The Watch - Remembering Anthony Bourdain | The Watch (Ep. 265)

Episode Date: June 11, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald reflect on the life and impact of the late Anthony Bourdain (1:30). Later they talk about meeting Donald Glover and the rest of the 'Atlanta' cast at a panel they moderated for FYC (33:00) and discuss 'A Star Is Born,' 'Widows,' and 'First Man' as awards bait (40:34). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's Hotel Tonight, the only booking app that you need. Hey, everybody. Thanks for listening to today's episode of The Watch. On the show today, Andy and I remember Tony Bourdain, the chef television personality writer who died on last Friday. A very huge figure for both me and Andy. So we talked about what he meant to us, what he meant to television, what he meant to the world, really. And he will be, of course, greatly missed. After that, Andy and I talked a little bit about the panel we did on Friday with the cast. and creators of Atlanta, and a little bit about season three of Atlanta, which has been announced to, it's going to be coming back in 2019. And we also talked about some of the trailers that are coming out for the awards bait,

the award season movies, widows, first man, and a star is born. So without further ado, let's get into The Watch. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at The Ringer.com.

And joining me in the studio is Andy Greenwald. Hey, buddy. Didn't really feel like getting too hyped up. This is a sad episode for me and Andy to do because obviously we're going to talk a little bit about Anthony Bourdain, who took his lone life on Friday in France. It was a really tough news, I think, for a lot of people to process. Obviously, we would just like to send our thoughts out to Anthony Bordane's family.

they are obviously dealing with this in a way that we are not as fans of his, but I think part of what made him so special to me and Andy, if I can speak for you, is that we did feel like we knew him and that we did feel like he played such a major role in our lives. Not just in our lives, but I think in making us have better lives and approach life better in a deeply, deeply inspiring way. And before we even get into our relationship with him, the man and his work, we should also say that we are talking specifically about Tony Bourdain,

his shows, our relationship to him. If anyone listening to this podcast is feeling distressed or in despair, there are incredible outlets to please get help, please talk to people. We don't presume to know what happened. We can't know what happened, but it's always good advice to find someone to talk to, whether it's your good friend in a microphone across the table from you

or anyone in your life that you can reach out to. People are ready to listen to you. I think I was just saying to you before we started, this has gotten harder to process in a few days since. It's just simply, for me, impossible to imagine a world without him exploring it. And I think one of the reasons why is because this is a man who, in his public face to us, loved everything. his brand was to be, he had this on his Twitter bio, enthusiast.

He sought out joy and pleasure in places and showed us the possibilities of joy and pleasure in locations that maybe we never would have dreamed of, maybe we could never afford to travel to, or maybe we overlooked, like the humble pleasures of a New Jersey diner. Yeah. You know, others probably more with more time and more reflection can muse on the disconnect between a public phase that is so devoted to happy things and what can be on the other side of that. Sure.

But I think that's really what we're struggling with. You know, that's the, you touched on it. I mean, the thing that he articulated for me, his career articulated for me was this idea that all of the things that you loved, like the books and the music and the food and the movies and the people and the places, that could be a lens through which to view the world. Yeah. And that those things weren't just,

consumer goods, they were an identity kit. You know, they mattered and they didn't have to be siloed off. And Graham Green novels and Stooges albums and classical French cooking and Sergio Leone movies spoke to each other. They were all part of a way to view the world and a way to think about the world and a way to process the chaos you see in the world. And that was very meaningful to me. You know, I think that that was, that was, that was,

for me in the last 10 years to kind of be watching his television and reading his stuff and understanding the world through that way. And I think to take that one step further, what he also did that was both, I think, important. I think that word can be overused, but I think in this case, it's accurate and deeply inspiring, is that he helped highlight the connection between work and art. He was the first person, not the first person ever. I mean, Orwell was doing this too, and other writers, of course, throughout history, but he was the first person in the media age that led into this sort of food-y age, to remind people that for as much as we laud the artists of the kitchen, it's a, it's work. You know, it has always been an honorable blue-collar job to cook.

It's, there's a difference between a chef and a cook. And he was one of the first people to remind everyone that, well, you know, the people who are cooking are fancy French food, that's not, it's not the guy who's pictures on the menu. It's generally immigrants from Pueblo, Mexico or elsewhere, who are doing this work. And what he did was elevate that. I mean, make that sing. And I think that for people like us who are also enthusiasts of many different topics and people who have in various avenues tried to create as well, you don't start, whether it's an article or screenplay or whatever else you may do. You can't start thinking you're going to make something transcendent or make art. You just think about putting the words in front of each other.

You think about the work. And I think that he helped remind everyone of that connection. You know, when he had people on the show, people who on parts unknown or before that no reservations, people that we admired in other fields, whether they were cooks like Eric Repair or whoever else joined him on his adventures, or people like Iggy Pop. Yeah, or George Pelicanos. Or George Pelicanos. Like these are people whose artistry we revere, but they are also people, people who like get hungry and eat food, people who struggle, people who feel bad about themselves or feel bad about

their work. And he was an ambassador for that gray area between those two poles and in a really inspiring way. Yeah, and, you know, this is somebody who is instrumental in two major trips I've taken in my life. Yeah. You know, like, I went to... Me too. You know, I mean, if...

