The 1976 Movie Draft

We’re drafting again! Sean and Amanda are joined by potential third chairs Chris Ryan and Tracy Letts to draft their favorite movies from 1976. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Chris Ryan and Tracy Letts Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh and Sarah Reddy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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

• 0:25Amanda Dobbins?

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

• 0:37Speaker 02

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

• 0:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. Caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. Call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. Antidepressants may increase these risks. Report fever, confusion, stiff muscles, which may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High cholesterol and weight gain may occur, as can high blood sugar, which may be fatal. Monitoring is recommended. Common side effects are sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, feeling tired, and diarrhea. These aren't all the side effects.

• 1:24Speaker 02

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

• 1:30Amanda Dobbins?

  For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

• 1:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Tremfya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremfya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tremfya, proper training is required. Tremfya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis, serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems. Problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tremfya today.

• 2:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more, or visit tremfyaradio.com.

• 2:46Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 2:47Speaker 04

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 2:48Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Picture A Conversation Show about 1976. We are drafting again, and CR is here, of course, but we also have a special guest. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth Chair Tracy Letts. What number, Tracy? Remind us.

• 3:04Speaker 05

  You want to have this third chair discussion now?

• 3:06Sean Fennessey?

  Let's save it for the end of the podcast.

• 3:08Speaker 04

  It tantalizes you.

• 3:09Sean Fennessey?

  And then finally.

• 3:09Speaker 04

  People fighting over your attention, your affection.

• 3:13Sean Fennessey?

  No, that's not what it's about. No, it's about who belongs, who gets to sit and canonize with us, really, in perpetuity, I think. That's the question.

• 3:21Speaker 04

  I think we're about one or two months away from me and him texting and just being like, why don't we just fucking ditch these losers, start our own podcast?

• 3:28Sean Fennessey?

  I'll tell you what, give it a shot, see what happens. So we are here to draft. This is the third episode of Tracy that we've gotten this week. How are you feeling?

• 3:38Speaker 05

  Great.

• 3:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah?

• 3:39Speaker 05

  I'm always happy to be with you guys, on the mics or otherwise.

• 3:43Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, that's beautiful.

• 3:44Speaker 04

  Very nice.

• 3:45Speaker 05

  I made a little rhyme. I didn't mean to.

• 3:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:47Sean Fennessey?

  1976.

• 3:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:50Sean Fennessey?

  You were alive?

• 3:51Speaker 05

  I was.

• 3:52Sean Fennessey?

  What was going on? Tell us about it.

• 3:56Speaker 05

  You know, it was our bicentennial year.

• 3:58Sean Fennessey?

  It sure was.

• 3:59Speaker 05

  And I'm born on the 4th of July, so I turned...

• 4:02Speaker 04

  I didn't know that about you.

• 4:03Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't either.

• 4:04Speaker 04

  I should have Googled. I'm sorry.

• 4:07Sean Fennessey?

  You went to say happy birthday.

• 4:09Speaker 04

  It's not the 4th of July yet.

• 4:10Sean Fennessey?

  That explains so much about what you represent to this fine country.

• 4:14Speaker 05

  There you go. I turned 11 when the country turned 200. And I remember it very well. My dad had... He was a college professor and he'd become disenchanted with teaching or the institution he was teaching at, so he quit. And he and my mom built and operated a grocery store out at the lake. He became a gentleman grocer for a year. It was a disastrous experiment.

• 4:41Sean Fennessey?

  I was about to say, this sounds like my dream.

• 4:43Speaker 04

  I know, I was gonna say.

• 4:44Speaker 05

  No. You never found two people more temperamentally unsuited to be, to run a grocery store than my parents.

• 4:51Speaker 04

  Sounds like a less exciting version of Mosquito Coast.

• 4:53Speaker 05

  I think that's very appropriate. We lived in a, in a trailer park and my birthday gift on our bicentennial was a Honda 50. I had got a little, yeah, a little mini bike to go scoot around the lake on.

• 5:09Speaker 04

  We used to really know how to raise kids back then.

• 5:11Speaker 05

  We, we used to go swimming in the lake, me and my friends, unsupervised. How did we not drown? I can't even fathom it.

• 5:19Sean Fennessey?

  So you had a little dirt bike going around a lake?

• 5:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:22Sean Fennessey?

  That's one of the scariest things I've ever heard.

• 5:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, looked like a little ghost, right? Just like perennially sunburned.

• 5:28Speaker 04

  Like seriously out of gummo. Just like a little guy, right?

• 5:33Speaker 05

  And we were, you know, we were at the movie theaters, seeing a lot of these movies we're gonna talk about today. Afternoon Delight was playing on the radio. Songs in the Key of Life was on our turntable all year long.

• 5:47Speaker 04

  Hell yeah.

• 5:48Speaker 05

  It was a great time to be alive.

• 5:51Speaker 04

  CR, you were just a glimmer in my dad's eye.

• 5:53Sean Fennessey?

  You were around the corner.

• 5:54Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 5:55Sean Fennessey?

  You were not quite there.

• 5:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:57Sean Fennessey?

  You look at the, the landscape of 76, the cinema of 76, the culture of 76.

• 6:02Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 6:03Sean Fennessey?

  What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel?

• 6:06Speaker 04

  Uh, I was thinking a lot about the pregnant moment before, you know, obviously Jaws is 75, correct? So we're living in a post-Jaws world and when you read like Pauline Kael from November of 76, she's still like grappling with Jaws. She's still reckoning with, with what the shark means for movies. But I think while all that nervousness is happening, like we get like an absolute diamond of a year, uh, that is maybe one of the last of its kind before all the big, we can make Jaws money kind of movies really start to come in. And this is one where.

• 6:40Speaker 04

  Even like the blockbusters are just really creative and interesting. And some of them are just throwaway like exploitation movies or whatever, B-movies. But it's just, it's decidedly free of franchises. It's decidedly free of premeditated blockbusters. And I think you can see that in like the variety of work that comes across here.

• 6:58Sean Fennessey?

  What struck you? So I probably first came to this as an Oscars year, right? As an Oscars nerd. And you start doing the history and this year and the year before it are probably the quote unquote, two greatest Oscar best picture lineups in history. Yeah. Maybe both times with not the winner I would have chosen. But you, if you come to this moment by, you know, studying all of the Oscars, you see all of these movies. And then this is your introduction to what was going on in the seventies movie wise, which is, you know, what the Oscars taught me over the years. This is still my pick for the best year. So even, even over- For the lineup or for the year itself?

• 7:44Sean Fennessey?

  For the, for the lineup. And I guess probably maybe for the year. But it's going to be interesting, right? Because there's, I mean, there's so much top line stuff. There is so much recognizable, great works of cinema, canonized in part, you know, by the Oscars, but also just because of what we reference. And then there's a lot of, there's not that much in the middle, I found at least while preparing for this. I was kind of shocked by the number of comedies I just had to turn off. And I was like, well, I'm not laughing. And also that is not an appropriate representation of that person in 2026.

• 8:19Speaker 04

  I would watch Amanda Watch, but I watched-

• 8:20Sean Fennessey?

  So I was just like, I mean, not even that one. So I, can it be great if it's just like all the big names? The high end. All, all bold faced stuff? Is it the greatest? I mean, not to be Captain Obvious, but like, yes, you've got Network, you've got Taxi Driver, you've got All the President's Men. You've got Rocky, you've got, you know, it's, those are heavy hitters. But I, you know, it's, it was, it was interesting to see what else was going on because when you think about 76 and you think about Young Tracy-

• 8:53Speaker 05

  Going to the movies every week and like living like in the heyday of cinema. They're not all at work. No.

• 9:01Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I.

• 9:03Speaker 05

  I was in the theater for In Search of Noah's Ark. I saw that in the movie theater.

• 9:07Sean Fennessey?

  I wrote about that in the newsletter last week and just the idea that that movie was the, was it the number nine or number 10 grossing film for the year? Which was a documentary and did your parents bring you to go see that movie?

• 9:18Speaker 05

  No, I'm sure I went.

• 9:20Sean Fennessey?

  By yourself?

• 9:20Speaker 05

  No, with my older brother, probably.

• 9:22Sean Fennessey?

  And what, what spurred that? Was it just because it was a kind of phenomenon?

• 9:26Speaker 05

  We had one screen in town?

• 9:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there you go. And that's part of how it works. And I think that's, I don't, I, I probably would disagree with what you're saying because I find the middle of this year very soft. And this makes for a very interesting draft because there is somewhere between seven and 10 extremely desirable titles this year. And then the way that we do the categories, they're a little weaker. We had to do a little bit of.

• 9:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:50Sean Fennessey?

  Navigating and managing around it. And just thinking back to 1975, we drafted for 1975, four years ago on the pod. And here are the movies that were taken, just among the three of us. I'll just list the 15 movies we took in 75. My, my slate was Barry Lyndon, The Man Who Would Be King, Jaws, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dolomite and Rollerball. Chris's was The Passenger, Night Moves, Shampoo, Nashville, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Race with the Devil. And Amanda got Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Stepford Wives, Three Days of the Condor, Dog Day Afternoon, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Grey Gardens. You just can't, that's not.

• 10:26Speaker 05

  Wait a second, I got Grey Gardens in 75?

• 10:29Sean Fennessey?

  You did.

• 10:29Speaker 05

  Was that the? Well, I'm gonna have to, hold on, just Googling some release dates here. Grey Gardens was on the Letterboxd list that you made.

• 10:38Sean Fennessey?

  It was. I think it's because we, we let it go through because it played the New York Film Festival in the fall of 75. That is American. And it was released in theaters February of seventy six. Okay, that's fine. Now, this is an ongoing issue that I think will be an issue in this episode, and we should probably talk about it.

• 10:53Speaker 04

  Up front, or do you want to?

• 10:54Sean Fennessey?

  Let's just talk about it up front. Because. Deleting that from wildcard. There's a whole raft of, let's just say, international movies, movies that were made overseas. And the years in which they arrive in the nineteen seventies, sometimes it takes three or four years, or sometimes not at all, for a movie to be released. This is, there's been a lot of chaos with, like, Japanese animated movies in the eighties and nineties drafts as well, where it's like, I don't really know what year this movie should be eligible.

• 11:19Speaker 04

  For, like, Seven Beauties this year, or whatever.

• 11:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, well, at least Seven Beauties was nominated.

• 11:22Speaker 04

  December seventy five, right?

• 11:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, but it was, but it was nominated for the Academy Awards for seventy six. But there, you know, there's a whole host of them. If you go, one of the fun activity to do when you're preparing for this is just go to the Criterion General and type in nineteen seventy six. I did do this, it was really fun. And there's a ton of things there.

• 11:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:39Sean Fennessey?

  Probably more than half of those things never even opened in America. So the, the rules that, that I created when we were talking about movies from the two thousands, which was, what was the US release date as the, the guide for what we can draft? It's a little squishier here. So Grey Gardens would have been eligible, but since you took it in seventy five, maybe not so eligible. It's okay. We don't want to repeat it. I don't know, what do you make of how we're navigating all this?

• 12:01Speaker 05

  I think, uh, I think we should just, uh, I think we should play with love and trust.

• 12:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, do the best we can. That's beautiful.

• 12:08Speaker 04

  It's a fundamental belief system in this podcast.

• 12:11Sean Fennessey?

  I would just say, when you're out in the world talking about the big picture, not on this podcast, is it all, it's maybe with love, but not trust, always. Hmm. Yeah.

• 12:23Speaker 05

  How do you mean?

• 12:23Sean Fennessey?

  I, I would say that you have some feedback about our taste. Oh, yeah. That you've made, you've made public on Blank Check and other places.

• 12:32Speaker 05

  Look, I've made no bones about the fact that I disagree with you guys sixty to seventy percent of the time. But the, I've said it to Chris, that's part of the magic of the show, that you can disagree with you guys as much as I do, and listen to the show, and it's not a, it's not a hate watch, it's not a hate listen.

• 12:48Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 12:48Speaker 05

  I don't listen to it because you piss me off.

• 12:50Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you.

• 12:51Speaker 05

  I listen to it in spite of the fact that you piss me off.

• 12:53Sean Fennessey?

  That's why you listen to the watch.

• 12:58Sean Fennessey?

  Do you listen to the big picture?

• 13:00Speaker 04

  Do I listen to the big picture? Yeah, I do.

• 13:02Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think of it?

• 13:04Speaker 04

  It's a, it's a, an interesting experiment.

• 13:09Speaker 05

  How often do you agree with their taste? Maybe more so than I do.

• 13:14Speaker 04

  Somewhere, I mean, I am usually in agreement with one or the other, if not both.

• 13:18Speaker 05

  See, I, I mean, I like a lot fewer things than you do, but I think that's the way it's supposed to be. I think, given the various jobs that we have, I think we like the right percentage of stuff.

• 13:29Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you, I have found the more folks that I get to know who have worked in this business, the more you find that they don't like a lot of things, that they're actually quite critical of a lot of things. Of course, they will never, ever say that they don't like something for a variety of reasons. But it's always fascinating to me here, why someone who has worked in film, television, theater, thinks something is a failure.

• 13:51Speaker 04

  It's usually because like the director of photography on that is a jackass to be one.

• 13:55Sean Fennessey?

  Sometimes, sometimes, but sometimes you get such fascinating, critical insight that I just wish I could share or which I wish could be broadcast in a way, but that's because folks like yourself understand how some of this stuff works in ways that we never will.

• 14:08Speaker 05

  Also, there, of course, there's also a generational component. And we've had this conversation that The Ringer itself, there's a kind of 90s love across, across platforms here at The Ringer that I don't share. I prefer the 80s to the 90s in terms of movies. That's a fight I love to have and keep having, you know, but it's not a, it's not a deal breaker.

• 14:33Sean Fennessey?

  Not a deal breaker. This was proffered on the Robert Duvall Hall of Fame, that the movies from the 70s are better than the movies from the 80s, and movies from the 80s are better than the movies from the 90s, and so on and so forth.

• 14:42Speaker 05

  We found it both with Robert Duvall and Robert Redford.

• 14:46Sean Fennessey?

  Very true. Yes. That, but I wonder if the, are the Robert Redford movies from the 90s better than his movies from the 80s? They might. It might be.

• 14:56Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 14:58Sean Fennessey?

  Is Sneakers 90s? No.

• 15:01Speaker 05

  Look at our Hall of Fame.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  Sneakers is 90s.

• 15:02Sean Fennessey?

  Sneakers is 92. We gotta start talking about stars who were in their primes in the 90s. That was the other thing, is who was in their prime at that time?

• 15:11Speaker 05

  Right.

• 15:11Sean Fennessey?

  That's a factor. Anyhow. Up close and personal?

• 15:14Speaker 04

  Do you think?

• 15:16Sean Fennessey?

  Never forget. Not a great one.

• 15:18Speaker 04

  Eastwood in the 90s better than Eastwood in the 80s?

• 15:21Sean Fennessey?

  Oh yeah, no question.

• 15:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:23Sean Fennessey?

  Not even close.

• 15:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:25Speaker 05

  I can't conjure the titles.

• 15:26Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, Unforgiven.

• 15:28Speaker 04

  In the Light of Fire.

• 15:28Sean Fennessey?

  Perfect World.

• 15:29Speaker 04

  Bridges of Madison County.

• 15:31Sean Fennessey?

  Madison County. That's, some of his best movies are in the 90s.

• 15:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, the exception that proves the rule.

• 15:36Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Uh, I had a, I had a, I think we'll probably end up doing every year from the 1970s at some point, hopefully with you again in the future too. But, um, this year, and the point that you were making about Jaws had me thinking about an exercise, which is I find that because the 70s is so critical to shaping the future of cinema, not just in America, but worldwide. Each year gets a movie that I feel like is the movie that represents something meaningful. Box office wise, critically, cultural, cultural impact beyond both of those things, kind of what it means to the character of the country, the character of the business. And I just, this morning, just banged out what I think the movie of that year is.

• 16:18Sean Fennessey?

  So for 1970, I thought MASH. It wasn't the number one movie at the box office, but it's a movie that kind of changed the tenor of what a movie could be and be a very successful film.

• 16:29Speaker 04

  And you think it captured like the, the anti-war sentiment that was growing in the country at the time?

• 16:33Sean Fennessey?

  Something in The Zeitgeist, a little bit of the like pranksterism too, that I think came out of the 1960s. 71, I chose The French Connection. 72, I chose The Godfather. 73, I chose The Exorcist. That's two Friedkin movies. 74, I chose Blazing Saddles over things like The Godfather Part II. Right. Your anti-Godfather II agenda continues.

• 16:54Speaker 05

  We, we had some conversation about this on, uh, Robert Duvall.

• 16:57Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. On my side.

• 16:58Speaker 05

  And did I hear you on the Talk Easy, uh, podcast, learn that maybe your father was not a-

• 17:06Speaker 04

  My father did not like Godfather II. At least he didn't when he was reviewing it, apparently.

• 17:09Sean Fennessey?

  A cash grab.

• 17:10Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 17:10Sean Fennessey?

  He called it.

• 17:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:12Sean Fennessey?

  But, you know.

• 17:13Speaker 04

  Can you imagine my dad now, like having wrecked with what cash grabs are?

• 17:17Sean Fennessey?

  He would've been a great third chair.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:19Speaker 05

  I think there's a con, more conversation to, to have about Godfather Part II, but it's a 50-year-old movie and we don't have to have it now.

• 17:26Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's not the right year, but we'll get there. Okay. Um, 75, Jaws, of course.

• 17:32Sean Fennessey?

  76, the subject of our, our draft, is probably Rocky.

• 17:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And, and we'll get into that when we go through the draft. 77 is obvious Star Wars. 78, I think is Superman. And 79, you can pick your poison. Apocalypse Now is the end of something. Alien is the start of something. What do you, what do you make of that? Do you feel like that's a little easy Monday morning quarterbacking?

• 17:54Speaker 04

  Do you want to talk about 76 specifically? Because I think the rejoinder to Rocky would be like, but what about all the president's men? And put a capstone on Watergate and you know, it's like this, but it, I'm curious to somebody who was there and also somebody who's obviously thought about this process, like why Rocky and not?

• 18:09Sean Fennessey?

  Were you to Watergate at age 11?

• 18:11Speaker 05

  Oh my God.

• 18:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 18:13Speaker 05

  Very tapped in. My, my father, red faced and screaming at the television for two solid years. I, oh, no, incredibly tapped in.

• 18:23Sean Fennessey?

  That's so interesting.

• 18:25Speaker 05

  It was some of my earliest memories, my parents screaming at the television. It was just total engagement and enragement.

• 18:34Sean Fennessey?

  Did you, did he, did he read the Woodward and Bernstein book?

• 18:37Speaker 05

  Of course.

• 18:38Sean Fennessey?

  Did he, did he, did you send anticipation for that movie in your household?

• 18:42Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 18:43Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm, that is interesting. Not surprising, and I'm not trying to deride all the president's men, obviously. I just made a podcast about it two weeks ago.

• 18:49Speaker 04

  It's an interesting exercise to be like, you know, you, you might, might want it to be one way, but it's actually another way.

• 18:54Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I think, I, what do you think? Cause Rocky is very different from most of the movies on that list. Right, and then it, and it wins best picture. So it's a little bit Oscar coded, your choice, but you're really doing more of what does this mean for the, the movie industry and the types of movies that are being made as opposed to personal favorites? Or even what you think the quote unquote, like best example of cinema is with all respect to Rocky, which is fun and I've been on the steps doing the pose myself.

