The Canadian Movie Draft Live from Toronto!

O Canada! For the first time in The Big Picture’s history, we visited Toronto for a very special live show at the TIFF Lightbox. They open the show with some movie trivia about Canadian film, Christopher Nolan, and much more, before being joined by a wandering man named Chris searching for his girlfriend “Brie”. Then, they are joined by filmmaker Matt Johnson to discuss the current state of the Canadian film industry and answer what makes a movie Canadian. Finally, they are joined by mean pod guy Adam Nayman to draft some of their favorite “Canadian movies” across some very loose categories. (0:00) Intro (1:29) Movie trivia (17:28) What makes a movie Canadian with Matt Johnson (36:18) Adam Nayman joins the show! (44:26) The Canadian Movie Draft (1:43:35) Honorable mentions and draft recap Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Matt Johnson, Adam Nayman, and Chris Ryan Producers: Jack Sanders, Elizabeth Fierman, and Helen Eichner Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.®️ 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

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• 1:30Speaker 03

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• 2:18Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Finacy.

• 2:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Davenport.

• 2:20Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Pictureate Conversation Show about Canada, live from TIFF Lightbox.

• 2:30Sean Fennessey?

  And boy, are we excited to be here. All right, we have a few things planned for you, but I wanted to start by hearing from Amanda about everything she knows about Canada. Go.

• 2:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Mark Carney, Prime Minister?

• 2:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 2:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes?

• 2:43Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, one fact. Can you have another fact?

• 2:45Amanda Dobbins?

  We are in Ontario.

• 2:48Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 2:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is a province?

• 2:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 2:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I had a lovely time this afternoon. We went to Kensington Market. Is that the name? Yeah, okay. You've all been lovely. It's been a wonderful... So 24 hours in on Canada, very pro. We'll see how the rest of this evening goes. No, but it's so exciting to be here. Thank you to TIFF. Thank you to Anita for the introduction. Thank you all for coming. It's great to have an excuse to, you know, travel internationally, which you know I love to do.

• 3:21Sean Fennessey?

  This is...

• 3:23Sean Fennessey?

  This is also an excuse to do one of my favorite things, which is trivia. Would you like to start with some trivia?

• 3:29Amanda Dobbins?

  All right.

• 3:29Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 3:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Hold on, I'm getting a drink and then I'll open the...

• 3:32Sean Fennessey?

  We've concocted some trivia questions for you. We've also brought some prizes for those who answer the trivia correctly. Now, those prizes include, from our friends at Criterion, Blu-rays and 4Ks, Canada-related, and also some special prizes from TIFF. So thank you to both Criterion and TIFF for that. Are you ready?

• 3:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I think so. I just got to find this doc. Oh, good, here we go. Okay. So just so you know, I'm not on The RealReal. Like, we're asking trivia questions.

• 3:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and don't like Google stuff during the live show. These people paid money. They went on a website. They waited.

• 4:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought that you... First of all, there's a separate app for The RealReal, but I thought you were saying that they shouldn't Google during trivia.

• 4:11Sean Fennessey?

  Well, definitely do not.

• 4:12Amanda Dobbins?

  This is an honor system.

• 4:13Sean Fennessey?

  You'll be ejected from the premises if you do that.

• 4:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Also, just want to say, we can sort of see you. We tested the lights, and this is the best that our old eyes can do. But so, we can sort of monitor phones, and we're going to do our best to, you know, call on the first person who raises their hand. Please wait until the question is done. And do you want to give your speech about not answering if you don't know the answer?

• 4:35Sean Fennessey?

  If you don't know the answer, don't raise your hand.

• 4:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:38Sean Fennessey?

  That's a... It's a simple request.

• 4:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:39Sean Fennessey?

  And a logical one, I think. Let's begin.

• 4:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 4:42Sean Fennessey?

  So...

• 4:43Amanda Dobbins?

  You do the first one.

• 4:43Sean Fennessey?

  I have the first question. Now, raise your hand if you know it. And if you... Again, if you don't know it, don't. Here we go. Which Canadian filmmaker has the most films in the Criterion collection? And can you name those films?

• 4:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm. All right, he's...

• 5:01Sean Fennessey?

  This fellow's had his hand raised, right?

• 5:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:03Sean Fennessey?

  Right, yeah. You're right here, sir. It's David Cronenberg. That's correct. Can you name the films? Can do. Naked Lunch. Naked Lunch is one. The Shrouds. The Shrouds is two. The Brood. The Brood is three. Videodrome. Videodrome is four. Oh, no. Oh, hold on, hold on. Scanners. Scanners is five. No. Do not yell answers from the crowd, please.

• 5:29Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't get the DVDs. Sorry, the Blu-rays. Anything else you want to try?

• 5:33Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, this gentleman right here.

• 5:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 5:35Sean Fennessey?

  In the white t-shirt.

• 5:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Honestly, you did a really great job. And he sprung the second part of the question on you.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  I believe there's two more. Are they History of Violence and Crash?

• 5:46Sean Fennessey?

  That's correct.

• 5:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Is that all of them?

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Is that the whole list?

• 5:51Sean Fennessey?

  I think so. Let's go through it. We've got The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Crash, History of Violence, and The Shrouds.

• 5:59Amanda Dobbins?

  No one said Dead Ringers.

• 6:00Sean Fennessey?

  No one said Dead Ringers.

• 6:01Amanda Dobbins?

  See?

• 6:02Sean Fennessey?

  I'll tell you what.

• 6:02Amanda Dobbins?

  The system is not perfected.

• 6:04Sean Fennessey?

  You two should split the package.

• 6:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 6:06Sean Fennessey?

  How about that?

• 6:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 6:09Sean Fennessey?

  In the spirit of a social safety net, which you have here in this fine country, we're being generous. All right, Amanda, you're up.

• 6:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I think this is a little more straightforward. How many short films about Glenn Gould comprise the 1993 biographical film directed by Francois Girard? You have a front row seat, so I don't know whether you need to be hard on it. Okay, up there, pointing. Yes, I'm sorry, that's unfair, but so's life. Yes, ma'am. Yeah, you. There you go.

• 6:38Sean Fennessey?

  That is correct.

• 6:45Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, this one's a little bit more involved. I like the involved questions. Eight Canadian-born actors have won an Academy Award for performance. Name three.

• 6:57Amanda Dobbins?

  And Sean is looking for both the actor and the performance. Yeah.

• 7:03Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, all this grumbling.

• 7:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's okay.

• 7:07Sean Fennessey?

  The hand was up and up sternly and then slowly shrunk down.

• 7:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I want the man in the athletics hat. Is that an athletics hat?

• 7:14Sean Fennessey?

  It seems like you want...

• 7:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Are you from Oakland? Okay.

• 7:18Sean Fennessey?

  Give this man a microphone, please.

• 7:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it a Moneyball situation? Okay, so it's sort of a Chris Ryan thing you have going on. The microphone's being passed to you.

• 7:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 7:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 7:28Sean Fennessey?

  So what I know for sure is Christopher Plummer in Beginners. That is one.

• 7:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Correct.

• 7:34Sean Fennessey?

  I think there was... It's not Young Mr. Lincoln. Is it Raymond Massey? No. No?

• 7:42Amanda Dobbins?

  No. But I like that you went, you know, for not a deep cut, but yeah.

• 7:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you went into history.

• 7:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, anyone else?

• 7:48Sean Fennessey?

  That's all you have.

• 7:48Amanda Dobbins?

  So Juan's off the board, Christopher Plummer. Okay, I see.

• 7:51Sean Fennessey?

  Where is the national pride in this room?

• 7:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Right here. This is making us feel a little bit better about what's going to come next. Okay, so you, sir, but please wait for the microphone.

• 8:01Sean Fennessey?

  You should work together here.

• 8:02Amanda Dobbins?

  So...

• 8:03Sean Fennessey?

  Collaborate with your neighbor.

• 8:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, I think there's more than one thing in the bag, so once again, you all can divvy them up. As you saw, right here is where we're looking for the microphone. And we need two more.

• 8:17Sean Fennessey?

  You better not be on that TIFF public Wi-Fi right now.

• 8:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know if I...

• 8:22Sean Fennessey?

  I know about you guys. I've been you before, trust me. I love trivia.

• 8:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Why are these... Why are these not in chronological order?

• 8:30Sean Fennessey?

  They're in order by category.

• 8:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Have you thought of them?

• 8:33Sean Fennessey?

  No. Category, there's of course Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress.

• 8:37Amanda Dobbins?

  It's always something with him. Okay, you have the microphone.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  All right. For some reason, I've got a little lump in my stomach. Think I may be wrong here, but Brendan Fraser for The Whale.

• 8:45Sean Fennessey?

  That is correct.

• 8:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so that's two.

• 8:47Sean Fennessey?

  You need one more.

• 8:48Amanda Dobbins?

  You got one more? Anyone? Oh, it's going to...

• 8:51Speaker 01

  That's all I got.

• 8:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Team effort? Okay, all right. I see one more over here, and you've been confident. So we're going to go over here in the corner. Oh, microphone, there you go. Okay.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  Anna Paquin in The Piano.

• 9:03Sean Fennessey?

  That is correct.

• 9:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Will you guys meet up later? Yeah?

• 9:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 9:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Just for the...

• 9:10Sean Fennessey?

  Trade information.

• 9:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 9:12Sean Fennessey?

  Would you like to hear the other winners?

• 9:13Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't have to be friends, but...

• 9:15Sean Fennessey?

  Well, Mary Pickford. She won for Coquette in 1929. Where were you guys when that happened? Were you supporting her? 1930, one year later, Norma Sheer won for The Divorcee. 1931, Marie Dresler won for Mina and Bill. 1946, a very famous win, Harold Russell won for The Best Years of Our Lives. You've seen that film. 1948, Walter Houston, who is a Canadian, won for Treasure of the Sierra Madre. And then you guys forgot about Brie Larson, who won for Room.

• 9:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 9:49Sean Fennessey?

  Oh.

• 9:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Someone's girl.

• 9:52Sean Fennessey?

  Someone's girl.

• 9:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Is he in this room? We don't know.

• 9:54Sean Fennessey?

  Is he with us tonight?

• 9:56Amanda Dobbins?

  It's the girl. Yeah, all right.

• 9:57Sean Fennessey?

  Who'll ever know?

• 9:58Amanda Dobbins?

  The next one.

• 9:58Sean Fennessey?

  Is the girl with us tonight?

• 9:59Amanda Dobbins?

  This is a very long question.

• 10:00Sean Fennessey?

  Brie Larson for Third Chair?

• 10:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. The five highest grossing films worldwide so far this year are all US productions. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Michael, Toy Story 5, The Devil Wears Prostitute, and Project Tell Mary. What movie, having earned $656 million globally, is number six?

• 10:24Speaker 03

  Wow, I'm getting good at this.

• 10:26Amanda Dobbins?

  All right, okay, you were first in the, in the, that looks like a pink peach shirt.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Is it obsession?

• 10:34Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's not.

• 10:35Sean Fennessey?

  It is not obsession.

• 10:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:37Sean Fennessey?

  I'll give you a hint. It's not a US production.

• 10:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Okay, right here in front. Yeah. Wait.

• 10:45Sean Fennessey?

  It is not Nirvana.

• 10:46Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, let's.

• 10:48Sean Fennessey?

  There's that national pride.

• 10:49Amanda Dobbins?

  We can wish it in. Yeah.

• 10:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyone else? Okay, right here in the front.

• 10:56Speaker 03

  Is it the Furious?

• 10:57Sean Fennessey?

  It is not.

• 10:58Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not.

• 10:59Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, you guys are not going to get this.

• 11:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, okay. Well, everyone's, okay, one right here in front, please, in the, in the third row. I like your confidence. Don't, don't, don't put the hand down now. Put it up high. Yeah, believe in yourself.

• 11:12Sean Fennessey?

  I thought this space was a space for world cinema.

• 11:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Oh, my God. Okay, it's fun when it's other people.

• 11:19Sean Fennessey?

  Is it Undertone? It is not.

• 11:21Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not.

• 11:22Sean Fennessey?

  I'm gonna give one more guess, and then we're gonna burn those Blu-rays right in front of you.

• 11:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, you know what? This, this is really messed up. We have totally been overlooking the balcony, and that's unfair. All right, man in the balcony, I don't know if they're gonna get a microphone to you, so you're just gonna shout really loud.

• 11:38Sean Fennessey?

  Is it Pegasus 2? So.

• 11:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, my God.

• 11:42Sean Fennessey?

  It's Pegasus 3.

• 11:49Sean Fennessey?

  But you know what? For the effort.

• 11:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 11:50Sean Fennessey?

  You got it, brother.

• 11:51Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 11:54Sean Fennessey?

  Have you seen Pegasus 2?

• 11:55Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 11:55Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. I haven't seen it either. It's a Chinese production, and it is wildly successful in China.

• 12:03Sean Fennessey?

  Next one?

• 12:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, I read that one.

• 12:05Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so we're here during this wonderful Christopher Nolan presentation, and ahead of his next film, which is The Odyssey, there have been many adaptations of The Odyssey. What is the name of the most recent adaptation, and who portrayed Odysseus and Penelope?

• 12:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, some people over there, I can hear you whispering, okay? So it doesn't count until you get called on. Sean, you call on somebody.

• 12:30Sean Fennessey?

  You there, the woman in the glasses with your hand up? Yes, you, yes, yes, you're, the person with you pushed your hand up. There you go.

• 12:38Speaker 06

  Is it called The Return? And Odysseus is played by Ralph Fiennes and Penelope by Julia Penosh.

• 12:45Sean Fennessey?

  You got it.

• 12:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow.

• 12:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Bang.

• 12:49Sean Fennessey?

  Well done.

• 12:53Amanda Dobbins?

  You've reordered things here, but then you have a segue. So would you like to do the speaking of Nolan next?

• 12:59Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, sure.

• 13:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, there you go.

• 13:00Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you, Amanda.

• 13:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 13:02Sean Fennessey?

  That's called live producing. Speaking of Nolan.

• 13:07Sean Fennessey?

  What was his first Oscar nomination? The film and the category?

• 13:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, over there in the, yeah, in this corner.

• 13:16Sean Fennessey?

  Best original screenplay memento? Okay, second question. Who, who else was nominated with him in that category? Fuck.

• 13:25Sean Fennessey?

  No, who would he, who was he nominated with?

• 13:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 13:28Sean Fennessey?

  For memento? I was gonna say Wes Anderson, Royal Tenenbaums. Um, let's see here. No, no, no. Jonathan Nolan. There you go.

• 13:35Amanda Dobbins?

  There you go. There you go. Bravo. Okay.

• 13:42Amanda Dobbins?

  In the instant cult classic, M. Night Shyamalan film Trap.

• 13:49Amanda Dobbins?

  The Rogers Center, or at least its exteriors. Hosts the concert for which fictional pop star? Okay, you know, I love the confidence. Okay, back there. Well, you, no, you already answered. No. Yeah, you answered, I think. Okay, right here, sir. Yes, you're, yes.

• 14:07Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, is it Lady Raven?

• 14:08Amanda Dobbins?

  It is. Whoa, okay.

• 14:12Sean Fennessey?

  That makes me feel so good.

• 14:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, me too.

• 14:14Sean Fennessey?

  Trap, yeah? Trap, yeah. Thank you, thank you so much. God damn it, that feels so good. Okay, this is a one battle after another question, and there's a bonus prize with this question. There's a very rare object in our culture. It's called the one battle after another steelbook.

• 14:35Sean Fennessey?

