The Old Guard

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check What is he, your boyfriend?

[00:00:23] Your child. An infant. Your mocking is thus infantile. He is not my boyfriend. This podcast is more to me than you can dream. He is the moon when I'm lost in darkness and warmth when I shiver and cold and his kiss still thrills me even after a millennia.

[00:00:39] His heart overflows with the kindness of which this world is not worth of. I love this podcast behind Beyond Measure and Reason. He is not my boyfriend. He's my podcast and he's more. I should have saved the podcast for the third time.

[00:00:55] I know. I was wondering where you were going to put it because I don't know. Right. It's a very flowery, big monologue. There's a lot of places to put it.

[00:01:05] Yes, but I should have saved podcasts for the end. I should have built up to it. We're recording at nine o'clock in the morning, which we don't usually do.

[00:01:13] Right, right, right. But where would you put it? He's not my boyfriend. He's all and he's more. He's not my boyfriend. He's podcast.

[00:01:23] I was going to say he's not my boyfriend. He's my podcast and he's more. And I did that, but I also replaced the two earlier instances of man. Right.

[00:01:32] Look, guys, it's an all time. It's a Hall of Famer. It's a perfect episode. And let's say right off the bat, Ben is on his porch. That's right. Full circle. Ben is sitting on his porch, the porch of his childhood home in New Jersey wearing sunglasses.

[00:01:50] And a shirt that I wore as a child is like a Halloween glow in the dark shirt. It seems to have skeletons, bones on it. It's a shake. It does have bones. It has bones.

[00:02:03] I mean, talk about full circle. It's an early bone shirt on the childhood porch. Yeah. When we say, yeah, I guess it is full circle. Yeah, it's full circle. Were you born on that porch, Ben? Is that part of it? Yes. That'd be amazing if that was true.

[00:02:19] No, it's not true, but this is my parents' house there out of town. So I came out for the weekend and I just, I couldn't not jump at the opportunity to broadcast from the porch where really porch movies started where I watched movies on a porch.

[00:02:39] The porch classics. Now, did you watch this movie on a porch or did you watch it in the comfort of your air conditioning? Air conditioning. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty good.

[00:02:50] Wow. You know, I mean, parents not around. That's why I got relegated to the porch in the first place. There was only TV. They were like, all right, come on. Go sit on the porch.

[00:03:02] Go take your shitty little built-in VCR TV and go sit out there and watch something. Would this have been a potential porch movie? It's very violent. So like that would have been, yeah, right. A rag tag group of immortal fighters would definitely been a porch potential movie.

[00:03:23] Now I want to make it clear. I'm not. I'm not trolling for comedy points here, but there has been zero acknowledgement of my zoom background.

[00:03:34] You've got the guy from the last dance, the famous bodyguard who plays quarters, you know, okay, what right through, you know, throw quarters at the wall or whatever game it is they played. John Michael Wozniak, but what's another way that you would describe him? David, human role other.

[00:03:56] I don't know. I'm not sure what you're trying to leave me up here. Tee up for me here. An old guard. Okay, I mean, I mean, you know, I don't want to cast dispersions on that guy's age, but yeah,

[00:04:15] do you hear that beeping like a of a truck backing up? Wait a second. What's going on here? All right. And you just got a cash load of comedy points.

[00:04:24] I will say you also did this in our Slack where you posted like a guy in an old face sort of makeup and then a security guard and then like a duck honking. And that was supposed to be like the old guard honks.

[00:04:42] Yes, but we were all kind of like, are you what's up? What's this? Like, you know, we did not dial into it. I did it on Twitter and I believe I believe that tweet won the Academy Award for best. Right, of course.

[00:04:57] Which technically isn't fair because it was four pictures. It was the word the an old man mask security guard from behind and then honks, but I simplified. I've said well to one now John Michael Wozniak, the old guard and he's and he does honk John Michael Wozniak.

[00:05:13] He does and I'm also realizing he's not even. I feel like the old guard. He's not that old like he seems sort of what it is 40s maybe and there's that character character.

[00:05:26] There's that real human being who's part of you. The last dance who is the guard who becomes Michael Jordan's father figure after his own father. Right, right. Yeah, that guy's genuinely right.

[00:05:38] He's like in his fifties or sixties. We're going to describe someone as the old guard. I mean by guard security guard standards quite quite aged.

[00:05:49] Yeah, I might send back some of the points and I appreciate them, but I feel like I might have to rebebe some of them. Folks, we're talking about the old guard today, what might be the only new release movie we cover on this podcast all year in 2020.

[00:06:08] I would I would say I would bet on that. I mean, I know, you know, it's I suppose it's possible of tenet or Wonder Woman maybe squeak in by Christmas.

[00:06:19] Who knows, but I would bet against it. There are three potentially the three would be tenet Wonder Woman and West Side Story West Side Story. Sure. Right. Supposedly coming out this Christmas they have as of the time we're recording just this week.

[00:06:34] They reclaimed that the films will come out this year, but everything's getting pushed. Tenet is still technically undated. I feel like I just so that we can do this thing where we talk about something that will be slightly different in the future when it comes out.

[00:06:54] I feel like all these movies are about to get released everywhere else in the world before us right which used to feel unfathomable.

[00:07:01] It does seem possible. I mean, who knows? But it does seem possible. A tenet I think is officially right. It doesn't have a release date, but its release date is just like whenever America has unfucked itself,

[00:07:15] like then perhaps tenet can come out. That is now it's like, you know, but the bottom of the poster like in cinemas when you guys have, you know, actually confronted your public health crisis.

[00:07:29] And it also feels like they're waiting to announce the official overseas date. Like they're just going to be like officially everywhere that can open the movie. It will open on this day. They should open in New Zealand or whatever right. Great job guys. Open it up.

[00:07:48] Yeah, they probably should open it up for nine. Unfortunately Palpatine. He only programs like forties and fifties noir movies. He's very, very particular. He does. He's not into Nolan.

[00:08:01] No, he that's a guy who really like has been sort of hurting from the loss of filmstruck because obviously they still have noir, but there was something about criterion being matched with like the Warner catalog that really played into his sweet spot

[00:08:16] of like, as you said, early 20th century gangster films. So yes, of course this is a podcast called blank check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[00:08:26] I'm David and Emperor Palpatine Thorest's consciousness into film struck so hard that it died. What was film struck if not a dyad David.

[00:08:36] It was one or others criteria. Yeah, right. It was a dyad. You're right. It was a dyad. It was the original film dyad only followed by Minna the spring.

[00:08:49] This is a podcast about filmographies directors and John Defloret. I'm finishing my own joke. Directors who have early success massive success early on their career given a series of blank checks made ever crazy passion projects. They want sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby.

[00:09:04] Now, sure this this miniseries pot and basket cast covering the films of Gina Prince by thwitt has been a little different because the thing that activated this miniseries that made us push the red button and put it on the schedule was that it felt like oh she's finally getting her big blank check.

[00:09:24] Right. We had not seen it at the time we committed to doing this miniseries.

[00:09:30] Yeah, she had made an expensive action movie. Yes for Netflix and Skydance and we were hoping we were going to like it and now about a month after it's gone on Netflix we finally get to talk about it and David.

[00:09:48] Oh boy this thing honks you think that it honks. I love it. It's a whole for you so thoroughly so thoroughly and there's always that fear when we're covering a director.

[00:09:59] With a miniseries that's vaguely tying up with a new film that you end up with like a Detroit versus a Dunkirk.

[00:10:07] You know, you're right. We did have those cases right where we like covered the new release film about three weeks after the miniseries ended but after we had already committed we've been covering all the other movies and Detroit was just such a bummer to be like fuck versus Dunkirk where it's like this is a good one to end on and

[00:10:25] what about Dumbo? Dumbo I think falls right in the middle right. Yeah. In between. That was a weird one. Yeah. It's like in my mind I'm like as long as it's a Dumbo or better we can end a miniseries on a new release.

[00:10:42] Detroit really doesn't exist. I kind of forgot about Detroit. Really doesn't exist. That's a weird one. A very, very bizarre film to have been made.

[00:10:51] But you heard from our friend passing future guest, Bilga Beery. Yeah. I checked with him because you were like check to see if that movie sucks because if it sucks maybe we want to avoid right.

[00:11:05] I was like, can we literally just get one person we trust who has seen this film early before we officially commit to doing this series and Bilga was like it rules and we were like great. Let's commit to doing it. Let's start recording. Let's hope we agree with Bilga.

[00:11:20] Yes. By the time we started recording, I had seen it as well. I mean people say yes, the buzz was good and then we started making this miniseries and now it's come out. It's on Netflix. It's a hit.

[00:11:33] And it's the most watched movie that anyone's ever seen in all of us 70 million people watched it every minute of the day. But and she's lined up new projects or career, you know, whatever continues to make great strides and, you know, onwards and upwards.

[00:11:52] Like it feels like she is in the blank check mode right now.

[00:11:55] Yes. I would say it do. There was like that little bit of like sort of, you know, post hype backlash where people are like, well, it's okay. Like, you know, I feel like there was a little bit of that discourse which has happened to every movie.

[00:12:08] Yes. It's happened with every movie in quarantine, I think because there's also the well maybe we just kind of like or hyped up about a movie because like there aren't that many movies. You know, there's always that, you know, conversation as well.

[00:12:22] When a sentence starts with well, it's always going to be good. Oh, we love we love it. We love a well sentence.

[00:12:30] It's also it's like the exact thing that makes me sort of dislike the culture of movies going straight to home viewing, which is just how quickly the discourse is even more sped up.

[00:12:46] It's even more breathless and breakneck than the sort of unsustainable speed at which I think these feedback cycles have already been happening just naturally because of the Internet, you know.

[00:13:00] Yeah. But like the same thing. I mean, I remember watching The Five Bloods, I texted you and I was like, this movie is fucking humongous. Right.

[00:13:09] It has to be like Spike's second or third best movie. I think this is going to win best picture, which is still vaguely my prediction in this weird Oscar year that we can't predict.

[00:13:19] I honestly would maybe possibly predict it right now just but that's just because God knows what's coming right? Like there's it's such a weird time.

[00:13:28] And my theory too is I think that's a way that's going to benefit from having from being on Netflix already and six or seven months of people digesting and coming back to it.

[00:13:37] What have you? Like I think that's a movie that will benefit from people watching it a second time at home four months from now or whatever.

[00:13:44] But I was watching with you and I was like, we all agree this thing is a triumph. And then the next day I started reading all the like well actually takes from The Five Bloods.

[00:13:53] And I was like, I don't know. Like as fucking every movie is it are we just like especially now because it's like any drop coming down the rain pipe, you know. Anything that feels like a new movie, the standard is so hot. Right. Yeah.

[00:14:08] I mean my mom and dad watched Palm Springs and they were like, that's the worst movie I've ever seen. It's absolutely not the worst movie you've ever seen.

