Sex, Hell, and 10 Movies We Missed This Summer. Plus: Gregg Araki!

I'm Sean Fantasy and this is the big picture a conversation show about 10 movies we missed. It's been a busy summer and some titles have flown under the radar we want to give you the latest on many of them. Here in this episode, I'll be joined by Greg Araki, an icon of independent cinema, a pioneer of the new queer cinema and a director who really scrambled my brain in a wonderful way when I was a teenager. Araki's first film in 12 years arrives on Friday. It's called "I Want Your Sex." It stars Olivia Wilde, recent favorite of the show, Cooper Hoffman, and other favorite. In his very much signature Araki, screwball funny, movie obsessed, and sexually minded. I talked to Greg. But his long career, his influence as a filmmaker, and how he stays connected to young people so many years later. Stick around for that. At first, a lot of movie news out of Comic-Con right after this. This episode of The Big Picture is presented by Amazon Prime. One of the best things about streaming is that you never just pick a title. You pick a feeling. And Prime makes that easy. With great entertainment and fast shipping that brings the moment to life, Prime helps you experience the feeling you're craving. Shows you can't wait for and deliveries you don't wait for. One click away. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime. Okay, Amanda. You've just. Birthday boy, birthday boy, the cliff is here. How does it feel that you're this, your birthday episode? This is Sean's birthday observed. Observed, yes. The day was yesterday. Yes, this is, but it's a federal holiday. It's a bank holiday. Yeah, exactly. And so here we are, she's celebrating you reaching the point where your body starts breaking down. That's scientifically backed. With a lot of news about Marvel. Yeah. Yeah. It all comes full circle, you know? My eyesight is going just in time for me to not have to watch some of these movies. Yeah. Happy birthday. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. You know, we had a wonderful time together on Saturday night and had a very low key day on Sunday with my family, exactly how I like it. We watched movies. I bought some movies. Can't do better. This morning, I've been thinking a lot about Marvel, which of course has been a hot topic on this show in recent weeks after the Doomsday trailer and in recent years because we've been making a podcast about movies for one decade during the biggest decade in comic book movie history. Well, during half of the half of, yeah, yeah, we've seen some ebbs and flows. But you know, I think things really crescendoed in 2019. We were going at that point. Yeah. And here we are. Comic Con just happened. You were there for 10 straight days. Yeah. Shout out to the Bringerverse team. They made some wonderful content out of there. They stayed until the end, which you noted with it. Yeah. So there's a lot of news that we're going to share. But I guess the biggest news, well, I actually think that the new black panther is the biggest news, but the other news, the most heads-grashing news is that Ryan Gosling, he of Barbie, he of a Star Wars movie, Starfighter. Starfighter, yeah. He of other movies that we love and then other movies that many people have seen. Yeah, but the movies we love is the movies people have seen are not always first man, the nice guys. Sure, that's right. But be on the pines. Only God forgives drive. So now he is also joining the MCU in a Sean Levy directed film and he will star as Ghost Rider. I know what most of those words mean. So do you know who Ghost Rider is? No, but I want to share with you in the world how I learned of this news, which was also on Saturday Night. It was announced. The big Saturday night panel at Comic Con, you and I held a joint birthday party had a great time. I did some cleanup, got in bed about 115 way past men as bedtime, a couple of the gronies in the tank, opened up my phone and I like, I was so confused. I looked at all the photos and I was like, am I really drunk? Like is this, it was sort of like the bill colonoscopy story, but me and like a, you know, Negroni asked me just like, what's happening? So what was confusing that this is what Gosling chose to do? Yes. And also this was sort of the one franchise world that he hadn't sold out to yet. And you know, I was just kind of keeping all of my big budget IPs separate. And it all melded together in my head. And then there were also a lot of Photoshop's of him bursting into flame, which you would think at that hour of the night would encourage me to go go strider. But instead, I went to bed. Okay. I mean, I don't think you need to know too much about Ghost Rider. I'll just say for the record and the parlance of Mark Marren Ghost Rider, not one of my guys. Fun fact, I've never seen the two Nicholas Cage Ghost Rider movies. So those are comic book films. I think I've seen almost every comic book film ever made. I've never seen those movies. There's a funny little component to this story, which do you know who the female lead of the original Ghost Rider film is? I don't. It's even Mendes. Wow. And the mother is children and a wonderful actor. So I wish would come back to cinema. She, I guess they share that, that they'll have the Ghost Rider universe between them. I think actually if you look at not just the arc of Gosling's choices recently, but also the stage of life that he's at, I think this makes sense. I can say definitively, this isn't what I would want from one of my favorite movie stars. And certainly not, you know, I spent the weekend sending emails to people saying, you know, we've, we've buried the place beyond the pines, Ryan Gosling, like we, a Viking funeral, like, it's over. He's not that person anymore. He's not going to, he's not making movies like that. He's not interested in movies like that. Quick follow up. So that's how you spent your birthday was writing emails. Yeah. You energizing texting on the pines, texting with fellow men. Okay. So just news and deals between 2010 and 2018, okay. Those characters meant the world to me. They're sort of my adult version of the MCU. And that guy's gone. And now we know Gosling communicated in parts of your husband when he profiled him with, I think it was for Barbie or the fall guy, I can't remember. Great question. Don't remember. Anyway, I mean, he talked about how he's like, my kids are growing up. I want to make one movie a year. I want to make movies that my kids can enjoy. I want to make big 10 poll movies, presumably he wants to be paid a large sum of money for those movies. If we look at his 2020s, these are the movies he's made. The Gray Man for Netflix, the fall guy for Universal, that is sort of IP and didn't totally work and maybe even pushed him even further in this direction. And then Barbie, Project Hail Mary, terrific movie, but still IP in its way, Star Wars Star Fighter. And now Ghost Rider. This story was for Barbie. It was for Barbie. Okay. I mean, Star Wars Starfighter, this tells you a little bit about it. It tells you that one, I know that this movie is completed production, and it sounds like Disney really likes it. Otherwise, they would not have reunited Sean Levy and Ryan Gosling for this movie, presumably, for a lot of money. It's also, I think it's going to be the first post-secret Wars MCU movie. So like, you know, Doomsday is coming out, this Christmas, next Christmas, there's the second Avengers movie, Secret Wars. Right. And there's nothing in between, said Kevin Feige. There's nothing in between. So it's just two Marvel movies over the next two years. And so that tells you that this is like going to be a big deal to Marvel. Once upon a time, I think I talked to Mal and Joanna on a podcast about how there's a whole wing of like horror adjacent characters in Marvel. Yes. And Ghost Rider is one of the most prominent. So I have since while you were monologuing Google Ghost Rider, I'd like to read you these two sentences from the Wikipedia page. At night and went around evil, Blaze, who's the first Ghost Rider, finds his flesh consumed by Hellfire, causing his head to become a flaming skull. He rides a fiery motorcycle and wields blasts of Hellfire from his body, usually from his hands. Yeah. Okay. His name is full name is Johnny Blaze, which was then adopted by Methodman, Wu-Tang Klan rapper. Sure. You know, Ghost Rider is fine. It's a little like guys who really like, you know, leather jackets and with spikes on them. I will say that fire is not one of the effects that has been totally nailed down by CGI, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. So maybe they'll do it practically. Maybe. Sean Levy loves practical shooting. I, you know, I'm not a fan of Sean Levy's cinema. Yeah. I don't think he makes great films. There are many other monologues available in the back log of this podcast. Yeah. I don't think he's a great director. I think he's a very trusted studio hand, right? And it's very clear that Disney is very comfortable with him and they should be. I don't starfight her. You know, that's probably going to be a lot of podcasts. Okay. Maybe it'll be good. May 28th, 2027. Yeah. It's Memorial Day next year. That's my anniversary. So. I'm going to be spending it with right now. Sean Levy. Part one. I think you're right, though, that the bigger news out of this is that there's a new black panther, which we had not really, you and I had certainly not speculated that that was something that Ryan Kuhler was going to do. We did talk about how this was almost certainly going to be his next movie after sinners and the crazy success of that movie. But Shuri was in in the primary position in black panther, too, in the time to forever. And now it's been announced that David Johnson, who is the star, was the star of the first couple seasons of industry, alien Romulus, the long walk last year, will be playing to Charles grown up son, which means clearly there's going to be some sort of fast forward in the timeline. I'm not sure how that impacts all the other revengeers movies, but I think this is a great choice. He's a great actor. I've really liked him in other films. When I talked about the long walk, I talked about how great he and Kuhler often were together. He's terrific as the, the droid in the robot and alien Romulus. Wonderful in Rylane, which is a terrific in Rylane under scene romantic comedy. I was just watching him last night in a small British prison drama called Waste Man that he was in with Tom Blythe. He was very good in that as well. So he's a really good actor. factor, you know, this wouldn't be my first choice for what Googlers is doing with his coin, but I know that he, these movies mean a lot to him and to millions of people and I thought what kind of forever was probably his least successful movie overall, but I'm excited to see what Johnson can do. I don't what do you think? Any, any takeaways from this? I think we did walk away from what kind of forever feeling, you know, disappointed relative to the original of Black Panther. And also, you know, obviously tried Chadwick Moseman's death affected that production and what they were doing with the character in that moment in such way. But, you know, if the sherry thing was both obvious and not like a totally natural fit and it just didn't quite come together. So I'm pleased for them to have another chance to do a well. And I really like David Johnson. So yeah, that's that's cool. Did you see any of the photos of him at Comic Con? I saw the behind the scenes video of him as they were announcing. Yeah, and then going out and also with it, Ryan Kugler was wearing the row, which is shout out Ryan Kugler. But I thought that was very lovely. Yeah, he's already starting to look a little jacked Johnson. Yeah, I wouldn't say he's the most physically imposing Marvel superhero. Okay, we've seen yet, but he he clearly is starting to put on some muscle mass. It's exciting for him. Yeah, as somebody who has already gone over the cliff too late for me, but I'm happy for him. Let's talk briefly about the Odyssey. Okay. So it's made $640 million in eight and a half days. Yeah. Is that good? Yes. It's good. It's good job. It's it's a lot of money. A 29% drop, which is fucking insane. It made $90 million domestically. It outgrossed Oppenheimer's opening weekend and it's second weekend. It's the 10th highest grossing R rated movie of all time today. Yeah. It's headed for maybe 1.3 billion, possibly 1.5 billion. The highest grossing R rated movie of all time is what? Of all time. Yeah. Dark night. No. No. Deadpool. Yeah. And Deadpool movie directed by Sean Levy. I'm sorry. I honestly, I was just consumed by this by this image that just presented itself to me, which was Scrooge McDuck, but with Christopher Nolan's face and beautiful hair yeah, face it on top of it diving into the sea of coins. And I don't know if that's a meme yet. No, but I don't think so. Yeah, and congratulations. Would you use AI to make that? No, that's why this is this is the real intelligence. The mind palace here. Yeah, that's that's how it happens. Absolutely. Yeah, this is this is insane. And this is probably going to be his biggest movie of all time. And it's a three hour swords and sandals epic that Emily Wilson hated. And you know, I'm not sure if you read that review, but that was the level review of books. Yeah, so scathing takedown. She also I subscribed to Emily Wilson sub-stack this weekend. And so this weekend, she just published it, published the unedited version of the answers that she gave to I believe the associated press, but whatever interviews that she did, she's like, oh, they didn't use all of it. So here it is. And it's basically she doesn't love all of the attention put on the fact that she's the first woman translator of the Odyssey. And yes, she did not like the Odyssey, which the London Review of Books headline is an uncomplicated man, which is a play on the fact that the her translation of the first line of the Odyssey calls him Odysseus is complicated. Really, really funny. You know, I think tastes berries. And this is a person who has spent her entire life submerged in the epic traditions. And you know, like maybe has has fun in different ways than we do. Yeah, I thought it was a tremendously entertaining read. I mean awesome. I love a good takedown. I think she made some salient points. And then there were other points that she made where I thought she was kind of purposefully misreading the text that she specifically is like, this isn't a film about like coming back from war and the hardships of war and the negative downsides of war. And I'm like, if you don't if you can't see that that's in the movie, then I don't know what movie you watched. There's a little bit of like academic gatekeeping going on. A little bit of like, this is my specialty stuff in it. But I think also, I mean, the point about this is this poem, like is not about coming home from war. I mean, I guess textually, it's not. And he is he is doing of like far looser interpretation interpretation, right, which so she's in the business of interpreting and recreating something. But yeah, it is just a little bit like that's not what's in the book. Yeah, which she's probably the only person on earth who's allowed to say that. And I think it is very different from the book and his interpretation of what it means. It like is very, very different. But you know, this is very petty and maybe meaningless. But one thing is I was reading it and enjoying this piece was kind of echoing in my mind, which let me see if I can get back to this note that she shared on blue sky. 19 days ago, Emily Wilson, I am, of course, very excited for the Christopher Nolan Odyssey film. Mr. Nolan didn't invite me to the premiere in London, but that's okay. I was like, that's an odd thing to share. Like, why did you put that out on the public? And then lo and behold, a few days later, she was like, this movie isn't good. It's an action. Right. It's Jason born, you know, also some of the issues are like she doesn't like the score, you know, but just like that that's fine. Again, you can like other things, but you know, I think there's a lot of valid criticism of the movie. It's been interesting to see the the worm turn on it a little bit now that it has really gotten out into the open a lot of people who don't see a lot of movies have a lot of feelings about it. And I think some of her criticisms are very sound and interesting. I did feel a little bit ax grindy at times as I was reading it, though, but you know what? I've been there as somebody talks about works of art publicly. She's doing the same. I wanted to give a quick shout out to the director Chuck Russell, who passed away, whose work I really, really liked when I was a kid. He made Nightmare on Street 3 dream warriors. He made the blob remake. He made Jim carries the mask, which is a real banger. Yes, I actually recently relaunched it and it holds up great kind of the launch point for Cameron Diaz as a star or carry in the middle of his incredible rise to fame and success. And I really like Chuck's movie. So I wanted to give him a quick shout out. Anything else happened in the in the world of cinema for you over the weekend? My son watched the Sandlot for the first time had it go over twice. So great. Wow. That felt really good. Sandlot, obviously a generational banger. Yeah. Benny the jet. Who is he into the most? Do you remember which character? I don't really think that he was, he was mostly nervous about the dog about the beast. It's going to ask about the beast. Yeah. He was scared about the beast. Mom, I don't like this part. And then anytime he could sense that there was discord and the kids were making fun of each other. He didn't like that. Did you explain to him that the man who plays the guy on the other side of the fence was Darth Vader? Because James role Jones is, you know, epic role. No, I didn't because that would confuse him. I was really just trying to get him to rehash basic plot points. So the actors portray characters yet. Well, he knows about Tom Cruise. Sure. And he's seen Tom Cruise in at least. Well, he's seen Mission Impossible stunts and then he's seen Top Gun Maverick. But he knows that there's a difference between mav and Tom Cruise. Okay. But so he does. Yeah. But, but I don't know that if it's like extended beyond that, I think it's still a little confused. You should go home today and bring two photographs. One photograph will be a photo of Ryan Gosling. The other photograph will be a photo of Johnny Blaise aka ghost right. And you can say these men are the same. See how it responds. Okay, update on the summer movie preview game. It's been two months since we did an update. Some decent calls, some disastrous calls. Okay. Let's recap it quickly. Back rooms. One of our worst guesses. This is the last, the most recent film that the first film that opened since we talked about this. I guess 67 million. Mm-hmm. You guessed $16 million domestic box office. The film made $197 million. Okay. Dang. What do we guess for obsessions? Obsession. I don't remember not very much. We might have talked about it on the episode. I think I guessed more than you, but I could be wrong. I did pretty good on disclosure day. I guess 121 million. It's currently sitting in 116 million still in theaters. I saw Andy Greenwell over the weekend. He said he saw it in theaters over the weekend. So people are still seeing that. For obsession, Amanda guessed 15 and you guessed 42. 