At the start of every week I always look forward to who Brian Koppelman has interviewed on his podcast The Moment. Lately he’s been killing it. I came upon BK when Marc Maron interviewed him. Podcasting has taken the world by storm, and if you’re like me it is a great source of insightful interviews with creative people you might not ever get access to. Check out: WTF, The Moment with Brian Koppelman, You Must Remember This just to name a few. Oh, and don’t get me started on the brilliance of the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast. I’m not sold on How To Be Amazing with Michael Ian Black, but it is growing on me.
I could go through and list all the people BK has interviewed on his podcast but I want to direct you to a few episodes that will kick your ass.
- Tony Gilroy: you know this screenwriter from the Bourne movies and if you want to hear a guy talk about screenwriting like it’s writing a novel then listen to this particular podcast. I got out of the film production business in New York City a few years before Michael Clayton was made there and I totally regret it. Listen to Gilroy describe writing a screenplay and coming up with a good idea. It’s total magic. Then go and watch Michael Clayton. To this day I still don’t know how he did it.
- Scott Rosenberg; he is the screenwriter of Things to Do In Denver When You’re Dead. I adored that movie and saw it in a little theater on 3rd Avenue the day it came out. Rosenberg adapted High Fidelity and wrote Con Air. Nothing wrong with either of those movies, one’s highbrow the other unibrow. He writes like he means it and is a total professional. BK loves his screenwriters. These first two podcasts are great listens and offer a wonderful insight into the process of screenwriting.
- David Lipsky: if you want to know what it is like to be a writer, a dyed in the wool writer then you should listen to this episode. Lipsky interviewed David Foster Wallace for what became the movie The End of the Tour. I don’t truck in DFW, but BK does and that is one of the best things about this podcast. He tells you why he likes the person he is interviewing. I mean really likes them. Lipsky talks candidly about not being able to write a novel after spending time with DFW, and BK throws a hard ball at him and says it might be because of interviewing DFW.
- Amy Schumer: forget that she’s since blown up bigger that Catilyn Jenner, and is way better looking. BK digs down on how she made it to where she is. This is his trick, he finds the “moment” when things broke for the people he interviews. It is gold, and worth every second you spend with it. Listening to creative people of all walks of life talking about how they do what they do and why is really fascinating to me.
BK brings someone different in every week. Last week it was actor David Costabile who is on BK’s new television show Billions (Showtime Sunday nights, created with David Levin his writing partner and Andrew Ross Sorkin). Earlier in the month on The Moment BK had on another actress from Billions Maggie Siff (Rachel Menken on Mad Men, so good). Listening to each of these actors talk about how they prepare for their jobs, then go on to tell you how they actually do their jobs makes for some riveting radio.
Are you watching Billions? You should be. I don’t care that I can’t figure out exactly what they are talking about, hedge funds, illegal trading, even insider trading. I mean I can figure it out, but it zips by so fast that I can barely get my head around it before we’re off to another storyline that needs my attention. Maggie Siff plays Wendy Rhoades the in house shrink at Axe which is a hedge fund run by super savvy Bobby Axelrod played with subtle sharpness by Damian Lewis. Watch his mouth move around the recalcitrant Peter Luger prime rib that is Koppelman/Levin script. Whenever Lewis is on screen, or even for that matter, Siff, things seems to get amped up just a notch. Yes they are pretty people. Yes they are actors. But it is so much fun to see them thrown into the same pit. These two in particular have a smoky chemistry which I’m sure will lead to beside theater later in the show. Paul Giamatti plays Chuck Rhoades a character that swings into full throttle intensity whenever the wind blows. He plays the U.S Attorney and the show’s other angry scene chewer. He is chasing Axelrod down and trying to put him in jail for insider trading. The show contrasts good and evil in an East of Eden way. I forgot to mention Wendy Rhoades is Chuck’s wife. You have to love the friction! The show is just getting its sea legs, and I suspect it will blossom but it needs your support.
Koppelman and Levin have combined for a handful of movies with mixed critical results. They wrote Oceans Thirteen, and I will admit that it’s not my favorite of the franchise. It is more Al Pacino’s fault than anything else. I loved Oceans Twelve, (I might be the only one, Julia Roberts and Julia Roberts was great and in general I don’t care for her). BK/Levin penned the Sasha Grey hooker vehicle The Girlfriend Experience that Steven Soderbergh directed and which almost no one saw. It felt like a John Cheever short story as if re-written by Tim O’Brien and took place in 90’s New York City that I will always love. The Knockaround Guys is not a bad movie. It has a stellar cast and a simple story. Sometimes that is all you need or want. They took a lousy John Grisham novel; Runaway Jury, and made it something that I would watch. Which had more to do with the casting. BK and Levin get props for pulling a story out of that book. BK judges himself harshly for Runner Runner starring Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake, and I’m not sure I agree with him. Mediocre movies get made all the time. That is not one of them. It is a great little story. A dime store crime novel put up on the big screen. In comparison I can point to countless movies that had higher marketing budgets and greater expectations that were miserable flops. BK/Levin had a massive critical success with Solitary Man a movie that took a while to make and stars Michael Douglas and Jesse Eisenberg. I had a chance to meet Eisenberg last fall on his book tour for his collection of short stories Bream Gives Me Hiccups and he is quite charming. I didn’t LOVE this movie for reasons that I can’t put my finger on. Douglas is great as a hard charging car salesman facing mortality. I saw it when it came out and maybe I was too young or not in the proper frame of mind. I blame viewer error.
I have followed Koppelman since he and Levin wrote Rounders starring Matt Damon and Edward Norton. It is a movie that continually impresses me. John Malkovich’s Russian Oreo chewer. John Turturro as the life long poker player grinding out a living. Matt Damon is solid in the hero’s journey and Ed Norton as “Worm”, wild and unpredictable. Gretchen Mol is the only out of tune note in an otherwise magical movie. I also love BK’s cameo in Michael Clayton during the underground card room scene. My love for that movie knows no bounds. It is a set of Russian dolls inside an infinity loop. Tony Gilroy is responsible for Michael Clayton and if I ever meet him I will thank him for changing my life. The movie had a profound effect on me.
It is great to see a writer like Koppelman stretch his legs with his podcast and still figure out how to write an episodic television show. He seems like a smart kid that only raises his hand when he knows the answer. In his salad days he discovered Tracy Chapman. That Tracy Chapman. He was a music junky growing up and brings musician’s on the podcast which offers a nice mix. BK also knows the best places to get a good slice of pizza in New York City, and when is a good time to go to Momofuku Noddle bar on the lower east side. I like BK’s point of view because it’s hard won, and he seems like a guy that knows how to get to Carnegie Hall; practice, practice, practice.
