The 10 Best Movies of 2026 … So Far

Sean and Amanda are joined by some Ringer all-stars to share their favorite movies of the year so far, including big blockbusters, small indies, and everything in between. Later, Sean is joined by John Early to discuss his new film, ‘Maddie’s Secret,’ and break down the crazy journey of making this movie, shed light on his cinematic influences, and explain why he wants to prioritize filmmaking in his career going forward. (0:00) Intro (1:00) Chris Ryan’s favorite movie of 2026 (7:01) Joanna Robinson’s favorite movie of 2026 (17:20) Charles Holmes’s favorite movie of 2026 (27:22) Mallory Rubin’s favorite movie of 2026 (44:36) Van Lathan’s favorite movie of 2026 (58:21) Adam Nayman’s favorite movie of 2026 (1:12:12) Yasi Salek’s favorite movie of 2026 (1:26:19) Rob Mahoney’s favorite movie of 2026 (1:37:17) Jack Sanders’s favorite movie of 2026 (1:45:04) Amanda Dobbins’s favorite movie of 2026 (1:52:44) Sean Fennessey’s favorite movie of 2026 (1:58:23) John Early joins the show! Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Chris Ryan, Joanna Robinson, Charles Holmes, Mallory Rubin, Van Lathan, Adam Nayman, Yasi Salek, Rob Mahoney, and John Early Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:15Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Finacy.

• 0:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 0:17Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Pictureate Conversation Show about the best movies of the year so far. Today on the show, we are joined by eight Ringer friends who share their favorite movies of 2026, unless Rob Mahoney has stolen their pick, in which case they'll roll with their number two choices. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by John Early, who is the writer-director of Matty's Secret, one of the films picked for this episode. John is a hilarious comedian, actor, and writer, and it turns out a damn good director, too. His feature debut manages to blend Douglas, Cirque, David Wayne, and Lifetime movies into an elegant, heartbreaking quasi-camp stew. John is a great guest, a super smart guy, most definitely stick around for this conversation. But first, let's go to our favorite movies of the year so far. And first up, who else? CR, Chris Ryan.

• 0:59Speaker 02

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• 2:00Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, CR is here.

• 2:01Speaker 04

  I am.

• 2:02Sean Fennessey?

  What's up, man?

• 2:03Speaker 04

  Not much.

• 2:04Sean Fennessey?

  You okay?

• 2:04Speaker 04

  Are we doing the best movies of 2026 so far now to get it in under the Odyssey wire because you feel like that's where the movie year turns?

• 2:13Amanda Dobbins?

  No, he has a very complex scheduling regimen that's, you know, he consults the holy tablets, you know, and the positions of the planets.

• 2:24Speaker 04

  The Quran.

• 2:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:27Amanda Dobbins?

  And then he puts it together before we do the movie auction. It just happens that they scheduled the Odyssey for the beginning of, I guess it wouldn't be Q2. What are we calling?

• 2:37Sean Fennessey?

  Well, Q3.

• 2:38Speaker 04

  Q3.

• 2:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but what if it's just the halves? What is that in business parlance?

• 2:44Sean Fennessey?

  The second half of the year.

• 2:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well, we need, they need a catchier jargon.

• 2:48Speaker 04

  So this is our hydration break in a way?

• 2:51Sean Fennessey?

  It is, and we do do this every year at roughly the July 1st mark. And it's interesting because July seems like it's going to be pretty action packed, but the movies have been, have been popping, as you know, CR.

• 3:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:03Sean Fennessey?

  So, but you chose, you chose a film that came early.

• 3:06Speaker 04

  Very early, yeah.

• 3:07Sean Fennessey?

  What'd you pick?

• 3:07Speaker 04

  28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Nia DeCosta's follow-up to Danny Boyle's reimagining or reboot of the 28 Days Later franchise. And I wanted to bounce a little theory off of you that I've been working on. Was 28 years later, the, the little kernel of an idea of where we are now with like obsession in backrooms of that like wild breathtaking creativity. I know it wasn't like a massive, huge success. It was, did well enough to get a second movie out there. But I kind of feel like the way that those movies made me feel of like feeling like this director is really taking me into their own personal world and that this is an idiosyncratic,

• 3:50Speaker 04

  enigmatic way of telling these stories, even if there are things that we've seen before. Certainly that's the case for these two movies, for the two 28 Years Later movies. But I wonder if that like, we'll go back and we'll look at that as a little. A little signal that something new was coming down the line. I have no idea. I can speak to this film's specific qualities if you want, which is Nita Costa had a really, really tough assignment, which was to follow up this franchise's originators return to the franchise. And he did an amazing job.

• 4:16Sean Fennessey?

  Your number one movie of 2025.

• 4:18Speaker 04

  28 years later. And she just very wisely chose to do something different. It's a much more static film. It's not as kinetic. I mean, there's certainly like really incredible action sequences in it, but it's much more of a two-hander really between Ralph Fiennes character and Jack O'Connell's character as like these two poles of how you would deal with such a tragic apocalypse and you know, what happens to the human soul when it's put in this situation. But it's also about grieving and it's also about loss, which the first one's about too. And you know, I just thought it was just such an electrifying way to start the movie year. I thought it would be a good, good movie to highlight.

• 4:55Sean Fennessey?

  Didn't really see, like, I didn't draw any of the conclusions, the connections that you're doing around horror movies things. Maybe like a little bit of a longer period of time, but this movie is, I thought was shockingly great. And I loved the transition, the stylistic transition from what Boyle was doing to what Nita Costa was doing. Huge look for Duran Duran.

• 5:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:16Sean Fennessey?

  Quality needle drops. Obviously, we're very Fiennes forward on this show.

• 5:22Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 5:22Sean Fennessey?

  Love his work.

• 5:23Speaker 04

  I think he is definitely an Oscar nom worthy performance in this film.

• 5:27Amanda Dobbins?

  It would be nice if they kind of learned the lessons of Gladys and, and you know, continued that.

• 5:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:34Sean Fennessey?

  Was a little bit of a financial letdown. And so because of that, maybe it will be more of a struggle. But there was news that Boyle is coming back and is making the fourth film.

• 5:42Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, I think that if you're, if you're saying like Killian Murphy is going to be in a, in another zombie movie, it's really hard to just be like, nah, we're good.

• 5:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 5:50Speaker 04

  You know?

• 5:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And Jack O'Connell in this movie is terrifying and funny and hard to watch. And I.

• 5:57Amanda Dobbins?

  And then without spoiling it, an incredible set piece of sorts.

• 6:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:01Amanda Dobbins?

  At the end, very different than the causeway and the, and the set pieces of, of 28 years later, but memorable.

• 6:09Sean Fennessey?

  Very memorable.

• 6:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:10Sean Fennessey?

  Um, yeah, it's a great pick. It's interesting to think about.

• 6:15Sean Fennessey?

  Four or five of the films being talked about on today's episode being horror movies, you know?

• 6:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:18Sean Fennessey?

  The fact that it really has had centrality in the conversation this year. And, but this is like-

• 6:25Amanda Dobbins?

  How do you guys feel about that as, you know, keepers of the flame?

• 6:29Speaker 04

  Pretty happy. I mean, I think that there's probably some people out there that are like, no, it's a genre for freaks and we've always just been denigrated and kept to the back of the video store or whatever, next to the porn. But I think it's-

• 6:41Sean Fennessey?

  Where you love to be.

• 6:42Speaker 04

  I think it's a really exciting time to see all these different filmmakers working with some of the conventions of horror. And I don't really look at it as like elevated or not elevated or prestige or not prestige. I think it's all, it's all pretty interesting to me.

• 6:56Sean Fennessey?

  I completely agree.

• 6:58Sean Fennessey?

  Movies in general, very democratic medium. Horror movie is one of the most democratic genres that we have. Uh, I do like, I mean, Nina DeCasta comes by it honestly. I mean, she made a Candyman movie like seven years ago. It's not like she's not interested in the genre and what it does. It's interesting to see a movie like Obsession happen. Where, like, that's a hard genre horror movie with like violent gross stuff, like beheadings and very upsetting spells and curses and things. Like, it is pure horror. And for that to cross over is quite fascinating, but this one is a bit more elegant, even though it has a lot of gnarly stuff in it.

• 7:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, I really hope that they get to make the third one, just because I think it'll maybe give a little a shine to the second one. I think it'll, if, if there is a third one with Killian coming out, I think people might be like, oh, I missed the Bone Temple because it came out in January or I was waiting for it to get to Netflix. And I hope that there is a little bit of a revival. I think this movie is definitely do one or it will have one in the years to come. So I'll, I'll keep singing its praises.

• 7:54Sean Fennessey?

  Great picks here.

• 7:55Speaker 04

  Thanks, guys.

• 7:56Sean Fennessey?

  So much.

• 8:01Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Joanna Robinson is here. Hello.

• 8:03Speaker 05

  Hi.

• 8:04Sean Fennessey?

  So you've chosen a film.

• 8:05Speaker 05

  I have.

• 8:05Sean Fennessey?

  Was this an easy choice or a hard choice?

• 8:07Speaker 05

  It was, I was really excited because, uh, usually as is the narrative on this pod, Rob Mahoney takes my pick.

• 8:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:14Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, it just keeps coming up.

• 8:15Amanda Dobbins?

  This is literally every segment.

• 8:17Speaker 05

  It is a theme. He was sitting right next to me when the message came in from Jack and I was just like, like, and then I was like, oh, check your phone. Jack sent us a message, but I already replied.

• 8:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Good job. Did you get the sense that you were taking something from him?

• 8:31Speaker 05

  I don't.

• 8:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Just once, I would like someone to take something from Rob Hone.

• 8:34Sean Fennessey?

  We will be drafting later today, so maybe we can.

• 8:36Speaker 05

  Don't know that this would have been his number one pick, but like, he picked right after me. He took your number one pick, right? So, yeah, it's tough.

• 8:43Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I'm, I'm, I'm interested to talk to you about this movie. We saw this movie together.

• 8:46Speaker 05

  We did.

• 8:47Sean Fennessey?

  And, uh, what is it?

• 8:48Speaker 05

  It's Project Hail Mary.

• 8:49Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so this movie, one of the biggest movies of the year.

• 8:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:53Sean Fennessey?

  The, the first strike in the movies are back narrative that we're kind of living through here, right? And what usually happens to movies like this, I think, is when they come early, they start to get...

• 9:06Speaker 05

  Like diminished?

• 9:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, a little bit like the, the flaws start to get elevated a little bit. We've had more time with them. I wouldn't say it has happened in a dramatic way to this movie, but it doesn't feel as shiny and new as some of the other movies that are being picked even on this episode. So I, I want to hear your strong defense for the film, what you love about it.

• 9:23Speaker 05

  Joanna, what an old stale pick you picked from just a few months ago. Do you feel, I mean, do you feel that way that like the shine is off Project Hail Mary?

• 9:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I mean, everyone has very short attention spans, but especially people who track box office and what the new shiny thing is in movies, and especially if you have to talk about movies all of the time on the podcast. Um, and I think also maybe a little bit in terms of award sense, because we are all Oscar nerds on this podcast, and we all saw Project Hail Mary, and we're like, huh, so is that our big, is, is that our sinners for this year? Is that our big block, early in the year blockbuster that turns into Oscar nomination, you know, king? And we're in the time of the year where it just gets forgotten.

• 10:06Speaker 05

  Which happens to sinners too.

• 10:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, which happens to sinners as well. So it's just, uh, you know, I enjoyed it. I'm not gonna ask you, I'm not gonna put you like on the stand.

• 10:14Speaker 05

  You're gonna say defend your stale and dusty choice of Project Hail Mary.

• 10:17Sean Fennessey?

  I'll do it just for the sake of podcasts.

• 10:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course I am. But like, sure, attention is elsewhere.

• 10:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, and that's fair. Um, I think, I loved the movie. I love the book that it's based on, but it still feels like a big win for sort of original sci-fi, even though it's an adaptation. It's not a, not a franchise movie, despite what murmurs you might have been... Hearing about a sequel, I think it's like an incredible standalone. I think it's a movie star story for Ryan Gosling, which is really important. It's a studio story for Amazon MGM. So in the big pick sense, it is like this interesting business story of the year.

• 10:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And then. But then they canceled an artificial movie because they have a deal with OpenAI.

• 10:58Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, you know, and they they put out He-Man like I'm not saying. Everything's great for Amazon MGM, but this was like a big win that they kind of needed.

• 11:06Sean Fennessey?

  He-Man will be heard from in this episode, I'll have you know.

• 11:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Not and not by Sean.

• 11:10Sean Fennessey?

  Not from me.

• 11:10Amanda Dobbins?

  No, Van Lathan, right?

• 11:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. What a what a chaotic choice. Um, and I really loved the movie and like, you know, I'm not, I'm here to praise Project Hail Mary, not Barry Disclosure Day, but I think that sort of like a lot of people got that like Spielberg feeling from it. It was Lord and Miller's first film that they directed since 2014. This was almost a sort of like, maybe you should have let us have solo a Star Wars story moment. So there's like a lot of narrative around it and then I just, I really loved the movie. I loved seeing it with you and Mallory. I took my nephew and that was like huge moment. Like I got to take my nephew to the IMAX theater and he just like loved it. He's 15 and he just like loved it and he loves that book. And so the book readers loved it, the people who had never heard the story loved it. I love a puppet.

• 11:56Speaker 05

  So like, that's, that's an awesome story that's gonna keep going and going.

• 12:00Sean Fennessey?

  So like. Apparently, I, his name escapes me, the puppeteer who also.

• 12:04Speaker 05

  James Ortiz.

• 12:04Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you. Um, it sounds like there's gonna be a campaign for him in supporting actor, which is fascinating. And I would love for there to, you know, we've heard about this for years and years and Andy Serkis has been put up many times and it never really cracked through. I do feel like the Academy making a bunch of these changes, getting the stunt category in like all the stuff that we've kind of been whinging about for 10 years, they're getting their heads around and the body's so big now, that would be just a great story.

• 12:28Speaker 05

  I agree.

• 12:29Sean Fennessey?

  To get a puppeteer who's doing that kind of voice work. Cause that, you know, it's only two performances in that movie. That's really it, aside from, um, Sandra Haller.

• 12:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, who's fantastic, yeah.

• 12:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and she's wonderful too, but, um, yeah, that's a great part of it. I it's love, love to hear that about your nephew. And I do think you're, it's completely fair to compare it. To Disclosure Day, I mean, Project Hail Mary doesn't exist without E.T. So that's a totally a component of the story. And one side is a very hopeful, optimistic, excited version of this story. And one is a little bit less so. One is really a little bit more of like, I think, a beaten down vision of what the world wants us to think is behind the shadow.

• 13:06Speaker 05

  But they're both trying to end on this like Hope Corps note. And for me personally, at least, Hope Corps was more successful inside of Project Hail Mary. And I think it's something that will have that. I mean, I actually don't really care if it wins Oscars. I care about the Oscars in general, but like, I care about that supporting actor narrative. But like, I do think it might have a resurgence because they were so smart about the way that they marketed this. From San Diego Comic Con last year, all the way through the debut. They made a ton of money. I think they really rolled it out very expertly. So I think they know they need to be like quiet for a minute.

• 13:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 13:39Speaker 05

  And then come back and feel like a sort of, remember how much you loved Project Hail Mary?

• 13:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Just get, get the puppet out there. Get Rocky out there, get him performing it. Yeah, like I just, it's, it's candy and a, and a great story. That would be fun to see.

• 13:53Sean Fennessey?

  Gosling, in addition to being a performer, is a producer of the movie. And so he stands to be a Best Picture nominee, assuming the film goes all that way. So I think you're right. I think it's gonna go quiet until about September, October. They'll probably have a re-release of some kind. It's, it is a movie theater movie. That's the thing, too, is like you got, it's a real, like, one of the reasons why it worked so well is people going back multiple times to check it out on the big screen. What else? Anything else you want to say about it that really connected with you? I know that you've done multiple podcasts about the film at this point.

• 14:19Speaker 05

  I have, I've talked about it a lot. I don't, do you, do you see it as a movie that you want to show your kids? Is this like a kind of like enduring classic?

• 14:28Sean Fennessey?

  I toyed with it this time around. I think it's maybe a year or two early for Alice. It's somewhat complex at times and it takes a little while to get to Rocky.

• 14:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, I was thinking about the kind of the first 30 minutes. But the Rocky of it all, I think my son would respond to. I think, I think both would, actually.

• 14:47Speaker 05

  The note that I remember us having when we came out of it was just sort of like, it was a li- if it had just been a little shorter, a little tighter, it would have been an all-time sort of classic.

• 14:55Sean Fennessey?

  I still feel that way.

• 14:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, I kind of felt like the more time I saw it, I think, two other times in the theater. And every subsequent time I saw it, I expected to feel the runtime more, and I didn't, actually, at the end of the day. So, but also, I saw it with, like, full, excited audiences, and that's just a huge part of that whole experience as well.

• 15:12Sean Fennessey?

  Totally. And that, I think, has been, that's been the trickle-down effect of going to the movies for the last, for the four months since it first hit, right?

• 15:19Speaker 05

  Guess what? Movie theaters are great.

• 15:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 15:21Speaker 05

  Seeing movies with people is great. And like, the last couple of times I've, I mean, certainly last year, because my pick last year was Black Bag. Like, I think I've been talking about films that I watched at home alone, and it just, like, feels so different to talk about a big- It's just so fun that we had a big blockbuster movie at the beginning of the year, that we've got a, we're staring down the barrel of a bunch this summer, and there's even more waiting for us in the fall. And that's just very exciting to me, so.

• 15:44Sean Fennessey?

  I totally agree. Joe, you're the best. What are you gonna come back and talk on the show about? What's, what's, what are you targeting this fall?

• 15:51Speaker 05

  Uh, I don't know. What are you gonna have me on for?

• 15:53Sean Fennessey?

  Now, last year, you called your shot with Hamnet.

• 15:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, and that went really well for us.

• 15:57Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you did great.

• 15:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I started crying.

• 16:01Sean Fennessey?

  Any, anything appealing to you?

• 16:03Speaker 05

  What am I looking forward to?

• 16:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I don't know. What are you anticipating?

• 16:06Speaker 05

  Oh, gosh, I don't know. I mean, my mind is so stuck in, sort of, The Odyssey's right around the corner, and Spider-Man's right around, you know, in that sort of house of our way, so I have yet to migrate to what are the fall, uh, Oscar for fools that I'm excited for.

• 16:19Sean Fennessey?

  Are you hype on Spider-Man? Where's your head at?

• 16:21Speaker 05

  I'm medium hype. Um, I think Sadie Sink is incredible, and everything that I've heard from people who've seen it is that she's fantastic, and they're hiding her so much in the trailer, but I'm really excited for this as a potential, sort of, new chapter of, of this world that has felt like it's running on fumes for so long, so this is potentially an expansion. How do you feel about the mutants entering, uh, the MCU?

• 16:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm glad you clarified. Which mutant is she?

• 16:47Speaker 05

  Probably Jean Grey.

• 16:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, and that's who Jennifer Lawrence and...

• 16:51Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 16:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, and then Sophie Turner?

• 16:54Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 16:55Sean Fennessey?

  And Famke Janssen.

• 16:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Different than the blue person.

• 16:59Speaker 05

  Think about the redheads, yeah.

• 17:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, um, good luck.

• 17:02Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 17:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm gonna see it.

• 17:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, of course.

• 17:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And then I'm gonna go on vacation.

• 17:06Speaker 05

  Where are you in Spider-Man in general?

• 17:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Bro, I get it. I mean, I really liked the last one when they pointed at each other, and then when Andrew Garfield saves Zendaya, but you were thinking of Emma Stone, and I thought that was very beautiful. Listen, when it's a teen, it's a good character, you know? Like, it makes sense to me. Am I... Do I know anything else? Not really.

• 17:26Speaker 05

  Not really. Where are you in Clayface?

• 17:29Sean Fennessey?

  I'm extraordinarily excited. Uh, I'm in the midst of attempting to book the first ever Tim Simons, Alex Ross Perry conversation for that episode, so that we can talk about gore effects and also the pain of being an actor, which is what Clayface is about.

• 17:47Sean Fennessey?

  How are you feeling about it?

• 17:48Speaker 05

  I'm really excited for it. I'm bizarrely very excited for it.

• 17:51Sean Fennessey?

  It is, it is actually, it's sort of similar to Andor, where it was sort of like, "You could have been doing this with superhero movies all along. Like, we've been waiting so long for you to just be like, "Scale it down, tell a different kind of story."

• 18:02Speaker 05

  Do something weird.

• 18:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. Anyway, um, all right, Joanna, thank you for being here. Prestige TV Podcast, House of R.

• 18:09Speaker 05

  Correct.

• 18:09Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, what else is cooking?

• 18:10Speaker 05

  Occasionally, big picture.

• 18:11Sean Fennessey?

  Big picture, rewatchables.

• 18:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:13Sean Fennessey?

  See you soon.

• 18:14Speaker 05

  See you soon. Bye.

• 18:20Sean Fennessey?

  Charles Holmes is here. It's been a minute. I'm sorry about that. What have you been up to? What's going on?

