Weekly Wrap: Godzilla Minus Zero, Wild Horse Nine, and Taika Waititi on the role of critics

In 2002, Ryan Wedding was an Olympic snowboarder at the top of his game. Ryan's style is really gunned and go. And in less than a minute, it slipped away. But he continued to chase the high. Ryan James Wedding. He controls one of the most violent drug trafficking organizations in this world. I'm Michelle Sheppard and from CBC Podcasts and the Toronto Star, the most wanted Olympian. Available now. This is a CBC Podcast. Well, it's that time of the week where we talk about some of the big stories happening in pop culture right now. Monster Mayhem is back on the big screen with Godzilla -0. John Malkovich has a new movie out called Wild Horse 9, plus Director Tyco YTT is lashing out at film critics. I'm Emil Niazi sitting in for "Elluminum of Del Malk" mood. This is "Comotion." Rad Simon, play David Erlich and Hyde Chen, Booey are all here to make sense of it. Welcome back to the show. Good morning. Hey. Good morning. Well, thanks for being here, Hyde Chen. Let me start with you. Takashi Yamazaki's sequel to Godzilla -1 is here. It's called "Godzilla -0." Now that first movie really took Godzilla back to its roots. It's set in post-World War II Japan. Where does this one pick up and how do you think it compares? So this one picks up two years later and it's a spectacular sequel in every way. It takes everything from the first movie and blows it up. There's bigger emotions, bigger spectacle, and of course, some of the huge set pieces in which "Godzilla" and another Kaiju, maybe I'll spoil this, "Kidora," wreak havoc on Japan and on each other. And it definitely feels like it's aiming to be more of a spectacle-driven blockbuster than the first, which always felt like a character on the first and a Godzilla movie second. But I would say to compare another sequel, it's like the "Furiosa" to "Minus 1's Mad Max Fury Road." It's a meaner, it's more maximalist, though you may still prefer the more elegant storytelling of the first. Still, I don't think it sacrifices the character drama and there are moments that move me just as much. I might be even more so than "Minus 1." Oh, wow, wow. Big words for that one, Rad, what did you think of this one? I mean, I think I appreciated a lot of what Hychhen is talking about right there. I mean, especially after you've been inundated with the monster mashes that have come out of American cinema or even the "Godzilla vs Kong" movies and those versions of it. This one is certainly way more elegant. I do think what I mostly appreciate is that the monster mayhem is limited. I think these movies realize that they have the most impact when they're not dragged out. Then the movie can instead focus on this war epic and it could focus on these characters and the emotional stakes. If I had any real criticism about that, it is like the melodrama can be pretty heavy-handed and by the time you get to the finale, I felt like they kind of dragged out the emotions a bit too long and left me exhausted on that front while the monster mayhem was maybe cut a little short because they're setting up the third movie. But again, I had a good time getting there. Yeah, as long as you're excited to see "Godzilla" then, I think you're ear-bubbly- Which I hadn't felt in a long time. Yeah, if you're excited to see and excited to hear it because the loudest movie I've ever seen. Yeah, Hychhen, I want to get into that with you in a second. But first, David Yamazaki said this film, he sees it as kind of a response to Christopher Nolan's "Oppinheimer". It's said that "Godzilla" has always been an allegory for the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How do you think this film sort of speaks to Nolan's interpretation of that tragedy? Yeah, I mean, it's easy to see the film as a response, but not necessarily a critique of "Oppinheimer". I think that "Oppinheimer" and "Oppinheimer", the atomic devastation was presented as an abstraction, which is what it was for both "Oppinheimer" and Americans who were behind the bomb. And for the American public, for Japan, obviously, they don't have the luxury of remembering that as an experiencing it as an abstraction. So I think Yamazaki was interested in just simply providing a sort of counterview of showing the devastation of lingering with its residual effects and how the emotional fallout was just as devastating as the nuclear one. And he takes an opportunity to sort of turn the tables a little bit, and I don't want to give anything away, but as people may have seen in the trailer, sort of wanders into somewhat unreasonably taboo ground of turning the tables and imagining what the same sort of devastation might look like if it was visited upon an American city. Rad, what do you think of that? Well, I think what's interesting to me is that he or that he positioned it or suggested