Hello, welcome to the extra credits of Steven Soderbergh's
Presence and Black Bag. I'm Trey.
And I'm Kelsey. Hey, Kelsey.
Yeah. Do you trust me?
What would you kill for me? Honestly, that's what we're
going to be. Discussing today on this episode
if you. Came here for.
Movie talk? Nope, just about our
relationship. How close are we to Michael
Fassbender and Cate Blanchett? Man, Soderbergh is back.
Let's go. I'm so excited for today.
I know 2 like really fun theater experiences too.
Yes, we just. Talked about Soderbergh a lot. 2
months ago we did Ocean's 11 and Erin Brockovich on the Patreon,
and we discussed around that time in January in preparation
for Presidents and Black Bag coming out over the next few
months and Soderbergh having two major projects in early 2025.
Why don't we have more film makers making cool stylish
movies and Black Bag? Watching it last night I was
reminded that like nobody else can do what Steven Soderbergh
does. It is insane and I don't get it.
Right. Like you would think there would
be so many, be so many great auteurs under the age of 45 who
you think could collect like 7 or 8 of the biggest stars in the
world and just make them look cool on screen in like an adult
caper or an adult espionage thriller instead of like a
massive genre sci-fi epic or you know, which we love or like The
Odyssey or something like that, which I'm very excited for.
But watching Black Bag last night I was like, why?
Don't we get one of these a year?
Why? And it's 90 minutes.
Are you kidding me? Yeah, what Soderbergh is able to
do and like, Oceans is obviously, you know, the prime
example of this is like, make something knowingly cheesy but
still make it suave, but still have this, like, knowing humor.
And I think like, what other people are doing in the space,
similar to like, a Ryan Johnson, Knives Out is different, right?
That feels more like a kind of like a family film.
It's still good in its own right.
But like, you're right, not everyone can do this.
And I think something like Ocean's 8, right, is a prime
example of that. Like, yeah, Cate Blanchett in
this movie, I'm like, this is a, this is essentially like her
Ocean's movie. You know, like, she looks cool.
We have cool music. She's just walking down the
street. And that's what Soderbergh is
good at. You know, for a long time,
Soderbergh fans, I'm sure you're thinking like, what do you mean
he's back? He never left.
He's so prolific and I understand we are so deep
people. He is a big volume guy, so he
makes a lot of movies and he he's even retired a few times
and he's been experimenting for over a decade.
And recently he's come out with movies that I really enjoy that
hit streamers and didn't hit theaters, which was Kimmy and No
Sudden move. And before that, movies like
High Flying Bird are really experimental and interesting.
But Soderbergh in theaters just hits different, right?
And I think these two films we're talking about today are
two twists of a genre film. And he puts it under his lens
and uses music like David Holmes score and black bag to make it
feel like nostalgic but also new and refreshing.
And he's just so. Good at that.
And I think honestly, these two films might be his best movies
since Logan Lucky in 2016. So maybe in 10?
Years. And if some, you know, don't
love presents because you felt maybe like you were led astray
with the trailer and the marketing from Neon, I totally
get it because it's not a horror film necessarily.
But black bag, if you have not seen it yet, it is certainly as
good if not better than Logan Lucky and I would say.
No, that's too. Far let me keep going too far.
For me personally, I think Black Bag is his best movie since
Contagion. I'm that into the no.
If Black Bag came out in 2024 this would be Challengers
territory for me. I loved this movie, I had such a
good time with it. I understand why you loved it
and have so much enthusiasm for it.
It was a ton of fun. I think the Michael Fassbender,
Cate Blanchett, and also all the supporting roles.
Like everyone kind of knew what movie they were in and
everything felt cohesive and it felt like a perfect.
Also like bring back short movies.
Yes, both films, 90 minutes or less.
Yeah, I mean, we like before everyone like you know, is in
our comment section, we also support 3 hour movies.
That's like, you know, that's fine too.
But there is something, something to be said about the
art of like an 8090 minute movie, right?
And you could work so good at it.
It's much more challenging to make a really impressive,
compelling 8090 minute narrative feature than it is a three hour
epic which inherently already has the tools for you to succeed
because it is so long. So there's a lot of character
building, a lot of story building, a lot of different
tones you can play with over. A different goal.
Period of time, but a great 90 minute movie is hard to
accomplish. Yeah, and Soderbergh does it so
well. I wouldn't say though, that
presents or black bag are better than Logan Lucky.
Logan Lucky is a specific type of humor that I really love from
Soderbergh that he has in his oceans movies kind of like
bubbling underneath interactions of like Brad and George Clooney
and Matt Damon. And then also like what he comes
back to and like unbelievable with Matt Damon, which is like
arguably his funniest movie. The.
Informant. But I think Logan Lucky is
really a special type of humor that I didn't expect.
Yeah. From Adam Driver and Channing
Tatum. You.
Know I love that movie yeah it just.
Feels a little bit like he's parroting his own thing.
That's fun, you know what I mean?
And I. And I love that about that
movie. I think it's hilarious.
It's a NASCAR Oceans movie, yeah.
Which is sick, you know, and it's a very amazing.
Movie. Cho.
Pang's awesome. You made the bacon just the way
you hate it and the way I like. It just the way I like.
It and the way you hate it. But yeah, Presence is, I'm
really excited to talk about these two movies today because
they're so meticulously crafted. Presence being this experimental
ghost story that plays with camera perspective.
And then Soderbergh on the camera in both films as a
cinematographer is such a master Craftsman in what he calls
rhythm and release, but really just means like tension and
release. He understands catharsis and
film better than basically anyone in these like, low, mid
tier genre spaces. And so with presents, I was so,
you know, affected by that restraint in the filmmaking.
It's really a disorienting movie that you start sinking more into
and wondering, oh, wait, am I watching like a feminist ghost
on screen? Like, is this not, is this not
what I thought it was not a ghost slasher.
So that's a really exciting movie.
It's a lot like Contagion in terms of the way it's shot in
terms of like, if you watch Contagion again, which is a lot,
you know, post pandemic to watch it.
But we just did recently and I was like, oh, this is one of my
favorite Soderbergh movies because no one's ever shot an
invisible slasher like how Soderbergh shoots the virus.
Yeah, that's true. Parasite or whatever that's
killing the population. Yeah, like it's a horror shot to
see someone touch a public, you know, like door, a handle or a
railing. Right.
And so I was so impressed by him doing coming back to that kind
of that cinematic language and presence.
And then black bag man. Like I, I was smiling for 90% of
the runtime last night and we were in a sold out theater.
People were clapping, they were cheering, they were laughing.
They stayed through the credits and clapped through the credits.
Like people had a great, great time.
I just tweeted today that I thought it would be a legendary
date night movie and focus features.
Black bag retweeted me because I think they they're like, this is
a good quote to pull. Wait.
Hang on a second. And I knew it when I wrote it
and I was like, this is pretty good.
This is a nice quote. Great date night.
Movie, but it is a wonderful date night movie because Black
Bag is about relationships. Yeah, and it's funny.
For people who, I mean, it's a it's a good date night movie
regardless, but specifically also for people who have been
together for a long time because it's a really funny premise to
to kind of go off of something I will say in terms of presence
and black bag is whoever's doing Soderbergh's marketing.
And I'm sure he's involved in it because he's involved in like
every piece of his filmmaking from the being the
cinematographer to the director to editing.
They really killed it because both of these movies, I went in
thinking something else I like the story was going to be about
something else. Me too.
And I think people will probably there will be like a a backlash
from that. Like, this isn't exactly what I
thought it would be. There was a Presence Soderbergh
fan. Yeah, well, Presence also,
people are very touchy about horror, right.
So it's actually fun to be surprised.
Maybe a black bag for for broader audiences.
The horror community. Does have a little bit of like,
not my horror, Yeah. It's like, calm down.
But yeah, keep going. But yeah, but I'm, but I was
just saying like, it's fun to be surprised.
You know, it's very, it's not often that you go into a movie
and you're like, they if I didn't avoid the trailer, I
already kind of know what this is about.
And that's, that's a bummer just with like the marketing of
movies. Yeah, I think I just like.
I like. Trusting film makers, that's
what's so nice about autours, when they have a visual language
like or, or just a cinematic language like Soderbergh does,
you just trust the fact that they're going to make something
for the audience. I think he sometimes gets
misinterpreted as making movies just for him, like he's
experimenting every film. But I truly think even though
he's experimenting and known as that kind of stylistic
filmmaker, that he's making movies for audiences or whatever
budget he's playing with, right. So for Presidents, he made a $1
million movie and then it cost another mil with the marketing
apparently. And it's now made I think close
to $10 million. And you can rent it for like 10
bucks and streaming right now, which is a lot of money, but it
honestly is very good. I do recommend watching it.
It's one of the best films of the year so far.
But then you watch Black Bag and I'm like, oh, this is like one
of the most well made spy espionage mysteries I've seen in
a decade. Like this is really good stuff.
And not because it's like politically provocative or just
like always compelling. It is just doing such a good job
of what the oceans movies, oceans movies do, which is like
that rhythm and the release thing.
He's so good at giving you a serious moment, doing something
that feels like a bit or like there's some kind of absurdism
going on. And then there's just like a lot
of suggestion. There's a lot of metaphor,
there's a lot of subtext. There's a lot of people looking
around corners wondering what someone else is thinking.
