‘Michael’ Wants to Start Something It Can’t Finish. Plus: ‘Mother Mary’ With David Lowery!

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Michael and Mary. Today on the show, we are digging into two new music-related releases with our pal from band Splane, Yossi Salek. Hello. Hello. The first movie is the Michael Jackson biopic, Michael, which is directed by Antoine Fuqua and stars Jackson's nephew, Jafar. The second is David Lowery's gothic fantasia, Mother Mary. It's an extended two-hander about a fictional pop star played by Anne Hathaway and her costume designer stylist played by Michaela Cole. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Lowery. Our conversation was recorded live at Vidiot's after a screening of the movie. Mother Mary is an incredibly audacious piece of work and demands to be discussed. We will do that here as well. This is David's fourth time on the show. After coming by to discuss a ghost story, The Old Man and the Gun and The Green Knight. He's one of my favorite directors to speak with. So stick around for that. Programming note. On Tuesday, I promised you that the Physical Media High Council will return. And I was not lying. We are opening the Sacred Chamber and reconvening Tracy Letts, Timothy Hitmaker Simons, and Chris Ryan for a special council meeting. And we want to hear your questions. That's right. It's the first ever high council consultation. That's BigPickMailbag at gmail.com. BigPickMailbag at gmail.com. Want to hear about recent Blu-ray and 4K buys? Gear used at our houses? Shelf space concerns? Anxiety about the news that Disney is shutting down their home entertainment division? Gleeful excitement about the forthcoming new Fight Club 4K? It's all on the table. Email us and we'll dig into your questions. But first, we have some movie news right after this. This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail? Nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life. With great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great. Impressions reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, it's a not-so-great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that. Bullspend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO? LinkedIn Ads generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. Reach the right buyers with LinkedIn Ads. You can target by company, industry, job title, and more. So cut the bullspend. Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash TheBigPicture. That's LinkedIn.com. TheBigPicture.com slash TheBigPicture. Terms and conditions apply. Okay, Yossi, you're here to talk about news. I haven't prepared you for this at all. Have you looked at the document? It's fine. I'm freestyling today. Okay. We will break the news to you. Yeah. And then you can react. You know, you can press the button live in real time. I want to raw dog the pod. You're going to have to channel the spirit of Chris Ryan right now for this first piece of news because it's very important. Okay, I'm listening. Miami Vice 85. This is a new movie. Major. That has been greenlit. Starring Michael B. Jordan and Austin Butler as Crockett and Tubbs, directed by Joseph Kaczynski, he of F1 and Top Gun Maverick. August 6th, 2027 for Universal. You say what? Couldn't be more stoked. I, as Chris Ryan, would say that this is my comfort food. I know that Christopher Ryan comes to Miami Vice when he's feeling low. That's right. And I, as Yossi, say that it fits really in with my new bubbling theory that the 80s are so back. Because I really feel like so much of our childhood things are starting to come back into, it's like, like clockwork. We're at that point. And this is only furthering my theory. And we're going to be talking about that later in this episode, I think. What do you think about Miami Vice? Well, it's also been reported that Joseph Kaczynski officially out for Top Gun Maverick 3, except that's not official. It's just, that's. You don't want to believe that. That's what, that's, that's what the streets are saying. That's what Matt Balany is saying and what I'm hearing. Um, so I mourn that slightly, but sure. I like it when Chris Ryan's happy. I like Michael B. Jordan. I like Austin Butler. I like go fast boats, Mojito, you know, so individually and together. So, um, why not? Great. Yeah. We'll see. Happy birthday to me in 2027. Will we still be podcasting then? Your birthday movie. Yeah. Will you still be alive? Who could ever say? Maybe this will be the last day. Okay. That'll be like episode. It's 1100. So we'll still be going. That's the last movie you ever see before you die. That would be pretty. It'll be the Ringo movie because that's the last Beatles movie. And then I'm out. Presumably this movie is set in 1985. Is that, is that a good choice? What if they're both born in 85? Oh, I love it. And then they're, that's what's aging both of them up a bit. Or what if they just graduated in high school in 85, you know, they're the class of 85. I feel like I'd like to see some like fantasy time. Period. 80s Miami again. I think it could be really cool. It can be done well. Yeah. It's just, there's a whole show called Miami Vice set in the 1980s in Miami. Like we got that. Sure. We saw that already. Oh yeah. Because it's illegal to make a movie out of a TV show that already existed. Wouldn't it be funny if it was 21 Jump Street style? You know, that if it was just a pure meta comedy about Miami Vice and MBJ was being asked to flex those comic muscles, that would be interesting. No? Sure. Is Austin Butler funny? I was going to say is Austin Butler. He was kind of funny. I don't need him to be funny. On purpose? Well, no. He was kind of funny in the, in the caught stealing movie. Kind of. But that wasn't his fault, but that didn't land. Maybe he can be goofy funny. And if, if Austin Butler is, you know, of the Brad Pitt school, Brad Pitt can be funny, but it's, it is a specific type of comedy. It's got to be in the right scenario. I mean, he's no Don Johnson. This isn't going to be a comedy. It's going to be a guys holding guns, shooting people and trying to get cocaine off of a boat kind of a movie, I think. Let's fucking go. Speaking of. There's two movies where two men are probably dealing with drugs. Paper Tiger was acquired by Neon. This is the new film from James Gray, and it is officially going to the Cannes Film Festival, which Amanda sent a very excited text message to me about this. That's right. Because I will be there at the premiere. James doesn't know that yet, nor does anyone at Neon. I'm announcing it now. Don't have a ticket because that site isn't open yet, but I'm very excited to be attending the premiere of Paper Tiger in Cannes. I don't, we both, you know, love James Gray and his films. This was one where it was. We assumed that it would happen and it was not in the initial festival lineup, but they worked everything out. I'm excited. Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Miles Teller. Miles Teller. Who we'll be talking about again. Miles Teller. Yes. Yeah. So that'll be great. I'm very hopeful. I'm very excited about that movie. Also announced at the Cannes Film Festival, a movie called Victorian Psycho, which is my nickname for you. Zachary Wigand has a new movie that I've heard great things about. Stars Micah Monroe. Jason Isaacs, Thomasin McKenzie, and Ruth Wilson. That's going to, in certain regard, at Cannes. A few more titles trickling in there. And now, Yossi, I'll tell you, I have a lot of anxiety about not being able to see enough stuff when we go to Cannes. I'm only really going to be there for about six days. You're only one man. I'm just one person. And I'm going to try to go to four movies a day and really do it up. But now the invites are coming in. Right. Come have a drink. Come do a thing. I'm not good at that stuff. Am I going to have to start sending you calendar invites for the things I require you to do? To attend? Yeah. Non-movie-wise? Because you need a wingman? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Because, you know, no one else is coming to take me to the prom. So it's kind of like, you know, it's my last resort. I called it my brother. Whoops. So, but you denied my Cannes Film Festival Google calendar invite a year ago. Look who's laughing now. Okay. But will you accept the invites that I send you? TBD. Okay. Great. You've attended a European film festival with Amanda. Any tips? I had a wonderful time. She's a gorgeous and perfect partner in crime to go to things with as long as there's no delays or lines. Yeah. Well, I don't do well with. I'm not a fan of lines. Yeah. And European administrators. I would not say. I don't like American administrators either. I haven't met an administrator that I like. The Italian government. What about a few things you have in common with Hitler, I would say? Oh. I think that he was big into administrators. They were his. Yeah. They were his enforcers. In foreign nations, he didn't like that. Yeah. No. He had a grand old time. We love to have a drink. Yeah. Okay. We love to have a pasta. Okay. Yeah. It was wonderful. They have pasta in Cannes? No. Food's going to be interesting. They have pasta everywhere. I mean, you know, they have. Yeah. They also have French food and hopefully some seafood because we're by the. Have you noticed that many of our invites have been like water themed? Yeah. I have. Okay. Not really my ideal location. But can I tell you that. So the Mediterranean is not really like a sand forward beach environment. Oh, rocks? Yeah. I like rocks. Rocks. And then, you know, or. A little pier that we walk on to the, you know, the floating vessel. Yeah. Constructed wood. Okay. One of my favorite things. There we go. Maybe you might need a sunscreen sponsor. Uh-huh. Something to think about. I'll bring some. Okay. Yeah. You know what? Actually, I'm getting there before you. I will honestly just. I will go buy you. I'm going to the pharmacy the day that I land. I'm picking up my pass and then I'm going to the pharmacy and I'm buying all of my toiletries for the week and I'll get you some European sunscreen, which is in fact better than American sunscreen. No kidding. All right. Well, this has been very helpful. A little bit more news. before we dig into Michael. Curry Barker, who's the director of this new new horror movie coming out in May called Obsession was officially hired to direct and I guess write, in addition to J.T. Molnar, a reboot of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There have been several reboots of these movies over the years. One of the seminal horror films ever made. Glenn Powell is also producing this movie, though it does not seem like he's starring. Okay. And it's interesting. Barker is yet another guy who has come from YouTube. There's this huge wave of mostly horror filmmakers who are coming from YouTube and transitioning to making studio movies. Do you care about Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Not like a super horror movie, girl. You know that about me. I'm sorry. Why is that? I don't know. There's some I like. I love Sleepaway Camp. Oh, sure. Yeah, that was one that was really formative for me. Carrie. Very transgressive movie. Quite an ending on that movie. You know what it is? I think much like Amanda, I don't like jump scares. You find them annoying? I find them annoying. Okay. So you're out on this? Sure. Sure. I'll see it if you make me, but otherwise, probably not. I don't make anybody do anything. I just want to put that out there. I would encourage activations. Okay. You know? Do you want to be a part of what's going on here? All you gotta do is go see a movie. I liked Strange Darling, which is J.T. Milner's last film, but I prefer chainsaws in like a humorous context. There's a great chainsaw gag in the Minions footage that we saw that really cracked me up, you know? So we'll see, but I'm open. I like horror movies now, as you know, so maybe I'll also go see Victorian. Our new Scream Queen. Darling. I love that. No, Victorian Psycho. Victorian Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I'm very interested in Victorian Psycho because that's one of the best film names I've ever heard in my life. It's incredible, yeah. You had me at hello on that one. Shall we talk about music, movies? Yeah, it's why we're here. It's why we're here. So were you last here for the Bruce Springsteen film, Deliver Me From Nowhere? That's right. Do you think that that film would have been more successful, given what we're discussing today, if it were simply called Bruce? Do you think that was the problem? No, I'm not saying that was the problem, but would it have been more successful? One thing I was positing on the drive over, because we have all just seen Michael together at the Americana because my invitation got lost in the mail. I was also not invited to a screening of Michael. I don't know what happened, Lionsgate. It's okay. Interesting. So we went to see it at the Dolby, one of the Dolby theaters in the Americana, and then we drove right here to record this. And I will say I left the film Michael, got in my car for brutal traffic, and immediately turned on Thriller, the album. And I was thinking that if this movie were called Thriller and not Michael, and were actually the Springsteen approach of let's just tell the making of one great album, arguably, the greatest pop album ever recorded, then could it fix at least some of the problems that we had in Michael? But at least as a text before we got to, you know, the larger, you know, pop culture nightmare. I love, I think that's super insightful. I think that could have been a way to elide a lot of the major challenges of this movie. I don't think scope was the film's issue. It's one of them for me. It's