10 Movies We Can’t Wait to See This Fall

Sean and Amanda open today’s show by breaking down the weekend box office and highlighting the solid performance of ‘Coyote vs. Acme,’ the continued bulldozing by ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ and ‘The Odyssey,’ and the big bomb by ‘The Dog Stars.’ Then, they kick off their fall movie preview by each highlighting five movies they can’t wait to see and three movies they’ve seen and would recommend. Finally, they create the "September Oscars” and select five “guaranteed” Oscar nominations from films that have already been released. (0:00) Intro (0:38) ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ (6:08) ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ and ‘The Odyssey’ box office (9:32) ‘Buddy’ (10:38) ‘The Dog Stars’ bombs at the box office (12:20) Anne Hathaway joins the ‘Days of Thunder’ sequel (15:44) Five movies we can’t wait to see this fall (59:11) Three movies we’ve seen and would recommend (1:13:12) The September Oscars (five Oscar nomination guarantees from films that have already come out) Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan®. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there®. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:15Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Finacy.

• 0:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 0:17Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Picture at Conversation show about the fall movie season. Today on the show, we're delivering our official fall movie preview. We're just days away from visiting a pair of fall film festivals. So before we've seen it all, we're going to share with you the movies we can't wait to see, the ones we have seen and highly recommend, and a few wild predictions. Plus, we'll break down some movie news right after this.

• 0:37Speaker 02

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

• 1:02Speaker 03

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

• 1:14Speaker 04

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

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• 2:01Speaker 04

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

• 2:07Speaker 05

  This episode is brought to you by NOS Energy. Every ounce of dirt, sweat, and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised, every lap, every race, every hard-fought place. They're all jammed inside every can of NOS Energy. High-performance energy for burning the midnight oil in the garage and pedal-to-the-metal human horsepower for the streets. Go ahead, crack open a can of NOS Energy and get after it.

• 2:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Dobbins.

• 2:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Hey, big dog. 6:00 PM flight. Let's go.

• 2:34Sean Fennessey?

  So you're... we're eight hours away.

• 2:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, I'm eight hours from an 18-hour travel day, but yes.

• 2:41Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you for podcasting today. We appreciate that. Did you get out to the movie theater this weekend?

• 2:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I did.

• 2:47Sean Fennessey?

  You did?

• 2:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I did. I saw Coyote vs. Acme.

• 2:49Sean Fennessey?

  No kidding?

• 2:49Amanda Dobbins?

  With my two children. I'm gonna be really real with you. I saw 45 minutes of Coyote vs. Acme before my younger son was like, too scary mama outside. Again, he's not quite two. It was 100 degrees. We had a cold hit the family, like a lot of situations. I was solo parenting, so we hit the La Canada 8. Knox sat in the seat, loved it. And I was charmed, and then I had to go outside with Si.

• 3:18Sean Fennessey?

  Was Knox able to stay, or did he also have to leave?

• 3:20Amanda Dobbins?

  At some point, he did have to leave. Again, he was also sick. But we... so I'm not a total expert, but I was there. There were more people than I expected, because this was like a 4:00 PM, I think, on a Thursday showing or Friday, and way more adults than I expected.

• 3:36Sean Fennessey?

  Right, so I want to talk about that. So Coyote vs. Acme was the, I guess, the big movie, the big new movie at the box office. We did an episode about Dog Stars last week, which bombed terribly at the box office. And we can talk about that momentarily.

• 3:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Many people are talking about the Carhartt, though, so...

• 3:49Sean Fennessey?

  They sure are. Coyote vs. Acme has been in the news for three years now. In 2023, the film was dumped by Warner Brothers and, I guess, David Zaslove has a tax write-off. And there was a lot of social media outrage about this. And Catch Up Entertainment swooped in and acquired the film for reportedly $50 million. And all these years later, the movie, which has become a real cause celebre online, comes out, and it did $15.5 million at the box office.

• 4:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 4:19Sean Fennessey?

  Which is okay. It's not bad. It's not great, but it's great that the movie got to be released.

• 4:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 4:26Sean Fennessey?

  I did see it a couple of, like, maybe a month ago, and I watched it with Alice. And I thought it was interesting, because it did strike me as something that I have been talking about a lot on the show over the years, which is like, it did feel a little bit more like a movie for me than a movie for her.

• 4:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 4:41Sean Fennessey?

  And I certainly fell in love with Looney Tunes when I was her age. And Looney Tunes are kind of a primal entertainment.

• 4:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course.

• 4:48Sean Fennessey?

  They're sort of the ur minions, right?

• 4:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, exactly.

• 4:50Sean Fennessey?

  And so I was a little bit befuddled by the movie.

• 4:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 4:55Sean Fennessey?

  But that might have just been the circumstances under which we saw it.

• 4:57Amanda Dobbins?

  So a crucial distinction is that Looney Tunes are, in large part, visual humor. And I knew that I had me, not like a miscalculation, but I knew that I had a different understanding of what we were getting into when Wile E. Coyote's jokes were all words written on a sign, and my four-year-old can't read yet. So I'm sitting there wrestling a two-year-old. Again, you know, I wasn't the ideal moviegoer at this situation, and thanks to everyone at the La Canada 8. But I'm like wrestling a two-year-old and leaning over to a four-year-old to read the signs so that he can understand the joke. And I was like, oh, okay, so not a this-level-kids movie.

• 5:39Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's right. I think it's like for somewhere between 8 to 12 is a more appropriate age, where you can read and you get the visual cues, and maybe you have a pre-existing relationship with Looney Tunes, but also you might be interested in a legal comedy, because this is truly a legal comedy.

• 5:53Amanda Dobbins?

  That's the other thing I was...

• 5:54Sean Fennessey?

  And that's cool. And look, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, one of my favorite movies of all time. So the integration of live action and animated, I think, is really, really artfully done in this movie.

• 6:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 6:03Sean Fennessey?

  And I do love the Looney Tunes, but the Looney Tunes don't hold a lot of... They certainly don't hold as much, I don't know, interest, I think, generally speaking, for younger kids now than they did, say, 20 years ago or 50 years ago. Does that seem accurate to you?

• 6:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say that there are any... There's like no branded merchandise available.

• 6:24Sean Fennessey?

  I wonder if that's disallowed because of the way that this film was acquired and who owns the Looney Tunes brand.

• 6:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but also, I think, in the way that you just... My children do know who Mickey Mouse is, but they don't really know any of the Looney Tunes.

• 6:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 6:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And they also know who Paw Patrol is, which is just real tough, because those billboards are everywhere.

• 6:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the Dino movie.

• 6:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 6:46Sean Fennessey?

  We've managed to avoid that.

• 6:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Knox can recognize it, but I just explained to him that we don't have Paw Patrol on the big picture. So... and we do not.

• 6:53Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's been a fact.

• 6:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 6:55Sean Fennessey?

  I did hear from a mutual friend of ours that they really enjoyed the Paw Patrol movie.

• 7:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 7:00Sean Fennessey?

  And I'll tell you about that off mic.

• 7:03Sean Fennessey?

  I think this is a really interesting... It's obviously a fascinating business story. The movie itself, I think, is cool and was kind of destined to be a cult object as soon as Warner Brothers shook it off. I do think it's... it is a little bit, once again, like a reckoning with people who are trying to kind of reprocess the things that they loved when they were young and make it mainstream for younger people. I think my five-year-old and your four-year-old are just a little bit below the cutoff line of interest. But I have heard plenty of people say that their seven- and eight-year-olds really, really had a fun time with it. And movies like this also can be like gateways to more grown-up adult stuff. This might be the first courtroom that... Or certainly one of the first, you know, conference room tables across which there is a deposition, you know?

• 7:47Amanda Dobbins?

  No, there's a courtroom. Yeah, there are opening arguments, yeah.

• 7:50Sean Fennessey?

  I was thinking specifically of John Cena going nose to nose with Will Forte. You know, just a fascinating artifact to me. And a movie that I would say I'd soft recommend. It did come in second place at the box office to Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is in its fifth weekend, still at number one.

• 8:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:10Sean Fennessey?

  It made $22 million. It's not quite gonna get to a billion. It is probably gonna get past...

• 8:16Amanda Dobbins?

  And is that disappointing to you personally?

• 8:18Sean Fennessey?

  No. But I was... it was like something I was curious about. I was like, could a film domestically get to a billion dollars? That's something that's never happened before.

• 8:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 8:27Sean Fennessey?

  And it doesn't look like it, but that's fine. The Odyssey came in third place this weekend with $14 million. It's been seven, eight weeks since The Odyssey came out. It's made $560 million in America.

• 8:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, that's good. That's not as much as Oppenheimer made, if I recall.

• 8:44Sean Fennessey?

  No, it is.

• 8:44Amanda Dobbins?

  It is?

• 8:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 8:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay.

• 8:45Sean Fennessey?

  No, Oppenheimer made like $980 worldwide. I think this is gonna make 100, like 1.8 billion worldwide.

• 8:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, good.

• 8:51Sean Fennessey?

  So that's a lot.

• 8:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's good.

• 8:53Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, it's very good.

• 8:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Good job. Yeah.

• 8:55Sean Fennessey?

  Spider-Man and The Odyssey represent like...

• 9:00Sean Fennessey?

  60% of the box office this summer, maybe more? Maybe it's 80% of the box office? Any thoughts?

• 9:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I think we knew that that was coming and that's okay.

• 9:08Sean Fennessey?

  The Spider-Man thing did take me by surprise. I knew it would be big. I never would have guessed second biggest movie of all time, third biggest movie of all time.

• 9:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess I wouldn't have either just because I don't really sit there with my charts as much as you do.

• 9:22Sean Fennessey?

  I do like a chart.

• 9:23Amanda Dobbins?

  You and the boys on News and Deals.

• 9:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 9:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Hello? I'm still not on that.

• 9:27Sean Fennessey?

  You don't want to be on that.

• 9:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't want to be on it, but now I just.

• 9:30Sean Fennessey?

  You don't want to be excluded.

• 9:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I hear reports, you know, I'm like the, I'm like the News and Deals therapist. It's like you all come to me individually with your complaints, your questions, your thoughts, and that's fine.

• 9:39Sean Fennessey?

  News and Deals is a text chain with some friends of our, mutual friends of ours that is primarily about physical media.

• 9:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, which I don't.

• 9:46Sean Fennessey?

  And strongly held movie opinions.

• 9:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't care about. Anyway, um, I, if we, if I'd actually thought about it for three seconds, I mean, No Way Home was absolutely like a rocket ship and we at the same time were like, wow, didn't really see this coming. And is this going to get a Best Picture nomination? And we should have seen that coming. I mean, it's Spider-Man. People really like Spider-Man and young people really like Spider-Man. So I, you know, I don't think that I could have predicted the, the historical stats, but that Oppenheimer and Brand New Day were going to be the two tent poles of the summer. I mean, we organized our vacation schedule around that.

• 10:25Sean Fennessey?

  We sure did.

• 10:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Like we had some idea.

• 10:27Sean Fennessey?

  You're right. We, we sure did do that. And um, thank you to my wife for being understanding about that.

• 10:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you to my in-laws.

• 10:33Sean Fennessey?

  Um, yeah, I, I think I would, if you would have asked me to guess, I would have said that movie will make $1.7 billion or $1.8 billion, not 2.5 or whatever it's going to end up at. And you know, it sounds like maybe not a big deal if you're not a movie podcaster, but it's, that's a wide chasm. That's a big gap. I mean, making it one of the biggest movies of all time is fascinating. And again, like, I don't think we can say, well, that's just, that was a blip. No Way Home, at the time, I felt certain that it would be really popular despite COVID because they were doing something that had really never been done before with bringing the previous iterations of those characters all together. This was just a Spider-Man movie. I mean, it introduced an X-Man, an X-Woman, but aside from that, it was, you know, villains

• 11:16Sean Fennessey?

  and MJ and Peter and, you know, emotional trauma set against New York City.

• 11:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 11:21Sean Fennessey?

  A, a good version of it, but anyway, um, I remain fascinated by it. The only other movie which I assume you did not see or take your children to that was of note this weekend to me is Buddy. So Buddy is a new horror movie, independently released horror movie from Casper Kelly, who made Too Many Cooks. And the movie is sort of like a melange of Barney the Dinosaur and Peewee's Playhouse, but if it were a horror movie.

• 11:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you know, as if the originals aren't.

• 11:50Sean Fennessey?

  Well, there's something unnerving and creepy about the originals. Peewee's Playhouse, I adore and was raised on.

• 11:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Was it?

• 11:56Sean Fennessey?

  Barney was a little bit after my time.

• 11:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it Daniel Kaluuya who's making a Barney movie?

• 12:01Sean Fennessey?

  Reportedly.

• 12:01Amanda Dobbins?

  But for grownups, but you know, you have to imagine that there's.

• 12:04Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that happened now because of Buddy. Buddy, which I also did see, uh, which I thought was, had a very, very like sharply drawn and entertaining first two thirds. And then I thought kind of overstated its welcome a little bit in the third act, but was a cool movie.

• 12:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:19Sean Fennessey?

  It made almost $6 million at the box office over the weekend on like a thousand screens, which is honestly a huge success for a movie like this. I just think it's cool and I just want to note that.

• 12:28Amanda Dobbins?

  That's great.

