The Watch - Why 1999 Was One of the Best Years for Movies, Plus a Conversation With Roxanne Benjamin | The Watch

Episode Date: April 26, 2019

Author Brian Raftery joins the show to talk about his new book, ‘Best. Movie. Year. Ever’ (2:59), and how 1999 became a seminal year for movies (24:31). Plus a conversation with Roxanne Benjamin, the creator of ‘Body at Brighton Rock,’ about making unique horror movies (45:30). Host: Chris Ryan Guests: Sean Fennessey, Brian Raftery, and Roxanne Benjamin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and the new Heinz mashups, mayo chup, mayo queue, mayo must, and cranch. Hey guys, thank you for listening to today's episode of The Watch, and it was a really, really fun show today. I was joined by Sean Fennacy, my buddy over here at The Ringer,

and we were joined by one of our buddies, Brian Raftery, who has a new book in stores called Best Movie Year Ever, how 1999 blew up the big screen. It's an account of some of your favorite movies from that year, and also an account of how movies were made back then

and the way they reflected the world, the Y2K mania, the Clinton administration, just the everything that was sort of going on and how it was reflected on the big screen. And it also talks about a bygone era, but also has plenty of people who are still incredibly relevant today from David Fincher, Steven Soderberg, West Anderson,

Spike Jones, tons of people. Brian did an incredible job on this book. It has the readability of a great magazine, magazine feature, but it has the depth of research and scholarship of an academic, frankly. It's just an incredible, incredible addition to your movie book library. I really cannot recommend it highly enough. So Sean and I talked to Brian, and then later in the show, I spoke with the filmmaker Roxanne Benjamin, who's one of my favorite horror movie makers out there. Roxanne has been a producer behind the scenes, making things like VHS earlier in the decade,

and then she sort of made the move to becoming a filmmaker herself, working on a couple of anthology movies like Southbound and XX. And now she has her feature Body at Brighton Rock, which is available this weekend, which is this really cool. It's kind of a survival story. It's kind of a little bit of an 80s horror vibe, but it's about a young woman who's working as a forest ranger

and essentially goes out to work one day, out in a national park, and gets lost and gets kind of too separated and comes across, as you can tell from the title, a body. and things go increasingly wrong from there. Roxanne did an amazing job at this movie. It was a really, really cool watch. And I spoke with her at this year's South by Southwest Festival, and we chatted a little bit about the making of this movie

and just the state of making horror movies in general. So it was a really cool conversation. So stay tuned for my conversations with Brian Raftery and Sean Fennacy, and then later, Roxanne Benjamin. I ain't sports to have to clear the room. 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 today is Ringer, Editor-in-Chief, Sean Fennessey. What's up? Hey, man. And our buddy, the author of Best Movie Year Ever, Brian Raftery, here to talk to us about the year in movies 1999, the year in movies 2019, and everything in between. What's up, Brian? Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for joining me, Brian. Brian, the book's been out for like a week. About a week, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you think it's better than the Mueller Report? I think it's breezy. year, I think. It really is busier. It is.

Or arguably more well-reported, too. Could be, yeah. Brian's book is this amazing account of one of the most crucial, well, actually, I'll put it in his words, the most unruly influential and unrepentantly pleasurable film year of all time. And it is both an act of deep scholarship and incredibly readable pop culture writing. And it's just great to have Brian here. We've known each other for a really long time.

The three of us have known each other for a really long time from back in our New York days. and I can think of no two people I'd rather be chatting about movies with today. I just want to get all of Brian's info. Brian's been literally reporting on movies that we care about so much for how many years now? When did you start doing this?

I think I started. I think the first interview was January 2017. Okay. So it was super quick, yeah. Who was the first interview? I think it was John August, who was one of the first people. John August and Kimberly Pierce were the first people to say hello,

or say yes, which was great. They were the first person to say hello. But yeah, they were the first people to say it, to say they do it. And then the whole reporting process is the more names you get. It's like any piece you do where it's like, the more names you can go to another person and say, hey, I've talked to Steven Soderberg, I've talked to David Fincher, and then you sort of get the sense that they're all kind of back-channeling with one another.

Yeah. And eventually, but you do need, like, you do need those people who will say yes right away, which is really great. And I think it spoke to the fact that these people were all really busy. A lot of them are making TV now, which is something we can talk about, like trying to fit in these TV production schedules to talk to these filmmakers. But I think they did all realize that this was kind of a particularly interesting year, even when they were living in. Yeah, I mean, that was one of the fascinating things. there's so many interesting themes that emerge from reading these. In some ways, it's like a series of really deeply reported features about these movies,

but they tie together to tell this story. One of the ones I think I'm sure Sean and I are most interested in is this idea of a generation of filmmakers coming of age and getting a shot. And some of them are because they have independent films that have really broken through. Some of them are because Terry Semmel at Warner Brothers. I just like you kid. and you're $60 million, making dreams come true. But this feeling that this is a point in time when really adventurous, imaginative, interesting filmmakers were getting big checks to pursue original content,

specifically because studios felt like their sequels and retreads were not getting traction in the box office. Yeah, I think that's one thing. People think of the late 90s and now we're 20 years away. It's like, oh, Titanic and LA confidential and out of sight. And it's like the late 90s was also Batman and Robin. It was the odd couple, too. It was like Lost in Space, which was not a great. I know that has a lot of fans online because I made fun of it and got beat up a little bit.

But like, there was a lot of sequels. There was a lot of TV remakes. So I think the studio executives, to their credit, I think the filmmakers had all grown up watching or reading about the easy riders, Raging Bull Generation, and want to make those kind of movies. And I think these studio executives were like, we need to make money because these are big companies, but also we want to be proud of what we're doing in some way. So I think there was both a need to a little bit of a market correction, both economically and creatively, because they were, you know, if you look at all the franchises that were kind of not doing well by the end of the 90s, like Alien was kind of losing it.

Babe 2 did not exactly build a French. Batman had tanked kind of. Like a lot of these franchises, at least one of four, we did okay, but it felt like they basically broke even on it. They were making these really, they're paying tons of money to make these sequels. And so I think everyone's kind of like, we need to do something different. And what is it's like, what's going on in the independent world? What's going on with music videos? What's going on with commercials? There was all this talent out there to pull from.

Does it feel coincidental to you that it all. reaches ahead in this exact year? Or was there actually market forces where you could sense that the person who ran Warner Brothers and the person who ran Sony and the person who ran Disney felt like there was some sort of anxiety, some angst happening around the kinds of movies they were making and why they weren't working as well? I think it's probably a little more coincidental, but it's less fun to think of it that way. Like, I do think that if you sort of look back at the 90s and the late 90s and have this

idea of, well, there's these two things going on. One is that the industries in this weird state where a lot of the creative momentum is, you know, the movies that we all loved in college and high school. which is like Pulp Fiction and Hoop Dreams and Boogie Nights and really young filmmakers. And at the same time, the idea that Century is going to end and we're all going to have this kind of big deadline in front of us. And maybe we do something kind of interesting to go out on a big note. But I do think there was, if you look at the 90s, like the New York Times Magazine did a really interesting cover story like in 97 maybe. That was like the two Hollywoods and how like, you know, it was met.