And to say nothing of, like, putting American cities on a list every time he would go there and just, like, writing down every single thing he ate and wanting to go try it myself or check it out myself. But, you know, I mean, major trips to Croatia and to Portugal were based on watching his television, like, straight off. When he would go to Portugal or Spain and just go to the bar where they serve the seafood out of tin cans, and you're like, oh, okay, life could be better. Life could be good. Yeah. Yeah, I had two similar adventures, and I was going to talk about them a little bit because I think he taught me. It was like a two-stage rocket of learning.

I first learned about Tony Bourdain with that New Yorker piece in 1999. I remember reading it and thinking, oh, my God, I want to read this article forever. I read Kitchen Confidential the month it came out. and became the kind of fan that I think people are good at becoming when they're in their early 20s or younger, just a completely devoted fan. But, I mean, this is maybe a later part of our conversation, but it was the most rewarding kind of fandom

because he grew so tremendously in the public sphere. And I and many other people got to grow up with him in terms of our taste and interests. But I remember very well in 2008, a colleague of my wife's had a cousin getting, married in India. And we were invited to go to the wedding and then travel in India. And we were like, great. And I was great because the idea was exciting to travel with someone who knows the place and to get to travel full stop is an incredible privilege. But I had a little, little Tony-sized chip on my

shoulder. I'm like, I got this. I can do this, you know, because I've learned that, you know, you can eat the street food. You can go off the beaten path. And so we flew there. We flew to Delhi. and we were staying with our friend's family, and they were preparing for the wedding. And my wife and I were like, well, can we go out? And they were like, sure, sure. You know, we actually have someone who will drive you around even if you want. So the guy, we got in the car with this guy, he was very nice,

took us to like some sites, some monuments. And we were like, we'd like to go to the square, like this red square. Like that's the spot. And he was like, he looked in the rearview mirror at us, like sizing us up. And he was like, you don't want to go there. We're like, no, no, we do. We do. He's like, why? And we said, well, we want to just explore. And he was like, you fools. So he drove us this place. He barely slowed down. He didn't stop the car. I think he just slowed down and was like, I will be back here in 65 minutes.

And we were like, okay, man, cool. Drove away. And we wandered into the square, teeming with people who live there and wonderful smells and exciting places to adventure. I would say within five minutes, a woman began following me and spitting at me. And eventually we had to hide in a mosque because, you know what, we weren't ready for prime time. Right. We did not approach this trip. We approached it with a sort of cavalier, like, well, we saw him do this on TV. And it really influenced the next trip I took, obviously in some ways less challenging culturally. But when I finally went to a place that became my favorite place in the world to Mexico City for the first time the next year, I went back and took, I took Spanish classes again to get the language back. You know, I reached out to people so that I would know people there who maybe would show us around.

I had the confidence to do that. And that helped make it an incredibly transformative, one of the most important experiences of my life. Because it wasn't just that he went around swaggering, wearing tattoos. Yeah, just like, I'm going to eat this crazy thing. Yeah, just like, walking into a group of Hong Kong street carts and being like, bring me the chicken necks. It's like, you got to do some actual work there. And you have to listen to the people who live there. And you have to approach it with a sense of, there's the confidence that gets you on the plane.

and then there's the humility that gets you sitting down at the table. And I will always remember that. And thank him for teaching me those two lessons in the correct order. I had a very similar experience in Porto, where it was just like we had flown to Portugal and I had watched his Porto episode only a couple months before and we were going to do Porto, Lisbon, and the Algar of my wife and I. And we'd done a similar trip in Croatia where we started in the more industrial part of a country in the north and then traveled down to where.

of the beach to end. And Zagreb, when we had gone to Croatia, was like really cool, but definitely pretty Soviet still. It was just like very, it was just Eastern. And, you know, with Porto, obviously, it doesn't have the relationship to the,

the former Soviet bloc, but I was kind of mentally prepared to be very jet lagged and very, and very kind of like, this is the beginning, not the highlight. And I fell in love with that city. And we had a very, very kind of, let's just walk around and see where the city takes us. And we're drinking these port and tonic drinks at a bar and heard some music happening somewhere. And down the street,

there was like a public dance happening, like a, like a just a neighborhood dance. And it was just one of those magical things. And you do feel, I did feel inspired by the way that he seemed to approach travel. The way I wanted to, one thing that you said that I wanted to mention, though, about one of the things that I loved about his television, was that not all the episodes were pitched at the same frequency. Totally. And he was more than open to be bored. Yeah.

Or disappointed. I was actually, I watched, obviously, as I'm sure a lot of people did, I watched a bunch of no reservations and parts unknown this weekend, and there is a no reservations from Baja that I was watching. Oh, yeah. And the first. Is that one when he meets the Tostado lady for the first time? Yeah.

And the first 25 minutes of it is mostly him drinking. In Tijuana, and like enjoying himself, but clearly just having way too much mescal and kind of just looks like, like blown out from it. And then in the middle of the episode, I mean, he's got, he has some great experiences, but in the middle of the episode, he goes to Encinita with a guy. And this dude takes him to a fish taco place. And Bordane has not had a... I've got to say, I've been to this place. It's this good. Lily's tacos.