• 12:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 12:29Amanda Dobbins?

  People didn't want to see Alordi and his dog.

• 12:31Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, it almost made as much money as The Dog Stars.

• 12:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. I see that.

• 12:34Sean Fennessey?

  The Dog Stars made $8 million.

• 12:35Amanda Dobbins?

  It's real tough.

• 12:36Sean Fennessey?

  It made $19 million worldwide. This is a $100 million post-apocalyptic thriller from the man who made Alien.

• 12:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, sort of a thriller.

• 12:43Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 12:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 12:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. More of a chiller.

• 12:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 12:46Sean Fennessey?

  More of a, more of a Ridley and chiller. Um, what does this mean for The Dog Stars' struggles here? Anything? Ridley's making Treasure Island next.

• 12:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I, I mean, I guess this is like a notable box office failure for Ridley, but it's, it's not like anyone's taken his last three to four movies hugely seriously.

• 13:09Sean Fennessey?

  It's true.

• 13:09Amanda Dobbins?

  So I, you know, he'll keep going because as you mentioned, Scott Free is such like a giant production and he is kind of his own universe and keep, can keep funding stuff. Does it mean that the, or is it another reminder that the reinforcement or the support for old school movies starring movie stars made by people who were big in the nineties? No one really cares anymore? Yeah, like that's, no one cares.

• 13:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that narrative took a little hit.

• 13:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Sean Fennessey?

  It took a little hit, you know? Zendaya, Tom Holland, okay.

• 13:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:42Sean Fennessey?

  Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qualley?

• 13:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Eh, yeah.

• 13:44Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe not quite there yet. Be interesting to see how they react in terms of their careers. I was just watching a film that Margaret Qualley's starring in this fall, just last night, that we can talk about when we get back from the fall festivals.

• 13:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 13:54Sean Fennessey?

  Um, any other, any other news and notes for you?

• 13:59Amanda Dobbins?

  You mentioned X-Men. We didn't really check in on that.

• 14:02Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 14:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, well, let's talk about that because X-Men, I guess we have to keep the podcast going till May 2028 now.

• 14:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 14:09Amanda Dobbins?

  But then now.

• 14:10Sean Fennessey?

  We've agreed to extend the run of the show.

• 14:12Amanda Dobbins?

  But you know, over the weekend, it was announced that Anne Hathaway would be joining Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder 2.

• 14:17Sean Fennessey?

  Of course. This is the big news.

• 14:18Amanda Dobbins?

  So now it's June 2028 that we have to keep podcasting. We honestly like need a, you know, one of the countdown boards here where it's just June, you know, 28 and we just keep revising it.

• 14:28Sean Fennessey?

  One of the wonderful things about movie fandom is even when it comes to a movie like Days of Thunder, I don't really have much of a relationship at all to the original Days of Thunder. I don't think it's that great. It's not one of my Tom Cruise movies. Not one of my Tony Scott movies. A lot of people love it. That's cool. It's being, you know, rebooted for a reason. But you know, I love Anne Hathaway.

• 14:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. I do too.

• 14:45Sean Fennessey?

  And I, I love her going after the brass ring while she can. She's having a huge summer and she's like.

• 14:51Amanda Dobbins?

  While she can.

• 14:52Sean Fennessey?

  I'm cashing my chips in right now. Attach me to your mega franchise, Jerry Bruckheimer. Think it's a smart idea. Nicole Kidman not available, apparently. What do you think happened there?

• 15:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, so she's playing a neuroscientist, right?

• 15:07Sean Fennessey?

  She, what she did in the original.

• 15:09Amanda Dobbins?

  She did, or a neurosurgeon, neurosurgeon.

• 15:12Sean Fennessey?

  Neurosurgeon, sure.

• 15:13Amanda Dobbins?

  That's right. So.

• 15:13Sean Fennessey?

  A 24-year-old neurosurgeon.

• 15:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I think probably, I don't, don't you think her brain is like, the neurosurgeon's brain is like frozen somewhere and science doing something else? So you think the character is just unavailable?

• 15:24Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think she'll be dead in the film? Her character will be dead?

• 15:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I think they won't talk anymore.

• 15:30Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 15:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 15:31Sean Fennessey?

  Tom Cruise, you think he will be the man behind the wheel, the primary engine, so to speak, of the movie? Or will there, there be a baton pass? Will there be a Miles Teller who's involved?

• 15:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And he'll be the, the Newman?

• 15:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 15:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, or who's in Days of Thunder, not Newman?

• 15:46Sean Fennessey?

  Days of Thunder is Robert Duvall.

• 15:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Duvall, right. And Newman is Color of Money. I think that he will be driving because he's Tom Cruise and he can't help it. And you know, Pitt did F1 and so now he has to also get in the wheel. And I'm sure he'll be at NASCAR events for like 45 years.

• 16:04Sean Fennessey?

  NASCAR versus F1, what are your thoughts?

• 16:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I, the, the people are driving fast. I really, honestly, I don't.

• 16:11Sean Fennessey?

  Scintillating commentary.

• 16:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I do in general like movies where things go fast.

• 16:16Sean Fennessey?

  Uh-huh, you do.

• 16:17Amanda Dobbins?

  That is a vein of action movie that speaks to me. But there's usually, I'm like, except for the case of F1, a narrative built around it. And I don't really understand what's going on with F1 and NASCAR. I didn't watch the Netflix show. I know everyone who watched the show, it's been narrativized. It does also seem like the F1 culture, which people, Juliette Littman, for example, is a huge fan and she's like, I think this would speak to you. But it has sort of a Vegas feel to it that doesn't speak to me.

• 16:46Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 16:46Amanda Dobbins?

  So I, you know, I know people love it. I wish them well.

• 16:50Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like it's really more about Monaco and, and places like that, right? Those are destinations you enjoy.

• 16:56Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, I've never been to Monaco.

• 16:58Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 16:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 16:59Sean Fennessey?

  We gotta get working on that.

• 17:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess so.

• 17:01Sean Fennessey?

  Um, yeah, Days of Thunder 2, which is going to be directed by Jonathan Levine, a filmmaker who doesn't have a ton of experience making movies like this, like big action tent poley films. So it'll be interesting to see how that tracks over, but happy for Hathaway.

• 17:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 17:16Sean Fennessey?

  She's crushing it.

• 17:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 17:16Sean Fennessey?

  She's got another movie coming out in one month. Will it be mentioned here on our Fall Movie Preview?

• 17:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I forgot to put that on there.

• 17:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Well, spoiler alert for our lists.

• 17:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. All right. I know what I'm going to do then. Okay. Look at that.

• 17:29Sean Fennessey?

  Whoa.

• 17:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 17:30Sean Fennessey?

  Whoa.

• 17:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 17:33Sean Fennessey?

  Well, we may need to circle back to that title that was just deleted. Um, okay. Well, let's, let's, let's talk about the fall.

• 17:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 17:40Sean Fennessey?

  So it's been a very top-heavy first eight months of the year in terms of big ticket releases. And certainly when it comes to the prestige award season, this is high time. And yet The Odyssey has already come out and taken over movie culture. I think it's reasonable to assume that The Odyssey is going to get somewhere between 11 and 14 Oscar nominations. And I think it is the heavy betting favorite right now to win Best Picture.

• 18:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Absolutely.

• 18:05Sean Fennessey?

  So this is kind of unusual because we, I guess we did have this with Oppenheimer a few years ago, but by that point, Christopher Nolan had never, not gotten over the hump yet with the Academy Awards. And now there does feel like a bit of a foregone conclusion, just in terms of that specific component of the next.

• 18:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 18:23Sean Fennessey?

  Six to seven months of what, what movies are people going to see? What are they interested in? And what is sort of like this, the primacy of movie culture? It doesn't mean that there's not a lot of really interesting stuff coming out. And I'm very excited, not just to go to Telluride, but to kind of map out this year. It feels a little bit smaller though than it does most years. Like you've, you've been mentioning the, the Thanksgiving opening and many people have pointed out to us that Grand Theft Auto VI comes out November 20th.

• 18:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 18:51Sean Fennessey?

  And that that legitimately will take over a huge portion of like pop cultural hive mind. I think that's very smart to people have noted that to us.

• 18:58Amanda Dobbins?

  And certainly box office and.

• 19:01Sean Fennessey?

  People will be staying home and not going out.

• 19:02Amanda Dobbins?

  And it does seem to your point about The Odyssey, that the studios, people programming for Oscars, et cetera, have decided, okay, so The Odyssey is the big budget prestige Oscars movie. We don't have to, we don't really have to compete in that vein. And so if we're going to be going for dollars, which we are the rest of the time, we're going with franchises and, or like, what is the new Meet the Fockers called?

• 19:29Sean Fennessey?

  Focker-in-law.

• 19:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Focker-in-law, which is also, I believe, scheduled for Thanksgiving and is just, you know, pure like family catered programming. Honestly, it looks mildly funny to me.

• 19:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm sure it'll be entertaining.

• 19:38Amanda Dobbins?

  So, um. Yeah, so the Odyssey has kind of cleared the board in terms of people trying to compete in the heavyweight.

• 19:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, most of what we've done here in terms of what we're talking about is not quite December releases. It's more the sort of September, October, November stuff, and we'll have plenty of time to talk about that. But obviously, we do have Dune Part Three, which is one of those large franchises that you're talking about, which is also has, is also an Oscar contender. That's an unusual circumstance where, in all likelihood, given the fact that it's won some awards in recent years, has been nominated for Best Picture, that one we'll think about. And we did a Project Hail Mary, which I think is similarly a kind of a big tent movie that a lot of people want to go see. And so if you take those three movies, it's like, wow, we've got three pretty mainstream movies that are serious Best Picture contenders. So how did you think about five movies you can't wait to see? Just pure primal emotion?

• 20:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, instinct. I just opened the dock up on my phone and started writing. It's rare that I get an empty slate, right? Where you have handed me the outline without claiming things first.

• 20:40Sean Fennessey?

  I'll tell you what, I was thrilled to see that you filled it in when you did.

• 20:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 20:43Sean Fennessey?

  I was like, I thought Amanda was solo parenting and busy, and she was in the dock on a Saturday.

• 20:48Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I think you'll notice, and that also, I think, someone was in my lap, listening to the Elmo song while that happened. Listen.

• 20:55Sean Fennessey?

  Gotta kill time somehow.

• 20:56Amanda Dobbins?

  We're doing the best that we can.

• 20:58Sean Fennessey?

  What's the Elmo song? Sing it for us.

• 20:59Amanda Dobbins?

  The Elmo song, the Elmo, no, that's Elmo Slide. This is the song, la la la la.

• 21:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 21:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Elmo song, yeah, and then it's Big Bird's song and Snuffy's song. Yeah.

• 21:10Sean Fennessey?

  I just had like a Bruce Madeline moment there.

• 21:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally.

• 21:13Sean Fennessey?

  But just for three years ago.

• 21:14Amanda Dobbins?

  And then the next song on the This is Elmo playlist is the Elmo slide.

• 21:20Sean Fennessey?

  I'm familiar with that as well, yeah.

• 21:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Step to the left, or whatever.

• 21:22Sean Fennessey?

  You know what we've been getting into is, in my house, is Charli XCX. That's what my daughter wants to listen to. Yeah, Party for You, that's her favorite song now. And we listened to it eight times in a row yesterday, so she could dance.

• 21:32Amanda Dobbins?

  But where is she on music, fashion, film?

• 21:34Sean Fennessey?

  Not quite there yet, a little too hard rock, I would say.

• 21:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, interesting.

• 21:37Sean Fennessey?

  We don't want heavy guitars.

• 21:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah, but sort of like a faint, rock music is a faint.

• 21:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 21:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I know what she means.

• 21:44Sean Fennessey?

  I think like Chapel and Kate Bush and Bjork.

• 21:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, interesting.

• 21:48Sean Fennessey?

  And Carolyn Polichek, like those vibes are kind of like, she's getting into that. Hayley Williams.

• 21:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you play brat for her, or is that too grown up?

• 21:57Sean Fennessey?

  It's a little like, I don't want cocaine references kind of entering her orbit. But yeah, Party for You, it was an absolute recital in my house. Anyhow, why were we talking about that? Oh, Elmo.

• 22:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Elmo, and just how you're making a list. Yeah, but I think you'll notice that I only filled, I filled out the top five, and then everything else I came back for later because, you know, life comes at you fast.

• 22:21Sean Fennessey?

  Do you want to go first, or do you want me to go first?

• 22:23Amanda Dobbins?

  You have a great one, you go first. Because I like, I cosign your whole list.

• 22:29Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you. I cosign most of your list. So these are five movies we just can't wait to see.

• 22:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 22:36Sean Fennessey?

  And I tried to think about this, for the most part, as movies where I feel like I don't really know a lot. And the other thing is that I've seen a couple of really big-ticket releases that I'm embargoed from talking about.

• 22:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 22:46Sean Fennessey?

  I know that's obnoxious, but I just can't credibly say, I can't wait to see something I've already seen.

• 22:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I was, I was wondering about this, because I know you do this, and you do a lot of pre-screening. And this is what's called where for, sorry to be annoying and insider-y, but for critics, they will show movies that are going to premiere at the festivals before the festivals, in case you can't get to the festival, or because it can be hectic to see as many movies as you want to see.

