S1E6:
Talking Movies at Cannes
with Jacqueline Coley
Dana Thomas: This is Dana Thomas, and you're listening to The Green Dream, a podcast about how to green up your life.
Climate change is bearing down on us like a mighty hurricane. And it's scary as hell, but it doesn't have to be. I'm Dana Thomas, a leading voice in the sustainable fashion movement. On The Green Dream, I welcome global experts, creators and change makers from politics, business, and the arts for dynamic conversations on how you can green up your life. The Green Dream is the podcast of hope.
This episode is sponsored by Another Tomorrow, a women's fashion brand that redefines luxury with a commitment to ethics, sustainability, and transparency from farm to fabric to atelier. Find Another Tomorrow on its website, anothertomorrow.co, at its flagship boutique, 384 Bleecker Street in New York City, and at select stores.
Today’s Special Edition of the Green Dream comes straight from the Cannes Film Festival, with Jacqueline Coley, the Awards Editor for Rotten Tomatoes, the acclaimed/beloved/notorious film review aggregator site. You might already know Jacqueline as the co-host of “Rotten Tomatoes is Wrong,” an engaging and often hilarious podcast that revisits some of the most beloved – and despised – movies and TV shows ever made, to investigate whether the criticism holds up — maybe the critics got it wrong! The episode dedicated to Titanic (which Jacqueline confesses she saw in the cinema eight times) definitely made me laugh out loud.
Jacqueline and I met up at the Cannes Film Festival in late May to talk about movies we’d seen there that are somehow linked to sustainability or social ethics. Some we loved, some we hated, some we disagreed on. And some of them won awards at the festival’s closing gala, like Eo, a drama by Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, about a circus donkey and the good and bad people he encounters on his life's journey. The movie tied for the Jury Prize, which is Cannes third-place award.
Another is Triangle of Sadness, Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s satire on wealth disparity and social inequality, as told through a tale of billionaires on a cruise. The title, by the way, refers to that crinkle between the eyebrows that beauty-obsessives botox into smoothness. Triangle of Sadness went home with the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top honor. This was Östlund’s second Palme d’Or; his movie The Square, also a biting satire, about an art curator's existential crisis, won in 2017.
Jacqueline, as you’ll hear, is pretty passionate about Triangle of Sadness. Me? Not so much. And that’s the beauty of cinema: it’s so subjective.
In addition to being my guest on today’s episode, I’m thrilled to announce that Jacqueline will be a regular contributor on cinema for The Green Dream. Every few weeks, Jacqueline will join us to talk about great movies. Could be King Kong vs. Godzilla, which was actually a film about climate change. Could be a documentary like The Velvet Queen, about snow leopards. Whatever their focus, each movie featured on The Green Dream will be somehow linked to the environment and humanity.
Also in this episode, we welcome back Hannah Elliott, luxury car writer for Bloomberg Pursuits, with a review of General Motors new electric Hummer, which she calls "$110,000 worth of armor."
Jacqueline Coley, welcome to The Green Dream!
Jacqueline Coley: Thank you so much for having me, Dana. Honestly, it's really crazy, we started this journey on some Zoom calls and now we're here at Cannes doing what we discussed, which I think is pretty interesting talking about sustainability at the festival. So this is your first Cannes in how long?
Dana Thomas: In 15 years, can you believe it?
Jacqueline Coley: I can't.
Dana Thomas: The first time I came was the year that Pulp Fiction was here. That's a long time ago.
Jacqueline Coley: This year is the 25th anniversary. And what's funny, you were here that year. That is actually the reason why I ever came here. the first Cannes I went to was in 2018 for BlacKkKlansman. Yeah, 2018 for BlacKkKlansman, and I got all the warnings from all my journo friends. They were like, you're not going to get a good badge. And then I was like, you know, I was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and I don't think half the people in the auditorium probably even met somebody in the klan, but like I've seen people with klan garb outside their houses and Confederate flags rolling across the backs of their trucks. I lived with the deep-seated, overt racism that this movie is talking about.
Jacqueline Coley: And it's Spike Lee, and you know, a Black journalist, the fact that I don't have a ticket for this premiere, I need to figure this out. And so I went on this mission to get a ticket and I wrote about it in the IndieWire, but I said, the reason why I wanted to go to Cannes was because the first heard I ever had of it was that I saw Pulp Fiction. And then I went to my local library and got on the Encyclopedia Britannica CD-ROM and looked up the Cannes film festival where they gave out this Palm thingy. And I found out they gave out the Palm thingy. So Pulp Fiction, Barton Fink, and Boyz n the Hood within quick succession. And I was like, I need to go where this place is. Because I had just seen all those movies and I was like, I need to get to that Cannes place. And then in 2016, I did. And it was Anne Thompson's article with Quentin Tarantino that I found out what Cannes was. I always say Quentin Tarantino is the reason why I came to Cannes because I would've never even thought that it was possible. And it's crazy because this is a very bougie and luxurious festival.
Dana Thomas: It is very bougie and luxurious. Though, Venice is even more so.
Jacqueline Coley: But if I ever do see you on the streets of Venice, know that I have probably given up obligations that I should be doing to be there. Not saying that will never happen by the way. But I have to make that bet. Basically, I have to say, '"No, I'm going to Venice. It's not going to be the smart move, but I want to go to Venice." And so I'm going to engineer everything I can to go there.
