Back in January 2014, I attended my first Sundance Film Festival. As one of my first out-of-state solo trips, it proved to be quite a memorable experience, where everything felt so freeing and limiting at the same time. I didn’t need to be anywhere that I didn’t want to be, and I had access to a whole host of fascinating options. This was the premiere place for indie films, and I wanted to come away more enlightened by what I had seen. While I can’t say that was entirely true (anyone heard of The Foxy Merkins (2014)?), it did give me this exciting fly on the wall experience where suddenly seeing the movie critics I idolized in the flesh were all piled on top of each other in a tent, waiting to see the next potential hit.
It was there that I ran into Matt Patches, currently of Polygon. I forget what website he was at in 2014, but I knew of his podcast Fighting in the War Room. It was my resource for film news and reviews that have greatly shaped my taste in film. While I can’t say that I met any celebrity during my time there, Patches was one of those figures I never thought that I’d ever see because of one reason. I’m from California and he was then in New York. Our screenings would never overlap.
By some luck, I remember seeing him a few times one day. The whole experience was surreal because I wanted to be polite, but I wanted to tell him that I was a fan. Considering that I feel awkward talking to anyone, the decision to even abruptly tell him “Hi, I’m a fan of Fighting in the War Room” (part of me wishes I met him two years prior so that I could say the briefer, cleaner Op Kino). I had no idea that I would strike up a conversation or if he would even stop. In all honesty, I was likely catatonic to him, having to be dragged through a conversation by him.
It was your typical “What do you do?” or “What do you like?” We both agreed on how interesting Dear White People (2014) was, which was the first screening that I noticed him at. In fact, I am embarrassed to admit that as we all pushed out of the theater, I think I cut him off. We were now coming out of Life is Strange (2014), and the craziest part was that I recognized his specific laugh during the screening.
I still don’t know if he was just humoring me for five minutes, but I feel like I rushed him after the screening, knowing that my opportunity was fading to share my interest in his work. The moment was so abrupt that I think I startled him. It made me feel great and I loved having that moment to meet someone I admired reading (I also saw The Film Experience’s Nathaniel Rogers, but we were never close enough to talk). We were eventually broken up by a third party yelling that they needed to get on a bus to a screening of Boyhood (2014). When he asked me what I was going to see, I said: “Whatever’s next.” He shrugged his shoulders in a goofy way and we departed, only ever to see each other on the internet.
One funny side note: I don’t think this was actually what happened, but the person who yelled for Matt Patches said it in a way that made me think they were parodying the Hot Pockets jingle.
The whole experience was a learning curve and there were hundreds of things that I would’ve done better had I known what to expect (pro tip: get a working phone charger to cut down on running to Best Buys). I would’ve seen more movies, maybe even a more structured approach. But that’s what happens when you’re a beginner who has to stay at a cheap motel in Salt Lake City. I would’ve figured out a way to see Whiplash (2014) and The Babadook (2014) instead of being like “Who?” You just learn.
Even then, I don’t regret talking to Patches. Whether he found it touching or awkward, it was one of those moments that I look back and understand the value of self-confidence. I am naturally shy and rarely instigate a conversation. I just knew that if I didn’t talk to Patches, even for a second, I would regret it. It’s something that makes me wish I was braver, capable of reaching out and being more open.
I suppose that this is a long way of saying one thing that should be obvious. Patches is one of those writers that I have admired for almost 10 years now. Considering that this week marks the 300th episode of his Fighting in the War Room podcast, I am a bit nostalgic for the road that he has taken me down. Even if our friendship is at best very impersonal, it does feel like I’ve watched him grow, becoming this successful writer over the years while being unashamed to share his love of Mirror Mirror (2012) and The Smurfs (2011). He had a complex pallet of tastes, and it’s the type of personality that I gravitated towards.
This isn’t to discredit the appeal of Da7e Gonzales, Katey Rich, and David Ehrlich. The four hosts are essential to making FITWR something special. I remember listening back in the Operation Kino days when it felt like the best film writers of their generation started for the now extinct Cinematical. I first discovered Op Kino on a drive to Santa Monica, CA in April 2011 and my life was changed.