It was Ben Affleck and Tom Hanks on the cover. It's like these are these two worlds that are at odds. And it's like actually by that point, they were kind of already kind of coming together. It's like Vin Diesel was in Saving Private Ryan. And it's like these, those worlds were kind of mixing. So you can kind of see, as you watch, like, the sort of late 90s move along, the kind of movies they were making and the kind of risks that they were sometimes taking. They were definitely trying to do something new. But I think by 97, 98, when these movies were all in production at one point, people were like, we've got to make something a little bit than this.

Like, we have to get some new ideas out there and get new filmmakers. Yeah, and I think that there was a, they seem to be operating from a price point. I mean, you kind of go through each of the films that you talk about in the book. You talk a bit about the development of the screenplay, you know, um, how it may be some of these things were in turn around. Some of these things were being developed for years and years.

Then somebody takes it on and what the budget was. And I was struck by even adjusting for inflation, not the modesty of the budget, but it just felt like it was workable. And you combine that with someone like Joe Roth saying to Michael Mann,

like, is this movie going to make any money? And Michael Mann's like probably not. And Joe Roth's response is, fuck it, let's make it anyway. Doesn't seem like something, you know, we get a lot of it. No, I mean, there's not a single person at that point was like, what about shareholder value? Like, how do we brand this? Like, the insiders, you know, it's a great movie. It's one of my fair

movies that year, but it's an R-rated look at, like, the tobacco industry that unless they took some huge leaps was not going to have a sequel or a TV spin-off. And it's like, it's like, it's a really expensive movie. And it's two huge stars. And it's Russell Crow, like, when he's, you know, as you guys have talked in this show a lot about the peak of Russell Crow. It's like, that was a huge get. So sad that that's what we've talked about a lot. I think on both your shows, I heard a little bit of Russell Crowe talk. He was once a very important man. He was. He could begin. Now he's Roger Ailes. Who knows? But it's like, you know, that was a really expensive, pricey movie, and it's a giant corporation making a movie about the news organization of another corporation

and also taking on the tobacco award. I mean, like, there's so many red flags now where it's like, if you wrote this as an email as an idea, someone would be like, delete, delete, I don't want this idea should go forward. And it's like, you know, and to the extent that this would be a documentary now, but a huge like $60, $70 million feature that gives Michael Mann multiple countries to shoot in and like five or six months of shooting. I got to take Pacino to Israel. Yeah, exactly. It's like, yeah, we've got to go to Israel for a couple days of Pacino. It's like, that's a huge

expenditure right there. So that is a movie that certainly feels like the studios were like, we got to make some good movies. And we can't just make, we can't just keep making money. And I think, I do think they thought that the insider would make some money, which is a little crazy, but maybe they were like, hey, all the President's Men was a hit. Maybe this could be too, you know? What was the movie that you were most excited

to sink your teeth into once you decided to do this? I would, shut just because I really am fascinated by David Fincher. He's just an interesting filmmaker. He's an interesting guy. I'd interviewed him a couple times before for when I was at Wired. And I just, I like talking to him, even though I always feel like he's kind of quietly making fun of you, which is actually fine.

He's an incredibly smart, funny guy, and it's only when you read the transcript afterward, you're like, oh, he is witheringly smart. But I think Fight Club was like just one of those movies where it felt at the time, it just I can't believe that movie got made. I remember seeing an opening night and feeling really disturbed by it and kind of pummeled by it, but also weirdly kind of excited that it existed. And I think Eyes Wide Shut's the same thing where I think people have sort of forgotten what a cultural phenomenon that movie was before it opened. Like I worked in Time, Near Times Square. And like, this is a giant Eyes Wide Shut Billboard

over 53rd Street or whatever for like three months. It's like this movie is coming. Like this trailer was a huge deal. It was that in The Phantom Menace were the two movies that I had spent two or three years online being like, what is this movie about? What is Stanley Kubrick doing? It's, they were really kind of these interesting movies to sort of watch from a distance, which is the way we do it now online all day. But those two movies in particular, and I actually really like Eyes Wide Shut, even though it's kind of a weird, it's not a movie I love, yet I keep, if it's on, I just keep watching it and getting pulled into it. I love how in the book, different characters and different movies wind up popping up in different chapters for different reasons. Like Nicole Kidman is in Blue Room, right?

Oh yeah. Which is being directed by Sam Mendez, and it's like her come-down role, like she needed to like recalibrate after Eyes Wide Shut. And Sam Mendesie's. is making that and is kind of looking for something to do when American Beauty comes along. It's like, it's really interesting to see how those things all sort of inform one another in that way. And even Kubrick in a couple ways. And he looms over some of these filmmakers. There's that great anecdote of Paul Thomas Anderson going out to dinner with Warren Beatty before he makes magnolia.

And Coppola coming up to him and saying like, this is the time when you can make the thing you want to make because there's no expectations. Like, people will give you money because you're a success, but you're not going to be locked in. I mean, just like these little moments that I just feel like almost impossible to conceive of now. Well, it's also like you think of like Sophia Coppola, who is, you know, Mary's Spike Jones that year. So she's on the set of three kings. The camouflage shirt that David O'Russle wears during shooting, she eventually adapts for Bill Murray's character in Boston Genitalation. But she's also, she makes virgin suicides that year, or releases it a can. And she's also in The Phantom Menas very briefly.

And I think it speaks to the fact that, like, a lot of these filmmakers were friends. I mean, I would talk to someone like Alexander Payne or Kimberly Pierce or David O'Russell, and they would all say, oh, it was a photo of us, all five or six of us at some party that year. And they really were kind of a community because they were all, most of these filmmakers were kind of getting their first big shot or their first movie. I mean, like Spike Jones, Kimberly Pierce, you know, M. Night Shyamalan had made two small films, but nothing like the sixth sense. David O'Russell had made, you know, two indie movies, but this was a huge Warnerbug. And they're showing each other their movies. They're giving notes to me. Catherine Hardwick, who would go on to do 13.

She's the production designer on Three Kings. It's like a... Fincher isn't being John Malkovich. He's been very briefly. It's all my favorite cameos in that movie, yeah. I was just going to say one of the things that's most interesting to me looking back on the year and reading some of the chapters in the book

is a lot of the movies that we were told were important at that time now don't seem very important. You know, American Beauty, Chris, you just mentioned. Thinking of movies like the Green Mile. There were a lot of things that seemed prestigious, for lack of a better word. And some of the movies that maybe were underdogs

or were little misunderstood or were operating under the... this cloud of anxiety. Like, Fight Club, you write about, Eyes Wide Shut, you write about. Those are the movies that have persisted. What is that, like, what was it like to re-explore things that were best picture winners, but we know to be maybe not as successful as we thought they were?

The Green Mile was definitely a hard movie to re-watch, and I was actually, I was like, I'll re-watch it, and then I'll see where I can fit in the book, and then I re-watched it over three mornings for like an hour each. I was like, I can't do this. It was one of those things where I'm like, this in the Cider House rules were up for Best Picture. And I like a lot of people involved with both those movies,

but those were not great films. I mean, American Beauty was trickier because I saw that at a screening when I was like a young entertainment weekly whatever I was back to the order of a position I had. And I was like, this is terrible. I just didn't like it at all. I totally resented the whole idea

of the suburbs being dark. But I had to say, as much as I was dreading it, I probably rewatched it four or five times while doing this book. And the fact is, so many of the ideas in that book in that movie that we kind of made fun of, like, oh, yeah, the skeevy middle-aged guy,

or oh, yeah, the neo-Nazis are living next door in the suburbs. I'm like, those feel pretty, actually feel like sadly kind of spot on now. I also think American Beauty is a really good looking movie. And people, I remember at the time, people were kind of making fun of it.