• 19:23Sean Fennessey?

  I think that makes sense. I mean, it's, it's good list making. I think that the list mostly favors, I mean, it, it is, it's an industry measurement list rather than an artistic list, but that's okay. Even though they're good movies on here. I'm looking to blend both with the idea that like, well, and the, and the popular imagination too. But in 1975,

• 19:49Speaker 05

  Nobody thought Jaws was gonna win Best Picture. It wasn't even a consideration. That movie was not gonna win Best Picture. You knew it was gonna be one of the other movies and Cuckoo's Nest obviously barreled through. The same way, that's why Rocky was such a shift. It was a real shift. You had these other, undeniably great films and then this Heart of a Champion movie. You know, it was a head scratcher.

• 20:16Sean Fennessey?

  I think, I think there's a prevailing thought that the new Hollywood ends a lot earlier than people think it does. And that it's really, it's not Star Wars, but it's that double whammy of Jaws and Rocky that augurs the massive shift at the corporately held movie studios to push in a different direction.

• 20:33Speaker 05

  And Star Wars seals the deal.

• 20:35Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 20:36Speaker 04

  There's a, so the Kale essay that I was referring to is this like November piece she writes that's, you know, it's a lot of it is about Jaws, but then some of it's about Clint Eastwood and some of it's about John Wayne and some of it's about Alfred Hitchcock.

• 20:48Sean Fennessey?

  I've read this piece.

• 20:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's really amazing, like, kind of snapshot of a moment in cinema. But I was, I was struck by the fact that in November of 76, she's still kind of like turning Jaws over in her head and turning over like what it meant to movies for this to happen. Do you remember, compared to say now, because this is something that comes up every once in a while on this pod and others, how long things would stay in the consciousness and whether or not like something like Jaws just kind of like occupied more mind share for longer than say something now where it's like, man, that show's amazing for eight weeks. And then it just seems to like, nobody mentions it again until Emmys or nobody mentions it again ever. Or a movie, for instance, like Project, I use Project Hail Mary as an example where it's like

• 21:34Speaker 04

  a wildly hugely successful movie, but I don't know, like, it's never gonna have the footprint of Ghostbusters. You know, like, it's never gonna have the footprint of something that's like.

• 21:43Sean Fennessey?

  No, but I think that there's a way, I don't mean to cut you off, but I think there's a way to read that movie the same kind of sociocultural way that Kale was so good at, which is that there's kind of like a hoptivism in that movie.

• 21:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 21:57Sean Fennessey?

  That I think that people kind of desperately want right. Now, because of a lot of what's going on externally in the world. And it also reminds us of like earlier, more comfy times in movie culture. And so you kind of smash those two ideas together. I mean, that's my favorite thing to do is to kind of overread something in culture like that. In seventy six, though, like the fact that the two things are going hitting against each other. That like the kind of cynical or or more paranoid kind of film could be really popular. And also Rocky could be really popular. Like, what does that mean that they can coexist?

• 22:27Speaker 05

  Right? Yeah, I I don't I guess I don't have a good answer to that. Though part of the answer to that is has to do with accessibility. I mean, you had to go to the movie theater and pay money to see these movies. You couldn't watch them at home. You could wait until it showed up on broadcast television. But other than that, you had to go to the movie theater. So there's is something about that. Does something about that actually keep the ball in the air? In a sense, in terms of culture and conversation longer, because it's a it's a little harder to see. My kids watch the same movie every day, right? For a week or two weeks. It's like I didn't have that wasn't possible for me as a kid.

• 23:10Sean Fennessey?

  Well, let me ask you one other thing about that, because when I was a kid, the longest period of time that could transpire was the period when I missed a movie in movie theaters and I was waiting for it to come to blockbuster. That was it felt like an eternity and it was often eight months, seven months. If you missed a movie in movie theaters, and it doesn't sound like you missed many. But if you missed a movie in movie theaters that you wanted to see, were you like, were you anticipating the opportunity to see it on TV? How did you find out it was going to play on TV? Like, can you talk about that gap in time?

• 23:41Speaker 05

  Well, I read the TV guide religiously. Oh, yeah. I looked for when those things were going to be on TV. I sought them out. And of course, with certain things, they'd bring them back. I saw most of the Bond movies, most of the Sean Connery Bond movies in the movie theater.

• 23:59Speaker 05

  On re-release, that's how you saw that stuff. Godfather also, right? You see Godfather, one of its biggest box office years is like seventy-four, seventy-five, when they re-released Godfather. But because again, we talked about this on the Hall of Fame, Duval Hall of Fame podcast. They didn't know how to put it on TV. It's an R-rated thing. It's like, and yet it was the most popular movie, you know, the biggest box office movie of all time. So how are we gonna see it?

• 24:26Sean Fennessey?

  These kids don't know how good they have it. It's incredible how accessible everything is. I just the idea of Disney Plus like makes my brain melt.

• 24:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 24:35Sean Fennessey?

  Because scarcity was the whole point for years and years. And now it's full-blown accessibility all the time. You think it has degraded the culture?

• 24:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I do think it's degraded the culture. I mean, my child was just screaming to watch like box jellyfish videos before he went to school this morning. And I was like, you know, what's, what has my life come to? But it's, it's also degraded the business, right? I mean, the fact that nothing is a special means that the kids and we all expect that we can have whatever we want, exactly as we want it immediately. And we're not willing to go out of our way. We're not willing to go to movie theaters. Nothing feels quite as special.

• 25:10Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:11Amanda Dobbins?

  So that's a bummer. Luckily, you guys have a lot of plastic and you're fighting that off.

• 25:17Sean Fennessey?

  We're doing well with that, I think. Feeling, feeling good about it.

• 25:19Speaker 05

  You know, in the silent film days, they'd make the circuit. And then once the silent film was finished making the circuit, they threw it in the trash.

• 25:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 25:26Speaker 05

  Which is why only 10% of silent films have survived. It was like, well, this is done. And they just chucked it.

• 25:32Sean Fennessey?

  That's Amanda proposed that for the MCU and they said, no, we're gonna hang on to those.

• 25:37Speaker 04

  Doomsday plays once in every city, they shoot it into the sun.

• 25:43Sean Fennessey?

  Do you want to draft? Any other open thoughts? Okay.

• 25:46Speaker 05

  Well, the only thing I'll say is that there is a kind of. I like your list. I think your list is good. I think there's a, an answer to every one of the ones on your list.

• 25:57Sean Fennessey?

  No doubt.

• 25:57Speaker 05

  That is, I mean, yeah, MASH 1970, but you could also say Patton 1970, which in some ways is the flip side of the same coin, but there are still some amazing, it's not all rah rah Patton, right? It's written by Francis Ford Coppola. There's, there's complexity there.

• 26:17Sean Fennessey?

  Totally, yeah. The, the scene when he's, when he's scolding the officer who has PTSD is the most obvious, like the two generations misunderstanding each other seen in the movie from that year.

• 26:27Speaker 05

  And I think Patton probably made a lot more money than MASH at movie theaters, I'm guessing.

• 26:33Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I think they're pretty close.

• 26:34Speaker 05

  Really?

• 26:35Sean Fennessey?

  I think they're, and that was part of what I was thinking was what movie is a box office hit, a critical sensation and got into the culture in a way that felt impactful. But, you know, everything is debatable.

• 26:45Speaker 05

  I mean, Star Wars and Jaws are inarguable. Clearly they're inarguable. They really changed, right? Hollywood movies in the eighties are very different as a result of not only those two films, but those two filmmakers. But, uh, yeah, there's, there's a flip side to all of those coins.

• 27:07Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I welcome the feedback and I won't be looking at it.

• 27:10Speaker 04

  It's about, it's about community.

• 27:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. So for this draft, um, we do have six categories. I'm going to read those categories before we settle on our draft order. The categories are as follows. Drama, comedy or horror?

• 27:27Speaker 04

  Now we. Or sci-fi, right?

• 27:29Sean Fennessey?

  Or sci-fi. Um, we've done that because as Amanda indicated, this is a tricky year for comedy. I think we could have pulled it off if we kept it tight.

• 27:37Speaker 04

  It would have been pretty funny if for, like to laugh at us, but not to laugh at these movies.

• 27:42Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. Um, thriller or action is also a category. Blockbuster. Now the threshold here is $20 million and there are only 10 films that qualify for that threshold. Then Oscar, which means any film that was nominated for an Academy Award from that year. And then of course wildcard. Okay. I'm, Jack, is there, is there a Jack Sanders selection that we'll be able to hear?

• 28:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Hello, it is I, Producer Jack, coming from the past to deliver the highly anticipated 1976 movie draft order. As always, I have denied Tracy Letts' bribe of a $100 bill for the first overall pick because I have integrity. Selecting first, Amanda Dobbins. Oh my god, I'm so happy. I really wanted it and I wasn't gonna say anything.

• 28:33Speaker 04

  You guys want the first overall draft pick?

• 28:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Feels like a pretty stacked year. It feels like a deep year. I personally would want the turn. Selecting second overall, Christopher Ryan.

• 28:44Speaker 05

  Wow, so rigged. Wow, that's so rigged.

• 28:47Amanda Dobbins?

  This is the first pick I've gotten in like six months. I do feel pretty bad. I feel like every draft Tracy's been a part of. I think I may have given him the last overall pick, so I'm selfishly hoping he's third overall here, but we'll see. God damn it. God fucking damn it. Sean Fantasy will be third, which means Tracy Letts will be fourth. The turn's good. The turn's good.

• 29:07Sean Fennessey?

  Fascinating.

• 29:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I know exactly what I'm gonna do, but I did just change categories because I was a little light. Yeah, so I think this makes sense. I think this makes sense.

• 29:21Sean Fennessey?

  Hang in there, mama. Hang in there. We just, we haven't even started yet.

• 29:24Speaker 05

  You got this, motherfucker.

• 29:27Sean Fennessey?

  I'm ready to start deleting.

• 29:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I think in thriller, I will take All the President's Men. Okay.

• 29:35Speaker 04

  Ooh, interesting.

• 29:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Which All the President's Men was gonna be my number one draft pick if I got the first pick. It is my favorite movie of this year, one of my favorite movies of all time. And also a movie educationally that certainly introduced me to Alan Pacula, William Goldman, and then, you know, all the backstage gossiping and fraught nature of production that William Goldman details in its adventures in screenwriting, right? I think this is probably where I learned who Gordon Willis is. It taught me about the power of gold chains as worn by Robert

• 30:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Redford. It taught me, you know, this is how I learned Watergate. Because I wasn't around and I probably saw it before we got to Watergate in whatever truncated Republican American history course I I took in high school. You know, they never really made it past.

• 30:38Speaker 04

  I know. They never get to Vietnam.

• 30:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, they never get to Vietnam, or they didn't in our day. Maybe maybe they've gotten there.

• 30:43Sean Fennessey?

  They did in my AP American History class.

• 30:45Amanda Dobbins?

  You know what? Honestly, even in my AP, they were just like, yeah, yada, yada. And then Richard Nixon resigned. So but this is an amazing electrifying, like beautiful movie about a bunch of dudes sitting in rooms, talking, and it really did show to me like the power and the possibility of people talking smartly in rooms and everything that you can do with that, like visually and emotionally. And I did all of my research for 1976 and then I saved this. And this is the one that I picked to watch like right before I went to bed last night. I didn't even watch all of it. But then this morning I was like, oh, I got 30 minutes here while I gotta while I do my hair and I I set it up because I

• 31:30Amanda Dobbins?

  just I wanted to watch the speech where Jason Robards as Brad Bradley comes out and you know, like from the from his house at night and tells him not to fuck up again. And it's, I don't know, it's an American classic. It's probably when I say that I think 76 is better than 75. It's just because I love this movie so much. And I think this and a couple others to me are like the highest of highs, whereas 75 is everyone being really, really good. But yeah, I'm thrilled to have it.

• 32:01Sean Fennessey?

  Great pick. I don't know if I would have guessed that this would be the number one over. Was it consensus number one for you?

• 32:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:06Sean Fennessey?

  And for you as well?

• 32:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:08Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 32:08Speaker 04

  This is also like a for for for draft nicks, a crucial crucial title to be taken off the board because of its flexibility across a couple of different categories.

• 32:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, I think it would have been acceptable in four of the six categories.

• 32:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:20Speaker 04

  So you took it in thriller?

• 32:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I did.

• 32:22Sean Fennessey?

  Excuse me, five of the six categories.

• 32:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:25Sean Fennessey?

  Which is fascinating. In thriller, though, is really interesting to me. That is not what I would have done.

• 32:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I will be honest, I didn't read the change.

• 32:33Sean Fennessey?

  News that you made last minute until we were drafting. And so I, I didn't know that it was thriller or action. Got it. Okay. I didn't know that. I didn't, I didn't understand that horror and comedy were grouped together. Okay. So.

• 32:44Speaker 05

  I don't think it'll impact you that way.

• 32:46Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, thank you. Well, Chris, you've got the second pick. Are you, are you excited? Are you reeling? How are you feeling?

• 32:53Speaker 04

  I don't think anybody's gonna have a bad movie in the first round of pick. Not a bad movie, but I don't think anybody's gonna be upset.

• 32:59Sean Fennessey?

  Nothing soft.

• 33:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, nobody is like, god damn it, this is a three movie draft and I get the fourth pick or something. I'm gonna take Taxi Driver and Oscars.

• 33:08Speaker 04

  I'm, I would be happy to take it, or happy to take a bunch of other movies here with the second pick. But Taxi Driver's one, I revisited recently and.

• 33:20Sean Fennessey?

  Pretty good.

• 33:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, and also like, I forgot.

• 33:23Sean Fennessey?

  Taxi Driver, excellent film.

• 33:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, one of my favorite movies ever made.

• 33:26Speaker 04

  I forgot how like, beyond being like sad to watch a man descend into hell. It's also melancholy and you know, it's like an incredible portrait of loneliness and an incredible portrait of like, a guy who doesn't know like how to relate to the rest of the world and how that drives him insane ultimately. But also obviously just like one of the great New York films. One of the most incredibly orchestrated movies when it comes to like the visuals matching up against the sound, the score. Always what kind of haunts me about this. And then some of the most virtuistic dazzling sequences, you know, that you can imagine from Scorsese and De Niro. Kind of in a, in a, in a zone that few people have ever gotten to. So Taxi Driver.

• 34:08Sean Fennessey?

  You know, normally if I lost out on the Bakula movie and the Scorsese movie, I would be absolutely devastated. But you get your number one pick. The board played into my hands and I feel so comfortable.

• 34:21Speaker 04

  Thing is if I had taken this, what you're about to take, you'd probably be like, awesome, I get.

• 34:24Sean Fennessey?

  I'm gonna go ahead and delete it. Yeah, I would have been, I would have been a little bit disappointed because this has been my number one, the number one on my board is coming. But any other thought, I mean Taxi Driver. It's on the list of movies that I watch every like 18 months or so. And I feel like it, what it's exploring and what you just described, kind of never goes out of fashion, unfortunately. It feels like it is right on top of the surface all the time. And a lot of that is due to Paul Schrader tapping into something that I don't think expires. Some of, a lot of it is the De Niro performance. A lot of it is the sense that like, there's always somebody who's unhappy in this country about how the politics is going. And that the movie really taps into that too in this, or at least they use their dissatisfaction with politics to project something from their own unhappiness.

• 35:10Sean Fennessey?

  And that, just that idea alone makes it a timeless movie. I have, my favorite scene always changes with this movie, but it's always a scene where Travis is talking to someone and they're like, what the fuck is wrong with this guy? Peter Boyle outside of the diner, or any Sybil Shepherd interaction that he has. Or, you know, anytime he's got somebody in the back of his cab and they're chatting.

• 35:35Speaker 04

  Well, that, in those scenes, sometimes Travis is like, what the fuck is wrong with this guy in the backseat like Martin Scorsese?

• 35:41Speaker 05

  The way mental illness is portrayed in movies is interesting. We were talking about this with Captain Newman. The history of that's very interesting.

• 35:52Speaker 05

  You know, you want to be thoughtful about the way it's portrayed. And in Taxi Driver, he's, he's not only sick, he's not only ill, but he's scary. He's realistically scary. If you've ever encountered somebody who's having an episode or who is mentally ill, but also has, you feel in them the capacity for violence. There's a, something happens inside you, right? There's a kind of fight or flight impulse that takes hold. And, and De Niro just absolutely taps into that.

• 36:27Sean Fennessey?

  But he's, it's not the strange unhoused person shambling down the street. He's very still in the movie. You know, he's that different kind of menacing that is even scarier, where you feel like he actually is in, at least believes he's in control. As opposed to someone kind of flailing their arms and going crazy. Still, just such an amazingly impactful movie.

• 36:49Speaker 05

  I saw almost every movie we're going to talk about in the movie theaters. My parents took me to see Taxi Driver when I was 10. Wow.

• 36:58Speaker 05

  Who would drive it?

• 36:59Speaker 04

  And they were like, here's your dirt bike. And here's your unsupervised link.

• 37:03Sean Fennessey?

  Before you go any further, I have to ask you a question about this because I'm thinking about this with my own parenting. You know, I feel growing up, being exposed to things at a young age, got me where I am today.

• 37:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:14Sean Fennessey?

  For better and for worse.

• 37:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Agree.

• 37:16Sean Fennessey?

  I really, I liked the way that I was matured by the culture. But I'm now thinking a little bit harder about what the impact of that would be on my kid. And, you know, you turned out wonderfully, but you did also write Bug and Killer Joe.

• 37:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:32Sean Fennessey?

  And so.

• 37:33Amanda Dobbins?

  And look how that worked out for him.

• 37:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:35Amanda Dobbins?

  And we're lucky to have those.

• 37:37Sean Fennessey?

  And the thing about that is obviously touched by, by, by, you know, a, a genius quality. You gotta get, that's, that's, that's luck of the draw. That's just like, you got it or you don't got it. If you don't got it and you watch Bug, if I, if I showed Alice Bug at, at 11, the way that you saw Taxi Driver at 11, how would that go over? What would, how would that get into her bloodstream?

• 38:00Speaker 05

  Well, I saw Taxi Driver at 10. But remember, I had seen Serpico at six. I mean, my, my folks exposed me to a lot of the, and I really just think they just didn't want to pay for a sitter.

• 38:11Sean Fennessey?

  That's another reason why I wanted to.

• 38:12Speaker 05

  And I have to say, I think differently about it with my own kids. I, I mean, I think my kids are going to have it tougher than I had it. I think the world is going to be a harder place. And so I'm trying to extend their childhood as far as I can.

• 38:26Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, that's beautiful.

• 38:27Speaker 05

  So I'm, I'm not exposing them to stuff like this yet.

• 38:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 38:31Speaker 05

  Now, I did say to Haskell the other day, who was asking about something, I said, when you're 14, you can watch every, watch anything. Watch anything on the shelf. I don't care.

• 38:40Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 38:40Speaker 05

  But.

• 38:41Sean Fennessey?

  Even Russ Meyer's Up?

• 38:42Speaker 05

  You can watch Russ Meyer's Up at 14.

• 38:44Sean Fennessey?

  Exciting.

• 38:46Speaker 05

  But Taxi Driver is the first movie they ever took me out of. We were in the drive in.

