Best Picture Power Rankings and the Super-Sincerity of ‘Sentimental Value,’ With Joachim Trier! Plus: Regretting ‘Regretting You.’

Sean and Amanda begin the show by discussing the imminent sale of Warner Brothers Discovery, consider the potential implications of a merger with one of Paramount, Comcast, or Netflix, and debate which scenario is the most likely outcome (1:22). Then, they cover the new Colleen Hoover adaptation ‘Regretting You’ starring Allison Williams and Dave Franco, which they found absolutely baffling (17:28). Next, they have an extensive conversation around Joachim Trier’s ‘Sentimental Value,’ starring Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgard, where they explore why some people are connecting to the film so strongly, while for others it doesn't seem to resonate (47:15). Finally, Trier joins the show to explain how much of himself is actually mapped onto Skarsgard’s character, how being a good listener and observant of the world around you translates to strong characterization, and the story of shooting in a house that was down the street he grew up on (1:33:54). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Joachim Trier Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  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. This episode is brought to you by NOS Energy. Introducing new NOS Energy Grand Prix Guava. For those that want to be fueled up and fired up with 100 mile an hour tropical tasting power. Ignite your taste, start your engine, shift your flavor to high gear with new NOS Energy Grand Prix Guava. Hit the street, grab a can and get after it.

• 0:54Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 0:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 0:56Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the big picture conversation show about sentimental value and sentimental crap, or bad dads and their distant daughters. On today's episode, we're discussing two new releases. The first is the latest Colleen Hoover adaptation, Regretting You, which has quietly become one of the most successful films of the fall and is an utterly baffling slice of melodramatic poppycock, Amanda. The second film is Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value, a family drama about a patriarch filmmaker and his two daughters and the house that binds them. It's the new film from the Norwegian filmmaker. For me, one of his best yet, I spoke to Joachim, you can hear that later in this episode. He's a very thoughtful and interesting guy. He's been on the show before. We'll also cap off the month of November with an updated Best Picture power rankings,

• 1:39Sean Fennessey?

  which will be the last time we talk Best Picture until the Golden Globe nominations on December 8th. How are you feeling about that?

• 1:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Are we coming in at 7:00 AM?

• 1:48Sean Fennessey?

  I think so.

• 1:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:49Sean Fennessey?

  I think I need to see Song Sung Blue that morning. So we're going to come in early.

• 1:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I thought that you were saying that you needed to see Song Sung Blue before the Golden Globes nominations were announced.

• 2:00Sean Fennessey?

  I think it'll be in the mix.

• 2:01Amanda Dobbins?

  There is a musical comedy category.

• 2:02Sean Fennessey?

  I think it could be in the mix.

• 2:03Amanda Dobbins?

  They want Kate Hudson at that table.

• 2:04Sean Fennessey?

  They do, they do. Uh, okay, before we get into all of that, and that is a full slate.

• 2:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:09Sean Fennessey?

  Normally that would be more than enough for an episode, you know, conversation with a filmmaker, two new movies. We're recording this on a Friday. This is a fateful Friday. I don't know what's going to transpire over the next 72 hours before this episode drops.

• 2:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Probably a lot because you know what I just remembered? We're, we're recording this before Thanksgiving and I'll never forget. I go back to Philadelphia every year for my in-laws Thanksgiving. And I remember being in my husband's childhood bedroom when the news that, uh, Chapek was out and Iger was in, hit. And I think that was the Sunday or Monday before Thanksgiving. So, yeah, because I, I was in, in Zach's Philly bedroom.

• 2:47Sean Fennessey?

  I, I have no recollection of that.

• 2:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Can be an event full time of the year.

• 2:50Sean Fennessey?

  It's a news dump time for sure. It's a time when you bring in some big information. Now, the biggest thing that is going on in Hollywood right now is of course, the imminent seemingly sale of Warner Brothers Discovery. This has been a slow moving car crash for five plus years. And we're finally getting to this place where Zaslav and Co. are starting to, you know, figure out who they're going to move this company into the hands of after, I would say, mismanagement over the last few years. The initial bids on this were due on Thursday at noon PT. Reportedly, three bids came in. A bid for Paramount, a bid from Comcast and a bid from Netflix.

• 3:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 3:32Sean Fennessey?

  Now, I just want to talk very briefly with you about the different permutations, what could happen, what it could mean. And I don't want to take any bets on what's going to happen because I, I think a sale like this, a merger like this is, has a lot of unfortunate ramifications. So I don't want to make too much light of it, but it is very, very important. It is vitally important to the future of film, to the future of theatrical distribution, to the future of the entertainment industry. Because Warner Brothers is one of the signature studios in the history of this business. So here's what could happen. Here, I've listed it in, in what I think is order of likelihood. You can tell me if you agree or disagree with this. The first permutation, Paramount Skydance buys Warner Brothers Studio and HBO.

• 4:15Sean Fennessey?

  They bundle all of the streaming properties that are valuable to them.

• 4:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 4:20Sean Fennessey?

  From Paramount Plus and the HBO properties and whatever attendant stuff comes along with that, TNT and so forth. And then they also get the movie studio. So they get the full slate. They get Batman. You know, they get Barbie. They get all the stuff that is part of the Warner Brothers universe.

• 4:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Harry Potter.

• 4:36Sean Fennessey?

  Harry Potter, which is going to be a television show very soon on HBO. And, and Trump being a fan of the Ellison's?

• 4:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 4:44Sean Fennessey?

  Pushes that merger through.

• 4:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 4:46Sean Fennessey?

  And it happens. That to me feels like the most likely outcome.

• 4:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I think so. I mean, some of that likeliness stems from the fact that it's been the most covered in the media, the most speculated, they, there have, that, there have been the most conversations that we know of.

• 5:00Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:02Amanda Dobbins?

  And because Paramount has just kind of been looming, you know, lurking around Warner Brothers for a year?

• 5:11Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Or so?

• 5:12Sean Fennessey?

  This has been, I think, critical to Ellison's strategy in general.

• 5:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:15Sean Fennessey?

  He says that they can build, but it would be helpful to Paramount, which has a much more threadbare collection of IP than the other big studios, which is one of the reasons why it's been so challenging for Paramount over these last 10 years as a movie studio. Here's the next, I think, most likely option. This is just based on kind of what I've heard around town and a little bit of my own gut.

• 5:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:38Sean Fennessey?

  Which is that Zazlo and Co. decide to split the sale in two, and that Comcast, which is of course Universal and Peacock and that whole orbit.

• 5:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 5:48Sean Fennessey?

  Gets HBO, and they plug that right into their television streaming ecosystem.

• 5:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 5:53Sean Fennessey?

  And Netflix gets the Warner Brothers movie studio.

• 5:59Sean Fennessey?

  I wouldn't be happy about this. I don't think this would be a great outcome.

• 6:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 6:02Sean Fennessey?

  Because I think it potentially-

• 6:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Would you be happy about the first outcome?

• 6:05Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think I'm not-

• 6:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Paramount, Skydance, Warner Brothers?

• 6:07Sean Fennessey?

  There's no good out- the good outcome is a lone man comes along.

• 6:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 6:12Sean Fennessey?

  Who has $500 billion and says, "I would like to own Warner Brothers, and I would like to make it the single greatest studio in the, in the universe."

• 6:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 6:20Sean Fennessey?

  Now, I can create like a real-time analog for that experience, because I am a fan of the Mets, and like, this actually literally did happen with the Mets.

• 6:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 6:26Sean Fennessey?

  Where a guy came along who's one of the, who is the richest owner in North American sports, and he was like, "I'm gonna buy this team, and I'm gonna pour everything I have into making it great." It's been mixed results, so that doesn't guarantee anything.

• 6:37Amanda Dobbins?

  That's what I was gonna say, is that I'm like, I'm thinking off the top of my head of men who have $500 billion or more, and how things have gone for their companies, and in some cases for the studios that they have purchased.

• 6:50Sean Fennessey?

  It doesn't always work.

• 6:51Amanda Dobbins?

  So far, not great.

• 6:52Sean Fennessey?

  No. If Elon Musk came in and bought Warner Brothers, I don't think that that would necessarily create a good outcome. So I'm, I do, but I do think that that-

• 6:59Amanda Dobbins?

  So you inherit $500 billion.

• 7:02Sean Fennessey?

  I would, a hun- in a hot second.

• 7:04Amanda Dobbins?

  What do I get to do?

• 7:06Sean Fennessey?

  Whatever you want. You're coming with me on the ride. I mean, obviously, I have no idea how to run a business at scale. But I do think that you want somebody who loves this stuff. And the one thing I'll say for the Ellison's, David Ellison, he does like movies. We probably have different tastes in movies. But he wants to make movies and wants to put movies in movie theaters. He has been the number one supporter of Tom Cruise and his, you know, theatrical journey over the last 10 years.

• 7:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I have thanked David Ellison for Top Gun Maverick and Top Gun Maverick alone. And I stand by that.

• 7:39Sean Fennessey?

  Comcast buying HBO, I don't really know. I guess I don't know enough about the TV business to know what that would mean. Obviously, Peacock is significantly smaller than HBO. And HBO, maybe they swallow Peacock or maybe there's some sort of expansion package.

• 7:52Amanda Dobbins?

  That would mean that Taylor Sheridan is now Casey Boyz's problem?

• 7:56Sean Fennessey?

  Well, some might say it's Casey Boyz's solution. You know, that he is a portal to a long, long lasting audience. You know, HBO is on a little bit of an upswing in the aftermath of Task. And, you know, Chris and Andy talked on The Watch last week about how they've just renewed a bunch of shows, probably with the anticipation of the sale coming.

• 8:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Including the game, all the Game of Thrones stuff.

• 8:18Sean Fennessey?

  So in order to talk about the Netflix part of it, we have to talk about what I think is the third most likely outcome. Which I don't see as happening, but we have to talk about it. So this could be Netflix just buys everything outright. They buy the Warner Brothers movie studio and they buy HBO.

• 8:32Sean Fennessey?

  I think this would be extremely detrimental to both the Warner Brothers studio and HBO. Because Netflix, which is more than within their right, would want everything to be Netflix first.

• 8:45Sean Fennessey?

  Matt Bellany has a long piece in his newsletter over the weekend about how Netflix feels about theatrical. Ted Sarandos has been consistent for a long period of time that he does not, he believes theatrical is outmoded for consumers. And there's been. Countless debates about how many theaters and for how long many of their films should play and what kind of business they could have gotten out of

• 9:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 9:10Sean Fennessey?

  The Knives Out films, or Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, or any number of movies that seem like they had like a real, a vibe amongst audiences. But none of that stuff is publicly reported. We had the whole K-pop Demon Hunter sing-along thing, where they dominated the box office one weekend. You know, we know that they have the ability to do this and to support it.

• 9:28Amanda Dobbins?

  They're putting Stranger Things, they're one of their most successful TV shows, into theaters and that they're the TV finale at movie length in movie studios.

• 9:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 9:40Amanda Dobbins?

  So, you know, up is down.

• 9:42Sean Fennessey?

  And, and we know Greta Gerwig's Chronicles of Narnia film is also going into movie theaters and is getting an IMAX exclusive release. So, a lot of signal and a lot of noise in this equation. I would, I agree with how Matt framed this discussion, which is my, my gut would tell me that they would abide by all of the previously made agreements with all of the talent and all of the film properties up through the conclusion of those agreements after a merger acquisition. And then after that, would do what is best for Netflix. And they would pursue concurrent windows where films go in theater, you know, day and date. Films go on the, on the service and films go in movie theaters. And then slowly over time, you just have the absorption

• 10:24Sean Fennessey?

  of one of the biggest and most important studios into the streaming platform. It's not, it's not good for a variety of reasons. One, obviously it would kill theatrical. If you just take one more player off the board, we lost Fox six years ago. Fox now puts out half as many movies as they did when they were operating independently.

• 10:39Amanda Dobbins?

  There's an inventory issue, yeah.

• 10:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. So, we already have too few movies to support the theater industry. And then, you know, for my own very selfish, personal reasons, like it probably spikes home video like forever? Like the, the sort of, the physical media Blu-ray market?

• 10:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:57Sean Fennessey?

  And Warner is a huge part of that and the Warner Archive is very special. Like, things like the, you know, one battle after another steelbook selling out in like five minutes or whatever, that's a small, small, small, small, small, small, small slice of the pie.

• 11:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 11:09Sean Fennessey?

  But it's like a thing that makes people care more about movies. And if you take it off the board, and Netflix would be within their rights to take it off the board because they're a streaming platform. Then you're, there's gonna just be this like removal of a certain, of a few phases of film fandom that I would see as destructive. I could be wrong. I reserve the right to be wrong. I reserve the right to even watch Netflix rebuild theatrical in America and support Blu-ray production and encourage home collectors, but very little of what they've done in the past indicates that they would.

• 11:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I would say that previous evidence suggests that they will enter, you know, an arena of the industry, whether it is theatrical or, you know, owning Warner Brothers, or the example I'm gonna use is just like making films with great filmmakers and spend a ton of money, give everybody what they want, and make everything look very rosy and like promising, and you'll get The Irishman, and you'll get Marriage Story, and you'll get Roma, and you'll get like what was really like a golden age of truly good work made by some of our greatest filmmakers.

• 12:19Sean Fennessey?

  No doubt.

• 12:20Amanda Dobbins?

  At a time when no one else in the industry would pay for that sort of stuff. And that will fall somewhat flat in the eyes of Netflix's metrics, and they will walk it back bit by bit and just do less. And things will be a little less good, and they will spend a little less time caring about theatrical. And suddenly, oh, look, fewer theaters are available. And no, that doesn't really make sense for us. And it will happen slowly, and they will condition audiences over time. But yeah, I don't think they'll be a theater-first company. I don't think buying Warner Brothers is like, okay, now, now we really believe it. And now we're like revitalizing AMC.

• 13:05Sean Fennessey?

  I fully agree with you. I don't think that that would be logical for what their business is. There is, there is a significant difference, though, between the original work that they have developed and produced and distributed and bringing in some of the most known quantities in movie history. Like if you go through the Warner's archives, there are so many different kinds of stories that have proven to be incredibly durable through 75 years of theatrical distribution and home video, that like to have Batman and to make a Batman movie and to make it a streaming first movie or a day and date movie. That feels dumb. Like, that actually feels like bad business.

• 13:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure, but Warner Brothers has already done that, you know?

• 13:49Sean Fennessey?

  True.

• 13:50Amanda Dobbins?

  So, I remember because I watched The Batman starring a very tall Robert Pattinson at home over the span of four nights, and then I didn't know who the Joker was, but...

• 13:58Sean Fennessey?

  That was in brief, though, in a time of transition. Warner Brothers still has a 45-day window. Like, Universal has a 17-day window with some gradation based on box office, but Warner Brothers is one of the few studios still. Warner's and Sony and Disney are like, we still have to let these movies play for a little while.

• 14:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 14:17Sean Fennessey?

  And that keeps that business in place. This would be a real threat to it. To me, it's not a sky is falling moment. This is gonna take a while to play out, but we've had very few conversations about it on the show recently, and now that the bids are in and it feels real, I think I'm maybe a little bit surprised that it is just these three big conglomerates that are coming to the table.

• 14:38Amanda Dobbins?

  As opposed to Apple or Random Guy being like, let me...

• 14:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 14:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, we saw how well it went for David Zaslove when he bought Robert Evans's home, or desk, or whatever it was.

• 14:49Sean Fennessey?

  It doesn't seem like that is ultimately gonna be perceived as a success in the arc of business. I think his sale, you know, the amount of money that they get for the business will be perceived as a success. The stock's been going up since all of this discussion has been happening. But, you know, it was previously owned by a phone company, you know, and a telecom couldn't make it work. We've seen, you know, Time Warner Inc. has been kind of passed around and moved through various states of ownership over the years. They just haven't had that perfect

• 15:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean...

• 15:16Sean Fennessey?

  ownership experience, I guess.

• 15:18Amanda Dobbins?

  We were doing the Redford Hall of Fame, which will come out later this week, I believe, and the number of Paramount, Agulph Western companies that I watched even doing that. We have been here before. The consolidation is the

• 15:34Sean Fennessey?

  That's the issue.

• 15:35Amanda Dobbins?

  really, really alarming part, and that is alarming on like a broader, you know, market level in terms of fewer movies and fewer, um...

• 15:46Amanda Dobbins?

  More power being held in the hands of a fewer number of people who I don't agree with and whose taste I don't really like. But and then also the consolidation of the industry, jobs lost, like the very basic, like working here in Los Angeles, which has been hit so many times this year. That's bad news. That and but that's true of any of these outcomes.

