Today's episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by M&M's. Have you tried M&M's caramel yet? Caramel has been square for far too long and M&M's is doing their part by giving you that familiar flavor and a package that you love, surrounding the smooth caramel and delicious milk chocolate. As always, M&M's know us how to bring spontaneous fun.
Just like, oh, I don't know, seeing once upon a time in Hollywood for the fourth time in movie theaters like me. With M&M's caramel, we can all agree that caramel is more fun than ever, so go grab some M&M's caramel today and let your taste buds go for a ride. I'm Sean Fenniss, the editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the movies which are maybe in trouble or maybe completely fine or maybe doing really great. I am pleased to be joined by my regular co-hosts Amanda Daven-Time-anda.
Hi, John. And we have a special guest here. We have our pal Wesley Moore. Hi.
How are you? I'm good. Wesley, you work for The New York Times. I do.
You are a writer, a podcaster, a bon vivant, a cultural explorer. I'm not an accept. A myriad of things. One thing that you are for sure is maybe the greatest living thinker about movies.
Is that too strong? I also think so. Sure. I accept.
Okay, thank you. And since this is a movie show, we're going to talk a little bit about what's going on in movies right now. There's a couple of dumb industry things that I want to use as an opportunity to explore what's going on in the world and to get not just Amanda's thoughts, but your thoughts about if things are going well for movies in general. Yesterday there was some public negotiating going on between two movie corporations.
One of them is Disney and one of them is Sony. Amanda, she's like, she can't even look. Do you know where this is going? I do, unfortunately.
Okay. We talked about Spider-Man quite a few times actually on this show. And Spider-Man was the political football of the movie industry yesterday because Sony owns the rights to make Spider-Man movies. Marvel has been helping them do so and generating a small profit and working closely with Kevin Feige who oversees all of Marvel Studios and is the most successful producer probably in the history of Hollywood, if we're being honest.
And it seems that's, wait, let's pause on that for one second. Yeah, here we go. Think about it. Okay.
Never had a miss. He's going to have so many achievement awards named after him at some point. Yes, truly. Well, that's if we still have movies by the time we get to his stage of having achievement awards with his name on it.
You said it. And it seems that Kevin Feige, at least for now, will not be involved in making Spider-Man movies normal Marvel. It sounds like the Tom Holland version of Spider-Man is going to be a strictly Sony product. Now, in theory, this is scary for fans of Spider-Man.
There was literally a hashtag, Boycott, Sony. Oh, no. Trending trend yesterday. People wanted to boycott Sony because they could not come to an agreement on giving Marvel more money for the thing that they make.
That is a little bit confusing. Now, what would this mean practically? It means that you probably won't see Captain America in the movie with Spider-Man going forward if they don't come to an agreement. I think that those of us who are a little bit more cynical and perhaps a little bit more savvy about this understand that they may actually come to an agreement here and that this impasse is public theater in an effort to show the world just how much they care about Tom Holland being able to appear alongside.
I don't know, Thor going forward. The point here, though, is not whether or not we get to see Spider-Man in a Avengers movie or whatever. The point is this is how movies get made. There was another bit of news yesterday.
I don't know if you saw this as well, especially that the Matrix 4 is coming from Lana Wauchowski. And by herself, Lana has split creatively from Lily Wauchowski, her sister, and is it amicable? We don't know the details of that. We know that- This is important to me.
I know what Wes like he's looking to me if I'm going to tell him not it's a bad dream. And I'm just like, he really- Or he just tell me to grow up. No, this is life. I'm with you.
A little twerp. Welcome to what it's like to be on this podcast. I'm a weekly basis. And that is the question.
I've been doing it. I do listen for that or whatever. Our American movie is a bad dream right now is kind of a reasonable question to ask in the face of this because it now feels like we got what we paid for. We rewarded everybody by going to all the superhero movies, going to all of the franchise blockbusters.
Those are the things that drive the industry in a meaningful way. We have this conversation routinely on the show. And I couldn't help but look at those two pieces of information, which I think hit within 20 minutes of one another and couldn't help but feel a little bit of an existential chaos around what we're doing this for. And that's not to say that I don't like those movies because I actually like the idea of- But that's not the point.
Another story movie. No, it's not the point. So how do you both respond to these paired pieces of information? I told you so.
I mean, welcome to the existential chaos. It subsides after a while and you get used to the natural order of things and you're just like, well, I will go see Tom Holland and Spider-Man and at least he's adorable. And you find the things you like, I guess. You know, it's really interesting to think about.
I talked to Sean and Bill and Chris yesterday about Beverly Hills Cop. Sure. And in reading some of the writing being done around the time of that movie is released, Pauline Cale had released, and this is like 85, she released State of the Art, which is my personal favorite of the Cale. Like, it's not the greatest, but it's the one with the most movies that I would have seen when they were in movie theaters.
That was pretty cranky as I recall. It is cranky, but she's still spending, you know, 8,000 words on crankiness. And there's a pleasure, still a pleasure in that. But she did some interviews to promote the book.
And she had just been, she was lamenting during these interviews that the movies have basically been reduced to, I think she used the word dumb. Or maybe I'm confusing her characterization of where the movies were in 84 and 85 with some guy in the Los Angeles Times, you said, we're dumb to describe that moment. But there was this sense that the rise of the action movie had ruined all movies and that something stupid like Beverly Hills Cop or Ghostbusters, where you have a genre laid atop another genre or one genre in the action movie running through another genre. If you're talking about Ghostbusters, it's like a marx brothers movie with all these action imperatives.
And like this is a, this is a fight as old as older than I am. And well, not older than I am. Sorry. Wait, maybe close to.
We could go back a little farther and make it older than I am. But the point is really that the farther away you get from 1940, whatever is the farther like, is the more that you're longing for a thing that you either did experience or wish you could have experienced. And so to me, 1984 or five, the 80s just look great compared to now because even though there was more action in my comedy and more action in my drama, there were still people in these movies. There were still characters and like side characters and editors who could find an interesting thing that some person in the corner of a packed frame was doing and hold on them just long enough to make that movie more interesting than it otherwise would have been if a hack had edited it.