It was like, this movie won best picture because now we have screeners. And this looks like a TV show. And I was like, I don't think it looks like a TV show. Conrad Hall shoots it really well. And I think if you look at that movie on a small screen, you do kind of see like what prestige TV would wind up looking where everything's

framed really beautifully. Yeah. I still have a lot of problems of that movie. They're mostly kind of with the performance, some of the performances. But that was the one movie where I even had friends who were like, oh, how are you going to deal with American Beauty again? I was like,

I didn't mind it quite so much. The Green Mile, though, was kind of torturous. And certainly going back and realizing, oh, yeah, election was a huge bomb. Office Space was a huge bomb. Fight Club, I forgot that that was almost for the most part, not a bomb, but it was like, Fincher and Pitts, one of their lowest grossing movies. So it is weird how in 20 years, like, some of these movies have become these cultural touchstones that when I've talked to people who were in their 20s, they just assumed that office space was like the way airplane was when we were kids.

It was a huge smash hit, because why wouldn't it be? It's been in your life for 20 years now. Everyone copied it, and there's a million Lumberg memes every day. day. But these movies fought to get attention back then, which is really kind of strange to think about it. And then they also had something that we, I don't think talk about much anymore, which is this second life of the DVD home entertainment market. And we're all of the age where we used to collect these things. I mean, we used to, I mean, Sean, especially, I know that like you have like this like amazing DVD collection that you still. It's very sad. One of the

things that exists. But it actually gave things like office space. And I can't remember the film that I was reading about last night I remember a book but maybe Lorenzo Di Bonavito was talking about Three Kings had a huge DVD yeah I knew it would do well on DVD

or something like that and so many of the films here like Office Base and like Fight Club that lived on and became basically pre-internet memes because you would just say the dialogue to your friends because they had such a long cable life

and because people just like this is one of three movies I have that's just I just put it on and it's just on a loop it does seem like that calculation to make something that could have a second life has vanished a little bit.

I completely agree. It's interesting. A lot of the movies that I think you write about so well are total dorm room classics. Some of them are because they were studio movies that didn't succeed. But then you also spend a lot of time, especially in the beginning of the writing about Sundance and festivals and this kind of like

air of anxiety that movies had where you would start to hear about them at festivals. But if you were like me, you were living in the suburbs who were like, I have no access to that whatsoever. Was it easier to reconstruct kind of the hype machine around movies and understand really what was actually happening to something like Blair Witch, for example? It was for me because I graduated from college in 99s, but I spent the last three or four years of my college life completely obsessed with A&Cool News and Dark Horizons and premiere and entertainment weekly. So I was following all these things and I had the same anxiety too where I would like, I would read an article about a movie and I would like clip it out because otherwise you're like, I got to wait five or six months still comes out. And then at the same time, I was also.

working in a video store through the 90s, so I would actually start getting like these screeners early. But I certainly, I remember that feeling like when a big movie would come out and you're like, if I don't see it now, I have to wait six months. Like I feel like that's completely gone. And I think it's unfortunate because I do think the streaming windows now, which is like the amount of time before something comes out and then it's on, you know, on whatever you watch on Netflix or Amazon is so short that I think people are like, I don't need to see that now. Whereas when a movie like three kings came out, I remember I saw it at a screening and I took my friend next week. You've got to see this movie like right now. This is insane and amazing.

you're going to love it. And I don't know if that quite... I don't know if people even see movies twice into theater anymore, unless they're like huge ten-pole films. I'll be seeing Avengers Endgame for a second time tonight. You've got a free time, that's true.

I'm curious about how... You know, obviously did tons and tons of interviews for this. As you're talking to people, without naming names, like, how many of them would you say, or there's anybody that stood out to you that was like, yeah, this was important? Like, how many of them were like, oh, it's interesting that you think about this,

because I guess it's an anniversary, but it didn't seem like any more different of a year than any other. Like, did people seem to grasp the importance of it? I think a lot of the filmmakers knew for sure, because I think a lot of the filmmakers now know, a lot of them were very young or were kind of, you know, people like Kimberly Pierce or David or Russell were not super young. They've been in the industry for a little bit or trying to make movies.

But I think a lot of people look back now and go, oh, I know that's special because that kind of year is very hard to have now. And I think they know how much Hollywood has changed. I think some of the actors, I mean, I had interviews with people where they would be looking at the list as I interviewed and they'd be like that movie was that year, that movie was that year? And I think they're kind of like,

I think Kirsten Dunst was like, wait, really? These were all in the same year? That happened on our, when Bill and I did Colin Farrell. Oh, really? You were telling about it. He's like, oh, man, that's brilliant. I love eyes wide shut. Is he? Yeah.

That makes sense. No, but I do, I think he's probably been to a few upstate New York parties like that. I think he would leave the set of Daredevil. He's got his own mask. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of them,

in a lot of these, like I said, a lot of these filmmakers really studied, I mean, people like Fincher and Kimberly Pierce and Alexander Payne, they love movies, but they're also the generation where there was all this access to Hollywood history, and it was the Easy Writers' Raging Bull Book. It was all the, this stuff was chronicled, and a lot of it happened during their lifetime.

So they were very aware of what a year can mean. They're very aware of what film history and where movies sit. And they're all really super smart. I mean, they're all still actively making stuff, and they know what the industry is like now versus 2019, you know, 1999, whatever the hell of the year the book's about. And I think they realize, now that's a huge gulf.

It doesn't feel like 20 years. It sometimes feels even further away. Yeah. What was it like writing about these sort of ephemeral aspects of 1989? So that's sort of non-movie like Y2K and the internet and the advent of the way that we communicated about all this stuff. Because I feel like you very elegantly, like sort of briefly dot-dash them at the beginning of the book and at the beginning of chapters.

But it also feels very embedded in the stories that the movies are telling too. Well, the book was actually supposed to be, I started out in 2016 wanting to do a book and then I wanted to do a book. I was sort of looking at 1999 and looking at all the events. that year, and I was like, oh, you could do one major event from each month of that year. And you could do, because people forget, like, 1999 was the year Trump talked about running for president and actually had this, like, kind of two-month-long trying it out campaign that was, like, on the cover of Newsweek, and they went on Larry King Live and stuff.

So there was that, there was Y2K, there was Columbine. There was Napster launching that year. There was the, you know, Mia Hamm and the women's, there was all these interesting events. So that's what I was thinking about writing about. So I had been researching there for, like, six to eight months. And I have all these great, like, if you guys want to borrow a bunch of, like, Circa, 1999, time magazines and see how fat and thick those magazines used to be at a certain point. And then at a certain point, this editor was like, why don't she use the movies to

view, sort of look at those things in a bigger picture. But I guess the thing, like, I could watch Y2K stuff all day. I remember it. I was fascinated by it. I was in time square on Y2K working. And I was like, well, if you're going to blow up, I guess the computers are going to go down. I guess you may as well be here.

