Speaker 1: M m m m. You're listening to Playback a Variety
Speaker 1: I heart radio podcast. I'm your host, Variety Awards editor
Speaker 1: Chris Tapley. Today I'm talking to director Aaron Katz about
Speaker 1: his new film Gemini, is the latest in a string
Speaker 1: of independent works including Cold Weather and land Ho and
Speaker 1: he's uniquely qualified to talk about the state of independent cinema.
Speaker 1: So we get into that and a whole lot more
Speaker 1: coming to you this week from my garage. That's right,
Speaker 1: my garage. We keep it chill here sometimes, so sit tight.
Speaker 1: This is playback your Speed fan. I love Speed. Um,
Speaker 1: it's funny. I'm so used to seeing Speed. We have
Speaker 1: an ex rental copy and a clamshell. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: you my copy of Speed like sticks out farther because
Speaker 1: it's as it should because it's a larger case. And uh,
Speaker 1: I always look. I love getting rental copies because you
Speaker 1: get more trailers on the rentals. Oh yeah, I guess, um,
Speaker 1: like the cell through stuff would just go to the
Speaker 1: movie usually. Yeah. Like h So I feel like on
Speaker 1: rental copies, some especially like Mirormax and Dimension films from
Speaker 1: the nineties have so many trailers. Remember I watched I
Speaker 1: watched Swingers the other day, and it's got like all
Speaker 1: the dimension slate, all the trailers. It's fun because half
Speaker 1: the movies are things start like fun things you've heard of,
Speaker 1: and half it's like, what the hell is this? Some
Speaker 1: of it makes me want to go find it? Definitely,
Speaker 1: I think we're set. Let's dive in. Okay, everybody, I'm
Speaker 1: here with Aaron Katz, the writer and direct an editor
Speaker 1: actually and editor of Gemini. Thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. I've invited Aaron into my den
Speaker 1: of excess. I guess there's a lot to look at
Speaker 1: the air episode. Uh, As I said, Aaron directed a
Speaker 1: film called Gemini, which is in theaters right now. You
Speaker 1: can check it out. I wanted to make sure we
Speaker 1: got him in here while it's still in theaters because
Speaker 1: I love it. And if there is an air of
Speaker 1: familiarity about this episode, that will be because Aaron and
Speaker 1: I go back. We were in college together. So yeah, man,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming on the show. How you doing doing
Speaker 1: pretty good? I mean, come on, give me more than that. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm doing great. Looking at your VHS collection, it's just
Speaker 1: appreciating your copy of Sliver, which has a special significance
Speaker 1: to Gemini because just a few days before we started
Speaker 1: shooting Lola Cark, who who's the star of Gemini, and
Speaker 1: uh Andrew Reid, our director of photography, who also went
Speaker 1: to school with us in North Carolina, we all watched
Speaker 1: Sliver together. None of us had seen it before, but
Speaker 1: we thought it would be a good one to watch
Speaker 1: to just kind of immerse ourselves in the mindset of
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties. Esther House thriller world. You've read his book? No,
Speaker 1: I've never read it. I that's high on the list.
Speaker 1: Hang on a minute, I'm gonna leave this on the
Speaker 1: show alright, just so everyone understands. What do we got?
Speaker 1: I know, Dead Silence works on on radio very well.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean Esther House hates Hollywood. Um, question
Speaker 1: is do you No? I don't hate Hollywood. I mean
Speaker 1: there's a lot to hate in Hollywood, a lot of
Speaker 1: things that are depressing, but there's a lot of wonderful things.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the reasons to make this movie
Speaker 1: is to confront my conflicted feelings about it and too
Speaker 1: sort of live in the tradition of of movies and
Speaker 1: books that both celebrate and have a lot of trepidation
Speaker 1: about Hollywood, but I think it's much more in the
Speaker 1: tradition of something like do every What makes Sammy Run
Speaker 1: by Budgetood, which is very very cynical about Hollywood, but
Speaker 1: also very uh loving towards it as well. And I
Speaker 1: would say that Gemini is less in the tradition of
Speaker 1: movies like um The Player or State in Maine, which
Speaker 1: just seemed to despise Hollywood and the entire purposes to
Speaker 1: satirize it. I look at those filmmakers Moment and Altman
Speaker 1: not exactly Hollywood types, not that you are, but yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right. Yeah, it's interesting though I've grown to appreciate
Speaker 1: more of the artistry of Hollywood filmmaking and and uh,
Speaker 1: not to get in too deep on on our past,
Speaker 1: but we were in a screenwriting class together and our
Speaker 1: tastes differed pretty wildly at that time, and uh, as
Speaker 1: time has gone on, I've grown to appreciate more of
Speaker 1: the things. I think you probably would have liked and
Speaker 1: appreciate it at that time. And you know, looking back
Speaker 1: at the things that inspired Gemini. You know, I already
Speaker 1: mentioned Esther House, but all so, you know, more broadly,
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties thrillers like Curtis Hanson stuff. I'm talking
Speaker 1: pre l a confidential stuff like The Hand that Rocks
Speaker 1: the Cradle and Bad Influence, and those films at the
Speaker 1: time were regarded as I don't not exactly be pictures,
Speaker 1: but movies that weren't to be taken seriously as art.
