The Laundromat

Show Transcript

00:00:04.65
Speaker
In 2019, Steven Soderbergh made not one, but two movies for Netflix. The first one, High Flying Bird, came out in February and was the subject of last week's episode. Now it's time to set our watches ahead to October and the release of The Laundromat.

00:00:21.82
Speaker
Oh, actually, I don't want to be the but actually guy, but actually, I think you mean September here, because this one didn't go straight to streaming. ah It premiered at the Venice Film Festival, then went to the Toronto International Film Festival, then went to San Sebastian Film Festival.

00:00:40.58
Speaker
And I believe it had theatrical release, a small theatrical release. So Soderbergh, given his run of recent ah ah streaming releases is kind of breaking new ground is, you know, what's old is to do again or something. I don't know.

00:00:56.84
Speaker
hu Is Netflix going Soderbergh or is Soderbergh going Netflix? We'll get to the bottom of it in this episode of the Filmographers Podcast, where we study a director's entire career, one film at a time. I'm Kier Graf. And I'm Michael Maurici.

00:01:12.65
Speaker
In our first season, we're turning the spotlight on Steven Soderbergh, one of Hollywood's most versatile and fascinating directors. Episode by episode, we discuss why each of his films succeeded or failed, always looking at them in the context of the Hollywood landscape at the time they were released. This is the 30th full length film we've covered so far. But don't worry, there's plenty of Soderbergh to come. Mike, please kick us off with your one sentence summary of The Laundromat.

00:01:38.53
Speaker
When a mild wave capsizes a boat and tragically kills a woman's husband and her insurer's claim is denied because the policy was sold to a shell company, there's no measure she won't take to uncover a wild and true money laundering scandal. First you must ask yourself, are you wealthy? Super truth of the world is that most games, for someone to win, well, someone has to lose.

00:02:17.05
Speaker
a Think of this as fairy tale that actually happened. There's confusion over who has to pay. So they drowned you and plenty of other innocent people and somebody's making money from it. No, it goes back to this law firm, Mosak Fonseca. So what happens next? What do we do next?

00:02:41.73
Speaker
All I did was try and send money. It's a scam that goes from Houston to the West Indies to some bank who knows where. They're getting away with murder. Which is bad. Bed? Bed is such a big word for being such a small word.

00:03:05.23
Speaker
How does it all work? Bribery, corruption, money laundering. Millions and millions and millions of dollars. Somebody has to sound the alarm.

00:03:17.39
Speaker
Shit. Shut up! Let's... Who the fuck is my money? Most of the time. We don't even know.

00:03:34.66
Speaker
What did you know about the Panama Papers before watching this film? Uh, not much. I, I, I guess I assumed they were like unpublished David Lee Roth lyrics that Sammy Hagar, you know, during his campaign to become a Van Halen's newly singer leaked out to the public. That's, that sounds plausible. That sounds plausible. Now I remember following the news, uh, about the Panama papers, but you know, six months later, I think all I could have come up with if you would ask me was something like rich people were hiding money and they got caught.

00:04:06.81
Speaker
You know, sometimes all you need is a headline. Or a movie that will explain a complex story in a way we can all understand while we're eating our popcorn. Or that. Although, you know, I'm going to be honest, having watched this movie twice now, I'm still not sure I totally understand it, um which is probably keep my why I keep my money tucked beneath my mattress.

00:04:29.03
Speaker
You're a true south side. That's true. I don't trust anyone. yeah studio bank We'll definitely get into the ins and outs of how the laundromat presented this scandal and maybe even introduce you to my financial advice.

00:04:44.24
Speaker
but But first, some quick background. In 2016, someone calling himself John Doe leaked a massive amount of information, 11 and a half million documents amounting to 2.6 terabytes of data to a German newspaper. These documents came from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm that provided corporate services relating primarily to shell corporations registered in tax havens like, oh, let's just say Nevis, a small island in the Caribbean.

00:05:14.03
Speaker
Shell corporations being companies that exist primarily on paper so people can avoid paying taxes in the countries where they actually extract resources, do businesses, do business and employ people. Exactly. And the sad part of it is that tax havens and some US states are the most permissive tax havens of all are largely legal. Avoiding taxes on large sums of money is unfair and hurts local economies, but it can be legal.

00:05:42.96
Speaker
And although the Panama Papers leaker appears to have been largely motivated by exposing income inequality, the leaks did help reporters discover that many of these shell corporations were being used illegally. For example, to launder money, evade taxes, commit fraud, and skirt international sanctions. World leaders were also implicated in shady doings, most notably the prime ministers of England and Iceland.

00:06:08.33
Speaker
and hundreds of public figures, celebrities, and high-net-worth individuals were exposed. For many of them, it was nothing more than an embarrassing episode. The Panama Papers and the reporting from over 100 media outlets that helped make sense of them turned a bright spotlight on the ways rich people get richer while hiding their money. ah Hearing you say that, it's just, man, vast and crazy that like it's so big and so many different people that were involved at so many different levels and so many...

00:06:40.77
Speaker
And it's not just one shady thing that's happening. There's just like these like a shelf companies. That's like these Russian nesting dolls. There's all these reasons for you know fraud, taxes, i just hiding illegally gained money. like There's just so many ways and reasons these monies are getting in. it's just it's the The scope of it is crazy. But thankfully, I'm certain Keir, everyone involved was punished accordingly. It had to be.

00:07:12.88
Speaker
Well, it's complicated. Many did face legal consequences. ah Some people were arrested and countries did recover some of the tax money owed to them. Mossack Fonseca was shut down and its founders, Jurgen Mossack and Rimon Fonseca, were briefly jailed and then put on trial. But Panama, perhaps embarrassed by the fact that the whole scandal was named after them, seemed eager to move on. After a long trial, all Mossack Fonseca employees were acquitted in June of this year. So very contemporary story. And remember, they were only one of many firms helping many entities still secret hide their money in many other offshore entities. The only person who can make sense of this and cut through the noise. This is a job for our man for Steven sober. Get me extension 765.

00:08:20.56
Speaker
In the video for that song, Mike, David Lee Roth is being led away in handcuffs. Van Halen predicted this whole thing. You know, ah the lyrics in that song, there is a ah bit, it says model, citizen, zero discipline. So, which is now a whole new context. It's going to haunt me now. I love Panama. I love Van Halen. I unironically really enjoy Van Halen. I unironically also enjoy Van Halen, but I'm not a Van Hagar guy.

00:08:47.24
Speaker
No. Diamond Dave. Diamond Dave all the way. Oh, easy. Yeah. No, Sammy was too serious. I mean, he turned, he's he's fun now, but he was too serious at the time. Yeah, absolutely. David Lee Roth would never sing right now.

00:09:03.94
Speaker
Another entity caught up in the Panama Papers, the estate of Stanley Kubrick. Most of his wealth was tied up in his home in England called Chilwickbury Manor. And as an American expat in England, when he died, the place would probably have been sold to cover his tax debt to the English government, if not for the holding companies and trusts administered by Mossack Fonseca that allow his family to still live there.

00:09:29.77
Speaker
How do we feel about that, Mike? my

00:09:34.42
Speaker
Where's the outrage? Where's the outrage? I mean, I guess I should. I guess I should feel outraged about it. I mean, look, here's the thing. We all know that Kubrick, we all know him as like the authoritarian, controlling, perfectionist director. But is somebody like you, I'm sure you know this as well, who have like maybe not studied Kubrick, but have been around film enough to know that in addition to being a controlling authoritarian director, he was also a ruthlessly pragmatic guy. So him protecting his money and his estate and family just through sheer satanic calculus, like having no morals or no sentiment attached.

00:10:21.76
Speaker
makes a lot of sense to me, actually. Fair, fair. Plus, plus ah one of his daughters is buried on the estate ground. So probably just I know it's probably just best just to let the Kubrick's remain, you know, remain remains. Yes, yes, I got you there. yeah yeah Yeah, you don't want to remove remains. That's like the whole, ah you know, then you've got poltergeist scenario possibly for the next tenants of Chilled with Green Manor. Interestingly, Pedro Almodovar, Jackie Chan, and Emma Watson were also named, but it's hard for me to think of them as the bad guys here. yeah um Well, i was because I was going to say, you know not Jackie Chan, because i I love Jackie Chan, even though he's kind of guess some got some dicey skeletons going on in his life. But Emma Watson, she's always you know the person like such a ah

00:11:15.42
Speaker
a driven person, driven by causes and doing good in the world. And here she is, hiding her money, just like the rest. Yeah, so maybe Jackie Chan, somewhat expected Emma Watson, not Emma Watson. Not Emma Watson, yeah. I mean, not the guy from Police Story 3. Which rules? Like on the police story 3 rules.

