The Watch - Ep. 50: 'The Detour,' YG, and 'Midnight Special'

Episode Date: June 24, 2016

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald on TBS's 'The Detour' (5:30), the new YG album 'Still Brazy' (16:00), and 'Midnight Special' (23:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Buying tickets online for sports and concerts has been a confusing process for a long time. It's always been hard to find the best deal for that game or show you want to go to, and none of those older ticket sites want to change that. But Seekek is different. They've come along and created an amazing app and website that makes it easier than ever for fans to buy and sell tickets. I'd like to go to FYF Festival this year. Oh, that's cool. You could do it on this app of course?

Well, I just got my app, and I just got my tickets. It's just so simple. All you have to do is just check that app. It's like one of those really nice things about Monarch. in life because tickets used to be so hard, you know? Anyway, you just put the app on your phone, and with Seekik, you never have to waste time checking prices on any other ticket sites. I'm going to use Seekkeek to buy tickets to see the Philadelphia 76ers with the all

Giants lineup once we draft Ben Simmons. With Seekek, you'll never need to waste time checking prices on other ticket sites, because Seekek does that all for you by pulling in all tickets available on other sites into one place, so you save time and you never miss a deal. And Seek wants to help you get the most bang for your book. That's why every ticket on Seek is given a grade based on value. You'll immediately see any underpriced seats and be able to find the best deals to fit your budget. Best of all, listeners of the watch get $20 off their first seat geek purchase.

To get that $20 rebate, download the free Seat Geek app. Go to the Settings tab and click add a promo code. Enter promo code Watch and you'll get that $20 rebate. That's after you buy your first ticket. Download the free Seat Geek app and enter the promo code Watch today. Also, I want to tell you a little bit about Harry's. Andy, do I look any different today? You look a little bit different about the facial area.

That's because I shaved with Harry's. this morning. Ooh! Yeah, Harries is this great razor. It's a razor, a razor handle. They bring you some liniments and some creams and some shaving ointments. Like balms and tinctures. Yeah, it's fantastic.

And it's just, I had always had a problem intellectually with how much I had to pay to get replacement razors for my usual drugstore razor. You know what you mean? Like, what's up with that. Why does that cost so much? I don't know. That's what Harris is saying. Harris cuts out the middleman and they let you just get a great shave for an affordable price.

It's Harry's like the name, right? But there's a little bit of wordplay there because you could be hairy if you don't use their product. See what I did there? Harry's offers factory direct prices on razors and they just cut out the middle of man with no upchargers for half the price of the leading brand. Harris has a starter set called the Truman

and it's a great option for new customers. Just an amazing deal. For just $15, you get a razor handle, moisturizing shaving cream and three of Harry's five-blade German-engineered razors. Plus there's a special offer for fans of the show. Tell me. Harries will give you $5 off your first purchase

with promo code watch. Go to harris.com right now and look for the Truman set. That's H-A-R-R-Y-S dot com and there's your code watch and checkout to get $5 off and help support the show. Stop compromising

and give Harry's a try today. What do you think the percentages of our fans who are beardos versus clean-shaven? I'm gonna go 50-50 right down the middle. That's nice.

Maybe this offer will change things. Let's hope. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Ryan

and I'm, I am an editor at the Ringer.com and an accomplished three-point shooter. And joining me in Bill's office, it's Andy Greenwald. No intro for you this week. Nah, I don't need it. We spend a lot of time together. I'm consumed by the Brexit, man. I'm pretty consumed by these deadlocked Supreme Court decisions.

It's a crazy time. We are coming in hot today because, first of all, it's a thousand degrees outside. It's really quite mild here compared to what it was like earlier in the week. Listen, hey buddy. Hey, man. Before we get into it, we're going to talk about some stuff. We're going to talk about a TV show I really like. Yeah, let's talk about the detour.

Yeah, we're going to talk about... Oh, fine, you do. Okay, take it. YG's new album. A rap album I really like. And we're going to talk about Andy's airplane movie. I saw a movie, but before we do any of that, is you going to talk about the Brexit?

We got to talk about the Brexit. Is that a metaphor for what you did to your spine and back yesterday when you took 100 three-pointers? Joe is there. And so he's probably more objective than I can. be about it. I'm still a little bit a little bit roughed up in game six of the NBA finals there was a moment where Andre O'Donle clearly had like in person back spasms like in game yeah and was just crippled by them and I that definitely happened to me yesterday. Tate also you have to know I stayed

in one place and I would just like pick a spot and shoot if in case everybody doesn't know yeah I think you got to set this I participated in a um not for charity or anything like really smart I just did it It was a three-point shootout with Tate Frazier pre-draft. Let's be clear about a couple of things. I didn't know about that. I saw you a couple days ago. You seemed of sound mind and relatively sound body. That was then.

