‘Hot Frosty’ and ‘Moana 2’: What Even Are Movies?

Sean is joined by Rob Harvilla and Yasi Salek to discuss two movies for the fun of it—‘Moana 2’ and ‘Hot Frosty.’ They start by reacting to the new ‘Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary’ (01:40) before discussing the surprising self-awareness, Easter eggs, and music in ‘Hot Frosty’ (04:59). Then, they share their movie-watching experiences while watching ‘Moana 2’ and how it compares to ‘Moana’ (36:50). Before Yasi and Rob leave, they share the movies they are looking forward to at the end of 2024 (62:40). Later, Sean is joined by filmmaker Garret Price to discuss ‘Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary’ (74:56). Created after he finished editing ‘Daisy Jones and the Six,’ he talks about finding the perfect commentators and getting all the bands to be involved. Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Rob Harvilla, Yasi Salek, and Garret Price Producer: Olivia Crerie Video Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Look, it's not that confusing. I'm Rob Harvilla, host of the podcast 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, except we did 120 songs. And now we're back with the 2000s. I refuse to say aughts. 2000 to 2009. The Strokes, Rihanna, J Lo, Kanye, sure. And now the show is called 60 Songs That Explain the 90s: The 2000s. Wow. That's too long a title for me to say anything else right now. Just trust me. That's 60 Songs That Explain the 90s: The 2000s, starting Wednesday, October 2nd, preferably on Spotify.

• 0:36Sean Fennessey?

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. There's nothing better than having friends who support whatever you're into, like rewatching a director's entire catalog in the lead up to their latest release. And like those friends, State Farm is there to help you feel supported by helping you choose the coverage you need. With so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have help finding what fits for you. So you can check coverage off the list and spend more time debating movie rankings. Go online at statefarm.com or use the easily accessible app to get help from one of their local agents. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions, reach, and reacts.

• 1:17Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:59Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Moana and Hot Frosty, two very different climates in the vast ecological crisis known as movies in 2024. Later in this episode, something a little bit warmer, I have a conversation with Garrett Price, the filmmaker behind Yacht Rock, a documentary, which is the new film in the Ringer Music Box series with HBO and Max. The movie premieres on the network and the platform on November 29th. I chatted with Garrett about what Yacht Rock actually is and this incredibly fun movie and how he made it. I'm very proud to be a part of this movie and I'm also very proud to have the beautiful father and daughter of the Ringer Music Podcast Experience here on the show.

• 2:42Sean Fennessey?

  We've got the host of 60 Songs That Explained the 90s, Cole in the 2000s, Rob Harvilla returning, and for her first appearance ever on The Big Picture, the host of Band Splain, Yasi Salek. Hi, guys.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  You're welcome, honestly.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  I'm so excited. What can I say except you're welcome? I'm so thrilled to be here for Yasi's debut. This is a historic occasion. This has Yalta energy happening right now.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  I'm so thrilled to be here to talk about Moana 2.

• 3:12Sean Fennessey?

  I genuinely, well, we'll get to Moana 2 and why you're here, Yasi, but before we do, you guys saw the Yacht Rock movie?

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  We did.

• 3:21Sean Fennessey?

  What'd you think of that movie?

• 3:23Speaker 02

  Rob, do you want to go first?

• 3:25Speaker 00

  I thought it was phenomenal with the, you know, the caveats that I, you know, I, this is a Spotify operation, but I-

• 3:32Sean Fennessey?

  Rob, you don't have to say that. Come on. You're an objective critic and everyone knows it.

• 3:35Speaker 00

  I'm trying. I am very objective and the Steely Dan, the Steely Dan moment in this movie, at the end of this movie, is one of the loveliest and most hilarious things I've seen in a documentary, a music documentary, in some time. And so I had, I had a blast. Just majestic hair, just the plumage in this movie alone, you know, just very aspirational for me personally. I thought it was fantastic. I really did. I dadded the hell out, man, and it was fabulous.

• 4:07Sean Fennessey?

  Your hair is kind of blooming today. So it's appropriate.

• 4:08Speaker 00

  I am recovering from the worst haircut I have ever received as an adult. I came home and my wife yelped. It was horrifying. I had to do like, public events with the worst haircut I've ever had as an adult. And so now this is it growing out and it's asymmetrical. It's like,

• 4:23Speaker 02

  Looks good.

• 4:24Speaker 00

  It's like punk rock.

• 4:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 4:26Speaker 00

  Over here.

• 4:26Sean Fennessey?

  You're like a young Steve Lukather from Toto.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  That I, there is no greater compliment you could pay me. I was gonna say a flock of seagulls, but I greatly prefer Steve Lukather. Thank you. I'm, I'm working on it.

• 4:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yasi, what's your story? You hate Steely Dan?

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Um, I don't hate anybody, Sean. My heart is pure and

• 4:44Speaker 00

  Fish. You hate fish.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  That's not an emotion that I contain. I do have like, a scotch of PTSD. As you know, the first episode of Band's Plan ever was Steely Dan and we did have to record it like, seven different times to get it right. And, is it my cup of tea? No. So I was going into the watching, the viewing of this documentary made by my benevolent employers. Um, just a little, I was a little stealing myself, if you'll allow it. And I had a great time, against all odds. I, even me, I had the best time. I didn't know Toto went so hard, babe. That was, that was my main takeaway. I was like, Toto goes so hard.

• 5:28Sean Fennessey?

  That is really the, the, the big revelation. I actually said that to Garrett. I was like, Toto, who knew?

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Sold the show, honestly.

• 5:34Sean Fennessey?

  Members of that band playing on 5,000 records through the 70s, 80s and 90s. Sweet lord.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  Good energy, questionable music video. Just like, it had everything that you would ever want. I really enjoyed myself. And you know, I love spaces where women are not welcome. So, um, that also, I found it delightful.

• 5:52Speaker 00

  Like music podcasting, for example.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  Like music podcasting, yacht rock. Yeah. You, you asked me to come here.

• 5:59Sean Fennessey?

  I appreciate that Pravda level of cosign from both of you. Um, this is an in-house project, but uh, it is, it is a film that I would say is in the spirit of the missions that you guys have had, uh, excavating and spelunking your way through music history, uh, so expertly. Um, we're not gonna talk about music right off the bat here. The original plan for this episode, well, I'll tell you, you know, Rob and I have had some conversations as grown men with families about animated films made for children over the years on the pod. Amanda's joined us a couple of times for those conversations. They're always heartfelt, you know, sincere, deep, maybe a little creepy, but ultimately well-meaning. Figured, why not run it back? Moana 2, one of the signature Disney movies of the 21st century, very highly anticipated film.

• 6:45Sean Fennessey?

  And the early words started trickling out on the movie. Hmm, Moana 2, this was supposed to be a TV show. Now it's a movie. Is this movie gonna be good? Maybe it's not gonna be good. It's gonna make a lot of money, but do the listeners of Big Picture really care about this movie? I'm not sure. Then I started thinking, how do we spice up the dad conversation? What agent of change can we bring into this mix? And it dawned on me that Yasi, you know, Yasi, we were gonna talk about The Crow this year.

• 7:09Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 7:10Sean Fennessey?

  Cause you love the original Crow film.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  I do.

• 7:13Sean Fennessey?

  And that soundtrack is, I think, very meaningful, honestly, for the three of us, a bunch of 90s kids. And we had high hopes for the Crow remake, reimagining with Bill Skarsgård. That movie stunk, so we didn't even devote an episode to it. I think I spent four minutes on it on one episode in August. And you were, you were traveling the world at that time, so you couldn't join us. And so I figured, why not join us for Moana 2? Then saw Moana 2, and I was like, Moana 2 ain't it. You know, this is not enough for a full convo. And I had noticed that a little film had been dominating film discourse by the name of Hot Frosty. And I sent you guys a note, and I said, I need you both to watch Hot Frosty tonight if you have the time. This was like 7:15 PM, Rob's time.

• 7:58Speaker 00

  Nine.

• 7:59Sean Fennessey?

  Nine? Nine PM?

• 8:01Speaker 00

  It's closer to nine. I was walking out of the theater with my children, having watched Moana 2.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Same, actually. It wasn't 9:00 PM.

• 8:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was, it was a little after nine.

• 8:10Sean Fennessey?

  You walked out of the theater with Rob's children?

• 8:12Speaker 02

  I did. Kidnapping. I did walk out of the theater with children, if you believe it.

• 8:17Sean Fennessey?

  So many children at my screening. Holy lord.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  Did you get any weird looks at the theater?

• 8:23Speaker 02

  I didn't, I didn't go alone. I, I'm, because I'm a journalist, I was like, I need to bring children with me to understand how this is landing for the target audience. So I asked my friend, who has multiple children, can we bring some of those? Pick one, I don't care. And.

• 8:44Sean Fennessey?

  You seem like such a loving aunt figure in there.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Actually, I'm very popular with these children, and I do love them deeply. Um, but yes, she brought two. One, my, my love Leo, who's.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  Between seven and eight and the literal older one, Georgia, who I think is about three or four. She's a little, there was, there was like a literal newborn next to us. I, I do actually really enjoy the chaos. I guess I'm not familiar with it because you are not going to catch me again in a Disney movie film in the theater day it comes out, but who cares, right? It's like kids are screaming, kids are yelling, kids are dancing. It's kind of, that part was awesome. And like, no one's shushing, you can't shush. It's a movie for children. They're not, it can't be expected.

• 9:30Sean Fennessey?

  You had a more fun theater going experience than I had.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  I had some drinks. I had some drinks also, so.

• 9:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, well, it seems like you both partook last night and now I regret not having done that because I sent you this note after seeing the movie to watch Hot Frosty. Rob, shout out to you at 9pm. You went home and watched it.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  I know, impressive.

• 9:48Speaker 00

  I'm a professional.

• 9:49Sean Fennessey?

  You, you really are. You, I mean, Yasi ID'd as a journalist. I'm not sure if you guys are journalists anymore, if I'm being totally honest with you, but you are committed to the cause of cinema.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  I'm a, I'm a content creator.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:01Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I've been saying on the show recently. And it's, it's meant to be arch, but it's actually not.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  It's hurtful is what it is. It's hurtful. Sean, I think it was like literally a Christmas miracle that you sent that message because I was not feeling good leaving the theater post chicken fingers and some alcohol.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  And then I got the message and I was like, oh my God, Hot Frosty. I'm so excited. I've been wanting to watch this film and I got home and it was like the most beautiful palate cleanser. Like I went to bed happy, so.

• 10:33Sean Fennessey?

  So for anyone who is not familiar with the phenomenon that is Hot Frosty, it's a new movie that you can watch on Netflix. It is another in a long line of somewhat cheaply made, certainly absurd holiday fairy tale style stories.

• 10:50Sean Fennessey?

  That are run out over the course of the final eight weeks of the year across streaming services. You know, Hallmark is probably best known for these films that are often just typical romances. But over the years Netflix has really stepped in and been really cranking these things out. They started out a little bit more high concept and high budget. You know, the Kurt Russell Santa Claus film, for example, that was like kind of close to a real movie. Hot Frosty, which is directed by Jerry Chikoriti, who is one of my favorite filmmakers. And it's written by Russell Hanlon.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  He's Canadian.

• 11:23Sean Fennessey?

  He's Canadian. Great. That explains it. Is quite a fascinating document. It's a movie about a widow who counters her loneliness with a magical snowman who is brought to life. And when he comes to life, it becomes clear that he is fucking hot. He's a very handsome fellow and he's a fellow who is very eager to spend time with this young widow. This movie is completely deranged. Rob, what did you think of Hot Frosty?

• 11:51Speaker 00

  I don't want to be crude, but I thought she was gonna fuck the snowman.

• 11:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 11:58Speaker 00

  I was told, I was told she was gonna fuck the snowman. I told my wife she was gonna fuck the snowman and that is why she agreed to watch it. And when it became clear that she was not gonna fuck the snowman, my wife went on her phone. Right? You know, so I felt like, why are you gonna show me something if I can't have it? As I believe Kevin Garnett once said, right? So I enjoyed this movie immensely. I enjoyed it a great deal more than Moana 2. I think you will all agree. But I was fundamentally like, what are we doing here if you're not gonna fuck the snowman?

• 12:31Speaker 02

  I'm so sorry.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  That would be my first note.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  You, you were expecting to like see snowman hole. Is that what you're saying?

• 12:37Speaker 00

  No, that is not what I said.

• 12:39Sean Fennessey?

  You wanted full ice penetration.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  That is what I wanted. Yes. Yeah, just, just.

• 12:45Speaker 02

  On the Netflix Christmas poll.

• 12:50Speaker 00

  I'm not asking for porn necessarily, but I am asking for some.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  How many drinks did you have at Moana 2?

