‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ and the Movies That Feel Like Our Lives

Fresh off Fashion Week, Sean and Amanda react to one of their most anticipated movies of 2026: ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’. They share their feelings on the sequel, discuss how it differs from the original, and examine how the media and fashion industries have evolved over the past 20 years (1:01). Next, they cover ‘Mile End Kicks,’ a portrait of a young music writer in Canada circa 2011, with Sean reflecting on his own trials and tribulations working as a music journalist (57:50). Finally, Sean sits down with writer-director Chandler Levack to discuss both of her films being released this year—‘Mile End Kicks’ and the Netflix comedy ‘Roommates,’ produced by Happy Madison Productions (1:06:45). That’s all. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Chandler Levack Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh, Sarah Reddy, and Jamie Yukich 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 Fennessy.

• 0:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 0:17Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Picture at Conversation show about angels and devils. Today on the show, we are digging into two films that excavate our mid aughts past. The big one is the highly anticipated sequel, The Devil Wears Prada 2. Later in this episode, I will be joined by Chandler Levack, the writer-director of not one, but two films coming out this year. Mile End Kicks, her portrait of a young music writer in Canada circa 2011, as well as the Netflix comedy Roommates, which comes from Adam Sandler's Happy Madison. Chandler and I had eerily similar young adult experiences as music writers and movie nerds, had a wonderful talk about these worlds colliding, and how she put them in her movies. Stick around for that conversation, but first, we gotta talk about Amanda's past and her future, right after this.

• 1:01Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Anna Wintour.

• 1:04Sean Fennessey?

  You ready for this?

• 1:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it did feel very fitting to be sitting silently in my sunglasses throughout that entire intro. Maybe I should do that for every episode.

• 1:12Sean Fennessey?

  Consider it, yeah.

• 1:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I'm gonna leave them on for the big question, and then I'll be a normal person and take them off. Also, I should just say, the sunglasses are the one thing I'm wearing that's not Prada. I'm sorry. It didn't occur to me until this morning that I should source Prada sunglasses along with everything else. I don't know why.

• 1:28Sean Fennessey?

  Who were you just talking to? Were you just speaking to the camera?

• 1:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Various cameras, people watching, my other selves, regrets. I have a few. But here we are. I'm doing the best that I can.

• 1:41Sean Fennessey?

  We're here. Your fandom has come for you.

• 1:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:45Sean Fennessey?

  In your 40s, just like it came for me.

• 1:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:48Sean Fennessey?

  And we're here to talk about The Devil Wears Prada 2. The film is directed, as was the original, by David Frankel. It's written, as was the original, by Alien brush Brosch McKenna. It stars Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci. They were all in the first one. And...

• 2:03Sean Fennessey?

  This movie is about Andy Sachs returning to the world of Miranda Priestly at the famed magazine runway.

• 2:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 2:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's also about the future of journalism.

• 2:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:13Sean Fennessey?

  Especially at magazines.

• 2:15Amanda Dobbins?

  True.

• 2:15Sean Fennessey?

  So we've been waiting months to ask you, what did you think of The Devil Wears Prada 2?

• 2:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm at peace. I am. And much like Miranda Priestly, I'm learning that my expectations and standards cannot be met in the same way in 2026. And maybe that's okay. Mostly it's not. Mostly it's a referendum on how the world is fucked. But it's, it's, it's not a disaster. It's not a disaster of a movie, right? If I can speak for you, we both.

• 2:44Sean Fennessey?

  I'll tell you what.

• 2:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:45Sean Fennessey?

  I liked it.

• 2:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I liked it too. I, I think that it is obviously not as good as the first movie. And, but it's not embarrassing and it's fun and very entertaining and interesting. And maybe interesting enough, at least to me and you two, like reformed kind of NAST editors. To make it good because there's a lot that I want to talk about. The first Devil Wears Prada is, is to me, a modern masterpiece for a number of reasons. It's obviously like a light, fizzy, fun concoction about fashion and has multiple makeovers and you get to go to Paris and you dump your bad boyfriend. It's got amazing performances, including one of Meryl Streep's best performances ever

• 3:29Amanda Dobbins?

  in, in, in my opinion, but also the supporting cast, you know, kind of announces Emily Blunt. It's really funny. It's really fizzy, obviously really quotable. And then is also like a very good movie about being good at your job and even what the definition of being good at your job is and what that requires, what it costs, what, you know, what you are willing and willing to give up in order to do that. This second movie is about how being good at your job doesn't matter because the world is falling apart.

• 4:02Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:03Amanda Dobbins?

  And that is compelling, but also kind of a bummer. And so this movie is slightly more melancholy. This, it's, everyone is not on their A-game, especially Miranda Priestly. And so I think that it's, it's smart and way more insightful about the world than I expect, about media specifically than I expected this movie to be. But, you know, you don't walk out with the same high.

• 4:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it gives you many of the things that the first film gave you in that fan-service-y way, where the characters are almost specifically repeating actions from the first movie to remind you of the legacy of the film.

• 4:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 4:44Sean Fennessey?

  But the tone and subject matter is surprisingly different. And a lot of times when you have a legacy sequel like this, they tend to be overly exuberant in trying to get you back to that feeling that it was so important to you when you first saw a movie. And this movie is ultimately not that interested in making you feel as happy, as buoyant as the first film did. Which, you know, as, as a man in his 40s, I relate to. Like, I think that there's something practical and sincerely honest about the movie in a way that I'm very curious to see how the world at large feels about it, whether or not they receive it as excitedly. But as you say, having worked at Conde Nast myself, having been a magazine editor, having watched the world of media transform in ways that have been, you know, very beneficial

• 5:29Sean Fennessey?

  for us, but not so beneficial for a lot of people that we've worked with over the years, the movie is pretty real. Like, shockingly real for a fizzy rom-com legacy sequel.

• 5:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. It's not a rom-com, but that's okay. I understand. It's, it stars, this one is a bit more than the first.

• 5:46Sean Fennessey?

  There's romance.

• 5:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but, you know, we'll talk about that.

• 5:49Sean Fennessey?

  There's calm.

• 5:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, there is calm, but there has been a lot of argument and discussion over whether the original Devil Wears Prada counts as a romantic comedy, or is it just a successful movie starring and about women? There, there is a distinction. If it is a romantic comedy, it's between Miranda and Andy. And it is about, and it's a romantic comedy about the workplace.

• 6:08Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 6:09Amanda Dobbins?

  But, you know, potato, potato.

• 6:10Sean Fennessey?

  Well, where, where would you like to begin this, this dissection?

• 6:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm gonna take my sunglasses off now.

• 6:13Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Probably a good idea.

• 6:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Do we, do I have like sunglasses, Mark? I don't know how Anna navigates this.

• 6:18Sean Fennessey?

  No, you're good.

• 6:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Dayday, I thank you so much. Okay. Yeah, so it's good, like baseline. Let's just talk about the fact that the movie is pretty good, not as good, but pretty good. It is funny. It includes all of the people and the scenes that you remember in mostly clever ways, even when it is kind of recreating beat for beat moments from the first film. It does it like in a smart way and it feels less forced and more winky winky. It was very strange to be leaning over to you throughout the movie and being like, so that is a reference to the opening of the movie when she's also

• 7:03Amanda Dobbins?

  brushing her teeth and all the other girls are putting on, you know, counting out their almonds. So it does have a lot of Easter eggs, but it is weirdly not about fashion, which I thought was it is it's headed to fashion magazine and has way more fashion cameos than the first movie because famously the original movie had difficulties getting clothes and fashion personalities because of their fear of Anna Wintour. And now Vogue and Anna Wintour are very much on board with this sequel.

• 7:36Sean Fennessey?

  We should definitely talk about that.

• 7:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So lots of cameos, but it's really just about trying to keep Runway afloat. And it has that forced sequel thing where you gotta bring everybody back together. It's 20 years later. It's not particularly natural that any of these people would be in the same place. And that feels a little bit of a bummer. You know, Emily Blunt, who is the Emily character, no longer works at Runway, which makes sense, but that means she's always kind of a satellite to the show. And I think that happens with any sequel. There's no, there's no way to get around that. And that new people kind of feel tacked on. It's not the most beautifully photographed film that I've ever seen. Would you like to read your own comments?

• 8:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, thanks for writing those down so that I can have them forever. At a certain point, I did note to you that this looked like an episode of The Morning Show. I think there is a kind of glossy.

• 8:35Sean Fennessey?

  Otherworldly digital photography that has creeped into a lot of modern movies, especially movies like this that are set in the real world. And so it looked like an episode of television at times. Also, just a tremendous amount of drone shots. And I understand why there are so many drone shots. It's because this movie, which I know you love, travels all over the place. It's capturing New York City on location. It's capturing several places in Italy on location. You know, there are these great vistas, but the way that those are all captured now are in the same kind of consistently repetitive, like you're in on a location and then you're pulling away and away and away and away and away and you're seeing the scope of a city. I think we get that shot about 10 times in this movie. And it's nice that we have that technology now to show the real world, but it just creates

• 9:19Sean Fennessey?

  a kind of like sameness that feels like a hotel commercial. And so I didn't love that. I think the stars in this movie, though, look fantastic.

• 9:28Amanda Dobbins?

  They do. It's kind of astonishing.

• 9:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 9:32Amanda Dobbins?

  And not in like digitized or, you know, what was happening here. They have all aged and aged well and with age, I would say, but believably and look very beautiful. And there's just, there still is that joy of getting to watch both Meryl's outfits and Anne Hathaway's outfits, like, and Anne Hathaway just being, both of them being so very beautiful, like up on screen, larger than life in these places and these outfits that we would not normally.

• 10:00Sean Fennessey?

  And in that way, I think it feels like an event movie, right? Like, everyone looks amazing in that respect. Let's talk about Miranda and the way that Miranda is characterized in this movie. Because I guess I felt I should have seen this coming, but I was quite surprised by the way that they evolved or devolved this character. And I've even read a little bit of criticism about it, and it sounds like it echoes your own. So who is she in the movie in 2026?

• 10:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, she is shepherding this kind of, this dwindling empire that is Runway, which just bears a startling, at this point, and amazing level of resemblance to Vogue. Obviously, they've always been leaning on that. And the appeal of the first movie was that it was based on Lauren Weisberger's novel, Devil Wears Prada, and Lauren Weisberger is a former assistant to Anna Wintour. And so, you know, that you were getting like an unimproved peek behind the scenes of how this very glitzy, exclusive fashion magazine and this larger-than-life woman operates was part of the appeal. Now it just seems like they have their own Zoom account into every single Conde Nast

• 11:10Amanda Dobbins?

  meeting. I thought the number of specifics from taking the town cars away to management consultants coming in, McKinsey is name checked, which for those of you who don't know, after the crash in 2008, McKinsey, the consulting management firm, was brought into Conde Nast. And the days of yore and the unlimited budgets and the glamorous lifestyle portrayed in the first Devil Wears Prada was was cut, slashed in very much the way that is described in this film.

• 11:45Sean Fennessey?

  Just for the listeners at home, you and I also began working at Conde Nast right after that happened.

• 11:51Amanda Dobbins?

  After McKinsey. Yeah. So which is, you know, which is our tragedy. And maybe why this this movie speaks so much to us, because we were raised on one version. And, you know, we wanted to be, you know, I wanted to be Tina Brown. You can, I don't know who you wanted to be.

• 12:05Sean Fennessey?

  Any number of GQ and New Yorker editors.

• 12:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. They were living large. And by the time we got there, it was, you know, just waiting for someone to bring you back some printed out stuff at 1:00 in the morning so that you could then take the subway home. It was tough stuff. So.

• 12:23Sean Fennessey?

  It is quite accurate and specific. The level of specificity that is lent to these details around what has happened to the magazine industry ultimately constitutes the drama of the movie.

• 12:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 12:35Sean Fennessey?

  That like the narrative conflict of the movie is about how the magazine industry is falling apart and the ways in which it is impacting.

• 12:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 12:42Sean Fennessey?

  Essentially every single character in the movie.

• 12:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:45Sean Fennessey?

  Which to us is, of course, an ongoing concern and something that we think about and talk about and gossip about.

• 12:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 12:49Sean Fennessey?

  Throughout our friendship. But like, do people care about this?

• 12:53Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's opened up a little bit where that at some point, the magazine becomes a pawn between a very Jeff Bezos like character, played by Justin Theroux, who is committing to the bit.

• 13:01Sean Fennessey?

  So funny. He's very funny.

• 13:02Amanda Dobbins?

  And and he has an ex-wife, played by Lucy Liu, who's like a combination of Mackenzie Scott, formerly Bezos, and Lorraine Powell Jobs.

• 13:13Amanda Dobbins?

  In terms of she's now reinventing her own life and she has a public philanthropic arm that she's working on. So there is then, not spoiling too much, like the next generation, there's a David Ellison like character who shows up to oversee Elias Clarke, which is the stand in for Conde Nast. And there is, you know, a decent amount of, you know, billionaires just playing chess in beautiful locations while the, the jobs and passions of many people are at stake. So it's both specific to magazines and also recognizable to a lot of us at this day and time.

• 13:53Sean Fennessey?

  In the age of consolidation.

• 13:54Amanda Dobbins?

  But it is, but the specifics, again, Miranda Priestly, her personal tension is that she is up for the quote unquote global content director job, which is the job that Anna Wintour like has now. And so they're, they're really just cribbing very specifically from, from this place in a way that I did not expect and was also a little bit like, to your point, is anyone who's not us going to care?

• 14:19Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm. What about the nature of Miranda, the way that?

• 14:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Well, so that's the other thing, because she's, you know, saddled with all of this and runway is not once what it was and the company is going to be sold off and magazines are not once what they were. She's, she's just reduced. And the first movie is all about her being at the top of her game and being like the best in the world and being terrifying and she's confident and funny and, you know, like a terrible boss also, but then sort of an anti-hero. And there's, she has two moments like of weakness of, of threat, obviously her personal life, that scene with the divorce, you know, Rupert Murdoch should cut a check for all the newspapers he's sold off. And then also that there's

• 15:06Amanda Dobbins?

  a threat of the French editor taking her job, which she bats away. And she's like, no, no, I've known what was going on for some time.

