Die My Love with Alison Willmore

I'm stuck between wanting to do podcasts and not wanting to do podcasts at all. That's great. What was that? That's my favorite line in the movie, which is when she's at the party with the neighborhood families. And the woman asked her what do you do? Yeah, I'm a writer, whatever.

No, that's not what she said. It doesn't say that. In fact, what she says is the thing I just quoted. She said, I'm stuck between wanting to do something and not wanting to do anything at all.

Yeah, you're right, that's a good line. It's in there. It's a relatable, incredibly related. It's a real, you have captured something.

Inwards, perfectly performed by one of our most powerful movie stars that I have never been able

to quite get my hands around. Jennifer Lawrence, she is, I guess. I'm choosing the word powerful. You can use the just in terms of the power of what she does like her work.

“You remember how when Angelina Jolie was sort of the number one most famous actress of her age?”

It was the, I guess, consensus, a list movie star, who is a woman? A projection? No question. Yeah. And like, every so often people would be like, she's never been in a good movie

or really, like, made a proper hit. And I would always push back on that. I would be like, no, no, no, you can look at her career. And she took, like, a salt or even a fucking Maleficent. And like, you can tell that she plused it, you know, box up.

That's why, right, you know what I mean bullshit. The good movie is an ongoing conversation. This is what I'm saying. So, just J-law have her beat. And J-law is sort of the, maybe the Jolie-esque, you know,

Okay. Alice. I would say yes, but also I think she is yet to really do the thing that Jolie did, which is the coming to a movie and just like blow everyone else out of office. You know, like girl interrupted.

I feel like in that movie, she just comes in and you're just like, who is that, like, she, you know? Right. So I would argue that Winter's bone was version of that. I mean, she's great in that.

Yeah. But also it is like a role that is almost like built around, uh, I don't know, like a showcase for her in a way that is, I think, and it is an incredible one. I was going to say silver lining's playbook does have that girl interrupted energy in it.

The difference is that the rest of the movie is closer to her level than maybe girl interrupted. That is not a movie I think is perfect. But certainly at the time as it was received, it was like, that's a movie that got four acting nominations.

“Have we never really discussed gender for Lauren from the show?”

Yeah, because we haven't.

A lot to talk about, because like we've never wanted to do David O. Russell.

No. Who is her primary odor? We've never wanted to cover the X-Men series on our Patreon. I wonder why. Yeah, let me just check the Episyn files quickly and see why we don't want to cover the X-Men.

And like, I mean, those are still clean. One, I don't know. You know, I guess we could do mother one day. Yeah, although I'm a rich text. I would argue is Darren kind of arguing his way out of being covered.

I was going to say, I think our chances of doing mother one day have been greatly diminished by everything post mother. Yeah, I like mother though. Still fond of mother. It is a rich text. It is a movie I am eager to sort of revisit.

I do feel like. Join mother. I like this better as a showcase for that angle of J. Law. I wonder if I rewatch mother now. Well, I think it's a masterpiece.

I was angry when I saw. I was a little dismissive when I saw it. I mean, I rewatch and was like. I mean, I respect this wing here. I kind of like this, you know.

There are some of his movies. I mean, that where where. You just like, oh, he's onto something. It's not entirely coherent and also mother does feel a lot to me.

“Like, maybe mostly inadvertent confession about why you should not date Darren Aaronowski, which is like,”

I think we projected all that on to it. But it's there. Yes.

And I think that that is incredible.

Yeah. I'll say this. I. This is not a mother podcast. But the context in which I saw mother was a screening at the metric.

You, we definitely talked about it because that was there, right? Yes. He was there and she was there. And I think it was the first time the movie was being screened anywhere outside of They had done the big New York magazine profile.

Do you remember who wrote that? Whoever it was just kept talking about how they weren't allowed to talk about the movie. That the movie was shrouded in so much secret. It wouldn't even tell you it was about. No, and they were like, it has interesting metaphors in it.

And you're like, what the fuck is this? And the whole profile was Darren Aaronowski being like,

The fuck is this? And he got up before the movie with a scarf. Quite the scarf on had a real air about him. Introduced her as the greatest movie star in the world. There was an energy between the two of them that was a little like is.

“Is this the bourgeois dancing on a collapsing Paris kind of thing?”

And then he said like, this was a movie about the most important mother in the world.

That's the other earth. And how we've disrespected her. And I was like, you just told me the metaphor right before the movie started. And immediately I'm like, okay, yeah, I get it. I was so kind of set up to be pissed off from the moment it started.

And I was annoying. I was actually more in mind's eye. But yes, no. I mean, who else would we cover that she has worked with? Like, granix unlikely.

Francis Lawrence is unlikely. How we can do friends. Francis Lawrence. But like, are we going to do him? Sure.

Let's just do him. Stop this. Okay, man. I'm sorry. Stop.

I'm sorry. This one. I'm playing tech with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I would love to talk constantly.

Great. I'm ready. When I interviewed him, I interviewed him once. And I was like, truly like suck at a stick about constant team. And I guess I am legend.

And just kind of being like, man, you. And he was like, I appreciate it, but also cradle the balls. You know, I was just like, you actually make, you know, like really fun. And Hollywood stuff. And like, I just been a long time fan of yours.

And he was like, thank you. Like he was very nice about it. But he was not like, he was not like, he was not like, he was not like, he was not like, thank God fun. Like someone seeing you.

Yeah. But can I just go back and say, please, please. Anything. When I did a Requiem for a dream oral history. You did.

That's right. Yes. Yes. You talked to everyone. Talk to everyone.

The fridge, including the fridge. The fridge is very rude by the way. I don't know the fridge fridge. There's a reason the fridge is canceled. Oh, the director next man.

Aaron Ernowski, uh, before we started was like jokingly. But also, it was like, can you tell the vulture editors to stop calling me scarf wearing guy? So they really like to make fun of the scarf. It was.

“I think it's like, do you see him in scarf now?”

No. No. No, it clearly. It's his version of the Eddie Murphy laugh, where he's like, fine. Are you happy?

I stopped. And now his neck is so fucking cold. It's so cold all the time. What's going to happen to him? I loved it.

That was his explanation at the time. He's like, like, I have a very sensitive throat. Is that what he said? Yeah, he did. He was like, a very susceptible.

That's not bad impression. No, no, no, no. I don't like it. I don't like it. I have some sort of throat.

I guess, so did anyone watch his AI American revolutions? I only did a jerk off to it. No, I didn't watch. I didn't watch it. I didn't watch it.

I absorbed it. I set my ass down and listen.

So it's he used AI to make a revolutionary war series.

Like web series. That's okay. Renactments. But it's just like imagine if we could see. Right.

You are there. You're trying to be like, this is what AI is for. It's something. It's bringing history to large scale production quickly. And he's liking the trailer.

I hired. Oh, good. It looks like spookily dead eyed in a problem. It looks like it looks like a polar express. I look like it.

I look at TikTok all the time. Right. And TikTok will serve you AI in the middle of like person being like, look, my baby fell sideways. Yeah.

Which is. What does it look like? Yeah. Thank you, China. We're still in the place and maybe this will change when they were.

You're just like, I know it's AI immediately. There's just a quality. You know it when you see it. That's, look, that's how I feel. And every time I see some fucker post something and go like, Hollywood is cooked.

This is what AI can do now. I'm like bullshit. It's not good enough. And then I'm also like, well, what? Like six months from now, maybe it is.

And I'm like, great. So reality doesn't exist anymore. No.

“I think it's always been like the way I feel about video games.”

I'm like, I got better and better and better.

But you, it never got where we all when we were younger thought it was going to get.

I mean, it's the uncanny valley thing. Yeah. I think it is true. And I am wrong. Maybe I'll be a fool.

I don't, that's my point. I don't know. My worry is that you will be a fool. Have you seen there's a one that keeps going around. That's like, it took like thousands of people and hundreds of millions of dollars

to make like friends. And this is what like, Sora can whip up right now. And it's a super cut of like fake AI friends scenes. I've seen this. Yeah.

And you're like, oh, it is weird how real it looks. But also they are freaking gibberish. No. And it's like Chandler walks through the door and he's like, well, I got pizza.

Yeah. I'm very weird because right there. The lines don't make sense. Right. They are speaking English.

But not legible English. And they keep walking in and out of doors that aren't connected to anything. And the doors keep moving. You know, so it's great. It's like a melatonin nightmare.

It's fast. You're like, sort of is real.

So like 30% of friends is people dramatically walking through doors into apartments. It must be about that. This must happen four times per scene. And they have everyone's like tone.

“And the rhythm of everyone's joke delivery, right?”

But they don't understand how to build jokes through dialogue. And then like, none of them look exactly like them. All of them look like they're stand-ins. But they look like real people. And then the Phoebe will sit down and split into two people.

The second she hits the couch.

Laterally like, hey, sexually. Pretty different between the two people on a cushion. I remember that episode. Yeah, it's a good one. Yeah.

Yeah. The video I got served, which I stuck in my brain is like some guy who made an AI video as if he were visiting the set of a Dragon Ball Z movie. I saw this. Yes. I mean, he's like hugging, go.

Yeah. So he's basically, it's like, as if he had just gone on and everyone were forced to take a selfie with him. And that's all of these incredibly famous people that he is like fan cast and it's different. And people are like, howly would as cooked. And I'm like, I don't know, you just seem sad.

Yeah.

And I'm like, you know, the problem with this is also like, it's like your limit, your limits of your imagination are like, I wish they were my friends.

Yes. What if what if Goku thought I was cool? What, so Park us? I tried to introduce and you didn't take the bait for once. I just want to let them back.

I'm so sorry. I missed it. What did you say? You said, let's stop right now and talk about Francis Lawrence. You're fine. This podcast was blank check with Griffin.

Oh, I didn't, okay, okay. Pretty funny. That is funny. Thank you. You're welcome.

I'm Griffin. It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers kind of and are given a series of blank checks sort of to make whatever crazy passion products they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they get bought or 20 million dollars at can. And become kind of like, I don't know, a cautionary tale. A little bit.

“I think a little bit of a cautionary tale business.”

Why is yeah? Allison and I were talking about this the other day and you have not been introduced yet. Allison, could you introduce her? Hold on a second. This is more important.

Allison and I were talking the other day about how it feels like in the flopped fall kind of trend piecing of a bunch of a list movie stars had sort of prestigey dramas that were given wide releases that were supposed to hopefully cross over to some degree in the mainstream. And also to Oscar results completely flatline.

And it feels like this was always included in that grouping of here's a list of five movies in the last eight weeks.

What being with the others being Christy smashing machine roof man to a lesser degree. Yeah, you know, I feel like there's one more. I'm the spring steam movie you can argue. Kind of. Yeah.

Yeah. Those are five pure theatrical releases that I mean, had what did all of those movies in. I'll tell you not to my wife like it's reviews. Yes, really. It's not those really count on with anyone.

This is what's interesting to me is I feel like this is the one of those films that was well received. It was well received. Maybe not rave. But it was well-related. Yes.

All the other ones like even Christy, the strongest reviews were the like it's weird that she's this good in this movie that is unpleasant to watch and why did she make this? It's very long. Right, the positive reviews all kind of had like flashing red lights that weren't really going to draw an audience in. I feel like this movie doesn't get wasn't turned into a punchline as much despite it having like two alisters and not converting into serious nominations anywhere. But it's sort of with distance just part of the narrative of like what was like.

The weird movie 2025. Sure. I mean, it was ludicrous to put this on. I don't think anyone could really be like how dare Jennifer Lawrence not make this into a hit. No, like, no, it is.

It is a very jagged. Uh, intentionally abrasive movie. Yeah. And it's a little bit more like, oh, movie like just because the substance broke through doesn't mean you can do this with anything. Like, like, you silly goose.

Like you think, I mean, they also clearly were like, for this amount of money in the very least we're going to have bots. Uh, a best actress on my nation.

“I think that's what they thought and the other part of what's interesting about this movie to me is I just feel like a lot of people I talked to just don't know this happened.”

And yet Jennifer Lawrence was like. As out there as she has been in many, many years. She did get out there and kept doing it. Like, in the lead up to theatrical release throughout the whole award season, she's not making precursor lists and she's still doing stuff. And all the stuff she was doing was hitting like classic Jennifer Lawrence where people were kind of like, thank God she's back.

It doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't go to the movie. That's I think the biggest lesson learned from 2025. Like you doing playing operation with Robert Pattinson will not mean anyone sees the movie.

They simply watched a fun clip. Right. It will. It will give eyeballs to variety or who are monetized that clip. Yes.

And it might sell copies of operation. Yeah. It actually doesn't get your movie anywhere.

“Well, I think especially when you're like, and why should it?”

I don't know. I don't know. I'm best right. At best you're maybe you're mentioning this movie to a bunch of people who maybe maybe will remember to look it up and then go, oh, that doesn't look like something. Why?

And that's like, did you watch dinner for Lawrence kill it on hot ones for like 25 minutes? And when she says like, through tears, my new movie is called Die My Love. It sent theaters. Whatever. Right.

That basically, I think for most listeners is the equivalent of thanks. Thank you for watching. Please remember to rate review and subscribe. You know, it's just like white noise. You tune that part out.

And I think the industry started thinking, well, this is the way to market. This is the way to break through to this audience. And what they don't understand is that those aren't marketing tools. Those are their competition. Who's our guest?

Our guest today. From culture.

From the new podcast, Critical Darlings.

Woo! A blank check production. The great Allison will more. Hello. Hello.

Ooh, remain just got pushed to February, 2027. Wow. Okay. I'll take it off this bread sheet. Allison, the seismic waves on our spreadsheet are the scheduling changes that just happened are insane.

Wow. Gone. Here's a Jennifer Lawrence thing. I would observation. I would like to make.

She famously took a few years off, right? And kind of was like, I need to reset. I need to, people are going to get sick of me. And also, like, clearly she was like,

“I need to figure out what my grown-up career as a movie star looks like, right?”

And she has this is what? Like her third essentially soft relaunch, right? The causeway is like an unbelievably soft. So, but like, the causeway was like, she was also like, I'm a producer. Yeah.

Right? She's like, I am not just going to be in, you know, playing characters that are, 10 to 20 years too old for me in David O'Rassal movies by God. Like, I am going to take control of my career as, like, interesting. Interesting.

She has her, um, her producing. Is it just steam? Characters? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, they met in the movie business, right? Yeah. Yeah. They met in the movie business, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

And they basically come up together.

They seem to have great tastes. Yes. The produce, the things they produce are caused by no hard feelings and die my life. And I was going to say movies, I like, right? Causeway, unbelievable.

And two docs that I don't know much about. Small movie lost in the sort of post-pandemic morass does get a best-supporting act or nomination.

“But more than I think felt like, I think what you're saying, a proclamation of,”

here's phase two, I'm developing material. I'm finding people I want to work with. And, uh, doesn't get noticed much, but that's fine. Then she does. But it kind of lost her now.

Yeah. Yeah. I know. But it was lost her now. I know.

And then we were also like, pandemic era. I know. But like, there's so many Apple projects, most of the story, Mahershawali. Yeah. It feels like there's like three.

Yeah. I have some Mahershawali made anything in seven years. And then he's made so many things. I know. And like, Cosway, not a bad movie.

Yeah. Right? And Terry Henry, fantastic. I was going to say, it felt like part of the phase two thing that all the press she was doing that movie was kind of just pushing him.

It felt like, I mean, they talked about that movie was written. It'd be something very different. And he had a very small part. And they were like assembling and edit. And they were like, it feels like the only stuff that's working as our scenes together.

And they went back and rewrote and reshot a lot of it. And she was like, this is a two-hander. And it felt like part of her. This is my next stage is like, who do I want to work with? Who do I want to boost?

And she uses all her power to basically get him an nomination for a movie that no one remembers. Yeah. And then she makes no hard feelings. Which was good.

It was good. But she is like, look at me doing like a hard comedy, right? I know. There was this sort of a try hard element to that whole rollout. And then I saw the movie.

And I was like, I think this movie is sort of a cut above. And I really like the underlying themes of that movie. I like that it's about like trashy long island. Like true, like Montauk. For people being like, man, if fucking sucks here now.

Like all these rich people have moved here. Like, you know, like, that's like the undercurrent of that movie. He's good. I agree. I think that movie sucks.

And then we spun. The ending's a little blah. Yeah. But that movie also has kind of a weird reputation because it's like, there was a lot of, is this the great white hope that brings back that the

theatrical comedy. Here's Jennifer Lawrence.

One of her most powerful movie stars.

She has made a commercial film in over six years. Here she's back post pandemic doing a sex comedy. Yeah.

And it does well.

But not the way people wanted it.

It's a immediately explodes way more on Netflix.

