The Watch - 'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' and the Problem With Nostalgia Play. Plus, Peacock's Olympics Coverage and 'The North Water.'

Episode Date: July 29, 2021

Chris and Andy send well wishes to Bob Odenkirk, who suffered a heart-related incident on the set of 'Better Call Saul' (1:00). Then they talk about whether or not Peacock's Olympics coverage has been successful (9:36), the trailer for 'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' and the trouble you run into when re-making movies based on nostalgia (28:19), and the first two episodes of 'The North Water' (45:26). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Full Court Fits is The Ringer's new weekly NBA video series hosted by Big Waz, a.k.a. Wosney-Lambray. Each week, we take you around the world of NBA fashion and share can't-miss style choices from your favorite players and keep you up to date on the latest news and releases in sneaker culture. Waz also talks to experts like Damian Lillard's personal stylists to give you behind-the-scenes looks at how the NBA's biggest stars choose their outfits. New episodes drop every Friday, so make sure you're subscribe to the Ringer's YouTube channel at YouTube.com slash the ringer so you never miss an episode.

Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimphaya, gusalcumab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections, or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis.

Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before a treatment, your doctor should check you for infections in tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks.

Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the run.

Stand up and walk. Now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at Rigger.com and joining me on the other line. He's wailing away. It's Andy Graham. You saved that one for days.

I love it. Oh, Andy, today we are going to be talking about the Northwater, a television show starring Jack O'Connell, Colin Farrell, and Stephen Graham. It is currently streaming on AMC Plus. I believe it's available via, Was this a BBC show? This is BBC America streaming? I think it's important to say this is a Liburo situation.

If you kept Libreau, you have access to this show. It is the most Chris Corr show since the late lamented taboo. A lot of people have been talking about my podcast that I did. Like a couple of, was it a couple of months ago? Did I do it last Christmas or something? When did I do the most anticipated shows of two? 2020. And I did it like solo podcast. Yeah. And I think I talked about the North Water on that one. It didn't come out in 2020. It's out in 2021. I think it's awesome. I can't wait to talk about it with

Andy. I'm sure he's got a lot of takes on it. Andy, how are you doing? I think we should start out just by saying how thankful and relieved we are to hear that Bob Odenkirk is feeling, you know, is least in stable condition after a heart-related incident on the set of better call. saw we were all kind of on pins and needles yesterday following along with the news or waiting to hear some news about it. That was one of the strangest days in recent memory. And I have to say, let's start with what you said. The degree of upset that I felt personally for someone that I've only met once that I don't know was surprising to me. And I think shared by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people across the country. I think probably the strange.

thing about the day. I mean, and we can talk about it now in past tense because as you said, Chris, as of last night, the news reports is that he did have a, quote, heart-related incident. It sounds like some sort of a heart attack. He is stable and conscious in a hospital in Albuquerque. And so I think we can feel comfortable speaking about this now and, you know, as a close call, a terrifying health scare. But he seems to be okay and he's going to be okay. Those are the actual words that his son, Nate, tweeted last night. very unique 2021 day

in that there was no news we are as a people always pre-social media not good with uncertainty yeah of course I mean that is the hardest thing for any person especially in the modern world

to process or just sit with we want to know everything all the time I thought you were like there just was no news at all yesterday and I was like I hate to break it to you so everything's been happening everything else seems fine I don't know what you're talking about.

As a big infrastructure guy, I was mainly focused on that. But do you know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah, because it's usually just like weird leaks and speculation. And I honestly was almost like a little bit nervous because of the cone of silence that was sort of surrounding the entire thing. This is like all besides the point. Like it's not a meta commentary on the way we live now. Like I'm just so happy that Bob O'N Kirk is going to be okay.

But it was very strange. exactly you're saying. Usually when an NBA player goes down with an injury, there are like 50 tweets while the guy is still getting an MRI about what they think is going on with him and what might happen and how long he might be out and what this internet doctor thinks. Obviously, it's not the same thing for an actor who suffers a medical emergency, but the hours of no news was really weird.

Yeah, and I think it does speak to the gravity of the situation. And I'm sure when he and his family, if they ever do share details, I think it will be, it clearly was serious. But what was so disconcerting as people who have no right to know, he's a private person with a family and a life, was just that, if you think about it, very appropriate cone of silence. Yeah, yeah. And it was old-fashioned in a way. And I think that that also speaks to, I mean, who more qualified to call things old-fashioned than the two of us on the Internet's most consistent. old-fashioned pop culture podcast. But the affection and love and the outpouring of emotion that was visible on Twitter

in the face of the uncertainty yesterday for Bob Odenkirk was itself kind of old-fashioned. Because he is not, despite his fame growing exponentially over the last 10 years, he is not a, he's not a TikTok star. He is not a particularly 21st century celebrity. He is a 58-year-old man who's had a very long and varied career. with fans every step along the way. There are people who notice his name when he was a writer on Saturday Night Live

30 years ago. There are people who are devotees of Mr. Show, the incredible groundbreaking sketch comedy show he did with David Cross. There are people who are fans of, you know, comedians he's mentored or sketch comedy shows he's produced. And then there's this late period,

oh, he's a beloved and actually pretty incredible dramatic actor, both in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and then showing up in Little Women and The Post. the post. So, I don't know.

Maybe it's also because... And also like a burgeoning action star with nobody. With nobody. And, you know, he is also a, by all accounts, a very kind and, you know,

relatively private person. And the... So the emotion for him was moving. I was surprised how moved I was by all of it. And then the next thing, just to say, that, you know, he seems to be healthy, he's well, that's, that is the headline. That's the only thing that truly matters. If we have the luxury of taking one step down too, there was, of course,

in this terror and fear of another very contemporary phenomenon, which was we want the rest of our story. Yeah, sure. Right? I mean, it's too soon to talk about that. It does not matter in the face of actual medical emergency or the potential loss of a beloved family man and friend and mentor an actor and father, but I think people were panicked about that too. Sure. And as we, I just want to put this thought out there, as all entertainment is now serialized entertainment with, you know, the goal of beginning a story or continuing a story or jumping on some IP to reinvent a story, there never is just one chapter, right?