• 15:14Sean Fennessey?

  And both of these things are also very closely based on real life, Anna Wintour experiences.

• 15:19Amanda Dobbins?

  But it, you know, in, in both of those.

• 15:21Sean Fennessey?

  Was it Corinne Reitfeld? Was that her name?

• 15:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, I believe so.

• 15:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I remember that.

• 15:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, so they, she's, you know, briefly humbled, but then she fixes it.

• 15:32Amanda Dobbins?

  This one is all humbling. This is all, she's always scrambling. She has to talk about page views just an alarming amount of times. At one point, she says the word social pins. She flies coach, which like even now at Conde Nast, Anna's like, maybe if you work at Spotify, but not at Conde Nast still.

• 15:49Sean Fennessey?

  That's the one note that really strains continuity is her sliding into a three seater with her assistant.

• 15:55Amanda Dobbins?

  And also then she's sitting in the middle next to her assistant, which you know, it's for a visual gag and it's fine, but it's like, come on, we all know, we all know that Anna's still, still flying first. That's fine, but, um, but she's not as funny because she's not as competent and she's not on top. So she doesn't have the one liners. There are almost, she's not in it quite as much, but she doesn't have, you know, that's, she says, that's all once in a moment of defeat. I think it's wise to not do that many like florals for spring groundbreaking. Or like, why is no one ready? But she doesn't have any of those big moments. And then she has a shocking amount of like emotion and shows gratitude to almost every character in her life.

• 16:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And that to me is the real sin, like by the third one. Okay. I was glad that Nigel got a moment.

• 16:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I was too.

• 16:46Amanda Dobbins?

  That's, that's really nice. Nigel's great. And for a moment, actually, and I thought that they were leaving Nigel behind and I was like, I will walk right out of this theater. That to me is all the people being like, I can't believe they let that woman in Lilo and Stitch get an education. To me, like leaving Nigel behind, I'm like, that, that is my line. They don't need Nigel behind. It's okay. But, um, that's fine.

• 17:07Sean Fennessey?

  Nigel is Stanley Tucci's character for the record.

• 17:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Okay.

• 17:10Sean Fennessey?

  He's not a real man.

• 17:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And then it's fine that she has to have like a moment with Anne Hathaway.

• 17:18Sean Fennessey?

  Error with this.

• 17:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. Of course. I've been training my whole life for this. This is it. You know, I got one movie. I gotta make it count. Um, but that she's nice to basically everyone else. Kenneth Branagh is her new husband, uh, who's a concert violinist. I believe he's in a quartet.

• 17:34Sean Fennessey?

  Ludicrous character.

• 17:36Amanda Dobbins?

  He only shows up to be nice to her and tell her to do what you want. I mean, I guess he's good at it.

• 17:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. You can see why she likes him because he has no interiority. He's just a kind guy who's handsome and older.

• 17:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Like flies in from Stockholm and is like, you imagine what you want to do when you wake up tomorrow and go do that.

• 17:55Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I say to you before every episode.

• 17:58Amanda Dobbins?

  So to me, the greatest sin is not that she's, you know, vulnerable or reduced in status. It's that she's deeply emotional. It really-

• 18:09Sean Fennessey?

  I wouldn't say deeply emotional. So to me, my perspective on this is that performance in the first film, which is so interesting in that she said she based on Clint Eastwood, right? And she never really raises her voice. She has almost that kind of burning whisper when she's talking. She has the same, Meryl Streep is giving the same kind of performance here, but with fewer one liners. And so that acting approach is less effective because she just seems kind of low energy, delivering lines with some, some degree of, maybe not sincerity is the word, but directness. It's not just about cutting people down. It's about trying to solve a problem at the company that she works at. And so it's, it's just a little less fun to watch Miranda through the movie.

• 18:50Amanda Dobbins?

  They also hinted the fact that she has been somewhat reformed and there, there are a few scenes, her assistant is played by Simone Ashley, whose job is essentially to tell her when she's said something inappropriate and that she's no longer allowed to say anymore because of, you know.

• 19:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, a lot of shared like-

• 19:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, like, no, no, uh, no, what? I can't say New Jersey, uh, which are like moderately funny, but there is a little bit to the reconception of the character Justin that she cannot like fully express or be herself anymore because of, you know, the world and the way it is outside. It's a, it is a very Gen Z movie. And I find that, which makes sense, right? This is-

• 19:32Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I think it's, it's a Gen Z movie insofar as it's a bunch of people in their 50s and 60s trying to like, throw some, you know, candy at Gen Z and be like, it's gonna be okay. Not, your bosses are not gonna, you know, alienate you and punish you, which I think is not the best lesson to take out of this entire world. I don't, there's something really-

• 19:54Sean Fennessey?

  Intriguing about Miranda Priestly becoming an iconic movie character, but knowing deep down that there's something quote unquote wrong about that character. And it's a little like making a Dirty Harry movie in 2026.

• 20:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:09Sean Fennessey?

  But he doesn't use a gun, you know, like it kind of doesn't make sense to do that.

• 20:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I've been thinking a lot about, to me, the original Devil Wears Prada is sort of, it's like the girl, the suitcase of the Mad Men episode, which is, you know, Don Draper and Peggy Olson in a room, kind of yelling at each other about how they work together, their relationship as, you know, collaborators, but also as boss and employee. It culminates with the very famous, like, that's what the money's for. But, you know, Don Draper is, is the main character of Mad Men, but he's definitely not someone that you want to be ultimately, or do you? Exactly.

• 20:53Sean Fennessey?

  Something interesting about that.

• 20:54Amanda Dobbins?

  There's an anti-hero.

• 20:55Sean Fennessey?

  Obviously, a completely destroyed man who makes tremendous number of mistakes, but he's swaggering and handsome and brilliant at his work.

• 21:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 21:02Sean Fennessey?

  They're very similar archetypes.

• 21:03Amanda Dobbins?

  There you go. And Devil Wears Prada came first.

• 21:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I, I agree that, and I don't think when the movie was originally released, that Miranda Priestly was the kind, the, you know, reference point that she is today. And I think honestly, Miranda Priestly, in the film, has paved the way for Anna Wintour's like total rehabilitation since, since the book itself. Because over time, people started to realize, wait a second, when I watched this movie, Andy's kind of annoying, you know, and she's not taking her job very seriously. I don't know if you saw one of the many, many pieces that Vogue has done about this movie was finally interviewing the real Emily. There's been a lot of speculation over the years.

• 21:51Sean Fennessey?

  Who is the real Emily?

• 21:52Amanda Dobbins?

  The real Emily is a stylist named Leslie Fremore. She's a very successful stylist and she, shout out to her for giving this interview. And she says, she says that she did in fact say the quote of a million girls would kill for this job. And she said when she read it.

• 22:12Amanda Dobbins?

  That she recognized a lot, but from her own perspective, which was that she felt like Lauren Weisberger, it was very clear to her that Lauren Weisberger didn't want to be there and didn't want to be doing her job. And so she was like, I probably was mean and I definitely was very stressed out because it's a hard job.

• 22:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 22:27Amanda Dobbins?

  But I could tell this person didn't care.

• 22:30Sean Fennessey?

  She even kind of resembles Emily Blunt.

• 22:31Amanda Dobbins?

  She does. And so the more, the more that people watch it and thought about it, and I think also it's a, you know, just an age thing, the older you get, you start to realize just how annoying Andy is and how much she has to learn.

• 22:43Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you know.

• 22:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Can you please spell Gabana?

• 22:47Sean Fennessey?

  I revisited the original film last week and I don't have the same level of affection for it that you do. I think it's a very entertaining movie. I do think that there's a series of moments in the movie where I'm just like, this is just complete poppycock. And like, maybe it is true to Lauren Weisberger's experience, but that, that joke, can you spell Gabana? It's like, you would never, ever, ever get that job if you didn't know what that was. Or if you did, then actually Anna Wintour is not as impressive a person as I thought she was. It just, it just makes no sense. It's illogical in that world, which is so cutthroat.

• 23:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Don't you feel though, maybe this is just getting older? Like every once in a while, don't you like interact with your own version of like, can you please spell Gabana? You know, when you're working with people and you're just like, come on.

• 23:29Sean Fennessey?

  They're almost never proximate to power.

• 23:33Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 23:34Sean Fennessey?

  That there's something about the people who get to be in that inner sanctum, who get access to that kind of a person where like, that person needs to be vetted. They really, they really need to be vetted.

• 23:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree.

• 23:42Sean Fennessey?

  So the, the movie I find is like a little wobbly. The other thing that I find very wobbly about the movie, though, with credit to this new movie, it follows through on some of it, is everything in Andy's personal life, I find to be like ridiculously overdrawn and silly.

• 23:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 23:54Sean Fennessey?

  And, but it might, it might inform some of like, that core theme that I think you're, you've always very smartly talked about, which is it's like a movie about being good at your job, right?

• 24:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 24:02Sean Fennessey?

  And how like, sometimes as a young person, you can be really drawn into the world of your work at the expense of other things, because you realize how important it is and how it makes you feel alive and it gives you a sense of purpose. These are, that's what I.

• 24:13Amanda Dobbins?

  And you're ambitious too.

• 24:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And I completely relate to that. And I, I love that about the movie, but like, the Adrian Grenier character and Rich Sommer and Tracey Tombs' characters in the movie, I'm like. I don't who those are not real people to me. They're like very poorly written characters.

• 24:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Nate is very ambitious because he's he spends a week learning how to make french fries, you know, which is actually an important skill. Too many frozen, pre frozen french fries on the market these days.

• 24:34Sean Fennessey?

  And as parents of young children, of course, we know how important that is. But Tracey Thompson's character comes back into this movie, actually, and pretty credibly, I thought. I was like, yeah, I buy that they stayed friends for 20 years despite the fact that she scolded her after Simon Baker gave her a kiss on the cheek some 20 years past.

• 24:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure. I mean, that was weird. And I was I was explaining to you, I haven't read the book in 15 years. And the book is just OK. I think that both both films improve on it.

• 24:57Sean Fennessey?

  OK.

• 24:58Amanda Dobbins?

  But there's a whole side plot with that character getting in a car accident or something and having a lot of personal problems that the Andy character doesn't really, yeah, doesn't really support. I guess in the book, she's maybe merged with the Emily character. But the point is that Andy is like not a particularly good friend. That was translated in the movie into slut shaming.

• 25:22Sean Fennessey?

  2006 Amanda, did you relate to Andy? Did you feel close to Andy?

• 25:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I so I saw this movie. This movie came out the summer after I graduated college and I was attending the Columbia Publishing Course. Do you know what that is?

• 25:37Sean Fennessey?

  I do, of course.

• 25:38Amanda Dobbins?

  It's.

• 25:38Sean Fennessey?

  Explain it to the listeners.

• 25:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, so it's essentially it's a six week sort of summer school slash, I mean, finishing school, for lack of a better word, program for people who are interested in book and magazine publishing. And it primarily focuses on book publishing. And I think a lot of book editors go there. And in addition to teaching you like how book publishing works, there's like a lot of networking and I guess it's like a field team or something. I was interested in magazines. And so I remember I left Columbia Publishing Course early one day to go sit and see the Devil Wears Prada, 86th Street AMC, I believe, because it was closest. And then also, as a part of the Columbia Publishing Course, like, we got to meet Anna.

• 26:24Amanda Dobbins?

  So I remember deeply freaking out about what I was gonna wear to meet Anna. I wore I wore heels. I wore an actual outfit. Unlike Andy, I took it seriously and I knew the target that I was going for, but. In the, I think the idea that, oh, you're supposed to be an assistant at one of these magazines, like an apprenticeship, pay your dues for a couple of years and then you get to be the New York Magazine journalist, writing amazing pieces, was how I understood what was coming my way. So in that sense, yeah, yes, I absolutely did.

• 26:58Sean Fennessey?

  Do you relate to 2026 Andy Sachs? And maybe you should situate her.

• 27:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. So it's funny, this movie is actually mostly about her, which is the other interesting choice.

• 27:09Sean Fennessey?

  Good news for me.

• 27:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, listen, Anne Hathaway looks amazing. Every single outfit is dynamite, including the one that I purchased off of paparazzi photos and felt really good about. It did make it into the final cut.

• 27:22Amanda Dobbins?

  And-

• 27:22Sean Fennessey?

  Is that the shiny blue dress?

• 27:26Amanda Dobbins?

  No, but you know what?

• 27:27Sean Fennessey?

  I like that dress.

• 27:28Amanda Dobbins?

  One of the, one of the canned dresses, you remember the gold dress that I bought in Vegas? That I told you, I was like, this morning I got up and bought a dress on the real real. No, you didn't see it, but I told you that this was happening. Very similar, but gold instead of blue, but shiny.

• 27:39Sean Fennessey?

  Great.

• 27:40Amanda Dobbins?

  So I felt really good about that. Thanks. Yeah. I'll be wearing that to the premiere of Paper Tigers. Could someone from Neon please get in touch? Anyway.

• 27:51Sean Fennessey?

  We're gonna be okay. Don't worry.

• 27:52Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I know. So she looks great, but the movie starts with Anne Hathaway winning a journalism award. She works for a newspaper and then she's laid off while accepting the award, her entire newspaper team is, because hedge funds are similar, a very familiar, similar structure to what happens in the real world and to journalists. And so she comes back to Runway because she needs a job, because Runway needs some credibility after a bad journalism, after a journalism scandal, they've written a flattering piece about a company that uses sweatshops. And so she's there to figure her life out and save journalism.

• 28:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I sort of have my life figured out and I don't think I'm going to be able to save journalism. So I don't really identify with her that much.

• 28:41Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 28:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I admire her.

• 28:43Sean Fennessey?

  What about her emotional core?

• 28:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Where she doesn't, she loves her work more than her personal life, can't attach to anything and doesn't want a renovated building.

• 28:57Sean Fennessey?

  Well, those are specific details about her life, but I think there's something very unusual about Andy.

• 29:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:04Sean Fennessey?

  Where she's exceedingly confident and also completely falling apart at the same time.

• 29:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:11Sean Fennessey?

