk about writing pro-choice on your arm with a Sharpie?

Do you want to just talk about going to Lollapalooza and just browsing like the ideas marketplace, you know, where you could pick up a lot of pins and maybe learn about like frutopia juices if you wanted to? Andy, if we're talking Lollapalooza, it means we're talking X-Files, which is what we are talking about today on the watch. You can subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud and Stitcher. We'll be talking about X-Files. We're talking a little bit about London Spy, the new espionage drama on BBC America. But bringing back an old chestnut that we haven't done since late last year, let's do a little In-N-Out. How about that, man?

I feel like the longtime listeners of our show were pretty thrown off by us having a recurring bit. So they probably felt pretty good when we loosed ourselves from its shackles like three weeks into starting it. But it's time to lock up again. Don't underestimate the passionate people who really only follow us for In-N-Out. Let's start with what else can we start with? With the Game of Thrones teasers that came out celebrating the banner flags of a couple of different families. Andy, in or out on these news teasers.

Oh, I'm in because this is, I feel like the marketing department at HBO have reached the sweet spot where they don't have to do anything, right? It's basically like, like you're selling a product that everybody wants, right? It doesn't, so you almost don't have to do anything. So anything you do, you can just have fun with and be creative with. And you can base an entire advertising campaign around a scrawled image of a dragon with some fire and people will be like, dope, I'm in, I can't wait. I mean, this is great for them. The caveat, going off what you said, is I want to see HBO get even more creative. Why not put Crying Jordan meme face on like Stannis lying in the forest, you know?

Yes. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. Or like, God, I'm trying to think of who won at the end of the season. But like basically like the dude who showed his junk to Circe, but with like the David Caruso sunglasses dropping down over his eyes. And he's like, deal with it, Croatia. So we're both in on that.

Let's keep it moving and talk a little bit about the newly released track listing from Kanye West for Swish, which is coming out, I think, February 16th, if I'm right? February 11th. We don't want to wait that long. Also, also, by the way, my friend, you're forgetting the album's new subtitle, which is the greatest album of all time. Yeah, it's like only 10 songs, right? So sticking with, I think a while ago you talked about how he wanted to make a very compact

friller-like nothing, all-killer, no-filler album. We probably were feeling a little low on this when it was just all day and fast. And now we're feeling pretty high on this now that we've got new real friends and no more parties in LA Couple things here Yeezus was only 10 tracks too which was fantastic and I feel like the leaner the album the better in general I feel like it's a very good look but I think we're talking about something that we have touched on a couple times as we have previewed this album which I guess we've now been doing since the day after Yeezus came out and We were a little concerned we were a little concerned our man had lost his way. He'd lost his mojo somewhere in the back streets of Milan and And what I find most encouraging is that the two tracks that he's released for these Good Fridays that are really like Good Saturday afternoons at this point are both on the album.

Yeah. Because I thought that real friends and especially No Parties in L.A. were just like, this was the fun he was having. This was just like the rough takes and there were something else coming, whether it was more Paul McCartney collaborations or whatever. These are the songs I want to hear. These are great songs. They are stripped down in a lot of ways. He sounds like he's enjoying himself. No Parties in L.A.

What does he say? He's like, you thought you would never hear me rap like this again? And then he wraps for five minutes in a way he hasn't really wrapped since Click. All in. Yeah, I'm all in. And I actually, well, it may be even more excited than the actual track listing was some of the pictures he was tweeting out over the weekend, including one of him and Kendrick Lamar, sitting on a couch that said, thanks to Madlib for sending over those five beat CDs. Mm-hmm. That was pretty great.

What about the picture of your man Gabe Tesoro, just rocking white sneakers after Labor Day? Gabe said we were in movements. That was surprising. But very sparse studio setting there. Not a lot of sectional couching. No, I kind of like the idea that, you know, if we're going to rip the Band-Aid off of glamour, like, let's just remember that the majority of work in the entertainment business is done in, like, hideous pews rooms with drop ceilings. It doesn't matter who you are.

It doesn't matter, like, how many Adidas contracts you have. You're still going to the break room and being like, oh, we had a K-Cups. Ah, spare thought for our heads in the entertainment industry. Speaking of the entertainment industry Let's talk a little bit Briefly in or out on the new Zach Gala Finacus FX show Baskets

Look I could go on a little bit of a jag about this Because you know I outed myself I'm in yeah I'm big in baby but before I even explain Why I feel like you need to explain your feelings I'm out man fuck a clown I'm about as interested in clown as clowns Here's two professions that need to stop being

chronicled by the entertainment industry. Clowns and 19th century fur trappers. Word, I thought you were also going to say entertainment industry professionals. We should probably stop making movies about them too. I don't care about the plight of clowns. There's nothing interesting about that to me. Well, here's what I feel like maybe you should check it out

only because I think you're misjudging it. I think you're thinking about this in like a very like golden age of TV. Like the Sopranos is going to really show us the humanity of mobsters. This is not a show about all clowning. You know what I mean? This isn't like solving the clown problem that's been vexing us. This is just Galaphanacus getting like gored by rodeo bulls while wearing mascara. Uh-huh.

