The Movie Business Freak-Out Mailbag and ‘Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,’ With Rian Johnson!

Sean and Amanda begin the show by honoring the towering career of Rob Reiner following his devastating passing (1:22). Then, they open up the mailbag and answer your questions about the general panic and angst about the future of the movie business (7:48). Next, they cover Rian Johnson’s new murder mystery sequel, ‘Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,’ starring Josh O’Connor and Daniel Craig (1:10:14). Finally, Johnson joins the show to discuss why he gravitates toward murder mysteries as a storyteller, how his personal relationship with religion and faith has evolved over time, and why he was blown away by O’Connor’s performance (1:24:58). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Rian Johnson Producer: Jack Sanders Shopping. Streaming. Celebrating. It’s on Prime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:14Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessy.

• 0:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Davenport.

• 0:16Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about a priest, a detective, and a congregation who walk into a church. Today, we will talk about Wake Up Dead Man, the third Knives Out mystery from Rian Johnson, which is now available on Netflix. Speaking of Netflix, the recent news about its impending acquisition of Warner Brothers has kicked up a lot of anxiety and dread for listeners of this show. So I thought we would open up the mailbag one more time in 2025, sort through our feelings, your feelings. Thank you, as always, for such great questions from the listeners. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Ryan Johnson to talk about Wake Up Dead Man, his journey with the Benoit Blanc films, our experiences as people of lapsed faith, and a whole lot more. Ryan is a class act, super smart, always a great guest. Stick around for that. But first, we'll take a quick break.

• 0:59Amanda Dobbins?

  This episode of The Big Picture is presented by Amazon Prime. You know how in every great holiday movie, there's that last minute scramble to make it all come together? From gifts to hosting essentials, Prime's fast shipping is always there for you during the holidays, especially when it's last minute and just can't wait. So if you need fast, free delivery that saves the day, it's on Prime. Head to amazon.com/prime to shop now.

• 1:22Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, we're back.

• 1:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:23Sean Fennessey?

  And unfortunately, we are back with just about the worst news you could possibly imagine. Something absolutely awful happened in the world of movies, in Los Angeles, Hollywood, life itself, which is that Rob Reiner, beloved filmmaker, actor, philanthropist, activist, was tragically murdered along with his wife on Sunday night in their home in Brentwood. And I don't want to speak too much about the sort of details of this story, but I do want to honor his life and work because I think for us and for this show, he represents something tremendously meaningful. I would say he is an incredible meaning point of our formative taste and interest in movies. And we can talk about some of those movies here together, but you know, your reaction to the news from Sunday night?

• 2:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, it is shocking and incredibly sad. And I don't think there's much we can add to the news of it, except to give their families some privacy.

• 2:18Amanda Dobbins?

  But yeah, a couple of years ago, maybe during the pandemic, we had another Mailbag episode and we were asked about what directors can and you would take to a desert island. And I said, like, not really joking, Rob Reiner, because he had a run from the 80s through the mid 90s. You've left one crucial film off of this list.

• 2:39Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it was because there was something in between, but you're referring, of course, to the American president.

• 2:43Amanda Dobbins?

  The American president in 1995, that, as you said, were formative in shaping certainly my movie tastes, but also, I think, an idea of Hollywood, just a little different than, like, cinema, you know, but these are the, this is the classic studio fare, often adaptations of, you know, beloved novels or plays that were staged. I don't know if they were beloved. And starring movie stars and screenwriters, like, you know, early in what would be, like, vaunted careers that we, like, cherish and watched a thousand times and, to me, are

• 3:24Amanda Dobbins?

  what, like, Hollywood, American studio movies of our childhood and, like, really, kind of like, a second classic age of, like, again, Hollywood, which is different than, you know, recreating, like, artistic cinema, but there is real art in making movies that are so well made and emotionally connected to the audience and memorable that, you know, everybody had a Rob Reiner film clip that they were posting last night.

• 3:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think, forget about the high-minded for a second. I think his art and his movies represent the pinnacle of creativity that makes people happy.

• 4:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:05Sean Fennessey?

  You know, that there's something about the experience of seeing the princess bride for the first time as a kid, or seeing A Few Good Men at 12 years old and feeling that electrifying sense of importance, you know, like, I'm watching something adulty.

• 4:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah, I'm being let into the big kid room.

• 4:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, exactly. I mean, obviously, when Harry Met Sally and the way that that movie almost in real time reinvents a genre for a new generation. Spinal Tap, changing comedy forever, genuinely.

• 4:34Amanda Dobbins?

  True.

• 4:35Sean Fennessey?

  I revisited This is Spinal Tap last night after the news, because that's the only thing I can think to do when something terrible like this happens. And you know, the first person that you see in This is Spinal Tap is Rob Reiner. And he's introducing the premise of his movie as this kind of fake director, who is going off to document this fake band. And he, it's just a very warm feeling. He always had a kind of like avuncular softness, going all the way back to when he was not so avuncular as Meathead on All in the Family. Comes from this lineage of Hollywood families. Father Carl, also a beloved first television actor and then comedy film director. They're twinned in so many ways. And you know, that stretch of time between 1984 through, you know, if you include The American President, roughly 1996,

• 5:20Sean Fennessey?

  is probably the ideal for American studio filmmaking. It is the, and if you were a young person at this time, as we were, when we say formative, we mean it literally shaped our taste to discover the best, you know, pop fantasy movie of its era. The best Stephen King adaptation of its era in Misery. Maybe the second best, to some people, Stephen King adaptation in Stand By Me. You know, a coming of age film.

• 5:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Also the most important soundtrack to me, growing up, of all time.

• 5:50Sean Fennessey?

  A hundred percent.

• 5:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:51Sean Fennessey?

  You know, capping that huge runoff with A Few Good Men, which for us is like a talisman. It's like a representation of kind of what our tastes meet.

• 6:00Amanda Dobbins?

  And he was also like a statesman of Hollywood. And obviously, when Harry Met Sally is like the big breakthrough for Nora Ephron in screenwriting. But then a few years later, she writes and directs Sleepless in Seattle. And Rob Reiner is there, like in a supporting role, just because he was a person who was supporting other careers. You know, he also did like co-found Castle Rock, which all the movies that he didn't actually direct, but that we love from this period of time, come from Castle Rock in the mid 90s.

• 6:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 6:30Amanda Dobbins?

  So.

• 6:31Sean Fennessey?

  It was an imprimatur or something. Grown up and straight ahead and entertaining and cool. You know, and he also had a big hand. I think that company had a big hand in helping shepherd younger filmmakers in that period in the early 90s, you know, just a shortlist of films that he participated in with Castle Rock, The Shawshank Redemption, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, Lone Star, Zero Effect, The Last Days of Disco. And also in that period, of course, he plays a huge role in getting Seinfeld greenlit and onto NBC.

• 7:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:01Sean Fennessey?

  And, you know, that's maybe the smartest decision in TV history. So, his career is huge. He's obviously been a, he was a very outspoken Democrat and very vocal about politics and especially in the last 20 years or so. And just kind of had a beloved reputation, you know, everybody really loved him. I saw, you know, he made a film with James Woods, Ghost of Mississippi in the mid 90s. And James Woods could not be further away on the aisle in terms of political affiliation. And he was just like, I just love this person and I'll miss this person deeply.

• 7:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:35Sean Fennessey?

  And this is really fucking tragic and messed up.

• 7:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's awful.

• 7:40Sean Fennessey?

  And I really hope people honor him by watching and appreciating his movies this weekend forever.

• 7:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 7:47Sean Fennessey?

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• 8:27Sean Fennessey?

  Just go to LinkedIn.com/thebigpicture. That's LinkedIn.com/thebigpicture. Terms and conditions apply.

• 8:36Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's open the mailbag. I'm gonna read these mailbag questions, okay?

• 8:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 8:40Sean Fennessey?

  Are you excited?

• 8:40Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't want to trade? Go back and forth?

• 8:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, let's do that.

• 8:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I can, listen, I have a, I have a movie phone voice, too.

• 8:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you, you read all the questions about physical media.

• 8:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I see, I'm going more for like, you know, uh, SAG Awards, which has been rebranded as the Actor Awards, like intro text, or, you know, like, so and so made their debut at the age of 12 on the so proper days of our lives.

• 9:04Sean Fennessey?

  That's good. You've got a little bit of like mid-December rasp, too. So there's like some depth there. You know, you're getting closer and closer to Rachel Sennett. Uh, okay. I'll read the first one.

• 9:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 9:13Sean Fennessey?

  Allison writes, "Given the generally negative response to Netflix, quote, 'winning the Warner Brothers bidding war,' do you think it could impact the Oscars? Might Academy members vote for non-Netflix films as a way of showing their displeasure?"

• 9:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I don't think so, both like broadly and also in the literal reality of what's going on in this Oscar race.

• 9:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 9:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Where it's like, I don't think Frankenstein was like, you know, closing in on number one until the sale came through. I just, I don't think, I, they probably have three Best Picture nominees.

• 9:50Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:51Amanda Dobbins?

  And I don't think any of them will already win Best Picture. Now, below the line, you know, K-Pop Demon Hunters is really big in the, um,

• 10:01Amanda Dobbins?

  animated film category, but, you know, the alternative is Zootopia 2, which was produced by Disney, which just gave a billion dollars to, uh, Open, you know, to Sora, to OpenAI, yeah. So, you know, if we're out here punishing based on industry issues, I, I, there are no good choices.

• 10:20Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's well put, yeah.

• 10:21Amanda Dobbins?

  And that's the other thing. It's, I, you know, Netflix, quote unquote, is winning right now, but this is going to be like a very long... Um, protracted battle. And I do still think whether this is wise or not within the industry, there are people who feel relief that it's Netflix rather than Paramount.

• 10:39Sean Fennessey?

  No doubt.

• 10:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Certainly just because of the amount of jobs that will be lost if Paramount does succeed in its quasi-hostile bid as, um, you know, as the town is now putting it. So, and I'll trust their reporting because I'm not, um, I don't yet have my MBA.

• 10:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 10:57Amanda Dobbins?

  But, you know, 20-

• 10:58Sean Fennessey?

  Finals are coming up.

• 10:59Amanda Dobbins?

  2026, you know? I'm going to the Kim Kardashian Law School, but for, uh, my, uh, my business degree. So I think that I, the people, people are so relieved that they maybe aren't in like a immediately punishing Netflix mode also at some point, you know? Netflix has jobs and, and money for these people and many other studios do not. Also, I mean, the thing is, is the question is, is anyone mad enough at Warner Brothers to not vote for one battle after another?

• 11:35Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Because, you know, Warner Brothers made some mistakes and it's not really the people, um, who, who make these films who made the mistakes.

• 11:44Sean Fennessey?

  Definitively not the people who made the films.

• 11:46Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 11:47Sean Fennessey?

  They had no influence whatsoever on the sale.

• 11:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. I guess, I guess that's, I like, how much do you credit David Zasloff for being like, sure, we'll give you 150, yeah?

• 11:55Sean Fennessey?

  Ultimately was responsible for allowing that film to be greenlit.

• 11:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 11:58Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, it just, it doesn't work this way.

• 12:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 12:00Sean Fennessey?

  Like, there will be probably maybe a handful of people who think about this and they say, I really want to stick it to this company or that company.

• 12:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 12:05Sean Fennessey?

  But when it comes to voting for awards, people vote for their friends. They vote for movies that they love.

• 12:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 12:11Sean Fennessey?

  They vote for what they think would be cool to see up there. They don't, they don't vote strategically, economically, politically in this way overtly. You know, and like you said, Netflix employs a lot of the people that vote for the Academy Awards. Like, to me, it's not that cut and dried. If this were an award about who should be in control of the future of Hollywood, people would think differently about how to cast that ballot. But that's not what this is. This is just about what movies do you think are the best ones?

• 12:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 12:38Sean Fennessey?

  So I don't really see it affecting it.

• 12:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Or who would like, who do you like hanging out with?

• 12:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's a factor, too. That is a factor. I think that, you know, there's a capriciousness to a lot of awards voting for these reasons, that they're made by humans, they're not made by political organizations. So I would not expect this, I don't think.

• 12:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 12:58Sean Fennessey?

  Anything else? I mean, you know, it feels like kind of a...

• 13:02Amanda Dobbins?

  It's bad vibes.

• 13:03Sean Fennessey?

  Well...

• 13:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Bad vibes in town.

• 13:05Sean Fennessey?

  It is bad. It's, you know, it's been a terrible year in Los Angeles.

• 13:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:09Sean Fennessey?

  Really a hard year.

• 13:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Awful.

• 13:10Sean Fennessey?

  And it's been a really hard year for people who work in Hollywood. And let's just, let's just celebrate one battle after another, you know?

• 13:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:17Sean Fennessey?

  While fighting one battle after another. Okay, what's the next question?

• 13:20Amanda Dobbins?

  This comes from Emily. I'm traveling to see Family for Christmas and want to see Marty Supreme as soon as I possibly can. My question is, will I be mortified or uncomfortable beyond recovery if I see this film with my dad? Emily, incredible question. I've been here, like, not with Marty Supreme, but with many other films, I see you. I've only seen this film once, so you've seen it more recently.

• 13:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 13:44Amanda Dobbins?

  So you can...

• 13:45Sean Fennessey?

  Me and my dad went together.

• 13:46Amanda Dobbins?

  You can probably remember...

• 13:47Sean Fennessey?

  We held hands the whole time.

• 13:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, the most mortifying movies. But it's, like, what's comfortable and what's not comfortable with your dad? You know, I can't remember any sex scenes that are so explicit that you would want to, like, you know, fall under the table.

• 14:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 14:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I can't remember anything akin to sitting next to my mother in Jerry Maguire when I was 12, which was, I'll never get over that.

• 14:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 14:12Amanda Dobbins?

  So in that sense, it's fine.

• 14:16Sean Fennessey?

  And may God bless Kelly Preston.

• 14:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, true.

• 14:17Sean Fennessey?

  Rest in peace, truly.

• 14:20Amanda Dobbins?

  There's some gross things, it's stressful.

• 14:24Sean Fennessey?

  I'm no, the answer is no.

• 14:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 14:25Sean Fennessey?

  I think, I think, I think that that anxiety that people talk about that Safdie, Josh Safdie can generate in his movie making is very present and if that made you un-present. I actually think it's like less illicit than the Julia Fox stuff in Unkut Gems.

• 14:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Also my thought, yeah.

• 14:41Sean Fennessey?

  It does have, it has a real like sexuality and sensuality Marty Supreme. There's a lot of violence and kind of mania in the movie, but.

• 14:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 14:49Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know, it actually, because it's a period piece and because it's a sports movie, it's kind of a good movie to go see with your parents, right? It feels like kind of a great Christmas release.

• 14:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I think so. I was trying to guess if my father would like it. Um, my dad, who has incredible movie takes, um, around the Christmas season and all year long, actually. And there is a certain, I remember my dad didn't like Frances Ha, which is a very different type of movie, except for that it is about a young person being an idiot, you know? And so if your dad doesn't have patience for young people being idiots.

• 15:24Sean Fennessey?

  Have you, did you see that Timmy has been quoting my tweet?

• 15:27Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 15:27Sean Fennessey?

  Like routinely now.

• 15:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay.

• 15:29Sean Fennessey?

  In two different interviews.