42 and that landed at like 400 million. I believe that's correct. That's crazy. Minions and monsters, sheesh. Yeah. So I guess 352 million. You guessed 350 million and it came in at 149 million. We'll talk about that movie very shortly. Supergirl. Dang. I guessed 159 million. You guessed 190 million. It's current. It is sitting at 71 million. Yeah. That was tough. And I think that I used the math of looking up marvels or Captain Marvel. And then like guessing down, taking money away. And it still didn't even make it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. If you think we overreacted to the negative, the negative feedback on Supergirl, the world did not care. Yeah. It's one of the lowest-grossing DC movies in the history of that comic book franchise. Okay. So we're tied in point total right now on 10 out of 33 releases. You have a higher point differential eight times, six of those eight times. It was by five or more. I have a higher point differential 15 times, eight out of 15 times. It was by one point or currently in a dead heat. Okay. I've got 104 points. You've got 101 points. Okay. Who do you think is going to win? Probably you, but I honestly once you started doing point down for rentals, I checked out. It's like a lot of numbers. A lot of you having fun with this. It's your birthday episode. Do you feel good that you're winning? Does this give you a sense of accomplishment? - Well, you know, I've been thinking about this to see where I've been reflecting. And, you know, I'm in a good spot. - Okay. - Things are going okay. - Like in your life. - Yeah. - And just not in your various, - My family's selfie and fantasy things. - Yeah. - Well, you know, I'm doing pretty well in my fantasy life. - I know, I keep hearing about this from you and from other people. It's just it's not how I live my life. - You're not happy that I'm doing well? - No, I just, I'm not in various fantasy leaks for things. - Oh, okay. - I mean, it's just another way to pass the time. - Sure. - Yeah, it doesn't really mean anything. But it's also how you bond with your peers. - That's beautiful. - And we're bonding right now, talking about this game that I've created. I feel like I need a new game. - In life or on this podcast? - Both. - Okay. - You know what I really wanted to do? When we went on to YouTube, I wanted, and Jack Sanders heard me talk about this. I really wanted to create like an atmosphere in which we could play games like with the extended family of the big picture on a more frequent basis where we could just like come into the studio for an hour and play our Frank Corey Everett's Cinefile game. - Okay. - You know, and just play the game on camera. Now there were some technical technological components that were a little bit challenging. We didn't quite have the World Series of Pokers set up where you had an individual camera on everybody's hand. But I always thought that sort of thing would be fun to do. And I thought the audience might enjoy it. Never really came to fruition. Now we're in Netflix and we're fucked. But I do want to go back to that spirit. - Yeah, and YouTube doesn't exist. And Instagram doesn't exist. - No, they do. - They do exist. Where would you most want to do it? What platform? - Peach. - This peach still exists? - I don't think so. - Okay, that's sad. I had some fun there. I don't remember anything about it except Peach, but. - I want a live stream to Vimeo. - Okay. - You think Tubi would be interested in me playing board games? (laughing) I feel like, I feel like I would enjoy that. - That's the other thing Alice hitting this age too where it's just like, we just play board games. This is just something we can actively do together. Well, Candyland obviously shoots in ladders, some classics. We're working on, oh shoot, what's the fake clue game about Fox's outfoxed going crazy right now. - Wow. - It's like a mystery guessing game where you have to figure out who is responsible for a crime. Great, great stuff. - But Fox's? - But animals, yes. - Oh, okay. - But it's not like, it's still a crime. Is it not a nonviolent crime? Is it trying to dumb it down? Is it-- - I think it's a salt and battery. (laughing) - Well, I'm just like, do you not want to do clue because you don't want, like murder? - I think murder is a little-- - Yeah, yeah. - Okay. - I think it's a little too mature. - Okay. - So yeah, but board games, I love them. I got to come up with another movie game. - Okay. - I have some ideas. - Great. - Will you play? - Yeah, of course. You know that I always play. And the less it is reading stats to me, the better. I will just say, you know? I know that that's taken over metrics have taken over all the sports, but they have not taken over my brain. I'm going from the gut. - I will host a game show in 2027. - Okay. - I'm putting that into the world. - That's beautiful. - I will-- - It's your emerald year. - It is my emerald year. I will host a game show. - Apparently on Saturday night, it was a comic reversal not seen since 1778 for us. - That's what happened on Saturday night. - On Saturday night. So, and now Ryan Gosling is ghost. - It was a comic, but I was going to say like, but I was having a good year. - So is it being reversed? - I don't know whether it's being, let me make sure that comic reversal is exactly what it was. - That sounds terrible. - I agree. I mean, I don't want everything changed. You know, I just want to like bam, take it to the next level. Emerald stack. - Bam, look at it. - Emerald and Gossi, it's a very hip reference. - Bam. - My Instagram is not moving right now. - We should close the damn media for all these films. How many bams would you give the following films we'll discuss? I'm going to bring that up again. Are you ready to pivot to the film? - Yeah, I can't find the comic reversal thing and Instagram isn't loading. Not like 'cause I didn't enable AI and now it's broken. - I originally put together a list of films that we were not covering in this episode that were all streaming movies in a snarky attempt to be like, we're not covering this stuff, but truthfully, I don't really have anything against them. But in all the homes three, I haven't seen it. - No, I did see a little bit of the press tour. I think that was a Nola Holmes three. It might have been another Billy Bobby Brown situation. Yeah, but there was some other young man I didn't recognize. Funny press tour. - Was it Hunter Biden? - Yes. (laughing) - Imagine Billy Bobby. - That would be a good movie. - That I would cover. - Yeah, Toobie would want that. (laughing) Are you familiar with "Hart Stopper Forever"? - No. - Amazon streaming film. - Okay. - The "Hart Stopper" was a series. - That's correct. - And that's because I film extension of the series. - Did you watch or read the series? - I did not. I've heard good things, but I've never seen it. - Okay, it's very popular on "Lighter Box," for example, right now. These movies are very much seen, but we haven't seen them. Descendants, wicked wonderland, are you up on that? Have you seen any of the Descendants films? - Not the Alexander Payne George Clooney film. - No, these are not sequels, that film. These are-- - Spinoffs. - Fantasy, preteen Disney films. - This is the fourth film. Greatfully, my daughter has not discovered these movies. I have not seen this one. - Yeah. - You know, I wanted to cover Avatar Ang, the last "Airbender," but I didn't have time to watch it. This movie, which I think was originally meant to be a theatrical release, Paramount Sense straight to streaming, this is a follow-up to the Avatar "The Last Airbender" TV series. And I'm very popular and made TV series. I think it's been covered on the ringervers in the past. Didn't hear much word about this movie over the weekend. - Well, let me tell you, "The Burbank Town Center 6" was sold out every day. - Well, it's the only movie theater I think in America that is running the movie. - Oh, that makes sense because I was looking yesterday. Every other movie had anywhere from two to four screenings and this movie had, I think, at least 18. - Yeah, it was every 20 or 30 minutes, right? I thought about going to the movie theater to see it. They did that for Oscar qualifying consideration for Best Animated Feature. - Okay. - I haven't seen Rose of Nevada yet, and I feel shame about it. - I haven't either. I also want to, it was playing at TIFF while we were there, but we didn't have time to go see it. - I know. - And then I was playing schedule Tetris and just couldn't get anywhere in LA. - So, Rose of Nevada is the new film from a British filmmaker named Mark Jenkins, who's made a couple of movies in the similar style of the one that he made this one, but this one stars "Callant Turner" and "Hair of Stickinson," and it's supposedly quite good. - Is it "Hair of Stickinson" or George McCuy? - No, George McCuy, excuse me. - Yeah, it's okay. It's easy to confuse those British men to me. The kidnapping of Arabella? - Yeah, Carolina Cavalli is a new film, which so it was in "Orazonte" last year at Venice, but I missed it. And then it's like two theaters here, and I couldn't figure out how to get there, Spotify deleted all our emails, like six months ago, so I don't have the emails of the distributor. I just, I love, I love her original film, Amanda, or her last film, which not just because it's about me, and I really want to see this one, but I didn't make it. - I think it's a oscilloscope, is the studio, so I can hook you up with that contact. And then Rose Bush pruning, new film that stars, our "Front Tracey Letz" among many other people, L-Fanning, isn't it? I know. - I think also "Callant Turner" once again. - "Callant Turner" is in it, "J.E. Bell" is in it, and played Berlin earlier this year, and I guess opened on one screen in New York, and I don't know if it has plans to expand LA. I got a few texts from friends, like, "Hey, J.C. Tracy's movie over the weekend," and I was like, "That movie is not available in Los Angeles." So none of those movies will be discussed here. Maybe we'll hit them at some point down the line. Let's talk about what we did miss. - Okay, what we missed, but then caught up on. - We have since seen these films that we will discuss here. The first film, did you see this film? - I did. - Okay, I took my son in the afternoon to go see Moana, the live-action film, still sorry, Dwayne the Rock Johnson. - Right, so Thomas Kale directed this movie, he is perhaps best known as the director of the Hamilton musical on stage, Broadway director, has done some work in film and television as well. And I mentioned this briefly when I took my daughter to see it. This was going to be one of the biggest movies of the summer. This is one of the most iconic Disney features of the last 25 years. - Yeah. - What do you think? - This sucked. - This was very, very grim. And I don't mean that the musical or the songs or the spirit of the ocean and Tafiti and everything, should have been. - You're more of a take-ah. - I just absolutely D-O-A. And you can kind of tell from the moment, like consider the coconut, had some sort of musical Tommy Kale flourishes. I was like, okay, I get it. And then even really, really bad CGI and also slowing it down to 0.5 speed is not gonna take away your welcome. Like you're welcome. And when the rock shows up for a moment, you're excited. But then it descends into true CGI hell, the likes of which I have not seen since the last time I saw a Marvel movie. So I just, I couldn't believe how bad it looked. And of course it has to because it's a fantastical story about the ocean and all these ocean creatures that don't exist and it was originally told an animation. Now they're trying to quote unquote make it real, but it's not real and it's pointless and it's poorly done. And I left wondering how much money Thomas Kale really needs. - I don't know, I'm sure he got paid well. I think it's really more like, why did this movie need to be made at this time? I mean, obviously it was being made also for money. the original. - The Moana is fantastic, the Moana too is not very good. I found a couple of things to like about it, but it's obviously Missinglin' Manuel Miranda's song, which is part of what makes the original such a special movie. I found this really, really depressing. There's this great anecdote in that Odyssey making of it's on Peacock about the moment when Odysseus and his crew are sailing, and we see two dolphins swimming alongside his ship. Do you remember that sequence from the Odyssey? And in that making up, they talk about the fact that that's not CGI, that actually happened. Those dolphins were actually swimming alongside the boat, and they just happened to capture that moment, which is such a breathtaking moment to the point where I was like, oh wow, they decided to put CGI dolphins in because it seems so unbelievable. And making the Odyssey was obviously very, very, very, very, very difficult. And it's paying incredible rewards. And Moana, which looks like it was shot on a sound stage in a tank, and the coloring is awful, and its translation of the story is, as you say, slow down and drawn out and be labored. And I felt this way, but every Disney live action remake, I'm like, you just cannot justify these movies being 30 to 45 minutes longer than the originals. That all of the Disney classics are these like, perfect, 91 minute, majestic pieces of storytelling. And the economy of those stories is so crucial to them working the way that they do for young children. Why are these movies, I don't know. An hour and 52 minutes. And it was a disaster because I took knocks after camp. And so that meant that we didn't get out of the movie theater until close to 7, which then there was just an absolute meltdown in the lobby about getting popcorn or a little minions button or something. You know, he just wants to smash and grab every single thing on the way out, and I can't let him. So I just, I needed it to be shorter for bedtime enforcement. Did you read Nicole Sprurling's piece about the $100 million industry of popcorn buckets in the New York Times? I saw the stats and I also now live with a popcorn bucket because our friend, Mark Anthony, came with us to see Totoro and took knocks to concessions. And the knocks came back with the Grogu bucket with popcorn and then bunch of crunch poured in to the popcorn, which was not something the knocks knew about. That's a ball-nower's move though. No, it's, I'm not a popcorn person, but that's an elite way to elevate popcorn. It's really great, but, you know, I have been taking knocks to the movies and sometimes he gets popcorn in a bag as a treat, but, you know, we're trying to enforce the movie as the treat lifestyle. Then Uncle M.A.G. comes in and is just like, here, that's his job. Nobody did anything wrong. Uncle Spoyle. Yeah, I've been there. But then, then you just sat through Moana, which like, knocks didn't even care about like a tiny little bit. Yeah. And you come outside and your four-year-old is just protesting for also the Moana popcorn bucket was just Moana on the side of a bucket. They didn't even try. You think that's bad because she's a woman? What's the issue? (laughing) I think this movie's a real disappointment and I really, it had me wondering why Disney's plan is for movies. I really don't, you know, their live action strategy is one of the most depressing things that's been happening in Hollywood for the last 10 years. And I really hope they find a way to pivot against this and, you know, invest in some original storytelling. Like, even as critical as we are of some of the animation stuff or Pixar, like, at least they're making hoppers and gatos coming out next year and Hex does coming out later this year. Like, they are doing it with the animation stuff. Gato Trailer was a big hit. Yeah, that looks really good. So. Looks very charming. I really wish they would just apply that same ethic to the live action stuff. I'm with you, bud. Okay. Speaking of animation. It's time for you to discuss. You're in Minions Yellow. Was that on purpose? No, but as soon as I walked in, Lucas was like Minions Yellow. So. (laughing) Good show. The boys in the booth both complemented the shirt and then Lucas knew exactly where I was going. I can't see it 'cause I'm off the cliff now. (laughing) But I'm sure it looks great. Minions and monsters. Yes. This is the, what is this? The seventh Minions related feature film that we've gotten for Despicable Meas and three Minions films. That's right. Yeah. Pierre Coffin is back to direct and to voice some of the Minions. The film follows the Minions in 1920s Hollywood. I didn't realize they were over a hundred years old as they searched for frightening features. No, no, no, no, no. Minions have been with us since the beginning of time. Well, that's what we're gonna learn that more specifically in this feature. But you know, you have learned that as