The Watch - Ep. 61: 'Mr. Robot' and the Bourne Series Re-up

Episode Date: July 29, 2016

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald give their thoughts on what's missing from 'Mr. Robot' in Season 2. Then, they rank their favorite Jason Bourne films (31:00) and discuss why the adult action movie can still be a successful enterprise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we get started with this episode of The Watch Reup, I just wanted to mention that the ringer now has merch. Go to bitly.com slash ringer merch where you can find shirts and hoodies, the complete wardrobe. A portion of the proceeds from each purchase will benefit charity water, a nonprofit organization that provides clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Again, go to B-I-T-L-Y dot com slash ringer merch. Get the fits. I ain't sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to the watch Reap.

My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor of the rigor.com. And on the other line, he's just the tip of the iceberg. It's Andy Greenwald. Oh my God, that's Chris Ryan. That's what my intro would have been. I know who I am. I know who I am.

I don't know why they made another movie about you, but I know who you are. I mean, we've gone from so much enthusiasm for the Jason-born franchise to so much cynicism. No, no, this is an enthusiastic podcast. That's what our brand is here. Let's explain to the people, Chris, how we're doing this re-up, how we're breaking this down. Table of contents. This is, we're going to talk about Mr. Robot first, and then afterwards, we're going to talk

about the Jason-Born series of films and all of the Ludlam novels page by page. No, just the series up to Jason Bourne. Andy and I have both seen Jason Bourne, but we figured it would be cool if we waited till Monday to talk about the actual Jason Bourne, the fifth film in the series. So Monday will probably be like Jason Bourne with a little night of and preacher talk,

but today we'll do a robot catch-up and then we'll do kind of a loose like why we love the Born series, issues with the Bourne series, favorite movies in the Born series, up to this one, okay. You did that very well. Thanks, man.

I love setting the table. Hate cooking. Love setting the table. Don't love setting the table. I don't know actually what side things are supposed to go on. Enough about me. Let's talk about Mr. Robot. Is that why you used to really like down Nabi?

Because you were very interested in like learning from it, like where the cutlery went? I don't feel like it was a particularly expot. It didn't do a lot of, that was like an element of it, but it wasn't like, say, rounders where you learn a lot about poker. You know? What if PBS had done like the down? and expanded universe with like web series

where it's like Mrs. Patmore's kitchen school where you're like really learn where the soups food went. I think there's a huge market for that. Wow. What if you know if we ever no let me rephrase that when we do the Downton Abbey after show I feel like that's what we can really, first of all just incredible

etiquette from both of us. We would have a much higher wardrobe budget than we had for After the Throne and we would really get into it with what people want. Yeah. And we would get to keep the silverware which would be an amazing benefit. All right. I'm sorry, I just, I derailed you. You set the table and then I did the thing where you pull out the tablecloth, but I did it badly so everything crashed.

I think it's understandable why we are dragging our feet a little bit. We're going to talk about Mr. Robot, which I think we alluded to this sort of, we talked about the tea leaves last week being that are we, not quite are we sure it's good, but are like, are we sure it's good this season, right? And then we talked, the tea leaves are there. And now I feel like those tea leaves have steeped. you know what I mean? It is a aromatic Russian black tea you know like it is very

no but but but not caffeinated I think that it's fair to say this is technically the fourth episode of the second season I would say this has been this was probably the weakest episode of the series to date what was really interesting about well we'll talk about

the episode in specific but just generally around the episode this episode was to long. I didn't watch it with commercials. I got a screener without commercials. It was 65 minutes. That's longer than the HBO dramas and Showtime dramas that we often ding for being too long. Those are generally like 58 minutes. I think if you cut off the credits, it's like as long as neighbors. I think that's right. And I don't think it needed that much time and space. And what was interesting was that I don't think, I think Sam SML might agree with us because he preemptively tweeted yesterday in a very, in a

self-deprecating sort of way that this was the last extra long episode and he would promise to try and be less long wit and then he got he cut off because of the character limit but you know this is definitely when you give a creator an auteur complete carte blanche um and then let them basically direct it like a film and they have final edit like things can get long things can get baggy and while i support that in general i thought it was i think it's worth no noting that this episode, I think like Alan Seppenwell in his recap, hit something correct about it, which is that unlike last week, which had that really bravora Adderall O.D. sequence, this episode didn't really have the thing that made it seem to demand the extra time. I would take it a step

further and say the best part of this episode, the kind of thing that made me, and there were a couple things that I loved in the episode, and we'll get into him. But the Elliott fantasy sequence where he hugs the guy that he shamed at Stone Mountain last year and they have Thanksgiving dinner in the middle of the street, the dramatic ingenuity and cleverness and vibrancy of that scene was sapped and robbed by the fact that the rest of the episode dragged around it. It didn't pop because the rest of the episode dragged. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Well, because it argued against itself in that way. If, let's say what you're saying is true about, you know, you've got, this is television, This is O-Tor Television for better or for worse. It almost feels like he couldn't choose between what was going to be the galvanizing, not even an event because it wasn't like these are all things that are happening in Elliott's head. But is it the chess game or is it this fantasy that he's having before he finally gets a restful natural night's sleep? Or is it the conversation that he has with Joey badass with Leon in the diner?