And then also Soderbergh is in that kind of like. 60 year old
plus. Older man era of really caring a
lot about surveillance right now like Kimmy Presence and now
Blackbag all basically about surveillance and surveillance in
the household in particular, which is interesting.
And then using the family unit or relationships or monogamy in
presence in Blackbag to explore that very idea is fascinating
because he's always been the director who is, you know, he's
obviously this very famous indie filmmaker who when the Palme
d'Or Sex Lies videotape, which is a 5 star film and then
obviously out of Sight was a huge success for him.
And then basically gave him the blank check for the Oceans
films, which are some of our favorite movies of all time and
certainly one of our favorite trilogy's.
So he's had a really long career and he's played really well in
those genres, but I just can't believe he's been able to keep
this up for so long. And we still watch something
like Black Bag and you're like, man, he's really mastered at
crafting different tones and visual styles and lighting and
lenses and, and just figuring out the best way to make that
all come together in a way that feels basically seamless.
But what's hilarious is all those movies I just mentioned
are all about like, underdogs against, like, capitalism.
And the Ocean's 11 movie like verbalizes that a few times.
I mean is black bag about that though, no?
What I'm trying to say is like, those movies were about like,
look what's happened to our our world of commercialism, Like
we're all ruined by this. And Contagion is a horror film
representation of that. But this is his new.
Era, but this is like the aftermath.
A more personal project about an aftermath of what's happened to
our business run country, and now it's just like we're all
being watched at all times. Yeah, I'm.
I do like that in those films that you're talking about, like
Kimmy black bag presence, they all incorporate technology in a
way that doesn't feel annoying or doesn't Take Me Out of it.
And I actually think that's a really difficult thing to do
where it doesn't feel, you know, like, like it's so
straightforward that technology is distancing us and that can
feel like over like it's like people are like, we already know
that, you know, it's hard to incorporate into that, into a
movie that feels natural to the story.
And he does it in each of them in different ways.
And it almost feels like, you know, he he's a really special
director to me because it doesn't feel like he is someone
who's like, I've been thinking about this movie for years and
years and years and need to get like everything perfect in it.
It feels like he's just like, I'm going to put this out and
I'm going to go on to the next thing.
He's not self. And there's something kind of
refreshing about that. That's why we love Ridley.
Yeah, Ridley Scott operates in a very similar.
Fashion it just keeps making movies but and we we like
gladiator 2 but plug that real quick just.
Gladiator 2 thumbs up. But also, like, you know, the
the best part about all the Soderbergh movies to me is just
like watching people talk about things.
I don't know. I don't really know what's going
on. Right.
Like the kind of like thrown in jargon that's really funny,
especially in black bag. That's kind of like how Clooney
and Pitt talk to each other. They're like, did you get the
thing? Yeah.
And, you know, you're just like, I don't even know what The thing
is. And I don't care.
I'm. I'm here for this.
Or even just like the cadence of how they speak to each other
like. When?
When Brad Pitt and George Clooney are drinking at the bar
and George is like, you think we need one more?
We need one more. We need one more.
Yeah, like that whole line is really good anyway, so yeah, I
thought Presents, if you liked Contagion, you'll like Presents,
at least in terms of the filmmaking.
For Black Bag, I would say this is a really fun mix of out of
sight energy with Haywire for those of you who are really like
sody heads. And then for normal viewers, if
you like Mr. and Missus Smith in that kind of tone, Black Bag
certainly has that. But it's it's, it's taking its
it's taking its foot off the pedal of the sexiness of that
movie, or at least the conventional sexiness.
And it gives us a little bit of a more like absurd sexiness and
black bag, which is very different, like how determined
Michael Fassbender's character is to save.
Oh, wait, sorry. Spoiler alert for anybody who
has not seen Black bag or presents.
We're going to be spoiling these films for the rest of the pod.
So if you've not seen these movies, I recommend watching
them. Go see Black Bag in theaters.
It's definitely worth it. You go by yourself, you can go
on a date, go with friends, whatever.
It's going to be a good time. I recommend opening weekend in
particular because of the reaction that we saw last night,
which usually critics screenings are quiet, but I think we had a
weird mix of different kinds of people in the theatre last night
from all over the place. And so, like, I was really
excited to be in that theatre. Yeah, I would say it was a
similar theatre experience as Conclave actually from this
year. That's a good call.
Which we said it was like another kind of updated form of
Knives Out, like the firm that I wish we got more of.
Yeah, like pulpy 90s thrillers that don't exist to have like, a
little bit of a political edge to them anyway.
So spoiler alert. OK, I was just about to.
Make a comment about Michael Fassbender's character being
determined and how like weirdly hot it was that he was trying to
save his wife, Cate Blanchett. We'll get into it.
Where should we start? Which one of these movies?
Let's do black bag. OK, so Black Bag, this was sold
to us in the marketing as a sexy spy espionage thriller, and it
certainly is in moments. I would say it sustains that
tone throughout. But the only difference here is
I did not realize that we'd be watching something that is like
Clue. You know what I mean?
It is almost like Agatha Christie, like Hitchcockian in
its style. It is a mystery more than
anything else, I think. Yeah, I think in the marketing
it was, or in the trailer at least, right.
It was sold as like a Mr. or Missus Smith, right?
Like a OK, we're going to see Michael Fassbender and Cate
Blanchett kind of like hunting each other down and and spying
off, you know, which would have been fine, which would have.
I would have been there for that too.
But it was actually really fun to see that they like you didn't
know, though it was it like it was introduced at the beginning
that no, actually, that's not what this is going to be.
Maybe like they're suspicious of each other.
But it it like unfolds in a really like not gotcha way of
like, Oh, they are actually saving each other.
It was like a slow burn that I really loved in in this really
condensed movie because it didn't feel like we had to like
wait super long to to find this out, but long enough to keep the
tension. And I thought that was really
well done. What was interesting, it felt
like we were in the ensemble cast movie, like their
characters movie, and it felt like there were two other films
happening in the periphery led by Michael Fassbender's
character George and then Cate Blanchett's character Catherine,
that we never really got to see much of, especially Catherine's
movie. We didn't see much of any of
that. In fact, I would assume when she
goes to Zurich, I think it is, there's a probably scenes or
sequences from that part that were cut out.
Unless Soderbergh always planned for this to be a 90 minute
movie, which he has a lot of them in his filmography.
So I can imagine that. But there is just like arcs that
feel missing from the film that are just hinted at or suggested.
And so by the time we see Fassbender Blanchett in the
second act kind of turn over to one another and you're like, is
there a gun under their pillow? Are they going to do a Mr. and
Missus Smith like level battle fight out in this house?
If we've seen this before, is going to go conventional?
If so, I'm going to have a good time.
But instead he's just like, I don't like being lied to or
something like that. And then they both kind of
reveal to each other that, Oh no, we're getting screwed over.
Like we're being manipulated by someone.
We're caught in the hairs of something bigger, right?
And also the best kind of about it fresh air, though, yeah, the
best part about it as like a marriage movie, about like a
long term relationship movie is that they're not telling each
other to protect each other. Like that's kind of the the plot
twist, right? The fact that he like kind of we
learn at the end, knows that she probably didn't leave the movie
ticket in the trash can like, but he can't tell her because
then maybe it would he, I don't know.
He's like, maybe he's like, maybe she is into something that
she can't tell me about because it is like black bag And so I
have to save her, but I so I can't tell her that.
And that is really fun. And then you're like, at one
point, especially when Freddie comes to talk to Cate Blanchett,
you're like, Oh, well, will she do the same for Michael
Fassbender? Is she willing to save him at
all costs, too? And very subtle, like, not these
huge, you know, dramatic things. It feels just like people
talking in rooms, except they're talking in beautiful outdoor
locations. I like the idea that
Soderbergh's project or like, personal life matches his
project where he believes that solid pacing of revealing truths
and withholding from your partner is the safest way to a
healthy marriage. You know what I mean?
Like it feels like that's like what his black bag's about,
which is just like these characters just like getting
their way to the point, you know, not going straight at it
and that kind of brutal honesty. That we break it to them gently.
Yes, exactly. I also absolutely love the movie
ticket touch. Just that I love seeing anyone
in a movie watch a movie. I also miss movie tickets in
general. Yeah, I mean.
Because we go to the But what? Do you?
What did you ever do with them? You just threw them away.
No, I did not you. Have.
Movie tickets for my teenage years.
I have a box of them somewhere. Yeah.
I kept all of mine. I thought it was so cool.
Well, we also used to be, you know, a real place where we
could, like, go to movies at midnight or 1:00 AM and, like,
go to. Midnight premieres and I mean go
to school the next day, but like, see a movie?
That could be bad, but it felt like it was substantial.
I do I like. Eventising movies.
Is missing I mean we are also from like a generation of like
Pokémon collecting cards like yeah, you know, so like that's.
Probably where they are. We're we're like the tail end of
the collector's generation. That's true of like, you know,
I, I didn't have any like baseball cards or whatever, you
know, like people, I guess. You know, You know what?
A kid said. What am I talking?
About there was a kid. Like I don't have any, why would
anyone think I would have baseball cards?
But but I do like the idea of collecting movie stubs.
I heard a kid say recently that that liking movies was like,
really in again. Yeah, like it's coming back.
