Our 800th Episode Ask-Us-Anything Mailbag. Plus: ‘Elio’ and ‘How to Train Your Dragon.’

Sean and Amanda celebrate 800 (!) episodes with a special “Ask Us Anything” movie mailbag. They answer your questions on whether or not 2025 has been a good movie year, share theatrical experiences that have floored them this century, and build their own “Intro to Film” curriculum (3:39). Then, they unpack a pair of two recent children’s movie releases. They start with the new Pixar animated film, ‘Elio,’ and wonder whether its lack of box office suggests that there is a Pixar movie crisis (1:14:20). Finally, they cover ‘How to Train Your Dragon,’ the live-action remake of the original 2010 Dreamworks smash hit, and explain why they find this to be the lowest form of creativity possible (1:30:51). 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

  Welcome to the brand new Zach Lowe Show. That's right, I'm back to have the same in-depth NBA conversations you're used to. We're going to talk about the games, the X's and O's, the drama. The playoffs are coming up and now you get to see every episode in full on video on Spotify and on my own YouTube channel. Episodes drop every Monday and Thursday with a collection of guests you're going to love. So make sure you follow and subscribe to the brand new Zach Lowe Show on Spotify or wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts. Let's go.

• 0:35Sean Fennessey?

  This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype? Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions, reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. 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.

• 1:17Sean Fennessey?

  That's LinkedIn.com/thebigpicture. Terms and conditions apply. 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.

• 1:57Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 1:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 1:59Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Picture Conversation Show about 800 and beyond, maybe. Today on the show, we'll talk about two kids films dominating at the movies this month, the live action How to Train Your Dragon remake and Pixar's latest, Elio. We'll also open the mailbag to answer your questions to celebrate what is our eighth, no, 800th episode. So I was, I was 34 years old.

• 2:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:24Sean Fennessey?

  Childless.

• 2:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 2:25Sean Fennessey?

  Living a quiet life as a generally panicked digital media editor.

• 2:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:31Sean Fennessey?

  That was all when the show started.

• 2:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 2:33Sean Fennessey?

  And now today, you find me, 79 years old, on the verge of physical and mental total collapse.

• 2:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And drowning in plastic.

• 2:41Sean Fennessey?

  And, and my, my collection is stronger than ever. How are you feeling across all these years and days of this show?

• 2:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm great. Thrilled to be here. I don't know, I haven't thought about too much, you know, it's another Monday.

• 2:55Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 2:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Got the kids to school.

• 2:57Sean Fennessey?

  Nice.

• 2:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, we got good questions.

• 2:59Sean Fennessey?

  We did.

• 2:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I am, I'm as always very grateful to be doing this, very grateful to our listeners, very excited for our live events, our film festivals, everything we're doing this year. Um, and you know, and it's, it's just another day talking about the movies.

• 3:14Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Thanks for hanging in there, mama. Uh, housekeeping, Letterboxd is back and I don't just mean my usage of it. I mean, the big pictures usage of it. Thanks to some new forces behind the scenes, we have reactivated our show's account. It is at the big pic on Letterboxd. We are publishing lists from old episodes. We'll be doing ones for new episodes. If you want to keep up with the show, we make a lot of lists on this show. We talk about a lot of movies. We name drop tons of movies through every episode. People are always saying, why can't I have these lists printed out somewhere? We don't put them in the show notes.

• 3:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 3:49Sean Fennessey?

  Because we want you to listen to the episode. And if you're saying out there, but I listen anyway, I appreciate that. However.

• 3:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Once again, this is how we feed our children.

• 3:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 3:57Amanda Dobbins?

  So.

• 3:57Sean Fennessey?

  There will be this ongoing resource though, that you can go to on our, our Letterboxd account. How is your Letterboxd account looking these days?

• 4:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think that I've updated it in four to five years.

• 4:09Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 4:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Um. You know, I checked in recently to see what my top four were and I thought they were pretty good.

• 4:15Sean Fennessey?

  What were they?

• 4:16Amanda Dobbins?

  They were A Few Good Men, His Girl Friday, Marie Antoinette, and I want to say Four Weddings and a Funeral.

• 4:23Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, congrats.

• 4:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, yeah, that's representative.

• 4:26Sean Fennessey?

  Not Working Girl.

• 4:28Amanda Dobbins?

  No, but my icon is Melanie Griffith in Working Girl.

• 4:30Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

• 4:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:32Sean Fennessey?

  That's great. We miss you. Come back. The water is warm.

• 4:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm really busy posting on Instagram. I'm thriving there.

• 4:38Sean Fennessey?

  I see.

• 4:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And I'm, you know, movie fans are also welcome to join me or at the big picture there.

• 4:45Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, sure.

• 4:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, but that's kind of, that's really where I'm thriving right now. Thank you so much.

• 4:50Sean Fennessey?

  Understood. So, Jack Sanders, we opened the mailbag up and, you know, we didn't, we just announced it on the episode. So this, the, the questions that we would have gotten, there was no, I don't believe there was a social media post about this.

• 5:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:03Sean Fennessey?

  So that means you had to be a real head who listened to the 28 Years episode.

• 5:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 5:07Sean Fennessey?

  And, and wrote into us.

• 5:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:09Sean Fennessey?

  And had a big thought. There was no, no X.com. I know you really wanted us to get it up there on X.

• 5:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:14Sean Fennessey?

  I said, no, not this time, Amanda. We don't need to use that platform for our content.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  It was only posted on Truth Social.

• 5:21Sean Fennessey?

  It was Truth Social. That's great. Well, it was very busy there this weekend, as we know. Let's, let's get to more important matters for this show, which is the questions that we received. Jack, good mix? What, was everybody edgy? Were they cool? What was it like?

• 5:33Speaker 03

  I was very delighted. This was a strong batch of emails, I would say.

• 5:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I like the, the questions that you picked out, they were good. And also, you know, I did think that people listened to us, you know, and what we were looking for and what we were maybe not looking for.

• 5:47Sean Fennessey?

  What we called for. Well, maybe Jack was listening.

• 5:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, or Jack as well.

• 5:50Speaker 03

  There's, there certainly were plenty of Dreamcastings still in the emails, but that's okay.

• 5:55Amanda Dobbins?

  It's like, there are only so many people on earth and I have already Dreamcasted them in movies. You know what I mean?

• 6:00Sean Fennessey?

  I, I am going the other way. Next episode, all Dreamcast. Every single question will be a Dreamcast question. Okay, let's, let's just go right into it. 800 episodes. What's the first question? For us.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  John asks, I've been thinking about your comments on the great slate of movies in 2023, and how this year I projected something similar, but imagine it will end up falling short of my expectations. This reflection has me wondering, are there obvious signs to note when you may or may not get a great collection of films come end of the year?

• 6:30Sean Fennessey?

  Why is John's confidence wavering?

• 6:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's early, man.

• 6:34Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like, uh, things are getting, things are picking up.

• 6:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Things are picking up. I do think we're gonna be like maybe in for a little bit of a bumpy July, right?

• 6:43Sean Fennessey?

  I'm seeing Eddington tonight, man, I don't know.

• 6:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, so am I. You don't need to exclude me from that.

• 6:47Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 6:48Amanda Dobbins?

  But I, you understand what I'm saying. Like, the big tickets, want, movies, we're not sure.

• 6:55Sean Fennessey?

  So June has been, I think, a pretty cool blockbuster summer so far. We'll talk about F1 on Friday.

• 7:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:02Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, we just raved about 28 Years Later.

• 7:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:05Sean Fennessey?

  Materialist, maybe not a perfect movie, but I, one that was very fun.

• 7:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 7:09Sean Fennessey?

  For the purposes of this show.

• 7:10Amanda Dobbins?

  And continues to be just an incredible discussion point.

• 7:12Sean Fennessey?

  It's in the culture, it's making some money. So June's been fun. July, yes, Superman and Fantastic Four. Those are, there's a lot hinging on those in a variety of ways. I'm sure we'll spend a lot of time on this show breaking all those things down.

• 7:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Plus dinosaurs.

• 7:28Sean Fennessey?

  And then Jurassic World, you're right, I forgot about that. And then August is unusually loaded this year.

• 7:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but it does also have the feeling of just like, well, we don't really know what to do with this, so here you go in August.

• 7:37Sean Fennessey?

  For some of those.

• 7:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And that sometimes means like, oh, here is a very, you know, fun surprise or something that we're gonna be talking about for a while, and sometimes it's like, well, this didn't pan out.

• 7:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 7:47Amanda Dobbins?

  But, you know, come September, the festivals start again, like, we're back on the horse, big things can happen. There's a new PTA.

• 7:54Sean Fennessey?

  New PTA, new Spike Lee, there's a lot of stuff coming, you know? Both Safdie brothers have movies coming out. I think there's a lot of stuff this year that

• 8:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 8:02Sean Fennessey?

  could mean a great year.

• 8:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 8:04Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I'm definitely not ruling it out.

• 8:06Amanda Dobbins?

  The, the thing that he's talking about, 2023, is that there were a lot of, like, big, brand-name things promised, both in the sense of, like, Barbie is a brand name, but Greta Gerwig, you know, Oppenheimer.

• 8:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 8:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And Spider-Man, like, and basically, everything hit. You know, and so far, some of our, our big hopes have hit, some we've been a little disappointed by. And you never know, right? That is kind of the fun of movies. It's the then you go see it and you're just like, wow, they did it.

• 8:36Sean Fennessey?

  The, the, the, the core of the question itself is a little hard to locate, which is how do you know? You're going to get a good movie year. We obviously spend a lot of time hyping up what's to come on the show. We do movie auctions. We talk about the movies we're looking forward to at the festivals.

• 8:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:52Sean Fennessey?

  This year, I think it was pretty reasonable to be excited about. You know, for me, which are pretty easily the two standouts of the year so far are Sinners and 28 Years Later. Those are the two movies that are in a very specific zone for me personally, in terms of my taste, and also have reached a lot of people. And, you know, movies like Black Bag, Phoenician Scheme, Warfare, these are all like the shrouds, like I.

• 9:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:15Sean Fennessey?

  I had a pretty good feeling those movies were going to at least be interesting to me. But I don't know that I would have known that Final Destination Bloodlines would have been one of my favorite movies of the year.

• 9:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that's a lack of introspection on your part. I knew, you know, and especially once we saw the clip of the, um, the MRI machine.

• 9:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, that's, yeah, that's what I learned.

• 9:33Amanda Dobbins?

  It was like, oh, this has the juice, you know, creative inspiration has been found.

• 9:36Sean Fennessey?

  It does. But, you know, on the other hand, you could look at the year to come and say like, oh my God, Mickey 17, we're still back. But like that movie was a little bit of a letdown for people, you know?

• 9:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm slightly more in the mixed camp so far this year. And I like, I really, really liked Sinners. I really, really liked 28 Years Later. Um, also I liked 28 Days Later, but that was made 26 years ago.

• 9:56Sean Fennessey?

  Correct.

• 9:56Amanda Dobbins?

  So I, but like I said, you know, like, oh my God, we got a really smart zombie movie is like, I, I'm like, that, that's cool. You know, like, we need to bring people to the theaters, but it's not, it's not going to like stand out in my memory forever. It's like the greatest year. I really liked Black Bag. It is, you know, Soderbergh, my guy, like Minor, Soderbergh, even a little bit Phoenician Scheme with Wes Anderson, which I thought was like great, but it, you know.

• 10:21Sean Fennessey?

  It was received as minor.

• 10:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's just people we really love doing their thing well.

• 10:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 10:28Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's, it's maybe not the one for the history books.

• 10:30Sean Fennessey?

  But when I was going through that list of 2023 movies a couple of episodes ago, none of these movies were released at this time of the year, aside from Past Lives, How to Blow Up a Pipeline. And I think that's it.

• 10:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:44Sean Fennessey?

  And all these other movies to this point in the year had not yet come out.

• 10:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:47Sean Fennessey?

  And most of them were like Zone of Interest, you know, Killers of the Farm Moon. These were fall awards movies.

• 10:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally, but I also think like 2023 is the real exception. My in-laws still like talk about and ask me regularly. Because we planned our and you and I both planned our entire summer vacations around Barbenheimer. Because as soon as that was released, you and I just like kind of knew and we're like, okay, that's going to be a major thing we need to cover and then and then we can go on vacation. And so I planned my vacation with my in-laws around that. And they're still like, how did you know? That became such a thing. That's so amazing. And I love Rich and Jane, but I'm just like, it does not take, you know, a genius to know that that is going to be a thing. However, even we didn't know it would be that big.

• 11:31Sean Fennessey?

  No, definitely. And I wouldn't have predicted that either. I think that's a good way to kind of try to answer that question, though, because Christopher Nolan is the single biggest director on the planet right now. So that's one where it's just like anytime, we won't be going away when when The Odyssey is coming out next year either. Like we will, don't, don't, you know, plan your vacation now. I think it's the second week of July, first week of July, whatever the the zone is that he usually likes to release in. And it's it's the same weekend every year, more or less.

• 11:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 11:56Sean Fennessey?

  And then Greta, that's your favorite director. You know what I mean? Like it's, we would never not be there for a moment like that, even though it was a Barbie movie and you could be like, oh, well, you could concern troll it if you wanted to.

• 12:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 12:05Sean Fennessey?

  We never would have not showed up. And that's the way that we do the show and that's the way we evaluate what the year is going to be, which is we have our favorites, we have our hobby horses, you know, if there's a Fincher movie or a PTA movie, we're like going to be more excited than if there's not. And we look closely at the festivals. We look closely at the pipeline. Like, the reason I keep bringing up which studio is putting out what movie is because I think that that also helps me dictate the slate. Like this year was an interesting one because Universal Slate, while successful financially, we'll talk about how to train your dragon in a little bit, just doesn't have as much stuff that I'm interested in as they're going to have next year or as they had two years ago.

• 12:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 12:41Sean Fennessey?

  And that, I think, helps kind of set the expectation for what kind of a year we're going to have. Warner Brothers was concern troll all year.

• 12:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 12:49Sean Fennessey?

  But in the back of my mind, I was like, Warner Brothers slate looks like it fucking rocks. Like, I don't care. It makes money.

• 12:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but again, that was the question of like, this looks like it could go really well if everything pans out. And so far for them, it has panned out, like Sinners absolutely rocks. Also, people went to see it and that, which was the main question right there. One battle after another, I think you and I are pretty confident is gonna rock.

• 13:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I've now gotten several DMs.

• 13:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, we, we have heard all about your, see, listen, you are also talking about film on Instagram.

• 13:18Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I'm not using it too much to talk, but I am receiving.

• 13:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, okay. Wow, okay.

• 13:24Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's really more of like the Pony Express for me. When I dig into the DMs every 14 days, that's when I see the news.

• 13:32Amanda Dobbins?

  That's beautiful. But we don't know how it's gonna do box office wise, so.

• 13:38Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't care.

• 13:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but so, and that's another thing, right? Like of how are we evaluating? Like, what's a successful year? Is it just like the movies we care about rock for us? Do they also make literally billions of dollars? And once again, 2023 is a special example of, of both things happening, so.

• 13:54Sean Fennessey?

  Superman is such an interesting kind of triangulation for what we do on the show. You know, it's obviously, it's somebody who annoys you.

