The Woman King

[00:00:00] 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.

[00:00:22] An evil is coming that threatens our kingdom, our freedom. But we have a podcast they are not prepared for. Okay, good job. Right? I don't know. I don't know. Look, sometimes we cover a movie that does not have an IMDB quotes page.

[00:00:37] Is that this one? This has got a few. This has got some trailer. Look, it's certainly not a thing we're going to harp on to any degree in this episode, but this movie has already been the victim of bad faith online trolls, right?

[00:00:49] And this one has enough quotable cool badass lines in the trailer. Right. And the movie's already a hit. It is the type of film that usually gets a fully submitted, filled out page pretty quickly on IMDB, but it's usually largely a user generated site. Yeah.

[00:01:05] I have to feel like this is some kind of troll. The one quote on the Woman King IMDB quotes page is Nesca. Yeah, Nesca. Relatives characters. It says in brackets, as a company of warriors break out into a song and dance.

[00:01:22] And then the quote is, if you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain, if you're not into yoga. That's not right. Unless, I mean, is that like a, you know, post credit scene I didn't catch maybe? I say through the credits.

[00:01:37] There's a post credit scene with a mid credit cookie with Sheila Atim. I may not have seen that. Yeah. It's just kind of a nice moment. What is it?

[00:01:47] It's one of those things, it's her like at the grave sites of the fallen warriors saying a prayer for them.

[00:01:55] It's one of those things where we're now so conditioned that when something like that happens we expect Lashana's Lynch to come out of the grave, her hand to fucking rise. Woman King 2 baby! Out for revenge! Zombie King!

[00:02:07] Right, it's a thing that fucking Old Guard is obsessed with as well. It's a thing that clearly... Oh yeah, Old Guard had one, right. But no, I'm just saying the Gina thing of like she's very interested in not letting the collateral damage of action sequences just become...

[00:02:23] Be forgotten and just be like, you know, that's fine. They're people, they died. I just didn't know there was a little scene there. I can explain why in a minute. They don't sing the Escape the Pina Colada song though. No, they don't sing that.

[00:02:36] I mean, that's too bad. Do you know that, and we were just talking about this right before we started recording, literally everyone on the internet is exhausting. And I'm going to say pretty close to the top of that list myself. We all should stop it. Introduce our podcast.

[00:02:51] This podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and Da... Wow. This podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David.

[00:03:02] And this podcast is about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear. Sometimes they bounce baby. Now today is a one-off episode.

[00:03:16] Returning to a filmmaker we've covered in the past. Our final in a series of new films we've been covering. We got three new movies in a row. A Miller. George Miller, Robert Zemeckis. Zemeckis. Yes. And a Prince Bythewood. Gina Prince Bythewood.

[00:03:32] When we did Gina on this show, summer of 2020? Summer of 2020. Correct. Not a great time to be a person. Tough time. Was it in between Miller and Zemeckis in fact? It's funny that they're all together again. Or was there Efron in there too?

[00:03:48] It's hard to remember anything anymore. I think it was Miller, Efron, Bythewood, Zemeckis. Yeah, that sounds right. Yes, correct. If only they discovered a long lost Nora Efron film to fill out this month. But yes, we were at a place five years into doing the podcast

[00:04:08] where we were sort of taking stock of what the show has become. And to a certain degree, she is a filmmaker that both you and I really love. And not only that, have sort of shared our love for. We've talked about seeing Beyond the Lights together

[00:04:26] and that was a very key early moment in our friendship. That's a good point. And all that sort of shit. And it was the one time we sort of went like, can we sort of change the thrust of the show and who we cover?

[00:04:35] And that we're essentially picking someone who is right now maybe starting to get issued checks. Can we sort of try to use the fact that people take our show somewhat seriously or at least give it some weight to push a filmmaker

[00:04:51] who is often not discussed in these terms into a conversation and to try to wreck him with a body of work. And that was for a very big budget Netflix movie that was apparently watched by eight billion people. A totally real number.

[00:05:05] Forever is Harder Than It Looks, in the old guard. Yeah, I think we just correctly anticipated that she did have her biggest project coming up. It did feel that way. We were sort of getting ahead of the thing, which we don't usually do.

[00:05:18] It was also she had been in conversation for like doing one of the fucking Spider-Man spin-off movies for a while. Old Guard was finally going to make the action movie she wanted to make. And then this was almost immediately after Old Guard, this gets announced.

[00:05:31] This was a thing that had been in development for a long time. At one point she was contacted to write and direct it, developing it, but she was doing Black and Silver, which was the Spider-Man movie. Silver and Black, I believe. Booyah.

[00:05:45] And then years later this comes back around to her with a script and an offer to direct. She's not doing the Old Guard sequel, which is coming out sometime next year. Is it filming? They have filmed it. I, in fact, was looking it up yesterday,

[00:05:58] missed the announcement that Henry Golding and Uma Thurman are in it. That's cool. Along with the entire returning cast. Should we do it? People would love that. So Old Guard 2 directed by Victoria Mahoney. Who was, she's a good director.

[00:06:11] She did a movie called Yelling at the Sky with Zoe Kravitz and Gabira Sitube. And then she did a lot of TV. And then she was the second unit director in Rise of Skywalker. Yes. Which was this big deal.

[00:06:21] And it was sort of like a lot of people like McHugh, She did the Fortnite stuff. J.J. Abrams. She did the Fortnite stuff. A lot of big blockbuster filmmakers have for a very long time sort of been boosting her as like this is someone who should get.

[00:06:36] In a way that I read an interview with Prince Waithwood recently where she talked about Rian Johnson being a really big advocate for her. Sort of bringing her in to his process. Sorry, for Victoria Mahoney? No, for Gina. For Gina. Sure, sure, sure.

[00:06:54] When she was doing Old Guard that she consulted him a lot on how to deal with a movie of this size. Here's a stat that I just kind of hadn't clocked. It was in one of the either New York Times piece or Hollywood Reporter piece.

[00:07:05] I was reading as much of the sort of recent Gina interviews around this movie coming out. We're talking about The Woman King today. Her new massive hit film. It is A plus cinema score. People are spontaneously breaking into applause breaks.

[00:07:22] It's a crowd, it has performed above expectations in every way. It's clearly a people's favorite. It performed above expectations. I certainly feel in an upcoming month without a ton of major releases it has a chance to really kind of hold on for a while at the box office.

[00:07:36] Have some nice legs. Which I really hope for. I would love to see her continue working at this scale. But the thing she pointed out in this interview was I might be fudging the numbers a little bit here. Love and Basketball cost like 14 or 15 million dollars I think.

[00:07:50] Then Secret Life of Bees cost 11 million dollars. Disappearing Acts, her TV movie cost 10 million dollars. Beyond the Lights cost 7 million dollars. It's been going down. She made Beyond the Lights for 7. I think we talked about it.

[00:08:06] Especially the scale of that movie actually feeling like it's representing award shows and concert tours and a fucking famous person in a mansion and all this shit. Insane. So she was talking about in her stress leading up to The Old Guard it was like

[00:08:18] I've had a career where my budgets have only shrunk. Which is the opposite of how this usually is supposed to work. And then Old Guard was a 70 million dollar budget. Even with weird Netflix accounting was It was an expensive movie.

[00:08:30] 10 times what she had gotten on her previous film. And beyond that, like you know, multiples beyond her most expensive film which was her first film at that point like 20 years earlier. And then this movie cost 50. It cost 50 but with a lot of COVID difficulties.

[00:08:46] It's smaller than Old Guard, you know? It doesn't feel that much smaller. It doesn't. I do think you can and I say this only in a way to give her credit. They've talked about, they filmed this movie in South Africa. They start filming.

[00:09:02] Three weeks in Omicron hits really fucking hard. Like devastates. Yeah because they started November 21. There was a question of whether the movie would ever resume production. Right because Omicron was there first. Remember it was South Africa was where it started. They were at like ground zero. Yes.

[00:09:18] And it like decimated them. I believe they were shut down for like six weeks. She was not sure if the movie would ever come back. And when it did come back, they pretty much had to change every single aspect of how they made the film.

[00:09:31] Like in her mind she was going to have twice as many extras in every scene. Right. Which is what you expect from this kind of movie. Big Lawrence of Arabia style movie. The crew. How many people are allowed on a set at any point in time changed dramatically.

[00:09:47] And I do think in ways that I give her credit for, you can sense at certain moments like she is being very smart about how to shoot and cover this to work around. And she even talked about like her choreography had to change.

[00:10:02] They did months of training with everyone before the film but then it becomes a lot more deliberate in terms of what you're allowed to call someone to do. It does feel like big expensive movie. It does. Feels big right? Yeah.

[00:10:17] It's going for old school Hollywood epic I feel like. You know like a big sort of heroic action war epic of the golden age of Hollywood. Based around a historical figure. The movie, I mean look it's really in dialogue with 1990 to 2000. Braveheart you're thinking. Dances with Wolves.

[00:10:36] Dances with Wolves right. Ending with Gladiator I would argue. I feel like there's another big one I'm forgetting but there's certainly a bunch of them in that run. Braveheart is the movie this most reminded me of. Yes. And she has said huge inspiration for me.

[00:10:50] Last of the Mohicans I guess. That's the other one I was thinking of. Thank you. And then there's also movies you're forgetting like Legends of the Fall. You know movies that are not as good. I was just citing those as the big boys. I know but that.

[00:11:02] That was a real era. That's what I'm saying. Legends of the Fall is not a good movie but it has all the same ingredients of like big landscapes, sort of movie stars, a bit of everything. Romance, drama, family. They don't make as many of those kinds of movies.

[00:11:20] Was sort of the Troy Kingdom of Heaven thing. That's the sort of post-Gladiator run. We had too much swords and sandals. It shifts a little and it becomes a little muddy. I love that you're skimming those. Yeah, I'm giving you an Altoid.

[00:11:32] Ridley also is never able to hit it again even though he tries to. Maybe he made Robin Hood and said, oh I took too many. You do Exodus Kingdom of Heaven Robin Hood are like the three times he tried to.

[00:11:42] Exodus is the one where it's like this is done. Well you know he has another one coming up. Which is? Napoleon. A Patriot. Sure, that's 2000. That's end of the run. But Ben also says to me when we're walking in a movie, he's like it's like Spartacus.

[00:11:58] And I'm like right. And we talked about this in our Spartacus episode. Pretty much up until the year 2000, this was the biggest kind of movie Hollywood could make. What a better age. Right? It was just like you put movie stars along with really fucking skilled technical actors

[00:12:16] in giant landscapes and period authenticity and you tell these stories that as you said it's romance, it's drama, it's action. But also the special effect is scale. It's crowds. It's people charging at each other on a field. It's not energy beams and infinity stones. It's a scope.

[00:12:38] I just feel like I'm a nerd who wished on a rabbit's foot and then I got cursed with Marvel. We've talked about this so many times. I even like these things and I think they should stop.

[00:12:46] The whole fucking pop culture landscape is now catered towards me and I hate it. I hate it and it makes me hate myself more in return. It's very catered towards 16 year old me as well. Why are you listening to him? He was stupid.

