Wine and...Movies: HAUNTED HEART (2024) with Screenwriter Rylend Grant

The writer of HAUNTED HEART joins us to tell the epic tale of how this movie got made.

16 years from script to screen, directed by Academy-Award winning director, Fernando Trueba, and starring Matt Dillon and Aida Folch.

Rylend Grant has written for the likes of JJ Abrams, John Woo, F Gary Gray, Daveed Diggs, Adam Winguard, Ridley Scott, Justin Lin, and Penelope Cruz. But Haunted Heart was his very first professional screenplay.

Rylend has also written a number of award-winning comics, including BANJAX, THE JUMP, FA SHENG: ORIGINS, THE PEACEMAKERS, and currently being crowdfunded as we speak, THE BREACH, a BLACK MIRROR-esque gritty small town crime drama...you know, if there was a portal to another time/dimension about to open up in said small town, and if there was a massive futuristic army about to kick it's way through and lay waste to said small town.

Check out THE BREACH!

Follow Rylend:
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THE WINES:

Rylend's Wine Pairing:
2001 Falletto di Bruno Giacosa Riserva, Vigna Le Rocche, Barolo DOCG
A well aged Barolo, now at its peak drinking window according to the forecasts. Like the Barolo the characters in the movie drink. Drink 2024 - 2026!

Dave's Wine Pairing:
2009 Domaine Tatsis Goumenissa (50/50 Xinomavro and Negoska blend), Macedonia, Greece
Or, if you're on a budget, this $35 wine tastes so much like a well aged Barolo it isn't funny. Bottled and then held until the winemakers though it was ready, this is a RECENT RELEASE even though it's 15 years old!!!

Dallas' Wine Pairing:
2019 Mylonas Savatiano, Greece
One of the key grapes in many "retsina" wines (wine with pine resin added) this is a rare bottling where the savatiano grape gets to shine on its own, unadulterated.

Chapters

• 1:55 Haunted Heart Trailer
• 3:58 Screenwriter Rylend Grant
• 6:54 The Movie as it Was Finally Released
• 10:43 Pitching the Movie to Penelope Cruz
• 17:40 Writing the Screenplay with Fernando Trueba
• 24:18 Billy Bob Thorton and ARMAGEDDON
• 26:29 A Writer's Strike Strikes
• 30:42 Bringing it Back From the Dead
• 32:20 Recasting
• 38:01 Capturing What's in the Script
• 58:00 Dallas Has One Gripe
• 1:05:36 The Music of the Movie
• 1:07:59 Does Anyone Care About Indie Cinema Anymore?
• 1:18:16 Rylend's Wine Pairing with Haunted Heart
• 1:22:23 Dave's Wine Pairing with Haunted Heart
• 1:26:24 Dallas' Wine Pairing with Haunted Heart
• 1:31:03 Wrap Up!

Transcript

0:03

He's Dave and I'm Dallas. We have opinions on just about everything. Sometimes they're on point and sometimes they go down better with a glass of wine. Join us. This is the Wine and Podcast. Welcome back everybody to Wine and the podcast where we pair wine with entertainment, delude ourselves into thinking you want to hear what we have to say about different pieces of pop culture and art, but know for a fact that you need to hear what we have to say about wine because who knows anything about wine? We sure don't. That's not true. We actually totally do and we can help you find the perfect pairing for whatever it is you're planning to read, watch or listen to. Now, before we get started, please make sure to hit that follow button and subscribe. really helps this podcast grow and reach new listeners. Also, please leave a rating and or review. It also helps us reach new listeners and grow. At least we'll leave that review if you love us. If you don't just send us a peevish email to wine the letter N P O D wine and pod at gmail dot com. You can also find us on sub stack wine and dot sub stack dot com where you'll be the first to know when new episodes drop. Get in depth show notes, sometimes uncut versions of these episodes, bonus pairings, articles, chats. pairing directories, that is wineann.substack.com. Be a cool kid, drink the wine cooler aid, join us on Substack. Now today we are talking about a brand new movie that just dropped in North America on September 27th, both in theaters and video on demand, Haunted Heart, a hitchcocky and romantic thriller starring Matt Dillon, Ida Folk, or Folch, I'm actually not sure how to pronounce her name. Aida Fulch and Juan Pablo Urrego and directed by Oscar winner Fernando Trueba who won the Oscar for best foreign language film Belle Ipocay. We're going to play the trailer for Haunted Heart and then we're going to introduce our very special guest and tell you what he's got going on. Here we go. I expected you last week and we didn't hear from you, You had someone else. I had to. But if you like, we do need a server. job is seasonal. Just give me two weeks notice when you want to leave. You've already decided that I'm gonna leave. Some of us are going to have a drink. You should come. Well, I don't get over to the mainland very much. So you guys know Max pretty well? Nobody knows Max well. He's just odd. What do I have to do to get you to notice me? Did you eat? What? What's this here? Do you play? Tell what you're thinking. What else hasn't he told you? I hope I'm wrong. Where you ever married? Story for another day. Where'd you get that? We both have our past. We both came here running from them. I know Max for a while. Don't get freaked out, okay? I'm sure there's a good explanation for everything. You need to tell me everything right now. I I'm gonna tell you everything. And afterwards, if you... want to leave... I'll let you. When Alex joins the team of a boutique seaside restaurant, sexual tensions arise as she falls for the enigmatic restaurant manager, Max. Blinded by her feelings, the relationship slowly slides into a harrowing tale of survival. Joining us today to discuss Haunted Heart is none other than the co-writer of the movie, Rylan Grant. Ryland has been a screenwriter since the late 00s, developing projects for film and TV with the likes of J.J. Abrams, John Woo, David Diggs, Adam Wingard, Ridley Scott, Luc Besson, and penning scripts for Penelope Cruz, Justin Lin, F. Gary Gray, and most recently co-wrote the film State of Consciousness starring Emile Hirsch, which landed back in April of this year, and now Haunted Heart, which he co-wrote with director Fernando Trujaba. It should also be noted that Ryland was a contestant on American Ninja Warrior. So, you know, don't fuck with Ryland. What's hilarious is I remember seeing that episode. I was like, this guy's weird like me. Fast forward. It should also it should also also be noted that Ryland has written numerous comics, including the Ringo Award winning Banjaks, The Jump. Fashing Origins, The Peacemakers, and currently being crowdfunded as we speak, The Breach, a Black Mirror-esque gritty small town crime drama. You know, if there was a portal to another time slash dimension about to open up in said small town, and if there were a massive futuristic army about to kick its way through and lay waste to said small town. If that sounds like your jam, there will be a link down below in the description of this episode for The Breach. We highly recommend you go take a gander. And Mr. Ryland, welcome to the show. How you doing this fine LA afternoon? I'm doing wonderfully at the moment. That was quite an intro. Yeah, that's a solid CV. I don't often hear it together. I think you presented it with vigor and oomph. And yeah, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm riding high now. So yeah, I'm just going to surf that wave in. So Mr. Ryland, to get us started on Haunted Heart, how does it feel? to have Haunted Heart out in the universe as a completed movie. The baby is birthed. Yeah, the baby is birthed. It's funny. Haunted Heart was the first thing I ever got hired to write in Hollywood, know, 16 years ago. like that. went back and So here's a lesson to you listeners. That is a 16 year gestation period for a script. Manage your expectations if you're out there trying to break and never give up right not entirely like you it's got to be put on the back burner But you don't just give up per se I'm sure there are those script. Those are those examples where it's like no that was my first script. That was terrible I'm never looking at it again, but in this case it was actually something that was like no this should get made It's just going apparently to take time Yeah, it was 16 years ago, first thing I ever got hired to write and it almost got made before the last strike, not the strike that just ended, but the strike before that was very close to being made, was slated to be made. We had John Luffy Cruz and Billy Bob Thornton. And yeah, it would have been a different movie. Yeah, exactly. It would have been at that point. I mean, the film business was in a very different place. It would have been a larger budget. It probably would have been a 20 or 30 million dollar budget. You know, it would have been a big like arc-like premiere and you know, it would have been a mega wide release. There are no wide releases anymore. George Clooney and Brad Pitt just released a movie that they thought was gonna be in theaters and they were stunned, you know, at the 11th hour when they found out, yeah, it's actually not going into theaters. The crazy isn't that insane Clooney and Pitt, right? Yeah, I could clean it too big a stars in the world probably the Roadhouse remake Jake Gyllenhaal and the biggest stars in the world and Doug Lyman a guy who's made probably 20 amazing films You know if ever there was a movie that was supposed to be in a theater It was that one and Doug finds out at the 11th hour that it's not going into theaters They're just gonna dump it on Amazon and he was so angry about it that when it premiered at South by Southwest, he didn't show up in protest. So we are lucky to get this limited theatrical release, know, considering it's a new you are. But it's a little bit weird, you know, because it would have been a really big film and, know, and 16 years ago would have done something really interesting for my career. All that said, I'm not certain that that film would have been a better film than this one. I'm a huge fan of this film. And know, Fernando made an amazing photo play and Ida gave a, mean, Matt's always great, but Ida gave such an amazing performance. don't, think we ended up with a better film. So yeah. This is definitely a great calling card for her. mean, what a launch to a career. She's got such great dynamic in her performance, man. Just, yeah, good stuff. Yeah, for an English language. This was her English language debut, I'm, think, possibly. yeah. I was like, No, I'm almost certain. I'm almost certain, but I don't know her career backwards and forwards, but I'm pretty certain. And, know, this was English language debut for a lot of people. I would say, you know, if there are a few bumps in the film, it's because, you know, you got people and English is not their first language. However, I... It jives with the story. mean, the story takes place every continent. authenticity, absolutely. Yeah, and it is people from everywhere else, right, who are