‘Mickey 17’ and the Bong Joon-ho Movie Rankings

After a brief discussion of the A24-inflected ‘Thunderbolts*’ trailer that dropped over the weekend (0:45), Sean and Amanda dive into Bong Joon-ho’s eighth feature film, ‘Mickey 17’ (4:15). They discuss its often uneven tone, how the film fits into Bong Joon-ho’s body of work, Robert Pattinson’s incredible performance and lack of movie star persona, and some of their favorite scenes. Then, they rank all eight of Bong Joon-ho’s feature films (49:32). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producers: Bobby Wagner, Chia Hao Tat, Sasha Ashall, and Jon Jones 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.

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• 1:25Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Finacy.

• 1:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 1:27Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about Mickey 17, Bong Joon Ho's long-awaited follow-up to Parasite, hit theaters last week. We are diving deep into it, what works, what doesn't, more. Then we're gonna rank all eight Bond-directed features. But first, Amanda, I just asked you to watch a trailer sitting right next to me.

• 1:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:47Sean Fennessey?

  As we often do at this time.

• 1:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, it's one of your favorite Monday morning activities.

• 1:50Sean Fennessey?

  Did you watch that trailer? I didn't. I'm gonna watch it right now next to you. The trailer I should watch is the A24 Inflected Trailer for Thunderbolts.

• 1:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:59Sean Fennessey?

  Asterisk, a new MCU movie that you think looked bad.

• 2:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:04Sean Fennessey?

  In the Super Bowl trailer.

• 2:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 2:06Sean Fennessey?

  And now you've seen this new version and you think, what?

• 2:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I think this is your fault. And I wonder, how do you feel watching it? Like, do you feel indicted? Like, do you see all, like, the, the marketing and financial forces swirling around to make this thing that, like, you kind of did?

• 2:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I would say my influence is vast.

• 2:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:28Sean Fennessey?

  And, um, no, I mean, this is, I thought, a very funny move by Marvel. Um, a self-aware move by Marvel. To realize that they have lost those of us who are sitting on the fence between the A24 bros and the MCU stans. You know, there are, there were a few of us who were, who were on board with both ideas living concurrently. A lot of those of us have jumped away from the Marvel side of the fence in the last four or five years. And so this is a kind of nod to that loss, I think, in some ways. Also, just the fact that the MCU is not cool right now.

• 2:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:59Sean Fennessey?

  There's kind of nothing cool about it. And so it's an attempt to identify some cool, at least in this Thunderbolts property. Worked for me. Gassafelstein, huge look for Gassafelstein, the, the German dance music artist who I was exposed to first by Kanye West, and I won't say anything else about that.

• 3:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Great, thank you.

• 3:17Sean Fennessey?

  I thought the trailer was funny. I've always thought this movie looked not bad.

• 3:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I thought that it was funny. I wouldn't say that any of, like, the content, the clips of the movie changed, like, my anticipation of the movie in any way. I mean, I, I like all of those people.

• 3:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, good actors.

• 3:36Amanda Dobbins?

  That's Lewis Pullman, right?

• 3:37Sean Fennessey?

  It is, yeah, Bob.

• 3:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you know that he's dating Kaia Gerber?

• 3:40Sean Fennessey?

  I do know.

• 3:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And did you know that Bill Pullman was outside of, he went to see Kaia Gerber's play this weekend?

• 3:46Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, what, what is she performing in?

• 3:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I don't remember the name of it. It's somewhere here in Los Angeles.

• 3:50Sean Fennessey?

  Did she write it?

• 3:51Amanda Dobbins?

  No, but she's in it. I believe this was the last weekend, but...

• 3:54Sean Fennessey?

  Is it like a streetcar named Desire?

• 3:56Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I was, no, I think it was like, it was some new theater. Kaia Gerber is taking risks, okay?

• 4:00Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 4:01Amanda Dobbins?

  In the literary and theatrical space.

• 4:04Sean Fennessey?

  Well, she has so much to lose, so...

• 4:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I just think, but honestly, like, the parents of the boyfriend went to the, the theater this weekend, and I just thought that was notable.

• 4:13Sean Fennessey?

  I enjoy Lewis Pullman's work. Um, I would say that's an impressive pull for him. Kyagerber and maybe Thunderbolts will be equally impressive. Maybe not. I, I think it's pretty funny.

• 4:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Generally funny.

• 4:24Sean Fennessey?

  No one knows what to do anymore.

• 4:25Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I like it. Like it's, it's funny. They're like in on the joke and then A24 retweeted it with like a euphoria meme that I had to Google, but I laughed at that too. No feedback on the cake, but that's okay.

• 4:37Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, they haven't hit you up on the materialist cake?

• 4:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I haven't heard from anyone at A24 about the materialist cake.

• 4:41Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think that's about?

• 4:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I really don't know. Maybe they're baking it, you know?

• 4:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 4:45Amanda Dobbins?

  A lot of layers.

• 4:46Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely.

• 4:46Amanda Dobbins?

  And so that does take time.

• 4:48Sean Fennessey?

  That classic 96 hour bake. We know about those. That's all the news I have for you.

• 4:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 4:53Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sure something between when this episode is finished recording and we publish, something meaningful will happen, but otherwise, let's just dive right back into Mickey 17.

• 5:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 5:03Sean Fennessey?

  Bong Joon-ho was on the show last week talking about.

• 5:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Crazy.

• 5:07Sean Fennessey?

  All the things he did to make this movie.

• 5:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's just, I, I don't know why I'm allowed on the same episode as Bong Joon-ho. I really don't.

• 5:13Sean Fennessey?

  It was great. It was great. Bong was great. Sharon Choi, his longtime translator on these American stints was great. This is Bong's eighth feature film. It is written by him and solely by him, I should note. It's an adaptation of the 2021 novel Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton. Stars Robert Pattinson. Perhaps you've heard of him. Naomi Ackey, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo, Holiday Granger, Anna Marie, Varto Lemay, Patsy Ferrin, big international cast. He's gotten really good at assembling these huge international casts, especially as I've gone back and looked back at his movies recently. This is kind of something that he really likes to do with these American productions. The movie's story is very simple and yet very complex. A classic sci-fi comedy cloning tale.

• 5:56Sean Fennessey?

  About a human expedition to colonize the ice world called Niflheim. After one iteration of Mickey dies, a new body is generated with most of his memories intact and his body is fully 3D printed so that he may be exposed to the terrors of Niflheim, to test vaccines on him, to explore the world and make him the crash test dummy for this expedition. What'd you think of Mickey 17?

• 6:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I was practicing the setup to this on the way in. I really, I liked it and didn't get it and don't care. Does that make any sense?

• 6:34Sean Fennessey?

  Sure, yeah.

• 6:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and we're such an interesting time in terms of, I mean, movies, but also big budget filmmaking and things with money where it's like, I would like to see this, a movie like this, and then like every week compared to what we are offered. And it feels like it is in such a different category and so cool. And once again, as we often say with Steven Soderbergh, like, I just like it when people try things. Some of this totally works and was really exciting for me. Some of it, I didn't quite follow, as I said. I think that, given the baggage of this movie in particular and its release, and then we'll

• 7:16Amanda Dobbins?

  talk about some of the politics of it and just, you know, the big idea of Oscar-winning directors, like, next movie from Warner Brothers and concern trolling about how he should or should not do whatever, I'm hesitant to even say, like, well, I didn't get all of it, but that's okay. Like, you know, it would be nice to live in a world where we could just talk about how, like, how cool and interesting movies from great filmmakers do and don't work all of the time without all of the context, but I, we can't because of everything that is surrounding this movie.

• 7:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think it would be an interesting blind taste test, or if you showed this movie to audiences who were fond of Bong but didn't know he made it, whether they would be able to locate that, I think that they would.

• 8:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 8:04Sean Fennessey?

  I think it has a lot of his signatures and hallmarks as a filmmaker and, you know, how they feel about it versus your general moviegoer who maybe doesn't, isn't it like a cinephile, doesn't know as much about a director like him. I think people are always going to be willing to afford more grace to a director, taking chances like this when they have this body of work that supports it. And it also feels very thematically coherent, I think, with a lot of the stuff that he's done. I liked it. I liked it, I didn't love it, I think it's kind of in a Quartile of bong movies that we'll talk about as we get into the rankings.

• 8:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:35Sean Fennessey?

  He doesn't have any bad films. All of his films, I think, are engaging and smart and beautifully made. I think this is kind of that second tier where he's reaching for something that he maybe doesn't totally have his arms around, or he's like reaching for something and grabbing it and holding it a little too tight.

• 8:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:51Sean Fennessey?

  But I think as, as post-Oscar blank checks go, this is a very funny one.

• 8:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's the, I mean, everything about it is cool. And what he does in terms of world building, genre, directing actors, honestly, like creatures and sci-fi stuff is all so like next level and accomplished. And I think a thing that we'll take for granted in this conversation, but like, we shouldn't because you and I see so much Dreck where none of that is nailed down at all.

• 9:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 9:24Amanda Dobbins?

  And we have to talk about like, oh, well, like, why did they forget the water bottle in that shot or whatever? And, and we're not doing that. So we're able to talk about like, things like themes and pacing and the idea of satire. And, you know, and, and that's, that's awesome. But I, my hesitance is like, it, it just, it feels like it is an unlevel playing field because.

• 9:46Sean Fennessey?

  His bar is higher.

• 9:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, his bar is higher, but I, I feel protective of it also.

• 9:51Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right, right.

• 9:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I, you know, I don't want us, these conversations kind of like go out into the world and then suddenly it's like, oh, you know, we're, we're dissecting it at the same level that we're dissecting Captain America, whatever the fuck.

• 10:05Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I, I want to talk about the, the details of the movie, but this, this prompt popped into my head as you were talking, which is that, you know, the movie didn't have a great box office over the weekend. Not terribly surprising when you consider the circumstances in full. But if the movie had made $80 million over the weekend instead of $18 million, would you feel differently about how you're characterizing, um, your sort of semi-support of the movie? Because then you'd feel like, well, it's a, it's a hit, so it doesn't need me to be like, this is okay. Like, please, studios, keep trying to make movies like this. This stuff really matters to us.

