‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ Does Not Find a Way. Plus: Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ Is Coming!

Sean and Amanda are joined by Chris Ryan to lead a team of skilled operatives to the most dangerous place on earth, a ‘Jurassic Park’ sequel. Before diving in, they react to the first trailer for Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey,’ which played before their screening (1:23). Then, they unpack their complicated and (at times) contentious feelings on the newest installment of the dinosaur action franchise, Gareth Edwards' ‘Jurassic World Rebirth,’ starring Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali (9:45). Later, Sean is joined by Eva Victor to discuss their critically acclaimed first feature film, ‘Sorry, Baby.’ They talk about the interesting process of pitching a movie to financiers, the difficulties that come with doing press for a deeply personal film, and what they envision for their career going forward (59:02). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Eva Victor and Chris Ryan Producer: Jack Sanders THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY THE STARBUCKS COFFEE COMPANY. ORDER NOW | STARBUCKS. COM/MENU 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.

• 0:00Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is presented by Starbucks.

• 0:03Amanda Dobbins?

  The unofficial drink of summer is here and it's just as good as I remembered.

• 0:07Sean Fennessey?

  Starbucks Summer Berry Refresher is everything you'd want from a summer beverage.

• 0:11Amanda Dobbins?

  A blend of berry notes shaken with ice and poured over a layer of new raspberry flavored pearls. And personally, my favorite refresher is the Summer Berry Lemonade. It just tastes like summer in a cup and adds a whole other level of fresh flavors.

• 0:24Sean Fennessey?

  We are on the brink of a major heatwave here in Los Angeles and nothing would be more refreshing than a Starbucks Summer Berry Lemonade Refresher. Available for a limited time only, your Summer Berry Refresher is ready at Starbucks.

• 0:48Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 0:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Doddin.

• 0:49Sean Fennessey?

  And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about dinosaurs. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by not a dinosaur Ava Victor, first time writer-director whose Sundance Prize-winning film Sorry Baby is one of the most exciting debuts of the year. Ava is straight up one of my favorite guests in the history of this podcast. Smart, funny, special thinker. Hope you'll stick around for our conversation. Their movie is nothing like the movie we're going to talk about today, which is Jurassic World Rebirth. But before we get to that movie, see ours here.

• 1:18Speaker 02

  Hey man, what kind of prison can hold a man like me?

• 1:22Sean Fennessey?

  We have just returned from an 8 a.m. screening of Jurassic World Rebirth. And we went to that screening for two reasons. The first reason is not invited to a screening by the studio. I don't know why, what the hell, Universal? I guess they don't want us to see Jurassic World, but it worked out well because this gave us an opportunity to see on the big screen, the trailer for Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, the teaser trailer. So Amanda, I'll start with you. What did you think of that teaser trailer?

• 1:52Amanda Dobbins?

  It did leak yesterday.

• 1:53Sean Fennessey?

  It did.

• 1:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I did not watch it. I was, I was saving it for my Dolby experience.

• 1:58Sean Fennessey?

  Did you read Deadline's description of the trailer?

• 2:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course not, no.

• 2:01Sean Fennessey?

  You went in clean.

• 2:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I went in clean. Yeah, I was also like, I am getting up. I got up at my normal time actually, but I am abdicating all childcare responsibility this morning so I can go see it on the biggest screen possible, as Christopher Nolan intended.

• 2:15Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 2:16Amanda Dobbins?

  So I saw it. I would say, so the screening started at eight. I wanted to say that it aired at like 8:34? Ish?

• 2:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 2:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:26Sean Fennessey?

  Well, they did something very interesting.

• 2:27Amanda Dobbins?

  And we were very nervous because I like I got there right at the dot, eight o'clock. Because I am known historically to arrive late to miss trailers and then also missed parts of the movie. But I got there on time. We watched a shitload of trailers.

• 2:43Sean Fennessey?

  Lots of trailers.

• 2:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Lots of trailers. And you know, and you at one point were like, yep, I think this is the one. And then I think it was the trailer for Edgar Wright's Running Men.

• 2:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 2:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Shout out Glenn Powell, looked good to me. And they kept going. And then there was like the Dolby, you know, part two of the Dolby, hey, you're in Dolby. And then there was the Nicole Kidman speech and Sean and I.

• 3:06Sean Fennessey?

  We were getting nervous.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Heartbreak feels good in a place like this.

• 3:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Did we show up here? Also, when did they, during the heartbreak feels good in a place like this, when did they edit in A Star is Born?

• 3:20Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's been there. This is the new one. This is the second one.

• 3:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I know that. And why are you looking at me like that?

• 3:26Speaker 02

  I'm just waiting to get to the Odyssey.

• 3:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, so was I. Also, you know, sort of on theme. I don't know if you know, that's what the Odyssey is about. And so.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  I haven't actually read it.

• 3:41Sean Fennessey?

  Well, they dropped the lights.

• 3:42Amanda Dobbins?

  They dropped the lights and we were really nervous.

• 3:44Sean Fennessey?

  And then the green screen hit.

• 3:46Amanda Dobbins?

  And we were extremely relieved.

• 3:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. So.

• 3:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Looks good. It looks really good. That shot of them.

• 3:52Sean Fennessey?

  That was a lot of buildup for it. It looks good.

• 3:54Amanda Dobbins?

  The horses and the horses on the beach and the Trojan horse, you know, but it's very large film that he uses. And I see why.

• 4:03Sean Fennessey?

  IMAX cameras, 65 millimeter.

• 4:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Huge moment for Bernthal.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  Think that was Christian Bale doing the VO in the beginning or is that Patinson?

• 4:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's John Leguizamo.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Is it?

• 4:13Sean Fennessey?

  There are two voices that we hear. The first is, I'm almost certain, John Leguizamo.

• 4:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 4:17Sean Fennessey?

  Giving this sort of brief narration about.

• 4:19Amanda Dobbins?

  We have the transcript here, so Chris, read it.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  Darkness. Zeus's loss smashed to pieces. A kingdom without a king since my master died.

• 4:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 4:29Sean Fennessey?

  Now, there's a second voice that we hear that may be Robert Pattinson.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 4:32Sean Fennessey?

  Unclear before we cut to Tom Holland's teary eyed face.

• 4:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:37Sean Fennessey?

  He's playing Telemachus in this film.

• 4:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:39Sean Fennessey?

  Odysseus's son. And who is he talking to?

• 4:43Speaker 02

  JB.

• 4:43Sean Fennessey?

  But one John Bernthal.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, Wayne.

• 4:45Sean Fennessey?

  And, and he honestly is waning. He is, he is in a, an epic tragedy of waning.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  You know what I got from this moment a little bit? A little Last Temptation of Christ.

• 4:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 4:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Like even Tom Holland's doing an American accent. Bernthal is just doing Bernthal in a beautiful,

• 5:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  But I'm surprised to see, you know, you take it out of its classical Western roots of like, okay, so they're gonna do English accents or something like that, but I guess they've all agreed nondescript American accents for this.

• 5:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, just to align with Damon?

• 5:17Speaker 02

  I guess.

• 5:18Amanda Dobbins?

  So Damon doesn't have to do the accent work?

• 5:20Sean Fennessey?

  I assume that that was why they made that decision.

• 5:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:22Sean Fennessey?

  Cause we have heard him do accents before. Not his, his strength.

• 5:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Unless it's Boston.

• 5:27Sean Fennessey?

  Historically, Boston, he's wonderful. It's not as much an accent, more like an inner self coming out.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  He was good. Uh, his accent in Stillwater was good.

• 5:34Sean Fennessey?

  Um, sure, yeah. You are the world's number one Stillwater defender.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  Cause he goes to the Marseille Stadium and is sick.

• 5:41Amanda Dobbins?

  And they do go swimming. It looks beautiful.

• 5:42Sean Fennessey?

  And you love Camille Catan, right? That's one of your, one of your gals.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:45Sean Fennessey?

  Um, we don't see Matt Damon speak in this movie. We see him from behind as he prepares to sort of march to battle. The production design, the staging is, is classical, you know.

• 5:55Amanda Dobbins?

  And we see him floating.

• 5:56Sean Fennessey?

  We do see him floating on a, on a, on a raft of wood.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:59Sean Fennessey?

  In the, in the deep sea, awaiting his fate. I thought we were gonna get maybe like a minute of, uh, is it Charybdis? You know, the, the sea creature?

• 6:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, the six-headed monster?

• 6:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but we don't get any of that.

• 6:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that's, yeah. I don't know which one is Skylan, which one is Charybdis. You, you know what I was thinking about the other day when you were just yelling about how he is honoring UNESCO World Sites? He is honoring them and that is just still one of the funniest things that happened on a podcast. That should be like the final tagline of this teaser.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  I just want to tell the listeners, it's interesting that Sean's commenting on this at all. Because he got up and turned his back on the screen.

• 6:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh huh.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  In solidarity with James Cameron, who has called Christopher Nolan a moral coward for not showing the bombing of Hiroshima in Oppenheimer.

• 6:46Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, brother.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  And I thought that was really cool of you, man. It's not often that people really stand on business in this industry.

• 6:51Sean Fennessey?

  Big, big Jim. Versus Chris is a showdown for the ages, I must say.

• 6:55Amanda Dobbins?

  It's great.

• 6:55Sean Fennessey?

  Two titans going toe to toe.

• 6:57Amanda Dobbins?

  They've been angling for it in their own, you know, they, they each want to carry the mantle.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  He was like, that's a pretty good movie, but he's a pussy.

• 7:04Sean Fennessey?

  I, I mean, Big Jim feels Chris on his heels. That's what's going on, you know? He's kind of obviously going for his spot right now and, and Big Jim's got a movie coming out in six months. So he's got to start making waves again. Didn't agree with his take. Thought it was very wrong headed, to be honest with you, but uh, it's his right to have it.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  Also, Jim, James Cameron being like, now I must correct the like cinematic record by showing this for three hours.

• 7:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not sure if that's what I want from Big Jim.

• 7:28Sean Fennessey?

  Right. And that's what you said after you saw Twelve Years a Slave, right? You said, I need to correct the cinematic record, respond to this film, which I thought was brave. I'm excited about this movie, obviously. It comes out one year from today, or one year from this month.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  It just feels like such an event.

• 7:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 7:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  You know, Universal had a bunch of screeners, uh, trailers before the Jurassic World and, you know, they had Wicked, they had a bunch of stuff. But it's just like,

• 7:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  Hang on, we'll be, we'll be there for you in a year.

• 7:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. No one creates this sense of anticipation quite like Nolan too. And so, you know, he's been doing this, this particular strategy.

• 8:04Amanda Dobbins?

  That he is also creating this level of anticipation for an adaptation of Homer's Odyssey, which they are like, it's, it's, it's not your helicopter movie, but the Odyssey. It is.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  There wasn't not helicopters.

• 8:17Sean Fennessey?

  That's true.

• 8:17Amanda Dobbins?

  And that's true.

• 8:18Sean Fennessey?

  He has not denied the existence of helicopters in this world.

• 8:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Did look like they were going for an ancient Greek feel, you know, like I do, I, Bernthal and um, Tom Holland were wearing, like Toga-esque qualities, draping, you know, as opposed to the more tailored clothes that you and I wear today.

• 8:37Sean Fennessey?

  You think they should have been dressed like they were in Inception?

• 8:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, no, I'm just saying, like, I, like, I'm reading the text. That's what we do here on the big picture. It does seem, you know, like they're going for pre-electricity.

• 8:51Sean Fennessey?

  I, I believe that will be the case.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  I'll be dropping an hour and a half long breakdown of the teaser where I freeze frames and say, this could be a shadow of a chopper blade.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  This also could be a shadow.

• 9:02Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think we'll see in the moments immediately after Odysseus is floating on the water, Roy Scheider's revived corpse flying in on a helicopter to save him and take him away?

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Good time.

• 9:15Sean Fennessey?

  Well, we're all very excited about that. Let's, let's, shall we talk now about, there've been a couple of other trailers. I'll just say, watch the sentimental value trailer. And I was like, I'm ready to be moved deeply.

• 9:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't watch it. I just responded to the email, when can I see this?

• 9:29Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I, yeah.

• 9:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't need a trailer. I just want to go.

