As Alex and Nick suit up for "Magic Mike’s Last Dance," the guys discuss Steven Soderbergh, the "Magic Mike" trilogy, Channing Tatum, Selma Hayek, Peter Andrews, hidden Soderbergh films, and "Cocaine Bear."
Follow @WAYW_Podcast on Twitter and Instagram and Letterboxd.
Watch Alex's films at http://alexwithrow.com/
Watch Nick's films at https://www.nicholasdostal.com/
Send us mailbag questions at whatareyouwatchingpodcast@gmail.com
As Alex and Nick suit up for "Magic Mike’s Last Dance," the guys discuss Steven Soderbergh, the "Magic Mike" trilogy, Channing Tatum, Selma Hayek, Peter Andrews, hidden Soderbergh films, and "Cocaine Bear."
Follow @WAYW_Podcast on Twitter and Instagram and Letterboxd.
Watch Alex's films at http://alexwithrow.com/
Watch Nick's films at https://www.nicholasdostal.com/
Send us mailbag questions at whatareyouwatchingpodcast@gmail.com
Hey, everyone. Welcome to. What are you watching? I'm Alex with there on. I'm joined by my best man, Nick Dostal. So how are you doing there, Big Dick Richie? Oh, yeah. Huh? Let's go. I'm. I'm pumped to be here. It's here. Magic Mike's Last dance. We have Channing Tatum and Steven Soderbergh. They have dipped back in to the Magic Mike. Well, a movie that ten years ago made pretty much everyone involved Filthy Rich. They made Magic Mike for next to nothing, 5 to $6 million of all their own money, The Producers, Tatum, Soderbergh And it grossed a shitload of money. The profit margins are some of the best for a mainstream movie in the past ten years. I am not joking. Soderbergh retired for a few years. His long time collaborator, Gregory Jacobs, directed a sequel, Magic Mike XXL. But Soderbergh still stuck around to shoot and edit that. That was in 2015. Now it's 2023, and this whole gang thought it would be a good idea to get the Magic Mike crew back. Did we love it? Was it worth going to see the theater? I love this movie. I was so glad that they brought it back. I loved it. 1,000% worth it. 1,000%? Yeah. You know, I think a huge question for a lot of people. It's like, why go back for a third one? You know? I mean, we are actually recording this a few weeks after the movie has come out. I'm sure it will undoubtedly be on streaming soon. And Soderbergh actually made a deal with HBO. Max, you know this tested so well that they were just going to put it on the platform. They were like, okay, we'll put it in a few thousand theaters for you. And it hasn't made nearly as much money as the first two. But whatever. I don't care for Soderbergh fans, for Magic Mike, fans, for XXL fans. I really thought this delivered. I loved it. I saw it twice in two days. Oh, nice. I mean, I bought an absolutely great tear of being the only guy and every Magic Mike screening I've ever been to. So the first one twice in the theater, I was absolutely the only guy saw XXL once. Only guy I've seen Last Dance Twice. And it's just all women every time. And the women in my second viewing of Last Dance were having a hell of a time.
Thursday, 5:30 p.m.. Hell of a time. Split the bottle of wine. They were great, but far be it for me to go ask Soderbergh. Maybe you shouldn't make that, You know. Third movie Magic Mike. I never doubt Soderbergh. I'm up for anything. Whatever it's going to be. If it's a thing on a streaming app, I'll download the app and watch it, and then the streaming app goes away. Recipes. Quibi But whatever I'm here for. Soderbergh always. And this delivered. Yeah, as a Soderbergh fan, this is just another example of why he's just one of the best working like filmmakers that we have. And I feel like no one we do, but no one really gives him a lot of credit. I think he goes very low under the radar in terms of what he's doing in the movie industry today. Like, yeah, this deal he's got with HBO, Max, he's got a blank check. He can he literally can do he just does it Yeah. And like he did Kimi he did a no sudden move So he's releasing like these like low key bangers but them all talk like another one like, and, and, and now he's going back to Magic Mike. And I remember we were in the theater for Babylon. Yeah. Yeah. And we were watching the trailers, and then I had no idea this was even a thing. And when all of a sudden I was like, No, they're not doing this. And then I was waiting for it to see if it was Soderbergh directing. And then it was. And then we just looked at each other like, This movie's kind of, Oh yeah, it's going to run. And it did, it did it. Like, it just it really, really delivered. Okay, But let's go back to that. Like the low key Soderbergh thing. Yeah, he's I mean, we talked about this a lot on the Magic Mike podcast, which we did ages ago. That was when we recorded our one year anniversary podcast episode. We called out for the four episodes we wanted to do most. You said your two were Magic Mike and Philip Seymour Hoffman, which check, check. Mine were Ingmar Bergman. Check and Montgomery Clift, which, you know, TBD. But I just want to say Magic Mike, it's meant a lot to what you watch it, but it sure has never gone away. This podcast is steeped in magic. Mike Law, I you were kind of talking crap about it before. You, of course, saw it on my movie rack and I'm like, You got it. Got to check it out. You finally did. And you loved it. But my point is that Soderbergh basically posted so like post 2008 just wants to make movies. He just wants to make movies about form. He doesn't want to make dead serious films about, you know, water pollution or drug trafficking or whatever it's going to be just wants to make movies. He doesn't seem to particularly care how they are distributed. I mean, he he definitely wants Magic Mike's last chance to make some money. But he I've read interviews with him and he goes, I don't even know if there's a theatrical market for this kind of movie. Now, like, there probably isn't. Certainly not like there was ten years ago. And it seems like he may be right. I mean, it's going to about break even with its money, which I think is okay. But yeah, it's like one a year from him He's crank out one a year they go on HBO and yes no one is talking about them. I think people in the industry have a lot of respect for him and his attitude. He's very well-liked, he's very well respected. And then also his work ethic, he just crunches stuff out. But audiences seem to have, you know, this isn't we're not here talking about Ocean's 11, 12 and 13 today, which were massively popular. We're talking about his other trilogy. But I guess in the wake of not making Ocean's 11 type movies anymore, maybe mass audiences seem to have I don't know. They're just not keeping up with him as much as I think he deserves to be kept up with. But you and I always love him, and we always make a point to talk about his movies on this podcast, whether they make like our end of the year list or if it didn't like Kimi, we still brought it up because it's worth talking about. Yep, yep, Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's he's one of my gods. I always say that every time he gets brought up, he's one of my, I don't know, three favorite living directors. I love him as a director, as a cinematographer. What you're going to talk about as an editor, as a producer, All of it. All of it. Yeah. I mean, you basically I mean, in so many ways it kind of mirrored what you want to do in this industry off of what he does. Yeah, Yeah. You're talking about a director that when you look at all the big directors that you know, people talk about today that are living like Fincher's always talked about PTA you know, you just kind of go down the list of the ones that are always referenced and he's never one of them right? Yet he is doing some of the most innovative stuff and has been now for the last 30 years. But really quick because I just I, I know what you're talking about when you when you talk about form, but could you elaborate a little bit more on when he says that? SODERBERGH when he says, I'm only interested in working with form what is that Yeah, he does not give a shit. So it seems any more about what a character is thinking. He only gives a shit about what a character is going to do. We'll take magic Mike's Last dance, for example. This is why I'm obsessed with process. Steven Soderbergh loves process a lot of this movie. I know. We're jumping ahead. We'll get to it. It's just a big setup. It's not unlike it is an Ocean's 11 style setup. There's no heist involved, but everyone's getting ready for a big thing and they're practicing and they're rehearsing and it's a big thing. And this movie is going to end with this big thing that they have to pull off, and there's a lot riding on it. And a lot of the movie is just watching people set up for the stuff. There's no one really. Yeah, there's not a lot of magic. Mike Glass starts with Mike like sit and kind of pondering or like, you know, crying like, God, I wish there's not a lot of reflection here. There was a little bit in XXL, which Soderbergh didn't direct, but he's not really a guy who's interested in showing a lot of reflection. He's more interested in like, Okay, I have to do a really hot shit dance number at the end of this because people who saw XXL know that that movie ended with a doozy of a dance scene. And it does. So how am I even going to be able to top that? That's where form comes in. Fine. Let's bring in rain. Let's bring in rain on the stage. Let's bring in shit people have never seen before. Let's try out this new camera. What's this weird thing? It's a red camera which no one had ever heard of. He goes and makes two movies with a Che part one and Che part two. So he's not like everything has to be shot in pristine 35 millimeter film like, say, Nolan or Tarantino. He's interested in saying, if I have a tool that I can use to make a movie like editing software on my computer or an iPhone, I'm at least going to try it. I don't know if it's going to succeed, but I'm at least going to try it. So that's what I mean. With form, he's just contagion. We get a little bit of insight into like Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, but I don't know what the fuck anyone's thinking in that movie like about their personal lives. It doesn't matter Kate Winslet's character, it's personified so well in her. When she's diagnosed, she wakes up. She's never like, Oh my God, I to call my family. Oh my God. And that would be in any other movie by any other director. That would make sense. Yeah. But he's like, No, that character wakes up and just accepts her fate right away. It's like calling the hotel staff saying, You need to make sure that anyone who clean this room is okay. Like she's. It's just process. How are we getting it done? Not Oh, I have all this trauma behind me and I'm having trouble dealing with it now. So he's just not really interested in like, he's not really interested in the story mechanics. He's much more concerned with plot. Now, what's driving it forward? Driving it forward haywire. A lot of people, you know, don't really talk about that movie. That's one of his best straight form movies because show me any other fight scenes from the past. I don't know, 30, 40 years, the majority of them just a hand to people fighting. It's cut into oblivion. Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. Because, you know, there's they're cutting around stop performers and not really hitting each other. Harry goes, he makes haywire. The camera, too, sits there and like, barely cuts. You're watching people beat the shit out of each other. That's playing with form. Yeah. He's like, You guys haven't seen this in a while. Watch this. So let's just. That's all. I mean, that's what he's much more interested in. If I'm going with magic Mike, he's very clearly interested in, in terms of form, how can I make this movie look different? Because it has those wild, crazy ass filters, which I am sad to admit, were gone from XXL and gone from Last Dance, but it's cool that we got it for that one movie and just Yeah, so that's what I mean by form. You're not going to get a lot of sentiment in a Soderbergh movie. I mean, you will if you go like Traffic has a lot of sentiment, Erin Brockovich has a lot to it. You even get some sentiment with Clooney in Julia Roberts in the Ocean's movies, that stuff's gone. He's just interested in making movies and telling compelling stories. This is not a dude who's trying to win Oscars. He already has an Oscar. He won one in 2000 for best director for Traffic. I would not be surprised if a Soderbergh movie really never gets nominated for a major award again. Maybe something technical, but like director picture, I don't know if that will ever happen. And he's totally okay with that. Long answer. Sorry. No, no, it's a great answer. Do you think that when he's working with his actors, because it's not like he'd go out there and do whatever the fuck he want. Sure. But maybe there is to a degree, a bit of like, how much do I want to play in this scene in terms of, Yeah, reflection maybe, or anything that kind of allows a character to sit in whatever they're feeling or do they just keep it and keep it going? Yeah, I mean, I love this. There's so many examples, like everyone who works with him loves him because he works so quickly and he operates his own camera and he is his own cinematographer, so he's setting up the lighting. Steven Soderbergh works very economically. You're talking to three takes, and if it's going over that, it's based on things he is messing up. Something was out of focus. Something fell in the background. It's not based on performance. This is why some of his performances in his movies are very deliberate and they can seem, quote unquote, not to me, quote unquote flat. And we've talked about this. He's very interested sometimes in realism, hence all the emotional stuttering that Channing Tatum does in Magic Mike and Cody Horn. You know, just when he's like, really, he can't like, yeah, we don't really see that in movies a lot. You know, actors are supposed to deliver their lines. Clearly. Sasha Gray playing in the girlfriend experience is giving a realistic human performance, but still something kind of flat in terms of movie done. So Rooney Mara described this perfectly. She went from filming Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with Fincher, where you're doing, you know, 80, 90 takes. She's losing all this weight, just getting piercing. She just has to do all this crazy shit, prep prep prep all the time. Her next role after that was for David Fincher's good friend Steven Soderbergh, and a movie called Side Effects, where she is now doing like two or three takes max and then you move on and she says, It's my job as an actor to bend to their style. I can't show up and go, I want 50 takes from every director on every setup. Yeah, Steven is doing is giving me three the night to do it in three. And if David is going to do 100, then I have to know that it's going to take 100. So I think that's part of like the form thing. I don't think he's interested in the specificity that you see in David Fincher's work, where David Fincher is, you know, going through something over and over. So you're not going to find like a David Fincher shot where there's like a camera bump or the camera accidentally shot. It doesn't happen. You don't see it. See it in Soderbergh's work all the time. You see it in Contagion. You just like I think it would cry as a camera to a fucking wheelchair, just like following Jennifer eel. It's like he doesn't care. It's like, Let's move it forward. Let's. Yeah, let's keep going, keep going. And the sacrifice of that of that work ethic of working so hard and so quickly and economically is that he's not associated with the word prestige anymore. And perhaps this is why less people talk about him now. But I think he's okay with that. I'm okay with it. So it's what he wants to do. So when he's writing, he doesn't write. He doesn't write. That's what he said. He had to get out of his own way. He wrote Sex, Lies and Videotape, and then he tried to write his next few movies and he said what broke his career wide open with Out of Sight was that he realized, I'm not a good screenwriter. I got lucky once with Sex Lies, I have to get out of my own way. So he does not write his movies. He is handed scripts and he has input on them, of course, But it's like, Cool, here's our document. Let's go. Not unlike they make completely different movies, but it's kind of the exact same thing Clint Eastwood did for Warner Brothers for decades. It's essentially what Soderbergh does hand him a script and you go shoot it. You just do a few takes. You don't make a big fuss about it. Everyone goes home. Damn. Yeah, that's wild too. I love him. But yet still, while he doesn't write, he still shoots most everything himself. He edits most everything himself. Soderbergh I'm talking about. So when you're doing that and you said, you know, very graciously earlier that I kind of tried to model myself after him. That was only because I was reading interviews and he was saying I was trying to get movies made, but I couldn't find someone to shoot it. Like I couldn't afford someone to shoot. It's like, okay, you know, So I just taught myself how to shoot and I taught myself how to sound mix. And he's saying like, I'm not the brightest guy in the world, so if I can figure it out, anyone can. And I go, okay, I'm not the right guy in the world either. Let me see if I can figure it out. And he'll post like pictures of him just with his laptop, like on a train editing something that is shot on his iPhone, and then it's going to be on Netflix and, you know, four months. It's crazy. It's crazy. That's just that's just wild. I you know, it's it's tough because, like, he's put himself in the position. So it's it's inspiring in a lot of ways to filmmakers because you're like you really can do whatever you want these days. But in terms of it getting out there like this guy deals with, he's got a career that is set up so it's not as cut and dry, easy as it sounds like it is, but a essentially the work that he's doing is something that anyone could do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's his whole ethos is that, yes, sometimes he shoots on red cameras and, you know, he has crews and all that, but he's not someone who needs a Christopher Nolan budget or Tarantino budget or a Fincher budget. He's making all of his movies very again economically, and he's not pissing off his studio bosses. You know, he's had a really, really interesting career. I mean, I don't know. There's just so much so interesting. I mean, he got fired from Moneyball, he pre-produced that and built it up from the ground up. He cast almost everybody cast Brad Pitt like that was his movie. And then, I don't know, they just fired him and brought in Bennett Miller like right at the very end. I don't know. That's weird. Like, he's had he's had a crazy, crazy career. That's crazy. I didn't know that. I didn't know that he was that Moneyball was like his that like it was his. Yeah. He developed it from the ground up and it got I think there were just creative differences. I'm not sure what those were, but yeah, that's a whole other than just the whole thing, you know, Now they even say that it kind of I can feel a little bit of Soderbergh in that movie. Yeah, it's got a I can see how it lives in the same, same arena. Well, it has no real sentiment in it. There's like no emotion. Yeah, I mean, he cares about his daughter and that's outside his daughter. Yeah, Yeah, that's the one thing. But there's not a lot of like, even his, like, remembrances of baseball, like, you know, how can you not be romantic about baseball? There's no one sitting around, like, crying, like we lost. I don't know. It's is not like that. Do you prefer to see characters move through a story with more of this type of just you personally? Yeah. Do you do you like seeing characters live through their their story is emotionally throughout a movie. Would you rather see it more or less? Is more or you kind of want to see a character really live in that emotional life? Yeah, I love the way this conversation is going to. We never had a full on open Soderbergh conversation, so I, as a movie fanatic, want a mix of just everything. I don't expect everything in one movie, certainly not everywhere, certainly not all at once. Didn't I just stick, like, introduce me to a style? You know, Soderbergh has a great role if I'm watching your movie, if I don't have your movie kind of figured out of what or what you are trying to say in the first three shots of your film, then I don't know if this is going to be a success, even if that means like, Whoa, like you have to hook someone in in those first three shots, I did an article in my blog where I assessed the first three shots of every Soderbergh movie to see if they held up. And they really do, including this one, like they really hold up. So kind of an alternate version of your question is, do I wish Soderbergh would go back to making Traffic, which remains my favorite Soderbergh film, or do I mind that he makes these movies where people, you know, just do fun plot stuff? I, I would love for him to go back to serious