[00:12:57] That guy was a fucking idiot. He didn't know how good he at it. I can't characters joke around all the time. Now I'm like, can we be serious for a minute? Stop fucking looking at the camera. We just constantly feel like Sully saying, can we get serious?

[00:13:09] Can we get serious? No, it's a nightmare. Look, it's the line in Ghost World where Thor Burst says to Steve Buscemi, don't you want to meet a woman your age who shares your interests? And he goes, I hate my interests.

[00:13:21] And the difference is what if every one of that guy's interests were dominating culture? You know, at least he's into like niche jazz 45s. He's so weird. He's a cutie. Great performance. But yes, it is a thing we are not going to talk about this much, but obviously,

[00:13:39] because I want to in fact move past this so we can just start talking about what the film is rather than what it isn't. Right. But there has been some of discourse over the historical accuracy of this film,

[00:13:50] which is like this film I do not think presents itself in any way as any sort of docudrama. It is very much in the fashion of movies we're talking about that are essentially creating romantic stories within a framework of history. It doesn't have any, I couldn't remember this.

[00:14:06] It doesn't have any kind of sort of like based on true events, you know, opening title card. There's something in the trailer. Trailers don't count. Obviously this is based in history. It's not like it's completely made up.

[00:14:18] Well, it is basically, I believe from my research and I say this as, you know, pointedly, I am not going to try to present myself as someone who, because I read two Wikipedia entries and three think pieces, has a complete understanding of this thing.

[00:14:32] Whereas I feel some people are doing that right now. But from my gathering, Boyega is pretty much the only character in this film who is a real person. Correct. He is the only character who is based in, and that is almost troublesome for the movie

[00:14:45] because the guy who's playing King Gezo never decided to end slavery fully in his kingdom. They did close, I believe at one point they did actually close the port, but there was still slavery going on in the kingdom and other places and all that.

[00:15:01] People think he more did it because he was pressuring. You know, like there's things like that where it's like, it's the triumphant end of this movie that is the most sort of like imagined or romanticized part of the story.

[00:15:14] And that is, you know, that is worthy of interrogation by people who know what they're talking about. Which we do not and will not pretend to do. But there's things you can read and I've been reading and you've been reading and that's all fine.

[00:15:26] And people will read about, you know, but like, but then of course there's also a more bad faith, you know, contingent who we don't need to. No, no, it's one of those things, you know, that makes talking about the fucking pop culture in any way.

[00:15:42] I just want to call out the piece that I read that I thought was really good was Julian Lucas in The New Yorker, wrote a piece called Sisterhood and Slavery and the Woman King,

[00:15:51] which if you want a pretty measured, intelligent, well-researched sort of take on where this film relates to history, that is one I recommend that I will not even try to summarize.

[00:16:02] But, you know, we're constantly combating this thing in being guys who fucking talk about a popular culture for a living that so often the worst people on the internet weaponize things in bad faith

[00:16:18] to a point where it becomes almost impossible to have a reasoned conversation about any of the issues with an actual thing because they are adding Pina Colada song lyrics to an IMDb page. The cornerstone of this for me is this notion that is getting perpetuated

[00:16:34] and then we're closing the fucking book on this, that this movie is like taking a complicated history and whitewashing it into just pure escapist aspirational storytelling, which I do not think it is. I think this is a complicated movie.

[00:16:50] I think she is telling a fictional story within a framework of a real societal, you know, sort of thing that happened, but not presenting it as a retelling of history. And a lot of people seem to be comparing the trailer of this movie to a Wikipedia page

[00:17:10] and going, those two things don't resemble each other. To which I want to say, yeah, what fucking trailers have you seen that resemble the movies? Let's not worry about the trailer. Because this movie is, I think, among many other things,

[00:17:22] and I think a lot of what we want to talk about here is where it fits into the canon of Gina Prince-Bythewood's work because one of the reasons why I think you and I are such big fans of hers

[00:17:34] and wanted to cover her in her movies on the show because people don't sort of talk about her films in this way, she has that thing that pretty much all great filmmakers have

[00:17:44] where it's like to some degree they're telling variations on the same story over and over and over again. Or they have their specific fascinations. Yeah, right. And things that are intrinsically personal, whether she's developing the material herself or it's something that's coming to her,

[00:17:59] the stories that she's connecting with and she's talked a lot about in the gaps where she wasn't making films it was because there wasn't anything she wanted to make. Or rather, she wasn't going to be allowed to make the thing the way she wanted to.

[00:18:09] She didn't want to do shitty things. Dispassionate work or whatever. And this movie is so rife with all the concerns that have been explored in all of her films, I would say, and also the sort of strengths as a technical filmmaker that she's been developing.

[00:18:23] But so much of her work is about... I think she is as defined by being adopted as Spielberg is by his parents' divorce and the abandonment of his father. Her movies are so much about relationships to parents, chosen families versus given families.

[00:18:42] That's a huge fucking thing in her work. And also, you know, and sometimes it's a literal thing and sometimes it's more figurative thing of people being expected to fit into one space and wanting to exist in a different space.

[00:18:57] Not just the space of what they want to do, but the community they want to exist in, the work they want to do, you know? Trying to find the place that maybe you were told you could not go into.

[00:19:08] And to that extent, this movie's whole dialogue about slavery I think is really invested in the moral gray area of... And it's another thing of just like, is this movie sanitizing how brutal this army was? I don't think they are.

[00:19:26] I think they are portrayed as being fairly scary in a lot of ways. This is a film about a barbaric time on Earth, right? But I think a big part of this film is like... Women at this moment in this culture have the choice to either become property

[00:19:47] through marriage at the very least, or essentially turn yourself into a weapon in order to have your own agency. The only pathway to autonomy is to hone yourself into a ruthless blade. Not just that, but also, you know, and you have to lock yourself away.

[00:20:05] Not from everyone, but from society. People can't look at you. You only have your sisters, warriors, and all that. Right. Which, look, there's a through line there between the sonolatant characters' struggle to find herself a career as an athlete.

[00:20:23] You know, certainly the old guard is very much about this. And I would even say the Beyond the Lights is so much about that... Her needing to create this pop culture figure, this sort of other person she can become

[00:20:37] in order to have a key to life, you know? That becomes oppressive to her. Let's talk about... Let me... Let's... Woman King. It's produced by Maria Bello. We all know her. Season 4 VR. That Prime Suspect remake where she had the hat.

[00:20:55] We talk about that a lot, the hat, of course. The cooler. History of violence, which she's actually absolutely incredible in. The mummy, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which is pretty much dog shit. That's a tough one. That's a tough beat. Coyote Ugly! Good. Generally a fan of hers.

[00:21:08] I like Maria Bello a lot. And it's this strange story of... She learned about the... The Agoge. When she was in Benin, which is the country that is part of... The Kingdom of Dahomey is now... It encompasses what was part of the Kingdom of Dahomey.

[00:21:27] And most of what we know about the Agoge is essentially what exists in folklore, passed down stories. There were some European trader types who observed them. But there was not a lot of tangible, fact-based accounting on them. But she just becomes kind of obsessed with...

[00:21:45] How does this exist? How has no one made a movie about this? And she's giving Viola Davis an award at some LA event at the Skirball Center. And pitches her on stage in front of the crowd. I know this is annoying, but why have you?

[00:22:02] I recently found out about this thing. There was this army in Africa. Imagine Viola Davis in this kind of movie. And apparently everyone's like, yeah! I might be annoyed, but it seems that Viola Davis was intrigued. It's like 2013, I think? 2015. So it's coming off The Help?

[00:22:21] Let's see. That's a good question. Isn't The Help more like 2013? Yeah, I'm just wondering what that... The Help is 2011. So 2015... Blackout. Hey. That's good. But it's a year before Viola wins an Oscar. Fences is 2016. So Viola Davis is a major, serious, well-respected actress. But maybe it's post-Fences.

[00:22:51] Because it's like Widows and this. And to a lesser extent, the Suicide Squad movies are like, Oh, Viola Davis is like your movie star lead. And just forgetting the other thing, the big thing in between is how to get away with murder.

[00:23:07] Which is, that's 2014. So I guess that was already on. That was finally someone has framed her as a true leading woman. She's bankable. She's talked a lot about, in a completely fair, just way, that she still is not thought of on the tier of someone like Meryl Streep.

[00:23:27] Which obviously Meryl Streep had a longer career, won more Oscars, whatever. But there is that thing where I feel very often Viola Davis is kind of taken for granted as much as she is viewed as national treasure. And also watching this movie, I kept on thinking about,

[00:23:40] She is basically one of the most famous actors in America. Yes, she's a very, very famous actor and person. She's been nominated for so many Oscars. She's won the Emmy. She's won the fucking Tony. But you're also just like, she's been in so many things.

[00:23:54] Everyone pretty much knows her and likes her. No one argues like, Viola Davis is underrated. She just feels consummate. Like everyone's on board with Viola Davis. She has the Emmy. It's just one of these things where her doing a movie like this. She's in Black Adam?

[00:24:12] What the hell? It's Maddie Waller again. Which look, she is really good in those. I really like her in the Suicide Squad movies. I just am annoyed about her. And I agree. And I almost feel like that's the thing that finally gives her the cachet

[00:24:28] to make this movie along with a couple other phenomenons we'll talk about in a sec. A little bit, but I think Widows 2. Anyway, so SCX is the first place they go, which sort of makes sense at that time. Because is Kathy Schulman running? Correct.

[00:24:42] Kathy Schulman who produced Crash, and so won a weird Oscar, is running STX at that moment in time. Which is sort of a mid-major studio where maybe you could go and say like, hey I have a movie that's not based on a superhero

[00:24:54] or not based on some franchise but like, you know, a mid-sized movie. At that moment they were trying to be the smaller studio. And it's truly just kind of like Bello and Viola going, we don't have a script. Right, we just have this idea.

[00:25:08] There should be a movie set in this period, in this world, about this army. Everyone turns it down. SCX offers them $5 million, which is obviously not very much money to make a movie this size. Everyone's thing is you can do that as like an indie drama.

[00:25:21] There's no way this is commercial enough to be an epic on the scale you're talking about. You can't do this as an action film. Davis mentioned this on, I went to the world premiere. Yeah, bullshit. Ben is shaking his head.

[00:25:32] I went to the world premiere of this film, not gonna brag, but I was at the world premiere in Toronto. And Davis mentioned this when she was introducing the movie. She talks about a lot how she has very dark skin

[00:25:44] and how she feels like that's made it especially hard for her to be a movie star. And she says in press, studios would be like if you cast lighter skinned celebrities, things like that. They wanted whatever Hollywood may perceive as more box office palatable actresses.

[00:26:04] Prince Bythewood is approached, but she's busy on Silver and Black. She says when you have a script, come back to me. I can't write this right now. Obviously, Silver and Black never came to fruition. Then they meet with Hannah Min-

[00:26:17] Well, because they had to make way for Morbius. Yeah. I mean, three sides. Then they meet with Tristar and Nicole Brown, who I think is the person who, she was on stage at TIFF and she's like the sort of biggest booster of this movie.

