The Best Movies of the Year … So Far. Plus: 15 We Missed!

Sean and Amanda open the show with a few movie news topics including Ryan Gosling being cast in the highly anticipated next film for the Daniels, and the Oscars' decision to leave the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood for the 2029 Academy Awards (1:19). Then, they cover 15 2026 movies they have yet to discuss on the show this year, and share their top five favorite films of the year so far (19:04). Finally, Sean is joined by BenDavid Grabinski to discuss his new film, ‘Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice,’ as well as his long and arduous journey to directing his own material, what it’s actually like to pitch your movie, and why he needs to creatively collaborate with people who genuinely love movies (1:45:52). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: BenDavid Grabinski Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan®️. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there®️. Find what you're looking for. https://www.amazon.com/firetv/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Coca-Cola. For the big, for the small, the short and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers. For the optimists, pessimists. For long distance love. For introverts and extroverts. The thinkers and the doers. For old friends and new. Coca-Cola. For everyone. Pick up some Coca-Cola at a store near you.

• 0:46Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Finacy.

• 0:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 0:47Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Picture and Conversation Show about the best and the rest. On today's show, we will share our favorite movies of the year so far and run through several 2026 releases we missed in the deluge of awards season. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Ben David Grabinski, the writer-director of the very fun new action comedy, Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice. Ben David is an avid cinephile and super smart writer, and you can feel his passion for all different kinds of movies in Mike and Nick. Stick around for our conversation. I think you will really enjoy it. But first, we have some movie news to get into right after this.

• 1:22Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is presented by State Farm. Sure, being an expert at movie trivia is impressive. You know what's even more impressive? Being smart about saving money. And a great way to do that is by saving when you choose to bundle home and auto with the State Farm Personal Price Plan. Bundling, just another way to save with the Personal Price Plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

• 1:49Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Amanda.

• 1:50Amanda Dobbins?

  So let's be clear, we have three day old movie news.

• 1:52Sean Fennessey?

  Three day old movie news. Today is Monday, we're recording on a Friday.

• 1:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:56Sean Fennessey?

  So in the event that Avengers: Doomsday is pushed back to 2029, we will not know about it. But we do know that Jumanji 3 has been pushed back to Christmas 2026. I tell you that and you say what?

• 2:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yay. I say, big screens for Doomsday. Hooray. I say, I had, I would say that I, Amanda Dobbins, a professional film podcaster of sorts. Now, at this point, have too much information about how many large format screens Doomsday may or may not be eligible for.

• 2:37Sean Fennessey?

  Put a little context around it. Avengers Doomsday is coming out the same day as Dune Part Three. We talked about it last week on the show, and we were like, this is weird. How's this gonna work? That doesn't really make a lot of sense with these two very similar movies.

• 2:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:48Sean Fennessey?

  And of course, Jumanji moved off of December 11th to Christmas, so now it seems like Doomsday can move up to December 11th and maybe get some IMAX screens in the process to make more money for them. I, we were talking about like, who's gonna blink? Who'll move first?

• 3:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 3:03Sean Fennessey?

  This would be certainly a blinking and a moving first for Doomsday. However, probably a smart move for them. However, I kind of feel like Doomsday is just more fun and cooler. Like, I just think it would be more of an interesting movie event weekend.

• 3:17Amanda Dobbins?

  People are very angry that you tried to coin Doomsday.

• 3:19Sean Fennessey?

  I did coin it because I put the three.

• 3:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 3:22Sean Fennessey?

  Where the, where the E is supposed to go.

• 3:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 3:25Sean Fennessey?

  Because we learned that the movie's called Dune Part Three. A lot of people are like, Doomsday exists, bro. No, not Doonsday with the three, okay, everyone? So just simmer down.

• 3:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I love to market. I love to be a part of marketing. Um, it seems like they will move. That's what we speculated, right? That it is Dune Three, and Warner Brothers in the position of strength here, and that it would probab-, and they also, it is Dune Three, Dune Part Three, excuse me, Dune Three's Day.

• 3:55Sean Fennessey?

  Just Doonsday?

• 3:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Doonsday.

• 3:57Sean Fennessey?

  But just that three is doing a lot of work? Backwards E?

• 4:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. It looks like my son tracing right now.

• 4:02Sean Fennessey?

  We're having some similar issues with inverted shapes on our letters.

• 4:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, but they, they already had the screens tied up for two weeks. So it, it was written in the ink of IMAX that Dune had the upper hand. So it does seem like they'll, they'll blink. This is useful for me because now I know the holiday party is going to be December 12th.

• 4:24Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. We can all talk about doomsday at the holiday party.

• 4:27Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, no, that would just be, oh, we can talk about doomsday, not doomsday.

• 4:31Sean Fennessey?

  Correct.

• 4:32Amanda Dobbins?

  You're really going to have to work on your enunciation.

• 4:34Sean Fennessey?

  Doomsday.

• 4:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I will have seen it, I guess, and hopefully have recorded the podcast that I'm contractually obligated to record so that I can get quite drunk at my own holiday party.

• 4:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I'm, you know, this is like a stupid story, but it is kind of interesting to me because what date your movie lands on is pretty consequential right now. The, for example, you know, we're heading into week two, weekend two of, of Project Hail Mary, which is reportedly tracking to make like $50 million this weekend, which would be a crazy hold.

• 5:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 5:05Sean Fennessey?

  And that is great for a lot of reasons. And you know what? When we saw that preview of that movie back in April of 2025, I was like, God, this is a long time to wait for this movie. Turns out they picked a really good weekend to release a big event movie when there wasn't a lot going on against it the first weekend or the second. So this stuff is actually consequential to the business.

• 5:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's about resources. It is about access to IMAX screens and to big format because there are a limited number of them and people are locking them up a year and two years and three years in advance.

• 5:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And I said on Monday in the intro to the Spielberg episode that Hail Mary, I think 54% of its box office came from large format screens. That this is just, just kind of where the movie business went.

• 5:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:45Sean Fennessey?

  And if you don't have a movie that costs $200 million that is able to access those screens, you're going to take a hit financially. So anyway, thought we would put a little pin in that one. Um, speaking of pins, let's pull the pin out of the, the Murder She Wrote grenade.

• 5:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 6:00Sean Fennessey?

  Murder She Wrote is my wife's favorite television show.

• 6:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I do know that.

• 6:04Sean Fennessey?

  My wife adores Angela Lansbury.

• 6:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course.

• 6:07Sean Fennessey?

  And when things are low in our house, you can rest assured that she will be firing up Murder She Wrote to come back to her special happy place. So it was announced this week that there will be a Murder She Wrote movie starring Jamie Lee Curtis. Jamie Lee Curtis just came up in the 1980 movie draft. You had some sharp words for her.

• 6:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm maxed out. That's all it is. I, she has been overexposed like four times now. You know, we're on the, we're on the fifth courtesance and.

• 6:36Amanda Dobbins?

  My opinion doesn't even matter. How does Eileen, your wife, feel about this?

• 6:38Sean Fennessey?

  We haven't even spoken about it yet.

• 6:40Amanda Dobbins?

  What?

• 6:40Sean Fennessey?

  I know. It's just been a busy week.

• 6:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 6:41Sean Fennessey?

  We haven't gotten into it. Um, I'm gonna run afire. I don't know if she has any JLC feelings.

• 6:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Can you text her right now? Would she respond right now?

• 6:49Sean Fennessey?

  Let's find out. Let's find out. I mean, she's taking care of a sick kid, so I don't, I can't, no guarantees.

• 6:52Amanda Dobbins?

  We love you. We love you, Alice. Get well soon.

• 6:54Sean Fennessey?

  Hi, hon. We're live on the podcast.

• 6:56Amanda Dobbins?

  This is very exciting. When you're typing out hon, H-O-N?

• 7:00Sean Fennessey?

  H-U-N.

• 7:00Amanda Dobbins?

  H-U-N. Oh, yeah.

• 7:03Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think about that?

• 7:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but that's okay.

• 7:05Sean Fennessey?

  What do you mean?

• 7:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I'd say-

• 7:06Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think H-O-N?

• 7:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Hon? Yeah, I think honey because it's short for honey.

• 7:10Sean Fennessey?

  Well, what if it's short for Attila the Hun?

• 7:12Amanda Dobbins?

  But do you also, when you say yeah?

• 7:14Sean Fennessey?

  You can't no sell the Attila the Hun joke. You just blew right past that.

• 7:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you, when you type out yeah? I know how you text with me, but when you guys are texting, do you have different, um?

• 7:26Sean Fennessey?

  Of course.

• 7:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Text, yeah, yeah.

• 7:27Sean Fennessey?

  Of course.

• 7:27Amanda Dobbins?

  But do you do Y-E-A-H or do you do Y-A?

• 7:30Sean Fennessey?

  If it were you, I would say Y-E-A-H. If it were Eileen, I would say Y-A-H.

• 7:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Why is that?

• 7:36Amanda Dobbins?

  That's really weird.

• 7:37Sean Fennessey?

  Is it?

• 7:38Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I mean, I guess that's normal. I don't really think that I have different texting vernacular depending on who I'm texting. You're getting me. Um, I guess my parents slightly because they are still lawyers who text and email with like full punctuation, like absolute psychopaths. You'd never feel more in trouble than when you get an email from my mother. But I do, I don't, I don't really change the slang, person to person, but I understand why you would. But I, I think Y-A-H is weird.

• 8:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Well, one thing about me and Eileen, we've been together since 1999.

• 8:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. No, I know.

• 8:13Sean Fennessey?

  Like our verbal and textual language has, has really, we have a big-

• 8:19Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 8:19Sean Fennessey?

  Lot of history, a lot of data.

• 8:20Amanda Dobbins?

  How is she saved in your phone?

• 8:22Sean Fennessey?

  Just Sean. Or Eileen.

• 8:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no last name?

• 8:26Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, no, no.

• 8:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:27Sean Fennessey?

  No. I think it's-

• 8:28Amanda Dobbins?

  But you don't have any-

• 8:28Sean Fennessey?

  Dad and Eileen are the only people that have that delineation. Cotton, Kyle and Kara and Grace, my siblings. My, my wife and my dad are the only people who know last names.

• 8:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, my mom and dad are the only people. Zack is obviously last name because we met as adults.

• 8:42Sean Fennessey?

  You can edit that, you know?

• 8:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but now it freaks me out. I need everybody to have the first and last name. And I made some new friends the other night and like, we were leaving dinner and I was like, okay, so I'm gonna need first name, last names to attach to these random phone numbers on my phone because I can't have them saved without last names.

• 8:57Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 8:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, no response? I thought that was some pretty good vamping.

• 9:01Sean Fennessey?

  I put on do not disturb, so I don't know.

• 9:04Amanda Dobbins?

  You're gonna have to keep looking. Okay.

• 9:06Sean Fennessey?

  Let's keep talking. You know, the movie's gonna be directed by Jason Moore. Kind of seems like a smart use of IP, even if you're over indexed on Jamie Lee Curtis these days. I don't know. I, again, like familiar but new, that's my whole thing. Like, this is something we've never seen a movie version of this. Mystery movies are kind of work, the Knives Out films work.

• 9:22Amanda Dobbins?

  But what's, yeah, is the point of this to find a new generation of Murder She Wrote? I'm Jack and Lucas, Murder She Wrote, any familiarity?

• 9:29Speaker 03

  I mean, I'm familiar with the title.

• 9:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Lucas is just absolutely like, no.

• 9:33Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 9:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 9:35Speaker 03

  I'm familiar with it.

• 9:36Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it was a network television show, a weekly murder mystery whodunit show.

• 9:40Amanda Dobbins?

  My mother would also watch it, so I have seen a ton of it. It's very like cozy mystery. Angela Lansbury lives in Maine.

• 9:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, she, and she is a mystery writer who is also a skilled detective who is called upon when there are murders. And there have been a great many murders in her small town in, is it Maine, New Hampshire?

• 9:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, I mean, she's doing Maine Miss Marple.

• 9:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 9:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And, which is also your wife's preferred mystery.

• 10:01Sean Fennessey?

  Loves Miss Marple, yes.

• 10:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Over Poirot. But it wasn't like ironic, it wasn't funny.

• 10:08Sean Fennessey?

  No, no.

• 10:09Amanda Dobbins?

  The murders weren't particularly violent and you could always definitely guess by the first commercial break, like who did it? And that is fine, that's part of what's soothing about it. But so doing something like cutesy funny with.

• 10:21Sean Fennessey?

  I don't want it to be too The Brady Bunch movie. I think it would be actually better if they played it more straight. I do think that, um, there's something really fun about the show to go back to, which is that it was a launchpad, much like shows like Seinfeld where you could spot dozens of people who would go on to be really famous actors.

• 10:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Or Law and Order, yeah.

• 10:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, or Law and Order, yes, that's another good example. Or, or it would be like an interesting place for a much older actor to come in and do a single guest shot, where you find like a screen star from the 50s would come in as the killer in one episode. And that was always a lot of fun. If the movie brings that energy, I think it would be pretty cool. But, I don't know, I mean, it makes sense, coming out on Christmas next year, just like a nice movie for.

• 11:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, Murder She Wrote up against the untitled Nancy Meyers movie.

• 11:03Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, wow.

• 11:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Christmas 2027.

• 11:05Sean Fennessey?

  That's the new doomsday.

• 11:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And then you put me on the glacier and you set me out to sea.

• 11:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, or you just moved to, I don't know, West Palm Beach, probably. Okay, more movie news. Ryan Gosling, coming off of this Hail Mary success, it was announced, is teaming up with Daniels for their first feature for Universal. It will be unsurprisingly a sci-fi comedy. So this will be three straight sci-fi movies in a row for Ryan Gosling, with Project Hail Mary, Starfighter, Y'Shawn Levy's Star Wars film.

• 11:33Amanda Dobbins?

  When we're counting that as sci-fi.

• 11:35Sean Fennessey?

  Certainly, science fiction.

• 11:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess so. Yes, it is. You're right.

• 11:40Sean Fennessey?

  And this new movie, you know, you're not the biggest Daniels person in the world.

• 11:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I also, the Daniels new movie has been percolating, scheduled, unscheduled, has been something else, has been something else for, since Everything Everywhere All at Once, essentially. Does that raise any flags to you?

• 11:59Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. I mean, it's been, it will have been more than five years since Everything Everywhere All at Once came out. But there was also a big gap between Swiss Army Man and Everything Everywhere All at Once. I think, obviously, the ideas in their movies are very ornate and complicated, and the way they like to make movies is unusual. I don't know. I mean, I think bringing Gosling on to your movie is a good idea. It does seem to be pretty in keeping with the tone that he's pursuing as an actor, when you look at Barbie, and you look at The Fall Guy, and Hail Mary. You know, all those movies have kind of had varying degrees of success. But there is a kind of like jokey, you know, jokey-serious that I think is also in what the Daniels do. I'm interested. I like Everything Everywhere All at Once.

• 12:42Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's now taken on a much more outsized reputation, both good and bad, because of its Best Picture win.

• 12:49Amanda Dobbins?

  It's Best Picture. It's Oscar sweep, essentially. That was pretty impressive.

• 12:53Sean Fennessey?

  It ran the table that year.

• 12:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I like Ryan Gosling.

• 12:57Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 12:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Whatever he wants to keep doing.

• 13:00Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, sure. You know, I do want like, one really evil Nick Refn movie in the next 10 years. You know, like, one movie that's like, I know you love The Place Beyond the Pines, please show me, you know?

• 13:13Amanda Dobbins?

  So we're still in the Gosling press tour moment, and then, but we're also sliding into a lot of Robert Pattinson for the drama content, which we'll talk about next week.

• 13:25Sean Fennessey?

  I'm getting dots from Eileen.

• 13:26Amanda Dobbins?

  And they're, oh, that's exciting. And they're both giving a lot of good content. And so, would Ryan Gosling and Robert Pattinson in a movie work against each other? Or is it like, the center couldn't hold?

• 13:40Sean Fennessey?

  That's very interesting. I mean, they're closer in age than you'd think, right?

• 13:43Amanda Dobbins?

  They're closer in age and they do have a sort of-

• 13:45Sean Fennessey?

  You think brothers?

• 13:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Offbeat sensibility. Yeah, and they both like to do really weird shit and then they will also,

• 13:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, Pattinson is never quite as broad as Gosling.

• 13:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and Pattinson's 39 and Gosling is 45.

• 14:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm just, I'm just putting it out there.

• 14:01Sean Fennessey?

  That's interesting. I feel like we've been living with Gosling for so much longer, partially because he was a child star, but teen star, but I would be into that.

• 14:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Twilight is not that much after The Notebook, right?

• 14:14Sean Fennessey?

  No, but it is that much after The Mickey Mouse Club.

• 14:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 14:17Sean Fennessey?

  For example.

• 14:18Amanda Dobbins?

  And Remember the Titans and all of that stuff. Dots, but no response?

• 14:22Sean Fennessey?

  I'm waiting, I'm waiting.

• 14:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, alright.

• 14:24Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, Dots disappeared.

• 14:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, wow. So maybe now she's doing a lot of research? She's gotta inform herself before she, you know, takes the opinion?

• 14:33Sean Fennessey?

  Bated breath over here. Fortunately, we have a lot more podcasts to go, so we'll see if she ever gets back to us.

• 14:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Alright.

• 14:38Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, the Oscars are moving from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood to LA Live and the Peacock Theatre.

• 14:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 14:46Sean Fennessey?

  This is happening in 2029. The Dolby Theatre is relatively small, 3,300 seats. The Dolby, or excuse me, the Peacock Theatre has about 7,000 seats.

• 14:59Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really know if this is interesting news or not, because you and I don't go to the Academy Awards.

• 15:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 15:04Sean Fennessey?

  We probably won't go.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  This makes it so much more convenient for my plan next year.

• 15:11Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I hear what you're saying, but the traffic at LA Live is so much worse, so much worse.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  I'm gonna wear you guys down. This is a year-long project. I'm planting the seeds.

• 15:21Sean Fennessey?

  But this is 2029, so it's at least three years away.

• 15:23Speaker 03

  Okay, three years away.

• 15:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, three years away.