Like they just randomly said that to another kid.
And I was like, what? Like they they were talking
about movies as if it was like this.
Neat. They like went away.
Yeah, thing it wasn't like there my physical media.
They just meant like cinema like.
Literally like anyone. Like you just film, Yeah.
I do think the like letterbox has created a really interesting
space where now people can actually recommend good movies.
I do think we are in, especially when we are growing up kind of
like the TNT, even though, you know, I love those kind of
rewatchable movies and we talk about them all the time or.
Even just being younger like Disney.
Channel, but yeah, exactly we had basically corporations kind
of curating what what is on TV and what we could watch and then
you'd have to buy physical media or like, you know, share it with
people. And so I think that now that
we're in like the the streaming, right, the Butch comes with its
own problems of like kind of not great movies, just like being
put out, but there is more of a a community telling people like,
here's a good movie to watch and you can have like an endless
list of five Star Movies. Well, it's becoming it's own
collection, It's becoming it's own Pokémon binder of your of
your list that you've created of a director's.
Film that's what I love about letterbox is that you can see
the the movie posters like our friend was making a list she was
going to watch all the like Oscar nominated movies I.
Think she's succeeded? Yeah, yes, yeah.
And I was like, put this on letterbox.
It's just so much more fun to like rank them with the movie
posters. You're right, it is kind of
like. Collection the gamification of
movies, sadly is, you know, this era, like we are trying our best
to commodify the experience of enjoying movies with a
community. And like, if we can't, if we
can't all agree just to go see them in theaters, at least this
is a way for people to like be inspired to want to go see them
in theaters because you know what the classics are.
You know what the highest rated movies are the most popular
ones. And hopefully it will, like,
send you to a theater. So it looks like it's happening
for young people. I don't know how we got here,
but well. I mean but that makes sense that
they liked movies where I had to.
Like I feel like I would have to know someone to who really liked
movies and knew the history of movies to be able to tell me hey
go watch all these different things.
Instead I had people telling me to watch like popcorn movies
that were OK. Yeah, I mean, but we also had
blockbuster, you know, like we like we could walk into a
blockbuster and just walk around and be like, what's the coolest
cover? Or like, ask somebody who works
there if you were an extrovert at 12 years old, Like, what
should I get in the science fiction genre space?
You know, like there's nothing like walking around a
blockbuster when you're, I think I was like 10 or 11 and you see
a cover for Guillermo del Toro's one of his crazy movies, you
know, from that era of like 2005 to 2007, probably Pan's
Labyrinth is the one that comes to mind.
And me going, who is Guillermo del Toro?
Who is what is Pan's Labyrinth? I did not have the same
experience though in blockbuster.
I was just watching like Mary Kate and Ashley movies.
No, I was. Definitely more like The Bourne
Identity. Blockbuster for four hours.
Yeah, No, I mean, I was literally like just walking
around collecting the coolest covers I could find and then
asking people, were these good? Are these good?
Yeah, but your dad also introduced you to like 7 at four
years old, you know what I mean? Like you had a different, I
think like relationship to movie.
I was 9. All right, so George and
Catherine are our lead characters.
George, played by Michael's Fassbender is in particular
probably the most like Precise self serious performance.
But I love Fassbender doing. He's always been great at being
a serial killer, which is always LED a lot to a lot of questions
for me personally about how he is in real life.
But he's really good at playing like cold and detached and in
this. David Prime example, best
character in sci-fi. Hard degree, but he's playing
like an inhuman lie detector basically lie detector
personified in this movie and there literally is like a a lie
detector in the film. But Fassbender's performance as
David came to mind certainly also because of his fit.
I thought about Steve Jobs from the film Steve Jobs, which is a
a great Danny Boyle movie that we like and also then I thought,
Oh my God, Steven Soderbergh and David Fincher are really good
friends. Like they send each other their
movies. They look at their cuts, they
give advice to each other and I was thinking, wow, like
Soderbergh really did watch the killer and went I'll take him
now and I'll make a better movie because I do think Black bag is
better than the killer. So I think it is.
Even though I really like the killer, I have to think about
it. Picture is my guy, like I mean,
but I black bag's amazing. I don't know, I keep saying it,
but George really interesting character.
Then we have Catherine Blanchett has always been great at being
like this unreadable, effortless, seductive person in
her movie. A.
Little bit scary, Intimidating, yeah.
A a sort of like unshakable but very hot person, yeah.
And tar is probably. That's how I want to be
described. Unshakable, but very hot.
Yeah, I think people probably do describe you.
As that I think people want to be.
I describe you as that. Thank you, I would kill for you.
Whoa, don't put it on the podcast.
I wasn't going to say it all right, but I we're going to have
to have that conversation. I think Kate Blanchett like is a
really interesting like person to put in this.
I don't know if I believe in their relationship that they've
been together forever. I do but also like.
I was going to ask you this. There's something about it that
feels like they don't have chemistry, totally, but they
feel like I like I know you and they feel like they know each.
Other there's a respect. Yeah, but it doesn't, I don't
know if they like, there's a a chemistry that you normally see,
but it doesn't really matter because of like how you're
describing Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, like just
kind of the powerhouse that they're able to bring as an
individual icon to a story that's so condensed.
Like you don't really care about that because they're their own
kind of like figures moving in this world.
Yes. Doesn't one of the ensemble
cast, the woman from industry that we really like?
We'll talk about her in a second.
Doesn't she call, I think, Marissa Bella?
Doesn't she call Kate Blanchett like a bad ass bitch or
something like that? I think so, yeah.
Yeah, and the whole table went silent and we were just dying in
the theatre because her character lies like kind of just
playing somebody who is sort of shocked and jittery around these
two and almost supposed to be playing like us.
Like basically the audience, like watching 2 Legends of
acting go back and forth doing their best sociopath shit
they're known for in their careers.
And it's not supposed to feel, like, deeply intimate or felt
because they are supposed to be playing.
Which is hilarious about this movie.
Assassins, am I wrong? Is not what their job is.
We don't see them assassinate anybody except sort of at the
end. And even that feels like we all
wanted that to happen. So it didn't feel like that
malicious, I guess. But these people are like they
have body counts of hundreds of people, I assume.
So I'm like, oh, I, you know, if we if they loved each other so
deeply that it felt like a romance, it would feel a little
odd. This is like a little bit of a
more. This is a romance for people who
are really good at their jobs, who are obsessed with work,
which I think is relatable to for people like us who have two
jobs. Yeah, I think like the biggest,
the, the thing that made me believe it, or at least like buy
into the world is that like the biggest piece that you can have
in life is like just knowing that you have someone who has
your back and like, and you're like going home to that.
And it felt like that they understood that even though
maybe it wasn't, you know, they like, weren't having
conversations over dinner, right?
And that was like, what kind of added to the suspicion not of,
like me thinking, oh, well, maybe they don't love each other
anymore. And so they could turn on each
other was more like, oh, I understand that.
They're like kind of cohabiting right now.
They're like locked into their work.
They still like have respect aberration for each other, but
like their bond is strong, right?
Even though I didn't have like the other stuff that I
traditionally have in movies. So I actually I liked it.
It's just that I, it took me like a second, like I was, I was
having the conversation a little bit in my mind while I was
watching, like I was noticing that.
Yeah, no, I understand. I I don't want to talk too much
about them right now in the marriage theme just because I
want to go on to the ensemble. So let's get to the the
beginning of the movie. We I came a little bit late,
Kelsey, you saw more of it. But from what I understand,
George receives a sort of message, an ominous message from
one of his contacts that there's something happening at MI six
that one of the people in his circle, what I which I would
assume would be the five other characters, including his wife,
was leaking information to the Russians, if I remember
correctly. And he hands him a list of
suspects, I think I, I don't know.
And then that list includes his wife.
And then he's sort of like, what the hell?
And then he goes back home and we see him cooking.
We have this amazing image of him cooking up some kind of meat
or Stew or whatever. It was an amazing soda bird
cooking scene. Yes, which we've always asked
for, you know, a soda fans, we, like, want him to make a cooking
movie. And then you see the steam from
the food get on his, like, glasses.
And it looks like an image pulled out of a, I don't know,
some kind of graphic novel. Yeah, that's true.
It looks really cool. But his plan, essentially is to
invite the suspects over to dinner that you've just told
about, which is amazing. Him and Catherine's, and they
have a wonderful house. And he laces the food with what
we don't know, but I think we can assume is some kind of,
like, truth serum. Yeah.
I was very subtle, Cate Blanchett says.
Like, don't drug our guests, meaning giving them a truth
serum. And I, I wasn't sure like if
they were joking or like how much we should buy into the this
world of like this magic. I thought it was a metaphor for.
His talents movie going to be about.
Yeah, I thought it was a metaphor for his, like, talents
as a human lie detector. Yeah.
But instead of like, I think legitimately was one of the like
MI 6 technologies. OK, which would make a lot more
sense when that? When you watch that impossible.
Again, 'cause everyone's just like revealing so much about
their. Lives.
I just thought they got drunk but.
Yeah, I think that's a part of the well, maybe we were wrong.
Maybe they didn't just get drunk.
I thought I saw them put something in the food.
Anyways, so we get basically a hilarious dinner party from
hell, right? We get this dinner sequence that
is like a a pretty extended scene that crackles with like a
lot of subtext. A lot of power planes.
