Hey, it's Bill Simmons from The Ringer wanted to tell you about our newest podcast that is exclusive to Spotify and it's called The Hotest Take. These are short podcasts. These are gonna be like seven to nine minutes, multiple times per week. It's one take, sweet potatoes are bullshit.
You're gonna get takes like that. You're gonna get takes about sports. If Cliff Kingsbury looked like Brad Childress, he would never work again. Pop culture, you're gonna hear from me.
I'm alone, is that a Christmas movie? This is an interesting take because the name of the show is The Hotest Take on the worst take. You're gonna hear from Ryan Rassillo, Mallory Rubin, Jason Katesione, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennacy, Shea Serrano, my buddy House, and many more Ringer staffers and friends of The Ringer Family, some celebrities. It's gonna be exclusive on Spotify, multiple times per week, coming September 16th from The Ringer Podcast Network.
I'm Sean Fennacy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the big picture of a conversation show about the Oscars and also a chapter two. Later in the show, I will be having a conversation with the director, Annie Misketty.
He is the director of A Chapter Two and then later I'll be talking to our pal Jason Katesione about what works maybe what didn't work about A Chapter Two, which is the biggest movie of the weekend. But this being the Oscar show, we are of course talking about movies that may or may not contend for Oscars. Just before we get began recording, we were discussing the Venice Film Festival's winner of the Golden Lion and that movie, of course, Amanda, is called Joker. Now Joker is, for those of you who have been sleeping under a rock, Todd Phillips is, I guess you just described it aptly as a remake of Taxi Driver, but with the Joker, we think that's what that movie is going to be.
Neither you nor I have seen it. Correct. And until we see it, I think it's gonna be difficult for us to weigh in specifically on whether it's a problematic movie, whether it's a wonderful movie. I don't know.
I'll say just candidly, I'm looking forward to it, though. I think we've cited on the show Handful Times that we're not looking forward to the discourse around the movie that... We don't have to look for it. It's already here.
It's here. I'm not really a part of it. And I said that I would not be a part of it. I continue to not be, in part because as you said, we haven't seen it.
Yes. We're only citing it here because the idea of Joker entering the Oscar race, I think, is significant. I noted this over the weekend, but just four of the previous 40 goldine winners have gone on to become Best Picture nominees, two of those four have come in the past few years. Those movies are the Shape of Water and Roam up, both of which were, if not major favorite, significant contenders.
So it's possible that as these things evolve, maybe Venice is evolving into perhaps a bellwether for the Academy. It's very hard to say because in addition to Joker being acknowledged, they also acknowledged Roman Polanski's new film, An Officer in a Spy, which won the Silver Lion. And it's notable that the Academy expelled Roman Polanski last year from the Academy. So do you think that a festival like Venice, which you and I discussed a couple of weeks ago as we previewed this season, has the chance to significantly influence where we're going this season?
I think that's a complicated question. In the sense that you and I are having this conversation now and a bunch of people lost their minds on Twitter this weekend about Joker winning the Golden Lion. I think that happened on Saturday afternoon, PSD, and you just watched all the tweets roll in and everyone being like, Oh shit, Oscar races change. I'm like fam, it is early September, calm down.
But that is the nature of the Oscar race at this point. It's like a bunch of people just hitting that retweet button and being like game changer. So I guess it's a game changer. I also saw there was instant hand-rinking of being like, Venice is responding to the discourse and they are saying, No, you will not shame us.
We will not be able to correct, which is like, they're not at all. It's Venice. It's just like a bunch of people taking boats around and being like, we're having a nice international time. I promise you that Lucretia Martel, who was the president of the jury this year, did not read your tweets and doesn't care.
So to the extent that all of this, why are you laughing? You're just like, you're really feeling it right now and it's great. Lucretia Martel was just chilling in a boat somewhere. That's what you're saying.
She was in a gondola. I hope she had a great time. We're watching Hangover 3. She's your youngest director.
She deserves it. I hope she got some time on a plaza somewhere with an apparently because that's what you got to do when you go to Venice. It's not read stupid people's tweets about what Joker reflects about the 21st century masculinity or whatever. She doesn't care.
They don't care. So in that sense, no. But in the sense that we are in a prison of our own making and all of the Oscar discourses now because of people reacting and just kind of shouting each other across the void. I mean, I just did a monologue about it.
I guess. You're participating. Of course you're participating. We say we're not going to and then we do.
I think you definitely put your finger on something very smart though, which is that the reactionary nature of certain movies or at least the way they perceive to be reactionary invariably influences the races. You know, the green book conversation happened in part because there was at least the expectation that older members of the academy did not want to be told what they could or could not like. Now, Joker is not exactly the same as green book. Even though we haven't seen Joker, I feel pretty safe in my assumption that they don't have the same posture, let's say.
But I do think that there is a chance that a movie like this could sneak its way in because of what you're saying, because there is this sort of like, don't tell me what kind of a movie I'm allowed to like and not like. I'm not totally sure. Todd Phillips is not necessarily historically known as a awards filmmaker. And Joaquin Phoenix is a bit of a circuitous personality in the world.
You know, he's not the kind of person who I think is going to go to 100 after parties and kiss babies to get his face. And kiss babies to get his nomination, despite the fact that he's understood to be master of his craft, etc. We'll have to just wait and see. You know, we're not far away from seeing this movie.
