‘Wildwood,’ ‘Wicker,’ and 10 Movies We Missed! Plus: Travis Knight!

On today’s show, Sean and Amanda are joined by Joanna Robinson to help cover the incredibly busy movie month that is October. Before diving in, though, they take a broad look at the state of the Oscar races, and Jo shares some of her boldest predictions. Then, they discuss myriad movies, ranging from incredibly interesting to deeply grim, including ‘Wildwood’ and ‘Wicker.’ Finally, Sean is joined by filmmaker Travis Knight to share some insight into the extensive, laborious process behind the making of ‘Wildwood’ and explain why it’s actually absurd but also incredibly magical. (0:00) Intro (2:36) ‘Dune: Part Three’ trailer reaction (6:04) The state of the Oscar races (34:13) Movies we missed (35:00) ‘Wicker’ (42:57) ‘Wildwood’ (1:03:20) ‘The Only Living Pickpocket in New York’ (1:10:39) ‘Love of Your Life’ (1:19:12) ‘Sacrifice’ (1:22:40) ‘Finding Emily’ (1:27:48) ‘Matchbox: The Movie’ (1:34:11) ‘Tenzing,’ ‘Everest: The Other Side,’ and ‘The Last First: Winter K2’ (1:52:16) ‘Klara and the Sun’ (1:56:26) Travis Knight joins the show! Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Travis Knight and Joanna Robinson 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, a conversation show about Wildwood, Wicker, and many other W's. The inimitable Joanna Robinson is here today to talk about a wide collection of new movies, as this October is officially the busiest stretch of new releases that I can recall in the history of this podcast. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Travis Knight. He's the director of Wildwood, the dazzling new stop-motion adaptation of the 2011 young adult fantasy novel. Since 2009, Knight has been the CEO of Laika Studios, the world-renowned animation house. He's also directed a number of films, including Kubo and the Two Strings and this year's Live Action Masters of the Universe. Knight shared his story of 16 years working on this film, The Future of Laika, his feelings on animation and AI right now, and many other things. Stick around for that conversation. It's a very good one.

• 1:00Sean Fennessey?

  But first, some movie news and a little Oscars talk with Joanna, right after this.

• 1:05Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions, reach, and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not-so-great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that: bull spend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO?

• 1:50Sean Fennessey?

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• 2:17Amanda Dobbins?

  And now you may speak.

• 2:19Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 2:20Sean Fennessey?

  My intros are getting longer, and I don't care.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  I don't know, you said inimitable, so I'm thrilled.

• 2:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Nailed it on the first try.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  I'm just honored.

• 2:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:28Sean Fennessey?

  Joe, what's up? It's been a minute. How are you doing?

• 2:30Speaker 02

  What a delight to be with you.

• 2:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Welcome.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  During my favorite season, Oscar season.

• 2:34Sean Fennessey?

  This is a busy time. What news should we start with?

• 2:37Amanda Dobbins?

  You want to do the news first?

• 2:38Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 2:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I know you're very protective of the news.

• 2:40Sean Fennessey?

  The news is important. It's all I have. You heard about that?

• 2:42Amanda Dobbins?

  So you do, yeah. Well, I saw the memes. It was good memeing, everybody.

• 2:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:46Amanda Dobbins?

  So you do that.

• 2:47Sean Fennessey?

  See, I was just like, trying to start doing the news. I was like, sir, have you not enough podcasts? What are we doing?

• 2:54Sean Fennessey?

  Couple of programming notes before we start.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Do you want to get your TV takes off right now, just in?

• 2:57Sean Fennessey?

  I'm watching some television.

• 2:58Speaker 02

  I heard that.

• 2:59Sean Fennessey?

  And I'm watching Survivor, and I'm loving Survivor. I called, I watched a conversation happen between Chris and Jack before the recording of the episode on Friday about Survivor. And I just got major FOMO, TV FOMO.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  Oh, so you caught up?

• 3:12Sean Fennessey?

  For the first time in forever, and I caught up. And banger of a season so far, banger.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Here's why I know it's a banger season. I have a Survivor pool that I've been in the last three seasons, and I crushed the previous two seasons, and I'm tanking. And that's because it's a very unpredictable game.

• 3:25Sean Fennessey?

  Sorry, this is boring for you, but they, for the first time in 10 years, they figured out something new that I'm really excited about. Anyhow, a quick programming note. Two new Netflix movies that are in theaters right now that we're not talking about today, they're in limited release. That's Possible Love and the Mosquito Bowl. Possible Love next week on the Netflix streaming service. We'll talk about it here. Mosquito Bowl, not until end of November. We'll talk about it then on the show. Let's start quickly with Dune 3 trailer. Did you watch it?

• 3:50Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I'm done. Show me the movie.

• 3:51Sean Fennessey?

  Joanna and I are gonna talk about it.

• 3:52Amanda Dobbins?

  That's fine. Listen, I am very excited for it. I saw the first 10 minutes in April at CinemaCon.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  What if I told you the trailer was 89% Zendaya?

• 4:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I am very pro-Zandaya, and I will be seeing this film as soon as they will show it to me. So once again, show me the movie.

• 4:10Sean Fennessey?

  What'd you think?

• 4:11Speaker 02

  I loved this trailer.

• 4:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's so good.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  It's really, really good.

• 4:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm happy for everyone.

• 4:14Sean Fennessey?

  I'm so jacked for this movie.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  How do you feel about the visuals being slightly different? You know, with a different cinematographer, how do you feel about the visuals being slightly different? Does it feel distinct enough? Does it feel distinct in a fun way? Or does it all feel of a piece?

• 4:25Sean Fennessey?

  It's a good question. I mean, I think the thing that struck me that is related to that is it's clearly a war movie, that it's Apocalypse Now meets Patton, that that's the movie that they're making set in the future, which is fucking great.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  The Vietnam War movie visuals from the first trailer, the one that Amanda watched, have been astounding.

• 4:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I saw 10 minutes. I saw the opening sequence, which was like Saving Private Ryan. You know, it was incredibly intense. We were all so excited about it. And again, I have liked all, both films in the series. I liked Denis Villeneuve. I will see the movie, but let's go.

• 4:54Sean Fennessey?

  The one thing that it showed me, well, it's coming out in two months.

• 4:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you know.

• 4:57Sean Fennessey?

  Take a sip of water. It'll get here. We'll get to it. I think the thing that, we were texting about it yesterday on our movie chain. And I wanted to say two things, and I didn't say it. And you know what? I'll just say it to just the two of us here on the pod.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  And no one else.

• 5:16Sean Fennessey?

  One, I was like, could be a masterpiece. Could be, it could be an all-time classic, based on what I've seen, which is not a good place to put, not a good place for my head to go before a movie.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  I know.

• 5:24Sean Fennessey?

  But I did, I started getting that tingly feeling. And then the second thing was, I was like, are we sure this picture's out here? Are we sure?

• 5:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:31Sean Fennessey?

  This can't happen.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  That's so funny, because...

• 5:32Sean Fennessey?

  Because I thought that was not gonna happen at all the whole time.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  You and I had that conversation like months ago, and you were like, no, no way, 0% chance.

• 5:40Sean Fennessey?

  These movies are so well-made.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Well, so here's, here's the best picture conversation that I've been trying to get my arm around, which is that The Odyssey, which has been the frontrunner for so long, and a reason that The Odyssey is considered the frontrunner, other than the fact that we all enjoyed it and thought it was great, is this idea of how many categories it can sort of represent in. Dune has historically sort of been one of those can represent across the board. I mean, and we've been wondering if this could be a Return of the King-esque celebration. Even Amanda enjoys this entire trilogy if she likes the third movie.

• 6:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  So, I mean, how would you feel about that if it got this sort of recognition for an entire trilogy's worth of work?

• 6:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, that would be fun purely from an Oscar race perspective, right? Because we're about to talk about You Can See Everything. You're gonna do your Oscar predictions, but things are getting, things are getting eerie and fun.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:33Amanda Dobbins?

  And we have talked the last few years about how it's been decided in May, or June, or July, and we just like have to sit here and blog out loud for six months. But I'm, I'm very open to it. Also, the more time I can spend talking about Dune 3 instead of Doomsday, the better for yours, truly. So let's lean into that.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  You're not, you don't, you're not watching the Doomsday Clock countdown?

• 6:55Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I'm not.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 6:57Sean Fennessey?

  I have it up in my office as well.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's just running all the time.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  It just goes on my watch all the time.

• 7:02Amanda Dobbins?

  But I learned that someone that I didn't know was gonna be in it, was gonna be in it. But then I think I did know.

• 7:07Sean Fennessey?

  In Dune 3 or in Doomsday?

• 7:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, yeah.

• 7:09Speaker 02

  Sander Hülle?

• 7:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 7:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 7:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I like that you're doing the, the German. Yeah.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Hülle?

• 7:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 7:15Amanda Dobbins?

  It's beautiful.

• 7:16Sean Fennessey?

  Let's use that as a portal into the broader Oscar conversation, because a couple of things are happening. One, You Can See Everything has become a mass sensation. It's been over $50 million to the Oscars office.

• 7:26Amanda Dobbins?

  My mother saw it in theaters last night. I was like, oh, this is happening.

• 7:28Sean Fennessey?

  That's, that is incredible.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying.

• 7:30Sean Fennessey?

  And Fahrenheit 9/11 has been cited often as the last great big benchmark for a wide-release documentary film. We can debate whether it's a documentary or not, but...

• 7:39Speaker 02

  Could you debate whether this is documentary or not?

• 7:40Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I'm saying. Yeah, this one specifically. The awards campaign was confirmed. We know all the people who are running. She Who Shall Not Be Named, for anybody who's listening to the top of this podcast, will be running.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  We're still not talking about that.

• 7:51Sean Fennessey?

  I think just, this will be the last time.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 7:54Sean Fennessey?

  On this show.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 7:55Sean Fennessey?

  That we don't spoil You Can See Everything. Does that seem fair? The movie is available wide, so you can see it. Don't want to hurt anybody's feelings?

• 8:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. It is still harder to get tickets.

• 8:06Sean Fennessey?

  Because it's selling out?

• 8:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 8:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 8:08Amanda Dobbins?

  So we should give people time and grace. But it's also leaking out a little bit. Also, we're just gonna slip up at some point. So I think what we should do is try to keep the secret for as long as we can without messing up. And then, when it happens, it happens.

• 8:24Sean Fennessey?

  When it happens, it happens. Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim have been deemed ineligible to win Best Director at the DGA Awards. Does that mean something? Well, I don't know.

• 8:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Who is the president of the DGAs currently?

• 8:38Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you for saying so. It's Christopher Nolan, whose film is in the running. Do you think that, do you think that came across his desk?

• 8:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I just-

• 8:45Speaker 02

  And he was just like, no, no.

• 8:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Were I Christopher Nolan, I would have pushed to include them, just, you know, to be a bench.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  To save face, exactly.

• 8:55Sean Fennessey?

  Well, by the letter of the law, all documentary filmmakers, it seems, are not eligible to win the best feature prize for best director at the DGAs. Interesting.

• 9:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And it does say a documentary by Lance Oppenheimer and Nathan Fielder on the, on the posters, which-

• 9:10Sean Fennessey?

  It does.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  But it's eligible for best picture.

• 9:14Sean Fennessey?

  Correct.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 9:15Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think of it as a documentary? Do you believe it is a documentary?

• 9:18Speaker 02

  No.

• 9:19Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 9:20Speaker 02

  I think it's a docudrama.

• 9:21Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Is that helpful?

• 9:23Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's fine. No, I think it's useful.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  And I think a, a potential acting campaign out of this would be not only exciting, but I think merited.

• 9:32Sean Fennessey?

  Merited and delicious.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that it is a documentary, but I also think an acting nomination would be merited and delicious, because it's really, I think, a performance nomination is what we're doing. And it's a, it's a performance unlike any I've ever seen. It's a performance that I am, you know, setting my course by going forward.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  And it's similar to, you know, when, when-

• 9:58Amanda Dobbins?

  You should be so lucky, you know?

• 9:59Sean Fennessey?

  She's an inspiration, yeah.

• 10:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, always has been, but like now more than ever.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  When we talk about something like Wildwood and we, the credits roll in a like a film and you see all of the work that goes into like a film, and I, I said this on our House of Art coverage of it, but I cry at the end of every like a film, whether or not I loved the movie, because just seeing that much passion and dedication and artistry that, that goes into that project-

• 10:22Sean Fennessey?

  Hundreds of people.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:23Sean Fennessey?

  Hundreds of people working on these movies.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  For like 30 seconds of footage and stuff like that. So, um, so the way in which, let's continue to talk around it, you can see everything reveals not just the ability of this person to act, but also their process is, I think, puts them at a huge advantage inside of, they're not just making the case for themselves as a performer, but also the process of being a performer. They're able to show their work inside of this project. Does that make sense?

• 10:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. And also what the person does in front of the camera to advance the story and the narrative and complicate the narrative of the film. Both scripted and improv, and improvisation is certainly allowed within the context of a performing Oscar.

• 11:10Sean Fennessey?

  It is. This particular thing that you're describing, if this person is rewarded for it, they will be rewarded for that.

• 11:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 11:17Sean Fennessey?

  That doesn't mean that's by the letter of the law, what an acting nomination is for. However, I am totally comfortable corrupting that in this particular instance.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  And do you know how, I mean, so many ti- like, why did Matthew McConaughey win his Oscar that year? It's because of True Detective. Like, the narrative outside of the narrative is so consistently there to push things, various things forward. And so I just don't, like, I mean, maybe this is, actually, I can't mention that. Okay, we're, we're not-

• 11:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I've never cared about category fraud, and I'm not going to start now.

• 11:45Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, good to know. Um, when we did our best picture power rankings last week, was it last week? It was last week. It's been a long stretch. We were, we went to San Francisco and then came back. San Francisco says hello.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  How was it?

• 11:58Sean Fennessey?

  Beautiful place. It was nice. We got great weather, which means it was very gray and foggy.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  Of course, that sounds right.

• 12:04Sean Fennessey?

  And the people were very lovely.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Did you have any good food?

• 12:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I did. I went to Zuni Cafe by myself.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Did you get the chicken and the bread salad?

• 12:10Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I did. Listen, I went by myself.

• 12:12Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, for shame. You didn't have the chicken.

• 12:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I told you.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  It's hard to get the chicken bread salad for yourself. It's for like four people.

• 12:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, my plan was also that I said, I'm going to get the chicken for bread salad for two for one.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:23Amanda Dobbins?

  And then I told Sean I would bring him the leftovers. But then I, I got there late enough and I was so hungry and they say it takes 75 minutes. And I did actually sit next to a table who were already eating when I arrived and had not received their chicken when I left. So it was more of a time thing. I had a beautiful bavette steak with creamed corn.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Did you have the mountain of fries?

• 12:45Amanda Dobbins?

  No, what I did instead was like the, like the vegetable tempura, basically, which was delicious. And I did get the chocolate cake for myself.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  So what I'm hearing is we're all going back to Zuni Cafe for the chicken and the bread salad.

• 12:56Sean Fennessey?

  I've never been and I would love to.

• 12:57Speaker 02

  It's my favorite meal in San Francisco.

• 12:58Amanda Dobbins?

  It looked beautiful. They were lovely.

• 12:59Sean Fennessey?

  That's your favorite meal in San Francisco?

• 13:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:01Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, okay. We didn't, and by we, I mean me, didn't allot enough days in the city to do anything really of note besides perform. And we did perform.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  And you did.

• 13:10Sean Fennessey?

  And then we came back, we ranked movies. We had You Can See Everything pretty high. Do you see it as a locked in best picture nominee? You do?

• 13:18Speaker 02

  I think, given what Amanda was saying about her mom being there, the, the number of people in my life who I've heard from, who have watched it, the way it's animating conversation about what art can do, I think it would be foolish to leave it out, especially of a 10, you know, a 10 film category.

• 13:35Sean Fennessey?

  Is there anything like, well, maybe we should just do your predictions. I don't know if you have a best picture prediction in your predictions right now.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm kind of bullish on You Can See Everything in a, in a very weird way.

• 13:46Sean Fennessey?

  In a going all the way way.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Well, it's complicated right now, because I, I've been thinking a lot about, of course, The Odyssey and what Universal's plan is, because The Odyssey comes out hot and strong and everyone's like, this is it, this has to be it. And then they're doing the let's go away for a minute game so that we can come back and remind everyone how much they loved The Odyssey and we're going to re-release some Nolan films in theaters at the top of the year and everyone's going to get really excited about it. What they're fighting against is, is, you know, the recent Nolan sweep. That's something they're fighting against. I was, you know, I know we're going to talk about the Gotham's, but I was really interested to see they didn't submit The Odyssey at the Gotham. So I guess that's part of their let's go away for a minute strategy, even though one battle was, you know, dominant at the, at the Gotham's.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  And so Universal has a really fine line to walk in terms of go away long enough for people to miss you and then come back, not too late for them to forget about you.

• 14:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And they also have to time it against Dune 3, which is coming out at the end of the year.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  And Amanda can't wait.

• 14:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and I can, and I cannot wait, quite literally. And will also have its own campaign and is competing in a similar blockbuster, technical, you know, below the line, across the board, scope and like the, the big Hollywood movie from a venerated, if not yet rewarded director, in the case of Denis Villeneuve.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  And, and that's, and Denis has the advantage over Nolan, given that people can say, well, Nolan just had his, his big year. Um, this leads me to my sort of hottest best picture take that I am currently handling, which is, I think, La Bola Negra, which a movie that I actually really enjoyed, is way over indexed in everyone's rankings.

• 15:25Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  I understand why, I mean, again, I really liked it and I think a reason why it's ranked so high is because of that scope.

• 15:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  That's sort of like, it's a big, sweeping, long epic. And if The Odyssey, the big, sweeping, long epic is the frontrunner, like, what could possibly match it? Maybe it's La Bola Negra. But every person that I've talked to who's actually seen it, not at a festival, but sort of here in town, has been colder on it. So I, I just don't know if it feels over indexed out of festival season and will not fare as well into longer award season, you know?

• 15:57Sean Fennessey?

  My, my one pushback against that is that it is the only really powerful international film and that we've seen, obviously, there are always going to be one or two that are, have strength. Whether or not a movie like that has the strength to stand up to The Odyssey or You Can See Everything, or if Dune Part III is as good as we hope it is, you know, that's, it's a big caveat on Dune Part III. It's sort of like, it actually has to be as good as it looks right now.

• 16:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:22Sean Fennessey?

  And, and I think it will be, well, we just don't know that.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  And something, you know, the story of that book is so weird and yet also Denis is making a lot of adaptive decisions that he didn't make in the first two movies. So can he round the weird off enough while maintaining the spirit of the book to give something that feels palatable enough in a Return of the King sense to crown the trilogy? You know?

• 16:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I do also think our, our Oscar indexes are imperfect and do not, you know?

• 16:51Speaker 02

  Always.

• 16:51Amanda Dobbins?

  What happened with Bola Negra happened after it won the People's Choice Award at Toronto and several other festival awards.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And Gitarca de la Fuente, I've been practicing, um, you know, is really getting his US launch after being so popular in Spain. And so then that goes in, but like our, it's kind of like the interest rates and the inflation where we like can't really keep up in real time with what's going on out on the streets.

• 17:17Sean Fennessey?

  I was hoping this would come up today.

• 17:18Amanda Dobbins?

  And so, well, listen, it's not good. It's not good out there in terms of America. But, so, you know, then You Can See Everything was made available to everybody and became also the sensation, which I think even at the surprise screening at Telluride, you, would you have predicted $50 million in the box office?

• 17:37Sean Fennessey?

  No, I mean, it's going to make $100 million. I mean, it's going to be, it's going to be one of the biggest documentaries in the history of the form.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  October surprise, baby.

• 17:44Sean Fennessey?

  October surprise, truly.

• 17:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, so like our measurements are imprecise and too late, but I think you're right. I'm not, I think you, you are correct.

• 17:50Sean Fennessey?

  It's all subjective in terms of who we're talking to.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  I'm not here to like critique your ranking. I'm just saying in general, everyone has it one, two, and I'm just, I feel like it's going to slide. It's, I was thinking a lot about Emilio Perez. Obviously, it's not going to be dogged by, hopefully, uh, not dogged by like some of the similar controversies, but that was another thing that just came in, sort of really inflated out of festival season.

• 18:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Were we all together that day? Were you? I feel like you were on the podcast.

• 18:15Sean Fennessey?

  Films' promises went down and a heap of tweet flame.

• 18:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, when the story was broken.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  It was either like near, it was right around then.

• 18:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I think we, I remember doing this annual episode, like a check in with Joanna episode, really on that day. So it's nice to see you.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, great to be back.

• 18:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Good luck to La Bola Negra, I guess.

• 18:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. One last thing about that note, which I think is very interesting, is you, you're right to point out that The Odyssey and Dune Part III have something in common in terms of its scope and execution. And La Bola Negra also has something in common in that respect. The one thing that La Bola Negra has going for it is, it's also a contemporary story. It is also very much a modern day story in addition to being this grand war story.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Many things.

• 18:53Sean Fennessey?

  And so because of that multiplicity of story and theme- It can appeal to a lot of different kinds of voters, in a way. It can, it can appeal to the steak eaters. It can also appeal to the international audience. It can also appeal to the costume drama audience. Like, it kind of hits a lot of different targets, and which is why I think Netflix, if they play it right, has a strong chance to do something interesting with it.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  But even its enthusiasts, that I've talked to at least, are like, I liked it except for this story.

• 19:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly. I was gonna say that that is both its strength and its weakness, because it features so much, it doesn't really commit to anything. Like, is it the most complete portrait of what's going on in the Spanish Civil War? No. And I really need to read some history before we do our episode. Is it the most complete portrayal of, you know, modern, you know, gay life? Probably not. Is it the most complete depiction of?

