‘Mamma Mia!’ Meets ‘The Strangers'! It’s a Movie Swap!

For the first time in show history we’re doing a “listener’s choice” episode! We gave you four options and you ultimately decided to go with a 2008 Movie Swap featuring ‘The Strangers’ and ‘Mamma Mia!’ Before diving in, Sean and Amanda preview the Super Bowl this Sunday and talk through the potential trailers for some of the year’s biggest movies (2:27). Then, they explain what a Movie Swap is exactly (8:42), and discuss ‘The Strangers’ (16:59) and ‘Mamma Mia!’ (48:38) Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.® 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

  I'm pro football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit MDDAllies.com to watch my story.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplyta lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  Elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. Caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. Call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. Antidepressants may increase these risks. Report fever, confusion, stiff muscles, which may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High cholesterol and weight gain may occur, as can high blood sugar, which may be fatal. Monitoring is recommended. Common side effects are sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, feeling tired, and diarrhea. These aren't all the side effects.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.

• 1:46Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 1:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 1:47Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Pictureate Conversation Show about you decide and we watch. We put you all to the test with the first-ever listeners' choice episode. Listeners were given four options. Amanda, do you want to read those options?

• 1:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I'd love to. Number one, we'll go see Melania, so you don't have to. Number two, at 2008 movie swap, Mamma Mia vs. The Strangers. Number three, the movie theater snack taste test. And number four, a 2025 catch-up, we watched Demon Slayer, Kimetsu no Yaiba: Infinity Castle, and Gabby's Dollhouse.

• 2:19Sean Fennessey?

  Gratefully, you all chose option two, and we will have that movie swap right after this.

• 2:25Amanda Dobbins?

  This episode of The Big Picture is presented by State Farm.

• 2:28Sean Fennessey?

  You know those friends who show up for whatever you're into? The ones who'll debate which superhero universe is better or binge true crime documentaries with you at 3:00 in the morning? Those friends are gold.

• 2:37Amanda Dobbins?

  State Farm is like that, helping you figure out the coverage that actually fits. Car, home, life, whatever you need, they've got your back. And if you want a hand, a local agent is just a tap away on their award-winning app.

• 2:48Sean Fennessey?

  Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 2:52Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, first of all, how are you feeling? You didn't have to watch Demon Slayer.

• 2:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, and I didn't have to watch Melania. I think Demon Slayer obviously would have been preferable to Melania.

• 3:01Sean Fennessey?

  Will you ever see Melania? What if there's some sort of project that you want to do about our first lady? You know, some point in time?

• 3:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't see that in my cards.

• 3:09Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, got it.

• 3:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I see, like, being as old as I am has mostly downsides, but I will just arrange my life so that I never have to see that movie, and I think I can do it.

• 3:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm very pleased with the listeners. I'm very, I appreciate that they were thinking of our well-being, that they were thinking of the state of our political climate and what they don't want in their movie podcast. I respect it, I thank them. Before we get into the swap, though.

• 3:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 3:34Sean Fennessey?

  Which, you know, much anticipated, because Mamma Mia, I think, is on that short list of movies that I keep saying, "I've never seen this on this show," and I finally did see it, so I'm excited to talk with you about it. And The Strangers, which came out in the same year.

• 3:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 3:46Sean Fennessey?

  And I would, I'll argue, has some things in common with Mamma Mia.

• 3:49Amanda Dobbins?

  For sure, absolutely.

• 3:51Sean Fennessey?

  About knowing thyself.

• 3:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 3:52Sean Fennessey?

  And what can't be known. So, before we do that, this Sunday is the Super Bowl.

• 3:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 3:59Sean Fennessey?

  Now, the Super Bowl, for me, obviously...

• 4:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Are we allowed to say that legally? Like, are we allowed to say the words "the Super Bowl"?

• 4:06Sean Fennessey?

  Legally?

• 4:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, because doesn't, isn't there all sorts of, like, licensing stuff?

• 4:11Sean Fennessey?

  The CIA is listening to the show right now.

• 4:12Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, I mean, which is more powerful, the CIA or the NFL? I don't know.

• 4:17Sean Fennessey?

  Honestly, they're in league together, so it's a really good question. Well, we can't put the Super Bowl, I think, in, maybe, in the title of our show.

• 4:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 4:24Sean Fennessey?

  Now, we can put it in the title of our episode.

• 4:26Amanda Dobbins?

  But, oh, we can.

• 4:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, but the show.

• 4:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, what about...

• 4:29Sean Fennessey?

  It's copyright.

• 4:30Amanda Dobbins?

  So, I was consuming a lot of local news yesterday while in the waiting room at the... Local mammogram center.

• 4:36Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 4:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Shout out, you know, listen.

• 4:37Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks for sharing.

• 4:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Here we are.

• 4:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 4:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it's important.

• 4:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 4:40Amanda Dobbins?

  If you're, if you're a woman of a certain age.

• 4:42Sean Fennessey?

  Walk us through the entire mammogram.

• 4:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, well, there's a mammogram and an ultrasound.

• 4:46Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 4:46Amanda Dobbins?

  If you really want to get into it, and I had to fight to, I was like, no, no, no, we have to do the ultrasound as well. This is, listen, America's healthcare system also just A plus. But the Chyrons on the local news were just big game and they were doing a lot of food for big game. And I get a lot of big game emails. So are we gonna get like reviewed for saying the words, the Super Bowl?

• 5:09Sean Fennessey?

  I believe you can say the words. Whether or not they can be printed, they're not going in the, in the copy of the episode title or description.

• 5:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Just want to make sure.

• 5:17Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe they are. We'll, we'll check in with Jack after this. I bring it up for this reason. A couple of birdies in my ear this week that there's going to be some interesting movie related stuff during the Super Bowl.

• 5:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 5:26Sean Fennessey?

  That there might be some sneak peeks at some interesting and relevant new titles. I don't know if this is true.

• 5:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:33Sean Fennessey?

  You hear these kinds of rumors all the time. The Super Bowl historically is a great launch pad for movie trailers. And there probably will be 25 minutes of conversation on Monday's episode about the trailers that we see. But I wanted to use this opportunity to, to platform where I'm at with the NFL. So.

• 5:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. So you do think it is funded by the CIA? It is like, it is the 2020s version of winds of change.

• 5:55Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not saying that, but.

• 5:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Are we sure?

• 5:56Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, what I can confirm is that the New York Jets are a psyop that have been operated against me. And I, I am publicly announcing that after this year's NFL draft, I am taking a 12 month hiatus from the team. I won't be watching Jets games.

• 6:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 6:12Sean Fennessey?

  I don't even know how much NFL I'm going to watch. I also really don't want to watch this Super Bowl because the New England Patriots are back in it. And I, I want to just sit it out. Now I have a professional obligation to see trailers that are coming out. But do you think I could get away with just not watching the game and just seeing, you know, as soon as someone tweets, oh, here's the trailer for Avengers Doomsday, or whatever it is that's going to be coming out. Fire it up and then not even engage with the game itself. I've never not watched the Super Bowl since I was five years old.

• 6:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm gonna be honest, I keep waiting for you to invite me to your home to watch the Super Bowl, because I'm already-

• 6:47Sean Fennessey?

  This Sunday?

• 6:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, I'm already hosting an event that morning. So it's, it's happy birthday Knox. So I can't be hosting a Super Bowl party. So I've just been like, where else are we gonna gather? Is everyone having a Super Bowl party without me? Maybe they are. This is illuminating. But even if you were to invite me to the home for the Super Bowl party, we wouldn't be able to watch the trailers because there's too much stuff going on.

• 7:15Sean Fennessey?

  That's true.

• 7:15Amanda Dobbins?

  So when we, when we prepare for this episode where we engage with the movie content, we watch it post, you know, facto on the internet, like everybody else.

• 7:25Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I re-watch it like nine or 12 times.

• 7:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, all the trailers, just so I can kind of get a real breakdown.

• 7:29Amanda Dobbins?

  So yeah.

• 7:30Sean Fennessey?

  Get the telestrator out.

• 7:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that you're gonna be able to not watch any of the game. Will you watch the halftime show? I will. I'm interested.

• 7:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Bad Bunny, obviously, and it's been controversial or whatever, but that's stupid. I, yeah, I, I love football. I'm, I'm sharing this because this is a really complicated thing for me because

• 7:49Sean Fennessey?

  the team that I root for has ground me down so hard. And this feels like a, it almost like pointless season that they have in front of them. I can't recall a time where I'm like, there's kind of no hope for what's coming in the next 12 months. I'm gonna come back probably, once they fire the head coach and rebuild the team and start again in '27. But it's painful to be watching everyone else just be happy. You know, I've gotten to watch, you know, our dear friend Chris and your husband Zach and Andy and, you know, all of our great friends who are Philadelphians, celebrate Super Bowls, Chiefs fans celebrating Super Bowls. You know, 15-year drought for the playoffs for the Jets is like, just scoop me out. And I feel lost.

• 8:25Amanda Dobbins?

  So-

• 8:26Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't want anybody else to be happy.

• 8:27Amanda Dobbins?

  So that, just to be clear, the update that you wanted to platform is your personal relationship to the NFL.

• 8:33Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 8:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but me advocating for women to get mammograms is not welcome on the podcast.

• 8:38Sean Fennessey?

  No, I, I, I don't reject that at all. Except after we're done recording, I will tell Jack to cut that out. But no one will know, so we can discuss it. Right here.

• 8:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 8:46Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, no, no, I think this is a space for

• 8:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 8:49Sean Fennessey?

  For personal information as well as movie insights.

• 8:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't believe you, so.

• 8:54Sean Fennessey?

  I know.

• 8:54Speaker 05

  I also do not believe you.

• 8:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, you've done this every year. Like, you've quit the Knicks forty-five times.

• 8:59Sean Fennessey?

  No, one time I quit the Knicks.

• 9:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, okay.

• 9:01Sean Fennessey?

  And it didn't take. And honestly, that turned out to be a good move coming back.

• 9:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 9:04Sean Fennessey?

  Because things are going very well right now with the Knicks.

• 9:06Amanda Dobbins?

  You.

• 9:06Sean Fennessey?

  And I'm very grateful for them.

• 9:07Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't quit the Mets, but you reexamine your relationship to the Mets.

• 9:11Sean Fennessey?

  All the time.

• 9:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Every two weeks on this podcast.

• 9:13Sean Fennessey?

  I'm feeling pretty good about the Mets. I'm feeling excellent about the Knicks. I really like how the things are falling in their favor lately. And the Jets are garbage.

• 9:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 9:21Sean Fennessey?

  And I need a break.

• 9:22Amanda Dobbins?

  So I'm not coming to your house to watch the Super Bowl?

• 9:25Sean Fennessey?

  Let me think, let me think about it. Let me just, let me just think about it.

• 9:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, Jack, are you having a Super Bowl party?

• 9:31Speaker 05

  I'll be going over to this guy's house, so.

• 9:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, oh, that's nice. That's great. Lucas. That's, yeah, let's, everyone, welcome Lucas to the big picture. Um, and thanks for the invite, Lucas. I keep getting emails about restaurants that are offering, like, offering wings.

• 9:47Sean Fennessey?

  Can I be honest?

• 9:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 9:48Sean Fennessey?

  Two social functions in a row in the same day is just a lot for me to consider.

• 9:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, me too, but the alternative is, like, hosting forty children in the morning and then hosting my two children in the afternoon.

• 10:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Well.

• 10:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Alone.

• 10:02Sean Fennessey?

  You know, you can't have it all. That's what I say. Football, two children.

• 10:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Sean Fennessey?

  Birthday party.

• 10:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:07Sean Fennessey?

  And mammograms.

• 10:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 10:08Sean Fennessey?

  Congrats to you.

• 10:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you so much.

• 10:09Sean Fennessey?

  All right, let's go to the movies. So, you know, we've done the movie swap quite a bit, but it's been a while. And I think there's probably a lot of new listeners to the show who don't even know what this premise is. It's not super ornate or complicated. But, um, even in remembering when it started, I forgot the original episode. So I thought this was going to be our fifth movie swap. And in fact, it is our sixth, as you pointed out to me. The first one we ever did was in twenty nineteen, and we swapped into the Spider-verse and Sense and Sensibility. And this is so, almost seven years ago. I think that the character of the show was kind of coming into view right around this time and it was kind of like, you're into this kind of a thing and I'm into this kind of thing. We have a lot of meeting points, but there's a certain kind of a thing that

• 10:51Sean Fennessey?

  maybe we won't experience too often. Shows changed a lot since then and like we both kind of see everything now. There's not anything that we are skipping over, but I famously had not seen Sense and Sensibility before and you didn't do the Into the Spider-Verse episode with me. I think I did it with Micah Peters way back in the day. So, we swapped.

• 11:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 11:07Sean Fennessey?

  Fun conversation. You loved Into the Spider-Verse and I really liked Sense and Sensibility.

• 11:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I did. And it was also instructive about, it taught me a lot about how I watch animation, what I respond to. And because Into the Spider-Verse is such like a dynamic and inventive version of animation, it was like, it was good to watch because everything I've seen since then, like I, you know, I have as a reference point and that conversation, just like in terms of like color palette and, um, you know, types of, types of drawings and that sort of thing. So, it was cool. I still think about you being like, um, yeah, I just, this is, this is a movie about how people can't get married a lot.

• 11:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Just a lot of rules around marriage. Just do it. Just get in there. You know, just knock it out.

• 11:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, I've been, I've been thinking of, working a, shopping a take in my own mind about just like, I think like past a certain tax bracket, you just like should not get married anymore.

• 12:05Sean Fennessey?

  You were saying this way before you were married.