• 14:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 14:03Sean Fennessey?

  It's a character that we have not really had any opportunity to talk about, aside from our Justice League four hour Snyder Cut pod. We have not really spent a lot of time talking about Superman, the character, although he is an iconic American creation. And it's a huge movie for a studio that we were talking about right now. So when you have big, interesting question marks like that, it's a little hard to be like, this will be a great year.

• 14:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Can, will you come on Jam Session before August, before I go on leave again? And do like a ranking, the press tours of the summer so far, because everyone's like really out here.

• 14:40Sean Fennessey?

  I'm less good at seeing that stuff than you are, so maybe I'll, maybe I'll make a point.

• 14:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I'll send you some links. Like, what made me think of this was like the photos of David Corn sweat and. Your wife, Rachel Brosnahan, upposing in front of the Christ the Redeemer statue.

• 14:54Sean Fennessey?

  I did see that.

• 14:55Amanda Dobbins?

  It's like, okay, so we're like, really, really going for it.

• 14:58Sean Fennessey?

  I'd like to thank Rachel Brosnahan.

• 14:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, she's, like, they're all trying. I think he was on the cover of People. But, you know, then there's also, you know, the Jurassic World photo calls have started. Jonathan Bailey was wearing the Ro flip flop. It's like, there's like a whole, we have like a lot to discuss. People are working hard.

• 15:14Sean Fennessey?

  It's a big month.

• 15:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Whether it's gonna work is interesting.

• 15:17Sean Fennessey?

  It's a big month.

• 15:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, people are trying.

• 15:19Sean Fennessey?

  They are trying. Um, we didn't really answer that question, but we did our best. And that's really what we do here. Jack, what's our next question?

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Reagan asks, I'll be entering my second year of law school this fall, and I'm currently interning in Los Angeles at an entertainment law firm. My question to you both is what are the most iconic slash best movie theaters I must grab a ticket to see while I'm here this summer? I have a car, so I'm mobile and willing to brave the LA traffic to try out some iconic theaters.

• 15:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Love this question. Are we sure? Is it Reagan or Reagan, do we think?

• 15:49Speaker 03

  You know, there was some deliberation back here. We went back and forth.

• 15:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:54Speaker 03

  I'm not totally sure. There's no A.

• 15:55Amanda Dobbins?

  If it is like Shakespeare Reagan, then we apologize.

• 15:59Sean Fennessey?

  What character does Reagan appear in?

• 16:01Amanda Dobbins?

  She's one of the daughters of King Lear.

• 16:03Sean Fennessey?

  King Lear.

• 16:03Amanda Dobbins?

  One of the bad ones, I think. Let me make sure I got that right.

• 16:05Sean Fennessey?

  One of the bad ones.

• 16:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah, she, well, not one of the nice ones. You should probably read that at some point. It's about daughters.

• 16:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm getting some King Lear vibes personally here, kind of end of a kingdom, end of an era, end of a life. Um, well, we've answered versions of this question before.

• 16:22Amanda Dobbins?

  It's fine, we can do it again.

• 16:24Sean Fennessey?

  Where do you want to start?

• 16:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, you, go ahead. The number one is not open. Sure, yeah, okay.

• 16:31Sean Fennessey?

  We'll go west to east.

• 16:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Furthest west, the Arrow. I love the Arrow.

• 16:33Sean Fennessey?

  The Arrow, yes. The Arrow is a wonderful theater. The American Cinematheque programs there in Santa Monica. Uh, Santa Monica is difficult for us to get to, but, um, we, the 70 millimeter festival tickets just went on sale, uh, last weekend, and we both grabbed a bunch of tickets to a bunch of movies. I think I've seen one film at the Arrow. We've, I've moderated a lot of conversations at the Arrow over the years. Um, we've, we've, we've introduced films that we did Gone Girl there, right, a couple of years ago? Years ago for Friend of the Fest.

• 17:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And Talented Mr. Ripley.

• 17:02Sean Fennessey?

  And Talented Mr. Ripley, right? You did that. So we have a great relationship with American Cinematheque and love what they do. They also program at the Los Fills 3 on the east side, which is recently converted roughly five or six years ago to the Cinematheque. So moving further.

• 17:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Hold on, if you're going to the Arrow R and D Kitchen across the street.

• 17:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, that is a part of the Houston's chain.

• 17:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Which I'm very passionate about. I'm not, not paid.

• 17:24Sean Fennessey?

  Here's my one note to R and D. This is incredibly important.

• 17:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:27Sean Fennessey?

  You need to be open until midnight. Maybe even later. Because I can't get out of a movie and then not have any restaurant options or drink options in that zone.

• 17:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it is tough.

• 17:37Sean Fennessey?

  It's a massive impediment.

• 17:39Amanda Dobbins?

  It's like a, it's a charming Santa Monica block. And it's like an old, old school movie theater facade and somewhat walkable, which is rare.

• 17:47Sean Fennessey?

  Beautiful marquee.

• 17:47Amanda Dobbins?

  But then, but that little street and there are like bakeries and coffee shops and, you know, weird stuff. But it's true that it's absolutely deserted when you get out of the movie.

• 17:57Sean Fennessey?

  Which is not what you want.

• 17:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 17:58Sean Fennessey?

  Especially if you've driven all the way to the west side.

• 18:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree. I don't know of anyone in the Hillstone Restaurant Group that stays open past 10. I don't know whether that's allowed for them.

• 18:07Sean Fennessey?

  Sounds like you should get involved.

• 18:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I would love to. As you know, my first job was at a Houston's in Atlanta when I was 17. I was a hostess when I was 17 years old.

• 18:16Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting. Have you thought about going back to that lifestyle?

• 18:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I was pretty good at it. I mean, listen, you were corralling like serious traffic. You know, the waits at Houston's could be two hours long.

• 18:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 18:27Amanda Dobbins?

  And that was the case.

• 18:28Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I, I really like Houston's and I'm very grateful to you for introducing me to that chain.

• 18:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:33Sean Fennessey?

  But I don't know that I understand the fervor.

• 18:36Amanda Dobbins?

  It's reliable. It's just like.

• 18:38Sean Fennessey?

  But reliable and I will also turn over two hours of nothing to it? The people who are like, I will sit on the bench outside for two hours.

• 18:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah, I don't, the people without a cocktail, I don't really understand that. But I have gone and just had drinks for 90 minutes. And that was a great Friday night, I gotta tell you.

• 18:56Sean Fennessey?

  It's shocking to hear you say that. Moving further east.

• 18:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 19:00Sean Fennessey?

  How do you do it?

• 19:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I forgot we were talking about movie theaters.

• 19:01Sean Fennessey?

  So.

• 19:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Egyptian?

• 19:03Sean Fennessey?

  I would say the New Beverly comes first.

• 19:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, New Beverly is further west. Yeah, yeah.

• 19:06Sean Fennessey?

  New Beverly is further west on Beverly Boulevard. That's, of course, the theater owned by Quentin Tarantino, which he bought, I don't even know what it was, 15, 20 years ago. Programming there is outstanding.

• 19:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 19:15Sean Fennessey?

  They have a wonderful podcast, the Pure Cinema Podcast, hosted by Brian and Elric, which I've been on a few times. I love those guys. I love what they do at the New Bev. We've also done rewatchables, episodes at the New Bev.

• 19:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I think geographically, we skipped Academy Museum.

• 19:29Sean Fennessey?

  We did. Yeah, uh, yeah.

• 19:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, if I'm, if I'm thinking about it, sorry, two insiders are mid-city-ness.

• 19:35Sean Fennessey?

  This is a large city that we live in. Academy Museum is a great shout.

• 19:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, and they do, they like, a lot of great programming, also do a lot of great kids programming on weekend mornings, if you're looking for that. Okay, then New Beverly, and then...

• 19:47Sean Fennessey?

  And then the Egyptian, I think. The Egyptian is in Hollywood, which has also been recently restored and renovated. It's a, it might be the most beautiful room in the city.

• 19:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 19:56Sean Fennessey?

  Um, the Egyptian is glorious. It is owned by Netflix. Netflix mostly programs its own films there, though that it also works in partnership with American Cinematech and occasionally outside programmers to put films on there. That's an awesome room. I'm also seeing, what am I seeing there? I'm seeing Nope in 70.

• 20:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, fun.

• 20:14Sean Fennessey?

  On my birthday at the Egyptian. I'm very, very excited about that. Um, moving further east.

• 20:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm thinking, I'm thinking, I'm thinking. I mean, I guess the Vista?

• 20:24Sean Fennessey?

  The Vista, yeah. Also now owned by Quentin Tarantino in Los Feliz, which also shows films only on film. Both the New Bev and the Vista only show movies on film.

• 20:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:32Sean Fennessey?

  They also are showing first run movies, so they're getting print struck of new movies. And you can see them on film. I just mentioned this about Life of Chuck. I saw Sinners there on 70. I've seen a bunch of movies there over the last couple of years.

• 20:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I saw The Brutalist there.

• 20:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, wonderful. I saw The Zone of Interest there by myself. That was very strange.

• 20:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I saw The Brutalist by myself.

• 20:51Sean Fennessey?

  No, I meant like I was the only person in the room. And it's an enormous room. Uh, the Vista is a really old school movie house. It has, you know, um, a really kind of deep, sonorous feeling inside. Moving further east.

• 21:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, Los Feliz Three. Right, okay, I'm thinking, I'm thinking, I'm thinking.

• 21:08Sean Fennessey?

  I think that takes us to Vidiotz.

• 21:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 21:10Sean Fennessey?

  And then Vidiotz in Eagle Rock, which is our local and is a rep theater that is a nonprofit and is wonderfully programmed, has great stuff, like you said, for kids, for adults. I just saw Die Hard with a Vengeance.

• 21:24Amanda Dobbins?

  On Father's Day?

• 21:25Sean Fennessey?

  With your husband and CR on Father's Day.

• 21:27Amanda Dobbins?

  It's very cute.

• 21:28Sean Fennessey?

  We had an absolute ball watching that. And there's also a video store attached to Vidiotz. So that's like seven theaters we named.

• 21:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but those are all, those are mostly rep.

• 21:39Sean Fennessey?

  Mostly rep.

• 21:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you have any new release theaters? They closed, they still won't open the Arc Light Dome.

• 21:44Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, there's, there are a handful of landleaves across the city that I think are pretty good, depending on what part of town you're in, just look for them. I think there's five, maybe even six at this point. For work purposes, I'm frequently in AMC's and Regal's.

• 21:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 21:57Sean Fennessey?

  Because they're just convenient, it's easy to lock down seats. I'm not sure if there's too many independently owned. For years, there was the Sunset Five and then on the west side.

• 22:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that's a landmark.

• 22:08Sean Fennessey?

  And now it's a landmark.

• 22:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Which I'm partial to, I also like.

• 22:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's a nice, the landmarks are nice theaters.

• 22:13Amanda Dobbins?

  The landmarks are nice in West Hollywood and Pasadena.

• 22:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, so, I mean, we're just so spoiled here. Like, we have, we have everything. And it does cloud our experience of going to the movies a little bit. It is different from other people, but if you come, if you want to see a down and dirty exploitation movie, you know, a crazy eighties horror movie, go to the New Bev. If you want to see something new and noisy and beautiful, go to the Vista. If you want to see a great series being programmed, a number of movies over a series of days, look at what the Arrow and the Los Feliz Three and the Egyptian are doing. Tons of options here. Good question. What's next?

• 22:47Speaker 03

  Campbell asks, what is the most uncomfortable moment you've had watching a movie with your parents? For example, I remember watching Caddyshack with my dad, and when Danny and Lacey are hooking up, my dad shot across the room to cover my eyes. Or even worse, when I'm older and I understand what's happening. Like, when I was watching Uncut Gems and they are sexting each other and it goes on and on and on.

• 23:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I have two, like visceral memories.

• 23:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 23:13Amanda Dobbins?

  That, one, that just the dad covering your eyes reminded me of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, when what's-her-name comes out of the pool topless in his, like, dream sequence.

• 23:27Sean Fennessey?

  I don't remember who the actress is. Who's the in National and Poons Vacation, you mean?

• 23:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Christmas Vacation.

• 23:33Sean Fennessey?

  Is there a pool sequence in Christmas Vacation 2?

• 23:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I think, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, my Aunt Betty was just like this. Maybe I'm, it's like a dream situation. And Christmas Vacation is what was on rotation for us, but maybe I'm confusing them. Anyway, what I remember.

• 23:49Sean Fennessey?

  It was, it's, there's a sequence, I think, where the girl who was trying to sell him perfume in the mall.

• 23:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 23:55Sean Fennessey?

  She's in the pool, but I don't know if she's topless.

• 23:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I think it maybe suggested that she might be. So anyway, the hands literally like went over the eyes like this.

• 24:03Sean Fennessey?

  You've never, you've literally never seen it because your eyes were covered.

• 24:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, yes, yes. So that was a physical thing. My Aunt Betty also took me to see Jimmy Buffett and then did hand earmuffs like this during Let's Get Drunk and Screw. But we were at a concert, so the earmuffs didn't work.

• 24:15Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think of yourself as a parrot head?

• 24:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I like the vibe a lot. I'm too uptight to actually be a parrot head, but you know me. The beach and drinking yet all hours of the day, it's 5 o'clock somewhere, does speak to me.

• 24:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 24:31Amanda Dobbins?

  So, and I do know all of the words to the breakdown of Cheeseburger in Paradise. So, um.

• 24:36Sean Fennessey?

  Let's hear it. Get in there.

• 24:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Once again, it's give me the margarita first and then that can happen.

• 24:42Sean Fennessey?

  Good to know.

• 24:42Amanda Dobbins?

  The other one.

• 24:43Sean Fennessey?

  Next mailbag margaritas.

• 24:44Amanda Dobbins?

  The other one is sort of like the foundational, like moment of this in my life, which is seeing Jerry Maguire with my mother. And the sex scene between Kelly Preston and Tom Cruise. But then never, stop fucking me. And I was just like, oh my God, I'm sitting next to my mother. This is horrible. Yeah.

• 25:03Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I think I have one that can top it.

• 25:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 25:06Sean Fennessey?

  So my parents split up in 1993 and my dad rented a house when he moved out. And we would, every other weekend I went to my dad's house.

• 25:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 25:20Sean Fennessey?

  And we would always watch the Saturday HBO new movie. If you were an HBO subscriber.

• 25:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 25:26Sean Fennessey?

  They would, you know, release the sort of like the long SVOD version of our youth. Where on Saturdays at 8pm, they would show a relatively new release, probably like nine to 12 months after it came out in movie theaters. So we all sat down to watch Sliver together.

• 25:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, wow.

• 25:44Sean Fennessey?

  As a family.

• 25:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 25:45Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I was probably 12 by the time it hit HBO. My sister was 10 and my brother was eight.

• 25:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Oh, God.

• 25:53Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't know how long it took before, before a sex scene hit, but you know, this is, that's a movie about surveillance that takes place inside of an apartment building. It starred Sharon Stone. I believe it was her first film after Basic Instinct.

