The Watch - The Problem With the Grammys and Whether You Should Watch 'Waco' | The Watch (Ep. 222)

Episode Date: January 29, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald discuss Sunday night’s Grammy Awards and what the long-running awards show is lacking (1:00). Later, they go “In or Out” on 'Waco' (18:00) and review the Oscar-nominated film ‘Phantom Thread’ (35:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan, and I am an editor at the Ringer.com, and joining me in the studio. He just got done writing John Carter from my. Mars fanfic. It's Andy Greenwald. Oh, that was good. Well, there's not a lot of Koresh jokes you can make, my guy. Do you think, happy Monday, everybody. Lots to talk about. Do you think secretly Zach Mack is recording, like, just B-roll of you workshopping

introshing to me? Workshoping Koresh takes? And then they're all going to come out at some point? Andy, it's Monday. It's the last Monday in January. I guess. Does that signify something? No, just calendar notes. And we're going to be talking today about the Grammy Awards, which were last night. We're talking about Waco, and we're talking about Phantom Threat. I don't know where else you could go to get that kind of scope of pop culture conversation and chat. Sorry with the Grammys, man.

Let's get right to it. You and I always historically big Grammy heads. There is no award show in which the things that are celebrated are farther away from the things that I am interested in. Wow. Not even the Tonys. No. What about the Clos?

No, but like the Tonys you would actually be like, oh, you know, Hamilton's pretty good. That's true. You know? That's a fact. It's not that I don't have any respect. I got playing in time for Kendrick and everybody. But what I'm saying is like largely like the spectacle and the celebration of the music industry,

it's like going to an Epcot ride about in the future when the music industry is irrelevant. Yeah. And I'm just like, nope. It's not going to happen. I agree. The, this was a super weird one even by Grammy standards. I think Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone had a great write-up on just how historically weird the Grammys always are

and puts it in a really good context for people who are maybe new to realizing how totally blinkered and often just downright comical this whole ceremony often is. I was thinking a lot last night about the Jan Wanner book. And we had the author of that book, Jan Wender, the creator of Rolling Stone. There was a great biography. We had Joe Hagan, the author on our podcast a while ago. And I was thinking about that interview we did with him in the book and itself. And thinking about how where all cultural coverage to some degree requires a false narrative or a constructed narrative, let's put it that way.

Even more so today where every morsel of popular culture is analyzed to within an inch of its life. True. But one of the things that that book does so well is really redlines how rock and roll and the modern music business was created whole cloth by people like Jan Wenner to. give importance to some things and to diminish the importance of other things. And particularly how pop music is primarily... Just as a note, rock and roll was actually invented by Marty McFly. Yes. When Marvin Barry heard him play guitar and called his...

That's a great point, especially for our younger listeners, who might not be aware of that incredible event at the Enchammon Under the Sea Dance in 1955. But just a few years later, young Jan came around. Marvin! I was thinking about that scene this weekend. It's a good bit. It's a good movie. Should we do it back to the future pod just in the middle of our Grammy conversation?

I would. So pop music is historically consumed by and made popular and beloved by young people. The Grammys and Rolling Stone Magazine, the Grammys, Young Winners, Rock and Roller Hall of Fame are essentially patriarchal tools to make this business that is made for and consumed by and best appreciated by young people to make it the business. of older, generally richer, generally male people. It's just the way it works and has always worked that way. And I was really feeling that last night when the divide has never been more stark. If you were being honest, like an honest Grammys

about who is fueling the music industry and who the biggest star of 2017 is, Lil Uzi-Vert would be like on stage as much as Sting. Sure. That would have been fascinating, particularly if he was on stage with Sting. I would be there for that show. But the Grammys are increasingly drifting even further afield into this alternate universe

where people are really, really psyched for Sting's reggae album with Shaggy, right? Where certain signifiers of true music matter more. Rob Tannenbaum, who used to edit me at Blender and music writer from New York, tweeted something last night about how, for 364 days of the year, the music industry, music in the music industry is fueled by computers. One night of year it's made by pianos when its attempts to be taken more seriously. Yeah. That is the big picture version of what I was thinking about last night that influences all of the takes that came later.

Like, you know, why Lord wasn't allowed to perform, which is just so dunderheaded because Lord, first of all, made arguably one of the two, not arguably one of the two best albums of the year. She was certainly nominated for one, yeah. And for some reason, she's not allowed to perform, but, you know, Bono's on the stage multiple. multiple times. And why wouldn't you want to christen a star? Not that Lord needs christening, but like, I don't understand. You've got a talent. You have to backfill your talent.

You've got to say, like, it's Lord, it's time for Lord to go up on stage and make a million new fans. 19 million people watch the Grammys. We can be pissing and moaning about it, but it is not an insignificant podcast. And the highlight of the show, for me, you could have turned it off after the first six minutes when Kendrick was done. I mean, Kendrick, to my mind, is a superstar who not only makes the greatest records, but steps up to the moment and puts on a show and has something to say and does it with wit and humor and Dave Chappelle and Bono in the Edge. And it's spectacular. I think a lot of it has to do with your relationship to music in general. For me, and it's always been the way, and it's vacillated depending on my engagement with certain artists.

But unlike film and television, my relationship to music is being more of. a, it's more of a platform for, I don't want to say adversarial thinking. No, this is correct. But there's this idea of an underground or of a counterculture within music, like a, an underworld narrative of like, there are these bands and there are these artists and there are these trends and genres and kinds of music and scenes and ways of accessing music and relationships to music that are a lot more person to person where you're going to see things with 200, 300 other people. It's more intimate. It's more to bands that have only sold 500 copies of something on band camp or have 3, 7 inches out back when we were probably a little bit more in the cut.

