The Watch - Ep. 29: 'The Watch'

Episode Date: March 22, 2016

Chris and Andy talk about ‘Girls’ and Adam Driver’s career, ‘Hap and Leonard’ (24:00), and Bradley Cooper’s cameo on ‘Limitless’ (35:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Seekek is giving $20 back off your first purchase with the promo code BSPN. To get $20 back off your first Seekkekekekeek purchase, Download the Seatgeek app today and enter code BSPN. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch on the Channel 33 podcast feed. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor for the rigor.com and on the other line, he's spring queening.

It's Andy Greenwald. Oh, buddy, it's spring here in the east. But that was a snowstorm last night. Did you know that? I did. I did. My mother called me and said it's going to snow tonight. And she hadn't even looked at the weather report. That's so sweet. It's very sweet of your mother, but it's a little bit like, is she just impinging on John Balleris's turf? That's just for the real Phillyheads.

Well, Valeric shout out. Boy, the acuweather. He's not acuweather. Andy, what's up, man? It's Chris. It's Andy. It's the watch. You can get us on the Channel 33 podcast feed on iTunes Stitcher and SoundCloud. this is the watch you can also subscribe to the ringer's newsletter which we put out frequently and you've been doing it since last week there was four last week there was one this week go to the ringer.com

and you get the newsletter sign up for that it's really good we got Jason Concepcion and Brian Curtis writing and Greenwald last night we kind of did a impromptu was planned but this wasn't that impromptu but we did a Sunday night television characters TV characters power ranking Yeah, I saw that.

And the winner, the winners of that power rankings were Adam and Jessa from girls. And we figured what the hell, let's talk about girls today because we haven't pretty much all this season. What number on the list did Richie Finestra's sinus cavities come in in? Did they share number three? We're still, we're having the international doping agency check into the legality of his sinus cavities. It's kind of like a Lance Armstrong thing where we're not sure if it's a, he may be doping. We're not sure. Yeah, I think we should definitely look into that. I'm glad we're going to do this because, you know, clearly we're not the only people to realize or notice that

in its fifth season, girls is, girls is happening. Girls is popping off. It's good. And this is coming after, I thought, a lackluster season. I think a lot of people had written the show off. I was happy to see our old pal Brian Raftery just wrote a piece just went up today Monday on Wired.com basically saying I think in many ways everything we're about to say which is that hey wow this show is actually really insightful and compelling now and a lot of it is because of its just radical late game pivot yeah to the true stars of track and field jessa and uh jessa and adam man it's amazing she she took kaila red to bed she did she she took him and also sorts of ways. I mean, that's definitely been a running theme these last two weeks.

You know, Andy, this is why I wrote like the quick blurb in the, in the newsletter. And really what I said was just that after four seasons, girls finally found like an actual couple worth cheering for after all the different permutations of people that they had tried out after Ray being into Marnie and Ray being into Shoshona and Hannah's various ex-boyfriends and whatever. Hannah and Adam, which was supposed to be the sort of central relationship of the show, they finally arrived at this one where it's the two most interesting people, I think the two best actors by quite a distance on the show.

And they've actually given these people, you know, despite some early trepidation on both of their parts about whether they should kind of go through with their romantic relationship or not. This is one of those sort of weird, I am almost scared for them because you don't want, you don't want them to like lose what they have to the extent that you care about fictional characters. Do they have too much baggage and is there too much everything has to go back to Hannah eventually to make you believe that this is going to keep going indefinitely? No, I don't think so because I think that, you know, Lena Dunham generally, you know, she obviously is the writer-director star multi-hyphenate of this show. but I don't think she has much of an ego about her performance or the centrality of her character's role in the show. You know, I think obviously she's made the decision to pair off these characters.

And it's creating pretty good drama with her own character as well. I thought the scene with Jessa at that ridiculous place, race to riches, you know, do you know that? Remember that place in Nolita or Little Italy or wherever it is and Rice to Riches in New York? That wasn't my spot. That place opened. No, it wasn't my spot either, but it looked like an. Apple store before there were Apple stores and they just sold rice pudding. And I remember, like, just, you know, the way 25 year olds are cocky. I was like, that place is doomed. Well, look at it now. Bright Lights, Big City. So is it? But the scene between Hannah and Jessa there where basically, you know, she's like, you're all, you're being mean to me. I'm always mean to you, but yeah, you're usually nicer. That was just a terrific scene and they were both really good in it. So I think it's creating a lot of dramatic possibilities throughout the cast. The point I wanted to make about it, though, is, you know, you could, someone is going to write this piece.

And whether it's at the end of this season or at the end of the show's run, because season six is going to be the last season, someone is going to write a piece talking about this late game resurgence and how it was really based on taking emotions more seriously than the show had in the past. And the piece will probably try to make the point that with a show called girls, it was about people figuring it out and being silly and being a little bit detached and ironic and just clumsy in a lot of ways. And then, you know, as I think the post- said a little while ago, you know, finally starting to figure it out. And so the show was maturing as the characters were maturing. Right. I'm not entirely sure that's true. I think that's a very, I like that

argument and I think that would look good in an essay form. But I think the truth is the show, and we've said this because we've been doing our podcast as long as the show's been on the air, I think. Like, the show was very, didn't really seem to have a lot of confidence in how to deal with actual emotional things, but always take a step back. A lot of the characters still seem like they're in different, actually, they still seem like they're in different shows. I think, Desi is just, you know, is being teleported in from a much broader comedy, one that I enjoy. But I think that the show is finally trusting itself. It's trusting those muscles that it can tell emotional stories and have some resonance.

