The Watch - The Calm Before the Streaming-Wars Storm, Plus ‘High Flying Bird’ | The Watch (Ep. 327)

Episode Date: February 8, 2019

FX CEO John Landgraf gave his semi-annual state of television address this week (2:19) and took digs at Netflix while doing so (13:24). Steven Soderbergh’s new movie, ‘High Flying Bird,’ is his most emotionally present work to date (33:21). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Adam Nayman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Liz Kelly. With the Super Bowl and the books, I wanted to let you know about all of our coverage across the site. We have Kevin Clark, Robert Mays, Roger Sherman, and more breaking down every aspect of the game, including winners and losers and key plays from the game and the half-time show performance. Also, make sure to check out our YouTube channel where Kevin Clark talked to Amari Cooper on Slow Newsday, and Roger Sherman chatted with players from each team for their thoughts leading up to the game. Be sure to watch and subscribe to our channel on YouTube.com slash The Ringer. sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the wringer.com and joining me on the other line. Unlike World War Z-2, he is not canceled. It's Andy Greenwald!

Buddy, is this a tough day for you with this news? I just saw this come across the transom myself. It's a bad beat. We're going on Wednesday. Your boy is in mourning. I wanted David Fischer to direct the sequel to World War Z. Can I speak for a moment in a role I'm very comfortable in and a role that I think our listeners have grown accustomed to me being in, which is as someone who has not ever seen World War Z. And what I'd like to say from this hallowed ground is Stephen Knight wrote World War Z.

A lot of people were World War I. I think Lindelike did too, right? Our buddy Damon worked on it too. But I just was noticing it in the context of Stephen Knight who also did Locke, a movie we love. and peeky blinders and a bunch of other stuff, most recently made this film Serenity, which is not getting a lot of eyeballs, but the article's explaining how truly next-level bat-shit crazy it is

are getting a lot of eyeballs. I think there might be more blog posts about Serenity than there are people who have seen Serenity. I'm just saying maybe, do you think these two things are unconnected? Like, do you think that Stephen Knight was ready to write World War Z-2 for Fincher and then, you know, someone just like dug through the recent files and saw that like Stephen Knight had written,

directed a movie about a often pantsless Matthew McConaughey hunting a giant tuna named Justice. And they were like, now we're good. It's a metaphor. We're good. Greenwald, I bring you here today on the watch podcast to do something that we, you know, pretty regularly do, which is talk about the state of television. And in this case, not quite really what we have on our screens as much as in the offices.

that decide what goes on our screens. And today was, this week we marked the TCA's, the Television Critics Association. It's not the awards, right? It's just their kind of semi-annual gathering. Twice a year. Twice a year. Yes.

They gather the critics here in L.A. in January, in Pasadena, and in the summertime in Beverly Hills. And the networks present their goods. Right. And so John Landgraf gave one of his customers, kind of state of the union addresses right around the time that Donald Trump gave his

state of the union address. And he kind of dug into the numbers underneath Netflix's sort of mothership domination of our planet right now. And really tried to kind of pull it some threads in the mythology built up around Netflix, especially the kind of

of numbers that Netflix have been putting out over their social media channels and leaking out there about Birdbox, about you, about just the reach of the platform, which is undeniable. The reach of the platform is undeniable. And everybody I know has Netflix, everybody I know gives things more chances on Netflix than they would say on almost any other television platform that they have, any other channel, any other streaming service. But what I really wanted to get at here, because Landgraf's got

some changes of his own coming up, he's got this Disney merger, which is sort of in its final stages. And in April, according to Landgraf, he expects to hear some clients. He expects to hear some clarity from Bob Iger who runs Disney about what kind of investment Disney will be making in FX. And that also goes along with the story that John Coblin wrote in New York Times earlier this week about

HBO expanding from Sunday nights, which has been its tip to traditional night that they show their original programming, they premiere their original programming to Monday nights as well. And it all kind of goes along into this

idea that as we say, here in February and we watch True Detective and we watch Russian doll and we're, you know, kind of just going about our business, we're on the precipice of another sort of tectonic shift, another huge, huge moment in television. Right before the Disney streaming, maybe right before a little bit of harder accounting for Netflix or perhaps just more expansion for Netflix, and right before Apple's service premieres presumably this summer or spring. Can you feel that out where you are, Andy? Do you feel the sand shifting beneath your feet? I can tell you that across the hall from our offices are the offices of a Disney pluse show

that is nearly finished its pre-production. I can tell you that for as much as the viewers are tuned into the programming in front of their eyes in 2019, the industry seems to be completely focused on 2022 or 2021. Basically, the next era of all of this stuff, once the ground, I don't know if it settles, but shakes out a little bit more cleanly, right? I mean, among the threads that we're discussing, among the threads that are related to what you just put on the table that recently broke are like Disney announcing that Captain Marvel, the Brie Larson starring film that's coming out next month, which is crazy