• 12:57Speaker 00

  I had, I had zero drinks at Moana 2. I had two gin and tonics during Hot Frosty, and I considered an unprecedented third gin and tonic. I cannot recall the last time I had three. I was curious what would happen and how that would affect my perception of this movie. I don't know if, if she had fucked a snowman, if that would have made me more likely or less likely to drink the third gin and tonic. Uh, I just wanted like a, I wanted a hint of spiciness, right? I wanted implied fucking of the snowman.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  You know?

• 13:31Sean Fennessey?

  One, Yasi, I'm very eager for your thoughts about this film. Uh, two, I do, Rob, when you talk about having two and yearning for a third, but resisting a third gin and tonic, I feel so close to you. Like, it's remarkable.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  Right.

• 13:44Sean Fennessey?

  I've been talking about how much less I drink now these days, but sometimes you do need it. I was fearing, uh, I have a full day with my beautiful daughter today as soon as we finish recording. And so, um, because my wife is at home cooking a lovely Thanksgiving dinner.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  As it should, babe.

• 13:59Sean Fennessey?

  The idea, yes, that's right. We are gender essentialists here at The Big Picture.

• 14:02Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 14:03Sean Fennessey?

  And, um, the idea that, uh, I would have be recovering from a third gin and tonic is not, not imaginable to me. So I didn't drink during this film, but Yasi, I look, I didn't even know this about you, but this movie is like right in your prime area of movie watching interest. Tell me about it.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Babe, okay. First of all, not to nitpick, but the, you said the snowman becomes hot when he comes to life. I think we can all agree that the actual snowman was also like aggressively anatomically hot from the beginning. Like, it was almost like, who, who made this? Who made this like Adonis snowman in the middle of the regular snowmans for the contest? Um, no, I love, every year, I cannot wait for this time of year and I queue up these films. There's always new ones, but I also always re-watch the old ones. And it's maybe one of my favorite film genres.

• 14:58Sean Fennessey?

  So why?

• 15:01Speaker 02

  There's just like a level of delight that they bring about in me. They're not trying to be anything they're not, you know? They're really just giving it to you straight, which is here is often an insane conceit. Every conceit is insane. They do not operate within the world of reason or physics. Those things don't matter. What matters is the Christmas spirit. And it's so fun. And I think, I mean, I'm sure we'll talk about it, but like you mentioned, the Hallmark ones. I think they did probably start out kind of earnest, right?

• 15:41Speaker 02

  But what's happened, and it's amazing, is that like now they're just winking at themselves all the time, which is so fun. It's so fun to watch. Like I, I live for it. I fucking live for it. Give me, inject it directly into my veins is what I have to say.

• 15:58Speaker 00

  What's the best one? What is the apex mountain of self-aware Christmas movies?

• 16:02Speaker 02

  I think the one that I always come back to is the Princess Switch trilogy. That's the Vanessa Hudgens. She's, I think Vanessa Hudgens, Lacey Chabert, who we'll talk about, who's in Hot Frosty, and Lohan's kind of gunning for their, for their positions. These are the top, top queens of the holiday film. But the Princess Switch, one through three are truly each conceit.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  The godfather of the genre.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  That's right. To get to the third one, when you already have the most insane proposition for the first one, chef's guess, what you have to come up with for them to like have a third switch of people? So good.

• 16:43Sean Fennessey?

  So as you might imagine, I don't have as much experience with you, Yasi, with these movies.

• 16:47Speaker 02

  No.

• 16:48Sean Fennessey?

  I'll, I'll pop in on a phenomenon here and then, but I, you know, the Princess Switch, for example, to me, that's up there with the kind of like the lesser known Kieslowski movies. Like I'll get around to it eventually, but it's not high on my watch list. And so I'm wondering, like you pointed out, what I think is the most amusing and maybe important thing about Hot Frosty, which is this high degree of self-awareness, of winking at the audience, of the acknowledgement that even by the standards of silly streaming Christmas movies, this premise is fucking weird and

• 17:22Speaker 02

  Makes no sense.

• 17:23Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe even a little upsetting if you really drill down on it. And so like, are these, are the other movies as, as, as knowing about the absurdity of what they're presenting to the audience?

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. Like, a lot of them will have like little winks to other holiday movies in them. This one actually has two in it, which we can talk about. I don't know if you guys caught those Easter eggs. But some of them aren't. Some of them are just like, I need you to get on board. Suspend your fucking disbelief, babe. It's Christmas. And you're like, yes, I will. Thank you. Take me away. Calgon, take me away.

• 18:04Sean Fennessey?

  So by the standards of these movies, where does Hot Frosty stack up? Like A tier, B tier?

• 18:08Speaker 02

  Hot Frosty, like, is, was so delightful, but also is almost a little too self-aware. Not in a bad way, but it almost like puts itself outside of the genre a little bit. But then it doesn't. It's so bizarre because I'm like, you cast Lacey Chabert, who plays it exactly like she plays every other holiday movie, which literally seems like she learned the lines yesterday and is coming in like to cash the check and like, and it's not her fault. Every heroine in these movies is like aggressively earnest and doesn't really have a lot to do. But then you stick in these like, like, right, like comedic actors, like you have the guy from the state, you have the woman from-

• 18:49Sean Fennessey?

  Joe LaTrulio.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Joe LaTrulio. Katie, is that her name? Katie Mixon? The woman from Eastbound and Down.

• 18:56Sean Fennessey?

  Eastbound and Down.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  So funny. And the hot snowman was the himbo veterinarian on Schitt's Creek, and now he's the himbo snowman.

• 19:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, Dustin Milligan.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  And of course-

• 19:06Sean Fennessey?

  Is the actor.

• 19:08Speaker 02

  Craig Robinson.

• 19:08Sean Fennessey?

  And Craig Robinson, of course, is the sheriff. So when Craig Robinson shows up as the sheriff of this town in this movie, Rob, I was like, oh, okay.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:18Sean Fennessey?

  This movie is kidding. Like, this isn't meant to be a Hallmark film. There's, there, the, one of the questions I had for you guys was, is the only person who knows what movie he's in is Craig Robinson? Or is Craig Robinson the only person who doesn't realize what movie he's in? Rob, what do you think?

• 19:36Speaker 00

  I think he realizes what movie he's in. I think he's in a different movie than everybody else on purpose until the end into the big climax.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Great.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  Uh, in which he extorts everyone in the town for $2,000 just to immediate. I, I guess that's a spoiler. I'm sorry.

• 19:54Sean Fennessey?

  Was this made pre-inflation, by the way? I thought that $2,000 number seemed a tad low.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  I, well, I, how do you calibrate?

• 20:01Speaker 02

  What was the snowman's crime that he should have such a high bail in general?

• 20:05Sean Fennessey?

  I thought it was theft, right?

• 20:07Speaker 00

  It was streak and he broke the very thin pane of glass. I, you know, it's just, he just, he leaned against it and it broke. I don't think that part was his fault.

• 20:15Sean Fennessey?

  Vandalism.

• 20:16Speaker 00

  Quite frankly, yeah.

• 20:18Sean Fennessey?

  Public obscenity.

• 20:19Speaker 00

  Hooliganism.

• 20:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  Did you guys?

• 20:21Sean Fennessey?

  Milliganism.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Did you guys?

• 20:22Sean Fennessey?

  There's a great many things.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  Raising a ruckus broadly. That's 2,000 bucks right there. Uh, at least where I come from. Um.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  It did look like where you come from. This Hope Springs does kind of, it was, it was giving where you come from.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  Okay. So Craig Robinson is the guy in Hot Tub Time Machine who looks at the camera and goes, it's a hot tub time machine. Right? Like I do, I do source a lot of the self-awareness of movies like that to that moment. Right? And there isn't, there isn't a fourth wall break per se. I, the, the one Easter egg, like they're watching TV and Lindsay Lohan is on TV and she says, I went to high school with her. Like I rewound that for my wife. Like I made her watch that part, right?

• 21:05Speaker 02

  That was Falling for Christmas, by the way, that was on the TV, which is another holiday movie that Lindsay Lohan is in and.

• 21:12Speaker 00

  Because she's in the hospital. I was very concerned for her. Like she does, she ends up all right in that movie, right? Because she seemed to be in some distress, right? Like, I don't know if his.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  Nobody dies in these movies.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  Okay. Thank goodness. Um, so I, there's a self-awareness, but I, I didn't think it reached the point of poisonous, right? Like it wasn't meta in a way that irritated me, you know? And I do think that everyone was pretty clear on how absurd this was. But then the moment when they're all together and they start, like the doctor is back, the eastbound and down doctor is back. They're like, how is, what are the physical, like, what's happening? And she's like, it's Christmas, like, literally, it's Christmas.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  It's so good.

• 21:50Speaker 00

  That is my only, that is my diagnosis. It is Christmas time. And everyone's like, that sounds great. And then the movie proceeds from there. I, I think this movie could have been way more irritating about the meta-winking, self-aware aspect. And I do think that Craig is just, he's just singing songs, like, in the middle of the movie for no real reason. But like, I enjoyed that aspect of it tremendously, honestly.

• 22:15Sean Fennessey?

  You know, Rob, you kind of got ahead of where I wanted this conversation to go.

• 22:19Speaker 00

  I apologize.

• 22:20Sean Fennessey?

  From a sensual and sexual perspective.

• 22:24Sean Fennessey?

  I just, you know, on this show, Amanda has a science corner, and Amanda is not here. And so we cannot have Amanda's science corner. But I'm not sure any film short of Dune Part Two has asked for a science corner more than the film about defrosting the hot snowman.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:41Sean Fennessey?

  And then, you know, in the film, like, Yasi, help me with this. In the film, what, like, what are even the, what are even the sort of native mythological origins of snowmen?

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:51Sean Fennessey?

  It's not as though he is descended.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  Do we have any Frosty? Frosty came alive. Frosty the snowman.

• 22:56Sean Fennessey?

  But he retained his snowiness.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 22:59Sean Fennessey?

  You know, he is still essentially snow.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:01Sean Fennessey?

  Like, this person takes on human corporeal form.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Well, you can't be horny for the snowman made of snow. You have to be horny for this flesh and blood man that was previously a snowman.

• 23:14Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, that raises another question, which is, is Lacey Chabert even horny for this snowman? Other women in the town are very horny. Lauren Holly, I mean, God bless her, I've never sold my stock ever since seeing her.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  She killed. She slayed, babe, she slayed.

• 23:28Sean Fennessey?

  She is just a legend, and she's obviously hot for that snow.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  Lacey Chabert was grieving, babe. She's grieving. Yeah, she's grieving.

• 23:37Sean Fennessey?

  And Katie Mixon, she's, you know, she wants some of the snow. But this, so this guy becomes, he becomes a man.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:44Sean Fennessey?

  And he watches a lot of television.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:47Sean Fennessey?

  And he learns how to cook and he learns how to fix things. And I guess he's, he's sort of unfrozen with the knowledge of English as a communicative language.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  Okay, that was one of my things where I was like, so you, it was giving a little bit Encino Man, except Encino Man obviously had him not know English, because that makes more sense. But he knew English, but no colloquialisms. So he was like an immigrant who had learned English and like, didn't know what like, let the cat out of the bag means. You know what I mean? Or like, lay low, or like, the concept of cancer, which I suppose no men don't get cancer. But that part, I was like, oh, okay, sure.

• 24:21Sean Fennessey?

  Very, a lot of strange choices. And, you know, like, they all start to add, forgive me for doing this, but I wouldn't be myself if I didn't do this. It's like, at a certain point, I'm like, is this a Louis Boonwell movie? Like, is this Dali? Like, there's a surrealism to some of the creative decision making, right?

• 24:35Speaker 02

  I really feel like you're not giving this film enough credit.

• 24:39Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I'd like to try. I just, I don't really fully understand. I think maybe all these years of watching all this IP, I'm like, well, how do these pieces fit together? But there's no, there are no pieces, right?

• 24:51Speaker 02

  No, this, the man who wrote this movie, I am obsessed with him. I went and checked out his website and read an interview with him. He clearly, I mean, forgive me if this isn't true, but he seems like just a big ass stoner, who was like, wouldn't it be fucking funny if? And then he just took that way too far, but like, exactly far enough, thank God. It looks like he's also written other Christmas movies. What a dream job. I would love this job, where you just come up with, don't you think?

• 25:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, totally.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  Can I just nitpick for one? It's really funny, none of that stuff bothered me. It didn't bother me that he's melting, but he won't remove the like, extremely heavy woolen scarf, even though he's hot all the time. What bothered me was that there was a snake plant in Kath, is that her name, Kathy's home? That doesn't have heat. Snake plants are like, native to zone nine, 10 places, and they actually cannot live in temperatures under 50 degrees. And it was such a robust snake plant. And that was the thing, the only thing that I was like, damn, I would have caught that. I would have put a different plant in here.

