Black Bag And What's Making Us Happy
15:41 Share

This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics, presenting The Penguin Lessons, a new comedy starring Steve Coogan as a teacher whose life is upended after he rescues a penguin from an oil-slicked beach. Starts March 28th, only in theaters.

This message comes from NPR sponsor Shopify. No idea where to sell? Shopify puts you in control of every sales channel. It is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you're a garage entrepreneur or IPO ready, Shopify is the only tool you need to start, run, and grow your business without the struggle. Once you've reached your audience, Shopify has the internet's best converting checkout to help you turn them from browsers to buyers. Go to shopify.com slash NPR to take your business to the next level today.

The cool, stylish new Steven Soderbergh film Black Bag is about a group of British spies who discover there's a traitor in their midst. It stars Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett. He's a lie detector expert. She's one of his chief suspects. But the thing is...

They're married. I'm Glenn Weldon, and today we're talking about Black Bag on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining me today is B.A. Parker. She's one of the hosts of NPR's Code Switch podcast. Welcome to the show, Parker. Thank you. Hi. Hi. Also with us is NPR film critic Bob Mondello. Welcome back, Bob. It's always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. So in Black Bag, Michael Fassbender plays George, a London-based spy who's great at reading people. Cate Blanchett plays his wife Catherine, also a spy.

When George learns one of his colleagues is a mole who has stolen deadly software, he invites them over to dinner. What's on the menu? Fun and games. Will there be a mess to clean up? With any luck. By the time dinner's over, after a few party games, mind games, and a chana masala dosed with truth serum, George is dismayed that his wife is heavily implicated. He has one week to discover the traitor, and the only tools at his disposal are his wits, his polygraph...

and how good he looks in a turtleneck. Seriously, both George and Catherine are stylish AF. Black Bag is in theaters now. Parker, kick us off. What'd you make of this? Stylish AF just made me giggle, sir. I mean, I really enjoyed it. It was like this really taut thriller. The ensemble is great. Like, that ensemble is top-notch. You've got Michael Fassbender. You've got Cate Blanchett. You've got Naomi Harris. It's ridiculous. Like, Pierce Brosnan...

But, like, it's, like, this incredible ensemble that Soderbergh is lucky to have, to be honest. That's true. And I was going to see it anyway because I'm a big Steven Soderbergh nerd. And I love his 90-minute, like, experiments. Like, I was the first one to see Presence at the beginning of the year. He's way more prolific than he needs to be. I can't believe he threatened to retire a while back when we could have, like—

These every couple of years. All right, Bob, what'd you make of it? Well, it kind of had me when I first read that he, apparently Soderbergh said to David Koepp at one point, wouldn't it be interesting if Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf had been conceived as a spy thriller? Well, in that clip we just played, he said fun and games. Fun and games is the

title of the first act of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? And because I was sort of keyed into that, I had a wonderful time with it at first. It was like, oh my God, they're going to be playing games and they're going to be sitting there and the lesser people are going to get caught up in their business and oh dear. Well, it kind of doesn't go there. I mean, it does some interesting things and

There's no question that the two of them are a team even when they're fighting or even when they're not acting in sync. It's them against the rest of the world. But that part of it is all definitely Edward Albee. So I got a kick out of that. For Soderbergh, it seems to me that it's kind of lesser Soderbergh. I mean, that's better than...

80% of everything that's out there. So, you know, that's fine. Right. So, yeah, I hear what you're saying, Bob, because I mean, I thought this was a very light, very stylish little movie that I'm not going to remember in a month, but that while I was sitting there in that theater, I thought this movie understands the damn assignment. I mean, I like Fassbender in this, even though he's hard to get your hands around at first. He's, he's, it's such an inward performance that he kind of seems like a cipher. And I was thinking to myself, why invest in this guy? And,

But then we see him with Blanchett, right? And his character emerges. They're both characters emerge when they're together on screen because we find out about George that he's a wife guy. And the script needs him to be that because the gimmick of this movie is that a marriage is like being a spy and that there's things you tell your spouse or other things that go in the black bag, what they call the black bag, the stuff you keep confidential. Mm-hmm.

I agree with you, Bob, about that dinner party at the start of the movie. It goes on so long you have a chance to think, is this the movie? Is this what we're going to be doing? Because I would be down with that. If we never got up from that table, I would be happy. But then the plot plot kicks in and the plot plot involves a cyber worm called Severus that could cause a nuclear explosion in Russia.

And I remember thinking, I was loving this Dosed Chana Masala movie. I'm not sure how I feel about the Cyber Worm Called Severus movie, because it seems like Cyber Worm Called Severus movies are kind of thick on the ground, but Dosed Chana Masala movies are not. Do you understand what I'm saying there? I have no idea what you said, but yes, I understand what you're saying. Listen, it's fun. There is a thing about movies that are going to take down something like spy intelligence that...

That there's a level of them that I just sort of, okay, well, isn't Tom Cruise doing that in Mission Impossible? And didn't I just have to deal with it? And, you know, so that I'm forever sort of resisting. But not in Turtlenecks. That's true. We will talk about the wardrobe, yes. Yeah, well, everything about the two of them is so gorgeous. It's, oh, my God.