[00:14:18] That is an insanely hot take. That's a crazy take. That's the worst movie they've ever seen. They've got a great life if that's the worst movie they ever saw. They're like nothing about it. It's poorly shot. It's not funny. It's predictable. Wow. Rude.

[00:14:32] And then I said to my dad, did you really predict plot points, you know, X, Y and Z like late plot points in that movie because that movie has so many twists?

[00:14:41] And he went, well no, I mean I didn't predict it but at that point I had just given up. I was like, so it's not predictable.

[00:14:47] I would love to know what it actually was. Like whatever the thing that flipped your dad's switch actually was because there's clearly something.

[00:14:54] It's not just like, oh I thought it was predictable. There was some moment in that movie where he was just like, I hate this. I'm giving up. Yeah. I have a feeling it was Andy Samberg masturbating in the first four minutes.

[00:15:07] Exactly. That's what I was sort of, that's what I was hinting at. And my dad loves body stuff but I feel like that scene is pointedly trying to be uncomfortable.

[00:15:17] Yeah. Right. It's like, you're like, oh I get it. It's funny. It's Andy Samberg, you know, oh maybe it was Dick will be in a box later and then you're just like, oh this is just a bummer. Yeah. It's a bummer.

[00:15:29] And they never boxed his dick. His dick becomes never unboxed or boxed. It's a fair point. It's a fair point. But Old Guard, yes. I also texted you the following day and I was like, this thing's great. I think this is S tier Netflix movie.

[00:15:48] Not to talk greasy but you and I often talk about whether it's because of, I think this is a thing that just touch upon very briefly. Netflix very often forces its filmmakers to follow very, very specific technical specs.

[00:16:06] Yes. So that their movies will play best on TV in a way that I often think flattened. It turns them out a little bit.

[00:16:16] Not just in terms of I think the kind of shot sequencing and shot selection that is maybe sometimes strongly encouraged by Netflix but literally the specs about like what you have to shoot on at what speeds and how they output it and what the digital intermediates like and all this shit to just make everything look as like, you know, it's not as bad as

[00:16:40] a motion smoothing on TV's. No, or even just like a Blu-rays when they started a lot of movies were getting digital noise reduction to death. They look super waxy because the studio's perception was if people are playing HD, they don't want anything that has grain on it.

[00:17:00] They wanted to look really, really shiny and sharp, which is not how, for example, Predator looks. It's just not right. No, I mean that right.

[00:17:10] They figured everyone figured we wanted everything to look like the TV you see at Best Buy that's showing the screensaver of the right fucking jungle, you know, you know, like a waterfalls and that obviously doesn't fit with movies.

[00:17:25] Netflix Originals are not that bad, but there are subtle things that they're pushing across all their films for consistency's sake that I think have a similar effect on a much smaller scale. And this movie doesn't feel like a Netflix movie to me.

[00:17:45] It is in that rare camp of Netflix movies that feel like real movies, which makes it also the Netflix movie I most which I've been able to see in theaters because every other movie I was thinking that I rank at that level.

[00:18:01] I did go out of my way to see in theaters if only for like the one week it was playing an idea or something defy bloods is another one this year.

[00:18:09] I mean like that obviously the theater would be just outrageous because of all the mind sequences and stuff like you know like that's right imagining that with an audience. It would be very different. No, I wish I wish I had seen both of those movies in theaters.

[00:18:24] I wish I'd seen never rarely sometimes always in theaters like I'm so bummed out every time I watch what I consider to be a major film in quarantine because man I just really don't like watching serious movies at home for the first time. Yeah, yeah, I agree.

[00:18:42] I don't like a lot of things about quarantine honestly. No, no. We've argued about this. I think most things about it are really good. I'm not talking about the disease. I'm saying most sociological aspects of quarantine.

[00:18:55] I think we can all agree are better and are making us all feel very normal and well adjust psychologically. It's good to sometimes I just feel. I don't know. I feel a little funny about the whole stain at home all the time. I got some issues.

[00:19:09] David you're trying to cancel quarantine and I won't stand for it. I'm just I'm just weird. I'm just like a weird guy. Like that's just the thing you got to remember about me is I'm just kind of like a weird guy. You're different. You're a weird guy.

[00:19:21] Yeah, I'm just kind of like a weird guy. I say weird stuff sometimes. But pointedly I will say. The Five Bloods and Old Guard are like the two times in quarantine.

[00:19:31] I've watched a new movie and come close to the feeling I have when I see a great movie in theaters where for like a moment the world feels reset.

[00:19:42] To me because I am just so excited by how well a film worked on every level for me, you know.

[00:19:50] I I both of these movies I love but the one we're talking about today the Old Guard also for me is a movie I threw out this take to you.

[00:20:00] Because this and Palm Springs both came out on the same day that both of these movies are about justifying why you want to stay alive. Sure.

[00:20:14] Yes, which is a message that hits really, really hard for me these days with everything we're living through and with the amount of death that's surrounding us, you know.

[00:20:22] And there are different angles on it, but I find this film very uplifting at the end point it reaches even though it is not a conventionally sort of uplifting moving.

[00:20:34] But I agree with that and I think that some of the reaction I sort of gage to this movie was sort of like a little bit of exhaustion of like well at the end of the day it was kind of an origin story movie and I'm all sick of those right you know it's a superhero movie in a way.

[00:20:49] And when the movie's over it's like okay and now the team is going to do its thing you know and that's great and I'm like no that's not it's what you're talking about it's about them.

[00:20:59] You know, especially about Charlie's like you know remembering what it is she's like goes to work to do you know like she you know it's like sort of falling back in love with her life. Does this movie set up some very exciting possibilities for the sequel. Yes, absolutely.

[00:21:16] I want that shit in that way tomorrow.

[00:21:19] But this film has a complete emotional story that it tells there are there are complete arcs that are satisfied within the body of this film just because it promises more at the end does not mean that the film is just an extended pilot and I find it very bizarre that it's getting that complaint when everyone's gotten used to the fucking Marvel system that is that like the Marvel system is just constantly leaving the

[00:21:46] world. And then you're walking out of the theater more excited about what could happen next over what just happened and I feel like this does the thing that most Marvel movies do not which is like there's real substantive character growth that is meaningful.

[00:22:02] There are real like status quo shifts that are not undoable by the end of this movie that make me feel like I have had a complete meal even if it makes me want to go back to that restaurant again and order something else you know.

[00:22:18] And I have this theory that I threw out to you that I now sort of stand by especially after doing a little more experimentation that I think a lot of the complaints of this movie and look it is very much possible for someone to just not like this movie.

[00:22:33] It can just not be whatever.

[00:22:34] It's a very specific thing and as Ben was saying right before we record it and we're going to get into it. This movie's got a very weird tone and it is very much going for a certain elevated action movie dare I use that term but in a way that I think could bump for certain people if you're looking for just a trashy B movie shoot him up the weight and the sort of hauntedness of this movie might bump a little bit for you on the same level.

[00:23:04] Looking for just the emotionally like sort of astute depth of a Gina Prince by Thwitt movie and you're also having to watch a bunch of shoot him ups that might bump for you.

[00:23:17] But I see certain comments from people who like this type of movie who are saying yeah it's just like another Netflix action movie like they're not even shitting on it but they're saying this movie is the same as extraction and my report to that is I don't want to generalize for everybody.

[00:23:32] I think that's a silly opinion. I think that's a silly opinion and I also think anyone had it maybe go ahead to throw out your you know what I'm going to say. Yeah.

[00:23:41] I also think that is connected perhaps to people watching this movie the way they watch a Netflix movie in the sense that they might be watching this movie with the lights on on their phone while doing other things. Forget the old guard. That's just the problem with everything.

[00:23:59] You know that's forget Netflix. That is just the unavoidable truth of how we watch movies at home all that. Watching movies at home. It's why I like to go out to the theaters.

[00:24:12] It's why I will pay to see fucking Netflix movies projected on a screen for the five days they're playing because I know I'm going to engage with it more seriously.

[00:24:20] And obviously like I you know it's easy enough to make the effort to like turn all the lights off. You know put your phone turn it off or put it over there.

[00:24:29] You know what you know all that shit but like sometimes it's impossible for me to avoid being like you know what I have something I wanted to you know like you know whatever being at home. You're not trapped with the movie in the same way.

[00:24:40] No I think that's what the whole argument for the theater experiences and that's why we have to save it absolutely from this damned virus.

[00:24:48] But the first time I was watching this I would get tempted by my phone and would check something and then I would realize I'd missed a moment.

[00:24:58] So I like many times went back to make sure I wasn't missing micro moments or if I had to do something else I would pause it. Like I took the three hours to make sure that I was not actually looking at the screen or fully listening anytime something.

[00:25:15] But even that's not as good like it's not great to have to pause it. That's a pain in the I agree but I was realizing I was doing the classic Netflix thing of just like oh I can look away for 15 seconds and look back.

[00:25:28] And in a movie like this this movie is all about tiny moments. The difference between what Gina is doing here and what most filmmakers would do with this material is all in tiny moments and a lot of them are physicality. Yeah I care to people.

[00:25:44] Yeah they're the lingering pause after a line is said and I last night I watched this money for a second time but I like watched it in bed with the lights on and also doing some stuff on my phone at times not pointedly trying to not pay attention

[00:25:59] but trying to see how the movie plays if it's mostly playing like background audio like murder mystery or something.

[00:26:06] And the other thing I did was I reread or read rather the comic book and the comic book to me is what this movies detractors accuse it of being the comic book is very much let's set up an idea the comic book is very much here's a demo for a possible movie franchise.

[00:26:25] You know it's a thing that a lot of like creator comics you know people who have worked with the big boys Marvel in DC the Mark Millars of the world now every comic they start feels like it's a pitch for a movie it's a backdoor pitch for a movie.

[00:26:40] And it's just about the table setting and all that sort of stuff and the entire narrative of what you're saying David of Andy learning to love her job again learning to want to be alive again having her faith in humanity restored.

[00:26:55] None of that is in the comic book. The comic book does not have any of those emotional arcs it does not have that depth it has flattened out a bunch of stuff the core elements are all there many of the big moments are all there the characters are by and large all there but it's it's such a good example I really will encourage people to read the book if they can.

[00:27:16] Whether they love this movie or slightly underwhelmed by this movie as a study in what a director brings to a project because Greg Rock adapted his own work for this movie I'm sure it did some work on it and you know she literally wasn't the one at the typewriter.

[00:27:32] I think I think she did a fair bit of work on it but he wrote the screenplay yeah I think so too.

[00:27:36] And what I was gonna say is even if she wasn't physically the one typing it feels very clear to me that she was saying if I'm making this movie I want this to be in it and I want this embellished in the story and this and that because they're all the pet themes and interest.

[00:27:50] She said her big thing was also that the Nile character I haven't read the comic so I can't feel like the Nile character doesn't pop as much in the like that that was where she put a lot of attention yeah.

[00:28:02] Look Nile and Andy have very little interior life in the comics. Booker and Joe and the what's the third guys name I'm forgetting now.