So the story, the love story between Elijah and, you know, Cory Stoll. Congressman Peter Russo. Yeah. Corey Stoll, my neighbor here in Brooklyn, it's, so far it's nothing but kind of sweet, right? Can we get a quick park slope neighbor? update on what your premium TV, you know, blockmates are? Who are we dealing with? We got wags from billions, right? Yeah. Is Giamani in your neighborhood? No, Busemi's in my neighborhood. Okay. Stole? I see Busemi and then stole and then, you know, the mayor of New York City. I saw him at the

Y this morning. Which let me just say, I really appreciate having a super service agent installed. not the mayor of New York City Bobby Axe Axelrod No, Billy de Blas I saw him this morning a shirtless in the gym but I really appreciate that there's a Secret Service agent in front of the locker room

just because it makes me feel more secure about where my Adidas are resting. You go to the Y, huh? I'm a man of the people. What do you think I go to Equinox? Come on. I was just wondering. Look, you do think that? Come on. Look, don't take me off my really hot

Girls point. I just wanted to say that I, I, and then, and then I'll let you have the floor on this and you could, you know, you can really interrogate my gym choices. But I, I think that it's really fun as a fan of, not just of this show, but of the medium to see a series find another gear late in its, in its run. And the truth is, you know, people making shows often don't know what the show is capable of until they try it. And it's, I understand why people are reticent to try big swings. And in that way, it's sort of similar. to actors. Like, you don't know what actors are capable of until you cast them and give them the material. And I was thinking of that when I was watching last week's Better Call Saul, which we don't need to go off on a tangent about. But Michael Keene, who's just a tremendous comedic actor and a good actor, full stop, he had that great monologue with our girl Kim about their father. And he just crushed it, six different ways.

He crushed it. And I was thinking, like, that's not what you'd expect from Michael McKean on a prestige cable drama in 2016. but he's capable of it. And so it's kind of like a, can I make a trust fall analogy, considering we just watched that spring queening episode? That's what the season of girls feels like to me.

I didn't know what it was capable of, but it's much more fun seeing them try. I thought one, you know, when you were talking, and I was thinking about whether or not you had just done a leg day or a chest day, but after I was done thinking of that, I was wondering, you know, one of the things... Chris, do you want your co-host,

or do you want an R&B dude with a six-pack? That's the question. That's Kanye's question and it's mine. I was wondering whether or not, you know, last season I think the criticism of girls was that, you know, the show's not called friends for a reason. But I kind of felt like these people didn't seem like they would be friends anymore, you know, for the most part. In fact, it seemed like any situation in which they were all put together seemed really forced. And I think that they kind of realized that. And that's why really the only time they've actually been together is the wedding and then that random sort of,

you know, Jessa, Hannah, Marnie scene where Marnie was briefly away from Desi when he was building her a new one-bedroom apartment inside of the apartment. But, you know, I think, can we just talk a little bit about Driver and Jemima Kirk's performances for a second? Yeah. Because I, I really, I mean, they're just, so they are both the most, like, human and electric performance performers on the show, and they've been sort of separated for this entire series. And I can't think of another example. I mean, you know, you could make all sorts of friends comparisons about when they used to just pair people off and keep rotating until they found the right chemistry with folks.

And the same thing for how I met your mother and lots of sitcoms that, not sitcoms, but, you know, romantic comedies that run for several seasons, where they wind up just pairing people off until they find something that works or the show ends. I just can't think of another time when this has worked like this. No, me either. And what's funny about it is that in many ways, the roles those actors played for a lot of the previous seasons were very broad, very supporting, right? They were the characters who did the extreme things for the more quote-unquote normal characters to react to. So in a way, this is like pairing off Kramer and Erlich Bachman.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then suddenly finding the heart of the show in a place you totally didn't expect. It's, side note, you and I are big fans of, apparently of pitting sisters against one another. You know, I ride for Kate Marry, you ride for Rooney. That's cool. That's water under the bridge. But I have to say,

Jemima may have been fired up by all the attention going to her sister Lola. This Lola season. I know, because like ever since Gone Girl, Lola's name is on the streets. Like, that's who people talk about. Lola's crushing it. Lola is so good in Mistress America, just crazy good.

And, you know, from what I hear from from dozens of my least interesting friends. She's really good on Mozart in the jungle. So, Jemima really bringing it back. But, you know, the thing is... Can I ask you a quick question, though? Did you ever see Gone Girl?

Please, that's what this is for. Gone Girl, the film? Yes. The Gone Girl, the film. Not the video of somebody reading Gone Girl. No, but the video of someone reading it is very compelling. It's very, very, very compelling. Look, what I was going to say? was, you know, it's a cliche for rappers to say that they are not rappers, like they just rap, you know, on the side because they're businessmen or whatever.

Sure. And to that, and that can get kind of annoying. It's similarly annoying when you have someone like Jemima Kirk whose bio or stories basically like, I'm not an actor. I'm just a creative person who's friends with Lena Dunham. But there is an argument to be made for her not being quote unquote an actor because she is so completely relaxed and natural. in front of the camera and has just been percolating this character for four plus years, that now that she's playing all the different notes to it, it's tremendous. She was so good in the scene where she came to his door last week.