• 18:26Speaker 06

  I've been in the trenches, the LA trenches. It's getting wild out there. We can barely go outside without having a breathing apparatus.

• 18:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's been tough. That's been a struggle out here. Uh, you just spent nine minutes extolling the virtues of your skincare regimen to Amanda.

• 18:41Amanda Dobbins?

  And fitness routine, which is germane to the film we're about to listen.

• 18:45Speaker 06

  My brother is still in New York, and he does not work out, and he helped his like 27-year-old friend like move from Brooklyn to Harlem.

• 18:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 18:53Speaker 06

  And he's like, "I can't move my body." I'm like, "Dog, I'm 33." Right now, I'm like, I can feel if I do not move my body.

• 18:59Amanda Dobbins?

  We're.

• 19:00Speaker 06

  It's just gonna do.

• 19:01Amanda Dobbins?

  We're training for life. And so when the bounce, the bounce house hit yesterday.

• 19:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 19:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And I had to just throw children in like kettleballs one by one. I was ready.

• 19:10Speaker 06

  You were, were you ready?

• 19:11Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 19:12Sean Fennessey?

  I did my work.

• 19:13Amanda Dobbins?

  No, you didn't. Your daughter came over and said, please.

• 19:16Sean Fennessey?

  That's not true. I literally did get a term.

• 19:18Speaker 06

  Are you doing back stretches?

• 19:20Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, every day.

• 19:21Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 19:21Sean Fennessey?

  I, I stretch, but I, I am, I am not on a fitness regimen right now, actually. For the first time, these last two years, I have stopped fully and need to figure something else out. Cause I'm, I'm, I'm headed towards the back nine. You're not at the back nine yet. You're still hale and hearty.

• 19:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 19:35Sean Fennessey?

  You're, you could be performing in the film that you chose at the stage of your life.

• 19:38Speaker 06

  No, but for the, for the film I chose, this was a late stage pick, but The Furious.

• 19:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. So why did you choose this movie?

• 19:46Speaker 06

  So it's funny, before I chose this, when I was talking to Jack, I was originally gonna pick Nirvana, the band.

• 19:53Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:53Speaker 06

  And to me, even though one is a comedy and one is a martial arts film, both of them share a quality that like I, that makes me fall in love with movies all over again. It's like, this is something that only these creators could do. Where it is like, I think The Furious was budgeted at something like 20 million. And I was reading interviews and the director was like, we are not Tom Cruise. Like leave jumping out of the helicopter to Tom Cruise. We are not Fast and Furious. We cannot film cars as great as they do. What do we have? And it's martial arts. It is the judo, it's the wushu. Um, and to me, this is just,

• 20:31Speaker 06

  I thought I was gonna go and think like, this is such a Chad boy experience. And I'm like, I'm watching beautiful men at the height of their, of their sportsman, like just lives, doing ballet.

• 20:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 20:43Speaker 06

  It kind of reminds me, everybody's saying like the comp is the raid. I'm like, this almost reminds me of Crouching Tiger, almost. Where just the choreography is the story.

• 20:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. The martial artistry is more the thing with this movie. There is a lot of, it is a fusion of those two kinds of films though. You know, because. There's no, there's no gunfighting in this movie.

• 21:02Speaker 06

  This is not John Wick. This is not Gun Fu.

• 21:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it is, it is hand to hand, but the, the choreography in the fight sequences is astonishing. I mean, it is really, really, and but the thing about that is sometimes you can talk about this and I think it can be alienating where if you're not a martial arts movie expert or you don't know the history of that stuff, that sometimes it can be like a little boring or, or you think, maybe you're thinking of feudal Japan or something, but this is a contemporarily set story and it's also kind of funny in a way that Nirvana is funny too. I mean, the way that it's choreographed is you're meant to be like jumping out of your seat and like chortling to yourself and applauding.

• 21:39Speaker 06

  There is, there is a scene and it's been in the trailers where they are in a cage and there's no way in real life a fight would work like this. But our main character is quite literally like building a skyscraper of beating guys and he's like stepping one over another. And instead of having like a gun, he's just, just killing people with like a hammer. It's just the lizard part of your brain is like monkey beats other monkey with hammer.

• 22:08Amanda Dobbins?

  It's physical comedy, which there is, there's, you know, there's a line from, you know, like Three Stooges and then musical comedy and then people fighting each other, which is, what can you use your body to do that is outrageous and unexpected and like not really true to life?

• 22:25Speaker 06

  Not true to, but even.

• 22:26Amanda Dobbins?

  But exhilarating.

• 22:28Speaker 06

  It was exhilarating and even like, it should not make sense that there is at the, the greatest fight I've seen in decades happens at the end. It's a five-way fight.

• 22:38Sean Fennessey?

  So great.

• 22:39Speaker 06

  You almost stand out of your seat when they split the frame in five.

• 22:42Sean Fennessey?

  I said the same thing on the show. It's that part is just so awesome.

• 22:45Speaker 06

  But to get there, you're just like, there's this big hulking mass of a guy who basically wakes up and he's not a zombie. But it's like, he just like runs to the fight and you're like, what is happening?

• 22:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 22:57Speaker 06

  And then you just have like five guys who all have like grudges, but the movie has also done this phenomenal thing where it's like, this is not Taken where the whole thing is. We are going all the way to rescue the daughter. Halfway through their movie, they rescue the daughter, they rescue the captured kids. And you're like, what's the rest of this movie? And they're like, oh, no, they solved the problem. I don't actually give a fuck about these kids anymore. I just want to see people beating each other.

• 23:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's a set piece machine. It's also like, it does tip into Dada surrealist.

• 23:28Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 23:28Sean Fennessey?

  Like, it's not even really important what's happening. What matters is the poetry of violence that is on screen. And that character that Charles is describing is like a bullet headed gigantic man. Who has, is like axed to death and then comes back to life in alarming fashion. And then like biochemically knows which path to follow to find the fight that is happening.

• 23:55Speaker 06

  I was laughing the entire time.

• 23:57Sean Fennessey?

  Police station at the end of the movie. Yeah, this is a lot of fun. I, I'm, I'm not super familiar with, um, with Jimmy Yao, the, the, the one, the silent star of the film. Who's the father of the little girl.

• 24:10Speaker 06

  Neither was I, I was, I'm gonna butcher their names, so I'm not gonna evide. But like, the other two stars, uh, one of them is one of the greatest martial arts artists. He's been in the race, he was in the race.

• 24:19Sean Fennessey?

  Joe Taslim, yeah.

• 24:20Speaker 06

  Yes, when you see him in a movie, you're like, this guy is the devil. And to defeat him, these characters are just going to have to.

• 24:28Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, oh, you're referring to, um, uh.

• 24:32Speaker 06

  He was the guy with the.

• 24:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yaya Nwueye.

• 24:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whenever you see him in a martial arts movie, you're like, oh my gosh.

• 24:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, he, that, there's, there's, this movie puts the death of Robin Hood to shame when it comes to bow and arrow battle. I will say that for sure.

• 24:43Speaker 06

  I was, this movie, I was enchanted. And it's also funny where a lot of times, cause I was like, when I left the movie, I can tell it had an oppression on me. Where it's like, usually I'm like, alright, I'm driving home. I'm gonna listen to like a podcast, I'm gonna listen to an album. And I drove home in silence, cause I just wanted to, I was just like, what did I just watch? Like, I, I don't want, I kind of wanted to bask in this memory of being like, oh, we can still do cool shit in movies. We can still do stuff where I'm like, I'm still kind of scratching my head. I'm like, I can watch all these videos of how they did this stuff. And still there is, uh, there is a magic of cinema of being, hey, some guys can just like dance.

• 25:28Speaker 06

  And the dialogue is them fighting and beating the shit out of each other. And what more could you want at the age of thirty-three?

• 25:35Sean Fennessey?

  Um, did you see it with a full crowd?

• 25:37Speaker 06

  So I-

• 25:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, where- I wanted to do a movie theater check-in for you.

• 25:41Speaker 06

  So unfortunately, I watched it at one of my least favorite movie theaters, Regal, uh, Passio.

• 25:47Sean Fennessey?

  Ah, tough.

• 25:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Passio?

• 25:49Speaker 06

  Passio, how do you say it?

• 25:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm doing Paseo. I'm there a lot, you know?

• 25:53Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know.

• 25:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And they- they have a large Kim Crawford pour when you need it.

• 25:56Speaker 06

  It's- that is not my favorite, because I will say, I also saw, what's the, uh, what's the Catholic movie where they're all voting?

• 26:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Conclave.

• 26:05Speaker 06

  Conclave.

• 26:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I got there with you.

• 26:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I was there. It's just beautiful.

• 26:14Speaker 06

  I thought- the reason I can never really go to that movie theater again is, I saw Conclave when Trump was elected the second time, and I went into the movie not knowing what was gonna happen.

• 26:25Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 26:26Speaker 06

  And I left and I checked my phone and I was like, oh, the world- because like, I walked out-

• 26:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah.

• 26:31Speaker 06

  And it was just pure silence. No one was talking.

• 26:34Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 26:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:35Speaker 06

  Everybody-

• 26:35Sean Fennessey?

  So you have a negative association with that?

• 26:37Speaker 06

  I have a negative association, and when I-

• 26:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And they have the new- they have like the school desk chairs now?

• 26:42Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 26:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't really under- I feel, uh, contained.

• 26:46Speaker 06

  But what I will say-

• 26:47Sean Fennessey?

  I like it. I like all movie theaters.

• 26:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 26:48Speaker 06

  This was a Thursday at four PM, and while it was not packed, I did- like, I was doing a little bit of a, like, a sociological, like, study, because it was grown men who were like in their forties there, but all of them had brought their partners. Like, there was just a- it was like a date night, but it was also four PM, and these men were like-

• 27:08Amanda Dobbins?

  That's great.

• 27:08Speaker 06

  In their forties and fifties, and I was like, this is a- this is a-

• 27:11Amanda Dobbins?

  On a Thursday?

• 27:13Speaker 06

  On a Thursday.

• 27:13Sean Fennessey?

  It never for one second crossed my mind to bring Eileen to go see The Furious, not for a single second. I can't imagine a thing she'd enjoy less.

• 27:21Speaker 06

  See, I will say, the partners, the women, left the movie theater not seeming that enthused, and all the men were just like-

• 27:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 27:30Speaker 06

  Cinema.

• 27:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. People standing and cheering in the middle of my movie theater. It was amazing.

• 27:36Speaker 06

  I yelped during the five, when they split it in five, I was like, I was almost about to just like stand up and just keep standing.

• 27:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 27:41Speaker 06

  So sorry that I, we had boy corner.

• 27:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And listen, that's good. It's, it's good when people make the highest version of their art instead of trying to do stuff in the middle that pleases nobody.

• 27:53Speaker 06

  Here's the thing, I, I was trying to do the drama, Rob Mahoney picked it.

• 27:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, me too, but you know, Mahoney gets me every time.

• 27:59Speaker 06

  Here's the thing, the drama and the furious, I will just say, ending on this would be a great double feature.

• 28:04Sean Fennessey?

  Love it.

• 28:04Speaker 06

  Like to me, these are both speaking to the same things, just the fight of the human spirit and then the fight of hammers drilling into foreheads.

• 28:14Sean Fennessey?

  Charles Holmes.

• 28:14Amanda Dobbins?

  That's beautiful.

• 28:15Sean Fennessey?

  Well done. Thank you.

• 28:16Speaker 06

  Oh yeah. Thank y'all.

• 28:22Sean Fennessey?

  Mallory Rubin is here.

• 28:23Speaker 07

  Hello.

• 28:24Sean Fennessey?

  Hey, Mal.

• 28:24Speaker 07

  Hi guys. Great to be here with you.

• 28:26Sean Fennessey?

  When were you last with us?

• 28:29Speaker 07

  Well, I, I mean, I know the answer unfortunately, because I had-

• 28:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Star Wars draft. Yeah.

• 28:33Speaker 07

  I've known many sleepless nights since. It was the Star Wars draft. And when I fall asleep at night, I see the Skywalker family tree. It's the last thing I see before I doze off and the first thing that pops into my brain when I wake up in the morning.

• 28:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but in your version, the little tiny things are part of the tree, right?

• 28:51Speaker 07

  The droids are on the family tree. That's correct.

• 28:53Amanda Dobbins?

  No, not, I know what the droids are. What are the other ones? What was the real hail Mary that you did?

• 28:57Speaker 07

  Oh, the midichlorians.

• 28:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, there we go.

• 28:58Speaker 07

  Yeah. Well, I've received a lot of feedback from people on the internet saying that I was right and you were wrong.

• 29:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Can I also say that I received a lot of feedback from people who thought that you were me?

• 29:06Speaker 07

  That is, that is a tale as old as time for us.

• 29:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's sure.

• 29:10Speaker 07

  That is a tale as old as time for us. Yeah.

• 29:12Sean Fennessey?

  Not all women have brown hair.

• 29:14Speaker 07

  Because we, exactly. I was gonna say, we do both have brown hair, but we could not possibly have more different, like, our interests and tastes are so different.

• 29:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 29:22Speaker 07

  So.

• 29:22Speaker 06

  And you're two of the most important gals in the world to me, you know?

• 29:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Beautiful.

• 29:26Speaker 07

  I mean, thank you for saying that. What an honor.

• 29:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 29:28Speaker 07

  What an honor. I miss you guys.

• 29:30Amanda Dobbins?

  We miss you. Do you wanna, do you wanna lead with your complaints about the procedural aspects of this episode?

• 29:36Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 29:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Go ahead. Floor's yours.

• 29:38Speaker 07

  I have some complaints about the procedural aspects of the draft, which will, I think, have already aired when this airs, but we'll be recording after, so I'll save some of my ammo. No, I'm kidding. I can't wait.

• 29:50Speaker 07

  We'll find out.

• 29:51Sean Fennessey?

  You're always very normal in drafts. I've noticed that about you.

• 29:54Speaker 07

  Yeah, I have three pods today.

• 29:55Sean Fennessey?

  Calm, thoughtful. You roll with the punches.

• 29:57Speaker 07

  I'm excited for the draft. I actually do think that I have been better served in general by a more mellow approach to the draft, which is what I will be bringing today.

• 30:05Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I'm sure. I fully expect to encounter that momentarily.

• 30:08Amanda Dobbins?

  What movie did you pick for this?

• 30:10Speaker 07

  So for this, I saw the text.

• 30:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And how did you pick it?

• 30:14Speaker 07

  Sean hit up the group chat, you know, and this is a traditional tradition. I was in Sweden when you hit up the group chat.

• 30:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Were you actually in Sweden or were you in one of your 14 layovers?

• 30:27Speaker 07

  That's a good question. I think I was in Sweden when the group chat came and all of the many layovers and the many hours of travel when I was also not responding to texts came later and before. By the time I was able to catch up on the group chat, the exchange, the two movies that I would have really loved to pick, Project Hail Mary and 28 Years Later, had been selected by two of my dearest friends and colleagues and now sworn enemies, Joanna and Chris. And then I thought, okay, we got a couple of weeks. Sean is such a thoughtful planner, always ahead. Before we record,

• 31:07Speaker 07

  Amanda, a little feedback via...

• 31:09Sean Fennessey?

  Feedback from Amanda? Surprising.

• 31:11Speaker 07

  Nodding of the head, shaking of, not a nodding actually, a shaking of the head. I thought, you know what?

• 31:14Sean Fennessey?

  Thoughtful Planner should be the title of my memoir.

• 31:17Speaker 07

  That would be good. Did you consider that for your newsletter?

• 31:20Sean Fennessey?

  No, I'm saving that. Backpocketing that one for down the road. In my 70s, you know, it's gonna be...

• 31:25Speaker 07

  Will you still be podding and...

• 31:27Sean Fennessey?

  My author photo?

• 31:29Speaker 07

  Crafting newsletters when you're 70, do you think?

• 31:30Sean Fennessey?

  I hope so.

• 31:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Wow.

• 31:32Speaker 07

  I'll be on a beach. What about you?

• 31:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Same. I'll be on my own island.

• 31:36Speaker 07

  Yeah. Oh.

• 31:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:37Sean Fennessey?

  I just, I love the spirit of creativity. I love creating. I love sharing my thoughts with the world.

• 31:41Speaker 07

  I like the spirit of creativity and I will be engaging with that by reading other people's books while I sit on a beach. So.

• 31:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Amen.

• 31:47Speaker 07

  I thought maybe by the time we pod, I will have seen Sheep Detectives, a movie that I hear is wonderful and feel sure I'll love. Didn't get a chance. Then I was like, you know what? We're recording this a week, a couple of days after Toy Story 5 comes out. Amazing.

• 31:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:59Speaker 07

  Conflicts last week couldn't make the screenings and I was out of town. This is just a nightmare.

• 32:03Sean Fennessey?

  You told me all the way up until the last minute, last night.

• 32:07Speaker 07

  I texted you 10 minutes before a Toy Story showing this weekend in the city I was in, which was not Los Angeles. And I was like, I might go. I was there for a dear friend's birthday celebration, so that would have been irresponsible and I did not ultimately do it.

• 32:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I am glad that you picked.

• 32:20Speaker 07

  I have picked Disclosure Day.

• 32:21Amanda Dobbins?

  The experience of friendship rather than the movie quote unquote about friendship.

• 32:24Speaker 07

  I did actually end up sitting in the hotel room for those exact same hours doing other work, for what it's worth. But then later I communed with other people and it was honestly wonderful. It was wonderful.

• 32:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, then you got the lesson of Toy Story 5.

• 32:35Speaker 07

  Wouldn't know. Haven't gone to see it yet. Can't wait. So I have chosen Disclosure Day, a movie that I thought would be worth including in the podcast and discussing, but I, and I do think it's interesting to talk about, but I can't say like, to quote Che Serrano, with my chest is actually my pick for best movie of the year so far. But I do think it is a movie that has given us something that is one of the best things that movie fans can have, which is debate and discussion.

• 33:01Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely.

• 33:02Speaker 07

  With each other and probably more crucially of all, an excuse to dive back into a creator's canon. So one of the things that I just loved about the run up to Disclosure Day was, not that I need the excuse to do this, not that any of us do, but the excuse to the opportunity to revisit some of my favorite movies of all time, right? I was like, time to boot up Close Encounters.

• 33:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yep.

• 33:21Speaker 07

  Which I did. Time to boot up BT, which I did. Time to boot up War of the Worlds, not a movie I particularly enjoy, but I still did it. I was like, dare I re-watch Crystal Skull? And then I was like, you did this a couple of years ago. Chill.

• 33:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 33:32Speaker 07

  Chill. But that's a great, I don't actually think that that ultimately helped my reception of Disclosure Day, candidly, but it was a wonderful thing to just like engage in the discourse, your favorite thing, online discourse, Amanda.

• 33:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I love to hear from other people.

• 33:46Speaker 07

  With the philosofiles about where this movie fits and stands, not only in Spielberg's filmography overall, but like specifically the UFO films and the opportunity to really think about how much of that area of interest, which has spanned decades of his creative life, is like, the aliens come to us here on earth. It was just an interesting moment to reflect on his relationship to that type of storytelling. I thought the movie was very propulsive and entertaining and I also had a lot of notes on it. But it's been really fun to like, to listen to you guys talk about it, to pod about it with Joe, to see it with my husband and talk about it with him and just to like, when I was out of town this weekend with friends, it was a big topic of conversation with people.

• 34:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 34:26Speaker 07

  And so that's just been kind of like a neat experience as a movie fan. And so that's. That is my pick because I could not pick those other movies.

• 34:33Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I appreciate you, you picking it here. We had such an interesting experience. We saw the movie together.

• 34:38Speaker 07

  We did, yes.

• 34:40Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, the three of us and Joanna, and there was an unusual series of scrums of people exchanging notes.

• 34:47Speaker 07

  Yes, immediately after.

• 34:49Sean Fennessey?

  Which is pretty rare, I would say, at these screenings. You sometimes get like maybe one polite, two-minute conversation. But people are like, no, let's do a 15-minute, 20-minute breakdown of how we really felt about this.

• 34:59Speaker 07

  The podcasts were happening in real time.

• 35:01Sean Fennessey?

  They were.

• 35:01Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 35:02Sean Fennessey?

  And you could tell right away, this is gonna be really divisive, this movie, because there were some people who walked out. I remember looking at one very prominent journalist while heading to the bathroom, and he was just like, nope.

• 35:11Speaker 07

  Correct. And I was like, am I crazy? No.

• 35:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Uh, and so it has been funny that it has gone into the blender. I think, as often with these things, like, heavily marketed movies from huge, famous filmmakers, if they don't land certain parts of the story, people get very, very reactive. And there's been a lot of really negative reaction to the movie. Um, that's probably gonna subside over time. Um, a lot of Spielberg movies also tend to get reclaimed pretty quickly. Um, you mentioned Not Loving War of the Worlds,

• 35:41Speaker 07

  Right.

• 35:41Sean Fennessey?

  Which is a movie that I really loved at the time, though I do think it also similarly has a lot of script flaws. Um, also a David Koepf script. Uh,

• 35:49Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 35:49Sean Fennessey?

  I think a lot of times what happens with Spielberg movies, and we talked about this in the 21st century conversation, is his personal kind of philosophy and perspective, plus the filmmaking chops, tends to outlive the, this story annoyed me?