Yeah. I was really, I mean, all that stuff, it's like, you know, like I said, I graduated college in 99. And what other year are you more like in the culture and earlier, you're, you're, you're trying to like be, you're still sort of like who you were when you're a teenager a little bit, but you're also trying to be a grown-ups. You're really trying to like embrace the news and the world around you. So I was very cognizant of all

that stuff. But it's so much fun to go back and like, I'm just going to rewatch Sopranos season one quote unquote as book research. Because why not? It started that debut that year. I should rewind. And then like five seasons later you're like, I've got to work on the book. But yeah, all that stuff's really fun. I mean, it is a culturally really interesting year. Well, it's also

a year where pop culture truly there was a one-to-one relationship between the cultural artifacts and the things that were happening in the world. That's what I think my favorite parts about the book, like Sean's alluding to, is your ability to kind of draw these parallels between whether it's our burgeoning virtual selves, I think, The Matrix, or our greater awareness of the sort of deterioration of the nuclear family and American Beauty and like the Clinton Lewinsky, and Joey Botafuko and Lorena Bobbitt and all this stuff that they're kind of trashier tabloid stuff all the way up to the world.

White House. Yeah. And the way that that's reflected in American beauty, I would imagine that you would say, no, in 2019, we are not making movies on a mass level that are very reflective of what it means to be alive right now. But I did want to talk to you a little bit about that. I mean, we're coming, this podcast is being recorded on Avengers weekend. Game of Thrones is obviously dominating me and Sean's life to some extent.

Sure, yeah. There are these, like, huge, almost deafening cultural events. but I don't know how much they're actually telling us about what it's like to be alive in 2019. I don't know. I mean, I have a weirdly sort of, I mean, I saw Avengers, I really enjoyed it, I keep up on Game of Thrones. I do think that when I think of the movies or films

that I'm kind of walking away being like, oh, rattled by what I think about life. It's like when I watched Diane this year, which is a great movie about death, or it's when I watched her smell, which is a great movie about addiction. And I was like, these very smaller personal movies. I do think if you look through the last couple of years,

There are a lot of movies, like, whether it's shoplifters or mining the gap, that I walk away from and I think about for months. But I also think about, like, I only have two people to talk to. It's like, probably you two guys. It's like, we've talked about that. Who's going to talk about first reform with me? It's like, it's a hard sell. And I do think not only with those movies back then directly, maybe unconsciously addressing all these weird hangups and issues we had, but they were so big that you could walk out of the Matrix and into your office and be like, okay, let's talk about the Matrix because we all saw it this weekend. That was great.

I mean, you have like a couple of mentions of like the kinds of post-the-the-eater. theater lobby basically conventions people were having to break down the matrix or to like shake each other back to life after Blair Witch. I mean, you write about this stuff on something, like more or less a weekly basis. You do a podcast

about movie, Sean. Like, do you feel that or do you feel like you just have to look in it a different way to get like the meaning from these movies? It's a complex question. I think it depends on where you're looking and how you're getting it. I think the point that Brian is making is right, which is that there are still lots of great movies. There's

seen maybe at a smaller rate than they are. I think that there is something missing in the concept of original. That feels like what's the Sixth Sense and the Matrix are original ideas that are still meant to be mass entertainments. And a lot of the anxiety that you hear about when you talk to filmmakers, you talk to people who work in Hollywood, is I wish we could get a new movie with a big budget that is meant to appeal to teenagers and also guys in their 40s and also moms in their 70s. And they can expand your mind and say something about the culture, but that doesn't feel iterative. And obviously the Matrix ultimately became iterative in many ways,

M-Night Shomelon became iterative. But those guys somehow got through the castle doors and got to, they got their 60 or 80 million to make the movie. And that's just not as much of an opportunity anymore. The other thing that is happening, I wonder how you feel about this, Brian. There's more places to put things now. And because of that, there is ultimately less quality control. So you have a lot of streaming platforms.

You have a lot of budgets for a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff gets made on a frequent basis, whether it's movies or TV. But inevitably, a lot of things feel a little bit less looked after. And I think one of the subtexts of your book is that the studio system in many ways was still very smart and successful in the 90s. And the concept of like getting notes and making the product better for more people does have upside. That's often the boogeyman. Did you get that sense, too, that maybe there's something lost in that system?

I think so. And I think these movies are very hard to make. And with good, I mean, David O. Russell talks a lot about, you know, people Warner Brothers did not want Three Kings to be made. And there was just tons of fights. I mean, Fight Club, I think all of interest movies tend to have an element of combative back and forth to the studio. But these were all, you know, they were, for the most part, these were smart filmmakers arguing with very smart executives. And a movie like Boys Don't Cry was like four or five years of Kimberly Pierce's life trying to make this movie and getting turned down for money. And I think eventually when you are really, when you were that determined to make something, but also you face those obstacles and you've overcome them, you're eventually what you wind up shooting and they did shoot that movie very quickly, you are ready to film.

Like, you are, like, it is absolutely like, I'm ready to make this movie. I've waited five, literally waited five years to make it, bam. And you don't really have, like, you have your own sort of built-in quality control that I think comes from having to sit on movies for a long time. And, you know, like the Matrix took years and years. It took the Watchowski's years to get Warner Bros. Yeah. But I do think, I do think, you know, I really don't mean to, you know,

begrudge modern film studio execs because I think it's very hard. But I do wonder how many modern film, you know, studio execs like go home in night and just watch it all movie. You're like, I'm going to watch the conversation because I need to feel that part of me again. I need to sort of watch a movie I love. And I don't know how much they go back and watch that or they watch like, I've got to watch ugly dolls part two, look at the script for it because we really want to get this in development. And it's like Q3, 2021 is going to be very ugly dolls. Well, it's just, I think you guys both have mentioned this in the course of this conversation too. But this is just like, I remember seeing these.

This is one of the last times that I remember going on the same movies over and over the course of a summer. Or, you know, if I loved something, I was like, I'm definitely going to go see that again. in a couple of weeks. I'll catch a matinee when I have a day off from my record store job or something like that. Just to understand them.

Like, Malcovic, I was like, I walked down. I was like, I don't even understand. There was also nothing on TV. Yeah, exactly. It's not like, oh, I can't, I got to get home to watch. There's no internet in your pocket. Yeah, and I didn't have,

internet on my pocket. So, like, these things wound up being, like, objects of obsession that I think that, even though that there are things like Thrones that we can talk about for six hours a day or Avengers, which we will talk about for weeks on end, there isn't like that office

space thing of like, man, that was, like, I wouldn't watch if what, you know, what we do in the shadows is kind of maybe a good example of, like a movie that came out a couple years ago, it was really funny, I love the show version of it. I don't know that my level of engagement with that would ever approach what office space was because there's just too much other crap. You're busier. There's a lot of other stuff. You don't have your, what we do in the shadows DVD that's just singing there like,

I'm going to put this on again because this is all I've got. Whereas the office based DVD, you're like, it's already in the player, may as well watch it again. for like the third time this year. I have as much familiarity with the DVD menu screens of these movies as I do with the movies themselves because they were exactly what you were saying, Brian. They were just sort of there. They were present at all times.

And now what's there to me is a cue. It's always a cue of what's next. I have much more familiarity with that Netflix screen or my personal direct TV queue than I do, you know, the peculiarities of a physical object. It's a very weird time. I mean, do you sense that this is an irreversible, future, you know, that this is how things will go. I realize that's kind of a vast question, but it's something we're thinking about all the time.

I don't know. I mean, I actually, right as a couple weeks ago, I read this book, which you guys have both love it too, called City of Nets, which is all about Hollywood in the 40s. And it's like one of the best concise compact discussions of Hollywood history. It's super fun. It's really gossipy, possibly apocryphal. But is the whole idea of reminding yourself like, oh, yeah, this is an industry. It's like a hundred-year-old industry plus now.