• 16:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that might be the most important note is that this no longer being an independent entertainment entity is not really a good thing in a variety of ways.

• 16:19Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I guess we'll have to see what happens.

• 16:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's exciting.

• 16:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, well, you know, the bitter irony of all of this news is that Warner Brothers has obviously had the best year of any major studio, at least to this point. They haven't, they don't have any more releases for the rest of this year. And they did it by doing what we want them to do, which is that they located two or three big properties, right? Two or three event movies, Minecraft, Superman. You know, we said, okay, we're going to put a lot of energy into those things. And then we're going to take some bets on some people we know are talented, whose ideas we think are good. And so we'll get sinners, we'll get weapons, we'll get one battle, we'll put a lot of eggs in those baskets and maybe a few of them will hit. And most of them did. And now the takeaway from that is let's break it apart and actually not use that wisdom

• 17:06Sean Fennessey?

  and actually be algorithmically minded in terms of how we produce content. It's just disappointing. It's disappointing.

• 17:12Amanda Dobbins?

  It's and and part of it is that this is owned by some conglomeration that was created from the leftovers of three different conglomerations that was merged 20 years ago with, you know, our internet and got every like, it's just, it has been like a chess piece in like a suits leverage game for so many years now. It's it's a real shame.

• 17:36Sean Fennessey?

  It is.

• 17:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Because they're part of the business where they make movies.

• 17:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 17:41Amanda Dobbins?

  And people go see them. It's kind of working.

• 17:44Sean Fennessey?

  That being said, the guys in the 1920s and 30s who built this business, also flawed men who made a lot of mistakes and treated people badly. So it's not as though we've transitioned from a time of great peace and unity. To a troubled moment.

• 17:56Amanda Dobbins?

  We are literally talking about a business named after Jack Warner, so.

• 17:59Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. Uh, okay. Well, let's pivot away from that. We'll follow that story in December as it continues to evolve. And I'm sure there will be a lot of news. Maybe we should talk to Matt at some point on the show to get his point of view on it as well, because he's been doing great work reporting around that story. Let's talk about a success in movies thus far this year. Maybe a sort of a surprise success, though perhaps not, if you know what's really going on in the culture. So This Is Regretting You, this is the new feature film from Josh Boone, probably more specifically the new Colleen Hoover movie.

• 18:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 18:29Sean Fennessey?

  Which is probably how fans of it, uh, understand it. It stars Allison Williams, McKenna Grace, Dave Franco, Mason Thames, Scott Eastwood, Willa Fitzgerald, Clancy Brown. The logline is this: When a devastating accident reveals a shocking betrayal, Morgan Grant and her daughter Clara explore what's left behind as they confront family secrets, redefine love, and rediscover each other.

• 18:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you write that logline, or did you copy and paste it from?

• 18:55Sean Fennessey?

  No, I pulled it from, probably Rotten Tomatoes.

• 18:57Amanda Dobbins?

  All right.

• 18:57Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think about what I put there? Is that accurate?

• 18:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm. You know, it was like, good parallel writing, so, uh...

• 19:04Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's marketing material that I've reproduced here on the podcast. Uh...

• 19:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm sad we didn't see this together.

• 19:13Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I really, and honestly, when it came out, I almost texted you being like, I think that we should just find a time to go see Regretting You together. And we had other things to do, and then we could only fit it in. You know, I saw a 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday screening. Seems like you were a Wednesday matinee, weekday.

• 19:33Sean Fennessey?

  I was. I was.

• 19:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, so I think the only thing that, my only true regret is that this wasn't a communal experience.

• 19:43Sean Fennessey?

  We're sharing it now.

• 19:44Amanda Dobbins?

  This is preposterous, and also the most excited I've been to talk about a film in many years.

• 19:51Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, why?

• 19:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Why? Because I thought, obviously, it's bad.

• 19:56Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, and insulting to its audience and, um, literature and the idea of human relationships and also human behavior.

• 20:05Sean Fennessey?

  Uh-huh.

• 20:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, and I guess cinephiles, and definitely moms who like wine, but...

• 20:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe even inspiration boards. But you and I don't really go in for like, it's so bad, it's good.

• 20:19Sean Fennessey?

  We don't.

• 20:20Amanda Dobbins?

  And that's not, this is not so bad, it's good. But the ways in which it is bad and what it reflects about what works in movies and also just like what women are interested in right now, just socioculturally. I could talk about it all day with you. We've been joking a lot about how you and I are on a different internet and this movie's just like making you be on my internet.

• 20:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, really?

• 20:41Amanda Dobbins?

  And I say, welcome.

• 20:43Sean Fennessey?

  It's such a Rorschach test for what entertainment is right now.

• 20:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:46Sean Fennessey?

  Because it's like, and I've said this before about even just working in podcasting, like, we're in the era of the hyper niche, right?

• 20:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 20:52Sean Fennessey?

  Where everybody's a super expert on this really small thing.

• 20:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:54Sean Fennessey?

  But actually, there's more people who care about the small thing than you realize.

• 20:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:57Sean Fennessey?

  This show is an example of that.

• 20:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:59Sean Fennessey?

  And, and Colleen Hoover is an example of that. And she has hordes of fans, even though she has this very hyper-specific style of melodramatic, soapy writing.

• 21:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I think the, the Colleen Hoover thing is just insulated in a way. It is, it is because of the nature of reading and also because the nature of TikTok, which is like, you open up your phone and you just sit there and get, you fed stuff.

• 21:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 21:26Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't go anywhere else. But Colleen Hoover was propelled to success through book talk. She is gigantic, selling millions of books. Like, this, this is a real thing. It is just siloed from the world that you and I live in.

• 21:40Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 21:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Until we go to the movies.

• 21:42Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. And last year, we saw It Ends With Us together at an early access fan screening. And it was a lot of moms and their daughters or girls on, out on a girls' night and...

• 21:52Amanda Dobbins?

  There were, there were some boyfriends there.

• 21:53Sean Fennessey?

  Some boyfriends.

• 21:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 21:54Sean Fennessey?

  And I'm sure some, some male Colleen Hoover fans too.

• 21:56Amanda Dobbins?

  A number of people who showed up like 45 minutes into the film.

• 22:00Sean Fennessey?

  It was their big night out. Oh, into the film?

• 22:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And, into the film.

• 22:03Sean Fennessey?

  But they were like wine drunk at, at McGuffin's, you know?

• 22:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Well, guess what? You can bring it into the movie. But that was the other thing, was that it was a lot of people who we don't typically see at the movie theater, you know?

• 22:13Sean Fennessey?

  And It Ends With Us was a pretty sizable hit. And I would say, the only other comp that I can make to that movie over the last 12 months has been materialists, where they're very different tonally. I think very, two very different kinds of artists, Justin Baldoni and Celine Song. But they both actually, I think, probably captured similar audiences because there is something missing in the culture right now that you can find on streaming, but you can't find in movie theaters very often, at least in terms of marketing a movie, which is saying, like, there's this blend of sincerity and emotional relationship.

• 22:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 22:48Sean Fennessey?

  And maybe you'll get some humor and some fun, too. And one leans in one direction, one leans in the other direction. Materialists turned out to be more serious than we ever would have guessed based on the marketing. This movie turned out to be way fucking funnier than I ever would have guessed, though probably not on purpose.

• 23:01Amanda Dobbins?

  But it was with us. You and I were both absolutely shocked by what it turned out to be.

• 23:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but that was my introduction to the Colleen Hoover world.

• 23:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 23:08Sean Fennessey?

  And I think I was just mystified by its appeal. I now feel more situated in this world, so regretting you. Boy, this is an interesting movie. So Colleen Hoover seems to premise all of her films on these, like, very dramatic but unexplored misunderstandings.

• 23:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Misunderstanding is one way of putting it. Betrayals and/or domestic sexual assaults and violence are another part. This one is more betrayal than assault.

• 23:42Sean Fennessey?

  Right. Well, in the previous film, you know, this idea of sort of like, um, memory-holing traumatic experience and then wrong-footing an audience through a story by showing us what really happened. Like, this isn't quite in that same realm, but there is definitely, like, the hiding of information.

• 24:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:02Sean Fennessey?

  For dramatic reveal.

• 24:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 24:03Sean Fennessey?

  And then this movie does that within roughly the first 30 minutes. And then it's basically a reckoning movie. It's an aftermath movie. Something happens, and then everyone's trying to figure out how to cope with it.

• 24:14Amanda Dobbins?

  It has another reveal, though, in incredible flashback form. So there are several different pieces. Actually, there are a couple more reveals.

• 24:25Sean Fennessey?

  Let's get into the details.

• 24:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 24:27Sean Fennessey?

  So in this movie... Allison Williams and Willa Fitzgerald are sisters. The film opens with them as teenagers. Allison Williams is talking to Dave Franco, who's a close friend of hers.

• 24:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh yeah, I got there a little bit late.

• 24:38Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, they're talking. And Allison Williams' character reveals to Dave Franco's character that she is pregnant with Scott Eastwood's baby. Dave Franco's character, who's named Jonah, is, when he learns this information, is staring longingly at Allison Williams' character, Morgan. You can see, he feels for her. Wants her, but she is pregnant.

• 24:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 25:01Sean Fennessey?

  Smash, cut, flash forward.

• 25:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 25:03Sean Fennessey?

  These four people are grown up, they're adults.

• 25:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 25:07Sean Fennessey?

  It feels like they're all living in the same house together.

• 25:09Amanda Dobbins?

  They live nearby and they're celebrating a birthday party.

• 25:12Sean Fennessey?

  They're doing breakfast together in the morning, though, and like handing each other coffee and...

• 25:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, no, no, so that's because it's Willa Fitzgerald's first day back at work? After her maternity leave?

• 25:23Sean Fennessey?

  No, but that's a little later in the film. But even at the beginning of the movie, they're all in the house together.

• 25:28Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a birthday party, they're making a cake.

• 25:29Sean Fennessey?

  Alright, it seems like they live together, it's very strange, maybe they live down the road.

• 25:34Sean Fennessey?

  And they're all grown up, and it turns out that Allison Williams and Scott Eastwood have gotten married, and they have a 17 or 16-year-old daughter who's been by McKenna Grace. And Dave Franco's character has disappeared for some time, he's just come back into their world, when Allison Williams and Willa Fitzgerald's mom has died, or dad has died, I can't remember who it is who's died, someone has died. Dave Franco returns, has a one-night-stand with Willa Fitzgerald, she gets pregnant.

• 26:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:01Sean Fennessey?

  And then she has his baby, and he sticks around. And now, that quartet of people has been reunited back in this small town, is it in North Carolina?

• 26:09Amanda Dobbins?

  It is.

• 26:13Sean Fennessey?

  Within, in short order.

• 26:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:16Sean Fennessey?

  Willa Fitzgerald's character goes back to work, I guess she's a nurse, looks like, maybe she works at the hospital.

• 26:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:22Sean Fennessey?

  And Scott Eastwood's character...

• 26:24Amanda Dobbins?

  She works in labor and delivery.

• 26:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Scott Eastwood's character, he's headed out to work one morning. McKenna Grace's character is going to school.

• 26:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:32Sean Fennessey?

  She's kind of a grouchy teen.

• 26:33Amanda Dobbins?

  That's right. She's having some drama with a guy who followed her and unfollowed her on Instagram.

• 26:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 26:41Sean Fennessey?

  And we very quickly learn that Jenny, Willa Fitzgerald's character, and Chris, Scotty Swit's character, have been having an affair.

• 26:47Amanda Dobbins?

  No, that's not what we learned. What we learned is that they are in a car crash.

• 26:52Sean Fennessey?

  They're in a car crash together.

• 26:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Together, but we-

• 26:54Sean Fennessey?

  Any thinking person knows what's happened.

• 26:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but here's how we learned it is incredible because there's a car crash. Well, Willa Fitzgerald's character stops responding to the voiceover text messages that McKenna Grace's character is sending her from lunch period at school, because this school has not banned phones yet. And then Allison Williams shows up at the hospital and is looking for her husband and asks for her sister. And then Dave Franco, carrying a car seat, like backhanded, like he's doing like a low five, like backside.

• 27:32Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's how Nick carries his car seat to answer the question they're gonna ask.

• 27:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Why? But why?

• 27:36Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's just an easier way to carry it. I think it lightens the weight.

• 27:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but I mean, I feel like you don't have enough support and that's really gonna mess up your alignment. Anyway.

• 27:46Amanda Dobbins?

  And he shows up, but he's confused because he's looking for his wife.

• 27:50Sean Fennessey?

  They both received calls about the car crash that their spouses were in.

• 27:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And then they finally make it into the interior and the doctor just says, "I'm so sorry." And then like all sound cutouts cuts out and they both just crumple.

• 28:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 28:04Amanda Dobbins?

  The floor and then-

• 28:05Sean Fennessey?

  Huge swell of Grey's Anatomy score, you know, like,

• 28:09Sean Fennessey?

  you know, Amen Dunes or whatever band is playing.

• 28:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And so they're both in an accident. So we learn that they're dead and thus that they were together and having an affair within the span of two minutes.

• 28:22Sean Fennessey?

  Now, this is the big dramatic incident of the film.

• 28:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:25Sean Fennessey?

  Happening in parallel, we've got McKenna Grace, the boy that she likes, Mason Thames.

• 28:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Are you sure that it said Mason Thames?

• 28:32Sean Fennessey?

  Mason Thames?

• 28:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I don't know. Like I just-

• 28:33Sean Fennessey?

  Mason Thomas?

• 28:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it after the river? Or is it just-

• 28:37Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think he was given his surname after the river.

• 28:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, I know, but are they pronounced, are they British? Like, are they pronouncing it like the Thames?

• 28:45Sean Fennessey?

  I'll call Mason. Let's see what he says. Mason plays a heartthrobby boy.

• 28:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, sure.

• 28:51Sean Fennessey?

  Who is a cinephile.

• 28:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:54Sean Fennessey?

  And.

• 28:54Amanda Dobbins?

  And also loves his grandpa very much.

• 28:55Sean Fennessey?

  And he's very close to his grandfather who's been ill. And he's sticking around to take care of him. And he keeps moving the city limits sign so that he can get pizza delivered to his house. And McKenna Grace observes him stuck on the side of the road. She picks him up, gives him a ride. They meet cute. This all happens in the setup to the movie. And then their story is sort of like the will they or won't they kind of back and forth. Where is he gonna dump his girlfriend? Are they gonna get together? Kind of classic teen romance stuff.

• 29:23Sean Fennessey?

  So.

• 29:23Amanda Dobbins?

  But also she lost her dad.

• 29:25Sean Fennessey?

  But that's her father dies in this car accident and she's coping with that and trying to figure out what's going on. And while all that is happening, and while Morgan and Jonah are trying to figure out how to deal. We start flashing back to them as teenagers. And this movie, for the second time in 40 minutes, shows us Allison Williams and Dave Franco. Who I think are 37 and 41.

• 29:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 29:49Sean Fennessey?

  As their 17 year old selves.

• 29:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 29:51Sean Fennessey?

  I believe there's been some digital alteration made to their faces.

• 29:54Amanda Dobbins?

  And freckles on Allison Williams.

• 29:56Sean Fennessey?

  Some freckles on Allison Williams's face. Which I, that doesn't go away when you get older, but nevertheless.

• 30:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, but you get lasers and stuff.

• 30:02Sean Fennessey?

  You think that this woman, Morgan Grant, has gotten lasers to have freckles removed?

• 30:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it does not really seem in the budget, but.

• 30:08Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, and they have, they share a moment as 17 year olds in a pool.

• 30:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:13Sean Fennessey?

  And look into each other's eyes. He's clutching her arms.

• 30:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:18Sean Fennessey?

  They have chemistry, they have something. Unexplored. Unexamined.

• 30:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 30:23Sean Fennessey?

  They go back to their mates, their partners.

• 30:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:26Sean Fennessey?

  But they're flashing back on this because obviously they're really, they're in love and they've always been in love.

• 30:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:30Sean Fennessey?

  And we know this at minute 42 of the film.

• 30:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 30:33Sean Fennessey?

  And then there's another hour and 10 minutes in this movie. Where we just have to like wait for them to get to the point where they realize that they're in love with each other. And then, oh, McKenna Grace finds out and she's devastated that they would be in love with each other. But she doesn't yet know that her father was cheating with her aunt, who was actually her best friend. And she's the person who she texted and this would be devastating to her, but then. The movie goes on, it's like, it's actually, it's okay. Everybody's gonna be happy, it's gonna work out, and people are gonna get into college.

• 30:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Drama school.

• 31:00Sean Fennessey?