Speaker 1: And looking back at them, I think many of those
Speaker 1: movies are elegant and like just as good as anything
Speaker 1: and should be should get perhaps more respect than they
Speaker 1: do as as um really great artists working. I think
Speaker 1: the industry term for those might be an entertainment, you know,
Speaker 1: just dismissively, that's just an entertainment. Yeah, But I think
Speaker 1: that I think that's just the wrong way to think
Speaker 1: about it. And maybe it's hard to see in the moment,
Speaker 1: you know, when you know critics are grinding through their
Speaker 1: weekly slate of stuff, it's hard to see that like
Speaker 1: Bad Influence, which is of course shot by Robert Ellswoit,
Speaker 1: as where many of the Hanson films of that era,
Speaker 1: is like a beautiful, restrained esthetic exercise and has a
Speaker 1: credit rely fun performances from James Spader and Rob Low,
Speaker 1: and like hard to Do It Better. You can't make
Speaker 1: that kind of film any better in my opinion, And uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I bet, I've got a lot
Speaker 1: of two and a half star reviews at that time. Yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: this movie, Jem and I I loved it. It's probably
Speaker 1: my favorite one you've made so far. What struck me
Speaker 1: about it? What I wanted to talk to you about?
Speaker 1: You kind of just started to get into it a
Speaker 1: little bit. There's more style, more swagger in this movie
Speaker 1: than your previous movies. Certainly it's a movie with the
Speaker 1: d n A of you, uh just in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, the interactions between your two actresses and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. There's a very real world feel to it.
Speaker 1: But there's also just you know, just from that opening
Speaker 1: shot of upside down palm trees, which I thought was
Speaker 1: kind of amazing, just an easy, simple idea that put
Speaker 1: you on edge immediately and kind of put you in
Speaker 1: a frame of mind. Along with this kind of swinging
Speaker 1: not swinging, but like the score from Kegan de Witt
Speaker 1: is like this jazzy, uh cool, you know vibe, and
Speaker 1: obviously that adds to the atmosphere. So what what I want,
Speaker 1: what I wanted to talk to you about was what
Speaker 1: brought that on I guess, I mean, what brought the
Speaker 1: intent to put more style into this movie than maybe
Speaker 1: you have in other films. I've gotten very interested in
Speaker 1: making films that have this sort of h bigger scope
Speaker 1: of of of visual elegance, I hope is what we achieve,
Speaker 1: and it really has to do with the fact that I,
Speaker 1: as I was alluding to earlier, I've come to appreciate this,
Speaker 1: this style of studio filmmaking, and I really enjoy the structures,
Speaker 1: the rhythms, the look of some of those movies, and
Speaker 1: so on this one, what I wanted to do was
Speaker 1: use a lot of that and really celebrate the tradition
Speaker 1: of that, and then populated with characters who h have
Speaker 1: a foot in the world of the you know, the
Speaker 1: narrative that's from that structure, and a foot in the
Speaker 1: world of some of my past movies, which allow more
Speaker 1: space to you know, examine who these people are and
Speaker 1: treat them as people who are um, you know, real
Speaker 1: living people alive in the here and now and and
Speaker 1: um not just engines for the narrative. You said you
Speaker 1: guys took a look at Sliver. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: tend to take a look at another movie do you
Speaker 1: in terms of establishing like a visual aesthetic, do you
Speaker 1: look at artwork or anything like that to help dictate,
Speaker 1: like specifically on this one, what was driving the aesthetic
Speaker 1: you had in mind inspirationally, I don't know if there
Speaker 1: was any one movie, but we were pretty immersed in
Speaker 1: watching h maybe starting with the early eighties. I really
Speaker 1: think of like Body Heat and American Juggalo was kicking
Speaker 1: off a new era, new style of thriller. You look
Speaker 1: at the stuff from the late seventies and it has
Speaker 1: a really different vibe, and I feel like these sort
Speaker 1: of um uh yeah, I think people would say in
Speaker 1: some ways more commercial uh types of thrillers uh started
Speaker 1: around that time. But I really we were just watching
Speaker 1: a ton of those movies, um, blow Out as another one,
Speaker 1: and you know, even stuff you know through the mid
Speaker 1: to late nineties like Wild Things and Poison Ivy. I
Speaker 1: guess that's ninety two. Uh cruel intentions like obviously those
Speaker 1: are a bit more on the salacious end of the spectrum,
Speaker 1: but we really, I would say, we're just immersing ourselves
Speaker 1: in this world, and a lot of those movies have
Speaker 1: have a very um, glossy aesthetic. Uh, And so we
Speaker 1: wanted to have fun with that um and yeah, it
Speaker 1: felt pretty inspired by that. And then also I would
Speaker 1: say a little bit by like early Hong Kong action cinema,
Speaker 1: and especially A Better Tomorrow, which you know, John Wu
Speaker 1: came to be known for such excess and Better Tomorrow
Speaker 1: definitely is indulgent, but it's very restrained, and I think
Speaker 1: it's just a great film about a city at night.
Speaker 1: And so in some ways we wanted to make our
Speaker 1: own great film about a city at night and felt
Speaker 1: inspired to do that maybe more than like, you know,
Speaker 1: taking looking at an aesthetic and trying to recreate it.
Speaker 1: Sure that idea though, of watching a bunch of movies
Speaker 1: immersing yourself and that do you do you feel like
Speaker 1: reticent at all in the midst of that, that you
Speaker 1: might subconsciously even start to lift this or that in
Speaker 1: ways that maybe you didn't want to. You know, I
Speaker 1: asked this question a lot, what what drove, what inspired
Speaker 1: the look or whatever? Did you look at films? And
Speaker 1: a lot of time filmmakers are quick to say I
Speaker 1: didn't want to watch another movie because I didn't want to,
Speaker 1: you know, which sometimes I think is kind of bullshit.
Speaker 1: I get what they're saying, like, I wasn't out to
Speaker 1: copy somebody, but I think that being inspired by movies
Speaker 1: is part of the game, right. So But that having said,
Speaker 1: that's my question, do you feel any kind of trepidation
Speaker 1: about that? I don't really. I enjoy watching movies so uh,
Speaker 1: and I enjoy sort of immersing myself in a world.