• 19:46Speaker 02

  A Lorca play?

• 19:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, a Lorca play, or the history of literature, or, you know, Glenn Close? I'm, you know, I, no. So you can feel-

• 19:54Sean Fennessey?

  I like to have like, a nice table, though, with a lot of different things to taste, you know? Like, I do like, you know, small plates.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  But sometimes the steak eaters just want a big juicy steak.

• 20:01Sean Fennessey?

  They do. They do. Uh, you mentioned the Gothams. The Gotham Award nominations came out this week. I don't really know how to regard the Gothams. We don't spend a lot of time thinking about them. They're really first out of the gate, and I think they have, they do this great act of locating a handful of films or performances that are probably not gonna be in the awards race and the critic circle races for the whole run through. There were a couple that I really liked. I liked seeing Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother Get Some Love, and Teenage Sex and Death: The Camyasma. I liked seeing John Early get recognized for his direction for Maddie's Secret, a movie that we really like. I liked seeing Ian McKellen for The Christopher's, which is like, a movie that if they had put that at festivals and it had come out in October, maybe there would have been a more interesting-

• 20:39Speaker 02

  I loved that movie.

• 20:40Sean Fennessey?

  Race for him, you know?

• 20:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I really liked that movie, too.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  I loved it. It's really stuck with me, too. That movie and Tuna, like, which I, you know, saw earlier in the year, have really lingered and, and might be bumping around somewhere in my top 10, top 5, maybe even. And Ian McKellen's performance is so good. Michaela Cole also amazing in that movie. So, I would love to see, you know, we're gonna talk about the John Turturro performance as well, but like, Turturro McKellen, like, as kings of, you know, the indie spirit awards or something like that this year? I mean, that's exciting to me.

• 21:10Sean Fennessey?

  Definitely seems plausible. And, I mean, the Gothams, do you race to your computer when they're announced in the morning and say, what does this mean?

• 21:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, the Gothams, in addition to, to being first, they eventize the ceremony in their own way, and the speeches from the Gothams are always very memorable and recorded, kind of, you know, charmingly on video phones and, and posted online. So, I always feel a little bit of FOMO that I'm not there, and I look forward to those-

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Invite Amanda to the Gothams.

• 21:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I know. That's true. I gotta figure out how to get to New York in December. Yeah. But also, there can be a breakout moment, and especially in the performances where someone gives, like, a good speech, and then there's suddenly a little bit of juice going in campaign. So, I like to see who's sprinkled, and, and to your point about isolating a few performances that are not on our predictions lists, and are maybe not gonna hang around for awards season. Sometimes I like to see who they throw in, just, you know, in, in case something pops through. At the same time, they also do a good job of, like, planting the flag for a couple of things, you know? And this one, I was just really happy to see all of the Mike Lee and Tender Loving Care nominations, which

• 22:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I still have not even seen, but I'm very much looking forward to. And I do always feel that we get to the end of an awards season and we're like, oh yeah, what about the Mike Lee movie? So, there are, there are a couple other instances here where they're really like, don't forget, like, pay attention to this. All of a sudden, you know, popping up everywhere seems like an act of advocacy that I appreciate.

• 22:42Sean Fennessey?

  I'm glad you brought that up, too, because you mentioned the Matthew McConaughey moment where he wins for Dallas Buyers Club, but it's part of the McConnaissance. That's one of the reasons why he was awarded. And Kato Flynn being one of the biggest breakout TV stars of the year, and also appearing in Tender Loving Care. And she's devastatingly good in Tender Loving Care, and playing in a completely different register than the one that she plays in on Widows Bay.

• 23:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:04Sean Fennessey?

  And so, that's a universe where she's acknowledged here by the Gothams. That could kickstart a long campaign in supporting actress, if that's where they decide to choose her. To me, she's a lead, but I know we don't care about category fraud. Nevertheless, have you seen Tender Loving Care yet?

• 23:16Speaker 02

  I haven't yet.

• 23:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  I'm excited.

• 23:17Sean Fennessey?

  Look forward to that conversation. Um-

• 23:20Speaker 02

  Also, you know, Bola Negra not in feature at the Gothams either, which I think is interesting. But also, the Gothams has, like, very strange, you know, the way they do their nominations is, is down to sort of like, small-

• 23:34Sean Fennessey?

  Small jury, effectively, yeah.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  Small jury of people, so that's-

• 23:37Sean Fennessey?

  And they used to have parameters around their budget, and they no longer do.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:39Sean Fennessey?

  So now, every movie can contend if they submit the movie.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Right. And again, for Universal to not submit The Odyssey, I just think is interesting.

• 23:47Sean Fennessey?

  I know that Odyssey stuff is coming back pretty soon, though, so that, you know, I think that they kind of have to start the campaign in November.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  But like, do you think the optics is, they don't want to, like, try to put themselves up against, like, this cute boutique indie sort of-

• 24:00Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  -lineup, but again, one battle did, and that worked out really well for it.

• 24:04Sean Fennessey?

  Watch out. You can see everything can win, and then all of a sudden, you can see everything train starts rolling, and I think that's a film that's gonna do very well with critics groups.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:09Sean Fennessey?

  So, it, this is a cool race. This went, this went from, in July, I was like, fuck, this is gonna be really boring, and now I feel completely differently about it.

• 24:17Speaker 02

  It's the best.

• 24:18Sean Fennessey?

  Um, did you bring some predictions?

• 24:19Speaker 02

  I did. Well, I have some hot takes, I guess.

• 24:21Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Hot takes are even better than predictions.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Um, okay, this is around, or, or questions, a series of Syrian questions.

• 24:29Sean Fennessey?

  Put your foot down. Take those question marks off.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  Is this like a Socratic method situation? Well, here's my question. I saw Wild Horse 9. I absolutely loved it. I think Malkovich is incredible, like, a miracle performance in it. And then I heard from a couple people who had seen it, they asked me how much I thought that was improvised. And I said, I don't actually think-

• 24:47Sean Fennessey?

  Not in English.

• 24:48Speaker 02

  -improvised at all. And so, do I think McDonough is a shoo-in to win? Yes. Could the quality of his writing hurt a lead actor, uh, award?

• 25:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Is that, is that the smear campaign they're running?

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Not, not I. I'm pro Malkovich. It's gonna be down to, like, Damon Malkovich, and then we can talk about Andrew Scott, but like-

• 25:08Amanda Dobbins?

  But I was gonna say, the Gotham Award nominations, once it, can also confirm, like, things really happening. Malkovich is in performances, you know? Andrew Garfield is in supporting performances. You're just kind of, this, that is, that is absolutely gonna happen.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  You and I are like, so bullish on Garfield and Artificial.

• 25:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Really, really can't, Joanne and I saw Artificial sitting next to each other, and I just really, really-

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Such a good experience.

• 25:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Can't wait.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  We, like, ran to the ballet stand, like, brimming with, first of all, wanting to beat everyone, but also just, like, brimming with enthusiasm, you know?

• 25:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I did also quite literally do the Leo pointing at the screen at someone who will be discussed on stage, too. And I, I think also yelled, sorry to everyone else in that screening.

• 25:46Sean Fennessey?

  Another movie that I think will be very insurgent, when it really starts getting shown more widely in this race, I think, um-

• 25:52Speaker 02

  So, yeah, back to Malkovich, you know?

• 25:55Sean Fennessey?

  I like what you're saying.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:57Sean Fennessey?

  I feel strongly, at this moment in time, that Malkovich will win.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  So do I.

• 26:00Sean Fennessey?

  I also feel-

• 26:01Speaker 02

  I hope so. I think he should.

• 26:03Sean Fennessey?

  That I will be surprised at the moment if McDonough doesn't win original screenplay, and here's why. He's never won for original screenplay, and he's widely considered one of the best writers in Hollywood. Travis Knight, on this very episode, cites Martin McDonough as a filmmaker that he loves. Who was the last, somebody else was just recently in here, and they also said, oh, the filmmakers behind Once Upon a Time in Harlem, they both loved Once Upon a Wild Horse 9. It's a movie that, like, everyone really likes, and he does have an Academy Award, McDonough, but it's for his short film from 2005, Six Shooter, which is kind of what launched him off the stage and into Hollywood within Bruges. Wild Horse 9 has a lot in common with In Bruges. They're very much, they're twins. And, so, I like what you're saying, but it's, and it, maybe, maybe, is it possible

• 26:45Sean Fennessey?

  that it doesn't benefit Malkovich? That, like, maybe it benefits McDonough more than it benefits-

• 26:51Speaker 02

  That's what I mean. That's exactly what I mean, is that I think McDonough is like a lock for screenplay.

• 26:55Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I see what you're saying, okay.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  That his screenplay is so, like, his writing, the quality of his writing is so good, that it sounds so, like, natural. This is maybe me grappling still with Banshees of Inisherin, uh, trauma, and the fact that I really thought Colin Farrell should have won for that, and I'm just sort of like, yes-

• 27:12Sean Fennessey?

  Was that the whale year?

• 27:13Speaker 02

  Uh, I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tough, tough year.

• 27:16Sean Fennessey?

  That's a tough one. That's a tough one.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  Anyway, Malkovich should win. Garfield should win. Those are two strong takes of mine.

• 27:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, the only thing I would throw into you with original screenplay is that Simon Rich will be in that mix for Artificial, and I think when people see that, it's, there's gonna be-

• 27:34Speaker 02

  Well, but the Artificial, the Artificial smear is gonna be, this is not, you know, it's that classic, this is not based in reality.

• 27:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure, but that didn't matter for Aaron Sorkin and The Social Network.

• 27:43Sean Fennessey?

  It's true. It's true. That was adapted, though. Because that was, that was after the book. But, I mean, Artificial, I feel like we know even more about the events that are portrayed, because that's, I don't want to spoil Artificial for people, but, um, that's a very interesting one. We'll talk about Wild Horse 9 next week.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait to listen to you guys talk about that. Um-

• 28:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Another thing I have to do research for, for, no spoilers.

• 28:05Sean Fennessey?

  There's a lot of research needed. Yes.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Um, Olivia Wilde.

• 28:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  Really popping, it feels like. And it feels like one of those Hollywood redemption arcs that people get really excited about. It's like, sorry, we were mean to you, even though, I don't know, maybe, did you deserve it? Did you not? I think she's done all the right moves to sort of re-ingratiate herself, and I love that movie. And so, in adapted screenplay, I think that is a really strong, and we talk all the time about the screenplay categories as, like, the cool kid categories, something like that. So, like, could Olivia Wilde over Christopher Nolan for The Odyssey? Like, could that win happen?

• 28:43Sean Fennessey?

  But she's not the writer.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  Is it her? Yeah.

• 28:44Sean Fennessey?

  It's Rashida Jones and Will McCormick.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  But like, her as the face of that whole campaign, you know?

• 28:50Sean Fennessey?

  That's an interesting one, right?

• 28:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, they transfer it.

• 28:52Sean Fennessey?

  She, she's in a tricky spot where it's very clear that that script, which is, you know, adapted from another film-

• 29:03Sean Fennessey?

  Evolved a lot because of the skills of the actors and the director on set. She's told stories about it.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:09Sean Fennessey?

  About what Norton brought to the table, obviously, what somebody like Seth Rogen brings to the table. You know, Olivia Wilde is like a tremendously experienced actress, Penelope Cruz as well. So that's an interesting one where like, I think it will be nominated.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Right, but you feel like-

• 29:22Sean Fennessey?

  I think it will be held against it, that it was like, you had the superpower of Seth Rogen, like one of the all time on set improvisers. Like the craziest story to me about the Edward Norton thing is the story that she told on the pod, where she was like, he wrote that whole hawk speech-

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:37Sean Fennessey?

  Near the end of the film, and then Seth Rogen didn't know it was coming, and in real time improvised his reaction that's in the movie-

• 29:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:43Sean Fennessey?

  Which is so funny. And obviously, that's what he does. That's what his skill is.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 29:48Sean Fennessey?

  But I wonder if that takes away at all from adulation for the screenplay? I don't know. It's what occurred to me when Olivia told that story.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  But I really feel like, okay, I hear you. I really feel like people want to recognize that movie. Is there another space to recognize that movie?

• 30:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I can't figure out where it's gonna win.

• 30:06Sean Fennessey?

  I know.

• 30:07Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think it will get a tremendous number of nominations. And it's already, you know, they're gonna be at the Palm Springs Festival, and I think probably Santa Barbara, and they're lining up all the awards season events. Like, they are, they are running.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  They're running.

• 30:21Amanda Dobbins?

  They have been running, and there is real love for it. But it seems to me like a real six to seven nomination, no wins type.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  No win, okay.

• 30:30Sean Fennessey?

  It's a tricky one. I'm feeling similarly. I don't know what to do with it. Because I think it would be a really good nomination for her in director, but she's up against a lot of very brawny men.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:38Sean Fennessey?

  You know, with a lot of big-

• 30:39Speaker 02

  Two hobbies, not just one.

• 30:40Sean Fennessey?

  Two hobbies, a Nolan-

• 30:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:42Sean Fennessey?

  A Villeneuve, you know, we got a lot of, a fielder in Oppenheimer. Let's do a two duos. It's a lot to ask.

• 30:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:49Sean Fennessey?

  Um, okay, that's a good one. What's next?

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Uh, Zendaya. Let's talk about it.

• 30:54Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 30:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Um, no spoilers for Dune 3 or the trailer.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  Just that she's in the trailer a lot, just that in they've dramatically rewritten that part from the book in order to give her as much to chew on as possible.

• 31:08Amanda Dobbins?

  According to the trailer?

• 31:10Speaker 02

  No, according to what Villeneuve has, I mean, they set it up in the previous movie, that they're just dramatically-

• 31:14Sean Fennessey?

  What are you doing? You have to do that.

• 31:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I know, well, sure, but they didn't do it in the last movie, so-

• 31:19Sean Fennessey?

  But the last movie ends with, with her being like, motherfucker, I will kill you.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, uh, the drama, Spider-Man, Euphoria, Odyssey, Dune. Could we get a, let's, uh, married Tom Holland? Could we get a, let's celebrate Zendaya, one of our biggest movie stars, for this incredible year that she's had, sort of wins.

• 31:44Sean Fennessey?

  For the drama? For Dune Part III?

• 31:46Speaker 02

  For Dune Part III, because-

• 31:47Amanda Dobbins?

  And they're running her Best Actress.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  It's just announced that she's running a Best Actress.

• 31:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Julianne Moore is another that's happening.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  A weak field Julianne Moore feels like the frontrunner right now, because there isn't major competition, and Hathaway has ducked down into supporting.

• 31:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I do think Indy and Everety will happen, despite it not happening at the, at the Gothams. Um, so that's two that we feel really confident. We got no Best Actresses from Odyssey, because they're all running and supporting. We have no Best Actresses from La Bola Negra, because they are very supporting.

• 32:17Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 32:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Um-

• 32:18Speaker 02

  But Penelope's great, though.

• 32:19Amanda Dobbins?

  She's great, you know, and Glenn Close speaks Spanish, so.

• 32:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, she does.

• 32:25Amanda Dobbins?

  She does.

• 32:25Sean Fennessey?

  She does.

• 32:26Amanda Dobbins?

  In the way that the character is intended to speak Spanish.

• 32:29Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely.

• 32:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Is her Spanish better or worse than Ben Affleck's Spanish in, in animals?

• 32:34Sean Fennessey?

  Debatable.

• 32:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, up to you.

• 32:35Sean Fennessey?

  You'll see.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  That's a question.

• 32:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, okay, who else, who else are frontrunners? Dune-

• 32:40Sean Fennessey?

  It's a funky lineup.

• 32:41Speaker 02

  It's a funky category.

• 32:42Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's possible.

• 32:43Sean Fennessey?

  It's, it's Julianne Moore and Indy and Everety, I think, are in.

• 32:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:45Sean Fennessey?

  I kinda think Olivia Wilde is in. I'm not totally sure. After that, John Do Young from Possible Love to Me is like, who is also recognized at the Gothams. That's, feels like a very clear mandate for Netflix to make that happen. Her performance is amazing in that movie, as we'll talk about next week. After that, it's like, it's Marion Bailey from Tender Loving Care, Svetlana Ryansova from Fjord, Sandra Heuler from Rose. Maybe that seems like it's likely, but not definite.

• 33:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Is that the, one of the five Sandra Heuler performances that you're gonna pick?

• 33:15Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I haven't seen Rose yet.

• 33:16Speaker 02

  Doomsday. I, I heard it, and I, and I loved it. But do you think her role in Doomsday will accent it for her?

• 33:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I still don't know who she's playing, so she's Doom, Mrs. Doom?

• 33:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, she's Jill Doom.

• 33:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Doom's a mom.

• 33:27Sean Fennessey?

  Jill Doom.

• 33:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 33:28Sean Fennessey?

  She's like Jill Biden, but for doom.

• 33:32Sean Fennessey?

  I like this, I like this.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  It's a weak category.

• 33:35Sean Fennessey?

  You're onto something.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  And I think, you know, and she has such a, you know, like Spider-Man made all the money in the world this year. The drama is just like a, a really great performance-

• 33:43Amanda Dobbins?

  All-timer.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  And a really, uh, isyncratic movie. She's phenomenal in the very flawed final season of Euphoria, you know, like, as she always is in Euphoria. And she's just a massive star. People just want to see more of Zendaya.

• 33:57Sean Fennessey?

  I think there's a case to be made that she is the number one overall draft pick in all of Hollywood right now. Chris Nolan's in that conversation, you know, Leo, maybe. Like, there's like a handful of people where you're like, if you had to start with a person, who would you start with? I, I think she might be number one. Maybe this is a podcast episode that I'm spoiling here.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  Okay, and so you-

• 34:19Amanda Dobbins?

  It's the podcast episode that we do every single time, and it's, you've forgotten Timothy Chalamet. I think she is over Timothy Chalamet. Yes, but in the conversation, I think Pattinson is sort of in that conversation as well, and her husband.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  But she has-

• 34:32Sean Fennessey?

  What's his name?

• 34:33Speaker 02

  But she has, over Pattinson and Timmy, she has the like, sort of Sterling personal life, sort of fashion aspect of her.

• 34:41Amanda Dobbins?

  It's true.

• 34:41Speaker 02

  That's on top of that.

• 34:42Sean Fennessey?

  She's a very powerful celebrity.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  That's what I mean, like, one of our movie stars. Um, so it all depends whether or not we feel like her performance in Dune is, is worth that push. But more like, if Dune Part III doesn't feel like it is genuinely going to win any of those other categories, and the Odyssey's gonna take them, could she be the sort of like, let's give Dune Part III an Oscar, and we'll give it to Zendaya?

• 35:04Sean Fennessey?

  I love how you're thinking. You got any more?

• 35:07Speaker 02

  I think that's it.

• 35:07Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 35:08Speaker 02

  I think I did it.

• 35:09Sean Fennessey?

  Should be an interesting race.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  Oh, and she who shall not be named. I feel really bullish on that.

• 35:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:15Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's happening.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, for sure. I mean, a nomination.

• 35:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 35:19Amanda Dobbins?

  We don't know if it's gonna actually-

• 35:20Speaker 02

  That's a much harder category, but like, it could be really fun.

• 35:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I think so.

• 35:25Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's talk about movies. So you had seen more than I ever would have expected.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  A lot of these are streaming at home, you know?

• 35:33Sean Fennessey?

  A lot of them are streaming at home. There's been, uh, we've done, I think, a pretty good job this year of covering new releases. I feel like we put in a lot of effort seeing new films. And yet, ahead of this episode, I was like, motherfucker, I gotta catch up with like nine movies.

• 35:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Sean and I ran into each other unplanned at the Americana. I was like, which of the many movie theaters that I've visited in the last five days?

• 35:53Sean Fennessey?

  Your second movie of the day, my second movie of the day, at that movie theater.

• 35:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Which was very, very kind.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  What were your, what were your double features?

• 35:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Mine was Wildwood and Clara and the Sun, which was actually an interesting double feature.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  That is an interesting double feature.

• 36:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:04Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I literally can't remember what my first movie of the day was. I'm gonna look it up right now. Oh, it was Wicker.

• 36:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 36:10Sean Fennessey?

  It was Wicker. Um, so let's start with Wicker.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  Great.

• 36:12Sean Fennessey?

  For all these films.

• 36:13Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:13Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Wicker is, was, debuted at Sundance to some acclaim. Um, directed by Alex, Alex Houston Fisher and Eleanor Wilson. It is about an ostracized Fisherwoman, played by Olivia Colman, who commissions the local basket maker, normal thing, to weave her a husband. When her Wicker creation proves unexpectedly extraordinary, his presence ignites jealousy and upheaval that threatens their quiet village. This is an extremely normal movie with a very normal premise. Joanna, you've already podcasted about this movie.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:41Sean Fennessey?

  So Amanda, what did, what did you make of Wicker?

• 36:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I was quite charmed by this film, and some of it is, I think, because of expectations. And so I went into it thinking this was, you know, kinda more romantic-y, like money grab. And then it is, it's kind of an arch fable. It is very knowing about the story that it's telling, it understands the story that it's telling, and for the most part, understands the audience. I went to a Vidiate screening with a lot of fans, I guess, of this genre of literature.

• 37:12Sean Fennessey?

  Wicker fuckers, yeah.

• 37:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, a lot of cheering every time there was a sex scene, which was, um, one way to watch it, and not necessarily the way I watched it. I watched it when I, I was cheering mostly for Olivia Colman and Elizabeth Debicki.

• 37:25Speaker 02

  Debicki is the star of this movie. Debicki's amazing.

• 37:29Amanda Dobbins?

  So great, but-

• 37:31Sean Fennessey?

