‘The Holdovers’ and ‘The Hunger Games.’ Plus: Eli Roth!

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & SnakesAmanda's crisis, Sean's more measured take

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes 2023

A prequel to the Jennifer Lawrence trilogy, following a young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blythe) as he mentors Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) in the 10th Hunger Games. Amanda thought it fucking blew: bloated world-building, a Lumineers-style singing subplot she loathed, and a Zegler-Blythe romance with no chemistry. Sean thought the first two-thirds worked as a straight Hunger Games movie but the final third, once Snow gets banished, goes bland and confusing. Both agree Viola Davis and Jason Schwartzman are having a great time chewing scenery.

Constantine 2005

Cited to make the point that director Francis Lawrence has been making slick studio genre movies for 20 years, so incompetence isn't what's driving the movie's problems.

Slumberland 2022

Lawrence's Netflix film that "not a single person saw," part of why he needed this one to hit.

West Side Story 2021

Sean's reminder that Zegler was genuinely great here; the film itself just went unseen.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods 2023

Filed under one of the worst movies of the year, part of the rough stretch Zegler's been navigating.

The HoldoversAlexander Payne's first film in six years

The Holdovers 2023

Paul Giamatti plays a prep-school classics teacher stuck minding the students who can't go home for Christmas break, alongside Da'Vine Joy Randolph as the school's grieving cook and newcomer Dominic Sessa as the one kid left behind. Sean loved it: he laughed, cried, calls Sessa a real discovery and Giamatti one of the best actors alive. Amanda admired it without connecting to it, and can't quite pin down why. To her it's a well-made, well-acted Christmas dramedy that plays like a deliberate throwback to 1970s character pieces, without the bigger idea she thinks Payne is usually chasing.

Harold and Maude 1971

The film Payne himself is most associated with championing, and the clearest tonal ancestor: bone-dry, sad, funny.

The Last Detail 1973

Another 70s touchstone Sean names for the film's mismatched-trio, bittersweet register.

Dead Poets Society 1989

The prep-school comparison that keeps coming up ("O Captain, My Captain"); Amanda has real affection for it.

With Honors 1994

One of three 90s prep-school movies (outsider enters a high-society institution) that Amanda says hit her at exactly the right age.

School Ties 1992

Grouped with With Honors and Outside Providence as Amanda's formative 90s prep-school run.

Outside Providence 1999

The third in that same run of 90s prep-school movies.

Make Way for Tomorrow 1937

Leo McCarey's film about an elderly couple losing their home and being split up by their grown children, which Payne recommended as a companion piece. Sean watched it for the first time this week and calls it one of the saddest movies he's ever seen. He says it retroactively deepened his read on The Holdovers as a movie about parents and the people who stand in for them.

Where this sits in the Payne filmographyand whether it needed a bigger idea

Election 1999

Sean's favorite Payne film made in his lifetime, anchored by Tracy Flick, a character he sees a version of in himself.

Sideways 2004

Payne and Giamatti's first collaboration; The Holdovers is billed as their reunion.

Nebraska 2013

Sean's other favorite: a small story about overlooked, aging people in the middle of the country that carries a bigger idea about who America casts aside.

Downsizing 2017

Payne's prior film and a commercial bomb; Sean rewatched it for this episode and still finds it a bold, ambitious sci-fi farce whose relationships never quite gel, even though its environmental themes do.

The Descendants 2011

The Payne film Sean likes least, though he still likes it fine, and the one the Academy loved most before The Holdovers.

Citizen Ruth 1996

Invoked as a reminder of how much bitterer and stranger Payne's early work was compared to this one.

Sincerity, awards chances, and the rest of the fieldBelfast, Licorice Pizza, and what makes a movie feel sincere

Belfast 2021

Sean's awards-season comparison point: a lovely, sentimental favorite he liked but didn't think should win Best Picture, similar to how he expects The Holdovers to be received.

The Zone of Interest 2023

Named as the kind of more audacious filmmaking Sean is hungry for after a movie as reserved as The Holdovers.

The Color Purple 2023

Unseen at recording time, but flagged as another likely Best Picture contender that, unlike The Holdovers, probably won't make audiences feel good.

Frances Ha 2012

One of Amanda's favorite films and her go-to example of a sincere movie made in the last 30 years: limited scope, young woman at the center, an obvious point of comparison for The Holdovers.

Arrival 2016

Sean's pick for a sincere modern film; Amanda loves it too.

Licorice Pizza 2021

Paul Thomas Anderson's deliberate step back in scale and ambition, which Sean thinks lands emotionally in a way that hits him harder than The Holdovers does.

Eli Roth on Thanksgivingthe slasher he's wanted to make since he was twelve

Eli Roth on

Thanksgiving 2023

Roth's holiday slasher, built out from the fake trailer he made for Grindhouse. He and co-writer Jeff Rendell grew up in Massachusetts obsessed with the genre and treated the movie's inciting Black Friday stampede and mystery-killer structure like a real whodunit, workshopping every kill and every Boston accent for years before finally shooting it.

Eli Roth on

Grindhouse 2007

The Tarantino/Rodriguez double feature that housed Roth's original Thanksgiving fake trailer. It was a bomb at the time, but the trailer became the thing fans kept asking him to actually make.

