Is Richard Linklater’s Hit Man a buoyant comedy with a dark little void at its center, or are Jett and Gareth watching two entirely different movies? Their disagreement opens a conversation about desire, performance, identity, self-invention, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Bad Lieutenant, and the stories people tell themselves in order to keep going.
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Oh my goodness, folks, we're back.
It's gonna be a heck of a show. We're talking about Richard Linklater's Hit Man, the film that asked that immortal question, what if Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, but Martin Landau was in great shape? I'm Jett Loe.
I'm Gareth Higgins.
The conversation never ends, and I think it is gonna be a heck of a show, because here we are discussing a film by someone who has been, you know, I might at times have been known to say that Richard Linklater is my favorite contemporary director,
certainly the most diverse of the theme, and that kind of shaggy dog sensibility that he brings to all his films. Great dedication in a movie like Boyhood that took 12 years to make, with the three before films that they've been making over 30 years,
and the Merrily We Roll Along film that they are filming backwards over the next 20 years, and probably the lesser known but best Linklater film is Last Flag Flying, the sequel to The Last Detail, wonderful film. And I gotta be careful because I
don't want to go off on a rant until we've actually discussed what this film is about and what's going on in it and who's in it. It's co-written by Linklater and Glenn Powell, the new big it boy, I guess.
Yeah, basically he's the new Glenn Powell.
He's the new Glenn Powell and he's really good. Fantastic.
In a movie about a guy who works for the police department in New Orleans on the side, pretending to be a hit man in order to entrap people who are wanting to take out a hit on people that they don't like for various reasons or may feel that they
want to be protected from. And I believe we have a clip.
We do have a clip. This is right from the very beginning of the film as we see the new Glenn Powell, Glenn Powell, as a teacher. You know, he's kind of a sad sack because makeup and wardrobe has put him in like a plaid shirt.
The hair part is bad. He puts his hands behind his back, like he's kind of like cramped getting out of a Civic. He's trying to engage with his students, trying to get them excited about moral philosophy.
Well, actually, is there any other kind about philosophy? Let's listen in.
So what does Nietzsche mean when he says, the secret for harvesting from existence, the greatest fruitfulness, the greatest enjoyment is to live dangerously?
Build your cities on the slopes of the Suvias, send your ships into uncharted seas, live at war with your peers and yourselves. What is he getting at here? Anybody.
Sylvia.
It sounds like he's saying you have to put yourself out there. You have to take risks and get out of your comfort zone because life is short. You have to live passionately and on your own terms.
Well, I have a three word response to that.
Absolutely.
That's the guy driving the Civic.
And that was Hit Man Jett. I love you and life is a miracle.
Yes, it is incredible to be here.
Everybody has great struggles in life. Some people have unbelievable tragedies that face them. And so I'm saying that at the start because I don't want the whole of the show to be utterly negative.
I don't want the whole of the show to be utterly negative, but I just watched this film. I just watched this film and I've let it settle with me for a couple of hours. And let's just say I got some mixed feelings.
I got some mixed feelings about it because if it is satirizing the default behavior that many of us have, that we justify basically any action because it enabled us to live the life that we're living.
If it is satirizing that, and if it is a metaphor for that, then it's kind of brilliant. And I really don't think it's satirizing that. I think it's, spoiler alert, a screwball comedy that justifies murder or tries to justify murder.
Or in order to fully enjoy this film, one has to pretend that murdering somebody because they might expose you having murdered somebody else is totally fine as a path of, not just transformation, but personal growth.
And if Richard Linklater were here, I would really want to talk with him about this because I'm disturbed in my spirit about this well-made entertaining movie, very well performed by the lead in particular.
And up until the last 20 minutes, and really even up until the last 10 minutes, I was thinking, yeah, yeah, no, they're not this.
This is so literally, I'm thinking he's going to wake up and say it was all a dream, or it's some kind of role playing exercise like the Kobayashi Maru at the start of Star Trek 2.
But no, this film appears to end with one of the most horrifying murder scenes I've ever seen. And we're supposed to feel good about it. We're supposed to...