• 15:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I've already been put on the glacier after the Nancy Meyers and the murder she wrote.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  And after the Beatles too, so we're fucked.

• 15:32Amanda Dobbins?

  And after the Beatles, that's right. I have to come back from the glacier. Oh, okay.

• 15:36Sean Fennessey?

  Eileen is waiting. Simply put, I mean, it's not Murder She Wrote without Angela Lansbury. Maybe I could accept a prequel kids' version of it, but it's just another mystery show without her.

• 15:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, see, I agree.

• 15:48Sean Fennessey?

  The queen has spoken.

• 15:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I, I had that inkling as well, but maybe it's not for us. Maybe it's for a new generation. It can be a new murder, a new murder show, I guess. What if she's like a murder podcaster? This is like, that's what's gonna happen and I want to light myself on fire at the same time. I don't want it either, but you know, if they're updating it, that that's what they're gonna do.

• 16:07Sean Fennessey?

  It's gonna be insane when some hallowed figure of Hollywood history dies over the weekend and we're opening the podcast with all this bullshit. Uh, I really hope that doesn't happen.

• 16:17Amanda Dobbins?

  You're not gonna call in from spring break?

• 16:19Sean Fennessey?

  We'll see.

• 16:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 16:20Sean Fennessey?

  We will see. Uh, the Oscars moving, I think, you know, makes sense. They want to have, be able to have more people at the theater. I'm sure it's a money issue in a lot of ways. How much are they paying to host the show in that space? It does make it significantly, I don't know about less special, because who, who really gives a shit? Like what theater they put the show in? But a lot of shows are done at the Peacock Theater. Like, the Grammys are there.

• 16:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 16:41Sean Fennessey?

  Country Music Awards are there sometime. You know, there's like a lot of stuff that just kind of goes into there. I've been to that space many times. When I worked at ESPN, I worked in LA Live.

• 16:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:51Sean Fennessey?

  I've spent a lot of time in that food court.

• 16:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, which is not dissimilar to the food court that the Dolby Mall is in.

• 16:58Sean Fennessey?

  It's not.

• 16:59Amanda Dobbins?

  You walk by the, you know, the Johnny Rockets and the lids to get to the, to the Dolby Theater.

• 17:04Sean Fennessey?

  You do. I, I, I've eaten in that Tom's many a time. I've eaten at that farmhouse many a time.

• 17:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I've eaten in that farmhouse while coming to visit you at work, when you worked at ESPN.

• 17:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, uh, I don't, you know, neither one is that, all that glamorous, but I do think Hollywood has a little bit more of that sheen of the town to it. Whereas LA Live is, is just...

• 17:22Amanda Dobbins?

  It's right next to like crypto.com arena. It's, uh, Matt Baloney suggested in his newsletter that the Peacock Theater would be renamed by the time.

• 17:32Sean Fennessey?

  That makes sense.

• 17:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Which just, you know... Dolby Cinema is also a brand sponsored or the Dolby Theater is a brand sponsored theater.

• 17:41Sean Fennessey?

  At least it's connected to movies, though.

• 17:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, Peacock and Down and Abbey 2 would have you feel differently, but no, I agree with you. I agree, but also that these things are just like changing so quickly. It has a little bit of like Uniqlo Field at a, at a Dunder Stadium.

• 17:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 17:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Vibe to it like we're very for sale, which they are, but it, I agree. It feels more corporate and less like the stars are out.

• 18:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think that, I think the Oscars probably has to be really conscious about this, where they run the risk of just becoming a little bit more down market. They still are the absolute platinum brand of award shows acknowledging the hearts in America and moving to YouTube and changing locations and making the show bigger and hosting more people and having it downtown instead of in Hollywood. You know, they're all small, kind of middling things, but you put them all together and then is the specialness still as special? I don't, I don't know. I'm not, I'm not trying to concern troll, but I do think that there will be, there is an accumulation of things happening here that are going to be noticeable at some point.

• 18:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Remember when it was at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion?

• 18:46Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 18:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Also downtown, like three blocks from the Peacock Theater, but just much chicer.

• 18:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and I think part of that is just like, you remember hearing live from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion? And everything felt very elevated and we didn't live in this city at that time, too. And some of it is just when you live in LA, you have a different relationship to these things.

• 19:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, you do also park for jury duty at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. So, you know, you win some and you lose some. Yeah, you still haven't had to report, right?

• 19:10Sean Fennessey?

  Well, please don't speak that into existence.

• 19:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I had to report. I made it out.

• 19:15Sean Fennessey?

  What, what were you?

• 19:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I had to report to criminal court for like a criminal trial. Yeah, okay. They'll never catch me.

• 19:21Sean Fennessey?

  Tax evasion or murder, she wrote, perhaps? Okay, any other news you want to get off your chest?

• 19:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 19:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that's good. I mean, again, we're forecasting into the future, so.

• 19:33Sean Fennessey?

  Hopefully, nothing crazy happens. We have so many movies to talk about. This was originally 10 movies we missed.

• 19:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And you just kept adding.

• 19:39Sean Fennessey?

  And then it became 15, and now I think it's closer to 17. I saw three new movies yesterday. Because I've really been catching up. You did as well. You know, you can't say that the business might be in peril, but it is very active. There's a lot of stuff coming out.

• 19:55Amanda Dobbins?

  They're putting stuff out.

• 19:56Sean Fennessey?

  A lot, and maybe too much, if that makes sense, because in the, there's streaming, there is the catch up from the 2025 kind of festival releases that get late distribution. And then there's just kind of your general work a day, studio movies getting released in theaters. And so you put all three of those together. A show like this is so different than what Siskel and Eber would have done in 1995. In 1995, you'd have four movies coming out, and that's it. You'd cover three of them with some level of oversight, and then the fourth one would be a throwaway, and then you'd be done. We're, we're going to talk about 17 movies that have come out in the last three months. We probably could have done another 17. Like, I look at my list, and I'm like, whoa, there's a lot more here that we missed. It's impossible to be totalizing about that. And of course, you know, as a,

• 20:40Sean Fennessey?

  as a completist, it's hard for me. Yeah, it's hard for me.

• 20:42Amanda Dobbins?

  We're going to talk about movies on this podcast that you have not seen, which is unusual and uncomfortable for you, but we just want to commend you on your bravery.

• 20:50Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you.

• 20:50Amanda Dobbins?

  And trying new things.

• 20:51Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you.

• 20:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And enjoying yourself in this new phase of your life.

• 20:55Sean Fennessey?

  I, I intend to.

• 20:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Right now, you're, as people are listening to this, you're on spring break. Are you having a good time? Are you relaxing?

• 21:05Sean Fennessey?

  If I'm doing this properly, I'm on a golf course right now when this episode comes out.

• 21:08Amanda Dobbins?

  All right.

• 21:09Sean Fennessey?

  I can't promise that that's what's going to happen, but I have a tee time.

• 21:12Amanda Dobbins?

  That's beautiful. By yourself, solo tee time? You're going to chat the people up? Or are you going to put your, when you're doing solo tee time with other people?

• 21:19Sean Fennessey?

  I do not listen to headphones.

• 21:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. I'm glad you knew that. That's what I was going to ask.

• 21:23Sean Fennessey?

  I saw where you're going with that. No, no, I, um.

• 21:28Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I'm one with the force and the force is with me when I'm on the golf course. And I really feel happy and calm.

• 21:35Amanda Dobbins?

  That's beautiful.

• 21:36Sean Fennessey?

  And I'm in a dad era and I'm appreciating that part of myself. I was born for it, so to speak, and love nature. I love the state of California.

• 21:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 21:45Sean Fennessey?

  I'm very happy in the state of California.

• 21:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 21:46Sean Fennessey?

  Despite its many myriad problems. And I intend to be calm. How many movies I watch, I don't know. I feel like I don't have to watch very many, though, because of what we're about to embark upon here. Let's just start.

• 21:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 21:57Sean Fennessey?

  I think the first and most important movie for us to discuss is Reminders of Him. We have been venturing on a Colleen Hoover adaptation series of discussions ever since the enormous success of It Ends With Us. Was that last summer? Last August? The August before that?

• 22:14Amanda Dobbins?

  2024.

• 22:16Sean Fennessey?

  2024, right.

• 22:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, it was before Si was born and my first podcast back was with Juliet about the Blake Lively lawsuit.

• 22:24Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting, okay. So It Ends With Us was a huge hit. It made almost $300 million a year. Even before that film was released, Hoover had become one of the most successful novelists of her time. And they're cranking him out now.

• 22:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 22:36Sean Fennessey?

  This is, I think, the third prominent Hoover adaptation with a fourth incoming.

• 22:41Amanda Dobbins?

  With Verity on the way.

• 22:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, Verity has been pitched as the bigger and better Colleen Hoover movie starring Anne Hathaway. This one is a little bit smaller. It is based on one of her 2022 novels. It stars Micah Monroe, Tyreek Withers, Rudy Pankow, Laney Wilson, the country singer in her film debut, Nicholas Duvernay, Lauren Graham, and Bradley Whitford as parents. God, we're so old. It's directed by Vanessa Caswell. The summary of the plot is as follows. "Desperate to rebuild her life with the daughter she's never known, Kenna finds unexpected compassion in a secret romance with local bar owner Ledger. As danger develops for both of them, Kenna hopes to find a second chance amid unbearable heartbreak."

• 23:27Sean Fennessey?

  What did you think of Reminders of Him?

• 23:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Just incredible new frontiers in not just baby names, but character names.

• 23:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 23:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I do feel that the Colleen Hoover universe teaches me about worlds that I don't have access to. Otherwise, I didn't know that there were the questionable grandparents naming their children DM. I have to assume that it was the grandparents who gave the name. That wasn't one of the things that was addressed.

• 23:57Sean Fennessey?

  It's not explored.

• 23:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 23:58Sean Fennessey?

  We know that Micah Monroe's character, who

• 24:03Sean Fennessey?

  is in a very nasty car crash and is convicted of manslaughter because her beloved is killed in that car crash, is pregnant at the time of the car crash. And she goes to prison and she gives birth in prison, waltzed in prison, or I guess in a hospital waltzed in prison, and then has to give the child up. And she gives the child up to her boyfriend's parents. And but we don't know who names the child, but the child is named DM.

• 24:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 24:28Sean Fennessey?

  Now, DM, for longtime fans of The Challenge, the Real World Road Rules Challenge, know that there was a great competitor on that show called DM. So this is not the first DM I've ever encountered. But when you have the word ledger and DM as character names.

• 24:44Amanda Dobbins?

  You do wonder if it's like Ipsm- Lorum or Lorum-Ipsm, whatever.

• 24:48Sean Fennessey?

  Or even just like, have you been hanging out at the bank too long? Like, what actually is happening?

• 24:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm on the Social Security name website right now. DM not in the top 1,000 names.

• 24:57Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 24:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Kenna, 750 for the last couple of years, which is up a little bit. Ledger, can you guess?

• 25:05Sean Fennessey?

  It can't be top 2,000.

• 25:07Amanda Dobbins?

  It's 502.

• 25:08Sean Fennessey?

  Ledger?

• 25:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Ledger is by far the most popular. It's like skyrocketing. It was 975 in 2017.

• 25:17Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, my God.

• 25:17Amanda Dobbins?

  And 502 in 24, so.

• 25:19Sean Fennessey?

  That is absolutely fascinating. I will say, Kenna, there was a great kind of like electro hip hop artist named Kenna, who I remember from the late 2000s.

• 25:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Where do you think Sean is in 2024?

• 25:33Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm, 461.

• 25:36Amanda Dobbins?

  436.

• 25:37Sean Fennessey?

  Pretty good guess.

• 25:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. You're on a downward trajectory for sure. But you're like, you're pretty close to Ledger, which is amazing.

• 25:42Sean Fennessey?

  It's a little out of, well, after me, you know, broke the mold.

• 25:45Amanda Dobbins?

  That's where Amanda is.

• 25:47Sean Fennessey?

  I'll say 262.

• 25:49Amanda Dobbins?

  496.

• 25:50Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, you're plummeting.

• 25:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, we're out. It's the most 80s name of all time. My house, Zachary and Amanda, it's really, really tough, but it's okay.

• 25:57Sean Fennessey?

  A lot of the, Michael, Steven.

• 25:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:00Sean Fennessey?

  You know, these names are going out. And you know what? Good. Bring a new generation of ledgers and DMs in. This movie is, um, fascinatingly without incident.

• 26:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 26:13Sean Fennessey?

  It is, it is.

• 26:14Amanda Dobbins?

  It is.

• 26:14Sean Fennessey?

  Barely a story.

• 26:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, yes, and thus possibly the least objectionable ethically of the Colin Hoover films. And also my least favorite, I would say.

• 26:28Sean Fennessey?

  Well, so is that because of what you kind of go into these movies for? Because this movie is a straight line and very few of her stories, based on what I've seen in the film adaptations, are straight lines. They're kind of consistently like pivoting backwards and hiding information from the audience and making you unsure of what's really going. They're kind of Hitchcockian in a perverse way.

• 26:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 26:48Sean Fennessey?

  Where she's like hiding critical pieces of information so that there's a big surprise.

• 26:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And also everyone is like pretty evil to each other.

• 26:56Sean Fennessey?

  Agreed. There's something ugly about it. This movie is really more of a pure melodrama. It actually kind of feels like a Douglas Stork movie where it's like something terrible has happened and there's a woman who wants to get back to her kid. And it's just about her straight line path that the only divergence is she falls in love with her dead boyfriend's best friend, who was an NFL prospect at the time of this death and has come back to town because of an injury to become a bar owner. They fall in love. He's trying to keep that information from his dead friend's parents. While, while they're looking after this five-year-old girl. Now, this is a movie with a five-year-old girl.

• 27:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 27:31Sean Fennessey?

  Very well cast young actor.

• 27:33Amanda Dobbins?

  She's very good.

• 27:33Sean Fennessey?

  Very good in the film. And just, I, I found it like. Not really emotionally connecting, but not ever evil or strange in a way that I have found these other movies. And so it kind of just flows by you.

• 27:47Amanda Dobbins?

  And even though it does not have any of the salaciousness of the other Colleen Hoover films, what is even the second one? Oh, right. The Alison Williams one where- Regretting you. Yeah, regretting you and having an affair and then they flashback.

• 28:00Sean Fennessey?

  That film is very bad.

• 28:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but like in a, in a silly tasteless way, that's pretty fun when they actually do the flashback and Dave Franco is like de-aged.

• 28:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, 37 year old Dave Franco is supposed to be 17.

• 28:13Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, you chuckle. But so reminders of him doesn't have any of that absurdity, but it is still trying to, to do the hide the ball structure and there it, it leads you on to what is supposed to be this major revelation that is not a revelation at all. And there's not even really any tension. It does set up the question of why are these grandparents like this? Which is, it's honestly some of the worst grandparenting I've ever seen in my entire life.

• 28:43Sean Fennessey?

  It's the only like really weird thing in the movie where you've got, first of all, also using Lauren Graham and Bradley Whitford.

• 28:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:50Sean Fennessey?

  Who, you know, Lauren Graham, of course, we will talk about Gilmore Girls in this episode because of another film. But, um, you know, Bradley Whitford, known to be apoplectic as an actor from time to time, but there is like an intensity and weirdness in their caretaking of this child and their relationship to her mother that-

• 29:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Is not matched by, certainly by Tyreek Withers as the best friend replacement son across the way, who's also a super handsome former NFL player who's building a home on the land that he purchased with his NFL money, but he can't ever finish the home.

• 29:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 29:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Because he doesn't want to be-

• 29:31Sean Fennessey?

  I hate when I'm a business owner and a sick athlete who looks like Tyreek Withers and I've had to step away from the game. And you know, I could probably have any girl I want in town, but what I really need is the recently released convict who killed my best friend. It's just a huge bummer. This is a huge bummer. But you know what? She looks like Micah Monroe. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?

• 29:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I did also feel that the, it was a, I thought that this was maybe a, a fair-ish portrayal of a pretty unjust criminal justice system.

• 30:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 30:01Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, but of course it's like unjust to the sad white lady. So, you know.

• 30:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it does feel like a 50s movie where it's like through a series of misunderstandings, someone has been put into this terrible situation and they're really a good person deep down, but this bad thing happened, wasn't their fault and they're screwed. It's a, it's an interesting attempted pivot by Micah Monroe, an actress that I love that is, you know, between Chris Ryan and I, one of our girls, you know, the star of it, follows and many other horror movies over the last few years, you know, had a huge hit with Long Legs recently and she's attempting to get into a new lane and I think wisely to attempt to get some of this Colleen Hoover dough. You know, she's not quite as skilled an actor. I think some of her like slackness as a performer really works in scary movies. It doesn't quite play as well here.

• 30:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, she and Tyreek Withers are on a different like energetic level than the grandparents.

• 30:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 30:54Amanda Dobbins?

  And then, and also like then the situation around them.

• 30:57Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Which I guess enables their love affair.

• 31:01Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:02Amanda Dobbins?

  But it doesn't match up.

• 31:05Sean Fennessey?

  Tyreek Withers has instantly joined the jock movie Hall of Fame.

• 31:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:09Sean Fennessey?

  Because when you think about his, his burly bro, and I know what you did last summer, his first round draft pick in him last year, the horror movie.

• 31:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:18Sean Fennessey?

  And now this, he's being typecast a little bit.

• 31:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I guess so. He can pull it off. You guys spend a lot of time talking about who is not a convincing athlete and asked to play athletes in films.

• 31:31Sean Fennessey?

  You buy him.

• 31:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Yeah. And he generally, generally is appealing. He's also very sweet with the little girl. So that goes a long way.

• 31:38Sean Fennessey?

  They are good together.

• 31:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:39Sean Fennessey?

  I know that stuff that got me.

• 31:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Well, sure. Yeah, of course.

• 31:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, girl dad. This movie is, okay, it's like, it's like totally forgettable.

• 31:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I had forgotten it. I, it's fine. Again, it is like the least offensive and also the most boring of the, the Colleen Hoover.

• 31:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 31:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Adaptation.

• 31:58Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think verity will be enough of a big deal that it warrants its own episode of this show?

