117: Michael Clayton (2007)

Modern movies don’t get much better than Tony Gilroy’s “Michael Clayton.” Alex and Nick discuss the film’s perfectly constructed screenplay, ‘70s paranoid thrillers, George Clooney’s best work, exploding Ford Pintos, manic depression, meeting Denis O’Hare, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack, ingenious editing, and so much more.
This episode is in memory of the great actor, Tom Wilkinson, who passed away on Dec. 30, 2023. His role as Arthur Edens in this film will live forever.
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Transcript

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And we find the scene. We ship the soil. Hey, everyone, Welcome to. What are you watching? I'm Alex with throughout. I'm joined by my best man, Nick Dostal. How are you doing there? Shiva? The God of death. Who? I am Shiva, the God of death. I am now. I'm. I am Michael. Michael. How I am. I'm excited to be here. Here We're all awake and wired to be here. Michael Clayton. Wow. It's funny. I genuinely, in our last episode, our favorite about Face movies, I had no idea you were going to bring this up. And you did. And I didn't even tell you that this is going to be our next movie that we're covering. So it's like, This is perfect, but I just wanted to you know, we've been bringing some we've been Duncan on some movies lately. You know, we like dunked on Maestro a little bit. I dunked on Ferrari a little bit, you know? It's okay. It's okay. It's so now we're just going back to the basics to a movie we both love. Well, that I've always loved. And we're going to talk about this, but that you have come to recently love. But here we are. Michael Clayton. Let's go. That's true. I when I saw this movie for the first time, I just wasn't ready. Yeah, it's a movie that requires attention. Yes, it really is something there. You can't really look away from. You really can't. If you miss one thing, you do kind of miss it. And that's not a bad thing. I think that's actually a really good thing. I think it might be a thing that movies are missing today is that, yeah, there is a demand without even seeing it for your attention. Say, Hey, if you're going to sit down and watch this, just fucking sit down and watch this and then you're going to get a really great movie out of it. Exactly. And you know, it's a really common criticism to go like, you could never make that today. This is almost like the opposite. When I saw it, I went, No one makes anything like this anymore. Like this. The movies that I grew up loving, even though they were a few generations removed because we grew up in the nineties. But I so latched on to those iconic paranoid thrillers of the seventies, much like Tony Gilroy did to craft this screenplay. And I remember seeing this in 2007 and being like, Wow, that just feels like it was right out of 1976 or something. This is this is wild. It's a movie that expects its audience to be smart and to want to pay attention to all the stuff that's going on. Because, yeah, there is a lot of stuff going on in this movie for sure, and it's something that, you know, when we are researching a movie, I read a lot about it. If there's a commentary on the DVD, which there is for this, I'll listen to it. I'll watch the movie at least once, sometimes twice. And there's no getting bored of this one. There's no there's no getting stale. This is such a great movie to just behold and unpack honestly, like in real time. Yeah, there really is. There's a way that this movie reveals itself where you don't know the information that's being said to us, Right? The scene where we see George Clooney talking to a guy that he owes $75,000 to, I love this guy. Yeah, We don't really know what this is. We don't really know. Yeah. If you're really And I should also be clear about this, like 27 is quite a few years ago at this point out, like I was much younger. I was not tracking everything in real time. I'm like, okay, now they're in some kitchen and some auctioneer and he's mad that he, you know, he got I love it. You got, you got 1500 for a fridge. I paid five grand for it. You don't really know right away, but yeah, you have to keep up with it and then with repeat viewings. It. Yeah. It all really comes in and you get like the weight of those encounters. Yeah. The actual, like his life is on the line. Seriously, You feel like the lived in circumstances and then you're like, you keep hearing the name Timmy, then you just realize when you meet him, yeah, this is his brother. That's a fuckup. Yeah. And he's the one that cost them this. So you're doing like this back tracking. That's why we had that scene in the restaurant. That's. he's the guy. And this movie does this all the time. There's constantly these seeds being planted that you'll get later, but you'll forget about them. And then they'll just reconnect. That is something that's very, very intelligent but very specific. Like you have to be such a good writer in order to pull that off. He is an amazing writer. Tony Gilroy This is a Grade A plus perfectly constructed screenplay. Yes, absolutely. And this is a tool that can be used. But if you don't do it right, your movie will come off looking really stupid. Yeah, because if you think that you're going to withhold information from your audience and then give it to them later and then it's going to be okay, it's not necessarily true. You have to be very, very smart about how and when and why you are going to omit that information. And then when you actually give it to us, is it going to be at a time where is it too late? Because that can happen this ship could have sailed as an audience tracking like, well, that would have been nice to know X minutes ago. Yeah, you don't want to have that. Yeah, but in this movie doesn't do that. When you get that information, you're like, my God. And that's why he's upset. And that's what and then the stakes just get higher and higher. And then with repeat viewings, it's even more satisfying because you're able to track a little bit more now, but it makes even more sense. And the intelligence of the writing comes out even more absolute. I could not agree more and just we are jumping ahead. Of course, we're going to go through the movie in order. But for this, like studying it for this episode, one thing I notice that you're kind of talking about like a gap of information, something we don't see and we have to put the pieces together is one like all of a sudden it's, Where's Arthur's briefcase? And then we see that Tilda Swinton somehow has it, and then we see that she's calling this dude, Vern, and she's like, Doug Jeffries gave me your information. We didn't see that happen. We did? Yeah. Don, talk to her and be like, Hey, you know, when shit gets real, call up Mr. Vern in the middle of the night, and. And then we're like, Who? Wait, what is this? Who is this guy? And then, yes, with repeat viewings, you're like, Wow. She makes that leap quickly, Like the second she finds this, you know, smoking gun document, she is calling the man. And. Yeah, but leaving out that piece of information, it's just not that kind of movie. It's not the kind of movie where Don Jefferies is like, Well, Karen, you need to handle this. Your firm, you know? Yeah, there's it's a movie with a lot of big speeches and arguments. But yeah, what it withholds because it just assumes we're going to be able to track it. If we can't track it now, we'll be able to track it later. This is a little off the record, but if we want to include it, I've been thinking a lot about this. Okay. And you brought it up earlier. Made me think about when you said about how we been Duncan on a couple of movies lately. I had been really kind of beating myself up about my maestro review, and I was thinking that I was like, you know, when we set out to do this pod, we never wanted to bash movies. And why would we? Yeah, but where is the line between having film criticism? Because I think that's something that's actually important, because if we actually just talk about movies and we all we do is is just praise them, sure. Then we don't really have a standard of which we are holding to to other films. So I've been thinking about that a lot and I was thinking that I think it's good that we actually opened up about some of these movies that we didn't have the best opinions on and not saying that they're bad movies, but what were things that just didn't really quite work for us? Because that's a converse nation, not a I'm just going to go shit on this movie, right? It's bringing a level of intelligence and just like thought to why we didn't like something. And I think that's something that I'm telling myself. This shouldn't be afraid to get into that kind of conversation. Yeah, let's let's pause on Michael Clayton for a second here and yeah, we can open this up a little bit. I felt a little nervous about it too, and I even included like some of the voice conversation and everything. But yeah, I mean, I agree. The thing is, we're never what I always say is we will never go out of our way to shit on a movie. Meaning I'm not going to talk about a movie from 2007 that I don't like. And we're just going to do a deep dive on that movie That's stupid. Like, I'm not going to do that. The movies that we go back for are ones that we love. Yes, Yes. Also, we're not going to do a deep dive on a brand new like 2024 movie that we don't necessarily like. Yeah, that's not really the intention. Like we it might be something we're a little mix on, but you and I talked about do we do a full maestro episode? Do we actually dedicate like an entire thing to it? And we're like, We don't have the nicest things to say about it, so we're not going to harp on that stuff. But, you know, we speculated, Will that be the movie between Christmas and New Year's that at least everyone on social media is flipping shit about and it was. And if you just have Twitter and you were interested in learning about Maestro, you probably thought that it was one of the worst movies ever made because certainly no one in my timeline like that movie, everyone was dunking on it. So it was like, okay, point two is I rewatched that movie after we recorded that my father in law, who's 87 and at absolutely has a deficit of attention, I will say more often than not. But he can be wired in for a movie. I showed him some movies I'm going to talk about down the line, like we watched The Thin Red Line, which he had never seen. The man did not move for 3 hours. He did not say a word. He did not move, Maestro. He he was so confused. He genuinely did not know what was going on. And this is a dude who, like lived in New York during the Leonard Bernstein era, Like, he knows all of his music and he's like, This is the guy who did West Side Story, right? It was just losing him constantly. So it's also another thing that like we both love and it formed over A star is born so much so, you know I still really love Carey Mulligan and Maestro. I think some of what Bradley Cooper is acting, what he's doing in it is good and strong, but that movie still just doesn't connect for me and yeah, occasionally we are going to it's just going to get brought up occasionally as this year goes on. But I've also been warning people that as we get closer to these Oscars, I'm not going to go out of my way to be mean. But if they screw this up, either nominations or win wise, I know they're going to screw up some wins. It's the Academy Awards. They'll probably screw up most. But with so many good movies on the table that will be nominated, they should not be messing this up. They should get this right. And if they don't, you're going to hear about it from me. And that means I may dunk on some movies. And that's you know, I'm not going to go out of my way to be mean. It's just it's just that what I was going to say to like, we see the noise or I see the noise that's out there when it comes to I keep liking to use the term film criticism because I feel like that's almost an art form that's dead now. because yeah, when I see things out there, they're just trash. They're just people are just trashing the movie without giving any kind of opinions. Grounded in a sense of This is why I didn't like it. This is why it didn't work and giving specific points to it and I think we do that. And I think when we actually did that for that movie, we we are our criticisms were very pointed, very specific. We're not like, this movie's just like a little meandering. I don't know why I don't like it. We we gave very we're saying this stuff with intention. That's all we're saying. Yes. And I think that you said it best. We these are now the newer movies because we do want to talk about the things of our time. And if we are going to do that, we need to hold ourselves up to a certain standard as to what we want from this art form. And when new movies come out like this and there are things like that to talk about, then confidently and intelligently and with also giving the space of if you loved it, great. Yes, yes. Who are we to take that away? But I think it's important that we kind of kind of say that now, because we've been doing this for a while and we've just now started to kind of get into this area. And as we do, I think it's important that we be honest and straightforward about it. Yeah, I agree. It's just what you said. Anyone's allowed to like any movie for any reason. We are not here. I when I listen to our Maestro comments, I even started by saying this film does not work. And again, just like when we do lists like our favorite movies of 1998, when I say this film does not work, always know that in parentheses. I'm saying it does not work for me. It does not work to me. I'm not saying it doesn't work for the masses. Yes, Sometimes my promise is that we will never go out of our way to be mean or spiteful just to do that. But I may say that, you know, coming up in the next few months, that X movie or X performance to me is being wildly overrated with award nominations or wins. I don't know what these are. We still have to see how this stuff plays out, but probably and then maybe the final thing I'll say, I shared this with you last night. I mean, this is the news everyone's waiting for is 2023. Mark Withrow Best Picture Award. My father's favorite film of 2023 is Bradley Cooper's Maestro. And, well, you know, so, you know, whatever. And I love it. I really respect my dad's taste and I love his movie opinions. But there's definitely a balance to be had between not shitting on stuff intentionally and just, yeah, being honest with our criticism and being like, this movie didn't really work for me kind of because I didn't know what you were trying to say with it. Brad Yeah, that's okay, because I still don't know what he's trying to say with it. Like, I don't yeah, I don't know what he's trying to tell me with that movie and that I think we're allowed to say that we have been doing this for, you know, fucking three, three and a half years. Exactly. And we're just now starting to kind of get into this. And I think it's just important that we set ourselves up for how we want to enter into this without the noise of Twitter and the shit talking and all that, like separating ourselves above that. Amen. Well, let's get back to the discussion at hand here. A movie that I'm not going to be dunking on and have nothing bad to say about at all. At all. Michael Clayton made 2007 written and directed by Tony Gilroy. This movie is about a fixer at a hot shit New York law firm and he cleans up everything from rich guys doing a hit and run to burying news stories to trying to wrangle in manic depressive geniuses. The movie is about imbalance in his work as a fixer with his increasingly complicated personal life. Where does this movie come from? It's actually pretty fascinating. Like Tony Gilroy is had been a journeyman screenwriter for decades in Hollywood. He wrote things like the cutting edge Dolores Claiborne, the devil's Advocate, which gets a lot of attention. And for yeah, for Pacino's and crazy speech. That's all Gilroy. He's done punch ups on things like Armageddon. He's responsible for the screenplay of every Bourne movie Rogue One he has Andor, which he created on Disney. Plus, that's really the only thing of his. The only major thing of his that I haven't seen. And then Michael Clayton was his first time as a director. So he's writing the script and he's trying to wrangle, he's trying to get the money together and, you know, he's influenced by these titans of paranoid thrillers like Alan J. Pakula, John Schlesinger, Francis Ford Coppola, Sydney Pollack, a very important name. All the movies that these guys made in the sixties and seventies, Gilroy's generation have, a lot of them have always latched on to it. There's Gilroy, Clooney, Soderbergh talks about these movies all the time. It's just it's the movies they grew up on. So he has this cocktail of all these movies, but he's trying to find a framing device. I just learned this like three days ago. Get this shit. In the 1970s, drivers of the Ford Pinto quickly realized that if you hit a Pinto from behind a specific make of the Pinto. I know you're model. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, you do. Jesus, I didn't do this at all. Yeah, this is crazy. So the car would just blow up so people were getting injured, dying. It's a mess. So what Ford needed to do was recall all of those cars and repair them or replace them. So they put a cost benefit analysis and put all of this into a notorious document that became to be known as the Pinto memo in this document. This is fucking crazy. It essentially says that it will cost Ford so much more money to recall the Pintos than to do nothing to the cars and just pay the class action lawsuits for the explosions. So let's say if 11 people die a year from exploding Pintos, paying them off every year is cheaper than recalling the cars. This is all in a document. So this means that Ford knew that these cars would kill people and they did nothing about it. The Ford Pinto, the Pinto memo became public knowledge. There was a huge scandal. The cars were recalled, Ford people got fired. A lot of people got paid. That's a lot where Michael Clayton comes from. I didn't know you. That's so cool that you knew the story. I knew. All right. I can't tell you on a fairly semi-regular basis how much I actually think about this. The Ford Pinto randomly. Yes. When you first hear about this, did you know the Michael Clayton connection? I did not know the Michael Clayton connection. I just knew this. In this scheme of the world where here I don't know. I was a kid when I found this out and I was always like, this is fucking crazy, that number one. Like, I just always had this image of that pinto, just like you hit it and it explodes. But then when you find out that this is the the politics of it all, they knew I will randomly just think of this. They always be like, walk in and be like, I hear that Pinto mean, that's fucking crazy. That's a big scandal for one of the you know, it's a weird thing to feature automotive manufacturers. Well, that too. I think about the the Tylenol thing a lot because we learned about I learned about that in college where there were like three people who died from taking a Tylenol in like the Chicago area. So what they they didn't know if there was a connection or if someone had poisoned Tylenol. So what the president of the company did was recalled every single bottle of Tylenol in the fucking world. So they recalled it all and threw them away and started over, which is a really big deal. So I think that was in the wake of stuff like this, like the Pinto memo scandal. Yeah, that's is a lot of where Michael Clayton comes from because we're going to you know, they're saying stuff like cost benefit analysis and and instead of a car manufacturer, it's this, you know, weed killer that. Yeah. So fuck it. It's just crazy how a guy like Gilroy can, you know, grow up knowing this story like from the seventies and then also love these movies from the seventies and just marry everything together to make this pretty genius screenplay. But you know, decades after the fact, as we get into the movie here, into Michael Clayton proper, start with the opening credits and something's happening in the opening credits because the film rather ingeniously begins with Tom Wilkinson's manic ravings that are so disturbing to listen to because they're so goddamn real when we recorded our About Face episode, that was the day Tom Wilkinson died, and we didn't know that that had happened. I found that out after we were done recording. So that is why we didn't mention that he had passed away. But we're going to talk about him first before we actually get in the movie because we love Tom Wilkinson. He passed away at the age of 75. We don't know why yet. It's very sad. A lot of people were really rattled by this. You know, if you go on to Zim. DB he's been around longer than just in the bedroom, which is when a lot of people became very familiar with him, which is 2001, Todd Field's first film, he was nominated for best Actor. For that. He's remarkable as a father and grief in that. But yeah, let's just talk about Tom Wilkinson for a minute. And I mean, as Arthur Edens and Michael Clayton, it is one of his best performances. So I'm, you know, it's sad that we've lost him, but I'm very excited to talk about him today, just as we talk about the movie. You know, he's always been to me like one of those iconic supporting actors. Yeah. Where he shows up in all of these things that you see. And he's not quite that guy where it's sort of like, yeah, him again. He's got a little bit more of a presence about him where it's sort of like, yeah, this guy's in here. I always, always kind of like was happy whenever I would see him because I was like, This guy's always going to deliver a solid, solid performance. It's great in a movie like this where he gets more to chew on in the bedroom where he's the lead because he doesn't pop up his leads very often. Not at all. Yeah, I think my first experience seeing him was The Patriot. Yeah. Yeah. And he has a face that was perfect for, like, those British wigs. Yeah. Like the toilet paper table. Well, he's in. I guess I was looking at his. I'm Debbie and he's in. In the name of the father. Yeah, I think he's like one of the guys in the end. Wearing those wig. Wearing the wig? Isn't that he's the main heavy in rush hour with Chris Tucker. I was like, yeah, he isn't that. That's right. I forgot. Yeah. Yeah. He's got all these little things like he was in the Full Monty. I totally forgot he was in that be a patriot. I mean, he's the main doctor in Eternal Sunshine. Yeah. Batman Begins. Yeah. Carmine Falcone. Yeah. I just rewatched the Grand Budapest Hotel. I mean, he's barely in that, but he, like, yells at the kid at the beginning. It's hysterical. I mean, he played LBJ. He played Ben Franklin. Yes. And John Adams. Yeah. John Adams. He's great in that. And then he played Arthur Edens in Michael Clayton, which he was nominated for best supporting actor for. And you know, 27 was such a tough year. That's the Javier Bardem No country Yea but as Arthur he plays someone who suffers from manic depression and we never get to see the healthy. Arthur Yeah, we get to hear about him a lot how the he's had eight years of good, but we are just seeing him in his current manic state, which is being presented to us via voiceover during the first seconds of the movie. It's right up there with the best manic depressive performance I've ever seen. It's this is something that is something I'm sensitive to because I grew up with someone who is bipolar and it's so eerily spot on. It's so good, just semantic ravings. Then he can also kind of, you know, get his wits about him and calm down and give a perfectly delivered soliloquy about how you can you cannot commit me because I'd have no criminal record in New York. You know, he's really like, boom, snap in and get the legalese right. I just I really love this performance and I'm excited to talk about it today. But it's a bummer he's gone. Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Manic, a movie No. One 2001. That's a great call. That movie is he's so good and that Matt Damon in The Informant is a great performance of manic depression without the rage. He just doesn't have the rage. But he has the lying, and that's really good. And then deep, as far as I'm concerned, the best depression performance I've ever seen is Kirsten Dunst and Melancholia. That is so unsettling just the way that so those that's my, I guess, Mount Rushmore of Mount Rushmore, manic depressive manic depression in film. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean I think my turnaround my about face about this movie happened in conjunction with something like this because a really good friend of mine was going through his own manic episode. And I watched this movie, so I was kind of in the middle of dealing with this. And then I see Michael Clayton in I don't know if this is the right word. I was so comforted in watching my life well, to my fucking life about why I'm so drawn to these dark arts movies, because it's like to some degree or another, I went through this like I lived it. Yeah, kind of. It brings me. It's not joy, but it brings me comfort going like, I'm not alone in this. Like there's a lot of other people who go through this stuff. Yeah, I there is a solace in that for me. There just is what that says about my psychology, I'm not sure, but that's here I am. But I completely understand it because in the middle of going through it and that was a tough time because I didn't know what to do or how to feel about anything. I was kind of rolling with it and and then I see this movie and I go, I needed to see this. I think I think I needed to see this kind of performance. And I think it was also George Clooney's performance with it. Yeah. What was very, very cool about his choices in this is that George Clooney, as Michael Clayton was never bothered by it. He was annoyed because it just meant that he had a deal with more. He looked at what Tom Wilkinson was going through and is like, This is just what it is. Yeah, he's he's like, you know, you know what? The other side is as good as this feels, you know what this, what the result is. Yeah. He's someone who's been through it with him. So he's like, All right man. Yeah. And he would even talk about it to other people in ways where it's like, Well, it's not like that. It's just like this. We got to let him get it back on the meds and then a couple of days he'll be back. But when he's like this, this is how it goes. And it's not the end of the world. It's just what it is. Again, I keep saying that this movie is so lived in in so many ways because the manic depressive, this is not what this movie is about. It's just a characteristic that's being played in the movie. And we don't need to have a soapbox thing about manic depressive behavior. This is why I like the movie so much. Yeah, let's just have it be in here. And then the people who are dealing with it just deal with it in their ways and we don't need to harp on it. We don't need to preach about it. We just keep the thing going and just the actors will do what they do with it. And I love that. I love that we didn't have to have this dramatic manic depressive ness. no, it's just. It's what it is. Yeah. And the way that Clayton is dealing with Arthur, you know, it even comes up like, we'll get to the scene. But that shithead lawyer who I love, Barry, is like, why can't just having committed, what's the big deal? And it's like, you can't do that. And if you are someone who thinks this is just silly, just grab the guy and throw him in a hospital. I'm here to tell you that I watched my parents go through this with my brother. You cannot do this. You cannot just grab someone. You literally have to be able to prove that they are a danger to themselves or to others. And my brother was two both. He had extreme cases of violence against other people that were documented legally and violence against himself. That was documented legally. But the system just didn't give a shit. The way that this deals with all that without, number one, explaining it to us. Yes. In a bulleted list. And then of course, not being didactic and slamming it down our throats. That's what I appreciate so much. I just. Yeah, I love that. Didactic. Yes. Good word. One good word. I was looking for that word, you know, And I wear it pretty well. I yes, because I'm not good with words. And I feel like there's a word out there that is trying to express what I'm trying to say. And then you go and see it. And I got that's the one. Yeah. I just said, well, I don't need some heavy handed explanation about. Yeah, it's kind of refreshing how Clayton just, like, breezes it off like, I can't go wake him up. I just got him sedated, like, yeah, we need to give it a few days and everything's going to be fine. And what, tracing Clooney like track? my God. Like this is this is. I thought this was just another episode, but where Arthur is taking it, is his wife on the line? Wait a minute. Is my life on the line? You see the stakes just keep going and going and going. And that's what makes it I mean, it literally takes a fucking exploding car for the stakes to be finely dumbed down, drilled down into Michael Clayton like this is what it is. Dude, you need to get to work and start fixing doing what you do. Okay, I this is a personal thing. boy. I don't like movies with the names. I think I may have said this. Yeah, you said this in your 2001 and I came back. I came back very strongly against you because I have just at the time when we recorded that, I hadn't written the script that I've written. Now that I have, it is a named script. It's the main character's name, which I've always wanted to do. So I'm very, very drawn to it, especially if it's such a good, strong name. So what I said to you on the 27th podcast is you have to come up with a better title then I would say The Fixer. That sounds like the closer that show that was on like NBC sounds like anything. If you want to make the jumps, the more egregious thing is that fucking showtime. I made a show called a Ray Donovan, like a few years after Michael Clayton, and it's literally about a fixer like Tony Gilroy to knock any checks for that that maybe could have been called the Fixer. Yeah, I hear that. It just sounds so, I don't know, generic. To me it does. But when I think of like a title like Michael Clayton, I mean, this could be anything. It doesn't give me a, a idea of what this is. Yeah, but that's what's, that's what's so perfect about it. Like the posters, he's like, the biggest star in the world, out of focus. And it says the truth can be adjusted. And I like that. It's it speaks to what we're saying a little bit more about the movie, about how it's not telling us what it is, how it's, you know, carrying us along, but not explaining things heavy handedly. So I get it. But if you want to keep arguing about a title, it's like eight years old or whatever. Six years old, we can. No, I'm. I didn't fucking title it. I'm done. All right? I just saw that my dad called me one day, who I hear argue about Maestro. No, I can't read too off track. No, I know. You know what? I did Remember that yesterday. And then I actually. I lost the threat of it, but I started, like, trying to think of some name movies that you do like. And then I lost the thread, But I knew I need to sit down and think of movies that you like, that that's the thing. I can like the movie. I still might. You just don't like the title that it's just a name of the. I think it has to be so specific to like it would need to be a biopic in order for me to be like, okay, yeah, we're, we're in the life of. But if it's a fictional character, I like it. I'm a fan. All right. Especially