• 9:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. November 7th is the same day that sentimental value is coming out, as is The Running Man. You mentioned that briefly. Same thing we saw in April at CinemaCon. The action looks incredible. I hope that movie is a lot of fun. We shall see. This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime.

• 10:09Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk about Jurassic World Rebirth. So we've just walked out of the movie. No prep.

• 10:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:12Sean Fennessey?

  No discussion, no planning. You are a sequencing engineer at this screening. There were some real heads at this screening.

• 10:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:19Sean Fennessey?

  I would say it was half full at 8:00 AM. Some, we met some lovely people.

• 10:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, we did. Shout out Alyssa.

• 10:25Sean Fennessey?

  Alyssa, night shift nurse, who was showing up because this is the only time she could see it. I ran into a guy who was like, I got an 11:00 AM Zoom. This was the only time I could see this movie today.

• 10:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:33Sean Fennessey?

  So appreciate them. Um, I wish I didn't spend my morning this way, but we'll talk about that. This movie is the seventh film in the Jurassic series. It's the fourth film in the non-Spielberg era of this series, although he is still a producer on all the Jurassic movies.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  And it's still like the first thing, yeah.

• 10:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. It is the return of David Koep, the screenwriter who wrote the first two Jurassic movies. It is directed by Gareth Edwards, a filmmaker who I think at least Chris and I, I don't know if I know your opinion about him, have a lot of admiration for, but also a lot of notes for. That will continue apace in this podcast.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Tony Gilroy did as well.

• 11:10Sean Fennessey?

  Tony Gilroy, who of course worked as well on Rogue One, a film that Gareth Edwards started. Um, this movie has a lot of stars in it. Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend.

• 11:22Sean Fennessey?

  Amanda, what did you think of Jurassic World Rebirth?

• 11:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I think you guys both need to learn how to have fun again.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  What's wrong with me?

• 11:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I don't, you were just a little muted, you know, during the, you weren't pumping your fist at any point. So I was a little nervous and I know you're not wearing your lanyard.

• 11:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And you tried to leave it behind in the theater.

• 11:41Sean Fennessey?

  What will you do with that long term? You think you'll put that in, in your will?

• 11:44Amanda Dobbins?

  No, Knox is really into lanyards right now. My mom went to-

• 11:47Speaker 02

  But he's not into dinosaurs yet.

• 11:49Amanda Dobbins?

  No, he is apparently. I learned the other day that he knows what a Tyrannosaurus Rex is. I just like, I didn't know that.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Now it's, then now he's ready.

• 11:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Have you had to do one of those?

• 11:58Speaker 02

  He's ready for the gift I have for him.

• 12:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Have you had to do one of those dinosaur eggs with him?

• 12:03Speaker 02

  I have, yes.

• 12:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, do you, did you, have you seen this? Yeah, where it's like the bath bomb, but it's a dinosaur egg and then a tiny plastic dinosaur comes out.

• 12:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you can chip it out, yeah.

• 12:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, we're big into that. But yeah, he also likes lanyards. He wears my CinemaCon lanyard around a lot.

• 12:17Sean Fennessey?

  Those are really safe for a three year old.

• 12:18Amanda Dobbins?

  And also the, my mom's lanyard from the Masters that she gave him. So, anyway, uh, I, I, I had, I had fun, you know? It is in, it is like totally a recreation of the first Jurassic Park, like scene for scene. But listen, when people who have maybe lost their connection to wonder, find themselves in a field looking at herbivore, giant dinosaurs, and the theme song is playing, like I am, I am still moved by that. I don't, I don't care. And I think that you should open your heart and learn to have fun.

• 12:58Sean Fennessey?

  Chris, what'd you think of Jurassic World?

• 12:59Speaker 02

  There's two movies in this movie.

• 13:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  I kind of enjoyed both of those two movies until the two movies became united.

• 13:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  And that was when the movie kind of ran a little bit out of gas. I think it looks awesome.

• 13:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Incredible.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Shot on film, shot by Ridley Scott's frequent collaborator, John Matheson.

• 13:15Sean Fennessey?

  I turned to you about 30 minutes in and I was like-

• 13:16Amanda Dobbins?

  This is shot on film?

• 13:17Sean Fennessey?

  This is, looks be, it looks beautiful.

• 13:19Amanda Dobbins?

  It really does. And also like shot in real places. They closed down the Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York for just like a random scene with a brontosaurus. By the way, the brontosaurus is kept in like the Cobble Hill Keeping Pen, which like Cobble Hill, that's-

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Can I just add, did you, did you wind up getting that latte?

• 13:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course I did. I'm sorry. I came to work.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  I love it. I thought this was two movies. There's a one movie where my favorite use of the Jurassic Park moving theme song ever, you know, like the not glorious, but the sort of this is the emo part. While Scarlett Johansson describes a former colleague dying in a car bomb in Yemen. Because she is a mercenary. She's a lioness.

• 14:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it literally turned into lioness for five minutes.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I was like, you have my attention.

• 14:06Sean Fennessey?

  That is not the essence of this movie at all.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Anyway, there's like a whole, one plot, one movie is a search and there's a basically

• 14:15Sean Fennessey?

  search and retrieval.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  of trying to get dinosaur DNA to cure heart disease. Run by Big Pharma. Then 40 minutes into the movie, we just meet a family that is inexplicably boating from Barbados to Cape Town, South Africa, which they have done many times. Even though a lot of that involves sailing through a DMZ dinosaur militarized zone.

• 14:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And could you just remind us geopolitically and I guess like topographically, geographically? Like what belongs to the humans and what belongs to the dinosaurs when we're starting this podcast?

• 14:52Speaker 02

  I'm really glad you said this.

• 14:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you so much.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  This is about accountability. The last time we did one of our, you know, kind of now patented deep dives into the lore and narratives of these films. Sean and I went across the Pratt verse and we talked about the Jurassic world, Jurassic world Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic world Dominion, right? And I realized I'd never seen Dominion. So I watched the extended cut last night.

• 15:20Sean Fennessey?

  Did you?

• 15:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. And there's like an extensive amount of stuff that I just did not know.

• 15:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 15:24Sean Fennessey?

  That was the most recent film. In fact, we did an episode about it on the show, but it was Brian Curtis and I. Who talked about it. I don't know where either of you were, candidly.

• 15:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I had maybe had a child in recently.

• 15:35Sean Fennessey?

  You did, yeah.

• 15:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, I. All right. So what's up? What's going on?

• 15:39Speaker 02

  So I think I had, when I had last checked in, I thought they were like, these guys get to keep Costa Rica. And that's it. There's been a lot of expansion and contraction on the part of the dinosaurs into the real world since I checked in. So Dominion, Dominion, right?

• 15:56Sean Fennessey?

  Dominion's the final film.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  Really gets into them being, you know, out in the world, terrorizing people at drive-ins, et cetera.

• 16:03Amanda Dobbins?

  How do they get off? Well, I guess Costa Rica is attached to other parts of the land.

• 16:08Sean Fennessey?

  Well, they get off the island in Fallen Kingdom, the previous film.

• 16:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 16:10Sean Fennessey?

  That's the

• 16:11Amanda Dobbins?

  How?

• 16:11Sean Fennessey?

  Jay Bayona film. They basically like bring them over to raffle them off to wealthy people. There's like an auctioneering finale.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  James Cromwell and Rafe Spall.

• 16:19Amanda Dobbins?

  So corporations.

• 16:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 16:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 16:21Sean Fennessey?

  Um, corporations consistently the villains of this movie. The

• 16:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Not against that.

• 16:26Sean Fennessey?

  Sure. It's a good idea. It was a good idea 35 years ago when Michael Crichton had it.

• 16:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 16:31Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I, I think that this movie is coming very quickly on the heels of Dominion, which I think was roundly disliked and made a lot of money, but was not necessarily perceived as a success. I did not. Is it, was it great?

• 16:45Amanda Dobbins?

  So, so in the end they're put in zoos and, and they can have the equator?

• 16:53Speaker 02

  It's, they get, they are still around though. There's still dinosaurs like by train tracks in Brooklyn, like hanging out at drive-ins, but they are largely on the equatorial band where the oxygen is rich.

• 17:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  And the vegetation is clean.

• 17:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 17:07Sean Fennessey?

  That was the explanation. There are some remaining dinosaurs on the mainland, but those are, it seems like are largely herbivores and are not dangerous.

• 17:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Where they're just taking up a tremendous amount of expensive real estate.

• 17:17Sean Fennessey?

  I think they said there's an Allosaurus that was, that we see, or Bronosaurus that we see very briefly.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  Well, you're a NIMBY, huh? For dinosaurs.

• 17:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I just, I guess, I mean, I guess if I had to think about it.

• 17:27Sean Fennessey?

  Did you vote Cuomo?

• 17:29Amanda Dobbins?

  But I just, I'm

• 17:30Sean Fennessey?

  What's Cuomo's take on dinosaurs?

• 17:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm sort of like, just the dinosaur alone would take up at this point in Cobble Hill, like

• 17:37Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:38Amanda Dobbins?

  50 to 70 million dollars. Just like, like it's mass.

• 17:42Sean Fennessey?

  In terms of real estate.

• 17:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, real estate. So once again, it's only a corporation that is evil could afford that.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  Do you feel like Michelle Williams was like, God damn it, I was gonna build there.

• 17:50Amanda Dobbins?

  She's Boram Hill.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, sorry.

• 17:52Sean Fennessey?

  Um, in this film Rupert Friend plays, I guess, one of the, the head of this mission to retrieve this dinosaur DNA?

• 18:00Speaker 02

  He works for InGen, I think.

• 18:00Sean Fennessey?

  In, InGen, yes.

• 18:01Speaker 02

  Right?

• 18:02Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's a little unclear.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:05Sean Fennessey?

  It feels like a spinoff company from InGen, which is the original company. The film actually opens with a flashback, 17 years in the past, where we see this research facility that is mutating and mixing, a kind of island of Dr. Moreau for dinosaurs that InGen has been working on to get people more excited about their dinosaur parks, which consistently turn into like nightmare zones of murdered tourists.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 18:29Sean Fennessey?

  And there, if you've ever seen Jurassic World, like, how could there ever be another park?

• 18:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but can I just, sure, I know. But you saying this, like, you, during the Wicked trailer, turned to me and gave like a quite beautiful and thoughtful recap of the profound artistic experience you had recently at Universal Studios, seeing a Glinda performance. Like, you actually like theme parks and you understand how, when, like, carried out, like, correctly, they can communicate with people.

• 19:03Sean Fennessey?

  This theme park is a murder house. This is a, this is a den of slaughter.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  If you died every time.

• 19:10Sean Fennessey?

  This is not, pterodactyls are picking people up in the middle of the theme park and dragging them away to their death.

• 19:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, yeah, good. They'll keep opening the park. They opened it once and then they opened it again, right?

• 19:25Sean Fennessey?

  But then InGen is like, we gotta make more dinosaurs that are even crazier and more dangerous.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  They're interested in the pharmacological and military permutations of dinosaur DNA than they are in like, let's have more dinosaurs.

• 19:36Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's the case, at least for the Rupert Frank, Rupert Frank character in this movie. So he recruits Scarlett Johansson, a mercenary, who's famed for her work in retrieval. And she makes contact with a man named Duncan.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  Kincaid.

• 19:49Sean Fennessey?

  Kincaid, who is a shipboat captain and also a mercenary.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  Former.

• 19:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I think Duncan Kincaid is the name of a character in one of my favorite, um, yeah, detective series, the Deborah Crowe series.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  There's a lot of references to, uh...

• 20:02Sean Fennessey?

  Well, we'll get to another one. There's another significant one, which is the...

• 20:05Speaker 02

  But did you hear, did you catch?

• 20:06Sean Fennessey?

  Doctor Loomis, yes.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Who recommended Zora, who is Scarlett Johansson's character, to Rupert Friend? Did you see, do you hear what he said?

• 20:12Sean Fennessey?

  What did he say?

• 20:13Speaker 02

  I feel like he's like... Pierre Pasolini recommended you to me.

• 20:17Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, he said Paolo Pasolini.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Paolo Pasolini, yeah.

• 20:19Sean Fennessey?

  So, yeah, you think that was a filmic reference to the gospel according to Saint Matthew? It could be.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  A lot of references in this movie.

• 20:26Sean Fennessey?

