‘Lilo & Stitch,’ ‘Friendship,’ and the Top Five Movie Friends

Sean and Amanda start the show with a quick recap of all the awards handed out at the Cannes Film Festival and wonder what this year's ‘Anora’ could be (1:13). Then, they react to the biggest Memorial Day weekend box office in history and consider what it means for the industry going forward (7:34). Next, they discuss Disney’s newest live-action remake, ‘Lilo & Stitch,’ and explain why not only this specific movie but also this “genre” at large does not work for them (17:34). Finally, they cover A24’s strange but hilarious comedy ‘Friendship,’ starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd (43:20), and finish the episode with their top five favorite friendships in movie history (1:02:13). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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

• 0:35Sean Fennessey?

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

• 1:00Speaker 02

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• 2:10Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 2:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 2:11Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the big, picturesque conversation show about friends. Today on the show, we are diving into a pair of new releases about unlikely friendships. The Disney live-action remake, Lilo and Stitch, and the Tim Robinson comedy Friendship. These may not seem like a natural pairing, but we will illuminate the ways in which they are perfectly matched. We'll also share our favorite movie friendships, which is something I think we may have done a version of some years ago, but we're bringing it back in a slightly different register. But first, let's talk about Cannes. We talked about it last Friday. We hadn't seen any of the films. We did not attend.

• 2:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, still haven't seen any of the films.

• 2:44Sean Fennessey?

  Still haven't seen any of the films. I've seen a couple of trailers. I've seen some still photos.

• 2:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:48Sean Fennessey?

  We do have prizes. They gave out the prizes over the Memorial Day weekend. I'm gonna run through them very quickly for you. Just jump out and say, hey, this caught my eye, or I'm intrigued by this, okay? Here we go, Amanda. The Palme d'Or went to It Was a Simple Accident by Jafar Panahi.

• 3:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Neon extends its record to six straight Palme d'Ors.

• 3:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, they do. Can I throw a little cold water on that?

• 3:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 3:10Sean Fennessey?

  They acquired the rights to the film.

• 3:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 3:12Sean Fennessey?

  They didn't pay for the movie.

• 3:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's fine.

• 3:14Sean Fennessey?

  They didn't identify Jafar Panahi, you know, after No Bears and say, we want to fund your next film.

• 3:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 3:19Sean Fennessey?

  You know?

• 3:19Amanda Dobbins?

  No, but...

• 3:20Sean Fennessey?

  Due respect to them. They do a lot of great work and they distribute a lot of great movies.

• 3:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I meant more that they are, they are clearly able to read the Cannes jury and tea leaves in a way that no one else can.

• 3:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, I think...

• 3:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Because this is the one they acquired.

• 3:33Sean Fennessey?

  The, the real heads knew that Juliette Binoche, who was the, the president of the jury this year, was a longtime supporter of Panahi.

• 3:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 3:41Sean Fennessey?

  And that in all likelihood, she was gonna throw her weight behind the film in some way.

• 3:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:45Sean Fennessey?

  And she did, and it won the Palme d'Or.

• 3:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 3:46Sean Fennessey?

  I'm very excited to see this film. I actually have started a setup, like, how am I gonna go through all the Panahi films I've seen, the ones I haven't seen through the years? This is a movie that we'll probably be talking about over the next 12 months. I'm very excited to see it. The Grand Prix went to Sentimental Value.

• 3:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 4:00Sean Fennessey?

  Joachim Schirr's new movie.

• 4:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Very excited to see this film.

• 4:03Sean Fennessey?

  Me too. We don't have to say too much more about that. The jury prizes went to Serat, which is a Spanish film directed by Oliver Lacks. There is a trailer for this movie that I watched. It looks awesome. That's all I'm gonna say. It's about a father trying to find his daughter in the midst of like an EDM Burning Man situation in the middle of the desert.

• 4:22Amanda Dobbins?

  All right. How old is the daughter?

• 4:24Sean Fennessey?

  I would guess twenties.

• 4:25Amanda Dobbins?

  As soon as you started talking, I imagined you trying to find Alice, you know, and EDM at Burning Man. And I was like, well, kind of your fault for taking her.

• 4:33Sean Fennessey?

  It's a very fair point. I'm not sure how well Alice would do at Burning Man, but we can find that out soon. Yeah, it's not really her style. Sound of Falling, also a jury prize winner. And then Best Director went to Clay Bermondoka Filo for The Secret Agent, the new Wagner Moore movie. Actually, The Secret Agent won two films, or won two prizes because Wagner Moore also won Best Director. Kind of unusual, it can. You don't usually see a film get multiple prizes. They try to usually spread it around. Neon also has this movie.

• 4:59Sean Fennessey?

  They have every movie here that movie doesn't have, except for a couple. Additional awards, we mentioned Nadia Malidi from The Little Sister. She won Best Actress. And Best Screenplay went to the Dardens for Young Mothers. And there was a special award for Resurrection by Begon, Chinese filmmaker, and his film just got picked up by Janus. So that's gonna find its way into movie theaters probably at the end of this year. I would guess you'll see that movie at the New York Film Festival along with me. That's usually what happens when they pick up titles like this. And then the other big news out of this was that Netflix has acquired a film. They picked up Nouvelle Vague, the Richard Linklater movie. This is the third consecutive movie that Netflix has picked up from Linklater.

• 5:38Amanda Dobbins?

  After Hitman and?

• 5:41Sean Fennessey?

  Apollo Ten and a Half.

• 5:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 5:43Sean Fennessey?

  The animated film that you didn't see. And this is interesting because the film is obviously a love letter to the cinema as it's about the making of Godard's Breathless. And it will play on Netflix.

• 5:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you know, as Linklater said after they acquired Hitman, it's like they, they had the money. They wanted to buy it. And if, and other people are not throwing the money around. I mean, this is, as you noted, it's Netflix and Janus are the only two non-movie, non-Neon acquisitions at the whole festival. So the players are pretty defined. And if they were gonna go for it, then at least we'll get to see it.

• 6:23Sean Fennessey?

  I'm very excited to see it and I'm glad somebody is doing it. And I think my gut on this is that for Linklater and maybe Linklater's investors, the most important thing is to be able to continue to make movies.

• 6:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 6:32Sean Fennessey?

  And by selling these movies at what one assumes is a modest profit, I'll get to make more.

• 6:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 6:38Sean Fennessey?

  And I'd rather have the movies than worry about what it means specifically for how it's distributed.

• 6:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Can I tell you another way we could have seen this movie?

• 6:44Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 6:44Amanda Dobbins?

  If we had gone to Cannes. How are you feeling now? The critics generally have been saying it was a pretty great year.

• 6:51Sean Fennessey?

  That's not true. They have not been saying that.

• 6:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I feel like some have.

• 6:55Sean Fennessey?

  I think there's not like the fizz bang, I think, in the last couple of years. I think there's clearly like very good films. There's no doubt about that.

• 7:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 7:03Sean Fennessey?

  But I wouldn't.

• 7:04Amanda Dobbins?

  But like the fizz bang last year, once again, was Amelia Perez.

• 7:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 7:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And The Substance and Enora. Sure, but it's like, it does feel like there was a sense that there was like a lot of really good films at Cannes that we did not get to see.

• 7:17Sean Fennessey?

  That's definitely true. Let's use the powers of our ignorance to project whether or not there is an Enora or a The Substance in this year's slate.

• 7:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 7:28Sean Fennessey?

  Do you see anything that gives you the makings of not even just Best Picture contender, but potential phenomenon?

• 7:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I just, I want to shout out all our listeners in Brazil. It's your time again, The Secret Agent. They cannot be denied, you know?

• 7:42Sean Fennessey?

  It's a very good point.

• 7:43Amanda Dobbins?

  So, and two awards at Cannes suggests that there's something's going on there. I don't think it's the last time we'll be talking about Secret Agent. I don't think it's the last time we'll be talking about Sentimental Value, obviously, for a lot of reasons. Joaquin Trier, but also Stellan Skarsgård and Dakota Fanning. Like there is some crossover Hollywood.

• 8:02Sean Fennessey?

  Definitely.

• 8:02Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, like there's the bridge.

• 8:04Sean Fennessey?

  I've heard a little bit of scuttlebutt that there's a very interesting potential, it's time, Stellan Skarsgård situation where he's never been nominated for an Academy Award. He's appeared in, you know, more than a dozen truly great movies in both Hollywood and in Europe. And so this would be an interesting opportunity to kind of celebrate the arc of his career.

• 8:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally. And I do think we'll be talking about It Was A Simple Accident. I mean, that's going to be a really interesting Oscar campaign, just geopolitically.

• 8:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I mean, whether or not Panahi can even get over to the United States.

• 8:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, or whether he wants to, honestly.

• 8:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. He was greeted back in Iran this weekend like a hero, which is quite interesting because he obviously had been under house arrest for years there because of, you know, the activities making these films. So him even campaigning a movie like that is fascinating.

• 8:49Amanda Dobbins?

  But that is interesting, and I think also we'll kind of keep it in the conversation. So I don't know, that's, that seems like a good rundown.

• 8:56Sean Fennessey?

  Some cool stuff.

• 8:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:58Sean Fennessey?

  Cool stuff at the box office.

• 8:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Yeah, I guess so.

• 9:01Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it depends on, do you care about the box office succeeding? Or do you care about having good movies? Good movies was like, meh, I'm not so sure we had the best slate of films.

• 9:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, I look forward to talking about this on a qualitative perspective, but we can start with quantitative.

• 9:16Sean Fennessey?

  Let's start with quantitative.

• 9:17Amanda Dobbins?

  People really like going to the movies again, apparently.

• 9:19Sean Fennessey?

  They do, and they always did. And anytime we, or me, or anybody panics, it's always a little bit silly. You may recall that it was at this time last year, when I, I gave a little post Furiosa failure monologue.

• 9:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, yeah.

• 9:35Sean Fennessey?

  Which was, but to me.

• 9:36Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a, it's an annual big picture tradition.

• 9:38Sean Fennessey?

  It is, but to me, my intention with that monologue, which may, maybe I misframed it somehow, but was to sort of just be like, it's gonna be okay, like, just let's keep going to see movies. And like, one of the things I said, I seem to recall that I said was like, here are some new films that are coming out that we're excited about. Hey, Enora just won the pump. Sean Baker is a great director. Like, let's continue to be excited about these things. That there's always this intersection time-wise of the movies we haven't seen yet at Cannes that build anticipation, and the usually kind of blah Memorial Day weekend movies that are released.

• 10:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 10:12Sean Fennessey?

  So this weekend, we got this insane performance. Lilo and Stitch made $183 million domestically, which is almost surpassed what our individual predictions were

• 10:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 10:22Sean Fennessey?

  in the box office game for the entire domestic run.

• 10:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow.

• 10:25Sean Fennessey?

  So we, we both got that pretty darn wrong, but to me, that's okay.

• 10:29Amanda Dobbins?

  That's fine. Well, like, so what's going on with that?

• 10:32Sean Fennessey?

  I, I have a lot of theories.

• 10:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 10:34Sean Fennessey?

  Um, this movie is obviously a young millennial classic. Uh, it was released in 2002, so I was just talking with Arjuna Ramkapal, um, one of our, uh, pod managers here. And Arjuna said he was like 10 or 11 when the movie came out, and his wife was like seven or eight, I think he said. And the movie is like deeply meaningful to his wife. It's like one of her favorite movies, the original animated movie. And so when I went to go see the movie this weekend, I brought my daughter, there were kids there, but there were just a lot of couples, like couples in their twenties and thirties because they love this movie. So a lot of people showed out. It really touched in the same way that I think Inside Out Two touched a lot of nostalgia for people who had been younger when those films were released. We've also seen this, obviously, with the Minions movies and Despicable Me movies,

• 11:17Sean Fennessey?

  where like kids who were six are now 20.

• 11:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 11:20Sean Fennessey?

  When those films first started coming out and they're like, I'm gonna go see this movie. Of course, even though it's Minions Four and like the age thing isn't an issue. They just wanna be near this story. So this movie might end up becoming one of the highest grossing live action Disney movies of all time. Like in America, only two movies surpassed 365 million, The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast. And those are all time classics. But I think Lilo and Stitch is an all time classic for a demo that is directly beneath us.

• 11:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I do have like a less nostalgia based theory, which is just that Memorial Day is weirdly early this year. This was also like historically the biggest Memorial Day opening weekend of all time.

• 12:04Sean Fennessey?

  It was.

• 12:05Amanda Dobbins?