• 36:06Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 36:06Sean Fennessey?

  Components of a lot of his movies, especially the second half of his film career movies. Crystal Skull is one of the precious few that I'm like, no. Like, I just can't get on board with this.

• 36:15Speaker 07

  Wild film.

• 36:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, very weird movie, but, um,

• 36:17Speaker 07

  Fun to re-watch.

• 36:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I don't know. I've, I've only seen it one time, though. You've seen it a second time.

• 36:21Speaker 07

  I have. I've seen it twice as well. Yeah.

• 36:23Amanda Dobbins?

  And I mean, I it confirmed my experience and in terms of, I think, the filmmaking aspects of it are electrifying and I learned more about the old alien, you know, and and continued to think what I thought about that alien.

• 36:40Sean Fennessey?

  Jim Alien?

• 36:41Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's like it's Alien 17, right?

• 36:44Speaker 07

  Jimmy.

• 36:44Amanda Dobbins?

  In vivo 17?

• 36:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 36:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Is that right?

• 36:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 36:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:48Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's the name of my TV.

• 36:49Speaker 07

  You've really absorbed all of the canon from, uh,

• 36:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Where are you at on aliens?

• 36:53Speaker 07

  No one Hugo. I'm pro alien in general.

• 36:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure.

• 36:55Speaker 07

  I enjoyed your discussion with each other about whether your entire creative and professional and personal lives would halt in full if aliens were revealed to us. I believe aliens are out there. It feels impossible that they're not.

• 37:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 37:07Speaker 07

  Um, I enjoy the genre.

• 37:08Amanda Dobbins?

  You think they're here, like on Earth?

• 37:10Speaker 07

  Currently? Hmm. Good question.

• 37:13Amanda Dobbins?

  And what would you do? What would you do if Disclosure Day happened?

• 37:18Speaker 07

  So that was obviously, I know this is a podcast where we're supposed to pick movies that we really liked.

• 37:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:23Speaker 07

  Talk about, I'll be like, I, the, you know, the conclusion of the film was like where it really lost me, honestly. The idea that like, first of all, I think the local news broadcast news element, but also the, the idea of the public response. I understand the intention behind it.

• 37:35Amanda Dobbins?

  No disrespect to Courtney Grace, who should.

• 37:37Speaker 07

  No, certainly not.

• 37:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I hope they're starting that supporting actress campaign. Let's go.

• 37:39Speaker 07

  And, you know, that was another, I'm glad you said that because that was another reason I thought this was a worthy, uh, selection for inclusion in this podcast is because so many of the performances were really wonderful. Like the Emily Blunt performance in this movie is amazing, just amazing. I hope it stands the test of time and I think it is undeniably one of the best and most compelling performances of the year so far. So that's really fun. I liked watching Colin Firth bite down on the mouthguard. For me, that was compelling. Not sure if you had any thoughts on that?

• 38:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you prefer Colin Firth with the brown eyes or the blue eyes?

• 38:13Speaker 07

  Uh, I like him, you know, I'll quote Mark Darcy and say just, like, just the way he is.

• 38:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. You know that that was actually, do you know that that was a literal reading at my wedding? That speech?

• 38:23Speaker 07

  I would expect nothing less from you and Zach, two of the purist souls.

• 38:28Amanda Dobbins?

  That was one of my choices. Yeah.

• 38:30Speaker 07

  Great stuff. I mean, Bridget Jones is a sacred text. It's a sacred text, obviously.

• 38:33Amanda Dobbins?

  25 years this year, I believe.

• 38:35Sean Fennessey?

  That's a film?

• 38:36Speaker 07

  Is that possibly true?

• 38:37Amanda Dobbins?

  The film? I think it's 2001. Yeah, books earlier. Yeah.

• 38:40Speaker 07

  You're fucking old. We're old. I would like to think that aliens, that it would be pleasant. Like, I like E.T. I loved Project Hail Mary, my actual favorite movie of the year so far. Rocky, the goat. But, you know, Joe and I talked about this in the pod. It's like we covered, you know, not so long ago, Three Body Problem, the Netflix adaptation of a really hallowed That's about aliens? Fantasy trilogy. Spoiler, it is. [laughing] And the thesis on which those books exist is a much darker read on the inevitability of a certain type of conflict if extraterrestrial life not only existed, but if we were capable, if species and races from different areas of the universe were capable of interacting

• 39:24Speaker 07

  with each other. So, part of what I love about the genre in general is the fact that there are so many different ways of engaging with what an interaction and encounter like this must, might look like. I thought that, especially because so much of the Disclosure Day run-up was really secretive and guarded, that there would be maybe a different degree of the thesis of what this might mean, other than the aliens are here and maybe it's okay and the problem is actually the people, which I think has been present in the text before. But, you know, propulsive action. It's an entertaining two and a half hours in the theater. I saw it with the gen pop the second time around. The theater was loving every second of it. People were whooping. They stood and clapped at the end.

• 40:07Sean Fennessey?

  Did you, did you see The Fabelmans?

• 40:11Speaker 07

  I did. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. At home. Not in the theater, but I watched it at home.

• 40:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the one thing that I have been, because I've seen, obviously, all the discourse about Disclosure Day as well. Naturally, in fact, it's come directly in my direction a few times. But, you know, the movie was certainly marketed as a movie about aliens and what if aliens came to Earth. That's not really what the movie's about, right? Like, the movie is very obviously about like, what happens to you when you're a little kid and why do you become the way that you are? And how it haunts you and then maybe solves you or figures you or helps you find a clearer path to your life?

• 40:46Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 40:47Sean Fennessey?

  That's a very heady concept. That's not a very, one, it's not marketable at all. Two, it's the kind of thing that you say to somebody who hates a movie and they're like, "Fuck off," which I understand.

• 40:56Speaker 07

  Yeah. I mean, it's a little bit about aliens, though.

• 41:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it is, it is, sort of.

• 41:03Amanda Dobbins?

  And they roll one out on a, on a modified wheelchair at the end.

• 41:08Sean Fennessey?

  It is certainly about aliens. It's about like our culture's interest in the idea of aliens. You know, we don't spend a lot of time with those aliens in this film. We don't really, it's not like ET. ET is about an alien.

• 41:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Fifteen minutes of footage of them just being like, and here's another thing about aliens. And they upload it to the server.

• 41:26Sean Fennessey?

  In the footage, you know, they're, they're looking at stuff.

• 41:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:29Sean Fennessey?

  Dick Nixon, you're a big fan?

• 41:30Speaker 07

  Uh, I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that. No, no, I'm not. Um. Are you a Nixon guy? Big Nixon guy?

• 41:37Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, not, not a fan of his policies or the way that he ran his administration.

• 41:42Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 41:42Sean Fennessey?

  Seemed like kind of a mean spirited guy.

• 41:44Speaker 07

  Brave take.

• 41:45Sean Fennessey?

  A little hateful at times, really resentful. Um, I thought maybe a bigot.

• 41:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:52Sean Fennessey?

  Seemed like based on some of the secret recordings. One thing I don't understand, recording yourself?

• 41:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I've never understood this. I mean, this is also a note I have for basically every single like spy or CIA plot when they're like, well, here's the file that shows all of this. Why, if you're a nefarious government entity, don't keep files. Just, just don't.

• 42:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, just burn them.

• 42:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Or don't write it down. There we go.

• 42:19Speaker 07

  This is always one of the things, like, what if they recorded and committed to the record that someone can find? But also, what did they name their shadowy organization? You know, putting the villainous intention right there in the name? This is another recurring note.

• 42:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Ward X. What does it stand for?

• 42:33Sean Fennessey?

  Uh.

• 42:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I'll give you a hundred dollars right now if you can do it. I don't have a hundred dollars on me, but I can bet on you.

• 42:39Sean Fennessey?

  Waived is the first word.

• 42:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I just, to be clear, I'm not going to give you a hundred dollars, but.

• 42:45Speaker 07

  Do you carry around hundred dollar bills?

• 42:46Amanda Dobbins?

  No, and he doesn't anymore. No, and he stopped carrying cash.

• 42:50Sean Fennessey?

  Let's see how much money I have right now. This is how we're gonna wrap this segment.

• 42:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I do feel like if we could introduce like a throwing money down on the table.

• 42:58Speaker 07

  That would be good.

• 42:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Element to that, that could be interesting.

• 43:00Sean Fennessey?

  Let's count it right now.

• 43:01Speaker 07

  You don't need real money. You could use like Imperial credits, like a Star Wars.

• 43:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I, for a while, until Juliette learned his name, I was offering, this is, I thought you said you were done with this.

• 43:10Sean Fennessey?

  Forty, sixty, eighty, one hundred, one twenty, one forty, one sixty, one eighty.

• 43:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, there we go. There we go. See?

• 43:18Speaker 07

  What is that for? Are you like tipping the valet with a crisp punch?

• 43:22Amanda Dobbins?

  This is Long Island nonsense.

• 43:24Sean Fennessey?

  I'm a man of many interests.

• 43:25Speaker 07

  Do you carry that around because you're like future-proofing? You believe the apocalypse will come and...

• 43:30Sean Fennessey?

  You never know when you're gonna get in a jam.

• 43:32Speaker 07

  Venmo won't work, you'll need cold hard cash.

• 43:34Sean Fennessey?

  You never know when you're gonna get in a jam.

• 43:35Speaker 07

  What else are you prepared to sell?

• 43:37Amanda Dobbins?

  How often are you going to the ATM?

• 43:38Sean Fennessey?

  Not often.

• 43:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 43:39Sean Fennessey?

  Because I'm not often in a jam.

• 43:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 43:41Sean Fennessey?

  I'm trying to live a jam-free life.

• 43:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 43:43Sean Fennessey?

  But every once in a while?

• 43:44Speaker 07

  You have not been lured into a Hansel and Gretel fairy tale-esque cottage in the woods as an impressionable 10-year-old and looked into the eyes of a CGI deer, fox, cardinal, raccoon? Hasn't happened to you. Wouldn't happen to you.

• 44:01Sean Fennessey?

  And yet I feel such a kinship with those characters who were lured in that way. Part of the reason why I liked this movie.

• 44:05Speaker 07

  You do often feel kinship with the chosen ones, so, yeah.

• 44:09Sean Fennessey?

  Mal, any closing thoughts here? This was a deranged segment of this episode.

• 44:12Speaker 07

  You know, I'm looking forward to catching up on more movies, let me say that. It feels like there's a lot of good cinema this year that I haven't seen. Do you think that if I had seen Sheep Detectives or Toy Story 5, I would have picked one of those?

• 44:21Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 44:22Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 44:22Sean Fennessey?

  They're both very much in your zone.

• 44:23Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing those movies. So let's just almost like pretend I have seen and picked one of those. But I enjoyed discussing Disclosure Day with you, and I look forward to the continuing discourse on this podcast. You know, I mentioned this to you, but one of my favorite experiences recently was looking back in the Big Pick archives, because Joanna and I have been doing a Christopher Nolan re-watch, heading into The Odyssey. We're doing Tenet, obviously a movie that you two are engaging with in the present timeline as well, but as I told Sean, I looked back into the archives and you guys podcasted about it five times in the year 2020.

• 44:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, there was not a lot going on, and we were stuck in our houses and/or in the car where we watched it in San Diego.

• 45:01Speaker 07

  It was wonderful. Wonderful to remember those times. How many times do you think you'll podcast about Disclosure Day before it's all said and done?

• 45:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, this is three.

• 45:08Speaker 07

  Something to think about.

• 45:09Amanda Dobbins?

  So...

• 45:09Sean Fennessey?

  It will be done for a while.

• 45:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:11Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 45:12Sean Fennessey?

  We will be podcasting about Tenet once more.

• 45:15Speaker 07

  I know.

• 45:15Sean Fennessey?

  In the great city of Toronto in July. And we will be seeing the movie on a big screen for the first time, I believe.

• 45:21Speaker 07

  Oh, that's exciting.

• 45:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, since the...

• 45:23Speaker 07

  Since the drive-thru?

• 45:24Amanda Dobbins?

  The drive-thru was a large screen.

• 45:25Sean Fennessey?

  It was a big screen, but it wasn't a movie theater experience, I guess, is the way to put it. Anyhow, Mallory Rubin, thank you. You're the best.

• 45:36Sean Fennessey?

  Van Lathan is here. What's up?

• 45:38Speaker 05

  What's up, friends?

• 45:38Sean Fennessey?

  How are you?

• 45:39Speaker 05

  I'm fantastic. How are you guys doing?

• 45:41Sean Fennessey?

  Very good. Thank you for being here.

• 45:42Speaker 05

  Always.

• 45:43Sean Fennessey?

  So, I know what you chose.

• 45:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:47Sean Fennessey?

  It's a film that Amanda hasn't seen.

• 45:49Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 45:50Sean Fennessey?

  It's a film that

• 45:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I just

• 45:53Sean Fennessey?

  that means something to us.

• 45:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, especially.

• 45:56Sean Fennessey?

  What movie did you pick?

• 45:58Speaker 05

  Masters of the Universe.

• 46:00Sean Fennessey?

  Is this truly, deeply, madly, your favorite movie of 2026?

• 46:04Speaker 05

  No.

• 46:05Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 46:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. How did you happen

• 46:08Sean Fennessey?

  We're off to a great start.

• 46:09Amanda Dobbins?

  to wind up on this podcast, talking about Masters of the Universe, then?

• 46:13Speaker 05

  Rob chose the drama.

• 46:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Is that, you also would have picked the drama?

• 46:16Speaker 05

  I would have picked the drama.

• 46:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Me too.

• 46:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:18Speaker 05

  So, I'll say this, and this is no shot to Masters of the Universe.

• 46:21Sean Fennessey?

  Literally, five people have said, "I wanted to pick the drama." That's so funny.

• 46:25Speaker 05

  So, just watching the drama, like, at The Grove with a full audience was phenomenal. This is gonna sound so stupid to so many people, but, like, when Endgame came out, everybody at the theater was, "Ooh," and "Ah," and all of that stuff. The drama had nobody flying around, no capes, no powers, and people were just like that.

• 46:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:46Speaker 05

  People were just like that.

• 46:47Sean Fennessey?

  They're buzzing.

• 46:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:48Speaker 05

  Buzzing, this amazing communal experience. A lot of people had a lot of political things to say about the movie and some of the subject matter that it dealt with. I, at no point bristled at anything. I fell into the story. It was awesome. It was by far my favorite movie of the year, but if I couldn't have it, this next one is right there. It was great for me to sit down, not only relive my childhood, but kudos to the filmmakers of Masters of the Universe for attempting, attempting to inject some contemporary storytelling into this thing that I watched when I was a kid. They tried to take care of it. They did not do a perfect job.

• 47:32Speaker 05

  A lot of people who saw the movie didn't like it. I actually really enjoyed it. At the end, it gets to the point to where Adam becomes He-Man, and I was captivated by that.

• 47:42Amanda Dobbins?

  We've been talking a lot about toys today.

• 47:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:45Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, just in our, in our own lives, our kids' lives. He-Man toys were important to you?

• 47:51Speaker 05

  He-Man.

• 47:52Amanda Dobbins?

  He, well, there's, because there's only one He-Man.

• 47:54Sean Fennessey?

  There's only one He-Man.

• 47:55Amanda Dobbins?

  But then the other masters of the universe were also.

• 48:00Sean Fennessey?

  Are they all masters? They don't really explain it.

• 48:01Speaker 05

  I don't think they're the masters of the universe. I think that He-Man.

• 48:05Amanda Dobbins?

  What universe?

• 48:06Sean Fennessey?

  Well, this is complicated, you know?

• 48:10Sean Fennessey?

  This was a toy line that was refashioned out of the spare parts of a lot of different kinds of stories.

• 48:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. I've listened to Griffin Newman explain this.

• 48:22Sean Fennessey?

  Barbarian stories, Sword and Sandal stuff, a lot of fa- high fantasy plus high tech. That eventually became an animated series that I assume you watched with as much religion and fervor as I did.

• 48:35Sean Fennessey?

  And there's not a lot of lore explication on the animated series.

• 48:40Speaker 05

  I feel like that stuff came with later iterations of it.

• 48:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 48:43Speaker 05

  Like, I think when we were looking at it, it was, like, even when She-Ra came along, it was like, oh, you know, Skeletor used to be a member of the Horde. And like, he's not in the Horde anymore. He left. She-Ra was kidnapped and all. I'm like, oh, there's more? There's more story? It was like a bigger thing?

• 48:58Sean Fennessey?

  A bigger world.

• 48:58Speaker 05

  A bigger world, but.

• 49:00Sean Fennessey?

  It's also multiple comic books telling different strands of the story that don't agree with each other. Like, it's kind of a ma- it's, it's primarily a toy company's idea of a story instead of a creative, single person. Like, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee being like, this is.

• 49:16Amanda Dobbins?

  They did it backwards.

• 49:17Sean Fennessey?

  This character.

• 49:17Amanda Dobbins?

  They started with the toys.

• 49:18Sean Fennessey?

  Exactly.

• 49:19Speaker 05

  But also, they did it backwards, but they were also doing it and undoing it. Because the toys came with a comic line like he's talking about, like a, like a mini comic, right? But that mini comic was sometimes a little bit too straightforward and violent for what worked for the cartoon.

• 49:38Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 49:38Speaker 05

  So like, sometimes they would be like, okay, well, this is on the mini comic with the toys, but the cartoon that we're using to sell the toys, well, we can't do that on there. Like Skeletor. First was this like really mean evil guy and then midway through the first season they go, this is better if he's a little bit funny.

• 49:54Sean Fennessey?

  He's kind of funny.

• 49:55Speaker 05

  He's yeah.

• 49:55Sean Fennessey?

  He's kind of like a Paul Lind like fabulous, you know goof.

• 50:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:00Amanda Dobbins?

  And so you're eight, 10?

• 50:04Speaker 05

  Younger for me, but yeah.

• 50:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, you're like four?

• 50:06Sean Fennessey?

  I'm like four, five.

• 50:07Amanda Dobbins?

  So you're not aware of any of this? You're just taking what you're being given?

• 50:11Speaker 05

  It's on the TV.

• 50:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's a lizard brain like that muscle man looks cool thing.

• 50:14Speaker 05

  Right. It's like on TV and it's in Toys R Us, rest in peace to my giraffe man.

• 50:19Sean Fennessey?

  Same for me.

• 50:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Where do you think I got my time at?

• 50:22Speaker 05

  Okay, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. So it's there and it's there and then that's it. All the other stuff like I wasn't aware of it. But like.

• 50:31Sean Fennessey?

  The movie like kinda does, it does scratch that boyhood feeling. I felt, I mean, I think the movie is very flawed.

• 50:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:39Sean Fennessey?

  And like kind of a mess at times, but is weirdly takes chances with a property as stupid as He-Man.

• 50:45Speaker 05

  Right.

• 50:45Sean Fennessey?

  And makes, does a couple of fun things and, and when he lifts the sword.

• 50:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 50:51Sean Fennessey?

  Says, I have the power.

• 50:52Amanda Dobbins?

  You were moved.

• 50:53Sean Fennessey?

  It got, it got me, man. I know it got you. We saw you right after the screening.

• 50:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, it, it does. And like, obviously there's such a large part of that that has to do with childhood, but honestly, it's also something that's so earnest, you can like mess it up. Like watching him access this ancient power and his whole thing changed now that he's the champion. He has powers to go back out and stamp out all of these people that are trying to take over his kingdom, but it's not enough. It's not enough because he led a contemporary life where might doesn't make right. So he's got to do it a different way. They tried to do that in the movie. They got there enough for me, but once again, you guys hear from me all the time on here. I get if you didn't like it. It's not fucking.

• 51:36Amanda Dobbins?

  You gotta stop reading the Reddit page.

• 51:38Speaker 05

  No, I love them. No, fuck that. No.

• 51:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Just, you live in your truth, which is that this meant something to you and I haven't seen it and we're here together, sharing our feelings and they don't matter.

• 51:49Speaker 05

  I'm gonna cap for the Reddit page. I'm gonna cap for the Reddit page. You guys have the best Reddit page. Because at least in your, on your Reddit page. There is some discussion about movies. Like, if you go to the Higher Learning Reddit page, it's like, man, it's getting fat.

• 52:06Speaker 05

  Like, I'm a losing way, but like, at least on you guys' Reddit page, there's some discussion of the movies. Now, no Reddit page is like, without its toxicity, I get it. But what I'm saying is, I don't want people, I want people to understand wherever, even while I'm on the Midnight Boys, I want people to know that like, I go to these movies to enjoy them and celebrate the stuff. Sometimes the movies are so bad that you can't do that. But that's rare for me. And also, the higher you aim, the further you have to fall. So there are some films I go to that are supposed to be really important movies, and I'm like, you, that's just, it's a high degree of difficulty, like, I just don't get it, right?

• 52:46Speaker 05

  But if we kicking shit and flying, you should be able to make that be good. Um, with this movie, He-Man works. Adam doesn't work as well as He-Man does. Skeletor, unfortunately, guys, really works.

• 53:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Jared Leto's finest performance.

• 53:06Speaker 05

  Like, unfortunately, Skeletor really works.

• 53:10Sean Fennessey?