• 32:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I hope so. I mean, we could also do, we could do Verity and then we could do all the like, the romance adaptations. We could do our long threatened Nicholas Sparks episode.

• 32:15Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, wow. Yeah.

• 32:16Amanda Dobbins?

  But listen, Verity, Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, directed by Michael Showalter.

• 32:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, a lot of real people.

• 32:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I hope everybody came to play.

• 32:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 32:25Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 32:25Sean Fennessey?

  Amazon MGM, too.

• 32:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's go.

• 32:26Sean Fennessey?

  Riding high off of the success of Project Hail Mary. Okay, let's pivot away from reminders of him.

• 32:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Wait, speaking of romances, Kiki in Housemaid 2?

• 32:35Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I forgot to add that to the document. So you're like, you're happy about this? Like, your girl's in her slop era and you're about it?

• 32:41Amanda Dobbins?

  She wants to be in her slop era. Also, the Housemaid, which is not a Colin Hoover adaptation, but is like of that literary mold, way better than any of the movies we just mentioned. That's the most fun I've had.

• 32:53Sean Fennessey?

  The Housemaid is more fun.

• 32:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And so I'm just hoping, and Housemaid 2, Amanda Seyfried is apparently coming back, which is great for me. Amanda Seyfried and Kirsten Dunst together, I say yes. We just, we need to up our game from Brandon Sklener, like the next husband. It should be Ben Affleck, but he's too famous for that.

• 33:10Sean Fennessey?

  Who's a little younger, who's like 42, who's like Kirsten Dunst's age, who would be a fit for this world?

• 33:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm. I don't, I don't know how old everybody is anymore, you know?

• 33:22Sean Fennessey?

  It, I mean, it should be like a Chris Evans type. That's the kind of person who should be going into that spot, you know? And I feel like he could play that, this material really well, rather than trying to do Ghosted and be like, isn't this so funny that I'm doing a stupid movie like this? Like, actually be like, I'm making like a schlocky erotic thriller that we can all laugh at and chew popcorn. Anyway, um, another movie we've both seen, I presume.

• 33:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah, of course.

• 33:44Sean Fennessey?

  Is Paul McCartney Man on the Run.

• 33:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 33:48Sean Fennessey?

  This is Morgan Neville's latest documentary, his first of two documentaries this year about major figures in popular culture. His next documentary is about Paul McCartney's friend, Lorne Michaels, which comes out in April. This one document, documents McCartney's extraordinary life following the breakup of the Beatles and how the love he shared with his wife Linda became his bedrock and influenced a journey that would lead to the formation of his band, Wings.

• 34:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's talk through your feelings on this, okay? Because this is, this is your, not only like your music documentary world, but like this era of Paul is really your jam. This means a lot to you.

• 34:24Sean Fennessey?

  The first-

• 34:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, not that it doesn't mean a lot to me, but this is-

• 34:27Sean Fennessey?

  You're Beatles through and through.

• 34:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Beatles through and through.

• 34:30Sean Fennessey?

  You like solo Paul.

• 34:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course. And also, like, what I liked the most about this documentary was just once again seeing all the archival footage of them on the farm, looking shaggy and weird. And there is something idyllic about, he just goes in the woods with Linda and shuts out the world and makes this music the way that he wants to. I respect it. I would go crazy if I had to do that, but I think you would be very happy. This is what you want in life.

• 34:58Sean Fennessey?

  I, I really think, um, I think Ram is one of the most inspiring pieces of art of all time. I, I, I am utterly, I think Paul's a crazy person in a way that I relate to. And that he's like, I'm about my thing and that's it. Sometimes to the point of isolationism and egotism. And sometimes to the point, not in my case, but in his case of utter brilliance, that it creates this magic out of him that only he can tap into. And this period that this movie is focused on has been a huge kind of area of personal study for me.

• 35:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:35Sean Fennessey?

  And so there's actually no way that this documentary was ever going to live up to my expectations.

• 35:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, that's, I mean-

• 35:39Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I just know a little bit too much about this.

• 35:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:42Sean Fennessey?

  And I, I've listened to so many interviews with Paul about this period and, you know, the McCartney-Ram wildlife stretch and then the formation of Wings. I, I just, I've spent a lot of time with that music and it really means a lot to me. But I think this is pretty good. I think it's definitely very watchable. And if you are less of a psycho about Paul, I think you will learn a lot-

• 36:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:02Sean Fennessey?

  -about his psychology in the aftermath of The Beatles. The movie does, I was curious how you felt about this. It attempts to engage with the who broke up The Beatles and what was Paul and John's relationship like? And I feel that there's been a lot of management around this-

• 36:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 36:18Sean Fennessey?

  -over the last 20 years particularly, where sort of like Yoko and, and Sean have worked very hard with Paul and Paul's family to make it clear that these two people did not hate each other.

• 36:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 36:31Sean Fennessey?

  That even when things were challenging and they were sniping at each other, when they were publicly beefing on record, like literally on songs-

• 36:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:37Sean Fennessey?

  -that they still were blood brothers.

• 36:41Sean Fennessey?

  How do you feel the movie like engaged with that? What did you make of it?

• 36:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Like many, like most recent music documentaries, this is made with Paul McCartney's cooperation and involvement, and he is an executive producer. So I felt the management of everything from his side slightly. And, you know, it's not, I mean, it is public record that when they finally split with, remind me the Wiley manager's name.

• 37:07Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Klein?

• 37:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, Klein, Klein, Klein. When they are finally freed or, you know.

• 37:16Sean Fennessey?

  The adco arrangement and then breaking that up.

• 37:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly. You know, that the archival clip of John Lennon being like, yeah, well, Paul was right, is included prominently.

• 37:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 37:25Amanda Dobbins?

  In the, and even when they show the clip of Paul being interviewed after John's murder, they, it's, they have Sean Lennon narrating like his interpretation of it and trying to make it smoother and better.

• 37:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Paul famously gave this, infamously gave this sort of like blank disaffected interview, maybe a day or less than a day after Lennon was murdered. And it's, it's a little bit of a black mark on his.

• 37:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:54Sean Fennessey?

  On his legacy because he just seems so unfeeling.

• 37:57Amanda Dobbins?

  It ends with, yeah, it's a drag and then thank you, walks off. It's real, I mean, it's really, really.

• 38:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but I did also feel that it was fair to him, the way that Sean kind of characterized that, that it was sort of like, this is a traumatic event and that this is a person who's spent his life trying to protect himself.

• 38:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 38:11Sean Fennessey?

  And that in these events, you can't give people too much.

• 38:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Not be in front of the cameras. Totally, but there for every one of those, you know, the, the whole Linda can't sing thing, you have him talking about his view of it. It's every, every wrinkle is met with a very pro Paul repost, which is, I mean, that's what it says on the label.

• 38:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 38:31Amanda Dobbins?

  So what are you going to do? And this is a pro Paul, you know, we're not anti John, but we are.

• 38:37Sean Fennessey?

  I love John.

• 38:38Amanda Dobbins?

  This is a, this is a Paul. Ethan Hawke is right, you know, that you can't have a favorite Beatle, that it's the, you know, what they made together that is so beautiful, but.

• 38:46Sean Fennessey?

  But I love a lot of what all of them made individually too.

• 38:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Same.

• 38:49Sean Fennessey?

  And I do think there's been a lot. Of work to explore what John made over the last 15 years or so, that there are multiple documentaries about his work.

• 38:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 38:57Sean Fennessey?

  Um, around Imagine and around the, um, the albums with Yoko. And there's not as much of that with McCartney. There have been plenty of McCartney objects for us to engage with. Remember that Rick Rubin Hulu?

• 39:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:09Sean Fennessey?

  Movie where they're sort of like just going back and listening to his songs and kind of deconstructing them. And, and Paul works, his world works very hard to mythologize in perpetuity. This one, I think I, I might've preferred a little bit more of a tighter focus on like a year or two. This is my own personal interest.

• 39:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:28Sean Fennessey?

  To get a little bit, to really like dig into the psychology a little bit, rather than as you say, almost, it's almost like they're knocking pins down. Where they're like, this year happened, this is how the band formed, this is how the band worked. I thought it was interesting the way that they talked about how he would dispense with members. And that he had, he does have this kind of almost militaristic approach to going through the work. And that's one of the things that did clearly disrupt the Beatles, right? That Paul was like, work, work, work.

• 39:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And George was like, what about me?

• 39:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Can I hang out a little bit? You know, like I've got some feelings.

• 39:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I got some ideas.

• 39:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. So I, I think it was like, it was honest, but it was softened and leavened to your point. I do think, I mean, nobody is better than Morgan Neville, just making these movies kind of like glide by. Like he just, his editing team and the way that these things are constructed and the way that he is able to kind of like, put a little bit of a spell on the lead subject to get them to give you enough good stuff that you feel satisfied is very rarefied air. Because I think they all trust him because they're partially having some handle on the, on the material themselves. But, um, I, I liked it. I liked it. I think it.

• 40:33Amanda Dobbins?

  If you're us, then you'll enjoy watching it.

• 40:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 40:36Amanda Dobbins?

  If you are, like if you're Beatles head, then it's very pleasant. And it really just is fun to see a lot of that old footage, which you've seen before, but it's like assembled, as you said, very slickly. And it's very watchable and all in one place.

• 40:49Sean Fennessey?

  It's funny because on a, on a future episode of Blank Check, you and I are featured on the, the, the new season of Blank Check.

• 40:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 40:56Sean Fennessey?

  But on a future episode, like I really personally explored because of the movie that I talked about. How appealing I find this period of Paul's life.

• 41:05Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I know that about you.

• 41:06Sean Fennessey?

  You know, and how there's something about it that is really like calls to me.

• 41:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I know.

• 41:12Sean Fennessey?

  So.

• 41:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I did, I know that this is, it means something to you. It's part of how I understand you is that really you just like want to be with the sheep in Scotland with Eileen and Alice. But then when I was watching that infamous interview, I was like, damn, when I die, Sean's gonna talk just like this about me. I was just like, this is. It's a drag, bye. And like, and as I was watching, no, I was like, well, Sean Lennon. Sean Lennon has some like very insightful, like psychological, you know, points here because you just be like, I can't deal with this. Sorry, it's a drag, bye. That's okay.

• 41:46Sean Fennessey?

  But privately, imagine what I'll say.

• 41:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly, I know.

• 41:48Sean Fennessey?

  That's a very funny pivot. Um, okay. Let's talk about two movies that I, you didn't see either of these, right?

• 41:54Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I didn't.

• 41:55Sean Fennessey?

  And they are inextricably linked and fascinating, so just.

• 41:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 41:59Sean Fennessey?

  Hang with me a minute while I talk about them.

• 42:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's horror corner. Let's go.

• 42:02Sean Fennessey?

  They're the two big, I would say, studio movies, non hail mary division over the last two weekends. The first is Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, which is a sequel to the 2019 cult hit starring Samara Weaving. And the other is They Will Kill You, which I just saw last night, which is directed by Kirill Sokolov, which is a new Warner Brothers horror action movie starring Zazie Beats. These two movies are linked because they are the same movie. They are fascinatingly almost exactly the same in terms of what their plot is. The, one of them is a sequel, of course, but the sequel kind of expands its world to show that Samara Weaving, whose character in the first film was hunted by her in-laws on the night of her wedding because her in-laws were Satanists who were participating in a cult in which.

• 42:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Happens to the best of us.

• 42:48Sean Fennessey?

  I'm, it, I mean, you know, the part of the reason that first movie is a lot of fun is because that's how a lot of people feel when they enter a new family, where they're just like, are these people trying to kill me? What the fuck is going on here? It was a really good joke, stretched out and used, that deployed a lot of great gore. And speaking of wonderful kind of scream queen horror girls like Micah Monroe, Samara Weaving might be the best in the business. So that first movie's a lot of fun. This new one adds a bunch of new actors. Catherine Newton comes on as her sister. Our beloved Sarah Michelle Gellar is here. Sean Haddish from The Pit is here. David Cronenberg, Elijah Wood. Um, the movie picks up immediately after the first film. So she's drenched in blood.

• 43:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 43:30Sean Fennessey?

  The house is burning down. She's wearing the wedding dress.

• 43:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 43:33Sean Fennessey?

  And she's arrested and taken to the hospital. And the story goes from there. She very quickly gets picked up and taken back and is brought into a kind of expanded universe of Satanists that are trying to kill her. Uh, I think the movie is okay.

• 43:47Amanda Dobbins?

  All right.

• 43:47Sean Fennessey?

  I think it has like lost all of its novelty because we saw the first film. It's the same filmmakers. It's um, the radio silence guys who have had on the show before, who I think are really talented. Some fun kills. There's some good creativity. Catherine Newton, another, another emerging scream queen, has good chemistry with some more weaving, but it's very hard for this movie to recapture what's, what was special

• 44:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Magical about the first.

• 44:08Sean Fennessey?

  Um, in part because when characters fail in their efforts to kill the person who is meant to be killed on behalf of Satan, they explode into a giant pool of blood.

• 44:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay.

• 44:22Sean Fennessey?

  Which is one of the amazing revelations of the first film. And then they play that note like six times in this movie and it's a lot less effective.

• 44:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 44:29Sean Fennessey?

  I wish this was better. It's not bad. If you like the first movie, it's an okay time at the movies. They Will Kill You is weirdly the same. It's about a woman who gets a job at a hotel slash like high rise as a maid. And the reason that she's got there is because someone is working there who is very close to her, who she's attempting to rescue. But she doesn't fully realize that the people who own, operate and live in this high rise are also Satanists.

• 44:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 44:58Sean Fennessey?

  And they need sacrifices to come into their space so they can kill them on behalf

• 45:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's drill down on this little. So the people who own and operate the hotel also live in the hotel?

• 45:09Sean Fennessey?

  They do. I guess it's more of like an apartment. It's more of an apartment building.

• 45:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 45:13Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 45:14Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's a, yeah.

• 45:15Sean Fennessey?

  It's almost like a manor in a way, because there is this sort of like maid service team.

• 45:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm trying to, oh, is it like assisted living? Like, does everyone have a certain age?

• 45:23Sean Fennessey?

  No, because it's, I mean, the other film, stars of the film are Patricia Arquette, Heather Graham. Tom Felton from the Harry Potter films, uh, Mahala from, uh, Industry.

• 45:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 45:34Sean Fennessey?

  So. It's not old people.

• 45:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 45:37Sean Fennessey?

  It's not people who have a problem.

• 45:38Amanda Dobbins?

  There are hotels where that also offer residential services.

• 45:43Sean Fennessey?

  It's it's basically like a co-op.

• 45:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 45:45Sean Fennessey?

  And is it like? Built on like Satan's portal.

• 45:48Amanda Dobbins?

  So Satan owns the co-op and then they work for Satan? Or is it a collective?

• 45:52Sean Fennessey?

  Unclear whose name's on the deed.

• 45:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 45:54Sean Fennessey?

  I'll say, um, I think the movie is, has the same idea. It's more like Kill Bill meets Looney Tunes. In terms of how it's executed. It has some very fun action. Zazie beats surprisingly excellent action heroine. She does a lot of machete killing. She does a lot of beating the shit out of people and exploding their heads. A lot of sawed off shotgun blasts.

• 46:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 46:21Sean Fennessey?

  The movie has an energy and a real comic sensibility. It feels like Joe Dante at times. It feels like Sam Raimi at times. Has a lot of stuff I like, but it's like barely a plot. Barely.

• 46:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 46:33Sean Fennessey?

  And at 94 minutes, I found it to be a little bit long. And it's just very weird that these movies came out at the same time. The director Sokolov is super talented at the set pieces and some of the gore stuff. But I, it's, it's just, it's kind of like the Deep Impact Armageddon thing. We're like, how did this happen? And then did they think very obviously like, okay, shit. Well, they're putting their movie out here. We gotta put it out a week later so that we can like, get a little taste of that or something. I'm not sure. I will say there were people were much more into They Will Kill You at my screening last night than were into Ready or Not 2.

• 47:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that's the first week of it, right?

• 47:08Sean Fennessey?

  It was, but I saw both on opening night.

• 47:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay.

• 47:11Sean Fennessey?

  I saw both on opening night with normal crowds.

• 47:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 47:13Sean Fennessey?

  And I, this one clicked more, maybe just because it seemed more new and because it was a little bit more outsized.

• 47:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:21Sean Fennessey?

  But they're, neither of them are as good as I would hope that they would be.

• 47:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 47:25Sean Fennessey?

  That's my report on those two movies.

• 47:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 47:27Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I think you can skip them.

• 47:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, once they were described as like gory horror movies where you're there for the kills, not for the, you know, intricate psychological.

• 47:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, neither of them really explore that.

• 47:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Exploration and blocking.

• 47:41Sean Fennessey?

  I hope Samara Weeden gets a really great movie soon, though. I think she's pretty special. I think she's got incredible screen presence. You know, most amusingly utilized in Babylon when she comes on as like the Margot Robbie looking girl.

• 47:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, yeah.

• 47:55Sean Fennessey?

  Margot Robbie unseats, which I think is one of the best jokes in that movie. Okay. Next movie, movie I haven't seen.

• 48:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Midwinter Break. You Didn't Get To. This is adapted from a novel that I have not read, directed by Polly Fenley, and it stars Leslie Manville and Karen Hines.

• 48:13Sean Fennessey?

  And. Two goats.

• 48:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's a shame you didn't get to see this because this is, it's about like an older couple, empty nesters, and then they go on vacation to Amsterdam and then some revelations about their inner lives and their relationship and how are they going to deal with them. But it's basically about Irish Catholic guilt. But, but, but this time, here's the twist. A woman. So I was just like, what's happening here? For I was like, Leslie Manville, get it together, honestly. And that's, that's not fair. She's working through her things in her own time. And obviously both actors are wonderful. But it's like a lot more about religious guilt than I tend to relate to.

• 48:56Sean Fennessey?

  Women really can have it all now. Irish guilt and everything.

• 48:58Amanda Dobbins?

  We really can. It's, I mean, it really feels like a classic, the, the seniors at the Lincoln Center film, like movie theater that I think sadly since closed on a, on an afternoon. This is, this is made for them and it's not bad, but I didn't pers, I'm not at that phase in my life yet. And I don't know if I ever will be.