And it's just, that's what I'm interested in. And when it comes to film, I'm not, I'm sure there are people who are like that and I have nothing but respect for them. But I'm not looking at the Oscars and being like, Agnes Varda deserves to be up there. This sucks. But Agnes Varda gets nominated. Yeah, right, exactly. It's completely different.

It is a completely arbitrary thing. Now, yeah, you mentioned it now and we've talked about it before. There's not like right now, at least for me, there is not a punk rock of movies where I'm Like, that's the real shit, and this is just that fake commercial stuff. Music is deeply, deeply subjective and personal and intimate in a way the other mediums are not. When people have asked me, when I move from being a music critic to being a TV critic, you know, the difference is probably the most profound difference was when you discover something on TV, obviously the scale of production is very different. You can't really release something on TV on band camp. Sure.

People have tried on YouTube, but it's just not the same conversation. You can argue that we're getting there. We possibly are. Yeah. Something like Channel Zero on sci-fi has almost a feeling of, no one told me about this. But let's use that. So you discover Channel Zero or someone discovers it on television.

Their first impulse with television, for whatever the reason, seems to be, I can't wait to tell people about this so we can share it. Traditionally, when young people discover something small on a 7-inch, keep it like a secret, as Bill to Spill once said. Like, that is a totally different vibe. Also, when we talk about the Golden Globes, we talk about the Emmys, we talk about the Oscars, there is an agreed, upon standard of quality, but our arms are around the same thing. The fence posts are more or less

in the same place. And of course, we're going to be standing for smaller artists or smaller actors or things to be recognized. That's what we do. That's what makes a word shows fun. But it's still on the same planet. We're still talking about things that roughly exist in the same ecosystem. That is not true at all with music. And the harder music tries to pretend that with the Grammys, it falls apart completely. For a minute, I mean, the VMAs for a while made more sense because they were just more, they were younger, and they had more energy.

They felt more of the moment. MTV then, of course, is totally cratered. There were a couple years in the last few years, in the last five or six years. And also the idea of the video as a delivery system. Yeah. The last few years, the Grammys seemed to be nudging closer to figuring something out, which was make this show,

you can still get the artists, big and established and new, to come on TV in front of however many million people watch, generally more when L.L. Cool J hosts, apparently. And what they seemed to be doing that I appreciate it was bridging the gap for people, making the visual and sonic connections that maybe people who have drifted away from music fandom

hadn't quite been able to make. So you had Stevie Nix and Taylor Swift or something on stage together. They had some of that last night. They had Kesha with Cindy Lopper performing, which was like an incredibly emotional moment, although I think, as Lindsay Zolads wrote, on the ringer today,

was juxtaposed by a certain... lack of grasping the context around it by the awards ceremony in general. Outrage. And then I thought Chris Stableton, Emmy Lou Harris, tribute to Tom Petty was really lovely. I thought it was fine. I think Chris Tableton's voice was too loud because Emmy Lou Harris is one of the greatest singers of all time and I would like to hear hercing wildflowers. I don't need.

It's quite a note. I don't need fucking Hattie McBeardow bellowing all over her. I'm sorry. My man, you were on Saturday Live last night. Relax. You know, you're good. You're good. It's Emmy Lou Harris.

But like Bono and the Edge, we're very. happy to be backup dancers for Kendrick. They're on that record. That is a legitimate connection to make. And I appreciate that. But yeah, there's this overall sense of just complete cultural tone deafness that has always run through the Grammys because they've never quite been able to figure out what they're celebrating or who they're talking to or what it's for. But the Kesha thing really, I mean, that's it right there. This is a song singing in defiance of her predator, Dr. Luke, who was, to my mind, a great pop songwriter and producer in Svengali, who apparently is a monster, and who kept her career basically, she kept her

in prison, kept her career on ice to get back at her for speaking out against him, put into this show by an industry that has celebrated him and protected him and coddled him. It just feels completely out of whack. I mean, women are not winning these awards. They're not nominated. They're not allowed to perform. Then you have Michael Portno get up on stage to the president of the academy and say, like, well, women really need to step it up if they want to win. It's like, my dude, you put Lord on stage, you convince Taylor Swift to perform, you convince Beyonce to perform, there's your ratings. Like, let's really, really think about that.

Joe Coscarelli had a good tweet last night. He did some really good writing about the Grammys over the last week or so from the Times. And he was mentioning that, you know, because Bruno Mars won, beat Kendrick. We haven't even talked about that, yeah. And, you know, he was just like Bruno played the game. You know, he basically, he did two Super Bowl halftime shows in three years.

He did these live specials. His music was soundtracking commercials for the Grammys. he was clearly participating in the machine. So it's interesting to see music, musicians have to go through the same promotional, oh yeah, hoop jumping that we see, you know,

say somebody, when like, how did this person wear a Golden Globe? It's like, oh yeah, because they went and they glad-handed and they went to brunches and they went to off-brand film festivals,

and they did the pressing in the flesh that you have to do to get that kind of recognition. It's strange to me that, like, they just can't figure the, like, much longer Kendrick's going to keep turning up at these things. There was already a huge talent dream last night. There was no Drake. There was no Kanye. There was no Taylor, no Ed Shearin. This has been pointed out by multiple people. They're in danger. Are Beyonce and Jay going to show

up again? Yeah, I mean, I just don't really know what they can do to mix it up. We've seen what happened with the Oscars and the changing of the voting block to mix up the kind of nominations you can get. Also, decide what kind of show you want to be. They gave out nine awards on television last night. They gave away 80 beforehand, right? If you want to, to be an older-leaning show, put the older awards in the broadcast. You know what I mean? Like, put the Rock Award back in. By the way, Rock Award was won by the War on Drugs. So respect, you know, that's kind of amazing in and of itself. But, but exactly right. Like, think about that album of the year award. Of course Bruno Mars won. Now, I think Bruno Mars is terrific.