  It was The Little Things. Yeah. He played a serial killer who he was unable to capture. It was a very bad film. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance.

• 53:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, so that's why, when the people still thought he was kind of like a serious actor, that every performance had to be, uh, like, taken note.

• 53:24Sean Fennessey?

  Award worthy.

• 53:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, but in this, if Skeletor works, the movie will probably work. But I get why people didn't fuck with it. If the drama is not my favorite movie of the year, this is my favorite movie of the year. And there's a lot that's going on. I have been like evangelizing the movie. Like, retweeting stuff, go see He-Man. Nobody went, but.

• 53:45Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, yeah, it bricked incredibly hard.

• 53:47Speaker 05

  Oh, it's a brick.

• 53:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 53:48Speaker 05

  It's a brick. Number one, the reason why this movie bricked. To me is this is old. This is a movie that like.

• 53:55Sean Fennessey?

  This is for people in their 40s. That's what it is.

• 53:57Speaker 05

  Right. And it probably should have been made in like 2015 or 2010.

• 54:02Sean Fennessey?

  2012.

• 54:02Speaker 05

  2012, if they were gonna do it.

• 54:04Sean Fennessey?

  Early in the superhero, we're dredging up this old IP stuff.

• 54:08Speaker 05

  Right. So they should have been.

• 54:09Sean Fennessey?

  When we were in our 30s.

• 54:10Speaker 05

  When we were in our 30s, we could have been excited about it.

• 54:12Sean Fennessey?

  Our 20s.

• 54:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, maybe. But like now, these kids don't give a fuck anymore. Stay with us.

• 54:17Sean Fennessey?

  Watching the movie, I was like, yo, I'm 40 fucking 3. I'm 43.

• 54:21Speaker 05

  I'm looking at this shit. I'm like, yo, this shit was.

• 54:24Sean Fennessey?

  This is 40 years ago. I fell in love with this character.

• 54:27Speaker 05

  My mom goes to see the movie and my mom calls me. She's like, I know you saw He-Man. Remember? I know you love He-Man. You see He-Man? They did all the stuff he did. He had the sword. He did the whole thing. Remember that He-Man? I loved it. But my mom loved it because it reminded her of me watching it, you know? Um, so that plus the fact that it made me appreciate Barbie a little bit more. Obviously Barbie has this. Generational kind of hold over culture, but Barbie is a well-made.

• 55:00Sean Fennessey?

  It is totally a credit to Barbie, the movie, and how hard it is to do what credit did with that movie. Yes.

• 55:06Speaker 05

  And like a master filmmaker, taking that property and making it this treatise on like who you are, what you are, what it means to be that. And that was dope. He-Man did not do that.

• 55:18Sean Fennessey?

  But I said this on our episode, but I mean, the way that Barbie is very much about femininity and being a woman in contemporary times. This movie is trying to be the same thing for being a man. It's trying to explore masculinity, um, uh, toxic masculinity, uh, sort of like the role of uh, politests in culture and what is safe and what is not safe to say. And like, it, it's a cool idea and it never really works.

• 55:42Speaker 05

  Right. I will say, I could, there are. Parts in the movie, like there's one stretch in the film where Skeletor comes into He-Man's world. And it is kooky, kinda scary, hilarious, and incredibly effective. And you could see in places where the, you can see the seams of the movie a little bit. You can see a couple of the rewrites.

• 56:10Sean Fennessey?

  This could have been.

• 56:10Speaker 05

  What, what it could have been if the film would have let itself be that. Because like that part legitimately is the thing that made you go, oh my God.

• 56:18Sean Fennessey?

  I had the same feeling.

• 56:19Speaker 05

  Like we're, like, we're having fun, like this movie is actually fun and then it ends on a high and you're good. But I had a lot of fun in He-Man. We're doing this now. The fun is still around the corner, which is interesting. So why are we doing it now?

• 56:31Sean Fennessey?

  Just.

• 56:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Because, because this is in the, the scriptures of the big picture. It is written that at the end of June, really right around the July 4th holiday, the middle of the year, we do the first half. It's mathematical. Yeah.

• 56:47Speaker 05

  Oh, I see.

• 56:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it was, it's not because we're trying to get something in before The Odyssey or Spider-Man or anything like that. It's just, this is the midway point. We do it at the midway point. We'll do it again at the end of the year.

• 56:56Speaker 05

  Um, and by the way, not just, I should say, not just the drama was taken, like some other movies that I saw were taken as well.

• 57:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Go ahead, speak on it.

• 57:03Speaker 05

  They, Obsession.

• 57:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yep, that, I took that.

• 57:06Speaker 05

  So I don't like movies like that. I normally do not.

• 57:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Same.

• 57:12Speaker 05

  That was fucking brilliant, man.

• 57:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree. And that's why I picked it. And that's what I'm gonna, what I want to talk about is just like how it has.

• 57:20Sean Fennessey?

  Broken containment.

• 57:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 57:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, like.

• 57:22Amanda Dobbins?

  And like an opened a genre to people who are very hardcore, not a part of that genre.

• 57:28Speaker 05

  So the lady from the movie.

• 57:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Indian Aberdeen.

• 57:33Speaker 05

  It's from Superman and Lois.

• 57:34Sean Fennessey?

  She is.

• 57:35Speaker 05

  She, and so I see her and I'm like, I watched her, I watched religiously Superman and Lois is actually a. Really underrated Superman stories like actually does a lot of cool things. Superman and Lois moved back to Smallville and they're raising kids. It's really interesting the way they go about it. But you know, see her in it, she's blowing up. She's amazing in the movie. And by the way, I didn't know that the movie had a supernatural uh uh pull to it before I saw it. I didn't know that there was actually a whole wishing thing. Kind of reminds you of um, what was the Stephen King joint where the guy, a thinner?

• 58:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 58:07Speaker 05

  Where he, where he.

• 58:08Sean Fennessey?

  Also a monkey's paw tail, yeah.

• 58:10Speaker 05

  Right, so like the.

• 58:11Sean Fennessey?

  Man wishes, or who is cursed with thinness.

• 58:14Speaker 05

  Cursed with thinness. Um, and at first it's like, oh my God, I'm losing weight. And then after a while, I'm losing weight. But like, I thought that movie was phenomenal. Totally perfect, moves at an incredible speed. And like for, I don't know as much about the director as everyone else, but like awesome Jordan Peele type like level. When, I'm babbling, but when I first saw Get Out, everyone talked about the script and the script was phenomenal. I was like, as a director though, did you see how amazing he could craft tension? And Obsession does the same thing.

• 58:47Sean Fennessey?

  I feel very similarly about um, well, we'll talk about it when we talk about Obsession, but we're going to jump off of that point because we're going to talk about Obsession next. Dan, thank you.

• 58:55Speaker 05

  No problem.

• 58:56Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you for repping for He-Man.

• 58:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, we got the power and we got a sequel. We're not over yet. He-Man, She-Ra, Orko, Eternia, we all coming back bitch. They got, every time you order, every time you order something from Amazon Prime, you making the next He-Man movie. We not stopping.

• 59:14Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you, man.

• 59:21Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, the Mean Pod author, Adam Nayman is here. Uh, the author of a forthcoming new book. Adam, before we hear about your favorite film of 2026 so far, you want to, you want to plug the news?

• 59:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a book about cinematic history and relationships of fathers and daughters. The, the title, which I've read, is not going to be great for SEO because it is a misspelling. It's fine, it's dead. Do-ter, yes, SEO is dead, you know, do-ter theory. I figure a book about fathers and daughters in film should be titled with a dad joke. Who knows if the book will, you know, end up with that title? Who knows all the movies that will be in it because they will keep making movies for the next year or so. But certainly, you know, movies like After. Or Trap or Tony Erdman or even One Battle After Another, you know, these are relevant contemporary films on this on this title. And I'm really trying to deal satirically and a little critically with that idea of the girl dad,

• 1:00:16Speaker 05

  mostly because I hate how easy it is to perform that. And I try, as a father of daughters, I hate the as a father of daughters thing, because I recognize where it comes from. So this will be, uh, this will be a fun book starring, you know, a long history of movie, movie, movie girl dads, some of whom are sociopaths.

• 1:00:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:36Speaker 05

  A lot of whom are sociopaths, in fact.

• 1:00:39Sean Fennessey?

  It's true. Congratulations to you on the news and I'm excited about the sequel. Boy Mom.

• 1:00:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Boy Mom.

• 1:00:44Sean Fennessey?

  You'll be working on.

• 1:00:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:00:47Sean Fennessey?

  How's that going?

• 1:00:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I would say there are three movies in the in the canon. Let's see, we've got Dune.

• 1:00:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:00:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Dune Part Two. Anyone?

• 1:00:55Speaker 05

  Psycho.

• 1:00:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Psycho, sure. Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:58Sean Fennessey?

  Big?

• 1:01:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Is he, he has a mom?

• 1:01:01Sean Fennessey?

  He's got.

• 1:01:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I'm sure he has a mom, sure.

• 1:01:03Sean Fennessey?

  Certainly does have a mother.

• 1:01:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't really remember her.

• 1:01:05Sean Fennessey?

  He has two mommies when you consider Elizabeth Perkins.

• 1:01:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, exactly. Uh, well, you know, it's exciting for all of us.

• 1:01:11Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, okay, Adam, let's, let's talk about your, your favorite film of the year. This for a film we have not yet discussed on the show. Um, but we will, the, the guest of this episode will actually be talking about their film as well. So what did you choose?

• 1:01:25Speaker 05

  Yes, it's a three hour Latvian film shot from the point of view of a pigeon with rabies. No, you know, it's a, it's a Maddie's Maddie's Secret by John Early, which I think is the film, it's the film I wanted to talk about the most and not because it was leftover. You know, I'm low on the pecking order. So the email and they're like, well, these seven films are being discussed already. And that's fine. That's my number one. Yeah, it's okay. You know, I think I'm, I'm seventh chair. You know, there's the third chair debate.

• 1:01:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:01:52Speaker 05

  With the great American playwright Tracy Letts, a great playwright. And the great American non playwright Chris Ryan, you know. I'm just, I'm resigned to like seventh, seventh chair, but this would have been my first pick. Well, which is John Early's Matty's Secret.

• 1:02:07Sean Fennessey?

  So what, what is it? Why did you choose it? Why, why did this movie move you?

• 1:02:11Speaker 05

  Cause it's very funny. And you know, noted, noted for, noted for my own, you know, you know, sense of humor. No, it's a beautiful film and it's a movie that's created some interesting discourse recently. I say this respectfully around the idea, whether it's a parody, right? Because I think parody and satire and pastiche are often interchangeable. Which is, you know, a function of discourse and camp is a, camp is a hard thing to talk about, you know? Can camp be intentional? Is there such a thing as intentional camp? Does camp kind of have to be hapless or helpless? And John is such a smart filmmaker. I mean, I don't know if people, I'm sure people on the pod are familiar with John Early's work. He's in that Taylor Swift video. You know, I think that's the thing he was seen for the most.

• 1:02:53Speaker 05

  But, um, you know, a stalwart sketch comedian with his comedy life partner, Kate Berland, really good actor. He's on Search Party. And as it turns out, a pretty brilliant filmmaker. This is the only movie I've ever seen to crossbreed Todd Haynes and David Wayne. Uh, together. I think it was for Ringer. I said something last fall at TIFF like wet, hot May, December, which I think is like the most succinct way of describing what he's doing here. Good. But it's a, but it's a movie that spiritually resides kind of in like the after school specials or not even after school specials, but like lifetime movies or TV movies of the eighties. There's a very particular film, which I still haven't seen called Kate's Secret, which is a kind of, you know, diary of a bulimic housewife or an anorexic housewife film.

• 1:03:37Speaker 05

  And the real balancing act to this movie, which while it's funny, I find quite serious, Matty's Secret is. How do you conjure up that kind of movie? A kind of like social problem movie or that sort of, you know, psychological problem movie. Talk about how it tends to sensationalize and flatten these issues. Show that you kind of love that sort of movie and that for John early at least, it's quite formative. And sort of just make it like, make it pretty straight ahead while kind of making fun of it at the same time. That's very tricky. And on top of that, John plays the lead part in a drag performance, which he says is inspired by actors like Divine, who,

• 1:04:18Speaker 05

  you know, acted for John Waters. I think that, you know, John Waters is part of this movie's DNA, certainly because John Early has said it so many times. A movie like Showgirls is part of this movie's DNA. So I'm just automatically inclined to be like, oh, this movie is inspired by Showgirls and Paul Verhoeven, you know, it's obviously good. But it's one thing to be inspired by those people or put filmmakers like that in their letterbox for, you know, lots of Verhoeven showing up in people's letterbox for these days. But like to understand what they do is harder. And I think that this movie on top of being funny and silly and having a like who's who of alt comedy people in it. Connor O'Malley is in this movie for like about five minutes and every fucking syllable is gold. I mean, he's so funny.

• 1:04:57Sean Fennessey?

  He retains funniest man on earth title through this film.

• 1:05:00Speaker 05

  Funniest man on earth, I believe at one point he's, he's playing the like, um, not the CEO, but like he's in charge at this food influencer comedy. And I remember at TIFF, the scene where he just looks at me and goes, let's make some content. I'm like, this is screen grab. Gold, you know, when this movie becomes pirated as a screen.

• 1:05:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, let's make some content, you know, but, um, the idea of this, this would be foodie. She's working in the trenches, kind of as a dishwasher at this social media food influencer company. And overnight she kind of becomes Maddie, becomes this great chef because she's really talented. And he has an ear for dialogue in this movie where they're not jokes, but everything is funny. Like at one point Maddie says to her husband, like, uh, I was just trying to make my husband dinner and now I'm in post-production, you know, because her stuff's being uploaded to, to Instagram. And, um, you know, I, I, I don't know what you guys thought of it. I think you both liked it, but the trick. That he pulls here of making something that is sincere and in quotes in the same time,

• 1:06:01Speaker 05

  starting with his performance and extending to almost every element of the way the movie looks, how music is used, how references are deployed. I adore it. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of year left, but this will end up on the year end list for me. I just, I think it's wonderful.

• 1:06:19Sean Fennessey?

  I liked it too. I think it's going to be a little bit of a what's it for your common moviegoer because it is such a blend of so many different things that John obviously has a lot of adoration for, but I think it plays pretty well as a pure social media, food company satire. I think that that stuff, which is played very broadly, but very funny, is effective, but it is really much more of an emotional crisis character piece, you know, and maybe in a way that you won't see coming about halfway through the movie.

• 1:06:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, which is played, if not for laughs, but at least in a knowing way, which to Adam's point, is both parody, but also very emotionally affecting. I thought this was a movie that understands the world of women very well and also understands watching it and knowing that everything is absurd and you would rather not be a part of all of it and you get slurped into it at the exact same time and you can't escape. So, you know, incredibly well observed. I am also a huge John Early fan, very funny, but I loved it. And I do think it is very specific, you know, it has the content jokes and the CEO jokes

• 1:07:36Amanda Dobbins?

  and the, and it is also about eating disorders and there's a wonderful girl interrupted send up in the middle of it. So, you know, it has references that you might not understand on like a very specific level, but I think it plays.

• 1:07:57Sean Fennessey?

  Pretty smoothly. Yeah. You know, it's not impenetrable. No, I agree. And I, I think all those different sources that you're talking about, Adam, he treats all of them fairly and with respect. Like, he treats Kate's secret, which I have seen, starring Meredith Baxter.

• 1:08:12Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:08:13Sean Fennessey?

  With a lot of respect. He's, he's actually not, the only thing he's parodying is the culture around some of those things. But the actual films, he's paying as much homage to Douglas Sirk as he is to the Lifetime movie and not saying like, this is something stupid you should make fun of, which is a really difficult balancing act, I think. And he, he pulls it off.

• 1:08:31Speaker 06

  Well, and like, you know, I bowed to nobody in my love for David Wayne, for instance, who I think has a similar satirical project sometime in a movie, in a movie like They Came Together, where the, which is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, where the link between, you know, contempt and affection and knowledge and engagement is very thin. But the difference is, and this isn't a knock on David Wayne, like, his movies are not what you would call visually beautiful. You know, a movie like Role Models or Wanderlust kind of looks like a glossy mainstream comedy. And Wet Hot looks cheap because it was. Matty's Secret is beautiful. Like, color-coded cinematography. You mentioned Douglas Sirk. I mean, that's not just a throwaway. I mean, Douglas Sirk, Todd Haynes, you know, Al, Al Motivar, even Verhoeven, these are like incredibly technically proficient filmmakers.

• 1:09:16Speaker 06

  And the fact that it's that good-looking and expressive visually on a basically homemade movie budget, or what I understand, and the fact that there was so little oversight on the movie, as I imagine how they got away with this, Amanda was saying, such a specific tone. Like, this is not a movie where you get notes, you know? Like, there's no, there's no notes on Matty's Secret. Like, you're either in on making this movie, you know, or you're, or you're not. And I will say, I mean, Kate, Kate Berland, who's, you know, worked with him a lot, and she's another stuff, too. I loved her for like about two seconds in the moment this year. I got so excited when Kate Berland showed up in that film. In this movie, I just find the act of her like walking into rooms and sitting down and just like being on screen helplessly funny. Think like every, I think, like every time she breathes in this movie, it's funny.

• 1:10:01Speaker 06

  And it's not a lead performance, but she's kind of on screen the second most, I think. And.

• 1:10:07Speaker 07

  She's demented and great.

• 1:10:08Amanda Dobbins?

  She's the best friend. She also, and which leads to the best friend dancing sequences, which are just absolutely essential.

• 1:10:15Sean Fennessey?

  Forgot about that.

• 1:10:15Amanda Dobbins?

  They're just sublime.

• 1:10:17Sean Fennessey?

  I also really loved Claudio Dardi, who I hadn't seen in something in a really long time, but she plays sort of the rival influencer. But she was on that Netflix series, Love. And was so, so funny on that show and playing basically the exact opposite character. She was the warmest, sunniest, funniest person on that show. And she is quite, quite demonic. And an interesting representation of a certain kind of person who is rising to power in the media right now. Well, Adam, that's a, this is a great recommendation, man.

• 1:10:46Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, no, and I'm not the only one. It's been very well, it's been very, been, been very well reviewed. And I, I'm interested to see how it, how it does.

• 1:10:56Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks for joining us and, and thanks for caring for your millions and millions of daughters. We appreciate you, Adam.

• 1:11:03Speaker 07

  Yeah, they, they asked, they're like, my older one is like, am I going to be in the book? And I'm like, do I have permission? Sort of, you know, she thinks that this is going to be an excuse, Leah, to watch other movies she's not allowed to watch. Because part of what I want to write about is this idea that screen time isn't something that I want to keep separate. Like when you watch movies for a living, you guys both know about this, you know, Sean, how much of your life have you sent just, you know, sitting and staring in front of a screen in a basement? I want to pass that on or else what was the point?

• 1:11:31Sean Fennessey?

  Well, yeah.

• 1:11:32Speaker 07

  So she's excited now because she's, she's excited now. She's like, you know, we're going to get to watch stuff to, to together. And yet they're not father, daughter film. She asked if this meant we could watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And I, I said, I said, no. Nine and a half.

• 1:11:47Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, getting close.

• 1:11:48Speaker 07

  And she absorbs.

• 1:11:49Sean Fennessey?

  Getting close.

• 1:11:50Speaker 07

  Right, isn't, what do we think? Is 11 just the kind of like fuck? 11 is just the fuck it zone?

• 1:11:55Sean Fennessey?

  Because she's going to find a way to see it without your, your consent by 11. I mean, that's what I was doing when I was 10, 11, was just seeing things and not asking my parents if I could.

• 1:12:02Speaker 07

  Yeah. In fact, with access to things like a Plex and very.

• 1:12:06Speaker 06

  Streaming things. It is only scrupulous honesty that has kept her from doing this. Already. I live in both fear and hope of the moment where she's like, guess what I watched? Because that's what I was doing when I was, when I was 10 with the, with the, with the, with the, with the VHS shelf. But you know, you know, that, that, that, that hasn't happened yet. I can't wait.

• 1:12:25Sean Fennessey?

  I have a prediction.

• 1:12:26Speaker 06

  Horrible thing it's gonna be.

• 1:12:28Sean Fennessey?

  This book is gonna make Adam even more lovable. It's really, it's gonna make him one of the most beloved figures in the film, film watching community.

• 1:12:36Speaker 06

  As long as the like, small percentage of the big picture listeners who just for some reason seem to hate my guts, you know, uh, don't, don't, you know, don't, don't like it, then I'll be happy.

• 1:12:46Sean Fennessey?

  Welcome to the club.

• 1:12:47Speaker 06

  You should never make.

• 1:12:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm gonna hand deliver copies to their home, Adam. Don't worry.

• 1:12:53Speaker 06

  You should never make, never, never make all the people happy all, uh, all, all the time. But you know, I love, uh, I, I love big picture listeners very much, except for the ones who just seem, you know, hopeless.

• 1:13:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yep. Spoken like a true Verhoeven. Thank you, Adam Nayman.

• 1:13:06Speaker 06

  Thank you guys. See you later.

• 1:13:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yasi Salek is here. Hi.