  And I just, just having to chat with my wife last night about that and just, I feel like I encounter a lot of women in my life at this stage of my life.

• 29:17Amanda Dobbins?

  You think I'm falling apart?

• 29:18Sean Fennessey?

  Not, that's, that's unkind, but that there's like, under siege, but powering through is like, is a, is a, is a mark of, just, just in the very limited experience of my life.

• 29:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:33Sean Fennessey?

  And we were, and you know, Eileen.

• 29:34Amanda Dobbins?

  It's called having it all.

• 29:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I know, I know. And I'm, I'm, I'm asking you this because I'm kind of wondering, like, will the people who grew up on this movie, who are very excited about this sequel, will, will the decision to actually make this movie very much about Andy's conflicts and her inability to kind of go to, do certain things, but also her, you know, she's clearly extraordinarily intelligent, right? And she's actually able to situate herself in this job that she has not a lot of training for in an environment where like, how long did she really spend as Miranda's assistant in the film?

• 30:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 30:05Sean Fennessey?

  Three months, six months? How long are we supposed to believe that took place?

• 30:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe a year.

• 30:08Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. And she's like, you know, still able to fall in love and, and is very comfortable and confident in these high end, high market environments pretty quickly.

• 30:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 30:17Sean Fennessey?

  But also has like a real kind of daffiness. I, I think this was a great character for Anne Hathaway, so I've never really been like, well, it's Miranda's movie. I, I of course love Anne Hathaway as a actor, but um, I was happy that we spent so much time with Andy.

• 30:29Amanda Dobbins?

  It's the perfect balance for the Miranda character. And you need someone who, they both have it together in different ways and they both have skills that the other doesn't. And that's why both movies end with, you know, a moment of reconciliation between the two of them in the back of a town car, which at least in Europe is still available to Miranda.

• 30:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 30:54Amanda Dobbins?

  So I agree with you. I think that.

• 30:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Just when I watch this movie, I watch it for aspiration, not relatability. And so I'm drawn to the Miranda character, you know? And that's a little bit about how the first movie is also about fashion, which is the ultimate like aspirational business. And this is about Andy typing in straight into the CMS, which stresses me out. Are people still, are you typing into CMS on Substack? You're not doing a Google Doc first?

• 31:24Sean Fennessey?

  I've done both thus far. The thing that, not that anyone cares, but the thing with the CMS at Substack is like, once you just drop a YouTube link or a podcast link in there, it just instantaneously populates. And there's something very gratifying about that.

• 31:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 31:37Sean Fennessey?

  Like visually while you're editing.

• 31:38Amanda Dobbins?

  So you understand the format?

• 31:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 31:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, that's cool, but publishing into the CMS, listen, I'm blogging one, I'm like 1.0. You can't be doing that.

• 31:47Sean Fennessey?

  Look, I've been in many CMSs over the years. That's a content management system, for those of you at home, which is effectively the tool used for publishing platforms. And we've actually circled back to the ease of use of a blogger circa 2006.

• 32:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 32:01Sean Fennessey?

  So I enjoy that about it. But this movie is so specific about things like that. It's so, it is like, no one knows what a CMS is, you know? 0.01% of the population knows what that means.

• 32:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Like an entire generation of Tumblr kids knows what a CMS is. Because Tumblr was a CMS.

• 32:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, they have certainly been inside of publishing platforms, but they don't call it that.

• 32:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 32:22Sean Fennessey?

  Anyway, I, I.

• 32:24Amanda Dobbins?

  They do know what social pins are, though. So Miranda does too.

• 32:27Sean Fennessey?

  What is a social pin?

• 32:28Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't know what a social, when you pin a post to the top of your, yeah.

• 32:32Sean Fennessey?

  That's just called a social pin? I mean, of course I do that. I just didn't know it had a title.

• 32:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. We're on the glacier now.

• 32:39Sean Fennessey?

  One thing that you mentioned is that the first film did not have a lot of participation from the fashion community. And this film has a lot of participation clearly from Vogue and from the fashion community.

• 32:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:51Sean Fennessey?

  Why do you think that is? Does the movie benefit in a meaningful way from that at all?

• 32:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I think the fashion community and Vogue are, at this point, kind of different beasts. There are a tremendous number of cameos of people who just want to be in the movie. Some of them fashion-related, Marc Jacobs, Donatella Versace, La Roche, Heidi Klum, Naomi Campbell, the New York Times critic Vanessa Friedman is both name-checked and then in-profile.

• 33:19Sean Fennessey?

  Huge look.

• 33:21Amanda Dobbins?

  And then, you know, just people like Karl-Anthony Towns.

• 33:25Sean Fennessey?

  Love to see him, my guy.

• 33:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Kara Swisher.

• 33:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 33:27Amanda Dobbins?

  And then the moment where I actually started physically hitting you in the middle of the screening, Tina Brown, my girl Tina, is in Devil Wears Prada 2. And that's when I was really just like, I don't, I don't know what I'm gonna do right now. I don't know how I'm gonna handle this.

• 33:41Sean Fennessey?

  That was cap catching the hammer for you. You freaked the fuck out.

• 33:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I was, but I was also like, this is weird that things are so, the things in my mind are now on the screen and I'm pretty uncomfortable about it.

• 33:54Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Have you met Aileen Brash McKenna? I've wondered that.

• 33:57Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I've never met her. Um, but I've been big admirer, morning glory forever.

• 34:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Tina wrote a great Substack about the experience of being on the cameo, which was, which had great details, including that...

• 34:11Sean Fennessey?

  You subscribed to her Substack?

• 34:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Excuse me, day one subscriber to Tina Brown's Substack. Fresh hell, everybody get involved.

• 34:19Sean Fennessey?

  Just asking?

• 34:19Amanda Dobbins?

  It's wonderful. Listen, Tina forever.

• 34:23Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, all right, simmer down.

• 34:25Amanda Dobbins?

  But I think some of the great details included that there wasn't enough, like, food on the set, so then Kara Swisher organized like a group delivery order. And also...

• 34:38Sean Fennessey?

  They doordashed to a Hamptons estate?

• 34:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I believe so. I mean, the company in question was not named, but Kara Swisher did organize the, um, the order.

• 34:47Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think they got, Jersey mics?

• 34:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Probably, yeah. And then also that Tina provided her own outfit, but then accessories were provided by the film in the costume department.

• 34:59Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. She wasn't given any lines, unfortunately.

• 35:01Amanda Dobbins?

  She said, she does talk about that. She says that she did her line so many times and was so bad at it. She was like, I understand why I'm silent because I just, I couldn't do it.

• 35:10Sean Fennessey?

  Acting is very hard.

• 35:11Amanda Dobbins?

  She also said that she was seated next to Karl-Anthony Towns at the fake dinner and that she did not know who he was and then learned a lot about athletes' lives and how they can be traded at any moment.

• 35:22Sean Fennessey?

  Oh my.

• 35:23Amanda Dobbins?

  It's really funny. And then she-

• 35:24Sean Fennessey?

  She just learned that.

• 35:25Amanda Dobbins?

  She just learned that.

• 35:26Sean Fennessey?

  She employed Brian Curtis for years. That's so surprising.

• 35:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Well, I don't, I think they were talking about other things.

• 35:32Sean Fennessey?

  That's probably true. First of all, shout out to Cat. He's been having a great series. Hopefully the Knicks triumph over the Hawks before-

• 35:38Amanda Dobbins?

  He's on the Knicks now.

• 35:40Sean Fennessey?

  Cat, yeah, he's been on the Knicks for years.

• 35:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't-

• 35:42Sean Fennessey?

  This is his third season with the Knicks?

• 35:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I thought he was great in this. I was happy to see him.

• 35:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. He just, just recently went on a double date with your boy Timothy Chalamet and Kylie Jenner and his girlfriend, Jordan Woods.

• 35:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, really?

• 35:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I was just reading about this.

• 35:53Amanda Dobbins?

  After the game?

• 35:54Sean Fennessey?

  Either, maybe the night before?

• 35:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Well, either way, I, it stresses me out how often professional athletes are just like out late, even though the next day they need to use, you know, they need to be in fit, physical condition. Yeah, it does.

• 36:10Sean Fennessey?

  Given the way he's been performing in this series, I don't, I don't wanna, I don't wanna jinx it.

• 36:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Who am I to know?

• 36:14Sean Fennessey?

  But it was nice to see him. It was nice. Jenna Bush, Hager was in this movie. There were a ton of people who got like one line.

• 36:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 36:20Sean Fennessey?

  And it similarly has that comic book movie feel of like, all your faves are all together at this one fun party. Felt a little cheap to me though, you know, in the way that these things often feel cheap.

• 36:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, I agree. And it was a real, like, now this is, this is a sequel. We gotta do something. Everyone wants to be a part of this, so we'll farm it out. I think that the cheapest part of it is that there's a Lady Gaga performance as well as a cameo in the, at the event that they host in Milan that is sort of like, it's, I guess it's akin to an Italian Met Ball.

• 36:51Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Which does often have a pop star major performance. I'm sure Lady Gaga has been the chair of the Met Ball at least once.

• 37:00Sean Fennessey?

  And What does one do as the chair?

• 37:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, you put your name on a lot of things and then you get photographed. Can I tell you who two of the chairs of the upcoming Met Ball, which is on Monday, the first day in May are?

• 37:13Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 37:13Amanda Dobbins?

  They are Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez.

• 37:15Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, interesting.

• 37:16Amanda Dobbins?

  So that is pretty interesting, given the portrayal of Jeff Bezos or the Jeff Bezos-esque character in this movie.

• 37:23Sean Fennessey?

  We, you know, we're in full spoiler territory here, but there is a kind of Lauren Sanchez-esque character in the movie as well. And it's a character we know.

• 37:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. Uh, spoiler, I guess. Yes, her name is Emily, played by Emily Blunt, who now is an executive at Dior.

• 37:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And Dior features prominently. She is shown chastising Miranda Priestly for the legitimately bad journalism and then extracting the price of several free ad pages.

• 37:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 37:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And a feature story about the store opening, which I really wonder how everyone at Dior and Louis Vuitton, uh, LVMH feels.

• 38:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Let me ask you this.

• 38:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 38:02Sean Fennessey?

  Ball knower. Does that happen in real life?

• 38:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know if it happens at that level.

• 38:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I know that-

• 38:08Sean Fennessey?

  That is something that was oft rumored.

• 38:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 38:11Sean Fennessey?

  When I was working at Conde Nast across many publications, but certainly never confirmed because it's a decision that's made at the absolute highest level.

• 38:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. I mean, no one ever told me, yeah, this ad page was free. Um, I, you know, we all know that advertisers have to be featured in fashion spreads in certain ways. And I think the companies have had like an increasing amount of say, there's now in vogue at least what's called a full look commitment, which is that you can't mix and match as they do in that famous Cerulean speech in the first episode. You have to wear head to toe Dior or Prada or et cetera. Um, even in an editorial. Uh, I don't, I don't know whether that happened specifically. I feel pretty confident that LVMH, the conglomerate that owns Dior, uh, is not thrilled about the portrayal of anything. And there's also a new, very cool, very, uh,

• 39:02Amanda Dobbins?

  movie invested designer, Jonathan Anderson, who has done the costumes for some Luca Guadagnino movies, who now runs Dior. Wondering how he's feeling about that. Seems like that was all, this was all inked and scripted before he came on board. Um, but yes, so Emily, in addition to being, um, a corporate-

• 39:21Amanda Dobbins?

  A fashion person is now also dating the Jeff Bezos character and helps Andy plot a takeover of runway, which Andy thinks is going to be to protect Miranda. And then it turns out to be so that Emily, the Emily Blunt character can be in charge of runway.

• 39:43Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 39:45Amanda Dobbins?

  So, but there she dresses not, she wears more Dior, but she dresses not unlike Lauren Sanchez does and is portrayed in a similar way. I mean, they even talk about how the Jeff Bezos character, I can't remember his actual name, has had like a real physical transformation and all of his workouts. It's, it's really, really very specific. And in the meantime, Vogue, the magazine is going to have them like on the steps of their, their quote unquote biggest night of the year on Monday. I wonder if there will be any phone calls. Vogue's decision to embrace this is fascinating to me and makes sense and is just really about how Vogue and Kanye Nast like have no power anymore.

• 40:27Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think that, so there's a new American editor, Chloe Mal, who's been doing a lot of this work. And I think she's been very savvy and just knows that it will be a big thing and that it'll kind of up the profile of Vogue at a time when it really needs that. But it's a real like balance of powers has shifted situation.

• 40:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 40:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Which the movie then confirms, which is what's so fascinating.

• 40:49Sean Fennessey?

  It's a really unique document of the real life echoing the movie echoing the real life.

• 40:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 40:55Sean Fennessey?

  I, the other interesting thing about that power dynamic is that it certainly feels like this movie is going to be a huge hit.

• 41:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:03Sean Fennessey?

  And the screening that we went to was quite interesting. It was like, it was Barbenheimer for cool moms, you know? Like there were, there were more. More ladies in that screening than I can recall in any press screening in Los Angeles ever.

• 41:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Correct.

• 41:19Sean Fennessey?

  Also significantly more stylish.

• 41:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 41:22Sean Fennessey?

  People in that screening.

• 41:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:23Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know, you can talk about it in some detail.

• 41:25Amanda Dobbins?

  A lot of people wearing red, which has, you know, been established as the signature color of the press tour. And it's what Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep and then Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci, when they joined, have been wearing on this really extended and to me Barbie-esque press tour. Margot Robbie was on the road for weeks in various Barbie-inspired outfits, which I thought was very clever and playing to an audience that is not usually marketed to in movies, but that the both films really deliver to. So they did a lot. We had a lot of people in red, lots of good bags. I think bags are not dead.

• 42:02Sean Fennessey?

  Is that something that's been discussed?

• 42:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, there is, there is.

• 42:04Sean Fennessey?

  Bags are dead.

• 42:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that people don't want, you know, the fancy like, ooh, the new Marc Jacobs. That's a Devil Wears Prada one reference. That you either need a laptop bag or a tiny bag. I'm going to go the other way. I'm post laptop and I have a new normal bag that I like, so.

• 42:19Sean Fennessey?

  You're sitting in front of a laptop.