The only thing I would say, flip side of that, is that it would be so Oscars for them to finally recognize like a superhero genre with this movie that is a remake of an anod to all the seventies movies that these these academy jokers grew up on. I don't think that that would be a fair recognition of what the superhero genre is in the industry and I don't think that would be a fair recognition of this movie, which I haven't even seen. But you can see, you can see them doing it. The one thing I'll say is though, there's one thing working for and one thing working against it.
The one thing working for it is the sort of like elevated seventies thing that you're mentioning, which gives it perhaps a measure of credibility in some people's minds. The flip side is this character has already been celebrated by the academy. He's already won for playing this character. So we know that the academy is maybe more open to the idea of a chaos agent in its mix.
You know what I'm saying? Yes, but the academy recognizes like the king of England in a character like every three years. So that doesn't really matter. Okay.
The one thing we can say about Joker is that it's clear that he is this week's winner of Is He Running? Because Joker is running. It is clear that the Joker is here to stay for the Oscars conversation. So we'll get into him more.
I suspect that we'll do a little bit of a deep dive on the show in October. I want to ask you about the article, the, because it's very clearly titled Joker and calling, I mean, I understand that the Joker is the character, but I think they're also trying to do something by not having him be the Joker. It's a word like, because also he's a Joker. Because we're all jokers.
Right. So the collective Joker. But I guess when I'm asking you, I want to set some intention for our Oscar season. Are we going to call him the Joker or are we just going to call him Joker?
Can we just see the movie and find out for us? Because what if he's not the canonical Joker? Okay. Your editor brain is working well on this Monday morning.
We'll just have to wait and see because it's completely plausible that this is not operating in the traditional Batman mythology. And so thus, it's just a reference to how all leaders and men with power are the jokers of the world. Listen, I'm just trying to respect the film and the filmmakers and engage with the text. People don't think that I'm going to do that with movie, but I am.
Well, we appreciate your candor, openness and insight. Sure. Let's talk about the big picture's big picture. And that is the Toronto International Film Festival Reactions.
This is a problem in the big picture. Do you know what I mean? So a bunch of films they viewed this week, neither you nor I were there. We're doing a little bit of tea leaf reading.
And the thing to consider here is that I don't think that necessarily what critics think about movies that premiere TIFF matters significantly to the Oscars. They matter significantly to the way the movies are received in the world because these are the people with the loudest bull horn at the moment. But if you look back at the history of, especially the recent history of TIFF, movies like Green Book winning the Audience Award, those movies were not rapturously received by critics. Some critics like them.
In fact, you and I upon first you and kind of like that movie. But this will be an interesting test case because some movies that I saw tell you right premiere there, but for the most part, there's a bunch of new stuff that took place in this first weekend of TIFF. The one that stuck out to me the most by far was the reaction to JoJo Rabbit, which is like a YTD's new movie. What did you make of the way that the, I would say that the ranks were a bit split on this one?
I did not see them split as people trying to, I guess people are not trying that hard to couch their negative reaction to it. Yeah, so let's, I love that. Let's discuss how people who want to like something entering it then negotiate the fact that they did not like it publicly. Well, there was a group of people who wanted to like it in the sense that Tag YTD is a direct with a lot of people like and you're trying to keep the festival narrative going.
And also frankly, probably want to be invited back. And then I don't really want to get into the whole embargo kerfuffle of, we're skipping that. No thanks. Do your job as best you can.
It's a privilege to do it. Exactly. But there were those people who were trying to keep an open mind about it. And then there are like the enfantaribles of Twitter who were just like, no.
And you know, making a scene their own way. Everybody's playing their part. But it seems putting those two together and kind of triangulating. It seems like maybe it doesn't totally come together.
Yeah, there seems to be at best a mixed response. And I think you're right that underneath that mixed inness, there was something sour and frustrated and disappointed going on in a lot of times. And it's probably because in part, this movie, which has been deemed a quote unquote anti hate satire is a little bit tricky to pull off. I saw a lot of Western interesting comparisons, a lot of grand group, best hotel comparisons.
There's something whimsical and I don't maybe it may be a bit feet about it in a way. You know, there's something kind of like delicate in the way that Tyka's trying to tell this story that if it doesn't work, it's really not going to work. And it's a bit of a risk. And so, you know, months and months ago, a movie like this was had for Oscars.
To me, it's possible. And I did read a handful of the sort of awards watcher, Scott Von Berg, in particular, the reporter noted that while critics didn't necessarily love the movie, the audience did. And I wonder if this is the kind of movie that can thrive with audiences, but not with critics, which, you know, we mentioned Green Book previously that that happens. And three billboards won the Toronto audience were the year before that.
It does happen. It just seems like we knew this movie was a bit of a high wire act. I mean, the trailer is available and it does have that jokey, kind of lighthearted vibe with Nazis running around and is a main character in it. So that other works, or it doesn't.
And we don't actually get that many movies where it's like, well, we tried something and it just did not work. And that happens. That's valid. And I'm curious to see.
I'm curious to see it again. I'm seeing it. I am too. It comes out October 18th.
We'll be talking about a lot more on this show. I found it to be an interesting flashpoint though for the exacting that you identified, which is that all weekend people are rapturously receiving marriage story and waves. And my name is Dola Mite. And there's so much positivity coming out of these festivals.