Like everything is going to be a multi-part saga, and part of the investment is that everybody's going to be around to see the end of it. And that was an extra piece on top of the emotional terror that people were feeling yesterday. Not nearly as important, but maybe people's connection to this person's life. And I think that that would sort of noteworthy and worth commenting on. I think that the fact that he was making better call Saul when this happened made it like sort of extra kind of sad. And the final season of it. Yeah.

And a season that they have had to wait to shoot because of COVID. And I think that they were kind of in that slot where they would have been shooting right when COVID was starting to go really, really wrong and everything was really getting shut down and they had not come up with any kind of protocols of how to do this yet and how to start making stuff. And, you know, I know that you, you know the areas that they were shooting in very well. Obviously, you were down in Albuquerque. So, yeah, I completely understand what you mean. I mean, like, it's not really like, what does this mean for Better Call Saul? It's more like, man, I just realize, like, how important this guy is to me and how important this show is to me. And I'm just so glad he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's

feeling a little bit better apparently. There's a piece of the way we process culture now where everything is the scroll that CNN invented on 9-11, where there's just a constant feed of information. And I think the constant feed of information leads to a kind of passivity about the inevitability of a narrative, that it's just going to happen this way. And we are not used to, and we do not like, honestly, we don't like being surprised. And people say that we like to be surprised in movies or whatever, but we actually don't. We want to feel it coming. We want to feel a safe jump or jump scare or whatever. And not to get too grandiose, and this doesn't need to be the topic of today, but there was some overlap to me, just in terms of the mania that I felt emanating from the Twitter machine,

something I was very happy to step away from most of the week, from something like, well, Simone Biles is supposed to win the gold medal. Well, Better Call Saul final season is going to come and be brilliant and blow us all away. All of these things are supposed to happen, and they're going to be delivered on time because I've been invested in every step along the way. But life doesn't work like that. Life doesn't work like that. And we felt a kind of collective freak out about strangers over that very human reaction this week. Have you been watching any Olympics? More than I thought. More than I thought. By the way, now that we're talking about the podiums, I should say that I don't even deserve to podium right now. I hope the audio is okay. We should have mentioned this

at the beginning, but, you know, in the language of the North Water, the show we're going to talk about shortly, when we, when I got off the boat to club some seals to death, my podcast rig didn't make it back on the boat. It's been identified by a penguin who is going to give to me. You think that this is a podcast, Andy, this is actually an allodum intervention for you because I think you've been hitting the bottle a little hard and now you're just forgetting microphones in different northeast cities. Chris and I are recording kind of, you know, doing the best we can. We're guided by voices today.

We're low-fi bouncing tracks off of one another. So we apologize for the audio fidelity. Yeah, Andy and I have basically been like ships passing in the night, again, Northwater, on the East Coast for the last 10 days. So now I'm back in Philadelphia, Andy's up in New York. And- But to answer your question about the Olympics, I do want to say, Chris, how big a fan are you? I mean, just like one to 10, you know, because I know a lot about you.

I feel like I know a lot about your viewing habits, but sometimes you do still surprise me. Like, how up are you on the intricacies of street skating on a competitive level? I mean, I like some of the fashion choices those guys are making, but I have no idea what they're doing. And that is actually a weirdly sport where, like, watching them do it completely isolated and alone in, like, this giant man-made bowl is kind of strange. I do like myself some Olympics, and my mom is a huge, huge, huge Olympics fan.

So like the second I walked, I drove from Portland to Philly yesterday, Portland, Maine to Philly yesterday. Like the second I walked in the door, my mom had like both barrels up like Olympic takes ready for me and just went like unchecked for honestly like I would leave the room come back in and she would be like and then this lovely Australian was was in the breaststroke finals. And I thought that they were going to win. And I was just like, oh my God, man. Like this is really like I'm getting the full, the full download. See, because we live in a bubble from it. We've not been watching it. We're actually currently staying in a place that doesn't have a TV.

There are still people like that. And I did have a moment, though, yesterday evening to fire up the Peacock app and watch things totally out of sync with reality. But I did watch some street skate with my children, which I highly recommend. Well, you are a Tony Hawk skate alumnus. It was very calming and soothing as someone who loved to play the Tony Hawk video game. games, just rolling around in an abandoned swimming pool on a PlayStation 2 screen somewhere. Also, huge Betty vibes, really about the same amount of plot in the HBO show Betty as there was in the Olympic street skate with no one in the crowd. The other thing, and this is a little

Dattington Island pro tip, and I'm sure people know about this, because this may have happened like seven days ago, Peacock is not super into telling you, like giving you timestamps on the events you're watching, watching the gold medal women's street skate final, or whatever you call it, the competitors, and in fact, the two top medalists are marginally older than my children. Seriously, yeah. Two 13-year-olds, bat mitzvahs, basically, in the language of my people, are just up there shredding rails. And it's just kind of incredible that these young girls wearing the, you know, Vans and giggling are just now Olympic athletes too.

And I'm very, very here for it. It was a very calming and soothing exercise. It's funny you mentioned the Peacock thing because this was the raison d'etre of peacock, right? Is getting this thing up for the Olympics. Was to make it basically a streaming hub for the Olympics? Wasn't that Comcast's big kind of, that was their big gambit? It was like, we're going to have the Olympics. And, you know, I have to admit, like there are ways in which it's pretty cool.

Like, you know, my mom has, like, Xfinity or whatever, like the Comcast. thing here. So you basically, there is like a hub where I agree with you somewhat divorced from time and space. You can watch anything and you can click on the sport that you want and it'll just shoot clips at you and everything. But there are, because it's in Japan, this is one of those games where you have to pretend all day like you don't know what's happened if you want to enjoy it in prime time. So you either have to like just kind of seal yourself off from ESPN and the news. or whatever, and especially Twitter, because people are just like, she won,

and you're like, that's definitely going to be on at 10 p.m. I die. My guy. Did you have to turn off your archery alerts on your phone? All of them. All of them. Yeah. You're around. You're always updated on the latest. And let me tell you, those things, it's hard to ask those apps not to track. It's kind of the whole point.