that it's a response to "Oppinheimer", I think he could have got there organically with her without "Oppinheimer" because this idea of nuclear devastation, because of this allegory of the atom bomb, that's so built into the DNA of Godzilla from the beginning, that it feels like the natural progression for this movie to spell those things out, like really like dive into the aftermath and all that stuff. So I mean, the idea of like it being positioned as a response to "Oppinheimer" almost seems to kind of reduce the way this movie can just stand on its own two legs, you know, like and because I think I don't think it veers off the path of what belongs in a Godzilla movie and what these movies have done is just spell out, and as you said, return Godzilla to its roots and then spell things out for us. Okay, that's really interesting. Hi Chin, I want to get back to what you said a little bit earlier about the loudness of this film. You know, this is still a monster movie, and like you said, it's the loudest movie you've ever heard. How do you think it does balance that sort of spectacle with some of those, you know, more elegant things like character development and story? I mean, I think it does it in some way that Godzilla might have wanted, where it allows you to kind of enjoy the spectacle while still being invested in the human characters first. Like, I feel like a lot of American blockbusters, like Godzilla blockbusters, have been about Godzilla first and the human characters are kind of secondary, but here we always have the investment in the human characters, whether they'll survive, whether they'll pull through, and if the human characters are so distinct and distinctive that when Godzilla is roaring so much that you're being deafened, you still want to see the little nerdy scientists get out of the way of like the radiation blasts. So yeah, I think it's just because of the way that it's still manages to make us root for those human characters, even amongst all the spectacle and the loudness of it. Yeah, the loudness of it all, you know, speaking of spectacle rad, this is the first Japanese production shot for iMacs. What do you think of the way that Yamazaki shot the action sequences with that in mind? I mean, I think, I think, you know, he manages to make it both fun and beautiful and, you know, what I appreciated most of all is the coherence. Like I could actually follow along with the action, which is again, when you compare it to a lot of American pop-core movies, you don't often get and the person I would blame for that is Michael Bay, you know, when you think of like Bayhem, and especially what he did with the Transformers movies, just throw a lot of chaos at the screen. You don't can't follow who's going, who's going where because like it's not about like any kind of spatial coherence. It loses that, it loses what like Spielberg and James Cameron would have done with their action scenes. And a lot of movies since then, like Marvel movies has kind of followed that trajectory where they're just throwing a lot of the screen, whereas this movie, I mean, it's almost like, oh, we're back to that era where I can actually like see everything and I can actually luxuriate in kind of the Kaiju action and follow the characters along and know where people are. That's spatial coherence. It's interesting. I mean, when I think of Michael Bay, because that's who I was thinking of when I was watching this movie, instead of a response to Oppenheimer, I was almost like, this feels like a response to Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, right? But yeah, that's what I especially appreciated about this movie. I love the idea of luxuriating in any kind of monster movie. And while we got to leave it there, Godzilla minus zero is in theaters now. I want to get into another movie that just came out. Take a listen to this. We are the CIA, actually. We're totally the CIA. We're not the CIA. Obviously. Yes, we are. I swear, he's just being shy. We came down here to destabilize your democracy and it is going great. So we decided to take a little side trip to Easter Island and you see the big cat. So David, that's a clip from Wild Horse Nine. It's the latest film from Martin McDonough. He's best known for directing films like In Bruges, Three Billboards, Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Banshees of Innis Sheeran. Tell us a little bit about what is going on in Wild Horse Nine. Sure. I mean, I think this could be positioned to something of a spiritual sequel to In Bruges. It's another story about two middle-aged killers. In this case, CIA, and supposed to more formally establish hitmen who are a stencer simply on vacation, but are really visiting sort of a purgatoryal place as they wait to figure out what fate has in store for them. In this case, John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, their