Things like that, you guys talk about this not infrequently. The middle is gone. There's no middle in our movies anymore. And so, and you know, what there is in place of middle is intellectual property, which is a thing that, you know, everybody, these are all things everybody knows, but it's like every day that you get a push alert for something like this is a day that you just want to, you want like Captain America to stomp on your phone.
And are you, are you, are you frustrated with this as a person that sees a lot of films that is invested in the future of it? Or am I invested though? Well, that's an important question. I mean, that is probably a question that we are not asking ourselves enough.
And also I think you hate on something and I would be curious to know what you think too. Is it just illusory? Is it just our imagination that things used to be better and that we've been through this for 35 years, basically? Well, I do think these to be different and maybe we liked it better.
And it's interesting, Wesley's were talking about literally the craft of movies has changed and to us, the old school thing where you can see a person having a moment on a screen and there is some narrative continuity and there is an editor and there's a way of making a movie that speaks to us. But now there are different ways of making movies and there are effects and universe continuity. They're all just the way that you put a movie together in 2019 and what a movie is, which I know we yell about this on every podcast, but here we are again. What a movie is and how we define it as very different.
Right. And I think there's truth to what you're saying of I respond more to the things that I grew up on, but is everyone across time? Yeah. I would also just like, there isn't a like nostalgia is a part of this, but it also is like what's interesting to me because the other complaint during the 80s was about special effects.
Like special effects ruined the movies in the 60s and so they were all but non-existent in the 70s. And in the 80s, the art, like there was a state of the art that was high. And I miss those. You miss practical effects now in that place.
Right. I saw a movie last night that was a big forthcoming blockbuster and I was like, why is there so much CGI in this movie? There doesn't have to be. And that has now become the new concern.
Did you see the Irishman? I do not know though. We will be discussing that in this conversation because it's relevant to everything that we're saying here. But I mean, it's just to say like I the nostalgia is one thing, but it's not like people's brains don't work anymore.
It's not like people don't have a. Oh, I think they work differently. Okay. So let's play.
Let's play this out. Right. So I agree with you that they might work differently, but does everybody's great like 20 2019 brain have to run through some studios library of old hits? Like does that happen?
It shouldn't. I'll give a test case for what I think the challenge is now the new challenge for filming filmmakers who have to marshal something beyond their own personal creativity. Look at us. Us is the only movie.
I was just about to bring that up. This is the only movie this year that is in whatever the top 10, the top 15 that is not based on anything that is not a sequel that is not franchise that is not IP like you're describing. It's the only movie that is a standalone original story. The only one that has succeeded in that space.
Now obviously it's understood that Jordan Pills got a lock going for him. He's a brilliant creator. Oh, God. Are you about to tell me some shit?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, he has dipped his honey. He produced this Twilight Zone adaptation this year, so it's not like he's completely immune to this. But what I'm saying is it required an extraordinary amount of confidence, createivity and experience for him to get to this place and also he's been a very savvy brand builder. He's the person who has figured out how to get people believing in what he makes and then to evangelize for him, because that's what you have to do is the same way that people will evangeliste for Marvel yesterday against Sony, which is crazy, because that's, uh, corporation but Jordan Pills treats himself in some ways, like a beautiful corporation and everything that he makes, you have to invest in.
And I think that the new challenge for creative people is you can't just have a good script for Beverly Hills Camp and you can't just cast any Murphy. you have to create a cult of Beverly Hills cop before you even get to the movie. And I think that's the only way, right now at least, to penetrate beyond if it isn't X-Men or Spider-Man or how to train your dragon or Indiana Jones or whatever thing we're gonna revive, that's the only way to marshal the forces to get everybody excited about what you're working on. And the Irishman is kind of a version of that.
The Irishman is Martin Scorsese has spent his career creating an army of people, jerks like me, evangelizing for his work and valorizing it. And thus when the Irishman comes out, even if it's mediocre, even if it's the worst movie Martin Scorsese has ever made, Amanda, you and I will treat it like a true event the same way that Endgame was a true event. And I think that that's the bar now. It's like you gotta do what Martin Scorsese and Jordan Peele do or you might be talking about the same thing.
Oh, same thing. Same thing. Same thing. That was a brand building move and I'm sure it was sincere.
The same thing, I think, us was a sincere film, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. But I think if you are a little bit older and you are a little bit repulsed by the concept of brand building and personal image, then I think it will be hard for us to rationalize. I know younger audiences may not care, younger audiences may seem more natural. I also think there's a way for that, for you to receive us without being even aware that you're associating yourself with a brand, right?
Like, that's true. Because I do think that, but I also think that part of what you're saying though, is the class of people who would leave us and be like, is it okay to start in like that? Because I did not understand what's going on with that. Like, there are people who would pull me aside and be like, either can you explain that movie to me?
Or is it like, okay if I didn't like it? But I think there are 10 times or a thousand times many more people who just went home googled what happened at the end of us and then got in a fight on it about it online which then sent more people to go see it. I think there is also a part of this that is meme-ability for lack of a better word. And internet savvy, which is a part of building a rant, but understanding- But that's beyond- And also like visually what will capture someone's mind.
That's very true. That's very true. I think that's exactly right. That's definitely how that.
But I think that like Jordan Peele, and there is a class of person who understands how this works, right? Like Bradley Cooper knows when he makes a star is born that it's not his movie anymore, right? Like people are just gonna fight about it and they're gonna interpret it. And it's just beyond him.
He can't answer any of your questions. The thing about Jordan Peele is, he's not gonna answer any of your questions. Like, you all wanna go on the internet and fight about what the meaning of his movie is or like whether, you know, Allian and Jackson are right for each other, or like who's better in one half of the movie versus the other half of the movie? Like do you believe in their love?
That is no longer the filmmaker's problem. Amanda and I will happily answer all of that if we want to make questions. Do you guys have a willingness to do that, cause him an Oscar? No.