• 49:19Sean Fennessey?

  Angelica Court, too. Yeah, yeah. I, um, I love these two actors.

• 49:25Amanda Dobbins?

  They're, they're very good.

• 49:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I intend to see this.

• 49:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 49:28Sean Fennessey?

  Cause I do have a soft spot for, I, these movies are kind of like, aspirational is not the word, but like 45 years, Andrew Hayes movie is, is, I would presume a much better version of this movie.

• 49:41Amanda Dobbins?

  The, the thing is that it's just, um, there's not a ton of revelation in it, honestly, besides the religious stuff. And, you know, your mileage will vary on that, I think.

• 49:56Sean Fennessey?

  All right.

• 49:56Amanda Dobbins?

  But maybe yours won't.

• 49:59Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk about the AI doc.

• 50:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 50:01Sean Fennessey?

  I made a last minute choice to see this as well as They Will Kill You last night.

• 50:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow, okay.

• 50:05Sean Fennessey?

  And I really wanted to see it for a couple of reasons. The full title-

• 50:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Because you love AI.

• 50:11Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I think that there's probably a bigger conversation about it that we need to have.

• 50:18Sean Fennessey?

  Just by the nature of industrial design right now. This movie is much bigger than what is happening in the world of movies. But The AI Doc, or How I Became an Apocalyptomist, is the new film from Daniel Rohr and Charlie Tyrell. Daniel Rohr, last seen winning the Academy Award for Navalny. And he was already on this show. We recorded an interview with him, but not about this movie. Because he also wrote and directed a movie called Tuner, which is coming out in May, which is about a piano tuner who gets ensnared in a criminal enterprise. And it's a very, very good movie. Surprisingly good for a guy who hasn't made a scripted feature before. This new movie is a pure doc. Hoping to figure out what's happening with artificial intelligence. A father-to-be embarks on an eye-opening journey

• 51:02Sean Fennessey?

  to learn more about the most powerful technology humanity has ever created and what's at stake if we get it wrong. On the surface, this is a very standard doc style, where he brings in well over a dozen experts in all directions.

• 51:17Sean Fennessey?

  Scientists and academics and also critical leaders in Silicon Valley and doomers and optimistic voices and folks in politics, all to kind of get this survey of this moment that we find ourselves in. And he shoots it through the prism of I'm about to have a kid and what's going to happen to my kid. And very early on in the film, one of the people says, "Most of the AI risk people that I speak to say that your child will not make it to their teens because of what AI will do." And then there are all these other people who are like, "We are on the brink of as close to a utopian existence as we will ever have in this country when you look at what, you know, genome mapping will be able to do,

• 52:00Sean Fennessey?

  how we'll be able to handle the environment, so on and so forth."

• 52:05Sean Fennessey?

  It's very hard, virtually impossible, to get your arms around this entire subject in a 95-minute documentary.

• 52:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 52:11Sean Fennessey?

  It does a pretty good, it really is AI for dummies in a way that I think has a real utility in terms of explaining to the layperson.

• 52:21Sean Fennessey?

  Not just what AI is, because a lot of people just use Chat GPT, or they did use Sora till they shut Sora down.

• 52:29Sean Fennessey?

  And they are using it with Gemini, and they are using it in a lot of these AI assistants that appear on a lot of different services. They're using it when they go to the hospital or the doctor. So it's already integrated into people's lives. But I think the movie is good about explaining both the ecological impact and then the human impact, the geopolitical impact, a lot of potentialities. The movie kind of resists having a final say beyond, I hope it's okay. And that's probably the right choice.

• 52:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you also become an apocalopt optimist?

• 53:01Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I did want to talk to you about how you think about it, because there's the very obvious reactionary, oh, this is terrible, this is ruining art, and I hate it. And then there's also the like crude capitalist, like, it's happening no matter what, accept it, it's going to run things, and it's going to do so in a way that we can control. And as with most things, I tend to fall in the middle of this. Like, I see the ways in which it can improve things, and I see the ways in which it can really damage people. I don't feel like I'm an apocalyptic fearing person about this. I don't wake up scared about it. But I'm an optimist about virtually nothing. So how do you feel about it?

• 53:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I am, I think that the reality is somewhere in the middle, and that's where I am as well. I mean, I don't wake up fearing Skynet. I have no interest, and not just in a cute Jacob Elordi, like, I'd rather be sunburnt on the beach kissing sort of way. But I was talking with my husband about this in terms of AI assistants recently, and people using them to do kind of some of the mundane computer tasks, or scheduling, or all sorts of things. And I was like, I don't, I also don't, I would not be, I don't have an assistant, and I wouldn't be a good assistant, because I'm not good at delegating, because then you just have to do it again yourself. And so there is an element to all

• 54:27Amanda Dobbins?

  of this where I just don't, it will always, it will be technology that if it's trained appropriately, it's just like the next thing that could make your life easier in some ways, or could do other things, and then will also not be as good at other stuff. And, you know.

• 54:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it ruining art? Yes, but also like plenty of other things were ruining art before.

• 54:51Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 54:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, so again, I don't. It's not awesome.

• 54:55Sean Fennessey?

  One thing I like.

• 54:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't willingly use it.

• 54:58Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I don't either. I'm not a chat GPT person. I don't, I try not to rely on things like Gemini when I'm doing searches. I think that it's obviously been built into our lives in ways that we don't see as well. There's a lot that is happening that is assisting us in all kinds of ways that we don't realize. One thing the movie does well is that it locates this really core kernel idea that there's more or less five people that are making these decisions about how this is working.

• 55:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 55:25Sean Fennessey?

  And that these five people are in a race to unlock AGI rather than just AI. And AGI is this kind of elevated independent operating power. This like, you know, it's represented in the film as almost like this Rubik's cube that lights up. It will ultimately take us to the next level of utility. And maybe in fact, if handled correctly with the right safety provisions becomes this all knowing problem solver for us. But these five people, I won't be able to remember all of them, but um, obviously Sam Altman at OpenAI. You've got the folks at Google DeepMind. You've got Meta, you've got Anthropic, and I believe you've got Microsoft AI. Those are sort of like the five power players in this space.

• 56:09Sean Fennessey?

  And that what's really scary is, is that the best way to move quickly in this race is to remove safety. And if you remove safety, you can get to the endpoint quicker and then you will be deemed the winner of the race. And then you can control the landscape. Now, this is, these five people, these are all American companies or companies that are mostly American. You've also got the Chinese government. You've got, you know, UAE and Saudi Arabia. You've got um, North Korea and South Korea. You've got all these competing forces. You've got who's able to manufacture chips. Like it's a broad geopolitical landscape you have to consider.

• 56:44Amanda Dobbins?

  And at some point, the chips depend on resources and actual.

• 56:48Sean Fennessey?

  Most of which are made in Taiwan, which is controlled by China. The US doesn't like how can China control. So there's a million different factors that come into it. But I like that the movie really boils this down to these five guys.

• 56:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 57:01Sean Fennessey?

  The buck kind of stops with them. And if they don't. If they don't exist or operate, it isn't, it's XAI is the one I'm thinking of. It's not Microsoft. XAI is Elon Musk's company. Who was formerly involved with OpenAI and then felt that Sam Altman was not acting safely enough. So he started his own company, a kind of paradox unto itself.

• 57:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 57:24Sean Fennessey?

  It's unusual.

• 57:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:26Sean Fennessey?

  Someone makes this point in the film that is so powerful, which is that there are more rules and regulations around selling a sandwich than there are around building AI technology.

• 57:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but this was also, I mean, this is true, certainly of Silicon Valley and of every new technology. And, you know, in, in some ways, it's the social network, which it is just that here is a person who figured out something in an unregulated market that changes the way that we operate our world and each other. And, and the social network dares to ask, is that the person we want in charge of things? Or this is what it looks like?

• 57:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 57:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And, you know, I, I don't know any of those. I assume they're all gentlemen.

• 58:03Sean Fennessey?

  The three, they're all men.

• 58:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:05Sean Fennessey?

  Three of the five men sit for the film.

• 58:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I don't know them, but I, I'm assuming I would not elect them to be in charge of reshaping how we interact with the world.

• 58:15Sean Fennessey?

  There's one fascinating revelation in the movie, or just sort of moment in the movie where, you know, Daniel appears on camera in the movie and he's kind of, he's really using his personal experience. His wife is in the film, you know, talking through her pregnancy. She's a filmmaker in her own right. She's kind of like helping him make the movie and being like, you can't do this, you fucking idiot.

• 58:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:33Sean Fennessey?

  Charming like construction, but Sam Altman appears near the end of the film. He sits for an interview.

• 58:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 58:38Sean Fennessey?

  And he has been, become a, arguably the most talked about leader, corporate leader in America this year.

• 58:47Amanda Dobbins?

  He is the new Mark Zuckerberg.

• 58:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 58:49Amanda Dobbins?

  He even has a, a new, like, he has his own social network coming out at the end of this year.

• 58:53Sean Fennessey?

  He does. And he was in the movie news this week with the Disney revelation around OpenAI and Sora. But anyhow, he sits for the film and Dan, Dan turns to him and he's like, hey, man, like, I'm making this film because I have all of this anxiety and concern about this because I'm having my first child and I'm, and I'm, I'm nervous. And Sam Altman says, oh, I'm having my first kid too, in March. And then we get to see Sam Altman explain his feelings about this world through that prism of he is also now. Indicted, involved.

• 59:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 59:25Sean Fennessey?

  Essentialized in his family lineage through whatever he creates, whatever he chooses to do. And there's a feeling that OpenAI is ahead, that they're they're ahead of everybody right now. And that if they unlock the final piece of the puzzle, I'm a little dubious about it, whether there is a final piece of the puzzle and that we'll keep having these races because that benefits stock prices, but nevertheless.

• 59:47Sean Fennessey?

  There's a couple of strokes in the movie that are really smart. It's like, it's very much worth seeing, but don't expect to come out of it feeling like you've got your arms around it and this is how we should feel.

• 59:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. At the same time, it feels, you know, how I became an apocalyptomist, which first of all, is just very hard to say, but it was not designed with podcasts in mind. But that is probably off putting to a slice of people who are AI skeptical.

• 1:00:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:00:12Amanda Dobbins?

  But it doesn't sound like it's an advertisement for these people in the way that the title would suggest.

• 1:00:18Sean Fennessey?

  It doesn't do them any favors.

• 1:00:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:20Sean Fennessey?

  It doesn't let them off the hook. I think he does a good job casting a few journalists who are like, this is crazy that this is happening, you know, very bluntly explaining how wild what is happening is happening.

• 1:00:32Sean Fennessey?

  It's worth checking out, though, because this is, I think this is the flashpoint issue in the American economy.

• 1:00:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:39Sean Fennessey?

  In American culture, it is, and it was smart of them to bring this up. And we were talking about The Daniels and Dan Kwan, one of The Daniels, is a producer on this film. It can be seen in the movie at certain times, like he's also somebody who explores science fiction, seems to be very interested. Anyway, I would recommend it. It is an imperfect documentary and feels very different from Navalny in terms of how it's been made, but it is very, very interesting. Why don't we talk about A Private Life now?

• 1:01:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Which you have seen part of and I.

• 1:01:04Sean Fennessey?

  I started it and couldn't finish it before the end of this episode, unfortunately.

• 1:01:07Amanda Dobbins?

  So this is directed by, and I believe written by Rebecca Latafsky, and is a French film starring Jodie Foster, who is acting mostly in French. She is, she plays an American woman psychiatrist living in Paris and is married to Daniel Latoy, a Frenchman, and mostly sees clients in French, but every once in a while when she's pissed off, she like mutters under her breath in English.

• 1:01:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And the rest of the cast is French and the setup, the premise is one of her patients dies and then she decides to investigate this suspicious death. That makes it sound more like a murder podcast, Murder She Wrote: Undertaking than it is, which is a weird, slightly Woody Allen-esque like slice of French life. I mean, there's just like a lot of psycho like analysis and you know, and at one point she accuses a hypnotist of being an ismetic because she questions for its practices or financial motivations.

• 1:02:15Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's more about the Jodie Foster character and, and as it goes on, gets a little shaggier and a little bit more about her life and her, if you will, private life than about solving this, this murder case, though that ultimately is solved, I think. It's, it's, it's a little all over the place in a very charming way.

• 1:02:42Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:02:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I mentioned to you that Frederick Weisman makes a, the late great, makes a cameo as her, as Jodie Foster's psychiatrist.

• 1:02:52Sean Fennessey?

  I had assumed that that's who he would be playing.

• 1:02:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And gives her some real talk and is wonderful. You, there's a scene with a hypnotist, which I thought was pretty cool.

• 1:03:02Sean Fennessey?

  I did see this part and enjoyed it.

• 1:03:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it, it lingers a bit longer in the places where movies like this don't, or I think more traditional thrillers don't linger. It really is as much about a psychiatrist or also just about how people are weird and how the French people are weird. And again, it's filmed in Paris in what look like real apartments and cafes and on the street. It, I was kind of into it. I think maybe Jodie Foster is the weak link.

• 1:03:33Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 1:03:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, because there is, towards the back half, they're trying to do something.

• 1:03:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Slightly comedic and I don't know.

• 1:03:45Sean Fennessey?

  I found even the beginning was what I saw was very comedic. It did feel a little bit like they dropped Jodie Foster into a late period Olivia Sayous movie.

• 1:03:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, that's the other one that that's the other reference. But I am and I and I felt like someone who could handle the comedy of it in a little like more open way would have made more sense. I kept thinking about Kristen Scott Thomas, another person who's

• 1:04:07Sean Fennessey?

  Your faves.

• 1:04:08Amanda Dobbins?

  My fave and also does act in French and English. But Jodie Foster is very good.

• 1:04:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the one thing I had heard, because this, I believe this played Telluride when I was there and I didn't get a chance to see it there and I really wanted to. Jodie Foster was very present at Telluride. I was online with her many times was that she was great in this movie and the movie was a little baggy. And so that's kind of the opposite of what you're sharing with me.

• 1:04:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's what you respond to in the movie, right? Like if you, she is very good. Jodie Foster is always good, but Jodie Foster is in one movie. And as you said, they're all making another, you know, shaggy French movie.

• 1:04:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Okay, interesting. I'm gonna, I will finish this.

• 1:04:41Amanda Dobbins?

  At some point, without spoiling it, Matthew Almaric like just is, is, is making love to someone. I was gonna use a different word and it's filmed as a different word to some lady like, and they're like on a porch in a random like French port town and Jodie Foster and Daniel LaToye are like under the bushes watching and they just go for it a while like naked in the moonlight. And I was like, well, this is, it's not something you see in an American movie.

• 1:05:07Sean Fennessey?

  That's true. That's very French. Matthew Almaric, he's gotta be like 65 years old. God bless him.

• 1:05:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and they're both like quite naked and they do like a moon salutation at the end after, after they finish what they're doing.

• 1:05:16Sean Fennessey?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:05:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's great stuff.

• 1:05:19Sean Fennessey?

  This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You've been there settling in for a relaxing evening of TV only to waste half the night scrolling through options? Enter Fire TV. It's entertainment with zero effort required. Fire TV serves up personalized recommendations from across all your apps, all in one place. Not sure what to watch next? Just tell Alexa plus what you're in the mood for and she'll put up the perfect recommendation. Problem solved. Stop the scroll, start the show. Find what you're looking for with Fire TV. Subscription may be required.

• 1:05:50Sean Fennessey?

  Let me tell you about Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, since I just spiel to you about AI. Under normal circumstances, this would be one of the five most anticipated or most excited movies of the year for me. It's the first movie in many years from Gore Verbinski, who was one of the very first guests on this podcast when he was here for A Cure for Wellness. This is his first movie since. Stars Sam Rockwell, Haley Lee Richardson, another fave, Michael Peña's As He Beats again. A frenzied time traveler enters a diner attempting to stop an AI apocalypse. Having already failed over 100 times, he recruits an unlikely group, including a bereaved mother, terrorized teachers, and a woman with a severe technology allergy.

• 1:06:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Does that mean that she hates it, like me, or she doesn't need like an EpiPen?

• 1:06:39Sean Fennessey?

  No, she hates it. She's averse to it.

• 1:06:40Amanda Dobbins?

  But an EpiPen could also be, an allergy could be a part of a-

• 1:06:44Sean Fennessey?

  I saw the film in January, so I can't recall specifically.

• 1:06:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Just like a horror film, because then at some point, you're stuck.

• 1:06:49Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's a good idea for a horror film. I think when you look at this movie, and there's another movie that is out right now called Undertone,

• 1:06:59Sean Fennessey?

  which is about a podcast host, a pair of podcast hosts who are getting messages into their kind of call-in murder talk show. It has been a recent hit. I saw that film last year before it was picked up by A24. It has since been picked up by A24 and went into theaters and had some success. When you look at the AI doc, and-

• 1:07:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Look at Mission Impossible.

• 1:07:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Final Reckoning.

• 1:07:21Sean Fennessey?

  Just kind of the angst and anxiety that is being generated by what we don't know that technology is doing to us. It is a moment in time. And then in the same way, when you go back and look at 70's science fiction, you say, oh, like, well, this speaks to concern about this, you know? What do Silent Running and Soylent Green have in common? They're both kind of like eco-terror movies, but they're done in different ways, or Phase Four. You can kind of draw all these parallels and allusions, but also, I think it's important to just like drill down on the movie itself. And Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, seems like it would be so fun. And it's just not that fun. And I think it's, the script is not as strong as I would have wanted it to be.

• 1:07:59Sean Fennessey?

  Verbinski, famously one of the great shotmakers in movies, but this movie is like not lit as beautifully as his previous films. I don't feel like all the set pieces work as well. I fucking love Sam Rockwell and I found him a little bit grating in the movie.

• 1:08:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you know, when he decides just to show up and do Sam Rockwell for the check, again, no judgment.

• 1:08:21Sean Fennessey?

