‘The Social Reckoning’ Is No ‘The Social Network,’ and the Top Five Most Unnecessary Legasequels. Plus: The Best Movies at NYFF!

Drop the “the.” Just “Big Picture.” It’s cleaner. Today on Big Picture, Sean and Amanda discuss the much anticipated (and also dreaded) legacy sequel ‘The Social Reckoning,’ written and directed by one of our main characters: Aaron Sorkin. Before diving in, they briefly react to the official merging of Warner Bros. and Paramount and hypothesize what the future of David Ellison’s Skydance will look like. Then, Sean shares his New York Film Festival recap and highlights the best movies he saw, many of which Amanda has also seen. Next, in theme with corporate power trillionaires, they cover Alex Gibney’s new documentary, ‘Musk,’ and break down what did and didn’t work for them. Finally, they unpack all of their feelings on ‘The Social Reckoning,’ explore why many of the performances didn’t jive with Sorkin’s style, and share their most unnecessary legasequels of all time. (0:00) Intro (1:22) Skydance movie news (13:02) New York Film Festival recap (44:33) ‘Musk’ (53:58) ‘The Social Reckoning’ (1:35:48) The most unnecessary legasequels Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:15Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 0:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 0:17Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Picture Conversation Show about reckoning with the socials. Today on the show, Amanda and I face our greatest fear. No, not the crushing toll of our own mortality. I'm talking about a sequel to our beloved The Social Network. Aaron Sorkin's sequel, The Social Reckoning, arrives some 16 years after his first film with David Fincher as the director. This time, Sorkin is in the director's chair for a follow-up story about Mark Zuckerberg, whistleblowers, and the ghastly impact of social media on our lives. So, does it work? We'll break it all down, along with a brief history of the best and worst legacy sequels. But first, I will report on the very best movies at the New York Film Festival and some movie news. It's all coming up right after this.

• 0:55Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:37Sean Fennessey?

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

• 1:43Speaker 02

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• 2:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Amanda, it's The Big Picture After Dark. It's 7:16 PM.

• 2:17Amanda Dobbins?

  That's right.

• 2:18Sean Fennessey?

  We are recording. There are very few events, let alone movie releases, that we would do this for, that we would record at night. But we hadn't seen The Social Reckoning. You were kind enough to wait to see it with me. It was only right that we see it together.

• 2:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:32Sean Fennessey?

  And I was in New York, so you waited.

• 2:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I wasn't gonna do it alone.

• 2:35Sean Fennessey?

  We watched it together. We will break into it shortly. Before we do, we discussed this a bit on Monday, but Skydance, the flag is flying high, waving proudly.

• 2:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 2:46Sean Fennessey?

  Strongly. Will you salute it?

• 2:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you have one at home?

• 2:49Sean Fennessey?

  A Skydance flag?

• 2:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:51Sean Fennessey?

  Not yet.

• 2:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:51Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, we'll see what kind of cinema they make.

• 2:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, and my neighborhood, it's the American flag, the McDonald's flag, and then the Skydance flag, right in a row, flying over Los Angeles.

• 2:59Sean Fennessey?

  The three absolute pillars of capitalism right there. Lot of news coming out. You can listen to a great many podcasts to listen to, you know, who's been brought in to fire people, and how the money's gonna work, and the $75, $79 billion in debt getting paid down. I'm only interested in the movies. What movies are they gonna make?

• 3:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, tell us.

• 3:19Sean Fennessey?

  Here's the movie news that we've gotten. One, Transformers is coming back.

• 3:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Congratulations.

• 3:23Sean Fennessey?

  Not only is it coming back, Steven Spielberg is coming back. Steven Spielberg, of course, one of the producers of the original stretch of Transformers films with Michael Bay. No director yet attached. Michael Bay rumored to maybe be returning. We don't know. There have been two Transformers movies without Michael Bay, and they've tried to relaunch the franchise once with Bumblebee. You saw that one?

• 3:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Hailee Seinfeld?

• 3:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 3:42Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 3:43Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 3:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Saw the trailer.

• 3:44Sean Fennessey?

  Pretty good.

• 3:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 3:45Sean Fennessey?

  Pretty good.

• 3:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I like her.

• 3:46Sean Fennessey?

  The other one was Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.

• 3:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Didn't see that one. Was that animated?

• 3:50Sean Fennessey?

  A crossover, not animated. Steven Capel directed that one, director of Creed 2. Not very good, and yet, I liked it. No one else did, though, so they gotta reboot again.

• 4:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 4:01Sean Fennessey?

  Will you see... How many Transformers movies have you seen?

• 4:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Saw the first one, and I think I saw the one that I wanna call Dark Side of the Moon. That is not, of course, Dark Side of the Moon. What is its actual title?

• 4:14Sean Fennessey?

  Dark of the Moon?

• 4:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Yeah, that probably just sailed right past the copyright lawyers.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  I'm looking on that.

• 4:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So, I've seen that one. Is that the JFK one?

• 4:23Sean Fennessey?

  That is.

• 4:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, obviously. You know, it remains my interest.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  Dark of the Moon.

• 4:27Sean Fennessey?

  Dark of the Moon, yeah. Okay, that's what I thought.

• 4:29Amanda Dobbins?

  So, that's two?

• 4:30Sean Fennessey?

  Dark Side of the Moon, have you heard that album?

• 4:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Believe it or not.

• 4:32Sean Fennessey?

  Have you heard it whilst watching The Wizard of Oz?

• 4:35Amanda Dobbins?

  No, we haven't done that yet, but maybe we should do that in our house. Yeah.

• 4:38Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, bring the whole family in.

• 4:40Amanda Dobbins?

  But I think they'd enjoy it.

• 4:41Sean Fennessey?

  Spark a J, see what happens. Could be exciting.

• 4:45Sean Fennessey?

  Will you watch this one?

• 4:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Will we still be podcasting? Is there a timeline? Is it before or after June 2028, which is currently the end date of The Big Picture?

• 4:54Sean Fennessey?

  It's a completely fair question. I don't know.

• 4:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 4:56Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, maybe just a private conversation between us about Transformers. When the show is over, will we have private conversations about films?

• 5:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not really sure.

• 5:03Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 5:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Do we now?

• 5:05Sean Fennessey?

  Sometimes we do. We do. We save a lot for the pod, but every once in a while, we break containment. The other film that is coming back is G.I. Joe.

• 5:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 5:13Sean Fennessey?

  There have been a few G.I. Joe movies under the Paramount umbrella. In fact, I don't think I've seen all of them. Seen maybe one and a half.

• 5:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Were you a G.I. Joe guy?

• 5:21Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I certainly was. Thanks for asking.

• 5:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 5:22Sean Fennessey?

  How could you not be, growing up as a boy in the 1980s? Now, was it above He-Man and Masters of the Universe? No. Was it above Star Wars? No. Was it above Transformers? No. But G.I. Joe was right there. Paramount's got all my childhood interests right under its wing there. Danny McBride writing this movie?

• 5:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. See, I'm philosophically opposed to G.I. Joe, and also definitely to Skydance making more G.I. Joe-like films. At the same time, Danny McBride is perfect for it.

• 5:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 5:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Will they let him be subversive enough within the containment of G.I. Joe? Also, how subversive would he want to be?

• 5:56Sean Fennessey?

  Well, an interesting question by you. I don't... You probably know this, but you may not, especially since it's October and we are talking a lot about Halloween. You know, Danny McBride co-wrote the three Halloween movies that David Gordon Green directed. So, those movies are actually quite subversive to the Halloween origins, especially the third one. So, we know, and that movie was not very well received, but we know that he's willing to fuck with canon.

• 6:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Will Skydance let him?

• 6:26Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. What he will do is he will cast Bradley Cooper as Duke.

• 6:29Amanda Dobbins?

  That's also funny.

• 6:30Sean Fennessey?

  The field commander of G.I. Joe. Is it funny?

• 6:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 6:33Sean Fennessey?

  What's going on with Coop?

• 6:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 6:35Sean Fennessey?

  Is it okay?

• 6:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm open, you know, he's in Paris. I think he's probably married. I don't know. Have you followed this, that he and Gigi Hadid are walking around with rings on their wedding fingers? Congratulations.

• 6:47Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 6:47Amanda Dobbins?

  They've been in Paris. He's been working out in Paris and also filming The Ocean's Prequel around Europe.

• 6:52Sean Fennessey?

  Of course.

• 6:53Amanda Dobbins?

  So, and as you know, I'm very open to The Ocean's Prequel.

• 6:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 6:57Amanda Dobbins?

  That's fine.

• 6:57Sean Fennessey?

  A film we neglected to mention when we talked about what Warner Brothers was bringing over in this union with Paramount. The only franchise that is not announced here, that I assume is coming any minute, is Star Trek.

• 7:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 7:08Sean Fennessey?

  Star Trek is one of the biggest things that Paramount has. Ostensibly, they have a lot of TV shows going right now. We haven't had announcement of a new movie in a long time. Is Chris Pine coming back? Probably not, but maybe. Any thoughts?

• 7:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I liked those movies. They have a re-release of something going on right now, because there is a giant Starship Enterprise popcorn bucket for sale for $80

• 7:29Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, no kidding.

• 7:29Amanda Dobbins?

  at the Regal Theater, the last time I took my son there. And so, I had to explain both what is Star Trek and what is $80.

• 7:37Sean Fennessey?

  Look at Star Trek re-release right now.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  Which one was harder to explain?

• 7:41Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, look at it.

• 7:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Unfortunately, is it not Star Trek? I'm pretty sure it was Star Trek.

• 7:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think it was last month when this happened, which passed me by. But yeah, I guess all the original films.

• 7:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:52Sean Fennessey?

  Which are wonderful.

• 7:53Amanda Dobbins?

  The older couple in front of me jumped into the conversation for the $80 bit, because the man was also forbidden from buying the Starship Enterprise popcorn bucket, which doesn't serve as a popcorn bucket. I like, we've really...

• 8:08Speaker 02

  That's a big problem with a lot of these.

• 8:09Amanda Dobbins?

  We've lost the plot here, okay? Like, we have the Star Wars Grogu popcorn bucket at home, but it is a bucket. It's a helmet.

• 8:17Sean Fennessey?

  You know what's a really good popcorn bucket? Digger. It's a cowboy boot.

• 8:22Amanda Dobbins?

  That's pretty good.

• 8:23Sean Fennessey?

  That's a really good idea.

• 8:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:24Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't buy it.

• 8:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think anyone did, nor did they buy tickets to that film.

• 8:28Sean Fennessey?

  I need you to just hold your breath while I read a bunch of other Paramount franchises to you, okay? Okay, ready, set, go. Sonic, Scream, Scary Movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Smile. Next year, we get A Quiet Place 3. World War Z 2 with Brad Pitt and Edward Berger was announced. New Paranormal Activity with undertone director Ian Tewison. Here's three that we've not yet heard new news about. Are you gonna be okay? Hang in there. The Terminator, Beverly Hills Cop, and then wait for it. I'll let you breathe right after this one. The Godfather. Now, there have been three Godfather movies.

• 8:59Amanda Dobbins?

  What was the time on that?

• 9:01Speaker 02

  Probably like 17 seconds.

• 9:03Amanda Dobbins?

  So, I'm not gonna be a Navy SEAL anytime soon.

• 9:05Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think so.

• 9:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Skydance is not calling me to be the star of their next film.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  I would pay to see it.

• 9:10Sean Fennessey?

  There's no news about The Terminator or Beverly Hills Cop being rebooted, but if you told... If someone announced tomorrow that those two things were happening in theaters, I would not be surprised. I write The Godfather cynically, but just to amuse myself.

• 9:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, they've done it before, The Offer, which I did not watch.

• 9:24Sean Fennessey?

  The Offer is one version of it. There was a video game some years ago.

• 9:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you play that?

• 9:29Sean Fennessey?

  I never did.

• 9:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 9:30Sean Fennessey?

  I did. I was just out of my video game phase, I think, when that game came around. I don't think The Godfather necessitated a role-playing experience, per se, but, you know, I get it.

• 9:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I had a lot of follow-up questions, but okay.

• 9:42Sean Fennessey?

  I just, I'm just flagging it, because if I was a demon working at Paramount right now, I would probably be like, have you guys considered The Godfather? Now, I'm not a demon.

• 9:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's not.

• 9:54Sean Fennessey?

  Nor do I work at Skydance.

• 9:55Amanda Dobbins?

  First of all, you'll find that it's no longer Paramount at Skydance.

• 9:58Sean Fennessey?

  Sorry, Skydance.

• 9:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Second of all, let's not characterize any of the kind people who are under the mergers.

• 10:04Sean Fennessey?

  I said, if I was a demon.

• 10:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 10:06Sean Fennessey?

  Working at Skydance.

• 10:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 10:07Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not saying people who work at Skydance are demons.

• 10:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 10:10Sean Fennessey?

  Nor am I saying I'm a demon. I'm merely saying.

• 10:13Amanda Dobbins?

  If I were.

• 10:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 10:14Amanda Dobbins?

  A demon who worked at Skydance.

• 10:16Sean Fennessey?

  If I were a demon who is really good at his job.

• 10:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:19Sean Fennessey?

  I would get the Godfather four going right now.

• 10:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Pitch me. Keep going. Tell me the story.

• 10:23Sean Fennessey?

  Well, Al Pacino's alive.

• 10:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 10:25Sean Fennessey?

  So let's start there. Al Pacino's breathing. That means we can get him on camera.

• 10:30Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 10:31Sean Fennessey?

  As soon as possible.

• 10:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Al Pacino can be seen at San Vicente Buglos.

• 10:34Sean Fennessey?

  Michael's final act.

• 10:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Any night of the week.

• 10:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, he's out and about. He's been going to screenings for the last year. He's having a great time. He seems to be in great health and great spirits. He's a father of a young child. He's doing great.

• 10:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:46Sean Fennessey?

  Let's get him on camera.

• 10:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 10:47Sean Fennessey?

  Michael Corleone.

• 10:48Amanda Dobbins?

  All right.

• 10:49Sean Fennessey?

  I got the script right here. Um, it's a terrible idea. I hope no one does it.

• 10:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 10:55Sean Fennessey?

  I'm just, I'm just, I'm just throwing ideas out there.

• 10:58Amanda Dobbins?

  That's beautiful.

• 10:58Sean Fennessey?

  Hoping they explode upon impact.

• 11:00Amanda Dobbins?

  So you read a list of, you know, upcoming works of cinema.

• 11:04Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:04Amanda Dobbins?

  While I held my breath.

• 11:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, did you think that was funny?

• 11:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I was just like, like, who had a more positive experience? Me, not breathing, or you saying all of those things aloud?

• 11:15Sean Fennessey?

  Just called Doing the Work.

• 11:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 11:16Sean Fennessey?

  This is me sitting quietly alone in my house.

• 11:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I meant, how do they make you feel? How does it make you feel to see those when you say, all I care about, all I care about is cinema? So now let me talk to you.

• 11:29Sean Fennessey?

  I'm just trying to get a snapshot of where we're going.

• 11:31Amanda Dobbins?

  So you don't feel right now. You're not feeling.

• 11:33Sean Fennessey?

  I feel very strongly.

• 11:34Amanda Dobbins?

  You're not a demon, but you're not also currently feeling.

• 11:36Sean Fennessey?

  I'm really excited about Damien Chazelle's prison movie.

• 11:39Amanda Dobbins?

  So am I.