Oh. Bradley Cooper's yes. Yeah. Well that's the other thing that is a part of- Wait, hold on.
Oh, sorry. Really? I'm just, I'm asking. Because a narrative did start that he- Oh he was too distant.
Right, right. He campaigned and he didn't want it. And then as soon as I believe he was snubbed for the best director nomination, and then he started the campaign again, and he was suddenly everywhere trying to answer the questions, trying to engage. He performed in Las Vegas with Lady Gaga out of nowhere.
Right. I don't know. Last year's Oscars were extremely complicated for a lot of reasons. I don't know if that would have made the difference, but that is certainly a takeaway.
But here's my thing. I mean, I think I'm more at the Bradley Cooper and the things where like, I'm just like, I mean, look, the campaign ship is sailed. Like you have to campaign to get stuff now, or to like at least make people think of yourself. Oh wait, wait, wait, wait.
How did Pablo Popokoski- No, Amazon did. What Amazon did is they spent a lot of money on Cold War and they ran a series of events, especially here in Los Angeles, in which they made people aware of the fact that Pablo Popokoski is one of the great filmmakers of this time. And that is how they got a best director nomination for him. It's because there was an effective machine.
You know, we talked about Gone Girl a couple of weeks ago, and we talked about the movie A Private War. I was talking about Rosamund Pike. She was so good at that. That's an amazing performance.
No one saw the fucking movie, and no one cared. The connection between box office, awards, awareness, and brand protection is, on the one hand, I feel like I'm personally fascinated by it, and I feel like I keep dragging them into conversations about it every week. On the other hand, it has nothing to do with movies, like it has nothing to do with whether Spider-Man Far From Home was any good, whether it was like fun for teenagers. And I do think, when things like this happen, and stories like this go viral for lack of a better word, we are training audiences to be mindful of this stuff.
So then we're gonna get a bunch of people like me who are 13 and are gonna grow up and be like, what's most important is that Marvel Studios gets to do whatever they want, which is insane. That is an insane way to raise a generation of moviegoers. Yeah, no, well, you know what's funny is you're saying this, and I was thinking, did you guys saw that that, I don't know how many different CEOs presented to the public, this letter that they had basically written, basically saying, well, the shareholders have been important throughout the history of our business. You see this, yeah, tremendous stuff.
But you know who else is important? You guys, the people who make those shareholders possible. I think there really is this interesting understanding that the proletariat is as good as a shareholder in a lot of ways, and that at this point, and I don't know what that's really gonna mean for the bottom line of these businesses. I don't know if it means that, are they gonna solve the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles and New York City?
Probably not, but they can seem to be operations that are at least morally aligned against people not having a place to live, right? I think there's a way that that understanding, I don't know how it would have originated, because I know how businesses just do what's in the best interest of the business. But there is this sense that capitalism in popular culture just doesn't seem like capitalism, because who's ostensibly or explicitly, or even implicitly oppressed, right? Capitalism in popular culture is about the money.
We give you, and then you give us more stuff we like. The thing that's oppressed right now is like the middle tier rom com, like erotic thriller. That's the thing that we're feeling is oppressed. Those people that think Marvel is a person, like that Marvel is Stan Lee, like the ghost is in that machine.
Jimmy's Marvel. Right. I think that, I think those people don't, they don't like, I don't see how my supporting this company is gonna cost you, Emma Stone and Channing Tatum in a romantic comedy. Well, can we get that one written?
Can we? I don't know. I don't know. I don't think, I do think that there is, I mean, look at what's happening to Disney and Mulan right now.
What's happening? Oh, oh, oh. Well, basically, because the star of the upcoming live action Mulan was like, had some feelings about the Hong Kong protesters and sort of aligned herself with the police, the Hong Kong police who were, you know, do, oh my God, I almost said a very Marvel thing. Do we battle with them?
No, they're like, they're aligned against each other and she chose the side. She seemed to support the police in this matter. And not the, not the Hong Kong, not the people of Hong Kong for their democracy. An Instagram post to the factory.
Yeah. All she did, I mean, she did more than, than quote the journalists who had been attacked by the protesters, but she did it in a way that had become propaganda in China. Anyway, the point is now Disney, the human being we know is as the Walt Disney Corporation is being forced by, I mean, not even unreasonably, but there is a way in which the stakes are just too damn high with all this stuff, that they are now gonna have to figure out what the hell to do with this Mulan movie, which is when is it supposed to come out? Next year.
I mean, I assume that we won't even remember this happened in five minutes and like, the people of Hong Kong will still be fighting for democracy, but we won't remember this happen when Mulan comes out. Because, but, but if I'm wrong and that this is even something I'm able to talk to you, like I know this is happening and I can talk to you about it right now, it's just too much. It all just means too much. Are you not invested in movies?
Like you inferred that, that maybe you're not. Did I just say something crazy? No, no, it's great. That's just, it's one more like piece of the news cycle that we will inhale, no, that we will digest and then excrete, we'll get rid of it.
Like we'll just be like, well, that happened and then the Mulan movie happens and then Amanda and I will probably yell about the Mulan movie on a podcast and be like, was it good, was it bad? And then we'll move on to the checker. But you can't say, because, you know, it's a milestone. Wow.
You won't be able to say whether it's good or bad because, you know, it's breaking some barriers. Also, Sean and I have never seen the original Mulan because we're too old. So that's another thing. We'll be breaking the barrier of me understanding what Mulan is.
So that would be an exciting milestone for the reach as well in my brain. I'm genuinely curious though, because you, for years, wrote film criticism frequently, many times a week, you're not doing that as much now. Has that changed your relationship to the movies? Do you feel like you have less of a, because you had a command of what was going on.
We tweaked, you still have that command, are you still interested in having that command? I still want to know what's happening, right? Because I still go to the movies and I still care and it's not that I'm not invested. It's just that my investment is different now because the culture has changed.