Speaker 1: And I feel like if you're broad enough about it,
Speaker 1: like you watch a lot of movies from a certain genre,
Speaker 1: then it tends to all just be more general inspiration
Speaker 1: rather than let's lift this shot. And I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny. I think the only time we've
Speaker 1: ever lifted a shot directly was on Cold Weather. And
Speaker 1: it's not even a shot from a movie's cold cold
Speaker 1: weathers movie, you know, two movies ago and um, what's
Speaker 1: that Jason Statha movie where he is like a driver
Speaker 1: for like a bank heist? Uh now, I don't remember
Speaker 1: what this movie is called. It's like a very classy
Speaker 1: Stathum picture. Um, the bank job, the bank job, the
Speaker 1: bank job, the bank job. I think that's what it thinks,
Speaker 1: the bank job. Well, anyway, at the post, I get
Speaker 1: it confused with the wasn't there like the Italian Job.
Speaker 1: You can get confused with that. Yes, the Bank the
Speaker 1: Bank Job, the Bank Job ten years ago, so ten
Speaker 1: years ago. Yeah. The Bank Job has a really great
Speaker 1: poster which is just Jason Statham sitting in a car
Speaker 1: like looking over his shoulder, and it's so evocative of
Speaker 1: like waiting for the heist to happen, you know, with
Speaker 1: the title and that picture, it's like you don't see
Speaker 1: much beyond you know, just this guy's face. But it's
Speaker 1: a really amazing poster. So that's the only time we've
Speaker 1: ever that I've never seen that poster. It's you've ever
Speaker 1: seen like the DVD poster you talk about this, right, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: That's got a throw that's really cool. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: that's the only thing we've ever lifted directly. There's a
Speaker 1: shot in Cold Weather where um, one of the actor's
Speaker 1: trist is like waiting for someone to come out, and
Speaker 1: we were like, let's let's do the Bank Job poster
Speaker 1: because I think that movie was, you know, just a
Speaker 1: year or two old at that time, and people were like,
Speaker 1: let's let's do that. But other than that, uh, And
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a weird enough one that I
Speaker 1: don't mind admitting it. I know exactly. Yeah, no one's
Speaker 1: going to accuse me of stealing anything, but uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I I really feel like the other part of it
Speaker 1: is that, um, Andrew Reader, director of photography, and I
Speaker 1: tend to have these I wouldn't say conflicting ideas, but
Speaker 1: strong ideas about what we're gonna do. Uh that often
Speaker 1: we get into a place and start talking about it,
Speaker 1: and it's sort of naturally becomes this other idea, this
Speaker 1: third idea that neither of us had on our own.
Speaker 1: And so that tends to if anyone is overly um,
Speaker 1: thinking of something that already exists, we tend to evolve
Speaker 1: that into something else. Uh. Speaking of Andrew, you guys
Speaker 1: have been working together the whole time, right, Yeah, well
Speaker 1: four out of four out of the five. So he
Speaker 1: was actually still he graduated two years after than me,
Speaker 1: even though he's maybe a year older. But so he
Speaker 1: was the gaffer on Dance part of USA in my
Speaker 1: first film, not the DP, but ever since then he is.
Speaker 1: I mean I spoke to him for Quiet City. Actually
Speaker 1: I loved that movie. There was a great shot in
Speaker 1: that movie that I talked to him about that year. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's two thousand and seven. By the way, how does
Speaker 1: that feel You've been making movies for more than a decade? Aarond,
Speaker 1: it's pretty strange to, yeah, have made five movies and
Speaker 1: to have been doing it for this long. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know. I don't have a good
Speaker 1: answer for you. I'm gonna come back to that with
Speaker 1: a different question. But let's start with Andrew. How's that
Speaker 1: evolution been working with him? I mean I thought his
Speaker 1: work was a considerable step up on this movie. I
Speaker 1: mentioned the opening sequence and stuff. But you know, just
Speaker 1: talk about the evolution of working with this guy, and
Speaker 1: and and is it important for you to maintain consistency
Speaker 1: with the DP It is? I mean, in general, I
Speaker 1: like maintaining consistency and having creative relationships that extend over
Speaker 1: multiple movies. Um. And I think that it allows us
Speaker 1: to have this sort of common language with each other
Speaker 1: and shorthand and we know how each other work. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so you know we've evolved together over four movies,
Speaker 1: the first one of which you mentioned, Quiet City. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we made that movie for two thousand dollars
Speaker 1: with no resources at all. We shot that on the
Speaker 1: h v X two hundred. Uh and I think there's
Speaker 1: things about that movie that look good. I think the
Speaker 1: it's the appropriate aesthetic for that movie. But it's very
Speaker 1: rough and tumble and and and low fi. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we we made the best of the resources
Speaker 1: we had. And and but as we've gone on we've
Speaker 1: had we've figured out how to uh, well a have
Speaker 1: more resources because the budgets have gotten bigger, but be
Speaker 1: really utilized those resources and really figure out how to
Speaker 1: make the most of them. Um. So yeah, we just
Speaker 1: on each film have tried to challenge ourselves and if
Speaker 1: we ever feel like something is too easy, we know
Speaker 1: there's something wrong. And especially in this case, when we
Speaker 1: were you know, wanting to live in the tradition I've
Speaker 1: been talking about of those thrillers from the eighties and nineties,
Speaker 1: really wanted to live up to how great we think
Speaker 1: some of those films are shot and to find ways
Speaker 1: to be really expressive about Los Angeles, a city that's
Speaker 1: been shot you know, more times maybe than any other city.
