The Watch - Ep. 45: Ian McShane's 'GoT' Cameo, Kanye's Pop-up Show, and 'Rogue One' Reshoots

Episode Date: June 6, 2016

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald on 'Game of Thrones' guest star Ian McShane, the wild NYC music scene this weekend, Pusha T's reign, 'Rogue One' reshoots, and Andy's airplane movie: 'The Intern.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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when the cutoff happens. That's it. It's over. So go to luke crate.com slash watch and enter promo code watch to save $3 on your new subscription today. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris.

and I am the editor at the wrigger.com and on the other line. Now that Andy's home, it's over for you. Andy clones! It's Andy Greenwald! What's up? So icy. So icy entertainment presenting this podcast. Not really.

No one else is presenting this podcast other than The Ringer. Hey man. Gucci's home. Andy's in New York. This is the watch. We're talking about Game of Thrones. We're talking about a wonderful weekend of music in New York City that I was not there for. And I don't think Andy was there for it either, even though he was there.

Kanye and The Killers both playing. We wanted to chat a little bit about that. There's a new show on AMC called Feed the Beast that me and Andy are going to talk about. There's also a little bit of Star Wars news and airplane movies. It's a thing. So excited. I had a really bad idea today to do what during airplane movies is to interrupt your airplane movies. To talk about a horror film I saw set on an airplane.

Oh, that's great. Flight 7,500 with the wonderful Amy Smart. Oh, underrated. Yeah. But I'm not going to do that to you because I know you're scared of flying. You know what? I am increasingly not scared of flying because I have so much great film content to work through and because I spend most of my life doing it.

So it's actually just, it's kind of at the point where it's exhausting to be scared of it, so I'm not really scared anymore. And, you know, fun fact, Chris, this week, like I now know the people who work on the plane so I can just chat with them. And they were telling me all sorts of stories about what to actually be scared of. And apparently some turbulence isn't really one of them. So all it took was you to have a flight attendant tell you what was actually going to happen to a plane if it ever went wrong? I was chatting with the flight attendant.

And at the moment when they got the call from the cockpit and she was like, oh, okay, okay, got it. And then the seatbelt light went on and I was like, oh, so what happened? She's like, he said it was an emergency. No, he didn't. Just kidding. Everything's fine. It's just going to be bumpy for three minutes. We're going to roll it. No, that's, that would be great if Denzel Washington was your pilot.

Shouts, shouts to Megan on Delta. But, you know, shouts the whole Delta fam. Andy, shouts to Ian McShane, the Mark Pryor of Game of Thrones coming in, to paraphrase Jason Concepcion, coming in and throwing 98 for one episode. And then shredding his. neck piece and leaving us just as beautifully as he joined us. His chain hung heavy around his neck.

Yeah, we should say that, Chris, we talked a lot, as we always do, about this particular episode, 607 of Game of Thrones on our TV show after the Thrones, which you can watch on HBO platforms. You know how I feel about platforms. But one thing we didn't really get to go in-depth on

when we were on set talking about it was just McShane. The Deadwood Reuner. Yeah, yeah. I feel like this needs a little more space. Deadwood reunion with who? With us, with a viewership. Yeah, with the home box office network.

It was great to have Ian McShane swearing in my face on a Sunday night again. So can we do a round robin of like just some quick Ian McShane on Game of Thrones Q&A session? Can I ask you a couple questions? Sure. Question number one. Subject, Ian McShane on Game of Thrones. Question number one.

Chris. Has Ian McShane ever watched Game of Thrones? I... Here's it... You want to know it's... No. And that's why he's a great actor because it sure seemed like he had.

I think that is a brilliant and politic answer. And I agree with you. And I'll... Please continue with your answer. Do you think that... I think he may be in a late-night haze after watching Newcastle versus Aston Villa the second repeat playing...

Sky just, you know, know, Sky Atlantic or whatever, and he cracks open a beautiful Boddington's and just watches, and watches maybe like five minutes of his good friend Jonathan Price. But I don't think that he's like in the mix. I don't think he's in the trenches. No, do you think, do you think like Jonathan Price and Kieran Hines and all these other dudes who've been on the show, do you think they have like whatever old man slack is? Yeah.

It's probably just like talking to each other. That's called the pub. It's called a bar. Yeah. It's called seeing each other and hanging out. Like, if they did a making of season six, like the origin story of Ian McShane on the show, it would just cut back to him in a pub somewhere with Newcastle Match on going, they paid you how fucking much? Don't you think that's what it is?