• 11:39Sean Fennessey?

  And I hope that there are more movies that are like that movie that are coming. But these are the movies that we know are happening.

• 11:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 11:45Sean Fennessey?

  And, you know, they're probably not the most inspiring.

• 11:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 11:49Sean Fennessey?

  Things I've ever heard. Doesn't mean I won't, well, could enjoy a Scream movie. Of course I can.

• 11:53Amanda Dobbins?

  So could I.

• 11:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. So that's, I mean, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, that's, that sounds fun.

• 11:57Amanda Dobbins?

  That one's complicated. And, and also especially in terms of who's just bought the company, but whatever.

• 12:01Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 12:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 12:02Sean Fennessey?

  We'll see.

• 12:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I was, I, I liked A Quiet Place. Did I like A Quiet Place two?

• 12:07Sean Fennessey?

  You liked A Quiet Place day one.

• 12:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I was okay on it until the end, which I thought was very silly. The very last shot and music cue is very silly. And also, like, they didn't, and they didn't lock up the fentanyl. You know, she's just rummaging through the drugstore like you can get anything you want.

• 12:23Sean Fennessey?

  Spoilers for Quiet Place day one.

• 12:24Amanda Dobbins?

  That's not a spoiler.

• 12:25Sean Fennessey?

  Quiet Place day one is the third Quiet Place film, but it's not A Quiet Place three.

• 12:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, A Quiet Place three, sure.

• 12:31Sean Fennessey?

  It'll be good.

• 12:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Though I think that is also when my college reunion is, which we talked about.

• 12:35Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 12:36Amanda Dobbins?

  It's that weekend.

• 12:36Sean Fennessey?

  So it'll just be me and Krasinski hosting the pod that day. Tough one for you.

• 12:40Amanda Dobbins?

  But I.

• 12:40Sean Fennessey?

  Reunion. Um, what's this other piece of news I'm seeing on here?

• 12:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Uh, so Taylor Swift, your favorite performer, will be closing the Academy Gala, uh, the Academy Museum Gala in October. She's performing there. It was announced today.

• 12:55Sean Fennessey?

  No kidding.

• 12:55Amanda Dobbins?

  This is just unprecedented levels of campaigning for a Best Song Oscar. I just, I think it's really funny. I just.

• 13:01Sean Fennessey?

  Just, just, you have to say right now, will she win the Best Original Song Oscar?

• 13:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 13:06Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 13:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Because those.

• 13:08Sean Fennessey?

  There's sometimes some resistance to the megastar. Sometimes.

• 13:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess so. But they've given Billie Eilish at least one, and I believe two Oscars. Did she also win for her James Bond theme?

• 13:19Sean Fennessey?

  She has two.

• 13:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:21Sean Fennessey?

  She has two.

• 13:21Amanda Dobbins?

  And she did win for James Bond as well as Barbie. She took that from Dua Lipa. And then.

• 13:28Sean Fennessey?

  They should re-record Skyfall as Skydance, by the way. Can we get somebody to do that? Skydance. Skydance.

• 13:38Amanda Dobbins?

  This is not how Skyfall is. That's not, da-da-da-da. Then it's Skydance. Da-da-da-da.

• 13:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's good. You, you, you record it. You do it.

• 13:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:48Sean Fennessey?

  We have microphones. Go.

• 13:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, I, I, yes, there are a lot of people in the Academy who want to interact with Taylor Swift for, because they want to look cool with their kids. And that's fine.

• 13:59Sean Fennessey?

  Her losing would be very funny.

• 14:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 14:00Sean Fennessey?

  I'm just, just putting it out there.

• 14:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, I just, I wanted to note it because this is, it's a starting.

• 14:05Sean Fennessey?

  Attending?

• 14:06Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I haven't been invited.

• 14:08Sean Fennessey?

  Well.

• 14:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 14:10Sean Fennessey?

  Put it in the world.

• 14:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 14:11Sean Fennessey?

  If you will, it is no dream.

• 14:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I don't know whether the Academy wants us there, but that's okay.

• 14:18Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, okay, let's talk about New York. Forget about Los Angeles for a minute. I spent a week in New York. I had a lovely time.

• 14:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 14:25Sean Fennessey?

  I noticed a couple of things.

• 14:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 14:27Sean Fennessey?

  I usually spend a longer period of time at the New York Film Festival. This was a shorter period of time. Part of it is because there weren't as many movies that I had, felt like I had to catch up on, because I've been to many festivals this year, which is very nice. But it did make for a different experience. However, one, I met an extraordinary number of young people this year. And I feel like a lot of young people are attending. And one of the cool things about the New York Film Festival is you can just buy a ticket.

• 14:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 14:51Sean Fennessey?

  You can just go online and you can buy a ticket. And not everything sells out right away. It's not like many other film festivals in that way. It is, it's expensive. It's not cheap.

• 14:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 15:00Sean Fennessey?

  To buy tickets. So, but if you can afford it, I met a ton of just 20-somethings who were like, I'm about to watch A Statement. And no one's seen it before. Like, so there's something really exciting about getting to see a movie like that at Alice Tully Hall and Lincoln Center, Lincoln Plaza. The other thing that I noticed, and this has been evolving over time, I'm not sure if you thought about this, but the programming at New York? I'm not sure if the word is better, but it is evolving. And I feel like it is siphoning titles from other festivals in an interesting way. So this year, for example, there's a, there was a Godzilla movie.

• 15:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:38Sean Fennessey?

  Artificial, Behemoth, A Statement, and the Cameron Winter concert film all premiered.

• 15:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 15:48Sean Fennessey?

  At New York. Their first screenings were at New York, which is fascinating to me because all of those movies could have, could have or should have appeared at other festivals in the last 20 years. Like Godzilla is like a Fantastic Fest movie, or maybe a Toronto movie. I think A Statement is kind of a Telluride movie.

• 16:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:06Sean Fennessey?

  Um, Cameron Winter, it being a hometown thing.

• 16:09Amanda Dobbins?

  That one makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

• 16:11Sean Fennessey?

  But it is still a PTA concert doc. So like, you could see that. I could have been at Venice. Um.

• 16:15Amanda Dobbins?

  But he, I don't think wants to go to Venice.

• 16:18Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think he does either.

• 16:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 16:19Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and so he has a cozy home. And Artificial to me is, it could have played all three. It could have played Venice, Toronto, and Telluride.

• 16:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I do wonder if some of that is just because of the circumstances in which Artificial was supposed to be released by one company at the submission deadlines for all of these films. And, um, then that deadline passed.

• 16:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 16:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And so that this was just sort of the, the, the last chance for, and unusual circumstances. But I agree with you. It could have made a splash anywhere else. I mean, I do think the fall festivals have been a little, I think people are more skittish about them. After the Joker folie de disaster.

• 17:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 17:00Amanda Dobbins?

  And a couple of things, launching a Telluride and doing well, but like, not winning. What's the last Best Picture winner that Telluride launched?

• 17:09Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, that's a really good question. The last Best Picture, I mean, I mean, they launched Moonlight.

• 17:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 17:16Sean Fennessey?

  So that, that's one I can think of. That may be the last one that they launched. I'd have to go through the list. I mean, in the meantime, while I'm looking at that.

• 17:25Speaker 03

  I believe that is the last one, by the way.

• 17:26Sean Fennessey?

  That is the last one.

• 17:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 17:27Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I think I'm trying to figure out, is it, is it that the New York Film Festival is somehow immune to the negative feedback loop? That can come out of a festival some way? Because it's a much longer festival. It's, there's, there's a lot of travel involved for, for the American press. There's a lot of native press that is there. It's a little bit more, I don't know how to describe it. I mean, it's always been a very elegant, tasteful, indie international kind of festival. A real arthouse-friendly festival. That doesn't mean it hasn't had big studio movies over the years, of course has, but especially, you know, Dennis Lim at the helm of it as a, you know, chief curator. He's just such an elegant, thoughtful person, you know, introducing all the screenings.

• 18:08Sean Fennessey?

  There's a, there's a, there's a quality of class that happens there that does feel different from some other festivals. It helps that a lot, a bunch of the movies I named were pretty good to great. So maybe that's just a circuit, like a coincidence this year. But it does feel like this is maybe like a smarter play and that people have realized that somehow.

• 18:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I think so, yes. I think it's low risk and thus higher, you know, possible reward. It is also just a lower ask for all of, to get your talent to New York than it is to get them to Telluride or to Venice at this point. There's less of a production. So.

• 18:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 18:45Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, if you go and it doesn't really work, it's not a huge downside. There's not like a giant red carpet. It, it doesn't really matter. The expectations haven't been leveled, at least this year.

• 18:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 18:56Amanda Dobbins?

  For the New York Film Festival. But, you know, we'll see in three years whether we're just like, you know, studying the race, you know, the racing sheet and being like, okay, what's going to go to New York? And what will be the, and then the expectations are upended. I think all of this, you know, changes because of assholes like us.

• 19:12Sean Fennessey?

  It does. I, Behemoth was the one that was a really interesting note. And then a bunch of movies got stacked on top of it that, that all kind of fell part of a, let's talk about these movies briefly. I don't, I don't want to like spoil our longer conversations about all of them, because maybe five or six of these movies will get their own episodes, honestly. But I thought we would start with Artificial, because you had the chance to see it while you were here in Los Angeles as well.

• 19:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 19:36Sean Fennessey?

  So.

• 19:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I've seen, I've seen a fair amount of these.

• 19:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 19:39Amanda Dobbins?

  That, that is another thing that seems also different about New York versus Telluride and Venice. I mean, the, both of those festivals, there will be pre-screenings and studios will make some of the films available for press and others who aren't attending. But New York, they really make an effort to just bring everyone in all at once, which is, which I appreciate, but is interesting.

• 20:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's, it's not as much of a, they're not fighting with anyone.

• 20:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:04Sean Fennessey?

  It's like the fight is over. And then once the movie has arrived, it's arrived. And so then people are free to see them, which is interesting. It kind of ends, you know, AFI is still to come. There's a bunch of regional festivals, but New York kind of ends this period in the movie calendar in a way. Um, Artificial.

• 20:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:19Sean Fennessey?

  I'll tell you briefly about my screening.

• 20:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Go ahead.

• 20:25Sean Fennessey?

  This is one of the last films to premiere at the festival, I believe 14th, which I did not stick around for, the new Ava DuVernay documentary that is a follow up to her doc, the 13th is premiering later this week, but this was the second to last big one. This is Luca Guadagnino's new movie. It is about the rise to build OpenAI. At the premiere, all the significant players were there, including Luca, Andrew Garfield, Yura Borisov, Mike Baranholz, Cooper Hoffman, most of the stars, Monica Barber are not present. And before the film, Dennis Lim came out and talked about the circumstances of the movie vaguely, about how Amazon had dropped the film and Neon had picked it up

• 21:05Sean Fennessey?

  for reasons that we can presume are related to Amazon's investment in OpenAI, although they have said that that is not the case publicly. And then Luca spoke very briefly before the film. He introduced Damon Albarn, erstwhile frontman of Blur, who composed the score of the movie. And then Damon Albarn sat down on a piano and sang a song with the children's choir from the movie to open the festival experience, which was fucking awesome. It was amazing and beautiful and it didn't really diminish the experience of the song in the film or anything like that. It was just a very elegant way to open a very interesting movie.

• 21:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 21:42Sean Fennessey?

  I thought this movie was excellent.

• 21:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 21:45Sean Fennessey?

  And it played very well in the room. And it was clear within about 20 minutes that the concerns that the movie quote unquote wasn't good and that's why it was dropped were bullshit.

• 21:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 21:56Sean Fennessey?

  I think there's like a three hour discussion of this movie and Luca and his work to come here. But what did you think of it?

• 22:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I never fucking wavered. Not for one second. I never wavered. I told you all.

• 22:11Speaker 03

  Stay on the mic, stay on the mic.

• 22:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And my guy did it. And I cannot wait for everyone else to see this. I honestly kind of, I almost texted everyone in the booth last night to be like, can you guys go back and find all the tape of me being like, I believe in Luca because I believe in Luca?

• 22:28Speaker 03

  We'll find that.

• 22:29Amanda Dobbins?

  And my belief, this was electrifying. I've, I texted you immediately saying some version of what I just said.

• 22:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 22:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I was vibrating as I left. I haven't felt this way leaving a movie since I did Leaving Tar.

• 22:42Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 22:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, I just really, it's, I mean, it's so in my wheelhouse. Obviously, I'm happy to be right. And obviously, there's also, there was something exciting, as you said, even sitting through the movie of realizing, oh, no, this is good. And everything that we suspected about the way this movie was handled is true in one way or another. And the movie knows that too, and is painting the picture in real time. So I'm, I'm very excited for this to be released, very excited for the Andrew Garfield press tour, as I always am.

• 23:16Sean Fennessey?

  Fantastic in this movie. Fantastic. It may be his best performance. He is a big favorite of ours. Yeah, it's, it's gonna be a thing. It immediately was like, oh, this is, this is like a Best Picture nominee. Like this is a

• 23:27Amanda Dobbins?

  You and I were texting about Best Picture chances while I was like walking through like Whole Foods, picking out, you know, milk. So that's, that's where we are with the, the energy on this one. It's happening.

• 23:37Sean Fennessey?

  My thing about this is just like, this is the only movie that's in the lineup this year that is competing in that race specifically, that feels actually urgent. It feels like it's like, the movie ends and you're like, it's like today. Like it's, we feel like we're in the present day, which is very, very hard to capture. But we'll speak more about it in the future. Behemoth, you haven't seen Behemoth yet?

• 23:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Next week.

• 23:57Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. So I don't want to spoil too much about Behemoth. I wasn't in the room when it played. I had seen it a couple of months ago, but I did talk to a lot of the people who, who saw it. I was, I went to an event as soon as the, after the film premiered. And all I'll say about this movie is that it is not what you're expecting. It's not Michael Clayton 2. If you go in expecting Michael Clayton 2, do not. I found it to be a much more subtle, emotionally complex movie. I think it's the best Pedro Pascal performance ever. I think it utilizes what makes him an interesting actor in a way that is unique. One of the most passive protagonist films I can recall being made at a studio level. And the way that, you know, people who have followed this movie, which is Tony Gilroy's new film, his follow up to the two seasons of Andor, know that

• 24:41Sean Fennessey?

  it is about a cellist who makes his money both playing in orchestras as well as performing on compositions for musical, for film scores. And nine different composers, most of whom are very well known, like James Newton Howard, Alan Silvestri, so on and so forth, compose music for the movie. And that's a big part of the way that the movie progresses. So I liked this movie a lot. And it did take me an hour to realize it was not the movie I was expecting it to be.

• 25:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 25:11Sean Fennessey?

  And I think once I got on its level, I really enjoyed it. So we will have a discussion about that. That movie comes out December 4th. You did see NASA, right?

• 25:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I did.

• 25:20Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. So NASA.

• 25:21Amanda Dobbins?

  It premiered in Venice.

• 25:22Sean Fennessey?

  It officially premiered in Venice, right?

• 25:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, but towards the end of the festival. So I had left. So I saw it here in Los Angeles.

• 25:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. So it did play, I think it played early in the New York Film Festival and then it had opened at the IFC Center in kind of an exclusive run. And now this week it's opening in Los Angeles. And I think it will start to play across the country over the next few weeks. This is Yuval Abraham and Rachel Zor, two people who were significantly involved in No Other Land, the film about the West Bank a couple of years ago, that was widely acclaimed, though sort of self distributed because of its, the very controversial nature, I suppose, of the topic. This movie is executive produced by Jonathan Glazer. This film portrays, in an amazing act of investigative journalism, the way that Israeli

• 26:09Sean Fennessey?