And we talked about that high last week that you inevitably have when you experienced something for the first time quote unquote. And for some of the comments, say this didn't work, usually means it really didn't work for them. So keep a close watch on JoJo Rabbit. Couple of other films that premiered there.
Beautiful day in the neighborhood. We got confirmation that Tom Hanks is a supporting actor in this category. And that this is the story of Tom Joon-O's character coming to grips with some personal issues. So it is, as you mentioned last week, a journalist movie.
Otherwise, though, it did get a lot of love and it got a lot of appreciation for Mariel Heller, the director of the film who last year made. Can you forgive me? And is considered to be a very unflashy, but very empathetic filmmaker. So I think it feels safe to say Tom Hanks will be in our life for the next six months.
That seems correct. I'd like to thank everyone who all of the kind Canadians who lived up to this stereotype and wrote to let us know that Mr. Rogers was a big deal in Canada. We apologize.
Well, everyone was so nice. There was no one being like you idiot. How did you not know that? So think all of you.
That's the kind of discourse that we're looking for. Should we move to Canada? Apparently also PBS was available in Canada as well. So Mr.
Rogers is a phenomenon there, which means that it certainly has some audience award appeal. I don't know, reading through the tea leaves, everyone just seemed like a warm hug of a movie. And how far does that take you in an era where everyone just needs to scream at each other about Joker for an entire weekend? On the one hand, nice can mean Green Book.
On the other hand, nice can mean. It's nice, but I don't have to think about it ever again. And so we'll have to wait and see about that one too. I'm going to go through a couple of others before we get to a big one.
Knives out Ryan Johnson's Agatha Christie update. I would say that this one actually was rapturously received. And one of the reasons why it was is because I don't think there's any energy around awards on this movie. It's just, will this be the fun thriller Mystery Romp that we were hoping for?
Sounds like it is. Can I wait? I basically I just read some tweets that were like this hilarious. I've read nothing else.
I don't want to know anything. Please don't tweet at me. I just I need to have this pure experience. It's what I'm living for in 2019.
Thank you so much. The one thing I did know that I thought was interesting was a handful of people said don't trust the trailer. This movie's better than the trailer. And I you and I liked it the trailer for that movie.
We watched the trailer recently together. We watched it to show a third person in our lives who is also a huge advocacy fan. And she was like, eh, she said, eh, she turned out she's more of a Miss Marple. I'm Eric Guilparo.
Dan O'Krag is clearly doing her kill. Anyway, nice to see a fun mainstream commercial movie with movie stars do well at a festival like this. I mentioned my name is Dola. My earlier Eddie Murphy also rapturously received.
I think that that movie probably is not likely to compete. If you similarly read the tea leaves though, it seems like a win for Netflix in terms of a quality film. I did see a lot of people use the phrase rewatchable about this movie. I will watch this movie two and three and four times, which is an interesting thing to integrate into award season because it's an Netflix movie and we'll get to sort of Netflix is standing here in a minute.
But you know, I guess I'm happy that it's good. I don't maybe Eddie Murphy is a best actor contender, but as we noted last week, the field is so crowded right now in that category. I saw a tremendous amount of it was like Eddie Murphy in caps and then and I had a nice time and that seems to me like singling out of best picture nomination. And I do think that actor and actor races are a bit easier to sit down sooner.
They kind of they do get knighted early in the season. So you would see it. I mean, people would love to have any Murphy around. The only addendum to that would be that the other thing I saw in all caps was Wesley Snipes.
Wesley Snipes is back, which I am excited about and maybe we can find a way to appreciate Wesley Snipes a little deeper on the show. Parasite Fever. Yeah. It seemed like this is the most popular movie at the festival.
And I don't yet know what to think about that because as we tut, tut a beautiful day in the neighborhood or JoJo Rabbit and we praise Parasite at the top of our lungs about what a phenomenon it is and how exciting it is. I do feel like we've seen this movie before, not the movie Parasite, but the this is the festival darling of all festival darlings and it could get left at the altar at the Oscars. We're going to have to wait and see. I'm excited for everyone to see it.
I'm excited by the prospect of a movie like this being a hit. But now it's just an expectation to get the whole thing is like a thousand people getting turned away at Toronto International Film Festival screening of a South Korean director's thriller is weird. It creates a burden that maybe a movie like this can't bear. I think that's true.
I think to expect it to win Best Picture is, as you said, it's the expectations are too high. But right now that's also really exciting, right? That we live in this moment. There's all the hand-ringing about Disney and these garbage franchise movies and things that no one goes to the theaters.
It is nice that there's still a world in which it's very small and often frustrating because everyone's just yelling at each other all the time. But then everybody wants to go see Parasite. That's great. That is like an odd business model if it's not the business model.
It's probably also Oscar, I think Parasite probably will be nominated if I said it today. I hope so. Just because you have to recognize that frenzy, winning is a different game. There's a little bit of recent precedent obviously with movies like Amor and Roma from filmmakers who are understood to be among the very best of their generation getting the love that they deserve, if not the win that they deserve.
So we'll keep a close on the parasite. You know, a couple of other things that played again, I thought for the most part, Waves was very, very, very warmly received like West Marriage Story. There was a lot of rapturous Adam Driver conversation, a lot of talk about Lord Dern. You know, to the people out there who are tweeting about marriage stories, not giving away like the most exciting parts of it.