But I do think your point. So let me get this straight. There's just a screen and it's green and you just talk to it? He's like, again, that's what he does at the pub. Yeah. I think that your answer is correct, though, because. one of the things that we always like, we talk about this anytime we're talking about blockbuster season, which is just the amazing,

the amazing symmetry between classically trained British actors and hot sci-fi nonsense. Yeah. Which is just that they are just, because these are actors who are trained to say Shakespearean language. Yeah, they immediately legitimize your bullshit. Yeah, they understand it. And it actually probably would have been worse

if he had struggled through five seasons the show and like got lost going down rabbit holes of fan theories or whatever when in fact all they had to tell him was you used to be a fighter now you're reborn and you're helping this dude and he's like great got it where's me too nick i was i was thinking about this he embodied what this character needed with jonathan price is um because you know jonathan price has been on almost every episode this season and there's been i think up to this point three or four directors of i think they do two to each and yeah they block shooting how each director like when a new director shows up on set

and goes up to Jonathan Price and he's like, Jonathan, huge fan. He's so excited to work with you. Jonathan, in this scene, you are going to walk into this room, barefoot, and you are going to talk about the book of the seven to someone who is not willing

to hear what you have to say, but then they will be willing and they will listen and you will tell them and they will hear you. What any questions do you have? Jonathan Price is just like, when's lunch? I have been doing this since fucking the dawn of time. That's how long the high sparrows been walking into stone rooms and being like,

what are you reading? It is such a joy to watch actors like McShane because sometimes it's not that hard, you know? Sometimes it's just not that complicated. Like you don't, like you don't need to be Shia LeBuff to be an actor. You know what I mean? Like you don't need to like put yourself in a movie theater for 72 hours to experience trauma and pain. Like Anthony Hoppins is like that whenever they've asked him if he doesn't method. He's like, I try to just read the lines.

Did you ever listen to, I think it was Ian McKellen on Mark Merrin podcast where he was talking about like, you know, the great stage actors of his generation, like, who was the greatest? And he's basically like, Tony Hopkins is the greatest stage actor since Olivier, but Tony Hopkins just fucking loves living in California. And he will never go on stage again because why would he? It's just fun for him. And like that is just an amazing, it takes some of the romance out of it, but it actually increases the professionalism. And so that was the thing. Like, we didn't think, I don't think anyone thought McChane was just going to, you know,

jump in here and saddle up for another three-year bid. I don't know if any of us knew he was literally a day player on the show. But what an amazing thing for actor and show for that to be the guy you have on the bat phone, just on the bench to play one relatively minor but pretty crucial role. Yeah, and it would have been a pretty arduous, that those scenes had an extra resonance just because of how well he did with the material. We can save any other Thrones things unless you had any of their observations from last night for the re-up that we'll do this week for the preview. Yeah, we are going to do a re-up.

No, I think that just one thing that I've been thinking about in this episode brought out to me is that, you know, since we've been covering it the way we've been covering it this year and doing our TV show, and I have not been writing the recaps, I've been, I feel like I haven't had as many opportunities to just say, to just put it. basically put a pin in the moments when the show is just so pleasurable as a TV show, not just as this unprecedented exercise in world building and fan service and everything else that goes along with it. And in this case, I'm thinking of like the McShane, Rory McCann scenes, because first of all, that performance as the Hound, I really missed it. It's one of the more interesting and lived in performances on the show because he's had such a journey to play over these few seasons.

Those scenes, I mean, this is as close, other than Blackwater, this is as close as we're going to get to a bob. episode because so much of it was just in this one small place that's not we're never going to come back to because you know honestly if the show was about the plate of hippies in the middle of the riverlands I don't think the show would have been successful maybe I'm wrong um but these were just great scene work like some of the ideas expressed in those scenes have been expressed by the high sparrow by other characters over the course of the season but what a pleasure to watch them just going back and forth and you know having their banter and having and and honestly

putting you know ending it basically that was that was that character, that was that interaction, and now we're on to something else. I appreciate it on its own terms for that reason. I was thinking about when Ariya gets shived up on the bridge by the meanest, the most obvious fake old woman ever. Like, hello, my sweetie. I thought about how, the boss move would be if every single time someone was like attacked on this show, it was all like, it just cut to black and never resolved it. What if like, Arya was drowning in the water after being stabbed in the stomach? And like, we never saw whether McShane was dead.