running from something, who have ended up on this island and they are mixing and they are struggling to communicate in a lot of ways. And I think that that is kind of one of the charms of the thing and one of the things that's really interesting about it. it was, I mean, the production was like that. We had a Spanish director. mean, Aida is a Spanish actress, but... I am about as American a writer as possible. Matt is American, but he currently lives in Rome. Juan Pablo Arrego is from Columbia. entire camera crew was from Columbia. We had an art team from Germany that were amazing. This was, you we had, you know, Greek producers also. And it was just like, it was about as international and enterprise as seemingly possible. And, you know, it's all. it all sort of led into the film in a really interesting way, I think. That's super. So I went back and looked at, because Ryland was on our Legacy One and Comics Pairing show once back in the day. And you had mentioned back on that show, I was trying to refresh my memory because you mentioned Haunted Heart. We knew it was coming this year. And one of the things you mentioned was you wrote it back in 2008 for Penelope Cruz. believe what so I'm. Let's start at the beginning. And I would love to hear the backstory, the long and winding road that led to this film finally getting made in its current iteration. So at the beginning, how did that come about? You are writing this script for Penelope Cruz Go. Yeah, I mean, it goes, we should go back a few weeks before that because. I had moved to LA for grad school. I was at the American Film Institute Conservatory, is where David Lynch went and Darren Aronofsky and a bunch of other kind of city filmmaker type folks. And about halfway through AFI, I had written a script called Drive. It is not the drive that we know from the theater halfway recently. It was a different drive. It was drive before that drive, not the gossip. Not even the Mark Dacascos? No, this was a different drive. This was a third drive, I guess. but, but, so that, that script had placed in a couple of competitions. It was a finalist for the Nichols Fellowship, which is the Academy's screenwriting competition. But then it won the final draft big break competition. And so because of that, I got a little heat and I get signed at at CAA, which is, kind of the the Hollywood Death Star, right? I am the youngest stormtrooper on the Hollywood Death Star. Especially straight out of the gate, like a side into CAA straight out of the gate. yeah. Yeah, was deep water. so what, mean, God, things have changed so much. But back then what would happen is, well, so people come to CAA and said, hey, we got this project. We need some writers, we need some actors, and they start to package things, and so they start throwing writers at things. But this still happens. But what really used to happen was, okay, you go to CAA, you say, got this project, and they will send you 12, 15, 20 writers. It's like a cattle call. so CAA sends, so Penelope Cruz says, hey, I have this movie that I want to make, and I need a writer, and so I need to meet some writers. And so CAA is like, great, you know, and give us a little bit on it. I knew very little. But CAA sends like 12 of their like biggest, baddest, most seasoned people and they send me. so I am this like scared 22 year old kid driving like the shittiest Hyundai accent, you know, full of garbage. And I have to drive to the Chateau Marmont, know, Ritz-C Hollywood Hotel. to meet Penelope Cruz and to pitch to Penelope Cruz. And my car was so shitty that I refused to drive up to the Chateau Marmont. So I parked in the neighborhood like five blocks away and walked in. just every newcomer to Hollywood has that same story. I've done it so many times. You just you're walking into the building from a mile away. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. It's like, you know, I'm not, know, I'm not driving a Bentley now, but my car is respectable. So I drive up to the front door now, but back then, and for way too long, it was that. And so I walk in and to hear Penelope tell the story, she had a bunch of good meetings. I mean, CAA is not gonna send cretins, right? Like these are really seasoned writers and everything, but they were coming in and so she had all these 15 minute long meetings. And they were good and people had good ideas and they told her what she wanted to hear and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was, I think I got the memo late. I had so little time to prepare and so little, you know, so little time to process and all of this stuff that I just kind of came in and I sat down and I think I had to be the last, I had to be the last meeting, like the last of the day, because I sat down. And then after all these 15 minute meetings, she and I talked for like two hours. And I don't know if we ever discussed the movie. It was like, hey, how are you? And we started talking about life. We started talking about family and we started talking about psychology. It was the human connection. Yeah. Yeah. It was like a really good first date. It was funny. And I walked out. And by the time I got back to my shit box car, and granted I had to walk five blocks to get there, my agent was calling me and saying like, man, But walking on air the whole way. Agent was like, first of all, what happened? Because we expected you to be done like, you know, an hour and a half ago. We've been we've been waiting in the office to hear what happened. But she just she just called and she said, you know, she said, you know, she loves you. She said that you and Fernando are going to hit it off and that that you're the guy. And this was my very this was my very first I mean it was my very first Hollywood pitch it was like This might have been like my third hot technically not a pitch though, right? you never got pitch My third formal Hollywood meeting like I had a couple of like, you know Generals and it's not to say that I hadn't like met people in Hollywood before but you know, you know, you're doing the formal CIA stuff Yeah, and I walked in and it was just you know, it was yeah, I don't know something happened. So so So first of all, to the listeners, Ryland is what we call in the business, the purple unicorn, because straight out of the gate, his agent is CAA. That's his agent. His first pitch meeting with Penelope A-list crews, and he lands it. Let me explain to you how rare this is. It is not going to happen to you. Well, yeah, but here's the thing is plenty of bumps afterwards, right? I'm not with CIA anymore. This film, it got made, so I can't complain too much, but it took 16 years to get made. So you were going to hit bumps. hit, God, know, I won a contest before that, which is like hitting the lottery, and then I hit the lottery probably two or three more times after that. But yeah, definitely not the standard story. And so I was like thrown into the deep end. I'm at AFI and I have to make this choice, like, do I finish out my degree or don't I? And I was already kind of most of the way through it. So I'm finishing that out. It takes you a really long time to get paid in Hollywood, right? so we negotiate this deal. And this was the first thing I did for Bassam. Bassam was actually a producer on this thing. so, however, there was like this credit issue. I mean, because it's like, well, in the United States, it is very hard for a director to get co-writing credit. A director has to literally write 51 % of the script. A director is going to be heavily involved all the time, but in Europe, it is very different. In Europe, a director usually gets a co-writing credit. And if there is not a European writer credited on the movie, can be very hard to fund it. And so there ends up being this extended credit dispute. So I don't get paid for a really long time, I have to quit my job and go right into this. I was subtitling at the time. I was doing Ingers subtitles for DVD releases. And to this day, if you get a MacGyver DVD, you get a Seinfeld DVD, you get a Nightcore DVD, get all my subtitles on there, which is kind of funny. It's so funny. So many professionals now, if you go back to the DVD, Blu-ray, the physical media world of that era, They're all like producing the special features, doing the subtitles, like doing the camera work on them, directing them. But it's all the bonus features on there. And it's like, you can see where everyone now working today sort of came from in their first like, this is my job to make trailers and things like that. It's where everyone kind of starts off. Yeah, yeah. Keep going, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This was about as rinky dink as humanly possible. And so I have to quit this job to do this because I immediately have to like, drop everything and go right with Fernando. And, and, and so I am like, I am flat broke, I'm driving the shit box car. I am maxing out credit cards, you know, I don't get paid for like six months because of a dispute and like, so you talk about like, I'm hitting lottery a couple of times. Also, darkest, darkest. point in my life because I've never been. I was gonna say, you're hitting the lottery multiple times and they're never sending you the fucking check, right? Yes. It's like you're just hitting the lottery. the good thing. Yeah. I'm robbing drug dealers to keep food on the table. That's right. But yeah, but Fernando, Academy Award-winning director flies into LA like a week later and we're set up at, what is the, God. The Sunset Marquis, which is like a legendary hotel, like where, you know, the Rolling Stones would stay there when they would come into town. And you're sitting in there and it's like, you know, is that Gene Simmons? Is that, is it just weird Hollywood stuff? But know, Fernando and I, we, yeah, so we started this thing and, you know, we wrote a couple of times in LA, like in weird places like that and kind of worked the whole thing out. we get, know, Penelope would come and join us sometimes. We'd go up to her house. My girlfriend, now wife at the time, we went up to, two weeks in, we got invited up to Penelope's birthday at her house. She was dating Matthew McConaughey at the time and Ashton and Demi were there and Tom Ford and a bunch of weird people. It was only about a dozen people, but it's them and then it's us. It was just a weird time where, yeah, my wife and I had to drive up and again, it's just like, you know, again, like. A few weeks before, we were these 22 year old weird film students and now suddenly we're driving up for her birthday. Just a really weird time. Days I'm writing with Ferrando. We did the first two drafts in Los Angeles. The whole thing took place on an island, which you guys have seen the movie so you know. He has a villa in Majorca. and so, and so the, final draft of the script back then, you know, they, they flew me out to my Arca and we spent, I don't know, 10 days, like kind of doing the final draft of the script on this Island. And, and it