Oh, yeah. She was really, really compelling, really moving. She was really compelling, really moving. Yeah. Yeah, that was just, it's nice. It's okay for the show to settle on nice things. It doesn't always have to be a little bit snarky, a little bit air quotes. You know, there's, there's room for more here, which is, I mean, it's, it's kind of

Surprising. Well, that was my last question about this. We always kind of play armchair quarterback about like, oh, you could just do this show if you could take Richie Finestra out of vinyl and it would be great. Or you could just do this and move this character and basically like, we want to adjust the sliders on the mix for shows and add more or subtract characters. Do you think that this is the same thing if it's 18 minutes of Adam and Jessa and four or five minutes of other people or, you know, 15 and 7 or whatever the mix is for a show like this.

Would it work as well if you had three scenes of Adam and Jess instead of like the sex scene and the dinner scene that we had? I mean, it would be just fundamentally a very different show, but I think that you could craft a pretty compelling show out of that relationship, you know, but you would have to expand their palettes a little bit. But absolutely. I mean, I think that that is a load-bearing beam, as Carpenter Desi would say, before attacking it with a Ray Bradbury paperback collection.

Can I just, one last point about this, I want to create a new category, and we can do this going forward on the show, and maybe you can help me come up with a name for it. But I feel like there should be a word for celebrities or creative people who are just doing it right. And what I mean by that is people who are taking full advantage of their celebrity or whatever and doing the things that you should do in those positions. Now, currently the belt holder for that are our old friends Matthew Reese and Matthew Good for their show, Wine Show, which basically involved them conning a British network to rent them an Italian villa and have people bring them delicious wine while they just get sozzled on camera. And if people have not seen the trailer for this, it's the greatest thing in the world.

And I showed it to the American showrunners last week. And this is the guy who stars in their show. And I wish that we were still recording because the sound of their jaws hitting the floor. would have just been radio gold. The thing is, is that when you see these food shows and you see, like, and if they're drinking on these food shows, you're like, oh, yeah, but then they probably spit it out later or they're not, these guys are shit-faced. It's, it's amazing.

Like, they were, they couldn't open a wine bottle in one of the clips I was watching. They were like, oh, is it a cork? You put a little stick in and you just twist it. Listen, listen, there's no way you're wearing a hat like Matthew Good is wearing, unless you've had more than half a bottle of Sanjavezi. Like, there's just no way. But what I wanted to say about it in general was they're the belt holders, but coming on strong is the crew of girls who are just like, let's go to Japan. Like, let's not only let's go to Japan.

Let's apparently just bring 80 Bryant to Japan. So by the way, shouts to 80 Bryant how I spent my summer vacation. You did it right, girl. But not only did they go to Japan, this last episode, they're posted up in a furry, which is the ramen place. I'm dying to go, Chris. do you know what people say about their Shio Yuzu broth? Like, that's a real deal place I would love to go to. And they're just filming there.

They just got someone else to underwrite an emotional scene for them there. See, what I thought you were going to talk about was how Adam Driver has handled his post-Kilo-Ren career. Because a lot of the times what happens is an actor wins like an Oscar or is in a blockbuster. And then all the stuff that they sort of signed up to do before they got famous or, critically acclaimed or an award became an award winner, comes out in the next couple of months. So this is sort of basically the, uh,

the Brie Larson's Skull Island situation where Brie Larson is like the hottest actress in all of Hollywood, but she's got to be in this like King Kong expanded universe movie in a couple of months. Um, the same thing is for Driver where he did, he is, he's the bad guy in the biggest movie of all time and is easily the most interesting. Which, by the way, was a career-changing move for Billy Zane,

the previous record holder of the bad guy in the biggest movie of all time. Zane! And then Driver comes back and he's on girls and he's not like, oh, I gotta be on this TV show. He just goes full throttle into it. He's like the best part about it or one of the best parts about this show.

And then on the side, he's in this movie Midnight Special that came out this weekend. I just wanted to mention, which I saw on Friday. And it's a Jeff Nichols movie, Jeff Nichols did mud and take shelter and shotgun stories. And he's got another movie coming out this fall, I think, with Joel Edgerton called Loving.

And this movie is like, you know, it has like a little bit of like a third act hiccup. But for the first, for the most part, it's like this beautiful, very unique original. I think it owes a lot to Carpenter and Spielberg, but it's an excellent movie. and Driver plays this, I mean, Brian Curtis wrote about it in our newsletter last week. Driver plays this government official who's right out of like the sort of Stephen Spielberg playbook of having like the thoughtful guy on the other side who's trying to see our hero's perspective. Driver's awesome in Midnight Special. If you guys haven't seen it, it's definitely worth checking out.

Some really good Edgerton and Shannon in that one. I think one thing about it. Can you imagine the wine show with Joel Edgerton and Michael Shannon? Oh my God. I wish Wine Show was just a franchise. And let me say, thank you for thinking I was going to take this conversation in a more elevated way towards people's real careers. Because really all I care about is people who have enough celebrity to just go eat and drink on other people's dines. Right.