  There were a lot of references. The character who comes along with them is played by Jonathan Bailey, Dr. Loomis, who is a paleontologist of some renown, I suppose, and is able to identify what these different dinosaurs look like. They need DNA from three different dinosaurs. A pterodon in the sky, the largest one, a mosasaurus, which is an underwater dinosaur, and a titanosaurus, which is a herbivore of some kind of large kind of brontosaurus.

• 20:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Land, earth, and sea.

• 20:51Sean Fennessey?

  Land, earth, and sea. And so they're like, we gotta go to Suriname, and then we gotta pick up Duncan Kincaid, and we gotta listen to primal scream while we're there.

• 20:59Amanda Dobbins?

  He's got a boat, so that's why they need him.

• 21:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 21:01Amanda Dobbins?

  You gotta have a guy with a boat.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  And he has a guy named Atwater, who might be South African, who's also a merc. And I know a couple other cool people on the boat.

• 21:09Sean Fennessey?

  And the gang gets all together, and they're like, let's go get some dino blood.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  This is minute forty, right?

• 21:14Sean Fennessey?

  Minute forty, roughly. And at that time, that's when that other family, the Chris is referring to.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Hard cut to family sailing across the Atlantic that we haven't met yet.

• 21:21Sean Fennessey?

  Just like indefensibly stupid screenwriting. Like, that whole plot is complete garbage, like nonsense. Could've cut the entire thing out of the movie.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  That's not good? Like, if it was about a family sailing?

• 21:32Sean Fennessey?

  It's just the most, like, we gotta get kids in danger in this movie.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  Manuel Garcia Rolf, who's Lincoln Lawyer in the Netflix show.

• 21:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And the performances are fine, those kids are good. Like, the young girl especially, I thought her performance was really good, considering she was acting opposite a tennis ball. But that whole bit.

• 21:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Who is a small, little dinosaur sheever friends named Dolores.

• 21:50Sean Fennessey?

  Dolores, yes.

• 21:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Who likes licorice.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  David Iacano from Some Right Turn Pretty is in this.

• 21:54Sean Fennessey?

  Your favorite show.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Well, I'm.

• 21:55Amanda Dobbins?

  You were, you, were you mad at this from a screenwriting perspective or a parent's screenwriting perspective? You did turn to me, and you were like, this is irresponsible!

• 22:06Speaker 02

  That's what Marshall Ali's character says.

• 22:08Sean Fennessey?

  I know, and they put that scene in the movie to kind of like yada, yada, where the guy gets, there are 50,000 boats in these waters. It's like, there are not 50,000 boats in the waters next to the fucking mosasaurus. I'm not an idiot. You can't treat me like an idiot in a movie like this. The great thing about Jurassic Park is it's an absurd premise, but it very carefully makes you understand its own logic, and you go along with it. The entire time I was watching this movie, I was like, this is not well thought out at all.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Here's my counter to you. This was actually what I thought Final Reckoning was gonna be, which is a series of really well-planned sequences.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  You know, that that come that maybe don't actually come together in a in a story. But I understand you're like, it's insulting my intelligence. Why are they you? This is clearly, we need to have a kid aspect. We need to have a baby Yoda dinosaur or whatever. Like, it's obviously like, that's what the deal is. But at the same time, like, I think Edwards understands how to stage these things in a way that's probably like a pretty good JV Spielberg at this point. Like, where, you know, like, there's a movie, you can get into the individual, like, encounters with dinosaurs, if you want to, but I thought there was one where Xavier, who is the teenage girl's boyfriend, who has come along on this transatlantic voyage, is taking a piss.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  And he, it's like, up on his face, like, he's just trying to take leak. And two raptors basically zero in on him. And then the pterodactyl thing comes and grabs the raptors. But the entire time, it's just on this kid's face with all this stuff happening in the background.

• 23:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And he can hear it, and he gets like splashed by some sort of dinosaur liquid.

• 23:42Sean Fennessey?

  Saliva, yeah.

• 23:43Amanda Dobbins?

  So I just, you know, and it's like, and you have that primal moment. As soon as the raptor show, Chris was just like, oh, no, you know? And then I, so I, I understand your point, which is we have seen all this before, and it doesn't make any sense. But I agree with Chris that it is a really well executed version of what we've done. The sequences are good. It looks good.

• 24:04Sean Fennessey?

  It's really not, Amanda. It's not a really good version of this kind of a movie. Like, it's just not. I don't know what to tell you. Like, there have been seven of these now. It's fine. Like, I think I think Gareth Edwards is really talented.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  Don't you think it's better than the Jurassic World?

• 24:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I absolutely do.

• 24:17Sean Fennessey?

  I think the original Jurassic World certainly is at least in neck and neck with this. Like, there was at least like new shape toward the plotting of that movie. This is literally just a remake, like you said, of the first film, because in part because it's written by David Koep, where they're kind of like forcing aspects of this story as hard as they can to give you that exact feeling. There's a literally a scene in the plains where they're watching a herbivore, and they're hitting the theme hard, and they're having characters look up in wonder and touch them gently. Like, it is the same.

• 24:45Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I know. I mean, there's like, instead of the kitchen, it's the convenience store. But like.

• 24:51Sean Fennessey?

  There's a fine line between homage and jerking me off. You know what I mean? And this is like really on the line of jerking me off.

• 24:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Personally.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  That's why I think I actually, I found the cap tips to other franchises and other movies more enjoyable than the Jurassic Park rerun stuff. So, you know, there's references to Indiana Jones, to aliens, to Jaws. And I actually found like all that stuff way more enjoyable than like, oh, brontosaurus is necking, you know, like. Sweet, but like, you know, I think that the problem is, is that seeing Jurassic Park the first time when you're a kid, whenever you've seen it, like you could see it two years ago and have the same reaction. The first time you see the dinosaurs, you're having the reaction of the people in the park. The first time they're seeing dinosaurs and this thing that they never thought would happen is happening.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  And as a kid, you're obsessed with dinosaurs, but you're like, I'll never actually know what these things look or feel or move like. And this first movie, Jurassic Park, is the closest thing we ever got to that feeling. And ever since then, you know, no matter what technological leaps they make, it's still gonna be like, great, brontosaurus is. You know, like, I kind of feel like it's a shame, it's a drug and you just get, you get used to the drug after a while.

• 26:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I don't know. I don't think you saw the last two Jurassic World movies. So because of that, you're like a little bit more open minded this. But like, we just did this three years ago.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  I did this last night.

• 26:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but I didn't like them and I, I disagreed too for me. I, like, a watchable version of original Jurassic Park is more enjoyable than like a boring Chris Pratt. Like, you know, I understand Blue or whatever, and he's like friends with the raptor and then like Bryce Dallas Howard is there and she's got like.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  He's got a little clicker.

• 26:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and she has like Save the Island or something like, I don't know. I don't care about those people.

• 26:46Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  Did you care about Zora?

• 26:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't care about those performers.

• 26:48Sean Fennessey?

  You're dying on Rebirth Island. This is a weird one for you.

• 26:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not dying on it. I'm just like, I didn't have bad times, you know?

• 26:56Sean Fennessey?

  It looks really good. It's just like, it's just like every Gareth Edwards movie. It's just the plotting and. And the story is just real janky.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  You blame him or you blame the script or you blame Universal being like, we gotta have a family in this?

• 27:06Sean Fennessey?

  I said this to, actually, I mentioned this when we were watching the movie. There's a cool sequence where they're moving through the jungle. And again, I agree that there are a lot of cool sequences, but there's a cool sequence where they're moving through the jungle. And Jonathan Bailey kind of takes over the movie a little bit and he starts talking about kind of the, the arc of time and science. And how we're just like a blip essentially in the history of this planet. And dinosaurs have ruled for much longer than we will ever live on this planet. And it's classic David Koep, where he's just got, he's, he's letting someone monologue. Because other characters are asking questions that you would never ask in real life. You know, there's a part where Rupert Friend is like, well, what do you mean by that? Which no one would ever say when a scientist starts talking. But Jonathan Bailey is a really good performer and that's really well-written stuff. So when you're watching that, you're like, this is kind of entertaining and it feels like it's raising the stakes.

• 27:49Sean Fennessey?

  But it's totally manufactured and it's totally transparent. So something that feels deep or thematic is just something that we already learned in 1993 when we saw the first film. There's literally nothing new idea wise here.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  I think that the, the, for as much as you can celebrate like the visual achievements of the first one. It also had a very coherent kind of like, we, what if we don't, no, we can do something, but that doesn't mean we should.

• 28:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 28:15Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  And more and more as the films went on, I think it lost like any kind of like, what is this movie trying to say? Not that it has to say something, but good storytelling is grounded in an idea that matters, whether it's dinosaurs or not.

• 28:29Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's a question of what you ultimately want from the movies. Like you're saying, you want to have that warm feeling of the wonder of a dinosaur sequence, right?

• 28:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Or like be stressed out because even though I have literally like seen, like I have the, the design of the kitchen sequence from the original Jurassic Park like memorized and I like reference it regularly when my sons figure out how to open a new door, you know? I have, like, I have it memorized, but I was still stressed out in this recreation, which is in a convenience store instead of a thing. And it is like the small child has to hide somewhere and they're all like literally hiding behind as the, you know, like you could, like schematically, like shot for shot. Put it on one, but like, I don't care. It's like, I was still stressed out.

• 29:15Speaker 02

  I had a couple more questions for you.

• 29:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:16Speaker 02

  We just, we're just doing free fire, right?

• 29:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, let's keep going.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  How long do you think you could survive on a pure licorice diet?

• 29:23Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's been almost 43 years now, so.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  There's a child, a child in this movie seems to only eat licorice, both on the boat and on the island, and then befriends another dinosaur, gets through her trauma, honestly. A lot of trauma for everybody in this movie. Everybody's working through something.

• 29:42Sean Fennessey?

  Trauma in a 21st century movie?

• 29:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, man.

• 29:44Sean Fennessey?

  As a storytelling device?

• 29:46Speaker 02

  I was, I just saw Drop the other night.

• 29:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  And I was like, god damn it, this is like a fun movie with like this ridiculous like bookend plot on it. But Mahershala Ali lost a child, maybe, but never explicitly said so.

• 29:58Sean Fennessey?

  Well, he split up.

• 29:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:59Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I think it is, it's explicitly that they.

• 30:02Sean Fennessey?

  They lost it.

• 30:02Amanda Dobbins?

  They lost a child and it was like too painful. They reminded each other of the child, so they split up. And then he takes the picture of the child who, what, I assume that that was like a baby picture of Mahershala Ali.

• 30:14Sean Fennessey?

  It looks just like him.

• 30:15Amanda Dobbins?

  It looked so much like him. But then I was thinking, so like, what's the ask? Like, who's being like, hey, man, do you mind if we have a baby photo?

• 30:22Sean Fennessey?

  It's a good question.

• 30:23Amanda Dobbins?

  That we can then print out? You know, like, I think that would fuck me up a little bit.

• 30:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, because we only have 90 seconds of conversation between you and ScarJo to establish your entire emotional register.

• 30:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought it was two minutes, and I have to say, I thought this is one of the better ScarJo performances I've seen in some times, so I just, that's where I am.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  What did you think of Scarlett Johansson in this film?

• 30:41Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I came into it knowing that she really wanted to make a Jurassic Park movie, that she had had long desired to do one. The schedule's never worked out. She basically like begged to do this movie. And I thought she acquitted herself pretty well. I think one of her best performances is a little bit of a reach, but.

• 30:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I said, in a while.

• 30:59Sean Fennessey?

  Sure, okay. Uh, yeah, I think she's.

• 31:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I liked it. I didn't mind it.

• 31:04Sean Fennessey?

  She looks great. She does not have a lot of dialogue.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  She doesn't scream, look to me?

• 31:09Sean Fennessey?

  No. She isn't the first person you'd likely go to for this job, would be my guess.

• 31:15Amanda Dobbins?

  She seemed in control, you know? She knew that she needed Jonathan Bailey to hook her into those, like, the carabiners on either side of the ship, so she wouldn't fall over, you know, after she shot the water dinosaur.

• 31:27Sean Fennessey?

  It was some of the greatest check-offs, carabiner hooks I've ever seen in my life, when she flips over the edge. Yeah, she was okay. What'd you think?

• 31:33Speaker 02

  Uh, I thought she was good, but the character was silly.