[00:26:36] And the success of Black Panther. This is the biggest thing. Which is the biggest thing they have. Because the Dora Milaje are very much based on, yes. On this history. And so I guess that's enough. They get the $50 million budget.

[00:26:56] It finally becomes a thing where Black Panther is so beloved and the Dora Milaje stuff is so beloved that the idea of getting to make this movie for $50 million with an Oscar star feels like a pretty safe bet.

[00:27:08] You watch the trailer and it's very much sort of advertising itself as almost like, this is the real Black Panther. There was that vibe. The trailer is a lot more conventional than this movie is, I would argue. Or at least a lot more modern.

[00:27:22] Yeah, the movie is conventional in ways I love. In an old Hollywood way. It's sort of framing it as more of a modern- Yeah, sure. And as you say, shot in South Africa, plagued by COVID problems. Dana Stevens, who took this screenwriter.

[00:27:38] Not Dana Stevens, friend of the show, past and future guest, but Dana Stevens, friend of the show, screenwriter behind For Love of Game. For Love of the Game and what else has she done? City of Angels. A weird filmography.

[00:27:52] It is a weird filmography, but she's also, I think, one of those people who's just kind of around. Yeah. She's sort of just a vet. But they come to her- She was married to Michael Apted. Oh really? I don't know if I knew that.

[00:28:05] They come back to Gina with that script. Gina talks about how she goes in for her pitch meeting and cries during it and was like, I'm ready to make my fucking epic. Right. If I saw someone who cared that much about what they were doing-

[00:28:16] Oh, she got emotional during the meeting? Yeah. And was like, A, that she cared that much. B, that she- What Viola Davis recognized as the strength required to be that vulnerable in a meeting like that, where that is not usually valued.

[00:28:31] And she was like, I'd seen The Old Guard. Sure. And I could see that she was ready and that she had the passion behind it. She has some action movie chops here. And they, you know, every time we talked about Gina,

[00:28:45] down to her really being on Sonali Ethan's ass about being good at basketball for love and basketball. It's like everyone's got to do 90 minutes of weight training every day, three and a half hours of fight training every day. They all had to learn all this stuff.

[00:29:00] This is a movie that is very- Talking about the other through lines throughout her career. I was saying to Ben, you can very much tell this is an action movie made by an athlete in the same way you can tell the difference

[00:29:13] when a musical is directed by a choreographer. Right, right, right. This is someone who actually understands how the body works, who understands movement, you know? Is thinking about how they themselves would do it and is coaching her actors and filming and cutting it from that perspective.

[00:29:30] And speaking of that, it's one of those things where you're like, everyone in this film is clearly doing this fighting, right? As much as I think a lot of the action is- They did a lot of their own stunts and all that. It's more edited than Old Guard,

[00:29:42] but I think that was because of practical realities. Sure, but the action is really cool. You're not seeing stunt doubles. Even if they're more pieces, you're seeing their faces in almost every shot. But they are not conventionally ripped in a superhero way. I was saying this to Ben.

[00:29:58] We're so conditioned to the idea of jacked people on screen looking jacked in this very sculptural way that is not actually very practical. The rock does not move very well. No, it's very big. It's the post-Stallone, Schwarzenegger thing that now has gone out of control

[00:30:17] where every superhero has to have their superhero diet and build an aesthetic body that is not really athletic as much as it is just all these weird things that people dehydrating themselves so the veins pop. That's what you were saying. The veins thing is so disturbing to me.

[00:30:33] And this is a movie where it's like, oh, these people are built like Olympic athletes. Their body is trained for these specific purposes. It is not like performative muscles. There's also different body types. There's really very different body types for different fighting styles. It's nice to see.

[00:30:52] It's not everyone's just jacked and uniform. But you're never questioning that these people can cause this damage. Yeah. The Woman King. I saw it in Toronto. At the Roy Thompson Hall. Do you want to save your story of your Toronto Airbnb

[00:31:06] because you've pinned that you want to talk about that. Airbnb story can go later or can even go on my channel. We'll see about the Airbnb story. But I did attend the premiere of this movie. It was at the Roy Thompson Hall, which is this gigantic concert hall.

[00:31:18] It's honestly a terrible place to see a movie. Congrats. You have to go see movies at this place sometimes if you're going to the galas. And usually when you're going to a premiere, the director will come out and everyone's kind of like, all right,

[00:31:32] but you know, you got to clap. Especially people like press like me who have done a lot of movies. You're like, let's make this quick. And so you always appreciate what it's like, but they'll come out, they'll usually introduce the cast

[00:31:44] and then they'll say like, and we'll talk later. You know, we'll do a Q&A after something like that. And you're like, great. Gina comes out, God bless her. She brings out the whole cast. I mean, who obviously all look incredible.

[00:31:56] I mean, imagine the cast of this movie basically just in like ball gowns. They all look fucking insane. But then she's like, I'm like, oh my God, I have a dinner reservation. But she starts shouting out the crew of this movie. Yeah. Pauly Morgan, the GP, right?

[00:32:11] Terrence Blanchard. By the way, I was sitting next to all of them because I was like, that's where I was. So that was the costume designer. Terrence Blanchard is best known as Spike Lee's composer. He's a jazz musician.

[00:32:23] But in film, I'm saying, that's the bulk of his body. Costume designer, editor. Almost everyone a black woman, which is pretty unusual. And she was not like putting a fine point on that or anything, but it was very obvious as she's shouting everyone out. You're like, God damn.

[00:32:39] Like this is a movie mostly made by women. You know, they all seem to really love each other. There was a lot of love in the room. It was a lot of, you know, which everyone's always very happy at these premieres,

[00:32:49] except for the Lucy in the Sky premiere. One of the most insane things I ever witnessed where Noah Hawley came out and was like, look, they're not all good. And then Jon Hamm was like clapping him on the back

[00:32:59] and was like, it'll be okay, but I'm not going to do it. And then I was like, hey, buddy, we were like, that's your intro? I bet Griffin's going to like it, but we'll be too embarrassed to ever mount a defense. But usually people,

[00:33:11] but it was like a really good atmosphere and it was really, and then she let Viola talk. I'm not let, but then she's like, Viola, do you want to send Viola talk about this? Viola Davis who is an incredible public speaker.

[00:33:23] A very impressive sort of weighty speech about, you know, how she was like- I wish any politician was able to inspire this much. Like, you know, as a little girl, she was put down and she was never, you know, like all this stuff.

[00:33:35] So everyone's really jacked up by the time the movie starts. Then the movie starts with like the woman King and then they come out of the fucking grass and start just like chopping people up. And like everyone was just going ballistic. Right. So I'm just saying,

[00:33:49] I saw this movie in a very positive atmosphere. Yeah. And so I walked out of it like very thinking like that was great. Sure. But also thinking like, God, like does that play as well? You know, a fucking AMC on a Tuesday afternoon. Like, you know,

[00:34:07] because it's such a big sort of brassy crowd pleasing movie. Yeah. And then I've just been so thrilled that like that does seem to be the reaction. Just generally like the A plus cinema score. Like multiple people I know have seen it with packed houses

[00:34:21] where people were kind of like, you know, cheering and clapping. Simra Gao, friend of the show, Passing Future Guest texted me because I got a lot of texts from like friends of the show and blankies and we're like, I'm going to see it opening weekend.

[00:34:35] And we're kind of like amped. You know, you listen to our show. You spend a fucking month or so talking, living with the director. You start to get personally invested and you get excited when you have a fucking win. Right. And Regal texted me.

[00:34:51] I saw a half empty afternoon screening and it got four applause breaks. Which basically, look, this movie did well. There are more crowded screens where I'm hearing stories like that. We saw an afternoon showing and people were so pretty into it.

[00:35:05] I kept on looking at the only other people who were in our row were like two older women who were pumping their fists at multiple moments. People are really loving this thing. It got an A plus cinema score. Only one other movie got it this year.

[00:35:21] What's the other one? Top Gun. It happens like twice a year, basically. Because that means that everyone walking out of the theater is like A plus, A plus. It means that everyone walking out of the theater is like A plus. It's a fun movie. I personally think,

[00:35:39] I know this is a boring note, but there's just a plot that I could lift right out of it. It would make the Looney movie leaner and meaner and I'd be happy about it. The sort of half romance with the Portuguese boys. I would just lift it out.

[00:35:53] But I also understand the, and I think it would just lift right out. I do too. But I understand the feeling of like this is an old-fashioned epic. It should have this kind of attention to the narrative. I also give them credit for not going full fucking

[00:36:09] John Smith Pocahontas with it. Oh sure. It certainly could have been more detrimental to the movie. Right. It feels like a pretty contained thing that is more used as an exploration of ideas and to be able to check off some of those boxes.

[00:36:23] The thing I was not prepared for is how much of this movie is, look we're getting into spoilers in this episode, but how much of it really comes into the mother-daughter relationship. Which is really the emotional cracks of the movie. That's the big emotion of the movie.

[00:36:37] The other thing I was kind of surprised by is like this is kind of Viola Davis' Sean Connery performance. I like this. This movie is more of an ensemble than I was prepared for it to be. Me too. I was sort of having the widow's reaction,

[00:36:55] which I love that movie, but I was like huh once again she's given herself this very locked down lead in quotes, but she's surrounded by an ensemble that is popping. Yes. And she's almost given herself a less rewarding role. She rules in this movie.

[00:37:09] But she's really good at it. But even with widows she is more the narrative spine of the thing even though she's allowing everyone else to be more colorful than she is. In widows she's really locked down. That's like a really contained, this is different.

[00:37:25] This is like really kind of, the narrative jumps between the four of them. Right. LaShonna Lynch and Thuzam Dadu, who is the, she's using the Underground Railroad. This is her first movie ever. Yeah I guess so.

[00:37:41] She's on a lot of TV but I guess it's her first movie. Yes. Which is wild. But it really is the four of them and sort of them in different two person configurations. Little bit. And then Boyega obviously as this sort of, character they have to deal with.

[00:37:57] Yeah the Portuguese guy as a side character. Right. But him sitting, so I'm in box B at the Roy Thompson Hall if anyone wants to look at the Roy Thompson Hall I'm in box B so I'm sitting with the crew mostly.

[00:38:09] I'm sitting with Shirley Lee for end of the show as well. Shout out. But then in box C, the next box over is Gina and the actresses. Sure. And I was actually sitting next to Gina. We were across an aisle. So I kept watching her watch the movie

[00:38:25] because if you're sitting next to a director. You want to see. I want to see because obviously she's seen it. She's seen the audience. It's like watching a parent watch their kid at a school recital. Right. Is she laughing at the laugh moments.

[00:38:39] And she was just locked in but not expressive. It was interesting. But it was just funny. Hero surrounded by these absolutely gorgeous black women who were all looking around and he was just like, Hi. Rafe Fiennes' nephew? He's certainly a Fiennes. He is, yes,

[00:38:59] nephew to both Rafe and Joseph Fiennes. And son of Martha Fiennes, who is a director. Yeah. It's that Connery thing, especially like the last 10, 15 years of his career. You know, I'd say sort of untouchables as the inflection point where it's just like I will lend the star power,

[00:39:21] the gravitas, the genre credibility to this thing. But I'm in my 50s or over at this point. Right. And you can build an ensemble around me and I'm essentially like legitimizing other actors by putting them in my orbit. You know? Yeah.