Dana Thomas: Well, this year is a particularly green festival. Far more green than it ever was when I used to come here Newsweek magazine and for the Washington Post. And you found out how green it is on your first minute here, right?
Jacqueline Coley: Yes. First minute here, I go in – and for folks that don't know, the entertainment industry, yes. It's built on money and power and auteur cinema, but it's also built on this thing called swag, which is the gifts that they give you. That's when you see somebody with a baseball cap from the movie, a bag from the movie, and film festivals are no different, and Cannes…Cannes and TIFF, both, you got bags when you came in as a member of the press inside the bag was a book of all the films and a guidebook, a lot of paper.
Dana Thomas: A lot of paper.
Jacqueline Coley: Lots of stuff, that in all honesty, it's all collecting dust in my house somewhere. Cause there is no reason for...
Dana Thomas: I've got drawers and drawers in the caves and my filing cabinets of all the press releases, all the press kits and all that stuff from the nineties and the early 2000s.
Jacqueline Coley: And it's great to have as a savior, but I will admit most people aren't saving it. And so it does just end up in landfills and it's not being kept for any kind of historical context. So, they didn't have bags this year at Cannes. And I'm not going to lie to you, seeing the very angry French press as we all discovered that same reality — I don't know if this is going to continue! I don't know if they're going to be able to justify being like, '’No, we're never going to do a bag again." Cause those…
Dana Thomas: Those bags are collectibles. I see people with them. I saw somebody standing for the train at the train station, down the coast with the bag from the 50th anniversary. And I saw it like three or four years ago and there's that guy and I'm like, I have that bag. There's that guy holding that bag that's 20 years old.
Jacqueline Coley: And this is the 75th edition. And that's why it's even more strange that they wouldn't want to commemorate it with something more tangible. Now granted, I will say that…
Dana Thomas: We can use it at our organic market, for example.
Jacqueline Coley: Exactly.
Dana Thomas: So what else is green? It seems like the fleet of cars, the BMWs that they're shepherding everyone in. Because you know, they drive people from the Majestic across the street.
Jacqueline Coley: In a hybrid car though.
Dana Thomas: But it's a hybrid now or even electric.
Jacqueline Coley: Or electric. They're either hybrid or electric.
Dana Thomas: They still insist that you can't walk that 50 yards from the hotel to the red carpet. You must be driven.
Jacqueline Coley: And I think what it is, is if it's the small BMWs, it's the electric and if it's bigger, it's the hybrid. Sorry, if it's the smaller ones, it's the hybrid. And if it's the ones that's like a sedan, it's electric, that's what it is.
Dana Thomas: And I've almost been run over how many times, because they're silent and they come up behind you and you're like, oh
Jacqueline Coley: They are very silent. Actually the buses over here as well. I did notice that the buses were green. I did notice people not just handing you straws. I will say restaurants definitely leaned into that. Mostly for cost-cutting, I think as a former person that worked at a restaurant, I can attest to the fact that they're like, you're telling me we don't have to order something and people will think of it as a good thing. Yes. Do that. So I did notice that. I actually honestly, I actually noticed it a bit with the way people are shopping. There's a bulk organic food store right by the hotel that I stayed in the first two days before I moved here, which was not here the last time I was here. A lot of the businesses have changed a little bit and updated to be more green.
Dana Thomas: More green and thoughtful. Absolutely. Now last year they had a whole slate that was dedicated to sustainability. And I was very excited when I saw that and said, "Oh, maybe they'll keep this as a running thing where they have six or eight films that are sustainably-minded." But they didn't redo it, which is a shame. but there are screen-minded movies. Pro-environmental movies. There was one called All That Breathes, which is a documentary about two brothers in India, in Delhi, dealing with majestic birds who are suffering from air pollution and nursing them back to health. Which makes you think, "Well, if the birds are suffering, what's happening to the humans?"
Jacqueline Coley: And I hate to say this, but being as we are film people, one thing Alfred Hitchcock told us: pay attention to the birds.
Dana Thomas: Pay attention to the birds! And then there's another movie here called EO, which is what?
Jacqueline Coley: So EO is actually a really interesting fable that they have made into a film. And it's a very famous fable about a donkey. And basically, you see life through this donkey's mind. And of course, when you're talking about animals, who obviously are so tied to the environments around them, and the idea of where they are in the hierarchy of things, but also where they are as far as wanting and needing the world to be lush and green and thriving. It changed the protagonist because the protagonist's motivations were different.
Jacqueline Coley: It's the same thing with Homeward Bound or whatever. If you can find an animal protagonist, you can just see the world differently, but also it gives you a chance to talk about things that you don't talk about. Okja is another perfect example. My friend has a film coming up, it's slightly about sustainability in the sense that it's about pep populations and it's called Stray and it is the hunt of a dog that was abandoned by his owner, who, of course, adopted him carelessly. And it's going to come out next year, which is great because there's been total conversations of these pandemic puppy adopters who are now realizing they can't take care of a dog and sending it back. That is a sustainability issue too.