Speaker 1: Book to do it our way, to show how we
Speaker 1: saw the city, and to find visual ways that were
Speaker 1: striking and unique. Drill down on that, how do you
Speaker 1: see the city? Well? I guess it started maybe with
Speaker 1: that idea of a color palette, which is, when driving
Speaker 1: around Los Angeles at night, there's this contrast between the
Speaker 1: sera orangey glow of the street lights and and often
Speaker 1: there's clear, clear skies and a kind of a white
Speaker 1: blue glow from the moon. So that was our sort
Speaker 1: of star paraty aesthetic. And you see that a little bit,
Speaker 1: especially what we shot right around here. Uh So the
Speaker 1: characters go to an Italian restaurant right at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the movie, and there's a driving sequence after that,
Speaker 1: which we actually shot on the very last day. We
Speaker 1: were returning the equipment from we had shot some palm
Speaker 1: trees around my house and we're returning the equipment driving
Speaker 1: down Colorado and and um shooting shooting had the camera
Speaker 1: pointed out the window and shooting the parks and businesses
Speaker 1: at night, and yeah, you get this collection of neon
Speaker 1: lights and street lights and then the you know, when
Speaker 1: you hit a street that you're looking down, you know
Speaker 1: this this glow of the moon. And so that was
Speaker 1: kind of our starting place. And also it had to
Speaker 1: do with choosing the right locations and really choosing locations
Speaker 1: that spans an experience that we wanted to portray in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, like, Los Angeles is a city that has
Speaker 1: a million different experiences, a million different neighborhoods that you know,
Speaker 1: I've lived here for five years, You've lived here, I
Speaker 1: think for like twelve thirteen years. And I think I
Speaker 1: could live here for fifty more years and I would
Speaker 1: still find a pocket of Los Angeles that I knew
Speaker 1: nothing about, didn't even know existed. And so we wanted
Speaker 1: to express some of the horizontal nature of Los Angeles
Speaker 1: and how driving is so important to the city and
Speaker 1: how a person can span all the way from you know,
Speaker 1: Eagle Rock to the Hollywood Hills and Korea Town in
Speaker 1: between in the course of a night, which feels like
Speaker 1: a very Los Angeles experience as opposed to, for example,
Speaker 1: in New York, it's a much more vertical experience. Everyone
Speaker 1: stacked on top of each other. Here, it's all stretched out.
Speaker 1: How did those visual ideas about the city, did they
Speaker 1: inform or were informed by it all? Theme in the film, Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we also chose to shoot in
Speaker 1: a two three nine aspect ratio to to kind of
Speaker 1: highlight the horizontal expansiveness of the city, and it's a
Speaker 1: city where, Um, I'm trying to think. I don't want
Speaker 1: to reveal too much for those people who haven't seen
Speaker 1: the movie yet. UM, but I will talk about the
Speaker 1: last shot, which pans away from our main action and
Speaker 1: into a wide city scape of the city. And I
Speaker 1: think that's our way of expressing something that we feel
Speaker 1: about Los Angeles, which is that it's a city with
Speaker 1: a million stories and like everyone's intersecting, uh, and that
Speaker 1: this is just one of them. In a way. It's
Speaker 1: like the the you know, the Naked Naked City about
Speaker 1: TV show and movie, which has the voice over that's like,
Speaker 1: that's a million stories in the nightked city, that's just
Speaker 1: one of them. And I really I felt like that
Speaker 1: about this view of Los Angeles, that we're happening to
Speaker 1: interact with these characters for this limited period of time.
Speaker 1: We're going to get this view into their lives, but
Speaker 1: that there's just one very small piece of the fabric
Speaker 1: of the city. By the way, let's drop in like
Speaker 1: a synopsis here for anyone who has probably confusing people.
Speaker 1: What's your elevator pitch on Jim and I Now elevator
Speaker 1: pitch is that it is a movie about a personal
Speaker 1: assistant to a celebrity. And there let me back up
Speaker 1: to say that this relationship is something that I encountered
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles and became very interested in. It's the
Speaker 1: reason why I wrote the movie because this relationship, the
Speaker 1: lines between personal and professional are very blurry and it's
Speaker 1: not clear like where the job begins and ends being
Speaker 1: a personal assistant, and I thought that was such an
Speaker 1: interesting starting place for a thriller, someone who's in some
Speaker 1: ways taken on the identity as an extension of the
Speaker 1: identity of the person that they're working for. So that's
Speaker 1: where we start out the film. And as the film
Speaker 1: goes on, Heather, who played by Zoey Kravitz, who's the celebrity, uh,
Speaker 1: is uh concerned that there's a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are angry at her, and she borrows a gun from
Speaker 1: Jill played by Lola Kirk, her assistant, And I'm maybe
Speaker 1: gonna leave it at that, but let's just say the
Speaker 1: guns introduced an act one tend to go off later
Speaker 1: there you go. Uh. Speaking of which, by the way,
Speaker 1: one of my friends was Mickey Rourke's personal assistant during
Speaker 1: Iron Man Too. That guy has stories I'm yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: it's something I think people feel like. I saw this
Speaker 1: mentioned I certainly thought about it. Was anything about Bergman
Speaker 1: or persona in your mind here it's funny. No, I
Speaker 1: we didn't think about that, but it has come up
Speaker 1: since then. Um No, I mean, if anything, I was
Speaker 1: thinking more of like you know, single white female or
Speaker 1: something of that, which which had some you know, blurry
Speaker 1: identity situations. You don't really go there, they're like you
Speaker 1: kind of you're expecting it to sort of go in
Speaker 1: like not like a sixty direction and like that, but
Speaker 1: just an even more dangerous direction. Did you willfully stay
Speaker 1: away from that? Or was that I wanted to, Yeah,
Speaker 1: certainly set the movie in those in the tradition of
Speaker 1: those movies, but also have it feel like life. Like
Speaker 1: I really wanted it to feel like what if something
Speaker 1: like this really happened to us? Like what would you know?
Speaker 1: What would an ordinary person deal with this? And so
Speaker 1: in some ways I wanted it to feel heightened and
Speaker 1: in others I wanted it to feel believe of the
Speaker 1: bowl and the sense the sense of like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is a person who's like alive. This isn't like this
Speaker 1: is you've seen an aesthetic of movies, but you're seeing
Speaker 1: behavior that feels like real life. Yeah, that gets back
Speaker 1: to what I was saying. I think it's has the
Speaker 1: DNA of view and that's why it's such an interesting mixture.