  Hush over the crowd. These are sold out. Can't get these anymore. One battle after another is Paul Thomas Anderson's seventh collaboration with Johnny Greenwood, but the film memorably ends with Willa reading Perfidia's letter as a score from a different composer is played. Who is the composer?

• 14:54Sean Fennessey?

  The woman right in dead center here with glasses. That is correct.

• 14:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Bingo.

• 15:00Sean Fennessey?

  Can someone please bring this fine steelbook to her?

• 15:05Amanda Dobbins?

  You want to do this one because it's written in the first person?

• 15:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Although I agree with the sentiment.

• 15:11Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 15:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And then I'll, you know, okay.

• 15:15Sean Fennessey?

  Nirvana, the band, the movie, the show.

• 15:21Sean Fennessey?

  Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie.

• 15:24Sean Fennessey?

  Sorry about that. It's set in this fair city. It's one of my favorite movies of 2026. Director Matt Johnson has directed four other feature films, including a new film set to be released on August 7th, at least in the United States, by 8/24. Name the four films. Look at all these Canadians with their hands raised. Why don't you pick it?

• 15:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, uh, we'll do right here, the, in the second row. Yes, you in the middle of the, yeah, sorry. I was, I was thinking you in the white shirt, but.

• 15:58Sean Fennessey?

  You guys kiss first, and then you decide. We're cousins. Kissing cousins.

• 16:05Sean Fennessey?

  Pause. All right.

• 16:08Sean Fennessey?

  All four?

• 16:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, yeah, all four.

• 16:10Sean Fennessey?

  That's been released?

• 16:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 16:12Sean Fennessey?

  Or coming, oh, sorry, sorry. All four, including the forthcoming film.

• 16:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 16:17Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, okay. Tony.

• 16:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Correct.

• 16:19Sean Fennessey?

  Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. We already said that one, but yeah, three more after that.

• 16:23Amanda Dobbins?

  So three more.

• 16:24Sean Fennessey?

  BlackBerry. Yes.

• 16:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 16:25Sean Fennessey?

  Operation Avalanche.

• 16:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Correct.

• 16:26Sean Fennessey?

  The dirties. That is great.

• 16:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Bingo.

• 16:30Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks, guys.

• 16:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, and now, since we are here, for our last question, we will be doing a question about America.

• 16:46Sean Fennessey?

  Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but

• 16:51Sean Fennessey?

  a long time ago, I had a Canadian girlfriend at camp, and her name's Bree. We were supposed to do like this kinda before sunset thing, and meet a tiff on a very special. Have you guys seen her at all, or no? All right, well, then ask a trivia question.

• 17:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Hi, Christopher.

• 17:08Sean Fennessey?

  It's Chris Ryan, everybody.

• 17:13Sean Fennessey?

  Chris Ryan. What's up, Canada?

• 17:16Sean Fennessey?

  It's great to see you. I decided to wear something vaguely Maple Leaf coated, but if you want me to wear a Kawhi half jersey, Joe Carter second half jersey, it's gonna be five bucks on my Patreon, so great to be here.

• 17:32Amanda Dobbins?

  You're not eligible for this question. I, I didn't put this on the doc, but I want to do an honor system. If there are any actual American citizens here or people who lived in America.

• 17:42Sean Fennessey?

  Shame on you.

• 17:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Truly, and, um, but also don't answer this question. This is for the Canadians. Can you name 15 American states that are not New York or California?

• 17:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, all right, go.

• 17:59Sean Fennessey?

  Delaware.

• 18:00Amanda Dobbins?

  One.

• 18:01Sean Fennessey?

  Connecticut.

• 18:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Two.

• 18:03Sean Fennessey?

  So just not New York and California, right? Stop filibustering. New Jersey.

• 18:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Three.

• 18:08Sean Fennessey?

  Alaska.

• 18:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Four.

• 18:10Sean Fennessey?

  New Hampshire.

• 18:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Five.

• 18:11Sean Fennessey?

  North Dakota.

• 18:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Six.

• 18:13Sean Fennessey?

  South Dakota.

• 18:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Seven.

• 18:14Sean Fennessey?

  North Carolina.

• 18:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Eight.

• 18:16Sean Fennessey?

  South Carolina.

• 18:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Nine. Some cheat codes there for you.

• 18:19Sean Fennessey?

  Alaska.

• 18:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Already said it.

• 18:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, brother. What? Oh, yeah, I said, okay, I got the rest. West Virginia.

• 18:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 18:26Sean Fennessey?

  Nevada.

• 18:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, 10, 11.

• 18:28Sean Fennessey?

  Utah. Colorado.

• 18:30Amanda Dobbins?

  13.

• 18:30Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and then let's do, uh, let's do New Mexico and Texas.

• 18:36Amanda Dobbins?

  14, 15. There you go.

• 18:39Sean Fennessey?

  Well done.

• 18:43Sean Fennessey?

  You don't get a prize bag, you get US citizenship. Congratulations. Did you notice he said Delaware first? Biden strong?

• 18:51Sean Fennessey?

  Where are you at on Biden these days? You know what? I miss him. Bring him back. I miss him, yeah. Would you guys elect him Prime Minister? Okay, just checking in on that. That'll be the last time we mention that person's name. We do have another name to mention, though. This isn't the Joe Biden draft? Favorite, favorite Biden policies? No?

• 19:10Amanda Dobbins?

  It was sort of a Biden-esque entrance that he just, where am I, anyway?

• 19:17Sean Fennessey?

  We have another special guest with us, and, uh, we indicated something about him in one of the trivia questions. He is a fellow Canadian. He's a writer, director, filmmaker, producer, and a friend of the show. Please welcome Toronto's own Matt Johnson.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  I was, I was so ashamed at you guys and those trivia questions. Because originally, I was like, well, you're not gonna get a more like Toronto cinephile crowd than this. And you bombed.

• 20:00Speaker 03

  Not knowing Dead Ringers? I quote that movie in awards speech, uh, in award speeches. That's like a major movie. It's also hilarious. Has anybody here seen Dead Ringers? Do you know what it's about?

• 20:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 20:13Speaker 03

  So, yeah, that's the answer. Yeah.

• 20:15Sean Fennessey?

  Anyway, you guys are on fire. I have to say thank you from our whole country for coming here. There's nothing Canadians love more than when the celebrities show up. There's nothing we love more because it makes us all feel like we're real.

• 20:31Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you're real. You're real to us as well. You told me I would be asking you guys the questions. No, no, that's not the case. I'm only used to asking you questions. So I'm happy you're here. I have a really important question for you and we can riff and vamp on this, but specifically, the plan for tonight's episode is to do the Canadian movie draft. Oh, great. Okay, so the three of us and another special guest will draft Canadian movies. And we've created some categories.

• 21:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, they're behind us on this whiteboard as you can.

• 21:03Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 21:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 21:03Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, my God.

• 21:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Read them.

• 21:05Sean Fennessey?

  You don't have to comment on that right now. One entire category is gosling. Yes.

• 21:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. Yeah, let's read the rest. Then we have Cronenberg.

• 21:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 21:12Amanda Dobbins?

  We have Cameron, James, or Villeneuve, Jimmy.

• 21:16Sean Fennessey?

  I got my pick.

• 21:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Then Canadian director, Canadian star, and Toronto, which is the full name of that category is Toronto plays itself or somewhere else.

• 21:27Sean Fennessey?

  Any film that is set in Toronto or has been shot in Toronto, standing in for another city is eligible in that category. So here's the question for you and honestly, feel free to take as long as you'd like to answer this question. People will love that.

• 21:41Sean Fennessey?

  What makes a movie Canadian? Depends who you ask.

• 21:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, we're asking you.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  We're asking you.

• 21:48Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, look, I couldn't get James Cameron, so you don't know that. You don't know that Avatar is in trouble. He might have said yes.

• 21:58Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, now, look, there's a joke in this country and that is that you can tell a movie is Canadian because there's an uncanny valley as you watch it. And you're like, this just doesn't seem like a real movie. That's not the answer you're looking for, though. That's what we would say if we'd like, you would say, oh, this looks very Canadian, almost as an insult. When I was going to film school, you'd be like, oh, yeah, this looks very Canadian. And that would be a way to be like. What does that mean, though? Because there's less money in the production or? You know what? There's a lot of things that go into it, but there is a certain aspect of reality. If you've never made a movie before, people here who have will know. It is not as easy as just setting up the camera and filming what you wrote. Like, there's a huge amount of craft that goes into actually making it feel, for lack of a better word, real.

• 22:43Sean Fennessey?

  And in Canada, for a long time, we just hadn't figured that out.

• 22:50Sean Fennessey?

  So now I would say what makes a movie Canadian, when you're watching it, at least nowadays, is that it is so tied to the point of view of the filmmaker. And I mean, if I'm talking about the last decade in this country, it would mean that it is very, very specific, typically autobiographical in some way, and is endemic to the place. So strangely, like the fact that you're having Toronto as a location, but in other movies like Good Will Hunting, etc., which I imagine can be very high on that. Well, you'll have to watch and find out. I think it might. Well, I'm trying to think of a more fair. Okay, sure, maybe I'm giving stuff away. Sure. But now that actually has a big piece of it, like the actual geography, like it's no.

• 23:33Sean Fennessey?

  Letter Kenny, I remember when I was in the United States, there were so, yes, yes, yes, Jared's a great guy. There were so many people who were like, oh, I love that show. It's the best. Canada is so crazy. They felt the same way before, I think, about Trailer Park Boys. And from my own experience, when I would travel and screen Nirvana, the band, I've made this joke before, but I think that Canada is seen as a bit of a sci-fi premise, like as a country. And so I think just the location of this place is kind of what makes a movie Canadian in a lot of ways. Just because it's slightly different. I've told this joke also before, but did I tell you what the German film students said to me after the world premiere of Nirvana, the Band, the Show? What did they say?

• 24:16Sean Fennessey?

  So at the South by Southwest Film Festival, there's this group of three young German, very, very high-energy film students who are like, oh, my God, this movie is unbelievable. I can't believe what you're doing. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I know. It's pretty crazy, right? Were they Werner Herzog? That's why they're like, you know, my Werner Herzog impression is different. This is the north of Bavarian accent. We can't believe you are so crazy. How did you do this? And I was like, so what specifically do you mean? Like, I know we break the law a lot. And they was like, ah, so much jaywalking.

• 24:54Sean Fennessey?

  And I mean, that kind of sums it up. I think that there's things that we don't even notice are interesting about our country or our city that when you travel them, other people really seem to love. And before, we were very shy about that because I'll never forget, I was making Nirvana, the Band as a TV show. And some of the advice that I got from somebody who'd made a show similarly, who is older than me, was whatever you do, do not make it obvious it's set in Toronto. Set it in a nameless city that seems like it could be America, like it's going to be the death of it if you do that. And I would say that that, just in the last 10 years, has really changed. I was wondering about specifically Nirvana, because Toronto is such an essential ingredient to the series.

• 25:39Sean Fennessey?

  But how much did you worry about making it coherent? Because a lot of times when you're capturing a city, like, for example, Chris's beloved Michael Mann. If you've seen the film Collateral. Yeah. The geography. It's like Grand Theft Auto. A little bit. How did you get from that part of town to that part of town in four minutes in Jamie Foxx's cab? Do you worry about those things?

• 26:00Speaker 03

  Michael Mann assures me that's possible. He has assured me. He told me, yeah.

• 26:06Sean Fennessey?

  He did?

• 26:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. We did like an interview with him when we did Heat for rewatchables and he was just like, it's possible.

• 26:12Sean Fennessey?

  It's like that podcast where, what was that big, huge crime podcast that first got famous? And then they tried to redo the drive that the murderer. Serial. Serial. Yeah. And I didn't believe that guy either. So you know what? The answer is, like, obviously, you watch a movie like Nirvana, the Band, and then you say, were you worried about its coherence? The answer is no. But the geographical, like, it gets a big laugh every time the movie screens in Toronto. And we show like the Much Music Building and then right across the street is the Paradise Theater. And then you look back and it's another part of the city. And of course, to you guys, that means nothing, but to us, that's all we've got. Like, this is a city with only four streets.

• 26:54Sean Fennessey?

  And so if you mess, if you accidentally turn Queen Street into College or Bluer, people are like, wait a minute, you just wasted a whole street. We don't have that many of those. So we knew that we were doing it when we did it, but we just couldn't like, and I think even the people from Toronto forgave us. I mean, they're all here, so we can ask them.

• 27:14Sean Fennessey?

  In America, they have no idea. They just think it's one magical street where the Rivoli and McDonald's are on one side. And then the Paradise Theater with the guts. No, did we use the exterior of the Paradise for both? Yeah. And the Paradise Theater is on the other. And then they come here and they're like, where is it all? So to us, at least to this arrogant American, who has had David Cronenberg, Sophia Romvari, Chandler Lavack, and yourself on the show just this year, it does feel like there's like a moment happening with Canadian film. Or at least we made four movies. Yeah. Yeah. It's so, well, it's so funny because you think about that comparison in America and it was like, wow, four movies got made.

• 27:57Sean Fennessey?

  I would say you're just getting to the foot of the problem that we have in our country, which is that movies just do not get made nearly at the rate as they do in your country or in the rest of the world. And that's starting to change. And I hope, I remember when I first made The Dirties, I thought, oh, wow. Now that it's been proven that an idiot like me with no money can make a movie that plays outside of Canada, everybody's going to do that. And it seems like it was like a decade later that people started doing it. But again, I think that, I mean, I don't want to think that, no, I'm not saying anything negative. But do you think that there is, is that just my little periscope view of things?

• 28:42Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, it feels that way here too. No, it feels that way here too. But again, what's happening is just that four people made movies. And it really isn't deeper than that, in my opinion. Now, look, the sad part of that story is one of those filmmakers is David Cronenberg. And the other three are like in the middle of their career. It's not like. Like me, Sophie and Chandler are fresh out of film school kids and it's a miracle. I wish that were the case. I'm gonna get excited when a 22-year-old film school grad shows up and has made some masterpiece that changes the world, then we'll really be on the map, right? And so, and that is coming, I guarantee it's coming, but, but this is great and I, I love it.

• 29:24Sean Fennessey?

  Any single, anytime that Canada gets mentioned in the same sentence as the word cinema, I think it's a miracle. But, but I don't think we're there yet. And that's not a pessimistic point of view, that's an optimistic point of view.

• 29:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you have any films that we might think are eligible for the Canadian movies draft that you would like to strike off of the board?

• 29:48Sean Fennessey?

  There's so many of those that you would need to start saying them because there's so, so, so many. Like, I think a lot of movies that get even made by Canadians that everybody thinks of as Canadian movies are just, like, we don't consider them Canadian movies.

• 30:01Speaker 03

  Like Dune 2.

• 30:02Sean Fennessey?

  Get real. That's, that's a movie shot in Australia, my man. And I think that Denis is the only Canadian, and the storyboard artist, who's a real genius, a guy named Sam Hudecki, I think it's the only two Canadians on, Sam, get, uh, woo? Somebody there knows the storyboard artists of Dune. Yeah, he truly is a genius, but, but no, that's not a Canadian movie, not even close. I don't even think Denis would call that a Canadian movie.

• 30:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 30:26Sean Fennessey?

  Go ahead.

• 30:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I just, I mean, is the entire crowd gonna rebel at us then? Yeah, how do you think this is gonna go?

• 30:32Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you gotta make sure you're picking, like, movies that, when you think of them, it's like, oh yeah, I can't believe that movie even got made, it's a miracle anybody saw it, and it, on Letterboxd, it has like 20,000 views. That's, that's your ceiling for a Canadian movie. That's not gonna be a good draft, Matt.