• 15:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow.

• 15:30Sean Fennessey?

  He keeps saying that this is a movie about being an idiot in your twenties.

• 15:33Amanda Dobbins?

  There you go.

• 15:33Sean Fennessey?

  Which is what I said about the movie. And it is, I mean, it is definitely a true thing about the film, but somebody must have read him that tweet.

• 15:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I hope so. Can that person also read him my mailing address for a jacket? Size, small, medium, blue. No, I haven't gotten one yet. Like three, three Kardashian Jenners have them and that was when I knew that I was not gonna get one. But I'm still, if anyone, if I, I will give out my address. I would love a jacket.

• 15:57Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Um. More Marty Supreme coming to this show.

• 15:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 16:00Sean Fennessey?

  In eight days.

• 16:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, I think it'll be fun. Merry Christmas, Emily.

• 16:04Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, next question.

• 16:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And Emily's dad.

• 16:07Sean Fennessey?

  You think, you think he's a listener?

• 16:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, she can tell.

• 16:09Sean Fennessey?

  How old do you think Emily is and how old, like, do you think, is, is it possible Emily's dad is 97?

• 16:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 16:15Sean Fennessey?

  I wouldn't go to, I wouldn't take a 97 year old to Marty Supreme.

• 16:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it possible that Emily's dad is Irish? Which is worse.

• 16:21Sean Fennessey?

  Dude, dude, okay, going forward.

• 16:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 16:23Sean Fennessey?

  All mailbag question writers, please include your age. Thank you. All right. Jane asks, "I'm seeing a lot of people mad about the athlete mentality that Timothee Chalamet has had in interviews lately where he talks about how he has been giving great performances lately. Personally, I think it's cool, but I'm wondering what your opinion is on this and if it will hurt or help his Oscar chances." What do you think?

• 16:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I also think it's rad. He started this last year, was it the SAG Awards, rebranded as the I'm an Actor Awards?

• 16:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I know you're not supposed to say this, but I'm in pursuit of greatness.

• 16:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And he listed some people and it was rad and it was cool. And it maybe played a little bit better because it was the first time and because he was not considered the favorite at that point and-

• 17:12Sean Fennessey?

  And he did not win the Oscar.

• 17:13Amanda Dobbins?

  And he did not win it. So you were just kind of like, oh, look at this guy shooting his shot. I would say that the tenor of this campaign has been like a little different and very much in keeping with the character of Marty Supreme and also-

• 17:29Sean Fennessey?

  It's kind of cosplaying as the hero of his new movie right now.

• 17:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Sort of. And he is also like, in addition to being, I guess it's athlete mentality, but he's just really a student of the internet. Like, Timmy is like, is a premier poster.

• 17:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 17:46Amanda Dobbins?

  And-

• 17:47Sean Fennessey?

  Talk your shit, Timmy. That's what he's doing.

• 17:49Amanda Dobbins?

  And he has grown up watching, like, you know, everything from like Kanye press tours to all of the athlete interviews. Like, this is a playbook that is recognizable, that has imprinted on him.

• 18:00Sean Fennessey?

  New York, man. He's from New York.

• 18:01Amanda Dobbins?

  We really, we like it. I assume that there will be older people who are irritated by it, but I'm not sure that they were going to vote for the Marty Supreme performance anyway.

• 18:12Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not sure. I mean, Joanne and I, and you spoke about this on last Friday, and we, you know, she was saying she doesn't think he wants to win. I just think he's promoting the movie and I think he's trying to appeal to young people. Because this is, even though it's a period piece, it's really a movie for young people. Like, it's really fast-paced. It's about a 20-something guy trying to achieve greatness and realizing kind of the toll and the cost of that. And it's just very relatable if you are anywhere from 15 to 50, I would say. So- I think he's mostly worried about that and not as worried about the Oscar stuff. And we'll see if he kind of shifts the tack because he's going to be nominated, obviously.

• 18:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 18:48Sean Fennessey?

  I do think older people obviously find this a little bit off putting. But I also think you're right that he has located something very specific about his generation. And when he gave the sack speech, he literally invoked Michael Phelps and Michael Jordan.

• 19:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 19:01Sean Fennessey?

  He is, he wants to be, he just went on a professional wrestlers podcast. He went on College Game Day. I mean, the athlete mentality thing.

• 19:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I loved the game day.

• 19:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that was great. And what Jane is identifying is true, that he is pursuing this in a different way. He's acting more like, maybe the way Terrell Owens would talk as a wide receiver than the way you would expect someone like Daniel Day Lewis, another name he invoked, would talk during a press campaign. But, I mean, who cares? Like, if the movies are good, the movies are good.

• 19:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm enjoying the show, you know, like I, I really.

• 19:30Sean Fennessey?

  It's good for us.

• 19:31Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, yeah, it's great, but also like, he is, he's speaking in my demo too, and I appreciate the performance and it's funny.

• 19:37Sean Fennessey?

  Jacket buyers.

• 19:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I want a jacket, you know? So, once again, just let to me know, everybody.

• 19:43Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, what's the next one?

• 19:45Amanda Dobbins?

  What do you think the performance of the 2026 film slate, which is full of should be blockbusters, will mean for the health of the theatrical business come this time next year? Do you think there will be significantly more panic than there is now if some of these titles don't perform the way they're expected to?

• 20:01Sean Fennessey?

  Well.

• 20:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I think there will be panic. I don't think everyone's going to be like, "Yeah, we did it," you know?

• 20:07Sean Fennessey?

  It's part of, partly about what it means for these movies to succeed. So like, I've listed a bunch of them here for us. Well, we're going to do the most anticipated movies of the year, first, first thing we get back in January. But they're, and I wouldn't say most of these movies are going to end up on that list, so I don't have a problem listing them.

• 20:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 20:22Sean Fennessey?

  It's a huge year for Disney next year.

• 20:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:25Sean Fennessey?

  Disney has several movies that, I don't know if need is the right word, but should perform.

• 20:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 20:31Sean Fennessey?

  Including a new Toy Story movie, live action Moana, the first new Star Wars movie in seven years, which is The Mandalorian and Grogu. They've got Devil Wears Prada 2. They've got, what else? They've got, uh...

• 20:49Sean Fennessey?

  Avengers Doomsday at the end of the year. So like that slate of movies.

• 20:55Sean Fennessey?

  In a different time, those could all be billion dollar movies, except for Devil Wears Prada 2. You know?

• 20:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 21:00Sean Fennessey?

  For Universal, they have a new Minions movie. They have the, they have.

• 21:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Mega Minions. Wow.

• 21:06Sean Fennessey?

  Mega Minions, yeah.

• 21:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Can't wait.

• 21:08Sean Fennessey?

  What other Universal movies are on this list? Is that it? I mean, you know, that I'm listing basically franchise films. There's like 12 franchise films that are expected to make a lot of money. Included among them is like the Super Mario Galaxy movie. That's Universal. Shrek 5, um, which I know you're pumped for. Jumanji 3, that's a Sony movie. Then you've got Dune Messiah, which is Warner's. You've got the Hunger Games film, that's Lionsgate. So all those movies like kind of have to do well.

• 21:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 21:37Sean Fennessey?

  If they don't do well, then.

• 21:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Everyone's gonna start crying.

• 21:39Sean Fennessey?

  Everyone's gonna freak out. Spider-Man movie, you know, that's Sony. And then there's like four other films. That are really interesting for what we want to talk about.

• 21:51Amanda Dobbins?

  So that's, that's a great ratio.

• 21:53Sean Fennessey?

  It's not good. It's 12 to four.

• 21:56Sean Fennessey?

  The four films are The Odyssey.

• 21:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 21:58Sean Fennessey?

  The new Chris Nolan movie. Disclosure. The new Steven Spielberg movie that we talked about last week.

• 22:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 22:05Sean Fennessey?

  Emerald Fennel's Wuthering Heights.

• 22:07Amanda Dobbins?

  We're gonna have an incredible time.

• 22:09Sean Fennessey?

  I look forward to it. God, that standee has been up in the movie theaters for months. And then Project Hail Mary, the Ryan Gosling space drama adaptation.

• 22:17Amanda Dobbins?

  So excited.

• 22:18Sean Fennessey?

  So. I cite those four films because they are a little bit closer to, I think, what. Kind of we're hoping things like eventually get dragged to, even if the business is dying and Warner Brothers is going to Netflix. It's like, how do we preserve this? How do we preserve original films or adaptations of novels that are for not 13 year olds? That have a lot of star power made from, you know, at least interesting filmmakers, filmmakers with interesting track records. And.

• 22:50Sean Fennessey?

  I think there's a much better chance that The Odyssey is a huge hit than, I don't know, even something like Toy Story 5, which historically has been bulletproof. But like, can we guarantee that? Probably can guarantee it, but The Odyssey is like a foolproof hit.

• 23:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is, which is an incredible thing to say about like a contemporary adaptation, not a contemporary, like a contemporary to the time-written adaptation of Homer's epic poem.

• 23:21Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think we should do like a Greek and Roman myths adaptation episode?

• 23:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that would be fun.

• 23:28Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, because you have a lot of grounding in that.

• 23:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you know, in some ways, the, everything, all of Western storytelling is grounded on those.

• 23:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 23:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Hamlet would be eligible because they do the Orpheus and, you know?

• 23:42Sean Fennessey?

  That's true. That's, you see, you want to spend more time talking about Hamlet in that episode?

• 23:47Amanda Dobbins?

  And that, that was one of my favorite. Actually, when he tells the story, it's nice, but then you have to look at the tree again.

• 23:51Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 23:54Sean Fennessey?

  Of all of these franchise movies.

• 23:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Hamlet is the new The Giving Tree. Incredible take by me.

• 24:01Sean Fennessey?

  Is it?

• 24:03Sean Fennessey?

  Out of all these franchise movies, is there one that you're really looking forward to? Besides Devil Wears Prada 2?

• 24:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I'll take Knox to see Minions 3. So I think that'll be funny.

• 24:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Mega Minions.

• 24:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, listen, I've liked Dune 1 and 2.

• 24:15Sean Fennessey?

  Dune Messiah, that's the one. Will it be called Dune Messiah? Or Dune 3, D U N 3? That would be good. Uh, I, I mean, look, I'm gonna probably like half freak out about whatever happens, right?

• 24:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 24:29Sean Fennessey?

  It's not, next year's not gonna be like, everything's fixed.

• 24:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, like I said, like, it's not, we didn't invite, you know, we didn't invent like a time machine. It's not, it's not gonna be great again. And I think that we typically receive all of this industry news with hand-wringing. And I'm at, I'm at collectively.

• 24:48Sean Fennessey?

  Speak for yourself.

• 24:49Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 24:50Sean Fennessey?

  I feel that I've been quite measured in 2025.

• 24:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, you've been great.

• 24:53Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you. Uh, EJ writes.

• 24:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Isn't it my turn? No, it's your turn. You're right. Sorry. I was just excited to answer this.

• 25:00Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, you, well, you'll be able to. EJ writes, "In all the Ellison drama of this year, I keep thinking about where Meghan Ellison is and the heater that Anna Perna was on about a decade ago. Obviously, we don't know the family dynamics, and there was a Hollywood Reporter story last year about the rough patch that she hit. But do you think there's a world where she takes a role at Paramount, and that someone with good taste over there could actually be an unexpected outcome of this?"

• 25:22Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, EJ, that's what we call thinking positively and/or delusionally. I mean, I don't know any of theEllisons either. I don't think I've even met. Like, I've never been in a room with Meghan Ellison.

• 25:36Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't either. I know a lot of people that worked in Anna Perna.

• 25:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah. I know some as well, and definitely has great taste. The vibes that I'm getting from the reporting are that Succession was not about the Murdochs, it's actually about this family. And so she doesn't want, I don't know, I don't think there's love lost. I don't, if she were gonna be involved-

• 25:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, but Shiv won Succession.

• 26:00Amanda Dobbins?

  No, she didn't. Her lame husband did.

• 26:02Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, but yeah, but then they, you know-

• 26:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 26:05Sean Fennessey?

  If anyone won, she won. From that, from those, from that family.

• 26:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so then let's game it out. So you think Larry's just waiting and he's letting-

• 26:14Sean Fennessey?

  I don't.

• 26:14Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I don't. I think that if she were gonna be involved, if they had that kind of relationship where they valued her input or her time at Anna Perna, like, that she would already be in the mix.

• 26:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Anna Perna was a comet. And I genuinely credit that, this period of movies, with getting me to where I am with covering movies. Because I was working at Grantland basically right when this movie company launched, and she was funding exactly what I wanted. Like, let's just go quickly through the list of movies that she made in that time. Lawless was her first movie, which is ultimately not a super successful Tom Hardy, period, western film, but-

• 26:53Amanda Dobbins?

  You gotta try.

• 26:54Sean Fennessey?

  It was a good swing. And then she goes on this run of The Master, Killing Them Softly, Zero Dark Thirty, Spring Breakers, The Grandmaster, Her, American Hustle, Fox Catcher. And she makes, kinda loses her way a little bit.

• 27:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, American Hustle and

• 27:09Sean Fennessey?

  Everybody Wants Some is in there.

• 27:10Amanda Dobbins?

  American Hustle and Fox Catcher, I'm kind of like, we're trying this, we're still trying.

• 27:15Sean Fennessey?

  They represent the right instincts.

• 27:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 27:17Sean Fennessey?

  American Hustle is a Best Picture nominee, you know, but she's the only woman who's been nominated for Best Picture twice in the same category, in the Best Picture category for her and American Hustle. I mean, that period of time, that three or four year period-

• 27:28Amanda Dobbins?

  For sure.

• 27:29Sean Fennessey?

  -was pretty crazy in terms of what she accomplished. And, you know, she made some good movies. Everybody Wants Some, 20th Century Women, you know, Phantom Thread, like, she helped participate and fund all these movies. Beale Street could talk, like, she, it was a net positive. It was a very, clearly a very chaotic company, and the way it was run was like, a lot of, like, meant to be rule breaking and empower auteurs and let artists make, you know, execute their visions in the way that they want to, and that was not sound as an economic strategy. But I agree with you, I don't get the impression that Larry Ellison is kind of like quietly lining her up behind David Ellison, and she will emerge and say, "I am the new queen of Hollywood." That's not really gonna happen.

• 28:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:04Sean Fennessey?

  It would be nice if she had a division within Paramount-

• 28:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:07Sean Fennessey?

  -just because we know that she's really into, like, you know, Spike Jonze movies and-

• 28:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Same.

• 28:14Sean Fennessey?

  Richard Linklater movies and, you know.

• 28:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Same.

• 28:16Sean Fennessey?

  So, I, I don't know, it's wishful thinking.

• 28:21Amanda Dobbins?

  We could be wrong, but-

• 28:22Sean Fennessey?

  We could be wrong. Okay, what's next?

• 28:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm, from DJ. Letterboxd has just started their own video rental store on the app for lesser-known, smaller-released films. I was wondering what you guys think of that idea, that's so nice to include me, and if you have seen any of the films they have on there so far, what would you recommend?

• 28:41Sean Fennessey?