Dana Thomas: Absolutely. Human rights, animal rights, plant rights, Earth rights, water, sea, it all fits together. It's all of a piece.
Jacqueline Coley: It's all of a piece, which is interesting too. That movie is actually done quite well, I think, initially already with the Cannes audience. But it is one of two movies with a lot of donkey in it. And the other one is definitely not on the same base. And this is the film that we disagree about, but it does have a slight environmental echo underneath it. Right?
Dana Thomas: Absolutely. And, and definitely human rights.
Jacqueline Coley: Definitely human rights. Yes.
Dana Thomas: Every story is a climate story and every climate story is a human rights story.
Jacqueline Coley: Oh, wow. That is very true. Every climate story is a human rights story.
Dana Thomas: They fit together. You cannot solve climate change without solving poverty. And this movie is about poverty.
Jacqueline Coley: And inequity. And there's an inequity in climate because I can shop at Wholefoods, because I can afford to. And not everybody can. And that's part of the problem. Sustainability in where you shop – there's tax to it. It's so interesting too, I was thinking about you the other day and I don't equate you to it, but it was the same sort of idea. James Cromwell shackled himself to a Starbucks counter.
Dana Thomas: No, superglued!
Jacqueline Coley: Superglued! Thank you.
Dana Thomas: He superglued his hand to the counter.
Jacqueline Coley: And he's an animal rights activist. But again, as we talk about this, animal rights definitely affects climate change if we could...
Dana Thomas: And he did this because he said, "Why do you keep charging more for plant-based milk?"
Jacqueline Coley: Yes. And as someone who is lactose intolerant and has been for forever, I have always ordered plant-based milk. We are finally living in this plant-based milk – I wouldn't say utopia because some of them are done well – but if you pay attention, first of all, just make it yourself, which I've learned how to do. I've learned how to cultivate oat milk, which is great because whatever you use, you use – you don't waste anything in the process of making oat milk. The oats that you use to make oat milk, you can use again for bread and... It's a very much more sustainable version of milk. And it's better when you make it yourself. And they just charge more for it cause they can.
Dana Thomas: Because they can. And then, it's interesting when we were talking about sustainability at the film festival, there was even a piece in one of the trades saying, can any film festival be green as long as they're flying everybody in on private jets and will
Dana Thomas: The movie stars and the directors and the big wigs ever give up their private jets? No, they won't. They don't want to mix with us anymore.
Dana Thomas: The only thing that might make this a little better is that fuel companies are working hard and quickly on green fuels that are going to dramatically drop the carbon footprint. But still, if you look at the Nice airport, it's filled with private jets.
Jacqueline Coley: I do think that sustainable jets are coming. So this is what I would tell you. I look at COVID as a perfect example in our modern times, and probably one of the few, where the entire world turned their sights to something to solve it. And when they did things happen quickly. on one thing I am sure. There will be something environmental that is too big to ignore. Like a city disappearing. May not happen in my lifetime, but it's going to happen. And the minute that happens, the entire world is going to do what they did with COVID, and turn their attention to that.
Dana Thomas: But it has to be a wealthy city, which comes back to our movie.
Jacqueline Coley: Yes. That does come back to our movie.
Dana Thomas: Because if it's a poor city, they'll be like "Well, you know."
Jacqueline Coley: But, and in all honesty though...
Dana Thomas: I'm not going to Lagos. Why do I have to worry about it.
Jacqueline Coley: A city that we're talking about might be the one to do it, which is Venice.
Dana Thomas: That's true. It's so true. Poor Venice.
Jacqueline Coley: Venice is literally at the forefront of climate issues. And if Venice becomes a thing that you can no longer visit, this is what will happen. It'll be the Armageddon times of Venice. This is going to be the last time tourists can come here. This is going to be the last time people can do this. They're going to do all of these things. Cause they already talked about it during the pandemic because Venice was able to pull back on its tourist obsession.
Dana Thomas: I saw the most beautiful, beautiful documentary about Venice during the pandemic, at the opening of the festival in 2020 and how there were no tourists and Venice had become for Venetians again. And the dolphins had come back in the canals and, and the water was clear and flat and it was so beautiful. And I was there in 2020 and went swimming in the lagoon every day. It was glorious and clear and beautiful. And by last year it was already back to being murky and gnarly.
Jacqueline Coley: All the way that it was again. So what I would say again is I do believe there's going to be that. I don't know what it's going to turn people's attention to. But when that does happen, because sustainable jets is like, I don't want to say it's a silver bullet, but it really is a silver bullet.
Dana Thomas: Yeah. Well they're working on it because they want to be able to keep flying those planes. Now let's talk about, you mentioned Armageddon Time. Let's talk about Armageddon Time.
Jacqueline Coley: Yeah.
Dana Thomas: That Armageddon Time is a movie by Cannes favorite, James Gray.
Jacqueline Coley: He is a Cannes favorite, James Gray.
Dana Thomas: He's a lovely man and makes beautiful, lovely movies.
Jacqueline Coley: I loved Ad Astra, which is not a film that really hit with a lot of folks. He did Two Lovers. He's very thoughtful.
Dana Thomas: He did The Lost Story of Z.
Dana Thomas: His movies are always beautiful.