• 25:55Sean Fennessey?

  Rob, did you see that? Like, the real Yasi just popped out.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  What the hell is a zone nine, 10 plant? What are you talking about?

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Babe, this is woman's work gardening, as you might know. And these are the zones where plants grow.

• 26:11Speaker 00

  What the hell zone? What zone is Califor?

• 26:15Speaker 02

  Nine and 10. That's what I'm saying. Like, this is not a plant that would survive in Hope Springs. Anywhere USA.

• 26:24Sean Fennessey?

  By the way.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  Oh, is? Okay, so it's freezing. I mean, it was freezing and snowing outside. You know it's below 50 degrees in that heaterless house? That plant would have been dead, is all I'm saying.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  The guy went to a junior high and just hung out at a junior high for half a movie, doing like flash mob dances. And your issue is the plant?

• 26:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:44Speaker 00

  In her house?

• 26:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:45Speaker 00

  Okay?

• 26:48Speaker 00

  All right.

• 26:48Sean Fennessey?

  I made a very good choice having you both here for this conversation.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  The plant, the plant brought no joy and delight. All the other things worked to propel the plot forward.

• 26:58Sean Fennessey?

  Gut, what? Another question for you. What happens when a hot defrosted snowman overheats? Like, does he return? Like, does he die and return to snow form? Does he become water? Does he just become a dead human body? Like, what? Because there's all this suggestion that like, oh, my God, if he doesn't cool down, if he doesn't get some ice in his system.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 27:19Sean Fennessey?

  You know, this, what's his name? Jack?

• 27:21Speaker 02

  Jack.

• 27:21Sean Fennessey?

  Jack might overheat. It's like, they keep talking about him. You know, like, he's a Ford Tempo or something. Like, I don't really. I didn't get it.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  Well, luckily, what about the line where he was like, I could wake up tomorrow and be a puddle?

• 27:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. Who among us?

• 27:35Speaker 02

  Chef's kiss. Perfect writing. What about? I'm sorry, excuse me. The Pretty Woman montage?

• 27:42Speaker 00

  Oh, boy.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  They paid money to license Pretty Woman, God bless, for the shopping montage.

• 27:48Speaker 00

  Just spinning in his grave.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  With the snapping of the jewelry box with the snowman complex?

• 27:53Speaker 00

  I rewound that as well.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  10 Oscars, babe. 10 Oscars. I loved it so much. That's right.

• 28:00Speaker 00

  Do you want 10 Oscars for the same category or 10 Oscars spread across all categories?

• 28:05Speaker 02

  This film was better than Enora. I'm sorry, I'll say it. I'm the only one brave enough to say it. Enora wishes.

• 28:11Sean Fennessey?

  Honestly, they have a lot to say to each other. They're very much in conversation.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  It's really true.

• 28:18Sean Fennessey?

  Have you seen Enora yet, Rob?

• 28:20Speaker 00

  I have not, no. If it's gotten to Ohio, I'm not aware of it. I don't think it has. Yeah, it's where...

• 28:25Speaker 02

  Hasn't gone to Hope Springs.

• 28:26Speaker 00

  We're in a Zone 10 movie environment and movies like Enora cannot thrive here.

• 28:33Sean Fennessey?

  I was thinking about doing Yasi's Oscars Corner on this episode because you were sharing some fiery takes.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  Some spicy takes.

• 28:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  Well, we can talk about that later. I do have, again, I only see four movies a year or so, if you don't count the Christmas movies.

• 28:50Sean Fennessey?

  Before we move on from Hot Fries.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  No, we're not moving on because I need to tell you about the other Easter egg you didn't catch.

• 28:54Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, what is it?

• 28:56Speaker 02

  The part where she, Kathy goes, "Oh yeah? Well, I think it's about him being a snowman." And she's like, "Yeah, and I'm the queen of Cardonia."

• 29:04Speaker 00

  I wondered about that line.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  That's right. There's a film called Royal Christmas 2014 starring Lacey Chabert, where she does become the queen of Cardonia.

• 29:12Speaker 00

  What is Cardonia?

• 29:13Speaker 02

  It's a, they make these fake places. There's one, the one in Princess, which is like, oh my God, what is it called? Belgravia. A lot of the Christmas films involve people becoming royalty by accident or fate, which is really great.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 29:34Sean Fennessey?

  A few notes on Lacey Chabert.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:36Sean Fennessey?

  Obviously, the joke where Lohan appears on screen is a reference to her time in Mean Girls. Interesting year for the Mean Girls Extended Universe with a musical in January. And yeah, it seems like...

• 29:51Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. I guess in some respects, Mean Girls is back in the culture. Lacey Schabert, she's got, she's got two modes, right? She's got sickly, sweet and surprised.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  No, but actually she was-

• 30:01Sean Fennessey?

  Can she do any other type of acting?

• 30:03Speaker 02

  She was excellent in Mean Girls. Don't you remember? She was actually really good and really funny and amazing. And it's, I don't understand why she turns that completely off when she does these kinds of films. But again, maybe that's, I think it's a, it's a genre consideration. This is like a noir or like a spaghetti western. It has, you know, specific ways that it needs to be. And this is how Lacey, Lacey was actually playing it the way it was meant to be.

• 30:30Sean Fennessey?

  I love it. So you're saying she's like the, you know, like the Telly Savalas. The way he would show up in spaghetti westerns and just be like, that's just Telly Savalas. He's just pretending to be in Italy in a western. But in fact, he's only got one style and we're just along for the ride.

• 30:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's coyly sweet, you know?

• 30:51Speaker 02

  A little pained.

• 30:53Sean Fennessey?

  I have one really important thing to discuss with you guys. That hopefully will open to a wider conversation, which is the final needle drop of the film. Did you catch that?

• 31:03Speaker 02

  I didn't catch it. You said it was a Coldplay song? What Coldplay song? I'm not hyper familiar.

• 31:10Sean Fennessey?

  This song is called Feels Like I'm Falling in Love. It's spelled as if it were one word.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 31:16Speaker 00

  Sure. Coldplay.

• 31:19Sean Fennessey?

  I want to talk to you guys a little bit about Coldplay. This song was written by the band and produced by Max Martin.

• 31:25Speaker 02

  Baton Switch, okay.

• 31:28Sean Fennessey?

  It features something named Zurb.

• 31:32Speaker 00

  Oh, Zurb. Wasn't he the villain of the Toy Story? Isn't he the guy with like the gun?

• 31:37Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's Zurg.

• 31:38Speaker 00

  Oh, okay. Well, I don't know.

• 31:42Sean Fennessey?

  So it's not the villain from the Toy Story?

• 31:46Speaker 00

  Coldplay will collaborate with anyone at this point, I think. You know, they're just up for anything.

• 31:51Sean Fennessey?

  So this song was released in October of 2024 and-

• 31:58Sean Fennessey?

  I have, I'll be honest, I haven't spent a lot of time with Coldplay in the last 10 years. I, I have kind of moved on. There was a time in my life when I would really, really go to bat for Parachutes. You know, I really, really liked Parachutes.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  Parachutes is a phenomenal album.

• 32:15Sean Fennessey?

  And I like A Rush of Blood to the Head as well, the second album.

• 32:20Speaker 00

  The Scientist.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Come up to meet me.

• 32:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, those are, those are, those are good albums. And I thought, this is a good band. Are they iterative, duplicative even of some other bands I like? Maybe. But I really like them. I like Chris Martin. Whatever they've been up to since like 2012, I'm mystified by, you know, it's like they're dressed in like carnival outfits and they're making EDM and there's like all kinds of stuff going on that I don't get. But for whatever reason, and I, I was just, just trolling YouTube the other day. And I came across a video starring Ralph Macchio. Singing a Coldplay song. Are you guys familiar with this?

• 33:03Speaker 00

  No.

• 33:04Sean Fennessey?

  Like you haven't seen this video, you don't know about this?

• 33:06Speaker 02

  It's an official music video by the band Coldplay starring Ralph Macchio.

• 33:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the name of the song is The Karate Kid.

• 33:16Speaker 00

  Are you sure that you just didn't order a cameo where Ralph Macchio sings a fake Coldplay song just for you and you accidentally uploaded it to YouTube? I don't know if this is a real thing, I have to say.

• 33:31Sean Fennessey?

  It, it's a, it's a real thing. I mean, I don't, I don't know. I'm trying to find like where this song lives. Like it's not on this new Coldplay record?

• 33:40Speaker 02

  It's a real testament to the saturation of online media that this came and went and nobody heard about it.

• 33:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:51Speaker 02

  Coldplay, arguably one of the biggest bands, guitar rock bands in the world.

• 33:54Sean Fennessey?

  It's on the full Moon edition of the Moon Music album?

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Sure, of course. Who couldn't forget the full Moon edition of the Moon Music album?

• 34:03Sean Fennessey?

  I'm trying to figure out what the heck is going on here. But I guess, I guess Coldplay is back?

• 34:10Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  I wouldn't go that far.

• 34:13Speaker 00

  No, I, the song started playing and it's like, is this Coldplay? Like, they didn't get Coldplay.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  You recognize it, Rob.

• 34:20Speaker 00

  This movie. I thought it might be Coldplay. I didn't recognize the song, but I was like, this is either they, they, they got themselves a fake Coldplay or they threw a million, they spent more money on this song than they did on the whole rest of the movie.

• 34:34Speaker 02

  Well, you don't think, I'm sorry, you don't think Pretty Woman was extremely expensive to license? That's a very famous song. That's probably a little more than, no offense to Chris Martin, than the brand new Coldplay song that didn't even have any vocals.

• 34:50Speaker 00

  I think Coldplay are a little mystified by Coldplay in the last 10 years. So I don't think you're alone there at all, Sean.

• 34:56Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I like, I like Chris Martin just kind of following his light, you know? He's just like, I'm, I'm exploring new spaces like Netflix original films.

• 35:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 35:06Sean Fennessey?

  Here are some other songs that are, that appear on, in the film Hot Frosty. Tokata and Fugan D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  Is that in the public domain?

• 35:16Speaker 00

  That's the EDM, is it, doesn't it say, doesn't it say when he turns into a real person? Like, the, the caption is like EDM version of Tchaikovsky.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  Oh, you have.

• 35:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, you're referring to Tchaikovsky's The Dance of the Sugarplum.

• 35:29Speaker 00

  Excuse me, excuse me. That's a different thing. Yes, yes, sorry.

• 35:35Sean Fennessey?

  And then a bunch of songs that, you know, that you probably only hear while watching Love Island. You know, you know, there's like a whole.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  Genre of that.

• 35:42Sean Fennessey?

  Genre of music. Yasi, talk to me about that genre.

• 35:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the Love is Blind music. What is that?

• 35:47Speaker 02

  It's just for like, oh, actually, this is a great moment for me to talk about. Do you guys even mention the Chrishell Staus cameo?

• 35:54Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  In the very, from Selling Sunset, a fellow Netflix franchise. It reminds me, because that show also has this music where there's just an entire genre of music that is like a factory, a cottage industry of weird EDM music that goes in the background of these reality television programs.

• 36:12Sean Fennessey?

  The Chrishell sequence is very strange because she's just like in full Chrishell.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  Full beat.

• 36:18Sean Fennessey?

  Makeup.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  It's 9 a.m.

• 36:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. She's there with a small child. It's like, who has time to look like this with a tiny child in New Hope Springs or wherever the fuck they live?

• 36:28Speaker 02

  She has one single line. She never comes back.

• 36:33Speaker 00

  Oh, is she the one with the kid in the diner at the beginning? Okay, she's like, the chocolate chip pancakes sequence. Right, okay, all right.

• 36:41Speaker 02

  And then never to be seen again.

• 36:44Sean Fennessey?

  So Hot Frosty, recommend Yasi?

• 36:46Speaker 02

  10 out of 11 out of 10. Could not recommend more. We'll turn your whole world around. And then watch all the princess switches. And then, like, if you really want to experiment, watch Operation Christmas Drop. Where they, it's, it's Cat Graham and it's like a military themed Christmas movie where she goes with like a man in the military. I am a little hazy on the details because it's been like two years since I seen it, but they're bringing

• 37:11Speaker 02

  food and gifts to a small island in Micronesia and she's a bit of a Scrooge. And by the end, she, the renewed spirit of Christmas is within her, seeing this beautiful display of charity and love. It's a little colonizer-y, but like, that can take us right into Moana, babe, honestly. Do we want a bridge?

• 37:32Speaker 00

  What a segue.

• 37:34Sean Fennessey?