• 38:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 38:52Speaker 05

  And when they go back to Jodie Foster's place, which is fairly late in the movie.

• 38:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 38:57Speaker 05

  My mom said, Dennis, I'm very uncomfortable.

• 39:02Speaker 05

  And we drove out and they went back the next night and saw it.

• 39:05Sean Fennessey?

  Oh.

• 39:06Speaker 05

  And I didn't see it until.

• 39:08Sean Fennessey?

  Well, God forbid you didn't see the day you mom.

• 39:11Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I thought that's when.

• 39:12Sean Fennessey?

  That would have been a little tough to endure that final stretch.

• 39:17Sean Fennessey?

  That's my, that's another thing. Speaking of the times, that's a wonderful detail that I think is in the Mr. Scorsese doc when they talk about this film. But just the way in which they changed the color tone of that final sequence because of concerns from the, the MPA board and the rating.

• 39:33Speaker 04

  Right, yeah.

• 39:33Sean Fennessey?

  You know, that sort of fantasia of violence that Bickle goes on. And how just turning that more red and brown.

• 39:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:42Sean Fennessey?

  And making it seem like, it seems like a descent into hell, but it's also a little bit harder to tell what is happening.

• 39:48Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 39:48Sean Fennessey?

  In each individual bullet hole and, you know. That's one of those things where some of that is chance, some of that is artistic, some of that is a product of the times and what was allowed and what was not allowed. But anyway.

• 40:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I would just, the thing that haunts me about this movie, I think you're talking about this being a harder world to grow up in than the one that maybe Taxi Driver entered. But it's, it's gift and it's curses. I think it was very prescient about a sentiment of a great, you know, a rain will come and wash all this away. You hear that echoed in a lot of extremism now. And like a kind of just inhumanity and hatred for, for people that I think is sadly like very on the nose of like, when, when you read about like some of the stuff in the world and you just are like, Jesus Christ, like, you know, we've really fallen. So way to go, Paul Schrader. You got us nailed.

• 40:40Sean Fennessey?

  Tapped into something.

• 40:43Speaker 04

  Okay. Do the thing, brother. Go for it.

• 40:46Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I'll be taking Network in Drama.

• 40:51Sean Fennessey?

  Which is a movie I've spoken about quite a bit on this show. And we just spoke about it on the Duval Hall of Fame and his scene in that movie, which is one of the most electrifying examples of acting that I've ever seen.

• 41:05Sean Fennessey?

  I've been thinking a little bit about like, why I got into journalism and writing and broadcasting and all these things that I find myself in. This relates to All the President's Men, two of the, three or four best movies of the year being about these worlds. I never thought I would be having a camera in front of me while I speak.

• 41:21Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 41:22Sean Fennessey?

  And yet here I am.

• 41:23Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 41:23Sean Fennessey?

  Howard Beeling my way through this.

• 41:27Sean Fennessey?

  I've said before, like, this is the movie that really, I think, made me feel like a grown up. It taught me a bit more about how the world really works, or I thought how it really worked. And it's been called prescient many times, Chayefsky's script being, having like.

• 41:41Sean Fennessey?

  Such an eerily predictive quality and more so every year, similar to Taxi Driver. It kind of never expiring. The other thing about this movie, though, is that it's a lot of fun. It's very entertaining. I think that's a little bit lost in the discussion of it because it feels so powerful and so stoked by this kind of paranoia and corporate malfeasance in the work of journalism and in the work of telling the truth. But like Ned Beattie, when Ned Beattie's doing this movie is a lot of fun. What Faye Dunaway is doing in this movie is a lot of fun.

• 42:13Speaker 04

  Robert Duvall's a lot of fun.

• 42:14Sean Fennessey?

  He's having a great time and that kind of like pop opera that Chayaski was so good at, that that really, really clever style of soliloquy writing that he was, he was best at is just really entertaining. And this is a movie that like shouldn't appeal to 13 year olds, given what it's about. But when I saw it, I was just taking, it was like on a magic carpet ride, a way into like the rest of my life, basically, which.

• 42:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it should. It understands that what it is talking about is that, that its subject is manufactured to be as broad as possible. And it's showing you the machinery, but also recreating the product.

• 42:50Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. That's right. Especially once he is, not just when he's looking down the barrel of the camera and talking about how, you know, he's, he's had enough bullshit. But once he starts becoming the host of a variety show effectively, in which he is, you know, a tent revival preacher, speaking about how politics, God and the self operates in society, like we have so many examples of people who do this now. So.

• 43:16Speaker 04

  This one is also such an incredible mishmash of acting styles. I was re-watching some scenes from last night and I was like, how did they get Peter Finch and Ned Beatty on this side of like ham? And then Duvall and Faye Dunaway doing this very kind of like loose, but very present realism in their, in their performance. And then Holden is just fucking pickled and dying in front of you the entire movie.

• 43:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. One of the saddest performances of the seventies.

• 43:44Speaker 04

  How do they, Lumet making all of that work in the same frame, same scene, same movie is just always amazing to me.

• 43:52Speaker 05

  Superb. You took it in drama?

• 43:54Sean Fennessey?

  I did.

• 43:55Speaker 05

  Cause that's another one could go in several categories.

• 43:58Sean Fennessey?

  Could be a comedy, could be, could be Oscar, could be a wild card. I certainly laugh a lot while watching it.

• 44:07Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, you've got two selections.

• 44:09Speaker 05

  I knew those were gonna be the first three off the board.

• 44:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 44:13Speaker 05

  So I was just like, ah, just, just not last. Anything but last, as I was last time. It's very clear the fix is in. I understand.

• 44:22Sean Fennessey?

  You think Jack Sanders has done something?

• 44:24Speaker 04

  You get, you get two picks here. You could really upset the apple cart.

• 44:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know. And I'm.

• 44:28Sean Fennessey?

  You're about to do that.

• 44:29Speaker 05

  Do my best.

• 44:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 44:31Speaker 05

  I want to acknowledge that the best three movies of this year, to my mind, have been taken off the board.

• 44:36Sean Fennessey?

  Is that a consensus opinion? I think so.

• 44:38Speaker 05

  I think those were always gonna be the first three picks.

• 44:41Sean Fennessey?

  That, that's the argument that you're making, was that this year is this year. Those. Cause it's got these three movies. Those three movies are like, top of the top, all time. In like, still referenced, still, we could say, you know, both like reflective, but also predictive of where we are for all three of them.

• 45:00Speaker 04

  These would be on a list if we were doing a draft of our favorite movies.

• 45:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the 100 greatest movies ever made, yeah. They would be in that conversation. And greatest performances, screenplay, you know, all of it, so. Agree.

• 45:12Speaker 05

  In Blockbuster, I'm going to take Rocky.

• 45:14Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm. Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay.

• 45:17Speaker 04

  A movie with personal residence.

• 45:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. You want to speak about that? Deleting it.

• 45:21Speaker 05

  Uh, I saw it in movie theaters in 1976. It's a terrific, uh, experience to watch in the movie theater with people. It's such an exciting movie and such a, uh, it's such an excellent screenplay. You know, the moment when Rocky knocks down Apollo the first time is such a, in some ways now feels like such an obvious sports movie moment, but watching that film, something about the way that moment was disguised was such a surprise. I mean, people leapt out of their seat when they saw it. So a thrilling movie to see in the movie theater. Now, I'm, I've done this movie called, I Play Rocky, which is coming out later this year.

• 46:03Speaker 05

  So I revisited Rocky and I put it on for me and Carrie. And Carrie's like, oh, we're gonna watch Rocky, like, she's seen this, she knows it. And I asked her a question about the end of the movie, which she got wrong. So we watched the movie and she was like, again, like most things we watch, she was like, oh, I've never seen this.

• 46:22Speaker 05

  And we got to the end of the movie and she said, I thought it was a sports movie. I didn't realize. It's a character study.

• 46:28Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:29Speaker 05

  And, uh,

• 46:31Speaker 05

  See, this is why, this is why everybody dislikes me. Because I think they should have stopped making these goddamn movies after Rocky. I think the world would be a better place if they had stopped at Rocky. If they had stopped at Alien, I think they should have just stopped.

• 46:50Sean Fennessey?

  Well.

• 46:50Speaker 05

  Now, did they make a billion dollars? Yes.

• 46:53Sean Fennessey?

  That's an interesting opinion.

• 46:57Speaker 05

  And that's why people don't like you.

• 46:59Sean Fennessey?

  You're beloved. Um, Rocky II is very good. And there is, there are people who believe it, it is better than Rocky I.

• 47:09Speaker 05

  They're wrong.

• 47:09Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 47:10Speaker 05

  They're absolutely wrong.

• 47:13Speaker 04

  I prefer watching Rocky II.

• 47:15Sean Fennessey?

  Rocky, Rocky I is extremely slow.

• 47:19Speaker 05

  Not slow.

• 47:20Sean Fennessey?

  It is, it is deliberate in its character study in a way that I can't really find a little dull at times. And now the, the final 20 minutes.

• 47:30Speaker 05

  My wife did not find it dull. Never did she find it dull.

• 47:33Speaker 04

  Well, she also wouldn't have been excited by more boxing in it though. Right? Like she wouldn't have been like, oh, I thought, I thought that this was, there was gonna be more sports. Like she was like, I avoided this.

• 47:42Speaker 05

  So maybe it's a question of what you're looking for in a movie.

• 47:44Amanda Dobbins?

  What was the question that she got wrong?

• 47:47Sean Fennessey?

  Does Rocky win at the end?

• 47:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Oh, that's okay.

• 47:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:50Sean Fennessey?

  Presumably. And he does not, of course.

• 47:51Speaker 05

  Right.

• 47:51Sean Fennessey?

  Spoiler alert for Rocky.

• 47:54Speaker 05

  50 years ago.

• 47:57Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I was thinking about, as a person who likes Rocky and has never loved Rocky, would I have drafted it at all? Like, would it have been inauthentic to have drafted it? Before you, um, worked on I Play Rocky, would you have described yourself as a Rocky person?

• 48:14Speaker 05

  I would have described myself as a person who really loved and enjoyed the first film and diminishing returns for me after that. I saw two in the theater. I saw three in the theater or at home.

• 48:28Sean Fennessey?

  Three's pretty fun.

• 48:28Speaker 05

  And I, four is Dolph Lundgren?

• 48:32Sean Fennessey?

  It is.

• 48:33Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, that, by that time I was out.

• 48:34Sean Fennessey?

  He dies, he dies.

• 48:35Speaker 05

  I was out.

• 48:35Sean Fennessey?

  That's how I feel about CR on these drafts. Philadelphia, Rocky, thoughts?

• 48:40Speaker 04

  I mean, he's, he's obviously a city icon. I, I probably care more about.

• 48:47Speaker 04

  At this point in my life, I care more about the Creed, the Creed character played by Michael B. Jordan than I do about Rocky.

• 48:52Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting. He has supplanted Rocky as the, your Philly icon.

• 48:57Speaker 04

  Well, I just think it's like a, it's okay to move on. Like Tracy said, like we've made so many of these movies. Sylvester Stallone has refused to let go of it in a lot of ways, or did. And I just find myself like kind of being energized and stimulated by like a new take on it, you know, and a new take on the mythology of the boxer.

• 49:19Speaker 05

  I play Rocky. It's good. You're gonna like it. Uh, that's my selection. Shall I move on?

• 49:24Sean Fennessey?

  Did you ask to do this draft just so you could promote your film?

• 49:28Speaker 05

  You know me. The reason I like to come on here is to tout, uh, to try to-

• 49:33Speaker 04

  It's to run up his numbers.

• 49:35Sean Fennessey?

  I see your long-

• 49:36Speaker 04

  That's Rocky. You took first and your second pick.

• 49:39Speaker 05

  In comedy horror, I'm going to take Carrie.

• 49:42Sean Fennessey?

  No. Ah, damn it. Come on. I mean, I knew that, I knew I wasn't gonna get it, but I'm bummed out. Don't.

• 49:50Speaker 05

  Oh, good. I'm glad somebody's upset about my-

• 49:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. If I were to get that, I would have felt very good.

• 49:58Speaker 05

  I think Sissy Spacek should have won best actress.

• 50:01Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, listen, she's incredible in it, but like, don't, don't bring that to Faye Dunaway in Network, which is the most important-

• 50:09Speaker 05

  I think Sissy Spacek should have won best actress.

• 50:11Sean Fennessey?

  Of my lifetime.

• 50:12Speaker 05

  And I think Piper Laurie should have won best supporting actress.

• 50:14Sean Fennessey?

  I'm good with that, but Faye Dunaway, keep your Oscar. She does win for Coal Miner's Daughter, right? She, she gets hers.

• 50:22Speaker 05

  I think she's an underrated actress.

• 50:24Speaker 04

  Did you just try to get De Palma in director somewhere?

• 50:26Speaker 05

  No.

• 50:29Speaker 05

  I also think they should have stopped making jump scares after Carrie. I think jumps, because I hate jump scares. I think they should have retired them after Carrie. There's not been one as good as the jump scare at the end of Carrie.

• 50:40Sean Fennessey?

  You know what's funny? The ju- this movie's jump scares are all editing tricks that were used before this and are now used after it. But for whatever reason, the De Palma cut-

• 50:54Sean Fennessey?

  Just feels different than other directors' cuts. And you feel it in the, in the, in the prom scene. You feel it with the hand coming out of the grave. Like the couple of moments where you're just astonished by what's just happened. And you can be like startled. It's not the same as being astonished. There is something different in this movie. The kind of film grammar that he's working with that is so great. I'm really mad you got this.

• 51:16Speaker 05

  Uh, Amy Irving lives in my little town in New York. Hi, Amy. Does she listen to The Big Picture? I don't know.

• 51:22Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 51:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that's how you see her. You could say, hey, I said hello to you on a podcast.

• 51:27Sean Fennessey?

  Amanda recently selected Crossing the Lancy, one of her best films.

• 51:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 51:31Speaker 05

  One of Carrie's favorite movies. One of Carrie's favorites.

• 51:33Speaker 04

  I wonder whether what you're reacting to is what he cuts to. Because like there's jump cuts, there's jump scares in the Conjuring movies. And it's like in the dark, it kind of like okay looking ghost. And just the cut is scary. Like you're like, oh.

• 51:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 51:48Speaker 04

  But when he cuts, he's like, and like, and now this goddamn image.

• 51:52Sean Fennessey?

  Well, also like the use of split screen where you're seeing two things at the same time. And your mind is expected to process them both. And they're both scary.

• 51:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's the look on her face and the fire and something falling in the, in the gymnasium simultaneously. That just creates like an, an energy inside me that like most modern horror movies just can't really. They can't, they can't pull that off.

• 52:13Speaker 04

  Carrie, she just needed somebody to say, you got this, mama.

• 52:15Amanda Dobbins?

  So true. This is still probably the best movie about high school ever made.

• 52:19Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 52:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I think in addition to obviously being like a technical.

• 52:23Sean Fennessey?

  High school movies.

• 52:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but it's a technical achievement. Yeah, a posing council and high school movies.

• 52:29Sean Fennessey?

  You gotta explain that joke because we weren't recording when that was discussed.

• 52:32Speaker 04

  The great posing councils in, in movies.

• 52:33Amanda Dobbins?

  In the bathroom. That's what happens when these three men go to the bathroom.

• 52:37Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think we should start bringing the mics to the bathroom?

• 52:40Amanda Dobbins?

  They all just, they were like, gonna go to the bathroom before I record. They came out and we're just being like, Kevin Bacon and a few good.

• 52:45Speaker 04

  He is very good in that, even though Tracy doesn't like that movie.

• 52:51Speaker 04

  Moving on.

• 52:52Speaker 05

  You're up, big dog.

• 52:54Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so.

• 52:55Speaker 04

  I want to carry, I'm bummed.

• 52:57Sean Fennessey?

  Carrie and, and Rocky.

• 53:01Sean Fennessey?

  And I'm up.

• 53:04Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 53:06Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I know what two movies I'm going to take, and I don't know what.

• 53:10Speaker 04

  You only get one pick, right?

• 53:11Sean Fennessey?

  Sorry, I know what one movie I'm going to take. I know what two movies I want. I gotta figure out what is the right category for them both.

• 53:21Sean Fennessey?

  In blockbuster. I will take the Bad News Bears. Now, some of the, now, this is, in my opinion, the best comedy of this year. And also the, the last truly great to me blockbuster. This is a funky blockbuster year.

• 53:42Speaker 04

  It sure is.

• 53:43Sean Fennessey?

  And Carrie, I was betting on Carrie there. That didn't, that didn't shake out too well for me. Bad News Bears.

• 53:53Sean Fennessey?

  Top five sports movie ever made. One, one of the funniest and sweetest and sincerest, but also mischievous movies of its time. The great Michael Ritchie, Walter Mathau, Never Better, this butter maker. Hmm, elite stuff from, from Jackie O Haley and Daniel Monreal.

• 54:13Speaker 04

  Do you also believe they should have stopped making Bad News Bears movies after Bad News Bears?

• 54:16Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 54:17Speaker 04

  A thousand percent.

• 54:18Speaker 05

  I do. And I saw this in the movie theater and it was a fantastic time.

• 54:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 54:23Speaker 05

  For a little 10, 11 year old boy, it was a great time.

• 54:26Sean Fennessey?

  Did you say you just checked, you just saw it the first time?

• 54:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, I remember that I, I watched it while we were in Vegas for CinemaCon.

• 54:31Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 54:31Speaker 04

  Um, and obviously, you know, I, I knew Bad News Bears because of the remakes and also just as kind of a reference point, like I.

• 54:38Speaker 05

  A thing that you say now, but I sat down to you and I said, hey, that was so charming. I was absolutely delighted by every minute of it and, and also genuinely funny, which as we've said, you can't say for many of, of these comedies.

• 54:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And like a pretty good representation, I think of what Little League is like, to be honest with you.

• 54:58Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:58Speaker 04

  You know?

• 55:00Speaker 05

  Richie had such a great.

• 55:01Sean Fennessey?

  As I recall.

• 55:02Speaker 05

  Richie just had such a great feel for that kind of middle-class suburban lifestyle. Smile was his movie right before this about teenage beauty pageants and that movie like this one has a similar kind of sensibility about just showing, showing people a very, very relatable milieu.

• 55:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And he's really good at, at movies about competition, you know, like downhill racer, the candidate, smile, the bad news bears, semi tough. All that whole period of movies is all people competing with one another and what it kind of brings out in you and what it awakens in butter maker, what it reveals in these kids. It's a really, really fun movie.

• 55:46Speaker 05

  His five movie run downhill racer, the candidate.

• 55:50Sean Fennessey?

  Prime.

• 55:50Speaker 05

  Prime cut, uh, uh, smile, and then bad news bears. For my money, it's the best five movie run of in American movies.

• 55:59Sean Fennessey?

  Have you said that on this show? I know you've said that to me before. I don't know if you've ever mentioned that.

• 56:03Speaker 05

  I probably said it on Letterboxd.

• 56:04Sean Fennessey?

  Damn.

• 56:05Speaker 04

  There you go, brother.

• 56:05Speaker 05

  We didn't, didn't we put downhill racer? We did. In the Redford Hall of Fame. You didn't say it then.

• 56:11Sean Fennessey?

  One of our faves.

• 56:13Speaker 05

  You know, I'm an old man. I repeat myself a lot. It's okay.

• 56:16Sean Fennessey?