• 23:08Sean Fennessey?

  There's one other reason too, which is that they're trying to lock down schedules for talent very early in advance. So if you like a movie and you want to have someone on a show like this.

• 23:17Amanda Dobbins?

  You want dibs.

• 23:18Sean Fennessey?

  You want to say like, we definitely want to do this. And so sometimes, some studios will show movies to me like that. And I think most of the movies I've seen, we'll be able to talk about literally a week from now.

• 23:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:29Sean Fennessey?

  But so they won't be discussed today, from my perspective.

• 23:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. But I mean, I was just thinking about, and you pre-screen mostly to book talent. I understand that. But otherwise, I was like, wow, this really seems like a hassle to be pre-screening everything, because then you can't talk about it. And then you're like the asshole who's like, well, I've seen all of these things.

• 23:44Sean Fennessey?

  I try to be honest about that experience, because I think it is kind of interesting how it all works.

• 23:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 23:48Sean Fennessey?

  But it is obnoxious to be like, well, I can't tell you, and I apologize for that.

• 23:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 23:52Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, my first movie is Whalefall, which we walked out of CinemaCon in April, seeing a five-minute clip of the film, which is written and directed by Brian Duffield, and adapted from a very popular novel by Daniel Kraus, about a man, played by Austin Abrams, who is swallowed by a whale. And they showed us the footage of him being swallowed by the whale. And it was very.

• 24:17Amanda Dobbins?

  He was about to be swallowed by the whale.

• 24:20Sean Fennessey?

  On the precipice of whale swallow.

• 24:21Amanda Dobbins?

  So they did not spoil any of the exciting questions.

• 24:25Sean Fennessey?

  I read the log line.

• 24:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but.

• 24:27Sean Fennessey?

  You know, the log line is, guy gets swallowed by whale.

• 24:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but we don't know what happens inside the whale.

• 24:31Sean Fennessey?

  We don't, we have no idea.

• 24:32Amanda Dobbins?

  He doesn't actually make it into the.

• 24:33Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe that was the last five minutes of the movie.

• 24:34Amanda Dobbins?

  He doesn't make it into the whale's esophagus.

• 24:36Sean Fennessey?

  He does not, no.

• 24:37Amanda Dobbins?

  So, which apparently has like 36 chambers. So I'm looking forward to see.

• 24:40Sean Fennessey?

  Much like Wu-Tang and Shaolin. I, I am really excited for this. I know plenty of people have watched the trailer since it has been released, the two trailers since they've been released, and have been like, nope, can't do that. That's too upsetting, that's too intense, that's too, I don't know, I don't know. Are people concerned about being swallowed by whales? Is that a fear that people have?

• 24:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess it evokes fear in them.

• 25:01Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, have you been scuba diving? Have we talked about this?

• 25:03Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 25:04Sean Fennessey?

  I wouldn't do it.

• 25:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I am not really interested, listen.

• 25:07Sean Fennessey?

  Scuba?

• 25:08Amanda Dobbins?

  As you, as you know.

• 25:10Sean Fennessey?

  As Hank Azaria once said in A Long Cane Poli, scuba?

• 25:12Amanda Dobbins?

  As you know, I love swimming in the ocean, but I want to stay on the surface. I respect the power of the ocean. We don't know very much about the ocean. I don't have a James Cameron thing where I want to be in a boat, driving around. I mean, we all know what happens there.

• 25:25Sean Fennessey?

  What about a submersible?

• 25:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah, that's what I'm saying. I don't want to be in a submersible.

• 25:28Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 25:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I.

• 25:30Sean Fennessey?

  I don't either, that's terrifying.

• 25:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, and there's, I mean, we don't know anything about like, all the creatures down there, we don't know how far it goes.

• 25:36Sean Fennessey?

  Fucking whales.

• 25:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, listen, no, but there are things we don't even have even discovered.

• 25:40Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah, you're right.

• 25:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, wait until your son is like, can we watch a video about jellyfish?

• 25:44Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I don't have a son.

• 25:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but he's going to come over and be like, hey, Sean, can I teach you about jellyfish?

• 25:51Sean Fennessey?

  God, I hope a kid doesn't show up at my door like 30 years later, and say, hey, dad, it's me. I, jellyfish are upsetting, very upsetting. What film did we just see with, oh, the Amazon Prime horror film, The Devil's Mouth?

• 26:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 26:07Sean Fennessey?

  Starring Lana Condor.

• 26:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 26:09Sean Fennessey?

  And there's just, and.

• 26:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it a man-o'-war?

• 26:11Sean Fennessey?

  No, it's not a man-o'-war, but it is a school of jellyfish, I don't know how you would describe them, that attack Catherine Newton, the actress Catherine Newton.

• 26:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 26:19Sean Fennessey?

  Very violently, when she's swimming in Thailand after jumping off a boat. Anyhow, Whalefall, to me, looks fun. Now, it's interesting that Josh Brolin is apparently playing the same character he played in The Dog Stars in Whalefall.

• 26:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah.

• 26:31Sean Fennessey?

  Where he's sort of like, hard-bitten, masculine man, survivalist figure. It's unclear, maybe he plays Austin Abrams's father?

• 26:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, because we have to have, right, sure, because there needs to be a trauma, and you know, like something that you're, the reason that you're being eaten by a whale, and what you have to learn, once you're inside the whale.

• 26:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 26:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Along with how does gravity work inside a whale? We don't know yet.

• 26:52Sean Fennessey?

  We're going to find out when we see the film. I'm very much looking forward to it. It is, it's in a sweet spot.

• 26:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it'll be really fun. And we were both very stressed out, and also a little bit like, ah, when we saw the trailer. So, and also, I mean, it's a great bit, I love a bit, you know?

• 27:06Sean Fennessey?

  It is a good bit.

• 27:07Amanda Dobbins?

  We need some more bits.

• 27:08Sean Fennessey?

  The film is called Whalefall.

• 27:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 27:10Sean Fennessey?

  Number five for you.

• 27:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, going the other direction here, Making Marie Antoinette, which is the making of, it's like it says in the title.

• 27:18Sean Fennessey?

  Right on the label.

• 27:19Amanda Dobbins?

  It was filmed on the set of Marie Antoinette, my favorite Sofia Coppola movie, which will be celebrating its 20th anniversary this fall. There were a lot of events. Most of this film was directed and filmed by Sofia's late mother, Eleanor Coppola, who also, of course, directed Hearts of Darkness, the making of documentary about Apocalypse Now, that is one of the greats. Sofia Coppola finished the film after her mother's passing. So I, you know, Eleanor Coppola is a great, was a great filmmaker, and also a great writer, and a great chronicler of what it means to make films, and also to be a woman in the orbit of making films. So I'm very excited about her perspective on this movie, and I'm here for all Marie Antoinette content.

• 28:03Sean Fennessey?

  Do you know, is it entirely like cinema verite, observing the scene? Is there any look-back component to it, where people are talking about the experience? You don't know?

• 28:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 28:12Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 28:13Amanda Dobbins?

  That doesn't totally seem like.

• 28:15Sean Fennessey?

  It would seem more like.

• 28:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Sofia's vibe, yeah.

• 28:17Sean Fennessey?

  And you would think it would be more like Hearts of Darkness, right? Where it's sort of like, all in the moment. But I would also be curious to hear Schwartzman and Dunst and Coppola and Sofia and all those people talking now too, about what the movie means, and how it was received, and how it's, you know, been back in the culture.

• 28:34Amanda Dobbins?

  They announced today that they're also, if you happen to be at Versailles in the next six months, there is like, just in case.

• 28:40Sean Fennessey?

  You're popping on by.

• 28:41Amanda Dobbins?

  If you're nearby, I don't know if you're in Paris.

• 28:43Sean Fennessey?

  You've been to Versailles?

• 28:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I did, I went on a really bad date to Versailles. Do you know this story? Were you setting me up for this one?

• 28:48Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 28:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so.

• 28:50Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe I do, but I've forgotten.

• 28:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, so when I was, like, the summer that I was studying in Paris, I don't know, I was single, and I ended up going on a date with a German guy to Versailles. And the thing about going on a date to Versailles from Paris is that, like, you have to take a long train. I mean, it's an hour, but still, it's going to a second location with a hippie. But instead, it's a German man, and then you're stuck at Versailles.

• 29:11Sean Fennessey?

  German guy, what was that like?

• 29:13Amanda Dobbins?

  He was tall. And so.

• 29:15Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 29:16Amanda Dobbins?

  But so then you're stuck there, and you're like, oh, I don't want to be here on this date anymore with you, but like, you're just in a garden in Versailles, and you got to get back, and you know the French with their lines, and then you're still like, taking the train back.

• 29:28Sean Fennessey?

  But you tell immediately from the train ride. That it was a bust.

• 29:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I think so, but I was also 19. So like, what did I know about anything?

• 29:35Sean Fennessey?

  How'd you meet?

• 29:36Amanda Dobbins?

  At a bar, I think.

• 29:37Sean Fennessey?

  You met in a bar?

• 29:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah.

• 29:39Sean Fennessey?

  And he said, let's go to Versailles.

• 29:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I, I mean, listen.

• 29:42Sean Fennessey?

  Strange life you've led. Um, I, that's interesting.

• 29:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, but they're doing a, like, an exhibit there about the movie, and Petit Triennon, which was the, you know, is the, the country home that Marie Antoinette built where the last part of the movie. You've seen the film, it was on our 25 for 25 list.

• 29:57Sean Fennessey?

  Country home.

• 29:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, um, I mean, country also just means it's like in a different garden in Versailles. Anyway, there will be a lot, they are making an event of this anniversary, as they should. But, so maybe, maybe there's a retrospective element to it, but I don't know. We'll see.

• 30:16Sean Fennessey?

  Is that film playing in Venice?

• 30:18Amanda Dobbins?

  No, which is annoying, it's playing at the New York Film Festival.

• 30:22Sean Fennessey?

  Sheesh.

• 30:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, I, you know, I would love to be there, but I'm a mom, you know?

• 30:27Sean Fennessey?

  That's it, you're just the mom.

• 30:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm a mom, I gotta be here for Si's first week of school.

• 30:31Sean Fennessey?

  That's right, that's right.

• 30:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm just gonna be in fucking shambles for that one. He's gonna be so loud, I will be able to hear him screaming at me from preschool when I am back home.

• 30:43Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, okay, let's go to my next one. Number four is yet another movie that I don't know very much about.

• 30:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 30:48Sean Fennessey?

  Which is Elsinore, which I feel fairly confident will be at one of these film festivals that I'll be attending in the near future. It is a new film starring Andrew Scott and Olivia Colman. It is directed by a man named Simon Stone, who does not have a ton of film credits, is best known, I think, for his theater and television work. He did do a movie in 2021 called The Dig that I saw, that it was just fine.

• 31:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's the Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes arch-archology.

• 31:18Sean Fennessey?

  You saw that, right?

• 31:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 31:19Sean Fennessey?

  Not bad.

• 31:20Amanda Dobbins?

  In my wheelhouse.

• 31:22Sean Fennessey?

  Certainly. The film is about, it feels like, in many ways, a kind of spiritual follow-up to Hamlet, because it's about

• 31:31Sean Fennessey?

  an actor, based on a real-life actor named Ian Charleston, Charleston, excuse me, who portrayed Hamlet at the National Theater, uh, while he was seriously ill from AIDS. And Hamlet, in all of its heavy meaning, colliding with Andrew Scott's, uh, seriousness and skill as an actor, I think is very interesting. This is one of those movies that, like, I've had a couple of people whisper in my ear, be like, Andrew Scott.

• 31:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Nomination incoming.

• 31:58Sean Fennessey?

  Andrew Scott, Andrew Scott.

• 31:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, wonderful.

• 32:00Sean Fennessey?

  Who I love, who we love.

• 32:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, who's wonderful, who's a great actor, who's been in amazing things, who is one of the great awards season contenders.

• 32:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 32:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, let's just get him on the party circuit.

• 32:10Sean Fennessey?

  Well, just a, just a, a great hang as a person.

• 32:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:12Sean Fennessey?

  Very stylish, but very thoughtful and sweet. He was, um, he was on the show a few years ago, and for all of us strangers, it was wonderful. Um, and is amazing in Ripley, um, the, the Ripley Television series. So he's just such a terrific actor, he was great in Blue Moon last year. And so I'm, I'm very much looking forward to that one. That's the, probably the most, kind of like, downbeat, reserved film that I have on my list. But I wanted to have one, because I do think that that is kind of the essence of this season, is there, you'll find a lot more historical dramas, you'll find a lot more sensitive portrayals of struggling artists. And that is, that's certainly a signature of Telluride. That kind of a film

• 32:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:48Sean Fennessey?

  is really prized there. And so, who knows if it'll be there? If I had to guess, I'd say it will be. But we shall see. And that's a focus movie that is coming out later this year.

• 32:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, fingers crossed for you.

• 32:57Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you.

• 32:57Amanda Dobbins?

  And for the mountains.

• 32:58Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, what's next for you?

• 32:59Amanda Dobbins?

  A movie I'm seeing in 36 hours.