• 42:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but I just, that's, that's when I'm here.

• 42:24Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 42:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Otherwise.

• 42:25Sean Fennessey?

  Be careful when you say you're post something when you're using that thing actively.

• 42:29Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a state of mind.

• 42:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'd love to be post laptop. Unfortunately.

• 42:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, there were not a lot of laptop bags at this screening. There were a lot of bag bags.

• 42:37Sean Fennessey?

  No. Well, thankfully, no one was using their laptop during the screening. I, um, I thought that was quite fascinating. It felt like there was maybe some more.

• 42:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:46Sean Fennessey?

  Influencer invites, um, you know, shout out to AMC Burbank 16, my true, my one true home.

• 42:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:54Sean Fennessey?

  I thought it was indicative of the fact that there's more opportunity to do this kind of thing for this audience. And then not every movie is The Devil Wears Prada and it doesn't loom as large as, and most movies don't loom as large as that movie does.

• 43:08Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's not as marketable.

• 43:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 43:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Are you aware of all the tie-ins? Like, are you?

• 43:12Sean Fennessey?

  No, but I mean, that makes sense, of course.

• 43:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, of course, it makes sense.

• 43:15Sean Fennessey?

  It's like Star Wars for, for, for professional women.

• 43:17Amanda Dobbins?

  But it is a little surprising when to suddenly be on the other side of it and. You know, Juliette Lippman was talking about how she was on the GE website because she needs a new appliance. And there's a Devil Wears Prada GE.

• 43:30Sean Fennessey?

  She was shopping for an appliance from GE's website?

• 43:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I think she was just looking at the options and some of the options were featured in the Devil Wears Prada 2, which was noted on the website. So, you know, and there is like a very literal like 30 Rock vibe to that. But it also makes sense. Also, as soon as she said that, I was like, oh, I know where the appliances were. They were in the the flip of the, you know, the new apartment. And it wasn't totally tacky the way it was included.

• 43:59Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk about that strain of the story.

• 44:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Colin from Accounts? That was Colin from Accounts?

• 44:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I've not seen that show. I know that's a show, but I haven't seen that show. Who is that person?

• 44:08Amanda Dobbins?

  So Colin from Accounts is the name that I don't know his actual name. I'm scrolling. Where is it? Let's go. Patrick Bramall, AKA Colin from Accounts, who is the contractor who renovated a beautiful building on Henry Street, the corner of Henry and Amity. I know because they were filming there when I was there visiting my sister-in-law Ruthie last summer, and they showed knock some of their cameras. They were very nice. Thank you to everyone in the Devil Wears Prada 2 set. So he's renovated this building and Andy goes to see it because she has enough resources

• 44:47Amanda Dobbins?

  to buy a luxury building despite being an out of work newspaper journalist turned features editor at Runway, which just 20 years later, just being a features editor, that's tough in the in the era of title inflation.

• 45:03Sean Fennessey?

  Let's not scold Andy Sachs, please.

• 45:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, but I just, I want more for her. That's what I'm saying.

• 45:09Sean Fennessey?

  Journalist who's telling real stories in the real world.

• 45:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I'm just saying that's tough for her. So she goes to look.

• 45:16Sean Fennessey?

  How high up on the masthead do you think she was at Runway when she got that gig?

• 45:21Amanda Dobbins?

  What do you mean? Like, oh, how high up is features editor?

• 45:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 45:25Amanda Dobbins?

  So as I haven't looked at Vogue's masthead in a while, but I do think that.

• 45:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess features comes before, well, I don't know. Maybe they do it. I don't know. I don't know where it is. Not that high.

• 45:39Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe it's a, maybe it's a side by side situation where the, the story journalists are over here and the fashion team is over here.

• 45:44Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's always been that the, the fashion team is just so much bigger. And then the beauty team, and then you've got like all the online stuff. I assume that they've renovated this over time. Um, but she's not in the top grouping, you know? Like with the editor in chief or global content, whatever, creative director, so and so. And I, I just think 20 years later, I want more for her. Anyway, she can afford this apartment, so she goes to see it. She says that she likes old things instead of new things in the world's most obvious metaphor. And she says it directly to the contractor himself, but it counts as a meet cute. And so they start a very innocuous relationship that is just fine

• 46:29Amanda Dobbins?

  until she yells at him for no reason and goes to Milan. Okay, I guess.

• 46:37Sean Fennessey?

  Did you want more from, for Andy's life in this movie?

• 46:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I saw paparazzi photos of her filming outside Long Island Bar, which is two blocks from the building in question and a, and a great Brooklyn establishment. And I wanted Long Island Bar in the film and it was cut. And I assume she went there with this guy, Colin from accounts. What was his real name in the movie?

• 46:58Sean Fennessey?

  Couldn't tell you.

• 46:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Peter? Okay, good luck to him.

• 47:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, sure.

• 47:03Amanda Dobbins?

  He seemed nice, but I don't care about her personal life. You do. What did you want for her?

• 47:10Sean Fennessey?

  I wanted her to realize all her hopes and dreams.

• 47:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 47:12Sean Fennessey?

  I'm rooting for her.

• 47:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Don't you think she is?

• 47:15Sean Fennessey?

  Nope.

• 47:16Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 47:16Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think so.

• 47:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, what, what?

• 47:18Sean Fennessey?

  I think she was fired from a dream job because an industry collapsed and she was dragooned for financial and quieted personal ambition reasons to return to her origin story and try to make good on it. She was very happy to have some success in that space and reconnect with some people. But by the same token, The movie is a slightly cynical about, it's kind of the inverse of the original. Where the original is like, goodbye to all that. What I don't need are these, you know, this accoutrement of lifestyle to feel like a real person. And I assume that that's kind of the core theme of the book. As a person, as an author who abandoned that space to go pursue what she really wanted to do.

• 48:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 48:02Sean Fennessey?

  But the movie is sort of like, this new movie is like, actually,

• 48:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:08Sean Fennessey?

  it is kind of great to be at the seat of power and to look beautiful and to be styled just so.

• 48:13Amanda Dobbins?

  But are they at the seat of power by the end?

• 48:16Sean Fennessey?

  Close enough.

• 48:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Or are they working together? Is it a, it's more of like a found family movie, which is silly, but they're all-

• 48:24Sean Fennessey?

  This is actually your Guardians of the Galaxy.

• 48:25Amanda Dobbins?

  They're all like there together at the end. And she even has this lunch with Emily where Emily is like, I really wanted to be friends. Which what? That's the second biggest sin of the movie.

• 48:33Sean Fennessey?

  Just a completely false note.

• 48:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Seriously, like, no.

• 48:37Sean Fennessey?

  I love Emily Blunt too, so I was like, I'll roll with this, but not, not a real.

• 48:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's tough that it's so hard to get her in the same frame as all of these people, which is always a sequel problem, right? Because characters would have moved on. But yeah, it didn't make sense. But it does feel like the movie, and it's probably just because of that like sequel mandate that we have to get them all back together, that the reason we want to get them back together is because they all want to be together, you know?

• 49:02Sean Fennessey?

  Can't Andy just try to go work at the New York Times or the Atlantic? Like, what are, why are we pretending like it makes any sense for her to go work at Vogue?

• 49:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I, you're right. But even that is revealed as it's revealed later in the movie that it was Stanley Tucci's character Nigel, who suggested that she be hired because she's always been his number one. And that's really meaningful to her.

• 49:25Sean Fennessey?

  Have they spoken to one another in 20 years?

• 49:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think so.

• 49:28Sean Fennessey?

  That's a bit curious.

• 49:31Amanda Dobbins?

  And also unrealistic. So I, I agree with you, but the movie really does seem to, this is why I'm like, it's kind of a Gen Z movie. It's about, it's all forcing them together to be like, we love each other.

• 49:41Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Gen Z loves when you speak for them. I've, I've learned that that's something they really enjoy.

• 49:47Amanda Dobbins?

  This episode is brought to you by Apple and AT&T. Scroll long enough and you'll hear it all. Miracle diets, fitness trends, you name it. But with iPhone and Apple Watch, you get meaningful insights from a very trusted source: your body. You can track sleep quality, cardio fitness and more, then unpack all the information in the Health app on iPhone to get a picture of your overall health. These health insights are developed with clinical experts from start to finish. Find out more at apple.com/health. Apple Watch is not a medical device and should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice.

• 50:18Sean Fennessey?

  Any other thoughts? You want to make any box office predictions for this movie?

• 50:22Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I want to do things that I learned about The Devil Wears Prada Universe that I didn't know.

• 50:26Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, fire away.

• 50:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Number one, Miranda drinks rosé.

• 50:30Sean Fennessey?

  Makes sense.

• 50:31Amanda Dobbins?

  It does, but I'm not sure I expected to see a scene of Miranda Priestly in the Hamptons and they've recreated Anna Wintour's Mastic estate. It's pretty faithfully according to at least photographs that I've seen. We're in deep cut territory here. And so she's just in the kitchen pouring rosé and like telling Andy about her ambitions. Two things I never really expected to see happen. Also, in that scene, the third false note of the movie is she's wearing pumas?

• 51:04Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 51:04Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 51:05Sean Fennessey?

  I thought you wrote down Stan Smiths. Was it actually pumas?

• 51:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I investigated it and because it had, it had the little like blue back on the, but they were flatter and smaller, so I think they're pumas.

• 51:15Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 51:16Amanda Dobbins?

  It went pretty quickly.

• 51:18Sean Fennessey?

  If they, if they were Stan Smiths, would you feel differently?

• 51:21Amanda Dobbins?

  But they weren't as chunky as Stan Smiths. They have like the very, very narrow profile.

• 51:27Sean Fennessey?

  That doesn't answer my question. If they were Stan Smiths, would you feel differently?

• 51:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't really feel that Miranda is wearing sneakers to host 20 to 30 luminaries for a lobster lunch in the Hamptons. I personally think that there would be a sandal.

• 51:42Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 51:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Probably an Hermes sandal. Anyway. And as my, as our friend Molly, who came to this screening with us. Turned to me and said, I guess we all have to wear ties now.

• 51:55Sean Fennessey?

  That was funny.

• 51:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Which I thought was a really great observation by Molly. Thank you for coming. Also, to speak to the event of it all, Molly turned down attending a, not turned down, but she was supposed to go see Devil Wears Prada 2, I believe with the book club and was already coming to see it with me. I have another friend who's like, well, I have tickets at this time. There's a real, people are making plans, reservation group quality to this movie that I have not seen since Barbie. So, to your point, I don't think it's gonna be Barbie big, but I think it's gonna be really big.

• 52:30Sean Fennessey?

  Um, what does that look like to you? Have you looked at the tracking?

• 52:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I know that it's tracking for 180 million globally on the opening weekend.

• 52:38Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, it's quite good.

• 52:39Amanda Dobbins?

  That's quite good. Do you, I mean, what numbers do you want? Do you want what I think domestic opening weekend?

• 52:44Sean Fennessey?

  I guess I'd be curious to know where this movie lands. I didn't really do like a Legacy Sequels comp thing here, but you know, what are the, what are some recent ones? Blade Runner 2049, Mad Max Fury Road and Furiosa.

• 53:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 53:00Sean Fennessey?

  You know, we've got The Social Reckoning coming out later this year. Like, it's obviously something that's gonna be happening more and more where, I think especially for grownups, that this is a way to kind of feed a quasi prestigious crowd, but also serve.

• 53:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 53:14Sean Fennessey?

  You know, just that, that childlike brain of, I know what that is, I like that. Um, so I'm kind of, I'm quite fascinated by how this movie does.

• 53:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it'll also have pretty broad international appeal.

• 53:27Sean Fennessey?

  Because of the world of fashion and it taking place in Europe.

• 53:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. And I, because I think these are high profile characters and they've also, I mean, they have been serving it everywhere. It has been a very international strategy, smartly, I think.

• 53:41Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Um, will it cross $500 million worldwide? That would make it pretty damn big.

• 53:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe.

• 53:51Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, kind of fascinating. There's some, so, I mean, this dovetails into the conversation I want to have about Mylan kicks.

• 53:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 53:57Sean Fennessey?

  But it is something that I have been thinking about quite a bit. A few years back, when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie came out, the animated movie that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg produced, they wrote this long, emotional Letterboxd review about

• 54:11Sean Fennessey?

  it coming for us, so to speak. You know, this, these remnants of our youth kind of starting to echo deeply in ways that are, seem cynical, but are also very personal. Like, that animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie had a couple of musical cues, a couple of gags in it, that felt like it was really scratching something very personal, which seems silly, but you very eloquently illuminated for an hour, all of the ways in which this movie kind of tapped into, or failed to tap into, certain aspects of your personality and your experiences as a person, and/or how you aspire to things, and how that maybe let you down over time. And we're in this rich moment.

• 54:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 54:51Sean Fennessey?

  Because of our age, and because of the state of the movie business, where like, this is gonna keep happening. We're gonna keep having feelings like this. There are plenty of movies over the years where you see something personal happen to a character, and you connect to it. Like, I vividly recall with ease, the dinner table sequence in Boyhood, where they're seated with their new stepfather or mom's boyfriend. And I'm like, that's just like a chilling movie moment for me, to watch that, and to feel that, and to think about the characters at that table. But this is different. This is like, there's something mechanized about this, that

• 55:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:29Sean Fennessey?

  also still kind of gratifies us. And I'm trying to get my arms around the feeling.

• 55:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you mean mechanized in the sense that it is so, I mean, it is so big and broad, and certainly corporate, and the number of tie-ins, and they're, you know, they made a fake runway magazine that they've been handing out at CinemaCon, and, oh, oh, it's here. Yes, hello. Hello, Emily Charlton. And, you know, at the screenings. And respectfully, it's not a very good magazine. You know, they've done tie-in articles, the Lucy Luke character is in there. The ads that are inspired by the original memes are much better than the, you know, kind of SpawnCon features that they've done to tie into the movie. But...

• 56:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it does have like a fake orchestrated quality to it, which has been the source of most of my anxiety about this movie. I gotta be honest, I feel fine on this one. I mean, it's a little strange and with respect to GE, I'm not gonna go buy a new appliance. I don't need a new appliance right now.