was like, wake up when we felt like it, it was a fishing village. we, we, we, we'd walk, we'd walk down to the dock and the fishing boats are coming in from the morning and we would buy whatever was fresh. And then we'd go up to the house and Fernando is an amazing cook. And so he would teach me how to cook Spanish food. It's like, here's gazpacho, here's jaya, here's whatever. And then, you know, and then you eat and maybe you fall asleep. And then at some point we would come to and we'd read a little bit and then we'd kind of go out to dinner at night. And so it was 10 days of that. I want the listener to understand how rare this journey is. It will not happen to you. but i think i didn't have a trial and because it informed all this future choices and we are yet grateful for that yeah it was good and so it so it was like and so you we started so penalty was already involved in all these the producer and she was going to play the you know she was going to play the the female lead and penalty had some people that she was interested in as a male lead and she she had a a friendship with both about portland and so And so Fernando and I met with Billy Bob a couple of times and he was a great guy. He was like recording an album at the time. He has a band. remember this, yes. I think he was getting Angelina at the time, That sounds right, though we never saw her. Most of time it's like... meeting him at a restaurant for an hour or something like that. we went up to his house one time and he has a recording studio at his house. And he's Billy Boutthorton. And so he had like, he just had all these amazing people sitting around. Like Tommy Shaw from Sticks was there recording like, you know, guitar. And, and yeah, was just all these, it's like Jack Blades is there for some, you know, it's like, it's, it was just weird, like musical royalty. At some point we're gonna need an Ashcan of that night. iconic Ashcan of that night, because it sounds amazing. story. Rylan Grants, yeah, the anthology of all your mini Hollywood stories. Yeah. So I think the best Billy Bob story is I am like an outsized Armageddon fan. Like I love Armageddon. That's one of my favorite films. I just think it's so fun. It's so awesome. Are you so happy it's on the Criterion collection? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There's so much to that film and so much around that film and so much like extra stuff that I'm in on it. so I have to like, I have to at some point, you know, I will, the interactions I have, will have to at some point like confess, you know, with Billy Bob and everybody wants to to Billy Bob about Sling Blade or they want to talk about, you this or that. Yeah, and I'm like, so Billy Bob. I have to confess, am like, I am, you know, and I'm almost apologetic in it. I'm like, I'm like, you know, I am the biggest Armageddon fan on the face of the planet. I thought you were phenomenal. And he's like, don't apologize for that. It's like, do not apologize for that. He's like, he's like, yeah, yeah. He's like, here's the thing. He's like, I rarely watch my pictures. I, I can't stand watching myself. I don't like it. I see all, see everything that's wrong with it. I don't like it. He's like, but I am, I am in a hotel room in Paris. And I'm getting ready for something and I got some time and Armageddon's on the TV. And he's like, and I kind of put it on, you know, for a laugh, this, that, and the other thing. And he's like, and it's on in the background and I'm trying, I'm ironing this, I'm doing that. And he's like, and I found myself, I'm getting sucked in. It's like, you know, I'm supposed to be doing this, I'm late for this, but I can't get away from the TV. And he's like, he's like, I'm not ashamed to say it, man. I watched that picture and I was downright moved. He's like, I was tearing up watching that picture. He's like, that is a powerful thing. There ain't too many movies that can do that. Armageddon did that for me. And I'm like, Billy Bob gets it. Billy Bob gets it. He saw the same thing I did in it. He's like, I thought I was taking a paycheck, man. We moved some people with that picture. And I'm like, yeah, you did that. You moved me. That's beautiful. Yeah, and so it can be both. It can be both Billy Bob. Yeah. Yeah. Paycheck and move people. Yeah. And so so it was like so so we have Billy Bob, we have Penelope, things are cruising along, you know, literally talking about where we're going to shoot this and all that stuff. And then and then the the writer strike and, you know, not not dissimilar to to this strike in a lot of ways. But there were some weird things happening back then where the primary thing that happened in terms of this movie was Well, if a movie was put into the queue, meaning like it got moving, it was into pre-production before the strike happened, then it could go. If it was not officially moved into pre-production before the strike happened, then you had to wait until after the strike was wrapped up to get back to it. so people didn't know how long... the strike was going to last, right? They were there, you know, there's panicking. It's like, forecast is like, it could last five years. And, know, and, people are posturing, people want you to think it's going to last forever. So they, have a, they have a good bargaining, place, but, so there was this panic in town and everything started getting sort of sorted into well, pre-strike movie, post-strike movie. And so we were, you know, we were supposed to go. And then suddenly people need stuff in the queue and they need stuff in the pre-production and they need. big time actors like Billy Bob and Penelope attached to big movies that are going to go. so, and so, you know, I don't know what Penelope took the paycheck on, but Penelope took like a, you know, like a $12 million paycheck to do the equivalent of like Sahara two or something like that. And good for her. I mean, it was like, was, you know, it was the biggest payday. It was the, it was, you know, probably one of the biggest paydays for a, a, actress at that point. And, And Billy Bob attached, and then think Billy Bob ended up directing his own film, once Penelope was on hold. So it's like, is this choice where it's like, do the Penelope's and the Billy Bob's of the world, does she take her $12 million paycheck or does she essentially like, I mean, Penelope would have been an owner of the film, but does she take scale basically to do a passion project in the middle of nowhere on a Greek island for a couple of months? And that's not even a choice. So the idea is, okay, well, we can't do this now. Everybody's got to take their paychecks, but we'll come back to it. And Dallas, you can speak to this probably as well as anybody. When people say they're going to come back to it, they're never going to come back to it. And when people say they owe you a favor, you're never going to be able to cash in that favor. Good luck with that. Yeah, yeah. You need to have it recorded and ratified. Yeah. That and $6. wait, wait. We'll get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Go ahead. Rylan, did I promise you something? I'm still waiting. That was that subtle. It's like, Dallas would know this. know. was like, holy shit. No, no, no, just said you've been around the Hollywood box. So it's number of times that people have said they're going to come back to somewhere they owe you. You probably, you know, again, you probably got a room full of those IOUs. So that happens. Yeah. And so it never comes to you. and we all kind of go off in our separate directions. And that was sad. But it happened so often that, I mean, it was devastating then because it was the first one. It has since happened 20 times and it barely affects me anymore. And the rule is like, you never put your chips on one number. You keep 12 balls in the air and you keep juggling and that's because every month. every month, like two or three of those fall. Yeah, and hopefully you get two or three back up every month and you keep on juggling and you keep on juggling. But however, Fernando and I had such a great time and we thought that we love this project, we love the script, and we would keep coming back to it. And so every couple of years we'd check back in or whatever and he'd have this film or I'd do this and we'd congratulate each other and be like, hey, we really should get back together and do this thing. And so this stayed alive basically only on my hard drive for years and only in my mind and Fernando's mind. so cut to COVID, cut to the pandemic, cut to, and nobody has anything going on and there are no films being made and everybody's in a panic. But what it does is it kind of clears the decks and gives people time to do accounting, right? And yeah. so Fernando takes a long look at what he's made and what he hasn't made. And he's like, why haven't I done this? It's still sitting there. And so yeah, when the darkest time for me in the middle of COVID, I get a call from him. And yeah, and he's like, hey, I can't stop thinking about this. I think I'm gonna make this. I think it's gonna be the next movie. And I'm like, you're goddamn right, it's gonna be the next movie. at that point, we're talking, whatever. mean, he's calling me and it's 14 years later or whatever. And so the part was no longer right for Penelope. And so we start talking, well, okay, well, do we... Do we rewrite it and make it for an older actress? know, because obviously Penelope is in a much different place in her life and the character would have been in a much different place in her life. yeah, and so it's just a matter of like, well, okay, you who do we have? And Ida is actually, so Fernando discovered Penelope. mean, discovered is a weird word, but it's like, but Penelope was basically a soap opera star in Spain. And Fernando was prepping a movie called The Girl of Your Dreams, however one would say that in Spanish. And he's like, I need the girl of everyone's dreams. This girl on the soap opera is pretty interesting. Let me see if she has something. And of course she had something. She ended up being Penelope Cruz. And so he did a similar thing with Ida where he... he whatever saw Ida when she was a young actress. And I just pretty big star in Spain, know, I mean, she hasn't had the international boom that Penelope has, but, know, one of those people that has 100 IMDB credits and she's not very old, you know. So he's like, I think she hasn't, we got to find the male star and there were some... You know, we spent some time with Jeff Goldblum, which was funny. Jeff Goldblum does a he does like a cabaret act. I don't know if he still does it, but it used to be like every Wednesday night at Barbara Monde. He records albums of it still. it used to be like every Wednesday night at Barbara Monde in Los Feliz. would do he would play he would play the piano. And so, you know, Fernando was in town and we went down and watched. watched Jeff Goldblum play piano and hung out with him in the back afterwards