What's going on with that? I think it is fucking crazy. I've honestly stopped reading Twitter until I see all of these movies because it's not worth it. I gave you a big speech this week about how I'm just I'm shuttering myself off, but at this point, there's nothing that anyone is going to tell me that is going to do anything other than take away from my experience.
And it's great that you got to go to festival and talk about the movies. And I'm sure it's a boost for your career and talk amongst friends, connect, share about films. That's what it's about, but like most people haven't seen it. Calm down.
Yeah, I'll be sincere. I really try hard not to give things away. That's the way that spoil the movie when talking about this stuff because I know that that can be really obnoxious. So to anybody out there who's in the biz.
Just not giving away significant highlights. I'm not even talking about spoilers. I'm just talking about things that happen in movies that people want to experience for the first time. Let's go to stock up stock down.
If it goes bust, you can make 10 to 1. Even 20 to 1 return. And it's already slowly going bust. I'll tell you one movie that was really, really, really rapture-slee-rassie.
And that movie is Hustlers. Hustlers, of course, Lorien Scafari is adaptation of Jessica Presler's story of the stripper, robbers circa 2008 in New York, the piece originally in the New York magazine. And while I think the movie is clearly going to be a hit and it's clearly going to be a flashpoint culturally, the story is J-Lo? We've got probably two more episodes about J-Lo come up this week on this show.
I have a lifetime of episodes about J-Lo in my heart, so let's just talk about it. Later this week, we'll do a bit of a career arc dissection of J-Lo, the actress. But J-Lo, the movie star slash Academy Awards contender, is an interesting thing to arrive at our doorstep. I just want to put this image in your head, which is Alex Rodriguez managing J-Lo's Oscar campaign.
And just being the cinematographer, are you familiar with the body of work that A-ROT has already created, interviewed to Jennifer Lopez? The thing is, I know all about their Instagram presence. I know all about his own story. Have you watched the birthday video, the 10 minute birthday video in which he presents her with a Porsche for her 50th birthday?
I haven't seen it. And she's like, I haven't driven a car in 25 years. Sounds like a scene at a hustler's. It's 10 minutes.
He's practicing the arrival the first time out. It's so good. It's really. And then they just drive around for two minutes.
Here's a counterpoint. Bobby, what do we know about Alex Rodriguez when the spotlight is on a big moment? He doesn't perform? Exactly.
So this is dangerous territory. He just has to be standing next to her. That's like ultimately, there's no pressure on him, except just to stand there. He's been very good at it so far.
And also, JLo and Air Ride on the Oscar circuit is amazing. That's money in the bank. People want to see that. We're going to get a little bit more into JLo and just a minute before we do.
The thing about Stock Up Stock Down is there is some down. JLo's up. The down is, I think maybe Netflix and Amazon. It does feel like the trend of the festivals, defying these major streamers and the films that they bring to the festivals.
It's starting to die down. But if somebody noticed over the weekend, a very intrepid reporter pointed out that Scotiabank's Cinemplex, which is a 14 screen, huge movie theater that shows a lot of films during TIFF, was not showing any Netflix films or any Amazon films. And a lot of other smaller films, which is very unusual. It's one of the second-century spaces where they show movies at the festival.
And it was officially because this Cineplex did not want streaming movies playing on their screens, even in a festival setting. And I think that that is still sort of the canary in the coal mine of this problem. And I wonder if even as we get closer with the Irishman and my name is Dolomite and marriage story and all these Netflix movies that want to contend, there's still a dug-in part of the film industry complex that is not yet fully warmed to the idea of turning themselves over to these streaming companies. What do you think about the fact that Amazon and Netflix still can't get into these spaces?
Well, it's just one theater in Toronto. I mean, respect to this particular theater chain for managing its business. And the last time that we talked about this, I believe, when the Irishman and all the Netflix screening plans, the release plans in theaters were announced. Someone wrote to us, and we were like, it doesn't actually really matter that much.
It's just kind of blustered. And someone wrote to us, and it was like, well, I subscribed to AMC, the subscription plan. And if I'm going to give them a certain amount of money each month, then I would like to be able to see all of these movies. It doesn't, like, the bang for my buck is not there, which is true.
And it's a good point. And I think that there is like a credibility thing, but for theaters to be able to say, we're still worth your money. We offer everything. Netflix not being there is still, I still think that the theaters have a bigger problem than Netflix is because people can still go see Netflix.
You know, it's like these movies didn't show at one theater chain at the Toronto festival. So like what? 2000 people had to go somewhere else to see it. I mean, how many people are at the festival?
I think you're right. I think that this trend is starting to die and there's starting to be a level of acceptance happening here. I don't know if we're yet fully there. And so whether that means marriage story can win, best picture or not, is significant to the conversation.
I don't think it's marriage story. I think it's the two popes. Well, right. We got a lot of people from the conversation.
I was putting together a little bit of like one of the best things I've seen so far now that I've seen probably 80% of the slate. Yeah. And I did put the two popes on that list. That's fine.
I have a friend who shall not be named. She just keeps like texting me facts about the two popes since he thinks it's very funny. It seems very charming. The E pizza, which is literally also seen from Green Book, but that worked.