• 31:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 31:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. I guess.

• 31:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, same for Mahershala.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  I I wonder whether or not you guys had the same sensation I did where it's like, you know, they're they're boating and they're capsizing and their rescue and then like their kind of adventure through the jungle, the family I'm talking about. Versus like, did you have a preference of which movie you liked more? The the mercenary science story or the family survival story?

• 32:03Sean Fennessey?

  It's pretty easily the mercenary stuff for me, but I was kind of hoping that they would take it somewhere a little further beyond, you know, what was explained to us in the original film about the potential scientific power of dinosaur DNA. Yeah, I mean, that was just explored a long time ago.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  There's a very funny moment where they're talking about whether or not they're going to sell the dinosaur DNA to make tens of millions of dollars or make it open source so that everybody can get it. And Scarlett Johansson is like, who should we give it to? And I was like, please just say Robert F Kennedy.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  Dinosaur DNA.

• 32:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's just a good example of trying to have it both ways. It's like, you know, this movie is being put out by a massive corporation and it's pretty dumb and they just want everybody to just eat their popcorn and shut up and like it over the holiday weekend. This is not so the idea of suggesting that there would ever be a moment in time where a pharmaceutical company would not allow this precious information that they have acquired.

• 33:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Spoiler alert, are we spoiling things? Can we hit the spoiler?

• 33:11Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, it's not necessary. I think it's clear who's going to die in this movie from the moment the movie starts.

• 33:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, actually, I got to tell you, one guy made it who I thought was definitely destined for death, so.

• 33:23Sean Fennessey?

  Are you referring to Xavier?

• 33:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Really?

• 33:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 33:26Amanda Dobbins?

  That's the other thing. As soon as he showed up, I was like, oh.

• 33:29Sean Fennessey?

  That's the other thing is this movie has no guts. Like, it doesn't kill anybody. I mean, come on.

• 33:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm so mad, like, just.

• 33:34Sean Fennessey?

  It's just, it's really lame, man. Like, this movie could have been a lot better because Gareth Edwards knows how to shoot a movie. It's just he keeps taking on movies with terrible scripts.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  Then Herschel, like, fake death was silly.

• 33:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 33:44Sean Fennessey?

  It's just super lame and it.

• 33:45Amanda Dobbins?

  But I was also like.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  We even want him to die.

• 33:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  Don't put him in that position.

• 33:49Sean Fennessey?

  Herschel Ali's not actually dying. You don't. Actually have a relationship to Duncan Kincaid. Make this feel something for fuck's sake. Have real stakes instead of just killing like the French captain who falls asleep. Who's the most obvious like we've never seen this man in our lives before. He's obviously gonna die.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  With short hair.

• 34:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, yeah, that's too bad, yeah.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  I've, let's see, like, I was gonna try and off the top of my head powering some of the dinosaur interactions here. I really liked the water dinosaur. I thought that all the like essentially like this is a great white shark. Stuff was really cool. The boat flipping was good. There's so many things that he does where I'm like, oh shit, like you're better than like 98% of the people would have done that.

• 34:29Amanda Dobbins?

  And then I liked all the kind of the like sailboat dinosaurs who showed up to help the big dinosaur. You went to the bathroom.

• 34:35Sean Fennessey?

  I missed some of that. I was watching from the side.

• 34:37Speaker 02

  Running the boat into the shallows to try and outrun the mosasaurus, is that what that was?

• 34:42Sean Fennessey?

  Mosasaurus, yeah.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  That was cool. The, the bird dinosaur, I could take or leave, honestly. And in fact, I'm not like a super big fan of airborne dinosaurs.

• 34:55Sean Fennessey?

  I thought the T-Rex sequence is good.

• 34:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it was really good.

• 34:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I thought that was really cool.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  Sleeping in the raft.

• 35:00Sean Fennessey?

  I'd never seen the T-Rex on its back before. That was a cool thing to show us. And then the raft like opening up and then hiding the dinosaur departing. And then the chase through the river. I thought all of that stuff was really good. It's a good example of like Gareth Edwards has the juice when it comes to this kind of action staging. And the CGI looks really good in this movie for the most part.

• 35:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:22Sean Fennessey?

  But anytime people start talking, I'm like.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:25Sean Fennessey?

  Guys, let's go back to getting eaten by dinosaurs, I think.

• 35:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Can I go back? Can I do Amanda's science corner?

• 35:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, please.

• 35:32Amanda Dobbins?

  So like.

• 35:33Speaker 02

  Do we have to vamp for the music to kick in?

• 35:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you need, do you need, do you need?

• 35:36Speaker 03

  Welcome to Amanda Toppin's Science Corner.

• 35:43Amanda Dobbins?

  That's like the.

• 35:44Sean Fennessey?

  That sounded like the Super Mario, yeah.

• 35:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, um, that's like the only video game song that I know, um. So, and this is gonna like, kind of be a continuation of our, like, the reproductive systems of mutated creatures that we don't really know we're dealing with after 28 years later. Oh, yeah. I'd like to kind of talk about the embryo, the egg and the embryo extraction process. So what is he, so we think the embryonic fluid?

• 36:14Sean Fennessey?

  I believe so.

• 36:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Is, like, has the DNA but is also, I mean, I guess that is true that we know in humans from a testing perspective because now they can test the...

• 36:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, for potential discrepancies in the DNA.

• 36:28Amanda Dobbins?

  But now, but now they mostly do that with blood.

• 36:31Sean Fennessey?

  Well, we see in the movie...

• 36:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, they do.

• 36:33Speaker 02

  No, I was laughing because I wasn't sure whether Science Corner was supposed to ask questions or answer.

• 36:37Sean Fennessey?

  It's a really good question.

• 36:39Amanda Dobbins?

  So, so it's basically, he's doing amniocentesis. And then the, like, the, so I guess it's amniotic fluid is that they're using, but that...

• 36:48Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if it is exactly the same in terms of dinosaur eggs and birth as it is for humans.

• 36:52Amanda Dobbins?

  But you have to assume that's their model?

• 36:54Speaker 02

  I think we'd assume birds would be their model.

• 36:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, well, you know.

• 36:59Speaker 02

  Well, it's an egg.

• 37:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess so. And that's true. I did, when the, when the angry mom bird showed up, I was like, oh, you're in trouble. Really, that, that was scary.

• 37:08Sean Fennessey?

  You related to her?

• 37:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I did. I was like, you, it's really, you don't want to be, like, in an enclosed space with some eggs when the mom comes back.

• 37:17Speaker 02

  Do you think that that bird dinosaur is on your mom's WhatsApp?

• 37:19Sean Fennessey?

  Once again, we've learned that pterodons can't have it all.

• 37:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Hey, mama, what are you doing with my eggs?

• 37:26Speaker 02

  That unhide blanket is coming your way.

• 37:29Sean Fennessey?

  What did you guys think of the giant mutant dinosaur that dominates the opening sequence and the closing sequence of the movie?

• 37:38Amanda Dobbins?

  It's pretty ugly. You know?

• 37:43Speaker 02

  Some marks for not having the T-Rex come in and save the day as it has in so many films. I was waiting for the T-Rex to come through and fuck that guy up.

• 37:52Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, and it did teach me a lesson about, maybe we shouldn't, once again, we shouldn't fuck with nature, you know? Cause that's what you get.

• 37:59Sean Fennessey?

  You learned that lesson in 1993.

• 38:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, apparently I haven't because we're still here and also I'm getting lasers on my face to try to reverse time, you know?

• 38:06Sean Fennessey?

  You are?

• 38:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I did. First, but just one, but just a laser. Nothing injected yet.

• 38:12Sean Fennessey?

  You gotta be careful with those lasers because they do attract dinosaurs. So next time you get that laser going, we do learn that the red light, Gareth Edwards, he loves a red light, man. You know, remember in Godzilla, this is his thing.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  The opening sequence of this movie is very much like Godzilla with-

• 38:26Sean Fennessey?

  Through the glass.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Benosch.

• 38:27Sean Fennessey?

  We've seen this before, you know, with that, with two actors I don't know, and as opposed to Julia Benosch and Bryan Cranston.

• 38:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:33Sean Fennessey?

  Giving the performance of their lives in Godzilla.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  Cranston's such a fucking maniac in that movie.

• 38:39Sean Fennessey?

  I like them both, they're very good.

• 38:41Amanda Dobbins?

  You're so angry.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  Do you think it's the 8 a.m.? Do you think it was the call time?

• 38:46Amanda Dobbins?

  If I brought you like a pastry?

• 38:48Sean Fennessey?

  No, it's just, this movie was rushed and you can tell and they could have done better. Like, it's just clear that they could have done better.

• 38:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Why are you flaring your nostrils at me? Like, I just, I just showed up-

• 38:57Sean Fennessey?

  Cause you owe it to the people to tell them the truth.

• 38:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And I am telling them the truth. I got the fuck up, I went to see a movie and I had a pretty good time.

• 39:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm sure some people will feel that way, but I, this is in a realm of a certain kind of, like, this is representative of the circling the drain era of franchise filmmaking, to me. This is like, this is, it's not as bad as Fast X at all, and I'm not as mad as I was about that. This movie has a lot more craft in it, but it's a little insulting.

• 39:24Speaker 02

  I think you're feeling the way I was feeling during Ballerina. Like, I mean, where I'm like mad about this and nobody else is really mad, they're just like, that wasn't very good.

• 39:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  Uh, I actually, I mean, I enjoy, I was probably closer to Amanda on this, but that's more just because I'm like, oh, they shot this on film, huh?

• 39:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm usually like, I'm usually willing to forgive some of these things. We, I think I just forgave-

• 39:44Speaker 02

  Gets too close to something you know you like, and then it comes up short.

• 39:47Sean Fennessey?

  I was just gonna say that I didn't have this problem with F1 because I hadn't quite seen a movie like that before. So the set piece stuff that I saw in that movie, I was like, oh man, this racing, I've never seen this in a movie before, this is incredible. So I was more willing to forgive some of the script problems, and a movie like this, I'm like, I don't know, we got six dinosaur movies already.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  What's your version of this then? Would it be like, what's a movie that you like, this comes too close to something I already know I like and it's not good enough?

• 40:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know, because they don't, they've just given up making movies.

• 40:14Speaker 02

  Clint Eastwood, Westerns?

• 40:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's exactly.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  Pail Rider.

• 40:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, I guess, like Netflix movies?

• 40:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:20Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, like all of the, like, the romantic comedy stuff. But even then, it's like, they don't spend any money on that. That shit doesn't even look good.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:27Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, so, like, the fact that it actually, it does look good. Respectfully, I thought the performances in this movie were, like, better than almost everyone except Javi Arbadem in F1. Um, but that's just-

• 40:40Speaker 02

  In Rebirth.

• 40:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's just something that I'm-

• 40:43Sean Fennessey?

  It's a wild take.

• 40:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm working on.

• 40:44Sean Fennessey?

  That's just a wild take.

• 40:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I just, I, I brought, he's, like, actively bad in that movie.

• 40:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but Carrie Condon's in that movie, Tobias Menzies, James and Idris, like, I'm, you know, this movie's okay, but they're barely humans. They, they barely talk.

• 40:56Amanda Dobbins?

  But they at least have, like, some sort of charisma.

• 41:00Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 41:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 41:01Sean Fennessey?

  I'm, I'm happy for you, I guess.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  This is like Siskel Ebert and Chris.

• 41:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I wasn't that mad. I get mad at plenty of things, but-

• 41:09Speaker 02

  Do you think, one, one thing that I thought was interesting, unless there was a cutscene that I'm not available that we missed, was that there is really no breadcrumb trail to a sequel here. Uh, I cannot imagine that Universal will let that go cold, but it's fascinating that I can't imagine-

• 41:24Sean Fennessey?

  Dolores left the island, right?

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Dolores left the island and the DNA left the island. But, like, why go back to the island? I mean, like, you know, you need the site from orbit, you know?

• 41:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think that's kind of the challenge of this franchise in general, is, like, the first film is contained, the second film, they leave and get out into the wider world, the third film, they have to go back, then in the fourth film, they're like, we're gonna redo the park, because it's been 20 years and everybody forgot, and then we're gonna go back to America, and then we're gonna go back to the island. Like, they keep ping-ponging back and forth. There's no expansion, I'm not suggesting they go to space, but there's no expansion beyond those two journeys, and so it just gets redundant.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  Dinosaurs in space.