to think. It will be their first film held back from Netflix. You know, the company that I'm making Briar Patch for Universal announced a couple weeks ago that they will be launching an over-the-top service of their own, I believe in 2021 or 2022. The Netflix that we're looking at now that just seems like an unstoppable juggernaut full of every single thing in the world is not going to be, is not considered to be unstoppable by people both in the industry and by investors, which is something we're going to get to in this conversation. And it's going to be losing a lot of content as all these media companies pull their stuff

back and launch their own things. We've said since this started happening a few years ago, the consumer can only bear so much of it. And so there will be a second stage, or at this point six, seventh, ninth shakedown when some of these companies can't support their own over-the-top services or there are more mergers. But the Fox Disney thing, which is, you know, the aftershocks are just beginning to be. fell on a consumer level was really about this, right? It was really about having an absolutely unstoppable content library for the Disney pluse. And I'm going to keep calling it. Me too. I think

if Bob Iger doesn't call it Disney pluse, it doesn't exist to me. Well, I'm going to start calling him Bobby Jere, but it will be a Netflix like Juggernaut when it launches. Right. Basically to end the debate to end the conversation. So to bring all the way back to what you're saying, to what to way you started this, which is with John Landgraf, the mayor of television speech at TCA, which is always worth checking out. He's been taking these shots at Netflix for quite some time. He has been the services most ardent and most public and most prominent critic, particularly because of the way that they've continually seemed to play by their own set of rules. And often that has come down to, it's not just financials, it's ratings. And he would always

dig at them because they were so opaque. They would say something was a hit, but there was nothing to prove that it was a hit, necessarily. And now he has a little bit more of an opening. The metaphorical Russian is metaphorically cut because they can't help themselves, and because they needed to assure skittish shareholders that the growth was worth it, that this constant investment is showing growth. They've been letting some stuff leak, right? They've been talking about the show you having 40 million viewers or sex education

having 30 million viewers, Birdbox being watched by millions and millions and millions of homes, and Landgraf came out swinging in this speech saying, that's not how we do numbers in this business. Right. I mean, do you want to crack the code of what exactly saying? Essentially, I mean, John, Langraf's speeches tend to be very data-heavy, and one of the most eyeball-popping numbers that you dropped,

which isn't even about Netflix, is just the 385% increase in scripted television since 2014. which when Andy and I sound like we're... A witcher boy is a proud beneficiary. You are 384.9% right there. Andy and I have often talked about like this sort of feeling like you're drowning when you're trying to cover television here.

And this is why. 385% is mind-boggling to consider. And when we started this podcast, I guess in 2012... We started in January 2012. Yeah, so that's like you have to go back. That feels like the Mesozoic era now. compared to what we're dealing with now. So that was one of the numbers in Landgraf's piece.

And then the other is that he's essentially saying that the way in which Netflix does its metrics and chooses to release those metrics is not consistent with the way in which television across the board is generally evaluated. Now, if I were being skeptical or if I would just want to sound a skeptical note, I would say it's interesting to find Landgraf in this position because people like John Landgraf, running networks like FX have three years been like Nielsen ratings don't accurately reflect the impact of a show. And I have in my inbox right now

dozens of examples of emails from FX saying things like you know, I'm trying to find an example of one of their shows like NipTuck Season 4 is the third highest rating third season original scripted drama to debut in September since tyrants. You know what I mean? Like they're always couching it in language to make things sound exceptional.

That's just the job of the marketing departments, right? So the frustration here, though, from him is partially, I think, because he's like, look, like, not only is this company possibly inflating its successes, but its failures are just absolutely absorbed into this massive amount of debt. It's never like, oh, man, we really screwed up.

We had nine batters and one of the guys, and three of our batters struck out. It's, hey, like, if a show goes up and nobody hears about it and nobody watches it, like you'll never hear about it because they won't trumpet it and they're not held accountable. And I think what he's really getting at

is that these guys have come through and they've thrown around their checkbooks and it's kind of screwed up the market for creatives. Like he can't be, maybe he can't get into business with some of the people he wants to be in business with because Netflix is kind of destroying the market. Well, I think there's two things to look at.