Long scene to put at the beginning of a movie too, like
chasing it. I'm surprised all of this worked
because we have even like short, shorter scenes or I guess less
kind of like substance substantive scenes with like
Cate Blanchett talking to the therapist later on that actually
feel longer. In the middle of the movie.
I was like, this is so interestingly like put together,
but it works. I loved this first dinner scene.
Agreed. Let's go around the table to
learn who our characters are. So we have Clarissa, played by
Marissa Bella, who is one of our faves.
From industry. Love her.
Great TV show, highly recommend if you're a succession fan watch
industry. We haven't watched the latest
season. But not yet.
People, let us know if we should jump on that.
When we watched her in that show, we were like, oh, she has
it. Whatever it is, she has it.
She's very charismatic. Amy Winehouse.
Innocent. We haven't watched that movie.
We'll pretend like it doesn't exist.
Yeah, she did do that biopic. Biopic's a tough thing to do,
but what? I understand why she took it.
Too. Yeah, that, that, that as well.
We knew from the trailer you're like.
I love her, like what she's able to do, the the vibe that she's
able to bring to any kind of like movie is is special.
Yes. So she's playing like a jittery,
brilliant tech specialist essentially, right?
She's carrying a lot of nervous energy, but she's also very
sexy. So she's like mixing characters,
which is a hard tone to mix. But like a Linus from Ocean's
11, Like Matt Damon's character with Jlo's character from Out of
Sight. Yeah, she's.
Really good at what she does, but there is a, there is a kind
of like, I'm not with the right people here, like maybe I should
not be in this job. Yeah, I love at one point when
cable and chats like I need you to check on this thing now about
Michael Fassbender character. And she had obviously like
already, you know, broken the rules, possibly could go to like
jail for doing what she did for Michael Fassbender.
And she's like, I'm not, I'm not going to go to jail free people.
And Cate Blanchett was Cate Blanchett was like, sweetheart,
like, you are already way too far for that.
And she's like, shit, I yeah. She's like you guys are the
same. But it's it is interesting
because she I think that she does the well.
No, that's not true. The other actor who plays the
therapist also like I think both the women.
Oh yeah. Naomi Harris.
Yeah, are able to to play with Michael Fassbender and Cate
Blanchett, who are like powerhouse actors, you know, but
they feel like, Oh yeah, they belong in this movie in this
scene with them verse like the men sometimes took me out just
like a little bit. And maybe that's just because I
like have seen them in other, you know, movie is like Furiosa
or like Bridgerton, even though I haven't watched like
Bridgerton. But I just, you know.
So I was surprised by Reggae Jon Page, the the man from
Bridgerton who plays James. I was surprised by his
performance because I thought it was pretty revealing of him as
like maybe the bad guy pretty quickly into the second act.
But then I was like, oh, maybe it's a little bit of a
subversion. Like every mystery you're
wondering, like when the shoes going to drop and if you're
being duped with is a bit too easy of an answer.
Sort of like the Edward Norton situation from Glass Onion, but
James character, he plays like this Warhawk nationalist field
agent and he really never fully reveals his hand.
So he's embodying a pretty good like cold attachment of like a
Bond villain or something like that.
And he's like flexing about the wars won in Syria, even though
they were like innocent lives lost in which the doctor Zoe
Naomi Harris's character reminds him.
And we kind of see where she aligns morally or politically
different. She's sort of the team's in
house psychologist, if you will. Her job sounds like hell.
She's got to get out of there. She is the most like I think the
job that nobody wants. And she's pretty skeptical of
everyone in the room and everyone at MI 6.
And then the other man I thought was the best performance of the
supporting cast was Tom Burke playing Freddie Smalls.
And is that the man you're talking about?
Were a little bit off. I thought was my favorite
performance actually. I think what he was up to was
pretty reckless. I liked how he was like worn
down. I like that he was this wild
card. I like that he's easy to poke
fun at. He talks too much.
He gets stabbed in the hand. I like the reaction shot from
him. He's in a pretty he's in a good
amount of the moments where you're kind of like how smart is
this guy? Oh, he really is just aloof
like, and I enjoyed that about his performance because that was
a hard tone to nail. I also like his introduction
where he's like running in from the street into the restaurant
and he ordered some stuff at the bar.
He sees his friends over at the table.
I just like that guy's gravity, you know, like Tom Burke has.
He's really compelling presents and he had it in Mad Max Furioso
last year too. That's true.
Yeah. OK, well, maybe I just liked
like, Marissa, is it a Bella? I think so, yeah.
And then Naomi Harris, like, I just liked the women's
characters more, so maybe that's part of it, because I do think
you're right. Like I think Paige and Burke did
do a good job, like acting as the chess piece.
You know that they're like that they were playing in this kind
of tight, right spy thriller comedy.
And because like with Paige, for example, right, he when he is
doing the thing where he is sort of showing his hand at the
beginning and you feel that he's like kind of neurotic.
And you're right, like in the beginning sequence where we have
this dinner date situation, he is like rationalizing like the
deaths of innocent people. And you're like, I've kind of
seen this movie before. So like, is this actually like,
is he the, you know, person who is like behind all this or
whatever? Right?
He is he the person we should be suspecting?
But also I'm suspecting if I should say that because I think
that'd be too predictable. He feels like a 90s villain in a
lot of ways. And he also, I mean, I know he's
not an American. I don't believe it.
No, he's not. He's not an American, but I got
big American vibes from him and I was like that's he's the bad
guy. That's.
Like I think so it's like talking to the idea of like that
ideology for sure. The the big bad.
I I also think that Burke, you're right, like does do a
good job when especially when he runs it off the street and he's
like kind of trying to be the this like suave guy, but is
failing at it. Like he feels kind of clumsy.
Yeah. And like he feels like he is
kind of, you know, you you picture like everyone else in in
this movie, like they have a really great routine.
OK, They have a great skin routine.
They wake up at 5 O clock on the sharp, maybe 4:30, maybe 4:00.
They're. Probably doing high intensity.
Yeah, they're doing like, YouTube HIT workouts unless
their agency pays for them, you know, to have a workout program,
whatever. But he's the only one who feels
like maybe he's waking up late, you know, like, maybe he's like,
doesn't have it all together. They said he is his vices.
He's addicted to drugs and alcohol.
I think addicted to sex possibly like.
He's doing a good job, I think, in especially the the moment at
this dinner party where they have to do their resolution
right. Bassbender says, like, I have a
new game and Cate Blanchett's like, like, so excited, like a
new game. And it's just like you say, the
resolution right to the person to the right of you.
And I was like, this is I guess it's true or whatever.
Like, you know what? Hell yeah.
And and then the woman from industry, Marissa Abella, is
like, OK, my turn. You're going to like, stop
sleeping with her, right? This big kind of like dramatic
and drop and Freddie, who is like Burke, right?
He does this really great emotional performance where you
actually don't know, like is he lying?
He you know, he basically subtly says I I have done that before,
but I haven't been with anyone in the last year and just
gaslighting her right, but does do a good emotional performance.
One of the he actually has like the the best.
Not he doesn't have the best comedic delivery, but the best
he says our humor like comes from at his expense in the
movie, right? Like because right after that
he's crying. He's like, you like pretty like
crazy person. I haven't like slept with
anyone, but you like right, He's like gaslighting her.
And then Michael Fassbender says, here's the room you like.
Here's the time like. Well, my first thought was that
Marissa Bella and her character, they were sort of weaponizing
the modernization of a spy movie.
And I thought when he said like, you're a psycho and he's clearly
like gaslighting her, like, you can tell I'm like, oh.
Oh, is, is Steven Soderbergh going to make her character the
the bad guy? Oh, yeah.
And then I was like, I don't know if I love that.
And so I'm glad that it ended up being just like, this is what I
love about Soderbergh. He's like, no, like that one
guy, he just sucks. He talks about killing innocent
people and was like, for the country, like, you're gone now.
Like, that's I like that. Soderbergh's moralizing in that
way, where it's not this like, it's certainly a mystery in
terms of the way the movie is structured.
It's still like a popcorn thriller, but yeah.
But I like that he's just like. No, they're like.
People will tell you if they're bad at dinner parties.
Like, they'll be like, no, I'm a bad guy, you know?
Yeah. They'll tell you who they are.
I I do also like the the dinner sequence at the end too, where
Freddy's like they find out that Naomi Harris has been sleeping
with Freddy right there. We get that kind of big reveal.
And what is he? They're basically like, you, you
did this to get things from him. And he's like, does it have to
be about that? Yes.
Like, I just love all the humor at his expense.
And OK, maybe I'm going back on my take.
And I think it really is just that I liked the women better.
I felt like it was like more fun to watch them doing their own
assessment of people, right? They also felt like players
where the men felt like they were reporting to and trying to
impress their boss. I agree.
Yeah, they were followers. The women were definitely more
observant and like actually making actions and I.
Love also how Marissa Bella's character is like, yeah, I'm
open to like, to have to sleeping with you, to like
Michael Fassbender. Yeah, it's just we've really
talked about Pierce Brosnan yet, which is one of the some of the
most genius casting I've seen in a long time.
I. Forgot he was in this movie.
Was he in the trailer? I think so, yeah.
He's a quick image. I thought it was a brilliant,
self aware bit of casting. He plays George and Catherine's
MI 6 super superior. We should also say that
Catherine is on another level than George.