Great singer, great songwriter, great dancer, great entertainer. He plays the game with a smile on his face and is charming for it. He does not seem in any way to be, I don't find it off playing. I like Bruno Mars. I like Bruno Mars. I like Bruno Mars. I like those songs. His speech was very classy because he appears to be a very classy guy. But you can listen to that record and be an older voter, which I imagine, as Rob Sheffield says in his piece, the voters are predominantly old. There has not been a not just, not necessarily a purging, but an updating of the voter rolls the way there has been at the Oscars. And we're starting to see the results of that.

To listen to that record, you can immediately understand where he fits in the continuum that people like Jan Wenner and others have created. who his influences were, what he's doing. You understand it immediately, which is what makes him popular. To listen to the J record, which is kind of small and spiky and throwback and personal, to listen to the Kendrick record, which is defiant and bold and I think pretty risk-taking, to listen to the Lord record, which is, as you're saying, it's the continuing evolution of a new superstar. It is a completely subjective record.

You have to make effort. You have to make the kind of effort that you and I grew up loving to make, that anyone who loves music loves to make. when they discover something. Yeah, I don't mind this idea. You can throw on the Bruno Mars record and appreciate it. The Gramies can still have that idea about are they ready? Are they ready for this moment?

Like this idea of they're being, if they want to assume some sort of gatekeeper role in terms of whether or not someone's ready for a certain stage, that's their prerogative. But there have been years where I felt like they were a little bit, they had their finger more on the pulse of at least a consensus. Like, didn't Neon Bible win? I mean, like, which I wasn't. like, oh yeah, Neon Bible, like Arcade Fire is getting its moment.

But that was at least a truly bizarre and interesting thing to see was Arcade Fire performing at the Grammy Awards. Here's the thing years ago. Here's the thing that people who make the show have to remember. Like, look at how many copies you two has sold with their recent albums. You two gets on TV a lot. It doesn't necessarily move your needle to say U2 is coming on this broadcast anymore. I'm sorry. Listen, our listeners know how much we talk about you too and like them.

We did a whole show about them that remained Sam Esmails. favorite episode of the watch. To date. The country of Ireland is celebrating us. Excuse me, Mr. Robot. It's celebrating us over the weekend with the wrong names. Your father is trying to hack the government. Thanks for just spoiling Mr. Robot in an Bono accent. Look, that's fine, but just you have this broadcast. People will, a baseline number of people will watch this anyway. Yes. So I'm thinking about how a couple weeks ago, I don't know if you caught this, but Julian Baker, who is a terrific young singer-songwriter who made one of the best

albums of 2017. She was on the late show of Stephen Colbert, her TV debut. Yeah. And she performed the title track from the new record, um, turn on the lights. And it's stunning. She is on stage with this voice that is 10 times bigger than her body and it shuts down the studio. What does it cost you, Grammys, to see that performance and be like that. Let's put that in the show. Sure. Let's, let's, let's think about who might be next and let's surprise them. Let's make them feel, let's make this whole thing feel vibrant and exciting. in a way. Because at this point, with culture and with live broadcasts, we respond the way we're supposed to. The other thing about last night that kind of bummed me out was the entire performance

of performing the night. The show came on, and Twitter had them darts ready. You know, this isn't correct. This isn't appropriate. Everyone is playing their part. The Kesha thing was moving and a legitimately good performance, and everyone gave her the standing ovation that it deserved, but it all felt, that part felt as performance. formative and scripted as the corny bits that James Corden did. So let's break it up a little bit. You know, we're going to react. If we see some new star emerge in front of us, they're going to give that person a standing

ovation too. You can cut to Rihanna wiping tears away to that person too. Sure. Yeah. Let's get better, man. I feel like I need to hose you down. Ooh. Let's leave the Grammys there.

Nah. I'm never leaving the Grammys. Let's move on. Andy and I usually take an opportunity on Mondays to check out a new show and say whether we're in or out on it. Advise people whether they should go along with it, decide whether we're going to go along with it. There's so much television coming out these days.

It's hard to wrap your hands around it. But we're going to try and just keep up with these new ones and say like, okay, had counterpart. We're all in on counterpart. We're going to definitely revisit it in the coming weeks. This week for In or Out, we're going to do Waco. Bottom line, are you in or are you out? And they're out of what?

You told people your feelings about Waco on Thursday. Yes. The flagship show of the Paramount Network. Indeed. The newly launched or relaunched or rebooted Paramount Network out of the Ashes of Spike TV. And this is their first sort of major... This ashes smell like Axe Body Spray and regret. This is the sort of the first major, you know, foray into prestige TV that they're making.

It comes to us from John Eric and Drew Dowdell, who really only... before this were known for a couple of horror movies, one, which I actually quite liked as above as it is below or whatever it's called. It was your boy Jonah from Superstores in it. My man? Yeah. The Dowdle Bros. This is different.

This is Taylor Kitch as David Koresh, leader of the Branch Dividian organization. Also, a pretty nifty pickup player in a bar band, as it turns out. And we're going to be talking about episode one here. Episode two comes out Wednesday. Is it six episodes? Or is it? It is six. Six episodes.