  I'm so glad this was asked, because I couldn't find an organic way to talk about this, but this is something that launched last week on Letterboxd, that have turned themselves into what they're calling a video store, but is really more of a streaming service. And the great thing about what they're doing is, is that most of the films that they're identifying are films with no distribution. So I've watched one movie on the app so far, it's called It Ends. It premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival. It's kind of an existential, very grounded sci-fi drama about four friends in a car who are on a road trip, or who are actually just going out to get some food, and they start driving, and they find themselves on an endless road, and the road only runs in two directions, and all they can do is drive. If they get out of the car, crazy things start to happen. Really interesting, promising, feature debut kind of a film.

• 29:30Sean Fennessey?

  This is like a net positive. This is a movie that otherwise you would just not be able to see. Because who knows if anybody would ever buy this movie. There are a handful of other movies that are like this. They also are going to clearly kind of refresh and redistribute some older films, probably more foreign language films. But I think this is fantastic. And there was a question in here originally, at least, about kind of like the future of independent cinema.

• 29:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 29:52Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if it's necessarily rosy, but this is like a nice opportunity for filmmakers who are trying to get their films more widely seen. In terms of the ease of use on the platform, like I think they're still working it out, but I thought it was relatively clean. Like, you can just do it on your laptop if you just open up Letterboxd. It's very easy to just input your pay info and it'll start streaming for you. I think used via Vimeo technology. But if you put Letterboxd on your set top box, like on your Roku or on your Apple TV, it works really well. And it was just like renting a movie from any other streaming video rental store. So I thought this was great. I liked It Ends. I know Chris, Ciar liked It Ends. He watched it this weekend, too. And yeah, I mean-

• 30:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah, the rare, he both shared the Letterboxd thing. And then like he wrote a comment being like, this is amazing. Yeah, which like Chris never does on Instagram. So that caught my attention.

• 30:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a very cool film that otherwise wouldn't get to be seen. So I love it. I mean, if they start distributing Avengers: Doomsday, I don't think that's great. I don't think that's really useful.

• 30:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:54Sean Fennessey?

  But as everyone knows, I think Letterboxd is doing great things for film fandom. So it's a nice, it can be a way station for that.

• 31:00Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think making films available to people is like the one upside of the streaming age. And this is like a cool way to capitalize on that. It's not Avengers: Doomsday. It's things that otherwise would not be seen and making it easier for a wider group of people. I mean, it's all like, it's all we have. It's all we can do with this stuff. So good on them.

• 31:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's a droplet in the ocean, but it's a tasty droplet. All right, I'm going to read this one. This is fun for you. Aiden writes, "It's a recurring point on the show that the Oscars telecast sucks and loses viewers because of its poor quality and general bloat." Not sure about that. "I agree with the ideas you bring up around potential improvements. Fewer live song performances, actual funny famous people for award presentations, more clips, et cetera. I'm curious why you think the Oscars producers don't follow that advice and ram their heads into the wall with the same shit year after year? Who's making these decisions? Why?" I think every question should just end with why.

• 31:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 31:56Sean Fennessey?

  Take it away.

• 31:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so why the Oscar producers don't follow our advice? Because they don't know who we are.

• 32:04Sean Fennessey?

  That's correct.

• 32:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, do you think?

• 32:06Sean Fennessey?

  Well, the Academy knows who we are. And if. The producers of the show do not give a fuck.

• 32:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I was gonna say, if any of the producers do know who we are, they hate us. So, um.

• 32:16Sean Fennessey?

  You know what?

• 32:16Amanda Dobbins?

  With the exception of Steven Soderbergh, who was an Oscar producer one year and has spoken to you several times. So he knows who you are, and I don't think he hates you.

• 32:25Sean Fennessey?

  As far as I can tell, Steven and I are on good terms.

• 32:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 32:27Sean Fennessey?

  And I, of course, believe he is an American hero.

• 32:29Amanda Dobbins?

  As do I.

• 32:30Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I, I, I quibble a little bit with the characterization in the question.

• 32:38Sean Fennessey?

  Because, one, we were pretty positive about the last telecast.

• 32:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:43Sean Fennessey?

  And one of the reasons why is even if they weren't distinctly listening to us, I did feel that the shift to Conan O'Brien gave the show a new energy.

• 32:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:51Sean Fennessey?

  Now, Conan O'Brien is coming back as the host this year, so maybe we won't have that kind of first time, first date excitement around the way that he presented on the show, but I thought last year's show was pretty good.

• 33:03Amanda Dobbins?

  What we liked about it, he did some bits in the Billy Crystal 90s vein. I mean, we, like everyone else, are just trying to get the Oscars back to the Oscars of our youth.

• 33:13Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Because that's what people do, is you just try to recreate things from your childhood when they were quote unquote better, though they really weren't, because there are plenty of Oscars telecasts from the 80s and 90s available on YouTube, and you will not believe what those people got up to. But also, in the 80s and 90s, they were more watched.

• 33:32Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:33Amanda Dobbins?

  So some of it is, I agree with you, like, it's not losing viewers because it's bad. It's losing viewers because of YouTube and TikTok.

• 33:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, model culture's gone.

• 33:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Nobody watches TV.

• 33:45Sean Fennessey?

  Movies don't matter as much.

• 33:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Live TV ratings.

• 33:47Sean Fennessey?

  It's a million things.

• 33:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Except for the NFL, just kind of aren't where they are. You and I have different opinions about what makes a good telecast.

• 33:57Sean Fennessey?

  We do.

• 33:57Amanda Dobbins?

  You really like more clips. I get tired of montages after a while. Do you like the live, the musical performances?

• 34:04Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I think in some occasions, I thought it was wise to open with Ariana Grande and Cynthia Revo last year. That was smart. That was a way to kick off. You know, I don't love that movie, as you know. But that was a smart way to draw in crowds and they're great performers. And so that made sense.

• 34:18Amanda Dobbins?

  And, you know, the Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, like Almost Make Up. Like, sometimes those are moments.

• 34:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm Just Ken from by Ryan Gosling. That was a great moment. Like, there, you know, there are really, there can be really good examples of live performances. The thing that you don't want is that feeling of perfunctory. Like, all five of the nominees have to perform today, even though three of the five nominees are not songs you've ever heard in your entire life. That doesn't really, that hurts the show, in my opinion.

• 34:43Amanda Dobbins?

  What we want are like the memorable moments. And not just because we know that then they'll go viral on the internet and that will make people care about movies, but because that's what makes a good TV show. We want them to, we want the broadcast to be good and not bad.

• 34:55Sean Fennessey?

  Agreed.

• 34:55Amanda Dobbins?

  We have some understanding of what makes that, which is people who are experienced at standing in front of a microphone, being engaging, either hosting or presenting awards. A little more thought put into what's going to be a dead moment versus like what people will be excited to see, which is both the live song performances or the 45th montage about, I don't know, flying in movies or whatever. And I say that as someone who spends a lot of time watching montages of flying.

• 35:22Sean Fennessey?

  I just love when you, when you're getting a plane and there's a camera on the plane. And they're showing you the world from the vantage of the plane.

• 35:28Amanda Dobbins?

  We love it too, in my home. And we watch it a lot. But, you know.

• 35:33Sean Fennessey?

  It's fucking awesome. The Great Waldo Pepper, Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning.

• 35:38Amanda Dobbins?

  11:15 PM and you're like, I just want to know who's going to win Best Picture. And then they also won't take our fun advice. Like, they won't reveal the, you know, the voting counts, which I understand why, but that would be cool.

• 35:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but they're cowards.

• 35:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. They, I still think the countdown where one is eliminated every 30 minutes. It's really good.

• 35:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's literally my best idea of all time. Um, I, I. I think the people making these decisions are people who are trying to wrap their heads around a new reality of television watching. A period in which the Academy Awards were frequently the second or third most watched show in America in any given year behind the Super Bowl. And that's just, you know, that, it'll still be close, but that number is halved, if not a thirded in 10 years' time. That's fine. It's not, you know, we spent years, I spent years trying to problem solve this, trying to not freak out about the best way to nominate the right movies to get attention on the show. It's just different now. It goes along with every other thing that we've been talking about over the last 18 months with the whole movie business in general.

• 36:41Sean Fennessey?

  Like, it's actually just better now, fully, in my opinion, to just celebrate movies. That that should be the entire purpose of the show. Movies, movie culture, you know, that idea that many people have shared over the years, which is like, this should be the biggest showcase for movie trailers that is, it should be like, the Avengers Doomsday trailer is premiering in the second hour of the Oscars telecast.

• 37:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, on air?

• 37:04Sean Fennessey?

  More people would watch, yeah, on air.

• 37:05Amanda Dobbins?

  During the, you want them to-

• 37:06Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, during the commercials.

• 37:07Amanda Dobbins?

  During the commercials. I was gonna say, let's not-

• 37:09Sean Fennessey?

  But they should treat it like the Super Bowl, where it's like, that, the ad rate for that show will matter more and the ratings will go up if you give people more about movies in this time. Like, lean deeply into the people who actually care about this stuff. You know, whether or not they'll do that, that's over our heads. Okay, what's the next question?

• 37:26Amanda Dobbins?

  This is from Georgia. My question for the mailbag, which actor, actress, or director are you buying stock for in 2026? Whose stock are you selling?

• 37:36Sean Fennessey?

  I made a list of some filmmakers.

• 37:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 37:40Sean Fennessey?

  These are early buys.

• 37:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but you took mine.

• 37:43Sean Fennessey?

  You can have the second one.

• 37:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:45Sean Fennessey?

  Three horror movie directors-

• 37:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:48Sean Fennessey?

  That I'm gonna put on people's radars. I haven't seen their films-

• 37:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:52Sean Fennessey?

  But I'm very intrigued. Kane Parsons, I actually spoke about this with Bill Simmons and Van Lathan on Bill's show, but he made a movie called The Backrooms. He is in his early twenties. He was a YouTube, kinda creepypasta video maker, and he made a real film with a real cast, you know, adult actors, like, well-known stars. And I've heard the movie's really good, so I'm excited about that. It's an 824 movie. Currie Barker debuted his movie, Obsession, at Toronto, and it got acquired by Focus and is coming out this spring. I've also heard that movie's really good. I haven't seen it. And then Sebastian Vanacek is making the new- Evil Dead movie called Evil Dead Burn. He made a movie that we did talk about on the show called Infested a couple of years ago.

• 38:35Sean Fennessey?

  A spider horror movie that is also really good. For the horror fans on this show, three names to watch, three younger filmmakers. Okay, yours is a little bit less under the radar.

• 38:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it's burgeoning. Charli XCX.

• 38:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 38:50Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not under the radar in the music, but in the film space, you know.

• 38:54Sean Fennessey?

  You're buying stock.

• 38:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, the Wuthering Heights soundtrack, The Moment, her Letterboxd. Also her Substack, which like is a little bit about films, but you know, Charli is, Charli's blogging and.

• 39:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, what'd you think of that?

• 39:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought it was great. She's very talented. I'm a huge fan.

• 39:14Sean Fennessey?

  Should we do a check in on her Letterboxd?

• 39:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, yeah. What, what has she been watching?

• 39:17Sean Fennessey?

  Where did we leave off?

• 39:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I think you read all of November because it was, uh, that was the Wicked for Good episode.

• 39:24Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think I got through the entire month.

• 39:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 39:26Sean Fennessey?

  You want to just spend some time on, on December?

• 39:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:29Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Charli XCX Letterboxd check in. December 1st, Utopia 2. She left a heart.

• 39:36Sean Fennessey?

  December 6th, five day gap. Gotta bump those numbers up. Those are rookie numbers, Charlie. Uh, the first film she watched was Last Days, which is Gus Van Zandt's sort of shaded portrait of the last days of Kurt Cobain's life, starring Michael Pitt. No heart, no rating.

• 39:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 39:54Sean Fennessey?

  December 6th, she watched another film.

• 39:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 39:56Sean Fennessey?

  The Weekend Away, a film I've not seen, stars Leighton Meester.

• 40:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 40:02Sean Fennessey?

  Here, I'm gonna read you the log line of the film. When her best friend vanishes during a girl's trip to Croatia, Beth races to figure out what happened, but each clue yields another unsettling deception.

• 40:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Ooh, I, I would watch that. Is it filmed in Croatia?

• 40:17Sean Fennessey?

  Unclear.

• 40:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, because that would, that would make a difference.

• 40:20Sean Fennessey?

  December 7th, she left a review of the film that she watched. The film is Before Sunrise.

• 40:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 40:25Sean Fennessey?

  Here's the review. OMG, this chemistry.

• 40:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 40:29Sean Fennessey?

  This feels like a first time watch for her.

• 40:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I was gonna say, is this the first time? Well, welcome, Charlie.

• 40:33Sean Fennessey?

  Five stars.

• 40:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 40:35Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, December 10th.

• 40:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 40:37Sean Fennessey?

  Pillion, a movie I love.

• 40:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I know.

• 40:40Sean Fennessey?

  Charlie Leighton's, uh, BDSM gay rom com drama, uh, starring Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling. Actually, the movie that our guest talked a bit about later in this episode.

• 40:54Sean Fennessey?

  December 11th, The Voice of Hindra Job, which was at the Venice Film Festival, which is incredibly tragic and sad movie. Five stars and a heart. December 13th, Wake Up Dead Man.

• 41:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm, okay.

• 41:08Sean Fennessey?

  No notes. December 13th, Predator Badlands.

• 41:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Sick.

• 41:12Sean Fennessey?

  We like to see that.

• 41:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, yeah.

• 41:13Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not seeing a heart or five stars.

• 41:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 41:16Sean Fennessey?

  Or I love that episode with Sean and CR. I'd not seen that here anywhere.

• 41:21Amanda Dobbins?

  It's expensive to have opinions, okay? Charlie knows that.

• 41:23Sean Fennessey?

  She does. December 14th, Year of the Fox. Another film I haven't seen and haven't heard of. 2023, a 17-year-old Ivy who was adopted as an infant into a wealthy and notable Aspen family is navigating the fallout of her parents' bitter divorce.

• 41:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Aspen, Colorado?

• 41:41Sean Fennessey?

  I can't say.

• 41:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Can you be a notable Aspen family? Is anyone living in Aspen long enough? You know, are there enough year-long residents of Aspen to be notable?

• 41:52Sean Fennessey?

  I simply don't know the answer to that.

• 41:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I don't either.

• 41:54Sean Fennessey?

  December 14th.

• 41:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Mountain culture, not for me.

• 41:56Sean Fennessey?

  Just Yesterday.

• 41:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 41:58Sean Fennessey?

  Charlie XCX watched Park Chan Wook's No Other Choice.

• 42:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Five stars?

• 42:03Sean Fennessey?

  Heart.

• 42:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay.

• 42:05Sean Fennessey?

  Just a heart.

• 42:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Just a heart, okay.

• 42:07Sean Fennessey?

  Anyway, this has been Charlie XCX Watches Movies and We Talk About Them.

• 42:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 42:10Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, back to people we're shouting out. So Christopher Borgley is the director of the drama.

• 42:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:16Sean Fennessey?

  We saw a teaser for the drama. The new film starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson about a couple who everything is perfect. They're cool, they have hip, you know, stylish clothing. They're beautiful. They live in a cool New York apartment. And then something's wrong. What's wrong? We don't know what's wrong.

• 42:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't want to find out.

• 42:34Sean Fennessey?

  There's a big twist. Don't spoil the twist.

• 42:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I won't.

• 42:38Sean Fennessey?