Like, it, I'm losing you. I'm losing. I'm seeing your face. Look, I laughed. I don't know what to tell you. I laughed. There's a part in the trailer where he's yelling into a takeout window about wanting a shweps. Yeah, I saw that.

I mean, do I have to watch the show or can I just watch that clip? Well, here's what I'll tell you. In the pilot, there's more. He asks if they have any drinks that are like Baja blasted. You know, he has a lot of soft drink requests. I don't know. I found it very, very funny. It's produced by Louis C.K.

as part of his new deal with FX. And Galfanakis, you know, your mileage may vary with him, but it's pretty just, it's pretty funny. I really enjoyed it. Louis Anderson plays his mom, you know, so again, I wish that this was a video pod again. Because I am seriously, I'm staring at one of the. stone men that bit Jora right now. Yeah, we do this. We also watch each other on Google Hangout so Andy can see my nonpluss reaction.

Okay, so in and out. For the record, Chris, we don't just stare at each other on Google Hangouts when we're recording. We just keep the window open all day. You're always watching, which is a good segue to X-Files. Oh, yes. On X-Files that takes place in our modern NSA surveillance culture. Wow.

X-Files returned last night after the NFC Championship. shout out to my man Carson Palmer. May he rest in peace. And, you know, a lot of fanfare are surrounding this. A lot of people rewatching multiple, if not all seasons of X-Files to get ready, get Doug. I think we talked a little bit about this a few weeks ago where I had said that X-Files is a little bit of a blind spot for me, although I am familiar with the mythology.

I'm familiar with the basic framework of the show. You enjoyed it. It was a talent pool for a lot of like really big-time showrunners and television. vision writers now. Vince Gilligan, Frank Spotnitz from Man in the High Castle, Darren Morgan, some of them have returned, some of them have not, Chris Carter's at the helm, DeCovny back, Gillian Anderson back, Andy, let me ask you, what did you think of the return X-Files? That was garbage, man. Like, I gotta be honest with you. I really refrain from saying anything. Some baskets. It's no baskets. It didn't really tell me enough about the plate of

clowning. Clownage. it was rough. I mean, it was a really, really bad hour of television to a degree that I was, that left me kind of shocked. Now, I want to say this as a caveat, X-Files, even at its best, was a very hit or miss show, which was very much what TV was when the X-Files was on. There wasn't the sense that, you know, they were making 22 a year, but there wasn't a sense that they all had to be good. Right. One of the reasons why the X-Files rose above the morass of a lot of TV in the 90s was specifically because it could be so many different shows at once. There would be, you know, Darren Morgan would do a comedy episode. Vince Gilligan would

do a thriller episode, and then Chris Carter would come in and do the overarching mythology that didn't swallow the whole show, basically. So they could do these one-offs, these less serialized things. And the reason I mention that now is because this is a six-episode reboot miniseries. The ratings were gangbusters, which may have been those attending Carson Palmer's wake, you never know. But basically, there's a chance they'll make more, but from what I understand, they're doing another one tonight. I've not seen it. It's a little better and then I've heard the third episode which is the one Darren Morgan did which is a lot more comedic and light

like some of the best X-Files episodes were that is the next one that will air the third episode and apparently it's very good I've not seen it I look forward to seeing it that's the one they were showing fans when they were like doing special like convention appearances because I think they all knew what a stinker this was

so my impression of watching this is I agree with you pretty much across the board it felt not only it wasn't only an awkward episode of television. It actually just felt not very much of the time in terms of its level of production. The acting seemed very wooden.

The writing seemed very strange. Like it was made by an ex-bot, X-Files bot. They even say X-Files and I want to believe a lot in this show. Yeah, I mean, I think that our former grandling colleague, Mark Harris tweeted about it, where he was like the fact that they were like, the truth is out there and I want to believe proves

the death, the fan service is the death of art. Yeah, which, you know, this was a episode made, it's basically, it's less an episode of television and more an argument that you make to fans and network executives that you need to do this again. So the problem was that it took, I think it took all the wrong lessons because I really feel like, contrary to what the way TV has gone in terms of, you know, the emphasis on serialization, the thing that would make the X-Files great again, especially if they're only doing six episodes, do the light stuff. make it an anthology show of creepy, creepy, crawly cases of the week. Yeah. Because you cannot keep walking forward this mythology that basically, you know, melted into a pool of meaningless black oil 15 years ago. And this relationship between these characters that I guess they were together and they had a kid,

but now they don't have a kid, but now she's a doctor. Just relax. You don't need to do this stuff. Part of the reason you take 10 years off is you don't have to do it. So the labor with which Chris Carter felt that he needed to bring to doing it all again was sort of a bum out. Yeah, I think that you touched on something really interesting there, which is that, and I've seen this written about elsewhere there was a piece on Al Jazeera America, actually, about how do you do X-Files in the Age of Terror?

The other people have talked about X-Files in the information age, et cetera. It really is difficult. How do you do an X-Files in the age of Black Mirror? You know, how do you really put out a show and have Gillian Anderson earnestly call, call it the net, when she asks Fox Mulder if he has seen the net this morning? and you can't have that in a world in which there are actually television shows engaging in technology and engaging with surveillance culture and the dystopian future that we're all sort of living in in a really earnest way like Black Mirror.