00:11:37.46
Speaker
I do have a harder time getting upset about creatives and maybe it's just a double standard on my part. But in some ways, I just feel like it's nice that a director like Elmodovar has enough money that he has to hide it, right? Like all artists should be so lucky. Usually the artists are not the ones that end up with a pile of cash.

00:11:53.77
Speaker
Anyway, it's easy to see why Soderbergh was attracted to this project. you know He's not one of those celebs who goes around making self-important speeches, drawing attention to his politics, or making videos of himself singing Imagine in his mansion, but he is obviously on the side of the little guy. A movie about the Panama Papers fits squarely in the tradition of Aaron Brockovich, traffic, and the informant.

00:12:16.89
Speaker
Yeah, and like even like even in their own way fits in with out of sight and magic Mike and high flying bird, you know, like Soderbergh, you know, we've cataloged this and talked about this, but he has blue collar roots.

00:12:30.24
Speaker
And he's never really forgotten them. And he he displays them in so many ways in his work ethic and the subject matters he tackles and the way you know his love for underdogs, et cetera. you know like And like you said, he is firmly on the side, you know ah this important point of the little guy. you know He loves outsiders.

00:12:48.73
Speaker
and i I don't know what he enjoys more is like seeing his underdogs like an Aaron Brockovich, you know, ah Jack Foley, whoever, seeing them succeed or making sure that the evil corporations and other high powered figures ah get their get their comeuppance. Why not both, Mike? Why not both? Why not?

00:13:06.94
Speaker
Why not? but Yeah. and because ah Along those lines, even Logan Lucky fits, right? and Yeah. you know I'll draw the line to Oceans 11 because it's hard to see Danny and Rusty as class warriors. but ah Prequel. Oh, yeah. When they robbed the factory and they're dying Rust Belt Town.

00:13:25.31
Speaker
but say she about um let me get my notebook let's Let's workshop that. Now, I'm just going to skim the production backstory on this one because big question i want to you know because I have a big question I want to ask you after we both give our reviews and I think sometimes I've been going a little little deep on backstory in some of the movies we've been talking about lately.

00:13:46.41
Speaker
Oh, I love it. so Yes. Yes. so So hopefully, we'll see. I might be making a promise I can't deliver. Now, the Panama Papers leaks began in April 2016.

00:14:00.85
Speaker
ah That same month United Talent Agency started shopping the rights to secrecy world a book about the leaks by Pulitzer winner Jake Bernstein that wouldn't come out until November 2017 and for people who don't know the publishing industry like how is this possible? How are you selling a book that doesn't exist this happens?

00:14:19.14
Speaker
fairly often, particularly if you have, i general not generally with novels, but generally with nonfiction. If you've got a a writer who's an expert on a subject, there's a big breaking news thing. Maybe they've already done a lot of reporting on it, you know and they've got a track record of publication. You know they can deliver a book. They're a journalist, so you know they can deliver it quickly. People will whip up a book proposal in a week and shop it, and anyway, presto change-o.

00:14:45.84
Speaker
so ah the The idea is that the book is going to come out 18 months, give or take, after the leaks, which is in in publishing, we call that crashing a book. um That's pretty short turnaround to write and publish a book, but it's certainly doable. So Grey Matter Productions bought the screenwrites and in July 2016, three months after after the the leaks, it was announced that Soderberg would come on as one of the producers and possibly direct. It wasn't a

00:15:18.24
Speaker
given, because he sometimes produces movies other people direct, and that Scott Z. Burns would be writing the script. Right. And Burns, of course, we we friend of friend of the show, he also wrote Contagion, The Informant, and Side Effects. I actually have a question for you. Now, I think about it. was a He might not remember. was the informant also That was a book. Was that sold before as well? Do you remember?

00:15:43.35
Speaker
Oh, that's a good question. It was definitely a book. um i I don't know. Part of me thinks we talked about that, but I don't know. make We might not have. But I do remember it being a book at the very least. I'm right on that count, right?

00:15:58.26
Speaker
Yes, it was a book um by Kurt Eichenwald. Oh, that's right. nows i don't think it was I think it was published and then made, I'm pretty sure. Yes, I remember the Eichenwalde thing. remember them Yes, because they were using the book as reference and the book was massive and they had to chop it up. ah The book was published in 2000 and the informant came out in 2009. Definitely a different timeline, but similar in that ah You know, a big expose a nonfiction book was the source material. OK, yeah. OK, cool. Thanks. Soderbergh was still filming Logan Lucky at the time, but we know he likes to fill out his dance card long in advance. In April 2018, with Logan Lucky, Unsane and the TV show Mosaic all recently released and High Flying Bird in the can, but not released, Soderbergh was finally announced as the director of the still untitled movie about the Panama Papers starting in fall.

00:16:56.81
Speaker
But at least the book had been published. In May, Meryl Streep was announced as the star, and the cast started to come together with Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas as Mossack and Fonseca. Before it was all over, the cast would include James Cromwell, Robert Patrick, David Schwimmer, Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone, Matthias Schoenertz, Melissa Rauch, and even Will Forte, Chris Parnell, and Larry Wilmore. Yeah.

00:17:23.34
Speaker
They had great roles, Forte and Pardell. But yeah, you add it all together and it's a regular Oceans 13, right? Oceans 13, I think we have there. Soderbergh's 13. Soderbergh's 13, yes. Yeah, you know Soderbergh is becoming like Woody Allen used to be, where every director wants to work with him at least once in their career. And in every other way, not like Woody Allen. Thank God.

00:17:48.54
Speaker
In a July interview with Filmmaker magazine promoting the criterion release of Sex Lives and Videotape, Soderbergh said the film would probably go to Netflix. And indeed in October, it was announced that Netflix would finance and release the movie. Shooting started and ah on October 15th and continued for nearly two months with filming locations in Miami, Key West, and various parts of California, Nevada, and a green screen, which came in handy for the showy one-er that opens the movie.

00:18:16.46
Speaker
You don't give yourself enough credit to sink to the point. Got the information out there. Good job. I'm impressed. Well done. Why thank you, Mike. Yeah, it's that kind of thoughtful attention to detail that is the hallmark of the Filmographers podcast. Oh, wait, are we going to commercial now? No, no, no, not a commercial, just a helpful announcement that it's now easier than ever to show your support for the Filmographers podcast. Yes, as always, you can take a quick moment to subscribe, like or rate the show on your preferred preferred platform, but now

00:18:50.54
Speaker
you can give us a review in seconds. Does this involve AI? As a working writer, I cannot condone the use of AI for any creative endeavor. It does not, no, not at all. So listeners simply go to our show notes where you'll find some sample reviews, pick your favorite, copy it and paste it into the Review of the Phonographers podcast. Kidding, sort of what you can do is just customize how you want, but you sure don't have to. Just remember that reviews and other engagement are essential.

00:19:18.89
Speaker
to us helping ah find other people who like what we're doing and expand our audience. So just that little just a little snippet, a little review, a little rating. It's truly, truly remarkably helpful. Pre-written reviews. What a great idea. I wish I had thought of that.

00:19:34.99
Speaker
You took the words right out of my mouth here. well scott Scott and I very early on decided that humor was the best vehicle to get some of these ideas across. um and when we started When Scott suggested that we take a sort of kaleidoscopic approach and globe hop to follow these stories. um I felt we we had the opportunity to keep the the viewer um engaged and entertained. I knew it was going to move quickly. I knew it would have a very poppy feel to it. And in fact, in multiple stages in the movie, the characters themselves, mostly Gary and Antonio,

00:20:20.87
Speaker
make jokes about how complicated all of these transactions are and and basically make the audience feel okay with being completely confused by what's going on. um But it was it was challenging because there are so many stories.

00:20:39.60
Speaker
to choose from. I was telling Meryl today, Jake Bernstein made a document in which he took 30 countries and and outlined stories from those countries that we might be interested in. And we picked from that list. But you could make this movie every year for 15 years and never run out of stories. Mike, what did you think of the laundromat? Did you like the way Soderbergh chose to dramatize the story and convey all that complicated information?

00:21:07.97
Speaker
Well, it's hard to say like information of this scope is it's just really hard to convey and it's really hard to digest from from a viewer standpoint, you know, but what makes it easier, what makes it better, all this big ideas and this massive story, like you said, like we talked about, like in your um background of it, like how big it was and how vast it was and how multifaceted it was.