It seems that she's on a higher level than George.
Oh. OK.
I think that's how I interpreted it.
It does look like she was in a more important meeting, right?
Yes, which I kind of like that gender flip.
Bigger office too. Yeah, yes.
And she's one of the only computers without a camera on
it, I noticed, which was interesting too.
But I like that they present Pierce Brosnan's character in
this movie as if he is an aging Bond.
Does that make sense? Like in the metaverse of this
film, Like he is like a relic of a past era where maybe loyalty
to MI 6 is a little bit more clear.
And they got a little bit messier with Daniel Craig.
So I liked his casting. He kind of is the big bad of the
movie. What's the what is what is OK?
What's the like conceit of this movie?
Like what are we all searching for?
What's the rabbit's foot, if you will, to use Mission Impossible
lingo? What is the thing called?
It's called Severus. Severus Snape.
That's how I remembered, but it was so funny because I was
locked into this whole entire movie and the one like space
that I zoned out for one second was when they explained what it
was. Me too.
I don't know why, but basically, I mean it, it was essentially
some sort of it had, it was like a flash drive in a little soccer
ball key chain, right? But it was some sort of software
that would lead to. Controlling drones.
Yeah, that would then lead to like, innocent people dying, and
I think the number was like 10 to 20. 1000 I wrote my notes
biochemical weapon question mark, so no.
Yeah, I, I literally, I leaned over to you and I was like,
wait, what was it? I just owned out and you're you
said it's rabbit's foot. Don't worry.
Yeah, I I just call them rabbits.
I mean, I call all Mac Guffins now just rabbit's foot because I
think it's a hilarious thing. For Mission Impossible 3, shout
out Philip Seymour Hoffman. Epic performance.
OK, so we've talked a lot about the movie, some of our favorite
scenes, dialogue, character dynamics.
What I think is most surprising about what is successful about
Black Bag is the filmmaking. I think the same about presents.
Honestly, the filmmaking in Black Bag is wonderful.
The rhythm and genre of it is so wonderful.
I love that it is sold as an action film, but it really is
just like a very efficient, sharp psychological movie and
mystery. And I love that there's a lot of
small gestures and hesitations and dialogue that build tension
that I I'm excited to come back to.
It's going to be such a fun movie to rewatch.
It's probably going to be a great rewatchable movie in the
Soderbergh project because it's only 90 minutes and it's got a
great ensemble. I, I loved most of the
filmmaking. My only criticism is just this
is a a Soderberg critique in general throughout all of his
films, which is lighting and color palette.
But that's just like, who am I to criticize?
This guy at this. Point, you know, like really, he
has a visual language and we all can spot it.
You know, when you're watching a soda movie because there is
such, I don't know, not to be overly critical, but like with
his lights, he often plays with blown out lighting and he plays
with overexposed lighting. And then we'll use a color
palette that is like either really vibrant or really muted
to an exaggerated degree, which adds a layer of disorienting the
audience, I think, and also sometimes adds a layer of like
surrealness, like I am in like an elevated premise.
Yeah. And that works in like an Erin
Brockovich or like a Contagion. And then it also works in its
own way in like the Oceans movies.
But when it's not that and you are, you're kind of like, what
is this movie? You're like asking that question
as you're going on. Then it becomes distracting.
Well, like the Informant movie I really like one of the funniest
movies I've I've seen in a few years because we just watched it
for the first time like a year ago.
Matt Damon's arguably his like best performance or second best
performance. He that movie in particular has
insane lighting. It feels like somebody shooting
an LED in your face at times. And there's just a lot of
moments like that throughout his project.
But I'll be my one thing in the blackback movie that I didn't
love, but I did like how there are these really warm colors at
the beginning of the movie that are blown out lighting and then
it gets more and more white lighty toward the end of the
movie. Whatever lights they had at the
dinner party. At first I was like so
distracted. Yeah, it is distracting.
Wild. Yeah.
But yeah, yeah, I I think the dinner party lighting was weird,
but I I was so disoriented during that whole scene that it
looking back on it, I like enjoy it, but during it I was like,
what is happening? Like this is so strange to to
just put at the front of your movie, but I I think it's cool.
Yes. So that's basically Black Bag.
I think the only thing we didn't really focus on too much is like
the big reveal at the end of the movie of reggae Jon Pages James,
who was the real traitor all along and him willing to kill
innocent people. And then also killing Michael
Fassbender's character's friend at the beginning of the movie,
who dies, who has a seizure, and we get that really cathartic
shot of Cate Blanchett pointing the gun at us, the audience, and
then shooting James. I thought that was a really cool
image. I had it as my background on
letterbox and they removed it, I would assume because of the gun.
But like I thought it was a really just a cool image it
looks. Good.
Just like having, Yeah, the audience look at her with that.
I, I also really love just the premise of like these bookends
in this such a short movie of like, let's play a game right at
the very beginning. And then we also have like the
game at the end where it's, it's another trick of like, I didn't
really tell you what I was doing where Michael Fassbender was
trying to be a lie detector in that moment of figuring out who
was going to give up information for him at the 1st dinner party.
And then at the 2nd dinner party, right?
It's Cate Blanchett saying like, I didn't tell you the name of
the game. It's who who picks up the gun
first, Right. And what I feel like bad spy
shit, though, now that I think about it, to not know that there
are not bullets in the gun, even though she, like, loaded them in
front of them. You know, whatever I do love,
you know, small details like this is what, Soderbergh.
Yeah, but this is what Soderbergh is good at.
Is like, the characters coming in and mentioning like, there's
a new carpet. There's a new carpet.
Like they keep saying it but it feels.
Well, the psychiatrist notices. Yeah, but I'm just saying it
feels like something that on paper, I don't know what work.
Does that make sense? But he always makes it work and
he always makes it like fun in this in the scene, right, That
someone is like noticing something, but no one's
acknowledging that person. That's a a part of one of his
like bits that he does. We also didn't talk about Cate
Blanchett walking to Ocean's music on a bridge.
And that was it. Amazing stuff.
HGTV corner of this podcast. Would you live in that home?
Love the kitchen? I love the kitchen too.
Love the dining area maybe, I'm not sure it's the.
It's the lighting that you enjoy like a dim lit house.
I don't like the lighting in the movie so.
But you like the. In their in their reality, I
might have enjoyed that. Yeah, it feels a little bit
claustrophobic. OK.
You know, maybe you like the house in presence more and plus
I get a nice ghost. Yeah, I mean, it is a huge
house, but I I know what you mean.
It's like designed a little weird.
Like if we're going for the if we're going for the dream.
OK, well, it's not. Fair then.
I mean, Assassin's designed this house.
It's not. It's not feasible.
Fair, but I I do like the the kind of like glass.
I love. I love the kitchen.
We'll just we'll. Yeah, the kitchen's great.
Also, you pointed this out, but when they're watching the movie
in the movie theater, you thought it was so funny that
assassins were getting jump scared.
Oh my God, that was so fun. There's so many small things
like that that I'm missing right now.
I'm sorry everyone, but we just saw it last night.
There are so many funny small bits like that that I really
enjoy. I love all of what Michael
Fassbender is doing off off camera.
Like physically, there's a lot of him like screaming in the
second-half of this movie when he finds out that like, Kate
Blanchett is in trouble. Because when he's going, oh,
it's a great sequence where he's going to help Kate Blanchett and
he's doing that. He's going with Melissa,
Marissa, Abella. Oh yeah, we have to talk about
the scene. And he's explaining that like,
this is how you do it, by the way, this is how you date within
the MI 6. Like, you have to make basically
make sure that they're OK. You have to check on them.
And she's like, yeah, that's so hot.
Yeah, it's. Great line delivery.
I yeah, I I love that scene. Actually, that's probably my
favorite scene in the movie besides the dinner scenes.
Yeah, it's great. Is her first of all, her like
saying I would have agreed to this, like, you didn't have to
blackmail me. I like it.
And then this. And the second part is then,
like in that room, you are fully into this conceit of the movie,
but the idea that, like, they're on the satellite for three
minutes and then it shows the, you know, the the clip of Cate
Blanchett with another person meeting.
At this point, I did think like, Cate Blanchett was doing
something bad in the movie or, you know, whatever was working
on her own, I guess. And I just absolutely loved.
Yeah, Abella's, like, reaction already what you said.
But like, it's so hot that you want to save your wife.
Yeah, there's just so many great moments like that.
OK, that was the extra credits of Black Bag, one of my favorite
movies in probably 2025. I would say the whole year so
far, this is probably my favorite movie.
A great sleight of hand, a great mystery, great comedy, great
date night movie, great rhythm and release editing with
attention of this film from Soderbergh.
And I love all the acting and that's going to be my extra
credits today is going to the ensemble.
I think it was a really well cast movie, really smartly cast.
And no, there's really no flaws or holes in any of the
relationships or or cast members.
Yeah, and also like to make a a movie like this and not have it
feel like you actually are thinking, who could it be the
whole time? Could it even be our main
characters? You know, I feel like that's
pretty hard to pull off when you've seen movies like this and
it's still a comedy and it's not taking itself seriously.
But it is like it's a big tonal balance.