We never saw whether or not. Like, how many different people could we have on like fade to black like cliffhangers right now? Well, I will say if the show wasn't this show and it didn't basically know that, you know, more or less, it seems like there's only going to be one or two seasons after this. I think we all know that, even if things haven't been made official. then it would do that, right? Like, if it wasn't already this successful and didn't already have this many characters to juggle, like, why would you burn that? I mean, that was, that is very old TV.

It's like you keep as many balls in the air as you possibly can in case you might need them again. But it is, you just bring people back to life. It is an interesting thing. We said this on After the Thrones, but it is an interesting thing to keep an eye on, that we had five years of just having our teeth kicked in in terms of people we cared about. And a lot of them are coming back. It's enough so that we basically, on our show, we laughed off the threat to Aria, even though she really got done up.

You know, that's like if this was the wire, she would need to be wearing phone books strapped to her midriff in order to survive a shiving like that. And yet, we feel pretty confident about it. It's interesting to keep an eye on going forward. For sure. Let's move on to quickly. I want to talk about this weekend in music in New York City

because you and I had been exchanging text messages because at the governor's ball on it, was it Friday, I guess, because Saturday, maybe it was Saturday, I don't know, but the killers were one of the headlines. Yeah, I think it was Saturday because Sunday got rained out. Right. And the killers who have now become classic rock, I guess, behind our backs. I guess we have too, right?

But we did this 1996 pod a couple of months ago that people can still find on our watch SoundCloud archives. That's right, Tate, right? Yeah. And I felt we were doing that. And those songs, those albums were 20 years old. But it's really strange. but also strangely charming to watch the killers play a greatest hit set that includes a tribute

to their then running buddies Interpol. And what I couldn't help but think was like a little bit of shade when they cover obstacle. And they're like, yeah, you know, when we were making hot fuss, that record that went like fucking platinum, we were listening to this little New York band called Interpol. And then he was like, and we were also listening to Longwave and Adam Green, as if it It was Stephen Stills and Neil Young remembering listening to like, you know, country Joe and the fish back in the 60s. And they just played the hell out of obstacle. I don't know.

It was just a very strange moment of like this New York rock from the early 2000s becoming classic rock. Look, first of all, Longwave had some hits. And I urge everyone to go check out Longwave song Title Wave. I still get down with that song. But everything else you're saying is, of course, exactly right. I love the killers. I think you agree with me for the most part. And they are such a strange beast because it's basically like they've always wanted to be in the winter circle.

They were a classic rock band from the minute they formed. Like that's the kind of music they wanted to play. They were writing songs for stadiums. They were writing songs that would sound great five, ten, 15, 20 years later. And that people would immediately fix it with a fix with a certain, context, a certain time in their lives, a certain memory, a certain moment. And it's almost as if in direct, I mean, their sales have been going down, but everyone's sales been going down.

But I feel like this moment, and they had, because they weren't even touring on a record. They haven't put out a record in a couple of years. And, you know, you and I love the Brandon Flowers Solar record from last year. And I hope people are still checking it out. It's a great, great album. But this is almost, their sales have been going down, but I think their star is going up. because I think people are appreciating exactly what it is that they bring. And if you've been standing on Governor's Island and the sweltering sun for 10 hours,

I'm sorry, but you don't want to hear someone apologizing for maybe playing their fourth best song. You want a band who will come out and play the hits. No, they came out. They opened with bright side. They sound better. I know. I know. They take this very, very seriously, and it's never been cool to take it that seriously.

But if we are moving into an era where no one is buying albums but everyone is going to festivals and events, then they are weirdly well positioned for the next decade. of their career. Absolutely. And then the other thing that happened this weekend with New York City was that Governor's Ball, like you said, Sunday night got rained out or at least canceled because of the worries about the thunderstorms that were hit in New York City. How were those thunderstorms? Just as a quick aside. First of all, thanks for asking that. The thunderstorm arrived when my family and I were enjoying a dinner, which led to us running back home and getting completely drenched by the rain. But I want everyone to know, don't worry about us, because those minutes,

we were running were the only minutes it was raining because immediately afterwards a gigantic beautiful rainbow broke out and it would have been an amazing night for a concert. I was, for some reason when you... Good job by you organizers. I think because we spend most of our waking life pondering Game of Thrones when you were like, my family

and I were enjoying dinner, I just immediately thought of you guys as the phrase. I thought he pictured us just sitting all together like Ian McShane's hippie commune. I was like, and then these dudes showed up from the Brotherhood without banners. And let me tell you, it did not go well.