Speaker 1: You were talking about a specific shot. There's another shot
Speaker 1: that I thought was kind of amazing. Whenever you can
Speaker 1: see a shot like this in a movie that you've
Speaker 1: never seen before in l A, it's really fascinating, which
Speaker 1: is the motorcycle shot, uh, winding around the Cannon canyon. Oh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just this this perspective. I don't know where you
Speaker 1: went or how you even found this perspective. Maybe this
Speaker 1: has shown up in movies before and I've never noticed it,
Speaker 1: but it was just such an interesting way to get
Speaker 1: so much in the frame. So that brings me to
Speaker 1: just location scouting, Like, what was that vibe like for
Speaker 1: a movie like this where Los Angeles has been so
Speaker 1: picked over in terms of locations. Well, it started really
Speaker 1: with the script, and I wrote a lot of specific
Speaker 1: locations in the script, places that I've been, places that
Speaker 1: I've liked, a lot of places in my neighborhoo it uh.
Speaker 1: Now some of those ended up in the movie. Others
Speaker 1: for logistical reasons. Uh, we're not in the movie. Uh.
Speaker 1: And but we really tried to dig in deep and
Speaker 1: find places that had a history and felt like they
Speaker 1: were part of the DNA of Los Angeles. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go off on a tangent here, uh talk about something
Speaker 1: that's like very off to the side, but I'll relate
Speaker 1: it back to m I, but it might take me
Speaker 1: a minute. Uh. And that is that. UM. I was
Speaker 1: listening to a podcast or k CRW show called Good
Speaker 1: Food and they had some people on recently who had
Speaker 1: done a rogue nine nine Essential restaurants. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've heard about this. We're like, so the l
Speaker 1: A Weekly traditionally does central restaurants, but they've moved in
Speaker 1: a Oh what you mean the are you talking about
Speaker 1: the top one? That's Jonathan Gold l A Times on
Speaker 1: a radio thing. I'm sorry. So the l A Weekly
Speaker 1: used to imprint do Uh, this is the most convoluted
Speaker 1: story I used to imprint do this cential restaurants that
Speaker 1: went in a direction that people were unhappy with. So
Speaker 1: these two women decided critic former critics for The l
Speaker 1: A Weekly decided to um do their own a Rogue
Speaker 1: ninety nine, which they did on a site called l
Speaker 1: a Taco and then came on Case RW to talk
Speaker 1: about it, and what they were saying is that they
Speaker 1: chose restaurants, not that we're the ninety nine best restaurants,
Speaker 1: but ninety nine restaurants that captured the DNA at the
Speaker 1: diversity of Los Angeles and captured the fabric of the city.
Speaker 1: And so that really made me think about what we
Speaker 1: were trying to do and choosing locations, which was try
Speaker 1: and capture something about the fabric of the city. And
Speaker 1: people always talk about how, um, you know, Los Angeles
Speaker 1: is a city with no history, and that's what I
Speaker 1: thought growing up in Oregon, never having visited California as
Speaker 1: you know, until he was twenty two. Uh but Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: the city was a lot of history, just all happens
Speaker 1: to be twentieth century history. And so I wanted to
Speaker 1: route the movie and the locations in that end. Uh So,
Speaker 1: when we're looking for places, we all when we looked
Speaker 1: at so many places before finding, you know, the right
Speaker 1: kind of spot like and sometimes it ended up shifting
Speaker 1: away from the original intent of the location, but it
Speaker 1: felt like it spoke to something of Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: so we went with it. And an example of that
Speaker 1: is one scene where Reeve Kearney isn't in the movie.
Speaker 1: He plays the ex boyfriend of z He Cravitz. His character.
Speaker 1: He was supposed to be in the lobby of the
Speaker 1: Roosevelt Hotel when we see him, so we for logistical
Speaker 1: reasons practical concerns, we couldn't shoot there, and uh, we
Speaker 1: started looking at other hotel lobbies. Nothing was feeling quite right,
Speaker 1: and then we started looking at bars, and finally our
Speaker 1: location scout was like, what about Tonga Hut, which is
Speaker 1: a tiki bar in North Hollywood. Are really old from
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties tiki bar? And initially I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, that's like so different from a hotel.
Speaker 1: But then as I started thinking about it, I started
Speaker 1: thinking about all the history of place like that had.
Speaker 1: How it actually like the idea that this guy who's
Speaker 1: but you don't know exactly what he has, but seemingly
Speaker 1: some you know, like an actor or something, um, he
Speaker 1: would hang out to place like that's just the kind
Speaker 1: of place that he would hang out with and there's
Speaker 1: hang out at And also Lola Kirk has this line
Speaker 1: where she says, hey, this is my place, like you
Speaker 1: can't come, like why are you here? This is my place?
Speaker 1: And I thought that was so perfect for a place
Speaker 1: like Tonga Hut, and perhaps even more so than a
Speaker 1: place like the Roosevelt Hotel, which obviously anyone could think of.
Speaker 1: That was a very long story that it's perfect. That's
Speaker 1: what we want here. Um, you, like I said, you've
Speaker 1: been making movies for ten years now, you want an
Speaker 1: independent Spirit Award a few years ago for land ho
Speaker 1: Uh back to back with Chad Yeah, back to that
Speaker 1: and Brett Haley broke the streak the best did break
Speaker 1: the streak? Sorry, uh, but you know, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to you about the state of independent cinema.