Like that is all I'm, that's all I'm going for. But the thing about Driver that is probably worth noting is that that dude, this wasn't his five-year plan. Like, his vision board did not include using the force, right? Like he was, I think he was in the military, right? and then like got into acting, doing off-Broadway stuff, and then got girls, and then, you know, it's just such an interesting presence and so talented that he started getting cast. But he was coming at all of this sideways. So I would imagine, you know, getting to do big stuff like that is fun, but like that's the deviation from the norm. It's not like, you know, I'm sure he's going to get more parts now, but it's not like if he hadn't been Kylo Ren, he would have been asked to audition for young Han Solo.

You know, he's not on that list of like up-and-comers, which is quote-unquote young and hands. some actors in a traditional sense. But I think he is an example of somebody who, whether it's, this is where I leave you or Lincoln, so whether he's in sort of like a mainstream dromedy or has like a walk-on part in Lincoln, he really makes the most out of whatever he's doing. But isn't it just kind of, you know, there is no one true path for a successful young actor to follow, but if you have a certain amount of buzz and you have good enough representation and juice and whatever, there,

there are certainly a lot worse models to follow than the just work with great directors model, right? Because what's the downside to that? You know, I was thinking about like Cuba Gooding Jr. And that really good interview that was up in New York Magazine and culture was basically like, I wasted 20 years, but now I know that I just need to work with good directors and good things will happen. And you see that the people who have good experiences and good, you know, not bumpy runs earlier in their career or ones who follow that. Like there's a reason why, yes, Channing, Tatum made Jupiter ascending in G.I. Joe, but he also worked with the Cohen brothers and

Steven Soderberg, and that sort of helps keep you on a straight path. Like, there's really no downside to taking the 28th credited part in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, right? Like, that's never going to backfire on you, assuming you don't have, like, car payments, which it will definitely not help you pay. Right. Right. And it, I guess it just, and also it depends on, I'm sure, like, who's your agent and who's your manager, and are they telling you know you need to have, you need to do, like, look at what happened. with Ryan Reynolds, right, who's now sort of a star again after five or six years of sort of banging around box office flops.

Ever since Bill Ethered him and you're one of Grantland. Right, but he's somebody who I think probably could have had, well, you know, it's really weird because, like, I feel like he probably, his movies have ultimately made more money than Channing Tatum's movies, but they have a similar appeal, I think, in the sense that they're like very funny, pretty boys. And he could have been. in a lot of these movies that Channing Tatum has, like, knocked out that are smaller and taking more control of his career.

And I think Ryan Reynolds just showed up in a lot of things like Safehouse and what's the one RIPD or whatever, the one with Jeff Bridges, where they're, like, fighting dead people. Oh, right. RIPD and Safehouse are examples of movies where the part was, okay, who's next and we'll cast that person. Right. And a lot of people who look basically like Ryan Reynolds. Of a big Hollywood movie that will have like a $50 million promotional budget. And that's, I think, enticing people.

But the only Ryan Reynolds' performance that I really liked in the last decade, I think, was in Adventureland. Yeah, of course. Remember when he was sort of like, he was sort of the Spikowski or, sorry, Spikovskyi, or sorry, Spikoli figure at the camp? And that was just as, you know, he basically just showed up probably for three days of shooting and had fun. And I think the other stuff is enticing. But I think you're right. It's also bad advice because then he also went on a run of like, I can be a serious act. He tried to do the thing where you play the melody of movie star,

but then you try to keep a little backbeat going to prove you still have it. Yeah, right. And the way he proved he still had it was choosing probably not. He was choosing starring roles in indie films directed by untested people. And that isn't always a great way to success because he was the lead in that movie where he was in a box the whole time. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Buried.

Buried. Yeah. These are tougher cells. And when you look at the like the expanse, the IMDB page, they look regardless of their artistic merits or your reason for doing them, it starts to look a little calculated in a way that's, I think, off-putting. But hey, he's back, man. Apparently people want cursing superheroes. Who knew? All right, Andy, let's shift gears a little bit and talk about a new show that, you know, we haven't gotten a chance to get to over the last couple of weeks.

But we should have because it really is right up our alley. And that's Happen Leonard that's on the Sundance channel. and it's been, I think it's had four episodes so far. I think it's only three. I think the third is airing Wednesday. Okay. And this comes to you from Jim Mickle, who's a director of, mostly didn't feature work up until now. He did, and I'm actually like a really big fan of his stuff.

So he did a vampire movie called Stakeland and a really, really, really cool noir movie set in Texas, I believe, called Cold in July. that film, which started Michael C. Hall, and I think Don Johnson was also in that. That was based off a book by Joe R. Lansdale, who's a sort of celebrated crime writer for the last, who's been working quite some times in the last 30 years or so. And so Colden July is based on one of Lansdale's books. And now Mickle has adapted the Happen Leonard series for Sundance. And it stars James Purfoy and Michael K. Williams. And it's set up in, it's, it's, you know, it's set in sort of East Texas, so I guess the Gulf area, I think it's a fictional part of Texas, and co-stars Jimmy Simpson and Christina Hendricks.

And the plot is pretty simple. It's the plot of like 80% of crime novels. There's like a bag of money somewhere and there's a race to go get it from a bunch of people with mixed motivations. It's got incredible atmosphere and it feels incredibly lived in. What did you think of the, you watched first episode, I watched the first episode, So what did you think of this? I watched two.

And let me say I was incorrect. The fourth episode is on this week, and it's out of six. And I think all of them should be streaming on demand on, you know, just go to your provider. Check out Sundance TV. I wish, yeah, I feel bad that we didn't get into this earlier because it seems almost tailor-made for us. And it kind of is. What you said is exactly right, that it follows the path of a lot of the crime fiction that we like and that it's enormously dependent on atmosphere. and, you know, there's a MacGuffin and a bag of money and whatever, and that almost doesn't even matter.