• 10:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess so, though. Would 80 million be enough? You know, like, is there, like, we live, we live in hell, right? So there, there is no enough. And, you know, the, the conversation already this Monday morning was about like, why do you care about corporate box office, like, bottom lines and all this stuff? Which, like, I, I fucking don't, you know? I have to agree with Todd Phillips on that one, which is the only time I'll ever say that sentence. But it, things are so dire in terms of filmmakers and, like, artists actually having means to do something big.

• 11:15Amanda Dobbins?

  And so to even criticize it a little, like, it just kind of seems like we're missing the, not miss, like, people are gonna interpret it differently. Do you know what I mean? And it will, like, and, and that's a bummer.

• 11:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think it is, but.

• 11:35Amanda Dobbins?

  What are you gonna do?

• 11:35Sean Fennessey?

  We'll be honest, you know, like, this is a really cool movie that is also very flawed. And we can talk about that. The interesting balance of tone, I think, is really challenging. It reminded me a lot of Terry Gilliam movies and Paul Verhoeven movies and a little bit of John Carpenter. He's talked a lot about The Thing in the run-up to this movie. At least in terms of the setting, this feels very close to The Thing. But The Thing is, despite the kind of gore and extravagance of the gore of that movie, a dead serious movie, this movie is not really very serious. It's very daffy, almost slapsticky at times.

• 12:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, so I, is this movie a comedy?

• 12:09Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I kept writing satire and you kept writing notes, like, is this a satire? And asking whether it's a farce. And I think it's somewhere in between.

• 12:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and, and, and I think, like, our inability to answer that question is sort of, you know, what we're circling around. And in terms of, it's trying to do a lot of different tones and trying to nail down a lot of different types of comedies. And. Every kinda, not every character, but there are sort of two to three movies within it.

• 12:38Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:39Amanda Dobbins?

  That are operating on slightly different wavelengths.

• 12:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think like, uh, this is, this film is not nearly as good as the movie I'm going to cite.

• 12:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 12:47Sean Fennessey?

  Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not To Be, which is about a small group of people inside of a big, um, international story. That is like very silly on the small part, but very serious on the big part. It feels like a little bit of a model for this, and I think you would call To Be or Not To Be a satire. It is farcical.

• 13:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:06Sean Fennessey?

  In terms of the way that the story is told, but the, you know, the, the big ideas of this movie, which is essentially about a church slash corporation that is.

• 13:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 13:18Sean Fennessey?

  Funding this expedition to seemingly terraform an alien planet and make it a new destination for humanity in the somewhat near future. 2051, I want to say is the year that this movie is set. And this expedition requires manpower and bodies to, to, to make it happen. And so Kenneth Marshall, who is a former, uh, elected figure in the US government, who has now lost two consecutive elections, has shifted his allegiances to this company and he is the leader of this new expedition and has taken, you know, fancied himself a kind of godhead figure. And so he's assembling all of these people to do this work. But the movie is very tightly focused on Mickey and Mickey volunteers to be one of these

• 14:02Sean Fennessey?

  expendables is what they're called, somebody who will be killed over and over and over again and reprinted over and over and over again to help the expedition in some ways, but also he has love in his heart and he has sex with a companion and he makes friends and he goes on journeys and he's also running from something, which is one of the reasons why he volunteers himself. And so Robert Pattinson is doing a kind of like Buster Keaton slash Jim Carrey-esque physical performance.

• 14:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 14:29Sean Fennessey?

  Inside of a movie that has like a lot of gray, dark shadow and serious political implications. And so there's a purposeful clash of tone, but that doesn't always work as well as you want it to in the movie.

• 14:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and I.

• 14:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Not only is he doing something different from most of the other people in the movie, he is, spoiler alert, playing several different versions of Mickey himself. And so he's, he's doing different tones within his own character, which is very cool and impressive. And I, to me, I mean, he is like the reason to see the movie. Like, I loved it. I love Robert Pattinson as an actor. I, you're watching something like weird and magical anytime he's on the screen in this movie. And anytime he's even like doing the voiceover, which, you know, the, the, the first part of the movie and the end of the movie rely pretty heavily on, as you noted, a little bit because it's an adaptation of a book. And a little bit because it's like doing Goodfellas for, you know, it's really, I

• 15:30Amanda Dobbins?

  thought a lot of like a Goodfellas joke as, and with, with love and affection and, and that made me like it as well. So he's, he has a lot going on, on his own. And then the, there's like the political stuff that is, is, is a lot, doesn't totally feel nailed down and doesn't really ever feel in conversation with him.

• 15:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's interesting. The first act of the movie I thought was very effective, but very literary because of that voiceover that is necessary. I think most, I haven't read Edward, uh, Mickey Seven.

• 16:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I, so I skimmed it.

• 16:08Sean Fennessey?

  Did you look at it?

• 16:09Amanda Dobbins?

  This, yeah.

• 16:09Sean Fennessey?

  And is it all, is it first person? Is it taking place in his mind?

• 16:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, it's all, it's all in his mind. And I, I would say more focused on, like, not the science, though there is sort of a lot of like entry level made up science. It's kind of been compared a lot to The Martian, and I would say that's like the right level of, um, of engagement and, and made up science.

• 16:33Sean Fennessey?

  Seriousness with it to take it.

• 16:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, uh, and. And the ethics of cloning and the idea like of souls and stuff more than on Marshall or the corporation or that's elucidated like a little bit. But it's it's all about Mickey and and multiple beings.

• 16:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, so I think that's maybe part of the challenge of this movie is that it's a movie that is taking place within one person, but it's a very big world. And so you I can kind of feel him trying to bend the framework around the kinds of things he likes to do, which are usually very multi perspective stories with a number of different characters, often families are featured in his stories. And they're kind of always shifting from who is in the lead. Occasionally you have a movie like this, like Mother is maybe the one that is closest to this, where you've got like more or less one person that we're following the whole time, but.

• 17:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, Okja.

• 17:26Sean Fennessey?

  That's what.

• 17:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 17:27Sean Fennessey?

  But Okja has like a lot of characters and a lot of perspectives.

• 17:30Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's like you are, it's the same thing where it's someone who society under values, either a child or Mickey. You navigating both like creature relationships and large corporations with also like a buffoonish male figure and like a steely ice cold like woman at the side, trying to negotiate what's going on. So there's, there's a lot of Okja in this.

• 18:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, after you, after I saw it, you asked me like, what bong should I revisit to prepare? And I said that there's just a, there's a lot of Okja in this movie. And maybe that's part of what is holding me back from really loving is that it feels like slightly schematic or thematically redundant to some of the kind of corporate slash political kill the billionaires stuff that is in the movie. That it's a part of what he's interested in as a filmmaker and in most of his films.

• 18:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it comes up in all of them.

• 18:28Sean Fennessey?

  So it's not that. I think it's maybe just the very specific way that it's told. Mark Ruffalo plays this Kenneth Marshall figure and Toni Collette plays Ilfa, who is his wife. There is a Trumpian quality to Kenneth Marshall, for sure.

• 18:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 18:43Sean Fennessey?

  Um, Bong has said that this is not based on Trump, but I think if you watch the movie and you see his hair and his vocal affectations and his teeth.

• 18:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 18:51Sean Fennessey?

  And, um.

• 18:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And like Ruffalo's doing it.

• 18:54Sean Fennessey?

  Very clearly.

• 18:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Like even the, the kind of the speech pattern. You know, it's not quite as good as Sebastian Stan's remake, but like they're living in the same family.

• 19:02Sean Fennessey?

  They are, they are. It's a very pronounced, I mean, he's an over the top figure in real life. And so you, it requires a kind of over the top performance. I would say somewhat distractingly over the top for me. I thought he got some good laugh lines in this movie, but I didn't think it was.

• 19:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Dead silent in my theater.

• 19:16Sean Fennessey?

  Really?

• 19:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 19:17Sean Fennessey?

  The laughs were kind of inter, were really interspersed in the theater. I saw it a second time with a packed house, um, on Sunday and people were, they seemed to like Pattinson, was my takeaway.

• 19:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 19:29Sean Fennessey?

  And especially when Mickey 17 meets a multiple. That stuff seemed to work really, really well. The Kenneth Marshall stuff, I, yeah, I guess didn't work as well. Um, as I was watching it the second time, I was like, is this movie better if there is no Kenneth Marshall? And Toni Collette just plays this like lead figure who's a little evil, but maybe not as eccentrically over the top.

• 19:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I do think so. I mean, I, part of the reason I went back and read Mickey Seven was because I wanted to understand how much of the Marshall and the, it's sort of a cult. It's sort of a mega church. It's sort of a like corporation. And I couldn't really figure out what was going on with his motivation or, you know, what, what he was trying to represent besides sort of like a Trumpian guy with too much teeth, who is a buffoon on TV a lot.

• 20:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 20:21Amanda Dobbins?

  And there's, it is sort of a cult in the, like, I mean, I guess they say literally, there's one sentence where it's like, this is a cult and they only believe that there is like one soul, which, you know, I was kind of like, well, is that wrong? But anyway, um.

• 20:39Sean Fennessey?

  There's a little bit of like evangelical Christianity in here. There's mega church stuff for sure.

• 20:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I think all of that, like as best I could tell, and again, I didn't read word for word, but that is added in. That's like, that's Bong's addition.

• 20:50Sean Fennessey?

  Those things. Okay. Interesting.

• 20:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, and definitely all of the kind of Trump political illusion stuff is added in.

• 20:58Amanda Dobbins?

  But then I feel there's so much going on that it's not quite nailed down. And so I agree with you, if you had had Toni Collette, or just like a simpler, this is a, you know, Mickey is just wants to be a guy in the world and they're taking advantage of him and he, you know, if you could streamline his conflict, I do think that that would be easier and would also play into what worked for your audience and for me, which is Robert Pattinson.

• 21:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think the movie, because it's a sci fi spectacle, needs an adversary, and that's why this character is pumped up in the way that it is. It's not always as effective as I would want it to be. I think, I like the idea of a kind of Trump slash Musk-esque person, leading a space expedition and being kind of buoyed by the conservative Christian right, because that's like effectively what happened in this country, you know, like, that idea works, it's just the execution that is a little dodgy.

• 21:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, it's like, it's all a little muddied, right? And, but also, there's so much else going on that it's not able to be, like, communicated in that way, like, he's sort of Trump, but it's a pretty, it's a like, very broad caricature of Trump that doesn't really like, I don't know what I'm supposed to take away from what he's trying to say about that, other than, well, like, Trump's a buffoon, yes, but like, it's also-

• 22:31Sean Fennessey?