And then I was about to get on a plane yesterday, as I often do, watched a movie. We'll get to it. And when I got off, you were like, text me. You were like, hey, do you hear what happened? I was like, how did today go? And you just sent me a Twitter link to what you guys were about to do. And I was concerned because Tate's a big guy.

First of all, Tate is a child. He has the strength of like a child in the way a child can like, tear through cement like the Kool-Aid man? Like, I worry about him. He doesn't know what he can do. Tate doesn't know his own strength. No. He was wearing a Janus, a Greek basketball Janus jersey.

Yeah. And he moved around the wings like a bird. He's cat-like. He's kind of like a teradactyl of basketball. We basically are so in awe of him. We just use three animal analogies, and we still have a narrative tant. Anyway, I'm not doing great today. Because of the Brexit?

Yeah. No, because I feel like I tore both rotator cuffs. But you're still. doing a podcast with me, which I appreciate. Yeah, yeah. Andy, let's talk about the detour because this is a show that you brought up a couple weeks ago to me. You were like, I watched it when it first came out.

I watched a couple of the episodes. Stars Jason Jones. Yeah. Well, it's Jason Jones and his wife, Samantha B. created the show. Yeah. It was part of their, their, get out of a daily show deal with TBS. It's on TBS premiered two months ago.

Yeah, I think so. And as a sign of just where we're at mentally, intellectually, spiritually, I watched some of these episodes on a plane and I text you, I was like, yo, you should get up on this. And you were like, I literally asked you to watch it two months ago and you said no, and I have no memory of that. So I'd like to apologize. That's okay.

I think that I'm not trying to say that that's a representative thing in our relationship. No, I mean, I was thinking about this a lot with Preacher recently where I was like, three years ago is, are we doing, are we clearing out parts of our week to talk about preacher? Probably. And we may again. Our weeks have been pretty full of another TV show. Yeah, maybe that's not the best, the best filter to look through it at.

But I was just thinking about how much stuff is out there and the detour is actually quite representative of the kind of show, I think, is sort of flying under the radar now because the radar is so distracted by having to cover the entire mountain range. This is the thing. And we're going to talk about the show in specific, but in general, you could look at it two ways. One way to look at it is it is a contained, I think it's 10 episode season. It's fantastic to watch. even better to binge back to back to back. Now that they're all out, you know, I watch them all on Delta Airlines. They're all available out there, shouts to my men, my men and women up in the sky,

putting in the Lord's work. So in theory, this is the dream, right? Because the show exists. People can watch it at their own pace and discover it. Incidentally. If I was up in heat, I don't want to think about air, like our, not stewardess's, flight attendants. Flate attendants being part of, like, heaven.

Like, they're taking me there. Because that's how they're taking me there. I don't want them to do the Lord's work. That's probably right. I want them to do Delta's work and the FAA's work. I don't want them to be like, oh, welcome to heaven. To the last flight of your life. It was a little bit like the leftovers the other day crossing Kansas.

But I'm saying that that could be a good thing because the whole show is out there. People can discover it. It's probably not a great thing, though, if you're Jason Jones or TBS because you want people to be talking about it when it's debuting. because there is still that window for ad sales and renewals and blah, blah, blah. So sorry we couldn't do that because I didn't remember that you asked me about it. But I'm here to say now that, boy, I really enjoyed the hell out of this show. It is really fun. And so to set it up, it's a pretty simple pitch.

And it's kind of amazing that no one has done it already because it's basically National Amphoons Vacation, the series. Jason Jones plays a... National Ampoons Goes to Hell, basically. Yeah, or Fort Lauderdale, which is, you know, pick them. Jason Jones plays a very Clark Griswold type guy, family man, businessman who gets fired from his job, grab something prototype. We don't know what it is. And instead of flying his family to vacation slash work conference, insists that they drive in a old beater station wagon. Yeah.