And the guy who he's with who looks like, you know, Boaty from Pardin has. point break, you know, if he lived, spoiler alert, says to him, that's the thing about food. It takes you places in time. And then, because he's talking about how his dad had used to take him to the same taco place, like 20 years before. And they, and you can see Bourdain's like, like face light up. Yeah.

And then he eats the taco and he's like, that's like the best fish taco I've ever had. And then he, of course, goes to this sort of, this testata place where he has what he calls Labradoradan level seafood at a street cart. He was always, that was sort of the best part about it. Not every one of his episodes, not every place was the best place on earth.

Not every meal was the last meal you want to have before you die. Not every, everything wasn't at the same frequency. And I think it's actually a very adult way of looking at the world. I think when you're a kid, every trip has to be this momentous thing. And when you don't have a lot of money,

you want your life to be, okay, if I'm going to spend the money to do this, it has to be like every night, it has to be the best time of my life. And obviously, as you get older, you just are more used to things being like, I'm jet lagged, or that wasn't a great meal, or this person is really annoying. But that all becomes part of what the story he's telling about that place is.

You can't control the experience. You have to have the experience. One of the reasons why this is such a challenge to even understand a processor, except is that his television shows, beginning with a cook's tour on Food Network, which obviously was him figuring out what to do with the cameras.

It was even, I think, I think that was before he hooked up with the amazing people at 0.0 productions or maybe he met them on while doing that. This TV show

was like the spine of half of my life. Whatever the TV show was called. It was rarely in the conversations that we had because we generally talk about narrative shows.

But it affected me, inspired me, taught me more than almost anything else that I'd ever watched on television. It was my comfort food sometimes.

You know, this was a, if I let a couple pile up on the DVR and maybe there was a hungover Sunday, like that would be a great way to spend a few hours. Or there were episodes like the Jerusalem episode, like the Beirut episodes, the Vietnam episodes, that challenged me, you know, and made me think about things. I mean, the Jerusalem episode, I still think of

as one of the most beautiful, honest, and powerful explorations of something that most of us, me included, either don't want to think about or just throw my hands up. It's not solvable. And he doesn't try to solve anything. I mean, his entire show was, and this takes me to a thing I wanted to reference. I'd forgotten I wrote this, and someone tweeted this at me, that near the end of Granland,

I wrote a Parts Unknown appreciation that I think had just come out of either conversation we were having or I had said in a straight in passing to one of our editors at the time about how, honestly, Parts Unknown does what I want from Prestige TV better than most scripted shows. Sure. in the way that it understands place is everything, that specificity is everything, tone matters so much, and also telling the stories,

or at least giving outlet to the stories of the people whose stories you don't usually see, gets you so much more than just repeating the same things. You know, it would be like going to a town and going to the same restaurant every day. And that's how TV was starting to feel then, and I think some of that still exists now. I think his TV got changed over the years.

I think when he first started out in the early seasons of no reservations, it's very much a cult of personality show. There's a lot of him. There's a lot of him talking over people. There's a lot of him doing a lot of voiceover. A lot of the photography is he's in every shot. He's moving around these cities.

He's like cool guy in the leather jacket. And as obviously his relationship with ZPZ deepened as his perspective on what you could do with this kind of show. And I think the reason why I can't guess is to his own personal motivations, but I would imagine as a challenge, the reason why doing this kind of show continued to be so rewarding for him and for his viewers is because he shifted the perspective

or the importance of him in the show out. And they started doing episodes that were inspired by great filmmakers that he loved. Yes. They started doing episodes that were, you know, he shot a Boston episode that looks like it was shot like William Freakin. He shot a Rome episode in black and white.

Yeah, he shot it. It was like an Antonio. film. It was, it was, uh, the, the influences he allowed to have in there. And, you know, even the Hong Kong episode that was the, the episode that aired a week ago, a week ago, was, uh, directed by Aja Argento, featured Christopher Doyle, the cinematographer, uh, for Wonkar-Y, who did, um, in The Mood for Love, obviously. And the entire episode is essentially a love letter to the Hong Kong of Christopher Doyle and Wonk-Wi. And it's just this delirious kind of, intoxicating, kind of weirdly drunken and hazy episode that is him trying to find the Hong Kong of

his cinematic dreams. Yeah. That's not a travel show. No, he never was. You know what I mean? That's an internal, that's a personal essay. And to have that be on CNN on Sunday night is a miracle. It's also so hard to process because in this moment, and he was, I'm not going to say,

I'm going to shy away from politics because he himself was extremely political. it feels so brutally painful and unfair to lose someone who was in many ways our best export to the world who represented America as many of us still hope America can be as humble and fair and curious and outward looking and constantly improving admitting fault and improving you know he was people you know it's actually it was less than I thought but you know he was certainly acid-tonged when it came to certain topics, although he melled a lot over the years, whether it was vegans or Rachel Ray's cooking style or whatever,

but he was certainly that way to himself, too. And I think there were some really good writing over the weekend. Helen Rosner, who's always worth reading The New Yorker's Memorial comes to mind about how he was always improving himself and always trying to be better. To see that in the world is a powerful thing, especially now. And I think I wrote about this at one point years ago. it's amazing to watch the affect drip away as he becomes more and more comfortable being

uncertain. You know, the earrings fall away, the weird rings, the leather jacket that you're talking about. You know, by the end, he's just dressing like a guy who works on a dock. Like, you know, he's used to wearing jeans and a cable-knit sweater, the same one,

and leather shoes, and he goes and he sees what's happening in the world. You mentioned 0.0 productions. I've met the people who work there, Lydia and Chris, and other people like Helen, Nari. like these people were, are geniuses, incredibly kind, and like their colleague, Tony, you know, they are, they are the real deal. And I hope that they continue to make incredible work.