Oh, we can agree to disagree about that.
All right, we're supposed to feel like it's justified, that it's justified, and I'm bothered.
But as is increasingly the case these days, I'm willing to be proven wrong. I believe I was mildly mistaken about Furiosa. I'm looking forward to what you have to say, Jett.
Help me, help me, help me.
Do you mean you completely, completely misinterpreted the end of Furiosa?
I've seen Furiosa two more times since we talked about it, and it is true that the CGI version of elderly Chris Hemsworth does crack a very slight smile at the end of that movie when he sees the peach on the tree.
And I just wish the film, the film could have devoted a third of its running time to what we see passed over in the last two or three minutes that probably takes about a decade of time.
It would, that would be an extraordinary, an extraordinarily useful, meaningful exploration of what happens when someone realizes they are so far past any kind of moral code, they have destroyed so many people's lives, they cannot atone for it, they
cannot make up for it, but maybe they could collaborate with someone who's almost equally broken to build a bridge to something better for other people in the future. That's a very interesting idea. And Hit Man is the opposite of that film.
Well, I disagree completely. And my question here is what is the responsibility of the filmmaker to the audience? Do you have to assume the audience can read a movie?
What level of understanding does the audience have in terms of like film grammar? Because to me, if you're like, oh, it's clear, we see the smile. He's like a medieval ascetic saint.
He's giving himself up.
It happens too quickly. It happens too quickly. It's too quick for people to absorb.
Well, again, for people to absorb.
I mean, I guess if you're a professional film critic, maybe it's not because you're used to analyzing every frame of film.
It was too quick for me to absorb. So there you go. But I'm not a professional film critic.
I love you.
I had your books on movies.
We didn't say they were good books.
Well, they're books. I mean, and they're great installation. I'm here on 7,000 Vita up here in the New Mexico mountains, dear listeners, in between Santa Fe and Albuquerque.
If you're watching this on YouTube, don't forget to put it on YouTube. You'll see that my walls of my podcast studio are lined with books. And some of them are garrots.
And they're good books. And they're worth reading on film. So the same thing with Hit Man.
There is a horrific death at the end of Hit Man.
And if they hadn't shown it, if it was like, oh, we killed him, our protagonist killed him, and we didn't see it, and then it's all, you know, it's played for laughs, it's a happy ending, then I would agree with you about the moral turpitude of the
film. But instead, we have a two-shot of the actors. One actor, the new Glenn Powell is on the left. And we've got Adria Arjunov, that's how you pronounce her name.
I'm sorry, she's a great actress, is on the right. And then Dead Center, we, the audience, watch someone suffocate and die. It is horrific.
And also it's horrific because the two actors, they don't care. They're looking at each other, they're hot for each other. They love the roleplay, they love the games, they love their relationship.
It really turns them on. Instead, we in the audience are forced to watch this man suffocate to death. And it's horrifying, and it becomes a horror film.
You feel like you're watching a redditary or midsummer right there in the end. And what this tells me is, this is showing a world in which Hitchcock's suspicion, it turns out Cary Grant was the killer all along, which is what Hitchcock wanted to do.
The studio made him, you know, oh hey, I'm actually not a murderer. Hitchcock goes, no, this guy's a murderer. The world is dark and bleak and is filled with amoral people or people who use moral philosophy.
Is there another kind to justify their actions? What is Glenn Powell talking about at the beginning of the movie? He's talking about Nietzsche and Nietzsche's famously been used to justify horrific acts.
So we have a portrait of people that are justifying the worst things in the world to themselves so they can live a happy life. I didn't feel the director needed to spoon feed that message to me.
That horror scene at the end tells us that this is a portrayal of terribleness, which is why the entire film reminded me of Crimes and Misdemeanors right from the opening credits.
This is a Woody Allen film in which Martin Landau is almost kind of surprised to find out that he can commit the worst acts possible. What is worse than killing someone? Because when you kill somebody, dear listener, you take away everything.