  This is kind of my issue with Okja, for the record, too, where I'm like, there's really no, like, ambiguity here, it's just like, a very dead forward, you know, ecological destruction is bad, protect animals, kind of conceit-

• 22:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 22:44Sean Fennessey?

  That is, is something that I agree with broadly, but like, it has none of the shade of all of his Korean films, which are usually like, very morally ambiguous and complex, and require like, a moment to be like, what did, what did the ending of that movie actually mean, and we should discuss it, and I find that this movie and Okja together, both result in a kind of like- I agree, you know, that sort of like neoliberal, like, sure, we all should be nice.

• 23:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, I like, I, I agree with you, you know, Okta's just like mean Spielberg, you know, and so it, it, and cynical Spielberg, and so it, it is very like broad and, and manipulative and there, I rewatched it and that last shot with the pigs and the baby pig, like, just wrecks me every time, but like, that is also, that's-

• 23:33Sean Fennessey?

  E.T. with a pig, yeah.

• 23:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but it like, you're right that it's not nuanced, it's like, yeah, I agree, like, probably we don't want to hurt the baby pig or any of the other pigs.

• 23:41Sean Fennessey?

  It can be effective and maybe that movie's more well-made or has more higher highs.

• 23:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I just, I kind of, what, like, what do I agree with in this? It's like, I, we shouldn't let, like, mega churches be in charge of space?

• 23:55Sean Fennessey?

  Let's, let's, let's talk about, um, we shouldn't let mega churches be in charge of space, that is a good note.

• 23:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Or anything.

• 24:00Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with that. Uh, I think that, well, they can be in charge of their churches, that's fine, that's, that's their jobs.

• 24:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 24:07Sean Fennessey?

  That you can run your church.

• 24:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 24:08Sean Fennessey?

  Um, you can't run space.

• 24:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 24:11Sean Fennessey?

  You know?

• 24:12Amanda Dobbins?

  That's good.

• 24:12Sean Fennessey?

  You heard it here first, mega churches, you can't run space.

• 24:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Do mega churches believe in space?

• 24:16Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I, I don't know, I don't, I don't know, well, we have a mega church here, come on in, mega church. Um, I think the thing that the movie is trying to do is twofold. One, it's a very cool movie, and the stuff that works the best because of Pattinson and the way that the film is written, is about the self and the multiples of Mickey and being confronted with one version of yourself and another version of yourself simultaneously, and a person who's angrier and more aggressive and more, um, out for revenge on those who have done you wrong, versus somebody who is a little softer, a little bit more emotional, a little bit more sentimental, and the idea of these things, these selves coexisting, that's a cool idea to render in a sci-fi movie, it's been done before, but maybe not

• 24:58Sean Fennessey?

  quite in this way. Um, the other thing is that, we didn't, haven't talked about the creepers yet, which are the creatures of this movie, Bong, one of the great creature four-word filmmakers, and he's invented a new kind of creature that looks like a armadillo water bug elephant.

• 25:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 25:16Sean Fennessey?

  And.

• 25:17Amanda Dobbins?

  They're, they are really, really cute and also so gross.

• 25:19Sean Fennessey?

  They're very gross and cute.

• 25:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 25:21Sean Fennessey?

  And that's kind of his thing, right? That's kind of what Bond does. This movie is very much like if, as I told him, the host creature and Okja had a baby.

• 25:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, like the little, the hump, but also the way the mouth opens and all of the things.

• 25:35Sean Fennessey?

  Exactly.

• 25:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 25:36Sean Fennessey?

  So, um, I think that the creepers are a very on the nose metaphor for the other, for any immigrant or person who does not look like you. And are, you know, the Kenneth Marshall character, characterizing them as like disgusting alien bugs and wanting to exterminate them is.

• 25:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 25:55Sean Fennessey?

  A very, very, very broad one-to-one metaphor for the way that we talk about, the way that some people in this country talk about the other. So I think that's what the movie is about, really, is about like, understanding yourself. And then, once you understand yourself and accept yourself, accepting others in the world, you know?

• 26:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 26:12Sean Fennessey?

  That's the, the kind of like, um, we are the world hands together interpretation of the movie.

• 26:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 26:19Sean Fennessey?

  But it gets bogged down in like the other noisier stuff around it at times.

• 26:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. There, there is also sort of a contradiction in the ultimate conclusion, which is like, it's about honoring yourself, but then only one Mickey can exist at the end. Um, so which of yourselves do you choose, I guess, and?

• 26:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's a good question.

• 26:42Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, um.

• 26:44Sean Fennessey?

  Which, which of yourselves would you choose if you had to make a choice?

• 26:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, he.

• 26:48Sean Fennessey?

  Would it be YouTube Amanda?

• 26:51Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, there is like the, I mean, he's essentially choosing between kind and pathetic, slightly dopey himself and aggro, you know, sexually adventurous version of himself, which is very funny. There's a lot of sex in this movie too, which is great.

• 27:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 27:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I like, that's, it's, it's funny. Um, and.

• 27:12Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, ultimately, I guess they both contain both. And so then the sweet dominant one, you know, the sweet non-dominant one can win. But I, it's, you know, and I guess like that is, it is sort of complicated. And Bong is being like, okay, well, even when you choose yourself, there are also consequences or complications.

• 27:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 27:39Amanda Dobbins?

  But that nuance like also gets sort of bogged down in a very long ending. And it's just nothing, everything is a little messy, right? And I think that's unexpected in a filmmaker who is so precise. And everything is always, as we know, you know, storyboarded and, and designed and chosen like by the frame.

• 28:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 28:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And then I, I was just kind of like, okay, well, what's going on here?

• 28:10Sean Fennessey?

  Is Mickey Seven humorous in tone?

• 28:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I, he's, it's sort of dopey.

• 28:15Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 28:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Again, like I wasn't, I wasn't reading for tone or like reading for a sense of enjoyment.

• 28:21Sean Fennessey?

  You don't have your book report ready for us?

• 28:24Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I, it was, I guess it's supposed to be like amusing, you know?

• 28:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I ask because this movie is a reunion for Bong with Darius Kanji, the DP. They worked together on Okja. Darius Kanji, for those who are not familiar with him, is one of the great living cinematographers, Iranian filmmaker who has worked with, I guess he's probably best known for Seven with David Fincher, but you know, has shot the last couple of James Gray movies. He shot Uncut Gems.

• 28:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 28:56Sean Fennessey?

  He's got two movies coming this year.

• 28:58Amanda Dobbins?

  So your trailer would be the cinematographer from Uncut Gems.

• 29:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, as Marvel taught me. He's got two other movies coming this year, Marty Supreme, Josh Safdie's new movie, and Eddington, he's shooting the new Ari Aster movie.

• 29:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so, and so it would be this, from all three of them?

• 29:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 29:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, okay.

• 29:12Sean Fennessey?

  Mickey Seventeen is not being sold on any of those facts, but you know, Darius Kanji favors darkness over light.

• 29:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:18Sean Fennessey?

  He favors a kind of noirish style, a black and white style of film. And the movie is, the like, production design is kind of dingy cargo loader. It's a little bit more Alien than Star Trek, The Next Generation. You know, it's not a glimmering, cool space movie. It is a movie about like, Industrialization funded by a megachurch in which like the proletariat needs to survive.

• 29:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Snowpiercer in it.

• 29:42Sean Fennessey?

  Very snowpiercer. I would argue, and that was what I was gonna say is like, the movie to me is actually at its best and most coherent, or at least flattering my own tastes, when it is a little bit ominous and dark. And for example, there's a sequence early in the film when Mickey has signed up to become an expendable, and he is sort of escorted by the actress Holiday Granger to go, essentially have a physical, and learn about the 3D printing technology, the big machine that makes the new Micky's. And it's a little scarier. It's a little like out of the past. It's a little, it's a noir drama.

• 30:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 30:20Sean Fennessey?

  Where, you know, a femme fatale is luring him into a space where he doesn't know where he's headed. And there's a sequence very late in the film, a dream sequence, that I won't spoil in detail, but that also feels kind of unnerving and a little upsetting, a little out of place. And I feel like if the movie held that tone a little more consistently, you wouldn't have this great fun, daffy Robert Pattinson performance, but you might have a movie that kind of hangs together a little bit more, and you wouldn't have all this kind of tone spray that is happening.

• 30:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I think that's definitely true. It would be picking a tone. I think the two sequences that you identify, they are still a little weird. They both still have Robert Pattinson, and there are still moments of, maybe not of humor, but of, well, they do have humor, but humor is like the finishing touch.

• 31:13Sean Fennessey?

  They're just strange. They're just-

• 31:15Amanda Dobbins?

  They're strange and in a way that is kind of funny.

• 31:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 31:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And that is, I think, when Bong is most effective and also funniest. Like, I don't know if his broad comedy makes me laugh. And it didn't make a ton of people in my screening like laugh out loud with one great exception.

• 31:38Amanda Dobbins?

  But- I think all of his other movies are like very riley, like observed and, and deal with big problems and big ideas in sort of like a cynical funny way, whether it's like the government or the corporation. He is, he is often commenting by being like, this is weird and fucked up. And the only way I know how to process that is a little funny. So I agree that if he had leaned into that a bit more. For me, for me, it's when it's try, when it's slapstick is, is when you kind of lose it or lost me.

• 32:16Sean Fennessey?

  It's funny though, because there's a, my favorite scene in the movie, I think, is when Marshall invites Mickey to have a dinner.

• 32:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, that is like, you know, every, when you get it right, you get it right.

• 32:27Sean Fennessey?

  That to me is like, if you were gonna make a slapstick movie, if you're gonna make a Three Stooges movie on a spaceship.

• 32:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 32:32Sean Fennessey?

  Pattinson can do it. Like, he has, he has like a pratfall in this movie where I was like, holy shit, that's not a stunt man. You know, like you can see that it's him flipping over furniture and falling and smashing glass and convulsing on the ground. Like, he's, he's game.

• 32:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, to me, the, the best part of that is there is, there's some very uncomfortable singing. And then the way that Pattinson is like sort of reacting to it, I first off, I was, I mean, it was perfect.

• 32:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, well, his stomach is turning while it's happening. Yeah. That's, that moment is just really, really funny and it almost, is almost like a tease for what could have been.

• 33:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. But that's a different movie than the movie that you're describing.

• 33:09Sean Fennessey?