00:21:38.37
Speaker
getting that stuff to narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, like squeezing that watermelon through a picket fence, you know, like you just need to find the right picket. And the picket is like, you know, is the narrative is is the story that you're telling around it. And I don't know that the laundromat had a great story, at least a story that I love. I mean, I'm going to backtrack a little bit like the narrative to me, the way that the laundromat is crafted in my opinion, is inherently flawed because in order to make all this stuff work, because I think this is bigger than, say, the informant. The informant had like one guy who was doing all this crazy shit. You look at Mark Whitaker and you're like, oh, my God, he did this and he did that. But it's all singularly focused on him where the laundromat had so many different players. I mean, didn't even when you're talking about the Panama Papers, this didn't even scratch the surface, you know, realistically, but like

00:22:38.29
Speaker
It still had in the movie, like we said, the Oceans 13. There's so many, I mean, granted. Will Forte and Chris Parnell like showed up for 30 seconds you know just to get buried in the desert. and it was It was a great funny scene. That's part of the movie. That's part of the movie, yeah. It was it was hilarious. I love Will Forte especially. But like there's so many, it's still a very big movie um where you have to, there's just so many rotating POVs and so many different things happening. Like, essentially, Meryl Streep was a star, but there's a lot of other stuff going on. so

00:23:13.91
Speaker
In order to make all this stuff work, you know to convey this really complicated a game of shell companies and offshore accounts and all this kind of stuff, you just have to come out and say what it is. you know like That's really the only way to make, I think, the story, make any of it work. And they do that with Oldman and Banderas who just come out and say what exactly is going on in those interstitials who And to me, those that I'll be honest, that was the best part of the movie. You know, they're the real best part of the movie. Yeah, they are the real best part of the movie. They're so much fun. I mean, granted, they are just info dumping. They're doing it in a creative way and a clever way, but they're just literally, you know, we showed hotels out the window. They're just telling you. And I think that's a necessity of the stories. You need ah this kind of Greek chorus, this this this.

00:24:03.24
Speaker
present merrier who's just telling you all the events that's going on between the events you know making sense of it but now with them coming out and telling now that we know and maybe this is just a luxury of time like We all kind of know the idea of shell companies and the wealthy hiding their money in offshore accounts. like I know the Panama Papers was a huge thing because it was so vast, because the whistle was blown. It gave specificity to this idea that we already know. It's like, oh, yeah, yeah, the wealthy just put their money in accounts in Sweden and Panama and blah, blah, blah, all these other places. And they're they're they're constantly hiding their cash and avoiding taxes and things like that. We all kind of knew that. but like

00:24:46.72
Speaker
It feels like it sucks the wind out of you know Meryl Streep's investigation, which is the heart of the narrative. It's like her trying to find out why she's not getting any settlement from the boating company that her husband died on. um you you You kind of just know. We know where Meryl Streep's character is ultimately headed. And if I can jump in, that's such a great point. like you know the The definition of like a mystery, say, in fiction is um something where yeah know something happened and you don't know how it happened or who did it.

00:25:24.94
Speaker
and And so the the story is a quest to discover that a thriller is typically like, you know, something bad will happen if steps aren't taken to prevent that. And we don't really have either of those here. Right. Right. The thing has already happened and we're being told from the start what has happened and who did it more or less. So it it does suck a lot of the drama right out of the story.

00:25:49.89
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's I think, you know, good reference, you know, thing to frame that is Hitchcock's ah suspense versus horror, you know, like suspense, ah you know, there's a bomb under under the table that blows up and it kills two people. Like horror is you don't know that there's a bomb under the table and something just explodes and kills two people. ah Suspense is that, you know, the bombs under the table and you just don't know when or if it'll explode. It's a suspense versus horror. Is that what it is? I think he says like terror, terror. Yeah, I think he says horror.

00:26:21.05
Speaker
something like that. yeah well yeah yeah But it's about knowing or not knowing and how and this doesn't really have either. you know And I don't think it's necessarily trying to be, but it's about narrative drive, really. Because like you like you said, I think you said it better than me, it's like it just comes out and says it, so now we know. So what is what is Meryl Streep's ultimate journey? Like Mark Whitaker,

00:26:45.13
Speaker
For example, this is such a it's it's a the Informa is such a perfect movie to contrast this against because it's you know very similar in tone, very similar in style, same writers, same director. There's so many similarities in overlap. like You don't know until the end just how like bonkers Mark Whitaker is. On first viewing, you're like,

00:27:07.02
Speaker
You don't know that he's made up these people. You're not really sure. He says so many different things. What's true? You still don't really know at the end, like what's true and what's not, because he weaves this web of lies and nonsense that just pile and pile and pile on this kind of point. But like you don't until like the rug really gets pulled out at the end, like you don't know the depths of Mark Whitaker's like game he's playing. And he doesn't even really know the game he's playing, I don't think. um But like in here, like you know, the game, you know, that's being played. They're always explaining it one step ahead of of the game itself, you know, like so. And when when Meryl Streep goes to um I forget the islands calls to see Jeffrey Wright, Nevis Nevis. We already know which Jeffrey he the movies are a shown Jeffrey Wright and shows that he just sits in office and sign stuff and doesn't do anything. And he's the shell thing. So by the time you get to a point and she bumps into him and then he goes, you know, leaves the country and fleas like

00:28:04.41
Speaker
You already knew, you already know what he's done and what he is. And there's a great reveal about his character, but it doesn't have anything to do with her storyline. Oh, that he has, yeah, that he has a second family. That he has a second family. And it's funny, but it's like, and she witnesses that, but it has nothing to do with her character. No, nothing. No. And there's a lot of stuff like that, that like, that is totally removed from her character.

00:28:24.08
Speaker
the the lens it like zooms in and zooms out and then zooms further out and goes in. It's just like it's kind of all over the place. is Is this Soderbergh's Altman movie? It's a little bit of an Altman movie. You know, it's funny because we'll talk about that a little bit next week too because he goes like a very imp impro improvisational ah route with Let Them All Talk. So it feels like maybe he is having a little Altman stage in his career. um But look, it's It's a kind of fun movie, like any silver brick movie like this, it's light on its feet. Informant, Logan Lucky, stuff like that. We've already mentioned these type of movies. It's light on its feet, but the narrative lacks a kind of sting and more importantly, it lacks a, I'll be honest, and this is, I don't know, I don't know how people will kind of roll with this or how you will care.

00:29:15.67
Speaker
It lacks a strong, compelling and likable central character. Like, I'm sorry for Mike's hot takes. We got to have ah some sort of like announcement beginning, like with that kind of like flames, explosions.

00:29:36.22
Speaker
um Look, it takes me a lot to invest in Meryl Streep. I'm not. I'm not the biggest Meryl Streep friend fan and her performance here is just so grating. like so o Nails on a chalkboard. like She plays Ellen, you know a simple old salt of the earth who gets screwed by you know unfathomable powers. with such She plays it with such such simpleness that it's just kind of insulting. like i think she wants to She wants to think that she understands your good old average Joe, but she makes Ellen so average and so daft, and it just comes off as caricature. Her constant like, oh, it so I just, golly gee, I just don't, what's going on here? Like, it's just like, ugh, ugh, stop. Like, I just, it's like you look at how Damon played Mark Whitaker, how Julia Roberts was Aaron Brockovich. They like breathed life into these roles and they made them big, it still feel authentic.

00:30:33.29
Speaker
all Streep does in this and this portrayal of this like salt of the ah earth type person, this average working whoever is absolutely patronized, the the the person the type of person she's playing. And it annoyed me cover to cover, end to end. um And since we're here, let's just go. Let's go. Where are we going now? my hot Round two, The Sequeler.

00:31:04.64
Speaker
Since we are here, what makes matters worse, what really exposed this street for, I think, who she really is, is a moment that is the absolute worst moment of all Silverberg's movies. And that is not hyperbole. It's not.

00:31:20.93
Speaker
i it's It's the ending, isn't it? It sure howll it's sure as hell is. like Meryl Streep literally preaching at viewers. i I don't even know where to begin. It is insufferable to me. It's it's all the things that Erk might dislike for Streep. all It just rolled into an intolerable and completely unnecessary scene. I will never I will never understand why Silverberg even agreed to film it, and much less as the editor of the movie kept it in.

00:31:54.65
Speaker
my I can only hope that this is contractually, a contractual obligation. Like he he had to do this as Meryl Streep's, you know, she's like, I'm going to come out and I'm going to tell the plebs, you know, what's how they're getting screwed. um I don't know if that's the case, but God, I hope so, ah because it's the biggest stumble, fumble, bumble in all of Silverberg's filmography. I don't believe it exists. ah So, Keira, what about you?

