The NO NOTES Podcast

John Early joins NO NOTES to talk about MADDIE'S SECRET, his directorial debut, in which he plays food-media dishwasher Maddie Ralph—a woman who goes viral and slowly comes apart.
He gets into screening Showgirls for the cast to give everyone permission to reach; why Conner O'Malley is his favorite comedian alive; the sincere-in-a-silly-movie lesson he took from Wet Hot American Summer; and Toni Collette in Muriel's Wedding as his entire theory of acting. Plus, his Metrograph programming series and why Nashville earns a "No Notes."
MADDIE'S SECRET is in theaters now.

Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol join NO NOTES to talk about NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE—the comedy they made with barely a script, writing backwards from whatever actually happened when they took a camera into the streets of Toronto (yes, they really got up the CN Tower). They get into why they'd never leave Canada, a tribute to the late Catherine O'Hara, and some details about 'Tony,' Matt's Anthony Bourdain movie for A24 with Dominic Sessa.
NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE is out now.

Adrian Chiarella joins Schmear to talk Leviticus, his debut queer horror feature out of Australia.
We get into the origin of that biblical title and the sermon scene he cut, why he refused to cast 25-year-olds as teenagers, and how he found his two leads, Joe Bird and Stacey Clausen, including the dual role that meant building a horror entity from scratch. Adrian breaks down the films in the DNA of Leviticus (The Thing, Onibaba) and pushes back on the "Heated Rivalry meets It Follows" pitch.
Plus, the bootleg VHS childhood that made him a cinephile (Red Sorghum, early Wong Kar-wai with no subtitles); why Cure rewired his brain; his NO NOTES pick, his love of Picnic at Hanging Rock; queer horror from A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 to I Saw the TV Glow; and why the genre is having a moment.

Michael Sarnoski—director of Pig and A Quiet Place: Day One—sits down with No Notes to talk about The Death of Robin Hood, in theaters now.
We get into the centuries-old ballad he first read as a ten-year-old, handed to him by a family friend after his father passed, and how that quiet, mortal ending of an "immortal" folk hero never let him go. Plus: casting Hugh Jackman as a Robin who weaponizes storytelling; reuniting with Jodie Comer; why he keeps accidentally subverting the revenge film; his Death Stranding adaptation (with Hideo Kojima's blessing); the one perfect NYC slice; and the Sam Raimi Spider-Man moment that taught a self-taught kid from Wisconsin what a director actually does.

Hiro Murai sat down with us, and we still can't believe it.
The director behind Atlanta, This Is America, Station Eleven, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and now Apple TV+'s Widow's Bay joins Schmear and Sena to get into all of it.
We talk about the cozy-and-terrifying tone of Widow's Bay, working with Matthew Rhys and creator Katie Dippold, and why Hiro chases the feeling of "Is this even going to work?" on every project instead of the slam dunk.
Then we go deep on the catalog: Teddy Perkins, Alligator Man, the crawlspace clown, the chaos of shooting This Is America in two days, and the foundational weirdness of Clapping for the Wrong Reasons. He gives us his NO NOTES picks, casts NO NOTES movies for the Widow's Bay characters, and refuses to tell us what's behind the show's closed door.