  Totally, totally.

• 33:11Amanda Dobbins?

  There is this sort of, like, no one should ever have to pick a lane. You know, that's like the, that's the magic of life.

• 33:20Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, it's really cool that he got $120 million from an American studio to make a movie.

• 33:24Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, it's more that there are moments where you get this, he gets the slapstick right. And there are moments of that noir stuff. And then there are. Is, there's some other stuff where it just kind of feels like they didn't get quite where they wanted to get in terms of tone.

• 33:42Sean Fennessey?

  It might have just been a sense that like, it's a little character stuff to the movie at times. Like I thought Steven Yeun is like a little bit wasted in this movie. He plays Timo, his, Mickey's sort of like partner in crime at the beginning of the film and then they both sign up for the expedition. Timo gets a more elevated role as a pilot.

• 34:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 34:00Sean Fennessey?

  And he's an underhanded type, but he kind of like flits in and out of the movie and we never get invested. And the way his story was resolved, I thought was really strange and felt very tacked on. I thought Naomi Aki was really good. And I've been a little iffy on her. She's been in some really big movies. She's in a Star Wars movie. She was Whitney Houston in I Want to Dance with Somebody. She was in Blink Twice. I think she's good in Blink Twice, but I didn't think that movie really hung together very well. So she's, she's had like a lot of bites at the apple. This I thought was the best. I thought she was like very sexy and very strong in a part that was cool. She, we don't really get to know her that well because there are so many Mickeys around, but I liked, you know, she's playing a part that like a lot of men often play and they've kind of inverted that

• 34:42Sean Fennessey?

  role very cleverly. And so I liked her. I, I'm, I'm really torn on Toni Collette because I feel like if she's not going for it, why is Toni Collette in your movie? Like you don't hire her for like a very subtle, quiet role. You know, that's not-

• 35:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, this isn't subtle.

• 35:01Sean Fennessey?

  But that's my point. That's my point. Like she's, if you're gonna hire her, like she's got to play a big character and she's playing like-

• 35:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 35:07Sean Fennessey?

  The, some like Melania Hillary combination who's really obsessed with sauces and, and feeding her goofball husband sauces on camera. I enjoyed her. I don't know. It's, it's like, it's kind of a mixed bag on the cast. I, I, I going forward have my eye on Anna Maria Vartolome, who we saw in Happening a few years ago. This is a very different performance than Audrey Duvan's Happening.

• 35:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, but she's, she's great.

• 35:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, very, very alluring actress.

• 35:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. And also kinda, she is like tasked with being kind of- The normie for like, I think she is, she's a human. And she's interested in, in Mickey, uh, in that way.

• 35:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 35:53Amanda Dobbins?

  If you will.

• 35:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 35:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, and is sort of being like manipulated by the Marshalls, but is there to just be kind of like, what's wrong with all of you?

• 36:01Sean Fennessey?

  Great. Um, news that in 2051, during space expeditions, we still listen to Elliott Smith in our little cabins. That was an interesting needle drop. I didn't see that coming. Um, but shout out to Kai.

• 36:14Amanda Dobbins?

  That's her name?

• 36:14Sean Fennessey?

  Actress's name. Yeah. She's, she's got great taste.

• 36:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 36:17Sean Fennessey?

  She's had that wonderful tea glass that Mickey was drinking from.

• 36:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:21Sean Fennessey?

  Just a lot of style in that room.

• 36:22Amanda Dobbins?

  The food's really gross.

• 36:23Sean Fennessey?

  Disgusting.

• 36:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And in a great way.

• 36:25Sean Fennessey?

  Chains of Snowpiercer. You know, the protein bars from Snowpiercer? I thought of that too. Gross food and gross eating circumstances is kind of a bong signature. He follows it through on this one. So the Korean films versus the American films.

• 36:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Sean Fennessey?

  This seems like a clear pattern to me now. This is what I wrote down. The Korean movies have a more acidic, bleak, kind of like doom euphoria at their ending. The like, there's like a carrot of redemption or freedom that is being waved in front of the characters faces at the end. But they're not happy endings. Like in Memories of Murder, at the end, Park is no longer a police officer. He returns to a murder site and he sees a little girl there and she tells him a story about a man she saw doing something there once. And then he just like looks into the camera and it's this like, oh my God, the killer's still out there.

• 37:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:10Sean Fennessey?

  We're all hopeless feeling.

• 37:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, right, right.

• 37:12Sean Fennessey?

  At the end of Mother, all is revealed, if you haven't seen the movie. Um, and then the mother goes in this kind of like reverie with all of these other women. But she is also have to, has to kind of like cope and push down her feelings about what has transpired with her son. Nanny of Parasite is even more complicated, but even more interesting because it sort of like starts where it ends. Where the father is trapped in the basement and the son needs to make enough money essentially to buy the house to free him from the basement. Which is like, like, like literalizing the metaphor of the movie.

• 37:44Sean Fennessey?

  Um, the American movies, like you mentioned that Okja at the end does have this kind of like painful image of the other pigs.

• 37:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:51Sean Fennessey?

  But, you know, Nija and Okja are reunited.

• 37:54Amanda Dobbins?

  And they push the baby out of the pen.

• 37:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 37:58Amanda Dobbins?

  And so, and then she's, she's unite, they're reunited and then they have like another baby pig that like those super pig parents saved.

• 38:06Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 38:07Amanda Dobbins?

  From like death and this holding pen.

• 38:10Sean Fennessey?

  So that's sort of like.

• 38:11Amanda Dobbins?

  No, that's not happy.

• 38:12Sean Fennessey?

  It's kind of sweet.

• 38:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's, it's, it's definitely sentimental and like, you know, a little and upsetting.

• 38:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 38:21Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's not like there is a very dark upsetting image of like, of all of the pens and all the super pigs in the pens and this like one tiny baby being pushed out.

• 38:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 38:32Amanda Dobbins?

  It's like, it's not happy.

• 38:34Sean Fennessey?

  I, I.

• 38:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And it stays with me. I. You, I don't know what your deal is with Okja. And I just like, I, I really, I like it. I agree that it's broader and like I said, it's me and Spielberg, but.

• 38:46Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's just, it's very similar to Mickey 17, which is I think the pacing is not good.

• 38:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 38:50Sean Fennessey?

  I think there are like long stretches that don't work. It's the only crazy Jake Gyllenhaal performance I don't really get.

• 38:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Interesting.

• 38:57Sean Fennessey?

  I'm, I'm not really a fan of it. I think Tilda Swinton is like, even though she and Bong are great friends, I think she has like misapprehended what the tone of his movies should be. Like even, I revisited Snowpiercer this weekend, thought it was even better than I, than the first couple of times I'd seen it. And she's the only one who I'm like, why are you, why is this the tone you went for?

• 39:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 39:16Sean Fennessey?

  And with these characters, like John Hurt and Ed Harris and Chris Evans and Sung Kang Ho, like they're all doing like a very kind of like gritty, contemplative thing.

• 39:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:26Sean Fennessey?

  And she's doing like Margaret Thatcher on Molly. It's a really weird.

• 39:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but so that's three movie, that's the three American movies where we're sitting here saying, okay, like the American actors who we normally like are just off.

• 39:40Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, no, no, no, no. I, I don't, that's not exactly how I feel. Like, I think that some of the American actors in some of the American movies are very good. Like Pattinson is obviously great.

• 39:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:49Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like what, um.

• 39:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, he's not American.

• 39:51Sean Fennessey?

  Very, very fair point. Uh, I feel like what Paul Dano's doing in Okta is very good. I really like that. Um, I also will say, in Snowpiercer, Chris Evans, that's like his best performance. He gets like an actual monologue in that movie that he nails and it's ridiculous and in the wrong hands could go terribly.

• 40:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Chris Evans Redemption Tour 2025. It's starting. We'll continue with the materialist.

• 40:12Sean Fennessey?

  I never doubted his talent.

• 40:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I guess I'm singling out the villains.

• 40:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so that, this is where-

• 40:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, there we go. See?

• 40:19Sean Fennessey?

  I wanted to go to this place, which is that, is it just that, because even at the end of Snowpiercer, the polar bear moment is like kind of a hopeful moment. It's like a little scary, but it's a little hopeful too. Um, is it just like, this is what Bong thinks of the Western world leadership?

• 40:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And Americans, like, I do like a little bit think that that's what we're seeing.

• 40:38Sean Fennessey?

  Ridiculous clowns?

• 40:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. And-

• 40:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think that's fair.

• 40:41Amanda Dobbins?

  We're, we're seeing it from, like, from the inside. Um, and like, maybe it's a little bit that it doesn't reveal anything to us as Americans, or maybe we just like, don't like the tone. Like, you know, like, maybe, you know, I don't really wanna, I, I not, don't really, I really don't wanna watch Trump at anything, so I also don't wanna watch, like, Mark Ruffalo, like, lightly sending up Trump.

• 41:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I generally do like that tone. I mean, I do like Terry Gilliam movies. I think they are, I don't love all of them, but Brazil is probably the closest comp that you could make to Mickey 17. I think that's like a five-star movie. I think that's like a great film, a totally original movie, kind of invented a tone in some ways. So, to me, it's not that I reject that kind of story. I do like a darker story from him, and my favorite movies of his by far-

• 41:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 41:30Sean Fennessey?

  Are the kind of like grounded, genre-based ones about families and real people. That's definitely my preference on his stuff. Even The Host, which is fantastical, is very much like a family movie, but I-

• 41:42Amanda Dobbins?

  So is Okta.

• 41:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, it is, it is. You're, you're fighting for your faith. That's good.

• 41:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I, it's like, it works on me, you know?

• 41:50Sean Fennessey?

  That's great. I won't try to disavow you of that.

• 41:52Amanda Dobbins?

  It's the magic of, you know, the little kid thing works, obviously. He's very, really good with creatures. Yeah, I mean, I agree that I never know what Jake Gyllenhaal is doing, but, um-

• 42:03Sean Fennessey?

  I usually dig it. It's a rare case where I don't dig it as much. Um, anything else on Mickey 17?

• 42:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Pattinson's so good. I know we said that already, but like, it's, it's kinda unreal to me. He is one of our great actors.

• 42:20Sean Fennessey?

  So, this is like a stupid prompt. So, I hope this isn't taken in bad faith.

• 42:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:24Sean Fennessey?