  Defense Forces are bombing and attacking Gaza, and specifically the way that they are not discerning between soldiers and war targets and women and children. And the film is basically more journalism than it is movie, though there are significant cinematic choices that are made in the movie, but it is a series of discussions.

• 26:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 26:33Sean Fennessey?

  Which is similar to another movie that I've seen that I'll tell you about here. But I, I thought it was quite painful to watch this movie. It's very bracing. And the identities of the Israeli military figures who participate are shaded, their voices are shifted. You know, there's been a significant outcry about this movie, especially from government officials in Israel who claim that this is not true and that these people, you know, the filmmakers themselves, that it's been suggested that their citizen will be stripped completely and that they will not be allowed to return to their home country. What thoughts did you have about this?

• 27:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought it was incredibly effective and compelling. And I agree, upsetting to watch. You know, it is an act of journalism. It's building on journalism that has been done. And I believe that some of that has been done in The Guardian. And so The Guardian is going to help be releasing that NASA more broadly. But some of, some of the journalism for me is, I mean, the, the interviews themselves are incredibly upsetting, illuminating, and also just, you know, hearing someone explain something from their own experience is always going to be different and impact you in a, in a way that even reading it in a newspaper article won't. They have people drawing diagrams. I'll never, I'll never

• 27:52Amanda Dobbins?

  forget someone drawing a diagram on a, and trying to recreate what, what they had done in their quote unquote day job. And, you know, small decisions. I thought that the, the filmmaking choices that they make were also quite effective. And, you know, both what you see for the majority of the film and then what you see at the end without spoiling it too much. So yeah, I think this is an incredibly important piece of filmmaking and journalism, and I was glad to have been able to see it.

• 28:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. It's an interesting demonstration too of how to ask questions and get answers as a journalist. And it's interesting that we're talking about this movie on the Social Reckoning episode, because that's also a component of this. And, you know, not to say that it's wrong or different somehow in the Social Reckoning, but it's dramatized. And this is someone actually attempting to find out the truth about something that many people don't want you to know or believe to be true. So I thought the movie was very effective.

• 28:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:49Sean Fennessey?

  Cameron Winter at Carnegie Hall. This is whiplash tonally from the last film. This was the first film that I watched when I arrived at the festival. I would say target rich environment. A lot of guys who look like me, or who will be me in 15 to 20 years at this screening. Very friendly fellows, women as well. But a PTA concert film. It draws out a certain type. I, I am a Cameron Winter fan. I didn't know if you were or not. So I was wondering about this before you seeing the movie.

• 29:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:22Sean Fennessey?

  I say this not to degrade you in any way, but because this was the experience of watching the movie and then talking to people afterwards. If you like Cameron Winter, this is a very cool concert movie. If you have no relationship to Cameron Winter, your takeaway from this will be, this is a movie about a filmmaker trying to find an interesting way to film a musical performance. Because that was my takeaway from it.

• 29:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess that's true. I mean, Cam is him, in my opinion. And I've, I guess you don't know that my sons can sing Texas, that that was something that developed this summer. They know, they, well, they know, doctor, doctor, heal yourself.

• 29:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Amanda Dobbins?

  But, so we, we enjoy geese, and by extension, Cameron Winter in my household also. Like, he's quite tall. But I, I do think in addition to it being, you know, PTA and Benny Safdie is one of the camera operators on this, just Trying to do the concert film in an interesting way. It's also a portrait of like a young genius. And I think that there is something in the actual performance and watching this very special person just sing his songs. And I don't want to say too much more about how he sings them, because even that is a really delightful reveal.

• 30:36Amanda Dobbins?

  But it feels very much of a moment in time. And I would say last week I got to see, in a good way, it's like a time capsule. And I got to see a lot of the films that were in New York last week, but I obviously had some FOMO. I felt like I was far away and I was missing New York and I was missing like the vibe and the fall of it all and the energy.

• 30:56Sean Fennessey?

  Particularly fun night. Yeah.

• 30:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, but I will say at least for the 75 minutes when I was in the movie, I was like, I'm getting the energy of this concert. I don't feel like divorced from the after party. Then, you know, I went on Instagram and I saw everybody hanging out. Cameron and PTA were at the after party, by the way.

• 31:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, I didn't see them.

• 31:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:15Sean Fennessey?

  But they were there. I was there as well.

• 31:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah. But in the moment, I was like, this, this is a, I feel the energy of this in a way that I think is exciting.

• 31:24Sean Fennessey?

  I was talking to an older gentleman after the screening and he was not a Cameron Winter person, but loves music and had worked in music. And he was saying, that didn't look like Carnegie Hall to me, which I thought was an interesting note, which is that if you see a performance in Carnegie Hall that has been filmed, maybe on PBS, it's basically just two cameras on tripods in the two aisles on the sides. And that's what you'll see. And this movie is almost like a diagrammatic journey through where you can put a camera in that building. There are times when it's up in the rafters, there are times when it is on stage and as close to the performer as possible.

• 32:05Sean Fennessey?

  There are times when you can almost see PTA walking by, operating the camera before a hard cut to not allow you to see him. So in that way, it's almost like a nature documentary, the way that it's, the way that it's filmed and the way that Cameron is captured. I mean, as a singer songwriter, he's wonderful. Like, he's working in a tradition that is my favorite thing. Like, you know, Harry Nilson and Randy Newman and those kinds of guys, like, sitting at the piano, pouring their heart out and also being really funny. That's like, that's my zone, that's my lane. So I love that. I might like that more than Geese, actually. But I was more amused by the like, what if we put it over here? What if we went over here? You know, it's just a game. It's like a big palate cleanser after making a $100 million movie, you know?

• 32:47Amanda Dobbins?

  For sure. But it had that vibe of, we just, we like this and we would like to have fun with this and make something cool. And that's what it is. It's just something cool and it'll speak to you or it won't. But I do think it can speak to people beyond just like the hardcore Cameron Winter fans.

• 33:03Sean Fennessey?

  Jack, you saw it?

• 33:04Speaker 03

  I have not.

• 33:05Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, my God, Jack.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  I can die after I watch this movie.

• 33:08Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I won't say anything else to ruin it for you. Jack Sanders loves Geese and Cameron Winter.

• 33:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but, but it's really, it's delightful.

• 33:14Speaker 03

  Genuinely the most special artist in my life, so I'm very excited.

• 33:17Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, huge statement. Speaking of a statement, a statement.

• 33:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow.

• 33:20Sean Fennessey?

  The new film from Tom McCarthy. This is an interesting one. I didn't really know very much about this movie. I don't believe it's slated to come out until 2027. It seems like it will have an awards qualifying run. Sony Pictures Classics has it. Tom McCarthy, of course, the director of Spotlight and Win Win and Stillwater. Fascinating director. I always say he's a coin flip director for me, where every other movie I think is great.

• 33:45Sean Fennessey?

  I think this one is, if not great, it's certainly very good. I wrote about it a little bit in the newsletter today, but I'll just briefly summarize it for you. I don't know if you and I talked about this one at all.

• 33:54Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I just saw your Letterboxd review of People Talking in Rooms banger, which I was like, sign me up.

• 33:59Sean Fennessey?

  It is a People Talking in Rooms banger. Here's the, kind of the framework of the movie. So it is based on a true event that happened in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1980, in which a panel of policymakers, economists, environmentalists, representatives for government officials, all got in a room together, specifically scientists and academics, I should say as well, got in a room together to talk about the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere and what we can do about it and climate change. And what's interesting about the movie is that it is, all of the dialogue that takes place in the conference room is pulled from the transcript of what was actually said during this meeting.

• 34:42Sean Fennessey?

  And on top of that, it is Paul Giamatti and John Turturro and Paul Rudd and Amy Ryan and like, and then 10 incredibly esteemed New York theater actors, who may not be as famous as some of those people, but who bring the same level of gravitas and skill,

• 34:57Sean Fennessey?

  just demonstrating the ways in which we are not able to agree on things and make any progress in this world. The movie's like light and funny, the way that a lot of McCarthy stuff can be, but pretty devastating.

• 35:11Sean Fennessey?

  Because 46 years ago, it's very clear that all of these people knew exactly what the problem was and almost nothing was done. And it was, it's also an event that takes place right on the precipice of the Reagan administration. So that, that particular timing, it's pulled from Nathaniel Rich's book, Losing Earth. I think it's like chapter three of that book. And so they use that book to, as like a springboard into this story. And then there's some other dramatized elements of what's happening, not inside the conference room, that are worth discussing when people get a chance to see the movie. But, um, yeah, you know, it's not 12 Angry Men or anything, but it was very engaging for a movie that could have felt very dead.

• 35:48Sean Fennessey?

  Also, kind of, I guess somewhat ironically, I think a movie that should be seen on a big screen, because if you watch it on, at home, it's going to feel like TV. And if you see it big, you'll let yourself feel it more. That's all I'll say about it.

• 36:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I think that's true of most things.

• 36:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, some things are not worthy of that, and we'll talk about that when we get into the social reckoning.

• 36:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure, yeah.

• 36:13Sean Fennessey?

  Making Marie Antoinette?

• 36:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, I've seen it. Yeah, well, I just, I mean, this is wonderful. So this is a film that is directed by Eleanor Coppola, mother of Sofia Coppola, wife of Francis Ford Coppola, and the filmmaker behind Hearts of Darkness, the making of...

• 36:31Sean Fennessey?

  Francis Ford Coppola, who will make The Godfather 4.

• 36:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, great, okay. That seems like a wonderful idea. Francis, make Skydance pay for it. Anyway. So Eleanor Coppola, a great filmmaker in her own right and a great writer, and she was on set during the making of Marie Antoinette, which is having its 20th anniversary this fall. And, you know, filmed a making of documentary. Eleanor Coppola died recently, I'm going to say last year. And so I think her loved ones finished the film, but it is just a beautiful portrait, not just of the making of a movie that I love very much and that is, you know, a very physical movie in its own way.

• 37:15Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's fun to see the behind the scenes of how they're doing the sets and the hair and just how long everybody has to wait for the hair to be done, which, and that, that became one of the major dramas of the, of the set, which, like, I get it.

• 37:29Amanda Dobbins?

  And why don't we have enough extras? But it is also, it's the, the only narration is excerpts from Eleanor Coppola's journals that are read by Diane Lane, who starred in her only feature film. And they're wonderful. And it is about a mother watching her daughter and how she feels about that. And there are some interviews that Sofia gives to her mother that are, you know, are wonderful and illuminating because they are things that she would only say to her mother, but also they are still like, I don't want to talk to you right now because you're my mother. I believe that Eleanor Coppola meets Sofia's now husband, Tomas Mars of Phoenix, on camera. And he says, oh, on camera. So, you know, it has all of those wonderful slices.

• 38:12Amanda Dobbins?

  It's very lived in and feels very specific to them, while also just being a great making of documentary about, a truly great film. I really feel like we're being proved right about Marie Antoinette.

• 38:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 38:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, we were, you know, we were there. I was there.

• 38:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And I... You were there more than anybody, no doubt, although I've always loved the movie, too. I think, um, there's two things that I really, really liked about the movie. I think you put your finger on something, which is the way in which Sofia communicates to the camera is different in this movie than the way that you would normally see her communicating, in which she's like a little bit more composed and calm. There's one moment in particular, near the end of the film, where she is expressing some regret about having part, like, decided to do this.

• 38:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 38:55Sean Fennessey?

  And whether she would do this again. And like, that was a very like, I don't know if it's like blisteringly raw, but it was real.

• 39:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 39:01Sean Fennessey?

  And I really appreciated that perspective. I also really liked seeing her relationship with Roman Coppola and the way that like, he kind of swoops into the movie and you can feel her, like, he's like ballast.

• 39:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 39:12Sean Fennessey?

  And I thought that was nice, too.

• 39:14Amanda Dobbins?

  And watching how they all work together.

• 39:16Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like, yeah, like, that's a really, that was a nice, something you wouldn't see in a normal making of documentary.

• 39:21Amanda Dobbins?

  It was a beautiful thing about a family and also, you know, that then such a family together can make such extraordinary things. And then there is also another amazing moment between Sofia and her mother is, she's talking about an interaction that she had with her cinematographer, Lance Accord, where they're, they're just talking about how to frame a shot and she just wants the table in the shot. And it's Sofia's version of the, until I see my notes applied, like, there's no point in me giving more notes, which is a Beyonce reference. Thanks, everyone, for keeping up. But she, she's venting about it to her mom and she's like, you know, even dad, when dad does this, blah, blah, blah. And it's amazing because it's half her just bitching about the way her dad is really being annoying.

• 40:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's also half her talking about how Francis Ford Coppola is being domineering, trying to like direct, you know, a movie because he does know some things about this. It's a really, really interesting text. It's amazing. So, I mean, I obviously loved it.

• 40:19Sean Fennessey?

  You're in the bag.

• 40:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 40:21Sean Fennessey?

  I thought it was good. I'm glad I watched it. I mean, I love movies like this. I wish every movie had a version of this, where it was just like, this is exactly what it felt like to be on set during the making of this movie, but this one isn't a very good version of it. Godzilla Minus Zero.

• 40:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 40:35Sean Fennessey?

  We both loved Godzilla Minus One, and that was a big surprise. Was it 23 or 24? I can't remember what year it was. And kind of came out of nowhere and it was the revival, obviously, of the big guy, the G-Man 23. And that movie was a surprise hit here in the United States, though Godzilla lives in my household forever. I love him.

• 40:56Sean Fennessey?

  The stunning thing about that movie was its balance between classic Kaiju effects-driven monster fights and human experience setting the film in the aftermath of World War II. This movie is an extension of that. Most of the same major characters return for this movie. It is also a Godzilla Gidera movie. It is like, it is Gidera, the like, origins of Gidera, the giant dragon who fights Godzilla.

• 41:24Sean Fennessey?

  I think significantly outpaces the action in Godzilla Minus One. Like, I don't know if you're gonna care that much about this because it is just like a lot of monster fighting, but the monster fighting, which is not, there's not a lot, I shouldn't say there's a lot of monster fighting, there's not.

• 41:39Amanda Dobbins?

  When it's done well.

• 41:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 41:41Amanda Dobbins?

  When Godzilla punched Kong, or Kong punched Godzilla for the first time.

• 41:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you loved it.

• 41:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, come on. I didn't like the second movie that they made about that.

• 41:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 41:51Amanda Dobbins?

  And, you know, Middle Earth, or whatever.

• 41:53Sean Fennessey?

  This one is different because this one is like very much about the PTSD of World War II.

• 41:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so you're not cheering.

• 41:59Sean Fennessey?

  In Japan.

• 42:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:01Sean Fennessey?

  No, but, you know, and obviously the monsters are representative of something, but there is just like, forgive me for sounding like such a dork, monster choreography in this.

• 42:10Amanda Dobbins?

  That's not dorky.

• 42:10Sean Fennessey?

  That is amazing. And then it is kind of, it's not leavened so much as it is like set against this kind of real human struggle. I would argue there's like a little bit too much human struggle in this movie.

• 42:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah.

• 42:20Sean Fennessey?