if they pull it off tar. Everyone thought Tar was a real person. Let's talk about Michael Clayton. Talk about this movie here. So these credits are going on and we hear this guy just ranting and raving. I just love this setup, like the shredding, these documents. It's the middle of the night, the phone lines ringing off the hook. We actually get a pretty cool one here when they're like, you know, taking the card in and the voicemail. So. yeah. And this guy buries like on the phone and he goes, and it's such a great reveal when it. Barry goes and hands the phone to Sydney Pollack, one of genuinely one of the filmmakers responsible for Michael Clayton in so many ways. He came on to produce the film, so he helped foster the movie and get it made. But also his movies, namely Three Days of the Condor, are what inspired Michael Clayton. So it's just it's so cool to see him in this movie. It is one of his great acting performances. I'm a huge fan of Sydney Pollack as an actor and a filmmaker. And then, I mean, just that first line delivery of Where the fuck is Karen Crowder? He's so good. You're like, What did we just cut into her? She's sweating like your ass off. Like having a fucking panic attack. Tilda Swinton in the bathroom stall. We're like, what? And then we cut to some, like, basement poker game fresh out of rounders, and then the screenwriter of Rounders is sitting there heckling George Clooney. And you're like, Why is Brian Koppelman heckling George Clooney? What the hell is going on? I just I love it. Did you know that that's writer rounders. really? That's yeah, that's Guy. It's like, give it a shit at a poker table. that's really funny. Yeah, it's hilarious. I just want to point out that opening introduction of Tilda Swinton, because that imagery does not leave your mind like we know the whole time, Like someone's so out of breath. And then she lifts up her arm and you see, like, the armpit stain. It's such a shocking. You don't expect to see that, that you can't not shake that impression of her throughout the rest of the movie. I think it's such a bold choice to do that, because that's not exactly who she is. Right. We're actually seeing her in her complete, most vulnerable moment until you get to the end. The only time she's like that again is at the very, exactly the very end. Most of the other time she's buttoned up, even when we see her alone getting ready for like a video conference, you know, interview, she's buttoned up. Yeah, but we still we can't shake that. We can't shake off. We now see and and I think this is actually what helped shape her performance because everything she does in the back of our minds, we still are thinking about what the hell is going on there. There's something unhinged, there's something unnerved, there's something a little unsure. And then we see her as she progresses. We still had, I think, is a brilliant, brilliant choice to edit that way, where we get her right there because you can introduce her a number of ways. yeah, but you chose to do it here and now. This is how we think of her. It's it's great. We're going to say a lot to this original screenplay, how strong it is. The movie is also ingeniously edited. And yes, what's so cool is that Tony Gilroy's editor is John Gilroy, his brother. So they, you know, grew up together. They have they have amazing instincts for the other person's creative instinct. And it's those two on the commentary together. And number one, their banter is just a lot of fun to hear them riffing off each other. But didn't to hear John be, like, excited about editing cuts and excited about how, you know, there's a lot of stuff in this movie that was his like Karen getting ready and you know, Don Jeffries when Donald Jeffries brought me on all that stuff, that was all John. It was, you know, supposed to be a natural progression of like her getting better just an arc going up. And then we get to the interview. But he's the one who's chop, chop, chopping it. And all of that really lends itself to the performances in the movie. That's what's so cool, that editing cut of seeing her like that in the stall. We're constantly going, I mean, for the first 15 minutes of this movie, we have no idea what's going on, What's the time We're in Westchester. We're like, What's going on? It's not until we get to four days earlier and then we're like, okay, what the hell is going to lead? Like everyone to this law firm scurrying about what's going to lead to her in the bedroom, her in the bathroom, sweating. We don't know yet how big of a deal it is that Clayton is gambling. But then as we keep hearing like you better not be on those cards again, we're like, shit, what is going to do? You know, drag him to the to that poker table again. Yeah. It's really just ingenious structure and yes, I love that. Even starting with like when we see Clooney in this, when we first meet Michael Clayton, it's that great reveal. It's a really movie star shot. That reveal of him just at the table this movie was shot by Robert Elswick, who, yes, won the Academy Award this year for filming. There will be There will Be Blood. He also. Yeah, he also filmed Good Night and Good Luck with Clooney two years before that was which Clooney wrote and directed and costarred in and he's one of the just the all time great DPS and another reason the movies they were studying visually for this were all those movies of the seventies. And then, yeah, he's like getting this call. You need to go to Westchester to help this fixer guy. I just love this scene. We're going to open this up. But yeah, the whole time, like not knowing what's happening, we're like, Who are these people? We're really thrown in here. And then you all you don't know, like it's a whole movie going to be like this or we're really not going to know anything. And then you have to trust that you're yeah, in these good hands. But we don't know that leading up to it and that I love, that there's all this craziness going on. Who's this person? Who's this person? Now we're got we're in New York now we're going to Westchester, and then we just have this scene in this kitchen, which is like one of the standout scenes in the movie that really it's not like this fixing of this hit and run has anything to do with the movie. And it really does at all. We're not going to see this guy again. We're not going to see his wife. But yeah, I just want to talk about this scene by way of introduction. I will say the guy who's flipping out, who has committed the hit and run is the great character actor Denis O'Hare. And I, by total coincidence, ended up sitting next to this man at a movie at Arclight Cinemas in 2016. And I noticed when we sat down, I knew he was and I was like, shit. And I don't I don't know the protocol, this stuff. Like, do you say something? I didn't want to do it before the movie. So when the movie was done, he's sitting there talking to the person that he came with, and it was about to be a Q&A because, you know, they always had directors do Q&A. So I just kind of leaned over, I'm so nervous. And I leaned over and was saying, how big of a fan I am of his. And then I namedrop this this performance. And he I mean, the guy, he was the nicest guy. Like, he was so nice and so appreciative that I said something. And I was impressed that I do the performance. And I was like, come on, man. You just like you're you absolutely kill it. But, you know, he's in American Horror Story. A lot of those 21 grams Garden State, Half Nelson Milk. I think a lot of people know him from American Horror Story but yeah dropping the Michael Clayton there it was yeah so that was whenever I think of him I always think of that. But love him, love this scene. He's so good in it. He's so good in it. It's a, it's a great scene because he's the driving force. yeah. And watching the great tennis match of George Clooney in his subtext, it's a great example of like subtext versus I don't know what the right word would be, the silent animated performance. But it's a very, very expressive it's a very inward, outward type of people talking right now. And George Clooney is so fucking good at subtext. I think he's a master at it. I think there's very I've always said Harrison Ford is the king of subtext. Right? Is gives a certain look a certain thing you get everything and and George Clooney is right up there like you can just see like the anger building up like he's so pissed off, but he's like, I'm just going to if I can talk to this guy, I mean, he can't lose it. It's not his role to lose it like it's not. I've been paying this retainer for 12 years. Also, keep in mind, we got to put it all together, but Clayton is doing this, quote unquote, fixing, knowing that his best friend has been is dead and was likely killed. Yeah, it's like, yeah, this is this is all what's weighing on him. You know, all this shit is still going on and he's got to listen to this, you know, he was running down the street. God, I love that. What the fuck is he doing running in the middle of the street at midnight on you? And for me, that cops, like, hit and runs, they work them hard, They clear on fast. Right now there's a BCI unit pulling paint chips off a guardrail. Tomorrow, they're going to be looking for the owner of a custom painted hand rugged Jaguar J12. The guy you hit the guy. Look at the plates. Don't even take that long. Do no play here, no angle. There's no champagne room. I'm a miracle worker. I'm a janitor. The math on this is simple. The smaller the mass, the easier it is for me to clean up. That's the police, isn't it? No, they don't call. The scene has a great end arc because Denis O'Hare is is so emotional and is basically on the verge of firing in basically be like, you know what? Get the fuck out. And Clooney doesn't do anything to stop this. He just lets it all happen. And the arc eventually ends with Clooney being on the upper hand of it. Yeah, you know, like at the end of it, it's still Clooney's just be like, All right, here's how this is going to go. This is how it's going to be. And then the phone rings and he's got the thing like, that's the police, isn't it? And he goes, No, they don't call him. what a line. But I also like cops, like hit and runs. They work them hard. That clear and fast. It's the way that he it's like this laconic subtextual delivery where he's like, Keep going, dude. Scream all you want in the wife back there in the background. she's all she's with Clayton. She knows like this, like blowhard husband, her name. I want to give her a little love. Her name is Julie White. A lot of people may recognize her as she played Shai Labeouf's mom in all the Transformers movies, but her ed that is so here, Tony award winning actors. She was she has so many credits and I just love that throwing the glass, the wine glass throwing is absolutely top notch. It's just it's perfect. And yeah, the phone call, you know, literally saved by the saved by the bell there. It's just a great scene. It's a great little standalone scene. Yeah, That is all character building where we're just seeing this guy, you know, work and all this frustration get built up. But we still do not know. Now why, What what is going on? We don't know at all. And you know, he's he leaves the house, spots some wild horses, and they drag him away from the car, go straight to the mayors on the hill there and then kaboom, fucking his truck and car explodes. And then we say, Dwight, and we are given days earlier. Keep in mind, we're 15 minutes into the movie. And although I was already completely hooked, now that you've re hooked me with this narrative structure because I'm like, those first 15 minutes were so well put together, I have to assume that you will take care of me. And by the end of this movie, I'm going to. Why? She's sweating. I'm going to know why this car blew up and all the questions I have are going to be answered. And if they're not answered, those are the gaps that I had to fill in myself, which I'm happy to do. This is a great way to start a movie. One thing I mean, I should have said this up top like Michael Clayton is, is not a movie people dislike. Everyone likes this movie, sees it pretty much. Again, you do have to sit there and pay attention. But if you're sitting there with these first 15 minutes, it cook. You're like, All right, I got an hour and 45 left. Here we go. Like, Where are we going? I'm it totally fucking love this movie now. Yeah, now, as you know, when we jump back now we get a slightly more relaxed Michael. He's divorced. He's got a young son that he's close with, but not, you know, maybe not close enough. And then we start, you know, learning about all these weights that are on Michael's back. We learn about this restaurant that he went in with with his drug addicted brother, and his brother just botched it. And this restaurant was going to be Clayton's meal ticket. It was his big gamble. He was going to go in on the restaurant with his brother so that when he isn't at the law firm anymore, he has this to fall back on. But it fails and all the debts are on him. And what's so cool about this first quick scene in the restaurant is that we meet this loan shark, and this loan shark is played by a guy named, Bill Raymond, who's been in a lot. But my favorite credit of his was the Greek in the Wire. He was like the head honcho in the wire. shit. Two and five. Yeah. God. I loved him as Gabe in Michael Clayton. I just love how nice and understanding this guy is, But there's such a serious threat of violence underneath everything. Like, my God. Like, you don't have it. I didn't know it's going to be an issue like you don't. You know, I just I love the they're their back and forth. And at one point he's like, you know, Gabe's like, it's Timmy's name in the books. Like, it's his. So like, if he's basically saying, like, if you tell me where he is, I can collect off him probably by having him killed. And then, you know, Clooney's like, he got the, you know, the coke addicted waitress knocked up, and then he takes a little beat. He's like, make an offer. Which kind of beats like, how much? Yeah, if I sell you, if I give up my brother. Does that clear our debts? You really feel that frustration? I love it. If I know where he is, I don't have to keep asking this upstate. His wife took him back. I don't know where he is. He's got to have something. Yeah, he's got the two kids with her. He's got Jennifer, the coke dealing waitress that he knocked up. He's got four Michelin radials he stole from my sister's garage. Make an offer. I love that line. I love that line because we don't know what the fuck he's talking about. We don't like all you don't tell first viewing. You don't know, you don't. And you're like, What? Who is this? And then, But when he finally gets that, like it's a complete, like surrender to the circumstance, it's like make an offer. Like we're again like, we just get it. We don't know, but we get it. Yeah. That back and forth that they have is so great. And I love how Bill Raymond at the end of that is, you know, because he's like, what's my time frame I'm looking at and he had you said it like I didn't think it would be a problem but I'll ask Yeah, but I'll ask So there's someone else who, who's who's, who's higher here. Yeah. Yeah. And in you also kind of get that like, like Clayton has, he's not like an untouchable, but he does have a little bit of I don't honestly, just out of respect. Yeah. It's sort of like, hey, you know what I am, you know what the situation is, but can we be cool about this? And but I won't over set my boundaries, but I will ask, what am I looking at? And then the other guy is cool enough to be like, I'll see what I can do because you've got to look at it from Gabe's perspective. He probably thought he was going back to his boss was 75. K Yeah, and now he's going to go back and be like, Yeah, he does not have it. Like, what? And then they ultimately give him a few days later, he says, You