[00:28:13] Oh the idea did the rest of the yeah they're very similar between the comics and the movie but they are also the guys who have the larger sort of like.

[00:28:23] Plotty movements so their characterization is tied to that you know right Andy and Nile both kind of feel like ciphers Andy in particular.

[00:28:31] Just feels like impossibly cool badass woman which she succeeds as being in a comic book form and Nile is just the new one you know yeah right.

[00:28:41] She's the class it's a classic I mean the thing is also in a comic book it's like you have twenty two you know illustrated pay you don't have a lot of time to do stuff like you know and like that comic books sometimes need like thirty issues to set up

[00:28:58] everything in terms of character and plot that they want to set up and but I have not yeah I have not read this the graphic novel which is just collecting that first mini series is five or six issues in total it's like a little over a hundred pages and not only is that

[00:29:15] end up translates being a much shorter cliff notes version of this story being told but also there's certain limitations to what you can do in comic books in terms of how much story you can tell through performance which she's really choosing to do here which is the thing she always does you know.

[00:29:32] I think for a filmmaker who is primarily a writer started out as a writer comes from that perspective I think one of the things that makes Prince Python so good is she understands you a good actor can do the storytelling that five lines of dialogue could do on the page.

[00:29:52] You know you can convey something with a look with a moment with a pause and this is a movie that's very big on that if you're half watching it you're only hearing the dialogue that might feel a little more exposition and you're not noticing the amount of stuff conveyed by the moment Charlie's takes after she says something that implies the deep will of sadness this woman has felt for two thousand years.

[00:30:17] Six thousand years I believe is the concept yes. Maybe she was happy for the first four thousand. All right fine she was happy for the first four thousand you're right.

[00:30:27] But the comic book does not have that weight and there's even just stuff that I think Jean said explicitly was her addition.

[00:30:33] The Chew-A-Tel character is nothing but a functionary in the book he's got no backstory and the end point they get at with this character is not there. He is just the Smithers to the bad guy.

[00:30:47] Okay so he doesn't end with him being maybe set up as the Smithers to the good guys right exactly yeah no that's not there.

[00:30:56] The guys got no motivation he's got no larger function he isn't the element of him tracking the sort of long tail effect that they have had on humanity is not there.

[00:31:07] He is literally just Smithers and the bad guy in the film is a much more traditional he's like jacked up he's like slick back hair cool suits. He's still a tech pharma bro but he's closer to being like the Elon Musk version of it.

[00:31:24] Let's let's dig into the meat of this film as a little backstory as a little table setting post beyond the lights a film that you and I agree is one of those underrated films at the 2010s.

[00:31:40] But did not perform particularly well at the box office and did not get the recognition it deserved.

[00:31:45] She sort of surprisingly gets announced as the director of Silver and Black a big superhero movie that Sony is making as part of their expanded we're going to make spin-offs of everything in the Spider-Man Universe.

[00:31:58] Yes the only other thing to note is that she also worked on the show Cloak and Dagger so we'll talk about that in a second.

[00:32:08] Yeah so it was I believe right after beyond the lights she announced that her and Guguma Bathara we're going to team up again to adapt a Roxane gay book. Oh sure sure. Okay that never came into fruition.

[00:32:22] Sure right yeah she does shots fired which is her mini series on Fox that she did with her husband but she directed three of those episodes wrote the show her and Sinali then again

[00:32:33] and then they announced that she's going to do Silver and Black which is Silver sayable and Black Hat two characters that no one would think to necessarily center an entire movie around at this point.

[00:32:45] They don't either of they're not related to each other except that they're both in the Spider-Man world right. They've occasionally crossed paths but they're not a team.

[00:32:53] No I mean Black Hat is like a villainess an anti hit right like she's like a cool cat burglary kind of right. Yeah I don't know I never loved black cat.

[00:33:05] She's all right. She's sort of a cat woman rip off exactly and and Silver Sable is a Silver Sable school. She's very cool. I'm a huge Silver Sable fan.

[00:33:15] She was very big in the 90s when I was reading comics when I was a little kid but I loved like her in the wild pack like I loved all that shit.

[00:33:24] She but yeah she's like she's kind of like a Euro mercenary type right like she's from like I think she's from not Latveria but like next door to Laverie like she's from another fictional Euro. Yeah that would have been from like Laveria's Belgium or whatever.

[00:33:42] But but Sony kept on sort of like saying we want to make a female driven Spider-Man movie like to their credit they were like we want to do this and like seven years ago they were already on that tip except they could never find a good thing to base a story around.

[00:33:59] So there was that rumor they were going to do the young Aunt May is a spy movie and then there was a movie that was called The Glass Ceiling that was like every female Spider-Man character teaming up.

[00:34:11] It was like Silk and Penny Parker and all these sorts of characters and then there was there's now still the rumor they're going to make a Madame Web movie but for that moment in time Sony was all about the idea of doing Silver and Black

[00:34:24] and Gina meets on it and is like you know I didn't think I wanted to do a big action movie but I read this script and I immediately saw the movie in my head and I got so excited about making it

[00:34:36] and Sony was fast tracking it and it felt like holy shit she's going to get to do this big superhero movie. This is awesome and she was talking about it really excitedly and her really strong take and then the movie just sort of started slowing down

[00:34:47] and what it felt like between the lines which was later confirmed by her is just as they got closer and closer to going and it felt like they were maybe six months away from filming about to announce casting deep in sort of the pre-production

[00:35:00] they started questioning all of her decisions. I also think she didn't like the script and whatever it is they were demanding script wise right that was where they were like well right you know there's a lot of yeah.

[00:35:13] I think it was the opposite of this. I think she read the script and said oh I know exactly what I want to make it. I'm going to do all this right.

[00:35:21] Right and then started adding all that stuff on and then when she added the stuff Sony was like we don't like all this new stuff whereas Old Guard it feels like there are the central couple of things that she latched onto here that she retains but then added a lot of depth

[00:35:33] and Netflix and Skydance to their credit were just like do you but she very much got this movie because of her work on Silver and Black even though that film never got made. Let me talk to her about it. I've got context here.

[00:35:49] It led to her doing the cloak and dagger pilot because she was sort of in the Marvel ecosystem and she wanted to test that because she was like I absolutely have to do something because no one is taking me seriously like that wasn't she. She didn't get it.

[00:36:04] She was like basically like hunt down at all costs anything that will prove that I can direct action to these people because like I'm being pushed around the Silver and Black think fell apart. She does cloak and dagger.

[00:36:18] That's the first time she'd ever shot action at all like you know because her first three movies don't have any like so that's like her doing but like Skydance came to her with this movie. I think Skydance was very seriously like we need a female director for this.

[00:36:31] So they approached her there with Charlize was not even attached. It was it was just Skydance being like we've got this comic you know it's it's you know this we're going to have this basic story like we want we want a female director.

[00:36:45] What do you think and yeah I mean this thing that happens now. I was briefly trying to find like a comic book to develop as a TV series. And everything's owned by someone right. Everything's owned by someone it was insane.

[00:37:00] I mean you were like I was talking to you during this process but I was reading like six graphic novels a week and everything is owned by someone. If anything hits a store shelf that has even a halfway engaging premise someone options it immediately.

[00:37:13] So this just feels like a book. I mean A the books designed to be pitched as a movie or a TV show and B Skydance it feels like is trying to make the move to almost being a little bit of an Annapurna

[00:37:25] whether they go from being a financing company to a little more of a sort of self sustaining studio even if it's just making stuff for Netflix. It feels like they were the main creative force on this movie and not Netflix.

[00:37:38] Yes because they also Skydance also did six underground. They were the main creative force but six underground which insanely I've never seen.

[00:37:47] I know I just didn't watch it very weird that I just have Michael Bay made a movie and I was just like oh I guess I'll check that out later.

[00:37:54] I don't know like I mean it's not like you got good reviews but still like I and that one in particular is one where I was like it's going to feel like a bummer to watch a Michael Bay movie for the first time at home even if it's a bad one

[00:38:06] and I missed the one week it was at the I pick South Street Seaport. I refuse to go to the I pick South Street Seaport. I only go there to see Netflix movies because they play such a bad cinema experience.

[00:38:20] The waiter comes and talks to you like a waiter. There's a section where there's no wait waiter service. You have to go and bust your own food and drinks. It's very good. Beeper and then you have to leave the theater walk to lobby. So your tray.

[00:38:39] What is this? They charge you more for the seats with food service and those seats also are like little pods. It's the weirdest fucking theater. There's also the weird one that I love that's pretty much a nightmare the C. M. X which is some Mexican chain.

[00:38:57] I've never been to that one. Yes. Yes. I know of its existence. I picks someone a waiter saying the birthday song is somewhat during a movie. I just wanted to put that out there and then we can move on.

[00:39:11] Do you know what I would give for that level of frustration now though? I wish I was in a theater, tisking at a person checking their cell phone in front of me. Yeah. I wish I was sitting next to someone who brought like fucking egg salad. Right.

[00:39:27] I was just going to say just the smells of strangers ass just ripping ass right now. Someone taking their shoes off and putting their feet up here. Yeah, that's right. I'm sorry. I threw on my Sherlock Holmes hat and I'm ready to sniff.

[00:39:43] This very much feels like a skydance movie that was made for Netflix. They're the ones who see her out. Saw the cloak and dagger pilot knew that she was in development on that. You have to imagine just Hollywood circles.

[00:39:57] They were reading her drafts or hearing about what she was trying to do. They came to her with the book and she said there were the couple things she latched on to.

[00:40:05] But as I've talked about, as I front loaded, I was surprised for how much it is very much a one-to-one adaptation with the same creator and writer adapting his own work that all of us are. All the depth in this movie is not present in the comic.

[00:40:21] The comic is very much the surface version of it and the comic is the version that this movie's detractors claim it is. Sure.

[00:40:30] I mean, she's she's very complimentary about Rucka and she said like, oh, I had the comic book with me at all times and he was very open to all the changes I wanted to make. It's a good sound. It sounded like a perfectly harmonious collaboration.

[00:40:43] Like, you know, but it is a fun comic book with good ideas. I have nothing bad to say about it, but I think this movie is playing on a different level. Yeah.

[00:40:51] And it's a great adaptation in that it's finding the themes, the personal themes that one storyteller can dig into and someone else's from their starting point. You know, yes.

[00:41:02] And there's this cool axe with like a little circle that looks like a big circle and that's the comic is definitely in it. Yeah. So they stuck with that at least.

[00:41:17] So right off the bat, this movie starts with in media res like not literally I bet you wonder how I got here but close to it, which I usually dislike.

[00:41:27] I feel like we talked about usually it just feels like it's a flourish for flourish sakes, but the opening is so striking to this movie and I love that it takes less than 10 minutes to get back to this point. Me too.

[00:41:39] I, but yes, the first time I watched it, I was kind of like me like I am very resistant to those openings. And then the second time I rewatched the time I went when I rewatched it for the podcast, I was like, I don't know, like a whatever.