  Which makes it feel a little drawn out.

• 42:22Amanda Dobbins?

  You gotta pad out the second movie. It's tough.

• 42:24Sean Fennessey?

  It is a little padded out. Some of it is really earned, some of it not so much, but there's, there's, there's monster shit in here that is just fantastic.

• 42:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Let me ask you this.

• 42:33Sean Fennessey?

  It's so funny that this movie played at the New York Film Festival.

• 42:36Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's cool.

• 42:36Sean Fennessey?

  It's great.

• 42:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Let me ask you this.

• 42:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 42:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Why can't your family go as Godzilla for Halloween?

• 42:41Sean Fennessey?

  I would, I would love nothing more.

• 42:42Amanda Dobbins?

  And the three of you. So it's like one of the, you know, one costume, someone's the head, someone's the tail, Alice can be in the middle, so you don't lose her.

• 42:51Sean Fennessey?

  All as one monster.

• 42:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 42:53Sean Fennessey?

  My daughter would wanna-

• 42:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Speaking of choreography.

• 42:54Sean Fennessey?

  I know, my daughter would wanna be Mothra, though, because Mothra is a girl.

• 42:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 42:58Sean Fennessey?

  And Mothra is her favorite.

• 42:59Amanda Dobbins?

  All right.

• 43:00Sean Fennessey?

  So.

• 43:00Amanda Dobbins?

  We're having some of this in my house as well, where he's just-

• 43:04Sean Fennessey?

  With Halloween costumes.

• 43:05Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, it's like, oh, no, no, no, I want the band with the boy drummer. And I'm like, I, it doesn't matter. I hate this. I know, I know, I know.

• 43:15Sean Fennessey?

  Mothra is also nice. You know Godzilla is not nice.

• 43:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Whatever, but she loves Godzilla.

• 43:19Sean Fennessey?

  She does, she does. But he's really cranky. You know, he's kind of, Godzilla's kind of a bitch. Like, he's kinda gotta, he's gotta get his-

• 43:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I relate to him deeply.

• 43:26Sean Fennessey?

  He's gotta get his shit together. You know, he's gotta like wake up.

• 43:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 43:28Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's like, all right, so they woke you up, like, all right.

• 43:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it would be funny if the three of you were like toddling around. No. I'm wearing May's hat, remember?

• 43:37Sean Fennessey?

  All right, yeah. You'll be May. Um, couple quick things. Well, one, one quick thing that I'll, I'll close with, which was Joy of Joys.

• 43:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 43:46Sean Fennessey?

  Which was the new short film directed by Jonathan Glazer, who we just mentioned, around NASA, which is a 35-minute documentary about the making of a benefit album for children in danger in war zones that features a lot of very well-known artists. The, I guess the gimmick, the wrinkle of this documentary is that while many of the artists are recording, those artists include Jarvis Cocker, Fontaine's DC, Damon Albarn, Olivia Rodrigo. They're being filmed by eight-year-olds. So eight-year-olds have video cameras.

• 44:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow.

• 44:27Sean Fennessey?

  And are like-

• 44:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 44:28Sean Fennessey?

  Are like utterly disarming these world-famous pop stars. And it is very, very entertaining.

• 44:35Amanda Dobbins?

  That's, that's, that sounds great.

• 44:37Sean Fennessey?

  And very thoughtful. And then you're also seeing Olivia Rodrigo just like rip one of the sickest vocal runs.

• 44:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:44Sean Fennessey?

  You know, that you'll ever hear. And then like turning to an eight-year-old and charming them, and they're charming her. And so, you know, small film, obviously a very good cause, but a nice watch.

• 44:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that sounds great.

• 44:55Sean Fennessey?

  Worth people's time, I would say. Um, yeah, and then there was a ton of stuff that we've already talked about here that was at the festival, but all the, you know, all of a sudden, Paper Tiger, Club Kid, debut, Minotaur, everything played here. And, you know, I think consensus is starting to concretize amongst the critical classes. And really, the next step is sort of critics prizes, I feel like. That's what we're gonna start to hear with that in the Globes. There's still a couple of things I need to see, but I feel like I'm getting pretty close to having a handle on the whole season.

• 45:27Amanda Dobbins?

  How are you feeling?

• 45:28Sean Fennessey?

  I'm so glad Artificial came around. I feel like, I feel like it shook, shook up the snow globe a little bit.

• 45:32Amanda Dobbins?

  It really did.

• 45:33Sean Fennessey?

  You know, so that, that was nice to see.

• 45:34Amanda Dobbins?

  We just needed that energy, also.

• 45:36Sean Fennessey?

  We, we do. We do. There's something-

• 45:38Amanda Dobbins?

  There's something vicious and aggressive.

• 45:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 45:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And just delightful about it all at once.

• 45:45Sean Fennessey?

  It's a Take No Prisoners movie about that, this movement, that is very interesting. You know, not unlike this next movie I wanted to talk with you about very briefly, which is Musk.

• 45:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:54Sean Fennessey?

  Which is the new four-hour documentary by Alex Gibney, which you had a chance to see in Venice. And you watched it in full in Venice, right?

• 45:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I did.

• 45:59Sean Fennessey?

  I just saw it yesterday. Gibney, of course, among the most successful documentarians of this century. He made Enron, The Smartest Guys in the Room, Client, and Rise and Fall, Elliot Spitzer, Going Clear, Scientology, and The Prison of Belief. He's made like 50 movies at this point. So he is really the guy when it comes to these big, sweeping, social issues and figures of great controversy and great influence. This one is, in his view, Elon Musk in full, through all the stages of his success and controversies and struggles.

• 46:35Amanda Dobbins?

  But does not include Elon and Musk's supposed involvement in Skydance, so.

• 46:40Sean Fennessey?

  That's true.

• 46:41Amanda Dobbins?

  It doesn't, we haven't gotten that far, yeah.

• 46:43Sean Fennessey?

  Has there been any other reporting about that?

• 46:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I haven't heard anything, but I just wanted to note, you know, it's a living document.

• 46:48Sean Fennessey?

  I'd love for that to not happen.

• 46:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, like, he is a living document.

• 46:51Sean Fennessey?

  Truly, I mean-

• 46:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Not this documentary.

• 46:53Sean Fennessey?

  This movie is trying to keep up with the changing times. It is clearly something he's been working on for a long time, Gibney, and it gets us pretty close into the present day as well.

• 47:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:04Sean Fennessey?

  Well, what did you think about it? You mentioned some brief thoughts, I think, out of Venice, but-

• 47:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought that it was comprehensive and convincing. And I was irritated by some of the filmmaking choices, even as I understood the purpose that they were serving. Specifically, the, the video game simulation of it all, which is a narrative device that it borrows from Elon Musk's own ponderings, and then builds the exploration of his life and the, and the many different things that he has done, or said, or places he has inserted himself through, and, and, you know, in a, in a video game structure.

• 47:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 47:46Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and also then, kinda instead of doing recreations for real, it just does, you know, it, it smoothes over some of the tape that they don't have.

• 47:56Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 47:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I get it. You know, once again, I am not a video game person in, in, in any discipline. So I was just sort of limited by that. And I also, it has, you know, many people spoke. It does rely almost entirely on other people's reporting, and, and they are credited and featured. And so there are some things I didn't know as much about, but I didn't feel like there was anything new in it. It was, the, the new is just putting it all in one place, which I think is a public service, and I think is valuable.

• 48:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 48:29Amanda Dobbins?

  And again, it is convincing.

• 48:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, it's a four-hour film that's being released theatrically. And if you are interested in the origins of Zip2, SpaceX, Tesla, his acquisition of Twitter and turning it into X.com, Doge, you know, it, it is spending a good portion of time on all of those things. His various marriages and children, it spends a lot of time on that. You know, Gibney is one of those filmmakers who, I would say, has a boundless appetite for information. Like, he wants to squeeze as much context from his perspective into his work as he possibly can. I do think that sometimes he's working in a non-cinematic register that is like borderline, it's closer to like you can almost listen to the movie and get the point.

• 49:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 49:15Sean Fennessey?

  You're right that he's trying to add this element of the video game. There's also this element of using a CGI-created Musk that looks like AI, though apparently was not made with AI, that we see on screen you talking whenever there's audio that is not made available to us, or there's testimony essentially from him, from interviews. You know, it's a bit disorienting watching that footage.

• 49:40Amanda Dobbins?

  It's also like the, the avatar does look like him, but is also gotten a glow up of some sort. It's very confusing.

• 49:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, he's more fit.

• 49:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 49:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's almost like as though he would imagine himself.

• 49:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 49:51Sean Fennessey?

  Leather jacketed. And maybe that's a purposeful choice.

• 49:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 49:54Sean Fennessey?

  Because he is a person who, well, there's a, there's a devastating opening shot once we get past the sort of intro section of this film, which is that we see him stalking the halls of one of his very first startups, and his hairline, and what his hair looked like in 1997. And nothing is said about it. There's no comment made. There's no exploration of this subject matter at all. But it's an unmistakable choice.

• 50:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 50:16Sean Fennessey?

  That this is a person who has transformed himself pretty consistently over the years. There is some discussion about the way that he dressed himself at a certain period of time when he wanted to be identified as an engineer that I thought was quite fascinating. He's a self-styled, megalomaniacal, world-conquering trillionaire. I mean, that is really-

• 50:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 50:33Sean Fennessey?

  He is, he is Hank Scorpio come to life from The Simpsons. Like, he is, he is everything that we ever imagined in 1960s television when we thought of like Lex Luthor. So I guess it's reasonable that there would be a four-hour film about him. I do agree with you that there's not a ton of revelation, but maybe that doesn't matter as long as there's like, it's like reading a big old biography about somebody and you're like, well, you know, it's like reading a Walter Isaacson book and you're like, oh, well, that's that person's life. Got that.

• 51:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, though I do wonder whether a Walter Isaacson book in a four-hour theatrical documentary format will find its audience. You know, it really did, again, it is, it is very, very convincing. I, I buy the take, and it shows its work, you know?

• 51:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 51:24Amanda Dobbins?

  But I was like, I don't, I know about most of this, right? I don't need to be convinced. And I, I do understand the public value in having this exist for someone, but like, who needs to see it? And are they gonna see it in a movie theater?

• 51:43Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. I mean, you know-

• 51:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And will they be able to watch it on streaming? Will it be uploaded to a streaming platform?

• 51:52Sean Fennessey?

  I think, I, I think it will get to HBO.

• 51:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 51:56Sean Fennessey?

  The HBO documentary films, Chyron does appear at the beginning of the movie. If it doesn't appear on HBO.

• 52:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, no, something.

• 52:03Sean Fennessey?

  That will feel like silencing an artist, I think.

• 52:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 52:04Sean Fennessey?

  That's how it's going to feel, whether that's actually what's transpiring or not. I don't know what agreements Alex Gibney has with, you know, Skydance now. The movie, though, like, here's one thing it doesn't do.

• 52:17Sean Fennessey?

  It uses the rocket launches as this kind of very simple metaphor for him imagining the impossible and trying to make it so. And even in the face of failure, pretending as though nothing is wrong and continuing forging ahead. And you can say from one direction, he's a great scientist who works tirelessly to achieve dreams and change the world. Seen from another direction, he wreaks havoc on the world, thinking only of his own personal end goals. I don't totally understand, and this is maybe not Alex Gigné's fault, anything underneath Elon Musk. It feels like he's

• 52:58Sean Fennessey?

  has a slowly evolving mind state about certain things that feel very important to us.

• 53:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 53:02Sean Fennessey?

  But there's no like there, there. There's no ultimate philosophy. There's no ultimate personal incident that informed his point of view. Like, we see his father and his mother speak briefly, and we see that his father's quite strange and that there is an undercurrent of racism from his background. He's, of course, South African.

• 53:21Sean Fennessey?

  But like, when he was 12, what was going on? When he was 19, what was going on? What were the things that he wrote in his journals as a young person? What were the, you know, we see him as an entrepreneur, as a person who wants to build. But is that all there is?

• 53:37Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe?

• 53:38Amanda Dobbins?

  But I don't know. I agree with you completely that the documentary doesn't even try to answer that question. And it's much more interested in making a public record of, of, you know, a figure that is of historical significance. So I guess it's the Walter Isaacson book rather than the Candace Millard version, which is, that's a historian that Juliette Littman and my father-in-law read a lot. But, you know, it's not the dad history version trying to assign a character study, though.

• 54:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 54:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I, you know, I don't, I guess.

• 54:08Sean Fennessey?

  Would it have made him seem more sympathetic somehow? I mean, it's a deeply unsympathetic portrait of him, deeply. But that also doesn't feel unjustified in any way.

• 54:15Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, I want to talk about character studies in the context of Social Reckoning and also in other films that are coming out in the next few weeks. So let's put a pin in it.

• 54:23Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, we'll put a pin in it. Generally, I liked Musk. I, you know, it's hard to be like, heart on Musk, you know? It's, it's a kind of a grueling four-hour experience of watching somebody who's sort of obnoxious hurt people. But nevertheless.

• 54:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Part of, part of the back half and part of the reason that I snuck in, you know, my Campari spritz in the water bottle was there are aspects of Elon Musk now that I've just been like, well, I don't actually need to consume any of this media. So some of it was sort of bracing towards the end of just like, I haven't watched that many clips of the manosphere. And I was like, oh, it's really, it's really as bad as I imagined.

• 55:02Sean Fennessey?

  And just the tremendous amount of Babylon Bee content in the documentary. That's the most Babylon Bee content I've ever consumed.

• 55:08Amanda Dobbins?

  So in that sense, you know, I guess it is, it is a record of something that happened.

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• 57:39Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's pivot to The Social Reckoning. So this movie's written and directed by Aaron Sorkin.

• 57:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:44Sean Fennessey?

  He's, he's, I mean, is he your lighthouse? Is he your ship in the night?

• 57:49Amanda Dobbins?

  He once was.

• 57:49Sean Fennessey?

  He once was. We'll explore that.

• 57:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I think one half of that, written by Aaron Sorkin. Though even there, I'd like to investigate.

• 57:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, I think we should explore.

• 57:57Amanda Dobbins?

  What was written in this?

• 57:59Sean Fennessey?

  This new film stars Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Bill Burr, Betty Gilpin, and Billy Magnussen, and one Mimi Masaku, I should say. Cinematography by Jeff Cronin, who I believe shot The Social Network.

• 58:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Well.

• 58:12Sean Fennessey?

  Unlike The Social Network, this film is scored by Alexandre Des Plot, not Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

• 58:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:19Sean Fennessey?

  Here's what this film is about. Facebook engineer Francis Haugen and The Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz blow the whistle on the social network's most guarded secrets. This is, of course, based on a true story that transpired from roughly 2019 through 2021. What did you think of The Social Reckoning?

• 58:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I have been apprehensive, which is, I think, a generous word, about this film since it was announced. Number one, because The Social Network is, was our, was number one on our 25 for 25 list. We think it is one of the great movies of our lifetime. It is our generation's Citizen Kane. And it means a lot to both of us. And so, you know, you can't reheat a souffle. You, I, just making a sequel seems like a bad idea. And also, it was announced from the beginning that Aaron Sorkin would be directing as well as writing this film. And putting aside whatever we think of Aaron Sorkin's directing, which we'll get to, the magic of The Social Network was that it, it was where Fincher's

• 59:22Amanda Dobbins?

  genius and Sorkin's geniuses met, and the sum was greater than the parts. So I have been really nervous. Then we saw some trailers. I continued to be nervous. And, you know, no one likes to hear me say I was right, but this, this did not work out. This is everything that I feared. This is the MSNBC mom, Aaron Sorkin, unedited version of The Facebook Files. It is all of his sins and a few of his skills put together, but with no one to save him from himself. And I found myself thinking a lot about The West Wing,

• 1:00:06Amanda Dobbins?

  which is a show that I grew up on and, and that I love and that taught me a lot about how to be funny, though many people are like, you're not funny. So that's, that's fine.