well, okay. I'm not up on Minions lore. Minions and Ghost Rider. Those are my blind spots. - Keep going. (laughing) - The Minions are in 1920s Hollywood as they searched for frightening creatures for their monster movie, partner with a green creature and must save the planet after unleashing monsters. You saw this movie some time ago. - It did with, again, my four-year-old son and many adults. Thank you to everyone at Universal who invited us to an afternoon screening. Said yes to a child coming in that he was the only child in the room. That's okay. You liked this movie? - I was very charged by it. - And so was Knox. And we liked it. I'm sorry. I like cinema, you know? - Sure. - I don't know if you've heard, but this is a love letter to cinema. - Yeah, great. Amazing. First time anyone's ever done that. - And also George Lucas. I mean, it is as many people have pointed out just Babylon with minions. So I don't know what your problem is. You don't like joy and humor? - No, my problem is not only minions. - Okay. - There you go. - That's simple. If you take the minions out of the movie and just give me Babylon, I'm very interested. - Uh-huh. I think this is a franchise I just don't get. - Your explanation, your advocacy for these stories, I understand as like three-stuge stand-ins. I get it. There's an artificial comedy. Part of what's appealing to me about those three-stuges is they're actually doing that stuff. It's not animation. So slapstick and animation. I don't think it's very funny. - I do also like the comedy, like minionese is very funny to me. And there is comedy in a way that they are drawn. Like it makes me laugh. I don't know. You can't explain it, but it makes me laugh very much. - Yeah, and then they just recreated Babylon and they have like elaborate set pieces, but with a lot of minions. - Yeah, the middle part of it is that. The middle part of it is like a real homage to silent cinema until like a lot of Buster Keaton sequences and great train robbery and a lot of those moments at like, you know, movie doors are very clearly kind of pointing their finger at the screen and saying, I know what that is. I know what that is. It does kind of turn in the last 45 minutes into being like a big monster spectacle movie. - A lot of monsters movie. - And nobody loves monsters more than me. - I don't love monsters. I thought they were trying to make like three movies at the same time a little bit. And I felt a little unevenly paced. I don't want to get too pointy. Headed about a minions movie. - Okay. - But they're invoking their love of cinema, so you can too. - They are. I just, I was honestly just like a little bored by the like insanity that sometimes tips into a nanny when I'm watching these movies. I know you shouldn't have a stick up your ass about minions, but I kind of want these movies to be better. - Okay. - And I know this is the one that everybody thought was better and I was like, is it really better guys? Like is this really? - I don't know. You also like wept openly about Toy Story 5. So it's that we just were passionate about different things. You're passionate about app updates, and I'm passionate about that. - No, that's not what I was passionate about. - It's a real, I mean, it's a real ladybird meat. They did not understand it, you know? - It wasn't an app update in Toy Story 5. It was a QR code. It was built into the toy. So he just activating a power that is part of the toy, to say, you're passionate about QR codes. - No, that's not what I welcome out of. - Okay, that's cool. - That's cool. - That's cool. - That's about the idea of young girls struggling to make social connection in the world because things are, everybody's looking at their screens and I feel that that's very impactful. - But then the screen grew a conscience and helped to make friends. - No, it's about the kids and about their relationship to imagination. - Right, and about parents who do not have any sort of safety guardrails in terms of online being. - I mean, I don't support that, but I don't need what's on screen to reflect my own morality. You know, I can see beyond that. - I don't either. And that's why I just enjoy the pure cinema of minions crashing a train. - As you would say, I'm happy for you. - We had it. Nox and I had a great time. - Does the lack of success of this movie like indicate anything to you? Like, did they try to just get to a little too high-minded for whatever the audience is for this movie? Is it possible that it's just kind of on the downside and expiring as a cultural product? - I mean, I think it is that wave of, we're on the back end of many of these franchises and people are familiar with them and people are growing up. And I think probably the minions fans, except for me, are not of an age where they're rushing to take their children to the theater to relive their fond memories of growing up with minions exactly so that they don't have kids. - Yeah, and then also, I think that the timing of it because it was July 4th and that then that became World Cup and everything. - That's true. - I think Toy Story 5 being so big, two weeks after Toy Story 5 was a bit of a game at two weeks before the Odyssey. Which the Odyssey has just from, I'm surprised that Andy was able to find a theater that was playing disclosure day in Los Angeles because it really is very hard to find other movies because all of the theaters, rightfully so, are just maxing out the number of times you can see the Odyssey. - Yeah, the box office gross on that movie actually went up overnight because just like you say, they're kind of showing the movie at midnight all over the major cities in America. I give Nox a lot of credit though 'cause as I was watching it, I was like, will little kids even like understand what's fully going on? - Well, Nox, Nox, much like the protagonist in Tenet is not trying to understand and really feeling cinema right now. - Yeah. - See also Sandlot when Sean was asking me Nox's opinions of Sandlot, I was like, he didn't have any except he was afraid of the being. least, but we're getting there. Um, but thank you for believing in him. I believe in him too. You know, Alice, some of these monsters too. And she felt like the, the blob was way too scary. Irene, the giant blob of the end of the film, you know, which was unusual, because she doesn't usually get scared of things. The only two scary things she's seen this year are Irene, the blob, which is the orange blob. Yeah. Um, and, and all the, all the, all the blasters in Mandalorian Grogo. Yeah. I guess nox just is not paying attention, I think. Okay. This concludes the kid related portion of our catch up here. Um, did you see the dink over the weekend? I sure did. Oh, interesting. Okay. So the dink is a new Apple streaming comedy that's directed by Josh Greenbaum and stars, uh, friend of the pod, Jake Johnson, uh, produced by Ben Stiller. And I wanted to ask you before we talk about this movie, have you played pickleball? I do not play pickleball because my mother is one of the pickleball 70 somethings portrayed in this film. Oh, my mother plays pickleball four times a week. So was this like watching marriage story for you? How was it? Um, I was quite amused by it. Yeah. Because everything, my mother plays pickleball four times a week. She has pickleball friends. They go on trips together. I think they have a book club now. Like my, it's, it has been, been like a major allot of social, like, about pickleball. No, but like, she brings home books that like, I don't know where she finds these things. Like the world is wild and people are reading some weird shit. Um, it's, I mean, it's sort of like self-published history that always has some sort of like questionable conservative 10. I personally feel that the pickleball friends have like brought in her horizons just from the bridge friends a little bit. But like just, this is, yeah, this is what I'm dealing with. So I appreciated the pickleball satire in this film. Yeah. I thought the movie was pretty uneven, but the pickleball stuff is very funny. It's using like pretty traditional sports comedy structure of like down on his luck, former great who has to find redemption by shifting his, you know, greatness from one sport to another. That sport is related. He's got an overbearing father who doesn't really believe in him. Yeah. Played by ad Harris. Yes. Um, I think some of that stuff is fine. That's just like the covering. The stuff I really liked in the movie is the dynamic between him and Marystein. Right. Well, but so my note is this, this actually should have been the graduate. I was really disappointed that it cucked out in the final third. Yeah. I would have actually, I mean, so in the graduate, how old is Mrs. Robinson? Is she meant to be like 41? Let's see. And Benjamin is like 21-22. Yeah. And so you're meant to, because so is the daughter, the daughter is Eileen, right? No. What's her name? Yeah. I don't think it's Eileen. Eileen. Eileen. Okay. Yeah. Because my wife is Eileen. No. I know. And that's why. Okay. So I guess she's also 20 something. Yeah. But I'm just trying to like, if Mrs. Robinson had her at 20, she could be like 45. But this within this movie, Jake Johnson's like 45. Right. And Marystein Virgin's like 70. By the way, absolutely stunning for a 70-year-old woman. She's just so great. She's very funny in this movie. And like, actually, given like a real part, like I feel like many women are not given like a real character. That's why I was going to keep going, you know? I know. If it was like a proper, not even a romance, because the movie I think is very smart about the dynamic between these two actors. But it keeps having to kind of circle back to its pickle ball premise, you know? Because that's how they met each other. And that's kind of what's going to get redemption for the Johnson character. I thought it was not bad. I thought it was a perfectly fine way to spend the evening. I chuckled while watching it. My husband came in and out and was like, oh, you know, he observed that the the Jake Johnson voice is like so specific and familiar. And even like that pattern of comedy, he was like, I know exactly what you're watching, just from listening to it. I mean, and I'm and I'm amused by it. They there is a cameo, an extended cameo, really a supporting part by a former tennis star that I quite enjoyed. I'm you should you should talk about it. Yeah. And Andy Roddick is in the mix. And I thought he's really good. He's really good and very funny. He was very funny. I've always been an Andy Roddick fan. Do you think he was the first call? Was he written into the script? Was it possible that it was Federer? Was it possible that it was someone else? Well, I mean, the stakes are that the Jake Johnson character is like, he was on the rise, but he was never at Wimbledon. And in fact, like the the pivotal tennis match is like a tune up for hard court season in the US. So I think you do need an American player. Like a USTA junior. Yeah. Yeah. And so then the list is sadly like very short. Sure. I guess who else could have even have been? I mean, I guess Sampress. But he doesn't really seem as he has a sense. Yeah. He doesn't have a sense of humor. I will speed Sampress now. Cena's 50s. He's got to be probably Jim Perrier. Could we have gotten him Michael Chang? Yeah. I mean, this is a short list. Yeah. But I think and I Andy Roddick is is Andy Roddick the last American to win a grand slam? Is that possible? It's 2003. US Open. Manny Moore was in the stands. Never forget. They were dating. Yeah. And he climbs in the stands to to make out with Manny Moore after he wins. But I didn't you don't remember this. Climbed into the stands to make out with like Ronald test. Yeah, after he after he wins the US Open. I hope someone does after me. You're off the cliff now. So it's true. I wouldn't even see them coming. Anyway, I enjoyed it. Yeah. It was like the jokes were sharper than they often are in a kind of made for streaming like everybody like a paycheck fun role. I'm like huge eight Johnson fans. I'm too. Yeah, it's written by Sean Clements who host the Hollywood Handbook podcast in this very, very, very funny. It's like literally one of the funniest podcasts in the world. I last American man to what a grand slam. By the way, obviously, like, please excuse me. Right. Please excuse you. I apples movie strategy. I'm like, what are we doing? I don't know. What are they doing? I saw the match box trailer the weekend with John Cena. That's going straight to streaming. All these movies are going straight to streaming. I don't understand why they want to be making movies on TV shows. I'm glad that they funded some movies that I really like. Well, to the TV show thing, I think makes sense because they're having a lot of success. I mean, they're not maybe not they're certainly not as big as the major streamers, but they're they were like, I think second in Emmy nominations. Like they're starting to really break through in that respect. It's very similar to the Netflix thing to me where I'm like, do you need to be making original movies as pure streaming plays to make the business appealing to customers? I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out. I mean, I guess the takeaway from Netflix is yes, but I've always thought that Netflix was doing an impart to kind of like pull down its competitors around them to kind of chain. And also Netflix is rooted in movies as a history with their kind of blockbuster and the male strategy going back. For Apple, if they're going to make six to 10 real movies, I mean, Red Hour produced this movie. This is a real movie. And then not put them in theaters. I don't I don't really get it. I mean, if the entire business is just to put on their devices that they just then sell to you, then it makes sense to skip theaters. I mean, most people know what the dink is. Like, it doesn't have a real marketing spend because it's not going in the theaters. I'm just showing up on your Apple TV. Yeah. I guess. I mean, I, you know, it seems like a weird that we talked about some million times. I agree. And I completely agree. I's from the other side. I'm just like, well, you're just actually making the devices. Why do you need to be, you know, mucking around in this? I think it's not making you money. And I suspect it's fun to be connected to Hollywood. Sure. You know, and to make, you know, big projects with big stars. And you can. And you have money. Yes. But this is an example of a thing where it's like, you didn't have to, you don't have to do this if you don't want to. But I'm glad you did. But anyway, neither here nor there. Speaking of comedy, Gail Dottry and the celebrity sex past. Yes. New movie from David Wayne. We've already heard from our friend Adam Neiman, who absolutely adores this movie. And if he were here, he would advocate strongly for it. I won't be doing that today. But I was curious what you thought about it. I was amused. I had a nice time. I saw this at Jack Sanders' favorite theater, the Burbank Town 6. That's correct. Is that the town center? Yes. Burbank Town Center 6. Town center 6. Okay. But the one that's not in the mall by the end of now. There's a third one that is next to the three Burbank AMC movie theaters for those listening not in Los Angeles. So I saw that this one on opening day. I want to say it noon on a Friday, which is just the crowd at the Bout Burbank Town Center on opening day for a David Wayne comedy matinee is quite powerful. Was it robust? Well, it was a very specific set of man over the age of 40. I think on it. I think everyone else can fill in the blanks. There was a lot of performative laughing. There was a lot of many of the men were virgins. I didn't check. I sat on the aisle. I was really in and out on that one. But I did chuckle. I didn't have a bad time. I didn't have a great time. I saw it a few months ago and I really love David Wayne's movies. I was an allegiance of the state. I liked Stella on Comedy Central. I've enjoyed many of his movies. I definitely don't like them as much as Adam does. This one didn't really hit for me. The premise of the movie is, it's sort of Zoe Deutsch, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Ken Marino, an absolute icon to me. John Hamm. It's about a woman whose fiance caches in his celebrity sex pass when a real-life star stumbles into their lives. This part of that part is very funny. - There is a lot of moments where you're like, "Oh, this is pretty funny." - It's like, it's clever at times, but it didn't really make me laugh. If you look back at David Wayne's filmography, one of the stars of one of his movies is the sex passing question. So then Zoe Doich's character after she discovers that her fiance has cheated on her with this famous person goes off on a quest to conquer her sex pass. And it's like, you know, it's a road movie. - Right, it's a going to LA movie. It's the Wizard of Oz in a lot of ways. She keeps accumulating new people on her journey. I got it structurally. I just wish it was funnier. I just didn't think it was all that funny. And you know, beyond that, like David Wayne is obviously not Denis Villeneuve, like you're not gonna get the greatest filmmaking in the world from him. So if the jokes don't hit, then I, you know, sadly I was not one of those men. Performative like a falling in front of you in a movie theater. - You know, the, the send up of the AMC City Walk and the bubblegum shrimp was enough for it. There are a lot of very knowing sort of like clever, ha ha. You know, jokes from on high about Los Angeles and they are both self deprecating and a little bit holier than now. So I can understand if you don't think they're funny. I chuckled at some of them. - I didn't think they were the funniest. Let me ask you a question about celebrity sex passes. - Yeah. - Something you believe in. (sighs) - You know, we have never formally discussed it in my home. - With a lawyer. (laughing) - Well, I don't, would a lawyer would be involved? I mean, you know, there's no prenup. So it's not like you're violating anything. - I just shared that here. - It's good to know. (laughing) - So I'm just like, like what would the lawyer be enforcing? A marriage contract? - Yeah, an agreement. - Sure, but. - It confirms when Zack sleeps with blank. - Then I can't believe to force him, but isn't California no fault state now? So I can't anyway. - Sure. - Yeah, listen. - Okay. - What else could be in the agreement, I guess? That's the thing. Let's add some provisos, you know? - I don't so know, it's never been discussed. And the funny thing is that all of the people who would be on my list are people that Zack has interacted with professionally. - All of them. - Not all of them, but most of them at this point, he's mad. - Why would that matter? - Well, it's funny because it's like, I'm never gonna get the opportunity, but Zack would have the opportunity with my last list. And he's always very after league. So I'd like you to know, I'm gonna be interviewing Ben Affleck. That's pretty good. And it's like, oh, okay. And he's like, you can't. And I never try to go. Like that's, as you know, that's not my style. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I'm not sure I know who his would be. - I have some ideas. - I mean, I have some ideas too, you know? And then I guess if you're putting the list together, you got to think about like, probability, right? And then also-- - Poppo the math. - Yeah. - Well, just like, is the opportunity gonna present itself? - Could I lock this down? - And can you close the deal? - Yeah. - So I have some ideas. I know who he thinks is attractive. And I like believe in Zack once he's in the room. But I don't know when like he and Forgey are gonna cross pass, you know? - Yeah, hopefully soon. (laughs) Well, that sounds very exciting. Yeah. - Yeah. - I think it's actually a really good social construct. Like if you can make it happen, get in there. You know, make it about you. - Yeah. - I mean, and I haven't discussed it. - Okay. - We've definitely tossed around some names that we enjoy. - Yeah, I mean, I think that's normal. - Yeah, but we've never done like a locked in eye contact handshake deal. Like just so you know in case this happens. - Right. - Yeah. I'm also, you know, a bit professionally compromised at this point. Not sure that that's something that really makes a whole lot of sense for me. - Oh, do you mean just-- - I've encountered a few people in my time now recently. - But maybe you could just have like movies are off the board. But there are many other types of famous people, you know. - Oh, interesting. - And so you're not like ethically compromised. - Not to me. (laughs) - That's a good point. Let's what's an example of that. - I don't know any athletes any. I mean, you know, I know the ringer deals with athletes, but you don't know anymore, so it's fine. - That's not true. I'll be recording Metz Corner later this afternoon. Which member of the New York Metz would I have a celebrity sex pass for Jack? What do you think? - And Carson Benj, I agree, that's a good choice. He's a rising young star, a strapping young man. Oh yeah, this, you know, swimsuit models. That sounds like it could be a lot of fun, right? Can you encounter the right one? Who's out there right now? - I can't believe we've done like 10 minutes. (laughs) - This is just a good topic of conversation. - Swimsuit models. (laughs) - What do I think about like who's a famous person that I have no experience like cover, you know, I've written about music. I cover sports. - Yeah, but I think you're out of the game, so that would be fine. That would give you almost three decades. It's just that we're just having fun here on the show. - Okay. - Okay. - We're specfully. - I'm gonna tell you what Evil Dead burned for me. - Yeah. - Okay, so I saw Evil Dead burned. We didn't cover it on the show. The CR and I did not have a deranged conversation about a crazy horror movie. I'm a big fan of the Evil Dead franchise. This is the, I guess this is the sixth Evil Dead movie that's now been made. The three original Sam Raimi movies, which were made in the 80s and early 90s, which are pivotal horror comedies. The original film was remade in 2013. And a few years ago, we got Evil Dead Rise from the director Lee Cronin. This new movie, Evil Dead Burn is directed by Sebastian Vanacek, who is a French filmmaker who made Vermine, you know about this? - No. - Who crazy spider movie, very upsetting spider movie, very mean-spirited. I think it was called "Invested" here in the United States. And the new movie is extremely violent and upsetting. You saw a brief clip of it, I think, at Cinemacon. - Yeah. - Where a zombie demon pushed a man onto an open, washing, dish washing machine. And he fell onto a lot of cutlery. - I did see that, yeah. - Which is a very impressive action sequence and gross horror sequence. And when I saw that, I was like, okay, so this guy's bringing the same really nasty aesthetic to these movies, but hopefully he'll bring some of what we like about the Evil Dead too. These movies are pretty funny, they're pretty elegantly and amusingly staged. And I don't know, the franchise is now just like getting meaner and meaner, darker and darker, less funnier and less funnier, through each one. So we kind of tanked relative to how the last couple did. And now I'm wondering, there's another Evil Dead movie coming next summer, I think, and it's already in the can. And I feel like the franchise is a little bit dead at the moment. So I don't know, I think this was a little bit of a weird choice. And I don't know why they've pivoted so far. I like really mean horror movies. I like when a movie is deranged and gross. But these in particular, like, I don't know why this one needed to live. So it's a not recommend for me. - Yeah. I thought about going, 'cause this was one of the movies that it was sort of Odyssey counter programming. And more, if a theater were playing for movies, this would be one of them, along with the Odyssey, but you were not high about on it. And it's like a, you know, a zombie falling onto knives. Just not how I'm gonna spend my time. - There's some virtuosic filmmaking. It's just like, it's also doing the thing where it's trying to tell the movie from the perspective of a woman who has experienced domestic violence. And her dead husband's whole family is sort of like bringing her into their home after some time and kind of integrating her, but they despise her because they hold her responsible for her, their son's death. And so it's just like really solid and dark and not a fun summer horror movie. And it also, I think it's in really sharp relief to something like obsession, which is kind of like relicking and kind of funny. And it feels like it's maybe from a slightly different era of horror movies. Okay, let's talk about something you have seen. - No, I didn't get to see her private home. - That's why I was gonna go to something you have seen, yeah. - Oh, sorry, okay. - Yeah, let's talk about, I want your sex. - Yeah. - I'm very curious about how you feel about this. And if you care about Greg Araki's movies at all, as I said, new movie, "A Livy Wild" and Cooper Hoffman, it's about a young art world aspirant who joins a very famous galorist and artist named Erica Tracy's space. And she very quickly draws him in as sort of like her sexual bottom, you know, her sub to her Dom, and she kind of controls him in a very non-progressive, domineering fashion. - Right. - Sort of the flip side of "Pillian" in some ways. "A Livy Wild" plays the artist, Cooper Hoffman plays. The guy works for our young cast, Mason Gooding from the screen movies, Chase Sui Wonders, Margaret Cho, David Diggs, Charlie XCX is in this movie. - Yes. - What did you want? - Playing the, she's a med student. And she's Cooper Hoffman's girlfriend sort of, but hates him. - Yes. - Which I thought was sort of, was funny. I mean, you know, the way that Gregoraki makes movies about sex and what he will show. And or even though it will like way he'll conceptualize it, you know, informed both of how we started watching movies and is very cool. And I like everyone involved. And I was even amused by some of the speeches that Olivia Wild gave that were like your generation, you know, doesn't know how to do anything. And you guys are such losers, no offense. But it did feel like that was the perspective of the movie, if that makes any sense. - I talked to Greg about it. I feel like the reason he went to the movie is Olivia Wild. - Yeah. - Who's on like an incredible run right now. And she's really, really funny and really fearless in this part. And it's a very like sexually frank revealing role. And Greg was saying that he was like, I am Olivia Wild's character and I'm Cooper Hoffman's character. And so the movie has kind of like split me in half and that they're sort of naivete and the sort of sensitivity and the faint to progressiveness that Cooper Hoffman's character suggests versus the boldness of Olivia Wilde, this sort of unpeaciness of her character is also him, which I thought was interesting and actually made me understand and appreciate the movie more. It's very broad. His comedy is very smooth on very broad. And so if the jokes are working, it's very funny. If they're not, it doesn't work as well. I liked some of the movie crazy stuff about it, like the Sunset Boulevard, riff, framing device around it. I thought it was interesting. He hasn't made a movie in 12 years and has been mostly working in television and directing a lot of series television. And I do feel like there's a whole generation of people who like consumed his thing, his aesthetic. - Learned about the world. - Yeah, and it's like some of it is exactly, frankness, some of it is like the shoe gaze music that he's really into and just like the general like alternative culture that he represents in the 90s that is obviously very important. But yeah, I liked it. Okay, what should we talk about next? - Do you wanna do her private hell? - Yeah, okay, let's do it. - I tried to go see it, but it's only being shown after 7pm here in Los Angeles. I'm sure that's not true, but like I tried really hard and I did note that all of the screenings were way too late for me to make them make it too. - Yeah, I mean, it bombed this weekend. This is Nicholas Winding Reffin's new feature film, his return to feature filmmaking, much like Iraqi after many years away. I guess the neon demon is his last movie, which is about 10 years ago. And he's been making streaming series ever since. I haven't had much cause to talk about Reffin, but I love Reffin's movies. This new one star Sophie Thatcher Charles Melton, Havana Rose Lou, and Diego Calva, and I saw it can. And I haven't seen it since Cannes. - You saw it at 8.30 in the morning at Cannes. - Saw it at 8.30. I would say 27% of the reason why I went to Cannes, here was to go see this movie. - Yeah. - Because I really like Reffin, and I like the idea of him returning to these kinds of movies. The movie is about a troubled young woman who is searching for her father as a mysterious mist in Gulf's a futuristic metropolis, unleashing a deadly and elusive entity. - You never want those. - You don't want that. Her quest collides with an American GI who's on a harrowing odyssey to rescue his daughter from hell, like you do. - Yeah. - On trend. - Yeah, I he, he, I mean, we did a whole podcast in Cannes about the movies we'd seen. And you did not even mention that you would see in this movie, you completely forgot. That's how inconsequential and also not good. You thought that it was. - Yeah, it actually, it reminds me of Minions and Monsters in this way, which is that it's constantly gesturing towards things that, so it indicates to you, this is like a jala movie, you know, this is like a linchian nightmare film. This is like a sort of like post-Russ Meyer, like sexual fantasia with all these women living in this apartment building. There's like all of these clear earmarks. And I think that it come to Reffen from like a very honest place. He's basically like, I had a dream and I wrote down my dream and that's what this movie became. It's in charge, it's in charge, it's in charge, it's in charge. - Right. - Slow, dull, beautifully designed, all the performance styles are this kind of like monotone, you know, slow motion, motorcycle, fantasia. - Yeah. - Everyone looks great. - Yeah, everyone, it's a beautiful collection of young stars. - Yeah. - Havana Rose Lou giving a pretty funny performance was like a Sophie Thatcher's friend who becomes her stepmom when she marries her dad. - Okay. - And so they have a very catty dynamic. Charles Melton looks immaculate as the GI who's looking for his daughter and beating the shit out of people. It's doing a little bit of only God forgives. But the movie just, it kind of feels like it's taking place like on a cloud and I don't mean that in a good way. Like if there's something kind of like light and airy and wet about it that I just, I really thought it was not interesting. - And I'm so disappointed and I felt let down. - When you look at a cloud, do you think about the moisture contained within? I'm not sure that I do. - What do you think about a fluffiness? - I mean, there is just like science corner. There is moisture in there, yeah. But no, I think about the fluffiness. - I don't know what to think about Ruffin. - Okay. - It's disappointing. You know, it seems like there is a contingent of the, I will never give in on this people who are like, actually here's what he's accomplishing here. This is how an elevation of his style. And I'm like, and I would love to get on that journey. I love being a person who is like, you don't see the eighth tier, the nine dimensional chess that my beloved Otor is playing. Like, I would love to do that as an advocate for an artist's work. And it's not in this movie. - Yeah. You do that for many other people. So that's okay. I did, the highlight of my can was in many ways when I was walking on the closet, I was walking into a just a press screening also at the Pelle and someone walking into the Lumière for the evening premiere of like the Gallup premiere of her private hell and she was in a full dress, spotted me like yelled and I got to say hello to like a true big pic sicko who was going to the her private hell premiere in Can. She was so excited. She sent me her review afterwards. And she was like, because she was there in the moment and that premiere magic, she was like, you know, but also I really enjoyed it. And if you like go with the mood and I was really proud of her and I was proud of the big picture that people were trying to make it happen and make the most of their experience, still did not incentivize me to get up and go to that press screening with you. So. Yeah, you made a good choice. It wasn't, it wasn't, it's not a good film. I think that's when I went to see Club Kids. Yeah. Well, that's a good film. Let's talk about that later this year. I, to me, I'm not desperate for him to go back and make drive all over again. That's not what I want from him. I would love to see an elevation. I liked Copenhagen Cowboys last TV streaming TV series on Netflix. This just felt like a dead idea that he tried to conjure it into something meaningful and I couldn't get on the other side of it for whatever reason. Speaking of the dead, would you, do you, you saw young Washington? I sure did. Did you not know? Okay. So this is the latest Angel Studios production and you're the chief creative officer at that studio. I am, but so hold on, I'm taking out my nose app of things that I wrote down about this movie and specifically during the trailers. So are you aware that all Angel movies now start with a, like a welcome card that says this film is approved by Angel Guilt and then something like a growing, like two million members and growing, or something? Angel Guilt. Yes. And so I'm afraid by purchasing a ticket and expensing it to the Spotify corporation that now I'm a member of the Angel Guilt, though I'm hoping that by the transitive property it's Spotify and not me. Better than the Devil Guilt. That, I guess that's true. So that's what's going on. Also trailers, the trailers for this movie were, can I guess Hershey, which one's that? That's the biopic of the founders of the Hershey Chocolate Company. What? That's an Angel film that's coming out later this year. Maybe I didn't write that one down. Finn Whitrock stars as No, I would've remembered. I would've remembered. I also got there like maybe that was the first one. Keep going because there are three other ones. That's my only guess, it's super girl. No, so the Jeff Daniels Jared Harris, Reagan Gorbachev movie. Oh, yeah, I will watch that. Sure, I mean, yeah, I will watch that. Yeah. A revolutionary war movie with one of the hot guys. Oh, who's the hot guy from Game of Thrones, the older man, it's his like a Ian, this is name. And team Glenn. Yeah, and he gets the weird disease in Game of Thrones. And they just ruined a good thing. Yes, so he's like the leader of the of the militia or whatever's happening in what I think was a Revolutionary War era movie called The Drummer Boy. And it is about the drummer for the militia. And they honestly, and the whole movie is set to like a radio head creep girl's choir version of the drummer, the trailer that is. And it leads up to this classic moment of like will this drummer boy be able to like drum enough that whoever these people are will fight for the freedom of whatever. And then there was one that appeared to be a movie about a kid who has some sort of terminal illness and a songwriter who is doing some make a wish type stuff but is also obviously like struggling with addiction. And you know, so is he going to like find the light? I assume the light is God, but I didn't see the movie just the trailer. Okay. And also adds for the US Navy. So that was quite an experience before you start young Washington, which is a movie set in 1955. It specifies in the Pennsylvania wilderness to which I say. I assume he means 75, 75, 75, yeah, 17 55. Sorry. Really revolutionary. This is about young Washington because he's a zombie. Honestly, it would be better and also in some ways he is. Okay. 17 55. It specifies that it's in the Pennsylvania wilderness to which I say, where isn't the wilderness in Pennsylvania? And shots fired at LeBron James. Then I can't