All of the summer sports. Yeah. Do you miss, I mean, so yeah, the Peacock thing, I just want to say one more thing about it, which was when I fired it up to watch whatever, because I asked, do you want to watch the Olympics? Yeah, that sounds great. They were excited. I did think there would be like a whatever's happening right now button. And I did not see that. Maybe there's a different hub somewhere. But on Peacock, it's just basically like, are you interested in a water polo? Because here it is, from some point in calendar year 2021. That feeling of immediacy, but of course, that immediacy was always an illusion. Because when you and I were growing up, I mean, the first Olympics I really remember watching, it also probably worth noting, did not have that massive. time zone issue were the 84 Olympics from L.A. Yeah. And we were both on these coasts.

But, you know, the experience of the Olympics as a communal event where at 8 p.m. every night, Bob Costas would, like, sit down and look at you and hopefully his eye health was up to part. You remember that? That was an odd year. I do remember that. But basically be like, okay, here we go. And they'd curated it and packaged it. And you'd watch the most exciting parts of anything you'd jump around.

And I'd go to bed being like, well, that was a dramatic. night of television, curated, almost scripted television. And now, you know, this is a perfect metaphor for our time. So we have absolutely everything all the time. I have no idea what's going on. And very few shared filters of how to understand. Yeah, I think some of it is a time zone thing for people in the States. I mean, like, you know, the London Olympics, I thought was a really, really fun games.

And, you know, that was like the LeBron basketball team, Phelps, Bolt. Like, it had like a really great storylines and a really great vibe. I thought the opening ceremony was really cool. Danny Boyle did a lot of it. It was really like, and it was in LA, the London prime time was like on during the day for us. So it was like you got to see that stuff live. I do think that the sort of like breaking everything down into its component parts and giving it, making it so that you can watch absolutely. Like if you want to watch water polo like semi-final or like any swimming heat you can.

but there is something kind of old school and pleasurable about the like turn it on 8 p.m. There's Toriko and that it's going to be four hours or however long of coverage. Now, it is bone crushingly slow to watch that stuff sometimes where they're just like, yep, we're about to get ready for the heat three of the breaststroke. But first, like, this guy's dog plays the drums and that's why he's made it all the way to Tokyo. And it's like, you're just like, holy shit. I can't believe there's another human interest story. I kind of do want to go to Pek.

and just and watch heptathlon or something. It might be winter, though. I think the other thing about it, though, that I was happy about was the, again, very 2021, the story, the meta story about the Olympics, you know,

delayed a year, COVID-riddled in all senses. Why are we doing this? Right. The gross, you know, politicization of everything. Culture war left me feeling like I didn't even

want to engage. And then we did turn on, in addition to the street skating, we watched the women's gymnastics final. And at the end of it, these people are, these women are incredible athletes, and I can't believe people do this. And I found that to be a very pure and enjoyable reaction. And maybe part of that was watching it with my children who had never seen anybody do the uneven bars. But it was nice that at the end of it, and once you find the app and you download it and you click on the right thing and it doesn't crash or whatever, yeah, that's human beings. Still pretty good at stuff. Yeah.

That was a good, that was a good watch. So I, good job by you, Olympics. Do you want to talk a little bit? I wanted to talk to you a little bit about movies before we got to Northwater. Yeah. Everyone knows I love movies. I went to the movies for the first time since, I guess it would have been late February, early March, 20, right? I guess, yeah, I went to the movies.

I went and saw old at a movie theater in Falmouth, Maine. And, uh, let me be. tell you something. I don't, this may or may not happen to you and you've been to the movies though, right? Like, didn't you take, didn't you go to like an animated movie? The rest of my family. Okay. Went and saw, uh, spirit, the horse movie. Uh, I, I did not. Right. I did not. Crippling fear of animated horses. But was it actually because you were just like, I'm not ready to go back to the movie theater? Were you just like, I got other stuff to do? I was like, I could use this time to work. So please enjoy the horses. Um, so I went saw old. Here's the,

thing I'm not ready for. Okay. Concession stand decisions. Because I walked in, first of all, I had an amazing dinner at this place called Central Provisions, which kind of does a mid-coast spin on Basque small plates. Incredible restaurant. I love who you become. I treasure it. I highly recommend the fried polenta cake. And then I, we're there. And here's what happens like when you're on vacation in America in 2021. all the tables are booked. Somebody came and booked all the tables in advance. So you're kind of like, you go up to the hostess or the matri-deer or whatever,

like five o'clock when the restaurant opens and you're just like, what can you do for me? Maybe you flash a little bit of a five in your palm. Like, do you? Oh, a five, well, you're going to get two five. I'm not bribing out of cheddar. But you're just like, you know, like I would like love to walk in. Could be nine o'clock.

Could be 515. You never know until you go and ask, right? Because like, nobody's picking up the phone. in America anymore. So you just go to the restaurant. So we had dinner, a big dinner. I had a white ngroni.

It was feeling great. And then we finished dinner and it was 6.30 p.m. So we were like, what are we going to do? What are we going to do with the rest of our night? By the way, I laugh.

I have booked multiple 545 p.m. dinner reservations, but that's one of the many ways that my life is different from the life of Chris Ryan, aka the white nagrony. And then I, so then we were like, let's go to the movies. So we went, we went out there. And after eating a sizable meal, I would say, including dessert, get to the movie theater. We're back.

We're back in business. And this is a fun movie theater. It's got like recliners and stuff. I go popcorn, a little bit of butter, goobers, Pepsi, bottle water. Wow. Yeah. Chris, was it kind of a mid-coast spin on popcorn and goobers? Or was it straight up a number?