  But, a thing that occurred to me while watching it is that he is literally one of the great movie actors that we have right now.

• 42:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:31Sean Fennessey?

  But I'm not sure that he's a very good movie star. And that seems like a pedantic thing to say, but it's a little hard to hang your movie on an actor without a movie star persona. Now, Timothy Chalamet, I would argue, is also trying to do this. He's trying to be a great actor and a leading man for his generation simultaneously. This is hard to do. You know? Gene Hackman just passed. He had a real persona.

• 42:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I was thinking about Hackman, yeah.

• 42:56Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like Denzel Washington has a real persona. Cruise has a real persona. It doesn't mean they can't skew, you know, move to different shades of it from time to time. But Pattinson is constantly reinventing himself. The way that he looks, the way that his voice sounds, his posture, his physical execution. He is Batman, but he's also the guy from The Lighthouse.

• 43:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 43:16Sean Fennessey?

  And, so you know you're gonna get a cool movie, more than likely, when you see a Robert Pattinson movie.

• 43:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you know you're gonna get a hot weirdo, you know? And that's fine. That can be a personality too, right? And you know that it will be transfixing. I, like, I agree with you that in terms of, it's a marketing challenge, if you will. And, Timmy is getting to a point where he's Timmy.

• 43:40Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 43:40Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, it's one word, you know, name recognition. They cut to him 45 times at the Oscars. He, like, and he's also, he's doing the work. He's going on game day. He's like doing all his content.

• 43:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 43:53Amanda Dobbins?

  He's hosting SNL. And Pattinson's shtick is like being very confused when Suki Waterhouse like calls him on the phone. Did you, did you ever see that clip? Oh, this is so good. She was doing some sort of video interview and like does a prank where she calls him on video and is like, "Hey, they asked me to host Love is Blind. What do you think?" And then, it's like, actually, they want us to host it together. And it's just like a minute and a half of, and he's just on the other phone, on the other phone.

• 44:25Sean Fennessey?

  Is he in on that idea?

• 44:26Amanda Dobbins?

  No, eventually, and eventually, I think he's like, darling, are you, have you gone mental? Like, have you, like, is this a prank? And then when she says, yes, you're gonna be on the internet, he's like, I don't want to. So it's really good, but he's like, he is receding, right? And, and, and being like weird and spacey and making pasta in the microwave and doing. So that, you can't plaster that on the, on the billboards in the same way. You can't sell it in the same way, but you know what it is.

• 44:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's great for us.

• 45:00Amanda Dobbins?

  It's strange, it's great.

• 45:02Sean Fennessey?

  It's great for us. His next three movies are The Odyssey, perhaps you've heard of it.

• 45:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Who is he in The Odyssey? Do we know?

• 45:07Sean Fennessey?

  TBA is what he's listed as. I don't think we know of any of the lead characters beyond Damon and Holland.

• 45:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 45:14Sean Fennessey?

  Die My Love.

• 45:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Charlize is in it, right?

• 45:16Sean Fennessey?

  Charlize is in it, yeah.

• 45:17Amanda Dobbins?

  She's gotta be like Cersei, right?

• 45:19Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know.

• 45:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 45:20Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. What if she's not playing a classically female character? Have you considered that?

• 45:24Amanda Dobbins?

  You know what, Sean? That's a great point.

• 45:26Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you. Thank you for acknowledging my expanding vision of the world.

• 45:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Whatever it is.

• 45:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Happy International Women's.

• 45:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Thanks.

• 45:33Sean Fennessey?

  Weekend. What was it?

• 45:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Thanks so much. It was International Women's Day.

• 45:37Sean Fennessey?

  Happy International Women's Fortnite to you.

• 45:39Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, so it is the whole month.

• 45:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's the whole month?

• 45:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, there's a lot of programming that.

• 45:44Sean Fennessey?

  Is there also a National Women's Month?

• 45:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, no, we haven't gotten there.

• 45:47Sean Fennessey?

  You guys just get one month around the world.

• 45:50Amanda Dobbins?

  The majority of the population on this earth only gets the one month to be invited to bullshit corporate events. Do those not get put on your calendar? Do they only get put on my calendar?

• 46:01Sean Fennessey?

  Rest assured, I get my fair share of bullshit corporate invitations.

• 46:04Amanda Dobbins?

  There's all this like programming about like women that they only do this month that just like shows up. And you, they don't, they aren't inviting you? You don't have to participate?

• 46:15Sean Fennessey?

  I'm an ally.

• 46:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I, yeah, I'm obviously not participating, but I'm more just asking that you don't get invited.

• 46:20Sean Fennessey?

  Are the other 11 months out of the year, international men's months?

• 46:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, they are. Yeah.

• 46:24Sean Fennessey?

  Pretty cool.

• 46:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:25Sean Fennessey?

  Pretty cool how that worked out. Uh, other movies Pattinson has coming in the future. Die My Love, new Lynn Ramsey movie with Jennifer Lawrence.

• 46:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Can't wait.

• 46:31Sean Fennessey?

  And The Drama, new Christopher Borgley movie opposite Zendaya. So.

• 46:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 46:36Sean Fennessey?

  If you look at his.

• 46:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 46:38Sean Fennessey?

  You know, his CV, it's phenomenal.

• 46:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 46:40Sean Fennessey?

  Right?

• 46:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 46:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's like, it's.

• 46:42Amanda Dobbins?

  There are no problems here. Stop making a problem. There's no problems.

• 46:45Sean Fennessey?

  I'm merely discussing a man's work.

• 46:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:48Sean Fennessey?

  And I think that I'm allowed to do that.

• 46:50Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, he can have it all.

• 46:52Sean Fennessey?

  Kusuki Waterhouse is really the question. This month, she can.

• 46:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 47:00Sean Fennessey?

  Brady Corby, James Gray, The Safeties.

• 47:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:05Sean Fennessey?

  Robert Eggers, Christopher Nolan, Matt Reeves. Lest we forget, he was the gray heron in the Boy and the Heron dubbed version.

• 47:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 47:13Sean Fennessey?

  So Miyazaki, Bong Joon Ho, Nolan again. This is it. This is what, this was, this is the guy I was waiting for. This is, I've been waiting for a guy who's like, I'm a huge fucking film dork, but I'm also 6'2" and very, very handsome.

• 47:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 47:26Sean Fennessey?

  And so.

• 47:26Amanda Dobbins?

  And now you have both Harris Dickinson and Robert Pattinson.

• 47:30Sean Fennessey?

  He's my enemy. He's coming for my scene.

• 47:32Amanda Dobbins?

  So you like, you come around on that, you know, it's like net bad.

• 47:35Sean Fennessey?

  No, because honestly, if I invited him onto the show and we talked for an hour, I would be like, will you be my second wife?

• 47:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that's good. Listen, we're all, we're all learning during Women's History Month, you know?

• 47:46Sean Fennessey?

  We are really learning. Um, okay, bong movies. Any other, any, any final closing thoughts?

• 47:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I did really like it.

• 47:53Sean Fennessey?

  We were, we just picked it apart for a while.

• 47:55Amanda Dobbins?

  That, I mean, that's, that's why I started the conversation.

• 47:57Sean Fennessey?

  It is like the second best movie of the year so far, pretty easily.

• 48:00Amanda Dobbins?

  That's, and like, that's why I started the conversation, being like, ah, I don't really want to do this. It's such a weird feeling also to sit in a, to sit in the movies. And like 15 minutes into this movie, I was both like, this is really excellent. And we just don't get movies this well made anymore. And also, I don't know if I'm totally keeping up. And.

• 48:23Sean Fennessey?

  I felt, I felt like I could keep up with the story pretty well. I just felt the tonal mishmash.

• 48:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I mean, I think that, that's what I meant. Like I, like I'm, like I'm on the ride wherever it's going, but do I like totally understand?

• 48:34Sean Fennessey?

  You know, a couple of other like things that were jumping out to me where there were specific structural choices, starting the movie in the middle of the movie, and then cutting back to the beginning of the movie is something that happens basically on every pilot of every TV show now. And I fucking hate it. I hate that move. I didn't like it in this movie. I, just start us in the story. You don't have to tease us with something that's coming when it comes in the movie. Cause it didn't, that didn't reveal anything meaningful that we didn't know from the marketing of the movie. Right? Do you agree with me on this?

• 49:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, my solution would be to stop watching television, uh, as I have. I do think-

• 49:05Sean Fennessey?

  I'm enjoying the White Lotus.

• 49:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Ah, it's not gonna happen for me. I started season two and that hotel looks very nice and I got stressed out and-

• 49:15Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, you're missing out. This show's getting good in the third season.

• 49:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Everyone really likes it.

• 49:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's a fun hang.

• 49:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that that is great for other people.

• 49:24Sean Fennessey?

  Severance a little bit of a downturn right now.

• 49:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I obviously was, I wasn't even gonna try on Severance. Listen, I'm watching film. I believe in the cinema.

• 49:32Sean Fennessey?

  What about the TV show Survivor?

• 49:33Amanda Dobbins?

  No, but has that turned around for you? They voted John Lovett off?

• 49:37Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, that was last season. He was the first person eliminated, which was very funny if I'm being honest.

• 49:46Sean Fennessey?

  I thought he handled it well, to be honest with you.

• 49:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, great.

• 49:49Sean Fennessey?

  I, this season has been good. These are the only three shows I'm watching at the moment. Although I intend to watch Shrinking.

• 49:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you know, Harrison Ford, I hope you're well after your shingles diagnosis.

• 50:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think I'm watching any television right now.

• 50:03Sean Fennessey?

  The Last of Us? Did you watch the first season of that?

• 50:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Sean, who are you, like, you know, who are you sitting across from?

• 50:08Sean Fennessey?

  Very good show.

• 50:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm watching film. I'm watching the films of Bang Jun Ho.

• 50:12Sean Fennessey?

  So Bang Jun Ho, let's talk about his films. Let's, I'm gonna make you rank them with me.

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• 51:33Sean Fennessey?

  This is a hard exercise, actually, because personal taste is very prominent here. So we're gonna have to do some negotiating. You know, I just wrote down some things that I think make him special, which is that he is a very visual filmmaker, but I think he's not the sort of filmmaker that irks you in that he's not purposefully athletic.

• 51:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you.

• 51:51Sean Fennessey?

  He can see the movie very clearly in his mind, but he's not like virtuosically hammering you with his style. He like really leans character theme. Those are the things that matter to him most.