• 33:01Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 33:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I got my ticket, Inc. The Danny Boyle, uh, drama that we've been talking about a lot, another biographical drama, and maybe not downbeat necessarily, but this is about Rupert Murdoch. And when Rupert Murdoch bought The Sun newspaper in the UK, and kind of his invasion of Fleet Street, it stars Guy Pearce, Jack O'Connell, Claire Foy. I'm just jazzed, a little, this is a little bit that I love movies about newspapers, I love movies starring, uh, Jack O'Connell, Guy Pearce, and Claire Foy. And, and I'm excited, this will be the first movie that I see at Venice, it's the opening night of the Venice Film Festival. But, uh, listen, um, the trailer, the poster, that looks like there's some energy to it, I'm excited.

• 33:43Sean Fennessey?

  I'm really excited about this, too. I think, you know, I think one of Boyle's great movies is Steve Jobs. And so I'm hopeful that it kind of has that same energy, where there, he brings that kinetic energy in his filmmaking style to a story that, in other hands, would be like, flat and, and dull, but like, the way that he moves the camera, the way that he, his films are cut, the way that he uses music in his movies. You know, we've never had, I've never had Danny Boyle on the show. Um, we, we praised his work over the years, but he did go into a little bit of a downturn with Yesterday.

• 34:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I was like, he didn't come for it.

• 34:12Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I wasn't gonna ask him to come on for a movie that I don't like very much, but, um, I, I do, I think he's got, he's got an extraordinary career.

• 34:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 34:20Sean Fennessey?

  We could do a whole episode about his, his, his amazing run of films, we should.

• 34:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 34:25Sean Fennessey?

  I look forward to that movie, too, hopefully I'll be able to see it soon as well. My next film

• 34:30Sean Fennessey?

  is, is an interesting one to me. It's Resident Evil, which of course is a movie I've had circled on the calendar for a year, going back to when, right around this time, I guess, I had Zach Craig or on the pod to talk about weapons. And he was saying that he was doing this, it was officially happening, he was adapting the Resident Evil video game, of which there have already been, I think, seven film adaptations, largely with Paul W. S. Anderson and Emilia Yovovich, married couple who made those movies. And then there was a Raccoon City film spinoff, like, five years ago. You know, they're kind of schlocky, uh, sci-fi, action, horror movies.

• 35:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Sometimes you say things, and I just like nod my head, but like, Raccoon City, what's, I mean, what's happening?

• 35:06Sean Fennessey?

  Raccoon City, here's the whole wiki for it, you know, this is a

• 35:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I believe you, but it's like

• 35:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's a fictional city in the Midwestern United States that appears in the Resident Evil series of survival horror video games.

• 35:15Amanda Dobbins?

  People think that I complain and bemoan all of the stuff that you say, and that I do have to learn, but like, I just let so many things fly right by, you know?

• 35:24Sean Fennessey?

  Sure. Well, I mean, there are millions and millions of Resident Evil fans, this one is not that obscure.

• 35:29Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I don't think, I just, Raccoon City, yes, of course.

• 35:32Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely. Uh, I am jacked for this movie. For obvious reasons, I love Craig or's movies, um, I love the trailers for the movies. This is the second Austin Abrams film on my list so far.

• 35:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:44Sean Fennessey?

  Seems like it's relatively modestly scaled, if that makes sense. That it's from the perspective of one character, feels like it's over one crazy night, when we, the zombie apocalypse is starting. And I'm sure it'll be very violent and gross, as the Resident Evil games are. But honestly, just to continue to speak from my personal perspective, one of the things I really like about it is I just don't know anything. I haven't seen it, I haven't talked to anybody who's seen it, I don't know, I don't know when it's screening, I don't know anything about it. It might be one of those movies, or it's like, maybe you see it the day before it comes out? And, and there's something kind of exciting about

• 36:19Amanda Dobbins?

  About getting

• 36:19Sean Fennessey?

  It being kept away from me, you know?

• 36:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Getting to be a kid again?

• 36:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 36:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, you want what you can't have.

• 36:23Sean Fennessey?

  I know, well, that's true.

• 36:25Amanda Dobbins?

  And you can have most things now, but

• 36:26Sean Fennessey?

  This is such a, like, box-in blockbuster, I wish my parents would let me rent, kind of movie. And I was just talking to somebody this morning about that feeling of, like, the illicit material that is still mainstream. This is a great version of that. So I'm, I'm very much anticipating this movie. And the, as more time goes by, the more I think that it's gonna be a really big hit. I'm not quite sure how big that means, but it feels like anybody who's in this world

• 36:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:51Sean Fennessey?

  of horror is like, have you seen it? Have you seen it? What's going on with this? What's going on with this? So, I look forward to it.

• 36:56Amanda Dobbins?

  My number three is my version of this for you.

• 36:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, it is.

• 37:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is, you know, the moms can have fun, too, Verity. The latest Colleen Hoover adaptation, directed by Michael Showalter, our girl Anne Hathaway, my girl Dakota Johnson, our guy Josh Hartnett.

• 37:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 37:14Amanda Dobbins?

  This looks like the highest level trash. And if they can really lean into both the high level and the trash, then I will have a delightful time.

• 37:26Sean Fennessey?

  Is this film, does it have a supernatural element? Or is that a psych-out?

• 37:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know, and I don't want to know, I just want to go see the movie.

• 37:34Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 37:34Amanda Dobbins?

  We were given copies of the books, uh, at CinemaCon.

• 37:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 37:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And then

• 37:40Sean Fennessey?

  Don't know where my copy is.

• 37:41Amanda Dobbins?

  And, well, I don't know, because a very nice listener and friend, maybe. Did you bring it all the way home, though?

• 37:46Sean Fennessey?

  I think so.

• 37:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, as we were walking out with the books, a very nice listener and, um, now internet friend was like, you're gonna hate this book, don't read it. So I didn't, so I don't know, I'm just gonna watch the movie.

• 37:56Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting. And did you read any of the other Hoover books before doing pods?

• 37:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I did, I've read snippets of It Ends With Us.

• 38:03Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 38:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, to kind of understand what was going on. But what's the Jay Franco, Alison Williams one called, Regretting You?

• 38:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 38:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Nope, that one was

• 38:14Sean Fennessey?

  Dave Franco.

• 38:14Amanda Dobbins?

  What?

• 38:14Sean Fennessey?

  Dave Franco.

• 38:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Dave Franco, yeah.

• 38:16Sean Fennessey?

  You say Jame Franco? Yes.

• 38:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 38:18Sean Fennessey?

  He's Jame Franco.

• 38:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. I was thinking about James Franco was on my Cannes flight, so I'm just excited about who's gonna be on my Venice flight tonight.

• 38:26Sean Fennessey?

  James Franco is on your Cannes flight?

• 38:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, he was like out at Cannes, remember? He was trying to come back.

• 38:31Sean Fennessey?

  Didn't see him. He's from yours?

• 38:31Amanda Dobbins?

  He, you did see him at premieres, cuz he was just there everywhere glad-hating, being like, I'm James Franco and I'm back, am I back?

• 38:38Sean Fennessey?

  He's back.

• 38:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know whether he's back.

• 38:39Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, one thing in Verity's favor is it's written by Nick Antoska, who is a mostly a TV showrunner who created this great show Channel Zero that I really, really like. He worked on Cape Fear, which people did not like. I didn't see that, that show. But that's part of why I ask like, how real is the supernatural versus the thriller component? And is that something that is in Colleen Hoover's bag? You know? Does she, can she do a spooky ghost story in addition to some erotically charged?

• 39:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 39:06Sean Fennessey?

  Trauma.

• 39:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Dark romance?

• 39:08Sean Fennessey?

  Porn, drama.

• 39:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. We'll find out.

• 39:11Sean Fennessey?

  Michael Showalter?

• 39:13Amanda Dobbins?

  He makes movies.

• 39:14Sean Fennessey?

  He's made quite a few.

• 39:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:16Sean Fennessey?

  He makes a very specific kind of movie now.

• 39:19Amanda Dobbins?

  The adapted from a literary sensation.

• 39:23Sean Fennessey?

  But often told from the perspective of a woman.

• 39:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 39:26Sean Fennessey?

  You know?

• 39:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Starring.

• 39:28Sean Fennessey?

  You know, women's pictures is what they called them in the 1950s.

• 39:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm. Did you see Oh, What Fun?

• 39:33Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't.

• 39:34Amanda Dobbins?

  The Christmas special starring Michelle Pfeiffer, I believe?

• 39:37Sean Fennessey?

  You saw it?

• 39:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Among others. I did watch most of it. Yes, Michelle Pfeiffer. A lot of wallpaper is my review. Wallpaper.

• 39:44Sean Fennessey?

  Once again.

• 39:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Beautiful wallpaper.

• 39:46Sean Fennessey?

  Plumbing the depths with these reviews today. Uh, but you know, Eyes of Tammy Faye.

• 39:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:50Sean Fennessey?

  Spoiler alert was, was not from the perspective of a woman about, um, about a gay couple and, and one half of that couple gets very sick based on a true story.

• 39:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:00Sean Fennessey?

  The Idea of You, which I actually loved, uh, which I think.

• 40:03Amanda Dobbins?

  You loved?

• 40:04Sean Fennessey?

  Well, they just let Hathaway cook in that one.

• 40:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, they did.

• 40:08Sean Fennessey?

  She really.

• 40:09Amanda Dobbins?

  No, she's, yeah.

• 40:09Sean Fennessey?

  To me, this was the, this, that movie is the beginning of the run, where she's like, it's my time now.

• 40:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I totally agree.

• 40:14Sean Fennessey?

  I'm 40 and it's my time now.

• 40:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I agree, and I, I, I liked it.

• 40:18Sean Fennessey?

  I loved it.

• 40:18Amanda Dobbins?

  She looked great in everything. And the line where he's like, I've always wanted to go to Glendale, funny.

• 40:24Sean Fennessey?

  That was funny. You don't like Nicholas Galitzin?

• 40:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't really think he has it, and I still haven't seen Masters of the Universe. Maybe I'll watch it on a plane cuz I got some alerts that it's streaming now.

• 40:34Sean Fennessey?

  Send me a photo of you watching it. Just send me a selfie. I need to know what your Facebook's like.

• 40:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought at CinemaCon, when they made him ask everyone to raise their swords up and say the little tagline, what is it?

• 40:46Sean Fennessey?

  I have the power!

• 40:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, and he looked pretty sheepish, but he did it anyway, and I felt for him in that moment, but that was the first time that I had, you know, I was like, oh, this is cute. He's trying.

• 40:56Sean Fennessey?

  Technically, it's by the power of Grayskull.

• 40:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 40:59Sean Fennessey?

  I have the power, which is a little redundant. He says power two times in a row.

• 41:02Amanda Dobbins?

  So what's up with, what does Grayskull do? So that's Jared Leto in the movie?

• 41:05Sean Fennessey?

  No, that's Skeletor.

• 41:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 41:06Sean Fennessey?

  Grayskull is sort of like the castle and also imbues him with some powers that allows him to transform into He-Man. He's Adam.

• 41:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 41:16Sean Fennessey?

  You know, and he transforms into He-Man, but like, he looks just like Adam.

• 41:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Ah, okay.

• 41:21Sean Fennessey?

  Page boy haircut, huge muscles, kinda changes his costume. He's in one of those like, uh, I don't know, whatever.

• 41:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:28Sean Fennessey?

  Um, Verity, yeah, we'll see. We're doing a whole episode about Verity. Is that a good idea?

• 41:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, we're gonna have a great time.

• 41:35Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's gonna be a remote episode, so maybe it'll be some unhinged energy.

• 41:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, because you're.

• 41:39Sean Fennessey?

  I'll probably be in New York when this happens.

• 41:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and that'll be wild. I will be at home listening to the ice cream to me from preschool.

• 41:45Sean Fennessey?

  That's exactly right.

• 41:46Amanda Dobbins?

  That's sad.

• 41:47Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, my number two is a film that has a, a, a title. It did not have a title for a very long time.

• 41:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah.

• 41:53Sean Fennessey?

  And I'll tell you what, this is a movie I also don't know very much about. It's called The Further Misadventures of Cliff Booth. It's coming only to IMAX screens, not other movie theaters, so I guess it's only like 500, 300? I'm not even sure how many IMAX screens there are in America. Um, and Netflix is releasing it.

• 42:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:13Sean Fennessey?

  It's directed by David Fincher.

• 42:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:14Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, the screenplay is by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Brad Pitt. I learned over the weekend that Peter Weller is in the film cuz I saw a video on Instagram of him talking about how he appears in the film as Cliff Booth's father.

• 42:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 42:24Sean Fennessey?

  Spoiler alert.

• 42:26Sean Fennessey?

  We saw a one-minute teaser trailer during the Super Bowl.

• 42:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 42:32Sean Fennessey?

  That teaser trailer was not officially posted online.

• 42:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 42:35Sean Fennessey?

  By Netflix. Since then, it's been more or less radio silent. We learned there were some reshoots on the movie, that I guess took place over the summer.

• 42:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:45Sean Fennessey?

  And that's it. This is one of the least marketed movies starring Brad Pitt, based on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, you could ever have. Now, I'm sure there's some purposeful.

• 42:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:55Sean Fennessey?

  Reason for withholding some of this stuff, and it is about to be September, October. Netflix historically doesn't market their movies as aggressively as a Warner Brothers or a Sony would, but, um, this is a real curiosity thing now, where I'm like, what it, what is this movie going to be?