believe that this happening because you got a hundred. Sixers games to watch next season. Enjoy. - I mean. - Oh, you're sitting on the Larry O'Brien trophy. - I was doing like one of my sad home workouts by myself when Zach came in. And there's usually a do not interrupt my workout routine. But he came in and he said, I just need to interrupt this workout to let you know that LeBron James is a 76er and then close the door again. And it's like I just have to live with all the pain that is coming my way. I will say that Shiel Kapati is daughter doing the, can't believe this is my life meme is the only good Sixers content. - Haven't seen him, but I support him. - And I support the young listeners of Philly Special. Anyway, young Washington, not actually in Philadelphia, he's closer to Ohio. And it's a battle for Ohio between the British and the French. And so-- - Yeah, the French and Indian more. - Young Washington, this is young George Washington. And I guess he's supposed to be hot Washington, but I wouldn't say that the casting gives like a lot of charisma. - William Franklin Miller is the actor. He plays him. - And he really wants to defend his family's land and also like be a part of the King's militia. He wants to fight for the UK. And they kind of use him for a while. And then ultimately, you know, he, I don't remember. I mean, they win because Ohio is the United States, but it's very boring. And it's mostly about how young Washington didn't want to be a rebel. And he didn't want to have to overthrow the system. But, you know, sometimes a man's got to do what a man has to do, which is a cool lesson. - I'm seeing here that Mary Louise Parker, Kelsey Grammar, Andy Circus, and Ben Kingsley are in this film. - Yeah, interesting. - Mary Louise Parker is his mom, and-- - And we're in that phase of life. - Mary Louise Parker is going to be watching him come on. - I think like his rich uncle and it's top. It was, it was quite poor. - Well, let me tell you something good. - And the battle, then basically there are battle sequences that are sort of reenactments. And I guess if you like cannons and such, get in the mix. - I, I, there are some horses. I think the horses were real. I think they were not CGI horses. - But this movie is a hit. - I know. There were more people-- - It's $50 million dollars. - At this afternoon screening than any other. I've ever seen at Regal Paseo. - You think this is a reflection of your lack of love for America in the American contract? - This is really about a contract between other people, you know? And yes, I do. I think that it, I would not say that it portrays the Native Americans particularly appropriately. - That's not shocking to hear. - So is this, where, where does this stand in terms of the highest grossing Angel Studios films? It's gotta be number three, I think. But I will say, you can feel the conservative underpinnings and the, you know, the retelling of history to set like a certain view of America, but it isn't also like so overtly political or religious or, you know, dogmatic in a way that I think some of the Angel Studios releases are. So it had a dad history vibe. It just seemed like there were like a lot of dad history guys in the room. - Yeah. - And I'm not opposed to a movie like that. - Yeah, so it's not, it was boring. And I didn't think that it, like I just, I thought it was pretty boring. I have to be honest, like none of these performances are extremely exciting and it didn't reveal anything to me about Young Washington except, you know, sometimes you can't follow the rules even though you wanted to because it's important to own the land, whatever. - Will you be teaching your sons about the cherry tree? - So he gets really mad and he's chopping down a tree that you assume is the cherry tree, but they never say cherry tree and then Mary Louise Parker comes over and says, stop, you have to find a different way to express your anger or something like that. And then- - Is that the phrase that she uses? - No, that was Montessori mom, you know. - That's not, I don't think that's historically accurate. - I don't know how much of this was historically accurate. - Yeah, George, trees take a deep breath, you're submerged under water. Everything is going to be all right. - Yeah. - The trauma can be evacuated. Okay, let me tell you about Motor City. - Okay. - It's not on Friday, a similar fashion the way that you saw Gail Dottry by myself with four other people. - Okay. - Do you know anything about this movie? Do you know the gimmick of this movie? - I know that it's Jack Reacher, Alan Richardson. - It's Alan Richardson. So Ponzi Ponseroli is the director. He made a movie a few years ago starring, oh my goodness, what is the actor's name from a brother where art thou, not John Titoro and not George Clooney, but a terrific character actor. His name escapes me. Anyhow, he made a movie called Old Henry, starring that actor and Tim Blake Nelson. Thank you very much, really, really good movie that actually just shot up to the top of the Netflix charts last week 'cause not a lot of people had seen it. So Western about an older man who has kind of gone into hiding and some ruffians return to claim something and he has to kind of like fight back against them. Very clever movie, very, very well made. So Ponzi's new movie is this film that has been a blacklist script for a long time. And the premise of the movie is that it's almost entirely dialogue free. And so it's set in Detroit in 1977. It's like a classic crime revenge story about a hulking man who falls in love with a young woman who's played by Shailene Woodley in the film Alan Richardson plays the guy and they're starting a life together. And then we see in flashback that in fact, Alan Richardson's character has taken Shailene Woodley from her ex-boyfriend who is a very abusive man who's played by Ben Foster, the great Ben Foster. And the movie plays out largely with 70s needle drops and a lot of kind of fully sound effects and less than 10 lines of dialogue. So it is and lots of slow motion action at times very beautiful and painterly, at times kind of agonizing to sit through with this lack of narrative and dialogue propulsion. All the actors look good. It's coherent. You can follow the story very easily. Some of the music is really good. There's a couple of needle drops that are like, wow, how did you afford this? Like a Fleetwood Mac song plays a very prominent role in the middle of this movie. It is co-produced by third man, which is Jack White's record label and production company and set in Detroit. And there is a little bit of like, when you're listening to a dumb but amazing white striped song, where you're just like, this is just sick, dude. But like if you can't really get beyond that in terms of analysis, it's just like these power chords are really hitting hard right now. And I really, really wanted to like it because I really want there to be like some formal, some form breaking in mainstream style movies. Like this is a bit of a risk to do a movie like this. It doesn't ultimately hang together all that well and some of it is a little preposterous as you're going through it. It's extremely violent. Very like as violent as a John Wick movie. Like there's this long sequence where you watch Richson and his two buddies. Filling shotgun shells with like pennies and nickels so that there's a more explosive range on the shotguns that is more damaging to people. It's a couple of good car chases in the movie. I don't know, it's one of those things where like I'll root for this 'cause it's just a little bit different more so than I will something that is a, you know, it's not the most narratively in like movie, but yeah, the filmmaking is pretty good. There are moments where you can feel yourself kind of like bopping along to it because of the way that the music is used. Had me thinking about what a weird turn Shaline Woodley's career has taken where she's just like very strange. The heroin addicted game in this silent film basically, like it's a real like nothing part. It's a real nothing part for all the characters obviously. They're meant to be archetypal. They're not meant to be like real people. But Ben Falser's doing a lot 'cause he's such a gestural actor and with a mustache and like a glass in his hand in a cigar, like he can do a lot as a performer. He's such a gifted actor. And he can play those kind of like big chords, big notes. But Shaline Woodley, we just talked about the descendants last week. I'm like, what happened? - I, it's very strange. I mean, big little lies happened. - Yeah. - And then huge show. - Huge show, but she doesn't, she's not one of the fun moms. - No. - And then it feels like she just took a bunch of different parts that didn't quite work. Remember the movie she made with Jody Foster? Where is Jody Foster the translator? There are a number of things where you're like on paper, nothing here is offensive, you know? - Uh-huh. - More attaining. - Yes. - And but just nothing hits and nothing hits and nothing hits. - Yeah, you're right. - She dated Aaron Rodgers for a little so that answers, you know, that has questions and no answers. But she was, she was the wife and Ferrari. She was the wife and dumb money. She's the wife and motor city. Like she's just kind of been cast into that part. I mean, how old is she? She can't even be 40 yet. - No, she's 34. - Yeah, she just turned 35. I mean, that's, that's, it's weird. Um, so I felt bad about that. Okay. What's next? Anything else that you've seen here that you want to get into? - Well, I saw voicemails for Isabelle. - I did as well. - We must talk about this. - Well, let's talk about it. - Okay. - Thank you, service right now. - Yeah. - This is our second Zoey Deutsch film. - Yes, directed and written by Leah McKendrick. And this is kind of the biggest Netflix romcom entry of the summer, I would say. And it stars Zoey Deutsch, Nick Robinson. - I love Simon Fame, I'm one of yours, yeah. - Yes. And, and Luke. Lucas Gage who was also in people immunovacation, right, which was Netflix romcom of the winter. Yeah. So, did you know the premise of this going in? No. Did not. I didn't either. So, it's Zoe Deutsch plays a young woman who has a younger sister who is ill with cystic fibrosis. And so the first 20 to 30 minutes of the movie are about their sisterly bond. And being sisters, and it's like an illness movie, right? And then spoiler alert, I guess, but it's in the beginning of the movie her sister does die. So I thought I was watching a romcom, and then I was watching like a very sad and, you know, movingly, but still somewhat broad. Paul Marcus, like, you know, we are sad things happen. Just very angel studios vibe. And then she dies. And so Zoe Deutsch's character can't let go. And or can't let's just grieving. That's, that's rude to say. It's very soon afterwards. So she keeps calling to leave her sister voicemails. And then the other guy gets a new phone at work and he receives the voicemails. And the minute you see his new phone, you're just like, oh, no, I can't believe that this is what you're doing. And then that's just what they do for 90 minutes. And well, I mean, specifically what happens is that he falls in love with her by listening to her very soon as you see the voicemail, you're like, oh, no, you see the phone and you're like, oh, he's going to get the voicemails and fall in love with her. And then they're going to meet and he's, and then he won't tell her. And then they'll fall out. And then they like, we'll get back together. You can see the plot, you know, the beats of the whole thing, which is not always bad. Like Enri genre has, it's, it has its formula and it's what you do with it. But there's something about it being so obvious and so just like, oh, no, he's going to get the phone all at once. The part when they broke up, I was like, let's just end the movie, you know, like I know exactly what's going to happen. It's fine. Like it's totally fine. Like I, it's not, this movie isn't bad. This is it. It's kind of similar to people who meet on vacation where I'm like, I get why these movies are really working for Netflix, you know, and there is a ring for this kind of movie. So Zoe, do it. And Nick Robinson are both pretty good, pretty charming. And and they have chemistry, they have chemistry. And she gets a bit wide berth to be very, there's a pretty zany lead character, right? Yeah. She's a chef. She's working underneath. Well, all right. But so, so they together and even some of the jokes and some of the, the way that she talks to him and like the voice mails themselves are funny and they have a vibe. This feels very, this whole movie feels very like tick tockified to me where there are her subplots. She's a chef and she's a chef in Nick Offerman's kitchen. And so they're doing bear send up and she's doing lots of, she makes it, you know, another friend in the in the kitchen, but doesn't. And it's like, it just feels very like what's the trendy job right now? What's the thing we can all do? It's like, you know, an aspiring chef. And then when she actually makes her dreams come true with her dead sister's college fund, it's to open a dessert nacho truck in Austin. Yeah. I had some issues with that. I'm telling you what, I'm intrigued by the premise dessert nachos. Not familiar with them, didn't know that was a thing. I would, I would eat a dessert nacho. I mean, it's not that I would not eat a dessert nacho. And to your point about this character is like whimsical or whatever. She's a goof. Yeah. She doesn't open, you know, like a taco, but also there's a whole premise because she allegedly lives in San Francisco. That's where the Nick Offerman restaurant is. And though she, her view of the Golden Gate Bridge is a bridge is a CGI bridge, which also happened in the Netflix, the Reese Witherspoon, Ashton Kutcher, Ramcom directed by a Lee and Brush McKenna where he moves to Brooklyn and his post live in Dumbo and have the Brooklyn Bridge behind him. And it's just like a poster. Yeah. What's that movie called? My place or yours? Your place or mine? Yeah. Um, anyway, so she lives in San Francisco and they bond over how there aren't good breakfast tacos in San Francisco, but she won't make a breakfast taco truck. Instead, she has to do dessert nachos. Why does it have to be so quirky and stupid? Well, it's because in the, in the, I'm glad we're getting into the plot of this, in the, in the, in the final, her final moments in the kitchen in the film, where she, she loses the competition to be elevated to become a baker. Right. And on sort of like a formula and inspiration point for the kind of food that she wants to make, which is maybe more sweet than savory. Right. And so she leans into that sweetness to a lot that I got to be honest, the dessert nachos was the number, my number one takeaway from the movie. I was like, I, I, I am interested like I really, I was so, I was, this was such a bullshit can't you see? Like, 100% on Instagram being like, got home from a long day working and here I just threw together some dessert nachos and things in my, that's your anxiety about living in that influencer culture. Me as a man who likes nachos and likes dessert. No. Let me try it. No. No. Just let me try it. No. $14 for like UB. Not at the, this is not a business model. She's parked somewhere in Austin. I mean, I guess she can't make breakfast tacos if she's moving back to Austin is that is a very established company. Yeah. Then you're battling Vera Cruz. Yeah. You can't do that. But she's parked in the wrong place with her dessert truck in Austin, making these weird nachos, I don't, it, it doesn't, I don't think that that truck is going to be there in a couple years. Interesting thing here. This movie was produced by Sony and it has a little bit of the K-pop demon hunter's thing where I'm like, this is more of a real movie than some of these other movies that I've seen like it. And I think people we meet on vacation was the same way. I think it was from the Sony partnership that the studios have, which is really interesting. And I'm curious how long this goes on because obviously being Sony being able to license their movies to Netflix is very beneficial for both parties. Netflix pays a lot of money for those movies. These movies that are made and they're like, it's almost, almost feels like the coin is in the air until they finish the movie on deciding where it's going to live and whether or not it's going to be theatrical or not. I know that's almost certainly not the case, but I do feel like a lot of films that we end up talking about in these episodes are in that kind of nether zone where like a lot of people saw this. They never thought about it again, but that doesn't mean it was unsuccessful. Right. And I watched this together and we were like, not bad, you know, not good, but definitely not bad. And I'm glad that we got to sit here together and she had a cocktail and I had a glass of wine and everything going great. And then we went to the next day in our lives, you know, and then I went over the cliff and then that was that not against it, so we do which I still don't know. Never been offended by her performance. I think she's actually taking some interesting risks in the 2020s and a lot of those risks are forgotten because of COVID, but she'd made some funky movies in the early 2020s. You know, obviously everybody wants some love or forever, set it up and all time classic based on the ringer, like, yeah, like from 10 years ago. She actually, I had a, I had a conversation on the, they anchor pod this morning with Sean McNulty about this. He asked me about Alan Richardson and he was like, why is an Alan Richardson a movie star? He's on Reacher. It's one of the biggest streaming shows in the world. The third season, he told me the third season of Reacher is the like the second highest rated third season of any show in the last 10 years. That's a crazy stat, but if you look at the movies he's made, like he was in War Machine earlier this year on Netflix, which is a huge movie on Netflix. We never even talked about it on this show. He's going to be in a movie later this year for Amazon with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I think man with a bag, it's like a holiday Christmas movie. And we were talking about how there's like a strain of streaming movie stars and I thought this could be an episode for us where I'm like Jennifer Lopez is just a streaming movie star now. That's all she does. Zoe Doich is a streaming movie star. This is what she does. She's probably not going to top line a theatrically released studio movie for the rest of her career. She's probably not going to be the first name on the poster. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so. What was the young woman's name? Who was it? People who meet on vacation. Emily Bader. Thank you. Emily Bader. Like, she's probably at an interesting pivot point here where she's got to figure out. Do I want to lean into? Isn't she doing and isn't what she doing the 13 and going 13 going on 30 reboot? She is, but she's also doing the movie about me a ham. The female soccer players, but that's a Netflix film. I think that's her next film. Yeah. And this 13 going on 30 reboot is also a Netflix. Is it? Okay. Yeah. And so this is, and obviously, Emily Bobby Brown is an example of this there. There is now a real true contingent of people. I would argue that people like John Cena, he's a streaming movie star to me. He's been in the Fast and the Furious movies, but if you look at the films he's been making in the last few years, like we just saw the trailer for Matchbox, the Apple movie, that's a streaming movie. This is a new anthropological thing that we have in movie culture. And some people are really good at it, and they're thriving in it. Like, I'm not going to take anything away from JLo. She's going to make the same kind of movie for the next 10 years, and they're all going to work. Yeah. Sort of. I mean, the office room had sort of worked. I just, you can see where the corners are being cut, and you can also see that in plenty of theatrical movies at this point, because it's these types of movies, romantic comedies, in particular, are not going to be billion dollar movies, and thus you can't invest as much in them. But I don't know. I think that all of them, you can feel the corners being cut, and I do feel in the situation and the setups. They have become a little more. I mean, maybe it's just that they're younger, honestly, and we're old, and we are both soft to cliff emotionally, if not literally. But all of the ways in which they're trying to check the box of this will fit on Netflix, and also be clipped out on TikTok and be useful on Instagram, and this has to do with this meme, and this has to do with, there's the actual way that they are constructed, and the types of stories, and how everything gets meshed together, and that this is, you know, as much like a terminal illness movie as it is a romantic comedy. But then also has a weird subplot about an online podcaster that we didn't even talk about. That's right. Which it just. It's kind of like the male Alex Cooper. Yeah, I guess so. But they just all feel a little not slicker, but I'm not making like a qualitative statement of appreciation for them, but I do think that it is an evolution of what movies are, you know, that a lot of people only watch movies like this. Like if you're a parent, and you've got young kids and movies are not the center of your life, you're more likely to watch something like this than anything else. And that is just like an interesting. Maybe it is something I'll write about to kind of explore it more, but I do think that when Sean was asking me about that this morning, I was like, "Oh yeah, Alan Richens probably not going to be. He's not going to be Arnold Schwarzenegger." You know, setting aside that we don't even really want like muscle men as our leading men anymore, like Sina and Momoa and all those guys, they're not at the top of the pecking order in terms of movie stars. It's like Pattinson and Gosling and Tom Holland, like a lot of pretty boys. It's not, that's the flavor of the month in terms of what a movie star is to us. But I find it interesting that there is a whole other wing that maybe we wouldn't even adequately recognize on something like 35 under or over on the movie star's list. Right, right. Because it is, I mean, it is the merging of into TV movies almost and that what used to be kind of like the hallmark or just or like made for TV, for TV. That was a genre that we had. And now that everything is on streaming and streaming is movies and movies are TV and it all just kind of gets mushed together. I agree with you that it's a separate category. I just, you know, Jalos was in actually good movies once upon a time. She was. She was. Yeah. When I was a kid, the TV movie stars were like Shen and Tweed. You familiar Shen and Tweed? I remember Shen and Tweed. Yeah. She was in a lot of erotic thrillers that were made cheaply and featured her removing her top. Just wanted to let you guys know about that. You know about Shen and Tweed, Jack? I'm unfamiliar. Okay. Look into it. I want to speak briefly about the samurai and the prisoner, which I saw before can, but is finally opening now and is very much worth people's time. Kyoshi Kurosawa. We talked about last year a bit with Adam Naiman on the show. His new film, a bit of a zag from him set in 16th century to Japan. It follows a lord whose castle is besieged. He's in the middle of a violent conflict. He takes a prisoner during this conflict. And then the movie in four separate acts. I think you would enjoy this turns into kind of what's been described as like Colombo and feudal Japan, where he has to solve mysteries and crimes within the walls of his castle. And the prisoner that he has taken is sort of like the Watson to his Sherlock Holmes. And really interesting movie that takes a pretty hard turn in the third act and gets a weight from this like classic mystery box construction. But I really liked and I was a little bit surprised by it. It was not what I was expecting. Kyoshi Kurosawa makes like really dark, psychologically probing horror or horror adjacent stories like pulse. And this was like a little bit more elegant, a little bit quieter, and then has one very shocking and exciting moment that I won't spoil for people. But if more people check this movie out, maybe we can talk about it more in depth, a little further down the line. Did you skip sheep in the box? Did we talk about this? I did because it's only playing in one theater. But you didn't see a can. Yeah, you specifically were like, no, go see something else. So I did. I can't recommend it. It's Coriad's new movie. Neon released it over the weekend. Very, very limited. I don't think very many people are going to see it. It's about a young couple who've lost a son who were replacing him with a sort of a AI android bot. And this humanoid robot comes to show them things about their life in the world for better, for worse. And I thought it was pretty much a fiasco. And that sounds right up Amanda's alley too. It was really, really bad. And from a director who's worked, I've really liked over the years. And so I was really, really bummed about that. Did you see late fame? It did. Okay, you added this, right? Yeah, I added it. It's not out till next week. So, well, let's like, let's talk about a little bit since we won't be together talking about the releases of an Spider-Man before, for like a month. Yeah. So this is directed by Kent Jones, and then written by Sammy Birch, who wrote May, December. Yeah. And is an adaptation of a novel, but it stars Willem DeFoe and Gretelie and others. And Willem DeFoe is a post office worker who, in the late 70s, wrote a collection of poems that a new young group of artists and thinkers in New York City discover and they may contact with him. And so it's him discovering a sort of success and fame later in life. And then Gretelie is also there. I'm curious what you thought of this. I saw it. You know, when Willem DeFoe is on the screen, I am never going to look away. And there is a little bit of Whit Stillman-esque quality to the group and the portrayal of the group that I really enjoyed. I love Gretelie. And at points, I was like, what this is completely miscast. And at other points, I was like, wow, I didn't know that Gretelie could do that. And I think also that this movie, which is, I would say like visually modest, you know, not ugly, but like not trying to do a lot, does understand how to use her as like an incredibly beautiful person, almost as like a special effect. So I appreciated that. I mean, I was glad that I was glad I saw it. Yeah, I thought it was interesting. I thought it was not totally successful. I had Ken on the show, some years back for his last film, which I thought was very, very good. And he's an extraordinary film critic and longtime advocate for movies. And he's kind of shifted fully into making feature films. I think it's a movie that thinks it has like a slightly stronger trick than it has because we come to find out that the group of people who are supporting this lost poet are like kind of posers, you know, that they're not really these sophisticated, cultured men of letters that they're kind of like, they're kind of clout chasing in a slightly more, slightly more pretentious way. And that that's meant to reveal something about the inherent nature of like cultural criticism and the idea of trying to recreate bygone eras and how none of those things can be recreated and how real were they in the first place. The stuff that it works best to me in the movie, by the way, the novel is written by Arthur Schnitzler who wrote Traum Nivelle, which is what Eyes Wide Shot is based on. Right. So this is like a very old story. And Sammy Birch is a kind of updating it to a more modern New York. But Willem Defoe's character interacting with his friends from the post office in the bars. Yeah. After he has gotten the taste of that fame, that stuff, I thought, was really interesting. And there's a really good cast of character actors that are surrounding him in those scenes. And I've been working on this thing about Abel Ferrar, and so I've been watching a lot of Willem Defoe movies. And he's like, he's so fucking good. And he's so good in every single movie. Like I hit totally echo, you just said where he's the most watchable actor. And he can do the ghoulish freakish stuff and all the Robert Eggers movies. But it's movies like this, where he's just like a very quiet still man who doesn't really have even much to say in the movie. And it's sort of been used that he's really good. There's one other scene in this movie that I just remember that I loved, which is the meeting with Jake Lacy, who is offered to be his agent. That scene is fantastic. And Jake Lacy, like, makes like a couple very interesting choices of how he plays it. And it's like very knowing, but also a little unexpected. And they're really very smart. Yeah, this movie has a few moments like that. I was like, god damn, if you could just put like two or three more moments like this, this movie would be really quite special. But I liked it too. I'm glad that I saw it. All right. That more or less does it for us. We've talked through a lot of movies here. It's going to be a long time before we talk about any non-spiderman film. Have you considered that? I have, because you're going on vacation. And then I'm going on vacation. I'm going on vacation. Yeah. But there will still be movies. We'll just be seeing them separately. Why do you think there's so many movies in August this year? Is it because everyone cleared out for the Odyssey? I guess so. I mean, it does seem that the movies that didn't clear out for the Odyssey are suffering. So that was probably a wise thing to do. And, you know, I do wonder how much of it is programming. It's really, really hard to get a spot at a movie theater right now, I think, because they just want to show the outside. You're right. It is. I mean, just to take a very brief glance at August, I mean, on the seventh, we've got one I'd only super troopers three Tony, Teenage Sex and Death Academy asthma ice cream and late fame, which we just talked about then on the 14th end of Oak Street, rivals of Amzea King, don't say good luck. The wrong girls, Nimrods, 21st insidious out of the further mutiny spa weekend. It ends. There's just a lot of stuff coming out. We'll cover some of it. Yeah. What are you most sad to be missing? End of Oak Street. I think, well, I like, and I really, really liked, uh, can't be as well. Yeah, so I'm sad to miss that too. Yeah, maybe we'll have - Reason to talk about them later in the year. - Yeah, I hope so. - Okay, let's go now to my conversation with Greg Araki. - So happy to have Greg Araki on the show for the first time, and it's the first time because you haven't made a film in 12 years. - How long has the show been around here? - The show's been around for 10 years, so we just missed you. - Wait, wait, do you not do TV? 'Cause we-- - No, I don't know. - Okay, just a film's only. - I only do films. - Future films only. - But that's what I wanted to ask you about. So you spent a lot of time making TV in that intervening 12 years. Did you learn anything making television that helped you as a film director? - Oh, absolutely. It was huge, Jim. - I mean, it was like, I mean, one of the reasons you know, people were like, where have you been for 12 years? I've been here doing the same thing. I mean, I made nail apocalypse, which is my star show. It was 10 episodes, 10 half hour episodes. I wrote and directed all 10. And it was literally like making three movies. It was like the biggest thing I've ever done, the most challenging thing I've ever done. But my work in TV's really helped me a lot as a filmmaker, because I feel as a filmmaker more confident and like faster, I mean, I've always been fast. I've always been resourceful 'cause I make indie movies. But after TV, we shot 10 episodes in like 40 days. Like we were just blazing through this shit. And for people who've seen nail apocalypse, it's not just like two people in a room talking. It's like aliens and crazy sex scenes and like three ways and orgies. I mean, it's got everything in it. And yeah, so it was a very ambitious show. And we did it because I really applied all of my ending knowledge. It was a lot of my crew from my movie Kaboom that I did in 2008, 2009. So it was a lot of those, what I call my A-team. - And some of your actors, too, from the movie, yeah. - Yeah, I have worked with a lot of the same actors over and over again. And so it was the A-team. And also working in TV, the pace of TV is very different than working in like real feature films without like a big budget. So we were shooting like 10, 11 pages a day. I mean, this movie, in fact, is like the biggest budget I've ever had, but the fewest shooting days, we shot in like 17 days. So we were like cranking it out there. And so I can only do that because of the TV work I've done and it really, like I really, I really, really know what I'm doing. - In that time when you were working on that series and directing some episodic television, were you like desperate to make another indie movie or any movie or is that sort of like you were like, I'm very happy working on that stuff in that period. - I mean, now Parkinson's was literally a dream of mine. I wanted to make a TV show, my own TV show, since Twin Peaks, since I'd been a movie in the 90s called No Where. No where was actually a pilot for a TV show and I had actually developed it as a TV show. So I've been wanting to do a show like that for decades. So it was really just an incredible dream come true to do it. And stars was actually fantastic to work with. They let me do anything I wanted. They had no notes. They were just like, let me be as crazy as like sexual and as like, you know, queer and everything that we could be. So it was, it was kind of a really ideal sort of scenario for me. - Feel like for the longest time you were identified as a voice of a generation kind of filmmaker. You know, that they were, you were labeled as a person. - A voice of a generation kind of a voice of a generation or kind of that kind of film. You were that kind of filmmaker, not kind of a voice of a generation. You were the kind of filmmaker who was the voice of a generation. And you know, you're a little older now and you're not, a lot of your films are about young people, all your films about young people. And you're making films about young people still. So do you feel like now, is it, but is it like, is it a provocation to old people? Is it a reflection of something that you've observed in young people? - I feel like, you know, the difference is, when I was making, yeah, I was always older than the care. I mean, except for, you know, my first movie, which is about like, angstwritten 25 year olds. I was an angstwritten 25 year old, I made that movie. But progressively, you know, when I did the Teen Apocalypse trilogy in the 90s, I was in like, in my 30s. But I've always had the advantage of, I guess it's an advantage for some of you. I've always had like, the advantage of having a very young spirit, but also the ability of like, the wisdom of being older and being able, I know I remember when I made Kaboom, it was very much that. Like it was very much feeling for those characters, remembering what that feeling is like, of being young, being confused, being sexually frustrated or sexually ambiguous or whatever, you know, all those characters in that movie. But it was nostalgic for me. And there was a distance, there was the distance of time, you know, and like, sort of looking back on those years a little bit in a sort of, it's through a sort of hazy filter and where you sort of really appreciate those times that are like confusing, they're traumatic. And it's very much, I want your sex as the same thing. It's like, you know, Cooper's character says, you ruined my life. You destroyed me, you know what I mean? But it is very much in that moment. He kind of can't see the force for the trees. And being older, I see the forest, you know what I mean? Like I know it's kind of, to me, that's a major theme in, I want your sexes. It's like, when Cooper's character is 45, he's gonna look back on Eric at Tracey and go, what the fuck was that? Like, how did that happen? That was such a crazy time. Like, what, I don't even, you know, I don't even know what hit me. But at the same time, but I'm glad it happened, you know what I mean? Like the experience of that changed me, you know what I mean? And I wouldn't give it up for the world. You know what I mean? Like that to me is kind of where I'm at in my sort of reflective golden years. Me and Madonna, I guess, but the idea of being like, having some wisdom of age, but still remembering like, you know, those feelings of being uncertain, confused. And, you know, when I was talking to Cooper about his character, his character, you know, was very much kind of, for me personally, kind of based on myself when I was his age, you know, and like this young artistic kid, not sure myself, not sure what's gonna happen to me, I'm not sure what I want to do. Cooper went out and got his ear pierced for the movie. I mean, we gave these hand tattoos like that. So there was a lot of me in that character. And it was very, kind of fun and nostalgic to think back to that. And then also, you know, the Eric Atrese character is also very much me, very much patterned after my own work. You know, that way she's very controversial, very provocative. Her works about sex, sexuality. The thing she says in interviews are literally quotations of things I said in interviews. So it's, I'm very close to both of those characters. I like the idea of splitting the atom of yourself into two people, but when I, and they have that weird conversation, you know, they're like talking to each other. And it was, it was just, you know, there's that aspect of the movie that was really super fun for me. It's surprising though to hear you talk about identifying, reflecting yourself in the Cooper character. 