• 52:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. The camera is in service of the story and ideas rather than ideas in service of a camera.

• 52:10Sean Fennessey?

  He has that perfect blend, too, I think, of almost like Spielberg and Michael Hanukkah, where it's like black heart, but pure soul. You know, like very cynical about the way that the world works, but loves people. And that makes for a really unique blend. There's not a lot of directors, like I wouldn't describe John Carpenter that way. I love John Carpenter, but John Carpenter, and John Carpenter loves his heroes, but he's like, we're in hell. We are in hell. And I think Bong is a little bit more optimistic about the human spirit.

• 52:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that he thinks that, no, I think he thinks like the world, like we are in hell, but like kids, animals, and pure souls still exist among us, and we need to cherish all of them.

• 52:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Would you, so I think he's, he's obviously a very political, ethical filmmaker. I don't think he's very preachy, except when he is. You know what I mean?

• 53:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I mean, preachy seems unfair unless you're like literally putting like a megachurch preacher as the villain of your film.

• 53:15Sean Fennessey?

  That's a pretty broad stroke.

• 53:17Amanda Dobbins?

  But like, maybe that's also, the megachurch thing really just, I was like, what are, this, it flummoxed me. I know evangelicals, Trump, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but like, this didn't seem like that fine pointed of a critique. It was just, I guess that-

• 53:31Sean Fennessey?

  That's what we were talking about. It's like, it is a, an outsider's perspective on Western, no, I, I think it's very easy to say too, that Marshall and the, the evil leadership figures in all of his films are not just their Western analogs, but when you have American or English actors portraying them, it's inevitable that you'll make that comparison. Um, the number one thing for me with him is that he loves and respects genre in ways that feel very similar to the way that I love and respect genre, but he does not get bogged down in the tropes. He doesn't feel like he has to fulfill the formulaic expectation of what happens in a monster movie, of what happens in a serial killer movie, of what happens in a Spielberg-esque creature forward romp.

• 54:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 54:13Sean Fennessey?

  Like, he takes them and bends them and molds them to his own design, which I think is the single thing that distinguishes him from all of his peers and makes him really in that really upper, upper echelon of 21st century directors.

• 54:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, he understands that genre can contain ideas. I mean, he understands that genre is metaphor, right?

• 54:34Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 54:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and like the possibilities of what, like, a monster or a, I mean, really, like, a lot of monsters.

• 54:41Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm, yeah.

• 54:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Can express and have expressed in, in, in movies and in cinema for many years, but like, is, is not willing, he, he's there for the big ideas and not just for like the gross out or for like Godzilla and Kong punching each other or whatever.

• 54:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, yes.

• 55:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Which was cool, but you know.

• 55:03Sean Fennessey?

  I would watch his Godzilla and Kong Punk punching each other movie.

• 55:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, of course, because he does it really well. He is like, he's actually, he is good with the creatures and their design and like the, and the way they look and the way they operate in the world, which is not something that you can say for most people making

• 55:21Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 55:21Amanda Dobbins?

  creatures or sci-fi movies right now.

• 55:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, he reminds me, it's so hard to say this now because of what his, what he represents to movie culture at large, but it reminds me a lot of Peter Jackson. Peter Jackson's gotten really bogged down in being like, he made three Lord of the Rings movies and then three Hobbit movies. Before that, he made really grounded genre movies, a couple of really gross movies that were idea forward. He came to Hollywood, made The Frighteners. He made a murder mystery movie that didn't really work that well. What was the name of that movie? With, uh, with Saoirse Ronan and Mark Wahlberg.

• 55:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Lovely.

• 55:56Sean Fennessey?

  The Lovely Bones. Yeah, was Saoirse Ronan, was she the star? I can't even remember.

• 55:59Amanda Dobbins?

  That sounds right.

• 56:00Sean Fennessey?

  Which kind of, kind of bombed, but he was going, same thing, kind of going for something like trying to use the same tones, but in a different register. And if he hadn't made those three Hobbit movies, I'd love to know what the, the next three Peter Jackson movies would have been.

• 56:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but then you wouldn't have all of your lovely Hobbit memories with Chris.

• 56:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we had so many great Christmases together.

• 56:19Amanda Dobbins?

  He wouldn't have needed to let off steam just with Beetle stuff.

• 56:22Sean Fennessey?

  That's been great. I got no complaints about that. I think it's like this combination of, of feeling that you find in the movies and the ability to execute on that feeling while understanding the history of movies. Like, these are two guys who have also like, watched and absorbed everything, who are also obsessed with American movie culture, but are not from America. So they bring something new when they try to apply some of the tropes that were created here. His next movie is an animated underwater fantasia about deep sea creatures and humans. Now, for me,

• 56:53Sean Fennessey?

  this is very exciting. This is a movie he's been thinking about, I guess, for like 10 years.

• 56:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:56Sean Fennessey?

  He got started on, I guess, immediately after Parasite, but it's gonna take a long time to do. It's a Korean film. I think it's backed by CJ Entertainment, which backs all of his Korean movies. What, how, how do you feel about that?

• 57:06Amanda Dobbins?

  He's, he is good with creatures. Do we, do we think it's scary or do we think it's something I can watch with knocks?

• 57:13Sean Fennessey?

  That's a really good question. I don't, I mean, I should have asked him that.

• 57:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:16Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. I'm not sure. Is it more Ponyo or is it more? I don't know, what's like a devilish grown up undersea monster movie? I mean, I guess Boy and the Heron, that's not really a movie for kids.

• 57:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 57:28Sean Fennessey?

  That's a movie about trauma and fire and pain.

• 57:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, Corco Rosso, we've not watched it 5,000 times. Is it a movie for children?

• 57:36Sean Fennessey?

  You know what? The Comp, I think, is a movie that many people have been comparing Mickey 17 to, which is Nausicaä, which is another Miyazaki movie that is very sci-fi and very odd. So if I had to guess, I would say more Nausicaä.

• 57:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 57:49Sean Fennessey?

  That'd be my guess. All right, ranking these movies.

• 57:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:52Sean Fennessey?

  We're not doing any of the shorts. I haven't seen all the shorts. I've only seen a couple of his shorts. The challenge here is that you really like Okja and I don't. I don't hate it, but to me, it is like the least of the big movies. It's not less than Barking Dogs Never Bite, which is kind of like a trial run, his first movie. More of a pure comedy.

• 58:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Great points are made. About, you gotta, you gotta take care of your dogs.

• 58:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 58:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, you have to, folks. I just, we can't do this anymore. We can't. It's not the dog's fault, it's you. But for the love of God, I'm just trying to sleep for five hours straight at night. Just fucking manage your dogs.

• 58:38Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think they should be muzzled? What do you think should happen? Should they be tranquilized every night?

• 58:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you let your child scream all night outside? No, you don't.

• 58:45Sean Fennessey?

  I don't let that happen, but it may happen from time to time.

• 58:48Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not outside.

• 58:49Sean Fennessey?

  We were watching the Aristocats yesterday, my daughter and I, and she was like, I really like cats and I don't like dogs. And that was a real blow.

• 58:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 58:57Sean Fennessey?

  That was a blow in our household.

• 58:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, maybe it's because dogs are often scary when they're not tended to by their owners.

• 59:05Sean Fennessey?

  It's funny that this movie, which is sort of about an investigation.

• 59:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 59:09Sean Fennessey?

  It's like a trial run for memories of murder in some ways. And you can tell kind of what animates his interest in this kind of story. But I think Barking Dogs Never Bite is like, to me, the one I, I think I've only seen it once. It's not something I return to.

• 59:20Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no.

• 59:21Sean Fennessey?

  Not a movie I love. It's good. You can see the makings of a really cool filmmaker.

• 59:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm fine with that. I'm just, I'm already mad that you're trying to put Okja next. That's so insane. You have no heart. Does Okja change for you at all now that you are the father of a daughter in this, our month of women?

• 59:40Sean Fennessey?

  I think, I think to me, it's a, this next stage is a battle between Mickey 17 and Okja. I think those are, I think those are the seven and six spots.

• 59:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I would agree. I would put Mickey 17.

• 59:52Sean Fennessey?

  You would?

• 59:52Amanda Dobbins?

  At seven and Okja at, at six. I just, Okja is more wholly formed, to me.

• 59:59Sean Fennessey?

  Neither of these movies are bad. That's not what I'm saying.

• 1:00:01Amanda Dobbins?

  No one, no one is saying that. We, we did a whole thing at the top about, this is, this is one of our great working filmmakers. We love him. You're the one who said we had to rank them, so I'm putting Mickey 17 at seven.

• 1:00:13Sean Fennessey?

  Mickey 17 is at seven, Okja is at six. I find that a little hard to bear, but I'll accept it because we're working in partnership.

• 1:00:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I would not accept it any lower, and I think that your heart is closed off, and I don't know what's wrong with you.

• 1:00:28Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so, the remaining films are Memories of Murder, The Host, Mother, Snowpiercer and Parasite.

• 1:00:33Amanda Dobbins?

  The, The Office? That's so great. Wow.

• 1:00:38Sean Fennessey?

  The chase scene in Okja is phenomenal. It's like some of the best shit you'll see in a movie in the 2010s.

• 1:00:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:44Sean Fennessey?

  The movie on the whole, it's okay.

• 1:00:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 1:00:47Sean Fennessey?

  It's cool.

• 1:00:47Amanda Dobbins?

  We're taking back your father and daughter's card.

• 1:00:50Sean Fennessey?

  All right. Number five. Five movies left.

• 1:00:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:00:55Sean Fennessey?

  We almost should like cut to the chase and be like Parasite 1, what goes 5, 4, 3, 2. Am I right?

• 1:01:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yes.

• 1:01:01Sean Fennessey?

  Some people would say Memories of Murder is his best movie.

• 1:01:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, it's, it's really good.

• 1:01:06Sean Fennessey?

  I, I think it's extremely influential. I think it's a great, the kind of unsolvability of life is a great idea for a serial killer movie. Sung Kang Ho is like amazing in this movie. If Sung Kang Ho is in your movie, it's probably a good Bong movie.

• 1:01:22Amanda Dobbins?

  You're doing well.

• 1:01:24Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I feel like it's two.

• 1:01:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Memories of Murder?

• 1:01:29Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 1:01:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I'm good with that. I like it.

• 1:01:32Sean Fennessey?

  So then the order of the next few is a little trickier.