• 43:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I have no idea. The, the reshoots news broke while I was on vacation, and so we talked a little bit about, about it, and at first, you know, the obvious, ooh, outlook not good, and then the more we talked about it, well, like, many movies have reshoots, and it's still on track for the November release.

• 43:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 43:29Amanda Dobbins?

  And, you know, we were confused that it's not at any festivals for a while. I did think that it was gonna be at Venice because Netflix historically, um, has a big presence at, at Venice, and Inc. is being released by Netflix. It was acquired. Uh, so I don't, something, it's strange. It's not, it's unusual.

• 43:49Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Basically, we don't really know what's going on here, and it also doesn't follow the pattern of either a classical prestige release, which you would expect from the three names that you just mentioned.

• 44:00Sean Fennessey?

  And based on the pedigree of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

• 44:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly, and it also doesn't follow, I guess it's closer to a Netflix release, but what Netflix is doing with it is kinda new and not in the Netflix playbook, so.

• 44:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it slid into the spot that Narnia was holding when Narnia got pushed back to February, which is interesting. I, I'm a little bit perplexed on how to cover the movie, because I think it's gonna be a hot ticket when it's made available amongst a certain kind of, you know, movie crazy person. And I presume it will do like decent business on a very small number of screens. I don't know if Netflix will have to report that business, um, but I don't know if, like, will enough people be seeing it that we should just be talking, spoilers and all, about the sequel to one of our favorite movies of the last 10 years? I mean, that, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I hold in like the highest esteem. I think that is absolute top tier, Terrence.

• 44:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. There was a real argument in 25 for 25 of whether it would be Inglourious Bastards or Once Upon a Time. I love Once Upon a Time. And like a truly magical experience seeing it at the Cinerama Dome on your birthday, and then going to Franken, no, Housen Franks.

• 45:05Sean Fennessey?

  I know. Honestly, one of my favorite days in, living in LA.

• 45:08Amanda Dobbins?

  And then, didn't you like leave for Europe that night?

• 45:10Sean Fennessey?

  I did.

• 45:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 45:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that was just a great, great time.

• 45:13Amanda Dobbins?

  You know what? That's, that's living hobbies life, and I support you.

• 45:16Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you. Thank you for that.

• 45:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, no, I'm, I'm excited to see it.

• 45:20Sean Fennessey?

  I am too. It's just interesting.

• 45:21Amanda Dobbins?

  My opinion is that we should just cover it, and, you know, people can.

• 45:24Sean Fennessey?

  Come what may.

• 45:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, and then if, if you're not able to see it in IMAX, then you can come listen to the episode after the fact.

• 45:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 45:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I think we're all adults.

• 45:32Sean Fennessey?

  Will it be a month after its IMAX release that it'll be on the service? I guess they want it to be available for Christmas, I presume.

• 45:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:39Sean Fennessey?

  Anyhow, it's another kind of unusual outlier scenario, um, in these modern times, and I, I'm, I'm close, tracking very closely how Netflix releases their films.

• 45:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:50Sean Fennessey?

  They have the long window for La Bola Negra. We have the full release for Narnia, for the, the magician's nephew, which I've read.

• 45:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:58Sean Fennessey?

  And I'll, I'll be able to bring a really scholarly.

• 46:01Amanda Dobbins?

  We have like the full release in February, and then.

• 46:05Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's smart. I think it's a good time to release it.

• 46:07Amanda Dobbins?

  You think it's a good time to release it?

• 46:08Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 46:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, listen, I just, I'm nervous.

• 46:11Sean Fennessey?

  I know you're nervous. I know.

• 46:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm nervous. I'm just like, none of this, none of the signs point towards something that I am, I feel.

• 46:17Sean Fennessey?

  I just mean from a business perspective.

• 46:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 46:19Sean Fennessey?

  There's gonna be a nice little runway there in February.

• 46:21Amanda Dobbins?

  That's, that's completely true. I am just worried about the quality of the film.

• 46:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we shall see.

• 46:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 46:26Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, okay, number two for you.

• 46:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Prime time.

• 46:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 46:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Seeing it Saturday night, baby.

• 46:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm jealous of this one.

• 46:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm going to the premiere. Um, I'm so excited. So this is a Lance Oppenheimer film about Catch a Predator, and Robert Pattinson plays Chris Hansen, and it looks weird and upsetting and interesting, and I believe in Robert Pattinson. I will follow him to the ends of the earth.

• 46:51Sean Fennessey?

  He's already got another meme just off the trailer.

• 46:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I know.

• 46:53Sean Fennessey?

  It's unbelievable.

• 46:54Amanda Dobbins?

  So very excited about this.

• 46:56Sean Fennessey?

  I am too. I, um, I really hope I'm gonna see this soon, but I don't know if I am.

• 47:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 47:00Sean Fennessey?

  And, uh, that's okay.

• 47:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:03Sean Fennessey?

  And I'll make it through. That movie. If you had to guess.

• 47:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:09Sean Fennessey?

  Will that be Pattinson's real shot at an Academy Award recognition this year? Not, not a win per se, but just the nomination.

• 47:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, we haven't seen Dune 3 yet, but he is also playing a villain. So you have to assume that the villain in The Odyssey versus the villain in Dune 3 are going to kind of cancel each other out in terms of voting allotment. I still absolutely love the drama, but I think that it is going to be forgotten in the awards race, both because A24 will have other places to spend its time and money in pushing things. And also, I guess it was controversial enough, or edgelordy enough, I should say, that it's not gonna, you know, I think the invite is going to take its place. And I also really, really like the invite, but the invite is another A24 movie that is

• 47:59Amanda Dobbins?

  provocative, but it's sex instead of, you know, spoiler alert, school shootings.

• 48:04Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's also middle aged and not 29. And there's like, there's a difference there.

• 48:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So I, I love both movies. I think the drama is wonderful, probably still my, one of my favorite movies of the year, but I don't think he'll make it in for that.

• 48:19Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 48:19Amanda Dobbins?

  So by process of elimination, yes, primetime.

• 48:24Sean Fennessey?

  Will be interesting. He really is, he's, he's in rare, rare.

• 48:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:27Sean Fennessey?

  Right now, where there's this, I think he has both artistic bona fides and a fandom, but he's not bound by his, his fandom.

• 48:38Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 48:39Sean Fennessey?

  You know, obviously he's still making Batman and that's a very, it was a very smart move and that's coming next. But I don't know, taking on these parts is, I really,

• 48:46Amanda Dobbins?

  He's, he's so cool.

• 48:47Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's great. My number one is Digger.

• 48:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:51Sean Fennessey?

  I, I just want to see it. You know, I just, I want, I want to know.

• 48:55Amanda Dobbins?

  What's interesting, I mean, I do want to know, but the question of I, do I want to see it is really, really interesting. I was like, I don't, do I want to see it?

• 49:04Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I want to, I want to like it. Like I, I really want to like it.

• 49:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I do too.

• 49:08Sean Fennessey?

  I love a strange, Loveian kind of, you know, satirical, big top movie. I love a big, bold acting performance. I love Tom Cruise as a movie star and as an actor.

• 49:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I do. I agree with all of this, but I mean, this is what's been interesting about this movie from the beginning and from the first, first poster. Just like, I, I want it to be good. I want Tom Cruise to be back. I want interesting, you know, movies and I just, there's something about it where I'm like, I don't know if I just actually want to sit through it. I do want to sit through it, but that there is something that's warning signaling that's putting me off the experience of it.

• 49:45Sean Fennessey?

  No question.

• 49:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is prejudging a movie, which I shouldn't do. On the flip side, my expectations are probably lower than they normally would be for Tom Cruise's great return to non-franchise acting. So in that sense, maybe I'm, my mind is just going to be blown.

• 50:03Sean Fennessey?

  It's possible. And sometimes that can be very beneficial going into a movie. I think this, this also, you know, most of the movies on my list are not really festival films. And I, I think there is something to me actually intriguing about withholding a movie from those spaces and saying like, well, this, we think this is more commercial, but it's also from an auteur and it's more high minded. Like that blend is kind of my sweet spot in terms of taste. I'm not an Inaritu person.

• 50:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I was going to say, when it's Paul Thomas Anderson, that is very much your spot, but when it's Inaritu, I don't know. And it does feel like it's Warner Brothers again. So they had success with that playbook and they've been burned by festivals recently in the past. See Joker, Folie Adue.

• 50:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, though you haven't.

• 50:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Which, though, yeah, though I haven't. So it does feel like they're trying to run the one battle playbook and.

• 50:55Sean Fennessey?

  A little bit.

• 50:56Amanda Dobbins?

  And we, which is smart business. We'll see.

• 51:00Sean Fennessey?

  How many days before the movie is released, do you think we'll see it?

• 51:03Amanda Dobbins?

  That's a great question. I mean, have tickets gone on sale yet? Have you bought us special tickets yet?

• 51:09Sean Fennessey?

  I bought us tickets to see, uh, Practical Magic 2.

• 51:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, fun.

• 51:16Sean Fennessey?

  Because I don't know if we're going to be back in time to screen that. Just a heads up for the team there. We may need to record that on a Thursday evening.

• 51:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 51:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh man, I'll land Wednesday night and then I'm going to be like, sorry, can't do bedtime tonight.

• 51:28Sean Fennessey?

  Do you land Wednesday night?

• 51:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So.

• 51:30Sean Fennessey?

  We might be able to get you out before bedtime.

• 51:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Zach said, I'm, it's too bad. I'm getting divorced, but that's okay.

• 51:36Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe I'll just do the Practical Magic 2 episode by myself.

• 51:38Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I want to. I, I've thought more about their CinemaCon presentation than really anything, any live experience that I've had.

• 51:49Sean Fennessey?

  Just being kooky for an hour on stage.

• 51:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Like in power suits. It was only 15 minutes, but it did feel like an hour and I found it so aspirational. I said, I want what they have.

• 51:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 52:00Amanda Dobbins?

  In every way.

• 52:01Sean Fennessey?

  Are you Sandy or Nick?

• 52:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I think I'm Sandy. Don't you?

• 52:05Sean Fennessey?

  Does that air? Or does it have your essence?

• 52:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, and the, the dry demeanor, you know, I'm not, but we don't really have a Sandy and Nick energy, you know? So.

• 52:14Sean Fennessey?

  I certainly don't have Nicole Kidman energy. I don't think anyone would, would claim that I do. I certainly don't have her posture.

• 52:19Amanda Dobbins?

  The interview that she gave, I think it was to British Vogue where she's like, dinner at 1:30, then you go out clubbing at 1. I wear a wig. I wear glasses. I just need to be around people. It feeds me. I want to go clubbing with Nicole Kidman at 1 AM. I'm available.

• 52:33Sean Fennessey?

  Cannot relate to something less than that. I truly don't understand what she's talking about. All right. What's number one for you?

• 52:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Artificial. Luca, I'll never quit you. Even when you malign Top Gun Maverick, which, you know, I saw that and, you know, smart people can disagree.

• 52:51Sean Fennessey?

  I've heard.

• 52:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 52:52Sean Fennessey?

  Two wildly divergent points of view on this movie.

• 52:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 52:56Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not going to give anything away other than to say, one group of people told me that it plays as a laugh out loud comedy.

• 53:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 53:03Sean Fennessey?

  And the other group of people told me it plays as one of the bleakest films they've seen in a long time.

• 53:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 53:07Sean Fennessey?

  Now, it's possible that both of those things can coexist.

• 53:09Amanda Dobbins?

  This is also a review of Rachel Cusk's The Life of M.

• 53:13Sean Fennessey?

  Are you reading that?

• 53:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I read it.

• 53:14Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, and that, that's how you feel?

• 53:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it could be read either way. And, and, and in my opinion, neither adds up to a positive experience. So I hope that's not the case for Artificial.

• 53:25Sean Fennessey?

  What is Artificial about?

• 53:26Amanda Dobbins?

  This is Luca Guadagnino's Simon Rich penned biopic, something, we don't know, of Sam Altman and the, the rise of AI. So it stars Andrew Garfield. It was supposed to be released by Amazon. It is no longer being released by Amazon for reasons that you can read rumors about on the internet and was acquired by Neon. I was hoping it was going to be at Venice. I still think that would be cool. Instead, Luca Guadagnino has like a eight hour, I'm not exaggerating, Fernando Bertolucci documentary, which I'm not going to be able to see. And I, I ride for Luca. And, you know, I would prefer to

• 54:10Amanda Dobbins?

  see Artificial to The Social Reckoning at this point.

• 54:14Sean Fennessey?

  But The Social Reckoning second trailer was a little better.

• 54:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 54:18Sean Fennessey?

  And it did have me thinking, maybe not a car crash.

• 54:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Good. Good.

• 54:22Sean Fennessey?

  So.

• 54:23Amanda Dobbins?

  That's positive. You're just, you're very, you're very open hearted to the world right now.

• 54:28Sean Fennessey?

  Have a great fall.

• 54:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 54:29Sean Fennessey?

  I want to have a great fall.

• 54:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Setting your intention?

• 54:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 54:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 54:32Sean Fennessey?

  What I don't want is to be like, ah, The Odyssey just like dunked on everything this year. I want to have a spirited season of movie going.