Is it any one of these conversations with Ray that he's having? that is the now the page is turned and I've decided to go back to this other life, this or the real world, quote unquote. And I think that that's what happens when you get attached and you fall in love with your creations in a very natural and real way where you're just like, I can't choose between these things that I've thought up. And that makes total sense that that would happen. It is kind of remarkable to watch that play out. I wouldn't necessarily call it entertaining maybe and I think we're probably hedging because we have a lot of affection for the show

and obviously you've been involved with it in a tangential way so we're probably not being as harsh on Mr. Robot as we would if we just watch like Feed the Beast and we were like that sucks next you know like also the first season of Mr. Robot's really good and we're waiting for it to sort of catch that flame again

well to go further than that there's different levels of dissatisfying And to be dissatisfying because of, you know, because of ambition, there's, I find that, I find less fault in that, you know, I think in terms of just visual framing and performance and character choices, I think we're still operating on a very, very high level here. One thing I was thinking of is in my, in my, you know, four-year college university course and being a full-time TV critic, one thing that I kind of often came up against is this, this realization that TV shows, and this is, you know, TV shows tend to mimic their main characters

after a while. You know, I think, or the adjectives you would use to describe the main characters are often the same adjectives you would use to describe the show. Like, what, give me an example of that. Okay, well, like, I think, I think House of Cards, Frank Underwood is sort of a hammy bullshit artist, and I think House of Cards is sort of hammy and bullshit. Give me an example of that where you actually. actually liked it.

Well, breaking bad. On breaking bad, Walter White was brilliant and clinical and precise and relentless. And I think I would use those words to describe the show as well. I also think you can take it a step further and point to examples. Oh, sorry, to finish that thought, you know, this show is cerebral and frustrating sometimes and maddening quite often potentially insane or you know or suffering from delusions of grandeur

and we don't and much as you could say about Elliot well I think you could make a you could make a case that the way in which the show is not exactly pleasing to a to the audience is in some way similar to the way Elliot is not exactly fit for party conversations right and and to take it a step further another another that I've tried to unpack in the past is that sometimes creators want to make their art feel like

an emotional experience that is being endured or experienced by their main character. And the example I always used for that was season, I think it was season six of Mad Men. Um, season six of Mad Men was the most explicit in terms of whiner's deep-seated belief that change is enormously difficult and people are almost invariably pulled back to their worst selves. That was the season where, where Don Draper basically circled the drain the whole year. Um, and, and storylines explicitly echoed themselves. So there were episodes where a lot of the, you know, the day after criticism was we've seen that before when I think the larger point was that was that was the point. Right.

But that being the point can often be too clever. And I say that to say, I say that specifically to reference the idea of Elliot playing chess against himself to a stalemate is clever and visually beautiful. I thought, I mean, whoever is doing the production scouting for this show is just on another level. The setup of that frame with the trees that was really beautiful and really interesting to look at. but the idea of that makes sense and it is compelling and consistent with the show but it is not that I don't think it's that rewarding ultimately to experience

the lesson that he can't beat himself I think that probably worked better in the page than it did on the screen do you I think I know the answer to this but let's pretend well okay let me say it this way do you think that Sam S male wishes he could make Wire season 2 right now you mean you make his show about white people

yeah tell me what you mean completely reboot it with some tangential threads back to the like ideas of the show but I guess you can't have a show without Christian Slater or Rami Malik but that

there is something about what is happening here and watching him kind of I think what happens is like much like the chess game that's happening in the show I feel like McGuffins of the show keep getting pushed towards the foreground and then pulled back towards the background so that

as a viewer and as an attentive viewer I still don't know what I'm supposed to care about here and what's just yada yadaing like is the like last night and we could talk about the episode specifically for instance I was like oh so now now we're back on like the plant

is like a major thing again now and this leak and all this stuff and the class action lawsuit and all this stuff that I thought was like kind of just like their to chip away at e-corp and give angela something like there's things i see there and now it's like price and um white rose are talking about it and like this like yes can't close the plant and i was like ah so this is like i'm getting off it's like a little bit where where is my eye supposed to go um which is i i agree with that and i also want to note i really don't think people drink red wine like that

like quench their alcoholic thirst. Like I just felt like all those chewy tannins, like you probably have a dry mouth. You know, it's just not that refreshing. It looks like it's hot there. No, your point is a, I think is the right one. I think about the framework of the, well, two things. I thought you were going to refer to the fan theory that people have, you know, that this is all in Eliot's mind or that he's in prison or in some sort of psychiatric ward.