filmmaking. I would. But since he has no desire to do that, I go, okay, I love no sudden move. I loved Kimi. I mean, I loved this movie, so I accept that that's what he is in now. But no, I don't want to see. Every movie I see is not like some heavy plot driven thing where characters aren't discussed. I frankly feel on this podcast we talked about the other stuff more the hard, hard story stuff, the hard, hard characters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talk about characters who have immense trauma and, you know, it's completely different ways of telling a story. And I think there is room for everything. You know, the majority of films that we talk about and watch are very story driven, very character focused on this podcast. We do not talk a lot about Act one, Act two, Act three to give and take, but I think there's room for everything. But I also love all of his work, so maybe I'm not the right person. I don't know what I'm thinking about. Well, in this movie in particular, you know, with that just forward driving momentum that he has, I think this movie, in terms of just the Magic Mike series, this might have it the most, Wolf, was getting into the plot of it. Yeah. Yeah. He really we just start off with him in the middle of his life. There's not really a recap. No, but there's like, the narration. There's a voiceover where that girl pops in. Yeah, like every like it seems to be like every act, every. If there was an act structure, she kind of like there's, like, a lead in with this voiceover and that's form right there. Soderbergh does not do voiceover, let alone from like a teenager. That sounds like it should be from The Age of Innocence. It was perfect. I was just dying. LAUGHS Yeah, it was. I loved it. I loved it. And and those things that she was saying were, I think, the best written things about the movie. Yeah, like they were poignant. They were thought provoking. Like, I remember when I heard that I would go, Oh, wow. But I got everything I needed. And then in watching his performance, Channing Tatum, he well, number one, he's so cool. Like, he's just like, you know, he very much is Mike in all three of these movies. But he's not spending a lot of time in, to your point, reflecting he's just sort of living you know when when she's asks him, you know, like, what are you doing bartending? Yeah, you know, I'm just here, what do you want? And then when he wants to know what's going on, he does make it clear in the asking of the question, What am I doing here? Why are we here? But we don't see him like dwelling in this like you are. As I'm watching, I go, Yeah, what are we doing here? But I'm also not as attached. And then when we find out it's still delivers, it still hits and it's like, Oh, that's what we're doing here. She's setting him up to be a director of this play. Okay. And then that's his reaction to it's like, Hmm, okay. Yeah. Very loose. Very. It works slower. Yeah. Yeah. And the first one has to have like, I mean, we still don't really get to know him that much. It's like he talks about his childhood. It's nothing. No. XXL Which Soderbergh did not direct. That's where you get your road trip reflection and all the guys get to talk about what they're missing out of life, what they're not doing, their dreams. That's what that's for. But and they all get to have their moments. And I appreciate that movie for that. But yeah, Magic Mike's Last Dance is this process movie of we have a thing to do. He doesn't know what it is yet. And then once he figures it out, it's like, okay, we got to put on the show, so let's go. We got to go do it. And there's really no like looking back there, there's no scene that like calms everything down. And we're talking about, you know, when I got into dance when I was a kid, it's never that there's none. And yeah, there's an interesting we just called it coolness, but there's like this this affability to Channing Tatum that makes me like him so much as just a famous person and particularly as Mike because we got to remember, like this dude came from nowhere. We'll talk about his career a little later. But he had no industry connections, no family members, nothing like that. He just comes and wants to be in movies. He can dance. This is a stripper like he knows. So he gets into a few roles and then he just works his way up to become a bona fide star and give some really genuinely good performances. And what's so interesting about him is that when I watch him, especially his magic Mike, I see this look of like, I can't believe all this is fucking happening. Yeah, like, holy shit, I still can't believe this is happening. You can see that playing as Channing Tatum. Like, I can't believe this. This is so cool. And then as Mike, like, man, I'm in London now. Like, I don't know what's going on, but this. This is cool. This is cool. It's everything's going in tandem there. It's a great marriage of performance. I mean, you know, he said he based the character somewhat on himself, but the character has evolved as he has evolved as a person and actor. It's just a good again, good marriage, good blending. Yeah. And looking back at all of the Channing Tatum's career, I actually think his my favorite roles from him are dominantly from all Soderbergh performers. Yeah. Yeah. That's I mean, that's he works for them quite a bit. Yeah, he does. He does. And again, we'll we'll get into him and some of the other people in the movie. But yeah let's, let's circle back to Magic Mike's last words here. Yeah, I'll give I mean here we go. Yeah, yeah. No, let me just let me catch people up and ask because you and I have never really had a proper conversation about XXL, but Magic Mike 2012 we meet Mike as a dancer and entrepreneur in Tampa. His friends, he's struggling to make ends meet. This is an art film disguised as a male stripper romp because it is not that three years later, Mike, he's now estranged from the gang from the first film. He reunites with them and they go on a road trip from Tampa to Myrtle Beach for a dance contest. You know, XXL is really the male stripper romp that I think a lot of people wanted the first one to be. But moreover, XXL is one of the most passionately repped movies on film Twitter to this day, do not ever bash XXL on film Twitter, You will get killed. People love this movie and I like it more every time I watch it. I love the journey of getting to know each person. You know there's that when they all do Molly in the morning and there's just that fantastic hard cut to 54 minutes later and Matt Bomer just with that lollipop that you get, you know what do you fucking 12 do? You just take it. It's like, it's like six, seven in the morning. I love it. I love it. As I mentioned, that ends with the big dance off and now it's 2023. Mike is doing events, bartending in Miami and things are, you know, they're okay. I guess he has the same optimistic attitude. He's polite, he's smart, he's engaging. I wouldn't say he's content. And then he, by circumstance, meets a very rich woman played by Salma Hayek, who wants to give Magic Mike one last chance for one last dance. That's that's bass. That's the brief set up. But okay, we've talked about Magic Mike plenty. We did a whole episode about it. Let's just kind of talk about how we were going into Magic Mike's last dance based on those first two films. Because when I first heard about Last Dance, I went, you know, immediately go, Oh, I thought they kind of ended that, okay, I'm here for it because it's Soderbergh. But I know there's a lot of people going. They didn't need to make this third one. So how did you feel about how XXL just tied everything up? Did you even think they would go back to this character? I mean, no, I didn't. And and but I also didn't think that it wasn't a far stretch to think that they couldn't. Yeah, because I think with Mike, you're talking about a guy that is sort of just like you could drop him in any situation you could just make a movie based on just him. And that's kind of what this was. Yeah, Yeah. With XXL when I saw it, I knew I was getting into what, because Soderbergh didn't direct it. And I think I got in my head about that. I think I was like, Well, yeah, You said on the Magic Mike Pod, you were like, It ended so perfectly. Like, Why do I want to go back into that story? You know? I was like, That's a fair point. That's always a fair point. The first one or the second one ended fine, and you don't want to open it up for yourself. I get it. So that's why I was so glad you went back to it. And yes, it's a huge detractor for any Soderbergh fan to see that it is not directed by him, you know. But you know, and I think like getting into it, I was like, okay, we are going to get the romp. We're we're we're not going to get the art house movie. We have fun. But once I did, I was like, okay, I get it. Like, we're not going to get that. That's okay. I me just being me wish that we could have gotten another Yeah, arthouse type one with this. But then I leaned into what it was doing and I mean, the dance numbers in that movie are phenomenal. They're so much fun. And you do get to know the guys a little bit more. Had a great time with the movie, and now that I've seen this third one, that's what made me appreciate the second one even more because I was like, Okay, oh cool. First one is the first one. We listen to that episode, you can see how we feel about it, and the second one is the second one, and then this one is it's couldn't be more different than the first one or the second one. So I'm like, All right. And when we get that one scene with the guys on the computer, that's where I want to go next. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That that made me appreciate the second one more because I was like, All right, this is just in this guy's life. These are his guys. And no matter where they are, they're still kind of there. That's where I want to start, because I'm hearing some criticisms or just shock because I was a little shocked at as Magic Mike's last dance is going on. I mean, we're only like 25 minutes into it. I, I went, ding, ding, ding. I don't think there's room in here for the other guys. Yeah, I don't know if we're even going to see them. Yeah. And then they do give us a cameo. There's a Zoom call. Matthew McConaughey is not there. He wasn't in XXL. That's fine. There's a Zoom call, so I had this for later. But how did you feel about that? Were you let down by it? I'm hearing a lot of people who were like, Oh, I just wish we could have seen more of those guys. And it didn't have to be on a Zoom call. But my kind of counter is that Mike is going around recruiting like legit dancers for this stage play. Like he needs real, real dancers, people who can dance, by his own admission, even better than him. Yeah. And if you watch Magic Mike and Magic Mike XXL with all due respect, it ain't none of those guys that did Tatum get dance, but they can't be on that stage doing what these magnificent performers at the end of Last Dance are doing. So I got it. And there's no reason they couldn't be back. I mean, why not? There's what you're saying. It's like this. I don't know. Maybe it's Soderbergh's James Bond. This takes Mike from city to city. You know, maybe just as solo, like two hander with your wrestler guy. You know, it's just them. It's the same stars. They're just going out, doing something. The possibilities are endless. That's all I'm said. But yeah. So how did you feel about that? Like taking that different direction? I mean, we're out of Florida, we start in Florida, but we go to cold, chilly London very quickly and none of the guys there. So how did you feel about that? I liked it a lot, actually, having them not there because it felt like it was such a departure for Mike, the character himself, to leave. You know, when Salma Hayek tells him, I want to take you to London with me, he's like, I can't do that. I've got a life. I've got you know, I can't just but really he can because he's a very kind of temperate, free person in that way. So what I appreciate about the Zoom call was what what this guy Mike has is got he's got a foundation of good friends and they're all wondering what he's doing is he doesn't even know. But they're all supportive. They're all given. They're like, you know, two sense. But this is Mike's thing. Like, he's like he just got plucked from by Salma Hayek to this thing. Like, I kind of appreciated that this was Mike's journey and he had to do it alone. And yeah, and just for one moment, we got to see, you know, his support from his friend. Right? And then and then it's really it's him. Yeah. I mean, it's just him off on his own. Yeah. Yeah. And they were supportive on the zoom call like they were kind of Boston his balls. But I love Matt Bomer just in that Zen can vibe just so like now I feel the energy man and everyone is like supporting him and yeah, I really, I really, really liked it. So okay, let's go back to we're going to run through a bit of the setup in the scenes of Last Dance here. So like I said, we set up where Mike is now. We really do just start. Yeah. And he's a miami event. Bartender. I love how easily he got back into Mike. Yeah, smoothness like the way he handles that encounter with the woman from the first movie, which is really cool and it's in the trailer, but, you know, quote unquote, I used to be a cop. I don't even think her, like, current boyfriend ever really say, you know, he never did adult and and Tatum rather Mike could have blown off the spot so easily but he doesn't there's no need to and instead you know he's like he's so affable she's talking about yeah I'm a lawyer now and he's like, oh, what kind of law do you practice? Seems like a throwaway line, but he, like, actually means it. Yeah, actually. Interesting. He's not an empty dumbo shell of an event. Bartender. Yeah. Mike has heart. Yes. Thoughts? Yeah. Okay. Just a piece of meat. Yeah, exactly. He's not a piece of meat. Don't judge him. He's doing this event Is bartending, and he catches the eye of the host who's played by Salma Hayek. Pinol. That's how she's credited to this. That's her husband's last name, who is apparently like a gazillionaire in real life in this. I love that she was in this and I love her performance in this. And yeah, she's great. She is playing a wife of a rich well, she doesn't seem very keen on her husband. He's like some shitty, you know, British guy. He's done stuff, but he gives her an allowance. But somehow he just needs some, you know, companionship. And she pays. She offers to pay Mike an exorbitant amount of money, which the whole time I'm thinking they're talking about sex, right? They get up to $60,000 as a joke and she's like, Hey, 6000 and like, Stuart's about to make $6,000 to, you know, get it on. No, it is $6,000 to dance. Yeah. To put on a dance for Salma Hayek. And this was like, sell the dance, man. I mean, this is a hell of a dance. This got people in my movie theater crowd. They were pure cheer. They were stirred their seats that I mean, it's essentially like a very long clothed sex scene. Yeah, with no sex. I mean, Soderbergh as a director really is not interested in sex. I can count those kind of scenes. I think on one hand from his films, this actually reminded me a bit of George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez tryst from Out of Sight, where you see everything but the actual lovemaking. The last dance scene is way more passionate and freaky deaky than out of sight. But it's kind of a similar vibe, and I just love to see they're both absolutely on fire. And I love that even though it does end with a consensual act of fornication, it's never seen. Yeah, and Salma Hayek's character makes it very clear, hey, that was just a one off like, I do want you to come to London for a month for this thing that I'm not going to tell you about. But this isn't about us hooking up. This is about, like me kind of screwing over my soon to be ex-husband and you trying something new. Because why not? Do you have anything else to do? Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it. That's a setup. Exactly. Yeah. And now we're like, you know, 20, 25 minutes into the movie. But that first dance goes on for so long, and there's such long takes. I mean, these are them doing it the way he connects the, the shots with those long cross fades. Like it was just gorgeous. It was great. Oh, it was so good. And I love the color palette in that. There's that. That's the other thing that was very different. Like if you talk about the first one, you've got the crazy filters, which yeah, we both love. XXL It's just bright. Yeah, feels like that. And, and these are neon, all that. Yeah. And then this one you've got like, it looks like London. It's, it's gray, but there's also like, even just like, feels like the this, like the stage where they work though those reds, they're very deep There's, they're like deep purples, deep reds grays and and it gives the movie a look that the other ones don't have and it feels a little bit more mature. It feels more it's just a little bit more serious a certain kind of way and and it works works so well. Yeah, it's just a little bit more natural and lived in in when there needs to be crazy lighting it's in a natural setting like in stage that theater for sure. Yeah. So we talked about this offer a bit, you know Salma Hayek very quickly, it's like, I want you to come to London for a month. Not going to tell you why they play this out for a little bit. You know, I mean, he goes all the way there and I love the little interaction he has with the butler. Oh, yeah. Do you know what the fuck I'm doing here, man? Like, I am going to say, you know, fans of this podcast know that we are both no strangers to using foul language. And we have, you know, I just love that this movie lets people talk how people talk sometimes, like they say fuck kind of casually. There's no I don't know. I just I love that it's never over the top. But just being like to this really proper British butler, like, do you think I'm doing here, man? I just loved that. I loved it. And he's like, I don't know. So the set up. Okay, so there's a famous theater in London that her husband's family owns, and they just put up the same damn play, like every night, every night, every week, Whatever it is, it sells out. But it's, you know, it's a stuffy old British play. What Salma Hayek wants to do is come in for one night only one night only, and put on sabotage the old play and do a new rendition of it that is all about, you know, dancing through female empowerment. So it's all male dancers. And so it's simultaneously a middle finger to her soon to be ex-husband and her soon to be ex mother in law, it would seem. Here's one thing I miss the first time. It really is for one night. She knows this is like in the stuffy, you know, British theater culture. This is not going to go over well. She's just trying to give whatever ladies show up to the event. Kind of the time of their life with this one night only show. And that's really the setup. And of course, Mike, a stripper from Tampa, does not feel qualified to direct a stage play in London, but he jumps on board. Everyone helps out. And from there we kind of have a honestly, I got a bit of an Ocean's 12 vibe at this one because, yeah, they have to build an unconventional team from within the movie. But the movie itself is playing with that Soderbergh Ian form that I talked about, starting with the narration that feels a little playful little bit, you know, Edith Wharton, age of Innocence. And I found that very intentional, very amusing. Obviously, the European setting. I just even with his cutting styles, I was like, I don't want to put too fine a point on this, but I yeah, if I was labeling them, this does feel like the Ocean's 12 of this franchise a little looser, but still like, mature. I don't know. It's just that Soderbergh tempo that he sets, it makes it fun to watch people like setting up a play. I don't even know what the hell they're doing half the time. I just like watching it well and that's and that's also kind of the the best part about it is like it we don't ever really know what they're doing. Like, we see like, like little bit of like when, when they're rehearsing and they're coming up with an idea of a of a scene or a dance. We see like a little bit and then that's it. So we don't know, like what they're trying to do. And then when they give it to us at the end. Mm hmm. That's I realize at a certain point I go, okay, they're going that's how they're going to do this. They're they're going to let us in in these little snapshots of them putting together something. But even they don't know how it's going. Yeah. Like she she keeps changing things. Yeah, exactly. We hear throughout the work that they've put on something really, really great and so I'm like, okay, so that's what they're going to give us at the end. They're going to show us what they've done. And I like that. I liked not knowing anything throughout the movie and where it's revealing itself as it goes. And again, like it, that reminded me a lot of the process of Ocean's 11 where they are cluing us into like