We all know how changed the culture is. Again, I don't want to make any sort of lament that we make about the changes in the movie industry about the sort of hegemony of Marvel or the way in which the comic book movie has sort of moved to the center of American movie-going culture. But I do think that the intellectual property thing, it really is an odious development because, I mean, because I don't, I mean, obviously, the comic book situation is intellectual property, but it doesn't stop there, right? Like everything now is a thing that was before.
And the idea that kids are watching friends, right? Like kids who didn't have the office, like 12-year-old kids are watching the office because they weren't around when it was on or they weren't old enough to watch it when it was on. The idea that there's a cliff that all this stuff just falls off and the only thing to do once it's over the cliff is to like redo it. It's just crazy to me.
That is the, I think the distinct approach that Disney and as they prepare for lunch, Disney Plus has been taking. So let me just publicly share my tape on the superhero movie stuff that I share on the watch. So Chris and I, last week talked about the Amazon show, The Boys. I think it's pretty good.
I don't think it's for you, Amanda. Nothing ever is. What's the answer, Amanda? It's a very, I would describe it as the peck and pause stage of the superhero movie.
It's very violent, it's very nihilistic, it is very aware of the sort of mythological nature of the genre and it is playing against that. And it feels like the third and perhaps final stage of this being the thing that is at the center of the culture. Oh, you think this is the last leg situation? That third stage in the last 10 years, I can't say for sure, but it feels like when a genre, especially in this country, and this has been true in music as well as in film and television, when a genre reaches it's aggressive end point, it's most fiercely subversive period is when it starts to remove itself in a way from being in the center of the frame.
That doesn't mean that we don't make Westerns anymore. There are a lot of Westerns in the 80s, Westerns, and the 90s in the 2000s, but you could make the case that peck and pause in that brand of movies kind of killed them in a weird way. You don't even, that's an argument that kind of makes itself in some ways because you can just look at the numbers and you can look at what we started calling Westerns after 1976 or seven. We called them, they were all revisionists.
After Heaven's Gate, everything we got was every Western made pretty much, was a revisionist Western. So that means if we continue to get Superhero stuff great, if it's at the center of the frame for 10 years, great, it's hard to say how particular that will play out, but the point that you're making wisely is that Disney Plus is announcing that we'll be getting a new series of Home Alone movies, because Home Alone is an important property that is recognizable to a lot of people. Home Alone is not a Superhero story, it's not even a particularly young, like male driven story, it's a family comedy, but it has name recognition. And now in the same way that we're remaking Aladdin with Will Smith, we're gonna start remaking Home Alone, which is a big hit, but it's not a new idea at all.
No, no, no, no, right. Can I just say though, there are four existence equals to Home Alone already. So even there, it's not totally new. Even the idea of making a sequel is not new.
Exactly, sequel, but also there are literally four Home Alone movies that show up on ABC Family, proving that they are Christmas movies, sorry, they're all Simmons. But it's like, even there, like the franchise and this is already baked in, which is again, why they're doubling down and making it a mega franchise. Is there something that you hope that the Disney Plus or HBO Maxes of the world will say, this is also a franchise for us now. And what we have to do is make 25 installments of these over the next 10 years.
I would love if they did the crown for every royal family in history. But that's every country? Every country? At that level, yeah, which is basically just history, but that's good to say.
Let's do it. But that is actually smart and interesting, right? Well, that's what I like. I don't think, I mean, I wonder, like, I mean, I'll have standards along with this.
I'm just saying that, like, I don't, like, okay, I don't want that to happen. But if it's gonna happen, I'd rather have it happen your way. Thank you. Then, I mean, I don't know what this Home Alone's gonna be.
It could be like, it could be a commentary on our current real estate and income inequality crisis. And it could really have something to say about race and gender in this country. I don't know. It could also just be about bad parenting.
Yeah, you wanna bet it's not gonna be about the former? Should we make a wager? I don't know. They could probably find a way to sneak in the Demise-Alimian brothers in there.
I don't know. Anything is possible. But the thing is, the thing that makes me sad about something like doing Home Alone again is, and the degree to which, like, it makes you understand who's really in charge and it's not us. It is not the people.
It's the studios telling you, it's somebody at a meeting or like many meetings, just being like, nobody is asking for this thing, but it's here and people love it. Aren't they gonna love it if we just do it again? Right, so this is a chance to be, perhaps radically transparent. We work at a company where we know what is successful and is not successful, and we look at it and we say, oh, that worked.
We should repeat that, because what we want is for people to consume the thing that we make. And that doesn't necessarily mean that every repeatable thing that we make here is something that I believe in. And if you talk to people who work at studios, even people in the upper reaches of the studios, they're kind of bummed out about the moment. They're not happy about it either.
Now they're getting fat on it. They're making money, and it's exciting to be a studio executive in Hollywood, and they've been striving for that whole careers. But those people are not exactly fired up about Home Alone 6, the rise of wage inequality in Kevin McCallister's household. And they wanna make Home Alone 1.
They wanna make Raiders of the Lost Ark. They wanna make Casablanca. Now they may not know how, or they may not be allowed. See, I don't think that knowing how is really a problem.
I mean, I don't want people to think the way they thought in 1985, because what percentage of our culture is about going back now and relitigating the sort of non-crime crimes of pop culture's past? Yeah. Like I don't think people thought in 1985, right? Don't have Indiana Jones killing a bunch of Arabs who don't even speak Arabic, right?
Like don't do that. Think about like, you should brain in 2019 to give us new stuff. I mean, I think you understood Amanda what I was saying about people being able, like everybody's brains still work. Yes, of course.
And I just feel like- I don't know if mine works. But you're doing this. We're doing this. We're not responsible for creating entertainment for people in the same way.
But I just wish, now I don't know if you're, like I can think of 10 people off the top of my head who have no ostensible interest in going anywhere near a Marvel movie. But I also feel like the thing that I knew was happening in 2013 when all of these directors were going to X Film Festival and their second movie was gonna be, you know, some piece of old intellectual property or new-ish intellectual property if they were going into the Marvel situation. The Collin Travaro wave. Right.