Yeah, I mean, I think that one thing I would say is that you could tell that he loved the people that you worked with. Yes. Because I think that you, if you love someone and you trust them, you can take chances like some of the episodes that he made took chances. whether it's literally putting people in harm's way because they're in hot zones or you're making shows that maybe don't have the massive commercial appeal that if he just did Paris and Spain every week, you know, and just went to the best restaurants in the world and freaked out. Like that would be a show that people would watch anyway, you know. It was always fun that every season there would be one episode where he was just like,

this one's for me. I'm just going to eat pasta this week. Oh, yeah, I know. Do you have any favorite episodes? I wanted to talk a little bit about one that was I still have a hard time articulating you talked about him as an and Charity wrote this as a great ambassador for this country and its value

and the values that we would hope that people would see in us I really I have a very soft spot for a lot of his episodes in the States you know I used to not look forward to them

when I saw they were coming and in retrospect I think they were some of the most powerful ones he did one a couple of years ago I think it's no reservations I think it's the end of no reservations, but I can look it up. But he went to, it's Cajun country.

And it starts out in New Orleans. Yeah. And he meets Wendell Pierce, who we know from the wire. And they have a little bit of food in New Orleans. And then he drives north towards Baton Rouge and in Cajun Country. And he hooks up with some village of people. I don't even know how to describe it. It's a town in the bayou, man.

And it's, you know, has it. a couple of meals. He goes to a cookout the night before, like basically a barbecue, and eats, I think it's the turtle stew that he eats, that he describes as the best meal he's had since El Bui. And then the next day, he and David

Simon go to a whole hog cookout. Oh, yeah. Where they kill and butcher and cook every single piece of this giant pig with an entire town worth of people, all of whom are at different workstations, doing different preparations and different

things to this pig. And meanwhile, they're just crushing beers and Jameson and like homemade red wine all day long. And it's 110 degrees and he's sweating his balls off. And there's Zytoco playing. And he is clearly in a state of nirvana. Yeah. Like complete and total, like, it's hot. I'm eating heavy food all day. Clearly, like, it's not easy. You know, as someone who had like two tacos and some chips yesterday and then needed to have like a two hour nap, like I can only imagine how he felt Yeah. But when you watch him go into that zone that he does, and he does it in the Spain episode,

he did it in the Leone episode where he did in the Quebec episode where he has clearly entered this nirvana. It is one of the most pleasurable things that you can watch, and you're not even tasting this food. You're not even feeling that heat. You're not even in this place, but his ability to convey his passions was actually just, it's inspirational for us.

Because that's what this show has always been. been about is just two people who love each other talking about the things that they love. And when you see that hit its peak, it's inspiring. I agree. And when looking back over the enormous body of work on television, we haven't even talked about his books, all of which are worth reading. He's a good novelist, too. His crime books that he wrote before he got famous are really fun and worth revisiting as well. Of course, I love places when he visited them that either inspired me to go there or just places that I've always loved, whether it was in Mexico or Japan.

I loved it when he went to Vietnam because he loved Vietnam or Italy because he loved Italy so much. But recent years, I think he started to, as necessity demanded that he started to revisit places, I really appreciated and was thrilled by the way he revisited places to show us versions of them we didn't know existed.

There was an episode of Massachusetts that involved him going back to where he learned to be a cook as a dishwasher in Providence town, but ended with just an incredible window into the opioid addiction crisis. Yeah, the Western Massachusetts. Yeah. And the disintegration of the factory belt there.

But I'm thinking about an episode he went to recently to Hawaii where he was with mostly native population. Or he went to the island that no one goes to, I think Molokai is the name. Or when he was in the Bahamas and you think of the Bahamas one way and hear people who live there. What does that mean? When he went to the Bronx for an entire episode. I mean, you and I lived in New York for a long time. I was there 17 years. I think I went to the Bronx twice,

and both times involved the zoo. That's the beauty and power of what he did that I'm afraid will be lost, you know. And we've said it before in the show and we'll say it again, that when the presidential election happened in 2016, and we were shell-shocked as many and we barely could get it together to do a podcast,

the thing we talked about that brought us back for a moment was the recently aired episode of Parts Unknown in Houston, which I, I, I have revisited since. I'll revisit it again. It remains one of the best articulated statements as to why America is already great and what makes it great. And he continued to interrogate that. You know, he did a recent episode in West Virginia that is not objectifying. It's not condescending.