Jacqueline Coley: Yeah. The Lost City of Z. Always beautiful and...
Dana Thomas: And have such a lovely, delicate touch to them.
Jacqueline Coley: That was the thing I was saying to it. This was really funny. We talked about it a minute ago, but Triangle of Sadness, we're on opposite sides. It's pretty divisive. I would say it's about 50-50 actually...
Dana Thomas: And we'll circle back to back to that in a minute.
Jacqueline Coley: Yeah, but James Gray's film Armageddon Time, that was one where I was not as big a fan of it. You were more, but I still enjoyed what he did with it. But the one thing you said: "James Gray doesn't do anything clumsily." And there's a bit of that inequity, environmental issues, just inequity in general.
Dana Thomas: Inequity in general. I think that's a theme at the festival this year, isn't it?
Jacqueline Coley: Because honestly, these are films that were made, a lot of them were executed during the pandemic. Even if they weren't conceived during that time, they are affected by the reality of it. And I think it's something that people paid attention to because when the pandemic hit, for a lot of people, although things changed, you still live in the same house. You still make the same income, your job didn't shift. Yeah, you're working from home, but you didn't feel the brunt of the inequity of your position. And for some people it was like you had an existence before the pandemic and it was gone the next day. And that inequity is oftentimes not related to choices as much as circumstance.
Dana Thomas: Absolutely. So the short version is…
Jacqueline Coley: Armageddon Time is about two young men, but it really centers on one young man's Jewish-American family.
Dana Thomas: Lovely boys. Lovely. 12, 13, coming-of-age boys. Sweet faces.
Jacqueline Coley: Sweet faces. One of them comes from a privileged family, but privileged by extension. Their maternal grandparents are very wealthy. The parents are upward-mobility middle class, but definitely not to the level of the previous generation and...
Dana Thomas: Which happens with immigration.
Jacqueline Coley: Absolutely. The son is a product of what you would call a WASPy mix of Jewish-American identity. So these are Jews that are...
Dana Thomas: She married below her station.
Jacqueline Coley: Status. And so they're mixing more with white-collar, working-class folks as far as in their immediate circle, but aspirationally trying to be closer to these WASPy Connecticut country club types that their parents have been able to navigate through their immigration. And it stars Jeremy Strong and Anne Hathaway and really at the center of it is this friendship between these two boys, a Black boy,
Dana Thomas: And Anthony Hopkins.
Jacqueline Coley: And Anthony Hopkins.
Dana Thomas: As the fabulous grandfather.
Jacqueline Coley: Yes. And a fabulous grandfather.
Jacqueline Coley: The friendship between the two young boys, young Black boy and the privileged white boy and through their existence with each other, the kids are able to grasp what everyone immediately in their friendship grasps, which is that the inequity between these two is going to destroy them eventually and their friendship and the beauty that that friendship developed. Because they're both outcasts. And in truth they are, but society views them as different versions of it. And they're nice boys. But it's the conceit of When They See Us: when they see this young boy, that's the white boy from the privileged family that's lost – he just needs to find his way. When they see the young Black boy, who's literally just a victim of his circumstance, being someone where his grandmother got sick, his parents are absent and he's just trying to make it – this is just where you're going to be. There's a sense of resignment with one person's fate. And there's a sense of quizzicalness with the other one. And both kids are able to recognize it. And it comes to a pivotal scene at the end where the choices that everyone makes unconsciously, this boy has to make consciously. And James Gray says that is his story. And so he really made a rumination on white privilege with this film.
Dana Thomas: And with a cameo by the Trumps!
Jacqueline Coley: Yes. Which I honestly, that was the part that I was like, "That's too much." And the thing I found out later, and I knew this actually going into it, that's legitimate. James Gray went to a school that was sponsored by Trump's father, Fred Trump. He literally is a benefactor of the Trump family. And I do think if you're a slightly liberal-leaning person, regardless of your culpability in going to a school like that, you would have to have huge issues knowing that the education you exist in was paid for by people you know are not good people.
Dana Thomas: Who don't like you.
Jacqueline Coley: Who don't like you. But honestly, what's interesting with that – and I would tell this to James Gray – I was like, welcome to the existence of every single Black person in America. Because there's not a single company that wasn't paved by the exploitation of people that look like me. It's not a single one. Does not happen. And the idea that everyone working there now was really not okay with it back when it was happening is also stupid. So I kind of liked that aspect of it. It was like, "Now do you get why some Black people have a hard time existing in this world and are completely frustrated by that and just want to tap out from all of this bullshit?" That's why.
If you are enjoying this conversation, you’ll love my sister podcast on the Wondercast Network, Fashion Conversations with Bronwyn Cosgrave. Fashion Conversations is fashion’s equivalent to Inside the Actors Studio—an in-depth interview podcast with fashion and luxury’s leading creators that explores their craft and creative process as well as their personal journeys. Find Fashion Conversations wherever you get your podcasts.
This episode is sponsored by Another Tomorrow, a women’s fashion brand that redefines luxury with a commitment to ethics, sustainability, and transparency. From farm to fabric to atelier. Find Another Tomorrow on its website AnotherTomorrow.co, at its flagship boutique, 384 Bleecker Street in New York City, and at select stores.