  She's gonna get into drama school, and he's gonna become a film student, and he's gonna be the next Scorsese, and he's reading Sidney Lumet's Making Movies.

• 31:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's on the bedside table while they're making it up.

• 31:10Sean Fennessey?

  He's gotta post her Patriot Games and Witness on his wall as a 17-year-old boy living in North Carolina in 2025.

• 31:18Amanda Dobbins?

  He has everything, yeah.

• 31:19Sean Fennessey?

  What, what 17-year-old boy has a poster of Witness on their wall?

• 31:25Amanda Dobbins?

  If there is a listener at home, I mean, do they make movie posters of Witness anymore? It's probably a thousand dollars.

• 31:31Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sure you can get one, but like, well.

• 31:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know, someone like posted on Instagram recently that the podcast they started listening to when they were 16 was like now, and I was like, I can't.

• 31:42Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, about this show?

• 31:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so listen.

• 31:44Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely, we're all dead. If there are posters of a big picture, you know, send those to us.

• 31:48Amanda Dobbins?

  It is true that the movie references that I clocked in the background, like, do end in 2002?

• 31:55Sean Fennessey?

  Are they just Josh Boone's favorite movies? Like, what, is that in the novel? Did Colleen Hoover write him as a boy who was trapped inside of 1989? I'm so confused by all of that stuff.

• 32:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Didn't Google.

• 32:09Sean Fennessey?

  The movie is really silly, like, tonally, it's trying very hard to be dramatic, but it has cast a bunch of people who are kind of like light comic actors.

• 32:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And then allows them absolutely no comic relief. Like, Dave Franco doesn't get to do one funny thing, but he does have to say, before, you didn't even talk about how they get to the flashback, which is like they're sitting there commiserating in her living room.

• 32:37Amanda Dobbins?

  And she says something about, you know, remember when, like, I don't even remember this time or blah, blah, blah, I don't know. And he says, like, honestly, like a ro, truly like it's AI Dave Franco.

• 32:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 32:52Amanda Dobbins?

  You know what gets me there is the music of the time. And then he start, like, that, that is a real piece of dialogue that I wrote down verbatim on my phone during the screening.

• 33:02Sean Fennessey?

  The song that plays is like an anonymous stereophonic song?

• 33:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I had never heard it.

• 33:06Sean Fennessey?

  Like, it's just not a song that you're like, oh, God, this brings me right back to 2007 or whenever they're supposed to be going back to, and. It's just like a series of near misses with this.

• 33:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Jack just texted us, "I can't believe I'm getting this spoiled beat for beat." Which is really funny. Sorry, Jack.

• 33:22Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sorry to anybody who really wanted to see Regretting You. It's been in movie theaters for one month.

• 33:28Sean Fennessey?

  There are a series of moments like that where characters say things to each other. That I'm like, "Who? A person wrote this?" And individually-

• 33:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Did a person write this? We actually don't have confirmation that some of this dialogue wasn't written by a robot.

• 33:43Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, the screenplay is by Susan McMartin. I assume a person wrote this.

• 33:49Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk about Allison Williams and Dave Franco. I really like them both. I think they're both very funny and entertaining. I obviously have long had a soft spot for Allison Williams. Going back to Girls, I think she's really good at being in on the joke. Like, one of the great aspects of Marnie on Girls is that she kinda knows the weird desperate, "I need to be famous" thing that is in the tension of that character. Because she's also embodying that as Brian Williams's daughter and a young aspirant actress. And then if you've seen the movies that she's made in the last 10 years, especially the Megan films, there's an element of camp.

• 34:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 34:23Sean Fennessey?

  You know, she's becoming a genre queen. And she's a very nervy, right-on-the-surface actor. And that, directors usually know how to play that for laughs.

• 34:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. I mean, think to the famous scene of her and Get Out drinking the milk and Googling NBA draft prospects.

• 34:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. So, but this movie is like, "No, you're Meryl Streep. You have to be the most serious dramatic actress in America. And you have to sell this car accident? You have to sell your love for Dave Franco, who is normally extremely funny and energetic in movies and is a block of wood in this film."

• 34:56Amanda Dobbins?

  But also like a weirdly ripped block of wood? It's so confusing. I know, but it's like, it doesn't match his frame. You know what I mean?

• 35:03Sean Fennessey?

  But if you just flipped this and you made Willa Fitzgerald and Scott Eastwood, the two leads, and put Allison Williams and Dave Franco in the other parts, doesn't that make more sense?

• 35:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, but then Allison Franco and Dave, uh, no, Allison Williams and Dave Franco like disappear within 10 minutes of the movie, which is the problem.

• 35:23Sean Fennessey?

  We're not as sad about saying goodbye to those other two lesser known actors. But just in terms of like the quality of performance, like Scott Eastwood can definitely do what Dave Franco is being asked to do.

• 35:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 35:33Sean Fennessey?

  You know?

• 35:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is nothing.

• 35:34Sean Fennessey?

  Which is not very much, but to look good, right? To be desirable to a widow.

• 35:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:40Sean Fennessey?

  To be like a sweet dad who has a masculine energy that you're excited about as you're grieving.

• 35:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. At some point Allison Williams and Dave Franco have to go to like the local Holiday Inn where Scott Eastwood's car still is.

• 35:58Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:58Amanda Dobbins?

  And they never, it turns out Scott Eastwood and Willa Fitzgerald never checked out of the local Holiday Inn. So first Allison Williams is like, we used to come here for special occasions, which is like really, really depressing.

• 36:08Sean Fennessey?

  Extremely dark.

• 36:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, like they're trying to locate this in-

• 36:11Sean Fennessey?

  Is it a Holiday Inn?

• 36:12Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 36:12Sean Fennessey?

  Is it not like a Kimpton or something?

• 36:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think it's quite a Kimpton. I think it's somewhere in between. You're right that like it has more floors than I associate with a typical Holiday Inn or like extended stay.

• 36:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 36:24Amanda Dobbins?

  But like they're in like a very vast, empty parking lot that surrounds a hotel. It's not, it like, it's not screaming like staycation, you know?

• 36:34Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. And where in North Carolina are they?

• 36:36Amanda Dobbins?

  So I could, it seems like sort of-

• 36:39Sean Fennessey?

  Charlotte?

• 36:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I was gonna say more like Raleigh-Durham, like Research Triangle area, thereabouts.

• 36:44Sean Fennessey?

  Cool.

• 36:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Um-

• 36:45Sean Fennessey?

  Lovely area of, of North Carolina, I've been.

• 36:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So anyway, they drive there, they check out, they get their stuff. And then Allison Williams like is like trashing her dead husband's car.

• 36:59Sean Fennessey?

  Literally beating it.

• 37:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Literally beating it while wearing her home gear, which is like a, like a dupe for the, a row sweater. I think that's the coast sweater and sweatpants and her little Birkenstock things. And she's like trying to separate the muffler from the car. And I, it was the least compelling physical acting that I have seen.

• 37:23Amanda Dobbins?

  In my lifetime, perhaps? I'm just like, this is not a person who acts this way.

• 37:27Sean Fennessey?

  No, I, you know, she's trying. She's miscast.

• 37:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:33Sean Fennessey?

  I think the direction has let these guys down quite a bit. I think the material has really let them down.

• 37:40Amanda Dobbins?

  She's better when she's in like worried mom mode. Like, and that gets her closer to like control freak Marnie. Though like, Allison Williams is forever too much of a control freak to like have had a teen pregnancy.

• 37:53Sean Fennessey?

  That's a great point.

• 37:54Amanda Dobbins?

  And then like, and like be at this point in her life where she's just like, let go of everything. But when they're doing the inspiration board, you know? You can see, like, I can see Allison Williams being like, now I will manifest this. I can see her dipping in being like, you need to get your attitude right before you sleep with your...

• 38:13Sean Fennessey?

  No, you're right. The stuff between her and McKenna Grace is actually probably the best stuff in the movie. And that is maybe the most, that feels the most real. Like, I don't know if Colleen Hoover's a mom or not, but there's definitely something about the tension between teen girls and their moms, and especially younger moms who are closer in age to their daughters. And that there is like a closeness that then can really fracture hard.

• 38:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 38:33Sean Fennessey?

  And that stuff is cool, and we've seen it before in movies, but like, it doesn't, it's not, it's not embarrassing. Kind of anytime there's a boy on the screen.

• 38:41Amanda Dobbins?

  It's horrifying.

• 38:42Sean Fennessey?

  Alien?

• 38:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 38:43Sean Fennessey?

  Um, the Mason Thames character and the Dave Franco character are both so weird.

• 38:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Can we talk about how...

• 38:49Sean Fennessey?

  They have no interior life.

• 38:50Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, excuse me, excuse me. The teen boy character, I can't say Mason.

• 38:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 38:56Amanda Dobbins?

  One name Mason, because I don't know how to pronounce his last name. Works at an AMC, and there is extensive AMC spawn con?

• 39:03Sean Fennessey?

  So much.

• 39:04Amanda Dobbins?

  In this film?

• 39:05Sean Fennessey?

  So much.

• 39:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you've got the logos, you've got, do they make like a, like a A-list joke?

• 39:14Sean Fennessey?

  They do.

• 39:14Amanda Dobbins?

  In the film, like, multiple scenes are set there?

• 39:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Did these films, did this film play in Regal theaters?

• 39:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I saw it at a Regal, so I was like, what's going on here?

• 39:23Sean Fennessey?

  It's fascinating.

• 39:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Um...

• 39:25Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think they had fewer screening times, fewer screens? In other competing theaters because of this clear relationship between the studio?

• 39:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't do the work. I didn't do the research, but I would assume so.

• 39:39Sean Fennessey?

  So this guy works at an AMC, but he's like, my favorite movie is Patriot Games.

• 39:44Sean Fennessey?

  Very weird. Like, what, not a movie you saw when you were 10?

• 39:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I, listen, I don't know.

• 39:50Sean Fennessey?

  In 2015?

• 39:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, maybe he's just really into Harrison Ford.

• 39:54Sean Fennessey?

  Again, like, what?

• 39:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 39:56Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Um.

• 39:59Sean Fennessey?

  Mason Tams' character's fine. There's, they're definitely are boys like that. I'm kind of a boy like that. Or like, I love old movies and I'm a cinephile and all that stuff, but it just feels like very manufactured.

• 40:07Amanda Dobbins?

  He's employed, you know?

• 40:09Sean Fennessey?

  He's employed. And he, and he has, he has great care for his relatives, right? He's really looking Clancy Brown, the great Clancy Brown, one of the great character actors. Kind of just like doing his absolute best.

• 40:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 40:21Sean Fennessey?

  I think he knows this isn't his best, the best material he's ever been a part of.

• 40:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Also, Mason's character, uh, takes McKenna Grace's character on a date to see Clueless at the aforementioned AMC.

• 40:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, let's think about that.

• 40:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And then they're ma- well, they were making out too much to actually see the film, but that's okay. But then they do have a moment to discuss that she is still a virgin, much like Cher. And that she's gonna wait until, they're gonna wait until prom night and he's very respectful.

• 40:48Sean Fennessey?

  So nice to just see Dan Hedaya projected on screen again, you know? Just that, that, his wonderful performance in Clueless as Cher's dad. So this movie, of course, is, is, is a hit. It's a more modest hit than It Ends With Us, but it's kind of tracking to get over $50 million in the US, which is a lot for these kinds of movies, especially this fall where we've been talking about how movies are not doing so hot. And you, you were, you were kind of circling this, but like, I'm, what does this mean is an interesting conversation? We've got two more Colleen Hoover movies coming next year.

• 41:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:19Sean Fennessey?

  You've got Reminders of Him, starring Micah Monroe, and then Verity, which stars Dakota Johnson.

• 41:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Reminders of Him also stars Bradley Whitford and, uh, Lauren Graham as the parents.

• 41:28Sean Fennessey?

  And Tyreek Withers.

• 41:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, and they ask, uh, Bradley Whitford to punch Tyreek Withers at some point during the trailer, which I only recently saw, and I was, I was very, very concerned.

• 41:41Sean Fennessey?

  I think Bradley Whitford also gets to say the line. If not for her, our son would still be alive.

• 41:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:48Sean Fennessey?

  And I want to point that out because that film also features a critical car crash as a plot point.

• 41:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:54Sean Fennessey?

  So like, how many car crashes are there in the Colleen Hoover universe?

• 41:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I don't know. I, because I have-

• 42:00Sean Fennessey?

  Is this a recurrence where like, people keep dying in car crashes and then that gets the engine of the story going? Pardon the pun.

• 42:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I probably, I mean, I think some of the other, I have not read the full oeuvre. There are many, many books. I mean, I think like, domestic violence or like, bad relationships.

• 42:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 42:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, are also a theme. What, and like, and I shouldn't conflate the two, but like, you know, on, domestic violence is one theme and then also just sort of imbalance of power and, you know, like emotional abuse maybe. And then, uh, I think teen pregnancy.

• 42:34Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Definitely figures and, um, not a lot of things where it's just people, like, ships passing in the night, you know?

• 42:45Sean Fennessey?

  So, I just, I just want to say, there's nothing inherently wrong.

• 42:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:49Sean Fennessey?

  With melodrama.

• 42:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:50Sean Fennessey?

  And melodrama has been a part of Hollywood history, like, always, you know, like.

• 42:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:56Sean Fennessey?

  Gone with the Wind is a melodrama. Douglas Stirk movies, like, uh, The Way We Were, speaking of Redford, Steel Magnolias, like. These kinds of movies have always been here. They're always successful. The movies I just named are good. And this, these movies are, these Colleen Hoover stories just seem like real rickety and lame.

• 43:15Sean Fennessey?

  I understand why they work. I do feel that for the last like, 20 years prior to her rise, a lot of this stuff was confined to Lifetime? The Lifetime Channel?

• 43:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, to me, Nicholas Sparks is the, um, is, is the.

• 43:32Sean Fennessey?

  The analog?

• 43:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And, you know, I had written in my notes, like, it's like Nicholas Sparks, like, minus the teen pregnancy, but then I Googled the plots of a lot of Nicholas Sparks novels because there are many of them. He's publishing at a volume, not unlike Colleen Hoover. And there are a lot of people who ha- are single parents or had their kids young or whatever. Ever. So he might be slightly more interested in older people.

• 43:58Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I was gonna say. I think of that as a frame for him.

• 44:00Amanda Dobbins?

  But I think, but that's also just because those are the more successful adaptations that were, you know, like specifically The Notebook, which does also have, you know, the teens, teen versions of those characters have sex in the room with the piano in, in the house.

• 44:15Sean Fennessey?

  Colleen Hoover, to me, and this is completely speculative, having just seen two movie adaptations of her work, but she seems to be singling out single divorced moms. Like, that seems to be like her core audience in terms of the stories that she's telling and the kinds of characters that she wants you to feel for. Which is, of course, like a ripe audience. That's, there's plenty of people who would love to read stories where they feel seen in those stories. There's nothing really inherently wrong with that. I'm just kinda like, okay, so now, this is three movies in a row, just having seen the reminders of him trailer, where I'm like, something, something bad happened and then we gotta spend an hour figuring out like, what happens next after the bad thing that happened?

• 44:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And do people, but I mean, that is, I'm looking at all of the Nicholas Sparks adaptations. The Notebook, for sure. Something bad happened. They were separated. And then we, and then dementia. A Walk to Remember.

• 45:05Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't seen that.

• 45:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I think, I think that's cancer. I think that's like terminal illness.

• 45:09Sean Fennessey?

  Is that Mandy Moore?

• 45:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 45:11Sean Fennessey?

  And Shane West?

• 45:12Amanda Dobbins?

  That sounds correct. Yes. And, uh, let's just make sure that it's Shane West. It is. Yes. Message in a Bottle. I don't really remember what happened to.

• 45:23Sean Fennessey?

  That's Costner, right?

• 45:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah. Kevin Costner.

• 45:25Sean Fennessey?

  Robin Wright pen?

• 45:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And she's a newspaper editor.

• 45:28Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 45:29Amanda Dobbins?

  But I think he lost someone in his life.

• 45:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 45:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, Dear John is Amanda Seyfried and Channing Tatum. Don't really remember what happened.

• 45:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Last Song, Miley Cyrus, Liam Hemsworth. That's young people and something bad happened.

• 45:41Sean Fennessey?

  Should we do a Nick Sparks pod?

• 45:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess so. I mean, but it is, you know, I, these are all ridiculous. They're young love or people.

• 45:49Sean Fennessey?

  Hit me with an anniversary. What's a good 2026 anniversary? Is there any 2006 Nick Sparks movies?

• 45:54Amanda Dobbins?