Speaker 1: I think you're qualified to discuss that. So, so, how
Speaker 1: does it feel out there? What? What? What does this
Speaker 1: environment and the netflix of it all? And I know
Speaker 1: you have strong feelings about that, you go as deep
Speaker 1: on that as you want. But what do you think
Speaker 1: about the state of independent cinema right now? Well? I
Speaker 1: think I need to be careful what I say here
Speaker 1: because I do have some strong opinions that may not
Speaker 1: be uh best for my health and my future health
Speaker 1: as a filmmaker. Um. Well, okay, so first of all,
Speaker 1: I think it's worth breaking it down to me as
Speaker 1: a filmmaker and me as a person who likes watching movies,
Speaker 1: which I think are connected but kind of different. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'll start with me as just a person who likes
Speaker 1: watching movies, and to say that over the last tend
Speaker 1: to you know, whatever tended fifteen years, movies had gone
Speaker 1: from something where I like, really uh held in high
Speaker 1: regard these physical objects, you know, at first tapes in
Speaker 1: the nineties and then DVDs, that I had this idea
Speaker 1: that I would like build a library and it really
Speaker 1: mattered to me. It felt really important to me, and
Speaker 1: I feel like the interaction with those physical objects meant
Speaker 1: so much to me, whether I owned them or whether
Speaker 1: I was renting them from a video store. And over
Speaker 1: the course of that you tend to fifteen years, they
Speaker 1: went from that to basically, in my mind, as of
Speaker 1: like maybe seven years ago, essentially worthless. Um. And it
Speaker 1: made me really sad. And I realized that even though
Speaker 1: we have access to everything at all times now that
Speaker 1: that over the course of the next few years, I
Speaker 1: came back to the feeling that like physical objects are
Speaker 1: important and going to physical places to get those objects
Speaker 1: it's important, and that I, you know, hadn't gone to
Speaker 1: a video store for a very long time before I
Speaker 1: started going to Video Tech in South Pasadena about two
Speaker 1: years ago, and realizing that browsing on streaming platforms makes
Speaker 1: me very depressed and makes me not want to watch
Speaker 1: movies because I just I feel like I'm stuck in
Speaker 1: an endless loop of nothing. Whereas browsing at a video store,
Speaker 1: you're looking at a shelf that you know, you came
Speaker 1: to check out, whatever shelf you came to check out,
Speaker 1: but then you know, look at this, it's like Cuban
Speaker 1: cinema from the sixties right next year, Like that's really interesting,
Speaker 1: Like I wonder what this is, And you started pulling
Speaker 1: stuff out, and maybe the person next you says, I've
Speaker 1: seen that film. That's a great film. You should check
Speaker 1: that out. And that just doesn't happen on online. And
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a cultural robustness that is really
Speaker 1: missing from the streaming experience. And and and not only that,
Speaker 1: but the the idea that that things come out and
Speaker 1: we all have a chance to talk about them, to
Speaker 1: gather and and see them in a place, a physical
Speaker 1: place with your friends, you know. So as an audience member,
Speaker 1: I feel a lot of concern about where that's heading.
Speaker 1: And for me, I enjoy watching movies with people in
Speaker 1: movie theaters. I enjoy checking videos out from a from
Speaker 1: a video store, and I don't so much enjoy watching
Speaker 1: things streaming, even though there's obviously a lot of great
Speaker 1: content there. Even the fact that I'm calling it content.
Speaker 1: You never go into a video store and say, what
Speaker 1: content do you have for me today? Uh, what's the
Speaker 1: new content this week? I mean, I feel like it
Speaker 1: it's it's a small thing, but I feel like that
Speaker 1: word kind of speaks to the how everything is like
Speaker 1: a tech company that offers a service, not as not
Speaker 1: the service itself, and everyone is just sort of like
Speaker 1: a middleman, like like we're just providing the platform and hey,
Speaker 1: whatever's on here, you know, it's like like that's less important. Um.
Speaker 1: Now the filmmaker, Uh, you know, I think I've been
Speaker 1: quite lucky, Like for example, with Gemini, we got to
Speaker 1: make the movie, we want to make people believed in
Speaker 1: us to make it. They didn't interfere um. Um. I
Speaker 1: should mention, by the way, one of your producers is
Speaker 1: a daily Romansky who just won the oscar from Moonlight
Speaker 1: a year and a half ago. Yeah, so I just
Speaker 1: wanted to throw that in there. Yeah that probably that
Speaker 1: probably helps, and people do not want to interfere. But
Speaker 1: I do feel like by having made really small movies
Speaker 1: completely too, you know, with my own devices and built
Speaker 1: kind of slowly, that I have proved that if we
Speaker 1: are allowed to make the movie, we want to make
Speaker 1: that that that people know what they're going to get,
Speaker 1: and that's a movie that you know, they can see
Speaker 1: like what that looks like. And so we have, as
Speaker 1: the budgets have grown over time, have that opportunity again
Speaker 1: now in terms of uh, people connecting with it. I mean,
Speaker 1: so Neon is our distributor, and I could not possibly
Speaker 1: be more happy with working with them. It's been the
Speaker 1: best process I've ever had with any distributor. And I'm
Speaker 1: so proud of our materials are trailer poster and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really it's a great poster. And and Tom Tom Quinn,
Speaker 1: who's who runs the place, said something that I thought
Speaker 1: was really important, which is we shouldn't stop working on
Speaker 1: this poster until until we all want it hanging on
Speaker 1: our wall. And I feel like that's a really incredible
Speaker 1: attitude to have. You think that's so obvious, But that's
Speaker 1: not an attitude that you always get. It's also not
Speaker 1: an attitude that means, how can we best sell right
Speaker 1: this movie. It's an attitude this is how can we
Speaker 1: best produce something that represents this movie that we're proud of?
Speaker 1: And I think their belief is that representing the movie
Speaker 1: that we're all really proud of does help sell the movie.
