The Watch - Thor: Ragnarok' Starring "Cake" Blanchett (Ep. 140)

Episode Date: April 10, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald discuss Marvel’s 'Thor: Ragnarok' (2:20), Season 3 of 'Better Call Saul' (9:45), the new Netflix film ‘Win It All’ (18:40), and the season finale of ‘Crashing’ (39:15). 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. I am an editor at The Rigger.com. and joining me in the studio. He's bringing back Mumblecore. It's Andy Greenough! What a thing to go out on.

I am anti-Mumblecore. That's my vibe today. That's my vibe this week. I'm feeling positive. The NBA playoffs are almost here. You excited? Better call Saul coming back. TV's coming back in general.

Thor coming? Thor's coming. Well, Thor went. He left. Like, Earth. Or whatever dimension, Asgard is in. But he's back in our lives. I would not call myself a Thor Scholar,

so I'm excited to be sitting with one. Andy today we are going to talk briefly about Thor Rangorok. Ragnarok. Ragnar. Did you not have DeLair's Book of Norse myths? I wonder whether or not I have, is it dyslexia or laziness? I think you are just excitable. Table that for a later date.

We'll talk quickly about Better Call Saul coming back for its third season. Yeah, tonight. We're going to spend a significant chunk of time talking about a delightful new movie called Win It All, which is streaming on Netflix, directed by Joe Slewamberg, and starring Friend of the Pod. A definite friend of the pod. CC, Pod Save America. That's Jake Johnson. By the way, we're not going to spoil the movie.

We're not going to spoil the movie. Although I wouldn't call it necessarily a plot-plot-heavy film. No, we want you to see it as the point. And then we'll also talk a little bit about crashing, which ended its first season. Last night on the Home Box Office channel. Greenwald, let's do In or Out. Bottom line, are you in or you out? In or out what?

In or out, Andy. and rock. Just new trailer, first trailer, just dropped. Yeah, sweet preview. Our first look at Cake Blanchet. Cape Blanchet, cake it up, getting that art installation funding money. She's got, you know, when you're doing such incredible theater work. Sure.

When you're doing Ipsen. When you have five performances of Caucasian Chalk Circle going simultaneously in each continent. I don't even know what that means. Is that a play? Yeah, man. That's the kind of stuff that theater nerds put on. on when they have to put stuff on. Where do you get that information?

I don't want to admit my past. I mean, you know that I was a North Scholar for a while. So you're on North Scholar listservs? I'm just saying, I may have taken some theater classes. Kate Blanchett, Tessa Thompson, and most importantly, perhaps, in a big appearance from Mark Ruffalo's Hulk. Well, the CGI distillation of his essence. I think the real Mark Ruffalo was just saying no dapple somewhere.

I'm going to steal a take from Sean Fennacy, which is that it looks like they're just going to siphon off these Avengers. and just give them each to Guardians of the Galaxy movie, which is like fun, get immigrants song going. Listen, in. In, all the way in, because the reasons you just said, Guardians of the Galaxy, the sequel's coming out. I am excited for it because it is a lighthearted romp

that does not take itself seriously. And this appears to be Guardians of the Galaxy 2.5. And I think that's terrific. Tycho Watiti was the filmmaker of, I think he's a very funny, very talented guy, worked on Flight of the Concords, directed the movie. Here's the thing.

Here's the pill you have to swallow when you go back into the Marvel universe. It's going to be a lot of fun. A lot of old friends and new friends and fun actors are showing up. Cake Blanchet. Cake Blanchet. Tessa Thompson, Thompson,

Thompson, Thompson, Jeff Goldblum. But when I say this movie looks like shit, what I mean is it visually looks like shit. And it's kind of a bummer. Yeah. Because They make these movies in, you know, in the great state of Georgia, and that's not outer space.

We really have been maligning Georgia and the surrounding Atlanta suburbs. Let's go to Atlanta. Can we go on the road with this podcast? There are restaurants I like to eat there. There's culture. There's life. I love that city. Yeah.

And then do other real boots on the ground reporting about whether or not the industrial parks of Atlanta look that way. Yeah. Look, what I'm saying is there's a certain kind of in-house CG that Marvel is employing now. and they crank it out because they're making so many of these movies and it looks a certain way with a certain color palette and it looks the way they all look now. It does in a Twitter video when you look at it like that like the trailer in like in your social stream, you know?

Sure. I want to say... I'm just saying it just doesn't look visually exciting, but the trailer is punchy, it's funny. Cape Blanchett is a goddess. You were talking to a subscriber to American cinematographer magazine. So nobody is more just like get me, get me real film out here than me. But...

Terence Malik. Yes. I think that one thing I would say, and I'm in on this, like I'll go see it, basically looks like Gladiator meets Running Man, meets like an 80s revival kind of action film, like, you know, action comedy. I admire Marvel's malleability. So this is going to be what looks like a buddy comedy set on another planet where these guys have to like fight a bunch of boss-level people. That sounds like a good idea.