[00:41:54] He clicked for me more that I had forgotten that she's thinking like, you know what maybe I'll be dead this time and that's that'll be okay. You know, right?

[00:42:03] Like that's what she because that's what she's saying in her monologue is sort of like look, you know every time I'm kind of like, is that what she's saying? Is this it?

[00:42:10] Is this going to be it because maybe you know, maybe it's time for it to be it. And this is a big thing I love about this movie aside from all that thematic stuff just on a very surface level.

[00:42:21] When you hear the picture of this movie, you go like, haven't I seen eight variations on this? Isn't this just like six things I've already engaged with smashed together? Isn't this just like a Wolverine mixed with like, yeah, got some more. I mean, yeah.

[00:42:35] Yeah, isn't this special ops Wolverine and to some degree, I'm not accusing him of theft, but there's the one sort of good sequence in the otherwise excretible X-Men origins Wolverine is that open and credit sequence where you see Wolverine and his brother Saber tooth time lapsed fighting in every important war of the last 300 years.

[00:42:59] That was just like such an interesting like, oh yeah, right. I guess Wolverine has like been used as a soldier in all these different battles and seeing him exist in different time periods was kind of a striking thing in the rest of that movie is bullshit.

[00:43:11] And it feels like that might have been a thing that inspired Rucka, the old guard, the idea of, oh, these soldiers have been there for all of these different things. They fought like all of humanity's great battles. Is it just stripped down black ops Wolverine team? Yeah.

[00:43:27] But I think a big thing she's doing here is this isn't like cool healing. This is almost a zombie like and how much these guys are undying. Yeah, you're right.

[00:43:40] You're right. I mean, because it's not that different from your Wolverines where like you got the cool special effects and everything sort of snapping and it's gross, but you're right that there's a weird like glassiness to their eyes.

[00:43:52] Like it's a little more clear that they are kind of like dead for a second. If that makes sense, like versus Wolverine obviously. Wolverine is always just like, ah, God, bad day. Like whereas I just died and now I come back to life.

[00:44:10] And like all the way back to the first X-Men movie he has it's that thing of like where he's like, you know, like where like it's like like it's like he got, you know, whatever punched in the chin.

[00:44:20] The impression that I was about to describe, but even Logan, which is like the grittiest of them by and large he cracks his neck and then crack little gash like heels. You know, she's she cited Logan as as an influence though. She does.

[00:44:34] She's aware cracked bones really gnarly wounds and they take time and it really feels like you're watching footage of someone being murdered played in reverse. Right, right.

[00:44:46] Which I love that this is another thing that I think she's doing very differently than almost everyone else working in the genre. This is really a movie about the weight of violence as well.

[00:44:55] Like it is a movie that does not take its violence or its death lightly and that is also both visually and thematically when it's expressed in the text of the film something that is not in the book.

[00:45:07] When they talk about the cost of taking a life how you have to carry that with you. It's not and the book is not gory in the same kind of way. It's gory more on an old cool kind of way.

[00:45:17] Yeah, she when I interviewed her she cited the very famous book on killing which was written by a soldier that's about like that sort of you know, Intain intense psychological toll of killing people that like you know builds up on people in war.

[00:45:34] And right, that was her whole I'd like what if you were doing that for thousands of years it would make you know like it would mess with your brain chemistry.

[00:45:41] She made the five main actors the the members of the titular old guard read that book and use that as their primary text for character. She was like this has to be an important element of this movie and it absolutely is and that's something we almost never see.

[00:45:59] I feel like in a very different form and not as directly or emotionally the John Wick films are kind of about that you know, like how much his humanity gets lost the more he kills people.

[00:46:13] But this is explicitly like said like and it takes the time once again this is like a genome moment thing that if you're not fully paying attention to this movie glosses over but in your mind,

[00:46:26] but it takes the time to have the reaction shots of its primary characters looking at a body they've just killed and having a moment of like weight. It is not joyful. It is not badass. These are all human beings, even if they're bad when we meet Niles.

[00:46:44] She's just killed someone and the first time for the first time right exactly right and her reaction is like to try and save that person which obviously the old guard no longer have that impulse.

[00:46:59] But to that point I also think the important shot the opening shot is important those opening couple of shots with the voiceover because as you said David they are like glassy eye.

[00:47:08] It's very weird to if you know anything about this movie you know it's immortal people right sure and to start the film with all them lying dead on the floor.

[00:47:17] It doesn't make you think oh this is the end of the movie. This is how they die but it makes you think I'm going to watch them come back from this like they're going to show me the healing process to this.

[00:47:27] It makes it eerie it makes it very but I mean the other thing that we don't know that I certainly didn't know going into this movie is like that twist of also like yes they're immortal yes they can heal from basically any wound,

[00:47:42] but there is they all that you know their number will come up one day and they do know that and so there's that sort of like hint of mortality like to every encounter that they're all kind of wondering about and especially because they don't know

[00:47:59] like they don't know what the operating rule is what what age do you stop being able to heal. Is there a thing that pushes you out of immortality.

[00:48:10] I love that there's no system or there's like no like tome to it. Yes, you know it's just like this has happened and I guess really the only thing is that they all are connected through dreams.

[00:48:22] Yes, I am I am praying praying that the comics don't eventually explain the codex of how their mortality. I mean less interested right I don't know if the comics are going to keep going it looks like he did to volume.

[00:48:37] Is it ongoing like is it an ongoing series do you know it's like he has always said he envisioned it as a trilogy. It's the second mini series is just finishing up now the trade is coming out right around right it's called

[00:48:51] multiplied yes I guess the trades coming out in September so I haven't read it yet but I think by and large the three volumes of this story are probably going to be what they try to adapt for the three movies and it

[00:49:08] certainly seems like there's no reason for them not to make a sequel now if it has in fact been watched by let me see this two trillion people per nanosecond. Yeah right everyone everyone has watched it so much so that other Netflix characters such as

[00:49:24] the Clause played by Kurt Russell have watched the movie they noted and he's going to be a member of the old guard in the older guard the sequel to the old guard. I'm sure they will make a sequel there was a recent deadline article that was talking about how like it won't be quick because Charlie's

[00:49:40] like to do action back to back because it's exhausting and it's a whole thing and of course Gina Prince Pipe would just set up a new movie that she's doing with Viola Davis right. I also feel like Charlie's has been very openly talking about how she is not

[00:49:59] willing to make a sequel. I think it's a good idea to do that because I don't think they would even start making an old guard sequel for a couple years is sort of also just I think but hopefully they can do one because I think they should and this

[00:50:21] I just would like to see it but I think this movie once again works as a complete meal so it goes from them lying dead on the floor her voice over of like I've been here before you know whatever but then it goes to her walking down the streets of where they are

[00:50:38] they in Jordan at the beginning of the movie. They're in Marrakesh I believe Marrakesh but there's there's all kinds of you know because there's that whole sequence where they're like isn't it's right at the start where they're eating the baklava and they're like guessing where it's

[00:50:54] so she has a whole little reunion with her with her pal all of this stuff it's very like classic relaxed behavioral Gina stuff you know it's like Bill goes review of this movie was great he talked about the

[00:51:07] baklava being like the defining moment of this film that that would either not be included in a movie or be included just as a cute moment and the movie really just like slows down and lets this moment breathe because it's like if you are in these character shoes how hard it is to attain a moment of pure enjoyment like that

[00:51:28] the weirdness of what still has any sort of appeal to them and also setting up all these little characterization things about their reality where it's like oh right I guess if you're that old you kind of have infinite money

[00:51:41] like she talks about how she's bought Booker the Mateus Schoenart character a first edition book right it's like Count of Money Kriska like she's bought him like a very important text in a first edition

[00:51:55] she bought like a Rodin statue right right she just has all this stuff either because she owned it before it was worth anything or because she's literally the exception to the you can't take it with you rule where she's just doing high level work for incredible amounts of money and she never runs out

[00:52:14] she opened a high yield savings account hundreds of years ago I mean interest it just compounds over time like you're gonna win right so it's like the one thing that still kind of fun for them because they show like all of them are drinking all the time but it feels like it barely even has any effect on them is this thing they buy her a piece of baklava and she has to guess every single ingredient in it and the origin of that

[00:52:41] ingredient because once again it's like oh if you're that old I guess you just have the time to understand everything and also as you get old food is the only thing really got right so you can taste the difference between like which see your salt comes from and stuff

[00:52:59] showing them checking into the hotel her like a racing the photo

[00:53:05] which gets caught in the background of these young girls so selfie I mean I just think all this is like really good characterization stuff none of which is in the book that just shows you a what would it actually feel like on a day to day level if you've been alive for 4000 years and be

[00:53:21] what kind of life would you have to lead if you're that committed to being completely off the grid because of paranoia of what society would do if they found out that you exist it right but Mitaesh on art has come to her

[00:53:37] it at the beginning it feels like they haven't seen each other in years right yeah and I'm not clear on that still

[00:53:46] I think the implication is they're so old and they're so reticent to regroup it's only if a mission feels very important that for them like not working together for five years or ten years or whatever is like a matter of weeks for us you know in the grand scheme of things

[00:54:04] so they're just like well that was a tough job I'm going to take a six year vacation you know sure so she's sort of found by her old teammates and he comes to her with this case he's heard about from this guy Copely who is played by

[00:54:21] Chewbatelle Egya for the great Chewbatelle Egya for who at the beginning of the movie you're like this guy I don't I mean I'll take any chewy that I can get

[00:54:29] but he feels very over qualified for this role you're sort of confused up until the last ten minutes why you hire this heavyweight actor to play this role

[00:54:39] but I think the movie ultimately explains why not just in terms of setup for future sequels but the one scene that really matters where you need an actor of his gravitas to pull off but he's a guy they worked with before

[00:54:53] within the CIA and now he is left the CIA he has a wife who got sick and he just said you know he left when she got ill she passed he never found his way back he's now working for independent contractors and he's got a mission for her

[00:55:12] I'm glad David returned he walked away for a second but I just want to say because I need all three brains on this I was very confused by this element in the beginning of the film they say that Chewbatelle Egya for was a CIA agent

[00:55:29] she says don't you need to be or Booker says don't you need to be American to be a CIA agent whichever one says it and he says I was born in Boston moved to London while I was young

[00:55:40] now I don't get this an American very early on in their life moving to London and spending their predominant sort of like coming of age years in the United Kingdom? yeah weird situation similar to mine wait huh? well wait Chewbatelle is not immortal in this movie

[00:56:13] no but if you're saying similar to mine I have to imagine you're relating to the least ridiculous situation in this movie not the one that makes no sense alright that was funny being an American who grew up in London that's like a wacky sci-fi premise

[00:56:29] yeah you're right that's a wacky sci-fi premise anyway I grew up in London love the Euro feel of the old guard a lot of London stuff in this movie another thing just set up from the very beginning