The further we go without that being addressed, the more frustrating it becomes is because I believe that's not the case, or I very much hope that's not the case, because that's not the version of the show that I like. This might be an example of either Sam or other producers maybe misreading what people would be chasing because otherwise I think they would have been a little bit more

definitive about it at this point because it's been a lot of screen time. These have been long episodes, and I think people so I thought that's what you were saying when you meant. Well, I also meant, do you think that... So one of the things that I'm finding a little bit difficult to to grapple with with the show is like the the the five two or five nine attack or whatever they're what do they call it the five nine five nine five nine hack and you you do it and on one

hand there's graffiti up people are having trouble getting money you know people are cutting up their credit cards there's issues and then on the other hand life seems completely normal i love that that's exactly probably how it's going to how it will feel when this fucking inevitably happens to us. You mean when Goethefer celebrates the Trump victory with exactly this. Yeah. On the other hand, I don't, I almost feel like I want more of the, what is the real world situation, what actually happens if you wipe out personal debt?

How would companies continue to try and oppress people if they couldn't use collection notices, etc? And this unification. And I almost want to get outside of the set of characters. that we have. That's what I mean by wire too. Is it you basically, you could have Elliott interacting with a completely new group of people. I agree with that. And the show is suffering from the fact that all the characters are on different shows right now for the most part and separate from each other. To that point, I would like to see that too, because the moments of real world stuff that we see, like that brief moment when Darlene's on the train and someone's wearing a gas mask and someone else is wearing a VR helmet.

Like that was just, I love that stuff. I think that's just beautiful. But I want to hang out in that world. Yeah, exactly, except maybe you have some cash. But to your other point, the conversation with White Rose and Price was elliptical, but it did sound like it was Price's goal to crash the economy so that they're forced to create a new economy, right? Weren't they saying like e-coin? Yeah. And so the suggestion that we're actually going to a bigger conspiracy where they will control everything,

as opposed to just other people's money, they will invent the money. Um, that's an interesting idea. It is an interesting idea, but didn't you think that those guys were pretty in control in the first place? Yeah. So I think what we're seeing is a little bit of a struggle of a how much to give how much, like how hard to hold the rope, how much to give, how much to pull back. You know, we, we talked a lot about the show in how completely unique it was because

this was written as a feature film script. Sam had the idea of the characters. He had the world. And for the first season, he basically told the, a slightly stretched out version of the first act of the movie. Going into season two, also being told, by the way, that, you know, USA is reinventing itself in the image of this show. We want as many seasons, you know, it hasn't officially been renewed, so who knows. But everything I've been led to believe is that, you know, they want, they would like to have multiple seasons of this show and be in this, you know, the Mr. Robot business for a while.

So then you have to figure out, well, how much to give, how much to hold back, how much to expand, which direction to move in. He was very explicit about the fact that what interested him. most was the forming of F society and the family stuff. So that meant going backwards. But we are stuck in a place where I think we now want to move forward a little bit. And the elliptical nature of the price, White Rose stuff, the absence of Terrell has left us a little bit in neutral in terms of moving forward. Here's what I think. I don't think any of those things are sins that can't be recovered from. I think the real problem with the episode was it's fine that they were treading water or expanding.

You know, I think to be successful, shows have to be as broad as they are deep, but it didn't need 65 minutes because that only highlighted the, um, the fact that we were moving sideways instead of moving, moving deeper. Sure. Okay. I wanted to ask you a quick TV thing before you take the break and go into Bourne. Okay. Just complete side note.

You know, sometimes you really like to be blindsided on the podcast with questions you're not prepared for? Sure. I love it. Only, but more when it has to do with something that I tangentially have, like, some knowledge of but haven't thought about in 18 months. No, totally. So basically what I want to talk to you about is the plight of over 40 actresses in Hollywood.

And what I want to say about that, like you just felt silent. I'm not serious. Thinking about Bwono out there. I just do that. By the, all future Bwono talk is being migrated to the AG pod. It's just going to be an interview with myself and my conscience. It's going to be like the Elliott Christian Slater chess scene,

but really just me talking about intersectionality. No, Chris, I want to ask you something, because people have been asking us this, so I felt like we should address it. I have not seen BoJack Horseman. Have you seen BoJack Horseman? Yeah, I've seen almost all of it. Do you like it? Almost every episode. It's lovely. Sure, it's fun. Yeah. I'm blindsided that you like it because I thought you didn't like cartoons. I don't. I appreciate it when they do adult things.