and started talking. And we thought Jeff Goldblum was going to do it, but then Jeff got the Marvel gigs, was kind of funny. I think because of that, Fernando is actually in some of those Marvel scenes with Jeff Goldblum. Fernando is actually in them because Jeff was like, well, I couldn't do your film because of that. You might as well come down. And so you can see Fernando in the background in those Marvel scenes. A couple other people, yeah, a couple other people, but at some point, you know, at some point, Matt Dillon and, and the Matt Dillon thing was so interesting because you know, he's Matt Dillon, like he's, he has this kind of hall of fame career and has been around the block a hundred times. And I don't know what phase it, you know, I don't know if he's in the, the third or fourth stanza of his career at this point. But he's, he's making it very interesting because I feel like, I feel like a guy like Matt, know, Matt Dillon. Matt Dylan could be in like late Pacino phase where he's taken like if you can meet his boat, he'll do a snuff film because he wants to like put a pool in the backyard. That's pull quote for the evening by the way. We're sending that to Pacino. Yeah, there you go. I don't think you would disagree with any of that. lot of actors. Yeah, God. But Matt is interesting in that one. So Matt lives in Rome now. He lives in Italy. And so he is not in LA. is not in the mix here. has this wonderful girlfriend who's an Italian actress or presenter or something like that. Wonderful woman. But they live together in Rome. And so he is in Europe. And he is in this this point in his career where it's like, well, he doesn't we can all use more money, but he doesn't need money. And so he is only interested in doing work that challenges him and in ways. And so mostly what he is doing is he is finding directors that he loves and respects when he's reaching out to them. So he reached out to Fernando and they they knew each other from whatever they they bumped into each other at Cannes and they were fans and. you hey, let's do something together sometime. Okay, you know, and again, like how many times has that been said? And, and so it's almost like serendipitous. At some point, Matt's like, Hey, I'm in, you know, I'm, live in Rome, I'm going to be in Spain, like, do you want to have? Do you want to have dinner sometime? And, and Fernando's like, Yeah, I want to have dinner. And then Fernando gets on the phone with me. And, and the Fernando calls come like via Skype. and there's a nine hour difference. So they come up weird times. And so I think I'm like, I think I'm taking my daughter to soccer and he's like, what do you, what do you think about Matt Dylan for Max? And I'm like, well, I, I love Matt Dylan. Like, is he interested? And he's like, I don't know. Like, he's like, Matt just called me to say he's going to be in town and that he wants to have dinner. And I want to know if, if I, if I can, if I should talk to him about this thing. And I'm like, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Talk to Matt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I talked to Matt Dillon and so, and so yeah, so Matt, Matt read it and you know, Matt, Matt loved it. Matt had a, you know, Matt, what you want is for somebody to respond to it. Matt had a lot of ideas, you know, and it's like, so, so I, know, cause you write a character, but you want it to be the character that Matt would play. You want it, you want there to be these, these pieces of Matt in there. And so Matt is like, well, I love this and I love this and it made me think of this. And it's like, yes, absolutely. Give us all of that and let us dump it in. And that's what you hope for. mean, you talked about, I mean, what I love about this film is that, so when you write these, I mean, I don't turn in a script that I don't think is good or great, right? You know, I work very hard. I do tons of drafts. in the end, as long as the, you know, as long as the executives don't ruin it too much, it's in a pretty good place. And then after that, you just kind of hope. that they capture what ended up in the script. And it's not just my script at that point. There were executives, there were producers, there were the director, and you all agree that here is a good movie, and then you hope that you can get on set, get in an editing room, and actually capture that movie. And it doesn't happen. I mean, you were talking about state of consciousness. I had two films come out this year. One I think is very good, and that's Haunted Heart. The other one is, the other one I hate. And I They're both great. They're both great. They just came out. They both hate my movie. I, I, I, no, no, no, no, no, but I, no, no. And here's, here's why I hate it because, because I, thought it was a very good script. I thought that Emil Hirsch gave a really great performance. It was really interesting. It was really nuanced. He was given everything. He was throwing a hundred miles an hour and it kind of didn't matter because they did not capture the movie. They did not capture his performance. They did not capture the, the, the, and there are number of reasons for that. We could do a whole show on, on how that, but, but they didn't get it. Right. And here's the thing, if it is supposed to be a bad movie, if it was a bad script or a meal, shut the bed or whatever, that doesn't bother me because okay, it was supposed to be bad, it was bad, like no surprise, but when it could have been, when it should have been good or great. Missed opportunity, yeah. It hurts even more. Yeah, I am livid and I'm gonna come on a show and I'm gonna tell everyone that it's garbage. Just from the producer's He's like, do not want to work with those people again, so it's okay. From the producer's side, Rylan, let's just wait until the following season before we let our true feelings out. Yeah. Give it a taste of one season. Yeah. No real talk. All the real talk, please. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But no, no, no. But here's the thing. It's like, not, I'm not saying anything to you that I haven't said to them. And maybe I said it in a less forceful way, but I'm not a, I, I'm not a guy that I don't talk behind people's backs. don't I tell you how I feel. And so so I told them what I felt and and and and that's fine. But but but here's the thing with with Haunted Heart is like so we had a pretty damn good script. And so again, you pray that they capture it. And and and what I will say is that the the photo play that Fernando put together, the film that he made is so much better than than what was there in the script. The the visual motifs the Hitchcock of it all, the Highsmith of it all, the tension in it all. It is such a beautiful photo play that that's what you pray for. First you pray that they just capture the minimum, but then you hope that they bring something else to the table. And again, you look at- They're an artist for you, absolutely. And Matt's performance is great. There's so much of Matt and he made the character his and I love where that took it. And then like first and foremost is Aida. And I just think that Aida is just so, she is so wonderful in this. it is just such a nuanced performance. It's like she is, Matt is giving you everything he needs to give you and more. Aida is giving you, and Aida is the star of the movie. And so there's more room for this, but it's like Aida is giving you 12 colors in every scene. And there's so much going on in her face. And if you ever don't know what's going on, you can just look right at it and you know exactly where it is. And there's so much tension and so much nuance in it. And I just love it. You you fall in love with it, watching it. And so it's like, this is what you hope for and this is what you pray for. yeah. I think you're right in terms of the, you know, watching the film, you visualize a script and you can tell what's on the page and what's written. And you can also tell what are these sort of artistic strokes of, know, from the photo play, as you say, which something very Hitchcockian, those shots, those long sort of some of the panning shots, some of those sort of zoom shots across the mountain down at the house. 70s stuff, yeah. It really is. It does paint the picture. It deepens the colors in the canvas. That is cinematography. That is the sort of essence of photo play, of filmmaking. And, you know, to your point, there are a lot of cinematography units and directors who simply want to frame the shot rather than knowing how to artistically enhance the moment, to add silence, to sort of make the silence kind of just deafening, to do those things. And, I think this film does it very effectively. Those two things are married so well. The first quarter of the film, I can honestly say I was a little unsettled by Matt's performance because I didn't know where it was going. I really didn't know where it was going because it was a little sort of tenuous. It was a little dark, but it was also sort of not one note, but there was a monotone sort of presentation. and you can tell there was a reservation there. yeah, the character is holding everything back. does not want to surrender to this love that's coming. he knows that if one emotion comes out, they're all going to come out and that could be very bad. Right, he's manning the dam. He's dammed up all these memories and emotions and he's manning the dam and it's a stroke of genius on think Matt's part to play that because It seems very simple, but as an actor, it really isn't simple to do that, to pull that off effectively, because he has to then, he creates that baseline as a point of kind of projection for the character in the future, because where he ends up is just so antithetical to where he starts. So yeah, it's very, very, very well done, very well done on all fronts. And I'm gonna say a couple of things. I'm gonna throw in a couple of things here. Number one, going back to Ada, Yeah, her performance in this is not only I think the script does an amazing job of this and then she pulls it off incredibly well, which is you have that thing that's a little taboo these days, which is of course the older man, younger woman romance relationship where it's like, come on, did you have like, why is she so young and he's so old? But in this case, you actually see, I think the script gives her the reasons. for why she would want an older, in her mind, more stable man with it. This does not prove to be the case, but that's sort of the thinking. And you see in her performance how and why she falls, without it ever being said, you see how and why she falls for him. And then on Matt's end, you definitely get that performance where... You kind of want to slap him. He's so reserved. He's so again. He's so like, no, I don't like even when you think he's finally giving in, he kind of gives in. Then he's like, no, no, no, no, no. And so he leaves again. And you're like, Jesus Christ, like, go with the flow just a little