And his wife, two kids, twins. And the thing about the show, it's very filthy, it's very funny. But it's a really nice style of comedy because it is, of course, of. each episode is standalone, but it's serialized in a very engaging way. And it's a kind of model that we don't see very often, I think, because, you know, the New York Magazine article was about this a lot. Like cable sitcoms are sort of becoming a certain type of show, a sort of vibe. Network sitcoms are still network sitcoms. But this reminded me a lot of British shows. And the other analogy I would draw here is with Party Down on Stars. And the reason why, you remember you like

that show, right? Party Down was great. RAP Party Down. The thing about Party Down that was so fun, in addition to its incredible cast and clever writing, was that it gave us some characters that we really liked, and it put them in very dirty, sexy, funny situations. And it's fun to see characters we like doing dirt, basically. And the most fun part about this show, can we just clear out some space for the goddess? I'm clearing out space for you, man.

I'm only upset that you didn't give me more time to browse my Twitter mentions, because I just 30 seconds ago crowdsourced how to say this woman's name because I'm going to say it wrong. Do you want to check your Twitters? I think it's Natalie Zia. I thought it was Natalie Zay. Okay. Or Z.

If it was like, if you had to bet your life on one of us getting someone's name right, I'd probably go with you. I appreciate that. This is going to be the one. The point is, she is fucking amazing on this show. She is the best thing on the show. It's one of my favorite performances on TV in a long time. Now, the other thing about it that's so exciting, I mean, she's always good.

She was really good on Justified. She was good on... She was good on... Oh, God, what was that other show? She was on a show that got canceled briefly that I had prepared for before I did this podcast. The Peter Krause show? Dirty sexy scoundrels?

She was on Dirty sexy scoundrels. Peter Krause had played cousin Ruprecht. Dirty sexy money? Dirty sexy money. She was on that. But in all of those parts, like, when I watch her on the show, I'm like, the life of an actor

is really kind of thankless and hard. She's been on good, She's very talented, but she is so lit on this show. And I feel like she must be having so much fun because she gets to do these crazy things and really rise to the occasion. And people don't write characters like that for comedic actresses very often. And maybe it's Samantha Bee's involvement, maybe Jason Jones involvement, whatever. She plays the mom who likes to get wet off a number of illicit substances. Like, right?

She gets a little Ray Valcoro action with like weed gummy bears. Weed gummy bears. Yeah. Yeah. Watch the Wee Gummy Bear episode. She is just, she's dragon fire on the show. And it's so fun to watch it. You know what I was thinking about with this is,

there was an article in at The Atlantic the other day. This is a great lead for a sitcom talk, yeah. It was about Brexit. And it was about how, it was by sequel fatigue at the box office. And it was about how, the percentage is out of control about how many movies out this summer are part of an expanded universe,

our sequel or whatever. Yeah. And it was even, you know, it's like how many of them had flopped or not lived up to expectations, like Neighbors 2. Right. Neighbors 2 is like, you know, as a tangent. Neighbors is a movie that I really, really loved. Really fun.

And just didn't see Neighbors too because. I was good where we left things in the Neighbors universe. I thought Neighbors ended with a period, not with an ellipsis. We are, I mean, do you remember? There was a phenomenon that we experienced growing up that, Chris, our children will ever experience, which is wishing a movie had a sequel. Yes. There were a bunch of movies where I was like, please continue this story.

Oh, how fun it would be to hang with this crew again. And I can't really quite remember. I guess it was last summer, but there was a National Ampoons reboot last summer. Sure, yeah, I had the writers on the old podcast. Yeah, Ed Helms starred in it. And I imagine, just given the way Hollywood works, that at some point or another, Jason Jones may or may not have been either up for that role or in talks for that role or circling or that this project could have been that reboot.

It would have been better. And this is what TV, the role, I think TV is kind of filling now is like, if you want to make your road trip movie, the only way you can make a road trip movie is by making a National Ampoon's reboot. But it's free. Or making it part of the Mineke transmission expanded universe or the Michelin Man expanded universe. And it's like a family running away from the Michelin Man who's chasing them down 995. Because he wants to eat this.

Yeah, it's like I can't imagine a way in which this gets past a first meeting as a movie. Oh, as a movie. Right. And it's, I think you, this is a small story. It's told in a very TV way. There are flashbacks and flash forwards. And there are little character beats that you wouldn't be able to do in a movie ordinarily. And even the overall arching sort of journalist crime element to this show, which we didn't really mention, which is actually pretty interesting that they do it like this, wouldn't be able to be in a movie.