• 42:01Sean Fennessey?

  Could be good. You never know.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  James Cameron should make that. Leave Chris Nolan alone.

• 42:06Sean Fennessey?

  That would be pretty good.

• 42:07Speaker 02

  Put a tyrannosaurus on the moon, dog.

• 42:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I was just Googling like Suriname geographically to kind of understand like what the next.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  The former Dutch colony, right?

• 42:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, but it's.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  Or is it still a Dutch colony?

• 42:18Sean Fennessey?

  I want to say I'm happy for Vampire Weekend for getting a needle drop and a.

• 42:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Me too.

• 42:21Sean Fennessey?

  Major blockbuster. And primal, the primal scream one was shocking.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:25Sean Fennessey?

  That's the thing is if you, when you go down the list of this movie, you're like Alexander Desplat did the score. John Matheson, who shot Gladiator, shot this movie. Gareth Edwards, the single greatest CGI artist working in Hollywood. So on paper.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  Two Oscar winners.

• 42:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, Scar Joe and Marsha, hanging out on a boat. This all sounds so good. And, you know, here's, here's where I have it. So where's Suriname? Tell us about it.

• 42:49Amanda Dobbins?

  So, I mean, it is in, um, in South America, the northeastern coast of South America. And I assume they were on like islands, you know? So I guess they're like headed back to continental South America. But we're not far from.

• 43:03Sean Fennessey?

  Well, they departed from Suriname, but I think they went some miles out.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, they had to go to Barbados and then they were in Suriname.

• 43:09Amanda Dobbins?

  So Barbados is north. Yeah. So that's what I'm saying. We're not that far from the Caribbean. So like, maybe they're in like a, you know, their own Bermuda's triangle, but they'll, they could head back to the Caribbean. And then, you know, that would at least be contained again. Those are islands.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. So this is, uh, so you're, what you're saying is this movie might be a secret Bermuda triangle movie.

• 43:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I like where we can go with that, you know?

• 43:34Speaker 02

  Maybe they sail into the Bermuda Triangle.

• 43:35Sean Fennessey?

  That would be exciting. It would be new.

• 43:36Amanda Dobbins?

  There you go.

• 43:37Sean Fennessey?

  It would be new.

• 43:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, look, see, we solved it.

• 43:38Sean Fennessey?

  It would give us a new sense of confusion that I think these films really need.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  They go into the Bermuda Triangle into a time portal. They show up in 1993, Costa Rica. D aged Laura Dern, Sam Neill and Richard Attenborough.

• 43:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Costa Rica is far away from, from, you know, you gotta get all the way through the Caribbean.

• 43:57Sean Fennessey?

  Dick Attenborough dead.

• 43:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Or Caribbean.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  He's dead.

• 44:00Sean Fennessey?

  You, you killed him.

• 44:01Speaker 02

  No, I forgot, I was thinking about David Attenborough is still narrating.

• 44:04Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, he's still, he's still kicking, yeah. Hey, brothers?

• 44:07Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 44:08Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Richard Attenborough passed in 2014.

• 44:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:11Sean Fennessey?

  He was 90 years old.

• 44:13Speaker 02

  You think he caked up from Jurassic residuals? You think they took care of him?

• 44:17Sean Fennessey?

  Um, no, but he directed Gandhi, so I think he's okay.

• 44:23Amanda Dobbins?

  What kind of residuals do you think Gandhi's throwing off?

• 44:26Sean Fennessey?

  The film Gandhi or his family legacy? All of his investments in Great British Import.

• 44:34Sean Fennessey?

  Gandhi, probably not that strong. I do believe he was recently issued in 4K.

• 44:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 44:38Sean Fennessey?

  So there could have been some new revenue streams. No, I'm not a fan of that film.

• 44:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 44:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's quite boring. It's an example of like, it's something I don't need to own. It's a shortlist of things I don't need to own. One of them, Gandhi.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  You will not be buying Jurassic World Rebirth 4K. You will not be buying that.

• 44:52Sean Fennessey?

  We'll see.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  What are you talking about?

• 44:54Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I don't think I own any Gareth. No, I own, I own Godzilla and Rogue One. Rogue One, you gotta own.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  Is Monsters on 4K?

• 45:02Sean Fennessey?

  Just Blu-ray, but I don't own that.

• 45:03Amanda Dobbins?

  The Creator?

• 45:04Sean Fennessey?

  I don't own it.

• 45:06Amanda Dobbins?

  What would you like? For robots to be free.

• 45:09Sean Fennessey?

  Doesn't this feel very similar to The Creator?

• 45:11Speaker 02

  It felt very similar to Monsters.

• 45:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but just with a lot bigger budget and more CGI.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, but he's like, I've been waiting, in some ways, he's been waiting 15 years to make this movie.

• 45:20Sean Fennessey?

  He has, he has.

• 45:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, it did feel similar to The Creator where you're like, there is five things that happen in this movie that are some of the best stuff you'll see all year. And then there's a lot that, that could have been workshopped a little bit.

• 45:31Amanda Dobbins?

  No, man, it's holiday, it's holiday weekend. I'm just, I'm, I'm ready to go.

• 45:34Sean Fennessey?

  I'm happy for you. A similar moment in The Creator where the, is it, is it the National Anthem or which, or is it, which, which kid a needle drop

• 45:45Sean Fennessey?

  hits in The Creator where it's like John David Washington flying in a helicopter amidst utter destruction in the world and a radiohead needle drop?

• 45:54Speaker 02

  Everything in its right place.

• 45:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I watched, I watched The Creator on an airplane without sound, so I wouldn't.

• 45:59Sean Fennessey?

  You didn't get a chance to hear that. Too bad.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  No sound, just because you were like, I want to go back to silent phones?

• 46:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, because I was with my child and it's like, it's honestly, and Knox was younger, so it's just like too hard to keep the, the thing plugged in.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  Because he's just pulling it out?

• 46:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, basically.

• 46:15Sean Fennessey?

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• 48:00Sean Fennessey?

  So these movies are incredibly reliable box office success. And the reason why this one happened as good as it did is because there was a need to get a big movie on the slate for the studio this summer.

• 48:12Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think that there will still be the like billion dollar appetite for this so quickly after Dominion?

• 48:18Speaker 02

  What's coming up next? What's the next big summer movie after this?

• 48:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Superman.

• 48:22Sean Fennessey?

  Superman, yeah.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  How many weeks?

• 48:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Next week.

• 48:24Sean Fennessey?

  In five, seven days.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  I mean, we heard applause when we were walking out of an 8 a.m. screening. Like, I think that this will have decent word of mouth among people who are like, I want to see dinosaurs rock and roll.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  And I guess cinephiles who like things shot on film, I don't know. I know that it's not been, has it been warmly received?

• 48:46Amanda Dobbins?

  No, not at all.

• 48:47Sean Fennessey?

  These are very bad.

• 48:47Amanda Dobbins?

  But like, but also Charles Holmes was in here being like, really liked it. So, and that's a historical hater.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 48:56Sean Fennessey?

  Pull up the old Rotten Tomatoes for Jurassic World Rebirth.

• 48:59Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not good. It did not.

• 49:01Sean Fennessey?

  It's at 53%.

• 49:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 49:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm curious. I mean, the box office wise, this is a very sturdy franchise.

• 49:11Sean Fennessey?

  Let's just take a look at the last few. So Jurassic World, this is just domestic, I think. Jurassic World did 652 million. Fallen Kingdom 417, Dominion 376. The original Jurassic did 357. Lost World 229 and Jurassic Park 3 181. If you had to guess, where do you think this one will land?

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Below Dominion, but in the, I think it'll, I think 300.

• 49:41Sean Fennessey?

  300. That sounds right.

• 49:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that sounds.

• 49:43Sean Fennessey?

  That sounds about, it's gonna do 100 million over this five day period, for sure. I don't think the word of mouth is gonna be super strong. I think it'll, I think it'll satisfy the Jurassic heads for sure. And there are a great many. So let me tell you about my experience over the weekend, because you mentioned, I did get a chance to see Glenda and Elphaba at Universal Studios, which was very nice for my daughter. But we also got to experience something that I did not know existed, because I haven't been in Universal Studios in 15 years.

• 50:09Sean Fennessey?

  There are animatronic dinosaurs in the, in the, in the park. So when you go, when you go into Universal Studios in California, you have to go down literally four giant escalators. So you walk all the way to the back of the park and you go down four escalators. And at the back of the park, at the bottom of the park, is Dinoland? No minions. Dinoland and Super Nintendo World. That's where all the Super Mario Brothers stuff is. In Dinoland.

• 50:35Sean Fennessey?

  There are quote unquote in gen employees who are luring out life-sized animatronic dinosaurs that you can interact with. This experience was so much more cool than this stupid movie. I couldn't believe the like technology with which you can interact with these actual dinosaurs. And it obviously makes sense, given the nature of this kind of storytelling, but it was a for once in a while, for once in my life, to not be in a movie theater was was a better experience movie wise.

• 51:04Amanda Dobbins?

  A hundred times out of a hundred, I'm picking a movie theater to whatever the hell it is you just described. Like where I'm like interacting with performers.

• 51:12Sean Fennessey?

  Not as your son, your son would have his head split open by this.

• 51:16Amanda Dobbins?

  He's he's three, so he would just be scared.

• 51:18Sean Fennessey?

  Wasn't that scary?

• 51:19Speaker 02

  But when he's four.

• 51:21Amanda Dobbins?

  He's potty trained now, so when are you taking him out?

• 51:25Sean Fennessey?

  This was.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  When's he ready to start fielding grounders?

• 51:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Now?

• 51:31Sean Fennessey?

  This was obviously intentional marketing for this movie, which I didn't realize, but there was a an employee who was walking around with a backpack that had a little dinosaur in it. That like little kids could like pet and it was Dolores.

• 51:40Speaker 02

  She's gonna flip out.

• 51:41Sean Fennessey?

  She did see it.

• 51:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you have a Dolores now?

• 51:43Sean Fennessey?

  No, we saw the Dolores in the park.

• 51:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, do you have one at home?

• 51:46Sean Fennessey?

  No, they weren't selling it or anything like that. It was it was like it was a little animatronic baby dinosaur that kids could interact with. Their minds were melting.

• 51:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Copperfield alien?

• 51:55Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, yeah, it was like that. It was just like that.

• 51:58Speaker 02

  Can I tell a personal reaction really quickly?

• 52:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 52:00Speaker 02

  I was in Oregon over the weekend and I was on a hike. And before we like started the hike, I was going to a ranger station just to go to bathroom really quick. And as I was coming out, I really hit my head hard on like a roof eve there that was hanging over. And I'm like, fuck, that hurt. And I'm walking and they're like, are you three, these three women, lovely women were like, are you okay? And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they were like, are you okay? That was really hard. And I'm like, do I have blood streaming out of my head? And then they go, are you Chris Ryan?

• 52:32Speaker 02

  So McKenna and her two friends, I am alive. And thank you, they were big picture fans.

• 52:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's nice. Hi, McKenna.

• 52:38Sean Fennessey?

  Were you badly concussed?

• 52:40Speaker 02

  No, I was fine.

• 52:40Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 52:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have a hard head. I've hit it a lot in my life, you know, clumsy.

• 52:44Sean Fennessey?

  Did it leave a bruise?

• 52:46Speaker 02

  No, I don't think so.

• 52:47Sean Fennessey?

  Everything's fine.

• 52:47Speaker 02

  Everything's cool.

• 52:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Are we, is this really you? Is this not an animatronic you?

• 52:52Speaker 02

  Like the movie a lot?

• 52:53Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, I'm just I'm just interrogating a little bit. I want to make sure that you're not the AI exoskeleton version of CR.

• 53:01Sean Fennessey?

  You can't really rank these movies because you missed the last two.

• 53:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I, okay, then I can put, in my mind, Jurassic World at the bottom.

• 53:10Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 53:11Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 53:11Sean Fennessey?

  Over, so you prefer Jurassic Park 3 to Jurassic World?

• 53:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't really remember it, to be honest. I've seen it.

• 53:17Speaker 02

  I gotta, I'm gonna make you upset. I'm gonna put Jurassic World Rebirth at 4.

• 53:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Ooh.