But the other part of it that is like the fiction that we like so much is that there is a lived-in, warm, and enjoyable central relationship. And in the books and in the show, both these guys, so Purefoy's Hap and Michael K. Williams-Lennard, in the beginning, they're working on Rose Farms, which is kind of an amazing image. They're basically just day laborers and kicking around, and they're still, it's 1985 in the show, but they're both still burned by the 60s. in various ways. Hap, I guess, was an activist in some ways, and Leonard was in Vietnam. And, oh, also, they know how to jump kick people, which I love.

By the way, Joe R. Lansdale's Wikipedia page, which I highly recommend. It says that he is an American writer, author, martial arts expert, and martial arts instructor, which is a dope lead. Like, I could only hope to have that written about me one day, whether it's true or not.

Chris Ryan is a blogger, a podcast host, and a karate black belt would be cool. Or like Craig Maga, right? Don't you say that the way like crows talk? I don't actually know how to say it. It's interesting to see the kind of stuff that we like so much just basically ported to a different medium where it might not always work. Because you know, we talk about the writers we like a lot. We still promise to one day update our crime fiction tumbler snitchbutler.com.

You know, the author that I love almost more than any other, James Crumley, I reread his books. every few years because I love them more than anyone else's books, I can't tell you what happens in them. I have no idea what the plot is. It's really just about atmosphere and character and the rush you get from reading them. So to see it translated into TV, which you kind of have to know a little bit of what's going on, is interesting. And there are elements of this show that I'm like, I could see people thinking it starts to touch the edge of preposterousness, whether it's Jimmy Simpson's like kind of over-the-top evil villain character lurking or just the sort of lived in clever way that happened Leonard talked to each other.

Yeah. But because I'm a sucker for this stuff, I was all in and it didn't bother me at all. Did you have the same reaction? Yeah, I actually felt like this was like the deeper into the onion I got, like the more layers we peeled away, the more I loved it. So when it starts out, there's about 20 or 30 minutes. And it feels very kind of like, you know, maybe it was purefoy and I was just like, I know this dude is from like Somerset, you know, and like I was kind of just sort of thrown

by the casting a little bit. But as it got deeper, and there's more stuff with Hendricks, and then when they, there's a, there's a scene where they sort of meet this crew of people who want them to go, to want to happen Leonard, help them find this bag of money at the bottom of a river. And you find out about their motivations and they're sort of these, almost like weather, underground 60s holdouts, you know. And then when Simpson shows up, you know, it's been a while since this has happened. I don't know if you want to call it the Jesse or the Omar.

but the guy who shows up at the end of a first episode and kind of injects life into the show, the show is very much one thing for the first 40 minutes. And then when Jimmy Simpson shows up, listening to like New Order or whatever in his Trans Am with a six-foot neon-dressed Amazon woman next to him, it's pretty exciting. It gets like, it's definitely a shot of adrenaline.

I think that it's just these limited series are so well-suited for this kind of stuff. We're going to be talking about Nightman during a couple of weeks along with Last Panthers. This kind of like, you know, it starts small and it just keeps, the ripple keeps going out. Crime stories are really perfect for six to eight episode shows. It's interesting you mention that. I think people should stick around the pilot to the very end.

And it's interesting you mention that moment because when I talked to someone who was on the other side of the production for this, was involved in it. And, you know, weeks, months before I got to see it and was basically like, well, there's, kind of a deal breaker at the end of the episode and we're not sure how people are going to take it and here's the thing it is interesting that he phrased it that way because for me i was like oh okay sure like you kind of want that jolt of crazy yeah yeah because it's so it's so homespun and like folkie for the first 40 minutes and then it feels like all of a sudden like the the snow globe gets shaken up a little bit and it's nice when it like that happened and that did happen with episode three of the wire when when omar shows up and it does happen in breaking bad when jessie

shows up where a kind of different energy comes into the show and it really does jolt everybody. And I did want to say that Christina Hendrix is really good in this. She's great. And allowed to be good in a way that she, you know, she was amazing on Mad Men. So what did that person mean by deal breaker, just that it was like morally like a confrontational or something? No, I just think he thought people would turn, it would turn people off immediately. not either because of the fact that it's violent but also because it seemed like beamed in from another galaxy yeah not that was not this show and i feel like we need to be going towards those moments you know like not in a cynical way like we need to surprise people with anything to keep them watching but just like let's reach for it because what's the worst you're going to do like you're on a network that isn't you know wildly watched and it's there's a lot of competition out there so reach reach for the ring man yeah it's funny if i gave you a book where i was like and on the back of the book the description of the plot had and then there's a lot and then there's a lot of the there's, you know, soldier with his six-foot girlfriend and they listen to New Wave Music and kill cops. Like, you'd be like, oh, man, like, that's, that's intense. Like, I got to get

into this. But in a show, it is kind of a splash when he comes in. Right, because it's just tonally different. But Michael Kay Williams is, as usual outstanding self. But for as good as the performances are, what made the show for me is the atmosphere. And immediately, you know, we've, we've talked about this in the context of other shows, and so we'll just use the same language that we've been using, which is to say, when the show starts, I was like,

okay, this is a place. I buy it. I buy that this is a place. They happen Leonard leave the Rosefields, and they go buy Nilla Wafers and Dr. Pepper at a small supermarket, and they've been in the fields all day,

and they're like sweaty and dirty. And I was like, this is a place where people go from hard labor and then they go by their groceries, and I'm tracking this. I buy it. And then there's a scene where Happ is with Christina Hendricks for the first time, and there's a sudden rainstorm, and it feels soggy and heavy clouds, and you feel that.