I’m Dana Thomas and you’re listening to The Green Dream. Let’s return to our interview with Jacqueline Coley, the Awards Editor for Rotten Tomatoes, an online film review aggregator. She’s also the co-host of “Rotten Tomatoes is Wrong,” a hilarious podcast that revisits some of the most beloved – and despised – movies and TV shows ever made to see if critics were wrong. Jacqueline and I met up at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where we riffed on the movies we saw that had delved into social or environmental issues.
Dana Thomas: Now let's talk about Triangle of Sadness, which you saw this morning. I went to the gala screening last night. I had a hard time with it. I went to the black-tie screening. The audience went bananas at the end, a ten-minute standing ovation until finally the director took the microphone and said, "Okay, fine. Thank you so very much. But don't we need to empty out the theater for the next screening?" He didn't quite say that, but that's what he was saying. "Okay, okay, okay, we get it. Thank you."
Jacqueline Coley: Yes. Time to go. I would've been one of those people. I love, love, love that movie.
Dana Thomas: Director is?
Jacqueline Coley: Ruben is a genius as far as I'm concerned. He is known for these socio-political thrillers. He's a former model and fashion agent turned filmmaker and the absurdity of being in the modeling world, surrounded by wealth and opulence in a com...
Dana Thomas: And he so gets it in the opening scene.
Dana Thomas: I thought this is the first time somebody's actually captured the fashion business as it is, spot on.
Jacqueline Coley: Absolutely. And for every good and bad aspect of it. And just the absurdity of it, like, when you do H&M, you smile and when you do Balenciaga, you frown. And yes, you only make a third of what the women make because nobody really cares what you're doing anyway. And so in the modeling world, the gender roles and dynamics are opposite.
Dana Thomas: And the slam of H&M. We create lots of cheap clothes that you just want to keep buying, and #sustainability!
Jacqueline Coley: Yes. The contradiction of fast fashion, which is true.
Dana Thomas: He took it down in one line.
Jacqueline Coley: In one line. Also another line that is great. Yes, I'm a Russian capitalist and you're an American communist and we're sitting on a quarter of a million-dollar yacht debating the politics of the world.
Dana Thomas: And he said, I'm not a communist. I'm a Marxist.
Jacqueline Coley: Exactly. It's like, let me clarify you on your labels. But that is the absurdity of our society. The people who will never, ever experience the yolk of the things that they're championing against are the loudest voices on it. The most privileged people are the loudest voices on the inequities that they are literally a beneficiary of.
Dana Thomas: So let's give the listeners a quick thumbnail of what this movie is about. We got these two models who are impossibly beautiful. He comes from very...
Jacqueline Coley: Meager backgrounds.
Dana Thomas: Meager backgrounds, and his English accent shows where he comes from. It's a very working-class. Not East End because I don't know my British accents.
Jacqueline Coley: Countryside of England, middle English, definitely was not in London, but also definitely was not posh. So he grew up in a...
Dana Thomas: And she is very…
Jacqueline Coley: Probably had a rich family, model. Either way, she's learned very early that beautiful women can manipulate things. And make a lot of money and that's what she's living for. However, what's so interesting is that is played by Harris Dickinson and the actress who plays that…
Dana Thomas: Charlbi Dean.
Jacqueline Coley: Yeah. She was so great in it. And the film really conceits on this. They have the three different classes within this boat. There is the upper luxurious pokes that are a part of it, including the influencers that got the crews for free, the Russian oligarch, the makers of the hand grenade who obviously have built their entire fortune on blood, but are a complete...
Dana Thomas: And their names are Clementine, Clementine and Winston. Like the Churchills.
Jacqueline Coley: Yes, exactly.
Dana Thomas: I just, I was the only one in the theater who caught that.
Jacqueline Coley: I lived for that. But anyway, they're all kind of thrown in this. And then you have what represents the middle class with these servers and the upper management of the boat, these are the folks that are immediately benefiting from these very, very luxurious people. They're staff in livery. They're talking about, "Oh my God guys, if we just do everything these people say, even if it means giving them a blowjob or getting them drugs, we'll get a big, big tip afterwards, just compromise your morals and we'll all get rich." That is the rah-rah message in the beginning. And then you have the completely silent, but actually-doing-the-job workers, the cleaners, the people of color. The actual folks within this existence, who all they're trying to do–they’re just trying to make it through. And they don't...
Dana Thomas: Laundry, the engine room.
Jacqueline Coley: They don't have time to be sitting there worried about the things that the guys up there get to debate. The captain of the ship, who is a drunk and a complete absentee landlord. Woody Harrelson is the perfect example of Obama-meets-Trump, because in actuality, as far as this boat is concerned, they're the same: they're an absentee landlord that can't get shit done. And who can barely show up just to stand in the suit. But you start to realize: the reason why he is drunk is because that's the only option. This is actually the smarter solution–is for you to actually stay drunk.
Dana Thomas: And play cards.
Jacqueline Coley: And play cards.
Dana Thomas: And cite Marxist quotes. And some Mark Twain.