So Kanye was supposed to headline Governor's Ball, but there was also a good music set scheduled to happen at Hot 97 Summer Jam. Governor's Ball was canceled. Kanye turned that Summer Jam appearance into a, like, de facto show. And then very quickly, like sometime around like probably 9 or 10 o'clock, East Coast time, it became, it was, it was, Kanye tweeted and it became, the rumor. start circulating that he was going to play a sort of pop-up show at Webster Hall in New York City. Not a big place for Kanye.

Not a big place, no. So he doesn't, he shows up there eventually. Well, first of all, a few thousand people showed up outside of it. And it just seems like very apparent just by looking at Twitter that maybe people didn't know, like, Western Hall probably knew this was going to happen, but nobody else was really prepared for this or Kanye wasn't prepared for it or whoever, whoever kind of. to drop the ball there. It never really went off despite a very funny Snapchat of Kanye saying call the mayor shut down the city for four blocks around the venue and put screens out so that

the people can enjoy it. Can I just jump in for a second and ask you something? Are you suggesting here? I think you're more than suggesting. I think you're implying that it that possibly Kanye West doesn't think through everything before he says it. Is that where you're headed with this? Because I don't, I won't stand for it. I can't imagine what being Kanye's day-to-day like ops guy is. Because you just, you never know when he's just going to wake up and he's going to be like, get me a unicorn's horn.

But also get me a bacon egg and cheese sandwich. And he leaves the order to you. He's like, get them in whatever order you feel comfortable getting them. Yeah, exactly. So the show did not pop off. There was like, they were out, people were out there until three or four in the morning. I think future and pushes showed up at SOBs at some point.

If you guys get a chance, reach on Carmonica's right up of the whole event in the New York Times because what I took from this whole moment was New York is still the only place something like this could have happened. Yep. And that's still like why I love New York is that like sometimes Kanye West will be like, I want to have a concert on a Sunday night, Monday morning. But let's also, I know. people who listen to our podcast aren't surprised that we are excited about something

Kanye West is doing. But this is really writ large one of the reasons why we love him, because it is an exceedingly scripted time for music. It is, you know, it's the blockbuster era of albums. And there was a, you know, some smart writing on this on a website called The Ringer last week about how, you know, record releases are carefully orchestrated events. Yeah. And everything has to fall in place because you have to hit your moment and you have to basically do big big business that first weekend before you get subsumed by all the other things that are happening. And Kanye is a chaos agent in the best possible way. And yes, there were a lot of people on the streets of New York City last night who were annoyed, but, you know, that's actually

every night in New York City full of people who are annoyed. The nice thing about it was Pusha, who's just having a really delightful run right now, by the way. He was probably the richest person in the world. Because he wrote the fucking, I'm loving a jingle. That was the greatest, just secret info drop. I was just going to say that he was basically saying that last night it's just proof that it's a movement, that people were excited about something. And that's really true. It was weirdly positive feeling, right?

And I say this is someone who was not there, but everything around it felt positive. They wanted to put on a show in the same way that last week, Kanye, for no good reason, decided he wanted to release a good music compilation album, when in fact he's already supposed to be releasing a solo album any minute now that we've heard nothing about since. he announced he was doing it. That's the Turbographic 16 album. But instead he's going to do a compilation album, and he released a track called Champions featuring everyone.

I like it when fun things happen. Sue me. I like it when fun things happen too. Chris, do you have any thoughts on? I'm loving it. I'm loving it. Who's your favorite verse on Champions? I thought you're going to say,

who's your favorite verse on I'm loving it? And I think it's Grimmis. I think Grimis really, he flips it with that DOS effects flow. It's really surprising. Hamburgerger got those bars, though. Before we go to Champions, before we go to Champions, I think that, I hope someone will write this, maybe someone at the ringer.com will write this. But what Pusha is doing is just like a model for how to be a mature adult in a business

and art form that does not really support mature adults. You know, we've talked before about Jay-Z's recent struggles in this area. But Pusha is basically like, I am still the, I'm the best crime writer. in my genre. You know, no one, when George Pelcanoes writes a crime novel, no one's like, George, you're not really slang it anymore. You know, you're not on the corners doing this. So why can you write this book? Push is basically the same way. He knows what he's good at doing. He does it. He's the president of Kanye's company, which I don't know what that counts for, but designer is a number one record. He secretly wrote a McDonald's theme song. And from everything