• 1:00:20Sean Fennessey?

  That's what they're saying about Aaron Sorkin, too.

• 1:00:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's, that's, we all agree on that one. So, but this, if this were just a TV show on NBC in the year 2002, I probably wouldn't have a problem with it. But it is, it is very much a network TV procedural. It's really, it's just a procedural, and it's shot like it, and it's maybe acted worse than it, which we can get into.

• 1:00:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I mean.

• 1:00:48Amanda Dobbins?

  And I, and, and so it's a no for me.

• 1:00:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I, I, I didn't think it was successful. I didn't hate it. I think that there's a significant number of moments that are groan-worthy or eye-roll inducing. That's something that's been pretty common in the Aaron Sorkin experience for about a decade. And the, actually, the lifespan of this show has coincided with me really getting off the train. I thought Molly's Game was fun but flawed. I thought The Trial of the Chicago Seven was over-serious and inert. I thought being the Ricardos was embarrassing. And I think this movie is not embarrassing and not inert, but it actually just feels quite safe. And it's a much more

• 1:01:33Sean Fennessey?

  of a journalism movie than it is a courtroom film, which is what The Social Network is. The Social Network is a character study and an exploration of the, the building of a, of a company and an idea that kind of infected our culture. But it's also a movie that uses a very specific litigation strategy, as he so often does, to elevate the tension, which Fincher like seizes on. It's, it's Fincher's courtroom movie, right? This movie is procedural about journalism, but in a way that is not revelatory, in a story that is widely known but whose impact is debatable. And I think we can talk about maybe that at the end of this conversation, sort of like, what really were the ramifications

• 1:02:15Sean Fennessey?

  of these events specifically? And why would you choose this moment to dramatize if you were going to follow up The Social Network? Which I always felt did have tremendous social import. You know, I felt like that it actually is a meaningful movie. And we debated that with sort of like the world at large when we were doing 25 for 25, because there are a lot of younger people who were like, what's the big deal with this movie? And I'm like, you don't understand, there was not, there was life before Facebook. And it did actually change things pretty dramatically. And this movie is kind of trying to follow up on that by seizing on a moment in history, in recent history, that, you know, is upsetting to some and certainly had meaningful impact on political systems and the presidential administrations and people's lives. But.

• 1:03:04Sean Fennessey?

  I can't help but feeling like this is more of a blip than it is like a monumental moment. And so the stakes just feel kind of low at all times while you're watching. The movie is just kind of like

• 1:03:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:03:14Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of like very gently moving along at its own pace. It doesn't feel like you're ever, it's not a thriller. And it should feel like a thriller.

• 1:03:22Amanda Dobbins?

  The movie thinks that its stakes are so high and takes on, you know, the entire world, government systems and spoiler alert, Jan 6, which was rumored from the beginning. So, and, and, you know, many other, it has, life is at stake and the, and democracy. I mean, the number of times that the word democracy is said, free speech is said, the movie takes its stakes so seriously and sets them so high that there are basically, that there are no stakes because it can't encompass and telegraph all of them appropriately.

• 1:03:57Sean Fennessey?

  Well, democracy was not radically altered in any direction by any of these events. I mean, we know that, like, some things changed.

• 1:04:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:04:03Sean Fennessey?

  But there's a paradox at the very end of the movie that we'll talk about when we get to the end of this conversation. I think, um, I know why he wanted to come back to this. And I do understand that Aaron Sorkin, who has been very proudly noting that he still does not have any social media during his promote, his promotion cycle for this film, but is using all of the tools of social media

• 1:04:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:04:24Sean Fennessey?

  to try to get people to go see his movie. Um, because he's not engaged in the kind of contemporary world in that way.

• 1:04:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:04:34Sean Fennessey?

  It feels like he's unsuited to make a movie about these times. He doesn't really understand the modes of communication because he's not participating.

• 1:04:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:41Sean Fennessey?

  So it doesn't mean that like, you know, in order to make the best ever movie about media in 2026, you need to be on X.com all day. But this is very old fashioned, very old fashioned, and it feels that way the whole time.

• 1:04:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. It's also, the target of the social network is, is the media and is how we talk to each other and is this world that we live in now. But the target of the social network is really just one person.

• 1:05:06Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:06Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a character study and it's not even really a target. He's an anti-hero. And the, you know, Sean Parker is, is the hero, Justin, Justin Timberlake and people taking advantage of him. But the stakes there are ultimately very human.

• 1:05:19Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:20Amanda Dobbins?

  The target of the social reckoning is in fact, uh, the media, Facebook specifically, uh, definitely the Trump administration, everyone on the, and so he's, he doesn't have characters in this. He's not exploring anything other than his opinions loudly and attaching them to various characters.

• 1:05:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And so it's just the, the concept of the, of the movie is so different and so suited to everything that he, uh, is not good at unless he's making a weekly television show.

• 1:05:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I, I've thought about this a lot with him, especially in recent years. Every Sorkin script is a dialectic between himself. And it's like, there's, it's the two brains of Aaron Sorkin.

• 1:06:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:06:03Sean Fennessey?

  And one brain is a lot smarter than the other brain. And you know it while you're watching the movie. And so it becomes these kind of two tracked ideas battling against each other. So in A Few Good Men, it's duty versus honor. What is the right answer in that equation, especially if you're a member of the American military? In Steve Jobs, it's innovation versus humanity. Should you push forward no matter what to develop something that will change people's lives versus, should you be a good father or a good colleague or a good whatever?

• 1:06:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:06:30Sean Fennessey?

  In the world? Or should it come, should that come at the expense?

• 1:06:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Can you be both? Can you have it all?

• 1:06:35Sean Fennessey?

  Can you be both? In, in Molly's game.

• 1:06:37Amanda Dobbins?

  He could not until he invented the iPad, iPod.

• 1:06:39Sean Fennessey?

  In Molly's game, it's, um, having something for yourself, especially as a woman in a world that is very competitive and un, uh, unrelenting in the face of a woman's independence. But if you do so, can you only do it by non virtuous activity? Right? There's like, there are always these parallel tracts where a character has to choose one or the other. They're really, these are really old school theatrical like structures that he is applying.

• 1:07:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:07Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't really know what it is in this one. I don't really know that what the, the debate he seems to be most interested in is the one between the two characters that Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison play. They're the two characters who are constantly talking to each other in this movie. They, their discussions comprise 60% of the movie. And Haugen is a increasingly guilt ridden engineer who works in civic

• 1:07:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Integrity.

• 1:07:32Sean Fennessey?

  integrity at Facebook. And Jeremy Allen White is portraying Horowitz, the investigative reporter who is shifting from the political beat to the tech beat at the Wall Street Journal. And so he's on the hunt for what's really going down at these social media companies and how Facebook is toxifying our minds. And so there's just a lot of discussion about what is happening and why it's happening at Facebook between these two people. And increasingly, he is trying to extract more and more information from her and more and more trust from her. And she is at war with the idea of breaking her NDA and then breaking the kind of bolder, bigger, truer promise of what Facebook

• 1:08:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:13Sean Fennessey?

  could and should be.

• 1:08:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is connecting to other people.

• 1:08:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:08:16Amanda Dobbins?

  According to her idea and the one interpretation of the social network.

• 1:08:23Sean Fennessey?

  I'm willing to give, I, I'd be curious to know how you feel about this. I'm, I'd be willing to give her this character, at least. I don't know if this is how Francis Haugen actually felt at the time. In 2007.

• 1:08:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:35Sean Fennessey?

  I was like, oh, wow. I know what's going on with my Uncle Artie. He posted an update.

• 1:08:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I mean,

• 1:08:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's nice to see what's going on with it. Like, there was something like that.

• 1:08:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I still feel that way about Instagram.

• 1:08:45Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:46Amanda Dobbins?

  On a small level, which is owned by Facebook now called Meta.

• 1:08:49Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, and which is also invoked in the, the film because at this time Instagram was owned by Meta and part of the eventual revelations of the Facebook files include studies on Instagram and how bad it is for kids.

• 1:09:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:09:04Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and the rest of us too.

• 1:09:05Sean Fennessey?

  Young women in particular.

• 1:09:06Amanda Dobbins?

  But they don't, you know, they don't care. Once you are, it's, it's fine. We're doing it to ourselves. Um, so yeah, I, I understand that, but that's 2007 or 2009 or that's, you know.

• 1:09:18Sean Fennessey?

  I'm trying to grant that character a little, because she just seems so Pollyanna about this idea that we obviously know to be foolish.

• 1:09:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:25Sean Fennessey?

  You know, that, that Facebook could have ever represented some common good. And that the people who worked there and many of the people who were users came into the experience of using it, feeling like that was possible. And then increasingly, um, the notion of MSI's are introduced inside of the company, which are meaningful social interactions. Were you familiar with this phrase, even from some of the reporting before this movie?

• 1:09:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I had forgotten it. Yeah. Once the jargon starts, I, I go away.

• 1:09:51Sean Fennessey?

  Understandable. There's a lot of jargon in this movie. A lot of the film is obviously based on the reporting that Horowitz and others did. But meaningful social interactions were originally meant to be about Facebook reestablishing this thing that we're discussing. This idea of rather than sharing news about people talking about what they believe or something that's happening to them in the world. And in fact, it was a kind of a manipulated strategy by Facebook to get people to share more rage inducing content, that those were the things that, that drove the most engagement on the platform as they are across all platforms.

• 1:10:29Sean Fennessey?

  I guess the, that particular component of the story, which like, is depicted as a massive reveal in the reporting by the Wall Street Journal is one of those things that's just like, I've been on the internet for 30 years. Like, like, I don't, you mean to tell me?

• 1:10:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. That like, a clickbait headline will drive people crazy and make them click more and say more and leave more comments and go more crazy? Like, that's not news. It was notable that Mark Zuckerberg was confronted about these ideas before Congress.

• 1:10:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:10:59Sean Fennessey?

  That was notable. But that Wall Street Journal reporting, did anybody who was under 40 look at that and go like, oh my God, this changes everything? Like, I, how did we not know that? Yeah.

• 1:11:10Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's true. And I mean,

• 1:11:12Sean Fennessey?

  And even the idea that like, Facebook was gaming the system, which of course is the big revelation, like,

• 1:11:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:11:17Sean Fennessey?

  Was that surprising? Was that genuinely surprising to people? That these for profit enterprises?

• 1:11:22Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:11:23Sean Fennessey?

  Were manipulating people's behaviors?

• 1:11:25Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I guess, no, I guess it was, you know, having it on the record and having it. But it's like, it's a little bit of like disclosure day also.

• 1:11:31Sean Fennessey?

  True.

• 1:11:32Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's the same thing. It's of a same generation. There is a very boomerish quality to

• 1:11:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. They should have wheeled out Mark Zuckerberg like that. Yeah.

• 1:11:39Amanda Dobbins?

  But just also that like, once it's out there, of course, you know, to someone like Aaron Sorkin, it's like, once the truth is testified before Congress, then of course everything will change. Like once, and also once we can link what's going on here to the Jan 6 riots, which he at least does filmically.

• 1:11:54Sean Fennessey?

  He does, he does.

• 1:11:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Then of course, like all justice will be restored and we'll get him, you know?

• 1:12:00Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And if not, then we'll just vote for Mitt Romney. Like, which was a, don't forget that op ed. So there is, I, like, I agree with you that

• 1:12:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Structuring the movie around these events and this reveal is the nonstarter that Sorkin thinks is important because he's of a generation where like, you know, the Pentagon Papers are invoked several times in this movie. This movie does borrow at least a little bit of the structure, if quite literally nothing else, from All the President's Men.

• 1:12:32Sean Fennessey?

  Indeed.

• 1:12:33Amanda Dobbins?

  And, you know, it's if you know all the President's Men as well as you and I do, then it's to its detriment that you're thinking of it so often.

• 1:12:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I mean, one of the wonderful things about All the President's Men, which we've talked about many times over the years, is that the shoe leather is demonstrated in many different environments with many different characters.

• 1:12:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:12:50Sean Fennessey?

  You know, part of what makes the movie, that movie so interesting is the sort of treasure hunt with no map quality that Woodward and Bernstein are pursuing. In this movie, it's just Horowitz going back to Haugen over and over again. And he's persuasive. And I want to say, like, I thought Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison were pretty good in this. Like, it's not really their fault. Like, they're being saddled with a bunch of really leaden, overwritten, like, I guess meant to be sort of like metaphorically compelling breadcrumbs throughout, you know, like, oh, wouldn't it be funny if you say this here so I can have a callback to it an hour from now? This is like TV writing, you know?

• 1:13:27Amanda Dobbins?

  That's like Sorkin 101, or playwriting. That's like, that comedy, whatever. And they don't, they do not land the comedy. I would argue that they are miscast.

• 1:13:36Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:13:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Particularly Mikey Madison, who I think is just not on the Sorkin rat-a-tat level. And that's not her fault. That's, it's just not there.

• 1:13:47Sean Fennessey?

  I worry that he just does not write women.

• 1:13:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, he doesn't. But like, Alison Janney could do it, you know?

• 1:13:52Sean Fennessey?

  Sure. Yeah. The only woman ever cited in any Aaron Sorkin entertainment that is credible.

• 1:13:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Jessica Justine was caught in it, too. I'm trying to think of.

• 1:14:03Sean Fennessey?

  This is not against any of those actors. It's like, the way that these characters are written, I'm like, sir, have you met a woman?

• 1:14:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, listen, neither of those people are characters. They are not.

• 1:14:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. We don't get, we get nothing of Horowitz's real life. Nothing.

• 1:14:15Amanda Dobbins?

  They are very, very broad.

• 1:14:16Speaker 03

  Excuse me, he doesn't know how to use a GPS.

• 1:14:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I was about to say, he doesn't know how to use a GPS. And she, you know, like, talks too much at meetings. And so, and people don't want to like befriend her. So, and also, she has, you know, gluten disease, so she has to wear.

• 1:14:33Sean Fennessey?

  Just celiac, so she has neuropathy.

• 1:14:35Speaker 03

  Sorkin literally suggests that she's not a character when she's writing her dating profile. And she's like, I'm a free spirited data scientist who likes, deletes the likes, deletes the free spirit. And it's like, I'm a data scientist.

• 1:14:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:46Sean Fennessey?

  Now, listen, I think there's something interesting in that idea of a kind of lost person who has like set out this life for herself, where she's like, I'm throwing my life into working for the biggest and most exciting tech company in the world at a time when someone like me with my kind of brain can be really successful and part of changing the world.

• 1:15:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:15:05Sean Fennessey?

  I think if this was more of a loss of innocence movie, which it's trying to be, it could be compelling.

• 1:15:10Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's saddled with, it's trying to score too many other points. It's not interested in her. It's not a character study.

• 1:15:15Sean Fennessey?

  It's not.