But you can feel incrementally these stories. stories are no, these stories are not TV stories. And the idea, if you're going to tell a story like this, there's just no room for it anywhere else but television. And then also, what's interesting is that it winds up on TBS and that it's not showing up on NBC or Fox and that so many other places are getting into scripted that you just see these shows popping up in the weirdest places. I think the point about movies is especially well taken because the, um, the

other thing about this show is that there's some clunkers. Some of the humor does not entirely work. There's a two-episode part in the middle of the season where they end up on the plantation B&B of a aging pediatrician slash pedophile. I mean, we're all laughing, right? We hear the setup. It's gold. But it drags. Like, some of that is not terrific. And some of it isn't the best work in the show. But, you know, in a TV show, it can be more forgiving. That's episode six. Then there's episode seven. Yeah. You know, if the show is batting 700, that's a really good batting average. Whereas in a movie, when you have, you know, if you commit that percentage of it to a pedophile joke that's not working, it's kind of going to color the whole experience. You know, it's kind of, I mean, you know, depends where you stand, where you land on that issue in particular and how funny you find it.

But as a show, it hits the right beats because, like, the vacation reboot you're mentioning, which I thought was fine. there were some funny things in it. Ed Helms and Christina Applegate were perfectly good, and the kids were good. There were some great cameos, as there always are. It's your favorite film. It's my favorite movie of 2015. It's one of the few movies I saw, not on an airplane.

But you didn't want to spend time with these people because they have to bazook a bar for 10 minutes because that scene will go in the trailer. Right. This family is funny. This family on The detour is very funny. The two of them together are terrific. It was nice to just really,

want to fall into something and watch it in that way. Let's keep it going. Let's talk a little bit about this YG record. When we figure out how to say Natalie's name, can we say it again, though? Let's call her Natalie. Could you just call her Nat? Because you guys just watch the show. Watch the Weed Gummy's episode.

And listen to YG, because this is probably one of our favorite records of the year. I was going to say it doesn't really, it is one of our favorite records years. Is your favorite album in the year? Is it my favorite album in the year? Yeah. No, but it's in the conversation. Yeah. Because Life of Pablo and Coloring Book came

out this year. That's true. I'm looking at you now. And so did James Blake color and everything. Are you still rocking that in the 100 degree weather out here? Are you just putting on and you're just like, I'm so hot and you get in your car, you crank up the iciness and you're like to get the windows up and turn the EC off and turn on Jane Blick.

Oh my heart hurts. That's how it sounds. Different than that. Tell me. Tell me. Stretch out those three pointer arms and just let out of J.B. imitation. YG's new album still brazy. Yeah, it's out.

Quick question, tangent here. You've been in L.A. now, California, four years. This is what I want to talk about. Not me. Have you always known about the blood thing where they won't say the letter C? So, like, that's why it's called Stil Brazy because, like, he doesn't want to upset. I think I've heard about it, but I don't think I ever saw it apply. So he calls the neighborhood where he's from Bompden.

Right. Like, I assume they call it the state of Bollifloria, which is actually, that's, That's pretty cool. They should actually... Jerry Brown's on his way out. Could he just like pass that like in midnight? Just before he's on his way out. And Gavin Newsom is like, what's the state called?

But I'm so into local politics. I have Kamala Harris' firetakes for days. I wonder if Gavin Newsom would, like, misread it and think you just can't use the letter... Like, B has to, like, replace everything. He's like, I'm the Boviner of Balfourne. The Bovina of Balfourne? I mean... Is it, are we allowed to joke about gang stuff in 2016?

Probably not. I apologize to anyone whose life has been adversely affected by gang violence. It's just like a weird, I just had no idea. But he is, are we selling people on the record yet? No, we should start. This YG record is, to me, like a incredible anthology of L.A. rap sound. Yes. It's almost like you took L.A. rap production like DJ Quick and stuff like that

and put it into like a postmodern art exhibit and then wrapped over it. There's something so clean and almost mechanized about it. In some ways it reminds me of some like damn funk kind of production where it's like very pure separated electro sounds. Very crisp. Yeah. And then he wraps his ass off for the entire record. It takes a little while for me to get into it,

but it's very much like a rap album in the sense that of what we grew up with where it's expansive and a skits. Yeah. Has a loose narrative to it. And he's, he's either funny or so pummeling, it doesn't matter. Yeah. But it just sounds like what you want West Coast rap to sound like.

And it's interesting because his first record was, I thought, was really good. My Crazy Life, I think it was with a K at that point, my crazy life, to avoid the aforementioned problem. But that whole record was DJ Mustard produced it. And that guy does pretty well for himself, and he makes a lot of pop hits. And so the sound of that record was terrific. but it's kind of interesting that he was able to move away from his very, very celebrated producer and then find this record that sounds, doesn't sound retro. Yeah.