[00:39:41] Not that these actors need to be legitimized, but you know what I'm saying? Like this movie immediately makes all three of them far more into movie stars than they were before. LaShonna Lynch, who's one of these bizarre cases of like I was talking about with Ben,

[00:39:55] someone who sort of had this like incredible reputation in theater and then immediately starts getting thrown into blockbusters because everyone's betting on this person really big. A little bit. So it's tough, tough, or not tough, but a lot of pressure. This is definitely the movie where I'm like,

[00:40:11] Oh, I get it. She's so good in this movie. This is like the part. She's just incredible. She does have the most fun role. She's the fun one. Yeah, she is. Because obviously Nisga'a is the leader, the advice giver, and then Nawi is the young one

[00:40:31] who's the protagonist of the movie. Kind of the audience. You know, Amenza, who is the Sheila Ateem character and that actress is wonderful and I'm loving that she's everywhere all of a sudden. Two shots in Pinocchio? Did you catch her in there?

[00:40:47] She's obviously in Doctor Strange for five minutes. She gets a lot of close-up reaction shots in Doctor Strange. She does. Because she's such a striking actress. Who the fuck is this person? Yes, there's the fucking green Minotaur who's also all over the merchandise for Doctor Strange

[00:41:01] and I've heard from a lot of people that there were entire plot lines with the two of them that were cut out, I believe. That makes sense. She has weirdly high billing in the movie. Sheila Ateem is just a really, really accomplished British theatre actor

[00:41:15] Isn't that Lashana Lynch zone as well? Hollywood has just discovered. Disney's just throwing everything at her. What a fucking good showcase for... Lashana? For both of them. But Sheila Ateem playing the wise counsellor, the right-hand woman. The cool saucer under the hot coffee.

[00:41:33] She's sort of the one you... And then, you know, Izogi is the fun one. She's the whatever. She's kind of badass. She's a fucking badass. She's the only person who seems to get enjoyment out of her life, you know? Yeah. Sheila Ateem is such a functionary

[00:41:51] and as you said, the Valedevez character is so clamped down the entire film and as the movie goes on we start revealing her literal and emotional side. Her emotional scars, right? But when she starts out the movie it is like that opening shot

[00:42:07] where she rides out of the grass. It's the thing. It's why I think Suicide Squad is kind of the guarantor that allows her to do this not just because Valedevez wasn't someone that was maybe being thought of in an action movie context before doing fucking DC movies

[00:42:23] even though her character is not the action character but the other thing is the thing that is impressive about her is that she's not on that fucking sociopath scare That stuff is cool when she goes around shooting people terrifying woman in the world.

[00:42:39] The other thing with her in those movies is that she somehow fits into the silliness of them without being silly and it's sort of crucial for that character to not be silly because obviously in superhero movies everyone's always like, hey you better go get Hawkman.

[00:42:57] Hawkman, am I right? What is he a Hawkman? I don't think he's a Hawkman. There's just Hawks and men. But she never does that. She's very serious. She talks about all this stuff seriously. I don't know if Amanda Waller says Enchantress has breached sector three or whatever

[00:43:17] but she can say that and you're not just like oh my god this is so embarrassing You're like yeah, Enchantress I guess has breached sector three. This is part of her big you should pay me as much as Meryl Streep monologue

[00:43:31] One of the things that doesn't feel like a brag I went to Juilliard I am such a technically competent actor I believe I have proven myself in every genre in every size role It's one of those things that doesn't feel like woohoo know your value shit

[00:43:49] it's just an actual honest account of just like here are the tangible results of my career and I'm still not considered in this realm not being able to get a movie like Woman King Finance for so long

[00:44:01] It is that thing where when she rises out of the grass you're just like oh she knows how to very subtly make herself the most intimidating person on the planet Her eyes say so much Intense glare She has some of the most expressive eyes

[00:44:17] of any actor working today but the thing that's incredible about her is that it's entirely behind the eyes Like she does not actually emote with her eyes in a performative way It's truly just all back there I've said this before because I love it

[00:44:35] She talks about in interviews how her entire approach as an actor is that she wants to be like a cat I think I remember this If you study a cat there's nothing more compelling than watching a cat and trying to figure out what they're thinking

[00:44:51] and why they're doing what they're doing because cats are really inscrutable as opposed to a lot of animals like dogs that are more expressive and emotionally needy She's citing David Mamet If you're looking at an actor on stage with a cat, who are you going to look at?

[00:45:07] The actor or the cat? Because the cat is just being a cat She's expanded on this more She talks about how she literally studies cats Rather than feeling like you're acting Just being an entirely natural performer I think the expressiveness of her eyes is that whole thing

[00:45:24] You watch her Her big breakout is Doubt where she has this five minute demolition Doubt is where she gets her first Oscar nomination Obviously the first thing I noticed her in is Solaris Soderbergh and Clooney were big boosters of hers for years

[00:45:43] She talks about how they pretty much gave her a career She's in three Soderbergh movies before Solaris which is Out of Sight, Traffic, and Ocean's Eleven but she has 12 roles in all of them Beginning of Ocean's Eleven she's the parole officer voice over

[00:45:55] She's a social worker in Traffic She's in like one scene out of it I believe Clooney paid for her wedding Hell yeah They were the two people who really were just like you should be a much bigger movie star we're going to keep you using that

[00:46:09] And then in 2002 she has these three roles She's really really good in Far From Heaven It's another fairly small role but it is an incredibly impressive performance She's in Antoine Fisher which is like a flawed movie but she had a really big part I mean acting wise

[00:46:25] Solaris is one of my favorite movies of all time I think of performing in it It's still like my favorite pilot I think she's so incredible in that movie But it's a huge flop That is probably her big calling card for like look here I am

[00:46:39] I'm all over this movie blah blah blah but then it is She's not in another I think she starts to do more TV and stuff but her next credit is Get Rich or Die Trying She's grandma I have not seen that I remember I remember the movie itself

[00:46:57] The name Get Rich or Die Trying She's a small part in Syriana Again that feels like the Soderbergh Clooney universe The Architect? What the hell is The Architect? I could not tell you Doesn't matter, not a good movie She's apparently a small part in World Trade Center

[00:47:13] She played a lot of cops She's played a lot of detectives I played enough cops, nurses social workers This was how she was paying her rent for a long time and occasionally on a good project but slowly she was getting better but slowly she was getting better

[00:47:29] but slowly she was getting better but slowly she was getting better The other thing I am forgetting is that she did win a Tony for King Hedley II and that was in 2001 That was a featured actress Tony She's in the zone where she's very much an actor's actor

[00:47:47] and there are all these directors and actors and movie stars who are just like this person's the shit we should get them on set if you can get her for one scene but is not getting the roles Is one of these people

[00:48:01] very often the case where you're just like on stage they can play anything They're taken seriously and given real meat and in film they're often playing these sort of functionary roles Right, but she's always good She's always good Anytime you see her in one of those movies

[00:48:19] before she was a bigger deal you're always like goddamn Violet Davis Constant professional and has a different energy than anyone else in film and that weird sort of like it's that thing that I think very often makes movie stars where you're like this person's holding something back

[00:48:35] In every single performance of hers I do believe there is that quality of just like what is she not telling me There's something elusive about her And she can be funny She can be charming She can be supportive She can be scary She can be whatever

[00:48:53] She can play high status or low status but always feels like she's not showing you and she's really fucking hard And John Patrick Shanley was like you don't understand how good this woman is And then when Oprah sees the movie she not only is like you're right

[00:49:07] but she brings Violet Davis on her show and she's still like if you don't nominate for an Oscar you're fucking insane It's five minutes where she just like destroys the fucking movie in a film with like Amy Adams, Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman

[00:49:23] Yeah well they're all fucking asleep at the shop in that movie And that character is a little difficult I think she's great I know you don't like that movie No it's a horrible movie But that's the one where it's just like Have we Now I'm looking

[00:49:41] No we did Black Cat We did Black Cat and we did Suicide Squad Right, yeah we did Suicide Squad That's why I feel the need to do more Viola Yeah we've never talked about a different Yeah because now we haven't This is sort of the first

[00:49:55] I mean she's No she's not a lead in Black Cat She's a supporting character in that movie This is her first like well she's sort of a lead in Suicide Squad There's shit like Don't Back Down That won't back down That's actually an offensive movie

[00:50:09] I hate that movie Widows obviously one of your favorite movies Widows is amazing, Widows is incredible I think she's incredible in fences I think that movie is wonderful but I love that play and I just love putting those plays on screen

[00:50:23] I really liked, I loved Ma Rainey's Black Bottom honestly which she's amazing in as well but I think what gets her the lead actress nomination sort of puts her into a different position in terms of like story weight what can be carried, the movie's obviously a big hit

[00:50:35] she kind of maybe misses winning the Oscar by like a hair but then also talks about after that movie she was just like I want to really fucking take control over what I'm doing you know like she sort of talked about

[00:50:47] the elements of the help that she thought were counterproductive culturally and just being like I don't need to do stuff strategically anymore in that movie I'm going to do it in that kind of way and I want to use whatever force I can

[00:51:01] to like change the types of stories that people like me get to be the center of because the other thing is she's getting increasingly famous at an age where a lot of actresses get phased out yeah and there's an interview Matt Patches did

[00:51:15] with a friend of the show, Patrick Fuchsia-Gant who passed on Future Guest did with Gina where he talks about at one point let me find the quote Viola saying while they were doing rehearsal she was 56 years old I should be 56 years old in this movie

[00:51:31] I guess she was playing a younger character in the script they weren't dealing with the reality of her being like a very aged warrior and she was like no I want to own my age on screen which is obviously she looks pretty good for 56 oh she does

[00:51:47] I'm not going to look that good when I'm 56 when you see a movie like this I can only hope to look that good when you see a movie like this with a woman over 50 in the lead role it is people who did this when they were young

[00:51:59] and have sort of legendary status within their genre and get to come back and kick ass again it's very rare that at 56 someone's now given the chance to be the lead of an action movie yeah it is and a movie that's really banked and sold on her

[00:52:15] it's not like she's incidentally the main character it's like as we're saying this movie is more of an ensemble than it's advertised as being because they're selling it as a Viola Davis vehicle the trailer, the main poster does have the five of them all billed together looking great

[00:52:33] the trailer throws her name up twice well this trailer you're obsessed with no I'm just saying she loves this trailer they're aware that it's just like oh Viola Davis is yeah big ass name The Woman King set in the 1820s in Dahomey which is in West Africa

[00:52:53] now part of Minion can we shout out specifically on the map it's like kind of Western Africa but I guess next to Nigeria so you got around there Nigeria, Togo, Ghana the Ivory Coast so it's where it sticks out that hump it's on the southern part of it