bit. But then you realize he has reasons not to go with the flow because of how much he has chained away and how much he's like, this is I've set up a life where this is the only way it works. this new life. I am a facade. Yeah, yeah, I'm a facade and that's all I am. And then it all comes, you know, crumbling or things, things advance when it is pushed and he has to fall in love with someone again. And from a going to the island, one of the things that I really that struck me about this film. So in recent years, I've really not because I've sought out stories that take place on the Grecian Isles, but there's haunted heart here. There's a graphic novel from Image that came out a few years back called Sunburn from Andy Watson. I'm going to forget the artist's name, but Andy wrote it. it's an incredible, I highly recommend the Image graphic novel. And there's a novel novel called Southwind that I do not recommend. It's a relic, but no one read that. But what, what the novel, the, the graphic novel, and then this movie do is they all capture the Grecian Isles and they all do it in the same way where I'm like, my God, this must truly be a thing, a true vibe, a true atmosphere, a true way of life of these places because all three of them do a pretty incredible job of just like the setting and location. They are one of the characters, know, that gets thrown around a lot in film especially, but I think especially true here where the setting is and the setting and the way sort of people's mores and attitudes towards things are a little different than non-island life, for lack of a better term. And I don't know if this was part of the script when it took place on a Spanish island. Maybe it is just island, not just the Grecian islands. Maybe it's European islands. That's actually a question for you, Ryland. Did the setting switch places? Did any of that change or was the vibe? similar between like that the original Mallorca all the way over to the Grecian Isle. I'm gonna forget the one that it actually takes place on. that took place on in the final version. Yeah, yeah, it's not actually named. I mean, we shot it in a trickery, which is technically a peninsula, but was only accessible via boat until like the late 90s. so it is very much in culture and island and now there's a single road that goes in there. It's not easy. But yeah, it's such an interesting question. And I think it's all this dynamic you're talking about is further kind of exacerbated by the fact that you have all of these people from different places who have come to this island and are bringing different preconceptions and different cultural elements. And they're all running from things and hiding from things. that's just such an interesting thing. So yeah, so the final... You know, we didn't know the island changed from time to time. Even when we went to Majorca, we were not going to shoot on Majorca. was just that, well, Majorca is an island in the Mediterranean. Fernando happened to have a house there. you could get, know, because there are certain things that Mediterranean islands have in common, right? And so, and what you find is they all have their flavor. And so even right up to the Even when Fernando called me and said, hey, we're going to shoot this thing, we did not know where we were going to end up shooting it. It's like, well, there's this French island and there's this island and there's that island. so that was interesting. it's almost like, well, the lottery, right? And what are you going to do? And so finally, we settle on a Greek island and we settle on Tricurie. so then begins the final stage of the script development. mean, the first thing is like we hadn't touched the script and in 14 years or whatever. And so we do have to get back and we have to make the script. We have to, we have to mat up the script. We have to hide up the script. We all, know the actors, right? And so we need to, we need to go back in and sort of take this thing apart and put it together. But we really need to, so we were in Trichyri and that was where we did the, you we spent like two, three weeks in Trichyri, literally just. Cool. Just getting to the place, hanging out with everybody and having the locals take us around and hanging out in the bars and eating in the restaurants. Yeah, was quite the adventure. And we made it about that place very much. we were walking, we're literally, right in a scene and we're in the location. And it's like, well, what if he comes in here and what if he does this and what if he that? And you talk about the difference between the two films, I don't want to continue to trash this other film, it's like, but so so let me not make it specific about that film, but it's just it's so easy to because because I feel like that film failed in their refresh. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, so you know, you had this director and it was just his way or the highway and and and and you had these you had you had collaborators that that were pretty good at their jobs, but he didn't want to listen to anybody. And it's just like, no, no, no, don't worry about everything that's wrong with the film. like five people told him it was gonna be wrong before we ever rolled a frame. so Fernando is very different. Fernando hired the best people. And what he wants is really smart people. What he would rather have is really smart people that disagree with him, right? And you can take that too far, but it was very much best idea wins. And of course it's all filtered through his vision. and he's the one calling action and cut and give him the directions. But if the craft service person had the best idea, that was the idea that ended up in the movie. And I'd like to think that after doing this for, I don't know, God knows how long at this point, I'm halfway good at this stuff. And so I am with him in the location and he's like, yeah, I thought maybe Matt would come in here and do this and do that. And I'm just sitting there looking at it I'm like, well, what if that doorway is really, what if Matt came in there? instead and then you'd have this thing and then it would be like yeah that's great because because then that would you know then that would fit in with this motif from this other scene and we can marry it with this and and and and i could bring this light in here and and it was like it was just that sort of thing and so literally like you know literally every you know when you know when when you know Juan Pablo comes walking around this corner, I'm like, suggested that corner. That's cool. Like, it's in there. And it was just the film got built that way. He had, you know, he just had great art people and, and, and, and, and great, you know, great camera people and great everyone and down to the person. mean, the, the, like the, the, locations people, the locations that they found, I mean, because it's like, you, you write this thing. We wrote this restaurant like years ago. And you had this thing in your, you had this thing in your head into a degree, like it can't possibly exist, right? We're writing it in Los Angeles, 16 years before it's going to be shot on a Greek island. But it was, it was shocking to me. I don't know if it's like how much we got right, but how much the location people just went out and found. And so you write that restaurant and Fernando and I had envisioned this place where it's like. Well, you step out of the kitchen and here's the deck and then you step down off the side and you look here and there's a chicken coop and there's a rooster, you know, around. And so it's like, so, so like, like, that is a pretty specific vision that we had 16 years ago. And then the location people take us to this place. And it just looks like it looked in your mind, you know, and things are different, but it's like, well, we're in the kitchen and we step out into a wooden deck and it's like, yeah, I can see where the restaurant is. And then we stepped down off the stairs. and there's literally a rooster staring at me. You know, think is happening? Yeah, go ahead. To your point, to your point, I think that starts on the page because as we said, you know, the idea that within the margins, you can create emotion, you can create the sense of climate, you can create the sense of texture, you can create those things. So when your other staff, if you're hiring well, When those location directors come on, finders come on, that stuff's kind of probably already articulated. So I mean, it's probably, it starts with the script. know, believe me, am, but but it takes people who are really good at their job to go out and just find, you know, the, locations are, are, I mean, such a beautiful place. And, and, and, you know, I guess there's a big margin for error when the place is that beautiful. However, I mean, they were were firing on all cylinders and how the other people came in and just and just kind of brought the whole thing to light. was as I was really there. I'll tell you right now. I was like, I don't know where this is, but I need to go. Yeah. Yeah. And I will also say that the film had a geography of the place and how people moved around it and even a little ways from the restaurant where it seemed very consistent. Like it wasn't one of those things where it's like, well, we need a scene where. The ocean is here, the rocks are here, there's a tree here, so we go somewhere else and shoot it because we found that's where the tree is. And here, really seemed like everyone was moving in a way where you're like, I see the geography. Like, this is almost like a built set that you made for the movie, even though it for the most part wasn't. I'm sure you dressed it and all that fun stuff, but it was like, this feels lived in, this feels real, like every and where people move and you could. get a sense of the space and that is right in a movie. You don't often get that sense. Yeah, well that was a real working restaurant and where Matt lives, was a little cottage that people actually lived in, you know, and all of that stuff. tell. Yeah, but you're right about the geography where it's like, mean, and Fernando has these, Fernando had these things in mind, this Hitchcock stuff, this Heisman stuff where it's like, well, it's a lot about voyeurism and it's a lot about lines. It's like, well, he's here and she's here and can she see him and he can see her but she can't see him and there's so much tension and there's so much mystery and all of that and they really found the perfect location to do it and again you talk about again I feel like I'm comparing these two films too much but it's like the one of the problems with the other film is that well it was a who was a was a TV director and he's a really good TV director. And he works on really good television. However, when you direct really good television, well, you're coming onto a set and and he had directed a lot of Walking Dead and Walking Dead is like, well, everyone on the Walking Dead set is the best at their job ever. You