That might be a line from a Clint Eastwood film, probably Outlaw, Jersey Whales, Pale Rider, Unforgiven. I don't know, one of those, right?
It's from Unforgiven.
And in Crimes and Misdemeanors, Martin Landau is shocked to find out that there is no judgmental god. Oh, I'm doing fine. And the opening of Hit Man starts with an old jazz soundtrack with bright white credits over black.
And immediately, I was like, oh my God, this is going to be some version of a Woody Allen film. So it's very intentional right from the beginning of what he's doing. It's a rom-com version to me of Crimes and Misdemeanors.
And to me, it succeeds brilliantly. We can talk about the filmmaking, the great cutting, the lightness of it, the cleverness of the roles that Glenn Powell makes.
And I also want to talk about movies as well, because it's a movie about movies, right from the very beginning. And we can talk about that. Is anything I'm saying making sense, Gare?
It's all making sense, and I don't see it that way.
The last bits about the movies, being a movie about movies and reminding you of Crimes and Misdemeanors and Woody Allen generally, I really felt like I was watching a 70s Woody Allen film.
Yes.
Yeah, got that. And the way in which it's a movie about movies, we see Glenn Powell play different characters when he goes to set up these fake hits. And they're not just your kind of...
There was a moment early in the film when I thought, oh, this is a bit like Zellig, you know, where he's showing up in different contexts. The one like Zellig, he's different every time.
And then they build and they build and each character is different, different, different. And it gets more extensive. It's so much more range.
You even get a reference. I read it as a reference to Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill.
At one point, this is a broad film and it has that kind of, you know, knowing in joke Easter egg equality for real film buffs, which Richard Linklater of course is, having founded the Austin Film Society.
Great movie theater if you're in Austin, make a point of heading down there. And all that said, I don't see it the same way as you do the music, the tone of the film is an invitation to enjoy these characters.
And there are two characters who are murdered by people that we're supposed to love. And we're supposed to not judge their actions. And the reason I feel that is the first one is portrayed as this reprehensible, coercive, abusive man.
So, in the film's moral universe, he deserves to die.
And the second one, if that character had been played by an actor who wasn't made to look creepy, who wasn't made to look like he's not going to be your best friend, I would be more apt to think, oh yeah, this film is trying to confront us with that.
But no, I really felt the film is trying to justify the murder of these people. And it's then one of the most nihilistic things I've ever seen. Let's go to the philosophical lectures.
And I hate to do this because you know me, like I hate to be critical, but they felt so shallow, so shallow, the shallowest readings of Freud, the shallowest readings of Jung.
And then the presentation before their final exam, you know, go make your lives extraordinary.
Part of the problem with that is it's been articulated as if the way to make your life extraordinary is to be individualistically self-obsessed and get everything you want for for yourself.
That's, and so we're on this kind of this, this strange, I'm not even sure what the analogy would be. Let's call it a razor's edge.
If Richard Linklater and Glenn Powell were here right now, we could talk to them about this and we could ask them about their intent. Yes. And so I can't, I'm not projecting what their intent might have been.
I'm talking about my experience of this film was I was distressed by it. I was not, I did not feel I am watching a satire. I did not feel that I was watching something that was critical of its main character's behavior.
I felt I was watching something that was saying, anything goes so the good looking people can have a happy life together.
That's right. Well, who narrates the movie? It's not Richard Linklater narrating the movie, it's the hero, the protagonist of the film who gets away with murder.
It is, I mentioned Alfred Hitchcock before because it does have that Hitchcockian quality where Hitchcock kind of slyly, we're get off his very crude grass, may be seen as pejorative, but he is not a murderer himself, but he was fascinated by and
sort of seemed that he vicariously lived through people that were amoral and you feel like a third of the old episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents is a great TV show that he direct a few episodes in and you know was produced by I believe one of his
collaborators, Joan Harrison. We see people get away with terrible crimes. This film is narrated by the murderer. This is his version. It's not, there's a difference between presenting something, look at this terrible thing.