• 54:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Same. I'm, I'm ready. I'm ready for some good movies. It did feel like after The Odyssey, we spent a lot of time watching interesting movies and movies that I liked, but movies that were placed after The Odyssey because people knew that they weren't gonna, they didn't deserve a whole episode of the big picture. How about that?

• 54:55Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think that's what they thought about it, but sure. Okay. What about some honorable mentions?

• 55:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Dune Part Three?

• 55:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I mean, no doubt. Not, not much to say. Everything, everything I've seen, I've loved.

• 55:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. The, the opening that we saw, dynamite. I'm a fan. Do you want to, you want to trade or you want to?

• 55:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I'm excited about, um, a couple of fall movies. The debut, which I feel pretty confident is going to be a telluride, just based on all the delineations around it with other fall film festivals.

• 55:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Jesse Eisenberg.

• 55:26Sean Fennessey?

  Jesse Eisenberg's new film. It's also a musical that is also about the staging of a musical at a local community theater about a woman who is attempting to, I guess, break into the world of musical theater acting at a later stage in her life, played by Julianne Moore and the cantankerous director of this community theater, played by Paul Giamatti. A lot of my favorites, kind of in a circle, A24 movie. And so I'm pumped about that. I'm also pumped about Misty Green, which is another A24 movie that is Chris Rock's next film as a director.

• 55:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:58Sean Fennessey?

  Though I don't know if he's in the film, but it's a movie about a struggling actress who like had, had her moment in the sun and maybe it didn't all totally come together for her. She's played by Rosalyn Elizar, who's an actress I'm not super familiar with, though has some bigger credits, but the supporting cast is great. Adam Driver, Daniel Kaluuya, Anna Kendrick, Topher Grace. Another movie that like, I just don't really know anything about other than the trailer. It's playing a TIFF, not at any of the festivals that we're going to. But I, I am intrigued by that one. What's, what's another one for you?

• 56:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Behemoth, exclamation point. I'm excited. I would be more excited were it playing at Venice. The fact that it's in, at New York instead and the trailer without dialogue. Just, you know, I'm, I'm protecting my heart on that one.

• 56:48Sean Fennessey?

  Want to hear Tony Gilroy's words?

• 56:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I do. That's why we go to the movies.

• 56:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Pedro Pascal, Olivia Wilde.

• 56:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:56Sean Fennessey?

  Will Arnett. Who am I forgetting?

• 56:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. Yeah.

• 57:01Sean Fennessey?

  He plays a, a cellist.

• 57:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 57:04Sean Fennessey?

  In a, I guess with a complicated professional career.

• 57:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 57:11Sean Fennessey?

  Who plays, at least we know, on film scores in one of the.

• 57:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Eva Victor.

• 57:15Sean Fennessey?

  Eva Victor. Love Eva Victor.

• 57:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:19Sean Fennessey?

  Who plays on film scores and we know that Gilroy, yes, signed up nine different composers to write music that is then like, you know, implemented into the story of the movie.

• 57:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is very cool.

• 57:31Sean Fennessey?

  Should be very cool.

• 57:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:32Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I had Artificial on my list as well.

• 57:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:35Sean Fennessey?

  We share in the next movie, which is Other Mommy.

• 57:37Amanda Dobbins?

  That's right.

• 57:39Sean Fennessey?

  You know, show it to me, I guess. Jessica, this is the jump scare trailer of the year for many people who saw The Odyssey. This is the, this ran before The Odyssey for many, many people.

• 57:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I got angry text messages from friends of mine who went to see The Odyssey and then were terrified by this, to which I said, oh, I thought it was funny, which I think just shows real gross on the part of Amanda Dobbins.

• 58:00Sean Fennessey?

  I couldn't agree more. Very happy to hear that you're in that state. Jessica Chastain plays a mommy and then there's another mommy that maybe some sort of phantasmagorical representation of a demon.

• 58:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 58:13Sean Fennessey?

  That takes on the form of a child's mother.

• 58:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:18Sean Fennessey?

  You know, the memes write themselves.

• 58:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. We've, we've all been there, you know?

• 58:21Sean Fennessey?

  The thumbnail for the Other Mommy episode should just be you and like a slightly paled version of you. Don't put me in it. Right? Would you say so? That sounds good. Okay.

• 58:32Sean Fennessey?

  You know what else I'm looking forward to?

• 58:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Tell me.

• 58:34Sean Fennessey?

  Street Fighter.

• 58:35Amanda Dobbins?

  It was the best of the video game presentations that we saw in my, at CinemaCon.

• 58:41Sean Fennessey?

  It might be really stupid, but I don't care. This is the one where I'm gonna like, I'm gonna give myself a break.

• 58:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I think also there is something about like being what you are and being the best version of what you are.

• 58:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 58:53Amanda Dobbins?

  So if it's a very stupid adaptation of a, of a video game, but like is well done stupid, that's okay. That's.

• 59:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I really had my heart broken by Mortal Kombat 2, which I had been told would be like the realization of what you truly wanted from a Mortal Kombat movie and it wasn't.

• 59:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 59:07Sean Fennessey?

  And what I want from this movie is just like a series of big fights. Just like recreate the sensation of being in a match while playing the game.

• 59:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 59:15Sean Fennessey?

  And based on what I saw, also my Noah Centineo stock going, going way up.

• 59:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I, you're, you're holding it still.

• 59:23Sean Fennessey?

  Well, he's in Union County, the Will Poulter movie. He plays his brother in that movie. He's, gives a great performance, a very small part, but a great performance. He was in Warfare, really good in Warfare. And he's playing Ken, Ken, he's playing Ken in this movie, who is one of the key Street Fighter characters.

• 59:37Amanda Dobbins?

  But not crossover from the Barbie universe.

• 59:39Sean Fennessey?

  Not that Ken.

• 59:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 59:41Sean Fennessey?

  Though I would imagine he's inspired by that Ken, because in the game he has blonde hair and has kind of, you know, chiseled.

• 59:49Amanda Dobbins?

  And his job is beach.

• 59:51Sean Fennessey?

  That's kind of his energy, honestly. Um, so I'm looking forward to that.

• 59:55Amanda Dobbins?

  That was also my job for the month of August.

• 59:57Sean Fennessey?

  For a couple of weeks.

• 59:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 59:58Sean Fennessey?

  You came back.

• 1:00:01Sean Fennessey?

  And then Possible Love, which you're about to see as well, I think.

• 1:00:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I sure am.

• 1:00:04Sean Fennessey?

  And you have tickets to that as well.

• 1:00:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I do. Yeah.

• 1:00:06Sean Fennessey?

  Which is Lee Chong Dong's new film, his first movie since Burning, which is like eight years ago now, um, that Netflix has that is hotly tipped for a very big award season run. And it seems like it's one of the only non-Can foreign language films, international features that is really running hard in that race.

• 1:00:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:25Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. So we'll get into the movies we've already seen and recommend right after this.

• 1:00:31Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:02:04Sean Fennessey?

  We've danced around stuff we haven't seen, but we have seen a lot, you know?

• 1:02:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:09Sean Fennessey?

  If you haven't listened to our Can coverage especially, like we have some, some movies that we can recommend. And also some stuff that I've seen that I feel comfortable telling people that they should see and try to put on their radar as well. Why don't you start us off since I started last time?

• 1:02:22Amanda Dobbins?

  We've talked a bit about Paper Tiger, but we're getting back into Paper Tiger season, which is James Gray's latest movie starring Miles Teller, Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson. It, I believe is the opening night of the New York Film Festival.

• 1:02:34Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 1:02:36Amanda Dobbins?

  And is a wonderful movie from a filmmaker we like very much, starring one of the generation's great actors in Adam Driver and like the best Miles Teller performance in years. A couple just absolutely electric set pieces.

• 1:02:54Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, it is, it's a very James Gray movie.

• 1:02:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:02:58Amanda Dobbins?

  And I mean that as a positive. So I, we both, we were at the premiere, we loved it, excited for more people to see it.

• 1:03:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I really liked it a lot too. It's, um, it's interesting. I did this conversation with James for the Little Odessa Criterion Collection disc. And in that conversation, you know, that film and this film and The Yards and We Own the Night all have this very kind of loose formulation of two brothers who kind of find themselves entrenched in a world of crime in some way.

• 1:03:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:03:27Sean Fennessey?

  And loss of trust and family dynamics and what it means to be in a family and New York in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. And huge, the kind of looming influence of Coppola and Scorsese on these movies and a lot of other filmmakers as well. And what he said, I would encourage people to seek it out, especially at the end of that conversation about his own personal experiences and why he keeps kind of writing through this dynamic. I'd never heard him say before. I've talked to him so many times about this kind of thing and he never really enunciated it in quite that way. And so it actually deepened my appreciation for this movie even more after we saw it.

• 1:04:03Amanda Dobbins?

  You also went, as soon as the lights went, you know, started in Paper Tiger, you turned to me and you were like, this is just, this is my family. This is where we grew up, you know?

• 1:04:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I mean, it was my grandmother's home, you know, like my family's from Astoria. My dad was a cop. There's a cop, like there's just a lot of like, you know, cross pollinating personal experiences. I wouldn't say that's like the reason that I like it, but I will say that he nailed that stuff, which is not surprising because he's so good at period. That's a great one. Uh, my, mine is, um, my first one is The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, which I really, really liked. Uh, that is written and directed by Noah Seagan, who people will mostly know as an actor. He's in sort of like Ryan Johnson's company of actors. He always plays kind of a funny side character in every, all of Ryan's movies. And I know that they're friends. And he directed a couple of movies prior to this, but this is totally different than anything else he's done. It's also a New York movie. It's also a movie about the world of crime.

• 1:04:56Sean Fennessey?

  John Turturro plays a, an aging analog pickpocket in the contemporary New York world, trying to continue to survive while caring for a wife who's become ill and is non-responsive and also just trying to kind of make ends meet. And it's a real relic kind of man out of time portrait of a guy who's kind of lost connection to most of the things around him. But it's got Steve Buscemi, it's got Giancarlo Esposito. Um, and it's just kind of like an old dog New York movie.

• 1:05:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:32Sean Fennessey?

  Really, really well told, really tight, like 85 minutes, perfect character study. Huge platform for Turturro, who's another one of those people who people are just like, how does this person not have an Oscar?

• 1:05:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:05:43Sean Fennessey?

  You know, you love him in everything.

• 1:05:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. He was also very present throughout the Knicks run this year.

• 1:05:48Sean Fennessey?

  He certainly was.

• 1:05:48Amanda Dobbins?

  So it would be, it would be quite a, a capper on the year.

• 1:05:52Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I don't know if there's a better podcast this year than The Old Man and the Three episode with him and Landry Shamet about how they were like lost father and son. That's some of the great content of 2026. But I really, really liked this movie a lot. And I think it's probably about to hit the Fall Festival circuit. It premiered at Sundance. Um, I didn't see it there. It wasn't part of the virtual screening program. But I dug this a lot and I think people will like it too. Sony Pictures Classics has it and it'll be in the discussion for the next couple of months.

• 1:06:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Got it.

• 1:06:16Sean Fennessey?

  What's next?

• 1:06:17Amanda Dobbins?

  B-Word, the Palme d'Or winner.

• 1:06:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Which, um, is definitely going to be in the award season. This stars Sebastian Stan and the, the queen, the reigning queen of Can, Renata Răinsva, uh, and is about a Romanian man married to a Norwegian woman and they move back to Norway, uh, for family reasons. And then, uh, the, something happens in their family and how their family and their community and the state handle all of these things are investigated and portrayed in sometimes excruciating detail. It's, as you have said over and over again, a, a political

• 1:07:01Amanda Dobbins?

  football. Uh, people will be arguing about it. People were arguing about it as soon as we walked out of the premiere in Can. Um, but I have found myself thinking about it often over and over as you negotiate small things, either with a child or with an administration or, um, you know, seeing something on the internet. Uh, it, it is about parenting and family life and the decisions that you make as much as it is about Scandinavia, though it is really about Scandinavia. So I.

• 1:07:31Sean Fennessey?

  Sweet spot for you.

• 1:07:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:32Sean Fennessey?

  You have your doubts.

• 1:07:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I liked, I thought this was an upsetting and very successful movie. And I'm sure the discourse will become unbearable at some point, but it's gonna happen.

• 1:07:46Sean Fennessey?

  See it early.

• 1:07:46Amanda Dobbins?

  See it early and then log off.

• 1:07:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I think that's a good note.

• 1:07:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. But I think this will also be in Oscar conversation.

• 1:07:54Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. Um, it's interesting. I guess, I mean, I guess it's going to be an international film.

• 1:07:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:59Sean Fennessey?

  I wonder if Norway will submit it because it's not necessarily always the kindest portrayal of Norway.

• 1:08:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:08:07Sean Fennessey?

  But Christian Monju, you know, long considered a master, had already won the Palm before, but this is kind, well, it's certainly more of a mainstream kind of movie. And I think it will be compared to Anatomy of a Fall a lot because it has a legal component and it's also, um.

• 1:08:22Sean Fennessey?

  Very divisive and very careful about what it reveals about the incidents in the movie that are discussed in the movie. And there are people I really respect, who are really sharp movie minds, who hate this movie.

• 1:08:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:08:36Sean Fennessey?

  I loved it. I thought it was probably my favorite movie at Cannes. But I do like a movie that kind of makes you

• 1:08:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Itchy.