  But it does feel like because it is, I think, one of the earliest it can be in the calendar, a lot of schools aren't out yet, like a lot of people didn't travel. And I, and there was really also terrible weather throughout much of the country. And I do just feel like people, instead of using their holiday weekend to go on a trip, were just like, well, I guess we're at home and we're going to the movies. And I do wonder if there's like a little bit of, not a, not a fluke, but also.

• 12:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it contributed.

• 12:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 12:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think, I think that's totally makes sense. You did miss an incredible weather weekend in Los Angeles. It was amazing.

• 12:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, I'll tell you, I was in Boston and that sucked weather wise. And like.

• 12:42Sean Fennessey?

  Many people are saying.

• 12:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Lovely town, got to go to Fenway for the first time, beautiful wedding, congrats, Isaac and Sammy, who all, also, they picked a Star is Born sock for their first dits. It was absolutely.

• 12:52Sean Fennessey?

  That's great.

• 12:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Iconic stuff from them. But, but it was, it was cold.

• 12:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 12:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it was in summary.

• 12:58Sean Fennessey?

  There were plenty of people who were more than happy to ignore this. Seventy five and sunny weather that we had in LA to go see this movie too. I think, you know, this obviously comes in addition to the seventy seven million, the Mission Impossible.

• 13:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 13:10Sean Fennessey?

  Final reckoning made, which is a totally good Mission Impossible performance. It's kind of like exactly in line. It's the mean average of most of these movies. It's technically the biggest three day weekend, or I think it's technically the biggest three day weekend than a Mission Impossible movie has ever had. But it had IMAX screens and, you know, it's like, these movies don't usually, yeah, inflation. They don't usually don't open on Memorial Day. They're usually, I think, July movies. The first film and the second film were both Memorial Day weekend and none since. So there's, there's a more of an open crowd coming to this. Memorial Day is usually where I think of franchises like going to die, like Pirates of the Caribbean and Fast Six and Men in Black Three.

• 13:51Sean Fennessey?

  And a lot of movies that open where they're like, ah, the, the franchise isn't dead yet, but it's kind of like entering its final era. So maybe it's fitting that Mission closed things out. I'm just gonna ask you again, since we spoke about it last week, like, is, does this result make you feel any differently about whether or not this will be the last Mission Impossible movie?

• 14:10Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I think it's just mediocre enough to not be indicative, you know? If it had been an absolute sensation, if it had been Lilo and Stitch, then that we would know they would make another one. If it were DOA, I think we would know that probably they don't. But, you know, Paramount hasn't settled anything and.

• 14:28Sean Fennessey?

  That's a big part of it. You're right.

• 14:30Amanda Dobbins?

  And this is just like, fine, and maybe people will keep going to see it. I was surprised to see the cinema score was an A minus.

• 14:36Sean Fennessey?

  I was too.

• 14:37Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, and.

• 14:38Sean Fennessey?

  We got some feedback on our conversation, which was pretty in-depth about what didn't work for us, even though weirdly, I think we both were like, this is pretty good.

• 14:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, we got a lot of feedback of that, of people being like, well, you shouldn't have taken it so seriously in the first place, to which I say, find another podcast.

• 14:52Sean Fennessey?

  Disagree, yeah, completely disagree with that.

• 14:54Amanda Dobbins?

  But people do seem pleased or like into it, which, you know, it helps that the biplane is the last stunt. We, we walked out being like, wow.

• 15:01Sean Fennessey?

  You walk out high, and I think that always helps in these circumstances. It's the same feeling I had when I saw Final Destination Bloodlines, which has now made ninety five million dollars in eleven days.

• 15:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I did guess pretty high on that one.

• 15:12Sean Fennessey?

  Not that high.

• 15:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Not this high, but like at least I'm gonna get closer, you know?

• 15:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think I guessed 46 million total for that film and it beat it in one week.

• 15:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:20Sean Fennessey?

  You know, this movie was originally supposed to be an HBO Max original. This wasn't even supposed to be in theaters, which is the same, the same is true also of the Evil Dead movie that came out two years ago, which also went on to great box office success. Also true of Smile, which came out three years ago, which was supposed to be for Paramount Plus. The lesson, as always, put your horror movies in movie theaters. I mean, if you have even like a mid-budget horror movie with a decent marketing campaign, people want to go see these movies. It helps that Bloodlines is a ton of fun, but this is unusual for the sixth edition of an old franchise.

• 15:55Amanda Dobbins?

  This is why I was trying to figure out, okay, so like what's going on? Why is everyone at the movies?

• 15:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's another factor.

• 16:00Amanda Dobbins?

  What are the social, and I guess TV is sort of in a, in a down slump right now unless you're into Last of Us. I know it just finished, but there's not that much going on. I, there's some sports.

• 16:13Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, the rehearsal, season two just ended.

• 16:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, sure, yes.

• 16:15Sean Fennessey?

  It is, it is an extraordinary piece of television.

• 16:17Amanda Dobbins?

  What do you think the overlap is between the rehearsal and Final Destination Bloodline? Like probably larger than you would think?

• 16:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think for socially damaged, like old millennials, it's really high.

• 16:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah.

• 16:31Sean Fennessey?

  I think it actually has more in common, given its aviation theme this season with Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning.

• 16:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, right.

• 16:38Sean Fennessey?

  There's a lot of.

• 16:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I gotta watch the Sully episode. I've heard, I've heard. I'm catching up.

• 16:43Sean Fennessey?

  Very strange and kind of magical season in that only Nathan Fielder could have done something like that. But, uh, other movies that, that are still going, I mean, Sinners is still going.

• 16:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 16:52Sean Fennessey?

  260 million, over 300 million internationally. This is pre-PVOD. This movie's gonna end up making a shit ton of money.

• 16:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I was interviewing the younger generation at this wedding that I went to.

• 17:01Sean Fennessey?

  Did they see Sinners?

• 17:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, yeah, and it was, and it was a high school senior who I asked like, how many movies do you go see in theaters? And he's like, I went to Sinners and that's the first movie I'd been to in a long time.

• 17:10Sean Fennessey?

  No kidding?

• 17:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but he's also into the rehearsal, so.

• 17:13Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, another Venn diagram.

• 17:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, shout out Max.

• 17:16Sean Fennessey?

  That's beautiful, Max. Thank you. Thunderbolts, it's probably gonna get to about 190 million. There was a report that went up about right before we started recording, which someone just texted me that said Thunderbolts was gonna lose 100 million dollars. I don't really know what that means. We had the same conversation about Sinners, but the fact that that's getting out in the world probably means it's ultimately considered a big disappointment. And I did say on the Brave New World podcast.

• 17:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 17:41Sean Fennessey?

  If we get a few of these in a row, we can officially say this is over insofar as the centrality of it.

• 17:48Amanda Dobbins?

  But isn't it all riding on Fantastic Four?

• 17:50Sean Fennessey?

  It is. It is. And if that underperforms, whatever that means financially, then I think it's safe to say we're in a new era where these movies will continue to exist. They will always have fans, but building entire content plans around them.

• 18:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 18:05Sean Fennessey?

  Will be gone.

• 18:06Amanda Dobbins?

  We'll be set free.

• 18:08Sean Fennessey?

  We'll still see the movies. You know, you went to go see Lilo and Stitch.

• 18:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I did, I myself at 7:15 on a Monday night. And there were a lot of people there without children. So a lot of couples, yeah.

• 18:19Sean Fennessey?

  What could have been if you had not had children? You could have been seeing that film without even thinking about your children.

• 18:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's exactly what would have happened.

• 18:25Sean Fennessey?

  Sliding doors, you know? Uh, just a remarkable weekend for the box office. That's setting aside, we're going to talk about Friendship later. That movie did really well for an indie. The Last Rodeo is an Angel Studios movie that Neil McDonough, I think, wrote and directed and stars in. They made like 7.5 million dollars. People just showed up at the movies. Maybe your theory is right. It's clearly, um, I don't know. It's just people want to see movies, man. It's not, it's not that complicated. And we've now fully shifted away from, we gotta send our movies straight to streamers. Like, that's not happening anymore. There's, it just doesn't make, they're leaving money on the table every time they do that. So that's exciting.

• 18:58Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Speaking of money, let's talk about Lilo and Stitch.

• 19:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 19:01Sean Fennessey?

  This is a live action remake of the 2002 film that I mentioned. This, the original film is from Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, who went on to make the How to Train Your Dragon movies. Chris Sanders just had huge success last year with The Wild Robot.

• 19:17Sean Fennessey?

  Dean Fleischer Camp is the director of this film.

• 19:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And also the co-creator with Jenny Slate of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.

• 19:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, they were once a couple. They're no longer together. This is his first film since that film. Stars Maya Kehloha, Sidney Elizabeth Agadong, Billy Magnussen, Hannah Wattingham. Incredible weekend for Hannah Wattingham. Courtney B. Vance, incredible weekend for the Courtney B. Vance, Angela Bassett household. Zach Galifianakis. And then Tia Carrera, Amy Hill and Jason Scott Lee are back in supporting roles. They had voice work in the original film.

• 19:51Sean Fennessey?

  What did you think of Lilo and Stitch live action?

• 19:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Qualitatively.

• 19:56Sean Fennessey?

  Qualitatively.

• 19:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I was sort of offended by this movie.

• 20:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I was offended. So the little girl is very cute, Maya Kilaue, and Stitch was cute as well.

• 20:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I definitely saw the first film probably in theaters, and I guess in some ways, this is a very faithful recreation. But I think they also changed certain things for plot purposes. I was just talking to another millennial colleague, Tate Frazier, in the lobby.

• 20:24Sean Fennessey?

  Did Tate see it?

• 20:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Tate saw it.

• 20:26Sean Fennessey?

  No kidding.

• 20:26Amanda Dobbins?

  And yeah, and he was like, they changed everything to like, make me mad.

• 20:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Arjuna said something similar.

• 20:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:33Sean Fennessey?

  I think particularly the ending is really rankling people.

• 20:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that bothered Tate as well, and we can talk about it. But I just thought that whatever changes they made to the plot in order to introduce new characters, and I guess up the stakes, or make the stakes make sense, once you have live humans,

• 20:57Amanda Dobbins?

  were offensive and hurtful to both Lilo, Stitch, and me, you know? Like, and Nani, the teenager. Like, let's just help them, you know? Like, let's help everybody. Like, what are we doing? You know? Like, why can't the neighbors just pitch in? Like, I don't really think that child services is like, working that hard in this one, you know? Like, what about some daycare, you know? Like, what about universal health insurance? It doesn't matter. I was just really pissed off. I was like, this seems very rude to everyone involved. And just let them be nice and a happy family.

• 21:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. You know what movie it reminded me of a little bit is The Florida Project?

• 21:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, no shit. Seriously. I was like, what's going on?

• 21:43Sean Fennessey?

  Where it is incredibly dramatic about the future of a six-year-old girl's life, and the way that she is not being cared for and the way that she should be.

• 21:51Sean Fennessey?

  The movie is weirdly very similar to the original, but also has made an effort to amplify the tension in a way that is like, so common.

• 22:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 22:01Sean Fennessey?

  Or like, all Disney movies are all about like, a child separated from their parents, or their parent has died, and so that they need to figure out how to live their life safely while also not having a parent. But...

• 22:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think the collision of that with animated aliens roaming free through the Hawaiian vista is

• 22:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 22:21Sean Fennessey?

  A little bit strange. I thought, to me, this is kind of a classic nothing of a movie. And I was just sharing with Jack that I saw it with Alice and she was very excited to see it. We had seen the original together, probably about a year ago. And I wouldn't say it was one of her favorite movies of all time, but it's a movie that she liked. And who doesn't like Stitch? Like, he's just a very effective character. And during the film, very engaged, like leaping onto her mom or like laying on my lap. Like she was scared. She was kind of showing us how engaged.

• 22:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it seemed very upsetting.

• 22:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there were parts that were a little intense for her. It's PG, not G. But after the movie ended, we heard nothing about it. No conversation, no, I liked this part, no, I'm into this character, no, can you buy me this?

• 23:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 23:02Sean Fennessey?

  Which is unusual because there's this insane wave of Lilo and Stitch merchandising. This was written about in the New York Times recently that like this film over that 20-plus year period has become a real cash cow for Disney.

• 23:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Like in what, like, take me through the products?

• 23:18Sean Fennessey?

  Plushies, like

• 23:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so little Stitch.

• 23:21Sean Fennessey?

  Dishware, like literally you can put Stitch on anything and kids will want it.

• 23:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, got it.

• 23:25Sean Fennessey?

  And so

• 23:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Not like the Lilo and Stitch resort where you can go on vacation?

• 23:30Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I'm going to Disneyland next week. I'll let you know.