• 1:13:14Speaker 05

  Hi.

• 1:13:14Sean Fennessey?

  How are you doing?

• 1:13:15Speaker 05

  Oh, Luteal as hell and ready to party. How are you guys?

• 1:13:19Sean Fennessey?

  Just dandy. Knicks in five.

• 1:13:21Speaker 05

  Yes, I heard about that.

• 1:13:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you watch any of it?

• 1:13:25Speaker 05

  Nope.

• 1:13:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:13:26Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, we don't have to speak about that here. We can speak about other things.

• 1:13:28Speaker 05

  Maybe that was the good luck charm is that I didn't watch it.

• 1:13:32Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I don't think that's how that works, but I, I appreciate your care and attention to the New York Knicks. Um, I'm, I'm very pleased with the film that you've chosen.

• 1:13:41Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:13:41Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, and I'm, I'm looking forward to discussing it with you because it was, it was slandered as trauma core by our, our co-host here and, uh,

• 1:13:49Speaker 05

  Artist objection.

• 1:13:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't, first of all, I never used the T word ever, as you know. No, I didn't say it. I said that I. Whatever. This is Yasi's time, and then we can discuss.

• 1:13:59Sean Fennessey?

  It is. Yasi, what film did you choose?

• 1:14:00Speaker 05

  Are we able to pull back the curtain on how the sausage is made here?

• 1:14:04Sean Fennessey?

  You would be the fourth consecutive guest today.

• 1:14:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, this is really, this is an airing of-

• 1:14:08Speaker 05

  Some of us were in a four-hour-long podcast recording when this question was asked.

• 1:14:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:14:13Speaker 05

  And I'm not saying that I don't deeply love and respect Backrooms, because I actually really do, but my first choice was a drama. But that's so fine.

• 1:14:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it was everybody's first choice.

• 1:14:21Speaker 05

  I know.

• 1:14:22Amanda Dobbins?

  And once again, Rob Mahoney fucks everyone over.

• 1:14:24Speaker 05

  Absolute villain, honestly.

• 1:14:25Sean Fennessey?

  Definitely not my first choice.

• 1:14:26Speaker 05

  I don't know. What a dichotomy in that person of like, the nicest, kindest-

• 1:14:30Sean Fennessey?

  RM?

• 1:14:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, man who's actually so sinister and deviant.

• 1:14:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Goes for the jugular always.

• 1:14:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. It's honestly a great rep for him.

• 1:14:38Speaker 05

  And also, I had a secret second choice, but you were so unkind about people who loved the movie on the Big Picture Podcast, that I was like, oh, we shouldn't talk about that.

• 1:14:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Now I'm trying to think of-

• 1:14:51Sean Fennessey?

  Super Mario Galaxy movie?

• 1:14:52Speaker 05

  It's the Sheep Detectives, which I loved with my whole heart, and that's okay.

• 1:14:56Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think we were unkind. I think we were just not enthusiastic.

• 1:14:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I did, to hold myself accountable, I did say that people are losing the plot a little about that movie. I think that was the direct quote, because it was made into a meme, and I'm sorry.

• 1:15:08Speaker 05

  It's okay. I love Sheep and Detectives.

• 1:15:10Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:15:11Speaker 05

  And feel-good movies.

• 1:15:12Sean Fennessey?

  You could have chosen it.

• 1:15:13Amanda Dobbins?

  What is your relationship to Sheep?

• 1:15:15Speaker 05

  Um, that sounds like, like, not-

• 1:15:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, right, this is kind of why, um, you know?

• 1:15:20Speaker 05

  I'm imagining a No Effects album cover. Real heads will know.

• 1:15:25Speaker 05

  Listen, I love when an animal talks and there's- I love when I'm reminded of the beauty of humanity, but I'm also, segue, I also love when I am reminded of the absolute hellscape that we live in, in modern times, which I feel Backrooms did a great job of capturing, even though it's set in the past.

• 1:15:46Sean Fennessey?

  You are the first person I know who saw the film. You went to the premiere, and you rubbed it in my face. You said, "I'm going."

• 1:15:53Speaker 05

  I did not rub it in your face. You said, "I'm so sad."

• 1:15:57Sean Fennessey?

  I wasn't invited, but it would have been nice to see it with you, because I had a great deal of enthusiasm for the movie, and you loved it. That night, I think, even, you were like, "OMG, I love this movie."

• 1:16:06Speaker 05

  I feel really lucky. Well, of course, I was invited. Thank you so much, A24. But I really love to see films with no-

• 1:16:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Chatter, like with no, nothing guiding my perception before I go in. And I, I did kind of, to be honest, go in being like, this, I don't care about this. Like, I'm going because I was invited and my friend was invited and we're like, we'll make a fun night of it. Did you go to R and D Kitchen? We went to, um, what is the Houston's West called? R and D Kitchen. No, no, no, the other one. Oh, Hillstone, sure. R and D doesn't take reservations and I'm not a waiter. Okay. Either way, I don't, I'm not a waiter and I also do not like to wait.

• 1:16:40Sean Fennessey?

  Let's just put some context around this. The Arrow Theater in Santa Monica, Los Angeles is where the premiere took place.

• 1:16:46Amanda Dobbins?

  We're the Angelinas from the S and L.

• 1:16:47Sean Fennessey?

  Across the street is R and D Kitchen.

• 1:16:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is an outpost of the Hillstone Restaurant Group. It's, the R and D Kitchen is mostly focused on sandwiches and, uh, and drinks. It's more chic for sure and it's closer to the Arrow, but I need to have. It's walkable. I need to have a reservation. We walked from. From Hillstone. I like to get my steps in.

• 1:17:05Sean Fennessey?

  Good.

• 1:17:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, but anyways, all that to say.

• 1:17:08Sean Fennessey?

  It's all been very valuable.

• 1:17:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I went in with no preconceived notions and to be honest, kind of like a, maybe a, I don't. And you, you guys know, or maybe the listeners don't, I'm not a huge horror movie person. Um, but I walked out being like, this was fantastic.

• 1:17:27Sean Fennessey?

  So what is, what specifically connected with you about it?

• 1:17:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I love, I felt like it was like a Rorschach test. I love when a film is kind of that, you know, where it presents you with almost like the thinnest of plot and concept, but through that you're able to like have your thoughts provoked kind of endlessly. My kink is having my thoughts provoked.

• 1:17:53Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 1:17:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 1:17:54Sean Fennessey?

  I do, yes.

• 1:17:55Amanda Dobbins?

  And I like, I love psychology. I'm a psychology nerd and yes, might one say some of the psychological metaphor was lightly heavy-handed. Sure, but okay, here's the thing. Kane Parsons 20, right? Back rooms, we all know because we've talked about on this show, but comes from a 4chan meme.

• 1:18:13Speaker 05

  I think I'm so interested in how we're increasingly post-language in the world, and especially with young people. Like memes are borderline post-language. The way Jen Alpha uses words like niche and aesthetic, it's post-language, you know? And I felt this film was in many ways like the first piece of art I've seen that captures that post-language kind of landscape.

• 1:18:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think when you are raised in a screen-centric environment, what dominates is images. That's the thing that you are consuming and kind of defining yourself through as opposed to experiences or conversation. And so I think that's a reasonable leap to make, generationally, that that's how younger people than us are thinking about how to make art.

• 1:19:00Speaker 05

  It's just we're hurtling towards that.

• 1:19:02Sean Fennessey?

  That's a very positive, I think, thoughtful but very positive read on it. And I think that there, you know, the criticisms that we had for the movie, which I would really like to see again, were that every time it tried to be more of a traditional film, it kind of got a little bit lost and was, I thought, making kind of obvious and kind of dull choices. But when it was following that path that Yasi was talking about.

• 1:19:28Amanda Dobbins?

  To Yasi's point, the more it relied on like actual words and the more it was trying to explain what was happening, instead of creating the vibe and the emotions through the visuals, the production design, and the performances. Like, you know, I thought Chutele Edgifor and Renata Reinswe were good and did a lot with, you know, not that much material. And I agree with you that the less you know about something, the better. And this did as kind of a standalone experience, work, and enjoyable ways. My problem was when I went back and watched the YouTube stuff. And the more lore and the more it become weighted down.

• 1:20:08Speaker 05

  I didn't do that on purpose.

• 1:20:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, the less I understood it because I am old and I still use language. But I don't even, it's like, I feel sometimes the way, and it's film to film, but I feel the way sometimes about films that I do about music and songs, which is like...

• 1:20:26Speaker 05

  I don't really care what the filmmaker's intention was that it was about. I care what I thought it was about. Like, I don't care what Stephen Malkmus wrote Summer Babe about. That's about me and my high school boyfriend. Do you know what I mean? And I thought backrooms really provided that for me. And I was able to like, kind of have this like, journey of the psyche around it. And also, it just like, it captured a thing for me that I think about a lot in, like I said, post-language, extremely online world, which is that like, everything is sort of this like, existential crisis all the time. And everything does feel like a liminal space. I feel like I'm constantly in a liminal space. I've been trying to brick my phone.

• 1:21:11Speaker 05

  You guys brick your phones?

• 1:21:12Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:21:12Speaker 05

  Up on the bricking?

• 1:21:13Amanda Dobbins?

  But I know what it is.

• 1:21:14Sean Fennessey?

  I'm familiar with it, yeah. It's not something I do, yeah.

• 1:21:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, you don't need to. You're not mentally ill like myself, who needs a physical device.

• 1:21:20Sean Fennessey?

  I think I'm probably pretty mentally ill, yeah.

• 1:21:21Speaker 05

  To put myself in a straitjacket to not go on to social media.

• 1:21:24Sean Fennessey?

  It's kind of a defining characteristic of anybody who comes on this show. You're kind of mentally ill, yeah.

• 1:21:29Speaker 05

  But I've been doing it, and like, after like, two or three days, I was like, okay, so, it's interesting because that's the real world. This world I live in is fake. And that's really how I was feeling. I was like, my day-to-day lived life is not a real space. It's a liminal space, and that's the real world. And I was like, oh no, what happened? Like, how did I flip like this? But I think a lot of people feel that way.

• 1:21:54Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's funny to frame it this way too, as a first-time viewer of this kind of story, because a lot of what you hear, I've heard this from a lot of friends who are parents of, you know, older kids than our kids, is that the conversations that are happening after the movie amongst teenagers are based in a lot of what you looked at afterwards. Where there's sort of like, that lore, which is so exciting and intoxicating when you're a pre-teen or a teenager, that that contributed, amplified the movie-going experience. But as a bunch of old people, we look at this as this like, fresh, raw, new thing. We're not as entrenched in that lore. And we can understand it in the same way that, you know, I think the Lynchian comparisons are totally apt, you know?

• 1:22:36Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's unreasonable to compare a 20-year-old's movie to Eraserhead, but David Lynch was 20 when he started working on Eraserhead, you know?

• 1:22:43Speaker 05

  Also, many people are like, what was that man on about? And then started to like, have conjecture about what he was on about. And it probably has little to do with what he was on about. And that's why-

• 1:22:52Amanda Dobbins?

  It's awesome.

• 1:22:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:22:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And I do, I think we've criticized it for the like, that the quote unquote moviness of it like doesn't work in a traditional script or arc sense. But I think what you just said identifies that it does actually work in a movie on its own. Because as a standalone product, a bunch of old people who don't understand backrooms or lore were pretty impacted by it. And then the young people seem to just be like, be really into, you know, whatever's hidden in there.

• 1:23:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:21Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and, and so that it can operate both ways is an achievement.

• 1:23:25Speaker 05

  They could have dialed back. I agree with you though. I was listening again to your guys' episode about it. And I do think they could have dialed it back a little because what you said about like breaking the form is really interesting to me. And I think, I don't know, because I'm doing conjecture, but I think if Kane Parsons had his way, probably wouldn't have included.

• 1:23:41Sean Fennessey?

  There's been some suggesting that that's true.

• 1:23:43Speaker 05

  Like the parts that were a bit hamfisted, like I think there's a, there's a scene where T'Challa, Egev'war's character says like, out loud what the, how the backrooms are, his mind or whatever or something.

• 1:23:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:23:54Speaker 05

  And then like, but I, but I just like, I'm such a nerd. I'm like, I love that the, his shadow was a monster. You know, like, and I know that that's like quite obvious, but maybe it's not if you're 20, you know, like, I've had 13 years of Jungian therapy. Like for me, it was titillating, but I think it's an interesting thing to put in. And I love that 20 year olds love this. That makes me hopeful and happier or 15 year olds.

• 1:24:16Sean Fennessey?

  Could not agree more. I think the lack of self-consciousness in so much of the filmmaking is part of what makes it really special. Where it's like, it's very, comes from a very raw and primal place that is informed by a lot of other stuff that came before it. Obviously Kane is consuming a lot of stuff and kind of iterating on that, which is what a lot of great young filmmakers do. Where they take their favorite stuff, they kind of smash it all together and make their thing.

• 1:24:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, that's just the history of film and also all art at some point. Yeah.

• 1:24:38Speaker 05

  But memes are art. Like I would dial on that. And like memes are absolutely art. Memes are a reflection of a societal. Illness or happiness, whatever. I ain't reading all that, but-

• 1:24:50Sean Fennessey?

  No, they're joy making them too, for sure.

• 1:24:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, of course. They're both. They're capturing, and I think I heard you ask this question of maybe Amanda, about like, what do you, how do you feel that these are all horror movies? And I was saying to a friend, I was like, I kind of feel like it's a bit of a, like, red flag moment for society that horror movies are so popular because we're all living in horror all the time. So of course capturing it is what's going to be the most reflective of what we're experiencing right now.

• 1:25:17Sean Fennessey?

  I know. I have a slightly like inverted perspective on that, though, which is that I think that so people are so inured to a lot of like bad news in the real world that they almost have to go to have a sensory experience on a big screen and quiet to be confronted with something that makes them uncomfortable, as opposed to scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Oh, Iran. Oh, this terrible shooting. Oh, you know.

• 1:25:38Speaker 05

  Outside horror. I'm talking about like the horror of being alive. The existential, the existential of trying to navigate a world in which we're so isolated from each other. We lack community.

• 1:25:49Sean Fennessey?

  Nixon 5, we're okay over here.

• 1:25:50Speaker 05

  Okay, Nixon, I did see-

• 1:25:51Sean Fennessey?

  Finally, we're free.

• 1:25:52Speaker 05

  A big uprush of community around that. We saw some people-

• 1:25:55Sean Fennessey?

  People came together.

• 1:25:57Speaker 05

  People who weren't there, is all I'm saying, who are not from there.

• 1:26:00Sean Fennessey?

  What do you mean, the bandwagon?

• 1:26:01Amanda Dobbins?

  You're mad at the LA bandwagon?

• 1:26:02Speaker 05

  No, I think LA and New York are, were in it together.

• 1:26:06Sean Fennessey?

  Were there a lot of LA people jumping on the New York bandwagon? That's not very forgivable, I don't think. I don't think you can jump on there.

• 1:26:10Speaker 05

  I didn't pay too close of attention.

• 1:26:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. You're LA forever.

• 1:26:14Speaker 05

  I'm from here. I think you should probably be honest about who you are.

• 1:26:18Sean Fennessey?

  But you also don't watch basketball.

• 1:26:19Speaker 05

  I used to watch the Lakers quite heavily, like, for like six full years. Like, that was my, like, Metta World Peace. That's my guy. So I know a bit about basketball. I just, you have to choose at some points what you do with your wild and freshest free time, and I have to make 600-page Google Docs, so.

• 1:26:35Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. We should talk about Metta World Peace off-air, because I have some, I have some stories. Any closing thoughts on Backrooms? It's a great choice.

• 1:26:41Speaker 05

  Good pick. I really liked it. I think, I like, I mean, again, like, did I think The Sheep Detectives was maybe a more perfectly executed film? But I, that's not really what I'm looking for when I go to the movies. I loved that. But I, what I'm looking for when I go to the movies is to walk out and think about it for weeks. And the sound design was out of this world. Like, I don't usually notice that kind of stuff, but I walked out being like, the sound design, and then when they hit you with the fucking Boards of Canada at the end, I was like, I miss everything. Good job, Kate Parsons.

• 1:27:12Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks, Yasi.

• 1:27:13Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:27:19Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Rob Mahoney, the villain of this episode, has arrived. I don't know where this came from. Little did you know, your name has been uttered many, many a time thus far. Okay. Because you swooped in, and as is your custom, not just from Amanda, but from, I would say, at least three other people.

• 1:27:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, you have been cited every time. We've gotten a lot of feedback on the process by which the movies are selected.

• 1:27:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, what are the notes?

• 1:27:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, everyone is mad at Sean because they didn't get to pick before you.

• 1:27:50Sean Fennessey?

  I was like the third person to respond.

• 1:27:52Amanda Dobbins?

  That is true.

• 1:27:53Sean Fennessey?

  So I don't really see how this is my fault. I don't think it is either, and I think our system is profound.

• 1:27:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I also would just like to say that on this particular episode, I was letting the guest choose first.

• 1:28:03Sean Fennessey?

  You did. Very gracious.

• 1:28:04Amanda Dobbins?

  So you are welcome.

• 1:28:05Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you.

• 1:28:05Amanda Dobbins?

  But this would have been my pick as well, so I rubber stamp your selection. What is it?

• 1:28:11Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, my pick is the drama. The movie I would say I have by far thought about the most, had the most conversations about of anything that I've seen this year. It's just one of those moments where, for weeks after its release, everyone I knew, even if they had seen the movie or not, wanted to have the intellectual exercise about it. So who am I to turn my nose up at something that prevalent, that profound, and just honestly that hilarious to watch? Let's have the exercise, very briefly. Okay.

• 1:28:38Sean Fennessey?

  What did this movie make you think and feel?

• 1:28:42Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, "We Are Broken as a Country"? A very American movie.

• 1:28:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:46Sean Fennessey?

  But also- Not made by an American, notably. I mean, quite perceptively. Made by a man who maybe does not have the fondest view of American culture.

• 1:28:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And does have the line, "Isn't this an American thing?" at some point, said by its non-American star, Robert Pattinson.

• 1:28:58Sean Fennessey?

  It's very fairly gestured. But also just like the question of what are we willing to forgive, specifically in our partners or prospective partners? I think everyone's line varies.

• 1:29:07Speaker 04

  Thinking, thought crime is a particularly fertile area for this one. And I have to say, I'm probably more forgiving of thought crime than most, but I have never been in this exact situation before yet.

• 1:29:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the movie that's seen from one angle is obviously a really absurd satire. Seen from another angle, kind of an interesting, realistic portrayal of the way that terrible people communicate with one another or don't, and the way that like, people who feel like they can't be themselves because of some of the ideas that they've had, closed down, and then other people who feel very comfortable with their awfulness, kind of enact it on a daily basis. I don't know that, I'm not sure if this movie got me thinking that much. I think it kind of like, it landed pretty cleanly for me and I quite like the movie.

• 1:29:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:29:53Sean Fennessey?

  And I do know why there's a robust debate about it, but I'm not sure if I was kind of pulling anything apart of my head. Did you, what, how did you think about it?

• 1:30:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I felt the same way. I, and I think the movie does the deft thing, and it is because of the choice it makes to make the Zendaya character have this confession. She's, she did not go through with the school shooting, but she says, school shooters. She says, I planned a school shooting, which as an American is, you know, the third, fourth, eighth, like the worst rail.

• 1:30:25Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's a smart choice because you instinctively, as an American viewer, and probably as any human being, but I can only speak as American viewer, like tense up and are horrified and don't know what to do and don't know how to react to it. And so then, how everyone else reacts to it is plausible, and you thus spend the rest of the film figuring, arguing with what everyone else is doing, as well as what she's doing, and arguing with, and through that, and through watching the movie, kind of getting to a place where maybe you know what, or I don't know what you would do, because again, there is this fantastical quality to it.

• 1:31:07Amanda Dobbins?

  The other thing I like about this movie is that it is, in addition to that thought exercise, it's just a great movie about the total terror and impossibility of commitment, and the unknowability of the other person. And it's, it's a wonderful movie about how terrible weddings are, just like, just the pits, incredibly well observed about the wedding industry, but-

• 1:31:29Speaker 04

  The wedding photographer dialogue alone is just straight out of the most heinous documentary.

• 1:31:33Speaker 05

  Ever made, just truly horrifying stuff.

• 1:31:36Amanda Dobbins?

  The choreographer and then who it's just.

• 1:31:39Sean Fennessey?

  Was a heroin addict?

• 1:31:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, no, that's the DJ.

• 1:31:41Sean Fennessey?

  The DJ, yeah.

• 1:31:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, you know, but like never forget, but so, but, but those are twinned, right? That these people are set up to, to do this thing that is being portrayed in just like an absolutely nightmarish light. And they're also facing their worst fears about the other person and the realization that you like, you kind of can't, um, you can't know and you can't totally know what to do.

• 1:32:07Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:32:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, and which is why I think the ending lands as perfectly as it does. Like this to me is a romantic comedy, straight up.

• 1:32:13Speaker 05

  I agree with you and it's like, it's, it's kind of beautiful in the end. There, there is something in, in the construction they have made for their meet cute and then their reunion at the end of the diner, just something kind of undeniable about that display of, I don't know, forgiveness is the right word, but the grace of like, let's start, let's start over in a way.