• 53:24Sean Fennessey?

  Over...

• 53:25Speaker 02

  All of the Jurassic, all the prior movies.

• 53:27Sean Fennessey?

  Just the Travaro, J. A. Bayona movies.

• 53:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 53:30Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I mean, that's fine, but it's like 4, 5, 6, and 7 are all...

• 53:35Speaker 02

  You wanted to rank them.

• 53:36Sean Fennessey?

  Way below. I honestly...

• 53:39Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you said that you were gonna upset me, and it doesn't upset me.

• 53:41Amanda Dobbins?

  We showed up at the movies to have a nice time together, and I...

• 53:46Sean Fennessey?

  That's not why we showed up at the movies.

• 53:47Amanda Dobbins?

  And then you were so mad at us.

• 53:48Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not mad. I'm not mad. Um, don't put in the newspaper that I'm mad about Jurassic World. I am mad. I'm mad.

• 53:55Amanda Dobbins?

  We should just like get a...

• 53:55Speaker 02

  I just wonder, I wanna know if you...

• 53:57Amanda Dobbins?

  We should like get a newspaper that says I'm mad.

• 53:59Speaker 02

  If you had a meal today...

• 54:01Sean Fennessey?

  You've been the mad queen recently.

• 54:02Speaker 02

  And you were like at 5:30, 6 o'clock, you're like, I'm gonna get a beer with Ciar and Amanda after this. I had a Coke, you know, like...

• 54:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's got nothing to do with the time. I'm up at that hour every day of my life. It's really not...

• 54:14Speaker 02

  But you don't think about, like, science and Robert Kennedy and Dora Bennett that early in the morning, do you?

• 54:20Sean Fennessey?

  I think about Robert Kennedy every morning of my life because of the hell scheme that we invented.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  You're like, maybe this is the last one.

• 54:28Speaker 02

  So fucked up.

• 54:30Sean Fennessey?

  No, I don't, I don't want my intelligence insulted at the movies. That's honestly how I feel. I think that just because a movie is a big blockbuster doesn't mean it has to be stupid. This movie is stupid, in my opinion.

• 54:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Alright.

• 54:40Sean Fennessey?

  I know that's a hard thing to respond to because there's not gonna be any moving me off that stone.

• 54:44Amanda Dobbins?

  That's fine, yeah.

• 54:45Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, it's generally how I feel.

• 54:46Speaker 02

  I've had reactions like that to things. I hope Celine Song directs the next one.

• 54:53Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not sure that the performances would be any better if she did.

• 54:58Sean Fennessey?

  Have you gotten any feedback on your materialist love?

• 55:00Speaker 02

  No, I haven't heard anything. Have you guys?

• 55:01Sean Fennessey?

  Nothing, no.

• 55:02Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 55:03Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 55:04Speaker 02

  I think it's okay. It's just like what you like, you know? It's a tough world out there.

• 55:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree.

• 55:10Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think this will be nominated for best picture?

• 55:14Speaker 02

  Name nine movies better than it.

• 55:19Speaker 02

  What's the movie that Naaman talked about the other day? For like 13 minutes?

• 55:22Sean Fennessey?

  Caught by the tides?

• 55:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, that's number one.

• 55:26Speaker 02

  I sent Sean a meme of two basketball players. One is Michael Porter Jr., who is a legendary idiot, who was on the Nuggets.

• 55:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 55:37Speaker 02

  Uh, and has got a podcast where he interviews like porn stars and conspiracy theorists and mostly is just sharing his takes. And he's like, it's a clip of him being like, I heard Homeland Security invaded Diddy's house. Why did they do that? And then the next is, uh, Cam Thomas, Cam Johnson or Cam Thomas?

• 55:53Sean Fennessey?

  Cam Johnson.

• 55:54Speaker 02

  Who got, who got traded for Michael Porter Jr.

• 55:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 55:56Speaker 02

  Giving like an amazing, beautiful answer about the ballet and physique of the jump shot and going left versus going right.

• 56:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 56:04Speaker 02

  I said to Sean, and I was like, this is like the difference between me and Naaman on the pod.

• 56:12Amanda Dobbins?

  That's funny.

• 56:13Sean Fennessey?

  That was really good.

• 56:14Speaker 02

  The MPJ.

• 56:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:16Speaker 02

  Of the big picture.

• 56:18Sean Fennessey?

  But you're a dead eye shooter.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  I am.

• 56:20Sean Fennessey?

  Just like, you shoot 40% from three every season and we really appreciate that about you.

• 56:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Who is your comp for Face of the Ringer?

• 56:28Speaker 02

  My comp? I didn't get one.

• 56:29Amanda Dobbins?

  You didn't get one?

• 56:30Speaker 02

  No.

• 56:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Did he get one? Did Sean?

• 56:32Speaker 02

  No, it was just more, it was Joe and then I think Bill, but I can't remember even, I can't even remember. Joe is Kyrie Irving.

• 56:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 56:42Sean Fennessey?

  That was a good one. Van pointed out that she was Tatum.

• 56:45Amanda Dobbins?

  The, I was.

• 56:47Speaker 02

  Interesting. Cause you love your son?

• 56:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I get, that was.

• 56:49Sean Fennessey?

  That was, that was literally why.

• 56:51Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 56:51Sean Fennessey?

  I, but I said it was because she has no swag.

• 56:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 56:55Sean Fennessey?

  Much like JT.

• 56:58Sean Fennessey?

  JT off the board.

• 56:59Amanda Dobbins?

  You're going to timeout for the rest of the weekend.

• 57:02Sean Fennessey?

  Because I am your father. Uh, I don't really have anything else on the movie.

• 57:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 57:07Speaker 02

  You want to talk about Running Man? You want to talk about anything else?

• 57:10Sean Fennessey?

  Um, yeah, I mean, Running Man looks good. It looks fun.

• 57:14Speaker 02

  November?

• 57:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, November 7th. Yeah, I think it will be, I'm curious if.

• 57:20Sean Fennessey?

  The Edgar Wright action filmmaking style is super mainstream because this is a movie that wants to be super mainstream, right? And it's obviously inventive. There's a couple of moments that you can see just similar with set pieces.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  Stairway thing, yeah.

• 57:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the stairway moment, the electrified water gun that Michael Sarah fires, the elevator sequence, the bomb, the grenade, like all that stuff is really cool and fun. Coleman Domingo is playing it really big as the host.

• 57:46Speaker 02

  Glenn Powell is playing it.

• 57:47Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of what you need, and so is Glenn Powell too. And he doesn't usually play that style of like, he's all, he seems very angry and his character seems mad in the movie, toe to toe mad with Brolin, one of the king of, one of the kings of mad acting. So we'll see if that works. I hope it does. I like everybody involved.

• 58:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm open to it and I'm, I'm mixed on Wright usually, but I, you know, the Glenn Powell of it all.

• 58:11Speaker 02

  He seems really into be wearing disguises, you know? He's like, I like that in Hitman, he's like, I'm gonna keep doing it. That's like his running.

• 58:19Sean Fennessey?

  You think he should do that in Top Gun 3? Wear the fake mustache and glasses.

• 58:25Speaker 02

  Did you guys talk about Top Gun 3?

• 58:27Sean Fennessey?

  We haven't.

• 58:28Speaker 02

  Do you believe it?

• 58:29Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like we're gonna have to worry about F2 first, you know? F1, big hit, now they're gonna make another one, they got Kaczynski back in there. Kaczynski, really, just a lot going on right now in your world.

• 58:39Speaker 02

  I know.

• 58:40Sean Fennessey?

  Cause there's.

• 58:41Speaker 02

  He's an invasive species.

• 58:43Sean Fennessey?

  Well, there's a UFO movie.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  I love him, but like he's, he's coming for, for, for Miami and it's sacred ground.

• 58:50Sean Fennessey?

  So UFO movie, F1 2, Top Gun 3, and Miami Vice movie, written by Dan Gilroy.

• 58:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 59:01Speaker 02

  And did you see the report that, just not Kaczynski related, but adjacent to Miami Vice, is that the script for Heat 2 has been turned in and apparently Warner Brothers were thrilled.

• 59:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, good.

• 59:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, that is only in the realm of rumor right now, right? There's not been like any.

• 59:15Speaker 02

  Where you think I live, you know?

• 59:16Sean Fennessey?

  You do live in the world of.

• 59:17Speaker 02

  Much like John Bernthal in The Odyssey. Rumor and gossip.

• 59:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Heat 2, you feeling good?

• 59:26Speaker 02

  I just thought it was interesting that that report came out.

• 59:28Amanda Dobbins?

  What's the casting rumor right now?

• 59:31Sean Fennessey?

  Still Driver, right?

• 59:32Speaker 02

  It was...

• 59:34Speaker 02

  Austin Butler as Shoholus was the one that has been the most forward. I think there was also like Austin Butler is gonna be in the Don Wenzel trilogy. He's gonna star in the Don Wenzel trilogy, so I think his dance card is getting very full.

• 59:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 59:47Speaker 02

  And I can't remember who else was being kicked around Oscar Isaac at one point, but I don't know.

• 59:55Sean Fennessey?

  When's the last time you saw Heat?

• 59:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Two or three years ago?

• 59:59Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, fairly recently.

• 1:00:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I turned it on. I can't remember why, but it was somehow big picture related. I turned it on and then Zach wandered in about 20 minutes in. It was like, "You watching Heat? And you didn't tell me?" And then just sat down.

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  Did you? Were you watching it because of Ferrari?

• 1:00:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe. Or maybe I was watching it even before because Heat 2, the book, came out. And I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna read Heat 2, but I should probably revisit Heat first." But then I never read Heat 2 because Zach took it and then read it.

• 1:00:30Speaker 02

  But then it popped up in your background. What are you talking about? It's in the bookshelf where you record your podcast.

• 1:00:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's in Zach's office.

• 1:00:36Speaker 02

  Well, everybody was like, "Holy shit, Heat 2 was right behind Amanda's head."

• 1:00:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that's where he took it, okay? See, he took it in his office. And he closes that. We have to keep that door closed because...

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  Raptors.

• 1:00:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah. Because the Raptors figured it out. And then they find all the loud toys.

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  Two Raptors are like, "Did you finish Heat 2 yet?"

• 1:00:55Sean Fennessey?

  It's an amazing place to rap. Thank you both. Thank you for loving cinema. You really showed your love today.

• 1:01:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, here we are.

• 1:01:02Sean Fennessey?

  In the face of my discontent. Let's go now to my conversation with Ava Victor.

• 1:01:10Sean Fennessey?

  Very happy to have Ava Victor here, talking about... A debut movie and hopefully your life and career. When there's a first time filmmaker, when there's a first time filmmaker on the show, I always ask the very stupid, where did you come from? Why are you here? How did you get here? Question.

• 1:01:28Speaker 06

  It's stupid potentially to you, but to me it's a fabulous question.

• 1:01:32Sean Fennessey?

  Well, would you mind answering it?

• 1:01:33Speaker 06

  I would love to answer. I um, it's like that question makes me want to say I'm from San Francisco and then talk about movies, but so I'll do that.

• 1:01:44Sean Fennessey?

  Perfect.

• 1:01:45Speaker 06

  I um, went to school for acting and playwriting and then moved to New York after school and was auditioning for things and then eventually started writing and started making videos online that were like one minute comedy videos. And then in the pandemic, everything kind of slowed down and I started watching movies to sort of escape my life, but also to sort of go deeper into my life. Something was happening. I don't totally have the words for it still, but I think I was looking for companionship in film and it sort of let me feel a lot, but in the company of the film.

• 1:02:26Speaker 06

  So that sort of set me on a track of being like, well, what if I made my own film? And then I went away and wrote Sorry Baby and sent it to Barry and Adela Endmark at Pastel, who I'd met before and I felt like they saw me as a filmmaker before anyone else believed in me in that way. You're gonna, well, this is obviously a podcast, but I will start to sweat because I'm in a small room and I just want you to know that I know I'm sweating. So it's not an issue for me. I just want you to know I'm ahead of it. I'm not that stupid, but I'm ahead of it.

• 1:03:05Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sitting in front of bright lights and also sweating, so we can sweat together.

• 1:03:08Speaker 06

  I would never know. Okay, cool.

• 1:03:10Sean Fennessey?

  I naturally don't emanate this glow. This is manufactured.