I've heard, he just goes back to his family at night and has a nice life. He also did a lot of, a lot of dialogue polishing on finding Dory. See, would that Honestly, would that surprise you? We should just keep coming up with jobs that push is done. I heard pushes taking over a showrunner for how to get away with murder next season. That would be, first of all,

that would be a very good solo album title for him. Oh, my God. Okay, we're going to come back to that. I feel like there are a lot of options for him going forward. You want to talk about the Kanye track before we move on to other things? I just wanted to know who your favorite verse was. I know who my least favorite verse is.

can can we can we drop the facade about big Sean like I feel like there was a minute what facade what facade wait gritting our teeth day generationally do you like like do you like have you ever liked big Sean yeah all right man get the fuck out of here he's all right he's all right good music I support good music this is this is the worst take look look big Sean is a very very annoying rapper and he really really came close to ruining the best tracks on the last Kanye compilation for Summer. Then his record came out, and there was a counter argument, the slate.com counterfactual, led by Ringer, editor-in-chief Sean Fennessey,

who, yes, I'm calling out by name, being like, he's not that bad. And so I caught, you know, I would, I nodded my head a little bit. I listened all the way through to the end of some of his songs, but gritted my teeth because he's very annoying. And the fact that he is on this track that features a lot of rappers that otherwise probably shouldn't be on like they shouldn't be getting this kind of radio play if it wasn't a Kanye track like Gucci like Yogadi who I think he has my favorite verse but why is Big Sean on this track Chris why do we have to accept this can we stop accepting he has a very very good agent I don't

I don't know what to tell you he just gets like he is somehow he is always on like these fire Kanye songs and he always has the verse it's like I think about it all the time with mercy where it's just like I can't believe I have to listen to Big Sean's verse because I don't want to ever fast forward mercy it's such a perfect song except for the fact that big sean is a like rap zit on the face of this beautiful diamond of a fucking rap song it's so maddening still to this day when i think about it like make that ass shake what is it like what is the line he has don't even tell me i don't even want you i'm just going to get mad if you tell me uh Andy if push a have you ever heard of have you ever heard of the japanese art of kinsugi that's the

I'm going somewhere with this. That is the art of, it's what ceramicists do in Japan, where they make something beautiful, but then they intentionally mar it because perfection is impossible. So maybe the advanced theory... Well, that's...

No, by the way, no one has any doubts that we mar our podcast with imperfections. That's been well established this afternoon, if not for the last four years. But maybe the advanced theory version of recent Kong shouts to Jason Hartley for this, maybe that's why Big Sean is there

to remind us that all art is fallible and life is short. That life is short? Is Tate still breathing? Did I just blow everyone's mind? I think Tate is having the same reaction to that statement as he did when he went and saw the lobster

and came out and said, companionship is a lie. And he actually just before. Tate is having a really intense senior year abroad. him here. He's really, this is really, this is going to be wild. Seriously. He's going to go back to campus next year and be like super socialism and wear a beret.

Yeah. I want to just quickly before we move on, just say that I do feel like if push a tea, Kanye is sort of our patron saying push a tea is basically our favorite rapper. Two Chains is really coming on strong though. He's the Secretary of State here. I agree with this. Yeah. Two Chains is getting very, very, very good again.

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conditions may apply. I have one Rogue One note. We don't really have to spend a lot of time on this. This has been reported from every side so I don't really know what the truth is. Oh no, I have more than one one note. So let me just, yeah, well, set it up. Set it up. People might not know about this.

A couple weeks ago, Andy and I talked about how Rogue One was like more or less everything we ever wanted from a Star Wars movie and that this idea of scope and scale that Gareth Edwards seems to have in making this prequel to Star Wars A New Hope seems just we were very excited about it. The trailer is awesome. It's darker than a lot of that stuff. The darkness seems to have really made a reportedly kind of left a bad taste in the mouth of some Disney executives who have asked for reshoots and maybe a lightning of the tone. That was all rumors.

There was also rumors of Christopher Macquarie who wrote usual suspects and has been working on the Mission Impossible movies as of late coming in and doing some rewrites assisting with some reshoots. A lot of that stuff was shot down. A lot of these reshoots were apparently pre-planned. They're doing some light tweaking of character work, that's all. But then, like, a little side note got thrown in there late on Friday, which was that the god Tony Gilroy was deeply involved in this movie. And now I've gone from being excited about Rogue One to being nervous that Rogue One might not be good because they're messing with it too much,

to being even more excited about Rogue One than I was before. Because fucking Michael Clayton is coming to space. Wow. I, first of all, I would watch this. shit out of a movie called Michael Clayton in space. Like, that would be, if someone, like, went to look at some space horses and their spaceship exploded behind them at the beginning of the movie and you didn't know why because you didn't know space horses existed plus the law, that would be the greatest movie ever.