• 1:01:35Amanda Dobbins?

  So 5, 4, 3.

• 1:01:36Sean Fennessey?

  5, 4, 3.

• 1:01:36Amanda Dobbins?

  And we have.

• 1:01:37Sean Fennessey?

  Parasite 1 and Memories of Murder 2. Memories of Murder, for those of you who haven't seen it, hugely influenced by David Fincher and then went on to influence David Fincher. They have this great kind of back and forth thing going. The use of Darius Kanji is another interesting thing going on there in the future for, for Bong. It's a, it's a confusing and funny and dark and sad movie.

• 1:01:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Seven.

• 1:01:59Sean Fennessey?

  Bong, bong, bong, bong, bong. Okay, 5, 4, 3. The Host, Snowpiercer.

• 1:02:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And Mother.

• 1:02:07Sean Fennessey?

  And Mother. Now, Mother has the best ending, in my opinion.

• 1:02:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:02:13Sean Fennessey?

  Snowpiercer is the most propulsive.

• 1:02:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:02:18Sean Fennessey?

  The Host has probably the highest highs.

• 1:02:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I like The Host the best.

• 1:02:22Sean Fennessey?

  Do you?

• 1:02:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I do, but I like Bong in mean Spielberg mode, as we said, which, you know, that is down to like the shots of everyone being like, looking at Wonder, you know, on the other side of the camera, and then it's this, this animal also, you know, another, you know, little girl protagonist.

• 1:02:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's true.

• 1:02:43Amanda Dobbins?

  And, but like, a real heavy dose of cynicism about the government, the world at large.

• 1:02:51Sean Fennessey?

  1950s style sci-fi movie opening with pouring the formaldehyde down the drain.

• 1:02:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Prescient in a lot of ways in terms of pandemics and, and response to, to illness. So I'm, I'm team The Host, and because it does also, you know, it does that thing of, this is like, a straight up creature movie, but is really about a lot of other things. Both, you know, political and familial.

• 1:03:22Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not opposed to putting The Host at three.

• 1:03:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:03:25Sean Fennessey?

  This was my entry point for Bong, for sure. This is the first time I heard about him or saw any of his movies. And I didn't see Mother when it was released. It is the movie, though, that feels the most connected to Parasite. And, you know, not just because it's like, kind of a lower stakes, not lower stakes, more grounded story, I should say, about a family and about violent crime and delusion and expectation of what life can be or should be, class, all these things he's always interested in. Snowpiercer's tricky. I was surprised re-watching it and then reading some contemporaneous reviews, and

• 1:04:08Sean Fennessey?

  then even just like Letterboxd reviews of people being like, this is pretty cool. I'm like, what? Like, I, I'm, I think it's like, really, really great. Now, the first, those top three movies, Parasite, Memories of Murder, and The Host, are, are great, great, great.

• 1:04:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:23Sean Fennessey?

  You know, they're, they're like, they'll be in the conversation for our 25 for 25, right? They're like, those are the movies you put near the top of the conversation. Snowpiercer has stuff in it. That is like Michael Bay, James Cameron, like.

• 1:04:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:04:38Sean Fennessey?

  Incredible science, sci fi, action staging.

• 1:04:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally, but it's, you know, it's a taste thing and he can do it all. And that's why he's one of our great, but you're just like, you know, you're like Michael Bay light just went on, you know, and, and, and I.

• 1:04:51Sean Fennessey?

  Did you know he debuted a parkour documentary at South by Southwest this weekend? What? Yo, Michael Bay, keep doing your thing, man. Don't let the haters get you down.

• 1:05:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Also, listen, did you read the big Jim quote about how Avatar three is going to be the largest Avatar yet because the previous two didn't have any room for character?

• 1:05:13Sean Fennessey?

  Well, he's got Kate Winslet now. He's letting Kate Winslet cook in Avatar three, Fire and Ash.

• 1:05:20Amanda Dobbins?

  So those guys continue to be those guys.

• 1:05:24Sean Fennessey?

  In Snowpiercer, when they, when they start pushing forward to break through with the like, the, the rolling tube that pushes open all the doors, that shit is cinema. That is crack to me.

• 1:05:33Amanda Dobbins?

  That's awesome. It's, listen, no one's denying that. It's just kind of like.

• 1:05:38Sean Fennessey?

  Alison Pill holding a machine gun?

• 1:05:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, very important stuff.

• 1:05:42Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:05:43Amanda Dobbins?

  So we can put it at four. I'm fine with that. I think it would be sort of lame also in our rankings to just have like the three American films at the bottom.

• 1:05:53Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:05:53Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 1:05:54Sean Fennessey?

  Well, barking dogs everybody.

• 1:05:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but you know what I mean?

• 1:05:58Sean Fennessey?

  I think they're tied. I think Mother and Snowpiercer are tied because I think, I think Mother is.

• 1:06:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I, if, if I were doing this alone, I would put Mother at.

• 1:06:07Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Mother at four, that's fine. I can do, I can, no, I can do that. It's International Women's Month.

• 1:06:13Sean Fennessey?

  We must acknowledge our mothers.

• 1:06:15Amanda Dobbins?

  It is about an international woman.

• 1:06:17Sean Fennessey?

  She certainly is. She does extraordinary things for her son in this film. I think. I think it's more like-

• 1:06:25Amanda Dobbins?

  What tie them? What do we care?

• 1:06:28Sean Fennessey?

  Snowpiercer falling in people's estimation or something? It was a big, it was a cause celebre movie because of Harvey Weinstein. When it came out, he wanted to cut it down. There was a big fight about that. The international hoi polloi was like, protect Bong. He's falling prey to the same thing that so many American and English filmmakers fell prey to with Harvey. Harvey, obviously, has been completely ejected from society, is rotting in prison. That's all great. The movie itself, though, still kicks ass. I'm not taking anything away from the top four.

• 1:06:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I-

• 1:06:56Sean Fennessey?

  They're like either 10 out of 10 or 9 out of 10 movies here. Snowpiercer's more like an 8 out of 10 for me.

• 1:07:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you wanna make it like a- Okay, listen, you know, I- My hands are like, it's a spirit of generosity here-

• 1:07:09Sean Fennessey?

  I appreciate it.

• 1:07:09Amanda Dobbins?

  During International Women's Month.

• 1:07:10Sean Fennessey?

  Women are once again being generous.

• 1:07:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you think like the weird TNT show? Didn't they do like a Snowpiercer show?

• 1:07:17Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yes. I never watched one second of that.

• 1:07:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Nor have I, but do you think people have like a- Were you accidentally reading, uh, Snowpiercer TV reviews on Letterboxd?

• 1:07:26Sean Fennessey?

  I wasn't. They don't yet offer those TV reviews, just mini-series, I think. Snowpiercer TV show, let's look at some of this. Oh, yeah, Jennifer Connelly was on this show.

• 1:07:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:07:33Sean Fennessey?

  I remember Davy Diggs, he was the actor who jumped out to me. This is a fairly star-studded show. Um, I, I never thought to myself while watching Snowpiercer, what else happened?

• 1:07:48Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's a pretty straightforward story about a train, a lot of really good ideas.

• 1:07:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, that, that's sort of TV and Marvel disease, which is another really great thing about the films of Bong, and he, he works in these genres that can be like, you know, cinematic, universalized.

• 1:08:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:08:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And they're tight chips, literally, in most cases.

• 1:08:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's interesting that you say that, too, because we're being a little critical of some of this broad political commentary that's in his movies, especially American-inflected political commentary. There was going to be a Parasite TV series, which was going to be created or produced by Adam McKay. Now, Adam McKay does a very similar thing, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so much, where he takes these big, obvious tropes, you know? Here is Dick Cheney, here is climate change. Let's make fun of how we are not acknowledging the absolute nightmare of these circumstances. Um, the Parasite show never really came to fruition, though I have heard Bong say recently that it is not a dead property. It's supposed to be an HBO show.

• 1:08:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:08:50Sean Fennessey?

  Again, another movie where I was like- That is a diamond. I don't know if we need anymore. You know, it's okay to just leave something where it is and let it exist so beautifully. We were talking about whether or not Parasite has the Best Picture belt on the last mailbag. And got some pushback. You may be surprised to hear the listeners of the show, they have feedback. Can you believe that?

• 1:09:14Amanda Dobbins?

  They have opinions?

• 1:09:15Sean Fennessey?

  Can you believe that?

• 1:09:16Amanda Dobbins?

  And we're listening to them?

• 1:09:17Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I'm acknowledging that they exist. I think that the way that Bill sees that enterprise is that the eras change and you have to acknowledge the changing of the eras. So that like, is Parasite a better movie than Lawrence of Arabia? It is not. But in its time, does it represent the greatest possible Best Picture winner? And does it represent the kind of the world that we live in, the modes of filmmaking? You understand what I'm saying?

• 1:09:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I do. But like, why are you explaining it to me as if I didn't just immediately say Parasite has the belt?

• 1:09:49Sean Fennessey?

  I'm...

• 1:09:51Amanda Dobbins?

  So...

• 1:09:51Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I'm not sure if you had thought through it in that fashion.

• 1:09:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Why don't you just go ahead and apologize, you know, and say, I was wrong and Amanda was right?

• 1:09:59Sean Fennessey?

  I will not say that.

• 1:10:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, I didn't have to think too hard about it.

• 1:10:04Sean Fennessey?

  But is that how you understood it?

• 1:10:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Does it matter? Like...

• 1:10:07Sean Fennessey?

  I'm asking you sincerely.

• 1:10:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, probably. I mean, I honestly like, didn't think that hard about it, you know?

• 1:10:13Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I'm getting my finger under, right there. I didn't think too hard about it.

• 1:10:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's a fucking podcast, right? You know? But if we were gonna have a conversation of like, what is, yes, what is the best Best Picture winner of all time, I would answer it differently. I wouldn't answer it as like impulsively as I did just say to you.

• 1:10:32Sean Fennessey?

  You know what's interesting about that one, though? I'm gonna unpack it here as we get towards the end of this conversation.

• 1:10:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 1:10:38Sean Fennessey?

  We haven't revisited that movie yet. I suspect we'll have an opportunity to talk about it in the future. I think that...

• 1:10:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Spoilers.

• 1:10:44Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe not. Maybe not. We haven't determined that yet. I, I wonder if it will be the Best Picture winner that we cover on this show? The best Best Picture winner?