  I, this, this movie is in the materialist slot from last year, 3/24?

• 42:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Well, we had a nice time. And everyone was very normal about it.

• 42:48Sean Fennessey?

  One of the best, easily one of my favorite episodes of the year that we've done and a fun movie-going experience for a movie that I think is deeply flawed.

• 42:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Still thinking about the Shrek meme where he just sinks down in the cake. That's so good.

• 43:00Sean Fennessey?

  That was good. That was good. Um, can we talk about Anne Hathaway?

• 43:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's her time.

• 43:08Amanda Dobbins?

  This is, I'm nervous.

• 43:10Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's, this is risky. She's got six films this year.

• 43:13Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's not, she doesn't schedule them.

• 43:15Sean Fennessey?

  Nope, it's not her fault.

• 43:16Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, it's not her fault. But exposure for anyone at this level is tough to maintain, as we're seeing from Timothy Chalamet right now, and that's just one big film.

• 43:26Sean Fennessey?

  Individually, in different ways, I have interest in all six films. The films that she's going to be in, The Odyssey.

• 43:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 43:34Sean Fennessey?

  In which she plays, what's, what's, what's, uh, what's Odysseus' wife's name?

• 43:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Penelope.

• 43:38Sean Fennessey?

  Penelope, thank you. The Devil Wears Prada 2.

• 43:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you remember her character's name in that?

• 43:44Sean Fennessey?

  Annie?

• 43:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Andy, Andy Sachs, but Miranda calls her Andrea.

• 43:50Sean Fennessey?

  Is that actually her name, or did she invent that for her?

• 43:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I don't actually know, because the first time she says Andrea, and she says, Andy, everybody calls me Andy, but then...

• 43:58Sean Fennessey?

  How do you feel like Andy for a girl?

• 44:01Amanda Dobbins?

  It's cute.

• 44:02Sean Fennessey?

  A-N-D-I or A-N-D-Y?

• 44:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I have always...

• 44:05Sean Fennessey?

  A-N-D-I-E?

• 44:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I've always spelled it in my head, A-N-D-I-E, like Andy McDowell, but I guess I haven't seen it written out. They don't show her bylines.

• 44:13Sean Fennessey?

  What about A-Y-N-Y-D-Y?

• 44:16Amanda Dobbins?

  That seems complicated.

• 44:17Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Next, Verity?

• 44:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 44:20Sean Fennessey?

  Which is the forthcoming Colleen Hoover adaptation with Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson.

• 44:25Amanda Dobbins?

  You will not see this without me. Like, we will, you will not, I will not go alone.

• 44:30Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 44:31Amanda Dobbins?

  This is, this is like a major Kim Crawford, right? And I think we'll have an incredible time.

• 44:35Sean Fennessey?

  I want to see this movie inside of a bar. That's the only way I think I'll be able to enjoy it. Then David Lowery's Mother Mary, long awaited.

• 44:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 44:42Sean Fennessey?

  Two-hander, apparently, um, that The Streets have been waiting for. We got a, a trailer for that movie. Also, speaking of Charlie XCX, wrote the songs for Mother Mary. One more Charlie thing. Flowerville Street, David Robert Mitchell's follow-up to Under the Silver Lake, which has been long delayed from Warner Brothers. Have some concerns.

• 45:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I was gonna say.

• 45:02Sean Fennessey?

  Very excited about it, but have some concerns. And then I didn't realize this, but I just read last night that she's also appearing in a new film by Ron Howard called Alone at Dawn. That's just a robust year.

• 45:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:12Sean Fennessey?

  Are you holding your Anne Hathaway stock, selling, buying?

• 45:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Holding.

• 45:16Sean Fennessey?

  Holding. What about The Rock making Jumanji 3? Are you selling that?

• 45:20Amanda Dobbins?

  We checked Jumanji out of the library, the book, the other day. Or, you know, I tried to, I was curious whether it would take, didn't take, so...

• 45:29Sean Fennessey?

  Right, with your child?

• 45:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:30Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, not with you alone.

• 45:33Amanda Dobbins?

  What if I was just sitting there?

• 45:36Sean Fennessey?

  It's an image.

• 45:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, who knows what happens after bedtime? Um, so what else is he gonna do? It does feel like a bit of a retreat.

• 45:44Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm. It does.

• 45:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And is live action Moana also next year?

• 45:49Sean Fennessey?

  It is.

• 45:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so, you know.

• 45:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I, you gotta do what you gotta do, you know?

• 45:57Sean Fennessey?

  We did, what do we have to do? Thirty-five over thirty-five next year? Is that where it is on the cycle? Pinging back and forth? Did we do thirty-five under thirty-five this year? I can't remember.

• 46:08Amanda Dobbins?

  You do it every eighteen months.

• 46:10Sean Fennessey?

  Is that true?

• 46:11Amanda Dobbins?

  That's what you told me last time.

• 46:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 46:13Amanda Dobbins?

  So it was, I remember that we did it for challengers. And that was April, so.

• 46:20Sean Fennessey?

  I've got seven months till the forty-four-year-old cliff. You know, when I fall off the cliff.

• 46:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I can't talk about that piece. I'm sorry, just, I have, listen.

• 46:29Sean Fennessey?

  It is a thing that existed, predates that piece.

• 46:32Amanda Dobbins?

  There's science, but it's fine. And I have some thoughts for you. You're gonna be fine.

• 46:36Sean Fennessey?

  I'm gonna be fine?

• 46:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:38Sean Fennessey?

  I'm happy to hear that.

• 46:38Amanda Dobbins?

  We're gonna, we're gonna work on your mobility. We're gonna work on your, you know, vitamins and.

• 46:45Sean Fennessey?

  Vitamins?

• 46:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that you could use an infusion or two. Not like the IV drip. I'm, I'm not doing that.

• 46:51Sean Fennessey?

  It's really a classic thing where if I just eat an orange, I just feel a hundred times better.

• 46:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I know that, Sean.

• 46:55Sean Fennessey?

  You know, just a hundred times better.

• 46:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I am familiar enough with your diet at this point and.

• 47:01Sean Fennessey?

  I think I actually have like a very normal body. I'm just gonna say that out loud. I'm a normal man with a normal body. And if I treat it as such, I'll be fine.

• 47:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I do, I think that we can, as you approach the forty-four cliff, we can just like uptake, you know, up the care just a little bit.

• 47:20Sean Fennessey?

  Here's what they don't know about me. I'm wearing a parachute. Doesn't matter. Send me off that cliff. I'll be flying gracefully. Next question. Yes, yes, no, this is, I wanted you to ask me the next one.

• 47:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 47:31Sean Fennessey?

  Can I ask this one?

• 47:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, go ahead.

• 47:32Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I'll ask you Emma's question. You read me, you read me Jeff's. Emma asks, my question is, which movie on your twenty-five for twenty-five was hardest to pick, come to an agreement on? Whether that, that B two included on the list or its placement on the list?

• 47:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, Frances Ha has been a recurring source of, uh. Frustration and disagreement for us. I think, I personally, I, you know, I still don't feel good about the Christopher Nolan pick. We went all different ways on that. And we did what we had to do, but I would have liked to come to a better resolution.

• 48:08Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I think we actually had a very friendly and warm and actually encouraging for our pod relationship experience doing the 25.

• 48:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:19Sean Fennessey?

  Where you put a rough draft together after we did the cut down and then I kind of tweaked it a little bit, but didn't tweak it that much, not dramatically. So that part of it was good. I think in.

• 48:29Amanda Dobbins?

  And even, I mean, we haven't listened to this election episode, but that was like, kind of nerdy fun for us. It was not contentious as people might imagine it.

• 48:37Sean Fennessey?

  I think that for me personally, there are a couple of movies that are just not Amanda movies that in undoubtedly would have been on my list. Like Almost Famous and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind just would have been on my list.

• 48:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:49Sean Fennessey?

  And.

• 48:50Amanda Dobbins?

  And they're not.

• 48:50Sean Fennessey?

  They're not on the list.

• 48:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:51Sean Fennessey?

  So there, there were a couple that were like, but not a lot, not a lot where I was like, this is, I don't want to fight with you, but I would fight with you about it, you know?

• 48:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, it is also hard to fight with me. You made like a, you made a last minute offer about.

• 49:06Sean Fennessey?

  I did.

• 49:07Amanda Dobbins?

  And I was just like, absolutely not. Like I wasn't even going to engage with you.

• 49:11Sean Fennessey?

  You're not the coolest negotiator, I would say.

• 49:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't negotiate. Like that's, it's, you don't negotiate with terrorists. I don't negotiate.

• 49:17Sean Fennessey?

  But you know who says that?

• 49:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 49:18Sean Fennessey?

  Terrorists.

• 49:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, it was, it was a terrible offer and I wasn't going to take it. If you'd made a good offer, I would have said yes.

• 49:25Sean Fennessey?

  Well.

• 49:26Amanda Dobbins?

  There are, there are a few movies where I'm like, I can't believe that this isn't on the list.

• 49:30Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. Tar is also a new movie that, you know, it just, there just wasn't a place for it.

• 49:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but like, I, I would say three or four times during this year, I've texted you being like, okay, but what about Tar?

• 49:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I, I, I know. It was tough. It was tough.

• 49:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 49:45Sean Fennessey?

  It's a, it's a really tough one.

• 49:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 49:46Sean Fennessey?

  Tar and Almost Famous are very hard for me to not, for those to not be on the list because of how much I like them. Even though I need more time with Tar. There's something I'll say about Tar.

• 49:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 49:54Sean Fennessey?

  I'd like to see it a couple more times.

• 49:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm wearing my Tar blazer. I didn't even realize.

• 49:59Sean Fennessey?

  And giving Tar energy.

• 50:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 50:03Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, you read the next one.

• 50:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Oh, boy. Given the potential acquisition and the threat to physical media, this is from Jeff. What are the Warner library, including one's license to Criterion 4Ks we should be asking for this Christmas? Let me just say that you've put a list together.

• 50:20Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 50:22Sean Fennessey?

  Haphazardly.

• 50:23Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, it's fine. It's just like if you're collecting 4Ks, you should have these just you. These should be on your list if you don't have them.

• 50:30Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I generally agree with that, but I think it's worth locating for people who maybe aren't thinking about. A lot of people have clearly started collecting in the last few years, like I. And hopefully in parks are listening to the show, but just in general. There've been like 15 trend pieces in newspapers and magazines and websites over the last few years that like something is kicking up, obviously.

• 50:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 50:49Sean Fennessey?

  And I think some of it is.

• 50:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Trend pieces. It's that you gave them an idea, but that's okay.

• 50:53Sean Fennessey?

  That may be true. Um, I think there's just like some existential dread stuff with I want to own my stuff. So this is very basic. This is like starter kit to me for the Warner Brothers and Warner license stuff. Wizard of Oz.

• 51:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm. Before they put David Zaslove's face in it.

• 51:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 51:09Amanda Dobbins?

  As they did in the sphere.

• 51:10Sean Fennessey?

  The AI induced sphere version. Um, Wizard of Oz, there's a beautiful steelbook 4K. Buy it. It's a, it's a must. Citizen Kane from the Criterion Collection is a must. Buy it. The Bogart classics, they've been collected on Blu-ray.

• 51:25Amanda Dobbins?

  But not on 4K?

• 51:26Sean Fennessey?

  Over slowly over time, they're being added on 4K. Casablanca is available on 4K. To Have and Have Not, I believe is not. Treasure of the Sierra Madre, I do not believe is on 4K yet. The Big Sleep, the Maltese Falcon is available on 4K.

• 51:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 51:41Sean Fennessey?

  I may have gotten a couple of those wrong, but you know, Bogart made a great many movies in the 30s and 40s that are all timers, but. The best known ones, I think because they were made by Warner Brothers, and so they have been a legacy studio that has been able to continuously promote those films. Are these movies.

• 51:58Sean Fennessey?

  Two recent Criterion 4Ks of Stanley Kubrick movies, Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut. The Eyes Wide Shut Criterion is anybody who's serious about owning movies should buy it today. Blade Runner, Mean Streets.

• 52:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:12Sean Fennessey?

  All the Christopher Nolan films.

• 52:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 52:14Sean Fennessey?

  Up to Oppenheimer, and I guess not Memento, but almost all those films are Warner's. The Tim Burton Batman, like, we could go on and on. There's a, you know, all the Clint Eastwood movies. Dirty Harry just had a 4K. Outlaw Josie Wales just had a 4K. Like, a bunch of these movies are all available now. I'm sure there's, like, roughly 500 more that people should hunt down, but it's worth spending some time acquiring those. That's a nice question from Jeff.

• 52:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Congratulations, Jeff. I hope that you get what you want for Christmas.

• 52:44Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Kyle asks, referring back to Sean and Amanda's second thoughts on Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, what is the most complete turnaround either of you had had on a movie, whether good or bad, as in, you initially thought it was great or horrible, but then on a follow-up viewing, determined it to be either horrible or great?

• 53:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I quibble with the premise of this question as well.

• 53:04Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 53:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that the Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning was an acceptance. I don't, we didn't come on this podcast being like, yeah.

• 53:12Sean Fennessey?

  No, we didn't celebrate the movie in the episode.

• 53:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, we, I mean, we wanted to find what.

• 53:16Sean Fennessey?

  We celebrated the sequences we liked and then were disappointed.

• 53:17Amanda Dobbins?

  We wanted to find what was good about it.

• 53:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 53:20Amanda Dobbins?

  But I wouldn't call it a total turnaround. There was an emotional process that I needed to go through.

• 53:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 53:26Amanda Dobbins?

  To, to fully get my arms around how bad it is.

• 53:30Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 53:32Amanda Dobbins?

  And that's, that's just called podcasting. I don't really totally turn around on things.

• 53:36Sean Fennessey?

  This is not your style. This is not your style. Well, I think this is a really interesting thing, right? Because I will tend to turn around on things when I've been persuaded by strong writing about something.

• 53:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 53:49Sean Fennessey?

  Very rarely in conversation will I be persuaded. I also like a direct confrontation.

• 53:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 53:55Sean Fennessey?

  But I vividly remember liking Birdman, seeing Birdman in movie theaters and liking it. Maybe not loving it, not being like, this is my favorite movie of all time.

• 54:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 54:04Sean Fennessey?

  But being very easily persuaded by the technical wizardry, that feeling of like, the way that Inari Two is moving. I think I was at a stage of disinterest in his work at that point, because I felt like the trilogy of, you know, deeply intense, painful, Amores Peros, 21 grams, Babbel, like, that stretch of movies. By the end of it, I was, I remember coming out of Babbel and just being like, hating that movie. And I liked that in Birdman, he kind of like. Turned it around, more comedy, a verve, ton of actors that I really, really like in that movie. You know, great Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, Edward Norton, like a lot of great stuff about it. I didn't like the critic scene, I remember vividly.

• 54:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 54:49Sean Fennessey?

  With Lindsay Duncan in the bar. I remember that feeling very overwritten, but I did like the movie. And then I started reading more and more about the movie and I was really persuaded to kind of see why it is actually more in the lineage of the previous films that I was not as crazy about. And that even in a zippy comedy about an existentialist movie star superhero, there's just a kind of like depressive self-satisfaction in a lot of his work that I don't like. But that's the one that jumped out to me the most in terms of like, now when I look at Birdman, I feel a lot of disinterest. But it happens from time to time. I think like on this show, we often get held accountable for things that we say in the moment. Like the one I think of most is like, we both had a pretty, a very positive conversation about Green Book.