But there are these moments, if you listen to a Kendrick Lamar record, or any of, well, both of them, but especially the last one, every so often there's like a stray reference to like G-Funk or to West Coast rap or to DJ Quick. Right. The kind of stuff that we, or West Side Connection or WC and Mad Circle, like Rap and Forte, which is all over this YG album, I think. The kind of stuff that we liked when we didn't love West Coast rap, but the stuff that we liked.

We like that sound, though. Yeah. But for Kendrick, it's just reference points. It's influenced where he is, but he's way past it. YG somehow is still completely immersed in it, but he makes it sound really fresh. Also, kind of political in a way that I really appreciate in 2016. There's a song called FDT,

and it's about how he wants Britain to vote Remain, which is a surprise, because I kind of think, You didn't know that he would feel that way. But no, it's saying F Donald Trump. Yes. I mean, I would love to hear many more songs like this before the summer's over. But it's a really dope record. It's a really dope record.

Do you see what, I mean, our man, Chase Serrano tweeting about it like crazy, he goes out of his way to say that why you always hating has a good Drake verse on it, but that YG bodies Drake on it. He does. Yeah. Drake gets body now. Drake used to only show up on people's songs and have like the best verse. on him. I thought he was like the guest star star.

Yeah. And now I feel like he's there, he's kind of a punching bag on people's tracks a little bit. Wow. Yeah, I love Drake, but he needs to step it up a little bit on his guest versus. All right, before we talk about Midnight's special, I'd like to tell you a little bit about a show called Mr. Robot. On July 13th, Mr. Robot, the 2015 Peabody Award and Critics Choice Award winner returns for his second season on the USA Network. Starring Golden Globe and Sack Award nominee Rami Malik and Golden Globe winner at Christian Slater, Mr. Robot follows Elliot, a cybersecurity engineer by day and vigilante hacker by night, who follows a mysterious leader to join a hacker group, F Society. They put their skills to the test taking down E-Corp, a giant conglomerate that owns the whole world's personal and banking information.

But when they pull the hack off, they quickly realized that they had no idea what they were getting into. Mr. Robot is full of stellar acting and one of the most uniquely shot television shows around. Mr. Robot returns for season two Wednesday, July 13th at 10, 9 Central on the USA Network. Also wanted to tell you a little bit about Spotify. Yeah. Yeah, man, Spotify. The Discover Weekly allows you to lose yourself every week in the thrill of new music discovery. Can I be clear about something?

Yeah. That freaks me out because it is really good. It's pretty on the nose. It's suggesting things I want to hear. Your Discover Weekly playlist is 30 songs that you didn't know you loved yet. How many do you usually love? I would say it's 30 songs every week. Yeah.

I would say there's a good five or six that join the rotation that get me into different bands. And I don't like mixtapes. The last mixtape I liked you gave me in 1997. Because I like to make up my own mind. But seriously, this Discover Weekly thing is really... Better than Chris's mixtapes, or at least as good. You get a brandy unique playlist every Monday, like a weekly birthday present just for you. And the playlist is personalized based on your music taste.

The people who know about and use Discover Weekly love it like Andy Greenwald. Don't forget to save your favorite tracks on Sundays before your playlist refreshes. Go to Spotify.com slash Discover Weekly now to get your playlist. Thanks to our sponsor, Mr. Robot. On July 13th, the critically acclaimed drama, Mr. Robot, returns to the USA Network for its second season. Hailed by Rolling Stone is the number one show of 2015 and named by Best Drama by the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards.

Mr. Robot follows a cybersecurity engineer who is recruited by a mysterious leader for an underground group determined to bring down the world's large corporation. But when their hack is a success, the consequences are far greater than they imagine. Starring Rami Malik and Christian Slater, Mr. Robot returns July 13th at 10, 9 Central, on USA Network. Thanks again to Spotify,

Discover Weekly for sponsoring us today. Discover Weekly allows you to lose yourself every week in the thrill of new music discovery. Your Discover Weekly playlist is 30 songs you didn't know you loved yet. You get brand new, unique playlist every Monday, personalized to your taste. Go to Spotify.com slash Discover Weekly

now to get your playlist. All right, let's keep moving because this is a re-up. Let's talk about Midnight Special a little bit. Oh, that's my movie. Yeah, this is your movie. You directed it. I wrote it, directed it. starred as a child with special abilities.

I thought my best work was as Kirsten Duntz, to be honest with you, because I had the long, long braid. No, I mean, you said you had like a larger point about this movie. This is a Jeff Nichols movie that came out earlier this year starring Michael Shannon that you watched on a plane. I did. That I watched in a theater. And you really liked. I loved it. And I don't know if I loved it.