It's like, it goes through so many cycles. And people back when the Westerns were big were like, Westerns are never going to die. Musicals are never going to die. And now we have people saying, getting angling on Twitter, being like, how dare you say superhero movies will one day not be huge? And it's like, you know what? At some point, this is a very cyclical industry.

And pop culture is very cyclical. Which I don't, what's weird for me is like, I don't know where Netflix and, I mean, there's never been something like Netflix and Amazon. It's like, it's as if there's like a two planet battle in space for a million years. And all of a sudden it's like, here's these third planet showing up, like, oh, we don't know what the dynamic is. I mean, I really do think that living in LA and seeing Netflix, putting up billboards everywhere,

and taking over the space culturally and geographically, that is kind of, that's different. I mean, I don't know how you sort of recycle back into like an older sort of whatever Hollywood was 20, 40 years ago from that. It's just very, you know, and while I was working on the book, like, you know, Disney bought Fox, which is crazy. Yeah. It's like that to me is saying that if you told me three years ago, it would be like a really weird idiocracy type sort of situation. But it's becoming like a five or six company town where it used to be. much, much bigger company town. Yeah.

We're only just starting to think about the ways in which that's going to affect the movies we're watching. I mean, there was a piece, I think it was in the Hollywood Reporter yesterday, about movies on the Fox slate that Disney were basically either selling off or straight up just closing down. Yeah. And there was even like, I'm sure like a, it's just a great bit. I'm not sure if it's true of like Disney's film chief, Alan Horn being like, do they have to smoke in West Side Story? Yeah, which is just like, this is fantastic shit.

The insider 20 years ago. It's like, yeah, it's a movie. It's like, is smoking not going to exist in Disney movies? Or pretend it's actually something that people do? Yeah, I find Disney a little unnerving. I find Netflix a little unnerving. I don't like big corporations in general, and certainly I like a lot of stuff they make. So it's very weird for me.

Like, I wish I could say, yes, everything's going to bounce back and we're going to get another year where you get a movie like election, where you get like an $18, $19 million comedy that's just really brilliant and smart and plays and becomes a phenomenon years later. I don't know if that can quite happen again. There's so many factors that are pushing against it. But people do want, people do want these kind of stories. Like, it's just a lot of it has transferred to TV.

And it's not like people are like, I want really stupid stuff. It's like, they want stuff that's really challenging. It's just that sometimes they're like, I'd rather see that as a 10-hour FX miniseries than as a 95-minute movie. And then they're like, here's your unnecessary second season of it. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And a lot of these filmmakers, like I said, they're all, you know, Fincher and Soderberg and Kimberly Pierce and Eduardo Sanchez, who co-directed Blair Witch. So many these filmmakers are working in TV now.

David O. Russell was supposed to be going to Amazon. Yeah, yeah. He had a big Amazon. That was the Weinstein thing, right? Yeah, yeah. Who is the most fun person I talked to? David Fincher is really fun. Michael Mann was kind of a trip because he doesn't do a lot of interviews. Feel free to talk about this as much as you want. Oh, I love Michael Mann.

I think, you know, he's kind of, I think this is known, but he also likes to record interviews when you, which it was saying some people, more and more people do now. If you record them, they record you, George Lucas does to do that. But it was like, you know, he's. He's not someone who does a lot of interviews because he's usually off making Miami Vice and watching jumbo jets or coordinating his crazy schedule of... I don't even know how Miami...

DeA agents for fun. I got to say, Miami Vice. I mean, I know there's some pro and con Miami Vice and the Ringer General, but I love that movie. And that's like the one movie I'm like, if I could be a fly in the wall in that movie. It's like, that would be... To watch Michael Mann do that would be remarkable.

But he's... You just gave Chris all the Infinity Gems. I know, yeah. He feels so powerful. Snapping. I know what I'm in the vice room. I know what I'm in a safe space to talk about Miami. That's actually good second name for this podcast.

The Vice. Yeah. I had to really make a case to his team. Like, this will be worth his time and I really love the insider. And so, but the thing was, like they were like, well, he'd really like you to rewatch the movie first. And I was like, oh, I have, you know, I have the DVD right here. He's like, no, no, he wants you to come to a screening. So I go, this is like to almost a year and a half ago.

So I go to the Fox lot, which is always, even if you're, I'm not a Rube, like in Hollywood, I really, but it's pretty fun to go to the thing. No, man. It's super cool. Paramount and Fox in a couple of these places still have like, holy shit. And I get this is this thing called the Little Theater on Fox, which Disney has probably turned into like the Lilo and Stitch vomitory, whatever the hell they do now. I'm sure it's being turned into like, I don't know,

Bob Liger's private bathroom. The Little Theater is a great place to see a movie. Little Theater's great, yeah. And I think it's where it was part of the book history because I think Fight Club had a very tough screening there on Fox. But so I get in there, it's just me and this guy comes out. And he's like, all right, so hi, this is the, you're about to watch this.

35 millimeter print of The Insider from Michael Mann's private collection. We screened it last night to make sure, and I was like, this is insane. This is like, I'm like, sir, you are really, I am just a, I do not deserve to be here. But they're like, so, but I've been to screening rooms and like, they sat me next to this, there's a phone and a guy in the projection booth. And they're like, back in the projection booth, I don't, Randy, like, that's Randy. And if you can just stop and want to play back or reel at any time. And I was like, well, this is pretty cool.

And I was like, I think I won't need that. And then about an hour and a half to the insider, which is like a two and a half hour movie. I was like, Randy, I think I'd like to take a bathroom break. And I just, like, walked around the Fox lot for 10 minutes to walk back. And I was like, this is the most decant one. Like, if Michael Mann is trying to, like, get in my good graces about the insider, which, by the way, I was already, I was like, well done, sir. You could taste me.

And it was fun to talk to because I don't think he'd revisited this movie. I mean, in a long time. And I think, you know, I think a lot of these filmmakers, if you dig a little bit, they suddenly have, they go from being like, I don't really remember. And then they suddenly have 18 stories. So he was really interesting to talk to. He's a very smart guy. Can I ask about one of the people in the book that I thought was fascinating?

It was Lorenzo Di Bonaventura. Yeah, he was great. Who worked at Warner's and worked on Matrix, right? Did he work on other stuff there? He was, well, the three movies in the book that he worked on a lot were Iron Giant, Three Kings, and the Matrix. He also worked on Deep Blue Sea that year, which I love that movie and could not get that in the book, sadly. And then he has gone on to produce the Transformers movies and has been very successful. But what was he like?

Because I'm always curious about these sort of guys who were on the margins, but, I mean, obviously, you see their name before the movie starts. but he worked with Joel Silver to get the Matrix made. Yeah. And, you know, I'm always fascinated when a guy, like, he works on Three Kings and the Matrix, and he also made Dark of the Moon. I mean, like, which is not a, not, like,

it's not a qualitative judgment, per se, but I'm curious what kind of character he was. I've interviewed him a couple of times, too. I'm curious what your take is on him. I mean, he's exactly what you would hope. He's got a beautiful, I think he's on the Paramount Line. He's got a beautiful, like, corner office with tons of memorabilia, and he just sits down, and you just,

he's got gossip about everyone really good. He's very smart. He's a very smart guy. He's one of those guys, like, I think that generation of executives, whether it's him or Amy Pascal or a lot of other people, like, they really do, they're super smart business-wise, but they really did grow up on movies. They're movie geniuses. Yeah, they're really, yeah. And he was, you know, he was like, I think he was working on the Meg at that point. It was like a year before he came out, I was like, I really had a lot of Meg specific questions.