But I suppose that it’s worth singling Patches out because not only is his show celebrating a triumphant moment but that he’s broken arguably one of the best film essays of 2020 so far. Titled “The Post-Disaster Artist,” he has spent the past four years interviewing Josh Trank about what it’s like to deal with a career that’s fallen apart. He’s done it with such secrecy that even if he was in Southern California, I had no tip-off at that time. To his credit, he was a regular Deep Throat.
I will not go into the specifics of the piece because what I ultimately want you to do is read it and appreciate not only what Patches brings to the narrative, but how he portrays Trank. The piece centers around a conflict that we are all probably aware of. It’s one where Trank had an impressive amount of success with Chronicle (2012), and he had every opportunity in the world. Considering that his career started in the world of viral videos, he came a long way in such a short time that you felt like you were watching a new prodigy.
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| Josh Trank |
The fact that his follow-up The Fantastic Four (2015) ended up being one of the most notorious bombs of the decade made one wonder if his career was over. I give credit to Patches for having the sympathetic heart to want to look into his life, finding a story where most weren’t likely looking. I personally hadn’t thought much of the film, though it’s impossible to not be aware that it’s the definition of a behind the scenes nightmare. Everything that could go wrong did and some of that was from Trank as well. His trajectory had risen too quickly and he had no way of controlling it.
What ultimately comes through is that Trank put work before friends and it took a toll on his emotional well-being. Even in the moments of success, he found himself unsatisfied with where he ended up, interviewing celebrities for future projects and feeling like it was a waste of time. I love how transparent Trank was in this piece, managing to capture a conversation about mental health that isn’t ever discussed. We see films as simply being made, never thinking about the people committed to making it as having feelings. Trank receiving death threats in this context only makes it all the more tragic.
This is a piece that does plenty to reshape the narrative around Trank and I feel makes him look a lot better as an individual. Again, I didn’t think of him much, but this three-dimensional take allows me to recognize the artistic struggle even on a grand scale, where there is no point where the depression magically disappears. If we’re not fulfilled in our relationships and personal lives, then it will all seem meaningless.
That is why Trank considers his third film Capone (2020) to be his first. It’s labeled as Cronenbergian and has gotten acclaim from other directors on Twitter. Making the film reflects the divide between how his career started and where it wound up. It builds without magically suggesting that Trank is all better. It’s cautionary, but only in the way that we all need to take care of ourselves. Trank didn’t want to fail upwards, so going indie definitely helped to clear his head.
Also, this is maybe the best piece of marketing that Capone could’ve ever assembled. It’s more than a comeback narrative. It’s one of rediscovery, of understanding your voice as an artist. I don’t know that Patches could’ve had the foresight to know the road that Trank took in this time, but it’s one of those stories that you’re glad is well documented, serving as a great character study of a figure familiar in a lot of Hollywood, in a time where figures like Colin Trevorrow could be an indie darling one year with Safety Not Guaranteed (2012) and reviled the next for The Book of Henry (2017). In both Trank and Trevorrow’s cases, this got them dropped from Star Wars projects, and shows how a lack of personal direction can play against them.
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| Capone (2020) |
To be honest, it does feel like everyone in Fighting in the War Room has taken turns releasing meaningful exposés on different facets of pop culture. They all have work that has defined them as essential voices in modern film discourse. It’s something that I still aspire to, even if I feel my talents will eventually be geared more towards the level of the local arts. Still, there’s nothing like seeing a writer that you’ve watched evolve over the years have that moment where things click, where they reach the potential you’ve always seen in them.
I know that this piece is only kind of about the Josh Trank piece, but that’s because Patches has come to mean so much to me. This is simply another accomplishment and one that puts a cherry on top of the cake that is his podcast’s 300th episode. I’ve spent so many hours listening to him, and I hope he’s still got a lot of surprises in store. He seems like he has that instinct. He just goes for what interests him, and it’s proven to be a successful gambit.
If he reads this, I want to say thank you for all of the great writing and I definitely see “The Post-Disaster Artist” as one of your peaks so far. It’s a story that is about more than film. It’s about dealing with success and failure, learning from the past, and finding faith to become a better person.
I wish that I could write as well as you about this stuff, but as I’ve already said I barely got through a conversation with you. It was one that I still occasionally think about because it gave me the inspiration to be more out-going and not live with the regret of life not lived. The Trank story proves to me that you learned that lesson a long time ago. All it takes is tapping on their shoulder and hoping for a good conversation to strike up. In this case, I will say that it was worthwhile.
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