• 12:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, no, I know.

• 12:08Sean Fennessey?

  You were like, you were all hung up on this.

• 12:09Amanda Dobbins?

  But it is just, it is a business arrangement, you know? And so there are like all of these people, you know, are like Timothy Chalamet and Kylie Jenner engaged. I hope not. They don't need to be. Like, they can just, they can build a life together and they can keep their businesses separate.

• 12:23Sean Fennessey?

  One, this is your most COD take of all time. Two, you're like, read way too much of Jane Austen. The like, anxiety that you have while you're in a seemingly very healthy and stable, long-running relationship and marriage.

• 12:35Amanda Dobbins?

  It's great for me. It's really good. But like,

• 12:38Sean Fennessey?

  So don't scold anyone, especially not wealthy people.

• 12:40Amanda Dobbins?

  It's just a financial arrangement, you know? And also, if we then, and then like in our tax code is also built to pressure people into getting married, even though they don't need to get married.

• 12:50Sean Fennessey?

  Why do you think that is? You think it's because of the intersection of the Christian power structure and the nation state? Do you think that they're like long-running?

• 12:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I do.

• 12:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, okay. How do we disassemble that?

• 13:00Sean Fennessey?

  We're working on it.

• 13:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, that's what Sense and Sensibility is about that.

• 13:03Sean Fennessey?

  I enjoy, I like the film quite a bit. 2020, we did Aliens versus Four Weddings and a Funeral. I'd also not seen Four Weddings and a Funeral.

• 13:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is shameful.

• 13:09Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, good movies. They were both good. We went back to the James Cameron well in 2021. We did Terminator 2 versus Titanic. These were revisits.

• 13:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 13:18Sean Fennessey?

  We had seen, we'd both obviously seen these films many times and that was an interesting conversation.

• 13:23Amanda Dobbins?

  It was good and that was also great prep for one bad after another.

• 13:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 13:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Seriously.

• 13:27Sean Fennessey?

  It's a really good point. Um, it also is great prep for the kind of return of James Cameron.

• 13:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:32Sean Fennessey?

  Because the following year, he made Avatar, The Way of Water and Cameron kind of reemerged as a big figure in the world of movies, um, right before that. 2022, we did Fargo versus The English Patient, which was a swap of also films we had seen before, but I had not seen The English Patient. You had seen Fargo, as I recall.

• 13:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, of course. I like, I like Fargo very much.

• 13:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 13:49Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, I just also, I do like The English Patient and I thought that Seinfeld episode was rude.

• 13:54Sean Fennessey?

  I thought The English Patient was okay.

• 13:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. You were mean about it. You were just like, this is David Lean ripoff, which like, yeah, that's okay.

• 14:01Sean Fennessey?

  I know, and I really like Anthony Mingella.

• 14:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Sometimes we just want to make good things again.

• 14:06Sean Fennessey?

  I do get that.

• 14:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Also, Ralph Fiennes. You, I mean, and Chris and Scott Thomas and the hair and the Herodotus

• 14:13Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:14Amanda Dobbins?

  and the wind and the, the lamp has gone out and I'm riding in the darkness. The lamp has gone out and I am riding in the darkness is like the-

• 14:21Sean Fennessey?

  These are not insights. They're just things that are in the movie.

• 14:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, well, but they're, they're well done. They're beautiful.

• 14:26Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, 2023, we had a three-way movie swap.

• 14:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:30Sean Fennessey?

  A menage, you might say.

• 14:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 14:32Sean Fennessey?

  Um, with Bobby Wagner, the late great Bobby Wagner. Where are you, Bobby? Bobby, I hope you're well. Um, Casablanca.

• 14:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:41Sean Fennessey?

  Which Bob had never seen.

• 14:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 14:42Sean Fennessey?

  The in-laws, which I think neither of you guys had seen.

• 14:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Correct.

• 14:45Sean Fennessey?

  And Spy Kids, which we had not seen before.

• 14:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Correct.

• 14:47Sean Fennessey?

  Spy Kids, uh, I say this with affection, a Gen Z classic from Bob. Um, that was, that was a fun episode. And then for some reason, we stopped doing these episodes.

• 14:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, Bob's last episode was like a one-way movie swap, which was Shrek. And, which we had seen, but that we revisited and took seriously.

• 15:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 15:09Amanda Dobbins?

  And now I text Bobby about Shrek anytime I encounter it in the world. I also need to text him about SpongeBob, I think.

• 15:16Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah, he knows about that. Craig Hornback also knows about that. Craig Hornback and Bob were the two people who were like SpongeBob.

• 15:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 15:22Sean Fennessey?

  To me is basically Han Solo in 2017, when they first started working here. And that was when I knew I was getting older. That was, that was a critical moment in my life.

• 15:31Amanda Dobbins?

  People.

• 15:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Bob might have to come back for Shrek 5.

• 15:36Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's not till next year, right? They pushed it to 2027?

• 15:39Sean Fennessey?

  Did they?

• 15:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I believe so. Shrek 5, 2027, yeah.

• 15:42Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 15:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Shrek 5 delayed, because didn't they have to like redo? Are they redoing the animation because no one liked how it looked?

• 15:49Sean Fennessey?

  Is that true?

• 15:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know whether I'm making that up.

• 15:52Sean Fennessey?

  What do you mean they don't like how? That's what happened with the first movie.

• 15:54Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 15:55Sean Fennessey?

  The first movie, they were like, well, we gotta improve the animation quality. And then Shrek 2 looks much better.

• 15:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so I'm reading Shrek 5 release date to June 2027.

• 16:03Sean Fennessey?

  June 2027, that's a long ways away.

• 16:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, listen. I'm, as part of the new movie, it doesn't, it doesn't say any, it doesn't say anything. So maybe I'm just remembering from the first movie. And then also, what was the recent, was it Sonic who they redid?

• 16:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, the fan outcry.

• 16:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 16:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And then that honestly turned out to be a great choice because they redesigned the Sonic character. And now they've made three Sonic movies, which have made a shit ton of money.

• 16:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I saw the first one.

• 16:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it was pretty good. It was not bad. For a kid's movie. I wonder if Allison liked that. Sonic?

• 16:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. Do you want to bring that into your life?

• 16:37Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's an on-ramp to Jim Carrey. So then how do we get more into Jim Carrey in my house?

• 16:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 16:42Sean Fennessey?

  That could be good. I bought the Star Wars encyclopedia.

• 16:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 16:45Sean Fennessey?

  Which is like this big.

• 16:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:47Sean Fennessey?

  And we just get it every day. And we just go through every character. But there's a lot of spoilers in it. We haven't finished the films. But God, Star Wars? It's so good.

• 16:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Are you sure that I can't just bring my children over to your house during the Super Bowl? And they can just all look at the Star Wars encyclopedia?

• 17:00Sean Fennessey?

  I don't want your animals tearing this beautiful book apart. Si, I don't think, I don't, I'm not sure if he can.

• 17:06Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I mean.

• 17:06Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think we can trust him with this book.

• 17:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think Si will ever be allowed to read a book, bless him. I like.

• 17:12Sean Fennessey?

  No, I would enjoy it. It's very colorful and interesting and complicated. Okay, so we've, we've done these movie swaps in the past in part to kind of share something with, with each other. And this is a proper movie swap. You've not seen the movie and I've not seen the movie before. And they are, I think, in some ways, very indicative of our taste. Is that fair to say?

• 17:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 17:34Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe a little complicated on the Mamma Mia side.

• 17:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, there's, I mean, there's a lot going on there. Mamma Mia came up and was, I think, the inspiration for 2008 because we've been talking about Amanda Seyfried a lot because of her work in The Housemaid and Testament of Ann Lee. We were hoping she would get an Oscar nomination. We're big fans. And you have just not seen any of her core work, including both Mamma Mia and Les Misérables.

• 17:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, well, now I have.

• 17:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, and so Mamma Mia kept coming up. And then I think, so I, I have seen both Mamma Mias. There are certain parts of the Mamma Mia films that are very important to me. Like, is it on a level with Sense and Sensibility? Let me be clear, no. Is it as important to me as Sense and Sensibility or Four Weddings and a Funeral? Or the, you know, any of those? No. But it's pop culturally significant.

• 18:24Sean Fennessey?

  It is. So I feel that The Strangers is too, though definitely not at the same level. And I chose The Strangers for a couple of reasons. One of them is a thematic idea that I think is really interesting that Matt, that like crosses over here. The other thing is that I feel like this is quite possibly one of the most influential horror movies of this century. Now, that doesn't mean I think it's one of the best. It doesn't mean I think it is a movie without flaw.

• 18:52Sean Fennessey?

  I do think it's very artful and interesting, and I think it maybe doesn't get as much love as it. Did for like a five to 10 year period of time because so many people have been ripping it off in recent years and it of course is iterating on like a huge part of horror history too and real life crime history. But I thought it would be an interesting one for you to watch because it is not supernatural.

• 19:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 19:14Sean Fennessey?

  And it is not, it is really more in the realm of what we've talked about that you enjoy or at least can find kind of interesting.

• 19:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Or am affected by. It's not, it's not supernatural and it's not gory.

• 19:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 19:23Amanda Dobbins?

  It is, it is fucked up with respect. And I was like, I really liked it and I was also really messed up by it and almost texted you several times being like, fuck you.

• 19:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. It is a fuck you kind of a movie.

• 19:34Amanda Dobbins?

  But in a way that I did enjoy, I didn't feel, sometimes when things get too gory or too supernatural, it's not that I'm scared of them, I'm irritated. And so I think what I've learned as I've watched more and more horror movies is that it's actually not fear that is my issue, it's just things I don't really like watching.

• 19:54Sean Fennessey?

  Discomfort.

• 19:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Just like grossness. I'm just, I'm irritated and I was not irritated by this. I was scared, but not, but, but, but really enjoyed it.

• 20:04Sean Fennessey?

  So it's, it's unusual that it's a 2008 movie. Apparently this movie was shot in 2006, 2007 and just sat on the shelf for a year. So it's just by circumstance that it kind of, and I was just looking at a long list of 08 movies and that's how I landed on The Strangers. And so by circumstance we come to talk about it. But it is written and directed by Brian Bertino. It is his directorial debut. It's one of the first scripts he wrote. He submitted it to the Nickel Fellowship or Nickel Grant Contest. I think he came in third place, but it got noticed. He got a call from super producer Roy Lee, who's gone on to be arguably the most successful independent producer in Hollywood. Last year he was behind Minecraft and Weapons and he's like, kind of world-class at locating

• 20:48Sean Fennessey?

  material and getting in early with young talent. But so this was an example of he read the script, he thought the script was good, he brought it in. The movie is, got a very small cast. It basically has only three actors of note in it. It's about a couple, Kristen and James, who are expecting a relaxing weekend in a family vacation home, but.

• 21:11Sean Fennessey?

  After a wedding one night where a kind of awkward situation happens between them, they find at 3 o'clock in the morning a knock at their door, 4 o'clock in the morning, a knock at their door from a strange woman who stands in the shadows, who is looking for a friend. This is the first of several encounters with strangers in the neighborhood, who then ultimately come to haunt and terrorize them throughout the evening. So you said that you enjoyed it.

• 21:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 21:44Sean Fennessey?

  I'll put my, I'll just go first very quickly. I saw this movie in movie theaters. I didn't really know anything about it. I'd seen the trailer and that was it. And I was deeply affected by it because it is extremely unnerving with no knowledge and no information and because of kind of where horror was at this time and what it was favoring, which was a lot of like very slick remakes of horror classics. This was at a time when like Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake was happening, the Nightmare on Elm Street remake was happening, the Last House on the Left remake was happening. This kind of Platinum Dunes era plus, there was also a kind of torture porn. Saw, Hostel, you know, those films were also very popular in the horror mainstream. And this is-

• 22:22Amanda Dobbins?

  And this is a year after the Funny Games remake.

• 22:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, exactly.

• 22:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is notable.

• 22:26Sean Fennessey?

  Totally. And we can talk about Funny Games too here and kind of like the ways in which they're similar and the ways in which they are polar opposites.

• 22:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 22:31Sean Fennessey?

  But unlike Funny Games, this movie could not be less meta. It is, it is a pure experiential movie of what, how would you feel if this happened to you? And it just hit me very hard. The other reason why I thought it would be good to talk about it is the third Strangers movie comes out this weekend.

• 22:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, it does. Oh, Katie McNabb is gonna be so excited.

• 22:54Sean Fennessey?

  She's enjoying those?

• 22:55Amanda Dobbins?

  She texts me all the time being like, why aren't you watching The Strangers? This is one of my best friends.

• 22:58Sean Fennessey?

  That's so funny to me because I honestly think those movies are like unwatchable. They're like, they're remakes slash origin stories behind this Strangers movie. There was a sequel to this movie in 2014.

• 23:08Amanda Dobbins?

  That's the problem. We don't need an origin story. Well, let's talk about it.

• 23:11Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. That's part of what is so great about this movie. So this movie is, it kind of exists out of nowhere.

• 23:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 23:17Sean Fennessey?

  And it leaves you feeling unsettled and that's it. So I, you know, tell me what else you thought about it.

• 23:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So this movie is about the scariest thing of all is like not knowing. Not knowing what's going on, not knowing who's behind the mask, not knowing who's behind the door, not knowing what's on the outside of the frame. Not knowing why two people can't get married, not knowing why. There's, there's so little exposition. There is almost, almost, there is like 99% no origin story. And I want to talk about the 1% that comes in. It is, as you said, it's a pretty limited cast. Three people that you recognize. There are a few other people, but you only see them in masks.

• 24:00Amanda Dobbins?