• 1:15:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, the, the series of events in which she decides not just, not just to like leak one document, but within the span of two minutes, the character goes from being a Facebook employee and surreptitiously photographing documents to being willing to go on the record. She's contacted a whistleblower, like advocacy group already. She understands, it's.

• 1:15:38Sean Fennessey?

  None of this is spoilers, because this is all shit that really happened five years ago.

• 1:15:41Amanda Dobbins?

  But it happens so fast that even I, who knows the real events and knows what happens, I turned to her, I was like, what the hell? There's just, there's absolutely no development. There's no interest in like what her motivation would be, why she would want to do it.

• 1:15:54Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I mean, I think in that particular case, the implication is, is that the delivery of the information about Instagram kind of tips her over. That her coworker shares.

• 1:16:02Amanda Dobbins?

  And like, her coworker shows up and is like, here, I, you know, I have your support.

• 1:16:06Sean Fennessey?

  Women assemble, you know, that scene in The Avengers.

• 1:16:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:08Sean Fennessey?

  We gotta save the teenage girls.

• 1:16:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Body image, 30 something percent. Wow.

• 1:16:13Sean Fennessey?

  32% I believe the number was.

• 1:16:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you know.

• 1:16:16Sean Fennessey?

  I think that, I think you're right, though, which is just that we don't really understand these people, you know? We don't, we don't really have a sequence like the opening sequence of The Social Network, where we get a sense of Mark Zuckerberg in his opening conversation with Rooney Mara, where she is not only defining him, but he is continuing to define himself and their friction between each other. And the way that, the way that that conversation is executed from a filmmaking perspective is just more entertaining and more complex.

• 1:16:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure.

• 1:16:46Sean Fennessey?

  And more finely observed than what Aaron Sorkin can do as a filmmaker.

• 1:16:49Amanda Dobbins?

  There is an opening sequence that sets the intentions and the tone of this film very clearly. That opening sequence is an absolutely excruciating recreation, I assume imagined, because the way that it's written is so Sorkin. And it's, so it's Sorkin recreating what he imagines or what he wants to represent is going on in extremist chat group viral videos. And so he recreates a white woman being stopped by the police. She's not even stopped by the police. She's been stopped. The police happen upon her. She films her

• 1:17:27Amanda Dobbins?

  own video. Then it gets posted. And it is, it's supposed to be excruciating because it is, you know, an extremist group. But it is also Aaron Sorkin's view of what's wrong with the world and why people are hateful to each other and how they express themselves and what's wrong with the media is so reductive. And honestly, like, a product is the very thing that he is indicting in this movie itself. Like, this is a very like Facebook mom movie. And that is a very Facebook mom post and a very, like, very, can you believe that this is what's going on? This is exactly what your uncle would describe to you, you

• 1:18:10Amanda Dobbins?

  know, at Thanksgiving dinner, if you have the good kind of uncle, I guess. So, it's, it's a nightmare. It's an absolute nightmare. And, and the movie just goes from there with the same level of analysis and lack of character explanation. And we haven't even talked about Jeremy Strong playing Mark Zuckerberg yet.

• 1:18:29Sean Fennessey?

  I was getting to that. So, you know, the bulk of the movie is the whistleblower and the reporter.

• 1:18:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:18:36Sean Fennessey?

  And then the film has an a chronological structure where it keeps shifting forward and backward into time. And we start effectively in 2019 and we slide about five or six times in the movie to 2021, to Mark Zuckerberg.

• 1:18:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:18:51Sean Fennessey?

  Preparing for future testimony before Congress. And he is being prepped by a fleet of lawyers and crisis consultants and former friends who happen to be in the room. In this movie, Jeremy Strong plays Mark Zuckerberg, not Jesse Eisenberg notably. In that room, it's kind of a fascinating collection of actors, really good actors. I might argue that this stuff works a lot better than what's in the rest of the movie, but I don't know that there's enough here to justify its existence.

• 1:19:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it's tough.

• 1:19:30Sean Fennessey?

  And again, like, doesn't really teach you anything?

• 1:19:32Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it doesn't. It's what Sorkin does well.

• 1:19:35Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:19:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is, you know, litigation. This is deposition. There's, he's prepping for his congressional appearance or like major callbacks to the debate prep, which is an episode of The West Wing. And it's a wonderful episode.

• 1:19:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:19:49Amanda Dobbins?

  So if you're, you know, if you're in the know, you're already in that mood. But it's people arguing about ideologies in rooms, like good actors. And they are good actors.

• 1:19:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and it's also like, you can just feel that's what Sorkin really wants to be saying. Like, and, you know, the Bill Burr character is the Sorkin stand-in. And he just keeps screaming about like fact-check political ads, which, you know, you can hear Aaron Sorkin screaming that at like a news broadcast because he doesn't look at social media, quote unquote.

• 1:20:19Sean Fennessey?

  I know, but it's hard for me to be like, Sorkin is not a good filmmaker when I watch some of this stuff. Because what Winmi Misaku and Billy Magnuson and Bill Burr are doing in these sequences, and you know, we can, we can talk about Strong in a Minute as a sort of standalone.

• 1:20:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:35Sean Fennessey?

  But that stuff works. Like, it is definitely like hectoring Sorkin's speech writing that is flying a mile a minute. But like, that's what he does well.

• 1:20:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, you watched all three seasons of The Newsroom. Like, when that works, that is, that's his skill set. That's what he's good at. It is also, by the way, just like, in one room, so he doesn't have to worry about.

• 1:20:55Sean Fennessey?

  It's a play. He's a playwright.

• 1:20:57Amanda Dobbins?

  He doesn't have to worry about moving a camera, setting anything up. He doesn't have to worry about like not having other locations. It's, you know, it's.

• 1:21:05Sean Fennessey?

  Just to go back to the filmmaking very quickly, I can see him attempting to make moves like the way that he's creating atmosphere with the fog in San Francisco and the secret meetings between Haugen and Horowitz are transpiring, where he's trying to create some mood and atmosphere. Or the way that the camera is sort of moving over the desks across the offices of The Wall Street Journal, where like, I feel him trying to do things that are like, I, I too am a filmmaker.

• 1:21:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:21:30Sean Fennessey?

  I have moves that are making you feel situated in environments, but it's, it's stilted and very transparent.

• 1:21:36Amanda Dobbins?

  He does the, he does the working girl shot of all the feet walking to work in San Francisco, but it's, you know, all the Solomons or what. Oh, that's, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:45Sean Fennessey?

  He does the Jan Sixters. Yes, yes. He might, he might be doing both. He might be kind of cross cutting both of those things. And you can see this in The Trial of Chicago 72, where he's attempting to create, you know, there's a particular sort of like riot march sequence in that movie with a lot of gas.

• 1:21:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:21:59Sean Fennessey?

  That he wants to give you the feeling that you feel when you watch Reds or you watch, you know, like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a movie that like, even if I don't love that movie, has extraordinary atmosphere, you know, has, it feels like very different from other films. He does not have the juice, but when he's in a room, as you say.

• 1:22:19Amanda Dobbins?

  He's got the juice.

• 1:22:19Sean Fennessey?

  And Bill Burr, who like 10 years ago, nobody was like, Bill Burr is going to be a good actor. But I'm like, Bill Burr is going toe to toe with Jeremy Strong and is very entertaining in this movie.

• 1:22:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:27Sean Fennessey?

  And.

• 1:22:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Helps that he makes all of the good points.

• 1:22:30Sean Fennessey?

  Makes the good points. Yeah. But that's, that is a feature of Sorkin's skill, like of what he does best, where it's like, that's the two brained thing, where when you're having the debate, someone is winning and someone is losing. And there's a little nuance in between, a little nuance. But there's always the one person who's like more ethically right in any Sorkin debate. And it is kind of gratifying. It's the same way, what, like when you're watching A Few Good Men and you're watching somebody thunder back at somebody else. You're like, well, I'm rooting for that person, not that person, even though I think that what that person said was kind of cool.

• 1:23:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. Well, I mean, but that's the thing is that you are missing in, and again, it's not, Jeremy Strong's performance is fine. It's just Jeremy Strong doing Mark Zuckerberg, you know, with the Caesar hair.

• 1:23:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:13Amanda Dobbins?

  But he's not given anything cool to do. So there is no, there's not even the Nicholson-esque pushback or the you can't handle the truth. He doesn't have any good one liners. He doesn't have any.

• 1:23:24Sean Fennessey?

  There's one scene.

• 1:23:25Amanda Dobbins?

  He yells about free speech.

• 1:23:26Sean Fennessey?

  There's one scene, and part of what's challenging about this movie is the flashbacks, they're not confusing, but they reveal a kind of ornateness in the structure that is, that makes the film lack pace. So there are some flashbacks that are in black and white, where we're seeing a very momentous meeting in which a decision is made.

• 1:23:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:23:48Sean Fennessey?

  And then there are other flashbacks where we're seeing, or if they're not flashbacks, they're happening in Howgan's contemporary reality, but then we're flashing forward. But at one point we go in 2019 to a civic integrity meeting that takes place in Zuckerberg's office. And it's the only time that we see Zuckerberg at length out of the 2021 timeline.

• 1:24:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:09Sean Fennessey?

  I thought that scene worked really well.

• 1:24:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:24:12Sean Fennessey?

  And it isn't, it's a demonstration of how Zuckerberg led and made choices at Facebook with particular units of the company. And in this one, he's extremely dismissive, cuts to the, it forces everyone to cut to the chase. And you can see the ways in which it is making his employees uncomfortable because he is focused strictly on bottom line at a certain time in the company's history. That to me is what the sequel to the, to the Facebook movie should be. It should be the demonstration of the way all those choices were made, not the assertion, the, not the acquisition of the information about what he did. Like this is a movie about getting the info about what he did, rather than just showing us what he did, except for like two scenes.

• 1:24:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I agree with you.

• 1:24:53Sean Fennessey?

  Why that choice?

• 1:24:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 1:24:55Sean Fennessey?

  For the frame. It's so strange.

• 1:24:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I mean, you know, I understand why, because he had, he saw it structurally in terms of a play. And he's like, oh, okay. Well, I can do my deposition thing over here, except it's the deposition prep. And then I'll fold in, you know, the homage to all the whistleblower movies that I love. And then I can bring it all together with my recreation of Jan 6, which is important to me as a boomer, to make sure we get on the record how I feel about this, which is negative. He, he's, he was against it.

• 1:25:23Sean Fennessey?

  He was against it. Yeah.

• 1:25:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Noted, Aaron Sorkin.

• 1:25:25Sean Fennessey?

  Were you, were you for Jan 6? Were you there that day?

• 1:25:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I will say that this recreation makes The Morning Show look like Reds. So in that sense, you know, I just, I think that The Morning Show had a lot more resources. I think they built a fake Capitol, you know, they had Reese Witherspoon there.

• 1:25:46Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 1:25:46Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's, it's tough though. It's tough when you're watching the so-called sequel to The Social Network and you're thinking about The West Wing and The Morning Show.

• 1:25:58Sean Fennessey?

  It's very TV, the movie.

• 1:26:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:00Sean Fennessey?

  It's very much, it feels like an HBO original movie from 1998. And I liked a lot of those movies. I've cited them here in the past. I always found those docu dramas entertaining. They continued those with some of the kind of political comedies that Jay Roach was making, like Game Change, you know, some movies like that. And those movies are cool and they're, they're like,

• 1:26:19Sean Fennessey?

  they pass the time by humorously summarizing outrageous events in our recent history.

• 1:26:28Sean Fennessey?

  I, I feel like Aaron Sorkin is just that C with what kind of stories he wants to tell. And these last few films, I don't really get what he's after. And maybe this is just like, he's got a great life. He's been extraordinarily honored and successful. And he's operating in a different stratosphere, but he's trying to get you to think about a lot of much better movies. It's a very dangerous game.

• 1:26:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Before the film started, I was treated to some, you know, behind the scenes,

• 1:27:01Amanda Dobbins?

  EPK, Sorkin prep about this movie. And he was noting how his last two movies, because of the pandemic, were streaming only. And he was excited for people to get back in theaters and to watch his great cinema. But like, sir, just make a mini series. Imagine if this were a mini series.

• 1:27:19Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's like, I think it would have been good.

• 1:27:21Amanda Dobbins?

  We'd be okay.

• 1:27:21Sean Fennessey?

  I think it could have been good.

• 1:27:23Amanda Dobbins?

  And then also it gives more room for all the Sorkin stuff that is within this. I mean, there's musical theater and sports references and some patter. Again, I think we would have to recast to get some of the patter back.

• 1:27:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I've really soured on him over the last five years. And so I'm, I probably sound like I disliked this more than I actually did. Like I didn't find it to be, I felt like you were maybe a little bit more frustrated by it while we were watching it together even than I was. But I think I'm just, for someone like him, who I have venerated in the past.

• 1:27:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:58Sean Fennessey?

  And not just The Social Network. I think Steve Jobs is exceptional. And I also really like a lot of his 90s scripts. And I think he was able to have a little bit more fun back then too. I don't sense him having a lot of fun. I sense him some, almost like box checking his own peccadilloes, you know, like references to showboat and the banana daiquiri stuff in this movie. And, um, you know, there's a fist pump callback.

• 1:28:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:24Sean Fennessey?

  Reference to a college basketball game that is like very sports night, 101. And all that stuff feels almost perfunctory. It's like we're waiting for him to do something like that, instead of it being logically or emotionally coherent to the story being told. I think if you are not a Sorkanologist, you might not feel any of those things as much, but we do. And so I'm like, you know.

• 1:28:49Amanda Dobbins?

  There's a moment towards the end when Jeremy Allen White's character throws a towel at the Francis Howgan character and she doesn't catch it. And he's like, oh, I guess I should have told you that that was coming. And, you know, again, I've rewatched many Sorkin shows over and over again, but I'm like, with different actors, there's a patter there.

• 1:29:12Sean Fennessey?

  Bradley Whitford. Yeah.

• 1:29:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. There is, there is a timing there. So I think a little bit, much of it, I think, is the execution doesn't work out. But then also like he picked the wrong, like in every circumstance, he picked, he picked the wrong framing. He picked the wrong story. He didn't develop characters, you know, it's like.

• 1:29:28Sean Fennessey?

  I wanted to talk about Jeremy Allen White a little bit.

• 1:29:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:30Sean Fennessey?

  Because, um, I think he's really talented and I think he is like, he's now picked two parts in a row. Where you've got ostensibly people with a lot going on and you don't really get a whole lot. The last part was Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere. And that movie is also very unsuccessful in a kind of a similar way.

• 1:29:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:29:53Sean Fennessey?

  Where it's like, this could have been an email with a link to a, a well-constructed oral history.

• 1:29:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:29:59Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like it's just not terribly cinematic.

• 1:30:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Lots of shots of people doing things, writing out their thoughts on paper or screen and then maybe crossing things out.

• 1:30:09Sean Fennessey?

  And in this movie, taking photographs of charts from internal documents of Facebook.

• 1:30:16Sean Fennessey?

  And, but I don't, I also don't know what the best use of him is per se, you know?

• 1:30:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:20Sean Fennessey?

  Because obviously in The Bear, Carmy is this incredibly internal tortured person. And that the nature of his own torture and his own ambition and drive to succeed is like slowly revealed over time over many seasons.

• 1:30:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought, I thought he was good in Iron Claw, which I almost called White Claw.

• 1:30:36Sean Fennessey?

  He is good in Iron Claw, um, which I, you might need a, a White Claw to, to get through. It's utter pain and sadness. A devastating movie.