'Cause when I think of you as somebody who's like watching the Teen Apocalypse trilogy when I was a teenager, I think of you as like a really bold liver team, you know? Like somebody who's like fearless about who they are and what they believe in. Like Eric Atrese, right? Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, do you feel like you've been putting that part of yourself in your movies all along the way or is this like the first time you've really put located that? There's always been, you know, I've always said that all my characters are always like a part of me in an aspect of me. I mean, certainly there is the kind of punk rock, like artistic fuck you kid that I've always been my whole life, you know, because that punk music, new wave music, that whole alternative sensibility was so formative to me 'cause it was literally right when I was Cooper's age. I mean, that was one of the cool things about the movie is that the pretender song that's in the movie came out when I was that age. Like that song is like so meaningful to me in that way. That's such an underrated pretender song too. It's like really early on that record. I love that song. I love that song. It's like literally for whatever, 40 years or 30 years. And yeah, and so when I was making it was actually in the script, I wrote it in the script and I didn't know if we would get it. I mean, it is the pretenders. I literally had a write a letter to Chrissy Haand and say, I've been the biggest fan of yours since you first came out. I saw the first pretenders tour. I used to, when I was Cooper's age, I had the leather jacket that everyone had and it had like a pretender's pin on it. Of that first album, a white album. And so yeah, I've just been a fan forever. And this, you know, this movie is in a way as me looking back on myself as an artist and, you know, you were so influential to me. [BLANK_AUDIO] She's so cool, like just super cool and just very like, oh yeah, she's no, it's like she's an artist too. You know, and she's a little bit older than me, but she's the same thing. She's been doing it a long time and knows what it's like and I think could tell that it was genuine. It wasn't some, you know, like beer commercial. Yeah, we want to use fucking, you know, whatever one of your songs. So those first albums are just perfection. Yeah, I know. Also, yeah, the second album. And I saw her, like, I saw them when they first first first first came out, like I remember seeing them on the tour for the second album at the Santa Barbara County Bowl. And then the first tour for the first album, they were at, I was at UCSB at the time and staying film. And they were playing in the gym with blah, blah, blah opening for them. So I was fucking there. It's like 81. You know, it's like this like 1979 80, the first album. Wow. So yeah, it was, it was, you know, so anyway, yeah, we were so fortunate to get that song in the movie. I wanted to ask you about the art world because, you know, I've read the movie as like a real satire. And so even just to hear you say, Erica is a part of me and is pulling quotations from things that I've said. I was going to figure out like how sympathetic are we meant to beat Erica and to this world that she finds herself in something like the pretentiousness of the way that the galorists kind of live their lives. How do you see it? I mean, I love Erica. I love her character. As I said, I'm very much just a lot of me in her. I mean, clearly, I don't fuck my interns. You know, she crosses a line, a lot of lines that she's, you know, her behavior is very questionable in parts of the movie. She does things that I would, you know, are definitely not even in a moral gray area. They're more like a moral, like black hole. But, you know, she's passionate. She's creative. She's so charismatic. She's such a fun character. I do love her, but I understand that she's flawed. I understand she's inappropriate. And that's actually why, you know, like the first time you see her in the original script, like that scene happens like page 20 or something. And I literally put it at the head of the movie because I wanted to set up that dynamic from the start. Like, here's Cooper's character who's like this nervous kid. Like, oh my god, I don't want to lose my first job or whatever. And then she is like this larger than life kind of sex, like superhero. I mean, that he's so in awe. And then she's just like, I want to fuck you. I mean, it's like, because to me, that sets up from the start, like that's the right of this movie. I mean, like she's going to be that character who goes to those places. Why did you want Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman for those parts then? Because they're perfect. No, honestly, yeah, I've been working on this movie since my burn blizzard, like before, this script first came to me as a spec script in like 2012 or 2013. And it was a very different movie. Like, it was originally a female intern and a male boss. And it was just as more as pitched to me as like a comic, like 50 shades of gray. And so it was a very different movie. And there was a version of it that we almost made in like 2015, 2016. But then it fell apart like indie movies always do. And in the meanwhile, I've just been rewriting it, developing it. It's been changing, changing, changing. The original script did not have the mansion, did not have the sensible of our body and pool did not have the film war framing, but did not have importantly, and the most important thing was in the sex roles, we like, like I swapped it around 2016, 2017. The male female dynamic to the male female, with the male sub and a female dome, because I just didn't want to have a woman getting dragged around by the hair, even if it was consensual. I don't want to kink shame anybody, but it was just not an image I wanted to put out into the world. It's also an image I feel like we've seen in movies a lot and maybe not this dynamic that you're portraying in the film. I honestly, you know, especially now given how current administration and how culture has like become so awful, it was just, you know, I didn't, the patriarchy is like absolutely real. It's been real all this time. It gets real and more terrible every day, and so I don't want to contribute it in any way. So it was, and it's so much more interesting to me to have Erica Tracy be a woman, you know, I mean, to have a female top. And it sort of gave birth to that character in terms of, I see her as like a cross between Madonna and Robert Mapplethorpe, this larger than life, iconic kind of like super charismatic, you know, and like a like almost bigger than their own art, you know, like their, their art is almost like a byproduct of their persona, right? And so it was just really fun to write that character. And what happened was, you know, I'm working on this movie forever, like for like 12 years. And my, this recent version of the script, my manager had slipped it to Olivia's agent without really telling me. And then she's, oh, Olivia Wilder in the script and really wants to meet. And I said, I'll live you wild. It's like, what a fantastic idea that is, you know, because at that time, this is before the end of the world of Olivia Wilder. I was going to see timing is incredible. Yeah. Because of the year she started. Yeah. She's just had this incredible, well, it all started at Sundance, you know, in January, because both movies were there. And but Olivia's somebody that always been a fan of from the days that she was the bisexual kid on the OC. I mean, like I remember her, who is that girl? Like that? She's super interesting. And so I've been, you know, sort of falling her through the years. And Olivia to me is like an old school, like 40s, like movie star. You know, I mean, like Greta Garbo or I, you know, Ingrid Bergman or just to read a Heyworth, just those larger than life kind of figures. She has so much presence in that insane bone structure. You know, I mean, she's, she's just coming from you with incredible structure to me. Compared to her, but you know, she's just, she's just, she's just a large presence. And I feel like contemporary Hollywood was a little bit, didn't know what to do with her. Like she was always playing the hot girl friend or the hot wife or the mistress or, you know, and so, um, so she's, you know, really responded to part. And we had a meeting and she was so cool and so smart and so fantastic. And also just super fearless. Like I told her, I said, whoever plays this part literally just doesn't give a fuck about what people think. And she was, she's like, I'm a hundred percent, that's 110 percent me. I'm totally there. So, you know, I, so she became attached to the movie. It got financed like two days later. And then we were making it. And, um, and Cooper was actually her idea. And she's like, oh, what about Cooper Hopman? He's like, super interesting. I said, yeah, he's great. It creeps me out. The idea of him being like, you're fucking him. He's like that. The kid from Likert's Pizza is so weird. And, but I met, then I met Cooper. He actually lives in New York, but he flew himself here for the chemistry read. And in person, I mean, Cooper was so, he's so young. He was on like 21 when we made the movie. He was a baby. And, um, in person, he has so much gravitas. You know, he's so, so much presence. And when I saw their chemistry together, I was like, okay, yeah, I totally got it. Like I, I didn't see, I didn't, when I think of him in Likert's Pizza and how he's in Likert's Pizza versus how he is, he's like all grown up. It's not, it hasn't been that many years. But the thing about him and Livia is they were a complete like equal sparring partner. So, I mean, like it was a Livia's like a big presence. And he's the big presence. So the two of them together, it was the dynamic was fantastic. And the chemistry was great. And I knew once I saw them them all, that's the movie. Yeah, I mean, it was like, I knew like right then, once I saw them together, that, you know, they had what they had going on between them, what the what the movie was. Yeah, they're wonderful together. You mentioned the framework and the, the sort of framing device, being this sort of noir story, very obvious sunset boulevard illusion at the beginning of the film. Why did you include that? Like, why was that important to making the movie work? I just wanted to, I think of the movies being a little bit of a cinematic funhouse. Like, there's parts of the movie. Like, the film one thing to me is very like, El Madovar, like late 80s, those late 80s El Madovar movies like Madador or Law Desire, if I'm sorry, it's huge, huge, huge influence on me. Um, hypersexual. Yeah, hypersexual, but also the have that kind of, I call it like preposterous film war, where the film war is like a narrative device sort of, but it doesn't really make sense. But a lot of film war does not make sense. Like multi-falken does not make any sense. I got, I mean, it's so convoluted and so like, wait, what? And the, and so those movies are also obsessed with movies. Yeah. Those El Madovar movies, right? Sort of like, you know, this is, this movie is very obsessed with movies. It's like, you know, at that old movie secretary, it's just like, all, there's so many things going on in it. Yeah. Um, so, and that was part of it. It's like this sort of fun house. Like, we called the interrogation room, the seven room, 'cause it was literally like straight out of stuff. - Yeah, yeah. - Like there was just everything, like things were in the movie. I don't wanna see it in a campy way or a self-conscious way, but there is definitely an awareness of film history, like, you know, where, like all of these, where all of the references come from. Somebody said, a critic of the day I was talking to, it says somebody's super interesting to me, like, yeah, I really got that Mahon drive moment in the movie. I said, what Mahon drive moment? I mean, obviously I'm a huge David Lynch fan and he's like, he's like, one of my major influences. And he's like, yeah, that scene where they're doubling each other and she's like putting the lipstick on him and the wig and all that, I'm like, wow, wow, that, yeah, that's very, very Mahon drive. But it was like something that I was describing it to him is, like, all of this stuff is so much seeped into my psyche. I'm not even aware of it. You know, I mean, like, there's certain times, like, sensible of art and pool, that's a quotation, you know, in the Doom generation when Margaret Chowgitz or I slash and there's the blood, that's like a quotation of Potemkin. You know, I mean, there's certain ones, moments that are quotations and certain moments that are literally just part of my brain at this point that I'm not even aware that they're there, but they're clearly there. I was thinking about your tone over the years and rewatching some of the movies. And I feel like I want your sex kind of falls like right into your sweet spot where it's like, little bit screw ball, little bit ironic, but also deeply sincere at the same time. But you've kind of bounced around in the tone and a lot of the films over the years, like you've done straight pure drama, you've done out kind of more outlandish comedy. Like, how do you think about how to apply the different tones when you're choosing a project or writing a movie movie? It's very organic, it's not something that's, it's not something that I apply to the movie. This movie in particular, I knew that I wanted to do something, especially as the script developed. I knew that I wanted to make something kind of fun, kind of pop for me because the world is such a shit storm right now. Like, I personally want to go to movies, don't want to see something super dystopian, super dark, super, like super, it's funny for me to say, but apocalyptic because the world's fucking apocalyptic. Like, New York is like on fire last week. It's just like, I don't want to see the end of the world because it feels like the end of the world right now. So I knew I wanted to do something fun, pop, but smart, you know, and provocative still and clearly a lot on this mind. You know, what I hope with this movie is that it's something, it was, it's full of, for me, like queer joy. Like I want it to be a joyful experience. I want people to go to the movies. You know, it's 90 minutes just, it's not gonna be three and a half hours. It's like, go in, go with your friends, like have a good time. We just had a screening in San Francisco at the Castro Theater and it was insane. Like, it was like, people were yelling and screaming. It was like, it was like a rock concert. It was so, the energy level was so intense. And so I love the idea that people can see it, you know, because it's coming out in 700 theaters and July 3rd, that people can see it at the AMC with their friends and have a good time. But also, I do want the movie to provoke people, to challenge people, and I really hope it starts conversations about, because it's not just a dumb, fluff movie. There's a lot going on thematically. There's a lot on its mind. So I do want audiences to have a good time, but then, you know, go out with their friends to the bar after and argue about it, pick a side and, you know, have a, have a nice healthy conversation about it. Because I do think that the, the themes of it are very important to me, at least. I, you've always spoken so well about your influences and the filmmakers that have kind of seeped into that consciousness of yours. But I do feel like your movies now are making a big impact on younger filmmakers. I think there's some very one-to-one examples where I can feel people riffing on your films in the '90s and 2000s. What does that feel like to be one of the influences now? Well, it feels, I mean, like, incredible. I mean, I'm so honored and, you know, and thrilled that, you know, I see this, I have fans sometimes that come up to me, you know, and they're like, oh, you know, I saw a doom generation while I was 15 and it was like, you know, my life line and all that. And honestly, that's everything to me, you know. It's like the idea, you know, when we were doing the restorations of the old movies, I would, you know, talk when I was doing my intro and stuff. I talk about these movies, you know, they're all these little tiny personal art films that me and my friends made together. So the idea that we're standing here 30 years later and you're still