And I think we should talk about the creative aspect and the FX that part of it. But let's do that second. The first thing is just to remind people that, you know, Netflix is a publicly traded growth-based technology company. The creative stuff and the shows that we love, that's just a byproduct of it, right? And Netflix and Amazon are locked in combat, you know,

to take over the world and all of our screens. But Netflix is also, I believe, a student of what Amazon did and how Amazon became Amazon, which was Jeff Bezos' strategy of just always show growth always grow. Yes. I do not have the exact numbers in front of me, and I am not an economist by any stretch, nor am I an economist who has seen World War Z. But from what I understand of the way that it works is that Amazon lost money for years, if not decades. The shareholder confidence kept it afloat because as long as it was growing into new fields and new possibilities, the chance

of return on investment was so great and so exciting. Again, from what I understand about Amazon, one of the things that turned the corner in terms of profitability was basically creating an entirely separate business from what we thought it was. And I don't know if it's still the case, but Amazon's web services, their cloud basically, their storage part, was the part of the company that was keeping the lights on for literally every other part, including the fire phone and all the stuff that failed. Netflix, and there's an interesting article in Forbes that came out yesterday, and obviously Forbes is often read by the communist, which means I don't just.

I really don't read it. But this is, you know, a market-based story, and it's called realities closing in on Netflix. And basically it's saying that there are signals that investors are losing patience with their extraordinary cash flowburn, the amount of money they're spending to demonstrate the growth that might in turn spark the shareholder for confidence. And the number thrown out here is that since 2011, Netflix has spent $13 billion. And it also says that in order to justify the amount of money it's spending, it would need to have over 500 million subscribers paying $20 a month. Yes.

That's a lot, guys. Yeah, and then it goes on to say, without additional price increases, so I think it's at, what, 15 now a month? Yeah, it just went up, right? So it just went to 15. Without additional price increases, Netflix needs half the global population to sign up for Netflix. Now, many people around the world are signing up to Netflix.

Internationally, it's growing. You know, this is part of their strategy. This is not news to them. But the idea that a company like Netflix can continue to just defy gravity is not set in stone. And this again, this is getting into the 2022 of it all. But it specifically talks about, you know, when a lot of the content is going away and what a lot of these bills might come do. But one of the more interesting things about it is that Netflix creates content and then it puts it on its service, right? So it creates a library.

And that's what you're buying access to. also that's starting what Langraph is attacking them for, right? Because, but again, it's a different business. He's saying 40 million people didn't watch you. And Netflix is essentially saying, it doesn't matter. You is here. Lots of millions of people are interested in it. And as long as we have it, they will continue to pay for it. Because that was sort of his, they actually don't care if they watch it. His sort of, I think what he was also talking about was the long tail kind of engagement with these shows beyond giving it a five minute or 10 minute or one episode try. And I don't want to put words in his mouth. But that there is an indication that there is like a sort of fading amount of interest

rather than the way that they calculate week to week kind of engagement with stuff that FX does. One of the other themes of this discussion. Oh, no, go ahead. Yeah. I just wanted to jump in to say when I was talking about how Netflix is solely creating content for its libraries, the difference between Netflix and Disney, which is really obviously, I've been into this conversation emerging as one of its biggest competitors, is that Disney can continue to monetize its content. That it's not just, having a show that they're putting on Disney Blues or in the movie theaters and then Disney Blues. Yeah.

It's that there's the box office release. There's merchandise, licensing deals, theme parks, right? All of this stuff is continually generating money for them in different arenas. And Netflix so far just has the one arena and that that could be an issue. I think what Netflix is also doing, and I've talked about this on and off over the last year or so, is you're right. There is going to be another shakeout of all of this. because people aren't going to,

there's no point in having a cutting the cord conversation if cutting the cord is just going to lead you to signing up for 12 streaming services that cost as much as cable. And I think that's where you have to understand that what Netflix is trying to do is essentially recreate the experience of having cable. They have so much content that there is no need to channel surf anywhere outside of within Netflix.

It's almost like the model that you used to have in the late 90s of the port. the internet portals like Yahoo or AOL, where they were like, we want all of your internet experience to happen through us. So you can be interested in sports and you can be interested in finance and you can be interested in culture. But what we want is all of the content to be living in our portal. And I think that's what Netflix's loose concept is. Now, what I think that means, and this is interesting because this comes up in Steven Soderberg's high flying bird, which is on Netflix on Friday, is Netflix is going to have. have to do something game-changing

sooner or later. And I think that that means making... I personally think that means making a bid for a sport. Interesting. To make it essential. To create something beyond, like, it basically like having sports is an appeal

to someone who's like, I don't really care about anything that you guys have in terms of scripted television or even unscripted television. But if you sweeten it with the NBA, the NFL, the MLB, whatever it is. And this could be years down the line,

this could be a partial thing. I just feel like, unless they do something like that, at a certain point, they're just going to be something that has like 500 shows and 500 movies that are pretty good. Yeah, I think that's really the concern.

Which is what it feels like when you look at cable now. When you flip through the channels now, you're like, oh yeah, okay, so below deck and then there's 13 hours Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, but with commercials and Adam Sandler movies on, that's not dissimilar to feeling like when you're just going through Netflix looking for something to watch.