  I know, but this movie required a lot of him and I, you know, I feel like he just slightly missed, missed the mark on how to play the character where it's like, it feels a little bit like Robert Downey Jr. Kind of motor mouthing his way. It's not, it, I thought it really like reduced the stakes and I think Verbinski is usually good at the stakes. Like he made the ring, which is fucking terrifying. And he knows how to play it straight and he knows how to do gags. And this was maybe a little bit more gag than straight for my taste. And it pains me to say that because I'm just such a big fan of his. And this movie kind of came and went and I think it kind of came and went for a reason. Undertone is kind of the opposite. It's like a person we've not heard of before, Ian Tewison,

• 1:08:59Sean Fennessey?

  who had an experience taking care of his parents as they were getting older that inspired this movie. And the woman in this movie, who's one of the podcast hosts is taking care of her mom. She learns that she's pregnant and all these ideas about not like motherhood, but like kind of parenthood and legacy are on her mind, but she's not enunciating them in like a trauma porn way. And the movie is worth seeing. I didn't see it in a movie theater. I saw it at home on a link when it was being passed around after horror film festivals. Somebody sent it to me. It was just like, you've got to watch this because it's a tiny movie made for less than $500,000. And the sound design is incredible. And it's all about a person who's like wearing headphones, talking into a microphone, taking calls, being alone in a house. That aspect of it works really well. I'll bet that works well in a movie theater.

• 1:09:44Sean Fennessey?

  There's also just a lot of like cheap jump scares and annoying horror stuff to your point, that I don't think you would love this. I think it is, it feels a little bit too slickly designed, but I also feel like Ian Tewison is going to make like a lot of horror movies and be very successful. And a really smart piece of business by 24, who I think bought it for half a million dollars and it's going to end up making like 20 million bucks at the box office. So in case you're wondering how they keep making some of these movies that don't always hit, good piece of business.

• 1:10:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Can we talk about horror movie titles for a second?

• 1:10:11Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 1:10:12Amanda Dobbins?

  They Will Kill You, Ready or Not to Here I Come, Ready or Not. Good luck, have fun, don't die. These, we're entering like Nancy Meyers territory here. These are all the same movie, you know?

• 1:10:22Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 1:10:23Amanda Dobbins?

  They're all like very actionable, like direct to camera, taken from an internet comment.

• 1:10:28Sean Fennessey?

  Well, don't forget about Now You See Me, Now You Don't.

• 1:10:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure, but that's not a horror movie. That's about.

• 1:10:32Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it was horrifying to me and to all South Africans.

• 1:10:36Amanda Dobbins?

  That's, that's who you want to be grouped with?

• 1:10:38Sean Fennessey?

  Not necessarily.

• 1:10:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:10:40Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, there are many fine people in South Africa.

• 1:10:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I do think that we are, I mean, maybe this is the intentional, the intention of the marketing, that they're all just kind of grouped together and you're like, oh, like the new, you know, I'm gonna taunt you movie is out, I'll go see it this week. But these are indistinguishable to me.

• 1:11:00Sean Fennessey?

  I think those three movies, Good Luck is a little bit more sci fi than horror, though it does have horror elements. I would say, but those three movies, it's interesting to group them together. They are wink horror. They are, we're doing a lot of gags.

• 1:11:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:12Sean Fennessey?

  It's not like comedy, but there's a lot of funny stuff in them. Undertone is the opposite. Undertone is an unsettling, quiet, scary movie.

• 1:11:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I didn't group Undertone in that.

• 1:11:20Sean Fennessey?

  I know, but I think that it's potentially a problem to keep making horror movies that are like this. Where it's like, we're all, we're all having fun, right?

• 1:11:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:27Sean Fennessey?

  That's not, it can work. If you're Sam Raimi, it works. If you're not, then it's a little bit more challenging.

• 1:11:34Amanda Dobbins?

  If they're good and then people will just sign up for the next one, next one, then it's fine. But it does sound like these were three middling movies that all sound and in some ways are the same in terms of Satanists and AI Satanist, we don't know.

• 1:11:51Sean Fennessey?

  They're grouped together, I think they could be. Let's talk about Our Hero Balthazar.

• 1:11:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:57Sean Fennessey?

  This is a new film directed by Oscar Boyson, who's probably best known for being a producer on that first stretch of Safdie Brothers movies. It stars Jaden Martel, Asa Butterfield, Chris Bauer, Jennifer Ely, Anna Borishnikov, Noah Centineo. It's about a wealthy teenager who tries to gain his crush's attention by posting videos pleading for stricter gun laws. As an online troll begins mocking his videos, he becomes convinced the troll is a mass shooter and travels to Texas to confront him.

• 1:12:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:23Sean Fennessey?

  I was very happy to hear that you were watching this movie.

• 1:12:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, I did, I completed it, yeah.

• 1:12:28Sean Fennessey?

  What, what, what did you think of this?

• 1:12:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I, this movie. Bugged me in the right way. You know, and it was clearly meant to put you on edge and have that feeling of like, wait, are, are you guys really doing this? And no, and come on, but then was always able to grab me back in.

• 1:12:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Not a consistent tone, but like a consistent commitment to its bit, which I appreciated, even if I was annoyed by it.

• 1:12:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's funny that it's a movie about a troll that is very trolling.

• 1:13:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:13:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:13:03Amanda Dobbins?

  But, but also because it is trolly and it stays trolly. It never lets up on the gas or tries to make like a sincere point. I, I was reminded, and I suppose because of the school shooting stuff of, of Vox Lux, which is a movie that at some point veers into earnestness and really wants you to take lessons from it after its trolliness. And that's where it loses me. I mean, this is, it's, it's not a perfect movie. I cannot believe that's Asa Butterfield.

• 1:13:33Sean Fennessey?

  That's the best part of the movie.

• 1:13:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Unreal. And I, I knew that Asa Butterfield was in the movie and it still took me a full five minutes to be like, wait a second.

• 1:13:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:13:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And the movie, he comes in about 30 minutes and he, all the scenes in Texas are much, much better. The balance of our character is a framing device.

• 1:13:48Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. And it's like, not the greatest Jaden Martell performance. And you really feel that when Asa Butterfield shows up in the movie because historically, he would be playing the Jaden Martell character and recasting him as this kind of like white trash Texas kid who's like dad disrespects him and is like a hustler. And you can see he's got like all this vulnerability, but also all this anger and frustration. And this kind of like lack of connection to his own masculinity, but it's such a good performance.

• 1:14:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:14Sean Fennessey?

  And this is such a zag for him as an actor. I think the movie is worth watching just for him.

• 1:14:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally.

• 1:14:21Sean Fennessey?

  And, and I think even just the conception of that character is a unique and very humanized person in a way that the Jaden Martell character is not.

• 1:14:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:14:30Sean Fennessey?

  The Jaden Martell character feels like a, like a concoction and the Asa Butterfield character feels like a real person.

• 1:14:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Really like a vehicle to get you to Texas.

• 1:14:38Sean Fennessey?

  And you would never know that at the beginning of the movie.

• 1:14:41Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:14:41Sean Fennessey?

  Beginning of the movie, you're like, I'm going to have to be with this annoying kid for two hours.

• 1:14:44Amanda Dobbins?

  And Jennifer Ely's there and you're like, oh, wow. It's Jennifer Ely.

• 1:14:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I know. I know. It is a really, it's an interesting movie and.

• 1:14:52Sean Fennessey?

  I think what Boyson is doing, you can see kind of in the roots of the New York movies that he made too, but him kind of going outside of that. And it is a movie about kind of the online experience versus real life. We've seen a lot of movies about that in the last five or 10 years. But this had kind of like a dinginess that I really enjoyed.

• 1:15:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:08Sean Fennessey?

  And it didn't feel like it was like cultural tourism, like it didn't feel like it was making fun of people. Like I think, I thought he had like, empathy is not the right word, but like a, an authenticity maybe to how that character is portrayed. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:21Amanda Dobbins?

  It is also a very online movie, at least in its subject matter, that does manage to create a world in Texas outside of, of the computers and the screens. And I mean that both in terms of the actual filmmaking. Again, the first 20 minutes, because the, um, the Balthazar character is like a wannabe influencer. And so he's doing videos and he's got the ring light and you're watching the Instagram comments. And I was like, oh no, another one of these.

• 1:15:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:15:48Amanda Dobbins?

  But it, it manages to-

• 1:15:51Sean Fennessey?

  Extreme scenario or something. Yeah.

• 1:15:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And you're just kind of like, I, you know, I spend enough time in Instagram comments, like on, on my own time. But it does manage to get it off the screens, even as like their relationship is really built around-

• 1:16:06Sean Fennessey?

  When they're in the car together, I'm like, this is the movie. You know, this is like Stand By Me for a fucked up generation. Um, there's two movies that I personally want to put a big circle around, and I will speak about them briefly. One of them is Redux Redux, which was only barely on my radar because it had premieres at horror film festivals or, you know, genre film festivals last fall. It just hit VOD. It stars a woman named Michaela McManus. It's directed by her brothers, Matthew and Kevin McManus. We'll be talking about time travel very soon in a movie on this list. This is also a time travel movie in a very different register than that one. It's about a distraught woman who travels through parallel universes to kill her daughter's murderer over and over again. With each death, she grows more and more addicted to revenge, putting her own humanity in jeopardy. Parallel

• 1:16:51Sean Fennessey?

  universes movie feels like a very high concept movie, but it's a very small indie. The time machine that is used in the movie is very lo-fi. The effects work is very clean and simple. It's a family made movie. And I think it's incredibly effective. And the main performance by Michaela McManus is super powerful. It does feel like if it feels like, this is maybe overstating it, but it feels like Jim Cameron in 1982, where you're like,

• 1:17:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 1:17:20Sean Fennessey?

  This guy's about to do something when somebody gives him money. It doesn't have the same level of like, style and attitude that the Terminator does. But, you know, it's aware of like, movie history, but it's not really riffing on movie history. And it has this core idea, which is really good, which is if someone did something terrible to you, the worst thing imaginable, how would you get revenge in eternity? And what would happen to you if you kept doing this 10 times, 50 times, 100 times, 1,000 times?

• 1:17:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:17:49Sean Fennessey?

  How would you do it? Where would you do it? Why would you do it? And why, how would you get addicted to it? And what would that mean for your humanity? Just a great idea for a movie. Again, not perfect.

• 1:17:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:59Sean Fennessey?

  A little draggy at times, but very good performances and very, I think, very worth people's time. And like, this is a movie, if I was working as a movie studio executive, I would be calling these guys and be like, what other ideas do you have? Because we should, we can cook together.

• 1:18:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Stop giving this stuff away, you know?

• 1:18:14Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I want people to watch the movie.

• 1:18:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, no, it's true.

• 1:18:15Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's really cool. Um, okay, what do you want to do next?

• 1:18:18Amanda Dobbins?

  You want to hear about Peaky Blinders?

• 1:18:20Sean Fennessey?

  I watched it.

• 1:18:21Amanda Dobbins?

  You did watch it?

• 1:18:22Sean Fennessey?

  I did.

• 1:18:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, but you have not seen any of the show.

• 1:18:24Sean Fennessey?

  I've never seen the show.

• 1:18:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Nor have I.

• 1:18:26Sean Fennessey?

  So this is one of the most popular television shows in Netflix history. It famously stars Killian Murphy, was created by Stephen Knight, the very successful screenwriter who is writing the new Bond movie? Is that right?

• 1:18:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. Amy hasn't called me lately, so.

• 1:18:43Sean Fennessey?

  The movie is called Peaky Blinders, The Immortal Man. It's directed by Tom Harper, who directed My Beloved Wild Rose and The Aeronauts and a number of other films. In addition to Killian Murphy, it stars Rebecca Ferguson, Barry Keoghan, Sophie Rundell, Stephen Graham. Some of these people are coming back. Some of them are coming in for the first time. Tim Roth coming in for the first time.

• 1:19:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:05Sean Fennessey?

  He plays a Brit who is working for the Nazis.

• 1:19:09Amanda Dobbins?

  A Nazi sympathizer.

• 1:19:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, who is bringing currency into the UK so that it can be spread throughout the economy in the UK and thus destroy the economy.

• 1:19:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:19:19Sean Fennessey?

  Making England even more vulnerable to the Nazi regime that is attempting to overtake Western Europe.

• 1:19:28Sean Fennessey?

  So, we've never seen the show.

• 1:19:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:32Sean Fennessey?

  I did, I did text a bit with Chris Ryan.

• 1:19:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I texted with Juliette Livin and I pulled up my texts to get some context.

• 1:19:37Sean Fennessey?

  Two of the bigger Peaky Blinders fans. We come to this not as understanders of Peaky Blinders, though I would not say it's the most complicated role. Did you like it?

• 1:19:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I wasn't mad at Killian Murphy doing bad Oppenheimer, though bad is, is question marks around that.

• 1:19:54Sean Fennessey?

  What do you mean?

• 1:19:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Whether he's just doing Oppenheimer, looking, you know, distraught and mournfully and like, what have I done at the camera and close up with some like decent wallpaper on the house set behind him. Happy for Rebecca Ferguson, who keeps collecting checks. Apparently she was not in previous Peaky Blinders episodes.

• 1:20:13Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:20:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Though she's playing a twin. She's playing a twin, though. So that's why I thought, oh, that would be smart if she, if her original character had been on the show. And I don't know why they couldn't bring back someone who had been on the show. I guess when you can get Rebecca Ferguson, you can get Rebecca Ferguson.

• 1:20:30Sean Fennessey?

  Um, this has got to be the most boring movie ever that features Killian Murphy and Rebecca Ferguson fucking in a scene.

• 1:20:36Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true. And like she's, and she is pretending to be inhabited by her dead twin sister's ghost when they are fucking.

• 1:20:45Sean Fennessey?

  And that sounds way cooler.

• 1:20:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I was trying to be family, you know, friendly on the earlier.

• 1:20:49Sean Fennessey?

  I understand.

• 1:20:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah. But Matthew Hark was just absolutely going for it on the, on the porch.

• 1:20:54Sean Fennessey?

  Shout out to him. I just really wish, okay, the, this show, as I understand it, is basically British guys in chalk striped suits, shooting Tommy guns in slow motion, set to like Interpol-esque songs.

• 1:21:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:21:12Sean Fennessey?

  And then having like sadness about that.

• 1:21:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:21:15Sean Fennessey?

  And that's kind of what the show is. Tom Hardy was a part of the show. He's not in this film.

• 1:21:21Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's like very stupid, but it is also one stitch away from things that are my favorite things in the world. So I don't, I'm not, I don't want to judge it too much.

• 1:21:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I got it. What we watched was the TV movie finale of a TV show. And we watched that in, in terms of like the concept and the content of the show, which is. People who we think are hot, having conversations, Barry Kilgan just like doing Crime 101 again, but for good. And that ultimately, spoiler alert, I guess. And then, and then the shootouts to the bad, to me, music, played very loudly. You know, everyone's just like on various TV sets as they were on Peaky Blinders. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. You and I are proud defenders of all three Downton Abbey movies, which again, are TV shows that then

• 1:22:16Amanda Dobbins?

  had multiple movies as a cap, as a capper.

• 1:22:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:22:20Amanda Dobbins?

  So that's fine. That's just, that's what this is. Killian Murphy was available for one feature film and not any more seasons of the show. And so that's what they made.

• 1:22:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Bless you.

• 1:22:32Sean Fennessey?

  It's not.

• 1:22:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Can I ask, can I tell you what I asked, Juliette? This is my first question?

• 1:22:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:22:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Early Q. Are the Peaky Blinders bad or good?

• 1:22:44Sean Fennessey?

  What was the answer?

• 1:22:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, they are a murderous gang, but they have been anti fascism, anti Soviets, and anti selling of illegal guns in England post World One.

• 1:22:55Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:22:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is, which is in line. Ultimately.

• 1:22:58Sean Fennessey?

  They're anti-heroes.

• 1:22:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, they're part of this, the post-Sopranos wave of television about complicated men who do bad things.

• 1:23:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And they're also friend to the marginalized.

• 1:23:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:07Amanda Dobbins?

  And they have Romani roots, so they themselves come from a marginalized people.

• 1:23:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's very interesting that this is the most popular movie on Netflix right now, that this show is as big as it is, because it is a fancy and well-made period piece, you know, it's a crime movie.

• 1:23:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:24Sean Fennessey?

  But it is, the bones of it are, are pretty interesting. This did feel like them kind of like wringing out, as you say, like one last droplet of content from this 70-episode television show. But it seems like people who like it, like it. And, you know, we're

• 1:23:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Now we know.

• 1:23:39Sean Fennessey?

  We're looking at the state of the art here.

• 1:23:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:40Sean Fennessey?

  This is what movies are all about right now.

• 1:23:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:42Sean Fennessey?

  Is the immortal man. You didn't take your child to see Goat, did you?

• 1:23:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I tried. I tried to do this on Monday, but my husband was like, no, you will come to the grocery store with me and my, and our other child.

• 1:23:55Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I gotta say, I liked it. And I was a little dubious of this film, which is one of the biggest movies of the year. It's about to cross $100 million at the box office. An original animated feature produced by Stephen Curry, directed by Tyree Dillahay. I did take my daughter to see it.

• 1:24:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:12Sean Fennessey?

  We had a lovely afternoon seeing the movie. It is about a small goat named Will, who gets a once in a lifetime shot to join the pros and play, quote, roar ball, which is a modified version of basketball.

• 1:24:25Amanda Dobbins?

  That's very hard for me to say.

• 1:24:27Sean Fennessey?

  Roar ball. Yes. It's a high intensity, full contact sport that's dominated by the fastest, fiercest animals in the world.

• 1:24:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:24:36Sean Fennessey?

  Ridiculed by his teammates, Will becomes determined to revolutionize the sport and prove that, quote, "small can ball."

• 1:24:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. But so, multi-species?

• 1:24:46Sean Fennessey?

  All species, including on each team. It's not defined by species.

• 1:24:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Is there a correlation between, like, do bears play, like, power forward? Power forward, yeah. I don't know which one's the tall one, but yeah.

• 1:24:57Sean Fennessey?

  There's a giraffe on Will's team. The lead figure, okay, one, it's animated well, very good voice performances. Nick Kroll, in particular, as a Komodo dragon, is hilarious in the movie. Patton Oswalt's there, Jelly Roll is there, Gabrielle Union, Aaron Pierre, a lot of really good voice performances. The main character that is not Will is Jett. And Jett is, I think, a Black Panther or a Jaguar, a black cat.