I mean, am I gonna be mad at Chloe Zhao for also going in there now? No, because maybe she's got a plan for herself. And maybe that plan is like, getting paid, making the most interesting version of the thing that she's gonna make that she can. And then going and making the thing that she would have made this opportunity not come up.
And her having to like not on a bunch of doors to get like somebody to give her some money to make this thing that, you know, is not a $190 million movie. So there's that. But I also wonder if like the 10 people that come to mind in terms of like wanting to go nowhere near any of this stuff, like intellectual property wise or like, you know, doing reboots and franchise oriented things, whether they are actively avoiding it, whether people are avoiding them to do it, which I don't think would be the case if you're thinking of the people that I think, oh, you know, the people that also come to mind when I'm saying this are people like Paul Thomas Anderson, Quentin Deorent, who ostensibly wouldn't do that. I mean, maybe both those guys in a pop-eye or something in them.
Quentin Tarantino is thinking of making a Star Trek movie. Right, I remember that. So you never know. You never know.
Even these people are potentially in line to do these things. And I'm not saying that like those people are too good to do that. But I also think that if anybody understands where like major chasms are in our culture right now, it's people like that, right? It's a person like Jordan Peele who was raised on movies that aren't.
These are, there's a class of people who were raised on movies that don't get made anymore, right? Like people whose sensibilities come out of movies that no longer are being produced originally. So I mean, I don't know the thing that's happening right now is really interesting because the culture that people are growing up, our future filmmakers, I'm curious to know when it's interview time, it's Sundance and your first movie is premiered. And they're like, what did you, what are your influences?
Who inspires you? What inspired you to do this? I don't, I wonder what the answers are gonna be. And they're gonna be like, I loved Fast Five.
So I made a family drama for Sundance. Like that's plausible. Maybe I would probably enjoy that family drama. I mean, by some people love Fast Five.
I'm also interested in both of those things. I mean, they basically been brainwashed because isn't, I mean, every scene pretty much ends. It's about family. Exactly, that's what, yeah.
It's like, you know, well, so you raise close. I think that's actually an interesting inflection point because Ryan Coogler is really interesting. We did a rewatchables on Creed. Right.
And he's a filmmaker who with it, we're in 1978, you'd be like, man, this guy's gonna be telling personal stories forever. And he has, I think at least effectively from a business perspective, put himself in the system and tried to put his fingerprints on things inside the system. Now what I worry about, and it's really not my job to, I don't know, judge his career, but I worry that there is a golden handcuffs aspect to the level of success that he has now experienced where there's an expectation that he make Black Panther 2 in favor of something different. Now we don't know what that different thing is.
So we can pretend like it's somehow intellectually superior. I don't know if it is. I know some things that he, I mean, at least I think I know some things he's up to, which I won't mention, but they're so not Black Panther. And I actually think that he, the thing that he did with that movie was, was, I mean, some of it was just to say that I could, this is an opportunity to do a thing that like, who else is gonna do this?
Like I'm gonna do this. I'd be crazy not to do it. And he wouldn't have been crazy not to do it. Yes.
I actually thought that making Creed was the more interesting. Like when he signed up to do Creed, I was like, why are you doing that? But he had a reason, he had a personal reason to do it. And I actually think that over the Ryan Coogler, he might actually be a model for what other directors are.
Is that what he was saying? That's not where I'm going with it. I mean, I think, and it'll be interesting to see, because basically I had the same reaction to Creed, which was like, what the fuck? Why this?
And I think it was because we felt like Rocky had really been worked over, that that franchise, there was nothing to say about it. And he did have something to say. It was different from what it come before. Likewise with Black Panther and Marvel movies.
He had something to say. It's the sequel to the Marvel movie that is the first time that I'm like, I'm sure he's gonna do a great job. He's brilliant. But is that the next- He has to be making Black Panther 2 next.
Yeah. Okay. Well, I don't know about next, but he is making it. I mean, I don't begrudge him that, but I also think he's got like a good social drama in him, obviously.
He's got many of those in him. He's got, I don't know, he's got a lot of interests. And I am curious to see how that goes. But the point, I think that you're, the thing that you're actually getting at, I think is interesting, is it's kind of like, at this point, we're talking about a situation where like everybody is gonna, every, lots of filmmakers and pretty much every actor is gonna have to go through this process of like thinking about whether to play Gomez or Morticia.
Do you know what I mean? It's just gonna be a question and you can't be insulted because that's where we are right now. So if you're, I mean, who are the biggest stars under 30 right now? Is Emma Stone 30?
I think that she still is under 30. We did this recently under 25. And she is above 25, I think. She's both- She's both- Jennifer Lawrence, but she's a 50-child-of-a-son star, right?
I mean, he's a person who acts. We have no proof that he's a star. I think actually Little Women is a big test case. Yes.
We know what Emma Stone's next movie is, right? It's the Demi- Oh, that's right. It's a sequel to Zombulan. Now I like Zombulan a lot, but if we want to use Emma Stone as an example of a person who theoretically could be immune to this, she is not.
No, my point, the question I was just, I was just gonna ask was, does it, like it doesn't even matter anymore? Because there just aren't enough, these people are just, I don't know who to put it this way, but like we're talking at this point, like after Timothy Chalamet and Lucas Hedges, I mean, work in Zendaya, like I think we're just talking about like farm-raised future franchise actors, right? It isn't like nothing is gonna be special about them outside the context of these movies. And we won't be making movie stars anymore, right?
I don't even know if Zendaya is gonna get to even test that theory, although I think she's really good on the show and somebody should give her a movie that doesn't require to be somebody's daughter, exclusively in the context of the movie. I feel like everything is so broken now that there isn't even a plausible alternative to that world of pre-existing characters, right? Like the idea that you'd be going to see an Emma Stone movie or the idea that you'd be going to see a Jennifer Lawrence movie, which is still an option, but I mean, the really interesting case to me is Brie Larson. Like there is a person who, what has she done since she won that Oscar, Conch Skull Island and Captain Marvel.