I mean, it's sort of just kind of like showing your ass a little bit. Especially because as shows like Black Mirror and reality like this one have proven, the things to be paranoid about are not little gray men anymore. Which is sort of the point of the show, right? I think that the kind of interesting idea that they brought. up is to say that what if it's it's almost the walking dead idea it was like what if we're the problem it's not the aliens that you should be scared of it's the it's the one percent speaking just trying to represent the the the seven nation geek army here like that's kind of what the x-files always said

though that's one of the things that i thought was so odd about this it wasn't just the premise of the mythology was that there will be an alien invasion and that these cigarette smoking men are trying to prepare us for that yeah they were basically collaborating or obfuscating but that they were the ones. Oh, they were like, they're going to make sure that some people are okay. And they survive or they get the magic DNA that helps them or whatever. I never understand that as a gambit. Why do you, you really want to be the like, you know, comptroller of some, some alien civilization? It's like, oh, I'm so glad I prepared for these alien overlords to arrive so that I could get this plumb middle management job having my bone marrow used for fuel. What is the corner, what is the

equivalent of the corner office on Zarkon B. You know what I mean? Like what is the comp package? I mean, and then wouldn't you just forever be known as the most, the snitchest of snitchies like by like the guy, like some alien walks up to me like, oh, you're one of those guys who sold out your own people so that I could suck your blood up. Nice to meet you, Bob. On the plus side, I got to put 19 babies of alien spore in my favorite guest star on the

Americans. On the downside, you're kind of an untrustworthy character and I'm not going to play you in squash. That was that Nina from the Americans? Oh, he knows. He knows the name of the character. I have Wikipedia. When she's just like, check out all the scoop scars on my stomach and Dana's like still

like, I'm going to need to just, I need to run some blood tests. I don't know. That's pretty convincing. I don't think that they get that from cupping or whatever the Guineth Paltrow thing is. Physician heal myself where she's like, I guess I better take my own blood now too. Whoopsie. I'm an alien. And the biggest problem with that was what you mentioned, the budget on this thing.

was so confounding, right? Because they only made six episodes. Now, Duccovney and Anderson got a lot of money for it, and Julian Anderson talked last week to Vulture about how they initially offered her half of what they offered Duccovany, which is on some bullshit. And I'm glad that she worked that out

and got equal pay because she's as important to the show. But if the downside of their paychecks was that they could only hire five extras in Calgary to fill out the cast, because here's my point about Dr. Dana Scully. Dr. Dana Scully doesn't seem to know the difference, between a nurse and a secretary.

I'm expecting a call. She is covered in arterial blood up to her neck. Yeah, was she doing like the thackeray self-surgery method? What was going on? Her body and torso looks like an angry Jackson Pollock painting. And she's like, by the way, woman who's keeping the patient alive, could you just clear my sketch? Like, could you just get me a Frappuccino and maybe just, you know, update my Netflix subscription? Like, that is not, that's not how that relationship's supposed to work.

The thing is, is that you can write around those kinds of problems. You know, people have made things on shorter shoestring budgets than the X-Files probably had. My major issue was how they would sort of identify that whatever, Nina from the Americans, was living in very rural Virginia. And they would say, like, this is a helicopter and or a very long Jeep ride away. Yeah. But then they would start cutting to it like it was a Denny's down this. street from where Fox Mulder lives? Or it's like, Fox is here again?

And now Gillianette, it's like, how far away is that from D.C.? Also, I'm sure I'm going to get somebody to correct me on this, but why if he needs to meet the doctor in a super, like, private setting, is he meeting him at the Washington Monument? Yeah, I think that was, that was just poor planning. You know what I mean? Like maybe their GPS was off. I'm more concerned about the government waste in that the X-Files program was shut down like over a decade ago, but they haven't reclaimed the office space.

I know. Where's the GAO on that? Like, probably there's a dude in accounting who needs that office. Yeah, somebody, they can't they get the social team in there to run the government Snapchat out of there? There were a lot of problems. Walter Skinner on Snapchat's a great follow, actually. But this is, this is just a problem in general where, I mean, reboots, we, I was going to say we've talked about reboot culture a lot when it comes to TV, but it's basically what we're going to talk about for the next decade of this podcast. I think a easier rule of thumb is that if you're just going to be trying to do the same thing again, don't do it.