More of a basque spin on goobers. It's kind of small. Just a couple of goobers and then like a little drizzle of like a sardine oil. Did the concession guy say, let me tell you how our menu works? Have you dined with us before? We encourage sharing. Yeah. It's kind of rustic.

So there's just a couple of snow caps. We just throw them out there. You guys can pick them up. No, it was a lot of fun to be back in the movies. Old is very bizarre because it's a really good idea for a movie that seems to be dubbed. like the dialogue is so weird in this movie, but I don't want to like spoil anything about it in case people still haven't gotten a chance to see it.

But the movies are back and then, and then, you know, I did want to talk to you a little bit about a couple of the trailers that we have missed. Wait, Chris, we're going to talk trailers, but we got to go back to Bass Country for a second because I feel like before we created the image of a concessionaire,

a pimply concessionaire, tweezing jujubis onto a tray, I feel like you've left our listeners. hanging a little bit because longtime watch aficionados know that you and the concession stands that are not always not always a harmonious combo you coined the term popcorn tum tom tom on this podcast once and now you're telling me that you ate like a basque fisherman and then ordered savory and sweet yeah with a with a adult size cola i think i've told you but i've told you this before and i'll tell you this again. The order at the movie theater is to get something chocolate with popcorn.

I am a purist. I just like my popcorn. But I'm not a sweets guy. Listen, you don't need to explain thinking behind your order. Shout out to my guy, Mike and Ike, Sean Fennessey. Just absolutely, the candy king. He's the Ike to your mic. He is the candy man. When you say that three times, Sean shows up with some Sour Patch kids. And he slaps the pretzel bites with hot cheese sauce out of your hands. Yes. Exactly. He's like it's junior mince or bust. But how were you feeling? Obviously you were thrilled and excited and maybe a little bit buzzed on gin, but like did... White Nogrody made with silver tequila, actually. Oh, beautiful. But Chris, you're like the characters in the movie old after 20 minutes on the beach. You are a calendar year older than you were the last time you were in the movie theater. Are you okay? I was totally fine and I wonder whether it was just my pure enthusiasm for. film that got me through. You know?

It was my love of cinema and it's in it and and seeing films the way they are meant to be seen in a theater with a bunch of teenagers from Falmouth Maine. And watching a movie made by Sixers ticket holder, season ticket holder and I Chimelon, I feel like also, you know, he's operating in, you mean, you may not know, you may not recognize the cadence of the dialogue in the film, but as a Sixer fan, it's in your love line. Yeah. Did you, I know you would never see this movie anyway because it's mildly scary. You read the Wikipedia entry about it, right?

I am so proud of and happy for our friend Mina Kimes, who has normalized what has been a secretive clandestine lifestyle choice for many of us in the Scareddy Cat community, which is to terrorize ourselves just by reading the Wikipedia page of scary movies. I feel like Rob Harvilla did this as well with Hereditary, a film I will never see and a Wikipedia page I will never look at again. There was just like an article actually

the other day about how like the dude who played the sun in hereditary is like I'm still fucked up from being in hereditary. I mean, yeah, why does everyone think these are victimless crimes? So Mino was tweeting that like she can't wait until the plot synopsis drops on the old wiki so she could read it. And that was a nice,

that was a nice two and a half minutes of my life. And I feel like, yeah, good concept. Very cool. I was curious as, because this movie is literally set on Daddington Island. Right. I was curious whether there's any element of you that's like, you're telling me there's a beach where my kids might grow up and move out faster.

Absolutely not. No. But I, I will say. Yeah. yes 5.30 p.m. dinners. I mean, I, we're not doing this one on video, but Chris could see, Chris can count the concentric rings around my eyes right now to see how many hours of sleep I haven't gotten as we've moved around the East Coast. An old bisected redwood. Also, as anyone who has seen the color of my hair over the last four years knows that having a second child is basically like buying beachfront property on old island. It's like Obama as president. I do thank you for saying that.

You know, I can't say that about myself, but I do think that the pressures on me are similar. Wasn't it weird that you ever noticed that Trump didn't really change in the four years? Like all the other guys are like, they go from like this like, here I am, I'm a young buck. Not, you know, certain people's cases. But for the most part, like they come in and they're like, you know, Brock just just look great.

just like this swagger senator from Illinois. And then like, it was just like grizzled, listening to Springsteen by the end. Which Trump didn't really like get older. Clinton, remember when Clinton ran for president and he was just like eating McDonald's and playing saxophone? Yeah. And then by the time he was done,

he spoke like a character in Martin Scorsese's silence. Oh, he was like, only ate grain bowls. Soramon by the end. So, but wait, I do have to take a little issue with your initial question was was your initial question actually isn't it weird that trump's hair color didn't change no just like in general like he seems of all the thing i mean like there was that the covid thing but like he more or less seems like chris i'm not saying this is cool i'm not saying i'm like chris if you love if you love what you do you never work a day in your life you know what i mean yeah and my guy loves eating hamburgers

and watching cable news like i i don't think his life changed that much that's right i think that that is that the proofs in the pudding um Before we get to the movie trailers, last Datington thing, I did, as you alluded to, I was in our great hometown of Philadelphia and really unlike past visits and obviously hadn't been back for a year and a half because of the pandemic or more than that. I was like, boy, this city's really exploding. There's great food here and really enjoyed a lot of the historical stuff around Betsy Ross House and Independence Hall. And I was like, good for me for really taking advantage of those things. And then someone did point out to me that good for my children for. maturing and aging in a normal way and thus being able to enjoy things like dinner and Betsy Ross's

house. So there are some advantages, but you don't want to buy that beachfront property on Old Island. That's my point. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last minute beach day, a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for. That's when Prime's same day delivery as you're back, getting you exactly what you need fast and reliably so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines. Same day delivery, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas.

Terms apply. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors.

Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. This episode is brought to you by the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets at the game or grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me, the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er.

Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply. We all have that dream trip. We've been wishing we could go on. But too often life or usually price gets in the way. That's why price line is here to help you turn your dream trip into reality. With up to 60% off hotels and up to 50% off flights, you can book everything you need for your next adventure.

Don't just dream about that next trip. Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visit Priceline.com and book your next trip today. Go to your happy price. Priceline. Speaking of things that make me feel old, let's talk about two movie trailers for remakes.

Yeah, so I wanted to talk to you about the Ghostbusters trailer. This came out last week, I think everyone, but the take economy has already boomed and busted on this one. But I didn't get the memo that this was, at least in vibe and look and feel, going to be, essentially like almost note for note, feels like the Stranger Things trailer from the first season,

but also like the Super 8 trailer, also just basically Spielberg, karaoke, in a way that may very well be very sad, fine because I certainly respond to that. But I was struck by just how they essentially surgically removed the thing that as a kid, I actually responded to in Ghostbusters, which is the deep, corroded,

scabbed over cynicism. And I imagine that Bill Murray will make an appearance in this movie. I think he is. There's like a sort of flash of Dan Aykroyd at the end of the trailer. obviously Harold Ramos passed away so he looms over the movie but isn't in it.

But I was like maybe this is the next frontier of this stuff is to like make, maybe we should make like sincere emo fletch. You know like the next frontier of IP reimagining is like let's just take the thing that made this special and like remove it.

That's all everything is now. And it's funny. Both of us wanted to approach this with the same caveats. So big picture, I apologize. I was busy, I guess. I had no awareness that a trailer for this movie

dropped at the end of 2019 and that this was the second one. I watched the first one first was ready to fire off the take cannons and then watch the new one takes were the same, but I apologize. So not only am I a week late,

I'm a year plus late. I think that this movie very well could succeed on the terms that it sets out to succeed on. I think that people... Fun cast, Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, Finn Wolfhard,

you know, People might really, really like it. It might be very good. I think it's also worth noting that for as much as I'm about to complain about the fact that everything needs to be, you know, a tender coming of age, generational inheritance story, the film itself on a meta level is that. Because Jason Reitman, who is our age, has taken over this franchise, essentially from his father, Ivan Reitman, who wrote or co-wrote and directed the first two movies. So that's baked in. That's what this project is. and I think that adds a level of sincerity, quite frankly, to the framing,

because that's what interested him in taking on this legacy from his father and the success that he grew up around, surrounded by as a kid. That said, I hate it, and I hate it a lot. Because I think it speaks to, I do, and I mean this, and I apologize to Jason Reitman, who is probably a great guy and is an interesting and worthwhile filmmaker. And again, this is a project that makes sense for him. I am not casting aspersions as to why he would do this.

Yeah, no, totally. I don't think it's cynical. But that might be the problem. Exactly. Culturally, this is as concerning to me as the amount of people not wearing masks indoors that I see all the time. It is. Because the thing about Ghostbusters that no one seems to remember is what you said.

Which is that it is an insane movie for adults about cranky assholes chain smoking, making sex jokes. Yeah. With ghosts around them. It's ridiculous. It's a raunchy late 70s comedy that kind of caught the wave of the 80s DGI. The villain is the Environmental Protection Agency. Yes. And let's also remember that what has aged the best in that movie, or the worst, I guess, depending.

but to me the best is Bill Murray's seen when Sigourney Weaver is levitating off of the bed and he's just riffing is so funny. It's so funny. And, you know, I'm not saying that you and I are poster children for 80s babies who ended up well or whatever, but being taken to the movies, that movie in theaters in 1984, being more scared than I've ever been in the opening library scene, and then being more just like confused and thrown. and titillated by the rest of it, was a foundational thing. And the idea now that everything from our childhood is worthy, not just worthy of being reimagined or rebooted or whatever,

because that ship has sailed, we get it, but that everything from our childhood has become the packaged, wrapped, mint-conditioned toys on Steve Corell's wall and the 40-year-old virgin and needs to be treated as reverently is crazy. Yeah. This is not a reboot of Ghostbusters. this is a reboot of a cultural memory of ghostbusters for seven-year-olds. In the second season of Stranger Things in the trailer, if you remember, there's this whole thing where there, as for Halloween, they go as Ghostbusters, the kids. The reason that they do that is because when we were kids at that age, at that time, we were obsessed with Ghostbusters. The reason we were obsessed with Ghostbusters was because it was so funny and so illicit. like Ghostbusters is it kind of like

I think at least like a lot of the monsters and Ghostbusters are jokes you know like they're they're like I accidentally dreamt of this thing or there's Zool and you're just like come on like every when Zool pops up they're like really seriously Zool you know like and all this stuff

with the gatekeeper the key master Yeah it's all fucking funny and the marshmallow thing was about Dan Aykroyd's character having an in innocuous memory that turns into a nightmare. Culturally, for our generation, maybe it would be the Kool-Aid man suddenly growing fangs and murdering people or whatever, I don't know, who's the snap into a slim gym guy?

Randy Savage? Randy Savage, popping out of a cloud or whatever. That's what's funny about it, but now it is actually just about itself. So there was one big marshmallow in the first movie, now there's 50 and they're kind of cute and funny or whatever. And to your point, stranger things. And it's a choice to cast the main kid from Stranger Things in this Ghostbusters movie. Is this?

It is the kind of neutered down, backwards-looking, culturally saturated nostalgia version of what we remember something to be. But now everything is that. You mentioned Super 8, which was J.J. Abrams, not saying, I'm going to make a movie that makes sense to me as an heir to Spielberg. I'm literally going to make a Spielberg movie. Right. And the new Star Wars movie, also JJ Abrams, being like, we're just going to lightly remix what worked the first time. We are not going to put, we're not going to think about what would a Han Solo wisecracking in space be, you know, someone who shoots first. We're not going to do any of that.