one of them. It's not the only problem. If they were going to bring the same tone and lens to that version, it would still, I think, probably not be that successful. I agree with you, but I think it would have lightened the load. And when I think about what my issues are with this movie, which we will probably go into detail at great length, it's got nothing to do with thinking about how the music was made. Thinking about how the music was made, and then watching the music be performed. And so let's use that as an entry point to the conversation. Which is basically, like, what does Michael Jackson mean to you? We're all roughly the same age. We all come from roughly similar backgrounds. We're pop culture and music addicts. Amanda, what is your exposure to Michael Jackson? How do you think about him then, now? I just said that I think Thriller might be the greatest pop album ever recorded. And despite everything else, you know, that has happened since the early 80s, that could still be true. And I was just absolutely rocking out in my car on the way here. And also rocking out during the moments that the songs are performed in the movie, Michael. I mean, he was everywhere. And by the time we became sentient, he already existed as Michael Jackson and was the most famous person in the world. And so I was always kind of catching up. Like, Thriller has always existed in my consciousness. Billie Jean, Bad, all of those. And even Bad, right? So we came to a bit later, we were talking about how Dangerous is a very formative album for us, and that was 1991. We were all young. Michael, the film, does not make it too dangerous in 1991. So, but, like, I literally remember watching the countdown to the Black or White video be premiered on MTV. I remember I was, like, visiting, like, my aunt's, like, family friends. It premiered on Fox, right? I remember it being a huge deal. Yeah. And Macaulay Culkin, who played his father at the beginning of the video, I can't recall. Very famous actor. Anyway. I don't remember either. I just remember that. Was it after an episode of The Simpsons that it premiered? I think so. It could have been. I was with, like, strange teenage boys that somehow, but we were, like, because it was, like, family friends, and we were all together, but we were, like, we actually have to talk to each other for long enough to sit down and watch this cultural event. So, I mean, he's larger than life. Or he was. And then, you know, we can or cannot talk about the next 20 to 30 years. Yeah. I mean, I think it's I've, sorry, I can barely speak because I podcasted for five and a half hours yesterday about Madonna, but it's related what I'm going to say. It's, like, going back to that time, like, I don't remember a time in my life that I didn't know who those two people were, Madonna and Michael Jackson. And I think I leaned over to you during the film and I was, like, I was, like, it's impossible to overstate how important and famous and iconic Michael Jackson was to the global world. It's not, nobody's like that in the world anymore. We don't have that anymore. Like, watching footage, even though, I think we can all agree, maybe it's not our favorite movie of the world, I was getting emotional at some of the pieces of watching the fans cry in his presence because that was real. And we don't have that anymore. That level of pop star, I would argue, doesn't, is not able to exist anymore. We don't live in that kind of culture. I agree with you. You know, I'm a little bit older than you, but I also was born into a world where Michael Jackson not only existed, but was already dominating. And I was talking to my brother. My brother just turned 40 and we were talking yesterday. Welcome, Kyle. Yeah, Kyle, you're in now. And we were talking about how my mom had Off the Wall on vinyl, Thriller and Bad on cassette, and Dangerous was a CD I got for Christmas. It was one of the first CDs I got. And that you could kind of track the arc of the way that popular music was consumed and sold through the lens of Michael. And Michael gets into this a little bit around the idea of MTV and his relationship to MTV, which we can talk about. But to say that I loved his music would be wildly understating it. I just thought he was the absolute coolest person on Earth. And doing the show, actually, over the years has been this series of confrontations with Marvel characters and Star Wars and, you know, you're having a lot of these moments of looking at things you loved as a younger person and having to watch them get remade, rebooted, reimagined. And this is a unique one because it's a real person. This is not He-Man. Like, this is a guy who existed, who lived. And so the movie has this huge burden of recapturing what made Michael Jackson so special. And I would make the case that the movie does a pretty good job of that. And the performances and the way that the music is staged, it's like kind of stunning how well they live up to a person who seemed like an a supernatural event that happened in our lives. But then also, there's all of this other psychological and actual chaos and fallout from his life. And the movie is kind of, starts to take it on, but then never follows through for a variety of reasons. And it erodes all of that magic and all of that feeling that you were describing of feeling so, like, moved by watching other people, actors, be moved by an actor playing Michael Jackson. So it's such a unique movie proposition in its way. It's kind of a huge failure, but also I did have fun at times. Well, the Jafar Jackson performance, and that's we should say both Michael Jackson performances, because there's also a young Michael Jackson played by Giuliano Cruvaldi. Who's amazing. But Jafar Jackson as thriller Michael, it's uncanny how close he is to the, to what I remember in my head. That's it. And so they do an incredible job of recreating all of the images and video that we know and had access to. And it is, it is like, in the acting, it's more of a surface level impression, which he speaks as he spoke at that time. From what I know from, like, very short interviews. And then just amazing physical performances and the, like, the dancing and the physicality each, is totally excellent but it is only recreating what we the public knew there is nothing below the surface there is no um attempt to or certainly achievement of like revealing something about michael jackson and we have access to that and so by the way the original is on youtube so it does kind of feel like a recreation and it's amazing that there is someone else recreating michael jackson performing to the level that he is because he's not around anymore and it's it's still rare electrifying stuff but that's all it is it's just a recreation of existing tape yeah i don't want to be like the wicked witch of the coming to shit on music biopics all the time as my like official big pic correspondent role right but the i said this on the bruce springsteen one the reason i'm it makes me upset is because these people deserve a better piece of art made about them they were important and monumental figures and artists and like i if i were michael jackson i would come back from the dead and haunt these people for doing this to me like the main framing of the film is like i'm meant to pity this person did you not feel that way like well i i would like to talk about that with you guys because there's so many things there's so many competing forces of motivation i think behind the film on the surface it's very easy to say one this is an act of brand management by the estate to generate more cash flow against what we all know and love about michael jackson which is his music his performances his history right we've seen a bunch of movies you've appeared on podcasts with us there are a lot of movies like this now that are just like queen happened elton john happened this great artist i do think um freddie mercury did come to haunt rami malik because as you know right after he won the oscar he fell right off the stage and i think freddie pushed him he that may be true but it also won him an academy award so he but i think freddie pushed him right after i'm just saying and i the career after has not been giving so yeah the in addition to that the amateur you know it's just not what we wanted didn't work out no third hour hoppenheimer you know like stacking up freddie freddie mercury up and having like this again the film did achieve great success he has a clipboard yeah in a basement somewhere the second thing this movie wants to do is it wants to at least tell you that it's going to psychologize why michael jackson was the way that he was it wants to show you the origin stories it wants to show you his relationship to his father his quick rise to fame the way that he felt unbeautiful unaccepted misunderstood and how that led him to so many different pathways through his life but it also wants to shield the audience completely from everything that we think we know about michael jackson that is ugly sad or scary yeah and that includes allegations of uh pedophilia it includes allegations of drug abuse it includes allegations of bizarre seriousness it includes allegations of surgeries and a strange lifestyle there's no one to your point about him being the most famous person there's no one more covered more more explored in our culture than michael jackson and so we all come to the table assuming you're i guess above the age of 15 with a ton of preconceived feelings about this person so the movie also wants to kind of like beat them back or ignore them but also show you why they happened at the same time and also provide their answer to it you know there's the there's a scene um where michael jackson is like is in an onstage accident and he's very badly burned and they have the michael character saying i don't want drugs no matter how much pain i am in and because the doctor is suggesting demerol which demerol has really helped me through some tough times but um listen shout out demerol if nobody got me demerol and then and then tell me whether you don't want some demerol but um it's getting it parts of the movie are also trying to like get ahead of some of those things that we know and like booth explain how they happened but also maybe shift blame slightly they're trying to be like hurt people hurt people yes for sure which is true like i think it's okay to acknowledge that the american success tragedy of michael jackson is not the story of an individuated person who hurt people it's not the story of an individuated person who hurt people it's not the story of an individuated person who hurt people it's not the story of an individuated person who hurt people there's it's a link in a it's not the story of an individuated person who hurt people there's it's a link in a dynastic chain of pain i and that's it's okay to understand that but it's not okay to not clarify with nuance that's what it is it's not okay to flatten it into like the most basic right airplane also i think but to your point that we were saying earlier how there was or did we not bring this up on mike yet sorry if we haven't that there was a third hour of this film yeah we should talk about that does change the hurt people hurt people it to me it gives it a little bit more like reason to exist if they were leading up to doing something with it yeah forgive me for being glib about this but the this film ends in i guess 1987 or 1988 89 yeah and after bad and there's a suggestion that this his story will continue that's quite literally what the last card says it says his story will continue and i'll tell you what i thought of after that was wicked um and wicked part two because everybody said when wicked came out this is the good half and then what's coming is not going to be as good and that's kind of michael in a nutshell too where we pretty much we saw obviously some very challenging stuff in his childhood where he's abused by his father yeah which then leads to a lot of his feelings and actions right i mean joseph jackson joe jackson is the main villain quote unquote of this little cartoonish villain i'm like if hurt people hurt people it applies to everybody that's well that's the thing is there's no psychology of joe jackson why did he become like this i had the same thought yasi that's a really it's i think that's important to talk about that because you can't lean on those ideas and only make michael jackson this sort of centerpiece of light without understanding everybody else around him and the movie doesn't really make an effort to understand anybody else around no one's real figures except for his best friend bubbles yeah we got some of bubbles really emotive cgi acting a lot of bubbles yeah it does turn into a planet of the apes movie for like eight minutes which is a very strange really made better man be like felini to be honest and i'm a man truther i know jack sanders's brother i think it's a great movie but like in comparison to this cgi monkey movie it's like music biopic monkey movies yes i'll give you that which that is a movie you've been on this podcast for that's like pretty good it's and it's also a biopic ish movie that you've been on this podcast for that does not feature people writing important thematic ideas in a notebook and then double and double which they did like three times again in this movie after the springsteen movie i was like i cannot believe this there are a number of moments throughout this film that commit a few walk hard sins yeah and some of them are also just illogical steps in the story of michael jackson that if you care about his history they'll just like pop out to you there was there's a moment early on in the movie when the jackson five have signed with motown and um michael