  So The Choice, which I've never seen. Let's Google The Choice. A 2016 romantic drama. Two neighbors who fall in love at their first meeting. The movie stars Benjamin Walker, who I loved. Teresa Palmer, Maggie Grace, Alexandra Daddario.

• 46:10Sean Fennessey?

  Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Go back. Teresa Palmer, Maggie Grace, and Alexandra Daddario in the same movie?

• 46:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. Tom Welling. And I, I will give you it $1 million if you can name the, the aunt and who, who's the last person credited here.

• 46:24Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 46:27Sean Fennessey?

  Whoopi Goldberg.

• 46:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Tom Wilkinson.

• 46:32Amanda Dobbins?

  All right, so what happens in this? So Travis is a veterinarian and also another similarity between Colin Hoover movies and Nicholas Sparks. Nicholas Sparks movies are all, films are all set in.

• 46:41Sean Fennessey?

  The South.

• 46:41Amanda Dobbins?

  In North Carolina, because that's where he is. So this is Wilmington, North Carolina. Falls in love with Gabby Holland. She lives in the house next door. They don't like each other at first. There's a complication with a rescue dog and puppies. Uh, they spend time together. They start a relationship. Other people come back. Uh oh, traffic accident. She survives it, is now in a coma. Travis has shown her DNR order and asks to sign it. Oh, my God, does he sign it? As a hurricane hits their house. Moby helps Travis find the wind chimes. Uh, uh, she's welcomed Gabby. Gabby, Gabby wakes up.

• 47:19Sean Fennessey?

  Wait.

• 47:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Gabby wakes up.

• 47:20Sean Fennessey?

  I thought we were supposed to do this with a pod. What are you doing?

• 47:24Sean Fennessey?

  Why did you do that?

• 47:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I was, I needed to, I was gonna keep reading. It's on Wikipedia. Um, and, and there's also, oh, there's a child, but it's not theirs. And great, okay. Woo. So the choice was actually, it was not about abortion, but it was related. And they chose quote unquote, life.

• 47:44Sean Fennessey?

  It's so perfect that we've talked about this film and this wave of films ahead of the sentimental value conversation.

• 47:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:51Sean Fennessey?

  Because they're not dissimilar.

• 47:57Amanda Dobbins?

  You're right, you're right, you're right.

• 47:59Sean Fennessey?

  Like sentimental value.

• 48:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:01Sean Fennessey?

  Is a drama with elements of melodrama. It is a family drama. In which misunderstandings between family members have seeded over long periods of time.

• 48:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:12Sean Fennessey?

  And have, have, has driven division between people who ostensibly love each other.

• 48:20Sean Fennessey?

  It's kind of a perfect match, though, to say like, here's how you can do it one way, and here's how you can do it another way. Now, you don't have to like either one, or you can love both. I'm not saying that they're mutually exclusive. And I didn't have the worst time ever regretting you. I thought it was, I think if you go in looking to laugh, it's a lot of fun. Because the line readings are preposterous.

• 48:39Amanda Dobbins?

  We didn't even talk about the Third Eye Blind, Grey's Anatomy cover. Every one of these has like a ridiculous-

• 48:45Sean Fennessey?

  The music is absurd.

• 48:46Amanda Dobbins?

  -song of our youth covered in the like Wispy style that was often featured of-

• 48:51Sean Fennessey?

  The YouTube style cover.

• 48:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And this was How's It Gonna Be? Which is iconic stuff.

• 48:55Sean Fennessey?

  All bad. And sentimental value as well. Like, music is a huge part of it. It's like kind of a needle drop bonanza, where there's all these songs that Trier is choosing to kind of make you feel something, but they're all slightly more obscure and slightly more, you know, arthouse artistic. I've been looking forward to talking with you about this movie. So this movie is like, one of the big movies at Cannes.

• 49:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 49:17Sean Fennessey?

  I think we've seen now, and we'll get into it when we do the rankings, that really the Cannes films have kind of held weight over a nine-month period that has defined this year. And one of the reasons why I think that the fall has felt so soft to us is because we've kind of known about all these movies for a very long period of time. So when you look at this, and you look at It Was Just an Accident, and you look at Blue Moon, which was at Berlin, and you look, like, a handful of films that really made their mark in the spring, it didn't feel like what hit in September and October felt very meaningful. But sentimental value now, after hearing about it for a long time, is finally in theaters, it's going wide this week. And it is a reunion of Trier and Renate Reinsve, who I think made a lot of noise in the United States with The Worst Person in the World.

• 50:00Sean Fennessey?

  Trier's been making movies for 20 years, but that film seemed to click more. It was Academy Award nominated. Renate Reinsve's now been kind of like, integrated into the Hollywood system. And then also, the film also stars Dylan Skarsgård and Elle Fanning, two very familiar faces to US movie fans.

• 50:19Sean Fennessey?

  Also Inga Ibsdottir-Lilius, who is the sister character to Renato Renzi's character, and Anders Danielson Lee also appears in the film. He appears in almost every movie that Trier makes. So the story of this movie is after the death of their mother Cecil, sisters Nora and Agnes are forced to confront their father Gustav, who is a once famous filmmaker, who's been kind of estranged over a period of time. Nora is an actress, Agnes is a researcher. They have a complex relationship as sisters. They have a complex relationship to their father. And then the film uses the home that they grew up in, which then is now empty after their mother has passed away, as a kind of portal into their family history.

• 51:00Sean Fennessey?

  So, much like The Worst Person in the World, this is like a very montage-driven, very literary portrayal of a few people in crisis as opposed to a single person in crisis. Like, Worst Person in the World was like one woman's Saturn's Return, like going crazy for two and a half hours.

• 51:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 51:17Sean Fennessey?

  And this is sort of like if everyone was all having their Saturn Returns at the same time.

• 51:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm really moved that you're using Saturn Returns.

• 51:24Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's what it is.

• 51:25Amanda Dobbins?

  It is, but I didn't know you. And once again, I didn't know that's the internet you were on.

• 51:28Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I have a lot of depth. So, I love The Worst Person in the World. I really like Trier's movies. I don't love all of the films that came before this. You know, he did this like Oslo trilogy. That was the worst person was the final film in that group. But this is one of my favorite movies of the year. I was like completely knocked out by it emotionally. I think there's like a discovery as an actor here. There's like an actor that I've always loved in Stellan Skarsgård, I think doing like some of his best work. It has been interesting, though, to watch, and I eagerly await your thoughts on it, a mixed response in the last couple of months.

• 52:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. So, I mean, this won the, what is the name of the second prize at Cannes?

• 52:08Sean Fennessey?

  Grand Prix.

• 52:08Amanda Dobbins?

  The Grand Prix at Cannes and was immediately identified out of Cannes as one of the big awards contenders, I think, in a large part because of Worst Person in the World's. You know, success here in the US. And then you, I believe, saw it this summer. And you texted me sentimental value will win best picture.

• 52:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, before I had seen One Battle.

• 52:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, exactly. But so I remember that text message very much. I absolutely loved Worst Person in the World. So I think that was my favorite movie of of that year.

• 52:41Sean Fennessey?

  When I saw that movie, I thought of you the whole time.

• 52:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 52:43Sean Fennessey?

  I was like, this is such an Amanda movie.

• 52:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I like, it was electric. So all this is in my expectations were incredibly high. And I saw it much later than everyone else. And I think that the most responsible way that I can put this is that this is the the After Sun Annual I'm Dead Inside Award for the film I just didn't that I admired and I think is structurally and intellectually very sound, incredible performances. Like, everything is there and I just didn't connect to it. Like, I just didn't. I I understand why other people did. And and but I've like, I feel like a little outside, like left out, like, what am I missing? I've seen it twice because I was so confused the first time.

• 53:26Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 53:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I think some of that is because of

• 53:32Amanda Dobbins?

  the the subject matter. And I think that this is a film about family relationships and making art and also like about depressed characters, about multiple depressed characters and how they how they express it over time.

• 53:46Sean Fennessey?

  It is very much the cycle of depression through families.

• 53:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. But a lot of it is centered in Nora, the Renata Renzvi character, who is playing. I mean, it's a very, very honest representation of depression, but it is like, it's durational.

• 54:06Sean Fennessey?

  It's cinematic inertia. Yeah, yeah, because she's not talking. And she's feeling pain, but quietly.

• 54:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And so and and it communicates the inability to connect. And at some points, I've wondered, is my inability to connect with this like part of the point? Because that is what it feels like to be depressed. And and I would know because I've been there. So but it is still also a film. And so you're trying to invest in their protagonists. And I like, I couldn't quite get there. And then. There are so many other things going on around it that I didn't, I never knew what I was supposed to latch on to. And there was nothing to latch on to. And that is, again, a great definition of depression.

• 54:58Amanda Dobbins?

  But tricky as a movie.

• 54:59Sean Fennessey?

  Can I tell you what I latched on to?

• 55:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:02Sean Fennessey?

  This was even more acute the second time that I saw the movie. Because when I sat down to watch it the first time, I was going in expecting Renata Renzvi, our new Meryl Streep. This will be her centerpiece performance. It will be an even bigger film than the last film.

• 55:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 55:17Sean Fennessey?

  You have to see this because of what she does in this movie.

• 55:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:20Sean Fennessey?

  And she's not given a lot, she's given a lot to do in that very first sequence that we see her where she has stage fright. And then after that, she kind of recedes within the movie. And she has a couple of confrontations with her dad, but it's not as explosive as you expect it to be. And in fact, her sister and her father are the ones who get more to play in the movie. But a constant conversation between my wife and I in our life is what does our daughter have that comes from her and what comes from me? And what is a trait that I have and what is a trait that my wife has? And the way that you pass things down to your kids. And in this movie, Nora and Gustav, the father and the daughter, are very similar. And it can be beautiful to be very similar to one of your parents. And it can be really challenging to be similar to one of your parents.

• 56:03Sean Fennessey?

  And they're like two magnets and they repel each other. They can't connect. And so because we don't get any scenes, really, of Stellan Skarsgård and Renata Renzvi connecting and making sparks. It feels like anti cinematic, but I feel like it's very true to what it's like to be in a family. And I have these relationships with people in my family. So you don't get some of the things that you, there's a real lack of catharsis in this movie at times.

• 56:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 56:31Sean Fennessey?

  Where you're looking for it. But that felt like a very honest representation to me of what it's like to be close but apart from somebody that you care about. And the Gustav character, I think maybe just for me specifically, is just kind of a catnip guy. He's like a distant father who's a filmmaker. So all of his concerns, all of his egotism, all of his creativity, all of his nostalgia and longing, all of his sense of self. That's just a, that's a rich character for me. I'm just into that. I love directors. I've interviewed hundreds of directors on this podcast because I think they're so interesting. They're these like. Domineering figures who are also so sensitive and wounded and like really want to be understood. It's a really unusual personality type.

• 57:13Sean Fennessey?

  And it's not just men, the female filmmakers are like that too, but there's especially an older male director is like, is a rich character to me. And Trier is a guy who's from a long line of filmmakers in Norway. His grandfather was a filmmaker, his father was a sound designer, he's a director. This feels like a very true representation of those kinds of guys.

• 57:33Amanda Dobbins?

  So I think there's also, and you're saying it's purposeful and creating a, that is the intent to create the feeling, like the disjointedness. But there, there are several different movies in this film. And so you can really see that the Stellan Skarsgård character and his adventures with the Elle Fanning character, who is playing an American movie star who comes to Gustav's work.

• 58:03Sean Fennessey?

  At the Deauville Film Festival, which I would love to visit.

• 58:06Amanda Dobbins?

  As would I.

• 58:08Sean Fennessey?

  Deauville, Deauville, Du- Duville.

• 58:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I think Deauville.

• 58:10Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 58:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And she is at the height of, or you know, ascendant in Hollywood. And sees his film and wants to work with him. And so he gets slurped into the Hollywood machine for a bit. And it doesn't really pan out. And the whole process is played, she's like very responsible about the whole thing. All the people around her are hilarious, including the, the tall man who played Chevy Chase.

• 58:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 58:41Amanda Dobbins?

  What's his name?

• 58:43Sean Fennessey?

  Corey Smith.

• 58:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And you know, she has, she has a team that are just always on their phones, all surrounding her as she tries to have an artistic connection with this person.

• 58:53Sean Fennessey?

  This movie's a bit unsparing about Hollywood and Netflix.

• 58:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. And so it did feel like that was written from his experience. That was all very knowing and, and very funny and very sharp. But then how it connects to the Nora, the Renata Renzvi character. By the way, it was like not lost in me that her name was Nora, you know, like hello. That's a, you know, from A Doll's House, which is a Nidsin play.

• 59:22Amanda Dobbins?

  And one of the great female characters in the theatrical tradition, but. I it's I guess it's like not supposed to connect until the end, but like it really doesn't connect. So until the end.

• 59:35Sean Fennessey?

  Which part? What aspect?

• 59:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Do Stalin scars guards like Hollywood adventures and you know Nora and Renata Renzby like not being able to go on stage?

• 59:43Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I I think I think I understood it much more the second time, but I felt like I understood it the first time, too, which is just like the failures of the Gustav character.

• 59:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 59:54Sean Fennessey?

  And his desire to reconnect and her unwillingness to reconnect lead to him on this journey of trying to replace the feeling of having a daughter.

• 1:00:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:00:02Sean Fennessey?

  And he can't. And I thought that the first of all, the first time I watched it, I thought Elle Fanning was a little out of place in this movie. And then the second time I watched it, I thought she was one of the best parts about the movie.

• 1:00:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:00:11Sean Fennessey?

  And I think she's given a really hard job here with this part.

• 1:00:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:14Sean Fennessey?

  Because she nine times out of 10, this character is written as like flip and uninteresting and unintelligent and just like a vacuous Hollywood vessel.

• 1:00:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:26Sean Fennessey?

  And I think she's really trying to they're trying to write her and she's trying to portray a really sincere person who's trying to do better work. And she's been cast into this impossible situation where she's not the filmmaker's daughter and she's not the filmmaker's mother and the filmmaker is trying to reckon with all of these feelings that he has about this long history that he would never know how to talk to his family about, but that he can only work through in his art about the way that these people are trapped by their own despair. And Elle Fanning is like doing everything she can as an artist to try to meet the moment. She's gonna.

• 1:01:02Amanda Dobbins?

  You mean Elle Fanning's character?

• 1:01:04Sean Fennessey?

  Elle Fanning's character, yes.

• 1:01:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:01:05Sean Fennessey?

  She's trying to sound more like a Norwegian. She's trying to look more like his daughter.

• 1:01:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:12Sean Fennessey?

  She's trying to live inside the experience of this home and try to basically go to like one of the darkest stories you'll ever see in a movie, just a very Bergman-esque like, you know, a despairing mother who commits suicide. And then like apparently that's the end of the film. That's that's a lot, lot, lot of weight to put on a character and she can't get there. And the movie shows them, I I think that scene is really beautiful where.

• 1:01:35Amanda Dobbins?

  She comes back and he says, you could have just gone through agents.

• 1:01:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:01:38Amanda Dobbins?

  But no, I do as well. And I think.

• 1:01:40Sean Fennessey?

  I I think there's like a radical empathy thing that is corny, but I think actually really works in his movies. And I know that some people are just going to reject it and not like it, but I I just feel like it does feel sincere to me.

• 1:01:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I completely agree. And you know, it's like, I like both of those performances. And I, I like that storyline. And there's also a part when Stellan Skarsgård is trying to make the film. And he goes to meet his old editor, I believe. His old cinematographer. He's all cinematographer. Yeah. Um, and it's about, you know, like, oh, we can just pick up right where we left off. But time comes for us all. And, and, and also his, uh,

• 1:02:18Amanda Dobbins?

  him confronting like his own loyalty versus his aspirations. Yes. Yeah, like, it's, it's great. And I also, I don't mean to dismiss the, the Nora plotline where, like, all of her, all of her stage fright, which is, you know, very obvious psychological stuff just manifesting is bizarre and riveting and memorable. And she's very, very good. And I understand intellectually how they're connected. But I think the only time I felt anything emotionally, there were two scenes, which is one with the other daughter, Agnes.

• 1:02:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Tells her father Gustav that she doesn't want her son to be in the film because of the same experience she had being in one of Gustav's, Gustav's films as a child. And this, this actress, um, who is new to me. Mm hmm. Lights out amazing throughout. Also looks so much like our friend Carrie. I was like, I had to see it twice because the first time I was just like, this is really weird. They found like Norwegian Carrie. That's funny. But,

• 1:03:27Amanda Dobbins?

  but she, and I think her character is supposed to be the one who can synthesize emotion. Um, and at the end, she also synthesizes emotion to, she, she acts as a conduit between these two characters. So I get it. But that means that you only really like feel emotion when you have her and/or when they're talking about the house. This is a fantastic house movie. And I think some of it is that the film opens with, um, it from the house's perspective.