• 55:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. We were charmed by it.

• 55:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 55:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And then everything that came out about the way that movie was written and produced was made clear. And I was like, oh, okay. So I have some, I have some questions and concerns about this.

• 55:47Sean Fennessey?

  And also the scale of it going to winning Best Picture, which I don't think in the context of our first conversation, we were like, this movie should win Best Picture.

• 55:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 55:53Sean Fennessey?

  So it kind of shatters your perception of something a bit, too.

• 55:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, we were maybe a little bit nervous about it. Like I remember saying like, this was a crowd pleaser, you know? And this was, this made a lot of people feel good.

• 56:04Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, definitely.

• 56:05Amanda Dobbins?

  So, but no, I don't think that we thought it should win over Roma. I, I think that my appreciation or understanding of movies does change over time and that I can see, and it's usually with, you know, my age and experience and things, the old, you know, different life phases. But I don't find myself being like, oh yeah, this gave me the ick, or I didn't connect to this and now I can really connect to it. Five or 10 years later. There's something like fundamental about it that just is my reaction.

• 56:39Sean Fennessey?

  I do think that there is. There's definitely like a putting away childish things feeling about some movies I liked as a kid or young, you know, it was interesting even firing up The Princess Bride this morning just to kind of get back into the feeling of it. And I didn't have a bad experience with it, but it felt different. You know, to see a movie like that when you're six, that world feels so real and so big. And then you, when you watch, you know, you're watching a, on a giant screen in your home with amazing sound.

• 57:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:05Sean Fennessey?

  And you're like, okay, I can kind of see the, you know, the cracks in the production design, like, like some of the, the artifice of the movie.

• 57:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:15Sean Fennessey?

  And that's another way that your kind of opinion can change about things. Okay. Next question. You want to read this one?

• 57:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I'd love to. This is from Sam. I really liked the end of Hamlet, but I was taken out of the movie and rolled my eyes big time when On the Nature of Daylight started playing to double underline the emotions of the scene. Can you think of any songs' needle drops that take you out of the movie?

• 57:37Sean Fennessey?

  The first one I thought of is kind of random, but, um, The Pretenders' Angel of the Morning plays in a moment where a demon is vomiting on a kid in it, chapter two.

• 57:50Sean Fennessey?

  And I remember just being bewildered by that.

• 57:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Angel of the Morning gets used a lot.

• 57:56Sean Fennessey?

  It does.

• 57:56Amanda Dobbins?

  As a-

• 57:57Sean Fennessey?

  The Pretenders, when we were growing up, were licensed all the time.

• 57:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 57:59Sean Fennessey?

  Love the Pretenders.

• 58:00Amanda Dobbins?

  But just like as a, a needle drop to kind of draw your attention also. I think it's kind of overused. Uh, the first one I thought of was that weird cover of Skinny Love, uh, in It Ends With Us, which is, I literally burst out loud laughing-

• 58:14Sean Fennessey?

  That's a great call.

• 58:15Amanda Dobbins?

  -in the fan screening. Like, it was like you, me, and a bunch of 20-year-olds on dates. And I couldn't stop laughing. I was, that was the, it, but it was transcendent. They couldn't have played anything else in that moment, but that, that woman whispering Skinny Love.

• 58:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I, uh, I can't do better than that. That's a really good one. Okay. I, I was not taken out of it, in Hamlet, for the record.

• 58:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I wasn't either, at all.

• 58:45Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, it worked for me. It's been so interesting to hear people talking about this movie and how much they love it or don't love it, or, you know, it really is an interesting lightning rod this year. Um, okay. Another- Hamnet question. Just finished, oh, this is Jim, by the way. Thank you, Jim. Just finished The Hamnet and top five ep and got me thinking Hamnet didn't make anyone's top five, but Buckley still feels like an Oscar frontrunner, if slightly weaker than a few months ago. What are your thoughts on riveting, towering, shattering, beautiful performances in films that didn't quite hit for you? Should that devalue the performance or its awards potential? What are your, what are some of your all time favorite performances in movies that were just meh?

• 59:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I wrote down something that now I'm rethinking after riveting, towering, shattering, and beautiful, which is an incredible, you know, movie poster poll quote. But, you know, Joaquin Phoenix was very good in Joker, a movie I think is stupid. But he's really good. And it's like, performance, not just of like presence, but the movement. We all know how I feel about the dancing, very pro. Yeah, but that movie sucks. He was good in it, but it sucks.

• 59:54Sean Fennessey?

  I liked Joker.

• 59:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, that's fine.

• 59:56Sean Fennessey?

  There's a whole pot of me saying that I kind of liked it. I mean, I think in retrospect, the culture around the movie, I thought was incredibly annoying. I think it's fascinating that it made a billion dollars. Joker 2, nightmare fuel.

• 1:00:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Still haven't seen it. But I really enjoyed your and Van's podcast, which I think was the first podcast I listened to after Si was born. Because Si was like, Si's due date was that weekend.

• 1:00:22Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, that's touching to hear. And I, you know, it's too bad that he couldn't still be inside you while you were listening to that episode. That would have been even more powerful. I wrote down Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose.

• 1:00:32Amanda Dobbins?

  This is a good call.

• 1:00:34Sean Fennessey?

  Which is a movie that I never really cared for, but you cannot deny the way in which he transforms and is just the towering, riveting, shattering quality is there. But that is ultimately just a musician biopic in many ways. And this does happen a lot in the best actress category. You do see a lot of, and maybe that's just because of the way that the Academy views female performers and the way that they choose to honor them. But it's often not in the films that are nominated for Best Picture. It's often films that are like very singularly focused on a strong female figure, but there's maybe not enough attention paid to the rest of the world around them. But, you know, it's not as often as you might think.

• 1:01:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I went through the best actress list because that was my first thought. I'm like, oh, well. And the winning performances.

• 1:01:24Amanda Dobbins?

  It's either I didn't like the performance that much either, you know, along with the movie. For example, like, you know, Renee Zellweger in Judy.

• 1:01:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:01:33Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not a great movie, but also she was-

• 1:01:35Sean Fennessey?

  It's okay.

• 1:01:35Amanda Dobbins?

  It's okay.

• 1:01:36Sean Fennessey?

  It's just, it's a little showy.

• 1:01:38Amanda Dobbins?

  She's okay.

• 1:01:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And I, and I like her. Um, but for the most part, you don't get that unevenness of wow, this is incredible stuff you're doing and everyone's just like asleep around you.

• 1:01:49Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:01:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, there's usually just a mediocrity across the board.

• 1:01:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. I don't, I also don't think Jessie Buckley is being received in that way. I don't think people are like hammed it as a mess, except for her.

• 1:02:01Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:02:02Sean Fennessey?

  The movie is really, really, really well liked. I'm okay, you read the next one.

• 1:02:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. You both advocate for the idea or institution of the movie star and see it as a positive or virtuous force, something to preserve or advocate for. But I've never heard you explain why. So I am curious, why do you care about preserving the movie star? What a great question, Luke.

• 1:02:21Sean Fennessey?

  I love this question.

• 1:02:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:23Sean Fennessey?

  Couple of very obvious things. One, uh, movies are dreams and they have to be manifested in human form. And the best way to do that is by finding someone who you can feel your dreams through. Like, it's just a very simple thing where, going back to talking about seeing the Reiner movies at a very young age, when you see, uh, Robin Wright in that movie, she is the embodiment of grace and beauty to a young person. Like, she is just captivating. And I do think that we need a portal for those feelings and stars deliver that. You know, Jay Kelly is literally about that, whether it's successful or not is debatable. But this notion of becoming deeper and more emotionally invested in storytelling by way of a person.

• 1:03:06Sean Fennessey?

  And sometimes it's a hero holding a gun and sometimes it's, um, you know, a person at the most painful stage of their life. But we're at this inflection point with storytelling and artificial intelligence.

• 1:03:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, fuck that.

• 1:03:23Sean Fennessey?

  And, and I do think that, you know, I, I don't think that's the reason why I became really interested in movie stars as a young person. But I do think that now they're, you know, sort of receding in the culture feels tied to-

• 1:03:38Sean Fennessey?

  Who we look to to feel and get excited. There's people are still doing that, you know, like influencers exist. TV shows are still popular.

• 1:03:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah.

• 1:03:47Sean Fennessey?

  It's not that that stuff is completely shattered, but

• 1:03:51Sean Fennessey?

  the Disney investment in OpenAI and Sora is genuinely concerning for me. Genuinely, because it legitimizes something that could send us down a really slippery slope. And I was actually feeling like in the last few months, like there was a personal rejection, a very vocal rejection happening. You know, Guillermo del Toro before every screening of this movie, saying like, there was no generative AI used in this movie. Fuck that.

• 1:04:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:04:16Sean Fennessey?

  Jim Cameron doing the same thing. Like, strong voices in the industry coming out really hard against it. But they see money in there. They're fearful of being overtaken. And that's why they're pursuing it.

• 1:04:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, to that point, what the the investment is really like is in characters. I mean, that's, you know, it's the investment is in AI. But what it will enable people to do is use Disney specific characters in, you know, and make up, I don't know, they're like sword fighting or whatever.

• 1:04:46Sean Fennessey?

  Minnie Mouse and and Mirabelle from Encanto can have a cup of tea together.

• 1:04:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Which is cool or whatever. But the characters you can license, but the characters have, in many ways, in movies and in our culture, replaced movie stars as the franchisable thing. And there is like a strategic, dangerous part to that, which is everything you just said of that. It becomes less human and slips away from us and then just is computerized or whatever. But there is also you are losing like a human element in your movies. And so I think strategically, in terms of the industry, you made the point, you know, there are influencers, there are other people, but like, we still live in a world that is either

• 1:05:34Amanda Dobbins?

  characters or or people based, we like social media. And getting people to care about movies requires like a personality rather than,

• 1:05:45Amanda Dobbins?

  you know, like, I don't know, a screenwriter or like a some sort of.

• 1:05:50Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you, okay, here's a way to think about it.

• 1:05:54Sean Fennessey?

  Think about Spider-Man.

• 1:05:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:56Sean Fennessey?

  Spider-Man, one of the great characters, one of the defining characters of my young life. A character that persists, like maybe the most Spider-Man and Batman, the most like indestructible franchises to the minds of young people that we've seen in the last 50 years. Spider-Man does not work without Peter Parker. There has to be a kid, a teenager, under the mask.

• 1:06:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:06:16Sean Fennessey?

  To get invested in that story. If you try to make a Spider-Man movie that is only Spider-Man in the mask, the movie will not work. So even in the circumstances of the most aggressive IP expansion imaginable, the biggest possible tent.

• 1:06:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:33Sean Fennessey?

  It's still about a person, that character that's been created.

• 1:06:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:06:37Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not saying that's gonna happen for all times, but you know, Tom Holland and Tobey Maguire have made this work because we like being with them. We like feeling their struggle.

• 1:06:46Amanda Dobbins?

  You attach to the person.

• 1:06:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:06:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, I mean, completely agree. But then artistically, it's the same thing, where like the difference between photography and cinema, the difference between painting and cinema, the difference between like a fashion show and cinema, all of like things I love are the people, the actors. They are walking and talking, they are human. You're connecting, how are they moving in this world? How are they manipulating? What you're capturing is a person and a star. And so, and when they, and when they really do it, and what movies in particular invented is that movie star, that person that is just like a little bit larger than life up on the screen. We always say, you know, you know it when you see it, but there is a presence and it,

• 1:07:30Amanda Dobbins?

  but it is the humanity that makes it different from a piece of still art, or a piece of music, or any other art form that we love. So that's why they matter, because it is, it's like the singular creation of the movies.

• 1:07:44Sean Fennessey?

  Well said. Last question. You wanna read it?

• 1:07:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. I recently went to see one of my top five favorite films, The Shining, in IMAX and consider that to be one of the best theater-going experiences of the year and potentially ever. Are there any other film classics that would raise your eyebrows to see getting the IMAX re-release treatment?

• 1:08:05Sean Fennessey?

  This should happen for a lot of movies.

• 1:08:07Amanda Dobbins?

  It happened for Apollo 13 this year and I missed it, which is, would have been my answer.

• 1:08:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's a tough one. My, my, my mind flashed on the good, the bad and the ugly first because of the size and scope of that, that movie and just Leoni capturing the eyes on the biggest screen possible would be, be really exciting. But I mean, any film classic, I missed The Shining as well, that would have been really exciting. But I, you know, this does feel a little bit like backstopping, like this worst case scenario situation we're heading into with movie going, where it's like, okay, well, at least you can go see blank. You know, I almost went to go see the Jim Carrey, the, the Grinch Still Christmas Ron Howard movie this weekend with my daughter. Um, we ended up not being able to make it, but I was like, I don't, you know, I, I've actually never seen that movie. Um, and she loves the Grinch right now. We're all about the Grinch. We visited, you know, Whoville at, uh, Universal Studios.

• 1:08:55Sean Fennessey?

  So now Grinch culture, Cindy Lou.

• 1:08:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, sure. She has mega Cindy Lou vibes for sure.

• 1:09:00Sean Fennessey?

  Huge. Um, there's, I have a wonderful photo of them meeting at Universal Studios. Yeah. Big moment. Um, but I was like, it just makes sense to just put that movie on an IMAX screen for five nights every December 10th. Like that, this methodology, this strategy works, but I don't know if there's any individual movies that you really would like to see in this format.

• 1:09:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, going back to classic movies, you know, I was thinking West Side Story, Singing in the Rain, anything with movement.

• 1:09:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:09:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Which for me would be choreography, um, just as big as possible would be really fun. But like, I, you know, I would like to go see, I missed the Sense and Sensibility re-release because, um, I have to go see Anaconda instead, uh, which is my life.

• 1:09:41Sean Fennessey?

  You want to see Anaconda.

• 1:09:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I want to. But you know, I don't need that to be IMAX. I would love for that to just be like in a big, beautiful theater. I thought when we did the Inglourious Basterds event, like that print was so gorgeous. So getting to see movies that I love in, in the way, or in the best possible format of, um, of, of how they were made or how they were intended to be made is cool. Like, I mean, that is, it's just called a repertory theater, you know, and, and bless all of those people. Um, so if we could get more work for programmers and get more, um, like, again, it's not, not a bad thing. I'm, I'm open to it.

• 1:10:23Sean Fennessey?

  Agreed.

• 1:10:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Go see Sense and Sensibility if you can.

• 1:10:27Sean Fennessey?

  You love premium large formats. You're always saying that.

• 1:10:32Amanda Dobbins?

  This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Like an action blockbuster, the holidays move quick. But with Prime, fast free delivery means those last minute gifts arrive right when you need them. Last year, while watching Singin' in the Rain with my son, I realized a pair of tap shoes would be a perfect Christmas gift, and I had them under the tree for him on Christmas Day. Prime's fast shipping is always there for you during the holidays, especially when it's last minute and just can't wait. Last minute holiday magic? It's on Prime. Head to amazon.com/prime to shop now.

• 1:11:02Sean Fennessey?

  Let's pivot. Thank you for your questions, as always. Great questions.

• 1:11:07Sean Fennessey?

  Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.