This is coming from the same year where, you know, not the same studio, not the Disney Marvel film studio, but like they did Logan also, which is this gritty, you know, end times Western. And while DC obviously struggles with this like, what are we, how dark should it be, how much Zach Snyder should it be, how much Christopher Nolan should it be, should we just give it all to Affleck, does Affleck want it? All this like, you know, push and pull. Marvel is able to pivot, even though they're really running this. billion dollar corporation at this point. They're able to say like, okay, you know, like people seem to want this now. Or like this worked, you know, like people liked in Civil War where you basically have a fake rivalry that then turns into a team up.

And like you can just kind of like they, for as much as they have planned out these movies through 2025 or whatever, they can still kind of adjust on the fly based on what people are responding to. So yes. To the extent that that. And it's interesting. I think you're praising the quickness. of their pivot, which I appreciate,

and I think they're smart to realize that what makes Thor interesting enough to have his own movie is pretty much that it's funny. Like, if you take this Norse mythology seriously and you start talking about like dark elves and... Yeah, what's up on Asgard? Like, that's a little bit...

Okay, that's its own thing. It's amazing they got two movies out of that. Right. But let's put them in space and have them to talk about friends from work. That's great. But you're talking about the quickness of it. The one thing that I think would be beneficial

at this point, well into the second decade of the Marvel century basically in terms of the cinema, I wish they could do a Logan. Logan is Fox. Fox owns the X-Men. And what I mean by that is

they... A Valhalla Rising with Thor. Or just be like, okay, so we give it to a director and we'll just take your time and do something else. Just do something else. And you know, you've talked quite passionately, if you can ever be passionate about a movie

about a guy with Clause, that it's basically a pretty good Western. Yeah. know. So, okay, so maybe it would be cool if there was room for that within the Marvel universe. At the moment, as long as they're going to keep playing out the string where every Marvel movie is essentially the next chapter in one larger movie, even though they are tonally different, as you're pointing out correctly. But I think that when we say we like Guardians of the Galaxy the best, or people are like, oh, Ant Man's fun. What they're pointing to

are the ones that diverge the most from that central through line, but they don't even diverge. Yeah, Black Panther will be a really incredible litmus test for this because it's cooler and because it's largely, he's talked about how it's his most personal movie in a way. And the extent to which that movie has to wind up being like, oh, we have to set up, you know, this Captain America thing. It will be fascinating to see how hands off they are with the product. That will be a really interesting test because the political reality of making that movie will have a direct impact on the artistic value of that movie.

They went way out in front of their skis in a way that I appreciate. I'm glad they did, where they were like, we will have an African-American star, predominantly African-American cast and director of this movie, before they had even contacted anyone. So then they found Ava DuVernay passed, and they gave it to Ryan Cuegler, and Ryan Cuegler was like, okay, I think coming up with the juice that he had off of Creed, was basically like, let's see how far I can push this. How serious is your commitment to this?

Right. And by all accounts, he's pushed it pretty far. But we don't know. When does that movie even coming out? Next summer? Next year? I think so. Because Thor is not until November, so.

Really? Yeah. Oh, I thought Thor was like a. summer movie. No, man. This summer is Guardians in May. Right. And then Spider-Man, which is now a co-pro from Marvel and Sony.

And then Thor. Okay. Of those three, what are you most excited for? Guardians. Okay. That'll be fun. Great. All right.

Both in on Thor. Andy, this is enter out on the third season of Better Comes Law. But I wouldn't say, like, I would be stunned if either of us were like, I'm out. But coming third season, obviously, if you, I don't really. know, like, Breaking Bad fans are very precious, so I don't want to, like, be like, of course, you can read the internet and find out about some possible appearances this year. I think they all know. I think the promotion of it has said it.

I think the end of last season gave it away. Right. I'm going to say. And so how do you, some third season, and this was obviously a show that defied, I think everybody was, like, felt warmly towards the people involved, were a little skeptical about the need for the show, then became like incredibly war, like, then

the expectations were raised for the show, I think, because people are like, oh, this is an American crime epic. When you look at it like this, it's like this. And the first few episodes of the first season were really strong. Yeah. And, and, um, introduce us to a bunch of new characters played by

great, great performance like Ray Seahorn and Michael McKeon to say, to name a few. And now it's a third season. And I think that we're starting to see, uh, the Albuquerque of Breaking Bad kind of come into a little bit of vision. I mean, I feel like going into this third season, I've not seen any of the episodes yet, it premieres tonight.

I feel kind of the way I did at the end of the second season, which is I am more impressed and respectful of the show than I am passionate about it. I think that it remains like a master class in plotting, in writing, it's certainly in direction. You know, it has inherited the DNA of Breaking Bad in that respect. There's really no other show that is as Chris. and precise as this one is. I think it has tripped up on two points. One, and we've talked about this throughout both seasons,

the intricacies of doc review in the legal field are not as interesting as the intricacies of meth cookery and the drug business. And when the show obsesses over the details over the post-it notes on the window, it's fundamentally not as interesting, even though the show does its absolute best to make it feel like it is.