have the best effects people, have the best set designers. So literally, all you have to do is step on and point a camera at the people who are talking, know what I'm saying? so but when you make a film, you are now responsible for all of that stuff. You have to tell everyone, well, we need this and we need this dressing and we need that dressing. And you got to hire the right people to do that and all that stuff. And you're not walking into a preset vision that the TV show already has, right? And so like everything has to be you. Yeah. You're not, not walking onto this nuanced, beautiful set that again, like this, this, this all, all star team is built. You got to do it. And so, and so, you know, with the other, sometimes you walk in and it looks like, you know, it looks like a, a student film set, looks like some USC could set. that's tough. And you had this thing where it's like, well, this artwork is really important to the movie, but it looks like somebody kind of printed it on their computer or whatever. so that's tough. However, you go into Haunted Heart and everything does look, you know, it looks lived in, looks, you know, it looks like Max has been there forever. And yeah, and it looks like Max's... It doesn't look like a generic place. looks like, you you look around you can pause the frames and that's like, yeah, of course, of course, Max would have that book. And of course, he would have that knickknack. And of course, this was more cluttered than my apartment. And that is fucking saying something. I was like, dude, yes, that's a real apartment. Yeah. That's a real place that a man lives where everything is just like neatly stacked, but it's all stats. And it's like. neatly arraigned but there's too much on every shelf and I'm just like, Chaos on the shelves. Yes. Right. Absolutely. Okay, all right. It can all be a love fest here. One question for you. How open are you to gripes that mean absolutely nothing and have nothing to do with the artistic integrity of your... I probably have some gripes too, so fire away, man. I'm not easily hurt. You can hear me trash in the other films, so go. That's true. That's very true. Okay, no, one thing is I was and it's probably an actual actor choice, which I totally respect the moment of realization when Matt's carrot max realizes That the secret is basically out That was one of those moments when I was There's a part of me that wanted a little more reaction. I was just like I need more No, no his his dam is breaking. Well, I need to see his damn breaking I need to see the crack in the dam But then as it went on, was like, okay, all right, that was a perfectly fine choice. I'll accept it, damn it. So anyway, as I said, a gripe that means absolutely nothing and has no merit. I think that, yeah, there's always gonna be like an artistic debate throughout the whole Of course, of course. Yeah, and there gonna be a couple. And I think Fernando and Matt, go ahead. I disagree with Dallas. I can say that right now. I will. I will say that on that moment alone, because you're talking about the record playing, right? So like now he knows. no, no, no. Not that musician. No. OK. Not that. Not That was listening to the phone call. So the phone call, the voicemail. When he when he's going over the the paper clippings. You're talking about on the boat? Yes. Okay. All right. Yes. Yes. Yes. That moment. was like, damn it. All right. But no, I agree with the Dave. That moment with the record, for me, that should be the trailer. That moment should be the Just that scene. Just that scene when he looks up and like in my mind, that sort of teaser is the record plays, you see the hand play. you see him shopping and he looks up and the music sort of just gets a little creepy. that, yeah, that's a whole movie. That's thumbnail for the movie. Anyway, see, that's what I thought you were talking about. And I'm like, no, no, no, that brilliant. That's a perfect Yeah, there are a couple of those moments where you kind of get everything in a slow drip and you get pushed back. Yeah, complimentary moments of that is I love the, know, with Chico, with Juan Pablo Origo, where... where he's just like, know, he's, I mean, he doesn't understand. He's like, what's the problem? Like the record, the record's great, man. It's awesome. Congrats. And Matt is like, what the fuck do you know, dude? Like, you know what I'm saying? Matt is worried that he has the rest of the story, you know? And he doesn't. Matt doesn't realize it until it's too late. And the guy's like, no, that's that's a great, that's a record. And that's the right? It's the mistake because Matt, Dillon's original instinct to underplay or not Matt Dillon, the characters, original instinct to not to underplay it, not make it too big of a deal. If he had stuck to his guns, he probably wouldn't have pushed the other character to look deeper because it was it was only because he freaked out about the song that the other character was like, That's weird. now we're no like, this was such an overblown reaction. I'm now going to dig deeper and find the full truth, you know, spoilers, no spoilers. But you know, we're gonna, we're gonna dig deeper. Whereas if he had just, cause I think what I liked about the record playing scene initially is that thing where inside that character, I'm sure his blood froze, you know, when you heard that song being played. But then your next thought is you don't know what is known and what is not just breathe. And deal with it, but don't, right, don't just, everything might, this might be salvageable. Right, just That's the weight of secrets, right? That's the weight of secrets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, so when we talk about this, you can kind of hear it in me. So it's like, so, here's the thing. I, I wrote the script and I don't want you to think I'm sitting here being like, you know, I did such a great job with this because, cause here's the thing. It's like, I had a role in it. I had a role in it, but to a certain degree, I'm sitting here talking to you guys like a fan because, because all these people got together and they figured it out. And when you write this stuff, you have to write more. so Fernando and I had to know exactly what happened in the past. And we had to write it into the script and they had to film it. And then starts the process of, how much do we actually leave the audience with? when do we leave it with them? And then Matt Dillon shows up on set and says, You think that's what happened? is what I think happened. And then those things are... And this is what I'm playing. Yeah. And then you have to modulate it. And then Lampobo shows up and he has his own take. And he's like, you know what? think I like this little bit that you wrote. I want to lean into this more. And then you get like, and then you get mad. Records great, man. It's awesome. Like, can I, I, did you make any other ones? You know what I'm saying? Like, I listen to all of it. I try to Spotify that shit. you know, I couldn't find anything. Right. All right. You know, and it was such, was such a great choice. And so, so like I said, you kind of write this stuff and then it comes to life in this amazing way. When you have great collaborators, they bring this. So I'm watching this stuff like a fan. I'm like, wow, did you guys fucking, did you guys put some great stuff together here? And it's great. And then in the end, so here's the thing is I've seen a couple of cuts of it. And so I saw a cut as early as like two months ago and the cut two months ago had a little a little more information. mean, I'm not giving anything away by saying in the end, you don't really know what happened in the past. You know enough and details. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you know, gritty details. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know enough in the cut two months ago, you knew a little more. And and I am always of the opinion that that you guys are watching it, and if I asked you right now, hey, what happened in the past, you would probably give me two very different things, and it's based on your experience and your hopes and your dreams and your fears and all that stuff. And so if I then tell you no, it was this, it can only be disappointing. You're gonna be like, that's stupid. Like, no, no, for me, it's like, and that's why you get Matt coming in being like, no, that's not what happened. This is what happened. This like, it is important to my character that this happened. But again, that is a testament of really skillful writing to allow the audience member, be they the reader, the actor who will eventually play the role or the just general audience, to insert themselves into the life of this character in this world. Because it then becomes something sort of native to their to engage with it more. Right? And rather than you just painting a flat two-dimensional picture for them. So yeah, bravo on that. One quick question. One quick question. The album cover, the vinyl cover for the record, is that an image? Is that an image from the outsiders? Is that an old picture of Matt Dillon from the outsiders? I mean, it is an old picture of Matt Dillon. I don't know where they pulled it from. love the blue hue. Could have just been a photo session that he did way back in the day that he was still sitting on. So, so Fernando and Matt actually, like they bonded initially over this love of jazz. They're huge jazz guys. So making Matt's character a jazz man was pretty natural. So Fernando was actually, I mean, Fernando was a like highly decorated music producer. He's got, you know, he's, I don't know, he's got like five Grammys and he's produced some really amazing albums. And so he is a music man. He plays the clarinet himself. and, and, know, and so, and so that's, you know, and the, the music in general is great. the composer and, it's a Polish, gentleman and, and, I, I would butcher the name, but, but he, he is, he is a, a, Hall of Famer. he did all the music for the deck log for the three colors trilogy. he's got a, you know, he, yeah, he's got a number, you know, so, so the music is great. And then, and that, and then the, the. the this reimagining of the Leonard Cohen song at the end, the Alexander. Yeah, just leaves you crying. I'm a huge Leonard Cohen fan. Leonard Cohen and I, we are both LA Zen people. And so we bumped up against each other. I was actually at Leonard Cohen's funeral. And so it was weird. I didn't even know he was going to do it. Like Fernando knew that I loved Leonard Cohen and knew that I, you know, I had I had sat with Leonard Cohen for years and all that stuff. then he shows me the first cut, says nothing. And there was this Leonard Cohen song at the end and literally had me sobbing. was such a powerful thing. so music is, the music slaps in this thing. I'm a It does, it absolutely does. Again, to wrap it up, this thing fires in all cylinders. You know, it makes me want to I'm definitely gonna go see