It was, this is a part of the country that a lot of people turn their back on. This is a part of the country that a lot of people willfully misunderstand. And there are people here who willfully misunderstand the rest of the country. And he went in there with like an open heart and an open mind and open eyes and tried to see it and convey what it was. And you could tell he found incredible humanity and beauty there and made me, it changed the way I felt. And that's one thing I did want to kind of, if I have anything to say to close on this,

it's that he died at a time that I think is defined by arguing. You know, I think even when we're talking. about like what piece do you want to put on the site? It's like what's the argument here? You know, and what is you what is the case you're making? But I'm going to always remember him as a champion of the conversation and of a champion of listening, you know, and as somebody who was incredibly sensitive and interested in the world around him. And I hope that even though he's gone, that the conversation goes on, that people learn from his work. I really appreciate you. saying that because I did want to say a little bit about the fact that I got to meet him,

and I said this on Twitter over the weekend, but just to say it again in person, what you described is what I was the beneficiary of. I mean, this guy was a hero of mine. And when he did this show called The Taste on ABC, which was part of this period that really never stopped until he did of just trying things. I mean, this is a guy who was not famous, was not distinguished, despite an enormous intellect and an enormous appetite until he was 41, I think, or yeah, probably about his 40s, close to the age we are now. And then when he got chances after that, he took them to travel the world, to try things, to do comic books, to get into business. Who knows? He was saying yes to things all the time, which is really inspiring in and of itself, even when the decisions don't

lead to the greatest stuff. And so he made this cooking show that was sort of going to be like the cooking version of the voice. And I found it appalling, not just because he was involved in it, but because he was involved in it, and it seemed to take everything that made his viewpoint important and special, that you cannot just take one spoonful of food, separate it from its culture, and have it have any value. He was always about seeing the whole picture, the whole meal. And so I wrote a really long, really impassioned piece, and impassioned in the kind of way that you only, you know, when you get angry at someone in your family? Yeah, of course. Yeah. It's like, it's really teetering on tears kind of anger because it matters so much to you. It wasn't supposed to be you. You know, yeah.

And so I wrote this piece, and I talked about other things. things because I used to write really long pieces, as it turns out. I really didn't appreciate that at the time. And it felt kind of good to get it out there. And of course, it would have been worse now, but because the internet is the way the internet was, that piece got picked up, you know, by Grub Street, wrote a silly headline on it that I think they later changed. But it's basically like, you know, Granlin rips, Bordane's treachery, you know, it wasn't really supposed to be about that, but the headline was what I called him a mean name. And I actually don't, remember. I think he followed me on Twitter. I don't remember if he said something, but the ZPZ people

reached out and they were like, oh, he read it. Like, you got him. And I said, well, would you want to talk about it? And they said, yes, he would. And he made good on that. He came to the studio where we used to record in Midtown. He had flown in from India the night before. He was 20 minutes early. Apparently, he was 20 minutes early to everything. Couldn't have been more gracious, gave me an hour of his time, talked about everything with good humor and respect because he listened, you know, and I think he understood as someone who basically made his name as a punk punching upwards, that that's kind of what you have to do. And he understood his role in the firmament of that. And then afterwards, I saw him a few more times at events, holiday parties for

the company. And he had a, he was exactly like he was on television except quieter because he, I clearly treasured his privacy. And I will always remember to appreciate the fact that at this Christmas party, holiday party, for his staff and crew whom he loved, he came early. And he came He had one beer with his family, then he left, because it wasn't, you know, it wasn't for him. It was for everybody else. The last thing I wanted to say was one of the projects that he was publicly connected to over the last few years was this thing called Bourdain Market. Yeah, in Chelsea, right? It was going to be a thing.

The big thing in cities, as people who live in cities know, are these food halls, like curated food halls. And it was a passion of his when he would go to Buenos Aires or he would go to these other places and he would find the place where the... The Mercado, where... Yeah, where were real people? getting their real food that they would make for dinner. And he bemoaned the fact that in this country, we don't have a culture like Mexico where they're incredible tacos in every corner,

although L.A. is close. Thank God. Or like, you know, maybe a better model of Singapore where they took all the street hawkers and they put them in hawker stations because everything has to be, you know, perfectly clean, but it's still the same vendors. Yeah. So he always wanted to do that.

And so there was an ounce he partnered with God knows who funds real estate in New York. Terrifying to think about. Have you seen succession? Exactly. Have you seen the White House? Yeah. And he was going to bring in the Tostata lady from Baja and people from Singapore. And it was so ambitious. And I think they finally just said this wasn't going to happen, or at least where they said it was going to happen. I hope it happens.

I don't think it should be a corporate, you know, it shouldn't be a vanity thing for some high-rise they're going to build on the west side of Manhattan. What would be incredible would be if there could be a public space in New York, the city that loved him so much, that he loved so much that made him in a public building and make a Bordain Hall where people who are people who, live there. Immigrants who live in New York, who make New York what it is, could take turn. You know, they could be a schedule, could cook in this place. Yeah. So people could go and eat his food because we treasured his life. We've learned from his life. And I hope that I know that you and I will be influenced by his life for the rest of ours. But listen to what he said,

do what he did. Go out an adventure. Go try things. And then talk to the people and make the food. Because it's, it's the best way to get to know somebody. It'll make your life better. We'll be right back afterward from our sponsor. Today's episode of the watch is also brought to you by Black Tux. Wedding season is upon us. And when you're bringing a date, you want to look fresh. That's where the Black Tux.com comes in. It lets you rent awesome suits and tuxios in all styles online.

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Andy and I've been wearing the black tux for years now. They are our Hollywood event dresser of choice, right? I'm wearing a tuxedo right now. It's Monday. They're great. We have an event. We'll be doing a Golden Gloves or an Emmy's post-game show. We want to look snazzy.