have till Monday. So like it's maybe like a week tops that he has to come up with 75. And it's just, it's also really telling that this guy who's worked at this hot shit law firm for over a decade does not have 75 K to his name because you put everything into this, you know. it's so it's so good. This is actually really cool. You got to pay attention. But right after his meeting with Gabe here, there's a shot to him, to Clayton, walking on a busy street. It's like a busy sidewalk. That was originally the last shot of the movie, and they just repurposed it. So, I don't know. I like to call that stuff out. Yeah, that was in the commentary. Another thing that was in the commentary, I got to backtrack to the Westchester scene. When they filmed that scene, when he's getting screamed at and dunked on by Denis O'Hare all night. That was the day after Clooney won the Oscar for Syriana. No way. So you win the Oscar that your next day of work is you just get screamed at by Denis O'Hare all night. Is that cool? that's amazing. I love that shit. Yeah, I love that shit. So and Clooney is Michael here? He's an attorney. He's. That's his title. An attorney at Kenner back and leading. But he's really the fixer cool bit of trivia here. This has been widely publicized, but George Clooney was not the first person that Tony Gilroy went after. And it took him a long time to convince Clooney to do this. A long time like he had to go to him, you know, get a meeting with him. But he put all of his efforts in to someone else first. Do you have any idea who was it? Someone big? Harrison Ford? No. Denzel Washington and Denzel. Yeah. Denzel said he didn't want to do it because he was nervous to work with a first time director. He has since said that was the biggest regret of his career, that he turned down the lead role of Michael Clayton. And then he later went on to be in Roman J. Israel, which is not a Tony Gilroy movie, but that's a Dan Gilroy movie who directed, you know, Nightcrawler and all these Gilroy's It's all connected. It's all connected. Nepotism. That's cool. But it is so, you know, that's, that's a bit of a sliding doors thing. But yeah, I love seeing Clayton here, like working, answering calls, fixing problems. We're still we were waiting for the beginning of the movie to click into place for us, but then there's still these other waits being put on his back like he's talking to his assistant. Okay, there's a merger he needs. He needs a meeting with Marty. Who? I think that's Sydney Pollack, if I remember from the beginning. Okay, like, what's going on? I mean, we're 25 minutes into the movie, and the plot has not even been hinted at. Like the film has set up its tone so well. So it's spun us so tight that when the main conflict is introduced, which is very shortly, we're just able to spin out and really go like on this ride. But it's really, really just winding us up here. So then I mean, the first big like editing flare sequence is we just we have this really simple transition. I'm obsessed with transitions and movies. How do we get from like one city to a next? Yeah. Do we need like a helicopter establishing shot? This is Clooney and his New York office, and then we boom, cut to a wide establishing shot of a river, and then we cut to a road shot with an Omaha sign, and then, boom, we're in Cameron Crowder's world. And it's like, there we are now we're in her. I believe this is where she lives. So I think she lives in Omaha. This is going to be relevant later, I promise. But I think she's getting ready in her apartment. And this is really an ingeniously edited sequence. We already mentioned John Gilroy, the editor and Tony's brother. But I mean, knowing that it was his creation and it was his idea and he went, you know, I really would you let me try this? This was their first day of principal photography. So Tony Gilroy was like, you already want to go off script. I'd like edits while crazy that he delivers it back and he's like, shit, that's really good. And it's just it's it's really a stroke of it's a stroke of genius editing. But what the editing does, it's not look how good of an editor I am. It all enhances her performance. That's what makes it so good. It takes that good of an actor to deliver such great, just raw material that the editor can actually do that. Because up until this scene, like we talked about, we established her sweating in a stall. Now we're seeing her rehearse to get her confidence up and then deliver. So we're we're getting this very chopped up performance, but it tells us everything that we need and it tells us this in a way that it wouldn't come across any other way as well. It wouldn't be as good if we saw this all play out in a sort of what's the word, You know, that we're like a linear audience. Yeah. So linear. Thank you. See, that's all right. This is why you're good at what you do. That's what I'm here for. Yep. If we saw that, like, we would get up. We need to get. But we wouldn't be putting it together the way that we are because she's so scattered. Her reality is actually quite scattered. yeah. She just is not even really aware of it. But we are now watching her and in the good and the bad. So when we see her at her best, we also it's juxtaposed with her at her worst. And I mean, it's always good to see a character what they're like when no one's seeing them. Yeah. So like, these rehearsals are just it's a brilliant way to kind of, like, get to understand who this person is. Yeah. And a lot of the movie, a lot of her work in the movie is her alone. Like just doing stuff or rehearsing or like we see her running in the gym or she's just talking to one or two people. Yeah. I mean, this is it's really a towering performance, but in its simplicity and like, I'm not trying to Yeah, but in its simplicity, but also complexity because it's so complex. But the way that she makes it seem like she's not doing much, but she's really doing so much. And this is, I mean, you know, talk about me going to be critical of the Oscars coming up potentially. This is one we're going to get to. But they got this so so right. It was a huge surprise when she won the Oscar for best supporting actress for this movie. And it was it's just one of the all time great awards because you're like, I didn't expect that. But of course, that makes sense. Like, she's great in this movie. No one's going to deny how good she is. Yeah. Ken Howard plays Don Jefferies. That's you, North's CEO. This guy, Ken Howard, I love him. He's also a Tony Award winning actor. He has two Emmys and he was the president of SAG and SAG after a bunch like on and off. Good guy. I wanted to mention him. I see him a lot. I like him. Talk about good editing, good writing, good editing. Clayton Clayton goes to someone's office and he hears that Arthur Eaton's just stripped down naked in a deposition room in Milwaukee. Smashed, cut to Clayton, walking toward a private jet. I love it. We're off. And $50 million in fees I spent 12% of my life destroying perfect mama and her dead parents and her dying brother. When was the last time you took one of these? no, no, no. I'm not losing this. Everything is now finally significant. The world is a beautiful and radiant place. I'm not trading that for this. If it's real, the pill won't kill. I have blood on my hand. You are the senior litigating partner of one of the largest, most respected law firms in the world. You are a legend. I an accomplished romantic depressive. I am Shiva, the God of death. Let's get out of Milwaukee. We'll talk about it. And then now, here comes Wilkinson's ravings back. It's. It's such a supremely crafted, supremely well-crafted film. You may have forgotten that. And then here it is. Here it is. So what? You may not get the first time you're watching this, I'm going to just lay out the skinny of what is going on here. Arthur is a brilliant lawyer who also happens to be manic depressive. He's a genius, but he's unbalanced when not medicated. His firm represents you North, which is a massive company that makes agricultural products up north, has a weed killer that gives cancer to people who use it. So there is a 3 billion class action lawsuit against you north because of this weed killer. Now, despite the fact that there is a document proving that you North knew that this weed killer was deadly, Arthur has been the head lawyer defending you north for six years. But now that he's gone off his medication, he's having a bit of a crisis of faith in representing or defending such a shitty company. So that's all like the technical leading counsel and leading plot of the movie You North Weed killer, all this stuff. Scary conglomerations. That is not what Michael Clayton is about. And we've already references a lot, but this movie's really about the characters and following them along for this ride. I mean, the whole film is so rich. It's such a rich text of conflict that it's just fun to watch the characters and the strength of the actors playing them. So but yeah, it's it's funny to think of that. You know, this like, scathing document is a huge part of Michael Clayton when you compare it to all that Ford Pinto stuff. It's like actually kind of funny that again, Gilroy could just do this like mishmash, but like pay attention when you watch this movie, right? It just as an overall thing because the more that you pick up on the specifics, the more revelation you'll get. That's going to be very rewarding. I mean, the first time I saw it, I don't think I knew. I don't think I was paying attention to what you North was, to be honest, until we get all the way to when he picks up the the the photocopies of all those books. Yeah, that's about the time where I go, so this is what's been going on. When you pay attention a little bit more throughout it, you kind of track it's more specificity to everything that Tilda Swinton says. This is a company that does all this. This is this is why we're great. This is why we're the best, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then when you see that it and then you get the reality of of how much she's lying or how much she's spinning, it's it does make it matter a little bit more. But you're right. But they've all been called out to Milwaukee here because Arthur Eaton's Tom Wilkinson, the head lawyer, he is having a manic episode and he has stripped down in a deposition. It's on tape. I love watching Tilda Swinton watch that tape. And she I mean, when it's done, she looks like mortified, like she's going to throw up and like, you know, what do we do? All right, here's an actual genuine question that I have that I don't know. Okay. What who So the the Merritt Wever, her character. Yes, I understand that Arthur developed some infatuation with her. But what is her significant role with this case? Her parents died from the weed killer that her family has died from. So she's like I mean, we've all seen Erin Brockovich and we've seen a civil action like pluck out one of those family members. And it's like, yes. So she is on she is firmly against you know, she is they're being rep being kind of one of the faces of this class action lawsuit. And like this is how much this weed killer has harmed me. So, you know, traditionally, Arthur would be her biggest villain. We've all seen these asshole lawyers in movies who are just, you know, bullying the witness or whatever. But now, no, he's had this manic flip and he's just in love with her. And he thinks that she's like the savior for all this. And she's again, this is something that isn't spelled out for us. Why does it become so infatuated with her? We're kind of on Michael's journey with that. Michael is like, What the hell are you talking about? You're calling this, like, girl? Like, what are you doing? Yeah. So that's. That's who she is. And he's just, you know, relatively obsessed with her. But yeah, yeah, that's her role. There's a perfect example right now. That's someone who paid a lot of attention, this movie, and still didn't pick up a key detail. Yeah, I mean, that's fine. There's there's a lot of there's definitely a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff in it. I things are getting introduced here. I love when Karen realizes she's like, Who's this Clayton guy? And she's going to meet with him. And then the assistant is reading off Clayton's bio and background. It's a really smart way to deliver expository dialog. Yeah. As opposed to, like Clayton and Karen are about to meet up and if she's like, tell me about yourself. And he does the whole thing. Like, that's kind of lazy and that's something that movies do all the time. And then I love they, you know, they're meeting up. We get the first Michael and Karen encounter here, Clayton versus Crowder. It's just it's great stuff. I love this scene just sitting there, kind of sparring back and forth with each other. He's there in such different places. She's like, Where the fuck is Arthur? Go wake him up. And he's like, Wake him up. I just got him sedated. And this goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning, about how he's so like, you know, I went through this eight years ago. That was his last episode. I was here. I know how this plays out. I'm going to get him back on his meds tomorrow. I mean, three or four days, and then everything will be back on track. And she's like, Like, no, what are you talking about? And I love the where they are coming to. Like, you know, we say every actor, you have to have a choice when you start a scene and their choices are just they're so locked in. And I love the way they play this. I love them. The whole phrase of the moment before it's all like, Where are you at emotionally right before this scene begins? I love her in it because she's she's just pissed off already that he's late. yeah. So you've already got that. But then she's also you can tell she's formed an opinion about him where she looks down on him. It she doesn't say it, but you can just tell like, well she's asked her assistant, she's like, So he's a partner. Yeah. She's like, no, but he's been there for that long. He's not a partner. So yeah, there's definitely a looking down on already. Like I'm about to talk to some. Why am I not talking to Marty Box in public? Why am I talking to this fucking guy who's not even on the masthead? Yeah. Why are you wasting my time? Go get Arthur. What are you doing here? Like, this is very much it. And Clooney is just trying to be good. He's just be like, Hey, listen, this is like. Like. Yeah, like she goes will wake him up. And he's like, Well, that's just not going to happen. He's been said, Yeah, this is, this is, this is what it is. And he is like even trying to level with Karen, like, come on, like we're, we're two people here. This is the situation. What do you want? And she's just rude. yeah, just straight up. yeah. And it's a it's great because it's a short scene, too. This is just two people meeting for the first time and you're like, both. That's how that went. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, I love Pollack. Later. He's like, You didn't exactly charm Karen Crowder there. I love that. It's like I was putting I got I love Sydney Pollack in this every fucking love delivery. But he's great. He's so good. God, he's so good. And then I did already reference this scene, but, you know, we cut back into the hotel room and she's like, she's this is such new territory for Karen that she's like, got the shopping bag on because she has never rubber gloves, you know, she's like, afraid to touch Arthur's documents and she's calling this guy Vern. Mr. Vern, I there's nothing better than, like, hitmen in movies who just play it at this register. I love it. Also, see the killer who are just so like, Yeah, it's my job. Like, it's, you know. Yeah, it's all good. I love him. He goes, Okay, up. You able to upload you a little encryption package we like to use? It's like you could just you could just go ahead and order your killing right there. This pdf here, no problem. Or for something less permanent. How about a simple tail job? It's like, God, I love it. You could so easily have a movie about this Vern guy and his partner. I would absolutely watch a movie about like, how these guys came to be and like, why do they work for this agricultural firm? Why does this fucking agricultural CEO dude, Don Jefferies, have two hitmen on retainer? Well, they've got to just love it. Arthur flees Milwaukee. They're clean. He's got a bust down the door. That's great. Then we leave Milwaukee and we get a proper introduction to Marty Bach, played to perfection by Sydney Pollack. I love Marty and Karen talking about this. You know, the smoking gun document. Like, why does Arthur have this? Michael's back in New York and he goes and talks to Marty and our guy Barry, played by Michael O'Keefe, who I want to talk about a little later. I love this guy so much because we're talking about like lived in In Choices. It's so obvious that Barry and Michael do not like each other in the way these two guys play it. It's like Barry's this managing partner. You know, Michael probably should be that, but he's not. He's better at being a fixer. There's probably some resentment there. Just the way, like Michael O'Keefe's posture is, he's like, Neck's always bent down. I love it's like, I can we haven't committed like, God, I just love this little. It's a little spark, a little rat tat tat tat. Yeah. With the guy that we don't know. That's the thing. Like, we don't even know him. Yeah, we obviously he starts the movie. Yeah, weirdly enough, but. But, but we, we don't really remember that. Like, and then you just see this guy and you're like, well clearly Clooney and this guy don't get along again. You don't need an explanation. You can just like, observe and witness their behavior towards each other. And the way that they talk, like the way that everyone talks to each other in this movie. It's just again, lived in just completely lived in. Yeah. I mean, one of my honestly, one of my favorite exchanges is so it goes, you know, where's Arthur's daughter? And Clooney goes, Spain, India pilot goes Mars. It's like she's crazier than he'll ever be. That's the only reference. His daughter would never hear about her again. But, you know, Mars is God. my God. But basically, he could be anywhere. I think downtown is not a good idea. Some God damn loved. Where's his daughter now? Spain, India, Mars. She's crazy. And he'll ever be very taken over on, you know, Earth. We got a lot of groveling to do with these people. You didn't exactly charm Karen Crowder. You know, I was punished. You got to settle up here, Michael, and get things under control. Saddle up. He needs to be under a doctor's care immediately. He needs to be admitted. Where does that really matter, Michael? And also, keep in mind that, like, at least Marty and Barry, you're like, gazillionaires. Like, these are the top of the titans of a very specific industry in the world. And just this is what they're dealing with, you know, I love it. And then we're seeing Arthur on the loose there in Times Square. And I love the see Verne kind of in the background, like spying on him. Burns, played by Robert Prescott, great actor. And his his partner, they're the second guys, Terry Serpico. He's currently the police chief on Law and Order SVU, but he's he's been around for a long time, and they're both really, really good. They did not have time to rehearse this movie. I mean, this is they made this movie for, you know, $21 million movie, which with for having a major, major star in it. It's not being shot on location in New York, but those two guys work together a lot like they worked out their characters a lot. And you can really tell, like in their shorthand, I just love these two, you know, hitmen, as it were. Yeah. Wilkinson Just walking through times Square like that look on his face, like, you can really tell, like he's feeling the highs of where he's at not being on medication. Yeah, it's it's not over the top either. You can just tell, like, he's just really happy. Yeah, very happy, very manic and getting like, it's very common to get when you're in that state to get hyper involved in specific about things like what we're going to get to the scene. But why ever the hell he has those 20 baguettes? It's a really, really good reason for him to have it. Like, he's got a great reason and it makes sense to him when we're in his apartment, when he's leaving that long voicemail, you see, like there's a bunch of like, you know, wipes over here and there's a bunch of paper towels over here. He's done. He's gone out clearly, and done these, like, little spree buying things which are very common again, for someone you know, in this state. Then Arthur does call in and we are properly meeting Mayor Weaver and I. I've always liked her. This is one of her first performances. Whenever I bring her up, I always like to say that she has one of the best Emmy speeches. And no, she has one of the best speeches in the history of speeches. When she won her first Emmy, she got up on stage and said, Thanks so much. Thank you so much. I got to go by. And so I said, she said she was fighting off a panic attack and that was that. But it is it's a lot of fun to go and watch. She's absolutely stunned, highly recommended. But I really like her in this movie in that I'm like, I got to go. But she goes, I got to go by. It's it's great. And then she won a few years later for Godless, that Netflix show. And she tried to like, you know, save face a little bit and had some things to say but was still really nervous. It's just it's great. It's great. And then we get the second meeting with Clayton and Gabe, the loan shark. And this is when it's like, you know, you better not be on those tables, son. If if he again, who's he? I can ask. Like, who's he? If he finds out you're on the tables, there's not going to be a conversation. And then you got one week, you got till Monday to come up with the 75 K or else and that or else is we are going to fucking kill you if you will not tell us where your brother is. We have no choice. It is on you. It's on your arm. So you know, it's time to go to the treasure chest, buddy, buddy, or whatever he says. And that brings on home man One of my just absolute favorite scenes of this movie. And it's Michael. Marty, I yeah, Love this conversation. When Clooney goes to the house and, you know, Sydney Pollack is an actor who can obviously fill the space of a conversation, see Eyes Wide Shut, and he just really sells it here. You can tell he's a nice guy and he has a bit of a soft spot for Michael, but he's also a filthy rich lawyer who represents scumbag corporations. You know, it just he plays it so beautifully. But I love this scene when this is, you know, this is when he's got to ask for the money. He's got to come clean and be like, I need this and this. It's just it's so great. Like, I think this is Michael at his lowest. Like this is his lowest moment of going here, hat in hand, tail between his legs. I need the loan. I also love the costume design. That's something we don't usually talk about a lot on on this is that it's very like Saturday. Relaxed. Yes, Saturday. Really what and it's is a good you know, this is really funny. This is it's like perfect. It's like, we would see Don Draper get called in like on a Saturday. You would have like a slightly more relaxed look. But yeah, like the jacket, like it's like a crush kind of jacket and he's got a turtleneck. It's so. Clooney Like, it's exactly like what Clooney would wear, but it's also not so flashy that you're like, like I think George Clooney, the movie star, would wear something flashier. this is a much more like, stripped down like, okay, if I was the poor man's George Clooney, but I still wanted to have a little bit of this this Saturday. Relax. It would be exactly this. And I just remember because, like, you're it and he's usually in a suit and it's always disheveled because he's in a disheveled place. Yeah, but this is like the one time where he kind of looks a little bit nice. But I agree. I think this is when Michael's at his absolute lowest. And Sydney Pollack, his performance in here is so great because he's he's always carrying this amount of weight it feels like he can handle anything. Like it's just that it's all right. What's this next thing? All right, give me the phone on the handle. It was this next thing, I'll bring it in. Yeah, but this. This is where we learn how much is on the line for everyone, including including Marty here that, like the whole firm could go under. Like, if he. If we don't get him under control. Arthur, that is in this document goes public. It's all done. So. Okay, buddy, you want 80 grand? I love that he asked for 80 and not 75 out of know. Give yourself an extra little five there, Michael. You know, spin walking around money. I didn't get this the first time I saw it but it's so it's such carefully worded screenwriting that it's like Marty essentially says, okay, Michael, if you can deliver Arthur and rein him in and then the law firm can stay afloat, then not only will you get to keep your job, which is a bit in jeopardy right now, but yeah, I'll give you this 80 K and it won't even be alone. We can call it a bonus, but if Arthur goes public and this firm is gone and then you get fired and then you die because you can't pay the loan shark, that's all at play here. And without him ever actually spelling that out. And Pollack just like, does it all in jest at the end. Like, when do you get so fucking delicate? Yeah. Yeah. So this is what I give you the loan or you don't help out with Arthur? I never said that. No, Maybe you should have. I don't know how you can take care of this, but this. This is cancer. This is something we don't get it reined in and cleaned up soon. Everything's vulnerable. Everything. What are you telling me? That I'm counting on you? I'm telling you that by this time next week, Arthur will be under control. And everybody who needs to will have been reminded of your infinite value. Jesus, Marty. Hey, why did you get so fucking delicate? Yeah, I know. Your life's on the line. My law firm is on the line. Like, wouldn't you get some delicate, Basically, go find this guy. You need to bring this guy in. You need to bring Arthur in, or else we're all screwed. And you can see a little bit. Where I like to is like Clooney downplays it, but there is like, that element of, like, I should be higher up here than I am. yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, you know, that's probably one of the only times he's ever even uttered that. Yeah. Because usually people who are like that, they don't. You can tell it's kind of started not him like he's reached a point in his life. This was okay for a time. It's not anymore. His chauffeur said, Yeah, I've got nothing to show and this is all it is, and I'm in a tough spot. Like there's probably even some degree of like, Hey, just lend me this 80 K just because I've been such a fucking good sport this entire time. That's what's underneath of everything. That's what, you know, he's, he's saying like, I'm sorry to jump you like this. I'm trying to get a meeting, but yeah, he's just like, you know, I need, I need a loan of it. And that's like the nice way to ask for money. And then how it can read in between the lines and go, We're giving Yes. As a, you know, as a bonus. But we go from that Alzheimer's scene of them kind of having it out and really putting their cards on the table. But again, carefully worded, not like, yeah, lesser movie. All this is spelled out more. You need to rein Arthur and all it's spelled out more but then we jump to another all timer scene. This is like the Oscar clip of this is a trailer clip. It's a scene of the movie, which is Michael versus Arthur in the alleyway. It's this is astoundingly acted written. It basically got everyone involved nominated, including the writer, including the director, same person, cinematographer. Like it's all just comes in to play when Michael confronts Arthur with his, you know, 20 baguettes. And when Clayton reveals that he knows Arthur's been talking to Anna. But then when Arthur clues in your you're tapping my phones. Okay. And then you see him click back into that legalese and, you know, you know, you lead a very rich and interesting life and then but, you know, it's so good. A great scene. All while it should look ridiculous with that prop and it does not because he does not know throughout the course of Arthur's progression in his in his manic state. Like, we get that one scene earlier when he's talking to George Clooney's kid on the phone. Yeah. And he's so involved with this story and he goes, my God, this is going to be the answer to everything. my God. We understand where his we're tracking his manic level. So when we do see the baguettes, they don't seem out of place because it's but it's such it's the perfect little detail. It's the perfect little detail just to let us know things are not okay, even though he thinks that they are, because that's how he's feeling. And also, again, like there's a line that Clooney says here where he goes, How do I talk to you, Arthur? As good as this feels, you know where I go. No, no, no, no. You're wrong. I mean, what makes this feel good is that I don't know where it goes. How do I talk to you, Arthur? So you hear me like a child and not like everything's fine. What's the secret? Because I need you to hear me. Well, I. I hear everything and hear this. You need help before this goes too far. You need help. I love this line, too, because this is. Here's a guy who's not fazed by this man's mental illness. But we've reached a point now where he's like, I don't know what to do anymore. Like, how do I talk to you? Not what can I do for you? Not how do we. Well, next, how do I talk to you about this? And that's you get the Arthur lashing back and starting to go into the whole entire. Don't come at me because I'll kill you. Not literally kill you, but I will bury you you. Don't want to see me in court. The last place you want to see me is Yeah. Court Yep, Yep. You got the horses for that? I love you. Got the horses for that? Yeah. God. So good. Michael. I have great affection for you. And you lead a very rich and interesting life. But you're a bagman, not an attorney. If your intention was to have me committed, you should have kept me in Wisconsin for the arrest report. The videotape and eyewitness accounts of my inappropriate behavior would have had jurisdictional relevance. I have no criminal record in the state of New York. And the single determining criterion for involuntary incarceration is danger. Is the defendant a danger to himself or others? You think you got the horses for that? Well, good luck and God bless. But I tell you this, the last place you want to see me is in court. I'm not the enemy. Then who are you? It is completely putting him right in his place. But then there's the end line, which I think this is what struck me when I was going through my friend who was going his episode, where he goes when George Clooney goes, I'm not the enemy. And then Arthur turns around and goes, Then who are you? Yeah, people in place when they have come up with the ideas in their head that they've come up with that are not based in reality. They believe it's real. They do it. Paranoia is a giant part of this. yeah. Because they think that everyone's against him and doesn't matter how long you've been friends, it doesn't matter what might think of you personally. And Arthur even says it, You're a good man. You're this year that this is what I love about you. But if you're not that person, then you are my enemy. That was a very real thing that I went through, and I go, Fuck me. And that's and again, without harping on it, without preaching about it, just there's no tears. I'm the only one who could get through to you. There's no none of that. None