• 1:03:57Sean Fennessey?

  How did, you know, we didn't talk about this when we talked about Train Dreams, but this movie in Train Dreams used the same tool, which is a narrator.

• 1:04:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:03Sean Fennessey?

  And in an attempt to be even more literary, to kind of grace us with context for what's happening with these characters. The key character that the narrator shares with us, especially the beginning of Sentimental Value, is the house that you're talking about, where we learn about kind of its lifespan, what it has lived through, what the family has lived through in this home, when they were in, when they were out, when someone came in to take care of it, when they returned to it.

• 1:04:28Sean Fennessey?

  I can see why people would not like that, that there is like a pretentiousness potentially into the way that that's delivered.

• 1:04:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I loved it.

• 1:04:35Sean Fennessey?

  That didn't bother you?

• 1:04:35Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, I mean, the only issue is that like the movie, the film starts that way and it's so tight. And so has such a point of view and like evokes emotions and sets the scene. And then I think the rest of the film becomes a bit more distant. Until you get one more shot of the home where like,

• 1:04:55Amanda Dobbins?

  to me, the most emotional part of this film was a late in life shot of the home.

• 1:05:01Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:05:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know what that says about me.

• 1:05:03Sean Fennessey?

  Not Inga Ibsdottir like losing it in front of her father about after they had that experience making the movie together? And then?

• 1:05:12Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I don't know. I mean, like, I thought that was really good, but this structure of the-

• 1:05:17Sean Fennessey?

  You are dead inside.

• 1:05:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I said that I was. That's the name of the award, you know?

• 1:05:21Sean Fennessey?

  It's a good award.

• 1:05:22Amanda Dobbins?

  And listen, also, After Sun, also a film about parents and depression.

• 1:05:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:05:26Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and I think communicates the experience, like an amazing performances. Formerly like interesting and playing with those ideas as well.

• 1:05:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yep, they're similar.

• 1:05:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but there is like a, just a connectedness that I, I know I've said that 45 times, but I feel on the outside.

• 1:05:45Sean Fennessey?

  You, you may not know this yet, because I don't think you've seen the film, but we will be talking about After Sun again, because of a choice made in a movie that is coming out in December.

• 1:05:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm, I mean, I have seen-

• 1:05:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I don't know which film, but now that I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking about the shot in Sentimental Value, where it's the three faces and they're going right, which is not similar to the end of the After Sun.

• 1:06:08Sean Fennessey?

  That's not what I'm referring to.

• 1:06:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Are you, is that another Paul Meskell film?

• 1:06:11Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:06:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:06:13Sean Fennessey?

  I don't want to spoil it for you.

• 1:06:14Amanda Dobbins?

  All right.

• 1:06:16Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, it's probably good because I think we're-

• 1:06:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I know what movie you're talking about now. People gotta just really keep their, um, their display tighter. Uh, cause I know now and it's been spoiled for me.

• 1:06:25Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sorry to hear that.

• 1:06:26Amanda Dobbins?

  It's okay.

• 1:06:28Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's probably good that we're representing the two sides of the coin in terms of how this movie will be received. Cause I think some people will be like, this didn't really do too much for me, but I do respect it.

• 1:06:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:36Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and some people will say like, this kind of moved me to tears. I, I think I really like what Trier does formally too. I think like his use of montage, his sense of like disorienting where you are in the story at any given time. His ease and comfort moving back and forth between the past and the present day. And then, you know, there's a very clever reveal at the end of the film in terms of what is being, what is being displayed. I think he's got real moves. Like I just think he's a really interesting, um-

• 1:07:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally agree with all of that.

• 1:07:04Sean Fennessey?

  Movies, you know? And it's been so interesting watching a lot of critics that I really respect be like, I didn't buy this at all. And I, I get, I, you know, it's just, it's obviously a completely subjective experience, but he is trying to do something that is super sincere. And that sincerity can sometimes really bump up against people too, as being just like a little bit too much, a little bit too cute, a little bit too-

• 1:07:24Amanda Dobbins?

  But I would also say that there's a real distance to the sincerity.

• 1:07:28Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:28Amanda Dobbins?

  That it doesn't, you know, you, you can feel both of those things, but you'd like to have it, you know, far away from you.

• 1:07:37Sean Fennessey?

  But you always frame me as that way, but I love a really sincere movie.

• 1:07:40Amanda Dobbins?

  So, I mean, so do I, like the right kind of, I mean, it's a great title for a movie. Sentiment, like, I actually will buy into sentimentality more than you will, and I think that this has none. And I, I mean, it's, which is the point, right?

• 1:07:54Sean Fennessey?

  That's the thing.

• 1:07:55Amanda Dobbins?

  So, um-

• 1:07:57Sean Fennessey?

  This stuff is sincere, but it is.

• 1:07:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:00Sean Fennessey?

  It's it's meant to be missing the kind of gloppiness that comes with sentimentality.

• 1:08:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:08:05Sean Fennessey?

  Now, as I said, I've seen some critics say like, it's actually working against itself. That by trying to reveal that there is like a hard truth underneath.

• 1:08:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:13Sean Fennessey?

  The performance of family or love or whatever. That it's actually exposing that there's like artifice in this creation. I I don't see it that way, but I do respect it. I did think a bit, the second time I saw it of The Royal Tenenbaums. I do think that.

• 1:08:25Amanda Dobbins?

  For sure.

• 1:08:25Sean Fennessey?

  It actually has a lot in common with that movie.

• 1:08:27Amanda Dobbins?

  The the narration and starting with the house and where everyone is in the house.

• 1:08:31Sean Fennessey?

  Strong patriarch comes back into the family, a family of artists or lost artists. People who are aspiring to be bigger.

• 1:08:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Depression.

• 1:08:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the mental stability of the family, you know, the fact that like someone like Chaz is inherited a lot from his own father, but they can't really connect with each other. So I also think it's like pretty funny. Like, there's an incredible scene where Gustav, who's reconnected with his family, comes to see his grandson on his eight year eighth birthday. And he gives him a birthday present and, you know, we love to see it. He gives him physical media.

• 1:08:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:59Sean Fennessey?

  Gives him the piano teacher an irreversible on DVD.

• 1:09:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Really funny.

• 1:09:03Sean Fennessey?

  Which is just great stuff for an eight year old. Um, and it is a movie about like reconciliation, which is hard. But also, I feel this very much in my own life. Once I had a kid, I just have immediate empathy for my parents and I just understand my parents a lot better. I understand why they did what they did to survive. I understand why they it doesn't mean that everything is forgiven or everything is accepted. But I understand. And.

• 1:09:28Amanda Dobbins?

  It's funny, I don't at all. I I opposite direction. Uh, but that's.

• 1:09:31Sean Fennessey?

  That's fascinating.

• 1:09:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, but that's.

• 1:09:33Sean Fennessey?

  That's so you.

• 1:09:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, I think mistakes were made.

• 1:09:37Sean Fennessey?

  Well, of course, of course, but the circumstances under which they transpired matter. They matter. Think about how you felt when things were hard.

• 1:09:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, we don't, we don't need to get into it. This is not my therapy session, but.

• 1:09:49Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's the fact that it wants to confront you with those ideas, though. I think it's to its credit. And I'm I'm kind of curious about how this movie goes through the world.

• 1:09:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's it is, um, I think been the highest grossing per screen release of the year. And in its limited release, it does seem like it is connect. It feels like one of the very few art house movies where it has strong word of mouth.

• 1:10:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:10:11Sean Fennessey?

  You know, the Angelica Theaters of the world are like, we love this movie, right? The kind of the more informed cinephile cineastes are checking it out. You know, I don't, I don't think it's going to make a hundred million dollars or anything, but it.

• 1:10:24Sean Fennessey?

  It's going to be present in our lives over the next few months.

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• 1:11:59Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk quickly about the Oscars around it, unless there's anything else you want to say about the film. You can listen to me talk with Joachim as well. He spoke in great detail about the making of the movie, but we'll get into all the Best Picture stuff soon. It's definitely going to be nominated for Best Picture. I would be stunned if it was not nominated for Best Picture. Actress?

• 1:12:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Everyone's been holding a spot.

• 1:12:19Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:12:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, it's, it is a good performance, but again, sort of the, by definition, the black hole at the center of the film, because that is what she's trying to represent. So, I don't know, I think it's, there are 10 spots in Best Picture and 5 spots in Best Actress. So you could see it going a little to the wayside.

• 1:12:44Sean Fennessey?

  There are 2 contenders for Supporting Actress.

• 1:12:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:12:47Sean Fennessey?

  You've got Elle Fanning and Inga Ipsdatter-Lilias, Inga Lilias Ipsdatter? I want to make sure I'm getting it.

• 1:12:52Amanda Dobbins?

  No, Inga Ipsdatter-Lilias, yeah.

• 1:12:54Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:12:56Sean Fennessey?

  Either, neither?

• 1:12:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it would be Inga Ipsdatter-Lilias. I know Elle Fanning's having like a, you know, she's in Predator, she's in something else.

• 1:13:04Sean Fennessey?

  Will you watch Predator: Badlands?

• 1:13:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I listened to most of you guys talking about it on the podcast. Um, my tradition is to enjoy the Predator films as acted out by Chris Ryan.

• 1:13:14Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:13:14Amanda Dobbins?

  So, um, I respect her and salute Elle Fanning and all that she's doing.

• 1:13:19Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:20Amanda Dobbins?

  What's the 3rd thing that I'm nothing? Oh, the Hunger Games trailer.

• 1:13:23Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 1:13:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Everyone, I'm very sorry, Lenny Kravitz was the stylist in The Hunger Games, but he made such-

• 1:13:28Sean Fennessey?

  Fucked up.

• 1:13:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, I fucked up, I'm really sorry.

• 1:13:30Sean Fennessey?

  You were so confident, too.

• 1:13:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, because I remembered the stylist being so key, I think his name was Sina with a C, and I didn't Google that. So I fucked up, but also, like, it did stay with me.

• 1:13:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, and may this feeling stay with you.

• 1:13:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen-

• 1:13:45Sean Fennessey?

  Of being incorrect.

• 1:13:45Amanda Dobbins?

  When you're wrong, you're wrong. And you gotta own it.

• 1:13:48Sean Fennessey?

  That's right, you gotta own it.

• 1:13:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Here I am, I fucked up.

• 1:13:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Um, let's talk about Supporting Actor.

• 1:13:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:54Sean Fennessey?

  Because this is very, this is probably the place where this movie gets recognized.

• 1:14:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:02Sean Fennessey?

  Now, Stellan Skarsgård, I think you could make the case as the lead of this film.

• 1:14:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I do as well, I think you just made the case that what you responded to in this film was, uh, Stellan Skarsgård's story.

• 1:14:13Sean Fennessey?

  He gets the most depth, you know, he get, or at least, if Renata Renzwe doesn't have as much dialogue, because of what her character is enduring, he gets to be, explore the most about his life and how he sees the world, and his relationships through a number of different ways. He's being pitched as the Supporting Actor, maybe because they think he has a, just a better chance to win it. I think at the European Film Awards, he was nominated for Best Lead.

• 1:14:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:35Sean Fennessey?

  Which should tell you something. Um- So, supporting actor this year, I'm gonna give you some, some names.

• 1:14:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:14:41Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. This is again, coming from Variety. Andrew Scott for Blue Moon.

• 1:14:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:47Sean Fennessey?

  Billy Crudup for J. Kelly, rising in people's minds.

• 1:14:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:50Sean Fennessey?

  Delroy Lindo in Sinners, William H. Macy in Train Dreams, Adam Sandler in J. Kelly. And then the top five here, Jacob Elordi in Frankenstein, Paul Mescal in Hamlet, Benicio del Toro in One Battle After Another, Sean Penn in One Battle After Another, and sitting in first place is Stellan Skarsgård.

• 1:15:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I think Stellan, Benicio, and Sean Penn are locks. Maybe not locks, but...

• 1:15:14Sean Fennessey?

  They feel tight.

• 1:15:16Sean Fennessey?

  So what do you think of the last two, if you had to guess?

• 1:15:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Who did, who is four and five on the Variety list right now?

• 1:15:24Sean Fennessey?

  Mescal and Elordi.

• 1:15:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Elordi seems rising, especially as Frankenstein just kinda locks in, and that is what people are responding to. And he's just, I mean, he's great for awards season, I'm obviously biased, so are you now.

• 1:15:41Sean Fennessey?

  We sat together in a movie?

• 1:15:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm. Uh, let's see.

• 1:15:45Sean Fennessey?

  My, my little sister Grace could not have been more excited about that news.

• 1:15:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I was also so excited, and I was like, trying to rate it in. I've just, I really understand what everyone's...

• 1:15:56Sean Fennessey?

  He's very tall.

• 1:15:57Amanda Dobbins?

  He's, I, listen, you don't have to tell me.

• 1:15:59Sean Fennessey?

  I'm kinda tall, he was very tall.

• 1:16:01Amanda Dobbins?

  He's very tall.

• 1:16:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I, the Hamlet thing, I, I guess...

• 1:16:08Sean Fennessey?

  You gotta, gotta, gotta get your head around it.

• 1:16:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I, no, I know, no, I know, it's happening, no, I totally know it's happening, and it's happening more and more and more.

• 1:16:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:15Amanda Dobbins?

  And so, I think that it's strong enough that that probably brings Mescal in as well, so...

• 1:16:20Sean Fennessey?

  I think so, I'm not totally sure. You know, I, I thought very certain that Sandler would be nominated after seeing J. Kelly, and now I'm seeing people say like, "Oh, actually, I like Billy, Billy, Billy Crudup basically has one scene in that movie, and we'll talk about it in a couple of weeks." But it's a very memorable scene, and, and he's, he's always great.

• 1:16:34Amanda Dobbins?

  In Venice, everyone started applauding.

• 1:16:35Sean Fennessey?

  During that scene?

• 1:16:36Amanda Dobbins?

  During that scene.

• 1:16:37Sean Fennessey?

  He is pretty amazing.

• 1:16:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And it was otherwise silent in that theater.

• 1:16:39Sean Fennessey?

  That's so interesting.

• 1:16:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:40Sean Fennessey?

  I know, and people love him, and he's been working for 30 years.

• 1:16:43Amanda Dobbins?

  He's wonderful, yeah.

• 1:16:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, that's... I think that would be a bit of a crime against Sandler, and I think that's a tough part that he had, but we can talk about it when we get there. William H. Macy and Del Rey Lando and Andrew Scott, I don't think is happening. So maybe it's the two guys from J. Kelly, the two guys from One Battle, Meskell Elordi and Skarsgård in a knife fight. Skarsgård being the leader is interesting. It would be a good win. It would be kind of in its time win. Somebody who's contributed a lot to films over the years.

• 1:17:07Amanda Dobbins?

  He's like really leaning into it, you know, and like the real life film patriarch. And, you know, Alexander is like out on the trail.

• 1:17:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:17:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Sort of for Pillion and

• 1:17:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:17:20Amanda Dobbins?

  And sort of, you know, part of the Skarsgård family legacy.

• 1:17:23Sean Fennessey?

  He saw it for the first time at Telluride, and he was like blown away by it. And also, you know, it's a movie about like kind of an action father who's working in the film industry. Other nomination potentials, I mean, I really think Best Director is in play. Screenplay, original screenplay, definitely in play.

• 1:17:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:17:40Sean Fennessey?

  International feature definitely in play. I mean, this is like also Neon having every international feature nominee is going to be utterly bizarre. But that's very much in play. We'll have to do, I was thinking about how we probably need to do like an international feature episode and a documentary feature like segments in January. So we can plot that out too, which takes us to Best Picture. So let's, let's talk about the rankings. I think a lot has changed.

• 1:18:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I do as well.

• 1:18:03Sean Fennessey?

  Last time we did this, I felt like not much had changed, and now it's been 30 days.

• 1:18:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:07Sean Fennessey?

  Last time we went Begonia at 10, J. Kelly at nine, it was just an accident at eight. Marty Supreme at seven, Wicked for Good at six, Frankenstein at five, Sentimental Value at four, Sinners at three, Hamnet at two, One Battle at one.

• 1:18:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I think our top five could stay the same. If you want to like switch Sinners and Hamnet.

• 1:18:25Sean Fennessey?

  I think Marty's going to five.

• 1:18:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, even over Frankenstein?

• 1:18:28Sean Fennessey?