is recording alone in his studio his brothers are watching him in the control room it's his brothers and his father and barry gordy played by lorenz tate is sitting at the engineers you know at the table at the in front of the board and it looks like barry gordy is running the session and there's no one else in the room and he's like pushing all the buttons and it's like did barry gordy run the session he's like michael you can't move your feet while you're singing there's no engineer there's nobody else there no um shout out lorenz tate that's still so hot good for you very handsome i actually hurt my heart a little bit when i saw him i was like oh he got lorenz tate and me along in this michael jackson movie god damn you know i want to learn here is it laura harrier's part like she's just like showed up to be hot and smokes eggs well she's suzanne the past who's a very important person in the michael jackson story she's just a gal who says that's that's natural born talent she does look very beautiful she is she's very very beautiful um she like every other actor in this movie with the exception of colman domingo and the two actors who play michael jackson don't really have any depth whatsoever um but it does feel like it does i felt at times like the movie was almost taunting us with the things that we know about michael jackson there's several scenes where michael jackson is just with children in the movie yeah and it's obviously trying to say well he felt a connection to and a warmth towards and a love for kids yeah you know he felt like a kid himself the movie circles back this many times there are many cutaways to the book peter pan and his relationship so many too many also just not even just to the book peter pan but to the specific page welcoming you to neverland yes there is you know there are little easter eggs of oh you know you think you know this about michael jackson well you know here is like a tiny little stuffed chimp chimpanzee before bubbles does actually show up on the scene yes so it's crazy and it's you know the movie believes the movie believes it is doing something that is helping us better understand this person but it's impossible to watch those moments and not think about the other way that you can perceive what's on screen yeah and the the that that ugly and terrible feeling given what at least has been reported and very credible people have come forward and talked about over the years so the whole thing is just a it's just a mess like it's just an emotional mess on screen it totally is can we talk a little bit about what yasi alluded to which is that there was an ending that does um address some of the allegations that was filmed and so the the movie was made with a different ending and then because of legal reasons that entire third act of the film was scrapped um they did reshoots like a whole new ending so i can't tell whether what the scenes that you're talking about and all the easter eggs which I agree are just like kind of galling as you're watching them. And certainly completely like this juxtaposed, juxtaposed against just like the very fun performances of Michael Jackson on stage or like you get real whiplash. It pulls you right out of the movie. So, but I can't tell whether those were, were put there cause they're written for like a different ending. I think that's reasonable. I would assume so. Right. But so it makes me wonder about the ending. And what they think they're setting up. They are legally barred from. Yeah. I mean, reportedly there was a lot about allegations and settlements that were made in the movie and, and that Michael is portrayed as having overcome these challenges in the third act of what was meant to be, I think more like a three hour mega biopic. Okay. And the challenges of the, of those allegations, you know, and the, you know, the hit on his public reputation and so on and so forth. And him being exonerated in the, in the public eye. And what the filmmakers did not know is that there was a clause in the settlements that identified that the, those settlements and those, those people who participated could not be portrayed in any kind of dramatized scenario. Brilliant legal work. So that's obviously a nightmarish fiasco for the studio, for the filmmakers. And they had to junk all of this stuff. So what this movie is now is effectively like a two hour prequel for the trials of Michael Jackson. Right. And then the second film will be, so much of the ugliness. Now there's some ugliness in this first part of his life. Obviously he's got this, these, these really, you know, devastating issues with his father and he catches fire. None of the ugliness is, comes from him. That's right. That's the problem. That's right. And I would imagine that most of it won't be quote coming from him in the second half, assuming we get a second movie and based on how well this movie is likely to do. Yeah. Right. I would imagine a second movie is going to happen. It will, this movie is already not being very well received kind of critically, but I do think by fans of, of Michael Jackson of, of which there are still millions and many of whom who do not care about those allegations and do not either do not believe or disinterest. It's an a minus cinema score. So, you know, people are each year point, like the performances and the songs are incredible. Listen, the whole time I was thinking, I was like, man could have just strung together 12 music videos and I would have come to the theater and seen it and felt emotionally exactly the same way without laughing. Yeah. Well, you said that there, all this stuff is still on YouTube. You, you could have just 100% run another documentary and it wouldn't have generated as much money, but it would have been a similarly like exuberant movie going experience because there is like, there's just really high, you know, watching him, you know, watching the young actor who portrays young Michael singing Jackson five songs. I'm like, I turned to you, whatever, 20 minutes in and I was like, these are just the best songs of all time. Wall of all beggars. Just absolutely. Also like shout out Michael Bush and Dennis Tompkins. Put some respect on their name. They're not mentioned. They were the costume designers from Michael Jackson for 25 years and created all those iconic looks that I was so excited to see on screen because they're crazy good. Yeah. What's the implication, by the way, that the glove comes from the vitiligo? Like he started wearing the glove because he had the vitiligo. I believe so. And the movie does really make a point of that as he sits down for his first nose job. Right. That he also speaks to a nurse about the vitiligo that he's been. Right. Diagnosed with, which leads to his skin coloration, changing. And that's really the, that's another thing that's like, okay, I guess we just have to accept that. Maybe there was more about that later as in the second, third hour when he gets whiter in skin tone. Right. They, they do have him in the, in the moment where he asks to be put on MTV more. Yeah. And it's explained to him. Was that Mike Myers? It was Mike Myers. Mike Myers. Yes. I did not recognize. Okay. Well, it's kind of an homage to Bohemian Rhapsody. It's kind of an homage to Bohemian Rhapsody. Where he played the same character, not the same character, but that, you know, a studio chief. And it's explained that MTV just won't play black artists. That's actually pretty accurate. It's true. Yeah. And the way it was done by him is actually pretty accurate. You know, they have a point of my having Michael Jackson say like, I'm a proud black artist and it's very important to me that, you know, I'd be on MTV anyway. So the nose, the nose job scene was interesting because that was really the only time where anything was coming from the Michael character. They had, they have the doctor come in and say like, are you sure you want this? You're a pretty handsome guy. And he's like, no, I need symmetry. I need to be, I need to be perfect. And that is really kind of the only characterization I can think of. Besides he loves animals and he wants to be his own man. Yeah. He needs the entire script. One should be free. That's one of the things. That's one of the things he underlines in the notebook. I, I think that there's, he's, he's such a, a wide open field. A wide open field of human psychology. That there's so many things that you could explore and that we assume, and we don't know because you didn't talk about these things, but you know, masculinity, daddy issues, male beauty, race, being a black American, 100%, being a famous person, what is his relationship to sex and romance? Famous person. All of these things. I mean, he is the lodestar for all of these ideas in America over the last 75 years. He's one of the most famous people in the world. He's one of the first examples of like in excessive celebrity plastic surgery. Like I can't think before that. I mean, Jocelyn Wildson, seeing the cat lady, but like someone who was that famous, that famous that you watched go from one person to a completely different person. And it was happening in real time. It wasn't like, it was during the heyday of his success, also not kind of after the effect. The movie did a good job. I think even though they were very subtle, it was one of the only things they were very subtle about where his nose did keep changing. And his skin keeps changing. But I was like, nobody in your family. There's not one scene where like Tito is like, bro, you look kind of crazy. One thing I really liked was there's, there's one moment in particular later in the film where Michael is being pressured to do the victory tour with the Jacksons by his father. And his father obviously does not have his best intentions at heart, but he says to him, do you really want to live in a world where no one ever doesn't say anything other than yes to you? And that was a really sincere moment where you're like, oh, you know, even a, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Joe Jackson. And you know, he's kind of psychologically manipulating his son by saying something that he knows will resonate with him, which then eventually leads to, of course, the victory tour transpiring. Way more time spent on the victory tour in this movie than I ever would have guessed. But it is portrayed as this kind of pivotal moment in his young adult life. You know, there's a couple of other people who get some screen time that you pointed out, had maybe a bigger role than we expected. There's a man named Bill Bray. Sure. Bill Bray is the third lead of this film. He really is. He's in almost every movie. Almost every scene, just in the background like this. Yeah. And every once in a while, he gets like a concerned close up because he's meant to communicate that there is at least someone looking out for Michael, someone who understands this, this special person and the impossible situation he's been put in. Yeah. And he's meant to emote for us. That he was like the omniscient narrator somehow because he was always kind of there. And I kept, I asked you during the movie, I was like, was, because a lot of that stuff, like how did, who knows what happened in those rooms? Did it come from that man? Like did, you know, like. Yeah. I don't believe it was actually based on like his autobiography or anything. He passed away in 2005. Michael spoke about Bill Bray as though he were his second father. He was his real protector. He was the person who in, for I think probably more than 20 years was at his side all the time. And so there is something interesting about there being one person who is proximate to all of this craziness. I like that idea. The movie is just like, it becomes like a Mr. Show sketch at a certain point where like the camera keeps like zooming in on Bill Bray's reaction. I couldn't stop laughing. I'd be like, oh, there he is in the mirror. But also it does answer one of your mid movie questions, which is who drove him home from the nose job. That's true. It was Bill Bray. It was Bill Bray. Cause he just walked in the door and I was like, you can't drive after a nose job, sir. Is it a same day procedure? Yes. You can go home afterwards? Oh, cool. I haven't had one, but I haven't had one either. It hasn't crossed my mind. Yeah. No, you have a nice nose. Well, it's nice of you to say. What do you think I could use a nose job? No, not at all. Is that what you're thinking? I actually don't think anybody should get plastic surgery ever. Oh, I don't know about that. Okay. Yeah. Well, that's okay. Good job. I think we're all beautiful. That's, that's exciting. And I don't think people should be judged on the way that they look. Okay. He says on Netflix. Well, I would prefer to not be judged if I can help it. You were, you talk about Hollywood for a living, but I try to not do that. I actually don't, I not to, not to stand on my soapbox. I, if someone looks good, I like to say that they look good, but I, if somebody doesn't look good, I, I try to not talk about that because, um, I find it's counterproductive. Much like Michael Jackson. You're a bit of a saint as was portrayed in this movie. Yeah. That's what really got my goal. I got to say where I was like, he's, are we, we can't, are we trying to canonize him? Because I think he, but we already did like a hundred times over with the real story of his life is enough for him to be one of the most important and mythical figures of all time. And in fact, far more interesting and compelling if you, he, they showed another side to him. And what do you think that could have been though? Like if, cause the, you know, the Paul Schrader biopic of Michael Jackson, I of course would love to see, no one's going to let that happen in the Michael Jackson