  That was very artful and I'm loathe to not ride on that flotilla with you, straight to Moana 2. But honestly, Yasi, you like to joke that you're like, do I fit in here at The Ringer? Or is this right that my shows are here? And then I, whatever you've been doing for the last 20 minutes, some of the most Ringer shit I've ever heard in my life.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  I'm nothing if not a devoted soldier in the Ringer Army.

• 37:56Sean Fennessey?

  Many people are saying that. You too will travel to Micronesia to spread the good word. Let us talk now about Moana 2.

• 38:07Sean Fennessey?

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• 39:23Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime.

• 39:56Sean Fennessey?

  I had no idea what you would have to contribute. I didn't know any of your thoughts about Disney movies in general, Yasi. I do know a bit about Rob's. You know, Rob's, he's got a family, he's got children. Like, when something like this comes up, is Moana 2 still in the household? Is it like an event? Is it something that the kids are aware of and excited about?

• 40:14Speaker 00

  They're aware of it, excited about, I don't know. There's like a performative, like, oh, not this. But then when they watch it, they're like thrilled by it, right?

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Because your sons are, is it, is it the performative because your sons are sort of like a little bit older and they're like sort of growing out of it? Yeah.

• 40:31Speaker 00

  That's, that's right. So my, my sons are 13 and 11, and then we have a four-year-old daughter, right? And so we're all in the theater. And whenever a song started in Moana 2, the boys just groans. You know, like, the 11-year-old is just like, this song is terrible, within like five seconds. And he was right. By the way, but still like there is an immediate knee jerk performative like, oh no, they're singing. One thing I do want to mention, when I walked into the theater, there was a dude walking out of the theater and he said out loud, he's like, I can't believe Wicked was a musical. Nobody told me it was a musical. I had to put on my headphones and drive. I was so, it was the greatest thing in the world. To me, he was so mad.

• 41:10Sean Fennessey?

  That man was me.

• 41:13Speaker 00

  So Moana, the original Moana, right? Like that's 2016, right? And so my kids, the boys are like eight and six or something. And so they're right in the wheelhouse for that. And that's one of the movies we watched where then the soundtrack was constant for the next six months, right? I would put Encanto in this category, both frozen's, you know, but like Moana was one of the better soundtracks, right? Like shiny, like the Jermaine Clements, you know, crab song.

• 41:42Sean Fennessey?

  Banger.

• 41:42Speaker 00

  Fake Bowie's a banger, an absolute banger. And so I think even if they wouldn't have admitted it, I think the boys were excited by the prospect of another movie with bangers like that, even if they have a knee jerk dislike of musicals now, you know, and meanwhile, the four year old is just crawling on the back of the seat in front of us. Like she's having a completely different experience.

• 42:05Sean Fennessey?

  So she's not really locked in on the Moana mythology in any way?

• 42:09Speaker 00

  I, not the mythology. She was, she was, she was like, this is really exciting, you know, when the movie started and that was very sweet. And then she started climbing. It is adorable, but then she started climbing on the, I think she was enjoying the movie in her own way, right? And what I'm curious about is if she's going to request to see it again, or to hear the music again. And I'm thinking that she will ask to see the movie. She will be mad that it's not on Disney plus right now. I don't think she is going to demand the soundtrack like in the minivan, or at least I hope not.

• 42:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, there's probably some reasons for that. Um, you know, the first Moana film is directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, who are two of the more beloved and successful Disney filmmakers of the last 40 years. I mean, they worked on The Great Mouse Detective in 1986. They directed The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules. Like they've been doing it for a long time and Moana. As I mentioned, actually, on an episode earlier this week when we talked about Wicked, I'm like, this is really like as good as it gets, in my opinion, for Disney Animation Studios films. Yeah. Like, the combination of story, character, songs, and humibility, repeatability. When you have young kids, these movies are on, or as Rob said, like, the soundtracks are on all the time.

• 43:26Sean Fennessey?

  They can make you absolutely crazy if they're not any good. In my opinion, and I know some people on this panel may disagree, this has songs that are co-written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the first film. I think the first film might be...

• 43:41Sean Fennessey?

  I think it might be his best work. Now, obviously, Hamilton is his biggest work and noisiest work, and there are In the Heights fans and Tic Tic Boom fans, and, you know, he's done a lot of things over the years. But I fucking love those songs from Iwana. And he is not the author of the songs in this new film. And Musker and Clements are not back either. This is a new group of people who are making this movie. And significantly, the movie started out as a TV series. And I guess it was gonna be a limited series that was gonna tell like a contained story over, I guess, like, six or eight episodes or something like that. I'm not sure of the details. But they... Disney shifted its strategy after realizing that streaming was a pox on our society that is ruining storytelling. And I'm grateful for that.

• 44:26Sean Fennessey?

  And honestly, that there's just more money in the hills of theatrical exhibition. So they transformed this TV show, which is now directed by David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, and Dana Laidoo Miller, into a film, a theatrical film. And so, you know, the cast is back.

• 44:46Sean Fennessey?

  Alie Cravio is back. Dwayne Johnson is back. Nicole Scherzinger is back, Tamara Morris. Like, all of those folks are back. The movie itself, like so many Disney sequels, feels like the same movie that we saw, but with just a little bit more stuff attached to it. Is that a reasonable description of what we saw?

• 45:12Speaker 00

  It does map pretty cleanly on to the first Moana.

• 45:15Sean Fennessey?

  Moana needs to go on an adventure across the sea to find a thing that is somewhat indescribable. MacGuffin-y and she needs some help along the way from some new folks who will allow her to become the savior and then her island and the people of the world will all live in harmony. That's more or less the framework of the story.

• 45:37Speaker 00

  You nailed it, right. And then like halfway through the movie, it's like, is this, is this a villain? It's like, no, she's just singing a disco song, you know, and it's like, oh, okay. But she's, that, that, the disco song is in the shiny spot, right? Like halfway through, we meet like a charismatic, maybe villain, maybe not, you know, and then we move on to the big, you know, the big storm that we conquer at the end. It's, it's like, it's like a Star Wars sort of reimagining of the first Moana, basically.

• 46:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, she's like an envoy to a storm.

• 46:09Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 46:10Sean Fennessey?

  Not so much a, a real character. So Yasi, do the whole thing. Moana, the first film, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Moana 2.

• 46:19Speaker 00

  Start with Lin-Manuel Miranda.

• 46:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, like where do you stand on the whole, whole deal?

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Okay, I just need to preface this by saying when you're always like, who is this movie for? This movie is not for me. I, I don't, I don't have children and I don't like musicals. There's like three musicals on earth that I enjoy and the rest of them, it's like none of my business. Do you know what I mean?

• 46:38Speaker 00

  What are, what are the three?

• 46:40Speaker 02

  Grease has a really special place in my heart. Little Shop of Horrors.

• 46:44Sean Fennessey?

  Great film.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  And the South Park one.

• 46:47Sean Fennessey?

  Also a great film.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  One of the best, honestly.

• 46:48Sean Fennessey?

  You will enjoy an animated musical feature.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. And like, I was wondering if like, how, cause I, I won't name names, but a friend of mine did send me a voice memo. I guess he had been listening to a big picture episode where you did say Moana was the best musical of all time and he was like incensed.

• 47:03Sean Fennessey?

  That didn't, that did not happen. The framework was 21st century.

• 47:08Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 47:10Sean Fennessey?

  So tell your friend, listen closely.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  Listen, pay attention. How much of this is like Stockholm syndrome? Because you have children who force you to like, watch and listen to it a million times. Like, cause for example, like I love The Little Mermaid because I was a child and The Little Mermaid came out and it's like deeply meaningful to me and those songs. But I, I would argue those songs still bang. I watched, I watched Moana when it came out, not in the theater, and I remember liking it. And then I watched it again to like pre-game for Moana 2. And I was crying and I found it very emotionally manipulative because I was like, this is not, there's no reason for me to be crying, but I cried a bunch. I think it's good. It was good. It's cute. It's whatever. Um, Moana 2 was awful. It was terrible. I didn't understand what was happening.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  And I'm an adult person. I mean, I was drinking, so maybe that's something to do with it.

• 48:00Sean Fennessey?

  What were you drinking, by the way?

• 48:01Speaker 00

  I was gonna ask.

• 48:02Speaker 02

  I was just having red wines because I knew I had to.

• 48:05Sean Fennessey?

  In, in the theater?

• 48:06Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 48:07Speaker 00

  What? With the children.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  With the children. They're not my children.

• 48:10Sean Fennessey?

  Did you bring a bottle? What's the situation here?

• 48:12Speaker 02

  No, I went to the Look Cinema in Glendale, little, little known beautiful cinema where you can recline the seats and they have a full bar menu and food menu. That's how I like to see films.

• 48:22Sean Fennessey?

  So you had chicken fingers and red wine?

• 48:24Speaker 00

  Chicken fingers and red wine.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 48:26Sean Fennessey?

  Anything else?

• 48:27Speaker 00

  That'll be $45.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  That was $45. Um, I ate some of the child's Sour Patch Kids.

• 48:34Sean Fennessey?

  Against their will or did they offer them to you?

• 48:35Speaker 02

  No, he, we were friends. He shared. Um, I, I just like couldn't follow the plot. There was too many characters. I was like, why are there so many? I can see it in a TV show that working. Okay, here, not to be like Hot Frosty made sense, but this doesn't make sense. Why? This wasn't for the first Moana 2, but it bothered me more in this one. Why do some people have accents and some don't? Why are you all in the same tribe?

• 48:58Speaker 00

  The accent thing is wild.

• 48:59Speaker 02

  And some of you are Australian and some of you are from New Zealand and some of you are American. What are you even fucking talking about? What's going on here? And then also, I'm sorry, not to like put on my conspiracy theory tinfoil hat, but did you not feel that that, that the subliminal messaging of both these films is like pro-globalism?

• 49:19Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I don't think there is like a, the sort of means of production in capitalistic society that we see represented meaningfully in Moana. So I'm not sure the idea of capitalism maps onto the world of Moana.

• 49:31Speaker 02

  I didn't say capitalism. I said globalism.

• 49:33Sean Fennessey?

  Well, but globalism is a function of capitalism.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Open borders.

• 49:37Sean Fennessey?

  They only make sense in unison.

• 49:39Speaker 02

  This is, this is a metaphor. They don't have to show commerce to, to deploy their insidious message.

• 49:46Sean Fennessey?

  It's an interesting question. So you think this is sort of a post-Clintonian economic text?

• 49:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 49:52Sean Fennessey?

  We need to deregulate Motanui.

• 49:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:55Sean Fennessey?

  We can.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  We can't survive without communing with other, with other cultures outside.

• 50:02Speaker 00

  Our story will end here.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  Our story will end here.

• 50:05Speaker 00

  If we do not import goods.

• 50:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. Also, I'm sorry.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  From China.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  They brought all those people and they also already spoke English.

• 50:13Sean Fennessey?

  Are you pro tariffs? What's the situation?

• 50:15Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I'm not pro. I'm simply asking questions. I'm simply here to ask questions. Okay, I'm just curious.

• 50:22Sean Fennessey?

  I am. I don't think I spent enough time. And honestly, that is the kind of thing I would think hard about. I don't think that's the case for Moana because these are, um, these societies are relatively primitive. And so, uh, in this film, which is, which explores the idea of people beyond Moana's island and the village where she lives, which, you know, I thought was kind of a nice concept. I didn't, I didn't find it offensive or, um,

• 50:48Speaker 02

  I wasn't offended. I was simply trying, I was trying to, you know, use your galaxy brain.

• 50:52Sean Fennessey?

  I do think that in a lot of Disney product, there is this expectation of a kind of global unity agreeing upon Disney product.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  As they should, to make Disney money.

• 51:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I mean, that, that, there's definitely an undercurrent of that in a lot of this stuff. I mean, I generally agree, the movie's just not very good. It's disappointing. It wasn't meant to be a movie. And the reason why this episode is titled, What Even Is A Movie? Is because a lot of movies that come along nowadays are just sort of like, this didn't start that way. You know, like Hot Frosty to me feels like it started out as a dare or as a tweet. Whereas like, I wonder if I could conjure this into a meme and I'm going to make it a feature film for the largest global streaming platform in the history of mankind. And likewise, Moana 2 is like, you know, we don't really need a Moana 2. And back when we were kids, I feel like this is relevant to this conversation. They did make a lot of sequels like this to animated films. And they went straight to DVD.

• 51:45Sean Fennessey?

  And maybe you could catch them on the Disney Channel, but they were not a part of the theatrical presentation of this, you know, beautifully codified Disney brand. And I was looking at the list, the history of Disney animated features last night. Cause you know, I'm just a cool, normal guy. And

• 52:01Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 52:02Sean Fennessey?