If you have a fresher reason to try to do it, okay, maybe you can try to do it. And so to your original point, if there was interest or purpose in making the X-Files for 2016, like what does a show about conspiracies and paranoia and also the ability to have fun with these types of stories on broadcast TV, there is a case to be made for all three of those things in 2016. Yeah. If your attempt to just be like, no, no, but what if it was just this? Yeah, it's handcuffed to its own mythology. I couldn't help but think about, do you remember that Richard Linklater movie Slacker

came out roughly around the same time as I think maybe a little bit before X Files actually came on? But there's a scene in Slacker. If you haven't seen it, you should really watch it. It's a great, great film from the 90s. And there's a scene in which a guy is in a bookstore and he starts talking about the JFK conspiracy theories. This film is a series of vignettes of basically just people talking. But this guy's talking about JFK conspiracy theories. And I remember when I saw the movie kind of having my mind blown about it,

because I hadn't been exposed to sort of alternative theories of JFK's assassination. And then, of course, JFK, the movie comes out a few years later. And that sort of popularized a lot of some underground theories about what happened to JFK. And I was thinking about this, it's like, are there really any conspiracies anymore when you can just Google them? You know, it's like if you type in anything into YouTube, some Alex Jones, video is going to be among the results that says, actually, that was a false flag. And, you know, it's all about what's in our water. And, you know, fluoride, you got to. It's not, here's the thing about the character of Fox Mulder in 1993 was incredibly cool. Yeah. Right? Because he was in a position of

authority and power, but gave great credence to these outsider ideas and tracked them down and did the work. Now to do the work, as you're saying, you just type some words into a, into a search engine. Yeah. I mean, Fox Mulder's character should actually be

the character they have Joel McHale playing. Like, what would have happened if Fox Mulder had become a

crazy talk show host? That's much more interesting. Right, because the character of Fox Molder now, having accomplished

nothing, I guess, in 23 years except seeing young Russian women get scooped on. Like, he's sort of a tragic or almost

pathetic figure, right? He's like living off the grid, just, you know, letting his beard go to almost Californication

levels. Yeah. that's not that interesting of a character. Like, he's not, I don't know if it's heroic or what. It also feels like, did Decovne just not want to shave to do the show? Was he just like, what if I don't shave? What if he's like, counterpitch to Carter? He's like, I come back and do it for a lot of money.

What if I just wear Wranglers in this great t-shirt? But there's also a sliding scale of like, I remember when Decovenny was like, he was up and coming, and he did a turn on Twin Peaks, and then he got this show, and people were very taken with him because he was a good actor, he's an interesting performer, right? And he's a very smart guy. That was part of his story that he went to Princeton and blah, blah, blah. But the word that people would use to describe his acting style was like laconic, right? Yeah.

He was sort of sly or commenting a little bit, winking, smarter than the material in a way that was appealing. There's a very thin line between laconic and what appears to be phoning it in. You know, and I feel like that may have slipped out of his hands. And I'm not saying he's not invested in this. It just didn't seem like he was in this episode. And maybe that was the way it was cut. Maybe it was the terrible dialogue that he was forced to say in this episode. I don't know.

And I'm hoping this third episode fixes a lot of things because what people want, I feel like, I don't know if I can speak for. Can I speak for people? Sure. Speak for the Files heads out there. I don't think people really wanted to have all these nonsensical threads tied together into some knot that made sense. They wanted to watch their stories again, and they wanted to watch these great characters who have great chemistry interact. and steer into that, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. But decisions, I don't know, best of intentions, man, I don't know.

It was a pretty rough episode, but all will be forgiven when the ratings come out. Yeah, the ratings apparently were very good. We'll see what happens next week when they don't have Cam Newton to help them out. Andy, we're going to talk about a show we're both very into next. But first, let's take a quick break from our sponsor. Channel 33 is brought to you by Lisa. Lisa is just like Tom's shoes or Warby Parker, except it's from mattresses. Lisa has done away with the awkward mattress showroom experience that we've

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but one show that's, a new show that's come out that we are all in on is BBC America's London Spy. So in on this. It's so good to be in on a show. Oh, man, I love television. This is, uh... So the first episode of London Spy, I think, came out like two weeks ago. No, it aired on Thursday. Okay, but the second episode is actually available, at least on time, Warner on demand, so I'm assuming on most on demand. So I think they put up two episodes at least made available. And the first episode is, here's the setup.

Ben Wishaw, who you may remember from Spector and the other most recent Bond films, and was also in the heart of the sea. He is, plays a guy named Danny, who's working at a Home Depot type place. Did you end up seeing in the heart of the sea? I did, yeah, yeah. You know, you get a lot of burn for your love of that movie in theory. For your all-time Granlin Post, The Sea is Dope. But we never had a follow-up.

How dope was the movie? It was pretty dope. But you know what? I think that I'm more into submarines maybe than surface boats. Whoa. Yeah. I can't believe we buried the lead in this podcast. People are like skipping over this park because they don't want to know about London or spies.

And here you are redefining aquatic entertainment for a generation. I'm just a little bit more into K-19. Widowmaker than the replacement level surface boat movie. Although I would put Master, I mean, I think Master Commander is very high up in my sea rankings. Yeah, me too. But it's still below Crimson Tide and Hunt for October. Which is ironic because those movies,

the action takes place below where Master and the Commander takes place. So the takeaway from this little digression is that the sea is so dope. You just want to just surround yourself in it. I don't even want to see the sky. Yeah, that's how dope the sea is. Back to London Spy, though. He plays Danny, a guy who's working in the London version of Home Depot or some shipping plan or whatever. He's got a go-now-now-where life.