Is that it? I believe those are the two big roles. But she did direct her own film, which premiered on Netflix called the Unicorn Store. Oh, right, right.
Didn't she also do Glass Castle? Yes, and the Glass Castle. Oh, right. That didn't go very well.
The Glass Castle and Unicorn Store are probably personal, more passionate driven projects, one literary adaptation, one, a festival-y personal story. Two franchise movies, two franchise movies that I don't think work. Two personal films that I don't think work. None of them, well, this is a separate question about Brie Larson.
This is not like, I'm not holding her up as like the apotheosis of movie star, but she never, she didn't even get a movie star chance, right? She went, I mean, Conch Skull Island is not like, that sort of explains itself. And that was on the other day. And the people in that movie, it's shocking Tom Hiddleston, John C.
Riley, it's a crazy cast. It's like a movie star limbo. Sam Jackson, it's like all of these people who could be doing other things are in this together. And it totally neutralizes what would have happened to Tracy Letts had written a script and directed something for all those people to do, right?
That would be exciting. But again, like, yes. Can I give a counter example, which is Kate Hallowell, a ringer, a staffer posed this question to me. I'm sorry to be focused on focus, but I think it's really interesting who's having a better career post-ground Claire Foy or Vanessa Kirby.
I mean, Vanessa Kirby's really interesting because she shows up in the crown and then she's done Mission Impossible Fallout and Hobbes and Shaw, which was, you and I saw Hobbes and Shaw together and didn't discuss it, but you're shaking your head in a way. I think we all agree, except say that Vanessa Kirby was great in it. She is a magnetic performer. I don't know that I could even rationally say, Vanessa Kirby was good in Hobbes and Shaw.
It was fine. She was cool that she was there. Right, she does nothing to make me more interested. You know what, here's a good test for me always.
Did I, if I didn't know you before I got to this movie and I forgot, I did not associate her as being a person that was in the crown or on the crown, do I look you up when I'm writing a review where I have to mention your being in it? I did not. I had nothing. She didn't do anything really.
I mean, physically she had a lot to do, but I don't know. I was much more interested in the two of them and stay with them and do anything. What are they're gonna make out? What are your point is?
What's your point is, Claire Foy after the crown did Unsane, the Soderberg experiment. First man, which I know that everyone here has a lot of, well, I actually don't know how you feel about that. I do too. I think that movie, just to talk about the moment we live in, we just, we were like, oh wait, we didn't have that conversation with the microphone.
I will just say that we were in a moment when that movie came out where nobody wanted to hear from anybody involved with that. Nobody wanted to watch a movie set in 1967, 1966 to 69 about a white man doing something that we already know a white man did directed by a white man. It didn't even matter whether the movie was good. And that movie is fucking great.
And- Look great, you know I'm on the record. I know, you went through it, you evolved. I did, and I think I might've brought the energy into the movie that Wesley is describing. Maybe not the particularly racial component of it, but I was kind of like, I know the story of these movies.
I love the Amy Shisele, I don't know if this is what I wanted to do, I watched it at one time, didn't work. I mean, watch it at the second time, and I was like, whoa, masterpiece, masterpiece. It is an incredible movie. I think it's a great movie, I think Claire Foy should have been nominated for not making it for her.
I think she's fantastic. I recently watched the last scene of them in the, when Ryan Gosling is in the quarantine. Oh my gosh, you're vision. And they're just staring at each other, like are you fucking kidding me?
She's incredible, but I don't think it was not received that way. Oh, because nobody watched it. Right, very few people have seen it. And then she was in Girl in this Fire, which is a disaster.
But anyway, you're saying Vanessa Kirby wins. She's having a more interesting moment. I talk about it because she, I think she's probably in a better position in terms of, she's been in movies that make money. You have a clear idea to talk about branding of who she is and what she's doing and what else she's going to do.
Claire Foy is like a British character actress who has been some of some interesting things with directors that we all like. Does that matter? It's a really, really good question. Ask Rooney Mara if that matters, right?
I mean, I just feel like there are so many people who, like you could feel an amazing movie star baseball team or potential movie star baseball team with people who should be working more, doing interesting stuff, who don't work enough and it's not because they don't want to. There's almost literally nothing for them to do if they have an idea of themselves as not looking good or not wanting to be in Morticia Adams close. I keep harping on it. I'm like, but you know what I mean?
It's like, I don't know, I don't know where a quote, serious, unquote, actor, a young, serious actor gets to become a better actor or like where a young, kind of okay actor goes to become like a major movie star. Like what would Brad Pitt be doing right now? What would like Thelma and Louise Arab Brad Pitt? What would like six groups of separation Will Smith be doing right now, right?
We don't know. They'd be doing Suicide Squad too. Yeah, they'd be as soon as they would. But what I'm saying is we wouldn't have, we wouldn't have the thing, the moment where Brad Pitt takes off a shirt and once upon a time in Hollywood, there'd be nothing to create a moment where the entire movie theater can't breathe over a thing that you actually have seen 30 previous times, taking off a shirt.
There's some new contour. But what I'm saying is that is movie, but what I'm saying is like that is movie stardom speaking on the roof of that house in front of the TV and that. I agree with you, like movie stardom is that and it's depressing. This is a really complex thing though, because on the one hand, I heard you say this yesterday, we're desperate to find the next Jully Roberts, not happening.
We've been desperate since Pretty Woman, like she wasn't even done. So part of that is, she hadn't even started there looking for another one. Part of that is science and alchemical. There is no such thing as another Jully Roberts.
There is no such thing as another Brad Pitt. Those are individual stars that have something that is ineffable that we talk about all the time, the three of us in particular, are fascinated by the idea. But there is also a version of fame that is very high pitched right now. And Chris Evans is never gonna be Brad Pitt, but Chris Evans is really famous and really beloved and a bunch of people that I don't even understand necessarily, but the affection and even obsession with him, maybe aftermath of basically being Steve Rogers for 12 years, is a new version of the thing that we're talking about, that we just don't relate to.