CIA agents, it's 1973. They have already put into motion the CIA backed plan to topple the government in Chile. But it has not happened yet. There's about a six-month window waiting and so they are aware. of what's coming for this country, whereas the rest of the population is not, and they go to East Island, which is a six hour flight away from Santiago, to chill, to talk, to reflect on the good times of the bad, and existential dread creeps in concerns begin to blossom, and John Nuckpitch's character, whose memory is failing him as part of what may be a terminal illness, starts to have a little bit of a crisis of conscience as he reflects on a lifetime of killing people for the CIA. That's a lot going on there. So, what did you think of the movie, David? You know, I think there's something to be said for the House Blanetic and Glyb Martin McDowell, a Martin McDowell, I wish. Martin McDowell is able to make these stories of killers and the sort of brusqueness that he brings into what ultimately ended being very poignant stories of moral reckoning, of male friendship. I will say that I found the mechanics of this particular movie to be about as constructed as, I don't know, the CIA coup of a foreign country. It all feels very manufactured and artificial to me. I had a really hard time believing in the emotional reality of the movie, because I didn't feel like John Nuckpitch's character earned his moral reckoning in a, you know, effectively dramatized way. But it is funny. It's fun to watch. The performances, particularly from Melcovitch and from Chilean actress, named Mariana D. Gerolimo, are wonderful. So, didn't hate it. Love to see Easter Island on screen, a rare opportunity to do so, but struggle to really buy it all wholeheartedly. Yeah, it's true. Anytime you can see John Melcovitch on screen, you're kind of like, okay, you know, at least a half thumb up just for that. Brad, what did you think of it? I mean, like, I 100% agree with both you and David on that, right? And I think like, I mean, the thing about this movie is that everything that is amusing and likable about it comes with that weird baggage, where it's like, okay, the toppling of the government of Chile, the setting up the Pinochet, fascist regime, you know, basically alluding to the thousands of people who were tortured and killed as a result of that, where that all becomes the background or the prop to this, like, you know, adorably offensive old white man's redemption story, where it's like, okay, well, we're figuring out how he no longer has a place here and we're running to a sense of melancholy over this reckoning on the backs of that, that really kind of horrifying history. And so that is, you know, it's a baggage that I think, you know, was there even in like, Madonna's three billboards of having Missouri, and it's there in a movie like Green Book. So I think I enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed those movies, where it's like, yeah, everything I like about it comes with this sense of unease. Interesting. You know, hi Chen, I hear you loved the movie. Curious to get your thoughts on that, as well as, you know, as David mentioned, these performances, you know, you've got people like John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Parker Posey. This is an all-star cast of character actors. So talk to us a bit about some of the performances that stood out to you and why you did love it so much. Yeah, I'm gonna echo David and say that John Malkovich is really incredible in this. I think he's terrific. He's a sundowning CIA agent who's starting to maybe imperfectly grapple with his legacy and the terrible things that he's done in the name of his job. And I think Malkovich does a really interesting thing where he kind of holds you at arms distance and yet you still somehow start to feel sort of an empathy for him despite how much of a, you know, terrible person he really is. And I think I don't disagree with anything that David and Rad have said about this movie and why it kind of sits uneasily for them. But for some reason, the heightened nature of Wild Horse 9 works for me, maybe because I kind of viewed it more as a satire and that the meditation on mortality, that the movie does with the John Malkovich's character and his interaction with Sam Rockwell, somehow managed to push through the more ascetic comedy parts of this. I think that like, I think McDonald has that sort of tightrope style of a tightrope tone that is kind of hard to pull off and sometimes he doesn't so much like in three billboards outside of adding Missouri. But I think that this one kind of manages to evolve some of what he does and enrush and brings a little bit more of the maturity and soulfulness that he brought in Banshee's in the Sharon, for example. David, I'll talk to me a bit about the bromance of it all because, you