• 23:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah, that's right.

• 23:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, so I'm sure there will be a really deep Lilo and Stitch presence. Lilo, I think, is a character that is like tremendously relatable for my daughter. You know, she's like a very

• 23:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:44Sean Fennessey?

  Tough, independent-minded, like a little alienating at times. She's like, and very, um, very focused on what she wants to accomplish. And I could see her like getting really invested. Anytime something was going bad for Lilo, she was into it. But the fact that it drifted away from her, usually like what did my daughter think doesn't really matter on this podcast. This is an instance where I think it does matter because this movie is targeted really close to her. And I think the movie being such a smash phenomenon, but also older millennials and super young kids being a little bit mixed on it. I think it's really hitting for like nine and 10 year olds. That was the impression I was getting.

• 24:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 24:20Sean Fennessey?

  That they love, that they're loving it purely the same way that they were loving Minecraft. And that the silliness of it and the slapstick quality of Stitch was playing really well. And that's kind of all that matters. And they'll probably see it a second and third time. But if you're on either end of that spectrum.

• 24:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 24:36Sean Fennessey?

  It's not a success.

• 24:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I, I guess there is a lot of slapstick, but even Stitch doesn't get to do that much. You know, he.

• 24:45Sean Fennessey?

  They kind of show us all the Stitch moments in the trailer.

• 24:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, he's being like hunted for a while and is hiding and he, he barely gets to dance.

• 24:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 24:53Amanda Dobbins?

  He barely gets to have any fun.

• 24:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, a little bit less Elvis than I was hoping.

• 24:57Amanda Dobbins?

  And a little bit more CIA and intergalactic council.

• 25:02Sean Fennessey?

  So I think in the original film, Courtney B. Vance's character is retired CIA. Right? Isn't that the idea? That he's not actually CIA any longer?

• 25:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought that the, the social worker is actually CIA.

• 25:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, there, I think he's retired CIA and he works as a social worker. But in this movie, he's like pretending to be a social worker.

• 25:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 25:23Sean Fennessey?

  And so it, it's like, it is kind of Men in Black where you're like, is this government agency going to get involved with the acquisition of this alien? Just a little convoluted.

• 25:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And but, and it also adds in another adult who's there, uh, just preying on them instead of helping the situation. There's just like a lot of adults in here being like.

• 25:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 25:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Why don't you just help this nice young woman who wants to be a marine biologist and is trying her best? And her six year old little girl who just wants to do hula. And you know, the kind of the crazy dog who's actually an alien.

• 25:55Sean Fennessey?

  So as I said, this story structure is very familiar, like Lassie, ET, the Black Stallion. Like there are tons of examples of little kid. You know, Creature of Some Kind, or Unusual Friend, or Alien, or what have you. Um, do you like these movies? Like, is it like a subgenre that appeals to you at all?

• 26:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I really like E.T. And I, I guess so there, it, there, the idea of a little kid who needs a friend and then a friend comes and helps them and, and whatever form a friend it is, is nice. I think the older I get, the more focused I am on the failures of all the adults around them. So it's hard to enjoy them.

• 26:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 26:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, but it also like, at least E.T. is aligned on how all the adults are screwing up. And they just cast them definitively as the bad people. So it's easier to understand why these two people need each other. Um, and what are other? I don't know. I like A Friendly Creature. You know?

• 27:03Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 27:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, I'm open to it.

• 27:04Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, there's a ton of examples, not just, like, post-E.T. There were at least a dozen studio movies that were about aliens coming to this planet and befriending, you know, Mac and Me is their like ongoing bit with Paul Rudd and Conan O'Brien. I don't know if you know this.

• 27:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:18Sean Fennessey?

  So there's so many examples of these kinds of movies. Done poorly, they're really cringey, sentimental and dreadful. Done well, they basically will touch your soul. You know, E.T. is one of the most, The Black Stallion is a beautiful movie. Like, there, there are beautiful versions of it. It's so funny that this one popped from Disney and the fact that 25 years later, they're remaking it. Because the movies that were coming out from Disney animated features at this time are notoriously either not good or were failures. Because it was happening simultaneous to the rise of Pixar. So.

• 27:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 27:49Sean Fennessey?

  Toy Story comes in 95. And then the late 90s and early 2000s for Disney animated features are like Atlantis, The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, Home on the Range. These movies are more or less forgotten. Like, they have no cult following. Or if they do, it's very small. And Lilo and Stitch somehow emerged as this like all time classic now.

• 28:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I think Lilo and Stitch also broke through in a ti- broke through at the time in a way that those others did not.

• 28:18Sean Fennessey?

  It did.

• 28:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Because I was, you know, in high school at that point and I have never seen any of those films you just.

• 28:23Sean Fennessey?

  That's so interesting.

• 28:24Amanda Dobbins?

  But I did see Lilo and Stitch because it was like a thing. And it is a little bit of like the George Lucas. They just got the creature, right?

• 28:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:31Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, and it's just like the, the, whether it's R2-D2 or what are the new ones? Porgs? Pugs? What? You remember? Pug is no, that old podcast.

• 28:39Sean Fennessey?

  I think it was Porgs, yeah, from Star Wars.

• 28:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're just the, the thing that turns into the plushie that you can sell. But they nailed it with Stitch.

• 28:47Sean Fennessey?

  Agreed. Um, there's definitely a little bit of gizmo from Gremlins going on here, too. And Zach Gilligan's relationships with those characters.

• 28:54Amanda Dobbins?

  And, you know, like, uh, Baby Yoda, what are we, what's his real name?

• 28:58Sean Fennessey?

  Grogu.

• 28:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Grogu is not like unrelated to Stitch, you know? You can see the lineage.

• 29:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, true.

• 29:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Through Grogu to David Copperfield's alien.

• 29:09Sean Fennessey?

  We should do the evolution of man, uh, poster chain, but all just like creatures who become friends with characters in the Disney universe. Uh, I did want to give some love to Billy Magnuson. I thought he was really funny in this.

• 29:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Really funny.

• 29:21Sean Fennessey?

  Um, he plays Pleakley, who is an alien who gets a cloaking device that allows him to turn into a human who looks like Billy Magnuson.

• 29:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 29:28Sean Fennessey?

  He just what, knew what kind of movie he was in, you know? He has like a, a slapstick comedy quality that I think is in direct contrast to his handsomeness.

• 29:37Amanda Dobbins?

  He's also the friendly alien. And so he's like the quote unquote earth expert.

• 29:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 29:41Amanda Dobbins?

  And is so happy to be there. So there is like a, you know, he, he can play the comedy, but also the, the, he's not mean. You know, he's not shooting anyone. He's just like wearing funny clothes.

• 29:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 29:54Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's good. It's.

• 29:56Sean Fennessey?

  This is an unkind question, but I'm just gonna ask it. Did Zach Galifianakis get veneers?

• 30:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I did note, I thought that it was a change in facial hair.

• 30:04Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 30:04Amanda Dobbins?

  But I do know what you're saying. I did notice something.

• 30:07Sean Fennessey?

  A little different.

• 30:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Go, I did notice something going on in this area. I thought it was like maybe a goatee inside of it.

• 30:13Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 30:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Here's what I want to say.

• 30:14Sean Fennessey?

  Distracted.

• 30:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. I, Chapel Rohn said this first, but I agree with her. I think that we need to.

• 30:22Sean Fennessey?

  A nightmarish formulation.

• 30:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Um. Venires are okay. Let people get bad veneers, is my opinion.

• 30:29Sean Fennessey?

  I have.

• 30:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I know, but it's like now become the thing.

• 30:30Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not making a negative comment. It just, it looked like he had veneers.

• 30:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, which, I mean, that happens to people. That's how dentists make money. Um, and.

• 30:38Sean Fennessey?

  It's not the only way that they make money.

• 30:40Amanda Dobbins?

  All that way is scamming you, so.

• 30:42Sean Fennessey?

  No, you and dentists need to talk it out. You guys need to talk it out.

• 30:46Amanda Dobbins?

  They need to come up with a, a, a business proposal that isn't just lying to everyone all the time, you know?

• 30:53Sean Fennessey?

  Fair enough.

• 30:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, but that's fine. I think it's okay if people get veneers.

• 30:57Sean Fennessey?

  You've never been more out of your depth than your dental rants.

• 31:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, no, I'm not out of my depth.

• 31:02Sean Fennessey?

  These are not, people have serious problems.

• 31:05Amanda Dobbins?

  If you have pain, they can help. But otherwise, they're just, like, they're just paying you to use an electric toothbrush and then, like, shame you, you know? Like, on you. I can do it at home. That's what it is.

• 31:14Sean Fennessey?

  You know, you don't like to be told what to do, and if you're doing something wrong, you really don't like that.

• 31:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Let me show you how to floss. I know how to floss, by the way. Like, show, again, show me the double-blind studies on flossing. Show me, okay? They don't exist.

• 31:27Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, you're looking at one. They've made a dramatic improvement in my teeth health.

• 31:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that's great.

• 31:31Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I, I, I love a strong take.

• 31:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:34Sean Fennessey?

  That's one in particular where I have no idea what you're talking about. Dental work has radically changed millions of people's lives in this country and around the world. Moving on, um, the live-action remake thing. We've talked about, actually, almost every one on this pod.

• 31:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Except for Snow White.

• 31:50Sean Fennessey?

  We didn't talk, I still haven't seen it.

• 31:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I haven't either.

• 31:52Sean Fennessey?

  I, I think I was away when it came out, and Alice went to go see it without me.

• 31:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, yeah, I think that was rewatchable store.

• 31:58Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, right. So maybe when it hits D+, we can have a three-hour conversation about Rachel Zegler's politics.

• 32:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 32:02Sean Fennessey?

  Um, generally, the live-action remakes are, um, painfully bad to me.

• 32:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:10Sean Fennessey?

  I, I really, really don't like this trend. And I thought after Snow White, maybe it was coming to a close.

• 32:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:17Sean Fennessey?

  And it's not.

• 32:18Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 32:19Sean Fennessey?

  It's not coming to a close. It's gonna continue because this movie is so big.

• 32:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, what's left on the table?

• 32:24Sean Fennessey?

  Great question. I'm glad you asked.

• 32:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Oh, boy.

• 32:27Sean Fennessey?

  You know, there's nothing actually currently in production, as far as I know. One thing I did note is that this is the fifth, is it the fifth? Fifth consecutive movie that Disney Studios has released that has either been a sequel, a live-action remake, or both.

• 32:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 32:45Sean Fennessey?

  Inside Out 2, Moana 2, The Lion King Mufasa, Snow White, and now this. Three of the next four are also either sequels, live action remix, or both. The one original is Elio.

• 32:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 32:59Sean Fennessey?

  And then Freaky or Friday, Tron Ares, which honestly looks sick, so it's all good. And Zootopia 2. The Zootopia 2 trailer in the studio, in the, in the movie theater? Bananas Town. Kids are losing their minds for the Zootopia 2 teaser.

• 33:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Dead silent in my theater.

• 33:15Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 33:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, cuz there were, and well, there was-

• 33:16Sean Fennessey?

  It's all adults.

• 33:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, all adults.

• 33:18Sean Fennessey?

  At night.

• 33:18Amanda Dobbins?

  And there are no words. And it was just people, what's-

• 33:20Sean Fennessey?

  Did you like that bop, that EDM jam that they were playing?

• 33:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I liked the little creatures who came out and played the keyboard. That part was good.

• 33:26Sean Fennessey?

  Have you seen Zootopia?

• 33:27Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I was gonna ask you, what's it about?

• 33:30Sean Fennessey?

  It's about a young rabbit who, uh, I believe is a police officer, and she has to investigate a case. And she brings in a fox character to help her research the case. It's kinda like-

• 33:42Amanda Dobbins?

  But like, what's the-

• 33:43Sean Fennessey?

  Chinatown meets Peter Rabbit.

• 33:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, but are they in a zoo?

• 33:49Sean Fennessey?

  No, they live in a world full of animals. Zootopia is the world.

• 33:53Amanda Dobbins?

  So Zootopia is the world.

• 33:54Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 33:55Amanda Dobbins?

  But because it rhymes with utopia, not because it's a zoo.

• 33:59Sean Fennessey?

  Bit of both.

• 34:00Amanda Dobbins?

  And, but how is the world organized?

• 34:03Sean Fennessey?

  It's a wonderful question. Let's bring in the, uh, Chamber of Commerce from Zootopia, Jim Animal. Uh, I don't know, it's like-

• 34:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it just like us? Is it like-

• 34:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, they all have jobs.

• 34:13Amanda Dobbins?