And then most of all, here's the example I most want to call out. It's in the, I think it's in the second episode, one of the guys that they're hooked up with cooks them dinner, and he cooks them spicy green beans and tofu. And there's a couple words and a couple bits of dialogue about this dinner that he's made. And it comes up again, like a scene later. And I was so grateful that there was time for that conversation. The show took the time for it. Yeah.

Because that is the first thing that gets cut out of most shows. But the pivot from that point is this, which is I worry about, I know I haven't written TV criticism in a while, but I still worry. I feel like this episode has like a cloud of you, this episode of our show as a cloud of you just being like, put me in, coach. I'm out here. I'm out here. I'm out here. Somebody should write this piece about girls. Well, to be fair, I suggested a flawed piece.

That's how I'll know who my true friends and my true enemies are. Girls think pieces for my real friends. That's right. Sham pieces for my... I don't know how to do it. Martinelli cider friends. The thing that concerned me, though, is that as we've reached this point where, you know, the nicheification of TV, where there's, you know, there's TV on every level, high, middle, and low.

I worry that there's so much room for conversations about string beans that are not just wasting time but are relevant and at mood setting and you know

teach us something about the character there's so much room for them in Sundance TV miniseries that you, me, maybe Sean Fantasy and at best

1,700 other people will get super into means that there is absolutely no room for them at all on the stuff that we review on HBO or FX or whatever. Interesting. That those sort of small

character beats are getting squeezed out entirely. So it's almost like... First, everybody was trying to make, you know, the sort of mid-tier, you know, smart drama or intellectual thriller got squeezed out of Hollywood. And now you think they're getting squeezed out of HBO at AMC? Well, yeah. And I mean, think about this. Like Sundance TV is the art house AMC, which was itself the art house, I don't know, like the art house CBS, right? Right.

All the networks now have junior networks or other places to put their content out. I mean, FX went a different way where they have FXX for their more, you know, younger skewing content. HBO is sort of using Cinemax for its genre stuff, which is going great. I mean, you know, I love Banshee and you and I love the Nick and I'm excited about some of the other shows they have coming up. But, you know, it's this mixed thing where I think we're both really happy this stuff is getting made and being made with a, with a, with a, specificity and purity of vision. Like this is not a watered down crime show. It's just an enjoyable is what it is crime show.

But I do wish there was more room for that sort of atmosphere at the top. Yeah, I agree with you. Andy, you know, you mentioned just quickly there in passing CBS. This week on CBS, which is a fine network on Tuesday, a special guest stars joining Limitless. And if you were going to cast somebody who had less limits than the character. the main character who is already limitless, but this guy has even fewer limits. Who would you cast?

It seems almost impossible, but yet, but here we are. And drivers, driver is not available. Driver's not available. He's shooting, he's shooting episode 8 in the Isle of White somewhere. And Renner has a beautiful post in Beam home in Mount Washington.

Renner is at the Silicon Valley Comic Con pumping for a Netflix show. That is so weird. I mean, Does he really want to be wearing leather arm guards that for like that much of the time? Juliet Lippman and I often talk about like how much would this cost to get somebody to do this? And I don't mean this in like, you know, like make somebody do something embarrassing way. I just mean like if you wanted to make a show with ex actor, like how much really money do you have to raise? And sometimes I just wonder if like all you need to get renter is just like a firm handshake and a look in his eye.

Because why is he out there just being like... And you have to... You have to extend a subscription to dwell. Yeah, exactly. You have to do that. You have to be part of the House Hunters International fan club. But when he's... You have to be at least one of the property brothers.

Not both but one. But like, what is he doing when he's just like at a Comic Con and this... First of all, I don't like the way I say Comic Con, usually. I think I say it like as if it's one word and it's hyphenated. But when he's out there at these Comic Con... I thought you were going to say, I thought you were going to say you didn't like it because the way it drips with visceral disdain. But please, go on. He's these off-brand comic cons and dudes are like, when are you going to make your Hawkeye Netflix show?

And he's just like, all they have to do is ask. Come on, man. I'm going to, I'm going to respond to this. I think that if we were to just wrap our arms around all of the Avengers-related press that Jeremy Renner has done in the last two plus years and tried to find a common denominator, to his answers, I think that denominator would be total bullshit. Yeah. Well, maybe it's all... It's completely checked out and just tried to have as much fun as possible.

Maybe it's a con. I don't know. But any... In any case... I think... But since you set me up for it, I do think I have to spike the volleyball and say that were there to be a Netflix Hawkeye show and it was based on Matt Fraction's amazing run on the character, which is probably my favorite comic from the last five years, that would be really dope.

and I wish that could happen. It's not going to happen. Don't get twisted. I like Jeremy Redder a lot. I just don't really know what he's doing, right, like with his acting career. But just to get back to the original not exactly real question was, Bradley Cooper is going to be on limitless this week.