So my ex credit goes to Soderbergh for that reason for
just like making sure, especially in the dinner
sequences, which really I guess is acting too, but making sure
that it feels like balanced. You can polygraph me whenever
you want. But I love also when George at
the end, Fassbender is like, that's why it took me so long to
figure out he's like, because you're religious.
And so you just said this because of this.
And like I, I love the the kind of clue right of the end of of
piercing everything together. I also that it's revealed that
George is like at 37 years old trying to throw his dad under
the bus. Yeah, it's really funny.
I mean, he's trying to protect his mom, I think, but like,
that's, that's pretty awesome. Great reveal.
The rest of the table just being quiet and the audience in our in
our theater laughing because. When she's telling the story you
picture him like he's 7 or something.
Yeah, exactly. Everyone was like, that's I
mean, it makes sense why you became a spy.
And they're like, no, that was like, that was like five years
ago. OK, so presents, Steven
Soderberg's Presents is less of a traditional like haunted house
film, more of like experimental, like all those recent movies.
But I would say like Hypnotic with its use of perspective and
observation and really flipping the camera back on the audience
in some interesting ways. But how we're kind of like the
ghost in this house. We're watching a tragedy unfold.
It's told entirely from the point of view of this entity,
which I'm going to call a ghost, which I assume it's a ghost.
And we get a lot of smart editing that I've never seen
before. That is just random jarring
edits where we cut to blackouts and those blackouts have a timer
on them. And we don't actually know when
we're going to get back into the story, but we time jump.
We go for, you know, in these blackout edits for hours,
sometimes for days, for weeks, maybe months.
Yeah, that was really. Interesting, I've never seen I
like got used to it as like the language of the film.
It was really drawing at first. I was like, oh, I see why it's
short now. They're just like cutting around
in this movie. But then it became like a major
like basically character in the film.
And what was really refreshing about this movie as a genre
exercise, much like Black Bag, is that it twists the horror and
the ghost slasher concept on to the audience where you're you're
looking for the jump scares, you're looking for the evil that
will ensue, but it never really happens.
And the evil that actually eventually comes in the third
act is not the evil that you expected at all.
And so it plays with these really like overt horror tropes
and really clever ways and instead of.
We talked about it like a Scooby-doo movie, right?
Or Casper. Yeah, It's like Scooby-doo
Casper, but like, Soderbergh made it for adults, you know,
And I thought that was just really, really good filmmaking,
clever and honestly, like, conscious of how audiences are
kind of inundated with horror movies that feature ghosts that
are just, like, evil and want to kill you.
And so not that this movie is like ghost positive or whatever,
but it kind of Isaac kind of is like it is like saying like the
ghost is an ally throughout the movie, which is which is
interesting. And I love the omniscient camera
movement. I love the fact that it's an
invisible protagonist. I love the fact that film is
relying on you being more afraid of the domestic setting in the
family secrets than the ghost itself.
Because really, we really don't get any back story about the
ghost. Yeah, the the ghost is like,
you're right, essentially afraid of the family.
So it's hilarious and but at first, I mean because again,
like similar to black bag, you're like, I do, I know this
movie. I think I do.
And so when you're watching it, you have that both suspense and
tension that is more leaning into a horror feeling, right.
It's more like, oh, I should be scared when the ghost is moving
the daughter's books or in the closet watching, you know, the
daughter. And so then it it slowly kind of
dissipates because you're viewing the, the parents like
marriage fall apart and. It was like a rounded
hereditary. Like imagine, take all the
elevated beats out of Hereditary and just it's a ghost in a house
with family dysfunction and secrets.
Right. And it wasn't anything like, you
know, I, I felt like it was interesting to see what we were
talking about earlier. Like he these are like the
closest things to his like domestic dramas, right?
But he has like a little mystery spin on it.
And I, I like that nothing felt like over the top, if that makes
sense. Like it.
I I know that people walked out of this kind of feeling like,
one, they thought it was a horror movie, but two, maybe
underwhelmed is kind of the sense I was getting.
So yeah. And I actually liked that aspect
of it. Like I liked that we it was a,
we were like, what is going on with this ghost?
Is it going to kill the family? Is it helping the family?
I didn't really recognize that that that kid was going to be
like. That's the big drop.
Right. The serial killer.
Yeah, the serial killer. And and I think like even though
it was slower paced, I didn't have a problem with it.
Like I had a good time with this movie.
Yeah, well, I think the filmmaking does a lot right.
Like Soderbergh with the camera moving around like he is a ghost
was really fun. And the way he moved quickly up
and down stairs was fascinating. I had to Google it when I got
home. Like, how did he do that?
What? Yeah.
He got special shoes that he made to like slip but not fall.
And so he is like kind of sliding all over this house as
the ghost to to capture in this way.
And that you know, when I rewatch it, I'm sure it'll be
cool to watch in knowing there's a camera operator.
Like gliding through hallways, watching characters from corners
lurking behind doors. That's really fun because unlike
conventional horror films, he's building anticipation through
the idea of other people noticing the ghost, but also the
ghost trying to find out what the secrets are like.
That's kind of the the tension as well.
Like we are the ghost and we're forced to witness this
unraveling of this lead family. So let's talk about that family.
The family consists of I think some pretty well observed
archetypes. We have Rebecca, who is the
mother played by Lucy Liu. We have the and I guess she's
like this executive, ambitious executive who is run into some
financial troubles legally. I never really understood what
was happening with that like that.
I don't understand that. Basically she did something
illegal and then the dad calls like you know, hypothetically
can his lawyer friend right? Can I get in trouble if my
spouse is doing something? I never understood totally what
was happening there. Well, I think she cooked the
books at work. OK.
She moved some numbers around. She took some money, right?
And she needed to buy this house so her son could go to a good
high school because he's a swimmer, I believe.
And she wanted him to go to a school, I think that had like a
a good swimming team. That was the idea.
They just moved to a new house, a new neighborhood.
I think it's a new high school for them, I believe is what's
going on. And so I think she did that for
her family. That was the idea.
And her son is his name is Tyler, played by Eddie Mayday.
And he is like their athletic Golden Boy.
And she has like an obsessive relationship with him that is
very strange. And he is this kind of like a
local celebrity, it seems. And he's also kind of an
asshole. And he has his own secrets,
right, about the ways that he's been taken advantage of other
students at a school through images or videos that he.
Has yeah, it's like through this, it's because he like,
wants to be considered cool, right?
And I, I like that we have the scene where the ghost is
observing them. So like, we're observing them.
Yeah. Like, the parents disagree on,
like, either encouraging him to be a bully or saying, like, I
don't even know who you are. You know, like that kind of
tension seems very realistic. Yes, agreed.
And then we have the husband, Chris, played by Chris Sullivan,
who is this gentle but also passive figure who they're
playing into this like trope of like, dad means well, Mom's
overbearing. And again, they're archetypes,
but they're again well observed because the father is also
passive to a fault. And I think Chris Sullivan might
give the best performance of the movie because I would say the
performances in this film are not particularly good.
Lucy Liu gets the least to do as the mother figure, which was
confusing going into the movie. I thought she would be the main
character because she's such a famous actor.
She doesn't totally work in the role for me ever.
However, when we get to the end of the movie and she lets out a
scream when she sees her son, her out past son to see son,
you're wondering if he is dead like at the end, the last five
minutes or few minutes and you see him in the the mirror and
he's like waving at his mom. She.
Screams. And it's like a an ear
shattering scream and I and I started getting teary eyed, like
I started getting emotional and I was thinking, wow, like Lucy
Liu killed that performance there at the end.
But the whole character, the whole movie was irritating to me
because of the way she was playing it.
It was it was not totally realized for me.
So that was kind of a distancing part of the movie.
I thought that about all the performances though, kind of
like I thought they were. They were all kind of distanced
and it felt like I don't I, it felt like it worked though, that
I didn't love all the performances because it felt
like I was actually watching a family.
I know that's not necessarily like a compliment, but I, it
felt like I was like watching as I kept going, as I kept just
observing the family as the ghost from their point of view.
It felt like OK that things felt messy and I felt distanced.
Yeah, there was like a little bit of like a stilted dialogue
going on. Like it felt a little bit
unnatural, a bit awkward. But you're right.
Maybe that's a good point. There was a little bit of AI
guess, a tonal balance between all of them being on the same
page of get it like delivering lines.
And well, I mean, I don't know if it was like purposeful, you
know, like with the dads performance for example, when he
was trying to do an emotional thing.
Even though I like the actor I like I I liked him over all in
this, I still felt I agree. I don't.
Know how much of that was also like we just never watched them
like a regular movie, but like if it were framed differently, I
guess. But it did feel like I was
watching sort of like a, like a television, like, you know, host
kind of situation where like we're watching a, a camera watch
people. Well, it felt like a little bit
of A twist on like I Love Lucy or something like that.
It felt like A twist on the classic American suburban
household. And it felt like we were
watching ATV show like an. HGTV show or something?
No, like from the 1950s, but like modernizing it, if that
makes sense. And so like, that's kind of
where I was. That's what the dialogue felt
similar to a Lucy character. Then we have the daughter,
Chloe, who is, for all intents and purposes of this family, the
main character played by Kalina Liang, who is struggling with
the death of her best friend or partner, unclear from a drug
overdose. And from the moment this whole
family arrives, you start seeing the cracks in the relationship,
and you start seeing the mother's favoritism toward
Tyler. You start seeing the father's
inability to keep the family stable.