The other point I would say is that I think it's almost outsmarted itself in terms of cleverness by trying to have cake and eat it too. It's essentially being two shows. And it's even teased that fact by the fact that each season, I assume tonight will be the same thing, has opened by giving us a glimpse of post-breaking Bad Saul, of life at the Cinebun. So we know that at some point they will be able to pull the trigger and give us the future and not just the past. They also have teased us throughout by being able to say, well, if this gets a little slow, we can, just breaking bad this up. We could just science this bitch up and bring back all your old friends

at any moment and make it that show. And they've walked this very precarious line by having two protagonists essentially on very different shows. The Mike show is the Breaking Bad show and the Jimmy show is this very small bore. American loser. Yeah.

Yeah, examination of an American loser and his very intricate relationship with his brother. No other show in America in 2017 could have devoted two seasons to that brotherly relationship. This is essentially like a very illustrative example of what we've been talking about probably for the last year or so, which is like, I think it becomes like a drinking game to see how much we play IP to say the words intellectual property. But the only, like you're saying, the only way they make this show, the only way AMC is like, oh yeah, sure, let's make a weird slow show that's like a dromedy about a guy who essentially is a, is a, is a. a galoof, you know, is if it's part of a blockbuster universe, relative to AMC, a blockbuster

universe that at any given point just expands that brand. But also, let's think about the fact that to make a show about adults, which is what the show has been in terms of the Jimmy storyline, it's Jimmy, a grown man with his older brother in a relationship with an established lawyer, Kim, in this case, that's basically, that's your That's your congratulations bouquet once you've won the Emmys. You cannot really walk into these networks. I'm saying it needs more Walt Jr. And say it needs more children.

That's really what the show needs. That was my favorite part about Breaking Bad. It needs all the children. Breaking Bad Babies, I feel like would be the way to do the show. Look, it feels weird because we're complaining about something, but it's like, well, it's more Breaking Bad, essentially, or it's more Vince Gilligan making TV. It's more Bob Odenkirk having fun exploring this role. There's no downside to this, but I think we are caught in a place that we maybe could have

predicted, which is we want a little bit more and we want a little bit less, and I still kind of feel on some level that it's an essential. Yeah. April's going to be crazy, man. Better Call Saul. And this is actually as good a time to mention as anything. Yeah. Better Call Saul obviously comes back Monday.

We will be checking in on that throughout the season. But I think that the next block of shows that we'll be doing will at least always touch on on leftovers we'll talk about on Mondays and Fargo will talk about on Thursdays during the Rio. Both come back next week. Both have Carrie Coon and lead roles. Both, I've seen episodes of both, both are excellent and really exciting. And I think it does none of them, I think it's a disservice to all of them, honestly, to have them all on at the same time. Because especially compared to those two, Better Call Saul feels a little bit like a retread.

I mean, Gus Fring is back. Sorry, I think people know that. And I don't love the greatest hits tour. You know what I mean? I'm sure they're going to find a clever way to do this. I've always loved that performance, but there's something about it, the prequel thing, that just rubs me the wrong way,

especially when you have a show like Leftovers, which is so radically reinvented itself and is ending on such a creative high and a show like Fargo, which literally is a new show. Every time. Yeah. Completely new cast.

And feels quite different this time from the first two seasons because, at least in the early going, there is no direct DNA connection to the storylines we'd seen before. Okay. Last in or out, I'm surprising you a little bit with this one. We didn't say if we were in or out on Saul, though.

I'm in. Yeah, it's good television. Are you out? No, I'm ampersand. Yeah, you like push the door open and then you were like, do I need a jacket? Exactly. Yeah.

I want to ask whether or not you think, this is the first time in a long time where reading about a show has been as enjoyable as actually watching it. Are you talking about Samurai Gourmet? No. No, no. I have not read that much about Samurai Gourmet, oddly. You don't read my text.

Danny wrote about it for the ringer and you text me about it and you tweet about it. I wanted to say very quickly without giving away anything that happens, that reading about Homeland, which ended its 46th season last night, is way more entertaining than watching Homeland. And I had just been like, huh. Basically, like I did the mouse going for the cheese and the maze thing where like I saw like, spoiler, Homeland, explosive finale.

And I was like, I got to click on this. And then I was like, what? Because I hadn't seen it. I hadn't watched Homeland in the second episode. and then it was like there's bots. There's like tweet bots and like the deep state. Yeah. That's don't.

Are you back in? I'm not back in. I'm back in. I'm back in on reading recaps of it. It's interesting when shows fall out of like the you must watch this conversation but are still playing in these very fertile waters of prestige television where you can just do stuff. Yeah, crazy stuff. And maybe touch on things that you wish other shows would touch on. I mean, we should get back to it.