  It's like Richard Scary vibes where, uh, you know, everyone, it's just like the pigs and like-

• 34:18Sean Fennessey?

  So you're not familiar with the sloth bit from Zootopia?

• 34:20Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 34:21Sean Fennessey?

  You don't know the sloth joke?

• 34:22Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 34:22Sean Fennessey?

  Jack, do you know the sloth joke from Zootopia? Yeah, vaguely. It's just, it's old, it's an iconic animated movie bit.

• 34:29Amanda Dobbins?

  All right, do you wanna tell me what it is?

• 34:30Sean Fennessey?

  Why don't you watch it in real time?

• 34:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 34:32Sean Fennessey?

  I'll vamp while you're watching it.

• 34:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Sloth, Zootopia, YouTube, okay.

• 34:37Sean Fennessey?

  And if you're amused, that's great. Try to not listen to it too loud, so we don't get any bleed here.

• 34:41Amanda Dobbins?

  The sloth laughing?

• 34:42Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, yes.

• 34:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 34:44Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you just spoiled it for yourself, but I guess you had to search for it.

• 34:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it's the title of the thing. Oh, I think I've seen this guy and he, hold on. Oh, and he's going like this.

• 34:53Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think about a sloth?

• 34:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I don't really have any feelings about them one way or the other.

• 35:01Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 35:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that it's a live and let live situation for me.

• 35:04Sean Fennessey?

  So if you saw one in the street, you wouldn't murder it?

• 35:07Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I don't need to interact with it or put it in a zoo either. I think I would be frustrated if it were in a consumer facing role in my, in the world that I lived in.

• 35:18Sean Fennessey?

  A consumer facing role.

• 35:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, this is what I'm looking at, at the movie.

• 35:20Sean Fennessey?

  There are no humans in the film Zootopia, so no, no need to worry about facing this sloth.

• 35:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so it, the bit is just, oh, okay, yeah, I, I think I've seen this meme.

• 35:30Sean Fennessey?

  I believe it was in the trailer.

• 35:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's funny. Yeah. And he's laughing. Okay. I, I'm familiar.

• 35:35Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 35:36Amanda Dobbins?

  That's great.

• 35:37Sean Fennessey?

  Not sold on Zootopia 2. Disney is running the same playbook they've been running for 15 years.

• 35:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh huh.

• 35:46Sean Fennessey?

  It's pretty depressing.

• 35:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 35:50Sean Fennessey?

  I don't have any follow-up comments.

• 35:52Amanda Dobbins?

  The other trailers that I saw were for Elio, which is just.

• 35:57Sean Fennessey?

  I hope that's good.

• 35:58Amanda Dobbins?

  But it is also like fancy boy, Lilo and Stitch, so that's fine.

• 36:01Sean Fennessey?

  Fancy boy?

• 36:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Not fancy boy, fancy, and I like, you know, Pixar high art.

• 36:07Sean Fennessey?

  Fancy, comma, italicized boy.

• 36:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 36:11Sean Fennessey?

  Dash.

• 36:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Because Elio is, is a boy.

• 36:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 36:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, Lilo and Stitch.

• 36:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 36:15Amanda Dobbins?

  And I guess like, it's like a home and away situation.

• 36:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. What if Stitch dragged Lilo to another planet?

• 36:22Amanda Dobbins?

  But that's fine. I mean, there are no new ideas under the sun. Freaky Friday, watch the trailer. I, listen, I'm happy for Lindsay.

• 36:29Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm. It looks like a yogurt commercial.

• 36:31Amanda Dobbins?

  It does. It, it does actually look like one of the Jamie Lee Curtis yogurt commercials. So that is tough.

• 36:37Sean Fennessey?

  Will we do an episode on Freaky Friday? I feel like it's gonna be a hit.

• 36:40Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be on leave again, so maybe we'll do it at the end of the, at the end of August. Yeah.

• 36:46Sean Fennessey?

  No, we should do it five years from now.

• 36:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 36:47Sean Fennessey?

  Just circle back.

• 36:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I don't know what's up with Tron Ares, but I'm happy for you or sorry that happened.

• 36:53Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I'm extremely excited because one, apparently Tron has gotten into the real world, which just sounds like

• 37:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 37:00Sean Fennessey?

  crazy town. Uh, two, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross did the score.

• 37:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I'm excited about that.

• 37:05Sean Fennessey?

  That's enough for me. Jared Leto, you know.

• 37:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:08Sean Fennessey?

  Not ideal.

• 37:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 37:09Sean Fennessey?

  Not exactly what I wanted.

• 37:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:10Sean Fennessey?

  In Tron Ares, you know. That could have been, who could that have been?

• 37:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm, I'm just so.

• 37:15Sean Fennessey?

  That could have been Joe Pantoliano.

• 37:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 37:17Sean Fennessey?

  Instead, it was Jared Leto.

• 37:19Amanda Dobbins?

  So Jared Leto as Ares?

• 37:21Sean Fennessey?

  I think he's the villain. I don't know.

• 37:23Amanda Dobbins?

  That's what it says.

• 37:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, sure.

• 37:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, Jared Leto as Ares, Greta Lee as Eve Kim.

• 37:28Sean Fennessey?

  Love her.

• 37:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Evan Peters as Julian Dillinger.

• 37:31Sean Fennessey?

  Julian Dillinger?

• 37:32Amanda Dobbins?

  That's what it says.

• 37:33Sean Fennessey?

  Is that a reference to John Dillinger? Is that John Dillinger's great big grandson?

• 37:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm just reading the cast list on Wikipedia.com.

• 37:39Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Is Jeff Bridges in the film? For Christ's sake?

• 37:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, Kevin Flynn.

• 37:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 37:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I remember him. Gillian Anderson is apparently in this.

• 37:48Sean Fennessey?

  Gillian Anderson? Yeah, she's seen in the trailer looking ominously out of a giant building. You think Tron Ares will be better or worse than Lilo and Stitch?

• 37:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's a great question. So Tron Ares follows a highly sophisticated program Ares, who is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind's first encounter with AI beings. I'm gonna say worse.

• 38:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Tron Ares is being released on October 10th, AKA Venomous Stars Born Weekend.

• 38:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, great. Okay.

• 38:20Sean Fennessey?

  Should be pretty interesting. What else is coming out that weekend? Animal Friends, an animated movie created by Ryan Reynolds.

• 38:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah. So you'll, you'll be there, front row.

• 38:28Sean Fennessey?

  Also coming out that weekend.

• 38:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm excited for your voice performance in that.

• 38:30Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you. I play a sloth.

• 38:34Sean Fennessey?

  After the Hunt is also coming out that weekend.

• 38:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yay.

• 38:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yay.

• 38:40Sean Fennessey?

  Lilo and Stitch, it's gonna make $400 million in America.

• 38:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 38:45Sean Fennessey?

  I got no problem with it.

• 38:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 38:47Sean Fennessey?

  I will, I hope people enjoy things.

• 38:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 38:49Sean Fennessey?

  They should be able to enjoy things.

• 38:52Amanda Dobbins?

  It's fine. I mean, I, again, I think all the adults around should do something to help this family, but.

• 38:57Sean Fennessey?

  When.

• 38:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, we didn't talk about the ending.

• 39:00Sean Fennessey?

  The change in the end. Okay.

• 39:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, spoiler.

• 39:03Sean Fennessey?

  New Lilo and Stitch spoiled for you.

• 39:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Spoiler.

• 39:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 39:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 39:05Sean Fennessey?

  The ending in particular, the notes that I've heard from hardcore fans is the idea that Nani, her older sister, who I thought was really good in this movie.

• 39:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I did as well.

• 39:15Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, the performances in general, I think are pretty good in the movie. Leaves Lilo and Stitch and allows her to live with her neighbor and she goes off to college.

• 39:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:27Sean Fennessey?

  Which is a change from the original story. Is there more about the ending that you found disquieting?

• 39:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I wasn't that upset with it, but all everyone who is so loyal to the 2002 film is really upset that this young woman's getting an education, which I, you know.

• 39:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 39:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know if that's my take. She's going to San Diego, it's not that far.

• 39:52Sean Fennessey?

  If Barbie can get a hysterectomy, this woman can go to college, that's what I say. That's what she's getting at the end of Barbie, right?

• 39:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I was gonna say, is that what she's getting? Hold on, I'm just pulling up the, Jack, do you remember what happens at the very end? Wow, okay, all right, just, just. No, no, no, no, in the original, Lilo and Stitch. Okay, they just rebuild the house. Maybe there's nothing about going to college, I guess, in the original?

• 40:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I believe that's right.

• 40:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 40:26Sean Fennessey?

  I've seen the movie.

• 40:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I have too, but many years. I think it's okay if this young woman wants to go pursue higher education.

• 40:37Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 40:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And I honestly just don't understand why the neighbors didn't step in sooner.

• 40:41Sean Fennessey?

  Native Hawaiian Gen Z women can have it all.

• 40:44Amanda Dobbins?

  What, but this was my main issue with the neighbors, who were like, call us if you need anything. Obviously, they need things. They need some help with childcare. They need some help with, you know, basic, you know, household tasks so that Nani can go get a job. Like, they need a lot of things.

• 41:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you should run for city council in Los Angeles. Your platform is extraordinary.

• 41:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, like.

• 41:11Sean Fennessey?

  Do you have a website?

• 41:14Amanda Dobbins?

  You weren't mad?

• 41:16Sean Fennessey?

  I wasn't really thinking about the inner lives of these characters too much.

• 41:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 41:19Sean Fennessey?

  I hadn't, I had not remembered that

• 41:25Sean Fennessey?

  this ambition, the thing is, is that Ohana is the big theme of the movie, right?

• 41:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 41:29Sean Fennessey?

  This idea of family and never leaving anyone behind.

• 41:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:32Sean Fennessey?

  The whole point of the movie is stick together.

• 41:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 41:34Sean Fennessey?

  When you're in a family, you have to have each other's backs.

• 41:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:37Sean Fennessey?

  And the beautiful thing with the movie at the end, the idea that Stitch gets to stay on Earth.

• 41:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, and so does Billy Magnuson.

• 41:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And Pleakley stays and they're all together and they're a family.

• 41:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 41:46Sean Fennessey?

  And so her leaving is a direct rejection of the core theme of the original film. It doesn't mean that the core theme of the original film is women shouldn't be able to go to college. It means that what's most important is taking care of one another. Now, you may disagree. You may say it's important that she study porpoises, you know, that that is what really matters.

• 42:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that even when you're six, you can take care of your sister too by understanding that she needs to go to college and FaceTiming with her. Plus, they have the portal, so she comes back, so it's fine.

• 42:17Sean Fennessey?

  It's gonna be a tough beat for your sons when you're like, I have to go to Venice? Because I have to take care of my things and they're gonna be like, he's got my back here.

• 42:25Amanda Dobbins?

  That is literally what's happening and the answer is their father, so it's fine.

• 42:30Sean Fennessey?

  Unfortunately for Lilo, she doesn't have any parents.

• 42:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but she has the neighbors and she has Stitch and she has Stitch's alien companion, Billy Magnuson.

• 42:37Sean Fennessey?

  Family is a community is what you're saying.

• 42:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And that is what the neighbor says ahead of time.

• 42:41Sean Fennessey?

  Well, should we all be so lucky to live in such a caring community?

• 42:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I mean, I think that we should, anyway.

• 42:47Sean Fennessey?

  This is just a lot more Lilo and Stitch than I expected to get into.

• 42:50Amanda Dobbins?

  It took them a long time to become caring enough, though. That was, that was my issue.

• 42:53Sean Fennessey?

  It is weird when Amy Hill's character comes around and she's like, what's going on over here?

• 42:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:57Sean Fennessey?

  Oh yeah, good luck.

• 42:59Amanda Dobbins?

  This is what I'm saying.

• 43:01Sean Fennessey?

  It's very true. It's because it's such a contrivance in the plot. They have to kind of yada yada it.

• 43:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And also the social worker being like, oh, we can help you with the cost of the health insurance if you surrender your child to us. Just like, how about you just pay?

• 43:14Sean Fennessey?

  You know what's so funny? So Tia Carrera voices Noni in the original film and the film came out, I don't know, probably like almost 10 years after the Wayne's World boom.

• 43:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 43:26Sean Fennessey?

  And that's where most of us saw her for the first time, if you were me.

• 43:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Very important.

• 43:31Sean Fennessey?

  One of the most intoxicating people that's ever lived. And I just saw her in person at a screening of Mary Poppins at the Academy Museum and I clocked her immediately. She's so striking. And I was like, what the hell has Tia Carrera been doing with her life? Lo and behold, one month later, she showed up in the biggest movie of the year. Really happy for her. Um, any closing thoughts?