I thought it was fine. You know, I had a decent time at it. I'm not going to go to bat for this movie. I just... It's fun. All right, Parker, go to bat for this movie. You just got to let it flow all over you. This is my thing. Immediately, like, Michael Fassbender's character felt like a bit of an anachronism because he's, like, always in, like, the thick black glasses and the turtlenecks and everyone seems like... Everyone is so impeccable. But it also...

I thought it informed this kind of like the Fassbender trend right now of him being like a certified lover boy who's kind of bad at his job. Okay, say more. There's from The Killer to The Agency, which is also a spy series, to Black Bag. It's just like a guy who just like really loves a girl. And that tends to be like his weakness when it comes to actually being able to

Yeah, that's great.

We want to talk, I think, about their townhouse, about their wardrobe. I mean, they say, obviously, people give out Oscars for not the best acting, but for the most acting. The same thing is true for production design and for costumes. It's always the most production design, like sci-fi, the most costumes. But I would argue that this gorgeous townhouse says so much about them as a couple. And the way that George is tailored so perfectly.

precisely so fastidiously. I think that serves the story. That's what production design and costuming are supposed to do. At one point, Catherine walks in the front door and shrugs off this incredibly buttery leather coat and you're like, I get her. I see who that is. You've never been more gay, sir. That's probably false, but go on.

You're absolutely right. And she is, I don't know that you can dress Cate Blanchett frumpishly. I'm not sure it's possible. I mean, she is so elegant. It is gorgeous. And the interior design of that apartment is breathtaking. But so is the exterior of some of the buildings that are around. I mean, every time they go outside, it's also production designed to a fairly well. I can't think of an image in the movie that looks like.

you know, somebody swept something into a corner. It just, it doesn't feel that way. It's all gorgeous. It's very much of a piece. I quite like this. I was torn by the tension between what I thought it was going to be going in when I heard the thing about Who's a Great Virginia Woolf and what it actually is. And I suspect that having that in my head

prejudiced me in a certain way. I was looking for Tweety. See? And I'm not saying that I would have liked it better without that, but I'm intrigued by my own reaction to it because I was looking for Tweety and what, New England messy. It isn't that at all. It's the opposite of that. Yeah. Thought like elbow patches? Yeah, exactly. I mean, because Virginia Woolf is about two, well, a college professor and his wife,

who is the daughter of the president of the university, and they have another couple come over. Well, these guys have their coworkers come over, and it's for much the same reason. It's to sort of, I mean, they're playing get the guest, right? And after a little while, that's, I mean, that's very precise. I'm not sure they say it in the movie, but that's the game that George and Martha play in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. And get the guest is absolutely what they're doing. They're trying to figure out which of these people

is conceivably the leak, I guess, of Agency Secrets. It all sort of fits into what I thought it was going to be and doesn't look at all like what I thought it was going to be, even after seeing the trailer. I'm more interested in my own

mixed reaction to it than I am sort of in the plot. That is, I think you said something similar to that, and I don't know that it matters where this ends up going. It's such a fun ride going there. I had no expectations and no context when I went in to see it. All I knew was who the director was and who the actors were. It really, it reminded me of like Soderbergh's like Ocean's Twelve. Sure.

of just like cat and mouse we're going to do a few like magic tricks throughout the plot to like

trick you a little bit and then go about your day. That's fine with me. Like that's kind of like, so to break the deal, like a mini kind of cinematic heist. Yeah. Then you go home. I mean, I think Kep kind of sensed that there was some kind of electricity in that opening dinner party scene that maybe gets a little stretched out over the cyber worm called Severus. The film ends with another dinner party scene. There's another, you know, George and Martha fun and games scene where

That resolves the plot. Yeah. I loved seeing Regé-Jean Page on my screen. He's always great. I was worried about him when he left Bridgerton because I thought he was going to be doing. Still am. Yeah. Because, you know, to people of a certain age, we call that pulling a Caruso when David Caruso left NYPD Blue. But he's great here. He's playing a jerk and he plays such a conceited, wonderful jerk. Yeah.

I think from our discussion, you can learn that if you, like Parker and I, just kind of see this movie where it is, you're going to enjoy it. But if you're Bob... Bob is always expecting too much. That is the story of my life. Please forgive me. You just got to vibe out, Bob. Just let the vibes flow over you. This is the story of Bob's life. He needs to vibe out. Tell us what you think about Black Bag. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash PCHH and on Letterboxd.com.

At letterboxd.com slash NPR Pop Culture, we'll have a link in our episode description. Up next, what is making us happy this week? This message comes from Charles Schwab. When it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices, like full-service wealth management and advice when you need it. You can also invest on your own and trade on Thinkorswim. Visit Schwab.com to learn more.

This message comes from Emirates. If you love the thought of a vacation to Europe, why not look a little further to Dubai? Dubai has everything you could want from a vacation destination. From world-class hotels, record-breaking skyscrapers, and epic desert adventures, to museums that showcase the future, not just the past. Choose from 96 flights per week between the United States and Dubai. Book on Emirates.com today.