• 1:03:14Speaker 06

  Thank you for sharing that. I feel more safe and comfortable.

• 1:03:17Sean Fennessey?

  Can I, can I, can I interrupt you for a second? Because I did read that you had this moment of relationship building to movies during the pandemic, which I think millions of people developed a deeper bond to watching things and specifically films too. But did you have a big relationship to movies before that? Would you consider yourself a cinephile or a film fan when you were growing up?

• 1:03:38Speaker 06

  You know, I watched, we didn't really have TV at my house. We had a VHS player and then a DVD player and we had like 10 DVDs and they were slash VHS. We transitioned to DVD and that was like a huge moment for the family. But we started, like I, I watched Singin' in the Rain, Swing Time, Top Hat, like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers stuff, yellow, and then Hard Day's Night was a big one. And then I watched all of Bewitched and my mom was like, this is sexist, but really good. And I was like, not a problem. Um, so, so I, I, I watched a lot of the same things over and over again, but I, I didn't, you know, I feel like there's this thing that happens where people are like, well, if you want to make a movie, you have

• 1:04:23Speaker 06

  to watch The Godfather. And so I was like, okay, so I'm gonna watch all the stuff that everyone says you have to watch. But then through that found the movie, like through The Godfather, through The Shining, like which are amazing. I found the movies that I think were more my speed, like Paris, Texas, or In the Mood for Love, or you know, just like slow, beautiful things. Um, but yeah, there's like, I feel like watching movies when you want to make movies starts as like a fraudulent feeling. And then you, like, I think it started with that. And then I sort of fell in love with, with what I was watching and it became much more heart motivated.

• 1:05:03Sean Fennessey?

  Can you tell me about the trying to write? Did you, did you buy Save the Cat? Did you buy other screenplays and study that? Like, what'd you do? How'd you figure out how to do it?

• 1:05:12Speaker 06

  I'd written one pilot once. I took a class. I really didn't like what I wrote and we'll never talk about it. Hard line there. This, and then I wrote-

• 1:05:20Sean Fennessey?

  You just brought it up, though. What was it about?

• 1:05:22Speaker 06

  I know. I just tried to like, I was just playing with fire. I can't talk about it. It was about a part-time job I'd had that really, I thought was really funny. And we, in like 20 years, we'll have like a hangout and I'll tell you about it. But it's actually really boring. So let's move on.

• 1:05:37Sean Fennessey?

  Sounds nice.

• 1:05:38Speaker 06

  I wrote like a, I was working on this like movie for a studio and, uh, it was, and that was very like three act structure, like sort of, eh, eh, but you know, Save the Cat for me has always been this- I've always been very burdened by the, I've always been very angry and I felt very rebellious against that because I'm like, well, it's not a check, it's not a checkbox, you know, thing. But I do think it's a helpful tool to check your work, but I don't think it should ever come from there. But no, I was, so I was writing this kind of three act structure thing that was supposed to be this big thing. And then I went away and wrote another film that was like this sort of queer horror thing that, that was also a feature but very small. And

• 1:06:23Speaker 06

  then Sorry Baby was sort of my, my third time writing a feature. So by the time I got to Sorry Baby, I was, I was sort of like, rejection is my lifestyle. So I'm just gonna write what I want to write. Like, I just had been rejected for like 10 years, like honestly, with like acting, but I'd gotten certain things, but there's so much rejection that at some point, the pain of not writing the thing I desperately want to write overtook the sort of comfort in not writing it. So Sorry Baby was sort of my fuck the world, no one wants this, like, I'm just gonna write the thing I want to write and maybe just

• 1:07:03Speaker 06

  write it to write it. But yeah, structurally, it was, it's like, I think I only could write it once I figured out how time worked and how, how the pieces of the film came together because I knew I wanted it to exist over a certain amount of years and have these like threads through the years that only this one character can feel and see. And we get to, we get in, we get led into what those threads are. But yeah, the, the process of writing, I keep looking for like the notebook I had at that time because I feel like I was very weird about time. And it's like, you write this time, you write this time, you stretch here. Like, I was, I was doing some weird stuff, but it was, it was good. It was like time with myself.

• 1:07:43Sean Fennessey?

  I love that nonlinear approach that you take in the movie. And I, there are times when I'm, I've seen the film twice now and seeing it.

• 1:07:51Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 1:07:52Sean Fennessey?

  There, you're, you're welcome.

• 1:07:55Sean Fennessey?

  Where I know where I am in the timeline and then there are times where I feel like I'm slipping in the timeline and I don't always know where I am and you don't use typical tricks of shifting to black and white or putting a sepia tone on what could be perceived as like a flashback or an earlier stage in the character's life. Can you kind of talk about how you made decisions like that and how comfortable you were leaving the viewer uncomfortable with some of those things?

• 1:08:19Speaker 06

  Yeah, I was also feeling very like allergic to sepia toned past vibe. Like I was in the color especially, I was like, this can't be too pretty. Like I just, I don't want it to feel like, the only thing we really shifted color wise in the color was like the jury scene. I really wanted it to feel like sticky hot summer and we had a winter. But that was really actually sort of mild shifts because we had so much light. We just had to make the light a different color. But yeah, I think like the structure of the film is really like flashbacks aren't actually happening. It's like we are in present day, then we go back four years and then work our way back to the present, skipping over the one we missed. The reason I started the

• 1:09:01Speaker 06

  film how I did was because I really wanted it to be very clear that the film is about this friendship and these are the two characters we are falling in love with and that the film will give you insight into. And it felt important to me that we didn't see the traumatic thing happen at the beginning because I didn't want that to color how we were able to see Agnes. I wanted us to meet her as she is and as we would meet her and then go back and uncover sort of how we got to this point and why this friendship feels so deep and strong.

• 1:09:43Speaker 06

  And it's sort of the reason why the film exists is for the scene in the bathtub when Agnes is telling Lyddie what happened and Lyddie holds that information so beautifully. And the film is really meant to be about these milestones in a friendship. So starting with a This sort of visit with so much love and joy, but also a little mystery and discomfort about what sort of, where they come from and why they're here like this. It just felt like the natural place to start. And I mean, it's also bookended by like, Lyddie comes in and makes this announcement. And then at the end of the film, we get this sort of manifestation of the announcement. It felt like the right, the right container.

• 1:10:27Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like people keep asking you about balancing the tone of this movie.

• 1:10:32Speaker 06

  I know.

• 1:10:32Sean Fennessey?

  So I, I have kind of a question about that, that I picked up on the second time I watched it, which is when your character is with other people in the film, there is like a warmth and often sense of humor and joke. Not always, but mostly. Even in dark times in the story. And when your character is alone and contemplative, it's a completely different kind of, it feels like a different kind of a movie. It is a pure, it's like a cerebral drama, an emotional drama.

• 1:11:03Speaker 06

  Wow, that's cool.

• 1:11:04Sean Fennessey?

  Were you thinking of it in that way? That was kind of what I wanted to know. Did you see there being like a, you know, a bifurcation between the tones based on what was happening with your character?

• 1:11:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, I think I'm kind of, because I've been asked the question about like humor in the film so much, I feel like I have a theory. And most of it was quite intuitive, honestly, about like what, when we should laugh. It just felt right certain, at certain moments. But I think there's like laughter sometimes because Agnes is, I've been humbled to discover quite awkward. People are saying she's awkward and I'm like heard and humbled. And I think her, she's very blunt and not afraid of silence. And that is comedic because it's uncomfortable. And she is not. Afraid of sitting in discomfort in a group.

• 1:12:00Speaker 06

  So that, I think, is a source of comedy. I think a source of laughter that I don't think is like humor, but it is sort of is is Agnes and Liddy's like joyful friendship together makes us feel a part of it. And there's sort of like this euphoric joy there. And then also there's like a more heightened humor that is sort of the writer telling you to laugh because we're pointing at someone who's doing something weird and we're allowed to make fun of that person, like the doctor, for instance. So there's like laughs in that because we are pointing the like, the movie is being like, this guy sucks. And that is a relief and funny. I agree, like, when Agnes is alone, it's like, it's like genuinely not funny. And it's like three colors blue vibes.

• 1:12:44Speaker 06

  Like, it's a woman alone, like, trying to make sense of the world. And her confronting the world is where humor exists because she's in such a different state than the rest of the world. And that juxtaposition is bizarre and potentially funny.

• 1:13:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it really struck me in the scene where you cut to yourself on the toilet and then go to start putting the thesis up on the window. Which I thought was like, that's a scene you maybe wouldn't find in a more conventional version of this story, where you're, we're sitting with you for minutes, across minutes, no dialogue.

• 1:13:26Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:13:27Sean Fennessey?

  Trying to understand what you're thinking, how you're feeling, what decisions you're making and that, which I just thought was a very, a very cool and interesting choice.

• 1:13:34Speaker 06

  Thank you. Thanks. It took a lot of practicing getting the papers on the window in the same.

• 1:13:43Sean Fennessey?

  It was very neat.

• 1:13:44Speaker 06

  It was like 2:00 AM and they were like, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, do you get? I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can do that. It was, it was an interesting papers on the window. But, you know, then we cut to the cat meowing. So it's kind of like, we got a little something, a little.

• 1:13:59Sean Fennessey?

  I want to ask you an independent film question.

• 1:14:02Speaker 06

  God, here we go.

• 1:14:03Sean Fennessey?

  Did you have to go and like sell the movie to financiers?

• 1:14:06Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:14:07Sean Fennessey?

  Well, can you talk about that experience?

• 1:14:09Speaker 06

  Well, luckily, my producers are very, very.

• 1:14:13Speaker 06

  Smart and didn't send me to like they're very thoughtful and smart and have a lot of wonderful financiers that they've worked with before. So I I did very deliberate meetings. It's really interesting. It was my first time having to explain the movie in a way that felt digestible. I was very stressed out because I'd never really done like a pitch meeting, anything like that where I had to display my personality in a way that was nice. And and that people and palatable. So that was interesting. It's interesting. I mean, it was also like you made like I made a specific lookbook sort of pitch deck or something for

• 1:14:59Speaker 06

  the financier meetings that we sent the script with and and that piece was interesting because I had my own private lookbook, which was like Double Life of Veronique and like things that everyone was like, we don't understand why this is your reference. And I'm like, I swear like there's something and this was a lookbook that was like Juno, Fargo.

• 1:15:24Speaker 06

  Like some Claire Denis, but like Let the Sun Shine and Claire Denis, like it was very it was much more commercial, you know, and and the thing it's hard to explain something before you do it like I was kind of making a case for I wanted to be a beautiful film that feels like an arthouse film and also is funny and having to be like Juno plus Margaret, Kenneth Lonergan, I swear like there's something that will work and and people are just we luckily got people who sort of didn't really bat an eye at me at me wanting to be in it and asked really

• 1:16:08Speaker 06

  good questions about why I wanted to direct it and and we I I it was a really new journey. I mean, every part of making this film has been like totally new. I'm like, oh, we do this next like completely shocking. But no, it was it was an interesting experience for sure.

• 1:16:30Sean Fennessey?

  Related to that, did you anticipate?

• 1:16:34Sean Fennessey?

  Writing such a personal piece and then having to like basically sell it through the entirety of its lifespan, going into movie theaters and having to talk about this, this thing, that must be very strange.

• 1:16:46Speaker 06

  No, I didn't. No, I didn't really know it would happen like this. I think it's good I didn't know. And the one thing that lets me sort of sleep at night, if you will, is that I did make the movie I wanted to make. So that allows me to feel really glad that that's, this is a movie that's, that people are gonna get to see. But no, it's a really, I mean, directing and acting and writing the film is, means that most of the press you do is by yourself, which is, I didn't expect, I didn't think of. And when I have Naomi and Lucas around me, I find it to be much easier. But, I mean, this is

• 1:17:31Speaker 06

  going really well, though, so I don't mean this. I mean,

• 1:17:34Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I don't feel indicted.

• 1:17:36Speaker 06

  It's a, it's a really interesting thing. I, I think there's a lot of curiosity around what parts are my life and what parts aren't. And, you know, the dream is you sort of get to make a film, put it out, then people talk about it, how they want to talk about it, and you sort of never appear anywhere. Like, you just get to sort of release it and then let people take what they want. But that's not the realistic thing of wanting people to also see the movie. Like, I have to also, I want people to be, feel invited to see the film. So it's, it is, it's a, it's a journey, though. The press is, the press is interesting.