Speaker 1: It helps communicate what kind of movie this is bringing
Speaker 1: the kind of people who want to see that movie. Now,
Speaker 1: having said that, you know, you look around at a
Speaker 1: box office in general, and a lot of movies that
Speaker 1: have great materials that are maybe great movies have a
Speaker 1: difficult time connecting and especially uh, I mean, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make myself sound old. I'm only thirty six, But it
Speaker 1: feels like younger people that are a little bit younger
Speaker 1: than us, and especially people who are like teenagers are
Speaker 1: in their early twenties going to the movies in the
Speaker 1: same way that we went to the movies. Um, it's
Speaker 1: a big, bigger step for them or not everyone is
Speaker 1: interested in that. It feels like it's very challenging to
Speaker 1: communicate with that group of people who may well enjoy
Speaker 1: the experience. Were they too, I feel like, were they
Speaker 1: to take that step? So I think one of the
Speaker 1: biggest missing pieces right now is how how to let
Speaker 1: people know who are let's say, under twenty five that
Speaker 1: like going to the movies is fun and like that. Uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm making myself no, no, no no, you're right.
Speaker 1: I mean the theatrical business is obviously get more and more, uh,
Speaker 1: moving more and more towards the big event thing like
Speaker 1: the The Avengers, the the Marvel of it all, the
Speaker 1: Star Wars of it all. You go to the movie
Speaker 1: theaters see those movies, not necessarily a Gemini or something
Speaker 1: so like that kind of is what you're talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and rewiring that I just for me. I think there
Speaker 1: should and could be a very broad spectrum of what's
Speaker 1: on offer at the theater, and there is, but it's
Speaker 1: so heavily weighted towards the franchise part of it. And
Speaker 1: you know, you think of Disney, who's by far the
Speaker 1: most successful studio in this age, and what they're marketing
Speaker 1: isn't really even movies. It's brands, and some of those
Speaker 1: brands happened to involved some really great movies. Uh, and
Speaker 1: there's some really great directors working within those. And I
Speaker 1: just wish that that was a part of the industry
Speaker 1: that was robust and healthy, that there was then another
Speaker 1: part of the industry that was robot and healthy that
Speaker 1: was non branded, exciting, you know, just um, great movies.
Speaker 1: I actually haven't seen it yet, but um, A quiet
Speaker 1: Place is that the right title? Um? You know, I
Speaker 1: think that's a really interesting example where it has reputation
Speaker 1: for quality, it's not part of any brand. Uh, and
Speaker 1: it did you know that dollar dollars and so I
Speaker 1: think dollar budget and exactly now it'll be a franchise
Speaker 1: now of course that that's the thing is that everyone
Speaker 1: wants to turn that into a franchise, which is fine,
Speaker 1: I guess, But like, I feel like there's lots of
Speaker 1: examples where if you bring quality movie to theaters, you
Speaker 1: communicate with people the right message that like you're gonna
Speaker 1: love this movie. Uh, that can work. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think that Dannyville News movies, Arrival and Cicario are
Speaker 1: two other examples of that. Nightcrawlers another example of that.
Speaker 1: We could keep naming movies, but those are you know,
Speaker 1: we're kind of naming the exceptions here. Uh, it's the
Speaker 1: mid budget draw is that no one wants to make
Speaker 1: anymore because it's either a million dollar budget or a
Speaker 1: hundred million dollar budget and anything in between is a risk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is, I mean, and that's you know, people have
Speaker 1: lost their shirt on on those that scale of movies.
Speaker 1: So in some ways I understand, but I also feel
Speaker 1: like it's this like horrible, like self fulfilling cycle where
Speaker 1: you don't or a lot of studios don't want to
Speaker 1: back movies that don't have a brand, that are those
Speaker 1: mid level movies, and so those become more and more scarce,
Speaker 1: and there becomes less of an ecosystem for those movies
Speaker 1: to succeed. And you know, I'm looking again at your
Speaker 1: VHS shelf, and I'm looking at so many movies that
Speaker 1: you know, like Basic Instinct was an original concept that
Speaker 1: I believe at the time the script sold for like
Speaker 1: more what's those millions? It was like three million or something,
Speaker 1: so like that just wouldn't happen today, And I like
Speaker 1: wonder if, I mean, I don't think Basic Instinct would
Speaker 1: exist today. But that's a great film. It's it's um
Speaker 1: it's part of the filmography of a great director. And
Speaker 1: I like, think of all the movie these that we're
Speaker 1: not seeing, you know, all the people who don't have
Speaker 1: an opportunity to make stuff that allows them to express
Speaker 1: something beyond like still within the studio system, but beyond
Speaker 1: the scope of a world like Marvel or Star Wars
Speaker 1: that has these like really finite parameters. Um. And I
Speaker 1: just kind of I feel maybe going back to an
Speaker 1: audience member, I feel a little like robbed of like
Speaker 1: getting to see what that is and and looking at
Speaker 1: you know, opening up the this is again speaking to
Speaker 1: maybe what happened to then, and he's like cracking open
Speaker 1: the newspaper like the Entertainment weekly, like what's coming this
Speaker 1: season and be like, oh, that sounds neat, like never
Speaker 1: heard of that before. Um, that's a real rarity. And
Speaker 1: then as a filmmaker like those are the honestly the
Speaker 1: kind of movies that I want to make. I am
Speaker 1: most interested in making studio elegant genre movies that just
Speaker 1: don't we were born ten years too later, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I mean, I mean I'm thinking, like, to me,
Speaker 1: one of the you know, one of the things that
Speaker 1: I look to that's like, this is what I aspire
Speaker 1: to is like Talented Mr. Ripley, which works as a
Speaker 1: genre film perfectly and also has incredible performances in it
Speaker 1: is directed with such like gentleness and attention to detail,
Speaker 1: and I think that has the single greatest shot in
Speaker 1: all of cinema, the piano reflection shot. The piano reflection
Speaker 1: shots amazing to me, just thematically potent. I love it anyway,
Speaker 1: I've written about it like before, people have probably seen that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that you know, it's hard to it's hard to pick.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe that finds a place. But like for
Speaker 1: every five of those there used to be, now there's
Speaker 1: you know one if you're lucky, and you know another
Speaker 1: film which I wonder if we would even get made today, Alien,
Speaker 1: which I think is perhaps the greatest pop movie ever made. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's an original concept that's very elevated,
Speaker 1: very restrained in many ways, and very pure, and I
Speaker 1: hope there's still space for movies like that. Well, what's
Speaker 1: interesting is I don't know if you you should pick
Speaker 1: up this book that just came out Ben Fritz, The
Speaker 1: Big Picture. It's great distillation of where we're at in
Speaker 1: the business. Right now, and he makes this other point
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna make. It's just that when you see
Speaker 1: people like Amy Pascal, who was the head of Sony
Speaker 1: Pictures or the or Jeff Robinov who was over at
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers, who loved these kind of movies we're talking
Speaker 1: about and championed these kind of movies, and then kind
Speaker 1: of the fiscal reality caught up with them and they
Speaker 1: were moved on out. But then they become producers. Amy
Speaker 1: Pascal as a producer, she produced The Post last year.