“And people were like, why wasn't this a biggest bigger hit?”

But then you're like, guys, come on. She was right here. Yeah. Like supporter when it's happening. Yeah.

And then now we have Diamond Love, which is the movie that was going to be like, here she is. Serious actress. Like doing this like really like wrenching difficult real work. Just going places you haven't ever seen her go before.

And yeah. And again, it does not really get there. No. And it's also fascinating because this is one of her best performances I think.

I think she's incredible.

It's like arguable. It's her best performance. Yeah. And it's yeah. It's arguable.

I think it's in the conversation. I think it also like it. It's sort of where it's how you think of Windows Phone. Yeah. And I think it also.

“It's it's so it's such a deliberately difficult role, right?”

Like it just is like both opaque but also like so raw. Like she is both like letting you into these like incredibly dark weird emotions. But also. And I think this is a bit of a lind Ramsay thing. You're like, you're kept at a distance from her, right?

You can't entirely figure her out. And so yeah, it's I mean, she has to work with a lot of, I don't know, deal with a lot of different kind of like. Tensions. But I mean, she goes like she just throws herself in it.

I think it will. Also possibly why movie went so like. So like, Google, I did this movie where you're like, fuck, it's funny. Like she is so inherently funny and is able to make comedy out of odd, difficult things Jennifer Lawrence, even just in her like oversharing press tourway.

That you're like, fuck, if you map that onto a lind Ramsay movie. Does this thing have enough kind of like weirdo laughs like the substance. That there's a more commercial push for it. But then you're like, what's the movie about? Well, a woman collapses.

I completely deconstructs. It's a fascinating case. And yeah, I think, you know, she's doing a square sazing movie next. It feels like she's being very selective. There was this moment a couple months back.

David, where they announced like one weekend a filming that Taylor Russell was being recast in Michael B. Jordan's very expensive. And she was starring in directed by Thomas Crown affair remake. And in one of our group texts, we were like, okay, thought experiment, who do you slot in there? If you're Michael B. Jordan and you're like one of the like kings of 2025.

And this is your next directing project. And you're chosen female coaster doesn't work. And you need someone on set within like less than five days. And you presumably want someone who you can like go toe to toe with right age level, you know, whatever it is. We were like, who does he pick? And we were throwing out names.

And I at one point said, like, I mean, if you really fucking want to go for it, you cast Jennifer Lawrence. You cast Jennifer Lawrence in the fade on away Renee Russo parts. But it is he willing to see that much ego. And beyond that, you said no. And you also said, I think she's just firmly in her weirdo phase now.

I think he doesn't really want to play that game.

There's an argument that, you know, her reps would probably be like, please Jennifer, can you just get paid 20 million dollars to do this?

And then make three more weirdo movies. And it feels like to her credit. She's like, kind of done with the game. Want to just use my power to make whatever I want to make and work with what I who I want to work for. And with.

And I also think in talking about her like sort of disappearing for a couple years. And why there was so much energy and excitement for this movie. It's also like she had two kids. She like focused on her family. She focused on her personal life. And cause way and no hard feelings aren't tapping into that. No hard feelings is kind of pretending.

She hasn't gone through the growth that she has talked about in the press. And so when this movie is announced, it's like, oh, well, here's Jennifer Lawrence who seemingly holds nothing back. And she's making a postpartum movie. What is she going to share with us? Right, right, what? This is the problem with being a Jennifer Lawrence Angelina Jolie style movie star.

Where it's like every movie has to be like, okay, but what is it saying about you right now? Like, you know, what what phase of life for you and what era? What table of Swift era are you doing now?

“I think it's less that it's like, what is the comment you're trying to make or what is the statement?”

And with her, it's more especially in her 20s David O'Russel kept pushing her into these roles that were 10 years ahead of her in life experience. And you were like, I guess through sheer movie star power, I am vaguely buying this woman being widowed having two children, all these things. And it just for someone who feels so emotionally intelligent but was able to kind of render these things that she had no experience with. I think it was more like, is this about to be some level up moment in her ability with her being able to pull from life?

I think that's true, but I think it's also, I think we've all been waiting, you know, she is someone who is this very powerful and undeniable alist actor.

“But like, she has been so much of her career either, yes, in these roles that didn't feel quite right for her that she made work through sheer talent with David O'Russel or in these giant franchises, right?”

Like, at the same time, she's playing a widow and a mother of two, she's playing this fighting teenager, right? You know, she's playing. Catness in the Hunger Games and she's playing Mystique. There is this real sense that so much of her career, so much of the, so much of the path that made her this giant movie star was also like never quite right, you know, like she was always playing roles that were never quite. They didn't seem like something that were like, was kind of like defining her or like the chief really had a full like like that fit her perfectly, you know.

It's, it's odd, it is odd for someone who you step back with some distance and her for 20 tens is even more astounding by how kind of anomalous it was at a time where the industry was like maybe movie stars don't exist anymore and she became pretty undeniable. And yet it was like, they, they milked that so hard and so fast and the whole kind of like inevitable gender for Lawrence backlash, which she clearly and doing press for this movie took very personally and was like, I'm too much, you know, I wasn't aware how people were seeing me.

It's also just like, you break down the years and you're like she was making two or three movies a year and it was basically every year she was alternating between an X man and a hunger games. And a prestige movie. Yeah. Yeah. I just, it's interesting on this press tour with, you know, who's, I listen to, she was on polar thing.

She did that kind of like, late?

What? No late, I was saying, like she did that fairly recently.

“Well, I think polar kind of doesn't care, it seems as much about like, you know, timing it to really, we, I don't know.”

Um, she did that kind of like half our chat with Leo, the actors and actors thing, which was like, you know, no one has quite gotten Leo to open up. But like, she had her moments with him, you know, like there's a closest I see like a couple moments with him. But I'm trying to remember where she sort of acknowledged essentially to one of those. David Russell, I think really taught me how to act. I know that's not the experience that one has with him.

You know, like, and she didn't say it in a dismissive way. She said it in a kind of like, I think it was quite helpful for me. I do know that like the way he works was not helpful for some people. She hasn't worked with him since joy.

I always, and incredibly weird movie also.

I mean, that movie came out early in the history of this podcast. We talked about it a lot on one of our force awakens up so differently. She did that because we, I think I had just seen it because it is indeed a really weird movie. And it has all the problems that all the movies she made with him had, where she's fundamentally wrong for the role. She's kind of working it anyway.

Like, she's kind of like put then the movie that's happening around her is also kind of chaotic and stupid. I was thinking like, silver lending is the best of those movies.

“And I think that's like a really chaotic.”

No, I agree. I agree. We in the week we were recording this, the most recent episode of Critical Darlings was talking about an Emma Stone and your ghost kind of getting into that David or Russell Jennifer Lawrence auto lock nomination off the favorite state. And no one was pissed when Emma Stone was announced as a best actress candidate.

I didn't feel that. Yes. I mean, people were not like, oh, yes. That's like, you know, by the way, no one was angry. But I can't remember if you or Richard said this, but the morning the Jennifer Lawrence made it into the joy five.

There was a feeling of like fuck that. And it's that kind of thing that Ben Affleck talks about of like the weekend after she really being like, I'm in the worst state. My career could possibly be in. I can sell magazine covers, but I can't sell movie tickets. Everyone wants to hear about how I'm fucking up in my personal life and no one wants to hire me.

Everyone else can make money off of me. And there's that sort of feeling of like, okay, Jennifer Lawrence, you automatically get nominated every time. People now resent you for it. Which it just, the moment that movie came out, it was just like, it happened one time too many. It's too late.

Everyone wants you to go away now. Yeah. And I mean, so like after that, she did what like passengers. It's a disaster. Yeah, a disaster.

Like just like a really incredibly unpleasant person. Yes. One of the most miscalculated like star packaging. Yeah. Yes.

And of course, a blacklist script. Yes. It's often a very cursed thing. I have often contented you read that original script. Yep.

And it's a really good Twilight Zone premise. Yes. And it was so buzzy.

That they, they just interpreted it entirely wrong. Yeah. Right. I maybe there's a better version of that movie with what director I don't know. I'm trying to remember who's interesting.

You know, like, venture. Like, you know, like, I mean, like, why would he do? I mean, there was, there was an earlier version of that movie. And now, and so I'm trying to remember if there was a director ever attached.

“But I believe it was supposed to be key on a read some Rachel McAdams.”

And you're like, immediately that makes so much better actors. I mean, those are actors I vastly prefer.

The problem is they are not.

You know, who Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt were in 2015. At that point in particular, the that version of the movie died because it was prejudiced. Because it was pre John Wickiano. And it was like, he is wearing this like a negative mind. Yeah.

But you're like the sad haunted piano thing. Yeah. That would make so much more sense in terms of what. Right. I know, rather than Starlor being like, I won't give up.

Right. Right. Like, aren't you psyched? Now we have to live our full lives together. And imagine dragons, please.

Pastures, yes. Pastures. And then mother, which was much like this like a wide release. Yeah. Like out of the gates that bombed.

Yes. And also, I mean, is this? It's similar, right, where they're like 3,000 screens. But this and the audience is like, no, no. What?

What, what are you doing? Also, like, I don't know. It has like weird undercurrents. You know, like their relationship.

“But also like so much of that movie is just like tormenting her.”

It is just like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. The movie is her going. She's actively stressed. She's shouting her head off about the sink, not being braised. Yeah.

And then the baby, remember the baby. They eat the baby. They eat the baby. They eat the baby. They eat the baby.

As I happily tell people. It is. They're eating the baby. I hear they eat a baby. Yeah.

I'm into that. They eat a baby as to many X-Men directors have done. Is that my new terminal? We have normal. And we have X-Men director.

Go on, Allison. Well, and then, you know, you have like dark Phoenix. It's not a movie disaster. It never happens. Yeah.

And then don't look up. Yeah. Well, when is Red Sparrow in there? Oh, Red Sparrow. I miss Red Sparrow's right before dark Phoenix.

A movie.

I softly defend, but certainly never like care to revisit.

I don't think I ever saw it. I always think if it is like her assault. Right. It's her assault. It is very obviously.

And she has talked about it about the sex crimes that were visited upon her. And her trying to kind of reclaim her naked body on screen and her sort of whatever. Sexuality, heard like feminine. It's an ownership of sexuality. Yes.

And it's also like a decent, ish spy movie. But you are kind of like, this is like everhove in movie. And I like Francis Lawrence, but he's no palper home. And like, this is not quite nasty or freaking enough. But it is like an r-rated sexy kind of violent spy thriller.

And so I, you come away with kind of like, okay. I, you know, I had a, I didn't okay sandwich there. Yeah. You know, I know that could have been better. But when you look at, well, it's a 500 games movies.

Uh, because it's four books and five movies. Yeah. There were two, right? Mark and James. Yes.

She makes four X-Men movies. The first three work commercially to some degree. And then the first two-day-vital Russell movies, like,

Soar passed 100 million, you know, 300 worldwide, whatever.

That block was so fucking strong. And the fact that she's winning an Oscar getting nominations in between Cena supporting two franchises, the X-Men movie start to warp themselves around. Right.

“We all remember that mistake is the leader.”

Everyone, yes. The best known and most famous X-Men. Of course. The whole time. Like, there's the insane thing when you watch days of future pass,

where they're like, this movie needs to have her as ostensibly the lead character, but also her scheduling is impossible because she's doing hunger games. So she needs to have the primary plot thread where she's also on her own, and we can shoot her separate from everyone else. And then, but also they're like, we've got this incredibly famous actor.

And also this character is blue all the time. Yeah. Like, we need to figure out ways. Right. She's not like, she's a whole body make up.

Barely. Right. Did the, the fact that the first one is like, you need to be blue, because that's like, yeah, your true self. Right.

And then in the other one, she's like, yeah, but I'm not going to do that much. I'm not going to do that much. I'm not going to do that much. But like, no one's going to like be 70's. I feel like the response at the time was like, yeah, smart.

Build your movie around Jennifer Lawrence. People weren't like, oh, they're shoving her down our throats. And so then there's the thing of like, passengers like, squeaks to 98 million or whatever. Yeah.

It was a flop.

Like, less embarrassing than it could have been, because it's sort of made, but you know, I mean, probably made international money. I think so too. But you're just doing a Jennifer Lawrence thing.

I think it's important. And you get to a point there where they're like, okay, but if her in a turkey still gets to 90 something, and obviously that movie cost too much, then making red sparrow for 40 or 60 or making mother for like 40 or 50,

still makes sense.

“And I think there was this belief of like,”

is she just the one person that her audience will auto bietic it, they will follow her anywhere.

And even if mother isn't going to make $100 million,

maybe it makes 50. And instead it's just like, no, she's making things that are like unpleasant to watch. You know, often by design, it feels like that was the phase she was going through,

and testing it. She's made one pleasant to watch movie. And like before that, you know, the movie she made were hunger games, David or awesome movies, and X-Men movies, none of which are light and fluffy.

No, I mean X-Men and Hunger Games are both. She's made one. Right. I touched this by the press on the movie and her entire career. You would say no.

No hard feelings. Right.

Like I obviously X-Men movies are fun.

Like Hunger Games movies. I mean, they are fun. I suppose. But like they're pretty dark. The dark.

Yeah. Like I really think that's the, I mean, don't look up. Look up is a comedy, but it is comedy in the place you have. And also just like really not fun.

That is like the angry character in the movie too. She's playing the least fun of anybody.

“I think that's why there was so much hope around no hard feelings is like,”

wait, you're telling me it's Jennifer Lawrence press interview the movie. That part of her power was this like, oh my god, she's this powerhouse dramatic actress. She can do action and she can like do the dialogue. And then we see her in interviews and she's funnier than comedians. You know, and people I think liked the contrast between the two, but then the hope was,

if you let her be funny in a movie, is that just going to explode the box office? But we hate comedy now. We just don't, we don't believe it. Yeah, I think if, I think she's probably happy enough with the hard feelings. I think if she looked at anyone but you. She might have the thought of like, oh, should I have like done a wrong come with like a really

sort of established answer. Yeah, actually did that in her silly role. Yes, I think she would have been helping imagine. Yeah, it's actually like upsetting to run the simulation. I hope, but she should be happy in the movie, so which is a better movie than anyone.

But you and did pretty good. I also contend and I felt this way at the time, no hard feelings comes out like June. And then goes to Netflix very quickly. It's on the service by like September or October and immediately kind of explodes on Netflix.

“And I do feel like anyone but you got a bump from that.”

I was seeing so much social media foam of, oh fuck, there was a good comedy three months ago and we didn't go. That Sony marketing, you know, both of those movies kind of capitalized upon. Well, don't miss this one. I would like to see her and just a full romantic comedy.

Yeah, you know, that'd be interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, she's kind of steered away at, you know, in causeway. She's her, that's like a platonic romance almost like her character. Yeah, it's a sweet movie.

Yeah, you know, and then no hard feelings is like, you know, kind of as about. And once again, yes, Lynn Ramsey's dime I love on paper is offering, "Hey, do you want to just see Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence go insane?" Right. David, look, this episode don't act so surprised because it's a familiar friend.

Okay, this episode's brought to you by movie. Y'all, just kidding. Comfortable. No, no. We love there.

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Thank you, thank you for your attention to this matter. Thank you, very kind. I'm sorry about that, but which movie I like? I know you like your craft, Allison. I like it, I think I, I feel like it feels unmodulated to me.

It does feel like it starts at a place. It's so high already, like, and then kind of, like, just keep going. It just like, it barrels right off the cliff, you know?

Um, but I do think that's incredible in it.

I, I, I, I grew from a lot on second viewing, and I think I struggled a little bit on the first time liking not loving being like, I guess this has to be my default bottom limb just because every other one is kind of totally knocked me out, um, and I think I, I don't know. I have a read on all of that that made it work a little more for me this time. I do want to, in this, uh, many series that we're now finishing on Lynn Ramsey called, uh,

we need to pot about castpin, uh, intrus are producer Ben Haasley, because I feel there is a need to get this out of the way. What's up? From the moment I saw this movie in theaters, I was like, this movie has the number one scene designed to turn Ben Haasley off.

I have ever seen in a film. Yes, when she shoots the dog. Yeah, I just could not think of a thing. Yeah, that would throw out a block of Ben Ramsey.

“More than lead character of the movie shoots the dog, and you have to sit with it for the”

second half of the film. Yeah, it happens pretty early too. Yep. Like halfway through. The way I feel about that and the same, you know, any movie that has violence against

children in our animals is you're always kind of like, like, you really have to

earn. Like, I'm not mad, like on principle, you can, you can depict things. I understand, but I do have this kind of just like, are you just trying to provoke me or put me in a mood? Now, granted, the dog is incredibly annoying. Yeah, that's a real asshole of a dog.