  It uses shadows and like, and, and angles and doors and, and incredibly well constructed and edited, but it is as much about what you don't see as what you see. And, and then what you do see is, again, scary by like this, this bareness and the, the not, the not knowing who is behind that mask or, you know, where the, where the person is. So I do think that that is, I thought it was effective. I appreciate it. Like I was watching it and appreciating the filmmaking choices that they made, how they

• 24:43Amanda Dobbins?

  constructed it to, to be scary. And found myself leaning forward several times, being like, take off the mask, take off the mask, which is, um, you know, a credit to them being able to build the tension in that scene and understand that primal urge, which is like, what you really want is to know. And it is just so scary that you don't know. It's a very withholding film of like both visually and emotionally. So of course I loved it. And, um, well, I mean, truly, like if it were.

• 25:17Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's so funny that you were just going off on your marriage, Jack. Cause like, that's like kind of a, it's, it's like the essential motivating emotional identity of the movie is this couple played by Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler, who have come from a wedding that night. And Scott Speedman's, Speedman's character proposes to Liv Tyler's character that evening and she declines. She turns him down.

• 25:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 25:37Sean Fennessey?

  And then that sets this, this awkwardness, this tension between this couple who are returning to Scott Speedman's characters.

• 25:45Sean Fennessey?

  Family childhood vacation home.

• 25:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 25:47Sean Fennessey?

  And that should be the safest place in the world.

• 25:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's staged for an acceptance and there are rose petals and multiple bottles of champagne in the bathroom and also in the kitchen, which, you know, I had some questions about.

• 26:02Sean Fennessey?

  Just like some bath bubbles, you know?

• 26:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And like it's supposed to be a place of like warmth and celebration and instead they're already like very remote and not speaking to each other. And the movie does a very smart thing with the Scott Speedman character, which it constructs in a way where you think it could be him for a while. And you're wondering whether this is a revenge for the fact that she said no. And then that also sets up the ultimate reveal of what the movie is about.

• 26:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's like, it's not really about revenge at all. It's about, it's about nothing. It's random. It's that you don't know.

• 26:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 26:47Amanda Dobbins?

  So, yeah, I thought it was gnarly and cool.

• 26:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 26:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Masks are scary. I don't, they're scary and they're used well here.

• 26:55Sean Fennessey?

  They are. There's, so there are three strangers who come to this home. They all wear masks of a certain kind. The lead stranger, the tall male stranger, wears a kind of a sack mask that recalls like The Town That Dreaded Sundown. There's like, it's a callback to like some other scary masks you might see in movies.

• 27:12Amanda Dobbins?

  It's like familiar, but it's also not like the ghost face mask, like commercialized into like total oblivion at this point. You're still, there's, there is one shot where Liv Tyler's in the kitchen and then he like shows up in the hallway and it's just absolutely terrifying.

• 27:30Sean Fennessey?

  And the one early on.

• 27:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Early on. Yeah. And it's amazing. And, you know, I was both very afraid and also like, wow, bravo filmmaking in that moment. So this was a cool movie for me to understand kind of like, you know, how composition and what you see and pacing and editing like are essential to a horror film.

• 27:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's a really thin movie, purposefully, very spare. It kind of does recall some of those like 70s elevated grindhouse movies where it's like, we only have so much money, we only have so much time. You know, Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman at this time were like pretty well known. Scott Speedman from Felicity, Liv Tyler, you know, had been the star of many movies up until this point. Not exactly the most like, um, deep and considered roles. Liv Tyler is either whispering or screaming at the top of her lungs in this movie.

• 28:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I had to turn up the volume so high at home, the sound transfer or whatever that I, obviously I was just streaming, but.

• 28:24Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think, I, I was thinking about this while revisiting it yesterday. You think the better, the movie is better or worse if it's unknown actors that we've never seen before?

• 28:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I, I, Amanda Watching would think it's worse because I am curious about, I have relationships to Scott Speedman and, and to Liv Tyler. And I'm curious about what's going on with them and they are also like very beautiful.

• 28:46Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm. Right. Very watchable.

• 28:47Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's not, not that you couldn't find beautiful, unknown people. But there is something about, you know, my interest in celebrity is a little about, is related, right? Cause I like, I just like want to know everything about all these people that I have, that I don't know, but who are, you know, shiny and famous or, or what have you. I mean, I think that that is what animates celebrity, what animates movie stars. There is something, um, that you're, that you're trying to crack about these people. So I think using Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler, two beautiful people who you do have some sort of relationship to, like complements the themes of the movie.

• 29:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I think I, I agree and I disagree. Like on the one hand, that definitely you get more emotionally invested because you're like, please do not kill Liv Tyler. This is very important to me, that the, the star of the Aerosmith videos from the 90s not die on screen. On the other hand, I do think that the movie has such a kind of out of nowhere quality, that it's the only thing that makes it feel like Hollywood product. Like everything else about it, it's very, you know, it's pretty slick in terms of how it's made and it's very professional. It's not like a cheapo movie, but. Because of the kind of the resistance to sharing really very much information at all is totally its magic trick. It's part of what makes it such an effective film. You know, you sometimes get taken out of it when I'm like Scott Speedman is like the most handsome guy of all time.

• 30:13Sean Fennessey?

  Like, this is like a little hard to accept.

• 30:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, it wasn't.

• 30:17Sean Fennessey?

  Insanely, I know, and I'm sure you enjoyed it.

• 30:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And Liv Tyler, like, being very beautiful and then changing into her 2007 plaid shirt, which I also laughed a lot at.

• 30:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that was nice.

• 30:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought about wearing a plaid shirt and then I was like, I didn't like it then and I don't like it now.

• 30:32Sean Fennessey?

  Not a plaid guy myself.

• 30:33Amanda Dobbins?

  It's back.

• 30:34Sean Fennessey?

  It's back?

• 30:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Excuse me. It's back, Indie Sleaze is back. All, you know, et cetera.

• 30:41Sean Fennessey?

  That's how I know you were having dinner with Yasi Solak last night.

• 30:43Amanda Dobbins?

  No, that's just the internet. Once again, I, like everyone else, am on Instagram.

• 30:47Sean Fennessey?

  You guys are so excited about Indie Sleaze.

• 30:51Sean Fennessey?

  The other thing about the movie, Bertino never made a movie before and tremendously confident in the filmmaking style and also confident in telling the story the way that he wanted to. Apparently, multiple people were offered this movie in the year after he sold it and Universal didn't want to let him direct it. I think Mark Romanek, the music video director, was gonna come along and and take a shot at it, but he wanted it to be like a slightly bigger movie. He wanted to make it as a $40 million movie. And they didn't want to, and it it works so much better. And there's a couple, there's a lot of interesting academic writing about this movie, especially when it began to emerge as a cult hit. Some of the writing is sort of like there are two ways of looking at horror in the aftermath of 9/11. One is that the kind of like viscera of the torture porn era is this manifestation of us watching

• 31:37Sean Fennessey?

  these epic tragedies that, you know, were, cost so many lives and that there's kind of no way to cope with the immense pain that so many people were feeling in the country in the sense of like disillusionment and sadness. And so the only way to kind of push through that is like revenge and like gore. And then there's another aspect of it that is sort of like

• 32:00Sean Fennessey?

  This is a movie about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Right? That's what, that's what a lot of the

• 32:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:04Sean Fennessey?

  The, the sort of criticism hones in on is the randomness of violence in the world. And that sometimes you can just get hit by a car driven by a drunk driver and that's the end of your life. And like, there's no way to control that kind of tragedy in the world. And this movie's kind of about that. And it's killers motivations are fascinating because they are like a nothingness. They are

• 32:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:26Sean Fennessey?

  It's not even a nihilism. It's like they have their own mission, but that mission is born of just violence. And just the kind of amusement, maybe, but there's not a lot of, they're not laughing gleeful killers. They're not, they, but they do seem to be getting something out of this psychological experiment that they're inflicting upon this couple throughout this night.

• 32:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, though they really, they wear the masks throughout. They don't get the reveal. And I did, you know, watching, there is a climactic scene where the closest an explanation of sorts is finally given. And it's daylight also. And as I was watching, I said, I was like, oh, they filmed it where they take the masks off and then they realized in edit that it's more powerful.

• 33:08Sean Fennessey?

  You think so?

• 33:08Amanda Dobbins?

  You never see their faces. Well, I watched it and then I, I read online. I mean, you know, this is half baked internet research, but that that is the case where in edit, they discovered that it makes more sense. There was just something about the cutting and the way that, that people are like, they're not in the frame that they, you know, that they would be.

• 33:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 33:27Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think that's totally right, the right decision. And like a cool understanding of what your film is achieving and editing is filmmaking too. So that's great.

• 33:37Amanda Dobbins?

  But you, so you purposely don't get anything of the characters and except of what's in their masks or, or them from behind and the strangers, that is. And there is, you know, one incredibly scary thing seen, I think, where the, the man in the mask like sits at the table. And I guess he's reflecting for a moment. But for the most part, otherwise, they're just like running around or on the hunt. They're not really people. They're just sort of chess pieces. They are, they are masks.

• 34:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 34:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And your inability to understand what they're doing is the point. And what's scary about them.

• 34:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's, they're, they're really interesting avatars for this idea, too. Because the, a lot of horror movies, as we've talked about, ad nauseam in the last 10 years, go to great lengths to psychologize intent and rationalize trauma and why they lead to these terrible acts, which is kind of valid, but is really overdone, I think, as a style choice now.

• 34:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And would absolutely ruin this movie.

• 34:39Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, that's what I was gonna say is like, so the movie, Bertino says that the Manson family Tate murders were a big inspiration for this. But I find that very unsatisfying as an idea. And I think maybe he realized in that, in the edit perhaps, that like, to remove as much motivation and even humanity as possible would be valuable. Because we know a lot about the Manson family murders now. And while they were maniacal and conspiracy laden and driven by a, you know, mental imbalance and drug use and all of these things that were happening inside of that cult. There was like intent, you know, there was, it was like, we're going to this house on purpose because these people live there. Whereas this is just like, who's home?

• 35:18Amanda Dobbins?

  And also we're like writing things on the walls and there is some sort of mythology. Yeah, it is. I mean, I do think, like, can we talk about the ending?

• 35:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, let's talk about it.

• 35:27Amanda Dobbins?

  So the explanation or like the final moment, whatever reason is given is, you know, Liv Tyler says like, why are you doing this to us? And the woman, who I believe that's Gem Award, the model. One of the two women is Gem Award, and I think it's her, she's still in a mask. And she says,

• 35:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, doll face.

• 35:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, because you were home. Which is definitely like the best possible explanation that the movie can give because there is no, because you don't want an origin story, you don't want a real reason. I think no answer would have been better, personally, still. Because I still think that is the one moment where it tips. And it is, I mean, there is an answer. The answer is just like randomness, but that, but even, even having an answer kind of steps on the toe of the not knowingness, which is the most terrifying part of the movie. And if it had been completely ambiguous, if you don't get an answer. Then you're just like, what the fuck?

• 36:31Sean Fennessey?

  Right. If they had said nothing in the face of that question, that might have been fascinating. Yeah, I mean, I think the movie itself, it seems to be this kind of rejection of a lot of horror movie strategy in the previous years. Where like, a lot of horror movies are basically showing the transgress- especially slashers, they're showing the transgressions of other people.

• 36:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 36:52Sean Fennessey?

  Like you had sex, or you were mean, you were a bully, or you were, you know, if you look at Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street, and the way that teenagers do things they're not supposed to do, and then they get punished for it. And this is not that. And I guess you could say maybe like, there's, this movie's trying to explore something about the fractured nature of this relationship. And then this is a kind of outsized aftermath of two people who are not able to make it work. And you know, it's just a psychological exploration of a broken relationship. I think that's one way you can kind of see the movie. But it's still using like, core horror examine- core horror tropes to get you like emotionally scared, you know, making sure that the person is staying safe or not safe.

• 37:35Sean Fennessey?

  So, I don't know, it's like, it's a pretty rich movie for an 81 minute-

• 37:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:40Sean Fennessey?

  slasher that ends somewhat unsatisfyingly, but very bleakly, in a way that is kind of inspiring to me. You know, the Universal Studios would put out a movie, a super short, grisly horror movie.

• 37:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm. It's not that. I mean, I've seen worse.

• 37:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I guess the final kill is very- actually, I watched the unrated version, I don't remember. Maybe it is more intense than what you saw. The unrated version, particularly the final deaths-

• 38:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, you see more knives and more- You don't, you don't actually see a lot in the, in the version that I saw. Or the version that was released.

• 38:11Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, that kind of does change things a little.

• 38:14Amanda Dobbins?

  But that is also, at the end, for the most part, it's just an hour. Like, you know, Glenn Harrington gets his face shot up, but like, whatever. That's, you don't even see that much of it. It's not that scary, you know?

• 38:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 38:23Amanda Dobbins?

  The rest of it is smoke detectors and cell phones and, and like, running and, and smashing car windows. It's not really that bloody.

• 38:32Sean Fennessey?

  Do you get scared when you're alone in your house?

• 38:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, not anymore. Um, I did, though, though I should because like, I was like, I don't live alone anymore. Even when Zach's gone, I'm with the two kids. But then I'm responsible for them. So maybe I should be more scared. And we also still live on a hill. Our last house that you, you remember, we lived on it, on a hill. And you had to have like come upstairs. And so there was this sense of like, once you like, you were trapped up on a hill. There was like no escape sort of. And, um, we did like, someone came up to the stairs once and was like, they weren't trying to like break in. It, I don't know, the person wasn't well, but, um, and I was home alone. And that was very scary. And I was thinking a lot about that moment while watching The Strangers.