  You know, also Wildcats, Digstown, like he kept making movies in this world.

• 56:20Speaker 05

  I love Wildcats.

• 56:21Sean Fennessey?

  He, he is the great sports movie maker of our time. Anyway, um, feel good about that.

• 56:27Speaker 04

  Is that me now?

• 56:27Sean Fennessey?

  Now it's your turn.

• 56:29Speaker 05

  Don't fuck me.

• 56:30Speaker 04

  Well.

• 56:30Speaker 05

  Don't fuck me. I'm gonna take, go ahead.

• 56:34Amanda Dobbins?

  It's okay. It's fine. You can.

• 56:36Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no.

• 56:37Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, it's okay. It's all right.

• 56:39Speaker 04

  I'm gonna take.

• 56:42Speaker 04

  I'm gonna look deep in your eyes right now.

• 56:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 56:43Speaker 04

  And I'm gonna take the Omen in Blockbuster.

• 56:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, good. That's good. Okay.

• 56:47Speaker 04

  Um, because this, we're running out of-

• 56:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I've heard of this, but I- It's all for you, Damien! Right. And this is also, so his name isn't Damien Omen.

• 56:56Speaker 04

  It's not Damien Omen.

• 56:57Amanda Dobbins?

  But that's what Bill calls him.

• 56:58Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 56:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And they recently redid it.

• 57:01Sean Fennessey?

  Son of Jim Omen.

• 57:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 57:03Sean Fennessey?

  Jim and Judy Omen.

• 57:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, that's good.

• 57:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, thank you.

• 57:06Speaker 04

  Still a pretty disturbing movie, you know? Like, I enjoy this film. I, I think, I like to laugh with this movie more than I am afraid of it. Um, but there's some great set pieces. It's got a pretty good backbone of story. Um, Gregory Peck's decent in it.

• 57:20Sean Fennessey?

  Wonderful score.

• 57:21Speaker 04

  And there's, there's the, the-

• 57:25Speaker 04

  Woman throwing herself out the window is still fucks, fucks at you a little bit.

• 57:28Sean Fennessey?

  Plate glass window, that's great kill.

• 57:30Speaker 05

  I think it won the Academy Award for score. Am I wrong about that?

• 57:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a really good score. Um, I, I, um, a franchise I don't quite understand. I've, I've tried to. I think I got pretty deep into the, the Omen franchise when we did Omen on rewatchables and I was like, watching the Sam Neill version of Grown Up Damien.

• 57:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Have, have you seen the first Omen? Do you know about this?

• 57:53Speaker 04

  I did.

• 57:53Sean Fennessey?

  The movie that came out a few years ago.

• 57:54Speaker 04

  Oh wait, that was good.

• 57:55Sean Fennessey?

  That's terrific movie.

• 57:56Amanda Dobbins?

  That's when-

• 57:57Sean Fennessey?

  It came out a few years ago.

• 57:57Amanda Dobbins?

  That's when I became aware of Damien Omen.

• 57:59Sean Fennessey?

  From the first Omen?

• 58:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. No, yeah, yes. Cause it was back in the news.

• 58:04Speaker 05

  This was a terrific night at the, with the big bucket of popcorn in the movie theater in 1976. Yeah, remember it very fondly.

• 58:11Sean Fennessey?

  And you got it in Blockbuster, right?

• 58:12Speaker 04

  I did, yes.

• 58:14Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 58:16Sean Fennessey?

  Never one of my movies, as somebody who's really obsessive about the history of horror. I don't, for whatever, I feel, I, my thing, I was-

• 58:22Speaker 04

  I don't really know how scary it is.

• 58:23Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's because it's made by Richard Donner, who's clearly like not that interested in horror. And there are things about the movie that he's interested in, obviously, like this kind of like uptight, elite couple having something come into their lives that disturbs their gentle, upper middle-class lifestyle, but- It just kind of feels like everybody's slumming it a little bit. It's like Gregory Peck's slumming it a little bit.

• 58:44Speaker 04

  You say that, but I will say that I like when like actors of his generation, like him, Burt Lancaster, like guys who are just like, yeah, I like working and I'm gonna try this out and I'm gonna play with like my image and I'm gonna play, you know, he's, he's made some pretty provocative stuff over the course of his career. He's kind of, I don't know if he's like held up as like still like one of the great Hollywood actors, but-

• 59:07Sean Fennessey?

  That's a good question.

• 59:08Speaker 04

  Gregory Peck.

• 59:09Speaker 05

  Well, not only that, but I mean, obviously it's made in the wake of The Exorcist, which just made so much money. Now, we can cite a thousand examples of low budget, low rent Exorcist knockoffs. Here was an example of a studio going, we want some of that Exorcist money too.

• 59:26Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 59:26Speaker 05

  And it's just big budget Hollywood filmmaking. Get us big stars. You know, the kids will come see it for the demonic possession, but we're gonna get the adults to come see it because Gregory Peck and Lee Remick are in it.

• 59:39Speaker 04

  Right. And it's parental anxiety.

• 59:40Speaker 05

  And we went as a family. I remember, my folks wouldn't have gone, my folks did not go to see The Exorcist in the movie theater.

• 59:46Sean Fennessey?

  And it's in a tradition of like the haunted child going back to the bad seed in movies like that too. So there's some tradition there.

• 59:53Speaker 05

  I'm flaking.

• 59:55Sean Fennessey?

  And I noticed you're wearing the Steely Dan Gaucho sweatshirt. If you wanted to be on time with 76, I think it would have been the Royal Scam. Do you have a Royal Scam sweatshirt?

• 1:00:05Speaker 05

  I don't.

• 1:00:06Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, well, so much for that.

• 1:00:08Speaker 05

  I did have a Grizzly t-shirt.

• 1:00:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:10Sean Fennessey?

  The film Grizzly?

• 1:00:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I didn't wear that.

• 1:00:12Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, too bad.

• 1:00:13Amanda Dobbins?

  One of my favorite traditions is when you correct people and or movies for having anachronistic movie, a music cues or references in the film world.

• 1:00:26Speaker 05

  Since you brought it up, I should.

• 1:00:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah. Please show the pants.

• 1:00:28Sean Fennessey?

  Show the back, yeah.

• 1:00:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:30Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:30Amanda Dobbins?

  And.

• 1:00:32Sean Fennessey?

  Nice. That's really nice. All right, now are you purposefully evoking the era right now with your garb?

• 1:00:38Speaker 05

  I'm not.

• 1:00:38Speaker 04

  Oh, like he's like, like he's like the guy in Gaucho, like try again tomorrow?

• 1:00:42Speaker 05

  Like I'm dressing for the, for the 1976 podcast?

• 1:00:46Sean Fennessey?

  I'm just asking.

• 1:00:46Speaker 05

  I did not dress for the 1976 podcast. Sorry.

• 1:00:50Speaker 04

  You got two now.

• 1:00:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I do. Okay, I know what I'm gonna do.

• 1:00:53Speaker 05

  Whoa.

• 1:00:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Ian, Oscar.

• 1:00:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Because many of my Oscar picks are already off the board because again, of the, of the way this draft worked. So I will be taking Marathon Man.

• 1:01:08Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 1:01:08Amanda Dobbins?

  In Oscar. I'm sorry.

• 1:01:10Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:01:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Were you gonna take it?

• 1:01:11Speaker 04

  Well, I just didn't. I honestly just don't like any of the other blockbusters. And I'm trying to take movies that I at least like feel like I have a relationship to. But this is one of my favorite. This would have been like my second pick, maybe like honestly.

• 1:01:23Amanda Dobbins?

  It's it's so good. And it is really is where our interests meet. You know, a spy thriller.

• 1:01:31Speaker 04

  Roy Scheider in Paris.

• 1:01:32Amanda Dobbins?

  The movie for me does drop off slightly in quality spoiler alert. Once Roy Scheider is no longer in the picture.

• 1:01:38Speaker 04

  It becomes a movie about dentistry, which you're not a fan of.

• 1:01:40Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's true. I think Marathon Man is probably why, you know?

• 1:01:44Sean Fennessey?

  What a zag for you, a movie about a dentist.

• 1:01:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, sure. But is he using the dentistry for good?

• 1:01:50Sean Fennessey?

  Well, he's a Nazi. So, you know, not really.

• 1:01:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, Roy Scheider in Paris, spy thriller, really, really delightful. And Olivier was nominated in supporting actor, I believe. So then in drama.

• 1:02:06Speaker 05

  Hold on, can I tell a quick Marathon Man story?

• 1:02:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, please.

• 1:02:09Speaker 05

  So.

• 1:02:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's me and William Goldman.

• 1:02:11Speaker 05

  My friend TJ Jagodowski, do you know him?

• 1:02:14Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:02:14Speaker 05

  He's a great improviser, one of the greatest improvisers alive. You might know him from the Sonic commercials. He was on them for a long time. Very funny guy. Anyway, he's a Chicagoan. He's on the train in Chicago. And he's on the train and there's a young couple on the train, 20 years old. And the boy is explaining to the girl the plot of Three Days of the Condor. He's watched the movie and he's telling her the story of Three Days of the Condor on the train.

• 1:02:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:02:43Speaker 05

  TJ has us back to them and he's fascinated not only that this 20 year old kid has watched Three Days of the Condor, not only that he feels the need to describe the entire plot to his girlfriend, but that he's so good at it. It's a really replete summation of the plot points of Three Days of the Condor. TJ is kind of fascinated to hear this kid, because you know, there's some, it's a convoluted.

• 1:03:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah, absolutely.

• 1:03:13Speaker 05

  Takes her all the way through it until he gets to the climax of Three Days of the Condor. And he says, and then homeboy made him eat a bunch of diamonds.

• 1:03:32Speaker 05

  TJ so wanted to turn and ask why he was like, did you fall asleep on the couch? Watching one and wake up at the end of the other one?

• 1:03:42Speaker 04

  That is amazing.

• 1:03:43Sean Fennessey?

  That's the most like I plagiarize this from AI I've ever heard.

• 1:03:48Speaker 04

  Can you imagine if you just took every movie with a twist and then Brad Pitt gets out into the desert and then homeboy makes me a bunch of diamonds? That's crazy.

• 1:03:58Sean Fennessey?

  How strange.

• 1:04:01Amanda Dobbins?

  That's funny.

• 1:04:01Speaker 05

  I think of it every time I think of Marathon Man. We just watched recently, me and the nanny. Great fun. Terrific movie.

• 1:04:07Sean Fennessey?

  Good movie, yeah.

• 1:04:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Delightful movie. Okay. What I'm gonna do here in, and I, this is taking a little bit of risk, but I think that this is what would probably go next if I know my audience. So in drama, I'm gonna take Mikey and Nikki. Uh, the Elaine May masterpiece that, that explained men to me, you know? And I spend a lot of time with them, even though I'm not privy to the bathroom conversations.

• 1:04:36Sean Fennessey?

  If you watch Husbands and Mikey and Nikki in succession.

• 1:04:39Amanda Dobbins?

  It's true.

• 1:04:39Sean Fennessey?

  Those are all the boys in your life.

• 1:04:42Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, and now I'm raising the next generation. So I'm trying to study, I'm trying to learn, I'm trying to avoid the mistakes of the past, which are enumerated in excruciating detail in Mikey and Nikki and um.

• 1:04:55Sean Fennessey?

  At least none of them are gangsters.

• 1:04:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Yeah, that's, you mean that in Mikey and Nikki or in?

• 1:05:02Sean Fennessey?

  In our life.

• 1:05:02Amanda Dobbins?

  In our life. Yeah, as, as far as I know, but we don't, we don't know what's gonna happen to, to my sons. So.

• 1:05:08Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great point.

• 1:05:09Speaker 05

  You took that in drama?

• 1:05:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I took it in drama.

• 1:05:11Speaker 05

  Okay. Great, great, great movie.

• 1:05:13Sean Fennessey?

  Wonderful movie.

• 1:05:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I would just add that, uh, Cassavetes is very powerful to, to me personally.

• 1:05:19Sean Fennessey?

  He's your speed, huh?

• 1:05:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, even, you know, given despite all the problems, very evident in this film and everything else. I just, I really, really get it.

• 1:05:28Speaker 05

  Your, your board is very strong.

• 1:05:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you.

• 1:05:30Speaker 05

  She's looking very solid.

• 1:05:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:32Sean Fennessey?

  Um, a good, good picking spot, I would say. It'd be nice to have the number one pick. I think.

• 1:05:41Speaker 05

  Yes, but she's chosen well.

• 1:05:43Sean Fennessey?

  Completely.

• 1:05:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you.

• 1:05:44Speaker 05

  I'm not gonna just put it all on the spot. She's chosen well.

• 1:05:47Sean Fennessey?

  It's not over yet.

• 1:05:50Sean Fennessey?

  Um, this movie is, I think a lot of like our guys

• 1:05:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh huh.

• 1:05:56Sean Fennessey?

  are very influenced by this movie.

• 1:05:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:05:58Sean Fennessey?

  And a lot of the tone where this movie doesn't have the tone of a gangster movie, even though it's about gangsters and it makes a lot of choices.

• 1:06:05Speaker 04

  Men on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

• 1:06:06Amanda Dobbins?

  It is.

• 1:06:07Sean Fennessey?

  It's a lot of like the personal anxieties.

• 1:06:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Philadelphia men also on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

• 1:06:11Sean Fennessey?

  Even down to Ned Beatty as the hitman, who is the most unlikely of hitmen. Um, who's kind of bumbling and not suave and not cold blooded.

• 1:06:21Speaker 05

  Big year for Ned Beatty.

• 1:06:22Sean Fennessey?

  Awesome year.

• 1:06:23Speaker 05

  Network, Mikey and Nikki and Silver Streak.

• 1:06:25Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. We may get to Silver Streak. We'll see. You grabbed two?

• 1:06:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I did.

• 1:06:30Sean Fennessey?

  Um, alright.

• 1:06:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Marathon Man and Mikey and Nikki.

• 1:06:32Sean Fennessey?

  Very good picks. CR, you're up.

• 1:06:33Speaker 04

  In action thriller, I'm gonna take outlaw Josie Wales.

• 1:06:36Sean Fennessey?

  God fucking damn it.

• 1:06:38Speaker 05

  God fucking damn it.

• 1:06:39Speaker 04

  Uh, one of the great Clint Eastwood movies, uh, one of his best performances. Um, a very interesting film to read about the making of Philip Kaufman's involvement with it. Uh, the Eastwood rule that came in because you're not allowed to get rid of a director and replace yourself, replace the director with yourself if you're the star, apparently.

• 1:06:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:07:00Speaker 04

  Um, which I think, I wonder if this has happened kind of behind the scenes a couple of times, but at least officially this became like a DJA thing, I think. A story about a Confederate soldier who tries to run to Texas after a huge confrontation with, with the Union and disappear from the war and disappear from a life of violence. And the violence and the war just won't let him go away, get away. So, um, absolutely gorgeous movie to look at and to think about. His style evolving out of his experiences with Leon and his experiences on TV and everything, and really starting to find his own voice and his own, his own editing rhythm, his own photography. Is this Surtis shot this?

• 1:07:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:45Speaker 04

  Fucking incredible looking movie and, and a beautiful 4K.

• 1:07:50Speaker 05

  I'm so glad somebody said it before I did. I'm so glad I did not have to break.

• 1:07:54Speaker 04

  A beautiful, like honestly, get that steelbook? Uh, just, I just got the Warner one. Uh, just. You just couldn't let it go, could you?

• 1:08:04Sean Fennessey?

  I think that this is in the conversation for his best performance, too. Because he's asked to play something that he very rarely plays in movies where he literally breaks down crying in this movie.

• 1:08:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:08:13Sean Fennessey?

  When his family is killed. And he resisted that a lot of times as a star.

• 1:08:19Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:08:19Sean Fennessey?

  He didn't really let himself get into that. And he's also got, what is the name of the Native American actor in this film?

• 1:08:24Speaker 05

  Chief Dan George.

• 1:08:25Sean Fennessey?

  Chief Dan George. And their chemistry is so wonderful in this movie. This was, God, I really, I maybe should have taken this in the first go around because it's definitely one of my favorite Clint movies.

• 1:08:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I was, you know, you can also feel, this is a guy who's watched Carisala movies, like this is a guy who actually has like a kind of international sensibility when it comes to applying it to Western. So it just, and this is also one I used to watch with my dad all the time. This would be on TBS, this would be on movie channels, or we had it on tape, and it would just kind of be on a lot, this and Pale Rider.

• 1:08:58Sean Fennessey?

  Little bit of a pickle here.

• 1:08:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, you are.

• 1:09:03Speaker 05

  You are, because I got two picks coming down the track.

• 1:09:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you sure do. I don't think there's, there's not, I don't think there's anything that could be taken away from me that would devastate me at this point. So I need to just follow my truth for the rest of this draft, which means I will lose this draft, but have a slate that I enjoy.

• 1:09:23Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:09:23Sean Fennessey?

  Just going to foreground that.

• 1:09:24Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:09:25Sean Fennessey?

  Because there's a couple of movies I wanted to get coming in here.

• 1:09:27Speaker 05

  Has everybody picked Blockbuster?

• 1:09:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I have not.

• 1:09:30Speaker 05

  You have not. You have?

• 1:09:31Speaker 04

  I did.

• 1:09:32Speaker 05

  You have?

• 1:09:32Sean Fennessey?

  I have.

• 1:09:32Speaker 04

  I picked, that's why I picked The Omen so early.

• 1:09:34Sean Fennessey?

  Got it.

• 1:09:38Sean Fennessey?

  Boy.

• 1:09:39Amanda Dobbins?

  It's okay, you have network.

• 1:09:41Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, I'm very pleased about that.

• 1:09:43Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not a disaster. And you have Bad News Bears, which is incredibly charming.

• 1:09:46Sean Fennessey?

  In thriller and action, I will take Assault on Priest and 13.

• 1:09:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:09:52Speaker 04

  I'm so glad you did this.

• 1:09:53Sean Fennessey?

  Which is John Carpenter's second feature film, and among his best.

• 1:10:01Sean Fennessey?

  Directly inspired by Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo and is a kind of trapped in one place shootout movie that is absolutely scintillating and like an example of

• 1:10:12Speaker 04

  Terrifying in some places, yeah.

• 1:10:14Sean Fennessey?

  And like a great example of what can be done on a modest budget.

• 1:10:20Sean Fennessey?

  And is definitely the skeleton key for I think a lot of where his movies are going, even as they got bigger in scale, the like style, tone, smart alecky.

• 1:10:28Speaker 04

  And morphic, yeah.

• 1:10:29Sean Fennessey?

  The wide style that he looks at. Great performances in this movie, underrated performances. And just the announcement of like a major genre filmmaker who is one of my all time faves.

• 1:10:43Speaker 04

  Watching this last night and I forgot how unnerving those opening scenes with the gang driving around LA with the rifle with the silencer pointed out the car window and they keep stopping at different people and eyeing them up and then they fuck up that ice cream, man.

• 1:11:00Sean Fennessey?

  What?

• 1:11:02Sean Fennessey?

  Who is, what is the actor's name? Is it Austin Stoker? What happened to Austin Stoker? Is he still with us? Did he pass?

• 1:11:08Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 1:11:10Sean Fennessey?

  Let me take a look. Yeah, I guess he passed in 2022.

• 1:11:14Speaker 05

  Have you seen the remake of this?