I didn't know about the Gilroy thing. That makes me excited. I think this was all pretty interesting because I think that generally you and I take a very measured approach to blockbusters. We're a little bit cynical about this stuff. And reshoots are so par for the course that any movie that we, any, any major Hollywood movie that we have either liked or made fun of over the last three, four, five years, I mean, or at least as long as we've been doing this podcast, certainly, they've all

had reshoots, whether for planned reasons or unplanned reasons. This is, this is what happens. Everything is being tweaked until the final possible second. That's just, it's, there's too much money invested in these things for it not to be the case. I think it's worth noting that the reason we both, you know, were taken aback and wanted to bring it up on the podcast is because that trailer was perfect. Yeah. That trailer suggested the kind of movie that we both really wanted to see. and we were very excited. And the thing that I was a little unsure of with the reports were all the reports that they were lightening the tone

or giving a character work, because I thought the other smart thing about all this, about Lucasfilm's reboot of the entire Star Wars franchise, was that by basically cloning, I know that's a loaded word in Star Wars lore, but cloning the tone of the original trilogy for the new trilogy, which was very soaring and romantic and with a lot of light moments thanks to the Han Solo character

and in this case actual Han Solo. It was allowing them the space in the other movies they were going to add to supplement it to do other things and to bring us sides of the universe that we hadn't seen. So they could have a little bit of darkness, which has become the norm, but then also have everything else. So I was a little worry that they were just trying to make everything

exactly the same in tone. But again, we haven't seen this movie. No one has seen this movie. I don't think they've done advanced screenings. I think a lot of that's probably untrue. Thank you for that's where I was going I think that they had someone in the editing room wearing a Storm Trooper helmet and three weeks in

he took it off and it was pusha And he was just turned towards this That's why they did reshoots I haven't ended And after the reshoots he was like But after the reshoots he was like I'm loving it And they were like release this to America

This is the business that they're in But the bigger thing to keep an eye on I think will be to see if any one of these major, major franchises, because they are really all that's keeping Hollywood afloat, if any of them can be quote-unquote director-friendly. If any of them are able to hire someone who does something and then allow that person to do that thing. Because time and time again, we see ambitious, interesting people hired to work in these universes, and they walk out bruised and battered and vowing never to do it again and they get replaced by TV directors. And I don't even mean that as a shot against the Russo brothers who made, I think, a terrific film. And in fact, you could argue that Zach Snyder does one thing that everyone knows what he does.

And even that hasn't, didn't go over well. So I think that would be interesting because you're a fan of Gareth Edwards. And if he can't do this movie that they hired him to do, then that's a little worrisome. Big fan. Big fan. Not to sound like Larry King, but I'm a big fan. Great hire. Can we do a Larry King version of the podcast sometime? Andy, let's, let's land the plane, do with a little airplane movies.

Oh. We didn't do Feed the Beast. Can we do Feed the Beast first? Oh yeah, you want to talk about Feed the Beast? My bad, yeah. Wow. So this is a show on AMC. Yep.

And it stars David Schwimmer and Andrew Garfield's alternative timeline, Jim Sturgis. And it's about two. Are they brothers or cousins or friends? They're just a couple of best friends in New Yorker, something I thought you would know a lot about. In the Bronx who have had some. tattered trouble lives. One's addicted to Coke and just got out of jail but is a gifted chef. And the other is mourning his dead wife and is an alcoholic, but is a gifted salmier.

And together, they're going to open a great restaurant in the Bronx, I think. What could go wrong? This is weird, man. This feels like they made this in 2003 and put it in a box and then just threw it up on the air. Yeah. It is not very good. It's a little bit disappointing to say that because there are plenty of good or worthwhile things in it. I mean, before we even get into the show, I just want to say the swimmerscence is real. It's happening.

And I think we are all feeling it. Everyone was surprised by how much they enjoyed him. That's disrespectful to the McConnell Sans because him saying juice 100,000 times in OJ is not a sance. What is it? I don't know. It's like a flare. It's going two for three against the Orioles or something. It's not a renaissance.

It's a swim surgeons. I mean, we can work on this. We'll workshop this. But I do want to say he was surprisingly good in that. And he's surprisingly good at this. So maybe it's not really a surprise. Because the thing is, and people are very well aware of how popular friends is and still is.