• 39:21Amanda Dobbins?

  So yeah, I guess, but no, for the most part, I'm just like, yeah, I can do whatever I want. I feel awesome.

• 39:28Sean Fennessey?

  It's funny. I think one of the things that the movie does so well is that it isolates sound, particularly that first knock that comes from the man in the mask that is not the, the, the girl we first see her. That it's the very small, simple choice, like a single knock at a door at four 30 in the morning. Can be the most upsetting thing that could possibly happen to you.

• 39:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:53Sean Fennessey?

  And there are like a couple of needle drops in the movie that also kind of unnerved you as you go. But for the most part, like, there's not a lot of score. There's not a lot of, um, ambient sound. There's hardly any dialogue in the movie and it holds you pretty tight.

• 40:08Amanda Dobbins?

  It communicates space really well because you do feel immediately that sense of there's nowhere to go. Like these characters are trapped and they even like, they do go outside, which is just like really stupid. But, um, you know, as, as these things are, but I will say, you know, I know, I know it's the, that like, don't do that is a core part of horror movies and they're always supposed to make mistakes. But I even found like the mistakes that these characters make, whether it's like going outside or it's Scott Speedman going on a drive at 5:00. Well.

• 40:45Sean Fennessey?

  That's the one.

• 40:46Amanda Dobbins?

  It's stupid, but I thought it was to make me think Scott Speedman was the guy in the mask.

• 40:51Sean Fennessey?

  It is.

• 40:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And it is.

• 40:53Sean Fennessey?

  It's a little bit of just a movie moment. So I just rewatched this movie called Nightmares, which is like 1980s omnibus horror movie. And in the very first sequence, it's a 20 minute short film, basically about a killer on the loose in a small town. And a woman, a mother of two, is a smoker and it's past 11:00 PM and she really wants to go get cigarettes. And the killers on the loose, they've just watched a news report in their home. And she's like, I just fucking need cigarettes. I just have to go get cigarettes. And she leaves against the wishes of her husband in that scene. Obviously, we know what happens to her after that. So it's like, that's, that's just a trope.

• 41:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, totally. I got that too. But even as I was like thinking through the structure and like the, and I do have notes for Scott Speedman's character. But that one, I was like, oh, I see why the movie did that. Because I, I, I wasn't sure. I was like, and, and I, I think I ultimately landed on the side of, I don't think it's him because the movie is doing such a specific job of having him, I'd like, he's on screen or the man in the mask is on screen for such a long time.

• 41:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, yes.

• 42:01Amanda Dobbins?

  So I credit them for that. And I was like, I, I don't, I don't know if that many people watching this are taking the puzzle pieces apart as they are. I do that also when I'm scared. I'm like, if I focus on the mechanics of this, then I won't have to be terrified and sit in these emotions.

• 42:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I just think leaving my.

• 42:18Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I mean, you can't do that.

• 42:19Sean Fennessey?

  Non, non fiance at 3:30 in the morning to go get a pack of cigarettes in the middle of nowhere. That's just not really on my bingo card.

• 42:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Though this is another question I have. I just, so the, as I, I do think the film communicates the space of the house and just outside the house and that they're trapped and just that.

• 42:40Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, it implies that someone is just on the other side of the door and you really do feel that in such an intense way, very well. I'm not clear on the geography of the rest of the neighborhood. And it's like, you see houses that are like way closer, you see streetlights, like, are we really in the middle of nowhere?

• 42:57Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, I'm, that, I don't know.

• 43:01Sean Fennessey?

  I, it's unclear. It's unclear what state they're in, right? Do we even know what state they're in?

• 43:04Amanda Dobbins?

  It was filmed in South Carolina. And it did, it did, I wondered if it was like Atlanta adjacent, because the houses at the beginning looked familiar.

• 43:11Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 43:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Or, you know, like, have a style.

• 43:14Sean Fennessey?

  How would you have felt if you'd been proposed to at a wedding?

• 43:17Amanda Dobbins?

  So, this is one of my notes.

• 43:18Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 43:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I mean, the, the biggest note is just, like, no one, but especially not Liv Tyler, is saying yes to that ring. That is, that's very pathetic. And if you, your family has a vacation house, it's like-

• 43:33Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, it's a cabin in the woods.

• 43:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it's-

• 43:36Sean Fennessey?

  Handed down from generations.

• 43:37Amanda Dobbins?

  It has a fireplace.

• 43:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 43:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And, you know.

• 43:40Sean Fennessey?

  And they've got Joanna Newsom on vinyl.

• 43:42Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true. And they have like our, you know, a rifle in the, in the closet, so, and a lot of shoes. A lot of shoes for a vacation house. So, maybe they also have an heirloom. I just, you know, in the Sex and the, Sex and the City, when Aiden proposes with like a pear-shaped diamond?

• 43:59Sean Fennessey?

  I do remember that, yes.

• 44:00Amanda Dobbins?

  And that's like, that's like a tough, and it's a tough look.

• 44:04Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. What's the ideal shape for a diamond?

• 44:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Not pear-shaped.

• 44:08Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 44:08Amanda Dobbins?

  And also, this just looks like he bought it in, um, a gumball machine.

• 44:14Sean Fennessey?

  The diamond that I got for Eileen, um, when I proposed is in the shape of Babu Frick.

• 44:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 44:19Sean Fennessey?

  So, I'm really proud of that.

• 44:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I like him.

• 44:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. But it was naturally occurring, you know? It wasn't like, no one shaped it into Babu.

• 44:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Rosamund Pike, and now you see me too, set you up with that? Oh, that's, that's beautiful. No conflict there. Um, so, yeah, that ring, that's, it's sort of a non-starter situation. And then- It seems like the proposal is impromptu.

• 44:41Sean Fennessey?

  But it isn't because he has this plan back at home. It just seems like he's a little bit of a fumbler.

• 44:45Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it seems like, I can't tell whether he was planning to propose like at home.

• 44:50Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, at home.

• 44:50Amanda Dobbins?

  And then he was just like too swept up in the moment.

• 44:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, so he proposes in a parking lot. He does have the ring on him, though I, I thought that was just sort of like a security, safety thing. You remember like the weekend that, so my husband proposed to me after a group vacation that we all took. And he said that he was just like hiding the ring in different parts of our vacation house.

• 45:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I did a similar thing.

• 45:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Throughout the, throughout the week, which is psychotic and wouldn't help at all. Um, but.

• 45:17Sean Fennessey?

  I tried to keep my, the one before I proposed like in my breast pocket as often as I could.

• 45:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 45:23Sean Fennessey?

  For as many hours a day as I could without it seeming dangerous.

• 45:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Probably the only foolproof way to make sure that.

• 45:29Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I was like, this is the most valuable thing I've ever been near in my life, times many thousands.

• 45:34Amanda Dobbins?

  So I'm fine with him having it on his person, but it does seem like the parking lot proposal was like a little rushed.

• 45:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 45:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, and all we find out is that she just says, I'm not ready.

• 45:46Sean Fennessey?

  Isn't it so encouraging when you see such beautiful people also be so fumbling at romance? I think that's also one of the tricks of rom-coms where it's like, yeah, it doesn't matter if you look like Julia Roberts. It's still fucking hard. Yeah.

• 45:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, and then, so that's tough.

• 46:00Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm. You think he should have died because of that?

• 46:04Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 46:05Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 46:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, and I don't think she should have, I don't think she should have died either. Um, I do think like, I, the going outside.

• 46:13Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know what he's thinking.

• 46:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's like, it's a real defend the perimeter situation, you know, like I just, you gotta. Also, half the time she's leaving the door and the door is not locked.

• 46:23Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 46:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I was like, ma'am, what are you doing?

• 46:25Sean Fennessey?

  Here, here's a, a tactical question for you. Someone comes in your home.

• 46:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:30Sean Fennessey?

  An intruder. You're well within your rights to kill that person.

• 46:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 46:33Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 46:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, all right.

• 46:36Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, to defend yourself.

• 46:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Legally speaking, yeah, okay.

• 46:39Sean Fennessey?

  Within your home.

• 46:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:41Sean Fennessey?

  Not saying on the property.

• 46:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, okay.

• 46:42Sean Fennessey?

  And Scott Speedman is like, definitely hiding.

• 46:48Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not saying that's a just law. I don't even know. I don't even understand the law.

• 46:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 46:52Sean Fennessey?

  I'm saying that that is a true fact.

• 46:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 46:54Sean Fennessey?

  If they, if they come after you, you can defend yourself.

• 46:56Amanda Dobbins?

  The CIA defunded, funded the Super Bowl and Sean is your defense lawyer.

• 47:04Sean Fennessey?

  Did I get this law wrong?

• 47:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, keep going.

• 47:06Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think you have the right to kill the person. You have the right to defend yourself.

• 47:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 47:09Sean Fennessey?

  And Scott Speedman is like, I'm gonna see if I can kind of bob and weave here a little bit. Like, I'm gonna see if I can kind of dance through the raindrops in the movie.

• 47:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:18Sean Fennessey?

  Like, he's not willing to kind of get after it. What's he so afraid of, you know? He's gonna get killed anyway if he doesn't take care of this situation. This guy's wearing a fucking mask over his head.

• 47:25Amanda Dobbins?

  It's just a real, like, barricade the home situation. I like-

• 47:29Sean Fennessey?

  What are you, with what? Just with furniture?

• 47:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Furniture with other-

• 47:32Sean Fennessey?

  With that Joanne Newsome vinyl?

• 47:34Amanda Dobbins?

  With, like, other, you know, blunt instruments?

• 47:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 47:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know, start dragging. They don't even try to block the door.

• 47:42Sean Fennessey?

  This couple had awesome taste in music.

• 47:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:45Sean Fennessey?

  Merle Haggard, Gillian Welch, Billy Bragg and Wilco.

• 47:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:49Sean Fennessey?

  Where are these records coming from? Richard Buckner?

• 47:52Amanda Dobbins?

  This is what I'm saying. This is what I'm saying. It's like, I do feel that the, well, at some point, the strangers start putting them on, which is also funny.

• 47:58Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. That's right. So they also have great taste. They're like, now it's time for Merle Haggard.

• 48:02Amanda Dobbins?

  With what's there.

• 48:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but, you know, Mama Tried is like the, the closing haunting jam, you know, is kind of, that's a tough one.

• 48:11Sean Fennessey?

  And, so this movie made eighty-five million dollars.

• 48:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 48:13Sean Fennessey?

  It did, it did launch a sequel, which came six years later, which Bertino wrote, and I assume was rewritten and, and had a different director. Actually, the director, I believe, was Johannes Roberts, who just directed Primate, which came out this year. But then, two years ago, Rennie Harland started making these new strangers movies, which Katie loves, and I love Katie, but they stink. Madeline Petch-

• 48:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Katie has a Letterboxd profile, so you can let her know by Letterboxd. Yeah.

• 48:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, if she, if she'd have me.

• 48:38Amanda Dobbins?

  She also has some notes about the app design, but, you know, that's her.

• 48:41Sean Fennessey?

  Well, she knows a lot about apps, so I understand that. Letterboxd, they're doing great.

• 48:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:44Sean Fennessey?

  They're, they're crushing it. But, you know, Katie's notes might be helpful. How many stars would you give this one, Letterboxd?

• 48:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, three and a half?

• 48:52Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, pretty good.

• 48:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:53Sean Fennessey?

  Not bad.

• 48:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Positive?

• 48:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Um, Bertino has had kind of an odd career. I would say, I thought he was going to be one of the most significant horror directors of his generation, and he's worked, but has never really kind of reached the mountaintop again. He made a movie in 2014 called Mockingbird, which I never saw. He made a 824 thriller called The Monster in 2016, which was kind of a little seen. 2020's The Dark and the Wicked is probably his second best feature, which is a similarly unnerving domestic horror starring Maren Ireland that Ciara and I both really like. And then last year, he made a movie called Vicious, which was not, not very good, very disappointing. It went straight to streaming.

• 49:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it's tough that, you know, this movie is about doing as, as little as possible, right? There is, it's, it's no Gilded Lilies, and that is what makes it successful. So it is really hard to like revisit the well when spareness is the like signature of the achievement.

• 49:48Sean Fennessey?

  It is, it is. Um, it's so interesting that a movie like this becomes IP to me. Like it's how the whole point of it is that it shouldn't, it should just sit alone on a shelf and be a scary thing.

• 49:59Amanda Dobbins?

  2026, baby, you know?

• 50:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 50:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Everything is.

• 50:02Sean Fennessey?

  You feeling good? You think it's been a good year?

• 50:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, awesome. I'm thriving.

• 50:07Sean 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. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO.

• 50:52Sean Fennessey?

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• 51:36Sean Fennessey?

  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.

• 51:49Sean Fennessey?

  Let's pivot to Mamma Mia.

• 51:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh huh.

• 51:52Sean Fennessey?

  This is another 2008 film, directed by Thalidia Lloyd. It's based on the 1999 stage musical Mamma Mia, which is of course built around the epic pop catalog of ABBA. Catherine Johnson adapted the show for a screenplay. It stars Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Julie Walters, Dominic Cooper, Amanda Seyfried, and Christine Baranski. What a cast. Benny Anderson and Bjorn Olvea from ABBA composed the score of this film. And the story is such. Donna, an independent hotelier in the Greek islands-

• 52:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's, I also read that on Google. I laughed.

• 52:31Sean Fennessey?

  -is preparing for her daughter's wedding with the help of two old friends. Meanwhile, Sophie, the spirited blonde daughter, has a plan. She secretly invites three men from her mother's past in hope of meeting her real father and having him escort her down the aisle on her big day. I ask myself this, what did I think of Mamma Mia?