I didn't get to ask him. But he's, you know, I think he's proud of these films, but also, like, he's also this point now where it's like he can tell all the stories. He can talk about, you know, going to the hotel and trying to get, you know, the watchhouse. he's trying to convince Val Kilmer to play Morpheus, and Val Kilmer being like, what if the movie is all about Morpheus? And then, you know, he can tell these stories. Now he's worked with everyone.

He's got all the great sign posters. So, like, that generation of executives, I would like, I could talk to them forever. Or I could just put the recorder down and let them talk. Because they've worked, they know where all the bodies are buried, and they probably helped, you know, revive some of them later. Exactly. They're like kings.

Yeah, and he made three really difficult movies at year. The Iron Giant was like another troubled movie that the budget got cut. And really it was not doing well. And then the internet kind of, that era of internet, like Ain't a cool news, kind of helped save that movie by writing about a leaked print of it. And so he went through like every sort of iteration of the industry. But that 90s, he was definitely like one of the real big guys. And I want to talk to Joel Silver, who I saw at the Avengers premiere on Monday. Did you really?

Yes, wearing an incredibly, I don't want, it wasn't bedazzled, but a very like interesting kind of like track suit, very glittery, looking very Joel silverly. And I always wanted to be like, hey, I don't know what you yell at him. you go, Matrix Man. Like, what do you do? Like, this point go. Jill Silver, die hard. But I couldn't get him. But Lorenzo was really, really good.

Do you have any Lorenzo tales you want to show? Do you talk to him for when you did the Michael Day? I did. I was when I wrote when I wrote about Michael Bay. And I talked to him for quite a long time, like two hours. And he was wonderful. He was a million stories. He was very kind in a way that maybe a lot of those guys are not often very kind.

I mean, you're being worked in a way when you're doing an interview like that. But he was just, he was an old school Hollywood showman in a way. way. Relationships are important, but he's also comfortable telling the truth, which is like, that's what those are the best interviews. I'm curious, you know, you mentioned the Iron Giant. The Iron Giant we saw last year in a Stevens Spielberg movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which was incredibly weird and Ready Player One. And I do feel like a lot of these movies have gone on to be commodified or recontextualized in any significant way. Did you get the sense that people felt like there was like something lost with from that time or that they were kind of comfortable

with where their work had gotten to, the way it was perceived. I think some people like Mike Judge and Fincher and Edward Norton are very happy that those movies are part of the culture now. It's interesting because I talked to a couple of people who are involved with The Matrix and I was like, so what do you think of, you know, red pill culture and men's rights? And they're like, none of them had heard of it. Like, I just think I sent a couple of like articles afterwards. We're like, just see you know, this is kind of, but I don't think it was on. You ruined the Matrix.

I know. I'm sorry I ruined the Matrix for you. But I don't think, you know, I think also there, you know, a lot of these filmmakers and executives aren't on the internet all day and aren't they aren't thinking about these movies for the last 20 years the way we are we are so it's like if you say if you know it's like if you start saying well you know elections really became really popped up so and so you know people might not know that they may not be aware of its kind of its legacy though I think with election they actually are kind of aware but I think most people are I mean I think is why I got as many people as I did because like who wouldn't want to talk

about I mean these are underdogs movies were underdog stories election is an underdog story it's like the accounts differ from everyone I talk to but at least some of the some people really felt that movie was going to go direct a video, which is crazy. I mean, it's for a movie like that, which we all, I think, it is absolutely my favorite movie that year. Election is. Election is, yeah. I mean, it's a tough list to make, but I really do think that that movie is kind of like, I don't know what you would change from it now. I watch it.

I'm like, this is kind of a perfect movie. But, you know, these were all like, these films are all challenges. So when you're talking to people about, like, their greatest, their greatest victory, that's what Fight Club kind of is. I mean, you know, it's like, it was really, Fincher was really beat up in the industry. And people thought that movie was dangerous. and now it's like, who doesn't know? Not just even the idea of making a dangerous movie now. It's almost kind of surprising.

I do want to end with one note that's probably of only interest to like the three of us and like 19 other people working. Miami Vice. One of the things that I know from talking to you over the course of writing this book, but you can also feel it in the book is that it's a subtle love letter to a certain era of movie media and popular culture journalism. Yeah. And all these things that I think that you and me and Sean,

and Andy grew up on movie line premiere. Oh, movie line, yeah. The news and notes, like movie news thing that would be in the Sunday Inquirer. Oh, absolutely, yeah. And they would just sort of mention like, Tom Hanks is making a league of their own. And you know, like, and you would just be like, well, I'm going to take that piece of information and think about it for three months now. Yeah. I remember Army Archer on E.

Oh, yeah, yeah. All the time and feeling like that guy has a lot of information I need. I miss that area. Can you tell me a little bit about that part of the research for the books? Outside of the interviews, I know that you did a lot of reading of stuff that may not be digitized. This last moment of magazine movie journalism before everything kind of moves online. And we all went through very many iterations of how do we get this magazine on the website? And now that's obviously over and done with.

but there's a real affection for old entertainment weekly, old movie line, old premiere. Can you talk a little bit about the physical media that you encounter making this book? I have a lot of it. I mean, but it's also, it's very first. Does anybody want to buy this? Yeah, I have the Wild Law List Cinescape or whatever. We have a lot of star logs that I don't think I'm going to be rereading. But like, you know, stuff like Entertainment Weekly.

Like I started, you know, I left college. I had two weeks and I started Entertainment Weekly June 1, 1999. Like, that was my first job. And to me, that's like, there's this famous Simpsons where, like, Bart goes to the Mad magazine office and he's like he closes the door and he realized that it's basically just like living in Mad Magazine. And I loved Entertainment Weekly and I went to work there. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm surrounded by all these like brilliant people. And all they want to do all day is talk about movies and TV and music. And I think I grew up reading that. That's how I learned

about Hollywood. There was, I mean, I again, ain't in cool news and all those sites came around when I was a little older. But I had the same experience of like my mom was one of the first people to get premier magazine. We had the first issue. We had the entire, we got it for like 15 years. And I would just get it. And I would almost sneak it from the mail before she could read it. And I would just be like, wow,

Lorenzo's oil, what's this going to be like? But you would read all this previews and you're like, I got to get my calendar out because like, I don't know what Benny and June's going to be about.

But man, look at this. This onset report makes this out amazing. But I do kind of miss like Johnny Deft's best work. Yeah, I mean, now movies are sold.

It's like, it's like constant updates online. And we all know the stars use Instagram and they tweet out on set stuff. And I do kind of miss the whole idea of like it just kind of came in three phases like you heard it might happen. They were announced what's going to happen and it's happening and you're like, I got to go see

this movie. And I miss that and I love having, and a lot of these articles are not up, the Premier Magazine is not online, which is a real shame. A lot of the archives, a lot of EW's archives are a little messy and glitchy and stuff like movie line, which I was like, oh yeah, movie line. I have a bunch of those too. And they're all really, I think the actors back then, the filmmakers were like, I'm going to give this interview and I'm going to say whatever I want because how bad can it get?

It'll be on the newsstands for a week or a month and then people will forget about it. A lot of the writing was pugnacious or it was like it had a lot of voice to it. Yeah. They were not afraid to like get in the fights with the people they were writing about. And, you know, I think a lot of coverage now is like, well, Chris Hemsworth says that this one's going to be the best one yet. So guess what guys? Our headline is, this is the best one yet. It's like, well, let's have a little more skepticism, please, you know.