• 1:11:15Speaker 04

  I did. It's Ethan Hawke and Morin Fishburne and I kind of liked it.

• 1:11:18Speaker 05

  Oh, who made it? Do you know?

• 1:11:21Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not sure.

• 1:11:23Speaker 05

  And while we're on the topic, have we seen the remake of Bad News Bears?

• 1:11:27Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, sure. Richard Linklater. It's not very good.

• 1:11:29Speaker 04

  Yeah. Disappointing.

• 1:11:31Sean Fennessey?

  Billy Bob.

• 1:11:34Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting that both of these movies have been remade.

• 1:11:36Speaker 04

  Jean Francois Richet.

• 1:11:39Speaker 04

  Who also made

• 1:11:42Speaker 04

  no other movies that I've ever heard of.

• 1:11:44Sean Fennessey?

  Not a movie that needed to be remade. Assault and Precinct 13.

• 1:11:50Speaker 05

  Good pick.

• 1:11:51Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks. Was that in your realm of interest?

• 1:11:53Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 1:11:54Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:11:54Speaker 05

  I certainly had it on my list.

• 1:11:56Sean Fennessey?

  Wasn't trying to take anything from you per se, but you know.

• 1:12:00Speaker 05

  All right, I'm gonna take a bit of a category, category reach. But I think it qualifies. In action thriller, I'm going to take The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.

• 1:12:14Sean Fennessey?

  This was my other, yeah, it was literally either Assault on 1313 or this.

• 1:12:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I chose Myki and Nikki instead of this for my.

• 1:12:24Sean Fennessey?

  There were two Cassavetes on the board this year.

• 1:12:26Amanda Dobbins?

  But this is the one that my husband was willing to watch with me. He was like, hey, I heard you're doing 76. What do you got to watch? And then, and then he picked Killing of a Chinese Bookie.

• 1:12:37Speaker 04

  Which cut?

• 1:12:41Speaker 05

  The longest one.

• 1:12:43Sean Fennessey?

  See, I don't, I disagree.

• 1:12:44Speaker 04

  I like the shorter one.

• 1:12:45Sean Fennessey?

  I do too. I think those, the, well, there's a great story, right? Is Gazzara's is the long one? Who's like, this is too fucking long.

• 1:12:53Speaker 04

  Oh, no, I thought it was the reverse. I thought it was Gazzara was like, I gotta, you gotta show me when I'm doing this. And, and then Cassavetes.

• 1:12:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Cassavetes is shorter.

• 1:13:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:00Amanda Dobbins?

  The direct, yeah, the director's cut is shorter.

• 1:13:02Speaker 04

  It's 108 minutes versus like 100.

• 1:13:05Sean Fennessey?

  No, I thought it was that the theatrical cut, I thought they screened the movie at 135 minutes and Gazzara didn't like it.

• 1:13:13Speaker 04

  Oh, and he made him cut it more.

• 1:13:14Sean Fennessey?

  He said, maybe I'm wrong, maybe, maybe it's the other way around.

• 1:13:17Speaker 04

  No, I think, now I think you might, I thought he wasn't done editing and they were like, you have to put this out.

• 1:13:22Sean Fennessey?

  But then the edit, the 108 minute version, he moves those scenes all over the place. Like, the movie is very different.

• 1:13:27Speaker 04

  Very different opening.

• 1:13:28Sean Fennessey?

  And there's a lot less stuff, I guess, in the nightclub.

• 1:13:30Speaker 05

  I've just got a lot more patience for a Mr. Sophistication than I did as a younger man. Now I could sit and watch Mr. Sophistication all night long.

• 1:13:41Sean Fennessey?

  This is a, man, fucked up this draft.

• 1:13:46Sean Fennessey?

  This movie, I think is one of the better movies about where the, the lead character is like a stand-in for the filmmaker, where like the idea of a person who's like, what I'm really interested in is like the design and the world and the artistry that I'm putting into this nightclub and everybody's there to watch girls dance and to be entertained.

• 1:14:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:05Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and that you come to show business for the pomp and the circumstance, you don't come for the artistry and Cassavetes being totally tortured. I love that idea that's in the movie that's so at the forefront of it.

• 1:14:15Amanda Dobbins?

  All the scenes of him just calling the club, being like, no, no, who's on stage right now? What song are they singing? Why is she out there alone?

• 1:14:22Sean Fennessey?

  Really, really, really good.

• 1:14:24Speaker 04

  Great movie about Los Angeles public transportation.

• 1:14:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:27Speaker 05

  Best use of Playboy Playmates, I think, ever in a film.

• 1:14:31Speaker 04

  Over Apocalypse Now.

• 1:14:33Speaker 05

  Oh, you got me. You got me.

• 1:14:35Sean Fennessey?

  But those are not real. Are they real Playmates?

• 1:14:37Speaker 04

  Like Colin Camp said, right? What a week for Colin Camp on the big picture.

• 1:14:42Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. Happy for her.

• 1:14:47Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, there's the other great story about this where he asked a whole bunch of studio heads to come sit and be in the crowd of the club, but then he like blurred all their faces purposefully so you can't see them, which is just like with the way that the lighting is set up. So they thought they were being gratified by being able to appear in a movie and then he fucked them over, which is such a little, he's such a little fucker.

• 1:15:08Speaker 04

  I love when Seymour Sel and all the guys take Gazara to like the deli on Sunset and they're just like all like huddled in this deli drinking beers and like are like, so let's take out a third mortgage on your house or whatever, pay off your poker debts.

• 1:15:26Speaker 05

  I always am happy to see Timothy Carey in a movie and he's great in here. And I also have special affection for this because I saw it at, I saw it in Dallas, Texas with a Q and A with Cassavetes afterwards.

• 1:15:40Speaker 04

  Oh, shit.

• 1:15:41Speaker 05

  Excited to hear Cassavetes.

• 1:15:42Sean Fennessey?

  What do you say?

• 1:15:44Speaker 05

  A guy trying to get money together to make a movie. It was all he was, all he was about.

• 1:15:50Sean Fennessey?

  So interesting. Okay. You got another pick?

• 1:15:53Speaker 05

  Ew. Does everybody have drama?

• 1:15:57Speaker 04

  I don't.

• 1:15:58Sean Fennessey?

  I do. I do. So interesting that thriller or action is all filled up. I feel like that's a healthy category. No?

• 1:16:06Speaker 04

  It is.

• 1:16:07Sean Fennessey?

  It was a little bit about the last minute category shift. So I just wasn't as. It may have worked out for you really well.

• 1:16:19Speaker 05

  In drama, I'm going to take lifeguard.

• 1:16:22Sean Fennessey?

  Phew. You are the number one lifeguard fan on this podcast. You've brought this film to so many people. No, I haven't.

• 1:16:30Speaker 05

  You should watch it.

• 1:16:30Sean Fennessey?

  I think you would like it.

• 1:16:32Speaker 05

  I think you would too.

• 1:16:33Speaker 04

  I'm sure that I would. This is the.

• 1:16:38Sean Fennessey?

  Sam Elliott.

• 1:16:39Speaker 04

  Sam Elliott. I was just thinking, I was thinking about the pants, which is, has that episode come out yet? That has not come out. Oh, yeah. Has, has physical media come out by the time people have heard this? Okay, so complimenting people on their pants and complimenting Sam Elliott on his pants is what kind of, I was just thinking about pants.

• 1:16:54Sean Fennessey?

  Story, yeah.

• 1:16:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:57Sean Fennessey?

  I forgot about that. It's been a long week.

• 1:16:59Speaker 05

  I just, it was just a terrific movie. Carrie and I were just, we watched it together. We'd never seen it. We were both just kind of knocked out by what a, what a good film it is. And a film that, that as Tim was saying the other day on the podcast, it kind of gets deeper as you get further into it. It seems to be a very light thing when you start and by the end of it, it's actually, it's actually gets kind of deep. And it's a, it's a great Sam Elliott performance. Early Ann Archer and maybe first Kathleen Quinlan appearance in Lifeguard. I think I'm done.

• 1:17:34Speaker 04

  Okay. Fenrock.

• 1:17:37Sean Fennessey?

  I've got another pick, huh? So I'm currently missing comedy and horror, comedy or horror Oscar and wild card.

• 1:17:46Sean Fennessey?

  Oscar, what a fascinating Oscar year. Most of the big dogs were taken up front. There's also, there's some good movies left, though.

• 1:17:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:54Sean Fennessey?

  Some movies I really like.

• 1:17:59Sean Fennessey?

  I think, I think what I'll do is, I'll just take a movie I really love, which is Harlan County, USA in Oscar.

• 1:18:08Speaker 04

  You fucking dick.

• 1:18:09Speaker 05

  You fucking motherfucker.

• 1:18:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:11Speaker 05

  You fucking prick.

• 1:18:13Speaker 04

  Fuck shit.

• 1:18:14Speaker 05

  Fuck you and the horse you fucked. Sorry. Sorry. Now, you guys did that 900th show and that little boy listens to the.

• 1:18:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, not anymore, he doesn't.

• 1:18:24Speaker 04

  Nico. And if you're listening, I just want to say, fuck you, Sean.

• 1:18:30Sean Fennessey?

  You fucking dickhead. Nico, it's just me and you here. I thought his name was Nico. He's so sweet. He made Sean cry. Unpleasant. I was so touched by that. I really was. It was really so lovely.

• 1:18:40Speaker 04

  It's real factory owner shit right here for him, you know?

• 1:18:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, I have probably said on the pod before, I think this might be the greatest American documentary ever made. Barbara Coppel's film about what happens in a Kentucky coal mine and the company that owns it and the folks who work in it and the way in which they organize and stand in the face of the corporation. A movie about real people that shows real people as they are in a direct way, which is very hard to do. And this movie, being recognized in its time, I think is really fascinating and really powerful at winning Best Documentary Feature. It's that collision of social impact and filmmaking artistry. And, you know, Coppel's made a lot of really great movies over the years,

• 1:19:26Sean Fennessey?

  but this one, similar to some of the movies that we took at the top of the draft, also feels as though it is not expiring, still very relevant.

• 1:19:34Speaker 05

  Oh, very much so.

• 1:19:35Sean Fennessey?

  Still very...

• 1:19:37Speaker 05

  Maybe more so that it hasn't been a long time.

• 1:19:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. And very watchable.

• 1:19:42Speaker 04

  I mean, there's sequences in this. I mean, even just the descending into the mines in the beginning. I mean, like where you're like, well, this is as good as anything in any action movie from this year. And some real, like, I don't really understand, like, there are moments where you're like, I can't believe there was a camera here for this.

• 1:19:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. She also just, there's a, there's just a filmmaking style where you could have made this movie as purely observational, but she gets this just into camera testimony from people on the scene frequently, where you see them, and they don't feel like blinkered by the idea of media. It's not like a performance that they're giving because they're being asked a question with someone holding a camera. It feels, authentic is seems like an insufficient word to explain. The way in which they're communicating about what's going on and some of that is the trust that Koppel has built with the people in the community. Some of that is just people not knowing how to be any other way. But um, yeah, this movie is like a, is a 101 for documentary filmmaking.

• 1:20:37Speaker 05

  I was gonna re-watch it for this draft and didn't and then realized, oh, it's okay. It's pretty, it's pretty imprinted on my brain.

• 1:20:44Sean Fennessey?

  In your mind, yeah, I feel the same way. I watched it in college. I've probably watched it one time since, but um, definitely one of my faves.

• 1:20:50Speaker 05

  I think on DVD on, in the Criterion Collection, but I don't think it's been upgraded.

• 1:20:57Sean Fennessey?

  Not on Blu-ray. No, not on Blu-ray. I would love a Barbra Koppel box set, actually.

• 1:21:00Speaker 05

  I only say this for the kids out there who might want to check this movie. Yeah, no, it's important, yeah. I just didn't want you to think I was turning this into a physical media podcast, I recognize.

• 1:21:11Sean Fennessey?

  Um, all right. CR, you have a pick here, bud.

• 1:21:15Speaker 05

  What do you have left, Chris?

• 1:21:16Speaker 04

  I got drama, wild card, and comedy, horror, sci-fi. And in drama, I'm gonna take Kings of the Road.

• 1:21:22Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 1:21:23Speaker 04

  Uh, this is, Vim Venders is rather epic, but also very intimate road movie about a very depressed therapist and a film projection repairman, driving around Germany and talking about stuff, about their lives and, you know, going to hang out with exes and their dads and really just trying to, you know. It's, it's basically a blueprint for Linklater, it's a blueprint for Jarmusch, it's shot by Robbie Mueller in an extraordinary black and white photography. Uh, it's a hangout movie and it's a thinker, but it's, it's kind of just like you can just kick back and watch these guys wash their clothes and walk around in circles and fill up the tank with gas and stuff like that.

• 1:22:06Speaker 04

  It's very durational, it's very, just, just watching life unfold. But for me, it's, it's the cinematography that I really come back to. Mueller winds up, you know, obviously shooting stuff like Repo Man and To Live and Die in L.A. and Jarmusch movies like Down by Law, I believe, and, you know, is one of my favorite cinematographers in film history. So to watch him kind of cook and, and watch him just really get like an expansive canvas like this, it's just, just a really lovely movie.

• 1:22:33Sean Fennessey?

  The long movie is our call.

• 1:22:35Speaker 04

  Three hours, almost, I think, yeah.

• 1:22:36Sean Fennessey?

  And it's kinda, it's the last...

• 1:22:40Sean Fennessey?

  Pure German movie that vendors makes, right? For a long period of time, American Friend comes right after this and then he kind of goes on the, his sagas of America and makes Hammett with Coppola and Paris, Texas and whatnot.

• 1:22:55Sean Fennessey?

  Great movie. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype? Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions, reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that, bull spend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO? LinkedIn Ads generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. Reach the right buyers with LinkedIn Ads. You can target by company, industry, job title and more. So cut the bull spend, advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash the big picture.

• 1:23:39Sean Fennessey?

  That's LinkedIn.com slash the big picture. Terms and conditions apply. This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime. This episode is brought to you by the Autograph Journey Credit Card from Wells Fargo. The Autograph Journey Credit Card from Wells Fargo is built for travel. You can earn rewards wherever you book, your favorite hotel site, your go to airline and more. You get five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants

• 1:24:24Sean Fennessey?

  and other travel and one point on other purchases. Whether it's a big vacation or a quick getaway, from booking your stay to that first meal when you arrive, you're turning your trips into rewards with the Autograph Journey Credit Card from Wells Fargo. Learn more at WellsFargo.com/AutographJourney. Terms apply. Okay, Amanda.

• 1:24:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. I have two picks. In blockbuster, I will take a movie that I like, even if the rest of you are being snobby, A Star is Born, the 1976 version. starring Barbra Streisand. I don't know why I always have to come on this podcast and be like, Barbra Streisand is important.

• 1:25:01Speaker 04

  Barbra Streisand.

• 1:25:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Barbra Streisand is important. And the movies that she makes that made millions of dollars at the box office are also important. And you all just kind of like stare at me. What? I like, it's, but it's true.

• 1:25:15Sean Fennessey?

  Not a good movie, but okay.

• 1:25:17Speaker 05

  Here's why I'm staring at you.

• 1:25:19Amanda Dobbins?

  It's pretty good.

• 1:25:19Speaker 05

  I've never seen any version of A Star is Born.

• 1:25:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Really?

• 1:25:23Speaker 04

  I haven't seen this one.

• 1:25:25Amanda Dobbins?

  You know what?

• 1:25:25Speaker 04

  I don't mean that in a cocky way. I just.

• 1:25:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Christopherson's kind of bringing it in this, in my opinion.

• 1:25:29Speaker 05

  Well, this is.

• 1:25:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Well, that's what he's doing. And so, and they. And, you know, they have some heat that I responded to at the age that I was.

• 1:25:41Sean Fennessey?

  Such a boring movie.

• 1:25:42Amanda Dobbins?

  That's fine. You can say that. And I had a nice time. And it was the second most, second highest earning movie of the year. So there.

• 1:25:51Sean Fennessey?

  It was a very big hit.

• 1:25:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:53Sean Fennessey?

  You've not seen a single A Star is Born film?

• 1:25:55Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:25:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's unpack that.

• 1:25:57Speaker 05

  I don't have a good reason.

• 1:25:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:25:59Speaker 05

  There's no, it's not, it's not like I'm boycotting A Star is Born.

• 1:26:03Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, Judy Garland in the second one is.

• 1:26:04Amanda Dobbins?

  The Judy Garland one is lights out.

• 1:26:06Speaker 05

  I'm told that's the one I have to see.

• 1:26:08Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, that is one of the great screen performances, in my opinion. You really should watch that. Amanda and I both absolutely love Bradley Cooper's version.

• 1:26:16Sean Fennessey?

  You might disagree with us, as you often do on contemporary films.

• 1:26:17Speaker 05

  I haven't seen it. How can I disagree with you if I haven't seen it?

• 1:26:21Sean Fennessey?

  Is it because you hate films that center women? Like, what's the issue?

• 1:26:23Speaker 05

  I'm not responding to your tyrannical questions. Good.

• 1:26:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Good for you. Good.

• 1:26:28Speaker 05

  It's nice to see.

• 1:26:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:30Sean Fennessey?

  But you will, and you do hate films that center women, as I understand it. Is that correct?

• 1:26:34Speaker 05

  Do not submit to the tyranny.

• 1:26:38Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, that's one that's in blockbuster.

• 1:26:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, blockbuster. And then in comedy horror, this is one of the international ones where, depending on where you are, you get a different year. But this, this film, performance from this film was nominated for the Oscars that we keep referencing. And it was released in the US in 1976, so I will be taking Cousin, Cousine?

• 1:27:00Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah, sure.

• 1:27:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Which I had not seen until preparing for this and was completely delighted by. It's a, it's a French Four Weddings and a Funeral. And, you know, and it's organized, it's romantic comedy.

• 1:27:12Sean Fennessey?

  Organized around two people who who are our cousins, but by marriage. So there's no kind of bloodline issues going on here. And it is France. They are also married, unlike in Four Weddings and a Funeral, both of them.

• 1:27:26Sean Fennessey?

  And they keep meeting over a series of family functions. And then ultimately decide that, you know, it's a happy ending that they want to be together.

• 1:27:40Sean Fennessey?

  They are believable, but the all of the family functions and sort of the weird slice of French seventies life is so funny and memorable. And every weird character is like gets a moment and makes you laugh. And I, you know, they're not a lot of, not a lot of great comedies and certainly not a lot of romantic comedies. I love this pick. Yeah, it's really good. Terrific, but is it Marie-Christine Barone? Yes, yeah, and she was nominated for Best Actress. Anyway, delightful movie.

• 1:28:12Speaker 05

  Did you know there's an American remake?

• 1:28:14Sean Fennessey?

  I did, but I've never seen it.

• 1:28:15Speaker 05

  It's called Cousins, and I believe it's made by Joel Schumacher.

• 1:28:18Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 1:28:19Speaker 05

  Bill Peterson and Sean Young and a bunch of other people.

• 1:28:24Sean Fennessey?

  This was discussed when we spoke about To Live and Die in L.A. on the Rewatchables, because this was one of the movies that Peterson chose as he was kind of dawning as a movie actor that didn't really hit and and making that choice instead of some other, he was, he was offered in this exact same timeframe, the film Goodfellas, reportedly turned it down to do this Joel Schumacher movie. Didn't work out.