00:32:25.19
Speaker
ah How did you like the movie? ah We don't have to talk about the ending in particular. We could. I'm happy to go on. ah But I'm super I've never really been gone full negative on this podcast. Neither one of us has we been very respectful and mindful. And I feel like kept our I threw our integrity out the window in the last two minutes here.

00:32:49.08
Speaker
we We're the film nice guys, and and like you've just destroyed our image as the film nice guys with your hot take. I ruined it. Well, that ending made me stream the tears of happiness that I wiped away with my NPR tote. No, I'm just kidding.

00:33:08.82
Speaker
um I didn't hate it or her as much as you did. um But i I agree. It's it's funny. like I think that the but you make really excellent points about the broadness of her performance in general. I do think she's ah yeah she's obviously a very talented actor. um She does show excellent range. I like her a lot more in the film we're going to discuss next week. Let them all talk. I think she's perfect in that pitch perfect here i agree like she's leaning into the dumb hats and the latent t-shirts and again it's hard to say which choices are you know it's an improv you know soderberg welcomes um input and improvisation from a lot of people so it's it's really hard to know and this is something we could go down a rabbit hole on it's like you know who

00:33:58.40
Speaker
You know, I think typically the blame has to lie at the director's feet. So if if he if that scene is in the movie, we can't blame st Street for it. I think we got to blame Soderbergh. Yeah. yeah

00:34:12.09
Speaker
Now you're clutching your NPR too. Yeah, I think we've got to lay the blame on his face. We were... Hi. I think that, you know, like in interviews he was giving around the time of this movie to like to promote the movie, he was leaning hard into the politics. I think he got caught up in the moment and his outrage and I and i get it. like I share his outrage. This is appalling. I think income inequality is the number one issue that's that we have to confront in this country and on this planet today. I mean, it's the reason ah it's the reason so many people live in poverty and hunger. And it's the reason like our roads are falling apart. And it's just, you know, people are like offshoring their wealth and they're not participating in the economies of the country that they you know, where they make their money. It's a huge thing. And I think that he was so

00:35:07.62
Speaker
Again, I can't really speak for him, but I think that he was so outraged by this that he kind of let his political instincts, for once, for once ah get ahead of his dramatic instincts. And I agree, the ending wasn't what the movie deserved. But let me back up from the ending.

00:35:24.58
Speaker
I didn't love the movie, but it grew on me somewhat. you know It's clearly not nearly as successful as Aaron Brockovich or The Informant. And I love the way you you talked about ah you know Roberts and Damon's portrayals of their characters, because that that is a key distinction. Those are You know, those are also somewhat broad portrayals because there's some comedy in them, but they're also infused with humanity and warmth and care and likability. And you really believe in these people. And we don't believe in Streep's character here. She's a she's it's a type, not a not a richly imagined character.

00:36:03.29
Speaker
And maybe the movie didn't really allow that. I don't know. Anyway, it's not as successful as those movies. But as you've said, it's such a big story to dramatize. It took 100 journalists, more than 100, to just make sense of these leaks and try to create the stories that the governments and law enforcement then acted on, basically. There was so much to to sift through. So that's a hell of a tough story to tell. And I really appreciate Burns and Soderbergh for taking a swing at it.

00:36:33.08
Speaker
I love Gary Oldman in anything. I got a kick out of him as, and Vanderos as Massek and Fonseca. In reading about the film, I was surprised that their characters seem to annoy a lot of people.

00:36:45.94
Speaker
People seem to almost be mad at them or or feel like they ruin the movie with their smug smarminess. But I mean, I think that was the whole point. i I do think it was kind of a clever filmmaking choice to try to turn it inside out and have the narrators be the bad guys who were justifying themselves. It was certainly more creative than just the, you know, we're on the outside and we're outraged at these jerks. um You know, maybe it didn't fully work, but it was it was not the expected choice.

00:37:12.48
Speaker
ah The attempts to show cause and effect by tracing a tour boats sinking even if the least convincing sinking of a boat I've ever seen Again, probably intentional. ah But from that to the shady, you know, reinsurers who won't pay the damages, it's also a good idea, at least on paper, if anybody writes on paper anymore. The other stories, ah you know, about a womanizing African billionaire who bribes his daughter with bearer shares and a British man poisoned after he blackmails his the the wife of a Chinese politician,

00:37:43.85
Speaker
Those are interesting, but they also didn't feel as directly connected to the movie. So maybe we could take some issue with the storytelling choices. They had they had to choose some stories and those were interesting on their own, but it didn't feel like it cohered into a great driving narrative. And again, Brockovich and the informant, you have one person driving the action and maybe they should have just taken more liberties and given us that singular story to make a more effective movie, maybe.

00:38:11.71
Speaker
I think that's not a bad idea. Yeah, that's a great point. I think like I think that's part of like heard it, like those stories that you mentioned. like there's I didn't even mention they're so forgettable. you know i like I just watched the movie this weekend. I'm like, oh yeah, that that stuff happened. All right. Yeah. Yeah. it's just like what is The connective tissue is just so loose, very loose connective tissue between what old men you know Oldman and Banderas are saying and then you have Streep stories and you have these little side avenues and it's just kind of like

00:38:44.23
Speaker
you know feels like i think i think you're right sorry interrupts you if i think it's like the soberg like just didn't know where to place the outrage he just like constantly like you see you see how you want you know it just like okay i get yeah and And the one about the African billionaire and his family too, like I enjoyed that as a vignette. like As a little of vignette, I thought it was ah funny and sad and interesting. And the actors all did a great job. And I loved Larry Wilmore when he shows up as the sleazy lawyer. Love Larry Wilmore. But like, the whole point connecting it to Masek and Fonseca seem to be that, you know, the billionaire bribes his daughter with these bearer shares, which he then removes the value from. So when she shows up, they're worthless. And it was this kind of like 20 minute journey to get to this point of like, oh, yeah, but you can get screwed by these things too. And it just didn't feel like, and I didn't feel particularly outraged on

00:39:33.93
Speaker
the behalf of any of these people because they're living the life of Riley and like they're they're rich people who got scammed. I'm much more wanting to sympathize with the the you know little people who get scammed. Yeah, 100%. That's a great point. Yes. Yeah, I agree with you.

00:39:48.84
Speaker
So, you know, the I always like to talk about the cast a little bit. Like the cast is pretty good. I like you. I'm not the world's biggest Meryl Streep fan. I don't hate her as much as you do. um No more hot take territory for me on Meryl Streep. But, you know, she and she does show her range from this movie to the next one. But and we probably said enough about Street.

00:40:10.72
Speaker
You know, it's such a big ensemble. We don't really get to spend too much time with with anyone other than Streep, Oldman, and Banderas. Some of the celebrity casting of bit parts feels a little unnecessary. Like, did we need David Schwimmer? I don't know. I did love the quick deaths of Will Forte and Chris Parnell. that that That was a funny grace note. ah I don't know. Overall, it was an interesting watch, quite funny at times, that was a little bit of a letdown in the end.

00:40:38.45
Speaker
Maybe it ultimately comes down to the sheer volume of information and characters, you know. we keep coming back to Brockovich, but you know, even though that was based around a single person, when you think about it, that was a complex case with a ton of litigants, right? And this, this storytelling choices turned it into a three hander, which this one almost was. But Aaron Brockovich makes us want to jump up and cheer and this one is just, I don't know, it's so much more cynical, rightly so. Maybe it's more of a grown up movie.

00:41:09.47
Speaker
I liked it. I didn't love it. And although I agree with the politics 100 percent, as I said, I think finally it's just too preachy with too much direct address, including the ending. And, you know, I don't want to compare this to the much reviled don't look up, which I didn't hate as much as some people, but is not good. um But it does have a little bit of that stink on it. Right. Soderbergh is at his you know best when he's as telling stories and they this one just feels like the story was too much in service of the message. Let me ask you a quick question because you got my wheels turning. Let me ask you a quick question. like

00:41:48.61
Speaker
Do you see the distinction? And this is something that kind of, and and we're starting to see it fade a little bit, you know, in storytelling, in cinema, where, you know, cinema, how novels, TV shows, comics, everything, where it's like, hey, as long as the message is good, and we're telling people politically, culturally, socially what they want to hear.

00:42:07.89
Speaker
We've done our job. You know, that's why I think to me, like, I guess that's the question. Like, is that enough? Like, is does does that make a story? That's me. And I've said this a million times is why I think Get Out is one of the best movies of the century, because it doesn't go around saying like racism is bad, guys. It shows you how racism is bad.