  I, there's a turning point. And that turning point. Fits narrowly into our coming of age collectively, like amongst the three of us in our ages, which is that you have this second golden age of Disney animated films, which essentially kicks off with The Little Mermaid, and you have Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, and then that leads very clearly into Toy Story and Pixar in 1995. And there were still Disney, you know, 2D animation happening at that time, but in 1994, 1995, you get a significant growth in the number of animated movies that this studio starts making. Some of them are straight to DVD, some of them are like, there would be a new Winnie

• 52:46Sean Fennessey?

  the Pooh movie that is theatrically released, but it is not the noisy Disney original that is coming out like Hercules of that year, Tarzan, or something like that. And Disney Animation, which in the 1980s, I think, only produced four, five feature films, a very small number, in the 90s goes to like 45, like a huge number of movies that they just start cranking out. And so you have to kind of like discern as a kid, like, well, this is like a real one and a good one, and this is like a junkie one that we'll watch, but we know doesn't really matter that much, and you have to convince your parents to buy it on VHS if you really want to see it. And now we're in the place where the junkie thing is now the main course.

• 53:28Sean Fennessey?

  And Moana 2 is like one of the, will be one of the biggest movies of the year, which is fascinating and quite sad, honestly.

• 53:35Speaker 02

  Well, can I say, Sean, to say something nice about Moana 2? Um, I don't know if it's nice about Moana 2, but when you always ask like, who is this for, right? If it's for children, I'm gonna tell you what, Leo, the seven and a half year old, he loved it. He loved every second of it. He cried. He later said, I'm gonna believe him, believe, believe children, but when, when Moana was, you know, perhaps touch and go there at the end, not to spoil, he said he cried because she came back to life and they were happy tears, but I think he was crying because he was very worried. And he loved it. He loved every minute of it. I'm sure for him, it was as satisfying as Moana 1 and as satisfying as any other animated film would be.

• 54:20Speaker 02

  It's, it's for us that we didn't, you know, enjoy it and feel like, is it for us, you know?

• 54:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, who is this? Four is like a complicated question that sometimes I'm interested in having a conversation. Sometimes I'm not. Of course, I understand that the Moana sequel is for children, so much so that I already have three tickets to go see it again on Friday with my daughter. And the only reason I didn't take her yesterday is because she was in school. And so I'm gonna see it again, and she's gonna see it, and I'll be very surprised if she doesn't like it. I have a heart. I get it.

• 54:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. And Hey Hey, I'm sorry, Hey Hey is the best part of the movie, and Hey Hey was the best part of Moana one, and I stan Hey Hey, and I would watch a Hey Hey spinoff.

• 54:57Sean Fennessey?

  That's interesting.

• 54:57Speaker 00

  We have a stuffed Hey Hey in this house.

• 54:59Sean Fennessey?

  Do you?

• 55:00Speaker 00

  I bought my daughter, yeah. Also, the biggest laugh line in the theater is when Moana was touch and go, and my four year old blurted out, "Moana died," and everyone in the theater laughed.

• 55:13Speaker 00

  So that was, that was the best movie, part of the whole movie.

• 55:16Sean Fennessey?

  She's a very, um...

• 55:18Speaker 00

  Certainly for me.

• 55:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 55:19Speaker 00

  Self-aware.

• 55:20Sean Fennessey?

  That's good, good movie watching. You were making it seem like she was not paying attention, but she seemed locked in.

• 55:25Speaker 00

  I, yeah.

• 55:26Speaker 02

  Can I ask you guys a dad question?

• 55:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 55:29Speaker 00

  Please.

• 55:29Speaker 02

  Okay, so you're both the father of daughters. You're both girl dads.

• 55:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yep. You are our daughter. That's right.

• 55:36Speaker 02

  I am your daughter. I'm your eldest, your eldest daughter. There is this thing that's been made a lot out of in the past. Sean, you could, as a scholar of Disney films, could probably tell me about her, how long it's been, but like, where, like, Moana one was very much celebrated for this, right? Where like, it's a story of a girl who had, there's no romance. She's not, there's no prince charming. There's no love story. And this has kind of become a thing, right? It happens now, most of these movies don't have what, you know, Hot Frosty has, or, or a Little Mermaid.

• 56:13Sean Fennessey?

  There's no ice penis in the film Moana. That's right.

• 56:14Speaker 02

  Right. But also, all of, you know, Snow White, Cinderella, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

• 56:21Speaker 02

  Do you think that's ultimately good?

• 56:26Sean Fennessey?

  I have a point of view on it. What do you, what do you think, Rob?

• 56:29Speaker 00

  Well, they make a big deal. There's like an in-joke in Moana 2 about how she's not a princess, but everyone thinks that she is like, like Maui keeps calling her princess and she keeps being like, "I'm not a princess." And Maui says basically to us, like, "But a lot of people think you are." Like, they're making a very big deal out of them not being princesses anymore and them being self, they're strong female characters, right? And I hadn't thought so much about the no love interest thing, but that's true as well. You know, like, Encanto, I think, is my personal favorite, you know, of this era, both for the movie itself and for the songs, for the soundtrack, you know, but Mirabel in Encanto, you know, like, has no love interest. And like, the whole

• 57:13Speaker 00

  point of her is that she's not special at all, which makes her the most special of, at all, right? Like, I, I do think that they are reacting to the classic Disney construction of every female character is a princess who needs to be saved by Prince Charming, you know, in some fashion, you know, like, even, even, is it Charmed? What's the, Tangled?

• 57:33Sean Fennessey?

  Tangled, yeah.

• 57:34Speaker 00

  The Rapunzel.

• 57:35Sean Fennessey?

  Huge favorite of my household.

• 57:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, the Rapunzel, and mine too. And the Rapunzel sort of myth is sort of strong, you know, she's a much more self-sufficient character in Tangled than she is historically. So I do think that Disney is thinking very, very hard

• 57:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:50Speaker 00

  about these things. The question of whether it's a good thing or not, what's, I, I hadn't thought about it, but like, what's the argument for it not being a good thing? Like, they're just trying to frame it as like, "You don't have to be a princess," you know, anymore.

• 58:04Speaker 02

  I'm just, two things. I'm always suspicious of the girl-bossification of anything.

• 58:08Speaker 00

  Sure, sure.

• 58:10Speaker 02

  And then also, like, I, I understand it at the beginning, because I think it's all there was, was these love stories and like, the idea that all, your only value in life is to find love. But given the, like,

• 58:26Speaker 02

  I'm sorry, nobody, people are turning this off. They're like, this woman, we came here to talk about Moana 2. You know, young people are not dating. People are not getting married. Like, it's like, it's actually a sociocultural problem that dating and romance is difficult and struggling in society. And I'm not sure, like, if every indoctrination of children removes the idea of love and romance, it's that great? So I don't know. I'm simply posing questions. I'm just here to ask questions about globalization, about, you know, gender, about-

• 59:06Speaker 00

  Powerful stuff.

• 59:07Sean Fennessey?

  I genuinely appreciate you raising this, and I have spent a lot of time discussing this with my wife for a variety of reasons. One, I think, you know, sure, maybe, maybe 0.06% of the incelification of sad, frustrated men is due to Disney's decision to empower young women to not rely upon the male archetypes that often populated the first 75 years of their films. In my house, we have spent a ton of time in the last 18 months watching huge chunks of the history of Disney animated feature films. My daughter, as I've said many times on the show, is obsessed with Disney princesses. You know, obviously, they have, you know,

• 59:50Sean Fennessey?

  a tractor beam that draws in any girl who's even lightly interested in this world. But in the case of my daughter, she fully loves these films. She loves everything from the earliest, earliest Snow White renditions of these stories all the way through the modern, independent-minded Moana and Encanto. But there is something primal with my daughter where she is like, I want to get married to a prince. She, like, she sees that at the conclusive moments of these films as deeply meaningful. Sleeping Beauty, for example, which is one of the most beautifully made movies of all time, but has this, like-

• 1:00:29Sean Fennessey?

  So simple and to some extent dumb portrayal of the role of the hero versus the damsel in distress.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:37Sean Fennessey?

  Our title character having no agency and literally sleeping through the final 30 minutes of the movie.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  Her year of rest and relaxation.

• 1:00:45Sean Fennessey?

  Truly, she was ahead of the curve and she was not even coping with modern technology.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  Rest is feminine. It's true.

• 1:00:54Sean Fennessey?

  But so my point is, by saying all that, is that what it becomes in our house is a balance. It means that you can watch Sleeping Beauty and you can watch Moana and you can have both. You can see an independent female warrior who saves her tribe without the necessity of longing for a man or a woman or whomever else, and you can also still love Sleeping Beauty. You can, and you can, I think having them both, and what it feels like what Disney is doing is in some ways correcting and arguably over correcting on a long history of these oversimplified gender expectations.

• 1:01:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:01:25Sean Fennessey?

  If in 20 years, we haven't had a single romance in any Disney animated film,

• 1:01:33Sean Fennessey?

  then I think it's more than reasonable to be like, hmm, did Disney depressurize romance for young kids across the country and across the world? And did that have a deleterious effect on mating and relationships in our culture? I don't, it's definitely possible. I don't, I don't know.

• 1:01:50Speaker 02

  I'm just here to ask questions. Listen, I love your approach. Ladies is pimps too. That's what you're teaching your daughter and I think that's wonderful.

• 1:01:57Sean Fennessey?

  She has one of those like little letter puzzle piece things that says ladies is pimps.

• 1:02:02Speaker 02

  Ladies is pimps too.

• 1:02:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:04Speaker 02

  I just, I just find it interesting because I think fairy tales, and then we don't have to get into the whole thing of these are fairy tales that were adapted, that were, the darkness was cut off, but also are archetypal, right? That's why your daughter reacts so strongly because human archetypes are in the collective unconscious. They're beyond learned and.

• 1:02:28Speaker 02

  The archetype of the princess is so strong. It's the divine feminine, right? And it has a lot of value. And I think that gets swept under the rug when it's like dumbed down to fourth wave girl boss feminism to be like, you can be a boss, actually.

• 1:02:47Sean Fennessey?

  But I don't think that Moana, Moana to me is like,

• 1:02:50Speaker 02

  I'm not sure.

• 1:02:51Sean Fennessey?

  Is Athena, is Artemisia, like that's like Greek and Roman mythology where it's like, there's a woman who is the most powerful person in all the land. That's, you know, that's wonderful.

• 1:03:00Speaker 02

  And she's a demigod. And she's also displays divine feminine qualities in her caring for the collective and her nurturing, which is the divine feminine.

• 1:03:12Speaker 00

  But I did wonder if she was supposed to be, if the goofy dude who worships Maui, I thought, are they going to get together? Like, what is, what is the actual end game? This all makes me think about Frozen as well. Like, isn't there a lot of discourse about like Elsa, right? Like, and I think the sort of expansion there is, is Elsa gay? Like, it seems like, isn't there a, there's a Saturday Night Live skit about that, I think, about the idea if they're going to use Frozen, you know, to have, you know, to break that wall.

• 1:03:43Speaker 02

  To soft launch the first.

• 1:03:45Sean Fennessey?

  I do not think in this phase of American history, that is going to happen.

• 1:03:51Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:03:52Sean Fennessey?

  I think Frozen three comes out in 2027, which would be still in the, in the midst of this new administration. So I don't, I don't see it happening.

• 1:04:04Speaker 00

  You know, yeah, Elsa is going to be in Trump's cabinet, you know, and it's going to dismantle the EPA. You know, I think that's, that's probably the plot of Frozen three.

• 1:04:13Sean Fennessey?

  It kind of checks out when you think about her at her most rageful, you know? She's like,

• 1:04:17Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 1:04:18Sean Fennessey?

  Cover this land in ice.

• 1:04:19Speaker 00

  Busting dams and whatnot, yeah.

• 1:04:22Sean Fennessey?

  You managed to circle the square because I think, what if we dropped Elsa into Hot Frosty two? I think there's, that could be. And she comes in and she wants to break up Jack and Lacey Chabert, right? And she's like, I know about ice and I know how to get down with you. You know, it's like the old question about whether or not Lois Lane could handle Superman's, you know, super powered.

• 1:04:43Speaker 02

  Sean, he's a human now, babe. It's over. The snow, remember his temperature is normal. She kissed him.

• 1:04:49Speaker 00

  Why did he become a human? Is that what it did? That's all, all she had to do is kiss him.

• 1:04:54Speaker 02

  That was a little bit of a Sleeping Beauty nod, no?

• 1:04:57Sean Fennessey?

  I believe it was.

• 1:04:58Speaker 00

  It was very funny that he died and everyone just turned away from him.

• 1:05:02Speaker 02

  Come on, let's go.

• 1:05:04Speaker 00

  Let the sheriff handle the dead body on Christmas Eve.

• 1:05:08Speaker 02

  Nobody brought up the ACAB of it all, like the, the anti-carceral state that was clearly like a theme of this, of this film.