That does not mean it's advocating it. Now you're saying it's advocating it because it's entertaining for so much of it that therefore by getting us to engage and to laugh, that's advocating for these terrible acts. For me, it's just the opposite.
That's why I was so struck by the death scene at the end, because if they hadn't done it, I would have felt the same way as you, like this is reprehensible.
But instead, they show us the horror and thereby showing us the moral acuity of these people, just because someone is in great shape and is a fine actor doesn't mean they're good people.
Where in a society, there were wards, pretty people, and this is saying there's nothing there. The emperor has no clothes.
So what's beautiful to me about this conversation is we can't know, and-
Unless we ask.
If you-
Let's get them on the show.
Yeah, I mean, I'd love to have conversations with them. And if you're right, this is a masterpiece. This is a masterpiece.
It's an extraordinarily important film. And if I'm right, God bless them. It's a nihilistic horror show that people are going to go away from not questioning the value of life.
So, I mean, there's not much point. I don't think either of us is interested in a kind of a tennis match back and forth about who's right, who's wrong about this.
It does actually produce a kind of a really good example of the possibility of confirmation bias because I can find ways to argue against you on this and you can find ways to argue against me on this. So let's do that for another minute or two.
The piece about showing the horror of the death, it doesn't feel that horrible because they portrayed this guy as a jerk and we don't see the other murder.
That requires more moral courage on our part. If he was a nice guy, it would be easier, but instead he's terrible.
You're right, but the tone of the film invites distance and not engagement. Particularly, the beauty of the two leads invites distance and not engagement.
I'm not going to speak for you, Jeff, but when I see Glenn Powell on the screen, I don't feel like I'm looking at myself. I don't feel myself mirrored by Tom Cruise.
As we both are, beautiful, beautiful men, beautiful, beautiful specimens of humanity, but I don't identify with the kind of male beauty myth, you know, your GI. Joe type.
Don't forget, Glenn Powell was hangman in Top Gun, Cole and Maffrey. He was.
And he's great. He's great. And he'll be great in Twisters, I'm sure.
He was great playing Tilda Swinton in this film.
That was a pleasant surprise. He did play, well, Tilda Swinton and Michael Caine. Christian Bale in American Psycho.
He did.
Well, actually, if you look at the, we were watching with subtitles and when he is appearing dressed as the, as Christian Bale in American Psycho, the subtitles actually say Patrick Bateman is speaking, so-
Fantastic. Let me tell you, Glenn Powell, I just want to say I'm watching and going, wait a minute, why isn't this guy playing Superman? Because he's so clearly, there's that famous scene in Superman 2.
I don't know which version, folks. There's so many different versions. I think there's a Richard Donner, Richard Donner's Gardener did a 17-hour cut, it's supposed to be fantastic.
He's taken the skills he used in pruning to cutting film. I don't know. It's not all gold.
But my point is the scene in Superman 2 without special effects, we see Clark Kent, he wants to reveal himself to Lois Lane. He takes off his glasses and he transforms himself into Superman. And it's just great.
He just changes his posture and his level of confidence. It's great. And you're watching Glenn Powell like, hey, this guy should be Superman.
Well, I want to go back, Chet, again, I'm finding this whale a much more pleasant experience for me than it was seeing the last 20 minutes of that movie.
And perhaps we're going to have a running series of me being entirely mistaken about the intent and the climax of-
That was called The Film Talk. 266 episodes.
You did say, you did say, and I'm sitting here unless, I'm not a stone's throw. You probably have to throw the stone, run out, pick it up, throw it again, run out, pick it up and throw it again.
So I don't know, that's three, I'm three stone's throw widths from the house where we tried to watch Ryan's Daughter about 15 years ago. I think we should watch Ryan's Daughter for the show and discuss that.
And you're looking at me with that look, so I'm going to move on.
I just love the fact that I didn't know, are you in Northern Ireland? I had no idea.
Yes.
Dear listeners, you know, Gareth is an international traveler. I am basically seconded now for legal reasons, but possibly 7,000 feet up here in the mountains. No one's coming.
In a monastery?
In a monastery?
