‘Hit Man’ With Glen Powell and Richard Linklater!

The Beatles Biopic Casting Rumoran unconfirmed scoop, and a Sam Mendes report card

Empire of Light 2022

Mendes's last film and, to both hosts, a disaster. Sean calls it 'the most COVID shit of all time,' so bad they never really discussed it on the podcast.

1917 2019

The big hit right before Empire of Light; Sean liked it a lot.

Spectre 2015

'That movie stinks.'

Skyfall 2012

'Fucking masterpiece. Absolute classic.'

American Beauty 1999

Mendes's debut; Amanda's favorite of his '90s work.

Road to Perdition 2002

Sean: 'a really good movie.'

Revolutionary Road 2008

Sean stands for it: 'the rare revolutionary road guy.'

Jarhead 2005

Amanda mostly remembers it as 2005-06 Jake Gyllenhaal being really hot rather than as an investigation of war films.

Away We Go 2009

The midlife-crisis movie; Amanda saw it alone in a since-shuttered Brooklyn theater.

‘Hit Man’Linklater and Powell's rom-com noir

Hit Man 2023

Linklater's twisty rom-com thriller, co-written and produced by Glenn Powell, who plays Gary Johnson, a New Orleans philosophy professor moonlighting as a fake hitman for the NOPD, luring people who want someone killed into recorded stings. Loosely based on Skip Hollandsworth's 2001 Texas Monthly story; the real Gary was an eccentric but committed no murders. The hosts track how it shifts from a character comedy (Powell cycling through a dozen disguised hitmen) into a steamy romance with Adria Arjona's Madison, then into noir once she kills her abusive husband using what Gary taught her. Sean's watched it three times; both single out the notes-app scene near the end, Gary coaching Madison through a police interrogation on his phone while both perform for the listening cops, as the movie scene of the year. Ends on a deadpan happily-ever-after in which the two murderers raise kids together. Bought by Netflix out of the festivals for $20 million.

Bernie 2011

Linklater's other Texas-true-crime comedy, also drawn from a Skip Hollandsworth story, which the show put in his hall of fame the week before. Both prefer Hit Man; Sean argues Powell does more with the nice-guy-capable-of-murder register than Jack Black did, and that Hit Man plays its ending straighter.

The Nutty Professor 1996

Sean's comparison for the first 30 minutes: Powell as Gary playing between six and twelve disguised hitman personas, like Eddie Murphy's multi-character turn.

American Psycho 2000

One of Powell's hitman disguises is a dead-on, unspoken Patrick Bateman: the suit, the tie clip, the slicked-back hair, played straight with no acknowledgment. Sean's favorite of the bunch.

The Killer 2023

Fincher's hitman movie, also a Netflix title, offered as the contrast: Fassbender's operative belongs to a fancy secret conglomerate, where Hit Man is feet-on-the-ground, blue-collar, ask-around-a-strip-club stuff.

In conversationon the pandemic phone calls, the rehearsal method, and Everybody Wants Some!!

Glenn Powell and Richard Linklater on

Hit Man 2023

Powell brought Linklater the Hollandsworth article about 20 years after Linklater first read it (Powell was in junior high). They broke the whole story over pandemic phone calls, never once in the same room, expanding a one-paragraph anecdote about a woman Gary spared into a body-swap identity romance. Production moved from Houston to New Orleans partly for Louisiana's rebates, partly because the city fit Gary's many personas. The late interrogation set piece, where every lie surfaces at once, got a disproportionate share of their rehearsal time.

Glenn Powell and Richard Linklater on

Everybody Wants Some!! 2016

Powell and Austin Amelio's earlier Linklater film, which the Ringer worships; a modest commercial performer now finding cult status. Powell calls the ranch-rehearsal shoot the definition of what making movies is about. Amelio, written into Hit Man with him in mind, nearly walks off with the movie as Jasper.

Glenn Powell and Richard Linklater on

Fast Food Nation 2006

Powell's first Linklater collaboration, cast as a teenager alongside Paul Dano. He broke his wrist before shooting and feared he'd be fired; Linklater kept the cast in, reasoning there's always a kid with a cast in high school.

Glenn Powell and Richard Linklater on

Dazed and Confused 1993

Linklater's spiritual progenitor to Everybody Wants Some!!, invoked for the same studio-ish-film-with-an-indie-release trajectory.

Glenn Powell and Richard Linklater on

The Fall Guy 2024

Powell's most recent great watch, seen a couple of days earlier. (It also comes up in the opening as the reason the Academy is exploring a stunt Oscar.)

Glenn Powell and Richard Linklater on

Singin' in the Rain 1952

Linklater rewatched it on a plane.

Glenn Powell and Richard Linklater on

Un Flic 1972

Jean-Pierre Melville's last film, with Alain Delon, which Linklater finally caught in Paris. He's glad to see it, though he agrees it's no one's pick for Melville's best.

Glenn Powell and Richard Linklater on

The Mother and the Whore 1973

Jean Eustache's three-hour film, recently remastered and reissued on Criterion; Linklater has returned to it over the years and rewatched it feeling close to the French filmmakers while in Paris.

Also mentioned raised along the way

Around the Beatles rumor Gigi & NateRocketmanNever Let Me GoThe Iron ClawYellow SubmarineHorizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

Redo-the-Oscars tangent GoodfellasPulp Fiction

Powell and Arjona, in passing Top Gun: MaverickAnyone but YouThe GodfatherFather of the Bride6 UndergroundTriple FrontierShazam!Harold and the Purple Crayon

Scenes of the year Dune: Part TwoChallengers

Next week / this summer TwistersBad Boys: Ride or DieThe Watchers

Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads

TV Slow HorsesCabaret (Mendes TV special)

Stage The Lehman TrilogyKing Lear

Podcasts JMO

Ads BandsplainDancing with the Stars