estate. No one's going to let any of this happen guys. You don't get the music. If you get, if you show a blemish of him, this is total image rehabilitation. The estate allowed them to do this as a partner in it and gave them the music. And so you have to follow what the estate says. It wouldn't have been a blockbuster, but I would generally have watched a music list version where they grapple with like his actual psyche, like Jimmy by yourself. side that movie starring andre 3000 where there were no jimi hendrix songs but we watch him kind of have a relationship in 1967 missed that one that one there's a reason only watch there were no hendrix songs in it you can't do that i know it's it's rough the music i think i like just keep thinking back i'm like nico 1988 which no one has seen on earth um i haven't seen it it's so good because they show a real person they show every part of this person who was complicated and challenging and i know we're never gonna get that i understand i'm not stupid but i wish there's some it seems like they wanted to try well there's something so fascinating about the bruce movie being such a failure too because the bruce movie is a real effort to like show wounds you know to say here's why i'm fucked up and here's how i used art to work through it and i'm flawed and i made mistakes and you know i left this girl behind and kind of but i left this composite composite i agree i was going to say the movie's got a lot of flaws yeah it's just it's like an effort to do that and with but still managed and springsteen was a part of it and what is told is told even you know like how much depression can we go through and like how much weakness and when are you allowed to look sad and when are you allowed to you know be be handsome and bruce i it you know when everything is managed though i know that like how do we get to a place we're never gonna get to this place i guess is the point is that we're never gonna do a place where the same feeling that near the end of the film when human nature is performed and all three of us are like oh my god shout out this song is just steve porcaro of toto do you know that sorry not to bands plan for a second but this is actually so interesting steve porcaro of toto also inadvertently invented the drum machine by suggesting to the engineer who created the linton drum machine that like has live drum sounds that he should make that and then he went and made it and has like one guy playing real drums on it and it's on thriller interesting very interesting i would say a lot of the people who were participants in writing the song were like oh my god i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna the music um on off the wall thriller and bad race from you know rod temperance's name is mentioned in the movie but we don't really see him we see quincy jones mostly just genuflecting before michael's talent from inside inside of a booth somewhere we don't see his his contribution how about my girl yeah so we don't see him who doesn't exist at all janet jackson is not present in this movie it's janet if you're nasty and she's like it's nothing if in this film babe that i'm sorry for you or i'm happy for you but i'm not reading all that didn't you assume she just asked to be not included in this i actually heard a rumor that they did initially include her and they had to cut her out interesting because she saw the film and was like or out of here told absolutely not to yeah um through her own lawyers which i hope more power and unusual amount of latoya in the movie and weirdly no janet jackson and we know michael and janet were very close quincy jones is also no longer with us so i i wonder how much his estate had to say this is probably pretty powerful i guess i think it's interesting that he was effectively not present for anything that wasn't about creativity yeah um which i think probably makes sense from his estate's perspective i i i don't i'd love to know what miles teller was thinking i do too i find this to be an odd choice for a person who was like legitimately famous and like a really good actor yes and now we've learned congratulations to miles teller on the sale of what's it high drink long drink yeah he made a huge amount of money that did make it into my news cycle yeah yeah 325 million dollars so it's a huge amount of money and it's a huge amount of money and it's a huge amount of money some years ago amanda and bobby wagner came to my garage and we did a movie star liquor taste test not on video just audio and one friday afternoon we got super drunk on the pod we weren't medium drunk we got medium drunk on the pod i evaded jury duty on that podcast and we we tasted long drink and you know what i loved it what is it i thought it was great it was sort of it was not that different than a hard seltzer yeah it's kind of like a it's a finnish drink it's a finnish company okay um it's a finnish drink it's a finnish company um it's a finnish drink it's a i want to say like it's not tangerine it's not cantaloupe it's like it's like nordic white claw or something yeah sort of i think that's a fair way to describe it like if like fresca but hard fresco yeah who doesn't very enjoyable anyhow i imagine if he had sold the company before this movie went into production he wouldn't have done this movie probably not um and i'm sure he went in feeling like i love michael jackson maybe he's a major michael jackson i'd love to be a part of this i get that but he has like 11 lines of dialogue in the movie and mostly just like looks confidently at michael jackson are they allowed to read the script before they say yes to the podcast i think that i think so okay well then that's a questionable choice i was thinking about this with every single actor in the movie because the script did change and so what do you do when they're like oh well sorry guys can't use the third hour now you're gonna have to reshoot this still any some of that script i would have said yes so over the top we haven't okay so this is an interesting thing so we haven't talked about the fact that um john logan wrote this movie yeah gladiator and antoine fuqua who has directed many hugely successful movies um including training day movie i think for the most part the movie actually has like surprisingly solid pacing and i didn't you said it felt very long to you i didn't feel like it felt very long um i think because every six minutes they're like you like this song and so it had a similar feeling of bohemian rhapsody where i was like this is actively terrible but i don't want to leave and that's a unique brand of movie you're waiting for the next song everything that happens in between the songs or the montages of them recording songs and by the way a lot of silly things happen in those montages but they're set to amazing music that's right but anything that is musicless and just dialogue and two quote-unquote characters speaking to each other to advance the quote-unquote plot is really dire there are three lines in this movie that are repeated in different ways you're either a winner or a loser you got to be perfect and i want to cut my own path you have to let him cut his own path you can't cut your own that's the entire script i just i need more for nia long really one of my first faves of course she was good she's doing her best i mean that another person with no agency or character like she just likes to watch old movies with her son that's her whole character still alive michael jackson's mother didn't realize that they called her mother that was a little jarring for me yeah big mike pence vibes there yeah yeah it's a tricky one i um what what what else do you want to say i mean we can talk through every single song performance if you want to i think just one thing i want to say and i don't want to get ahead of going into the next film but i do think like one through line for me is that like fame is a mental illness i couldn't believe this more by each passing day fame should be in the dsm-5 it is you cannot overcome it yeah even with the modicum of fame i have you recognize that the amc which makes a lot of sense i'm mentally ill from it i have brain damage from the like two percent famous podcaster that i am yeah it's not okay it's not it's it's not healthy and whatever uh low grade version of it we experience we're suffering as well it clearly has damaged all of us and so i'm sure you are thanks for the negronis everyone yeah i love the free stuff don't don't stop sending the free stuff but i think it's i think it's not hard to feel empathy for eight-year-old michael jackson being thrust into a world that he doesn't want to have any part i can feel empathy for adult michael jackson being so psychologically twisted that he doesn't want to have any part in it i think that's a very true thing and it would ring true to people and especially his fans yeah i know but by the same token you just you can't equalize the whitewashing reputationally of the you know accusers of the allegations and how they would be feeling watching michael jackson's star once again be elevated and onto three thirty five hundred screens yeah and people like us having chills watching him perform music the whole thing is it's impossible to to just like the doc settle it in your mind did you see the documentary leaving neverland yes that amazing film was brilliant in how it handled it it left you being like oh you know like it wasn't like it didn't have a point of view to the that it was shoving down your throat it was so good at kind of doing what i wish this film had done which which i guess i don't know they would never do that but like you walked away and you're like i don't know you know like i feel like that i feel like that film is pretty definitive at times yeah but here's the thing after i saw that movie which i found to be extremely powerful incredible yeah i thought to myself i'll never have the same relationship to michael jackson again but the truth is that when i listen to these songs and when i watch sequences in this movie i still feel like the kid who was eight years old who loved listening to bad and who loved watching those music videos and it's there's something about this unbreakable connection to culture that we make at a young age that like it can't change no matter what we learn like i you know to this day people you know um ask me about kanye west because like i spent time with kanye west in the 2000s and i i loved his music more than anything and they're like well how do you feel now asshole and i'm like i can't change how i felt at that time about him well you got asked about woody allen to be definitively clear i didn't say i don't know what to think as i don't believe the accusers that's not what i meant it just was more that it was like you see you kind of are like oh god i feel bad also from michael jackson the whole thing is just a nightmare well yeah yeah so what what we're talking about at least in terms of michael jackson's music and you know all the other complicated relationships it's you know it's the classic separating the art and the artist which is very difficult and can you do it i don't know and we'll continue i like we will certainly wrestle with it on this podcast it's a personal choice yeah but but listen that's just that's something that you work on as a consumer of but that's not what this movie is asking us to do. This movie is about the artist, not the actor. And it's the artist creating the art. But this is quite literally a biopic about the artist. So it's just kind of, it's glaring. It's not even the elephant in the room. It is just, it is completely omitted. And we know that actually from the making of the film itself, it's just a whole chapter of his life that is just missing. But it's an incomplete movie. It's not even about the art, which is, I think, what that also got me. The whole time I was like, I want to know more than fine. Then tell me more about why, what's behind these songs. Why did you choose these looks? Like, what was your thinking around your presentation, around the songs you chose, around what you were trying to communicate when you wrote these lyrics? Like, I would have, there's none of that in the film either. Except that he's like, I like to have the gang members teach me how to dance. This is a C-Wolf. I forgot about that until just now. Because that was so crazy. Remember? I mean, that's based in fact. I don't know if it actually played out the way that it plays out in the movie. So he's alone in the studio. Well, he's alone in the studio working on the track list for Thriller. And then he looks up to see a breaking news local segment like about the gang violence in Los Angeles. Learns about that. And then is led to hold this summit. Which, you know, maybe that's how he was learning about things. You know, he did live a pretty. He didn't have X.com. It's true. He was not like out in the world a lot. It was a series of rooms for him. He was at home playing Twister with Bubbles, as we saw. Oh, that was sad. That was actually really sad. I want to talk about one thing that I found interesting about Michael Jackson when I was younger and that I still am interested in in his music that is in direct contrast to his public persona and the way that he spoke in interviews, which is that his music, especially from Thriller on, was extremely attitudinal and aggressive. Totally. And it was very. His vocal inflections, the phrasing in the lyric writing, the energy that he communicated, as a vocalist, could be angry, could be arrogant, could be very different from the very soft-voiced man who you saw who just talked about healing the world. And my favorite Michael Jackson song by far is Leave Me Alone, which is. I think it's the last song on Bad. It might be one of the last songs on Bad. And I was always fascinated by that video, which. The bonus track. The bonus track. Featured the bones of the elephant man. Sure. And the. The sort of like animation of moving through the circus mind of Michael Jackson, this kind of hall of mirrors that he has to endure as a famous person. It was written in response to all the wacko jacko stuff and his relationship to bubbles. And it's one of the clearest evocations we have of his psychology and the way that he was responding to becoming a famous person. Leave Me Alone is not in the movie. No. And that whole persona, even the persona that you find in Beat It or in Billie Jean, where there's like just this rage, and this swagger, and all of this stuff that was endemic to his music is not in the movie, is not explored about him as a person. And maybe he only used his art to explore those things. Maybe that was the only place where you found it. But as a fan of his, like you could have the same attitude towards the world by loving his music that you could by listening to Nirvana. He actually was like a very singular personal artist who wrote about how he was feeling about things and explored them in a musical style in addition to also just being somebody who made 300 albums. 