  She plays a rival townsman?

• 37:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Shout out Taylor's Wife, you know? Like, I'm a big Taylor's Wife fan, honestly.

• 37:38Amanda Dobbins?

  We've been talking a lot about adaptations of the romance and its, you know, tributaries genre, and how a lot of times it seems to be the source material problem, and also that people, uh, the filmmaker is adapting it, don't really understand, or maybe even have some disdain for the material that they're forced to work with-

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 37:58Amanda Dobbins?

  For commercial reasons. And it felt to me like, these filmmakers not only like, understood and appreciated what was good about this material, but also- Like had their own, own ideas about it and added to it. And that was very refreshing to see.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  I want to dwell a minute on the, on the, on the horny and the ad campaign because like, so the short story that it's adapted from does not have any sex implied.

• 38:22Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  But it's not like a horny story at all. And the, you know, the writers, directors, a married couple have talked about the fact that they were like, we just thought it would be interesting and funny. Like the more we thought about, the more interesting and funny we thought it was. And then the way that the ad campaign out of a Sundance, modern Sundance hit, I don't think it was like even scorching on a Sundance, but like the way that the ad campaign leaned into this sort of like romanticy basket fucker. They gave out Wicker nipples at like various screenings, all of the, you know, photos, the F Y C billboards around L A that are just like a close up of the Wicker nipples, et cetera. They're just like leaned into this like, hey, come watch Olivia Colman fuck a basket.

• 39:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Who is played by Alexander Skarsgård, fresh off the Pillion campaign, which just just kind of kept going. And he changed from one. I mean, so did I, but you know, he was, he has been doing the, the promo tour and the costuming appropriately since Pillion and transitioned right into Wicker. And I salute it.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  I agree. And, and it's sort of, is it a misleading campaign? I don't know. Like there's less sex in this movie than I think a lot of people are expecting when they go in. There's still plenty and it's still weird. Cause it's like a Wicker husband, but it is like, actually when you said, you know, you were charmed by it, like it's actually more of a heartwarming fable than it is a horny romp, you know?

• 39:39Sean Fennessey?

  It's fun. I, I agree with everything that you guys are saying. I thought this movie was very charming as well. I did think of it a lot as a parable and you know, Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård kind of exit the movie in the final third of the movie in a way, and it becomes much more of this.

• 39:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, too much Peter Dinklage, you know?

• 39:54Sean Fennessey?

  There, there is a lot of Peter Dinklage with a British accent.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:57Sean Fennessey?

  And a lot, and a lot of working alone on his baskets.

• 40:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And delivering speeches, not unlike the terrible speech from the finale of Game of Thrones.

• 40:05Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 40:06Amanda Dobbins?

  So.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  What's more important than baskets?

• 40:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Which will never escape. And he'll never escape it. I'm sorry to him.

• 40:12Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't think that that stuff is as effective as when it's Olivia Colman's movie.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  When it's Debicki and Colman, like picking blueberries.

• 40:20Sean Fennessey?

  That's, that's the best scene in the movie.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  That's the best scene in the movie.

• 40:23Sean Fennessey?

  But the, I did like the, the idea, which is like, this is another way of telling a story about othering people and being a little bit different and the way that society kind of gathers around and when something isn't exactly as they expect it to be, the way that they find reason to take issue with it. And that part of the story I think is really well told. It is like, it's like 17% to like tweak work for me, you know? Just a little bit, there's a little bit too much mustard on that part of the story for me.

• 40:53Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a movie about falling in love with a basket woven man.

• 40:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 40:56Amanda Dobbins?

  And then.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  Is it, spoilers for Wicker?

• 40:59Sean Fennessey?

  Sure, spoilers for Wicker.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  Is it the Wicker baby?

• 41:03Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't love it.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't, I didn't like it either.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  The Wicker baby's not my favorite. I think production design wise, like in terms of the fantasy world they create here, in my sort of like Bridgerton PTSD where, you know, there's this idea of fantasy that is just, let's not grounded in any kind of reality. And, and what they made here, I thought was so decently grounded in a number of different realities jammed together to make a fantasy world. The like callers for the, the wedding ceremony or the various rituals, um, the way that the town square is created, sort of like in this theater in the round, uh, presentation. Um, I, I just, I love the world that they created. I agree that the story is just a little creakier than, than I would hope for, but I.

• 41:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's a, it's a fable, you know? There's like, there's five pages of actual stories. So the, some of, some of it is a little Etsy crafty. I agree. And that that's not to my taste either. I accept when I need to order a Halloween costume.

• 42:04Speaker 02

  But I think a theme of a number of films that we're about to sort of run through that I would want to shout out is just sort of like, I'm just so glad they exist.

• 42:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  I'm so glad Wicker exists. A lot of people are excited about it and talking about it and seeing it in theaters and that these filmmakers will get an opportunity to make something else weird and fun.

• 42:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, this movie did really good business. I mean, it made like eight million dollars over the weekend, which for a film like this, and this is the first really big hit that Black Bear has put out, and they've been trying over the last 12 months to get their distribution thing going. They put out tuner earlier this year, kind of, you know, with the onset of Skydance, like we need more companies like this, like picking movies like this and putting stuff like this out. And then the other thing too, is that Olivia Colman, I think there's a world where there's also an Oscar thing there, just because I'm sure you witnessed this at your screening, like she is beloved. She's in a very rare class of actor where everyone adores her. And I don't think she has as much to do in this movie as she has had in films like The Favorite, but.

• 43:03Amanda Dobbins?

  What she does, and just the way the camera holds her face, you know, is Lady Gaga.

• 43:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 43:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Can we do a quick shout out to Ella Bruckolari from The Other Bennett Sister? There we go.

• 43:14Speaker 02

  Oh my God, The Other Bennett Sister. Can I just, I'm gonna say on microphone?

• 43:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  I have a whole end of your Austin plan for you, Amanda, that we should talk about.

• 43:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I would love to.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  Okay, great.

• 43:24Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  You're invited, Sean.

• 43:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I was literally saying, you're not invited.

• 43:29Sean Fennessey?

  The whole podcast happening over here.

• 43:31Amanda Dobbins?

  He still hasn't learned Mansfield Park in North Angkor Bais, so he's not invited yet.

• 43:35Sean Fennessey?

  I have seen the film adaptation of Mansfield Park though, right? That's Francis O'Connor. Yeah, I've seen that. The, you know who I thought of watching Debicki in this movie, who I think should be in Supporting Actress? It's fucking Alan Rickman. I was like, this is an Alan Rickman-esque performance. A lot of sneering, a lot of snidely whiplash quality, a lot of like interior like pain, you know? Like there's something inside that we don't know what's wrong or what happened, but can't get it out.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  And then we meet her dad and we're like, I get it.

• 44:00Sean Fennessey?

  You see, yeah.

• 44:01Speaker 02

  I get it.

• 44:02Sean Fennessey?

  Play magnificently. That was a surprise. That was like a jump scare.

• 44:05Amanda Dobbins?

  That was really good.

• 44:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. This is a fun movie. It's definitely worth watching.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:09Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, okay, let's talk about Wildwood, which is, you know, at the beginning of the month, I was like, this is the big ticket item. Um, this is going up against Clayface, but this is a $100 million stop motion animation film that's many years in the making. You can hear a lot about the making of the movie when I talked to Travis Knight. It's based on a 2011 novel. Uh, it's about a girl named Prue and her classmate Curtis are drawn into a magical forest as they embark on the desperate quest to rescue Prue's abducted baby brother from a murder of crows. Goes in some wild directions from there. Joanna, what do you, what do you make of Wildwood?

• 44:46Speaker 02

  So I have been waiting for this movie. This has been a sort of like ongoing joke with us that like I drafted this movie in my hype draft two years ago, cause that's when I thought it was coming out. Uh, and like, it's like, nope, we got a couple more years to work on it. Um, I, and I really like this book. It's a very strange book by Callum Malley, um, but I really quite like it. And, um, I'm just a massive like a fan in general. And so my expectations were just through the roof when I went in to see this movie. And I think, and everyone I've talked to who's seen it, just like the experience of, the visual experience of seeing a like a movie, I think you should never skip a like a movie. This is not my favorite like a movie, but I don't think you should ever skip a like

• 45:30Speaker 02

  a movie because I just think it's just a visual feast. Um, this is a story that I really love, whether it's Maurice Sendak telling it, whether it's Labyrinth, whether it's like, you know, this, this, my baby brother has been kidnapped by fairies or crows or whatever the case may be, and I have to go in the woods to get him. And it's a portal fantasy where all of a sudden like birds are talking and all, all these things are going on. Um, this is a setup that I love. I just think, and this is a very, we were talking about this, is a very long book. There's just a lot of story crammed in here. And when you've got like Mahershala Ali here, like to voice an interesting, um, uprising story that is the D plot of this movie, then I just feel a bit disoriented.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  And I'm like, I guess it's a long movie and I still feel like I needed more time to metabolize all of the story they were trying to tell.

• 46:19Sean Fennessey?

  What'd you think, Amanda?

• 46:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm the opposite of Joe in that because some a close minded Philistine, my, um, expectations were low for this. And I mean, this is, this is great in just in terms of sitting there, watching something beautifully made and interesting. And I, I wanted to know what happened, which again, I, I really honestly can't say that about half of the movies that I see quote unquote animated or not. Um, so I was certainly invested. I alternated between sitting there being like, wow, this is really impressive. And as we were discussing before we started recording, who is this for? And that, we were debating the, the question of who is this for? And is that something that the film should answer, that the marketing should answer? That, do you need an answer to that?

• 47:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Should a movie just be so self-evident that it, it, is the fact that we don't know a sign that there's something missing or some sort of emphasis that isn't quite working? I err on the side of, I'm a dumb audience member. And so if you tell me what I'm going to see, and then I go see it, and I'm like, oh, okay. So if this had been marketed to me as a YA fantasy extravaganza and a really technically, artistically, uh, accomplished version of that, I would have been really impressed and tried to find a 13 year old to, you know, to share this world with.

• 47:38Speaker 02

  Just a random one on the street?

• 47:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I, you know, you.

• 47:42Sean Fennessey?

  They flock to her, yeah.

• 47:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I did know that this wasn't for my young children, so I didn't take them. And that eased some of the issues that I see other people are having. And I guess they assume that animation means child. And that seems unfair and limiting, and I say that as someone who really prefers real humans to be in movies. But you couldn't tell this movie with real, in the real world. It is a fantasy. I was, I was thinking a lot about the live action Moana while watching this. Just being like, that is one of the worst movies I've seen this year.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  If that's where the bar is.

• 48:19Amanda Dobbins?

  But some of that is just because you can't, you know, you can't create imaginary things in the real world always.

• 48:25Sean Fennessey?

  So can I take you like on a long journey through my experience of thinking about this movie?

• 48:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 48:30Sean Fennessey?

  Cause I join you, please just endure this, okay? I was in the same spot as you, which I've been looking forward to this for a very long time. I love like, I love what they're about. I don't love all of their movies, but some, like I think Coraline is a masterpiece. So I've been looking for, forward to it for a long time. I bought the book to read with my daughter, not knowing what it was, maybe six months ago. And we started to read it and through the first chapter, I was like, oh, this is not for her. You can tell by the way that the story is framed, that it is not for five year olds. And that's okay to your point about who it's marketed to and what kind of story it's telling. And maybe it's for eight year olds or 11 year olds or 13 year olds that you find on the street.

• 49:10Sean Fennessey?

  Two things.

• 49:11Amanda Dobbins?

  But you don't offer them candy.

• 49:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Two things that have happened in my.

• 49:14Speaker 02

  Or a ride in your minivan. Don't buy them liquor.

• 49:17Sean Fennessey?

  Two things have happened in my movie going with my daughter recently. One is two weeks ago, we went to go see Mad Monster Party, Mad Monster Party? At Vidiotz, which is a lesser known Rankin and Bass stop motion animation Halloween movie, which she absolutely loved. It's a very strange movie and its themes and its jokes, which come out of the 1960s are pretty adult. There's like some sexualization going on. It's got a real wry sense of humor that it feels like it's for grownups. But, so I talked to her about some of those things, not all of them. And I talked to her about the animation style and like how it looked. And she kind of got what I was saying and I was trying to explain stop motion a little bit to her. And that was fascinating.

• 49:58Sean Fennessey?

  And then the following weekend, we went to the Academy Museum to go see Hotel Transylvania, a movie that she really likes. Which is, I think what we think of as like the 3D animated, like this is not really the greatest.

• 50:09Speaker 02

  Kind of ugly.

• 50:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's not a beautiful movie. It's kind of dopey with its sense of humor. However, the director of the forthcoming, I think Hotel Transylvania four came out before the movie. And he was like, before we start, I'd love to do a drawing demonstration with you. So I'm going to put my palette, my, my canvas on the projector and you all have clipboards and pencils and paper. And I'll show you how to draw Dracula and you try to draw along with me.

• 50:35Speaker 02

  So sweet.

• 50:36Amanda Dobbins?

  This is awesome.

• 50:37Speaker 02

  That's so sweet.

• 50:37Sean Fennessey?

  And Alice did it. And it was like exactly what you want to see.

• 50:43Speaker 02

  I feel bad that I just said ugly.

• 50:44Sean Fennessey?

  It was, I know, but it changed my mind about that too. It made me think like.

• 50:48Speaker 02

  Shout out the Academy Museum and their family programming on real.

• 50:52Sean Fennessey?

  And one of the great places in Los Angeles right now. But it was so wonderful to watch her connect with the idea of figuring out how to do that. That when you think about that in relationship to something like Wildwood, which is this insane act of creativity, because when you hear Nike talk about like the work that goes into what they're doing. I have a similar situation with the story where I'm like, there's too much story here. This movie is too big. It actually would have made sense as like a three film trilogy.

• 51:22Speaker 02

  That's what I was thinking or like a TV series. I don't want to make the movies into TV. I never want to make them feel smaller, but I'm just sort of like, I needed more time. So yeah, maybe a trilogy, I don't know.

• 51:31Sean Fennessey?

  And maybe if this movie was 90 minutes and there was another one that was 90 minutes that was coming in a year from now, it might've been a little bit easier to swallow, but.

• 51:38Speaker 02

  A little bone temple.

• 51:40Sean Fennessey?

  I would have been cool with that. I would have been down with that. Maybe that wouldn't have made sense for Leica or whoever else was working on the film. But the, the things that are being done, as somebody who has seen a lot of stop motion animation in my life, there's no precedent. There's no precedent for the eagle flying through the sky chase sequence. There's no precedent for the battle sequences. Like this stuff is, they are literally breaking new ground by moving puppets. One millimeter at a time, like the absolute, like smallest amount of movement to create is extraordinary work. And it's also like, and we talked about this in the conversation. It's at a time where I think a lot of kids movies are 3D and they're frantic. We talked about this with Forgotten Island.

• 52:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Not just kids movies, like all movies that we see. I mean, I was watching battle sequences. I was watching birds fly. And then I think I, then I went to Clara and the Sun and watched animated birds fly in Simul Formation. And I was like, wow, this looks so shitty. And you can tell even without comparison, when you are watching Wildwood, that you are looking at something like, I don't know if like the handmade nature of it is totally, that's not what you're seeing. You just can tell that it's done with care and that it's not slop. And that it's beautiful. It's like, it is, it is good to look at.

• 52:57Speaker 02

  Beautiful and the time, just the time in six, if you think about 16 years, like an entire 16 year old. That's how long they've been working on this movie.

• 53:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know any of those because I would have taken them to see Wildwood if anyone had told me.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  You would take a 16 year old, not a 13 year old?

• 53:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Don't you think, like, you know, tend to, I mean, it's, it's based on a YA book. I was thinking a lot about like, can't believe I gotta watch another Hunger Games movie at the end of the month, instead of more versions of this, you know? Like I would really appreciate it if we could.

• 53:26Speaker 02

  What if Sunrise on the Reaping is good? What if you love it?

• 53:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I.

• 53:28Sean Fennessey?

  I think it will be.

• 53:29Speaker 02

  It might be.

• 53:30Sean Fennessey?

  I'm kind of bullish on it.

• 53:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Jennifer Lawrence is back in it to sell her hair care products, which I would love to try.

• 53:36Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, is she back in it? Is that why she's doing all this press?

• 53:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, she also did launch her own hair care line backed by science.

• 53:41Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 53:42Speaker 02

  Woody Harrelson's gonna be there.

• 53:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 53:45Speaker 02

  Gang's all here.

• 53:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you, you liked the clapping one? Hey.

• 53:49Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, the, yeah, the looming ears.

• 53:51Speaker 02

  Didn't hate the clapping one.

• 53:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I hated the clapping one.

• 53:55Speaker 02

  But I think this, this source material is much better. Anyway, Wildwood, I think.

• 53:59Amanda Dobbins?

  By the way, is The Conjuring, ladies and gentlemen. Happy Halloween.

• 54:03Sean Fennessey?

  That was three episodes ago.

• 54:06Sean Fennessey?

  I think my, also my parent brain got into this movie too, because there are two different parental tracks in the story. There is Prue's parents and what is communicated about what they've done to become the family that they are. And then there's, is it Alexandra, the sort of the queen of the realm? The Carey Mulligan character, cooking.

• 54:27Speaker 02

  What a time for knife jawline blonde villainesses with Carey Mulligan in this and Elizabeth de Vicky in Wicker.

• 54:33Sean Fennessey?

  And Elizabeth Holmes.

• 54:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. Heck, yeah.

• 54:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 54:37Sean Fennessey?

  No, not a knife jawline.

• 54:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I honestly can't remember the jaw. I was too distracted by the hair. And the eyes, sure.

• 54:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I liked the parent stuff as the, you know.

• 54:49Speaker 02

  But you wanted more.

• 54:50Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I, I thought it was effective and maybe it speaks to what you're describing too, where it's sort of like,

• 54:56Sean Fennessey?

  those two stories are supposed to buttress Prue's story, right? That Prue and her quest to get her brother back and to explore this world and to kind of conquer this world, starts butting up against this rebellion story that you're talking about. And then we go back to the real world to learn more about their past. And it becomes all of these, this tangle of plotting that is very hard to untangle. And with a little bit more space, I think you might've gotten a little bit, you, each one would have had a little bit more time. I think the Alexandra storyline is probably the most developed, the one that I understood the most. That's the, the queen who's sort of, who's lost her child and is desperately trying to replace her child.

• 55:31Speaker 02

  Amazing opener for the movie, like an amazing tone setter for the movie.

• 55:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I also felt like I understood the.

• 55:37Speaker 02

  Portland hippies.

• 55:38Amanda Dobbins?

  The Portland hippies. And you know, it even explains why they weren't allowed to go outside and that, that all seemed pretty contained. I'm not really sure what the coyotes and the various birds were doing, but I, again, sometimes.

• 55:49Sean Fennessey?

  It's not your realm.

• 55:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly. So my brain does turn off a little bit. I'm just like, okay, so a lot of birds, also, you know, birds. So they were effective. I was threatened by them.

• 55:57Sean Fennessey?

  Did you know that there's going to be a TV series remake of the Birds starring Sarah Snook?

• 56:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I did know that.

• 56:02Sean Fennessey?

  What do you make of that?

• 56:02Speaker 02

  Are they going to film it in Bodega Bay in the Bay Area, which is where they filmed the first one?

• 56:06Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. One hope, I mean, she's Australian, can she do San Francisco?

• 56:08Speaker 02

  If they come back to Bodega Bay, I'm into it.

• 56:11Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if we need a TV series of the Birds.

• 56:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Will they use CGI birds?

• 56:14Sean Fennessey?

  At the Halloween movie draft. Come on, we don't need to remake the Birds. It's a perfect object. Anyhow, Wildwood.

• 56:22Sean Fennessey?

  I would like to see it again.

• 56:24Speaker 02

  I feel the same way.

• 56:25Sean Fennessey?

  I think I was trying to absorb all the story, but it's undeniable how astonishing the craft is. And it's also a movie that, you know, I mentioned this to Travis, like, we were talking about it.

• 56:36Sean Fennessey?

  Labyrinth and Return to Oz and all of these movies before YA was, you know, Divergent and The Hunger Games and whatever the-

• 56:44Speaker 02

  Twilight.

• 56:44Sean Fennessey?

  Twilight, wherever the genre is now.

• 56:46Speaker 02

  Show some respect.

• 56:46Sean Fennessey?

  There was a time when fantasy was really at the heart of it, not like fascism and social chaos. Like, that's really what defines the movies for YA now. Instead of this kind of feeling where you go to another world, where you're transported, as you say, to another world.

• 57:01Speaker 02

  I mean, it was always a little bit about fascism, right?

• 57:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 57:04Speaker 02

  Twilight, for sure.

• 57:04Sean Fennessey?

  Goblin Kings, yeah.

• 57:08Speaker 02

  No, Mombi and Return to Oz, that's about fascism. That is.

• 57:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, all the Philip Pullman novels are about fascism, for sure.

• 57:14Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 57:15Amanda Dobbins?

  You know? Harry Potter, I guess, evil fascist, they're fascist, for sure.

• 57:20Speaker 02

  I don't think you need to qualify fascism with evil. You can just say fascism.

• 57:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, that's true, but I was like, but it's, yes, supernatural fascism.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  Yes, supernatural fascism.

• 57:28Amanda Dobbins?

  It's kind of what I was going for.

• 57:29Sean Fennessey?

  Where was His Dark Materials written?

• 57:31Speaker 02

  90s.

• 57:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:32Sean Fennessey?

  90s, okay. Yeah, I guess I'm thinking more of like 70s and 80s. And how this reminded me more of that period of time. And that kind of storytelling, which I think does-

• 57:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Where just things get a little weird?

• 57:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and like, at a young age.