  A ton of people have seen it now and everybody loves it. I haven't talked to a person that doesn't like it.

• 1:18:32Amanda Dobbins?

  And like the, to me, the campaign thing is unreal.

• 1:18:36Sean Fennessey?

  Marty might be at four.

• 1:18:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. I mean, I love it. I like, give me a jacket. 824, Josh, Timothy doesn't know who I am and will never see this, but like I will wear it for the Marty Supreme episode. And for like, I like, let's guarantee like five wares before Oscar night.

• 1:18:56Sean Fennessey?

  Five wares?

• 1:18:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:57Sean Fennessey?

  Just like out and about?

• 1:18:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm like.

• 1:18:58Sean Fennessey?

  Like as a Marty influencer? You'll wear five times on the show?

• 1:19:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, maybe three?

• 1:19:03Sean Fennessey?

  Just to get a jacket? That's a lot.

• 1:19:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I, but honestly.

• 1:19:05Sean Fennessey?

  What is your self worth?

• 1:19:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but like wardrobe is like getting really annoying. So if I could just get through, I'd like the blue one.

• 1:19:11Sean Fennessey?

  Do what I do, which is just get a dark sweater and just wear variations all the time.

• 1:19:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't have dark sweaters. I have to coordinate with you and the set design about like who's wearing navy on any given day.

• 1:19:21Sean Fennessey?

  We have 300 people here working on set design, so.

• 1:19:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I would welcome a jacket. I don't want pink. I don't think pink is my color. I thought it looked great on Timmy. Um, I would prefer the blue. Um.

• 1:19:32Sean Fennessey?

  If you have black, I'll take a black.

• 1:19:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, but I'll, I'll wear it. Like I'm in.

• 1:19:37Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:19:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I like this film. I liked this film before the jacket came out. So you're not buying me. I'm just saying.

• 1:19:41Sean Fennessey?

  Can we continue in another direction?

• 1:19:43Amanda Dobbins?

  You wanted to talk about it being powerful and it's number four.

• 1:19:46Sean Fennessey?

  I think the, the marketing's been very good and they have got, kind of gotten a lot of people. There have been many screenings in LA and New York in the last six weeks or so, since the New York Film Festival premiere. And it's working. The same, the feeling that you had the day after I saw it, where we were both like, whoa, this is really fun. Like this is a really good and exciting and energetic and Timmy living up to the thing that we want from him. So I will say.

• 1:20:09Amanda Dobbins?

  They should send me a jacket and you a ping pong head. And you just wear a ping pong ball head for that entire recording.

• 1:20:15Sean Fennessey?

  I do not agree to do that.

• 1:20:18Sean Fennessey?

  Do you have any, do you see anything changing about One Battle Hamlet and Sinners in the order in which we have them? Spielberg just hosted a Hamlet screening.

• 1:20:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:26Sean Fennessey?

  And people loved it. Sinners, there's a lot of like, if you forget about sinners, I will kill you on social media right now. So there's that energy going on. And Ryan Coogler just got a star on the Walk of Fame.

• 1:20:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I spent at least 10 minutes last night trying to figure out how much time Hailee Steinfeld spills in Buffalo every year because the Bills were playing.

• 1:20:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's been a tough, been a tough season for the Bills.

• 1:20:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. And she, she hangs back. I did learn that there's an Italian restaurant in Buffalo that they like to go to. That's what Josh says.

• 1:20:53Sean Fennessey?

  An Italian restaurant?

• 1:20:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Before that's sort of their pre-game ritual, which would suggest, and they were photographed in downtown Buffalo once this summer. That's all I was able to learn about Hailee Steinfeld.

• 1:21:02Sean Fennessey?

  I have nothing bad to say about Buffalo. I've never visited.

• 1:21:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:04Sean Fennessey?

  It is of course my home state of New York. Uh. They are by far the best football team in the state of New York. Like, bar none. So I hope Josh Allen is fine. I have nothing bad to say about him. He's an amazing football player. Hailee Steinfeld says things in Sinners that blew my mind.

• 1:21:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought she was fantastic. So Oscars are March, so he would be on the offseason. He would be able to go to the Oscars.

• 1:21:28Sean Fennessey?

  He will be there.

• 1:21:29Amanda Dobbins?

  You think so?

• 1:21:29Sean Fennessey?

  I'll bet a million dollars he'll be at the Oscars.

• 1:21:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Good for him.

• 1:21:32Sean Fennessey?

  You don't want to take that bet?

• 1:21:34Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I don't.

• 1:21:35Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:21:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Remember when I offered you a million dollars to be able to name Tom Wilkinson in the 2016 film The Choice?

• 1:21:41Sean Fennessey?

  Wait, it was 2016? I thought it was 2006.

• 1:21:44Amanda Dobbins?

  No, 2016. 10 years.

• 1:21:45Sean Fennessey?

  I've literally never heard of that movie.

• 1:21:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but I-

• 1:21:47Sean Fennessey?

  You told the entire plot. Okay, so do you want to keep One Battle, Hamlet, Sinners, and then Marty in that order?

• 1:21:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, do you want to do?

• 1:21:56Sean Fennessey?

  Let's pull back for a second. Is there any chance in your heart of hearts? Let's fucking get into it, okay? Let's do it, Amanda.

• 1:22:05Amanda Dobbins?

  So hot.

• 1:22:06Sean Fennessey?

  Is anything gonna beat one battle after another?

• 1:22:08Amanda Dobbins?

  At the Oscars?

• 1:22:09Sean Fennessey?

  Or is this just gonna be the same conversation between you and I for four months?

• 1:22:11Amanda Dobbins?

  And then it wins everything?

• 1:22:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, the Hamlet thing's real. It's not out yet, so we can't really do the thing yet that we're supposed to do. And I suppose, and now I have to go see Hamlet again.

• 1:22:20Sean Fennessey?

  I do too. I haven't seen it in months now. So that movie comes out in limited release on November 26th, but we're not gonna talk about it on the show till wide. So it's gonna be a little while before we actually get into it.

• 1:22:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:31Sean Fennessey?

  I liked it with notes. You had different thoughts?

• 1:22:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I was very mixed on it. And the things about it that worked, really worked for me. I was blown away by them. And the things that didn't work, I remain really frustrated by.

• 1:22:50Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Well, we'll get through that. I wonder how many people will feel the way that you do. I feel that both this, that film and sentimental value both have a lot of like, are we sure that this is totally working? And that makes it just a little weaker for those two movies. I guess Sinners has, there's no perfect film this year. The One Battle thing most closely fits the like, let's just, let's just anoint, you know? It's time to anoint. So I haven't really been moved off of that yet. Marty is really interesting because it's getting a lot of positive response. But Josh is so early in his career that I think it's gonna be really hard, even if that film ends up becoming like a box office hit and beloved, which it could, like, that could happen. It's still gonna be really hard to get over the one battle thing.

• 1:23:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Cause he's so young. He's turning 30, two days after the release of this film.

• 1:23:38Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I mean, if I had to give the award to somebody this year, I would give it to him.

• 1:23:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm also available for his 30th birthday party, just to let him know.

• 1:23:43Sean Fennessey?

  Available to do what?

• 1:23:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Just to be there.

• 1:23:45Sean Fennessey?

  To attend?

• 1:23:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:46Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:23:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Like I said.

• 1:23:47Sean Fennessey?

  What if you were asked to do a live pod from the event? Would you do it? Live jam session from Timmy's party?

• 1:23:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, 1,000%. No, I don't. But like, if he asked.

• 1:23:56Sean Fennessey?

  Why do you want to go to the birthday parties of these 30-somethings? Why is that an interesting thing to you?

• 1:23:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Because I want to have fun. I don't have enough fun in my life, you know?

• 1:24:02Sean Fennessey?

  I see. I feel that you have a panic about the loss of fun.

• 1:24:07Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not that I have a panic. This isn't existential. This isn't like, oh, I've made the wrong choices.

• 1:24:12Sean Fennessey?

  No, I didn't say that. I didn't say that.

• 1:24:13Amanda Dobbins?

  This isn't like, you know, me, some like self-anathematizing thing. It's like, I just want to go take a tequila shot and dance to Nelly, you know? With like, like, let's just do it. I will bum a cigarette off someone at 11:00 PM. Like, I just, I want to go have fun.

• 1:24:29Sean Fennessey?

  Remember when I used to say that the CR Heads was like 3,000 single guys, like crying, masturbating to Chris doing voices? There definitely is like a dob mob, like 3,000 dob mob girlies, like at home quietly masturbating. Every time you're like, "I just want to drink tequila and dance to Nelly." That's your contingent.

• 1:24:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 1:24:47Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe, maybe it's 300 million.

• 1:24:49Amanda Dobbins?

  It's good to know what you want. It's good to be able to articulate it. I've found that in life.

• 1:24:53Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Uh, let's try to finish this list. Jack, if you're listening, One Battle at One, Hamlet at Two, Sinners at Three.

• 1:25:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:25:02Sean Fennessey?

  Marty Supreme at Four.

• 1:25:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:05Sean Fennessey?

  I think Frankenstein at Five and Sentimental Value at Six. Now, here's where it gets messy. I'm gonna, I think Wicked for Good is off.

• 1:25:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I do as well.

• 1:25:15Sean Fennessey?

  We could live to regret that and we might just put it back on in a month.

• 1:25:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Will we regret it or will we just reflect, be like, we were reflecting the moment that we were living in?

• 1:25:24Sean Fennessey?

  Some people.

• 1:25:24Amanda Dobbins?

  That's all I can do is be a mirror, you know?

• 1:25:26Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely. That's what many people are saying about you. Someone who has no strong feelings whatsoever. You merely are a portal to other people's feelings.

• 1:25:35Sean Fennessey?

  Some people are saying that there can only be one big box office movie on this list. I guess you could say Sinners is a big box office movie, but Wicked for Good and Avatar: Fire and Ash operate in a big blockbuster zone.

• 1:25:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I have floated that I think it's gonna be, that I think the Academy is unlikely to do both of those for the same reasons.

• 1:25:54Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think Avatar goes into that spot? We haven't seen it yet. We see it in 10 days.

• 1:25:59Amanda Dobbins?

  That's gonna be December 1st. It's gonna be one of the most incredible days. We probably should.

• 1:26:04Sean Fennessey?

  Tell people what we're doing.

• 1:26:05Amanda Dobbins?

  So on December 1st, I am so excited to announce that Sean, Chris Ryan and I will be hosting, are we going live?

• 1:26:13Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:26:14Amanda Dobbins?

  So we're just, we're recording a watch along of Avatar: The Way of Water.

• 1:26:18Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:26:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Chris Ryan will or will not have seen the original Avatar. I don't know. I'm not gonna arrange that. He can make his own decisions. So we'll be doing that for three hours or whatever. And then we will be driving, I hope you're going.

• 1:26:35Sean Fennessey?

  I'm going to Burbank.

• 1:26:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, to Burbank to see Avatar: Fire and Ash the same day because that is when the screening is available. So that is going to be at least six hours.

• 1:26:45Sean Fennessey?

  Nearly seven hours of Avatar. Now, here's the thing. It's kinda smart.

• 1:26:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 1:26:51Sean Fennessey?

  We're gonna be really up to speed on where the story left off.

• 1:26:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Should we just then record the episode that week before things get really dicey?

• 1:26:58Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, that's a good point. Maybe we should.

• 1:27:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:27:02Sean Fennessey?

  I'm very excited about Fire and Ash. I think Fire and Ash, we can put at eight.

• 1:27:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. And Wicked out. Yeah, vibes are very bad. Ariana Grande has COVID, apparently.

• 1:27:11Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, that's too bad.

• 1:27:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, it just, it seems, it seems like it's men and bums.

• 1:27:15Sean Fennessey?

  I do think it's gonna do well at the box office. Now, here's a bigger question.

• 1:27:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:24Sean Fennessey?

  Are Begonia and Jay Kelly out right now?

• 1:27:28Amanda Dobbins?

  So you would toss them out before it was just an accident?

• 1:27:34Sean Fennessey?

  I, yes, and I want, I'd like to hear your line of thought about that.

• 1:27:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I, you know, I, I think I said to you, I, I did see it was just an accident, which I thought was exceptional and also did not scream like pop, international feature crossover best picture hit. Kind of in the same way that you saw No Other Choice. And we're like, yeah, this is really great. No Other Choice is obviously, you know, the latest from like one of our great living filmmakers. Not that Jafar Panahi is also not, but it was just an accident is getting like the Palme d'Or spot here, which in the last few years has become a transfer.

• 1:28:14Amanda Dobbins?

  But I am just sort of, all of the international features seem a little bit softer this year in terms of, well, everyone is now catching up to the festivals and being like, well, actually, I don't know, or I liked this, or there, there's no anatomy of a fall, as you keep saying.

• 1:28:32Sean Fennessey?

  I, there's no anatomy of a fall, but I think, so let's just talk about what the, what that combination of films is. So The Secret Agent.

• 1:28:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:39Sean Fennessey?

  It was just an accident. And Sentimental Value were all canned films that are all going to be out for international feature. You know, you've got to remember that I'm Still Here, which was a much more conventional film than neither of those three. But that did slot in late in the period last year. The Brazil contingent is strong, whatever that means.

• 1:28:57Sean Fennessey?

  The Secret Agent is very unusual, more unusual than It Was Just An Accident, which to me is probably the most conventional movie in Panahi's career. Panahi, who has been, you know, under house arrest over periods of time, who has been like, kind of fucking with the form of what is a movie. He literally made a film called This Is Not A Film. He has been exploring what he can accomplish while making films in secret. This film was also made in secret, but has a much more traditional structure in terms of being a thriller. But it is also a very contemporary movie about living under a fascist regime that I think is going to resonate very deeply with a lot of voters around the world. I, I think it's like in a lock personally. Because Panahi has been in the United States for a long time now. He has been, he was in the studio. He'll be on the show in December.

• 1:29:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is awesome. I'm not saying I didn't like it.

• 1:29:45Sean Fennessey?

  He's a good advocate for his film too.

• 1:29:46Amanda Dobbins?

  The, the only other thing is that, that, that film. Has been available for a while here in the US. I mean, it's a limited release.

• 1:29:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it hasn't made a lot of money.

• 1:29:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and it doesn't feel like as many people has seen it.

• 1:30:01Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's really more about the absence of other films that can go in. Now, if you want to say we'll take it off, we can take it off.

• 1:30:08Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, no, I just wanted to have the conversation.

• 1:30:09Sean Fennessey?

  Let's do the exercise. Let's take off, it was just an accident, Jake Kelly and Begonia. What three would you put in its place? Because Avatar is taking the wicked spot.

• 1:30:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, okay.

• 1:30:19Sean Fennessey?

  Are there three other movies that could go in there that you see happening? I think that's very plausible.

• 1:30:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:30:24Sean Fennessey?

  That, to me, is going in the Jake Kelly spot.

• 1:30:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so that's at number nine.

• 1:30:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:30:29Amanda Dobbins?

  And that is also trading a Netflix film for a Netflix film.

• 1:30:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yep. Now, what else?

• 1:30:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so the other things you have listed here as possibilities. Wake Up Dead Man and Knives Out Mystery. I don't think that that will be a best picture. No other choice. I don't think so, even though I really liked it. Rental Family, still haven't seen.

• 1:30:48Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't seen it either. That's one of my big gaps.

• 1:30:50Amanda Dobbins?

  So we've got all the Searchlights right here. We've got Rental Family, we've got Springsteen, Deliver Me From Nowhere, which absolutely not. And The Testament of Anle, which is like my pet favorite.

• 1:30:59Sean Fennessey?

  And Is This Thing On?

• 1:31:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And Is This Thing On, which I also still haven't seen.

• 1:31:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:06Amanda Dobbins?

  But Bradley Cooper went to the Eagles game instead of the Governor's Awards, so I don't know what he thinks is gonna happen.

• 1:31:11Sean Fennessey?

  So Searchlight almost always gets a movie in.

• 1:31:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:16Sean Fennessey?

  Are one of these four movies going in? Now, I've seen Is This Thing On.

• 1:31:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:31:20Sean Fennessey?

  I have a lot of strong feelings about it.

• 1:31:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, this was-

• 1:31:22Sean Fennessey?

  I'll save them for the episode. I don't think it's going in.

• 1:31:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, oh, okay.

• 1:31:27Sean Fennessey?

  I-

• 1:31:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you and Bradley Cooper clearly don't, so-

• 1:31:31Sean Fennessey?

  Well, he loves football, and so do I.

• 1:31:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, he does, listen-

• 1:31:34Sean Fennessey?

  If my team was as good as the Jets, I would be going to the Jets games.