• 30:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:49Sean Fennessey?

  That's not gonna work here, bro. Well, you are having an American movie draft. I'm sorry to tell you. An elegant segue. Until you're talking about movies by like Don Owens.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  Someone's about to take Titanic in this draft.

• 31:01Sean Fennessey?

  So, but with that in mind. Yeah, yeah. You did a thing that so many of the directors that I think we'll talk about today did, which is you went to, maybe not specifically Hollywood, but you went to America to make a movie. Yes, yes. And so, I'm curious, like, how you thought about that, whether that meant anything to make that choice? I was just sick of this country and I was ready to go. And it was about time. No, you know what's so funny? I think that there's a misapprehension around Canadians who leave to America to make, and then almost become de facto Americans, and those who just make movies in America. And if I had moved, then maybe I would feel like I was more on the hot seat right now,

• 31:46Sean Fennessey?

  but I don't feel that way at all. If Americans are gonna pay for me to make movies in their country, I'll take that deal 100 times. Like, because, and, and I wouldn't begrudge any other filmmaker who did that also, because one of the big challenges we have, and I'm talking about mostly young filmmakers in this country, is that it's so hard to get reps in. In America, Michael Mann's such an amazing example, actually. He's a guy who's just always working all the time, his stuff is always getting financed, and if you look at the course of his career, his early, early, early stuff is nowhere close to where he gets mid-career, and it's because he's done so much, because there's so much money for filmmakers to keep going, and you can have small films that fail, or even medium films that fail and keep going.

• 32:29Sean Fennessey?

  In Canada, it takes so long to get the financing for a movie together, that even somebody like David Cronenberg is waiting three, four years between movies, not by choice, right? I'm sure if he could, he would be making them again and again and again and again and again. So, I'll always take opportunities to make movies. I mean, I'm making a movie about Magic the Gathering in Australia, just like with the same team that made Dune. It's the same producer, so, so, yeah, I'm not, I love it.

• 32:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Will that movie be eligible for the, uh?

• 32:58Sean Fennessey?

  Not at all.

• 32:59Speaker 03

  Technically, it would be.

• 33:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Canadian director!

• 33:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, well, you might as well put Terminator up there. Get real. It might go up. I'm trying to think of the closest you could get, like, what is the absolute peak of the mountain in terms of a Canadian movie? I was gonna say, do you want, do you? Get real, what? Someone yelled Ghostbusters. Yeah. Yeah. Um, no, no, no, no, no, no. Do you have a favorite actual Canadian, mine is The Fly. I think, and, and, and I think The Fly is a, is a true masterpiece that shows Canada off so well. It's got some writing issues, we could go into that later, but, but, but then there's another film that you guys have definitely never, ever seen, shot in Toronto by a director named Don Owens, called No One Waved Goodbye, and this is an unbelievable masterpiece that

• 33:44Sean Fennessey?

  is hugely influential, especially in like, like Toronto cinema, I'm ripping him off all the time, but, but the absolute top, like, what is the best? That's what the draft is? Strange Brew, maybe, maybe Brain Candy? Like, Silent Pardon is okay. Let's, let's not. Crazy, yeah, yeah, Crazy's actually great. Let's not draft. Are we, uh, we're drafting, we're drafting. I thought what you guys were looking for was the inside track, so that, but then I realized you're competing against one another.

• 34:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, also, like, I'm asking this now, instead of three days ago, when I could've, you know, done some prep.

• 34:19Sean Fennessey?

  Done some prep.

• 34:20Amanda Dobbins?

  So, that was a mistake on my part.

• 34:21Sean Fennessey?

  I'm, I'm getting the sense that you guys might really get destroyed by this crowd and that, and that, because.

• 34:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Are you rooting for that?

• 34:27Sean Fennessey?

  No, I want you to win.

• 34:29Amanda Dobbins?

  It's okay. You want me to win, or you want us to win collectively?

• 34:32Sean Fennessey?

  I want the Americans to leave happy.

• 34:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  We always do, brother.

• 34:37Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I want. It's ironic, because this is typically a competition amongst us. Yeah, yeah. But you're saying tonight it's against them. Well, you know, I mean, you're gonna find out. Do you think that they'll name even one actual Canadian movie? It's hard. You know, I made this joke before, but the tragedy of Canadian movies is that, that the, really, Canadians don't even know, you showed this in the trivia. Like, Canadians don't even know Canadian movies. The average American filmgoer probably knows the same number of Canadian movies as a Canadian filmgoer. Well, we have a very loose definition of Canadian movie tonight. As we're about to find out. And it sounds like you're more Irish Catholic and we're more agnostic.

• 35:19Sean Fennessey?

  Basically, for you, any Kevin Smith movie is gonna be a Canadian movie. Should be added to the category.

• 35:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. I can draft Mallrats, let's go!

• 35:31Sean Fennessey?

  He went to the Vancouver Film School, so that counts. Wow, okay. Maybe we should swap out the Villeneuve category for Kevin Smith. No, no, no, no, no, don't do that. Um, okay. Last, last question for you, Matt. Will you come back to Canada and make a film ever again? I'm making one already, I'm making one right now. Everybody, yeah. What do you mean, come back? I live on Roncesvalle. I went, I went to America for three months to shoot that movie and it was the worst time in my life. I hated it.

• 36:04Amanda Dobbins?

  We're sorry about that.

• 36:05Sean Fennessey?

  I couldn't believe it, you know, it had nothing to do with the Americans. But, yeah, you know, I tell people, um, when I, when I come back, because we've screened Nirvana the Band internationally so much, and, and it's been such a hopeful message that I've received, which is that for the very first time, I've heard from young film students in America, wow, I wish I could have been a Canadian. And that's the first time I'd ever, it's been the opposite. When I went to film school, we all would have killed to have been born an American citizen, to be going to USC or Tisch School of the Arts, like, we would have killed. And to see it even slightly inverting is the miracle of my life.

• 36:47Sean Fennessey?

  And, um, so we're gonna be getting a lot of your filmmakers now, and we're gonna be putting on these little half-sarcastic trivia games in your country, saying, oh, does this even count as an American movie?

• 36:58Speaker 03

  You guys like John Ford movies?

• 36:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. When, when our cultural production has dwarfed you.

• 37:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 37:05Sean Fennessey?

  And you're all, I'm trying to think of what that would mean. What would you even need to learn? The thing is, people don't even sing the National Anthem here anymore. We've got, we've got no culture left. I'll tell you one thing. Yeah. I'd be happy to send Bo Bichette back to this country. I don't, you know, no, no. Careful, careful. No, it's his fault, it's not my fault. He seems like a nice man. Uh, he's a baseball player.

• 37:31Amanda Dobbins?

  He's a baseball player, I, yeah.

• 37:32Sean Fennessey?

  He was, he was a Blue Jay for some time.

• 37:34Speaker 03

  He actually storyboarded Dune 3.

• 37:36Sean Fennessey?

  He hasn't made any films, no. He's only broken my dreams. Okay. Thank you for having me, guys. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this.

• 37:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you, Matt.

• 37:45Sean Fennessey?

  Please treat these guys nice. Give it up for Matt Johnson. Goodbye. You are the best.

• 37:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Bye, thank you. Walked right into that, you know?

• 37:59Sean Fennessey?

  Well.

• 38:00Amanda Dobbins?

  It was always gonna be this way, you know, but that's, listen.

• 38:03Sean Fennessey?

  I was warned by Jack Sanders not to make a Bo Bichette reference, and I did it anyway. Matt Johnson, god, the fucking man, right? It is cool when a native son has such an incredible moment. Um, one of the all-time great guests on this show, uh, but it's time to bring on another guest, one of the, one of the greatest guests in the history of this show. Yeah. Uh, he is, of course, our mean pod guy. Please welcome critic, author, genius, Adam Nayman.

• 38:48Sean Fennessey?

  Hey, guys. Hi, Adam. Americans used to dodge drafts here. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Hey, don't, don't count us out, it might come again. Yeah. I'm also glad you platformed an obscure, underexposed filmmaker like Matt.

• 39:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah.

• 39:09Sean Fennessey?

  We don't hear from him enough. What did you make of all that preamble about what is and is not Canadian? Well, there wasn't volume in the back for a while. Okay. And then I heard the trivia stuff kinda dying. Okay. And then I heard Matt talking, and he's, a lot of that is right, you know, and, but also. What was wrong? It's a long conversation. But I, but I think the question, I heard Matt talking about that kind of uncanny valley, like, we have such a pop cultural inferiority complex, because you guys are our baseline, and movies are different than music or TV, like, there was always legislation around, like, you know, songs will get played on the radio. Along with, it's like when you grow up, you're like, the tragically hip and you two are the same.

• 39:52Sean Fennessey?

  Right? Or, and that, they're the same, you know, they're on, they're on the, the, the top 10 countdown. Yeah, yeah. And, and, and TV and TV, there's a lot of very robust production, certain kind of respect for Canadian TV. But with movies, it's hard, like English Canadian movies are made in the same language as American movies. They're kind of not made at the same budget level, you know? Like one of the, the course I teach at U of T about Toronto film, I'm like, the first movies we're gonna look at are like from the mid 1950s or early 60s. Matt mentioned, nobody waved goodbye. So I'm like, this is the primal scene, 1964. You know what's been made at this point elsewhere? Everything. I mean, it's 1964, like they've made La Ventura, they've made Psycho, the French New Wave has like happened.

• 40:35Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, it's, it's really interesting to talk about why that is. There's no studios, there's no infrastructure, like any Toronto movie made before 1960 is a totally independent gesture. And it often copies what's being made in the States, like horror or like a lot of teen juvenile delinquency movies, which is essentially what nobody waved goodbye is. And when Matt says that he's copying, nobody waved goodbye, like it's a very intelligent comment because Toronto movies are all about shooting without permission, running around, like that was a movie that was commissioned by the NFB as a documentary about juvenile delinquents in Montreal. And he's like, how about a fictional movie about a kid in Toronto, you know? And the NFB was like, they made that behind our back, but also people actually like this movie. So like a lot of English Canadian films are about getting away with something and then hoping people will pay the barest amount

• 41:20Sean Fennessey?

  of attention to it because we live in the shadow of you guys, which is working out extremely well politically as well. I love where we're located. It's been great to, to, to, to, to, to be this close.

• 41:33Speaker 03

  Have you guys thought about introducing Transformers to your cinema? And do you think that would raise the bar a little bit economically, you know, Megatron?

• 41:45Sean Fennessey?

  I'm, I'm. It was buried at sea.

• 41:47Speaker 03

  Soundwave.

• 41:47Sean Fennessey?

  Megatron was buried at sea. I had a Soundwave toy, man, you know, I, I, I collected Transformers. We don't push back and Canadian cinemas don't either. I mean, it's an ugly thing to talk about sometimes. There may be people in the industry here, but it's like, you know, in the seventies, movie theaters actually invested in Canadian movies to put a gun to their own head to show them, right?

• 42:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:08Sean Fennessey?

  We put money in these movies. This is the only way we will show them is we are literally trying to get our own money back from it. I mean, some movies do really well. I mean Nirvana and, and Blue Heron, like they've played consistently in actual movie theaters. You can split those definitions very finely about like what an actual movie theater is and like what's mainstream and, and what's art house. But it's hard to get that kind of sustained traction. And I always think about this idea of movies breaking containment, which is like, what might a normal person go see on a Tuesday? And I know normal was a tough word, but festival circuit, like people say that English Canadian cinema is like a foreign cinema in its own country. Or something you watched in school or something you watch with the rhetorical equivalent of a gun to your head, which isn't right.

• 42:52Sean Fennessey?

  It isn't the way most people feel, but I hear people laughing because it's kind of true. And I teach Canadian films in school and I ask my, my students, I'm like, how many of you last voluntarily watched a Canadian movie? And they're like, I don't know. And then I'm like, what about a Matt Johnson movie? And they go, yeah, we watched that because that's a real thing that's kind of happened. And my students this year were super excited and interested in Blue Heron. So the thing you've identified is happening is kind of happening. Now, whether those movies represent something narrow in terms of authorship, representation, you know, race, subject matter, that's a really actually interesting conversation to have, but I'm sure very soon we're going to be drafting the Terminator. So I was gonna say, do you think we're the best people to have that conversation in this country? Sean, my friend, you came here.

• 43:35Sean Fennessey?

  And for some reason you invited me. When, when we started talking about this, what, what did you think about this as a subject matter? Did you think, I'm locked and loaded. I know what my six picks are.

• 43:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you have a, have a way of making up interesting categories. So there, I couldn't read your mind until the categories showed up. Um, but no, I, I will be completely honest. I had the instinct of, okay, so now I gotta do some Googling to figure out which movies I already know and love are in fact Canadian. And I'm sorry, you know, I, but that's, and I didn't even say it with a Canadian accent. But, um, it's, I, I thought that there was a lot that I, that American cinema has just sort of slurped up that I'm sure I'm familiar with, but that is maybe not, would not meet Matt Johnson's definition of Canadian cinema. I think I've got a couple in there now.

• 44:27Sean Fennessey?

  Does anyone follow Chris Ryan on Letterboxd?

• 44:31Sean Fennessey?

  You should. Do people see, you guys see him logging Videodrome like an hour and a half ago?

• 44:35Speaker 03

  No, but it was a rewatch though.

• 44:37Sean Fennessey?

  It was a rewatch.

• 44:38Speaker 03

  I was just getting like lubricated for tonight.

• 44:43Sean Fennessey?

  What, how, how did you think about this, this endeavor?

• 44:46Speaker 03

  I thought it was gonna be a lot harder. I did not know the categories until obviously you decided to reveal them. And I thought it was gonna be much more like deep Agoyan knowledge.

• 44:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 44:56Speaker 03

  And I was like, all right.

• 44:57Sean Fennessey?

  Well, why isn't it?

• 44:58Speaker 03

  Why, you're, you made the game.

• 45:01Sean Fennessey?

  But you could, you could use.

• 45:02Speaker 03

  No, I can do that, but I'm just saying like you threw a couple of wiffle balls with Gosling and stuff like that. And that's cool.

• 45:08Sean Fennessey?

  Well, here's the thing. I think I sent you an email. I think one of my suggestions was best incest and it was ignored.

• 45:15Sean Fennessey?

  That's why I'm the host, you know?

• 45:18Speaker 03

  Mimi after the show, Adam, and we can, we can break that down.

• 45:23Sean Fennessey?

  I think what I was, what I was aiming for was some balance regarding the interests of the show. Yeah. And, and paying respect and homage to the wonderful cultural history of this.

• 45:36Speaker 03

  Classic centrist Sean.

• 45:37Sean Fennessey?

  Right? Yeah. Stayin' right, right down the middle. We have to figure out a draft order. I mean, Amanda, you wanna, you wanna reread those categories?

• 45:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 45:46Sean Fennessey?

  So we can kind of be psychologically prepared for this before getting the order.

• 45:49Amanda Dobbins?

  We have Ryan Gosling, David Cronenberg, Cameron James or Villeneuve, Denis, Canadian director, Canadian star, and Toronto plays itself or somewhere else.

• 46:03Speaker 03

  It's worth mentioning, Canadian director cannot include Cronenberg, Cameron or Villeneuve and Canadian star.

• 46:09Sean Fennessey?

  Was it originally Ryan Gosling and Ryan Reynolds? That was your suggestion.

• 46:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:13Sean Fennessey?