If anybody's coming for me, I can see them. Because you ever see Psycho Gareth, great film, Back to Hitchcock, you see that house looks imposing, like you're not going to go to that house.
And a friend of mine asked, like, am I worried about like being so isolated out here up in the mountains, someone's going to come for some reason?
I'm like, if you could see the property where I live, and the drive to this house in the distance, no one's coming up here. There ain't nobody coming up here.
That does actually remind me of the thing I was meaning to say, which is you said something earlier that I want to say I also differ with you on this, and I think you probably differ with yourself. You probably differ with yourself.
Well, that gets back to the question of what is the self, but we'll talk about that in a second.
You said the world is full of bleakness, the world is full of darkness, the world is full of amoral people. I don't think that's true. I don't think that's true.
I know you're using it as a figure of speech, but if the world was full of that, our lives would be unbearable. The world is actually full of people choosing not to be barbaric or paleolithic, as is mentioned in the film.
The world is full of people who are lumping it. The world is full of people who are compromising. The world is full of people who are stepping out of the way of someone to let them get past.
Now, that may seem less than utopian. Of course, it's less than utopian. The world also has a lot of courage and creativity in it.
And as we've discussed before many times, courage and creativity often doesn't look spectacular enough to be a headline or to get a movie made about it. And that's a question I'd want to ask the people behind this movie.
If it is true that Gary Johnson, the person who it's based on, who apparently led to the arrests of 70 people who were trying to have other human beings' lives taken, if it is true that the film is based on his real story and he didn't actually
murder anybody, and as they say in the caption at the end of the movie, we made that bit up, why would you take this story about what appears to have been a person who at great personal risk saved potentially 70 lives in the course of his career? Why
would you take that story and make it worse or make it less interesting? Why would you do that instead of just telling the story about this apparently decent bloke, fun to hang out with, who happened to have a sideline and pretending to be a hitman
in order to protect people around him? Why would you do that other than if you're in a marketplace that depends on the false belief that the world is full of bleakness and that the only kind of spectacle that sells is violent spectacle?
Everything doesn't have to be everything. This is the story they wanted to do. Maybe they wanted to do a fun kind of dark rom-com, again, going back to kind of a-
That lies about the real life person.
That lies about the real life person that it's based upon.
Wait a minute. No, are you saying you're watching Hit Man with Hangman from Top Gun colon maverick and.
The actors from Warbius and you're like, I'm expecting- In order to make the point because- No, but it's fun.
It's entirely possible, who am I to say, that Gary Johnson himself, he appears to have been the kind of guy who might have liked this movie, who might have thought, yeah, do that, make some jokes.
Like what was the Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, the alleged biopic of Chuck Barris, which apparently-
Or Catch Me If You Can, the completely made up tale, that Spielberg directed. To me, I would parcel that out. I don't feel there's anybody watching this wondering, I don't think they're true to the Gary Johnson story.
And by the way, it's causing me a little bit of, not confusion, but unsettlement, and maybe for some of the listeners here in New Mexico.
Gary Johnson we're talking about is not Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, who famously said, what is Aleppo, and was advocating for marijuana use.
Just so we're clear, Governor Gary Johnson, who I've never met, oddly enough, I was with the governor of New Mexico, Michelle Luan Grisham yesterday, but not Gary.
I was with the lieutenant governor of Vermont just a few weeks ago. Are we like on a governor tour?
I don't know. It all sounds like lies to me. Listen, how about this, because I feel bad for you.
We had very different reactions and I feel bad for the reaction. What film would you recommend in a similar vein perhaps as a palate cleanser in Hit Man? Would you recommend to the listeners?
So the film about similar themes that I think does this better than any other film, and unfortunately, it's pretty much impossible to get.
I'm imagining because of rights issues, is a movie that was released in Europe, I believe, under the title Killer, but its original title is Bulletproof Heart, I believe written and directed by Mark Malone, only went on to make one more film.
This is a film with Anthony LaPaglia as a Hit Man who gets hired through his fixer, Peter Boyle, to murder someone next Saturday night.