I have seen three, but I will not be spoiling Waco for you guys. This is a fascinating show to me because on the surface, everything about it is up my alley. It's got an incredible cast of Taylor Kitch, Michael Shannon, Shea Weigam, John Ligwezamo, Andrea Rysboro, like so many people in here that I really like. Kieran Kolkens. Rory, my bad. Kieran's in the new HBO show. succession succession i ride for kieran i'm juries out on rory i like rory i don't say i don't like him but i'm like kieran is put in work in these streets you know what i mean like igby went down a day

the thing that's interesting about this is that i find it compulsively watchable i've watched three watch three back to back and we'll watch the next wow three i'm gonna finish this series 100 oh you didn't even mention your man paul sparks it had paul sparks you love paul sparks from the night of from House of Cards. Boardwalk Empire. What a great novelist he is. But this has way more in common with a 1980s television movie

than it does with Deadwood. And I think that this is something we were talking a little bit about with Versace. And these are only going to get more and more popular. People are going to keep mining quasi-recent history

to make these limited series because you can attract big names to play historical figures and it's a limited engagement. It's a limited request for their time. And when you get somebody like Kitch and Shannon involved and you're like, look, Paramount Network is new. These two guys who are doing it are pretty fresh.

You guys can have all sorts of producer credits and everything involved. You're going to keep seeing true crime presentations like this. How is it that I both am completely into this show but also find not a ton to recommend about it? Because it works. This is a formula that works. Over the last few days, CBS got a lot of... a lot of it negative because it is

announced it was rebooting Murphy Brown it's rebooting Cagney and Lacey hopefully they'll be rebooting our childhoods in full so we can just fight one more chance I can get it right I don't think I really watch CBS as a child man I was really on that designing women's tip

I was all about Murphy Brown were you really what do you know about Eldon the painter that dude never left her house what a conceit he became their nanny Miles always had a new assistant or was it Murphy always had a new assistant yeah candy bird Morgan, lover. Look, my mom's favorite shows Cagney and Lacey. We named the cats Cagney and Lacey.

She shouts to Indiana Jones. We literally named my childhood cats Cagney and Lacey. But that's got some flack. But that's pointing, they're taking, they're drawing the fire. It should be going in the other direction. Because so-called prestige TV is sneakily rebooting broadcast networks now. And tricking us with fancy bobbles, basically. This show is, Waco is straight down the middle broadcast entertainment. That, I hope, is a value-neutral statement, but it is. What they do is they dress it up.

Now, because this is the debut or offering of the rebranded Paramount Network, they clearly opened the checkbook and there was no expense. This cast is wild, straight up and down the line. Like, your man, you know, Betty Draper's second husband shows up. Henry Francis. Henry Francis just shows up just to bark a couple things at the end. Like, this is, this cast. He plays an ATF guy.

The cast is deep. The fact that Michael Shannon showed up for this is interesting because Michael Shannon, one of the most creative and compelling actors of our time, busy, like nobody's... He's in that Horses v. the Taliban movie? He's in everything right now. And yet here he is, as an FBI negotiator, an episode of one of Waco, having one of those

unimportant spouse exposition dumps that I hope we never see again, where he is sitting on an easy chair slow sipping a glass of bourbon. His wife, who, I swear to God, I bet we will never see again on the show. It doesn't even have a name. Comes in and it's like, what's going on, Gary? You can tell me. And he's like,

I just feel like this isn't what I signed up for in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. We're going to go to the same place for this. What he is actually upset about is very interesting. It's about the militarization of law enforcement. Very relevant. And what this show opens with, very interestingly, isn't Waco, but Ruby Ridge.

It traces it back, yeah. And it casts it forward. It talks about things that are happening today and about a certain fury that occasionally borders on madness that's out there in the middle of this country, frankly, like where people are feeling so alienated and disaffected and untrusting of their government that wild things have happened. No, the timing is remarkable. Now that we have official... And they knew it.

They write that into the script. They write those overtones into the script. So they are aware. They have it by the tail, but they just can't quite hold on to it because then they have really bad dialogue of guys being like, I want to negotiate. It's like, I'm going in strong. But it's not just that. It's because they have to service the historical record.

It's the same thing that gets in the way of Versace becoming anything poetic or artistic. But I would actually argue that Versace is what happens when you give Tom Rob Smith more or less like Maureen-Orth book and then you're like kind of go for it, man. Yeah, it's true. It is artistically ambitious. Investigate what Donatella and Gianni's relationship would have been like fill in the blanks. Imagine this guy's psychopathy. And he does that.

And this is way more like we don't want to deviate too much from what most people would think an FBI agent talking to an ATF agent would sound like because they're just playing it up the middle. But you can tell that somewhere underneath are these ideas about why this is such an important event. OJ was an important event because of what it meant to celebrity, what it meant to race, what it meant to our relationship to crime, everything. This is an important event because of what it meant to people's relationship to the federal government and the erosion of people's belief slash faith in institutions. And because we're living in a moment right now where the official position of the mainstream Republican Party is that there are dissidents in the FBI.

The FBI trying to take down the government. This was an attitude that was more or less limited to northwest Idaho when Ruby Ridge happened. It is now the mainstream position of one of the two major political parties in the country. It is incredibly relevant and incredibly compelling for that reason. But as a show, as an artistic exercise... I do not think that this is the ATF's favorite television show ever. Probably not. Let's rank them. But wait, but let me just finish that thought.