So let's then turn our attention to the FX half of it. And to filter in the HBO part as well, how do these companies compete with each other or how do these networks or services or whatever content providers compete with each other directly when they are almost as if they're all, you mentioned sports, is almost as if they're all playing different games. HBO with its new corporate parent with AT&T is going to expand This was inevitable. They're beefing up the programming. They're making more shows than ever before, and that requires for now a second night of programming, a night that they haven't used really since that sort of misfire season when they put board to death and a couple other things on Monday nights. FX is in an interesting position. FX is a little bit, I don't think they've said this publicly, but it feels like they're in a little bit of a holding pattern waiting for the Disney stuff to shake out. Is Disney going to have to invest in that? much said that in the Q&A that he did with Variety after this speech, yeah. Is he going to heavily, are they going to heavily invest in much more programming to compete

with the HBO's and Netflix's? Is he going to be put in charge of Hulu and their programming is going to be combined somehow? All of this is to say that FX in the past few years has incredibly and amazingly chiseled out a unique space in the marketplace. In terms of the creative prestige, they are almost on par with HBO. They get people like Kate Blanchette to start in their projects. They generate buzz. They get Emmy nominations. They have what to our mind is the best show on television in Atlanta. They have these very strong relationships with very creative people and are considered to be creative partners. And their creative executive is someone who is himself famous and is the mayor of television and deliver speeches like that. However, at the moment,

FX doesn't have that many shows. That isn't to say that they don't have a ton of exciting development and things we don't know about and maybe a whole floodgate to open as soon as the Disney deal officially goes through, right? But at this moment, in February 2019, their dramas are Legion, which was just announced is ending after the upcoming third season. Snowfall, Pose, and Mayans, MC. That means they have no dramas that began earlier than 2017. And their comedies are Atlanta, and it was just announced that probably won't be back this

year, or at least not to the very end of the year. better things, baskets, and Mr. Inbetween, and I don't know if Mr. Inbetween is returning. And then in terms of its franchises, it's got American Horror Story, which is continuing, an American crime story, which is continuing. But Ryan Murphy is not developing new properties for FX because he's at Netflix now,

and Fargo, which is returning next year. So the counterpoint to that is that FX has found the niche where all the streaming services are sort of turning their, head the other way, which is event television, which is creating buzz around limited series, almost going back to the miniseries days of the 80s,

and getting grade A talent, if not always A level talent in terms of name recognition, but grade A talent to do really interesting stuff that frankly feels a little bit more like what I think my concept of what HBO should be doing. So when you see Fossi Verdon coming with Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams, two Oscar winning actors doing this

a story about entertainment and show business, which seems like that should be an HBO show. Lin-Manuel Miranda's involved with that. I can't wait for that show. They're signing up people. Yeah, and then they've got Alex Garland's miniseries coming later in the year. That kind of stuff is the kind of forward-thinking

programming that any network needs to be doing and needs to be thinking about. And I will say this. What they are doing and what Landgraf is preaching is curation. Is he's saying, look, I can't compete with Netflix's volume. But what I can do is tell you that nine out of 12 of our shows are going to be contenders for top 10 lists. And they are going to do what HBO is going to do in different ways. And we have to wait and see how these streaming deals all settle out.

Because I don't think FX is going to be on Disney Plus. I think FX is going to probably be part of Hulu, I guess? We don't know. Right. But it'll be interesting to see. Because Disney Plus is supposed to be very family-oriented. It's more than that, though. I think that what you're saying is that this guy and this executive team,

which has been in place for a long time at FX, seems to be reading the room correctly. And you could look at this as retrenchment, or you could look at it as smartly waiting for your moment and playing the, you know, not getting too far ahead yourself because HBO in this piece in New York Times that you were referring to, you know, talks about how all the development they have. And HBO has always had the glossiest development, but it was always a very small pipeline. Very few shows actually made it onto the air.

It talks about how they are very high on development projects, including two giant-sized sci-fi projects, one from JJ Abrams, one from J.J. Abrams, one from Joss Whedon. It seems very, very, very, very risky and very, very expensive just to develop, not risky to develop them, but expensive to develop them. Whereas, you know, the fact that FX is doing this long gestating adaptation of the comic book, Why, the Last Man, and they're doing a Mark Bowden miniseries about Vietnam in 1968, those seem like, on some ways, they seem like smaller bets, but they seem to be more considered aesthetic choices that make sense with the business they're already doing, as opposed to we're going to just, we're open for the biggest possible

business because we need to go against these Titans. The other thing is, remember Fassette's? FXX. Remember that they were going to have a other network? They still have it, but you're the worst as ending. It's always sunny and archer can run forever, and there's like parts and wreck reruns. And I don't know if that's considered a misfire at this point or just another useful thing to sort of suck up carriage fees as long as people are still paying for cable. I don't know. Yeah.