[00:53:13] Laniska is the leader of the Agogi is that how you say it? I believe so an all female group of warriors I mispronounce my own name so I'm assuming I'm messing up everyone's entire resume for anything I mispronounce obviously who in history I believe part of the reason

[00:53:35] that there was this warrior fighting force was that these countries were losing so many men in war and to the slave trade and things like that that there was I guess more of an opportunity where they were like we need warriors

[00:53:47] we can think about training women to fight I'll say this too every time we do a proper war movie on this podcast my brain breaks because I'm an idiot and a child but when you watch a movie set in an era like this

[00:54:01] I'm like yes this makes sense I understand in this era if it's literally about we have to protect our fort other people want to invade our fort you have to train people to defend it war is literally like you said this was a more barbaric age

[00:54:17] and I almost wanted to be like Griff we still live in a barbaric age the difference is that when I watch something like Paths of Glory and I'm like the barbarianism I'm like a risk board would it be clever why isn't this a conference call

[00:54:33] whereas in Woman King I don't believe society has means to settle these things other than a bunch of people come to attack your fucking place to steal your stuff and you have to train people to defend the place I get this, I don't like it

[00:54:51] it's not where I live but I get it At the time was a tributary state there was a larger West African country kingdom whatever which is made up of a lot of my Nigeria now and so they are dealing with that

[00:55:07] that is their general enemy in this movie I would say usually they are fighting the Oyo warriors right? Who is the main actor with the earring who is sort of the central he fucking rules he's so good as the villain in this I know truly contemptible

[00:55:27] he's got a fucking look though I believe the character is called Oba and the actor's name is Jimmy Odukoya I don't know him that well let's see he's got a bunch of credits to his name on IMDB but mostly movies I don't recognize

[00:55:45] it is a thing this movie does that I think is actually pretty he's a Nigerian actor and it seems like he mostly works in the Nigerian industry that character poster is good physically imposing but also seething with confidence you know what I mean? and not just evil

[00:56:05] he's not just some guy where you're like this is just an evil guy not that he's a good guy but also that brimming warrior confidence where he's just like I am indestructible in battle he's got the huge fucking earring the horn in his ear that's so cool yeah

[00:56:25] it is a thing that I think a lot of people are going to be astute about that speaks to it having a more complicated view of history than I think some people reduce it to even though it is very much fictional this movie is keyed into

[00:56:45] everyone was just fighting everyone at this time set in the 1820s yes they're all fighting these kingdoms are all at war this is booming in the 1820s sadly England, Portugal, Spain all the major European France all those fuckers are participating in the Atlantic slave trade

[00:57:12] those are the stories that are more often told whether correctly or not but also it's just like domestically within this country there is a slave trade as well and these regions are all fighting each other everyone's just fucking fighting yes sure but they are a tributary state

[00:57:30] they are trying to free themselves from having to pay tribute to the Oyo which is the current relationship between those countries that is the main conflict in this movie Nyniska who's the leader of the homie Amazons Theogogy and Gezo who is the king the new king

[00:57:52] a fairly young ambitious king hot hot king they are like maybe we can actually push back and liberate the kingdom from having to pay money and prisoners to the Oyo that's the main thing they want to do Nyniska on top of that

[00:58:16] is like we really should exit slavery we really should not be selling people I think time's up it's coming for slavery Gezo has this thing where he's like it's only prisoners we capture that's his rationalization of it which I think was the common that's how this all worked

[00:58:34] she's like I think this is going to age really poorly he talks about is it his brother who is the former king who sold his mother my brother was much worse and he was selling our own people it's that scene where he meets the Portuguese guy

[00:58:48] whose mother was a member of the Odomi they're just casually swapping the stories of the slavery they've experienced in their own families right as men it's affected both women and their lives right and also the frame of device of how we meet

[00:59:09] the main young character in this movie is also this thing of her father trying to find someone to sell her off in one way or another there is certainly little independence available to women in this world and when Boyega talks about I'm thinking maybe we pull out

[00:59:25] of the slave thing the argument to him is not only like hey look around you got good shit going do you really want to cut off the tap but be this notion of you want your people to prosper it is this thing that is very much

[00:59:41] humanity basically saying the same without time the same way that we just throw people into the fucking gears of capitalism where it's not only the very people at the top but the people that they're serving basically saying you can't have a luxurious life

[00:59:56] if you throw 30 people into the grinder right if you just sort of turn your head you turn your head and you just go I don't know it's a fucking yeah and she's the thing that is rooted in history is that there was absolutely

[01:00:10] there's two things that are fascinating to me one is that the way the politics of the kingdom is structured where it's like the king is the absolute ruler and what he says goes kingdom king king ruled country but his advisors is this mix of like his warriors including

[01:00:32] the Agoge and his wives of whom he has various wives who are sort of seem to be like domestic counselors or like they have influence as well and so he's sort of like taken info from all of them and like this seems to be true in history

[01:00:50] that it's at least at some point the Agoge pushed for like let's emphasize palm oil trade right well we can be farmers right and that like the kingdom at least attempted that and maybe then sort of swayed from it so that's what she's pushing

[01:01:08] she's like no more slavery we can be farmers we can you know emphasize palm oil and I'll help you accomplish that by throwing off the yoke of the you know like we can do this and he's spending the most of the movie he is the most fascinating character

[01:01:24] to me in a way because he's not stupid or smart yes or whatever you know like he doesn't seem like entirely out to lunch it is really nice but he needs to be kind of flattered and massaged and kind of nudged in the right direction

[01:01:41] it's nice to see Boyega in the pocket he's great I haven't seen Breaking In yet well he's very good in that he obviously was great in small acts I think he was in 92 so I keep forgetting that has a new title

[01:01:55] that's just one of those pressure cooker movies where it's like real time and you're just watching a guy you know he takes a bank hostage and you're just watching a guy unravel but it is that thing Attack the Block came out everyone was just like Jesus Christ

[01:02:11] fully formed movie star here we go and then it took so long for him to pay off the promise of that or rather for anyone to give him the chance to give a double edged sword for him I mean sure but he's very very good in those movies

[01:02:25] he is he's always good it's just like you know I think there's been this battle and he talks about it obviously very publicly of just like figuring out where he slots in what kind of actor he wants to be what kind of movie star he wants to be

[01:02:41] you know it's not just Star Wars of course Pacific Rim Pacific Rim was sort of a win for nobody everyone just sort of forgets that exists Detroit I actually think he's excellent in that role and also is not as much of a presence

[01:02:55] as sort of we assumed going into that movie sure he is good but it's a tougher role the movie doesn't work and it's a smaller part it's like whoever wants to rewatch it and apart from that he's really done very little

[01:03:11] like the only other things post the beginning of Star Wars there's something called Naked Singularity that came out last year that doesn't seem to have made any impact and that's it I think it's like a clone of Tyrone with Jamie Foxx but I'd like more

[01:03:27] oh and then of course Small Axe he was incredible in that that was the one where it was sort of oh we're getting back to no you know I remember when the Star Wars cast was announced and I saw some people cynically making the comment

[01:03:41] of like great here are six promising actors careers now like ground to a halt because it's this notion of like Star Wars actually never ended and that ends up being the gift you think it is to someone's career Harrison's really the only person

[01:03:57] who like is able to build off maintain being a proper movie star from the original series and then to a certain degree it's like it was almost a thing that Portman and McGregor had to overcome for a little while McGregor obviously

[01:04:13] I'm sorry Christensen gets like totally halted as well and like you know Adam Driver obviously has just been off to the fucking races and I think we talk a lot about feeling like he's not as exciting as we always hoped he would be

[01:04:25] but does a lot of fucking good ass work and then it does feel like Boyega and especially Daisy Ridley are the two who've gotten a little stuck and just like to see more from both of them and it feels like Boyega's starting to like punch through again

[01:04:39] and figure out what he wants to do but this is a self he's a bit of a buffoon is what I'm saying I'm saying I like that he's doing that me too I like it too it's an interesting choice for him to take this part

[01:04:51] I mean he does end up making the right decisions but at least I when watching it was not like oh he's turned all the way around or he's definitely in on this it's more like well I don't think the ending is as cut and dry

[01:05:03] as some people want to reduce it to and I also think the movie that this is weirdly similar to in certain ways is The Last Duel in that they very much feel like very modern films they're not trying to like pretend

[01:05:17] that that era was more modern than it was but they're sort of like telling the stories from a modern perspective and using them to sort of be in dialogue with the shit we're still dealing with today yeah I wanted to shout out there's a in his court too

[01:05:33] there's a handler who's queer that I don't think has like very much to do on screen but it's just the presence is there and I think like to your point they're doing little things to just like be somewhat contemporary with this historical yeah and it doesn't to me

[01:05:51] feel like it's like performative stuff it's like you know sure yeah nothing about this movie felt particularly performative to me because Gina is such a classical storyteller basically in all of her movies she's sort of a small C conservative filmmaker to me in a lot of ways

[01:06:11] like she makes family dramas about like big relatable characters having big relatable breakthroughs no matter what the movie is there was that thing where like Beyond the Lights went on to Netflix oh sure you right you know this right the rights went to Netflix or whatever

[01:06:29] right and then it got filed under like black film as a genre and she was like this is a romantic drama this is like a melodrama these are the films you should be putting it up against and like Reed Hastings actually responded

[01:06:43] to it and took a meeting with her and was like maybe our algorithm's fucked no no what he said was like I can't control it I'm plugging I'm plugged into it at all times my face is gonna change based on whatever you want to look like

[01:06:57] the algorithm's like Ava and Ex Machina yes right I saw Saranda sat next to him or right next to him very close to him for a glass of onion and I said you've ruined cinema sir no I didn't say that I also sat right behind Daniel Craig

[01:07:13] and I took a picture I'll show you I took a picture of the back of his head I don't usually take pictures of celebrities but I was just like the back of this I have one quick complaint just that I saw slick films

[01:07:25] and you know me I love like a wet movie it's not what you think it's like kind of more like you know like bro kind of looks oh you saw slick films on Netflix and you were mad that it was not right

[01:07:37] it's not a collection of wet movies you were looking for some oily pictures yeah Jesus yeah it just looks like him because it is him his head is kind of a perfect circle yes his hair color close cropped yeah but yes no she is

[01:07:56] she's a very classical filmmaker yeah that's what I mean and it is why you have to view this movie in the context of the other types of epics we're talking about you know she's sort of I'm overusing this phrase but in dialogue with the history

[01:08:12] of turning historical events into aspirational epics and then she told Patches that she has another thing lined up that sounds sort of woman key it sounds fun she said she was deciding between two products and one of them was big like a big scale thing

[01:08:30] I just like that she's working at a good clip again well that's true the thing is of course I don't need her budgets to be bigger every time because I understand some filmmakers don't want to make a $200 million movie every time

[01:08:42] but I do want her to make movies consistently which it does seem like the industry now understands that she's a pretty talented filmmaker who has an interesting perspective on things and so she's getting jobs but it does feel like throughout the 2010s

[01:08:56] it was more like she had to fight for a meeting or whatever to pitch anyone on anything or maybe it was that she was they'd be like hey do you want to make this and she'd be like well I want to make it well