Jacqueline Coley: That is the better existence than trying to fight the woman who's going to tell you that there are sails on a non-sail boat. Cause he knows that that is exactly what is going to happen in this dinner. And that's why he's avoiding it. Because we find the captain very absentee at the beginning of this movie. And so at first you're like, why is the captain so crappy? And the minute he shows up at his only function where he shows up as the captain, you realize why.
Dana Thomas: Now, there's of course the inequity and human rights aspect of this movie, but there's also an environmental aspect.
Dana Thomas: Without spoiling it, they wind up on an island.
Dana Thomas: It's a very tropical, lush island.
Jacqueline Coley: They wind up on a tropical island. But I would even say before that, the boat that they're on is a symbol of us all living in a society, whether that be the globe, whether that be a nation, whether that be whatever. And when the boat does not work perfectly and there's a storm brewing, they all just keep eating and pretending like nothing's happening. And that to me was the first actual climate dog whistle.
Dana Thomas: That's exactly it. That the über-rich do not really care.
Jacqueline Coley: They do not want to hear that there's a storm outside.
Dana Thomas: That their impact, the way they live is impacting the environment and that they can't keep living this way. I went to see a fashion designer in London not long ago. And she said, I'm trying to figure out how we can find a replacement for PVC plastic sequins for our dresses. Our clients don't care that they're wearing plastic sequins. They want sequins. That's all they want. They want sequins. But I care that we don't have biodegradable sequins, because I don't feel like killing the turtles in the sea with the sequins from our dresses.
Jacqueline Coley: Yeah, yeah.
Dana Thomas: So she said, but my clients, they couldn't care less. And they're going to wear the dress once or twice. And then it goes...
Jacqueline Coley: Then it goes into the closet, so they don't care.
Dana Thomas: They don't care. That goes away. It just goes away. And they don't even think about PVC and plastic and plastic straws and all the rest of it. For them, they just want to sparkle. And that's what that scene for me was about: they're eating oysters during rough seas. We won't give too much more away, but you can figure out where that's going to lead. But they're eating caviar and truffles.
Jacqueline Coley: The exuberance and extravagance of what they're doing literally as Rome is burning. And the best part of it, too, is as the film progresses, seeing the dynamics of power shift. And more importantly, who actually keeps the underclass oppressed, opposed to the working class. Cause what was really interesting once they get to an island where everyone, by all objective standards, is equal, is that the middle class is actually the class that is more invested in keeping you down and them up. That is actually what I was so interested in and that was the group that took the most pressure, for you to accept the new world order. They railed against it the most. And they were just as exploited as the underclass. They just were too stupid to realize it.
Dana Thomas: Absolutely. Now, before we have to go one last one, that we can't not talk about is Top Gun.
Jacqueline Coley: Yeah.
Dana Thomas: We have to talk about Top Gun now. Interestingly, I heard that there were a lot of people here who were very disturbed by the Patrouille de France doing their flyover as a salute to Top Gun, by saying, y "We have jets going all over Ukraine. How can you be having jets going over here?" Now, the Patrouille de France does their airshow all the time.
Jacqueline Coley: It's like our Blue Angels.
Dana Thomas: But Top Gun for me. Okay. First, I can't believe it's been so long since that movie came out in yikes, I was not a kid when it came out, so that means yikes. But I just loved how suddenly I was in the cinema bubble. And it was such a relief to be in the cinema bubble. This was what the French called du grand cinéma. This is a movie that is just full-on gigantic big movie-making. Everyone looks fabulous. I thought Tom Cruise's hair was dyed a little bit too dark, and it looked like a dye job, but that's like my only quibble with the movie.
Dana Thomas: And when you walked out, you're like, "I have just had two hours of full-on entertainment and have blessedly forgotten about climate change and…"
Jacqueline Coley: And the militaristic and all of that.
Dana Thomas: All the other, and COVID and all the rest of this. I just had full-on entertainment and what a relief that was. To be taken away for two hours. Like a really great book that is just outright fun.
Jacqueline Coley: I love the movie too. The movie is incredible and I loved watching it. I loved watching it. But then I thought about the one thing I know to be true. And the one thing Tom Cruise even said: after Top Gun, the number of young men who were interested in being pilots skyrocketed.
Dana Thomas: How interesting.
Jacqueline Coley: Skyrocketed in the wake of that film. They all wanted to be Maverick. They all wanted to be Goose. It was aspirational. And there is just a part of me – and I say this as a girl who was literally born into a military family, my grandfather was at Pearl Harbor: the glorification of militarism is just so, so, so dangerous. It permeates into police forces. It permeates into government. And I feel when we look at this from a linear standpoint, I don't know if you can look at a film like Top Gun and not say it's putting its thumb on the scale.
Dana Thomas: Yeah.
Jacqueline Coley: That's it. I'm not saying that that is a good or bad thing for every single person. But I would say, I feel like it's undue influence.
Dana Thomas: It's making war sexy. Though, actually, it's not about war. It's about...
Jacqueline Coley: No, it isn't.
Dana Thomas: It's about trying to prevent war.
Jacqueline Coley: It is about trying to prevent war. It's actually trying to get smarter about it. And I will say that's the saving grace of the film's conceit. But people don't remember that. They remember I feel the need for speed. They remember the cool jets. They remember the flyovers and the people that are going to be susceptible to its influence are not, I think, going to discern it from that same standpoint. And they couldn't because a lot of those people that it's going to be most influential on are under the age of 15.