Well, I think for me, in my experience, is that the reason why to keep cable is for live sports and live events, but primarily for live sports. Because to get all these different subscriptions and accounts, and then you have to deal with blackout rules with the... If you write about the NBA and you talk about the NBA and you're an NBA fan, it's really hard to only have NBA League Pass through Apple if you're also talking about national games. And I just think that for as long as there are a couple of reasons

why people need cable, they're going to keep having their account. You know what I mean? Because you're really asking a lot from people to start to get into that bespoke. I want to get my Warner Brothers streaming service because I want to watch Friends and I want to get Hulu because I want to watch Handmaids and I want to have all the episodes of Brooklyn Nine Nine and Modern Family in one place.

And then I also want to do that. It's just going to get too confusing. So I think that reports of cables utter and complete collapse are a little bit exaggerated at this point. But just to tie the bow on what we were talking about with HBO and FX versus some of the bigger streaming giants is like I think what you're going to see are those places HBO and FX stressing curation while practicing scale at some point?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's been a lot of jokes this week, or maybe they predate this week, but I've just been hearing them more because now I work in a job where I see people. But, you know, Netflix, if you open up Netflix and everyone, you know, we're talking and people that were friends with, and even as I mentioned on the other show, my dad is talking about Russian doll. the majority of the Netflix opening screen is mass murderers and cakes. Yes. And that is a smart business play for them, right?

Because they just need the stuff that's sticky that you're going to watch. But that is a very different business than lovingly crafting and curating a Fossi Burden musical. It's going after a different audience. It's going after a different advertiser demographic. And it's essentially, and maybe this is where this conversation should have started and where these always tend to end up, it's apples and oranges. They're two very different businesses, but we consider them to be the same business.

And until we get into 2021, 2021, 2022, and it starts to shake out, there will continue to be many businesses under the rubric of the TV business. If you had to guess, does Apple wind up being the player here, or do they wind up being the buyer? Meaning, do they buy Netflix? I mean, that's such a good question. Because they have a lot of cash lying around, yeah. The scale is so incredible and almost like inconceivable. But, I mean, Apple is a buyer because the amount of cash they have

and the prominence that it has just in the day-to-day life of half the people on the world, on the globe, like that Forbes article was suggesting Netflix should. They have the razors and Netflix has stuffed itself with razor blades. That kind of weirdly does make sense, at least to my mind, more sense than Apple sort of ad hoc starting a studio and making stuff, but then changing its mandate. And then we still don't even know when the service launches this year, if it's going to cost more than what we already pay for iTunes. Is it going to just be on that watch app?

We don't know what it's going to be. Right. Is it going to come brought to you by brands and have inherent, I mean, I have no idea, honestly, what the model is there? I don't know either. I'm sure they have thought about it internally, but they also, as you said, they just have like what, a trillion dollars in cash? so it's not that hard for them to just play around and figure it out.

Right. But it's weird to suddenly be having this conversation, even if it's purely speculative by two, and I must stress this, non-economists. Yes. All of a sudden, even the giants that stomped through the landscape over the time we've been doing this podcast and completely changed everything,

even these giants have weak spots. Yeah, I mean, that might sound weird for me to even say should Apple buy Netflix, which has been written about, but it also seems like weird to say should Disney buy Fox five years ago. it's super weird although at least it means we're getting a new Wolverine I can't believe you buried the lead on that

I think that's well we'll have to like one day we'll have to do like maybe maybe next week at some point we'll sort through all the like merger wars and what it means for different IP I know you have to get going and you're off on Monday

so we'll have a different pod on Monday I'll be talking to Leslie Headland one of the co-creators and showrunners of Russian dolls so I'm really excited about that Greenwald Thank you so much for calling in, man. Chris, I love Leslie, and I just need to know, since I won't be doing the interview this time,

what percentage of the interview will be about Terriers? I mean, solid 55%. Because every time I've talked to her, it has been that was her first job. She was a baby writer on the late lamented FX show Terriers. And she, not that I don't, I really like everything Leslie does, but she has goodwill forever because of that. She's in your cool book. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So, and then I'll finish Russian Doll when we talk again next week. And you got to talk me through some of this flat circle, buddy. Like, I'm pretty hung up on the fact that that the per so far, the Purcell mystery, is hinging on the fact that my man, Purple Hayes, didn't read his wife's book. Yeah, you're going to have to. I wish there was like an after show or something like that that you could watch. Now I understand. So basically, and then I do have to go. But basically, you know, and maybe our listeners know by now that like, like, many of the people who are closest to us in our lives don't listen to this podcast. It's not just our wives. It's like many of my closest friends and coworkers. And invariably, their response when I say, you don't listen to the podcast is, why would I? You're right here. Or I can just call you.