But as an artistic exercise, I think it is lacking in the same way that I last week said that Vulture's fact check of the second episode of Versace was more interesting to me than the episode. Look, I'm not going to lie to you. I was not compelled by Waco to continue watching it necessarily, but I was compelled to do a Wikipedia deep dive into my man Randy Weaver out in Ruby Ridge. and we were kids, teenagers when this happened, and I didn't get it.

And I think that that was, I said this when we were talking about Versace the first week, but I was mentioning that OJ felt a little bit, I feel like the ball was moving a few miles per hour slower for me than it was for other people on OJ, just because I was like, we've had the Ezra documentary. I'm fairly aware of what happened. I remember where I was when I heard the verdict. I know about this case.

What? Where were you? Driving in my car in Philly. I was at the Amtrak station in prehist. Providence, Rhode Island. Oh, I was on Spring Garden Street. We didn't know each other. Oh, yes, we did. Did we? No, it was 95. We didn't know each other. Yeah, not yet. In many ways, it was the inciting incident. That's American Crime Story Season 3, actually.

It was the butterfly wind flapping in Brentwood that caused us to become friends. This I did not, I didn't remember much about it. You know what I mean? I remember some of the names. I remember Kresh, obviously. I remember Janet Reno being invoked. I kind of had a vague recollection of what Ruby Ridgewoods, but a lot of this is new to me and a lot of this about, I just wish it was given a little bit more sense of detail and a little bit more care. What are ATF's top three favorite television shows? I mean, definitely Murphy Brown's up there. For sure.

Yeah. But early seasons before she had the baby. Yeah. ATF hate successful news women having babies on television. They love madmen because tobacco. Yeah, good call. Oh, so you're just going literally by the name of the... Cheers because of alcohol. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. Okay. And then firearms... Miami Vice. The Walking Dead. Yeah, right. Okay. Yeah, so I...

We'll workshop that. I am in on Waco in the sense that I will just be watching this show until it's over. I have to see the conclusion. I want to actually really quickly, before we get into the final in or out, give me your Kitch, read. I'm impressed by Taylor Kitch in this show. He's going for it. He's going for it, and he's good.

And the thing that I didn't appreciate, basically my memory of a lot of what went down in Waco, there's the one picture of Koresh that was all over the news. And I just remember those glasses, those, like... kind of thick 70s nerd glasses. But he was, had to have been a charismatic guy. I didn't know, I mean, I didn't know he was in a band. I didn't know. I mean, to claim to be some sort of Messiah and to convince people to let you sleep with

their wives, you have to have some personal magnetism. And I think, so it's not actually Tim Riggins, like, putting on a mullet and sort of acting down. It's actually allowing him to act up in a way that he usually doesn't. There's a profile of him of Taylor Kitch and GQ that talks about how different he is from his most famous role because he's, first of all, he's Canadian. But second, he talks a mile a minute. He is not this stoic figure. And so I was very impressed in the first episode that he does have that star power that he's always had, that charisma.

But he's compelling. He's good with the long speeches and dialogue, which is necessary. So I'm in on that performance. I wish we could spend more time immersing ourselves in the way that people must have been communicating. at that time because there's a way in which you can kind of understand how a fear like this could sort of rise in the West Texas planes. Yeah. And because of a lack of social media and even the way that the ATF is sort of hearing about Branch Davidian is more like I hear these guys are selling guns at gun shows and what's up with that. And I think that there was a lot more to just to dive into with the context.

I wonder whether or not, you know, essentially this is cut. You'll see that this is really based around the raid. It's more about the raid than it is about what leads up to the raid. And so I'll be, I'm curious to see whether future episodes get into that at all, but I'm always fascinated with this era right before mass digital communication was widely available, not only for institutions, but for individuals, and what that meant for the kind of survival or creation of places like Branch to Vidio. There's a reason why these three shows that we're talking about are all drawn from events in the 90s, because they are fresh enough to.

to be in our minds, but they are distant enough, especially technologically and culturally speaking, to feel as if they're coming from another universe. We should also mention, just circle back to this cast, because it made me think one of my favorite things to fall back on is just the fact, is just that when you were making something that is genre like fantasy or sci-fi and it is extremely high nonsense, you hire Shakespearean actors. Sure. Because they can sell you on the high nonsense.

there has to be some American corollary where you... Just hire Deadwood actors? Yes, yes, to make people appear sort of grizzled or American or Southern or whatever, because these scenes that we're talking about, these boilerplate exposition scenes that exist in the pilot. And no... I was about saying no shots at Waco. That is a poorly worded phrase.

But it's pilot. I mean, even though this is drawn from the historical record, pilots are pilots, there's always going to be exposition. But to cease actors of this caliber, playing with some of this stuff is surprising, but it's not bad. They carry it off. They are compelling. Julia Garner is in this show.

Julia Garner, one of the best actors on TV from the Americans from what show? Ozark! And in this as well, I mean, she is just amazing playing this type of deeply American young person with the Ozark hair. Yeah, like, it's well done. So are you in? No. Okay. Because what they are, you expressed it better than I did.