• 52:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 52:51Sean Fennessey?

  I've never seen a film be so good and so bad simultaneously. And I, I, I completely understand the phenomenon of this movie. I'm actually willing to join the cult, but it is extremely important to talk about the myriad ways in which this movie also kind of stinks. And it's such a fascinating paradox.

• 53:12Amanda Dobbins?

  They are woven into the, the text of the film, not unlike the songs of ABBA themselves.

• 53:17Sean Fennessey?

  It's a fair point. That's a good place to start.

• 53:20Amanda Dobbins?

  It is a film that is very aesthetically and spiritually in tune with its source material, being the like incandescent, inescapable, wonderful, and also really stupid songs of ABBA.

• 53:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. The pop junk genius of ABBA.

• 53:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 53:37Sean Fennessey?

  Which is like, I would say a group that I, I don't say, I wouldn't say have no relationship to it, but they were never my guys in the parlance of Marc Maron, my guys and gals. But if the actual song Mamma Mia comes on, or Dancing Queen, or if you're at a wedding and a song like that hits, like you dance, you, like they're fun. My daughter has gotten very interested in the music of ABBA for a variety of reasons. And like Money, Money, for example, is a song she like knows the words to. Her friends at school sing the song.

• 54:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 54:08Sean Fennessey?

  So, you know, tremendously infectious, as legible to a four-year-old as to a 43-year-old.

• 54:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 54:16Sean Fennessey?

  It persists, right? Like they continue. Isn't there a big ABBA show in Vegas right now?

• 54:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I think there was also some hologram type stuff for a while. I haven't really investigated what's going on there.

• 54:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe we can go in April.

• 54:29Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, let's look into it.

• 54:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Las Vegas, because you know, 2026, you know who else loves ABBA?

• 54:35Sean Fennessey?

  Who's that?

• 54:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, Craig Horlbrecht.

• 54:37Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I did know that.

• 54:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Or if he doesn't love ABBA, then it's a running joke on the town.

• 54:42Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right. No, he does. It's his favorite group of all time.

• 54:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Ultimate ABBA tribute, ABBA Kadabra. Wow.

• 54:48Sean Fennessey?

  Is that ABBA with magic?

• 54:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, no, I don't think so, but.

• 54:55Amanda Dobbins?

  We'll see. Anyway.

• 54:57Sean Fennessey?

  You know, ABBA is fine. They have a lot of songs that are very fun. That's basically how I come to this movie. The movie itself has an ingenious premise.

• 55:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:07Sean Fennessey?

  Ingenious.

• 55:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:09Sean Fennessey?

  The actual direction of the film is some of the worst I've ever seen.

• 55:12Amanda Dobbins?

  It's quite poor.

• 55:13Sean Fennessey?

  This is Felidia Lloyd's first movie and her last movie, I believe. And she's a theater director and a seasoned theater director, celebrated, has had a lot of success in the theater.

• 55:23Sean Fennessey?

  It has so many famous people and so much charisma and so much natural winning charm.

• 55:31Amanda Dobbins?

  She directed The Iron Lady. So Meryl Streep had such a wonderful time.

• 55:35Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, that's, that, that, that tells me a lot. Thank you for filling in that gap. Another movie that is like so poorly directed.

• 55:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And Mamma Mia, Here We Go Again.

• 55:43Sean Fennessey?

  No, she didn't.

• 55:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, she did it?

• 55:44Sean Fennessey?

  No, Ol' Parker directed that.

• 55:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Ol' Parker did, you're right.

• 55:46Sean Fennessey?

  Which is an important thing because she very clearly was replaced for a reason.

• 55:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:51Sean Fennessey?

  But the movie is so winning and everyone is having so much fun. And it's in Greece. They shot on location in Greece.

• 56:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Copulos.

• 56:02Sean Fennessey?

  And it's a movie that, while I was watching it, so I'll, I'll, I'll set the scene.

• 56:09Sean Fennessey?

  I had a psychotic movie day two days ago. Here was the movie day that I had.

• 56:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 56:15Sean Fennessey?

  I've been meaning to do our buddy Tim Simons and Matt Walsh's podcast Second in Command.

• 56:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:21Sean Fennessey?

  And they talk about movies with presidents in them. I've been telling him for, for a year that I want to do the show. I told him I would do Lincoln.

• 56:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:28Sean Fennessey?

  I hadn't been able to do it for months and months. And finally I was like, I'll do it on this Wednesday.

• 56:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 56:34Sean Fennessey?

  So at 2:00 PM, I watched Lincoln. I'm watching Lincoln.

• 56:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:38Sean Fennessey?

  Eileen texts me and she's like, if you're gonna do Mamma Mia, we want to do it with you. Alice Loves ABBA. We're trying to get her into even more live action movies now. I was like, okay, if you guys get home at 4:30, I can watch Mamma Mia from 4:30 to 6:18. And then I gotta drive to Warner Brothers to go to, to moderate a conversation for one battle after another.

• 57:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:01Sean Fennessey?

  So they get home at 4:30 on the dot. They walk in, Alice sits down on the couch and we fire up Mamma Mia. We watched Mamma Mia. The whole time. I was like, I wish we had a bottle of wine open.

• 57:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:13Sean Fennessey?

  And I couldn't do that because I had to go and do the one battle thing, which was amazing. And, you know, honestly, one of the most fun things I've done in a long time. And, uh, you know, so to watch, first of all, I watched three movies in a row, which is something I do often, but maybe not in quite this way with this level of like compact stress. But Mamma Mia is not a movie where you really need to be like locked into the performances and character motivations and the dynamics of the filmmaking. It's a hangout fun movie. It's a movie that like, you should just get up and dance during.

• 57:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:41Sean Fennessey?

  And you can kind of like walk around and go get a snack and pour yourself a glass of wine. So like immediately when it was over, Eileen said to me like, we should probably just like watch that again in a slightly different way. I didn't have enough time to do that before this episode.

• 57:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 57:53Sean Fennessey?

  But I do actually, like, the movie was such a theatrical sensation. But to be like locked in my chair, I think would be maybe not of my favorite way to see this. And I contrast that with The Strangers where I was like, sitting in a movie theater for 79 minutes, like what is going to happen to these people? This is a very different vibe. It's so loose. Movies are very rarely this loose.

• 58:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, it is really built around the songs and the song performances, especially the last 30 minutes where it's just like, there's two lines of dialogue before they segue into like Take a Chance on Me or whatever. And you're, you're thrilled because Julie Walters gets to, gets her moment to do Take a Chance on Me. It's very funny. And the, the movie is, is very knowing throughout, which is something I like about it. But, um, that's when it really just winks of like, okay, like, how are we going to get all of these songs? In this, in this puzzle? So I think, you know, people seem to really like concert films and people seem to really like movie musicals and that's what this is.

• 58:58Amanda Dobbins?

  And it is so like song and set piece based that everything in between, I agree, looks and is completely silly and underbaked and not even like, there's not really any acting going on here.

• 59:15Sean Fennessey?

  I think Amanda Seyfried is giving it her all. She's giving it her all.

• 59:19Amanda Dobbins?

  She's the best, a part of this film.

• 59:21Sean Fennessey?

  She is the best part of the movie. She is by far the best singer in the cast. She is very game for the part. You can see this is her kind of like realizing that this is her moment, right? Shortly after Mean Girls, it's, I think it's right before.

• 59:35Amanda Dobbins?

  In Time.

• 59:37Sean Fennessey?

  It is right before In Time and Jennifer's Body, I was gonna say. And she's kind of like, she's going for the brass ring. She's playing Meryl Streep's daughter. She's in a movie with Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan and Stone, Scars, Card. She's like, and Julie Walters and Christine Baranski. She's going for it. And she's giving a very sincere kind of winning performance. It's the kind of character that she's very good at, right? Where it's like, kind of dewy eyed for two straight hours.

• 59:57Sean Fennessey?

  Her character's motivations.

• 1:00:01Sean Fennessey?

  Are they coherent? If you were in her situation, is this how you would want to find out who your dad is? In a kind of like, you know, match game style revelation?

• 1:00:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Are you, again, this gets back to like our, should we be getting married? She's 20 in the film and she's marrying Dominic Cooper.

• 1:00:21Sean Fennessey?

  I gotta say, I think his character is quite logical in the film. I think he makes a lot of good points. He's got a lot of concerns about the way in which this family operates. And he's taken with her, obviously, and he wants to marry her, but he's like, this is not a parlor game for you to figure out who your dad is. We're getting married, lady.

• 1:00:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, so I, I can't say I really relate to any of her decision making throughout the process, whether it is, yeah, whether it's getting married at 20 or inviting three men that she found in her mother's diary to her impromptu wedding.

• 1:00:57Sean Fennessey?

  Would you read your mom's diary?

• 1:00:58Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:01:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Good. I really, this is. We don't have to, you know what the theme of this, this episode is?

• 1:01:08Sean Fennessey?

  What is it?

• 1:01:09Amanda Dobbins?

  And like what we've learned is that we like, don't actually need to know everything about each other.

• 1:01:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:14Amanda Dobbins?

  This is one of the, this is one of my, you know how my Italian therapist would sometimes be like, this is very American that you think you, and it was often like that you think you need to know everything or share everything. You don't. We don't need to know everything. I don't need to know.

• 1:01:28Sean Fennessey?

  I know, but I'm, I'm an emotional detective. This is something that matters to me.

• 1:01:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Are you?

• 1:01:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:33Amanda Dobbins?

  When you want to be. And sometimes you're also an emotional, like a.

• 1:01:37Sean Fennessey?

  No, but it's about, but you're, you're talking about what you're experiencing from me. I'm talking about what's inside.

• 1:01:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that you can either investigate or ignore what's going on with someone, depending on what suits for you, what suits you.

• 1:01:48Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 1:01:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:49Sean Fennessey?

  Is that like a, like a baseless accusation?

• 1:01:51Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I just, I'm like, I think.

• 1:01:52Sean Fennessey?

  Like Harvey Weinstein? Like who are you referring to?

• 1:01:55Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no. Just like, if you need to do something. And, and you need to do it, then maybe it doesn't matter what the other people feel.

• 1:02:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I mean, that is actually how the people in this film operate too. Yeah, it is very true.

• 1:02:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, we all have to sometimes.

• 1:02:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. Block out the bad.

• 1:02:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:14Sean Fennessey?

  Bring in the good, right?

• 1:02:15Amanda Dobbins?

  There you go.

• 1:02:15Sean Fennessey?

  Feel the flow, as they say in Happy Gilmore. Um, 23 songs they squeeze into this one hour and 42 minute movie. Kind of amazing.

• 1:02:24Amanda Dobbins?

  It's great.

• 1:02:25Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great choice. Just like jukebox it the fuck out.

• 1:02:28Amanda Dobbins?

  And the movie knows what it is. And it is really famous, accomplished actors who can sing on vacation in Greece, performing the songs of ABBA while slightly hungover. I was looking for the internet research that like, I don't know that I made this, I don't think I made this up, but I couldn't find it that, that this movie, Meryl Streep and Christine Baranski and Julie Walters just treated as vacation, which like you would hope. And that there was not like a lot of like scene work, you know, or prep.

• 1:02:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:03:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Going in and they were in Greece and at least for the, you know, on location scenes, they also obviously constructed, constructed a set at Pinewood. But yeah, I, I think everyone.

• 1:03:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, was um, having a good time.

• 1:03:14Sean Fennessey?

  No doubt.

• 1:03:15Amanda Dobbins?

  And that also, I think. It infuses the performances, so.

• 1:03:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you know, there's something also kind of like amazingly unglamorous about the performers in the movie that I really appreciate. They are beautiful actors.

• 1:03:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:28Sean Fennessey?

  But, you know, the bulk of the cast is in middle age or older. And the men are like a little bit flabbier than we're used to seeing them.

• 1:03:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:35Sean Fennessey?

  And everybody's a little sunburnt. And it does kind of feel like they've had a couple of glasses of wine while performing. And you just, it's so unusual to experience a movie where everyone's kind of like, yeah, we're just winging it, you know, like we're just, and now we're gonna sing this song over here. Like, it doesn't, it doesn't feel like a conventional Hollywood movie in that way, which I found very charming. I think it really like is, it's a, it's a, it's a feature and not a bug of the film. And it seems like they almost designed it to be that way, or at least the performers knew what they were doing.

• 1:04:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:04:04Sean Fennessey?

  As I say, Amanda Seyfried is kind of like, she's going for it. And she's like, looking sincerely into Pierce Brosnan's eyes and trying to, you know, ascertain the truth of her heritage. But everybody else is just like,

• 1:04:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:15Sean Fennessey?

  past the, the, the, the cavacier, you know?

• 1:04:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, like here comes some people out of the one lagoon that we could film on.

• 1:04:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:04:22Amanda Dobbins?

  This is, this is my one note. It's like, they didn't really use like the full breadth of the island.

• 1:04:27Sean Fennessey?

  How would they have done a better job of that?

• 1:04:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. It's just, it's like this, it's the same pier, you know? And the same one lagoon.

• 1:04:35Sean Fennessey?

  One thing about movie musicals, I want to talk about them just a bit.

• 1:04:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:41Sean Fennessey?

  The reason that I have not seen this film and I have not seen Les Mis, and that I have not seen The Greatest Showman.

• 1:04:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Have you seen Les Mis, the musical?

• 1:04:49Sean Fennessey?

  I have, yeah. It's not my favorite.

• 1:04:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, so because you don't believe that the French people, um.

• 1:04:54Sean Fennessey?

  Should be free. I don't, I don't. I think they should be imprisoned by a fascist state. No, I, I think, um, there is something about the tone, color, and execution of modern musicals that I find a little off putting.