You know, I like to like pizza, but you can just see, I think that it's that kind of movie that we'll get Netflix over the hurdle. It's not some artistic innovation, but they have it this year. The thing is pizza is very good. It really is.
It's exceptional. It's definitely good. Let's go to the big race. Well, mama.
You know, I'm a star. We mentioned JLo and Hustlers. I believe that JLo should be best supporting actress. If she runs in Best Actress, I think it's going to be a challenging.
It's a tough road to her as well. I'll say. Constance was the lead of Hustlers without question. That being said, this could be a tricky category for JLo.
There's a couple of heavy hitters. There's a couple of its time people in the mix here. A lot of movies we haven't seen here, some we have seen. The big contenders to me right now are NetBending and the report, which I've seen, which is not a NetBending's best performance by a long shot, but it is a transformation into a real person.
And she's never going to ask her. And she's never going. And she's not the same Glen close position as multiple nominations over the years, beloved by her colleagues, works the system. It's kind of an old Hollywood glamour about her.
And, you know, she's playing Dine Feinstein as a person of great resolve and historical importance. And so she'll have a big chance. Okay. Laura Darn in Marriage Story, I'm sure you saw all of the Hosanna's for her after this weekend as well.
I did, but I just had to scroll fast until I see the movie. I can't participate in this conversation. It stops boiling. My most anticipated movie of the year.
Thank you. One could argue that Laura Darn is actually playing a real person, that person will go on name for the moment, but it is clearly modeled on a real person. Whether or not she's a hero is a frickin' bait. We talked a lot about Margot Robbie.
And the one movie that has been shuttled aside as we discussed all this film festival, this one-time Hollywood. It was the only day movie we could talk about on the show for two months. And now it's all quiet on the one-time Hollywood front. They're just resting.
They're resting. They're resting. You know, you, why fight with 80 other movies when you had the two months in the spotlight and then you can come back and be like, hey, remember when Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie were in a Quentin Tarantino movie that everyone loved and went to the movie theater to see? Now, that was tough.
But a lot of people did. You and I did. I certainly did. I think a lot of Academy members are going to love it too.
And I think she's also playing a real person. And you know, there's something I'm going to say about there. Also playing a real person is Zhao Shuxian, who plays Lu Wang's grandmother in a farewell. And this is another performance that we've seen figures like this, older actresses that we're not as familiar with get recognized for historical roles or roles of significance that we don't see coming.
And that's just a lot of real people in the mix here. If we go even further, K-Tron of Alph in Fort vs. Fari, I would say has unfortunately the traditional wife role in the movie, which is a little bit underwritten and they try to do the best they can with her. And she's a very good actress.
Fans of Alander will know her work. But this feels like the cut-off. They didn't give it to Claire Foy for first man then. Then no one should be nominated for the traditional wife role ever again.
I would say that she does not have the deep reserves of pain and sadness and anger that Claire Foy had in that film. A couple of other ones that I just don't think are going to happen. Jennifer Hudson and Katz. Okay.
Jennifer Hudson has won in this category for singing a big historical Broadway number. That was really good. It was great. And she'll be doing the exact same thing when she sings Memories.
Do you remember when Jake Gyllenhaal hosted SNL and did I'm telling you? I do, yeah. That was also great. We stay in Jake here with a big picture.
Nicole came in the goldfinch. That's not a strong reception for the goldfinch. That's right. I've not seen a movie get dunked on this hard in a while.
We'll be talking about that movie later on the show. I haven't even seen it. I know I'm going to win. I'm defending the goldfinch.
This is going to be exciting times. Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey. Love Maggie Smith. Why not?
Well, there are a lot of other people in this category. Fair enough. She's also, how many Emmys have she won and she never shows up for those? I respect that so much.
I do. I do nothing but respect for Maggie Smith. But also if she wasn't even going to come to the Emmys if she can a campaign in order to win an Oscar for down Abbey. You should just do it down with your countess podcast.
Okay. Isn't that every podcast that I do? Meryl Streep in the laundry. We're going to see that movie later this month.
Maybe it's Meryl Streep in a bucket hat. Respect Meryl Streep in a bucket hat. I think the big unknown here is Little Women because there are a lot of actresses, a lot of well-known actresses. Meryl Streep, Laura Dern and Watson, Florence Pugh.
I think it's pretty safe to say that there's a run and will be the lead. Everybody else seems kind of fair game. How do you know that? Does someone who doesn't know what happens in Little Women?
Guess what? I've just been called onto the carpet for my complete lack of knowledge. You know, there are a lot of other potential nominees here that we'll have to wait and see and Hathaway in Dark Waters. Scarlett Johansson and JoJo Rabbit, Judy Denchin cats.
Why not? You love to see it. I see Ruth Nege and Ad Astra on this list. Let me just say one loved Ad Astra deeply.
Ruth Nege does not have enough screen time to warrant this nomination. And you know, we don't know what Adapack was doing in The Irishman. We don't know really what Margot Robbie's doing in Bombshell. You know, is Margot Robbie going to cancel herself out in this category while she cancels other people?
We'll see. Right. Any other people that you think have a shot here on this long list that we're checking out? Well, you have Scarlett Johansson on here for JoJo Rabbit, which seems unlikely now, but I'm just curious about Scarlett Joh running against herself possibly in marriage for- For Amy for Endgame.