• 1:30:46Sean Fennessey?

  That's a good use of him.

• 1:30:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:47Sean Fennessey?

  That was a good use of him.

• 1:30:48Amanda Dobbins?

  And that's a cinematic movie.

• 1:30:51Sean Fennessey?

  It is.

• 1:30:52Amanda Dobbins?

  This is, I mean, he's, he's not a.

• 1:30:54Sean Fennessey?

  Well, yeah, but Sean Durkin, like that's a real filmmaker, you know? Like that's not Aaron Sorkin.

• 1:31:01Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. I don't know why I want better for him. I see him in interviews and I'm like, ah, he seems, he seems cool.

• 1:31:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I want better for everyone involved in this film.

• 1:31:08Sean Fennessey?

  Mikey Madison will be fine.

• 1:31:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:09Sean Fennessey?

  She's going to be fine. I, I, I don't totally agree that she's miscast, but I, I just don't really think he fully.

• 1:31:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree that he doesn't.

• 1:31:17Sean Fennessey?

  Captures the conflict of that person.

• 1:31:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Know how to write women, but I would also say he doesn't really write any characters in this film. So that's part of the problem.

• 1:31:25Sean Fennessey?

  You know what? I'm always, I'm willing to forgive that in most movies that he writes because there is a kind of kinetic energy to the back and forth. And no one is really generating that except for Jeremy Strong for about five minutes and Bill Burr for about five minutes. And then everything else is really flat. So yeah, this is, this is a bummer. You know, Billy Magnuson, innocent.

• 1:31:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Betty Gilpin. So unbelievably innocent.

• 1:31:54Sean Fennessey?

  I know, but I just really want somebody to write her a part where she gets to be nice.

• 1:31:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. But I don't, I don't mind that she's not.

• 1:32:01Sean Fennessey?

  I'm, I'm getting a little tired of people being like, she's the bitch in this one.

• 1:32:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:32:05Sean Fennessey?

  Like, I don't.

• 1:32:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. Was Katherine Hepburn ever nice?

• 1:32:10Sean Fennessey?

  She was charming. Was Betty Gilpin charming in this?

• 1:32:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought so.

• 1:32:16Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, she's great. I love her, but I thought I was like, this is, this is another woman that like, have you met a woman?

• 1:32:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. I liked it when she was like, you guys can have him. Bye. And just like left the room. That's kind of how I try to deal with all the men in my life.

• 1:32:30Sean Fennessey?

  You know what it was? I'll tell you what it was with that character. She keeps like announcing how not nice she is.

• 1:32:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, sure. Yeah.

• 1:32:36Sean Fennessey?

  We know. We can see she's an actor. She's performing. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know where I think I'm taking this conversation.

• 1:32:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. It didn't work. It didn't work. We were right. They should have called us. They didn't.

• 1:32:47Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, they don't need to call me. They just need to be better.

• 1:32:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I agree, but I think.

• 1:32:53Sean Fennessey?

  What am I gonna tell them? I've never written a movie. I don't know about that. I just know what I like.

• 1:32:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think you could have fixed it, but I think, I think that we were, we were concerned about this. That's all.

• 1:33:02Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let me just posit this to you.

• 1:33:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:05Sean Fennessey?

  If it's Fincher directing and Eisenberg is in here and it's this script, but presumably the like,

• 1:33:12Amanda Dobbins?

  With their input.

• 1:33:13Sean Fennessey?

  Pressure makes diamonds to create something different. Yes. Fincher's notes on the script.

• 1:33:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:19Sean Fennessey?

  Eisenberg's sense of this character. Is this a significantly better film?

• 1:33:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. I mean, I like, I think so. I think also what Fincher will bring in terms of

• 1:33:32Amanda Dobbins?

  not just like the emphasis, not cinematic achievements, but the emphasis on characters and

• 1:33:41Amanda Dobbins?

  and how the characters are portrayed and getting all the actor in it, actoriness out. I think that you probably get a lot of people recast also. It doesn't feel so theatrical.

• 1:33:51Amanda Dobbins?

  So, yeah, I think it's definitely better. Does it, but still does it have a need to exist? Like, does it reveal anything about the world? I don't think so. Because we live in a disclosure day world, not in the 1970s of all the president's men.

• 1:34:09Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like it's more useful if you're looking at 17, 18 and 19 instead of 19, 20 and 21. 19, 20 and 21 is when all the decisions made in 17, 18 and 19 start to really play out.

• 1:34:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:34:20Sean Fennessey?

  It's like really when everything has bubbled over entirely because we're living in the, you know, the, the post, the first Trump election and the rage emanating off of that. And the sort of like the way in which liberals were caught by surprise by the way, the Trump wave. And then this kind of like true two-sided warfare that's happening online over the period of that first administration is what starts to generate all of this knowledge about like, that's when the Washington Post really takes off, when Bezos, after Bezos buys it, subscriptions are flying. And so the New York Times really hunkers down and they start growing and growing and growing in the aftermath of that. And then that media, you know, this is a different movie, but it's just like, that's what, that's what happened that got us to that thing.

• 1:35:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I know. Of course. That, but he doesn't understand that. He just wants to make all the presidents men. And cause, and he does think that, you know, but he doesn't even learn the basic script writing lessons of that, which is that like, they do all of the work, but then you don't see that, you don't see the victory lap.

• 1:35:21Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that brings me to one last thing, which is that the movie closes

• 1:35:26Sean Fennessey?

  with Howgan's testimony and then a series of cards about what has happened with Facebook and in the intervening years. And then the last card indicates, what is it about the number of users, current active users that, that Facebook has, that Meta has? Is that the last line that we see on the screen?

• 1:35:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't remember that.

• 1:35:49Sean Fennessey?

  What is the last thing we see on the screen?

• 1:35:52Speaker 03

  Oh, no. Isn't the last thing like, um, now Meta's policy is they don't fact check anything at all?

• 1:35:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yes.

• 1:35:57Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. That is the last thing.

• 1:35:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you. Yeah.

• 1:36:01Sean Fennessey?

  And, you know, that's obviously a very upsetting, but perfectly Sorkin-esque way of framing the like, the doom quality that we have around all this stuff. But then we cut back to Howgan and she gives Jeremy Allen White's character a fist pump, like they've achieved something. We'll call back to her moment observing a guy having a fist pump. And like, that's her one moment of happiness. But it's like, what did this one woman's moment of happy, this one woman's moment of happiness and accomplishing something led to Facebook and Meta becoming even more nihilistic about the way that they manage their company? I, it's just, it's such a confused message. Like, what are we even supposed to take from that idea?

• 1:36:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. I agree with you.

• 1:36:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's not your job to answer it, but you see why I'm asking, right?

• 1:36:44Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's a great question. I mean, the, the movie that Aaron Sorkin thinks that he's making

• 1:36:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:36:52Amanda Dobbins?

  reflects his version, his view of the world and what he thinks needs to be done to solve all of our problems. Our problems have not been solved and this movie is not solving them because Aaron Sorkin is wrong on like, you know, like he's not wrong that, that Facebook doesn't fact check anything and that like, we live in a hell created by many things, including the media. But like, no, it didn't help. You said it. It didn't work. We have all this information and nothing's different.

• 1:37:22Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, have you gone on social media recently? It's fucking crazy out there.

• 1:37:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I try not to.

• 1:37:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:26Speaker 03

  I found the film's biggest flaw to be that on one side, he's operating and this is the most serious thing to ever happen to us and we really need to care. And the other side is like, aren't these people funny? Let's have some gags. And it's just like so totally tonally unbalanced. Just found it incredibly strange. And like, I also like Jeremy Allen White, but like, he's at his best in the movie when he is kind of doing the hard expository stuff. Cause like, he's keeping up with the Sorkinisms and keeping the car driving. But when he has to do like the funny stuff, he's so stiff and wooden.

• 1:37:56Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. He's not very, he's not very good at that stuff at all. And you do need a leading man who can riff on those things. The, the social network is funny, but in a very cutting way. It kind of like, it really adds, it's like putting ice cubes in some of the like overheated, over caffeinated Sorkin style writing.

• 1:38:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:38:14Sean Fennessey?

  And this stuff, like you said at the very beginning of the conversation, there's nothing pushing back against some of those instincts. So it's not a success. It doesn't, you know, it's honestly, looks like it's tracking even worse than I would have imagined in terms of performance. Like this is another movie now that is going to be like a sub $10 million movie.

• 1:38:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I was just thinking about the fact that like, I'm not aware of any pushback from Facebook or Meta. Like they have just, to me, it seems that their strategy is like, this doesn't matter and we don't have to deal with it, which is probably for their purposes, the correct strategy, but that's quite an indictment of the success or import of the film.

• 1:38:54Sean Fennessey?

  I admit it, I'm reading here, their market cap is $1.84 trillion. They're the eighth most valuable company in the world.

• 1:38:59Amanda Dobbins?

  That's cool.

• 1:39:00Sean Fennessey?

  So.

• 1:39:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I use it every day. So.

• 1:39:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm an Instagram user.

• 1:39:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:11Sean Fennessey?

  October.

• 1:39:12Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, it's been up and down for us.

• 1:39:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, some struggles.

• 1:39:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:16Sean Fennessey?

  Some struggles.

• 1:39:17Amanda Dobbins?

  It's gonna turn?

• 1:39:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it? Hmm. Maybe not next week. What? Maybe not, maybe not Monday.

• 1:39:24Sean Fennessey?

  Next Friday.

• 1:39:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Next Friday. Okay.

• 1:39:26Sean Fennessey?

  We have something next Friday. Uh, legacy sequels, legacy sequels. An increasingly common strategy of desperate movie studios who are no longer able to get original storytelling over the line. We should keep an eye on this, given what's transpired with the Warner Brothers Paramount merger acquisition because this is something that I suspect that Skydance is going to pursue even more aggressively.

• 1:39:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Almost started singing Skydance like Skyfall.

• 1:39:54Sean Fennessey?

  How does it go?

• 1:39:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Like the Skydance.

• 1:39:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. No, you, you were like.

• 1:40:01Sean Fennessey?

  Skydance.

• 1:40:02Amanda Dobbins?

  You were merging in another Bond theme that I can't remember now, but it was like, it wasn't Tomorrow Never Dies, but that's okay.

• 1:40:08Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I could do it like Goldfinger. I'd be like, Skydance. Isn't that the tone of Goldfinger?

• 1:40:17Sean Fennessey?

  Sky and dance die. Right. That's one. What else, what else, what other Bond themes can I think of? I don't, I'm not very good at Bond themes.

• 1:40:26Speaker 03

  Do you think the listeners of this show can tell it's 8:52 PM?

• 1:40:31Sean Fennessey?

  It's always 8:52 PM on this show.

• 1:40:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:34Sean Fennessey?

  Legacy sequels. Here's my rule.

• 1:40:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:37Sean Fennessey?

  Must be more than 10 years since the original.

• 1:40:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:40:41Sean Fennessey?

  One note, if the word legacy appears in the title of the movie, very dangerous. Doesn't mean it's going to be a disaster, but be warned.

• 1:40:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Yeah.

• 1:40:50Sean Fennessey?

  There could be some struggles here.

• 1:40:54Sean Fennessey?

  One last thing about Sorkin and his legacy sequels, because they're all kind of legacy sequels to real events in history. Why are all four of his movies about real life events? Once upon a time, he did write original stuff.

• 1:41:10Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, The West Wing is original. It is based on a lot of stuff.

• 1:41:13Amanda Dobbins?

  But it borrows on like a lot of stuff. And, you know, he spent so much time hanging out with the Clinton administration people in the, you know, it comes from American President, which was based on like, the Michael J. Fox character is George Stephanopoulos. Like it's, sure, he fictionalizes some of it.

• 1:41:30Sean Fennessey?

  I just feel like A Few Good Men, Malice, The American President, The West Wing and Sports Night are all, they're based on stuff, but they're not docu dramas. They're not really using real people's names.

• 1:41:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:41:43Sean Fennessey?

  And then you go Charlie Wilson's War, The Social Network, Moneyball, Steve Jobs, Molly's Game, The Trial of Chicago Seven, Being the Ricardos and The Social Reckoning.

• 1:41:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, listen.

• 1:41:51Sean Fennessey?

  All based on real stuff.

• 1:41:52Amanda Dobbins?

  But listen, okay. So your whole, you have eight, eight fingers out.

• 1:41:56Sean Fennessey?

  Eight fingers.

• 1:41:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. But among those eight fingers are two of our favorite movies of all time and a top five Philip Seymour Hoffman performance. So three out of eight. What, that is not quite 500. That's like three, that's three something?

• 1:42:14Sean Fennessey?

  I'd like to see a list of his uncredited script work.

• 1:42:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:42:19Sean Fennessey?

  Cause we know that F1 is a movie that he worked on.

• 1:42:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Yeah.

• 1:42:22Sean Fennessey?

  I might feel a little differently if it was like, he also wrote Terminator 2: Secret of the Use, but no one knows, you know? If that, we put that on the board, that would change my feelings.

• 1:42:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:42:32Sean Fennessey?

  I just, I think I want to see him take a chance on something. Use the real world as an inspiration. I think that's okay.

• 1:42:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree.

• 1:42:38Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Uh, legacy sequels. What's your favorite?

• 1:42:42Amanda Dobbins?

  My favorite? Oh, it's Top Gun Maverick.

• 1:42:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. What's your second favorite?

• 1:42:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's see. This is quite a list that we have here.

• 1:42:51Sean Fennessey?

  The ones that are bad are Legion.

• 1:42:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. It's not Zoolander 2.

• 1:42:56Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:42:57Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not Borat 2. Though that had some moments.

• 1:43:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:04Amanda Dobbins?

  That's the recent one, right?

• 1:43:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. It, well, Ali G, Who Is I is coming in two weeks. Have you seen that?

• 1:43:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, because you sent me a text message about it.

• 1:43:14Sean Fennessey?

  Who is I?

• 1:43:17Sean Fennessey?

  You know about Ali G?

• 1:43:18Speaker 03

  I do. I will not be seeing the new film.

• 1:43:20Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:43:20Speaker 03

  I kinda like Borat too, though.

• 1:43:21Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, yeah, I didn't mind it.

• 1:43:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Maria Baccalova.

• 1:43:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. It's not with Giuliani.

• 1:43:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that was funny.

• 1:43:27Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not Dr. Sleep and Rosie the Hat, though I know that you and Gilbert Cruz have a real affection for it. Gilbert, if you're listening this long.

• 1:43:35Sean Fennessey?

  Rebecca Ferguson sucking out Jacob Tremblay's soul? That was pretty exciting stuff.

• 1:43:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank God that that sentence just ended the way that it did. Um, so you have The Strangers here. Is that The Strangers that you made me watch?

• 1:43:47Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:43:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, cuz that one was good.

• 1:43:49Sean Fennessey?

  Over the last 18 months, there have been three different films that are about The Strangers. But the problem is, is that they're a prequel to The Strangers.

• 1:43:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Not good.

• 1:43:58Sean Fennessey?

  And they reveal who The Strangers are, which is the whole point of The Strangers.

• 1:44:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, incorrect.

• 1:44:03Sean Fennessey?

  Not ideal.

• 1:44:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so those are bad.

• 1:44:04Sean Fennessey?

  Really bad.

• 1:44:05Amanda Dobbins?

  What's your favorite?

• 1:44:09Sean Fennessey?