• 1:31:37Amanda Dobbins?

  You meant as good as the Eagles, because-

• 1:31:38Sean Fennessey?

  Sorry, if my team was as good as the Eagles, because the Jets are dismal.

• 1:31:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I recently learned that the Jets are 2-8, as of this recording. I don't know what's happening this weekend.

• 1:31:45Sean Fennessey?

  Two and eight, they're 15-point underdogs to the Baltimore Ravens. We're recording this before that game.

• 1:31:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:31:51Sean Fennessey?

  I'm gonna make a prediction here on Pod.

• 1:31:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:31:53Sean Fennessey?

  We'll hear it on Monday.

• 1:31:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:31:54Sean Fennessey?

  I think they will lose by fewer than seven points.

• 1:31:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, that's riveting stuff. I can't wait to find out.

• 1:32:02Sean Fennessey?

  Testament of Andy is too weird.

• 1:32:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree. No, I agree. I agree. It's cool. I hope it happens for Manfred. Yeah, like, it's cool. I'm glad it got picked up.

• 1:32:09Sean Fennessey?

  Springsteen has no chance. Rental Family is really soft. Searchlight not having a movie is kind of fascinating.

• 1:32:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:15Sean Fennessey?

  I think that that is really a product of there being two big fat Warner Brothers movies in here. And they're kind of taking a Searchlight spot.

• 1:32:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:23Sean Fennessey?

  And if Avatar gets in, then you get a Disney movie. So...

• 1:32:26Amanda Dobbins?

  So what's left?

• 1:32:28Sean Fennessey?

  Uh...

• 1:32:29Amanda Dobbins?

  You have Song Sung Blue here. We haven't seen it. It will definitely get a Golden Globe.

• 1:32:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:34Amanda Dobbins?

  But I think that's...

• 1:32:35Sean Fennessey?

  This is my point about taking It Was Just an Accident off. It's like, there's not enough movies to go in.

• 1:32:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, then put it in. Put it in.

• 1:32:41Sean Fennessey?

  Would you say, would you, you haven't seen The Secret Agent yet?

• 1:32:44Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:32:44Sean Fennessey?

  So it's hard to say.

• 1:32:45Amanda Dobbins?

  But Brazil is powerful. I've learned never to underestimate.

• 1:32:49Sean Fennessey?

  Going into this episode, my thinking was that The Secret Agent is at 10 and It Was Just an Accident is at 7.

• 1:32:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that that is smart, based on what we know, using our knowledge.

• 1:32:57Sean Fennessey?

  Now, that would be three international films. And that would be no Searchlight, one Focus, one 824,

• 1:33:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:05Sean Fennessey?

  two Neon, two Warner's, two Netflix.

• 1:33:12Sean Fennessey?

  Seems reasonable.

• 1:33:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:13Sean Fennessey?

  Seems reasonable.

• 1:33:14Amanda Dobbins?

  That's kind of how it gets parceled out.

• 1:33:17Sean Fennessey?

  By the time we record again, we will have seen, I will have seen Rental Family, Song Sung Blue.

• 1:33:25Sean Fennessey?

  I think those are my last two movies that I haven't seen yet.

• 1:33:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:33:29Sean Fennessey?

  And I got to see Ellen McKay, but that's not coming up in these conversations.

• 1:33:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And Avatar, you have to see.

• 1:33:35Sean Fennessey?

  And Avatar Fire Nation, yes.

• 1:33:36Amanda Dobbins?

  But we've already explained when we'll be seeing that.

• 1:33:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. So I just want to say something really quickly.

• 1:33:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:40Sean Fennessey?

  This is our 13th episode this month.

• 1:33:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:43Sean Fennessey?

  We've recorded them in 21 days.

• 1:33:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:45Sean Fennessey?

  We've also done a live event. I've also done six filmmaker interviews this month because everybody's been in town for the Governors Awards.

• 1:33:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:51Sean Fennessey?

  We've also recorded four episodes of 25 for 25.

• 1:33:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:33:54Sean Fennessey?

  This is the most intense month we've ever had on the show.

• 1:33:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:57Sean Fennessey?

  I think we're a little overexposed.

• 1:34:00Sean Fennessey?

  And by that, I mean, I'm on camera way too much right now.

• 1:34:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:34:05Sean Fennessey?

  But we did it.

• 1:34:06Amanda Dobbins?

  We're here.

• 1:34:07Sean Fennessey?

  We did it. We're about to have a little break here.

• 1:34:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:34:09Sean Fennessey?

  It's well earned. How do you feel about this month?

• 1:34:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I mean, I'm, I'm really psyched to have a few, have a week off to reset my brain.

• 1:34:19Sean Fennessey?

  You know what that means for me? It's and/or time.

• 1:34:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 1:34:22Sean Fennessey?

  Pretty fired up.

• 1:34:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I think what it means for me is Zootopia and Zootopia 2. Because I heard from, I heard from cousin Max, the cousin who went to see Lady Bird when he was 10.

• 1:34:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, and who, there's a Thanksgiving tradition.

• 1:34:35Sean Fennessey?

  Did he like the episode?

• 1:34:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, he did. And he, he said he was gonna revisit it and, uh, see whether his, his, whether the movie holds up to his 10-year-old standards, which was very sweet. I also reminded Max that we took him to see Creed 2, and as the light went, lights went down, he said, so what happens in Creed 1?

• 1:34:49Sean Fennessey?

  I remember this.

• 1:34:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, Max is a legend. Um, but there's a tradition of taking the younger kids to see a movie at Thanksgiving. Um, and now that Max is a grown up and in college, Knox is the younger kid. So I floated Zootopia and Zootopia 2, because Knox hasn't seen Zootopia, obviously, nor have I.

• 1:35:07Sean Fennessey?

  Zootopia is pretty funny.

• 1:35:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Is that the one that is an allegory for, uh, the Reagan administration introducing crack into, remember the Instagram message that I got?

• 1:35:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:35:17Amanda Dobbins?

  That is the one?

• 1:35:18Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think that that's the intention of the filmmakers.

• 1:35:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, okay.

• 1:35:20Sean Fennessey?

  But I think that that is a reading that it can withstand.

• 1:35:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, Jack says yes, correct. Thank you, Jack.

• 1:35:25Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 1:35:26Amanda Dobbins?

  And shout out to that, that person who DM'd me.

• 1:35:28Sean Fennessey?

  I'll also be seeing Zootopia 2 this weekend.

• 1:35:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:35:30Sean Fennessey?

  Um, maybe after I see it, I'll add it to the list of Best Picture contenders.

• 1:35:34Amanda Dobbins?

  We'll see.

• 1:35:36Sean Fennessey?

  Anything else you want to say about all this? Uh, let's, why don't we just read the 10 as it stands now? I'm not sure if I feel good about this list, but we're gonna do it.

• 1:35:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:42Sean Fennessey?

  Number 10 is The Secret Agent, number nine is Train Dreams, number eight is Avatar: Fire and Ash, number seven is It Was Just an Accident, number six is Sentimental Value, number five is Frankenstein, number four is Marty Supreme, number three is Sinners, two Hamlet, one, one battle after another.

• 1:35:58Sean Fennessey?

  I'm so excited to not talk for a while.

• 1:36:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:00Sean Fennessey?

  Into a mic.

• 1:36:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Same.

• 1:36:02Sean Fennessey?

  Let's go to my conversation now with Joachim Trier.

• 1:36:08Sean Fennessey?

  Joachim Trier here on the show. Wonderful film. You know, I heard you spoke in 2022 about the process of writing with your co-writer, Eskil Voet. And you said you, you know, you guys get together and you talk about a lot of ideas and you talk about what's going on in your life at the time. And The Worst Person in the World came out of that. And I was, I was wondering what was going on in your life when you guys got together to start talking about sentimental value?

• 1:36:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, thanks. That's interesting, what was going on. First of all, we'd made Worst Person in the World. So as always, you try to accept that there's a kind of a, an anxiety for failure in the room of creating something from scratch like we do every time. And since The Worst Person had had a good ride and people had seen it, you know, it was a film that I felt met people on the right premise. People talked back to me about it in a way where I thought, hey, you know, I think we talked about something here that was okay. Then, of course, we thought, what are people going to expect from us? And we try to get rid of those notions because it's not very creatively stimulating to work from that place of, you know, what did they expect?

• 1:37:17Speaker 04

  So what had happened was that I'd had two kids and Eskil has had children for a while. Our parents are still alive and almost like in the old friendship that we have, we start talking about stuff from life and then we have all these other ideas of cooler films we want to make. But then actually, how can we make it interesting and cool and specific to talk about family dynamics and stuff like that? So I think that's kind of what happened.

• 1:37:43Sean Fennessey?

  So there is something related to that too, which is that it felt like, you know, you've been making films for a long time, but it felt like The Worst Person in the World got into the culture more, you know, Academy Award nominations, probably more exposure to Hollywood than some of your films have gotten in the past. How much did that influence what you were writing? Because that's a significant strain too of Gustav's story and Elle's character. Was that a, did that particular experience on the last film inform that strain of the movie?

• 1:38:10Speaker 04

  Honestly, I don't think so. I think first film we did, Repries, was bought by Meramaps and came out and that's almost twenty years ago, man. So after that, I had the whole ride of meeting studios and reading scripts and trying to figure out as a young filmmaker, who I was and realizing then that even though I grew up adoring Hollywood movies and still do, I it wasn't the place where I would feel the most free to do my thing. So I went back to Norway and made Oslo August thirty first and, you know, so I I I've had a bit of that. And then since then, I I have friends and colleagues and I do come out to LA. I'm in LA now and we're talking and and I I do feel that there's a beautiful dialectic between

• 1:38:55Speaker 04

  American and European cinema that's always been going back and forth and all that. So there's not skepticism, but it's more like this, how can I make a love letter to movies through making sentimental value, but still have fun and create some humor around the fact that on one level, an American actor that that L plays in this one is kind of an outsider and then she comes to Norway, which I think is more unusual than than maybe making a story about a director going to Hollywood.

• 1:39:23Sean Fennessey?

  It's happened before, though, right?

• 1:39:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's humor in that, you know, we thought.

• 1:39:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you I mean, we've had, you know, Elliot Gould worked with Bergman. Like, it did happen a couple of times, but it's not that common, right?

• 1:39:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, it's a good film.

• 1:39:34Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I want to talk about Gustav and Stellan's character. And I'm curious about your specific relationship to this character. Obviously, he's a flawed person. He's a filmmaker. He's got two kids. How much of you is in him?

• 1:39:49Speaker 04

  The irony is, when we wrote the film, I only had one. And then I make I make this is a true story. I make a story about a difficult father and a director who I imagined while writing it most of the time was not me at all. Like, since he's much older generation, it's difficult, you know. I was thinking much more about the family dynamics of the story and the characters. And then just as we finished the script, I realized we're having another child and that turns out to be girl two. So now I have two. Daughters who are exactly three years apart like the the sisters in the film. So twenty years from my poor daughters, everyone's gonna think that this is an apology to them or something. That was not the intention. It's not on the record now. It's not the intention.

• 1:40:32Speaker 04

  So no, so to to go back to the film, I I feel um it was really fun to make a film about a filmmaker and be allowed to make pieces of his movies. Like we see a piece of his masterpiece from the nineties called Anna. And you know, it's the hardest thing in the world. You oh, we're making a film about a great painter. We have to have some great paintings, you know, and in this case, we have to have some okay pieces of film to believe he was a good director. So I was really suddenly in this position of ooh la la, how do I make like these crazy wanners? There's a scene in the film like this one shot um with no cuts on a moving train and people are running outside the train. Inside the train, there's a child who needs to cry on cue. And I really, I really had to step up here and be a better director.

• 1:41:18Speaker 04

  So however much he's a flawed character, I I really, really did my best to make him an okay director.

• 1:41:25Sean Fennessey?

  No, you do really communicate that he had, at least he had a greatness to him at a certain time. And then what you do put in that film that he directed does kind of feel like a film of that era too. I mean, were you thinking like, were there any movies that you were thinking about when you were attempting to recapture that?

• 1:41:40Speaker 04

  We were trying not to be so specific that it would be a parody or a hit job on some director or something. You know, it's more, more uh type of European auteur that would do wanners throughout each scene and maybe have a poetic relation to the wind and the trees, a bit Eastern European influence, but but not something completely specific. We wanted Gustav Borg to be his own guy.

• 1:42:06Sean Fennessey?

  Like, I'm not gonna be able to get you to name names then, I guess.

• 1:42:10Speaker 04

  No, but I'll give an example, like, for example, you know, it's obvious he's not Bergman because Imma Bergman comes from theater and Gustav Borg does not. He's about tactility and he doesn't like the theater. He even says to his daughter the kind of difficult daddy is and she's a stage actress. So that's a very patronizing moment when he says that. But but and and he's not Jan Trier either, the great Swedish director that I adore. But Jan Trier was more about tactility and nature and and humans almost in a Terence Malicki way, being perceived as creatures of the world, you know. So so maybe it's more over in that corner. Um, I don't know. Yeah.

• 1:42:48Sean Fennessey?

  So like you, I have a four-year-old daughter. And it's a, it's, it's, it's an interesting ride. It is like the most beautiful, wonderful thing. And it is a very emotionally dynamic. And obviously, your daughter wasn't four at the time when you were making this film. But I'm, I'm curious about specifically what that unlocked or allowed you to be able to communicate since you've got Inga and Renata's characters as the, the center, the focal, focal point of the story.

• 1:43:14Speaker 04

  Yeah. Please forgive me for maybe this is a little bit of an abstract entry point into something you're asking about. But I think I want to, I want to talk about when you look at people developing kids, what, what we all come from. There is a sense that before the spoken language takes prominence, all these other modes of communications are at play. I'm sure you experienced that with your child as well, that dancing, singing, hitting things rhythmically, drawing, all that stuff just happens. It's, it's a part of expression. It's a part of getting into contact with the people around you. As it's almost, and it sounds a bit cheesy, but it's almost like we were all artists at some point

• 1:43:58Speaker 04

  before social conventions came and took us. So.

• 1:44:01Sean Fennessey?

  I know exactly what you mean.

• 1:44:03Speaker 04

  You know what I mean, right? And also you sing to them to make them calm and sleep. And suddenly all these creative things come into play that has nothing to do with the business or with the function of art or any of that. It's just like being human is doing stuff like that, right? So I thought in this film where Eskel and I are talking about a creative family, not all of them. The younger sisters certainly stepped away from wanting to have anything to do with theater or movies or anything. And that, we can talk about that later. But for some of these characters, art, making movies and theater is really important. And we were ashamed about writing that, Eskel and I. We were like, oh no, are we doing that again?

• 1:44:43Speaker 04

  But we realized that it gave us a key to talk about identity in a family and communication, a lack of communication in a family. Because these artistic expressions, Gustav's film that he wants to do with his daughter or films from the past gave us an insight into the characters. And I always thought at the end of the day that this is also a film about two. Women who have a very difficult relation to their father, somehow coming to terms with the fact that inside that father is a wounded child. I'm sorry, you know, to say it straight. He is a man who comes from his own story and his own difficulties. And I think that's the only way to try to reach some sense of reconciliation

• 1:45:27Speaker 04

  is to see the honesty about your parents' struggles. And that's a really hard place to go for most people. So when I look at the fact that Gusto, as a child, had a language which he'd certainly put into art in a beautiful way, but has no capacity to be socially available to his daughters in the social language. He's so clumsy, he says the wrong thing. He doesn't know how to be present with them. So I thought that dichotomy in life of this artist who actually seems to make really beautiful films, but has no ability to be a great dad, that interested me. So that's that wounded child that's still playing his art somehow or something. That area interested me.

• 1:46:10Sean Fennessey?

  There's something really meta-textual about Stellan portraying this character too, because of course he has children who are in the business, who are performers, who are artists. And so we, as viewers, if we know about him, we bring that to the table. It did make me wonder, though, like, how you feel about the idea of your family getting into the arts, your kids. You told me before we started recording, your father was a sound designer. Like, you, I presume there's a history of working in the arts in your family. Like, how does that make you feel?

• 1:46:39Speaker 04

  No, it's, at times, it's almost been a bit embarrassing. I mean, one grandfather was a painter, the other was a filmmaker. And I, I, I'm so inbred, it's ridiculous. Like, it's so ironic, right? Like, as a creative person, it's all about autonomy and individuality. And here I am, just being served up from these obvious, you know, family relations I come from. But here we are, that's what I do. I wasn't great at school. I filmed since I was a kid. I skateboarded, I filmed stuff with my friends all the way through my, from before I could write even, you know. I had Super 8 and video cameras available that I could was a privilege enough to be allowed to use.