300 million people happy with the universality of his music. And there's also none of that in this movie. There's no like, where did Billie Jean come from? That's what I'm saying. Where is the, if he got angry, which he clearly had every cause to be, why don't we never see him get angry? He only is sad and scared. He's sad. He's scared. He's sad. He's scared. And then he gets on stage. And then he gets on stage and says, I'm not doing this anymore. Well, but for, I mean, his, you know, his dancing and the choreography is also equally like forceful. Yes, exactly. Like a complete contrast with the person that he is off stage, which is interesting. But once again, this movie doesn't, is not interested in tension because it was made with legal handcuffs. It's, it's, I, I'm, I knew I would be a little bit flummoxed by this. Like I knew the movie was likely to be not quote unquote, not good. Right. That it was, there were going to be dramatic sequences that were cringeworthy, that there was going to be performances that seemed over the top. Right. That it was only going to be serving at the altar of, of Michael's hagiography. But it, it's so much more challenging to me than Bohemian Rhapsody or Deliver Me From Nowhere because of the paradox of Michael Jackson. Because of the incredible wonder that he instills. Right. And the, the like anguish I think that he represents for a lot of people. I mean, I had the chills during the movie. I'm just like, even being transported back to that place is really special. So we'll sing, I guess if you, if you like Michael Jackson. It's a very relevant cultural artifact of modern Hollywood for sure. You can remember what it was like, when we had that level of pop star. Yeah. That moved that many people. Is there any other thing you would have wanted to see? A song, a performance, a moment from his career that is not represented here? Obviously pre-1990. Well, that's hard because, you know, that cuts off Dangerous and also the Free Willy song, which, listen. Yeah. Was that Heal the World? No, that's Will You Be There? Oh, yeah. With the choir? Come on. It's 91, but I would have wanted to see him attend the Oscars with Madonna. Mm-hmm. Because, yeah, Brooke Shields not included in this film. Brooke Shields, no. You know, a handful of the girlfriends, the friends, the people who attended things with him are not present in this. It really is like the boy in the bubble with bubbles. Like, that's how he's portrayed in the movie. I do think he was like an extremely lonely person, and they didn't get that across. And those were largely like, I think, press op people. Yeah. But, could have seen them. This episode is brought to you by Apple and AT&T. Scroll long enough and you'll hear it all. Miracle.com. Diets, fitness trends, you name it. But with iPhone and Apple Watch, you get meaningful insights from a very trusted source, your body. You can track sleep quality, cardio, fitness, and more, then unpack all the information in the health app on iPhone to get a picture of your overall health. These health insights are developed with clinical experts from start to finish. Find out more at apple.com slash health. Apple Watch is not a medical device and should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice. Okay. Should we pivot away from Michael? Yeah. Let's talk about Michael. Mary. Fascinating movie, as you say, sort of similarly related in its portrayal of a major pop star going through a crisis with where we have some understanding of the origins of that crisis. This is the new movie from David Lowery starring Anne Hathaway, Michaela Cole, Hunter Schafer, FKA Twigs, a whole host of people, including my girl, Kaya Gerber. We'll get to that in a minute. The log line of the movie is long buried wounds rise to the surface when iconic pop star Mother Mary reunites with her estranged best friend and former costume designer on the eve of her comeback performance. What did you think of this, Amanda? I like pop star movies and this very much is and I appreciated the attention to detail of creating this pop star world, which is, you know, what the movie is about. Anne Hathaway plays a pop star named Mother Mary who has some Gaga, some Beyonce, a lot of Madonna for sure. I mean, obviously. It's, you know, right there in the in the title. And she has had a falling out with her creative director, essentially played by Michaela Cole. And it has all of those people, but it's really like a two hander about how you create something and an ownership and the relationship, the creative partnership. And I thought maybe just also about relationships and breakups in general. You know, there is something archetypal about. What's going on here. But I all of the the the pop star recreations, the performances, the songs, the dresses, the the world that they create was really credible. And I thought interesting. And I thought about like how much time Anne Hathaway must have spent preparing for this because it is again, she is performing. She can obviously sing, but there is choreography. There is some even like non-performance choreography. There is a lot of choreography that she has to do. That's amazing, incredible. So, you know, I like it when people go all in on something a little strange and also something that is in my interest set. Yeah. What did you think? Your chronicler of modern pop and rock iconography? I loved it. This movie is like very Yossi Kaur where I'm like, I love a movie where I get to have my own inputs on what it means. I think that that is a if you're a person who likes a movie explained in detail for you, what they're saying, this is not a movie for you. Also, if you're a person who hates women, not a movie. You guys remember the Bechdel test? Yes. There's not a single man in this film. I don't think or if there is, they're not ever. They're not a character. I don't think I've ever in my life. And I'm sure there are examples and I'm sure you know them off the top of your head. But me personally, I don't think I've ever seen a film in my life that doesn't have one single man in it. Not to put my pink pussy in there, but I don't think I've ever seen a film in my life that doesn't have one single man in it. Not to put my pink pussy hat right back on for the big picture. I haven't thought about it that way, but that obviously is a big part of it. It struck me. It's interesting, too, because it is not a rah-rah feminism movie in any way. No, it's not about that. It is much more about, I think, what Amanda is circling, which is like the nature of these creative relationships and partnerships and maybe even love relationships and the ways in which they break and come back together. But then also, the movie is this phantasmagoric kind of ghost story in the second half and sort of like what is underpinned. creativity and where are ideas coming from and what happens to people like can you be spent can you be haunted by something and it allows you to not go forward with your creativity when I talked to David at the video screening which you guys were both at I was basically like and I never do this I was like what's this movie about because I did I agree with what you're saying about there being different inputs and different ways to read into it and what I just said is like that's my reading of it but other people might see it as something different like is this a queer romance is this like an existential dread movie about like being at the end of your life or the end of your you know vitality like there's a lot of different ways to read it and it's staged pretty cool as well it's so it was just so beautiful and fun to watch like so lush and gorgeous and I loved like all the textures because it's about it's partially about fashion and like Michaela Cole is cutting fabric and they have actually good stuff and we sit through so many movies about this you know world where and just about worlds where visual representation is very important which by the way is what cinema is and people take shortcuts and this felt really lived in you mentioned that the costume designers from Michael Jackson are sort of like not mentioned in the Michael movie and this movie obviously is about how there's always someone or many people behind these icons that we love that's one of my central preoccupations so that's another reason I think I really like the movie like the idea of being working in the service of another person's creativity because even though that is her creativity the costume designer played by Michaela Cole it is in the service of Mother Mary right? and what kind of person you have to be to be okay with that because you won't get the credit you never really a manager a publicist you know a choreographer these people are all in the service of someone else's light and I thought that was dealt with really interesting I thought the using the red actually it's really funny because there's a line that I just remembered where I think Anne Hathaway is like this is too many metaphors and I was like that's really funny that he put that in there but like that red piece of silk or cloth or whatever like can I believe it was a puppet it is a puppet David Lowry what's up to my puppet crew he's a puppet boy just like me it's got to move puppet girl over here you'd rather CGI bubbles? no no I love it it's a movie about pageantry you want it to be real more puppets in 2026 yeah but I found it like again a place that you can put anything I was like oh this could be resentment and it's leaving one person's body and going into this can be ego you know and it's just like there's depending on your own idea of the world like you were saying or what you're interested in it left a lot of room for you to play with it without being like you I didn't walk away being like that movie didn't mean anything which is a risk right it is and look I think the movie's been very divisive critically there are people who are like this is a huge miss which I find with all of David's movies they're super rewarding on second watch because you're not trying to figure out what's going on anymore and you're kind of accepting it on its own terms I had a chance to see this movie a long time ago and then I saw it again a second time at Vidiot's and I really enjoyed it even more the second time because I wasn't trying to like because the first half of the film is very talky between these two characters it's a chamber piece we don't really know their history they're sort of like explicating without over enunciating their history and it's hard to get your bearings a little bit you know it's a very stormy movie at first and then it takes this huge leap in terms of the kind of gothic ghost story elements in the second half so it's a lot to take in but I I very much agree with you I mean it's also true that I think in all of Lowry's movies like he asks a lot of his actors he kind of asks them to put their ass on the line with really deep weird dramatic stuff like I thought I thought a lot about Rooney Mara in A Ghost Story in this movie which is also a very brave and odd performance in a very sad movie this is also a very sad movie Casey Affleck in Ain't Them Bodies Saints Dev Patel in The Green Knight like he kind of he asks actors to really expose themselves and Anne Hathaway has to be kind of ridiculous in this movie she's incredible and she's she's one of the few big stars who's like up for this kind of a thing so yeah I really enjoyed it and I think it's quite an accomplishment to be able to pull off that scale like what I imagine was not the biggest budget in the world you think about a movie like Michael relative like a small movie like this I don't know I thought it was interesting yeah and staging because they do stage a lot of the work in addition to that sort of chamber piece first half of it also I obviously love religious themes which like you can't get around because the pop star is a religious coded yeah pop star but that is I mean that is our idolatry now too right is like is Taylor Swift that's her religion 100% and just being committed to those figures and worshipping at their altar but it also is interesting to like back to what Amanda was saying it's like I don't know if he meant to do this but I feel like he does is like you also harkens back to like Madonna who was I know I'm a little bit Madonna brained right now but she was kind of arguably the first major pop star in this lineage like every pop star that we have now has come from her in her wake yeah from her vagina but