• 1:28:49Speaker 05

  Good pick, though.

• 1:28:50Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you. Very good pick. This film was nominated for not one, not two, but three Academy Awards.

• 1:28:54Speaker 05

  Thanks.

• 1:28:56Sean Fennessey?

  C R is back to you.

• 1:28:57Speaker 05

  Wait a minute, didn't you have two? Did you make?

• 1:28:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I did A Star is Born, which you've never seen because you don't.

• 1:29:02Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, care about a life in the arts.

• 1:29:04Sean Fennessey?

  Having, having heard those picks, do you still feel that Amanda is winning this draft?

• 1:29:08Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, I do.

• 1:29:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. I mean, it's fine. We did let women into the frame, but you know, it's okay. It's okay.

• 1:29:14Sean Fennessey?

  I have Faye Dunaway as in.

• 1:29:17Sean Fennessey?

  I respect women.

• 1:29:19Speaker 04

  In horror, comedy and sci-fi, I am going to take The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Which is, uh.

• 1:29:27Sean Fennessey?

  Intriguing.

• 1:29:29Speaker 04

  You know, it has a mixed reputation for a very good reason. It's a very scary film that then has a very stupid B-plot of the law enforcement trying to capture this serial killer called The Phantom, who's terrorizing Tex Arcana, I believe.

• 1:29:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:29:44Speaker 04

  Uh, it's made by Charles Pierce, who's from Arkansas and made a bunch of really interesting seventies genre movies set in and around the Southwest.

• 1:29:52Speaker 05

  And used to distribute them out of the back of his pickup truck, driving around theater to theater and made fortunes.

• 1:29:59Speaker 04

  Uh, but when you watch Town that Dreaded Sundown, it's just kind of like, especially the opening is really inventive with this voiceover of, uh, almost like you're watching a documentary about, you know, people getting back from World War II and this town that's thriving and then this killer that starts terrorizing couples. But when the cops, the Texas Rangers, I think, come into this, it kind of turns into Smoking the Bandit a little bit. And there's a lot of like, gee, Wilikers, where are we going to get the gas for this car? And, uh, I, he was just really playing to a lot of, a lot of different kinds of audiences, but The Phantom is a really scary slasher. And I think you can see elements of like Zodiac in this, you know?

• 1:30:43Speaker 04

  I don't know if Fincher likes this movie. This was actually remade this century. I don't remember what year the Town that Dreaded Sundown remake came out, but it's pretty good. And it's, uh, in the movie, the remake, it is about how they made the first movie about The Phantom and the town. So it's a little bit like.

• 1:31:02Sean Fennessey?

  It was like 2017 ish around that time.

• 1:31:04Speaker 04

  Pretty decent movie though.

• 1:31:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:05Speaker 04

  And, uh, yeah, so I'll do that for horror.

• 1:31:08Sean Fennessey?

  Nice. Interesting how many movies were remade from this year.

• 1:31:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:31:12Sean Fennessey?

  Um, all right. That's a good, good, good film. A good pick. I think I need to, do I need to pick from that category? I think I do. I'm missing wildcard and comedy and horror. And you tell me if you think this is a comedy, because I do. Um, I'll take Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull's history lesson.

• 1:31:31Speaker 04

  That you're gonna say in the room with the sets.

• 1:31:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:31:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a comedy.

• 1:31:34Sean Fennessey?

  It's a comedy.

• 1:31:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:31:35Speaker 05

  I think so.

• 1:31:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, yeah, sure.

• 1:31:38Sean Fennessey?

  What, what do you think it is?

• 1:31:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I don't remember a lot of like laugh out louds on that one. It's a, it's a cynical view of, of the world and I guess entertainment.

• 1:31:52Sean Fennessey?

  An embittered satire of the, the falsity of the American myth.

• 1:31:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:31:56Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 1:31:57Speaker 04

  It's, uh, what would the, it's not LOL. It's like laughing silently to myself as a satire.

• 1:32:04Sean Fennessey?

  Chins stroking amusement. This is a movie that we did speak about on the Paul Newman Hall of Fame episode. This is the first of two collaborations that he had with Robert Altman, one of my faves. Um, a movie about Buffalo Bill Cody in the later stages of his life after hiring a publicist and a producer and putting on a big old circus show in the middle of the West where he reenacts some of his quote unquote greatest achievements, along with a whole cast of characters. Unbelievable cast in this film, um, that includes Burt Lancaster, Joel Grey, Geraldine Chaplin, um.

• 1:32:37Speaker 05

  Big Harvey Keitel year.

• 1:32:39Sean Fennessey?

  It sure is. I might try to grab, well, maybe you'll try to grab another Harvey Keitel movie before we're done here. Um. I think this is one of the great underrated Altman movies and like very much in keeping with this obsession that he has with people who put up a front and don't reveal the truth about themselves.

• 1:32:57Speaker 04

  Do you still have comedy?

• 1:33:00Speaker 05

  I, uh, took Carrie in comedy horror.

• 1:33:03Speaker 04

  Okay. Just out of curiosity.

• 1:33:06Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:07Speaker 04

  If, if we started throwing things all over the studio and saying you can't have this in comedy, I'm curious what your comedy would be.

• 1:33:13Sean Fennessey?

  It would either be up. The Russ Meyer movie.

• 1:33:17Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:33:17Sean Fennessey?

  Which actually came up on the physical media episode and I watched for the first time yesterday. Had a nice time, did it without my family at home.

• 1:33:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:26Sean Fennessey?

  It is very, it's very funny.

• 1:33:28Speaker 05

  I'll bet you laughed more it up than you did out loud at Buffalo Bill.

• 1:33:31Sean Fennessey?

  Certainly.

• 1:33:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:33:33Sean Fennessey?

  I was titillated as well.

• 1:33:36Speaker 05

  That's a topic for another time.

• 1:33:38Amanda Dobbins?

  It's great.

• 1:33:41Amanda Dobbins?

  The physical media high council, which is really, all that's, all those guys are up to.

• 1:33:47Sean Fennessey?

  There are some horror movies that I like that are left on the board. But I probably would also consider Silent Movie, the Mel Brooks film, which I think is not like one of his best, but it's one that I enjoy.

• 1:33:57Sean Fennessey?

  But you know what, there's more picks to be made, so you're, you're up for two.

• 1:33:59Speaker 05

  I, I saw Buffalo Bill for the first time in preparation for this draft. I'd never seen it before.

• 1:34:05Speaker 05

  Little on the nose. I, I love this Altman style. I love all the cast. I love, I think that Newman is fantastic in the movie.

• 1:34:13Amanda Dobbins?

  It's cool that they did it, but also it's, they, they are belaboring the point.

• 1:34:18Speaker 05

  A little bit.

• 1:34:19Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 1:34:20Speaker 05

  God damn.

• 1:34:20Sean Fennessey?

  Not like a Star is Born. Really subtle piece of filmmaking.

• 1:34:24Speaker 05

  Joel Grey, man. Joel Grey was a standout for me in that movie. I thought Joel Grey was superb.

• 1:34:28Sean Fennessey?

  He's really great. Burt Lancaster hated making the movie and did not like Robert Altman.

• 1:34:33Speaker 05

  I'm not surprised by that at all.

• 1:34:35Speaker 04

  Smokin' doobies while we're supposed to be shooting my scenes.

• 1:34:39Sean Fennessey?

  Is that your Burt Lancaster?

• 1:34:40Speaker 04

  No, my Burt Lancaster would be different. I love this dirty town.

• 1:34:46Speaker 05

  I have Oscar and I have Wild Card left and I'm making both of those picks right now, aren't I?

• 1:34:50Sean Fennessey?

  Certainly are.

• 1:34:51Amanda Dobbins?

  You are.

• 1:34:51Speaker 05

  Those aren't the last two picks, then we go back up.

• 1:34:53Sean Fennessey?

  We sure do.

• 1:34:55Speaker 05

  What do you guys have left?

• 1:34:56Amanda Dobbins?

  We just have Wild Card.

• 1:34:58Speaker 04

  Wild Card.

• 1:35:00Sean Fennessey?

  Wild Card.

• 1:35:00Speaker 05

  Oh, it's like that, is it?

• 1:35:03Speaker 04

  But I would have used my Wild Card for Harlan County if.

• 1:35:06Speaker 05

  Right. It was on my list.

• 1:35:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Greg Gardens was my Wild Card pick, but it was apparently also my Wild Card pick for 1975, so.

• 1:35:14Speaker 04

  Was the 75 draft when he took Barry Lyndon and you went, "Eh."

• 1:35:21Speaker 04

  Was that that?

• 1:35:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Did I do that for Barry Lyndon?

• 1:35:24Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:35:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Why?

• 1:35:26Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 1:35:27Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:35:28Sean Fennessey?

  I'll tell you why, because you're a brat.

• 1:35:31Amanda Dobbins?

  But why, why did I, I don't remember this.

• 1:35:33Speaker 04

  Or maybe it was an Oscars draft or something. It was more recently. We were in this room. And you were like Barry Lyndon and you just went meh. Like it was really one of the funnier. Anyway.

• 1:35:44Amanda Dobbins?

  But I liked Barry Lyndon.

• 1:35:46Speaker 04

  Well, perhaps I got the moment, the film wrong. I'd have to go back and see.

• 1:35:49Sean Fennessey?

  Some other gal on movie drafts.

• 1:35:53Speaker 05

  I'm going to take in wild card, The Man Who Fell to Earth.

• 1:35:59Sean Fennessey?

  What category would this movie be eligible in?

• 1:36:01Speaker 04

  Sci-fi.

• 1:36:02Speaker 05

  That's why I asked about sci-fi.

• 1:36:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:06Speaker 05

  I have to say, there are some movies, your relationship to them changes over the years as you watch them. And sometimes you go back to a movie, Godfather Part Two, and you go, I'm not liking this as much as I used to like this.

• 1:36:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Absolutely.

• 1:36:20Speaker 05

  But what's thrilling is when you see a movie and you don't like it, and then you go back and you revisit it and you go, oh, there's more there than I thought. And then you see it a third time and you go, how did I miss this?

• 1:36:29Speaker 04

  That's how I felt about Michael Mann's black hat.

• 1:36:32Speaker 05

  There you go. Well, that's how I feel about The Man Who Fell to Earth. My third viewing of this, kind of knocked my socks off. Perhaps due to the beautiful 4K presentation on the Studio Canal Steel.

• 1:36:46Speaker 04

  Is Studio Canal in the room with you now?

• 1:36:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I appreciate all the work that Studio Canal does. I haven't seen this particular 4K transfer.

• 1:36:56Speaker 05

  Do you guys know The Man Who Fell to Earth?

• 1:36:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, certainly.

• 1:36:58Speaker 05

  Nick Rogue.

• 1:36:58Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I haven't.

• 1:36:59Speaker 05

  You haven't seen it? David Bowie, Rip Torn.

• 1:37:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I know that.

• 1:37:04Speaker 05

  Candy Clark, great performance. So that's my wild card. And in Oscar, I'm going to take.

• 1:37:10Sean Fennessey?

  You've been really stumping for Nick Rogue on these pods since you came back here.

• 1:37:14Speaker 05

  He, he, he, there was a pocket. There's a Nick Rogue pocket. It didn't last long, but it's great.

• 1:37:20Sean Fennessey?

  I'm fascinated by those later ones, though. In Significance and Eureka. And those movies are interesting.

• 1:37:26Speaker 05

  Right. The Witches.

• 1:37:28Sean Fennessey?

  The Witches, indeed.

• 1:37:29Speaker 05

  Angelica. When do you introduce your kids to The Witches? Pretty scary, right?

• 1:37:33Sean Fennessey?

  I saw it very early on and it fucked me up. I was a big role doll reader.

• 1:37:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I, The Witches is my.

• 1:37:38Sean Fennessey?

  My favorite of the Roald Dahl books. And so I will probably start with that.

• 1:37:43Speaker 05

  But it's pretty scary.

• 1:37:44Sean Fennessey?

  It is pretty scary. And that's, I would say that my kind of line for my kids right now is, is it gonna cause a nightmare that I have to deal with? You know, at like 2am. We've had a lot of like, I had a dream about a scary robot recently because of Star Wars. So, which is, would be, would be intense. But amazing movie. I think maybe Danny, the champion of the world is my favorite Roald Dahl book. Have you read that one?

• 1:38:08Speaker 04

  I was not a big doll guy.

• 1:38:11Sean Fennessey?

  Really good movie about a boy and his father, who was a mechanic.

• 1:38:15Speaker 05

  Because you like, because you like Doll's views on.

• 1:38:20Sean Fennessey?

  No, he was an anti Semite. And I reject that about him.

• 1:38:26Sean Fennessey?

  I can play the game. I know how to respond to these questions. I've been writing them my whole life. I, no, he was a, he was a wretched anti Semite, but a wonderful writer and creator of stories for children.

• 1:38:35Speaker 04

  Did you get to see Giant yet?

• 1:38:38Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:38:39Speaker 04

  The, the, the stage play with John Lithgow, where he plays Roald Dahl.

• 1:38:43Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:38:44Speaker 05

  Probably gonna win the Tony Award for Best Actor.

• 1:38:47Sean Fennessey?

  Lithgow's gonna win that. Have you seen it?

• 1:38:49Speaker 04

  No, I will not be going to see it when I go back to New York next week. I'm going to see a different play.

• 1:38:53Sean Fennessey?

  In protest of Doll's views?

• 1:38:55Speaker 04

  No, just out of my own personal curiosities.

• 1:38:59Sean Fennessey?

  What are you seeing instead?

• 1:39:00Speaker 04

  Becky Shaw.

• 1:39:01Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:39:02Speaker 05

  I hear it's great.

• 1:39:02Speaker 04

  Alden Ehrenreich.

• 1:39:03Speaker 05

  I hear it's great.

• 1:39:05Speaker 04

  Patrick Ball from The Pit.

• 1:39:06Speaker 05

  I hear Alden's great in it too.

• 1:39:07Speaker 04

  I can't, can't wait.

• 1:39:08Sean Fennessey?

  You've, you've always supported Alden.

• 1:39:10Speaker 04

  I have.

• 1:39:12Sean Fennessey?

  In the theater?

• 1:39:13Speaker 04

  I do.

• 1:39:14Speaker 05

  In Oscar, I'm going to take Seven Beauties. Lena Vertmiller's movie starring Giancarlo Janini. Was he nominated for Best Actor, Giancarlo Janini?

• 1:39:26Sean Fennessey?

  Do not think he was. He, was he? He was nominated.

• 1:39:32Speaker 05

  He was nominated for Best Actor. Uh, great, funny, horrifying, hilarious, upsetting, all those things, and a great performance. He's really great in this movie. I put this sort of in the bucket of, this is a movie you kids should see if you haven't seen it. Kids ought to go, have you seen Seven Beauties?

• 1:39:54Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:39:54Speaker 05

  You ought to go out and see Seven.

• 1:39:55Sean Fennessey?

  One of the great things about this year to Amanda's selection of, is it Cousin, Cousin?

• 1:40:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Cousin, cuisine. Get ready for Cannes, my guy.

• 1:40:05Sean Fennessey?

  It's never been one of my skills. I'll do my best.

• 1:40:10Sean Fennessey?

  Just like now, a lot of international films would find their way into the nominations across the 1970s and were pretty solidly represented throughout that, those years. So that's, that's it for you. You're done.

• 1:40:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:40:24Sean Fennessey?

  How do you feel?

• 1:40:26Amanda Dobbins?

  You have Carrie, though. I think that's pretty important.

• 1:40:29Speaker 04

  In more ways than one.

• 1:40:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:40:32Sean Fennessey?

  In some ways, that's all you have.

• 1:40:37Speaker 04

  What did you pick, Tracy? Just you?

• 1:40:41Sean Fennessey?

  I got a wild card here, huh? Gosh. Well, I don't know. I don't know what I want to choose.

• 1:40:51Sean Fennessey?

  What's my favorite movie that's left on the board?

• 1:40:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know, Sean. Tell us.

• 1:40:57Sean Fennessey?

  I will momentarily.

• 1:40:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Do you know what you're gonna do for wildcard, Christopher?

• 1:41:01Speaker 04

  I'm trying to decide between three things.

• 1:41:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, wow. Look at you.

• 1:41:05Sean Fennessey?

  I'm wondering if you've seen a movie that I just watched and how you would feel about it.

• 1:41:09Speaker 04

  Bernardo Berlucchi's 1900.

• 1:41:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:41:12Speaker 04

  All five hours?

• 1:41:13Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. Was 19, is 1900 eligible in this year?

• 1:41:16Speaker 04

  Why? Because it lasts longer than the year?

• 1:41:21Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really know. Didn't it come out in 77 or 78?

• 1:41:25Speaker 04

  I don't care for that film, so it's got some lovely music.

• 1:41:28Sean Fennessey?

  You weren't considering it? Because it was not in the English language, or what was the reason for that?

• 1:41:31Speaker 04

  No, because I, I find it to be quite dull and somewhat offensive.

• 1:41:36Sean Fennessey?

  I'll tell you what, I'll just keep some consistency with my all-in affection.

• 1:41:41Amanda Dobbins?

  You're just really on your principles today.

• 1:41:42Sean Fennessey?

  And I'll take Alan Rudolph's Welcome to L.A., which is not his first film, but his first film under Altman's guidance. One of the first films, the first film released by Lionsgate, not the Lionsgate that we know, but the production company that Robert Altman launched on his own and released a handful of films. Only four that he did not direct, this was the first of them. It's a movie, a kind of arch-drama about vapid people in Los Angeles gathering and thinking that they have problems, when in fact, they do not. It is, features many of the players from the Altman classics, Keith Carradine, Geraldine

• 1:42:26Sean Fennessey?

  Chaplin, Harvey Keitel appears in this movie.

• 1:42:29Speaker 04

  Lauren Hutton's in this?

• 1:42:30Sean Fennessey?

  Lauren Hutton, Sally Kellerman, Sissy Spacek is in this movie. It's kind of centered around this songwriter musician, played by Carradine, who-

• 1:42:38Speaker 04

  Can I just stop you for one second about this? One of the things that stopped me from seeing this film for such a long time is, on the cover of the video box, Carradine has the worst facial hair, perhaps in American history.

• 1:42:50Sean Fennessey?

  Well, in the film, he does.

• 1:42:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, like, it is, it is a really, like, an abomination of a, of like, a chin whisker that he's got going.

• 1:42:58Sean Fennessey?

  It recalls Shaggy from Scooby Doo.

• 1:43:00Speaker 04

  Yeah. But he's supposed to just be, like, the coolest guy moving through L.A.

• 1:43:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, but he's also, the movie is also very cleverly, like, this is the nepo, right? Like, his father is a powerful music executive, has kind of put him in position to be this much-sought-after songwriter. Richard Baskin, speaking of your girl, Barbra Streisand, who has dated Barbra Streisand for years, plays a singer in the film and wrote the songs that are performed in the movie. Just a really, kind of, acidic, seemingly soft, but very jagged portrait of, honestly, a million that's very familiar to me. I just feel like I know a lot of the people in this movie, even though it was made 50 years ago.

• 1:43:42Speaker 04

  Cool. My turn?

• 1:43:44Sean Fennessey?

  Your turn.

• 1:43:47Speaker 04

  So wildcard, gosh.

• 1:43:50Speaker 05

  We all feel a little grim here in the later rounds.

• 1:43:53Speaker 04

  I just like, you know.