• 56:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 56:32Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and most of the tie-ins and the merch and the marketing stuff is just has not really been for me. But the fact that it's considered valuable enough to, to spend all that time on it. And it does mean that more time and money was spent on the thing itself. And I, so I get to have a fun time watching something as opposed to that money and time and all that marketing stuff being spent on a bunch of things I don't care about.

• 57:01Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 57:02Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a new sensation, but I'm okay. If it were really bad, I would obviously feel differently, but it's not.

• 57:07Sean Fennessey?

  It's, yeah, it's not really bad. It is a little bit duplicative at times and it also is a little bit of a downer at times. But it's very watchable and, and entertaining in a way that you don't usually expect from a movie like this. You know, I think this movie has a kind of like action figures quality for you and a lot of the things that you enjoy where it keeps popping up. And most of the movies that I'm referring to are about totems of my youth, comic book characters. This in June will have Masters of the Universe.

• 57:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 57:35Sean Fennessey?

  My own kind of personal, I don't know about anxiety, but just kind of like that, that personal cringe of like, oh, this is a thing I loved. And now it's being made for people 40 years later. There's something, something very odd about that sensation. But this, this movie, Mile and Kicks, to me is probably the closest that I'll get to the feeling that you have with The Devil Wears Prada.

• 57:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 57:55Sean Fennessey?

  Where Chandler Levack wrote and directed this movie that is clearly very autobiographical about her experience working in the world of music journalism and working for music magazines. Like me, she worked for Spin for a period of time. She went back to Canada and worked for local music magazines and reviewed records. And her character in this film, played by Barbie Ferreira, attempts a 33 and a third book. I never wrote one of those, but I certainly thought about it. And I certainly thought it was important to write one.

• 58:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Who would you have wanted to do?

• 58:28Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's a generous question.

• 58:32Sean Fennessey?

  I think probably.

• 58:39Sean Fennessey?

  Check Your Head by the Beastie Boys? I think would have been interesting.

• 58:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Band's not here, so we can talk about it for forever.

• 58:44Sean Fennessey?

  I know, what a shameful moment that was. There's any number of interesting albums I would have liked to have spent time on. But, um, you know, this movie is like, is Frances Ha me, it's almost famous. It's a very personal coming of age story about a young woman trying to find love, trying to be professionally successful, obsessed with music, obsessed with the culture of music. But then the closer you get to it, the more you realize that the people that are inside of that world can be kind of shitty, can take advantage of you, can treat you poorly. I didn't have the exact same experiences that the Barbie Ferrera character had. I'm obviously not a woman. But to see music journalism circa 2011 and like, kind of like the shithole career that

• 59:28Sean Fennessey?

  that was, you know, the way that you were paid for things, the things that you got so excited about getting free CDs, going to go to a show. At the time, I was having the time of my life. I wasn't having, I made all my best friends during that period of my life. I, to this day, love music and think about it all the time. But it also shows just kind of like how dingy all that is and how it's the, it's the opposite of the divorce product. Where there's no glamour.

• 59:51Amanda Dobbins?

  True, yes. And you find yourself just standing around cubicles with groups of men trying to get a word in edgewise, and that doesn't happen. I, I saw a lot of myself in this movie, even though I never worked specifically at music magazines. I worked at various websites and more general interest magazines. But, you know, I knew, that's when I met all of you guys, was kind of at the tail end of that time when you were growing up. And it's, it was incredibly familiar from the perspective of being the young woman who doesn't have things figured out in this world and has a lot of interests. But her interests are, are similar, but not the same as all the men. She gives a great speech at the end that...

• 1:00:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Really, really spoke to young and old Amanda, just to, you know, the ways in which you have to feign interest in what's considered quote unquote, "cool." And then you have all these other things on the side that, you know, basically like, aren't acceptable for the canon.

• 1:00:52Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is true, Devil Wears Prada being one of them. So, you know, it's a, it's a full circle moment.

• 1:00:57Sean Fennessey?

  Totally.

• 1:00:57Amanda Dobbins?

  And now this is Devil Wears Prada is finally being accepted, even though it's for girl stuff. I thought it was very, very charming. Is there really not a 33 and 1/3 on Jag a Little Pill?

• 1:01:07Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. I haven't checked up.

• 1:01:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I just Googled and I can't find it.

• 1:01:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that is the, the Alanis Morissette album is the one that Barbie Ferrer's character wants to write and plans to write.

• 1:01:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:16Sean Fennessey?

  And then things happen along the way. I think, I, I had very similar experiences. I'm not sure how much I like feigned my taste per se, but I certainly felt very intimidated in those circles. In 2000, the summer of '03, I was an intern at Spin. And that was a very, to me, a very hallowed period of time at that magazine because of all the people that worked there, many of whom people will know, you know, Chuck Klosterman was working there at the time, Sia Michael was the editor in chief, Karen Gans, who's at the New York Times now, Alex Papadimas, like David Itzkoff, like John Dolan, Charles Aaron, who I idolized, like a ton of magazine writers and editors who knew, I thought

• 1:01:59Sean Fennessey?

  everything about everything and whose taste was superlative. And I was really, really intimidated. And I'm really, I have no shortage of ego, but I really didn't know how to talk to, I was afraid to talk to those people. And I wish I had spent more time talking to them. It's like very, I always think of it as very fortunate that later in life I got to be friends with Chuck and got to know him. Cause I, I just loved his writing so much and the way that he thought about things. But I completely related to the, the experience that that character is having in that way. And that sense of like, How do I contribute in any way that makes me useful? Which is such an insecure feeling.

• 1:02:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Sean Fennessey?

  But is a very real feeling when you're in these scenarios and you're a young person and you don't know if you totally have anything to add. And then you get older and you do a couple of things that for yourself that you feel happy about and you kind of like shed a lot of that anxiety. So it was really interesting to talk to Chandler, somebody who clearly is like, figured out who she wants to be, or at least in part, like what she wants to be doing with her time and is not afraid to just say like, I just said out loud that I like things I didn't like. And you know, there's a certain modicum of bravery and honesty about about doing that that I really appreciated.

• 1:03:07Amanda Dobbins?

  There is also a romantic subplot in this one that unlike Devil Wears Prada 2 is perfectly handled.

• 1:03:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:03:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And recognizable and like archetypal in a way, but also specific and funny. And you're rooting for it to to resolve in the right way. I I really, really dug this. I was very charmed by it.

• 1:03:25Sean Fennessey?

  Stanley Simons plays the lead singer of the fictionalized Canadian indie band. And you know, I guess this is around the time of like, clap your hands, say yeah, maybe like that that era of indie pop rock. And that guy is giving one of the most accurate performances I've ever seen. That is a dude I knew.

• 1:03:45Amanda Dobbins?

  It is so funny.

• 1:03:46Sean Fennessey?

  That is a guy who is in bands that I covered. And he's really, really, really funny. The other thing too, I mentioned this in the physical media high council episode that is coming later this month. But um Juliet Garepi, the the actress from Red Rooms is in this playing a completely different person. And I was like, who the fuck is that? She can also be like this? She's kind of doing a Julie Delpy kind of quality to her character that I really enjoyed. I really liked this movie. You know, I really enjoyed Roommates as well. I don't know if you got a chance to see that?

• 1:04:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I haven't seen this yet.

• 1:04:15Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, uh, this is the other movie that Chandler directed, which is uh, stars Sadie Sandler, Adam Sandler's daughter, and Chloe East from The Fableman's Inheritage, who an actress I have stock in. Very goofy Happy Madison movie, just told with female characters instead of older male characters. About two girls who become roommates at college and seem like they're going to be best friends forever. And then maybe clearly they're not.

• 1:04:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:04:37Sean Fennessey?

  And what happens from there. Felt very enjoyable and it was like really cool hearing Chandler talk about the ways in which she got the opportunity to do that. And the relationship that she now has with Adam Sandler of all people. So I hope people check that out. Very quickly, the state of music criticism?

• 1:04:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, good, bad, thumbs up, thumbs down.

• 1:04:55Sean Fennessey?

  No idea.

• 1:04:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Where are you?

• 1:04:56Sean Fennessey?

  No, I haven't been reading a lot of it. I respect people who do it.

• 1:04:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:00Sean Fennessey?

  It's some of the hardest, easy work you can do.

• 1:05:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it's quite hard. It was never on my aspiration board, you know?

• 1:05:09Sean Fennessey?

  It's pretty tricky. I'm relieved to not be thinking about it too much. You think I should write about music in the newsletter?

• 1:05:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I think you should write about whatever you want to write about.

• 1:05:17Sean Fennessey?

  What would you like to say?

• 1:05:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Are you glad to be writing again? That's the other way in which I don't relate to Andy. She's just like up all the time writing and I was like, no, no, no.

• 1:05:26Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I do love that feeling.

• 1:05:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Not for me.

• 1:05:27Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 1:05:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:28Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 1:05:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm happy for you.

• 1:05:29Sean Fennessey?

  I...

• 1:05:32Sean Fennessey?

  It's so hard, which it sounds like the whiniest thing ever when writers talk about this because it's like, well, don't do it. If you don't want to do it, don't do it.

• 1:05:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Quite literally how I feel.

• 1:05:41Sean Fennessey?

  And I understand that. But there is something specifically, even with this new experience that I'm having, where when something is published, it's tremendously gratifying in a way that this can't be, in a way that other stuff I do professionally can't be.

• 1:05:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:05:54Sean Fennessey?

  So I'm liking that part of it.

• 1:05:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm glad.

• 1:05:56Sean Fennessey?

  Which is kind of how I felt,

• 1:05:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:58Sean Fennessey?

  you know, when I was writing in 2006.

• 1:05:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I need you to be doing more things that you feel happy and gratified by. And, you know, less threatening to move to the Mosquito Coast. So let's just get to a place

• 1:06:10Sean Fennessey?

  See, here's the part-

• 1:06:11Amanda Dobbins?

  where we're enjoying what we're doing.

• 1:06:12Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you. Part of the Mosquito Coast thinking is like, this is something I can do from the Mosquito Coast.

• 1:06:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:06:17Sean Fennessey?

  You know what I mean? I don't need anything else to do that.

• 1:06:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Do they show movies with the regularity that you see them?

• 1:06:23Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe not, but I have 5,000 movies at home.

• 1:06:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, right.

• 1:06:25Sean Fennessey?

  Have you considered that?

• 1:06:27Amanda Dobbins?

  You're gonna get them, what, I can't even... Coming up soon on the High Council, some AV guy insights to be shared.

• 1:06:36Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, no spoilers.

• 1:06:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:37Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's go to my conversation now with Chandler Levack.

• 1:06:45Sean Fennessey?

  For the very first time Chandler Levack is here with not one but two feature films. We're going to talk about both of them, but I watched Mile and Kicks first because I am also a recovering music journalist and this is a very interesting, sometimes very sad vocation. And I think you captured some of the sadness in that vocation in your film. Just tell me a little bit about why you pursued that line of work before you started becoming a film director.

• 1:07:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you were kind of my ideal audience for the movie. I was like, what is Sean Fennessey going to think of this film? And then you just posted on Letterboxd one word, uncanny.

• 1:07:24Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it is. I mean, it is like eerily accurate, both in terms of, I think, the perspective of the characters, the scene, and just the general angst in the relationships. Like, I thought you got all that stuff so right.

• 1:07:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, because I think you were writing for Spin when I was interning there, under the great Charles Aaron.

• 1:07:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  And Kyle Anderson.

• 1:07:44Sean Fennessey?

  One of my earliest mentors.

• 1:07:45Speaker 02

  God, the coolest person.

• 1:07:46Sean Fennessey?

  Just the smartest guy ever.

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  Of all time, and great writer. And so, yeah, I certainly idolized you and Chuck Klosterman and all the roster at the time.

• 1:07:55Sean Fennessey?

  Don't put me in that league, please. I was a lowly 20-something back then.

• 1:07:59Speaker 02

  Phoebe Riley, and there's so many great writers, Karen Gans.

• 1:08:03Sean Fennessey?

  You have nice tributes to various music writers in your film, actually.

• 1:08:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have little Easter eggs.

• 1:08:07Sean Fennessey?

  I love that.

• 1:08:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, other than Almost Famous, I don't think it's a profession that gets memorialized in cinema that much, probably because it's something that seems glamorous, but is actually just you kind of like hunched over a laptop, looking despondent, like seeing if your editor will acknowledge your invoice that you have been asking for for a month and a half. And, you know, I think I imprinted on Almost Famous when I was 15 and I just like, it's like, how do I live in the movie forever? Okay, well, I'll just become the main character. And so, as soon as I... And then it was at the same time that I was like, I saw The Strokes on the cover of Spin magazine in Blockbuster. And I was like, how is this

• 1:08:50Speaker 02

  on the cover of a magazine? Like, I thought I only knew about the Spin. And so, I bought the magazine and there was a huge...

• 1:08:58Speaker 02

  Excerpt from Chuck Klosterman's book Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs. And so I immediately got that book. And then I was like, I want to be a pop culture critic. Like, I didn't even know this was a job that existed, but like, this is what I want to be. And so I emailed Chuck and I was like, I read your book and it completely changed my life. How do I like have your job? And he was like, instead of being like, leave me alone. He was like, well, you should start writing for your school newspaper. And he said this really beautiful thing that I'll never forget that was like, and also like, don't worry about what's cool. Like, everyone thinks that like, this was 2005, so everyone thinks that like Paul Banks from Interpol is like the arbiter of cool right now, but like journalism isn't about telling people what's cool. It's just about like saying what you like.

• 1:09:42Speaker 02

  It's all about your own critical taste and your authority. And so that really like galvanized me and kind of set me on this path where I'm like 16, reading like Mystery Train in the back room of Blockbuster while like eating a piece of sub and just getting obsessed with popular culture. And then, yeah, I followed Chuck's advice and immediately started writing for my school newspaper, the Itis Herald. And by the time we met like two years later, I was like an internet spin.

• 1:10:10Sean Fennessey?

  So we have eerily similar paths.

• 1:10:13Speaker 02

  Yes, Joker origin stories.

• 1:10:15Sean Fennessey?

  Sort of, yeah. I mean, I was on Chuck's desk as an internet spin in 03.