I thought the first half of it is incredible. The first half is fantastic. And I mean, this is the benefit of seeing movies on airplanes to all my people. people out there who are doing the same thing. It's all my angels and goddesses in the sky, taking me on to the next plane of existence. Taking you to Bevan? Take me through the Bevanly Gates. I fly Belta.

Belairelines. The thing is that you're removed from the hot take cycle. You're removed from having to have two strong opinions about it. And I appreciate it because it exists, because it's not threatening anything else because it's already been out there. have moved on. And what I mean is this is a really, really interesting take on making ET for the X-Men generation. Yeah. For a superhero, for a world that is much more savvy and much more saturated in sci-fi and superhero-type movies. The movie is about, yeah, a kid with magical or

superhuman or basically abilities. And Michael Shannon has, his father, has taken him from a cult that has been basically treating him like a Messiah and is taking him to a place of unknown, unknown destination. Yeah. Trying to get him there. Well, various government agents led by Kylo Wren and various other people, including great. What's that dude's name, Bill Camp? He plays the sort of pudgy enforcer from the cult. He's just a great face. Yeah, he's in the night of.

The thing about, I mean, the thing that makes this worthwhile, in addition to just being sort of an interesting topic, and we'll get to my bigger point, I promise, is that it looks like a movie. Like, Jeff Nichols clearly knows how to make movies. He's clearly influenced by 70s cinema. that people look like people who have lived in places, that matters. Yeah, I think that he did a really cool interview with our buddy, Zach Barron and GQ, and he talked about this film in the end of the film,

which I think is what most people had a problem with. So the third act does not, it's got a cool set piece, but I don't know if it sticks the landing, so to speak. It's very ambitious. Because the movie is very oblique the whole way through. You don't know what, nothing is answered, and I kind of like that until suddenly it goes. And his point is just like, yeah, nothing. is answered. I didn't, I didn't make a movie to like tell you what, yes, alien life is like

or something or what, if magic is real or whatever. It was more just, it was about feeling and investigating those things of like feel and exploring emotions with sound and music and music is great. And performances that are very subtle, like, Joel Edgerton is so good in this movie. This is what I wanted to ask you about. Joel Edriton's performance is so measured and you have have to see that on a big screen. And it's not because of the visual effects is, because the subtleties of what he does are lost otherwise. I saw it on the back of a chair at 30,000 feet. It obviously can be communicated to you.

I do have my point. I do want to ask you. I did want to bring up Joel Edgerton because I am easing my way into the Edgerton verse. I don't think I'd ever seen him in anything. I thought he was like Jay Courtney, like someone who just didn't really exist but got cast and stuff. I saw him in Black Mass, another airplane movie. I thought he was okay in that. In this, it's a very interesting thing because I thought his,

This whole thing was like Jay Courtney, who was being forced down our throats as a leading man. He has the supporting performance. And it is a very non... There's no vanity in this performance, right? He's Michael Shannon's running buddy from when they were kids who suddenly shows up to help him with his son. And there's very little backstory,

and it's all played out in the moment, in the relationship between them and in his face and what he's willing to do. I started the movie very dubious about him, and then by the end of it, I was like, he's really bringing it in a very, very subtle way. He's basically like Jeremy Renner, his quality, he has the quality that Jeremy Runner had, like, around her locker in town. And that he could identify a property that was undervalued, figure out some granite countertops to throw on it.

And he would put in the right amount of work on it with his roommate Christopher. Yeah. And flip the property. No, he brings an incredible amount of weight to very light parts. That's well said. You know, the guy in the town that Jeremy Runner plays should not be that good. That's right. steals the movie basically. What is Edgerton's ceiling? What do you think? You've seen him more

than that. He's really interesting because he writes and directs his on stuff too. He made the gift, which you told me I couldn't handle. You are not allowed to see that movie at all. I appreciate that. But you told me that I blanched at the pederasty part of the detour. Like I would not watch the gift. But you told me that I might not be able to handle Midnight Special because of the treatment of children, but I was cool. I don't know if it was treatment of children. I just didn't think that you were into being endangered children. Yeah. He's all right. He's magical. He could shoot beams out of his eyes. I'm not worried about him. Do you care about watching a movie if the parents die in the process?

Nah. No, it's just the kids. Yeah. Okay. That's weird. I mean, that's how Mallory feels about movies with pets or humans in them, right? Like, she doesn't care about the humans. She cares about the pets.