of that. None of that. No, no. And it's just like if I'm not if I'm not the enemy, then who are you? Cut and dry. And that ends the scene. That's the last thing. And he walks away. Yeah, well, I might drop. Yeah. I mean, you talk about a goose bumps. Walk away. That's a new girl reference right there. Anyone's going to catch that. I'm not, but I appreciate you explaining the reference. You know, it's so. Well, it's so well delivered. Yet Clayton just dunked on again. He's got dunked on by Karen. Dunked on by Mardy. Dunked on by Berry. He's getting dunked on by Gabe. Man, this dude cannot win a fucking argument he is, he has not won a fucking argument. This episode is going to be a drinking game for how many times we've said dunk throughout this thing. I when I listen to episodes I will, you know, because I edited them and I will sometimes get one or two words or phrases that come out within like the first 5 minutes of the episode. And then I can't them go and I don't like just keep saying them over. And I do sometimes I've been tempted to tweet them and I there was one a few episodes ago. I forget goddamn I said it like four or five times. I was like, You got to get can you get off that? Yeah. Back in Arthur's party, those people are listening. I love that voice memo that he does. That voice got so good. Please leave a message after the tone. Yes. Here we are all together. Is everyone listening? Because this is the moment You've been waiting for a very special piece of paper. So I have a big, paranoid, malignant round of applause for United North Field. Cultivate internal research number 2 to 9 June. Everyone listening, You know, he really spells everything out. And now he's just reading this memo live. And then, you know, another one of my favorite scenes is we get like Vern's listening to it, you know, give me the phone, and then it's him and Karen out on the street and it's all that conversations all about what they don't say. So she's like, well then, well, what about the other way? And he's like, Is the other way. And, you know, she's like, can we contain this? He's contain. You know, I love Whitney. You know what? If we do go that way and he's like, Yeah, we have some good ideas. If you say move, we can move it. It's like we're talking about a fucking life here, like a life of a really prominent person and really prominent law firm, really like, chilling sequence of the, you know, replaying that that damn North music. And then that's going on and we're taking in his apartment mixed with Karen, listening to it on the street and ordering his hit essentially we don't exactly know that's what's going on there, but we come to know that's what's going on. They're crazy. I love this again. Like, that's another I keep praising her performance so much because, well, it's like a deserved to you can see like what's not being said in that scene but you can see like like here's a great example of like the two hitmen have done this. This is their life. She's never done this. Right. Right. This is brand new. And it's almost like you can see in her head, am I really talking to and are we really having this? Am I really asking for what I'm asking for that The uncertainty that she has about making this step is so fucking great. It's just her mouth, the like. She can't close her mouth. She's just like jaw dropped in trying to even have this conversation went No, the other guy. Yeah. He's like, Yeah, we can move him on. What do you want to do? Do you have to contain this contained right. Well, that's my question. What are the what's the option that we're looking at along those lines? You're talking about the paper, the data. I well, I'm wondering if there is some other option. I mean, something I'm not thinking of. We deal in absolutes. Okay. I understand that. I do mean the material of the papers. I'm not a lawyer. We we try. We do what we can do the other way is the other way. Yeah. What do you want to do? Also, keep in mind, this woman doesn't even live in New York. Like, she's just, like, working out of the hotel. She's living it out out of a hotel. As this whole crisis goes on, just ordering hits for the first time. Like on a fucking work trip. On a business trip. Jesus, Ice cold. This, you know, she's got lizard veins. All right, now we get away from the city. We're meeting the Clayton family. They film this in Tony and John Gilroy's neighborhood, apparently. I love that. And they're like every cop and firefighter house looks exactly like this. Apparently, the neighborhood they grew up in was the basis for the movie Copland. That neighborhood in Copland, James Mangold. I love that. And I just love the way these Claytons talk to each other with his brother. He's like, You going in? Yeah, I got a situation. You can hang your going in. Yeah, I got to shift. So do I had this, the boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I love it. It's cool to see him in those family dynamics and everything, like weighing on him. But yeah, I love I just love the way that rat a tat he has. Well, the scene with Timmy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead. Because, yeah, they go outside and then. Yeah, and then we're meeting Timmy, who's now we're putting together for the first time that Timmy is the brother. The partner. Yeah. Of Clooney, of Michael Clayton. Now, we understand why, like, when Timmy shows up, he look like he's in bad shape. He's, like, eight days sober. Sober? Yeah. Clayton has got such a complete animosity towards him for basically fucking everything up for him. I love the scene where they're driving and he's talking to his son and he pulls over because you can feel like that this is now time for a father son moment. Yeah. And you know, when he pulls them over, he goes, you know, this is just you're never going to be like him. And on his best day, he's not as tough as you are. And it's such a wonderful little scene, but it's also so loaded with how much he his brother. And we have this, it's sad to say, but this is an amazingly shot death scene of Archer. And with it is so cold, so precise, so real. Again, they did not have time to rehearse this movie, but these two actors rehearse this constantly. That's what Tony Gilroy said just in on their own time. And you can really tell you can tell that these two characters have done this before. And I mean, it really looks like that needle goes in its foot the way it kind of bounces as it pierces the skin. I love this scene so much. It's all captured in one shot I counted It's 2 minutes and 15 seconds long. And I was just you know, it's a scene without a lot of dialog, but there's a lot of action going on. And I just thought, I wonder how he wrote this. I never thought to read the script for Michael Clayton, so I found it online and I scroll and I find this scene. It's a really fun scene to read because it shows you how good of an of a writer Gilroy is and how he's so few words to explain the actions. But then what's so cool is that he's constantly time stamping it and he's going, This is happen. This is all happening within 18 seconds. And then as it's going up, you know, he does it about ten times, but he's like 29 seconds. And then he'll describe another action, a 38 seconds, and then the scene ends with and over 90 seconds start to finish. And it was so good that I actually sent it to you. And I was like, Dude, just check this out. Like, look how fast this thing zips. It's only two, two and a half pages of screenplay. It's brilliant. It's so good. It's it's great. Screen. I'm so glad you sent that to me, too, because it I mean, you can never really learn too much when it comes to really good screenwriting. Yeah. And when you just see examples of it played out so well I mean I don't know if you like, you don't it doesn't capture imagery, but it captures like exactly like how you know, this is going to go. Like the important thing that Tony Gilroy wanted to do in this scene was show flat out how fast, efficient and cold a murder like this can be. Yeah and exactly Use said there's not much rehearsal time. So what needed to be communicated in the script is this is how fast it's going to go and these are the steps. So how do we get this done in 90 seconds? I like when scripts do things where you don't like it. It is sort of like a bit of a no no in like the writing world in screenplays to kind of call attention to that. Yeah, very. Yeah, yeah. It's like, like I think even said like this whole thing like, yeah, that's like, yeah, he's like this whole thing took. Yeah. 90 seconds start to finish it. Yeah. Yeah. That's why when I sent it to you, I was like, This is how a journeyman screenwriter writes like Shane Black, which he would literally in the action for Lethal Weapon, he's like, And we get a helicopter shot over a giant mansion in Malibu, the kind of mansion that I'm going to buy when I sell that screenplay. Just being like, silly and kind of like, yeah, referencing yourself, but yeah, being like, no, this is. And Gilroy even calls out, like, from when the door opens, This is all one shot. We need to be one continuous shot, but Yeah. You really get the urgency and the precision and the coldness of what he's looking for. So a really just a cool exercise to read that. And then I ended up reading a majority of the screenplay and wow. So if you're interested in making a movie and you're like, All right, I think the way to do it is I'm going out to write my own script. The best way to write a screenplay, to learn how to do it is to think of a bunch of movies you like and just buy those scripts or find them online because not every writer writes the same at all. Tarantino's scripts are like books because. He's very novelistic when he describes the action. Something like Michael Clayton, very, very sparse action. God. And then we go to the way When I love when Clayton just enters that bar and Sydney Pollack gives him to hugs, he's like, stupid son of a bitch. Yeah, just like I love that. Yeah. There's this cloud hanging over everything, like, God, this tragic acceptance of, you know, we call it a lucky break. Like, they admit that, but it's also like, did this guy really do this himself? You know, it's all. It's like, right there teetering on the edge of, like, could you north be responsible for this? But then there's all this other action going on. Barry's like, got to go back to the office. You north is settling. And we were figuring out, that panic thing in the beginning of the movie with everyone shredding documents. And where the fuck is Karen Crowder that's about to be, you know, tonight. Yeah. And so we're putting that together. Anytime you get Clooney and Pollack on screen together in this movie, and when it's just them sitting at that bar and they're leaning in, I love it. I love you know, I've known Arthur 30 years. Good years. so good. So lived in is. Yeah, that line where you said it, where he walks in, he goes, that son, a bitch. Like it's almost like in this moment, like, let's forget about what we do and let's forget about, like, who we are. And like, there's, like, the kind of cold world that we operate in and fuck, man, this is a guy that we knew for this long, like, was like, Let's just be here for each other right now. As far as, like, men like, that could do. Like, you know, these are these are still kind of like guys where you can tell, like, are still living that old fashioned kind of world where men don't really show a little emotion. Correct. And and you and you still have like, son of a bitch. What, are you fucking soft? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's what he sets to the next each other. It's like, Well, you think we're out? Yeah, No shit. We're on the wrong side. Like, God. Yeah. Yeah. Not. Not very big. The double hug that he got from Marty is probably about as much affection as you're going to get, you know, It's just. yeah. And then that. Yeah. Then cutting right to that scene where it's like, I don't want to say it, but yeah, we did catch a bit of a break here. Yeah. And you know, I mean that's it's a reality and it's just truthful. Yes, it is. It's a shame you can feel the weight on both of them because it is truthful, but it's still a terrible thing to admit, you know? And then Michael meets up with Anna. I love that she's in the city right now and I love what he beats up with her. And she's like, Yeah, Arthur paid for my ticket out here, and it was like $800. I loved that. Yes, It's so perfect. It's like a farm girl who's, like, never imagined having $800 spent on a first ticket. I love that. And then, you know, Clayton breaks into Arthur's apartment. There's a lot of clues here of if you want more insight into Arthur's mental illness because there's just a lot of, like, little things around. And then, you know, he finds the bottle of Dom Perignon in the fridge and, like, why would a guy kill himself? He's about to. He's in love with this girl and flew her here like, you know. So Clayton's putting all this together that I love when he goes to the. The copy store and he's like, I got 25 bucks stuff of this. Like a scathing memo that even though Arthur is dead, if one copy of this memo comes out, this is all done. It just all collapses. And then we get, you know, the big this is the big showdown of these seventies movies. It literally the camera cuts to Clayton walking into the office. He's holding the smoking document, the smoking gun, and then he's given a fucking check for $80,000. And without saying it, he is told take the money, shut your mouth or go ahead and expose this and blow it all open. And then what of it? You'll probably be dead if you do that. So what of it? And I just. God I love that. I mean, we still, you know, we I skipped right over the part where Vern is now entered, you know, asking Karen, do you know Michael Clayton? So now she's got to wear this dude's head of like, God, here's another guy. But yeah, I mean, really jumping to Michael versus Marty. Part two is just this is one of the great scenes it it's close to being my favorite scene of the movie when he gives him the check. You know, I just love it. It is so it's so like low key, too, because it's like this is essentially what it is the one thing that actually Michael Clayton needs. Get the whole movie. He's got problems up the wazoo. But the one thing that he actually needs is this money. This is the the his crux of the whole entire thing really is this money. And then he gets it and he gets it like this. And it's so anticlimactic it's almost like he's just holding this piece of paper and it's like it's like a gross feeling. It's not a win at all. And especially when Sydney Pollack is like, like you're welcome. Or you could say. Thank you. Yeah. Like it's very dismissive and just like, go handle your shit. But there's also something I want to say leading up to all of this, which I really liked during this whole entire where Clooney is breaking into Arthur's apartment. He's he's slowly figuring things out. I really enjoy that. You know, for a guy whose job is to be this fixer, he's not thinking that someone's on him. Good point. He's not doing what? Like watching his tracks at all? Because he doesn't realize that he's actually entering into an area where his life is is at stake. Yeah. By inserting himself where he shouldn't even be here, he had to go to his cop brother to get the seal. You know, Dorothy, But by doing this now, you're getting on these hitmen like you're being picked up on their wires, and now you're causing the fuss to like. Yeah. And he has no idea. This is a really good point. Yeah, I love that, because it'd be really easy to kind of like, point that out and be like, This guy's stupid and he's like, Why isn't he being careful? It's not that he's not being careful. He just does not think that this is a situation where he needs to be. He thinks that he's just of like trying to. Man Arthur. Did he really like hot? Did he commit suicide? Like that? Doesn't make