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:10:22Sean Fennessey?

  When he was out reporting what became Killing Yourself to Live, his book.

• 1:10:26Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, that's crazy.

• 1:10:27Sean Fennessey?

  So I never interacted with him at that time. He's now a good friend of mine. But at the time, I also really, really looked up to him. And he really, I really loved what he was doing and the way that he was kind of like colliding pop culture.

• 1:10:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:39Sean Fennessey?

  The thing that you just said, the advice that he gave you, that's so resonant because I feel like it took me a long time to really actually achieve that, like get comfortable with my own taste and talk about what I thought was good and why I thought it was good. And I feel like I've read you talk about this a little bit around this film and in general, this like anxiety of wanting to have like the right opinion.

• 1:11:00Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:11:00Sean Fennessey?

  And then getting comfortable with what you feel like is the, is the real opinion. And I feel like Barbie's character in the film too, does a really good job of sort of like. Knowing when it's time to try to fit in, but then also having this like voice inside of her of like, here's what I really like and here's who I really am. I was, I wanted to hear you talk about that a little bit.

• 1:11:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, and the movie is kind of about taste and like how much I think the canon of like, movies and, and music were kind of shaped by my male colleagues who were like men in their 40s in like cold steady t-shirts.

• 1:11:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:29Speaker 02

  And me at the time, when I was like literally 21 years old, you know, as a staff writer for this, this alt weekly in Toronto, like thinking that I was their peer and like now realizing now that I'm like almost the same age as those guys like, no, I was like a dog that could like walk on its hind legs that had like cute fun opinions about like, I don't know, Per Ubu or something. And I didn't know the bands they were talking about and I didn't care about Bellatar movies. But like, I felt like if I learned all the right like nouns and verbs, then, then they would, they would kind of welcome me into their, their inner circle.

• 1:12:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's like a secret society a little bit where you want to feel like you're-

• 1:12:05Speaker 02

  Of weird guys in fedoras.

• 1:12:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and why did we look up to them so much? I don't know. I don't, some of them are like, are people that I really care about, but some of them too, I was like, why did I, why was I interested in that person's opinion in, in any way? When they don't, we didn't, actually didn't have that much in common, even though we were pursuing theoretically the same thing. And it seems like that's, you were kind of like writing through that idea too.

• 1:12:26Speaker 02

  Totally. I mean, I remember Chuck saying something, I don't remember where, but he said something about how like all criticism is autobiograph, autobiography ultimately. And how like when you have an opinion about an album or a movie, it's like, you are, you know, asserting like how that relates to you at that definite point in your life. And I think because I was like a really messy woman in my like early twenties, I was a lot of the time like, using the Passion Pit CD to talk about the like 30 year old stand-up comedian who had just broken up with me for the fourth time. Like, it was like this weird venting tool or something or mechanism. And, you know, both being kind of like rewarded for that by my editors, but then also kind of scolded for like,

• 1:13:11Speaker 02

  at what point did my writing feel too like feminine or self-indulgent? And so it made me feel like extremely confused.

• 1:13:17Sean Fennessey?

  It's not always the most lucrative line of work.

• 1:13:21Speaker 02

  You get paid in CDs sometimes.

• 1:13:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, which I love. Just as I love being paid in film screenings now.

• 1:13:27Sean Fennessey?

  But so can you just tell me like how you made the pivot out like how you decided to pursue filmmaking and maybe not spend your time as a cultural critic?

• 1:13:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think it was really getting let go from the all weekly. And then, living in Montreal for the summer in 2011, it was kind of like the first choice I ever made, kind of, that wasn't like a professional decision, you know, I'd been this like, young professional for so long, since I was 18, like, writing for the Village Voice and Spin and, you know, always with my little like notepad at the back of the show, like, waiting to interview Sharon Jones with my dad there, and then she'd be like, "Do you want to smoke weed?" And I'd be like, "I can't, my dad's here." Even though my dad probably would have been cool with it. And like, rushing back to the office to, you know, write the story at 3:00 in the morning before my deadline, like, it was just how I lived my life for like, eight years.

• 1:14:20Speaker 02

  And everything else like, became secondary to that. And then, when I moved to Montreal in 2011, it was like, the first time that I actually realized that I was like, a young person. And suddenly, got immersed in this incredible scene of these like, underground, you know, shows at like, DIY warehouses, where like, the birth of all of these incredible bands, like, Mac DeMarco and Grimes and TOPS were just starting. And I was like, "Oh, wow, like, I can have friends that are the same age as me." I can like, party all night and I don't have to like, write an article about it, I can just like, experience things.

• 1:14:55Sean Fennessey?

  So, how do you go beyond that into like, writing "I love movies" and/or "I like movies" and I, you know, want to make movies professionally?

• 1:15:05Speaker 02

  I think it was just like, something I'd repressed for so long. And it was really, kind of, I think a collision of seeing Lena Dunham make girls, and watching that, like, it was kind of my film school, and realizing, it was the first time that I was the same age as someone who was making art on such a public stage, and her voice and like, tone as a filmmaker I like so Desperately connected to. And then I think Greta Gerwig also making Lady Bird. I would like, watch the promotional video of her like being like, no, kiss her. Kiss, fuck. And I just would like weep unexpectedly and I didn't know why.

• 1:15:47Speaker 02

  And so I think it, it kind of felt like, I think I've said this before, but the way that like other women know they're ready to have a baby, like, I was just like, I need to make a coming of age film. Like, it's like my biological clock is like ticking. And so, you know, I'd gone to film school at the University of Toronto, but I just like had completely redirected my focus and like dropped out of school. And then I had my last class to graduate was this screenwriting class that was taught by Patricia Rosoma, who's the legendary Canadian director of me this incredible movie. I've heard The Mermaid singing, that's like, was one of the, maybe the first female Canadian film to ever go to Cannes. And Semi Chalas, who ended up writing like all the best Mad Men episodes, like The Suitcase. And it's just like a total hero of mine.

• 1:16:31Speaker 02

  And, and so they, I, yeah, for the class, you had to write a feature screenplay. And I think my years of like, as, as you can probably relate to, like, writing profiles about people and kind of investigative features, like, that's sort of the backbone, I think, for a lot of screenwriting. You know, you get 10 minutes with someone and you have to tell the entire story of their life based on like a, you know, 10 minute call in, like conversation at TIFF in like a conference room or something.

• 1:16:59Sean Fennessey?

  Done it many times.

• 1:16:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:00Sean Fennessey?

  I always feel bad. I'm like, this is not accurate, but this is all you've given me. So how do I, how do I do my best with it?

• 1:17:04Speaker 02

  Army hammer, let's go.

• 1:17:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I read you had an interesting chat with him. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:09Speaker 02

  I, I remained intact.

• 1:17:11Sean Fennessey?

  You're, you're safe. You're safe now.

• 1:17:14Speaker 02

  But, but yeah, it was just, I think it just was the first thing that like made sense for my brain and I totally fell in love with screenwriting and just the structure of it and stuff. And then after that, they said I should apply to the Canadian Film Center, which is Norman Jewison's Film School, kind of like what AFI is in the States.

• 1:17:33Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:17:34Speaker 02

  And then, yeah, it was the first time I like ever saw a camera. And I wrote three scripts that got, you know, immediately produced and I got to be involved in all the sort of casting conversations and be on set for it. And I think I was so like bossy and opinionated about stuff that it was clear that I. It's kind of like, I was like, oh, I should be a director because I have like too many thoughts about stuff.

• 1:17:56Sean Fennessey?

  What year was this?

• 1:17:58Speaker 02

  Um, 2012.

• 1:17:59Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, and?

• 1:18:02Speaker 02

  And then I started making music videos after that.

• 1:18:04Sean Fennessey?

  Ah.

• 1:18:05Speaker 02

  So that was kind of like really the origin for this incredible punk band, PUP.

• 1:18:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:10Speaker 02

  Um, with Jeremy Shalhoub, who was someone I met at the CFC and we were dating at the time, he's in the editors program. So we, we kind of came together and made like eight or 10 music videos.

• 1:18:21Sean Fennessey?

  Amazing.

• 1:18:21Speaker 02

  But at the same time, I felt like I just had never made anything that was like honestly my true voice.

• 1:18:26Sean Fennessey?

  So I've had, um, you know, Sophie was on the show recently and Matt was on the show earlier this year. And I'm really interested in like how you can raise funds to make movies in Canada. And if that's specifically how you've been pursuing it, I suspect Roommates was a little bit different. But at least for your first two features, like, can you just kind of talk me through a little bit? How that works and how you are able to accomplish something that often, at least in America, feels very, very hard to do?

• 1:18:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's so interesting talking to like American independent filmmakers because your whole process of just getting rich people to give you money seems equally bananas.

• 1:19:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:01Speaker 02

  I mean, it's kind of weird that the Canadian government like gives artists funds to make films. But I also think it's like, we're so, so lucky. And I think the last couple of years have proven like what an incredibly rich, like idiosyncratic, you know, pool of filmmakers and talent are out there that are really getting to do things like very freely, like you don't have to pay the money back. I think.

• 1:19:28Sean Fennessey?

  You better hope not.

• 1:19:29Speaker 02

  I could be wrong, maybe some of it. You know, that there's no like studio system where they're like telling you who should, you should cast and, you know, stipulating like rules on your, on your script. They give you feedback, but you don't have to take it in the same way that like Netflix or like I'm sure, um, you know, 20th Century Fox would. And it's just like very liberating. And I think you're just seeing like a lot of these movies kind of enter the world stage over the past couple of years. And it's, it's like tremendously exciting.

• 1:19:58Sean Fennessey?

  It's really cool. Let's talk a little bit more about My Island Kicks.

• 1:20:04Sean Fennessey?

  I found that you had a real facility with the fragility of the male ego.

• 1:20:08Speaker 02

  I wonder why.

• 1:20:11Sean Fennessey?

  Why do you think that is?

• 1:20:12Speaker 02

  That's so interesting. What do you mean?

• 1:20:14Sean Fennessey?

  Well, there's like a certain kind of a guy who's a very recognizable guy from that time. You mentioned Paul Banks from Interpol. He was literally the first famous person that I ever interviewed.

• 1:20:23Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:20:24Sean Fennessey?

  And I think he's a very nice guy, but even that's even some of that vulnerability I felt when I was talking to him when I was 20 years old. I was 20 years old with my friend Ryan Dombal, who worked at Pitchfork for years. Together, he and I interviewed Paul and the guitarist from the band.

• 1:20:39Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:20:39Sean Fennessey?

  In the basement of the Bowery Ballroom. And I felt a little bit like I was flashing back on that moment, watching some of the interactions that your characters are having where it seems like this is supposed to be intimidating. And then it very quickly becomes clear that the person that you're interviewing is just as nervous and awkward as you and just has just as many foibles and maybe even more than you.

• 1:21:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:01Sean Fennessey?

  And like, how do you protect the person in that situation? Because you feel like you need to do right by their art, but also shouldn't you honestly portray like who they really are? And like, how much empathy or sympathy do you have for the place that they find? I just thought it was very perceptive.

• 1:21:15Speaker 02

  Oh, thanks.

• 1:21:15Sean Fennessey?

  The way that you mapped a lot of that in the movie.

• 1:21:17Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm just having like flashbacks to like every musician I ever interviewed because you're totally right. It's such a weird power dynamic because I mean, you know, when you're 20 years old, like you, I certainly I felt like completely powerless all the time, like over my parents, over my bosses, over the people I was dating, like could not hold my own in like a conversation unless I but there was something about like being on the list and having access and the tape recorder and like as a way to like make friends and also feel like, you know, it's what Almost Famous says, like that you're cool.

• 1:21:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I belong.

• 1:21:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:50Sean Fennessey?

  Totally.

• 1:21:51Speaker 02

  And so, but then, yeah, it's weird to be like 20 years old and talking to like badly drawn boy. And he's complaining about, you know, how he doesn't even like the sound of his own voice anymore. And you're like, he's being so vulnerable with me and this is such a gift, but like now I am like the keeper of the secrets. And like, what do I do with all this information?

• 1:22:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I've always thought like, what do I do with this? Like, I can write it. Down in a piece, but it's not going to properly convey. It's like a real difficult thing to convey humanity to in those scenarios.

• 1:22:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I always felt myself like accidentally getting into these very deep conversations with people like. Remember Wayne Coyne telling me, the lead singer from The Flaming Lips, about like, how when his wife's mother died, they had like, they were both consumed so much by grief that they just started having sex all the time. And there was the combination of like sex and death that like gave them the best sex of their life. And I like, was like, wow. And then I like wrote it in the article and my bosses were like, why are people telling you these things?

• 1:22:47Sean Fennessey?

  That's an amazing anecdote though.

• 1:22:49Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 1:22:52Sean Fennessey?

  It's such a strange thing.

• 1:22:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it had something to do with maybe just how like undesuming I seemed or something. I mean, I think that's what Joan Didion said too, that she's just like, when you're kind of like a small person, that's like, like, I think people just want to tell you their secrets.

• 1:23:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I feel like a lot of people in that situation also really want to do what your character in the film wants to do, which is write a thirty-three and a third and somehow thinks that that's like the affirmation of your insight and that you're, you've like reached some sort of critical mountain top or something because you've written an extended personal essay about a piece of art. Like, that's another thing that I feel like if you're not old enough, you might think that you made that up.

• 1:23:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:23:32Sean Fennessey?

  It's like a thing that people do, but in the time.

• 1:23:35Speaker 02

  It was the cultural currency of our, of our day.

• 1:23:37Sean Fennessey?

  Isn't that, isn't that quite strange?

• 1:23:39Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Did you ever write one?

• 1:23:41Sean Fennessey?

  No, I never wrote one. I never pitched one. I certainly thought of pitching quite a few.

• 1:23:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:44Sean Fennessey?

  But I don't, I didn't have the gumption that, that Barbie's character has in the, in the movie.

• 1:23:48Speaker 02

  Well, neither does she.

• 1:23:50Sean Fennessey?

  Ultimately, yeah, yeah. Was, was Alanis like a lodestar for you, being from Canada?