You sound thused. But I just don't want to. I'm sorry. Why don't you care about the deep state, man? I'm not as concerned about this. I should be, perhaps. All right. In on Homeland Recaps out on Homeland.

Let's take a quick break. We'll come back and talk about Winterdall. Looking great for a wedding or a special event or a live podcast. It has never been easier with the black tucks.com. With high quality rental suits and tux delivered to your doorstep, the black tux is giving guys a new way to rent. And get this, Andy. The black tucks offers home trunk.

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The shipping is free both ways. How easy is that? To get started now, visit the Blacktucks.com slash BSPN and experience a new way to rent. That's the Blacktucks.com slash BSPN. All right, we're back, Andy, and we wanted to spend some time talking a little bit about this movie on Netflix called Win It All. Sean and I got a chance to sit down with Jay Johnson and Joe Swamberg in Texas. Yeah, can we just take a pause here about that? Yeah, how are you feeling about that?

You know, here's the thing. Jake Johnson, a wonderful person. Perhaps my favorite podcast. I don't know if you remember, but when you were on vacation a couple years ago, he just stole your seat. He just co-hosted the show at me one time. That's how good of a guest, what a good friend of this podcast he is. And I have to say, I feel a little twinge.

It made me think of, and I know you will get this reference as well. It made me think of the 2009 Adam McGoyan sexual obsession drama, Chloe. Yeah, definitely. It's always in the sort of forefront, right? Because it's basically a situation where we have a relationship, you and I, and then a third party had an affair with both of us. Does it ever feel weird that you have the most random movie references ever because you just kind of stopped watching them at some point?

So, like, if you just catch Chloe, that's, like, up there with diehard in terms of, like, how much you reference it. My counter to that is, are you saying that there have been more titillating sexual obsession dramas that have come out of Canada in the years since? I stopped going to the movies. I don't know. I think it's as fresher references ever. My point being, I have mixed feelings. I was thrilled you guys got to talk, though, and I am especially thrilled that you were able to talk about this movie.

You have full moge. Fear of Missing Out on Jake. I do have it constantly. This, okay, can I just ballpark a couple things here? When Netflix started just throwing the money around, I think one of the things that we said on this podcast was that we hoped they would start throwing it towards independent filmmakers. Sean Fantasy obviously has a big piece on The Ringer today about disruption. Yeah. You guys love disruption talk.

I feel like you're being sarcastic, but we do. Well, I'm being sarcastic about that word, but the piece is outstanding and very relevant. Yeah, and it's basically about Amazon and Netflix moving into the space that used to be Miramax, Paramount Vantage, other small. smaller independent studios and the physical space of the art house indie cinema that would stretch across the country. And you would kind of have this community of theaters and movie lovers who would word of mouth get these movies off the ground. And now it's just Netflix.

It's on 90 million screens at once. And Joe Swanberg project basically has been to just keep the cameras going. Like he's just made a ton of movies of varying budgets of varying star wattage. but I think the most exciting and fruitful collaboration has been with Jake Johnson, two Chicago guys, now they've made three or four movies together. A little bit of background on Joe Swamberg is that he's a filmmaker who's been working probably for the last, like 10 or 15 years roughly, and is made, like, is incredibly prolific. He writes, directs, he also produces other people's work.

Sometimes he appears in other people's work. His young son appears in all of them. Yeah, but has no longer going to be doing that, yeah. And he is... Is because he got an agent? His kid was like, Dad! And he started off, and he was kind of the figurehead for what was loosely termed the Mumblecore movement, which was these very talky, dryly funny, domestic kind of hipster

dramas set in New York or Chicago or wherever, where it would just sort of be like a person trying to decide what to do with their life. Largely improvised, too. Yeah, largely improvised, often shot in black and white, just very low budget. but very intriguing films and then overtime has increasingly started working with bigger budgets, bigger actors although still, I'm probably only

in like the 5 million if that range. I can't imagine it has to be less than that. So in the last couple of years he's made drinking buddies, digging for fire and the Netflix show, easy all for Netflix. And happy Christmas is another good one. And happy Christmas but you see people like Anna Kendrick and Olivia Wilde Orlando Bloom showing up in his movies

and I would say win it all is easily the best thing he's ever done and that is a compliment I'm very interested in Joe Swinberg's stuff, but this is the most lovable movie he has ever made. And a large part of that, I think, is down to the partnership he's obviously developed with Jake Johnson, which they talked a lot about in that pod. And they've got, you know, Sean called it a kind of Altman Elliott-Gould thing going, but they have a real, when you see a director and their star kind of have the same language. And co-writer, they write these pieces together. And this was obviously something that they felt very passionately about because it's. It's set in Chicago.

Jake loves playing cards. It's a big part of the movies. It's gambling. You believe him that he knows how to play cards because only someone who actually plays cards could have that many, oh my God, I can't believe I just lost faces. Yeah, I know.