[01:09:08] and they'd be like ugh that'll be expensive and take forever can't you make it badly because isn't that kind of what happened with Silver and Black I think so basically and then at some point they were like this should be a series

[01:09:22] and she was like what the fuck are we talking about I have a script that's good let me make it Silver and Black in one film are we blowing our load too fast I think that was truly let's do Syl and then Ferrer

[01:09:38] we need to learn how the name comes together Black can be on HBO Max and then the ampersand I'm sensing spin off potential the plot of the movie The Woman King we begin on this big battle where they're rescuing women who have been abducted

[01:09:57] to be sold into bondage yeah another thing I think this movie is about in a very sobrite way it's just like it is incredibly difficult to extricate yourself from bad systems it is why the world remains bad my attitude is I sit there

[01:10:15] and go stop it stop doing that yeah well the whole point of the kingdom is weighing whether or not we'll go to all out war can we challenge them openly rather than just be defensive so Gezo the king who's got a bit of a chip on his shoulder

[01:10:35] is kind of into that but they need more people and then we are I think also has a chip on his shoulder and also wants to be the new hip modern king a little bit of that I want to seem smarter more in touch yeah there's a character

[01:10:57] that's one of his wives she got a lot of laughs at the premiere who's kind of throwing some shade at him because he's like General Niska what do you think and he's actually listening to her and the wife character is kind of

[01:11:13] why don't we just stay status quo that's what she's always going for why do we have to stir the pot and that's the most critical position a woman can have in that culture at that time and people are afraid of losing their status 100%

[01:11:31] so we have this parallel track which is Nawi who's the girl who basically any time the dad tries to marry her off she's just like you little cuck bitch I'm not going to marry you or whatever she's impetuous she's impudent with the men

[01:11:49] and then the guy goes by her and he's like if you weren't such a good warrior I'd make you a wife and everyone laughs at it and views it as like wow you've really proven yourself and it's such a deeply sad moment

[01:12:03] where it's like that would be the win that would be the luckier year because you get to marry the king here's the person who has found the one way she can exist on the terms she wants to in her life so Nawi is basically

[01:12:17] just taken to the doors of the castle general people are not allowed to look at them, which is fairly cool. And it's just sort of like, I don't know what to do with her, you deal with her. And she's immediately a pain in the ass

[01:12:28] and Izogi, which is the Lashana Lynch character, is just like, you seem fun, I'll take you on, right? Yes. And that's kind of, I mean, it's classic Hollywood storytelling shit. That's how we learn everything. It's how we learn about how the kingdom works

[01:12:43] and how everyone lives and how life functions inside the walls and it's easy stuff. But the other thing is you're doling out with Viola Davis's character, the sort of, I mean, the thing I just love in Gina movies so much

[01:12:57] of how much she will focus on these little moments of just understanding how much visual storytelling can be conveyed in a glance of reaction, a moment of privacy, whatever it is, right? I think it speaks to her also as an athlete too,

[01:13:09] where she's just like really keyed into the amount of story you can get on a body language, even in just a parting moment. But you're getting these moments of Viola in the bath, tending to her scars, these sort of like, well, this is the, you know,

[01:13:26] you got to see this fucking badass opening action sequence where she's just ripping it up and now it's just like, this one's 56, her whole body hurts. You know, there's a certain degree to which she's sharpened herself to just being kind of so tightly wound and dead inside

[01:13:41] and all this sort of shit. These moments where she's sort of by herself and doesn't really know what to do with herself to a certain degree, right? You don't have much of a, your life is good in one way in that you get to live independently

[01:13:55] in part of this collective. And it's forged by trauma. She had a traumatic life that she has now found a way to escape from by having to like turn herself into a terminator. But right, but you're a soldier. Right. You're in danger. You're not just a soldier,

[01:14:08] but these women truly are like human weapons. Yeah, they're pretty cool. Down to even just, you know, the carving of their nails and everything. It's like everything you do is to make yourself the most efficient weapon possible. But she immediately starts to react strangely

[01:14:25] to this young woman who has now entered. I did not put that together initially, but yes, she is kind of like on her guard about this girl. Who you feel like is, your initial maybe take of that is like, they're very similar. And that's why you're butting heads.

[01:14:39] Right, right, it's the classic, right. I see myself in her and I don't want her to make the same mistakes. Is this just fucking like Tom Skerritt and Top Gun or some shit? Is this just like, yeah, teach the hotheaded kid to learn some humility or whatever.

[01:14:51] But then you get this moment where she witnesses the scar on the shoulder. Yeah. Reacts really strangely, goes to Sheila Atim. That comes late in the movie, right? It comes like post second, it's around the halfway. 40 minutes in, yeah. And says like, what happened to the baby?

[01:15:05] You've already gotten the glimpses now of clearly she suffered a lot of sexual abuse when she was younger, sort of being haunted by these men and whatever. And you realize like, oh, she had a child that was given away. And now she is finally at the point.

[01:15:20] Because they're not allowed to get married or have children. But it's like as a 56 year old woman, she is at the point where for the first time she has to contend with, that child is now an adult that might cross my path at any time.

[01:15:32] And we also are seeing in these flashbacks of the attack that- It's the earring guy. It's the earring guy. Right. It's not the younger man, but it's like he's got that same sort of like large spike in his ear. Yes.

[01:15:45] Which is like adding another layer to what's going on. It's like she's discovering she's a mother, but it's so conflicted because of the situation, but also because it's the enemy. Yeah, yes, yes, right. This child's a reflection of the person she hates the most in the world.

[01:16:02] You know, a tremendous amount of shame and trauma and all this sort of shit. Right. You know, I watch it, I think in a more conventional way, it's gonna dart around this thing for a long time. And then you get the scene

[01:16:15] where they're both in the bath together and Viola cuts open her shoulder and tells her the story of basically an analog tracking device, right? Yeah, she did a very metal way of tracking, right? Like marking her child by putting a shark tooth inside of her.

[01:16:33] How do you feel about it? Because Sheila Ottum's just sort of going like, impossible, there's no way. And Viola Davis is like, tell me which orphanage you sent her to. And she's like, I don't know, I don't know. Like her attitude is clearly as her best friend,

[01:16:43] as her confidant to just be like, don't think about it, it's impossible. What are the odds? Don't consider it. And Viola Davis is like, I have an insurance policy. I fucking put a tooth in her skin so that I could know without a shadow of a doubt.

[01:16:59] It's a good way to do it. Yeah, there's only like 10, 15 minutes, I feel like, before Viola expresses her concern and the confirmation. And from that point on, it's like- It's spread out over two scenes though that are far apart. There's the first scene where she's like,

[01:17:16] what did you do with the baby? It's developed as a plot. And then like post a big battle is when she's like, yo, can I check out your shoulder for a second? Surprise. Yeah, let me peep your shoulder. I think it's almost the order is actually,

[01:17:26] she realizes that the Spike Ear villain is her attacker. That is revealed very late. And then sort of starts to put it together from there. So now he's getting trained. Izogi is sort of combo teacher and big sister, I guess. Drinking whiskey.

[01:17:45] Right, because obviously Viola Davis is so loose to take on any maternal role with her. She's already gonna be like tough love with everybody. And she has such greater conflict with this child. And so they're mostly training with hand-to-hand combat. Pretty cool stuff.

[01:18:03] And using like weapons, swords and knives. That moment that's like- Swords, oh my God, the fucking swords in this. Guns, you do see muskets in this movie, but they don't wield them. Well she does at the end. At the end, but mostly- While wearing colonialist garb.

[01:18:17] Right, but mostly in the movie there are like, the idea is basically, they mostly don't have guns, but they do have some male warriors who use them. But it's sort of like, you know, I think the Dahomey Amazons are very fast and agile. It's not really their body.

[01:18:31] One of the key trailer moments of Lashana Lynch with the spear in the shoulder. That's a bad old trailer. Should we do a separate episode on the Woman King trailer? The movie's a big hit. No, no, go ahead. No, the thing, it was when Ben was like-

[01:18:42] Oh God, this movie is very visceral for people who don't like blood. Especially for, this is a PG-13, right? It's a pretty good PG-13. Like it's successfully gnarly for a PG-13. And you know, she's always interested in showing the actual consequence of violence

[01:18:59] rather than just, right, as we said. But no, the thing, the test where she's going up against the male warrior and there's the spear between the two of them and they have to walk closer to each other until one person backs off. Some gnarly shit.

[01:19:13] Oh my God, yeah. And then I love the movement, like the celebration, the dancing, like all of the specifics of like how they chant and just like celebrate. It's all just like really rich and like thought through. Yeah, they sing the Pina Colada song.

[01:19:33] Yeah, those songs they sing, by the way, are historically accurate. They did not like make up new songs for them. So you've got this side plot that I really dislike where you have Santo Ferreria, which is the hero finds Tiffin guy, who's like a Portuguese slaver.

[01:19:55] He's sort of the bad guy, but like, you know. Right, he's a bad guy. And then Malik, played by Jordan Bolger? He's very handsome. He's a looker. He's British, who is half-Dahomian himself. His mother was, yeah. And so he's kind of, and they're there to treat

[01:20:16] with the king, you know, they're not there for, right? Like they're there to chat. But Malik is kind of also just returning to his mother's homeland and like getting in touch with it, I guess, right? Yeah. And he falls in love with the novel.

[01:20:29] Look, I saw reviews spotlight this as the weakest element of the film. And so to some degree watching it, I was pleasantly relieved that it was less of an element than I thought it was gonna be. And it didn't play out as predictably as I expected.

[01:20:41] The movie is two hours and 15 minutes long. You cut that out, it's two hours. It's a clean two. I love that. And I just think it needs to be either just more sketched out or just non-existent because- It feels the most perfunctory. It just feels a little perfunctory.

[01:20:56] Like, I'm like, why do they like each other? Because they're hot. And I'm like, well, they are hot. And shout out to them and props to them actually. And that is a good reason to like someone. But I just- That's a good reason to like someone.

[01:21:06] But like she's in the middle of like forging this like deep bond with these women and like learning to be a warrior. And then at the same time he's like, hey, what's up? And she's like, oh, hey, what's up with you?

[01:21:17] And I'm like, but I feel like she's more into- I don't think that would be enough to draw her away from this. And obviously the overall arc that she has is she realizes like, no, I can't be with him and I can't go away with him. Yes, right.

[01:21:30] And I knew throughout the movie, like we're coming to that realization. We're not gonna end with her being like, let's go, let's sail to Portugal. We'll have a nice life. You know, me and- Yeah, let's move to England. Who does that? You know what I mean? All right.

[01:21:42] But I just- Or maybe they would just need to have the most electrifying chemistry where I'm like, well, yeah, these two are just so amazing together that yes, I get it. I didn't really totally buy that. But like I said, it's an old fashioned romantic epic.

[01:21:59] You're looking something up. No, I was looking at the New Yorker piece. There was a part I was trying to quote but I couldn't find it. It's okay. Yeah. People should read it. It's a good piece. Yeah, yes. I think it's better that we just direct people

[01:22:09] to well-written pieces by people who know what they're talking about. Right. The movie starts with a big action sequence. It has two big war sequences at the end. One just versus the OYO, right? And then one at the trading port.