• 1:11:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:09Sean Fennessey?

  This is the third film in the series, once again written and directed by Ryan Johnson. The stars of this film are Benoit Blanc, Daniel Craig Returns, Josh O'Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Kaylee Spaney, Daryl McCormick, and Thomas Hayden Church. Wildly qualified collection of actors in this movie. The logline is, "A baffling death inside a quiet church draws Benoit Blanc into a tense investigation where faith's secrets and suspicion blur as a close community turns against itself." All right.

• 1:11:43Sean Fennessey?

  What did you think about this?

• 1:11:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I like these movies. I like, Rian Johnson and I share a huge passion for Agatha Christie, the Agatha Christie adaptations of the 70s. A similar sense of humor. He makes me laugh. I like many of the actors he chooses to be in his films, and I'm never going to say no to hanging out with Daniel Craig and Josh O'Connor together for several hours. And I think that there's a really delightful buddy comedy in the middle of this. I do not care about Catholicism this much. I just don't care. And listen, I was raised Catholic as well, and I went to a Christian school. I've had a lot of these questions, done a lot of investigations myself, know where

• 1:12:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I am on it, and am sort of unmoved by it. So it's really Catholic. I rewatched it again last night to make sure. Like, was I, you know, am I overestimating how much of the time is spent talking about... The church and faith and making jokes about it. And it is like really, really, really embedded. And that it's it's not that it's not well done. I was just like, I don't care this much about priests. I just don't. So that is where I ended.

• 1:13:03Sean Fennessey?

  I think it will sound odd if I say I do care this much about priests, because I'm not sure that that's exactly what's going on. You know, when I was going to church as a kid, I also was raised Catholic. There was a kind of an intonation and invocation that you would hear priests. And the priests in my church sang. And the priests would say, saying, let us proclaim the mystery of our faith in a very Stentorian tone. And let us proclaim the mystery of our faith. That's the thing you would hear over and over again in church. And I had no idea what that meant. I didn't understand it as a kid. I didn't explore it. I was not interested in it. This movie is interested in that. This movie is very specifically interested in that.

• 1:13:46Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think you have to be a person who is undecided about their faith for this movie to be interesting. And I don't think you need to be Catholic or a non believer to get interested in this movie. It probably helps if you're open to exploring it. Because as a mystery, I think the movie is just OK. I think actually, Rian Johnson has kind of gotten a little bit like, he's very interested in the mechanics, but maybe not in the propulsion of the mystery itself. And I think that happens when you write a series of movies like this. And I think he's trying to do something really interesting. And has been mostly successful in this part, which is he's trying to make movies that are otherwise meant to be going down easy entertainments, which the Agatha Christie stories, which are great,

• 1:14:30Sean Fennessey?

  but are very rarely like thematically deep and rich. They are page turners.

• 1:14:34Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:14:36Sean Fennessey?

  And he's trying to put big, personal ideas into the movies. The first movie is about the sort of like corrosive nature of wealth and what wealthy people do

• 1:14:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:14:45Sean Fennessey?

  to hurt others and in turn everyone, you know, in the world.

• 1:14:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is what every Agatha Christie mystery is about. It is always about money and some. One needed money or someone

• 1:14:55Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:14:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Wanted the inheritance or something. So the first one is grounded. It's like in its text and genre and what it's examining is the genre itself.

• 1:15:05Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:15:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And so the further you move away from that and you use the same genre to explore different ideas, you're just stuffing a lot of things in.

• 1:15:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And I think the second movie is a kind of an extension of that first idea, which is it's about influencers and the desire for fame and success and technology and the kind of grotesque people that we're presented with in our common life every day.

• 1:15:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:15:28Sean Fennessey?

  And like the ways in which they fight each other for their share of the pie and we all watch.

• 1:15:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:33Sean Fennessey?

  And there's some cleverness in it. I didn't think that movie was as funny as I wanted it to be. But I thought it got some really good performances. And the same with the first film. The first film has great stuff from, you know, Toni Collette and that's like the best Chris Evans has ever been and Anad Armus. And the second film, Kate Hudson is really great in that movie. Edward Norton is great in that movie. The third film is more serious than the first two and it is a movie that is, um, you know, it's a, it's a big delivery machine for Johnson thinking through his ideas of faith. And he talked in our conversation, I thought, really, um, sincerely about when you have it and then you lose it. And this movie features a character that has it and another character who has lost it or maybe never had it.

• 1:16:18Sean Fennessey?

  And they're in dialogue and those two characters are the Joshua Connor character, who's a priest, Father Judd, and Benoit Blanc, who's a detective, a man of logic, not a person who's interested in the mystery of faith.

• 1:16:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:29Sean Fennessey?

  He solves mysteries. That stuff in this movie, I thought was really cool. And particularly the moment when you get near the, sort of like the two thirds of the way through the movie, almost near the end of the movie, when Blanc, who takes a long time to get to the film, who basically sits out the first 40 minutes of this movie, but when he sort of takes over at the two hour mark, one hour and 45 minute mark, and he's like, he's solving the movie and he's doing the thing he's done in the previous two films and he's saying, and then this happened, and then this happened, and then he can't close the loop. He can't figure out the last step of the mystery. And that is some, that is a feeling.

• 1:17:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:06Sean Fennessey?

  That I have been confronted with about thinking about God and where we come from and why we're here and all those big questions. To put that in a like a crime mystery movie, I think is very cool. And for him to get stumped and for logic to fail us, I think is a powerful concept. I do think that I was not really as interested in the solution of the crime. And maybe in that way, it's a success, though I think that's maybe inadvertent.

• 1:17:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I was trying to figure out which really famous person only took the movie to do, you know, because they were the person. So I, which was like-

• 1:17:45Sean Fennessey?

  They were the, they were the criminal, the perpetrator.

• 1:17:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I was not invested in the mechanics of the mystery. I, I was just trying to invest in the like superficial layer of like, okay, so it's going to be one of these people because they wanted to like chew a lot of scenery and then have a twist. So who's gonna, who's it gonna be? Is it this person? Is it this person? So maybe that is also, I'm, I was engaged with the meta of the genre as opposed to trying to solve the mystery, but I wouldn't say it was like satisfying in that way.

• 1:18:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I felt that most of the folks who were in the secondary cast, the suspects, were all like kind of rough shades of characters. Whereas I felt like Father Judd was probably the most clearly realized character Johnson's ever put in one of these movies.

• 1:18:27Amanda Dobbins?

  He was wonderful. Like I, I mean, Josh O'Connor has, you know, been everywhere this season. I thought he was used so beautifully. He was funny and emotional. He and Daniel Craig have great chemistry.

• 1:18:41Sean Fennessey?

  They do.

• 1:18:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I, like, I really do hope they bring him back. I would love to have the buddy duo solving crimes. Like, maybe they don't have to talk as much about their spiritual crisis, but it's just like, at some point, I was kind of like, do you want to be in a philosophy class right now or do you not?

• 1:18:59Sean Fennessey?

  I liked it.

• 1:18:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but you do, you like that. And it's just, it's, it's your mileage may vary. I thought all of the other jokes were very funny. It is very, there is a lot of comedy. I like hanging out with these people, even though I agree that, like- The prayer group, I didn't know what was going on with the prayer group.

• 1:19:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think it's an interesting case of a few, more than one person being miscast in their parts.

• 1:19:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:19:21Sean Fennessey?

  Like Andrew Scott, to me, is definitively miscast in this movie as a kind of like fantasy writer who's making a pivot towards right wing substacking and becomes a zealot for this priest. So, you know, just to put some fencing around the story, Josh Brolin plays this Monsignor at this church that has a dwindling flock, and the people who are staying are these hardcore believers in his methodology. The Brolin character is a very clear one-to-one projection for Donald Trump. The sort of like invective and insanity that he's preaching from the pulpit, but he still is retaining like a kind of maniacal allegiance from the true believers and...

• 1:19:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Also, it just has some of the greatest confessions of, I mean, it's so funny.

• 1:20:02Sean Fennessey?

  Trying to push Father Judd off of his square.

• 1:20:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, they're really, really funny.

• 1:20:04Sean Fennessey?

  There's some really good stuff between the two of them, too. I think Brolin's really good in this, too. You know, he's kind of playing like a very, um, an unsophisticated caricature of this idea that we understand about people in the world. It's not just Trump, but there's a lot of Trump-like qualities to the way that he leads. And I think all that stuff is really fun, but the people who are allegiance to him feel more like chess pieces than people.

• 1:20:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:20:33Sean Fennessey?

  Whereas you've got this really strong counterpoint with what O'Connor is doing. And, you know, he's like a, he's riffing on some sort of old movie archetype, too, where he's a priest who used to be a boxer, and he accidentally killed a guy, and that challenged his faith and pushed him even further into being a person who does good, but he still has this kind of native violence inside of him, and he's trying to fight that. All that stuff, I think, is really clever and works really well. I think Johnson's sense of social commentary is usually pretty broad. I don't know if that's a bad thing necessarily, but it doesn't, it's like, it can be incisive about the right ideas, but anytime you can feel his point of view on politics coming into view, it feels a little bit softer and more obvious to me than when he is really

• 1:21:16Sean Fennessey?

  zeroing in on something that is like racking his brain. So, I don't know, I mean, I...

• 1:21:24Amanda Dobbins?

  The Bridget Everett scene? Is wonderful, and that's also an example that that is about faith. And that is like a really beautiful and beautifully acted scene between two people on a phone. That is like almost from another movie, but and but that's OK.

• 1:21:42Sean Fennessey?

  Amazing example of what a good writer he is.

• 1:21:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, totally. And and also, both people perfectly cast for that scene. So that was really lovely. It has so many great moments.

• 1:21:53Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I'm saying, like, the idea of the confession, the idea of like, why you need someone and something to believe in.

• 1:22:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:01Sean Fennessey?

  It's such a rich idea that like, the mystery stuff is kind of getting in the way of some of that stuff at times.

• 1:22:05Amanda Dobbins?

  It's two and a half hours, and there's just, there's a lot. There's a lot going on in it, a lot of people, a lot of plot maneuvering, a lot of. And so I think that I I connected to a lot of it, not all of it. But to your point, it's really enjoyable and easy to watch. And does it matter if I connect to every bit of it? Because many people will watch and really enjoy this. It's not not successful.

• 1:22:32Sean Fennessey?

  You think a movie like this can change the way people feel? Because I don't, people don't turn on Knives Out movies to change the way that they feel. I think they're these sort of like velvety, frictionless fun times. But they're all they're all undergirded with heavy stuff. And I'm I'm I genuinely don't know if people like that component. That's probably my favorite component of the films, but I don't know if the general audience does.

• 1:22:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know whether they consciously do. I don't think that these movies are successful because people are like, now I'm reevaluating my relationship to my faith and the Catholic Church circa 2023 or whatever. But I I do think that they're successful movies and that they are crowd pleasers, you know, with something elevated, something that maybe you don't think about. I mean, you know, to like, to bring it back to Rob Reiner, there's like a lot more going on. I mean, there's these movies which are a lot denser. But broad, fair, done smartly, that can really, maybe just like twist or poke someone without them realizing, is increasingly rare and a real accomplishment.

• 1:23:41Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime.

• 1:24:05Speaker 02

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• 1:24:49Sean Fennessey?

  Might be getting back into faith in 2026. Maybe not a, maybe not a religion.

• 1:24:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. This is the second time that you've brought up your burgeoning spirituality. The first time was like two hours into Avatar, The Way of Water. So I just want to do a little wellness check there for you.

• 1:25:06Sean Fennessey?

  I'm doing well. I think I'm really thinking about the second half of my life. I'm being dead serious. I have a young child, you know? My dad's getting older. I lost my mom. I'm really trying to like figure it out. Even in talking to Ryan, I could not help but think of my mom watching this movie because she was a very faithful person. And one thing that I told him was that she was close friends with a couple of priests, especially in second half of life. So like, I would come home from school.

• 1:25:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:29Sean Fennessey?

  And Father Bruce would just be sitting on the couch and I'd be like, what the fuck is this? Like, is he allowed to be here? Like, do they let them out of the rectory?

• 1:25:37Amanda Dobbins?

  It is like seeing your teacher outside of school when you're 12.

• 1:25:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. So, uh, you know, I don't know that I definitely don't feel a strong attraction to like Catholicism.

• 1:25:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:46Sean Fennessey?

  I have a lot of problems with Catholicism, the church. Like, I'm not really interested in that, but.

• 1:25:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Spirituality, yes. Organized religion.

• 1:25:54Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not so much.

• 1:25:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm hard mixed on.

• 1:25:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm with you on that.

• 1:25:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:57Sean Fennessey?

  Um, okay. What about? Would this movie have made $400 million at the movie theater? We said that about Glass Onion, right? We were like, if you put this in theaters, this would have made so much money. Now it feels like the movie has been like defined as a streaming property, which is kind of frustrating.

• 1:26:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:26:11Sean Fennessey?

  Because I think the next one doesn't have to be Netflix.

• 1:26:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, they're out of their contract?

• 1:26:15Sean Fennessey?

  I think they're out of their deal on that. I don't know. I don't know. I could be wrong about that.

• 1:26:19Amanda Dobbins?

  They didn't tell me.

• 1:26:20Sean Fennessey?

  Who didn't? Ted? Did Ted call you?

• 1:26:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:24Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, it's Ted. Look, I'm just calling because I have the details of the Knives Out contract here for you, and I just want you to know, we've just closed the deal. Here are all the details.

• 1:26:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, yeah. That's the call I'm hoping for from Ted. Anyway.

• 1:26:39Amanda Dobbins?

  This is a pleasant movie.

• 1:26:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it is. Oscars?

• 1:26:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I don't think so.

• 1:26:44Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think so either.

• 1:26:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:45Sean Fennessey?

  Should we leave it at that?

• 1:26:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:46Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Let's go to my conversation with Rian Johnson.

• 1:26:53Sean Fennessey?

  Rian Johnson, back on the show. I haven't seen you in a few years, and I was thinking about something, watching Wake Up Dead Man. When you made the deal to make two more Knives Out, Benoit Blanc films, did you know what either of those movies were going to be, even in terms of like general direction? I want to make a movie that is kind of like this or kind of like this.

• 1:27:14Speaker 03

  Not really when we first made the deal. But, but, but I guess I figured I'd figure it out. But I very quickly, like with, with Glass Onion, kind of landed on, okay, I wanted to do something kind of to illustrate that, um, one of the things I love about the murder mystery genre is just all the different things it can be, just how, how different, uh, and all the little sub-genres almost inside it. So I wanted to make something that was very distinct from Knives Out to kind of show what the range of this series could be. And then, and I love Death on the Nile, or Evil Under the Sun. I love Last of Sheila.

• 1:27:57Speaker 03

  It was in the middle of COVID, so the notion of like having an exotic beach vacation sounded really nice to me, and I assumed for audiences too. So, um, so it kind of defined itself as that. And then- This one, a little bit of the same thing. It was, you know, Glass Onion ended up being very, a very broad kind of comedic movie, which is exactly what we set out to make. But I just kind of, after doing that, I felt like, well, it would be nice to to ground it for this third one and maybe take it to a place that is also very different from the first two. Kind of make it a little more personal for myself and bring it kind of back down to earth a little bit.

• 1:28:42Sean Fennessey?