You know, I feel like he's really dialed into that. It's a roller coaster. Yeah, so what did you think of the movie? I really love watching the movie. I think, to your point, it's exciting for me to see filmmaker like Joe Swanberg dip increasing number of toes into I don't want to call it mainstream movie making,

but mainstream movie structure. This, more than any of his other movies, I mean, drinking buddies, I think to this point, was his best movie. And that was a movie about a man and a woman who were work friends, and then would they be something else and what would that relationship be?

And then it was, you know, largely improvised and felt emotionally true and very engaging, but you couldn't really give a log line. You couldn't sell it on the poster, what happens. Right. This has a more conventional movie narrative. Jake Johnson is sort of a, layabout guy with a gambling problem.

An associate, I don't know what you'd call him, leaves him with a bag of money and says, don't open this bag. It leaves him with a bag. He says, don't open it. I'm going to be gone for six months. I love a bag of money movie.

It's a bag of money, and of course he gets tempted, and, of course, some hijinks and low jinks ensue. It follows arcs familiar to people from a lot of gambling movies. In a lot of ways, there's elements of rounders,

there's elements of California split, the Great Altman movie. There's, I mean, if you squint, maybe could see a little bit of the professor Mark Wahlberg opus the gambler. I know you were looking for that. I'm sure they would probably say the original gambler, but yeah.

Nope, only the recent one. Yeah. But what's nice to see is that they're doing it in a very organic way in that the things that still win, sorry to make the unintentional pun, in this movie, are the things that have always been present at Swanberg's movie,

which is a deep love of humanity and human interactions. There are almost throwaway moments that are clearly improvised and just alive in local bars with groups of friends, people doing shots, brotherly ribbing, Joe La Trulio from the state

and from Brooklyn Nine-nine is just tremendous as Jake Johnson's older brother. Yeah, Cameron Collins wrote something about the movie for The Ringer, and he, I think, talked about the comedic impulsiveness

of Swamberg's characters. And, you know, a movie like this could get awfully dark, awfully fast, and it is about addiction in some ways, and it is about self-destruction in some ways. But I think that it views

those, things as parts of life. And just like a lot of people who, and I, you know, not to trivialize it, but just like a lot of people who go through addiction issues, there are also other things happening in their life that can be, if not great, at least like bright spots. And you have to, he actually gives a very, like, rich look at one character's ups and downs. Yeah. Rather than just like the descent into madness and the possible redemption.

No, the possible redemption starts very early. That's one of the things that's different from this than other movies. And it gives that enough road to make it feel like it's really a road you could drive on. You know, we talked, you guys will hear this in two weeks, but Chris and I talked to Damon Lindeloff about leftover's season three. And we were talking about the shift from season one, which I'm still on record is not liking in seasons two and three. And he mentioned that, you know, this was a terrible thing.

He had a period of time when he went to a bunch of funerals, but it reminded him that people often laugh at funerals. And that was enough to sort of change the nature of the show in a very big way. I was thinking of that when I was watching this movie. I mean, Jake's character's addiction sponsors played by Keegan Michael Key, who is a dramatic, you can play drama, but it's also just like... And spends most of the movie busting his balls. Yeah, it's basically like you're a fucking idiot.

Yeah. There are moments between Jake Johnson and Joe La Trulio that are just so, like you're saying, effortlessly funny in the way that family members would be to each other. There is a me and Julio down by the schoolyard joke in a moment that you least expect it. It is basically like a right cross to your jaw. It's so surprising and it's so funny. It's also, and I'm curious what you think about this, I have never seen a Jos Wannberg film in a theater.

I've only watched them on iTunes or Netflix or wherever they've shown up, and I think a lot of them are available for streaming still. They're suited to it. And I don't mean that as an insult either. You know, there is something, when it all is 90 minutes. It is intimate and engaging. And it's the widest screen movie they've made in a lot of ways. But he still shot a lot of it in his actual house that he lives in.

Swanberg's wife plays Joe Trulio's wife. I mean, he's working with what he knows. It's very intimate and engaging on a small screen. It's almost like people were giving mumblecore credit or blame for pioneering a new kind of cinema. That wasn't necessarily praise 10 years ago. I would say that Swannberg deserves some credit now because I think he is making maybe more than anyone else

than I'm just throwing this out there. He is making a new kind of movie for the home screen. Yeah, I don't know. I saw it in a theater actually. This is great. Look at us. Two takes.