He even describes himself in the second episode as having a small life, I believe. And he's out doing drugs and having brief encounters with other men. And one morning, as he's coming down from drugs, he bumps into this guy named Alex, who's jogging and seems to have his life together. The two fall in love. They have a romance over the course of the first episode. And it's a very, very British. It takes its time getting where it's going

And you get to the end And then it turns out Alex Something befalls Alex Something very bad Or what we thought we knew about him Is not quite Yes, both of those things happen

So the rest of the series is basically Danny trying to figure out What has happened to Alex And Just exactly who Alex was Because a lot of institutions, a lot of agencies, etc. are closing in on Danny, he is, it's a very hitchcockian tale of a man versus a shadowy conspiracy.

It also features some great, great performances from Jim Broadbent, the mighty racist Charlotte Rampling. Charlotte Rambling having the best week ever. Mark Gaddis, who works on, who's one of the kind of creators of the new Sherlock is in it. So many, there's all I great cameos. Can we just say for people who might be dubious about accented television, Lester Freeman from the Wire is in it? Lester Freeman, Clark Peters is in it. So the first episode is pretty good.

The second episode is gangbusters. It is one of the more like, what is going to happen next? Not in the homeland way, but just in a incredibly creative, intuitive way. I haven't also seen a show like this in a while that does the unreliable narrator in a way that's just, it feels both safe but also very exciting because you just don't know whether or not Danny is losing his mind. Yeah. I mean, let me say a couple things about. why the show is so good. I think people who listen to us know that

if you'd name a show London Spy, we're going to give it at least four episodes. Yeah. We like both of those things a lot, and we especially like that when they overlap. It really almost doesn't matter the arc of the story that's basically a British espionage story, because we're just, we are

both suckers for that entire genre and for that style of storytelling, and often the best stuff in them is contextual and specific. So the broad strokes of like a John LeCurray, novel and a Len Dighton novel aren't that different, but you get into the nitty-gritty of his point of view on the characters and how they interact and, you know, where they like to go when they're undercover in East Berlin, and that's where the story comes from. The genius of London spy

is that the title is in many ways a total misdirect. Because Danny is not a spy and has no familiarity with this world and is in completely over his head. And so what the show does is it's sort of Trojan horses a spy story within the trappings of a much, more complicated emotional and romantic thriller. It is such an interesting way to lay a path into a story that maybe we recognize some of the players into the broad strokes of. It's not something I'd ever seen before. Yeah.

I mean, I think that the main theme of the show seems to be that a life of espionage is just more broadly a life in the underworld. And being part of a espionage world or a world of espionage is to be a part of an anti-establishment life. It's sort of an anti-established statement. There's a lot of connections that are made between Danny and Jim Broadbren's characters, homosexuality, and their, their sort of life paths and the idea that being a spy and that being sort of hidden, it has like, there's a relationship between their sexual orientation and their and their lives and espionage that are really, really interesting. No, that's right. When Danny first meets Alex and he says, are you out? And Alex shakes his head. I mean,

that is a very fraught question because considering where he's going in his life. And what is he out from? Yeah. And, you know, another thing to say about this, just piggybacking on the, we had a brief conversation last week when we touched on the Oscar diversity stuff, you know, the value of diversity isn't in meeting a quota or recognizing people at award shows. It's that when we watch the show, this story is completely told. I mean, the guy who created Tom Rob Smith.

He wrote a novelist. And now I really want to read his books. Is a thriller writer and is also gay. himself and to the the show is is written and produced with a from that point of view, right? It is not a straight story retrofitted for gay characters or the gay characters aren't on the margins of the story. They are the primary characters in the story and the gender politics of it and the sexual politics of it are flipped from those of us who are, you know, generally expecting a more

heteronormative story. Yeah. That, in alone, is fascinating. It was completely surprising. And then when you see Danny, you know, putting things to. together basically. You know, very often in these stories, like in everything from Jason Bourne to probably almost every novel that we really enjoy, the so-called mild-mannered characters, when they are cornered, maybe they can suddenly do kung fu with magazines. Yeah, right. They can fight. Danny is

incapable of that. Danny's incapable of that, but what he does have, and it's really interestingly stated by Charlotte Rambling is when she says, it's like you have a sort of male-female intuition. A feminine, female intuition about people, yeah. Which was such an odd phrasing, and it was so weighted and interesting coming from Charlotte Rampling's character who we won't explain who she is yet although she's a big fan of all the races in this. Just

big flag waving NAACP member but yeah not just who she is but then who she's talking to and what he's actually accomplishing. It's really fascinating you I'm so mad at you jumped ahead of me I've only seen two but you said the third one's just as good third one's really

gripping less said that out the third one the better I do want to point out one thing, not point out like I'm, I do want to mention one thing, which is that the spy part might be a little bit of a misnomer because the main protagonist is such a novice in this world. But the London part is actually equally important and it is an incredible London show. And one of the cool things about it is it's not very flashy. It's a very specific vision of London often at night. And it's about this guy who's sort of passing through that, you know, England has a, you know, obviously well documented class system. that's much different, much more rigid than America's,

and the way in which Danny has to go into these different sort of pockets of power and society. And then also just like the walkways next to the Thames and the sort of underground tunnels and the tube and these factories and these warehouse nightclubs that he goes to, it's very lived in, knows its setting really well. And, you know, if you're interested in London at all, it's a great show to watch. I'm really glad you mentioned that because this is the thing that I wanted to say about it, too, which is that it's immediate. lived in and contextual in a way that's not bullshit.