know, Martin McDonough really sits in that, like that tension between men, but also kind of like, it's interesting to me that violence always has to be kind of a backdrop to get these guys talking. You know, what do you think McDonough's sort of playing out there? I think what is uniquely interesting about the bromance in this movie vis-vis other films is this feeling that there has been a silently complicit agreement between these two characters that they have given each other moral permission by virtue of their friendship to do the things that they've had to do over the course of their careers in the CIA as long as they can like each other and tolerate each other and live with each other. They can sort of live with themselves and as John Malkovich's character begins to have some doubts about his involvement of things, he, the more strident of the two characters, it sort of breaks that pact and invites violence, you know, a moral violence and then a very real literal violence into the story. And I think the dissolution of that friendship, even if it's, you know, for in the service of like moral growth, is a really interesting tension that the movie plays with that may, I think, be its greatest virtue compared to some of the previous movies that McDonough has made, but still doesn't make it necessarily anymore convincing within the John Malkovich's character, but it is an interesting dynamic. Well, you know, like, like I said, I'm never going to miss an opportunity to see John Malkovich, and if you want to do the same Wild Horse 9 is in theaters now and commotion will be right back. In a world where the news feels bigger, louder, and harder to make sense of, Canadians need more than headlines. Hi, I'm Karen C. Olin, news reporter and host of The Big Story Podcast. From world-shaping events to the everyday stories that spark debate, my team and I will explain what matters and why it matters to you. We're here to help you make sense of the news and give you the context you need for those kitchen table conversations. Trusted Canadian-focused, curious. Listen to The Big Story, wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. I'm Amelia Z. Sitting in for El Amin Abdel Mahmoud. This is commotion. We're talking about some of the week's big stories in film and pop culture, and I'm here with Rad Simon Pillay, David Erlich, and Hyde Chen Bowie. Now, we're going to switch gears from critiquing films to talking about some of the, you know, relationships some directors have with critics. Tyco YTT wrote on Instagram recently about the 26% Rotten Tomatoes score he got for his latest movie, Clara and the Sun. He wrote, "Let's spare a thought for those sad, lost souls who couldn't achieve their dreams of becoming artists, and the settled and became critics, the same people who also hated JoJo Rabbit, irrelevant out of touch, obsolete in the bin." There's no way to, you know, pretend that he isn't being very, very harsh about how he views critics. David, you wrote about this for IndyWire. What do you think of what he's saying here? Well, I think, you know, what he is saying is very different from what he is sort of speaking to or revealing. I mean, what he's saying is that he needs to make better movies than he be offline. But, you know, what I am hearing from his message is something that I've been thinking about a lot whenever filmmakers sort of blow up at critics these days at a time when, you know, both industries are suffering, but the hierarchy of power, the imbalance of power and affluence is as dramatic between those two worlds as it is, you know, in so many arenas of our world today. And I think it really stems from a lack of a dehumanization of critics. I think there was a time, and I wrote about this, you know, in the piece that I wrote for IndyWire when critics were sort of known to the artist by name and treated with dignity and scene as peers. And I think what the internet has had a very flattening effect in that it's made it possible, and there are socioeconomic reasons behind this, which maybe we'll get into how critics, individual critics became the critics. You know, and we're sort of flattened into this monolith that made it a lot easier for disgruntled artists to, you know, wall themselves away from the reality of the reception to their work or just not engage with how their work was landing with people. And just in Ticus case, maybe glom onto the viewer score on the rotten tomato meat or whatever they call it, the popcorn meat. Yeah. And point out the discrepancy between like the 78% approval it got from the five people who saw the movie, who paid to see the movie, and the 20 whatever percent score it got from critics. And I think that it just creates a real echo chamber for artists that they suffer for, their work suffer for, suffers for, aren't in general suffers for. And then critics, of course, who are not