• 1:05:16Speaker 00

  Hope Springs is gonna defund the fuck out of the police.

• 1:05:18Speaker 02

  I'm just saying, that wasn't by accident.

• 1:05:21Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:05:22Sean Fennessey?

  You guys really didn't disappoint today. Genuinely, you're most cracked. I'm so thankful for you both. Any like, what, what else do we need to say? Like Moana and Hot Frosty, they're barely movies and yet they're gonna end up being like two of the most watched movies in American society in 2024.

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  Hot Frosty is fab and you will not regret watching it. It's fun. It doesn't pretend to be something it's not. And I think that's the difference between that and Moana 2. That's my two cents.

• 1:05:50Speaker 00

  I think that's right, you know, and I, I don't think Moana 2 is gonna click in this household in terms of the soundtrack being ubiquitous.

• 1:05:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:58Speaker 00

  You know, for the next six months. I think that the songs are trash, man. And I remember walking out of Frozen 2 and thinking the songs were trash. And then the kids wanted to hear it constantly and I ended up vibing very hard in the end with the Frozen. Like it came around for me.

• 1:06:13Sean Fennessey?

  Not a fan of Frozen 2 personally.

• 1:06:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, the movie, no, but like I, the soundtrack, I really did, I really would put on the same level as Frozen 1, but there is no chance of that happening between Moana and Moana 2.

• 1:06:25Speaker 02

  I just like, what was going on? He was rapping at some point. There was just like so much.

• 1:06:30Speaker 00

  That's, yeah.

• 1:06:31Sean Fennessey?

  That's Maui's way.

• 1:06:32Speaker 02

  I know.

• 1:06:33Speaker 00

  That is Maui's.

• 1:06:34Speaker 02

  It's like a lot. And, and what was he even saying? Like what was he on about? Like in that song, you know, like?

• 1:06:39Sean Fennessey?

  He was trying to pump up Moana. He was like, you got this.

• 1:06:42Speaker 00

  Girl boss, beer, the girl bossing of Moana is the perfect way.

• 1:06:46Sean Fennessey?

  Girl, you're, you're the real queen of this land.

• 1:06:49Speaker 02

  I will say I was really stunned. The children, even the four-year-old, knew the name of that sort of like simp artist that was on the boat. What was, I don't remember. I still don't even remember it, but they were like, yeah, so-and-so. Like, and I was like, you're four and you caught that? Like, I missed. Maybe it's one of those like dog whistle type things where like they actually are like so good at making it for children, for children to understand that some of it slips past us. But a four year old can follow. It's totally possible.

• 1:07:19Sean Fennessey?

  I found the film somewhat disappointing. I didn't mention it's Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear are the writers of the songs for this film and they were the writers of the songs for the unofficial Bridgerton musical. Are either of you guys up on that? That was a bit of a phenomenon in the late COVID period.

• 1:07:34Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:07:35Sean Fennessey?

  And they have now fully poured it over to reputable business productions.

• 1:07:39Speaker 00

  That's not the thing in London where there was a stripper and it went viral in the manner of the, that's not one of those, I'm thinking of something else. Excuse me.

• 1:07:49Sean Fennessey?

  Magic Mike's Last Dance? I'm pretty sure that's what you're referring to.

• 1:07:51Speaker 00

  There we go. That's exactly what I'm referring to.

• 1:07:54Speaker 02

  Surprisingly, who brought the horniest energy to this pod? It was Rob from, from Jump.

• 1:08:00Sean Fennessey?

  What do you mean surprisingly?

• 1:08:03Sean Fennessey?

  Look at, look at how strapping he is. He's downright Dustin Milliganian.

• 1:08:07Speaker 00

  All right. Okay.

• 1:08:11Speaker 02

  That's my dad. That's my dad you're talking about personally.

• 1:08:15Speaker 00

  My wife was a little alarmed by Dustin Milligan's whole vibe in this movie. She's like, what happened to him?

• 1:08:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was really toothy.

• 1:08:21Sean Fennessey?

  I was just gonna say way too much smiling. Take it down a notch.

• 1:08:24Speaker 02

  A lot of teeth. A lot of teeth.

• 1:08:28Sean Fennessey?

  Are there any movies at the end of this year that you guys are excited for?

• 1:08:32Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Baby Girl?

• 1:08:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Now that, now that is a Yasi movie.

• 1:08:38Speaker 02

  And also what's, what's the movie from the woman who made Morven Caller? I love her. I love all her movies. Lynn.

• 1:08:44Sean Fennessey?

  Lynn Ramsey. Yeah, that's not coming out till next year.

• 1:08:46Speaker 02

  Oh, it's not next year. That's the movie I'm the most excited for. Sorry. That's, so maybe for this year, Baby Girl is high on my list.

• 1:08:52Sean Fennessey?

  Good choice.

• 1:08:53Speaker 00

  I want to see Wicked, dude. I, you know, I have not yet seen Wicked. I think the boys are into Wicked. You're both grimacing, so maybe I'm not going to enjoy.

• 1:09:00Sean Fennessey?

  Did you know it's a musical?

• 1:09:02Speaker 00

  I do now, only because of that guy.

• 1:09:05Sean Fennessey?

  I saw the film. Some good stuff, but I wasn't ultimately a big fan of it. But it is, it's, looks like it may turn out to be the movie phenomenon of the year. People love it.

• 1:09:14Speaker 02

  Because, because both adults and kids want to see it. So it's gonna like blow out of the water.

• 1:09:19Sean Fennessey?

  It's got a two, two plus generation level of connectivity. You've got parents who can bring their kids who experienced it for the first time. I think in 2001 is when it was first staged. Then you got even people who read the book and obviously the Wizard of Oz is. Almost 100 years of history. So yeah.

• 1:09:35Speaker 02

  We'll never get anything. We'll never get anything new again.

• 1:09:38Speaker 00

  You know what? My kids really want to see Sonic 3. Sonic 3 is the most intense.

• 1:09:43Speaker 02

  Sonic the Hedgehog?

• 1:09:45Speaker 00

  That's correct. Yes.

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  Amazing.

• 1:09:46Sean Fennessey?

  This is the third film in the Sonic series. Will you be watching any of those, Yasi?

• 1:09:51Speaker 02

  Um, maybe. Honestly, I played Sonic as a kid. I didn't know this existed if I'm being keeping it 100 with you guys.

• 1:09:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Jim Carrey plays Dr. Robotnik.

• 1:10:00Speaker 00

  Best Jim Carrey role in a decade or more.

• 1:10:04Sean Fennessey?

  Best Jim Carrey role in what, Rob?

• 1:10:06Speaker 00

  In a decade or more. All right. What is he? What's the better Jim Carrey pickings in the last 10 years?

• 1:10:11Sean Fennessey?

  You know, that's

• 1:10:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:13Sean Fennessey?

  An odd way to frame it.

• 1:10:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's not, not worked a lot.

• 1:10:17Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Well, those are really some good choices. Sonic 3, Baby Girl and Wicked.

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  What about you, Sean? You already saw, you already saw these movies?

• 1:10:25Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm. I've seen most, most, most of what I want to see. Let's, let's take a look at what I'm excited about. Thank you for asking.

• 1:10:32Speaker 02

  I want to see the Pope movie again also.

• 1:10:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:34Sean Fennessey?

  Conclave.

• 1:10:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:35Sean Fennessey?

  It's on VOD now. You can rent it.

• 1:10:36Speaker 02

  Thank God. I will be. No, it's, it's only really enjoyable if you see it in the theater with a bunch of elderly people.

• 1:10:43Sean Fennessey?

  Can't say I disagree with that. Hmm.

• 1:10:45Speaker 02

  Not only, but it was, it's extra enjoyable. Allow me to correct myself.

• 1:10:48Speaker 00

  The Wild Robot. I know that's sort of, that's on VOD now. We're sort of waiting until that's not $25, but we really want to see The Wild Robot.

• 1:10:55Speaker 02

  Oh, the Lohan holiday movie. Sorry.

• 1:10:57Sean Fennessey?

  What's that called?

• 1:10:59Speaker 02

  That one is called, um, hold on one second. I have it in my little notes here. Um, it is called Our Little Secret. And the premise is that two resentful exes are forced to spend Christmas under the same roof after discovering that their partners are siblings.

• 1:11:17Sean Fennessey?

  Intriguing. There's, there's actually

• 1:11:21Sean Fennessey?

  there's one movie that I'm very interested in that I haven't seen yet. And then there's another movie that I think is very relevant to this trio. Better Man. You guys know what Better Man is?

• 1:11:31Sean Fennessey?

  Better Man's the Robbie Williams biopic.

• 1:11:33Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 1:11:34Speaker 00

  Oh, right.

• 1:11:35Speaker 02

  Remember I sent this to you? He's a monkey.

• 1:11:37Speaker 00

  He's a monkey.

• 1:11:38Speaker 02

  I'm dying to see this.

• 1:11:40Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe there's a little drop in from this trio to discuss that film at some point.

• 1:11:44Speaker 00

  I'd love to.

• 1:11:45Sean Fennessey?

  And then A Complete Unknown, which I have seen, which I don't really want to talk about until I talk about it on the show, but that's the Bob Dylan film starring Timothee Chalamet.

• 1:11:51Speaker 02

  It's not interesting.

• 1:11:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:53Sean Fennessey?

  Rob, not into it?

• 1:11:55Speaker 00

  Well, no, I'm a little nervous about it. Can you say anything at all, or are you just completely withholding?

• 1:12:02Sean Fennessey?

  I saw it. I can see that.

• 1:12:05Speaker 00

  Very well.

• 1:12:05Speaker 02

  How annoying will men be post seeing that film?

• 1:12:12Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, how annoying will women be, I think, is a reasonable question to ask about any Timothee Chalamet movie, right?

• 1:12:16Speaker 02

  That's a good point. This is an equal opportunity, bringing out the annoying in everybody.

• 1:12:21Sean Fennessey?

  And then it's an Edward Norton performance, so how annoying will Sean be is a reasonable question to ask. You know, always going to bat for my guy.

• 1:12:29Speaker 00

  Edward Norton is in that movie. Who does he play?

• 1:12:31Sean Fennessey?

  He plays Pete Seeger.

• 1:12:33Speaker 00

  Sure he does.

• 1:12:34Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:12:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:36Sean Fennessey?

  Also, Scoot McNairy plays Woody Guthrie. Were you aware of that?

• 1:12:39Speaker 00

  Hey, I was not aware of any of this. This is good information.

• 1:12:43Speaker 02

  Can I ask a broader question, Sean? Really? I'm sorry, you probably want us to go now, but since I have your film expert ear, why do you think there's such a recent push towards so many films about music in the biopic sense? Because that was kind of a dead space for a while, and now it seems like we're so back, heavy air quotes and tempered your expectations, but like, there's the Bruce Springsteen one coming out. Like, I guess Elvis kind of, is that what kicked it off? But like, it's going kind of crazy.

• 1:13:19Speaker 00

  Mercury winning an Oscar.

• 1:13:20Speaker 02

  Oh, Bohemian Rhapsody, the tea.

• 1:13:21Sean Fennessey?

  Bohemian Rhapsody making $900 million, I think, set all this in motion. I mean, next year, we have a Michael Jackson one as well.

• 1:13:28Speaker 02

  No, but nobody else.

• 1:13:29Sean Fennessey?

  The only thing I can say about the Bob Dylan movie, like, holding all other kind of criticisms aside, is that there are several sequences in which the Bob Dylan songs are performed on camera by the actors, and... You're like, goddamn, like, this really is one of the best songs of all time.

• 1:13:46Speaker 02

  Right, you're reminded of.

• 1:13:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and you know, reasonable people can even disagree about the quality of Bob Dylan's songwriting, but it's kind of the same feeling when you're watching the Queen movie, which straight up stinks. I mean, it's really just not a good movie at all.

• 1:13:57Speaker 02

  It's so bad.

• 1:13:58Sean Fennessey?

  But there are moments, like when he's performing at Live Aid, where you're just like, this is fucking awesome. Like, this just sounds great, these songs are incredible, like, it just works, and so...

• 1:14:09Speaker 02

  It's so cheap to use the strength of people's goodwill and love of classic music.

• 1:14:15Sean Fennessey?

  It is what it is, though, that's exactly what it is, Yasi.

• 1:14:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a Beatles one coming too, speaking of...

• 1:14:20Sean Fennessey?

  In theory, there are four Beatles films that are each individually focused on each Beatle.

• 1:14:26Speaker 00

  Timothee Chalamet will play all four Beatles.

• 1:14:28Speaker 02

  All four Beatles, the wig budget goes crazy on that one, babe. See, if I would, this is what I would do, I'd smoke some weed and I'd be like, what if we had a Beatles movie? But they're all one guy.