talking about them, that people, that somebody out there gets the movie, understands it, is everything, you know, like, I'm not like, like Oscar. I'm not like here to win Oscars and accolade. It's like, the idea that somebody can understand and connect and that the movies mean something to them, that's, that's why I make movies. You know, the idea that I'm not just screaming into the movie. I don't know what he's, you know, I mean, the fact that it's resonating with the people that it's meant to resonate with is huge to me. So the idea that, you know, a lot of my fans are like filmmakers, musicians, artists, painters, you know, that they're inspired, they inspire people creatively as incredible to me. I wanted to hear from you about the restoration of the serious skin because that's a movie that I think really like changed people's lives. I think there are a lot of people who are really deeply emotional. Or fucked them up forever. Yeah, or at least I knew a lot of people, there's a lot of survivors. A lot of people who struggled saw experiences in that movie, but also just people who love film, like really admire that movie. So it kind of coming back into the, into the ether in the last year has been really interesting for me to watch. Like, yeah, it's been, it's been like, you know, it's a liby wild summer. Like, it's like, she's, it's a liby wild 2026, but it's like a, you know, a lot of great, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's like, because the mystery skin is being re-released in August. And we just did, we did the remaster a bit and finished it last year. And so it's a lot of stuff going on. Yeah. Yeah. Do you like looking back at the work or not at all? I love going back on remastering the old movies. I mean, I love doing doom. I love doing nowhere and I love doing mystery skin because it's like those movies, we had no budget in those days to like properly finish them. I mean, with a like a digital intermediate and like all the things you can do with digital imagery and, and, you know, the color and the color timing and all of this, and just all of the bells and whistles that you can do. And now the technology is so much more advanced than it was back when we made those movies. Yeah, I love, I love being able to go back because, especially for doom and nowhere, because it existing copies were terrible. And so people are like, oh yeah, doom is my favorite movie. What version of it did you see? Because it was the aftercare release for like five minutes, yeah. And doom is a beautiful movie. So it was nowhere. Like, the DPs did an amazing job and none of the copies of it did it any justice. So it was incredible to be able to go back to the original thing we were on the IP or the I and IP for that, I think. But Mr Skin is like the original camera, a B-roll negative. But be able to go back to the original negatives and, you know, basically refinish the movie in a way that is technically so superior and, and I'm technically so much better of a filmmaker in 2026 than I was certainly the 90s or early 2000s. So being able to go back and for me, it's almost like my legacy at this point. It's like, you know, what after I'm dead and gone and they go back and like, let's go look at Gregoraki's movies. I don't want them to look at some shea bully copy of a movie that like looks like ass. I mean, I want them to see like the good, pristine, beautiful version that is the version that I kind of want to be remembered by. And so for all those, all three of those movies, the new version is it and the old version should be thrown away forever. Something I noticed while, so I rewatched Smiley Face and Doom last night. That's a double feature. Two of my faves. But I noticed this first with Smiley Face and that later with Doom and this is very true if I want your sex too, which is just, you know, the camera is on top of objects and people in the film. It's really, really close. And you are like the king of intimacy, like true physical intimacy in movies. Or in a time where like, even just in the making of movies, the idea of intimacy is like much more complicated about consent and like how you can shoot sex scenes and what even our relationship is to sex scenes. I know you're getting hit with that question a lot throughout this, but I'm curious like what your relationship is to the kind of safety around actors and filmmakers when doing this stuff versus how do you get something like in Doom? There are so many sex scenes where I feel like we're between the two people in a way that is really powerful, that really helps the film. But how do you think about that now? I mean, it's why, you know, it's, you know, it says, it says me and Erica Tracy says, that's why sex and sexuality are so central to my movies because that's. That's what turns me on creatively, you know, I mean, it's like, and it comes from those amateur movies, which is I remember seeing a lot of the desire for it for some. The sexiness in that movie, the movie, they're not graphic, you know, it's not porn. But he's capturing something in those interactions that is so intimate, so private. Like that's, those are the moments that interest me as a filmmaker and you know, it's funny you bring up Dune Generation, because, you know, that's one of those movies that people are so like, they're like literally, it's like, they've carried it with them all these decades, right? And I think part of the thing is it's like, it's because you've had sex with all three of those characters. Like, literally somebody you've had sex with as Eric Atrese says in the movie and I've said in past movies, there is a knowledge there. There is a sharing there that is beyond like somebody that you have slept with knows you in a way that your mother, your best friend, like all the people in your life, they don't know you. They don't know you like that person knows you and I feel like that's why I'm so interested in sex and movies. It's not about titillation, it's not about exploitation, it's not about pornography. And thank God for, there's so much porn now because if you want to watch porn, just watch porn. I mean, it's like in the old days and 80s, if an actress do the top of scene, IE Phoebe Cates and fast times, it's like that was porn and people are jacking off to you all the time. It's like in a movie now, if you do, there's like it frees, I feel like actors to be like, yeah, this really is about this character in this moment and it's not going to be taken out of context on a freeze frame of me and 13-year-old jacking off to it. So I feel like that in a way is, for me as a filmmaker, that's why my movies have always been about that. And I've had sex scenes in my movies from almost the very start and I'm just super comfortable with them now. You know, it's like just the experience of doing it so many times. I know, you know, for people that have actors and directors, people who have done sex scenes, they're not sexy, they're not fun. It's another day at the office, but it's an important day, you know. And me as a director, because I'm very comfortable, I'm very specific about what is going to be seen, what's not going to be seen. And you know, it's like, this is the first film I've had an intimacy coordinator as Yehuda Duendas and he is fantastic. But they're really there for the actors because it's literally, because there are actors who don't want an intimacy coordinator and it's like, don't need one and also don't want one. They don't want someone between me and them. But there are other actors that do, you know. So I feel like it's really, I think, 100% leave it up to them. Because it's my job as a director is to make sure my sets are as safe and comfortable as they can possibly be, because actors are so vulnerable, you know, they're literally physically naked and emotionally naked and like doing these very intimate, having these very intimate moments. And so for me to capture it with my camera, I need it needs to be as safe as it can possibly be. So I always tell my actors, I always say that it doesn't matter how busy I am. Like what just happened on set, how fucked up everything that sets on fire or whatever, you can always pull me aside, you can, I always have your back, like you can always pull me aside. And if you need a private conversation, like, there's a weird vibe on set or somebody's looking at me where something, this is happening right now and it makes me uncomfortable. Just let me know, I mean, I'm always there for you because I do think I do really feel for actors in the notion that, you know, what, you know, I could never do it. I could never do what actors do, you know, it's like they're, they're really putting themselves out there, you know, and so, um, yeah, I'm just grateful that I've got to work with all the fantastic actors I worked with in my life. I was wondering if your career turned out the way you thought it would when you were at UCSB. Like, is it, is this, are these, these are the movies you thought you'd make? Is this where you're going to be a studio director? Like, how did you think about what your life would be? It's funny. Because the other day, because it's like, you know, I, um, if I could, you know, go back to the 19, 20-year-old me that, you know, the coo, the age of Cooper in the movie or Cooper's little bit old in the movie, but that story, I'd, you know, kid in studying film at UCSB. He was like, really into the genre of guitar and all that. Until that person, these are all the things that's going to happen to you. These are all the movies you're going to make. You're going to be in the can't film festival again, like a standing ovation. You're going to be at Sundance, like, 10 times. You're going to do this. You're going to do that. I would be like, you're fucking on crack. Like, that's never going to happen. You know, I mean, I, I couldn't, can't even imagine, like, that guy is like, when I was, I was just hoping to do something, you know, not totally like, I don't fall between the cracks or something. I just feel like, you know, weirdly in a way, I just feel so fortunate and so privileged that, you know, I was born at the exact right time. Like my career has taken place, my life has taken place at the exact right time. Like literally, I was, this is an undergraduate UC Santa Barbara 19, 20 years old when punk rock music, new wave music, alternative culture was born, exploded. Um, for me, as a, as a young artist, or a young wannabe artist, that sensibility of like, fuck the mainstream, fuck everybody, do your own thing, march your own drummer. You know, it's like, you know, that was, that formed me. That made me who I am. And it absolutely was the biggest influence in my life. And then, you know, I started making these indie movies in the sort of the mid 80s when Stranger than Paradise came out. You know, Chan is missing. She's going to have it. It's like, oh, how weird. Like these little fucking black and white movies, you know what I mean, they're not winning Oscars or anything, but people are going to the theater and watching about it and watching and talking about them. And I, you know, and I know from my generation, like Rick Linklider, Gus Van Sant, Anderson Anders, we all saw Stranger than Paradise. And we all thought the same thing of like, holy shit, like, what the hell? And you know, before that, there was, of course, John Voters and all of that, you know, it's, so there, I just came at like the, so that happened. Then the 90s happened, Sundance happened, I was right in the middle of all of that. You know, it's just like, I just was always kind of in the right place at the right time. So, you know, I feel so fortunate in the sense that, yeah, I don't know. I honestly don't know anybody. I mean, I mean, everybody has a different career. You know, like in front of Rick Linklider, Gus Van Sant, like all these people, we've all had different careers, but like, I don't think, I don't know, I think I'm so grateful for the films I've made and what I've been able to do and my short time here. It's weird. I was talking to a friend of mine when, because you know, Dave Lynch died, Sean LeCadard died. It's just like, oh man. It's just like, that's so sad. It's like passing on an era, and I'm like, you know, it's certainly sad that they're gone, but it's like, I'm a what a fucking legacy. Like two men, they, you know, literally changed the course of fucking cinema forever. One per, you know, you can't ask for anything more than that. Like you're one man and you're like, just changed the fucking game for everybody. And like, that's incredible. So for the fact that two of my idols did that, it's just like, yeah. It's just like, amazing. We end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen. Do you, are you still an active cinephile? I don't go to the movies. I just, I just, I, I am, the thing is, is that you get to this, I don't want to sound to make me honest. I don't want to sound like someone who's a cynical fucking asshole, but I'm in the WGA, the DGA, the Academy, the like TV Academy, like every screener handle award. He's never ends. And you just get none day with so many fucking movies, so much stuff. So yeah, I have not seen as much stuff as I should. I try to keep up. I am like everybody. I do this thing. I call it the at home version because I love to be at home and not be traveling. Like whenever you really can't film festival events, Sundance happens and I'm not there. I always do the at home version and like watch like, Oh, what's this film? Oh, who's this filmmaker? Oh, oh, that person's a Sundance this year. You know, I mean, like I like doing the at home version and like, you know, have you done a good at home version of someone recently or what somebody you've seen? There's always, I think I, I just, what it is is a sort of like, I mean, you know, I never cinephile. I mean, because I have friends that like, Oh, yeah, they go to can every year. They go to Toronto every year. They're out in the trenches doing it. I don't, I'm not one of the people that I feel like I need to be the first person to see like I saw that the film that's on it before anybody, you know, I like, it's like I don't, I can just see it when it comes out or see it when I catch up to it. So it's like, I'm not the first person, but yeah, is there anything you have seen that you have really liked? Let me think. It can be an old movie too. It doesn't have to be a new movie. It could just be something you've revisited. I'm trying to think of something that I've seen like recently that really, I can't [LAUGHTER] Everyone always gets stage right here. - I know it's so hard to boom off the top of my head. - This is why we have a letterbox now. So we can have a diary of what we've launched. - Yeah, I remember what we like. - Yeah, that's what I mean. Well, that's why it's funny. I'll give you an example of movies and how much a part of your life there. I did the criterion closet. And it's just like, when you walk into the criterion closet, it's literally like a flood of every movie you've ever seen. And you get kind of, it's just fun. They're fun to watch because it's like everybody having those moments of like, oh yeah, I remember that. Okay, this will be an example that I haven't watched. I did take it, like, I saw that film, Chili Scenes of Winter in the criterion closet. I'm a holy fuck. I don't literally, I saw this movie. And when it came out and like, whatever, it was 1980 maybe. It was right when I was in film school. And I just remember like loving it. And that's what I think is so magical about movies. Is this like, they really become a part of you. And they're a part of your life. Like a life experience, you know what I mean? Like, they're really like, just seeing the title and seeing it on the show of and pulling it out. I was just like, oh my god, I remember this fucking me. Because it takes me back to who I was when I saw that movie. I was literally just like this starry eyed kid. I think I had just moved here to go to USC, like in early 80s. And, um, yeah, it was, it was, and, and then, you know, Mary Beth Hurt died recently. And, you know, I mean, it was just very, yeah, because you just, it's, it's funny that my movies take you back like that. Because, you know, at least since winter, Mary Beth Hurt. And then she was also in the interiors that were the Ellen movie, which was like so reviled when it came out. But I remember loving that movie when it came out, because that's such a pretentious little film. And, um, yeah, and it just, it's funny the way movies work in your mind that way. Chili scenes of winter is a great recommendation though. Not enough people have seen that movie. Yeah, no, it was very, because for me personally, it was a big, um, I think I wrote a paper about it or something. Because I was very, as you know, and really into scribble comedy and had done a whole, um, you know, like a lot of like essays and a lot of stuff about scribble comedy, what it is, like what it means, what the symbolism is all like all. Yeah, it was just my pet, one of my pet genres in film school. And Chili scenes of winter in the context of scribble comedy is super interesting because it's sort of taking the elements and the motifs and the themes of scribble comedy and transposing them into this other darker. Like a more naturalistic, yeah, naturalistic and darker and also it, but there is a relationship between like bringing a baby in that movie. You know, I mean, which was fascinating to me as a, as a young film nerd. You answered the question. Craig, thanks so much for doing the show. I'm glad I finally came out. I was like, it's just hard. I always ask, what's your five fucking five favorite movies? So I mean, so I did that list once and I just keep going back the same list over and over because it's like I can't think about it. But yeah. Thank you, Craig. Thank you. It's awesome. Okay, thanks to Greg Araki. Thanks for producer Jack Sanders for his work on today's episode. Thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh for his production support. Later this week with great power comes great responsibility. Spider-Man brand new day. And I'm going to make Amanda rank every single Spider-Man film. See you then. [MUSIC PLAYING]