Yeah, but yeah, I know as a dog owner, it is difficult for me to, to watch that. I do feel like the thing that Robert Pattinson's character does, which is to show up and be like, "I got a dog, you're going to take care of it." Is like one of the worst things you can possibly do to a partner. It is.

I mean, yes. Yes, the movie is playing with something, which is like, it is actually designing a perfect anti-save the cat, right? Like, it is going against everything, right? Like, are you just doing this to do that?

I have, like, the spike in the movie that will kind of like really set me, you know, in a certain future. I think so.

“I think it's less about, like, when John Wicks dog dies, then I'm like, "Right, we should kill”

all those people." That's different. You need to kill all the people down. The rule is, if you kill an animal, everyone's going to be upset unless that is used as motivation for vengeance, and the audience feels like there's catharsis and justice, right?

No. Save the cat is less about, like, stupid imposed lines of, like, Hollywood thinking and more just, like, actually an understanding of human psychology of most people will just clock out of your movie after this point. And I think it is less that, like, it does the shocking thing just to get a shock out of

you, and more does the shocking thing to, say, and now, like, what is your relationship to this character? Because we're not moving on from them, and this is not a dream sequence, and you have to, like, live with this, and to a certain degree, you're, like, held hostage by her in the same way that he is, right?

If you're in a relationship, and someone shoots your dog, you're, like, I think we're breaking up.

Uh, yeah, I would, I mean, I never had a dog, but yeah, I think I would have some, some

notes for that person. I think it's a pretty short conversation. I think it's crossing a line for me, huh? Where the fact that they then go on as she continues to cross so many more lines until someone

Right. It's pretty wild.

“I mean, I think this is the challenge of this movie, is that it sits in her experience”

so thoroughly, right?

And to the point where you're, like, not sure what's real or what's not sometimes, right?

Like, uh, the motorcyclist neighbor who shows up for a while, you're, like, is that real? Like, is that really a person? Like, before, and, like, before you see that he's, like, he's just, like, in a helmet, like, a kind of, like, music video figure, something like that. I thought it was, like, mental illness, like, like, like, warming in the distance.

Yeah. I think they're, like, like, like, he's stand-field as a figure does kind of represent that. But, you know, like, that, the way that whole thread is handled, there's a long stretch where you're, like, I cannot tell how much of this is just in her head. No, and even when you have the scene in the parking lot, you cannot tell what you're supposed

to take away from that. Yeah. I mean, will we ever fully know? No, no. No.

But I think with a dog or with, with Robert Pattinson's character, the name I'm forgetting. Does he, what is his name? His name is Jackson Jackson, okay. So with Jackson, and I think, like, the question you might have throughout, of just, like, why is he still round, and also why does he, after a lot of things happen, be, like,

let's get married, you know, is that I feel like we just never, we're so deep in her

perspective that we don't actually get a sense of what she might be like from the outside. You know, like, like, like, see, yeah, this is interesting. I mean, I think, you know, what I was saying about, like, a dog killing being a bit of a deal breaker in relationships, it's like, this person has a child with this woman. So there is, like, a sense of, you can't just be like, Jesus, you're too much enough.

Yeah. Right. Right. For a guy who is a character who certainly is not good at expressing himself or working through things or feels like he's really good at engaging with the severity of things,

there is, like, a struggle to calculate, like, well, even if I perceive this woman to be, like, a physical threat to my child, what do I do is, you know, having institutionalized the move is, is moving away from her, the move, like, all of these things have, like, eternal ripple effects on the health of this child, whether you remove her from the equation or keep her close, there's, like, pluses and minuses, and you're like, but now he has, like,

would just her do a thing that he's never going to be able to get past, right?

It is, it is an act that much, like, the way it stays with the audience, you're just, like, he can't process that. He's never going to be, like, well, that was a bad day, right? Like, there is, like, a core trauma there, he's never going to be able to move past.

“And I think in terms of, like, where is this line, why are they allowing it to happen?”

Why does he then decide to get married to her? There's a thing that I found very informative with this movie, which is, like, it's based on a book. The book is very much about, like, how much is in this person's head psychosis in a post-partum depressive state?

It's also not in Montana. No, France. France. Right. But it's the idea of being isolated and losing a grip on reality, that character is not

a writer. And, yeah, there were a lot of changes made, we'll open the dossier in a moment and get into all of this. And it is offered to Lynn Ramsey and she goes, like, I feel like I did my version of a post-partum movie with Kevin.

Sure. Do I want to repeat this? Oh, those did that before she had children.

“Well, that's A and B. I think she's, like, okay, is there a different in for me on this story?”

And she keeps saying in interviews, I didn't see this as a post-partum movie. I saw this as an opportunity to make a mad love story. And when I read that, I was like, what is that? And what I think she's saying is literally that it is a movie about falling in love with someone who is severely mentally ill.

It is a movie about getting into deep in a relationship with someone where, you know, in your 20s, a lot of things, people you know, who are really engaging and charismatic and have like exciting personalities, start to experience significant breakdowns in their late 20s and 30s. Realize these are traits of latent mental illness and the exact things that make someone

like Jennifer Lawrence seem like this is the most exciting girl in the world. You keep wanting to excuse things. And the further the signs present themselves, the more there's a sunk cost fallacy of to accept this at this moment is to look back on everything and invalidate it. And this guy is just trying so hard to be like, what will reset her back to three years

ago? Well, there's clearly a thing and I think this movie's failing is it doesn't totally dramatize his character correctly. I think this movie would connect more if it could find a way to explain his point of you a little more.

But I think it's just how can I deny that I was wrong about this person or the sense that this person is gone and what can I do to try to get them back?

So I think that, especially now that there's a baby in the mesh, that I think the idea of being like telling a story, but telling it from her perspective is what is so disorienting about this movie because it is like to be like this is a movie about loving someone who is like having, who is spiraling out in a way that they're probably not going to recover from, but also you're going to see it from the point of view of the person

“that's by growing out, but also I think his character, and I understand why because if he”

were too sympathetic or too responsible, you would just totally lose her, right? You can't just be like, why he doesn't he dump her, but like they talked about in the book, he's way more of an oath that they were like, we wanted to make him more emotionally engaged, you know? Yeah.

Even if he's not 100% able to, at the same time though, he like he does, yeah, like he comes and he's like, I got a dog and then he's like, and then he's like clearly, yeah, like, and then also remember there's that scene where he's like, we need to talk, leave the baby behind. Yes.

Interesting. And wrestles her into the car and drives her off like that, you know, like for all that you're like, there is a lot, there are legitimate reasons why some of these characters

would worry about the baby, though, like that she is also like always very careful with

the baby, you know, even when she is like walking off into the woods, she never, there's never a question like within our perspective that she is, she is like not caring, there's the knife in the name, but like, she like, he's right, I don't know, she gets quite close. I feel like she has never, even the movie also, like, there's that point where she's like the one thing that works is like the baby, right, like that like she even says as much

at a certain point. I sort of eventually realized, right, the baby was not really going to be in her problem in the nature, yes, yeah, but not the movie announced herself, she's more a danger to herself, nonetheless, yes, you know, yeah, but yeah, I mean, it is interesting that, like it puts in these scenes where Pattinson is the one who is like Jackson is the

one who is careless about child care. This is a problem I had with night bitch, a worse movie, nobody remembers, I know how there's the night bitch. But a movie I was thinking about a lot during this rewatch because there is so much overlapped between the two of them and sort of the bigger ideas, exactly, did you see

night bitch?

I never saw night bitch, night bitch coming, that's a bit from two years ago.

It has the same sort of plot of like, we are with this mother who is struggling, obviously my bitch is very much a postpartum movie that's about her struggling with her body is changing. But the husband's there and seems like not like a complete adult but also kind of careless and not very emotionally like scary. Like Mary has a bit of a well intention back.

“He's like, I want to play Xbox and I was just kind of like, I think he has to be stupid or smart.”

Like I just think like the guy you're showing me, I think would be a little more on like that his wife is turning into a dog, like he needs to be dumber, like, or something. I agree that it is the fundamental Achilles Hill of this movie, Dym I love is that exact problem, where the two times I've seen it, I'm like, Pattinson either needs to be significantly smarter or significantly dumber and I have seen him play both incredibly well many times.

I know he has that range, but the problem is if he's so interesting and so hot, he needs

to make a stronger choice. Yeah. Right. The problem is that if he's too dumb, then it's about being married to a dumb ass and that's not what it's like. And then I think it becomes something. And if he's too smart, then you really want to fuck his knee just like, yeah, well, that's the movie doesn't want to. It kind of takes a lot of pain to reject the idea of being like, oh, it's so awful. Like, I'm trapped in this marriage to this, like,

just to this right. Yeah. He is highly imperfect, but you have sympathy for him. Right. It's also not a story about like moving to Montana making you crazy, but they have moved to Montana and she is going crazy. Yeah. And or about feeling like you can't express yourself creatively. I mean, we never really learn about her writing at all. Like the writing is almost this like asterisk of being like, it symbolizes something she can't do anymore, potentially

related to her mental health. All right. Once in a very abstract way, spreading some ink. Yeah. So right. Yeah. As well. Let me look. Yeah. It's, it's, it's new. It's different. Yeah. It's on the paper. Yeah. It's very fresh. It's very fresh. I'm sorry. No, no, I agree. I agree that that's the, the thing holding this movie back from like greatness for me.

“And the thing that puts it at the bottom of the pile for me is, you know, I think the”

pants and character is kind of operating from a belief that this is a postpartum thing. I understand that I don't understand this. Maybe I just didn't know it was going to be this

of this movie is about the rejection of there is something larger here. Postpartum has possibly

broken a dam of of many, many issues. And, you know, all the women around to a sort of like going like, yeah, I had like a nightbit phase too. Anyway, now I know how to wear clothes. You know, look, I used to scream in throw knives. Anyway, now it's six months later. And I'm a little bit okay. And you just got to like shove it down. And everyone is sort of saying this kind of like step forward. Why? You like, yeah, you just suck it up and no man want to hear your problems.

“And you get through it. And I think they're also kinder about it, right? Like, yeah, they're”

not being asked about. It's like, can I help you? Like, can I please do anything? We have to stick

together because they don't understand what's going on with this. But also in saying that to her,

they don't understand what's going on with her. Yeah. And I think to her that being communicated also feels like you're telling me there's more of this. You know, like, this is not reassuring. David, yep, you don't have a lot of shared interests. Sure, common interest film. The movies comedy podcast, life, New York City, bagels, sandwiches. These are all true. Sleep. Oh, I love sleep. Sleep rules so much. It is kind of wild. How sleep.

It's constantly underrated. I don't think people give it enough credit.

“Get truly. And it gets credit. And nonetheless, even when it's bad, it's good. Well,”

I don't know. I don't think anything could really change how I sleep though. Like, I'm wrong.

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So master, I'm really tired. I'm saying, you can say that you're a hero. You're a

“steuer upset, huh? But you don't trust me. Egaal, Zaubervort, Verlustvortraq, make the”

ganz einfach mit wiso steuer. And when they then work, he says, "Catchin." That's good? Safe. Wiso steuer. Hold it, dein Geld zurück. Yes, cos, Nuss Ausprobieren.

I'm gonna crack open the door, so you never really hear. Came out eight years prior, you know, once again,

she has a long gap between projects. There's, there's pandemic in such, there are many projects that come close to how I'll tell you something. One is a civil war movie called call black horse starring Casey Affleck. Okay. Nothing else has ever surfaced about that one. Zero ways that could go wrong. She says she wrote 160 pages of a script that is an epic environmental horror thing. Nothing's ever really come about one either. She signed on with

“Village Roadshow at one point to direct the girl who loved Tom Gordon, which is a Stephen King novel,”

like a not, not a Stephen with a pH. Not Stephen with a pH. No, it is Stephen with a pH, so can JJ actually fucked up. Right, bro did his name wrong. JJ walk into the burning woods. Yeah, she apparently once George A. Romero have been sort of tasked with making that. She wrote a screenplay for that. It's about a hike on the Appalachian Trail, a girl listening to the radio. She gets lost in the woods. I'm just sound sort of interesting. Nothing has ever come up.

The two big ones are a film called Polaris, which is long been in development, long attached to Joaquin Phoenix and Runeemara about an ice photographer that set at the turn of the century. She says it's a passion project. No, we don't know. That's that is the one because I have sort of wanted to do her as soon as she made a new film. Most years until this year, there was a maybe Polaris is filming in a couple months. There was an erroneous account in variety that it had wrapped

for dark. That was the thing that was really fucked us up. Because then people were like, are there two Linn Ramsey movies in the can? That is simply just not true. No, it was just not

a mistake. But it always felt like that was closest to happening and then this movie leapfrogged.

The other thing was stone mattress, an adaptation of a sort story from a Margaret Atwood collection, there was also a erroneous reporting because she had been attached to stone mattress that so that was going to have Julian Warren Sandra O and be set on a ship. Right. Yes. I feel like there was also a point where it came out in some interview. Oh Jennifer Lawrence and Linn Ramsey are working something. And then people erroneously spread that it was Jennifer Lawrence has signed on to stone

mattress. Yeah. They would have had to shoot it in Greenland. Yeah. And they struggled to find, I mean, hard to, you know, just said, I'm going to be like that off. She also floated working

on a TV show that the TV series that never happened. Anyway, as we know with Dima love what happens

is Martin Scorsese who has a book club, which has unnamed film directors who read books with their eyes towards adapting them. I don't know who's in this club. No. I'm guessing it's probably him in a couple of X-Men directors. He read the term mean now. Griffin's made it very flexible.

“He read Dima love written by Ariana Harwich. I think Argentinian writer found it to be a powerful”

mosaic of the mind and handed it to Jennifer Lawrence. He had liked mother and he basically said, like, I think she can pull this off. Apparently, you know, he had come to her once before our friend Gia who was on this podcast in the profile said that like apparently Kate Chopin's novel, the Awakening had been something of Scorsese brought to Lawrence, but it felt like, right, he's had his eye out for her. She's wanted to work with him. They're in communication. He will send

her books that he thinks there's something in and could fit with her. Lawrence decides that she's always wanted to work with her Loon Ramsey said I wanted to work with her my entire adult life and center the novel directly and the email for about six months about being moms and other things Ramsey's a little as you say wary because she's kind of like, I already did. We need to talk about Kevin, but, you know, a major movie star is trying to work with her and is handing her something.

Ramsey also was like, hey, I don't want to make that. I'd rather make this and Lawrence was like, this is the movie I want to make. Lawrence was persistent and so Ramsey had to be somewhat one over, but she kind of fucked with the story, turned into more of a love story. Madeline and Ramsey, I read this quote I found that I thought was interesting. The Jennifer Lawrence gave to Indie

quote is, I sat with it for a while and then once it all clicked that it wasn't a literal adaptation, that it's more poetic than I realized Loon Ramsey was the only person that we could conceive of making it because she's the only poet I know of that makes movies. There you go. And so part of wanting her to make it was being like, I want you to interpret this how you want. I think when Lynne is like, I don't know. This is too similar. This book, she's just like, you figure out your version

“of it. That's what I want to do. But it feels like there's a lot of empowering of I want to be in”

whatever version of this you want to make. So Ramsey says I want to put humor in there. I want it to be a love story. She says something that I think is a little silly, which is the whole post-partum thing. It's just bullshit. It's not about that. It's about a relationship breaking down and about love breaking down and sex breaking down after having a baby. After having a baby is what post-partum. So it is a post-partum movie, but okay Lynne Ramsey, I think she just

is probably reacting to how much that was like reduced to the log line of the movie. Sure. Yeah. I think Jennifer Lawrence is very much like this is my general lens movie. Yes. Yeah. This is a big house about D. Z. Yeah. Yeah. An interesting thing. She has two children. She talks about she talked about a lot in the press for this movie that she did not have a difficult post-partum

experience mentally and emotionally after her first shot. She had a definitely after second.