• 26:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 26:04Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, William Baldwin is in that movie. Um, Tom Berenger is in it, Martin Landau. And it's written by Joe Easterhouse, the sleaze master himself. And I will say my dad kept watching it for a longer stretch than I would have, were I in his shoes. We did eventually have to turn it off.

• 26:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah.

• 26:27Sean Fennessey?

  Because of its illicit nature.

• 26:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:29Sean Fennessey?

  But, um, that's, looking back, that feels formative.

• 26:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:33Sean Fennessey?

  You know?

• 26:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:34Sean Fennessey?

  Just being in the room for all that with my siblings.

• 26:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, that is intense.

• 26:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 26:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I had a, I had a slight parent version of this this weekend, not like in any, like, not in any way. No, but, um, I did fire up Center Stage for Knox.

• 26:47Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Because Knox is really into ballet right now. And I was solo parenting, so I had to nap, so Center Stage. And, you know, I did forget how much cursing there was in it, but it is also like a lot of beautifully filmed ballet scenes. So I was like, okay, we're gonna be fine. Uh, anyway, we get to the sex scene, which is a PG 13 sex scene. And I can't really tell whether Knox is clocking anything. And then he just says to me, are they doing ballet at home? And I honestly thought that that was a great summary of what was happening. So.

• 27:21Sean Fennessey?

  An expression of the self through dance and physical movement.

• 27:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Please, you know, don't call the cops on me.

• 27:27Sean Fennessey?

  Still haven't seen Center Stage.

• 27:29Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, you should show it to Alice. I mean, obviously, what I just described maybe won't incentivize it, but it's, it's really, really great.

• 27:36Sean Fennessey?

  Whenever we get to a scary part of a movie, and we had that this weekend, she'll, but I'm getting to it, don't worry. She'll say, "I don't like this part," and she wants me to fast forward.

• 27:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 27:45Sean Fennessey?

  And so I could tell her.

• 27:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:47Sean Fennessey?

  This is a scary part.

• 27:49Amanda Dobbins?

  It's like, it's not, it's, first of all, they're not very good actors. They're professional ballet dancers, so...

• 27:55Sean Fennessey?

  Shots to Zoe Saldana?

• 27:57Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no. It's between, it's Jo, it's the Jodie character and Cooper Nielsen. So, but it's not like, again, it's PG 13.

• 28:05Sean Fennessey?

  Got it.

• 28:05Amanda Dobbins?

  It's just sort of, the lighting and the music changes for a little, and you're like, "Oh, I see."

• 28:11Sean Fennessey?

  This comes for us all, so it's a good question. All right, what's next, Jack?

• 28:15Speaker 03

  Joshua says, "In the spirit of 25 for 25, I wonder if there was a movie or theatrical experience that floored you from this century."

• 28:25Sean Fennessey?

  I really like this question.

• 28:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:27Sean Fennessey?

  It took me back to a time when I wasn't doing this professionally. And I had, I didn't have to be as locked in on what's coming next.

• 28:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I have a few that are from this time.

• 28:36Sean Fennessey?

  I see that.

• 28:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I just went like off the top of my head.

• 28:38Sean Fennessey?

  I admire that you had that.

• 28:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:41Sean Fennessey?

  I wanted to use debuts as my, the lens through which I see this, because I didn't know anything about the filmmakers, so I didn't have any expectation heading in. So, these are the ones that I came up with, same, off the top of my head. First one was Memento. Ironic, I guess, given my relationship with Nolan over the years, the sort of, the up and down arc that we have had together, me as watcher, he as creative person. Memento, though, knocked me out. I was like, "What is this amazing?" Love the structure, love the trickery of it, love the screenplay.

• 29:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Was it drafted in the 2000 draft?

• 29:16Sean Fennessey?

  I thought it was a 2001 release.

• 29:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, is it?

• 29:19Sean Fennessey?

  I think so. I'm fairly certain.

• 29:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. I, I thought it was eligible. No, you're right. March twenty, two thousand one. Okay, that's why. Cause I was very confused why it didn't go, but that's because it was not eligible.

• 29:30Sean Fennessey?

  It premiered at Venice in two thousand.

• 29:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm. Yes. As all the great films do.

• 29:35Sean Fennessey?

  Well, sure.

• 29:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:36Sean Fennessey?

  Others, Ex Machina.

• 29:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:38Sean Fennessey?

  Knocked out by that. Two things, it was early in the run up. Obviously Alex Garland's directorial debut. Two was like, one of the first A twenty four movies. So there wasn't this like, oh, new A twenty four movie. Is it gonna be good? Is it not? We weren't thinking of things that way. Whiplash, I've talked about it many times over the years. Huge movie for me.

• 29:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:53Sean Fennessey?

  Um, Raw, the French cannibal film.

• 29:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Sean Fennessey?

  Which I really, really loved. Um, In Bruges.

• 30:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:01Sean Fennessey?

  Martin McDonagh's directorial debut. Exit Through The Gift Shop popped into my head. I think we're a little bit like too cool for Banksy these days.

• 30:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:09Sean Fennessey?

  Um, he was in his heyday, so to speak. And I really, I really liked how that movie was structured and how it was made.

• 30:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:16Sean Fennessey?

  And then I wrote Borat.

• 30:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 30:18Sean Fennessey?

  Borat, Borat in theaters.

• 30:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:21Sean Fennessey?

  And we were hooting and hollering.

• 30:22Amanda Dobbins?

  That's great.

• 30:23Sean Fennessey?

  Like, is this really happening?

• 30:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I have one of those too.

• 30:25Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, what, what do you?

• 30:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I wrote down Tar, which is the, of the span of this podcast, but I just remember like shifting in my seat with excitement through all of it. And then the ending being like, oh my God, I can't believe they did this. Then bursting out laughing. One of the great movies. Um, Napoleon Dynamite.

• 30:43Sean Fennessey?

  Surprised to see this.

• 30:44Amanda Dobbins?

  We went in college and I remember like at the, I think The Nugget was the name of the theater in college. I wonder if it's still there and we all thought it was hilarious. And then it was that kind of like instant making, you know, vote for Pedro jokes, like that sort of thing. It kind of took everyone.

• 31:00Sean Fennessey?

  Look at you, a head. And you haven't seen Minecraft.

• 31:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, not yet. Um, The Irishman, which we saw together. We went to the premiere at, um, the Chinese theater.

• 31:12Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:13Amanda Dobbins?

  And.

• 31:14Sean Fennessey?

  We didn't mention the Chinese in our list of theaters.

• 31:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:16Sean Fennessey?

  I like the Chinese. I don't love it.

• 31:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I do too. I don't, can you go there as like a, and they'll just show whatever?

• 31:21Sean Fennessey?

  They screen movies there every weekend.

• 31:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you do have to go like through a giant mall to go there. That, the mall is also where they have the Oscars, literally.

• 31:27Sean Fennessey?

  The Dolby Theater is there as well.

• 31:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Very funny. So, you know, if you're interested in movies. But yeah, The Irishman, we were there for the premiere. And I, I think that movie is like. Deeply underappreciated, but also, again, that thing where the ending, you just, you could feel everyone breathing together in the room. It was very, very special. Um, I also kind of had a similar thing for Wolf of Wall Street when I saw it, which was like in a blizzard, um, in New York and was just like, wow, what is this? But only one Scorsese on my list. Uh, Past Lives, another one where I remember, it's funny, I was talking with a friend of ours last week, who, we were talking about the great materialists, uh, debate. And she was like, well, honestly, like I didn't, I wasn't that into Past Lives, so I turned it off.

• 32:13Amanda Dobbins?

  And, but what I said was, oh, then like you missed the ending, which for me is what's kind of, I remember just being like, they did it, they did it, they did it. Um, but that was one like I just saw opening day in an AMC.

• 32:25Sean Fennessey?

  A lot of people have popped their heads up out of the sand recently and been like, I didn't care about Past Lives in the first place. I'm like, all right, everybody, like, cool, that's great. You have an opinion, it's okay.

• 32:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Congrats, you know, start your own podcast. Uh, and then the last one, I'm just gonna be honest, La La Land, which I saw in the Arc Light Dome.

• 32:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 32:43Amanda Dobbins?

  And again, like one of the-

• 32:44Sean Fennessey?

  Why, are you ashamed? Why?

• 32:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I, you know, we've, we've gone back and forth with La La Land as a society.

• 32:49Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 32:50Amanda Dobbins?

  And like, I understand where everyone is, but again, that ending, I guess if you really nail the ending of a movie and I'm in a theater and I'm just like, wow, I can't believe this happened. Um, but on like the largest screen possible.

• 33:03Sean Fennessey?

  I don't see Babylon on your list.

• 33:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, as I said, I had some thoughts about the ending of that, but the middle two hours is really good.

• 33:09Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Uh, let's do the next question.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  Newton asks, I'm an English teacher at a tiny school and recently got the okay to teach an elective intro to film class next semester. I'm building the curriculum now and would love some advice. I'm designing the course as a genre study, focusing on a different genre each week and the thematic questions each genre is specifically capable of addressing, with an emphasis on classic or all-timer films in the genres. Do you have any recommendations for high school students that are approachable, rich, and perhaps can canonically, I can't read Sean because you're highlighting the doc. Perhaps canonically important for the following genres, horror, coming of age, and romance.

• 33:54Sean Fennessey?

  I'm known to highlight the document often when I'm reading.

• 33:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:58Sean Fennessey?

  Just a tick that I have and I did it to Jack and I apologize. So I, the way that I would do this, where I, where I a professor would be, I would choose one film from each decade. That I think meaningfully represents the transition.

• 34:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 34:11Sean Fennessey?

  So you could say, or you know, roughly the decade.

• 34:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 34:14Sean Fennessey?

  So for horror, it's fairly simple, you know, it's, it's the, it's, it's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist. It's Halloween, it's Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th. These are just American films.

• 34:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 34:28Sean Fennessey?

  The international version of it. It's Scream, it's, um, you know, maybe the Rob Zombie Halloween, for example, to show like a kind of shift in transgression. You know, it's not, I think it would be fairly simple to locate them. You just kind of need to figure out.

• 34:43Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't need to be condescending. This is a cool question.

• 34:46Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not trying to be condescending.

• 34:47Amanda Dobbins?

  And I'm really excited for all these people are very lucky.

• 34:50Sean Fennessey?

  That they get this class?

• 34:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And a thoughtful teacher. So you just relax there.

• 34:55Sean Fennessey?

  Sounds like this teacher, maybe it should be working a little harder, asking podcasters to design their curriculum for them. I mean, I don't, you know, what's this, what's this fellow's name? You know, Newton, maybe time.

• 35:07Amanda Dobbins?

  This is why, this is why we can't take you anywhere.

• 35:08Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe time to hit the books.

• 35:09Amanda Dobbins?

  This is why we can't take you anywhere. Okay, so what are your coming of age picks?

• 35:15Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm. It depends on how far back you want to go. I mean, you could start with American Graffiti.

• 35:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I think you could start with The Graduate.

• 35:22Sean Fennessey?

  Start with The Graduate? Yeah.

• 35:24Amanda Dobbins?

  And then, but American Graffiti was also my seventies pick as well.

• 35:27Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I mean, you could start with like, uh, Old Yeller. You know, like there, there, I'm trying to think, there's, there were not as many movies in the thirties, forties and fifties and sixties. Made for, made about children that adults would want to watch.

• 35:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 35:39Sean Fennessey?

  Most of the children's entertainment made at that time, your sort of your little rascal style stuff was just for kids.

• 35:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:48Sean Fennessey?

  So the the coming of age movie, the movie about people between the ages of like 12 and 20.

• 35:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 35:53Sean Fennessey?

  I think is really more a convention of 60s into New Hollywood.

• 35:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 35:59Sean Fennessey?

  Graduate is a good call.

• 36:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:01Sean Fennessey?

  I think American Graffiti.

• 36:02Amanda Dobbins?

  My first thought as well.

• 36:03Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 36:04Amanda Dobbins?

  A John Hughes for 80s.

• 36:06Sean Fennessey?

  Breakfast Club, for sure. That seems right. 90s coming of age, what would be your choices? What was, what were the big ones for us? Like, there's, they get a little stratus, stratified into genre, like now.

• 36:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 36:17Sean Fennessey?

  And then it's the girl version, you know, the Sandlot is the sports version.

• 36:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 36:22Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know, is there a classical? Stand by Me is a good one. Clueless is a great one.

• 36:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:25Sean Fennessey?

  That's a great, great shout.

• 36:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. 2000s, I mean.

• 36:29Sean Fennessey?

  Fast Times, I forgot to mention that.

• 36:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 36:31Sean Fennessey?

  That's also one that could go in the 80s. 2000's Superbad, clearly.

• 36:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I guess Virgin Suicides we put in 2000s, but really any Sofia, Lost of Translation.

• 36:40Sean Fennessey?

  Ghost World.

• 36:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Um, 2010's Lady Bird.

• 36:45Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 36:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 36:46Sean Fennessey?

  Probably the best one.

• 36:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:48Sean Fennessey?

  There's a lot of them. Okay, Romance. This is my kryptonite, as you know.

• 36:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, so we're gonna do both romance and romantic comedy.

• 36:55Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 36:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so it happened one night. I mean, it's, it's like not, you're right, that it's, then I would definitely go into Casablanca.

• 37:03Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm. I would put in Brief Encounter.

• 37:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. What's our 50s pick?

• 37:09Sean Fennessey?

  Um. Maybe one of the Billy Wilder movies, like Sabrina, something like that.

• 37:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, though, I mean, like, for that one, you want to do, um, The Apartment, which is 60, but that's okay.

• 37:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 37:23Amanda Dobbins?

  So 60s romance.

• 37:27Sean Fennessey?

  Doctor Zhivago, something like that.

• 37:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, or My Fair Lady, even though you're anti-Adrian Hepburn, which is your own thing. Yeah, I mean, you know, I, I don't, it's not what I would want to be teaching my daughter either. Um, had I a daughter.

• 37:40Sean Fennessey?

  70s, Love Story.

• 37:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:43Sean Fennessey?

  It's a pretty big one.

• 37:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, Way We Were.

• 37:45Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 37:46Amanda Dobbins?

  80s, um, Ghost.

• 37:51Sean Fennessey?

  Ghost, good, good call.

• 37:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, is like a huge one. I, well, is Ghost, or Ghost might be 1990. Uh, what else 80s wise, romance, romantic comedy? I mean, when Harry Matt Sally's 89, so that obviously Ghost is 90. Um, Pretty Woman is also 90. Let's see, English Patient, 96.

• 38:11Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, um. Uh, Moonstruck?

• 38:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, sure. Yes, thank you. One of the greats. Two thousands. A tough, a tough time for romances.

• 38:22Sean Fennessey?

  Why was that?

• 38:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, because...

• 38:24Sean Fennessey?

  Because of the presidents?

• 38:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, because they gave up on, on women, as they always do.

• 38:29Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Um...

• 38:30Sean Fennessey?

  What about...

• 38:30Amanda Dobbins?

  And probably also the presidents. They definitely gave up on women.

• 38:33Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 38:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Two thousands romances.

• 38:36Sean Fennessey?

  The Notebook?

• 38:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, thank you. In, in...

• 38:40Sean Fennessey?

  That's the signature.

• 38:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of the last...

• 38:43Sean Fennessey?