she her whole thing was all the Catholic imagery and grappling with Catholicism and God and guilt and stuff so like having it echoed in this pop star but then you can be like I don't know would that fly now you know I don't know if you could be successful in that same way that was the one place I couldn't suspend disbelief where I was like I would a pop star couldn't fill a stadium with these songs about the Holy Spirit you're right it's not that it wouldn't fly it's that it would not be the level of controversy and attention that Madonna got like we all remember like a prayer you know yeah who's the most successful pop star who pursues taboos I guess it probably used to be Lady Gaga right maybe now Lana although her taboos are kind of different she's not a stadium artist though no you know like in the stadium I mean you know I guess Beyonce does do some some transgressive things you know but but I think it's back to the Michael thing it's you we don't have that anymore because the value proposition of pop stars now is I'm just like you you know whereas it used to be it's not just pop stars I am everything so much parasociality you can never I am my I am a look at me look at my jacket look at how I can moonwalk across I am an alien I am an angel you know I do miss that I like that I like larger than life I'm really interested in that it inspires weeping people in the crowd and I guess people do probably weep at Taylor Swift I think they definitely do but it does feel different it does feel they also you know do friendship bracelets in between themselves and then take pictures I didn't go I went everyone said it was a nice time yeah and David talked about how the reputation it was an eras tour I think the eras tour no no no but it's the reputation film the concert film that was a huge inspiration for how they shot a lot of the pop star sequences it's her darkest album is that true yeah I'm not aware I thought Michaela Cole was exceptional she's I love her I want to see her more all the time I love Chewing Gum I think she's just like so talented yeah check out the Christophers we just talked about the Christophers too it's weird I felt like she was just not in a movie for several years and now she's in two movies in back to back weeks which is quite fascinating I think she's really interesting too and she's really she has a kind of flinty performance style that is very well suited to the repartee between the two of them a bit like a play again I love movies that the dialogue is like a play that's a very Yossi call very much did you know that psoriatic arthritis may progress over time and could cause permanent joint damage if left untreated listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away Trimphia Guselcomab taken by injection is a prescription medicine for adults with active psoriatic arthritis serious allergic reactions increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur before treatment get checked for infections and tuberculosis tell your doctor if you have an infection flu-like symptoms or need a vaccine imagine being a million miles away explore the possibilities ask your doctor about Trimphia tap this ad to see new joint data and learn more about Trimphia including important safety information this episode is brought to you by McDonald's even the greatest movies you can only watch so many times breakfast on the other hand every day the same craving something hot something filling and a moment to enjoy it the sausage and McMuffin with egg pretty much covers it adding hash brown and coffee for just five bucks even better get a sausage and McMuffin with egg plus hash browns and a small coffee for just five dollars only at McDonald's for a limited time price and participation may vary promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing excludes delivery you can get Trimphia would you like to talk about your photo with Kai Gerber yeah let's talk about it okay what would you like to know I know everything you maybe want to address people who are like what's going on here sure so the three of us went to Vidiot's one night to watch Mother Mary and I spoke to David afterwards beforehand Vidiot's which is a wonderful non-profit located in Eagle Rock they do a photograph with the filmmaker in the video store which is attached to the movie theater yeah it's good Instagram content it's great Instagram content shout out to Vidiot's so there was going to be a photograph with David and they said Sean we want you to be a part of that photograph and that's obviously a tradition that we've been doing here on this show where we take a photograph with the filmmaker I was like sure that sounds like a good idea and they were like well David's ready for you in the video store come on back so I walk back to the video store familiar space for me somewhere I go frequently I was just there Sunday with my daughter and David's there and I spotted him and some folks who work in PR I'm just chit-chatting with and start walking towards David and then right to his left Kai Gerber who Were you starstruck? No. As someone on one of our group chats Probably Rob Mahoney But I can't remember Said about the photo It's the most I don't know what to do with my hands Pose of all time from Sean Fennessy Just totally taken aback Here's the challenge Speechless, you never see him speechless She's luminous She's an international supermodel Is that the word? Sure, that is our word That communicates light I think luminous is probably better You're not awestruck by the beauty Of women like myself and Amanda I think you are both beautiful Save it, thank you It goes beyond there's a hot girl You can see that she has a unique thing That's her job She's a professional model She's an aspiring The bigger challenge was the surprise I'm very comfortable What would you have done to prepare a beta blocker? I would have not gone I would have not put myself in that situation Nevertheless, she said, hey, Kaya She said, hey, Sean, I'm Kaya You're back in that space right now And you can't speak at your time I'm feeling like I'm close to Kaya And she was very, very kind And then they were like, let's take a photo And I was like, Kaya's going to be in the photo I have to be in the photo at the same time And then the decision had to be made Do you touch Kaya Gerber? And I decided, no Oh, you did one of those floating hands? The classic floating back hands? No, you haven't seen The photo's really funny I haven't I didn't even notice I screenshotted you and Kaya Really big to make my phone back screen I'm in action figure pose Because I'm like, I don't know what to do I panicked, you know? And so I did that You know what? In your defense, that happens most of the time That a photo is taken of you That's true And I'm just trying to But I'm like, I don't, you know You're an ally That's right What I don't want to do is violate in any way She gave a lovely introduction with David And she was great And chit-chatting with her was lovely She was super cool And, you know, I wish her all the best And I hope we cross paths again One day, but not in photographic form I thought the casting of the tertiary characters Was, for lack of a better word, extremely cunty And I loved it It was It was FKA Twigs Hunter Schaefer Hunter Schaefer Kaya Gerber There's more Who else is in it? Alba Baptista is the Taylor Swift character Sean Woodens What is her last name? Sean Clifford Clifford, who I love From Fleabag fame The sister from Fleabag with the bad haircut Jessica Brown Finley from Downton Abbey Incredible backing cast Really good stuff Yeah I think you're right There's not a single man in this movie No, I know And I'm sorry to have been struck I literally just was like I walked out and I was like Bechdel test? Passed, bitch Great job Bechdel test found dead in a ditch After this film Any other closing thoughts? No, I could just Michael, Mother Mary Okay, let's go to my conversation with David Lowery Hi, everyone What'd you think? Very easy movie to understand Please help me in welcoming writer-director David Lowery We like to let the credits play So that you can kind of like decompress a little bit Yeah, yeah This is my second time seeing it And I wish I had more time to decompress actually So you mentioned you started writing this movie Seven years ago Yeah What was happening in your life? That this came out of you? I was on the set of The Green Knight in Ireland And there were a bunch of things I had shot a scene with Dev Patel and Sean Harris And was like, huh Doing a scene with two actors in one room is really fun I hadn't really done much of that And I was kind of thinking about Just where I was like as a filmmaker Like what I wanted to do What I had done What I was anticipating doing Having a couple long nights of the soul Dark nights of the soul And then I also just got really, really, really sick And I felt like my body Like my body was breaking open in weird ways Not to get too graphic And I was like, I'm just gonna Rather than like lay awake I couldn't sleep And I was like, rather than lay awake in bed and not And just stare at the ceiling I'm gonna start writing about this And I wrote it as a dialogue Sort of between Just me having a conversation with myself But very, almost immediately I'd been wanting to make a pop star movie for a long time And I was like, okay This is the perfect vehicle for my pop star movie And so I wrote the scene where Mother Mary comes and asks Michaela for a dress And then it went off in other directions And over the ensuing years And working on other movies It gradually, you know, became It's still autobiographical But became separate for me And became what, you know What ultimately manifested Over the course of However long it took to make this Which was a long time as well Yeah, I want to hear about that Your previous two films are very large in scale Yeah And was there a conscious decision to say I want to do something that feels more achievable? Like more modest? Yeah, I was really excited about doing something simple And, and, and But yet I'm always I mean, when I made a ghost story It was also like one location We're never going to leave And I was like, but what if you went into the past? And that was a much smaller movie than this But still like We wound up having these huge Like what effects came into all these digital CG cityscapes for us And with this one I really wanted to I'd really fallen in love Like with that scene with Dev and Sean Harris With like working really intensely with actors Which was something I've always loved doing But my movies are Had up to that point been There were other things that took priority for me And When I made Peter Pan and Wendy Which was really big And a really challenging movie in all sorts of ways There's one scene in that movie that Was again, it was Jude Law and Avery Anderson And I was like, we spent two days in one limited location And it was such a treat And I just wanted to spend A few more days doing that And didn't really think about how, you know Two days is great But if you're doing it for 40 days It starts to turn into something else It's something Weird things start to occur You start to live the movie In a really interesting way And then it As my movies tend to do Like they just I reached a point in the script where It could have stopped It could have been the end It could have been over But I was like I haven't seen this through all the way yet I need to keep pushing And that's where it got A little bit more maximalist You said you'd always wanted to make a pop star movie Were there inspiration points? Were there People who you saw At certain stages of your life Who you thought That's a That's a movie star As well as a pop star? That's a great question I I really hadn't been to A Like a stadium tour show Up until When Lorde was on tour with Melodrama And that was when I realized I love stadium shows Like that was It was really It was really It was It had a huge impact on me What was it you liked about them? Just being surrounded by that many people I'd You know I'd been to see Like Rob Zombie in high school And the Hellbilly Deluxe tour I'd been to stadium shows before But something about This is kind of a living dead girl movie actually Yes, yes, exactly Yeah Something about Going to see That type of spectacle Surrounded by that many people And specifically that type of music Was really transformative for me Prior to that I'd, you know Made movies that dealt with folk music Or had sort of a more of a An old-fashioned classic Americana sensibility to them But as I was making those I was secretly also discovering That I really love pop music And When we made Ain't Nobody Saints I can't I can't say this We hid A certain type of music A certain song in the movie As many times as we could By compressing it into The gun shots you hear in the movie Just because I was like You know I was I've been listening to this song a lot I really want to It's infecting me And I want to I want to pay tribute So we We secreted it away into the movie And that song is called I'm never going to say it Okay How do you research a movie like this? Because It is very much about a pop star And about A person who feels Somewhat reflective Of some of the big icons that we see But it's also about the flip side The sort of The support system The creative Shadow Of someone like that And I don't know a lot about that world But it does feel Realized Like it does feel true When I watch it So how did you come to understand How that world works? It started with watching A lot of documentaries And I'd say the two that were Really instrumental to me Were McQueen The Alexander McQueen documentary And And It's not touched on that much In that film But But His relationship with Lady Gaga Was something I