When she films this movie, she was like less than three months pregnant, which is how they're able to do things like the breastfit like lactation like practically and you know, by being in her early stages of pregnancy, she's physically more believable as someone who's like recently given birth. She's making this movie being like this is pure just acting for me. This is like fucking general lens. This is going off. This is exploration. I'm not pulling for anything in my

own experience. Then she wraps this film. She has a second child. She has a really tough post-partum experience there. Lynne Ramsey edits for a while. She goes to see the movie at can and she breaks down crying. And she's like, I was representing a thing I hadn't experienced that I now watching and is speaking to me. It's just kind of a fascinating, I don't know, catching her at that moment. It is interesting. It's interesting that she made this while she was pregnant. It was a pain in the

ass. Probably. Lynne decides to move the action to Montana. I mean, she wasn't going to make it in

France, right? Like I guess that makes sense. And she never really met the author until after the

movie was a can. So she didn't really like, you know, delve with the author on what it's about. And she gets the disco pegs guy to adapt it. So two people at no Walsh who's a playwright. He's the guy who wrote small things like these. Is he the disco pegs guy? I don't know. Look at him. Let me look it up. Yeah. Yeah. He's the guy who wrote the play disco pegs back in the day, which was Kelly Murphy's launchpad. Yeah. As both play and movie. And then Alice

Bert, who wrote Lady Macbeth and then worked on succession and stuff. Like basically was brought into the script editor. Like as they're in final weeks of prep. And Lynne was like you did the

“work. You should have a credit too. So they all there's why there's three credits. Patons and said”

the first draft was funny or maybe. And then like and the husband was sort of just a device in the book. Like he's just useless. And my character was kind of like that in the first draft. But then like it sort of beefed up with every draft. Sure. I mean, it did. I mean, he's got stuff to do.

They got like 30 to 40 percent of the way there to a character is what I find frustrating.

Yep. Yeah. I mean, he's he's just we see him through her eyes so clearly. Like it's so clearly a subjective experience of him that it's hard to. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff I can infer. But it's still hard to kind of make sense of what he's doing on a scene to scene base. So this I can kind of like zoom out and go anyway. Go on. Yeah. I feel like the cheating, right? Like you're like, how much of this is her channeling her own frustrations and her own feelings of

like her. Like sexual frustration and her feelings about her body. Right. How much of it is like, yes, there are condoms in there. And I'm like, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I feel like Randy makes a real choice to establish a pattern of him looking at women and looking at women who

“you have to imagine are similar to Jennifer Lawrence when he met her. You know, there's sort of”

the alternative girl who is the waitress at the diner. And the two girls on the beach and sort of like, you know, who has this kind of like rough energy in their mid 20s that maybe he's now on the business end of and is longing for again. But right. You don't really get any larger

You would feel jealous and crazy because he's a good looking guy. Like you're just kind of like, well, right. It was on the road. I'm sure people are interested in you. You know, right. You know, Lynn, as she's Lawrence says, Lynn is very emotionally led, not controlling crazy, you know, they do these sort of rehearsals where you're kind of just like, you know, deploying this base and being weird and right, like, you know, a lot of stuff comes out of that. Yeah. And you know,

“Pattinson, like, I who I think is fairly studious as an actor and trying to prepare for Pattinson.”

And I've been told, right, is like, it's a very serious rehearsal, who struggles with, well, I mean, what I was, it was Eggers who told me long ago, this is the lighthouse with William Defoe being more like, let's go crazy. Right. And Pattinson was like, oh, fuck, I would like, but I like really got the voice down and like, you know, I've been like working on this scene really hard. Yeah. But then I assume he's done a lot of work since then where I assume again,

he had to kind of adjust. Like, lighthouse is an interesting comparison point because you're like, that's kind of, in theory, what should be the juice of casting him here is placing him into an unstructured environment with an actor who is so famously instinctive, you know, instead of intellectual, and then having him struggle with an environment that he can't figure out the framework of. And I feel like lighthouse gets that, like he channels his frustration into the character's

great in that which is the primary thing. And he is the more tough role. So exactly. Right. And and they don't quite land on it here, but he tells the story about they're being like a five-page dialogue scene that he worked really hard on that he is like a real like fucking like notes in the

“margin of the page kind of guy and they got to set and lens like, I think we do this with our words”

and he was like, which part, she was like all five pages and he was like, I guess this is just what this is. Yeah, I guess this is the process here. I would be annoyed. We've been her.

I did different people work differently. Pattinson had never really met Jennifer Lawrence before,

but it always on a work with her. They were chatting about something and she was like, "Do you want to be my husband and this Elaine Ramsey movie?" This is how he puts it. Pattinson is notoriously someone who kind of like messages the truth on pressed first because he doesn't rely on their interests. Right. I didn't like a clown shoot his dad or something. No, that's incredible. The cooking things? We're eating your bets like weird cooking things. Yeah. Yeah,

like he's, you know, but he claims that Jennifer kind of offered it to him somewhat casually because he was kind of like, "Why are there no cool jobs?" And she's like, "How about this?" Makes sort of sense because it's like this is not the kind of movie you package with two stars. It is a Jennifer Lawrence movie. You know, and he is certainly playing a supporting role. But he seems like a good time. He's a very game actor. I love him in so many things.

I like him in this. I walked out with very little to say about Robert Pattinson. Yeah, I mean, he's good at playing kind of like slightly unreliable or disappointing. Like like that aura.

“I think he's good at conjuring, but yeah, it is like, it is like you said. It is like 40% of a”

character. Here's what I think they're trying to get at with this character, right? I was like

watching it a second time. Be opening of the house, right? And then walking into it. When the first thing he says is like, "I could record music in here." And you're like, "Okay, so, and he's talking about his childhood memories of the things that happened. They are inheriting his uncle's house. They are moving back to his hometown closer to his parents. His father played by, I don't know this actor. I didn't, I've never seen this guy before. He's kind of got just like a generic every man.

Milliers. Five boys. I think he's an entrepreneur. They just found it. They just found it. He's like an entrepreneur. He's like an entrepreneur, right? Nick Nolty on fucking fire in a tiny role, but I think he is like devastating in this movie. It is such an impactful like two minutes or

whatever it is. A couple scenes. Yeah. Is it just one or two? It's basically in the woods as well.

The scene in the house that's extended in the scene in the woods. A bunch of Nolty is there, been late. Not much. Yeah, what's the last? I mean, he was in two. He was the thing called the golden voice, which. Yeah, I can't say I know much about three. And then it's three years ago, he was in the Josh Damell movie Blackout of course. I have two years before that. I mean, like, yeah, he's barely done anything. Yeah, like he is now due to due to due to due,

85 years old. That's old. Yeah, he's been around a long time. I mean, like, I was trying to think, go, go, go, go. Poker faces the thing. Oh, you know, there was something in the last couple years. I thought he'd be that I loved. He was great. But he's got his spotlight up a sort of poker. And he's

about, I mean, the costume, I'm pulling a door. I'm on my knees playing and I'm not. I love the

poker face episode where he was very. He plays full-tip at the, basically. And have you, have you

watched that episode? No, I don't think so. I've watched a lot of poker face. Okay. He plays a stop motion animator who's like, you know, career is over. That it's a very obvious homage to a little tip of it. Consciously in a brand Johnson's friends with Philadelphia. But Phil Tippet talks about like his own mental health journey and the kind of breakdown he had when CGI replaced stop motion. And it's very much an oldty playing the recovered version of that. But he is also

a murder victim. Like, yeah, it's not in it. But he's heartbreaking. He's great. Yeah, it's a really great performance. Like, yeah, what's like the last, I mean, I'll walk in the woods as I feel like the last time he was like on the poster in a real movie that came out in theater.

“I believe he has 25 feet and an angel has fallen. He is an angel has fallen. He's revealed to be”

drugbottler's dad, which totally makes sense. You're right. Yes. Of course you are. Oh, let me, let me, let me just so crazy. He plays someone who lives in the woods. Oh, we're. Yes, he's definitely, they're like, where did you come from, Angel? He's like, well, it's a long story. And then a cuts a nickname to be like, I make what guns.

Haven't seen that. That's the third one. Yeah, not a single service agent for the phrase.

That's the third one. Right. Because the first one, it's the president is taken. The second one is the prime minister is taken. And the third one is he is taken. I think. I know. Yeah. Well, I believe you. Nick Nalti Ramsey said, I just thought of him for the role. And I asked to meet, he asked to meet me in person. I went to Malibu. And she says, look, his face is Ms. Merrick and you can't take your eyes off him. And you know, so it's like, I don't know,

it's not like she had to go hunting for him. I guess he just doesn't work much. But like, he makes sense here. So she's space. That is great. Obviously, she's just a great actor. Lawrence, she's in cause way. So Lawrence had worked with me. Okay. Okay. Right. Yeah. I also, I confess I also forgot about that. And then, like, he's standfield. Yeah. And I mean, barely in a room. Apparently, and it. Oh, it strikes me as the kind of thing where he's just kind of, he's the kind of savvy

already actor who probably is like, I'll definitely work with Linda Ramsey. And she says in the interview, I'd love to do like something bigger with him. I wondered, like, if that, if there were more there that just got chopped down to like this kind of weird vestigial storyline, it's not Terrence Malick levels, but I do feel like she's a filmmaker where like, you sign up for the movie and you're like, there's a version where you're in the whole thing or maybe you have no dial.

It does feel like even though it's a little distracting because he's famous enough that you keep expecting him to do more. The movie is asking him to do a thing that is so tied to his innate energy and presence that it does feel like it is effective shorthand casting in a way, but you are also like, did they really just get like he's standfield to show up and like

“kiss her twice in the woods? I think they may. And then give for that horrified look when he's”

right. And countering the parking lot where he's like, oh no, right. The idea with the patents and character, right, that this is where he grew up. His father is in a pretty extreme state of late-saged dementia, it seems. And his mother is a very fragile woman. It feels a needly forever. And his uncle has died. And then you can infer that there was some sort of, well, there's this house we could move there. We could live for free. The cost of living is so much lower.

Maybe if we want to have kids, isn't that a better place to raise kids? Like it's right also, it's implied she's pregnant already, right? Like, I mean, in that first, like kind of like montage where they're kind of dancing and cleaning, it cuts to her being pregnant almost immediately. So I presume that part of the emphasis was like, if we're going to have kids, let's go. We can have a whole house. Yeah. Right. It feels like even if she doesn't know she's pregnant

when they enter the house, it is a thing that they are trying to make happen. And but, yes, when he talks about like, I could record music here. It's like, there's a sense of they must have met in some cooler college town. They both left wherever they grew up and were like hip, young, artistically activated kids together who stayed together. And now they're at this inflection point where he's presenting to her, well, my dad's sick. This house is free. We want to

have kids. Isn't that a better place to raise kids? And when he gets back there, he kind of resets

“back to who he was growing. That's her. Yeah, that's her right. Right. That's where I think”

there's almost a year that it's like this guy is surrendering his cool energy. You kind of have to

read it in. Yes. To what degree did he just always kind of want to drive a truck when that was

Exactly. Exactly. And you know, this is what's comfortable to him. He's so like activated. The

most excited I would argue he is the entire movie is in the opening, pointing out to her in the house. That's where I chip my tooth. Like he's like I've returned to my core self and can I get over this like performative social jockying, especially if we're together because I know this is the person I want to be with. And to her, it's like, well, I don't know, like if writing is my core identity, but certainly if someone like this is a writer, people go like, you know, she's like a

writer. She's all crazy and she does crazy stuff. But if she stops writing, then they're like, what's your deal? He wants to keep saying I'm going to do music, but he seems to have no ambition to express himself

creatively in any way. He just he likes guitars. Right. He's just so offended when she's he's like,

hate guitars. Right. Right. It's just like such a great thing to just say to someone else, the blue to like. Yeah. Exactly. But who hates guitars? How do you represent something to her? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You understand what she's feeling at that point. And she also just wants to make

“him mad and she's coming out with that. But I think also, you know, you get that flashback early on”

of her, I think it's like like the nalteseen where I think it's like Thanksgiving dinner maybe. And it's like all of the women are at the table and all of the men are the men are in the other room. And you're like, you can sense her being like, oh, is this my future? Like this kind of like, we're in the kitchen or we're at the table and we're talking about women stuff. And like this like really traditional gender split and these kind of like gender roles. Like you can watch him

becoming more, I mean, there's a point where the point where I mean, she's obviously acting out at the pool party. But like, he has like a panic attack over that, right? Like that kind of, like he is already settling into this more kind of like socially conservative pattern that he

grew up in. And it doesn't feel like that's the first time he's had that reaction. It feels like

he constantly lives in fear of, you know, the thing with her, sometimes she has her moods. You know, right? Right. And like suddenly she has gone from being like they're both like already kind of like, like wild and crazy kids to being like, she is the crazy one. Right. And here is kind of like, you know, her coming out party to the neighborhood and kind of like, it's like

“we fixed her, we're a happy family. And now like meet the other housewives. And I think you're right”

that like even the scene is says he's basic where she goes to visit her and says he's basic holds her up as shotgun at a fear that someone's breaking into her house is kind of like Cissy being like, welcome to the club. You're on the other side. Here's how we swallow pain. And that is just fucking terrifying to her. The idea that there is now an expectation of normalcy or at least keeping up appearances that it feels like what Cissy's basic is saying to her is, yeah, we all feel

insane. We're all miserable. All of this is difficult. Here's how you handle it. And that is not a thing she's interested in doing at all. And I think it's so telling the moment when Nick Nalti is struggling to tie his shoes. And she goes over to him. I think it's maybe the single best moment in the film. And it's key to my reading of what does work in this film is you're like this guy's off in the corner struggling so deeply with such a simple task. And it is that like

sadness of the elderly feeling the frustration of their loss of ability to handle a thing like that and not knowing what the right way to relate to them is in that moment to not be condescending, to be helpful. We'll also not feeling like you are robbing them of any power ability. And she just starts like communicating with him through like faces like expressive sort of like, like you know,

“like fucking like comedia del Arte versions of emotions. Right. Like hold up. Like are you happy?”

Are you sad? Like medical charts? Yes. Yeah. And you just see him find a moment of comfort with her. Where it's like fuck. We speak the same language. There are very different things going on in their respective brains. But there is a similar I can't engage with what's happening over there at that table. And what's happening between us is not verbal. And he has this moment of peace and focus and he helps her or she helps him. And then like, you know, 30 seconds later, he freaks out not knowing

where he is and who's alive and who's dead and why they're in his brother's house. And what you read is. You know what this year. Yeah. My favorite scene is the one is driving her back. I think from a hospital maybe or like this is after a little she's like thrown herself through the she do throw herself through window. Right. Her relationship to the woods is very similar to four keys relationship to trash. Yes. Where she's just got to get back at all costs. Yes. Behind you,

She's taken her to the emergency room. They're back. She's like her face is like covered in

scab still. And she's like, when's the last time we had sex? Do you know what? I started to really know. Yes. And kind of demands that he say that he desires her. And then starts being like, are we going to have sex tonight? Are we going to have sex when we get home? What if we have sex in

“the car? Like right? And it's just it's so I think there is this way in which she kind of like”

revels. She's still obviously Jennifer Lawrence and like one of the most beautiful people in the planet. But like revels in like these moments of kind of like grotesque almost in the same way. She's been like a little rabbit square. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like it's really funny. And he's so uncomfortable. And he's so trying to be like, no, I'm into it. Like I love this. Like yes. Like let's have sex in the car with my mom in the house right there watching our baby. Like it's so

it's so good. I think like those scenes are where I really enjoy that performance. Right. The thing I liked of there's lots of things like like I do buy that she's like, why won't you fuck me? Yes. And he's like, no, no, I will. I will. But he probably doesn't want to partly because she do be thrown herself through windows. Yes. But like partly because of normal postpartum kind of thing. Clearly very stressed. And he's looking at other women. You know, right. That that battle

turned your house into a police movie. Right? I don't like I'd rather be crawling up the wall. He's looking at other women. But it doesn't feel like this movie is doing a thing that I think a worse film would, which is sort of implying that it's like, oh, no, she's had a baby. Right. She's not quite the same anymore. And I just, I'm not really attracted to her anymore. It is like everything else going on with her is overriding his animalistic instincts towards her,

which seemed by the naked dance to get the beginning of the movie, clearly used to be their language.

“Right. And where that's how she feels about their own relations. Right. Like, even if you”

want to just be in her mind's eye, it's like, yes, we used to have this. Right. And when she's like, why won't you fuck me? We used to fuck me in the car. She gets really like graphic in the description of, like, the process of physical maneuvering to have sex in the car. And he's just like, I don't

know what, I'm first of all, if you're intellectualizing it in a way, we're, we're we're past

the point of spontaneity, which is what you really want. And also our life has too many responsibilities to be that spontaneous in that way is what he like does not say to her. But it is why he's like, oh, I do, I guess I do want to fuck you, but not right now. Isn't it the mom's right there? Yeah, he's babysitting. So yeah, yeah. And in my memory, also that scene is pretty shortly after the dog. Yeah, I mean, I think it's like, she throws herself through the window, uh, and then like

I think there's like a few more scenes after that. And then yeah, this is right. So yeah, there's like a feeling of when they have these confrontations. It being like the to-do list of things we need to talk through is now like six items long, right? We still haven't really wrestled with the dog thing. You know, it's some degree. The scene where he's like, uh, driving her, uh, I think he's driving her after she's killed the dog. And he's just looking at her like, I do I know this person,

but he's also trying to like combat his fear and disdain with like, should I be worried about her? Like, what is this say about what's going on and what do I need to do to get through to her? Um, that is the sort of like mad love story part of it of I cannot fully divorce my emotions from this poor person who I now can't really understand. Yeah, she's transformed in some way. She is, I can't I keep to give no hard feelings. I'm mother, I can't. I'm trying to

think of like her most feral other performances. And there's like roots of it in the David O'Rossle movies where she's, you know, quote unquote sort of she's sort of being crazy in like this 70s throwback way that feels fake and stupid to me. I mean, you know what, like, Ruby this like this one made me think about is melancholia. You know, like very much beyond like the wedding scene also is very much like it starts off and and it just it feels like it encompasses a whole years versus

drama worth of drama and also just false parts of it spectacularly, but also like the the depiction

“of depression, you know? Well, I think melancholia is a very powerful depiction of depression, right?”