  Twenty teens, Fifty Shades of Grey.

• 38:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Phantom Thread.

• 38:47Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm, good one.

• 38:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Um...

• 38:49Sean Fennessey?

  Did we, did we mention Sliver?

• 38:52Sean Fennessey?

  No?

• 38:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 38:56Sean Fennessey?

  I think we did good.

• 38:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Those are good movies.

• 38:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think we did really well.

• 38:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 38:59Sean Fennessey?

  I want to do, for the horror question, my intention around the, uh, the nineties is to do the nineties horror movie canon with CR for I Know What You Did Last Summer.

• 39:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's fun.

• 39:11Sean Fennessey?

  Because there, I guess it's a reboot and not a remake?

• 39:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:15Sean Fennessey?

  Even though it seems very similar in, in structure and style?

• 39:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 39:18Sean Fennessey?

  Do you have any feelings about Madeline Klein? You know who that is?

• 39:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Googling now because I do, but I, oh, no, I don't. Who is this? She's one of the, oh, Outer Banks. Yeah, so Outer Banks is, I thought that it was a reality show until fairly recently. And then I learned that it's not. And I know Drew Starkey is also of Outer Banks fame.

• 39:39Sean Fennessey?

  He is.

• 39:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Um...

• 39:41Sean Fennessey?

  So she was, she was also one of the stars of Glass Onion.

• 39:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 39:45Sean Fennessey?

  She was...

• 39:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I kind of memory hold that one.

• 39:47Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 39:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Glass Onion, not Madeline Klein.

• 39:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And she's the star now of this new I Know What You Did Last Summer film.

• 39:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 39:55Sean Fennessey?

  I guess she's sort of in the Sarah Michelle Gellar part, even though she's being pitched as the lead.

• 40:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 40:02Sean Fennessey?

  And Jennifer Love Hewitt was really more the lead of the original film. Nineties horror, though, I bring that up because it's, it's a really funky decade. Obviously, everybody remembers Scream and they remember like this movie and Urban Legend and a bunch of others that came in the aftermath, Final Destination.

• 40:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 40:15Sean Fennessey?

  But nineteen ninety through nineteen ninety-six is like a little bit of a wasteland, so I think it might be a fun exercise to do to kind of dig up what our faves are. All right, anyway, moving on. Was that good, Newton? Did we write your whole syllabus for you? You're welcome. What's next?

• 40:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Newton, I think that it's great that you're shaping the minds of tomorrow, and this sounds like a cool class, and Sean's a dick.

• 40:36Sean Fennessey?

  Trying to get an adjunct position right here.

• 40:38Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I'm just trying to encourage people. Jesus Christ.

• 40:42Sean Fennessey?

  If you need more money, just tell me, alright?

• 40:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I do. I need more money.

• 40:47Sean Fennessey?

  That's why you're on Instagram. Okay, next question.

• 40:51Speaker 03

  Kevin's coming in with a little bit of heat here. He says, "I think it's become a cliche for you guys to stay on the big picture in rewatchables that you've seen certain movies 50 to 100 times. I'm curious to hear what are the 5 to 10 movies that each of you genuinely think you've seen the most in your life, and how many times you actually think you've seen them."

• 41:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, Kevin, that's how cable works.

• 41:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Kevin, watch your mouth, you know? Just relax, alright? We saw these movies a lot. Nobody's lying here.

• 41:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:17Sean Fennessey?

  And if we are exaggerating, alright, what are you gonna do? Put me in prison? No, it's just a podcast. Everybody just settle down. There are a lot of movies that I have seen at least 18 minutes of, well over 100 times. In college, especially.

• 41:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:34Sean Fennessey?

  You just put a movie on and just let it play.

• 41:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 41:37Sean Fennessey?

  I assume people are still doing this, though maybe not.

• 41:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's called Netflix and chill.

• 41:41Sean Fennessey?

  No, Sam says no. You're, oh my, okay, well, that's a whole other conversation down the road. So, in college, people are no longer just putting a movie on and letting it roll in the background while you drink, you know, natty lights and, and smoke a bowl. That's just not a thing that happens anymore.

• 41:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess that's why we don't make comedies anymore.

• 41:58Sean Fennessey?

  That's, wow. You nailed it. That's the problem.

• 42:01Amanda Dobbins?

  It's tough.

• 42:01Sean Fennessey?

  God damn it, god damn it, Gen Z, you did it again.

• 42:04Speaker 03

  Okay, I'm not gonna let Sam solely speak on my behalf, because that is not the case for me. I had a great time recently watching, oh, what was the horror, what was the movie that we hate? Saltburn.

• 42:16Sean Fennessey?

  Saltburn.

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Throwing on Saltburn, getting really drunk, playing cards, and just being like, "Look, it's the time when Barry Keoghan does this thing," so.

• 42:23Sean Fennessey?

  Saltburn, a great dorm room movie, in so many ways.

• 42:28Sean Fennessey?

  I, so between that and also being a latchkey kid.

• 42:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:31Sean Fennessey?

  I watched so many movies dozens of times. And I'm not afraid to say that I'm not exaggerating. And I'm probably in this role in my life for that reason.

• 42:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I honestly, at some point, just wrote down all of the movies that I had VHSs of.

• 42:45Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, that's, that's the other thing.

• 42:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:47Sean Fennessey?

  Is that if you owned the movie or you taped the movie off television, which I'm sure we both did. So I just did it off the dome list. Our lists are perfect snapshots of our formative times.

• 43:00Sean Fennessey?

  Ones I watched over and over again, Clerks, Big Lebowski, Seven, Die Hard, Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, Goodfellas, Godfather. That's the bro canon, right?

• 43:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 43:09Sean Fennessey?

  But then also Turning 16 and getting into cinema.

• 43:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 43:13Sean Fennessey?

  Watching Citizen Kane over and over again, watching Wizard of Oz over and over again, watching it when I was five and then watching it a lot as I got older. Those are the ones that jumped to my mind immediately. I'm sure there's more on the list. Like Fargo is probably on the list for me there, too.

• 43:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 43:25Sean Fennessey?

  What's on your list?

• 43:26Amanda Dobbins?

  You've got Mail and When Harry Met Sally, The Two Norafrons, Devil Wears Prada, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Singin' in the Rain, which I think was true even before I introduced it to my son. But these are all Amanda movies and not just movies I've watched 45 million times.

• 43:39Sean Fennessey?

  That's the other thing. I didn't even add that part.

• 43:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Bridget Jones's Diary, Sound of Music, Father of the Bride, the Charles Shire and Nancy Meyers version, My Best Friend's Wedding, and Apollo 13. Apollo 13, I had the VHS.

• 43:51Sean Fennessey?

  It's one of the great personality tests of all time. That question, what are the movies you've seen more than 50 times? Okay, Taylor, got another question?

• 43:59Speaker 03

  Taylor asks, my question to you is about huge blind spots in your movie-watching lifetime. Sean has mentioned not seeing Mamma Mia, and I imagine Amanda hasn't seen The Exorcist or something. Any glaring omissions that people might be surprised you haven't seen?

• 44:16Sean Fennessey?

  So what I did just now is I just pulled up my watch list on Letterboxd to answer this question. I currently have 2,584 films on my watch list.

• 44:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Do you like living this way?

• 44:29Sean Fennessey?

  I'm very content.

• 44:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. No, you're not.

• 44:31Sean Fennessey?

  I am. I think you think I'm not happy or something, but I'm.

• 44:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 44:36Sean Fennessey?

  You used the word thriving.

• 44:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 44:37Sean Fennessey?

  On the show last week.

• 44:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:39Sean Fennessey?

  And I felt a chill of resonance.

• 44:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's great. That's nice. It's because we're happy at home with our small children.

• 44:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, we have.

• 44:45Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, it's great.

• 44:46Sean Fennessey?

  We have that part of our life is very good.

• 44:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 44:48Sean Fennessey?

  So the first, this is very strange.

• 44:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 44:51Sean Fennessey?

  I, in fact, there must be a glitch in the matrix.

• 44:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 44:54Sean Fennessey?

  But the first two films right now in the watch list are both directed.

• 45:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:00Sean Fennessey?

  By the man who also directed Die Hard with a Vengeance, which I just shouted out. And I haven't seen either of these movies. Medicine Man.

• 45:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:07Sean Fennessey?

  And Basic.

• 45:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 45:08Sean Fennessey?

  I've never seen either of these movies, even though I'm a huge John McTiernan fan. These are considered two of his lesser efforts. I've heard Basic is absolutely crazy.

• 45:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 45:18Sean Fennessey?

  There's a great Blank Check series about McTiernan's films. McTiernan also was involved in some of the sordid surveillance activities. He went to prison for a stretch. You know, Die Hard.

• 45:28Amanda Dobbins?

  He wrote a Thomas Crown sequel in prison.

• 45:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 45:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Make it.

• 45:31Sean Fennessey?

  Unproduced.

• 45:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:33Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, McTiernan is truly great, uh, but I haven't seen these movies. Lorraine Bracco and Sean Connery, do they have chemistry?

• 45:40Amanda Dobbins?

  That's not like The Exorcist, though, which I don't think I've seen.

• 45:43Sean Fennessey?

  I have a lot of those.

• 45:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I have recently watched Poltergeist, but I haven't seen The Exorcist.

• 45:47Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 45:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 45:48Sean Fennessey?

  Let me see if I can even just on this page, if there's one that is particular. What are some others for you?

• 45:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, what are the canonical horror movies? I don't think I've seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

• 45:57Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 45:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 45:59Sean Fennessey?

  What about something outside of a genre that you haven't pursued? Like, is there an all time romantic classic or a musical or just a pure comedy that you're like, oh, it's on my list, but I haven't gotten to it?

• 46:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm trying to think. Let's see. I mean, there are, clearly there are a lot of musicals. Um.

• 46:19Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I was listening to, speaking of another podcast, I was listening to You Must Remember This, which had that great season about, um, The Old Man is Still Alive. And it was like, the great, uh, golden era Hollywood filmmakers making films in their 60s, 70s and 80s. And I believe Vincent Minnelli was a, a subject of one episode. And he's made so many goddamn movies.

• 46:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:39Sean Fennessey?

  And Karina Longworth is going through the films that he made from his glory period all the way through his 60s. And I was like, I just haven't seen like 10 of these movies. So when you hear that.

• 46:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. I mean, I have those for pretty much every single director. A musical that just popped to the top. Of my head, because I think they recently showed it at Vidiot's and I was like, oh, I wish I could have gotten Victor Victoria.

• 47:00Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And I am a Julie Andrews head in a big way, but um, haven't seen that.

• 47:05Sean Fennessey?

  Directed by her husband Blake Edwards.

• 47:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, let's see.

• 47:07Sean Fennessey?

  Oscar nominated.

• 47:07Amanda Dobbins?

  What other genres did you just throw at me?

• 47:09Sean Fennessey?

  That's a really good one. That's a good example.

• 47:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, I know, and I really wanted to go see it. And that's another thing, like rep theaters are amazing of, you know, we were talking about the 70 millimeter festival. I have seen 2001, but I've never seen it on a big screen. So I bought tickets to that and I'm going to get to go see it projected, which is I think like the whole point.

• 47:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, will you have a gummy?

• 47:27Sean Fennessey?

  The way your parents did.

• 47:28Amanda Dobbins?

  You know what? I like I, my, my parents didn't, so.

• 47:32Sean Fennessey?

  Never smoked, no smoking grass before 2001?

• 47:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think my mother ever has and.

• 47:37Sean Fennessey?

  Has your, either of your parents ever used the phrase, we smoked grass?

• 47:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Definitely not. But I mean, my parents are slightly more uptight, you, you know, I love them very much.

• 47:48Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 47:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't really like gummies, you know?

• 47:52Sean Fennessey?

  I see.

• 47:52Amanda Dobbins?

  So I don't.

• 47:54Sean Fennessey?

  More ketamine, maybe?

• 47:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's it. I just, I like good old fashioned alcohol. Will I try to go to R and D kitchen before? Yes.

• 48:02Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like there's a huge difference between gummy and one and a half margaritas at R and D kitchen. Just.

• 48:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I wouldn't have a margarita. Yeah.

• 48:09Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. What would you have? Three glasses of rosé?

• 48:12Amanda Dobbins?

  No, that's too many because then you're just like a little drunk and, and, and loopy. Not more than a little. I've just, I would have a Negroni. Classic Negroni though. The, the Hillstones sing the one thing they're Negroni, they're trying to put vodka in the Negroni, like no, thank you.

• 48:27Sean Fennessey?

  And that's what they do at Hillstone?

• 48:28Amanda Dobbins?

  That's their recipe.

• 48:29Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like you have to make a couple of phone calls to that corporation.

• 48:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I, well, I just, I asked for a classic Negroni. You know, now that Negroni is popular, everyone's trying to do their spin. No, we do classic.

• 48:38Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 48:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 48:39Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks for sharing. I accidentally forgot to order a martini with a twist the other day and they put olives in it and I almost wanted to throw it in the garbage.

• 48:48Amanda Dobbins?

  So olives are a no for you?

• 48:50Sean Fennessey?

  In a cocktail, no way.

• 48:51Amanda Dobbins?

  But will you eat them?

• 48:52Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm, stuff I like. Just standalone, not like, I don't hate it.

• 48:57Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not, it's not like a mustard thing?

• 48:59Sean Fennessey?

  I like a topinot.

• 49:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, you do?

• 49:02Sean Fennessey?

  I do. Just schmear some topinot on a piece of bread.

• 49:04Amanda Dobbins?

  You never know with creams, dips, spreads, what's gonna be a yes and what's gonna be a no for you.

• 49:10Sean Fennessey?

  You know?

• 49:11Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true, but like you actually-

• 49:12Sean Fennessey?

  I don't want like a cream-based topinot. I just want pure olive.

• 49:15Amanda Dobbins?

  You like mayo. Actually, you will eat it in the right circumstances, but it's mustard-

• 49:19Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 49:19Amanda Dobbins?

  That you won't actually have, which I still think makes you a sociopath. Where are you on pimento cheese?

• 49:25Sean Fennessey?

  I like-

• 49:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 49:28Sean Fennessey?

  But lactose intolerant, so complicated.

• 49:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, alright.

• 49:32Sean Fennessey?

  A hot cheese, no problem. Melted cheese, A+.

• 49:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, but-

• 49:36Sean Fennessey?

  Cold cheese, a little dicey.

• 49:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 49:38Sean Fennessey?

  You gotta use sparingly.

• 49:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you think that's about the lactose, or is that about the temperature?

• 49:43Sean Fennessey?

  That's what they say. They say the-

• 49:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, because it's breaking it down, the, okay.

• 49:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, this is what I've learned in my exploration-

• 49:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 49:51Sean Fennessey?

  Into lactose knowledge.

• 49:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Got it.

• 49:53Sean Fennessey?

  Anyway, this has been helpful. What's the next question?

• 49:57Speaker 03

  Grayson asks, "Over the years, I've had so many negative cinema experiences because of people talking, people on their phones, etc. I've never heard you talk about these kinds of things. I'm wondering if this is much of an issue for you, and if so, how do you deal with it? I've had some incredible movies ruined by rude people."

• 50:14Sean Fennessey?