• 57:44Speaker 02

  And dangerous.

• 57:45Sean Fennessey?

  And dangerous, yes, I agree. There is, there is some violence in this movie that is pretty bracing for stop-motion animation, you know? The war sequences are like, characters are being killed on screen. It is not, they're not messing around.

• 57:55Amanda Dobbins?

  You're right that there isn't, or at least I wasn't paying attention to the explained underlying system that is motivating the coyotes.

• 58:04Speaker 02

  The populist uprising.

• 58:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, exactly, and all these sorts of.

• 58:08Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's an allegory. Let me tell you something. We got, you know, the Republicans, we got Democrats, you know? And then we got independents like CR. You know, people who are just trying to sort out which part they like. Right? What part are you a member of?

• 58:20Speaker 02

  Coyotes.

• 58:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, let me, can I ask you about coyotes for a second? Like, literal coyotes? You guys having issues with this in your hoods?

• 58:28Speaker 02

  There's one sleeping-

• 58:29Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, are the coyotes hanging out?

• 58:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, no, like, literal, like, you know?

• 58:32Sean Fennessey?

  I thought you were gonna go into like a Wolverine's-

• 58:34Speaker 02

  I got a text from my neighbor. I got a text from my neighbor the other day, and he's like, "I walked outside, there was a coyote sleeping on your, I have like a couch on my front porch." He's like, "There was a coyote sleeping on the couch there." He's like, "Then it got up and took a dump in the driveway." And I was like, "All right, LA, baby."

• 58:48Amanda Dobbins?

  The coyotes regularly sleep and dine on the couch outside of our home as well. And they're like, we, I was walking the kids home one day, and the coyotes were on the street and just saw my children. And we're like, "Oh, cool, can we come say hi?" I was like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no." Yeah, they're really, they're making themselves at home.

• 59:05Sean Fennessey?

  Our mantra is, they're more scared of you than you are of them. Don't bother them, they won't bother you.

• 59:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm just-

• 59:11Sean Fennessey?

  I've been saying this about coyotes for 15 years.

• 59:13Speaker 02

  I'm just nervous for the small dog that, the small dog that lives next door to me. That's what I'm nervous for.

• 59:19Sean Fennessey?

  I wanted to briefly mention the Oscars with Wildwood, too, because I think coming into the film, it was far and away the leader in the clubhouse for Best Animated Feature. And frankly, most like-a films should be recognized because of the kind of work that is being done. It doesn't always mean that the stories come together, but there, it's kind of hard to measure a movie like Forgotten Island versus a movie like Wildwood. There's hundreds of people that work on both movies. The intentions and work is different. But then something happened over the weekend that was quite interesting, which is that Coyote vs. Acme was deemed eligible in Best Animated Feature.

• 59:47Speaker 02

  That movie's so good.

• 59:48Sean Fennessey?

  And that movie has become a big success, and is a big success for two reasons. One, the movie that they made, and two, because it is this kind of strike against David Zaslove and the movie being kind of deleted from Warner Brothers and it going to catch-up entertainment. And then it's now made, I think, like $130 million worldwide, which is a huge success.

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  Great time at the movies.

• 1:00:07Sean Fennessey?

  And then over the week-

• 1:00:08Amanda Dobbins?

  So what do you take a two-year-old? Just on the record, speaking of knowing-

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  So you should find a 13-year-old in the street?

• 1:00:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe a 13-year-old would like that.

• 1:00:14Sean Fennessey?

  I find that Wildwood and Coyote vs. Acme are kind of similar, and that they're more for 11-year-olds or 40-year-olds than they are for 5-year-olds.

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  I thought with an audience of 40-year-olds, they had a great-

• 1:00:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I did not get that memo before I took a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old.

• 1:00:27Sean Fennessey?

  The other thing that happened is tragically, Eric Baza, the, the voice of Bugs Bunny and Deppi Duck and a number of other characters in the extended Warner Brothers Looney Tunes universe, passed away at 46 years old, out of nowhere. And very tragic. And this is very unusual for a film like this, Coyote vs. Acme, which is a hybrid of animation and live action, to be eligible in a category like this. I think Marcel Deschanel with Shoes On is the only time this has happened before. I think it needs to be 75% of the film needs to contain animation is the qualifier. This feels like it's cutting it very close, having seen it. There's a lot of scenes of like Will Forte and John Cena talking to each other.

• 1:01:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Excuse me, excuse me. Didn't we just have a conversation 20, maybe like 45 minutes ago?

• 1:01:10Sean Fennessey?

  Seven hours ago.

• 1:01:11Amanda Dobbins?

  About how-

• 1:01:12Speaker 02

  You can see everything?

• 1:01:13Sean Fennessey?

  Category fraud.

• 1:01:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Eligibility and category fraud, and the rules don't apply this year.

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  Would it be really fun if You Can See Everything is the Best Picture frontrunner and Coyote vs. Acme is the Animated Feature frontrunner?

• 1:01:23Amanda Dobbins?

  That'd be great.

• 1:01:24Sean Fennessey?

  It'd be fun for the Oscars.

• 1:01:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:25Sean Fennessey?

  It does push a bunch of movies down, though. It's like Toy Story 5, which I think was maybe not as strong as previous, the last couple of Toy Story movies, in terms of this race.

• 1:01:33Speaker 02

  And the last time-

• 1:01:34Sean Fennessey?

  Not in terms of its quality.

• 1:01:35Speaker 02

  The last time a like-a movie was nominated was against Toy Story 4.

• 1:01:39Sean Fennessey?

  That's right, and it lost.

• 1:01:40Speaker 02

  And it lost.

• 1:01:41Sean Fennessey?

  Although, I, that film, I don't feel, I feel it's the least successful, like, a film, missing link.

• 1:01:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought you were gonna say the least successful Toy Story film.

• 1:01:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Didn't you put it at below?

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  Below 5?

• 1:01:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Toy Story 5, when you ranked them at me.

• 1:01:55Sean Fennessey?

  4? I think it is less successful than 5, personally. I think it's a good time at the movies, I like 4.

• 1:02:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Please sing us the Taylor Swift song.

• 1:02:03Sean Fennessey?

  I literally don't know what it's called. But you know what? In the theater, I was like, this is a little too here.

• 1:02:07Amanda Dobbins?

  It's "I Knew You, I Saw You."

• 1:02:08Speaker 03

  "I Knew It, I Knew You." I actually think it's good. I actually think it's good.

• 1:02:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, you sing it.

• 1:02:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's hear it.

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  No, I won't, I thought about it, no, I won't. But thank you for the invite.

• 1:02:17Sean Fennessey?

  Ray Gun you mentioned? We've, we've seen Ray Gun.

• 1:02:20Amanda Dobbins?

  We doing a lot of work there.

• 1:02:22Sean Fennessey?

  Joanna and I saw Ray Gun together.

• 1:02:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, beautiful.

• 1:02:25Sean Fennessey?

  It was, uh-

• 1:02:26Speaker 02

  You and I saw Artificial together, was that him, you know?

• 1:02:28Sean Fennessey?

  We share you. More to come on Ray Gun on the pod, I'll say.

• 1:02:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:02:32Sean Fennessey?

  And then there's a few films, a couple of films that were at Cannes, Iron Boy, Tangles, there's Hoppers, also from Pixar this year.

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  Hoppers, great.

• 1:02:39Sean Fennessey?

  It was good. In a normal year, Hoppers would be a top-three contender. Now I feel like it's in 7th or 8th place.

• 1:02:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, talk about a lot of story.

• 1:02:46Sean Fennessey?

  Hoppers, yeah.

• 1:02:47Speaker 02

  Hopper, and talk about sort of alarmingly violent for children.

• 1:02:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that seemed to go over my child's head.

• 1:02:54Sean Fennessey?

  Did I talk about this in the Hoppers episode? What happened in our screening? We're, like, we're watching it, and we're 40 minutes in, and Alice, who's a very contemplative and focused watcher of movies, God bless her, 40 minutes in, turns to me very loudly, way too loudly, and is like, "What is this movie about?" Which is an understandable question.

• 1:03:13Speaker 02

  Well, get her a microphone.

• 1:03:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Knox, in my screening, said, turned 30 minutes in and said, "This isn't Hoppers, because none of the Hoppers featured in the commercials." Talk about dumb audiences, you know, like mother like son. He was like, "Where, where are the Hoppers?"

• 1:03:29Sean Fennessey?

  Anyhow.

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  You're like, "I did not know this is Jon Hamm's movie, I had no idea."

• 1:03:32Sean Fennessey?

  Truly, it is a film about politics. The Cat in the Hat, you seen it?

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:03:37Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't seen it either. Shaun the Sheep, The Beast of Mossy Bottom, you seen that one?

• 1:03:41Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:03:41Sean Fennessey?

  I heard it was good.

• 1:03:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Mossy Bottom's funny.

• 1:03:43Speaker 02

  Honestly, Shaun, the Shaun the Sheep cinematic universe is, is one I enjoy, but The Beast of Mossy Bottom is just not something I've gotten past.

• 1:03:50Sean Fennessey?

  It's on VOD, Hacks We've Not Yet Seen, that comes out on Thanksgiving. I'll be there. Forgotten Island, I don't think it's contending. Any other thoughts on Wildwood before we go to the next film?

• 1:04:00Speaker 02

  Everyone should see it.

• 1:04:01Sean Fennessey?

  I like it.

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  Same with Wicker. Like, everyone should see Wicker, everyone should see Wildwood, everyone should see these artistic endeavors to make something different and fun and exciting.

• 1:04:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you know a 13-year-old?

• 1:04:14Speaker 02

  Or can you find one on the street?

• 1:04:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Or is there a 13-year-old still living somewhere inside of you that you can access? If so, you'll love it. And it is, I mean, it's artistically very impressive.

• 1:04:24Speaker 02

  Do you enjoy lovingly laughing at Portland? Then you will love Wildwood. I love the Portland sequence in the beginning of the movie.

• 1:04:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's pivot to the only living pickpocket in New York, which is also in theaters, like Wildwood and like Wicker, and is expanding, right? It's expanding to more cities around the country?

• 1:04:42Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:04:43Sean Fennessey?

  Can we, can we spoil the only, let's maybe not spoil it. It is directed by Noah Seigand, it stars Gian Turturro, Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Steve Buscemi. When a theft goes awry, a veteran pickpocket is sent on a mission through New York to reclaim it. Just thought we could start with a little chat about pickpocketing? Something you've given much thought to? As an art form, as a skill, as a trade?

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  Have you done it?

• 1:05:04Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I've not done it, but, you know, I've seen Ocean's 12 many times. So I'm watching Linus learn, you know?

• 1:05:11Speaker 02

  Do you think you'd be good at it?

• 1:05:12Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I don't. Thank you, that's nice. I don't know whether, it's, hand-eye coordination, not actually one of my features. I know I talk a big talk about all my competence in the world, but that one, you know, I'm just flailing a little.

• 1:05:26Speaker 02

  I think you both would be great pickpockets, yeah.

• 1:05:29Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks for saying so.

• 1:05:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're welcome.

• 1:05:30Sean Fennessey?

  I've been studying for years.

• 1:05:31Speaker 02

  Okay, have you?

• 1:05:31Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, no, I haven't. Uh, I thought this was- A really smart idea for a small movie.

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:38Sean Fennessey?

  Like, and it's a very, this is an 88-minute film, character study, total 70s vibe, like, complete and purposefully so.

• 1:05:46Speaker 02

  I got like a 90s vibe also to it.

• 1:05:48Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe that too.

• 1:05:48Speaker 02

  You know, like 90s New York independent cinema. Maybe it's because Steve Buscemi was here in Totoro.

• 1:05:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm obviously, and Giancarlo Esposito as well. Like icons of the, the East Coast, you know, spikely bred kind of cinema. But also like a tightly focused character study about a guy in a jam.

• 1:06:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:08Sean Fennessey?

  It's a very familiar construct. And it's also a movie that is about the friction between generations, analog versus digital. It's definitely a neat little allegory about how things were better when they were all done by hand. And, you know, it's a component of Wildwood. It's also a component of this small film.

• 1:06:26Speaker 02

  I quite liked this movie. Do you think Totoro's character should have been maybe like 20, even 20 years older?

• 1:06:31Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 1:06:32Speaker 02

  When he's like, what's of a computer virus? I'm just sort of like, what's happening? So Noah Seigun directed this, but produced by Ryan Johnson and his producing partner. Noah Seigun, of course, has been like a long time, Ryan. So this feels like, you know, Noah Seigun, who shows up in Brick, Coffee and Pie, oh my, like, to...

• 1:06:54Sean Fennessey?

  All of Ryan's movies.

• 1:06:55Speaker 02

  No, all of Ryan's movies, like from, from the beginning. This feels like a, is a gift, like, you know what I mean? Like Ryan helped him make this movie. Um, I, I want to give Noah all the credit because I actually really liked this movie. I thought it was like, perfect for what it was and such a love letter to New York in an incredible way. And then almost like, even though the, the soundtrack could not be more on the nose, I just enjoyed every single New York needle drop. Um, I just enjoyed watching Totoro in his coat. Um, I enjoyed being on the subway.

• 1:07:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:31Speaker 02

  There is some sort of like twisty turny of the plot that feels like an episode of Poker Face complimentary. Uh, just like real Ryan Johnson.

• 1:07:39Sean Fennessey?

  You were getting ready to say that. I was gonna say Columbo, which of course is what Poker Face was inspired by.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  So, uh, you know, like, I, I just love this as an opportunity for Noah Seigun to sort of cut his teeth on something, you know?

• 1:07:50Sean Fennessey?

  What'd you think?

• 1:07:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, I really like any movie that gives a beloved actor an opportunity to dance and be charming on screen for 20 seconds. And when Totoro is, is dancing in the apartment, I was like, oh, okay. And, you know, and I knew that this was, you know, like his first leading role and kind of this will be, it will be in its time, Oscar, or a, you know, a recognition of everything that he has done as a character actor for so many years. Um, and, but then to see it so crystallized with the shimmy ink and just like the charisma. Um, that's why I go to the movies. So, yeah, I, I was, again, very charmed by it.

• 1:08:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there's a little bit of engineering in the story that you can feel with the like new fangled gangsters versus the old analog guy who only knows how to do things one way. But it's pretty easy to get over some of the particulars of that because it's just, it just, the movie just has a vibe, you know? And this is not easy to accomplish. There's something kind of loose and gentle and flowing about this movie that is very charming. And I don't, Totoro is not really cooking in the movie. And you point out that he doesn't have very many leading roles. Because most of the time when he's in a supporting role, like in Do the Right Thing or in The Big Lebowski, he's meant to go big because he's coming in off the sidelines.

• 1:09:08Sean Fennessey?

  And this movie, he's very restrained and he's very quiet. And there's a lot underneath the surface of the character that some of it is explained about what's happened to his wife and about where he finds himself at this station of life. And he gets this big, very dramatic sequence with Tatiana Maslany.

• 1:09:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:25Sean Fennessey?

  But she's doing a lot of the heavy lifting in that sequence.

• 1:09:28Speaker 02

  She's going big.

• 1:09:28Sean Fennessey?

  And so his performance, and this being of like, it's Totoro's Oscar time, is interesting because it's not the thing that you would expect from a movie, from a thing like that, which is to say, he gets a funder's speech, or he gets to summarize, you know, the sort of the totality of his acting history and it shows you what he does best. It's subtle, it's quiet, it's physical, it's about very delicate moves on screen that indicate what he's good at and what he's not good at, that I think is really nice. Um, I don't, I don't, you know, it's interesting to watch it go up against something like Malkovich in Wild Horse 9, where it's like, it's Malkovichian, like it is written for him. The way that he gets to kind of pull on the words and stretch out McDonough's dialogue.

• 1:10:08Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think also like their, their writing is not as much of an emphasis in Pickpocket as it is in Wild Horse 9. I think most of the performance, to your point about it being quiet, is, is in his face, is in close-ups, reaction shots, like, you know, movement.

• 1:10:23Speaker 02

  I think my favorite scene is the one he shares with Giancarlo Esposito, Esposito, I guess, uh, on, on the subway where he's like, sit, literally sitting on his hands, like could not be doing less. And there's just like so much his, like beautiful history between these two guys.

• 1:10:39Sean Fennessey?

  He barely speaks in that scene.

• 1:10:40Speaker 02

  And it's just like, I, I was like, I could watch this all day.

• 1:10:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's a good film. Um, it's definitely worth checking out. Uh, it's...

• 1:10:48Speaker 02

  But it's a lit, it's a little film and I don't, and I don't say that negatively.

• 1:10:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:52Speaker 02

  It's just like a sweet little film that you should see at like a small independent theater if you, if you live near one and, uh, like on a, you know, a matinee, you know what I mean? Like that's what it feels like.

• 1:11:01Sean Fennessey?

  Perfect fall film as well.

• 1:11:02Speaker 02

  I really liked it.

• 1:11:03Sean Fennessey?

  The idea of walking around New York in your coat.

• 1:11:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Most of it does happen during the daytime also. It does have that like matinee. You know, it is like a film that would be playing that one of these characters would like go slip into.

• 1:11:13Speaker 02

  What if Uncut Gems was just a chill fall vibe?

• 1:11:17Sean Fennessey?

  That's exactly what it is. I read someone say this and I don't know if this is true, it probably couldn't possibly be true, but it's one of the only films I could think of that takes place in all five boroughs.

• 1:11:27Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:11:28Sean Fennessey?

  The character goes to all five boroughs in this movie.

• 1:11:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Spoiler.

• 1:11:32Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's, it's kind of a, kind of a race against time movie in a way.

• 1:11:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:36Amanda Dobbins?

  When are they?

• 1:11:37Sean Fennessey?

  It's a very gentle race.

• 1:11:37Amanda Dobbins?

  When are they in Brooklyn?

• 1:11:39Sean Fennessey?

  I don't remember.

• 1:11:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:11:41Sean Fennessey?

  I'm fairly certain that they are at some point.

• 1:11:43Speaker 02

  The Bronx, Queens.

• 1:11:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Manhattan.

• 1:11:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Okay.

• 1:11:47Sean Fennessey?

  Staten Island. Okay. Let's talk about Love of Your Life. This is the first movie we're talking about that is not, um, in theaters, it's streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

• 1:11:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, it is.

• 1:11:57Sean Fennessey?

  That's a streaming service.

• 1:11:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Correct.

• 1:11:59Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, it's directed by Rachel Morrison. This is her second directorial effort. It stars Margaret Qualley, Aaron Pierre, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Gabriel Basso and Catherine Keener. After a chance encounter sparks a sweeping romance, my ass future is suddenly upended, sending her on an unexpected journey to love and live again.

• 1:12:15Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting film, debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. Amanda, what'd you think of Love of Your Life?

• 1:12:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I, I knew that it starred Margaret Qualley, didn't know anything. And I knew that it was directed by Rachel Morrison, didn't know about the rest of the cast. So it's sort of a roller coaster for me.

• 1:12:30Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:12:31Amanda Dobbins?

  And a, and a down first because Gabriel Basso is perfectly fine in this movie and is a very nice man and will never, never, never overcome hillbilly elegy, uh, in, in my mind. And so I was just like, oh no, it's the J.D. Vance guy.

• 1:12:45Speaker 02

  That's not the story out of Hillbilly Elegy that I'm clinging to.

• 1:12:48Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting. That's, uh, that's, I think of him as House of Dynamite at this point. I've, I've forgiven him for, for Hillbilly Elegy.

• 1:12:56Speaker 02

  Okay, so you're, you're down this and then you see Schwarzenegger.

• 1:13:00Amanda Dobbins?

  And then you see Schwarzenegger and no, and it's not, it's...

• 1:13:03Speaker 02

  We're flatlining.

• 1:13:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's a low to the ground roller coaster.

• 1:13:05Speaker 02

  And then Catherine Keener shows up.

• 1:13:07Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's a little bit, but then, but then we have a lot of expositional dialogue. That's like, I went to therapy and then I wrote a screenplay, you know? And like, here is my trauma and here are all sorts of things. So that's flatlining, that's bad. And then, and then it's a COVID drama, which I'm not really ready for, even though I did actually find some of those hospital scenes to be some of the more affecting parts of the film. Um, and then Aaron Pierre shows up. And then I was just on the ride of my life.

• 1:13:37Speaker 02

  You're just in.

• 1:13:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And so I was glad that he was in the film, but it's a real, like be careful what you wish for because you cast a powerhouse like Aaron Pierre up against all the rest of these people. And you see a film that could have been. Also, they're in Portugal.

• 1:13:51Speaker 02

  It, Portugal.

• 1:13:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Lovely tile. I was happy that they got to have some tile in there. Uh, and, and then...

• 1:13:59Sean Fennessey?

  Searing insight.

• 1:14:02Speaker 02

  I have, okay, I just somewhat, not the same journey, but I will say the first half of this movie. Bugged the shit out of me.

• 1:14:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's really annoying.

• 1:14:11Speaker 02

  But it's, I don't think it was because of the casting for me, but it bugged the shit out of me just because like, I felt like I knew where we were going and I was really impatient to get there. And then the back half of the movie, which is the aftermath of that, I actually really quite liked and I wound up really liking the movie at the end of the day. But the first half made me incredibly impatient. I thought Catherine Keener was fantastic, actually, in this movie. I think Patrick Schwarzenegger is actually really good in this movie.

• 1:14:34Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting part.

• 1:14:34Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:14:35Sean Fennessey?

  Weird role.

• 1:14:36Speaker 02

  Aaron Pierre is just a star. He just is. Like, it's just impossible.

• 1:14:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, the whole movie lights up. And then she makes some choices and you're like, no, what are you doing?