[00:56:43] Charlize in the Hotel Lavi seeing the news broadcast the transitions from one awful human injustice story to another awful human injustice story and she sort of said already a couple times at this point like we've lost the world's not worth saving it's so far gone it's fucked

[00:57:02] she is struggling with that right that's that's thousands of years in she's like what is the point of all this she's in a griffin human headspace everything is terrible everyone's the worst we can't fix it we're all doomed

[00:57:13] and they're saying like come on it's a mission we'll save people and she's like irrelevant at this point like come on like a 4,000 year sample size we're not doing any good for anyone things end up just ruining themselves

[00:57:25] right but they tell her this story about these girls who are being held hostage seemingly on the verge of being trafficked and it just like hits her and she reluctantly agrees to do this rescue mission which is our first real action sequence

[00:57:41] great action sequence that's where they get mowed down with bullets in like a kill box right they like lured into it yeah ten minutes in we come back to the opening

[00:57:51] and it is right it's a kill box they realize they were set up it was just a trap to get them on camera she would have been looking for video proof that they are immortal that they can come back from death

[00:58:05] and then they come back from death and they kill everyone and there's some cool like you know I don't know like using the ground to like fire your shotgun like all these little moves that are cool

[00:58:18] it's very like it's eloquent and it's got like a ballet or like you know what's the like pointy little sword play kind of stuff and talking about fencing it's got a fencing kind of vibe to it definitely she told me she wanted the action to

[00:58:35] like she wanted them to fight like people who used to exclusively fight you know hand to hand because if they're hundreds of years old they all came up fighting with swords like right the gun feels like an extension of that

[00:58:50] less than it forward gun for she wanted that to be their advantage that like you know modern soldiers using weapons using automatic weapons would not be used to and not know how to deal with someone charging at them

[00:59:03] like because that's just not how things work anymore but here's the one thing and I guess maybe it is so preposterous that he wouldn't have given the mercenaries a heads up but wouldn't he have like at least mentioned when he hired them

[00:59:16] hey these people might be immortal or did he just like he just needed to kind of get them on the ground and then like that's it

[00:59:23] I mean look you get it when you get to the Harry Mellon character like clearly it's like we got to keep the shit proprietary we got to keep a tight fit on it. You can't mention it to anyone right because he's very worried about his rivals

[00:59:36] right and that's a big part of the Harry Mellon character is like he doesn't care how many people have to like die in the churn of trying to get to immortality like he views them all as like that's inherent vice that's like sunk cost I'm fine with that

[00:59:52] it's worth it you know he's that's what I love about the sort of slight rejiggering she does of the villain character is like he is absolutely believable as a guy who thinks he's the good guy because he's thinking about everything as an algorithm

[01:00:08] you know he's like in what way is it not worth killing a hundred people if you then end up solving death for everyone else right he views his sort of lack of humanity towards everyone who gets in the way of this discovery as for the greater good

[01:00:27] also he's obviously motivated by his legacy in his bottom line and all that sort of profit motive sure but yes but yes he does I mean obviously Chewbacca character the ideas his wife died of ALS so he's like well a cure for disease surely anything is worth this

[01:00:44] he watched her tear it and the idea of having to suffer through someone watching someone that close to you die that painfully and slowly would make you want to find a cure for death and would make you perhaps at your most heightened moments justify some fucked up shit

[01:01:02] if you felt it was for the greater good he grabbed the red string and he started tying it from one thumbtack to another and once you go that far there's no going back

[01:01:12] but he's got still an inherent humanity that that Harry Mellon does not well but this is the it's like Chewbacca is over qualified for this role

[01:01:20] and I'm very glad he's in the movie we said this one to the bathroom yeah I mean I'm sure he wanted to work with Gina Prince but right right like that was probably part of the motivation for him

[01:01:30] but it's the setup for what he does at the end and it's the one scene where I think it's very clear whether I hired someone that big and this is so yeah this movie is is I would say

[01:01:38] markedly worse without him absolutely absolutely and it makes you in a way I mean a especially because none of that is there with the character on the page in the book

[01:01:50] and B it makes you kind of resent the way he's used in Doctor Strange where that's a role that is so much T up for oh but the potential of what he could do in sequels

[01:02:02] and he does his job very well there Chewbacca is a fucking pro he's got like you know top 10 emotional depth of any actor working today he's just gotten infinite well of emotion that he can apply to even the silliest material

[01:02:18] but whereas Doctor Strange is just pretty much like here he is as kind of like mentor ally character with the promise of oh he might get to do some real shit in later movies

[01:02:28] this movie even though for a lot of it you're like why is this guy so over qualified for this role yeah it justifies why you hire him versus hiring me to play this part you know

[01:02:43] yeah I yes it does I mean you should have done it but yes no I wish I played them a Harry Mellon character but also he nails and he's a better actor than me

[01:02:52] Harry Mellon is a good actor it's funny funny like the kid who played Dudley Dudley Dursley yeah I mean yeah the thing I loved him most in was

[01:03:01] Scruggs Buster Scruggs yeah that was incredible and Scruggs yeah and now he's in like the new Antonio Campos movie he's in the half shot Joel Cohen Macbeth movie

[01:03:10] yeah he's in Macbeth right he was in Lossody said he's in Lossody said he's like well I say it's ridiculous you know he was playing that kind of a character

[01:03:20] but he's good at it yeah yeah yeah yeah so good watching this twice just made me so thirsty for the moment where I get to play my shitty hoody wearing tech bro villain in an action movie

[01:03:32] and get an action in your neck yes the fact that every villain in an action movie or at least every other villain in a big action movie has now become a griffin Newman type makes me more and more eager to eventually play that role

[01:03:47] they're in this kill box scenario they're caught on camera and she immediately is like see I shouldn't even try to help people it's not fucking worth it now we're screwed we got to go on the lamb again

[01:03:59] so they all run out of there jump on a train try to look for a hideout the safe houses they have placed all over the world

[01:04:06] and on the train they all have the nightmare the nightmare they have that connects them to the other immortals the other people who got old guard disease or whatever it is

[01:04:18] O.G.D. and it is the great key he lane who I never realized was tall oh is she a tall I think she's like five nine or five ten but especially because Charlize is known for being very tall and statue ask

[01:04:36] and for whatever reason in Beale Street key he lane reads short I think also because even James is a big guy and she's playing such a sort of young sort of innocent character in that like childlike character in that

[01:04:51] but this movie the first time she's in an action sequence and especially when she comes face to face with Charlize and she's holding her own and also is holding her height against her you realize like oh this isn't one of those examples of like

[01:05:05] Scarlett Johansson being an action star despite being five one key he lane despite being a not ripped woman is believable as a soldier yeah I think she was did them they all you know they

[01:05:18] everyone in the movie did this sort of classic like months of boot camp thing you know where you all sort of bond together learning and operate weapons and all that stuff but she I think she had the most intense training

[01:05:29] she has that big plane fight and all that she has to do I love her I think she's really great. I think she's got a really unique energy and there's something very raw about her and very vulnerable about her that feels perfect for

[01:05:46] Gina who is so based in sort of that earnestness of emotion yeah yeah she raw is a good word for it right her feelings are very keenly felt like whether they're in

[01:05:57] field street you know she's got this sort of like warm sad loving energy and in this movie she's got this very sort of like independent kind of you know mistrustful kind of you know she's got a warrior energy right like that's

[01:06:12] sort of the big moment later in the movie where she's talking about her father was the soldier and like again right you are like descended from warriors. That's another thing I mean that this movie is interested in is the

[01:06:26] what what makes a good soldier psychologically in a certain way you know right because she dies trying to help someone and he's also been holding women hostage I mean it's they right moment where she's only tipped off to it through her

[01:06:42] humanity through relating to the children in the one right exactly right they set it up in a way where she's not a shitty soldier she's not like a piece of shit soldier she's trying to stabilize this person they slash her throat yeah

[01:06:54] yeah you see as we said how upset she is by the moment she's realized that she's probably killed a man yeah yeah and then of course she heals up and everyone's like oh that's weird and then that's when Charlie's comes

[01:07:07] and grabs her and you have the whole plane sequence she's just trying to listen to some Frank Ocean and bum out about the fact that she's being discharged and said Charlie's comes and does the coolish shit ever

[01:07:21] and talking about the choreography of this movie yes it's very balletic which I feel like anyone who's done action talks about the fact that shooting action is far closer to dance than it is to any sort of sport

[01:07:39] because of the amount of takes you have to do and the precision of your relationship to the camera and of stunt guys and wires and all this sort of stuff and a lot of the best action stars have a dance background like the the Russo brothers have talked about that Chris Evans and Tom Holland are the best in all the Marvel Universe at action

[01:08:02] because they both did dance when they were young that they understand that they're breaking it into like it's step turn step but here's this is my question actually because I've brought this up about dancing in movies like like writing dance

[01:08:18] right you write a dance how do you do this do you write a fight well because this is based on a comic book there is like you know a vague story board already in place but that's that's what you do you storyboard it you bring it in yeah you bring in a choreographer I mean most action movies have a very specific

[01:08:35] choreographer who is sort of the author over those sequences in the same way that the dance choreographer is over a musical and it's like on the script page it will just say like

[01:08:46] punch and it will only it doesn't punch right it will just it'll truly say something I mean they talk about in screenplays it's roughly a page a minute except if it's an action movie where any page with action is probably five times longer than it's written because it usually just says they break out in awesome fight they take no prisoners the only time they'll describe something is if it's an important story beat

[01:09:13] the fight choreographer on this movie is called Danny Hernandez he had worked on a vendor's endgame he's a stunt guy you know he'd worked on John Wick you know he's stunt coordinator on the John Wick movies the other you know I think he's rising in the ranks she talked about I mean like

[01:09:27] you know she's a very serious director she's very methodical in her approach and she very much just like consumed every action movie the last 20 years and was like I want this vibe I don't want this vibe and she would not tell me what she didn't want but I'm pretty I am inferred that she did not want the more kind of like very slick pre-vis Marvoli kind of

[01:09:51] sure right it feels very practical and tactile you have Charlize who is really good at this shit and is only getting better and better at action but you know you have a number one on the call sheet who you don't have to shoot around who is going to be able to pull off extended choreography without

[01:10:12] which works for her character to like she's this immortal warrior and I'm like right it's Charlie she's been a mad Max has been an atomic blunt like you know yeah she's like an action luminary now yeah as quietly become like a top tier one of our best action stars despite you

[01:10:31] not making an action movie with her being the muscle until eon flux which flopped and not really reclaiming it until the last seven or a year the only other one is is the Italian job which is sort of an action like she does a lot of driving

[01:10:46] about it this week in interviews that she doesn't really do more right yeah Hancock of course oh yes which is pretty good and we're more special effects based yes that's not right as action but another movie in which she plays an immortal eon flux

[01:11:02] and it's mad Max Old Guard and atomic blonde she is doing closer to Keanu type work and I think they're very unified in what makes both of them good as action stars that they were tamed their vulnerability and it is just sort of the precision of it