Yeah. And I feel like that is such an undervalued thing across all mediums, and it's particularly hard to do in TV where the necessities of production mean that, you know, you can't, unless you're Matt Weiner or unless you're a miniseries like this, you probably can't pay attention to every detail that would make it consistent. Of course, the reality is, you know, you're letting these little things slip, and then you see a necklace on a character or an apartment that a character lives in, you're like, no.

Yeah. And it takes you out of it. And I was thinking about this when I saw, you know, the other night, I do this thing. I know you love this when I'm like, Chris, what movie should I watch tonight? Oh, God. And you were like, the intern is delightful. And I was like, I don't want to watch that. And then your next response was, what was like death blow nine?

What did you say? I said the raid two. Why don't you give it a little bit more context? You weren't asking me for my favorite films of the year. You were saying, me and my wife would like to watch something. Oh, sure. And I said, the intern might be something a couple would enjoy. Uh-huh.

I was like, go run back Saccario, you fool. Who's heteronormative now, buddy? Anyway, I ended up watching, you big Olivier Asias guy, French director? I am. Irma Vep, demon lover. This dude, this dude, made a movie. I'm really into demon lover. Are we really going to talk about Clouds of Souls Maria?

I just wanted to say, clouds of Souls Maria is... You don't get to mention every time you watch a movie. It's so rare. And funny enough, did you know? I bet you didn't know this. It came out in March. and our man Wesley Morris reviewed it in a joint review with Are you ready for it?

Ex Machina. Can you believe that? That's great. So you could have stopped reading the internet back then. I just wanted to say, boy, his review is really good too, that this movie is terrific and Kristen Stewart is amazing in it, which I never thought I would say. But the reason I brought it up, there is a reason

is because the opening shot of it is on a train. It's on a cross-European train, right? And Kristen Stewart is juggling phone calls because she plays Julia Pinochet's assistant. And I was so struck by those opening images, not because Kristen Stewart was good and not a vampire in this movie, but because I bought it. Like immediately, I'm like, that's a place. They are physically in a place, and it's interesting. And I don't know who these people are.

I don't know where they're going. And I've never been on that particular train because Zurich's not my bag. But I was immediately with it. Did you add on Zurich? What's wrong with Zurich? I'm sorry to all our Swiss fans. I just meant like maybe I was giving the wrong idea about, you know, Eurorail passes. I don't know from that.

The thing is that when the night manager comes out, Andy's going to be like, look, as a long-time resident of Zurich, I have to say, the rendering of the Alps is just wonderful. No, but do you know what I mean? I just, I know, maybe this is because I haven't been writing TV reviews with the frequency or at all since our old job ended. And when you're writing pieces, you sometimes, you know, you have to, you dive into the weeds and you're talking about micro things, this and that work that didn't work maybe on the story level or the performance level. But recently when I've been watching things, I've been enjoying more. I've been in or out on the packet, the whole production. Sure. And what I mean is the rarity of a moment where you're like, okay, that's something.

That feels real. I believe it and how hard that is on TV. And I don't want to use the X-Files as an example because that was obviously a network show. It's a big, you know, it's a lot of attention paid to it reboot. They filmed it. I don't know what level the Canadian dollar was at when they filmed it, but I imagine it was favorable. Yeah. But there's not a, but there wasn't a single moment in that, whether it was, you know, Scully's,

secretarial pool slash surgical Hall of Hours or Mulder's cabin or the place where Nina got scooped. You're like, I feel like I am somewhere. That is a place. Right. That's all I'm saying. And maybe we should come up with a better word for it,

but it's just something to track across entertainment. Whereas as TV budgets go up and the attention paid to them and the respect paid to them go up, they've got to get that right, man. Yeah, man. I mean, I have three words for you in response to all that and that is Nancy Myers's Brooklyn. So if you get a chance to see the intern,

I think you're going to see a rich, tapestry of Brooklyn Life. Does it reflect my experience, do you think? Yeah, actually, yes. You asshole. Oh, man. All right. Let's, you're talking a little bit about Hollywood production values and the way

you see the story. Today, we would be remiss if we didn't mention this today. Vulture ran one of their cover stories today about the rise and precipitous fall and possible slight rise again of relative. media's founder Ryan Kavanaugh. Now, Ryan Kavanaugh kind of came onto the scene a few years ago. I guess the easiest way to explain it would be like he was sort of the money ball of Hollywood. He kind of, you know, he came in and he said, look, I have the math that will actually,

I can, I can sketch out what is going to be a box office success and what won't based on all this algorithm that I've developed over years. And if you let me get my hands on the money, we can make hits together. So he started to get the money and something, this was news to me, you guys got to read this article, but he also got access to what studios protect more,

you know, with more importance than their own emails apparently, which is something called the Ultimates. Yeah. And that's not the Marvel comic book. That's the actual truth about what money movies made and how they made it. Right. And that's based off of whatever their, you know,

the promotion and advertising budget that they put into it, whatever Gerard Butler needed. you know, a gold-plated trailer on machine-gun preacher, etc. Once they get that... The word is, Gerard Butler, deserved a gold-plated trailer on machine-gun preacher. So obviously, this guy comes in, he's talking big game and big numbers, and for a while there, it looked like he had got the keys to the castle, and he'd figured everything out.