This message comes from Rinse. These days, you can do a lot from your phone. Book a vacation, buy and trade stocks, but you can also make your dirty laundry disappear and then reappear washed and folded with Rinse. Schedule a pickup with the Rinse app, and before you know it, your clothes are back, folded, and ready to wear. They even do dry cleaning. Sign up now and get $20 off your first order at Rinse.com. That's R-I-N-S-E dot com.

Support for the following message comes from LinkedIn Ads. As a B2B marketer, you know how noisy the digital ad space can be. If your message isn't targeted to the right audience, it just disappears into the noise. By using LinkedIn Ads, you can reach professionals who are more likely to find your ad relevant. Target them by job title, industry, company, and more. Get a $100 credit on your next campaign at linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply.

Now it's time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What is making us happy this week? Parker, what is making you happy this week? Oh, it's making me happy this week. So I finally stopped listening to, I've played Kendrick Lamar's GNX too much. And I can finally go back and listen to the latest Father John Misty, Mahasmasana. And it's just, it's only eight songs, but I've been playing it on repeat for the past two weeks. And there's a song called Mental Health Velocity.

that's like six minutes long and it just plays like a chant now, mental health, mental health in the corner. Mental health, mental health, no one knows you like yourself.

Appropriate to our time. Yeah. So the thing that's making me happy right now is Father John Misty's album, Mahashmashana. Thank you very much, Parker. Okay, Bob, what is making you happy this week? So what's making me happy is something that initially made me really sad. Athol Fugard, the South African playwright, recently died.

And I remember seeing his plays, gosh, back in the 1980s and up into the 2000s. I actually saw him once at the Kennedy Center. And, you know, great playwrights. And I think he's arguably one of the great playwrights in any language in the 20th century.

have something characteristic about them. I mean, if you think about, say, Tennessee Williams, he's all about the poetry of language, right? And Arthur Miller is all about the politics of interaction.

I think what was amazing about Athol Fugard was that his plays, written during apartheid in South Africa, were very much about that moment in history. And they were so intensely about humanity and about the simplicity of how people lived.

dealt with those issues. And they were written in very simple language. Everything is very clear. The clarity is astonishing, in fact. And it's just gorgeous writing. I went online and I found a whole lot of clips from productions of his plays, from movies of his plays, from just all kinds of things. They're all sort of revelatory about the kinds of things that people feel in situations that are very difficult.

And he was an astonishing talent. He is an astonishing talent. And we have him still in his work. And the wonderful thing is that you can go and find it online. That is what's making me happy. The plays of Athol Fugard. All right. Thank you very much.

What is making me happy this week? Azrael is a 2024 horror film starring Samara Weaving. Look, I'm a sucker for any movie in which Samara Weaving ends up covered in somebody else's blood because she has been kicking butt and taking names. She did it in The Babysitter. She did it in Ready or Not. She does it here. Though I will say it takes an awfully long time to open that can of Wapass. But when she does open it, it gets well and truly opened. This movie...

is a lot in terms of its plot. It is set after the rapture. Also, there's a cult that removes its members' voice boxes. Also, there are evil creatures in the woods who rip you up and eat you. Also, there's no dialogue in the movie. See above in members' voice boxes. And it's mostly her getting chased through the woods by cultists or creatures or both.

To, you know, the movie we're talking about today, this thing clocks in at a zippy hour and 25 minutes. It is certainly doing its own thing. It is, you know, idiosyncratic as hell. And, you know, I was watching it and I was liking it. And I thought, yeah, I like this. This does not rise to the level of a happy. That's a high bar for me. And then the ending happened. And I will say nothing about it except that it goes there.

It's a big swing, and it is just the right amount of goofy, and I kind of love it. That is Azrael, which is streaming on AMC+, and available on VOD elsewhere. And that is what is making me happy this week.

If you want links for what we recommended, plus some more recommendations, sign up for our newsletter at npr.org slash pop culture newsletter. And that brings us to the end of our show. B.A. Parker, Bob Mandel, well, thank you so much for being here. It's great to be here. Thank you. This episode was produced by Hafsa Fathima and edited by Mike Katze. Our supervising producer is, of course, Jessica Reedy. And Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Wilden, and we'll see you all next week.

Support for the following message come from LinkedIn ads. With LinkedIn ads, you can reach professionals relevant to your business. Target them by job title, industry, company, and more by launching your next campaign with a free $100 ad credit at linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply.

This message comes from NPR sponsor, REI Co-op. You can't make more time, but when you opt outside, you can make the most of it. So make time for those early mornings, last-minute trips, and timeless views for small victories, big fails, and everything in between. And when you're ready, REI has the gear, clothing, classes, and advice to help you make the most of your time out there. Visit your local REI Co-op or rei.com slash opt outside.

This message comes from Scholastic with the novel Iceberg from the number one New York Times bestselling author Jennifer A. Nielsen. A young stowaway on board the Titanic will need all her courage and wits to stay alive. Iceberg, available in paperback wherever books are sold.