• 43:52Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I think I summed it right up.

• 43:54Sean Fennessey?

  Let young women go to college?

• 43:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, if they, if they would like to.

• 43:56Sean Fennessey?

  They would like to.

• 43:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Build the support system so that they can.

• 43:59Sean Fennessey?

  You would try to nudge in universal healthcare, which I also believe in, but I'm not totally sure. Like, is that the subterranean message of a film?

• 44:06Amanda Dobbins?

  It is like really, really upsetting to me, the scene with Tia Carrera after they forget to apply for health insurance and then.

• 44:14Sean Fennessey?

  The only way we can take care of you is if you're a ward of the state.

• 44:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And she's like, we can handle all of this. If you sign away like all familial rights. It's like, how about you just pay for it and then give them some money for groceries? Just a thought.

• 44:32Sean Fennessey?

  Well, no, I can't disagree with that. It was quite an insidious plot device to make us feel for this family while also considering the nature of our federal and state governments.

• 44:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 44:40Sean Fennessey?

  So thank you for your work today.

• 44:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 44:43Sean Fennessey?

  This episode is brought to you by the Autograph Journey Credit Card from Wells Fargo. The Autograph Journey Credit Card from Wells Fargo is built for travel. You can earn rewards wherever you book, your favorite hotel site, your go-to airline and more. You get five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants and other travel and one point on other purchases. Whether it's a big vacation or a quick getaway from booking your stay to that first meal when you arrive, you're turning your trips into rewards with the Autograph Journey Credit Card from Wells Fargo. Learn more at wellsfargo.com/autographjourney. Terms apply. 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.

• 45:26Sean Fennessey?

  But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that, bull spend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO? LinkedIn Ads generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. Reach the right buyers with LinkedIn Ads. You can target by company, industry, job title and more. So cut the bull spend, advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com/thebigpicture. That's LinkedIn.com/thebigpicture. Terms and conditions apply. 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.

• 46:11Sean Fennessey?

  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. Now that we've talked about the struggles of young women in this country, we can talk about the struggles of aging men.

• 46:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:38Sean Fennessey?

  With the film Friendship.

• 46:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:39Sean Fennessey?

  So Friendship is a new comedy from Andrew DeYoung. He wrote and directed this movie, which I find fascinating because the movie so clearly locates the comedic talent of Tim Robinson.

• 46:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 46:51Sean Fennessey?

  Tim Robinson has become, over the last 10 years, a beloved comic figure in America. He co-created Detroiters. He was very briefly a cast member on Saturday Night Live, and he is the co-creator and star of I Think You Should Leave, which has been a very successful Netflix sketch comedy show that I think is at three seasons now. First season is one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my life. I have never laughed harder at a TV show. I loved it dearly. This movie also stars Kate Mara, Jack Dylan Grayzer, and Paul Rudd. It's about a guy named Craig, who is a marketing executive drifting through his midlife, and he tries to befriend his charismatic new neighbor, who's a weatherman. And Friendship very quickly sours into a kind of obsession, and it soon threatens to ruin both of their lives.

• 47:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:35Sean Fennessey?

  What did you think of the movie Friendship?

• 47:39Amanda Dobbins?

  This was a durational experience for me. But which I think is actually part of the art. I think it's very good.

• 47:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 47:48Amanda Dobbins?

  And fascinating. They did. It's clear that you are watching exactly what was intended, that they have like a very specific insight into whatever is going on with all of you. And by you, I mean men.

• 48:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 48:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it's like- Sociologically and artistically, really insightful and accomplished. I saw it in a silent theater.

• 48:13Sean Fennessey?

  Really?

• 48:14Amanda Dobbins?

  It was-

• 48:14Sean Fennessey?

  I've heard varying reports on this.

• 48:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Silent, and I have as well. I've also talked to people who saw it and they were absolutely, like, in theater where everyone was losing it.

• 48:22Sean Fennessey?

  Did you see it at a press screening, or did you see it in the movie theater?

• 48:24Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I saw it at Burbank 16.

• 48:25Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 48:26Amanda Dobbins?

  And where you would think that I would be among my people.

• 48:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I think I maybe laughed the most.

• 48:31Sean Fennessey?

  Really?

• 48:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and which was at a few, like, really choice moments.

• 48:34Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:35Amanda Dobbins?

  And I would characterize most of the other laughing, oh no, you know what? I saw it at the Americana, which is maybe changing-

• 48:40Sean Fennessey?

  Different crowd.

• 48:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Different crowd, just to, just to be fair.

• 48:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 48:44Amanda Dobbins?

  And-

• 48:45Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, no shots to the, to the Americana, AMC Americana, but the Burbank Sickos are like, those are the real heads.

• 48:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, that, when, when movies-

• 48:52Sean Fennessey?

  Which is a stupid delineation, but it is true.

• 48:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, when movies only open in two theaters in LA, when they're limited, it's at Century City and at the Burbank 16. That is where, that is where we see our fellow Big Pick Sickos all the time. And I would characterize the laughter that did happen as, like, mostly nervous. So, I wonder if everyone knew what they were walking into?

• 49:16Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I don't know. I saw it at a press screening.

• 49:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 49:19Sean Fennessey?

  Now, I think one of the downsides of this movie is that many people, including our pal Adam Naaman, have called this the funniest movie of the last 10 years.

• 49:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:26Sean Fennessey?

  And so that immediately raises the stakes, and it, I think, is creating an expectation for a movie akin to The Hangover, or The 40 Year Old Virgin.

• 49:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 49:35Sean Fennessey?

  Or these memories we have of going to see these kind of crass, buddy comedies from the 2000s, or even the 90s, that made you, like, rolling in the aisles. You know, the early Farrelly Brothers movies. That's not really what Tim Robinson does.

• 49:49Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 49:50Sean Fennessey?

  He has a much more sharply-defined, discomforting, psychological edge to a lot of his comedy, because the character that he almost always plays is a guy who is doing something insane, and he is insanely insecure about it. And this movie is the, kind of, the pinnacle of that approach. It's not the same as a sketch. It does feel as though a sketch has been stretched, though.

• 50:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 50:14Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like, the premise of the mo, the, the, the movie is fairly thin, but then the details of it are highly specific.

• 50:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 50:21Sean Fennessey?

  And that's part of what makes the movie effective and fun for me.

• 50:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, and it is structured in such a way where it is a kind of a series of sketches that, you know- Which, which is in many ways like what all comedy movies are, you know, it's like now they, now they gotta do this and now they gotta do this. So anything from like, you know, the trip to the, about the, the lizard, the frog trip?

• 50:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 50:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Is that what it is? The drug trip?

• 50:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 50:44Amanda Dobbins?

  The, obviously the, the maze situation, but they're like discreet of, events of things that inevitably go terribly wrong. That are mini sketches within their own.

• 50:58Sean Fennessey?

  The, the frog licking sketch is a really good example of something that it would be weird to be laughing very hard through the entirety of that sequence. But there is a version of laughing that is like, I can't believe this is happening right now.

• 51:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, right, right.

• 51:13Sean Fennessey?

  And that was how I felt during that one.

• 51:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 51:14Sean Fennessey?

  I probably had a, a 50 50 balance between, wow, they're really going for it, self-awareness.

• 51:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh huh.

• 51:20Sean Fennessey?

  And then the, I can't control myself, this is so funny. When the guy identifies himself as Jim, I like almost fell out of my seat. I would think that is one of the funniest things I've ever heard, that his name was Jim? That's the kind of dumb shit that I think powers the movie, in addition to that weird edge that I'm talking about.

• 51:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 51:36Sean Fennessey?

  And the truth is, is this is a real thing. I wouldn't say I actually personally struggle with this very much. I've found that I've actually made a bunch of new friends in my life in the last few years, more so than in the previous five or six years. In part because of the show, because I have a thing that communicates to the wider world, like here's what I'm into.

• 51:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 51:57Sean Fennessey?

  And so it's easier to be like, oh, you're into that? I'm into that. And then we have a lot of like-minded interests. But it's very common for middle-aged men who have families. And let's say, you know, they've fallen, you know, out of touch with some friends or their lives have gotten more tightly focused on their career and their families. And then they lose this kind of social contact and then they even kind of lose themselves in their families and in their jobs. And then they have a real difficulty making new friends or like finding new communities. Andrew DeYoung has definitely located.

• 52:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 52:28Sean Fennessey?

  An actual, I don't know if it's a phenomenon, but something that does happen to a lot of people, friends of mine, I know have experienced this specifically. And it's a very. Serious social disorder, I think that like kind of presages the incel era.

• 52:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, sure.

• 52:43Sean Fennessey?

  You know, where like you can just kind of kill time on your phone all the time. You don't have to be around people. You throw yourself into like, I hear this new Marvel movie is nuts, you know?

• 52:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 52:52Sean Fennessey?

  Some of the jokes that they're writing like.

• 52:53Amanda Dobbins?

  No Marvel spoilers done. That's really funny. That's.

• 52:57Sean Fennessey?

  It's very good. But I think by finding something quite.

• 53:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 53:02Sean Fennessey?

  I'd not serious, but quite real. And then building around the Tim Robinson insanity of humor around it is was a was a was a good choice.

• 53:11Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I think it's very effective and fascinating. It was interesting that we put together our like movie friendships list. And, you know, like always, I tried to think of movies about, you know, female friendships, of which there are many, but they're always about how screwed up their friendships are. Whereas historically, like when you think of a buddy comedy, you think of like two guys who have a pretty uncomplicated, hey, I love you, man, and I love you, man. And now we have to go like, you know, solve a crime somewhere and laugh it up. And so there are not that many complicated, you know, male friendships.

• 53:51Amanda Dobbins?

  And it sometimes it does seem like you guys, you're either like totally okay and like not worried about it. More things are very, very weird and with between men. And so this is a good examination of of of.

• 54:06Sean Fennessey?

  It is. I think I don't personally have a ton of, I like, I don't fight with you. Your husband is my best friend. Like I don't, we don't, I don't know if we've ever had a fight. Chris and I never fight.

• 54:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, right, right.

• 54:18Sean Fennessey?

  Like, it's just not really a part of our genetic.

• 54:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 54:22Sean Fennessey?

  DNA. And part of that, I think, is that.

• 54:26Sean Fennessey?

  We kind of know where to go and where not to go.

• 54:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 54:28Sean Fennessey?

  For the most part, in the relationship. But in this movie, it's a new friendship. And so it's people at the, in the middle of their lives, when they kind of have become who they are, trying to find a way to become close.

• 54:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 54:41Sean Fennessey?

  And very quickly, we see that Craig and Austin, the Paul Rudd character, it seems like they have something shared, where they have this like slightly kind of punk edge, where they wanna defy the expectations of their life. Austin literally plays in a punk band, even though he's a weatherman during the day. Craig is sort of like, oh, you can like break into a sewer and smoke cigarettes.

• 55:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, and you don't have to have a phone.

• 55:04Sean Fennessey?

  Right, there's like certain things that he has accepted about daily, modern life, that Austin is showing him don't need to exist. And so at the very early stages of their friendship, they're giving each other something.

• 55:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:15Sean Fennessey?

  And then as soon as Craig gets dropped into a social environment with Austin's other friends, it's clear how much he doesn't fit. He doesn't fit with them, he doesn't fit with Austin, he doesn't even really fit in the world.

• 55:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:26Sean Fennessey?

  He's just an odd guy.

• 55:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, and then it becomes, part of it is also just, this is about like, one person who, like Lilo, like many of other people, doesn't really know how to make friends, thinks he finds his other person, and then you realize, oh no, you, like, he is the weirdo. Like, you know, and we don't often get movies about, about the loser.

• 55:47Sean Fennessey?

  So, do you think this movie-

• 55:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Or if we do, it's Taxi Driver.

• 55:50Sean Fennessey?

  Well, okay, so that's what I was gonna say, cuz that's a really great comparison.

• 55:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:55Sean Fennessey?

  And there is certainly a kind of Scorsese quality to this movie, where you're like, they're not, even though there's a lot of jokes, they're playing it pretty straight.

• 56:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:03Sean Fennessey?

  There's even a gun theft in this movie.

• 56:07Sean Fennessey?

  So, if this character, if Craig was played by a different actor,

• 56:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh huh.

• 56:12Sean Fennessey?

  who is not so clearly communicated as Tim Robinson is funny.

• 56:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 56:17Sean Fennessey?

  You know, if it was his kind of, if it was, even if it was John C. Riley in Paul Rudd, where like, John C. Riley could go either way.

• 56:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:25Sean Fennessey?