had in mind Even Madonna and Gautier But That pairing of Of A performer And A designer Was really potent to me And And then Just watching Every Music documentary Basically And seeing Just getting Just The idea of what it Means to go on tour Something I've I could never dream of doing I I My Hats off to anyone Who is Capable of that Because it is a true it's it's superhuman feat and i think the first one maybe when we were shooting the green knight beyonce's homecoming documentary came out and watching that was really really impactful and and then the taylor swift reputation documentary which is as a cinematic spectacle really something else like i really love the way that was shot and we could barely scratch the surface of that that scale with this film but that was something we looked at a lot too but just even watching all those you just get the sense and then talking to musicians like talking to people who do this and trying to get a sense of it trying to understand what it's like and not just the ardor and joy and you know of getting to go do this uh night after night but also the creative collaborations that beget something like a stadium tour who was cast first michaela kohler and i think it was michaela kohler and i think it was michaela kohler and i think it was michaela kohler and i think it was michaela kohler and i think it was michaela kohler and i think it was michaela kohler and i think it was michaela kohler and i think it was michaela kohler and i think. and so and it was cast first so by the time i met with michaela we didn't really talk about you know i'd i try to be agnostic when i'm casting movies but i just like to send the script and see what people think of them and and i honestly think there's an incredible version of this movie where the roles are reversed it would be just a completely different dynamic but i did cast ann first and so then when i met michaela and we were talking about it and we weren't even talking necessarily about her playing sam we were just talking about the script and talking about what was going on with her and what was going on with her and what was going on with her and what she found meaningful in it which was really a big like i was so starstruck because i'm such a huge fan of hers and to know that she found value in something i'd written i was like what's going on here but the as as we were speaking as we were talking about you know personal experiences that she could relate to within the script and the things that where it came from for me i really started to hear sam's dialogue and her voice and almost instantly i was like this has to happen it has to be her you're saying you like the idea of working with two actors and you know if they if there's no chemistry between the two people that you cast a movie like this can't work and there's such a toxic chemistry between these two people how do you make that happen in a movie without it making everybody go insane we might have gone insane i mean it's it's there in the script so you know what you're signing up for and i was very confident that no matter what the chemistry was like a they're professional actors and we're going to come here and we're going to perform these scenes as they're written and we're going to explore them and extrapolate from them and expand upon them and and something will emerge from that but also like i just want to see the two of them in a room together and it could have been anything and i would have been we can work with this i would have i would have known we could work with it but it really was like a really interesting process of i mean you hear about this with other movies but like you start living it you really becomes every day you're going there and and and we shot not entirely in sequence but we tried at least for the first three weeks we were in sequence and we were really i think had a plan and we knew what we were doing we had rehearsed the first act of the movie very very thoroughly and and we were sticking to that plan and it was all working according to plan and then at a certain point we started to feel things more deeply and there are fewer words in the movie at a certain point you start you start like exploring in a different way and at that point it really became an almost supernatural experience making this and i don't know if that comes through in the movie but we felt while we were making it we were we were like what are we conjuring here this is so it felt sometimes incredibly beautiful sometimes incredibly painful sometimes it felt evil like we were we were summoning something terrible and we were like oh no what's what's going on you were conjuring something evil there was there was a moment after ann has told her story and they're sitting there and she asks oh no after mother mary's told her story and she asks sam if she believes her and sam clearly doesn't but he knows she needs to address this and is going to invite her up and remeasure her and i remember and saying i'm afraid to speak the words right now because there's something inside of me that might come out when i open my mouth and it might hurt all of us and maybe that was a metaphor this is a movie full of metaphors maybe it was literal and michaela knelt down at her side i didn't quite know what to say i was like i was like this has never happened to me and michaela knelt down at her side and just took her hand and said i love you and i trust you and it's i you can you can say the words and that was one of those moments was just like in that moment it sounds almost like like something i wrote but it also like describing it doesn't really capture like how intense that moment was and i remember the crew was all gathering around being like watching us as we're all just working through this moment they're like what is happening and then the other thing when they're in that circle it was you know there's the scene breathing exercise and they just breathe and it's one of my favorite things in movies just to watch people breathe and fall into that pattern and we would do that before every single take and really get ourselves into that space and it really felt like we were entering some weird zone for and that scene was scheduled for i think two days and we probably shot it for seven days which is an insane thing to say out loud because we just kept i really wanted this to be a film where if anyone felt that something was wrong or that we were going down the wrong path we would stop and course correct and and that sequence we were we were always refining it trying to find for them the the performance like where they were where the characters were for me that's one of the most visually there's a lot going on visually in that sequence and finding the right visual language for it and we you know we're constantly exploring within the parameters of this tiny little circle on the floor i remember vividly you talking about completely re-editing the green night during covid and just changing the tempo and even maybe some of the meaning of that movie by having free time on your hands and changing it seems like this movie similarly had a kind of yeah ongoing redefinition i would if it wasn't opening next week i would still probably be like doing stuff but the like with the green night it wasn't that i recut like i didn't change what the movie was i just gave myself time to take some time away from it and then was able to tease out that meaning more effectively and that really did involve changing the tempo that was the big thing just changing the pace of it and with this movie i i watched it like december 31st of last year or 2024 and was like this is the best thing i'll ever do i'm done not gonna touch it and then showed it to some people and realized okay maybe i'm not done you know and and that happened repeatedly like where i just like i'd be like okay i've crushed it and then i'd watch it with an audience and be like oh it's not it's not they're not getting what i want them to get out of it and then a lot of it was me just consistently because i edited it as well it was just like what else can i do and that's the same thing i do with the writing like this movie could have ended um at various points like the michaela's monologue was at one point the ending of the movie where she talks about that final performance and i was like no there's more to find there's more to extract there's more to dig out of this and with the editing process it was the same thing where i was always like i don't know what it is but there's more i'm not through with this yet there's more i can get out of it and because of delays with strikes and and other things we had the luxury of continuously just digging back in and and pushing it's something that makes filmmaking such a unique um art form to me which is that unlike a painter or even a songwriter you can kind of show a work in progress and take notes and feedback and change it based on things that people say to you and i feel like you have to really evacuate your own ego to let that happen like is that something that you would do on every movie where you really want to hear what people think of what you've done so far i wish that i could just be like i made the movie i want and i'm done and maybe i should try that i don't know but i would i would still go through that process on my own i love hearing what people think of it and i love showing it to people because i believe that's you know the movie is a living thing and it really needs to engage with the organism that is the audience but i want so much of it is self-imposed where i just like i i hear what people say then i have to not look at it for a while because i don't want to just answer those notes i want to hear those notes let those notes sort of like simmer and and and on a very low boil and then take what i need from them but it really is informative for me to just like am i achieving what i set out to do and sometimes i have like you know kind of an idea of what i set out to do with a movie like this like 10 years from now i'll still be trying to figure out what i was trying to do like i know what i was trying to do but i'm going to learn more about it as i discuss it now as it's as it makes its way out into the world yeah i know better but there is a part of me that wants to just look you in the eyes and say what does this movie mean I'm not going to say it because I want everyone to just go see the movie again. Okay. But Michaela literally says what the movie's about in the first 20 minutes. Like she like lays it very like clearly on the table and that's what the movie's about. Yeah, I also was thinking about, you know, this is the second time I've seen it now and thinking about who are you between the two of them and you indicated that you're both of them, that it's a conversation between yourself. But I'm wondering if maybe you had relationships creatively where you were Sam or you were Mother Mary and kind of how that informs some of the dynamic that you created between the two characters. I haven't had specifically those relationships, but I have seen the way, because I work with the same people over and over again and you see the way in which relationships can ebb and flow from one project to the next and the way in which those collaborations can be really, really intense in a way that can sometimes almost seem dangerous. And that's a beautiful thing. I really love that. I've thankfully never had one that has gone this way, but I could see, I could project and imagine what would happen. It definitely was also though, like there was a scene in the movie at one point where they explicitly referenced Disney movies. And I was like, I love making Disney movies. That's one of my favorite things. And I also love making movies like a ghost story or like this. And it's like every now and then, every time those two sides of me live in perfect harmony, but every now and then I'm just like, what the heck is going on? And when I started writing this, I was having one of those moments. The biggest potential pitfall for a movie like this is just getting the music wrong. Like if you get the music wrong, also the movie will not work. And I find the songs in the movie to be very credible and they're like living in a weird liminal range between a bunch of different active and past pop stars. So how do you know that you're getting the right songs? How do you cast the right people to write those songs? To make this a legible world? Charlie was the first person I met and I had been a fan of her music and was in her documentary and like, but I had not been thinking about her specifically while writing this. But the thing that I knew was that like, the music I listened to while writing this movie was one thing. That was the tone of the movie. But the character of Mother Mary needed to be something very different. And talking to Charlie was like, oh, like you could bring, you could bring that to this film. And you're brilliant. You're amazing. Please, please bring that to this film. And then collaborating with Jack and her to create the songs was a real learning experience for me. Like I've never been lucky enough to sit, I've known a lot of musicians, but to just sit and watch these, it was like alchemy, like watching them conjure it out of thin air. It was incredible. And I have to give an immense amount of credit then to Annie who had to perform them. We had written a couple of the songs early on and I shared them with her and she liked them, but she was like, I don't know how to make these mine. And I was like, well, of course, these have to be yours. You have to go out on stage and sing them as if you wrote them. They have to feel like they're coming from you. And that process I think was what really took them to the next level