And like I am kind of here and there on Lars von Trier and that's the movie that I saw at the time and liked a lot but wasn't even like some people were like best movie of the decade. Yeah,

yeah, incredible. And then, but then it let it the quickly kind of like stuck with me.

Yeah, where I was like, I think I might have also just been feeling really bad after I saw that

feeling bad. Where's this doesn't to me? This more rattles me this movie like in like that's fun

like it gets a rise out of me in that way, but it didn't really, I didn't feel in her head maybe in the same kind of way. But that's a lind rancy thing also. And you were saying this movie is so much

“from her perspective. I think this is like weirdly the least protagonist perspective centered film”

in her, which her work is so intimate inside the head that that still makes it feel more sort of singular through this one character's eyes than most movies. But I think it is a little zoomed out. She's not doing the main device of the book is how much of this is real. More repulsion style where is the line kind of stir right? Right. Yeah. And I think part of that is that, and partially some of this is the framing and probably why like Ramsey is pushing back on the postpartum thing,

not to say that isn't part of the soup, but just like to frame it that way makes a depression movie and does this movie work as a depression movie versus I feel like when we get to the scene where she is committed to the hospital. And she's in this sort of like group therapy environment for the first time we get like backstory from her. And it is in a worst film and a worst piece of material, the scene where it's like oh and now she breaks down crying and hears the course she's smoking

a cigarette and she tells you right that her mommy never looked or whatever. Right. And then it's

solved and then she can move forward. Right. And instead she like kind of very bluntly offhandedly explains to the therapist. I said group therapist but it's a one-on-one scene right? I can't remember that now. Yeah. She says to this guy like yeah my parents and here was the dynamic and my parents were unhealthy and it was you know emotionally unstable household and both of them died in a plane crash. And she's sort of presenting it as like but that like doesn't have anything to do with

me. And there's a sense of like there is something that has been on acknowledged in her family for a while. You know there is something that has just been treated with a kind of like white

knuckle get through it to attitude perhaps and that then can be manifested and like owned as

being a spark plug and being like wild and being creative and all these sorts of things.

“I think also I mean I mean I think there are multiple possible element right like her,”

her childhood and you know her attachment issues and postpartum and other depression you know but like she rejects all of them right like she does not let off any of them. Yes and I feel like part of like I think the power of this movie comes from me from her just being like it doesn't actually matter which of these things it is because I cannot get a hold of it and I think like a lot of the great parts of her performance are the ones where she's just pretty conveying someone

who is like almost just like impossibly restless and unhappy in her own skin you know like when she does she does this thing where she like kind of like drops over from the waist like her like like you know her strings have been cut like she's like you know a puppet who strings have been cut and then or she makes this weird faces when she's in the car like she you know it looks at her a lot. The lower jaw thing she looks at her body and the mirror and ways that are almost

“like clinical you know like I think there is this really I think she does a lot to convey this idea”

of someone where you're just like what if you can barely stand it and have it not even in disgust but just like you're barely standing and have it your own body and you're great and everyone is constantly trying to point to things that are circumstantial well it's tough moving this is a big culture shock for you and you're like those are things possibly all contributed but they are not helpful for her right as like solution there's a there's a talking around the thing

that feels not just about everyone around her but also about her and her parents and who knows how far back this goes you know if it is like kind of a choir trauma from behavior or if it's a chemical or what but yes they're they're sort of like to a certain degree like postpartum is the red herring of this movie and I feel like the woods thing is her just naturally being drawn to the idea of going back to some natural states right it is literally like can I be

a naked animal in the woods can I be night bitch I just want a fucking stop pretending I want to stop being told there is a way to behave I want to like get on all fours and eat leaves like what is all of this you know like the idea of the pool party is just like it just feels like fucking theater to her that she cannot maintain for more than two minutes and it is so heartbreaking to me because you have this arc of her going in there you see her settled in the the hospital you know

is a mania that has lowered and now it's like has she the first time watching this I was like

“is this movie a kind of tragedy of some part of her getting dulled off in order to survive”

and instead she just rejects it within three minutes she has to like tell this one off to her face and rip her clothes off and what makes sense to her is to like look at the young cashier at the gas station and be like why the fuck are we talking which is another one of the best scenes of the movie originally really to that scene you hate small talk yes I do and I over the pandemic briefly spend some time in New Hampshire we're on New Hampshire and having grown up in New Jersey

you know trice day area lives in New York like I'm so used to social interactions being brief and and Kurt and maybe some people would interpret it as rude I actually really prefer the quick just you know even needs to make eye contact at me it's yes and so being you know what being out in this rural setting and someone just being like how about the weather hot like chatting with me I definitely had these moments where I was so tempted to be like

enough just give me the thing man just bring me up like I really get it well and look it's a thing that melancholy it gets as well which is like that movie is all based on this the idea of melancholy the idea of this planet crashing in possibly pretending in apocalypse being a metaphor but also being real which is the power of that movie which is just like when you are at a deep deep stage of depression or mania or any other number of things you are catastrophizing everything but also it you

might be right you know there is there is a degree of like broken clock four times a day like maybe maybe this clock has like multiple correct over lap moments and she's just kind of like seeing things clearly at times you know there is and that also then makes you want to

“I think as a person in like a Robert Pattinson position go well she was like good yesterday you know”

like yesterday she was we actually had like a conversation you want to believe that there's an understanding there but then you see a situation where you're like what is the point of you asking me questions about my baby nothing is accomplished by this I cannot pretend doesn't she make

the joke too of like what's his name and she's like I don't know we haven't really like we never we decided

not to name him yeah yeah and yet she has no friends right we learned she has no fit no one yet no one in her life at all yeah she so isolated you get the sense that I think they were really relationship people and now it's not like he seems to have a lot of friends on the side he just wants to like go drive his truck by himself also just slips back into his old life like it like you know comfortable shoot like it's just what you kind of imagine his father must have been like like a kind of stoic man

who was like sweet at times but mostly just wants to go on like long rides right and then comes back in his like why is the house so dirty right and that scene where she calls her from the diner and she goes you're eating lunch or you're eating a cheeseburger this feeling of like you can just go and do that like you're doing things without me I'm here listening to fucking hey Mickey 20 times in a row which I also think it's such a good capturing of a certain kind of like

mental anguish of just like I don't know I just need to keep fucking listening to this song he's got the car he's got the car they have one car and there's there's something to about seeing her throughout the movie pushing the baby carriage on dirt roads along a highway it makes me nervous to see it happening and the only place he has to go beyond the gas station store is like her mother in law's house there you know there's really nowhere to go otherwise yeah he doesn't just like

but she clearly cannot find a shared language well yeah so I do love there is an expression and since he's basically face towards the very end where she does that toast to like make we all die out that like expression on her face is so wonderful because it is so like I understand you

“precisely in this moment that's why I think the space of casting is so good because you can tell”

the space is a person who always feels so emotionally vulnerable that she cannot be someone who is just

putting a brave face on something and not showing you any of how she actually feels and I think Lawrence is terrified about the idea of being someone like that who isn't numb but is spending

other people uncomfortable yeah I mean I think one of the the best aspects of this film is that it does acknowledge all of the ways in which the women get a raw deal right like from like yes being stuck at home with you know doing what is not considered work right like even though like child care is obviously like requires so much for me when it's difficult uh and then uh and yeah kind of being expected to just like take care of the house as like part of this like uh or uh yeah

the like the ways all of the women are like yeah isn't amazing how you just like lose the thread

for like six months through year after having a child like like like that's just part of it's really hard and like only that yeah like all of those things it or even like Susie SpaceX character having kind of molded her entire life around this kind of coexistence with her husband to the fact

“she cannot conceive of a way to even like cook for one person you know like I think there are ways”

it acknowledges all of those things but also is like I reject that as like the reading of this movie right like like like Lawrence's character keeps being like but that's not the answer for me

maybe yes it is maybe accurate but also that you cannot solve me that way this is not just about

the hardship of being a woman and being a mother this is about me my specifics which are no one can quite grasp right and I think it's it's part of what's amplifying everything and lately in her is the biological phenomenon of you know being postpartum and the other part of it is she is almost pushing past and acting up further beyond the more everyone tries to tell her yeah we yeah we know what this is yeah like the more people try to kind of tag her and put a box around it

“as an experience the more she's pushing up against it”

our experience for your podcast frisches obst and knackygis Gemüse from Aldi, immer good, immer günstig, immer vielfältig kurz gesagt frische für alle, zum Aldi Preis, diese Woche tafeltrauben 650 gram für nur 2,99 oder kulturheidelbeeren 125 gram für nur 1,39 in deiner Aldi Nordvileale and weiter gehts einfach lauschen und genießen Aldi, gutes für alle. I mean I guess what we're what I'm alighting on is my problem with this movie which is

I like the atmosphere of it and I like the performance a lot but I felt like I had to be doing a lot of the deeper reading into it kind of which is I mean which maybe that's fine, and maybe that's kind of the Lin Ramsey experience because that's sort of true with all of her

movies right like with more of her and with uh you'll never really hear I mean there's stuff

there's a little bits of context you get about these characters she doesn't like to it like piece meal flashbacky kind of ways yeah and Kevin is all that they're all this like to pick yeah they all have that approach and so I guess I'm wondering why or I mean last year I was wondering why a Lin Ramsey movie that was good was kind of like more of a top 25 movie for me than a top 10 one right like you know I wait I'm like like you know like what what was the difference here like what

“was sort of kept it from I think the the highest list of movies I enjoyed it in a good movie here”

I think it is the patents and character I think maybe I need to shake out my final 10 but it's like does this make it in a knot is a question for me and and I think that's the thing it needs to really kind of be uh the firing in all cylinders like you don't want to tell the movie from his perspective but you kind of need this character to be able to his character to be able to communicate what's going on with him better because I think the movie is structured in a way where you're engaged enough

to do the work about a circle and doing the work to fill in his character feels a little annoying and and I think it is it's also just what we're saying of like he's just a little too neatly interesting as an actor that if things aren't fully fleshed out you can't buy it you can't buy blankness from him you know there needs to be like specificity he's so odd um that you can't just be like I get it they cast some boring dude the dude doesn't matter you know I mean you like talking

about like nightbitch like scoop McNeries a great actor and can you do super like electrifying

his wife's turning into a dog in nightbitch is casting is the same as casting him as the dad who

doesn't quite understand why the crocodile is singing in lilaw crocodile and is the who who plays that's who he plays I haven't seen that there's a shade of him that works as a kind of melt toast like I'm sorry what's going on here and and then he can also do more interesting stuff was he mad who have not made the above the title billing of lilaw crocodile do they only offer three they only have the three yeah he's on the posters he is going like this he's that that's gathering with

his thumb at the crocodile is it not the air bar damn it no his performance is real what am I going to do about this so what's in the voice of Sean Mendes it's uh have you been in constants for who and Sean Mendes's lie yeah yeah the kids not getting uh oh is that which vaguely is it one of the fat glee it's the lower the younger fat glee it's a fat glee that's from tip to toe that's a fat glee

“that's what they said how many fat glee do you want to do that we you want to double fat glee or”

just one can you get the get the um tongs and pull a fat glee out of the fuck we're out of fat glee uh yeah what do you be okay with a dup can I give you a dup oh I think the dupes are kind of high value these days though they're their stored separate oh so you think that it's it maybe you get a faggly if the dupes are sold out yeah I think that's the case yeah yeah yeah I think for me the reason this is a lower tier lane ramsy movie is just because it feels so yeah like unmodulated

like it does feel like you know even that that that that very first scene of her kind of like

post the dance you know setting up the house montage when they have the baby is like her crawling in the grass with the knife you know you're already like you're starting at a place of like splintering and I feel like it doesn't it goes up and down a bit but it all it feels like a movie that is like operating at a kind of a scream throughout for me and I feel like that after while loses effectiveness

“I think that's a strategic decision to try to make it clear that whatever's going on with her”

didn't start here right that this goes far, far, back but I do I the other movie I was thinking about a lot while watching this movie I did not like was uh together oh I thought about together as well yeah I mean it is about moving out to that part of it where it's like here's a hip artsy couple and one of them kind of wants to try a more rural life and the other one feels like they're suffocating and that is a movie that is like so subtly literal with what is happening

psychologically not just the metaphor that that then turns into the heightened horror but also like the character constantly explaining exactly what he's grieving and what he's processing and that's a movie that does it so fucking much I don't know so I thought it gets a little murky with a supernatural rules to a degree where I'm like you push me away you're not letting me do any of the work you keep going and you get it right in a way that like really turns my brain off and this movie's

doing the opposite where I'm like you maybe need to tell me five to ten percent more directly yeah I mean there's that point where you're like am I reading into the film or am I just filling in because I need like I'm coming up with my own material here yeah and I yes yes and the rubber

“meets the road with him you know and I think the scene of her with the therapist and explaining”

basically her parents not wanting her I mean this feeling that they did not know how to deal

with her they'd been handed something you were really right prepared for right and it's still a loose of enough where it's interesting to sort of try to parse was that her from birth existing in a natural state that was more that they could handle speaking to the extremity of the child or is that a reflection on them and a path that she is continuing she obviously is trying to exist in opposition to her parents because she is despite sometimes dancing naked with a knife

around a baby I think very invested in the idea of being present in this baby's life and yet she cannot fucking figure out how to do this you know I think part of her seemingly intentionally getting pregnant before they are even married and making this big commitment is she does like the idea of like what if I could be the opposite parent that is me filling in a lot right but she's also sitting there going like yeah but that's not anything and they're like and what happened

your parents died in a plane crash as if like right that's like a normal thing I have no problem with the fact that both of my parents died in a plane crash after having a terrible relationship to them that's just one of those things that's my question please did you assume she was telling the truth there I did but I do think it's an interesting question yeah because there are other times what I mean when she says like we decided not to give the baby a name there are other times where

she kind of like just to or I hate guitars you know she's like testing people and there was this moment when she says it where I'm like it's possible her parents are still around and she

you five different stories of like how she got her scars but in that moment I believe it because she is not being antagonistic with him she is trying really hard to take any weight off of what she's saying and she also has gone into that environment seemingly going like I get it I need to fucking work on this this is like hit a breaking point after the wedding in particular you know which

is also so interesting as a contrast to melancholia we're like that whole movie is basically

built out of the wedding and you put your character in a big big white dress you know it's right set of mood and you know you have this core kind of like betrayal moment in the wedding of melancholia where you're like well that's a point of no return like that's going to fucking break everything who's she marrying a melon she's a super star is it's card she's marrying

“Alexander stars I'm keepers the dad he first I remember it keeper being really weird in that movie”

yeah am I wrong in thinking that keepers her boss and and that Stellan Skars card is his dad or did they cast Stellan Alexander not as father and son. Alexander is is indeed you know that the husband is the boss so then keepers the dad and keepers John Claire's husband and so yeah yeah right he's the dad because Claire is father and sperm well yeah yeah who is a note no right it's isn't Skars girl the boss in the dad no no it's a yeah maybe but Claire Claire is her sister right

so keepers her brother and law right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah right I have two questions one did you know that Angelina's only made a movie in 2024 called without blood no no that's a word drama it was a tiff I'm hearing this for the first time I'm holding one of these things up like she directed it she directed it I'm looking