Yeah. She loves animals. Any Game of Thrones thoughts before we... Oh, no, I had my Midnight Special thought for you. Oh, yeah. Okay, so I was watching this movie, and I wonder if we're phrasing all this wrong and how we're talking about TV and movies. Because, you know, the big thing...

I don't think I really buy this, but in this sort of golden age of television conversation of the last decade. A lot of people have been like, oh, TV is the novelistic medium, right? There was a David Simon quote about that too. You can tell this wide-ranging Dickensian story with chapters and you can really unfold something.

And that's fair enough. I don't totally buy it and I've always had some issues with it. Or if you did ever buy it, I don't think that the promise has been fulfilled upon. Fair. Yeah, exactly. Can we start thinking about movies as a more malign genre, which is the short story?

because I think in the past, and we've talked about the difference between TV and movies, I've often said that the thing about movies is that they have to tell the complete story. So you have to pace it differently. You have to pick the right story. You have to pick the right in and out because you don't have the luxury of five seasons, seven seasons to tell an overarching, much longer, more involved, detailed story. When I was watching Midnight Special, I was like, here's why I like this, because it's a short story. It is a really cool genre piece that you pick up in a collection of other genre pieces,

or you read in a magazine or an Elri Queen Digest if you're 100 years old. I don't know. And I've never been a big short story reader. I wasn't like in high school and like in college and you take English classes. You always, you know, people read like a lot of Bernard Malamud, right? Like you read like the great short story writers. You just see the crisp face he just gave me. But you know what I mean?

Or like Alice Monroe, people love her. And I'm like, I'd rather read a novel rather than read like 400 frosty vignettes from Canada. Yeah. Even though she's a master. But I was watching this movie and I was like, Like, this is enough. I think the analogy is, is, I think you're, you're on to something, but Hollywood disagrees with you.

Totally disagrees to me. Because Hollywood is not in the business of funding short stories. Exactly, but they're not in the business. In fact, they're not in the business of funding anything that doesn't have the potential to be a trilogy. But that's what, exactly. I can't believe they're in the business of funding Midnight Special. I cannot believe this got made.

This was a studio movie or with studio involvement. It has a special effects budget, even though, I mean, you could have made this movie for peanuts. And if this movie had made $500 million, they would have been like, let's make a movie about where the kid goes next. One AM special. Yeah, absolutely. But they know that when they made it, that it wasn't built for that. So they were taking a chance on a bunch of talents.

And I think they wanted Nichols to do Aquaman or whatever, right? They want to keep him in the WB family. I think he did it and didn't go too far with it. He's got another movie coming out this year called Loving, which is about an interracial romance in the 60s. And Ruth Nege from Preacher. And she is fucking amazing on Preacher. Yeah, she's great. Yeah.

That's interesting. I mean, that whole model we should talk about at some point, which is that Warner Brothers as a studio, which was notoriously, notoriously sounds bad, which was famously a very artist-friendly place. Director-friendly, yeah. Director-friendly, seems to be morphing into a studio that is basically trying to make the most virtuous version of one for you, one for me. In like Affleck doing, he does Batman, so he gets to make Dennis Lane.

Live by Night, yeah. Adaptations. So, and they keep Nichols in the fold, they let him make Midnight Special because at least it's sci-fi, maybe it'll hit, and then they get him working on their franchise stuff. Yeah, you know, and it's funny. We were joking about Runner a few minutes ago, but, I watched randomly on YouTube the other night a DP 30 30, like David Pullen does those 30 minute interviews with people. And there was one with Renner from, gosh, I don't remember what movie it was for, but he had just got, he was like, it's great.

It's so Renner because they're like, what are you been working on? He's like, I just got back from Dubai. And he's like, Dubai for work. And he's like, of course, always work. Always work, my friend. And he's like, it did a little movie called Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol. I was like, come on. Ghost pros.

Just fucking say you're in Mission Impossible. You're excited to do it. But what Renner starts talking about, he's like, I love independent movies, but it's really, sometimes I was making those movies and it was like a play that never opened. And this is really nice to do art that you feel like lots of people watch. Nichols has been making movies, mud, take shelter, shotgun stories. If anybody gets a chance to watch is amazing. It's his first movie.

It's pretty readily available. And it's a fantastic Michael Shannon performance. He's been working Michael Shannon for years. You can feel this is a guy who wants his movies to be seen by a lot of people Not in a bad way, but in the way that I think drove some of those 70s filmmakers like Copeland Spielberg and Lucas to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we love the French New Wave. We came out of 70s American Cinema, but we want a little bit bigger than that. I don't know if I really buy anyone, any artist who's like, I want to limit my audience.