• 1:43:54Sean Fennessey?

  That's the thing is these lineups cannot stack up to the 75 lineups. That's why there's not as much.

• 1:43:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. I've got all the president's men.

• 1:44:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, we know what.

• 1:44:03Amanda Dobbins?

  And marathon man.

• 1:44:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you've got a Star is Born.

• 1:44:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And Mikey and Nikki.

• 1:44:06Sean Fennessey?

  Cousin, cousin.

• 1:44:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Cousin is great. I had the fucking Stepford Wives in 75, which is.

• 1:44:12Sean Fennessey?

  Incredible film.

• 1:44:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm sure, but also kind of belabor is the point. We get it.

• 1:44:18Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, my God. Since when is subtlety so important to you? This is not something you've expressed in previous episodes of this show.

• 1:44:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Just saying, I can speak my truth, which is, you know.

• 1:44:28Speaker 04

  I think I'll just for the hell of it, take Logan's Run.

• 1:44:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:44:31Speaker 04

  Okay. Which probably winds up influencing more stuff that I liked than me loving Logan's Run itself, but is a real head fuck of a movie when you think about like, you know, some of the things that the character goes through. It's basically about a guy who, you know, it's like a sort of Hunger Games-y society where after a certain amount of time, people get like sort of farmed out into a competition to see if they can still live, keep going and living.

• 1:45:00Speaker 05

  Let me tell you all about it.

• 1:45:01Speaker 04

  And yeah, I believe Michael York plays the main character, who is one of the hunters of those people, but then becomes the hunted and learns a lot of truths about society in the process.

• 1:45:14Sean Fennessey?

  To Tracy's point about the Rocky films, do you think that we should all tap out at 30, that at 30 years old, we should be eliminated from society?

• 1:45:22Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I'm thriving.

• 1:45:23Speaker 04

  It would be an interesting way to start, you know, thinning out the amount of chairs in this draft is to, is to, you know, it's like, once you hit a certain amount of drafts, you're done.

• 1:45:33Sean Fennessey?

  The bad news would be that this show would never have existed.

• 1:45:38Speaker 04

  So yeah, I'll go with Logan's Run for last, last one there.

• 1:45:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:45:41Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Amanda, you've got one final pick.

• 1:45:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I have wildcard and I'm going to do a discovery, another discovery. That I made while watching this and also another documentary. My original plan was to do Grey Gardens in wildcard, which is also what I did in 1975. So maybe I think the lineups are comparable because for me, they were going to be sort of the same.

• 1:46:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, I'm going to do a different documentary, Degare au Teep, which an Agnes Varda film that was 75 in France, 76 in the UK, in the US, so it's eligible. And is a very charming and interesting snapshot of life on the Rue Degare, which is the street where Agnes Varda lived for decades. And it starts with the perfume shopkeeper.

• 1:46:33Sean Fennessey?

  Shopkeepers, yeah.

• 1:46:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And it is mostly about the shopkeepers, but it starts with one perfume-esque shopkeeper and his wife.

• 1:46:40Sean Fennessey?

  Goes in.

• 1:46:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she's interested in them and how they got there and starts following everybody else along the street and asks them, you know, when they came to Paris and what they do. And follows them along and follows some pretty disgruntled shopgoers. But, you know, it's the 70s, so they don't think to just be like, no, no, you can't record me. And is idiosyncratic in the way that all Varda's films are. At some point, she starts asking them about their dreams, like literally what their dreams are, not like, what do you hope to be? And not, it's not an American thing, it's a French thing. And, you know, it's just a way of looking at the world that only Agnes Varda can.

• 1:47:26Amanda Dobbins?

  And so the documentary communicates that and you can experience it from anybody else's camera. And I liked it a lot. That's awesome.

• 1:47:34Sean Fennessey?

  It's a really good movie. I don't know that movie.

• 1:47:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:36Sean Fennessey?

  Don't know it at all. Definitely worth checking out. Great. Very short, as I recall.

• 1:47:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Just like 80 minutes or something?

• 1:47:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:44Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's streaming. Criterion right now.

• 1:47:47Sean Fennessey?

  Bang. Um, honorable mentions.

• 1:47:50Speaker 04

  I already regret my wild card because there are some good honorable mentions.

• 1:47:54Sean Fennessey?

  Well, let's talk about them.

• 1:47:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm looking at my honorable mentions and thinking it looks better than my lineup. It's like, how the hell did that happen?

• 1:48:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:48:00Speaker 04

  Uh, Roman Polanski's The Tenant?

• 1:48:02Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:48:03Speaker 05

  Just re-watched it recently. Excellent.

• 1:48:05Speaker 04

  That guy knows how to shoot an apartment.

• 1:48:06Sean Fennessey?

  There he does.

• 1:48:08Speaker 04

  Cars at Eight Paris?

• 1:48:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:48:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:48:10Sean Fennessey?

  Was this 76?

• 1:48:11Speaker 04

  I thought so.

• 1:48:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. I don't, I don't, I honestly don't remember.

• 1:48:13Speaker 05

  I think so, yeah.

• 1:48:14Speaker 04

  Um, two pulpy crime-ish movies, one of which, or maybe both of which I got off of Tracy's Letterboxd. Um, Small Town in Texas and Jackson County Jail. Oh, yeah. Jackson County Jail with Tommy Lee Jones, right? That is a fucked up movie. Uh, and Police Python 357, which is an Alan Cornell movie that is basically French Dirty Harry with Yves Monten and is in a great Radiance box set.

• 1:48:48Sean Fennessey?

  I was expecting you to take Yakuza Graveyard, which is also 76. No?

• 1:48:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:48:55Speaker 04

  I like to expand beyond the Yakuza, you know, that sometimes I, I want to, you know?

• 1:48:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:49:00Sean Fennessey?

  You know, there's another, uh, Brian De Palma movie from this year called Obsession, which is a movie that I think is bad that I love.

• 1:49:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 1:49:07Speaker 04

  One of the crazier plots that I've ever heard or seen is Obsession.

• 1:49:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Why don't you recap it right now?

• 1:49:13Sean Fennessey?

  Quite a turn at the end of this movie.

• 1:49:14Speaker 04

  Was that?

• 1:49:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Why don't you recap it in three sentences right now?

• 1:49:17Sean Fennessey?

  Don't spoil it.

• 1:49:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well, people can-

• 1:49:19Speaker 04

  And then he made him eat the diamonds.

• 1:49:23Speaker 05

  Then the homeboy made him eat a bunch of diamonds.

• 1:49:25Sean Fennessey?

  The Ebert quote around Obsession is, "I don't just like movies like this, I relish them. Sometimes overwrought excess can be its own reward."

• 1:49:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 1:49:35Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:49:35Speaker 05

  That's both.

• 1:49:39Speaker 05

  More honorable mentions? Well, we should probably mention King Kong, which, uh, is not a very good movie, but certainly had delights for a boy who turned 11 in 1976.

• 1:49:51Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. That was one of two more remaining blockbusters that were not selected. The others are Silver Streak.

• 1:49:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:49:59Sean Fennessey?

  The prior, and nope, the prior and Gene Wilder film.

• 1:50:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:02Sean Fennessey?

  With Jill Clayberg.

• 1:50:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Which opens with just like 30 minutes of Gene Wilder seducing Jill Clayberg in a way that I did not find to-

• 1:50:11Speaker 05

  Be credible. Did you re-watch it? I did. Or watch it? I did.

• 1:50:14Sean Fennessey?

  On a train?

• 1:50:15Speaker 05

  Yes, on a train.

• 1:50:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:16Speaker 05

  It was a big hit.

• 1:50:17Sean Fennessey?

  Huge movie.

• 1:50:18Speaker 05

  I saw it in the movie theater. And I'm telling you, when Richard Pryor appears, he shows up about halfway through the movie, the movie theater just became electric. He just electrified the crowd. That's why that movie was such a big hit.

• 1:50:31Sean Fennessey?

  One of two movies in which he did that exact thing, because he shows up about halfway through Car Wash, and the movie Car Wash Comes to Life. The other movie was The Enforcer, the other Clint Eastwood movie from that year, which is the third Dirty Harry movie.

• 1:50:42Speaker 05

  Not my favorite.

• 1:50:43Sean Fennessey?

  I don't like it.

• 1:50:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's not very good. Time Daily? Early Time Daily, yeah.

• 1:50:47Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, what else you got?

• 1:50:49Speaker 05

  Fellini's Casanova.

• 1:50:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Never seen it.

• 1:50:52Speaker 05

  Not for all tastes. Uh, obviously Fellini, there's amazing things in it. The Front.

• 1:51:00Sean Fennessey?

  I just watched, watched this again yesterday.

• 1:51:02Speaker 05

  Uh, Martin Writ's movie with Woody Allen about, uh, Blacklist, right? Blacklist, people naming names. Very good movie. Zero Mostel, very good.

• 1:51:12Sean Fennessey?

  I like it a lot.

• 1:51:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's very good.

• 1:51:14Sean Fennessey?

  It's, um, you know, I think because of everything with Woody in the last 30 years, it's maybe doesn't have the same place it does, because it's just effectively a pure drama.

• 1:51:23Speaker 05

  What's, what, what happened with Woody?

• 1:51:26Sean Fennessey?

  You gotta check out some, uh, check out the newspapers.

• 1:51:29Speaker 05

  Uh, Face to Face, Ingmar Bergman from this year, uh, which I watched for the first time yesterday. It's not Bergman's best, but Liv Ullman, goddamn, man. Very good. Just. She's very good. I agree with you. Really something. Uh, Hollywood Boulevard, uh, terrific drive-in movie. I mean, it's no more than a drive-in movie. It's an 85-minute, uh, comic romp, very low budget, very, very, uh, Roger Corman.

• 1:51:57Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm. Alan Arkes, right?

• 1:51:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:51:59Sean Fennessey?

  Edited by Joe Dante.

• 1:52:00Speaker 05

  Uh, you mentioned Up already, but I think Up is really fun and really funny. My wife liked it a lot, so.

• 1:52:07Sean Fennessey?

  That makes you seem like not a pervert, but all right?

• 1:52:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. Uh, Mr. Klein, I think was made in 76, but wasn't available to us because it wasn't released until later. But it's, it would have been my drama choice for sure.

• 1:52:18Sean Fennessey?

  Alon Doan.

• 1:52:19Speaker 05

  Had it been available.

• 1:52:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Joseph Losi.

• 1:52:21Speaker 05

  Uh, Heart of Glass, uh, Werner Herzog's movie I watched last night for the first time. Do you know this movie?

• 1:52:29Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 1:52:29Speaker 05

  In which all the actors are under hypnosis. They've all been hypnotized. For how? Uh. Uh, to what end? And? It's about a 17th century Bavarian community and they are known for their rose colored glass. They have a glassworks and they're known for their rose colored glass. But the guy who has the secret formula to the rose colored glass has died and the town has gone into shock. And so to create this very sort of eerie feeling of a townspeople in shock, they're all hypnotized before every take.

• 1:53:06Speaker 04

  Is this what Asteroid City was taken from? Remember they all get hypnotized and asked, yeah?

• 1:53:13Sean Fennessey?

  Could be. That could have been the inspiration.

• 1:53:16Amanda Dobbins?

  But you don't get to see them.

• 1:53:17Speaker 05

  You don't see them. You see them. Yeah, you see them acting under hypnosis, which mainly means they they talk kind of slow and they have some very odd gestural language. It's quite a beautiful movie, really. Next Stop Greenwich Village. Some people don't like this. They're wrong. It's a really terrific comedy. And it's a Paul Mazursky movie who I'm always championing on this show. You should watch Paul Mazursky movies and Next Stop Greenwich Village. Really good.

• 1:53:48Sean Fennessey?

  Why didn't you draft it?

• 1:53:49Speaker 05

  Huh?

• 1:53:50Sean Fennessey?

  Why didn't you draft it?

• 1:53:51Speaker 05

  Well, because we combined comedy and horror and I had Carrie out there and I had to get Carrie.

• 1:53:56Speaker 04

  Had to do it. Yeah.

• 1:53:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I wanted Carrie. You could have taken Next Stop Greenwich Village.

• 1:54:00Speaker 04

  Like 7% solution. You ever seen that?

• 1:54:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I I watched it for this. It was entertaining, you know, in the way that I found myself reading and learning about a lot of like gripping mystery thrillers from from this year. And then I watched all of them with my dumb 2026 brain. And I was like, well, this is not that exciting. This is kind of taking a while, but it's has fun.

• 1:54:23Sean Fennessey?

  We just we just had the exact same conversation about it when we did the Duval Hall of Fame.

• 1:54:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Also, that accent is not with respect to Mr. Duval. It's not what you want, especially for the voiceover.

• 1:54:34Sean Fennessey?

  And he's opposite Olivier and Nicole Williamson. It's tough.

• 1:54:37Speaker 04

  Do you find Murder by Death amusing?

• 1:54:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I turned it off because I was first of all, it was yeah, because Peter Sellers, it's not what you want. And then it was also really boring. And not, you know, I I like

• 1:54:50Speaker 04

  Some racializing from Peter Sellers. You know, when you do the voice, please.

• 1:54:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Please don't. Please don't.

• 1:54:55Speaker 05

  I saw that multiple times in the movie theater when I was 11 years old. That was the height of comedy.

• 1:54:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you think it was funny?

• 1:55:00Speaker 05

  When I was 11 years old.

• 1:55:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:55:01Speaker 04

  Is there a Pink Panther this year?

• 1:55:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:03Sean Fennessey?

  Strikes again. Strikes again.

• 1:55:04Amanda Dobbins?

  It's that's that would be my Peter Sellers.

• 1:55:07Sean Fennessey?

  Preference and it was on my long list, but um.

• 1:55:09Speaker 04

  I used to cry with laughter watching those when I was a little kid.

• 1:55:12Sean Fennessey?

  I thought they were so funny.

• 1:55:14Speaker 05

  We went to the movie theater to see those.

• 1:55:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:17Speaker 05

  My mom loved dumb comedy. That was her favorite kind of movie.

• 1:55:20Speaker 04

  When they would fight and destroy whatever room they were having a fight in, I was just like, this is the dream in life.

• 1:55:26Sean Fennessey?

  More, I've got, I've got quite a few. You want to keep going?

• 1:55:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:55:29Sean Fennessey?

  Anybody else got more?

• 1:55:30Speaker 04

  Rip it.

• 1:55:32Sean Fennessey?

  Alice, Sweet Alice and the House with Laughing Windows are two horror movies that I would love to love and are very important in the Jallow movement, but they're not movies that I do love. There are wonderful four Ks available from Arrow for both of those movies.

• 1:55:46Speaker 05

  I watched Alice, Sweet Alice, Getting Ready for This. Yeah, it's didn't make my list.

• 1:55:50Sean Fennessey?

  Not, not the best. Um, I really love Larry Cohen's God Told Me To, which is a, you haven't seen this?

• 1:55:59Sean Fennessey?

  A paranoid thriller about a society that has become violent and turns against one another because of some sort of premonition that they are receiving.

• 1:56:09Speaker 05

  That's weird.

• 1:56:09Sean Fennessey?

  Really cool movie. Um, Burnt Offerings. You guys seen this horror movie?

• 1:56:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:56:14Sean Fennessey?

  About a couple that or family that moves into a new home. You haven't seen this?

• 1:56:18Speaker 04

  I think I keep going. Who directed it?

• 1:56:21Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I think it's, is it Dan Curtis?

• 1:56:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:56:25Sean Fennessey?

  Right? Who made, um.

• 1:56:28Speaker 05

  Who then became TV guy and made Night Stalker and.

• 1:56:31Sean Fennessey?

  Show Shadows. Come help me out. What's the other?

• 1:56:33Speaker 05

  Dark Shadows.

• 1:56:34Sean Fennessey?

  Dark Shadows. Thank you. Yes. Dark Shadows. And he directed a bunch of TV movies over that time. This is one of his few theatrical feature films. Um, but very, very good. And is it?

• 1:56:42Speaker 05

  Oliver Reed.

• 1:56:43Sean Fennessey?

  Who is the old?

• 1:56:45Speaker 05

  Betty Davis.

• 1:56:46Sean Fennessey?

  Betty Davis. Thank you. Um, what else is on that list?

• 1:56:52Sean Fennessey?

  You know, Lipstick is a movie that I watched for the first time when I did the Unboxing Boy for 1976, which helped me start to prepare for this episode, uh, which stars Margot and Marielle Hemingway and Chris Sarandon. And is genuinely upsetting film about sexual assault and the aftermath of it and rendered very realistically in a way that you just don't see. Lamont Johnson directed it. I would recommend it, but it's really hard to watch.

• 1:57:19Speaker 05

  Bonkers ending. The last five minutes are just like, what is going on?

• 1:57:23Sean Fennessey?

  The movie goes crazy. Yeah. And kind of in a pretty entertaining, it just like turns into an exploitation movie. Um, Missouri Breaks, Arthur Penn, Jack Nicholson, Marlon Brando. You'd think would be better.

• 1:57:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:57:34Sean Fennessey?

  It's not better.

• 1:57:34Speaker 04

  It really has been one of the movies that has like followed me around for my whole life. And I only watched it in the last couple of years. And I was like, this, this wasn't very good.

• 1:57:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's all right.

• 1:57:44Speaker 05

  I think Nicholson, he spoke about it, that he was very intimidated by Brando on the set. He was really, he was freaked out that he was working with Marlon Brando.

• 1:57:52Speaker 04

  Brando also like did his like, I've decided I have a new character. I, you know, like, it's like, yeah.

• 1:58:00Speaker 05

  I think he's.

• 1:58:02Sean Fennessey?

  In the movie.

• 1:58:03Speaker 05

  Brando, I, yeah, it doesn't matter. He, I'm, I always find him entertaining, watchable, hilarious and, and sort of more interesting than everything else going on.

• 1:58:12Sean Fennessey?

  Even in Guys and Dolls.

• 1:58:15Speaker 05

  Guys and Dolls, that's the one I put on when Carrie needs some sleep.

• 1:58:17Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:58:18Speaker 05

  She hates Guys and Dolls.

• 1:58:20Sean Fennessey?

  One of the very last Hitchcock films, Family Plot. Not a very good film. Don Segal's The Shootist, pretty good, pretty good, late period John Wayne movie.

• 1:58:30Speaker 05

  Last John Wayne.

• 1:58:31Sean Fennessey?

  Is it his last film?

• 1:58:31Speaker 05

  It is his last film.

• 1:58:33Sean Fennessey?

  I'll tell you, one of my favorite Kung Fu movies, Master of the Flying Guillotine. Have you guys seen that one?

• 1:58:38Speaker 04

  Probably. I have.

• 1:58:39Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't. Pretty sick movie. I mean, what you've just described there in the title seems compelling. It's in the tradition of the one armed swordsman films.

• 1:58:48Speaker 05

  If you're, if you have a flying guillotine, it would be good to be the master of it.

• 1:58:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:52Speaker 04

  You don't want to be the novice of the flying.

• 1:58:54Sean Fennessey?

  The yeoman of the flying guillotine, not ideal.

• 1:58:57Speaker 05

  The target of the flying.

• 1:58:59Sean Fennessey?

  You know, a movie I haven't seen, but was Oscar nominated and popped up on a bunch of lists is Voyage of the Damned. You seen this film?

• 1:59:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's of another era.