Anything else for you? I just think you'd be insane not to buy Brian's book if you listen to this podcast. Like it's just so obvious that you would enjoy it. So if you're not aware of it, you should definitely get it best. Well, I appreciate it. I listen to your podcast a lot while I was writing this. and it was so fun to listen to all these shows, people actually talking about movies,

because I was like, do people still care about movies? Wait a minute. They do. They really do, though. That's been the fun thing about this book is like, oh yeah, people still love new movies and old movies. It's like it was great to listen to those on my long, lonely walks after reading movie line all morning

and watching the commentary track for the Green Mile and suffering. Well, you should be really proud of what you did here, man. Best movie year ever, Brian Raftery. You can get it on Amazon and get it in bookstores. You can get it at B. Dalton's. The 90s throwback. Brian, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, guys.

Let's just take a quick break to hear from our sponsors, and when we come back, you'll hear my conversation with the filmmaker, Roxanne Benjamin. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Philo. Say goodbye to expensive TV bills and horrible customer service with Philo. Philo is a new way to watch all the TV you love. Philo is the cheapest way to watch over 50 of your favorite channels

like Discovery, Hallmark, HGTV, Food Network, AMC VH1, Nickelodeon Lifetime, and more. Never miss a minute of the daily show. Catch SpongeBob and Paw Patrol for the kids, plus tons of classic shows and movies. Enjoy live and on-demand TV plus unlimited recording for only $20 a month and never miss a minute of the shows you love. Philo is great for watching TV from your TV, phone, or computer, whenever you want. There's never been a better deal on cord-free, commitment-free, hassle-free TV.

Philo is available on Roku iOS, Fire TV, Android TV, and Apple TV to start your free trial. Visit philo.tv slash the watch. That's p-h-i-l-o.tTV slash the watch. If you go now, you'll get 15% off the first month. Roxanne Benjamin, thank you so much for coming on the watch. I've been, like, a huge fan of your stuff, Southbound, and, like, I love Southbound. My wife and I, like, it's become, like, a rewatchable in my house with my wife and I. It's like, we check it out, like, once every, like,

18 months or so. That's awesome. Which is like the best kind of thing with these movies because you can kind of live with them. And I think I think body is like that too. You know, I think people are going to go back and have fun with this. Oh, that's great to hear. For years to come. Like, I imagine you're somebody who has a lot of stuff like percolating at any given time. So what was it about this idea and the story that you were like, okay, let's go. I want to go with this. I want to pursue this. Well, it was kind of an idea I was kicking around for a while because I was working in a park. Okay.

And, you know, a lot of the, it's like part-time retirees and, like, students. And, you know, it's not like you're trained in some hardcore way to work it, you know. And it is an actual thing of, like, when bodies are found in a park, that you have to stay with the body until, like, a coroner can get there and determine that there isn't any foul play involved in any way. So that idea just stuck with me of, like, God, what would you do? do. Okay, so let's back up. You were working at a park when? Uh, like two, three years ago. Oh, wow. And so like, is it in the like mild amount of training that you get where they're like, FYI, this can happen? Well, it's like the people who generally are out doing that, there are actual park rangers. And then there's, I mean, there's people who are like trained in, you know,

EMT type stuff. But like, then there's also just, you know, the rest of us who are like hitting out pamphlets and telling you where the bathroom is. So, um, there's definitely like a divide there. but it's still like you're a civil employee. Like you have a civic duty to, you have to do like an oath basically. Yeah, that you're signing that like in times of like terror, both domestic and foreign that like you will be available. Yeah, that or like, you know, that like they can call on you.

And it's like jury duty. If there's like some massive emergency, like the city can call on you to come like help. Yeah. But that would be like you're passing out blankets or like water bottles or something. You're not like fighting on the. front line of like some, you know, like weird thing. So is this in California? Yeah, this is in California. So I was like, do we get like a gun? Like, what is this? And they're like, no, you're like

a museum guide. Like you don't do anything. Right. But somehow still have like national guard esk. Yeah, like in the thing that you have to sign. Like that's what it says, which is like way, it sounds way more like. How long does this oath last for? Just out of curiosity? I know. It's a very good question. Can like Trump just be like, I need the national parks? Yeah, exactly. All the like, to like carve Trumps. This is like a whole other like category of like now we're getting into like this is like a weird other like TV show of like those people and like they're getting called into like some call of duty-esque situation. But like all they know how to do is like play Fortnite. Yeah.

Okay. So this is the thing that I love about. My favorite hard movies I think start with this kind of idea where it's like you sort of start teasing out the different permutations of what is a basically like everyday kind of anxiety. or nervousness, and then it becomes like a fear, and then it becomes like this huge thing. So you start out and you have this personal experience with it. So how did you sort of come across the story that you wanted to tell, and especially the decision to make it so focused on just one character?

Well, I mean, I grew up in the woods. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania. So the woods is kind of much more. Oh, nice. It's a much more like familiar thing to me, especially with like low-budget filmmaking too, and like you don't have a lot of money for like production. value, like being out in nature

gives you a lot of production value because you have these grand vistas and like epic things that you can do that are not just like people in rooms, you know? Like that kind of thing. And I just kept focusing on this idea of like what would I do in that situation or like what would anyone who is

like not equipped that is like put into a situation where like they're told they have to deal with something? Like I immediately would be like, I'm out. See ya. Like I quit. Good luck. I'll draw you a map. and you'll see it in the morning but then okay so what if you didn't know

your way back? What do you do then? Like then you're, it's kind of the story of someone who wants to prove that they're capable of doing something that doesn't quite know

if they are or not but there's a little bit of bravado to it and then they're like I can do this and then it's like, oh wait, no, now you actually have to do it

and it's like, no, no, I don't want to do it, I'm fine. I was kidding about all that. Right. That was all smoke and mirrors and now you actually have to do it and it's like,

oh, so you're put in the situation and having to test yourself along the way. And it became, there's a way to tell this story, I think, that would be very much a straight psychological thriller. And there's a way to tell it that would be a straight horror movie. And to me, those were not the most interesting ways to tell that story because they all led to very, I don't want to say logical conclusions, but very predictable plot lines, very predictable arcs.

and what interested me was the idea of this being much more of like a almost like a Jack London-esque story of like the stuff I read in middle school or like there was this book I remember reading called Julie of the Wolves and then I feel like everyone had to read this book called Hatchet Oh I don't think I've ever heard that. See? Kyle? Yeah.

Yeah. I've mentioned this like a couple times to people like before seeing the movie like tell me if you've seen Hatchet and like a lot of people are like Oh my God, I forgot that book existed. But it like weirdly was something that like a lot of people had to read in middle school. And it's about this boy who like his plane goes down. I can't remember quite specific details of like there's something with him and his relationship with his family or his father. And he's like stuck in the woods after this plane crash and has to survive with just this hatchet that he has.

And that he has like him being tested against the elements and like discovering that he has like the ability and like the confidence. And you know, it's coming of age. Yeah. And I just wanted to tell that same kind of story that. is in a type of place that I grew up in that's for more based on a female character because I don't feel like I saw those books when I was a kid.