It's right down the middle in a way that feels unfortunate. It feels like it's hitting all of the goals in terms of reminding people of a historical event, recreating it, doing it with some level of style and a high caliber of performance. Also, let's not discount the business goals here, which is making a splash for a new network entity, hanging the shingle saying we're open for business to do bigger storytelling. The ratings weren't blockbuster, but they were very, good for a new service and I imagine are growing in plus three and plus seven. It's ticked on the boxes that it needed to tick, but I think I wish that there were different boxes. Well, I'm in, but I'm in with

reservations and if you guys don't follow me on this journey, I can't really blame you. We're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors. By the way, you know who never said that? David Koresh. We're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors. And then we'll be right back to talk about Phantom Thread. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by a hotel tonight. Fun Unlike flights or other travel, hotel rates actually get cheaper at the last minute. In fact, Hotel Tonight partners with awesome hotels to help them sell their unsold rooms, which means you get amazing deals. All it takes is 10 seconds, just three taps in a swipe to book a room.

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Today's episode of The Watch is also brought to you by Proper Cloth. Finding a dress shirt that fits is hard. Let me tell you as one, one of the homies in the 5'7 club. It's a little bit difficult, you know? What's that club like? It's just like even small shirts are long. You know what I mean? That's my plate.

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Go to propercloth.com slash watch today. Enter gift code watch to save $20 off your first shirt. Do it today. So in and out of Waco, I'm in, you're out. But let's talk about something that we're both in on. Because it's always great when we agree. It is nice. Phantom thread.

Oh, yeah. We were kind of waiting to talk about this movie. It's been, in a way, it's been outside. since before Christmas, right around Christmas? It was before, it was basically, I think it opened on Christmas. I think you saw a screening before Christmas. Yeah, but we wanted to wait until, you know, more people got a chance to see it.

Which is amazing because before it opened wide about a week ago, it did appear, and we mentioned this when we talked about the Oscar nominations, that it was DOA in terms of larger cultural conversations. Yes, that in a way that it's select, its limited release had really hindered it, and that it seemed as if award voters had not. been getting out to it. That was obviously not the case. Yeah, it got six nominations, including Best Picture, including Best Director, Obviously Best Actor.

Supporting actress for Leslie Manville? I am here to tell the world. Johnny Greenwood. That it deserves all of that. Yeah. Is this your favorite movie of the year from the limited amount of movies that you may have consumed? Not, I'm, I am, I could say, I could phrase this and say that I'm torn, but instead I am overjoyed that Get Out Lady Bird and Phantom Threat exists in the same year because I think they are all varying levels of masterpiece and totally different. I don't know if I can pick one. Recency bias would suggest Phantom Thread because I just watched it. And then I, this is how much I'd like the movie.

Sat down to watch it. Again, I wish I had seen it in a theater, but I can't live that life right now. So I watched the screener. Yeah. My wife fell asleep. No judgment on the movie, but we literally cannot stay awake at the moment due to children. I love this movie so much. I watched all the way to the end and then I watched the second half again the next night. Oh, really? loved it even more.

I think that this is some kind of a masterpiece. I think there is an argument to be made. I don't want to make that argument. Sean Fantasy would probably have my head for it. That there's a little pathway to navigate to say this might be Paul Thomas Anderson's best movie. Certainly not my favorite. Boogie Nights is always going to be everyone's favorite movie.

There Will Be Blood is just this physical punishing, overwhelming, sensual masterpiece. Yes. Yeah. But maybe it's, because this is the most focused movie that he's made. And what I found so breathtaking, and we'll talk about the specifics of the movie,

but truly breathtaking and truly inspiring is that the same filmmaker made Boogie Nights, there will be blood, and phantom threat. Because I think in our idealized version of an artist, works kind of like his career has worked, which is the youthful arrogance and excitement and energy, you know, it's just boiling over and it results in something like Magnolia,

which is this glorious, sloppy mess that I loved at the time, but I think, you know, may not have aged as well, to as you get older, to be not only become just older, but wiser and more careful with your art and more focused and be able to express things in a different calmer way. I mean, this guy is the funniest screenwriter of his generation. He could be Scorsese. I mean, or he could be Altman.

He is the heir to them in terms of just camera work and camera mastery. And he made this movie. It's exhilarating. Like it spoke to me without even mentioning the performances or the score or the subject matter, which I know we will now get into. This movie was deeply moving to me just thinking about my relationship to the filmmaker. So it was more about the wonder at the artistry of it. Did you respond to the actual text? Yes.

I think this movie is one of the most sneaky, profound, and devastating meditations on manhood and a creative life and marriage that I could possibly. imagine seeing. There is someone in my life who, just for the sake of this conversation, let's refer to as my therapist. I don't want to give anything away. Who has talked a lot about relationships being like, and he has this analogy he likes to use, like, Yiddish folk dancing where there's pushing and pulling, and it may look like...

I feel like your therapist has a lot of metaphors. Good therapists have good metaphors, man. Otherwise, do you think they'd get bored? It's all part of the dance, basically. if you're in a relationship with someone, the loving parts and the hating parts, it's all part of what you agree upon. This movie makes that subtext the text, right?

Like, it points out a central fact about any relationship, really, long-lasting relationship, that it is not all falling in love and romance and flowers. It is, there is a constant push-pull folk dance of flirtation and aggression and submission. and you have to be all in on all of it because it's all part of it. It's what happens in this movie.

It's weird to see you talk about this with a smile on your face because I love this movie. I've watched it twice. I adore it. I adore the details. I think that when he applies himself to a subject, there's just nobody I'd rather watch have a take on 1950s post-war America

or late 1960s Manhattan Beach or the Oklahoma and California of the oil booth. that he just has an eye for the textures and the depth of a situation. Everything that we were talking about with Waco, I mean, if Paul Thomas Anderson did Waco, first of all, holy shit. Yeah. But all the stuff that you're kind of curious about would be different. It would just be three-dimensional in a way that, you know, it's no fault of Waco's,

but it's just when I see things, if you imagine them going through that lens. And then I do think, though, that it's interesting to see you kind of almost delighted by it. And I am delighted. I was delighted by it. Because I think it's a movie about control, and I think it's about a movie, I think it's a movie about what we do to control people and the extent that we'll go to control people.