We're just going to keep everything wrapped in Mylar. And it's a huge bummer. And I think that it would be exciting to see some kind of original IP aimed at that sweet spot of. of eight to 15-year-olds, but from a 2021 perspective, meaning it's not just aimed at eight-year-old boys who look like us. It could be aimed at boys and girls.

It could be aimed at, you know, it could be coming from different cultural places in America. I'd like to see that. I kind of hate the fact that mainstream, quote-unquote, entertainment has to be good and be about becoming a better person and kids having adventures or whatever. and then where do you get the titillating stuff?

Do you porn hub? I mean, I truly. I don't know. Yeah. Is that, is it, is it that, are we at that level of an either or situation for entertainment? You're either like, I am watching like weird like ET 74 times removed or something that no human should actually lay their eyes on. And somehow everyone in third grade has seen it already. Exactly.

That's what I'm talking about when I think that it's broken. as a movie and as an exercise, I mean, I hope that it entertains a lot of people. It seems like it was made to with heart and affection and sure. But come on, man. Yeah, I mean, I guess in some ways, here's the counter you could make, is that the lightning in a bottle act of Ghostbusters,

the fact that they basically made a hysterical comedy about how frustrating it is to live in New York City and then just kind of slapped ghosts on top of it, is it you you just can't do that like you just can't that is those guys and antipots and sigourney weaver making something very special in that moment and then it just actually getting out of control which is what happened to a lot of blockbusters in the 80s where it was like you try and then you do something you thought was good and then all of a sudden weirdly like every kid in america wanted to wear that jumpsuit and have the have that station wagon it's also that the movie as you said is about

nerds and losers. Yes. There is no one in Ghostbusters or Ghostbusters 2 that is just like, wow, Egon Spengler actually is our savior. Right. Or a genius. Like reverentially, you know, reverentially talking about him. Like he's left us a legacy here. Right. Everyone's just, I mean, it's just, it's just insane 80s New York. Everyone's like, well, these dorks saved us. Now let's, what, now what's Ed Koch said next? Like, let's move on. Like, there is this, it's not a Socovia a situation. You know what I mean? And it didn't need to be, but everything has to be now. And it is an interesting pivot that the other movie we're talking about. And I imagine we're going to talk about it in fonder or more exciting terms is also a reboot of a mid-80s film. But it's also, it's really

funny because like Dune is coming. That's the movie we're talking about is Dune. The new trailer for Dune came out last week as well. It looks incredible. It looks like a Denevillian movie. It has has elements of arrival in it. You can see kind of like his sort of sci-fi mind is is very clearly defined. All of the, like, kind of, this one really emphasizes the ensemble and, like, Mamoa and Brolin and Oscar Isaac and Rebecca Ferguson, all look incredible in this.

But it's so funny how many eggs I have in the Dune basket because I'm like, like, somehow Dune is like, the, like, last vestige of original Hollywood filmmaking, even though it is, you know, the second time they've tried to make this as a movie, they made it as a series a few years ago, go on sci-fi. It is largely like considered to be an unfilmable book. So they're going to try and break this into two movies, I think. And also there is already a ladies of Dune. Right.

What is it? Something like that. Yeah. Like the, there's a Dune spin-off on HBO Max. So yeah, I mean, I thought it was incredible, but I have noticed with, with growing interest, how much like pressure seems to be on Dune to be. a lot of pressure on us. It's very easy to imagine a world where this is a catastrophe, not creatively, but from a financial perspective, which is not how we want to engage with this movie, but it does feel a little creaky around the, around the joints, because what we're, what it's asking us to do, what it's attempting to do, right, is to be the exception that maybe allows the rule, meaning this is a Denis Villeneuve film. This is a film made by an

uteur filmmaker. We will see his new movie no matter what it is. And he has the full resources of a company that generally spends this amount of money to recreate Krypton, you know, during Zach Snyder reshoots or whatever. And he gets the greatest cast. When we talked about the trailer the first time, I mean, everyone you just named, I mean, you didn't even mention Shalomei or Zendaya. You put these people in a movie. I'm going to see this movie. This is a phenomenal cast. And there is an element of watching this trailer of,

it's like watching an All-Star game. I'm not even sure what scoring means, and I'm not even sure if I care who wins, but I love seeing these players out on the floor together. So that's all there, but it is still in the service of propping up a potential new IP tent for Warner Brothers. I mean, as you said, there's already a spinoff show.

And it is based on this book that is legendary and beloved among its fans, very curious who those fans of the book are in 2021 and what they look like. I mean, I'm not proudly. I am generally dune ignorant. I mean, I've seen the David Lynch movie twice, but not for a long time.

I remember Spice. I remember the fat guy in the suit floating. And I remember the pain box, which is what I call Twitter. And, but it is about moons and spice worms. You know, that is not Hollywood stuff generally, mainstreams. But who knows if I told you the plot of Game of Thrones in

2010, you might have been like, oh, I don't know. It doesn't fit easily into a binary narrative of what Hollywood is doing is cynical and bad, and we wished for a return to a different era. I mean, this is, also, this always was the era. I mean,

Cleopatra was a giant swollen blockbuster, too, right? It's just the IP expectations of it, and you and I are trying to come at this with unspiced minds being like, Oh my God, like Oscar Isaac is telling, asking Timothy Shalmay if he wants to have a catch on a sand planet. So, okay, we're going to go see it. Cool trailer.

Looks beautiful. Sounds incredible. Even the sound design and music. But what a weird one. Yeah. What a weird one. And then how are we even going to process it when it comes out? Because we don't know where we'll be at societally.

Is it going to be on HBO Max? Well, it's going to be. I think it's still going to be day and date HBO Max. I just think that they're going to, I think that. Now, like, you know, Jungle Cruise is coming out this week. I think that there has been some, like, nervousness about the box office numbers, even though Black Widow obviously is also available on a streaming service. Like, I think people are starting to get a little jumpy about the fact that,

and as everybody has a right to be jumpy, because we've also been given this information that maybe we shouldn't be hanging out in movie theaters together without our masks on. So it's just such a confusing time, and they're trying to keep this industry popped up. Can I put on, can I borrow your industry guy, deep thinker Jonas Aura glasses for a second? For sure. And just make a general pitch to Hollywood. What if your blockbuster wasn't about a young boy or man who was special? Like, what if?