00:42:29.11
Speaker
like yeah so It makes this great story, this the one of the greatest Twilight Zone stories ever, which is saying a lot. and it It puts it in a package that you walk away and you're like, oh oh boy, I get it. ah you know like It never wags its finger at you. It never tells you how to feel.

00:42:48.42
Speaker
you know like our how do how do we How do you handle that though? like How do you handle that distinction between like having a movie or a story that's ah that's a message-driven story, but also making it... like What obligation do you have to also have a good, compelling plot and narrative and characters, et cetera?

00:43:09.09
Speaker
Well, I think we just live in an era where um yeah and it's a generational thing. i think People are so much more concerned now about displaying that they have the correct take on something and that their politics are right. And that hurts drama because you think back to like the best movies have ambiguity and they have flawed characters and sometimes you know you didn't necessarily know the director's politics by watching the movie because they're just making a movie about humans who are inherently messed up. and

00:43:40.02
Speaker
ye you know the Movies that make you want to watch them multiple times because you're trying to figure it out or you're trying to puzzle through some great big issues you know, we now, you know, I blame social media, I blame polarization. You know, there's this fear, you know, it's like people, you know, we live in an era where some people don't even want people to make movies or tell stories about bad people, because, you know, it's, they feel like they're supporting bad people by telling stories about them or something, which is just insane to me. It's like, this is,

00:44:11.44
Speaker
storytelling is how we explore things and how we make sense of the world. And, you know, if we learn that bad people are also have a shred of humanity, then we can figure out, well, why did they become bad? Where did that shred of humanity go? But I do think that filmmaking and storytelling and even novel writing has become much more simplistic. And I think that, you know, even more so since 2020, and I get it, like a lot of people want to make sure that everybody understands, like, I'm one of the good guys, whatever they think that might be. But I do think it hurts art. Yeah, I think it's a great point. And you put it all into really a really great summary and a really great opinion. And I just, I feel like that's what hurt the laundromat. I think it's the only time you really see. And like I said, I don't hate it. I still like enjoy it. It's so fun. you know But like I think it's the only time you really see

00:45:03.42
Speaker
And you can correct me if I'm wrong, it's the only time you see ah the balance of power of like politics and art, like politics are winning in a Soderbergh movie. like He's like, I really got to say these things and show these things. And it becomes more about that than it is about really just like telling the story. I agree. And i and while I did enjoy the movie you know reasonably well, I think it's one of the things that just means it's not going to be one of his lasting or or well-remembered movies. Yeah, I agree.

00:45:33.96
Speaker
That's why we brought it to you. Somebody has to. Sound the alarm. We like to focus on stories that are closer to home. Where did you say this company is located again? Panama. Like the hat.

00:45:50.25
Speaker
As mentioned earlier, the laundromat debuted at the Venice Film Festival on September 1st, 2019, before playing at two more festivals. And according to Wikipedia, it was released theatrically on September 27th, before being made available to Netflix on October 18th.

00:46:06.12
Speaker
Mike, as usual, I turn to you for more information about the release strategy. Yeah, ah this is interesting because I look for information about which theaters it showed up in and can only find a reference to select cinemas.

00:46:23.81
Speaker
Nebula said best. um And now the big film awards, here's the thing, the big film awards won't consider movies that don't scream first in theaters. So films like The Laundromat, ah which might be considered for an awards contender, especially at that time. Like we said, this is a very much a movie of its time, I think. Like it the the the political outrage, the the showing these things, exposing them, et cetera, it was very, very big. It's a very much a movie of its time. um So the idea of it being awards contender, i don't think I think we'd look at it now and be like, oh, no way. but ben

00:47:01.12
Speaker
possibly, you know, yeah, especially with Soderbergh involved, like that there's a lot of street, there's a lot of pedigree. So right place, right time sort of thing. ah So if the actual release for this movie in terms of awards consideration would be important, essential. But the big theater chains, at least in 2019, wanted a 90 day window ah before the mirrors was released for home entertainment. So If Netflix wanted to show this one in theaters, they were likely renting or offering ah generous terms to TV cinemas like, you know, the landmark, something like that. Now, how many screens it played on, I don't really know. It's hard to say. Like, it's just very unclear. And because Netflix, and this is where you get into this kind of dark arts of Netflix in general, and this is still a point of contention that exists today, theater chains are not really,

00:47:55.28
Speaker
willing to book Netflix movies because they' they know they're just being used as awards fodder. So like if Netflix comes out and says, oh, we want to play this movie and, you know, your theater for I think the window has shrunk. I don't think it's 90 days anymore to be considered for an Oscar or whatever. But basically, theaters are like, screw you, you know, like, no, you're not going to just use us for this. The way it's not going to tangent up with the way theaters operate is that they they have long term contracts with with a movie basically the the studio distributor of the movie and it's good and bad it's oftentimes bad for movie theaters sometimes because if a movie if like Joker fully ado comes out for example why you would use that as an example well i'll love i'll explain uh it takes and a lot of theaters were kind of left

00:48:48.72
Speaker
many years left holding the bag because like they still had to run this piece of shit for the next two more weeks. You know, like we're normally they would just like just swoop it out the back door and put literally anything in its place. They were left having to hold on to this thing. So it's a complicated relationship. But because they have these these relationships, because they have these contracts and they have these stipulations like we'll play it for a certain amount of time, whatever exclusivity will play on the IMAX screen, this screen, whatever.

00:49:19.36
Speaker
I think it's very, very particular. um They're beholden to the to to especially an award season, like we're going to play Wicked for five weeks of the best screens and the whatever. So on Netflix comes around be like, can you play our movie for like six days so we can get an Oscar? They're like, no, like we're playing Gladiator 2 and making money. And, you know, we we signed a more generous deal with, you know, Sony or whomever who are giving us a better you know, financial deal if we play it for X amount of time, whereas you come along, want to play it for a week and are giving us crappy terms as well. So they're not going to push something out for that. ah So it's interesting and complicated. But the point is, when you get into when you get into this Netflix, you know, environment, it is this dark arts because you don't know how many theaters are played out of which we don't know. They don't share their numbers, their streaming numbers. So we don't know how much

00:50:14.67
Speaker
how many people watched it. We don't know um you know how many people the theatrically bought tickets, how much money it made. On that end, we don't know how many people watched it. I mean, they'll say, they'll sometimes come out and say things in terms of like streaming, like, oh, it was viewed by 100 million people this weekend. It's like, okay, but did they watch for 15 seconds? Did they watch the whole thing? Like, what does 100 million views actually look like? So very nebulous on both ends, the theatrical release of this movie, and we know nothing about how it performed on stream. Even when it lands in the top 10, it's like, well, how many people watched it? We have no idea what that even means. With all the secrecy, I'm starting to suspect Netflix is a shell corporation who conducts their business through Mossack Fonseca. I mean, you joke, Kier, but I don't know how a company stays in debt for that long and keeps going. Maybe they're laundering money.

00:51:14.24
Speaker
they got'd be doing something jesus ah Anyway, ah other big films with a similar release plan in 2019 were Actually, this is a murders role. This is great lineup. Remember Netflix actually made movies? Yeah, yeah. And it's big on movies. We used to be a country here. But in 2019, in addition to the laundromat, which, like we said, was a pedigree of Silverberg Street, a lot of Scapsy Burns, you know, a lot of great things going for it. So while it didn't

00:51:46.92
Speaker
perform or we don't, you know, I don't I think it's the least of these movies I'm about to name. It still was a big deal that this was being made and happening. Right. But in addition to the laundromat, you had Marriage Story, ah which was huge. ah The Irishman, I mean, just more Stacy De Niro, Pacino, Pesci and Dolomite is my name, which I think is absolutely terrific. ah If people haven't seen that the Eddie Murphy movie, it is fantastic.

00:52:16.79
Speaker
Um, but again, this was back when Netflix was still spending big on movies and actually taking movies seriously. So, so ultimately with the laundromat in terms of Netflix relationship to it, we know that there was a movie. It exists. We know it came out and we know people saw it.

00:52:38.07
Speaker
That's about it. so Okay. okay so It's a pretty pretty full picture. Yeah, exactly. It is very much like a shell company. You keep peeling back layers only to find, oh, we don't know this. We don't know this. We know very little. But what we do know ah is the response to the movie. So what was the response to ah The Laundromat Light Care? Yeah, that's right. That's on the record. Critics and audiences agree. They didn't really like it.

00:53:05.77
Speaker
Although most of the critics did give Soderbergh and Burns credit for tackling a tough subject. Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, Soderbergh and Burns seemingly wanted to emphasize the sheer outrageousness of the scam and have a little fun with it in the bargain, but their satirical aim ultimately doesn't measure up to the sharpness of their ambitions. A.O. Scott of The New York Times called it, a didactic comedy, an earnest lesson in political economy, dressed up as a farce.