It's a week in the life of this Hit Man and he accidentally falls in love with Mimi Rogers, who is the person he's supposed to kill and the twist in the premise is that she's the person who has hired him to do this because she wants to die.
And this is a film of serious philosophical substance and intent that is worthy of comparison to Kieślowski's short film about killing and is trying to make the point that you believe Linklater and Glenn Powell are trying to make here and they may
well be trying to make. And you're right, just because I didn't respond to something the way the people behind it might have intended doesn't make me right.
And again, we've talked before and we could talk to the cause come over, but how much does it really matter what the intent of the artist is?
Isn't there a story about Kubrick telling an interviewer, I could tell you what I think 2001 is about, but it would never match the meaning of your interpretation to yourself.
But if you want to watch a film that is definitely about the horror of killing people and the value of life, that confronts you in a deeply philosophical way with the best performance that Anthony LaPaglia has ever been allowed to give someone who
should have had a... Yeah, I mean, that's coming out the wrong way. It's the best role he's ever had. It's the best role he's ever had.
Maybe Lantana. He's written Lantana as well. Watch Bulletproof Heart or Killer if you can find it.
If you can find it.
Well, I'll recommend something which I think might be easier to find, and that's Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant, Port of Call New Orleans, in which you have a similar situation. Imagine if the guy that dies in Hit Man, what is his name? Gary Johnson?
Who is the actor? Austin. Austin Emilia?
Jasper. Imagine if he was the protagonist. That kind of gives you a sense of Bad Lieutenant.
Nicolas Cage is a corrupt cop, but it goes through and asks those questions. What is the nature of personality? What's the nature of being?
What's the nature of character? Are we just what we do now? And is there the possibility of change?
Is it possible to become a better human being? I think it would make a great double bill with Hit Man because I don't want to give away spoilers, but there's a very different ending. And maybe there's a possibility for ending, for change.
I mean, that's a question I ask myself all the time, and I'll tell you why, Gareth. Yesterday I had the opportunity to get some of the Keurig K-Cups for free. I got a Keurig machine up here in the mountains.
I'm not saying it was at this governor's reception. It could have been. And I did not take those K-Cups.
Character is what you do when no one's watching.
Well, what is it Kuato said in Total Recall?
Remember, Kuato, I think he said, well, let's have a clip. This is Kuato talking to Douglas Quaid, played by Schwarzenegger here. Kuato's talking about the nature of self.
Let's listen in.
What do you want, Mr. Quaid?
The same as you, to remember.
To be myself again. You are what you do. A man is defined by his action, not his memory.
Thank you, Kuato.
So, yes, you are what you do. A man is defined by his actions, not his memory. So I didn't take those K-cups, but an earlier Jett Loe maybe would have taken the governor's K-cups.
I did not take the governor's K-cups. And as such, I'm drinking coffee that I had to brew myself with the beans rather than just put the K-cup in. You see what I'm saying here?
As Frank TJ.
Mackey and Magnolia would say, I don't think there's anybody listening who can't identify with that kind of pain, Jett, of having to brew the coffee by yourself. I do have a question. Yes, sir.
I'm here to answer all questions before we wrap up.
First of all, can I come and visit you on your clifftop monastery sometime?
Sure.
Now, cliffs, mountains. Oh, you're always welcome. You do that.
I beg the listeners. All the listeners are welcome.
Like, I have problems with altitude, but you know.
Oh, well, then that's going to be a problem.
We need to take it slowly. My other question is this.
Even if your interpretation of Hit Man is on the money, what still bothers me about a film like this, when people get actualized is, and I recognize it's difficult to do this, but to tell a story about self actualization that doesn't include the web
and the network and the ecosystem of other relationships, both the impact that we have on others and that they have on us is at least how only, you know, at best it's half the story. At worst, it actually produces a more selfish society.
It's the problem. I always have a dead poet society, which is, which is a strange film because it never seen it. Well, so I won't give anything away, but it is a beautifully made film.