  The First Omen?

• 1:44:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Damien Owen?

• 1:44:12Sean Fennessey?

  Nope. Well, yeah, I mean, yes. It's the origins of Damien Omen.

• 1:44:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:44:18Sean Fennessey?

  Who is just named Damien.

• 1:44:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:44:20Sean Fennessey?

  But it's about Damien's mother.

• 1:44:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:23Sean Fennessey?

  Who was a nun who was secretly impregnated by a band of Satanic cultists inside of the church in Italy.

• 1:44:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:44:34Sean Fennessey?

  This was shown in the film in 2018.

• 1:44:37Amanda Dobbins?

  To the Da Vinci Code?

• 1:44:38Sean Fennessey?

  2022. Uh, I don't believe it is.

• 1:44:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 1:44:42Sean Fennessey?

  But you know what?

• 1:44:42Amanda Dobbins?

  We haven't explored that yet.

• 1:44:44Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not up on my Da Vinci Code. I saw the film one time. I thought, that was okay.

• 1:44:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:44:48Sean Fennessey?

  And then I stopped thinking about it. I know it's an international bestseller and one of your favorite things.

• 1:44:53Amanda Dobbins?

  The film is just, is not that good.

• 1:44:55Sean Fennessey?

  No, it's not. The First Omen's really good because it doesn't try to be the omen at all. It can't be the omen.

• 1:45:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Should I watch The Omen before our upcoming draft? Yeah.

• 1:45:06Sean Fennessey?

  Um, yeah, it's very good. It's a, it's a very, it's never been like one of my favorites, actually. And I just, I was telling you I was writing some trivia questions for an upcoming event.

• 1:45:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:45:15Sean Fennessey?

  And I wrote an omen trivia question as well.

• 1:45:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Cool.

• 1:45:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:45:19Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I'm full of cool information.

• 1:45:20Amanda Dobbins?

  You're giving people hints now that they can study hard.

• 1:45:23Sean Fennessey?

  When people were stopping me on the street in New York, they were saying, Sean, first of all, you're way more handsome in person. Second of all, do you have any cool information you could share with me?

• 1:45:34Sean Fennessey?

  And I would. I would say, well, kind sir or madam, thank you for stopping me in the street. I'm blushing and I appreciate that kind question. And I shall return it with some information. And then I would share a little piece of movie trivia and go about my day.

• 1:45:55Amanda Dobbins?

  It makes me laugh cuz it's just.

• 1:45:57Sean Fennessey?

  It's exactly what happened. Precisely what happened.

• 1:46:00Amanda Dobbins?

  That was funny. That was funny.

• 1:46:01Sean Fennessey?

  Um, Jurassic World?

• 1:46:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm, no, that was that blue? That's Chris Pratt in blue?

• 1:46:08Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I, I kind of enjoyed the first Jurassic World as like a horror movie.

• 1:46:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:46:12Sean Fennessey?

  Everything after that is pretty much a car crash.

• 1:46:16Amanda Dobbins?

  That you also famously don't remember. The, the one this summer, it was shot on film. I don't know what your problem is. They had a brontosaurus in Cobble Hill.

• 1:46:23Sean Fennessey?

  It wasn't this summer. It was last summer, first of all. Second of all, it's a piece of shit. So.

• 1:46:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Jonathan Bailey was wonderful.

• 1:46:31Sean Fennessey?

  You know who loves Jonathan Bailey is my wife.

• 1:46:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Who doesn't love Jonathan Bailey? What's wrong with you?

• 1:46:36Sean Fennessey?

  Up on his daily activity.

• 1:46:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:46:38Sean Fennessey?

  That, that was surprising to me to learn that she was as interested in his whereabouts.

• 1:46:42Amanda Dobbins?

  All right. Uh, I mean, she must just be following him on Instagram. And then I remember when he wore the row flip flops on the Jurassic, whatever, Rebirth press tour. So, but that.

• 1:46:53Sean Fennessey?

  Rebirth. Good. You got it.

• 1:46:54Amanda Dobbins?

  That was a year ago.

• 1:46:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:55Amanda Dobbins?

  So I guess I'm not that up to date on it. Uh, I, I'm rooting for him.

• 1:47:00Sean Fennessey?

  Let's keep going.

• 1:47:02Amanda Dobbins?

  You're not charmed by him? I thought he was.

• 1:47:04Sean Fennessey?

  No, I think he's good. No, I like him.

• 1:47:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Even good in that terrible Wicked movie.

• 1:47:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, no, I think he's good. I like him.

• 1:47:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Which one do I mean? You'll never know.

• 1:47:10Sean Fennessey?

  He's got one, that one big number in the first Wicked that is pretty entertaining. It's blocked terribly, but it's pretty entertaining.

• 1:47:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, God, but then they just like stare at each other for a while and it's like silent.

• 1:47:20Sean Fennessey?

  What's wrong with romance?

• 1:47:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Keep going. Say more about Legacy Quest.

• 1:47:26Sean Fennessey?

  I, I will. Thank you very much. You're like those people who stop me in the street.

• 1:47:30Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, a movie that is not very liked that I like is The Matrix Resurrections.

• 1:47:36Amanda Dobbins?

  That was the COVID one?

• 1:47:37Sean Fennessey?

  It was the COVID one, and I think obviously that movie was part of Project Popcorn, which didn't go well. You may have heard.

• 1:47:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I remember.

• 1:47:43Sean Fennessey?

  Jason Kilar's decision to put all those Warner Brothers movies. Whatever happened to Warner Brothers? Did it work out?

• 1:47:50Sean Fennessey?

  Did they keep going? What did they do? Did, did, did AT&T sell?

• 1:47:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I will say, the other half of that was that Paramount was like, we're not gonna put anything out until Top Gun Maverick. And now they're just one studio owned by David Ellison, putting out G.I. Joe.

• 1:48:06Sean Fennessey?

  Bully for him.

• 1:48:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Starring Bradley Cooper. So.

• 1:48:10Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Coming to America, bad.

• 1:48:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:13Sean Fennessey?

  I'll say it. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, bad. I don't think it's good.

• 1:48:17Amanda Dobbins?

  That's the Spielberg one.

• 1:48:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:18Amanda Dobbins?

  What about the Archimedes one?

• 1:48:20Sean Fennessey?

  I have more time for that.

• 1:48:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:48:22Sean Fennessey?

  I'm more interested in that. I think that Crystal Skull doesn't work at all.

• 1:48:25Amanda Dobbins?

  The Battle of Syracuse? Anyone?

• 1:48:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, sure. Of course. Jack is just shaking his head no. Okay.

• 1:48:32Sean Fennessey?

  I do not like the Evil Dead reboot from 2014. I kind of enjoyed Evil Dead Rise, but that's not important. Uh, I didn't like Nia DeCasta's Candyman Legacy sequel.

• 1:48:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:48:45Sean Fennessey?

  Um, Ghostbusters: Afterlife is not good.

• 1:48:49Amanda Dobbins?

  So thumbs down.

• 1:48:50Sean Fennessey?

  Nor is the other one. What's the second one called? It's a Frozen Empire?

• 1:48:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:54Sean Fennessey?

  Well, what is wrong with me that I know the name of that movie?

• 1:48:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 1:48:57Sean Fennessey?

  That quickly. God.

• 1:48:59Speaker 03

  Where does Now You See Me Now You Don't fit into this?

• 1:49:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 1:49:03Sean Fennessey?

  Is it, that's not 10 years, is it?

• 1:49:06Speaker 03

  Oh, right. Definition. Okay. Mad Max: Fury Road?

• 1:49:10Speaker 03

  That's pretty good.

• 1:49:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, I was, yes, that is. That's the fourth film in the series. I guess I wasn't, but I guess so is Crystal Skull, right? So, yeah, that's, I mean, that's probably the greatest of all time. Fury Road, right?

• 1:49:19Speaker 03

  I would say so.

• 1:49:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Godfather IV?

• 1:49:23Sean Fennessey?

  Soon. One year from today. It'll be completed and we'll be doing an entire episode about it.

• 1:49:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Produced by Sean Fennessy and a demon.

• 1:49:32Sean Fennessey?

  No, produced by Sean Fennessy, parentheses, PGA, comma, demon, division. They have a demon division? Uh, Practical Magic 2?

• 1:49:44Amanda Dobbins?

  That wasn't very good.

• 1:49:46Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm, there's some other good ones.

• 1:49:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:49:49Sean Fennessey?

  I think the first Scream Legacy sequel.

• 1:49:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that was good.

• 1:49:54Sean Fennessey?

  Is pretty good. The Melissa Barrera, Jennifer Aniston one is pretty good. Is that 10, that may not be 10 years after Scream 4. It's probably not. Is it like eight years after Scream 4?

• 1:50:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Scream 4 is 2011, so.

• 1:50:04Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, so it is 10 years. It fits.

• 1:50:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:50:07Sean Fennessey?

  Scream is pretty good. Um, I think, the first David Gordon Green Halloween I enjoy. You're on a, you're on a journey with Halloween right now.

• 1:50:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:50:16Sean Fennessey?

  Which we'll discuss in a future episode.

• 1:50:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. But I did see that one in theaters.

• 1:50:21Sean Fennessey?

  That one's better than the ones you've been watching, in my opinion.

• 1:50:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, listen, I'm in the, I, I was at the dark period yesterday while sick. I honestly, I'm trending up at this point personally.

• 1:50:32Sean Fennessey?

  Look at you.

• 1:50:32Amanda Dobbins?

  So, you know, here we are.

• 1:50:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I've, I've seen The Social Reckoning.

• 1:50:36Sean Fennessey?

  I keep feeding you all this cool information and you keep getting stronger and stronger. Funny how that works. It's almost as like I have a magical power. Um.

• 1:50:44Speaker 03

  Did you like H2O, Amanda?

• 1:50:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, ob.

• 1:50:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, me too. So good.

• 1:50:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:50:49Sean Fennessey?

  So rated. Uh, Devil Wears Prada 2.

• 1:50:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I put this on. You, is, yeah, we like, it was interesting.

• 1:50:57Sean Fennessey?

  I thought it was all right.

• 1:50:58Amanda Dobbins?

  It was fine. I had a nice time.

• 1:50:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I laughed a little bit.

• 1:51:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:01Sean Fennessey?

  Carl, how are things at Coach? That was wonderful. Yeah, how are things at Coach? Yeah.

• 1:51:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Tina. Tina B.

• 1:51:07Sean Fennessey?

  Who's Tina B? Tina Brown?

• 1:51:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:51:09Sean Fennessey?

  Tina Brown.

• 1:51:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:09Sean Fennessey?

  I've heard of her. Yeah. She's one of the people who stopped me. You saw me. So I've been watching your content on Instagram, which, which is owned by Meta.

• 1:51:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:51:18Sean Fennessey?

  And you have a lot of interesting things to say. And what's your co-host name? Allison?

• 1:51:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:23Sean Fennessey?

  I said, no, that's Amanda. So, yes, of course.

• 1:51:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. This is really good. This is, keep going.

• 1:51:31Sean Fennessey?

  We should do more episodes at 9:00 PM after a long day. Uh, do you have any concluding thoughts?

• 1:51:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm excited to talk about this when everyone else has seen Artificial. You know, we had the benefit of The Social Reckoning, that is, which is, you know, in its own way, a legacy sequel, even though it's not. Um, but it is, it is certainly in the school of The Social Network. And you and I got to see both of them in one week, which was great, uh, double featuring for us, and no one else is gonna get that. So they'll just forget Social Reckoning and they'll enjoy Artificial, which is how it should be. But it is an interesting case study and in what is interesting and what works about The Social Network and to how to tell stories about the media or great social change.

• 1:52:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's really funny that the embargo for The Social Reckoning lifted at the exact moment when people watched Artificial for the first time and it just, it didn't, it didn't turn out well, um, for Social Reckoning.

• 1:52:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Well-played neon.

• 1:52:35Sean Fennessey?

  Could be.

• 1:52:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:36Sean Fennessey?

  Could have, could have been a very sound strategy by them. Um, yeah.

• 1:52:43Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know, October. Tricky. Next, next week.

• 1:52:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:52:48Sean Fennessey?

  Other Mommy.

• 1:52:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:52:50Sean Fennessey?

  Ben Affleck's new film, Animals.

• 1:52:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:52:52Sean Fennessey?

  And we will build the Ben Affleck Hall of Fame. Jack, I don't know if this is the first you're hearing of this. Did I communicate this with you?

• 1:52:57Speaker 03

  You did.

• 1:52:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:59Sean Fennessey?

  What's your favorite Ben Affleck movie?

• 1:53:00Speaker 03

  Probably The Accountant 2.

• 1:53:03Sean Fennessey?

  I saw that.

• 1:53:04Speaker 03

  I did not.

• 1:53:06Amanda Dobbins?

  You haven't seen it?

• 1:53:07Speaker 03

  No, it's a pass for me.

• 1:53:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I was about to spoil an incredible, no, you actually need to see it.

• 1:53:11Speaker 03

  This is my new salt.

• 1:53:12Amanda Dobbins?

  No, but, and it's different and it's not as good as salt. And so I don't think we need any Accountant 3, but some things happened in this film that I was about to just say, remember when? I'm just gonna say, like, a room full of coding children get involved.

• 1:53:28Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I forgot about that.

• 1:53:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. You gotta look into it.

• 1:53:31Speaker 03

  All right. Sounds good.

• 1:53:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that was good. That was good. Not, not my favorite movie.

• 1:53:35Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:53:35Sean Fennessey?

  Um, well, thanks to Jack Sanders.

• 1:53:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:53:38Sean Fennessey?

  Nice to hear your voice today, Jack. Uh, thanks to Lucas Cabana for his production support. You know, I guess thanks to Zuck.

• 1:53:49Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks for everything you've done. Appreciate that.

• 1:53:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Nope.

• 1:53:52Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 1:53:53Amanda Dobbins?

  He's fine. He owns like half of Hawaii, so.

• 1:53:57Sean Fennessey?

  How is your Other Mommy Get Up looking?

• 1:54:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I was gonna Google that today. I haven't seen the film yet. Have you seen the film, Other Mommy?

• 1:54:03Sean Fennessey?

  Tomorrow.

• 1:54:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, wow. That's exciting.

• 1:54:06Sean Fennessey?

  Well, yeah.

• 1:54:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess I am, but tomorrow's Friday. Oh, I'm gonna see it tomorrow too. What time are you seeing it?

• 1:54:11Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know yet.

• 1:54:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, we can discuss.

• 1:54:12Sean Fennessey?

  I have an interview here in the studio tomorrow with a very respected filmmaker who probably will ask me for some cool information.

• 1:54:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, so once I see the film, then we can work with, you know, work with it. The real question is, how is your Other Mommy Get Up coming? Cuz you have to be the other half of it.

• 1:54:32Sean Fennessey?

  Some people would say that on this show, I am the Other Mommy, that you are mommy.

• 1:54:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:36Sean Fennessey?

  And then I am the Other Mommy.

• 1:54:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:38Sean Fennessey?

  Right?

• 1:54:38Amanda Dobbins?

  So there we go.

• 1:54:39Sean Fennessey?

  I'm very pale.

• 1:54:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:54:40Sean Fennessey?

  And ghostly and a demon. So.

• 1:54:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Congratulations with a PGA credit.

• 1:54:47Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks for watching along here with this very normal episode of The Big Picture. We'll see you next week.