  I'm having a bit of a turning point with this experience in my life. Now, there's two things at play. One is everyone, myself included, is more addled by their phone than ever. They feel the need to look at their phone all the time. It really hit hard for me after we had Alice, because I was like, is everything okay at home?

• 50:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 50:34Sean Fennessey?

  For the first two years of her life. So I was always kind of trying to make sure that everything was fine. Then over time, you're just like constantly looking at social media and it, you know, invades your brain and attaches it to yourself and you can't not look all the time. So that's one. Two, I had this experience on Friday.

• 50:51Sean Fennessey?

  I saw 28 Years Later off the plane. Long, crazy morning. And it was a little harder than usual to retain the information from the movie.

• 51:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:01Sean Fennessey?

  Now, I never take notes during movies, ever.

• 51:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 51:03Sean Fennessey?

  I need to start doing that. How will I do that? I don't really like to write.

• 51:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 51:09Sean Fennessey?

  In the movie theater, and I don't want to have one of those pens that has a light on it. But then I would want to use a notes app if I can and I'm not disturbing anyone near me.

• 51:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 51:17Sean Fennessey?

  But, one, it's incredibly difficult to not disturb someone when your phone is out. And I don't like when other people do it to me. And, two, if you look down, you're not looking at the movie. And you're missing things.

• 51:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 51:27Sean Fennessey?

  And I felt myself, even watching 28 Years Later, like trying to look down at something and then, because I was in the theater all by myself, and then look back up. And I was like, oh, I just missed like 12 seconds and that was important, what I missed there.

• 51:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 51:38Sean Fennessey?

  And I'm bringing all of that up to say that I feel that I'm a very respectful movie watcher. I don't disturb other people. I try to be very quiet. I try not to look at my phone historically. And I know that this is something that is bugging people more and more, and it's an impediment to movie going. But I also know personally that, like, it's hard. It's increasingly hard to do the job that we're doing and get it right. And people, all the time, we make mistakes, they're like, why are you such fucking idiots? And, two, that people are just addicted to their phones. Like, it's just a fact.

• 52:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 52:09Sean Fennessey?

  And so, in the movie theater experience, for example, I'm sorry, I'm rambling. Just go with me, this has been on my mind recently. We saw Elio yesterday, and we saw it in an iPic. And I sat next to Alice, and we were in a pod. And in those pods, you can just look at your phone.

• 52:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 52:23Sean Fennessey?

  Nobody else can see you, everything is blocked around you, you're not disturbing anyone by doing it, especially if you turn the brightness all the way down. And so there are, like, increasingly environments being created where you can look at your phone while you're in the movie theater.

• 52:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 52:35Sean Fennessey?

  So, like, they gave me the Wi-Fi password when I walked into the movie theater.

• 52:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 52:39Sean Fennessey?

  So they're almost expecting.

• 52:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that's because it's in a basement, yeah.

• 52:41Sean Fennessey?

  It is in a basement.

• 52:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 52:42Sean Fennessey?

  Um, so, all to say.

• 52:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. May I, may I speak on this?

• 52:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, you may.

• 52:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean.

• 52:49Sean Fennessey?

  Sorry.

• 52:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. No, it's complicated. I mean, the larger issue is that, like, the social contract is broken, like, writ large, and it's just not, it's not just at movie theaters, like. People are like using their phones and just like taking phone calls, like blasting music, like just, just being rude in, in phone and non-phone related ways everywhere all the time. Like, we forgot how to be around people or be respectful of people, and that sucks. So I wish everyone would just like be a little more thoughtful to everyone else. I'm with you on the, I mean, last week, Zach was out of town, and so I needed to see a few movies for work, but like I was, and I, you know, our nanny was with the kids, but

• 53:31Amanda Dobbins?

  like if someone, if, if they needed me, like it was me.

• 53:35Sean Fennessey?

  You might have to leave at any moment.

• 53:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, like I was, I was the parent on call. So, you know, I turn the brightness down. I try to see place, I try to see movies at times when I'm not going to be like in a packed theater. And I do also try to pick seating in a way where like there aren't people behind me. That doesn't mean that I'm like suddenly on Twitter all the time. I'm never on Twitter, but I turn the brightness down and I just kind of like have it so that if, if like a call pops up.

• 54:01Sean Fennessey?

  You can look.

• 54:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I can take it. And, but otherwise, I'm like not looking at my phone. But that's just kind of how life is right now. So in the same way that people need to be respectful of other people, like you also got to give people a little grace, you know?

• 54:14Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 54:15Amanda Dobbins?

  But just like, don't be a loud asshole wherever you are in life, whether it's at the movies or not.

• 54:20Sean Fennessey?

  Did you clock the person sitting next to me at F1?

• 54:24Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 54:25Sean Fennessey?

  So we went to see F1 last week and we went to an influencer screening.

• 54:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 54:28Sean Fennessey?

  And I was sitting next to a really young guy. He honestly seemed like he was 19.

• 54:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 54:34Sean Fennessey?

  And he looked at his phone, I would say 75 times during the screening. Now, he looked at it really up close to his face and his brightness was extraordinarily low.

• 54:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 54:43Sean Fennessey?

  So there was no light really emanating from the phone, but even the act of pulling the phone out and getting it close is a distraction.

• 54:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, no, that's, of course.

• 54:50Sean Fennessey?

  And I could tell that he was just a kid who was just addicted to his phone. And I'm like, there's nothing there that could have possibly happened for you.

• 54:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 54:58Sean Fennessey?

  In with the repeated usage that you're doing, but it is indicative of a, a, a direction that we are heading that is actually a challenge to movies.

• 55:07Amanda Dobbins?

  It's and when a challenge to life in general.

• 55:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 55:10Amanda Dobbins?

  And, you know, it makes me nervous about like our kids like Si is eight months old and knows exactly that the phone is the most valuable commodity and crawls.

• 55:18Sean Fennessey?

  I watched him chew on it.

• 55:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, part of that is that he wants to chew on anything right now, but um, no, he spots it and it like crawls towards it. So that doesn't really help Grayson, who's just trying to like, watch a movie without someone watching TikToks. But here's one thing that we can do.

• 55:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Headphones or silent. No projecting music. Nobody wants to hear it.

• 55:40Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, my God.

• 55:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Hear it at a restaurant. Nobody wants to hear it on public transportation. No one wants to hear it at the beach. Keep your Bluetooth speakers at home. Listen to the ocean. Jesus Christ. Yeah.

• 55:55Sean Fennessey?

  Were you saying that Jesus Christ is making the sounds of the ocean?

• 55:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, he might be, you know, and where else are we going to experience him but at the ocean?

• 56:02Sean Fennessey?

  That's great.

• 56:03Amanda Dobbins?

  But I, so the, turn the sound off. Turn the sound off on your phone. All of you, all of you children TikToking, turn the sound off. This is also like, I don't understand why people are so good at like.

• 56:14Sean Fennessey?

  Gen Z mommy arrived.

• 56:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, all of the voice messages, you know, like, when are we listening to that? Because I'm constantly using my phone in places where I'm not supposed to be using it, where I need silence. So think about that, you know? No sounds.

• 56:30Sean Fennessey?

  Boom.

• 56:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 56:31Sean Fennessey?

  You're welcome. Next question.

• 56:34Speaker 03

  Can I add one thing before we move on?

• 56:35Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 56:36Amanda Dobbins?

  You absolutely can. Are we being too old?

• 56:38Speaker 03

  No, not at all. I was just going to say, we talked a lot about phones, but not about people talking, which I find to be the much more distracting issue in a movie theater.

• 56:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 56:47Speaker 03

  Um, because I understand, like, if your mom, if your dad, you need to check your phone, you just pull it out, five seconds, check a text, put it away. That's not really a big deal to me. The issue is people narrating their inner thoughts aloud whilst watching a movie as if they're on their living room couch.

• 57:01Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 57:01Speaker 03

  I had an experience at the Academy Museum. It was Moneyball, Bennett Miller was there, did an intro. And him and his family sat next to my girlfriend and I. And they watched the film. Bennett Miller said it was the first time he'd actually watched the film since it had been made. It was really cool. And the people sitting directly behind me talked aloud almost the entire movie. Not, not at like a loud volume, but loud enough to where I could hear them say Brad Pitt is so sexy. And I had to turn around and tell them like, can you please stop talking? And in the, even in the most polite way, you could just tell that they were frustrated by me telling them that. But I don't, I don't know any other solves other than telling people politely that it's not okay to talk during.

• 57:42Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's crazy that people do that.

• 57:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I do, but that is also, I, I do think that's like not a movie specific problem. I mean, don't do that, but it's just like, don't, don't be the person who can't read the room and is not aware that you're disrupting other people.

• 57:57Sean Fennessey?

  Unless, unless, unless it's a horror movie. And when someone yells, don't go in there, like then that's great. That I actually love that.

• 58:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think like cheering and some level of audience participation is okay. Also, listen, Sean and I will tell each other one or two jokes.

• 58:14Sean Fennessey?

  So quietly.

• 58:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, but we're like very quiet. Um, and it's not running commentary.

• 58:20Sean Fennessey?

  Agreed.

• 58:21Amanda Dobbins?

  But you know.

• 58:22Sean Fennessey?

  We're fairly, we're, it's basically a one liner.

• 58:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, yeah, that we've, we've been working on, but it is funny. It's, it's usually like, oh, I, I wrote that piece of music for it, for the movie. I chose it. I rerecorded this just for you.

• 58:33Sean Fennessey?

  Don't you just ruin the joke, you know, you just broke the spell by saying it out loud.

• 58:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Every time it's funny. It's like, that's, that's my trumpet solo. Anyway, um, I, I, you know, be aware, just like, like, have some respect for other people.

• 58:47Sean Fennessey?

  I wish you could have seen Chicken Jockey with me.

• 58:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that, I mean, that's the other thing. I'm sort of like, if you're going to a Minecraft movie with, with teens.

• 58:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 58:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I.

• 58:56Sean Fennessey?

  But that's me at one battle after another, throwing popcorn on everybody.

• 58:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Jack Black had to like record a message being like, don't throw popcorn. And like the, all the, I felt bad for the theater workers, but otherwise I think it's pretty funny that 10 year olds were just fully like chicken jockeying out, you know?

• 59:13Sean Fennessey?

  I thought it was fun. So I, you know, I don't want people dumping food on people's heads or anything like that.

• 59:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 59:18Sean Fennessey?

  It was, you know.

• 59:20Amanda Dobbins?

  It was, it's, it's a movie made for 10 year olds to be insane.

• 59:24Sean Fennessey?

  Fucking La Strada, you know what I mean? Like we're in Minecraft. It is what it is.

• 59:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree.

• 59:29Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:01:09Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, what's the next question?

• 1:01:12Speaker 03

  We have a pair of questions, one specifically for Sean, one specifically for Amanda. Tucker asks, Sean, what is your system for giving a star rating on Letterboxd? It seems random, but that seems unlike you. And Andrew asks for Amanda, what do you think of Sofia Coppola's daughter, Romy Mars' music career? Have you heard A-Lister? Bop or nah?

• 1:01:35Sean Fennessey?

  I'll go first.

• 1:01:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:37Sean Fennessey?

  I try to rate every single, at least every single new movie that I see over the year. Unless a person I know worked on the movie. If a person that I, if you see a new movie that's come out that I haven't rated, that I've logged, it's usually because I feel like I can't objectively have an opinion about it.

• 1:01:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:01:58Sean Fennessey?

  I don't rate right away after I log for two reasons. One, I'm often embargoed when I see movies.

• 1:02:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:02:04Sean Fennessey?

  Two, I do log it in my private document, but not on Letterboxd. So like I make my rating and then I'll add it to Letterboxd well after our episode has come out. Because I, I want people to listen to what we have to say on the show.

• 1:02:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:20Sean Fennessey?

  Which we talked about. My system is like, it's not complicated. The, one of, one of the things I like about Letterboxd is it gives you this rule of 10 quality where five stars with halves is a one through 10. So every movie is a one through 10. I remember vividly, we had our deep brutalist conversation. And I made a joke that was not a joke to you, which is I was like, this is a four and a half star movie.

• 1:02:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:43Sean Fennessey?

  It's not my favorite movie of the year, uh, it's not my favorite movie of the decade. It's not a perfect movie. It has its flaws. It's a nine out of 10. That's like a very comfortable place for me to think organizationally, categorically, and emotionally about how I feel about a movie. Did it get me to that like top register or what would I take away from it? Not a lot of movies for me get one star. If a movie gets one star or less.

• 1:03:06Amanda Dobbins?

  What is one starred on your Letterboxd right now?

• 1:03:09Sean Fennessey?

  Like I think Free Guy is probably one star. I think, I mean, I could dig into my stats, but like that usually means that I think it's a deeply cynical thing that has happened.

• 1:03:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:03:19Sean Fennessey?

  And kind of corrosive to society ultimately. Um, so I've logged since 2020, 3,752 films.

• 1:03:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Congratulations.

• 1:03:30Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you. Sort by. Your rating lowest first. I gave Doolittle half of a star.

• 1:03:37Amanda Dobbins?

  You were so mad when we saw that. That was one of the last pre pandemic movies. And you were really pissed. I remember that. We saw that together.

• 1:03:47Sean Fennessey?

  Garbagio.

• 1:03:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, we saw that at the Arc Light.

• 1:03:49Sean Fennessey?

  Black Adam, half of a star.

• 1:03:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Never saw that.

• 1:03:52Sean Fennessey?

  Trolls, I gave one star.

• 1:03:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, the original Trolls, not Trolls World Tour.

• 1:03:58Sean Fennessey?

  No, though we did do an episode about that. And I'm sure that's why I watched Trolls. I gave, uh, Ryan Murphy's The Prom one star.

• 1:04:05Amanda Dobbins?

  That was quite unfortunate.

• 1:04:07Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm, I have a very angry Man of Steel review.

• 1:04:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, you guys were really big mad about that. Yeah.

• 1:04:12Sean Fennessey?

  You know, that's just like, that's an offering of things.

• 1:04:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, is Kevin Costner the dad in Man of Steel?

• 1:04:17Sean Fennessey?

  He is. I like, actually, that star is for his performance, which I believe I cited in my review.

• 1:04:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:04:22Sean Fennessey?

  So thanks for remembering that. There's a whole, but Madame Web, that was one star. Argyle, that was a one star.

• 1:04:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that you have lost your ability to experience fun if Madame Web is a one star. It's at least one and a half. The Pepsi can, come on. Why is she holding it like that?

• 1:04:36Sean Fennessey?

  To me, that's not purposeful and interesting. And I don't, I don't like relish bad.

• 1:04:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't really either, but sometimes it can, um.

• 1:04:46Sean Fennessey?

  Can left your experience with it. I get it.

• 1:04:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:49Sean Fennessey?

  I get it. And I don't begrudge people who are like, bad movies make me happy.

• 1:04:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I typically am not, like, I don't find joy in incompetence. This understatement of the century, but I thought that, oh, Fast X, yeah, again, big mad, Sean fantasy.

• 1:05:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, one star.

• 1:05:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Put it in the newspaper.

• 1:05:09Sean Fennessey?

  Don't put it in the newspaper. Put it on the podcast. Okay.