So you like Fritz the Cat? What do you mean? You know what? Here's a funny thing. You like the cartoons and Playboy? We need adult things. Here's a funny thing. You'd think that I was like, I'm not into cartoons, but I like BoJack because it's depressing. I'm actually quite a fan of anthropomorphic behavior on the part of animals. Wow.

I think a talking cat is hilarious. Did you know that? No. And I also love it when they have funny names like Mound. Meow Fuzzy Face. Do they? Yeah, and the show you do. Sure.

That's the name of the cat on the show? One cat is a detective, and he's named Detective Mao Miao Fuzzy Face, and then there's another one named Princess Carolyn. Why didn't anyone tell me that? I'm super into that. I didn't know that about you. I didn't even want to talk about that show so much as what I... I wanted to Miakulpa and say that I will try and watch it.

I promise. I'd love to talk about it. Clearly, it is a critical smash, a critical obsession, and... we should we should give it consideration and you you sneaky meow meow you're you're watching extra TV that's what I wanted to say was I just wanted to do like a quick you know sometimes we just like to stick the temp that stick the thermometer in the in the culture and you know we were talking about and we're going to continue to talk about um just the splash that stranger things made coming out of nowhere and we're going to we're going to talk about the

the last three episodes of that next week um I just the difference in things. So just how hard it's become to compare apples to oranges or even to consider grapes at all. What I mean by that is Bojack Horseman is a show on Netflix. It's in its third season. Critics adore it. So it's getting a lot of coverage. I imagine that means an expanded audience is finding the show.

Netflix doesn't release data. They're going to renew the show because they love the critical iteration. But we have no way of knowing what that means or how many people are watching it and we probably never will. What I want to ask you to consider in this moment, is imagine a world where you watch Tyrant. What I mean is we have been debating the championship belt for TV. What I want to suggest is the existence of the anti-belt, the loops. Wait, what does this have to do with Buono?

The guy, it doesn't, I was kidding. The guy wearing a barrel, the naked guy wearing a barrel instead of the belt. Tyrant exists. Tyrant is like in its third season. It is on a never. Network FX that creates some of the best shows on TV, the shows that we love to talk about. Who watches Tyrant? What is the financial model behind Tyrant? What's going on with Tyrant? You got to tell me, man. I don't know. How come I don't know how Tyrant got renewed.

I don't know either because I was trying to make the example of like Bojack, like I get it critically critical claim. Netflix's opaque business model. Okay, halt and catch fire coming back next month. Siked. You know, it's a miracle. But, you know, AMC made it work because it was critically acclaimed. They owned the show. They're playing the long game that, you know, having four or five seasons of a show that people love will make sense when they go over the top and it'll be in their library or whatever. But Tyrant, like, I get the mailer for Tyrant and I'm like, really? I see that I, when I was at the airport last week, I saw a copy of Cigar Officianado Magazine.

And it said, Tyrant's Adam Rayner enjoys a nice whatever. And I was like, this is the Venn diagram of things I don't care about. Can't you? This is the, okay. It's perfect. Just out of curiosity, aren't the economics of sustaining, this is a complete theory. No, it's not a complete theory. I mean, it's a theory based on utter bullshit, so it's just a theory.

Then it'll fit right in on this podcast, and I apologize for the blow, no comment. Is it more expensive to start a show than it is to sustain a show? So if you've already got the sets bill, and the people's deals are locked up for five years or whatever, and you've got the guys who are making the show, and it's slowly, incrementally finding an audience and it's streaming or DVD or whatever. Isn't it easier just to be like run tyrant back than it is to be like, let me get some other version of tyrant that might even do worse and or even if it does better and your man on the show gets like popular becomes old and Aaron Rick and you're like,

God, how am I going to pay for this guy or how do you know what I mean? I think that's true. I hope David Harbor and Carabono and Winona Ryder and all the little kids going to up to Netflix and are like, cut the check, dog. Do you want to say that in a little kid voice or an owner-rider freaking out? I want to say it the way Dustin would say it with the no front teeth, but I don't even think I can manage that. But in that same way where they're like, if you guys have Boslorman getting 120 for that

season of get down, you can pony up, man. In today, that's a really, really good point and a good analogy because we, you know, we live in an overcovered media landscape where throwing bad money after good is almost essential. Because for Netflix, when so much of what they do, like Amazon and other, you know, digital companies, perception is pretty much what their business is. So when they announce that they're making this ambitious show set in the Bronx in the, you know, the early days of hip-hop and Baz Luhrman is making it, they get so much press and hype for that. You know, that affects their stock price. behind the scenes, by all accounts, there's this great,

was it Hollywood Reporter piece about it, it sounds like a catastrophe. When the piece that the network green lights to change the story around the show comes out and the story around the show in the piece is like, whoa, that was a disaster. Then it was really a disaster. That said, people are at TCA now.