[01:11:18] but the other thing I love about the action this movie that I finally sort of like wrap my hands around watching it a second time is they're all so relaxed it is the sort of like Malcolm Gladwell thing of they have done this not like 10,000 hours but like you know 10,000 like years

[01:11:37] no I get it I'm exaggerating but there are moments where in the final action sequence one guy will just casually hand a gun back to a different person and it's like the combination of a they know they're probably going to be able to recover from any hit they take

[01:11:53] and be they've done it so many times that for them all of this is like brushing your teeth it's like which move am I going to do you know and they all know each other's moves and that element of it is very interesting to see where so often actors and choreography are

[01:12:09] showing tension and like the exertion and the clenched teeth and how hard it is and this is just sort of like so they get Kiki Lane they bring her on a plane this shit's great with Kiki Lane just refusing to accept what's happened to her trying to stab Charlie's

[01:12:29] yeah well because I want to say also I like how they deal with her not initially accepting it and just surely shooting her in the head in the head yes yeah just like making it just so blunt for the audience like it's it's wild it really

[01:12:47] over it's so shocking though every time I know yes I know but it's it's because of the space it's given and also the like actual detail and realism of their injuries that they look really fucking bad every time they get shot yeah

[01:13:02] watching the bullet come out of their head is gross oh yes yeah the violence definitely right it's it's not exactly fun violence but it is like interesting but I don't know how else to put it like you are kind of like

[01:13:17] transfixed by it's given weight and it has consequence yes but it's also kind of cool it makes me like because when the movie started I will say the first raid sequence I was like I'm like I want to like this but also I'm just so tired of gun violence

[01:13:35] and movies but but the amount of time and space this movie gives to like this is not cool like even if the action is cool the devastation it leaves is not something that's fun you carry these people with you and the aftermath of this violence it looks appropriately disturbing

[01:13:56] so the plain sequence fucking rules it's such a fun version it is the plain sequence because it's two immortals against each other so there's less of that right yeah right and there's the fake out with the pilots death but all the psychological games that Charlie's

[01:14:12] andy plays with dialers are so good to just like she's just done all of this she's worked through every scenario I mean she's like late groundhog day bill Murray where she's like I just know how everything goes yeah I know every variable at this point she's a little bored though she's

[01:14:29] like almost like I have to introduce another person all this alright yeah so key lane meets the group and here's a big difference in the comic in the comic Joe and Nikki are kidnapped before key lane gets brought on board so she never knows them until after they save them

[01:14:50] so there's like no team dynamic with the actual full team at all yes absolutely and it's one of the things you and I love team movies I think that comes from our leave of team a love of teen comic books love of X men for sure yes that's a huge thing it's the thing where not only do I love team action I love a movie where multiple characters get to feel like they actually matter that they're fully rounded and exist

[01:15:19] I love you know Martin Eden what's the name Luca Marinelli and Marwan Kanzari the hot Jafar hot Jafar goodness movie great in this movie this actor is hot Jafar from Guy Ritchie's Aladdin then

[01:15:35] okay okay and he is so goddamn goodness I believe he's like he's like Dutch she's like Tunisian Dutch right and when he was in Aladdin I didn't really know him but someone was like oh yeah this guy like he's in like a couple you know Dutch movies like you know he's sort of with it and I was sort of like I was very perplexed by his Jafar

[01:15:59] performance because he's so serious and very low key in that movie like he's very like intense and of course Jafar in Aladdin is like this big broad you know silly figure and I get that he was like well I can't do that I need to like dial it you know in the other direction yeah

[01:16:19] but I didn't come out of Aladdin being like oh this guy is no someone to watch where he's like oh my god this guy so fucking you know sexy so like he's hot he's very very alluring a very magnetic figure

[01:16:34] but all this stuff is just really good of her meeting the team coming to understand what the rest of her existence is going to be like yeah learning all the rules learning about the people they've lost over the years right you know like the yeah yeah

[01:16:51] so the comic does not have the queen character at all oh really oh wow because that's one of the things that feels like the biggest equal to you 100%

[01:17:02] perhaps she comes in the second volume is not in the first volume whatsoever there is one extended flashback to the one serious romantic relationship that Andy had which was with an American slave and okay

[01:17:18] it was sort of like a Benjamin Button thing where she slowed down and spent like 50 years of her life with him as he eventually took some time off right right right right

[01:17:29] right and that was like the one great like the loss of having to watch him die essentially and having to leave him was the thing that made her resist emotional connection which is far less interesting than the quinn thing

[01:17:41] which is really playing on the existential terror of this existence like what's the only thing we are they're not being able to die not being able to die and being at the bottom of the ocean and an iron maiden

[01:17:52] which by the way sounds no good that sounds very bad don't do it don't do it makes me cringe like like when I yeah portrayed in the movie it really made me I had such a visceral reaction yes yes

[01:18:05] when they go to the hideout the cave where the rodan is and all the other stuff there's one shot of Kiki Lane taking a blanket off a painting and that's the painting of Charlize and the love interest character from the comic I think implying whether or not it will come into play later that that character still was a period of her life

[01:18:24] right but when was like the first or not I guess there's the other fellow immortal the man that she said she saw die

[01:18:32] yes one of the more she's seen die right right by Joey answer yeah but when was the Joe to her Nikki was not just a partner but the love of her life and was pulled apart from her

[01:18:47] because of fear of witchcraft and now is at the bottom of the ocean at Hans or key lane has the nightmare about her so she starts to find out about all this thing their existence the vague rules that they do and don't understand how they still are able to enjoy life

[01:19:00] but you're getting this thing of like Charlize is just sort of over it like she just wishes she had the sweet release of death now and even though Mateus Schoenerts is relatively the toddler of the group he seems to be taking it really roughly

[01:19:15] and you get the thing with his son which is even maybe a bigger element in the comics of just this is why we can't have human attachments it's not just that you have to watch people die and that you have to watch their resentment over the fact that you have something that you can never share with them

[01:19:38] that you're going to keep on living and there's no way to pass it on to them but you will see people your loved ones the people you care about most in the final years of their life transform into something really ugly as they resent your condition

[01:19:54] and not only will you have to live with the loss of those people but you have to live with the memories of how warped they became by the end of it classic immortal stuff classic immortal drama

[01:20:05] you know good shit I'm always into it. It's front loading all the stuff that is usually subtext in these movies and really making it about that sort of condition and sort of like a sci-fi short story kind of way also though

[01:20:20] they're so hot every week and we haven't even talked about Matthias Schoenerts on you know who is just just a just a very a very fun person to look at I really enjoy looking at it relax on screen presences like even when he's playing really intense guys he

[01:20:38] just makes everything feel so natural so calm so lived in you know I feel like I guess the first thing I saw him in was Rustin Bone I didn't see bull head which is like his his breakout break out but he's been acting since he was 13 he's a Belgian graffiti artist

[01:20:54] hell yeah and Rustin Bone I didn't know that that fucking rules but it was yeah like bull head Rustin Bone was his big breakout and then you have like the drop and what was it Mustang and he's great he's great

[01:21:11] and he's so fucking hot and he's great in this I love that there's never a romantic entanglement between either him and Nile or him and Andy which it feels like 99 out of 100 versions of this movie would do

[01:21:28] right he has to at least have will they or won't they energy with one of the female leads and he doesn't and this movie has two romances in it essentially and both of them are queer

[01:21:39] which is somewhat profound and revolutionary you know I mean it's like these are like two serious undying loves that our heroic characters have and they're both queer

[01:21:52] you the thing you read at the study you know the big moment where he you know he scoffs at the talks about his love for his partner you know that's in the comic book right that's in the comic that's the thing that Gina said when she read that in the

[01:22:06] comic she said I want to make this movie right right yeah and I feel like I talked about Mark Millar earlier but he's like this perfect example of a guy who's essentially writing comic books so that he can get them option these days right

[01:22:18] and there's this thing I often see in like original comic books where a the premises like it's like this but this it's sort of like it feels like a Hollywood pitch of like what if it's like this meets this I'm taking this well established hit film or franchise or

[01:22:36] comic property and I'm putting a slightly different twist on it so it's easily packageable but the other thing is they always have these scenes that feel like and I don't say this in a negative way but a

[01:22:47] comment or greater going man I always wish I saw this kind of scene happen in a movie you know right yes and so it feels like a riff on like the kind of homophobia that often exists in these types of films and the idea of what if a bad guy makes a quick gay crack and the retort to it is the most emotionally profound

[01:23:04] thing you've ever heard someone say right and they're all like oh oh oh get it right yeah right and the comic it's kind of striking but the way time just fucking stands still during this monologue

[01:23:16] and it's pretty good and fucking kanzari just like killing it yeah he is killing it and and I only know him as Martin Eden I forget what is I keep forgetting he's Italian Luca Maranelli but that guy's he's a cutie everyone in this movie is hot everyone in this movie

[01:23:32] yeah it's a very yes it's a very hot cast yes but the extended be after the monologue when the guys just kind of look at each other and look at them right and it's not even like before they they sort of try to to apprehend them again

[01:23:52] restrain them again it's not even like a like awkward it's a wow I now feel stupid I realize my lack of emotional depth like it's right all these grunts suddenly feeling really really like

[01:24:08] basic you're right they've been put in place because they're like well yeah I mean I guess I felt that way about someone or maybe not like in high school yeah

[01:24:23] so they've been apprehended now Henry Harry Melling has been promised by she would tell that he will collect the old guard so they can perform tests on them and try to bottle whatever it is that keeps them immortal

[01:24:36] right so he can sell the cure for death and the remainder of the movie is pretty much

[01:24:44] them trying to retrieve Joe and Nikki while Charlie's fights her sort of over at attitudes to this entire fucking enterprise of being a human being of being alive and the realization that her mortality is starting to perhaps catch up with her

[01:25:01] Mattia Shonarts despite being a relative newbie is just fucking over it it feels like he's the cipher he's the one who's like maybe we just want to die like

[01:25:11] in a bargaining phase of all of us yeah he's trying to see if there's a way out they all talk as if they've experimented with the way out as if they wish to some degree they could be killed and he still at the point where he feels like it might be worth making the Faustian bargain

[01:25:27] and Kiki Lane is still just questioning whether she wants to deal with any of this shit like she just wants to go back and be with her parents and they just are at least you know her mother and her brother and they keep on trying to explain to her

[01:25:38] like you cannot exist in proper society ever again like your your troop mates saw you recover within a day from a throat slashing like if you're existing in the proper world people are going to apprehend you and they are going to distrust you and they're going to turn against you

[01:25:56] like you're you're I'm sorry you're fucked you're doomed like you can just live off the grid or you can live with us and try to do shit about it but there's no normal life you can have with regular attachments to human beings but that's a bummer for her I wouldn't want you know I would be a little grumpy too

[01:26:12] I mean that's what yeah this movie is like dealing with all that it's like right this isn't fun and it's sort of in a certain way also about like the hard work of trying to make the world a better place which does not make one feel good you know like spending this much time