00:53:34.94
Speaker
In a two-star review for RogerEbert dot.com, Brian Tallarico wrote, most of all, it's an issue of tone. The film comes off as patronizing, a feeling I've never had before watching Soderbergh. Of course, the laundromat doesn't need to place the Ellen Martens of the world on a pedestal to make us feel compassion for them, but it would be nice if it felt like the movie actually liked her and us in the end. Which I thought was a really interesting comment. i mean we We talked a little bit about this earlier, and we we've often talked about how Soderbergh doesn't look down on his characters. ah Mike, do you agree with Tallarico? I would take a guess, secure. I know. I was teeing you up. I was teeing you up. No, but that's a great find. um I wish I could have put it as eloquently as Brian did, and I like Brian a lot. as a you know He's the

00:54:25.84
Speaker
head editor, lead editor, whatever you want to call it, of you know, rogeriebert.com right now, which is a very, very big torch to be passed. And I think he does a really great job with it. He has a great ah staff of writers working for him. ah They really do a great job over there. But I like do, I do absolutely agree with him. um Again, i and i not I don't want to flog a dead horse too long because i do like there there there there are times when I like Meryl Streep. I don't want to seem like I don't like her. I don't like her later movies, although the next one we're going to talk about, I do like her a lot now. um I just don't think she knows how to play normal people. like To her, an average older woman is kind of a dithering dum-dum who wears big soul sketches and

00:55:09.59
Speaker
you know just acts like a kindly old ga grandma who perpetually you know just took fresh cookies out of the oven. yeah know like You use the word perfectly, broad. you know It's so broad. And like Brian points out, and I think he's right, like I don't get the sense that the movie really likes her. I think there's like we talked about in this the virtual the virtue signaling of the movie, like it's trying so hard to make her so perfect and put her up on this pedestal that like it really doesn't give you a sense of like an actual

00:55:44.58
Speaker
exactly an actual person behind the performance. you know Mark Whitaker felt like a real person. Aaron Brockovich felt like a real person, you know like where you know Ellen does not feel it. It feels like a character of a person. And what that results in is, again, I'm going to take Brian's word, is is patronizing, I think. I found it really patronizing.

00:56:05.82
Speaker
What about the other characters? Do you think there were other characters? Do you think that held true in, I mean, as I said earlier, like we don't really spend a lot of time with the other characters or as much time as we do with Street, but did you feel like that broadness, that patronizing sense ah extends to the the other characters in the film? You know, that's a good question. It's hard to say because they're really, I mean, how many other characters, there's a lot of performers, but how many characters are in this movie? You know, like,

00:56:34.39
Speaker
Banderas and old men are just there just to like chew the scenery and, you know, yuck it up and just be like these larger than life, you know, portrayals that they're clearly just having fun with. And I loved it. I thought it was great. Like so Ellen Meryl Streep's they went on the boat trip with another kind. I remember the scene we played the clip. ah They wanted the boat trip with another couple and the the the other couple, the wife died and you have the guy. There's one moment where they're talking ah to a journalist. They're trying to sell the story and Miro Street's like, oh, it all takes place in Panama. And he's like, like the hat. And it's just like, yeah

00:57:12.57
Speaker
who Who needs to describe Panama that way? like you don't like This person didn't know what Panama was? like yeah like yeah and like It's so goofy that feels, again, it's a caricature. like he's just like This simpleton who's like, oh, there's a place called Panama? It's like, yeah, of course people know what fucking Panama is. like I don't know, but it just goes to show it makes him not an actual person. And I can't think of really any other actual character. I don't know. What about you? Yeah. I mean, you've got the the China storyline with this English guy who's kind of what they call a white glove for these um you know closet capitalists in the Chinese Communist Party who were

00:57:59.58
Speaker
doing a bunch of dirty business on the side. And like those, I don't know, they that that was kind of a three-hander scene and it felt very much like everybody was kind of a type in that that didn't feel like fleshed out. He's a sleazy, ah arrogant guy who gets his comeuppance and she's kind of this you know, i dare I say it, you know, this kind of um enigmatic Asian character who's very, you know, closed off. And then there's the one the the other ah performer in that scene, like hardly even speaks. And then, you know, the there's like more warmth and humanity and drama in the African billionaire um sketch. But who is that is I don't know, they didn't really feel like any of those people were

00:58:46.53
Speaker
like it truly inhabited in a way. Yeah, I think it I think that criticism is reasonably fair. and i And I think it does extend to most of the cast. I mean, Jeffrey Wright is one of my favorite actors. Like, I think he is. He's so great. Brilliant. You know, um just kind of comes and goes. You know, it's one of the least memorable Jeffrey Wright performances I can really remember. And it's unfortunate because he's so great. yep Yeah. Yeah.

00:59:14.62
Speaker
I don't know. they're just they're just it's you I think you hit the nail on the head here. ah Broad. it's just It's just too broad. It's broad. so ah More than one critic agreed with me that it recalled the films of Adam McKay. um you know He, of course, did The Big Short and Don't Look Up, which I was thinking somewhat of those films watching this one. um you know and The criticism of of McKay is that he's often too heavy-handed. The New York Post, that paragon of film criticism, called it a 96-minute op-ed.

00:59:47.84
Speaker
um You know, I only quote them when it's funny. ah Lots of people seem to feel the tone was too breezy. Oldman and Banderis were having too much fun as the bad guys. And as we kind of touched on, like, well, I can understand that as a visceral reaction. It just seems like that's the point. Like guys like that get away with stuff. Yeah. Like how else do you play them? Like they're ludicrously rich assholes who made a fortune you know helping other rich assholes hide, protect their money, dodge governments, evade the law. Like I mean, what did they're not going to be remorseful, you know, like and and like not only that, but like the movie needed them, like the movie needed them to be what they were, like the density of the material again, like this the central lack of a really central compelling performance. Like you needed that, like ah what jolt of life that they bring to the movie. Like I can't imagine this film without them in it and the way that they played them as well.

01:00:46.98
Speaker
yeah Yeah, absolutely needed that that humor, that that levity. um the The movie did have some defenders, um including Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune, a critic we both like a lot, and he mostly liked it. he wrote The movie doesn't entirely cohere, and it has its sledgehammer side in addition to its muttering quietly about the hypocrisy side, but Soderbergh and Burns remain exceptionally well-matched collaborators.

01:01:11.00
Speaker
Thereafter just enough human interest interest to make us care and just enough socioeconomic outrage to make us seethe some of us anyway." So kind of a mixed review, but he generally positive. And Owen Gleiberman, a variety called it, quote, a flukey contradiction that works, adding the laundromat as Soderbergh at his most playful and also Soderbergh at his most wonkish and damned in this case, if the two don't chime together.

01:01:37.76
Speaker
Now, ah one one thing we have to talk about, and I don't want to go on at great length about this because I'm not really qualified to go on at great length about this, but this movie was somewhat controversial. And I think that this is something that could have happened in 2019 and not in 2020 or 2021. Meryl Streep does brown face.

01:02:01.09
Speaker
Which was a choice. Yeah. I was going to joke when you talk about this the three hander with the Asian woman. I was like, well, at least it wasn't Meryl Streep playing her. ah Oh, yeah.

01:02:14.07
Speaker
Yeah. um Yes. I just happened. I just. I guess the only question I have is why. i I was watching again, because you don't know it until later in the movie. Yeah, they did reasonably well, I didn't get it. but Yeah, you're like, Oh, at the end, like, Oh, that, okay. um And watching again, I cannot think of a reason why to do that at all. I don't know if you have You know, I guess I'm not wildly outraged. Like, I don't think it's like the worst thing in the world. I certainly wouldn't like protest the movie on backgrounds. I protested over the ending before I protested over. um but But like.

01:02:55.71
Speaker
I'm not particularly like, I don't know, it's it's bad, it's bad. um But it's also so silly that it doesn't really, it doesn't really trouble me too much. The problem is, that the ultimate problem is I just don't even know why you do it. Like what is, what you were thinking. Yeah, for those who haven't seen the movie and aren't likely to based on our description of it, Streep also plays this character of these kind of low level secretary in Mossack Fonseca, who becomes you know after the unfortunate death of of ah someone else in her office, she gets promoted, which basically means she becomes the new CEO on paper of all these shell companies, which is basically just signing your name to a bunch of documents.