• 1:14:46Speaker 02

  And then like, I don't know if you guys are mudbound heads or not, but I, I find Rachel Morrison, who is a first and foremost a cinematographer, like the visual, like, when Margaret Qualley gets to the point of the film where she is sort of Eat, Pray, Loving her way through, like, Portugal and New Orleans and other places.

• 1:15:01Sean Fennessey?

  Very good comp.

• 1:15:02Speaker 02

  Like, you know, and the way that the tile of Portugal or the beaches or et cetera, et cetera, or the streets of London, it's a montage-heavy sort of time. Beautiful, like, dazzlingly beautiful. And I wish, it's one of those movies, along with another one we're gonna talk about, that I really wish I had seen in, on a bigger screen.

• 1:15:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. You know what struck me about the movie is that this is just a super sincere drama.

• 1:15:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:25Sean Fennessey?

  Which is something that just

• 1:15:27Speaker 02

  Doesn't happen.

• 1:15:27Sean Fennessey?

  They don't happen anymore. I mean, there are no movies like this anymore. And you, you, Eat, Pray, Love is, I think, is a very good comparison, because that is also a very sincere drama. It has Julia Roberts, so it has a kind of zest that Margaret Qualley is maybe not quite capable of channeling. But this is not a rom-com. It's not YA. It's not romanticy. It's just a drama about a woman who's like falling in and out of love over time.

• 1:15:51Speaker 02

  Something that Rachel Morrison said, uh, when she was talking to our pal Kitty Rich, the anchler, she was saying that she's taken to sort of hiding these sort of adult dramas that we always bemoan the lack of in, in theaters, inside of other genres. So she's like, this is packaged as a romance, it's on Prime Video, which, you know, I know you guys have talked about the fact that like, Amazon is leaning into the romance, uh, genre, becoming sort of their identifying, uh, genre and personality. And so you see love of your life, you see Margaret Qualley, you see a trio of handsome men, and you're like, I think I know what this movie's gonna be. And you're wrong, because it is just an adult drama inside of the packaging of, of a romance film.

• 1:16:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's a late-stage coming-of-age movie, as much as anything else. It's about a, a woman finding herself. Um, but, and even there, it is done with more care than those types of movies are usually done. I noted that the soundtrack was, um, not embarrassing and often even good at times, which is just such a rarity with any movie starring a woman.

• 1:16:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:50Amanda Dobbins?

  And this has a lot of Fleetwood Mac, which I know you don't speak to.

• 1:16:53Speaker 02

  Not, not like disposable cheesy pop that like you couldn't identify at all.

• 1:16:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's like some late-stage strokes and some, you know, which obviously speaks to me. Um.

• 1:17:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think Rachel Morrison's a really interesting director. And she's trying to, this is the same as The Fire Inside to me, where it was like, it was pretty good. This is a pretty good, down-the-middle movie. And that's like, she used a sports story to hide a family drama and a kind of, another coming-of-age movie in a lot of ways. And that movie also takes, similarly to this film, it doesn't, it doesn't seem as worried about gratifying the three-act structure. It doesn't seem to worry about the conventionality of storytelling. It's like, we're gonna go on a journey with one person through a number of stages of their life. And we're gonna try to think hard about how this person might be feeling. The tricky thing with this movie is, is that Margaret Qualley, I don't think, can carry the load that this movie needs her to carry for me to have been fully locked

• 1:17:45Sean Fennessey?

  in. I hear what you're saying with Aaron Pierre, where it's like, he's a star, he comes on screen.

• 1:17:48Amanda Dobbins?

  He kind of blows everybody off the water.

• 1:17:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and it's like, these other guys don't matter. Like, why would you not just be with this person, right?

• 1:17:54Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and the fact that I, you know, felt that way so strongly, is that the film communicates all of it to me, and that Aaron Pierre, you know, just really, really is a presence. He just is. Um, she is not a sincere actor. She actually does work better with a little bit of wryness and a little bit of sarcasm and a little bit of over-the-top. And, you know, I also think that

• 1:18:17Speaker 02

  The Honey Don't.

• 1:18:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, yeah, I meant what I said about, I, I do think that the script doesn't really have a lot of specificity beyond the plot moments. And so she's sitting there having to say like, my dad wasn't in the picture and my mom was gone. And a lot of, the, the character is moving through the world, but there isn't a lot of like, there, there for her to work with.

• 1:18:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, so she just has to sell the emotion, which is not, she does a different thing, in my opinion.

• 1:18:50Speaker 03

  Can I ask you a question before moving on?

• 1:18:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:18:52Speaker 03

  I don't mean to beat a dead horse, because we've talked about James Bond maybe 900 million times. Could he be the mystery person? And maybe this is just me wish-casting him.

• 1:19:00Speaker 02

  Oh, I know who the mystery person is.

• 1:19:02Speaker 03

  Are you able to share?

• 1:19:03Speaker 02

  Not on my

• 1:19:03Speaker 03

  Okay, understood.

• 1:19:04Sean Fennessey?

  We heard, we also heard some rumors.

• 1:19:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, we heard some as well.

• 1:19:07Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I don't believe he is in the mix.

• 1:19:10Speaker 02

  He should be, though.

• 1:19:11Amanda Dobbins?

  He should be.

• 1:19:11Speaker 03

  That's what I'm saying. It's like, obvious.

• 1:19:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:14Sean Fennessey?

  I, I agree with you.

• 1:19:15Amanda Dobbins?

  You're right. You're correct.

• 1:19:16Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with you. The one thing I would say that would be a strike against that is just that Craig was also kind of a bruiser Bond. And I think Pierre, because of his physique and because of his strength as a performer, like, he would also be kind of a bruiser Bond. And I, the sense I'm getting is that they're gonna go back to kind of a lithe boy, that that's the, the energy that they want.

• 1:19:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:35Sean Fennessey?

  Instead of like, I will choke you out, Bond.

• 1:19:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, they're going.

• 1:19:40Speaker 02

  Lithe boy is not.

• 1:19:42Sean Fennessey?

  Not doing it for you guys.

• 1:19:43Speaker 02

  You know?

• 1:19:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:43Speaker 02

  That's, that's real, find a 13-year-old on a street energy.

• 1:19:46Amanda Dobbins?

  That's Gabriel Basso. That's, oh no, JD Vance is back.

• 1:19:50Speaker 02

  You mean like, you mean like Debonair, like, bras and Debonair sort of thing?

• 1:19:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, but also like, just that, look at the build of the actors who are up for this part. You know, I think that, I think that's an important component.

• 1:20:00Amanda Dobbins?

  They're going for Timmy and not for

• 1:20:02Speaker 02

  I feel like I can say this. I was told they are going for a very specific physical type. And that has nothing to do with like, race, but just sort of like, physical body type. That's what I was told. Yeah.

• 1:20:12Amanda Dobbins?

  A leanness.

• 1:20:13Sean Fennessey?

  5'11" and not cut up.

• 1:20:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:16Sean Fennessey?

  That's the sense I'm getting, which is fine. You know.

• 1:20:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Kind of my, well, up it to 6'2" and it's kind of my ideal, so, yeah.

• 1:20:22Sean Fennessey?

  Um, let's talk about Sacrifice quickly.

• 1:20:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:20:26Sean Fennessey?

  Streaming on Netflix, movie premiered at Toronto last year, directed by, uh, Roman Gavris, Costa Gavris's son.

• 1:20:32Speaker 02

  Great.

• 1:20:33Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, stars quite a few famous people, including Chris Evans, Anya Taylor-Joy, Vincent Cassel, Sam Richardson, John Malkovich, Sam Hayek.

• 1:20:41Speaker 02

  Do you think that John Malkovich is bummed this is coming out right now in the midst of his Oscar push?

• 1:20:45Sean Fennessey?

  No, because no one's seen it.

• 1:20:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:47Speaker 02

  Doesn't exist. Okay, great.

• 1:20:48Amanda Dobbins?

  And he's barely in it.

• 1:20:50Speaker 02

  He is barely in it.

• 1:20:51Sean Fennessey?

  During a star-studded charity gala, a movie star in the midst of an existential crisis is taken hostage by a radical warrior and her devoted followers. That's the plot of this movie. Um, you know, got Reuben Oslin at home. That's real, like, very obvious themes about social decay.

• 1:21:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:09Sean Fennessey?

  Colliding with, uh, a music video editorial sensibility, um, leading to, I found to be a largely unsuccessful movie.

• 1:21:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Incredibly unsuccessful.

• 1:21:21Sean Fennessey?

  I watched while I was terribly sick at the Telluride Film Festival, trying to pull it together so I could go see some other screenings. Um, I will say Chris Evans is innocent. I thought what he was doing here is like, kind of the only mode that he works in now, which is like

• 1:21:33Speaker 02

  But that's bad.

• 1:21:34Sean Fennessey?

  super self-aware guy.

• 1:21:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:21:38Sean Fennessey?

  You know, where it's like, he

• 1:21:39Speaker 02

  What's your other con, what's your other example of this?

• 1:21:42Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Scott Pilgrim.

• 1:21:44Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:21:44Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like, this is a knives-out.

• 1:21:47Speaker 02

  I did write Lucas Lee down. Um, the problem is, the script is so terrible and broad. I do think that Evans is doing his best with what he's given, but the, the satire of this script is so, and is it a problem with satire in general right now? Just sort of, I was thinking about, a lot about The Menu, a movie that I think is much better, though not perfect. But like, it's so hard to satireize the horrible rich people of the world who don't give a shit, because I'm just sort of like, I just know too much and I've seen too much. And like, it's just not funny.

• 1:22:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:17Speaker 02

  For people to be, you know?

• 1:22:18Sean Fennessey?

  It's usually worse than what you're seeing, you're attempting to manifest. Which of course, is part of what Digger is about, too. And it's interesting to think about this movie alongside Digger, because I think actually, this is maybe the movie that Digger has got its sights on, like, not even Don't Look Up. Like, I think it's more like, things like this, which are just like wildly unsuccessful iterations of this, like, we really need to draw attention to this huge issue we have, which is that there are people with lots of money and they're doing terrible things. Like, thank you, appreciate that. Um.

• 1:22:45Speaker 02

  And they're insincere in their efforts.

• 1:22:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, I just thought this was a really bad script. Um, yeah.

• 1:22:52Amanda Dobbins?

  It didn't even, to me, it is not even good enough to like, be the target of another piece of art, you know? It's just, it's so flimsy.

• 1:23:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, and, and, and obvious. And we're doing all of the, you know, and obviously, stylized. And there are some things to look at, though, like, I thought all of the, the volcano stuff just looked quite bad, even if that was on purpose. And sometimes what you're looking at is what you're looking at, and you don't enjoy it.

• 1:23:25Sean Fennessey?

  It's funny to compare it to the, uh, elaborate staging and handmade, like, the water in Digger, in the, uh, Fossil Fools production, where there's this kind of like, uh, purposeful falseness.

• 1:23:40Speaker 02

  Let's put on a show. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:41Sean Fennessey?

  That this movie doesn't really have a grasp on. Like, it can't decide if it wants to show that to you or not, if it wants to make you feel like you're inside of this world or not. So it's really not successful.

• 1:23:51Speaker 04

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• 1:25:05Speaker 05

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• 1:25:34Sean Fennessey?

  So you have Finding Emily, which is a movie that is streaming on Peacock right now, but did get a theatrical release, and frankly, I'm stunned. I'm stunned that that happened, and I'll tell you why momentarily.

• 1:25:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:25:46Sean Fennessey?

  This movie is directed by Alicia McDonald, stars Angory Rice, Spike Furn, and Minnie Driver. When a lovesick musician is given the wrong number for his dream girl, he teams up with a driven psychology student to find her. This movie is only on streaming, usually.

• 1:26:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:26:02Sean Fennessey?

  A movie with this tone, with this plot.

• 1:26:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Correct.

• 1:26:04Sean Fennessey?

  With this energy.

• 1:26:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:26:05Sean Fennessey?

  And this movie got a theatrical release in August, and we missed it? We didn't talk about it?

• 1:26:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, we were on vacation.

• 1:26:11Speaker 02

  I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob.

• 1:26:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. I was at the, I was at the movie theater at the same time as one of the Emily-only screenings that they did to promote it, which I did think was clever.

• 1:26:20Speaker 02

  That is cute.

• 1:26:23Sean Fennessey?

  What did you think of this?

• 1:26:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess this is a better version of The Love Hypothesis in that they-

• 1:26:30Sean Fennessey?

  So similar.

• 1:26:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, in that they hired people with charisma. And even though, you know, to be fair to The Love Hypothesis, that seems to be part of the, of the text, not that I read the original text. And I was both charmed by this and felt really, really old watching it. And I have been thinking a little bit about romantic comedies, which, which this is. That's another, you know, mark in its favor, that it is in fact, like-

• 1:27:01Speaker 02

  Allegedly, yeah.

• 1:27:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, whether or not you think it's funny is a different conversation. But, um, you know, like, I'm just getting older, and so this continues to be, everyone has to be like 28 in these things, 25 to 28. And I do think societally, 25 to 28 has just gotten a bit younger as a, as like a way of lifestyle, you know? We're all delaying growing up. But all of these people just seem very young, and like, it's none of my business, you know? And I'm like, I just, I can't really care about your psychology project. I'm so sorry. I guess they're undergrads.

• 1:27:36Sean Fennessey?

  I couldn't, well, this, it was news to me that Angory Rice is 25 years old. And I was like, where did, where did the time go? How old am I?

• 1:27:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Are they undergrads? She's doing a dissertation?

• 1:27:45Speaker 02

  She's doing a dissertation, so I would imagine she's a grad student.

• 1:27:47Sean Fennessey?

  22, 23.

• 1:27:50Speaker 02

  I thought he was great.

• 1:27:51Amanda Dobbins?

  He's wonderful. Totally agree. A thousand percent.

• 1:27:55Speaker 02

  Like, like, like, seemingly, effervescently charming. And I, I, like, it was one of those things where I would have stopped watching the movie, I think, if I hadn't enjoyed his performance so much. And it hadn't felt to me, obviously, this is not a debut for him, but it hadn't felt to me like, I'm gonna want to remember seeing him in this so that when he's really good in something else, I can say like, did you see Finding Emily? Cause he's great in that, too.

• 1:28:17Sean Fennessey?

  I wrote down Spike Furn Redemption after Ella Mackay, because whatever's happening in Ella Mackay when he pops in the movie, you're like, what the hell? What kinda?

• 1:28:28Sean Fennessey?

  That part of the film sticks out so badly. And part of it is that this is a British actor who is speaking in his native accent in this movie, and he feels like a real and idiosyncratic performer-

• 1:28:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:40Sean Fennessey?

  -that pops off the screen. So then you're like, oh, well, that's what James L. Brooks saw when he met this kid. And then he made him do a James L. Brooks character, and that wasn't the right fit for this kind of actor. But in this, in this movie, he feels so much more at home. The movie itself, I think, is kind of a little baggy and a little all over the place, and the script is just kinda okay.

• 1:28:56Speaker 02

  Completely fine, yeah.

• 1:28:57Sean Fennessey?

  And you know where it's headed the whole time.

• 1:28:58Amanda Dobbins?

  But not bad. Not as bad.

• 1:29:00Sean Fennessey?

  It's not bad.

• 1:29:00Amanda Dobbins?

  And there are, it's-

• 1:29:02Speaker 02

  There's a lot of misunderstanding about what a podcast is, but what else is new.

• 1:29:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but they are all on video, and she doesn't realize that, which is funny. I thought, great Chyron work, you know? It's like, it has, it's not, it's not brain dead. And so what I found myself, like, not connecting to was more just kind of phase of life, and I just, I really can't care this much about anyone's dissertation.

• 1:29:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I, watching this and Love of Your Life, I was like, it's kind of amazing these movies exist.

• 1:29:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:33Sean Fennessey?

  They are things that were like, this is a totally original movie, right? It's not based on anything, right? Is it based on a story, based on a book? And it's very unusual, like, it's, it's tone, it's sense of humor, the actors that it's chosen, like, its vibe is just like a little bit different. And something being not, like, algorithmically manufactured like this, I find fascinating. It does end up in the exact place you expected to, like all of these movies do.

• 1:29:57Amanda Dobbins?

  That's okay. That's part of the feature of a romantic comedy. That's, that actually is okay. It's more how that it gets there, and you have to see one too many, you know, presentations about, like, really, really bad case studies in psychology, which again, brings us back to Love Hypothesis.

• 1:30:13Speaker 02

  I think that I, the reason I watched it in the first place was because I like Angory Rice so much, and I was just sort of intrigued to see what she was up to. And then I just felt like this movie knew, did not know what to do with her at all.

• 1:30:27Sean Fennessey?

  Agree.

• 1:30:27Speaker 02

  And then he just like really popped for me.

• 1:30:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I really like her, too. And I feel like her, her character is the only American-

• 1:30:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:34Sean Fennessey?

  Her, like, motivations are strange. It all seems like a little too obvious the whole way along.

• 1:30:37Speaker 02

  Minnie Driver is having fun, though.

• 1:30:39Sean Fennessey?

  Wish there was more.

• 1:30:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:40Sean Fennessey?

  I could have used more of her, honestly. Let's talk about Matchbox the Movie. I could not believe that you had seen this movie.

• 1:30:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:30:46Sean Fennessey?

  When we were talking about it. Did you watch this because it was on the original longlist that I sent? Or did you just watch it because you're a movie watcher?

• 1:30:52Speaker 02

  I made, did I watch it because I sat through 20 minutes of a Sandy Giger Comic Con presentation on it, and I was like, it will have to have been worth it? No, I watched it because it was on your longlist.

• 1:31:02Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. And you've watched it as well, and I've watched it as well. This is the new film from Sam Hargrave, who made, I thought, the two very solid extraction movies for Netflix, which are very, really well-made action films starring Chris Hemsworth. This new one stars John Cena, Jessica Biel, Sam Richardson, Arturo Castro, and Tiana Paris, all actors I like, to some extent or another. When a group of former childhood friends reconnect, their reunion takes a wild turn as they stumble upon a dangerous international plot and must save the world. Now, this is the most important movie of 2026.

• 1:31:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Tell me why. Because it opens with Skydance, and then it was Mattel, which Enon Kreitz used to run, and now he runs Skydance, Warner, Paramount, et cetera. And it is the future set out before all of us, which is using toy IP to make a completely unfunny action comedy special forces movie starring John Cena and a bunch of other actors they could hire. It is, it's, this is, I think this is big-picture evil movie.

• 1:32:09Speaker 02

  This is-

• 1:32:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Territory, for sure.

• 1:32:10Speaker 02

  Like, deeply grim.

• 1:32:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:11Speaker 02

  Really, really grim. Sam Richardson and Arturo Castro, two comedians who I really quite like. Sam Richardson is also unfortunately in Sacrifice, but like, are deployed so poorly to keep the, the comedy beats going inside of this. Like, so the movie that I was reminded of, a movie I love, which is Game Night, and this is just sort of like a rancid version of Game Night, a movie that I find so charming, and just like, these, these ordinary people have been haplessly drawn into something that is beyond their scope, and the, you know, sort of like, the hapless asides that continually happen as they, as they water their way through the plot. I've watched Game Night 1 million times. I think it's one of the best comedies of, of this, like, century, genuinely.

• 1:32:55Speaker 02

  This movie is so bad, and every effort to draw to laugh, like, flops for me.

• 1:33:03Sean Fennessey?

  It's the same setup as The Inlaws. One of my favorite movies, Alan Arkin, Pierre Fauch, about a CIA agent whose kid is getting married to a regular Joe, and he somehow gets trapped inside of the CIA agent's international journeys and fascinating, dangerous scenarios.

• 1:33:22Sean Fennessey?

  Everything that movie does right, this movie does wrong. It uses Matchbox cars as the linchpin for this group of friends, who I guess are like 12 years old and hanging out together, and they're obsessed with Matchbox cars, which is a toy for six-year-olds.

• 1:33:34Speaker 02

  And my, and my sister believes that Sam Richardson and John Cena are the same age? That's my question.

• 1:33:39Sean Fennessey?

  Right. Sam Richardson is what, 40?

• 1:33:41Speaker 02

  42, yeah.

• 1:33:42Sean Fennessey?

  And John Cena, who's 54?

• 1:33:44Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:33:44Sean Fennessey?

  Something like that?

• 1:33:45Speaker 02

  And also, the marquee, it was like, what was on the marquee? It was like a late 90s, and he and Jessica Biel's characters are supposed to be children-

• 1:33:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:33:52Speaker 02

  -in the late 90s. And I was like, that's not true.

• 1:33:53Sean Fennessey?

  The timing of this is bad. The film looks bad. You know, Sam Hargrave, who's made these very stern action movies, has no feel for the tone of the movie. I do think it is, it is corporate synergy as filmmaking, which is, can work, but almost never does. And it is a potential, like, doom signal for where we're going. Now, this is the low, this is the worst possible version.

• 1:34:16Speaker 02

  It is.

• 1:34:16Sean Fennessey?

  This is, if you want to be ungenerous to what's gonna happen with Skydance, you can say, well, it can turn out like, like 11 of these a year. I don't want to believe that. But this is a bad movie, man.

• 1:34:28Amanda Dobbins?

  It's inauspicious, the timing and the way it opens with all of the brand names splayed out before you and then the flashback to, and they say matchbox cars at least 40 times in that flashback.

• 1:34:43Speaker 02

  They start with that like throw of the car at the camera, sort of thing.

• 1:34:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I turned out to be very happy for because I turned this on at 7:45 in the morning on a Sunday with my two children and I said, do you want to watch the race car movie? Did we have to turn this movie off at 8:15? We sure did. And you know, one instance of machine guns and people fighting each other in a, you know, in an anonymous, like vaguely xenophobic desert was like, okay, well, I'm just gonna let it go. I'm gonna let this go by and hope the politics, you know, don't seep into my children's brains. The second one, I was like, well, guess we're gonna have to go make pancakes instead. So this, this was quite grim. I mean, and just looks so terrible. The opening town sequence, so much of it is animated.