• 1:32:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but you could also read it as two terrible people making peace with their fucked up fate.

• 1:32:38Sean Fennessey?

  They deserve each other.

• 1:32:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, like, well, we screwed this up and it's nice that it can be read both ways.

• 1:32:43Speaker 05

  I think that's the difference for me between this and, you know, we were just talking about Blue Valentine for unrelated reasons. Blue Valentine's a movie where like, I do not want these people to reconcile. They're so clearly toxic for each other. I kind of wanted these two to reconcile. Like, I kind of wanted them to find their way back, even if they are messed up, even if they are at odds, even if everyone around them is so convinced that what they have is broken or flawed, or Zendaya's character in particular is, I kind of just wanted to see it work and that's, I mean, that's a magic act within this movie.

• 1:33:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there's a, I think the primary tension of the movie is Pattinson's character trying to reconcile what he thinks he's supposed to be feeling versus what he actually feels and trying to make sense of in polite society, is this okay? Is it okay for me to be married to someone who has thought about this versus do I actually just still love this person on their own terms? But what has this doubt that has been cast inside of me pushed me to do, which is kind of emotionally lash out in a, in a, in an unfaithful way. And that's really.

• 1:33:44Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know, brave is not the right word, but it's an unfamiliar kind of revelation about human behavior that like I think was fairly common in movies in the 70s, 80s, and 90s and that we just do not see that much of. And this does, it doesn't feel like a 70s movie at all, but it does feel kind of fearless and making you uncomfortable and making you not really, definitely not love the hero that Robert Pattinson is playing. I mean, he's a real dipshit in the movie. And you know, she's a flawed person who has thought about some terrible things, but the reasons that she's thought about them are not over explained. But you can have empathy for them if you step back from your outrage, which is something that Alana Heim's character is not able to do, obviously. And she's like

• 1:34:27Sean Fennessey?

  also one of the great villains in the movies this year, like that character that she plays.

• 1:34:30Speaker 04

  I think it somehow transcended even just her normal famous personality.

• 1:34:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:35Speaker 04

  Like the memes that propagated from her sideline at the Knicks game. Well, sure. Along these character lines is frankly amazing for someone of her like social footprint.

• 1:34:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's great.

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• 1:35:46Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know, any, what other thoughts do we have about the drama?

• 1:35:49Speaker 04

  I think brave is kind of the right word for me with a lot of this movie. Like the idea that you can turn someone making like the school shooter confession tape into like, I need to update my firmware or whatever gag. Just the gall with which it made.

• 1:36:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Makes you and makes you want to laugh at every time Zendaya does finger guns or makes a comment along these lines and rewards kind of the repeat like viewing and visiting of this movie. I don't know what to call that if not brave. Like, I don't know a lot of movies that are operating with that kind of gall. It's, I mean, gall is a thing to remember. It's a little edgery too, but like, but just enough that I was intrigued by it. And I think their performances and that like the the set dressing, I mean, literally, I guess, but everything else around it really does back it up so that when the script is needling you, it's it's just far enough. Yeah, how are we feeling about their apartment, their flat? Incredible production design. I mean, really, really good stuff. Bears no relationship to the city of Boston that I know of.

• 1:36:48Amanda Dobbins?

  And also, I did do some math on their salaries and how that's connecting to what's going on there. But, I mean, listen, you know, just-

• 1:36:56Sean Fennessey?

  Like, maybe there's an insinuation that he's of some privilege.

• 1:36:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure, you know, he's a museum curator, of course. But I've never seen Backsplash that stylish in a movie ever. I think it's like Zelig style. It's beautiful.

• 1:37:09Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know what that is, but it sounds good. Is there a closing note from the drama?

• 1:37:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I, it's, you know, it's, I really liked it. What was the song ultimately? Because when you and I podcasted about it, you said that the cut you saw had a different song.

• 1:37:24Sean Fennessey?

  So, when I saw the film, which was quite early, the song that played at the end of the movie was Frank Sinatra's "They Can't Take That Away From Me", which is an amazing song, which is one of the-

• 1:37:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:37:37Sean Fennessey?

  And it's, it's an, it's an ode to a person who has a lot of eccentricities. And, you know, the lyrics of the song, like, for example, let me see if I can clock some of this. "There are many crazy things that will keep me loving you. And with your permission, may I list a few. The way you wear your hat, the way you sip your tea, the memory of all that. No, no, they can't take that away from me." It is a song of acceptance that plays beautifully over that final scene. But I don't think that that's the song that played at the end of the movie when it opened in movie theaters. What was the song that played at the end?

• 1:38:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not even sure what it was. I'm, I am Googling it now because it's the same one that she puts on to make him dance, right?

• 1:38:18Sean Fennessey?

  Is it "Forget About" by Cybill Bear?

• 1:38:21Amanda Dobbins?

  This is what the internet is telling me.

• 1:38:25Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's Forget About and not this Sinatra song. Which not, maybe not stunning that the Sinatra state would not want to be associated with this film in some way.

• 1:38:32Speaker 04

  Entirely possible.

• 1:38:33Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe just too expensive or whatever. But I went out of the movie in this like little puckish state of glee when I heard that song. Which is such a perfect little end note. And I think Forget About, is it more of a, more sincere, maybe?

• 1:38:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, maybe. Though again, that can be played ironically at the end.

• 1:38:52Sean Fennessey?

  That's true.

• 1:38:53Speaker 04

  I mean, you don't think the Sinatra song is sincere enough in terms of what it's gesturing at?

• 1:38:57Sean Fennessey?

  I just think Sinatra's vocal tone has a really like insinuating elbow in your chest quality to it. That fits very nicely with this, but um. Alright, well, Rob Mahoney, great stuff.

• 1:39:09Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:39:09Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks for stealing this from Amanda.

• 1:39:11Speaker 04

  My pleasure, genuinely.

• 1:39:17Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, joining us now, producer Jack Sanders, throwing on his punditry hat to talk about the best movie of 2026.

• 1:39:24Speaker 05

  My Miss Mousy hat.

• 1:39:26Sean Fennessey?

  That's right, so, so who is Miss Mousy and what is your choice?

• 1:39:29Speaker 05

  Uh, I'm choosing Blue Heron, a really beautiful film by Sophie Romvari. Um, you know, usually to pull back the curtain, I am left with the last of the scraps, right? And I look at my Letterboxd list, my best of 2026, and I'm like, okay, my ninth favorite movie is available. And this time it just so worked out that I actually got my favorite movie of the year.

• 1:39:49Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 1:39:49Amanda Dobbins?

  That's beautiful.

• 1:39:50Speaker 05

  I rewatched it last night and I'm really glad that I did because I don't want to undersell, like, this is a really special movie. Like a really genuinely amazing accomplishment, like honestly, Borderline feels like a miracle to me.

• 1:40:06Speaker 05

  You know, Romvari, first time feature filmmaker, obviously has been making shorts before, this is a real step above, I would say, and also. She takes like a really, really big risk not to spoil anything. And I think it asks a lot of the audience, but I think the filmmaking and the storytelling is so good that she has built so much goodwill for you to like go on the adventure with her to like, I trust you, I trust this filmmaker.

• 1:40:31Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:40:31Speaker 05

  And yeah, I mean, it's just, it's an amazing movie. It's a great accomplishment.

• 1:40:37Sean Fennessey?

  So, um, I did talk to Sophie on the show and we talked about it a little bit, but you know, it's been opening kind of around the country and around the world sort of slowly over the last couple of months. Can you put a little bit of a context around the story and kind of how to understand? Cause it's a bit of an unusual structure.

• 1:40:57Speaker 05

  Sure. I mean, it basically follows this small family in Vancouver Island, I believe. And there is a mother and a father and there are four children, but one of these children, his name is Jeremy, is from just the mother's side. And he is a troublemaker. He is a very troubled person. Um, he's a very difficult person. I know one of the reasons I connected this film, I think you said this with Sophie, is like, everybody kind of has a Jeremy in their life. And the first half of the movie is really just examining their dynamics, how this young boy plays a role into potentially fracturing, fracturing like these parents' marriage,

• 1:41:41Speaker 05

  how it affects his other young siblings, the dynamic between the parents and their children, not just between themselves. And it's just a really, really thorough examination of how do you navigate a relationship with a person who like poses a question that you just simply don't have an answer to.

• 1:41:58Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:41:59Speaker 05

  Right? Like a person who is incurable, unknowable. And I think that Romwari makes a really smart choice that is effective to me, which is like, Jeremy needs to be a mystery to the audience as much as he is to the actual family.

• 1:42:12Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:42:12Speaker 05

  Right? Like, you cannot really get into his head because that's what it's like having a person in your life like this. So, I don't know, was that enough context?

• 1:42:21Sean Fennessey?

  No, I think so. I mean, obviously, the film in the second half takes kind of a structural turn after, I think, very kind of gently and sometimes obliquely framing the crisis of this family. It's not always so overt.

• 1:42:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes and no. I mean, you know, it is experimental or non-traditional storytelling as well. But to Jack's point, the first half of the film is about a kid who's having a hard time, as we would say in Montessori parlance.

• 1:42:49Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 1:42:49Amanda Dobbins?

  And the film very deftly positions the younger sister as the stand-in for the audience and the observer. And so, you're focused enough on this younger character and you're supposed to, you do understand as you're watching it, that you're watching it through her eyes. You're trying to figure it out in that mystery that Jack talked about it from her eyes, that when it pivots to her perspective in an older way, it is, it's a change. It's not quote-unquote "traditional film structure," but you're completely equipped to understand what's going on. And you have been positioned in her perspective so deftly

• 1:43:29Amanda Dobbins?

  that I find it is both unexpected and also plays really naturally from an emotional point of view.

• 1:43:36Speaker 05

  Yeah. I think there was a really clever moment that I remember re-watching the film last night, because, you know, like, as much as this is a movie about like, childhood trauma and navigating these relationships, it's also just like formally about memory, like, how do we remember things? And there's this scene where Sasha is learning to peel potatoes for the first time with her mother. And she is basically explaining to her, to my estimation, how do other people outside of their family perceive Jeremy? Right? Like, how do people think of him, their family, and talk about him? And like, as a young person, that's a very difficult idea to conceptualize and understand. And it's this very long shot that's just on sticks, and it's of Sasha's mother.

• 1:44:18Speaker 05

  Peeling the potatoes and her hands are just covered in potatoes. And the dialogue between them is, it's a long conversation of them going back and forth and explaining. And it just stays on her hands with the potatoes, which I thought was so clever because it's like, that is how you remember things, right? Like you attach certain experiences to other ideas and stories. And she probably remembers that moment because of that experience she shared with her mother. So there's plenty of like clever filmmaking tricks that she uses in the film that just like, stack on top of, on top of each other that I found really successful.

• 1:44:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, one of the ones that really clicked for me that I cited when I talked to Sophie was, the sound design of the movie is so amazing. The idea of just like hearing the box of cereal sliding across the kitchen table in the morning. And it creates like a real sense of unease. And the whole, you know, the Jeremy character creates a sense of unease in this household. But there's also just the kind of common workaday. This is the noisiness of a family full of children. And they're just, just managing a family full of children is a lot of work. And even if you're not dealing with some emotional struggles. And there's another scene that I haven't seen the movie in a few months now. But one that jumped out to me too is this long conversation between the mother and father. After the mother has had a conversation with one of the therapists. And she has been suggesting a certain sort of like clarification or classification

• 1:45:34Sean Fennessey?

  for what Jeremy is struggling with. And the mother's just like, this is not it. This is, they're, they're wrong about my son, which is such a familiar thing. I remember having plenty of experiences like that growing up where my parents were just like, trying to reject a professional's perspective on their life and their family. And there's something so kind of maddening about that when only you understand something. But that's also shielding yourself from something maybe you even don't understand about your own offspring or your own relatives or something. Very sensitive movie, great choice. Very excited to see what Sophie does next. Anything else you want to add about Blue Heron?

• 1:46:07Speaker 05

  I mean, just on a personal note, it was like, I walked out of the theater and genuinely felt inspired. Like remembered why I went to film school. And like to say that, you know, there are amazing movies that come out. To say that this feels more attainable is absolutely silly and foolish. And I don't actually believe that. But that's like the closest way I can articulate it where I see like, a first time feature filmmaker collaborating with people they've worked with in the past. Passed on shorts and it's in a genre I really respect and it like feels within touching distance. The movie that also reminded me of was After Sun and I always remember After Sun, not to bring up that debate, but I remember seeing it and I was like, I'm so curious to see what Charlotte Wells does next. You know, like a super, super personal story. How do they broaden out? What's their next project? We still haven't seen anything. I still would be super curious to see what she does next, but I feel the same exact

• 1:46:52Speaker 05

  way with Rombari where whatever is next, season tickets, I'm very excited and curious to see what she does.

• 1:46:58Sean Fennessey?

  Great pick. Thanks, Jack.

• 1:46:59Speaker 05

  Thanks, guys.

• 1:47:05Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Amanda, it's your turn.

• 1:47:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:47:08Sean Fennessey?

  How are you feeling? You feel like all your picks have been taken away from you?

• 1:47:11Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I feel good. I jumped in. I did try to let people take first pick and Rob Mahoney did his thing, but obsession was on the table long enough that I was like, no, no, no, I would, I would like to talk about this and to talk about the phenomenon as well as the movie since it just kinda keeps trucking.

• 1:47:32Sean Fennessey?

  Well, over $300 million now.

• 1:47:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is just amazing and fantastic. And we talked with Van about how this is not a movie that I normally see. This is a horror movie. And you even at some point were saying this is like a very gnarly, traditional horror movie, which I historically am not into and usually don't go see, but because this was such a phenomenon, I went and so, and loved it. And I, and I thought that it worked in ways that had nothing to do with it being like a very gnarly horror movie, even though it was, I guess. Though, for me personally, as someone who thinks I'm afraid and I don't like gross outs and I don't like creepy things

• 1:48:18Amanda Dobbins?

  and I don't want to do whatever like that horror thing is, it was a good education in, oh, I'm wrong and like maybe I can handle it and maybe that's not what's turning me off the genre or maybe that that's not, you know, that I just kinda have like a misunderstanding of, of what's waiting for me. And that has sort of been an education over the last few years, especially. I know that elevated horror is like a bad word or a bad phrase in the community, but the Jordan Peeles and the Ari Astors of the world and it becoming a little more

• 1:48:57Amanda Dobbins?

  arthouse and a little less slasher, I guess, is, has made me realize that the genre can be broader and that there is more to it than just like really awesome kills. And I do feel like the conversation among like the true horror heads is often at some point just about like the technical aspects of the kills, which is its own art form, but...

• 1:49:23Sean Fennessey?

  There is a brand of that conversation, for sure.

• 1:49:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, and so I think, and I think that those of us who are outside the genre often think that that's just really all that it is and that all that can be taken seriously. And so for me, it's been learning, oh, that there can, you know, there can be more to it and that there can be, as there is art in creating the tension and the sense of unease and the psychological thriller aspect of it, and that also that there are ways to do jump scares and gross stuff that don't interest me and ways that compel me. And I honestly, like, the thing about obsession that was so revelatory is that I thought it was very funny. And every time it got me, one of the horror tropes got me, I started laughing as a reaction.

• 1:50:11Amanda Dobbins?

  And not because it was like nervous laughter, I just thought it was a very clever and funny. And I was like, oh, you did it and you engineered this whole sort of thing.

• 1:50:18Sean Fennessey?

  This is exactly what I do in many horror movies.

• 1:50:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, but, but you do understand when you are like, when everyone's like talking about like Saw 7 and blah, blah, blah, and the, and even this slasher movies, even like the movies that scream parodies.

• 1:50:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Communicate just something different in terms of what, you know, what the goals are or what a quote unquote horror fan is going into a movie to see. That's why, again, Scream is sort of like, you know, an intermediating it and explaining it to people who don't get it and adding comedy. I guess I, part of it is just that I also really like comedy in horror movies.

• 1:50:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think, I think a little bit of what you're responding to, I could be wrong about this, but my impression of it is because of how old we are. The eighties and the nineties are really the domain of Friday the 13th. Yeah. Nightmare on Elm Street, you know, that, that brand of teen sleepaway camp slasher movie defined the genre for about 10 to 15 years. And so if you're a young person coming of age and you're looking at Friday the 13th, a new beginning, and you're like, I don't want to see that. That's just a guy in a hockey mask stabbing new bile 19 year old girls. And that, I can see why that would be unappealing as a young person when you're getting involved in the genre. The genre is very wide.

• 1:51:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:51:38Sean Fennessey?

  And encompasses a lot of different styles, most of which are not very popular to the mainstream, you know, main movie going audience on a regular basis. But this kind of tension filled, nightmarish, romantic movie.

• 1:51:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:51:55Sean Fennessey?

  Like, it's like Fatal Attraction as well, you know, which is a different kind of horror film and doesn't feature a one wish willow and, you know, a more supernatural element, but it has that same fear of

• 1:52:05Amanda Dobbins?

  When we did-

• 1:52:06Sean Fennessey?

  the opposite sex and, you know, the relationships and sex and all these things.

• 1:52:10Amanda Dobbins?

  When we did the 87 draft, I tried to do Fatal Attraction in horror and I made the case that the scene with the roller coaster and the, and the baby is like venturing into it's certainly like lifetime horror.

• 1:52:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, but, but I understand that it's more thriller.

• 1:52:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know, though. The jump scare in Obsession, when, spoiler alert for Obsession, the friend is in the car and they're about to, you know, confess their love to each other. And then the Indy Navarrete character shows up. And so I was genuinely startled. And then the smashing the head so many times into the steering wheel that it's not gross anymore. It's just extra.

• 1:52:55Sean Fennessey?

  It's a really good shout because I think that sequence, for people who don't watch a lot of horror movies, is incredibly effective. If you've seen a lot of horror movies, the minute they got in the car, I was like, she's dead. Like, I just knew because I've just seen a million movies like that. So like, there's a grammar to those movies. And I say that not to criticize at all. I think that's one of the great things.

• 1:53:13Amanda Dobbins?

  But you weren't startled when she showed up.

• 1:53:16Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, the way that it's shot, yeah. And the way that the sound is edited, like, it gets you to jump. But there was never a moment where I thought Sam was gonna make it through that scene.

• 1:53:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, right, right. But also, the extension of the death is intentional and, you know, says something about like, the attitude of the movie and the way that it's crafted that I thought was funny. And

• 1:53:39Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with you.

• 1:53:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Was like, I felt a little more in on the joke with this movie than I do with many horror movies. I felt more like included, I guess.

• 1:53:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think Currie Barker's training, making TikToks and YouTube videos and trying to pursue engagement on social media, taught him a lot about what our primal instincts are as viewers and what are the things that we respond to. And he's just got a real knack for it. I'm really glad you picked it. I'm really glad you went out and saw it. I didn't like, assign it to you. You just went and checked it out on your own because you wanted to know what it was all about. And I'm not, but I'm not surprised that you liked it. It's, it has some, we've compared it like, it's financial success to stuff like The Sixth Sense, but it does have that, like, a new person has arrived.

• 1:54:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally.

• 1:54:24Sean Fennessey?

  They're a really strong voice. They have a real handle on how to get audiences excited. And, you know, Indy Navarrete is just giving this Titanic performance, this like career announcing performance in the movie that I suspect we'll be talking about for the rest of the year. So, great pick, I love it. Love the movies. If you hadn't picked this, I probably would have found a way to pick it as well. I picked Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie, which has pretty much been my movie of the year, all year.

• 1:54:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:51Sean Fennessey?

  And is a movie that I've seen in theaters three times. And

• 1:54:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow.

• 1:54:55Sean Fennessey?

  I saw it last year at a fan event, and I was strongly encouraged to check it out. As a fan of, I was a fan of the web series, but I wouldn't say I was a super fan. I'd seen it, but I was not encyclopedic with it, but I'm a super fan of Matt Johnson's. I think he's just one of the most interesting, creative, dynamic, weird people working in the movies today. And everything that he does has, has just turned the dial one degree past where you normally expect this movie, which is ostensibly about two guys and an aspiring band trying to get booked at a show at the Rivoli, which is a modestly sized club in Toronto.

• 1:55:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I just remembered jokes from it and started laughing.

• 1:55:36Sean Fennessey?

  There's a very great many good jokes. You just had the opportunity to recommend it to Van Lathan. I can't wait to hear what he thinks about it. It's an absurdist comedy that is filmed in a very grounded way. It borrows liberally from Back to the Future. It is a movie of regret and a movie of teamwork, a movie of pop stardom, a movie of extraordinary memes. Also, very much a movie about looking back at yourself and who you used to be and who you are now. And I found some of that stuff quite poignant, especially the second and third time I watched it, the 2008 versions of Jay and Matt and interacting with their former selves and all the wonderful. If you haven't seen this movie, you got, you gotta check it out. I think it's streaming now. But I

• 1:56:17Sean Fennessey?

  think it is, like a lot of the best picks on this episode, simultaneously very silly and very, very deep. You know, like The Furious, Disclosure Day, Masters of the Universe, Backrooms, The Drama, Obsession, you know, these are pretty goofy movies.

• 1:56:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:56:37Sean Fennessey?