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what we were up to Friday night. Friday night was an incredible opportunity. We were asked to moderate the FYC panel. That's for people who don't live literally within two miles of where we're recording this podcast. That's the four-year consideration Emmy panel. Yeah. It's been campaign season here in LA for a minute. And there are these events. I did a Twin Peaks one a few weeks ago. Chris did a Netflix one a couple weeks ago. It's for Emmy voters basically to be reminded of the show. Yeah, it's essentially like you come, do you see a panel talking to you maybe get some face time with the people. You watch an episode again.

You watch an episode. And it's a, for a lot of the stuff that's like, you know, a black mirror episode from a while back, they're trying to just circulate this stuff back into contention. And so FX was cool enough to ask us to do this for Atlanta. We didn't hesitate at all to say yes because as people who listen to this podcast, know it is the best show on television.

And it was pretty cool, man, because it was the entire cast. It was Donald and Stephen Glover. It was Lakeith Stanfield, Brian Tyree Henry. Longtime watch listener, Hero Marai. It was great to finally meet him. Stephanie Robinson. Stephanie Robinson, one of the writers on the show, Diane McGonagall and executive producer.

And the enigmatic, Zassi beats. Sassy beats. Just background, guys. We polled people how to correctly say this brilliant actress's name. We pulled five people who work with her. We got five different answers. She herself introduced herself a different way than publicist did. We seem pretty clear

it's sussi. That's what we're going to go with until casting director Alexa Fogel emails us both in a fury after this episode to say we got it wrong again. Anyways, just to say, I'm sorry it's not public. Some quotes came out from it, but I think the takeaways were, these people

were super cool. It was incredible to watch how much they love each other and how much they support each other. And how much the relationships that they've forged have influenced the show. Yes. I made Brian Tyree Henry cry, which was intense. It didn't mean to.

We asked him about the episode The Woods, which in retrospect, I think still might be the best episode of the season. I got to reconsider it. I got to consider it more. But the connection that that episode had to the surprise loss of his own mother. And what was amazing about that, and this wasn't a gotcha moment. It was actually kind of beautiful. He choked up and he said he's talked about it a lot. So he wasn't offended that I asked about it.

But he had never been asked about it when surrounded by. the people who got him through it. And everyone came to him and put their arms around. It was really an incredible moment. And what was impressive to me about it, not just, impressive isn't the right word. He didn't actually talk to Stephanie Robinson, who wrote that episode or the writers about his emotional journey

upon losing his mother. He didn't know anything about what they were doing for the season. And then it was time to start prepping. And he said he turned to hero. Yeah, because they didn't get, like he was talking about how they write up until shooting. so you don't have... There's no overlap, yeah.

The full season, you don't have necessarily even full episodes when you might begin shooting that stuff. And there was a moment where, as it became apparent, what this episode was sort of

going to be about, you turned to Hero and said, is this about my mother? And Hero was like, yeah. And yet he trusted them. Yeah. I mean, it's an incredible act. I don't know what other highlights

you had from it. I think the thing that... I think the one that got aggregated a little bit, which was that, you know, we talked about this too. Donald has... I think when the New Yorker profile came out,

it was sort of peak enigmatic Donald. Yes, which we thought we were going to get, maybe. Well, no, I mean, I guess, I think after the solo press tour and everything I was expecting, it just seems like he's in a good place, and he knows how he wants to present himself and how he wants to work. He was absolutely charming.

Yeah, that was what I thought, too. And he said on stage that, you know, because they had announced that there's going to be a third season of Atlanta in 2019, and he said, our seasons are like Kanye albums, and so that means that the third season will be graduation. And I saw a couple of people say things like,

you know, take my fucking money already. Like, it is interesting. It's just like he really knew exactly the right thing to say about to get people hype for the third season. Really worried about the Wyoming season, but that's a little bit further away. Yeah.

Just the last note about it. That's actually the Deadwood movie. Oh, that makes perfect sense. It'll finally reboot back to what it was always supposed to be. I was really happily surprised and impressed by just hanging with him in person. We'd never met him before. And he was incredibly charismatic, like superstars tend to be.

And maybe this also was the fact that he was surrounded by his closest collaborators and his brother. So he's very much at ease. But could not have been more down to earth and nice. And we chatted about bottled water and also chatted about afterwards. we were chatting about one of the things that impressed us most about the show, and basically how from the very first episode, the show was fearless and content leaving viewers in a place of ambiguity and uncertainty. And you know, and you and I'll even turn this backwards on myself, like, I've been on the mic and on the computer preaching that, the importance of that in writing for

years. As soon as I'm in that final draft document for the thing I'm working on, I'm like, and then they all lived happily ever after. Because you want to please people. You want to tie a bow on things. you want to be understood. And, you know, he said, he quoted, I don't know whether there was something Chris Rock said in public or Chris Rock said to him, and this is the kind of person who, you know, can say and can have both experiences,

that he said that the trick for black people in media is you have to be able to fail once, you know, because generally people don't get a second chance. Yeah. And he had that in his mind from the beginning that he could always go back to stand up. Yeah, if it doesn't work out, we can always do other things. He had other careers.