And that's not a- That's not a bad thing. Until it becomes a movie about submission, which is just as powerful. It appears to be a movie with Reynolds Woodcock. By the way, he is the fucking funniest writer there is. This movie is not low-key, highest-key funny. It is so funny throughout.

It's very funny. You know, I remember what. watching the master, not the master, there will be blood even, I think. I hadn't adjusted to later second half of PTA, I mean, hopefully not half, but the next period of PTA's career. And you're watching it and you're like, I think that's funny. Is this funny even? Yeah, it's funny. And it's funny. And he named the character Reynolds Woodcock. Yeah. You know, there's an incredible interview with DDL where he talks about how he and Paul just laughed and laughed and they thought they were making this funny thing. But then there was this sorrow that seeped into it on set,

which made it a richer movie. Um, I, I think it is a movie. Um, I think it is a movie. I think it is a about someone and the fallacy of control, and it's actually Alma's movie and what she gets out of it. It's not like there are heroes and villains in it, but I found the, I did find the thing delightful. I think that, and at this point, we are going to talk a little bit about the specifics of the film, but the key scene at the end where you're like, what is happening? No, my, oh my God, this can't be happening. And it is Helen Rosner at the New Yorker, great food writer wrote, I think a terrific essay saying this is one of the best, sneaky best food movies ever. At least for the ordering, yeah. The ordering, but also the cooking of the omelette

in the way it happens. You can't believe this is going to happen. And then there's the staring contest, and she already said, don't enter a staring contest with me, and you'll lose. And then he smiles, and he swallows. And he says, he swallows carefully. It's such a deliberate bite and a deliberate gesture. And it's such incredible filmmaking to make that as tense as, you know, the end of a, the March Madness or something. He feels like a sporting event watching them. And then he says, kiss me my girl before I'm sick, which is hilarious and moving and exhilarating. I think this movie has a lot of darkness in it, but I do not think it is a dark film. What's over under the amount of times that guy can eat a poison omelet before he dies?

See, I mean, that's the big question. I think that it is a dangerous, dangerous game they're playing there. But that also seems to be the point. How exact are we talking about the mushroom measurements on that thing? Well, I do think that her reliance on the textbook, which is just like looking at this thing, and she just like... She puts the whole thing in it. She eats one bite of it. Right.

So that could have gone sideways in a hurry. Right. The handsome young doctor seems relatively ineffective when it comes to reversing massive poisoning. I don't think 1950s England, they didn't have a lot going on. By the way, shouts to the Gleeson family. You know that's another Gleason? That guy is? That's Dommel Brothers, Dunault Gleason's brother.

Is it doodle? Dominal? Dominal? But go for it. Someone said, look, we can't say this dude's name. He needs to come on the watch. This dude's name is like Jack.

This dude's my favorite Lisa now because I can say his name. Yes, another one, his younger brother. Okay. That's a good look. Yeah, that guy doesn't seem like he, he's not Dr. Mark Green. You know what I mean?

Like, he's not fixing anyone. Nor is he like Dr. House or Dr. House inspired Chris Ryan, whose medical advice for all of the early odds was... Actually, he quite is like me where he's just like get some rest and put a test. towel on, yeah. From the years, 2000 to 2010, if anyone expressed any physical discomfort, young resident Chris Ryan would say, put a towel on it. And we'd be like,

temperature check. I said a warm, wet towel on the back of your neck or a cold time. Sometimes it was a cold towel. Depending on the malady. So you really were diagnosing? Depending on the malady? That's incredible. But if you were like, my girl poisoned me with an omelet, I would just be like, you should go to a doctor. Or you should get a different girl, probably. Or a different towel. What did you think about the first, three quarters of the movie when it is you know in relatively stuck in this house

I think I have a preference for this felt like a chamber piece it felt hermetically sealed in a way that I thought it's literally a note perfect movie I wouldn't remove a single block from it yeah I've got a nice one I probably have a preference especially if I probably have a preference

for the wider screen larger world PTA movies I still am trying to figure the master out for myself, not only like the movie, but how I feel about it and what it means to me. But one of the things that I loved about on HarenVice is how expansive it felt within the realm of 1960s, Los Angeles. And the same thing for There Will Be Blood

where you just get this incredible panoramic view of the West at that time. And Boogie Knights do a degree. Yeah, absolutely, and Magnolia even. This felt a little bit more like a, a two-hander, occasionally three when the old so-and-so shows up. And it's largely set in these two houses, the city house and the country house. I was fascinated by almost every single part of it from the way that Woodcock is sort of falling out of favor with the elite of Europe to, you know, what it takes to just make a wedding dress and all the panels that they have to replace when he falls into it. I think that it's almost strange because sometimes a sentence can be too complete.

And I think one of the things that I responded to so deeply about the master and about there will be blood, and to some extent, in Heard and Vice, although that was more of, I think, a love letter to the origin story or the original text of Thomas Pynchon's novel is the fact that it was so open to interpretation. And I felt like Phantom Thread did a little bit more of that work for me, where it was. It was very clearly, you know, someone throws the ball up, someone spikes it down. I have a response to that that sort of I completely get what you're saying. And it rang a little bit differently for me. I think that we, there's a mistake. There's nothing wrong with him being not opaque.