• 1:23:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I remember just being on the playground and someone like coming over to me and just telling me that they'd read this article about this woman from Canada who was nineteen and made this album and she's really mad and she like talks about having sex and has a lot of swearing. And I was like, I gotta get my hands on this. Like, and so I like, after school, just like begged my mom to like take us to like the big box, kind of like Canadian equivalent of a Best Buy and, you know, listen to like.

• 1:24:28Speaker 02

  The album on like a little, like in one of those little like players where you can sort of preview the song.

• 1:24:33Sean Fennessey?

  Oh yeah, the listening station.

• 1:24:34Speaker 02

  Which I'm so nostalgic for now.

• 1:24:36Sean Fennessey?

  I know, those were nice.

• 1:24:36Speaker 02

  I would kill for a listening station. And then I begged her to buy me the cassette. And then we put it on, I remember, we were in Bramford, Ontario, and my, my mom had a minivan at the time, like a forest green 1996 Wood, uh, Windstar. And my sibling was in the backseat, probably like three and a half years old, in like a, you know, baby's chair, car seat. And, you know, I hit play and like "You Oughta Know" is the first song on Jagged Little Bill. And immediate Alanis is like, "Would you go down on me in a theater?" And my mom is like, "What did you want me to get you?" And I had no idea what she was talking about, but I was also like, this is like the prophecy of what my future is gonna be. Like, there's something about this album that is like telling me what it's like to

• 1:25:21Speaker 02

  be a woman. And even though my problems are like having attention deficit disorder and like having a messy room and like my mom not letting me watch Power Rangers with my brother anymore because we got too violent, like, this is like, I relate to this so hard.

• 1:25:36Sean Fennessey?

  It's funny though, just hearing you tell that story with the level of specificity that you have, like, it was very obvious that you have to tell stories, right? That you remember where someone's sitting, you know, what they're wearing, what they were doing at the time, what you were doing, where you were when you heard about something. Like, not everybody can do that too. That's like, kind of a weird superpower where you...

• 1:25:54Speaker 02

  Oh, thanks.

• 1:25:55Sean Fennessey?

  And then like, sort of make such specific, um, recent history period piece is such an interesting feat. I'm always so intrigued by them because this, is it, it's 2011? Is that when the film is set? How did you think about putting that on screen and making sure that it was right?

• 1:26:12Speaker 02

  Well, at first it was just because, you know, that's the summer that I lived in Montreal. And when I wrote the first draft of the script 10 years ago, it was only like 2015.

• 1:26:22Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right.

• 1:26:23Speaker 02

  And then over the, you know, decade that it's taken me to make the movie, suddenly that's like a codified aesthetic on TikTok known as indie sleaze.

• 1:26:31Sean Fennessey?

  Indeed. I never would have imagined that's what it would have become.

• 1:26:35Speaker 02

  I know. So it's, it's very interesting. I mean- I think I'm always making movies to like be back in the memory of something like I think the reason I made I like movies was because I wanted to be like have the sensation again of like pushing the little like video store cart full of like jangling you know VHS tapes along a carpet like and rewinding things and like just all the kind of like tactile like things that I remembered about like working at Blockbuster in in high school. And it was like very exciting to me to like unearth all these like like the Jones Soda thing, you know, pops that that we had that I remember like stacking in the back of the mini fridge and yeah. And then with this film, yeah, it was more like, oh, wow, there's

• 1:27:18Speaker 02

  those like ill-fitting disco shorts again. And, you know, the like specific like vape that my my friend Tyler used to smoke out of and stuff. And so, you know, I think I was really blessed with like a great costume designer, Courtney Mitchell, who's like a genius and and production designer, Jess Hart, who's extraordinary. And like even just to look at like the aesthetics of like Indieslee's photography that was kind of like personified by like Vice magazine and the Cobra Snake.

• 1:27:47Sean Fennessey?

  Cobra Snake, of course.

• 1:27:48Speaker 02

  Who shot all our promo pics for My Lane Kicks.

• 1:27:50Sean Fennessey?

  Really?

• 1:27:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, like Jeremy Cox, my DP, who just shot A21's Backrooms and is like an extraordinary collaborator. Like, it was just fun to be like, okay, what does this look like aesthetically? Like, how do we like make a memory and like step back in time a bit?

• 1:28:04Sean Fennessey?

  Dead. I was like, I said uncanny for a reason. It's really quite something. How did so how did roommates happen?

• 1:28:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I was in the middle of editing My Lane Kicks, teaching a screenwriting class that I had originally taken at the University of Toronto, teaching the same class that like made me want to be a filmmaker.

• 1:28:29Sean Fennessey?

  Can I ask you something about that time then? When you were when you were teaching that class, were you thinking like, I'm gonna be a professional movie director for my life? And like, I'm gonna be successful and be able to sustain myself? Or were you thinking like, I need to have multiple irons on the fire at that time, just to pay the rent or whatever?

• 1:28:45Speaker 02

  I have like no, I don't conceive of my career. Anyway, I just think of it as like a random amount of things that just keep happening to me and I continue to fail upwards and that's great.

• 1:28:56Sean Fennessey?

  We are different in that way.

• 1:28:57Speaker 02

  I feel like I was so much more like craven and ambitious when I was like 18.

• 1:29:02Sean Fennessey?

  So like what, what phone call did you receive? What email did you get? What, what happened?

• 1:29:06Speaker 02

  So, okay, it was 10 o'clock at night. Um, I was, um, you know, marking my students' assignments at this 24 hour diner in Toronto called The Lakeview. My agents call me and they're like, Chandler, when we sign you, who is the person you said you most wanted to work with in the entire world? And I was like, Adam Sandler? And they're like, yeah, well, he saw like movies. And I'm like, what the fuck? Like, he saw like movies? Like, what are you talking about? And they're like, yeah, he, he really liked it. And, um, he has this project, um, that he wants to shoot this year. It's, it stars his oldest daughter Sadie. And, um, it's written by these two really funny SNL writers, um, Kira O'Sullivan and Jimmy Faulli. And if you like it, you know, read it tonight. And if you like, he's gonna call you on the phone

• 1:29:47Speaker 02

  tomorrow. And I like, was just utterly stunned. Like, the, I didn't even, I like the fact that he watched this movie that, you know, we shot in the pandemic, that didn't have lights and had my parents as extras and my elderly dog, like, in the movie and my brother doing an Adam Sandler impression of the Hanukkah song when they watch SNL. Like, all of this was just like fundamentally shocking, but the movie's also kind of a, a love letter to Adam Sandler. So maybe I secretly manifested it in some way.

• 1:30:16Sean Fennessey?

  Did you, well, I want to hear what your conversation with him was like, but, but did someone slide it to him and say, hey, there's some Sandler stuff in here? How did it come across his transom?

• 1:30:24Speaker 02

  I think, um, one of my, I think Adam has like, a lot of agents at WME. So one of his agents is my agent. So it was a nepo agent situation.

• 1:30:35Sean Fennessey?

  But did he watch it and say, oh, my guess, this is gonna make sense?

• 1:30:38Speaker 02

  Also relieved that they finally got me a job after like four years.

• 1:30:43Sean Fennessey?

  So what did Adam say?

• 1:30:46Speaker 02

  So, okay, so I'm freaking out. I read the script in, in one sitting. I'm really blown away by how funny and, and kind of surprising it is. Like, it, it really is like a, you know, it had like this kind of honesty and like, felt like, uh, a real reflection of, of sort of Gen Z and what it's like to go to college now. But then it also takes these like, absolutely insane sort of Happy Madison-esque turns. And, you know, I was thinking a lot too about like, Female comedy directors in the eighties and nineties, like women like Penny Marshall and Amy Heckerling and Tamara Davis, who directed Billy Madison. Sure did. And how, Penelope Ferris. Also a music video director, yes. Yeah. And how like, you know, there was a brief window in time when like those women got to shoot, you know, like. And Betty Thomas, yeah.

• 1:31:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. Million dollar like studio comedies and now like that never happens again anymore. So crazy. So, um, so yeah, I was, I just like freaked out, went to bed and then woke up at noon to a call that, from a number I didn't recognize and I like unlocked my phone and I was like, hello. And, and then the other line was like, Jeller. This is Adam fucking Jeller. And I was like, hi. And, um, he's like, I really like, I like movies. It's a really fucking good movie. And I was like, oh my God. And then for like 15 minutes, he like, was like quoting lines of dialogue back at me and he was mentioning like specific edits in the film and like performance beats and

• 1:32:16Speaker 02

  like how I covered like a scene and I was just utterly shocked that, you know, this is like my idol, like I used to walk around my high school, listening to the Punch and Run Club soundtrack on my like CD player, just like imagining that I was in the movie. Like I just worship at the throat of Adam Sandler. So for him to see me as like a peer and an equal was like absolutely astonishing. And then, yeah, we talked for like an hour and a half and you know, three days later, I was like being flown to, um, to LA to pitch the movie to Netflix with him. And we, we like sat in this like hotel room in Beverly Hills and you know, luckily I'd made a lookbook in like the three days that I had to prepare.

• 1:33:00Speaker 02

  But it was just like incredible and so surreal, like kind of talking about like our shared vision for the movie. And one of the Netflix execs was like, that's the calmest like I've ever seen someone in a pitch meeting. And I was like, Adam really grounds me. But I think it was just because I had like, felt like I'd fully gone to like a different, like, you know, timeline or multiverse or something like this was not my life. So, you know, I was in like Canadian micro budget timeline, you know, I read that like the gap for most women between their first and second features is like eight years. And so I was like perfectly content to kind of like. You know, I'd already made like Mylan kicks like very quickly by those standards. So to make another movie and have that like jump was just like utterly surreal.

• 1:33:45Sean Fennessey?

  So I imagine it had to have been somewhat challenging because you're making a movie for a big streaming platform. Plus also the producer of the movie is daughters in the film. That's complicated. Plus, you know, you're making a movie honestly about a generational experience that you're now a little removed from.

• 1:34:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:34:02Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know where you want to start from that, those challenges, but like, what was the most tricky thing to unlock in making the movie?

• 1:34:07Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, there's just so many things there's like, you know, he, I felt like he recognized the potential in me as a filmmaker that like, I didn't even know that I had, you know? Cause I read that script and I'm like, okay, there's like a whole like pyrotechnic like fire scene. There's like crazy stunts at the ropes course. There's like a turkey that explodes. There's like, you know, this giant ensemble, these, these big spring break like set pieces where you know, there's going to be like 300 extras. Like, I don't know how to do this. And, um, but Adam's like, oh, you'll figure it out. Like, no problem. You got this. And Booby. I'm like, okay. So I think it was really like Adam's belief in me that just kind of like, um, made it possible.

• 1:34:52Speaker 02

  And then of course you like work with such a great group of collaborators that, you know, you realize that like the key to doing that is like, oh, well, you work with like an incredible stunt choreographer like Mark Fisher. Or our, my, our cinematographer, Maria Rucci, who shot Shiva Baby and Bottoms, like was just so impeccably smart about like, how to break something down and make like something funny comically, like in an image. And, um, really innately like elevated kind of what was on the page with like, like really strong like cinematic ideas. And then, and then it, yeah, then it just became fun to like have all these resources, like to do like crazy, you know, Magnolia inspired like crane shots and,

• 1:35:32Speaker 02

  you know, Steadicam wonders and, and have like four cameras for, for, you know, on a day. I mean, it was like unbelievably like, I felt like I kind of, um, Suddenly was like doing my PhD in like studio comedy filmmaking.

• 1:35:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:48Speaker 02

  Everyone around me was so experienced and supportive and you know, it's it becomes like very collaborative. And I think one thing that is interesting about Adam that people might not think is like, he really is like the auteur of his own movies like, you know, and no one thinks of those movies, Happy Madison Film is like being directed by the director. They're they're Adam Sandler movies and they have a very specific like auteuristic kind of like themes, like aesthetic, like actors that kind of like travel through.

• 1:36:16Sean Fennessey?

  Tone pacing, all that stuff.

• 1:36:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, like you know an Adam Sandler movie when you see it.

• 1:36:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:36:21Speaker 02

  And um.

• 1:36:22Sean Fennessey?

  He's like working in the same tradition that like Jerry Lewis was working in, that Buster Keaton was working in.

• 1:36:27Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:36:27Sean Fennessey?

  They've built a persona and everything is.

• 1:36:30Speaker 02

  Marx Brothers.

• 1:36:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:36:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you as a you are like co-directing the movie with him, you know, and one thing that I was really surprised by was that much, you know, runway he gave me to kind of have my own ideas and instincts about things and if I, you know, but yeah, of course, it's it's like very um like specific, you know, when it's like your daughter is the lead actor of the movie and you know, sometimes I had instincts about how I wanted her to play the scene and sometimes he had different instincts. And then I'm like, but what are Sadie's instincts like? And so I think we all had to kind of like just try different options and and explore from from different angles. And that was like kind of an interesting process because I think I've been so like monolithic in my other two movies.

• 1:37:15Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like she gives a really good performance and it's a hard character.

• 1:37:18Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:37:18Sean Fennessey?

  There's like a lot of turmoil in that character and she's like not always likeable, but she's not always the hero. Like she has to be flawed. It was like unusual, psychologically rich for a Happy Madison movie in that way. Conversely.

• 1:37:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I feel like the tone is like Lady Bird meets Tubi Halloween.

• 1:37:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, total, totally.

• 1:37:36Speaker 02

  In a way that I'm very proud of.

• 1:37:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, that's you nailed it. I couldn't have said it better. I also have a lot of Chloe East stock.

• 1:37:42Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 1:37:43Sean Fennessey?

  As a Fableman's Boy, you know, I really um, I think she's really quite special as a performer. And she's playing like a real old school, like 80s style movie character, you know, where it's like. Why is this person such an asshole? But also something else is going on under the surface and we want to know what it is.

• 1:37:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, and she's so charismatic at the same time and really likeable. Like it is, it is kind of like to me, like a Regina George level performance. And I just think she's like such a phenomenal actor and Sadie too. I mean, I can't imagine like finishing your first year of college when you're about to star in a $30 million movie and, and just handling it with that degree of like aplomb and preparation and just kind of like professionalism and just like commitment to really going there, you know?