Dana Thomas: Absolutely. The other thing that I find from that movie, that's just so fantastic is that it is true: Tom Cruise is indestructible.
Jacqueline Coley: Yeah.
Dana Thomas: In that opening scene? He is indestructible.
Jacqueline Coley: But even more so, indestructible in the sense that he is a bonafide movie star. Say what you want for him,
Dana Thomas: He could be really...
Jacqueline Coley: He's literally the only one that's left.
Dana Thomas: Greatest movie star of my generation. We're one year apart.
Jacqueline Coley: Yeah.
Dana Thomas: And his first film was Taps, which was filmed in my hometown.
Dana Thomas: I was in high school and all my girlfriends were extras in it. I didn't do it. I don't know why.
Jacqueline Coley: Oh, my film like that was Pearl Harbor. Yours was way better.
Dana Thomas: And so, you know, I've grown up knowing who Tom Cruise was since I was 17 years old, because he was in our town and he is old-school, bigger-than-life movie star. And for me, the most fabulous moment of our entire Cannes film festival was Tom working the fan line. For half an hour.
Jacqueline Coley: He did. He made the movie late.
Dana Thomas: And he does that every time. I've seen him do it in Hollywood. I've seen him do it here. And he doesn't just do like Woody Harrelson did yesterday: pops his head over for a selfie. He signed every autograph and returned the pen. Yeah. He shook people's hands. He said hello to them. Yeah. He was working it like a politician working the line.
Jacqueline Coley: And that's the thing, because he's a bonafide movie star.
Dana Thomas: And he realizes that these people are why he is and he thanks them.
Jacqueline Coley: Yeah. This is very true.
Dana Thomas: And I was sitting with a Frenchman, who said, "Ça, c'est la classe."
Jacqueline Coley: Yeah.
Dana Thomas: That is the class.
Jacqueline Coley: Yeah. That's true.
Dana Thomas: And you can just see nobody else does that like Tom and he gets repaid in full.
Jacqueline Coley: Yeah. I was going to say, he does it for a reason cause that's the other reason why he is. He made that his second job. His job was: "I want to make movies." But his second job is: "I want to be a movie star." And that is a separate job. The only other person I knew who made that their job was Will Smith. And unfortunately, the book did not end well on that one. And I think that's where we can leave it. But the only other person I know that ever wanted to make themselves a movie star, became a movie star, and is, is Tom Cruise. But there are tons of examples of the other side of people that want be Tom Cruise, but can't, and I think a lot of them have the last name Kardashian. And with that little bit of shade, we will end it. Dana. This was so much fun.
Dana Thomas: So much fun. And we'll have you more on The Green Dream.
Jacqueline Coley: Yeah.
Dana Thomas: It's going to be a good time talking movies, and sustainable movies, and human rights movies, and documentaries about snow leopards, and films about donkeys.
Jacqueline Coley: And birds!
Dana Thomas: And birds! And the fabulousness of life and love and the planet Earth! Thank you so much.
Jacqueline Coley: Thank you.
Dana Thomas: And let's go out on the beach now and say hey to the Mediterranean.
Jacqueline Coley: Dig it!
Dana Thomas: And now, cars! Or rather: trucks! Has there ever been a more polarizing–or unsustainable–everyday vehicle as the Hummer, a massive former military truck redesigned by General Motors in the 1990s for civilian use. Fans loved its massive power and swagger. Detractors denounced it as a road hog and a massive gas guzzler. Now the Hummer is back as an electric vehicle. Hannah Elliott, the luxury car writer for Bloomberg Pursuits, returns to The Green Dream with a review of the Hummer EV, which she calls "$110,000 worth of armor."
Hannah Elliott: There may be no more polarizing vehicle than General Motors new Hummer EV. The more than $112,000, more than 9,000-pound pickup is a gargantuan remake of the military vehicle that was tamed for civilians in the 1990s. It is 1,000 horsepower of muscled Americana, with knobby tires and a ridiculous launch mode that will further inflate the diaphanous egos of those who engage it. It is as tall as a tank, with a hood extending to my shoulder height.
Nobody needs this truck.
On the other hand, it’s electric! Driving range is 329 miles. It can charge to 100 miles in 12 minutes using a 800v DC fast-charger. Blissfully silent, it recently allowed me to pass wild donkeys in the desert outside Scottsdale without so much as a flick of a furry ear.
So: Ode to gluttony or ode to innovation? The Hummer EV is an automotive Rorschach test whose answer will reflect your own predispositions.
Anyone can deduce its purpose just by looking: This is a powerful machine meant to signal the status and dominance of the person who owns it. It will excel at carrying sports and outdoor gear in its flatbed. It is rugged enough to use for camping or exploring hard-to-access locales, as long as you figure out a way to charge it every other day or so. It will make a great support mule when you want a home base vehicle for a weekend of riding dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles.