given the respect, and I think they deserve for grappling with their working good faith, also suffer for, by being stripped of their individuality and they their values. So, it's sort of a net loss all around. I think that this outbursts of Ticus part for a movie that is probably not, you got to pick your battles. Reflex all that. Yeah, you sort of joked about the popcorn meter there, Rad. But, you know, Ticus comments were about this specifically low score on Rotten Tomatoes. How do you think sites like this? People are getting so involved now with their ideas about films. It's no longer, we're not talking about Ebert and Siskel, you know, everyone is a critic these days. So, talk to me about how sites like this have affected criticism. Well, I mean, I think it's interesting that you mentioned Ebert, Siskel and Ebert, because in a way Rotten Tomatoes has kind of accelerated or blown up what Siskel and Ebert started with the whole Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down thing, which is like, you know, reducing the critics work where an individual, as David was saying, is grappling with a movie for over a thousand words, reducing that to a simple fresh or rotten. And then also it's basically a yay and a system. But then taking that, taking every individual critics, yay or nay, and accumulating a score about it, where now all of a sudden, as David said, like criticism has been flattened, it's literally been flattened to a number. It's literally like, all anyone cares about, all the studios care about, all these filmmakers seem to be caring about is the score. And, you know, like, what Rotten Tomatoes then, it's so funny when we're talking about the popcorn meter, because almost as a concession to studios, they introduce that popcorn meter and kind of gives it like the same prominent standing on their website. And so creating yet another binary that feeds into this antagonism, as David was talking about, like, you see, you feel all this divisiveness between people where everything is a binary, you read on this side or that side, now you have the Rotten Tomatoes score, the critics score, and then the popcorn meter. I love that Taika went to the popcorn meter to then lash out at critics, this is almost like what that system was designed to do. Because first of all, he's pointing out that he got a 75% score on the popcorn meter, like, dude, Angry Birds 2 did better than that. It's not the flex you think it is. And on top of that, it's an interesting progression from like, there was a time I think when critics would have been like, or like, sorry, filmmakers defending themselves against negative reviews, they would have been like, oh, but look at, you know, we did so well at the box office, so it's clearly connecting with the fans and with audiences. Taika didn't have that because his movie tanked that the box office so hard that he had to desperately go grab at the popcorn meter to stunt on critics. There's a lot of, you know, that there's just so many, I mean, it's just, I think a sign of the times that I'll reduce the conversation has been to have to go to that. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I'm like, the Angry Birds 2 mentioned is very funny. Hi, Tim, what do you think about this? Yeah, it's an unfortunate flattening of critics as monolith. Like David said, I agree with everything that David and Rad have said. I think that there's unfortunately been sort of a rise in, I want to talk about like influencer culture and how that's been sort of a, has an effect on how filmmakers kind of view critics and fans because in influencers are the kind that are often, you know, hired by movie studios to come and give publicity to their movies. They come, they do first reactions, but often that they're paid in some way and they're off, they're very like positive and done in a way that feel like part of the movie marketing machine. And that, and there's this expectation now that these people who have, you know, first access are just part of that movie marketing machine and not playing nice. Like a lot of these influencers do kind of make you the enemy. There's like in sort of almost like a continuation of the Stan Wars that you see on Twitter or online now moved on to the movie going and criticism communities, which is very unfortunate and feels like, again, like a flattening of film criticism as an industry and as a career. Yeah. Yeah. David, can you talk a bit more about sort of the economics of it? As you mentioned, you know, things are rough all around, you know, for the filmmakers, but also for the critics. So just curious what your take is on how that's affecting things. Well, as criticism has been flattened, you know, wages for writing criticism have been flattened along with it. And you know, there was a time when, you know, as I was looking to earlier about the age when artists were seen