because the songs were great. They were always great. The rough demos were incredible. But the thing that really made them, hum in that ineffable way was what Annie brought to it. And she just, we know she can sing. She's an incredible singer, but to sing in this way was really, it was a new muscle for her to learn. And so she would go into the studio over and over and over again and just rerecord these songs and was just constantly trying to get them a little better in a way that I couldn't even hear sometimes. Like I would be like, it sounds great. I love it. Top 10 hit, here we come. And she's like, no, we're not, we don't quite have it. And sometimes it was just like, it was changing lyrics. Sometimes it was like things that would work better for her, but more often it was just a feeling and a vibe. And she just kept pushing at it. And I owe so much to all of them, but also to her for not letting it rest. There's also something in her performance that really jumps out, which is both when she's on stage performing and also when she's just in the kind of chamber setting, she has a very explicit posture and personal choreography, the way that her hands move, the way that her body moves. And I'm curious how much of that is written in the script, how much when she's making hand gestures to communicate with her lack of language in that sequence with Michaela, is that all there? Is that something you guys are figuring out when you're working on the scene? Some of it, like the hand gestures was all there. That was something in the script that, long story, but due to my love of Anna Karenina, it's like a vague, I stole it from, and I didn't even steal it. It's like, anyway, love Anna Karenina. I love the movie too, but the book novel. Um, the- Novel? Apparently. Okay. The, but she came to set with so much of that already worked out. And that was truly like one of those, I remember when we made "Ain't the Body of Saints," Rooney didn't want to like, let me hear her accent until day one. And I was nervous 'cause like, it's a, it's a thing. And then she did it. I was like, oh, this is perfect. Why was I scared? You're an incredible actor. You're gonna nail this. And with, with Annie, she had done so much work into the, in the physicality. Not just of the performance stuff, which was a whole other thing, but just the way that she carries herself, the way that she holds things within, the way she uses her hands. And the few times where she would let the pop star flair pop through, like when she snaps her fingers, like every now and then that would pop through, very, in a very calibrated sense, but everything else was so, she'd worked through like, I think every gesture in advance. And it was so incredible to see. 'Cause I, again, we, we'd rehearsed it, but, you know, we'd rehearsed it, but it wasn't until we got to set that I really saw how much thought she had given to the physicality. We'd, we put so much emphasis on the dancing. Like that was, we, she had a pop star boot camp, boot camp. Our, our choreographer was working with her three months before we started shooting. And then for a year afterwards, 'cause we shot most of the concert sequences much later. And it was incredible to see her, not only her commitment, but the way in which that commitment paid off and what she found and what she was able to do. And so we were always focused on that. We were focused on the dance, focused on the expressiveness that she could, she could, you know, summon up, but then all of the stuff that was less expressive was what was a beautiful surprise to me on set. How did you execute the concert sequences and make them seem as though they were happening in a stadium environment? What we, I don't, I'm sure there's a million ways to do this. And what we kind of figured out for us was that we just had to put on a, a stadium concert show, a tour, like not tour, just one, five nights, five nights of Mother Mary. And we did it in Bonn, Germany, where we could get a stadium for a week or two or three weeks. And we, I mean, hired people who do this for a living. And I was like, this is a whole art form unto itself. I would, I have no idea how, like I can talk about how to light a set, how to light a stadium. I mean, it's just, it's insane. And thankfully, Rena Yang, who was one of the cinematographers in this film, she had a lot of experience with that. So she kind of held my hand through all of that. But just putting that on, we, you know, Danny, our choreographer was really instrumental in helping us make it feel real. Our production designer, Francesca, did tons of research into how to do this, but we were really just like, this is not a movie anymore. We're just putting on a concert and filming it. And we would just play the same song, you know, 30 times every night, but it was like, that was, and we had, you know, 500 people, which in a stadium is nothing. That's, you know, the front row, but it was enough for Annie to be able to communicate with the crowd and to feel like she was performing to someone and to engage with them. And I will, my hat's off to all of our incredible background talent in Germany, because they gave it their all every single night. I'm hoping you can talk a little bit about the phantasm, the goeric aspects of the story. It does, was it always an essential part of the story or did this start as something that was more stripped down between two people and then evolve into something that became more ghostly and spiritual? I would say that it always started with a sense, like it was from the very beginning, had this Gothic quality to it, whether it's, you know, I was definitely thinking about Rebecca when she pulls up to the house, you know, and. Literal thunder and lightning crash. Yes, yeah, and then as I tend to do, I just like remove the tethers of reality and start to explore the themes in a more phantasmagoric way. And I tried to hold back for as long as I could, 'cause I didn't want to just like instantly plunge head first into that, but at a certain point, you know, early on in the writing, I knew it was going to go in that direction. And I didn't know how far, what form it was going to take, but. I'm really into phenomenology and I really wanted this movie to feel like a phenomenological, phenomenological exchange between these characters. And I wanted the ghost, which we tried to not even refer to too often as a ghost, to be just energy and emotion exchange between two people that take human, that takes form, that takes not human form, it takes some sort of form. And, and I liked the idea of someone who, you know, sees something that they know is not literally real, but it feels real. And that's what phenomenology is, you, you have to, assess it on the base of the emotional truth that the subject is experiencing. And so these are two people who are experiencing the same phenomenon that they know is probably not real and yet it's real to them and they have to reconcile that. And yeah, and so there's a ghost. The reference that I gave when we were trying to figure out what it would look like was the T-1000 at the end of Terminator 2 when it falls in the lava. Because I love the idea of something that can't figure out what it needs to be. It doesn't know what it needs to be. And I kept showing that sequence where it's like, look, he's turning into all the different forms. And so we tried to find our own version of that. And I've made a movie with a fabric ghost before and I wasn't intentionally setting out to do that, but it just made sense for this film. Yeah. And this is like an elegant elevation of a ghost story in a way. Yes. You used puppets? We got some puppets. You're a puppet guy. I love puppets. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about it. How'd you figure it out? So we had, I knew it was going to start with this weird sort of mass of bloody tissue. The whole tooth thing happened to me, but not the part with the ghost crawling out of my gums. I did have a wisdom tooth crack open and that was a rod puppet. So we had like two or three rod puppets. I built it out of clay or made some clay maquettes. And then my friend Annel who did the ghost from a ghost story, she made these little rod puppets. with like bellows that make it breathe for when Sam first sees it on the floor. And then I knew it needed to transform. And we went through so many iterations of what it would transform into all involving fabric, but some of them were costumes. Some of them were more like sculptures. And then I was looking, I was trying to just figure out a way to make this unique and truly like something that I'd never seen before. And I was just looking at YouTube and saw this artist named Daniel Wurzel who does these sculptures. with wind and fabric. They're just incredibly beautiful. They feel like they're choreographed, but they're not. It's just fabric moving. He has this custom air table that he uses. And so we reached out to him and asked him if he could collaborate with us and creating. And he does it like at scale, like these huge things. And we did a couple of those. We did some that were smaller. We used all sorts of different fabric. We had fabric that was like covered in gore, but just all these different forms. And then film photographed all of that and then composited that into the, into the other footage that we'd already shot. And it was, it was really incredible to just sit there for five. We did spend five days with a VFX unit, just filming fabric in the breeze. And it was really hypnotic. Can you tell me what quantum entanglement is? It's, I mean, we can go really deep on this. It's when two particles share properties across time and space. So you could have like a, a, let's just say an atom. It's usually to be smaller, an atom that is blue, let's say, and blue in a very specific way. And another atom on the other side of the universe has exactly that same color blue and they're virtually identical. And yet they have no sense of connection in a spatial way. And it's a phenomenon that was theorized and then eventually prove proven. And it is one of the best metaphors for a relationship. And, and did you stumble upon it while writing this? Like, why did it become a hallmark for it? I had known about it for a while because I love quantum physics. I was working on, at one point, I was working on the, uh, the Joe Dante movie Explorers. I was working on a, um, TV show adaptation of that and completely destroyed my brain trying to research every aspect of quantum physics. And, and that show never happened, but it did give me a deep love for something I cannot wrap my head around. Like I cannot explain it. I don't understand it. I'm terrible at math, but I love it. And, and so it worked its way in here very, very quickly. Um, I love how unpredictable your movies are. I, I literally could never imagine what you're going to do next, but I do like asking you, do you know what, I think if you started writing something or something like that, what would you do next? Have you already made something? I'm going to knock on wood because we just were, we're, we're in prep right now. So ideally this one will have, you know, this one is, God, I'm going to just shoot myself in the foot. I'm like, this is a small film. I'm just going to make a small film. Mother Mary 2? Yeah, exactly. It's a very small film. Um, but yeah, we'll be, we're, we're underway on that right now. Okay. David, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen? I mean, you are a true cinephile. Yes. Um, the last great thing I saw was the Alamo Drafthouse showed Melancholia about two weeks ago and I hadn't seen it in about 10 years. And it is, it's long been my favorite Von Trier movie, but it's better now than I was like, how have I been sleeping on this movie for 10 years? This is utterly incredible. I know you covered it last year. We did. Yeah. 25 or 25. Yeah. And I was so happy to see it on the big screen. Um, and then I also want to give it, that's an old movie, a new movie that I saw last year, but also have repeatedly watched this year is the Testament of Anne Lee, which I just can't get enough of. Absolutely breathtaking movie. I can't stop listening to the soundtrack. It is, it is a movie that is quickly rising as one of my all-time favorites. They would make an incredible double feature with Mother Mary too. I mean, they're, they're a match made in heaven. I had not even thought about, but I'd love to go see that double. Everybody give it up for David Lowery. Thank you, everybody. Thank you to David Lowery. Thanks to our friends at Vidiots. Thanks to Yossi Salik. Hey, what are you going to come back for a truly great movie next time? I would hope so. I mean, I love this tradition of you sending me off to the theater to see sort of difficult to stomach. Yeah, Paw Patrol 2 next for you? What do you want to do? Yeah, what's on your radar? Um, I, I, Madonna's career. I've not been, is Madonna going to be in a film anytime soon? No, she, her biopic will not happen, but it will be portrayed as if it were real in the studio season two. Because God is good, because we don't need anyone destroying her legacy like that. Okay. Take it up with Julia Garner. Um, I'll take a look at the coming releases. Okay. Uh, thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders for his production work on this episode and that live event. Thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh for his production support. Next week, we are drafting again. We've actually already recorded it. It's a Star Wars movie draft. It was totally normal. And I had a perfect draft. Yes. Amanda did very well. I yelled at Amanda. She yelled at me. Everybody else was chill. We'll see you then. We'll see you next week. We'll see you then. We'll see you then.