  This could be a comedy, or this could be an incredibly tense drama.

• 56:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I mean, John C. Riley is like a, if it's Step Brothers John C. Riley, like, that's-

• 56:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, how about this?

• 56:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Pretty close.

• 56:32Sean Fennessey?

  How about Joaquin Phoenix?

• 56:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, well then it's just strange.

• 56:35Sean Fennessey?

  Where you're like, this guy's weird.

• 56:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:37Sean Fennessey?

  But he's not kidding.

• 56:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, and he's also, Joaquin Phoenix is just like, not classically handsome, but is sort of classically movie star handsome, so that's another, you know, thing that's...

• 56:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you always bring that up.

• 56:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, a lot of people are getting on the train, and I just like, I've been on the train since I've been in the abyss.

• 56:52Sean Fennessey?

  Did you see Joker 2?

• 56:54Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I didn't.

• 56:56Sean Fennessey?

  Um...

• 56:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't like it when people sing, so I don't want to mess up, you know, the fond memories I have.

• 57:00Sean Fennessey?

  You don't like it when people sing?

• 57:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't like it when most people sing, yeah.

• 57:05Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 57:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, are you happy when you're somewhere and someone just bursts into song, like 90% of the time? Unless it's a...

• 57:12Sean Fennessey?

  Where does that happen?

• 57:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know, but whenever it does, don't you just like, want to panic? No, but you know, I, when, it's, like, I don't, I don't know. Most of the time when people are singing, I wish they weren't.

• 57:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Jack, it's very normal.

• 57:29Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with you, but I don't understand what are the circumstances in which people just begin to sing at you in public? Does this happen frequently?

• 57:36Amanda Dobbins?

  It's like, usually, you know, like...

• 57:38Sean Fennessey?

  You mean like a busker?

• 57:40Amanda Dobbins?

  No, that's, that's okay. Sometimes they're good. I mean, if they're not good, then what are you gonna do? I don't know, like gatherings, like weddings, like graduations, you know, uh...

• 57:50Sean Fennessey?

  People are bursting into song at these events?

• 57:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Sometimes people do song and sing at a wedding, and that is like, tough. That did not happen at the wedding that I, I went to.

• 57:58Sean Fennessey?

  I can't believe you didn't ask me to sing at your wedding. I could have sang something beautiful. I could have sang an, you know, an Irish lullaby.

• 58:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, yeah, just, most of the time, it's just really, it's a level of sincerity and also asking for attention that is really, really, uh, makes me uncomfortable.

• 58:17Sean Fennessey?

  How did we get on to this subject?

• 58:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, people singing? I don't remember. There is a really funny singing s- moment in this movie.

• 58:27Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, yeah.

• 58:28Amanda Dobbins?

  That's when I laughed the most.

• 58:29Sean Fennessey?

  There are a couple. We did learn, we learned early in the movie that Craig is in a punk band.

• 58:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 58:34Sean Fennessey?

  But then when he and his friends are together, they also sing late 90s hip hop dance jams.

• 58:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Acapella.

• 58:42Sean Fennessey?

  Acapella.

• 58:43Amanda Dobbins?

  It, I, but I was laughing, I'd like, that, that was the true guffaw in the theater for me.

• 58:48Sean Fennessey?

  Another genius construction of Craig realizing that he just doesn't fit in with these guys, even what these guys are, even though what these guys are doing is ridiculous. And I pray to God no one is, no group of friends are doing that anywhere in the world right now. Uh, it is really funny. There is...

• 59:04Sean Fennessey?

  I think there's something kind of challenging in a good way about being forced to be with Craig Robinson for one hour and 40 minutes.

• 59:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:10Sean Fennessey?

  You know?

• 59:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Again, durational.

• 59:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, uh, which I ultimately did enjoy, and the highs are so high. But I did feel like this movie could end with him murdering everyone, and I wouldn't have been stunned.

• 59:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, but I think I would have been a little annoyed.

• 59:26Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, because then it was trying to be too serious?

• 59:28Amanda Dobbins?

  No, or, and/or if it were using that as like pure comedy, then it would sort of undercut what it is achieving and it's like, and it's weirdness for the sake of

• 59:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, then it would have seemed like a nihilistic.

• 59:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly.

• 59:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, I get that. Um, I really enjoyed both Kate Mara's character and her performance.

• 59:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 59:49Sean Fennessey?

  I could not think of another example of a character like this in the history of a movie. In the movie, she, which is a pure comedy, she never winks, she's never like in on the joke. She is a person who is living her life specifically the way that she wants to live it. Now, she's in a marriage.

• 1:00:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:00:07Sean Fennessey?

  With Craig, and she has a teenage son that she has an unusually close and physical relationship with. But she is very openly talking about her friendship with her ex-boyfriend. And she's also very clearly perturbed by the lack of support she receives from her husband with her flower business.

• 1:00:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:25Sean Fennessey?

  And like, over time, she just kind of drifts away from him.

• 1:00:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:28Sean Fennessey?

  And just pushes him away. She has like a tremendous amount of agency in this movie.

• 1:00:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:00:32Sean Fennessey?

  After she's lost in the sewer system.

• 1:00:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, well, she does get lost in a sewer system, you know?

• 1:00:37Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I love Kate Mara, as you know.

• 1:00:41Sean Fennessey?

  I thought the way that she chose to play it was really interesting, not what you usually would see from the wife character in the buddy comedy. And not funny, but very, is it stupid to say profound?

• 1:00:53Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I don't think so. I think that this is a very intelligent movie for something that is like really, really stupid also. And playing for, uh, like blunt laughs. But I think also, if she's not

• 1:01:10Amanda Dobbins?

  There, there is something about the way she performs it in her sort of like independence and just kind of how she's separated off from him that keeps you from asking questions like, why are you married to this person? Like, how did any of this happen? There is, there is like a otherworldliness to what's, how all of these people are behaving.

• 1:01:29Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:31Amanda Dobbins?

  That gets you past the suspension of disbelief.

• 1:01:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, agreed.

• 1:01:35Amanda Dobbins?

  So, it's a great choice.

• 1:01:37Sean Fennessey?

  Like when Connor O'Malley enters the garage.

• 1:01:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Everything Connor O'Malley does, and this is also the other time I absolutely lost it.

• 1:01:44Sean Fennessey?

  Connor O'Malley going in the garage is like when Godzilla and Kong finally face each other in Godzilla versus Kong. We're like, I've just been waiting five movies to see these guys punch each other. And I need, I would like Connor O'Malley in more movies is where I stand on that. It was a very funny scene, two guys who were like experts at the awkward, like everyone realizes there's something wrong with this guy, except for this guy who both raised their voices in uncomfortable ways and who have located something about like the disillusionment in the, the American spirit that the internet has bored down into people. Like, they both have kind of picked up on something in different ways where it's just like, every guy looking at his phone is basically broken and they just, they get it.

• 1:02:25Amanda Dobbins?

  It's true.

• 1:02:26Sean Fennessey?

  They just, they get it.

• 1:02:27Amanda Dobbins?

  What does Connor O'Malley yell as he leaves the garage?

• 1:02:29Sean Fennessey?

  I forget.

• 1:02:30Amanda Dobbins?

  It's really, really good.

• 1:02:32Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:02:32Amanda Dobbins?

  And then at the end of the party, also, it's, you know, very funny stuff.

• 1:02:36Sean Fennessey?

  I also enjoyed Craig's blown pitch to the mayor about his new marketing campaign, which is also just phenomenal stuff. This is a very funny movie. I, I, I know it's hard to get theatrical comedies going. And this movie is on a smaller scale and is obviously a cheaper movie. It was a festival movie that I think got picked up by A24 out of TIFF. And it seems like they're doing pretty good business with it. I don't think it like shows the way for anything, but.

• 1:03:06Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's but it's nice that it exists.

• 1:03:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and I think it probably is like a little bit of a proof of concept for a slightly bigger Tim Robinson thing if he wants it.

• 1:03:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but this is also, this seems like the right level. I think this will become like a very off reference movie. You know, it's sort of like instant cult.

• 1:03:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, it will be on Max in three months and then people will watch it over and over again, just like they watch I Think You Should Leave. Paul Rudd, we haven't mentioned him too much in this episode.

• 1:03:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Very funny.

• 1:03:31Sean Fennessey?

  He's great. There's a phenomenal episode of Good Hang with Amy Poehler with Paul Rudd. I highly encourage people. It's just them doing bits for an hour. I really liked it. He, him doing this movie is great.

• 1:03:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:42Sean Fennessey?

  He definitely didn't have to do this, you know, I think he clearly did it because he thinks Tim Robinson is funny. He still looks exactly like the guy from Romeo and Juliet thirty five years later, which is a little dispiriting for me.

• 1:03:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, this has been like a meme for fifteen years now, but it does keep going.

• 1:03:56Sean Fennessey?

  But that meme was like nine years ago and it's still going.

• 1:03:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:59Sean Fennessey?

  Which is, and it's played for an incredible laugh in the movie because it's revealed in the movie that his character is bald and wears a toupee. Which is something that we would joke about, about Paul Rudd, who's preserving his eternal fountain of youth. By the way, I saw the film Fountain of Youth on Apple TV Plus this weekend.

• 1:04:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah. That's I'm, I'll do it at some point, but yeah.

• 1:04:17Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think it deserves much.

• 1:04:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:04:19Sean Fennessey?

  Airtime here on the pod.

• 1:04:22Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I thought he was really good in this. I thought he was really funny. I thought he also, his character was also a little bit more complex than I was expecting. He wasn't just the suave, cool guy who dashed into town and took Craig's breath away.

• 1:04:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:04:33Sean Fennessey?

  He also is kind of a middle aged guy going through it who needed to be inspired to do some things differently, who also is flawed, who also is insecure.

• 1:04:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:04:43Sean Fennessey?

  You know, in a way that was like, I don't know, pretty, pretty fascinating.

• 1:04:47Amanda Dobbins?

  And he's, and they make fun of him too, you know, he's the, the aspiring weatherman, but he keeps, he's like not popular at work.

• 1:04:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, yes, getting kicked by his bosses. The anchors are very rude to him. Pretty funny movie.

• 1:05:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Definitely, and, and like, and also good, not, I mean, it is not a broad comedy and I do wonder how many people I saw the movie with who were just like, what is happening, you know?

• 1:05:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there's a strain of that, I think, for anybody who fires up. I think you should leave too, where you're just like, this is just a, there's a real not for me contingent, which is totally fine.

• 1:05:23Sean Fennessey?

  Ultimately, not the best movie about friendship that I've ever seen.

• 1:05:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that it is a very good movie about the way that a friendship can mutate. I mean, this is the thing, right? When we were making our lists, are we, is it like model friendships or good movies about friendships? Cause I went through a lot of movies where I'm like, well, she's a pretty bad friend and I wouldn't do that if I were, you know, or I would be mad about this.

• 1:05:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, that is like, you kind of need that to make a movie.

• 1:05:49Sean Fennessey?

  You have one on here that I, I left off, but I'm glad you added it because something happens to it that kind of like makes me sad.

• 1:05:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but is also the, a major part of the movie.

• 1:06:01Sean Fennessey?

  It is.

• 1:06:01Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, and, and is, I think, a good movie about friendship.

• 1:06:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Um, okay, let's, let's do our lists.

• 1:06:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:06:07Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I'll go first because my first one's kind of a joke, but I do believe in it.

• 1:06:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:06:11Sean Fennessey?

  This is, these are friends who are new friends, like the friends in the movie Friendship.

• 1:06:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:15Sean Fennessey?

  And they instantly bond. I'm talking about McLovin and the cops from Superbad.

• 1:06:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:18Sean Fennessey?

  And one of my favorite things about Superbad, which is an all time movie that we love, is the way that the cops, played by Bill Hader and Seth Rogen, play it so straight that they're having a blast with McLovin while they're riding around in their cruiser with him. And that they feel a bond and a connection with him. And when it turns out that he's not who he says he is, that they are deeply hurt. And that all the fun that they've had has been premised upon a lie. And it's a, there's a rare, beautiful portrait of cops in a movie. And McLovin, of course, you know, Christopher, Christopher Mintz-Ploss gives an incredible performance in that movie. So that's my first one.

• 1:06:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Mine is the flossy posse from Girl's Trip. Okay, that, so this is, this is my like group of women together in the movie. Sex and the City, not eligible because that was a TV show for, yeah, but it was a TV show first. I thought about it. Also, you know, they, they have their ups and downs as friends.

• 1:07:10Sean Fennessey?

  And Just Like That is coming back soon.

• 1:07:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I could not be more aware or more excited. I already volunteered myself as the, and Just Like That correspondent on the watch.