• 1:18:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I talked to a lot of directors on the show, and a lot of times they'll be like, this is a deeply personal work for me, but it's about aliens and like a war in space. And there's so much like allegory and metaphor that you, people, like, the press is trying to unpack about a project. But when the movie is like almost being marketed to you as like, a very personal story, an intimate story, then invariably, like, I'm sure you have to find yourself kind of constantly confronting people, asking you things you don't want to talk about all day, every day, which I, I, I, I find that like, just a bit strange, but it must be a thousand times more strange for you.

• 1:18:48Speaker 06

  It is strange. I mean, It's also like, well, we're just meeting and you're asking me that, but am I asking you that? Like, damn.

• 1:18:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:57Speaker 06

  But I, I think it's filmmakers find, like, I, I look around and I realize that people have found very creative ways to hide themselves in their films. And I had like this one really smart filmmaker tell me once, like, I just swapped the gender and no one ever asked me anything. And I'm like, haha, that's too funny. Um, but, but yeah, I, it is like, kind of draining to talk about. But I, I do love, I do love the film and I love talking about the film and, and I, um, I, I like when it can get kind of filmmaker-y. Like, I, I like to nerd out a bit with, like, why I did certain things. Like, there, there's

• 1:19:38Speaker 06

  versions of it that are really joyful of talking about the film. Um, and also, you know, people are writing about the film because they feel moved by it. So it's like, well, that's not so bad. Like, people want to talk to me because they want to ask questions. And that is inherently like a beautiful idea. So.

• 1:19:57Sean Fennessey?

  I was thinking about this recently because I have a friend who'd published a memoir a few years ago, but a very specific, uh, complicated event in their life. And then he is just now publishing his first novel. And he was using it as like, a way to figure out almost like how to write a book.

• 1:20:12Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:20:13Sean Fennessey?

  And so I was thinking about that in regards to you too. And sort of like, do you see yourself kind of permanently as a filmmaker? Like, is this your vocation now? Was this just the right thing for the right time in your life? How do you see in the aftermath of Sorry, Baby?

• 1:20:28Speaker 06

  I mean, you're gonna have to pry it out of my cold dead hand if you want to take away making films for me because I'm addicted and I'm obsessed. And I, and I don't even know like what that even means. But I, I feel so excited about what could happen next. And I think making this film as my first film is completely right. And it feels really like cosmic in a few ways. And also, I do look forward to the sort of like, it's a very personal film and it being like an alien film, like you said. Like, um, I, I look forward to seeing how.

• 1:21:09Speaker 06

  How to move through like a like through personal to a different energy of film. But knowing how much work it takes to make a movie now, it really has to be like, you have to be completely obsessed with the with what you're working on. And it like I I look forward to feeling obsessed like that again. And there's this weird grief of making the movie is over. And I'm like, well, fuck, that was cool. I'd love to make a movie again because that was like way too cool to be real. I can't even believe it's a real job.

• 1:21:53Speaker 06

  It's almost like funny how awesome it is.

• 1:21:55Sean Fennessey?

  Did you have you already started doing whatever would come next?

• 1:21:59Speaker 06

  I don't know. How do you know? Listen, I feel quite exposed like I am sharing this thing and it's being released from me and given to others to judges they please. And when I was writing this film, I feel like I was banging on a box of like, let me out. Like, is anyone listening? And now all I want is my box again. So it's a bit of a like Sisyphus thing of like, I want what I don't have. I want the privacy of writing and no one knowing and and the secrecy of crafting something alone, which is when I was doing that, all I wanted was to just make something in community.

• 1:22:44Speaker 06

  So I miss the thing and I I'm excited to go back to my private zone.

• 1:22:49Sean Fennessey?

  What about the the sort of I it sounded like the feeling of motivation you were getting after being told no all those times in the lead up to writing this movie? Like, that's over now, at least for now. Like, you won a you won prizes for this movie. You know, this is an acclaimed debut feature film. So can you

• 1:23:08Speaker 06

  You won prizes for this movie. I won a big teddy bear for the movie. That's true. That's true.

• 1:23:13Sean Fennessey?

  More than that, more than that. But can like, do you ever do you think about how do I conjure the requisite motivation to be underestimated and to to show them just that my the true nature of my creativity?

• 1:23:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, I haven't really felt like any sort of arrival at anything. I

• 1:23:39Speaker 06

  There's so much to to say in the world that I feel like I just got to say a little thing. And it's like, well, if you want to hear more, I have a lot to say. But no, I think it, you know, I no one knows who I am. I made a very small film. It's coming out the same weekend as F1. Like, I do understand, like, I there's no like, huh, like, my mom's gonna be mad by how much I'm saying like, you'll cut them all out, right?

• 1:24:16Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:24:17Speaker 06

  You won't. Okay, then I'll work on it privately right now. I'll censor.

• 1:24:21Sean Fennessey?

  Please don't censor.

• 1:24:23Speaker 06

  I it's a weird thing. I don't understand who the film is reaching. I get a sense of it when I'm at a screening. But no, I I also think people sometimes want you to make the thing they've seen you make. Like, make comedy videos. No one wanted me to make a movie. They were like, we don't want to do that. We want you to make like a a version of comedy videos that makes everyone more money. Not, you know, my people, but people I meet with. And it it's sort of making another movie is about kind of starting from scratch and making the kind of movie you haven't made yet. It's almost like doing a whole new

• 1:25:08Speaker 06

  thing. You understand some things about making a film, but other things, because it's a different film, are completely new. And it's almost like you have to make it your first film again. And so it never feels like any it hasn't I haven't felt like any sort of arrival or like, understanding of how to do this. It doesn't feel easy or anything.

• 1:25:30Sean Fennessey?

  Do you feel like any pressure to capitalize this and make more money? That's something I'm always interested in with independent filmmakers. Like, do I have to scrape and claw? So many filmmakers that are in the position that you're in at this exact moment would like, at least in the last 10 years, like, take a Jurassic Park movie. You know what I mean? And just be like, yeah, I'm porting over my Sundance success to join a huge franchise. I'm not suggesting you're gonna do that. But I think a lot of times that's informed by, I was broke till I was 37, and now I need to, like, buy a house if I want to have a family, that sort of thing. You know what I mean?

• 1:26:02Speaker 06

  Totally. It's weird how money works. It's weird how

• 1:26:08Speaker 06

  You can make a film like this and it takes, you know, five years, every day of your life. And then you do something for one day and it makes like

• 1:26:22Speaker 06

  five times as much like I don't, it's very interesting.

• 1:26:29Sean Fennessey?

  Are you a professional assassin or something? What do you, what do you, what's that other thing you're referring to?

• 1:26:33Speaker 06

  Can kill someone, money than that. No, like seriously sounding totally scary as I'm saying that. No, I think, although I would love to, I feel a bit spoiled in a way that like honestly, my film got, it was bought at Sundance for, and I don't know if I'm allowed to say the amount, but like much more than it was made for. And that's very rare. And

• 1:27:04Speaker 06

  you know, I was on a TV show a few years ago and that has been carrying me through, like the money I made on that has been carrying me through making this film. And

• 1:27:14Sean Fennessey?

  You're good on that TV show. I watched that TV show. Billions. Yeah, that was good.

• 1:27:17Speaker 06

  Thank you. Thank you. I was a genius on the show.

• 1:27:20Sean Fennessey?

  I remember.

• 1:27:21Speaker 06

  Every word I said before the table, because I didn't know what anything meant. And then I one time watched a video of someone doing like data, man, or like doing day trading to just see how their fingers moved on the computer. I, I seriously can't believe I got that part. Bless up.

• 1:27:40Sean Fennessey?

  I bought it. It worked.

• 1:27:42Speaker 06

  Thank you. Um, but yeah, I think I feel kind of spoiled that

• 1:27:50Speaker 06

  I got to make something in a very uncompromised way. And I got to do that because I was on like a big TV show and could spend those years making it the way I wanted to. And I didn't have to like trade vision for money and

• 1:28:10Speaker 06

  I feel wary of, you know, I, I don't want to do something I don't love. But life is, you know, expensive. So I, I do, I have questions about that.

• 1:28:26Sean Fennessey?

  So you will continue to kill is what you're saying?

• 1:28:28Speaker 06

  I'll kill and I will be in Jurassic Park once they invite me and direct it and write it.

• 1:28:35Sean Fennessey?

  It sounds great. I look forward to that.

• 1:28:37Speaker 06

  So bad, I actually cannot fathom that. But they have one out now. And so that is probably the one that they should have made because they did.

• 1:28:50Speaker 06

  I watched Jurassic Park recently, the first one, and I was like, this is a really good movie with the like the orb, the golden amber stuff. I was like, I get this. This is cool.

• 1:28:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's fantastic. Yeah, the first one is great. Everything after that, you know, debatable.

• 1:29:03Speaker 06

  I don't know because I have not seen it yet, but I will due to what we're talking about.

• 1:29:08Sean Fennessey?

  You have a lot of research to do before you get that gig. I wish you well.

• 1:29:13Sean Fennessey?

  Ava, we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers.

• 1:29:16Speaker 06

  It's over?

• 1:29:17Sean Fennessey?

  It's about to be. Well, I mean, if you want to keep going, we can, but I feel like I'm boring you. I'm getting you into like meta textual questions now and you know, you're like, gotta think about them and think about your life.

• 1:29:28Speaker 06

  All good.

• 1:29:29Sean Fennessey?

  We do end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they have seen? And it does seem like you watch a lot of movies.

• 1:29:38Speaker 06

  I mean, I might need my phone. Oh.

• 1:29:42Sean Fennessey?

  Are you going to Letterboxd? What are you doing?

• 1:29:45Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:29:46Sean Fennessey?

  Great. Love it. No, I fucking love Letterboxd.

• 1:29:50Speaker 06

  Uh, well, I don't know if I want to say that.

• 1:29:53Sean Fennessey?

  Say what?

• 1:29:55Speaker 06

  Okay, I'll say this. Like two days ago, I saw 28 Years Later in the theater. It's so motherfucking good. And I cried in a way that I have not cried in a movie in since.

• 1:30:11Speaker 06

  Twisters, and that actually make me cry a lot. And that movie is so good. Jodie Comer is so good. And I think it's Aaron Taylor.

• 1:30:27Speaker 06

  Johnson, I want to say.

• 1:30:28Sean Fennessey?

  That's correct.

• 1:30:29Speaker 06

  That's work to date. And he's very good in it. And I was very moved by the story and many of the visuals. And I liked the score. I thought it was sick and I liked that they weren't apologetic. Oh, Sinners too. Okay, since Sinners, I didn't cry at Sinners, but I felt a lot of stuff.

• 1:30:52Speaker 06

  So I guess that's all I have to say.

• 1:30:55Sean Fennessey?

  Those are my two favorite movies of the year. So good on you.

• 1:30:57Speaker 06

  They're so good.

• 1:30:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, they're both so good.

• 1:30:58Speaker 06

  Mine.

• 1:31:00Sean Fennessey?

  And yours, yes. Well, I wasn't going to say that to your face.

• 1:31:03Speaker 06

  Right, well, don't mind it. I will definitely pry and ask if it is.

• 1:31:07Sean Fennessey?

  No, it is.

• 1:31:07Speaker 06

  I mean, honestly, Sinners, Sinners got me good. And I didn't even know anything going into it, which was cool.

• 1:31:14Sean Fennessey?

  It's the best way to say it.

• 1:31:16Speaker 06

  And basically everything.

• 1:31:18Sean Fennessey?

  You're a person of taste. I want to say.

• 1:31:20Speaker 06

  You think? Because I said 28 years later and Sinners, which are the two top movies of the whole entire year.

• 1:31:24Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you know, the truth is the truth. That's how I feel about these things.

• 1:31:28Speaker 06

  I agree with the people.

• 1:31:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the people are right. And, um, and you're right. Congratulations on your first film. I think it's really good and I'm, I can't wait to see what you do next.

• 1:31:38Speaker 06

  Thank you. Thank you so much. This was so nice.

• 1:31:42Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks, Ava Victor. Thanks to CR. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. We'll see you later this week for a very patriotic episode of 25 for 25. Number 16 should be fun. We'll see you then.

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