I saw it in Texas it's premiered South by Southwest at the Paramount which is sort of a notoriously raucous, like, you know, very like vibrant theater-going experience. Like it encourages people to clap and cheer and it definitely colors

the way you see a movie. I would say that there are parts of win at all that look incredible on a wide screen, like a big screen, like the racetrack stuff and the romantic walks through Chicago were very like, you know, I feel like they really came alive by being on a big screen. But for something that's going to be, you know, we were talking about Better Call Saul and how hard it would be to sell Better Call Saul if it wasn't part of the Breaking Bad World, if you go to somebody now and you're like, well, I want to make a movie about a love loser who needs to overcome his demons by by letting them off the leash while also having a love

story and just a family story going on. Most people would probably say no. So I love the fact that this is getting made no matter what. And the fact that it's getting such a wide distribution bounce and the fact that maybe more movies like this will get made if people find out like, wow, there's like a real audience. I mean, God only knows what the numbers actually are. And that's something that Sean sort of touches on in his piece is that we're going to have to think about different ways

to evaluate the success or failure of films, which is very healthy for them artistically, I think. I think that's a good point. Unless Netflix is using crazy weird data to be like, well, you know. But regardless of what they're using, they'll never tell us. Right. So that does change things. But we can't really play Monday morning quarterback anymore about box office receipts.

Did win it all have a successful first weekend. Everybody who's seen it seems to love it. But, you know, I don't know how many people that is because I have my Twitter bubble and you have your Twitter bubble and that's what we understand. It's like what people are watching. There's also a question of people's mindset as they approach a movie

like this if they're coming into it cold. They see it's a movie. They see it on Netflix. They turn it on. We're not going to spoil the movie. The end, the last 10 minutes are really interesting. And I don't mean that pejoratively. I think there, I've gone back and forth on a lot of it. I think that

regardless, it is true to the movie that Jake and Joe wanted to make. I also think that it feels fine for a movie that was not necessarily about high stakes rooms in Chinatown. You know, that was about these people and where they are in their lives. And specifically about a, you know, a portion of a life. Yeah. Not doing people one way or another. It's just about a portion of life.

And it could go either way. It's a summer in Chicago. It's freeing in a way because if this was made with a Hollywood budget, if this was made specifically to be released in theaters, I wonder if there would be that pressure. Yeah. Well, also, on the flip side, if it was made for specifically for award season, it may have to have a little too much Manchester by the sea for my taste. You know what I mean? It may have to be like everything falls apart and then this guy gets like a little bit out of the hole but really learns his lesson. Yeah, be careful.

What I mean is as an audience member, it's important to like be careful what we wish for. Because if we dismiss something that feels pat or easy, the alternative might actually be a lot worse. Yeah, and I think that sometimes we long for this imagined 90s movies of middlebrow movies. And I don't necessarily think, you know, that means different things to different people. For some people, it's like, I want Pacific Heights. I just want like a cool domestic thriller. Or I want a cool courtroom thriller that doesn't have to do with the end of the world. And I think what it really means is you want a multiplicity of experiences in your movie going.

You don't just want Ragnarok or Manchester by the Sea. You want to have some stuff that has... Both are about ends of worlds in a way. But you want to have something that has elements of the entertainment value of something like Thor with the quality of something like Manchester by the sea. Which for a lot of people you'd say like depends on where you are on the axis, but you'd be like, oh, that's like Ocean's 11 or that's like out of sight. You know, that's like these movies that are just like really fun to watch but also thought-provoking. Yeah, I also don't want to spoil any more of it. But I'm once again thinking of part of our conversation with Damon.

And you ask him, and we can just consider this a teaser or preview, but you asked him about some of the work he did writing for big Hollywood movies in the period right before the leftovers. Prometheus. World War Z. Yeah. Tomorrow Land. Fix up work on World War Z. I think he was maybe at least in the room for some of the Star Trek stuff.

And he talked about why he dislikes big budget stuff for the same reason we do and that it falls into these same categories. It always has to be bigger, bigger. The world always has to be threatened. That always has to be a big battle. and then he watched his fingers type those things because that is the language of big budget cinnamon now and why he prefers the type of storytelling possible on the small screen.

And so now the terms are just getting blurred. We're talking about a movie, but we're talking about it through the sort of small screen. Yeah, his stuff about Prometheus is interesting. I'm looking forward for people to hear that. Last thing, if we're talking about navigating these different, these changing terms and these blurring worlds, I got to give credit to Jake here

because he's in the mummy, the new Tom Cruise movie, juries out what that will even be, and he's been very supportive of it publicly and talking about it, but I think he's also been very honest that he does those movies. I'm sure it's fun to fight in the desert with Tom Cruise, but he does them because then he can take the bag of money and make this movie.

Yeah, the cool thing in the conversation, the talk we had with him was it's not like he started out making weird independent cinema and then realized that to keep doing that he needed to be in Jurassic and Mummy. he did improv, he did UCB or whatever, I think he's done various groups. And he got a gig on a sitcom where he's basically, like, for lack of a better description, the hot guy on a long-running network sitcom.