What's interesting about it is that when they made the TV show, and I'm sure he's getting some money as an executive producer or something in exchange for this, he said that he would appear on the show, ironically, with serious limits. Like, he would only, you know, he would make appearances as his, as his schedule allowed. Because who better to tutor the young man who has so recently become devoid of limits than the original, original person who broke free of the shackles of limit? Can I be honest with you?

Yeah. Just can I stop for a second and be honest with you? I don't know what this show or movie is about. That's fine. It's basically like about a dude who takes Adderall and can do math really well. I guess what we're trying to figure out is with Bradley Cooper. Didn't we used to hang out with that guy? Yeah, I worked at New Bray Comics with him.

Because the reason we actually, I was really bringing this up is because around the office and just, you know, between the two of us and just around America, I think that Burt, which was Bradley Cooper's gambit for Best Actor last year, has become something of a cult sensation, unbeknownst to most people. And also you and I, like we were just talking about, like you got to see Aloha on one of your infamous plain movies. watching binges. And those are two of these. Andy's airplane movies is a thing, by the way. I feel like we got to celebrate. Who told you it's a thing?

Where do you think it's a thing? Is there like a Reddit sub thread that tells you that people are into Andy's airplane movies? Can I school you on how media works in 2016? Chris Ryan? I know you're high up on the ring or masthead, but maybe you need a lesson from someone who is no longer within limits. Oh, I need a refresher course. Okay.

I'm just saying, here's your dose of the drug NZT for the day. I have Wikipedia open. It's a thing if I keep saying it's a thing and you don't question it. So I'm just asking for a little quid pro quo. And you'll be like, yeah, what a great thing. And pretty soon all the listeners will be like, oh, I love that thing. I fly on a lot of airplanes now often to be reunited with you. And I use that time to see these films, you know, that we hadn't seen before.

So like, you mock me. I saw the Martian, man. I saw it. I can do that podcast from last March now. take on the Martian. It's not so much that it's one sentence. It's, you know, I'm just going to give you just an analogy of what I thought of this movie, okay? Will you allow it?

Sure. I don't like, and we're coming back to Bradley Cooper. Don't turn off your podcast apps yet. Generally, this is a no-family zone. I don't talk about it, you know, like Chance said, my daughter's like Sia, you can't see her. But I have to use an analogy that something that she says, which is that, She always tells me to tell her the whole story of something. She says, can you tell me a whole story of Wizard of Oz?

Can you tell me a whole story of Mary Poppins? And for a while I was like, okay, you're the story by the time, Mary. Well, that was a weird night, but, you know, she didn't take a nap. But, you know, for a while I'd be like, okay, this is, I got to get my dad chops. Like, I got to tell a story about Mary Poppins coming to Brooklyn and hanging out with wags from billions or whatever. And pretty soon, though, I realized she just wants me to tell her the story of the movie again. She loves it. She loves it.

So she just wants a verbatim retelling of it. And if I skip any detail, she's like, no, no, I want you to tell me the whole story. And I feel like that was Drew Goddard's MO with this screenplay of The Martian, which is like, we're not going to tell you a movie that's necessarily like interesting or emotionally compelling or shaded in any way. We're just going to tell you the whole story. That was that was my takeaway. I enjoyed it. What a cast, right? What a cast.

But like my man. lived on Mars in a literally inside of a hurt locker for four years and he just grew a beard and ate potatoes and was otherwise chill like that's that's that's not that interesting he had those perks though he had the percissettes that he was grinded up into his mashed potatoes but he didn't show any bad effects from that like show me a movie about a dude who becomes addicted to painkillers in space like that that's that's a good movie i just think that if you were on mars do you think there's addiction on Mars because if you're like whatever physical detoxification you have to go through you've got plenty of time because you're on Mars you're not going anywhere and second of all all the mental

stuff is kind of taken out of like god how am I going to like interact with other people without the help of illicit substances you're on Mars you're not going to interact with anybody all you're doing is uh is sending out like those weird code letters back to Chilatel back on the earth the earth yeah so what I'm But I'm saying is that after all that, and then after cracking all your ribs by flying into space in a convertible, your banter game with, you know, Captain Jessica Chastain is not going to be A level. Yeah. It's just not. Yeah, yeah. And like that dude, Scott Kelly just spent a year in space for real in our world. And then ever since he came down from space, there's just photos of him, like having deep density bone scans done in Kazakhstan because they literally don't know if his body can continue being upright anymore.

So I feel like Knowing that my girl Kate Mara was maybe a little too Cavalier about sure We'll just take another four years also Can we do backstory and Michael Payne's real relationship with his kids? Oh how he's just like doces My kid I mean he's like look I know I have made a promise to my family But I also made a promise to Jason Bourne who we left dying on a red desert planet

So later. I'm sure you'll be just as cute when you're nine. These takes would be so good if they were happening in November. I know. It kills me, right? Okay. So after I watched The Martian, I was like, what can I do for Chris up here, you know, floating at 36,000 feet? I wasn't really floating except for the percassettes. There was no roof. I went through.

You had a potato in the microwave. JetBlue's new convertible service. And so I was flipping through the options and I landed on our old friend Aloha. Now, you written about this movie really well for Granlin, and I hope people check it out. Yeah, it's a wonder. Grantlin's not around anymore. Yeah, it's a great point. But I watched this movie, which is a Cameron Crow movie, right?