  But I had a whole thing about picking a movie from before when Reynolds eyes went dead and I thought it was gonna get a good line, but we can't do it. No, of course we can. There's plenty of room for it in Canadian star. Right, okay. So don't spoil your own draft. I'm gonna repeat the jokes.

• 46:28Sean Fennessey?

  All right, we're, we're gonna need a draft order, so let's hear it.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  I just want to be fully transparent backstage. Amanda Dobbins accused me of cooking the books, of bringing the draft order.

• 46:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, let's just, Jack, why don't you share with the people?

• 46:40Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 46:41Amanda Dobbins?

  The timeline.

• 46:42Speaker 03

  I think you're gonna be.

• 46:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Of how this was determined.

• 46:44Speaker 03

  It was determined quite simply. Before I came over here from the wonderful hotel, I ripped four individual pieces of paper, wrote all of your amazing names on them, put them in my Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie hat. Sean took you to a DVD store. Okay, okay. All right, all right.

• 46:59Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you to Bay Street Video.

• 47:02Speaker 03

  An amazing, an amazing institution.

• 47:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, Jack announced at 6:30 PM tonight that he already knew the draft order.

• 47:11Speaker 03

  That's correct.

• 47:11Amanda Dobbins?

  And I would just like to say that, you know, I have some questions.

• 47:14Speaker 03

  Honestly, I'm not gonna lie, it like feels pretty good.

• 47:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 47:17Speaker 03

  I like that you're on tilt a little bit here. Drafting first, Chris Ryan.

• 47:21Amanda Dobbins?

  That's, that's good. That's correct. Wow. You guys, that's not very nice of you guys. Okay.

• 47:27Speaker 03

  Drafting second, Amanda Dobbins.

• 47:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm, okay.

• 47:32Sean Fennessey?

  The fuck is this?

• 47:33Speaker 03

  Drafting third, not gonna like this, Sean Fantasy.

• 47:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:37Speaker 03

  And drafting fourth, Adam Nayman.

• 47:38Amanda Dobbins?

  The turn is fun.

• 47:39Speaker 03

  The turn's fun.

• 47:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Adam is like, no, it's not fun. So, and this is, yeah, Elizabeth's putting the in order.

• 47:45Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Okay.

• 47:47Amanda Dobbins?

  And fourth is Adam Nayman, yeah.

• 47:49Sean Fennessey?

  So you're feeling wounded? Always.

• 47:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 47:53Sean Fennessey?

  You're feeling elated?

• 47:55Speaker 03

  I'm playing free. This is an awesome draft. There's also not like, I am not like gonna be overwhelmed by the idea of not getting some Gosling or Cameron movie. Like I'm playing deep cuts, I'm playing personal faves, I'm honoring our hosts.

• 48:13Speaker 03

  And that is why Elizabeth is gonna have to dig deep in the cards for my first pick, which will be Videodrome. And Cronenberg. And this is my favorite Cronenberg. I re-watched it last night. I just want to let everybody know, I watched a lot of fucking movies before Letterboxd. And I didn't go in and just like log them all and be like, just you know, I did this in 1989. It's just like, this is what I do. He has a lot of comments on my Letterboxd habits.

• 48:42Sean Fennessey?

  What did I, what do I say?

• 48:43Speaker 03

  You're like, oh, how you watch five seconds of a movie and log it?

• 48:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 48:46Speaker 03

  And it's like, that's not true.

• 48:47Sean Fennessey?

  Chris goes to YouTube and he watches three minutes of a movie and he's like, bang, knock that out.

• 48:52Speaker 03

  Heart.

• 48:53Sean Fennessey?

  Sweet hereafter, done. Exotica, done.

• 48:57Sean Fennessey?

  Saw the trailer, boom, log that joint.

• 49:01Speaker 03

  I watch billions on shorts, come on.

• 49:04Speaker 03

  Videodrome, I am an active Reddit poster under the name Brian Oblivion. This movie predicted the following 35 years that would come after it. It is still one of my favorite, probably top two, top two James Woods performances. How about that? That's a cool draft.

• 49:22Sean Fennessey?

  And Byron Dalebacker from Ghosts of Mississippi is number one.

• 49:26Speaker 03

  And it is just such a haunting portrait of mass media and also human desire and violence. And I, I just adore this movie, so I wanted to get it first.

• 49:39Sean Fennessey?

  That's a great one. This is, this is a favorite of yours as well. Do you feel, how do you feel right now? Yeah, my favorite day every year is showing Videodrome to students who haven't seen it. And they just buzz and levitate and wanna talk about it because it's amazing. And it's such a Toronto-coded movie. How many people here have seen Videodrome? Yeah. So you guys know that there's a famous story about Cronenberg going to get funding. He tries to go down to LA and he's in a meeting with Lorne Michaels and Moses Nymer, which someone should write a one act play about. And, you know, Moses Nymer was the impresario of City TV and without putting words in it, it was. He was not very nice to David. So the scene in Videodrome where a civic TV executive named Moses gets his head blown off is very satisfying.

• 50:20Speaker 03

  Spoiler, yeah.

• 50:21Sean Fennessey?

  But Brian Oblivion is also obviously Marshall McLuhan, right? So you can't get more Toronto-coded than a kind of stand-in for for Marshall McLuhan. And it's just like, this is the greatest movie ever.

• 50:30Speaker 03

  I actually have Marshall McLuhan right behind this.

• 50:35Sean Fennessey?

  That was a good joke.

• 50:36Speaker 03

  Thank you. Not gonna say where it's from, though.

• 50:39Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 50:41Sean Fennessey?

  Non-Canadian filmmaker Woody Allen. You know nothing of my work. Um, all right, Amanda, you got the second pick.

• 50:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but you know, Chris normally, when he gets first pick, you know, throws a curveball. And that was just like respectable and, you know, honoring Canadian filmmakers.

• 50:56Speaker 03

  I tip my cap to the Skydome crowd.

• 50:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Die Hard with a Vengeance.

• 51:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 51:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Or Iron Man 3 or whatever.

• 51:02Sean Fennessey?

  Is Iron Man 3 eligible? Did they shoot any of Iron Man 3?

• 51:05Speaker 03

  I think they did some exteriors, yeah.

• 51:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, yeah. So now it's like, you know, I gotta, I gotta do something with dignity also. I can't totally go crazy.

• 51:13Sean Fennessey?

  I disagree.

• 51:14Speaker 03

  I think we left dignity back in like 2018.

• 51:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Really very true. Um, but I think I have something, it's fairly obvious, but it's still from the heart. So that seems like a good, so in and Cameron or Villeneuve, I will take Arrival, which is my favorite Denis Villeneuve movie, and also I believe filmed in Canada, at least parts of it. No one's saying yes. Okay.

• 51:37Sean Fennessey?

  And those aliens live here, right? That's why they had to come here.

• 51:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that this is an incredibly beautiful and upsetting and memorable movie about, you know, obviously aliens and, and, you know, how they talk them. And let's be real, it handles the aliens. I didn't laugh like when the alien came out in Disclosure Day, but um, there's something poetic about it. They don't ride segways. But I, um, you know, it has a lot of, it, it, it does a lot of sci-fi tropes that I typically don't respond to in a, an lyrical and I found very emotional way.

• 52:17Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think about it all the time. So I, you know, I left Titanic on the board, which feels a little crazy. Like right now, I'm like kind of sweating, but I, I love Arrival. So I'm, I'm sticking with it.

• 52:31Speaker 03

  Can I ask a question?

• 52:32Amanda Dobbins?

  There are no take backs. Yeah.

• 52:33Speaker 03

  I just want to get this, this, this conversation rolling. We could return to it over the course of the evening. Does Denis Villeneuve already have as many good movies as James Cameron?

• 52:43Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so I'm not sure if you're up on this, but Chris has been waging a war against his father, James Cameron, for the past five years, and it's one of the damnedest things I've ever seen. Did you know that he didn't make the one with the Soldado?

• 52:56Speaker 03

  Yes, I do.

• 52:57Sean Fennessey?

  He made the other Sicario.

• 52:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:59Sean Fennessey?

  Cause you're a Soldado guy.

• 53:01Speaker 03

  I like, Soldado has a lot to like, yeah.

• 53:03Sean Fennessey?

  So Chris, in the-

• 53:05Speaker 03

  It's kind of a girl dad movie, honestly.

• 53:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 53:07Sean Fennessey?

  In the entire, in the entire history of the big picture, Chris has asked to sit in on an interview with me one time. And it was for Stefano Salima to talk about Day of the Soldado.

• 53:23Sean Fennessey?

  That's a true story.

• 53:23Speaker 03

  Did that go well? I can't remember.

• 53:25Sean Fennessey?

  He was a lovely fellow.

• 53:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:26Sean Fennessey?

  His films are evil. Uh, so I, I, what, what happened with you and Cameron?

• 53:33Speaker 03

  Wait, you're just on the spot. You don't want to go on the record. You don't want to answer.

• 53:37Sean Fennessey?

  No, he does not have more good, good movies than James Cameron. What are you talking about?

• 53:41Speaker 03

  Just checking. I think, I think it's pretty neck and neck.

• 53:44Sean Fennessey?

  James Cameron is a, James Cameron is an inestimably greater filmmaker.

• 53:48Speaker 03

  But he's been making cartoons for 15 years.

• 53:52Sean Fennessey?

  Is this an anti-Avatar audience?

• 53:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 53:56Sean Fennessey?

  This is an anti-Avatar audience?

• 53:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 53:59Sean Fennessey?

  This show is over.

• 54:03Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I'll make a choice. Uh, I'll, I'll also follow sincerity. I'll take my favorite Canadian filmmaker, whose name is Sarah Polley, and I'll take, under filmmaker, I'll, I'll, I'll talk about Take This Waltz, though I really like all of her films. Take This Waltz, absolutely beautiful movie starring Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen, um, about reaching a point in your life where you realize that maybe not everything is as it seemed. Or are you happy enough or satisfied enough with where life has taken you? And it's just incredibly emotionally confrontational and thoughtful and features amazing performances. And um, I, I, I thought about doing Stories We Tell Too, which I think is also a super special movie. But that'll be my pick for, for Canadian director. What, is she, what do you think about her?

• 54:52Sean Fennessey?

  My kid's here, right? Leah, you're somewhere. I took Leah on the, there you are, buddy. I took Leah on the Center Island Scrambler for the first time last summer. And I think the Center Island Scrambler scene in Take This Waltz is like sublime. The video killed the radio star bit, like trading in something old for something new. And the way it just stops, like, that's a great piece of film direction. There's usually like one or two great sequences in each of her, of her movies. That's my favorite of them for what it's worth. That's your favorite Sarah Polley film? Okay, great. Um, well, Adam, the time has come. You're at the turn. So you have two films that you can take here.

• 55:23Amanda Dobbins?

  You can, you can keep the earnest vibe going, or you can mean pod-guy it up.

• 55:28Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I'm gonna pick a Denis Villeneuve movie that I actually like and which qualifies and which is pertinent, which is Enemy.

• 55:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Is this the giant spider?

• 55:38Sean Fennessey?

  That was my fucking pick. Which is a hate letters to Toronto from a Montreal filmmaker. It is the ugliest this city has ever looked in a film.

• 55:48Speaker 03

  I have to say, this, this city looks so good compared to Enemy.

• 55:52Sean Fennessey?

  It's covered in piss. So there was a year, there was a year at this festival in this building where Denis was here with two films. There was Prisoners, which is like a job for hire, you know, with Roger Deakins and it's sort of like big American film. They actually like play the Star Spangled Banner at one point on a trumpet. And you're like, it's a movie about America. And then Enemy, which is, you know, about Toronto. And I interviewed him for both movies. And I'm not going to say which one his heart was more in. But it was Enemy. And I love this film as a movie about, you know, doppelgangers and doubles, but it's a great movie about Toronto, because if you've seen Enemy, how many people here have seen Enemy? Yeah. This is a movie about someone who suffers a debilitating existential crisis because he rents a Toronto independent film.

• 56:35Sean Fennessey?

  And he watches it and he sees himself on screen and he goes, that is messed up. Why am I seeing myself? And so when I teach this movie at U of T, it's all about the shock as a Torontonian of seeing yourself and your city on screen. It literally drives you crazy. But you know, I like Jake Gyllenhaal in it a lot. It's just so exquisitely assembled and shot. It's a great performance by Sarah Gad. Amanda, off mic, I think you were spoiling it by mentioning the insect that's in it. There's a great spite.

• 57:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 57:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, for people who haven't seen it, there's a famous scene with an insect. It's a 12-year-old movie. Statute of limitations on spoilers for Canadian movies is longer.

• 57:15Speaker 03

  What about for The Odyssey? Could we spoil that?

• 57:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. He gets, he makes it.

• 57:21Speaker 03

  That's about the enemy. It's about Enemy, not The Odyssey. Yeah.

• 57:24Sean Fennessey?

  Some guy quietly inside's like, fuck, spoiled. But um, no, I mean, I like Enemy a lot because I think Villeneuve has gotten more of, he's a filmmaker who's all about scale. And we can hold off on whether he's good with scale as we talk about more of your other movies. I like how small Enemy is. I think it's brilliantly managed and it's really funny movie. Like it's funny, funny. So that's my pick. The movie, um, memorably opens with a title card that says, Chaos is Order Yet Undeciphered? Yeah. What do you think when a filmmaker puts a title card like that at the beginning of their movie? I think they really would like to be taken seriously in adapting Jose Sarmago. And if you go on Reddit, which is a great place to go, it's really good for your mental health.

• 58:10Speaker 03

  Brian Oblivion again.

• 58:11Sean Fennessey?

  Brian Oblivion. There are all kinds of deep dive explainers on what that quote means pertaining to Enemy, because my students always come back the next week. They go, I solved the movie. And I go, is it the Reddit thread about the quote? And they're like, yeah. I'm like, and, and, or there's also like good YouTube explainers. YouTube explainers are the highest form of film criticism. They're so good.

• 58:36Sean Fennessey?

  You do YouTube explainers. Not anymore.

• 58:41Sean Fennessey?

  I've been meaning to mention this to you. It's been a while. Talk about it now? No. Okay. I'm not going to renegotiate that on stage. You have another selection. Yeah. I want to mention a great Canadian filmmaker who's actually Canadian, which is Alan King. The late documentarian who as much as Fred Wiseman is kind of, you know, key and pioneering, people call it direct cinema or, or cinema verite. This is a filmmaker, I don't know if people are familiar with Alan's work, but he was just fascinated in the way that institutions and individuals sort of related. There's a film that kind of got famous, because Criterion, when they used to do the Eclipse box sets, and I'm going to cheer for the Eclipse box sets. Woo, yeah. When it was like, the movie didn't go in the full collection, they would do kind of like a deep dive.

• 59:22Sean Fennessey?

  And there's a movie called Warren Dale, which is about a home for emotionally disturbed children in Etobicoke. And this very unconventional method that's used to treat them, which is the, the people at the facility, they just hold them. And the movie at no point says that's what they're doing. And there is no interview with the people you're holding these children. So you watch the film. It's like, are they hugging them? Are they restraining them? Is this abuse? This is wild to watch 62. Two years later, but I mean, even at the time, the lack of judgment in the movie was like commented on. He gives the audience so much space, even while he is just pushing you right into the faces of these, these children. So it's a movie about mental health. It's about generational conflict. It's so empathetic and almost kind of exploitative at the same time.

• 1:00:04Sean Fennessey?