Well, it's not new. I just, as someone who was one to 12 year old girl, it's not new, it is that teen, it is the knowing everything about someone having a possessive, like the internet boyfriend is the latest version of this very young obsessive crush that many people go through with pop culture, you know, papering the roles, walls with someone, we've all done it. It's true, but I don't think that when Nuke is on the block, we're blowing up, there were quite so many 26 year old boys who were like, what I have to do is buy that out and the day it comes out. But that is the case for the MCU.
I think the difference is, it's very interesting to sort of make this observation that you guys are kind of getting up. But there is a kind of gendered, I think the gendering of the enthusiasm sort of matters in some, I don't know exactly how, but I feel like it does. I feel like women have been given more interesting, better thing to do that aren't as, and I don't, it doesn't even say that they don't care about comic books or movie or comic book movies, because that is, I mean, I go to see these things on like while they're in the movie theaters, that's not true. But there is something about like passion that there's no passion for any of these people in the movies themselves, right?
If Chris Evans goes and makes a romantic comedy tomorrow, those people who love him and know it, like what he ate for breakfast this morning and ate that for breakfast, because he had it too, they're not going to see him in this movie, this romantic comedy, or like they're not going to see him like play a cop. They don't care about Chris Evans if he's not playing Steve Rogers. Yeah, we saw this with passengers, right? Passengers is original story starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence.
No, I mean, I mean, I mean, I don't even know what to start, I'm not saying it was good, I'm not going to defend it. It was bad. It didn't though, not relative to what it should have given you expectations. But she's two people in a spaceship?
If it were 1995 though, that's a movie event of the year. And without the, well, you know, Robert Stamp of an IP, well, how do you feel about Chris Pratt? He's like a karaoke movie star. It's like everything.
Yeah, he's not, he like. This is how I feel about the whole guardians thing in general. He's made up of, I mean, Jennifer Lawrence is real. She's a real movie star and she, okay, you can speak after I speak.
I have nothing to say. Oh my. Well, I will just say that she is an interesting person who takes chances and when she does show up in certain things, she does have the ability to change properties of scene she's in. That is pretty much all movie star really is, right?
You aren't even the best actor, but you are the best thing that I can't put my finger on. That's good. And- And- Especially. Actually.
All of it, exactly. That's great. All of it. But I don't believe Chris Pratt doesn't have that.
Chris Pratt is like doing, doing other people's having done it. Right? He's doing Harrison Ford. He's doing, who's the other person?
Who, oh no. He's just doing different versions of Harrison Ford. He's doing Indiana Jones and the one thing. And Han Solo and the other thing.
Anyway, the point is, it doesn't matter in some ways because we don't have movie stars anymore really. We're not really making any. Now, I'm, and I don't even think that like if you're Lucas Hedges or Timothy Chalamet or even Sunday, like you're not, you're not going to sit here at a table with me like what I really want. I really want to be the next Will Smith.
I really want to be the next, you know, Julia Roberts. That's what I want. I think that we don't have anymore is the entertainment weekly cover star. We don't have the Jim Perry, you know, the, the Renee Zellweger, the, oh my God, that person.
But what we do have sincerely is we have Aquafina now and Lakeith Stanfield and Timothy Chalamet and Sir Sharonin. And those are all 20, Daniel Cluvia. We have a bunch of people who were not known to us four years ago, who are doing interesting stuff, who are in, in mostly good, good, good work, that is being seen somewhat, but it's being seen in miniature. It's not being seen at the level of the firm is opening this Friday.
If you don't go see the firm, you're fucking moron because Tom Cruise is in any of the cover of six magazines. We don't have that. We probably will never have that if it's not IP. But maybe Florence Pugh is someone who every time she does something, people like us are like, this person is important.
She's always going to give a good performance. Let's invest. It's going to make a person like me think a lot about little women. Which is not something I had ever thought about.
I watched fighting with my family in full on a plane because of Florence Pugh. Have you seen that? I just needed everyone to that. Is that the rock movie?
Yeah. It's a wrestling movie. Yeah. I did not see that.
You actually would have probably some pretty fascinating insights into that movie. I mean, I also watched it because I was like, this isn't totally a movie, but I want to see what they're doing with this. I am I was interested in seeing it and I didn't. I got confused because I couldn't tell the WWE produce it or something.
There was something about it. It was like, I certainly tell that why. Why isn't Ted DBS junior in this movie? I just didn't know whether like how straight to VOD.
It was a theatrical movie. I know. It certainly was, but there was something there was like a there was like a Ted DBS junior like pre John Cena superstar John Cena in this about it. Like something in my contract says I have to make a WWE movie.
And here it is. So do you know who the most famous person that movie who is not the rock is? I'm sure you were surprised to see this person in the movie. No.
Vince Vaughn. Oh, interesting. Oh, Vince Vaughn and Dwayne Johnson were in the same movie. They were.
Have any scenes together? Yes, they do. In fact, they're meant to be longtime friends, which is strange. But that also is like Vince Vaughn is kind of a symptom of the way that this kind of culture has changed to.
So I was on the time. That was a guy who was a big kind of movie star. Yep. Never really was going to be able to grow into I am star Lord's dad in Guardians of the Galaxy and now find himself playing third fiddle in a WWE production of a story about a woman page doesn't even wrestle anymore.
Like that's one of the weirdest movies that's ever happened. I kind of liked it. I'm just even merchant about it. And he's great, but it's just a really strange thing.
And that's another example of the kind of movie where we were like, but we have here is some intellectual property, which is WWE superstar. How can we make that a story and then sell it to all the people that watch Raw every week? I would love to know like, what like the, you know, I mean, we have this, you know, the, you know, blacklisted screenplays or whatever, sort of all the great unproduced screenplays. Like if I'm a producer and I mean, I'm sure that the A24s and Anna Pernas of the world, although y'all can tell me what's the latest on the anniversary.
And a partner was saved by Larry Elson. Yeah, they're doing okay now. Okay. Thank God.