Yeah, sure. Maybe, like honestly, who knows? There's a tremendous amount of Scarlett Johansson on screen. There's a tremendous amount of Scarlett Johansson talking.
One is better than the other historically. Yeah. You know, we've been kicking around the idea of the uncancellables here at the Ringer. And I'm just fascinated by Scarlett Johansson's exploits.
There's a phenomenal conversation about this on the Teetime Podcast. I would encourage you to check that out. ScarJo is very free with her feelings. And we'll see if that's held against her as she competes in Best Supporting Actress for Endgame and Best Supporting Actress for JoJo Rabbit and Best Actress for Marriage Story.
I'll just say it's safe to assume she's wonderful in marriage story. And in theory, she'll be challenging in that category over any of these others. Any parting thoughts before we explore JLo more deeply later this week? No, just let me see the movies.
Let us all see the movies. That's where I am. I'm excited. We're so close.
We're so close. And I'm just fighting to keep a positive, yeah, movies attitude. And like, it's everyone's chipping away every day. But if you, like me, have not seen movies, just protect your heart a little bit longer.
We'll get there. Think of it this way. In the coming weeks, we get hustlers. And then we get Ad Astra.
And then we get the laundromat. So we're in good shape. Things have cleared up. The dark waters are clearing up for us.
We're starting to be able to see movies, which is all we really cared about on the show. Let's now go through my conversation with Andy Miskadi. I'm glad to be rejoined by Andy. Thank you for being here.
Thank you, Sean. Andy, last time you were here, I knew that there wasn't going to be an it. And I don't think the world knew that there was going to be an it chapter too. And you were a little bit cagey when we talked about it.
Did you know that this movie was going to happen or did you still have to hope against hope that it could happen? I knew I had, I knew I had in my mind, you know, the second part of the story and the conclusion. I knew there was a second part in my mind and everyone's desires. But it wasn't until the release of the first one that this video actually gave the green light, but the second part, and we eventually started working on it.
How much more could you done mentally on it before you got that green light? I assume there was no script, but did you have a design, did you have an expectation of how to solve some of the problems? No, no, no. Things happened so fast, you know, that you can't like possibly fathom the whole of the story.
Even though you have a slight notion of the things that you will project to the second one. In my case, in this case, I left open certain windows. It was a bit of kicking the ball forward to catch it on later and figure out how you're going to catch it. The whole thing with Beverly being delighted.
Beverly having visions of what the future is was a big window that I opened for later using. So, yeah, I didn't know exactly how that would pay off, but I decided to throw the ball so we could catch it on the second two years later. And that's how it happened. That throwing forward of the ball really helped us in terms of drama.
You see, Beverly, the only reason that the loser is staying in town, this is not in the book. It's a little loser in the book, the reason why the losers actually stay is they're like, yeah, nothing to lose. They could turn around and go back. So, in the book, they rely more on those feelings of need to close sometimes.
For me, it wasn't strong enough for a film format. We needed something more concrete, more concise. And the fact that in the product of that deadline, Beverly has been having this vision of death and suffering, which is actually the loser's dying. And we use the death of Stanley, spoiler alert.
I think a lot of the world is seen as a movie. That's how we're not too worried. To tie into that idea. So, now the losers have a stronger reason to stay in town.
So, they're more reluctant heroes in that sense. They have to stay, but they don't want to. Otherwise, they will die. Did you have that same feeling?
Did you feel like you had to stay? Like, you had to do the second film. Is there any part of you that thought maybe I shouldn't do that? There was nothing reluctant in my participation in the second or the second one.
Actually, the success of the first movie, if anything, really stimulated me into the second one. Yeah, it's not very excited to, when the green light happened, it was like, yeah, let's do it, but more money. So, I want to ask you about that, because I feel like the first film caught some people by surprise. Maybe people who didn't know your name, who didn't think that adapting it could work.
The first film was a little bit smaller, and Scala and I presume in budget. Was there something that you wanted to do and one that you couldn't make happen, but by getting the green light and obviously a bigger canvas, you were able to lean into into? Yeah, of course I had budget limitations. The first one, you know, you can't say it was like low budget, especially for a horror movie.
But, you know, dealing with such a huge story, the book is like 200 pages. It's so full of characters and rich in events. And of course, you're sort of like run out of money and there have to be creative decisions that keep you in the box. But I knew what I was dealing with.
And so we sort of did a movie. Of course, I left some parts that I did want to put in the movie that meant a lot, in my opinion, in the story, like the Clubhouse, which is this environment that is so important in the bonding of the characters. So I put it in the second one. So it's a running joke within the studio.
Like the club's, oh, so you're going to do the club has a yes and a little bit of a cause. Is that something you were fighting for and one who couldn't make happen? Yeah, it was a bit of, you know, I had to cut it a bit for budget reasons, but also for narrative reasons. I just couldn't make it work in the sequence of events.
Because when you turn this huge literary narrative into something that is filmed, you have to tighten everything. Tighten everything and make it one event after the other, make it consequential. And sort of like lean the passage of time. It's everything happens more in a bit of a real time.
So the Clubhouse, I couldn't make work. And when we noticed that a budget we were dealing with, we didn't make any more efforts to actually put it in the first one. So that was a bit of a bummer when I brought it back in the second one. Why was that so important to you, the Clubhouse?
It's just like a tree house. It's a physical space where this love story actually happens. It's the bonding. Maybe you see the place in chapter one where this happens.