[01:22:27] But for the book, they really just invest you in these characters. It's light on it. I mean, there's training stuff. Yeah, a lot. And there's like the big training, big sort of like final test sequence and all that. But it does like take the foot off the gas.

[01:22:41] But yet the movie doesn't move, I would say. It never feels slow. Yeah. It's always engaging. A part of the training that I just wanna shout out is I love that the trainees kind of fuck with the senior officers and they take gunpowder

[01:22:59] and they put it inside the head of the dummy, like the practice dummy. And so they surprise the senior officers at one point when they're demonstrating how to attack on them and they hit the head and it explodes.

[01:23:14] How that then is set up later for the big fight scene. They use that tactic later. What's the line? It's like you don't need a gun to use gunpowder or whatever, right? Is that your line? Yeah. The big sequence where she sort of pretends

[01:23:33] to offer the OYO the trick, because the OYO at some point show up and they're like, not only do we want our usual tribute, but we want like 40 of your Dahomey Amazons. And he talks them down to 20 or whatever. There's the sequence where they're supposedly presenting

[01:23:49] the warriors as prisoners and then obviously it's a decoy and she fights and it's cool. I feel like we've talked about over the years a frustrating trend of especially big studio films, trying so hard to be clever and being aware of how much more literate movie goers are

[01:24:10] and sort of like there's such a cottage industry around recognizing tropes and people sort of throwing basic screenwriting principles against it. They go, this is fucking cliched overwritten whatever to the detriment of you start throwing out a lot of cliches that exist because they work.

[01:24:28] People start doing sort of clever subversions. Sure, maybe in the bathwater you're saying. Clever for clever sake. Sometimes we can use these things because they work and they are success. You talk about this being the only other A plus movie of the year along with Top Gun Maverick,

[01:24:41] which is another movie where everyone's just like, oh you just make a movie. Yeah but also. You're just hitting all the classic old Hollywood things that have worked for people. But a movie that has every cliche in it, Top Gun Maverick, you know like everything

[01:24:56] where you're just like, wow but it's so cheesy and I'm like yeah was that a problem for you? And they're like no not really. Right and I think this movie is not operating exactly at that scale but I do think there's something about.

[01:25:08] At no point does anyone say too close to remissal, switching to guns or whatever. That'd be cool. But you know what I'm saying. I do think that this movie is operating in a somewhat similar vein. Yes it's what you said before.

[01:25:21] You're saying or it's the point you're making about like it's like modern but not contemporary or modern but not self aware. It's okay we can do old fashioned epic. We can do the let's see it through the eyes of the new recruit to learn everything.

[01:25:38] Some person might be like ah that's an old trope. It's a successful trope. The trope exists because it works. As long as the characters are well defined and well performed and there's an emotion to everything. Which that's the thing, this movie invests

[01:25:50] in all the things it needs to invest in to make those things. You know when after this battle I described happens you know Naomi and Izogi are captured right? Oh wait come on we gotta talk about the fight. Can't just skip over it.

[01:26:07] Well the fight is really good. Yeah no let's talk about the fight. Okay so they use the palm oil which like there's a little moment where you get to also see the idea like being put or like she challenges the king like let's start producing more palm oil

[01:26:21] and you at least get to see a little bit of the production start to happen. But the palm oil and the gunpowder play in Nao to this fight where they pour all of this palm oil in the fields just on the perimeter

[01:26:35] of where the warring faction is setting up. And so then at like right at first light they light up the palm oil. And they make all these like makeshift bombs essentially. And then use the anthills and disguise them which are they're basically just like land mines.

[01:26:54] And they do a surprise attack. It's fucking sick. It is it's very sick. And there's like this like slight fog you know because it's that time of day. Man that fight scene was like I was like at the edge of my seat. It was really really fucking good.

[01:27:08] I have no beef with any of the fight scenes they were all really impressive. I think it was the only thing like we were saying after we saw Griff where it was like because of the COVID stuff. Yeah. Like you know it was just like a lot

[01:27:22] you didn't just you didn't get a wide shot you didn't get to really feel the full like battle. I was just rewatching some old guard things. You know it's a testament to how Gina works with her actors and you know old guard

[01:27:38] she has someone like Charlize who's like so fucking good at action where it's like oh they can actually do the thing in full. They can play this out right. This movie I think she was coming up against like you now have a third as many people

[01:27:50] as you thought you were going to have. So you have to break this into smaller pieces because you're maybe reusing the same crowd people behind it. Or maybe you can't clear out the space to the same degree you could before

[01:28:00] because you have to create a smaller bubble around it or whatever the fuck it is. You know I think all the action choreography in this is phenomenal. Yeah it's visceral like it is so like at times like really got me like squirming.

[01:28:17] Was that the she actually like fucking build story beats into her action sequences. There is like a chain of events happening for a reason that have a build to them rather than just sort of chaos of people just swinging swords and being badass. I just loved it.

[01:28:31] All of that sequence I like the big sequence at the port where they free everybody. I like the escape with LaShonna Lynch where she spoiler alert dies. Was very moving and effective. There's that moment on the back of the car where they're all lying there

[01:28:46] and she goes do you want to live anymore? Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah. Well no you mean the one girl who throws herself out. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Yeah that's really good. I also like how the rope which is like kind of a thing with the training right?

[01:28:59] That's the first like weapon that they're taught to work with. It's incorporated with the sword and she starts like swinging it around. Knife on rope seems like a really Ben weapon. Yeah dude it's fucking like that's inventive.

[01:29:11] I do love that too where right there giving her the rope and now he's like rope boring. I want like a fucking giant sword and she's like sure take the giant sword cut the head off and she can't you know

[01:29:20] she doesn't know how to you know put her half behind it yet. The final test being like going through the thorns which is also I mean how Viola finds the scar on the shoulder but that sequence is very visceral as well.

[01:29:31] Oh my god those thorns are so big. They're like the biggest thorns I've ever seen. Yeah the thorns are surely was weird. I remember now surely was like squirming in her chair. Oh my god. And I was like thorns and she was like I just.

[01:29:45] I was truly like having to hold my hand up and like. It's like nature's barbed wire. I'm not saying I want to throw myself into a thorn field. Sounds like it too. I'm just saying like. I know what to get you for your fucking birthday.

[01:29:56] Well you know like Barbarian another movie that's out right now has basements in it right. It's a horror movie with basements. And I was like well but it's not like one of those things where I go around being like you know what I hate basements.

[01:30:08] I was watching and I was like I think I may have a problem with basements. You texted us immediately and we're like it really hit me but I should also mention I'm very afraid of basements. You didn't say that.

[01:30:16] Like I think because I never had one in my like I never grew up with a basement. They're just extra spooky to me. I'm like what's going on down there. No one's really watching the store down there. We did fucking George Lucas talk show in Detroit

[01:30:30] four days after I saw Barbarian and Patrick Connor our producer had booked us an Airbnb. Slept well. And the basement was locked. And I was just like I hate everything about being here. Should have gone in there. I couldn't. I want to check just to make sure.

[01:30:44] Right right you want to check to make sure there's any secret doors. I won't spoil it. Have you seen Barbarian? No. Scary. People should go see it. Good movie. I love basements. Some of my best memories have happened in basements. That's also a movie that is interesting

[01:30:57] in that you talk about like you know criticizing movies for being too clever for their own good. I'm not gonna spoil anything about this movie but it is a film where if you actually line up the series of events it is less insane in a way

[01:31:12] than the way it chooses to tell its story. It actually has a pretty straightforward story. Yeah. But it's the construction of it's really smart. Yeah. The one can. Izogi dies in that they're trying when they're trying to escape from being sold correct? Like they almost pull it off.

[01:31:30] Yeah. Which even I just feel like it's like guns are slowly creeping more and more into this world. For as much as they train it's like if someone can shoot you from that distance everything you've done is going to start to become

[01:31:47] less and less effective in defense you know? Right, everything you are can just be like immediately wiped out from you know a hundred feet away or whatever. And Nisca has basically been told because she has successfully defeated the Oyo. Been told by the king like good job buddy.

[01:32:07] You get to be married to me now. Big win for you. Sure. And she's like yeah. And everyone's like I mean come on man. Because it's basically like that's like your gold watch. It's like retirement. It's like congrats you know?

[01:32:18] And she's like I want to go get my people. I want to go get Naui you know? And the fact that she's her secret daughter is obviously a part of it but also these are her girls. And she defies orders to do it. Goes and gets her.

[01:32:33] You've got Naui as you say has now been dressed. She puts on a nightgown because she's gotta wear something. From her Portuguese. From her Portuguese. How do you want to describe him? Not even boyfriend. Ingenue. Right. Potential lover. She comes out of it in this sort of like

[01:32:53] a colonialist garb wielding a gun. And then they take down the entire kind of port. You know the whole sort of like operation there. Very cathartic. The analog she is presenting of how these are the basic themes that present themselves across history and our human nature

[01:33:13] in different costumes with different weapons. You know? I mean she's almost at an inflection point in history. But the same things are going to perpetuate themselves in one form or another. They go back. Yeah. She's proclaimed the woman king which is

[01:33:28] sort of defined as like it's like separate from being a wife or whatever right? Yes. It's sort of like you would be my partner or you'd have more of an equal say in ruling the kingdom. Almost feels like a vice president position. Right. Look let's say this.

[01:33:41] It's a good title. It's a good title and it's funny like the movie could end right there. I was expecting it to. Exactly. It feels like the movie's about to end. Yes. And then in my opinion an effective, although some people disagreed with me on this in Toronto,

[01:33:57] but very Gina move. There's like five more minutes of her sort of going to Naui and them kind of acknowledging their familial, right like you know their relationship. Which you don't need per se. Like it's already kind of happened. I repeat again.

[01:34:14] Her entire body of work as an artist, as a storyteller is very much informed. She's like this is more the victory here. This is more what matters. She comes at stories from the perspective of someone who didn't know where she came from. You know Gina herself. Yeah.

[01:34:28] The struggle to sort of find your family and all of that. And so I just have to imagine there were some note at some point where they were like can't we just end on and you are now the woman king. Everyone cheers cut to black.

[01:34:39] You can imagine it ending like the Phantom Menace. Boss ass cheering in the crowd. But I like the little coda personally. I do too. I think it's a very successful movie. It's just kind of like you know, kind of like I have very few complaints about it.

[01:34:53] It's just a viewing experience. Yeah but I mean Ben and I were just like that's a fucking good movie. That's a well made movie. Yeah and I feel like that has been the general reaction of just everyone being like yeah it's a fucking crowd pleaser.

[01:35:03] They don't make them like that anymore. Like that kind of stuff. I don't know I find everything about it. Shout out. Pretty encouraging and I certainly think you are allowed to fucking debate this text and wrestle with it and what have you.

[01:35:16] But I think as a movie it's a pretty excellent little object. Well we should talk about one of the most encouraging things which is the box office game. 19 million dollars. It's one of these things where it was like oh it's projected to open at 12

[01:35:31] and then going into the weekend they were like it might over perform at 15 or 16. Right yeah yeah yeah. And then it came in at 18 and then a day later they were like actually it's 19. Yeah. So it just kept trending up. Do we wanna play the box office game?