01:03:36.18
Speaker
and she at first she plays it as we we believe her character so somebody who's kind of befuddled she plays she plays in pretty amazing prosthetics and disguise and and brownface so she's playing a latina character a panamanian i guess and she is playing somebody who's really in over her head but then seems to be somebody who's maybe a little more sympathetic and then we start to think oh she's the mole who released the the papers or something and during the the ending you know this all ties into the ending you know she she removes the

01:04:08.34
Speaker
the makeup and reveals herself as Meryl Streep and we all go gasp, what an actor, she she've had us fooled. And then she, you know, that segues into the Statue of Liberty moment where she's doing direct address to the camera. um I think probably if I were, um you know, i Latin or Latina person, Latinx, I would be really offended because she's doing a very broad accent. She's, you know,

01:04:38.34
Speaker
It's just something that people just I don't think would have even been considered a couple of years later I just think people just don't do it. I'm not completely sure what the message is um Or the reason as you say the reason to have her do it ah Except for just another kind of Hall of Mirrors Scooby-Doo kind of moment um Yeah, that's that's the only thing I can think is just another it feels like another scam within the scam within the scam and But who cares? I don't, I just, I cannot, I thought about this for a bit. I'm like, again, yes, you wouldn't do this now. You shouldn't have done it then. but You know, if this were like 1943, I'd be like, okay, well. Yeah. I think it's certainly not as outrageous given that the movie the movie is,

01:05:24.94
Speaker
a satire and it's making political commentary and it's not and it's also not like obviously there's a real difference between somebody portraying like a different ethnicity like and just doing it in all earnestness and dramatically and like you know maybe taking that role from that from an actor you know who who could have otherwise done that you know they can see this is something they conceive dramatically that they thought would be a good twist or reveal in the movie it so it feels like it's kind of a weird thing in its own class but again it just felt I don't know, didn't seem necessary. And ah it definitely offended some people at the time. And it's it's another kind of rare tonal misstep. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. And I can see why people would be offended. Like, don't get me wrong. um It just total misstep is a great way to put it. It's something that like

01:06:14.86
Speaker
I just wish they hadn't done. I guess you can, like you said, you can look at it and be like, well, it's so broad and so goofy that like, you know, seeing that it was her, it's like, okay, I guess that makes sense. But like, realistically, I guess the lesson is just do just do not do that. There's just there's not you're you never thank God this this was like a year early, like you're never going to dig yourself. you dig You dig yourself in that whole, man, just throw the shovel up and just, ah you're never getting out. ah Yeah. Well, and actually this is going to tie a little bit into my big question for you, which we'll get to in a moment. Corruption is so widespread and the result is that governments

01:07:02.78
Speaker
are supported, and up because the wealthy are extracting value and taking it away, the the governments or end end up being supported by the people who can at least afford to support the government. So now they have all the pressure on them, and then they're looking at the results of what their politicians are doing, and they they don't understand what's happening.

01:07:27.64
Speaker
And so that was part of what we were trying to do is this is how this extraction takes place. um ah Transparency is the only solution. you know Sunlight is is really what we have to all be demanding. um But it's these are very entrenched people. These are very entrenched ideas. um it's it's ah it's going to be a It's going to be a struggle.

01:07:52.44
Speaker
All right, Mike, before we go, here's my big question for you that I've been teasing all episode. But get ready, it's a long question. It's longer than my summary of how the film was made. matt who All right. I've been thinking about it a lot as we enter the HBO, Netflix, anything goes phase of Soderbergh's career. I think he's still making terrifically interesting movies, but by opting out of the Hollywood system and more and more avoiding wide theatrical releases,

01:08:20.18
Speaker
Is he becoming less culturally relevant? ah We'll never really know if these movies were seen by more people as he hoped they would because of Netflix's secrecy, but it seems to me they definitely got less buzz. I don't believe I had any random conversations with friends about any of the movies that went straight to streaming. ah Soderbergh's Rebels on the Backlot peers were mostly pretty quiet in 2019, but hell, Quentin Tarantino released a little film called Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

01:08:51.34
Speaker
he actually big film, shot on film about film, you know that that packed a lot of theaters and got people talking. I mean, film fans went nuts for that movie. And let's say they weren't nuts about the laundromat. Is Soderbergh slipping away? Yeah, I mean, this is a really good question that really strikes to the heart of the changing media landscape, the changing movie landscape of relevancy.

01:09:22.03
Speaker
of how to get into theaters. Can you get into theaters? You know, like that's something that, you know, Soderbergh has been, you know, battling for a long time. And it's always been his arch neneus arch nemesis. And he has said, you know, like, yes, you can make a movie. Can you get it seen? And his his war has always been like, get the movie scene. So he's attracted to ah the potential to get the movie scene, you know, like, hey,

01:09:50.96
Speaker
We can put it on Netflix. We can put on, you know, uh, HBO max. Eventually we can do all these things. We can shoot an iPhone and, uh, get it done faster and, you know, pump it out through, uh, uh, what was it called? Leaker street. Right. Um, yeah with this new, with a new kind of distribution deal that, that is more generous to, to me as the director, you know, like he wants to make the move and he wants to get it seen. It's a very sort of simple equation in a very complicated landscape. Now.

01:10:19.54
Speaker
Is he slipping away? I mean, it's- And by that, I mean sort of like, is he becoming less culturally relevant or less part of the cultural conversation? Yeah, no. I mean, i in that context, I would say kind of, yes. because You look at, like, like you said, his peers, his good buddy, David Fincher, his, you know, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson. Maybe these aren't his peers, all of them per se, but people of his same ilk, you know, uh, the same autourish type director.

01:10:56.39
Speaker
And when they release a movie, when they release, um you know, licorice pizza, or like you said, once upon a time in Hollywood, um when they release once, you know, um you know, Fincher, you know, unfortunately, he did he's done he's got sucked into the Netflix vacuum. He has. But I feel like even Mank was a little.

01:11:19.54
Speaker
bigger, you know, than anything was like, whoa, Fincher. And I think there's a couple things going on here is like, one is yes. Scarcity a little bit.

01:11:30.35
Speaker
ah These guys come out with a movie every three, four years, if not more sometimes. That makes it an event. Makes it in an event. I mean, that is the biggest thing probably is how do you make it an event where it's like, this is the new Malick movie. This is the new whatever movie. And it becomes like something that cinephiles are going to flock to and see the 70 millimeter print and the road show and whatever the case may be. Soberg,

01:11:56.56
Speaker
absolutely does not do that, cannot do that. He just wants to make movies. you know He'll make it, again, like we've talked about, iPhone. He'll doodle a script on a bar napkin. It doesn't matter. like He writes a novel on Twitter. Yeah, exactly. like he He'll do anything. so He's not wired.

01:12:15.25
Speaker
for, I don't want to say the patience that it takes to to make an event movie because I don't think it, I don't think it definitely, it necessarily means that like Paul Thomas Anderson is more patient than Steven Soreberg. Maybe he is, but like he is so invested and maybe even addicted to the process of making movies that like, I don't think he has it. It's just not in his DNA to sit around and and really, really like work on a script for a long time, do a lot of pre-prep, do all these things, take time off, maybe shoot some commercials, make some money, whatever. like He does not wire for that. so I think he is a little impatient actually. you know I think that's fair and I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. It's just the way he's wired. he is he I don't think he has the patience to take three three years to make a movie.

01:13:01.78
Speaker
Yeah, you're probably right. I think that is. I think I was trying to be kind, but like, like it like, you know, like saying it's like a bad thing, but I don't think it is. I don't think there's any value attached to that negative or positive, you know. um But so, I mean, yeah, having that patience to make an event is just not in his DNA, at least seemingly. It's not from all our appearances. And then, you know,

01:13:25.48
Speaker
If you're not going to do it that all, you know, make it, make it an event where people are going to show up and you know, come for the 70 millimeter and the blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff that goes with like a Tarantino movie or PTA movie or whatever. Like now you find yourself like, well.

01:13:41.30
Speaker
the theatrical model doesn't really work that necessarily, you know, like, I'm saying, you know, it wasn't that big of a deal. Okay, shot an iPhone, like, that doesn't get people to flock to the cinema, like, they're not that interested. Yeah, iPhone on IMAX. Right, exactly. Like, whoo, whoo, can't wait, you know, like, that's, that's Nolan territory, you know. yes yeah um So, if you don't have those things, like,

01:14:06.22
Speaker
I think your immediate cultural relevancy does take a hit, you know but I think the longevity, the long-term cultural relevancy is preserved and will always be preserved. you know He's the guy that did all these crazy experiments and shot with this camera and made it in this length of time and for how much?