any sense. But then, like, it's not until the car actually explodes and we come back to that where now he's like, this is the stakes are that high. They're higher than I thought they ever were. It doesn't feel like that. And we're watching a guy, an imperfect guy, try to figure this out. it's great. Yeah, I love that, too. And then so going back to bonus of $80,000, there's so much going on. It's like, keep in mind, Marty's been up all night because they've been shredding documents and like, they're trying to do this merger with London and then they're also trying to settle you north. And then like also Arthur just died and like, he's asking, you insisted. No, give me the envelope. No, no, no. The other one, I mean, you know, they give they give you the boat. It's I love Barry walks and he's like, we're doing this now. It gets Yeah, yeah. It's kind of weird to get a weird. What do you cover? Like, with everything you know about this place? Kind of weird. What do you come asking for? 80 grand that they kind of go at it? I love that. It's just the line of Sydney Pollack, just boobs sticking out his figure like he's an ass. Yes, but he knows it. And you're on the record like, it's just. It's so good. It's so good. The whole dynamic of the three of them. What if Arthur was on to something? What do you mean? On the what? You north. What if he wasn't crazy? What if he was right? Right about what? If we're on the wrong side? Wrong side, wrong everything. All of it. This is news. This case reeked from day one, 15 years in. I got to tell you how we pay the rent. But what would they do? What would they do if he went public? What would they do? Are you fucking soft? They're doing it. That's Eddie calling it a bonus. You got a three year contract at your current numbers. That's assuming this all works out. You're doing this now, look, I agree to this, but there's rules. Now, if you want a contract, you're signing a confidentiality agreement. It's going to be bulletproof and it's going to be retroactive because Marty's too, to say it. But with everything you know about this place and the clients here and the people who work here, it makes it a little weird when you come in and ask for 80 grand, that's going to shake anybody down. Barry I'd come directly to you and it wouldn't be for 80 grand. Is this film or is this you? Hey, if I'm wrong, you're wrong. You're way the fuck wrong. So there you go. Enough. Okay, everybody. he's an asshole, but he knows it, and you're on the record. Okay, Everybody happy? It's great because he just said, I'm going to sell this now. He's an asshole, but he knows it in here on the record. So we good? Good. Yeah, we got work to do. And you're welcome. That is. Yes, it is. You're welcome. That is Michael O'Keefe. Is Barry. There? He is. Danny in Caddyshack. A young Danny is nominated for an Oscar for playing Ben in The Great Santini. He was in Roseanne and he's got a ton of credit. So I just. He was Danny in Caddyshack. Yeah. Yeah. It's shit Hilarious. I did not know that I had to Google this. I This is one of those performances where I'm like, If you told me this dude just was an asshole partner at a law firm, I'd probably believe you. It's like the guy when Arliss Howard comes in and Moneyball as the Red Sox owner, I just thought that dude was the Red Sox. yeah, he plays it so well. But no, that's due to place the rich asshole in the killer, you know, Or Louie, be mayor in Mank. I love it. So I just love these character parts. But yeah, this is I mean, honestly, just one of the great scenes of Michael Clayton to tie everything up and to see all these. The magic, you know, the two magic documents. Do I, do I go public with this smoking gun or do I take the money and run? And, we know what he's going to do because he goes straight to Gabe, pays Gabe off everyone's square, has a drink, goes back to the poker table, and now the narrative has caught up with itself. And we have 20 minutes left of a movie to go. And we are entering our third act, just full steam ahead. We're watching these guys, like, mess with Clayton's car and it's so tense and there's a really weird thing that happens in that scene when Clayton's walking out of the poker room. It's like, we want the dude to get away with it. Yeah, we don't want the guy to get caught, but we don't want Clayton to die to say nothing of the fact that we know Clayton doesn't die in the car bombing. We already know all this, but it's still so tense. Now we're just going going in? Yeah. I love when. When the car explodes and he just throws all of his possessions in it. You know, it's not to, like, fool people permanently, but just to buy him a little time of, you know, love being dead. Yeah, a little time. And then when when Pollock hears the news and reacts to the news of Michael dying, he just kind of leans back. I love that. It's, you know, all the weight of it coming down. But, yeah, what a what a great way to catch up to yourself narratively with still 20 minutes to go. It's perfect. And they still do it in a way where like, you didn't need to have like this almost like a, like a weird inverted car chase. Right. But it builds the tension so much because it's the stakes. It's like this was all going on when in the beginning of the movie, Clooney was just kind of distraught and wanted to go look at some horses. Yeah, right. Yeah. They're reminded of his son's book. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. It's a perfect it's a perfect way, but it also kind of lets you again to bring back these hitmen guys like, they just need to lock onto a signal that they have to do all of this crazy, like, run, turn around, turn around. And you can see the frustration build, but only to a point and it again it speaks to like how those two actors figured out how they were going to be with each other. It's like always com always this hey, you need to do what you need to do and I'll do what I need to do. You can really feel that they're partners. You can. You can like what? Was he alone in the car? I don't know. You need to call it. We need to turn around. You know, it's really good. It's a very lived in partnership. Like. Yeah, you can tell that these are not two actors who just like showed up day one, like, Hey, buddy, nice to meet you. I'm Terry. Like, it just wasn't like that. Yeah, worked on it and yeah, you can at all Got it all place. They're almost like like Casey Affleck in Scott and in Ocean's an Ocean. Those guys never fucking get along these two or I know those guys would never be able to kill someone efficiently. This is no way to fuck it up so much. The hilarious. Yeah, I got to go. I don't want to stay here talking to you to circus animals, but I love what he calls in that. so this is great. It's the final, you know, board meeting the Karen has to present at. Keep in mind, she ordered the death of two people and she's on a business trip. She's not at home. And now she's presenting and this got this country. I mean, this is great. You really you kind of do pay attention. But she goes before the board and she's like, all right, listen, we should settle this lawsuit because this if the settlement is under 600 million, the tax write offs will pay for itself like fucking capitalism. And I mean to say nothing. Yeah, it's just. God, where does this woman live? Like she doesn't even fucking live in New York kind. I love this shit and that, you know, she nails the presentation, she has all this, this air, this gusto about her, and she walks out and finally, for the first time, the fucking movie. We get to see Michael Clayton dunk because there are a few times in the movie I don't want to put too much to, like, fight to a point on it. But there are few times in the movie when George Clooney as Michael Clayton, I think makes the choice to not always he doesn't have words, the perfect words right on the tip of his tongue, like when he's arguing with Arthur in the alley, goes like, Your judgment is state of the art right now. It's not. It's like he was a guy looking for state of the art. Like he didn't have that in the back of his head. That's good acting. I mean, but here in this for you, he gets he's got it. He nails it all. It's like, boom, I got you. I got you. Don't dunk. Dunk. He fucking nails it. This is. Yeah, just a great scene. Great scene. It's perfect and it's a perfect build up and it's an earned moment and watching Tilda Swinton just completely crumble to it like it's she literally does she literally like in the back in the back just goes to Hollywood. It's so good and it's it's Clooney just being Clooney man. you know you ask George Clooney. All right. So you got to kind of just nail this this scene. And and the movie, the climax of the movie is just his emotional outpouring and just nailing this this this whole entire thing. It's so great. This would have to be a longer section and it would have to take place somewhere else where my car. All right. I'm going to make it easy. Let's make it five, five, and I'll forget about Arthur. Five is easier. Yeah, five is something we could talk about. Good. And then the other five is to forget about the 468 people that you knocked off with your weed killer. Let me finish off this meeting. I'll talk to you. I look like I'm negotiating. Karen. One second. Everything okay? Yes.$10 million. Bank of my choosing offshore immediately. Yes. Say $10 million. Your account. The moment this meeting. Karen, Everyone's waiting. I'm coming. Gone. You have a deal. You're so fucked. What? You're fucked. I mean, take a wild guess. Is there a problem? I understand you. Let me get a picture while I'm it. You don't want the money? No. You keep the money. You're going to need it. Is this fellow bothering you? Am I bothering you? Karen? I've got a whole bored waiting in there. What the going on? Who are you? I'm Shiva, the God of death. Ron, what's so cool about? I mean, yeah, the way Tilda Swinton plays it, it's just great. And then what's so cool is they really did not have an ending for this movie mapped out. Like I said, they the original scripted ending, because I did read the script, is that he walks out and he's walking in the street with that shot I called out earlier and then Arthurs voiceover ranting start again and his ravings start and they start going and it just kind of ends like that. And I guess to signify that like while this chapter is done that Michael will always be thinking about Arthur I'm not sure, but they make the really kind of genius move to make it much simpler than that and have Michael leave and go out to a taxi, pay the taxi 50 bucks, just drive and then credits roll. I just want, you know whose idea that was like, because that's such a crazy like, what if we just had him go into a taxi? We just keep the camera on him. It was basically Gilroy's, but this was something that they did not have the whole time they were filming. Like they didn't know what it was going to be and they kind came up with it and they're like, Let's not do coverage. Like we'll put a bunch of lights on a car and let's just we're just going to have the camera on. I mean, there's some funny stories about like Gilroy's ask Clooney, like, what were you thinking about? And he's like, I'm just going through the movie in my head. Clooney has said that people were, like, screaming at him from other cars the whole time, so he's just trying not to laugh. Yeah, it's it's a very unusual thing to do to just hold on a movie star while your credits go. And it last for 2 minutes and 18 seconds. Like it's not short and it's a perfect way to just end this movie, which is I mean, we've ended on a knock out scene of do I look like I'm negotiating? Like it is just it's been nail you've done it and end with this nice quiet hug. This little whisper is great. It's a much stronger ending than having Arthur's 100% ranting. Come back. Yeah. I love this cut. I love this. yeah. That was my one of my favorite things when I did see it in theaters, when I wasn't necessarily a big fan of the movie. When we get into there and and all of a sudden it just says written directed by Tony Gilroy. And I realize, man, we're just going to hang Clooney for all of these credits. Yeah, He's like, What a sweater. What a ballsy choice. Yeah, because there's not a reason. There's no like, there's and you can feel that, like, there's not exactly like, we're going to blow people's minds with this. It very simply is not. This is what we're going to do. Yeah, and there's something about that, though, that I think that's even more cool in a way than having like this knock out thing. It's like, let's just we'll have the balls to do nothing. Basically. It's very evocative in that way. Yes, it really is evocative. Just don't expect it. Yeah. Gets the people going. It's the people going. It's the third word. You save me with today. yeah. That's what I'm here for. Is didactic, linear and evocative. Linear. Yeah, that's a good one. Linear. That's it for Michael Clayton. That's our movie. One hell of an entertaining movie. A great ride. I'm so glad you've had an about face on it. Very. Finish up here on Michael Clayton. I did want to do some further reading because if you like this movie and you're like, Where can I find other movies like Michael Clayton, you're not going to find them. Really, anything that's been made since and not really in like the immediate decade before. But these these are all the ones that Tony Gilroy was using. The cinematographer Robert Ellsworth was using what John Gilroy was watching the editor. What James Newton, how who did The music does a great job with the music. Yeah. Movies like I went in chronological order here point blank with Lee Marvin by John Boorman. I absolutely loved that movie. It was remade as Payback with Mel Gibson several years later. The director's cut of Payback is the more clear example to Point Blank Bullet with Steve McQueen, directed by Peter Yates, Klute, Alan J. PAKULA'S Klute 1971. Jane Fonda won Best Actress for it. Fantastic movie. This was the biggest visual reference for Michael Clayton. Gordon Willis shot Klute, shot The Godfather. He's one of the best DPS who's ever lived. So if you like the way Michael Clayton looks, they were using a lot of Klute for that. I rewatched all of these preparing for This, The Conversation, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, one of my favorite Lucille that The Parallax View, a movie I had not seen in ages and love so much more now, Also a Pakula movie. I love The Parallax View. It is the ending of that. It's kind of it's at a hotel, it's there. That's what they were basing. The situation isn't the same, but the setting is the same for Michael Clayton. It's very, very cool. Another also shot by Gordon Willis, fantastic movie Blind. By that Criterion people, great Sidney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor, 1975 great movie with Redford, All the President's Men, which rounds out our Alan J. Pakula triple feature their network, of course, Sidney Lumet and Marathon Man I kind of put on at the end there with John Schlesinger, which is still my favorite. Dustin Hoffman performance. Go watch those great movies from the sixties and seventies and you're going to see not only a bunch of really damn fine movies, but you're going to understand a little bit more where Michael Clayton came from. That's really good. I'm sure you've seen one of them. I've seen more than one. You've seen All the President's Men and Network and the Conversation and Marathon Man. you have? Yeah. I didn't know that. A fucking marathon. Go fuck yourself. That's fair. I'll take it. Still got to see the Parallax view, though. it's great. Is that the one that you recommend the most out of all of those movies? okay. You're going to do this? I'm going to do it two years to me, before I know I talked Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor when we were talking about poor things because those are related. Okay. Other ones you haven't seen