[01:26:31] wallowing in the worst of humanity in order to try to combat it tends to make you focus on the worst of humanity it is a thing that I love about I was never really here you were never really here what my my favorite movie of two years ago where

[01:26:46] it's like taking this sort of like vigilante like taken oh he's the guy correcting the wrongs of the world that's like that guy would be fucking miserable he would put a plastic bag over his head every single night because he has to spend so much time exposed to the worst shit on the planet you know and it makes sense that Kiki Lane who is young not just in relation to most mortal human beings but you know infinitely younger than the rest of the people she's with right now

[01:27:15] would just be like no no hard pass none of this let me just sit on a couch and watch TV with my brother but she is inherently a warrior she can't knock that out of her spirit

[01:27:26] charlie's you know at this point is over it enough that she understands and she has the sort of compassion that you feel like she maybe wouldn't have had 600 years ago and says like look I can't keep you here I can't tell you this is worth doing because I hate it and I think it sucks and I wish I were dead and I don't even think it worked so like go back you know but by giving her a gun so that she's able to fend for herself

[01:27:56] she realizes the gun was given to her andy by Mateo shonarts the gun is empty Mateo shonarts is setting Andy up to be captured right

[01:28:06] he does not know that Andy is starting to become mortal you have that great scene where Andy breaks off from the group and goes to the pharmacy in France yes love that scene and it's that little moment of compassion

[01:28:18] of this young woman this like punk woman behind the counter at a pharmacy at presumably three o'clock in the morning who not only doesn't ask questions about the amount of violence that clearly has happened to charlie's but takes her in the back room and helps stitch her up because like that's at the end of the day like what is life worth living for if not those small moments of kindness

[01:28:48] of a person if not to find some opportunities to extend those moments of kindness to others so that's a brief sort of like maybe this is kind of worth it moment for charlie's but of course when key lane puts it together tracks him down and goes

[01:29:06] meets face to face with shu itel shu itel has his big Oscar scene

[01:29:12] where he talks about watching his wife die and is not delivered in a James Bond villain kind of like you don't understand I want to stop death way it is such just a vulnerable broken man just saying like when you watch someone you love that much suffer that dearly

[01:29:31] it throws everything out of lack you know it really makes you question everything because it doesn't feel like that is just that someone you feel for that deeply can hurt that much

[01:29:43] it also speaks to Gina's interest in consequences in a way that most action movies are not not just the consequence of death but the consequence of choices that they push shu itel to a breaking point that even when he sees them being tortured that all the early stages he bites his tongue and lets it happen because this is a guy who has to live with what he's done

[01:30:05] like there is not a clean path to redemption and he's set up to be more beneficial to the world by the end of the movie but they're still not trying to totally acquit him for the choices he's made because they've been doing similar things they've lived for fucking thousand of years it's very clear that all of them have had periods where they've been fucking awful

[01:30:24] yeah but I like this is what I like about it's like there never no one's ever that like when when Booker betrays them their their reaction is bad I mean I Joe Marwan Kanzari he's he's a little matter about it but like

[01:30:38] Andy's reaction is mostly like oh sweetie Jesus come on like really but why is Joe angry about it because Joe has Nikki and he has something to live right they've been captured and that is the big difference you're right Joe Joe and Nikki feel like the two who are at peace with their immortality because they have found each other

[01:31:00] and the other three characters are like get me out of this but she would tell as well right it's like they just do not have an approach people that's kind of like well you're clearly bad and that's the end of you I mean Harry Melan they kill him because he's trying to kill them

[01:31:16] but like they've lived long enough that they probably have more of a concept of like a redemptive arc and like this you know you know the kind of balance of like good and bad in the world and also how many times

[01:31:29] were each of this each of these characters fighting on the wrong side of a war like they've done it they've done both sides you know like they've just they've been through fucking everything and they've done everything a thousand times like the fact that Andy when she finds out about Booker

[01:31:48] sort of setting her up is just like come on Booker like she looks at him with a level compassion where she's like I know what drove you to do this I have all of those same impulses I'm not even angry I'm just disappointed and at the final moment when they give Booker his punishment to jump ahead a little bit

[01:32:07] what does she do after that she hugs him and she cries like it's not just disciplinary it's like this sucks you know but yes this final action sequence where the team works together one last time they free Joe and Niki Kiki Lane sort of comes into her own and he has given up the rest of the team has figured out that she is losing her

[01:32:28] mentality and it's not even worth fighting anymore but Kiki Lane has had the Oscar scene with Chewatelle Agia for it where he explains the wife but also shows the cork board he shows her the red yarn and that in trying to track these people down and trace their impact on history he

[01:32:44] has realized the amount of sort of butterfly effect good they have done for the world that there are too close to as Kiki Lane says what she's in it but she can't even see it yeah this final action sequence is great is great team action and as we said it's all just

[01:33:07] good grossness yeah yeah like I look you know like Luca Marinela getting shot at one point right he's the way like one of them gets shot he's like oh you know so annoying we didn't talk about but just the moment where they find Booker and his like entire stomachs been mangled like they've cut him

[01:33:23] yeah they're waiting for a new way back again so good and it's just like so gross like it's like fucking full zombie movie gore with total realism in a way you never see in comic book movies like you this stuff can't just be fun if we're dealing with life and death at this level it needs to be taken seriously with weight from every aspect

[01:33:47] and so she's constantly just doing anything she can to underline the stakes of just any human life and and the value in that in movies where people are usually just disposed of wanton Lee and where we rarely see the aftermath of violence in any sort of visceral way you know even movies that are bloody are

[01:34:11] rarely bloody in a way that is realistic and actually upsetting in the way that this film is I love it it's sad it's upsetting it's a lonely movie lonely and it's more info yeah or melancholy that's the criticism I I more readily expect is it's just like not fun I found it to be kind of a bummer because you do have to very much get onto

[01:34:37] his wavelength to find the fun where it is and and feel willing to accept fun with consequences you know the idea that this movie is the same as extraction is bananas yes

[01:34:53] I haven't seen extraction yet here there's something with a rake his name is rake no but then at some point he like he's or something is the perfume movie definitely not the perfume now I very curious Jason Bateman what's

[01:35:13] what's a Bateman perfume movie what are you talking about I don't know you mean extract you mean the film extract the the eleven year old Mike judge comedy about vanilla flavoring for bacon right

[01:35:30] no different that was not a movie that the old guard was being compared to what if it was that people like I don't know this feels very derivative of extract yeah she's really just like cribbing from you know the

[01:35:46] masters you know John Woo Mike judge the masters of the of the genre hey my judge that's one of my guys when we get to our next go around a March Mad if we're going to do right he could be on your list yeah that would be a good series I think what is it four or five movies I've watched a diocracy in

[01:36:11] the lockdown oh that's a I haven't that movie hits yeah movie hits I can I mean it would be it's four movies it would be be this but had office based idiocracy extract I mean that's a you know that's a solid four movie mini series

[01:36:26] I mean that's if we do the March Madness idea where each of us gets to pick a quadrant yeah he would be in your eight right then a hundred percent yes for sure but yes I just think even if you don't want to

[01:36:40] like this movie you cannot act like it is the same as extraction when it has this much more on its mind you know when it is pointedly sort of standing in opposition to that sort of film and that film has its own merits and values for what it is

[01:36:58] you know extraction yeah it's got some rakes I want to see it I should watch it what is he extract someone yes I mean there's literally another movie on Netflix called extraction from like a year ago with Bruce Willis

[01:37:13] okay right but that doesn't count if Bruce Willis isn't a movie it doesn't count in the last five years correct it doesn't count I would I would unfortunately say last ten like you know because of course there are exceptions that prove the rule but by large yeah

[01:37:29] David he had a good run at the beginning of the 2010s he had and moonrise in 2012 yeah yeah but that's you know and and of course seasons you know in in glass and we enjoy that we enjoy I actually kind of enjoyed him in motherless Brooklyn

[01:37:51] he's only in it briefly I wish he had done more than three days on glass right he's good in it he he sells drowning in a puddle like no one could I also David I think he's good and she got your retaliation

[01:38:09] right sure I haven't seen but believe you it's just that he's in movies like that point yeah can I can I do a center yeah Prince vice precious cargo marauders first kill acts of violence reprisal death wish air strike none of these movies exist breach hard kill cosmic sin midnight in the switch grass reactor out of death

[01:38:34] those are all let me just look this up here movies that Bruce Willis has filmed in the last month yeah right and then he filmed them all in one month yes Bruce Willis could film his parts in these movies over zoom and they would not affect the quality of his performance at all that is the level of work he is doing in these direct to red box movies

[01:38:56] but how's the movie and key he lane goes to Charlie's and says like you can't give up you have to fucking fight and Charlie's decides that they are actually doing something of value and she's willing to enter one last big

[01:39:15] hunk in action sequence even knowing she might not make it out of there alive because it's worth it for the greater good in her eyes yes they use the fake out routine with the pilot to get Harry Melling I love that key he lane finally is just like I got to protect Charlie's can't shoot him what can I do I can use myself as a weapon I can throw myself out a window and fucking essentially live through a death in order to make sure that this guy gets taken off

[01:39:45] the board and then her sort of like knurled body in the collapsed car slowly cracking back into place is so unsettling and the final real moment in the movie is or not really but her last big character moment is before they get in the car to drive away

[01:40:04] she looks at Harry Melling's body even he is a death that she has to take account for and carry with her and this is what I'm talking about there's so much shit that is just a look in this movie.