• 1:05:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, my question, absolute pop. Uh, yeah, come on. Like, let's be real. Let's go. It's good. And, and like.

• 1:05:18Sean Fennessey?

  It's called A-Lister?

• 1:05:19Amanda Dobbins?

  It's A-Lister and it's about, well, what is it about? I think it's sort of about dating a, or being, or meeting a movie star or something. It is like, it's self-aware. The first time I heard it, I was like, what's going on here? This is like a little. Strange and I but it it has the bones of a good song. I like the production choices. I like the way that she's, you know, like, I like that. I don't know what we would call the Rs that she's doing, whether it's like vocal fry or but there is some sort of like speech thing in the way that she's singing. Yeah, her mom directed the music video. Like, I don't really know.

• 1:05:59Sean Fennessey?

  She's 18?

• 1:06:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I think so, or maybe 17.

• 1:06:03Sean Fennessey?

  Good god.

• 1:06:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, well, she's a third generation Coppola, you know?

• 1:06:07Sean Fennessey?

  I get it.

• 1:06:07Amanda Dobbins?

  And also, her father is Thomas Mars.

• 1:06:10Sean Fennessey?

  That's young to be thrust into that. I mean, I guess Sofia was as well.

• 1:06:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I think she thrust herself. Obviously, she was in Megalopolis and she is innocent of any charges there. And also.

• 1:06:19Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 1:06:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, she was in English.

• 1:06:20Sean Fennessey?

  Might be time to re-watch that.

• 1:06:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you watch English Teacher? The FX show?

• 1:06:24Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, a couple of episodes, yeah.

• 1:06:25Amanda Dobbins?

  She's in one of them. It is funny.

• 1:06:27Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:06:27Amanda Dobbins?

  So, I'm, I'm pro. And again, I, that TikTok of being grounded and because she tried to charter a helicopter and then, like, everything about that TikTok is spectacular. She has real gifts. So, I'm pro.

• 1:06:41Sean Fennessey?

  Great. I'll have to listen to A-Lister. What's next, Jack?

• 1:06:46Speaker 03

  Mike asks, I am one of the sickos who listens and loves every episode of The Big Picture, but who goes to the movies just once or twice a year due to work, family, et cetera. Which yet-to-be-released 2025 movie would you most recommend for someone who loves seeing a popcorn blockbuster in the theaters?

• 1:07:06Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I haven't seen.

• 1:07:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:07:08Sean Fennessey?

  Jurassic World, Superman, or Fantastic Four.

• 1:07:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:07:12Sean Fennessey?

  And have not seen Avatar 3. My, my gut tells me Avatar 3 would be the answer to this question because the Avatar movies in the, in a movie theater, whether you like the stories or not, are usually an incredible visual feast. It's a great popcorn bucket movie.

• 1:07:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, the other answer is F1.

• 1:07:28Sean Fennessey?

  I, that's what I was gonna say.

• 1:07:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:30Sean Fennessey?

  The, I think the actual answer for what is your kind of core text.

• 1:07:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:34Sean Fennessey?

  And we're giving away some of our feelings for Friday's episode, but that movie delivers on a very specific Jerry Bruckheimer formula of fun time at the movies.

• 1:07:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:07:45Sean Fennessey?

  And I think you're right. I think that's probably the answer. Now, it's possible those July movies will be very satisfying.

• 1:07:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:07:51Sean Fennessey?

  In that same way. But F1 has that, like. We know where this is going the whole time.

• 1:07:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:07:57Sean Fennessey?

  Everything is very exciting. The set pieces are like.

• 1:08:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Electric.

• 1:08:01Sean Fennessey?

  Thrilling.

• 1:08:03Amanda Dobbins?

  And you want to, and it's just, I don't think it would play as well on.

• 1:08:07Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:08:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Like at home.

• 1:08:08Sean Fennessey?

  Not exactly an intellectual feast, but a fascinating production for a variety of reasons.

• 1:08:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:13Sean Fennessey?

  Um, so I agree with you. I think F1. Okay, let's do a couple more and then we'll talk about Elio and.

• 1:08:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I forgot.

• 1:08:20Sean Fennessey?

  The dragon movie. Yeah.

• 1:08:22Speaker 03

  Cordero is coming in with some Bill Simmons commentary, potentially. Are we sure Tubi is a good thing? As much as I appreciate a free streaming service having the original 1922 Nosferatu, is it a good thing for it to continually be interrupted by Fabrice and Tide commercials?

• 1:08:42Sean Fennessey?

  I say yes. I, to me, access is everything.

• 1:08:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:08:46Sean Fennessey?

  If, if, if something is available, it's better than it being difficult to find for anyone. And to be, anybody being able to have Tubi on their laptop, their iPad, their phone, their set top box, whatever, however they choose to watch that service. Even if it has commercials, I mean, we grew up watching movies supported by commercials on TNT and ABC, NBC, all the, you know, local channels were all airing movies on the weekends. So I don't think it's a bad thing at all. Nosferatu is an interesting one, right? It's like, it's in the public domain now because it's over 100 years old. So you should be able to get it anywhere. You should be able to get it in your library. You should be able to get it anywhere online. It should be free.

• 1:09:22Sean Fennessey?

  There's something dystopian about a Tide commercial appearing in the middle of an airing of Nosferatu, but I think it's good. What?

• 1:09:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I simply will not do it. I absolutely, I will not watch any commercials in my streaming stuff. Like absolutely not. I have quit series because they're unavailable, like, or I wasn't subscribed.

• 1:09:39Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:09:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Like I have a zero tolerance.

• 1:09:41Sean Fennessey?

  Just because you're, you find it annoying?

• 1:09:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I just like, I don't have the time or patience for this. I know there's another way.

• 1:09:47Sean Fennessey?

  Would you advise people do the same for podcasts?

• 1:09:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I mean, you know, um, but I, listen, I just, I can't do it. And I'm, I think your point about access is good, but libraries is, I think Nosferatu should be available on library. I've been trained to expect no commercials. I'm really sorry.

• 1:10:06Sean Fennessey?

  Feeding your children.

• 1:10:07Amanda Dobbins?

  It is about feeding my children, but he's asking as a consumer, you know?

• 1:10:11Sean Fennessey?

  Good to know.

• 1:10:12Amanda Dobbins?

  So there we go.

• 1:10:14Sean Fennessey?

  Marxist Amanda.

• 1:10:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:15Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, next question.

• 1:10:17Speaker 03

  I think this is a fun one. This is from Aiden. If you were an emerging A-list talent, who are the three directors you would work for right now to ascend to greatness?

• 1:10:31Sean Fennessey?

  Well.

• 1:10:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:34Sean Fennessey?

  There's a, there's, there's a few obvious ones.

• 1:10:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:38Sean Fennessey?

  Right? You could say, if you could get the opportunity to work with Christopher Nolan, Greta Gerwig, and Jordan Peele.

• 1:10:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. I mean, those, those are the answers. Yeah.

• 1:10:49Sean Fennessey?

  That's, that's what you would do.

• 1:10:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:51Sean Fennessey?

  Cause they make big, accessible movies with big ideas that lots of people want to see. They are the, kind of the, the meeting point.

• 1:11:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:11:01Sean Fennessey?

  Of art and commerce.

• 1:11:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:02Sean Fennessey?

  Right?

• 1:11:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. I mean, I would add-

• 1:11:04Sean Fennessey?

  Is that the right answer, though?

• 1:11:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, Christopher Nolan is like the number one answer. If your goal is to catapult yourself to fame.

• 1:11:12Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:12Amanda Dobbins?

  At this point, you want to be in The Odyssey, you know? Like, you want to see if you can do like a pickup as a person in a toga. Like, it's just like, you, I think you like show up with your own sheet, you know? And like, see how far it gets you.

• 1:11:26Sean Fennessey?

  But he doesn't really launch stars.

• 1:11:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 1:11:30Sean Fennessey?

  He really uses a star system.

• 1:11:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. But I think there is something about if you are in the Nolan movie, like, it, it's like cements something for you. And even when we were doing our movie star list, we were kind of like, oh, well, like this person, whose name we know, and like, you know, Oscar winners, like, but we included them because they're going to be in The Odyssey.

• 1:11:53Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right.

• 1:11:53Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's sort of like, and if this is your strategy, like, I think you got an angle for him. I was just reminded of, uh, when my husband Zach interviewed Ben Affleck.

• 1:12:05Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:12:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And Ben Affleck was talking about, they were doing the Matt Damon comparison. And he's like, I'm not, not, he was like, I'm not saying no to people. And he's like saying, no, Scorsese, no Spielberg. He's like, it's not like I was saying, no, Scorsese, no Spielberg. I'm not going to be in your movie. So Scorsese and Spielberg seem to be two people that, you know, would also belong on the list.

• 1:12:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think those are the two still active

• 1:12:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:31Sean Fennessey?

  lions, whose movies are still awaited as sort of events. Spielberg's box office strength has obviously been diminished a little bit in the last five years, even though I think he's making like some of his best movies of his career. But he's now got a huge blockbuster Alien movie coming next. So maybe he's looking to take the crown back in that respect. I don't know, you know, who is the most exciting? You know, I think like Daniels and Sean Baker and Chloe Zhao and like the winners of Best Picture over the last five or six years, I think is kind of an interesting thing to look at. Cause those, some of those filmmakers kind of seize the moment. We know Sean Baker is probably just going to go make another Sean Baker movie.

• 1:13:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:13:09Sean Fennessey?

  But he was able to catapult Mikey Madison

• 1:13:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 1:13:13Sean Fennessey?

  into the A-list. So there's definitely like a, a rung of star. You know, I think, I think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was very good for Margot Robbie.

• 1:13:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course.

• 1:13:22Sean Fennessey?

  For example, even though she was the third lead of that movie, that took her from like A minus to A plus. And then she capitalized on it hard with Barbie and then is now kind of in that.

• 1:13:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:34Sean Fennessey?

  Leading that inner circle. So, you know, there's always going to be filmmakers like that. And then there's always filmmakers who like,

• 1:13:42Sean Fennessey?

  you know, like David Fincher doesn't make stars.

• 1:13:44Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:13:45Sean Fennessey?

  He uses them.

• 1:13:46Amanda Dobbins?

  He also primarily makes movies for Netflix now, which I think is everybody else we just listed. I, I do think you want to be in theaters if you want to be.

• 1:13:54Sean Fennessey?

  I think you're right.

• 1:13:55Amanda Dobbins?

  catapulted.

• 1:13:56Sean Fennessey?

  I think you're right.

• 1:13:56Amanda Dobbins?

  And listen, and I'm looking forward to the, the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood sequel and all three Mindhunter movies that are allegedly happening.

• 1:14:07Sean Fennessey?

  We'll see about that.

• 1:14:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Hold McCallum, McCallum interview.

• 1:14:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we'll see about that.

• 1:14:13Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's do one last question.

• 1:14:16Speaker 03

  Georgia asks, because the biggest box office successes of the year have all been for the PG audience and primarily are sequels or remakes, who is a filmmaker you think would make an excellent original movie for children?

• 1:14:30Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting question. So this was actually a point of discussion on The Town this morning, the rise of the PG movie. It's something that I was hoping to talk about with Elio and How to Train Your Dragons. So we can use this as a, as a bridge to that convo. The PG question is fascinating. I think, you know, that group of people, Chazelle, Peel, Greta is making a Narnia movie, you know, like they're all-

• 1:15:00Amanda Dobbins?

  That's not original, but yes, yeah.

• 1:15:01Sean Fennessey?

  Right, not an original, but they're all entering a phase where they either have children or gonna have children, and they're gonna start to think about what movies to make for their kids. You know, like, look at the arc of Steven Spielberg's career. Look at how he viewed childhood and parenting in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and then look at how he progresses through to E.T. and look at how he progresses through to Jurassic Park and Hook and all the other movies he made. So I am always more interested in those kinds of people. You know, like, is Denis Villeneuve gonna make like a warm PG, original, family comedy? Like, that's not, he's not gonna make Mrs. Doubtfire, you know what I mean? I would watch Denis Villeneuve's Mrs. Doubtfire, but that's not really, it doesn't really seem like the kind of thing he wants to. I don't know, who am I forgetting? Who am I not thinking about?

• 1:15:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's just really like our directors, you know, and I would like to see, I mean, Sofia Coppola makes movies for teenage girls, but, you know, Greta's already doing it. I don't know, who, the other thing is like, I don't really want any of my favorite directors to make a movie for children. I want them to make a movie that I could also watch with my child. And maybe it would be a little inappropriate at times, but that's how we learned about the world, right? Which is just, you know, being like, are they doing ballet at home? And then, and then, and then you learn something new.

• 1:16:21Sean Fennessey?

  They grow up so fast.

• 1:16:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:23Sean Fennessey?

  Speaking of growing up, let's get into it. Thanks for all those questions. You guys are the best. We really appreciate you listening so closely to the show and asking such thoughtful ones. Let's talk about Elio first. Elio is the new Pixar movie. It has three directors, sort of. We will explain what the sort of means, but Domei Shi, who directed Turning Red, Madeline Charafian, and Adrian Molina, who was one of the writers of Coco. Now, the movie was written by Julia Cho, Mike Jones and Mark Hammer, and features the voice work of Jonas Kibria, Zoe Saldana, Remy Edgerley, Brad Garrett, Jamila Jamil.

• 1:16:59Sean Fennessey?

  And we hear the wonderful voice of Carl Sagan throughout this film. It's a space alien abduction adventure movie.

• 1:17:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:08Sean Fennessey?

  It is a slightly different flavor, I think, from any previous Pixar movie. But it is still very much an animated movie for kids. I took my four year old to see it yesterday.

• 1:17:17Amanda Dobbins?

  We're rounding up already.

• 1:17:20Sean Fennessey?

  Well, we're less than a month away.

• 1:17:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I know.

• 1:17:22Sean Fennessey?

  Two and a half weeks.

• 1:17:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm clinging on.

• 1:17:23Sean Fennessey?

  Four.

• 1:17:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:24Sean Fennessey?

  And I'm pumped.

• 1:17:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Where's my, where's my party invite?

• 1:17:28Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's supposed to go out today.

• 1:17:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's so exciting.

• 1:17:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. So anybody out there who thinks they're friends with me and doesn't get that invite, I'm sorry.

• 1:17:33Amanda Dobbins?

  You, I want to let you know that you can just send it to me. You don't have to waste coins on the whole family.

• 1:17:39Sean Fennessey?

  I see. Your husband doesn't read email, is that what you're saying?

• 1:17:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I, I just like, I went through this and, but the paperless post coins, they're valuable. So it's okay.

• 1:17:48Sean Fennessey?

  I'll alert the inviter, which is my wife, at least in this case. Um, this movie was supposed to come out last year.

• 1:17:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:55Sean Fennessey?

  In March, and it got kicked to this year. Speculation in the industry is that it's sort of been dumped.

• 1:18:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:18:01Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, especially because it was going neck and neck in the release calendar with How to Train Your Dragon, which we'll get to shortly. And it bombed at the box office. It is the single.

• 1:18:11Amanda Dobbins?

  People have been quite snide about it.

• 1:18:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yep. It is the single biggest, um, worst opening weekend in Pixar history. Uh, people don't seem to care about this movie.