we're going to, you know, create like they they build this whole casino, this whole separate vault just to keep practice runs and keep trying it out. They don't tell us that we're going to plug this in and use this and trick them into thinking that it's real. But you're just following long enough to when you do get to the final heist, you're like, Oh, there's that detail. Oh, that. That's why they were carrying balloons earlier. There's that, there's that. This is the same thing again, it's not a heist. It's a big dance number, but you're just seeing it go the whole time. And then he's cluing you in on enough stuff that when you land there, you're like, not only was I ready to see this, but I really wanted it to go well. I had that tension, that anxiety of like, is this going to bomb? Is something going to happen of any sort? You know, is someone there's some talk of like they might come in and like stop the show and they have to go about doing that to kind of like honeypot the woman responsible. Yeah. Who would be in charge of this. And they do the same exact thing. And like Logan Lucky, it's just that Logan Lucky is another great comp to this of really showing us like how can we pull off this heist and then they actually, you know, do the thing and he excludes little things along the way that I, you know, I just love, I always love watching him set something up. The movie is a business partnership. It weaves in and out of their thing. Sure, sure. But we never feel like like, oh, God. Like these two are falling in love. We see the way that they deal with one another. And you see the way that like, she's like, What's so great about Salma Hayek is she goes crazy a lot. Yeah, yeah, sure. My favorite scene, I think in the whole entire movie is the cab scene. Oh, yeah, we're not the cab, but in the back seat where she's going, cab. She's driving around because she's rich. But yes, this is a very straight Yeah. And moment. And just to interject just by way of setting it up, because this is good. We're talking about it. I touched on it earlier, but yeah, once they get to London, like Mike's kind of like, Oh, yeah, this is going to be like a thing like I'm shacking up. And she's like, No, this is not what that is. Yeah, what we had that night was really special. This is a business partnership. That's what she says. But then, you know, as weeks go by, things start to there are glances, their looks and that now we're in the back of a of her driver's car. And that kind of sets up, you know, to where we are, where we are. And they're just having a good they're kind of cuddling, just having a good little chat, like, it's all good. It's all good. And he's respectful to you know, what she said? You know, he he tries like a little bit because he feels the moment. But then when she puts him in place about it, he's like, okay, then, you know, so she crosses that line that she's made for herself a bit. And all he does is just basically like, are you sure you you said no to doing this. And Then she has like what's really truly amazing, like flip out because it's not crazy crazy. We're watching a character now, kind of like backpedal her way out of something that she feels embarrassed about. That's where she does it very specifically. And it's it's just incredible. I, I love that. I thought that was just such a such a cool way to do that. Yes, I agree. And so to go back to the car thing, yeah, she tries to kiss him and he does what he should do. She's like, Are you sure? I mean, you know, he's down, but he's like, Are you sure? Because you said you want to do this. And then she has her. She has a little flip out and he's just reacting like, okay, okay. So the chemistry he has with Salma Hayek is just, yeah, way better than anything else we've seen in the Magic Mike franchise. They are so on fire together when they're dancing, when they're bickering because of a business meeting or a problem on the stage that can't get resolved. That all leads to this final dance performance, which I do want to talk a little bit about that he has clearly made the decision to structure it that is based on kind of their courtship and how they met and different things. And like they had that scene in the rain. So the final dance number on stage is in the rain. Yeah. And she's tracking on all this. And so everything that's gone on is led up to this final show one night only. And, you know, there is like a magic Mike stage play in London. Have you heard of this? I'm talking to real life. Oh, really? Yeah. I mean, there's like strip shows or whatever in, like Vegas, but they actually did a stage show in London, and from what I'm told, it's a lot like what we see. Oh, it's a movie. So I like. That's cool. Yeah, I think. And it was that stage show, I believe they got Soderbergh and Tatum interested in making this third movie. So everything's kind of connected here, but I'm not going to describe everything that goes on in this final dance scene. I mean, it's like it's about 25, 30 minutes of just this remarkable stage play they put on highlighted, I must say, with an insane dance number that Tatum does on stage with a ballerina in the rain. I actually read a review of Magic Mike's last dance, and it said that if these two actors were not clothed in this scene, this movie could be rated NC 17 for how sexual. Yeah, this dance is, even though there's no sex, it's like this is a bold statement, but it may be the dance highlight of this entire series of films. I was just watching it going like, first of all, Chintan was 42 years old and the man of Jesus Christ, he looks great and he can still move like he did in Magic Mike. Like he doesn't step up. It isn't saying it's while a ballerina he's on stage with. I mean, they just absolutely go for it. And I love that they give us that brief little insert of them drying themselves off, walking back to the room and she's like you said, to bring it. So we brought it like we showed up. Yeah. It just shows like the professional vibe because you're you're watching them on stage and you're like, are these two people about to just like, get it on right here? Like, this is they they're going for it, but it's not. They keep it professional, but that is the whole and performance was great, but that dance number was just really, really something else. This was a good example of actually I appreciated the bit of the spoon feeding that he was giving us. Yeah, same here. Throughout this dance he's linking story wise why these moments are happening in the dance and they're reflecting back to the moments he's had with Salma Hayek during this whole entire journey. They'll be performing the numbers on stage and they'll cut to Salma Hayek in the crowd, who's loving it? And then we will get the movie Will hard cut to something the dance is reflecting that we've already seen. Like he kind of recreates the dance he did with Salma Hayek in the room, like he recreates on stage. And then we're crosscutting back and forth. Totally Soderbergh thing to do. Again, this film is edited by the great editor, Mary Ann Bernard, a.k.a Steven Soderbergh, a.k.a If I didn't get those hard Cuts, I don't know if I necessarily would have made those connections. Same. I remember even that I go, I appreciate the spoon feeding right now. I definitely wouldn't have gotten it. Yeah, I wouldn't. Because there's times where movies spoon feed you and I'm like, You don't need to do that. And then there's times where you do and I'm like, Thank you for doing that, because now I'm appreciating what we're seeing so much more. So I was I became very aware of that, that choice, because, you know, when he's editing, he's like, All right, do you think they're going to get it? I don't think they're going to get it. I'm going to give it to him. He makes those decisions all the time, just like, yeah, I didn't even really consider it a spoon feeding because I don't know, frankly, I don't know how many people would have made those connections. Yeah, and he doesn't start doing it from the beginning. He waits a little bit. And then when he started doing that, I started to get chills a little bit and I was like, Oh, I love this play. It's like, it's all for her yourselfer. It's all for her. Max I guess we could be calling her Max and Mike. Max is Salma Hayek Same. I do that sometimes I say character names versus actor names, whatever. It's like we're trying. We're trying. I try really hard. Channing Tatum, the man, is 42 years old. You know, I'd seen him in stuff, but his career, I kind of already mentioned this. His career is not pin. Unlike Magic, Mike himself, he takes these kind of quote unquote pretty boy roles and things like Coach Carter step up fighting G.I. Joe, Dear John. But then Soderbergh really unlocks him first with Haywire, which I really like him in. Then with Magic Mike Side Effects, this leads to things like Foxcatcher, The Hateful Eight, Hail, Caesar, or Logan Lucky. Of course, we have 21 and 22 Jump Street, which are hilarious. But I didn't really have an opinion about this actor from when he stepped on that front. The first ten years of his career. I knew who he was. I knew his name. I saw him things, I saw Stop-Loss. I cried. I'm like, okay, yes, Haywire. And then Magic Mike, where I went, Oh, wow, This guy really has it. And I can still just see that essence play out over him where sometimes he's like, I can't believe that these people are letting me be in. Movies like this is really, really cool. And Channing Tatum, he just grinded really, really hard to get where he was. Again, no connections, just grinded. Yep. I think a pony like a unicorn or Bodie is Magic Mike's, you know, a signature song by Ginuwine. You got to pay attention. This thing's neck. Well, I was cutting. I was making a reference to the unicorn that they mentioned because he's a horse. Okay, well, that's fair. But I was. Whatever. I mean, I can argue with you about this. Yeah, Yeah, that is funny how that to sell my daughter, how she had to leave the performance. And he's like, you can't return until you hear Pony. She's like, Pony started that. Butler was like, No, till after Podia. It's like, yeah, you know, because she's so young she can't watch it all. But Tatum someone who's been brought up, it's just he really seems to have made the conscious effort to go. I appreciate the work so far I do have something else to say and we see a lot of actors do this and I'm not going to throw any names under the bus, but they try to make that leap. I'm not talking the heavy, dramatic leap. I'm just talking like, put me in coach to bit more serious fare. It