Yeah. And I think actually if he had kept making movies that were more like the master, I think he would have become a little bit more of a niche, more niche than he already is. I think that we make a mistake in cultural criticism of the last few years. we've taken the word novelistic and we use it to talk about David Simon television shows. We use it to mean literally like

Dickensian novel meaning that's the only kind of novel. It is serialized. That it is an expansive world that goes from one story beat to the next and continues and builds and builds and builds and then fills in the pieces of the world like an enormous puzzle.

What you and I have always loved and many people who love to read fiction love is you basically give not just yourself and your time, but your entire imagination over to someone else's brain. Yeah. Someone who takes you places that you would never think to go,

that makes connections that might not even make sense to you. I mean, I just finished another novel by this woman, Dana Spiotta, called Stone Arabia, which is an incredible novel about celebrity and rock and roll and memory and family. And it left me feeling, like many of her books, I don't even know what to feel. I was so shocked by the intimacy of it,

and then when it left me, I don't know where I'd been, and I've been thinking about it ever since. And those middle period PTA movies, that's what they do. I think there will be blood, the master, and inherent vice. And there are moments when you're just, what's electric about them is you are just following his muse along with him. And I don't know what the master was still. I don't know how it made me feel, how the last scene, what that showed me.

I'm wrestling with it still, which I think is worthy. This one I don't think was necessarily more clear. I just think it rang like a bell for me where he went. And this is a frequency I vibrated to. I don't know what that says about me and my particular love of fungal infusions in the morning. But yeah.

Any final notes before we take off? If this is my dude's last performance, what a way to go. Is it your favorite DDL performance? No. Well, I have never considered it. It's up there because if you listen to PTA's interviews recently, he was on Terry, he was on Bill's show, obviously,

was a great interview with Sean Fantasy also, but he was on Terry Gross this week, a great interview. And he talks about how, you know, I love the way directors talk about actors sometimes, and he says, you know, he just hasn't been handsome in movies. He hasn't been dapper or debonair. He hasn't been English in a movie since Room of the View. Yeah.

In 1986. So to give him this chance to be all those things, and then just the choices, the voices he uses, and the way he reacts to things, think how much he curses in this movie. movie. Yeah. It's super funny. Yeah. And it's supposed to be funny. I was going back to you know, I was, I was glad you asked because I was going back through. Was it Tropic Thunder? Because he's very good. A bunch of his stuff. I was just watching YouTube clips. And, you know,

for as amazing as he is and there will be blood and gangs of New York and Lincoln, I, uh, I really love those earlier Jim Sheridan movies, like the fighter and in the name of the father and of course my love foot, but especially the fighter and then the name of the father, just an incredible amount of humanism. I mean, he's just such an incredible performer. The level of, it's sort of bizarre because it's like if you only got to see LeBron play once a season, you know, and this is, this is sort of what it is. He is far and away the best actor of his generation. It's just a shame we don't have more material from him, but you do have a wide variety of choices to look at if you want to go through his filmography. I mean, Last the Mohicans is just a wild movie. I mean, Last the Mohicans is

just a wild movie. Yeah, that's incredible. He's a movie star in that movie, and he could do that. He just didn't want to do it again. There's something about this, and maybe it's because he is not transformed in the same way. He, of course, always transforms himself, and you would never think this is the same actor who played those other parts, but he is exposed in this way. You know, people talk about basketball being such an intimate game because they're

right there, and there's no helmets or gear. This was more like that for me, because Lincoln, he's playing someone whose image we all know, and he's revealing something about them. Gangs in New York and there will be blood, there's a lot of affect. It's a terrific effect, but he is just exposed in this, and it is a small story, you're right.

Yeah. But it's a small story that is elevated by this exceptional talent all around it. I love loving this movie. I mean, it makes me excited to talk about, and I feel that way about Lady Bird and get out too. Absolutely, it's a rare, awesome Oscar year where you're like, I'm really in,

I'm a genuine fan. of four or five of the movies. Do you have one at the top? Lady Bird. Lady Bird still. Yeah. One side note, I know we're going to end the show, but I forgot to mention this. Do you know who Taylor Kitch's acting coach was on Friday Night Lights?

Daniel Day Lewis. Yes. Isn't that amazing? No. Taylor Sheridan, the screenwriter of Sicario and the filmmaker of Wind River. That scans. Doesn't that make you happy? Yeah.

Like, people talk a lot of shit about these. you do if there was a Sicario 3 and DDL came out of retirement? Look, what I'm saying is you could talk a lot of shit about like the deep state and the secret society and the Illuminati but sometimes these connections behind the scenes may cause great joy. We're going to be back with you on Thursday. We're going to finish up

end of the fucking world. We'll have some other stuff for you on Thursday until then. Greenwald. Boy, just whatever you do, Branson. Today's episode of the Watch was brought to you by Hotel Tonight. Again, I cannot tell you how much I have been loving hotel tonight. It was responsible for many vacation. for me last year, you know, broken up. It's not like I just have a life of leisure. I'm always

here, recording the watch. You checked out for like three months. That's to be honest. I was just like summers here. I'm out. Hotel Tonight helps you book amazing deals at great hotels. And even though the name is Hotel Tonight, you can actually book up to 100 days in advance in top destinations and up to a week in advance everywhere else. They work with cool, top rated hotels and don't feature those long, endless lists of options that you have to scroll through. Instead, they show you a select list of the best deals at the best hotels at any given time. So start scoring amazing deals. at incredible hotels, download the Hotel Tonight app now. Today's episode of The Watch was also brought to you by Proper Cloth,

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