  And the nonfiction films he made, you know, going forward are about a lot of those same themes. One of the first years I covered TIFF when I was young and the world was beautiful and all of that, was called Dying at Grace, which is set at Grace Hospital in Toronto. It's about five patients in palliative care who are all at the end of their lives. I know I'm bringing the vibe down. We'll talk about the sold out later. And it's the most astonishingly like terrifying, humane, normalizing movie about death. Like it should be mandatory viewing for people to just watch this, this thing. I got to know Alan a little bit before he died. He's just one of my heroes. So I want to mention him.

• 1:00:44Sean Fennessey?

  Do we think Elizabeth is backstage furiously trying to find a Warren Dale card that was not printed up?

• 1:00:50Amanda Dobbins?

  No, she's got, she's got a single.

• 1:00:52Sean Fennessey?

  What I meant to say was Titanic. Wow. Look at this winner. Yes. For Canadian director, well, it was Alan King, but we'll say Warren Dale was the stand in for Alan King. That's fine. Um, that's a wonderful pick. I do have that, that criterion set. Married life, one of the great, one of the great documentaries. Married couple. Yeah. Well, you have, you have everything. Yeah, yeah. We read Bay Street video today and I was like, Sean, here's an insane movie. No one sort of, he's like, no, I have that.

• 1:01:19Speaker 03

  I did. You did.

• 1:01:22Amanda Dobbins?

  It's called the Tracy Lutz syndrome.

• 1:01:24Sean Fennessey?

  He's an inspiration.

• 1:01:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:26Speaker 03

  He's gonna kill you. You know that, right?

• 1:01:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Uh, I'm going down with him. So. Great playwright, Tracy Lutz. But, but not a great third chair, is that what you said? No, he's great, but I'm just saying he's a great playwright. Who do you think should be third chair?

• 1:01:40Sean Fennessey?

  Just. He's, he's sitting right there. I'm just asking you.

• 1:01:47Sean Fennessey?

  You know what? The, the answer according to the, I have students who send me the, the big picture Reddit threads. The answer is apparently not me.

• 1:01:57Sean Fennessey?

  It's funny how you guys keep bringing up Reddit.

• 1:02:00Speaker 03

  Who? Me and Adam?

• 1:02:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:02Speaker 03

  Well, we're just, we're well informed guys.

• 1:02:03Sean Fennessey?

  We're plugged in. We're, we're plugged, we're plugged into the moment. Are you guys actually the posters there?

• 1:02:08Speaker 03

  Oh, I would never.

• 1:02:10Sean Fennessey?

  Never.

• 1:02:10Speaker 03

  No, I'm way busier on other Reddit boards.

• 1:02:15Speaker 03

  I'm figuring out what enemy is about, Adam.

• 1:02:19Sean Fennessey?

  I have a pick. Um, I mean, Matt Johnson kind of spoiled my pick, but I was always hoping to get The Fly. So The Fly is still on the board. So that will be my David Cronenberg pick. Yeah.

• 1:02:28Sean Fennessey?

  Which I think is his best movie. Maybe it's his least, um, I don't know, uh, esteemed, you know, awardsy film, but it's because it's pure genre, but he obviously applies a ton of incredible thought to it. But amazing performance by Jeff Goldblum as Brundle Fly in the movie about a transformation. A guy who's turning into something that he doesn't want to, but he does want to feel power about dying masculinity.

• 1:02:52Speaker 03

  That's why you collect so many DVDs.

• 1:02:54Sean Fennessey?

  That's true. I relate to him. I don't know. What's my version of The Fly? It's probably the Arubato Blu-ray that you were pointing out to me today that I was like, I have that. That was The Fly that got in my machine. Um, and yeah, I mean, it's, it is also kind of a for hire job. Like it was his idea, but it's a remake of a sci-fi movie. Heroically produced by Mel Brooks. That's right. Yeah.

• 1:03:13Speaker 03

  Did you catch Matt's drive by on the script? Did you not like, is there like any writing problems on?

• 1:03:18Sean Fennessey?

  Matt is very fond of aggressive opinions, maybe more so than I am.

• 1:03:25Sean Fennessey?

  We'll do it later. We'll do it scene by scene. We'll do a breakdown. But yeah, I, I think it's, I think it's his best film. I think it's his most entertaining movie, saddest movie. And I think his movies even now are incredible, but that's the one that I return to the most. So that's my Cronenberg, The Fly.

• 1:03:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. At, at some point, we're gonna have to break this like holy Canadian streak. And I guess I'm going to be the one to do it. Um, no, listen, this is eligible, but in what I've learned from drafting, loathe these many years with these men, um, is that you have to take what you want, when you want it, and when you have the opportunity before they can take it away from you.

• 1:04:04Speaker 03

  Mahoney's not here.

• 1:04:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah, but you know, Sean's taking notes every single time. Sean wants what Mahoney has, so.

• 1:04:14Sean Fennessey?

  I think everyone knows the opposite.

• 1:04:19Amanda Dobbins?

  So I'm just, I'm gonna take a film that means a tremendous amount to me and to my, um, film watching career and was filmed in the suburbs of, of Toronto, I believe. Uh, and that film is Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides.

• 1:04:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Now I understand that it's standing in for Detroit, which is an American city. I, Detroit is almost as foreign to me as Canada and now less so. So, um, more so because Canada, I understand. So in that sense, I was just learning about, um, a suburban world. And it's a beautiful movie about, um, being a teenager and not understanding what's going on with you or what's going on with anybody else and, um, trying to make sense of or not, um, as the case may be of a very, very complicated time with very few words.

• 1:05:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Is Josh Hartnett Canadian? No, he's not. He's just in another great Canadian film trap. Uh, well.

• 1:05:24Sean Fennessey?

  Don't steal my bit.

• 1:05:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, listen, I thought about it, um, because that would be eligible in this category and, um, but it's also an important movie about Josh Hartnett, but, um, obviously also Sofia Coppola's debut film. And, um, thank you for letting her, uh, become a filmmaker, Canada. There we go.

• 1:05:44Amanda Dobbins?

  What?

• 1:05:45Sean Fennessey?

  You managed to get Sofia on the board.

• 1:05:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:47Sean Fennessey?

  And I never doubted you.

• 1:05:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I always do.

• 1:05:50Sean Fennessey?

  CR, two picks.

• 1:05:51Speaker 03

  Uh, for Canadian star, this was a lot of deliberation on this one, but I have to give it to an officer of the Order of Canada. And that is Donald Sutherland.

• 1:06:03Speaker 03

  And I wanted to do this because I was looking at his filmography today, which I'm like broadly familiar with. But I guess I had not really thought about the fact that he makes a great movie from the sixties in every decade. At least one great movie in the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties aughts, if you're including Hunger Games. And, um, what a phenomenal, not only star, but also, uh, anti-war activist and incredible like social activist. And has been in some of my favorite movies like MASH and, and Clued and Backdraft.

• 1:06:35Sean Fennessey?

  What's this?

• 1:06:38Speaker 03

  He's fucking awesome in Backdraft. He is telling the truth in JFK. Let me say that. That is the only history book you need, brother.

• 1:06:47Sean Fennessey?

  Would you select JFK in the Canadian movie draft?

• 1:06:52Sean Fennessey?

  Would that be your?

• 1:06:53Speaker 03

  It would make me want to move to Canada if JFK is true. No, uh, but I, Sutherland is, uh, I think he may be the number one seed in Canadian stars.

• 1:07:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:01Sean Fennessey?

  You think so? I wrote, I wrote about him for Ringer, I think. I mean, he's the star of my favorite movie of all time, which is Don't Look Now by Nicholas Rogue. Yeah. He's, I mean, he'd be, he's a, he's a top two seed, right? I mean, there's, well, we'll, we'll see who the other guy it might be in a second. He's a great, great, great pick. And. Ryan Reynolds? No. And, uh, and remind me, Chris, in Backdraft, he is like, he's like the Hannibal Lecter of arson, right?

• 1:07:23Speaker 03

  He's the arsonist who De Niro goes to interview in prison. I think his name is Whisper. And he whispers and, uh, they talk about fire like it's a person.

• 1:07:33Sean Fennessey?

  Do you remember the one where, you'll remember, what's the one where Sylvester Stallone puts him in the electric chair? Is that Lockup?

• 1:07:39Speaker 03

  Tango and Cash? No, that's Lockup.

• 1:07:40Sean Fennessey?

  Lockup, yeah. Yeah. He's in a lot of great movies, Donald Sutherland.

• 1:07:46Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. So, I mean, is there a card that you want, uh, Elizabeth to come out with?

• 1:07:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, throw MASH up there. It's fine.

• 1:07:51Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, alright. Tell him about Korean War vets, for sure.

• 1:07:55Speaker 03

  But like, I mean, okay, Virgin Suicides.

• 1:07:59Sean Fennessey?

  What is short to right? MASH.

• 1:08:02Speaker 03

  What do I want to do here, man?

• 1:08:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:04Speaker 03

  What do I want to do? I think I'm gonna go,

• 1:08:08Speaker 03

  I'm gonna get away from this lovely country and I'm gonna go to, to another country just south of, of the United States of America and do Scario for Kenny Villanueva.

• 1:08:19Speaker 03

  Obviously a passion project of mine, uh, movie we just did on rewatchables and, um, one of the most astonishing. That's been made in this century, I think. Incredible performances by Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin and Emily Blunt. And yeah, I almost feel like I'm talked out about Sicario, but the, you know, some of the three or four of like the best sequences in any action film. Thank you. You had to write Mash. I'm sorry. I could have picked something more interesting. And then, yeah, so Sicario is my favorite.

• 1:08:57Speaker 03

  Any comments on Sicario?

• 1:08:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:00Speaker 03

  Polite applause.

• 1:09:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Liked it?

• 1:09:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Good.

• 1:09:03Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think about Sicario? Adam?

• 1:09:05Speaker 03

  He kind of likes it, though.

• 1:09:08Speaker 03

  He's gonna say something. He was like, ah, but he's, he kind of likes it.

• 1:09:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's a, it's a, it's a brilliantly made kind of evil movie. I don't, I don't like it one bit, but it's very, but it's very well directed. What was the movie that I saw and you hadn't seen yet? And you're like, what am I going to think of this? And I said, you'll be ambivalent at best, but in five years, you'll give it a reconsideration. That was Disclosure Day. Disclosure Day. I then filed a 2,300 deeply ambivalent review about Disclosure. That's like, let's take a look back in five years. So he's right. Yeah, it's good to know each other. Absolutely. Okay, so Sicario.

• 1:09:42Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:09:42Sean Fennessey?

  Which is a film that primarily takes place in Texas and Mexico.

• 1:09:45Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:09:46Sean Fennessey?

  Here at the Canadian movie draft.

• 1:09:47Speaker 03

  Air Force Base in New Mexico. Yeah.

• 1:09:48Sean Fennessey?

  New Mexico. Got it. Okay. What's, uh, what's up with Taylor Sheridan lately? How's that going?

• 1:09:53Speaker 03

  Well, he's, he's actually speaking to people now. He's getting out on the, the press tour. He's got a book out.

• 1:09:58Sean Fennessey?

  When's he coming on the watch?

• 1:10:00Speaker 03

  We've made the ask, uh, have not heard back. Have not heard back yet. Yeah.

• 1:10:07Sean Fennessey?

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Every episode, we break down what's worth your time, what to watch, what to skip, what to put on the list, but some things on the list aren't exactly fun to get to, like sorting out your coverage. It's not a blockbuster. It's just one of those things that matters. That's where State Farm comes in. One of their 19,000 local agents can walk you through your options in person, over the phone, or through their easily accessible app, and help you get the coverage that's right for you. So you can get back to the fun stuff, like arguing about movie rankings. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 1:10:37Speaker 03

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• 1:11:23Sean Fennessey?

  Amanda, you have a pick?

• 1:11:24Amanda Dobbins?

  So I will say, um, just to pull back the curtain, that in Canadian director and Canadian star, I thought we were choosing films to represent, but, but that's fine.

• 1:11:33Speaker 03

  Oh, I thought we were like saying this person's filmography.

• 1:11:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I can go either way, but so in Canadian director, I will take Norman Jewison, who, and you know, I was gonna go with Moonstruck, obviously. But an entire, which, you know, is a film set in New York, but that's okay.

• 1:11:50Sean Fennessey?

  Filmed here, Moonstruck.

• 1:11:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And, but you know, but an entire body of work, including, you know, Thomas Crown Affair, without which we would not have Thomas Crown Affair 1998 or nine. One of my favorite films of all time. No, um. Like an amazing director, and I know also, you know, a titan of Canada film and film preservation. And Moonstruck is one of the most romantic movies I've ever seen. A friend went on a date recently in LA to see Moonstruck. And I mean, it's tough because when the, the guy is not Nick Cage on a date, then it's just, there's not going to be another date.

• 1:12:30Amanda Dobbins?

  And that is a hard, high bar to live up to. But also I think it reminded her that love is possible, just not on that date.

• 1:12:38Sean Fennessey?

  Have you ever found Danny Aiello sexually appealing?

• 1:12:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, that is the thing. It's, you know, when, when you're sitting next to Danny Aiello. Um, no, no.

• 1:12:49Sean Fennessey?

  Chris, same question.

• 1:12:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think he has a beautiful singing voice. Yeah.

• 1:12:56Amanda Dobbins?

  As you know, I don't like singing, so.

• 1:12:58Speaker 03

  Well, we go to karaoke tonight. You're gonna change your mind.

• 1:13:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well.

• 1:13:02Sean Fennessey?

  What's your karaoke choice?

• 1:13:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I've been thinking a lot about Sheryl Crow. So yeah, so what, I'm gonna break out. I haven't decided yet. What?

• 1:13:12Speaker 03

  I've never heard you sing.

• 1:13:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, surely you've heard me sing around the kids.

• 1:13:15Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 1:13:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well.

• 1:13:17Sean Fennessey?

  T minus 95 minutes.

• 1:13:21Sean Fennessey?

  Norman Jewison, a great choice.

• 1:13:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you.

• 1:13:23Sean Fennessey?

  Incredibly storied career. I feel like, you know, a little bit about what he means to the country, too. Well, he left. Yeah.

• 1:13:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah.

• 1:13:32Sean Fennessey?

  And he made a, made a landmark movie, but American civil rights as a Canadian filmmaker. Then he came back and built the Canadian Film Center, so that was good. And I mean, he's, he's often used as an example of like the kind of filmmaker who left at a time when leaving was a very understandable option. You know, languish in obscurity or work with, you know, Sidney Poitier. I mean, it, it makes sense, but he's a very dependable director. And there's this like two film run of his in the early 70s or three film run. It's like Jesus Christ Superstar and Fiddler on the Roof and Rollerball. Like, these are major, big, you know, 70s. What about Fist? I like Fist, just it's good. Okay. There's a lot, a lot of good movies. You guys seen Fist? Sylvester Stallone plays a union organizer? Yeah. Very believable movie.

• 1:14:16Sean Fennessey?

  And it radicalized him towards the left-wing politics he espouses to this day.

• 1:14:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. That's actually what Tulsa King is about, but not a lot of people dug deep into season two. So just hit me up afterwards. You guys want to chat?

• 1:14:34Sean Fennessey?

  I think I'm gonna do star and I'm gonna do my, my Canadian, my favorite Canadian film star of all time. That man's name is Jim Carrey.

• 1:14:43Sean Fennessey?

  Did Jim Carrey make any Canadian movies?

• 1:14:48Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think so. You're asking me? What do you got against Jim Carrey? No, no, I love Jim Carrey. I'm trying to think of what he might have. Man on the Moon wasn't shot here, right? Does anyone sure about that? It's not shot here? I don't, I don't think so. Isn't that crazy? A proud Canadian, it was very clear to all of us in America that this man was coming from another place to be on In Living Color. He never had his love guru where he wore like a jersey or something. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:12Sean Fennessey?