No. But the one for you, one for them model that you're talking about, this is almost like, in a very extreme way, that would be like something like John Sales, who may or may not have done rewrite work on like Jurassic Park or something. Yeah. And then gets to make City of Hope or whatever movie he made around then. But the modern version of that is more the Colin Trevereaux. You make one indie film and then you get handed the keys to the most expensive.

The Conreverro is just like, now I want to be Spielberg. Yeah, which I think he said that you always want to be. All of these guys grew up with Spilberg and that's what they want to be. And if they make indie movies to begin with, I think the way they're trying to go is to be that. But I think... They're not trying to be Jim Jarmush. But other than, like, the best Spielberg of the last 20 years is probably the first 20 minutes of Super 8. but midnight special is close.

You mean not like Spielberg ripoff? Or you're just saying Spielberg across the board? No, Bridges Spies for Life, dog. No, I mean, yeah, the best Spielberg homage, the best, I mean, the classic Spielberg kind of thing. Yeah, right. But do you think this idea, though, of like, I completely agree with you. I wasn't arguing this point that, like, nobody, Hollywood does not want to invest. Well, it's interesting conversation.

But Hollywood doesn't want to invest in ambiguity. There's no question. But is TV to blame? is it TV, is it fan service? Is it a combination of, or is it just fear on the part of the studios? It's a combination of all three that has just goose this sense of resolution above all else,

that we need to know everything about what happens to everyone at all times. You know what? That's really interesting, because in that way, you could look at TV as the place where we need resolution and movies is the way, is the place where we constantly want expansion. That's what I'm saying. It actually is counterintuitive, but it might make more sense,

because the one thing about TV, that we expect is that if we if we get on board of a show where's it going where's it going we have six or seven seasons everyone's going to get their moment five theories about where this could go exactly and that fuels our conversation whereas nobody gives a shit where X-Men is going you know what I mean I mean literally and also like when you're watching X-Men you're not like when it when a cyclops going to find out this but but beyond that like unless you are you know doing one of those like honest trailers where you just rip something to pieces like the biggest screenwriting note I would give people who write movie screenplays for a living is don't tell me it's cool you don't need to tell me how he got the

elevator or how he hotwired the car yeah it's fine show me why he did it or what he's doing with the car yeah that's why i'm always so surprised i mean you don't have to fill you don't have to fill 22 episodes this season so you don't need to tell me about these movies like whether it's like fantastic four or rogue one even which we talked about a couple of weeks ago going in for reshoots and not like the tone isn't right and then you'll see the movie and the tone will be fine but it's like there's some massive plot hole. You're like, you guys couldn't have fixed that? Yeah.

You know, like, what are you worried about then? You know, what was the thing that you were? But I'm arguing the opposite. I'm saying I would rather have the tone than the plot hole be spackled over. I don't mind it if there's actually characters in the movie. But if the whole movie is about the plot, then I care. You know, if it's a Michael May a movie, I don't really care how they get from Panama to New York in five minutes.

I mean, this is also... But if it's a comic book movie, I guess I don't really care in a comic movie. But this is also us always coming at stuff from the perspective we have with crime fiction. And I've said this before. But like one of my favorite authors of all time, James Crumley, I have no idea what happens in his last five books. I have no idea.

We're going to talk about this on Monday. And I would recommend if anybody hasn't caught up with it yet to try. That's what I kind of like about Preacher. I fancy myself someone who's like able to keep these storylines and discern what's going. I don't know what is happening in Preacher at all. At all. Like I literally have no idea what's happening. And it is such a thrill ride and the performances are so good.

and it's so engaging that I'm very interesting. I'm just like, I'm along for the ride. Character and tone matter, you know, and it gets you through. And to bring it full circle back to Midnight Special and the god Joel Edgerton, who I'm suddenly a fan of,

that's why his performance is good because Nichols doesn't write a backstory for this character. There is one crucial bit of information that he withholds until about halfway through the movie, and Edgerton delivers that revelation just as an afterthought, he tosses the line out the back of his mouth, basically, towards Kirsten Dunst, I think.

And that's enough. But, you know, the alchemy of having the writer who's willing to hold back and trust the actors, and the actors who are able to hold back and then communicate what's needed to be communicated without having the script to fall back on, now we're back to where we often end up

with just saying, it's amazing that anything good ever happens at all, to be honest. All right, we're going to wrap this one up. This one's dedicated to Natalie Zee, and Natalie Zia and Natalie Zay. The three-headed goddess. The best actress in America. We'll be back on Monday. Thanks for listening.

Great job, Brinks.