• 1:07:18Sean Fennessey?

  Great.

• 1:07:18Amanda Dobbins?

  So I won't be here for the next 10 weeks. I'll just be on the watch. Watch.

• 1:07:22Sean Fennessey?

  Understood.

• 1:07:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Diagramming every bit of it.

• 1:07:24Sean Fennessey?

  Sounds good.

• 1:07:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 1:07:25Sean Fennessey?

  Solo Phoenician scheme pod for me.

• 1:07:27Amanda Dobbins?

  There are a lot, obviously, like a lot of movies about like a group of women, usually four, and they are, you know, figuring things out, but really at the end they love each other. And this one is both genuinely like fun and funnier.

• 1:07:39Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:07:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And then also just the speech that Regina Hall gives at the end made me cry. Uh, so there is like something like very heartfelt about it that I still remember. And obviously a sensation like box office wise.

• 1:07:50Sean Fennessey?

  So we had a bunch of these when we were kids.

• 1:07:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:52Sean Fennessey?

  I think Steel Magnolias probably kicked off the trend of these movies, but I remember very vividly Now and Then was like a huge one.

• 1:07:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:07:58Sean Fennessey?

  Um, or some other examples.

• 1:08:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Huge for me too. Devon Sawa forever.

• 1:08:02Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely.

• 1:08:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't realize that Devon Sawa was Final Destination until I listened to your podcast.

• 1:08:06Sean Fennessey?

  He is the critical character in the film. Um, there are some other examples. What are some other, I mean, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is like a famous version of this, right?

• 1:08:15Amanda Dobbins?

  First Wives Club.

• 1:08:15Sean Fennessey?

  First Wives Club. That's a great one. Yeah, there's a lot of these.

• 1:08:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:18Sean Fennessey?

  They're pretty persistent. Um, my number four is two women, uh, two women named Enid and Rebecca from Ghost World, played by Thor Birch, uh, also of Now and Then.

• 1:08:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:29Sean Fennessey?

  And Scarlett Johansson. I think this is maybe the second time I saw Scarlett Johansson after The Horse Whisperer. That was a movie, right?

• 1:08:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Yeah, with, uh, Robert Redford and Kristen Scott Thomas.

• 1:08:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think she was the horse whisperer.

• 1:08:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Can I tell you for a minute, I thought that Kristen Scott Thomas was voicing the galactic, uh, counselor or whoever in Lilo and Stitch. And then I recognized it was Hannah Waddingham doing far better accent work, uh, than she did in Mission Impossible, Final Reckoning. I gotta give her credit.

• 1:08:56Sean Fennessey?

  Good to know.

• 1:08:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I would have been happy to see that money to go to Kristen Scott Thomas.

• 1:08:59Sean Fennessey?

  I were getting far away from Enid and Rebecca. However, I watched an interview with Hannah Waddingham about her working with Tom Cruise. And she was extremely laudatory, as most actors are. And she made one note that I thought was interesting, which is that she said, when she was working on the movie, that Tom Cruise waited to shoot his coverage until the end of the day.

• 1:09:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:19Sean Fennessey?

  And she said, unlike many other stars whom I've worked with, this is incredibly uncommon, that it is important for their coverage to be shot first, that they be taken care of first. And he was like, we gotta make sure everybody else looks good and everybody else is taken care of. I'm not sure that's really meaningful in any way, but I thought it was a very specific detail that she chose to share or was encouraged to share

• 1:09:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:09:40Sean Fennessey?

  about her experience with Tom. Anyway, Enid and Rebecca, Ghost World, fascinating movie about two young women who find themselves kind of like searching for the next stage of their life. They befriend an older man who's a collector, a jazz music fan, or excuse me, a blues music fan. And they kind of like befriend him at first to kind of mock him and make fun of him and then slowly come to recognize he is like a kindred spirit. Enid in particular, kind of like falls for the idea of him. He's played by Steve Buscemi. And their friendship is really interesting. It's somewhat similar to one of the ones on your list, too, in that they kind of, you can see that they've been friends for a very long time, since they were young girls. And that as they've gotten older, they've stayed close in some ways and drifted in other ways. And the things that they're interested in, Enid is like a little bit more of an oddball.

• 1:10:26Sean Fennessey?

  And Rebecca is becoming a little bit more normie through the course of the storytelling. And the way that they like very, they don't, there's no dramatic throw down between them. They just kind of like very gently drift for a while, but they know that they'll always love each other. And I always thought it was like a very sophisticated portrait of a particular kind of friendship. And I, you know, I think they're both like such great actors and I love that movie.

• 1:10:49Amanda Dobbins?

  My number four is, you know, less high minded, but also really beautiful. Danny and Rusty in Ocean's Eleven.

• 1:10:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, this is me in CR.

• 1:10:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, it's really, you think we need one more?

• 1:11:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:02Amanda Dobbins?

  You think we need one more?

• 1:11:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:03Amanda Dobbins?

  We need one more.

• 1:11:03Sean Fennessey?

  Shorthanded.

• 1:11:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, nothing, they just, they are together, they understand each other, they don't have to speak the things. It's beautiful. It's probably like my ideal form of friendship.

• 1:11:16Sean Fennessey?

  It's nice when.

• 1:11:17Amanda Dobbins?

  And also they do crimes.

• 1:11:19Sean Fennessey?

  It's kind of the opposite of Craig and Austin.

• 1:11:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:23Sean Fennessey?

  Where it's like they've got 30 years behind them.

• 1:11:26Amanda Dobbins?

  There's like, there's a real comfort and trust in that they understand each other. And so then they just go do their things. And even when Danny is like, has actually turned out to set up the whole thing in order to get back to us. I think Rusty's mad for like five seconds and then eats some cocktail shrimp and then moves on, so it's fine.

• 1:11:49Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, is Rusty good at his job?

• 1:11:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I think so because he gets the money out of the vault, you know?

• 1:11:58Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:11:58Amanda Dobbins?

  He's in the, they're, they're all in the vault together.

• 1:12:02Sean Fennessey?

  Just asking questions.

• 1:12:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I guess, I guess Danny's in there too? I'm trying to think.

• 1:12:08Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe time for a revisit.

• 1:12:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:12Amanda Dobbins?

  But no, I mean, he plays, he plays a crucial role in moving things together and moving things apart.

• 1:12:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:12:17Amanda Dobbins?

  So.

• 1:12:17Sean Fennessey?

  I'll roll with you on it.

• 1:12:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:12:18Sean Fennessey?

  Questions 11, great movie. Uh, number three is a little bit of a recognition of something that you were talking about. That, this is Gus, Harry and Archie from the John Cassavetes movie Husbands, which came out in 1970, which is a, I think, a very famous movie among a certain kind of person that is about a very specific kind of, it's sort of a prequel to Friendship. It's about old friends, guys who've known each other for a long time, who come together in the aftermath of the death of their other closest friend. And it's Ben Gazzara, Cassavetes and Peter Falk played the three friends, three guys who have appeared in many Cassavetes movies over the years. And it's about them having a little bit of a, what we might call a crash out in 2025, in the aftermath of this death, where they're kind of getting into trouble

• 1:13:03Sean Fennessey?

  and kind of wandering around the city, getting drunk, playing basketball, picking fights with strangers, picking fights with each other, finding ways to kind of sloppily communicate how much they care about each other, but then also how much they hate when one of the others does something. Only death can kind of draw out this kind of honesty amongst friends, I think. And this is a really emotionally sophisticated movie that feels really slapdash on purpose. I really love it.

• 1:13:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, it's also kind of a nightmare from the outside, but uh.

• 1:13:34Sean Fennessey?

  Not, not, if you're, if you're a woman, this movie is hard to watch.

• 1:13:38Amanda Dobbins?

  But again, it's well portrayed, but yeah.

• 1:13:40Sean Fennessey?

  I would say it's accurate.

• 1:13:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Uh, mine, my number three is Francis and Sophie from Francis Ha. Um, and this movie is a lot of ways in about how they are, they're very close friends and roommates at the beginning of the movie. Um, they are in a transitional phase of life. And so they are moving away from each other, uh, as the movie goes on, which often happens, especially for, um, well, for, at that phase of life.

• 1:14:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:14:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And.

• 1:14:06Sean Fennessey?

  Late twenties, what am I really doing?

• 1:14:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:14:08Sean Fennessey?

  I gotta make some choices.

• 1:14:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Am I getting myself together? Um, and I think that.

• 1:14:14Amanda Dobbins?

  The, the hurt and the confusion and also the love are all portrayed like without melodrama. They just kind of are. And so it feels very, uh, true and wistful at the same time. And they like, they get to an okay place and you know, everyone's going to be okay. Which is kind of what is beautiful about Francis Hot in general.

• 1:14:39Amanda Dobbins?

  One of my favorite movies and I, and I think it's just, it is very, very lived in that friendship.

• 1:14:44Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. I really like, I really like, um, gosh, what is her name?

• 1:14:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Mickey Sumner.

• 1:14:49Sean Fennessey?

  Mickey Sumner, her performance. And after I remember seeing after the movie, obviously Greta has gone on to incredible things, but I feel like I have not really seen her very much. And I feel like she embodied, I was like, that's a girl I know in New York.

• 1:14:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:00Sean Fennessey?

  That is like my friend's friend. And I think that there's something very wistful about Francis being the one who's left behind. And I do think that in a lot of small groups of friends, there's one friend where you're like, whatever happened to

• 1:15:14Amanda Dobbins?

  X?

• 1:15:15Sean Fennessey?

  But to build the movie around the person who's like, whatever happened to X is just a very smart idea and a wonderful movie. Okay. Number two is, um, fresh in my mind because I just rewatched it for our children of men conversation. It's Julio and Tenoch from Itumama Tambien. Diego Luna back in the news due to Andor, obviously.

• 1:15:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:32Sean Fennessey?

  And Gail Garcia Bernal's characters from Quarone's beautiful road movie. I put this on the list because I think it's a really great example, not just of two guys who are best friends who end up basically falling in love without necessarily speaking about that feeling.

• 1:15:46Amanda Dobbins?

  It's funny that our number twos are the same.

• 1:15:48Sean Fennessey?

  They are, they are matched in some ways. But because it's about the evolution of a friendship, like the way that a friendship, which seems very tight and very close, like they're homies at the beginning and they're going on this trip together and they're like, they think already that there's nothing more that they could say to each other that would blow each other's minds. But across the movie, things become so much more emotionally intense and they have like such a a series of realizations about one another and about themselves. That kind of shows you like what a close relationship can do for your life. So that's just an amazing film and I recommend it.

• 1:16:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Once again, I'm, you know, this is, that's the art film and mine is the, the mainstream classic. Bada and Thomas from, from My Girl. Jack, you seen My Girl?

• 1:16:34Sean Fennessey?

  I have not.

• 1:16:35Amanda Dobbins?

  So you don't know what happens at the end of My Girl?

• 1:16:37Sean Fennessey?

  I do not.

• 1:16:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I remember when I had to tell Bobby what happens at the end of My Girl?

• 1:16:42Sean Fennessey?

  It's devastating.

• 1:16:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, can I spoil it for you?

• 1:16:44Sean Fennessey?

  You can.

• 1:16:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:16:45Sean Fennessey?

  If you haven't seen the film My Girl.

• 1:16:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I am spoiling it.

• 1:16:48Sean Fennessey?

  Cinematic classic.

• 1:16:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen.

• 1:16:50Sean Fennessey?

  Veda Sultan Fuss as portrayed by Anna Klimski.

• 1:16:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:54Sean Fennessey?

  We all loved her.

• 1:16:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't remember Thomas's last name, but he is portrayed by Macaulay Culkin.

• 1:16:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:16:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And Veda.

• 1:17:00Sean Fennessey?

  At the height of Home Alone mania.

• 1:17:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Veda is going through some tough stuff at home. She lost her mom, her dad's dating someone new, she's a little bit of a, you know, she's.

• 1:17:12Sean Fennessey?

  Is it, um, Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis?

• 1:17:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I believe so.

• 1:17:15Sean Fennessey?

  That's correct. Yeah.

• 1:17:16Amanda Dobbins?

  And she's like 10, 11, a little bit, you know, that, which is a tricky age, kinda tomboyish, kinda just, you know, frustrated with everyone.

• 1:17:28Sean Fennessey?

  So Alice, oh my god, she's so Alice.

• 1:17:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, and then Thomas shows up and he's just a new kid in class who becomes her friend. And they become friends. Then things are kinda sorting out at home and then Veda has this mood ring that she loves and she loses her mood ring and Thomas goes back to get it for her because they're best friends and he's allergic to bees and gets stung by a bee and he fucking dies. He dies, Jack. He's 10 years old and he dies. And like when you are 10 and you're watching this.