01:14:27.55
Speaker
you know and And it was that good. And he worked with these actors. like You look at Silverberg's filmography, you take that step back away from the, what have you done for me now or what have you done lately? That's been a landmark you know that we can be like, ooh, yeah. Remember Dunkirk? Ooh, boy. woo you know like yeah You take one Dunkirk for four of Silverberg's movies. You're like, oh, those are really good. I know those movies. you know like So it's it's it's it's about the optics, but optics in terms of relevancy, optics are everything. That's all relevancy is, is how you're perceived. And his perception in the here and now and from probably broader audiences is probably pretty low. like he's He's not the Aaron Brockovich guy anymore.

01:15:12.63
Speaker
i and What do you think? i mean yeah no i think i I would suspect that a lot of these late stage Soderbergh movies, um people just don't know about. you know We're film junkies and and we are on the prowl for things to watch and looking at interesting directors. and Obviously, we're doing a podcast about Steven Soderbergh and we are watching every single one of these movies. But I would guess that you know your average film fan knows the half dozen biggest Soderbergh films and has no awareness of High Flying Bird and Let Them All Talk and The Laundromat and you know it it makes me sad. I mean this this question actually occurred to me as I was screening next week's movie ah Let Them All Talk and I just had this feeling like Soderbergh is hiding his light under a bushel you know but

01:15:55.98
Speaker
Was it because he won't chase the audience or the audience won't follow him or, you know, is it really truly just because he's fed up with Hollywood and the distribution system? You know, while I wish his films were bigger events, you know,

01:16:12.33
Speaker
In some ways, they aren't event films. I mean, they're he's just actually making the kind of mid to low budget adult films that once had an audience in the 1970s, maybe again in the 1990s. And i I do love that. That's one of the things I love about him. um I want to let him weigh in here. I wish I had the audio, but ah for that interview with Filmmaker that I referenced earlier, I thought you were going to bring them out. you're like And I've got, I've got it right here. win that prize now That would talk about a reveal.

01:16:41.35
Speaker
A street worthy reveal. so Some Shyamalan stuff going on there. Actually, it's like it's like ah that old Woody Allen movie. It was at Manhattan when he says, like they're talking about Marshall McLuhan and he actually just brings Marshall McLuhan. Yes. Yeah, it's here at Manhattan or Annie Hall. Is that Annie Hall? Annie Hall. I think it's in my opinion. They're like, yeah. Anyway, film fans will know that scene.

01:17:03.38
Speaker
so Anyway, Soderbergh will weigh in through his words, read by me. Sorry, Mike. I wish I had audio, but this is a fascinating quote um that I think really speaks to what we've been talking about. It's difficult for me to imagine a scenario in which I would literally make a movie for a studio, he said.

01:17:25.02
Speaker
I'm too frustrated by the way that system works both economically and creatively. That's one of the reasons the Panama Papers Project will probably end up at Netflix because it's right in that zone of movies that the studios are not interested in. Mid-level budget movies for grownups.

01:17:41.13
Speaker
um And so he told the reporter that he was so convinced that no studio wouldn't would be interested that he didn't even set up meetings. He goes on to say, we didn't even take it out. We went to Netflix first and they seemed inclined to do it. And when we had a meeting, they said, so we're assuming you're going to want to do some kind of theatrical release or festivals. And he said,

01:18:02.46
Speaker
And I said, this is Soderberg talking, I don't care. I don't care if it never shows up in a theater and I don't care if I ever go to a festival again, you do whatever you need to do to get eyeballs on this thing. If that's the way you want to do it, that's fine. I'm just telling you, I don't care. I have a creative process now that I'm happy with, both in terms of developing projects and then making them and then putting them out. I'm now driven solely by what stories attract me, end quote.

01:18:29.23
Speaker
Now, I made a joking Woody Allen reference earlier, but now I'm wondering if it's apt in another way and no, not the gross way. Allen became someone for whom life was just making movies, almost like he didn't know any other way to exist. Soderbergh has much more range and is more dynamic than Woody Allen. um But I think they have that in common, that being on set is more important than anything else, including the film's reception.

01:18:54.90
Speaker
But what kind of bums me out is Soderbergh's assumption that no studio will make mid-level budget movies for grownups. I mean, surely he knows more about this than I do, but I can't help but think that if anyone could make one of these adult movies within the studio system, it's Soderbergh. And maybe if someone with his stature fought to do it, maybe they'd get more attention and maybe some of them would break out and maybe it would open the door for a few more to get made.

01:19:18.25
Speaker
Maybe. And I can tell he doesn't want to fight that fight. And that's totally fair. But I want Hollywood to get better, not for talented directors to disappear on streaming platforms. And that's a great point. I mean, that's the kind of one of there's so many things involved in this discussion. And one of it is the How the femoral streaming is you know like how things just get lost and buried and forgotten some gems it's not just sober there's tons of good stuff that's like.

01:19:51.18
Speaker
on, you know God, I mean, think about all the TV shows that you're like, I was talking something about Sugar the other day, the Apple Plus show, and I'm like, oh yeah, and you watch Sugar? And they're like, I've never heard of that. I'm like, it's Colin Farrell. And that's not not the insult to that person, but it just goes to show. There's so much, there's too much.

01:20:12.65
Speaker
A lot of it's good, a lot of it's great, a lot of it's garbage, um but like there is no telling what gets buried and what gets forgotten and what actually sticks around. and I'll tell you what, and you know this the stuff that gets sticks around that sticks around, there's not much of it.

01:20:28.96
Speaker
You need a theatrical release. You need a physical media release. You need all these things to be, you know, relevant and have longevity and have a literal shelf life because movies are on the shelf, you know, like um and it dumps. But it does bum me out because, yeah, like I want Soderbergh to be able to make the movie, he make the movies he wants to make and be culturally as culturally relevant as as he once was.

01:20:53.68
Speaker
um And I think that we learned, I think he was in a like pilot program where people learn the hard way that like, you know, this doesn't really work. At the time what he's saying absolutely makes sense. I just want to get eyeballs on this thing. I want people to watch it. I want people to see it. I just don't care. I want to make the thing and I want you to worry about watching it, people watching it. And there's nothing wrong with that. And at the time we know more now than we did then.

01:21:20.23
Speaker
um Would he make another Netflix movie? I'll be honest, I doubt it. It doesn't seem like he's crazy about that because I think his next two movies from next year are both theatrically going to be released theatrically. So there's hope for the future is what you're telling me. I i do think so. And I do think this this is my last thought. I also think that this comes at a time it's this being like sober right now, 2019, 2020, et cetera. He's kind of in a creative lull-ish. He's gone through so many. He makes so many movies. There are going to be peaks and valleys all over the place. you know

01:21:54.89
Speaker
but like You didn't love High Flying Bird. I liked it. I don't think I would like go bananas for it if it was at the theater. I don't know why I rushed to see it. I probably would because it's so weird, potentially. But you know this is OK. Let them all talk. We'll talk on next next episode. But it wasn't a movie that like people are talking about, for lack of a term. So like he's in a little bit of a lull in terms. I mean, it's going to pick. that I think, you know, we'll talk about No Sudden Move. but I think that movie is terrific. And I think people like that a lot more. And it kind of rag reminded people of Soderbergh. But like it doesn't help that like he's involved in a failed, the the failed streaming experiment and that he's not making his best stuff either.

01:22:39.51
Speaker
I agreed. Well, let's leave it there for now. We'll be picking up some ah more of this conversation next week as we talk about Let Them All Talk. ah So let's let's wrap it for this episode of the Filmographers podcast. We say this every time, but listeners, if you haven't taken action yet, please do it now. Take a moment to give us a five-star rating or a thoughtful comment or a four-star rating would be fine with us too.

01:23:06.35
Speaker
ah Let us know what you thought of the laundromat um or even Adam McKay movies if you want. Oh God Spoiler, season two of Filmographers will not, not, not be about Adam McKay movie. If you don't want to write your own review of the show, but you do want to leave us a review, you will find some to choose from in our show notes. If you have feedback or suggestions, you can also just email them to us at the filmographers podcast at gmail dot.com. I said that kind of funny. So I'll say it again, the filmographers podcast at gmail dot.com.

01:23:39.21
Speaker
And thanks, as always, to Kevin Lau, our just esteemed, wonderful, patient, hardworking producer. ah Thanks to Gomsen, who composed and played our theme music. And thank you to Cosmograph, who designed our logo. Join us next week on the Filmographers podcast, when we will discuss Soderbergh's next film for which Meryl Streep returns and Soderbergh returns to HBO. Maybe we should call up this podcast as seen on TV.