• 1:05:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I 1,000% agree with you.

• 1:05:12Sean Fennessey?

  It's not across the board. West Side Story, Spielberg's film, I think that's one of the best movie musicals of the last 50 years. I think there's like.

• 1:05:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but that is an adapting, an older musical. And I do think the source material is very important in that.

• 1:05:26Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't love In the Heights, but I, I liked it. You know, it's not across the board for me. There, you know, I, we, obviously, we did not enjoy Wicked. And we've talked about a great many movie musicals on the show over the last 10 years.

• 1:05:37Amanda Dobbins?

  And, but I think many of them are just that at a certain point, the source material. Becomes like, like the, the books and songs of modern musicals. I don't sit well with me and.

• 1:05:52Sean Fennessey?

  Just the, the writing and performance.

• 1:05:53Amanda Dobbins?

  The writing and, and like the song style, like I, you know, people feel that the songs of Wicked are very good.

• 1:06:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I find that a little strange.

• 1:06:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And I don't.

• 1:06:02Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's not true. I find a couple of them are good.

• 1:06:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Define Gravity is good and Popular is fine, but they, but they are a, like a musical style all, all of their own, which is a little saccharine, a little showy, like the arrangements are of a piece.

• 1:06:18Sean Fennessey?

  I'm by no means an expert in this field, so I'm not gonna, I, I hope it doesn't sound like I'm trying to pretend that I am.

• 1:06:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:23Sean Fennessey?

  There is something about the on, the onset of the Andrew Lloyd Webber era of Broadway musicals that is not really my flavor. And everything feels since then to be a kind of like escalation in terms of the scope and the intensity of what the show is supposed to be. And I would much prefer Sondheim, but Sondheim is almost never adapted.

• 1:06:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:06:47Sean Fennessey?

  For movie musicals, which is an interesting thing. Like obviously Linklater is in the midst of doing Merrily We Roll Along, but.

• 1:06:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, Meryl Streep was into the woods, was in Into the Woods.

• 1:06:57Sean Fennessey?

  She was, but another show that I don't really care for that much, but um, that had more to do with Rob Marshall than it did the actual show itself.

• 1:07:07Sean Fennessey?

  So I, I skipped those movies in part because I'm like, there's just a very low likelihood I'm gonna like this.

• 1:07:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:12Sean Fennessey?

  When this movie came out, I had no professional obligation to go see it.

• 1:07:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:07:16Sean Fennessey?

  Eileen, not really a, an ABBA person, so she wasn't like, I want to race out to go see this. And so it just got by me.

• 1:07:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:23Sean Fennessey?

  But it's so interesting how big the movie is.

• 1:07:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. I was gonna say, but it was such a phenomenon.

• 1:07:29Sean Fennessey?

  I, I just, I kinda missed it.

• 1:07:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:31Sean Fennessey?

  Like I, I was, I was stunned to learn that this movie has made 610 million dollars worldwide at the box office.

• 1:07:38Amanda Dobbins?

  It's way bigger internationally than it is in the US. And like, it's big. It made 144 million dollars domestically. That like, good job.

• 1:07:47Sean Fennessey?

  That's very big.

• 1:07:48Amanda Dobbins?

  That's very big. But I, for a while, it was like the most seen movie in the UK. I mean, I'm like exaggerating, but it's, it's stats and performance in, in the UK alone. Were a sort of singular like weather blip that you just can't really explain?

• 1:08:04Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, you've got, in the movie, you've got an Irish, English, and Swedish like kind of icon. I mean, all three of those actors in their, in their native countries are massive stars. Pierce Brosnan is obviously was double O seven. So I think that attributes to it a little bit, right? It's a film that's also set in Greece. Like, it's a very European movie in many ways. But 610 million, I mean, put some context on it. Like, if you don't count animated Disney movies or live action adaptations of animated Disney movies, this is the third highest grossing movie musical in the history of movies.

• 1:08:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:08:37Sean Fennessey?

  Behind Wicked and Wonka, which only just came out in the last two years.

• 1:08:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:40Sean Fennessey?

  That's a crazy stat.

• 1:08:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. That's why I've been like, I can't understand how you haven't seen this movie.

• 1:08:46Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. It's just never got, got it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't, who's, can you name a single friend of mine who you think would be, besides Juliet, who would be like a massive fan of Mamma Mia?

• 1:08:55Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not about being a massive fan. Am I a massive fan of Mamma Mia? Do I like, I know about it because it is such a strange, it was so successful and such an anomaly. And also stars Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård singing ABBA on a boat.

• 1:09:16Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know what to tell you. I mean, when you Google 2008 movies, what are the first movies that come up?

• 1:09:22Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm, this never works. Google sucks now. God, it's unbelievable how bad Google is.

• 1:09:26Amanda Dobbins?

  2008 movies, Wikipedia, come on.

• 1:09:29Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, even if you just look at the most successful films from that year. That's the thing is it was The Dark Knight and Iron Man in a year. And it was.

• 1:09:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I saw both of those movies and I also had time for Mamma Mia. Once again, I have it all every day.

• 1:09:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, they truly can.

• 1:09:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Wally, Crystal Skull, Twilight?

• 1:09:45Sean Fennessey?

  I saw Twilight in theaters.

• 1:09:46Amanda Dobbins?

  So did I.

• 1:09:47Sean Fennessey?

  You know what would have gotten me to go see Mamma Mia in theaters? Putting vampires in it.

• 1:09:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:09:50Sean Fennessey?

  If you put vampires in your movie, I will check it out.

• 1:09:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Don't rule it out for Mamma Mia three.

• 1:09:55Sean Fennessey?

  That's gonna happen, right?

• 1:09:56Amanda Dobbins?

  They keep talking about it. I do, I, I meant to revisit the plot of Mamma Mia 2, which I saw in theaters at the ArcLight, uh, so with my mother and my husband, but I think that they might have some casting issues without spoiling Mamma Mia 2.

• 1:10:11Sean Fennessey?

  Got it.

• 1:10:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Some decisions are made.

• 1:10:13Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:10:13Amanda Dobbins?

  But vampires is a way to solve it.

• 1:10:16Sean Fennessey?

  Let's go back to the cortex of Mamma Mia. And now it's time for Moments That Matter, a new segment brought to you by State Farm. Life moves fast. It's full of unexpected twists, big wins and little surprises that stick with us, but that's totally fine because you can rely on State Farm to be there. Speaking of moments that stick, let's dive into the ones that made Mamma Mia unforgettable for you, Amanda. What, what, what jumps out to you?

• 1:10:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Meryl Streep singing The Winner Takes It All at Pierce Brosnan. At one of the most beautiful cliffs overlooking a Greek church on the hillside that I've ever seen. I think about this scene once a week. I'm most elated that you have now also seen this scene.

• 1:10:54Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Where Pierce Brosnan just stands there looking confused.

• 1:10:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's me on every pod for the record.

• 1:11:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. Well, and while Meryl Streep does a pretty credible job.

• 1:11:05Sean Fennessey?

  Really good. This is her best performance in the movie.

• 1:11:06Amanda Dobbins?

  She's really good. And it's clear that she's like thought about that, that this is the only song, and it's one of Abba's great songs, that like actually communicates any character development and.

• 1:11:17Sean Fennessey?

  It's very much in her range too as a singer.

• 1:11:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Um, they don't go like full disco on it, which is okay. That's, it wouldn't be appropriate to the moment, but I do think we're missing something from The Winner Takes It All, but that's okay. Listen, this is about interpretation. And the fact that the winner, Meryl Streep singing The Winner Takes It All at Pierce Brosnan on a Greek beach is like plot development.

• 1:11:44Sean Fennessey?

  Of a kind, yeah.

• 1:11:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Is an incredible achievement. And it's just, it's something you don't see anywhere else, you know? They have never done it since.

• 1:11:52Sean Fennessey?

  No, although, doesn't the song make an incredible appearance in Bergman Island?

• 1:11:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, and.

• 1:11:56Sean Fennessey?

  It all makes sense now.

• 1:11:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And I told you at the time, the second greatest use of The Winner Takes It All ever. Uh, an amazing song.

• 1:12:05Sean Fennessey?

  Great pick. When it comes to moments that matter in real life, there is no script, but State Farm has your back. With State Farm, you can focus on what matters most, knowing you're prepared for whatever comes next. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. What other musical performances do you think are great in this movie?

• 1:12:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Christine Baranski gets her Christine Baranski.

• 1:12:23Sean Fennessey?

  That scene is so goofy, but she's so winning.

• 1:12:26Amanda Dobbins?

  But yeah, and again, at some point, they just start engineering things for characters to get their particular moment. And there's something about, you know, she's so much taller than everyone, like everyone else dancing. And the like, you know, committed, like slightly campy version of of her performance that like really tickles me. And you do spend the whole movie, especially now, you know, post Good Wife, post like Baranski Renaissance number four or whatever.

• 1:13:02Amanda Dobbins?

  You're wondering like, why did Christine Baranski say yes to this? This is beneath the regal Christine Baranski. And then she finally like gets her moment. I mean, it is silly, but they're all silly. I, you know, the first time you get the wide shot of Dancing Queen and everyone on the pier. I was like, well, this is, this is an important song.

• 1:13:22Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm. Sure.

• 1:13:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, who else? I mean, Amanda Seyfried is good, but that's kind of, that's not really the point of this. What stayed with you?

• 1:13:32Sean Fennessey?

  I'm trying to think of what is so the best Sophie song in the movie.

• 1:13:38Sean Fennessey?

  I Have a Dream, maybe?

• 1:13:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it opens and closes it.

• 1:13:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that might be the, the, the best. I mean, she has more vocal range than most of the people in the movie too. So what is the song? Is it, is it SOS when she's singing? Who she, when she's singing on the beach to Dominic Cooper? What is that song?

• 1:13:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, it's not SOS because I think Pierce Brosnan sings SOS.

• 1:14:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, you're right. You're right. Which is terrible.

• 1:14:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, which I mean, it's, it's tough news. What does she sing?

• 1:14:07Sean Fennessey?

  Is it Gimme Gimme Gimme, A Man After Midnight? Is that it?

• 1:14:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe.

• 1:14:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, it might be that one. Um, she, she has a few good moments. It's fascinating that they basically don't let Stellan Skarsgård sing. But they do let Pierce Brosnan sing three times.

• 1:14:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm. I mean, maybe it's not a let. Maybe it's a could convince to. Maybe Sal Scarsgard had a better understanding of of what was happening and what he could do. Yeah.

• 1:14:35Sean Fennessey?

  I really liked him in this movie and I really liked that they let him be kind of like a charmer, kind of using his rapscallion persona, but certainly not being like a mean bastard, which is what how he's kind of typecast in the last 20 years. Pierce Brosnan, though, an Irishman who can't sing, that's a bit of a concern.

• 1:14:57Amanda Dobbins?

  He sings like two lines in Our Last Summer.

• 1:15:00Sean Fennessey?

  Scarsgard?

• 1:15:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And first, what does he sing?

• 1:15:03Amanda Dobbins?

  He also sings in Our Last Summer and then he sings, let's see, there's one more that he gets.

• 1:15:08Sean Fennessey?

  Mamma Mia heads are pulling their hair out because of our lack of knowledge of ABBA and the songs.

• 1:15:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I have it right now. Listen.

• 1:15:14Sean Fennessey?

  I was doing my best. I was holding on for dear life watching this movie. I was like, another song?

• 1:15:18Amanda Dobbins?

  So I think that you were talking about the Sophie song as Lay All Your Love On Me.

• 1:15:22Sean Fennessey?

  That's it. Yes, thank you.

• 1:15:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, which is a classic one. Um, let's see. There's also, Harry apparently sings on Take A Chance On Me. I'm just looking at the, um, the, the song list here.

• 1:15:36Amanda Dobbins?

  And, yeah.

• 1:15:37Sean Fennessey?

  Why is there not any good choreography in the movie? The, the men in, in the, in flippers, dancing on a pier, like, come on.

• 1:15:43Amanda Dobbins?

  It's also one idea.

• 1:15:47Amanda Dobbins?

  That is, and I did, I did sort of wonder they could get at some point, whether it's just kind of like resources and who they could get because they did film the outdoor scenes on location in Greece. And it seems like they had a pretty good budget, but maybe they couldn't get professional dancers on, onto the island at the numbers required in order to really, I mean, what kind of choreography are you looking for?

• 1:16:12Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, good.

• 1:16:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean.

• 1:16:13Sean Fennessey?

  The good kind.

• 1:16:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you think about the fact that also maybe like no one can really dance?

• 1:16:17Sean Fennessey?

  That's okay. I think you can have a kind of supporting crew of dancers behind.

• 1:16:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I.

• 1:16:22Sean Fennessey?

  And they did have kind of multiple extras and additional performers in the film.

• 1:16:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I'll be honest, when you have, this is another thing where modern musical choreography and dancing is a little too performative. And.

• 1:16:36Sean Fennessey?

  What do you mean by that?

• 1:16:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I like too many people milking it and really just hitting every move really hard. You know, I'm, I'm like doing.

• 1:16:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Fosse, Fosse, Fosse.

• 1:16:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Fosse, Fosse. Um, and like only Beyonce is Beyonce, you know, and only Beyonce's dancers are Beyonce's dancers. And everyone else, like Wicked, there were a lot of people posing in the background and it just took me out every single time. I was like, no, this is not your movie.

• 1:17:02Sean Fennessey?

  Just let them have their moment.

• 1:17:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, but no, it's not, it's not there. It's like there, there is step up and I think step up is really good. And when you're in the movie about the dancing, but when you're in a movie about two witches trying to, you know, navigate friendship and, and fascism. Then like, keep the hands in, you know?