Eli Roth on

The Green Inferno 2013

Roth's cannibal movie, delayed a full year by its distributor before release, part of why he stepped back from pure horror for a decade.

Eli Roth on

Knock Knock 2015

A movie Roth felt was mishandled on release but that quietly became a Netflix hit afterward.

Eli Roth on

Death Wish 2018

His Bruce Willis remake, taken almost on impulse after another project fell through, the start of him deliberately branching out of horror.

Eli Roth on

The House with a Clock in Its Walls 2018

His PG family horror movie with Cate Blanchett and Jack Black, made to prove he could control tone and production design on a bigger budget.

Eli Roth on

Inglourious Basterds 2009

Roth's acting turn for Tarantino, cited as the experience that helped prepare him to work with major stars.

Eli Roth on

Borderlands 2024

His next film, mentioned twice, shot during COVID with Cate Blanchett, Jack Black, and Kevin Hart, more logistically challenging than he expected.

Eli Roth on

Arthur the King 2024

The Mark Wahlberg adventure-race drama Roth says he produced, which Sean had texted him about without realizing Roth was involved.

Eli Roth on

Imaginary 2024

The upcoming Blumhouse horror-comedy about a girl's creepy imaginary friend, whose trailer Sean found genuinely funny.

Eli Roth on

M3GAN 2022

Cited twice as recent horror Roth actually enjoyed, distinct from viral-gimmick horror he's less interested in.

Eli Roth on

Scream 1996

Roth's standard for a slasher with no logical cheats: a movie that earns its reputation by following its own rules to the end.

Eli Roth on

The Ring 2002

His other example of a horror movie that holds together because it's well written all the way through.

Eli Roth on

Sleepaway Camp 1983

The movie whose ending made him scream and jump out of his chair; he calls the finale legendary.

Eli Roth on

Pieces 1982

His favorite slasher film, over-the-top and ridiculous but, to him, exactly what Texas Chain Saw Massacre's kills promised and didn't fully deliver.

Eli Roth on

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974

The film Pieces' chainsaw scenes were, for young Roth, a more satisfying answer to.

Eli Roth on

My Bloody Valentine 1981

Named as one of the slashers that actually plays fair as a whodunit.

Eli Roth on

Happy Birthday to Me 1981

Grouped with the whodunit-slasher tradition Roth says is underrated and hard to pull off.

Eli Roth on

The Prowler 1981

Another entry in Roth's rundown of guessing-game slashers.

Eli Roth on

The Mutilator 1984

Roth's example of a slasher that doesn't even try to be clever (a father just methodically kills everyone), and he says he appreciates that honesty too.

Eli Roth on

Mute Witness 1995

A largely forgotten British thriller Roth calls one of the best cat-and-mouse slashers ever made; he recently caught a rare 35mm screening.

Eli Roth on

April Fool's Day 1986

One of Roth's favorite holiday slashers, part of the lineage he's tapping with Thanksgiving.

Eli Roth on

Black Christmas 1974

Named as the film that effectively started the holiday-slasher subgenre.

Eli Roth on

Halloween 1978

The genre's biggest touchstone in that same holiday-slasher lineage.

Eli Roth on

New Year's Evil 1980

Another holiday slasher Roth cites in tracing the subgenre before Thanksgiving.

Eli Roth on

Silent Night, Deadly Night 1984

A formative theatrical experience for Roth as a kid. He calls it extremely fucked up and rapturous, and recently rewatched it at a New Beverly screening.

Eli Roth on

Torso 1973

One of his favorite giallo films, praised for how it plays with red herrings alongside the killer's own point of view.

Eli Roth on

Planet Terror 2007

Rodriguez's half of Grindhouse, part of the double feature Roth's original Thanksgiving trailer ran inside.

Eli Roth on

Death Proof 2007

Tarantino's half of that same Grindhouse bill.

Eli Roth on

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion 1970

Roth's answer for the last great thing he's seen: a serious, dry Elio Petri film shot by Luigi Kuveiller, whom Roth admires for his early giallo work before moving to prestige films.

Eli Roth on

The 10th Victim 1965

His other recent watch, a stylish 60s sci-fi black comedy about a televised kill-or-be-killed game. Roth calls the production design and Ursula Andress-vs-Marcello Mastroianni premise a total pleasure.

Eli Roth on

Deep Red 1975

Cited as one of the films DP Luigi Kuveiller shot before moving into prestige work.

Eli Roth on

The New York Ripper 1982

Another Kuveiller-shot giallo Roth calls one of his favorites.

Eli Roth on

A Lizard in a Woman's Skin 1971

The Fulci film Roth cites for Florinda Bolkan's performance, made right before her turn in Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion.

Eli Roth on

Toby Dammit 1968

Fellini's segment Roth name-checks while tracing the same DP's early filmography.

Also mentioned raised along the way

In passing DivergentThe Maze RunnerTwilightFive Nights at Freddy'sStar Wars: The Last JediLittle WomenLady BirdThe Age of InnocencePride & PrejudiceManhattanOnce Upon a Time in HollywoodPriscillaMankGarden State

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