Right. And now I get why they say that. I can just call you and Jason, right? Like, you could just tell me. Yeah, we could just take it offline. So should we not be doing this as the end of this podcast? Is that what you're saying? I'm happy to, I think, give it two more episodes and we'll see where we're at, obviously.

I mean, we have six coming up on Sunday. I think seven and eight will be barn burners. I'm going to talk to you about the whole thing, man. Okay. I'm just glad that my man with a ponytail follow the instructions on the landmine. I'll talk to you later, man. Yeah. You don't want to talk about that?

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Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by the Microsoft Surface Pro 6. The new Microsoft Surface Pro 6 can help you get things done, whether you're on the field or running a business. Take Brian Arakpo and Michael Griffin two former NFL teammates who have opened a cupcake shop. With the Surface Pro, they can do everything they need from setting schedules to creating promotions for social media and designing new flavors. Plus, it's light, super fast, and has a great battery life. Brian and Michael are proving you can tackle all your passions. with the power and speed of the new Surface Pro 6. Now I'm joined by my good buddy, one of the ringers film critics,

one of my favorite film critics, Adam Neiman. Adam, how you doing, man? Hey, how you doing? We are here to talk about High Flying Bird, which Adam has a review of going up on the ringer tomorrow, and which I saw this week, which you can all see late Thursday night, early Friday, at your leisure on Netflix,

and is the latest film from Steven Soderberg. And if there's ever been a movie that was basically created in a lab to appeal to the ringer and its readers. It's this film which is about an NBA lockout being navigated by a super agent played by Andre Holland who's basically maneuvering between the league, the teams, the players, and the shadow sort of population of hangers-on, assistants, press people, social media people, everything that's around basketball. And as you get at very well in your review, Adam, it's also a movie about movie making

in a lot of ways, and it's made by this iconoclastic, disruptive filmmaker in Steven Soderberg. So I have a ton of different things to talk to you about. And I should say at the top that people can also check out the big picture on Friday, which is a special Soderberg pub with me and Sean and Amanda. And it was really fun to talk about his whole career. But I want to kind of focus on high-flying bird here. You know, to start with, I felt like this was his most emotionally present work in a really, in a long time. And I don't know whether to chalk that up to him and the material that he connection he ended with the material, or the

material itself? Well, I think that that is partially due to McCraney, that Terrell Alvin McCraney, the playwright who did the script who, you got also people know as the writer of Moonlight. I think he's a very emotionally a key writer, and I think that there's

well, I can't speculate on levels personal and thus, I don't even really know if McCraney's a sports fan. I think he's definitely interested in questions of people's value and people's worth and the way that people, even in a business, are navigating their own emotions and their own connections and their own backstories. And I think that that's really superbly contained within the writing. As far as Soderberg being emotionally present,

I mean, certainly more than in a movie like Unsaim, which is such a cold, hostile kind of movie anyway. I think he is more present in this. And I think that, you know, in general, Lederberg is not so many people see as a warm filmmaker. You can go to the filmography and find certain films like Aaron Brockovich or King of the Hill where there's kind of a core of emotion to them. But a lot of the times he's out of sight, really swooningly romantic. Yeah. Yeah, you know, he's often very proficient, technocratic, intellectual. And I think that this film balances the emotional quality against that more intellectual side that he has.

He just seemed very alert while he's making this movie. This is like a very, very awake film in terms of the style, in terms of the content, and even the timing of it is just fascinating. So this is the second movie that Soderberg is shot on an iPhone, the Unsaine, his previous film that he shot, and then he released Unsain through his fingerprint releases distribution shingle that he had started because he thought he could cut out the middleman. He thought he saw a lot of market inefficiencies and the way that

were marketed and distributed, and he made Logan Lucky and Unseen under fingerprint and realized he could use a little help, and he went to Netflix. Now, with Unseen, I found maybe going into it, I knew that it was shot on an iPhone, but whatever the case, I found the visuals a bit distracting, and perhaps on purpose.

In High Flying Bird, I found that the invasive and guerrilla-style filmmaking that you're able to do with a... iPhone, I found it invigorating in this movie and especially developing New York City as a character in the film. Yeah, I mean, I think it's amazing how the building in some ways feel all kind of pushed back or feel kind of remote at times. I mean, it's very fitting too that because I think the movie's made without express cooperation with the NBA, the movie that's kind of absent of logos or the kind of sports media escape in some ways feels kind of minimal, like there's a sense

of minimalism to it. But at the same time, the camera's right in the middle of the action, and it can be plastered to the top of a limousine, or it can be a fly on the wall, or it could follow people around a gymnasium. So again, you have this weird balance of kind of chill and cool and detachment, but, you know, then you also have the intimacy. And since McCraney's a playwright, and I'm not saying this negatively, there's something somewhat staging about some of the scenes, a lot of dialogue scenes, a lot of back and forth. And in that sense, I think Soderberg is really self-effacing as a filmmaker. He really lets the material speak for itself instead of trying to be flashy.