“if she must be a Garvey's recent credit he shot this doesn't look beautiful for me actually”

it is he's obviously a very good cinematographer he literally he's got some wacky ass credits yes he also this movie felt like an opportunity for him to do some wacky ass shit

where he was like hey Ramsay here's some stuff I've always wanted to try what if you literally

set lenses on fire they did that Ben they were like let's experiment with like burning lenses and like hammer gates you know they shot it in a academy which is a classic thing to do I think when you're dealing with like inside you know like doors will trees like things that are vertical it's also so funny that that was just the standard kind of like prestige ratio for so long and any type of movie could fit in it and now if a director is employing it it's like

psychological claustrophobic yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I make a comment based on an information that's hot shot it's a hot shot it's a hot shot these are some hot shots and that I just walk off the camera I want to make clear Ben the camera's not on fire while they were filming they weren't like light camera match action but this sort of like inequality to it he was trying to see what would happen if they cause that kind of intentional

damage they shot on reversal stock which I think is a huge premium to use because you can't control light very well with it and so the night scenes they didn't but otherwise Macarby wanted to fuck around he wanted a non natural thing indeed he was burning lenses which created an inky look

that he thought was cool he shot Kevin but I guess not uh you were never really here yeah

“who wrote which was shot by Thomas Tone and that's what I know um I had another thing to say”

oh is Joker played by walking Phoenix Arthur Fleck the fourth or fifth best Joker on in films like it's like he's not even top three I don't think well so what we're saying ledger and Nicholsoner yeah yeah yeah you know I haven't seen the Nicholson one for so long I really need to revisit it's pretty good I mean I guess he can put Phoenix in three no but I feel like you would easily just put like Mark Hamill's cartoon joke masca fans has him was right in theaters

Hamill is a lock for the right many people would argue he should be higher there but there's no way that he's above that he's below Phoenix a man who won the second man only in history that's what people really like only two man have ever won an Oscar for playing the Joker more people she goes crazy there's only ever been to so okay what happens I can I go back to the wedding first yeah no that's I mean that is a a vital that's like the big right you know thing in the

mood the big scene sort of like the big final battle of like can we construct a set piece to make

lives and then you'll fuck me right like you'll be a wedding right we're literally putting

“pageantry around this yeah and we're kind of like owning the country western thing in a hipster”

way rather than the full emerging that you have been struggling with and it was where I kind of

the first time watching it started to be able to fill in some of the blanks on their backstory

of just seeing the guests at the wedding and being like oh these are their friends from their past life there is whatever percentage of like family but you're all the friends they have not been seeing who are down with their weird shit who are into like yeah they do weird fucking dancing and look at their outfits and whatever and then she just takes it too far she gets too loose it stops being fun it's not funny she's going kiss me kiss me like yeah she's like oh my god

and like she kisses species basic and also it's like the baby is there like everyone is like she's still acting like this with the baby I know she's had some drinks but like we thought she'd

kind of chill out when she was a mother and then you feel like there's going to be a melancholy

thing of like oh she's going to vindictively fuck someone else boilers from melancholia because her husband isn't fucking her wedding seems like it's going to be the guy the front desk guy right she invites up and then just listens to him play it was the guitar and you're like this woman just like does not know yeah what she needs but also he lets her go up to the room by herself and just like apparently stay here at my wedding without you and just like make nice with my family

and like hey it feels like he's strategically like I can't deal with whatever the fuck's going on up there let her do whatever the fuck she wants to do I need to do damage control for all of our friends and family who I now embarrass myself in front of and that's his priority is like the reputation over the relationship or even just like really kind of seeing her as a person well I have to say what about yeah what do we think about the John Pride song it was all over the

place I feel like a yes I do love that song it's really John Pride really it's a whole soundtracks really really good in this yeah yeah I was looking at a GQ article went to the interview talking

about her process with picking music for her movies there she always has great soundtracks

so the cream crossroads dropped was actually suggested to her by Marty Scorsese mmm i mean it makes sense that Marty might be so it was like a song he always wanted to use yeah yeah for sure the punk song in the beginning is her singing oh as well as the cover of level teller so tear us apart it's awesome her it's is Jennifer

“Lauren sing oh it's Lynn really right that's why is that cool and I thought the the”

Joy Division cover was actually it's excellent yeah yeah that is a super fucking cool yeah John yeah don't even would didn't do the music though but no start current carrying out the reprise at the end of the John Pride song and who's the other performer we should say yep iris demand was not planned it was just something that she spontaneously decided to do on the day of shooting do I think is really such a lovely scene and almost like a little

moment of like being able to take a breath and then unfortunately you have the ending yeah well what you know I kind of like the ending I love the ending because it's just sort of like it's the ending this movie has it cannot be she comes out of the hospital no and he's like look I fixed up the house and being better and she's like oh you know what that's what I need literally like this is so worried it was gonna be that this is so bad of me I was there

as a permeate like can she just wake up and it was all fucking crazy I just like this is like no enough like yeah no I I fully do not want to do like like we've seen the forest on fire in the beginning you gotta come back to the forest on fire the end you know the final exchange with Nick Nolty of just like you're kind of like returning to the earth you know like you've lost your ability to engage with the idea of society and like polite manners and social interactions

and all these sorts of things I don't read it as and look obviously with there are many things we read bizarrely in the ratcatcher episode a thing that I have thought about since that episode came out and I do think since there is something weird to the fact that you and I both saw

“that movie really young and I think kind of locked into our young reads of the movie not being”

able to pick up on some of the block I guess but that was I was not that was no good but I was not like no speaking of that no absolutely right but I just like I was genuinely watching that movie from a weirdly naive perspective that I just in trying to rationalize it I think has to come from

being depicted not completely missed that like in our description of it yes yes um specifically just

it's like the context they're insulting the characters these boys who are sexually assaulting this female character and we I just think miss the mark and and sort of defining the dynamics like what you know we were kind of like they are being bad or they are misbehaved I think I said it's actually charged bullying right which I'm so I'm clear that read as me minimizing a thing rather than something bad is having a bad brain and not interpreting I think correctly right

but I I don't that was I apologize for my last incorrect reading but I think I'm right about this yes no um don't move you's about trauma no I think oh my god yeah toxic yeah it's about toxic it's

“about toxic and it's sergeant kabuki man and my PD that's why she's going to the woods because”

they're all hanging out there um poultry guys uh I don't read the ending as uh suicidal thing

no and just don't with it I exactly it's not our thing it is metaphorical but it's like metaphorically it's metaphorically behavioral if that makes sense it is sort of like a world view thing of like I'm I'm done playing the game well it also like you get her walking into the flames and then you get like the shot of the house with like the cake right like doesn't it kind of kind of like there's there's like I think it says welcome home mommy I love you mama yeah like there is a

you could read the other thing of just her leaving like she is so yeah because they're trying to be like are you now ready to be mommy yes right and that story she tells uh to the the therapist is about like seemingly kind of being abducted by a woman and feeling a relief at someone else taking her

“away from her parents who ever knew how to deal with her and also that like this this 10-year-old girl”

right she says she's like a 10-year-old girl like took me the way like those girls in the beach wanted to take the baby right are like kind of like oh it's so fun to kind of play babysitter slash you know

fake mom for the second and like there's like some acknowledgement even from a 10-year-old who

could not intellectualize these things of this kid needs something like this kid is not being seen or I mean even that like what I feel like there is something there also like we don't know of her parents yet like the parents were the ones who are like kind of like the mess here or it's her memory of it but like that you're just like seeing them as adults already not just her parents and being like you're so embarrassed it like you're handling this so poorly and I wish I didn't

belong to you that there is some feeling of her being like you're gonna keep trying to drag me back to raise this child and I don't know if I will ever be helpful to this child I also think like in a movie where you're questioning how much of what you're seeing is is real and it's so perspective based to a degree all this fire is like super CGI and artificial as we said like they're shooting day for night like all of that stuff you know it also it springs up all over the

place simultaneously right like it's not like she because she burns the diary yeah starts a fire no it's in full force immediately comes up in flames yeah right it's it's a little it is perfectly unreal and it's you know speaking to in a static truth yep uh the dialogue scene was cut I'm just checking the dialogue scene was cut no the the the the thing you did the five yeah page monologue they're like no thank you you know Lynn Ramsey would do things like

crawl around for a while please and in this movie would Johnny Greenwood she'd can who scored her last two movies was was into it was it Italy was busy he nearly came back she obviously had the soundtracks you know the needle drops and stuff it shins up not working with him I don't know it feels like it all sounds a little shambolic to me George the effects yes who's like a Nick cave collaborator right he's the guitarist from the beds yeah but there are three music credits on this

“including Ramsey but he seems to have handled the line trail of the score which I think is”

very good could not find the score from this movie anywhere I don't know if it's been released in any form but especially the final yeah underscoring of the the woods is cool is really good but yes no it does we really feel like probably just because of the engine of Jennifer Lawrence and especially once she got rubber patents on board this movie kind of came together very quickly yeah and obviously that's part of what we should talk about a another thing as she plays music

on set camera thing Peter weirdos that you know people do that just to and people up

I don't know if there is a listed budget I don't I can't imagine this cost a ton of money

away right not many locations right I did you see the kids I saw it again did it change

“because I heard that it was like I think I think it did I rewatching it I if the problem”

not drastically yeah I felt like there were especially me opening sequences I felt like it had been tightened up but then I don't know you know but like yeah it felt like it was like just barely done she just goes to can and it's like by the way the movie's not finished right I'm still working I mean it was a it felt like it was sort of a weird can but it was not as fairly strong yeah I feel like there were a lot of great films I think you know it was interesting yeah

it was a good agent words wise right yeah and it like it landed positively but then the movie deals happen happens and ever and it's kind of like are they are they seeing something we're not getting here well I think what they what I mean I mean I would from afar had not seen this movie I was like well it has movie stars like I imagine they think they can sell it based on that and they did

“do a good job with the substance and what's it about it's about you know for Lawrence and”

Robert Pattinson like getting these naked and being crazy yeah that sounds like something you could sell sure right I don't know right I mean there was a lot of skepticism at can about like what have they done for yes they they bought it for a lot of money yeah I also you know I I feel like I've talked to Sean it last October yeah and it was a can in May so like you're all pretty fast right like yeah the problem is when you hear something like movie bought the Lynn Ramsey movie

for $20 million a filmmaker who has never had a movie really exceed $10 million globally right

yeah with to a list art no like all of her movies in fact have made about 10 million exactly and like what is the calculation they're doing here and for people like us who are like very deep in the weeds on the movie industry but are also not working in fucking distribution or whatever you used to be able to read like fuck search light has bought x movie for $12.5 million and go like okay back of napkin math they're hoping they can put whatever amount into marketing

and get it to this amount domestically and assume that they can then sell the foreign rights to other people or DVDs or whatever it is you hear like movie has bought a thing for $20 million it's the same as like apple buying coder for Sundance out of Sundance for $25 which I still think is the record and going like well that sounds like it doesn't make sense at all but also they have obscured what the business model even isn't even it's the like no equals question mark

profit right like prospect the streaming aspect where you're like okay I guess someone could argue that maybe Jennifer Lawrence is face on movie dot com you know like yeah that might be true yeah I mean like I just don't know how to quantify right it's impossible to quantify her next movie that's more likely to work with what is the last movie Jennifer Lawrence made to have made $100 million

that domestic box office did passengers cross-100 the answer is passengers and like did about 10 years

like 101 did 100 even domestic now dark phoenix made 246 worldwide but that was an unambiguous bomb and like 65 images very poor yeah and like don't look up does not have bucks it's not does not now

“I think just look up like what I'm doing right like on for Netflix but like you know outside”

of her two franchises which always did well her last and passenger sort of scraped by yeah but her last real fucking hit is American hustle yeah which was like a no kidding hit yes crazy to consider but she's also part of part of it and like before then I guess it's silver linings yeah she's got and this is where I guess why I was thinking about Angelina where I'm like we all agree she's a movie star she's someone people care about she's still famous she's taken kind of a

break it hasn't made people disinterested in her she's a little she's not the cool young thing anymore but she's still a thing but you are kind of like you know if you know at the end of the day like I wouldn't buy her movie thinking oh Jennifer Lawrence will get me 40 mil the big thing because you know the the two franchises are the two franchises and I would argue she added a tremendous amount to both of them but you also can't give her full credit for those numbers I would argue the

thing that made her stats look so insane to everyone was silver linings in American hustle yeah that it's like even grown up that's a thing even even 10 15 years ago the idea of oh my god

not the only person there she in both cases kind of came out of the movie with the most energy

was the sticky thing and they were like well she can do that and she can fucking do anything and then as you said like she pushes the limits and makes like a couple movies that are more off-putting and immediately audiences are like yeah we're not gonna go there with you we'll go there's selectively when you're doing something we're already interested in but I don't know what the strategy for this movie should have been I mean I don't think there was one I really do

think they were just like there maybe we can pull a substance even though I'm sure everyone at the team at the time knew this is not gonna be a substance level movie like it's just the substance is like I mean I like the substance a lot but it's like it kind of like can't be outrageous body horror dark comedy you know like lightning in a bottle yes yes and it had the kind of

“yeah I think I'm sure they thought they could make the kind of meta narrative of like Lawrence's”

mother and Lawrence coming out as this like series actor again after this like time off but like

that's less that's a less kind of like it's so different than the never taking Demi Morse

exactly right yeah and the substance is quote unquote like demanding in that it's very violent or whatever but this is a this is a demanding watch it's not something you tell your friends to go see automatically no and and substance was demanding in a way that felt like a challenge that people wanted to take can you fucking hand the substance like people were like fainting in right no like screenings and things like that like that like that like kind of dare as opposed to this

which is to be like can you handle this movie because it's like grueling yeah right and you long just movie ever you look at the substance which like opened well but then really fucking held in there right and was seen as like is this gonna be on like the outside of maybe a best actress nomination

“and then you're like it gets fucking picture and director she almost wins actress like all this stuff”

and what kept that movie alive did really kind of feel like it was the fucking memes not to be reductive but it was just like huh this movie has like crystallized five things that now you can just use the image as shorthand and I did think that created some phomo of people who weren't in it being like I got to see what this fucking thing is with Demi Morse in the mirror no because everyone keeps saying this topic but how do legitimate cultural footprint

right and so if you're watching this movie a can and you're like fuck Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pence and are doing weird non-verbal things is this thing gonna produce 80,000 memes but that's not really understanding the relationship to memes that feed into the value of the actual project versus the things that come you can't centralize and completely remove you can't fake happens or it doesn't happen totally how many golden vlogs is Jennifer Lawrence been nominated for really good

question okay so including this film of course yes winters bomb did they nominate all the actual Oscars American hustle silver linings joy of course they did okay and dime i love is five and they nominated her for don't look up they sure did that's six and i'm trying to think anything else they would try they didn't do any of the hunger games no do do do do do do do is there another one in there there's one more comedy it's a comedy oh

did they nominated for no hard feelings sure did that's kind of cool that she's a seven-time nominee how many wins she won for American hustle she won for American hustle right she has won three three okay so she won for American hustle she won for silver linings of course she won the Oscar of course yes and she won for they didn't give it to her for winters bomb no did they give it to her for joy they give it to her for joy see this is that's a real

“Jennifer Lawrence you got to go away for a moment i really think all right but i've sort of”

likely remember her being like um i'm sorry guys come on please it's best actress in a comedy but she she beat Amy Schumer in train wreck and Melissa McCarthy and spy which were like you know genuine actress in a comedy movies yeah and then like Maggie Smith lady in the van literally Tom and grandma like sure you know we can but that's that's a year kind of designed to make dread apatel mad yeah yeah yeah yeah it is pretty much it is we were we were also not sure but

the way it's not a comedy no it's not no it's not like no are people you less so than any other David overall for moving including his two warm moves yeah it has a kind of I guess like a sort of antique tone but yeah no jokes it's not funny yeah um but no we we just did a good one just to David foxes podcast and talked about the the Martian year being the year that broke everybody and we're like Martian's funnier than a lot of movies that have won golden globe comedy

what I like I argued that on critical early but but it does feel similar to giving the award

the year that breaks us this isn't the most agreed just case right but Judd Appetite will never

forget yeah people were mad about it at the time now I'm what did it be we went over this well so Tranafane was nominated yeah what were the other three David uh like best pictures yeah musical or comedy big short which like why didn't they give it to that because that was a big Oscar contest but it is a saturday that is actually a weird movie like it has dramatic elements but like you can call that a comedy absolutely and then joy and spy spy a great comedy very fun and

joy not very funny yeah bottom up yeah can I throw up one other thing just because in executive producer critical darlings and staying engaged with the feedback and everything and last coming out of a winter fall where we had to cover some new releases that were more

limited releases I feel like there's always this dialogue I see with our listeners

people who do not live in what are kind of deemed the major movie markets getting frustrated when they have to listen to podcasts that are talking about films that they feel like I'm six months away from getting to see this I don't know if this ever comes my theater I have to wait until streaming and when you add on to that the festival circuit and a movie like this where you're like I'm seeing everyone I follow online talk about it in May and then everyone who missed out on that

basically gets to see it in whatever September October and then I'm waiting all the way here to that why can't these things like be more democratic now and the counter argument and I'm not saying this in a positive or negative way but it is just like a reflection of reality is like the flop fall problem this happened I would argue in 2021 as well when the studios were still feeling so sheepish about theatrical and there were theaters that reopened there were more screens than they

had things to fill them with and stuff like to tan was like opening on 900 screens opening we get and there was this little moment of hope of like maybe this just means that like smaller movies get out wider and faster and the because of the internet we don't need to platform and this can just get out there and what happened was that like most of all those movies fell out and like major financial baths were taken and it was sort of a necessary sacrifice to fill screens with

things and the data was accumulated and they walked away and then it happened again this fall