People have been tweeting that they've seen the first three episodes and they like them. So ultimately maybe, you know, we're wrong about that. It's the same thing with, you know, with something like Westworld for, it seemed like a disaster. Now the perception is that it might not be. And that's how I felt about vinyl that like people never, it never was going to be able to live down. Yeah. And also just as soon as it was like vinyl cost this much.

Oh, where, what the hell? I was just like, it's not your money, man. If vinyl just went up like stranger things and all of a sudden on a Friday night you came home and there was this 10 episode show about 70s New York music, I think it would have had a much different audience than if it would have been like, this is us back in the drama business. People don't like hubris, but at the same time, vinyl was also an old show. It was a swaggering show.

But there's a difference between hubris and marketing. Old people. You know, I mean, I think that that's... And I agree with it. I mean, like, obviously, I'm not trying to cape up for vinyl. It had the run it had. But I'm saying... It's interesting to think about someone out there is watching Tyrant.

And just because it's not written about consistently and it doesn't have, frankly, a version of what you were for the bridge. You know what I mean? Like you were a big advocate for the show. And it doesn't, as far as I know, there's nobody where I'm like, damn, so-and-so is really like, tyrant is the one.

But obviously some people watch it. I just, I got the press mailing for it and it was just like, in season one, Barry went back to the country of a button, by the way, which I believe is where Joe, Joe Button comes from. The country of Joe Biden? And the country of New Jersey or whatever.

It's the home of six-minute Drake disc tracks. No wonder no one's watching it. He returns to his country and there's a coup and his brother takes over. And then it's like, in the second season, Barry joins the resistance and like moves to the desert. And then the third season, Barry takes over. I'm like, Barry, slow your role. Like, Tyrant kind of sounds lit. So maybe I'm missing out.

But, you know, we're a little bit all over the place, but I see your point. And the main point is for for a for a essentially or apparently bottomless pocketed enterprise like Netflix, you know, someone asked a TCA this week, can anything get canceled? Does everything get a second season? Like apparently the Will Arnette show Flaked got a second season announced from the TCA stage and no one involved in the show knew they'd gotten renewed. Like that's that's the level of of just overkill that Netflix is doing. I don't know if that's true or not. That's what would I had heard. And similarly, like, so for the get-down, they needed to spend the same amount of money that HBO spends on a season of Game of Thrones on a show about kids dancing in the Bronx because they needed to make it happen. Whereas for FX, which obviously is a very rich company, but if they're not sure what the next big drama is, and it might cost X amount of millions of dollars just to get something going in terms of, you know, making a room, then like getting a different room and then investing in shooting the pilot, you're right. So holding that slot and then maybe selling it around the world, that's low-key a way to maintain the bottom line as opposed to sink it. That's probably a good point. It's just a theory, man. It's a weird marketplace.

It's a weird, but it's a weird marketplace, right? That a cartoon about a talking horse and frisky meow meow meow meow is like the talk of the town and a show about Barry joining the goddamn desert resistance. I need that to join the resistance. I need BoJack tyrant. I need Mao-Miao kissy face joining the resistance. You, yo, Bojack Tyrant is a dope name for a TV show. It's about a horse who's a tyrant. All right, let's talk about...

Can you imagine Lawrence of Arabia from the perspective of a horse? Of the camel? Yeah. Yeah, man. Okay, let's take a break. Here from our sponsors, we'll talk about BORN next. This episode is brought to you by Luke Crate. Luke Crate is a monthly subscription box service for epic geek and gamer items and pop culture gear.

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So just download the free CKeeK app and enter promo code. Code Watch today. Andy, so the Bourne franchise is probably the, I don't know, is it the most consistently rewarding movie franchise of our adult lives? It first starts in 2002, and we've gotten a movie every few years

since then. This is the fifth one coming out on Friday, Jason Bourne. It marks the return of Paul Greengrass, who directed the second and third installments of the franchise. And, this franchise I think kind of articulates a lot of the things that you and I are interested about

in espionage fiction and pop culture in filmmaking and acting what people can kind of the way you can ring out incredible moments from genre stories I guess let's just open up the floor and talk generally about what is it when you think about the series that you're like if I'm like hey why do you like those movies

what would you tell me I think the thing to say And I think you were saying this in a different way. This is the grown-ups action franchise. This is summer movies for adults, basically. It was, these movies are consistently creative. They came, you know, there was punching and fighting and car chases and global intrigue, but they were not cities being leveled.