I drove a “First Edition,” which comes only in white, with a two-tone interior. It has an Extreme Off-Road Package that adds air suspension and a crab-walk function that moves the vehicle sideways when useful. There are 35-inch tires, underbody armor, and rock sliders that allow the rig to move down sheer sides without harm. Deliveries of First Editions started earlier this year, and they have already sold out. Subsequent editions are available for a $100 reservation fee and pricing starts at about $80,000. You’ll have to wait a year for delivery of any edition you choose, though — unless you hunt on Bring a Trailer, where one sold on April 1 for $275,000.
This looks like the Humvee that Arnold Schwarzenegger would remember. Rectangular lights hang across the front like military badges. The headlights and taillights bear the distinctive H inside. The door handles, side mirrors, and fenders are all squared.
But this Hummer is more capable than its predecessor. Launch mode, activated by settings in the console, goes to 60 mph in three seconds. I did it twice in a parking lot. It felt like the cartoon moment when the roller coaster car plunges and your skeleton moves forward while your organs and eyeballs lag behind like silly putty. It was so jarring, it triggered a headache. Some will love it.
Towing is rated to 7,500 pounds; and payload is 1,300 pounds — that’s less than the 1,760 pounds promised by the Rivian R1T truck and 2,000 promised by the Ford Lightening electric truck. Top speed is 106 mph.
Now, if I were to own this thing, I’d load it with plants and pots, shovels, and the other gardening gear I schlep around on weekends. I’m not so advanced a gardener — yet — to need to haul any gear, but the heavy-duty D-ring recovery hooks on the front and back of the Hummer would easily suffice. Each is frame-mounted and has a load capacity of up to 15,000 pounds. Roof rails, a spare tire cover, and additional off-road high-mounted light bars and pod lights are also available.
I was actually more impressed with how easily it cruised at 80 mph. It jumped from 60 mph to 90 mph with a quickness—and from such a high vantage point—that it felt like I was flying. The “Supercruise” guided me on cruise control that followed the curves in the highway without my input on the steering wheel. One caveat: I became so relaxed that I nearly missed my exit. I had to cross three lanes of traffic in less space than I (and the cars behind me) would have preferred.
Once on dirt, I switched to Off-Road and Terrain modes, which helped navigate unstable rocks and deep gullies. I did nothing so challenging as driving up rivers and dunes or crawling boulders (like I have done in R1T and the electric Wrangler), so I remain a little uncertain as to how the behemoth Hummer would handle those challenges.
There’s also no place to charge in the desert, as you may expect, and towing things, extreme temperatures, running the air conditioning, and so forth will definitely deplete the battery faster. Be wary when planning adventures.
The vehicle also lacks visibility over its hood and sides. GM mitigates the blind spots by offering 18 different camera views, among which I switched often to ensure I wouldn’t graze rocks as I passed.
The rooftop of the Hummer consists of four removable panels. I actually removed and stored them within five minutes and then felt so in touch with nature. As the truck moved forward silently, the scent of sage wafted in and a breeze caressed my cheeks. On the way back, after I had replaced the roof panels, though, the sun felt really oppressive through the plastic top. I yearned to hide from the heat under a conventional roof, but this Hummer EV is inherently unconventional.
I like that this vehicle offers a strong point of view, even if I wouldn’t necessarily want that point of view every day. Do we need an electric Hummer? No. But plenty will want one!
Dana Thomas: New episodes of The Green Dream come out the first and third Tuesday of the month, so we’ll be back next week with fashion designer Amy Powney, the creative director for the It-Girl sustainable fashion company Mother of Pearl in London. Amy is the subject of "Fashion Reimagined," a documentary that follows her journey as she transforms Mother of Pearl from a conventional to a sustainable fashion brand. "Fashion Reimagined," which is directed by Becky Hutner, will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in mid-June. Here’s a preview:
"Fashion Reimagined”: We produce so many things. A hundred billion items of clothing every year, and three out of five of them end up in landfill within that first year of its life. More collections. More garments. Newness, newness, newness, newness. I think at the sort of peak, I made 750 designs in a year. It’s nonsense.
Dana Thomas: We hope you'll join us.
This episode is sponsored by Another Tomorrow, a women's fashion brand that redefines luxury with a commitment to ethics, sustainability, and transparency from farm to fabric to atelier. Find Another Tomorrow on its website, anothertomorrow.co, at its flagship boutique, 384 Bleecker Street in New York City, and at select stores.
If you are enjoying this conversation, you’ll love Fashion Conversations with Bronwyn Cosgrave. Fashion Conversations is fashion’s equivalent to Inside the Actors Studio—an in-depth interview podcast with fashion and luxury’s leading creators that explores their craft and creative process as well as their personal journeys. Find Fashion Conversations wherever you get your podcasts.
New episodes of The Green Dream come out the first and third Tuesday of the month. This episode of The Green Dream was sponsored by the sustainable fashion brand Another Tomorrow. Written by Dana Thomas. From Talkbox Productions with executive producer Tavia Gilbert, with mix and master by Kayla Elrod. Music performed by Eric Brace of Red Beet Records in Nashville, Tennessee. I’m Dana Thomas, the European Sustainability Editor for British Vogue. You can read my monthly column, also called The Green Dream, in the magazine or online at Vogue.co.uk. You can follow me on Instagram and on Twitter where my handle for both is @DanaThomasParis. Thank you for listening.