  I'm just gonna say it right now. I'm taking Ace Ventura Pet Detective. First of all, I was rudely left off that rewatchables episode for reasons that are mysterious to me even now.

• 1:15:22Speaker 03

  I don't think I was on that.

• 1:15:23Sean Fennessey?

  No, you weren't.

• 1:15:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:25Sean Fennessey?

  Zach Lowe was on it. God bless him. One of my favorite people in America, but he also loves Canada. Zach Lowe. Ace Ventura Pet Detective, not sure I've ever left harder in a movie theater in my entire life. I don't, I have no regrets whatsoever about it. Is the film perfect? No. Is it a progressive bastion of deep thought? No.

• 1:15:42Sean Fennessey?

  Should it be available publicly now? Probably not.

• 1:15:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Will you show it to your child?

• 1:15:48Sean Fennessey?

  Probably.

• 1:15:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So can I ask a point of order?

• 1:15:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Does this mean that like Dumb and Dumber is off the board?

• 1:15:54Sean Fennessey?

  It does.

• 1:15:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's a tough break for yours, truly.

• 1:15:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. You were, oh, you were thinking Jim.

• 1:15:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, again, I was thinking about this in terms of films. And if I had drafted Jim Carrey, I would have put dumb, the Dumb and Dumber card there. But now I can no longer do that.

• 1:16:08Sean Fennessey?

  It's really hard to overstate Ace Ventura. The Mask, Dumb and Dumber.

• 1:16:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, just a preview of what's gonna happen.

• 1:16:14Sean Fennessey?

  Being 11 in America when that was all happening, when it was really unfolding in that way. He was, he was the funniest person who had ever, ever lived to me at that time. And now he's in three Sonic movies. Do you know in the last interview that she did before she died, Pauline Kael was like, Jim Carrey's been the only thing worth watching in American movies. That's a direct quote from Afterglow.

• 1:16:35Speaker 03

  She was still getting shots up right to the end.

• 1:16:36Sean Fennessey?

  She was. Yeah. A true shooter.

• 1:16:38Speaker 03

  Just a baller.

• 1:16:39Sean Fennessey?

  She was, yeah. Who, who, Flip Murray? Who would you compare her to? Yeah. Real, real bucket getter. Okay. You ready? Yeah, sorry, it's on me? Yes. Yeah. So for Canadian star, Chris was talking about, you know, top seed. So in a different bracket, I'm gonna say the top seed's Christopher Plummer. And the movie I'm gonna pick, because I want to see its name up there, is The Silent Partner, which is, uh, I think maybe the most entertaining movie ever shot in Toronto, where he plays one of the worst guys ever, you know? He begins the movie robbing a bank dressed as Santa Claus and proceeds to do some really, really awful things, including one scene so gratuitous that the director refused to shoot it. It's like shot by a second group of people. But that's like a tax shelter classic when people were allowed to basically just use,

• 1:17:23Sean Fennessey?

  you know, Canadian movies as an excuse to write money off their taxes. A lot of crooks making movies in the 70s at that point. But it's just such a perfect mix of like a Canadian star, Christopher Plummer, Elliot Gould. My students are delighted to discover how hot Elliot Gould is, by the way. This, they, they, they, they look at that, the famous picture of him with Grover on the cover of TV Guide, I actually put it up on the screen for them. But The Silent Partner is made in a very like mercenary way at a period where Canadian movies were very mercenary. And the whole movie is about just like skimming money off the till and stealing from yourself. So it's kind of like a great allegory of the tax shelter, even though that's not what they were trying to do. And Plummer is amazing in it. I love a guy who acts in The Sound of Music and then calls it The Sound of Mucus for the rest of his life.

• 1:18:07Sean Fennessey?

  And I will also say about Christopher Plummer, to name a Michael Mann film, I, I've said this a few times on the record. You can quote me on this as a dumb thing that I'm gonna say. Christopher Plummer as Mike Wallace in The Insider is the best acting ever that I've ever seen in my. Mike, Mike, try Mr. Wallace. So I mean, Chris, Christopher Plummer is great. His name should be up there. I hope The Silent Partner is what we're gonna write down. He goes head to head with Sutherland for me.

• 1:18:33Speaker 03

  Do you think Christopher Plummer in The Insider?

• 1:18:35Sean Fennessey?

  Going Mike, Mike Wallace, like, is better than Pacino standing in the middle of the ocean on a giant mobile phone in The Insider? Yeah. Heat is a, Heat is a garden of earthly delights. Yeah. But I think he's, I think he's an amazing actor in that film, to the point that the movie made Mike Wallace angry. I think the real Lowell Bergman was like, you should be flattered to be played by Christopher Plummer, which is a hard line. That was a gray line. So yeah, Christopher Plummer, for sure. Great pick.

• 1:19:05Sean Fennessey?

  You know what I read about it this morning? So the movie is adapted from a novel written by Curtis Hansen. Curtis Hansen, yeah. And Curtis Hansen wanted to get the job to direct it, and they said, no, you're not ready. So Daryl Duke made it. Yeah, it's a Danish novel with an American screenwriter and an American-Canadian star. This is how we made movies here in the 1970s, and it's, and it's, and it's great. So I keep looking at Canadian director. I guess I invented a Canadian director named Warren Dale, Cynthia Dale's father. So we have, we have Christopher Plummer. What's left? Okay, I'll pick a Cronenberg movie. I'm gonna rep for the most recent David Cronenberg movie, which I think is extraordinary and exquisite, which is The Shrouds, which is a movie that has been somewhat polarizing.

• 1:19:50Sean Fennessey?

  It's, it's an older man's movie. It's almost unbearably painful what it's about, which is that idea of loss and, you know, wanting to like, keep tabs on your loved ones. But it's also extremely funny. If people see The Shrouds, in the opening, so the opening scene of the film, Vincent Cassel, who looks exactly like David Cronenberg in this movie, is on a date with a very attractive lady, and he's like, I had a wife, you know, she died. She's like, that's sad. I liked her very much. That, that, that's sad, but you're single and rich, right? He's like, yeah. He's like, my wife's buried right over there. Would you like to see her? And then he like, turns on the video feed and she's like, I'm getting out of here. It's very funny. And, you know, we, we had this year, I think, James Gray, like, going oh for whatever at Cannes, but that's a B-plot to the fact that Cronenberg hasn't won a

• 1:20:33Sean Fennessey?

  competitive award at Cannes. They had to invent the award for audacity for Crash, you know, and Francis Ford Coppola apparently wouldn't shake his hand when he gave it to him. You know, this is awesome to me. Like, I could have just as easily picked Crash, but I think The Shrouds is at a really high level, and I think that now there's a lot of younger filmmakers who like to mention David and say, he's my hero, you know, my movies are made in his style. Someone should give the original guy, who is still alive, money to make his movies, because they're really, really good. And, you know, The Shrouds is a wonderful motion picture. Great pick. Um, okay. I'm just gonna be extremely obvious. I'm gonna draft in Toronto plays itself or somewhere else, and I'm gonna take one of my favorite movies of this century,

• 1:21:18Sean Fennessey?

  which is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

• 1:21:23Sean Fennessey?

  Not made by a Canadian director, though it is faithfully adapting the Brian O'Malley piece. And apparently, I don't know if this is still true, but at the time, was the largest production ever made in Toronto. I guess at least until Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie, which is now the owner of that title. But, um, Scott Pilgrim, is, is the Toronto in Scott Pilgrim recognizable to you? Is it coherent to you? Does it feel like an adequate reflection of what it was like to be in a shitty indie rock band in 2011 and be an absolute misogynist towards women? Yeah, I'm very, I- Adam?

• 1:22:04Sean Fennessey?

  There's a very interesting follow-up to Scott Pilgrim called Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, which is made in a great Canadian spirit of like, apology, where it is like, this is what Scott Pilgrim was like, the documentary reality of that movie at a certain point. Let's reframe Scott Pilgrim. Let's kill Scott Pilgrim in the first episode and have a completely different kind of dramaturgy to it. I mean, it wouldn't be interesting if the first Scott Pilgrim wasn't so influential. This is the first argument my students always have, which is they watch this movie, they're like, this is like a movie about a shitty guy, who cares? And the cultural moment seems very over, this Torontopia cultural moment, which was all sort of about indie rock, and it was very insular and very kind of, you know, we're all friends and we listened to Broken Social Scene, and then there was a garbage strike,

• 1:22:47Sean Fennessey?

  and then Rob Ford got elected, and then everyone was like, how did that happen? And I think it's instructive to watch Scott Pilgrim, if you want to see how solipsistic the city was that that happened. On the other hand, it's the best piece of direction Edgar Wright ever did. And that scene where Brie Larson lip syncs metric or sings metric, the, the, what is it, Black Sheep? That is a great scene. So mixed, mixed, split decision on Scott Pilgrim. In America, we don't give a fuck about all that. Uh, Rob Ford- You don't, you don't care about the emergence of right-wing populism in America?

• 1:23:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I remember that.

• 1:23:17Sean Fennessey?

  Sure, it was, it happened.

• 1:23:18Amanda Dobbins?

  You know.

• 1:23:18Sean Fennessey?

  I wasn't like, let me just sit down and think about what this means. This movie is a lot of fun. But I think that, I do think that that movie is aware of the fact that Scott is a piece of shit. Do you not see that? Well, I like when he meets the dark part of himself at the end and they go to brunch, which is a very Toronto-coded activity. We, we like standing in line for brunch. You guys are claiming brunch? Yeah, we, we, I am claiming brunch for our country. Give us this.

• 1:23:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. For our city, not for our country.

• 1:23:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:23:51Sean Fennessey?

  So Toronto, yes on brunch. Yeah.

• 1:23:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:23:54Sean Fennessey?

  Canada, next? Vote, vote yes on brunch in Toronto. We love standing in lines, though. Like, look at Tiff.

• 1:24:03Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Amanda.

• 1:24:03Amanda Dobbins?

  All right. Um, I, we just gotta get real. We gotta go to Gosling. Okay. Uh, no one else wants to touch it, but I do. And-

• 1:24:13Sean Fennessey?

  Honestly, you say that, but I think me and Sean might feel strong, more strongly about it than you do.

• 1:24:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I know. And, and you two are gonna get in a fistfight or whatever about Place Beyond the Pines and, and Drive and all of these beautiful things.

• 1:24:26Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 1:24:26Amanda Dobbins?

  And then I'm just gonna go double Canadian and take The Notebook.

• 1:24:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is kind of a miracle of a movie. And we're, we're living in the Colleen Hoover era now of all of these sappy book-to-movie adaptations starring people you don't really want to see on screen and preposterous plots. And you don't understand the magic of Ryan Gosling in the rain, telling Rachel McAdams, it's not over. It was never over. I mean, you know, listen, I know he was in other things, but kind of two stars being made at once. It's very emotional. I remember watching it on an actual DVD in college.

• 1:25:08Sean Fennessey?

  No kidding.

• 1:25:09Amanda Dobbins?

  And just, yeah, just like weep. I mean, that's what we had in 2005, right? I know, but...

• 1:25:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm just like, it wasn't like a LaserDisc, right? And, and weeping. And it's honestly a beautiful movie. It really is. Even the flashback plot with James Garner and Gina Rowland's and the, and the spoiler alert dying in their bed like old people. And, you know, it, it makes preposterous things really real.

• 1:25:38Sean Fennessey?

  Sorry, Chris, that's how, that's what happens in the- I've seen The Notebook. I've seen the it's not over, it was never over scene has been stitched into so many Joel Embiid highlight reels, where it's like, diagnosed with Bell's palsy, and he's like, it's not over! It was never over!

• 1:26:00Sean Fennessey?

  We're fucking back!

• 1:26:04Sean Fennessey?

  Trust the process, baby!

• 1:26:08Sean Fennessey?

  Is it my turn?

• 1:26:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:09Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. What's your prediction right now for the Sixers season? What's that? What's, what's your prediction for the Sixers this season? I'm gonna, do you want to bet 10 bucks right now? No. That the Sixers will have a better regular season than the Knicks.

• 1:26:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Ooh.

• 1:26:23Sean Fennessey?

  What do you mean, a better record? More wins.

• 1:26:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I want it done right now. I just like, I thought we were done with the Sixers and now it's back.

• 1:26:29Sean Fennessey?

  Amanda, you're done with the-

• 1:26:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I've been done with the Sixers for years!

• 1:26:33Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sorry, we're not gonna make this into a sports podcast, but I just thought it would be an interesting sweet in the pot of our relationship, you know? I don't think the Knicks will have a better record. Now, in the playoffs, what do I think will happen? I think we'll win. Okay. Okay, 20 Canadian dollars on the Raptors. Fair enough.

• 1:26:55Sean Fennessey?

  How much money is that in America? That is $6.73.

• 1:27:01Sean Fennessey?

  That's why I write for you. For Ryan Gosling, I'm gonna go a little bit left field here.

• 1:27:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 1:27:07Sean Fennessey?

  And I'm gonna go Only God Forgives. Oh, yeah.

• 1:27:09Amanda Dobbins?

  All right.

• 1:27:10Sean Fennessey?

  A misunderstood Gosling performance, and I'm gonna turn to you guys. Really a misunderstood ref and masterpiece about mothers and sons, swords, revenge, Thailand, synths, neon lights. Dissolves. Dissolves. Dissolves. White man goes to a foreign nation and decides he needs to kill everybody because he wants to fuck his mom. He's assimilated into the culture. He's basically like, like half-Tie at that point. Yeah, he's learned all of their martial arts and will kill them with it. No, he gets fucked up. That's the best part, is he can't even fight. This movie, when I saw it, was the biggest disappointment of my life. Coming off of Drive, I was like,

• 1:27:55Sean Fennessey?

  so hyped for it. I think you and I sent like, 800 T9 sidekick texts about this, whenever this came out. And I sat there, and it's so boring and weird, and now I have since recontextualized it as a masterpiece of world cinema. And that's just what we do here. So Only God Forgives, that's Gaz. And Toronto, better get this one while it's still on the board. Dawn of the Dead, the Snyder Cut. This is set in Milwaukee, but was shot in the Thornhill Square Shopping Mall. Um, is that active? Thornhill Square? No.

• 1:28:40Sean Fennessey?

  Demolished immediately. Not even any like cool backroom style YouTube videos of it. Too bad. I was gonna try and make a pilgrimage tomorrow.

• 1:28:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:28:49Sean Fennessey?

  Just to, just to pray at the altar of Big Brother Zack. Uh. You just went, only God forgives Zack Snyder? Yeah. That's incredible stuff. Yeah. Um, honestly, pretty good movie. Uh. I like it. Yeah. James Gunn wrote the script. A couple of other people rewrote it. Scott Frank, I think, got involved there. What? Yeah. Are you breaking news on that? No, it's on Wikipedia. Okay. Um, and just like is probably the best use of Snyder's specific kinetic gifts as a filmmaker. And Sarah Polley's amazing in it. Yeah, Sarah Polley co-starred, yeah. I was gonna get there. Bing Rames, some other folks. What about him? Uh, he's, he's in it too. Where's he from? Uh, America.

• 1:29:29Sean Fennessey?

  Sure. Yeah. So, Only God Forgives and Dawn of the Dead 2004 are my picks.

• 1:29:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:29:38Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks for being here, Chris. Yeah.

• 1:29:41Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Amanda, back to you.