the other film now just because I like your review of it. Yeah, so this is a counterpoint but in terms of this guy this film Bravo great strokes. Yeah, yeah A sub stack post it'll just say Ryland is was right The last thing I want to say about this film, if we are going to kind of move on, is it is such a weird time to drop a film. And again, we were just talking about how Clooney and Pitt didn't end up in a theater and how Doug Liman and Jake Gyllenhaal didn't end up in a theater. I think we made a really beautiful, really amazing, really touching film. I am worried that nobody will care. And it's great talking to you guys and you guys seem to have watched it and liked it and you got it at the, even if you don't like it, if you got it, I am with you. You know what I'm saying? It is a weird time. it used to be that people used to care about this stuff. It used to be, well, here are the eight films coming out this weekend. Let's have a talk show on NPR and talk about all of them and let's debate the good and the bad and let's. And we know about Hitchcock and we know about Highsmiths. So we see exactly what he was trying to do. And even if he didn't get across the finish line, let's celebrate that he swung for the fences and all that stuff. And so we are not in that climate anymore. so a couple of things. It used to be you a film come out. Go ahead, yeah, go ahead. No, no, you go. This is about you. I was gonna say, it used to be you had a film come out and like... 20 critics from the biggest papers who have a film background would look at it and you would get a reasonable, that's not the case anymore. Nobody's watching it, nobody's reviewing it. And when you get a review, it's like concern mom's blog, you know what I'm saying? she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like, this one's scary, you know, like I didn't get it. And so it's just like the level of discourse is really tough these days. And there's nobody talking about Hitchcock or Highsmith and it's like, it was too slow for me. It's like, well, that's kind of the point. You know what I'm saying? There's that. it's like, well, you know, well, I thought it was going to be a love story and it's not a love story. Well, how about setting aside what you thought it was going to be and looking at what it is. Allow it to be what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would even argue it absolutely is a love story. I mean, it doesn't matter how it ends. It can be a tragic love story, but it is still a love story. I think the first hour is the best part of the film and I think it's such a beautiful love story. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the other thing is that when you when you the online ratings like tend to skew things so so oddly and so and so if you go on if you go on Amazon and Amazon VOD and you watch that you're going to see the IMDB rating pop up on this. it is way too low. And it is actually we talked about how bad state of consciousness is. It is actually lower than state of consciousness, which makes me live it. here's the thing. There aren't a ton of people that had seen it when it being released on VOD. So all of the ratings are essentially from a single screening in Majorca. And you can go on and read these. And so it is a film in English. They were showing it to a Spanish audience in my Arca. And they found out later they were going to have to do it. And so they had to rush and they decided to dub the film. And the dubbing was apparently, was apparently God awful. And so they show it in my Arca and the dubbing is horrendous. And if you read all of the reviews, it's like, it's like, my God, the dubbing is horrific. I had to walk out of this because I didn't understand, cause the dubbing was so bad. Dubbing, dubbing, dubbing. I can't believe, was so, and so. And so my worry is that you do not have the critic from Rolling Stone saying, my God. So all you have are shows like these. It is a great film. It is a beautiful film. Go see it. I love this film. I don't say that like this. hate the other one. Go see it. Let's do this for you, Rylan. Anyone within the reach and breadth of our voices at this point time. One, go see this film to support this independent long-form filmmaking that has taken 16 years and is a collaborative effort and on top of that make sure you judge it based on its own aims not what you think it should be not what you want it to be but what it presents to you its own storytelling and its ability to craft beautiful scenes shots characters narrative and plot. And on top of that, just go ahead and give it 10 stars, five stars, whatever the top is, because we know you've heavily weighted other stuff in the past, and this is just gonna even it out. If you've taken our advice at the beginning of every episode where we say, leave a five star review on Apple iTunes or Spotify, if you've done that, we ain't a five star podcast, mother fucker. So you're already lying. Go ahead and just give a top review. Don't equivocate, don't quibble. I will also say this episode is dropping. right before the third weekend after its release. So it may or may not still be in theaters, but check for it. See if it's still in theaters on its third weekend near you. And if not, VOD, you can rent it. can buy it. That's right. Yes, exactly. find it the platform of your choice. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I will say this is a... Sorry, go ahead, Rylan. no, I was just to say it's just such a... I mean, the film business, the theater business, whole, the review business is just in such chaos. My worry is, I feel like they made such a beautiful film and there's so much merit to it. And I feel like it is being dumped into a crack between eras or something like that. And whatever this ends up being, it would have played great. And whatever, know, again, 16 years ago, this is this is awesome. And again, the what angers me is that, again, like, well, you know, 16 years ago, it would have been a really big film and it would have been great for my career. And and it probably would have been pretty good. This is a better film than we would have had 16 years ago. I guarantee it. It is it is so beautiful and so haunting in a way that it couldn't have been 16 years ago. And I feel like. I feel like we are shouting into the Grand Canyon with it. And that is the tragedy of this. And it's not even for me. It is that Fernando, that Ida, that Matt, that the goddamn location manager did such beautiful work. And that- Just everything. was, Too few people are gonna care. And I give it to you straight. You have heard me say, You know, I have been a part of some things that did not end up great. This is great. Go see it. And and and yeah, yeah, leave a leave a damn good review on IMDB or whatever the hell. As a version of a recommendation, guys, I do think this is the kind of movie that would have killed on the new release wall on at Blockbuster. you would have taken this home and it would have been a find. Right, it's one of those movies that you would have been like, Matt Dillon, what did he do? I didn't hear about this movie. You would have taken it home and it would have been one of your blockbuster. And on top of that, you know, that's a recommendation. all remember. I this would have been a great film in the early days of Netflix. This has been one of those finds when the disc were still coming. You'd see it online like, that's interesting. OK, you get it to three days later and you sit down. You get to actually dig into it and allow it to unfreeze. bold slowly because it great slow burn. And I will say this Ryland to sort of assuage some of your concerns. I do think we are in sort of a transitional period now and people are looking for these stories that harken back to solid narrative character driven filmmaking where it just feels like a place you want to be and people you want to know. So I will say don't worry my friend. I think your audience will find you. Yeah, it feels to me like it has some things in common with office space where, you know, space comes out and it doesn't find, you know, it doesn't find what it needs to find in the theater. then, know, then again, in Blockbuster, people are like, my God, this is awesome. The one for me is Michael Mann's Miami Vice movie where it came out and people like a hater and blah, blah, blah, blah. But go read. There are some amazing articles about how Miami Vice is this like brilliant, nuanced piece of filmmaking and you have to revisit it. And then you go and revisit it and you're like, my God, I see it. This is not as acidic as that Miami Vice film is. don't mean to it. I do feel like, you know, again, in a few years, we are going to be settled as a business and people are gonna look back and you're gonna see the article on, I don't know what it's gonna be. Maybe it's in Rolling Stone, maybe it's Sing Collider, maybe it's who knows. and they're gonna be like, you know, this is one that we missed. look at all this stuff Fernando was doing. Did you know these people did this movie? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but it's like, it's like, look at what Fernando was doing with the camera. Look at how this was all back to this and how he was building on this and look at how this set up and paid off and yeah, so I don't know. It is weird. You can't control when this stuff comes out and, you know, right film, maybe the wrong time, but it'll find its legs. But go see it. I think so. It's the right time. We launched this whole podcast with the Speed Racer episode, and that's another movie that took some time to find that love and find that adoration. And now it does. And at the time, we were all like, what the fuck is this? And rejected it. And it was a box office bomb. But OK, so. To wrap this up, because I know Rylan does have to be elsewhere fairly soon. So Mr. Rylan, what would you drink with haunted heart? And I'm going to let you go first because my choice for what to drink with haunted house is in context with your choice. So I need you to say yours first. you get us started. think you guys are going to like what I did with this. You talk about, I mean, you know, a thing with wine often is that it needs some time, right? It needs some time to mature. And this is very much a film that needed some time to mature. There is a very fun wedding scene. there is alcohol is celebrated in this movie. There are these chess matches where an old single malt is enjoyed. There was a wedding scene where way too much wine gets consumed. is a rich guy, a rich old guy marrying a young woman and he is a unfettered drunk. And he is just like inhaling Barolo. And they are running out of wine. And the line that Matt says is that if he keeps drinking this way, I'm going to own those boats of his. The guy owes me a fishing boat. Expensive wine at that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. so what they are drinking is a Bruno Giacoso Barolo Reserve, which is their elite. And so the other