Yeah. And he had that confidence. And, you know, that, all of this is to say, this is just a random conversation with a guy on a Friday night in North Hollywood, wherever we were. But these people, they've got the goods. I mean, it shows on the screen, but the way they think about it. Yeah, it's cool.

It's like there's a time period in a great artist's life where you can tell that not only are they making their best work or making some of their best work, but they're aware of that. And they're able to talk about it in a way. They're able to see the chessboard. That's a phrase that gets thrown around a lot with LeBron. especially in Miami.

We would just sort of be like, LeBron understands what's going to happen two plays from now. And that's what makes him different, aside from the physical gifts. And it's that ability to sort of understand not only the art you're making, but the perception of the art that you're making. It's a pretty remarkable modern gift.

Because the other thing that he said that I wanted to share with people is he said on stage, and then we talked about this more after, he knows intrinsically, and maybe this is his age thing. He's a few years younger than us. every image they make for this show has to compete with not only every TV show ever made,

but everything on the internet. So if you're not showing people something that is exciting or trying to be different, what are you even doing? And yes, that answer was in response to the image of naked frat boys swinging their dicks around to Laffy Taffy in the episode North of the Border. But it doesn't have to be phallic for it to be relevant.

I thought that was a really exciting way to think about TV and I hope more people think about it that way. Yeah, so we're obviously out of our mind's excited. for the third season of Atlanta. One thing that we were kind of having a little bit of a... I think that you and I were both feeling a little bit fatigued by it. I'm never like movies are dead or movies are alive. Like, going to the movies is my favorite activity.

So I went and saw a drift last week. I'll go see anything. Did you really? Oh, yeah. But we have definitely hit that part of the summer where I think that there's a little bit of a drop-off. It's the second week of June. Yeah, but all that stuff from February to May,

It's condensed with blockbuster after blockbuster. I know, but it still is what I'm saying. There's more to come. There is more to come. But I think that, like, my anticipation of, say, skyscraper is a little bit lower than maybe it was for solo, honestly. Okay, that's fair. Andy and I both went and saw different movies this weekend. Yes.

Andy saw Oceans 8 and I saw Hereditary. Yeah. I can't really talk about hereditary because I don't... Because I'm sitting here. Because Andy's sitting here. I don't want to spoil it. And also to describe what happens to this movie, they'd have to give us a new tag besides explicit on iTunes. I highly recommend people

listen to Sean Fantasy's interview with the director of Hereditary Ari Aster on the Big Picture on Channel 33. Can I just say? Yes. Don't read the Wikipedia page of Hereditary. Creamwald read the Wikipedia page. I want to be part of the conversation. And stopped

about like 40 minutes before the movie's over and it's like literally the eighth most disturbing thing that happens in the movie. He was like, I'd stop when this happened. I was like, oh shit. I can't believe stuff like this happens and exists. guys. What are you doing with yourselves? What are we doing? So, I don't know, do you want to give like a capsule review of Oceans 8? I think the headline of anything about Oceans 8 needs to be

about the Annaissance, Hathaway back. Hathaway back in a major way. Yeah. Anne Hathaway is the person in this movie who understands what this movie could have been and should have been and is having a ball. Good. I honestly, my main thing about the movie is just for the first 20 minutes, I was so happy, and I was composing my comment to you in this moment. I was like, I'm going to come into the office on Monday, and I'm going to do a podcast, and I'm going to look Chris in the eye and say, Chris, I wish all movies were heist movies. Because I kind of do. Yeah. There's nothing more satisfying than watching a plan come together, characters, rogues galleries, a plan click into place.

And then the rest of the movie happened. And it's just disappointing because it could have been, should have been great. And I got to say, I think it's probably an example of, the best intentions, meeting the mundane realities of Hollywood. Sure. There should be an all-female heist movie. It's connection to the Ocean's IP. I could take her leave, I don't care.

But it's weird to me that Gary Ross, who is an able Hollywood hand, a gentleman in his 60s, salt and pepper beard, handsome guy, Seabiscuit, right? Hunger Games. Why was he the guy to write and direct this movie? I don't know. Because there was nothing particularly interesting in it that I could see. Didn't David Milch's daughter write this movie?

She is a co-write. Okay. Yeah. So I hope that she added some interesting and worthwhile perspective. There are moments. But mostly I'm like, you have Sandy Bullock, the aest plus of movie stars. You have Cape Lanchette in purple rhinestone pantsuit, you know? Let's go.

Let's have some fun here. Helena Bonham Carter looks like she's having fun. Okay. What I'm curious to know when the stories about this movie comes out is I'd like to talk to the editor of this movie. Like maybe we get that editor in a room, you know, with the voice altering thing in the dark so that they could be honest. Because my sense is if Rihanna's performance as world-class hacker nine ball is a garlic clove, then this person's job was pulling a good fellows in prison with it and taking out the razor blade and made like, here is a reaction shot. wanted to dissolve into the fit. You just want all the dialogue they tried to give her to dissolve.

Yes. That's my note. It's a bummer, but it's fun to go to the movies. Let's talk about some movies that we're excited about. Yeah. Because this is, it's fall trailer season. All the big, exciting movies that are coming out in fall and winter are starting to get, they're finally starting to get trailers from them.