Your boy was quoted in a very smart Adam Sternberg piece in New York Magazine about it, and during popularity. I feel like of all the people, people coming out of that show, no one is salty because they're all 100 millionaires many times over. But I feel like Schwimmer's a little, never was that thrilled with that. I don't know the man, never spoken to him. But that dude was like, I am a New York theater actor and I'm a dramatic actor, and I'm

going to be the sad sack archaeologist or paleontologist or whatever he was on that show. And no one is complaining about making that much money or that success, but I think he kind of wanted to do this. And I enjoyed him in this show. Is that, can you allow me to say that even though he's not started Dallas Byer's made this show the day after Friends ended. But the reason why that is is because it's not just that the show feels like it's 13 years old. My take on it is that it was developed like it was 13 years ago.

Because if you look at this show, everything about it, or not even 13, three or four years ago even, everything about it ticks a box that makes people in suits in offices comfortable. It was based on a very successful, well-received Danish series. It was shepherded by Clyde Phillips, who was the showrunner on Dexter and was a showrunner on Nurse Jackie and has been around TV and movies for a very long time. So it's like it's in professional, capable hands. You look at how many projects are in development at network and cable, and they managed to land two actors who have resumes. You know, I'm not saying they're the most famous people in the world, but these are people that other shows wanted to hire, probably. And you have a bunch of things that are quote unquote hot.

You have like the food scene. You have crime. You have New York. You have all these elements. So it should work. The fact that it doesn't is for precisely the same reasons that I just laid out, I think, because there's nothing personal or lived in in this show, right? As soon as we see a chef, as soon as there's the scene of like the ex-con,

stupping his lawyer while meat and fish are being chopped up in the Bronx. Yeah. And the music's like, neen-ne-na-ne-o. I'm like, okay, so that's the show is going to be. The music is weirdly like bad version of Midnight Run soundtrack. Yes. I think also that's the kind of show that I think it wants to be or it's just sort of covering its bases. I feel like what's interesting is for a show about best friends in New York who are affected by crime and love food,

the show has no opinion on any of those four things whatsoever or no experience with any of those things whatsoever. You know, like all it would take for David Schwimmer to be an interesting Somalié would be to say, and you know I was going to go on this, would be to say it other than Keonti. Seriously, though. Like, how hard would it be to be like, hey, someone who actually works in wine, what would make him seem interesting? And it would be like, oh, maybe he's talking about a, like a racy gamet, or maybe he's doing something more interesting. But no, he's just like, this is a Kianti. Because that's a wine that people who are in the writers room have heard of.

And that's a problem. Because 13 years ago, you can get by because it's a TV show and who cares about specificity in TV shows. In 2016, you need that specific lived-in perspective or else you're just going to get lost. Absolutely. All right, let's talk about the intern. I'm so excited to talk about the intern, Chris. Well, because this was my recommendation. When was it your recommendation? I get to take credit for the intern the way that Pusha T gets to take credit for McDonald's success.

I feel like they are equally successful in my eyes, me watching that movie and a theme song known and beloved by billions. I think it's similar. Chris, you, when this whole airplane movie Odyssey, began for me. I mean, were we ever so young? For all of us. It's really for all of us. You were like, oh, word, and check out the intern. It's not that bad. And I was like, pshaw. And I said the P. And I ignored you until I was down to the dregs. And I was literally looking at, should I watch Hannah and her sisters again? Do I dare fire up how to be single? Or should I listen to my best friend and watch a film he recommended? And I'm sorry. Will you accept

My apology, first and foremost. I'm glad you liked it because I think that that was, it was right on the line of something that you could be irrationally mad at. Because it was filmed in my neighborhood. Well, and also just like, I can never tell when you're going to go full Bernie bro about a movie and be like, why this outrageous? The values of this movie were corrupt. Fair enough. Here's what I want to say in response to that about this movie.

Chris, hashtag, I'm with her. That's what I want to say about this movie. we have we have made some some hay a non insignificant non-leaving horses starving amount of hay about Nancy Myers's films in the past and her love of the pottery barn

aesthetic and copper pots I don't where did you stand on previous Myers epics where are you in the Myers canon I I never mind them when they're on and I respect the fact that she does for the most part make movies for adults which is such a rare thing you know to make a movie where somebody

who's over the age of 50 might have a relatively interesting storyline. And this movie did, which her movies often do, which is have this sort of patina of drama while ultimately always being, everything is going to be all right. I completely agree. I also, though, think that this was her best movie, in some ways, most serious movie by a long, long, long stretch. This is Peek Myers. And I was very surprised by it. Because a couple,

Here is my take on on two levels. Like on the glossy level, the performances are great. It looks great. It moves briskly. It gets what, you know, it's about something and it says what it's about. It's just a well-made, well-made film. Hathaway kills it. De Niro is delightful.