• 1:18:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:20Sean Fennessey?

  I thought it was perfectly nice.

• 1:18:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought it was fine. I, so it was funny, we were talking about when to go see it and you kept pitching me on like, you know, I'm going to take Alice, we're going to go on Sunday, like you could come with us. And I, it just never occurred to me to take Knox to see this movie.

• 1:18:36Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 1:18:36Amanda Dobbins?

  And having seen it, I don't really think, I, I think he's just too little still, you know, he's only three. Um, so I think that he would have been scared by it. And I did, I did have a moment of like, um,

• 1:18:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Exist existential parental concern while watching it because it, you know, it's a classic Pixar story of like a child who has experienced a devastating loss and then has to, you know, work through circumstances and like and find a new community. And I'd like, that's a beautiful story. And I, and I thought the Elio character was very cute. And I like, I was rooting for him. And he's like, a little weirder than your normal Pixar guy. And, you know, they're, they're these like, small little computer beings. You want them to find love. But I was like, oh, this is really upsetting. And I don't know if I like, want Knox to experience this yet. But then I was like, oh, am I shielding Knox from all like, the hard things in the world?

• 1:19:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And does he have to learn about emotions somehow? But then I was like, does Knox have to learn about a situation in which both his parents die? And so, and he doesn't have any friends? And so, he has to get abducted by aliens in order to understand love? Like, is that what I need to be teaching my three year old? And ultimately, I ended on no. So...

• 1:19:56Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's entertainment. You know, this isn't exactly like opening a geometry textbook. Um, I think-

• 1:20:03Amanda Dobbins?

  But is it entertaining?

• 1:20:04Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, if you want to use the parlance of Roger Ebert, I think a movie like this can create empathy.

• 1:20:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:20:12Sean Fennessey?

  That you don't have to see everything of the world about yourself and Elio's experience and what he is struggling with.

• 1:20:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:20:19Sean Fennessey?

  But they can, it can teach you to feel something. And, you know, a movie like this is actually quite powerful to see through a child's eyes. Saw it with my daughter. She was locked in. She really, really liked it a lot. And much more than I did, that's for sure. And my wife was bored to tears during this movie.

• 1:20:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:20:35Sean Fennessey?

  At the end of the film, there's a critical choice that Elio has to make between one community and another.

• 1:20:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:20:40Sean Fennessey?

  And Alice turned to me in the movie, much as you would turn to me to, you know, deliver a snide one liner. And she said- I really hope Elio goes back with his family.

• 1:20:50Amanda Dobbins?

  That's nice.

• 1:20:51Sean Fennessey?

  And to me.

• 1:20:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:52Sean Fennessey?

  The movies can teach you to understand the world and your feelings in that way. Like, I take that very sincerely. And I was, I was like so moved to hear my daughter communicate that so clearly that she not only understood the story, but understood that the character was thrust into this position and had to make a meaningful choice. So, you know, do I want to have to explain to her? How Elio's parents died and what the circumstances were and how this is actually a product of a troubled production and the original, there was supposed to be a mother character played by America Ferrera, who was then written out of the movie and then they replaced her with an aunt character who was voiced by Zoe Saldana.

• 1:21:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:21:29Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't explain any of that to her.

• 1:21:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:30Sean Fennessey?

  If she's listening to this episode, hello, Alice, you may enjoy that information. Huge America Ferrera fan. She thought her speech in Barbie was fantastic.

• 1:21:37Amanda Dobbins?

  She's seen Barbie?

• 1:21:39Sean Fennessey?

  No, no. She really, really, really wants to see Barbie. Really, really.

• 1:21:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I'd like to be there when she does.

• 1:21:46Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, maybe we can arrange that in nine years.

• 1:21:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:21:50Sean Fennessey?

  So I, in that respect, I thought it was okay to take a kid to.

• 1:21:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it was fine to take a kid to. I was more interrogating my own choices.

• 1:21:57Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:21:58Amanda Dobbins?

  And like, and my responses to these things. And, and it's a little bit that question of, so this is a PG movie instead of a G movie. My, my child is three years old and so like, how old is to, you know, is, is the right age and how serious, you know, of a movie do or like how serious the themes do we want to present to small kids and, and that sort of, and I, and I agree with you that ultimately it's,

• 1:22:25Amanda Dobbins?

  it's pos, it's totally fine. I just was like, I don't know why I, my instinct was just like, no, absolutely not.

• 1:22:31Sean Fennessey?

  So I think one of the reasons why that was the instinct of many people who opted not to see it is because we can get into whether the marketing was effective or not, what, what the state of the original animated film is, per that last question in the mailbag. But to me, this movie was very self-selecting in terms of the kind of story that it's trying to tell in a way that I think is a little bit de classe A right now. It's It's a post eighties boy sci fi movie. You know, it's, it's, it's right after E T. There was this wave of movies. Spider, the navigator, Mac and me explorers, a whole list of movies that I saw in theaters when I was a little kid. And they were all, I loved them all. They were all great. I was a burgeoning sci fi fan.

• 1:23:14Sean Fennessey?

  But, you know, those characters had very few female char- those films had very few female characters.

• 1:23:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:23:20Sean Fennessey?

  The perspective was very locked in on adolescent boys. The wonders of space and the idea of a friend beyond the world that you know, which E T. Obviously introduces in a big way to us. And this movie is right out of that playbook. And all the winks and nods, there's the analyst characters named Melmac, which is the name of Alf's home planet from the TV show Alf.

• 1:23:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:23:40Sean Fennessey?

  Kate Mulgrew being the narrator of the Voyager one museum, she of Star Trek Voyager.

• 1:23:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:23:45Sean Fennessey?

  Carl Sagan's voice being used at the beginning and the ending of the film. These are like Easter eggs for forty five year old men.

• 1:23:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I guess, I guess you're right, but it did not read to me as particularly gendered as opposed to just very like sci fi coded. I mean, my response to this was like, E T. And Star Wars exists. So like, why, you know, we, we can just show our children that.

• 1:24:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:14Amanda Dobbins?

  But I did.

• 1:24:15Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't really feel like, but like this movie doesn't really have any strong female characters in it, aside from his aunt.

• 1:24:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, his aunt, who's like a air force pilot and she's ranking and she wants to be an astronaut.

• 1:24:24Sean Fennessey?

  She's very secondary to the story though.

• 1:24:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe, maybe that matters, you know, more to Alice, but I didn't feel like.

• 1:24:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I didn't feel like it was like, this is like boy stuff only. And I actually did think like the creature and the universe design was like very honestly, like pink and purple coded.

• 1:24:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, very psychedelic.

• 1:24:45Amanda Dobbins?

  It was, but it was like, it had like a lot of Lisa Frank in it to me, which I like know is a color that is very popular with all small children. And including my son. But definitely traditionally is like girl coded. So I didn't really think that it was like exclusionary in that way. It was more just that it was, you're right, like very sci fi. And if you're not into that, you won't go see it and/or you can watch ET and you can watch Star Wars. Which the kid, like the, I thought of the Cantina, all the creature design was like very reminiscent of, but like, not quite as good.

• 1:25:22Sean Fennessey?

  It's not.

• 1:25:22Amanda Dobbins?

  With the, with the exception of my beloved Glorin.

• 1:25:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Glorin, um, who becomes Elio's best pal.

• 1:25:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:29Sean Fennessey?

  And is the son of a brutal ruler in a far off galaxy named Grygon.

• 1:25:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:36Sean Fennessey?

  Who wears a carapace to protect himself and battle.

• 1:25:42Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if I'd ever heard the word carapace said out loud.

• 1:25:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I haven't either. Yeah.

• 1:25:46Sean Fennessey?

  So that was, that was interesting to hear. Um, I don't know. I, to me, I, I saw it in a tradition of like failed boy movies that Disney Pixar has been trying to do since the seventies. And that list of movies includes, and maybe I'm off base, but The Black Hole and Tron in the seventies and eighties. Titan AE and Treasure Planet.

• 1:26:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:06Sean Fennessey?

  In the early aughts. Tron Legacy, John Carter and Tomorrowland in the 2010s.

• 1:26:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:26:12Sean Fennessey?

  This, there's like every 10 or 15 years, Disney and Pixar tries to capture this audience, this kind of Star Wars audience with an animated film or a fanciful live action movie. And it basically never works. It never really pulls people in and they keep trying it. And I think some of the issue here is that this movie is just not that great. It's, it's really bottom tier Pixar. So that being the case, plus the fact that it isn't for quadrant, for lack of a better phrase, the way that

• 1:26:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:26:42Sean Fennessey?

  Minecraft is right now, you know, like Minecraft has a boy lead and a girl lead and it has crazy Jack Black, you know?

• 1:26:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:26:49Sean Fennessey?

  To me, it's trying to speak to as many people as it possibly can. And this movie felt a little bit more tightly focused. Doesn't make it a bad thing. It's just kind of something that is unusual. And there's been so much debate over what Pixar is now.

• 1:27:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Just thought it was kind of boring, honestly.

• 1:27:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, I wrote down here that you can kind of feel the mid-production shift in the story while watching it. Like, it feels almost like the animated version of why aren't these actors in the same scene? Where you're like, oh, there was a reshoot where like, one guy was in Tanzania and the other guy was in Cleveland.

• 1:27:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:27:19Sean Fennessey?

  They were having to like, have a phone call together, but they can only film them separately because they were making another movie at the same time. It kind of felt like that, where like, pace is kind of off and a little rickety. It's very predictable. And yet, my four-year-old loved it.

• 1:27:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I was gonna say.

• 1:27:32Sean Fennessey?

  Whatever.

• 1:27:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that's nice. Um. That's good.

• 1:27:34Sean Fennessey?

  I, I.

• 1:27:37Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if there is like, a Pixar crisis so much. Okay, do you subscribe to the theory that putting Pixar movies directly on Disney Plus kneecapped their operation? Inside Out 2, massive success notwithstanding.

• 1:27:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Probably, but I, at the same time, I think just the existence of Disney Plus. You know, it's like, once you have the ability to watch all the stuff at home, then whether it's new stuff or whether it's watching Moana for the eighty-five millionth time. Like, that the behavior of watching movies just becomes recorded at home. So I don't know whether it's Disney Plus or, you know, brand-new movie on, on Disney Plus, because...

• 1:28:27Sean Fennessey?

  But it's weird, because like, the outliers represent something unusual. Lilo and Stitch and

• 1:28:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:34Sean Fennessey?

  Moana 2 and Inside Out 2 are massive.

• 1:28:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:28:39Sean Fennessey?

  Huge, and Lion King 2, the Mufasa film, also turned out to be a pretty solid hit.

• 1:28:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Which, like, the pattern is no different from grown-up movies, which is that the really big movies are things that people decide like, oh, this is an event. Or like, oh, we recognize this, or, oh, this is franchise.

• 1:28:54Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:28:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, this is, you know, the, the next installment of a thing I have forty-five action figurines of. Is something I go see, and then everything else, I wait till it's at home on streaming.

• 1:29:05Sean Fennessey?

  So how do we get centers for kids' movies?

• 1:29:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 1:29:10Sean Fennessey?

  That's the thing.

• 1:29:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:11Sean Fennessey?

  That's the real challenge right now that they have.

• 1:29:13Amanda Dobbins?

  You find a generational talent with a great idea and give him like hundreds of millions of dollars and then it works. Like this is the, you know, I'm.

• 1:29:22Sean Fennessey?

  That's it. Got to support the vision.

• 1:29:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Like I'm Sinners is like incredible and an incredible success story, but I do think like we do it and ourselves a disservice by being like, well, how do we do another one? You know? It's like, you're not going to get another one every time.

• 1:29:36Sean Fennessey?

  I'm just talking on a podcast.

• 1:29:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I know, but I'm just saying, you know, you keep trying and then every once in a while, you know, then you get some, some Elio's. I almost said Luca's there, but I don't even remember what. I never saw Luca.

• 1:29:46Sean Fennessey?

  Luca was released in theaters. Uh, it was an original. It is another in a long line of originals that have struggled somewhat. Obviously Ryan, the last dragon, Turning Red. And there was one more that I'm forgetting right now that all more or less went either straight to or had short shelf lives onward, had a very short shelf life in the movie theater before COVID hit. So people have kind of gotten out of the habit of going to see the originals.

• 1:30:08Amanda Dobbins?

  My parents died and then I had to like be a, like I had to go to Medieval Times.

• 1:30:13Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, sure. Yes. That's what happened. They went to Medieval Times.

• 1:30:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I cried a lot.

• 1:30:17Sean Fennessey?

  The next movie that they're putting out is also an original, Hoppers. There's a little, apparently this is a stinger at the end of Elio. I assume you did not stick around. You did not learn your lesson from Sinners. You did not wait for the post-credit sequence at Elio.

• 1:30:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I did stay at the, I stayed for a long time in Materialist.

• 1:30:34Sean Fennessey?

  You're waiting for the huge record scratch? This is actually a Captain America movie?

• 1:30:39Amanda Dobbins?

  They're all in this, they're at City Hall, you know?

• 1:30:41Sean Fennessey?

  That fun down shirt he was wearing and revealed Cap's back. Materialist is a Cap 5 prequel. Um, Hoppers is coming out March 6, 2026.

• 1:30:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:30:51Sean Fennessey?

  The, the stinger, and I don't mind spoiling it right now. It, I think it was for Hoppers because they pitched Hoppers at the end of it with a title card, was a lizard. Pressing an emoji button on a phone that was the lizard emoji button. And every time you press it, it said lizard, lizard, lizard, lizard. Did you guys see this? No? Okay, nobody saw this. Uh, I think that was for Hoppers, which I believe is about rabbits, but I don't know.

• 1:31:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:31:18Sean Fennessey?

  That's in next March.

• 1:31:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:31:19Sean Fennessey?

  Is that gonna work? Lizard, lizard, lizard, it's in my brain. Uh, then Toy Story five, then in another original called Gato in 2027.

• 1:31:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:31:30Sean Fennessey?

  Then Incredibles three, then Coco two.

• 1:31:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:31:32Sean Fennessey?

  And Adrian Molina, who was one of the co-directors of this movie, left this movie in the middle of it to go work on Coco two, which you have to imagine is extremely important. Coco two, I think is probably the last mega sensation that Pixar had, original mega sensation that Pixar has had. Yes, Coco. Now, they did have Encanto, which became hugely popular, but was during COVID.

• 1:31:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And was the Bruno.

• 1:31:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:31:53Amanda Dobbins?

  So some of that was the virality of.

• 1:31:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And you wrote that song.

• 1:31:58Amanda Dobbins?

  And performed it, but my performance is only on like the soundtrack, not in the actual movie, you know?

• 1:32:03Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I see.

• 1:32:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Stuff. Yeah. So I wasn't eligible for an Oscar.

• 1:32:06Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, that's tough. Okay. You and Diane Warren did this together. That was very special.

• 1:32:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I actually don't know if that's true. I don't know if you, if you, if like the performance soundtrack version for the movie is eligible for an Oscar or not, you know, if it's different than what's in the film.

• 1:32:23Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know the answer to that. I think it will be tested probably for Sinners because Jamie Lawson sings a version of a song that Brittany Howard wrote.