• 1:35:29Speaker 02

  The digital doubling of like, of every sort of like freeway chase scene and when like a motorcycle crashes and all of a sudden it's a digital double, like it's all so ugly and so poorly done. You know what else, you know what it actually reminds me of is Red One, another movie that I was on this podcast for.

• 1:35:45Sean Fennessey?

  That uncanny, non-human quality of that entire production. Yeah. I think, listen, I need the Skydance thing to work for the future of movies. Like if anybody from Skydance has listened to this episode, try to avoid this. Like, don't try to force a movie for the mass audience by using various recognizable ideas just because you have access to them. Find a real story. This isn't a real story. It's not a real movie. You never feel like these people were friends. You never feel like John Cena is a credible CIA agent. You never feel like the conflict and the nuclear football that's in play has any of the stakes that something like a Mission Impossible movie can trick you into believing is real.

• 1:36:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:36:21Sean Fennessey?

  None of that stuff works. And so because nothing is working in the movie, it makes me so cynical about movies and I do not want to feel that way. I don't want to feel like the next five years of talking about movies every week from these people is this. Let this be a warning. Don't do this.

• 1:36:37Speaker 02

  When we start with The Wicker and Wildwood and we wind up here, and we're not done, but like we, we find our way here, like this is why A Wicker and Wildwood and Pig Pocket feels so important. It's just like, and you know, I just, go see movies, go see good, small movies.

• 1:36:53Speaker 03

  Way of the Warrior Kid coming next month, which I'm sure we'll dedicate an entire episode to.

• 1:36:58Sean Fennessey?

  We won't, but like, I'll go see it with an open mind and I hope it's good, you know? Like, we're about to talk about a couple of Apple TV Plus movies. This was also an Apple TV Plus movie. Will you sit through the trifecta of mountain movies?

• 1:37:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I saw one of them.

• 1:37:10Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:37:11Amanda Dobbins?

  So, yes.

• 1:37:12Sean Fennessey?

  There's this very odd thing that has happened.

• 1:37:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:14Sean Fennessey?

  Which is there are now three movies that are available at the same time that are all about the stakes and consequences of trying to scale mountains. One of which is a narrative feature film, though based on, of course, the true story of Tenzing Norgay. It's called Tenzing and it stars Gendin Fonsak and Tom Hiddleston and Willem Dafoe. And it's about a determined man embarks on a high stakes quest and defies seemingly impossible odds to fulfill his dream of being the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest. That's Edmund Hillary and also Tenzing Norgay, his Sherpa along the way. The other two films are documentaries. One is Everest, The Other Side, which we mentioned in the aftermath of our festival attendance.

• 1:37:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:37:56Sean Fennessey?

  And also on Apple TV Plus right now is The Last First: Winter K2. I see these movies as an unofficial trilogy.

• 1:38:02Amanda Dobbins?

  They are speaking to each other.

• 1:38:03Sean Fennessey?

  A hundred percent. Which of the three have you seen, remind me?

• 1:38:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Tenzing.

• 1:38:08Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. What did you think of Tenzing?

• 1:38:10Speaker 02

  I actually really liked it.

• 1:38:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's pretty good.

• 1:38:12Speaker 02

  I actually really liked it. It felt so solid to me.

• 1:38:14Amanda Dobbins?

  And of the three, it is, it is the one that speaks to the issues raised by the other two.

• 1:38:18Sean Fennessey?

  It certainly does.

• 1:38:19Amanda Dobbins?

  In all of the different ways that we have them.

• 1:38:21Sean Fennessey?

  In fact, it is about those issues.

• 1:38:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:38:23Sean Fennessey?

  And. What is the responsibility of the people who quest to do these things to the people who are helping them do them?

• 1:38:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:38:30Sean Fennessey?

  As opposed to not acknowledging that.

• 1:38:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:38:32Sean Fennessey?

  Which is something that is very troubling in the other two films, or at least at the core of the story of the other two films.

• 1:38:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And also, should these movies exist? And how, like, and under what circumstances do they exist? And the, Tenzing is a bio, it's a biopic. So it is, it is based on a true story, but it is actors playing people and is made in the confines of a set and with safety precautions, presumably, unlike the other two films.

• 1:39:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Jennifer Peetum directed this movie and most of the time is spent on Tenzing Norgay, who is Nepalese Indian mountaineer and Sherpa and a person who's critical to the history of these extraordinary acts of scaling these mountains.

• 1:39:18Speaker 02

  And like straight biopic, like there's three different actors who play him at three different points in his life. You get childhood, you get young adult, you get adults. And like Edmund Hillary's here, but like Tom Hiddleston's face is big as on the poster, but absolute supporting in this. Dafoe as well, like absolute supporting role. And I just, I thought all of the Nepalese, Nepalese Indian actors that they got were fantastic. The actress playing his wife, the actor playing his sort of rival, I thought all of them were like really, really good. And even though it is very straightforward, sort of by the numbers kind of story and quite earnest in, in that sense, it was just solid, just like remarkably solid.

• 1:39:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And beautiful to look at. It was filmed in Himalayas.

• 1:40:00Speaker 02

  Gorgeous.

• 1:40:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And they, like, they, they do recreate some of the climbing scenes, you know, if not in the real places, at least like outdoors. Some, some of this is actually filmed outdoors.

• 1:40:13Speaker 02

  Down the mountain, you know? Like at the foothills or something like that?

• 1:40:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I think it's, I think it's worth people's time. It's fairly down the middle. It is centering a character who would not have been centered in the movies 50 years ago. If this were a movie 50 years ago, or even 30 years ago, it would have been the Edmund Hillary story.

• 1:40:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And if there's a criticism of the movie, it is very aware that it is doing that. And it's like, hey, we are centering this person and I am just Tom Hiddleston here playing the most benevolent.

• 1:40:38Speaker 02

  That being said, I looked up Edmund, I was like, how much of a good guy? And Edmund Hillary was actually like a really good guy. And like dedicated his life after this to like helping the, like other Sherpas and stuff like that. I was like, oh, okay.

• 1:40:50Sean Fennessey?

  And they did have a lifelong friendship and connection, which is, it, it's just kind of a nice story. It's kind of a little nice, like, middle-aged movie.

• 1:40:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:58Sean Fennessey?

  Which there's a place for movies like this. And I think it would have played at the Angelica 30 years ago and now it's playing on Apple TV Plus and that's perfectly fine.

• 1:41:05Speaker 02

  If you've got a nice big TV and you enjoy watching Planet Earth or whatever, why not put on Tenzing? And just like, look at the beautiful scenery.

• 1:41:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And see the beautiful mountains.

• 1:41:13Speaker 02

  And then there's just like a lovely story that goes along with it.

• 1:41:15Amanda Dobbins?

  And learn something.

• 1:41:16Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with you. Um, let's talk about The Last First: Winter K2 first, before getting into Everest, The Other Side. Cause I feel like there's a progression of experience here.

• 1:41:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:41:25Sean Fennessey?

  And you can do these first two on Apple TV Plus. This other film is not about, it's about K2, it's not about Everest. And it's the second highest mountain on earth in Pakistan. And this is a movie about.

• 1:41:37Amanda Dobbins?

  But more physically challenging, like the, the nature of the mountain itself, topographically, geographically, is, makes it incredibly difficult to climb.

• 1:41:46Sean Fennessey?

  It's called The Last First because this is thought, widely thought of, scaling this mountain, the face of this mountain in the winter, was considered the last first in mountaineering. And so it tells the story of this 2021 period where multiple teams arrive at the mountain and attempt to do this. And it's led originally by this Icelandic mountaineer named John Snorri and then Nims Persia, who's a, was a world famous mountaineer, comes in and his team comes to join to scale the mountain. And then another group of commercial climbers come in to scale the mountain and you have this kind of tripartite approach to how this is gonna happen. Now, spoiler alert, like there were tragic deaths in this story.

• 1:42:28Sean Fennessey?

  And so the way that the story is being told, I think has an interesting skeptical perspective where some of the people who are present for some of the tragedy are telling you the story in a fashion that suggests this never should have happened. And that actually raises the question of why do we do this? Why do people pursue this? And then who also is at stake when someone very powerful and wealthy frequently ends up doing this work? I don't know if this is a great documentary, but it's an interesting exploration, I think, of the psychology and specifically the failings of a, of a company that was at the center of this project. What, what did you think of it?

• 1:43:03Amanda Dobbins?

  It engages with a lot of the questions, like both logistical and ethical, that I think non-mountainneers and, you know, the average audience here feels when watching these projects and watching these films and taking in the world in general, which is explored in Tenzing and in many other, many other of these documentaries, is often just about a bunch of rich, white people helicoptering in to a place and using the local knowledge and resources for their own, like ambition and grandeur. And you're like, how and why does this happen? And also, why does it need to happen?

• 1:43:47Amanda Dobbins?

  And there is an element of this documentary that does try to get into the psychology of some of the, the mountaineers and their families as well. And kind of like, because it really is a why did this need to happen? Like, why, why did any of you need to be doing this? This is so clearly dangerous. And the film is structured in a way where the very first thing you see is emergency, emergency footage from the night when things go very, very wrong. And so you know, it's, it's not like a suspense thing where you're like, like, are they gonna make it?

• 1:44:23Sean Fennessey?

  And this is an event that happened five years ago.

• 1:44:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, exactly. And even within the context of the film, they're not trying to build the suspense of, is this gonna be okay? This is, this is something that went wrong. And pretty quickly, people start talking in past tense about other people and they're not trying to hide the ball. They're trying to investigate like a lot of these very thorny issues in a tragedy that happened and that they have a lot of footage of. So I give them credit for that. It's interesting. It's a, it's a really interesting doubleheader with Everest.

• 1:44:52Sean Fennessey?

  So I saw these movies not in the order that we're talking about them. And I'm sorry to spoil a little bit of Everest, but I, I think that it's useful alongside these two films. I saw Tenzing, then I saw Everest, The Other Side, and then I saw The Last First.

• 1:45:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:08Sean Fennessey?

  And it was probably the appropriate way to see them consecutively. Everest, The Other Side is about these two mountaineers named Jim Morrison and Hillary Nelson, who attempt to ski down Mount Everest's dangerous direct north face, which is something that has never been done before, much like what is characterized in these two other films that we're talking about. It's directed by Chai Vostarelli and Jimmy Chin, the, you know, acclaimed adventure documentarians who made Free Solo, among many other films over the last 10 years. And I saw this at Telluride, you saw this at Venice. I think this is like an astonishing act of movie making and a very troubling ethical quagmire of a movie.

• 1:45:50Speaker 02

  How did you feel about Free Solo?

• 1:45:53Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I thought like a powerful portrait of sociopathy, you know, like, like a person who is like driven to do something. But frequently on his own terms and by himself.

• 1:46:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:46:05Sean Fennessey?

  And so there you can, you can kind of wash away, I think, some of the anxiety that is provoked because it's like, it is literally called Free Solo. Like he is climbing alone.

• 1:46:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:46:14Sean Fennessey?

  And so in that movie, Alex Honnold is taking on his idea of the world and it's at the expense of his partner.

• 1:46:21Speaker 02

  I was gonna say his, the romantic relationship of the court.

• 1:46:24Sean Fennessey?

  And the movie asks you to kind of tangle with that a little bit, right?

• 1:46:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and it's part of the text of the movie.

• 1:46:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:46:31Sean Fennessey?

  Everest the Other Side is different.

• 1:46:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Everest the Other Side is an amazing double feature with You Can See Everything. And it's like, and it doesn't achieve the kind of like meta textual and formal heights that, well.

• 1:46:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's very beautiful to look at it.

• 1:46:48Sean Fennessey?

  Some of the formal filmmaking is astonishing.

• 1:46:50Amanda Dobbins?

  And some of what they have, it's a real like, I can't believe that you have this on tape, both in a horrific way and also just kind of, they're up on the mountain filming these things.

• 1:46:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:46:58Amanda Dobbins?

  So that the access is incredible. Um, but it, the involvement of the filmmakers in the story that they are telling and the lack of examination of what they are doing as, as climbers or as filmmakers is fascinating and unsettling. And again, to your point, as an act of filmmaking and even as an exercise to act, to talk about, why do we make documentaries and what are the responsibilities when we make documentaries and what are our responsibilities as people? And it's not just about filmmaking, it's about mountain climbing, it's about grief, it's about marriage. I got, I was so mad at my husband, just like by proxy at the end of this film, just because it's, you know,

• 1:47:43Amanda Dobbins?

  it doesn't answer any of the questions about why do people do this? Or it does, depending on how you, how you interpret it. But it is a fascinating look at the psyche, up close look at the psyches of some of these people.

• 1:47:59Sean Fennessey?

  I don't want to spoil too much of this for you, but I have to spoil one thing.

• 1:48:02Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:48:03Sean Fennessey?

  And if you don't want to know anything about this movie, it's playing in movie theaters, it's playing on IMAX.

• 1:48:07Amanda Dobbins?

  It's also, it's a real thing that happened. It's another, it's a true story.

• 1:48:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's a true story.

• 1:48:11Amanda Dobbins?

  This is a documentary.

• 1:48:11Sean Fennessey?

  It is, it has multiple kind of revelations of the lives of these people throughout the film that I think, like insist on the questions that you're asking.

• 1:48:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:48:21Sean Fennessey?

  Um, but you know, within the first 30 minutes of the film, Hilary Nelson, who's um, the female participant between these two people, attempts to ski down the mountain as they're scaling it and, and, and falls off and, and dies. And.

• 1:48:37Amanda Dobbins?

  There's an avalanche and you see it.

• 1:48:38Sean Fennessey?

  There's an avalanche and she, you watch it on screen.

• 1:48:41Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's one of those, and you're just like, wait, what? Did that is what just happened? Yeah.

• 1:48:46Sean Fennessey?

  And it's extremely upsetting. And then the movie becomes this kind of personal exploration of Jim Morrison, working through the aftermath of the death of his wife. And they're, they are both.

• 1:48:55Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 1:48:56Sean Fennessey?

  They are both adventurous, fearless people together. That's like a part of their, it's woven into their relationship, into their personal dynamic.

• 1:49:04Amanda Dobbins?

  It's how they met.

• 1:49:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:49:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And that's, they spend the first 30 minutes really talking about it.

• 1:49:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, why they do it, how it bonded them.

• 1:49:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Individually and separately.

• 1:49:11Sean Fennessey?

  How it defines them. Her children talk about this in the film, they are featured in the movie. But then the movie takes another dramatic turn. We learn more about Jim and his background. And then in the background, as you say, Jimmy and Chi are also in the movie because Jimmy becomes a character in the movie because he's going to help Jim accomplish what Hillary could not accomplish as a tribute to her. That's the story of the movie is can he do this in her honor? And it, it's a lot of people who are like, need to go to therapy, like who really just need to like, sit down and talk about what they're doing and not try to do a thing.

• 1:49:45Speaker 02

  Does it feel, does that, however, sort of psychologically misguided, does that feel sincere? I guess that's my question.

• 1:49:52Sean Fennessey?

  It does, but it puts other people in the firing line of this personal ambition and attempt to reckon with feelings. Now, all these people are willingly participating, I'm not saying anybody isn't, but there's all kinds of power dynamics about who has the money, who's paying for this? What, how people in certain societies get the roles that they have, that is all unexplored.

• 1:50:11Amanda Dobbins?

  And should we be filming this? And there is also the implication that he's only getting to try the trip again because they're also making a film out of this. And so then the filmmakers are sort of enabling and, and the fact that Jimmy Chin is participating, I mean, he is climbing along.

• 1:50:29Sean Fennessey?

  Literally helping him.

• 1:50:30Amanda Dobbins?

  With them.

• 1:50:31Sean Fennessey?

  There's complicity that's, that's fraught.

• 1:50:32Amanda Dobbins?

  And there's a, there's an amazing scene between Jimmy Chin and Chi Vasarelli at a table where she's like, we were doing this film and things have changed and are we still doing this? And you know, credit to them to putting that in the movie.

• 1:50:47Speaker 02

  Put that in the movie, yeah.

• 1:50:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Then she is no longer in the documentary.

• 1:50:49Sean Fennessey?

  And then they have since.

• 1:50:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:50:51Sean Fennessey?

  Become divorced. So, and it's hard not to know that and read that into the movie too. So you know, this is like a fascinating movie. The filmmaking, as always with their movies, is so extraordinary because they're willing to, the filmmakers, the camera people in this movie are willing to put their lives on the line to capture some of this stuff that you otherwise would just would not be able to see. But, but like, this movie feels wrong.

• 1:51:12Speaker 02

  I don't mean to sound British, but like, don't you feel like you should? I mean, you guys just did, but like, you guys watched this movie without knowing that you were about to watch footage of a person die.

• 1:51:21Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't know the story.

• 1:51:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't know.

• 1:51:22Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't know the story at all.

• 1:51:23Amanda Dobbins?

  And so like, I was, so I was at the.

• 1:51:24Speaker 02

  Don't you feel like you should tell people, you know what I mean? Like.

• 1:51:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I was at the premiere and Jim Morrison was there and Hilary Nelson was not. And I didn't know the story, but because I'm the dumb audience here, I kept being like, wait, where is she? And then I saw the thing and I was like, wait, I, I mean, I was shocked and I obviously should have put it together.

• 1:51:44Speaker 02

  Horrifying.

• 1:51:45Amanda Dobbins?

  It's really horrible. The other thing that's so interesting about the film, and not interesting good, but interesting is that it's still, it persists, the story it's telling at the end is that he, he wants to do this thing and then he achieves his, uh, his goal.

• 1:52:03Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:52:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is also like skiing down a mountain, like who cares respectfully?

• 1:52:08Sean Fennessey?

  I, I agree with you.

• 1:52:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Who honestly cares that your thing was skiing down a mountain? And you learn more about him and what it means to him is very specific. And I like, who am I to tell a person how to deal with grief? But the film's lack of perspective and distance is.

• 1:52:26Speaker 02

  I think to your point though, about like, the conversations we're having about You Can See Everything.

• 1:52:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:31Speaker 02

  I, I have been curious about whether or not that movie would do for documentaries, what, I don't know, Doobie Cox has done for biopic, like forever radically changed the way that we think about the filmmaker's responsibility, the subject's uh, knowledge of what they're setting up for, like all, you know, all of that. It's just such an interesting peel back the curtain on the entire process and you can't help but, I mean, I know you didn't see it necessarily in that order, but like, you can't help but be thinking about that when you see something like this and you think about this woman and would she have wanted a glitzy premiere at a film festival, watching the footage of her?

• 1:53:10Amanda Dobbins?

  But they, they.

• 1:53:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's possible.

• 1:53:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Sort of, it's amazing. But they have.

• 1:53:14Speaker 02

  But again, like.

• 1:53:15Amanda Dobbins?

  They have her kids into camera being like, I get nervous when my mom goes, but she needs to do it. It's, I mean, unreal. And then they use it in that which, you know, that's another thing, but what are you going to do? That this is what they wanted to, they signed up for it, they were, the thing is, is they have a lot of footage there at the house as a family. Like this is a family thing that they were doing.

• 1:53:33Speaker 02

  But it's one thing to sign up for.

• 1:53:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree.

• 1:53:35Speaker 02

  You know, and another to.

• 1:53:37Amanda Dobbins?

  So this is why it's an interesting film. It's really, it's incredibly interesting.

• 1:53:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it is very thorny. Um, I don't, I don't really want to pass judgment because like Jimmy Chin and Jim Morrison are friends.

• 1:53:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:50Sean Fennessey?

  Like the film was not made under duress in any way. Like it is something that Hillary clearly wanted to be made, like she is participating.

• 1:53:57Speaker 02

  Yes, before her death.

• 1:53:58Sean Fennessey?

  True, true. But you know what? It's, if, if it's up to Jim Morrison, her surviving husband to make a call, like they, they made that call, but.

• 1:54:05Speaker 02

  But then you circle back to You Can See Everything and think about partners making decisions for their wives.

• 1:54:09Sean Fennessey?

  You're right. But it, it like, it goes to another level in the film in a way that we won't spoil, but it sounds so stupid to be like, I wouldn't want to spoil this. But when this, the next thing happens and the next revelation in the movie comes, I was just like, Jesus Christ.

• 1:54:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:54:21Sean Fennessey?

  This is so intense. So it's an amazing document, very unusual documentary. I think a little bit of a cautionary tale in terms of where we're going with adventure filmmaking.

• 1:54:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:54:32Sean Fennessey?

  That I think there probably needs to be a reassessment as to the value of this. Like I'm not going to tell people how to live their lives, but how we choose to document it, I think this is, was unnerved me.

• 1:54:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, yes, because you can feel, you don't, it's chicken and egg of who's encouraging who.

• 1:54:47Sean Fennessey?

  And it makes us complicit.

• 1:54:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:54:48Sean Fennessey?

  Because we are, we are the sitting participant in the theater that is like, I want to see this. And then as soon as you say out loud, I want to see this, it makes you a part of the issue.

• 1:54:56Speaker 02

  I do not want to see this film, like.

• 1:54:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's a challenging one. It's really challenging. But you know what?

• 1:55:02Amanda Dobbins?

  It's fascinating.

• 1:55:02Sean Fennessey?

  Art does that, it provokes you.

• 1:55:04Speaker 02

  I'm glad to know about it and I'm glad to hear you guys talk about it. Like, I think that's very interesting.

• 1:55:08Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks for sitting through. I feel like we can, we can hold on the, do you want to talk about Claire in the Sun really quickly?

• 1:55:13Amanda Dobbins?