• 1:14:40Sean Fennessey?

  Sounds like you should run Sony Pictures.

• 1:14:43Speaker 02

  No, but if anyone's listening who loves to fund creative mind, if any feminists in the space of film are listening and want to fund my creative mind, I think there should be a Slits biopic. I think that is what the world needs. I think it would be, I think one of the best things about music biopics is when they're not too famous, because it becomes too uncanny valley when you're trying to understand what you're looking at and it's someone you know very well, but like, nobody is that familiar with the Slits and their story is so cool and crazy.

• 1:15:16Sean Fennessey?

  So Bob Iger, if you're listening.

• 1:15:17Speaker 02

  I'm available for meetings. If I haven't already offended you with my take on one or two, I'm here.

• 1:15:22Speaker 00

  Lin-Manuel Miranda will write the songs.

• 1:15:24Speaker 02

  Lin-Manuel Miranda will do the music. And Timothy Chalamet will play Ari Up. Let's fucking go.

• 1:15:33Speaker 00

  There we go.

• 1:15:34Sean Fennessey?

  Rob, what's next on 60 Songs?

• 1:15:38Sean Fennessey?

  What are you doing next week? Spoil it here for us. Come on.

• 1:15:41Speaker 00

  The post-Christmas, the post-Thanksgiving episode, rather, is Linkin Park, which I think is very appropriate.

• 1:15:48Speaker 02

  Sean's a huge fan.

• 1:15:49Speaker 00

  You hate Linkin Park?

• 1:15:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's my least favorite band. This has come up many times on the show.

• 1:15:54Speaker 00

  9,500 words about your least favorite band. Okay, you don't think, like, Mike Shinoda is a real rap head is the conclusion that Justin and I have come to.

• 1:16:03Sean Fennessey?

  A real rap head?

• 1:16:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, he knows his stuff.

• 1:16:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, so am I, but that doesn't mean I should make rap.

• 1:16:12Speaker 00

  He is a better rapper than most rappers in rap-rock bands. He is a better rapper than Fred Durst. Can we start there?

• 1:16:20Speaker 02

  I straight up disagree. The bar is so astronomically low, babe. The bar is...

• 1:16:23Sean Fennessey?

  I straight up disagree with that. I mean, no disrespect to Mike Shinoda, who seems like a nice man, and I'm not sure about Fred Durst personally. But I would rather listen to Fred Durst rap badly than Mike Shinoda rap, quote-unquote, "well."

• 1:16:34Speaker 00

  That's an entirely valid viewpoint, and I hope to change your mind with my four-and-a-half-hour Linkin Park missive.

• 1:16:41Sean Fennessey?

  I love that you're doing it, and I love your show. Yasi, what are you in the midst of on this season of Bandplain?

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  I am deep, balls-deep in Oasis. Actually, at Drybar the past two weeks, they had Hot Frosty on the TV, but I didn't watch because my nose was stuck in one or another Oasis book, so...

• 1:17:00Sean Fennessey?

  You're rocking the Oasis tee.

• 1:17:03Speaker 02

  It's a swatch.

• 1:17:03Sean Fennessey?

  Hardly this morning.

• 1:17:04Speaker 02

  That's right. You know, I'm nothing if not doing multi-platform marketing.

• 1:17:09Sean Fennessey?

  Is Oasis dropping this week?

• 1:17:11Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 1:17:12Sean Fennessey?

  No, you dropped the slang.

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  When does this come out? I don't know what week.

• 1:17:15Sean Fennessey?

  This is coming out today, man.

• 1:17:16Speaker 02

  Are you serious?

• 1:17:17Sean Fennessey?

  That's how we roll.

• 1:17:18Speaker 02

  Today, you guys, I did something really fun as a bonus episode, where I had the drummer of the Arctic Monkeys, Matt Helders, come quiz me on British slang. It's kind of a bonus up for the holiday week.

• 1:17:29Speaker 00

  Ooh.

• 1:17:31Sean Fennessey?

  Great idea. Can't wait to listen to it. Yasi and Rob, thank you so much. Really, candidly, just delightful. This was some of the most fun I've had on the pod recently, so thank you for doing this. And you can come back and talk about Better Man and your favorite Robbie Williams songs, maybe?

• 1:17:47Speaker 02

  I'll be back from Moana 3.

• 1:17:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, you'll definitely be invited back from Moana 3. Thanks, guys. Let's go now to my conversation with Garrett Price. Garrett Price is here, back on the show, back in the Music Box series, with Yacht Rock: A Documentary. Tell us about your relationship, Garrett, with Yacht Rock before you started making this film.

• 1:18:06Speaker 04

  There really wasn't one, Sean. It wasn't, you know, the last film we did together, Woodstock 99. It was a bit of a Trojan horse film. You know, I used this festival to kind of do an exploration and investigation into like late 90s culture. So I didn't really get to celebrate the music, so to say. So when you guys brought up, you know, pitching another project. It's also a dark story, Woodstock. I wanted to do something much lighter. I knew that right off the bat. I wanted to showcase the music. At the time, I was editing a TV series called Daisy Jones and the Six. So I was completely immersed in 1970s Los Angeles Sunset Strip rock scene during that show. And yet, I was thinking, you know, people romanticize about this time period. You know, that show is loosely based off of Fleetwood Mac Band.

• 1:18:51Speaker 04

  I think a lot of people go straight to the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, you got Almost Famous, you got tons of Laurel Canyon docs. But there was whole other scene happening in these recording studios, studios in Los Angeles at the time. And that's what I was interested in. And I happened to meet the daughters of Christopher Cross and Michael McDonald. And they had joked around and said, you should talk to our dads about the word yacht rock. And that's kind of where it started from. I thought, it's kind of a great idea, this idea of this retroactively created genre that has come to define these artists making music in the 70s. And what's their point of view? I want them to define their music. And that's kind of where it started from.

• 1:19:28Sean Fennessey?

  When you were working on Daisy Jones and the Six, were you a big fan of 70s rock, LA rock? Is that something you had a familiarity with?

• 1:19:35Speaker 04

  Absolutely. You know, I inherited my parents' record collection, but it was much more of the Doors, you know, Led Zeppelin, more of, you know, the Laurel Canyon scene also, Crosby, Stills and Nash. So that world. This music, not so much, you know? I was kind of allergic, I guess, to like Michael McDonald and late Doobie Brothers and Christopher Cross. But, you know, when I started going into this, you know, I kind of went into it ironically. I think a lot of people do. This is a name that was birthed out of the internet, basically a meme. But you start to understand what this music was and the history behind it and where it came from and how pop music was evolving in the 70s. And I became obsessed with it. And I started to appreciate the artistry, the musicianship. And I'm hoping that's reflected in the film itself. That's the movie I wanted to make.

• 1:20:20Sean Fennessey?

  It very much is. So you meet Michael and Christopher's daughters, and they're instrumental in getting this project going, especially Madison, Christopher's daughter. But- Like, where do you actually start? What is the first thing you start? Because you have this incredible skill as an editor and you're also a filmmaker. So, do you start archivally? Do you start lining up interviews? Tell me about how you make a movie like this.

• 1:20:41Speaker 04

  I know there's a structure here. You know, there's a rise, a fall, and a resurrection from this music. You know, just from knowing, you know, the story of, you know, this boom of soft rock in the late 70s. And its popularity at the time, and kind of its downfall in the 80s, and how it was kind of brought back into the fold through hip-hop music as samples and the rock, yacht rock series. So I knew that. But, you know, going into these, I didn't quite know, is that engaging enough as a story? I've never talked to these artists before. Are they fun on camera? I don't know. So I got a master interview with Chris and Michael and kind of see their dichotomy together and talking and how they riffed off each other. I was like, oh, okay, there's something here. Because it's essentially an archival Talking Head documentary. It's all about the interview, right? That's where you get the emotion.

• 1:21:26Speaker 04

  That's where you get the storytelling. That's where you get the narrative, so to speak. And once I talked to them, and they were so eager to talk about this time period. Because I think they don't get asked a lot, you know? You get your Stevie Nicks and your, you know, Don Henley is asked all the time about making music in the 70s. These guys, I think, kind of forgotten about a bit, I want to say. So they were eager to tell their stories about making music in this time. And then, you know, off of that, once they were involved, then Kenny Loggins was like, I'll do it. And then the Toto guys were like, I'll do it. And so everyone started coming in. And then on top of that, I knew how important it was to get contemporary, modern musicians to talk about this. And we reached out to Questlove, who absolutely loves this music. Thundercat, who adores this music.

• 1:22:07Speaker 04

  And getting them to talk about the importance and legacy of this music and its inspiration for their own music, I thought helped legitimize this time period, too. It was really important for me.

• 1:22:17Sean Fennessey?

  One thing I love about the film is, especially with a background as a music critic, it's a very savvy film about the sort of like essential nature of making music. Like, how the music was made, not necessarily technically, but creatively, getting, finding ways to enunciate how these people collaborated together and how they made what they made. I have to assume you didn't know that you were going to spend as much time unpacking that at the beginning of the story, right?

• 1:22:42Speaker 04

  No, in fact, you know... I didn't want to get too inside baseball. I'm always scared that it might get a little boring. You know, these guys love to talk about, you know, their influence on jazz and R and B and how they started changing the chords they were playing on their guitars from like simple three strings to like these complex jazzy chord changes, but it really kind of helped expositionally explain how to tell this story.

• 1:23:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:05Speaker 04

  I think once you really could kind of see how pop music was changing in the early seventies, there was much more of that kind of folkier Laurel Canyon thing or rock thing to this more jazzier R and B inspired pop music. It's really important. That's the story of yacht rock essentially. And to get across, you know, the importance of black music for all these artists, they wore this influence on their sleeves and they really found it important to talk about this in, you know, their interviews. And so there was another key decision is to show how important that was as an influence to their music. And I think when it comes back around as hip hop samples, it kind of goes full circle. Because a lot of these like, you know, hip hop artists saying these were records that were in our parents' record collections or that we heard on black radio stations in the, you know, late seventies, early eighties.

• 1:23:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I had this interesting experience in my career. I grew up with a lot of this music. My mom liked Michael McDonald. My dad liked Steely Dan. Like I could see where some of the the sort of like clear pop explosion was coming from, but when I was working as an editor at Vibe Magazine, a lot of the other editors and writers that I worked with were obsessed with Michael McDonald, were obsessed with Steely Dan, were obsessed with Donald Fagan for all the reasons that someone like, say, Prince Paul elucidates in the movie. And so it's fascinating that like over the course of the last forty or fifty years, these bands have largely eluded the sort of like cultural appropriation charges, the sort of like the new way that we see, understand music in the last twenty years as this like amalgam of all of these things. And in some cases, you've got artists ripping other artists off.

• 1:24:31Sean Fennessey?

  But they always felt deeply admiring, always giving credit and never trampling on anything and actually being very much like included. Like Quest goes so far as to say like invited to the barbecue. Like that's a fascinating thing that like I think that maybe that generation alone gets to experience. Is that fair to say?

• 1:24:48Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And it was really important to highlight that in the movie. I think that gets left out. A lot, you know, I think a people, you know, again, it was so interesting talking to these artists because a big part also was asking what they thought the word yacht rock and, you know, were they allergic to this word or they kind of think it was funny or, you know, were they welcoming to it? That's come to define their music, you know, all these years later. I think one of the biggest hesitations was, you know, Christopher said it sounds like rich, yuppie, white people music. And that is against everything we were about, you know, making this music. I think that was one of the big reasons why they pushed against this kind of, you know, name.

• 1:25:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:24Speaker 04

  For so many years until they really understood that it was made out of reverence. They named it yacht rock because of how expensive and smooth and, you know, grand the music sounded to their ears, that the creators of the word.

• 1:25:34Sean Fennessey?

  That's one fascinating thing about the music itself is so achingly sincere, which the film does a really good job of portraying. But then you've got this bifurcated story where you need to talk about the web series. You need to talk about the origins of the name. They actually went through some iterations over time, but like, talk about maybe how you figured out how to land the structure that you have.

• 1:25:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, I had to find this balance, right, between the creators of this word, which is based off a 2005 low budget web series, and then the artists themselves. And, you know, I always went in saying, I want to have fun in this film, but I don't want to make fun, you know? And I think, you know, that was always the hardest part of finding that kind of, you know, that line in between. But, you know, you got to give credit to these guys that made, in their minds, kind of created a monster with this series. They had no idea. They were just having fun with this music they loved so much. And so they create this thing, it explodes, it comes to define, you know, all these artists' work, you know, 25, 30 years after the fact.

• 1:26:36Speaker 04

  And honestly, those guys, they know so much about those artists and the genre. They're kind of my spirit guides in the film, you know, J D Rizner and Steve Huey. And it was important and Questlove, so to speak, also, because he was obsessed with both also, the series and the actual, you know, music being made at that time.