  Do you find that every film that you make is a kind of reaction in a way to the previous movie that you had made or an attempt to kind of do something that you hadn't done previously?

• 1:28:51Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, I mean, not strategically, not like sitting down and thinking, okay, how do I, but I think, I mean, for me, because I write these movies also, you know, the process of making a movie is several years and it's, I like to say, it's kind of like having the same thing for lunch for a few years. At the end of that process, you're, yeah, I think you're just kind of thirsting for something different. And for me, I'm also like, you know, I've kind of, for me, I do feel like I need to always feel like I'm a little frightened going into something because I don't know how to do it. And, and the way to do that is to try something new every time, I guess.

• 1:29:33Sean Fennessey?

  I have a lot of questions about faith and your faith, but I, one thing that does jump out to me about this movie in particular is, it seems like a little bit of a confrontation with the idea of like, why do we like stories like this? Especially if we are raised to believe that the things that happen in these stories are wrong. And like we're, like you're undeniably drawn to the construction and particulars and motivations of murder mystery.

• 1:30:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:03Sean Fennessey?

  And then this is a movie grounded in a world. Of good deed, right? Intent, or at least the hope of good deed.

• 1:30:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:10Sean Fennessey?

  Is that, was that on your mind trying to construct this?

• 1:30:14Speaker 03

  I mean, I guess a little bit. It's kind of, I mean, because I don't even know, it's not even specific to faith in terms of that. We're all, whether we're raised in faith or not, we're hopefully, we're brought up to think murder is bad.

• 1:30:26Sean Fennessey?

  Hopefully.

• 1:30:27Speaker 03

  And where do we go the instant we have some free reading time? We go straight to a murder book. But, I mean, if anything, I think that, for me, one of the things I kind of wanted to delve into with the movie is I think there's actually a lot of parallels between the structure of a murder mystery and, and the overall kind of story of, of faith, I guess. It's, you know, the, a murder mystery starts with, starts with an original sin, a murder, and the universe is thrown into moral chaos. And then the detective kind of, there's usually the, the

• 1:31:06Speaker 03

  kind of patriarchal detective descends from the heavens into the story and listens to everyone's confession and then sorts out the truth and hands the answer at the end and judges the guilty and restores the universe to moral, to moral rights. So in that way, I think it actually, these stories snap in very well with someone who was, who was raised in the church and raised religious. In a way, so well, actually, that that's something I kind of wanted to draw those parallels out and explore that.

• 1:31:38Sean Fennessey?

  Were those your favorite kinds of stories? The ones that had a kind of moral rectitude? Like, at the end, then you're just like, okay, well, the, the evil force has been identified and imprisoned, and the good detective, because I feel like there's shades of gray is what makes so many of these kinds of stories so effective.

• 1:31:56Speaker 03

  There were, I mean, yeah, but I guess it depends specifically which ones you're talking about. I feel like especially when I was growing up, I was drawn towards moral clarity. And then especially as I, as I got older, I think you start. Getting into movies that were made in the seventies that have a lot less than getting into authors who you start looking a little closer even to works that you thought you knew and you realize, no, there's a lot of gray there. But with, I don't know, I mean, murder mysteries, though, and very specifically, kind of the whodunit genre, although there's a lot of different gradations of that. I think they do tend to, like, I think the word cozy when people describe these, it's

• 1:32:38Speaker 03

  not necessarily because of firesides and because of warm dens, you know, I think that it's, I think it has more to do with the fact that they do always kind of neatly tie up at the end, usually. I mean, Christie did some books where they didn't, you know, or where they tie up in a way that, like, I think her best book, And Then There Were None, it does very much tie up at the end, but in a morally, a way that leaves a lot of odd questions and the readers laugh in terms of how they want to parse the moral outcome of it all. So, anyway, yeah, but I do think it's an inherent, it is a form that kind of, the promise of the premise is that there will be kind of a button put on at the end in

• 1:33:22Speaker 03

  terms of the moral conclusion.

• 1:33:24Sean Fennessey?

  I'm personally very interested in the dissolution of religious practice, generationally, in America especially, and I think that people use that as a cudgel to make arguments about why things are one way or another, but there's no denying that, like, I was raised in the Catholic Church, it sounds like you were as well.

• 1:33:44Speaker 03

  I wasn't raised Catholic, I was raised Protestant, evangelical.

• 1:33:49Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:33:50Speaker 03

  And, but I was, it's not just that I was, you know, I don't know how it was for you, for me, it wasn't just that I was, like, taken to church a lot when I was a kid. I was, up through my mid twenties, I was very personally Christian and just, it was really, you know, a big part of my identity, it was how I framed the world through a very personal relationship with Christ, and I'm not a believer anymore, but for that period of my life, it was, it was a really personal thing, but, yeah, sorry.

• 1:34:19Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I'm interested in that, I'm also not a believer anymore, and I think that...

• 1:34:26Sean Fennessey?

  For me personally, it was this idea of logic and practicality winning out over something that he couldn't grasp.

• 1:34:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:34:36Sean Fennessey?

  Everybody has different reasons for losing it, or moving away from it, or even just, I find a lot of people actually just kind of put it on the bench and then come back to it at a later stage in their life.

• 1:34:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, that happens, yeah.

• 1:34:46Sean Fennessey?

  And so I'm kind of wondering, like, maybe, you don't have to be too personal, but I'm curious just about like, your journey with it, and then the idea of saying like, I'm moving on from this, but then what in your life now made you confront it again? Or think about these ideas and plug it into this world that is such a very fun world, you know, that has been like this incredible boon of success for you personally?

• 1:35:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:35:07Sean Fennessey?

  That is like, the thing you're known for now.

• 1:35:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:35:09Sean Fennessey?

  And now you're like, using it to channel something that is very complex.

• 1:35:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, which was part of the appeal of it. I mean, I, I mean, I think that, yeah, there's a lot to unpack in what you just had. Let's go, let's go back a couple of sentences. Let's start with, uh, starting with kind of the notion of reason or logic, kind of. I mean, for me, I, I don't know that I would frame my kind of moving away from faith and no longer being a believer as, for me, it was less kind of, although that was an element of it, just literally losing my belief in, in, um, in the reality of the thing that I had, I had believed in up till then. But I also, I also didn't have

• 1:35:55Speaker 03

  any, I think probably because, um, I don't know, I made a movie, my second movie I made, The Brothers Bloom, was kind of, um, in a very oblique way, sort of very much about this. It's what I was going through when, um, you know, when I was writing it. It's, it was very much about, um, the notion of how you frame the world around you. And more than anything else, more than some kind of tangible belief in the supernatural, or belief in an afterlife, or any of the things that people think faith centers on. For me, what my faith was, was a lens through which I viewed everything in the world. Everything in the world got filtered through that lens. And, um, it was a, you know, not to, I don't

• 1:36:39Speaker 03

  mean this to, to belittle it at all when I say it was a narrative framing device, because I think that we all, we can't survive in this world without a narrative framing device. To me, that's just being alive is, um, an act of, act of, act of storytelling, where you take in. The raw world around you and then you tell it, figure out how you're going to tell it back to yourself.

• 1:36:59Sean Fennessey?

  And that's totally what Judeo-Christian faith does is it tells stories to communicate ideas, right?

• 1:37:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, and Christ communicating through parables and in the larger sense. I mean, that's also what, I mean, every philosophy does, that's what, I mean, modern society does, that's what, I think that's just, it's so central to our experience, to what our existence is as a human being and how we, you know, how we make sense of this insane world that we're floating in in the middle of space. So, anyway, all to say that, for me, I don't think I ever had the sense that I was kind of shedding this illusion of faith in order to find some raw truth of the actual logical real universe or something. For me, it was more drifting away and I no longer believe in this and it actually created

• 1:37:47Speaker 03

  kind of a crisis in my twenties of realizing I needed to find another thing to frame the world through, you know?

• 1:37:54Sean Fennessey?

  So, using it in this film and in this world, and I'm sure you're getting this quite a bit, but the movie kind of hides Benoit Blanc, like this really does become the story of this priest and Josh's character. And I'm curious about that decision and also maybe what that reflects about the kind of movie that you wanted to make. Obviously, Benoit Blanc comes into the movie at a certain point and is important to the film.

• 1:38:19Speaker 03

  I promise, Daniel Craig is in this movie.

• 1:38:21Sean Fennessey?

  But we spend a lot of time with this priest who is trying to figure out the morality of this world that he is thrust into, which feels like a very gentle metaphor for the world that we live in right now. I assume that's what you were aiming for?

• 1:38:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you know, yeah, it's funny that, I mean, this, in a way, this kind of has a much more traditional murder mystery structure to it. This is the way most murder mystery books work is first act, as you set up all the characters, you kind of get a very good idea of who's going to get bumped off, they get bumped off and then the detective shows up to solve it. And so I had actually kind of done narrative backflips in the first two movies to not have it structured that way. So with this one, besides just like, okay, well, let's try. Let's, let's order vanilla. Let's try like the basic thing on this one. Also, though, it suited the story very well because Father Judd, who's kind of the central character, is played by Josh O'Connor.

• 1:39:29Speaker 03

  Because the movie is about things that are a little bit more complicated and require a little, and also things that are very personal and important to me, and I didn't want to shorthand them in a way that would feel reductive or didactic. I wanted to take the time to kind of actually explore the complexity of what he was, of the conflict of Father Judd in this world. And, and I knew the instant Blanc came into the story that would detract from that. So the notion of giving Judd that first act in this world for the audience, really to get a full picture kind of of, of what he wants and why he can't get it.

• 1:40:12Speaker 03

  And the bigger picture of all the characters and, and Wicks played, Monsignor Wicks, played by Josh Brolin and the whole thing. Yeah, it seemed like it would suit it, suit it well, you know?

• 1:40:23Sean Fennessey?

  I want to ask you about priests.

• 1:40:26Sean Fennessey?

  When my parents split up, my mom became very invested in the church. And she befriended a priest and he became a social friend. So she would have parties and Father Bruce would be at my house. Which was very disorienting at first, but I think was pretty powerful ultimately to just learn that he was a pretty regular guy.

• 1:40:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:40:45Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't know if you knew priests growing up?

• 1:40:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:40:48Sean Fennessey?

  In Josh's character, I see a pretty regular guy, which is not usually what you see of priests in movies.

• 1:40:54Speaker 03

  So like I said, growing up evangelical Protestant, that meant growing up in youth groups. And that meant that, it's funny, I was just reminiscing the other day with like a, someone I met who was in a youth group kid also. And it's a very distinct vibe.

• 1:41:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:41:10Speaker 03

  And it's-

• 1:41:10Sean Fennessey?

  My wife was a youth group kid as well.

• 1:41:12Speaker 03

  Oh, there you go. All right. There you go. So, I mean, and, and it's a thing where like, you know, the, the youth pastor was maybe the equivalent of a priest, but it's kind of just with the acoustic guitar, just like Come on, man.

• 1:41:26Sean Fennessey?

  That's a very, very recognizable guy.

• 1:41:28Speaker 03

  Let's get real. Let's talk about your walk with Christ. Come on, let's talk. And so, uh, regular guy up the wazoo where I come from. The priests, though, I mean, also because Catholicism was kind of exotic to me because I wasn't raised in it.

• 1:41:43Speaker 03

  The priests always did have that kind of like outer shell. I, my, I have an uncle and aunt who are very Catholic, who I'm very close to and I love a lot. And, um, they live in Denver and they were very kind when I told them about the script I was writing.

• 1:41:59Speaker 03

  They said, well, they invited me, basically. I flew out to Denver and they did a dinner at their place with their priests. And, uh, Father Scott, and he invited like five of his, like, friends who are young priests, uh, in Denver. And so I had this amazing dinner with a half dozen young priests and we all just got drunk. And it became a big ask me anything session.

• 1:42:26Sean Fennessey?

  What can you, would you mind sharing a couple of the things that you talked about? Like without betraying anyone's confidence, because I'm curious to hear what, how they want to be seen in a way.

• 1:42:35Speaker 03

  Well, it was interesting. It was because as I said, we didn't talk about theology or faith, really. We talked about their lives. We talked about what their lives were actually like. And I was kind of like nervous to like, you know, to, to go into the whole celibacy, celibacy thing, which today is the first thing you want to add. It was the first thing they brought up and started talking.

• 1:42:54Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 1:42:55Speaker 03

  And they, um, it was very insightful. I mean, just, um, I mean, first of all, just like, uh, yeah. Incredibly insightful hearing from them and also, um, also what you're talking about in terms of Father Bruce just hanging out at.

• 1:43:12Sean Fennessey?

  At my mom's house, yeah.

• 1:43:13Speaker 03

  At your mom's house. Immediately it was that vibe because they were just like, cool, yeah, they're just like, you know, young guys and they're like, you know. And, and, uh, I mean, I remember one thing that ended up translating directly into the movie. For example, they were talking about how. You know, when they go to the grocery store, they're they're wearing, you know, the collar, the clerical collar, and that means they're on stage all the time. So they'll be picking out avocados in the grocery store and a woman will come up and start sobbing to them because her dad has just died, or someone will come up and get in their face and start screaming at them, you know? And that's something I had never even thought about, the notion that in a way,

• 1:43:55Speaker 03

  you know, they're always at work and that means to an extent always kind of the way people must look at each other. What you're describing, everyone kind of has that reaction to them in their entire regular lives.

• 1:44:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's like being a politician, but with no individual identity. Right? It's like you stand for something.

• 1:44:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:13Sean Fennessey?

  But you're not responsible to it.

• 1:44:15Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:44:16Sean Fennessey?

  For creating it. It's a it's a very odd role in life.

• 1:44:19Speaker 03

  And also unlike a polit- it's like being a politician if all politicians wore a T-shirt that said politician on it.

• 1:44:26Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right. I am Nancy Pelosi. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's it's an interesting job and I can you tell me why you chose Josh? We just had a conversation on the show last week about The Mastermind.

• 1:44:38Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, I love that movie so much.

• 1:44:40Sean Fennessey?

  And he's wonderful and he's in this kind of period where you're watching

• 1:44:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:44Sean Fennessey?

  a person become

• 1:44:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:46Sean Fennessey?

  that very rare like brilliant actor, movie star blend where you can put a movie on his shoulders.

• 1:44:51Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:44:51Sean Fennessey?

  But he's super gifted and very, I I find so versatile in terms like the kind of material that he can do.

• 1:44:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:58Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe just tell me like why you chose him, what you'd seen him in that you liked?

• 1:45:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I hadn't been familiar with him. I mean, I'd seen him in The Crown, I guess, but Daniel actually knew him through Luca and so so they screened Challengers for us before it came out. And I mean, it was like it was my favorite movie of that year. I love that movie.

• 1:45:19Sean Fennessey?

  So good.

• 1:45:19Speaker 03

  And I mean, he just like popped off the screen, but then I saw La Chimera, which is such a different, I mean, almost the polar opposite performance. And he was equally as truthful and magnetic in that. And I was just like, oh, my God, I think I think this guy can do anything. And then I met him and he was Absurdly nice, suspiciously nice.