  In a lot of their scripting and their premises, but they're really making sincere efforts to communicate something at the bottom of people's guts about how they feel about the world or how they feel the world is treating them. And even though Nirvana Probably the silliest of them all.

• 1:56:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess.

• 1:56:58Sean Fennessey?

  No, maybe not sillier, the Masters of the Universe.

• 1:57:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, maybe not sillier. And also, you know, Nirvana is very, very specific and it's jokes, as is Matty's Secret in its own way.

• 1:57:10Sean Fennessey?

  That's true. Matty's Secret, also very silly.

• 1:57:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but, but with real depth.

• 1:57:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, so it's been, it's been, it's been a good year. I feel like.

• 1:57:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, these are all interesting movies. None of them actively bad, except for maybe Masters of the Universe.

• 1:57:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'll have to defend it. I won't wholly defend it. But like, and they're from all different places, right?

• 1:57:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:33Sean Fennessey?

  Some, some big studio movies, some big IP movies, some from hallowed filmmakers, some from first time filmmakers, some very independent minded, some out of nowhere successes. I gotta say, I'm feeling great about the year, the year in movies so far.

• 1:57:47Amanda Dobbins?

  It's wonderful. I spent this weekend just fielding text messages from, from friends and civilians with random opinions on some of the movies on this list, some movies not on this list, some, you know.

• 1:57:59Sean Fennessey?

  What's the most brutal cut that we've had here?

• 1:58:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I realized about halfway through, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is not on this list, but I think that's correct. I had a nice time. How's it going, Coach? And, you know, your beloved Toy Story 5, not here.

• 1:58:16Sean Fennessey?

  No, you know, let's do a little check in on where I think I'm at with my top five right now.

• 1:58:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:58:21Sean Fennessey?

  Right now,

• 1:58:25Sean Fennessey?

  I've got Blue Heron and Nirvana.

• 1:58:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:58:27Sean Fennessey?

  At the top of the pile. And then I've got 28 Years Later, The Bone Temple, Miroir Number Three, the Christian Petzold film.

• 1:58:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:58:34Sean Fennessey?

  Is at number four. And Sam Raimi's Send Help, which I think is maybe the biggest omission from this episode for me.

• 1:58:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:58:40Sean Fennessey?

  Is at number five.

• 1:58:41Amanda Dobbins?

  That's a good one.

• 1:58:41Sean Fennessey?

  A movie I love. Toy Story 5 would be up there.

• 1:58:43Amanda Dobbins?

  These are just movies that have.

• 1:58:45Sean Fennessey?

  His Closure Day.

• 1:58:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Have been released.

• 1:58:47Sean Fennessey?

  Matty's Secret. Yep.

• 1:58:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, so not movies we saw at Cannes.

• 1:58:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, this is only just, yes, that's how I usually how I do it. I like Mother Mary quite a bit. I like Project Hail Mary quite a bit. Tooner was a film I loved from this year.

• 1:58:59Sean Fennessey?

  But yeah, stuff like Fjord. And Josephine from Sundance.

• 1:59:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:59:05Sean Fennessey?

  Which that'll be an interesting episode for us. I look forward to that discussion. Not sure if you're gonna enjoy that one. Paper Tiger, you know?

• 1:59:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, Club Kid.

• 1:59:12Sean Fennessey?

  All of a sudden, Club Kid. Those, those, Once Upon a Time in Harlem. A lot of, lot of good stuff coming for the second. We haven't even seen The Odyssey. We haven't seen Spider-Man. We haven't seen the live action Moana. I know you're really saving space for that.

• 1:59:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I gotta see the non-live action Moana. I've, I have not seen it, but I will with my son before, before Moana. I'm gonna do it. What, it's, I'm, I, I was not of the age where I needed to see Moana. But can I tell you what? I told you, but I'll tell everyone else. This weekend, we did Ponyo and Totoro with, with both kids. And Psy, the baby, now says cat bus whenever you say Totoro, which is-

• 1:59:49Sean Fennessey?

  Most iconic scenes in movie history.

• 1:59:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Is really, he just loves the cat bus. And Knox was wrapped, and I was also wrapped, loved it. So I'm like, we're getting there.

• 1:59:57Sean Fennessey?

  I'm very happy to hear that.

• 1:59:58Amanda Dobbins?

  You can, you know, Moana will have its time in the sun.

• 2:00:00Sean Fennessey?

  Consider the coconut.

• 2:00:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I've heard about that.

• 2:00:02Sean Fennessey?

  Consider its leaves.

• 2:00:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:04Sean Fennessey?

  The island gives us what we need.

• 2:00:06Amanda Dobbins?

  That's beautiful.

• 2:00:06Sean Fennessey?

  And no one leaves.

• 2:00:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:00:08Sean Fennessey?

  That's poetry. That's Lin-Manuel Miranda's poetry. That's all waiting for you. You're very lucky to be able to see that film for the first time.

• 2:00:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's go to my conversation now with John Early.

• 2:00:24Sean Fennessey?

  Very happy to be here with John Early. Hi, John. Thanks for having me. I didn't know that you were such a cinephile and such an aspirant movie director. I've been a fan of your work as an actor and comedy for a while. Thank you. But I had, I had one clue. And so when I saw the movie, it clicked. And I haven't heard you talk about this yet, but Yeah. When Vidiot's on the East Side opened a few years ago. Yeah. I hosted a screening of A New Leaf, Elaine May's movie. I was there. And I saw you and Kate there. Yes. And I, I didn't say anything. I didn't want to be weird, but I was like, oh, that's so nice that they're here. And I love that movie. Love that movie. And I love Elaine May's movies. I'd never seen it. Okay. You were responsible for my first viewing. That's nice. Yeah. But I, I thought even of Elaine May. And I want to ask you about all the myriad influences that you had on this film.

• 2:01:09Sean Fennessey?

  And you've been very eloquent about them in the press run for Matty's Secret. But uh, something clicked with me where I was like, John's the kind of person who would check out A New Leaf on a Tuesday at 7:00 PM. I mean, it's, it's the only, it's the only activity I ever have in mind is just to check. You know revivalhubla.com or in New York Screen Slate. And and just see. What's playing? I don't know. That's what I like to do. Did you? Did you always want to make films? Was that always something that was a goal of yours? Yes, yes. And and I just want to be, I want to put, correct the record.

• 2:01:49Sean Fennessey?

  My cinephilia is so narrow. It's so limited and I've put all of those all my like my favorite movies are all in Matty's secrets. So like, there's nothing left. If I make a new movie, I'm gonna have to like, develop an entirely new personality. Well, it's but it's it's deep and maybe not wide, but it's very deep. Yes, it is deep. It is deep. And I feel like you've been talking about it, how you were literally looking at the movies that connected with you in a very primal way. And tried to transfigure that into your own work. Like, what? What's the first movie that you saw that made you shiver quake? Just in my life. Yeah. I've talked about this a lot, so I really apologize to anyone who's.

• 2:02:34Sean Fennessey?

  This is.

• 2:02:37Sean Fennessey?

  You know, anyone who's heard me talk about this before, but Clockwatchers, the Jill Spreaker movie.

• 2:02:44Sean Fennessey?

  It it just did actually have a very profound. Effect on me like a real time effect, not like a retro active like, oh, that did change my life. Like, I actually. Felt a kind of existential shift as I was watching it as like an 11 year old. I it has, it's it's a very bleak movie and I felt.

• 2:03:06Sean Fennessey?

  Like there was no turning back after like I knew, like I learned a little too much about. The future of my life and of and of the world. And I was like, oh, no, but I was, I was just, it really rocked me. I don't know. What led to you seeing that movie at 11? Well, I loved going to Blockbuster, you know, the the classic routine was like, my mom would drop me.

• 2:03:29Speaker 05

  A blockbuster as she shopped for groceries and um and it was and I would I would always go to the special interest section, obviously, because that's where the gay movie.

• 2:03:40Speaker 05

  But that's also where the little Sundance recommends section was and um.

• 2:03:47Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of a neat little like row of movies that are all inside of your movie, right?

• 2:03:51Speaker 05

  Totally.

• 2:03:52Sean Fennessey?

  Nineties indie Sundance plus queer cinema, all in the one, the smallest section.

• 2:03:57Speaker 05

  Little shelf, yeah. And you know, and I would have to pretend like I wasn't looking at that shelf. I would kind of like do little drive by glances, darting and pick, you know, because you couldn't stay for too long or everyone would know. But Clockwatchers was there and I was very drawn to Lisa Kudrow and still am. I mean, I was totally bewitched by hers. As a kid and she's on the cover of that movie and it's seen and Parker Posey was too and I, you know, and and I didn't. And Alana Eubach, who was in the Brady Bunch movie, which is also a huge influence for Matty Seeger.

• 2:04:36Speaker 05

  Such a good movie and I didn't know Tony Collette, shockingly, but well, not shockingly for an 11 year old in like 1998, you know, but um, but anyway, but I I just rented it expecting some sort of kind of. Romeo and Michelle, kind of variation on Romeo and Michelle and um, and it just, I don't know, I found it, it totally, it was so haunting. I don't know. I I it and then I fell in love with Tony Collette and the rest is her story.

• 2:05:06Sean Fennessey?

  Do you remember seeing that movie and movies like that at that time, thinking about how a movie was made or like what? What were you, beyond the experience of the performers that you really liked and were clicking with at that time, did you have a brain for? Who directed this? How did they do it? What is, what does a camera look like and how does it operate?

• 2:05:27Speaker 05

  Well, it's funny because it's before the internet was what it is now, where like.

• 2:05:33Speaker 05

  There wasn't even an option of just like immediately Googling something, you know?

• 2:05:38Sean Fennessey?

  I remember having that same feeling, like where do I go to figure out what happened here?

• 2:05:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, like get the microfiche out, like I, I, there was kind of nothing to be done so that the desire to like know about. That that's, that is something that's kind of sad to me about this moment is that like.

• 2:05:57Speaker 07

  Don't even have time to just exist as their own kind of magical object. They're they're immediately ripped apart before they even they're they're ripped apart before they come out. I mean, I had to like email the crew. I felt like such a crank, but I was like, when they announced that we got into Toronto International Film Festival, opening night discovery program.

• 2:06:23Sean Fennessey?

  The light goes off, by the way. I'm like, directing Gary turns the light off. He's like, you, I'm not allowed to mug that hard. But anyway, no bits here. Yeah.

• 2:06:33Speaker 07

  This is a serious film conversation. Hold it together. But when we went to TIFF, they like, when people started putting out these pictures and it's so sweet because they're just, they're proud of the movie they worked on there and but I immediately felt the same like we're just like hemorrhaging the mystery of this. The, you know, and to me, this movie particularly has a lot of, it has like a, we were trying to make a magical kind of quality. It's like, to me, Maddie is like a magic trick. She's like an illusion that we all worked so hard on and and so I felt sad about seeing me with like, a cold brew and the sides and be like, you know, like in the like, I just.

• 2:07:15Sean Fennessey?

  You mean like onset stuff that was.

• 2:07:17Speaker 07

  Onset, yeah. But anyway, but I just think things get like unpacked so quickly that your references, you get kind of surveilled before the movies even come out about all your references and it does feel like surveillance. It's very bizarre.

• 2:07:30Sean Fennessey?

  It's maybe like a too meta attributary, but there is something really interesting about that though, because the film is so, almost overloaded with this collision of ideas of stuff that we've seen before. And like, some of it is stuff that will be recognizable to your mainstream audience. Some of it is very cinephilia. Some of it is very like, if you're between the ages of 32 and 50 and you got a chance to watch television movies in the 1990s. And like, so I'm curious, as somebody who like was coming up with the ideas for the film and then actively making it, like, do you want it to still have that scavenger hunt feeling, even though you do want to maintain the spell? Because as soon as you start picking apart the influences, the spell also gets a little broken, I think.

• 2:08:13Speaker 07

  Yes, I agree. I mean, I.

• 2:08:17Speaker 05

  The references were really helpful to me, you know, in just building it. They, and I am, unfortunately, I am a kind of, like many gay men before me, I'm a very devotional person and artist. And so I, I could talk about the references forever. That's, that's what sucks is that I can't stop. Like, and this, this is the way the media ecosystem of like promoting a film right now. It's just like, it's actually secretly, perversely a thrill for me to like, talk about the references.

• 2:08:50Sean Fennessey?

  I know. And it's a thrill for me to hear people like you talk about it. So like invariably what you get is this conversation. It's like, well, I love Todd Haynes and I also love this Lifetime movie and I love this. And I, and I think we all really enjoy that. And we feel like maybe we can unlock even more of your artistry.

• 2:09:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:09:07Sean Fennessey?

  But then the slippery slope is, I think Matty's Secret is very singular.

• 2:09:11Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 2:09:11Sean Fennessey?

  There's not, I'm not, I've never seen a movie like it.

• 2:09:14Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 2:09:14Sean Fennessey?

  Even though it's like a lot of other movies.

• 2:09:15Speaker 05

  Yes, yes.

• 2:09:16Sean Fennessey?

  Which is an unusual thing to do. So like, um, at the risk of a vague question, how do you do that then? How do you metastasize all of this stuff that you love and then try to make something unique?

• 2:09:25Speaker 05

  Well, I can't really tell you. I mean, I, cause it's copyrighted. I'm kidding.

• 2:09:32Speaker 05

  We're really excited. Um, no, I, uh, it's just mysterious. I, I don't, the truth is, I think, looking back on what I did, what just happened over the past two years, um, I, it, actually, this isn't even a retro, this isn't, this isn't me. This is something I actually knew quite consciously.

• 2:09:58Speaker 05

  I, I think that the, the, the kind of supermarket sweep style of grabbing at all these references, was a way to hide. I mean, it was, I thought I was protecting myself. Like, I was writing something before this movie that I found almost too adult and intimate and like, and I didn't feel smart enough. I might, I might never be smart enough to, to write it, but I was, it was like kind of freaking me out. And I was like, I don't know if I'm ready to do this. And I was like, I just want to do something fun first. Let me do something like outrageous and fun. And like cheap and in my mind at that time, kind of experimental. In other words, I was like, let me make something that like no one's ever gonna see.

• 2:10:42Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:10:42Speaker 05

  So like I can make like make something so like with my friends, so low budget that like it probably will just never have a life and and I felt kind of protected by that. I wanted to make something kind of in private. And um, and I started just really making it brazenly, like very pastiche. It just was like, it was like it's it's referencing this and this and there's dance and that. You know, like, and this friends in it, this really, you know, and um,

• 2:11:13Speaker 05

  and and I I think I thought that I very naively thought that if I if I constructed this crazy patchwork quilt, this like Frankenstein of references, that I could somehow avoid, you know, doing the more like the the kind of personal project that I was working on. And then it ended up actually being hugely personal. Like it just it just felt suddenly as I was writing it, I was like, this is so interesting. This is like I'm tapping in, I'm like, I'm like completely just doing this like movie by numbers. I'm like following the rules of this genre. I'm, you know, I it this shouldn't be personal and yet

• 2:12:00Speaker 05

  that's it's just such a funny thing about being an artist is like you you and about being a human being is you just reveal, you cannot help but reveal. Especially when you try not to.

• 2:12:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:12Speaker 05

  You end up leaking out all over the place. And I really was trying to just make something fun. And then I was like, uh oh.

• 2:12:22Sean Fennessey?

  Well, so my experience watching it was forty five minutes in, I was like, oh, I got it. Like I got, I get the idea, I get the fusion, I'm I'm seeing the references, at least some of the references. And then by the end of it, I was like, I feel it.

• 2:12:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:12:35Sean Fennessey?

  I feel that this was, and this is a very sincere movie.

• 2:12:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:12:38Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and not at all, you know, I know you've talked about David Wayne and there's certainly some like some of his progenitors in sort of like, I guess satire or parody or something like that.

• 2:12:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:12:49Sean Fennessey?

  But the I feel like the movie never really commits to that. I feel like you can feel the inspiration, but it's a pretty deep movie about a person in crisis.

• 2:12:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:12:58Sean Fennessey?

  And not winking at you at all. And I'm curious, like, was

• 2:13:04Sean Fennessey?

  Was it, you have to like write through to get to that place where you're deciding that that is the kind of movie that you're making. And also, how much are you communicating that about like raising money? And because it's probably hard to get a movie that is this kind of odd duck of influences financed and trying to make sure that like convincing people like, I'm gonna make sure that this is all balanced and it's all gonna play.

• 2:13:23Speaker 05

  Well, I think I had to convince people of its kind of sincerity in, because I think because of the subject matter, people, the financiers, I think would have been terrified had I been like, no, we're, we're just having a ball. We're, you know, it's a free for all. Like, I, I, I knew that there needed to be this like spine of commitment. And, but that was just what I wanted artistically, but I knew I had to kind of really reassure people that that was the case. And it was like shockingly, I mean, because again, we

• 2:14:04Speaker 05

  were working at very low budget levels. So, but, but it's, it was still, given the subject matter and given the kind of central conceit of me playing Matty, it was amazing though how quickly people jumped on board. And I think that's because I, I really, for all of its oddness, strangeness, I did try to write something traditionally entertaining. Like, that was, that was a goal of mine. I wanted to make something that was like, that pulled you through, it was propulsive, it was like, like a dream or like a fairy tale, you know? And so it was, and I, and I really, really wanted to make something very blunt

• 2:14:47Speaker 05

  and direct and something that was like, like the emotions and the filmmaking were very blunt and direct and clear and not vibey or cool.

• 2:14:56Sean Fennessey?

  Why was that important to you?

• 2:14:59Speaker 05

  Well, I think a lot of, I have a lot of rage about this, I guess, but I think a lot of art across the board, music, film, TV, those are the only three forms of art, as you know.

• 2:15:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Only ones to acknowledge on the show.

• 2:15:14Speaker 05

  Yeah. They are, you know, I feel like there's just been a, you know, look, you see it most Clearly in songs, songs very rarely these days actually follow a kind of chorus. I mean, I mean verse, pre chorus, chorus, like, bridge.

• 2:15:33Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:15:33Speaker 05

  Chorus.

• 2:15:34Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like, there's like a, I, we, I always say like the schmear, like, you can see it in films that have like digital effects.

• 2:15:39Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:15:40Sean Fennessey?

  And this sort of like, there's like a haze around a certain kind of pop music.

• 2:15:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:15:43Sean Fennessey?

  I know what you mean.

• 2:15:44Speaker 05

  Yes, there's an ambient quality to so much of, yeah, and, um,

• 2:15:52Speaker 05

  and then when you hear like an ABBA song, you're like, oh, right, right.

• 2:16:00Speaker 05

  And I don't know, I, I,

• 2:16:07Speaker 05

  I forgot what the question was.

• 2:16:08Sean Fennessey?

  You're trying to do something direct, which I appreciate.

• 2:16:10Speaker 05

  Yes, yes, I, I, and I just, I also think there's like such pressure in the culture for a while now because of social media. And like, take culture, like hot takes, um, there's just been, there's been, there's such a pressure to be smart. And to, to know exactly what you're doing and for every, and, and then, and then also with all this like reference, letterbox, criterion, like shit. It's like, it's like, there's such pressure for everything to be so researched and studied and for you to have a perfectly, you know, to articulate your vision perfectly. And like, I just really was like, I think there's possibly something very, it was exciting to me to not be concerned about those things. And also, look, these are all, this is like a high minded way of talking about it.

• 2:16:55Speaker 05

  To me, it was like the character, like Maddie is very sincere. She's a dork, you know, in some ways. She's not a cool girl. She's a tryhard, she sees herself, as does Emily, as a tryhard Susie O'Maker.

• 2:17:10Speaker 05

  An example of my incredibly nuanced writing.

• 2:17:14Speaker 05

  But like, you know, I don't know. I just, I'm, I'm so, I think we live in a very blunted moment. You know, everyone, there's like a kind of way that people talk here and

• 2:17:27Sean Fennessey?

  My least favorite thing.

• 2:17:28Speaker 05

  Yeah. And, um,

• 2:17:31Speaker 05

  and I don't know, everyone seems so fucking depressed and I just, I, I, I wanted to make something that was like, kind of cutting through the ambience and, um, yeah.

• 2:17:44Sean Fennessey?

  I talked to, um, Olivia Wilde yesterday about her new movie and I was asking her about directing herself and how unusual that must be.

• 2:17:53Speaker 05

  Yes, it's very odd.

• 2:17:55Sean Fennessey?

  Can you talk about your experience, especially given the performance that you're giving?

• 2:17:59Speaker 05

  Yeah. Oh, it was very odd. I mean, I've done it a lot in a way. Um, you know, I've made my own work for a very long time. And so I'm, I'm quite accustomed to just kind of like, is this so annoying? This bracelet?

• 2:18:13Sean Fennessey?

  No, it looks great.

• 2:18:14Speaker 05

  Your fans aren't mad?

• 2:18:16Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, they're always mad. Not at you though, so don't worry.

• 2:18:21Speaker 05

  But I, I'm very accustomed to like, kind of just like getting what I need from, out for myself, you know, and, and like, and giving a lot of options. I'm very accustomed like editing myself and I don't get too, you know, caught up in how horrible.

• 2:18:38Sean Fennessey?