• 1:59:08Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:59:09Speaker 05

  It does, I mean, it of an earlier era than 1976, little old fashioned.

• 1:59:14Sean Fennessey?

  Stuart Rosenberg?

• 1:59:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:59:17Sean Fennessey?

  There's some, there's some international films I didn't know where to put Carlos Sora's Criacuavos, Lino Braca's In Shung.

• 1:59:26Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know, I don't know what to do.

• 1:59:27Speaker 04

  Isn't your In the Realm of the Cents is 76?

• 1:59:29Sean Fennessey?

  In the Realm of the Cents. Now, the one movie that I wanted to bring up to you guys, I don't know if any of you have seen it. I presume you have, is Robin and Marion.

• 1:59:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, I've seen it.

• 1:59:37Sean Fennessey?

  Which I thought was pretty good.

• 1:59:38Speaker 04

  It's lovely for me.

• 1:59:39Sean Fennessey?

  I liked it.

• 1:59:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:59:40Sean Fennessey?

  Um, it's a, it's a kind of a late period reimagining of the Robin Hood myth with Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn. This is the movie I mean, I was saying, I wonder if you've seen it because you might like it. I was just reading the ending of The Voyage of the Damned, which is really upsetting. And apparently they handle it all in footnotes.

• 1:59:56Amanda Dobbins?

  What the, what the fuck?

• 1:59:58Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't seen it.

• 1:59:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And I'm really, I'm not going to, but excuse me.

• 2:00:01Sean Fennessey?

  Can I tell you, I bought it on Blu-ray, didn't watch it. Um, Robin and Marion is Richard Lester in the aftermath of the Three Musketeers movies. Kind of in this, he's in this moment where he's making these kind of historical dramedies, these swashbuckling movies, but I thought Connery and Hepburn were phenomenal together.

• 2:00:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, lovely, really lovely.

• 2:00:22Sean Fennessey?

  And it's a nice movie, kind of about like.

• 2:00:24Speaker 05

  Robert Shaw too, right?

• 2:00:25Sean Fennessey?

  Robert Shaw, Richard Harris, a great Richard Harris performance as King John.

• 2:00:31Sean Fennessey?

  And who, somebody else, there's one other. Oh, Ian Holm, so funny as, um, who's King John's brother? Or maybe it was.

• 2:00:40Amanda Dobbins?

  No, Ian Holm is King John.

• 2:00:42Sean Fennessey?

  Prince John, yes.

• 2:00:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and Richard Harris is Richard the Lionheart.

• 2:00:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, that's right. I don't know, I thought it was really good.

• 2:00:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:00:49Sean Fennessey?

  Thought about drafting it, feels a little lost in time, a little baggy in the middle, but.

• 2:00:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:52Sean Fennessey?

  Very sweet.

• 2:00:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I've never seen this, but obviously I would like it. This is in my interest set.

• 2:00:56Sean Fennessey?

  I think you would enjoy it.

• 2:00:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:58Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's all I got.

• 2:01:00Speaker 05

  Shall we recap?

• 2:01:01Sean Fennessey?

  Let's recap. Well, Amanda, you selected first, so you can read your.

• 2:01:06Amanda Dobbins?

  That's so exciting. I did, in drama, I have Mikey and Nikki. In comedy or horror, I have Cousin Cousine. In thriller or action, I have All the President's Men. In blockbuster, A Star is Born, which Tracy Lutz has never seen in any iteration. In Oscar, I have Marathon Man. And in wildcard, Daguerreoteeps.

• 2:01:28Speaker 04

  Can't believe you got Marathon Man and All the President's Men, that's tough.

• 2:01:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:31Speaker 04

  Uh, in drama, I took Kings of the Road. In comedy or horror, I took The Town That Dreaded Sundown. In thriller or action, I took The Outlaw, Josie Wales. In blockbuster, I took The Omen. In Oscar, I took Taxi Driver. And in wildcard, I took Logan's Run.

• 2:01:51Sean Fennessey?

  In drama, I selected Network. In comedy or horror, I selected Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull's history lesson. In thriller or action, I took John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. In blockbuster, I selected the Bad News Bears. In Oscar, I chose the documentary Harlan County, USA. And in wild card, I chose Welcome to LA.

• 2:02:12Speaker 05

  In drama, I took Life Guard. In comedy or horror, I took Carrie. In action or thriller, I took the killing of a Chinese bookie. In blockbuster, I took Rocky. In Oscar nominee, I took Seven Beauties. And in wild card, I took The Man Who Fell to Earth. You know, when we read them all out loud like that, it's more even than I thought. Everybody's got good stuff and everybody's got marginalia.

• 2:02:40Sean Fennessey?

  Weird year. Your claim at the top fascinates me.

• 2:02:44Amanda Dobbins?

  It's just three of the all timers, which to me, you know, it matters.

• 2:02:50Sean Fennessey?

  It says something about how you organize taste.

• 2:02:53Amanda Dobbins?

  It's true. Be the best. That's what I ask.

• 2:02:57Speaker 05

  Shall we talk third chair? Is this the time?

• 2:03:00Sean Fennessey?

  Speak now.

• 2:03:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Go ahead.

• 2:03:01Speaker 05

  Okay, so I got on the plane to come here and record. Is this the last one to air?

• 2:03:07Sean Fennessey?

  It is.

• 2:03:08Speaker 05

  So I came to record three podcasts for the big picture. And I want you to know that when I got on the plane to come here, I had decided to concede.

• 2:03:17Speaker 04

  Concede third chair.

• 2:03:19Speaker 05

  To concede third chair.

• 2:03:20Speaker 04

  So that would suppose that you, it was yours to concede?

• 2:03:24Speaker 05

  To concede the fight.

• 2:03:25Speaker 04

  This is a race that we were both running.

• 2:03:27Speaker 05

  Just concede the fight. Because I'd listened to the 900th episode. I had sent in a voicemail for the 900th episode, which was not played. Instead,

• 2:03:37Amanda Dobbins?

  How did that happen?

• 2:03:38Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 2:03:39Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's Jack's fault.

• 2:03:39Speaker 05

  It was not played, but instead.

• 2:03:41Speaker 04

  Jack's tossing Tracy Lance voicemails out.

• 2:03:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, he's tossing out my voicemails and he's always putting me forth in the draft.

• 2:03:48Sean Fennessey?

  How convenient that Jack also went on vacation the week you arrived.

• 2:03:50Speaker 05

  Did you notice that?

• 2:03:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. What do you think that means?

• 2:03:53Speaker 05

  So in that episode, not only did you not play my, my voicemail, but you then took, what, 10 minutes to sing heroic poems to Chris Ryan. Later in the episode, Amanda suggested that we should take Teddy Roosevelt off of Mount Rushmore and replace him with Chris Ryan. That we should replace-

• 2:04:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Did I actually do that?

• 2:04:18Speaker 05

  You did, in fact, do that. You decided we were gonna replace TR with CR.

• 2:04:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I think in general, my relationship to the people-

• 2:04:26Speaker 05

  The hero of San Juan Hill.

• 2:04:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Represented on Mount Rushmore is disinterest, right?

• 2:04:31Speaker 05

  But if I was on it, wouldn't that make it more interesting?

• 2:04:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but I think the-

• 2:04:36Sean Fennessey?

  I think it would lower the interest in it as a historical monument.

• 2:04:39Amanda Dobbins?

  The conversation was about what Teddy Roosevelt did to earn being on Mount Rushmore. And neither of us were particularly clear on that.

• 2:04:47Sean Fennessey?

  That's absolutely untrue.

• 2:04:48Amanda Dobbins?

  What if he, go ahead. I said national parks a lot.

• 2:04:51Speaker 04

  Spanish-American War, right?

• 2:04:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, also led the country through a time of extraordinary tumult in the aftermath of the Civil War.

• 2:04:57Speaker 05

  The Trust Buster, I mean, he was essential.

• 2:05:00Sean Fennessey?

  Crusaded on behalf of the, the individual in this country, one of the great individualists.

• 2:05:04Speaker 05

  Amanda would like to replace him with Chris Ryan. So it's very clear to me that the fix is in. I'm Al Gore, he's W, and you're the Supreme Court. So it was like-

• 2:05:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Now watch me hit the trust stuff.

• 2:05:21Sean Fennessey?

  It sounds like Jackie Sanders is the hanging chad in this equation.

• 2:05:24Speaker 05

  So I was like, you can't, you can't fight City Hall, so I was ready to concede.

• 2:05:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:30Speaker 05

  But I've decided to redouble my efforts.

• 2:05:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, how exciting.

• 2:05:33Speaker 05

  And I'm gonna tell you why. My constituents.

• 2:05:36Speaker 04

  Who are they?

• 2:05:37Speaker 05

  They are the people of America, my friend. They're the people in the streets.

• 2:05:42Sean Fennessey?

  I'll dub them right now. Are you ready? You know what they're called? The Let's Lads.

• 2:05:47Speaker 04

  You think they're men?

• 2:05:48Sean Fennessey?

  Well, frequently, yes.

• 2:05:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:05:51Speaker 05

  And they want to see more of what I'm cooking. And so my hat is still firmly in the ring. You guys can try and block me out if you want, but I am playing for key.

• 2:06:04Speaker 04

  Now, I can't believe I'm even entertaining this because of the work I do for this pod and for the other pods on the Ringer Podcast Network where I have a perspective Saturday night spent podcasting about the fucking Sixers. But here's what I'll do with you.

• 2:06:19Amanda Dobbins?

  That doesn't have anything-

• 2:06:19Speaker 04

  Because I'm interested in content.

• 2:06:21Amanda Dobbins?

  This is a no Sixer zone, so that's not going to be taken into consideration.

• 2:06:24Speaker 04

  Should we have a November 6th election for third chair? And Tracy and I can make our cases?

• 2:06:31Sean Fennessey?

  Now, this is, this is a man with great confidence in the aftermath of CR month-

• 2:06:36Speaker 04

  No.

• 2:06:37Sean Fennessey?

  Who is willing to put it to a public vote, it sounds like.

• 2:06:40Speaker 04

  I didn't say that. I'm just saying, we can use an electoral college system if you want. Like, we can have each, different states have different weights, you know? But if, if this is what you want, if you really want to drop, drop gloves and go fisticuffs?

• 2:06:54Sean Fennessey?

  Well, here's the thing. I'm not sure that there are only two contenders. I mean, there are other people-

• 2:07:00Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:07:00Speaker 05

  Who could, who could potentially- Come on, who the hell are you even talking about?

• 2:07:04Sean Fennessey?

  You know, there are a great many beloved guests in the history of this show. You know, the, the high me, the Physical Media High Council did not start with either of you gentlemen. It started with Timothy Simons.

• 2:07:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, dear.

• 2:07:13Speaker 05

  Well, he is not available. And second of all-

• 2:07:18Speaker 04

  He's quite literally not available.

• 2:07:19Sean Fennessey?

  He's a busy man.

• 2:07:20Speaker 05

  This is part of my point about Chris. Chris is already the first chair on the watch. He is Chair 1A on the re-watchables. He is a basketball expert. He's, he's not watching 56 Robert Duvall movies because he's got to watch the goddamn basketball.

• 2:07:41Speaker 04

  It's about, it's about-

• 2:07:42Sean Fennessey?

  Now, this, this must be said because you haven't heard this yet.

• 2:07:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:07:45Sean Fennessey?

  But I'll say what Tracy Letts did for the Robert Duvall episode is among the most Titanic acts of scholarship that have been applied to this program.

• 2:07:57Speaker 04

  What did you do? Did you watch like all his TV appearances or something?

• 2:08:00Speaker 05

  I watched a bunch of those and I watched 56 Robert Duvall movies.

• 2:08:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:08:04Speaker 04

  If I only had to do five pods a year, I'm sure I could do the same thing.

• 2:08:07Speaker 05

  This is my point!

• 2:08:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:08:10Speaker 05

  He's making my point for me!

• 2:08:13Sean Fennessey?

  What would be a better life? Would it be to be?

• 2:08:16Speaker 04

  Tracy Letts?

• 2:08:17Sean Fennessey?

  Have.

• 2:08:17Speaker 04

  Yeah. It would be pretty cool.

• 2:08:20Sean Fennessey?

  Tony Awards. Married to Carrie Coon.

• 2:08:22Speaker 04

  If I was married to Carrie Coon and I got to swan in here five times a year, that would be pretty awesome. Fucking show up in a Katherine Bigelow movie and go, yeah, that would be awesome. Instead, I'm out here watching fucking Joel Embiid walk back to the locker room, come back onto the court.

• 2:08:40Sean Fennessey?

  7:30, 8:15, when are we gonna start? Amanda, what are your thoughts?

• 2:08:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, um, you know, I don't think we have to decide today.

• 2:08:48Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 2:08:48Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, I think that it can.

• 2:08:50Sean Fennessey?

  But you think it should be decided at some point?

• 2:08:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I, well, I don't know. You know, there is, there's a will they, won't they element to this that keeps, that keeps the podcast going over time. Yeah, and I think what we all learned from that is, is don't make the decisions.

• 2:09:02Speaker 04

  Who you think H. Ross Perot is in this equation? Who is the outsider insurgent candidate?

• 2:09:08Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I, I always love talking Alex Ross Perry. He brings a completely different energy than either of you ever could.

• 2:09:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:09:13Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and he's, you know, he's a bit of a villain in a, in a way that I always find appealing. And he's been on the show many times over the years. And he also, to his credit, if I ask him for an act of scholarship, he will bring, bring it.

• 2:09:25Amanda Dobbins?

  He does, yes.

• 2:09:25Sean Fennessey?

  When it comes to that sort of thing.

• 2:09:26Amanda Dobbins?

  He also makes a lot of memes, so he's been very crucial.

• 2:09:29Sean Fennessey?

  Memes, yes.

• 2:09:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Mostly of Sean.

• 2:09:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 2:09:31Amanda Dobbins?

  So he's been very crucial.

• 2:09:33Sean Fennessey?

  You're not on text with him, right?

• 2:09:34Speaker 04

  Publicly share these memes?

• 2:09:35Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 2:09:35Speaker 04

  No, okay.

• 2:09:36Sean Fennessey?

  He privately generates several memes featuring photos of me from the void recordings.

• 2:09:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:09:42Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and then takes literal quotes that I share on episodes.

• 2:09:46Amanda Dobbins?

  And now also that one South by Southwest photo of you with your card, you know, like you're preparing for a presidential address.

• 2:09:52Sean Fennessey?

  I did not approve the posting of that photograph.

• 2:09:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, I'm sure. I can't believe you sat for it, but that's okay.

• 2:09:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:57Speaker 04

  Are there any good Kyra Gerber hands memes that I, I should check out?

• 2:10:00Sean Fennessey?

  Are you aware of this lore?

• 2:10:02Speaker 05

  Yes, I saw the picture.

• 2:10:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, good. Yeah, but you're not on Instagram. How'd you see it?

• 2:10:06Sean Fennessey?

  As a person who's frequently.

• 2:10:07Speaker 05

  I don't know. I heard you guys talking about it, so I looked for it.

• 2:10:10Sean Fennessey?

  As a person who's frequently surrounded by attractive people.

• 2:10:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:10:13Sean Fennessey?

  When you're in a photo op, do you just hand on the back, go for it?

• 2:10:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's a photograph somewhere of a bunch of us at that screening of House of Dynamite. And it looks like, is her name Willa Fitzgerald?

• 2:10:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:30Speaker 05

  The strange darling?

• 2:10:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 2:10:32Speaker 05

  It looks like we are a couple with everybody else around, you know, just like we, we, yeah.

• 2:10:38Sean Fennessey?

  You put your arm around her.

• 2:10:39Speaker 05

  I put my arm around, I was just like, oh, this feels unfriendly, I'll put my arm, you know. And now the photo makes it look.

• 2:10:44Sean Fennessey?

  How did she respond?

• 2:10:45Speaker 05

  You know, she was not threatened by me, I don't think.

• 2:10:48Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, interesting. You think I should have done that with Kaia?

• 2:10:51Speaker 05

  I don't know. I met Kaia, we're both in Saturday Night, and so I met her at a screening of that. And as we met, you've never seen two people who had less to say to each other in such a short amount of time.

• 2:11:02Sean Fennessey?

  She's a woman of letters herself.

• 2:11:04Speaker 05

  And, and apparently you guys hit, not that we didn't hit, it was all totally pleasant. I'm just saying, she, she, she didn't have anything to say to me.

• 2:11:12Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting. I wouldn't say she had things to say to me, but she did say things to me.

• 2:11:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right. Like it's, it's Wednesday. Yeah. Hi, Sean. You're a person. The sun is out.

• 2:11:22Sean Fennessey?

  You're alive. Yeah, okay. I mean, listen, I appreciate all of your efforts. I've got, you know, 17 more years, 18 more years of experience with Chris.

• 2:11:36Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 2:11:36Sean Fennessey?

  But you've entered our lives like a, like a, like a shot.

• 2:11:41Speaker 05

  Let's face it, I forced you all to be my friends. I forced my way in here and forced you to be my friends.

• 2:11:46Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely ridiculous. Um, I feel maybe there's an, like a turmoil.

• 2:11:53Speaker 04

  Well, I don't like, you know, I admire Tracey very much.

• 2:11:58Sean Fennessey?

  I'll bet. I'm waiting for the butt.

• 2:12:00Speaker 04

  Like, I gotta let the dogs off the leash in this fight, you know, like, is that gonna be pretty? So I'm begging you. Yeah. Don't, don't make me go to the mattresses here.

• 2:12:13Speaker 05

  Regardless of how this works out,

• 2:12:18Speaker 05

  I love all of you. I love being on this. It's been a real pleasure. I've had a great week.

• 2:12:21Sean Fennessey?

  This has been an excellent week.

• 2:12:23Speaker 04

  Thank you for coming.

• 2:12:23Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you for participating, as always.

• 2:12:25Speaker 04

  I don't think I've ever, I don't think I have laughed harder than I did during physical media in a long time.

• 2:12:29Speaker 05

  Oh, my God, I've been laughing all week just thinking about it, just really.

• 2:12:33Sean Fennessey?

  It was a very good time. Thank you to Lucas Cavanagh and Sarah Reddy for their production support on this episode. Thanks to Jack Sanders.

• 2:12:40Speaker 05

  Thanks for nothing, Jack.

• 2:12:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Jack was not here today, but he did do the selection and excitedly shared the results, which fucked me and Tracy over pretty badly in this draft.

• 2:12:51Sean Fennessey?

  At this time, what is happening? When is this? I think this episode is airing while we're in at the Cannes Film Festival.

• 2:12:57Speaker 04

  God willing, yes. This is also, just like I said, the opportunity for us to do a coup.

• 2:13:04Sean Fennessey?

  What would you guys even talk about?

• 2:13:06Speaker 04

  Tracy and Chris at the movies? Come on. Okay, great. Good luck.

• 2:13:10Sean Fennessey?

  I wish you guys luck. What feed will you be posting this show on?

• 2:13:13Speaker 04

  I'll figure it out.

• 2:13:14Speaker 05

  Chris loves to remind us, he is an editor at theringer.com.

• 2:13:18Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. So I've heard. Thanks to everyone for participating in this draft. I hope you've heard of some of these movies and we will be back. I think our next episode, we will be covering the Cannes Film Festival. We'll see you then.

• 2:13:48Amanda Dobbins?

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• 2:14:17Amanda Dobbins?

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