  How did it end? I had to leave with five minutes. I waited, I, you know.

• 1:55:17Sean Fennessey?

  Oh yeah, you had to leave. Uh, not satisfyingly. Um, Claire in the Sun, adapted from Kazu Ishiguro's novel.

• 1:55:25Speaker 02

  A great book.

• 1:55:26Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, the prize winning book, Taika Waititi's latest feature film, of course, our favorite filmmaker here on the podcast. Stars Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams, Natasha Lyonne, Steve Buscemi, two for two in this episode. A robot girl designed to prevent loneliness tries to save a heartbroken family of humans in this film. To me, this is just a case of just the absolute wrong filmmaker.

• 1:55:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:55:48Sean Fennessey?

  For this material.

• 1:55:48Amanda Dobbins?

  A thousand percent.

• 1:55:50Sean Fennessey?

  I, I just, this is a very sincere.

• 1:55:53Speaker 02

  Philosophical.

• 1:55:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, speculative, science fiction, yeah.

• 1:55:57Speaker 02

  You know?

• 1:55:57Sean Fennessey?

  A gentle movie that is about like the, the, the quiet mind of AI. And not, not the upside of AI specifically, but kind of like how human beings, not unlike Everest the Other Side.

• 1:56:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:12Sean Fennessey?

  Try to cope with their grief and like the lengths that they'll go to and then the situations that they'll put themselves in. And Taika Waititi is really kind of only interested in the goofy parts of it. You know, he's only interested in the other robots and the way that the robot uh, interactions with the humans actually works and the quirky adventure type and all the stuff that is not.

• 1:56:31Speaker 02

  I just.

• 1:56:32Sean Fennessey?

  What's at the heart of this story?

• 1:56:33Speaker 02

  I just didn't want to see this movie because I really like this book and I just felt like everything I've seen and heard about it, it just seems really wrong. Uh, like After Yang is the good version of this movie.

• 1:56:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, agreed.

• 1:56:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:46Sean Fennessey?

  Agreed. Um, Jenna Ortega, you know, it's a little bit of an epidemic at this point. We gotta get this gal in a good movie. It's been, it's been a little, a tough run.

• 1:56:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's tough.

• 1:56:55Sean Fennessey?

  You know, seems like she's got great taste, seems like she's interested in the right stuff. You hear her talk in interviews and I'm like, oh wow, one of us.

• 1:57:03Speaker 03

  What's the best movie she's been in?

• 1:57:06Sean Fennessey?

  The Scream Legacy sequel, maybe?

• 1:57:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're probably right.

• 1:57:09Speaker 02

  What about the one that?

• 1:57:10Amanda Dobbins?

  You loved Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

• 1:57:12Sean Fennessey?

  No, I did not love Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. That's just not true. If you listen to that episode, you can hear me being more critical of it even than you were.

• 1:57:19Speaker 02

  What's that one that she was in? Hold on. The Fallout.

• 1:57:24Sean Fennessey?

  The Fallout. Yeah, that's not bad. That's not bad. That was an HBO original.

• 1:57:30Speaker 02

  Yes, but it was at South by first.

• 1:57:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, you want to talk about Amy Adams? You want to keep it moving? Come get your girl?

• 1:57:37Sean Fennessey?

  It's getting dark.

• 1:57:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:38Sean Fennessey?

  Getting, getting late early.

• 1:57:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Again, not her fault.

• 1:57:41Sean Fennessey?

  Another, another project picking fiasco.

• 1:57:43Amanda Dobbins?

  But, woo. It's, it's been quite a run. I, I didn't mind Night Bitch. I saw it on leave. I know, I listened. You and Rob did a very good job in, I listened to it on leave.

• 1:57:54Speaker 02

  It's just me holding it down against Sean and Rob. Uh, Cape Fear, one of the worst things I've seen this year.

• 1:58:01Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah. I haven't watched that. She's in a rut.

• 1:58:04Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm, tough.

• 1:58:06Sean Fennessey?

  Any closing thoughts? We got a couple of other movies we can save for another conversation.

• 1:58:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:58:10Sean Fennessey?

  Uh.

• 1:58:11Speaker 02

  The movies, overall, they're good. And you should see them.

• 1:58:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Interesting.

• 1:58:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:15Sean Fennessey?

  There's a lot out.

• 1:58:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:18Sean Fennessey?

  What do you do?

• 1:58:18Speaker 02

  And there's a lot of interesting and strange things to see.

• 1:58:20Amanda Dobbins?

  You know what was interesting in that when I was trying to catch all the, you know, when we were doing our double features and catch everything in theaters that I hadn't seen, it was really hard to find a screening because everyone's just showing you can see everything at all hours of the day, which is awesome.

• 1:58:34Sean Fennessey?

  That's a big story of Claire and the Sun. I mean, this is a movie that's been done for a couple of years that was supposed to open on 2,500 screens and now playing 800 screens and made, I think, 800 bucks per screen, which is horrendous and is going to be out of theaters in a week.

• 1:58:48Speaker 02

  It's just funny because like the October, this, the weekend of Wicker, Wildwood, Clayface, Claire and the Sun has been sort of looming like a, like a bomb on our schedule over at House of R for a really long time. We're like, how are we going to handle all of this altogether? The fact that you can see everything, October surprises just out of nowhere to dwarf all of those conversations is just fascinating. It's why we love this biz.

• 1:59:12Sean Fennessey?

  Classic movie stuff. Okay, let's now go to my conversation with Travis Knight.

• 1:59:20Sean Fennessey?

  Very happy to have Travis Knight here for the first time. Travis, um, you've gotten this question before, I assume, but I, I want to know the first time you ever saw stop motion in action. When, do you remember how old you were, what the thing was?

• 1:59:33Speaker 06

  I don't specifically remember the first time I saw it, but I do remember, you know, being a kid and absolutely loving animation, which is not unusual. Most kids dig animation, but there, there was something specific about stop motion that I loved. I love the Ray Harryhausen creature features, you know, Seventh Voyage Sinbad and, and Jason and the Argonauts and, and some of that stuff ended up finding its way into my work later. You know, the Rankin-Bass, uh, you know, holiday specials. I actually saw Clash of the Titans in the cinema when I was a kid, um, which is, I think, I think that might've been Ray Harryhausen's kind of last big thing, his last big hurrah. And I just loved it. And there was just something so weird and cool and charming, and I couldn't quite put my finger on why.

• 2:00:16Speaker 06

  And I've tried over the years to explain or to analyze why it was, what, what was about stop motion that I felt was special. But, um, it's just, I, there's just something I find kind of beautiful and primal and human about what it is. And, uh, and it's, I couldn't have imagined, you know, when I was a kid and just loving this thing, that it would become my life's work. But, um, but I loved it and I tried to teach myself how to animate and I did. I was, as a kid, I always had a sketchbook with me all the time. I was always drawing. I was always creating my own comic books and all that sort of thing. And I wanted to teach myself how to animate. And of course, this was the eighties, so we didn't have the internet as a resource. And so you just try to figure it out on your own. You fail and you try, then you figure something out, then you, then you fail again.

• 2:01:00Speaker 06

  And, and that really was my journey. I did not think I was going to do it for a living, but I've always, always loved it. And it's just been a huge part of my life.

• 2:01:07Sean Fennessey?

  I had this interesting experience with it where I took my daughter, who's five, to go see Mad Monster Party, which is the Rankin-Bass Halloween special.

• 2:01:14Speaker 06

  You don't need to tell me that.

• 2:01:15Sean Fennessey?

  I know, you know. I'm telling, I'm sharing with the audience. It's for everybody. So we went to go see it. I hadn't seen it in probably 35 years. And afterwards, she had seen other Rankin-Bass stuff, but I was trying to explain her. She'd seen Kubo, she'd seen Paranorman, but I was trying to explain to her how it was done. And it was, it was kind of challenging to communicate that. Do you remember when it was sort of demystified for you, the amount of like grunt work, leg work that goes into working this way?

• 2:01:40Speaker 06

  Well, the amount of work that goes into this, this form of filmmaking is insane. It's absolutely insane. I think most people kind of understand the basic principle because the principle is very simple. I mean, you, we built thousands and thousands of these tiny little objects and then we put them on a handmade set and, you know, under lights and in front of a camera. And then, you know, you'll move something a microscopic distance. You take a picture, you move it another microscopic distance, you take a picture. And you keep doing that process over and over and over again, until something basically has the illusion of life. And because film has 24 frames per second, uh, we, you know, we shoot in ones, unlike some other stop motion companies who might shoot on twos, which is again, we're getting wonkish and we, in the weeds.

• 2:02:21Sean Fennessey?

  You can explain it if you want to do the ones and twos.

• 2:02:23Speaker 06

  I won't get into that. But basically what we, every single frame of, of film, we have to move the puppet a little bit so it appears like it's alive. Because in film, it's not like when people are shooting film, it's just a series of individual photographs, basically, that are stitched together. Um, and because we work in stop motion, the, the time between those frames being taken could be 10 minutes, it could be an hour, it could be a day. It just takes a long time to do this stuff. But, but what you're seeing when you see a stop motion film is you really are seeing the hands of the artists who are bringing these things to life, which is one of the things I think just gives it its incredible beauty.

• 2:03:01Sean Fennessey?

  Tell me a little bit about Wildwood. So I know Leica, um, optioned the novel like a week after it came out.

• 2:03:07Speaker 06

  Before it came out, actually.

• 2:03:08Sean Fennessey?

  Before it came out? Okay. So, you know, were you familiar with Colin Malloy? Did you listen to The Decemberists? Were you, did you, were you friends?

• 2:03:15Speaker 06

  We were not friends. Uh, I did not know him, but you know, I'm a Portlander. Colin Malloy is a Portlander. His wife, Carson Ellis, who is an extraordinary illustrator, she's a Portlander. So I knew and I loved The Decemberists for years, well before I met Colin. And, you know, he's got a very idiosyncratic voice. He's a storyteller within music. And, and then I think with Wildwood, if he had a story that wouldn't fit within the bounds of a song or a concept album. And so I'd heard, no, so Coraline came out in 2009. And so this was 2010. If my math is correct, that's a year later. We had, uh, we, I had heard that Colin was working on a novel and I was like, I have to see this. And so I got a sneak peek at a manuscript.

• 2:03:58Speaker 06

  He was 133 pages in to a book that ultimately ended up being over, well over 500 pages. And I read it and I was completely in its thrall. And, um, I think, you know, part of the reason was I was always a huge fantasy buff. I loved fantasy. I loved fairy tales when I was a kid. Um, you know, that's one of the gifts that my mother gave me. She read, read me stories all the time. Tolkien was a huge part of our household. I absolutely loved these types of stories. And, and Wildwood felt like it was painting in those same colors. But because it was Colin, it had a weird idiosyncratic voice. It was set in Portland, which of course I'm, I'm from Portland. It almost felt like it was bioengineered in a lab just for me. And, and so I, I read it and, and I knew, oh no, this is mine. I have to have this. I have to make this.

• 2:04:43Speaker 06

  And then, so started talking to Colin. We agreed to hold hands and do this thing together. And then I had the horrible realization that I had absolutely no idea how to make this because it was just, it was too big. It was too ambitious. It was too sweeping. There were too many characters. There were too many set pieces. It, it was, it asked more of us than we were capable of giving at that point. Because Leica was still really new at that point. This is almost at the very beginning of Leica. And so that began this 16-year journey of trying to figure out how we can transmogrify this beautiful novel into a movie. And it was a challenge.

• 2:05:17Sean Fennessey?

  Was there any part of you, I know you hadn't made, um, live action films, but at the time you adapted, was there ever any consideration of trying to do it in a live action way or a different style?

• 2:05:26Speaker 06

  No, because look, I was happy in my own little, you know, weird corner of the universe making stop motion movies. I love stop motion. And, um, I was just happy and content to continue to try to play around in this space and to push that art form forward as, as much as we can, um, with every, with every film. And with every film, we would have these big seismic advances where we'd figure out new technologies, new tricks, new techniques, and then we'd apply that to the next movie. And that was critical because this movie was so ambitious. It needed essentially all those other films. This sounds mercenary, it's not. All those other films as essentially R and D for what we needed to do to make Wildwood come to fruition.

• 2:06:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I watched Kubo maybe like six months ago and I had that thought, like, did, was this film made in part to figure out maybe some of the dynamics that were needed to create action in this style? Because it's just, there's not a long history of proper action sequences in stop motion. Like, were you actively thinking about that when you were making some of the Leica films? Like, well, I'll be able to apply this tool that we've just figured out here.

• 2:06:22Speaker 06

  It was always somewhere in my mind because, you know, while we're developing the story and the script and the characters and the themes, we're starting to design the world. And, you know, with, with each film that we do, it's, I'm always filing that away, like, how can we use this new trick? How can we use this new technique to, to, you know, apply to Wildwood? And certainly with Kubo, Kubo is the biggest thing we'd ever done at that point. It was this big sweeping sort of curisawa epic in miniature. Uh, and, and we were really pushing hard on what the medium could do. And I felt, I felt like, yeah, this is a good training ground for what we want to do on Wildwood, knowing Wildwood was much bigger. I mean, it turned out it was basically twice the size of Kubo, uh, in the end. But, um, but yeah, you're always, you know, if this is an obsession of yours, which it was of mine, you're always thinking, how can you use life? How can you use art?

• 2:07:07Speaker 06

  How can you use the different things that you're learning? To apply to this movie and ultimately that's one of the reasons why I ended up doing a live action film after I did Kubo, which is I felt like I needed to learn more.

• 2:07:20Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting. So, one of the things that I've thought about a lot with this movie after having seen it was something that comes up that sounds pejorative, but I don't think is, which is who is this movie for? And it's particularly because-

• 2:07:30Speaker 06

  I've heard that many times.

• 2:07:31Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sure. You know, it's animated. It seems like it's the sort of thing that should be for kids. And in fact, I bought the novel when I, not when I heard this was happening, but when the movie was getting closer. And I started reading it with my daughter and I was like, oh, this is more mature than I expected it to be. And your film is more mature than it might seem at first, based on even some of the work that you've done as a filmmaker. So, is it entirely because this story touched you and you wanted to make it? Do you think about the kind of market dynamics related to making a big film like this? How do you see that idea?

• 2:08:02Speaker 06

  I mean, you have to, you know, particularly, you saw him running the company as well as directing the movie. So, these are always considerations. You have to think about, okay, what's the place for this thing in the marketplace? And it is, it's challenging. I mean, like, we, you know, our industry is continuing to consolidate. There are fewer players. There are fewer decision makers in terms of like what types of movies get made. It's harder than ever to get original movies made. You know, Hollywood has almost always been risk averse, and this was a risky movie. Coraline was a risky movie. I remember when we, when we were trying to find distribution of Coraline, the, nobody saw the possibilities of what that movie could be. We met with virtually every distributor, every mini-major, every

• 2:08:47Speaker 06

  indie distributor, and nobody saw the promise. And it was like, it was exactly what you're saying. Who's this movie for? It's not for girls. It's too scary. It's not for boys because there's a female protagonist. They will not see it. Parents are not going to take their kids. It's in stop motion, so it's weird. One executive called it a Roman Polanski art film for kids, which is, you know, that's not the kind of thing you want emblazoned on a poster. That's not going to bring the audience in. But-

• 2:09:16Sean Fennessey?

  Not necessarily inaccurate, though.

• 2:09:18Speaker 06

  Not wholly inaccurate. He wasn't wrong.

• 2:09:21Sean Fennessey?

  But it's so funny, though. I mean, that movie is now considered a total classic.

• 2:09:24Speaker 06

  It's considered a classic now, but at the time, like, nobody saw the promise of it. And so, but we persisted, and eventually we found a great partner in Focus and Universal. And part of that was because the people running the company at the time, James Sheamus, who's an artist himself, and David Lindy, they actually saw something in the film that other people maybe didn't. And, you know, that movie ended up being a slow burn. It wasn't like this massive thing right out the gate. It just, just kept going. It kept having legs. People kept telling their friends, you have to see this movie. It's different. It's special. And it was different and special. And I feel Wildwood is kind of the same, it lives in that same box in that it's a different movie. It's a big sweeping fantasy and it's about very, very different things. But it's the kind of thing that if, if people

• 2:10:08Speaker 06

  give it a chance, you know, older people, younger people, they'll, they'll find something precious in it. And it's the kind of story that I would have loved when I was a kid. Kind of, the kind of story that used to be made for fantasy, big sweeping epics that were about something that just aren't made anymore. And so, yeah, you always have to try to balance these things. But in the end, you just try to have to, you have to make the decision like what, what means something to us. And those are the stories that we make.

• 2:10:36Sean Fennessey?

  Did you have a mentality about maybe the way that when we were kids, we were challenged by these kinds of films? Because as I've been going through this with my daughter, like, showing her Labyrinth, showing her Ghostbusters, things that I saw when I was five, six, seven, that were maybe not totally appropriate, but I think maybe educated me or got me more mature as a viewer. Like, were you thinking about that in relation to this too? That like, maybe there is something to seeing something a little earlier than you might expect?

• 2:11:00Speaker 06

  Yeah. I mean, look, I, I, I feel like I benefited greatly from the fact that my, my parents were film buffs. They were cinephiles. So, they would, they would go to the cinema all the time, and they would drag me along to whatever movie they wanted to see, no matter how inappropriate it was. And so, I saw many, many things that I should not have seen at a certain age, things that scarred me and still live with me. But in some ways, I think that was a gift because it just, it kind of opened me up to different things. And so, I think there is something special about seeing a movie in a cinema because it's a safe space. No one's going to get hurt. You know, you'll get to the end of the experience and hopefully, if you take great care, like what we've done in this movie, you can take

• 2:11:43Speaker 06

  the audience on a journey of something that is about something profoundly human. It's about something meaningful to me personally. It's about love and loss and grief and empathy. And, and, you know, this authentic stuff is in the movie, and it's intense in moments. And it's probably not for the youngest members of the family, although everyone has to know their own kid and what they can handle. I mean, this is coming from a guy who saw Exorcist when I was five. So, you know, it's a different-

• 2:12:06Sean Fennessey?

  We had similar, yeah.

• 2:12:07Speaker 06

  Yeah. So, you know, but I do think, you know, I do think it's, it is intended for families, but it's intended for the entire, you know, the entire range of family. And, and I think young people would get a lot out of it. And I also think, in a, in a way now, modern cinema really undervalues young audiences. I think they speak down to them in a way that, that I actually find upsetting because, you know, young, young people, they are, they have emotionally complex inner lives, just like we do. We do not have a monopoly on big feelings. They've been through grief. They've been through sadness. They know what it's like to feel alone. They know what it's like to feel powerless. And because we're

• 2:12:49Speaker 06

  telling a story that lives in that space, it was really important to me that we spoke to that portion of the audience with great respect and with authenticity. And this movie does that.

• 2:12:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I love that. I feel like all the like of movies really do that, which I really admire. The other thing about this story in particular is it's a really interesting portrait of parenthood, like kind of in two tracts, and about how, in my experience, parenthood is really kind of about like trying to fail a little bit less every day. You know, like you can kind of feel that in, in all the characters that are adults in this story. Like, I don't know, how many, do you relate to that? Do you think about that too?

• 2:13:22Speaker 06

  Of course. Yeah. I mean, it is, you know, there are layers to the movie. On one level, it is a, you know, maturation metaphor about these two kids that are crossing this Rubicon from childhood to adulthood, and the innocence that's lost, and the, and the things that we're, that, that, you know, that we gain, but also the things that we leave behind. And sometimes that's deeply sad. And then the film examines that from the other side too, because it is about, you know, multiple sets of parents. It's about, you know, previous parents, what they've endured, what they did to create a family to begin with, and then how they dealt with the, you know, the cost of that. And, and then on the other side, we have our antagonist in Alexandra, who, like, her whole life was, was defined by her relationship with her child. And when that was ripped away from

• 2:14:04Speaker 06

  her, it completely reshaped her life. And it, and it, that absence became a, a, a presence that she ended up carrying always and couldn't get around it. And, and that's, you know, an aspect of being a parent as well.

• 2:14:18Sean Fennessey?

  You hired Caleb Deschanel to be the cinematographer of the film, you know, shot The Right Stuff, The Natural-

• 2:14:24Speaker 06

  He's a legend.

• 2:14:25Sean Fennessey?

  Many, many legendary movies. You know, he had worked on the Lion King film that Jon Favreau made, but this is, I assume, completely new and different for him. So, I'm kind of curious about maybe what he had to learn and what, maybe what you learned from him in the process of, of doing this union.

• 2:14:43Speaker 06

  It was a beautiful collaboration. And one of the reasons I reached out to Caleb to begin with was something I alluded to earlier, which is that after I made Kubo on the Two Strings, I went and made this big, you know, franchisee, you know, Transformers movie in Bumblebee. And one of the reasons, when they approached me for that, I was, first of all, I was shocked. Like, I'm like, have you guys seen the kind of movies I make? Like, this, these things do not feel like they gel together.

• 2:15:08Sean Fennessey?

  Good movie. I'm a Bumblebee fan.