You start seeing Chloe become more and more isolated and
becoming a little bit more volatile.
So it's a film about every one of these family members hiding
secrets. And our ghost Casper is like,
yo, this family's messed up. And he's doing what he can to
help the best of them, which is probably Chloe, the daughter.
And I think Soderbergh positions the ghost as basically the
victim of this chaos in a in a lot of ways, which is really
interesting. Even though it's a tragedy for
the family, the ghost feels like it's having to relive multiple
families coming in and out of this home and watching the
fractured family unit. And just like how surveillance
was a huge theme of marriage and relationships in Black Bag, we
have surveillance here as a theme that you think is from the
ghost perspective. But really it's like how all
these individuals like know nothing about their lives and
like they're not doing anything to like know anything about each
other's lives that much. The dad being the maybe doing
the most, but to the point where like the mother is like trying
her best to not ask more questions about how Chloe's
doing or if that makes sense. So like that was an interesting
twist on the surveillance part of it.
And then you just have the fact that there is a ghost who you
think is the surveillor, right? You think of it.
They are the person who's coming in and creeping in on this
family only to realize in the 21st century, it's actually
probably not a ghost that's sneaking up on you.
It is a sad white boy who's coming to kill you.
And like that is, again, Soderbergh in his bag.
Just saying the most obvious thing.
It is the most obvious person who's probably going to be the
villain of the movie, which I really enjoy.
Yeah, me too. And I, I think like, I don't
know, I, I hadn't, I don't really feel like I've seen a
movie like this again. We described it as like a
scooby-doo. You're seeing like kids after
school unsupervised or whatever, right?
But it felt like, I guess it just felt like a, a new story,
right? And that's why I, I liked it a
lot. I didn't, I didn't love the
movie. There were parts where I was
like, Oh, I wonder like what's happening here?
Like I'm not super invested, but I'm interested.
And then the, the end really brings it home, I think, right,
Like, because then you get the, the kind of mystery piece of it,
it, it is actually like a tragedy right at the end of it,
you actually feel emotionally attached to this family that
you've been watching for so long and you know, these like kids.
So I I think it works. I'd rather jumping in.
And I have really. Yeah.
And also the, you know, I'm not personally not into like ghost
stories usually, like just generally.
I killed some ghost hunters back in the day though.
That TV show. Oh.
OK, OK. Yeah, I didn't actually kill
ghost hunters, but I I watched a lot of ghost hunters back in the
day. I never watched that.
I was, I was a weekly watcher. Oh, wow, yeah, OK, interesting.
I'll have to ask you. About I don't believe in Ghosts,
I just thought the show was awesome.
Or do they if they hunt ghosts in house?
They were very effective, yeah. At what they did, yeah.
They got it very successful, yeah.
So I I love the woman coming in to do the whole like the.
Seance, Yeah. Yeah, why was I going to call
that too, but I don't think. That's what it's called.
I don't know. The ghost finding.
Yeah, but I loved her. Her.
She's a medium, right? Yeah, where's my?
She's like, there's something in this room and I don't believe in
ghosts, you know? But also, if someone came to my
house and told me everything that she was telling me, I would
be really creeped out. Well, so that's what is
interesting about this movie. I was really, I gave it a really
good score and I like enjoyed my time because of the film making
and then because somehow the family drama worked on me by the
end. I didn't love the serial serial
killer bit of the twist of the movie because I thought that was
so elevated considering the premise.
But also I was like, I like the idea that the ghost is not the
killer. What really made me impressed
was that the whole first 30-40 minutes I was thinking like, oh,
is this like It Follows? Like I kept thinking of other
movies and I was like, oh, no, it's like Hereditary.
And then by the end of the movie, I'm like, oh, wait, no,
this ghost is like the ghost from Interstellar.
Like he's just like trying to help, like, you know what I
mean? Like this is.
That's just Matthew McConaughey. That's Matthew McConaughey,
probably, yeah. He's coming in from that, that
library, Yeah. That.
Library. Yeah, just using gravity to try
to help this family. So we're doing Interstellar
later this month on Patreon. I'm so pumped.
So would you see that this movie has a protagonist?
That was the last Let me go. Sorry.
Don't let me go, Merv. OK, what protagonist?
Yeah, that's my last question here is do you think this movie
has? AI think it's the daughter or
the ghost right? Like the ghost is obviously the
I think that's. The cooler.
Answer, but I I think the daughter is the the person we're
following and supposed to be most invested in.
Can I ask you a question then? Because I joked about the, the
feminist thing, the ally thing. Do you?
Because most ghosts in movies, Exorcist, Conjuring, whatever, I
think those are good examples. Most ghosts in movies,
Paranormal Activity, whatever they are like evil male spirits.
Yeah, or or. Patriarchal spirits.
Or like in The Conjuring, though, they're like women
seeking revenge who could be evil.
Like, you know. OK, yeah, so they're usually
evil spirits, but I was going to say sometimes it is woman.
But I guess my point was is usually it's gendered to be like
a man ghost. In my experience watching ghost
horror movies, in this film, I didn't feel like I don't want to
gender the ghost, but I did feel like I was like, this ghost
feels distinctly like different, like very subtle, more like an
observer, not an attacker. There was something else going
on. And I thought that was really
cool for Soderberg because then I started thinking like, is he
creating like a whole new invention here?
Is this some kind of like other spirit we haven't seen before in
a movie like this didn't feel like any kind of traditional
ghost we've seen before in cinema, which is just a credit
to the film. But I also just like the idea
that he was like, I, I, I've never heard him ask this
question, but I like the idea that he just made a like a very
kind woman ghost. Yeah, like a just trying to
help. This.
Girl out. Yeah, we're initially like
afraid of, but we learn from the medium, right, that this ghost
is like has some unfinished business here, ends up saving
her, right, the daughter. And is also like we have those
moments where we recognize on reflection is like afraid of the
family, like backing up into the closet essentially or, or trying
to watch over the daughter. Like I, I think it's interesting
to have who goes to be the protagonist.
And you're right, like I think it does feel, I think it's
basically it's implied, right, that it's a woman, like a woman
who did experience violence, right, and is trying to protect
the daughter from like experiencing the same fate
because it leaves the house after, right?
Well, then I started thinking if it's not a ghost, because I do
agree with that take away. But if it's not a ghost, my
final take away here is like, what if it is like a nice grim
Reaper kind of character? Because I kept looking out the
window. It became like a motif of this
ghost journey, right? And then the window becomes like
this, this symbol of fate in the movie, essentially because of
the brother saves the sister by pushing the nice haired evil
white boy out of the window, but also to his own death, the
brother's own death. And I was like, oh wow, the
window became like this, this strange symbol for the ghost
journey. If all like the ghost knew that
that was going to happen. Because the ghost does save the
daughter, but then it later chooses not to as well.
Like when that boy puts drugs in her glass again for a second
time, it chooses not to save her.
Does it? I thought it just couldn't, Like
there was something I, you know, there was some logic.
Watches her drink it. Yeah, but there was some logic
like holes here because like it could pick up textbooks, Yes it,
but there are some. Sometimes it chooses to,
sometimes it it doesn't. Yeah.
That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I I get what you're
saying. I it's been a while since we
watched it. So yeah.
But I remember thinking that I was like, wait, if I could pick
up textbooks, why couldn't it like save her or like move him
or take the yeah, the Saran wrap off her face.
Cuz then you think oh is it a baby ghost?
Like does it not know it's own powers?
What's happening? Yeah.
It's trying to think about like, what it can do, yeah.
Before, before we do extra credits, did you think or were
you nervous halfway through the movie when we're having these
like black cutouts and we are having this like shake Cam, you
know, of a ghost going around the house and we realize, oh,
we're going to be in this house the whole time.
Did you have any like anxieties about that?
Because I I found myself thinking like, oh, I don't know
if I'm going to like being inside the house the whole time,
especially the way that we are kind of getting the character
characterization slowly. But then like Soderbergh just
always does this. This is his like charm is that
I'm like, yeah, I'm here for the same for the informant, right?
Like that was the first time I watched that movie.
I was like, am I going to like Matt Damon doing this like the
whole time? Oh, yeah, no, I am definitely
here for the whole time. Obviously way more for the
informant. But did you feel that at all at
the beginning of presence? Yeah, I think there's genuinely
something really collectively fun in a theatre watching an
indie film where you all suspend disbelief a little bit about
what the movie has access to scale wise.
And so you just go, I, I'm cool to hang out in this house for
because it's $1,000,000 production.
You can tell you don't know most of the cast.
It's kind of bad acting, but you're all in and you're all
watching and it's really crafted with an expert level, meticulous
detail and the filmmaking and the editing that you're
forgiving a lot of what doesn't totally work in the movie or
narrative or just the one location because it feels like
you're watching something sort of special that we don't see
anymore. And I think most audiences, not
horror audiences because they're used to like low budget movies,
but I think most audiences who aren't used to films like
Presents probably were surprised by how grounded it was for what
it was able to achieve. So I liked that it was in one
location because I think it I think it it forces audiences to
contend with the fact that every time we watch a $300 million
Marvel movie, that blows. We're missing 300 Steven
Soderbergh ghost movies. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, sort of, if that makes sense.
I know the math doesn't totally check.
Out there, but yeah. So I liked it.