But it makes some choices that really threw me. Because I was ready to buckle up and just, in this case, literally, because I was on an airplane. And just have a fine movie experience. Because let me tell you, prior to turning on the intern, I actually, I sampled infinitely polar bear for about seven minutes of watching Mark Ruffalo be like, I'm fine. Give me my babies back. I was like, what is the hardest pass imaginable? So I was ready just to be delighted. But the choices that it made, like just from making De Niro the POV character, which allowed Anne Hathaway to play a character we've never really seen in movies, which is she played the male character. She played the

traditional hard-charging male executive character, and there were no corners cut in that. to the really surprising, and I wish it wasn't so, feminism in this movie, where she's trying to have it all, and it is really tougher to have it all. But De Niro's character is basically like, I support you because what you're doing is worthwhile and I see your ambition and it has value. You aren't a bad person. Like these are very subtle things, but they're very big. And I can't imagine a filmmaker other than Nancy Myers having the platform to say these things. It was really surprising to see that all in a movie. Yeah, I know this is going to sound way, way, way, way, way.

old but the usual I think one of the go-to moves of any kind of comedy that strays into dramatic territory or dromony dramas that have funny moments is just seeing how uncomfortable you can make the audience

I often think about that in relationships like bomb back movies or Duplas movies you know where you're just like you were going to put a situation in this film that is just unbearably uncomfortable to watch, and that's real life. There were a couple of moments like that in this movie that were sad or slightly uncomfortable, but nothing out of the ordinary, and it was ultimately like a very nice piece of

escapism because you could just kind of float along with it. And I liked the fact that it was never like, and now this guy has a friggin stroke because of his blood pressure medication. Right. No, it was actually, you know, for as much as we talk about TV, there were things in this that were purely movie in a way that were really helpful. Like, if this was a TV show, there would have had to have been some romantic complications for her

because it would have to continue week after week. We couldn't leave it in a place of ambiguity and reconciliation like the movie does, you know? Or De Niro would have to have a health crisis or something else more dramatic happened to him to keep it going. But because it was a film, you could keep the focus tight on what mattered. But I just was really impressed by a bunch of small choices it made.

And this, we don't need to get too deep into it because I'm sure people are flocking to airplanes right now to watch this film. just beating down the doors of their local service providers. He just has an allmusic.com big Sean page open right now. He's not even listening to what we're doing. Tate will revisit this podcast when he's 45. He'll be like, oh, my God.

My two grandfathers were so right. I missed this movie. No, but here's the thing I wanted to specifically highlight, right? This isn't giving anything away. I don't think to say that one of the plot drivers of the movie is that Ann Hathaway has started the successful internet company and then the investors are like, Like, you're pushed to the limit. You're running, you know, you're, you're stretched too thin.

We need to bring in an experienced CEO to help you. And so she goes grudgingly to meet these various CEOs who are all men to, who could potentially help her. And what was so smart about the movie is that it never once showed any of these guys. Because as soon as you cast someone, we have an opinion about it. Like if they cast George Clooney, we're like, oh, what a charming rogue, you know, or if they cast, I don't know. Ian McShane. What's, Ian McShane? We're like, this guy did not read.

the script for showing up. I'll take you a fucking company. This is what I mean. Instead, it kept the focus on the female character and her journey and struggle in a way that movies just generally thoughtlessly don't do. So it was weirdly smart about that. You know, it kept your workaholics dudes just paid for the summer, which I appreciate it too. Happy for those guys.

I'm glad that we got to this one because this is a classic. This is an airplane movie classic in the making. Hopefully they change over the movie soon. I wouldn't want this segment to die. Yeah, can I just, can I jump in and say that? I know I gave shouts to Delta at the beginning of this podcast. Would it be too much to just sprinkle a couple, just E-40, sprinkle me with a couple more movies? Because it's getting really hard not to start watching foreign language films.

You know, I got to be honest to you. I watch a TV show on the way out to L.A. last week, Chris. What's going on? Andy, we'll be back later in the week to talk a little bit of Thrones and maybe some other stuff. Until then, nice talking to you. Keep feeding the beast, Baransky. Thank you, for sponsoring

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