And then, as these things tend to do, the bottom fell out. And a lot of borrowing and, you know, lending that had been going on started to... You know, people started to call in their chits with him. and they were forced relatively was, relativity was forced to file for bankruptcy, but not before some absolutely spectacular details that are reported in this Benjamin Wallace piece that just captures all these amazing details

from the story. And I thought we would share a little, some of these with you guys. I think that's nice of us. So one of the, the thing that I think grabbed Andy's attention the most was the way that Ryan Kavanaugh tried to, shall we say court some of Hollywood's talent into working with him. So here's from the piece.

Meanwhile, once lien relativity had packed on the pounds, every new asset required staff to run. Kavanaugh had three assistants, a private jet habit, and also a pension for making lavish gifts to actresses, including leasing a horse for Kate Bosworth. I got so many questions. For six months so they could ride together, buying a rare $65,000 addition of the Diary of Anne Frank for Natalie Portman.

And also sometimes having going to dinner, he would go to dinner and a partner of Kavanaugh's recalls that he added a $20,000 tip to a $3,500 bill. That's just generous. The service industry is rough. Let me just. Cape Bosworth, man. Do you think Bosworth needs a horse? Let me jump in on a couple things here. First of all, no gift or gesture more romantic than Holocaust literature.

Like, that's just the keys to a lady's heart, you know? That is, that's straight out of the game. Like, that I cannot, I cannot begrudge that. Two, I want a television show or at least a movie or maybe a web series about Hollywood's horse leaser to the stars. Because who started that business? Who is the middleman on that? Who's like, you know, here I am living in Orange County and here I am with all these horses. But I love them and I don't want to sell them.

What I would like to do is find some system where I provide the horses for a minimum of time to people who deserve them and really care about them. Like Blue Crush Star Kate Bosworth. And finally, the end of that web series, right, would be a brutal reveal where, do you remember there was that Robert Pattinson movie from a couple years ago where, like, he went through some stuff and at the end, he's like, I'm going to be great now and happy at my first day at work. And it pulls back. Is that like water for elephants? Oh, no, that was the other one. And then it pulls back and it's 9-11 and he works in the World Trade Center. It's like, rough stuff. Anyway, um... Chill out X-Files.

Chill out X-Files. But at the end of the web series about Hollywood's horse leaser, it's just like, I think you're going to love these horses. remind me again what's the name of the project you're working on it's called luck why and then the show's over i don't want to second guess ryan cavanaugh's courtship rituals here but don't you think that kate bosworth is in for kind of a sad ending to this like her her horse relationship if he's like oh yeah i only got a six-month miss on this guy so yeah i got to give it to rachel bilsen now can you learn to like be really good at horse riding in six months I feel like it's a lifetime of learning.

Exactly. It's like, it's one thing to get a Volkswagen golf and be like, well, got to send this one back. It's another thing if you've got secretariat with you. The other thing that he did, by the way, is, you know, he got really into the capuchin monkey from the hangover and then wanted to get one, but found out it's illegal to have one in California. Because Bradley Cooper told him about the experience. So his follow up was like, okay, well, get me a baby wolf. How do you track that thinking? Some other highlights from this article include Kavanaugh had by this point open.

a quote family office called night global that's always just like a great just throw global on the end of any company name you want run by his brother matthew out of the hangar out of a hangar in san amonago which took states in a stakes in a miscellany of companies including ones that made hangover patches and vapes now i'll allow the hangover patch because it could be tied into the hangover but i mean vapes let's let's let's go big picture here because what i would really like i mean we talked about billions last week this is basically billions and in fact it's kind of a very, very compelling version of billions, one that I really wish Paul Thomas Anderson

would make a movie of because I feel like there's an inherent vice slash billions movie about this guy. And since PT Anderson is really into making films about the mythology of California, this guy who, and you read the story, we're calling out like the A-list stuff, but it's a fascinating character, right?

His father was a child of Holocaust survivors and changed his name to Kavanaugh to fit in and then named his child, Ryan, like Ryan, Colin, Brendan Patrick McManus, Cavanaugh or whatever like that's the lady doth protest too much are you talking about his parents who in a 2012 fraud trial yeah uh the jury found that jack and leslie cavanall were liable for selling two million dollar fake picasso to a friend and jack had taken an eight hundred thousand dollar kickback from the gallery dealer who commissioned the painting for a thousand dollars how do you end up

in those situations but i don't know where are you who is dealing fake picosos but this is so fascinating this world and it's all phony but what's amazing about it is that First of all, that he clearly, there are three business stories here that I find interesting. One is the idea that you can moneyball movies, which everyone is trying to do. In the last days of Granland, I did a podcast with Jody from 538 where he brought in a guy whose company is basically like, I can tell you how much money this will make. And he's generally right. There are algorithms that you can put into with terms of stars, people like, types of stories they like, the feedback the trailers are getting.