There were no capes. There were no, you know, it always surprised in the ways it did, you know, in some sense unsurprising things. I think we should also say our love for this franchise is so deep that the, our theme song is samples the god Ed Norton. In Born Legacy. From the Born Legacy, a movie that we will ride forever for. We did a, we did like a 60 minute podcast about that movie when it came out four years ago.

Someone recently tweeted they thought that was like Norton, that was a Norton rip from American History X. It's like, no, son. Get your legacy straight. Do you remember when we Can you imagine we're like, let's get some American history X samples in this trail? Nothing, nothing like talks about our just general attitude towards pop culture than Edward Norton curbing someone over racist hate.

Like that's basically, that's what we love. Do you remember there was the period when Grantland was done and we knew we were going to hook up again with Bill, but we couldn't announce it? And so we knew we had to come up on the new pop. podcast name. And I don't know how serious we were, but we were definitely talking about Cris Suite. Yeah. Like we really thought that would be a cool name for a podcast. Yeah. We love these movies. They, and sorry, the last point I would make is that watching them over the course

of their lifespan, they did seem to, and I think this can be an overrated thing to compliment in films or in culture in general, but they did seem to reflect the times in which they were made. They were very much, by accident, the first movie didn't intend to do this. It was a quirk of when it was released and when it was filmed. But certainly the Greengrass Daman movies, which people hold up as the exemplars of the series, legacy and Ultimatum, not legacy, I'm sorry, identity and ultimatum and Jason Bourne.

Oh, sorry, supremacy, ultimatum, and Jason Bourne. Well, but the first two that they made together, so not the new one. Those really are held up as like almost key post-9-11 text, basically about like America's role in the world about hard power, soft power, espionage, blah, blah, blah, lot. But the other thing is they were just fucking dope. They were really entertaining. They cast great actors in very cool roles and they always underplayed the parts that other movies overplayed

and we love them. So I think that the important thing to note about this franchise is it is not a monolith. That there is actually quite a bit of variance from film to film if you look at them. And I've been kind of skipping through them over the week just to kind of refresh my memory. And I was shocked by just how much supremacy is the peak. I think identity is by, far the most enjoyable and surprising. And you mentioned this with adult, you know, it's adult action movies. The intelligence of these movies can't really be underrated. And they came at a time where it did not feel like it was possible to find intellectual stimulation at a multiplex. You know, every once in a while, you would get something like heat or collateral or something

like that. And, you know, I'm painting with a really wide brush here. But I remember distinctly seeing identity and having zero expectations of that movie. Matt Damon was not a star at that time. In fact, I think his star was kind of on the way down. I mean, he had sort of popped up and stuff after a brief kind of like the Goodwill hunting run. I think he had been having trouble getting out of being Goodwill hunting, you know. Well, I also think he was, people seemed very suspicious or doubt that he could play an action

hero. Yeah. That was not something that people thought he was capable of doing. I'm just like looking at his credits here from what he was doing right before born. And, you know, there's not a lie. I mean, you know, he does. What Talton Mr. Ripley was kind of in. Courage under fire was the one where I think people were like, he's really good at acting.

And then he did, you know, then he's in Goodwill hunting and he kind of becomes a star. He's in saving Private Ryan, but that was something that I think he shot maybe. Nobody knew how big of a star he was going to be, but he's at the end of saving Private Ryan. Rounders is a cult classic, but wasn't really appreciated at time. Talented Mr. Ripley is phenomenal, but is not necessarily a Matt Damon movie, I don't think. And then he does a bunch of crap, like Legend of Bagger Vance and Finding Forrester and the historically damned all the pretty horses adaption. He comes in from Oceans 11 and things are going like, you know, he is going to be the third guy. He's in Jerry.

He's in, and nobody's really sure what's going on. on here and then bang, born identity in 2002, born supremacy, 2004, oceans, you know, and Sireana, the departed, Good Shepherd, Oceans again, born again. You know, it's been like that since then. But this was a completely different kind of series. Within the series, though, there's a lot of variance, like I'm saying. And I do think that the first one is probably the most purely entertaining one. and that legacy is probably the most underrated.

I mean, you and I adore that film. I actually, in re-watching, found myself not particularly enjoying ultimatum, which is the second Greengrass movie. Yes. I think, I mean, I think there's two ways to look at this. I think one way to consider this franchise 14 years into it is, I think it's time to, and we can do more of this on Monday after people see Jason Bourne. But I think that it,

I think certain narratives that have carried coverage of these movies need to be reexamined, basically. Like who are the winners and losers of this? Because for a long time, the narrative was Paul Greengrass, who is a brilliant technical director and has made great movies. He was the one who figured it out and made these movies, the sort of kinetic, smart action movies that they are. and that Doug Lyman's contribution to it is overlooked.