But I'd agree. There's an exuberance and a playfulness in some of the camera setups, as if he's kind of saying, like, I have the freedom to do this because I'm shooting this on a phone. Yeah, I mean, you talk about the stagingness. I also sort of, and I mean this is a very high compliment, despite being from Philadelphia. It was like a Brad Stevens out-of-timeout play where everybody knows exactly where they're going. and there are these misdirections, but it all ends in this wide open layup. These scenes have a kind of Patty Chayefsky, like kind of operatic, balletic choreography to them

that is not something you see a ton anymore. And it's kind of exciting to see Soderberg working in M.I. Yeah, no, totally. And when you mentioned Patty Chayefsky and network, I mean, it's a good comparison. I mean, people, I think, overuse the idea of the American cinema of the 70s. They idealize it and they hold it up. But I think that at times it's a spirit that Soderberg has connected to. And in the past, he's connected to the idea that back then, you know, quote unquote, back

then, you know, individuality in studios weren't mutually exclusive. You could be a personal artist on a kind of studio bill. But, you know, now he's kind of really styled himself as someone who's built a reputation in the name working with studios. And now, as you put it very well, he wants to cut out the middleman. And he aligns that so well with the film's plot, right? which is all about, well, what would happen if NBA stars who were locked out, you know, were compelled to freelance. And just the idea of that, especially as so much fandom has migrated online and as so much of what we think what NBA players is already in some ways unauthorized because it's, you know, Twitter feeds that their teams don't necessarily censor or Instagram feed that their teams don't necessarily censor.

it's just the next logical step of like, what if they play without the uniform or what if they play without the league? As a thought experiment, as a basketball fan, I just found it compelling to think about that logic and to follow where it might take me. Yeah, you know, I think that Soderberg is such an incredibly interesting off-screen character

while also a relatively opaque on-screen author. You know, like on one hand, you could see all these movies, and they all seem like formal experiments, but when you start to put them together, and you got it this in your review, he is obsessed with the people who try to take the house,

if I can borrow from that George Clooney line from Ocean's 11, where it's like when you see the chance to take the house, you take it. And Andre Holland in this movie, Michael Douglas' character in traffic, Beniceo del Toro's character in traffic, Aaron Brockovich, George Clooney,

and out of sight in Oceans 11, you know, over and over and over again, he's drawn to these people who are trying to go against a giant sort of faceless institution at great odds and make a score. And it makes him such an interesting filmmaker to view his work through that lens not only in terms of what his movies are trying to say, but what he's trying to do with his career. Because he's not traditional.

I don't know that there's a lot of Soderberg acolytes in so much as people who are trying to make movies like him right now. Do you see that? I think that he's very singular in that. regard. And he's been singular for a long time. You know, one of the things I got at in the review is he's absolutely a mirror of the Ray character, whether or not that's how it was written. But he's also a mirror of Eric, the young point card. And so far as when, uh, when sexwise and videotape came out, he's the rookie of the year in American cinema, right? He's the future.

He's the, the potential max contract, you know, and, and Hollywood used him that way. I mean, he had his chances to work in the studio system. He got big budgets. He was kind of hired to do project, something like out of sight, which is like one of the most perfect mainstream American movies the last 30 years, like this perfect mix of art and commerce.

But now he's a veteran. Yeah. And I think he's seen that there's limits and that there's traps and that there's ruts that you can kind of fall into, which again is why the sports metaphors, which I find sometimes with movies can get kind of tortured, I think they hold here.

Because I think the film as unsentimental but loving about basketball as a game as Soderberg is about moviemaking as an industry. He hasn't given up on art, but he just knows what all the barricades and the blocks to making art within that industry are. And I love looking at his career as a series of negotiations and almost essays on that topic. Yeah, and his career is also a really interesting study in failure not being the end of a career. Because he has he's a very good salesman. I mean, if you read any interview with him,

you're just convinced that this guy has everything entirely figured out, yet has had multiple valleys in his career among many peaks. And, you know, not just recently with Logan Lucky and Unsain's relative underperformance at the box office, although I'm sure given the budgets of those movies, they did okay. But just I think everybody thought Logan Lucky was going to be Ocean's Eleven meets NASCAR and you could print your own money off of that. especially given that cast.