• 1:29:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, okay, so I have Canadian Star and Cronenberg left and both have been, you all have your picks, so I can kind of do whatever I want. Um, I think, I think I'll go, uh, I'll do Cronenberg. And, uh, I was informed that the, his feature on Charlie XCX's album is not eligible because it has not been released yet, but I look forward to that and to Charlie, who continues to honor Canadian cinema.

• 1:30:14Amanda Dobbins?

  And also be fun. I, I think I'm gonna do A History of Violence.

• 1:30:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:30:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I rewatched both, uh, I rewatched both Viggo's, uh, you know, because when you have the chance. And, um, while Eastern, they're both excellent, but there is something so, um, obviously messed up about a history of violence and, and I, you know, you know exactly what's gonna happen, both because you've seen it, but also just because the way the film language uses the familiar beats to make things clear to you and you still don't want to believe it. And it's a little bit because of Viggo's performance and it's a little bit, uh, just because of the pacing and, and the, um, the amazing shock construction. So it's like an incredible, very upsetting movie.

• 1:31:02Sean Fennessey?

  You've chosen the one David Cronenberg movie explicitly about the United States of America.

• 1:31:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I, listen.

• 1:31:08Amanda Dobbins?

  And I apologize, but it's really, really good.

• 1:31:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's great.

• 1:31:10Amanda Dobbins?

  So.

• 1:31:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's the best.

• 1:31:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and Charlie wasn't allowed.

• 1:31:15Sean Fennessey?

  Do you relate to William Hurt in that film? In what sense? That I have a younger brother?

• 1:31:21Sean Fennessey?

  How, how else? That I'm gonna be killed by Viggo? Oops, I shouldn't say that.

• 1:31:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:26Sean Fennessey?

  That I, that I'm gonna be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor? No. For this podcast? Yeah. Um, you, you watch Viggo Mortensen, if you were to watch Viggo Mortensen, the four movies he's made with Cronenberg, he has the best actor of all time.

• 1:31:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:38Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, those performances are just amazing, especially History of Violence. Like when the turn comes and he's kind of like, actually, I'm, I am this guy. What he is doing, like physically and with his face and with his voice, those like micro mutation is incredible.

• 1:31:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Also, once again, teaches us that Philly is where everyone goes to die.

• 1:31:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Crazy, do you know, did you know Crazy Joey Cusack and the Cusacks? Who, who are your guys in the Philly mob? Did you know?

• 1:32:06Sean Fennessey?

  Just, I mean, it's most of the Irishman documents, so yeah.

• 1:32:11Sean Fennessey?

  I, I have to give you credit for not selecting the movie where Viggo is nude. That's.

• 1:32:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. I mean, and you know, scrotal tucks have been a topic of discussion on and off the podcast recently. And in a way that fights scene qualifies, but, um.

• 1:32:24Sean Fennessey?

  Would this, would this room generally say that they're pro scrotal tuck? Like, I've really been trying to explore this idea. Are you gonna give some context?

• 1:32:32Amanda Dobbins?

  So we podcasted about a number of things, um, recently and I don't remember how it came up, but we talked about whether there was such a thing as a scrotal tuck. And I'd like everyone to know that we've done some independent reporting after that. And we have heard two separate instances of like known scrotal tucks happening to, that actors that you've heard of.

• 1:32:55Sean Fennessey?

  Well-known figures have received scrotal tucks.

• 1:32:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Have gotten it.

• 1:32:58Sean Fennessey?

  Gigantic tactical error inviting my kid.

• 1:33:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, sorry.

• 1:33:04Amanda Dobbins?

  We have so.

• 1:33:05Sean Fennessey?

  Buddy, you okay? So, so. Okay. Your kid is gonna be like, Dad, can we watch Only God Forgives tonight? She wants to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre every day. Yeah. I'm only speaking of anatomy. We all have bodies. Absolutely. Um, that is a David Cronenberg quote.

• 1:33:23Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, okay. It's up to me.

• 1:33:25Amanda Dobbins?

  It is.

• 1:33:26Sean Fennessey?

  I don't have a Cameron or Denis movie.

• 1:33:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:30Sean Fennessey?

  What's the most respectable movie I could, I really wanted to take Enemy. I thought that was the only pick. Pick one of those other great movies he's apparently made more than James Cameron.

• 1:33:40Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I didn't say that. Or, like, The Terminator. I'm taking Aliens. Um, which I think is amazing.

• 1:33:50Sean Fennessey?

  And, and that was, that was shot on location in Toronto? Yeah. Yeah. In the, uh, in the, the, the Blor viaduct.

• 1:34:00Sean Fennessey?

  You know, absolutely amazing sci-fi war masterpiece and total re-imagination of what the alien movie could be. And, um, I, I think probably changed action cinema forever. And I think his commitment to, uh, practical filmmaking in that movie is probably why Chris's heart is so broken over the Avatar situation. I understand. I get where you're coming from. You'll always have aliens. It's not going anywhere. But if you all want, you can also have fire and ash. And not, not just fire, but fire and ash. And the Way of Water. Yeah. Well, you've had that. You've had The Way of Water. You rejected it mercifully. But Aliens is wonderful. I mean, is, is Cameron,

• 1:34:43Sean Fennessey?

  like, do you claim Cameron? You know, does he feel meaningfully Canadian? Cause he claims Canada. He's still. There was that famous podcast that said he should be president because he's just as a project manager. He could, like, he'd be like a centrist Democrat who could probably, like, he'd be environmentalist and you could kind of get, get stuff done. There was once a list that was published of like the best Canadian movies. It was kind of like your draft where it was like, it's all, it's all good. You know, and like Titanic and Cameron movies were there. And when you looked at it that way, it was kind of ridiculous, which isn't to say your podcast is ridiculous, but that list was ridiculous when they published it because you would have like, I've heard the mermaid singing in The Terminator. It's like, these things are not like each other, right? But, um, you know, I mean, we, we, we, we proudly claim, I think what's more, not more interesting, but that Villeneuve is probably,

• 1:35:28Sean Fennessey?

  unless anyone has a better candidate, he's probably the second biggest Canadian director of all time, like by a mile at this point, simply by making the Dune movies as a Canadian-born filmmaker. Like unless I'm forgetting someone, they really are the top two in terms of industrial schlep, you know? Even more than Ivan Reiman, you think?

• 1:35:50Sean Fennessey?

  I'm gonna take the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, the ninth, the tenth.

• 1:35:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Do those apply in Canada?

• 1:35:55Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:35:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:35:57Sean Fennessey?

  Did you, uh, did you watch the Dune 3 trailer? I did. Uh, no, I didn't actually. You didn't watch the Dune 3 trailer?

• 1:36:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, we saw, sorry, we've, we've seen a lot of it in footage.

• 1:36:06Sean Fennessey?

  Live reaction right now? Yeah, pull it up.

• 1:36:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Our eyes, if you could put it up there, our eyes, our eyes aren't that good, so.

• 1:36:11Sean Fennessey?

  Picture a big spaceship sitting there.

• 1:36:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:36:14Sean Fennessey?

  Well, we saw seven minutes of, we saw the opening of the film at CinemaCon. Okay.

• 1:36:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And it was sick.

• 1:36:20Sean Fennessey?

  It was fucking sick. I don't mind saying. Yeah. You know, like, despite whatever this guy's talking about, I don't know what the hell Adam is talking about. The movie looked fucking amazing.

• 1:36:30Sean Fennessey?

  So I don't need to watch the trailer.

• 1:36:31Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think you'll like it.

• 1:36:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Cool. It looked awesome.

• 1:36:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:34Sean Fennessey?

  And you're Taylor Joy covered in blood. Uh, do you want me to just narrate the entire story? Sure, go ahead. Chalamet, blue eyes.

• 1:36:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:41Sean Fennessey?

  Fully going through a little midlife crisis as he becomes a god and, uh, yeah, Momo back.

• 1:36:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:51Sean Fennessey?

  Duncan Idaho? Yeah. Cool. I'll explain that to you after. It's, it's complicated.

• 1:36:57Sean Fennessey?

  Can't, can't wait. You have two picks. I do. Uh, for Ryan Gosling, I want to pick Breaker High. People know.

• 1:37:08Sean Fennessey?

  She's not gonna have a card for this, is she? You know, like one of the great Canadian young adult, how would we describe it? Young teen adult boat coming of age. But it's a TV show. So that's a. We don't do that here. No, no, we, we, we, we don't do that here. I mean, I think Ryan Gosling's a good actor who's often in movies that I, I don't like. So I'm kind of caught. I was really hoping Reynolds was gonna be there because I was gonna pick Adventureland, which is a beautiful movie and it was gonna be a whole thing. But, um, you know what? For Chris, I'm gonna pick a movie I don't even like, but it's just gonna make him so happy to see it on the board. I love Chris. So I'll pick Drive, even though I don't like it.

• 1:37:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Beautiful.

• 1:37:47Sean Fennessey?

  Have you seen the, the new Nicholas Winding Refn film? I'm seeing it on Tuesday and my breath is bated. I cannot wait. Because much like Chris, I like Refn when he is absolutely unbearable. He never misses. Like Only God Forgives is my favorite Nicholas Winding Refn directed thing because it's like almost unwatchable. It's a high compliment. I love that series. I've put in so many hours with the guy, man. I know. Too old to die young. All 11 hours. Copenhagen Cowboy, all six hours. You know, when you know it's a good series is when one episode is 90 minutes, when one episode is like 37 minutes. And when no two episodes are in the same language. Yeah. You're like, this is an excellent streaming television series.

• 1:38:27Sean Fennessey?

  I love it. I've not, it's not a bit. I think it's great. We're going on Twitch immediately after you see her private hello. Me and you, we're gonna talk it out, cuz it is not good.

• 1:38:37Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, you've got another pick. Okay, I'm gonna cheat. I'm gonna put one movie on the board, then there's a second movie that I have to mention. The movie I'm gonna put on the board is Clement Vergo's Rude from 1995. Yeah. Which is an important movie in TIFF's history, an important movie in Toronto film history. It's a gesture against the fact that so much of the mythology around Canadian Toronto films is that, you know, stories about white characters. So here's a black Toronto director, largely black cast, very much influenced by Do the Right Thing. There's even like a DJ character connecting the narratives. Like it had its 30th anniversary last year, and I thought that that anniversary kinda came and went with less circumstance than it should. Very important, crucial Toronto movie. So for people who are not, how many people here have seen Rude? It's gonna be more than a few. That's not enough. You should see it. I was thinking more for the people who are like watching it.

• 1:39:21Sean Fennessey?

  So Rude is the pick, but I mean, I can't say that my favorite Toronto movie is not the one that my kid is in, which is Matt and Mara by Kazakh Radinsky. Where Leah's sister Avery is excellent as a baby, uh, which also stars Matt Johnson, but her scenes with Matt were left sadly on the cutting room floor. He, I, she was at TMU, the former Ryerson, and shooting with him, and he just riled her up because he's like, where's your dad? Which is narratively in context, but Avery took this literally, and she's like, yeah, where is my dad? And Matt was like, yeah, where's your dad? Where's your dad? Knowing full well that I was around the court, and I'm like, this is great. Now I'm a basket case child on the drive home. But Kaz's movies in general, as Toronto films Tower and Matt and Mara, I think are very important. But yeah, Rude, Rude's the one on the board. There wasn't a placard for Rude. How do you feel about that?

• 1:40:06Sean Fennessey?

  It's very telling. Yeah.

• 1:40:10Sean Fennessey?

  I have a Gosling left. That's my last category. Put the Metallica shirt on, dude.

• 1:40:16Amanda Dobbins?

  We know what you're gonna do.

• 1:40:18Sean Fennessey?

  Place me on the pines?

• 1:40:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, place me on the pines.

• 1:40:20Amanda Dobbins?

  There you go.

• 1:40:22Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, there's nothing Canada about the movie. I don't really know what to say about that part of it. It's about, uh, Schenectady and, uh, being a fucking loser in Schenectady and thinking that you deserve more than you have. And then Ben Mendelsohn comes and destroys your life. Yeah, but he teaches you how to be a great bank robber, uh, which is normal stuff that happens when you are, uh, best known for riding motorcycles in circular cages. Deranged movie that could only be based on true life experiences. Derek C. In France, I don't think raced motorcycles inside of cages, but I do think he observed people doing that and had conversations with them.

• 1:40:59Sean Fennessey?

  I, I sincerely love this movie, even though I know it's incredibly sincere and sentimental about being a sad guy. I think, God, this is like Gosling's best work. I wish he never left this era. Um, I like what he's doing now. I think he's super talented. But, uh, he was, he was actually like unafraid to be pretentious in a way that I wish more movie stars would be. And, uh, this movie lives in my heart. Thank you for experiencing that.

• 1:41:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I have Canadian star left. This is very easy for me. Uh, I will be taking the other star of The Notebook, Rachel McAdams.

• 1:41:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Mean Girls, obviously Mean Girls was eligible and Toronto plays somewhere. I, it's not, is it specified where and it doesn't matter. Anyway, it's filmed in, Mean Girls was filmed here, Wedding Crashers. You all know how I feel about Morning Glory, uh, Family Stone, Spotlight. I mean, she's someone who obviously makes romantic comedies and good romantic comedies, which are a genre that's important to me. But sort of like a comedian who in a different era, I think, would have had an even bigger career than she already has. But if you haven't seen Send Help, very good in that.

• 1:42:16Sean Fennessey?

  Do you like, do you like Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret?

• 1:42:18Amanda Dobbins?

  She's amazing. I can't believe that she got nominated. So yeah, everything that she is good in, everything that she does, she's so watchable. Uh, we just did a Diane Keaton episode and, um, she obviously starred with Diane Keaton a couple of times and eulogized her or, you know, did her in memoriam tribute at the Oscars and, you know, you think that in a different time period, Rachel, Rachel McAdams had some of the stuff. So, and also Regina George is forever, so.

• 1:42:42Sean Fennessey?

  Also known to have come here of her own volition to watch movies at the lightbox when she was in Toronto. I won't say which movie she was at, but it was one that were like four people here and I was one of them and she was in the back row with the baseball cap, watching a Brazilian movie, and that ruled. Why would you not say what the movie is? It was neighboring sounds.

• 1:42:58Sean Fennessey?

  Do you guys know that, um, I went and saw Neon Demon, uh, that came out?

• 1:43:05Sean Fennessey?

  And Elle Fanning was there watching herself in Neon Demon? I had this exact experience. Were you in the movie together? Jacob Elordi. That was the craziest thing ever. She was just hanging out with her friends, just being like, look at this dude cook. Look at this guy. What a filmmaker. She said those words to her friends? That's what I imagined they were talking about. Yeah.

• 1:43:29Sean Fennessey?

  My turn? You have the last pick in the draft. I can't, I was gonna do something. Name a Canadian. No, you know, here's the thing. So I did have, this is in all sincerity. So like in the early 90s, there was basically like, it was much harder to come across movie information, even though my father was a film critic, he didn't really share much with me. And, uh, we would, you know, I would rent videos from the store on the corner and I, early in high school, became obsessed with Miller's Crossing. So I rented Miller's Crossing a hundred times and, uh, there was a trailer at the beginning of the Miller's Crossing VHS that I was like, God, this looks interesting, but I don't know if like, it's my thing. And I rented Adam Agouin's The Adjuster when I was like in high school. Let me tell you, sexually formative movie for me.

• 1:44:14Sean Fennessey?