So we had, uh, the one that I really, really want to talk about is the stars porn. Dude, that that ran before oceans eight. And you could hear people's faces reacting. in real time at the arc light. Okay. This is either, there's no in between on this one. Nope.

This is either gonna be Bradley Cooper is like the new Robert Redford and he is going to be a director, actor, extraordinary. Or this is gonna really, really,

really suck. I already can't get some of the music from the trailer out of my head. Like I don't, and it's definitely like, I was thinking, about how in the trailer, like, whatever the lenses are that they're using,

like everybody's heads are enormous. They're like, it is Star Worship on a level that we don't actually see that much in movies anymore. I agree. And it's such a rule of the dice, man. This movie is either going to win Best Picture at the Oscars or Best Picture at the Razzie's and there is no in between. Yes.

BC with that like late period Christopherson. Father John Bradley. Yeah, that head funk, like his head is big. and sweaty and he's got this beard and you just know, I mean, people start at Vanity Fair, start cracking your knuckles to write the he taught himself how to play guitar pieces or whatever.

Here's my counterintuitive pitch as to why it might be good. Because he is himself a famous person, which means that he has relatively no self-reflection and a large ego, and I say that with love, he may in fact have been the right person to make a movie about stardom.

This is obviously something that is very attractive I mean, like, there are people who have been associated with this movie from Clint Eastwood and Beyonce to, you know, I mean, obviously it's been remade. It's been made a few times over the last hundred years. This version of it has been going through iterations. I don't think anyone else,

other than a movie star playing the part, would have been as shameless as to get that, like, 70-millimeter Panavision lens out to have him finger-picking at Coachella with Lady Gaga, like, lying astride his body staring lovingly at him. Like, because, you know, natural human reactions like shame kick in, and you're like, I'm going to dial

this back. Yeah. They didn't. So, okay. Let's go. I'm really excited for Chappelle and Sam

Elliot as the supporting cast. Wow. So there's that. That's one that's going to be either movie of the year, absolute

fart. The other movies that have come out, the trailer's coming out recently, are first man, which is Damien Shazel's follow-up

to La La Land starring Ryan Gosling who's playing Neil Armstrong and Widows, which is Steve McQueen's first movie since 12 years

a slave, starring Viola Davis, Elizabeth DeBecke. The cast for this movie is the greatest cast I've seen in a long time. Liam Mason, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree, Henry. Daniel Kaluya, who's one second in the trailer, made my blood race, dude. He's awesome. But

it'll be, I don't know what that movie is. Is that movie supposed to be fun? Well, it's Julian Flynn, from Gone Girl wrote it. Yeah. It is on, first of all, the trailer's great. Is it like, we are going to handle our business? Like, this is going to be, like, where oceans ate with guns?

Or is it, this is like a meditation on grief and loss? Not to make everything either or. Or a total binary. But this is a test case for what I am always saying I want, which is I want a tourist visionary people to make genre

movies. Get your boots dirty and get down there. Now, you probably shouldn't do it unless you have a real love for genre. You can't try to pretend it's something it's not. You can't be dainty about it. And McQueen is not a dainty director by any means. But it's thrilling the thought of someone who is a visual storyteller at his level making a story like this. You know, it, for me, it's like when you saw that, that Sorkin wrote social network and Fincher directed it. Those two are oil and water. But they made together by collaborating and fighting, you know, whether literally or at least, you know, in theory off the page, they made probably each of their best work together. this is that kind of pairing for me. So it could be great.

Any thoughts on first man? I think that looks great, man. Right? Yeah, I just want them to make movies like that. I just want movies like that. I know it looks a lot like the right stuff. I don't, you know, they'd be curious about whether it's more about space

or the time before space or what, like how, I'm just curious about what they decide to do with the movie. Claire Foy, Kyle Chandler, Jason Clark are all also in it with Gosling. The trailer suggests that they did something truly exciting and great about it, which is, well, one, this movie could have been made by anyone, right? I mean, this could have been a Spielberg movie, which is not a bad thing. It could have been a Kleeneaswood movie. It could have been a Gary Ross movie.

This movie is going to get made about Neil Armstrong. Come on, like award season bait, if you have a big star in the lead. Yeah. What it looks like Chazelle did that is truly exciting is he made it physical. Oh, yeah. The thing about the trailer is that the... Everything is shaking and fire ravelling. Yeah.

It's not majestic. It's mechanical. And that is really exciting. It makes it look really good. All right. So we're excited about those movies. I'm sure we'll be talking about them in the months to come. Let's set up Thursday.

So Thursday we are going to be joined by the novelist Patrick Hoffman, who wrote this most recent selection for the Double Down Book Club. It's called Every Man of Menace. You hopefully have read it by now. Patrick's going to be calling it on Thursday, and we're going to talk to him about that. Guys, I finish this book. Remember, this is a rare one. Chris just went out on a limb and just announced it.

Yeah, I went over the top on this one. He was so excited. and, you know, I like to push back a little bit. I read it, guys. And let me tell you, if you were like me, I was a little hung up on the first section because I didn't understand what the book was. Keep going.

It is a masterpiece of structure, and I'm really excited to talk about it. Yeah, so Patrick's calling it on Thursday. We'll talk to him, and then next Monday we'll be talking about Succession and Westworld. So get caught up there. And until then, take care. Great job, Branskins.