• 1:17:23Sean Fennessey?

  Lovely.

• 1:17:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you. Yeah.

• 1:17:24Sean Fennessey?

  Really like what you did there.

• 1:17:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you so much. So I, I politely disagree with that. There is also, there is one moment I noticed, I think during Dancing Queen, where Bransky and Meryl Streep are wearing chiffon skirts, not unlike the West Side Story skirts. And they do like one Jerome Robbins, like sashay moment.

• 1:17:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:17:47Amanda Dobbins?

  And that's good, but I don't know if they could have kept up that choreography for the whole number. So I, we're meeting people where they are.

• 1:17:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:56Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk about Meryl quickly.

• 1:17:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Loves to sing. She loves it.

• 1:18:01Sean Fennessey?

  This is such an important movie in her career.

• 1:18:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:03Sean Fennessey?

  Cause you know, it comes, isn't it, it's almost immediately after Devil Wore.

• 1:18:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Devil Wore Prada is 2006 and.

• 1:18:10Sean Fennessey?

  And she's really like, is she in her 50s when she's made this movie?

• 1:18:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I think, yeah, mid to late 50s. I Googled it.

• 1:18:16Sean Fennessey?

  And it's just an absolute box office draw.

• 1:18:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:20Sean Fennessey?

  You know, the greatest actress of her generation in her 50s is commanding multiple hundred million dollar movies.

• 1:18:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:29Sean Fennessey?

  Again, completely anomalous. There's this is not, there's no other precedent for this, really, I would say, in the history of Hollywood. Most actresses, as we have talked about, we just talked about this in conversation with Rachel McAdams, are like discarded by the industry. Obviously, she's a cut above, but the fact that-

• 1:18:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And also in a female-led movie about the fashion industry, it's not a romantic comedy, but it's not like a bunch of men fighting each other. And then in a movie musical about ABBA, you know, it's not, she didn't like Charlize Theron in it and be like, now I'm gonna like, you know, get a gun and start fighting people.

• 1:19:04Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. That's right. She's held guns in movies before, though.

• 1:19:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Meryl?

• 1:19:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm, I'm trying to think. I'm trying to find her filmography, but once again, Google, I just, you know, need a reference. Let's see, Meryl Streep with The Kangaroo, does she hold a gun in that one?

• 1:19:19Sean Fennessey?

  A Cry in the Dark?

• 1:19:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:21Sean Fennessey?

  A Dingo, you're thinking of a Dingo.

• 1:19:22Amanda Dobbins?

  The Dingo, yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry to Australia, we haven't been yet.

• 1:19:25Sean Fennessey?

  You're gonna have to revisit or watch that film for the Meryl Streep Hall of Fame.

• 1:19:29Amanda Dobbins?

  That's fine with me. Now, okay, finally got it. So, let's see.

• 1:19:33Sean Fennessey?

  Hit us with this era, this 10-year period.

• 1:19:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Postcards from the Edge, she sings way more than she holds a gun.

• 1:19:39Sean Fennessey?

  She does.

• 1:19:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Loves to sing. Postcards from the Edge, No Gun, that I recall, some, you know, does some drugs. Death Becomes Her, No Guns.

• 1:19:49Sean Fennessey?

  Some law of violence, though.

• 1:19:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Bridges of Madison, yeah, but like funny violence. Bridges of Madison County, I don't remember what.

• 1:19:54Sean Fennessey?

  Does she have a gun?

• 1:19:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, I mean, they're in Montana.

• 1:19:56Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:19:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. I don't know what goes on there. I'm not an expert on the-

• 1:20:00Sean Fennessey?

  No, she wields a camera.

• 1:20:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Adaptation, No Gun, The Hours, Flowers. Um, it was scrolling, Lemony Snicket? Don't really know what's happening there. Is a Lemony Snicket a thing for your generation, Jack?

• 1:20:13Speaker 05

  I don't know what that is.

• 1:20:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well, congratulations on-

• 1:20:16Sean Fennessey?

  A series of unfortunate events, a series of children's books that were adapted into-

• 1:20:19Speaker 05

  Oh, oh, yes, yes, yes.

• 1:20:20Sean Fennessey?

  Movies and then a television series.

• 1:20:21Speaker 05

  Yes, yes, I'm familiar with that, yeah.

• 1:20:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Lions for Lambs?

• 1:20:24Sean Fennessey?

  She plays a very powerful journalist who is modeled on who is the awful-

• 1:20:32Sean Fennessey?

  New York Times journalist who wrote the pieces in support of the Iraq war.

• 1:20:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Judy Miller?

• 1:20:37Sean Fennessey?

  Judy Miller. She plays like kind of a Judy, yeah, Judith Miller.

• 1:20:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know whether she's Judy or Judith.

• 1:20:41Sean Fennessey?

  She's Judith, I think.

• 1:20:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so I don't, I don't think that Judith Miller had a gun, though.

• 1:20:46Sean Fennessey?

  No, she does have a series of-

• 1:20:47Amanda Dobbins?

  She advocated to give others.

• 1:20:48Sean Fennessey?

  She has a series of showdowns with Tom Cruise.

• 1:20:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so also in 2008 is Doubt, and then 2009 is Julie and Julia, and It's Complicated, just to continue the box office.

• 1:20:59Sean Fennessey?

  That's an amazing stretch.

• 1:21:00Amanda Dobbins?

  No guns in any of those, but some of, some of my greatest films.

• 1:21:03Sean Fennessey?

  Forget about the gun question, that's not important. Um, if, if you just replace Angelina Jolie with Meryl Streep in the film Wanted, is it better?

• 1:21:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Which one is Wanted?

• 1:21:13Sean Fennessey?

  The one with James McAvoy, where she comes in, she's like a secret society assassin.

• 1:21:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Angelina Jolie, Wanted. Oh, I remember this one, yes, sure.

• 1:21:24Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's do this with Salt.

• 1:21:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Meryl Streep, Salt, uh-

• 1:21:27Sean Fennessey?

  Meryl Salt.

• 1:21:29Amanda Dobbins?

  You know what? Meryl does have like a regal Russian quality to it, like you could see her in the, in the head.

• 1:21:35Sean Fennessey?

  Think of the accent work.

• 1:21:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course. And also, if you needed to do any flashbacks, then you have one of the many Gummer daughters who are also actresses who could credibly play her.

• 1:21:45Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 1:21:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, there you go. And, and then Wanted 2 is solved. If you need to do a prequel, set it right up.

• 1:21:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Wanted, I mean Salt 2, excuse me.

• 1:21:54Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right. Meryl Streep is hard to talk about. It's kind of like talking about Coca-Cola on a warm summer day. It's like, just good, just always good, never, well, the movies are not always good.

• 1:22:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Is she good in this? Discuss.

• 1:22:05Sean Fennessey?

  I, I think it's an interesting conversation. I think she's doing her absolute best singing, and half the performance, song performances are good and half are bad.

• 1:22:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I would say that she's, I guess she is doing her best singing. She's not a great singer, she keeps doing this. Obviously, then she does Florence Foster Jenkins, she does Into the Woods.

• 1:22:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:22:21Amanda Dobbins?

  She does-

• 1:22:22Sean Fennessey?

  Florence Foster Jenkins is so funny, though, because it's kind of a riff on how she can't really sing that well. You know, like, that's kind of the gag of the movie. The, the, here's, here's why this works.

• 1:22:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Mary Poppins Returns?

• 1:22:33Sean Fennessey?

  Um, this works because she's having fun, and you can feel it while watching her. It doesn't really matter if she's like hitting the note in the ABBA song. No one's listening to ABBA.

• 1:22:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Ricky and the Flash, that's what I was trying to think of.

• 1:22:47Sean Fennessey?

  My guy, Jonathan Demme, that's a beautiful movie. Then she's playing there like a Chrissy Hynde-style, like, rock frontwoman. She loves music. She loves to sing.

• 1:22:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:56Sean Fennessey?

  Um, is she good? Yeah, she's good. I think so.

• 1:23:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, yeah.

• 1:23:01Sean Fennessey?

  The whole movie is operating, it's kind of orbiting the idea of camp. It's not campy, because there's nothing inherently campy about ABBA. But there is like a kind of like drag quality to so much of what's happening with the older characters in the film. Like even with Julie Walters and Christine Baranski, they're kind of operating in this, this like, it's like Rocky Horror Picture Show for people who like to go to like Cabo to all, like to, you know,

• 1:23:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:30Sean Fennessey?

  full-service resorts, you know, like, is there something like really?

• 1:23:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, you're above, you're above a full-service resort in Cabo.

• 1:23:35Sean Fennessey?

  I like Cabo.

• 1:23:36Amanda Dobbins?

  If anyone is listening, I'm available.

• 1:23:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you will make yourself a hotel influencer yet. I know, you're doing your damnedest.

• 1:23:47Sean Fennessey?

  I just don't know. That's why I bring up this idea of like, good versus bad. And the binary of it is just an impossibility with a movie like this.

• 1:23:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I don't think that this is a movie where it's so bad that it's good. You know, which is often a category that many, many people enjoy.

• 1:24:06Sean Fennessey?

  And not an idea I believe in.

• 1:24:08Amanda Dobbins?

  You and I don't like it.

• 1:24:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:09Amanda Dobbins?

  You and I don't respond to it. This movie is doing, with the possible exception of, you know, some of the, the camera work and the, and everything that happens.

• 1:24:21Sean Fennessey?

  The blocking is so bad. Like in every scene, I'm like, why is the camera here?

• 1:24:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I, you know. And you built a whole villa in order to be able to put the camera wherever you want. And you're in Pinewood and you seemingly have like a lot of budgets. So I, I don't get it. But with the exception of that, like, the movie is doing what it wants to be doing. And I think the performances are what they want to be. They're not, it's not that it's bad. Or it is bad, but it's not unintentional.

• 1:24:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I feel like it, they do know what they're doing, right? There's not like a confusion about what kind of a movie it is. I love the, um, in the closing credits, when they do a song over the credits and then do another song over the credits. There's a kind of like, you don't even want this to end. You just want to keep. Glugging rosé while this movie goes on and on and on and plays another song.

• 1:25:07Amanda Dobbins?

  And honestly, arguably, the the highest point of the movie is the credit sequence when they've stripped away all pretense of trying to tell a story. And it's it's Meryl and Christine Maransky and Julie Walters first in like full 70s ABBA disco gear. And then the men come in too, even more amped up in their bell bottoms for Waterloo, which is so funny. And they're all, you know, like, to introduce Waterloo, it's like Meryl kind of like a half drunk at the camera being like, you want one more, having a great time. It is, they're just doing karaoke with like great lighting and like on a music video set. And you're like, yeah, I would probably, if they did three more songs, I would watch them.

• 1:25:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I just saw a note that you left in the in the outline, which is that's very interesting that Fernando is not included in this movie. And they just, at some point, we're gonna have to watch Mamma Mia 2.

• 1:26:01Sean Fennessey?

  Oh.

• 1:26:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Have I never told you how Fernando?

• 1:26:04Sean Fennessey?

  No, I know. Everybody on Letterboxd was like, this movie actually stinks, but 2 is like crack, like it's so good. So now I feel like I have to watch 2.

• 1:26:11Amanda Dobbins?

  2, and the way that Fernando is used in 2 is breathtaking.

• 1:26:17Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, great.

• 1:26:18Amanda Dobbins?

  It is, and I won't say anymore.

• 1:26:20Sean Fennessey?

  It's easily the number one song when I was like, what are they gonna do Fernando?

• 1:26:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Well, I like, I, I think I maybe did start applauding at the arc light, like alone when Fernando showed up. It's really, and I've definitely, by the way, told you what happens before on a podcast and you don't retain any of this information.

• 1:26:34Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, no, no knowledge of it, yeah. I'm emotionally detecting, but not informationally detecting.

• 1:26:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, I would like to do karaoke with all of these people. It seems really fun.

• 1:26:42Sean Fennessey?

  That's a, just a perfect way to kind of snapshot what the movie is, is it's just like really fun karaoke with actors that you enjoy. It's just not a bad idea for a movie, and maybe there should be other movies like this. You know, we get a lot of self-serious rock star biopics.

• 1:26:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:57Sean Fennessey?

  But the reason that Queen was so successful is because people were like, I want to fucking hear Queen songs in the movie theater.

• 1:27:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:03Sean Fennessey?

  I want to know what it was like to be alive.

• 1:27:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Bohemian Rhapsody.

• 1:27:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, what did I say?

• 1:27:06Amanda Dobbins?

  You said Queen.

• 1:27:07Sean Fennessey?

  Sorry, Bohemian Rhapsody.

• 1:27:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:08Sean Fennessey?

  Was so successful because of the songs and because of this, you know, portrayal of this band who we have a big relationship to. ABBA, very similar. I know, I guess this is, Michael is gonna be like this. Michael is gonna be, it's not gonna have any of the sense of humor.

• 1:27:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but it's, it's, it's a biopic. It's not. What's so nice about this is that it has nothing to do with the, I still don't know all the names of the ABBA people.

• 1:27:34Sean Fennessey?

  No, neither do I.

• 1:27:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, and I don't, I don't know what they're up to, what they're up to. I don't know if they're living or dead.

• 1:27:38Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:27:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 1:27:40Sean Fennessey?

  Should we call them?

• 1:27:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Are they, I don't know. Will they answer?

• 1:27:42Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know.

• 1:27:43Amanda Dobbins?

  They're in Sweden.

• 1:27:44Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like they have a lot of money.

• 1:27:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, yeah, I bet, I, I bet they do. Good for them.