Did you? Yeah, OK.
I, I think that would you say how much more would you say
'cause I feel like you liked both these movies more than me,
even though I I did like them a lot.
But how much more would you say you like to black bag than
presents? Presents to me is like mid tier
sode, which is great. You know, it's a really good
genre experiment. Yes, Black bag is immediately
top ten. I wasn't higher on it on this
podcast in terms of like really bringing the energy and a lot of
like examples and deep diving of black bag because there isn't a
lot of lore. I just love a movie that feels
like it just handed me a plate of like really well cooked
salmon and asparagus and it's like, here you go.
And that's what the movie feels like.
It's really accessible, digestible, and I just enjoy
that experience. And we don't have that shit
anymore. And especially for mid budget
movies, I hope this film puts up 100 hundred, $20 million of the
box office. It could surprise some people
because not a lot of good movies are in theaters right now,
except for arguably Mickey 17. Debatable.
But like that people will go and see that, but I think this is a
great alternative to if people aren't into like sci-fi or don't
want to see that film. I recommend seeing them both.
But black back for me is top 10 Soderbergh immediately and it's
it's out of that tier of sex lies videotape, Ocean's 11,
Ocean's 12, Erin Brockovich. That's my favorite Soderbergh
and his best movie. Angela Roberts best film as
well. Number one and sex lies
videotape. Those five are really special.
I might have already said that one maybe out of sight is the
other. So those 5 or 6 are really
special. And then I think you have a, a
debate with like Ocean's, you know, 12.
And then you have a debate with contagion.
You have a. Oh wait.
Are you talking about? I thought you were talking about
mid tier. No, from like 6:00 to 10:00, you
have that debate with like Contagion, You have that debate
with Ocean's 12, and I think you have the debate with like Logan
Lucky or for some people, like recently with Black Bag.
You can insert that movie into this conversation.
Yeah, I think, I think black bag is.
We did a ranking on our Ocean's 11 episode.
Yeah, I think black bag is a little bit like I I do agree
it's in his top ten, right? I think it's, I don't know.
That's a big deal to. Say in there with Yeah, it's in
there with. You're right, Like the Informant
and Magic Mike tier for me. Here's the interesting thing.
Yeah, if people were not Soderbergh fans, I don't know
that I would recommend presents. And if you weren't Soderbergh
fans, I don't know that I'd recommend Black Bag.
Really, Black bag feels so universal.
It doesn't have a. It's not strange.
OK, so I I would recommend, here's what I'm thinking,
though. I'm thinking of the life of the
movie. Like I would recommend people to
go see it in theaters right now. Like if you're listening to this
podcast, go see it. Obviously like you're the you're
someone who likes movies. But I'm saying that I would also
tell people who don't watch movies go see black bag in
theaters. But I'm thinking like long game.
No, OK, This is why, This is why I'm a little down on this
episode because and, and this has been a good conversation.
I'm a little bit disappointed in today's episode for me not
bringing enough energy. So I'm sorry to those of you who
love black bag. What black bag?
Is is this is if. We got Knives Out, but more well
made, cooler and hotter people like, and it's in a movie for
straight up adults. And I do think we're missing
that, right? Now it felt like when I was
watching the the scenes, right, everything felt like we were in
these like pristine rooms with people who are wearing like I, I
don't even know the stitch count of like their clothing.
It just like it felt very succession, you know, like I'm
in these like very wealthy places, but it didn't feel, I
don't know, like overstated right, and it felt like I was
like entering into this different world.
I think it's a lot of fun. I'm just saying I think that it
is. I think that it's mid Soderbergh
but I still really fun time. If we're not counting Traffic in
Solaris and you know, some people love, you know, some of
his other movies like Schizopolis or The Limey or Let
Them All Talk. I'm not huge fans of of I'm not
a huge fan of any of those in particular.
Maybe the Che movies. But like I would say his 10
agreed upon films are probably Magic Mike, the informant, maybe
the Limey, even though I just counted that out out of sight,
Logan Lucky, Sex, Lies and videotape, Ocean's 12,
Contagion, Ocean's 11, Erin Brockovich.
Those 10 are really special to a lot of people and I'm probably
forgetting one or two there. I know he won the Oscar for
Traffic. It should have gone to Erin
Brockovich, but I would say Black Bag deserves to be in that
conversation, right next to the informant and Magic Mike or
somewhere around. That I think that's where I put
it, but I think I'm like, I guess I'm higher on like the
informant for example. And I'll also though like.
We also don't like Slayers. People will probably put it
there. Yeah, I hated Slayers.
Sorry everyone. Yeah, she was like, probably.
Like you don't have to say you hated.
That's OK. We did the picture on
conversation. Yeah.
And, and, but I, I think that like also, I don't know, I, I
guess like I, we put it in the same place, but maybe I'm just
like way higher on like Logan lucky than you, right?
It's basically like my you're. It's basically you're Logan
Lucky. That's fine.
Logan Lucky is my Logan. Lucky don't do this to me.
Oh wait, wait, sorry, Traffic did not won Best picture
Gladiator won. That's my fault.
Sorry Ridley, but I think Traffic got more love than Aaron
Brockovich that year for whatever reason.
Anyways, OK, all that to say I think yes, black bag is going to
be remembered in that top tier conversation of the Soderbergh
project. And if people are wondering,
like, how does top 10 count as top tier?
He's made like almost 40 movies. Yeah.
And like a few TV shows. And I'm sure he's made hundreds
if not thousands of commercials. I have no idea.
It's hard to know with directors.
Anyways, that was the extra credits of Black Bag and
presents from Steven Soderbergh to.
Soderbergh shoes for and also shooting presents.
Yes, agreed, presents. My extra credit goes to the
camera perspective, the omniscient camera, the the POV,
something that Nickel Boys really relished in as a
storytelling device. We see that similarly here
presence, which is pretty cool. I also love that in terms of
like the family commentary and these movies being about like
surveillance and like the family unit and relationships.
The presence is the more cynical tragic take of like the ghost
not being evil, but the watching and exposing the cracks of a
family that might be inherently broken as a construct is
fascinating and horror in its own right.
Very hereditary coded. And then black bag is more like
the twist on that which is like Nah like this is a bad ass
couple who are willing to die for their partner and.
There's something funny about that idea.
There's something funny about that concept so well.
Because it shows its own flaws, right?
It's like, well, they they're just like this.
Yeah. How are they any different than
the people that they might be critical of?
Yeah. But just to answer your
question, I would I would kill for you.
You said at the beginning of the pod.
I just want to say at the end here, we'll have to delete this
podcast one day if things get messy.
You know what's funny about black bag?
I'm sure there's so many couples who have had that dilemma
conversation of what would you do if do you know and this this
movie bad, this movie black bag feels like it's speaking to that
like unspoken conversation that probably a lot of couples have
or maybe we're just crazy. I don't know.
All right, that was the extra credits.
We'll be back soon with Patreon episode Parasite coming about a
week or so or this weekend, hopefully.
And then the rest of this month for Patreon is going to be 7
Interstellar Toy Story weird month, but it's an anniversary
month because all those movies have had anniversaries in the
past few months or or the there might be coming up And then on
the main feed, we're probably not going to have anything for
quite a bit. It doesn't look like we have a
movie worth spending time outside of our actual day jobs
to discuss in length like this until Ryan Coogler sinners.
So I think what we're going to do is we're going to do our best
of 2024 ranking. We've been holding out.
Last year we did it March 17th. We put it in two parts was a
four hour episode. It is in March, something like
11th or 12th right now, yeah. So it looks like we're gonna be
releasing it at the same time probably.
I would assume we have a ranking out next week.
So that's very exciting. Yeah.
So that's the that's the goal for the main feed.
And I was just thinking, as you were reading out all our Patreon
movies, I was like, is the plot of every movie like, are you
willing to die for someone else? It does feel like a constant
storytelling or. But that's OK.
Yeah, All right. You want to tell people where
they can follow us? They can follow us at Black Bag.
Black bag. They can follow us wherever they
listen to podcasts. In the description of this
episode, you can subscribe to Patreon as a free member right
now and get 2 free episodes. Dune and what is the other
episode? It's Timothy Chalamet episode
and then it's a Sean Baker episode.
Dune Part 1 and then The Florida Project are free for free
members on Patreon right now. And then it's $5.00 a month to
subscribe for three episodes a month.
We have over 50 deep dives on there.
We just covered a four hour conversation on The Batman about
a week ago, which was awesome. And then if you love Soderbergh,
we did six hours of Soderbergh conversations on the Brockovich,
Ocean's 11 episodes in which we go through the entire career,
Steven Soderberg and Julia Roberts on, and Erin Brockovich,
which is one of my favorite episodes in a long time.
And then Ocean's 11, we try to recast the Ocean's franchise and
try to argue for which director should take on a Knives Out like
franchise with the Oceans we. Should have said this at the
beginning of the pod. We're so bad at advertising our
podcast, but today? Was a weird episode too because
we're tired. But yeah, but also, we were
recasting the Oceans movies, right?
And we forgot you texted me in the middle of the day, like,
weeks later, we forgot to add Josh O'Connor.
And we need to end this episode with honoring Josh O'Connor as a
clear, clear candidate. Love you Josh Oceans 11.
Thanks for listening. Like and subscribe 5 stars only.
Bye.