• 1:10:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:10:58Sean Fennessey?

  Over its time. And let's just, even being generous, let's say the show runs five, seven, 10 more years. Who the hell knows? Like, will it even represent, I'm not saying it will, for the record. I got like eight more weeks in me. But, uh, you know, I think it's possible that, and then, and then the...

• 1:11:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think they let 50-year-olds on YouTube.

• 1:11:16Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I beg to differ.

• 1:11:19Sean Fennessey?

  And I, when we will break that mold, and you know who will break it first? Chris Ryan.

• 1:11:24Sean Fennessey?

  I think the challenging thing about it is that there were many other movies that were worthy of winning that year.

• 1:11:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:33Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's, it's.

• 1:11:34Amanda Dobbins?

  2017 and 2019 were like incredibly stacked years. And then the rest of the years, we were just like, you know, shuffling around, looking for a race.

• 1:11:45Sean Fennessey?

  2019 Best Picture, I mean, obviously, we loved Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. We both talked about it a lot that season. 1917 was the biggest challenger to it. I wouldn't have picked that as my Best Picture of the year, but it was a movie that I liked. I think it got a little bit dinged in comparison to All the Parasite Love and ultimately Parasite emerged victorious.

• 1:12:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Also, all the, it's reply guys were.

• 1:12:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:10Amanda Dobbins?

  A bit much.

• 1:12:11Sean Fennessey?

  And you loved Joker, as I recall. That was nominated for Best Picture that year. The Irishman, which I think is damn good and definitely did not deserve to go 0 for 10, in a normal year, I would be stumping for it as a potential winner.

• 1:12:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I, like, probably top five for Scorsese for me.

• 1:12:26Sean Fennessey?

  Is it really?

• 1:12:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, I mean, I guess not when we, when we go through, because there are so many, but like, really, really, really underrated.

• 1:12:34Sean Fennessey?

  I was a huge fan.

• 1:12:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Masterpiece.

• 1:12:35Sean Fennessey?

  Little Women and Marriage Story. I'm very curious to see how the Jay Kelly thing plays out.

• 1:12:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:40Sean Fennessey?

  Because we may look back, I hope it's great and I hope Baumbach gets everything that I feel he deserves.

• 1:12:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:12:45Sean Fennessey?

  One of our favorites. But, you know, Marriage Story, that's like one of the best episodes I think we ever did of this show.

• 1:12:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:50Sean Fennessey?

  And that was a, that's a really deep, fun, cool, smart movie.

• 1:12:54Amanda Dobbins?

  The Oscars, We Love L.A. montage finished with that, that Halloween shot. And then I like almost started crying.

• 1:13:00Sean Fennessey?

  That was very good.

• 1:13:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:01Sean Fennessey?

  Little, there were a couple of movies that appeared too many times in that montage. Like Free La La Land.

• 1:13:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, that montage was definitely like 2015 and later, you know? And that's like, like.

• 1:13:12Sean Fennessey?

  It did feel that way.

• 1:13:13Amanda Dobbins?

  They filmed most movies here, just like historically speaking.

• 1:13:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. That was a good year. And so Parasite won in that year, which is kind of amazing. You know, you could really make the case like, oh, another acknowledgement of Scorsese's greatness, or Tarantino finally getting over the hump and getting a Best Picture winner, or. You know Joker was never gonna win, but like even a movie like that, which is like a billion dollar phenomenon with the best actor, that's the sort of thing you normally see go forward and win. So its legacy is, has the power to be very powerful.

• 1:13:45Amanda Dobbins?

  My favorite movie of that year.

• 1:13:46Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:13:48Amanda Dobbins?

  A plus stuff and I, and I love all those movies.

• 1:13:50Sean Fennessey?

  So later.

• 1:13:51Amanda Dobbins?

  When is the Narnia thing happening? When can Greta move on?

• 1:13:54Sean Fennessey?

  November 2026.

• 1:13:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Jesus Christ. And that's fine. But you know, like I just, Little Women was so good.

• 1:14:03Sean Fennessey?

  Greta Gerwig's two most recent movies will be The Chronicles of Narnia and Barbie.

• 1:14:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, yeah.

• 1:14:09Sean Fennessey?

  So who among us is what I ask you?

• 1:14:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen.

• 1:14:11Sean Fennessey?

  I liked Barbie, but who among us?

• 1:14:14Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, also has two sons, I believe.

• 1:14:17Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely.

• 1:14:18Amanda Dobbins?

  It's expensive.

• 1:14:19Sean Fennessey?

  Definitely costs money.

• 1:14:20Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, so.

• 1:14:20Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely. Consider Thunderbolts asterisk, you know, wither Thunderbolts.

• 1:14:27Amanda Dobbins?

  What if I love it?

• 1:14:28Sean Fennessey?

  It's not out of the realm of possibility. It basically stars Florence Pugh as a badass assassin.

• 1:14:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, sure. Yeah. And then like a lot of cute jokes, you know?

• 1:14:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, I, I, cute jokes aren't really working for any, me anymore.

• 1:14:42Sean Fennessey?

  Cute jokes?

• 1:14:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, let's bring back real humor. I need to laugh again.

• 1:14:46Sean Fennessey?

  Oh yeah. Real humor. Absolutely. Like the devil wears Prada, the funniest movie ever made. What is the, what is, what is real humor? What represents real humor to you?

• 1:14:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, what is the funniest movie ever made to me?

• 1:14:59Sean Fennessey?

  We're kind of burying this convo at the end of this episode.

• 1:15:01Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I'm just, I guess I'm trying to think, I'm trying to think of like, what made me like laugh the most. And it definitely would have been something that I saw from the ages of like 10 and 21. Like Zoolander made me laugh a lot.

• 1:15:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. This is like a slight age difference between us, but there's like a, there's a run of Happy Gilmore, Tommy Boy, Wayne's World.

• 1:15:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Like.

• 1:15:26Sean Fennessey?

  Those movies.

• 1:15:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Tommy Boy's up there.

• 1:15:28Sean Fennessey?

  In theaters when you were 11.

• 1:15:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:29Sean Fennessey?

  It was insane.

• 1:15:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:31Sean Fennessey?

  As an older person, I have a couple of very fun, you know, like, uh, three that jump to mind immediately. Team America, World Police, Borat and Jackass the Movie. All three of those were. Like everybody in the movie theater was like, holy shit, dude. This is amazing. You know, like we don't, you know, The Hangover was honestly like that.

• 1:15:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Super bad.

• 1:15:49Sean Fennessey?

  Super bad was like that.

• 1:15:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Super bad. Honestly, I, oh, God, Anchorman, very funny. But I feel like the most I remember laughing was like at weird David Letterman skits, like at the age of like 11. You know? Again, because it finds you at the right time. Well, I know, but let's bring back humor, you know?

• 1:16:10Sean Fennessey?

  I, why are we talking about funny movies?

• 1:16:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Thunderbolts and whether it'll be funny.

• 1:16:18Sean Fennessey?

  Right. You don't want any more cute humor in your Marvel films. You want the pure comedy experience of a David Letterman sketch from 1996.

• 1:16:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I would love to. Yeah, there we go.

• 1:16:28Sean Fennessey?

  I would argue that that's actually specifically what they are iterating on, but it's just not going that well.

• 1:16:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly.

• 1:16:35Sean Fennessey?

  Incredible way to make a Mickey 17 sandwich with Thunderbolts bread today. How'd you feel about that? About the top and the bottom?

• 1:16:44Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, every day I come to work and I just, and I do my best to do my job as, as an international woman in, in my month.

• 1:16:57Sean Fennessey?

  So next, or later this week on the show, we're talking about.

• 1:17:01Amanda Dobbins?

  One of the great international women.

• 1:17:03Sean Fennessey?

  I would argue the greatest movie of the year so far.

• 1:17:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Me too.

• 1:17:05Sean Fennessey?

  And a great international woman, Cate Blanchett, we're building her Hall of Fame, which will be interesting. Have you started your research?

• 1:17:13Amanda Dobbins?

  No, so I, I was literally like.

• 1:17:15Sean Fennessey?

  A lot of films?

• 1:17:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I was just typing Cate Blanchett filmography because I, you know.

• 1:17:20Sean Fennessey?

  She's made a lot of films.

• 1:17:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I have seen a lot of them.

• 1:17:22Sean Fennessey?

  Probably most of them. I would argue you've seen like 80 to 90% of them already. This is not a Nicole Kidman situation where you're like, what is this Australian movie?

• 1:17:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:17:30Sean Fennessey?

  Because she.

• 1:17:30Amanda Dobbins?

  What is this? What is truth?

• 1:17:33Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, Truth is the movie about CBS News.

• 1:17:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, no.

• 1:17:36Sean Fennessey?

  I have a lot of strong thoughts about that movie.

• 1:17:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm obviously gonna have to watch this, even though it's not gonna be good.

• 1:17:41Sean Fennessey?

  It is like legit a zero star movie in my opinion.

• 1:17:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Robert Redford as Dan Rather.

• 1:17:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:17:48Amanda Dobbins?

  This is gonna be incredible hate watching for me.

• 1:17:51Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I am not a fan of that movie.

• 1:17:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:17:53Sean Fennessey?

  She's fine in it. Blanchett, uh, quite a CV. It's gonna be a long and in-depth conversation.

• 1:18:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I can't wait for you to explain the plot of all of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbits movies to me.

• 1:18:05Sean Fennessey?

  You know, she doesn't play a huge role in those films. She has a key role.

• 1:18:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:18:08Sean Fennessey?

  Galadriel.

• 1:18:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:18:10Sean Fennessey?

  She Queen of the Elves? I think that's right.

• 1:18:13Amanda Dobbins?

  You tell me, buddy.

• 1:18:14Sean Fennessey?

  I can't really remember.

• 1:18:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:18:16Sean Fennessey?

  I gotta revisit those movies. Me and CR, we are gonna do the Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit pod at some point. I don't know when that's gonna be. Maybe when you have a third baby.

• 1:18:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Literally.

• 1:18:25Sean Fennessey?

  Will you give birth in International Women's Month?

• 1:18:30Sean Fennessey?

  That would be fun.

• 1:18:32Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks to Sasha Oshel for filling in for Bobby Wagner, producing the show today. Thanks to Gahow also for filling in for Jack Sanders today. We will return with more discussion of women and their month and internationalism. Thank you for listening. We'll see you soon.