• 1:32:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:32:31Sean Fennessey?

  In Sinners and then they, both of them are on the soundtrack. Which one, you want to hear Brittany Howard sing at the Oscars? Do you want to hear Jamie Lawson sing? Should they sing together?

• 1:32:39Amanda Dobbins?

  They should sing too. Well, no one should sing, but anyway, that's a different conversation.

• 1:32:43Sean Fennessey?

  Non-sequels since Moana in 2016 from Disney, Wish, Strange World and Kanto, Rya and the Last Dragon.

• 1:32:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:32:49Sean Fennessey?

  Those four movies have made $255 million domestic box office combined.

• 1:32:53Amanda Dobbins?

  That's.

• 1:32:54Sean Fennessey?

  That's not a lot.

• 1:32:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:55Sean Fennessey?

  That's a low number.

• 1:32:58Amanda Dobbins?

  If anyone wants to write me a check for 255 million, I say yes.

• 1:33:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's very brave of you. Unexploited IP is really the new benchmark. Minecraft, Super Mario Brothers, Barbie. This is what people want. So what does Universal do? They go out and make a live action How to Train Your Dragon? And you know what? People wanted that, too.

• 1:33:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:17Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't really want it. I thought it was not exactly what I want from the movies. I'll tell you why.

• 1:33:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:33:22Sean Fennessey?

  I've already seen How to Train Your Dragon.

• 1:33:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:33:24Sean Fennessey?

  It's pretty good.

• 1:33:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:33:26Sean Fennessey?

  It's a nice movie. I also recently watched the original 2010 animated version with my daughter.

• 1:33:31Amanda Dobbins?

  She liked it?

• 1:33:31Sean Fennessey?

  She liked it. She wanted more of the female heroine, per this conversation we were just having. Astrid.

• 1:33:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm, sure.

• 1:33:38Sean Fennessey?

  I would say Astrid gets a, I felt, a slightly stronger role. She's played by Nico Parker in the new film.

• 1:33:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:43Sean Fennessey?

  And she gets to be more of a leader, more of a hero than I thought she was in the animated version.

• 1:33:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:47Sean Fennessey?

  Nevertheless, lot of time spent with Hiccup, the star of the movie, who's played by Mason Thames in this movie. Hmm, we saw this all the way back at CinemaCon.

• 1:33:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and I have never seen the original animated version. So I was just kind of like, what's going on here? It was also at 9 a.m.

• 1:34:04Sean Fennessey?

  It was.

• 1:34:05Amanda Dobbins?

  In Las Vegas.

• 1:34:05Sean Fennessey?

  It was. After a long, you were up till 6 a.m. doing ketamine, two hours of sleep, woke up, went right to How to Train Your Dragon.

• 1:34:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And then they trained some dragons. But, you know, also Gerard Butler did some pillaging.

• 1:34:19Sean Fennessey?

  He did. Gerard Butler was the voice of the father character in the original animated film, and he reprises the role here in this movie. I think he's probably the best part of this movie, to be honest with you.

• 1:34:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, he was good.

• 1:34:29Sean Fennessey?

  He's very engaging. I was like, that's a, hey, that's a star.

• 1:34:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought the dragons looked okay.

• 1:34:33Sean Fennessey?

  Pretty good.

• 1:34:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:34Sean Fennessey?

  Pretty good. The, the visual effects, I think, are strong. The movie is directed by Dean DeBlaudon, who was one of the co-directors of the original film with Chris Sanders.

• 1:34:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:42Sean Fennessey?

  And I think they have converted the film fairly well. They've created a whole kind of Viking world. The problem is, is it's almost, it's almost exactly the same movie.

• 1:34:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:34:55Sean Fennessey?

  It's the same, more or less the same script, a couple of modulations here and there.

• 1:35:00Sean Fennessey?

  And it's thirty-five minutes longer than the original?

• 1:35:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:35:03Sean Fennessey?

  Which is the same thing that happens in the Disney live-action movies? Make it make sense. Why is that the case?

• 1:35:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I mean, I haven't seen the original. There was a lot, as I said, of pillaging and a lot of like Viking, and it felt like they were going for some sort of, hey, you liked Game of Thrones, you know, like also.

• 1:35:21Sean Fennessey?

  You brought your kids to see The Northman?

• 1:35:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, and you and I turned to each other and we said, this is probably like a little too scary for our children.

• 1:35:29Sean Fennessey?

  I did not bring my child.

• 1:35:29Amanda Dobbins?

  In a way that I think if it's animated, there is something, you know, fantastical about it versus watching people like galloping through at night and it's like a little scary. So I didn't take, but maybe that adds some time. I don't know. You gotta let all the horses run through or whatever. There were horses, right? Or were there? I don't remember.

• 1:35:50Sean Fennessey?

  It wasn't How to Train Your Horse, that's for sure.

• 1:35:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, no, but they were riding, were they riding horses in the battle scenes?

• 1:35:55Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm, I don't recall.

• 1:35:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:35:57Sean Fennessey?

  It was nine AM.

• 1:35:58Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 1:35:59Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, the, the thing that is odd about this is that, um, you know, this playbook we thought was like totally dead and then Mufasa very quietly made like seven hundred million dollars and then

• 1:36:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:13Sean Fennessey?

  The Lone Stitch came along and was totally blah and made another seven hundred million dollars. Now this movie's come along and I think it's already at three hundred and sixty-five million dollars. And I understand why studios do this for money.

• 1:36:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:28Sean Fennessey?

  But it is bottom of the barrel creativity, in my opinion.

• 1:36:30Amanda Dobbins?

  It is creatively, uh, empty, but can I, can I give you a personal anecdote that speaks to the financial power of this?

• 1:36:38Sean Fennessey?

  Certainly.

• 1:36:39Amanda Dobbins?

  So the marketing for this one has been all over the place, uh, and like in a, in a good way. They have, they've been out there.

• 1:36:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:36:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, including, uh, in a, in a crossover commercial with Bryce Harper for, um, I don't, I didn't even know what else they're selling, but it was played during Phillies games.

• 1:36:54Sean Fennessey?

  He's a, like a, a health influencer now. He's eating all kinds of powders and things. I've noticed that.

• 1:37:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Everyone's eating powders. No.

• 1:37:02Sean Fennessey?

  That's something he does.

• 1:37:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's bad. We don't, because that's RFK-coded and we're against that.

• 1:37:07Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. You gotta speak to Bryce about that and your beloved. Philadelphia Phillies.

• 1:37:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I I mean, I don't want to know how Bryce Harper is voted in the last something. Anyway, he was in this commercial and so was the dragon Toothless. And my three year old son looked up and he noticed it like the first time it just played and then the second time. He was like, who's that dragon? And then the third time we saw it. It went and he like whispered, I want to see the dragon again. And so now courtesy of Universal, we have like the full set of the dragon toys in our home.

• 1:37:42Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 1:37:42Amanda Dobbins?

  And he loves the toys. Now he like doesn't understand that they're connected to the movie. And he hasn't even asked to see the movie, but we've got all the toys. And at some point, he's going to be like, can I see that dragon again? And I, we will probably just go straight to the animated, you know, but it is reviving, you know, it's, it's more money. So they did their job. I like he, and he really likes the dragon.

• 1:38:05Sean Fennessey?

  Does he have an awareness of dinosaurs?

• 1:38:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, he's like pretty. He, he knows about them. Today we

• 1:38:14Amanda Dobbins?

  today we found in his school bag a dinosaur T-shirt that is not his, you know, that like got, it got sent home, got mixed up. That's fine.

• 1:38:21Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 1:38:22Amanda Dobbins?

  But he

• 1:38:22Sean Fennessey?

  He stole a dinosaur.

• 1:38:23Amanda Dobbins?

  But he clocked it and he said, that's a tyrannosaurus. And I was like, I didn't even know that you knew that. So he does know about dinosaurs, but

• 1:38:30Sean Fennessey?

  This is a turning point.

• 1:38:31Amanda Dobbins?

  But we're going to New York in the summer. And I told him that we could go to the Natural History Museum and see all the dinosaurs. And I think he's like, that's scary. I don't want to see them. I don't want to be scared.

• 1:38:42Sean Fennessey?

  You can just take him to the Natural History Museum in LA.

• 1:38:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I, we have done that and I think that that was scary for him. So, and then I was like, there's a big whale. And he's like, I don't know about that. This is the reason that we did not go to see How to Train Your Dragon. I wouldn't say that Knox is like confronting his fears. Again, maybe I should have seen it, taken him to see Elio. Maybe I'm just creating, you know,

• 1:39:01Sean Fennessey?

  Warmer story.

• 1:39:02Amanda Dobbins?

  A, a bubble, but he knows about dinosaurs. Yeah.

• 1:39:06Sean Fennessey?

  No, no participation trophies for not seeing the dragon movie.

• 1:39:09Amanda Dobbins?

  He really, really likes these dragons. So

• 1:39:13Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:39:13Amanda Dobbins?

  And I guess he likes dinosaurs.

• 1:39:15Sean Fennessey?

  I think Toothless in particular looks really good in the live action one.

• 1:39:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:19Sean Fennessey?

  The, because the design of that character in the animated movie is um very

• 1:39:26Sean Fennessey?

  It doesn't, it doesn't look scientifically like you might imagine a dragon looks. It looks like a kid's character.

• 1:39:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, yeah, and he's like very friendly and that's why Knox, what's the other one called? Monstrous something?

• 1:39:35Sean Fennessey?

  I don't recall.

• 1:39:36Amanda Dobbins?

  That's for Psy, so.

• 1:39:37Sean Fennessey?

  I see, yeah, I understand.

• 1:39:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Cause we had to, we had to separate them, so Psy got the more colorful one and then Knox got all of the toothless.

• 1:39:44Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, we're into like dragon toys era.

• 1:39:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:46Sean Fennessey?

  For me, this is very fun.

• 1:39:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Here I am.

• 1:39:48Sean Fennessey?

  This is gonna be exciting. Uh, I think I'd be, I really wanna know what he thinks of the animated movie, whether he clings to it or not.

• 1:39:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, we, he, he still doesn't know what to do with animated movies, so that's another thing. Like, I think Zack tried Moana with it, Moana, Moana, I'm sorry, Moana, when, we don't watch it!

• 1:40:06Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, disrespectful to their culture.

• 1:40:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Zack tried it when.

• 1:40:11Sean Fennessey?

  The people of Motanui.

• 1:40:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, when they were doing, when he was doing, uh, the Dwayne Johnson piece that he did. And so they watched it and Knox was just like, what is this? And like wandered off.

• 1:40:20Sean Fennessey?

  No, he loves Robin Hood though, you need to show him characters like that.

• 1:40:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:40:24Sean Fennessey?

  Male hero characters in animated films is the way.

• 1:40:26Amanda Dobbins?

  But he really likes Sir Hiss, so.

• 1:40:29Sean Fennessey?

  That's great.

• 1:40:29Amanda Dobbins?

  He's like, my friend Sir Hiss.

• 1:40:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's, that's like, he's, he gives the Dion Waiters performance in that movie, Sir Hiss, the snake. So that's, that's all good, that's just a sign of taste. Um, anything else you want, you need to share?

• 1:40:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh.

• 1:40:42Sean Fennessey?

  About how to train your dragon or otherwise?

• 1:40:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, is there a kid's movie this summer that I do wanna take Knox to?

• 1:40:49Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Eddington.

• 1:40:50Amanda Dobbins?

  What have you got coming?

• 1:40:51Sean Fennessey?

  Eddington, we'll check in, check in on that, see how that looks. Uh, I don't, I mean, Happy Gilmore 2, that's on the, oh, Will Smurfs?

• 1:41:01Amanda Dobbins?

  They just added Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm.

• 1:41:04Sean Fennessey?

  Oh my god!

• 1:41:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I didn't get to go last time, hold on, I gotta buy tickets right now before it sells out.

• 1:41:09Sean Fennessey?

  We're recording a podcast, so why don't you worry about work at hand?

• 1:41:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Checking event status, okay, it's still going. Last time, I missed it, oh, this is a, this is a Saturday at 2pm though, that's pretty tough for me. Uh.

• 1:41:21Sean Fennessey?

  Should I take Knox to Gabby's Dollhouse the movie?

• 1:41:27Sean Fennessey?

  I will. If I need to, I will. You also, Kristen Wiig, that's not your flavor, you know?

• 1:41:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you take him. That's fine.

• 1:41:35Sean Fennessey?

  Alice is like, what is that?

• 1:41:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I bet she is. And then, and then you're gonna have a lot of dollhouses in your house.

• 1:41:40Sean Fennessey?

  You know what she got into? Did we talk about? I told you this yesterday. She-Ra? So we rented an old She-Ra movie from, from Videotech over the weekend. And then I just learned that there are five seasons of a She-Ra Princess of Power TV show on Netflix. And I'm like, I have to do whatever I can to avoid Alice discovering this.

• 1:41:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, no.

• 1:41:58Sean Fennessey?

  Because this will be the only thing I watch for the next 10 years.

• 1:42:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:00Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Uh, I don't think there's any other kids' movies until there's a big one coming in the, well, Wicked 2, obviously. And then Zootopia 2. Those are the two really big ones.

• 1:42:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you see the Celine Song's Zootopia thing?

• 1:42:14Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I did.

• 1:42:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:15Sean Fennessey?

  What is the one movie you would recommend?

• 1:42:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but then she clarified and she was like, honestly, I just wasn't very prepared for that.

• 1:42:21Sean Fennessey?

  I like that that's where her mind went.

• 1:42:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, she said, she was like, and, and it was a great answer. She was like, it's no one's fault. Everyone told me what it would be, but I wasn't prepared.

• 1:42:29Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:42:30Amanda Dobbins?

  And then I heard Desert Island is like, what movie would you want to watch over and over again? So she was like, Children of Men is my favorite movie, but I don't know if I were stuck on a desert island. If that's the one I want to be watching over and over again. So I went with Zootopia, which I love. I, great job. Just great.

• 1:42:47Sean Fennessey?

  Have you seen Zootopia? You haven't. We went over this.

• 1:42:49Amanda Dobbins?

  No, but I did get a really great, remember the, and you told me what happened in it. But then I got an Instagram message that was like, Zootopia is actually about how the Reagan administration, uh, introduced crack into black communities in the eighties.

• 1:43:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yep. Thanks, thanks to CR for sending you that DM.

• 1:43:07Amanda Dobbins?

  So now I'm gonna see Zootopia and I guess Zootopia 2.

• 1:43:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's incredibly exciting. Well, that's 800. Last episode. We're done here. We did it. You feel good? You feel good about what we accomplished?

• 1:43:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I feel great. What's next? What's 801?

• 1:43:22Sean Fennessey?

  801 is number 17 on our 25 for 25 list.

• 1:43:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:43:27Sean Fennessey?

  The only clue I will give is it's a funny one.

• 1:43:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:30Sean Fennessey?

  So I hope people enjoy that conversation. That'll be coming on a Wednesday. Thanks to everyone who's been listening along. Thank you for sending in your questions. Thank you for Jack and Sam for compiling those questions. Thanks to Jack for being the producer of this episode and using his voice on this episode.

• 1:43:47Sean Fennessey?

  We'll see you on Wednesday.

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