doesn't always work out. It worked out for him and I love it. Yeah, but I was I was I was a hater for stupid reasons in that first ten years of his career. Oh. So, yeah, they, like, actively disliked him. I wasn't like that. I was like this. It's just another young actor that's all it was to me. It's like, okay, I guess I get like that. Like, I see, like, whatever, like the flavor of the month kind of. I would just see the types of movies. Like when Dear John there it is. There's that guy. Exactly. Exactly. Being misinformed and and judgmental. I do want to interrupt because you used to have this about another actor. And I just want to say you really, really used to hate this guy. And then you saw a movie he was in. It all worked out. And that was Armie Hammer. And now I know he's just one of your favorite actors. I think he's in good shape. And you saw Call Me by Your Name and you're like, Man, I used to hate that guy, but I love him now. He's else's gurgling. He's doing he's doing great things. He's doing. He's doing he's doing tasty things. I thought she's crazy. Okay, Anyway, back back on chain here, back on chanting 21 Jump Street was was the movie that turned me around where I thought he was just absolutely hilarious. But I still hadn't seen Magic Mike, so. Yeah, yeah. I'm just now coasting on like, Oh, yeah, he's an entertaining guy. I like him. And then Magic Mike just there's something so easy about him. Yeah. And I think he's kept that up in all of his movies, and I've really enjoyed him in The Hateful Eight. Oh, so good. I thought that that cameo was really, really good. I Yes. So now I'm just a giant fan. Like, I'm like, he is now like a reason I'll go see, like, I almost I wanted to see the lost city earlier this year whenever he Yeah because just because he's in it and he said it was Sandra Bullock and they do great work together it's it's the movie is exactly what you think it's going to be but he's just kind of fun to watch you know it's yeah if you want to go watch them banter back and forth and then Brad Pitt shows up, it's like, okay, cool. That was that was fine. Yeah, I'm a fan and I'm always looking forward to what he's going to do next. I it's fun that, you know, we're on that evolution with him. Salma Hayek, who is 56 years old and looks that's I've been watching her since Desperado and for My Money I mean she's just I don't know. God bless you, Salma. Desperado From Dusk till Dawn. The faculty. I love the faculty. Frida, which she got nominated for an Oscar. She has worked with Soderbergh, but only once in Traffic, a very small role as a cartel's girlfriend in traffic. And I'm glad they found a reason to work together. I don't know how much I want to go into this. Maybe it's worth mentioning that Magic Mike's last dance was filming with another actor, Tandy Wayne Newton, Choose to Go by Tandy Newton, and that didn't work out. And they brought in Salma Hayek. So it's kind of when you watch the movie or reconsider Magic Mike's Last Dance, knowing that Hayek was brought on in the middle of production and they had to reshoot all those scenes and, you know, start again, and she just it doesn't seem like that. It seems like she was prepping and prepping for it because, God, I just thought she really owned it. And it, you know, she's not just this like woman with a lot of money or this damsel. It's not that she has a lot of fight and a lot of power to her. And I love that, like you said. Oh, she yeah, she's watching her navigate what she wants, like as just an actor in this movie. It's just incredible. Yeah. Like even from the opening scene where she's asking for the dance to the way that, like, her kid blows up her spot when she's like, Oh, you're the queen of the one act. Like you start things and don't finish them. And the way she deals with that, and then she's also got all this fire. It's just yeah, like when she comes in that one scene, the leaves the room, it's just tanning and the butler and. And he's like, why do you stay with her as opposed to the husband? And he's and he's like, she has more balls. Yeah. And then she comes in and she just said, Now you something. Listen, motherfucker. Yes, this keeps going. And then watching Channing Tatum and his character knows how to deal with character. Like, I think that's what makes their chemistry so good is like, when she gives him fire, he's not like, burned by it. He. He actually knows how to, like, put it out with water. I know I do. We've talked about the cinematography a little bit. I do want to talk about the great Peter Andrews a.k.a Steven Soderbergh. Just I just want to give a little more appreciation to the fact that this dude shoots all of his own stuff. It's crazy. I mean, he's made some huge, bold swings in his work. I want to go through it just very quickly, like traffic, making those three areas look so different using radically different filters. It was so unique for the time for an American movie. I remember seeing that being like, What the hell, man? I can't look so crazy to me. It's so good. And the way he would interweave stories that, Oh, I loved it. I mean, even Solaris is like one of the best looking movies I think he's ever shot. I think that movie looks stunning. Ocean's 12 is my favorite looking Ocean's movie. Things like the Good German, which no one talks about. He tried to film that using only equipment that was available like in 1944, which is pretty cool. So it's like an exercise where it looks like it's not a fully successful movie, but it's kind of like, think like what Fincher did with Mank But this is 15 years before Mank, so it's cool. J one to again, he pioneered the use of red cameras, which is a new thing, and he shot those movies with different looks, different shooting styles, different aspect ratios, all using the same camera. The Informant is another one that really uses those filters well on the whole movie, just like corn, like yellow orange. Yeah, it's just. It's so, so cortical color. It's funny that it looks like that. Yeah. Unsane and high flying birds shot on an iPhone. Unsane is actually his last movie to be released in theaters. That's crazy, because since then, he's now high flying bird. The laundromat. Let them all talk. No sudden move. Kimmy. They all look great. I think they are all great. I enjoy watching all of them. So just I always want to give some shout out to, you know, there aren't too many directors who actually shoot their own films. And it's. I cannot imagine. It's just so cool. It makes me appreciate it so much more. God, I just can't stress enough that, like, how is no one talking about him? But I bet you he likes that. I think. I think he'd rather keep this thing that he has going. Yeah. He doesn't strike me as the type of person that wants like his after the Chase stuff. Like, after he kind of was like, All right, I'm done. I'm done trying to. I don't know. Please. I'm done trying to do what I think you want me to do, what I should be doing. When he kind of then come back from this and just kind of have like a fuck you, I'm just going to do whatever I want. You can watch it. You can. He does want to make money. He does it. It's a business. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think he necessarily cares about. Did he write scores? Apple+ He did. So that's like Stop-Loss was actually that's a huge turning point because that takes us right into the next section. I want to talk about just just a bad around. If you have any favorite kind of hidden Soderbergh film. Oh, yeah. That you want to talk about. I've seen them all. I've reviewed them all. I, I appreciate all of them. He would even admit he doesn't even like all of them. So we're not going to talk about those. But I want to use this not necessarily to talk about the ocean's elevens, which, you know, those are big and great and all good. But we start with skits topless, which we have a reference on the podcast a few times, but he thought his career was just done. Yeah, he did not have success making like Kafka, King of the Hill, the Underneath small movies that really not a lot of people seen. Again, movies that some of them he's taking a screenwriting credit for skits topless. He's like, I'm going to make this weird fucking thing. Like, I don't even know how to explain. You know, I'm going to do you can myself even accent it. Never. Yeah, he's the star. Yeah. And it is this totally bizarre, avant garde, experimental thing that he said he made thinking it was going to be his last movie. And then, you know, kind of the freedom in doing that and the fuck it all on this. And like, of course no one sees it, but Criterion picks it up. I own it. It's a really fun watch the commentaries hysterical. One side he does the commentary track because he does such good ones, the less channel, the left audio channel is someone interviewing the right audio channel about the movie, but it's Soderbergh interviewing Soderbergh. So you just got to. So it's two different audio tracks playing in your head. And he's like, What did you think about, you know, it's got that monotone fucking thing. So yes, that was from his kind of that's his brainchild, really. And somehow it all worked out. He got his next movie was out of sight. He got offered that. That takes his career off. But let's start with skits topless. Let's start with some of these hidden Soderbergh gems. And every movie I'm going to mention here. I do recommend them. You know, they're not even really hard to find, but I would just recommend going, you know, okay, I want to see what this like. Here's the real artsy side of Soderbergh in any number of forms, but if you want to investigate this form thing, we were talking about earlier, you can go watch some of these and be like, Whoa, let's get topless. Yeah, well, what a ride. That's just the fact that he wrote that, like, just kind of clues you into just how strange of a guy he that's his if that's what's going on in his head series. Like doesn't people go on like long stretches? Where don't they like say exactly what they're thinking And there's no like subtext to it. They're like, Hi, I'm sure. Yeah, I think I'll shake your hand. It's so weird. It's so weird to I mean, and then it goes into, like, speaking like, like a language. It doesn't exist. Like, it's just gibberish. Yes. If you like that type of absurdity, definitely check that one out. It's it's one of those movies that if you are doing like a deep dive on Soderbergh, you have to include that. Yes, You need to see that this was something that he did all the Soderbergh heads, like the die hard Soderbergh heads. You're