• 1:08:44Sean Fennessey?

  rip up your ideas and think about how you feel about the world and what like what systems should be in place and why. And I agree with what you said that like, being a parent and being somebody who's kind of like in this phase where you're sort of like engaging your family into a new era of like responsibility and also who is responsible for your children and how is fascinating to me.

• 1:09:06Amanda Dobbins?

  So how do you engage with the wider world and how does it engage with you and your family? And suddenly you're responsible for another person who doesn't know any of that.

• 1:09:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:15Amanda Dobbins?

  And how are you interpreting it?

• 1:09:16Sean Fennessey?

  So I liked the provocation. I liked being poked by this movie, but I know that some people won't. It's a great, it will be a great discussion topic for us on the show. My number two is The History of Concrete, which I also loved, which comes out in a month, which is John Wilson's feature film debut. He had a TV show, How To, with John Wilson for a couple of years on HBO. And this is a movie that is what it says it is. It is literally The History of Concrete, the material, the building material, which is some of the oldest stuff in the world. And that sounds boring. And it isn't boring.

• 1:09:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Because it's John Wilson.

• 1:09:52Sean Fennessey?

  Because it's John Wilson. So John Wilson, who sort of narrates his work and has this exploratory verite, kind of unusually and humorously edited film documentary filmmaking style. This movie goes to more emotional places than I ever could have imagined. And like a cohort of creative people in this generation that is like Tim Robinson and Connor O'Malley and Nathan Fielder and maybe the Safdie brothers are in there. And there's like this kind of loose collective of comedy people who are very insightful about the way that the world is really working right under the surface. And this is just really good, like really entertaining and really good.

• 1:10:35Sean Fennessey?

  And John will come on the show later this fall to talk about it. But I just want to get it on people's radar because it's a smaller film that also premiered at Sundance. Okay, what's your number one?

• 1:10:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Club Kid, which is probably my favorite film that I saw at Cannes and is slated for a November release by A24. This is written and directed by Jordan Firstman. And it's really a coming of age movie about a club kid, an aging club kid, who through a series of unfortunate events, acquires a son or has a son and then acquires, learns that he has a son and his son comes into his life. It's sort of baby boom, but with a lot of drugs and, and, and no Sam Shepard, though the Diego Calva character does, does borrow a bit of Sam's energy.

• 1:11:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. This is a like a fun, warm, I guess provocative in the sense that it, there is sex and club culture and drugs references throughout, but really like a pretty traditional and beautiful movie that I was just won over immediately. And I saw it in a later screening at Cannes with a bunch of like young French people, as best I could tell. It was kind of like an adjunct screening where I think young people in the area show up and just hope to be able to get in and see a movie. And except for the Balthazar joke, everything landed with them as well, which I think,

• 1:12:08Amanda Dobbins?

  which was a good sign for something that is emotional and comedy and specific in that it is yet another great New York movie, but also hoping to be universal. And it does seem like it worked.

• 1:12:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you know, I hadn't seen Tony when I first saw this, but they're kind of an interesting match. And there's something about the using like a frictive outsider's perspective and putting them into what ultimately is a kind of warm 90s style movie. Like it has a little, you know, Club Kid has a little bit of Barry Levinson in it, you know, like a little bit of that like traditional or like Penny Marshall or something, you know, where there's like, there's a real sweetness at the core of it, but it's not saccharine.

• 1:12:50Amanda Dobbins?

  To me, it's like is Kramer versus Kramer, but the new version.

• 1:12:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's a little funnier than that movie for sure, but

• 1:12:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:58Sean Fennessey?

  But I know what you mean. And yeah, it's an interesting one. I hope, I hope people go out to see that movie.

• 1:13:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I do too.

• 1:13:05Sean Fennessey?

  Very sweet. My number one is All of a Sudden, which is Reisga Hamaguchi's new film, which we talked about in our episode as well, which is a three and a half hour epic about a woman played by Virginie Afira, working in an elder care facility, effectively managing an elder care facility. And you might think that that sounds boring, but it is one of the most sophisticated, deep feeling movies of the year. It's not the most commercial thing in the universe. It's going to be challenging to get people to watch this movie, but I think it really rewards your attention and your care. Tao Akamoto is also fantastic in this movie. You know, Hamaguchi is kind of obsessed with how people work.

• 1:13:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:49Sean Fennessey?

  And this is a movie about how people work and kind of what you need to get your head out of the sand sometimes, and sometimes how having your head in the sand can be helpful. And I'm loathe to spoil too much more of it, but this is also coming out on Thanksgiving. You think it will be a big box office hit?

• 1:14:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and then everyone will buy their own whiteboard. And I mean, the whiteboard at Thanksgiving dinner, we should be playing that lecture for everybody, you know? I think, I think that the world could be healed by playing the whiteboard lecture before every Thanksgiving dinner in, in America.

• 1:14:20Sean Fennessey?

  I'll leave that to you. Okay.

• 1:14:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm going to go on my own little tour and just reperform it for people and then you'll perform songs from the debut.

• 1:14:29Sean Fennessey?

  I think I could hack it in musical theater. I think I have the presence.

• 1:14:35Amanda Dobbins?

  You have never been in a musical.

• 1:14:37Sean Fennessey?

  Never. Show us something now. No. Um, I, maybe, maybe one day.

• 1:14:45Amanda Dobbins?

  What would your audition song be? Would it be Sondheim? Would it be?

• 1:14:48Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I love that moment in Lady Bird when, when she sings, everybody says, don't, which I think is such a, and Harry Gordini, who I think originated that, that's my timbre. That's my tone.

• 1:15:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:15:01Sean Fennessey?

  You know? That's not Saoirse Ronan's tone, so it's very funny that she sang that song. I don't know what would be on my audition song.

• 1:15:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I just had a flashback to, I visited my best friend Stephanie over the, over vacation. This was my trips and she was putting one of her children to bed and I just heard like the very clear tones of On My Own from Les Misérables across the room. She comes out and I was like, so I have some questions. And she was like, yes, that is, that's one child's bedtime song. None of the other children want it, but one child really wants, yeah, she really gave it her all.

• 1:15:33Sean Fennessey?

  Incredible. You know, I saw some live theater this weekend, Saturday night.

• 1:15:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Really?

• 1:15:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I went to a small play that was directed by Eileen and I, our friend Kate, who's a playwright.

• 1:15:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, wow, that's so cool.

• 1:15:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it was called

• 1:15:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Congratulations, Kate.

• 1:15:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Tomorrow Game at a theater in, in North Hollywood. Two amazing performances in the middle of it. It was a great time. I missed the theater. It's the one thing, it's the only thing about New York that I'm like, I just wish I had this because I would just be there every, every weekend. It's, it's one of my favorite things to do. LA, there's plenty of live theater, not as much, not often as good. Okay, let's talk about the September Oscars. This is a thing I made up this weekend.

• 1:16:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:16:10Sean Fennessey?

  This is five nominations that you guarantee from films that have already been released.

• 1:16:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:15Sean Fennessey?

  And I've also asked you for one wild prediction. Now, this would be harder in 2015 or 2005, but this thing is happening now.

• 1:16:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Where you get a lot of early movies.

• 1:16:27Sean Fennessey?

  And it's not just one.

• 1:16:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:16:29Sean Fennessey?

  It's like three or four, or sometimes even five movies that like might be

• 1:16:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:16:34Sean Fennessey?

  dominant Oscar movies.

• 1:16:35Amanda Dobbins?

  You did fill this out first and you chose five different movies.

• 1:16:40Sean Fennessey?

  I did.

• 1:16:41Amanda Dobbins?

  So I also tried to do that, which, and I

• 1:16:44Sean Fennessey?

  Did you pull it off?

• 1:16:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I did, but I was, I was running and we have some overlap in the movies, but I did find myself sort of running out of guaranteed varietals, right? Because The Odyssey is guaranteed up and down the board. And there, there are several movies that are represented multiple times here, but I got there, I got to five.

• 1:17:03Sean Fennessey?

  Some of these are incredibly obvious, some of them are slightly risky, but I feel confident about mine.

• 1:17:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:17:09Sean Fennessey?

  I'll start. Mine is obviously Best Picture of The Odyssey.

• 1:17:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:17:12Sean Fennessey?

  It will be nominated.

• 1:17:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:14Sean Fennessey?

  If you had to say right now, is it going to win?

• 1:17:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:17:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Because

• 1:17:21Sean Fennessey?

  We don't know anything, but

• 1:17:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but especially once you think, consider preferential balloting, I don't know what's going to come and, and take all of its votes.

• 1:17:27Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know.

• 1:17:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, nothing else is unanimous.

• 1:17:31Sean Fennessey?

  It would have to be something smaller, perhaps?

• 1:17:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I did on my travels, start meeting, you know, civilians, family members, friends, were like, eh, didn't really like it that much.

• 1:17:40Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 1:17:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Didn't care about it, you know? So we'll, we'll be in that phase, but I think they've cleverly timed it. So that'll be September through November and then come December, we'll reclaim it. You know, Emily Wilson's working on a new translation, so she's busy. Did you see this?

• 1:17:54Sean Fennessey?

  Of The Odyssey?

• 1:17:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, she's redoing her translation. She's removing some of this. Because, did you read in the introduction, she, she set like a very specific length to the, to the poem and it's, it's some other constraints to replicate like with the original homework. And so then she did The Iliad without those constraints. And so now she's going to redo The Odyssey without those constraints or because she saw an opportunity and, and is seizing it. Listen, they don't pay academics that much, so

• 1:18:26Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not going to make a snide comment.

• 1:18:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not, I'm not going to say anything. And one of my nominations here is in direct response to Emily Wilson, who I still think is one of the world's great shit posters.

• 1:18:35Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, what's your first one?

• 1:18:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Best Supporting Actor, Edward Norton, The Invite.

• 1:18:39Sean Fennessey?

  Think this is going to happen?

• 1:18:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I do. The Academy loves Edward Norton, okay? He was, don't forget that he was lightly implicated in the affair of who was the woman that had the surprise nomination because Gwyneth Paltrow had a party for her.

• 1:18:55Sean Fennessey?

  The star of Two Leslie?

• 1:18:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, Andrea Riseborough.

• 1:19:00Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you.

• 1:19:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but he was also a part of that. He's connected in the Academy. He's beloved. This is an amazing performance. I think The Invite is going to be very present.

• 1:19:11Sean Fennessey?

  Fascinating group of people here that are in the, on the long list for this race. I do think you're right.

• 1:19:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you.

• 1:19:20Sean Fennessey?

  There's two really interesting contenders in that category.

• 1:19:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Go ahead.

• 1:19:25Sean Fennessey?

  Coleman Domingo and Michael.

• 1:19:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Ah, okay.

• 1:19:28Sean Fennessey?

  We'll come back to that.

• 1:19:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:29Sean Fennessey?

  And Jeremy Strong in The Social Reckoning.

• 1:19:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:19:32Sean Fennessey?

  There's a couple of obvious ones, right? There's like, Giamatti. Everybody loves Giamatti. He never got over the hump. He didn't win for the holdovers. He'll run hard in that race. Sam Rockwell in Wild Horse Nine. He's won in this category. He's returning to reunite with the filmmaker for which he won. Yes, he's.

• 1:19:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I love the dancing.

• 1:19:50Sean Fennessey?

  He's very charming. Guy Pearce in Ink, another guy who, you know, has been nominated many times, but has not won or is nominated at least a couple of times. Norton, yeah. I mean, he's due, in my opinion. I would say well overdue.

• 1:20:02Amanda Dobbins?

  A thousand percent.

• 1:20:03Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, that's a good one. My number four is easy, straightforward. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is getting at least one nomination for Best Visual Effects.

• 1:20:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:20:11Sean Fennessey?

  And, and some of the best stuff in this movie is the swinging through the city.

• 1:20:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, he looks great.

• 1:20:16Sean Fennessey?

  The way that they did it in this, where it's sort of like more of a catch and release strategy, instead of like the, the clean line soaring.

• 1:20:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:23Sean Fennessey?

  Love the choice. Thought it looked beautiful. Felt more like how I imagined Spider-Man would move through Manhattan.

• 1:20:29Amanda Dobbins?

  How much time do you spend imagining? Would you want to be?

• 1:20:34Sean Fennessey?

  Six to eight hours a week.

• 1:20:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Would you want to be Spider-Man? Is that of all the superheroes, is that who you'd pick?

• 1:20:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:20:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:20:42Sean Fennessey?

  Who do you want to be?

• 1:20:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I mean, I haven't done that much research. I guess Batman, you know?

• 1:20:48Sean Fennessey?

  I thought you were Squirrel Girl.

• 1:20:49Amanda Dobbins?

  That was something that you assigned to me. That was not.

• 1:20:53Sean Fennessey?

  Van, Van assigned that to you.

• 1:20:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and he wants to be third chair. I don't know about that. Okay.

• 1:20:59Sean Fennessey?

  What's your, what's, what's your next pick?

• 1:21:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Speaking of Emily Wilson, Best Score, Ludwig Gornson for The Odyssey.

• 1:21:04Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with you.

• 1:21:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I liked the drums.

• 1:21:06Sean Fennessey?

  Could it win?

• 1:21:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. That was, that was me drumming.

• 1:21:09Sean Fennessey?

  Would that be three or four?