• 1:25:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:25:35Sean Fennessey?

  And it's very clear to me, or at least it seems clear to me, and I don't even, I haven't read any reviews of this movie, I don't know if people are saying this, that this is an amazingly subtle shot at LeBron James by Stephen Curry.

• 1:25:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:25:49Sean Fennessey?

  Where Jett, a female character, but very clearly in the LeBron James mold of a multi-year veteran who's never really won the big one.

• 1:25:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:25:58Sean Fennessey?

  But who likes to play in their own very particular style.

• 1:26:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:26:02Sean Fennessey?

  And that is a very egocentric style, is being forced to be introduced to this smaller style with this new teammate, who seems like a stunt, but actually might be able to extend his or her career. Now, obviously, Steph and LeBron never played together, but the way that the- Jet characters positioned.

• 1:26:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:26:22Sean Fennessey?

  I would, I feel like there's a little bit of a like, whose generation of basketball was this really going on?

• 1:26:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Got it.

• 1:26:29Sean Fennessey?

  Steph and LeBron have both produced films. They've both gotten into this space. They've both won titles. They famously went back and forth over a number of years with the Warriors and the Cavs.

• 1:26:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure, then the goat is right there in the title. Is it that subtle?

• 1:26:40Sean Fennessey?

  Called goat. It's not subtle at all.

• 1:26:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:44Sean Fennessey?

  And yet, to me, it feels like the primary engine of the movie. Now, perhaps that's just being basketball pilled and just knowing too much about the NBA. Then I'm like, I can only see it through this prism. My daughter, of course, has no idea what any of that is. And she's just like, Jet is my favorite character because that's a cool black cat. But if, if, if you could get Stephen Curry some truth serum to discuss this, it would be the best podcast of all time.

• 1:27:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, isn't that true in general about all athletes? But even Steph Curry, if you could get them some truth serum.

• 1:27:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:27:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, some real stuff would come out. So I'm, I am looking here at the Wikipedia page for goat, just to figure out the various species involved. And there's a lot of specificity here. So Will is an American pygmy goat.

• 1:27:26Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:27:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, Jet is a black panther. Main attraction voiced by Aaron Pierre is an Andalusian horse. Nicola Coughlin plays an, is a, is an ostrich, just a regular.

• 1:27:39Sean Fennessey?

  Main attraction, by the way, is the real heavy of the movie. He's the bad guy.

• 1:27:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, Archie, David Harbour, is an Indian rhinoceros.

• 1:27:47Sean Fennessey?

  He's, he's very good. He has two young daughters.

• 1:27:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Which I do know is real, uh, because they're in Skyfall. And, um, but can I just tell you something? My father in law learned independently, like not from our podcast, because.

• 1:28:01Sean Fennessey?

  He doesn't listen.

• 1:28:02Amanda Dobbins?

  He doesn't listen. I love you, Rich, and that's okay. Don't, you don't have to listen.

• 1:28:05Sean Fennessey?

  He doesn't hear you.

• 1:28:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, he was like, I just learned that Wolverines are real. Totally independently.

• 1:28:12Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:28:12Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I swear to you.

• 1:28:14Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:28:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Zach made him stop and he was like, a man, come back inside so you can hear this. I don't know what to tell you.

• 1:28:21Sean Fennessey?

  No, something got in his algorithm.

• 1:28:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think Rich has an algorithm. I don't know. I think they went to like Huntington Garden or some music. I don't know.

• 1:28:30Sean Fennessey?

  They don't have Wolverines in Huntington Gardens.

• 1:28:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, maybe they have an exhibit. Okay.

• 1:28:33Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:28:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, Warthog, I know what that is. Ardwolf, is that a real thing? Yes.

• 1:28:39Sean Fennessey?

  They're all real.

• 1:28:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, capybara, I know what that is. Everything else, no, no new, no new animals here.

• 1:28:47Sean Fennessey?

  I gotta say, I see a lot of animated movies.

• 1:28:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:49Sean Fennessey?

  This was way better than I expected.

• 1:28:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:28:51Sean Fennessey?

  And I would recommend it to families.

• 1:28:54Amanda Dobbins?

  A musk ox and bat duo, Chuck and Rusty. Oh, they're commentators. Okay, that looks like sort of Timon and Pumba ripoff, but that's okay.

• 1:29:02Sean Fennessey?

  There is some Timon and Pumba there and the announcers, but there's some good interplay there. Uh, did you see Mirroir number three?

• 1:29:08Amanda Dobbins?

  No, not yet. I know.

• 1:29:09Sean Fennessey?

  This is like the best movie of the year.

• 1:29:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Okay.

• 1:29:12Sean Fennessey?

  You gotta see this movie.

• 1:29:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I will.

• 1:29:13Sean Fennessey?

  If it's not the best, it is one of the most interesting by far. It was a festival movie last year. It's the new film from Christian Petzold. It's like 87 minutes. Um, it stars Paula Beer, as his last few films have, Barbara R. Uh, it's about a woman who gets into a car crash on a country road. I guess it takes place in Germany, um, because all of his films take place in Germany for the most part. And she, her partner dies and she is retrieved by this woman who is, um, living in a country house not far from the car accident. And she, Paula Beer is disoriented and she goes and she goes to live with them. To, she kind of recuperates for two days and then two days becomes four days, four days becomes eight

• 1:29:57Sean Fennessey?

  days. And she becomes a little bit more entrenched than the lives of this family. The husband and the son work as sort of mechanics who break the rules in certain car designs. So people can break the controls that certain car manufacturers create. And the movie is very small, simple and quiet and is also.

• 1:30:20Sean Fennessey?

  Pure Hitchcock, like Little Vertigo, A Little Shadow of a Doubt. We don't know who we're supposed to be trusting. We don't really know what's going on with the family and why. Petzold, one of the European masters. This is easily the smallest, most stripped down movie he's ever made. I had been told that this was going to be the last movie that he and Paul Bear made together. They made Undine and A Fire and a number of movies over the last few years. And she took over for Nina Haas, who had been the star of like five Petzold movies before that. But then Petzold just gave an interview and he said he wants his next movie is going to be with Nina Haas and Paul Bear.

• 1:30:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Sick.

• 1:30:52Sean Fennessey?

  It's like Avengers Doomsday, but for German cinema. This movie is captivating and very modest. So don't get your hopes up in terms of like the incident. But I think very, very good. And I highly encourage people to see it. It's still in theaters, but probably won't be for long. And I wanted to give a little love to it before we get through the first quarter. Okay, tell me about Mark by Sofia.

• 1:31:15Amanda Dobbins?

  So I saw this in Venice and I got to be in the same room as Sofia Coppola, who directed this A24 documentary about her friend and essential 90s fashion designer, who's still working, Marc Jacobs. Did you, where are you and Marc Jacobs?

• 1:31:33Sean Fennessey?

  I've never owned a piece by him. I have nothing against the man. I don't know very much about him.

• 1:31:38Amanda Dobbins?

  But you'd like, you never went into any of the stores in the West Village?

• 1:31:42Sean Fennessey?

  Isn't there one on Melrose?

• 1:31:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know if it's still there. What's going and coming on Melrose? Well, sure.

• 1:31:48Sean Fennessey?

  There in the corner there, there was always that fame, you know, that little, the side with the street splits?

• 1:31:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:31:53Sean Fennessey?

  And then there's the smaller avenue.

• 1:31:55Amanda Dobbins?

  But then there was like an APC, there have been a lot of things there. I don't know. And I would say that Marc Jacobs, the business has taken some turns in recent years and it is not as central to like a certain type of cool pop culture as it was in the late 90s and early 2000s when we were paying attention.

• 1:32:12Sean Fennessey?

  Why is that?

• 1:32:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Because fashion is a fickle business, I think. And he's not owned by a conglomerate. I don't know. It's a whole other situation. But I'm just saying that to perhaps the younger people in the booths or at home, Marc Jacobs was like a real thing and he and Sofia Coppola have been.

• 1:32:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Very like closely linked for many, many years when she won, when she won her Oscar, she was wearing a custom Marc Jacobs dress. So this is 90s and early 2000s nostalgia for people my age and it is completely without conflict. And I had a great time. And if you want to see Sofia Coppola just doing like a, not even fashion documentary, a fashion music video, but with, you know, because it's Marc Jacobs, she has some access. She has sit down interviews with him and they're slightly more revealing than, well, they're intimate and they're not particularly revealing, but that's okay. That's what Sofia wants to do. If you know the names Marc Jacobs and Sofia Coppola and that means

• 1:33:20Amanda Dobbins?

  anything to you, then you will enjoy this.

• 1:33:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

• 1:33:22Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, everyone, everyone looks great.

• 1:33:25Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like it's only in like a few theaters around the country this weekend, right?

• 1:33:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I think it's a pretty small release, but then you can seek it out and she reuses a music cue. That's my only note. From another, from another very important Sofia Coppola film.

• 1:33:40Sean Fennessey?

  Perhaps intentional?

• 1:33:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't really think so. Honestly, just, yeah, I don't think that she forgot, but it's like, again, the music cue in question, I don't, I guess I don't want to spoil it for her, but it's at the very end and it's supposed, and you're just like, what this, I don't know if these emotions are speaking to each other.

• 1:33:58Sean Fennessey?

  Should we call her up?

• 1:33:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:59Sean Fennessey?

  The fuck are you thinking, Sofia? Okay, before we get to our last movie, I wanted to quickly give a shout out to a movie called Fantasy Life, which I quite enjoyed. Written and directed by Matthew Shear, who you may recall as one of the annoying boyfriends in Mistress America, very Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig coded actor. He has enlisted an incredible collection of well-known older actors and actresses for this new film. He stars in the movie opposite Amanda Peet. It's about a paralegal, paralegal who's been laid off and begins babysitting this trio of little girls in a New York apartment. And the couple that he's babysitting for, sort of manning for, is a kind of failed rock star

• 1:34:42Sean Fennessey?

  who's gotten like a new shot at doing some touring and an aging actress who's having a little bit of a midlife crisis. Amanda Peet plays the actress. Alessandro Nivola plays the aging rock star.

• 1:34:54Amanda Dobbins?

  You know that he's also Ben Calvin Klein?

• 1:34:58Sean Fennessey?

  He's been Calvin Klein.

• 1:34:59Amanda Dobbins?

  On the, um.

• 1:35:01Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, on Love Story. Yeah, I heard that.

• 1:35:02Amanda Dobbins?

  He had a great run as Calvin Klein.

• 1:35:03Sean Fennessey?

  Big, big fan of his as an actor. He's very, very good in this. I haven't seen Love Story yet. But also Judd Hirsch, Bob Balaban, Andrea Martin, Sasha Mamet, Jessica Harper, Holland Taylor.

• 1:35:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:35:14Sean Fennessey?

  Great supporting cast. Most of those actors only get one or two scenes, but really great. And just very bomb back, very Woody Allen, very like shaggy, funny, self-deprecating, small movie. With the queen, Amanda Peet, doing a very self-lacerating introspective performance. This is like a small movie. I think Greenwich is putting it out, but in a slightly different universe, it's a, it's like an awards platform for Pete, who I think is a very underrated comic, you know, a dram- dr- dr- comic dramatic performer, like is always like kind of stuck in the middle in terms of what she's best at, but I really like her. So I, I think people should check that out.

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• 1:36:54Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, last movie is Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice. You can hear an extended conversation with Ben David Gorbinski at the end of this episode. This film stars Vince Vaughn, James Marsden, Ayesha Gonzalez, Keith David and Jimmy Tatro. It's about two best friends, quick draw Mike and Nick, working as enforcers for a criminal gang. The plot kicks off on the night Mike is supposed to die. However, a quote "future" version of Nick travels back in time to stop this murder, joining forces with present day Mike and Nick's wife, Alice.

• 1:37:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:26Sean Fennessey?

  So you watched this?

• 1:37:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I did watch this.

• 1:37:29Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:37:30Amanda Dobbins?

  And I was very turned by it, even though I still don't think I could diagram it for you. And I think part of the effectiveness of this film is that it is time travel John Wick with jokes, but that you don't, it doesn't get bogged down by anything. It just keeps moving.

• 1:37:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:37:50Amanda Dobbins?

  And it coasts on Vince Vaughn as Vince Vaughn. And he's back. He has great chemistry with James Marsden.

• 1:37:56Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 1:37:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Who's also very funny. And, you know, sometimes they're shooting things and sometimes they're doing like Abbott and Costello and it's a very entertaining experience. And then they also, it's a, an eclectic movie. Like clearly there's, we're pulling from, you know, an omnivorous pop culture enthusiast.

• 1:38:15Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely.

• 1:38:16Amanda Dobbins?

  And so, just, just when you're like, okay, so I think I understand what's going on here, there is a full five minute discussion of Gilmore Girls. And it's not a throwaway joke. And I wanted to talk with you about this because I felt the intentionality of this scene, which is definitely supposed to get people like my's attention and also to signal, hey, there is more here than just being really into like action movies.

• 1:38:39Sean Fennessey?

  John Woo movies.

• 1:38:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Um, you know, our references are broad.

• 1:38:45Amanda Dobbins?

  But it just, it keeps going and going. And so I, you know, I kind of perked up at home and I was like, oh, cute. Okay. They put something in for me. And then a really extensive, thoughtful, and I ultimately think correct conversation about who is the best boyfriend?

• 1:38:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:00Amanda Dobbins?

  In, um, in The Gilmore Girls. James Marsden is right.

• 1:39:03Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:39:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you, have you seen Gilmore Girls?

• 1:39:06Sean Fennessey?

  Some, but not all of it.

• 1:39:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:39:07Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't, I have not completed the show. I'm a fan, but I just have not finished.

• 1:39:10Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't know who the best boyfriend is. And you didn't get any of the jokes about the Netflix stuff at the end, which I agree is very strange.

• 1:39:16Sean Fennessey?

  I do, and I did. And I'm aware of how they revived the show and brought it back. And I, I understood the gags. Um, I mean, Ben David is going to be so happy to hear you talk about it because the one thing that he said when we finished talking was like, I feel like I didn't get to explain enough about why I did this and why this was important to me to stay in the movie. It's a really, it's a really good.

• 1:39:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I got it.

• 1:39:34Sean Fennessey?

  It's a really good conversation, though, about how you like, get away with stuff when you're making a movie. Because this is full of just getting away with it stuff. There's loads and loads of, as you said, the sort of omnivorous pop cultural references. Lots of movie history is in this movie, lots of movie style that is kind of borrowed from lots of things. Lots of music from our era, you know, prominent uses of Oasis and Dave Matthews Band and Seal and Chemical Brothers and Andrew W K and Needle Drops galore. I did feel very safe and comfortable with Vince Vaughn doing Vince Vaughn. I do think it's very weird how we have kind of lost that unit of currency in movies where he just gets to be riffy,

• 1:40:18Sean Fennessey?

  you know, and funny. And that is something that was always very effective, no matter what you think of him.

• 1:40:23Sean Fennessey?

  I just, you know, I'm, I'm clearly as movie crazy as Ben David is. And so for me, like, a movie like this just activates my brain and gets me thinking about like, why did he pull this piece? Why did he do this? Why is he using a step printing action sequence technique in this movie that otherwise just feels like a traditional Hollywood movie in some ways? So there's lots to explore there. And we did explore it in our conversation. It's really fun. It's really weird. And I know why this is the case, but it's really weird that this is a streaming movie. Cause it's just so clearly a comedy written to be seen with strangers.

• 1:40:56Sean Fennessey?

  And I can also see why this would be a marketing challenge for a movie studio.

• 1:41:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:00Sean Fennessey?

  To get people to come out to it because it's this amorphous blob-like figure of different stuff with like a bunch of stars who are not like the biggest movie stars of all time. So I get it.

• 1:41:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Anymore.

• 1:41:13Sean Fennessey?

  Anymore, right? They're recognizable, but not, and they make sense in that streaming universe, right? Where Taylor Sheridan's like, you like Sam Elliott? Just watch his show. So I get what happened here, but still this would have worked really well as a movie theater movie. And it says a little something that it's on Hulu.

• 1:41:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. But even then, if it's the movie theater version of it, does the Gilmore Girls riff get to keep going for, I mean, it is long.

• 1:41:37Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. I think it does.

• 1:41:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:41:39Sean Fennessey?

  I think it does. Um, I think this is really fun. This is on Hulu right now. Um, so people can watch it ASAP. Okay. Uh, quickly, top fives.

• 1:41:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:47Sean Fennessey?

  So.

• 1:41:48Amanda Dobbins?

  They're pretty similar.

• 1:41:49Sean Fennessey?

  Are they?

• 1:41:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:50Sean Fennessey?

  Do you want to, you want to start?

• 1:41:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Well, no, my number five is one that you don't have. Uh, it's in your honorable mentions.

• 1:41:56Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:41:56Amanda Dobbins?

  The rip. If, if Matt and Ben are gonna do stuff on Netflix, let it be this.

• 1:42:02Sean Fennessey?

  Um, have we, we haven't talked about Quentin Tarantino's feelings on the rip? I don't want to spoil it.

• 1:42:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, you have shared a little bit with me. I don't know what's available for public consumption.

• 1:42:13Sean Fennessey?

  It's probably not available yet, so I'll keep my mouth shut.

• 1:42:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:42:15Sean Fennessey?

  That's just a tease.

• 1:42:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 1:42:16Sean Fennessey?

  Let's just say we've been corresponding about the film The Rip. Um, okay. I, I like The Rip. I think, I, The Rip is an honorable mention. Yeah. Uh, five is Project Home, Mary.

• 1:42:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:26Sean Fennessey?

  Which I really like. I'd like to see it again.

• 1:42:28Amanda Dobbins?

  So you've seen it twice?

• 1:42:29Sean Fennessey?

  I've seen it twice.

• 1:42:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I've seen it twice as well.

• 1:42:31Sean Fennessey?

  I liked it a lot.

• 1:42:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:33Sean Fennessey?

  I think it is, I'm more obsessed with the craft of it than I am the story and emotional beats of it.