And even before that, he was slated to direct moneyball and got pretty far into the development process. I think even the scriptwriting process of that project before Bennett Miller took over and it became what it is, which I love that movie, but I know I would have cut my left hand off to see the Steven Soderberg version of it. And I think that there are elements of his money ball

in high-flying bird. But I don't think that we have all these big filmmakers, your PTAs, your Trentinos, your Finchers, your Cohen brothers. I think the Cohen brothers are closer to Soderberg that all of those, and that's partially why I wanted to talk to you about it because you're a Cohen's expert. But those guys, a lot of those guys make a movie every three years and everything is perfectly calibrated about the rollout

and the execution of it. And Soderberg's just more of a throw stuff at the wall kind of guy. And I find that to be an almost more interesting career qualitatively, but certainly interesting to talk about. For sure. Well, there's that old line when if you play basketball, or it's like going to the gym it doesn't do much

for your jump shot. It's about your win, right? You know, your conditioning. Yeah. I say this is a very out of condition pick a basketball player. And I think with Soderberg, what he's got always is he's got win,

you know, he's got the energy and the drive and the determination to keep trying things. And yeah, he doesn't sweat it seemingly too much at one fails. And yeah, he's had big failures.

He's also had a premature retirement, you know, which is also kind of a basketball thing because you think about Jordan. I mean, I'm not suggesting Soderberg's Jordan. I'd probably have another candidate for the Michael Jordan of American film. But, you know, this idea of a self-willed retirement and then a comeback. But he's also so experimental with format, like he did Mosaic, which is this interactive murder mystery.

Even years ago, a movie he made that a lot of people haven't seen called Bubble, he was experimenting with day and date releasing with, like, theater and home video at the same time before that became industry standard. And so you see that energy and that energy. industriousness and that willingness to try and fail and come back. Yeah, it makes it a fascinating career. And I am more endeared by it than by the Tarantino, you know, every six years it used to be or seven years, he pokes his head up and makes the, you know, what is supposed to be a masterpiece. Right. Like when everything's a magnamosis, nothing is.

And when everything is kind of, you know, just a new film every eight or ten months, it's possible for there to be interest. I like how uneven Soderberg's work is. I think that that's a virtue, frankly. Yeah, and I think that if anything, it's, no failure feels that big of a deal, because even if you, for some reason, and I honestly have a hard time imagining anyone listening to this podcast,

not at least enjoying High Flying Bird, if not outright loving it like I did. You don't have to wait that long until the next one, because he's got this, he's got the Panama Papers movie coming later in the year with the laundromat. So he's so prolific and such a one-man industry that you never get bored. and that kind of is the perfect filmmaker for this era,

which is such an attention span-starved era. An attention-spans-starved era, and yet about it because it does require a certain amount of concentration. It has all these moments where it looks like it could lapse into the kind of sports movie beats that you'd be grateful for, and then it withholds them or it denies them, or it also finds like an end around even just like sports movie convention, not because it hates them,

not because it condescends them or has content for them, but because he's trying to lead our interest in other direction. And I've already read some reviews of the film where people are like, well, why is there not more basketball in it? It's not that I think that it's a dumb question, but I think it's an interesting question. Well, why isn't there? I mean, for one thing, it's set during a lockout,

but also it's not what he wants to show us. He's not showing us that. What's the reason? Yeah, I was kind of when I was watching it, I was sort of thinking in the back of my head, like, I wonder what would have happened if he had gotten, like, the full Alan J. Pakula, like, hey, do the story of the of the 2011 lockout

and you can just have, you know, maybe even the league will be a part. Like, they'll let you use logos and team names and you can have a James Dolan character and you can have a Peter Holt character and you can have, you know, guys getting in and out of limos in Times Square. And he kind of doesn't need that, you know.

He has, I don't think that you could have done that and had this particular script. And maybe not even this particular performance. from Holland, who is what I kind of wanted to end on. This is a guy who's been in and around it for about five years now and was excellent on the Nick and really top-lined Castle Rock. But I found myself, despite being a fan of his, absolutely blown away by his performance in this movie.

Yeah, I think it's a star-making, I think it deserves to be a kind of star-making performance. There's such rhythm and authority and, like, just game in the way he plays that character, you know? and the movie doesn't belabor the parallels between Ray and the basketball or general quality to what he's doing as an agent. And it's such a different kind of acting than Cruz did and Jerry McGuire. It's really more low-key, but still very impressive. So I'm with you.

I mean, it's early in the year, but in terms of lead performances in American movies, I think that that's going to be on the list towards the end of the year because you really just can't take your eyes off of them. I sure hope so. All right. Thanks so much, Adam, for calling. Congratulations on Markisal. We'll be talking to you soon, I'm sure. I'm going to pour one out for JV tonight,

for sure, I've been here in Toronto. Take care, man. Cheers, bye-bye.