Now, I know that runs contra to all the billion dollar grocers, you know, especially because of the Marvel movies. Yeah. But like, what if? You know what I mean? Because just to go back to Ghostbusters for a second, the thing that was great about that is that those dudes were middle-aged losers. Yeah. Said the middle-age loser on the podcast.

No, but the thing was is that like we saw that movie when we were like eight or whatever and we were like, I want to be that. I want to be as... Bill Murray is cool. Yeah. I don't want to be Finn Wolfhard. No offense to Finn Wolfheart. I want to be like this balding cynic.

And I got my wish. You did it. You did it. You get a ghost trap. So it's just that piece of it. And that's why, look, I've under no illusions, that's why Warner Brothers put a quarter billion into this movie, Dune. Because if you squint, it's just Spider-Man again on the sand.

But let's, can we, can we just try it? I'm not even asking for $250 million. And I'm not personally asking. I'm just saying, shave 100 mil off the top and give it to somebody else. What if we just had a lawyer ticket on window? case. You know what I mean? Oh my God.

Now you're talking. You know, what about a cop who goes off the rails, try to solve a crime? Let me stop you there. Is it a child lawyer? Is it a Dougie Hauser? See, that's the thing, though. Are we being assholes? Like, isn't it, is that just what a few good men is? Is this boy who becomes a man?

You know what I mean? Like, it's hard to get away from. Yeah. I mean, Joseph Campbell is nodding his head somewhere on Mount Olympus. Yes. Those are stories. But that is just so, the Campbell thing, the Campbell myth, the Star Wars thing. It's just, oh, God, it's just exhausting at this point. It's exhausting. I don't know if the Northwater adheres to the Campbell myth. Do you want to do that? No. I was thinking about a way into it. If you want a show about cynical middle-aged men doing stuff. Okay, so this show is streaming on AMC Plus. It's, I think it's BBC 2 is where it originally aired or where it originally

airs. And it's a co-pro. Obviously, it's written and directed by Andrew Hay, who's also the creator of the show. It's based on a novel by Ian McGuire. Here's the deal. It's 1859 in England and a surgeon, a disgraced surgeon played by Jack O'Connell, joins up with a whaling vessel leaving whole England. and that vessel is captain by a guy named Brownlee,

who's played by Stephen Graham, who's one of my favorite character actors. You may remember him as Al Capone and Boardwalk Empire. Yeah, and then he was also famously in the Irishman in one of the best scenes in the Irishman. And then is also populated by a rogue's gallery, and maybe no man, no more rogue in the history of humanity than Colin Farrell as a whaling harpoonist.

Harpoon specialist. Harpoon specialist named Henry Drax D-R-A-X And this is one of those shows where I kind of

need a Landy to watch after a while I've seen two episodes I think believe three are available on AMC Plus right now I have needleed Andy No, just two

I think only two episodes I've needle Andy to watch it it's like yes I'll do that and then I get nothing no sneak peek of the takes

I will say the show is not for the week of stomach or heart, but I'm very curious to know what you think. I'm going to just say this to our audience. If you are one of the people who gets the WWF catalog and not the wrestling, I mean the World Wildlife Foundation, and you see that if you donate $999,

you could choose a stuffed animal of replica of the animal that you have donated to help save and preserve. And if the animal, animal you've chosen is, for example, a baby seal, which happens. I'm just going to give you the biggest trigger warning, trigger of an 1859 era appropriate rifle, and say, this isn't your show. Nope. That's cool. No harm, no foul. Well, except for the seals. They are harmed and it's foul. There's some contact under the rim for those guys. They're playing, they're playing like the Euro League rules in terms of

contact. I, Chris, the reason there was no feedback is because, you know, traveling with family, not in our home where there's television. So it didn't fire up the show until 10.30 p.m. So I didn't want to disturb you because I know you need your, you need your eight. You know what I mean? Especially if you're going to be boarding a whaling vessel in the morning. When you checked in with me this morning, I did reply. I don't want people to think that I was ghosting you. I replied first with the stunned face emoji and then two seal emojis followed by a skull.

So that, I want you to know that was proof that I'd watched the show. I really I'm going to watch the show. I'm on board and I respect it and I even liked it. And one of the reasons why I respect it is that Andrew Hay is a filmmaker who I like a lot. He made the HBO

show looking. He made a classic film, romantic film called Weekend. A filmmaker who is famous for or highly regarded and known for telling gay love stories, in addition to other kinds of stories, focusing on this hyper macho masculinity and violence of this era is fascinating. And his commitment, he wrote and directed this, as you said, based on a book, that makes it immediately compelling to me.

And you can tell. I mean, it is beautifully directed. I mean, it is considered. So that's the number one thing. Is it, you know, I know that a lot of people might have trouble stomaching some of the stuff that happens on screen in the show. this is like elite filmmaking. The first episode is full of these like wandering tracking shots throughout a recreation or perhaps on location or using a stand-in city to recreate 19th century, mid-19th century hall. And it's, you know, going down these alleys and into these sort of doorways and into pubs and into apothecaries and onto docks and then onto the boat.

And it's breathtaking. And it creates this warren of like vice and sin and moral compromise that obviously they're going to take out into these wide open spaces of the Shetland Islands and then I guess Greenland. Yes. And I think that it's important to say that like for people who, you know, I know I'm not the only one who has, you know, itchy pilot trigger finger. Like when shows begin, they tell you. they try to tell you who they are and what they are. And sometimes that can be off-putting if you're not expecting it. And this show begins where spinal taps amps begin at 11. I mean, black screen Colin Farrell rutting.