Speaker 1: Uh Robinov as a producer now too, And and you
Speaker 1: know they're trying in their way now to make these
Speaker 1: movies that they were passionate about once upon a time.
Speaker 1: And we'll see how that kind of I guess, Era
Speaker 1: and Away happens. These these formal moguls who are now
Speaker 1: producers with deals at studios and stuff, trying to get things. Man.
Speaker 1: I mean, we'll see if that kind of thing helps.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's just this big, big, this mid budget
Speaker 1: thing that we just don't get any more. A movie
Speaker 1: we both like which is over here on the shelf. Speed.
Speaker 1: I don't think Speed would be made today now. I
Speaker 1: don't think so, certainly not the way it was made,
Speaker 1: you know, practically, And I mean, I think this is
Speaker 1: part of why people reflect on how there's not movie
Speaker 1: stars the way there used to be movie stars. And
Speaker 1: I think part of this is that there's not the
Speaker 1: right kind of movie to mint movie stars. Now. Of course,
Speaker 1: Kana Reeves had already you know, been uh you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen him at Point Break, etcetera, etcetera. But I
Speaker 1: feel like Speed kind of accelerated him to like the
Speaker 1: next level of movie star and introduced us to Sandra Bullock.
Speaker 1: I'm right about that, right, more or less, more or
Speaker 1: less right, but like it made her a movie star.
Speaker 1: And I would say Demolian Man was the year before,
Speaker 1: also on the shelf, also on the shelf. Um, And
Speaker 1: I can see this for the year before because you
Speaker 1: have the chronologically arranged here. Um. But you know we
Speaker 1: don't have this, you know, we don't have uh. I
Speaker 1: mean I feel like we just sound like to to to,
Speaker 1: We sound like beyond our years, bemoaning the state of things. Um.
Speaker 1: But like you know, you're thinking of like, you know,
Speaker 1: thinking films like Clueless, which made Alicia Silverstone a star,
Speaker 1: or All the Right Moves, which made Tom Cruise star
Speaker 1: or risky business first? Um was risky business first? Maybe
Speaker 1: risky business. The point stands though, that like these kind
Speaker 1: of movies and those are even less in evidence now,
Speaker 1: these kind of like like sincere kind of pop dramas,
Speaker 1: I mean really just almost doesn't exist anymore. And it's
Speaker 1: just it feels like there's not the machine to make
Speaker 1: new movie stars to then elevate them with like something
Speaker 1: like speed. And then you know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: great actors right now, but it's you know, you're I
Speaker 1: think we're very hard pressed to find people that are,
Speaker 1: you know, like Denzel or like Tom Cruise that are
Speaker 1: just like these like charismatic guys elevated by a movie
Speaker 1: that comes out of nowhere. By the way, they wanted, Uh,
Speaker 1: they were really mad at Keanu for shaving his hair.
Speaker 1: Oh speed. Yeah, they thought it was going to dial
Speaker 1: down his charismas movie star charisma. Obviously it worked out,
Speaker 1: it did work out, but looks great in that movie.
Speaker 1: We could probably talk forever. We're going a little long,
Speaker 1: but uh yeah, this entire subject we're on now could
Speaker 1: could be and I feel like we could easily spend
Speaker 1: three hours talking about this. Not that anyone wants to
Speaker 1: listen to that. We should get you in here and
Speaker 1: then get like Kevin Foggy next to you and just
Speaker 1: have a chat. Maybe get Ted Surrandas over here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just I yeah. Again, not to dwell
Speaker 1: on it too much, but I just you know, we
Speaker 1: love we both love movies. We want the industry to
Speaker 1: be healthy. Like I think there's a place for big
Speaker 1: budget stuff. There's a place for franchises. There's like I
Speaker 1: hope the studios continue on and I hope we don't
Speaker 1: see studios going out of business. Um, But I fear
Speaker 1: that we're in uh you know what I said about
Speaker 1: the home media of platforms. So I I fear that
Speaker 1: we're in an era of brands and platforms and not
Speaker 1: of the movies themselves. And I just hope that the
Speaker 1: ends of that story isn't that um, isn't something dystopian. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't think either one of us wants those things
Speaker 1: to go away either. Like I love the Marvel movies.
Speaker 1: I go to the Marvel movies. I just wish we
Speaker 1: lived in an era still where those were actually tent poles,
Speaker 1: which meaning they prop up all the other projects are
Speaker 1: It's interesting sort of dig into what that term actually means,
Speaker 1: that it props up all the rest of the slate,
Speaker 1: and we don't have that anywhere, so don't anyway, movies
Speaker 1: called Jim and I. You should all go see. It
Speaker 1: should be in theaters near you somewhere. So so thanks
Speaker 1: for coming on the show. Are and really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me