You can know a lot of this stuff. I'm of two minds about that. One, it's the death of art. How awful, right? Like, a Paul Thomas Anderson movie is not going to score well on these metacritic things, but you kind of still want to make them, unless you're half of inherent vice. But the other part of it is, like, you know,

these things cost a lot of money. And, you know, if your job is to work in a business, then you have to worry about that stuff. So that's interesting. So the appeal of what he was offering is in and of itself interesting. Two, his business model appears to basically have been Amazon. which is basically like as long as I grow and I'm showing growth. Yes.

People will keep giving me money. And you read the story, it's like, then he met with the Chinese. Yeah, he went to China for six weeks and basically shook everybody's hand to try and get like enough money to keep the company. He's always stealing from Peter to pay Paul. It's kind of amazing. But that worked. It's not amazing that it worked, but it's an amazing that it maybe continues to work. And we should, we'll finish with that thought.

But the last thing is that the pure seduction of the, bullshit, right? That is still so prevalent that you can, there are a lot of stories in this story that I found so interesting, which is basically like, I would walk out of these meetings dazzled and then be like, wait, what did we just agree to? Right, Ryan, what are you even talking about? Yeah. That's kind of amazing. And when you look at his, his lineup of films, right? I mean, he made the fighter with David O. Russell, but that was a pretty good movie, you know. He also made the Immortals with Henry Cavill. Right. And 30 to 40 movies just like that. I mean, if you look at the list of movies he made.

It's as if they don't exist, right? Yeah, I just wanted to mention Ryan, maybe just like a quick new skin on the homepage for relatively immediate. Is it like the space jam page from 907? Not surprisingly, upper right hand corner before I wake starring Kate Bosworth and Thomas Jane. Before I wake the horses?

Is that what it's called? Seriously, before I wake up the guy who let me this horse. Masterminds, which I'm not sure ever came out with Zach Gallifanakis, your boy from baskets. Never came out. They shut down production, I think. Beyond the Lights, which is a good movie. And then things like The Best of Me with Michelle Monaghan,

Desert Dancer. I am not familiar with that title. And Limitless the television show. I guess what I want to say, and the movie, but I guess what I want to say is one thing that we bemoan often when we're talking about certain movies is the loss of the middle ticket movie, the middle tier film, right? Yeah.

The fine, the B to B Plus movie made for adults that's enjoyable. And what's interesting about the relativity slate is if you look at the types of movies and the types of stars he was working with, that's kind of the middle he was targeting, right? There was this idea that he could make profits off of a series of $30 million movies as opposed to striking it big on a brilliant $5 million movie or losing a ton on a $200 million movie. And so every time we say we want there to be more,

what was the movie we were saying we wanted there to be more of just recently? I don't see that many, so I don't remember. I mean, maybe, you know, even we were talking about focus and things like that. It must have been the intern. Yeah, no, yeah, you were saying focus. You were saying like the con man movie Every time we talk about that This is probably what will happen

When someone tries to do that So it's just a very sobering And interesting look at the industry And then the third act twist Is that he's not out of the woods Because apparently he's coming out of battling out of bankruptcy By handing the studio over To your man Frank Underwood

Kevin Spacey's production company And installed Kevin Spacey and Dan Brunetti As the sort of heads of relatively Relativity films And he's still fighting And Leo it's funny at the end there's a couple of quotes like Mark Canton or somebody says, you know, Hollywood loves a comeback story. I feel like Hollywood loves a comeback story if you get caught with

Coke on the PCH in Malibu. Do they love it when you take their money and don't pay them back? It's a pretty good point. I would argue no because his whole appeal was that it was a bottom line thing. You know, I mean, the reason he won people over. The whole thing was just this is there, you don't need to worry about this stuff because the numbers will take care of it. Right. I mean, there's sort of there are three figures, right? in Hollywood, there's the artists that you chase no matter what because you still believe in part of your soul that it's worth making art. And that's why Paul Thomas Anderson will get to keep making movies. But you don't have Paul Thomas Anderson if you don't have Megan Ellison, who's a billionaire and just writes checks to make these movies. And it doesn't matter how much they cost or how much they make or not. Like that's not her business model. So then the third character who's necessary is this guy who walks into the rooms and is like, no, I'll make it work. I will make it work. And that's all anyone wants. All anyone wants is certainty, right? I don't mean to sound psychologically deep because it's all we want in any of our lives. But certainly in a business this high cost, that's what you want.

But I mean, what a fascinating story. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. So we'll wrap up there. Next week we'll be back. We got a lot of television coming up soon. What else? What's coming up soon? People versus OJ Simpson.

Oh yeah, better call Saul's coming soon. So we got a bunch of stuff coming. Andy and I'll be back next Monday. Check out London Spy. Proceed with X-Files at your own parents. Yeah, when are we going to do our modern French cinema pod? Like, is that, should we bring Juliet and Amanda in on that? Do we want to, should we just plant it off air?

We. Oh, we! Look at you. I'll see you next week, Ben. Great job, Berensky!