That's the latest. Well, though, isn't this a little bit of like, I don't know what, what, what Bronte novel is this? We're like, the father comes in anyway. I don't think the father ever comes in to save anything at Bronte novels.
That's fair. That's fair. That's just the Bible. It's true.
It's not a Bronte novel. Seventh day Larry Elson rested. Um, but I wonder, I wonder if you're, even if you're at Warner Brothers, I mean, you know, there are smart people at Universal who like, I just wonder what the struggle is to get something completely unoriginal that Jordan Peele didn't write made into a movie because even the things that seem like, I think a lot about why, um, hell, what is that movie? What is it?
No, I'm going to remember what it's called. It's not knock around guys, although that's a thing. What's the Russell Crowe Ryan, guys, going to be from a other guy? The other.
Nice guys. The other guys is, is movie that when you wish that came out this week. That would have been great. Oh my God.
That those were the those were the real. Well, Mark Walberg days. Yeah. I mean, we're like, they just were willing to do anything to make us laugh.
That. Oh, I really missed that. Like, if the kitchen had just been like those three women, just not giving a fuck, but there's a screenplay to support them, not giving a fuck. They don't think that studios feel like they can risk that.
The thing that's gone is not the $6 million version of that movie. It's the $45 million version of that movie. That's the movie that people are not going to spend on. I mean, that was even speaking of feral, like Adam, K's vice and Ann Perna, you know, divisive movie, I liked it.
It costs a lot of money to make. That's not something that any studio is going to make now because they're like, there's no good business. So it wasn't that a hit. It did fine.
Okay. It was okay. It did fine. I don't, I could take that movie or leave it, but I do think, I do think that because there's no mill anymore movie like that starts to look really good.
It does look like it looks even better. It just, no, I mean, forget the money that it makes it just, this is a movie. It's got all these great performances and there is some good filmmaking and there are ideas and it is taking a risk. It just makes it look that much better because it has no real qualitative competition.
I really honestly think if it's a movie that you think about even once after you've seen it, then it's like, now it's good because there were so many movies that, and not just movies, there's so much stuff thrown at us and it just goes in one and out the other. So you and I have not discussed this, but Amanda and I talked about where to go Bernadette earlier this week on the show. I have not seen it. Now, where to go Bernadette qualitatively has a lot of issues.
There are some things that don't make sense. There are some tonal problems. It's a little bit uneven, but going into it, we knew that it was a quote unquote problem movie. And so I think, I think when we both saw it, we were like, actually, like, this isn't bad.
And it kind of has what you're saying, which is like, I did actually think about it. It did, it didn't feel like a perfect film to me. It didn't even feel like a great film to me, but I was kind of interested in the idea of thinking about the movie. Right.
And then I got back to my desk after the podcast went live and I had five emails from people that work in Hollywood were like, you guys are way too nice. This movie sucks. And I was like, whoa, why is everyone mad about this? Well, that's also a little bit weird that way about pieces of writing that don't work.
Or so, you know, always when you're close, you can see all of the flaws and you understand like what they didn't get to the finish line. And you and I were just like, huh, it met my expectations or maybe even was a little above them. So it's interesting. Cause you know, I have not seen it, but part of the thing, I feel like it, there's no way it could have been good given the combination of things involved in making it.
Now, I still didn't deter me from seeing it, but I would, because, you know, I, you know, cause I've been in this bad mood now for like 15 years about. This vanishing, this movie, like the fact that I'll never get another tequila center eyes as long as I live, right? I'll never, that movie will never get made ever again. Cause first of all, who was your casting it now?
Right? Like who, who was even sexy enough to put in a movie that doesn't make any sense and talk about like the conflation of like genres for action movie purposes. But why can't that movie be Steven Young, Donald Glover and Tessa Thompson? Why is that not a movie?
Cause nobody's gonna make it. I'm not saying it can't happen. It could have, I'm queen and slim is coming out later this year, whether that's good. I have no fucking idea, but that is a movie that Universal is paying money to make.
So it might get made. It's more like will anyone see it, but we don't know unless it gets, I mean, we don't know if somebody makes it, right? I think if you would put us on paper and you covered all the names and you just did the plot of us, you'd be like, it's never happening. This doesn't make any sense.
It's crazy. But we're talking about a $9 million movie, right? Us? Yeah, probably a little bit more than that.
Well, whatever from a studio that has a proven track record with knowing what to do with anything it releases to make the money back and to also be interesting. So I would trust that Blumhouse had, would have a plan for, for your logline, right? But my point about where did you go? Bernadette is more like I actually had a moment where I said this, like this state for all of these years is that I actually said to myself when I saw the bus poster for this movie, I was like, I don't want to see this, but I'm glad it exists because it's not any of the following five things.
And it looks like a mess, but also it's August. And those roles apparently also still kind of apply. And so there, there was something traditional about all of the things that seemed wrong with this movie. And I had all the signifiers to tell me they were there.
That shitty movie poster released in August with a bunch of people who in my wildest casting dreams, I would never want to see in the same movie made by a person who I don't know why, why is why is he making this? Why is, why is Link letter making? That was my question going in and the answer was quite surprising and was one of the reasons is what he relates to in this book. I don't want to spoil it for you, but it was not what I really did.
I was just obviously what I felt the book was about. I'm going to see it. But my point is just that that is the movie that to me is still the movies telling me a story without me even having to see the movie. That's true.
I know based on what all of that is with this movie, I can kind of do the math on whether that's something I want to experience if I'm a paying movie going person. Can you give me one thing you're actually excited about right now? It's coming. Oh, so this movie called waves by Trey Edwards Schultz and it is good.
It is good. And you know, it's funny because it, I need, I like to see it again, but it is sort of, it is in the style of a Malek movie where there isn't to explain it to give you the plot of the movie, which is like people in really, like you should just look up if you haven't already read what the actual, I think it might be the Wikipedia explanation of the plot is. It's so funny based on the movie you actually get. There's no way to describe what the movie is by telling you what the plot is because it's all filmmaking.