• 1:42:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:42:40Sean Fennessey?

  The more I think about it. Um, because I feel like it, my one little note about it is I wish it just like penetrated a little bit further into Ryland Grace psychologically.

• 1:42:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:42:51Sean Fennessey?

  And sometimes the movie is kind of putting your, its hand up with a joke, the thing like,

• 1:42:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:57Sean Fennessey?

  You can't go too far.

• 1:42:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. I relate.

• 1:43:00Sean Fennessey?

  I know you do. I know you do. I know we're different in that. We are different in that way. Um, that's the only thing about it that I'm like, yeah, I can't turn myself over to it completely, but I really like it.

• 1:43:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I have a couple edits, but my edit is essentially that at the end it allows itself to open up at like, at least sentimentally to the, to friendship and to finding love. And I'm like, no, no, you gotta cut way before that. I don't need any of this stuff. I know exactly what the last shot should be. We can just, we can move on.

• 1:43:28Sean Fennessey?

  You're very poisoned.

• 1:43:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Me emotionally or yeah, but I also, you know, I

• 1:43:35Sean Fennessey?

  The pH test is gnarly.

• 1:43:39Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Number four for you.

• 1:43:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Bone Temple.

• 1:43:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. On my list as well.

• 1:43:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Rock out, Ray Fiennes.

• 1:43:45Sean Fennessey?

  Want to see this again. I've only seen it once. It's on Netflix.

• 1:43:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, great. Okay.

• 1:43:50Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe I'll watch this weekend just for fun.

• 1:43:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, if people haven't seen it, I don't want to say too much more because some of it was the, Ray Fiennes is in this movie and I won't say anymore, but what he gets to do, really like it.

• 1:44:02Sean Fennessey?

  Is that your favorite performance of the year?

• 1:44:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm. Yeah, maybe, maybe more than I, you know, what Gosling does is great, but it's kind of, it's tied up in Project Hail Mary. So.

• 1:44:14Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Uh, my number four is Mirror War number three, which I just spoke about. So we can go to your number three.

• 1:44:20Amanda Dobbins?

  My number three is your number one. So we'll just.

• 1:44:23Sean Fennessey?

  Should we hold it?

• 1:44:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, we'll save it. And.

• 1:44:25Sean Fennessey?

  My number three is Send Help.

• 1:44:26Amanda Dobbins?

  This is good. This is my honorable mention for sure.

• 1:44:30Sean Fennessey?

  Just delightful that this movie was a success. Great to see Rachel McAdams back on top where she belongs. We're having a ripping season of Survivor. I'm feeling very good about it.

• 1:44:39Amanda Dobbins?

  It's the, it's the 50th?

• 1:44:40Sean Fennessey?

  50th season.

• 1:44:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:44:42Sean Fennessey?

  And so this movie was magnificently timed. I can only imagine it's going to go, is it on VOD already? I think it just hit VOD. Um, maybe it'll hit 4K right around that finale time.

• 1:44:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's so exciting.

• 1:44:52Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. So number two for me is The Bone Temple.

• 1:44:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:44:57Sean Fennessey?

  Number two for you.

• 1:44:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Is Hail Mary.

• 1:44:58Sean Fennessey?

  Hail Mary. So we will go to my number one and your number three, which is Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie.

• 1:45:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:45:05Sean Fennessey?

  Which is the hardest I've laughed in a movie theater this year.

• 1:45:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Me too, I think.

• 1:45:10Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, just a magical movie that I've also seen twice now and I've been very happy to do so.

• 1:45:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, my number one is sort of the girl version of your number one, which is The Moment, which is the Charlie XCX mockumentary. And, you know, in the same way that you are just like full of love and wanting to connect with people via time travel. Uh, mine is about how, uh, it's impossible to connect and that fame and life or prison best enjoyed with an Aperol spritz. Um, I, you know, I'm a huge fan of Charlie XCX and I think this is like a very knowing, funny movie where I do think that you have to not only know about, but actually be interested in the, both the work of Charlie XCX and the inner workings of fame and music mockumentaries. It's a not for everyone thing, but I very much enjoyed

• 1:46:00Amanda Dobbins?

  it and I laughed a lot too.

• 1:46:01Sean Fennessey?

  Do you feel imprisoned by your own fame?

• 1:46:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, I know, I don't. Do I feel imprisoned by, um, having to look at my face a lot? Yes, I do. So that's tough. And do I, do I feel imprisoned by every single Zoom meeting that I have to be on forever and ever? Like the Zoom scene where they can't get anything working and well, it's really funny. Do I feel that Alexander Skarsgard is both ruining my life and making it better, uh, at all times? Yes, even though I don't know him. Yeah. I mean, that would be fine if he would like to commodify me. Anyway, I just, the, do I feel out of tune with most, uh, you know,

• 1:46:46Amanda Dobbins?

  health and wellness practitioners who don't think that my spirit is, uh, efficiently, um, you know, or adequately non-acidic to be treated?

• 1:46:56Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I'm saying. They're doing the pH test on you and they're like, what's going on with this gal?

• 1:47:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's true. But as Kylie Jenner teaches us in the next scene, just keep going. When they're sick of you, just keep going.

• 1:47:06Sean Fennessey?

  That is what we'll be doing here on the show forevermore. Uh, well, that was a lot of movies. I hope you enjoyed that conversation. That was extremely long, but good. Uh, let's go now to my other conversation with Ben David Grabinsky.

• 1:47:22Sean Fennessey?

  Very happy to have Ben David Grabinsky here. So you did it. You got a big, major studio movie. Congratulations. How are you feeling?

• 1:47:31Speaker 05

  I'm feeling good. This is literally the end of the tour. I've been doing promotional stuff here in L.A. All week, interviews, screenings and stuff. And this is my last thing. I'm doing this, then I'm going to the airport and I'm gonna collapse.

• 1:47:46Speaker 05

  So it's like, I definitely, you know, it's half marathon, half like victory lap or whatever, you know, just in terms of, oh, it exists. It's coming out. And then I'm like, oh, wait, it's out.

• 1:48:01Speaker 05

  There's like a weird balance between all that. But I'm excited to be here and talk about it.

• 1:48:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I feel like I'm catching you in the last pure moment in a way. And this isn't your first film. It's not the first big thing that you've done. But I know, just knowing you a little bit, and certainly knowing your work, that you're an insane movie head. That you, I would, it feels like we are in close cohort in terms of how much we love movies. Is that fair to say?

• 1:48:22Speaker 05

  I mean, you know, I, my office in New York that I write in and do everything in is just all physical media. So it's like, and like, those are the ones that are like, like, whenever you guys like, get into that shit, I watch like the unboxing shit, what you do with the movies. But it's like, it's, I don't know. It's like, movies are my life. It's like the thing, only thing I care about. So it's like, that would be a problem if it also wasn't my job. Luckily, it is. Like, if I was this obsessive and I couldn't rationalize it as like, part of the work, then maybe it would seem more insane.

• 1:49:00Sean Fennessey?

  Let's go to the beginning before we get to the end. So I'm curious what the movie was that, that lit your torch, that got you excited about the idea, not just of loving movies, but of trying to make movies. Do you remember what that is?

• 1:49:15Speaker 05

  You know, it's funny, the- I know the movie that rewired my brain in terms of tone or what movies could do, which was Batman Returns. Because like I'd seen Batman, everyone my age was obsessed with it because it came out like when I was maybe like six or something.

• 1:49:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we're about the same age.

• 1:49:34Speaker 05

  And it was sort of like phenomenon for children. And, you know, everyone's seen it to death. You basically had the movie memorized, even like the Diet Coke commercial. And I remember seeing Batman Returns and it's not that I was necessarily conscious of it, but realizing how different it was, like this big swing it was taking in terms of humor and stuff. For some reason, just it really made me like aware of like what filmmaking is or just like, because it's like the contrast of the two. Like, it's not like I was sitting there thinking about these things in the way I'm explaining it now. Like, in hindsight, I think I get it. But that movie was just like a bomb that got dropped on me.

• 1:50:14Speaker 05

  Where like I was really, I was like kind of scared of it and it was just so, it just felt more interesting. And then watching aliens in my grandma's basement, I was watching on cable by myself. I hadn't seen the first alien. I did not know what I was getting into. And I vividly remember the, there's like a bit when they're in a room and there's like a sensor and you like know the door is like 10 feet away or something. And then they realize the aliens are closer than the distance to the door. And that just re, my brain was like, everything got rewired. Because I was just like, I was like a cartoon character. It's like, whoa, but it's not, they're up there?

• 1:50:56Speaker 05

  And it's like, and I just remember feeling like, oh, if I could ever do anything 1% as good as that. Because I wanted to make movies since I was, you know, before even middle school. To a point where I talked, I talked to someone a couple of years ago who I'd not talked to in like 30 years. And they're like, oh, I'm not surprised. You were always talking about how you were going to make movies. And I was like, is that something I've like retcon for my own life? Or is that a thing I used to say? And I guess I just did all the time.

• 1:51:22Sean Fennessey?

  So you're from Nebraska. You grow up in Nebraska?

• 1:51:25Speaker 05

  I was born in Nebraska, but I moved to Arizona when I was really, really young. So I lived in Arizona until I was 16. And then I moved to Iowa and then moved to LA right after college.

• 1:51:38Sean Fennessey?

  How does one who's from Nebraska, Arizona, Iowa, chart a path to making movies?

• 1:51:45Speaker 05

  Um, it's funny because I, all I ever wanted to do was be a director and I had never thought about writing. And I just thought, I'm gonna move to LA and I'm gonna make movies, very naively. And, you know, I'd like read every book you could about filmmaking and, you know, a lot. It's funny because like, when I was like in middle school, or like early high school, like my film school was just like movie magazines, like Starlog and all that stuff. But then my film school became DVDs. Like, I don't think my life would be what it is if there hadn't been that era when they spent so much money making special features and stuff. Where like, I remember it's like the commentary for Ronin, like I was obsessed with like the first two DVDs I got were like Ronin and Next Friday, which

• 1:52:30Speaker 05

  in a weird way probably, actually now I'm saying that out loud, I realized like those two things are kind of combined, or maybe my dumb sensibility.

• 1:52:37Sean Fennessey?

  That is, in a lot of ways, what this new movie is.

• 1:52:40Speaker 05

  But I remember like watching like a featurette about like storyboards on Next Friday and then listening to audio commentary with Frankenheimer a million times. And like, I just, you know, it just, I was obsessed with all this shit, but I didn't have a plan. And then when I was in college, I stayed there one year, uh, over the summer, and I didn't realize no one was gonna be there. Cause it's like, suddenly like everyone I knew was gone, you'd go to the local bar and then there's like one guy there and I had no idea it was gonna be vacant. I'm like, what am I supposed to do with my time? And then I pirated a copy of Final Draft. I just, there was like some website where someone's like, hey, you can download Final Draft and I wrote a script. And I, and then I, someone said

• 1:53:24Speaker 05

  they liked it and I was immediately one of those idiots who's like, I guess I'm a writer. I just needed one person to say they thought it was good. So I just started writing. And then, I moved to LA and then it got, and someone ended up optioning a script that I wrote. And then I just started writing for a living. And then it beat, just, it took over everything. And then I kinda got sidetracked from whatever my plan was to direct. And then I made a short in 2010 called Cost of Living and I wrote this action movie that I was trying to make from that and I spent nine years trying to make it and I couldn't get anyone to make it because I had a gigantic car chase in it. It was a, it's a really insane,

• 1:54:09Speaker 05

  surprising, I guess, if anyone's seen my movie, like an action comedy thing with vampires. Keri Coon was attached, a star in it and there was like a huge extended like 20 page car chase in the middle. So I kept trying to get people to make it and there's no way to make it cheaply. So after like nine years of almost making that with the same producer as the movie I just made, I was like, what can I write that you can make for nothing or close to nothing? And I wrote happily and then, uh, yeah.

• 1:54:39Sean Fennessey?

  Your first feature?

• 1:54:39Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:54:40Sean Fennessey?

  Can we go back to?

• 1:54:41Speaker 05

  We can go back to whatever, I'm rambling.

• 1:54:42Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, the moment, the moment when you sold a screenplay that was optioned, how old were you?

• 1:54:48Speaker 05

  I was 22.

• 1:54:50Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so were you like, I'm in? This is gonna be my, my career and this is how I'll make money and I'm set?

• 1:54:56Speaker 05

  Well, it's funny because there's like the concept of an overnight success, which is, you know, you're young. People are like, oh my God, we're gonna buy this thing, we're gonna make this. You're set. I sold a script. I was like, this is my life now. And they're like, we're gonna make this in six months. I'm like, no one lies about these things. This is the truth. And then it didn't get made. I was like, okay, and I write my next one and they're like, we're gonna make this in six months. I'm like, okay, it's cool, it's fine. I had that setback at 22 where that didn't get made and then that one didn't. And it's like, okay. Well, you know, probably get a movie made at like 25 and then it just kept, you know, you're like Lucy with the, uh, Charlie Brown with the football.

• 1:55:39Speaker 05

  And it took about almost a decade of that happening and me being like, oh, this just might be my life is that I'm going to work and make a living consistently, maybe writing stuff that will never get made. And then, um, and I'd have some things that I'd be on for like years, like for like really big directors and at studios and stuff where You do drafts on something for three years and everyone's like, yeah, we're probably gonna make this in this quarter, or we're gonna do this thing and, you know, like a dozen times. And then I spent a month working, doing some rewrites on this movie called Skip Trace for Rennie Harland, and then they went off and made it and almost everything I wrote got, all my dialogue got rewritten. And then I got credit on that. And I still don't know

• 1:56:24Speaker 05

  really what the rhyme or reason for it is. Like, I spent all this time on all these things that were gonna quote unquote get made, and I just spent a month working on Skip Trace, and then it becomes like your first credit. And then it's also a movie that made like, I think, fourteen billion dollars overseas and then seven thousand dollars in America. So you kind of, there is no, I gave up a long time ago on like, having a plan for my career. Cause you sort of just realize, okay, opportunities fall on your lap, chase the ones you think you can do a good job on, and then see what happens. Weirdly, this movie is like, the first thing that was like, I wrote a thing, I wanted to make it, and then it got made. You know, it's like, I, like, when I did Are You Afraid of the Dark?

• 1:57:09Speaker 05

  It's just someone calling you, and, cause I'd written a draft of the movie, saying, hey, do you have any idea for a show? And I go, okay. And then people are talking to Brian about doing a Scott Pilgrim show, and then we had dinner, and then I was talking about it, and he said, do you wanna do it with me? And I'm like, okay. It's like, these things just keep sort of like, and then you just try to do great work, hopefully. And then this is the first thing where it's like, I'm gonna get this movie made, I'm gonna do it, and then it happened. So, again, I don't know if there's like a lesson from any of that.

• 1:57:37Sean Fennessey?

  I'm still very interested in the like, oh, four to nineteen range, like, pre Are You Afraid of the Dark, pre Scott Pilgrim, pre Happily, because I, I, I know plenty of people who are screenwriters and aspiring directors, and I think at a certain point, sometimes what happens is, even when you're selling things, you start writing things to sell them, and you give up hope on them ever being anything, and then so that your career becomes kind of working creatively into active anonymity. And, like, you, you broke the spell, right? Like, you did it. You got films made, you got shows made, you're here. But was there a part of you that was worried that you were like, I will just be

• 1:58:21Sean Fennessey?

  pouring my heart and soul into ideas that will never be realized at any point?

• 1:58:28Speaker 05

  If I'm just gonna be like really candid and honest, instead of saying just sort of what's like an interesting answer, it's that uh, I, like, I think something's like wrong with my brain where I don't know how to think that way. It's just like, because this is the only thing I've ever wanted to do, and it's like the thing I care about, it's just like, I just keep doing it and kind of naively assume eventually it'll work out. If I didn't feel that way, I probably would have got discouraged or something.

• 1:58:59Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:58:59Speaker 05

  But that's also just a weird thing to say about the fact that like, you know, I was making a living and I, you know, it's the only job that I've had since I was like 23 or 24 or something. Um, but it's just, it's odd, because when you grow up loving movies and like reading every interview, you get this idea in your head of like what a successful career is. And you think it's, oh, it's this thing. And then you make your first movie, and then maybe the second one's not as good, and then you do this. And then you get into it and you're like, oh, those are kind of narratives people create in hindsight to kind of describe how their career went. And then you realize you're like, oh, this is just kind of chaos, you know, and you just, in hindsight, you can maybe come up

• 1:59:39Speaker 05

  with like a canned short answer of the arc of it. I think I might have made things just more confusing.

• 1:59:46Sean Fennessey?

  Do you, well, do you, did you ever feel like in that period of time, like I missed the boat, like the industry changed, it's not as easy to do the thing? Because one of the things that I really like about your movies is that you have a sensibility, maybe not a style, but a sensibility that is very familiar to movies that we grew up on. That there's like a lot of McTiernan and Shane Black and Tony Scott and, you know, the like high level like artisan craftsmen with like a real sense of humor inside of these action movies. And that is like a little bit out of fashion, or like comic book movies kind of sucked that up a little bit and kind of ruined it. And I'm curious if you've just ever felt like, I'm just a little out of time when you're trying to get those movies made.

• 2:00:29Speaker 05

  You know, I really like trying not to be like-

• 2:00:35Speaker 05

  On trend, I guess that might be a way of putting it where it's like, I try not to think at all about what people are doing right now in terms of filmmaking, or like, it's not like I'm watching an action movie that came out six months ago and I'm like, oh, this is how we're shooting that now, that's what we gotta do. I try to cling to the things that I'm passionate about and kind of hope that'll give it like a sense of specificity, you know, because I think that if I'm kind of trying to chase what other people are doing, then it's like I kind of don't have a north star. Like, I don't really know which way is up. It's like I have to just kind of stay in my lane of like, to me, what feels like just the most fun way to do the thing, you know? So it's like, all the action in

• 2:01:19Speaker 05

  this is just all my favorite Hong Kong action filmmakers just kind of getting filtered through my, you know, weird personality, but it's, I, but I also just personally think stuff like that you can't improve on. Like, I think if you sat down tomorrow and you watched like Speed or Hard Boiled or any of those things, you can't say, oh, if only they had modern film techniques, this would be more exciting. There's, I don't think there's anything that we could do. It's like, okay, well, let's add a drone to the fight. I totally respect the craft of everyone who's like trying to push the envelope, but I just keep going back and being like, I don't know, it's like, if someone made a movie today that felt exactly like McTiernan, it would just blow the roof off of everything.