[01:35:43] I do. Okay. Woman King number one 19 million dollars. Number one movie in America. Number two we just discussed it. Horror film. Barbarian. With a 38% hold which is crazy for a horror movie but the combo of not a lot of competition and great buzz.

[01:35:57] Horror basically if you drop 65% weekend two people are like humongous. Incredible. Horror's like the most front loaded. And I'm just kind of astonished by the success of that movie's marketing campaign still basically being don't find out anything about this. But right right. I still haven't seen the trailer

[01:36:18] and you know I know you love trailers. Like for example. And I actually haven't watched the Barbarian trailer. All I knew about Barbarian was the poster. I've been told same. I've been told the trailer for Barbarian is surprisingly I've heard that as well. Good at hiding everything.

[01:36:30] I've heard that as well. So I should check it out. Yeah. But people should see it. It's a really really good movie. Yeah. Number three at the box office is another horror movie. I will say because I saw it. I liked it.

[01:36:39] I texted our group text with the Doughboys afterwards because Nick and Mitch had already seen it. And I was like I liked a lot. I don't think I loved it. Then you saw it and you were like I loved it.

[01:36:48] In the week since I've seen it it's only grown on me. Sims bump. The Sims bump. It sits well. It's a fucking great movie. It's pretty phenomenal. Yeah. Number three is another horror movie though. New this week. What's the fucking new this week horror movie? Oh it's Pearl.

[01:37:05] Pearl. I haven't seen Pearl yet. Neither have I. I've heard very mixed things but then Martin Scorsese was going for the math. I know it sounds like my kind of shit. Cool yeah. I mean Scott Tavias was saying to me

[01:37:16] that it's like Douglas Sirkey and I was like well that's interesting. Right our friend the ARP was like it's like more of a sad character say than a horror movie. I'm like sign me up. Number four is one of the weirdest buried things of the year.

[01:37:30] It's new this week. It's a mystery movie. This thing is called See How They Run? Yeah. Which is one of those things that they like announced last year and they were like announcing from Searchlight like you know a mystery movie with Saoirse Ronan and Sam Rockwell.

[01:37:49] I will say you mostly go to screenings. I've been seeing this trailer before every movie for the last three months. Right. It's one of those you know maybe it's more so in New York but that trailer has been unavoidable. I finally, I frankly have found that trailer annoying

[01:38:04] and sort of like forced West Light kind of vibes. Everyone who sees it says it's pleasant that it's entertaining. The word I've heard ranges from pleasant disappointing to pleasant fine, pleasant good. But the trailer for me was nails on a chalkboard.

[01:38:19] It's a real sort of like four to six out of 10 swing. Despite Saoirse being like my favorite. Love her. Yeah. But you know the fact that when a movie like that is not at a festival. Yes. And is not really like being pushed to the press at all

[01:38:29] I'm sort of like does it just stink? But it more just seems like everyone's like I don't know. It is what it is. I'm also like is that better than Amsterdam? If people are doing their fucking Wes Anderson murder mystery riffs. Right. That's another thing by the way.

[01:38:40] I saw Amsterdam last weekend. Yeah. Q and A afterwards. I'll just say this. The moment I walked out of the Q and A was when David O. Russell claimed that the film was 60% based on truth. That movie is so much more fictional than this film.

[01:38:56] Sure right well yeah right. But he's pretending it's based on. And I would be very surprised if it is held up to the same level of scrutiny as this movie is. I think Ehrlich had some tweet about it and it's so true.

[01:39:05] It's like it's such a plague that movies that are like that begin with like mostly true events. This is kind of based on a true story. David can I tell you what the wording is at the beginning of Amsterdam? A movie that I do not really like.

[01:39:20] A lot of this really happened. I fucking hate that shit. And then it's like he at the end was like like 60% of this is real. And I'm like every single character in this film is invented. Is made up so how real could it possibly be?

[01:39:32] Fictional narratives with fictional characters running concurrent with actual historical events. Anyone can fucking do that. Don't like a lot of this really happened. Yeah it takes place in a society where there's running water. What the fuck are you talking about? Sounds good.

[01:39:45] Number five of the box office is at $96 million and at this point I kind of just need it to get to 100 just for fun. It's gonna be really frustrating if it doesn't make it. I think it's gonna make it. There's nothing more infuriating than like

[01:39:56] a rampage topping out at like 98.7. Let's end it to 100. Let's just put it in some drive-ins or whatever. For me a perfectly entertaining film. You've said it many times now. I recommend a ride on the train. We've talked about all these movies.

[01:40:08] Top Gun Maverick, DC League of Super Pets, The Invitation, Minion Drives of Gru and then new at number 10 is Moon Age Daydream which I will not be seeing. Why? It looks boring. I just hate those kinds of like David Bowie's you've never seen him before.

[01:40:23] I'm like I've seen him before. I've seen so much. He's a great performer. I love him. I don't think this is gonna blow my mind. It's a modern pox but I talked about in last week's episode, the Pinocchio episode how much I liked Invitation to a point

[01:40:36] and felt really let down by the last act of the thing and then it's already rentable on digital and I saw the director posting the like hey finally the cut I wanted you to see is out. I think it makes a big difference

[01:40:48] and I'm like am I gonna watch Invitation again for the second time in two weeks in the hope that it actually follows through on what I felt like the movie was close to or is it like there's three more minutes of blood? That would be my guess.

[01:41:00] Maybe not blood but like that it's not that different but who knows? I don't know. Maybe you will. There's some good stuff in that film. That's the box office game. I'm very excited for the next Gina movie whenever it comes.

[01:41:12] Let's also say because we're doing Fletch on Patreon that episode dropping the 21st, is that right? Yes, that's right. So that episode just dropped. Okay so it just came out because this is the same weekend in which Fletch bombed

[01:41:27] we on that episode do the box office game for 15 to 20. Yeah, numbers 15 to 20. Numbers 15 to 20. So get excited for that. The rest of that. I'll say this too just as an addendum to the Fletch episode because you did your full tirade against the streaming movie

[01:41:46] a thing which I notoriously love. I love streaming movies and David felt the need to mount to Bruce McGill in the Insider. Yeah, pretty much. A courtroom defense. I banged the table. I'm the only one of the three of us

[01:41:58] who saw Fletch in theaters and I will say it maybe sounds like it plays better at home than it does in theaters. Maybe this is the exception to the rule. I mean I would have seen it in a theater if I had any time.

[01:42:07] Woman King's a movie where you're like great to see in a theater. Sure. And I basically think all movies are better in theaters. I'm willing to admit that Both of you gave Fletch a half star higher than I did. Fletch going to streaming makes more sense

[01:42:20] than Secret Headquarters or what's another obviously big budget movie that was for some reason There was another Paramount Plus. The Halloween movie's going to Peacock. I know those are in theaters too but why Why would you think anyone would Orphan First Kill, another one where you're like

[01:42:36] why is this going straight to Paramount Plus? That was so weird. It's the end of August. Put it in theaters. Yes, anyway. Anyway. But yeah, it's a fair point. David, do you want to tell your TIFF story? Because you saw this movie at TIFF.

[01:42:47] You've already talked about being there at the festival. No, I'm gonna save it for Well now you realize what you're doing right now. What? Building it up, it's not that good. No, you're telling people what's coming at the end of the year. Oh fuck.

[01:42:59] Should we cut that out? I don't know, David. I don't know, what do you want to do? I don't know, it's your choice. Well what do you mean? Well we can just cut out me saying that. It's the second time you've said it. Oh did I say it?

[01:43:11] I said it on mic before? Yeah, but also do you want to tell the story now? The only thing is it's about the circumstances under which I saw that movie. Okay. So I feel like it actually worked better. So are we bleeping out that movie? Yeah sure, fine.

[01:43:24] That's actually fun. I think most people feel like they fucking. They probably know that we're doing that. We've long said we would do it. Right, the bill has finally come due. Yes. Anyway David saw some mystery movie at Toronto which we'll be covering on main feed

[01:43:40] later in the year as part of a director mini series. The story is that I saw it on zero hours of sleep. Wow. Zero hours of sleep and I still like that. Sounds like a real barbarian situation. Or a real Griffin Newman situation.

[01:43:51] I like in the game of talking around anything that happens in Barbarian letting people assume that everything happens in Barbarian. That's the thing and I do worry it's over hyping the movie in a weird way where people are like, I don't understand at no point did a pirate

[01:44:04] get elected president in that movie or something. Okay fine. It is fine. I do think it's the right kind of expectation to put people in for where it's like. Look you won't see where it's going but it is actually sensical. Bug nut shit happens in that movie. Right.

[01:44:18] But it's not like fucking, I don't know. I can't even think of what movie. A lot of people are comparing it to Malignant and I think Malignant is a more bonkers quote unquote movie in terms of like it takes more flights of fancy.

[01:44:32] This film is just so tricky in the way it unfolds its story to you. And it just every 15 minutes makes you feel like I literally have no idea where this is going or what this has been up until this point.

[01:44:43] Which is exciting to watch a movie like that. So check it out. Yeah. We're back to Kubrick. Yes back to Kubrick next week. Doctor Strangelove with Sean Fantasy which we already announced I believe. Yeah get excited. That's the next episode. Yep. Damn dirty freaks. Yep.

[01:44:57] You can stop complaining. We got the podcast The Right Guys on Sean Fantasy. Now you have to come up with new people to bug us to have on the show. I'm sure they will. New friends who we were thrilled to have on the show. I'm sure they will.

[01:45:06] Which also is sad because we said this on Patreon but this is the first main feed episode we've recorded in our offices. Oh that's right. We said that on Patreon but we are in the new offices. They're not done yet but they're in them.

[01:45:17] They're very much not done. But we're in a space that is an office studio space that we now record this podcast which is nice. Great. And RIP the hausoleum as workplace. Yeah. Yeah. I continue to live there. You continue to live there.

[01:45:35] It's now purely a place for living. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media helping to produce the show. Aja McKay and Alex Barron for our editing. Malin Montgomery and the Great American Novel

[01:45:50] for our theme song. JJ Birch for our research. As we said tune in next week for Dr. Strangelove. You can go over to Patreon. You can hear our Confess Fletch episode and continue to do the Roger Moore Bond films. We also have two more Kubrick bonuses coming up.

[01:46:06] 2010 you're gonna make Contact Dr. Sleep, the rare sequels made two Kubrick films not by Kubrick and then a sort of Kubrick themed Talking the Walk that I cannot remember if we've actually revealed at this point or not. Go to BlankHeadpod.com for some links

[01:46:22] to some real nerdy shit. And as always, to the best of my knowledge, the three of us have yet to drop a Thor in this bathroom, have we? That is true. Wow. We're gonna end on that. I don't know, what are you gonna end on?

[01:46:38] End as always, gunpowder. I don't remember the line. It doesn't have to be in a gun. Oh let me check on the IMDB quote page. The line is, if you like pina coladas. Ugh, okay.