Cameron Crow, man, say anything. Jerry McGuire, almost famous. And the movie, and I'm like, Danny McBride, yes, Bill Murray, Emma Stone, such a great cast. And I watched the first 15 minutes, and I actually stopped and had to check I hadn't had a stroke. Because how do you check? I understood nothing. How did I check? Yeah.

Is there like a... I made some jokes about Jessica Chastain's taste in music, and I passed with flying colors. This movie was just ripped to hell. And like Bradley Cooper was just saying things in voiceover, and he didn't understand any of them. And it made me think of just the incredible year he had when he went from Aloha to Burt in one Anasuriblus, right?

I think he's trying to be Tom Hanks. Was he good? And I don't think that there is. is a huge market for those movies right now, as Tom Hanks would tell you. I just think that he's trying to make these sort of delightful, charming. Aloha is an absolute mess. Burn is exactly what they wrote.

I mean, I read the screenplay for Byrne. That's pretty much the movie. And it's that kind of like aspirational, like, takes you into a world that you're interested in, charming, like, guy who's, like, sexy but safe but dangerous. And I don't know. You surrounded him, like, with great other actors, but both of those movies just, like, really, I mean, Burnt deserves

its whole thing. I was just sort of curious where, you know, where we are in the world when Bradley Cooper is showing up on CBS on a Tuesday. I mean, I think that we're in a world where that rule, there was a time when someone who was either A-list or A-list aspirational, if they went on TV, it'd better be like 1995 in a sweeps episode of Friends. Otherwise, it's going to do you more harm than good. You just don't touch that stuff.

But we're past that. Like, people, you know, TV is where it's at, and so people can dance in and out of stuff, and people seem okay with it. But Burnt is legitimately fascinating because it is a shit show, but it's weirdly honorable. Because you look at the names of the people involved.

It's directed by John Wells, who is a great presence on TV. ER and West Wing. and shameless. And it was written by Stephen Knight who wrote one of my favorite movies from last year when I actually saw Locke, right? He does peeky blinders.

Gotta get the poor right. He's really, you gotta get the poor right, man. He is a really talented and interesting screenwriter. And you have Bradley Cooper, you have Sienna Miller, who was quite good in it, Omar, Omar Side, Daniel Brule, who his movie, the movie he thought he was making was the better movie.

and my man Matthew Reese star of star of wine show and Vicander Academy Award winner Vicander who just shows up to sort of pout at Bradley Cooper and hand him a knife Papa wanted you to have his knives But it's so slow and serious and not good And it's it's so compelling for those reasons though Right like I'm not sure because we didn't talk we talked around it

And we've made a thousand jokes about it to each other And in the Ringer office but is this the kind of movie that you want to like give an irrational Oscar to like is this the movie that you think is secretly actually good? Is it like the gambler for you? No, it's interesting. Yeah, I mean there's definitely some elements of that.

I think the thing that's funny is just seeing these, every once in a while you'll see a movie and Burns screenplay has been hanging around since like 2007 or something like that. It's been around for a while. And you can tell that this movie would have just played so much better six years ago.

There's just something about the way popular culture and art feels now that just doesn't make any sense in the world of like we need the genius chef who's a recovering addict and is fighting away multiple women and that's like a good idea for a movie. That's totally right.

And what's interesting is that when writing about the development, I mean, the things written about the development of the movie online suggest that it was billed as a comedy. Yeah. Which it is absolutely not. It takes itself so seriously. No, Cooper definitely thinks he's in like a drama. Yeah.

How about when he starts talking French? It's just, it's just amazing. It's like, it's transporting. The fact that, like, his character's name is Adam Jones, and the restaurant he opens is called Adam Jones. That's what the movie was going to be called. It was going to be called Adam Jones, which is just like,

maybe you should release a movie called, like, mayonnaise on toast. Just like the least compelling name for a film I've ever heard. I mean, if I told you they were making a movie about a guy named Adam Jones, wouldn't you be like, oh, is that guy, do you play small forward for Temple in the 90s? Wasn't that Pac-Man Jones's real name? No, it is, yeah. Like, that's a more interesting movie,

especially if you have Daniel Brule in it. It's weird. Daniel Bruehl has Pac-Man Jones. No, no, I don't think he's playing Pac-Man Jones. I just think he's in the movie, potentially as the gay Somali he is in Burt. And then we just watch the sparks fly. I think just to go full circle,

when we were talking about Happen Leonard and we were talking about the things that are sort of being edged out of the mainstream, like there's no room for the sort of, you know, the genre film or the solid B romantic comedy on the big screen, this is a serious-minded movie with a very serious tone and a serious cast, and there was just no place for it in the world. It was made with the best intentions, and it was ultimately not made well,

But regardless of that, there wasn't a universe where this was successful. And that's what I guess came as a surprise to the people who funded it, right? There's just, can you imagine a world, unless it was a comedy with like a lot of hot improv takes and a LeBron James supporting role, like, is there a world where this movie could ever have been successful? Is anything other than an ego vehicle to get Cooper some sort of award? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It certainly seems like it. Well, buddy, let's wrap it up.

We have a watch re-up coming later in the. the week that we're both really excited about music-themed one. And then we'll be back, you know, next Monday to talk TV. Any parting thoughts? I mean, I had some thoughts prepared, and I was going to deliver them in French, but unfortunately, I'm out of NZT, the drug from Limitless. I'm unable to give you those beautiful parting words. All right, man, I'll talk to you soon.

Great job, Berensky.