And so that's the world he knew. And it wasn't like he came from it. And it was like Swamberg introduced him to these ideas of self-financing, of having creative control, of finding other distribution channels, of basically doing everything yourself. and if it works, it's your reward, and if it fails, it's your loss. And it's obviously something that as a gambler, thrills Jake Johnson. You know, it's really cool to hear him talk about it because I think it speaks to his,

probably his predilection for playing a little bit with house money in general. And I think that these guys are not making to the wonder. Like, they are making, like, the movies that they want to make are about people with real jobs, doing real things with slightly, like, amplified circumstances. People who hang out with the stars of hoop dreams in bars. By the way, that's a funny little thing in the background. It's awesome. I think the only other point to say is it's also great because we like Jake so much personally,

but I also think he is a terrific actor and performer with a lot of other shades to play. And we often don't think about these choices. We talk about Colin Trevereaux can make safety not guaranteed with Jake Johnson and then Jurassic World with Jake Johnson. And Star Horse. But those are the show. But probably not with. Jake Johnson. But those are the choices for the director.

If you think about what these changes have done to the actor, like where are the opportunities for Jake to be all the things that he mainstreamed love for? He's funny. He's sardonic. You know, he can be the good-looking guy, but he plays these comedic roles, but how many notes does he get to play? Yeah, in Hollywood, in the studios, he's Steve Zon. And I love Steve Zon, but that's who he is. He's like the third guy in the movie. It's from Tom Cruise Russell Crowe, and then Jake is there to do kind of like bits. Spitz.

In Netflix, in Joe Swamberg, he's Paul fucking Newman. That's a huge difference, you know? And there are a lot of actors from, like, the last 20 years that I wish had the chance he did. Steve's on being one of them. You know what I mean? Like, who did a great job on Trameh. But, like, that was what, like, to see Jake get to do something that's, like, a classic,

like, archetypal performance, like, you would have seen when it all in the 70s. So it's really awesome that there's a place for him to do it. it now. Last thing, when I was going through the litany of some gambling movies, these are all movies that we both really like. I was reminded again as I watched

Win It All that my, the way that I watch gambling movies is a lot like, well, I don't watch horror movies, but it's like, or like Jaws movies, basically. The likelihood in the appeal of me going on the water to like go the big or go big game hunting or whatever is the same

as me going to a high stakes table. So is it I have to say, like, I have never understood a compulsion less than gambling or playing cards. Like, playing cards is super fun. But like, like, penny ante, sure. But, like, I've gone to Vegas. I've gone to Atlantic City. It makes no sense to me. Yeah.

I don't even see the appeal. One of the things that Win It All does really well and all those movies do really well is they speak to addiction culture and anyone who's ever had a few too many drinks or anything. You can feel certain things. in this movie. So that's a great work of art. But I don't get it, man. You play the tables? I think that there's very different experiences

for Blackjack and poker. This is what my... So I watched the movie with my wife and our friend Gina last night. When I gave her this spiel, I was road testing some podcast material last night. Her response was the same. Was Blackjack?

Was something that she found kind of fun? Blackjack's fun, but it's like seeing if you can fly. You know what it? And if it works out, it's probably like a unique, the only feeling in the world is that is winning at Blackjack for, like, on a run. It goes away so fast. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like you can just, that is like the ups and downs of Blackjack are so intense. They are like a drug. Yeah. Poker, I think it just requires a level of patience that I personally just like DNA-wise don't have. Right. But I know people, Sean, like people who really like just like chipping away and playing nine hours at a poker table.

And they are like, this is heaven. So I think it just really depends on the game you're playing and how you're playing. But playing poker is fun, I think. It's a fun game with friends, but there's an element. But there are people who are specifically

like playing poker with strangers and just being like, don't talk to me. I'm here to play dollar, $2 stakes like for nine, ten hours. Win at all. It's also, we should say. There's a lot of poker, but it's about gambling.

His personality is such that he's all, when he has money, he spends it all. He plays the ponies. He's playing the back room. He's a true degenerate. He wants to bet on everything. But that, you know, just in the movie, the setup is this associate is just like, here's a bag, hold it for six months, don't open it, and I'll give you $10,000. Yeah, that's a good setup.

My thought was like, that's a great deal. I was like, roll credits. Roll credits. Let's see them with $10,000. The Greenwald Gambling Academy would be an interesting experiment. I would be a terrible script doctor for a gambling movie. Let's wrap up really quickly with crashing, which ended its first season last night, with a fairly, spiritual episode, I guess,

which had always been the undercurrent of the show as an undercurrent of Pete Holmes' comedy and his podcast work is talking about his experiences with religion. But this was pretty explicitly about that. It was about people wandering off the path of their, you know, trying to re-center themselves,

get back in touch with some sort of higher power. And for Artie Lang, it means sort of adhering to the steps of a program. And he meets Natalie Morales. Friend of the pod. Yeah. And for Pete Holmes, he thinks that he's going to find his salvation by getting back together with his ex-wife.

And for his ex-wife, her salvation is maybe just getting out of all of these bad relationships that she's kind of clouded her life with. And they kind of go through a bunch of comedic hijinks to get to wherever they're going. Episode was directed by Judd Apatow. And it was an interesting end of the season because I thought, you know, this is basically two shows. I think that there is a version of this show that is about Pete Holmes' adventures in stand-up.