It is a brilliantly performed film and every part of it is fantastic. And it's Peter Weir and Peter Weir has never, he's never made anything less than one of the best versions of that kind of story. Whatever story he was telling at the time.
But the philosophical position that the teacher has in that film, John Keating, Robin Williams, beautiful performance is to teach boys seize the day, but seize the day gets very obliquely defined as make your life extraordinary.
And then extraordinary is like purely the claiming of individual desire. You know, there's someone who wants to be an artist.
Rather than participating and lifting up a community is what we're talking about. You're talking about networks and relationships.
And it may well be, I mean, there's stages of development where we think, you know, I want to be an astronaut or I want to be an actor or I want to be a lawyer, whatever it whatever it is I want to be.
And then eventually, if we grow, usually if we're intervened with and initiated by wiser mentors, we open that up into, oh, I want to be an actor because I want to serve the audience or I want to be a lawyer because I want to do civil rights law or
help people who are in genuine oppressive difficulty. And the problem is our culture usually doesn't intervene in a way that moves people beyond the individualistic, I want this for me so that I'll actualize myself.
And the, you know, maybe the best we can hope for is that we will get what we want and discover that it's not actually what we wanted after all, that there's something more, you know, there's something more than, I don't know, being a bestselling
author. You sell loads of books and discover that's not the source of the happiness, it's the dialogue or the interaction with readers or it's the pleasure of the writing in and of itself.
Anyway, the main point is that the web of relationships doesn't exist in Hit Man.
What you're describing is America. And who is more American and or more of a Texan director than Richard Linklater?
My favorite director, maybe not any, I don't know, he's brilliant.
And you're asking about intent, last thing. Last thing is that, hey, guess what? We have a whole corpus of movies to watch.
This is not a guy that directed, it doesn't have Michael Bay or Zack Snyder's filmography here. So, if you're curious about his intent with Hit Man, I would suggest you watch his other films.
And that might give you a hint as to where he's coming from.
So let's recommend one Linklater film. I'm going to recommend Last Flag Flying, even if you haven't seen the last detail.
And I'll recommend his latest, Hit Man, starring Glenn Powell as Clark Kent Superman. Great film. Folks, you can support us if you want to, don't forget you can go to patreon.com/ The Film Talk.
We've got bonus episodes. We're going to record a bonus episode right here for this. This should be fun.
It's a 2B or not 2B. Do you want to watch this on 2B or not for free with ads? The film we're going to be doing is Q colon Quetzalcoatl comma The Winged Serpent by the great Larry Cohen.
If you want to find out if you should watch it or not, don't forget you can just go to Patreon. Also, you know, I'm talking to a lot of people on threads, Garrett. I'm talking to people on threads.
Are threads still a thing?
Kind of.
I'm talking to people about the movies. You can follow me at the threads. I'm jet underscore low, L-O-E, J-T-T underscore low, L-O-E.
You can be one of the select few that follow me on threads. I'm talking about movies all day there. What do you want to plug, Garrett, before we go?
What I want to plug?
I want to get a new book out and I've got nothing.
Well, I do have a new co-authored book coming out in October that I'm really excited about.
Too soon to plug.
So, you go through the...
You go, well, I'm not plugging it. I'm not plugging it. I'm just saying it exists.
I'm just saying... And you can pre-order it. It's called A Whole Life in 12 Movies.
I got to co-author it with Kathleen Norris, the great Kathleen Norris.
Is one of the films Hit Man?
It was released too recently to be in the book.
But it's a movie about how you can trace the life cycle of a human in a reflective way, in a contemplative way, by taking one movie for each stage of the life cycle of a human, trying to invite some contemplation about before birth, all the way up to
after death. Even if there is an after death, I really enjoyed writing it. And six months after we finished editing it, I was looking at it again the other day. And I like it.
No stronger praise.
Coming from Gareth Higgins. Folks, it's been a great show. Thanks for listening to The Film Talk.
I've been Jett Loe.
I've been Gareth Higgins. I always like it, Jed, when you say it's been a great show. Because it lifts my spirits.
We'll keep talking next time.