• 1:26:53Sean Fennessey?

  It's so rare that you get in a documentary, three incredibly articulate, funny people to hold your hand through a heady idea. Like you did, in a way, like Luck into this amazing thing because as you know better than anybody, like every doc needs these voices that kind of power you along. And all three of those guys are so special at it. When you were doing the interviews with them where you're like, oh, thank God. Like, I'm just getting like exactly what I need time and again.

• 1:27:17Speaker 04

  After doing a number of these, you know, you need those voices, kind of, you know, the glue guys, you know, the transitional bites. And so I always do those later to help steer the narrative. But again, but I didn't have to do much because they know so much and they knew what I was doing. So when I brought a question up, they could go in that direction. They knew where I needed to get from point A to point B, which, you know, as I always call myself an editor first and a director second. Those are the things that, you know, you're in the edit bay. It's like, that is what I need to get from here to there and feel so lucky when you get them.

• 1:27:51Sean Fennessey?

  There's a great moment where JD brings up the Yatsky scale to talk about a certain song. And it's real time watching the documentary Spackle get pushed in, you know, it's like he's building the transition for you so elegantly. It's really great, works so well. Who was the most fun person to talk to?

• 1:28:08Speaker 04

  Man, you know, they all hold a special place in my heart. I think that that duo interview of Chris and Michael, just it was the first and it was the one that said, okay, I can actually tell a story here. That I loved absolutely. And I think the modern music, Thundercat, I had no idea what I was getting with him. And his passion and his respect for these artists is gleaming in that interview. I think it comes across so genuine, you know, so authentic. And I think, and same with Mac DeMarco, they just, they love this music and they were so excited to sit with me and talk about it.

• 1:28:40Sean Fennessey?

  The thing that I probably learned about them most personally was Toto and the way that Toto participated in this world in a way that I did not fully understand. And I guess I knew some of those names and I knew the Procaro brothers, but just the formulations and the way that they intersected and the way that they sort of like were the bedrock of a lot of this music is fascinating to me. How did you discover that? Is that something that Christopher and Michael put you onto? Who guided you to the direction of those guys?

• 1:29:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, my Toto knowledge was like yours at the time, too.

• 1:29:09Sean Fennessey?

  Just Africa, right?

• 1:29:10Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And I knew Rosanna, like Hold, I got Hold the Line and Daisy Jones as a sync because I was starting to.

• 1:29:16Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, nice.

• 1:29:16Speaker 04

  I was starting to, you know, do the research in this and I was like, I gotta get some of this music, you know, that I'm kind of working like on my next project into this.

• 1:29:24Sean Fennessey?

  That's great.

• 1:29:24Speaker 04

  And I was able to talk Scott Nusatter into syncing it and it works good in the film. Because it does, it's part of the. Los Angeles fabric at the time, this music. But I talked to Steve Lukather first because he's friends with Christopher and Michael.

• 1:29:37Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:29:37Speaker 04

  He came in pretty, you know, he was like the third person I interviewed. He's such a character.

• 1:29:40Sean Fennessey?

  Such a great interview.

• 1:29:41Speaker 04

  And then when he started talking about, you know, all the sessions these guys were on, I had no clue how many different albums these guys played on. And then through Steve.

• 1:29:50Sean Fennessey?

  There's a suggestion that Lukather played on 5,000 records. Is that possible?

• 1:29:54Speaker 04

  Lukather 5,000, Jeff Percaro 5,000, Paige said he played over 3,000. I mean, that's incredible, right? Steve Percaro played over thousands of records. So crossing over in different genres and these guys could play anything, you know? And I think it's, you know, we expose which main huge massive album they played on in the 80s, which kind of, you know, they all played on Thriller, which is interesting because some could say Thriller was the downfall of this style of music, but it was also stockpiled with these artists themselves.

• 1:30:25Sean Fennessey?

  I was just explaining that bitter irony to my wife the other day when, after we just watched the film again. And I was like, it's just so fascinating the way that they in many ways like helped engineer their own demise, but then they ultimately rose again in such a fascinating way. What was the hardest thing to crack in terms of telling the story?

• 1:30:42Speaker 04

  Where to start? I think in making these, it's always where do you start these things, you know? You see the finish line fairly quickly and I always knew I wanted to end it the way I did during the interview. I clocked these bites that I'm like, that's a great ending bite, things like that. But, you know, just how do we set up the web series? How do we set up, you know, the relationship with the web series? And I think a lot of people thought it was called Yacht Rock back in the 70s still. A lot of people have never heard of the word yacht rock, but they know this music. So I think the starting line is always the hardest thing. This music, we keep describing as the soundtrack of our lives. And because it's literally a soundtrack of our lives, we hear it everywhere we go, whether it's the supermarket, you know, CVS, doctor's offices, elevators, parents' cars.

• 1:31:25Speaker 04

  So we've taken it for granted because it's always been there. So, you know, I just, I just wanted to hang out with these actual musicians making it and getting them to tell their stories. It's a hangout movie in the end, right?

• 1:31:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:37Speaker 04

  They're kind of just chilling with these guys.

• 1:31:38Sean Fennessey?

  It is, and it feels like. That best feeling, that great feeling when you're watching a doc and you're cutting back to an interview with someone you've previously seen before. And you just feel like they're just as revved up as they were from the last bite, you know, like Jay Reardon, for example. You're just like, oh, my God, he's like, he's back and he's happy to tell you once more about the solo that he played on this record.

• 1:31:55Speaker 04

  Absolutely. Again, these guys are just so happy to talk about this time period because I think a lot of people haven't talked to him about it.

• 1:32:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:01Speaker 04

  And they deserve their, you know, on the mantle of music history. Yeah. And that's, you know, I'm hoping we're giving them a showcase of doing that.

• 1:32:08Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk about Steely Dan.

• 1:32:09Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:32:10Sean Fennessey?

  Steely Dan are very important to this film. They're very important to this genre. Maybe just for the listeners, you can kind of like outline the meaningful role that they play in the story. And then let's talk about engaging the Steely Dan world in the film.

• 1:32:20Speaker 04

  So as, as, as one of the yacht rock web series creators calls Steely Dan, they are the primordial ooze from which yacht rock sprang. You know, so many of these musicians in the film started their careers with Steely Dan as session players. So we try to make a point of they took everything they learned from Donald and Walter Fagan, Donald Fagan and Walter Becker of Steely Dan into their own work. And that's kind of, you visually see how the sound grows across Los Angeles. Steely Dan, heavily influenced by jazz music, you know, and combining pop music. So I knew these music docs are only as good as having the actual music in the film itself, you know? Especially a film where we're talking about what the sound is.

• 1:33:03Speaker 04

  I didn't want to be like a clip film where you hear three or four seconds and try to fair use the track. I needed to live in this music, you know, and tell these stories. So I think, Sean, we had like six Steely Dan songs.

• 1:33:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:33:14Speaker 04

  I don't think Donald Fagan has ever licensed more than one for a project and he's very picky about that. So we finished this film, basically, and we were sitting idle, waiting for Donald to watch the movie and then sign off on it. And months go by and, you know, we started having those discussions, how do we recut this?

• 1:33:31Sean Fennessey?

  This was very stressful. This happened on a, on a film, on another documentary in the previous season of this series. And the same, it was the same feeling that I had, at least in my seat, where I was like, holy shit, this movie is either not happening or getting significantly recut because, especially because of the way that you structured it, really so beautifully as this originating point. If you took it out, the house of cards kind of comes down, right?

• 1:33:55Speaker 04

  Absolutely. We had those conversations all the time, you know? I, I didn't know what to do and I always felt also, it's like, this is a love letter to this music. Just, I just hope he watches it, you know, and understands that. Months go by, we haven't heard anything, and then we finally get a phone call from Donald's manager, Irving Azoff, the notorious Irving Azoff, and says, "Love the movie, we absolutely love it. Donald will never sign off on this music." He hates the word "hot rock." I'm like, "Wait, what? What do we do here?" And then a couple of days go by, and he calls back, he goes, "Okay, Garrett, here's what's gonna happen. Donald's gonna call you one day, record the conversation, whatever he says, find a way to put that in the movie, and we'll consider licensing the music to you."

• 1:34:41Speaker 04

  Weeks go by, Sean, I don't hear anything. I'm answering every single, you know, unknown caller, telemarketer, political call, possible.

• 1:34:50Sean Fennessey?

  Tough time of the year for me, taking that on, too.

• 1:34:53Speaker 04

  Three o'clock in the afternoon on Tuesday, getting ready to go get the kids, I get a phone call, it's Donald Fagan. And I'm like, you know, shaking, right? I'm like, "Donald, can I get the recording equipment on? You know, I have this app where you can switch over or record." I hang up on him. There's no callback number. I'm like, "Oh, my God, I ruined it." Ten minutes go by, he calls back, thankfully. He goes, "What, you have one more time, one more shot at this kid? Okay, I'm just gonna put you on speakerphone, record you on my computer." And I have this conversation, if he wants to be in the film and participate, you know, I've talked to all these peers. And he gives me an answer, and I find a way to use it in the film. Days go by, and they signed off on all the music. So, I don't wanna ruin it, you've probably read about it, maybe, if you're interested in this film, but I think, you know, with him,

• 1:35:36Speaker 04

  I don't know if he loves the word, but he gets it, and I think it's a wink to, you know, the music.

• 1:35:41Sean Fennessey?

  For those of us who are Silly Dan fans, it honestly feels like the perfect encapsulation of the Fagan fandom experience, where there is like, an acid burn on every flower. You know, like, every beautiful thing that he's made needs to be somehow a little bit harshed, or vice versa. And this is like, an incredible example of that.

• 1:36:01Speaker 04

  But my wife heard it all happening in real time in the next room and she's like, "Oh, my God, he's so mean to you." I go, "This is the best thing that's ever happened to me. You have no idea." "I just had a conversation with Donald Fagan."

• 1:36:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's pretty great. He burnished his myth once more. Well, listen, I'm so proud of this movie. I'm so proud to be a part of it. I'm amazed by what you were able to accomplish because it's so, it is so serpentine. And when you take the pieces apart, you look at how complicated it is. But you did such an elegant job of making it fun, breezy, enjoyable. We were at the premiere on Thursday in LA. People were just cheering and dancing in their seat. It was great.

• 1:36:34Speaker 04

  First time any of the artists had seen the movie. So that was terrifying, right?

• 1:36:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:38Speaker 04

  And they were so happy. They got to meet the guys that created the word, which I've never met before.

• 1:36:43Sean Fennessey?

  How did that go over? Everything OK?

• 1:36:44Speaker 04

  Hugs all around. I felt like I was tearing the wall down. It was pretty amazing, bringing countries together. So it was really special. This comes out the day after Thanksgiving. It is the perfect film. No matter how contentious your Thanksgiving dinner is this year, you could all just watch together and vibe out and listen to the smooth, sweet sounds of Yacht Rock.

• 1:37:02Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great pitch. Garrett, we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, "What's the last great thing they've seen?" Have you seen anything great recently?

• 1:37:09Speaker 04

  I just binged the TV series Cross on Amazon.

• 1:37:11Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, the Aldous Hodge show?

• 1:37:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. And I actually, it was

• 1:37:14Sean Fennessey?

  It was good.

• 1:37:15Speaker 04

  It was the perfect thing to watch. We watched all eight, 10 episodes back to back.

• 1:37:20Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 1:37:20Speaker 04

  It was the perfect thing I needed.

• 1:37:21Sean Fennessey?

  What's the vibe? Because I remember Alex Cross from Tyler Perry from the film.

• 1:37:26Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:37:26Sean Fennessey?

  But what is the energy of this show?

• 1:37:28Speaker 04

  It's darker. It's a serial killer film, a series. But it's cool. I think there's a vibe to it, too.

• 1:37:34Sean Fennessey?

  OK.

• 1:37:34Speaker 04

  And I knew some of the people involved.

• 1:37:35Sean Fennessey?

  This is not some "I'm on the Amazon payroll" stuff, right? You're being straight with me, OK?

• 1:37:38Speaker 04

  No, I promise. I promise. I enjoyed it immensely.

• 1:37:41Sean Fennessey?

  Got it. Great recommendation, Garrett Price. Thanks so much. Appreciate everything on Yacht Rock.

• 1:37:45Speaker 04

  Thanks, John.

• 1:37:46Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks to Garrett Price, thanks to Yasi and Rob, thanks to Jack Sanders, thanks to producer Olivia Crerie filling in for Bobby on today's episode. Next week, we will dig into Steve McQueen's Blitz and our top five favorite World War II movies. We'll see you then.

• 1:38:18Speaker 05

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