  Do you know what I mean? Because the movie is kind of about this. This is why I ask.

• 2:18:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:18:42Sean Fennessey?

  That this like transition that Maddie is making to a kind of forward facing

• 2:18:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:18:47Sean Fennessey?

  role in our wonderful content society of which you are currently participating.

• 2:18:52Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:18:53Sean Fennessey?

  And so I was wondering if maybe like some of your life as somebody who makes stuff and is maybe directing yourself in a very overt way and has to look at yourself all the time. And then having a character who is deciding to do that choice and like

• 2:19:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:19:07Sean Fennessey?

  on the one hand seems very like made for it.

• 2:19:10Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:19:11Sean Fennessey?

  Right? Like built for it. And on the other hand, it creates like a sort of crisis

• 2:19:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:19:15Sean Fennessey?

  in her and sends her down a very dark path in her life.

• 2:19:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:19:22Speaker 05

  I mean, I

• 2:19:29Sean Fennessey?

  Did I get that right?

• 2:19:29Speaker 05

  No, you totally did.

• 2:19:30Sean Fennessey?

  Reveal yourself entirely right now.

• 2:19:33Speaker 05

  Um, I have a very similar reluctance. You know, I have like, um, I feel like very unhip in, in many ways, you know, and, and I, I maybe value, or, you know, or maybe, I, I'm maybe desperately trying to hold on to something that you can't even grip on to anymore. It's like a kind of privacy integrity, you know? I don't know. Um, I really relate to, Matty is very much an extension of me in that way.

• 2:20:06Speaker 05

  And

• 2:20:12Speaker 05

  I mean, I don't know. I think I'm stronger than, I mean, I, I think Matty is stronger than me, period. But maybe in this way, this particular way, I'm quite used, I'm very accustomed to just like putting myself on camera and, and, and watching myself and not getting too,

• 2:20:30Speaker 05

  freaked out by the way I look and, you know, I certainly don't, often don't love the way I look on camera, but also I'm a funny person. Like, I'm always like, let's get uglier. Come on, like, let's, you know?

• 2:20:42Sean Fennessey?

  Different standards.

• 2:20:43Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:20:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:45Speaker 05

  So, uh, yeah, I don't remember.

• 2:20:50Sean Fennessey?

  Would you like level set with people on set? Where you just say like, am I doing this right? You know, do you need like someone to kind of backstop you?

• 2:20:57Speaker 05

  That's what we were talking about.

• 2:21:00Sean Fennessey?

  Cause when you're, when you're the director, you're the answerer of all the questions, right?

• 2:21:04Speaker 05

  Well, I had some very important people on set with me. I had the cinematographer, Max Lackner, uh, who is, was such a huge part of all this, obviously. But, you know, he really, really understood everything quite deeply. He's also a, literally training to be a psychoanalyst. So there was always a kind of, um,

• 2:21:29Speaker 05

  I don't know, there, there, it was, um, I, I, I felt there, there, he brought an extra layer of kind of like compassion and, and, um, psychological nuance to all of our discussions and, um,

• 2:21:43Speaker 05

  And he really was, I think, a protector of the, he just totally understood the kind of like bounciness of the movie, you know, the kind of buoyancy of like the tone and um, and so he was, he did a great job of like making sure that I was keeping it like up.

• 2:22:05Speaker 05

  And then my, my ex-boyfriend Gordon Landonberger, who we, we had been not in a relationship for years at this point, but he's the production designer. And me and Max and Gordon were all friends and we, we, you know, worked very informally on this movie without, you know, getting paid before pre-production started. We, we were living together for a couple of weeks even before pre-production and you know, so like there were those, and Gordon and I know each other very intimately and like, and he knows, certainly understands certain kind of performance insecurities I have. And, and so he was, he was actually, he was incredible kind of emotional support,

• 2:22:45Speaker 05

  which is, which is absolutely something that a director has to do, whether they, you know, tyrannically avoid doing it or not, but like, anyway. So it was, but all in all, it was incredibly lonely. It was psychological torture. I couldn't believe I was doing it to myself. I was shocked and, and when I was editing the movie and I was watching footage of myself, I mean, I, I had a day in editing where I was like, I had to leave and go home and I like, was like burst into tears. So it was like, I was watching myself, direct myself in a very important dramatic scene where I like basically crumbled to the floor and weep.

• 2:23:28Speaker 05

  And I was watching myself do like six or seven takes in a row where I'm like, crying on the floor and then going like, cut. And then standing up and then being like,

• 2:23:44Speaker 05

  Waiting for someone to go.

• 2:23:48Speaker 05

  And it was like, and you could see me realize in real time that like, that's me, that's my job.

• 2:23:53Sean Fennessey?

  No one's coming for you.

• 2:23:53Speaker 05

  No one's coming.

• 2:23:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:55Speaker 05

  No one's gonna come rub my back or like. And everyone was so sweet, no one was being cold, they just didn't know what I needed.

• 2:24:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:03Speaker 05

  You know, that's a very intimate thing between a director and actor. And I felt very exposed and I felt like I was doing this totally crazy thing. I felt kind of insane that I'm like. Playing this girl in this treatment center and it's like getting this heavy and you know, and I just like. I don't know, but I, but watching myself.

• 2:24:25Speaker 05

  Watching that. One person dynamic in the editing room was like very confronting for me and it also made me feel very close to. Maddie. And I was like, cause you know, Maddie is so self-made, she is like. Not to give anything away, but like, you know, she did not have a great childhood and she's like, kind of built herself up. She's with such strength, you know, and, and.

• 2:24:52Speaker 05

  I, I don't know, I just really was like, I, I, it was like very profound. It was like, it was like a moment deep into post where I was like, oh, this movie is like. Again, it's like in some ways started from this like really kind of goofy. These goofy instincts and then became. Totally, totally shockingly personal and the process had this meta quality of absorbing.

• 2:25:21Speaker 05

  The movie and real, and, and the movie was absorbing real life and it was just, it was, I don't know.

• 2:25:27Sean Fennessey?

  I want to ask you a little bit about that and sort of like. The, the specific tone that you're trying to strike and, and meet that feeling. So there's an amazing sequence late in the film where Kristen Johnson, who plays your mother, comes in for a kind of like a psychotherapy conversation. And that scene. I feel like it kind of brings all of the things together simultaneously. It is like John Waters and Tennessee Williams and Lifetime, right? Like all at the same moment.

• 2:25:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's precious.

• 2:25:53Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely.

• 2:25:54Speaker 05

  Tennessee Williams. You already said it, suddenly. Last summer, Marnie.

• 2:25:57Sean Fennessey?

  Right, Marnie, right.

• 2:25:59Speaker 05

  Here I go, here I go with my references.

• 2:26:00Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, but it's so, it's so interesting. I love that scene. But it is a scene that I think a lot of people, myself included, kind of struggle to describe where like it's not camp. But it's not hyper sincere and it is funny, but it is emotionally powerful. And there is this like nether zone.

• 2:26:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:26:20Sean Fennessey?

  Of tone.

• 2:26:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, totally.

• 2:26:22Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't really, I maybe never known how to talk about it.

• 2:26:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:26:25Sean Fennessey?

  And maybe, and you conjured it, right? You made a movie that has it.

• 2:26:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:26:28Sean Fennessey?

  So how do you, how did you do that?

• 2:26:31Speaker 05

  Well, that's another thing where that, that scene, it's kind of.

• 2:26:37Speaker 05

  Is profundity a word?

• 2:26:38Sean Fennessey?

  It is, yeah.

• 2:26:39Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 2:26:42Sean Fennessey?

  You, you're not describing yourself as profound.

• 2:26:45Speaker 05

  Oh, no, no.

• 2:26:49Sean Fennessey?

  I can do it if you want. If you want me to say the word, I can say the word.

• 2:26:53Speaker 05

  No, this is just the cool thing about making anything is like, again, like the, the, just the power of the unconscious mind. It's really crazy like, but I was, you know, because again, I was just going for this kind of like hysterical in the Freudian sense.

• 2:27:15Speaker 05

  Suddenly last summer, big final like explosion of the trauma that, you know, and like that's a trope that I actually like typically like, I hate it. I, I find it totally cheap and like, um, and it's a part in movie, TV movies plays where I just get a little bored. Where I go, right, the puzzle piece of this is what explains the previous behavior, you know? And, and, and that, the kind of bluntness of that, I think is what I find inherently funny about it too. I don't know.

• 2:27:44Speaker 05

  It's also kind of interesting to me that we clearly have been in a, for many, many years now in a

• 2:27:52Speaker 05

  a moment where

• 2:27:55Speaker 05

  there's actually a much more like kind of cool version of that, you know what I mean? Like, but it's, but it's, it's passing itself off as like smarter and more evolved.

• 2:28:04Sean Fennessey?

  Therapized trauma core.

• 2:28:05Speaker 05

  Yes, beautiful. And, um, and there was something kind of naughty and really fun to me about like.

• 2:28:13Speaker 05

  Exposing what that contemporary thing is, it's like, it's like, you're not doing anything new, honey. Like Tennessee Williams was doing this years ago. And guess what he was doing? It was so much more flair. And guess what? A fucking sense of humor. He, there's no way Tennessee Williams doesn't think Suddenly Last Summer is funny. There's no

• 2:28:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:30Speaker 05

  way. There's no way. It's, it's so absurd. The, the big revelation. Anyway. That being so, so I found myself making this thing with like, which were the climax was this like trope that I like actively don't like to watch. Just another thing where like, what are you doing, John? Turn the car around. But, you know, I don't know. Then I just kind of gave over to it and I found it all incredibly moving and like, I, and I found making the connections between Maddie's behavior and her past, like very deep and, and, and straightforward. It's, it's an easy thing to track. I liked the easiness of it. But when I was editing it,

• 2:29:14Speaker 05

  I like, I just was like, oh my God, these two shots of me and Kristen Johnston sitting there like, I was like, it's me divided in two. It's like you have Maddie, who is like the gooey center of me, the like, the aching, longing, yearning, sincere child. And then you have Kristen, who is the, the kind of, I don't know, the, the, this counteracting force that's like always trying to kind of burst the bubble and laugh and be naughty and, and try to like expose,

• 2:29:50Speaker 05

  I don't know, like hollow piety or, or, or, you know, like

• 2:29:53Sean Fennessey?

  Harsh truths.

• 2:29:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. And, um, and to have a good time, you know? And like, and I was like, that's, I was like, it's me. It's just me. It's, it's, it's the two sides of me. And then, and then why that was interesting to me was because I was like, and that's the movie itself is like, the movie is always putting those two things next to each other and making them

• 2:30:16Speaker 05

  try to get along.

• 2:30:17Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:30:17Speaker 05

  It's like you two behave. You know, like you two, like you're gonna figure it out. Like you guys, you have to like negotiate and figure something out. And that's what I think the movie really is at the end of the day. It's like, it's a negotiation between these two sides of myself and, and, and there are certain scenes where one side of me wins over the other, certain moments. It, it, it changes from moment to moment, from scene to scene, I think. But then I actually, I think the, what was like really beautiful to me about this is I, I do think, and this is not for me to decide, okay? But I do think that um,

• 2:30:56Speaker 05

  there are moments where they're really synthesized and where it doesn't matter who's winning, you know? Which side of me is winning?

• 2:31:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, no, it's really interesting. I was thinking about how you're saying you were trying to write something before this that was more personal or more dark. And then where you brought yourself to, and I don't know if you're familiar with the rapper's first album, Conundrum? You know, the sort of like you've been waiting 25 years to tell your story? And you put it all on your first album and then you get to the rapper's second album and you're like, this person has nothing left to say? And so like, is there any part of you when you're making something where you're like, maybe don't put all of it in?

• 2:31:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:31:31Sean Fennessey?

  Like, what can I, because it seems like maybe you ended up putting a lot of it in.

• 2:31:36Speaker 05

  Yes, because I was trying not to put all of it in. Like, I was like, I was like, oh, I'm just doing fun. Like, let's just do something fun and then, and then, yeah, I don't know, it feels, it, to me, like, but this is what, making anything, by the end of it, you're like, it contains the universe.

• 2:31:52Sean Fennessey?

  Everything's in this. Is this um, I asked Olivia this yesterday too. Is this your job now? Like, is, is film director the thing that, because you know, I felt, from afar, it seemed like you were doing great as an actor, as a comedian, like.

• 2:32:07Speaker 05

  Really?

• 2:32:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. It seemed like you had a thriving career. That camera doesn't want you. That camera doesn't want you. Stay in the two-shot? This is a conversation? Please stay in the two-shot, John. I know you need your close-up.

• 2:32:21Speaker 05

  Mother, please! I uh, I, yes, I mean, yes. It's certainly not gonna pay me anything.

• 2:32:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. I was gonna ask you about that too.

• 2:32:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:32:31Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you never know. I mean, that's a tricky thing with this, right? Like, regardless of how this film does,

• 2:32:38Sean Fennessey?

  people stumble into commercial success following their passions all the time. So you can't count against that, right?

• 2:32:45Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, you know, Wallace Shawn, someone who I've worked with, I just spent two years working on his play. And he's a hero of mine for so many reasons, but. I really, I realized with this, I mean, I realized having put some of my own money in this movie, I, you know, and then working on it off Broadway for two years, I was like, oh, I unders, I'm now understanding the Young Sheldon thing. Like, I'm understanding, like, the way he's built his life. He, he has done these, he did seven seasons of Young Sheldon and

• 2:33:17Sean Fennessey?

  Can take gigs sometimes, yeah.

• 2:33:18Speaker 05

  And, and Murphy Brown, The Cosby Show, like, he did, he did a million things like that. And it has allowed him to fund his avant-garde theater that's often been totally maligned and ignored and misunderstood and,

• 2:33:35Speaker 05

  you know, and so, I, but to me, this is, it is, to answer your question, which I've somehow managed to avoid for three to four minutes now.

• 2:33:45Sean Fennessey?

  Some might say thirty-five minutes.

• 2:33:50Speaker 05

  I, yes. Like, this is, this is really what I like to do and I really like,

• 2:34:02Speaker 05

  you know, the beautiful thing is, you end up, you, you, you not only give yourself something to do for two or three years, you give your friends something to do for two or three years, you know? And like, my friends were like, it's not that this, this wasn't without its conflicts and its struggles, but like, my friends seemed so happy that we all had a little job for a little while. You know, we got to work together and like, that was so nice, but I, I really did feel working on this movie, I was like, this is a dignified life. I would like to keep doing this. I would really like to keep doing this.

• 2:34:37Speaker 05

  And I've always wanted to. Do you think you'll circle back to the thing you were working on before? Yes, I am. I'm already doing it. Because I really did, I, I really feel capable. I've proved something to myself, working on this. I'm not a secret. And I've, and

• 2:34:53Speaker 05

  I, you know, Maddie's secret was an ex, I mean, it's in the title. Maddie's secret, like, it's an exercise in, like, bluntness, you know? And I, I worked through that and I wanna keep going. I would love to make, like, eight Maddie movies, seriously. I would love for her to be like a recurring.

• 2:35:12Sean Fennessey?

  Great idea, yeah.

• 2:35:12Speaker 05

  It's my dream, honestly. But I also, I got something out of my system a little bit.

• 2:35:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:35:19Speaker 05

  The Maddies in there.

• 2:35:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:35:22Speaker 05

  But I, um, one joke on set, because we were honestly having so much fun. I think this is Claudia Doherty's joke. She was like, you should do Emily's secret. Like, you should just spend the rest of your life taking each character in the movie. And like, Dina's secret, Beverly's secret, and just do their secret.

• 2:35:40Sean Fennessey?

  I gotta tell you, I love Claudia. And I, I feel like I have not seen her enough. Like, I fell in love with her in love. And I think she is the funniest person in the universe. And letting her be like a bitch was just such a great idea. She's so wonderful in the movie.

• 2:35:53Speaker 05

  Well, she's a very, like, Claudia is, people are very intimidated by Claudia, actually. Like, you know, she's played a lot of, like, bright chirpy, uh, girls. And, uh, and she's, she's just like, she's the funniest. She's the coolest, she's the funniest. And, and I was, I was excited to let her tap into the more withering, you know, part of her.

• 2:36:17Sean Fennessey?

  You did good. Um, okay, so you're making another movie. What, um?

• 2:36:21Speaker 05

  Less blunt.

• 2:36:22Sean Fennessey?

  What, less blunt?

• 2:36:23Speaker 05

  I hope.

• 2:36:23Sean Fennessey?

  What, but, so do you, like, will you also be, like, taking a young Sheldon? Like, is that, is that the plan?

• 2:36:29Speaker 05

  There's no offer.

• 2:36:30Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 2:36:30Speaker 05

  I mean, I, one's, I mean, it literally has to come along. The other thing that I have, which is really nice, is, um, I was gonna come up with a joke. I couldn't think of anything. But I actually do have, um, I was gonna come up with the joke.

• 2:36:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. We acknowledge your effort.

• 2:36:49Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 2:36:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:50Speaker 05

  Um, I, uh, no, I'm, I have touring. I mean, I literally have stand-up. Like, touring is all. Also, I love doing it, actually. It's like totally depleting, but I really, really love performing live. And I have that to make money.

• 2:37:05Sean Fennessey?

  I hope this isn't an invasive question, but is that something that you're cool doing as you get older? Because like, I certainly find traveling for work now to be much different than 10 years ago.

• 2:37:17Speaker 05

  No, no, and I don't do, I, I, this is like the Maddie in me. I have this like, and this is very much the movie. Like, I have this, the movie both on a like story level, but also on a formal level. It's like overstuffed, it's like, it's, it's doing so much. It's exhausting itself.

• 2:37:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:35Speaker 05

  Maddie's exhausting herself. She's doing the dance class and similarly, it's like in order to which she's a dance class, we had to learn choreography on our final weekend when we were all so exhausted. It's like, you know, I have a habit and like, and my live shows are like, they're two hours, they're not an hour, they're two hours long. I'm doing song covers, you know, we're doing, I'm doing a, I have a character where I have to change. Comment, there's like, you know, whatever. It's like, I, I like to like sweat on stage and I'm, and so I, I, um,

• 2:38:11Speaker 05

  it's with each passing year, I just get more and more like, whoa, I can't do this anymore. Like, I'm like, I feel my age in a, in a crazy way.

• 2:38:21Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, well, we end every conversation here by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen?

• 2:38:27Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 2:38:27Sean Fennessey?

  You are a filmmaker.

• 2:38:30Speaker 05

  Thank you, I needed to hear that. Uh, what's the last great thing I've seen?

• 2:38:35Sean Fennessey?

  Don't say the wrong thing.

• 2:38:36Speaker 05

  I know, I could, cause so, I know, they'll come for me. I, I, I'm sure, cause you know, it's, it's such a clear feeling when you're like, oh, I love this.

• 2:38:46Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:38:46Speaker 05

  I love this and I know I had it recently.

• 2:38:49Sean Fennessey?

  Do you feel like you're still a massive consumer of movies?

• 2:38:55Speaker 05

  Uh, I've slowed down on consuming really anything. I haven't watched TV in so long.

• 2:39:00Sean Fennessey?

  Like Matty, but I haven't, I also was like so inundated in watching movies to get ready for this movie. That I like, feel like I can't really watch anything anymore. I hear this all the time from directors too. There's a little like you hit a wall. I still hit the wall and I, and I'm like, for this next thing I'm writing, I would like for the wall to break down again and to. Is there something that is an inspiration point for the new thing that you would share?

• 2:39:32Sean Fennessey?

  You can be real Cheshire Cat about this if you want.

• 2:39:39Sean Fennessey?

  Can I smoke in here?

• 2:39:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's fun, right? I, okay.

• 2:39:46Sean Fennessey?

  Let me think, let me think. What can I say? I mean, let's just say, okay, I'll be, this is really, I'll tell you off the mic. But my hint was this, there's an Amazon documentary.

• 2:40:03Sean Fennessey?

  Or like, there's a documentary on Amazon, not about Amazon, on Amazon. Okay. That has been very helpful for me.

• 2:40:11Sean Fennessey?

  Wow. And that's all you'll give?

• 2:40:14Sean Fennessey?

  Honestly, that's great. That's a first. Someone who won't name a thing, but will reference something, but you will come back. By Amazon. On the next movie. Yeah, in 62 years. And you can reveal. Yes. Yes. I'll be, you know, fully paralyzed from, from various back surgeries. I, okay, what have I seen that I love recently? Let's do what you just did. I like that. You, you can, you can claim ownership of the first time ever referencing, but unenunciating. Yeah, that was special. John Early, thank you for being here. Congratulations on Matty's secret. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

• 2:40:52Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks to John Early, thanks to Chris, Joanna, Charles, Mallory, Van, Adam, Yasi and Rob. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on today's episode and his selection. Thanks to Lucas Cavanagh for his production support. Later this week, Amanda, the movie auction returns.

• 2:41:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 2:41:09Sean Fennessey?

  You're excited? Ready, you prepared?

• 2:41:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, we've just spent an entire episode hearing people complain about how they didn't get what they wanted in the first half. So, you know, maybe, maybe I can channel that energy forward.

• 2:41:21Sean Fennessey?

  Let's make it a whole theme week.

• 2:41:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:23Sean Fennessey?

  We'll see you then.

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