thing is that if you look at the film, the first thing you see is it says that the film takes place in 2001. It is of a different time. It is of a memory. And so the thing is, is if you go back and you look at the 2001 Bruno Giacoso Barolo Reserve, it's probably about a $900 bottle of wine right now. But if you look at it, it gets a 97. from Wine Spectator Magazine. And what the review says is, is don't drink it now. Wait, until between 2016 and 2026. And so what year is it guys? It is 2024 and that's 2001. Verona Reserve is at the perfect time, the perfect maturity right now. And if we wait too long, it's not going to be at its height anymore. so- You got to it out its peak in its window. Two years, guys. You got two years. That's right. You and I, we need to pop that cork and we need to let it breathe a little bit. And then we need to sit back, pour ourselves a couple of glasses, and enjoy the slow burn of the wine with the slow burn of this movie. Ding ding ding. Good choice. a quick side note for an older wine, 2001 is not crazy old, but don't let it breathe too long because the older the wine is, actually don't decant it because the oxygen will deplete it quicker. it's like don't just... This is where the expertise comes in. It'll burn. right. This is like 10, 20 minutes. then drink that shit. Don't be letting this sit for hours. Open it, walk around, do a couple of chores, come and sit back down. Yeah, you need to run out and watch Haunted Heart and you need to pop this wine and get it down. Absolutely. And once you spend $900 on the bottle of wine, $14.99 on the movie is going to be like, yeah, of course, it's going to be easy. That's all it costs to watch this movie, exactly. Or rent it for what, $6.99, something like that. or theater, go see it in theater, especially if you're on the coastal cities because that's where it's predominantly playing. But a couple other, I think it's Illinois, New York, LA, a couple other places I saw online that it's playing that. But anyway, so to Rylan's point on that, I chose something very close to an old Barolo, but is a Greek wine. And it almost, it is a new release, believe it or fucking not. almost makes it to the origins of this script. A 2009 Gomenisa Casino Mavra Nagoska blend from Tatsis Winery in Macedonia, Greece. Now this wine is Tatsis Winery. It's two brothers that run the winery, Pericles and Sergios Tatsis. They've been outliers and rebels in the wine world since Yes, good names. They've been rebels in the wine world since the 1990s when they were only three or four others in Greece doing the kind of natural farming and natural winemaking they had committed to. So this is technically a natural wine, quote unquote, but it does not taste or smell like a capital N natural wine that a lot of us kind of side eye warily these days. This just tastes like fine red wine. no sulfuric smells, no cloudy juice, no funky barnyard flavors that come with a lot of natural wine. But they do very low intervention wine making. are supposedly officially natural. They were organic from the start and biodynamic since 2002. And they are now making wines that are not only natural, but age worthy, complex, and dare I say it, hauntingly beautiful. And this is a 50-50. Casino Mavro, that is X-I-N-O-M-A-V-R-O. You basically pronounce it like gambling at a casino, Casino Mavro. Now, a Greek lady came into the winery that I work on on the weekend just a couple of weeks ago and I said this word to her and she was having none of it. So, if you're a local, that is not how you pronounce this name. Now, she said how to pronounce the name about five or six times to me and I kept trying to repeat it back to her and she sort of accepted my sixth and final attempt. as like passable. And I to this day cannot remember what the fuck I did with my mouth to make that happen. So it's not happening again. But for those of you with a yank accent like me, it is casino essentially, Mavro and Nagoska or Nagoska, N-E-G-O-S-K-A. It's a 50-50 blend from the Macedonian region. The gomanisa is the Appalachian in Macedonia that this comes from. It spent one year in barrel. And then the brothers hold it back until they think in bottle. until they think it's ready to release. So this 2009 is a new recent release. They just sat on it until they thought it was finally ready to be drunk. So it's a recent Larisse. You can get it. I got this from K &L wines here in LA. There's a location in Culver City. There's a location in Hollywood and it's $35 a bottle. It's not that expensive and it tastes so much like an old Barolo. It's not even funny. So I wrote this down, I wrote a flavor profile for this and I am equally as proud and disgusted with myself for having written this. But what I wrote is, a red berry and black cherry core dressed in an earthy, herbaceous, slightly basalmic suit, blinged out in swishy vivacious tannins. It's that guy that you can't quite tell if they're a debonair gentleman or the life of the party or somehow both. Yeah, like I said, I'm proud and then I was like, no, that's disgusting. I don't know. I don't I can't believe I just wrote that. But the Tatsis brothers... bling takes it over the edge. I like the bling. That's actually that's the only part I'm still proud of. So old Barolo or if you're on a budget, go find this Tatsis, T-A-T-S-I-S, Gomanisa. There'll be a link down below in the description and try that bad boy out because it is very, very close to an old Barolo. All right. Dallas, what do you got? Yeah, I went in the opposite direction because for me, I decided I wanted something that was going to kind of fit with the locale, with the character of the setting and also kind of the slow burn of the piece. I actually went with, this will be familiar to you, Dave, because the grape, which is called the Savatiano, is the root grape. for the Retzina varietal. This particular wine is from the region of Attica. And the vineyard, the winery is called Milanos. It is a very small winery. They produce just under, I think, 100,000 bottles a year. It's again- It's small by global standards. Yeah, exactly. It's again, a bit of a trend here. It's two brothers who took over their parents winery from their dad, Stamatis, who studied chemistry. He essentially likes to experiment and created a better romance. We needed to pick wineries that had like couples. Couple of brothers, you know, kind of romance. But but At the core of this wineries production is still the Savatiano grape, which is an indigenous grape to the region. More than half of their wines involve it somehow. Curiously enough, the grape itself generally isn't a full varietal on its own. It's usually a blender or starter, but these guys have really taken it to its kind of edge and created some really great wines. Let's see. is, as I said, the retina, Dave, which I think you paired with something in a previous... Severance. Severance, with Severance, one of our Severance episodes. So anyway, this So this is not a retina though, correct? No, no. This is the grape that is the basis for the retina. This grape, Savatiano, generally does not, has not been used as its own pure varietal. except for in this case, it is used as a pure varietal and it's kind of beautiful. It's really interesting. A lot of people refer to it as an orange wine. It is, the aroma is kind of fantastic and it's a very sort of, lack of better term, convincing wine. A lot of people refer to it as a natural wine. On the nose, you get lots of It's sort of a medium intensity, suppose, and those isn't terribly strong. It is dry. There's medium alcohol. You get slapped around by the red apple, a little honey mango. There's some cardamom. But in general, it is the kind of wine you can sort of just slip, sip slowly and finish an entire bottle or pair with a really strong fatty meal. And I think because of this film, it is so meaty, it becomes so dense. Even though it starts very sort of, you know, not one dimensional, but it is a very sort of accessible film in the first two acts and then it just sort of explodes. Yeah, so I went with this guy, is the Sabatiano Grape, the Milanos, and it is a 2018 in terms of price, you can find a bottle. Well, you can't find the 2018 anywhere in the States at the moment, I don't think. But in general, can find there 2019 or 2021 for around $35 a bottle. Whichever one is available, I link to that down below. just so everyone knows, a retzina is a wine with pine resin added, which is a staple in Greece. Although that Greek lady that came in, she was like, when I mentioned retzina, she just kind of stuck her tongue out. She's like, no, no, no, no, no, that's what you drink. Apparently, Ratzina is kind of like the Boone Farm or something. It's like that's the shit that like the cart outside will give the kids like when they're part of the drunk college kids when they're partying and they're dead broke. It's cheap. It's easy. It's disgusting. It's it's something to to taste though. Let me tell you. And only Greece makes it. I called it the Vegemite of wines. the Greek version of Vegemite where it's like if you didn't grow up with it, it's gonna take some work to get into it, let me tell ya. Alright folks, once again, Haunted Heart that is out in theaters, it'll be going into its third weekend after this episode drops. Check it out if you can find it in theaters. If not, it'll be on VOD platforms. Rent it, buy it, support it. Support this kind of cinema because it needs your support. Don't just go for the big blockbusters that frankly, vote for the kind of cinema you think you want to see more of, regardless of whether you have to watch it before you know if you like this particular one or not. But vote with your dollars and your eyeballs on what kind of risks you want to see in the future, what kind of movies you want people to make. Go out there, Haunted Heart. It is a haunting, beautiful, slow burn romantic thriller. And once again, Rylan Grant has been our guest star today, the screenwriter of Haunted Heart. Rylan, thank you so much for being here with us. And shout out to everyone where they can follow you online if they would like to. I am at Rylan Grant on all forms of social media. That is R-Y-L-E-N-D-G-R-A-N-T if you are just listening. I always have to spell it because it's not a real name. My parents just kind of drunkenly arranged letters after way too much Barolo and saddled me with it and said, no, I have to spell it for you. But yeah, you'll find all the stuff and of course, The Breach, my latest and greatest comic book, is available on Kickstarter. is Black Mirror-esque sci-fi in the best way. And yeah, go check that out. It is beautiful and haunting also. It is a nice pairing with this movie and with an old Barolo. So go hit it. There you go. Alright, and all links will be down below in the description of episode. Thanks so much for listening everybody, we will be back next week with another wine and entertainment pairing for your entertainment and ciao for now. Later guys. you