There's no other word for it with a prostitute. And then stumbling through the streets of Hull where in the background, children are kicking and poking at a dead dog with a stick. And I was like, oh, boy. The thing is, though, this isn't a bit. There's full commitment to it. is the world of the show. And so it is actually an appropriately chosen beginning and you are now in it and you are not going to be not in it for a while. I think that it's worth saying, Chris, that, you know, sometimes also people, I'm not the only one when approaching a show, like looks for a point of view character, right? Or like, how can I find myself in this show emotionally so that I can keep my balance and sort of understand how I'm how to process what I'm watching? And, you know, I have never shot a seal, chased it a an ice flow, clubbed it to death, then used a knife to slice its skin off. I've never done it,

and I'm okay admitting that, you know, just like I told you, I'd never seen Apocalypse now. Like, this is a safe space. Sure. However, there was a moment in the pilot, and this is not a spoiler if you haven't watched it, because as we said, it's so far, it's just this disgrace surgeon. It's just guys being dudes. It's just dude stuff. But yet, you joke, but there was a moment where I was like, okay, I've been there.

I've been exactly there. and I don't know if you noted this moment as well but there's a moment when Jack O'Connell plays the disgrace surgeon who dresses like he's starring in Downhill Racer in 1969 or something just beautiful beautiful incredible turtlenex coats yeah he is invited for a night out

before they go club seals to death and eventually whales and so there's a moment when he dressed like a dandy on Carnaby Street in 1969 gets on a dingy with Colin Farrell and the first mate and another guy from the ship. And on this boat, there are four individual men going for a night out on the town. And one of the men is only thinking about scoring, by finding a lady, as he says,

he says some memorable things that I'm not going to say. But he's very, very single-minded in what he's after. Another man is equally single-minded about getting extremely drunk and belligerent as quickly as possible. Right. The third guy just wants to talk to the other guy a lot about his plans and his future. And drinking ginger beer. And the fourth guy wearing the turtleneck is like, I've committed to this and I'm just going to have to see it through. And I've got to tell you, Chris, I feel like I've been on that dingy, especially in New York City between the years of 2002 and 2007.

I really related to that. Yeah. I really related to being wildly overdressed and not ready for what was about the thing. to pop off. It's just, it's the second avenue subway station. It really was. I was there. So I do think the show has something to say about, if not contemporary, masculinity, at least something contemporary. You should also watch the show because Colin Farrell is going for it. It is actually a really great combination of obviously some, I guess you could call it scene chewing. It's a very notable performance. Like this guy, he speaks of the very distinct

cadence and accent and is essentially, I would say probably he's an illiterate murderer is what I would describe Henry Drax as both of beast, both ambulatory and seal like. But he is

so fully committed both physically and emotionally to this sort of situation, this scene. But the amazing thing is that hey, is not shooting him like he's Jack Nicholson

and a few good men where it's like everybody clear out for Colin Farrell's close-up as he gives a uncannily articulate speech about his character or something. He is a caveman dragging knuckles around the Shetland Islands and he puts him in the shadows. He's like, this is the guy that lurks in the darkness. This is the guy you don't want to meet at the end of the alley. This is the guy that you don't want to be at last call with or first call because he's already drunk. And yeah, I think people are probably like, you guys have talked about this show for 10, 15 minutes now.

We haven't really said what's about. I don't really know. It's about, you know, these guys are on this vessel. I don't want to give it away, but, you know, we talked, I think, a little bit last week about, we were talking about Tel Lasson and some other stuff, but we were talking about the sort of ominous heaviness of mystery that, like, seems to be required by all shows. There's not really a mystery to this show. There's just, it starts in the heart of darkness, and it's on a voyage into the heart of even darker.

I mean, there's some machinations. Sure. What happened in Mr. Sumner, the surgeon's past. There's some stuff going on with insurance claims in the boat. But yeah, it's basically like, it's not a spoiler to say it about the show or about life in general that, oh, the real devils are men all along. Right. And that's what the show's about. But it is a very focused so far example of that.

And to just add on to your Colin Farrell point, but people know. People listen to this podcast know how much we love him as an actor. You and I both interviewed him on this podcast and others. We just are huge, huge fans and in almost everything he does. And yet still, even though, you know, I think one of the first pieces I wrote for Grandland was Colin Farrell as a character actor now, I still have some mental blocks where I'm like, he's so good. And I remember when he was the bright, shining star, that when I saw that he was in this,

you know, relatively obscure British show that you can only get with an add-on subscription to Prime to your Sundance Now, AMC Plus, whatever. I was like, well, he must be the star of the show. And then you watch the show, and he's not. He's the heavy. And it suits him as a character actor, but I was also like, why is he doing this? Why would he join the show?

And then you watch it. And you realize that he is a harpoonist named Drax. And you're like, this is what actors want to do. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like Jack O'Connell looks like a leading man is a little bit more interesting, I think, which is what makes him a compelling act.

and he's doing a lot with what is the more traditional in some ways POV character. Yeah. But what all actors want to do, honestly, is grow their hair to Jason Mamoa length and just, you know, hit people with bricks, and sometimes, you know, Arctic animals. Yes. And I no longer question why he took this role because he is absolutely making a full meal of it. and it's amazing he's incredible in it yeah i'm really excited to keep watching it so people should check it out if they if they may still have their amc plush subscription from watching the bureau if not

i highly recommend people check it out uh we can wrap it up there andy and i will be back on monday we'll probably talk a little white lotus we'll probably talk a little there's a bunch of shows uh to talk about big big august for us probably because we've got a lot of fun guests coming and also like the chair nine perfect strangers there's a bunch of good shows coming on so uh excited for the end of the summer. I'll get my microphone back too. Yeah, let's hope. Who knows?

Thanks for bearing with us today on the audio day, and thanks to Kaya for producing. We'll talk to you guys soon. Great. Have a great week. Have a great Friday. Have a great weekend for Anskees. I don't even if you can hear me,

but if you could, I hope it's a good one.