• 1:27:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:49Amanda Dobbins?

  So I don't, I just know the music and the song, the movie just uses the music in like a funny and not hagiographic way, you know? It has fun with the music too. It's like, these are silly.

• 1:28:01Sean Fennessey?

  If you could do your own Mamma Mia.

• 1:28:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:04Sean Fennessey?

  What country and what artist?

• 1:28:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay. Hmm, well, the location is such a huge part of this, but I guess there's no reason it's Greek.

• 1:28:14Sean Fennessey?

  But ABBA's not Greek, right?

• 1:28:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, that's true, other than that's where they want to be. Uh, what country?

• 1:28:19Sean Fennessey?

  I can say that in terms of that part of the movie.

• 1:28:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:22Sean Fennessey?

  It's top shelf. Like, ABBA in Greece.

• 1:28:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:25Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I don't think you could have done better in terms of who the target audience for the movie was.

• 1:28:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I'm just thinking of like other Mediterranean islands at this point, you know? I'm, it's like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

• 1:28:35Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, music-wise, what would I do? Um, I gotta tell you, I really, I've been hitting like Rihanna radio on Spotify recently and having the time of my life.

• 1:28:48Sean Fennessey?

  Rihanna is an artist who would be very good for this.

• 1:28:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:50Sean Fennessey?

  Because every song is a party.

• 1:28:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:52Sean Fennessey?

  That's kind of the vibe that you need.

• 1:28:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:54Sean Fennessey?

  So Rihanna, like in Sicily, like where do you want to go?

• 1:28:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 1:28:58Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I mean, I guess if we're doing Rihanna, then you do Barbados, right?

• 1:29:01Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:29:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:02Sean Fennessey?

  Wow. Wow.

• 1:29:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:04Sean Fennessey?

  We should just develop this movie. That's a golden idea. Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put that in the back of my mind. Okay, you have a very important question.

• 1:29:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:12Sean Fennessey?

  At the end of this conversation.

• 1:29:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Now it's time to play. And this, you know, goes into, this movie ends.

• 1:29:18Amanda Dobbins?

  It's honestly, this movie has more balls than The Strangers because in the sense that there is no resolution. We don't know, the movie does not confirm who the father is. This movie understands that the greatest fear and the greatest power lies in not knowing.

• 1:29:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:29:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, it also under, I understand that people just wanna play who's the father. Like, like, you know, like Maury Povich understood before me. So now it's time to, do you know who the father is?

• 1:29:43Sean Fennessey?

  Is there, is there a definitive truth?

• 1:29:45Amanda Dobbins?

  That, so Felidia Lloyd and who, and Catherine Johnson have, have shared their opinions of who it is.

• 1:29:53Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, it's one of those.

• 1:29:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yesterday. Yeah, but, but I would like to know what you, what you think.

• 1:30:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I only learned this yesterday and I don't know whether I agree.

• 1:30:06Sean Fennessey?

  I feel that Occam's razor is Pierce Brosnan.

• 1:30:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, of course. I all, I've always assumed.

• 1:30:11Sean Fennessey?

  So I just, as a logical person.

• 1:30:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:14Sean Fennessey?

  I will go, that he gets the most backstory, he gets the most clarification of connectivity.

• 1:30:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:30:20Sean Fennessey?

  To Meryl Streep's character.

• 1:30:23Sean Fennessey?

  You just kinda buy that it's him, even if you don't know. And he also is just so like, over the moon for her, that it makes you more like comfortable with that idea. And also, he's very invested in the idea of giving away his daughter and he's very interested in that. And so like, you're kind of.

• 1:30:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:30:37Sean Fennessey?

  You're kind of rooting for that? I don't know, were you rooting for it when you were watching the movie?

• 1:30:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you're supposed to be rooting for it because ultimately, they were the, they were in love. And it was like their missed connection or whatever, and, and they wind up getting married.

• 1:30:51Sean Fennessey?

  What's the story when he's explaining how his wife married him to confirm that he was a fool? Even though he went back for the woman that he loved? I had some notes about that little line of dialogue. What was, this woman was gonna ruin her life to prove that her husband-to-be was an idiot?

• 1:31:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I think that just has like a little bit of like divorced aftertaste.

• 1:31:09Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:31:09Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 1:31:09Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:31:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, that it's like, he's.

• 1:31:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Doesn't think very highly of the decision-making process that either of them went through. And also, I think they probably said rude things to each other for 20 years.

• 1:31:21Sean Fennessey?

  I had an amazing conversation with Eileen after this movie, where I was like, where are you at on Pierce?

• 1:31:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:26Sean Fennessey?

  Because she's not a big Bond person. He's, you know, he's still very active, making a lot of movies. He was just in Thursday Murder Club, right? Um, and I was like, what do you think about him? And she was like, well, he's obviously incredibly handsome, but he's not my style of handsome. And she said, I also just don't think he would be interesting.

• 1:31:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 1:31:44Sean Fennessey?

  Which I thought was a unique way of taking out Pierce Brosnan.

• 1:31:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but does she know that he lived like outside Hanalei for like 25 years in on the North Shore of Kauai?

• 1:31:55Sean Fennessey?

  No, we love that place, too.

• 1:31:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, he was like there forever. And you would see him at the... Yeah, I do think he sold the place like fairly recently.

• 1:32:04Sean Fennessey?

  Where is he now?

• 1:32:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I don't know. He also has like a hundred million dollar property in Malibu or something. I didn't, I haven't checked on that in a couple of years.

• 1:32:12Sean Fennessey?

  Do you not think it's weird that you know this?

• 1:32:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, the Hanalei thing is like, he's very open about it. So if you ever go, Hanalei Bay is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been on vacation in my entire life. And if you're Googling like...

• 1:32:24Sean Fennessey?

  Would recommend it to anyone.

• 1:32:25Amanda Dobbins?

  What to do in Hanalei. They're like, maybe you'll see Pierce Brosnan at the coffee shop. So he's, he became sort of like an ambassador. He's been photographed there, et cetera. And then I think when I was Googling Pierce Brosnan in Hanalei, the other absolutely insane like hundred million dollar like spread in Malibu came up. And there's like a lot of architectural, you know, he's done a lot of Architectural Digest, which is how I know this.

• 1:32:48Sean Fennessey?

  I see, okay.

• 1:32:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, shout out to Kristen Stewart, debuting her purchase of the Highland Park Theater.

• 1:32:54Sean Fennessey?

  Unbelievable news.

• 1:32:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Architectural Digest, amazing stuff. I'm so excited. I drive by it all day.

• 1:32:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's five minutes from my house.

• 1:33:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I know. That's our preferred home state across the street.

• 1:33:03Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, it's like so crushing when that place closed, even though it was not a very good movie theater when it was open.

• 1:33:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I definitely, I saw a Super Mario Brothers movie there with a bunch of children and many mice. So it needed some work.

• 1:33:14Sean Fennessey?

  It needs work, but it's so cool that she's coming in and buying that movie theater, which for us is extremely local. Yeah, okay, so you know a lot about this. Who's the father? I'll just, I'll just say I think it's Pierce Brosnan.

• 1:33:24Amanda Dobbins?

  So I also thought it was Pierce Brosnan. What I learned is that the director and screenwriter think that it's Stellan Skarsgård.

• 1:33:32Amanda Dobbins?

  And the reason they think that is then-

• 1:33:34Sean Fennessey?

  He's got that super Swedish sperm.

• 1:33:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, and also because then he has like a Swedish, you know, he's Swedish. So Sophie has a connection to the music of ABBA. That was their reasoning. I thought that was really stupid, but then I was thinking about it.

• 1:33:47Sean Fennessey?

  But that assumes that the world of the movie knows that the ABBA songs are being sung. Like, that's just such a weird thing to say.

• 1:33:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't say that, but then if you think about, if you think about the order, I believe that according to the diary, the chain of events was Pierce Brosnan, Bill, Harry. So Pierce Brosnan, Sal Skarsgård, Colin Firth, and then she realized she was pregnant. So you have to assume, so if that's, if those are all before she realized she's pregnant, so that's all in one cycle, right? And so the middle person is going to be the closest to ovulation. So it probably does scientifically make sense. This has been Amanda's Science Quarter.

• 1:34:28Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, incredible work by you.

• 1:34:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you. I've had a lot of schooling on that particular science.

• 1:34:33Sean Fennessey?

  I do just want to say that at the end of the day, one, I do care what you think, but I do not care what the director and screenwriter think because they didn't write this musical. This is adapted from a musical.

• 1:34:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 1:34:43Sean Fennessey?

  Who, the person who wrote the musical should tell us who the father is if such information is available. But is that not revealed in Mamma Mia 2?

• 1:34:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Googling as fast as I can, okay? Well, Catherine Johnson also wrote the musical.

• 1:34:54Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:34:55Amanda Dobbins?

  So, let's see. Yeah. So she can decide. And I think it's different. I don't think that the Bill character is Swedish in the play.

• 1:35:03Sean Fennessey?

  Oh.

• 1:35:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, let's see. Oh my God, this is just like a long list of people who have played the, okay.

• 1:35:10Sean Fennessey?

  This is a tremendous amount of Googling from you in this episode.

• 1:35:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, he explains that he always loved her and years ago had ended his own engagement, only to find Donna had gone off with another man, Bill. So yet another, just kind of scientifically speaking, but it doesn't seem-

• 1:35:29Amanda Dobbins?

  That they reveal it. No. But the Waterloo is a part of the encore, the Waterloo performance.

• 1:35:35Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:35:35Amanda Dobbins?

  And the stage musical.

• 1:35:36Sean Fennessey?

  Well, thanks for sharing this movie with me. I I'm glad that I watched it. I liked it. I had fun.

• 1:35:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:44Sean Fennessey?

  I I do understand why it's a phenomenon.

• 1:35:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, now you know more about the world.

• 1:35:47Sean Fennessey?

  I do. I would never like be like, how dare you like a movie this stupid, right? It's like, that makes no sense. This is a movie that obviously gives people joy. I'm kind of intrigued by two, though I have no, it's, this is not like a Infinity War Endgame situation for me, where I'm like, I need to know what happens next. If I never see it, I'll die happy.

• 1:36:06Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's, can I tell you, it's both a prequel and a sequel.

• 1:36:09Sean Fennessey?

  I kind of hate that.

• 1:36:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I, it's, it's really overloaded.

• 1:36:13Sean Fennessey?

  Someone's playing young Merrill?

• 1:36:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh huh.

• 1:36:15Sean Fennessey?

  Who's playing young Merrill?

• 1:36:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Lily James. And they're in London and they're doing Donna and the Dinamose. They're a little like music group, so she does like a lot of performances. And then I don't remember what happened.

• 1:36:27Sean Fennessey?

  You might have to watch this this weekend.

• 1:36:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, they had to make it. Mamma Mia, Here We Go Again was sitting there waiting for them.

• 1:36:35Sean Fennessey?

  I was also thinking about how you could put Here We Go Again as like the the subtitle of many films and just make them much funnier, you know, just like Fast X colon, Here We Go Again, like that would just, it just makes everything funnier.

• 1:36:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Should we call this movie swap, Here We Go Again?

• 1:36:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we need the film titles in there.

• 1:36:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I know it's not good SEO, but it's good display writing.

• 1:36:52Sean Fennessey?

  SEO is dead, though, as we just learned from all this Googling that you did. It doesn't work anymore.

• 1:36:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I know.

• 1:36:56Sean Fennessey?

  It's fucking cratering the industry.

• 1:36:57Amanda Dobbins?

  It's true.

• 1:36:58Sean Fennessey?

  Any final thoughts about this movie?

• 1:37:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I, it does feel like you're a little more up to date with at least what was going on in 2008, if not the world at large. So that's good. I feel good. I feel like we've completed a part of your education.

• 1:37:14Sean Fennessey?

  Well, thanks for bringing me on the journey. That concludes this episode. So next week.

• 1:37:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:20Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting episode. I mentioned that we'll kind of watch the Super Bowl, at least for the trailers. We always talk about the trailers after that because they kind of roll out event movies for the rest of the year. We're going to the DGAs.

• 1:37:32Amanda Dobbins?

  We are.

• 1:37:33Sean Fennessey?

  So you and I have never been to an award show together. And I thought that this would be an exciting anthropological experience for us. How are you feeling about that?

• 1:37:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm excited.

• 1:37:42Sean Fennessey?

  Me too.

• 1:37:43Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, parents night out.

• 1:37:45Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 1:37:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And I've

• 1:37:46Sean Fennessey?

  Crazy Saturday.

• 1:37:47Amanda Dobbins?

  We got to talk about parking, but uh.

• 1:37:49Sean Fennessey?

  I was thinking of Ubering.

• 1:37:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well, then you can come pick me up on the way. We can carpool.

• 1:37:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you can pick me up, but sure.

• 1:37:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, that's fine. And then, um, I feel good. I have my outfits ready.

• 1:38:02Sean Fennessey?

  Mine is as well.

• 1:38:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:38:03Sean Fennessey?

  It's been dry cleaned.

• 1:38:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, good.

• 1:38:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm feeling good. Uh, I think the idea here will be, sure, we'll talk about the results of the show, but sort of like, what does a show like this feel like? Because we don't usually operate the way that so many Oscar pundits do, where they're like attending events and meeting and greeting and, you know, what's the vibe in the room? I'm personally not very interested in that.

• 1:38:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:24Sean Fennessey?

  But I am interested in directors. And I also like that this show is not televised. And so I'm curious if we get a different kind of energy. So yeah, that'll be next week. You excited?

• 1:38:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:36Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Thanks to Jack Sanders for his production work on this episode and we'll see you soon.

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