Yeah, absolutely not. So I imagine when you've got a movie like this and so much has to happen with this Wendy character that the casting is probably one of the most important things you're going to do. I'm sure that's the case for every movie. So at what point do you meet Karina and how did the story change

at all, once you did sort of settle, like, I think I'm going to do it with this person. Yeah. How to, and did you write any differently once you had this face and once you have like her movements and her kind of like way of handling stuff? Interestingly enough, I wrote it for Karina. Really? Yes.

Okay, can you tell me a little about? Karina doesn't really know that. I did not. Oh, that's so cool because I've never heard of her before, really. Well, she's never really acted in anything before. She's a model. Yeah. And she was in Southbound.

And, you know, most of the casting for the movies that I do is like networks of friends. and like who do we know and who's available and who do we know who knows someone who might want to do something like this? Because, you know, they're low budget things and they're all kind of like, we're all in it together. And myself and a lot of my fellow filmmakers

who are involved in like the VHS and Southbound movies, like we have like a lot of like comedy friends. Sure. You know, and that we end up putting in things. And for Southbound, through Fabian, Terese, she knew Karina. And I know Fabian, because I used to know her when I would, like,

going to Cafe Stella. Oh, that's so funny. And she used to work at this, she used to work at this restaurant right down the street from my house. Yeah. Yeah. And she's always like,

oh, I'm doing this horror movie. Susan knew her as well somehow. Susan Burke, who was my co-writer on Southbound. Right. Big in, like, the comedy scene. But Karina's not a comedian, but I feel like I'm going on a wrong track, presenting her.

But, you know, we needed someone to play the girl who was, like, not there in Southbound. Like, the girl who is all of Fabian's guilt is based upon like this character that has passed away. And she brought up Karina and said that Karina was just interested in acting, but she hadn't really acted in much before. I think she was in like one short film maybe. And so I had her in it, but she doesn't speak in the movie.

She's this presence, but she, and she has such a great presence and look on camera that I was like, I would love to use her in something. And then I was doing a reading, like a table read for this other project that I had. And one of the actresses dropped out. and I knew that she kind of lived in the area. And I was like, hey, can you come fill in and read for this character for the table read that we're doing, you know, while I'm developing this script? And she, like, and it was one of the lead characters of that script. And she, like, knocked it out of the park.

Really? Yeah, like, knocked it out of the park. And I was like, what are you doing? Like, this whole time? And, like, you didn't say anything. And she's been, like, working with an acting coach and it's what she really wants to do. And I just had no idea. Yeah.

Because, you know, she, like, has Nike campaigns in Japan. And like she has this whole other like career track as a model. And she has this like vulnerability that hasn't been like, I don't know, kind of like spoiled, I think by much of anything that's very unique, I think. And this unique mix of kind of like delicateness and strength. Yeah. That when I was thinking of the story idea, I was like she kind of is perfect for this character. Yeah. And, you know, I had to have her read for it because she.

so that my producers could see like a read on it, but I really wrote it around the idea of her being in it. That's really cool. Yeah, and it was not a hard sell either because my producers from soapbox films, Chris Allender and Dave Smith, like they're great, and they're both filmmakers themselves. And I've worked with them on a couple different things now,

so they are 100% like willing to be like, oh, yeah, sure, actresses never acted in anything, has to carry the whole film. We're in. But they, you know, after they saw her audition tape, I had her do one of the main monologues that are on the rocks. And she's just so good at it. I wanted to ask you because I feel like all movies that do predominantly outdoor shoots like this have some crazy, like, onset story of like the time, you know, we got attacked by bats or like, was there any like outdoor stuff with the shoot? One would say, yes, I think you can say that.

Are you going to start shooting like indoor dramas now? Yeah, just people talking to rooms from here on out. Yeah, I really shoot myself in the foot with that whole like, nature is my palette. We were shooting, we had an 11-day schedule to shoot this movie. Okay. Up on side of the mountain in Idol Wild, which is like 6,500 feet above sea level in between like Los Angeles and Palm Springs. And it's kind of like a mini big bear-esque type place. and a very small town, and we're hiking in and out.

Every day. Every day, like, you know, just what we can carry, basically, to get to these locations in this, like, campground and this park up there. It was around the time this, this was in, like, December of 2017. Okay. Late December of 2017. So we were like, we're going to be battling snow, and luckily it didn't snow because usually it does up there that time of year, and it never snowed on us, thank God.

But it was still like... Cold. Yeah, down in the 30s at night. And it's so funny because in the movie, it looks like sunny, you know, summer, and she's hanging up these frostbite warning things and, like, putting on this jacket. And I just want to, like, have subtitles under it that just say, it is freezing. Trust me. It was cold, by the way. Yeah.

Like, you can see your breath when you walk outside. It just doesn't look like it. But there was a lot of wildfires happening at the time. And the big thing with the wildfires is wind. So whenever there's heavy winds, they shut down all the power, like, preemptively. to stop like potential power lines going down and causing wildfires, which is a major, major concern up there.

And we got stuck in a windstorm that they literally created a new category for. Yeah. Are you serious? Purple. Color purple. Code purple. Oh, man.

Windstorm, which is like the new level of windstorm that did not exist before we were shooting, but existed while we were shooting. Did any of the stuff get damaged while you were up there? Yes. One of our pop-ups went over. part of it went through my DIT's car. Like, it was crazy.

Like, trees were coming down. The firemen had to come up and get our propane tank, propane heaters down off the side of the mountain. They shut the power down in the entire town. The entire town was without power. Yes. For two days. No power in the entire town.

Like, nothing. So you can't run generators because it's a fire risk. So our 11 day, ridiculously short, 11-day schedule turned into a nine-and-a-half-day schedule. Wow. Yeah. Wow. And like all of those scenes where you see Karina like walking through the meadow where it's

supposed to be idyllic, like before things go horribly awry. Yeah. It's just like wind whipping around everywhere. And all through her dance sequence, you can see it too. Like the trees are whipping around and stuff. So we got stuck with like a day and a half where we just couldn't shoot. And we ended up shooting like a lot of the interior tent stuff like inside the nature center. Sure.

We just set the tent up in there and we were like, well, we'll try it. We'll just see what this way. Yeah, we'll just see what this does. So before you came in here, you were talking a little bit about being down in Atlanta and working on Creep Show. How has that been going? I just wanted to ask before. Oh, it's lovely.

Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Greg Nicotero is the showrunner. Yeah. And shutters the network. And it's, it's been great. You know, we have a Pittsburgh connection because I went to Carnegie Mellon.

Right. I grew up north of Pittsburgh and he's a Pittsburgh guy. And, you know, he worked on all of Romero's original movies from growing up there. So, yeah, we bonded over our Pittsburgh roots. And it's like an anthology style, so you're doing one and other people were doing the other ones. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, there's a bunch of different directors on it, and it's, you know, based on the original creep show, anthology, but it's a, yeah, as a TV show with different directors. And myself and David Bruckner were both there at the

same time shooting, which is great. A while back, yeah, for the original, yeah. Which is great because we've worked together so many times, Dave and I. And so it was like being back on, like, Southbound or VHS. Right. That's amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming by. Body of Brighton Rock is just like a really, really cool movie. I hope people check out.

And we'll have to be on again. Yeah, I'd love to. Thanks. Thank you. Today's episode of The Watch was brought to you by Philo. Philo has over 50 of your favorite channels like Science Channel Hallmark, HGTV, AMC, MTV, Lifetime and More. Enjoy Live and On Demand TV plus unlimited recording for only $20 a month with no contract needed.

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