[01:40:16] A reaction a wince from a character you're right to a concept you got to watch this thing with with full eyes but then of course they go to she would tell and they go like

[01:40:28] look this isn't a request this is a demand your are Professor X now which got me so amped up the idea of a true until being part of a team in the second movie and be them now like having this renewed faith in the good they can do for humanity and him being like essentially the human non super powered version of

[01:40:55] cerebral right like that's what he is it's not like that he's Professor X it's like he's bureaucratic cerebral where he's like look here's a place you got to go I found another tragedy that could be avoided here's another way in which you've helped

[01:41:12] it just gets me fucking amped up and he goes like it would be an honor cut to black the old guard fucking awesome but of course the one plot detail I forgot to mention is that they have the meeting where they need to come up with the punishment for

[01:41:26] booker which they do with compassion but they tell him he's gonna have to spend 100 years in his own he's on just a brief one century time out right that's like a 10 game suspension in the NBA or whatever right yes and he says I guess I'm never going to see you again knowing that Charlie is

[01:41:44] is now presumably killable and she says you should have a little more faith booker I do love that by the end of this movie she's a character who's like I'm gonna keep on fighting to try to stay alive it's a really nice full circle fucking character arc an actual thing that happens is set up and concluded in one movie which is why this is not just fucking franchise starter bullshit you know I don't know though but no one got killed with a rake few

[01:42:12] Marvel movies have journeys this complete for their main character but there's no post credit scene there is there is there's going to know but there's the title and then they post a poker right drinking is whiskey well yeah I right okay I guess that serves as one I suppose

[01:42:31] and he finds Quinn which I forgot they set up when Kiki Lane has the nightmare about Quinn about drowning in the Iron Maiden which I guess should have been a tip off to the rest of them that Quinn was still alive otherwise it wouldn't be able to hear that

[01:42:46] when she shows up like her close it asks you a lot of questions where she been this whole time I don't know if she's involved to the comic but it she's not in volume one so I have no sense of where this is going maybe she is that maybe that was right yeah

[01:43:04] volume and then fucking Elking song and credits with photos of she would tells board of all the different places they've been in history and it's a tiny thing but talking about fucking integrity as a director

[01:43:20] Bayne of my existence huge pet peeve movies with badly photoshopped photos right yes where you're trying to place an actor in an earlier moment and it's a horribly photoshopped or like green screen photo or clearly just a photo from that actors personal collection that they put in a frame because they can't take the time to make a good fake photo and this is really exquisitely well done putting them into historical photos

[01:43:45] and subtly like in the background but really well integrated you see them just in all these different wars and different situations hiding in the background and I get fucking amped the old guard rules I want to see more adventures from them I want them to justify to me why life is still worth living existential action movies for the win

[01:44:06] got a fucking John Wick thing it's my John Wick thing those movies are good because they're about trying to come up with a reason to stay alive in a bad world in a bad world Griffin do you have a Gina Prince by foot ranking I do

[01:44:23] my number one is beyond the lights my number two is love and basketball my number three is the old guard my number four is disappearing acts of my number five is the secret life of these I have the same list except I've got basketball on top and beyond the light second but

[01:44:40] I think those are both perfect to right is is is very big and then old guard a very solid third yeah I mean I think we were like dropping our list but both of us are like old guard top five original Netflix movie ever putting it in the tier of shit like the Irish men at Buster Scrux and defy bloods you like

[01:45:04] I'm not going to tell you a horror story more than I do but we're talking that level of actual o tours being given free reign to do whatever they want okra Roma you know like the ones that are real movies this deserves to be viewed alongside those rather than alongside extraction

[01:45:25] it's gonna I'm excited for man I hope man slapped what's main kid man next fincher movie David Fincher okay about the screenwriter citizen came

[01:45:38] right baby movie yeah shut up hey Tom Burke Tom Burke is playing Orson Welles Ben how easily you scoff at screenwriter movies mink might have a scene where he's trying to write in the bathtub I guess you're right

[01:45:54] no you can't Fincher knows he can't go near bathtubs for this movie he can't know he knows that's that's that's right no that's like that's like doing you know like it's like how

[01:46:08] 2001 right there's stuff like if you're making a space movie you can't imitate I am trying to write in the steam bath you can't get to trumbo you can't do trumbo stuff I am trying to write on the bidet hold some very

[01:46:22] that's fine that's okay that'd be okay you have to I love this movie I think it's great and I missed movies and theaters I wish I got to see this in theaters both of us have talked about that about how awesome this movie would be with a crowd

[01:46:38] yes there's just a few good moments of like where you can you know feel like a crowd would have a big old reaction but also those moments of quiet of of pausing of depth would register even harder in a theater you know because I think she's very deliberate about her uses of like silence

[01:47:01] genus movies all have a lot of very very subtly edited background atmosphere noise and for as much as she's good at using music and films both score and soundtrack she'll have these moments where it's just silence between characters and she plays up really heavily on the mix

[01:47:20] the ambient noise of their environment if you watch any of these movies with subtitles which I almost always watch movies with closed captioning so I can try to pay more attention to them

[01:47:30] it's clear how deliberate is because the closed captioning always says like sound of honking in the street you know wind rustling through the leaves things like that she's really into those moments because silence is one of the most effective and underused tools a filmmaker can have in their arsenal these days

[01:47:45] and especially because it is so underused when she deploys it it's kind of striking but it's more striking in a theater when you are noticing everyone in the same room being silent with you while watching the movie whereas with home those moments are like a hushed theater

[01:48:00] you farting or whatever wow fart detectives back again I love Gina I'm glad she's finally seemingly been handed the checkbroke she deserves I hope she gets to make the older guard I'm excited to see this Viola Davis movie I hope she gets to make everything

[01:48:15] I think she's one of our best and and under sung for far too long and as we said Bilga's pieces on her have been phenomenal his review of old which is really and that's good and then his profile the quiet storm is amazing and you should read them

[01:48:29] I will say people have been saying like oh well you know I guess her blank check is coming and like you know but like this is it's a 70 million dollar movie it's a big action movie it was shot all over the globe

[01:48:41] this is off this is one person's vision skydance fucking trusted her like this is unmistakably her movie you feel zero concessions and one thing I wanted to say that she told me that's wild is that you know it's got the score by you know Dustin o'haller and and how she

[01:48:59] and they recorded it in Iceland because she was like I was gonna have to have a digital score because of the quarantine like because oh before we recorded it and I have never used a synthesized score like I've always had orchestral scores

[01:49:14] and so I was really upset about that and then Dustin literally happened to be in Iceland when this all went down and Iceland did not lock down like you know Iceland is dealt that's a much smaller country it's an island all

[01:49:26] yeah so they were able to record it isn't that a weird little detail yeah I love it hey this is a good mini series good major yeah just a nice little quick mini series of someone I'm very happy that we will be able to draw some conversation

[01:49:44] to and already it's been very exciting to just see people talking about Prince bife would more because of this movie yeah we have always been of the contention that she's a filmmaker should be taken very seriously for sure

[01:49:58] and you know we said this but as our podcast shifts and we are in a position where rather than necessarily having to follow the trends of directors were taken seriously and thus covering them in order to bring eyeballs to our podcast your holes rather I should say it is nice to use the ear holes we already have to sort of make around cannon and go like every time we cover a director it's

[01:50:24] us making a little bit of an argument that this person deserves to be taken seriously and some of those people were not really giving them a boost you know right we're not necessarily like doing this show where it's like well these are our favorite directors but certainly they are all directors who have had some impact and or you know made

[01:50:45] some sort of you know body of work that is fascinating and like worth considering as a body but we're also not at this point doing a show where it's like these are the 15 most legendary filmmakers of all time you know it's one of the reasons when people go like are you guys perverse

[01:51:02] with some of these director choices like why would you choose to do another romantic comedy person or do a lead before you've done fincher or Kubrick or whatever and it's like because it's more interesting to have these sort of a tourist conversations with people who aren't already like this thoroughly chewed upon and look when we did Nolan it was great I was resistant to it I thought he was too

[01:51:25] and I end up being fun to talk about it and we'll get to everyone eventually we'll do the show for a thousand years because spoiler alert we're the old guard we can ever die or at least just not for a long time

[01:51:35] yeah but yeah so good mini series I'm glad we got this in before we start now this big kind of run of Zemeckis right

[01:51:47] starting in September we're going right to him we're doing Robert Zemeckis he's gonna run all the way through January he has made many movies he's made all kinds of movies Griffin before we go tell me what it is you want to call the mini series

[01:52:04] I wanted to end the episode by throwing out a couple pitches okay yeah yeah

[01:52:10] so I just want to say it's been a pleasure doing pot and basket cast do we have a nickname for Ben oh I don't know secret life of haws I don't know I have to think about it it could be secret life of Ben's

[01:52:28] yeah with a Z with a Z yeah yeah I mean that's a little well well that's something he he started doing remember exactly and I always like when a nickname can riff on a new nickname that has yet to be riffed on you know what I'm saying

[01:52:43] that a mini series title can reappropriate another nickname from the non mini series category for sure but so let that can at least be the placeholder unless someone pitches us something better but but what are yours

[01:52:57] of mech is come on come on I'm gonna say thank you all for listening and please remember to rate your view subscribe thanks to laymunk are in for our themes on Joe Bonaparte rounds for our artwork and for a Gouda for co producing the show Rachel Jacobs for her editing

[01:53:09] at the end of last week on the show or in the next week on the show and thank you to the audience for taking part in that work and doing this from the bottom and the live broadcast questions then what do I got to hold on for

[01:53:20] well guys I think it would be kind of cool to announce something because we've been waiting to announce it for a little while and this sort of feels like a clean place to do so so I think we should officially say on the record that we have blank check

[01:53:39] This isn't T-public stuff anymore where it's made to order. We're keeping the T-public and the designs up for the time being, but one by one, we're going to start retiring those and moving them over to our own storefront where you're going to have a higher quality merchandise.

[01:53:54] Yep. Made by like an Austin base press. Night owl who were referred to us by our friends at Super Yockey. So if you're familiar with that quality of product, both in terms of quality of print and of fabric, that's the kind of stuff we're working on right now.

[01:54:10] We got comedy point coins. We've got hashtag to two friend hats. And most importantly, we have special fifth anniversary merchandise that was produced for our intended little tour of fifth anniversary shows that did not happen.

[01:54:26] So this is real limited one run only stuff, a very special fifth anniversary. It's tough to make the five designed by our good friend, Joe Bowen. So if you're a real blankie, you might want that stuff in your home. And as always, pod to the future cast.

[01:54:46] Wow. That's what we were building up for. Pod to the future cast part two. Anything else? Part three. I want to pod your cast. I want to put advance in the cast podcast. Who? Who? Who? Who potted podger casp it, you know,

[01:55:07] pot mancing the cast is kind of funny podcast becomes her. Yeah, what power has beneath? What about pod come to cast when? Oh, I mean that is disgusting. That is to pray. Pod contact. No, no, not that one. The podcast lure express. Well, I forgot.

[01:55:30] Of course there is there is a movie with the word cast in it. I forgot that we could always do podcast away. That was the joke I was building up towards. Well, I didn't realize you were building up to a joke. The actual titles podcast away.

[01:55:42] That's my own suggestion. I was going to set it up as a joke, but I know I did the next mini series being called podcast away. Yeah, I think if there's a cast in a title, I think we kind of just have to acknowledge it right like.

[01:55:55] Well, yeah, I mean we do and I had come to that conclusion and was going to set it up in a funny way. Sorry, Jesus. This is what happens when you don't tell me about bit scripting because I like things to be organic.

[01:56:08] I don't want any of this phony baloney scripted bullshit. I just want to say, David, once again, I shouldn't be punished for not wanting to pre-plan bits that are fake because this show is all about versamillitude as best evidence by the time that Ben and I really traveled

[01:56:26] into a podcast within a podcast and went seven layers. Yeah, right of course. No, that was just a dream you had. You don't remember it. It was a real dream. You woke up being like, huh? Huh?

[01:56:41] If someone could have seen us in the studio, Griffin, you and I. Oh my God, David just rolling his eyes so hard. I believe I took pictures of you. We did full physical comedy. We were acting like the room was spinning.

[01:56:54] You were doing the lead for each other. Yeah, what an inception they're like leaning. Yeah, it was good. Yeah.