• 1:18:00Sean Fennessey?

  Just gonna say, I was 11 when I saw this and I felt like I got shot in the heart.

• 1:18:04Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, it is still so fucked up.

• 1:18:07Sean Fennessey?

  So real. You were, you're saying like this is not an art film or whatever? This is a really, really good movie and very effective movie.

• 1:18:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's really, really effective and it does also, it gets something, something very true about friendship at that age and they are, you know, they like practice kissing together and maybe if they were older, they, you know.

• 1:18:26Sean Fennessey?

  Would grow up to fall in love.

• 1:18:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Seedlings of a romantic thing, but there still is also that they're just like two 10 year olds like trying to figure out in the world and they each need someone else. It's like very uncomplicated and then the loss is also just absolutely like pure and gutting and.

• 1:18:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we don't really see him officially die. She's, we see her being told that he didn't make it, as I recall.

• 1:18:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:51Sean Fennessey?

  It's so powerful. So my best friend growing up was a girl, my friend Sarah, and Sarah and I saw this movie together.

• 1:18:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 1:18:58Sean Fennessey?

  And very, very, very tough. And Sarah was a little Veda-ish as well.

• 1:19:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:19:03Sean Fennessey?

  And, uh. Yeah, great. Honestly, really good movie.

• 1:19:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Incredible movie.

• 1:19:08Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, maybe it's, maybe we'd watch it now and be like, this piece of trash. Why was it shot this way?

• 1:19:12Amanda Dobbins?

  They might be like, I don't think the adults are taking Bada's emotional needs seriously enough.

• 1:19:18Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I think our ones are kind of obvious, but in good ways. My number one is of course Elliot and E.T. from the film E.T.,

• 1:19:27Sean Fennessey?

  which is very similar to Lilo and Stitch. The idea of a formulation of a boy who just really needs a friend. Things at home are not going well. He feels a little bit at sea at school and socially. And he wants something kind of deeper and bigger in his life. And he can't really find it on the ground until E.T. presents himself. And then he kind of builds his whole emotional life around the friendship to E.T. You know, Steven Spielberg, the master of directing child actors. And it's hard to have a new thought about E.T. I've podcasted about it many times in my life and I will, I can't, I can't wait to show it to my daughter. But I thought it was kind of the perfect match for the new friendships in this episode.

• 1:20:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, you know, clearly Lilo and Stitch shows a great touch to it. I mean, I can't really talk about it without crying, but it's.

• 1:20:15Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great movie.

• 1:20:16Amanda Dobbins?

  And similar to my number one in that it's about a friend who needs another friend in a moment. But that also ultimately, you know, if you love someone, let them go.

• 1:20:26Sean Fennessey?

  Just let them go.

• 1:20:27Amanda Dobbins?

  So mine is Will and Chucky from Good Will Hunting.

• 1:20:31Amanda Dobbins?

  And you know, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as well. But the scene, you know, the best part of my day is, you know, when I show up and just for a second, I think that you're not going to be there. And they have known each other forever. They understand each other. They also understand that there's something different. I wouldn't say it's like an equal friendship. I think Chucky's like giving a little bit more and Will's like taking a little bit. But he's had a hard life, so it's what he needs, I guess. And Chucky's gonna be, Chucky's gonna be okay. He can ace any job interview that he needs to. But you know, that I feel like that one Ben Affleck moment, that speech is like immediately iconic. And it is a nice idea of friendship, right? Of knowing that, you know, wanting the best for your friend.

• 1:21:17Amanda Dobbins?

  So beautiful stuff. Love them forever.

• 1:21:21Sean Fennessey?

  Great choices. Friendship, complicated thing to portray in the movies.

• 1:21:27Sean Fennessey?

  I don't even really know what were among my honorable mentions. There's kind of too many to add. I tried to avoid the like classic lethal weapon Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

• 1:21:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, Thalman Louise.

• 1:21:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Thalman Louise. Yeah, like these guys, they loved each other and then they died.

• 1:21:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:42Sean Fennessey?

  Any closing thoughts? You feel good about the box office and how movies are back?

• 1:21:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And dentistry, all of it.

• 1:21:47Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you're an anti-dentite, you know, that's you may recall from Seinfeld.

• 1:21:53Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I think that they had played an important role in society.

• 1:21:56Sean Fennessey?

  Uh huh.

• 1:21:56Amanda Dobbins?

  But that then they're just scamming you. Like, when you are having a real tooth problem, they fix it and they like alleviate pain and help people live happy and healthy lives.

• 1:22:07Sean Fennessey?

  You don't usually have a real health problem until you don't do the things that dentists advise.

• 1:22:12Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I think preventative dentistry is a scam invented to make money.

• 1:22:19Amanda Dobbins?

  There we go.

• 1:22:19Sean Fennessey?

  You've shared that take very, like, many times with no verifiable proof.

• 1:22:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm asking them to show me the, I brush my teeth, you know?

• 1:22:28Sean Fennessey?

  An entire field of study. This is like being like archaeology as a scam. Show me the proof of its value.

• 1:22:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, it's like, didn't we discover the other day that the dinosaur bones are like, they're putting them together wrong?

• 1:22:41Sean Fennessey?

  The other day we discovered that?

• 1:22:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 1:22:44Sean Fennessey?

  Where did you read these? Where are you getting this information?

• 1:22:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I read all the news that you don't read about, like, you know, when the shark attacks and all of the stuff.

• 1:22:53Sean Fennessey?

  But why aren't you sending me any of this stuff?

• 1:22:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Because you don't respond. I give up, you know?

• 1:22:57Sean Fennessey?

  But I look at it. Well, you want me to write an essay back about the incredible discoveries and new archaeological?

• 1:23:02Amanda Dobbins?

  That's it. Our form of friendship is not me just like sending you links, you know?

• 1:23:06Sean Fennessey?

  Why not? What?

• 1:23:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Because then every time I do, you're like, why'd you send me that weird thing?

• 1:23:12Sean Fennessey?

  That's not true.

• 1:23:12Amanda Dobbins?

  You're such a weird person. You're just like, oh, look, a hat, you know?

• 1:23:16Sean Fennessey?

  Rather than just send the link, you could send some context, like, hey, remember we were having this discussion? And in furthering our friendship, I thought it would be great to have some new context as we chat through this.

• 1:23:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I think I heard that some of the dinosaurs got put together wrong. And also, they were colorful.

• 1:23:31Sean Fennessey?

  They were colorful.

• 1:23:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe had feathers.

• 1:23:33Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that we've heard.

• 1:23:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:35Sean Fennessey?

  That they're in the bird phylum?

• 1:23:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:38Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know what the right word is there scientifically speaking.

• 1:23:41Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, one thing I did like about Lilo and Stitch was the throwaway joke of like, you know, Earth is just like a mosquito rehabilitation project. And then the thing about humans is that an asteroid hits their planet every however many years and they just have to start all over. It's kind of adorable.

• 1:23:57Sean Fennessey?

  You just reminded me of something.

• 1:23:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I thought that was at least like slightly funny, but that was the only humor for adults in the whole, in the whole film.

• 1:24:04Sean Fennessey?

  It wasn't very winky Pixar, this is for adults.

• 1:24:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:07Sean Fennessey?

  It was definitively a kid's movie. Um, I watched, well, two things, two wildlife notes to close this, this episode on. One, we watched the good dinosaur in our house over the weekend, which I had never seen. That's a Pixar movie?

• 1:24:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know what that is.

• 1:24:21Sean Fennessey?

  It's probably the least celebrated of all the Pixar movies.

• 1:24:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. There's a baby staring a dinosaur in the eye.

• 1:24:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, well, it's obviously scientifically inaccurate because humans live contemporaneously to dinosaurs. And in fact, dinosaurs in the film develop our agrarian technologies and they build farms for us. Which I don't think that's how, I don't think that's what really happened. I can't be sure of that, but I don't think that that's how we discovered farming.

• 1:24:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, once they put the bones out of order, you know, who can, what can you rely on?

• 1:24:50Sean Fennessey?

  I know, everything has been completely undermined in my life.

• 1:24:54Sean Fennessey?

  And I gotta tell you, I thought the movie was quite nice, even though it has a terrible reputation. I thought there was something actually beautiful about it, just putting that out there. The other thing is we went to the zoo.

• 1:25:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:25:03Sean Fennessey?

  And I thought of you.

• 1:25:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Just real holiday weekend vibes.

• 1:25:05Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, my God, we did so many holiday things. Uh, we went to the bird show and.

• 1:25:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I fucking hate that.

• 1:25:11Sean Fennessey?

  The, the birds, I was thinking of you because the birds are flying at a low angle.

• 1:25:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Absolutely not.

• 1:25:18Sean Fennessey?

  California and Andean condors, like, like right over your head. Like, sure, there are parrots there, they're very cute. You know, there's some like nice, smaller tropical birds, but these condors, which look like ancient villains. I mean, they look like they were designed to destroy our culture, but they were, they were well trained. Nobody got hurt.

• 1:25:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, sure, until they aren't, you know?

• 1:25:39Sean Fennessey?

  The show opens with one of them being like let out of a, almost like a, like a rucksack or something.

• 1:25:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Where's Alice on this?

• 1:25:46Sean Fennessey?

  She was interested.

• 1:25:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:25:47Sean Fennessey?

  She was engaged.

• 1:25:47Amanda Dobbins?

  She wasn't like freaked out at all?

• 1:25:49Sean Fennessey?

  No, she loves animals. We had a great time.

• 1:25:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but the birds, they just, they, it was wild parrot season, you know, a couple, for the last couple of weeks.

• 1:25:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:57Amanda Dobbins?

  And the parrots were just very close to our windows and I find it really upsetting.

• 1:26:06Sean Fennessey?

  I, I think they're nice. I'm not really scared of them, but if a giant Andean condor picks my daughter up and carries her off to a magical land, I'm not gonna feel the same about this.

• 1:26:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I just remembered that this morning while I was getting dressed, I watched a coyote poop in the backyard next door.

• 1:26:28Amanda Dobbins?

  It thought it was a little.

• 1:26:30Sean Fennessey?

  Are we still taping, Jack? Uh, hour twenty-two.

• 1:26:33Amanda Dobbins?

  It was like really having a moment by itself.

• 1:26:36Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:26:37Amanda Dobbins?

  And I was just like, well, there's a coyote digging a giant shit in my neighbor's backyard.

• 1:26:44Sean Fennessey?

  We're in the eighty-second minute of this episode.

• 1:26:49Amanda Dobbins?

  That's funny.

• 1:26:50Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think that this show is actually about your midlife crisis? Like, when you really think about it?

• 1:26:57Sean Fennessey?

  Because I thought it was about mine, but I don't think it is anymore.

• 1:27:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and we like, you passed the baton?

• 1:27:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:27:03Amanda Dobbins?

  It was wildlife, you know? And I was just, I saw him in his habitat.

• 1:27:08Sean Fennessey?

  You were moved by this, or you thought it was fun?

• 1:27:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought it was funny. Because I really, the coyote, thought it was having a moment of solitude. And I was like, I'm right here, buddy.

• 1:27:15Sean Fennessey?

  That's incredibly invasive.

• 1:27:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it's, you know, they, they cut down a lot of trees, so it's the neighbor's fault, anyway.

• 1:27:22Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, coyote's an issue in the neighborhood?

• 1:27:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I mean, depending on who you ask, they're just around. It's, it's their home, too.

• 1:27:28Sean Fennessey?

  I find they're quite nice.

• 1:27:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I don't mind them.

• 1:27:30Sean Fennessey?

  Don't bother them, they won't bother you.

• 1:27:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly.

• 1:27:32Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, that's how I feel about all my takes on this show. If you don't bother them, they won't bother you.

• 1:27:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's see how you wind us back to the segment.

• 1:27:40Sean Fennessey?

  I think I just did it. I think I got back. I got us back. Uh, thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for working on this episode.

• 1:27:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you so much, Jack.

• 1:27:47Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks, Jack, for sitting in this room with us as we went through this. Uh, we will be back on Friday, and we're gonna be paying tribute to an old friend with a very special episode. Karate Kid Legends Off the Schedule.

• 1:27:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Not doing it.

• 1:27:59Sean Fennessey?

  Replaced by this very special episode, so.

• 1:28:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you think we need to prepare people? Or do you think that the people are prepared and we're not?

• 1:28:07Sean Fennessey?

  I'll just say some letters. Those letters are S, H, R, E, and K. We'll see you then.

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