“which I think was an end result of the strikes from like two years ago caused like a lot more”

gaps in scheduling we finally got to the business end of that there are because of post-production

timelines now finally the few temple movies that came on either side were interrupted by the strikes and so there's a lot of like guess what smashing machine 2000 screens opening weekend die my love and with these bigger stars also especially movies yeah a lot of times these people right into their contracts especially if they don't want to go to streaming you buy this movie you are promising wide release now it doesn't promise you have to open wide in

a lot of cases no because that'd be crazy but a lot of these distributors just collect so much just look if we have to get to 2000 at some point why just not do it now and the the negative is the thing bombs and then the headline becomes why the fuck are these stars making these self-indulgent movies that no one wants to see this is a failed commercial play and it creates more conservatism in what gets made if smashing machine have been well reviewed

it would have opened bigger and done fine that's not an ambiguous if it had been another movie basically well that is true but like let's say that movie had gotten raves and yes basically the same movie obviously that wasn't going to happen because people didn't really respond with that

“way but like I think the the raves and the you must see Joined Johnson play this athlete”

would have gotten enough butts and seats for it to make like sort of what did it open to like it was the lowest opening he's ever had it open to like five or six right and like probably greener guns like fifteen or like a more respectable kind of eight twenty four big oh yeah I might love the the fucking Taylor Swift album really yeah they were gonna get some default box office from being the only thing that was that too right but like you know it's like that was something

where I was like I think the reviews did it and I my love felt more complicated it was like got good reviews but the movies that tough sell no one knows what it's about people knew it that advertising is it's it's it's hard to be like it's hard to sell this yeah that's it like it doesn't sound appealing to a lot of people to be like this is going to be a look into this woman's like kind of like downward mental spiral and like if a movie like this is going to

catch on it kind of needs to catch on organically you can't sort of like build up ahead of like

“need to see hype on it you need to like have this movie find its champions organically”

and have it dissipate and it's like you're releasing movies in a way where there's no

obscene logs of being like huh I agree with this person's taste most of the time like things that

are kind of this you know the distributors are trying to understand more of how to get more difficult films to catch on at the box office which is like there is a younger more engaged online cinephile audience and how do you get through to them and you can't just kind of fucking blitz

“creek them yeah but I think also you know we're looking at like 824 obviously knows what they're”

doing even if yeah I feel like the smashing machine was unusual for them in having an actor like the rock and kind of being like how how is this going to go but like a christie you know which got a wide release a disastrous wide release that was a black bear a new distributor you know they had a production company they haven't been in distribution if the movie doesn't sell a Toronto and they're like fuck it we're putting it out in six weeks yeah yeah and so like that just felt like a

kind of like really like hell Mary endeavor that obviously didn't work out for them that was there's the exact same anecdote that like six weeks out or whatever four weeks out the movie was like testing to open to like three and they were like disaster and Sydney Swingy goes like great I'll fucking amp up the promo mode she does the most insane press tour anyone's ever done he didn't do the right press tour but she does and they're like oh my god the public awareness of this movie

has gone from like eight to 98 and then it opened lower than it had been tracking a month earlier

“the two hour 15 minute movie about domestic fire and the only thing like Sydney Swingy succeeded”

in promoting in that press tour was her cleavage and what's going on here it wasn't like I really want to see this performance yeah I mean again it isn't movie where you're like if you give a fair log line description and then I think it's I think it's she's great in the movie but it is like this is a movie about a boxer that you probably don't know about unless you're deep in boxing uh not you know and uh and the other half of it is going to be about how her abusive husband

attempts to murder her right yeah like really it's like terrible it's like terrible like scary incredibly brutal detention of a controlling abusive right which is another thing with all these like flop fall like movie star uh kind of prestige project failures is like you guys want to see a spring scene biopic yeah it's about the period where he wrote the album we don't talk about that much and it's mostly him just kind of trying to work through his childhood trauma right you're like well

that's the least fun version of it you could sell me right smashing machine what's it about it's sort of an addiction drama but it's more about the guy just trying to kind of make peace with himself as the addiction stuff's going on in the background and David and I have both like content at this whole time I like that movie have both contented like there is not one of those movies where it underperforming or flopping is inexplicable where you're like people should have

fucking shown up to this there was just kind of a belief that they could like make Gabbo happen

“and I I think it's all like a pipeline problem you know I think like you you put dime I love”

in one third as many screens as they put it in opening weekend and it would have made the exact same amount of money but in fuller theaters yes you could probably have put it on one fifth as many screens yeah and it would have done the same yeah well it came out November 7th 2025 it opened

number eight of the box office perfecting twenty six million dollars yeah it ends up at five

domestic 10 worldwide so it is her classic number yeah it's her highest grossing domestically sure but lower international and they'll make a test they'll make a test she's a tenor except for racketer I think literally all her movies have paid ten million dollars number one of the box office is a pretty successful franchise sequel that is new this week it's not suitopia no no no because you would describe that as a fucking juggernaut that was a very big movie yeah by the time

this episode comes out just to be a has probably taken the crown as twenty twenty five highest gross there's a question yeah did it did the legs on that thing and also and they love it in China in second yeah I believe they've elected suitopia to the prime minister is it could be a good premise yeah um okay I don't they kiss though got the bunny in the fox they have to kiss it just it just raises a lot of questions but I'm just saying that I just put it up here just like

we are not ready to talk about hybrid marriage between you she don't look at their like but they're like we know you want to know what I'm doing it's eye brows it's acting all coquette if what

you mean I would never I'm you're like you fucking have pages yes but you're just not sure

like exactly someone's got you have files um okay it's fairly successful yeah it's just like a solidly successful sequel a two no that's too complicated it's too complicated it's like is it like a

plus a couple spin offs and butter this week it's up in the 40 million dollars we all saw it we all thought it was pretty good we also thought it was a solid trick it's gone from my brain what did end up that this is so recent not the magic is it no it's not now you see we know it's it's a little bit one of the predator bat world wide yeah predator bad land yeah yeah yeah people like that maybe you know yeah it's a good movie yeah it is a funny way to describe

that franchise that is a hundred percent accurate we're like how many of them been five eight ten yeah depends on your perspective isn't there like a just a the predator predator like with a without a yeah there's both predators and the predator predator yeah yeah uh not just a good movie it's a solid fun that's fun yeah that's the best part of anaconda the anaconda movie that they made the new one is when Jack Black is writing this script and he's like the anaconda

“I remember asking you Allison does it have any juice and yes it's like that's the one that's”

one joke he writes the word though I'm not left number two is a romantic drama that I did not see but heard was fairly unhinged uh it's the calling Hoover one and what is it called it's a called without you no we're any of those words right you was correct is it called forgetting you closer is it called forgiving you no did you not is it two words yeah I can picture the poster that something you regretting you there you go yeah breading you I listened to the big pick trying to

explain what that movie was about and I could not make sense of it directed by Josh Boone it was like someone trying to explain quantum physics um of course the falsiner stars and new mutants yes of course uh with the big four Allison Williams kind of grace named Franco and Mason terms McKinnon Grace has been working so much that I'm like questioning if there's a Hermione Granger time turner fight also kind of forget of that who she even is but then I'm like

but who's this like this is her this actor's reminds me of someone it's always her

anyone who's a McKinnon Grace type of like five movies in 2025 she was in five nights of Freddy's yeah she was in regretting you yeah she's in the fucking uh uh spring seven coming out she's in that that's right what else did she have less it's insane I mean shit that I've never heard of what we hide yeah landed sure of course oh it's like uh in a verse three well yes oh a kind of for comedy okay about race right and she's she's now the lead of the next about a

Chinese American high schooler who undergoes ethnic modifications or yeah I guess she is the new Hunger Games heroine yes she's in the new Hunger Games which is the Hamitch sunrise on the

“briefing right which Jennifer Lawrence is supposed to repricut supposedly I think I imagine in a scene”

and and the movie that will finally win Glen close her Oscar I said this before I don't know why they did not try to get Glen close an Oscar nomination for wake up to my guy I I rewatched that movie last week she's very solid in it if she's good she's good in it she's a major role we nominated her for a fucking hillbilly allergy it's so you can't just get her a fucking

not I mean you think I never thought about that movie and it's a completely book both I

really kind of love that I'm not I've never got something in both got Oscar nominations like Ryan Johnson is not unknown to them and like Glen close is like big model and I'm just like are you not obsessed with getting her an Oscar she wouldn't win in those two strong in your regular way though that movie feels like Ryan Johnson rolling up his sleeves and going like guys I'm gonna try to make it easy for you like understand the Glen close Oscar thing keeps

budding up against the problems of the movie she's in a repellent dog shit what if I make a movie that is respectable and I give her all the kinds of scenes you would want yeah

“there were three boxes of film we discussed a lot in a future episode but I think either us have”

seen it is a horror sequel oh it's a black phone too black phone yes the grabber yes back you'll hear that in a couple weeks yes um which was a decent hit well Mason Thames of course the McKenna Grace I assume it's thames right is it not pronounced like the river I thought it was

thames I have no idea I guess I never know it was no one's ever seen this face but he had three

number one movies he did in twenty twenty five and two of them are in this current top five you're reading he is the male lead of both of both for granting you or no he's a he's a male lead in regretting it's the young male lead sure and how I met your dragon how I what I met your dragon uh number four the box office is something I've never thought is this it is a oh my god a biological drama of biographical drama film like graphical is a face-based yeah it must be because that

with like boats yeah uh is it that one uh I don't think so I have a boat I see a dog the survival

“boat one is weirdly directed by Joe Carnahan yeah and uh just do a male yes also I think um that is not”

this is this movie called like inventing Sarah Sarah Sarah's oil Sarah's oil he was trying to hone in on that fucking Lorenzo franchise if he could make like a little friend it's about it's like a true story yeah I I don't really I don't think I can summarize uh in time what the fuck this is about the ones that's oil though great joke and let's fill yes incredible joke because what is it they're two blank check movies that are major running jokes in splitsville and I someone just

posted on a Reddit you will never guess which two well a lot of Lorenzo's oil that movie's very funny

number five of the box offices and movie that a lot of people have been trying to beat the drum for us like the dad movie of the year that is good it is not good it's not good you think it's bad I don't like this movie as you know I'll express prayer recently called it a second favorite movie of the year to us someone is a term oh Nuremberg film is Nuremberg yeah I asked Alex Ross Perry what is top 10 for the year was and he said no point in wasting time I will not take no fight

and movies with any positive scenes by the way Nuremberg I own lock on number two I missed Nuremberg

“wait what was it number one I think one battle you said one battle actually like a Nuremberg number two”

who can be bothered to run that there's more after that the movie's ended cinema was over so yeah but Nuremberg a very solid hit uh for given that it was you know so I mean that maybe that's over the top because it made 14 domestic but 44 worldwide I mean that's pretty good for a good yeah especially in a movie that like was not that well received and I was gonna say in the flop fall you never put a predictor like Nuremberg is gonna like multiple like times outgross

smashing machine yeah yeah I mean it did all right it's long it's boring it doesn't really have a grasp on stuff and I really do think it makes the terrible mistake of having its arc be ramen mallet realizing that hermingoring is not a good guy it's just insane but I'm other people have argued with me on this like now that's not what it's about I'm like it's a little bit what happens though I'm sure Russell Crowe was giving an effervescent he's all right

I mean he's he's that they're like touch performance it's not feather like touch

Russell does an act right basically always like like I am never against a Russell Crowe

“performance even if I think he's phoning it in or he's being a little silly or whatever”

and it's like a good use of him in that you're like yes Russell Crowe is someone I would kind of want to like me even if you were hermingoring and I was not sure his friends yeah I would know or did I need to be yeah like I mean so then yeah okay number six the box office was not made for a bunch of Oscars including best picture number six of the box office was not made for a bunch of Oscars include best picture is it him now no it's been out for three weeks

made 17 domestic 40 worldwide 17 domestic 40 worldwide moving worry about to say about it it's a who's the distributor focus it's a focus movie focus features you know it's a director that makes movies oh it's a director makes one okay so there's a no no it's got an actor who's been making them with them for a while of this one okay so there are teams become a bit of a team

they've become a bit of a team and it got a best picture nomination yeah and he got her her third

yeah we go yeah yeah 17 did that hit 20 or just said the 17 was the total total the final and total okay yeah but did all right yeah yeah yeah yeah that's the thing yeah that's the thing do you guys like put going here I like well we just did an episode yeah yeah yeah and um I like rewatching it I like to a lot more than I had the first time I watched it really interesting I was like very I was pretty down on it the first time I watched it

I yeah I was on a mic for that so I didn't weigh in of course woman was guessed on that episode very bad yeah um mayor um but a mayor of blank town I was I was very frustrated while watching that movie and then I got to the end and I was like ah I like the ending and like the ending not just says like big swing but like huh it's kind of sitting with me well and then I remember you and I texting about it that following week or two after we'd seen it since and both

being like I'm liking chewing on it the themes of it where I resonate with me I I don't find it like the most pleasant one but I have wondered if I watch it again will it grow for me the first 85 to 90 percent of it I was like this just isn't for me I'm just not into this and then I did like it more

I'm sure Ben saw it or he wanted to at least okay so does it start dogs and door cats no I mean I don't know with stars an anime movie yeah but dogs and cats is a valid question for me but I don't know it doesn't have animals in the picture is it animated animal movie I don't think so but I don't know anything about awareness is this low it's not in it a lot the dog with a dog turns into a chainsaw oh well he has his head becomes chainsaw it's like a guy can turn into a chainsaw all right

“that's what chainsaw it's like made of tints yeah if he wants me yeah I didn't know there was a dog chainsaw”

I realize it's actually kind of cute we're out of the top 10 and they've a really nice thing to talk about so I don't need to be in the right time I love nine is does delivery from nowhere which is not very good unfortunately and ten is tron aries it's also not very good you know thoughtful they made some bad movies yeah that was a mistake by them cron aries another funny one because it's like the blockbuster version of what we're saying about the prestige movies where

they're like why are tron aries under perform and I'm like how much time do you have it right and also just like how much hunger do you think there was for another tron movie you're right funny road of the freeway worn you know some make this and some who loves tron movies it's like the appetite is low so you better make a fucking exceptional crime if you want to do that it better be so good and they're like oh oh we made it really bad did did you not

what people did not automatically want to be thought the tron name would sort of carry it over the line it's like no no you need good to get tron over the one they you know they put out like the hook in this movie is tron comes to our world most of it takes place in downtown Los Angeles I'm like well that's the opposite of what I like about tron right you know like you're like so we're not gonna spend a ton of time in the incredibly cool right you did to the world

exciting world for my first thought there is I guess that must have been a strategic decision because the last one was so expensive and it didn't quite hit expectations so maybe that's

the way to keep the cost down and they're like no don't worry it cost $200 million not a cheap looking

right go to jail why the fuck isn't this all inside the computer if you spent that much right right and then they're also like you know who should be the anchor you know who people love yes that Jared let it right they offered it to Brad Brad and Brian singer first right and then they were like now Griff is we wrap our short but even fo many series on lindrams do you want to give me your top five lindrams you movies which is all of her movies because he's made five yes that is true

I'm just gonna go off I don't you from my heart you're yes you were never really here is my favorite yes I would put more of an taller number two yes I would put I'm gonna do raccatcher three Kevin four time I love five right I think she has made five excellent films I have more of her in color first that's the film first that I truly adore and then you were

never really hearing that catch her third time I love and Kevin yeah Alison do you prefer to not

talk about Kevin I would rather not do you firmly disagree with either of these rankings or what is your favorite lindrams you might be more of her in color yeah I think I you know the the scene of her going through the kind of nightclub with the head runs on it would be like one of the greatest scenes in some way that I could think of so I nearly favorite Kevin or dye my love or is it something else you're not like hammerman probably

dye my love I do like hammerman but I do feel like that movie always felt to me like it could have gone on longer like it just feels so boiled down I don't know but I do like Kevin