as peers to their creators that that was, there was a financial element to that as well. They were, they were compensated at a level, you know, not wildly removed from how the, the artists were, were being paid for their work. And now I think even the most high profile film critics, critics of any kind are, are scraping by, whereas psycho at YTZ, who is really committed himself to mediocrity, whether consciously or not, is a millionaire many times over. And that's, that's great for him. But I think there is a, you know, the classic Don Draper, that's what the money's for, you know, he made more money for making this movie than any film critic will make in the next probably five years combined. And so, and, and to, and I say that without knowing exactly how much you got made, but I do know how much, I do know how much film critics make. And, you know, I think that there is an element of like, you know, it's a must hurt to work so hard on something that doesn't land and fail so spectacularly that it's international releases canceled by the distributor in so many different countries. Yeah. And, and that, that must sting. I think taking it out on critics for doing their job, going into the minds, the trenches of the first line of defense of new release criticism and giving their sincere and honest opinions in good faith is not doing a service to anything, or anyone beyond Tyka's own wounded ego. And so, I do think that some recognition of the reality of the water that you're swimming in is important. And I also think that it's important to making good art, especially if you're trying to make art that comments on the state of the world today in any capacity as Clara and the Sun is sensibly tries to do. And so, I think when you have someone who is maybe disconnected from, from his own station, from the way of the world, I think that is reflected in things that they make. And that isn't maybe what's happening here. Yeah. And, you know, he can always draw his tears with his millions of dollars. Before we go, I'd love to get a recommendation from each of you, something that you're reading, watching, or listening to. Hi, Chen, let's start with you. I want to recommend Slow Horses. It's a spy thriller on Apple TV starring Gary Oldman as the chief of Slaw House, which is a department of MI5 rejects. And how I would describe it is if Ajahn Le Carré novel, you know, very serious spy, espionage thriller, who is also a comedy. And Gary Oldman, they plays a Colombo-type figure who farts all the time. I love it. I mean, I'm so obsessed with that show and every time it ends, I'm just like, I can't believe I have to wait years for the next one. Rad what about you? You know, I just saw the only living pick pocket in New York, which stars John Tertoro. And, you know, I think that's definitely worthwhile as that. I mean, it's sort of like John Tertoro giving a legacy performance in the way that John Malkovich does in Wild Horse 9. It's a very kind of cute throwback to like a 70 style paper and you know, where he's playing this, this pick pocket, who is in the world of crypto bros and gets in, gets into trouble with the mob at the time. And, and it's got Canada's own Tatiana Maslani, who shows up for one scene and is packing all the emotion this movie can handle. So definitely we're checking out. Love it. David, 30 seconds last word to you. Yeah, I want to recommend Lee Chang Dong's new film, "Possible Love." I'm afraid there are no Canadians in it. He's a Korean film, but it's still worth seeing all the same. It's the director's first film since burning eight years ago. It is a sprawling novelistic class drama about a rich woman who decides to make a documentary that heavily involves working class family in the outskirts of Korea. And the very complicated dynamic that grows between these two families. It is exquisitely done. It is one of the best films of the year. And as I said, it's on Netflix today. I love it. Well, thank you all for these great recommendations. And thank you so much for chatting about all these films with us today. They've raven us. Thank you. David Erlich is the head film critic at IndieWire. He is an entertainment editor at Inverse. And they both join me from New York. And Rad Simon Palais is a freelance film critic and regular here on Comotion. He joined me in studio. And that's it for the show today. This week, Comotion was produced by Stuart Burman, Thai calendar, Amelia Eckball, Jess Lowe, and Nicki Manfredi. Our digital producers are Dylan Du Bo, Ray Mona, Vanya Mutabja, and Sabina Wex. Our engineers are Sam Hashemi and Aronde Williams. Our director is Danielle Grogan. Jean Kim and John Perry were our senior producers this week, and our executive producer is Beza Saifa. I'm Ameliazi, sitting in for Elimin Abdel Mahloud. Comotion is back on Monday. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca/podcasts.