• 1:21:12Amanda Dobbins?

  So that's, Sinners and Oppenheimer and did he win for Black Panther?

• 1:21:20Sean Fennessey?

  He did.

• 1:21:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Sick. Good for him.

• 1:21:23Sean Fennessey?

  Four?

• 1:21:25Sean Fennessey?

  Who's got four?

• 1:21:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Who's got four? Well, how many does John Williams have? He has like 18?

• 1:21:30Sean Fennessey?

  He has less than that.

• 1:21:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess he's gonna, maybe he has 18 nominations.

• 1:21:34Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, he has like 50 nominations, but how many wins does he have?

• 1:21:37Amanda Dobbins?

  John Williams.

• 1:21:38Sean Fennessey?

  One, two, three, four. He's got four wins.

• 1:21:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Only four?

• 1:21:42Sean Fennessey?

  Wait, no, I'm looking at the wrong thing.

• 1:21:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I was gonna say.

• 1:21:44Sean Fennessey?

  Am I looking at the wrong thing?

• 1:21:45Amanda Dobbins?

  That's.

• 1:21:45Sean Fennessey?

  No, I'm not. So he has a win for Best Score for Fiddler on the Roof.

• 1:21:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:21:50Sean Fennessey?

  He won for Jaws. He won for Star Wars. He won for E.T. Perhaps you've heard of them. That's four.

• 1:21:55Amanda Dobbins?

  He won for Schindler's List.

• 1:21:56Sean Fennessey?

  Five. Five. He has five wins.

• 1:22:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 1:22:00Sean Fennessey?

  Isn't Ludwig Gornson like 40?

• 1:22:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but this is also, how old was John Williams in 1994, which is the last time he won?

• 1:22:08Sean Fennessey?

  Very good question.

• 1:22:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Because they kind of, they're just like, wow, you're one of the greats and now we don't have to give you anymore, which I think is rude.

• 1:22:15Sean Fennessey?

  John Williams was 62 in 1994, so Ludwig, you know, he's ahead of the curve here if he wins.

• 1:22:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, he attached himself to Ryan Coogler and Christopher Nolan. That was smart.

• 1:22:28Sean Fennessey?

  And attach himself to them. I mean, they collaborated. They worked together.

• 1:22:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, he's very talented and I think.

• 1:22:33Sean Fennessey?

  I like this, you know, that there was.

• 1:22:35Amanda Dobbins?

  This nomination is for sure happening.

• 1:22:36Sean Fennessey?

  I like the challenge of this, which was that you can't use any modern instruments. You can only use instruments that were available in the time of the Bronze Age. That was just the cool prompt that Nolan gave him and just kind of an interesting cinematic idea. And I liked that he responded to it. And I, I enjoyed learning about the various instruments that were played on the score, so it's a cool one. Number three, Best Cinematography, Greg Fraser for Project Hail Mary. Project Hail Mary, I'm curious to see how it nets out. It seems like there's some, a little bit of doubt now, maybe that we're like, it's been six months since it came out.

• 1:23:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Is that like Gosling blowback? Because he's just, he's bam bam?

• 1:23:12Sean Fennessey?

  From me, but in general, I don't think from the Academy. I think it's more like just how big a player is it gonna be? Is Gosling really contending for actor?

• 1:23:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah, I'm not sure about that.

• 1:23:22Sean Fennessey?

  You know, is it definitely like, are Lord Miller contending for director? Like you, three months ago, I think you would have said they were very clearly contending because it's a very conceived movie, you know? Like the decision to shoot everything practically the way that they did and it's totally their perspective and sort of point of view as filmmakers, like if it really feels like them. And so, but now that we're getting into the moment where it's like, we just listed 20 movies that people gotta go see before the fall, like, will it have the same register?

• 1:23:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I'll do that. I do have it in Best Picture, because I think with 10 nominations, I think that there will be room for it. I don't have Lord and Miller in Best Director.

• 1:23:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Because that's not a numbers, you know, that doesn't make sense numbers wise, but also I, director always gets so crowded. And the more international the Academy becomes, the more international directors are included. So I don't, I don't know. I could probably like six?

• 1:24:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's, I mean, you know, you're gonna get sound, you're gonna get visual effects, you're gonna get cinematography.

• 1:24:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess you could get up to 11. How many did Fury Road get?

• 1:24:27Sean Fennessey?

  Score is very good. Fury Road, I think, got like 10 or 11.

• 1:24:30Amanda Dobbins?

  So it could, it could be one of those.

• 1:24:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I guess with the other thing that I'm thinking about is some of it depends on what shakes out with Dune Part Three and how many big ticket movies the category can withstand. Like last year, we had Sinners. We had F1. That was really it for really big movies. Like One Battle and Frankenstein are kind of on another tier there.

• 1:24:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:56Sean Fennessey?

  And so the idea of Project Hail Mary and The Odyssey and Dune Part Three all getting in is really interesting. I mean, it's very rare for a number of event films

• 1:25:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:25:05Sean Fennessey?

  to get in all in the same year. So maybe that's where some of the doubt is coming from. But I like that you're putting it out there. So that's one of your predictions. So another prediction for me. Best Original Song, Toy Story Five, Taylor Swift. I Knew It, I Knew You.

• 1:25:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I think you should sing this for us now.

• 1:25:18Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know the words.

• 1:25:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I still have never heard it.

• 1:25:20Sean Fennessey?

  I'm on the record. I like it.

• 1:25:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's just an incredible, I think this was like one week before she got married at Madison Square Garden, that you were like, now I'm in on Taylor Swift.

• 1:25:29Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't say that.

• 1:25:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:30Sean Fennessey?

  I said, I like that song. I, I enjoyed the song and I love the song.

• 1:25:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Software updates and, and tablets.

• 1:25:37Sean Fennessey?

  Nope.

• 1:25:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And.

• 1:25:39Sean Fennessey?

  Didn't say that. I need a new tablet.

• 1:25:41Amanda Dobbins?

  You do?

• 1:25:42Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't gotten an iPad in like 10 years. Probably get a new one.

• 1:25:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, we are the, we resurrected like a hand me down, a tiny one from one of the grandparents. That's so old that you can only, you can't use any of the new apps, but you can use Apple TV. So that we just have to.

• 1:25:59Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:26:00Amanda Dobbins?

  We had to buy everything for the, for the plane ride. Anyway.

• 1:26:05Sean Fennessey?

  What Apple TV shows is Knox watching right now? Is he watching Cape Fear? Is he caught up?

• 1:26:11Amanda Dobbins?

  He once opened the Apple TV and I guess like a silo was on it and, and he was so afraid. Masks are very scary to him.

• 1:26:17Sean Fennessey?

  See.

• 1:26:18Amanda Dobbins?

  So he saw it and.

• 1:26:19Sean Fennessey?

  He'll want to avoid onslaught.

• 1:26:20Amanda Dobbins?

  He ran away from the, the TV. Was like, who was that person?

• 1:26:26Sean Fennessey?

  Good to know.

• 1:26:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm, I'm really glad to, about your late breaking Swiftiedom. Congratulations.

• 1:26:33Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Uh, what's your?

• 1:26:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay. Best Actress in You're Never Ready. Obsession.

• 1:26:39Sean Fennessey?

  Nice.

• 1:26:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:40Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think it's gonna happen?

• 1:26:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I do.

• 1:26:42Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:26:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it's a, it's a good story. I don't know whether obsession's gonna happen in Best Picture, but everybody likes a breakout star. Everybody likes the woman in a horror movie who goes for it. Everybody, Academy voters like an ingenue still. And this is a way to give obsession its due, which you kind of have to. It's the movie story of the year in a lot of ways.

• 1:27:05Sean Fennessey?

  You think this will be its only nomination?

• 1:27:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know about only, but I think that I, I'm not sure about Best Picture, but I'm pretty sure that, you know, and it's the Amy Madigan in Weapons playbook. So I, I think it'll happen.

• 1:27:23Sean Fennessey?

  I think so too. I'm not totally sure.

• 1:27:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you don't have to have fun.

• 1:27:27Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe competing against her will be my last pick, which is Olivia Wilde for Best Actress in The Invite.

• 1:27:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:32Sean Fennessey?

  Which feels maybe not locked in stone, but I feel like she's having such a strong year and has more to come with Behemoth. And they're gonna find a way to honor her. And I don't know if she's gonna be able to get into director.

• 1:27:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:42Sean Fennessey?

  So this would be a way to acknowledge how great she is in that movie.

• 1:27:45Amanda Dobbins?

  That would be exciting. Yeah. She's good. I really like that movie. I do think it'll be in Best Picture, but.

• 1:27:50Sean Fennessey?

  The Invite?

• 1:27:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:51Sean Fennessey?

  I hope so. That would be cool. Wild prediction time.

• 1:27:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Best Actress, Emily Blunt. Disclosure Day.

• 1:27:59Sean Fennessey?

  I would want for it to happen.

• 1:28:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you said wild prediction. Also, she is, she is so liked. She's great at campaigning for Oscars. She and just, and for movies. So I believe she'll get back on the trail. If they nominated her for Oppenheimer, come on. I understand that there was like a big train, but she had nothing to do with that. She's wonderful in this film.

• 1:28:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I feel like the mood is not super strong on Disclosure Day, but I like the prediction.

• 1:28:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I would agree with that, but again, it's August. We have a lot of time. The Oscars are not until March 10th, 14th?

• 1:28:34Sean Fennessey?

  15th.

• 1:28:35Amanda Dobbins?

  15th, great, the Ides of March. What a stupid decision, whatever. So that's.

• 1:28:41Sean Fennessey?

  Is it the 15th? I think it's 15th.

• 1:28:42Amanda Dobbins?

  It is, it's six months away, more than six months away.

• 1:28:47Sean Fennessey?

  March 14th, sorry.

• 1:28:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well, um, you know, we go up and down with these things. We get tired of people. We bring people back. Just think about it.

• 1:28:57Sean Fennessey?

  My wild prediction is that Michael could get in a Best Picture.

• 1:29:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Is this, this is the F1 argument?

• 1:29:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, which is a lot of people have seen this movie. It's made a billion dollars. They love it.

• 1:29:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:11Sean Fennessey?

  And we didn't, but it's a huge industry success. Michael Jackson, a more complicated figure than some other music biopics figures that we've seen in recent times. But that particular part of his history is completely elided in the movie.

• 1:29:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:28Sean Fennessey?

  And it is a great spectacle with great music and Jafar Jackson, people really like his performance. And so I could be wrong. A lot of this is determined by the movies that we're gonna see from this episode, but I feel like it could go down. Thoughts?

• 1:29:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it's totally possible. I, you know, I've, have been listening to a lot of the music of Michael Jackson since I saw this movie, so I guess its purpose was served and will continue to be served. It's not, it's not a movie.

• 1:29:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, it was released.

• 1:30:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:30:02Sean Fennessey?

  It was released and it made a large sum of money. I'm, I'm, I'm interested to see what, what is increasingly a more, I don't know about progressive Academy, but certainly a more diverse Academy, more international Academy, and one that is willing to honor, you know, a slightly more

• 1:30:21Sean Fennessey?

  thoughtful and complex version of world cinema.

• 1:30:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:30:25Sean Fennessey?

  Does with a movie like this?

• 1:30:26Amanda Dobbins?

  How does this fit in with the Project Hail Mary and Odyssey and Dune Three? But do you think there's room for four blockbusters?

• 1:30:36Sean Fennessey?

  I, I don't, but who knows?

• 1:30:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess that's true.

• 1:30:39Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, who, also, who knows what happens with Dune Part Three?

• 1:30:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:30:41Sean Fennessey?

  One assumes that we're looking at not the Lord of the Rings narrative, but at least the like, we gotta acknowledge this film's greatness, but I don't know. We'll see. Amanda, did you share your number one prediction? Oh, you didn't.

• 1:30:54Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I didn't. Sure. Diane Warren's got another song, everybody. Diane Warren has written the title for By Any Means, the film starring Mark Wahlberg and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.

• 1:31:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, she's, she's, she's trying. She's gonna do her best. She's well connected in a nonsense category, so.

• 1:31:18Sean Fennessey?

  Could have, could definitely happen.

• 1:31:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:20Sean Fennessey?

  Could definitely.

• 1:31:20Amanda Dobbins?

  She released it. You know, she like did her single. She's on the campaign once again, so.

• 1:31:29Sean Fennessey?

  Can she win?

• 1:31:30Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I don't think she's gonna win for this one, but I think you said nomination, not wins. So I played to the letter of the law.

• 1:31:37Sean Fennessey?

  You did it right. That's it. Any other closing thoughts before you get on a plane?

• 1:31:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm excited. Venitia.

• 1:31:44Sean Fennessey?

  I look forward to telling you that as well. That pretty much does it. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on today's episode. Thanks to Lucas Cavanagh for his production support. Later this week, Chris Ryan and I are discussing onslaught and building the black and chrome action pack. We'll explain what that means when we get there.

• 1:32:01Amanda Dobbins?

  You sort of explained it at the end of last week's podcast and I wasn't listening.

• 1:32:05Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:32:05Amanda Dobbins?

  So I'm, but I will listen to this.

• 1:32:07Sean Fennessey?

  Have a great trip.

• 1:32:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Thanks.

• 1:32:08Sean Fennessey?

  Bye.