Tony Gilroy, who wrote the scripts for all them in one form or another to get into that. He directed legacy. It was not involved with Jason Bourne. I think it's time for reconsideration of a lot of that. Because I think that you're right that supremacy was peak, born, and peak this style of movie making. And I think seeing Greengrass, the quick cuts that he does, the kineticism of the camera like it's almost unsettling at times the way it moves so quickly um was really really striking groundbreaking in in two and i think i bet he wouldn't agree with this and i bet tony

gilroy wouldn't agree with this but sometimes amazing things happen when you know strong will yeah when people when people don't get along yeah basically and the strong us the stuff that happens at the beginning of two is actually i think you could make a real argument that in a world that didn't care about money, this should have just been a two-movie series. That you do identity, you do ultimatum, or do supremacy. And the end of supremacy is a perfect ending for this character. Three, I thought, was a little bit of a grind, but obviously it has a lot of stuff. I thought it was almost avant-garde in how shaky cam it was.

I, you know, I wonder whether or not four could have been something much bigger if there had been some tacit acknowledgement, like if Damon and Greengrass had signed off on it and had maybe there was like a born cameo in it and maybe the next born film could be something that Renner and Damon were in. I don't know.

But there's not a whole lot going on in three and you can kind of feel the wheels grinding there. Right. And nor was there apparently a screenplay that they could use. That's what Damon was right. That's going to come into our conversation on Monday because the question of why are they doing it again is an interesting one.

a tough one, I don't think they answered it correctly. But I also, you know, it's a problem that runs through modern action movies. Origin stories are not as interesting as people think they are. And the heart of these movies, maybe the first two, but beyond that, who is this guy? You know, it doesn't really matter after a certain point. There are other questions to ask in the universe, especially when you're willing to deal with a world that is this paranoid, this surveilled, you know, this dangerous, this fraught as the world in this in these movies are. But to the point you were saying, I think this is generally recognized as the truth, even though I don't know how many people have ever talked about this on the record.

But, you know, Gilroy wrote in one form or another the scripts for the first three, and those scripts were basically ripped up and ignored in production. Sure. Where Lyman would be like, let's go to Paris. And then Greengrass was like, I'm not really going to shoot that or I'm going to shoot in a different direction, which sort of led to the bad blood, I think, when they handed the first. franchise to Gilroy and they basically, it was almost like a passive aggressive move towards Damon and Greengrass for not making another one. But you look at, I was thinking about,

this is a ridiculous comparison, but you know the great movie MASH, that Robert Altman movie. Yeah. Like Ring Lardner Jr. wrote the screenplay, won an Oscar for the screenplay. And pretty much said, not a word of my screenplay is on the screen. Well, I beg to differ with that with Gilroy. I think that a lot of the, especially the second film and the first film have stuff in there that you that feels distinctively like him and I do think that later films and I you obviously if you see legacy and that's all him you you kind of get the sense of what he finds interesting about the character and the world it's so much more detailed and jargon heavy in the ones that he's involved with whereas the ones where it's just more greengrass and damon it's almost

like a silent film except it's a very noisy silent film if that makes sense And you see in the new movie just how little Greengrass thinks about scripts. Right. Because the script of the new one is written by Greengrass and his editor. Like there's no writer involved. Well, this is a guy who actually would probably rather make handheld recreations of real world events. And there's just very like literally this is what happens to Captain Phillips here. And then he does this.

And then he does that. And then he does that. And there's, he's very good at ringing tension and drama out of the real world. But when you ask him to make a film that doesn't have. a screen that isn't everybody knows what happens with Captain Phillips and everybody knows what happens with Flight 93. When it's green zone or one of these Borns and he's like, it's about computers. Now run around.

I completely agree with you. I didn't mean to imply that there was nothing of Gilroy in those movies, but what there was was just enough of, he would not want to think this. He's an Oscar winning screenwriter. But with the scripts he wrote laid just enough track for the other artists to do the things that interested them, which is basically to. go down that track that was laid, but take wild detours and turn the camera in different directions that interested in them. So that tension, that friction made something interesting.

Now, what I would say here is, I think Born Identity, the first movie, is the best film in the series. And I say this after 14 years of reflection and consideration, and I completely hear what you're saying about supremacy. I think it's an excellent, outstanding film. I think it's a close second. but the thing about born identity is that it is just delightful. You know, we think of the movies, especially with a new one, as very punishing. You know, it was a dark time. We're talking about dark ideas, dark chapter in our nation's history or whatever. Born identity is a fucking romp.