• 1:47:21Speaker 04

  And so I'm just super grateful that I'm allowed to do this stuff. I love making movies. So it wasn't like a great plan or a choice. I kind of slid into it and here we are, you know? But I also felt very comfortable on film sets as a child. The grownups didn't seem so scary and boring. They were playing. And I remember very well being on set with my dad and seeing, you know, grown men lying in the mud, trying to hold some, you know, some light up as the wind was blowing while the tape was rolling. And they were like down in the mud, grabbing metal to try to keep it from not falling over during the shot. And and kind of no one could make a sound. It was so silent, but it was kind of crazy and fun. And I was like, wow, this, these people really care about getting this shot done.

• 1:48:06Speaker 04

  How fun is that, you know? So I'm sure I was very inspired by the process.

• 1:48:11Sean Fennessey?

  This question is a little bit of an abstraction as well, but you know, hearing you say you were into skateboarding as a kid, thinking about Anders's character from The Worst Person in the World, thinking about your early films. You feel to me like a lot of people that I'm friends with that had basically a kind of like a little slightly harder edge punk rock youth. And it's getting older and becoming increasingly empathetic, open hearted, and trying to find a way to kind of like reconcile the ethic of the past with the present day. Like, is that, does that feel accurate to you when I say that?

• 1:48:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, um, if you mean by ethics, the idea that you had the virtue of wanting to be hardcore and autonomous and the grownups were idiots and the structure didn't give you the answer, certainly. I still feel like that a lot of the time. And I think the world is unfortunately presenting itself to us in that way a lot.

• 1:49:07Speaker 04

  But yes, I have come to a more emotionally open and tender place. I'm older, you know, I.

• 1:49:15Speaker 04

  I really used to laugh at kind of hippie stuff and was more that punk guy that you described. I completely identified with what you're saying. And now I realize I'm not laughing at all about John Lennon, not that I ever did. I always loved the Beatles, by the way, but you know, like.

• 1:49:31Sean Fennessey?

  You would be flip about something like that.

• 1:49:32Speaker 04

  I know I don't, I actually see that there's kind of a strength. I would even say a masculine strength to being emotionally available. And that there's power in trying to see the other and listen to it and stand in opposition to this agreement. With an openness, because it's harder than to be so damn sure about everything and have that sensitivity to things. I think I value more and more, and I think also in art that it's kind of easy to get cynical sometimes. And I'm certainly, I don't want to be cynical, but I don't, by the way, think that punk wasn't necessarily cynical. Like some of it was a bit like, and we don't care.

• 1:50:16Speaker 04

  But at the core of it was, was an emphasis on do it yourself, a collective experience, a collaboration. Uh, wanting to create something that was beautiful and fun and, you know, so, so again, you know, punk isn't so simple either.

• 1:50:32Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, it's interesting to me that the last two films, you know, you've not just worked with Renata, but they've been stories told through the eyes of women, and specifically in this case, two sisters. That's not exactly an experience that you or Escol have literal access to. So how do you build that relationship? And then how did the two actors become credible as sisters in the film?

• 1:50:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, thank you. That's an interesting question. So first part of that, I often get asked this thing about how writing for women and stuff. And that presupposes, I guess, that we write ourselves all the time, which we don't. We create characters outside of yourself exactly for that reason, that it's fun to create characters. And yes, you have to have a deep understanding of them. And in that process, like an actor, you will, you will maybe use for sure something of yourself, but. I've just found it really wonderful to work with these specific actors. And in this case, like Renata Reinsve is a dear friend. And I feel I can express myself, or just as I have also with male actors like Anderson and Lee, you know.

• 1:51:36Speaker 04

  And again, a part of creating and making movies is to try to be a good observer. Listen, be sensitive to what you see in the world. And I think so through that, I hope we create these characters regardless of gender or, you know, who they are, that they are truthfully put into the story. So how do you create then with the actor this relationship you're asking about? Sisters. I had Renata from day one because we wrote it for her. She was one of the motivations to do the film.

• 1:52:11Speaker 04

  And how do we then find her sister? And it was a long casting process. And we then encountered Inga Ibsdottir-Lilleos. And you'll see in the film that, you know, she has an earnest groundedness, which is a wonderful different energy than Renata's frenetic, charismatic actor of an older sister with all her neuroses. And, you know, it's this kind of grounded, more held and contemplative character of the younger sister. So the chemistry between them were awesome when we did like tests with both of them early on. No, I really enjoyed that. It was wonderful and they connected.

• 1:52:55Speaker 04

  It turned out they'd been in a theater play 10 years ago. And they really like each other. So that was also something to build on.

• 1:53:03Sean Fennessey?

  Their chemistry is a part of what makes the film so exceptional. There's two or three scenes between them that are just kind of that you feel like you're levitating a bit because it feels very knowable. It feels very familiar, even though we've just met them. I know you're being asked about the house nonstop, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you about the house. I know it was close to where you live. In where you live, is it easy to just say, I want this house for my movie? I mean, how does that, how does that work?

• 1:53:33Speaker 04

  It's not, and I'm a fool as always. So I looked at a hundred houses. And then the house I wanted was right up the street. But you know, this is the process. You try, you, you, you look and you fumble and then you find. And we found this great, great house. It was, thank God, the people that live in the house and the real house.

• 1:53:54Speaker 04

  It's a singer and writer of a great band that I grew up admiring in the eighties called Dililos. A great kind of post punk, new wavy Norwegian rock band that I really loved. And he, he, he understood, he's seen my films. I'm grateful for that. And he really said, hey, listen, dude, I really want to support you. I love the stuff. He's also someone who's actually made a lot of songs about Oslo. So I think there's a kinship between us about like representing this silly little city in Northern Europe that most people don't care about. So there's kind of that sweet connection. And he said, yeah. So, hey, what if we make a deal that me and my wife and, you know, we, we can go to Italy for a few months and you guys shoot in the house and you pay for the holiday or something. And I was like, yeah, great.

• 1:54:39Speaker 04

  So we made this kind of a deal with him. And, but, but the interesting thing was, we also did a replica of the whole house in a studio because we're shooting the story of the house through the 20th century, basically. And we had to like do 1918, 1930s, 1940s, 60s, 80s, so forth. And we had to redress and go in and out of the real house and the dress that's the past build in the studio. So at some point, we'd done a replication of his family home and his ancestors from pictures that we gathered in the 30s. And I took him and his whole family and his kids and they're not grown up and everything. We invited him and his brother as well.

• 1:55:19Speaker 04

  To the studio and they walked into a set and outside the set was VP screens, digital screens, LED screens, that where we had created complete photorealistic replicas of also in the 30s, exactly researched what the buildings around that house had looked like and the cars on the streets moving around and we put them in that time machine. And his brother teared up and he's like, my God, this is incredible. We're in a time machine. We are in our house reconstructed from the 30s with this outside looking at the window. The trees are measured to be smaller and over there, there weren't ever any trees and that house wasn't built until 10 years later and, you know, and it was such a joy. And his brother kind of teared up. It's like, what you guys do in movies is crazy.

• 1:56:04Speaker 04

  Like, you know, and I felt so proud to be a filmmaker. And this is the big, you know, kick of making movies sometimes is that you just construct the past and reality and you grab it and these shots and create stories out of it.

• 1:56:19Sean Fennessey?

  But even like furthermore, that's what the movie is about too. The movie is about this attempt to kind of recreate this memory, this vision of experience within the space in which it happened. So you gave them that gift while making a movie that is about that feeling.

• 1:56:33Speaker 04

  That's true.

• 1:56:34Sean Fennessey?

  That's quite fascinating.

• 1:56:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. It's weird, huh? Again, like my kids, they're suddenly having another daughter. Life imitates art.

• 1:56:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. A couple more for you. The funniest joke in the movie by far is the gifts that Gustav gives his grandson. I laughed so hard. Can, can you just, just talk about that, where how you and Eskel came up with that?

• 1:56:54Speaker 04

  This kind of talking about punk, I mean, he's a counterculture guy and he doesn't like bourgeois, middle-class life and he's coming to his nine-year-old grandson's birthday party. He brings a lot of wine. He's probably very nervous. He knows that he hasn't been a great dad and he's trying to connect now. And then his nine-year-old grandson has a birthday and he's supposed to bring, he brings some DVDs that he gives him, probably because he wants to connect. And the DVDs he gives is The Piano Teacher by Mikhail Hanekar and Irreversible by Aspar Noe to the rest of the family's big shock. And you know, I sympathize with him. He's trying his best, but it's obviously not good films for for for children. He even says to his grandson, looking at the piano teacher, that this film teaches you

• 1:57:38Speaker 04

  everything you need to know about women and their relationship to their mothers. And then the mother just, his daughter responds, well, we actually don't have a DVD player. Thank God, you know, it's um. So yeah, that's a bit of a comedic scene. Fun for me was we were suddenly, you know, we were invited to screen at Cannes, the main competition in that big theater that we all adore. And I'm sitting there and that scene arrives on screen and everyone laughs and I realized that both Irreversible and the piano teacher screened in that exact room in competition. So it was again, complete meta.

• 1:58:14Sean Fennessey?

  So I want to ask you about the soundtrack. I know that you got asked about the soundtrack a lot on the last film and that you have

• 1:58:20Speaker 04

  I like talking about soundtracks. I love music.

• 1:58:22Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I, the decisions in this film are really interesting because you hear a lot of filmmakers, especially in the 90s in America, were using this kind of jukebox style, where you'd get a lot of different kinds of genres, a lot of stuff that came from the filmmaker's youth, getting, you know, reinterpreted in this new art form. Yours is even more wide ranging, I find. Like, it's not just a series of pop songs. It's it's classical, it's gospel, it's these dirges. It's a real smorgasbord of of music. So how do you determine what, is it just what it feels, that what feels right is it doesn't have to be thematically coherent with what you're trying to say in the film? How do you make the choices to to pick songs?

• 1:59:04Speaker 04

  It's very similar to when you ask me why I made this film in my life right now. So it's a mixture of many things. These songs, many of them, I listen to a lot at the moment or recently. Some of them are from the past, some of them I.

• 1:59:21Speaker 04

  Had a friend show me and I suddenly realized it would fit a scene. I mean, we write in the writing room, Eskil Fjord and I, with a lot of music. Like Terry Callier is someone, an artist I've listened to a lot. Terry Callier came out of the Chicago soul scene, folk soul scene in the early seventies. His producer, Charles Stepney, who passed away way too early, also was a part of Road Reconnection and produced Minnie Riperton. And, and you know, there's this kind of that whole area of music I've loved for my whole life almost, but now recently really focused on Callier. And I was then trying to analyze why I opened the film with that song.

• 2:00:02Speaker 04

  And I realized that it had some of the artist, or formal virtues that I was trying to embrace, which is that it's quite light and beautifully orchestrated and has a sense of levity. But at the core of it, there's a human voice that's very soulful and melancholic. And I thought, hey, man, that's the vibe I'm after. And then he has kind of a mirroring artist from the UK, La Bise Fré, who also made a lot of beautiful, and still, he's still around and makes great music and made some stuff in the seventies that I felt had the same vibe. And that's the end of the film. So they bookend the film, you know? So, so you try to find a structure that you can also justify aesthetically a bit, but at the end of the day, it's taste and what you enjoy.

• 2:00:47Speaker 04

  What does the title of the film mean to you?

• 2:00:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, that brings us back to music, I think. I think sentimental value, the word and what it looks like and sounds like, could have been an old standard, could have been a Colt Porter tune or a jazz standard or something. It has that kind of sweet, sweet melancholic feel to it. But it's also a word I find fascinating. I remember as a child, we have this similar word, affekt sjønnsværdi, which is a Norwegian word for sentimental value in Norwegian. And I remember as a child, learning that word and thinking, wow, that describes something very human. This idea that you have a subjective relationship to something that's only yours. So it's about identity. And since we're talking about a family who are kind of negotiating, who are we? And we feel so different.

• 2:01:33Speaker 04

  I thought it was interesting to bring in that subjectivity into play. It's not only about that coffee cup that you remember your grandmother having and now you have it and it reminds you of her. I think it goes beyond that.

• 2:01:47Sean Fennessey?

  So you mentioned earlier that after a praise, you kind of did the, I assume the water bottle tour movie got bought by Miramax. You got to get exposed to Hollywood. Is there any world where you would make a Hollywood movie? You seem to have this wonderful setup in Norway, and I know that the country is much more accommodating of artists than it can be in the Hollywood capitalist system. But could you see yourself making a Hollywood movie at any point?

• 2:02:12Speaker 04

  I always tread carefully here because I don't want to offend the fact that the Hollywood locomotive pulls cinema and people through cinematic history. It's a big, important locomotive that also creates, I mean, look at this year, look at the Warner Brothers this year and who they support, the great filmmakers. Some of them are people I know. I mean, Ryan Coobler, I met at Sundance Lab when I was, you know, an advisor there and I love his work. And Paul Thomas Anderson's made, again, a masterpiece. I mean, one battle after another is just an extraordinary piece of cinema. So, you know, I don't want to say that Hollywood doesn't make great stuff.

• 2:02:53Speaker 04

  But on the other hand, I have an ability and I'm being allowed to make films still in Europe where I have creative control and I can do it at home and I can tell the stories I want. And yeah, it's a system that works. I shoot on 35 millimeter. I can still work with my friends and cast who I want and have final cut with still like 60 days, 64 days of shooting, which is ridiculous amount on a budget, which is not crazy. So that's a pretty sweet deal. So yeah, never say never. But at the moment, I feel very free in the way that I'm allowed to make films.

• 2:03:33Sean Fennessey?

  What's your favorite part of the filmmaking process at this point?

• 2:03:36Speaker 04

  The most intense, unique thing is to be allowed to be with actors on the camera, on set and completely identify with the moment. Like when I was a skater, not thinking, just being there and really losing yourself in the moment with what you're creating. But I love writing with Eskil and finding stuff and the rush of knowing that, oh my God, we have a film coming or a new idea or scene. Oh, I look forward to filming that. Such a rush. And then, of course, editing is such a torment at the beginning. It's so hard to get any structure in place. But that towards the end, when you start showing it to people and it starts being a movie and mixing sound and color and refining it, finally coming towards the end is such a beautiful part of it. And I'm present at

• 2:04:21Speaker 04

  all these stages. I'm in the writing room 90% of the time. Eskil has some writing days without me towards the end because he's a better writer and he refines and creates it that way, you know. But in editing, I'm there almost every day. So like, I really love the whole process. But I do slow work. I mean, I make a film every third or fourth year, you know, and that's okay with me. I used to be ashamed that I didn't, I wasn't sitting in a Lumet and Woody Allen and could churn something out every year. You know, I admire those people that can. But I'm okay about my pace now, I think.

• 2:04:51Sean Fennessey?

  Producing great work. Can we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they have seen? I know you're, I know you're, you're traveling the world and showing the film and you're busy, but I assume you're watching some stuff.

• 2:05:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, I gotta go back to one battle after another. I had the great fortune of becoming friends with Paul Thomas Anderson. And I feel, speaking of music, I grew up really, really inspired by Martin Scorsese. And I know that Paul, in his own unique ways, also someone that plays around with music and movements. And you feel that Paul's camera is connected to a soul, to someone. There's a gaze and a movement and a temperament where the mis en scène is completely connected to a sense of a voice, someone expressing something, you know. And I love that in movies. You feel it sometimes that a film can feel remote or it doesn't, you don't know what the vibe or who's making it. And it's not, it's a

• 2:05:49Speaker 04

  group endeavor, of course. But you feel with the through line in all of Paul Thomas Anderson's movies is something of a very personal nature, yet you don't know what it is. It's still mystical and interesting. And I don't know, I admire him a lot. I think he's one of, perhaps, you know, the master, I think, of our generation of filmmakers. And I, I'm so relieved and happy to see him continue, you know, and make films on this scale now. It's incredible.

• 2:06:16Sean Fennessey?

  I echo those sentiments and congratulations on your own film, which I think is absolutely wonderful. Thanks for taking some time to talk. Thank you so much.

• 2:06:27Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you to Joachim Trier. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Later this week, our number three movie in 25 for 25.

• 2:06:37Sean Fennessey?

  Hardly anybody's guessed it.

• 2:06:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:39Sean Fennessey?

  Nobody sees it coming.

• 2:06:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, we're recording this in advance, so there's five days for everyone to spoil it.

• 2:06:44Sean Fennessey?

  I'm gonna spoil it right now. It's the 2016 film, The Choice. And I'm so pumped to finally be able to see this movie for the first time. See you then.