going to see a lot of them who are like, There are, you know, all of them, including myself, Go Ocean's 12 is the best Ocean's movie, but they're like, I mean, for a lot of them, get Topless is like in the top five. Like people just rip it. If you love Soderbergh, a lot of people really like this movie. Other people like Soderbergh films and have no fucking clue what's going on in the movie. And I've never been able to finish it successfully. But I'm staring at my Criterion now and this conversation's just making you want to put it on even more. But I could talk about, you know, any of his films. Do You have any other like hidden gems you wanted to call out or any of them maybe that you've wanted to see that you have heard about? Well, Che is actually my number one. Yeah. Because, like, I just because of just knowing what the reality of that movie was for him, I want to see like, what? The thing that he poured his heart and soul into that just didn't work out the way that he was trying to do. Yeah. And from everything that you've been talking about, that movie, that's that's the number one that I want to see from him real quick, because Che Che is not an easy sell, as far as I know. Maybe Criterion puts it up sometimes, like to the point where I don't even own that, and that's a criterion I should own. And I don't because they release and it looks great. And to be clear, the movies came out exactly how he wanted. But yeah, no one gave a shit. Yeah. I mean, critics did not give a shit, audiences didn't. And if he's like, if I'm going to bend over backwards doing this and not all the time for this huge movie and this massive commitment, getting an astounding lead performance from Benicio Del Toro, who won best actor at Con, that is kind of what sully his whole thing with like serious cinema. But I would love to hear your opinions on them. It's so cool to watch them back to back because they have, you know, one shot in like 235, the other shot in 619. So it's just cool. He's always playing with form like that. It's cool. Yeah. And I think it's on the Criterion Channel. I've always seen it. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Good, good, good. Yeah. I didn't know if he was still on there. Oh, yeah, but what else? Any others? I'm such a fan of Logan. Lucky I. Another Channing Tatum collaboration that they have. One of the more sillier movies again that Soderbergh has probably done. Absolutely. And and then I. I really loved The Limey. I don't think that's like a hidden one. I think for Soderbergh heads like, that's like a big one. We've talked about that one a few times. That's what I mean. Like we're talking about Soderbergh had movies that were recommending to the masses, and you cannot do any worse than limey me. I fucking love that movie. So it's so good. And and then the one that I'm still like, I recommend this movie is Let Them All Talk. Oh, great call. Great call. I loved that. I just absolutely loved that. Oh, there is one thing that I do want to see, like on the line with Che, and that's The Knick. Oh, my. I had not seen any of that. Oh, yeah, I see how we could go straight to TV like he did this mosaic thing for HBO, which you can go watch in six episodes. It's really cool, but you can still do this. They made an app for it and it kind of plays as a choose your own adventure and yeah, like kind of video game. It's going to end with the same stuff. You know, there's not like multiple endings, but how you get there can be different or you can just go on HBO and watch. He assembled it and kind of it's not even a linear cut. It jumps all around. It's really cool. But The Knick, which he did for Cinemax, starring Clive Owen, and that was like that was part of his retirement because he wasn't making a feature film. He was doing a TV show and they let him do whatever he wanted. Here's my selling point for The Knick. I love when they conceived of that. It's two seasons and we're done. So you knew. That's all you knew. That's what you were going to get. The Knick is one of the very few things film, TV, whatever, that I would just have to put on mute and look away. It's some of the most realistic surgery scenes, if not the most I've ever seen. I don't know how the fuck they did it. They are so gory and gruesome to watch, but realistic for the time. You would love that show. That show rocks. I don't even know how to find it now because like, it's Cinemax soul thing. I don't know. I don't. Yeah, I don't know. I think that's worth like a Blu ray. Yeah. If they sell it on Blu ray, that thing The Knick is all. Yeah. You've, you've, you've been talking to me about that one for ever and I really want to see that. Yeah. Because Clive Owen, like, he's not in as much anymore. And there's this great, you know, he's in like 20 hours of it. I mean, I can it's, you know, he when in episode two of your series, you have your main character injecting liquid cocaine into their penis. I'm sold. I've just sold one more. I'm sold so I don't care. It's like it's all good. Yeah. You can bring in Ocean of Cocaine. Oh, it's great. It's just. Oh, it's so good a few for me. Those are good ones. Those are good pics from you. That thank you. Stuff you want to see. Yes. You're welcome. You're welcome. He's made. I mean, if you want to. He's done. He's gone. Heavy, experimental. A few a few times. Full frontal, which stars a bunch of really, really famous people. He made it in 2002. That was all about form. It was all stripped down, no trailers, no makeup, no big cameras. They shot it on just like these DV cams. No, no anything, no permits, no nothing. But you get to see, you know, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, They're like, in this really cool world just bouncing around L.A. It's it's a fun little movie bubble. In 2006, he made for next to nothing using old dancers. It's a murder mystery in, like, small town america. Really, really cool. I did mention the girlfriend experience with. Yep. Sasha gray again made that for like a million bucks streets in New York always really like that. And then you got the iPhone movies unsane and high flying bird mileage is going to vary on those same people you know just don't like to see iPhone quality and this is 2018 iPhone quality. But I really liked those and had a fun time with them. And then Kimi is one that I just keep going back to. It's kind of one that I like to put on and have in the background. I love Cliff Martinez's score, that is, I found a fun one really good Kevin movie to I don't know, I just have it all by TV and I'll be doing chores or something. You hear that music and you know, Zoe Kravitz, Zoe Kravitz and Channing Tatum were dating for a while. I don't know if they still are. Is that a Soderbergh connection right there? Could it be Oh, could it be Jimmy and Magic Mike? I mean. Oh, no, damn. I've always wanted to was Soderbergh. So but there's maybe we can someday there's just so many. So I know that would be tough for you because there's just so many there. There are, But you've seen a good now. But I've seen it. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure we could. I can hang with that. Have you ever seen Sex, lies and videotape a law like now? I need to see it again? Yeah, because I think when I watched it, it was on TV and I wasn't giving it attention, and I was in and out. It was one of those it's a just a great announcement of, like, American indie cinema. I mean, it won the Palme d'Or for Do the Right Thing. It's it was a big deal. Like, it's crazy. It's a good movie. Oh, wow. Yeah. And like typical Soderbergh fashion, again, a director who's not interested in sex. A lot of people were a little bummed out, I think, to find out that the main thing in that movie are the last two things that the title certainly not the first. And I love that. I love him for that. I love that he did that. So good. And the other general thoughts on Soderbergh here, I just go see some of his stuff like and find ways to kind of get in the way that we've talked about it. Like see the way that he makes movies. And there's a look to all of his movies because of his shooting style. Like, I'll always know when I'm watching a sort of a movie because of the look of it. And I love the look that he brings. I love the language that he speaks. I love the flavor. It makes me want to go back and watch his movies, too. Now think them in the aspect that he doesn't write and that he just sort of moves it. And I really like that about these movies. These Magic Mike movies I tell everyone I know to see Magic Mike, like, Oh yeah, that Magic Mike is might be my favorite Soderbergh movie. I love that. I know that's a bold statement. I need to really think that, but it's it's that high up. I love it so much. Well, doing Soderbergh rankings which we're not going to do here but doing those is tough because you find out very quickly there is a prestige column and then like a fun column like I'm talking about, it's like, yeah, how do you rate like Magic Mike in traffic or Magic Mike? And yeah, you know, salaries which starts is so like just down down here and very still and quiet but that you know he's had a huge range to his career and I love this new path he's on keep making streaming movies and maybe every five ones they'll let him put in theaters. I don't care. I'm going to watch them all. Yeah. Move on to what are you here? All right. Want to go first? Yeah, of course. I'll take it. I'll take the responsibility. Fine. You know, I know you so generously did it one time. You want to pull the fucking. I got the list right here. I'll fucking pull it up right now. I'll tell you, I used to always talk about this list, so I watched this on a plane for the first time, and I absolutely loved this movie a lot. I can't stop thinking about it. And that is Paul Schrader's American Gigolo. Oh, yeah. All right. You okay? So you were just on the flight. We both were separate flights, but I didn't have movie capability on TVs, so I listened to a book. Oh, God. Okay, wait a minute. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Had you never seen American Gigolo? I've never seen American Gigolo. Whoa. Yeah. Oh, wow. Dude, you're going to. I I'm all for plane viewing. I love plane viewing. I don't hate on playing viewing at. Yeah, because it locks, you know, you have no choice. You're like, All right, here I am. I dig. But, man, you've got to put that on like a good TV and sound system. Because though those suits, those colors, that music, I mean, it's just the music. I had no idea you hadn't seen it when you texted me. I would have responded more. I mean, yeah, that's. Can't you see? Yeah, That's what a Bret Easton Ellis his favorite movies like it just it's all so so as a as a trippy movie baby. That's Paul Schrader. Oh, God, I love that thing. I love American. I loved it. And Richard Gere, man, I that was like a performance from him. Like, he was just perfect. He was absolutely No. One perfect. And Julian Kaye, I believe, is the. Yeah, yeah. And that's who Bret Easton Ellis sorry named his a character in lesson zero about Julian. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just it was just. I was. I was floored by it. I loved every second. I loved this. As they say, today was such a vibe. Yeah, it was a vibe before vibe was a thing, but yeah, I mean, a vibe you have Giorgio Moroder doing the music for it. Like, just cruise it, It like, oh, and something like they needed they wanted him to be very stylish, obviously. Julian Kaye, Richard Gere And they made a deal with like Armani to do it because Armani wasn't like big at the time. And then Armani genuinely became Armani because American Gigolo. And that's just that's hilarious. Like it just turned it into a huge brand overnight. There is something there is something about and I can totally see Bradley Chanel is because he does it in his books, but in in that scene where he's laying out the suits. Yeah, yeah. There's something about watching people do things like that. Just routine stuff. Well, this is the taxi driver laying out the go. Yeah, you know. Yeah, Yeah. Well, you know, I think that. Yeah. To watching someone just like, like organize their life in routine ways is just some of the most captivating shit to me. I love seeing that stuff. I love that process. Just someone. Hey, if you can show someone getting ready like there's no long monologue introducing. Julian and I tried to watch a few episodes of the Showtime. Jon Bernthal thing. Oh, it was all BackStory. It was just wasn't, Oh my God. And I love Jon Bernthal. Love him just too much. Yeah, so much. It seems that fans of the movie weren't really a fan of that show. And that's, you know, whatever. That's okay. They tried going back to this movie, though. Yeah. I mean, you're just watching him get ready and how serious he takes in. It's Oh, just so cool. And the clientele he has, you know, he's not picking up these quote unquote, babes. He has a very he has a very specific clientele. They're older women. He knows how to handle them, how to cater to them. Very LA movie, like a great L.A. Barry takes you down to Palm Springs, fucking Bill Duke, Hector Elizondo. No, it's great. That's a great call. And no idea. You haven't seen it. Fucking met Elizondo. All right, I'm going to do too, because I had planned to do one, but you just kind of inspired me. The main one I was going to do was The Limey. I was going to stay on the track and we have talked about it. I'm mentioning it specifically because I just bought this 4K that looks Oh my God, it looks gorgeous. But folks, this thing is 90 minutes long. If you've seen it and enjoyed it a little bit, I just just buy the 4K. Like if you if you like owning physical media because also what you're going to get is, by all accounts, anyone who likes commentaries for movies, you are going to get a five of all time director commentary, largely because Soderbergh and the writer of the of the film Lem Dobbs do not really get along. And they are the only two people on the commentary track. And they argue repeatedly, and Lem Dobbs is clearly the aggressor. Lem Dobbs is pissed about certain reviewers who have reviewed The Limey. He calls them out by name. But then here's the other part, though. The fucking commentary is structured like the movie, so it keeps jumping all around and you keep hearing the same thing a few times to the point when you start, you're like, okay, so someone just like messed up this track and they don't know how the hell they made it to this disc because it starts like really, really weird. And he'll just keep doing that and it's amazing. It's amazing. So right down there to the form, he's fucking with the form of a commentary track, which he did on skits opposed to I Love Him. Go watch The Limey. The Limey is great. Second, what are you watching? This is actually not a recommendation wholeheartedly. It's a new movie release. And you said. I said that after our Magic Mike pod. If I liked the movie, we were going to record a separate, like 15 minute mini. So on a movie that just came out, I saw it. I didn't really like it, so I did just want to touch on Cocaine Bear very briefly because I saw it. I sat through it, so I may as well it some pod time. I think by now, like by the time this episode comes out, people have probably heard, you know, we all really seem to be in agreement about this. This is like good 25 to 30 minute sketch that they could have put on YouTube or Netflix or something. And it could have been pretty funny. But, you know, it's 95 minutes long and it is. It's a long 95 minutes. There are so many back stories that I cannot imagine anyone really cares about. Like this should just be about a bear who does cocaine and kills people that's in there. Yeah. Actually has some like fucking brutal kills and some gory stuff. And that's what people in the theater were like. Yeah, Yeah. But I mean, we were all laughing 5 minutes in because, you know, your energy's up, your journal ends up. I'm sitting here for cocaine, beer. Like, what the fuck is this thing going be? And there was this place you could hear a pin drop by the end. No one's laughing. Everyone's just sauntering out like that. And people, I mean, I was, like, checking my phone going, Oh, my God, this thing is just going, like, on and on. And I don't you know, I use this podcast to promote movies. I just I just thought I'd give my $0.02. It's kind of it's a typical thing of like, great trailer, great premise, great title. Some good stuff in here does contain radio, does last performance, which is why I was going to see it and talk about it. It's good to see him as always. I will miss him forever. Good title again. Good. Good premise premise, but not very much. Not unlike Snakes on a Plane. Genuinely like everyone you know, they got a lot of people in there the first weekend because it's ridiculous. You have snakes on a plane and Samuel Jackson is going to say motherfucker and all that. And then you start that and you're like, okay, this is a ten minute sketch and that's it. This didn't need to be 95 minutes. So that's all Cocaine bear, whatever. I was worried that that might happen. When I saw the trailer, I was like, This is either going to be exactly what I hope it's going to be or it's going to be exactly what you just said. That's a bummer. It's a bummer. And I mean, they're doing the thing like in the previews and even in the beginning of the movie, like this is based on a true story and it's like, okay, like this did happen. Someone did have to toss a bunch of drugs and it landed a bunch of cocaine out of a plane and it like landed in Tennessee and they found it like a black bear ate a bunch and then just had a fucking heart attack, that's all. Yes, that died. Didn't they kill anybody? Wouldn't like. So, you know, that's all. It just it's kind of just a nothing nothing movie. And now whatever audios, you know, video other than Magic Mike's Last dance, of course, the grade, the movie I've given the highest grade to so far in 2023 is plane starring chart brother So that shows you where the year is off to a good start seen most everything infinity pool knock the cabin know look at missing sick okay Megan Jesus Well scream six is coming out Scream six is scream six is coming out to avoid watching the trailer. Everywhere I go, that episode will be coming. I will be out there for the Oscars. Los Angeles. Speaking of which, our next episode is going to be our Oscar narratives. Things are shaping up. The guilds are shaping up. We are recording this podcast the night of the day that the Screen Actors Guild Awards are will be announced and given out. So after that, the narratives are going to kind of be set. We're going to start Oscar voting. You and I are going to jump on Mike and just talk about, I don't know, maybe what we think is going to win, but more like what the town is saying is going to win what we would want to win if we had a vote. None of my picks that I want to win are going to win. That's okay. That's just the way it goes. Some years. Yeah. And then Scream six, We're going to have our friend Dan on. We're all going to go see it in 3D. And then we're going to record a podcast right after we're seeing it in 3D. Why not in fucking 3D? Oh, okay. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Yeah, yeah. Let me see if they shot it. Okay. They shot it in 3D. We're seeing it 3D. If they didn't, I'll see it in 3D on my own because. Yeah, I don't. Although I saw Titanic in 3D twice if that's Cameron's that's Cameron in three days like last week and it was amazing. What are you trying to say. I'm trying to say six Is it. Yeah. Yeah. What are you trying to say. I can't believe you post converted that 3D. It looks the Titanic in 3D in theaters now. It looks like it. It was just remarkable. I couldn't believe it because he did that shit in 20 and it looked terrible. This looks great. It made me. Well, that's a whole other thing. It's made me really appreciate Titanic all over again. All right. We're getting off track here right at the end. Isn't It fun to go watch Magic Mike. Go watch The Limey. Go watch a Soderbergh movie. We will be back soon to talk about this wild ass Oscar race. As always, thank you for listening and happy watching. Hey, everyone. Thanks again for listening. You can watch my films and read my movie blog at Alex Withrow dot com Nicholas Dose Dotcom is where you can find all of Nick's film work. Send us mailbag questions at What are you watching podcast at gmail.com or find us on Twitter at W aiw underscore podcast Next time we're going to check in right before the 95th Annual Academy Awards and argue about the most current Oscar narratives. Who's going to win? Who do we want to win? Fun stuff. Stay tuned. Woo! Trying to get pumped. Yeah, baby. Big dick energy as the kids say. Definitely get a clue that. That'll make sure to get it. Yeah, that'll do. Big old words. That's okay. You want me to do what I should be doing? I'm cat sitting, and a cat just jumped in my lap. Sorry. Tell us bigger things happen, and that's amazing. I was like, Wow, it's happening. He sits in my chest all the time. All right. Oh, keep. I fucking hate cats. He's sweet.