• 1:45:44Speaker 03

  Like, you almost can't believe a guy is that cool. And, and I just thought, ah, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna work with this guy. I wanna be honest with this guy. And we, we caught him at a great time. I bet if we had gone to him today, we wouldn't, we wouldn't have gone. Because he's in everything at this point. He's in so much, he's like working with Spielberg and like Jill Coen. He's like, and he's so busy, so, um, but rightfully so. I, I am really excited to see, you know, the, over the next five, 10, however many years, how he develops, because I think he's the full package. I think he can do it all, yeah.

• 1:46:22Sean Fennessey?

  How about ensembles now? Like, so three movies in a row like this, where you have, you know, extremely well-known people in these kind of modest parts, right? So like, I'm curious about the psychology of actors who wanna come in and do this. Like, if you're Kerry Washington, she's insanely famous. She's in a fairly modest part in this role. It's a critical part, but it's not that big.

• 1:46:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:46:39Sean Fennessey?

  So why do the people wanna do it? What, and how do you navigate having five movie stars?

• 1:46:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:46:48Sean Fennessey?

  Who all get like a real small piece of the pie relative to what they're used to, I would imagine?

• 1:46:52Speaker 03

  Well, it's, I mean, it's a great, great, great question, but it, and it kind of answers itself. I think the, the truth is, we've had such a great time with all three of these casts. I've never, not once, had to deal with like any movie star ego stuff at all. Quite the opposite, and I think the answer is exactly that. Every single one of these people are people who carry their own movies. The only reason for them to sign up for this is because they want to be part of an ensemble and because they love actors and they want that experience of kind of being in a little summer stock group for one movie. And, um, And so they show up on set and we really try and facilitate that by it kind of happened

• 1:47:37Speaker 03

  organically with the first two movies, but in this one, we just think we built like some tents off the side of the stage that were the green room for them all to hang out in together. And nobody went back to their trailers. Everyone just kind of gravitated towards that. And it's because that's, that's kind of the appeal of this, I think, is you're gonna, you're gonna be in a true ensemble with another group of actors and good actors love that. I mean, that's the thing. It's, it's, I don't know, you can see them kind of really feeding off of that when they show up on set, so.

• 1:48:07Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if I've ever asked you about your sets before.

• 1:48:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:10Sean Fennessey?

  Have they changed over time? Like what kind of, what vibe are you going for in the, when you're making a movie?

• 1:48:15Speaker 03

  I mean, I, I grew up making movies with my friends. That was kind of, I went to film school, but I think my real film school was just in high school, making stupid movies on the weekends. And that was what we did to hang out. And that's how I want my sets to feel. And I've been very fortunate that all of my set, like even the Star Wars movie, had that, had that vibe on set.

• 1:48:35Sean Fennessey?

  I saw it in the documentary.

• 1:48:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, you can feel it. Yeah, it was really, it was really true. It's like, and so that's how, that's the vibe that I always want. And with these movies, that's kind of why it's been, you know, kind of addictive making them is because you got all these great actors, they show up for a good time and it's just primed to kind of have the set feel like we're back in high school again, together to make something fun together. You know? And I mean, that comes from a lot of hard work and that comes from being prepared and knowing what you want. And I think that comes from everyone relaxing and everyone can relax when they know that, you know, when they know that I'm gonna make them, I'm gonna make them look hopefully good, you know, in a good movie.

• 1:49:20Speaker 03

  So, so that's part of it, but it's also just, you know, it's a vibe, you know?

• 1:49:26Sean Fennessey?

  So.

• 1:49:28Sean Fennessey?

  I know you get asked this all the time, but you're like, how will you make these? These films, the Benoit Blanc movies, like for 40 more years? Like, is that your intention is to kind of keep coming back to this world? I know it sounds like you're gonna maybe take a break from them, at least for the next thing.

• 1:49:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm writing something different for the next movie. I, I mean, look, I, I would be thrilled to keep making these until, I'd be thrilled to live another 40 years. God bless you for that.

• 1:49:54Sean Fennessey?

  Well.

• 1:49:55Speaker 03

  But I would be thrilled to.

• 1:49:56Sean Fennessey?

  30 years?

• 1:49:57Speaker 03

  Wow, let's aim for four. Let's aim for.

• 1:50:00Sean Fennessey?

  37 more years.

• 1:50:01Speaker 03

  37, that's a good round number. I would be thrilled to keep coming back to these. I guess the caveat is just, you know, as long as Daniel still enjoys making it, as long as audiences are still into it, and as long as, and this, this is nice that he and I can like share this, as long, I think we both feel like the instinct, it feels like we're turning the crank on another one will stop. Like they, we have to be able to, with each new one, really do something different that's challenging ourselves. And, and hopefully that'll translate for the audience into them knowing each one of these is a different novel on the shelf that's gonna give you a different experience. And you're not just gonna go and see us kind of doing, doing the thing again, you know?

• 1:50:44Sean Fennessey?

  Many of your films feature this, but obviously the last three have been so pointedly mysteries. But what, having done this now, and this is true in Brick and even, even in the Star Wars film, like when you're designing a mystery, what is the most important thing in terms of cracking it?

• 1:51:01Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, I mean, there's a few different layers to it. There's, I mean, there's all the setups and the payoffs and all that stuff, and there's kind of the, but honestly, I feel like the most important thing is that you start from the same basic fundamentals you start with, with a non-mystery, which is, who's your protagonist? What do they want? Why can't they get it? Why do we care? And that combined with, hopefully, the movie being, for me, engaging with something personal that I'm angry about or thinking about, you know, that I can use to kind of explore for myself, to give it some juice. That, that being the fundamental thing of it, and the mystery element of it serving that.

• 1:51:46Speaker 03

  Because I don't think that.

• 1:51:50Speaker 03

  I think I think that's that's that's the spine you gotta build everything on.

• 1:51:56Sean Fennessey?

  Did how did Christie write from that place, do you know? Or do any of the other great mystery writers?

• 1:52:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:52:01Sean Fennessey?

  Just that personal.

• 1:52:03Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:52:03Sean Fennessey?

  Manifestation of a feeling.

• 1:52:05Speaker 03

  Hundred percent. You read Christie and you read especially her best books and they're always. I mean, what she was so good at was character and they're always character based. And you can see there's always a protagonist in them. There's there's always what keeps you engaged is the personal motivations of each of the suspects even. You know, and and also the protagonist is never the detective or is rarely the detective. It's usually somebody who has skin in the game, who's actually in the middle of the mystery. But yeah, you think about Death on the Nile and one of the all time great basic setups. And it's and it's this vicious love triangle that you're immediately pulled into.

• 1:52:47Speaker 03

  Or, yeah, but all the great mystery writers, John Dixon Carr, who we, you know, name checked throughout this, was also fantastic at immediately pulling you in with human drama and with Gothic atmosphere. I think all the great mystery writers knew instinctively that the mystery was not something that would bear the weight of entertaining an audience for an entire story.

• 1:53:12Sean Fennessey?

  So I was thinking back on other times that we had talked to prepare for this conversation. And the first time that I met you was in a Disney conference room in 2017. And I had really just started doing this show.

• 1:53:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:53:26Sean Fennessey?

  And been a nice chat. But I, you know, I really, I liked all of your movies to that point.

• 1:53:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:53:33Sean Fennessey?

  And was very interested in where your career was going. And I'm sure I asked you, like fumbled through some questions about like the arc of your career.

• 1:53:39Speaker 03

  Sure, I fumbled through some answers.

• 1:53:42Sean Fennessey?

  But, you know, from that moment to now is a very is a very unusual, right? Because you are, you have worked in like some of the significant modes of major Hollywood through that like roughly what eight or nine year period, maybe 10 years total, including when you started making the Star Wars film. So Star Wars film and you built your own franchise.

• 1:54:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:54:04Sean Fennessey?

  And then that franchise became part of the biggest streaming service in the world.

• 1:54:11Sean Fennessey?

  Is this even a little bit what you thought it was going to be when you were making Jedi in 16?

• 1:54:18Speaker 03

  No, you know, no way, man. Yeah, no, you don't know, right? I mean, I don't know, but did you know when we were sitting there doing that, that you'd be?

• 1:54:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but I'm just a schmuck. You're like a guy who makes movies.

• 1:54:28Speaker 03

  No, it's very silly. It's like, I think that, no, I think, and I don't know. I don't know how you feel, but my, not just, not like a philosophy of how to approach a career, but literally the only way that you can do it, I think that works is, you know, quote Joseph Campbell, "You gotta follow your bliss. You just gotta put your foot in the next place where it's most exciting to take this next step to," you know? And that's, that's literally the only thing that I've ever done. And the notion of somehow projecting forward, like a 10-year plan or something like that. There are people who are maybe brilliant who can do that. I've never even tried to do that. To me, it's all about what is the very next experience that I want to have?

• 1:55:12Speaker 03

  What's the next story I want to tell? What's the most exciting next thing to do? And so it's really not looking much further than the next step with each one of these. Yeah.

• 1:55:22Sean Fennessey?

  I wanted to ask you about T Street. This is another thing that I don't think was happening in 2017.

• 1:55:27Speaker 03

  No, I think we started it like right around or right after there. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:55:33Sean Fennessey?

  I really, the impression I get is that you're trying to identify first time or early filmmakers or independent filmmakers and give them a little bit more of a boost.

• 1:55:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:55:43Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know what other kind of presiding philosophy you have.

• 1:55:46Speaker 03

  No, that's, that's, that's a big part of it. It's, you know, and, and in the context of finding filmmakers who have exciting voices, who are also, we're also kind of dedicated to finding filmmakers who have exciting voices who want to make, whatever you want to call it, quote unquote, "commercial films," like are films that are made for audiences to enjoy. And I say that as someone who loves, who loves art house movies and loves, loves, loves. And some of my favorite films every year are always weird art house movies. We're kind of dedicated to, okay, let's find voices that are.

• 1:56:27Speaker 03

  That are really interesting and passionate and engaging and in kind of commercial filmmaking. Yeah.

• 1:56:34Sean Fennessey?

  How are you finding that? Because like you've had pretty good success. You got an Academy award winning film on the roster, right? Like in Court and Chloe Domann was on the show.

• 1:56:43Speaker 03

  Fair Play.

• 1:56:43Sean Fennessey?

  You know, Snack Shack, one of our favorites from last year, like some really good movies.

• 1:56:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:56:47Sean Fennessey?

  But those kinds of films are very challenged, like to get in front of audiences right now. We talk about it every week, probably too much.

• 1:56:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:56:55Sean Fennessey?

  How do you think about that phase of the business in terms of getting movies in front of people?

• 1:57:00Speaker 03

  Well, it's a challenge. And in terms of how we do it, I should also say I'm, you know, my producer, Ron Bergman, and then our producing team at T Street is really, they're the ones who do it. I get to be the cool uncle on these projects. It's not like I'm in there reading a thousand scripts. I'm doing my own movies and I get to check in. So all the credit to them. But it is, I mean, it is a challenge. You also, though, I think you have to operate from a feeling of faith, to come back to, come back to faith. You have to operate from a feeling of faith that if you make something, I don't know, if

• 1:57:43Speaker 03

  you make something that's truly interesting and truly good, it'll find its audience. And it might be a roundabout way of finding it. It might take a while. It might not. But I think that's, I know from, as someone who makes movies, you have to have that faith. You have to believe that if you're, you know, if you're making something that is, that is, that is good and entertaining and truly interesting and passionate and all those things, the people who need to see it are going to see it, you know?

• 1:58:14Sean Fennessey?

  What's your favorite phase of filmmaking at this point?

• 1:58:18Speaker 03

  Uh, everything but writing.

• 1:58:24Sean Fennessey?

  Are you writing right now?

• 1:58:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:58:28Speaker 03

  Even right now, writing's great.

• 1:58:32Speaker 03

  Anyone who writes, you know what I'm talking to. I love having written. But, uh, but I love it all. I love, and prep is a pain in the ass. But you gotta do it. I mean, prep is where the movie's made. But I love shooting. I feel, there's no place I feel more comfortable in the world than on one of my own sets while we're shooting. It's, it's bliss. I love editing. I love the editing process. I love the post-process where all the technicians come in and start just, what the last 3% of the process does to make it feel like an actual movie is always magic to me every single time.

• 1:59:08Speaker 03

  And, uh, and I love actually the phase with Wake Up Dead Man that we're in. I love showing the movie and releasing it and having conversations about and taking it around to audiences at festivals and, so I don't know, man, I feel really, yeah, I feel really, really, really blessed and lucky to be able to, to do what I do, you know?

• 1:59:27Sean Fennessey?

  Ryan, we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen? You mentioned that you've been seeing a lot of great stuff this fall.

• 1:59:35Speaker 03

  I have been seeing a lot of, I think there's a lot of great movies right now.

• 1:59:38Sean Fennessey?

  Feel free to recommend a few things.

• 1:59:39Speaker 03

  I was going to, I love The Mastermind. I mean, you know, one battle after another is an all-timer, but everyone is talking about that.

• 1:59:46Sean Fennessey?

  We've been covering it here.

• 1:59:47Speaker 03

  You guys have covered it very well. Yeah. I love that interview you guys did with, yeah, you did with, with Paul and Leo. Okay. What's something a little more far afield? I actually, I mean, I, I, I have friends who have movies coming out, like Guillermo's Frankenstein movie is very personal. Edgar writes The Running Man is a blast.

• 2:00:03Sean Fennessey?

  I saw it. So fun.

• 2:00:04Speaker 03

  It's so fun, man. Yeah. And there's a movie that I don't know when it's coming out. I don't know if it's coming out until the beginning of next year or if it's this fall, but there's a movie called Pillion that I saw. You see it?

• 2:00:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, I saw it at Telluride.

• 2:00:17Speaker 03

  I saw it at Telluride. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:00:19Sean Fennessey?

  It was so funny and sweet.

• 2:00:21Speaker 03

  So good. And just like a great relationship drama.

• 2:00:26Sean Fennessey?

  Can you describe it a little bit to the audience?

• 2:00:28Speaker 03

  Yeah. So it's, it's a British film. It is, um, It's basically about, what's the name of the actor, the main actor, and then not Skarsgård, but who plays the nerd.

• 2:00:36Sean Fennessey?

  Harry Melish?

• 2:00:37Speaker 03

  That sounds right, yeah, Harry Melish. He's fantastic. And he plays kind of like a British nerd who, uh, who gets into a Dom sub-relationship with a hot biker played by Alexander Skarsgård. And, um, it's, it is, it's a movie that is very sexually explicit, but all the sex in it is not gratuitous. It's amazing the degree to which these sex scenes teach you the dynamics of this relationship and reveal character.

• 2:01:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 2:01:08Speaker 03

  It's very funny. It's very sweet. It's, um, very human and I think just a really beautiful, uh, relationship love story. And it's a, the director, who I wasn't familiar with, he's made shorts, but this is his first feature. Um, and I'm, I'm forgetting his name. He was fantastic.

• 2:01:27Sean Fennessey?

  I think he's Harry Lighton? Is that his name?

• 2:01:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, that sounds right. It was a really talented guy because it's a really, really good movie.

• 2:01:33Sean Fennessey?

  Guys, I love that recommendation. I love that movie too. Ryan Johnson, nice to see you. Thank you for doing this.

• 2:01:37Speaker 03

  Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it.

• 2:01:41Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you to Ryan Johnson. Thank you to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Later this week, we are drafting again. It's been three years. It's time for 2022 with CR. Let's go. See you then.

• 2:02:14Speaker 02

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