“here's the thing that's the thing I do like yeah we need to talk about Kevin I love how like”

tight and like stripped down you were never really here is but after doing the episode and

reading the dossier and like I'm completely forgotten that a totally different cut and a longer cut was shown a can I now I'm just a little frustrated there's no way to watch that cut that I imported my like expensive Australian 4K and still there's no I just I wish you there was like a Terrence Mallick criteria and release of like here's just like 10 different versions I don't know which one counts right yeah well we're done talking about Lynn we're done talking

about Lynn thanks we will talk about Peter weird we're going right to him because we moved sent help up yeah so yeah no no no no no no we'll do the blankies yeah we'll do the blankies next folks we'll do the blankies we'll do the blankies so there you go so we do have a palette and we do we did recently put a bench choice on the calendar but I think it will

“be pitch on patreon but we have we have quite a good one I think pretty thrilled yeah”

yeah but yeah that's done and then we're so next week our jewelry blankies episode will happen one assumes I mean that's the plan and then has my recorded it and then are you writing songs

yes on the few of Supplemental sending me a lot there you go you know he's he's not a huge

“of writes punch up he's been sending me some voice memos there's some really exciting”

shit happening in our text thread I don't want over hi there but we've been burning them in the middle and then I mean every six weeks one test and then yeah the cars that they pair us will kick off our Peter weird mini series and March Madness will kick off that's probably about to be announced right I mean it's a very 20 seconds pretty soon so look forward to voting for whoever we cover and all that and that's that and I'm done and I'm done talking

goodbye well actually that's not how the podcast I know I was doing for me Allison yes thank you for

being here thanks for having me um people should listen a critical darling yeah please listen to it

we do so much talking about it you know what I listen to some of these podcasts I cue them up for hours and people complain about our show being long at least we're filling it up with words and I think you folks do an excellent job as well thank talking on microphone pressing record and making sure people can actually hear it later so this is coming out of February 22 yes as far as the run leading up to the big awards ceremony where are you getting that was pretty close yeah

I'm really excited yeah let me see I'm so yeah I'm a little sketchy here um that might be this

“secret agent episode I think the the secret agent episode will have just come out in the next episode”

will actually be a nice little bit of synchronicity our buddy Joe Reed talking sentimental value

yeah and then yeah yeah well the final three episodes of this season will be uh centers one battle with some sort of final predictions and then a recap there you go yeah Allison anything else you want to plug yeah oh no you got great articles all over vaults you do a calm go check them out this is true yeah reviewed sirot must have written that a while ago no I wrote it this morning you reviewed Milani thank you for one yeah thank you

that sounds that I write yeah yeah you liked send help I like send help yeah yeah yeah there I was just looking at a reason I appreciate it uh my weathering heights for you will go up on I think Monday yeah it'll be you've already filed it I have filed it but haven't you had about my review a chance to in the sagas goes to both of you to try out oak berries tie-in menu yep I would love to have because I feel like you can't really speak about the movie this is a fair

this is a fair assessment not even Nordic various I will say it was a point and I included this in my review where I said that the interior design choices we had very much reminded me of Lily Allen's Brooklyn Brownstone interesting yes um I texted this too of course our friend your former podcast co-host of past uh Matt Singer yesterday uh oak berry which I guess is some chain that sells something yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah had a big sign outside a love you can taste and they have

two items a kiss me bowl and a hot me bowl and both of them are clearly cups and not bowls

“big lie yeah I mean I'm happy for Matt because honestly he ends up eating a lot of like pancake”

and butter based health it's a positive trend for him yeah for the movie it's a lot of movie-themed tie-in menus yeah it's good that he'll get some vegetable or some fruits at least right some yeah and maybe if like project hell Mary can do like a meta-musical tie-in these are just the things that would really help the singer family so really like a sweet green or something like that yeah maybe that's for Super Mario Galaxy um thank you for being here thank you uh thank you all

for rating reviewing and subscribing I'm thinking you for a thing I'm asking you to do please this will be ignored much like Jennifer Lawrence plugging her movie at the end of a hot ones episode tune in next week for the blankies and a special bonus treat we want to kind of shout out Matt Johnson and Jamie Carroll of Nirvana the band the show and Nirvana the band the show the movie now in theaters one of our favorite movies in a long time we we got offered the opportunity to

have them on the podcast which we could not pass on but because of our silly schedule booking and recording very far in advance the thing it made the most sense to have them do was another oops all burger report episode on patreon which we have titled burger report the segment the episode so that is already out now on patreon we moved our schedule around to get that out fast so uh the wicked films will be happening uh next month to finish off our Oz series but as of

you a little preview clip of that episode a little little sample little taster a little slider

“for your enjoyment right here we're here today to do something very important with two very important”

guests this show going on for over a decade there was one episode where i came in and said i'm sitting on a really hot scoop i went to the apple panel Los Angeles up to a trip to Los Angeles was eating a burger at the counter and who saddles up next to me but chivo himself a manual lubeski academy award winning cinematography yeah great artists and i go sims i got something

really hot to tell you in this next episode you're never going to believe it and i offer my report of

seeing one of america's greatest living film artists one of the world's greatest living film artists trump down on a burger crunch and sims goes you're never going to believe this i went to bear burger over the weekend it was mo burger but that's okay and i saw Michael Shannon yep a academy award nominee yep Michael Shannon also eating a burger and we decided this is a new segment every single episode we're going to do a burger report and check in on which famous people famous as we

like to call them we have seen eating a burger in the last week usually enough no the well ran really dry really really fast right we live in New York too it's like you know it's not like you live in Hollywood well yeah go ahead go but then we found out producer Ben our own intro outro mister himself yes had in in past lives worked at celebrity hot spot restaurants with famed burgers and was able to reach into the archives and start giving us a burger report at the end of

every episode eventually that well runs dry and we decide we need to start soliciting from listeners we set up a voice mail and then we forgot about this voice mail line for a couple of years and so now basically every two years once a year about every year but the whole point is we don't

remind people and every time we do one we act like let's probably last one right never doing it

ever to again but today we are fucking open and up the voice mail bank yep and we're listening to people tell us about times they've seen a famous person eat a burger so ridiculous that these guests are here for this nonsense and something it's kind of it feels kind of correct yeah agree you're here first of the the the the the big project of your life but specifically the project that you're promoting right now is a similar kind of decades long investment into into the mounting

the pyramid of bits is that fair to say yeah I would we've been making this a pyramid of bits you say bits are bits I said bits but we could bit we could bid on on the bits we could do a bit

yeah yeah I got to stand the metaphor that this is a began as a bit yeah but I pyramid is not

correct it's more like a bit organism that you keep feeding and big thumbs gigantic so like a

“sourdough starter but it's out of control right like a burger turns into many burgers that's how”

and what seemingly no I start to something very silly like oh it's just celebrities eating burgers right it becomes something it's now become a show format it's become a show format yeah literally you have a format which could spin out and become a we're looking to sell honestly we're looking really hard to sell we feel like this is our this is our exit strategy you know in the big picture like this is going to be well that's a rival podcast we don't want to talk about them but but in in our

big picture we love them we're friends but competitors you right right right right right right in our picture it's like we're looking for that golden parachute and this may be it can we just fucking sell burger report can can Carson daily host it you know is it a gotcha show is it like a is a Carson daily's the guy with the juice right now that's a good call I feel like he's really coming to his arm I think he's kind of figured his thing out version daily I thought he was done

that I'm worried that you're making these burger episodes at the furious rate of one per year if and you're trying to now sell it as a format that in your own words is going to lead to retirement it's a supply and demand kind of thing that's the brand my point right that it doesn't seem like you have either I think people are demanding it and we're going just wait and half of them also will not be about people eating burgers it'll be like I don't know I think I saw Sean Penny

“to talk but that's what you guys are here to do we need to we need to judge how successful these”

are as burger reports and we should say our guests today from Nirvana the band the show and Nirvana the band the show the movie but also Blackberry and a thing I want to lead with because I got questions Matt and Bird break looks yes yes one of one of one of one of our high moments in terms of artistic achievement we got Johnson J. McCarrill yes our here it would work so happy to be here thank you so much thank you for having it genuinely thank you

they got a set they've caught they've caught glimpses yeah but what do you why what's your practice I just want to give people an image this they can maybe a sign to this podcast we are backstage at a video game store yeah backstage at a toy store that's behind the scenes it's the most can you off to the environment to a conversation I've ever been in in my life and it's blushing look at it look how proud we were at four distinct and discrete it's almost student style desks

but professional yeah it's almost like for a draft somebody who's like a professional draftsman yeah and they're they're at perfect 90 degree angles to one another and we're all facing each other in the middle as though we're about to judge something that's going to happen we are we're going to judge these phone calls yeah imagine the LAN party that we can have in our man let's bring in some CRT televisions we we really can ask cables yeah anyway yeah it's an honor to be here

and we're so happy to be here and I don't think the burger format is going to travel outside

“do you have the calls get though that's what I'm saying and maybe I don't believe that the way to”

treat a friend is to give them the kind of advice that will truly improve their lives I agree

I think that I think the blunt talk is usually and this is even blunt again it may be incredible

but the idea that this is going to turn into a like Carson daily we're taught this isn't you can it's got this hot movie you're you're tapped into the culture yeah you know what the public wants so I'm sure listen to us but I'm saying you should listen to the calls and see if they want to hear you go hey it's more this is less of this maybe I'm leaving tonight with the rights to burger report we'll cut you in this big time yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah because there's

something here and we have a quite cracked it we made an entire episode of our show called the burger which the wall burger which is centered around the magical properties of of biting a burger and making wish at the same time yes yeah so that that's the thing we haven't worked into this format yeah

“are there still well burgers in Toronto I think there might be one at the airport I think there's one”

at YYZ yeah it looks like that's about it yeah yeah yeah yeah I think there's nothing wrong with them they're totally fine I think it was a cultural mismatch it's totally honest you walked in and it's a full sandy of one of the wallburg brothers standing there as though he's still in Boston being like hey Toronto come on these are the best burgers and Torontoians are too shy not the guy who be your first choice I think we were getting down to third fourth fifth but by the by the time you're

at the guy who's been given a burger franchise yes I don't mean to disparage them the show at the very least was inspiring we made a whole episode of our show about great episode but he was not a cultural match or they thought that maybe the east coast is some of Massachusetts would drive all the way up but but there's a hard cut at the border it's like hockey like baseball right where were I you know where near water yes could the same vibe no no that's fresh and it's a huge

difference what's Toronto's best burger yeah it's very touching I still have to contend just

you know it's always it depends who you asked for the longest time there was a place that was just

outside the border of a topical called Apache burger that that is not changing the name they don't give a damn something something of a sensitive name yeah and this place was famous for having burgers that were so great that oftentimes sports figures like the Toronto Maple Leafs would drive out and have their burgers go but they recently switched from fresh to frozen and it was like they fell off a cliff but I mean look you still have oil to is the way they were doing yeah

“and you're old school old school char broiled but now priest is I think the other one there's”

the previous priest sold to Harvey's like like everything changed like yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that guy that guy that's Belange's buddy by the way he's got an unbelievable story like unbelievable when a summer that they were at summer camp and they needed to set up on their own uh this is not my story to tell but all I will say is like camping or something no this is we've got it on right children's summer camp okay and the owner believed that his son had gone on a cocaine

crazed rampage and was using the camp as a kind of orgy slash party's own and in order to catch him employed his um these two employees one of which was the production designer of uh all of my films the other was the guy who started burgers priest to develop and and um instigate on their own a closed network hidden camera system throughout the camp where they could film and capture this renegade son doing all kinds of things they did it and it worked and they were like

caught him they caught him they were like 14 years old and they they basically did a a drag net

what did they catch him doing yeah they they were they got video evidence of his drug fueled party man yeah that was happening at a children's camp and anyway so this guy goes on at a you oh my god but no but he's did not involve the campers that was the big thing it was

junior counselor well this was the guy doing it was the son of the owner so I you can only imagine

“what his position in terms of the leadership yeah yeah yeah it was yeah literally it was he decided”

this is mine to stop but he was like a prince who's the guy in game of thrones you know who just

gets it and now he's gonna be as despotic as he wants to be I've never watched Game of Thrones

but yeah right it's just like well this is all mine and so I bear no responsibility and build it anyway burger priest who's a phenomenon looking for the city oh the burgers are unbelievable and they're all and they're closely associated with uh new testament scripture okay the priest is not ironic oh so it's like wait so he's there there's sort of a unique okay that their their tagline is redeeming the burger one at a time so it's all it's all very

like religious language anyway yeah but the franchise was like an instant hit in the city of Toronto so much so that it has now sold to Harvey's which if you don't know Harvey's is the sister restaurant to swishale so so these two like mega restaurant it's about to fall off a cliff it's well he knows okay I don't need to disparate some and we're out forever and it's delicious okay yeah

“super mini New York and that there's like 50 different places doing their own special burgers”

the place called Rudy's there's for a long time Maddie Mathis and had a burger place called P&L like man I went there I went there I went to P&L you P&L burger now Maddie's got his own burger place right just south of Trinity Bellwood's Park I figured you have a burger no Maddie's patties yeah that's right yeah that's right don't go so great but happy burger is also great like you come to Toronto looking for a hamburger you could eat a different burger every single day and be happy

but we don't have like hamburger America right we don't have that place we don't have the kind of stuff you have but yeah yeah but but we didn't have that until very weird yeah the hamburger America felt like it was very much filling a hole yeah the problem with that is it open right by my office and I cannot I have to like not go that out that's not a problem I could kill myself that's

only a problem of perception and your mind I've never been in my life I want to go so bad

like I may even go right after this it's I recommend it yeah yeah yeah yeah it's easy to get there I'll tell you what you're trying to take anyway on the subject of burgers it's completely right yeah Toronto's a great hamburger city and it's a great great food city yeah I mean the first time I went to Toronto I from New York I grew up in London I was like these two cities have been merged into one city for me it's not what I felt about Toronto I was like it's sort of a New Yorky city

with more of an English energy queen on the money like I know it's neither really but like it's good you want you want your money to have the types of people on it that are separated from you by dint of birth by by just because in America I can now they exit it yeah it looks a big difference because here in America like you know you see a building like oh man if I work really hard I could get on this bill it's not know I'm sorry it's not possible well they are they're nice

Canadians on the backs of the bill or whatever like yeah they put some inventors they put

“inventors on there but they're precious few of those I think they've been showing it on all”

is a little bit uh as a colored history does you know my point is that you're talking about our prime ministers yeah yeah yeah they put our prime ministers on the bill but on the back of all them is the queen you've always got the well now it's not all of it used to be but and all the coins the queen was on the back of every single one now yeah you switched in a Charlie no I think they're our country's done so kind of bizarre things they switched to a polymer bill first of all

of course and and now it's all like it's not optimally money yeah I think I think I think we were on the back now right yeah which would be great it'd be great he's I mean that I just you think he he equals mommy he's gonna business he I'm just staying to run a country like a business uh he so it does the way the game workers it you're buying the properties from him

because whoa I don't actually know what okay wait a second no maybe he always maybe he

owns the bank maybe all maybe maybe you're all just dealing with his mind I've never considered this it certainly feels like he owns the bank but I also feel like you're buying the properties from him it's funny because that he's bad strategy he has the board he could just hotel up everything it's the same that he's he has the last level that's exactly that's the point you never get to the end of an opline if you do no one's happy right no playing in a world that this guy

has already monopolized and he's like have your fucking fun try your best but it's all coming back to me yeah they're making they're making a big monopoly movie right now thank god like a big big big building like really big questions are gonna get answered who would be good casting for for rich uncle pinnipag Chris Pratt I i did from in there i i used to do i forget who the advertiser was who the sponsor was but it was some online bank and company that i'm sure

super reputable and still in business but i would do ad reads for them as rich uncle penny bags money bags penny bags my penny bags is the name yeah and then the bit became that he had been canceled and got replaced with Chris for plumber right so in my mind i'm like Chris for plumber would have

hop wow hopkins does aren't having heart the movie centers on a boy

from Baltic Avenue in a quest to make a fortune this is the monopoly movie and bellot ours directing

“bellot bellies dead just that well he we wrapped in many rats oh i think it's a nice one son oh yeah”

if you look at the question like what's this his cut and it's a type of condom in it's yeah here

there's like many bellot's ourselves he really wanted to go commercial he wanted to make something

“his kids could see and as always i think the ultimate takeaway is uh time i love box office”

failure was due to a lack of oakberry time like check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin

Newman and David Sims our executive producer is me Ben Hossley our creative producer is Marie

“Barty Solinus and our associate producers AJ McKeean this show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeean and”

Alan Smithy research by JJ Birch our theme song is by Lame Montgomery in the Great American novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell artwork by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss and Pat Reynolds our production assistant is minic special thanks to David Cho Jordan Fish and Nate Patterson for their production help head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit join our patreon blankcheck special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes

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