And it's like what it's like the minutia of busking and working warm-up and falling in with different comedians and the experiences you have with them. And then there's this other narrative, which is a more almost Swanberg-y and kind of like people at a crossroads in their life and they're trying to work it out and different elements are at play. I think I'm personally much more interested in the comedy part, which is odd because I have definitely had my fill of like thinking about comedy. but that's the show that I'm more interested in.

I'm curious which one you like more. I think you're describing as the classic Apatovian sandwich. I mean, what drew people to Judd-Apital's movies early and what has driven some people away from them has been that these are two tastes that don't always taste great together where you think about train wreck, which is hilarious for half of the movie, and then the lessons start. And then I think it's a less successful movie after that

because it's this weird, you know, hybrid of, we're being silly and there's LeBron James, but seriously, she should stop drinking. Right. I really enjoyed the show. I think it sort of came out of nowhere. Only eight episodes, I don't know how much of a footprint it made. I really enjoyed it, and I really am excited, actually,

for the chances of a second season, because during the season there was a lot of struggle to find out which one of those dogs could hunt, basically. which show was the better show. And I think that grounding the character in the sort of the personal anguish, of course, makes sense. That's TV 101. It's Movies 101.

It's not just Judd Apatow. But what you spoke to is, I think is right. I think that as a glimpse of a burgeoning, hilarious, interconnected, warm, crazy, neurotic community, which is the comedy world probably everywhere, but in this case in New York City, I thought crashing was outstanding. I think, you know, I am a Pete Holmes fan, fan of him, I like his podcast, and my favorite parts of his podcast aren't the lulls.

I really, really like how intense he is about doing self-work, about talking to his guests about like whether they're into Buddhism or self-help tapes or therapy or whatever. Like he gets into it with people. I mean, I guess that's sort of what all podcasts except this one do. We only talk about disruptive. We only talk about cake planchette. Cake planchette and the disruptors.

My first album. I'm really drawn to it, particularly because if you add funny people doing it, it can be entertaining. So I think the best parts of the show were the first half of Apatatat's funny people when they're just making jokes. I think the best parts of the show reflected Pete Holmes as sort of unique perspective as being an outcast in a dork in a way that is not common to these things. It's not that he's too punk rock. It's that he's the opposite. You know, he's a giant loaf of white bread wandering into this world. The best episode is probably the Sarah Silverman episode where he has some success and it's a very warm and fuzzy feeling.

The least successful was definitely the one after that where Leif's soon-to-be ex-wife shows up and just wants to bone him. And then he makes fun of Rachel Ray's mom. That was the one that was most hijinks 101. But the other thing is the already lying part. Yeah. I didn't know this. Right before we recorded, you told me that he had been arrested for drugs recently. Yeah, or tested positive in some.

And I reacted. I was aghast, and you asked me if I was an already lying fan because not really a stern show guy. Right. But because of podcasts, actually, I've become a huge fan of his because he is so vulnerable. Zach Mack is vibrating right now. I know. Zach loves me saying this. But like there's a podcast.

There's an episode of You Made It Weird, Pizza Podcasts, when they were on tour promoting crashing. and they recorded it at Morimoto in Philly, actually. And you can hear the waiters like delivering sizzling steak to their publicist. And it's ostensibly Artie's the guest and Judd and Peter, the interviewers. And it gets real. And it gets so real, Ardi has to get up and leave, and they don't know where he's gone. And that part of the show, like the meta-narrative of giving this guy is this big stage to have a chance, and the role he plays as a mentor on the show.

And then also realizing that he's, of course, like all of us, he's still struggling in his real life, was really gripping to me. So I'm in on this show. I hope it gets a second season. And I hope it learns, like, I mean, smart people, like smart shows do. I hope it learns from what worked best, which is let's get into it with these people and their lives. And with the backdrop of comedy, we don't need the, is the ex-wife a shrew or does she just need her own path? Like, we honestly don't need that.

Right. I think that that has, like, a shorter shelf life, too. Because, like, what do you do if you're like, well, this guy has to grow up? And then, like, at the end of every Apatow movie, they pretty much grow up. That's it. Exactly. You know what? You can do what this is 50 if you want.

But, like, I mean. Exactly. It also speaks to the limits of TV where the way you get the show made is, well, you walk in the door with Judd Apatow. But the second thing you do to get the show is you're like, in the first episode, he sees his wife screwing somebody. It was a funny name Leif. And then he has to learn to be really funny. Yeah. That's the pilot.

That's a pilot. But that's very different than the second season of a show that has a lot of runway. Speaking of Judd-Apato shows, next Monday's pod will be largely dedicated to the series finale of girls. So we'll do that. 80's off Thursday, so we'll have some grab bag of guests. Cake Blanchet, perhaps will come in and talk to me about wealth management. But until then, talk to you soon. Great job, Vranski.

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