It's in the first place is the quarry where Beverly joins the kids and you see them all together. The rock fight. And later the rock fight went with the inclusion of Mike. But there was this space where the book happens in a long time.
And it's very fragmented. And it's because it's memories. It's flashlights basically. Even King did this, basically fresco of a summer in the lives of these characters.
I couldn't do that because I wasn't telling it in a two timeline fashion. So we had to tighten everything. And that's when I lost the Clubhouse. Did you know going into two that you were going to have a two hour and fifty minute run time that you were going to be able to make something this big and epic?
Well, I think my impression was that they would grant me more budget and more resources. So I felt that I wouldn't struggle so much or cut corners the way I did in the first one. I mean, all of this that I'm saying actually did not have a negative impact. Every time you face a limit it just turns you into solving the problem in a creative way.
And sometimes you find a solution that is better than whatever you were expecting. Did this have the adverse effect on you having more money and more time hurt you? No, no, no, no, no. Because you ambition grows with the budget.
And of course, well, my ambition is set by the scope that this story has in my heart. I grew up with this book and there is a scope that the story implies that it's epic. It has an epic scale and it's fruitful with environments and events and magic. So it's never enough.
I'm very curious about King's involvement. Obviously, he got meos in the film. His cameo is very clever for those of us who have maybe some thoughts about the ending of King's book and Bill's character as a novelist who maybe struggles with endings. I know that he really appreciated the first film and liked the first film.
Was it your idea to get him to appear in this movie and then also what feedback was he giving you about how to make Chapter 2? Well, that happened in two punches. After the first movie we started writing to each other, so a relationship is getting closer. He got excited with the first movie and got curious about the second one.
But not from the writers, not from the creators' perspective. He was more like a weirdly fan. That was what I loved so much about him. His involvement in the second one.
I wanted to keep him in the loop with what we were doing. So I sent him a draft and asking him to basically all the thoughts or ideas that every feedback of him would be priceless for me. So he came back where he calmly said, look, don't take this as a mandate of any sort. I'm just giving you a little list of things I could see in the movie.
Did those things make it in? The Paul Banyan made it in. Oh, that came from King. Paul Banyan, yeah.
I think I want to see that in the movie. In the draft, we had the second part of that scene already, which was Bill Hader versus Banyuys who was standing on the shoulder of Giant Paul Banyan. And Stephen King said, oh, you know, I like to see Paul Banyan chasing a young Richie. And I said, yes.
I would like to see that too. So that's a push that I needed to insert it in the script. Of course, when you make those decisions, at some point you have to balance the other things, because a budget is being made as you're writing this script as you're refining drafts and stuff. So the budget goes in over.
And then you have to, okay, we're going to, let's not be so over with the budget and visual effects. So let's make this scene, this other scene that was bigger, let's make it smaller. So it's a juggling act. So I can get away with Paul Banyan and all its glory.
I have to maybe reduce the scene or just lift it. It's constant juggling. You have to sort of pick your battles. I have a couple of interesting questions about King's relationship to the endings, because, since that's such a significant part of the character that he plays in his relationship to Bill in that sequence, obviously, he changed the ending somewhat here.
And there's this understanding that King was going through a very strange time in his life, some challenging, maybe some substance issues, because writing some of these books, and the ending of this saga is wild and maybe untranslatable to the screen. Absolutely. So I think he made some wise choices in changing it. But what was his reaction to it?
He had a real clear sense of even what this story was, some 30-40 years after he wrote it? I didn't dig too much on that, because everybody knows his struggles back then. It probably wasn't a struggle back then. You can see his work, and it's so rich.
Deep, wide. Deep, wide. Creative. So I'm not the one that blames him for doing that kind of ending.
I enjoyed it a lot, actually. The first time I read this thing, it was crazy, but it wasn't a bad story. You get engaged in a story that is fascinating. And that's the ending.
And you can't complain. He's been using the same kind of... You're captivated by the world and he's using everything. He just becomes a little more expressionist at the end.
Very much expressionist. He tosses you to the other side. That side that he implies and he's very cryptic about the macroverse, the other side. And then you're thrown into that and it is crazy.
Did you think that that was too much, perhaps like fantasy, the way he was telling that story? Exactly. I want to translate this huge thing into a film narrative. You have to make some choices.
One of my choices was to keep the perspective in the two movies. Perspective from the character, the point of view. In the first movie, the character is at the one where our children, the second one is characters. When they're adults.
The moment you start dealing or being seduced by the other side, you run the risk of making fantasy movie, which I didn't want to. At some point, it sort of clashes a little bit with the human drama that you're telling. So I wanted to avoid the fantasy element of it. Even though it's there, I'm not denying that it's there.
It is an interdimensional evil who came millions of years ago. I wanted to be very cautious about how to present it. And in the second movie, it's presented through the revision induced by psychoactive substance called the Turin. Turin is the name of the turtle.
For those of you who didn't win the book. It's a nice nod to the mythical turtle from the book. Yes, I went to keep it as human as possible. And yeah, keep them the other side of mystery.
Bill Hader was here a few months ago. We talked a little bit about the production of the movie. He's great. He's great in your movie.
Aye, Sean. Is that your bill Hader? He doesn't have any permission of me, so it's only fair. Well, he mentioned to us that one, you had two things.