  And also like, you know, Matt spoke about the uncanny valley nature of Canadian films. And I think that that's, that can be read as a critique, but his movies specifically have that same thing. But I would say it as a positive trait of their films where you're like, this is reality, but it doesn't really seem like reality. I watched his movies when they were a little bit over my head, or at least his early stuff, like Exotica or whatever, you know, I think. What'd you think of that one? Again, you know, provocative stuff, uh, really, really got the conversation rolling, but, uh. With who? You know, my camp girlfriend. Uh, but yeah, it's, uh, he's a, I, I, would you, would you rank him as a titan of Canadian filmmaking? At first I thought I was gonna have to break it to you that the Coens weren't Canadian.

• 1:44:59Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:45:03Sean Fennessey?

  And that sensibility just spoke to me, those, those noted Canadian filmmakers. There's the scene in Serious Man where he tries to flee to Canada and then gets his head blown off. That's right. The, the sign's just like, Canada, that way. Goodbye.

• 1:45:17Sean Fennessey?

  Adam Agouin, extremely important and a filmmaker who's had an interesting turnaround in his reputation because he was kind of, you know, a breakthrough. I mean, Exotica is a huge international art house hit, you know, distributed by Miramax. Sweet Hereafter, he competed for best director against Yeah. James Cameron, you know, very significant for a Canadian, an actual Canadian movie to be nominated for director and script. And then his fortunes kinda turned, cuz we have this thing in this country that I'm sure none of you know anything about, the tall poppy syndrome thing, where it's like, oh, you're successful, well, now you suck. And, um, I found Agouin's last few films, including the one he made with Amanda Seyfried. Yeah. Not Canadian, but a great actress from Mean Girls. Seven Veils, I thought was really good and really interesting.

• 1:45:55Sean Fennessey?

  And like, I hate the phrase return to form, but it was like very back to that period of just narratively interesting, kind of perverse movies. I mean, it's good that he's here, even if his name is now The Adjuster. Uh, Adam Agouin, 100%. But we'll, we'll get to that. Chris, Chris the Adjuster Ryan. I love that. That was, that was like the best pick of any of us. I don't think so. I, I think that was just like, but I just needed, I needed to get him up there on the board. Yeah. You came by it honestly. All right. I mean, honorable mentions. Now, obviously, we didn't set this up to be a pocket history of Canadian film. We're not capable of doing that.

• 1:46:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:32Sean Fennessey?

  We, we did our best, but also we picked The Notebook and A Place Beyond the Pines. Yeah. So, so, you know, there's only so much that we could do. What, what stands out as things that we didn't pick that, that?

• 1:46:45Sean Fennessey?

  Last night, uh, last night I feel like is a real point of pride, right? Like I, the Sandra Oh movie with. Don McKellers movie. Yeah, Don McKellers last night. That's certainly one, sure. Like we had mentioned Going Down the Road, which my mom bought Sean a book on. My mom bought it at the Tiff bookstore. She's like, give this to Sean so we can know what Going Down the Road is. Adam's mom, thank you. I've not seen the film, so I'll watch the film and then read the book. There were, uh, a couple, like, I honestly, you know, one of the cool things about doing these drafts is it, it forces you to do your research on different subjects and sometimes they're a little bit easier to come by cuz you're reflexively just like, oh, I, I have this all kind of in my memory. But for this, I got to know a filmmaker named Denis Arcon, who obviously like later in. His career, gets Oscar noms, right?

• 1:47:27Sean Fennessey?

  But like, I found this, like, these three films from the 70s that I didn't really know about. The big one, Dirty Money, came out in 72. These, uh, like Montreal set crime films, um, Gina, kind of a rape revenge movie. And, um, there's another one, but they're like, they're, they're just really, really awesome movies. Zacharias, Canuck, Alanis Obamsaw, and late Jeff Barnaby. We didn't talk about indigenous cinema. We, we have a documentary tradition in this country. We, we mentioned Alan King. I mean, there's a lot to Canadian film. We can, and, and list the things we kind of left out, but it's an interesting cross section. Anyway.

• 1:48:01Sean Fennessey?

  Mansfield Park? Patricia Rosamund, we didn't mention her. Sure.

• 1:48:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:48:10Sean Fennessey?

  Do you guys know what Bon Cup Bad Cup is?

• 1:48:13Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:48:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:48:16Sean Fennessey?

  Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

• 1:48:19Sean Fennessey?

  Can you guess?

• 1:48:24Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if I should. Uh, is it a? How many solitudes are in Canada? Two, English, it's, it's about, it's good cup, bad cup, but like one is French and the other one is not. Okay. Got it. Yeah, it's our in the heat of the night. Is it a movie or a TV show? Both. Okay. It's your in the heat of the night? It's a movie that turned into a TV show. If we could pick TV shows, I would, I would have picked Shorzy.

• 1:48:48Sean Fennessey?

  We didn't pick Nathan, you wanted, is Finding Francis a Canadian movie?

• 1:48:54Sean Fennessey?

  No? No. It's a tricky one, right? Cause Nathan Fielder, um, you know, Matt Johnson accepted greatest living Canadian filmmaker. Um, but he doesn't, he hasn't made a feature film, you know? He's, he's do, he's doing other work. Well, other than Finding Francis, it was a feature length documentary by a Canadian filmmaker. So we omitted it. Did they, did they show it on big screens here? He came and showed it at the, the Blur Hot Dog Cinema. Was anyone at that Q and A? Do you remember how mad he was that he didn't have a chair?

• 1:49:24Sean Fennessey?

  Cause very hard with, I've seen Nathan Fielder live in Toronto twice, including also at the Danforth Music Hall. Extremely hard to tell if he's doing a bit, maddening in fact. And, uh, when he was at the, at the Blur, he was sort of like, I came all this way. And I seem to recall that there wasn't a chair and everyone was kind of like laughing. He's like, no, no, I like, I could use like, I really need a chair.

• 1:49:45Sean Fennessey?

  When Chris and I were working at Grantland, I think it was maybe ahead of the third season of Nathan for you. He came in and he was coming in to do a podcast with Bill Simmons, which was one of the greatest podcasts of all time. If you've never heard it, I highly encourage it as Nathan fucking with Bill for an hour.

• 1:49:59Sean Fennessey?

  And he similarly, I couldn't, were you there that day when Nathan came in? I couldn't tell. I was, but I don't, I don't remember anything extraordinary about it, other than like another guy standing around at the Grantland offices. Well, he shook my hand, he looked me in the eye and he said, thank you for everything you've done.

• 1:50:18Sean Fennessey?

  Which is actually a classic fantasy move. Which is, I know, I would do that to a stranger. So it was game recognized game, obviously, but you know, he didn't know who I was or what my name was when he said that to me. Yeah.

• 1:50:32Sean Fennessey?

  He's so special. I love him. I saw him at a party once talking with Larry David and I was like, I think that the earth's axis is tilting. It can't handle this. Yeah. Another honorable mention I didn't get to, but one of the best movies shot in Toronto in the last few years is Trapped, the Miley Chalamet.

• 1:50:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:48Sean Fennessey?

  So much great, great, great girl dad movie. And it's so funny when they, they park for the sky dome under the gardener.

• 1:50:57Sean Fennessey?

  We're saying, I can't wait for this concert. I'm like, you are an hour and 10 minutes away on foot. Crazy dad Josh Hartnett. But, uh, a, a brilliant movie on, on many fronts. Okay. We have to get going, but before we go, um, we have to recap our draft and then you have to vote on our draft right now. So before you vote, CR, you picked first, why don't you tell us what you have? Is there like a QR code or is this? There's going to be as soon as you read your pick.

• 1:51:24Amanda Dobbins?

  First you need to tell.

• 1:51:24Sean Fennessey?

  So for my draft, I did Ryan Gosling, I took Only God Forgives. For David Cronenberg, I took Videodrome. For James Cameron slash Denis Villeneuve, I took Sicario. For Canadian director, I took, uh, Adam Magoyan's A De- adjuster. For Canadian star, I took the classic Canadian film Mash. And for Toronto plays itself or others, I took Dawn of the Dead, Zack Snyder's remake. Amanda.

• 1:51:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Uh, for Ryan Gosling, I took The Notebook. For Cronenberg, I took A History of Violence. For Cameron of Villeneuve, I took Arrival. For Canadian director, Norman Jewison from Moonstruck. Canadian star, Rachel McAdams, Mean Girl and Everything Else. And it for Toronto plays itself or somewhere else, The Virgin Suicides.

• 1:52:09Sean Fennessey?

  For Gosling, I selected The Place Beyond the Pines, pure masterpiece. Uh, for David Cronenberg, I took The Fly. For Cameron Villeneuve, I took Aliens. For Canadian director, I took Sarah Polley in Take This Waltz. For Canadian star, I took Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura Pet Detective. And for Toronto plays itself, I chose Scott Pilgrim versus the world.

• 1:52:31Sean Fennessey?

  For Gosling, for Chris Ryan, I picked Drive. Uh, for Cronenberg, I picked The Shrouds, an actually Canadian film. For Villeneuve, I picked Enemy, an actually Canadian film. For a Canadian director, I picked Alan King, who's actually Canadian. For a Canadian star, Christopher Plummer in an actually Canadian film, The Simon Partner. And Toronto, an actual Canadian film, Ruud.

• 1:52:53Sean Fennessey?

  Guess who's gonna win? Were you, would you say you played in the spirit of the game? Or would you say that you just sucked up to the audience for an hour?

• 1:53:02Sean Fennessey?

  A little bit of both.

• 1:53:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:04Sean Fennessey?

  There's gonna. Well, actually sucking up to the audience would be naming American movies because we're in Canada. There is a QR code behind me. You have one minute.

• 1:53:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it's been up for a little bit, so yeah.

• 1:53:17Sean Fennessey?

  Starting now.

• 1:53:18Amanda Dobbins?

  That's nice, but listen, vote for your heart. It's okay, you know? It's, I, I'm great.

• 1:53:22Sean Fennessey?

  Every live vote?

• 1:53:24Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I believe that David Sims won, but we were in the final two, so we held hands. So it would be funny to get me enough votes that, so that I can make Adam Naiman hold hands with me like Miss America style. Or do you, do you know that reference? Do they have Miss Canada?

• 1:53:39Sean Fennessey?

  And I'll say, here they are.

• 1:53:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:41Sean Fennessey?

  Mr. And Mrs. Canada. Vote now.

• 1:53:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:46Sean Fennessey?

  Chris, can you just vamp for 57 seconds?

• 1:53:48Amanda Dobbins?

  What will you do if you win?

• 1:53:49Sean Fennessey?

  Do some material here, bud. Uh, go to the Thornhill Shopping Center, the remains of it. Uh, start, start a global zombie pandemic, save society, uh. Will you drop a pin tonight and let people know where you're gonna be?

• 1:54:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:54:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:54:06Sean Fennessey?

  For sure.

• 1:54:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you know how to drop a pin?

• 1:54:08Sean Fennessey?

  I don't.

• 1:54:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Are we, are the votes ready?

• 1:54:14Sean Fennessey?

  Do we want to talk about tomorrow night at all? Like, is there anything, is there any vamping? I don't know. I hope, is anybody coming tomorrow to?

• 1:54:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, great.

• 1:54:20Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you so much. Um. You guys know, you guys know what you bought tickets for, right?

• 1:54:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. It's not a surprise, though I'd like to come back and do a surprise screening.

• 1:54:28Sean Fennessey?

  It's a live screening of my episode of Inception from the rewatchables. Are you guys excited about that?

• 1:54:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Six out of 10.

• 1:54:38Sean Fennessey?

  Um, yeah, we're screening Tenet, which will be a lot of fun.

• 1:54:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:40Sean Fennessey?

  And.

• 1:54:42Amanda Dobbins?

  We're chatting afterwards. Chris has some bits planned, but we won't tell you what they are.

• 1:54:46Sean Fennessey?

  Oh yeah, I forgot. You've been working on your material. How much did you work on your material before this pod? Not at all.

• 1:54:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:54:52Sean Fennessey?

  And I'm not going to be here tomorrow, but I'm going to miss it very much. Okay. I, does anyone else find it surreal that Chris Ryan is in Toronto? No.

• 1:55:02Sean Fennessey?

  You guys are very sweet. Take that energy into the voting booth with you. Uh, not that I'm influencing you guys. Do we have results?

• 1:55:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. What are the electioneering rules in Canada?

• 1:55:12Sean Fennessey?

  Voting is closed.

• 1:55:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:55:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. We usually announce our results like 8:01 PM.

• 1:55:18Sean Fennessey?

  You guys do it fast? Very, well, yeah. Is it a clean system here? Are we gonna go into this with them?

• 1:55:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:55:25Sean Fennessey?

  Canadian politics doing just great. Are you accepting new citizens? Sorry? Are you accepting new citizens? Me personally? Yeah. Isn't that something you do as well? We have just, you can nestle just behind the few DVDs I still have left, left, left, left displayed in the basement. That's right where I belong. That's right. Okay. Jack, do we have results?

• 1:55:45Speaker 03

  The votes are in.

• 1:55:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:55:47Speaker 03

  In last place with 14% of the vote.

• 1:55:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow.

• 1:55:50Speaker 03

  Christopher Ryan.

• 1:55:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow. Didn't work at all.

• 1:55:54Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:55:54Sean Fennessey?

  Just like, Only God Forgives, you'll understand it in five years. It's cool.

• 1:56:01Speaker 03

  In third place with 21% of the vote, Sean Fennessey.

• 1:56:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow. Oh my God, Adam, come here.

• 1:56:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. This is so exciting. Here we go. Very exciting.

• 1:56:13Sean Fennessey?

  Can't wait.

• 1:56:14Speaker 03

  In second place with 26% of the vote, Mean Pod Guy Adam Nayman. Which means Amanda Dobbins has won the rigged draft.

• 1:56:24Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 1:56:27Sean Fennessey?

  It's almost like these events are 50% women and she wins every vote.

• 1:56:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you all. You're very sweet.

• 1:56:37Sean Fennessey?

  Next live draft.

• 1:56:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:56:38Sean Fennessey?

  It's gonna be me, you and nine women, and then we'll see what happens.

• 1:56:45Sean Fennessey?

  Um, this was very special. Uh, very, really appreciate you guys hosting us here tonight. Want to say thank you very, very much to Tiff for hosting us. This is really.

• 1:56:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Truly.

• 1:56:52Sean Fennessey?

  Cool that.

• 1:56:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Amazing.

• 1:56:54Sean Fennessey?

  They were able to have us out. Uh, you know, Adam has been a huge and important part of the big picture for a very long time. And not only lends the show, uh, gravitas, credibility and thoughtfulness, but he's also the funniest person who comes on the show. So this is very special for us to get to do something live. Did you hear that? Reddit threads?

• 1:57:14Sean Fennessey?

  Um, Matt Johnson is a genius and the man, and that was very cool that he joined us tonight. So thank you to Matt.

• 1:57:22Sean Fennessey?

  I want to say thank you to Criterion for helping us out tonight. Thank you to Elizabeth Fierman, who fearlessly runs events for The Ringer. Um, Helen Eichner on her team, whole Spotify group. Thanks to Jack Sanders, our producer for this event. Give it up for Jack.

• 1:57:39Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you, Canada. We'll see you next time.

• 1:57:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you, guys.

• 1:58:04Amanda Dobbins?

  From the studio that brought you WandaVision. I was an Avenger, but I'm not a hero anymore.

• 1:58:12Speaker 02

  The Vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy. That family wasn't real. You sure about that? I had a father called Vision. How is this possible?

• 1:58:23Speaker 02

  Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest. Nothing bonds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy. Now streaming on Disney+. Does checking your bank statements feel like digging through a dusty attic full of forgotten subscriptions and old free trials?

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