• 1:38:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, so the two films which came out on the same day, which is crazy, which we couldn't, could we locate a single person who's released two feature films on the same day?

• 1:38:34Speaker 02

  We were talking about it, yeah.

• 1:38:36Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think there's one.

• 1:38:37Speaker 02

  You know, Soderbergh maybe with Traffic and Aaron Brockovich?

• 1:38:40Sean Fennessey?

  I think same year, but not same exact day. So like same exact day?

• 1:38:43Speaker 02

  Spielberg.

• 1:38:44Sean Fennessey?

  Is that good or was it bad? Is it, is it, do you worry about one blotting out the other? Would you like to have had six months in between? Is it easier to just pack up all this promotional moment up into, you know, a couple of weeks of time?

• 1:38:57Speaker 02

  Um, I, I really can't say. I mean, I was making both movies at the same time. So in a weird way, it kind of feels fitting that, that they're both coming out on the same day. Cause you know, in, in prep for Roommates, I was still finishing like the score and sound mix and color correct. So I was like on an iPad, you know, in like a frat house, like trying to get, you know, wifi to like approve VFX shots and stuff. And, um, you know, while I don't, you know, Spielberg, when he made, um, Jurassic Park and Schindler's List at the same time, both excellent comps to my two films.

• 1:39:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, they're similar.

• 1:39:35Speaker 02

  He, I think George Lucas did the post for, um, Jurassic Park to kind of help him out while he's making Schindler's List.

• 1:39:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:39:41Speaker 02

  And I'm very lucky that my wonderful editor, Simone Smith, like really stepped in for a lot of the, the sound mix and kind of post stuff. Cause she, yeah, she really like is my best friend and like invaluable. And also just that my producers like were willing to kind of accommodate it. I think they realized it was like an offer I couldn't refuse.

• 1:40:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, so now what? Like these are, they're two very different movies, but obviously they have a tremendous amount of crossover with your point of view. Is there one path or another that you want to try to pursue? Do you have, are you doing another movie? Like, what's, what's, what's next?

• 1:40:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's a great question. Like, I always considered myself like, I want to be like a personal filmmaker, like writer-director. And, you know, if I could make like two personal kind of semi-autobiographical films a decade until I'm 80, like, that would be just great.

• 1:40:32Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, I like that.

• 1:40:33Speaker 02

  And then when I'm 80, either retire or like find a younger like host body that I can sort of like being John Malkovich my way into.

• 1:40:42Speaker 02

  And so I had never thought that I would be making like any kind of studio movie or, you know, yeah, like it just, it never like kind of occurred to me. And it, but like, this was such an incredible like challenge and I'm so like grateful for the experience and, and just all the genius people that I got to work with. I mean, every day was like an embarrassment of riches to direct, you know, Carol Kane and Steve Buscemi and Janine Garofalo and like, it just goes on and on, as well as this like really brilliant young cast. I don't know, like, I think I'm really inspired by like filmmakers like Zach Craigor, who kind of really retain their voice while like going to bigger and bigger stages.

• 1:41:26Speaker 02

  Or, yeah, or Greta Gerwig, who I, you know, was again like curled up in the fetal position being like,

• 1:41:33Speaker 02

  and, and especially Matt Johnson, who, you know, like produced My Lane Kicks with, with his producer, Matt Miller, as well as my producers, Pat Healy and Julie Grillo. And like, really for 10 years was like telling me like, we're going to make this movie. Like, don't give up on it. And, and just to see him like, you know, work with Neon and go into these like bigger stages, like, it inspires me. I think I'm always like torn because I, you know, it's funny that Sophie's movie is coming out because I always feel like I want what Sophie has. I want to be like a, a Yannis film girly and like be having lunch with Iris Sacks and like, you know, this like, you know, I remember like seeing her like take a selfie with Jafar Panani. Meanwhile, I'm like talking about VFX on a dog's butt.

• 1:42:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, but but it's like, I don't know, no one's path is like linear.

• 1:42:22Sean Fennessey?

  No, I mean, I I relate to you because I think it's very normal to like and want both.

• 1:42:28Speaker 02

  I think all filmmakers, like we all project on each other and everyone's career sounds seems like it's it's different and better than ours. And, you know, like, the films I really love are just like, like Tony Erdman and, you know, The Apartment and Almost Famous and Punch, Drunk Love. And like, I just, I don't know, I want to like, sort of maybe straddle that line.

• 1:42:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there's like a genre blur going on in all of those movies. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I was trying to situate how I like movies in my own kicks was making me feel. And it was like, a little bit of Mike Lee, a little bit of Albert Brooks, like, you know, that kind of like, there's like some social discomfort. And you've got this really kind of like charismatic, but strange person at the center of the movie, you know, which like,

• 1:43:10Speaker 02

  Like Naked, yeah.

• 1:43:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, like Naked, like, well, hopefully not as devious. But, um, yeah, I don't know. I just, I think it's, I think you have a singular perspective, especially on those movies. So you should definitely keep pursuing that.

• 1:43:21Speaker 02

  Oh, my God. Thank you. Well, from one spin interns to another, um, you know, we, I remember we worked in, did you have to work in this basement that was called The Pit?

• 1:43:31Sean Fennessey?

  No, no. In fact, I was working by, when you were at Spin, I was at Vibe. And I think we were using the same building.

• 1:43:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:40Sean Fennessey?

  Was it 215 Lex? Is that where it was?

• 1:43:42Speaker 02

  You're all the yeshiva schools.

• 1:43:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, exactly. And then we split. And we moved to different offices like a year or two later. You might have gone back to Canada by that point.

• 1:43:49Speaker 02

  I was back in Canada.

• 1:43:51Sean Fennessey?

  But that was very traumatic because I interned at Spin as a, as a, as a college student. And then what was exciting to go back to that building when I got the Vibe job. But then it was not, felt like things had changed. A lot of the people had left that I lived up to and things were evolving. And then that's the other thing, too, is like, you get to the center of this stuff and you're like, so this is it? This is what it is.

• 1:44:13Speaker 02

  Is that how you feel?

• 1:44:15Sean Fennessey?

  It's every day.

• 1:44:16Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:44:16Sean Fennessey?

  I'm just getting, trying to dig deeper and deeper. Looking for the heart of it.

• 1:44:19Speaker 02

  What do you, what do you mean by that?

• 1:44:20Sean Fennessey?

  Like just waiting to see who's, you know, what's really going to wow me? You know, when am I really going to be knocked out?

• 1:44:25Speaker 02

  Spielberg at Selfie wasn't enough?

• 1:44:27Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that was a rare exception, you know? No, it's not about that. It's not about like the people that you encounter when you're doing the thing. It's more like when you're inside the machine. What is inside the machine? Which I'm like, I actually wonder for you similarly, when you're getting now that you, I feel like making a big movie like this for Netflix is a big step in a person's career. It's like a big opportunity.

• 1:44:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:44:45Sean Fennessey?

  Do you feel like you're a little bit closer to like the center of how some of these things work?

• 1:44:51Speaker 02

  I have no idea.

• 1:44:53Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:44:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, it's, it's interesting. Ted Sarandos was like sitting behind me at the roommates premiere and I heard him laughing through the whole film. And then afterwards I like shook his hand and it's the softest hand I've ever felt in my life.

• 1:45:07Sean Fennessey?

  Right. Not picking up a lot of lumber.

• 1:45:09Speaker 02

  And he was like, you know, like, see you on the next one. Like, great job. And I was like, like, everything is just so surreal to me. Like, I don't know. I think, cause I have no expectations, maybe it's like an easier way to go through, through. I'm sure my managers and agents are like, what are you doing? You're blowing this. But it's like, I just kind of want to tell like personal weird stories and characters that I love and like can't see enough of. And kind of just like continue to make movies and grow and like collaborate with interesting people, you know? And I think that's the same reason I loved journalism was like, you get thrown in these like amazing kind of situations

• 1:45:49Speaker 02

  that are so unlike your regular life, like, you know, where all of a sudden you're like, um, you know, on the tour, on the road with a band or um, talking to Nicole Holb center over a, like a buffet at the Radisson Hotel or something. And then, and, and same with film, like I'm always like stepping on like a 40 foot ladder to like, you know, riding on a crane or something. And it's like so unlike my real life, which is literally just like looking at my phone.

• 1:46:18Sean Fennessey?

  Have you had a chance to meet Cameron Crowe?

• 1:46:21Speaker 02

  I met him very briefly at his, uh, his book launch in LA. And I paid $350 to, to, uh, get the like, you know, extra, extra pass.

• 1:46:31Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to get you guys in touch. I feel like you should talk to him. He's a very special person.

• 1:46:38Speaker 02

  I would, um, be very grateful and, and respectful of his time.

• 1:46:42Sean Fennessey?

  I think the way that you are, uh, living the legacy of Almost Famous would probably touch him. I tried to not lose it when I met him earlier this year, but I was, I feel similarly.

• 1:46:53Speaker 02

  I could tell from his aura that he was wonderful.

• 1:46:55Sean Fennessey?

  He's very kind.

• 1:46:56Speaker 02

  It was just like the wrong way, cause he, I idolized him so much and like, you know, I think I'm a filmmaker because of him and, uh, you know, writer because of him and like partially a human being because of all of the movies he's made. And so I think I just put too much pressure on him.

• 1:47:13Speaker 02

  And like, he was really nice, but like, it was like the wrong way to meet him.

• 1:47:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:18Speaker 02

  And

• 1:47:18Sean Fennessey?

  Needs to be over coffee.

• 1:47:19Speaker 02

  Adam had like told him that I was coming. He's, cause they're buds.

• 1:47:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:23Speaker 02

  I think he had just like texted him because, uh, like a picture of like Eddie Vedder's drum set or something. And he's like, oh yeah, my friend Chandler's coming. She's a nice girl. And then, then I went and I was like, and he like, I met him. He was like on stage and I went, walked over to like greet him and you know, I was so like, I've been imagining this moment for like 20 years.

• 1:47:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:43Speaker 02

  And, and he was, he just like, the lady was like, oh, I really like your dress. I'm like, thank you. And then he's like, hi, I'm Cameron, which is also the same name as my dad. And I was like, I'm Chandler. And he's like, where are you from Chandler? I'm like Toronto. He's like, oh, is Bluer Street still around? And I'm like, the largest street in Toronto? Yes. And then I'm like, yeah, you know, like the Yorkville music scene from the sixties, Tony Mitchell. He's like, wow, you really know your stuff. And I'm like, mhm. And he's like, so you want to take a picture? I'm like, okay. And then we like took this picture and then I was like, this is gonna be over in 25 seconds. Like, what do I do?

• 1:48:19Sean Fennessey?

  That's not, that's never the right way to do it.

• 1:48:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:48:22Sean Fennessey?

  It needs to be a little bit more prolonged experience, you know?

• 1:48:24Speaker 02

  But you know, like, I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm, you know, I would be, I don't want to, no one owes me anything. He, his movies have already given me so much.

• 1:48:32Sean Fennessey?

  He should watch your movies. That's the next step.

• 1:48:35Speaker 02

  Let's, let's make this a campaign.

• 1:48:38Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Chandler, we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing you've seen?

• 1:48:44Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. That's such a great question. I'm racking my brain. I want to say, uh, Pillion.

• 1:48:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:53Speaker 02

  I love that movie so much.

• 1:48:55Sean Fennessey?

  What did you like about it?

• 1:48:56Speaker 02

  I keep describing it as like heated rivalry meets The Office, like the British Office. Like they're, or I don't know, maybe like an Antonioni movie or something, but I just thought it was so funny, so moving, so tender at the heart of it. Like, I, I keep thinking about it. Like, I think the way that it just like, yeah, I love that it's so like audaciously queer, but it also just feels like, actually, you know what movie it really reminded me of? Was Johanna Hogs, The Souvenir.

• 1:49:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:49:24Speaker 02

  Like, just a formative heartbreak and someone who really transforms out of a very painful relationship, but is in some way liberated and, and closer to the identity of who they really are.

• 1:49:36Sean Fennessey?

  So well put. And similarly, like withholding and mysterious partners who are like unable to really give themselves over.

• 1:49:44Speaker 02

  Yes. And like, you're just like, do you see me? Do you see me now?

• 1:49:47Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great comparison.

• 1:49:48Speaker 02

  Can I, can I debase myself a little bit more for you?

• 1:49:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:49:52Speaker 02

  And like the.

• 1:49:53Sean Fennessey?

  Why do you think we like these movies?

• 1:49:55Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 1:49:56Sean Fennessey?

  Let's not do that.

• 1:49:57Speaker 02

  I, I think I made a film about that.

• 1:50:00Sean Fennessey?

  Chandler, congrats on, on two films and, and a great 2026.

• 1:50:04Speaker 02

  Oh, my God. Thank you, Sean. You're, you're a great cinephile and thank you for consistently repping Canada. We, uh, we love you.

• 1:50:11Sean Fennessey?

  I'm doing my best. Thank you.

• 1:50:16Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks to Chandler. Thanks to Jack Sanders for his production work on this episode. Thanks to Lucas Cavanagh for his production work on this episode. And thanks to Sarah Reddy for filling in for us. Next week, uh, I'll be talking about Andor, which is, it's a TV show.

• 1:50:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I've seen several episodes and quite enjoyed it, but then I had to get on with the rest of my life.

• 1:50:36Sean Fennessey?

  I understand that. Um, Chris Ryan's gonna join me. Chris, Chris has covered Andor quite well on The Watch. If you want to hear that, you should check it out. But we're gonna dig into that. We're on the precipice of this Mandalorian and Grogu movie. Some tracking came out today.

• 1:50:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:48Sean Fennessey?

  Not great, Bob.

• 1:50:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:50Sean Fennessey?

  Looks like it could be an issue.

• 1:50:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree. Um, in my home, we're also getting ready for it. I'm, I am solo parenting right now. So my new trick is in the, in the mornings to corral everyone into the kitchen and get them to eat their breakfast. I just start playing the Star Wars theme as loud as possible and everybody runs in and then starts galloping around. Uh, so we'll be there. I don't know if anyone else will, but that's okay.

• 1:51:15Sean Fennessey?

  We'll be there as well. We'll see you soon.