One, a very clear vision for which you wanted and were very precise, but at the same time, you were willing to kind of try things in the moment. They were different than what was on the page, which is, you know, you hear about that on comedy and obviously Hader is very flexible and it comes that sort of thing. Yeah. But for a big epic story like this, I don't hear about that as much from filmmakers.
Yeah. There's several layers of that. I don't have a long extensive career in film, but I started like during films like 10 years ago with Mama or 9 years ago. And one of the things that I really learned is to be open to what the elements are bringing on the day.
I used to be, I'm a storyboarder by nature. So for me, it's very important to design every single shot and plan everything that the characters are doing in the shot. And I still do storyboards every morning. I show up with my little storyboards, but I'm not imposing that on anyone.
I just want to have a notion of what I like to see and if what then comes up blocking. In the morning, you have six adult actors, six characters, and no matter how much you rehearsed or how much you talked about the characters separately and collective, there's a magic that happens on the set, which is, this is the moment, this is it. And on the blocking and the rehearsals, somebody has just like generated magic out of the combustion of all these things, having something that if you're paying attention, you can judge, you can decide if it's better than what you were thinking. So sometimes you just come to, okay, this actually what this guy is suggesting right now, and I hadn't thought of that.
You know, every actor is thinking the scene from... Was this guy just a grip or an actor? Yeah, the act, whips. No, mostly actors.
Yeah. Rips also tell me ideas, but it's like, you know, less, less, less. Who sees your storyboards every morning? Is it your DP and is that it?
Or did you actually... I put it on a board and it's for me and for the DP and for the cameraman and for, especially for the AD. And everyone who wants to get close to it. Actors can see it if they want.
I'm not like running to rub the storyboard on their faces. My experience is that normally when you come up with an actor with a storyboard, they immediately feel like you're like, you know, like chopping their wings and some sort. Especially when there's a camera choreography involved. So I learned how to deal with that by talking during the blocking and the rehearsal, talking about what's the motivations of the actors, making sure that they trust me and what's important for the scene.
So it's not that easy. It's not like, okay, the camera will go around and you're going to turn around and you're going to go to the back of the room. And then the other guy is on the close up. And the other guy does a Kinski screw and suddenly he's on the...
So I do want to get to that, but you have to approach it from a different perspective. You can't approach an actor with a technical scene unless it's like, you know, like camera storytelling, master piece moment where it's more important than your performance, you know. That happens sometimes. But you have to balance this very well, especially with the doll actors.
But kids it's easier, you know, because kids want to play, you know, and immediately they understand things in a different way. And there's so many concerns about the layers of character and arcs. Probably fewer ideas, the kids than what the adult actors are. I talk to them the same way.
The kids, I mean, they're 13, they're not five. So there's a rational exchange about what the characters, you know, they're thinking, they want what they want and the arcs and stuff. But once that talk is over, they just want to do it. Did any other significant changes come out in the film because of this process that you were describing?
Maybe you hadn't planned for it, you arrived at something? There's a little deepening on the Bill D'Ambro plot. All the scene with Dean and him trying to save his life in the funhouse came from a concern that Jamie had, that Chase Maguet, about his character not really having a substantial payoff considering that. You know, I sort of agreed, considering that Bill was a bit of a prominent character in the first one because he was the leader of the Losers.
He was like, Bill in this one was a little overlooked. So we agreed on that. And so we sat down. We were already in production when that happened.
And we sat down with Jayce, me and Jason Fuchs, who was writing at that point. And we figured this out. That's one of the best sequences in the movie. The whole scares and the composition and all the mirrors.
Yeah, it really brings some tension to the second part of the second act. I think it was like James Insting was good. But then the idea of the funhouse and everything came from me and Jason. And it's really brutal.
And it really turns the screws of the tension in Bill's journey, which is the journey of guilt. So he not only finds that, he finds in his memory that he is responsible for it, George's death because he wasn't there to protect him. But now Benewise is basically rubbing and dragging him more into that tribute by recreating the tragedy with a new kid. And it's again, that lives in his house now.
Yeah, there's a brutality in that sequence that is pretty intense. And there's a brutality in some of the themes of the movie, even more so than the first film. A lot of ideas about sexuality, abuse, body horror, people, all of these things that people really are dealing with. So every time when you got the sense that maybe you were pushing it too far, whether it was too mature or too complex.
No, not at all, Sean. What are the powers that be? How do they interact with the movie like this? That's trying to push it a little bit.
Well, it's a very dark story. It's a story that in the book, it deals with very profound themes as abuse, neglect. Every, like a lot of horrible human behavior, like homophobia and hate and bigotry. And so I didn't want to be shy about it.
And especially now that we're telling the story of the adults, I felt like the perspective should switch. Even though the tone of the movie lives in the same world with the first one, in terms of emotion and humor and horror. There's a perspective that is a little more mature and it deals with the ripple effects of trauma. And people trying to basically open that close box, which is a child of trauma and facing it in order to move on.
Yeah, it had to. I think that was specific and unique about the story. It's not a horror movie. It's a story about characters facing other real life fears.
What was the most challenging sequence to shoot here? They were very different challenges. Technically, probably the blood scene with Jessica in the bathroom because it implied the execution of a scene with a lot of technical difficulties. And that scene is divided in three different sets, three or four different sets actually.