You know, there are dark things in it, but it's basically about a, it's basically like the, it's European vacation. Yeah, it's a love story on a, I mean, this guy doesn't know anything about it. It's before sunset. Yeah, it is a It is a love story In which the Right, it's before sunset If Ethan Hawk killed a dude with a magazine

Yeah, right Instead of just talking him to death And Clive Owen was chasing them with a double-barreled shotgun And you think about that Like I think nothing I don't know if I would hold up anything else In that entire franchise That I love more than the fact that

Clive Owen, who was on the brink of stardom himself, has this very relatively small appearance in this movie and all I think about in that performance is just sadness. It's such a sad little performance because he plays this guy who had all this training and in another universe, there's a movie about him and his skills. Yeah.

Well, I think that's what they were hoping with the born, expanded universe, is that there would be a certain, there would be an interest in these people. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, like, times change. But what's interesting about legacy

is that it is such a taught and well done little grown-up thriller. At the end, you know, I'm over people riding motorcycles and chasing them. Like, apparently motorcycles can walk the down steps. The last act of it is definitely a little bit, whatever. Whatever. But if you, the set pieces, the raid on the house that features our man Bill Camp, right? I think he's one of those dudes in that scene.

And the office shooting, yeah. And then, yeah, the Jellico Vonnich office place, workplace shooting. Those are incredible and harrowing sequences. Oh, and the thing with an Oscar Isaac's appearance in the beginning, too. Just that scene between where there's. That's the sort of genius of that movie is that it lingers just longer than usual on these tertiary characters. So you have the born figure in Aaron Cross and he does his thing. And he's kind of a known quantity, even though we do get to see some flashbacks.

But it lingers longer on Edward Norton in the Joan Allen role or Rachel Weiss in the Franco-Potant role or Oscar Isaac in the Clive Owen role and gives them just a little bit more humanity than they usually get in a blockbuster movie like that. I think one alternate way to talk about our love for these movies is just to acknowledge how thirsty we are for not stupid genre entertainment on a big level. Oh yeah. You know, I remember when the Will Smith movie Focus came out and I wanted to believe in that movie so much because, God, do I want movie stars playing cons on each other? Sure.

You know, like that's, I want movie stars to be movie stars and be glamorous and be funny and clever and, you know, and be surprised. Like, that's what I want to have at the movies. I don't want to see Manhattan get destroyed for the 9,000th time this year by a CGI monster breathing flames. I don't give a shit. But the fact, the reason why this conversation is almost more melancholy than we expected, obviously we're revealing a little bit about how we thought about the new movie that we will save the bulk of for Monday. but we need this to be good in a way because we want people to keep making movies like this. I want there to be an alternative for all the shit that we talked about on Monday

with all the trailers for those movies. And it's dispiriting that. But it's dispiriting that like almost everything with Hollywood, the wrong lessons are learned. So Legacy didn't do that great. But the lesson from that was to snuff out. And obviously this is also because Greengrass was wanted to put his thumbprints back on the franchise. you didn't want to move backwards in any way or even acknowledge it.

But everything that Gilroy laid, all the track that he laid for potential new franchisor expanded universe, God help him, that all gets snuffed out. Yeah. And the lesson from the success of identity and the success of supremacy isn't the lesson, the very smart lesson that Tom Cruise and Paramount learned from Mission Impossible, which is Mission Impossible movies are Tom Cruise jumping out of shit and with Ving Rames and then a different filmmaker is going to make a different movie every time. time around them.

Right. The lesson from the successive supremacy was, oh, no, we're just going to pummel this one until the nail breaks. Right. Right. And it's hard to imagine what they could do with the sixth one. Okay. So we're going to be back on Monday to talk about this film, Jason Bourne.

We'll also touch on, probably do a little night of. If you're in Montreal, make sure you go see Andy with the Master of Nunn panel. Andy, can you get any details on that? A couple. Yeah, it's 4 p.m. on Saturday. It's part of the Montreal just for laughs festival. I think tickets are available. I think their website is ha-haha-ha-ha.com.

Great website. I'm going to be up there with Aziz Ansari, Alan Yang, Kelvin Yu, and Noel Wells. I think it will be a lot of fun. And otherwise, I will be trying to reenact the Joe beef episode of Vice Monchies. People have given me some nice recommendations online. So I will be trying to do that.

And if you were in Montreal this weekend. And if you were in Bakersfield, on Sunday night at 11.30 p.m., I will be hosting TyrantCon at the Holiday Inn. Just last exit before the desert. Barry Palooza. Until then, Andy, thanks for calling in. Nice talking to.

Join the Resistance. Great job, Baranski. Bye, man. Thanks again to Lou Crate the monthly subscription box for geeks, gamers, and pop culture nerds. From bad guys doing good things for the wrong reasons to good guys with questionable tactics. August is the perfect time to explore the anti-hero. Walk the hero villain line with this 100% exclusive collection of items from DC Comics, Archer, Dark Horse, and Kill Bill that includes two great collectibles, a wearable, and of course,

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