Richard Brody

He definitely fits.

Yeah, of, like, kind of disreputable genre movie makers having, like, distinctive flourishes and styles unexplored by the mainstream, which is... interesting discussion um richard brody had an interesting piece in the new yorker kind of vehemently pushing back on the framing and i can link that

uh was that the one recently where he also mentioned like neil breen or was that a separate thing

that was a separate one

There were all these critics.

And You kind of, back in the day when there were like house critics, which there barely are anymore, there's, you know, I mean, there's people at the Times, I like Manolo Dargis, you know, and I really like Richard Brody.

Richard Brody, of course.

Richard Brody is excellent.

He's holding it down.

And he's much better than like the two critics before him.

Yeah.

Our colleague Richard Brody once referred to Minnelli as the Frederick Wiseman of Hollywood confectioners.

[laughs]

Ah, okay, okay.

W-I-C-K-H-A-M.

Yeah, former club of Richard Brody.

Wickham.

No kidding.

But there are more places than ever to tell somebody what you thought about a movie.

TikTok, YouTube, podcast like this one listen give everybody a platform everyone can ever critique but there are certain critics whose opinions i actually want to hear from one critic who i love is the new yorker's very own richard brody and for the uninitiated this man has some wild ass reviews People refer to Brody as a contrarian, but I love reading critiques that I don't always agree with, like his review of Best Picture winner Parasite.

He wrote of Bong Joon-ho's filmmaking, quote, his messaging is so on point, his rhetoric so rigid, that there's hardly anything left untethered to allow the viewer imaginative freedom, end quote.

Personally, I find it best that morality tales are straightforward and direct, and not once did I find my own imagination inaccessible while watching it.

It's still playing in select theaters, so check to see if it's screening near you.

Brody compares the film to the 1960 masterpiece La Ventura and also calls it a wise, loving political peon to the life of art and the art of living well.

We're talking to Shotaro today about what it actually costs to make these films, their time as director James Gray's assistant, what they learned working on his film, The Lost City of Z, and finally, how they feel about Richard Brody's review of their latest film.

Feedback starts now.

you know what i'm good that's just not it's just not a thing anymore you know like movie critics like you know we used to have like pauline kale who was like you know in the culture treated like of joan didion you know yeah it's like now we have like i don't know like

what's his name richard brody richard brody mentioned Oh, Richard Brody.

And my favorite movie this year is Sinners.

Richard Brody, to me, is the most wrong guy in the entire world.

Just the most wrong guy in the world.

I mean, there are a lot of things that he says where I'm like, Okay, like, that doesn't really piss me off, but about two-thirds of what he says, I'm like, you're an idiot.

That's a good question.

You have to have some qualifications, right? Yeah.

And I'm thinking maybe the cut isn't the problem, you know? But this was a very divisive film when it debuted at Cannes.

And I think some critics, Richard Brody famously loved it as an example of just, you know, an artist unchained and what his late style looks like and...

Other people absolutely hated it and said, this is the dumbest shit I've ever seen.

And maybe the answer is just yes.

exactly.

The one thing, I mean, I think Janice Rule is fantastic in this, who plays... uh shirley abbott the the former paramour of burt langaster's character she was replacing barbara loden who is sort of a she is kind of the tone of the swimmer in a person if anyone's seen wanda or seen barbara loaded in anything just a a deeply tragic figure i mean richard brody famously called her the the female counterpart to john cassavetes richard brody apparently unaware of jenna roland i guess um he doesn't see a lot of movies but uh just like a you know she's a phenomenal presence but i i think you know what what we get is is tremendous um but it's interesting to to imagine that there's like there is this sort of even more version of this film yeah um Lancaster famously claimed to have paid $10,000 of his own money for like one more day of shooting that they needed.

Also, I believe, learned to swim for the film.

Yeah, it turns out he