because I think probably Network is the best movie on there or the conversation I really like point blank. I love that movie. So that would have been my answer three weeks ago. But having rewatched The Parallax View, yeah, that's the one I would say the most. And it's only like 100 minutes and it's really, really good. And I forgot Warren Beatty had that in him. He's, he's not doing like the suave, handsome. I mean he is handsome, but you know, he's not relying on that. It's a lot of what Clooney is doing in Clayton. Like he's not trying to look like Danny Ocean. You know, He's kind of like down and out. I love I was going to guess that was the one you were going to pick because you lit up when you started talking about that one. I love the Parallax View. I didn't remember it being as good as it is. And it really, really is. Everyone go check that out. Top five George Clooney performances. Let's do it. man. I'm ready, baby. He's got a long, long, long career. I'm just sticking with film performances. Number one has been spoiled because I've mentioned it plenty of times. But yes, this is really hard. Yeah, it was. And there's one more. I'm cheating. I don't care. I don't care. I'm going to start number five. It's the one that I think started everything for him, in my opinion, as a movie star. That's out of sight. wow. Okay. I didn't know where you're going with that. Yeah. Out of sight. Definitely higher ranked for me. But I love that. That it's here. All right, Out of sight. Five. My number five, Archie Gates in three Kings. three Kings. Love him. It is so good. Yep. My choices are not going to be probably what a lot of people expect, but that's okay. We may have very different ones. we got one in common right now out of sites that. Yeah. All right. Number four, I'm going with this one. Michael Clayton. Okay. Okay, That's good. I'm glad. Hey, I'm glad it made the list. yeah. At any rate. Yeah, he's amazing in it. Number four for me, a moving No one talks about that. I absolutely loved one. Find that Steven Soderbergh's remake of Solaris One Fine Day. Not a bad rom com. I will say that's my number six one Finding Solaris. Solaris, Solaris. I love that as Chris Kelvin. I've always had a huge affection for that. You do You champion that one a bunch. Yep. Everyone Needs to go back and rewatch it, accept it for what it is. It's very slow, very patient. I think that movie is fucking profound. I love that movie. And do you think his performance in it is is top notch? I think that is that's my favorite dramatic Clooney performance. Emotionally dramatic, romantic, emotionally dramatic performance, of which has done a lot. Michael Clayton is not a romantic. No, it's it's dramatic, but there's no like romance in it. Yes. Laughs over all the other things you're not going to hear on my list. Yeah. Things he's been nominated for Oscars for. That's. Yeah, that's just me. I like it. I like it. You tell me. You tell me if this is bullshit. Because if I have to pick, I will. But you, you, you you. Is that all three of them? No, it's just too. Okay, so Ocean's 12. No. One until. I know what the worse. Yeah, that's right. Number three, even more egregious. That's my number three. No, my name. Okay, okay. You say you're three because you already said it. You're Ocean's. Well, I just said Danny Ocean. I just said Danny Ocean. I didn't if someone forced me to pick, I guess I like his performance. I mean, just establishing what he did in the first one in Ocean's 11 is so, like, cool. We like 12 The Bachelor. We've been very open about that on this pod. But yeah, that was my number three. Sorry. I thought that's where you were going. you're about to have some major bullshit. No, no, no, it's a good one. But I combined his work with the Coen brothers into one into my number three pick, I think. I think that's exciting. I think I have to pick one of those because they're all. Yeah, come on. All right, There. They're really good like that. I picked one. I picked one. I know which one you picked. No, you don't. I'm going to go with the other one. Yes, I do. I know you. I know you. You have no idea how much I love intolerable cruelty. I know, I know. All right. No, you did not pick O, brother. Where art thou? I didn't know. I know you did. I know you did. I know which one you pick. Yeah. And so I'll go with the O, brother. Where art thou? Because that way we can get the other one in. And that's a very good one, too. That was the one that I actually picked in here. Well, okay, so I will say that a comedy of his did not make my top five, but I had it as a very strong, high ranking honorable mention, which was like his comedic roles with the Coens but I did go with Burn after reading I know you of course I know you did. Well Hello, Gérard. God, what a great what a great engineer that character is. Just a great inventor of things. But again, that's not in my top five ranking. My number three for Clooney was Danny Ocean will say Ocean's 11. So that brings us to and then your number three was. O'BRIEN Yes. That brings us to your number two. CLOONEY My number two, Clooney is up in the air. Okay. Wow. Yeah. I think up in the air is everything that George Clooney does like perfectly. Yeah, Yeah. It's the charm, it's the ease. And then when he gets dramatic, it gets dramatic. It's the romantic. It's it's got all of the qualities that make him George Clooney in one movie. It's a true star performance. It was his big his first major role after Michael Clayton. And it's like you kind of wanted he kind of wanted to do something a little lighter, you can tell. But he still yeah, when he needs to get serious and it he does. Yeah. It's a good movie, good performance, nothing. I have nothing bad to say about that at my number two is your number five, Jack Foley out of sight. And I realize that is the third. Steven Soderbergh directed Clooney performance, which I didn't put together till now. Maybe that's an issue. Maybe not. I don't care. I love Jack Foley. God, I love him. I was glad that made your list. I know your number one and you know my number one. Okay. So my number one is without a doubt, The Descendants. Yeah, I love him in that movie. I love that movie so much. I think it's so good. It is. It's a strong performance for sure. My number one is the movie we have talked about all day today, and that is Michael Clayton in Michael Clayton loved him in this movie. Rewatching several times to prepare for this episode really just cemented that. All right, Top five, Tilda Swinton performance is Here we go. All right, Number five, call it recency bias, but I'm throwing the killer in there. That's my number five. I love that. I love it. so good. The killer fucking love lover. That it's great. So great. That movie. It's everything she does. Well, yeah, it's just. It's perfect. Number four is a movie that I don't really particularly like, but I think she's amazing in it. Snowpiercer okay. I thought about that one. I've that's one I only saw once and yeah, wasn't the biggest fan of the movie, but I've never seen a Tilda Swinton performance I didn't like. So that's something that can be brought up a lot. Yeah. So that's a good choice. That's a really good choice. I think that's the best way to put it. There's no such thing as bad Tilda Swinton performance. She's just. She's always fucking amazing. Number three, I'm given to two hour movie of the day. Michael Clayton. Michael Clayton. Great. Love it. Fuck you two. My number four, I guess. shit. Fuck God dammit! And you can do more. I don't care. All right. Michael Clayton, Karen Crowder gets your number three. My number. My number five is killer. My number four is a tiny indie movie from 2001 called The Deep End, which not a lot of people have seen. It was the first thing I her in. It's what Tony Gilroy saw when thinking about how to cast Karen Crowder. Just a movie about a woman trying to protect her son who may have committed murder. And she's trying to cover it up. Jonathan Tucker plays your son you know so it's got some good like, Yeah, yeah, it's got some good supporting performances. It's good. It's good, but not a lot of people good in it. Yeah, it's good. It's good. You're number three was Michael Clayton. My number three is Suspiria, released in 2018. I love her that. Yes. Say what she does in it, but I love her. That's my number two. is it. it's close to be my number two. that's so good. My number two is Karen Crowder, Michael Clayton. And I venture to guess we have the same number one. you know it is. We need to talk about Kevin. Sure is. Jesus Christ. You don't forget that when you see it. That's a fucking movie. They're all right. Finishing up here on Michael Clayton. This was the only movie at the 2007 Oscars to receive more than one acting nomination. It's kind of cool. It received three. It was nominated for picture director, actor, Supporting Actor Wilkinson, Supporting Actress Swinton Original Screenplay and Best Score. Swinton won, which was bit of a surprise. It's a great speech. Truly one of the great Oscar wins. 2007 is a year that they got the Oscars right by and large in a lot of ways. I mean, that was Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem, Marion Cotillard, and Tilda Swinton. Like, this is a great roundup of actors. I love it. And it's hard to say that it should have won more because Picture went to No Country Director went to No Country actor went to Dido. So there will be blood supporting actor Javier Bardem for No Country. You know, original screenplay went to. That's the only one I would have voted this to win Original screenplay. Juno won. And Juno was just a thing. No one was. Diablo Cody won everything that year, every screenwriting award, so that nothing was going to dethrone that. But for this to get an original screenplay would have been awesome. That's A tough year. It's a tough year. It is. It's a good, good, strong year. It's like a good strong name. Michael Clayton. Good, strong, good, strong title. I love it. Don't scoff at me. All right, We can go on. What are you watching? Because we've been here for a while. You well know my role is deep dives cannot be longer than the movie itself. But we also talked about other stuff like we Duncan on movies. Dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk. where people are fucked up right now. All right. I'm going to double down on a Tom Wilkinson performance because I just have to. I mean, it's in the bedroom. that's right. I don't think I can recommend that movie enough. I think it's just a it's a perfect movie off of a really, really good short story. And I think it should be seen talked about it a lot in our favorite movie Arguments episode because that argument, they get into it. So I mean he's great in this see it talk about a lived in performance he's so good yeah I really miss him yeah I love this movie I love in the bedroom. I'm going to flirt doing something a little different in 2024 four. What are you watching? I'm always going to recommend something that is like themed with the episode, but I also found that in 2023 was just watching a shitload of movies for that year that I was like, yeah, that was okay. But I never talk about they're never mentioned on this podcast. I Think throughout this year I'm going to try something where I just give people like some random streaming recommendations that they can watch if, if they want to. I don't know. I'm thinking of doing it. I've tried it on sides. We'll see how it goes. You feel okay with this? Come get a taste. Come get a taste. All right. I can. Weirdo. First of all, to finish up on Michael Clayton in my research, I kept hearing a director named Frank Perry mentioned a lot. There's this movie called The Swimmer from 1968, directed by Frank Perry, starring Burt Lancaster, that I've never seen and I had heard so much about. You can find it on YouTube for free. Like legally, they just have it there that do just listen to the plot of this movie. So this guy, Burt Lancaster is going swimming in like his neighbors pool and he just decides, like, you know, I'm going to do I'm going to walk home like miles home. But as I walk, I'm going to swim in every neighbor's pool that I can. And I'm just going to do that. There's no reason that I'm doing this. I'm just going to do it. And this is my mission for the day. So that's the whole movie. So as it goes on, like the first pool, it's like, hey, I don't remember his name. Hey, Bob, how's it going? You know, the second place and, you know, it kind of starts to go. And some people are like, What the fuck is Bob doing in our pool? Like, And, you know, he explains his quest is doing this. And as the movie goes on, you're kind of like, is this guy us? Is is this real or is it real? And he's just having like a nervous breakdown. Really trippy movie. Really cool. If you don't if you think Burt Lancaster's like a stuffy old Hollywood actor, this is all like a loose, really trippy, like psychedelic movie and performance. I highly recommend to everyone. Everyone. Wow. So good. I love the swimmer. And it's available not like illegally on YouTube. Like it's a YouTube sponsored upload. You're gonna have to sit through like, three, I don't know, ten second ads, but yeah, like, I watch it. I loved it. I mean, I told my dad about it right away, like, yeah, the swimmer definitely check out the Swimmer Trippy Sixties movie. Loved it. I love that. Okay. And then and then real quick, before we sign off here, I did see American Fiction by directed by Cord Jefferson. I liked that movie so much more than I thought I would. So I just wanted to kind of call that out. I'm sure that'll be on streaming soon. I watched a cool, effective little horror sci fi movie on Hulu last night called No One Will Save You, starring Caitlin Dever. It was she's basically like Home Alone and something or someone starts messing with her at home. So if you're into that vibe of movie, check that out. Now, right before we went on, I finished a brand new Netflix movie. Sounds it might be an Oscar contender for best international film. It's called Society of the Snow. And if you haven't heard of this movie, you've heard of this story because the story is the 1972 Andes flight disaster, which was made famous in the film Alive Allied Nineties, which starred, you know, all American guys. And these were not Americans. So this was it's the same story. But they're using all, you know, appropriate actors. And it is harrowing is long, though. It's long. It's two and a half hours and you feel that. And I think he really wanted us to feel like what it was like to, you know, if you've seen a live, you know where this is going. But it's yeah, it's a good movie. I don't I don't think it's going to do quite what all quiet on the Western Front did last year for Netflix how that just really came up in like once for hostiles, which was crazy we all knew was going to win international feature. But that that was the belt buster of my Oscar ballot last year. I did not think it was going to win those three Oscars. And I was like, wow. And those three ones I just mentioned, not necessarily like all A-plus ringing endorsements, but two of them are available to stream right now. So I'm just trying to give people, you know, some recs that's, all, if you like, what we've recommended. If you want to tell us what you think of Michael Clayton or the swimmer or in the bedroom or any of the other wonderful films we've talked about, find on Twitter, Instagram, letterboxd. We're everywhere at W AIW Underscore podcast. Well, as always, thanks for listening and happy watching Drive. Hey everyone, thanks again for listening. You can watch my films and read my movie blog at Alex Withrow. 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 dot com or find us on Twitter, Instagram and letterboxd at W aiw underscore podcast 2023 was a solid movie year, so next time is the episode we've all been waiting for our top ten films of 2023. Here we go. Stay tuned.