• 2:15:09Speaker 06

  Thank you. I appreciate that. But, but part of it was to try to prove a thesis, like, can I bring kind of a sense of tenderness and, and kind of, and emotion to this franchise that has largely avoided this type of storytelling? And also, can I even, can I even play in this space effectively? I'd never done anything like that before. I knew that I was going to emerge from the other side, a better filmmaker, because it was going to challenge me in ways that I'd never been challenged before. I would, and I didn't have the safety net of the team of people that I'd worked with essentially my entire career, this extraordinary group of humans that we all support each other. It was a whole new group of people that I'd never worked with before. And I learned so much along the way. It was a joyous process. It is a very different process than working in stop motion. But one of the things that

• 2:15:54Speaker 06

  had changed within me was my relationship with the camera. And you know, in stop motion, oftentimes these things look like they're shot on the tabletop because they are. Oftentimes, the camera is completely static because that's the easiest way to do it. Anytime, anything, anytime anything moves, it has to be essentially moved by hand. It has to be thought through. It has to be planned. A camera move, a simple camera move, even if it's just a pan, that has to be put on, the cameras be put on a motion control rig. It has to be programmed. You have to do tests a frame at a time just to get the motion moving a frame at a time. And then if you start doing crazy things like, you know, like big crane shots, it just amplifies the complexity. So like on Kubo, I felt like we pushed the cinematography really far, but you're still burdened by

• 2:16:38Speaker 06

  the knowledge of how, what the limitations of the process are. And when I worked on Bumblebee, my relationship with the camera changed because I really realized how the camera can really fundamentally be a, a, a character within the storytelling. And, and, and I wanted to bring that same sensibility to stop motion. I wanted to bring that specifically to Wildwood. I wanted Wildwood to feel like it was a big live action epic that we shot with real cameras and just approached it that same way. So it was a fundamental way of, a fundamentally different way of looking at the cinematography. And so that meant I wanted to speak with different artists to see if they could help me bring that to life. The first person I reached out to was Caleb Deschanel. And for those who don't know, he's an absolute legend, one of the best cinematographers who's ever lived, extraordinary

• 2:17:23Speaker 06

  artist, and also a great dude. He's just a cool guy. And I didn't think he was gonna say yes. I mean, I just thought it was gonna be cool if I could meet him and hang out with him because he made some of the films I loved since I was a kid. And we totally hit it off. We had shared sensibilities. He dug the project and, you know, I didn't think the pitch of, hey, Caleb, come to Oregon for a few years and shoot a girl the size of a burrito would be particularly appealing to this legendary cinematographer. But he said yes. I was like, holy shit, he said yes. And it was a bit like the dog who chased the car and then, and then they caught it like, well, now what? Like, I'm gonna work with Caleb. He knows so much more about cinema than I do. And he, so he came to Portland where we're shooting the movie, and he had these insane ideas, things that would absolutely

• 2:18:08Speaker 06

  never work. But what I loved about Caleb is that he didn't know anything about stop motion and this lifetime of experience, and he dove into something he knew nothing about because he was excited by the challenge of challenging himself and learning more. And to his great credit, he, he really pushed the team to shoot and think about light and camera motion in a way they never had before. He also came to understand the limitations of the medium, but he did not let that get in the way of trying to tell the story the most beautiful way. And to our crew's credit, they rose to meet him. And I think that's one of the many reasons why the film looks unlike any stop motion film ever made is because of that kind of approach, that, that live action cinematic approach that Caleb brought to the movie.

• 2:18:50Sean Fennessey?

  I'm really curious about the idea of patience through a process like this, because like you said, you've been working with this team for a very long period of time. These are artists who know that it takes a long time to make a film. I read, I don't know if this is true, that some of the eagle sequences took years to perfect and, and master what you see in the movie. But I just feel like in contemporary times, patience is the most hard-won thing. Like, everybody just expects everything immediately, myself included. And so in that work, like, do people get frustrated? Do they lose their nerve? Like, how do you hold so that everybody knows that we're kind of going in the right direction over a years-long period of time?

• 2:19:31Speaker 06

  Yes, you are absolutely correct. You know, when, when a gestation period for a movie is as long as something like this, you know, people often think patience is the thing. And I don't, I mean, I do think that I am a patient person, but I don't think that's kind of the critical attribute that somebody must have to work in this medium.

• 2:19:49Sean Fennessey?

  What is it? What is the critical attribute?

• 2:19:50Speaker 06

  I think it's, to me, it, part of it is, you just have to love the process. Because we do live in a time that's increasingly frictionless, where things are easier and faster and more automated, where you can order, order a Thai green curry while you're sitting on your toilet and it'll be there within 20 minutes. I mean, things are just meant to be easier for us with, with less labor, less effort, less, less, less devotion, less care, actually. And when I was a younger man, one of the most frustrating things to me was the time, that how long these things take, because they take forever. A standard stop motion film, kind of from beginning to end, will take about five years. This one was considerably longer. But it always takes years. You're not talking about, you

• 2:20:34Speaker 06

  know, like a, like a live action film, you can shoot within a number of weeks and, and at least the production phase is done. On Masters of the Universe, for instance, with, you know, it was 85 days. This was, movie was in the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of weeks to, of a production period. So you get a sense of the scale, like how long these things take.

• 2:20:51Sean Fennessey?

  Can you just drill down on that a little bit for me? So like, what was the first day of shooting?

• 2:20:56Speaker 06

  The first day of shooting, it's always, it, it always kind of starts the same way, which is that you, you know, as you're building the stuff, you know, you're building your puppets, you're building your sets, you've storyboarded the entire movie, you've, you've cut it together. So you can watch the film from beginning to end in storyboard form with, sometimes with, with temp voices, sometimes with temp music. But then you get the act, you record the actors very, very early in the process. We recorded all the actors during COVID, so that, you know, we had to do that essentially over Zoom, which was very weird.

• 2:21:26Sean Fennessey?

  What year was it? What was the first?

• 2:21:27Speaker 06

  The first voice record, it was kind of, I think it was late 2020, 20, and then through 2021. So it was, it was, you know, we were all in COVID, we were socially distancing. I couldn't actually be there physically with the actors because of all of that. So I recorded, or I directed them all over Zoom. And they were never together. So every performance, you would have to capture every performance 30, 40, 50 different ways, because you don't know what the other actor's gonna do. And they have to feel like they blend together. And so then you're finding that, that, that, that harmonious blend in the edit bay. So you do all that stuff first, and then you finally have, okay, finally, we have approved puppet. And now we have, usually it's an interior set, because those are the simplest

• 2:22:09Speaker 06

  things that, that come out first. So it might be, you know, the kitchen, the family kitchen set. And now you have a couple of puppets. And so you generally start with, you know, one animator, two animators, because that's the, that, that's, that's all you have at that point. You just have a handful of things that you can start shooting. Because it's not like CG where, you know, you create a digital puppet and it's endlessly replicatable. If you build one puppet in stop motion, you have one puppet. And if you want another one, you have to build another one. So if you want another set, it's not a digital duplicate, you have to build another set. And so as we start building more of these, these, the, the units start to fill up, as you build these sets, as they're starting to come out of the, the floor, then the animators start coming in. And so then at its peak, we had,

• 2:22:54Speaker 06

  you know, well over 100 units. We had, you know, at any given time, we could have had, you know, 35 animators working on the show. Generally, animators had about, had two units per, per animator. So like, while they were working on one shot, another unit was getting set up for them. So as soon as they finished, they can go and, and bounce to another unit and, and work on another shot. And you're always trying to keep the animators moving because they're, your animators are your actors. And, and if they're not working, you're not getting anything in front of the stage. And animators love, love to create. And so it's just, we're always trying to keep the animators going. And it's a, it's a, it's a hard slog, but you, you do, you do have to love the process. Because at the, at the very beginning of it, you, it's like a mountain. You look up at the top, a peak, and like,

• 2:23:37Speaker 06

  how the hell are we gonna get there? We have to build the mountain, and then we have to walk up it. You have to love the process of creation. You have to love what it is. Because for me, every handful of days, there's some little small miracle, whether it's a beautiful puppet, or if it's, it's a prop, or if it's a shot. You see something handmade, and it has life, and it's miraculous. And that's what I love about this process. And so even though it can take a long time, it's, to me, it's always a joy because it's, you're, you're just seeing incredible human beings create these beautiful things.

• 2:24:12Sean Fennessey?

  The unit component, I think, is a little bit under discussed in the general production of movies. You know, most action films have at least two, sometimes multiple units working simultaneously, or some people are off doing other things. But the director, like, and I especially, like, really valorize the director, the auteur, the person who is responsible for everything. But you can't do everything. In fact, you don't really always do anything in some cases, but you're making sure that everyone is doing everything properly. In a movie like this, are there multiple sequences being worked on simultaneously, and you can't be present for all those things?

• 2:24:42Speaker 06

  Oh, no, you're present for all these things. It's, we are, you know, like in a live action set, you're generally, you'd, you'd work on it. It, it can change depending on the complexity of scene, of course. But like, let's take a simple, you've got like a three or four page scene that takes place in one location. You know, you'll shoot the whole scene, you'll hose it down, and you'll get all the coverage that you need for the day. And then that's your scene. And then you move on to the next thing and the next thing. So you're working on this little chunk of the movie, and then it's essentially done. In a, in a stop motion film, you could be, you have to keep the entire movie in your head all the time. Because you could be working on a sequence from the, a shot from the beginning of the movie, and then the middle of the movie, and then from the battle sequence at the end, and then from some, you know, quiet conversation that happens in the midpoint of the film. And so you have to know the whole movie. You have to have it in your

• 2:25:27Speaker 06

  head because you're working on these little, little fragments. It's like a little mosaic, all these tiny little pieces that you're, you know, you're, you're slowly cobbling together over the course of the production of the movie. So, you know, you are on top of it always. But it's, it's, you know, it's, it's happening, kind of, the whole movie's happening essentially all the time.

• 2:25:47Sean Fennessey?

  What do you find to be the most challenging part of the production process of any movie? It doesn't just have to be stop motion.

• 2:25:54Speaker 06

  Well, stop motion, I, I, I will lean into stop motion because it is the hardest way to make a movie. And I've also said it's the stupidest way to make a movie. It is, it is ridiculous. Like, it is, it is objectively absurd how we make these movies. But, but I also think there's something extraordinarily beautiful and just fundamentally human about it. Because it's, it's the accumulation of all these acts of devotion and care. And that's why I think that as I've, as I've gotten older, I realized that the fact that stop motion forces us to slow down, to take our time, and to really think about what matters, that that's one of the gifts of the medium. Everything's difficult to do. It's, I think that people understand the spectacle in stop motion is challenging, like

• 2:26:38Speaker 06

  a big battle sequence that goes on for 12 minutes with well over 400 shots. That's gonna be hard. We have this big, you know, aerial chase sequence that happens in the middle of the movie with this giant golden eagle that's doing all this swooping and, and, and, you know, got her, you know, flying around and, and doing all this beautiful kind of elegant animation. That's challenging. But I think the thing that people wouldn't necessarily expect is that, and where I think the movie really comes to life is when you have these really quiet, subtle, intimate scenes, where you essentially just have this assemblage of steel and silicon and fabric.

• 2:27:17Speaker 06

  And which has no life of its own. All these materials would have been sitting on someone's workbench a handful of weeks before. And now here it is. It's a constructed thing that has no life of its own. And an artist persuades it otherwise. An artist puts some of their own life into this thing slowly, a frame at a time. And it springs to life and it's magic. And then years later, someone sitting in the dark recognizes that as life. And to me, that's magic. And so a young teenage girl having a difficult conversation with her parents. It's not flashy. There's not explosions. There's like no sound. There's no music. It's just you're hearing the actor's performance and you're watching the animator's performance with these really subtle movements, very, very difficult to do at this scale and this medium.

• 2:28:00Speaker 06

  And yet, if you pull it off, you fully believe these characters are live. And to me, that's really, that's magic. It's beautiful.

• 2:28:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's interesting that you bring that. I mean, that conversation later in the film between Prue and her parents, where we sort of learn the toll of this family is really powerful. And it is like in direct contrast to a lot of the bombast that's surrounding the film. And so I guess like, maybe did it take you longer to figure out how to master the subtlety of some of those things inside of this art form? Like, how do you learn how to be a good director of not showy, stop motion animation?

• 2:28:37Speaker 06

  Well, I mean, the thing is, it's the hardest way to animate. It's kind of, it's easy to be broad. It's easy to go pose to pose. And that's, you know, these things tend to look like that because that's the simplest way. And to do it the way we do it, which is very naturalistic, it is absolutely the most difficult way there is to essentially make any kind of animation, but specifically stop motion. And so we, but we recognize that, you know, animators are, people tend to think of animators, particularly in this medium, as technicians, but they're not. They are, it's a very technical process because, you know, you're working this progressive form. You're on frame one, you have to move a puppet a little bit. You move to frame two, move it a little bit, move to three.

• 2:29:18Speaker 06

  You just keep working through this thing in slow motion until it's done. So it's technical, like you have to hit your marks. You know, the puppet has to do this thing. You gotta move its body in certain ways. You have to adjust the fabric and the lapels and the hair and everything. It's very, very technical. But it can never look technical. It has to be organic. It has to look like these characters have life and feelings and they move organically. So it's, the animators are, they're performers, they're actors. They're just acting with their hands through another object. So we treat them as such. And so when I speak to an animator, I speak to an animator the same way I would speak to an actor. And, you know, you talk about kind of what's motivating people. You talk about the kind of emotion that's driving it.

• 2:30:01Speaker 06

  You talk about, you know, what they're feeling and like, and then we, and then we start to think about how body language can communicate this. And then oftentimes I would find that like when we were doing some of this subtle stuff, that people start to default to kind of bigger and broader gestures. And I would always pull them back, say, no, you gotta do less, do less, do less, do less, to the point where like something is barely moving, but it feels human. It feels alive because that's how we move.

• 2:30:28Sean Fennessey?

  So in addition to directing the films, you know, you mentioned you're also the CEO of Leica, so you have this sort of business initiative that is going alongside the creative. You made this really fascinating decision to distribute the movie with Fathom, which is sort of a consortium that is owned by the theatrical chains essentially. So why is it going as you expected? How do you feel about, you know, like, tell me about all of that. I'm so interested in it.

• 2:30:53Speaker 06

  It's an unconventional pairing for sure. It's, I mean, like I was saying before, Wildwood is, it's a risky film. And just like Coraline, we spoke with, with a bunch of different distributors to see who would be the best partner for us. In the end, we ended up going Fathom domestically. We have different partners internationally, but we went with Fathom domestically. Part of it was, we'd already had a really healthy relationship with them. You know, Fathom has historically been what they kind of call event cinema. And so it's a very different model. And we've had, we've re-released some of our legacy titles like Coraline and Paranorman with Fathom out in the theaters to great success.

• 2:31:34Speaker 06

  And because of that, we kind of knew how each other worked and we, and they were fully committed to giving this film the theatrical push that we felt it deserved. This was a movie designed to be seen on the big screen in the best theater possible, with the best projection, with the best sound, surrounded by a room of fellow dreamers who are completely focused on the story that's unfolding in front of them. It's not meant to be watched while you're sitting on your couch doom scrolling and making your, you know, your mushroom risotto in the back. It's, we want people's attention. And in the space, like the communal experience of watching the movie, which is something that I've always loved, something I loved since I was a kid, there's something special about it. You can feel, when people are leaning in, you can feel the audience gasp at something that surprises them.

• 2:32:19Speaker 06

  You can, you can hear them cry when something is moving them. That is, that incredible experience of being with other people and watching this story unfold, I wanted that for this movie. And, and I knew, working with Fathom, that we would get that in a way that it deserved. So ultimately, we ended up going with Fathom. It also allowed us to control the marketing. And I did not want this to be a rug pull for the audience. I wanted us, in every piece of marketing that we did, every, every trailer, every, every poster, every image that came out, I wanted it to accurately reflect what the movie was. I did not want to trick anyone. I wanted, did not want them to come think this movie was going to be a babysitter for their kids and then have their child walk out of the cinema traumatized.

• 2:33:04Speaker 06

  I want people to know that this is, this is the kind of movie it is. It is beautiful. It's moving. It's, it's got great light in it, but it has intensity as well. And that is reflected in how we treated the marketing of the movie, which is again, one of the reasons why we went with Fathom. Because if you, you know, if you work with some of these other distributors, you do not get that. And they're going to push the film however they want to push the film.

• 2:33:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's really fascinating. The first teaser for the movie is like one of the best movies of the year. You know, it's like one of the most interesting things.

• 2:33:31Speaker 06

  It's beautiful. Yeah. And it's, and I think it accurately reflects the spirit of what the movie is.

• 2:33:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. We're at this interesting moment. You mentioned that some, some children's entertainment kind of talks down to kids. We're also at the onset of this massive AI moment. And the kind of the intersection of those two things, I would say for me personally as a parent, is a little nerve wracking.

• 2:33:51Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:33:52Sean Fennessey?

  In terms of like, not just what my kid will be exposed to, but what she'll like. And like what she'll learn to like. And I'm curious, obviously the work that you do with the studio and the films that you've made, run, seemingly run very counter to all of that. Like, how do you think about it?

• 2:34:09Speaker 06

  They do. They're almost antithetical to one another. I've described the act of making a stop motion film in this modern era as a quiet act of rebellion, and I think that's accurate. Because it feels like the tide is going one direction. Things are increasingly designed to be, you know, automated and algorithmically focused. And we're kind of fed up things that, you know, the machine learns. And even, even down to making the film, Sean, because if you, you know, if you work with these big studios, they run all these things through their algorithm to see if a casting choice is going to resonate with certain audiences. These are not necessarily human and creative artistic decisions. These are decisions that have been run through some, you know, the whopper.

• 2:34:52Speaker 06

  It's been run through some kind of, some sort of a machine that's giving them feedback that they will then use to decide. To me, that's a horrible way to make a movie. You have to trust artists. Like filmmaking is, yeah, sure, look, it is, it's show and it's business, of course. And so you have to mitigate risk, of course. But in the end, the movies that move us, the movies that make us feel something are the result of a combination of all these extraordinary artistic, creative human beings making these choices towards a specific goal. They're not built by machines. They're not, you know, they're not, you know, made by algorithms, they're made by people. And, and I think we, we are in danger of something going away.

• 2:35:36Speaker 06

  We are in danger of losing something precious. Artificial intelligence is a technological marvel. I think we can all recognize that. And I think there are great benefits that hopefully can come from it. You know, I think things, advances in science, advances in medicine. You know, I've heard, you know, the guy that runs DeepMind wants to cure cancer, which could not be a more noble goal. And I think with this technology, those things are possible. So artificial intelligence can be an extraordinary boon to mankind, but we should not neglect the fact that it can be incredibly disruptive and destructive, which it will be. There's no getting around it. It will be. It will cause extraordinary pain. It will, it's going to change the world. It's already changing the world.

• 2:36:19Speaker 06

  It's going to disrupt all of our lives in ways I don't think we can anticipate. And how it affects the industry that I've worked in, that I have spent my entire life working in. You see what's going on. People have been very public about how they want to use this technology, not to advance the art form, but to supplant the artist, to take the place of the artist. And that's scary because a machine isn't human. A machine does not have a soul. A machine does not know what it's like to fall in love, or to have their heart broken, or to lose a brother, or what it feels like to be brave. Only a person can do that. And I do fear that if things go the direction they seem to be

• 2:37:02Speaker 06

  going, people who are trying to push these things in that direction, that we are going to lose something fundamentally human, something very, very precious. And at Leica, it's antithetical to everything we believe in. And it's why we're pushing back as hard as we can. We are but one voice. We need a chorus. This is not a call to arms. But I do think that we have to, like, both as creators, as people who make things, people who have a voice, and people that, you know, the movie going public, we have to say that we don't want this. We want human stories. Because if we don't, we're gonna lose it.

• 2:37:38Sean Fennessey?

  Well said. Travis, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they have seen?

• 2:37:42Speaker 06

  Ah, well, that's easy for me, because I've only seen one great thing recently, because I've been in a dark cave making this movie. The unfortunate thing about making movies is that sometimes you don't get to see movies.

• 2:37:54Sean Fennessey?

  I've heard that before.

• 2:37:55Speaker 06

  It is, yes, it's a sad thing. But I happened to be in Telluride for the first time this year, last month. Amazing, beautiful place. And I had, you know, you're working all day, you know, you're doing your thing. I had an afternoon free, I had a couple of hours free, and there happened to be a screening at the Herzog Theater, which is this amazing theater they built into an ice skating rink.

• 2:38:16Sean Fennessey?

  So great.

• 2:38:16Speaker 06

  So great.

• 2:38:17Sean Fennessey?

  It's one of my favorite rooms in the world.

• 2:38:19Speaker 06

  It's insane when you see the beauty of the projection, the sound, in an ice skating rink. It's incredible. But anyway, I knew nothing about this movie. I sat down, I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna enjoy this without knowing anything. And it was Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse 9. And I'm a fan of Martin McDonagh anyway. So I was like, when I heard it was his movie, I was like, oh, I'm inclined to like this. And yet, because I knew nothing about it, I was not prepared for the experience. And to me, that's what movies are. It's funny, it's dark, it's deeply human, it's moving, it's beautifully put together, beautifully performed and acted. The craftsmanship is extraordinary. I absolutely loved it. And again, it reminded me of the magic of movies, and that this is what movies

• 2:39:01Speaker 06

  are for, is experiences like this. And so I cannot recommend it highly enough. Wild Horse 9 by Martin McDonagh, go see it. You'll love it.

• 2:39:10Sean Fennessey?

  That's a great recommendation. Travis Knight, thank you so much.

• 2:39:12Speaker 06

  Thank you, Sean.

• 2:39:18Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, thanks to Travis Knight, thanks to Joanna. Oh, my God. Well done. Thanks to you. You're the best. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on today's episode. Thanks to Lucas Kavanagh for his production support. Thanks to Amanda Dobbins. You're welcome. Nice job, Amanda. You saw a lot of movies. Thank you. I did. This was a hardy episode. It's my job. Yeah. And your reward for that is no new recording on Monday. I know. Because at long last, we will be running the Gene Hackman Hall of Fame with our special guest, Tracy Letts. Hope you tune in for that. Quick in the den, number one. No spoilers. Okay. We'll see you then.

• 2:40:08Speaker 04

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