• 2:02:04Speaker 05

  And it's like, I don't know, I, to me, does that answer the question?

• 2:02:09Sean Fennessey?

  No, it does. I mean, I'm trying to get down to the, boil down to the like, formalism of the work that you're doing, even though you're making just very fun movies. There is, and this was something that people said about McTiernan and Tony Scott and definitely John Woo too, you know, they were real artists who really seriously considered the structure and dynamic of what they were making. And you don't think about that when you see Speed when you're 10 years old in a movie theater and you're like, holy fucking shit, this is blowing my mind. But if you do go back and it sounds like you did really go back and kind of like, deconstruct and try to understand how they did what they did, and then try to rebuild from there while retaining your own self, which some filmmakers do and some don't, but it's interesting that like, they did that about.

• 2:02:53Sean Fennessey?

  Pasolini, right? McTiernan famously like a real, really into the European auteurs. And you're doing it with them and like, do you have a consciousness of being part of that? That step ladder of creativity?

• 2:03:04Speaker 05

  You know, I mean, this is the best way I can really explain my process is that the day before I left for Winnipeg to make the movie. I introduced a screening of Last Action Hero at Vidiot's and then I brought my DP Larry Fong and we sat in the back row. And I was just asking him some questions about how he used lenses in that movie. And then we went to Panavision and found lenses that McTiernan used for those movies. And then that's what I used on my movie. So that level of specific insanity where it's like, I'm not sitting on set saying, what would McTiernan do? But I did figure out what his lenses were. It's like, I am.

• 2:03:45Speaker 05

  For me, it's just like, I make movies because I really love movies and I like that the sum total of my influences are so kind of disparate that it kind of becomes a new thing. You know, because I try, because it's like if I'm making something that is, you know, my favorite Hong Kong action movies and this thing and this thing and this thing and this thing. And I find kind of this

• 2:04:11Speaker 05

  package that I can filter all that into that is kind of coherent. Then it feels like fresh. I think that, because like when people read this script, sometimes they'd say, oh, it's like Back to the Future meets Goodfellas. And I'm like, that's a cool thing to say. But I think it's a little bit more like Sexy Beast and I think it's a little bit more like this thing. And then you start to realize it's like, okay. Because if I say it's this meets this, I have to say 400 movies, you know? Because it's like, it's to me, it's buddy action comedy. It is a time travel movie where everyone's kind of lovable idiot and there's no one to talk about science. And it's a one night gone wrong movie. So, which is one of my favorite types of movies where it's like the movie is just one night.

• 2:04:53Speaker 05

  They have to be, you hope that they're going to live until sunrise and they'll figure out their shit. So that's like, to me, the simple way of describing it. But then when other people start talking about it, I just have to, because it'd be funny. Like, I'd be in meetings and someone would be like, yo, it's just gonna be like the next Back to the Future. I'm like, no, that's a perfect movie and it's also a different movie. And it's like, but then I'm like, oh, whatever. It doesn't matter how people describe it.

• 2:05:18Sean Fennessey?

  Can you tell me a little bit about that process of going into rooms and trying to sell your movie to people?

• 2:05:23Speaker 05

  You know, the funniest thing about this movie is I didn't have to sell it. And that's never happened to me before. I had a very, very fortunate situation, which is that I was really busy making Scott Pilgrim. And my producer, Andrew Lazar, who had been attached to the other movie I almost made forever, and has been like, for some reason, believed in me more than anyone. And I've been in rooms where he does it in front of me or when I'm not around. And he's like, I promise he's gonna, look, I worked with Ochowskis the first time. And he'll give these passionate speeches, like, I know he can do it. And I was busy and he took the script to 20th and shared it with some people he knew there. And then they seemed to really like it and they were all talking about it. I don't know any of this is happening. And I'm making Scott Pilgrim. I'm literally, I'm making the voice record stage.

• 2:06:08Speaker 05

  And then he calls me and he's like, hey, so they're really excited about this movie. Can you come in and talk to me on Monday? I was just like, what? And I was like, okay, sure, whatever. This seems a little too good to be true. And then I went in and met with, like, Steve Asbell and Sarah Shepherd and Richard Milton. And I just talked and they asked me questions and I, you know, was like talking at Tonally, the comps and the kind of actors I was thinking about and all these things. And then at the end of the meeting, they're just like, okay. And then they like made a deal and then we started working from there. And everything else ever, you sort of have to go in and do the razzle dazzle and like, you know, really like confidently pitch the thing. And this was a situation more where I think they just wanted to make sure that.

• 2:06:53Speaker 05

  I had a vision in my head. I had a concept of how I was gonna direct action. I think it was just sort of, they wanted to see if I was gonna say anything that made them worried about it.

• 2:07:02Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:07:03Speaker 05

  I guess I maybe didn't.

• 2:07:07Speaker 05

  And then it just, you know, then it went from there. It's funny, too, because like, uh, we didn't send it out to the town. We didn't meet with any other studios. I only had one other conversation about the movie where some people came to me and they were like, they had financing, and they were like, "Oh, you can make this independently with us and we have this fund." And I had, and I was like, "Okay." And then at the end of the meeting, they're like, "But you have to get rid of the Gilmore Girls scene." And I was like, "What?" They're like, "Yeah, it's just not gonna work if people haven't seen the show." I'm like, "I kinda respectfully disagree with that." And then I take-

• 2:07:41Sean Fennessey?

  That's totally gonna be the one, that's like the number, literally in our document to discuss your movie. Amanda's like, "We have to talk about the Gilmore Girls scene."

• 2:07:48Speaker 05

  Well, we will, but, but I'm saying that I, I'm at a major studio. And they didn't wanna round off any of the edges of it. And I, and I was so ready to have someone be like, "Yeah, we like it, but we don't like this part." And then it didn't happen. And then when I made the movie, I thought, "Okay, they're gonna see it and they're gonna be like, "But you can't open with like this musical sequence." And, and then they didn't. And it was like, two things are true. It's unbelievably difficult to make the movie. But I also had a lot of support creatively. So it's like, it was very, very difficult technically and on all these things. But at the same time, I'd talk to the studio and I'd be like, "So what do you think of The Daily?" So they're like, "They're great."

• 2:08:32Speaker 05

  I was like, "Okay, well, I'm just gonna keep working on my headaches over here trying to figure this stuff out." And I don't understand why, um, 'cause I've been trying to make, you know, a big action movie forever. And then the first one I get to make is also very idiosyncratic. And they were very supportive. And that feels like a big contradiction, but I shouldn't really overthink it, 'cause like-

• 2:08:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:56Speaker 05

  It exists. I did it.

• 2:08:56Sean Fennessey?

  There's definitely something happening from, at least from my perspective, at 20th, where they're like, "We're just New Line in the 90s." And we just are finding- Interesting, strong voices and sometimes we plug them into our franchises and sometimes we do originals and you're gonna get Predator Badlands and Send Help and you're gonna get all these movies that feel like movies that we really liked when we were younger and most of the time they're working and that's like a, it is kind of the thing that I've been begging for for like 10 years on this show and it's very exciting to watch so it's even more fascinating that they didn't fuck with what you wanted to do.

• 2:09:31Speaker 05

  I mean Steve is a real one. Steve Asbell, I joked about this in my intro the other night at the premiere, but like if the head of your studio really likes Psycho 2, you can have a dialogue, you know? Cause I would, you know, if someone really doesn't love movies, it's, it can be a little tough for me to kind of explain where I'm coming from or kind of, cause my passion comes from that. So it's like if, it's really helpful that, you know, I, you can also say something that might sound insane where you're like saying, I want the action to feel like this and you're mentioning a movie that has zero humor.

• 2:10:14Speaker 05

  But he has enough of like film knowledge and love that he can tell what I'm saying is aesthetically I'm looking for this, but also I'm trying to do this thing. And I've had some experiences with some people when you say something that gets so binary. Like I once pitched on a movie and, and I can't name what it is, but it was like a tent pole and I was pitching to a studio head and I said, I pitched a joke and he stopped me and he goes, this isn't a comedy. And I said, well, I think I kinda want this to feel like the Star Trek from 2009 in terms of that energy where that's like a big rollicking adventure, but it's also a comedy. He was like, but that's a sci-fi. This isn't a sci-fi. I was like, well, well, I'm saying I want it to be like this. And the guy's like, no, but this, this doesn't have like spaceships in it. And I realized I'm like, I'm fucked.

• 2:10:59Speaker 05

  Yeah. Because it's like the, you know, like when I'm talking about like intention or what I want to do, it's not like one-to-one in a literal way. So if you can't kind of... Like, I, that's where I can get screwed in terms of like communicating with someone because they'll just be like, wait, what? They just get fixated on like the other thing.

• 2:11:18Sean Fennessey?

  Right. It's tone versus content and sometimes people can't see the middle.

• 2:11:21Speaker 05

  But Steve is like, just a guy who seems to really love all kinds of movies and Sarah Shepard, my exec on it, was just really, really helpful. And I think she just always, always like kind of excited that she was making the original action movie. Because it's, it feels like most people do want to be doing that. It's just some, it can really get hard to push that up a hill or whatever.

• 2:11:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think I was expecting a totally different story from you about the long journey to get this made for that exact reason.

• 2:11:53Speaker 05

  Well, I think, but you have to consider it in context of everything else, which is I think that even though I hadn't gotten a movie like this made, there was kind of a vague idea of people like, well, maybe he could do it. Or like people are like, you know, I do kind of like his stuff. There's sort of this accumulation of having a decent reputation or feeling somewhat competent. So it's like, and I've known Steve for a long time, but we hadn't worked together. And it's just one of those things where it's like just the right time, right thing, where they understood the material and saw the potential of it. And, I don't know, it's funny because there's other things that you do, which you try so hard to get made and then nothing happens.

• 2:12:35Speaker 05

  And I think that it, you know, like there's, there's all these different other factors. And it's also just Andrew's a really, really good producer, you know? And he's like, just really, really, really obsessive and passionate and very, gets like riled up about stuff. And he just, for some reason, really believed in this movie. And I think that he has that kind of, is like a contagious sort of passion. So it's sort of like I had a hype man that I didn't know was hyping it up. And I was over here in a corner with Brian, just working really hard on the Scott Pilgrim Show, not even thinking about what I was going to do next. And then I was just very fortunate that when that got done, it's like I just shifted into the long headache of how do I make a movie of two Vince Vaughns kind of stuff.

• 2:13:20Sean Fennessey?

  I wanted to ask you about Vince. Um, it's nice to see him in this register. It's been a little while since he's been specifically in this register.

• 2:13:28Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 2:13:28Sean Fennessey?

  Um, it's also very funny that this is coming on the heels of Sinners where there's all this kind of fascination and adulation for what Michael B. Jordan is doing and the filmmaking technique of Coogler with the twins. And you're operating in a somewhat similar.

• 2:13:42Speaker 05

  Well, my storyboard artist did Sinners and he also did like Fury Road and stuff. He's this brilliant guy. And while he was doing my stuff, he's like, oh yeah, I just finished Sinners. And I was like, how's that going? He's like, oh, it's funny. And then he was talking. I was like, oh, wait, there's two Michael B. Jordans in that. And I'm like, you know, like a month away from shooting. I was just like, oh, man.

• 2:14:02Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, this is different, obviously.

• 2:14:04Speaker 05

  Somehow there's like fucking movies with two De Niro's and all these guys. And I'm just like, I didn't know. I wasn't, I didn't know that that was gonna be a zeitgeist thing. And also you don't benefit from anything they learn because we're all siloed off. And we're all in our own little like horrible adventure figuring out how the fuck to do that technically.

• 2:14:23Sean Fennessey?

  You can't call Coogler and be like, hey, man, just explain it to me. How did, how does this work?

• 2:14:28Speaker 05

  No, we don't, we're not on each other's phone list, but I, I met him after the Creed premiere and it was one of the coolest things that's ever happened. Like one, the Creed premiere, we're like, I remember being there and realizing what that thing was. And it was one of the most exhilarating nights of my life. And afterwards I met him and he was like the nicest, most humble person. And I watched someone say to him, he's like, oh, you know, Christopher Nolan's here. And he looked like the most excited person who ever lived. And I was like, I, this guy is gonna be so.

• 2:15:00Sean Fennessey?

  Well, he's one of us in that way though.

• 2:15:01Speaker 05

  He's gonna be so successful. I'm like, the fact that he just, he seemed like so happy that a director he respected had watched the movie. And I was like, how can you be that talented and have that kind of, you know?

• 2:15:12Sean Fennessey?

  He's definitely still that humble, but he's also just such a movie nerd. And that's, that's why I think everybody kind of is so drawn to him in that way. But anyway, I mean, I'm, I was just a little curious to hear you talk about the idea of. Shooting the double stuff and how challenging that must be.

• 2:15:28Speaker 05

  I mean, the thing about it is like, okay, doing action is very difficult, but in a great way. Shooting one guy as two people sucks so much shit. You know, it's like, because you want it to feel effortless and you don't want someone to watch and think, oh, that was difficult. And I'm also working with an actor who can kind of be a little bit loose and it's not like he's gonna get every, do every syllable exactly the same way it was written. And you want to encourage him to kind of, you know, don't feel like you have to be so rigid and locked in. But then that process is that, because you know, you'll spend six hours shooting one side of the scene with him. And then he has to come back and act against himself.

• 2:16:10Speaker 05

  And then you are like totally locked into gigantic fucking computer controlled camera that does the move and has to match the thing. And figuring out how to do that and within a schedule is just, you know, it requires so much prep. And then you have to pivot sometimes based on like how a scene is going and realizing you have to change your methodology. Based on performance and because you don't wanna, like, I never wanted to feel like Vince was put in a box because of it. And I don't think it feels that way, but that requires a lot of work. It's one of those things where it's like, I was like doing two movies at once. I was doing a movie that was so easy and fun, which is all the stuff with the gangsters.

• 2:16:55Speaker 05

  So like, I'd have a day that's just with Jimmy Tatro and Lewis and Arturo and Keith David. And it's just like, you're like, the movies, this is the best. And we're just working together and trying to make the scenes as cool and interesting as funny as possible. And you go home at night, well, although it was like 42 nights in a row. And I'm like, this is the best job ever. And then the next day, it's like, okay, so we have to have a crane that fits within the soundstage to, that goes overhead. So he can do a walk and talk, but if we back up this way, like, we won't be able to do this thing. But then I have to go back and have Vince gets an earwig and do this thing. And it's sort of like, it was like two jobs at once. It was like a job that was like logistics and you're trying to be creative and make sure that you're still doing what you want to do.

• 2:17:36Speaker 05

  And then one that was just like, do you know sometimes just if you have two people in a scene, it can be just two different actors? It could just be, it's just like, how do you make this scene work? And um.

• 2:17:46Sean Fennessey?

  So no time travel doubling in the next film?

• 2:17:51Speaker 05

  Well, I will say this. When I wrote the script, I turned off the part of my brain that thought about how difficult it would be to execute anything, because I just was trying to follow my creative instincts. And that's just what I'm always gonna do. It's like, cause if you, you have to somehow separate those things, because if you are thinking about that too much, it's gonna kind of, it's gonna keep the stuff from being as good as it can be. Cause like, if you're just, if I'm writing a scene, and I'm like, oh, that's gonna be hard to do, it'll like, just get in your way. So it's like, I'm trying to avoid that. So basically, on my next movie, I'll probably come back and be like, I don't know why I shot in a water tank the whole time. It's gonna be one of those things where it's like, but you know, it's just, I had a really

• 2:18:36Speaker 05

  great idea involving water.

• 2:18:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. A movie starring a kid, a dog, and it takes place on water.

• 2:18:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:18:41Sean Fennessey?

  You should do it.

• 2:18:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, I'm just gonna, it's gonna come back, and I'm just gonna be doing like that, just staring off in the distance, and I was like, I love the movie and I'm proud of it, but man.

• 2:18:49Sean Fennessey?

  Air Bud Water Polo movie?

• 2:18:51Speaker 05

  That's it, yeah.

• 2:18:52Sean Fennessey?

  I wanna, I do wanna talk about the needle drops. I feel very seen by the needle drops in the movie, and...

• 2:18:59Speaker 05

  That's all I can ask for.

• 2:19:01Sean Fennessey?

  Just like, just an emotional like, thunderbolt, I think, with some of the choices. Even if they're not even songs that I love, they are referential in a way that I found satisfying, and you were talking about that earlier. Can you, how do you make those decisions? How, would you, are you writing songs into the script, and then getting your heartbroken when you can't get them?

• 2:19:19Speaker 05

  Uh, I wrote all the songs into the script, and then I ended up using about 60% of them.

• 2:19:26Sean Fennessey?

  That's pretty good.

• 2:19:27Speaker 05

  And there's two that I had to clear way early, because they're kind of performed in the movie, so I can't like, shoot that, and then be like, oh hey, can I get this song? Cause then it's just like, well then I don't have a scene. One of them, which is kind of a spoiler, and I'd rather not talk about, I think is worth mentioning, is I do have an Oasis song, and I got it before they decided they were gonna have reunion. I think that if I had gotten it later...

• 2:19:49Sean Fennessey?

  Ooh, a little pricier.

• 2:19:50Speaker 05

  I never would've gotten it, and I wouldn't have made the movie without that song.

• 2:19:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, my number, my number one karaoke song.

• 2:19:56Speaker 05

  Really?

• 2:19:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:19:58Speaker 05

  That's a good one. I personally like it, obviously, or else I wouldn't have like, put it in the movie.

• 2:20:01Sean Fennessey?

  I love that scene, yeah.

• 2:20:02Speaker 05

  But, um, you know, it's, the, the music is all kind of part of the same thing, which is I want to make stuff that feels really, really, really specific, and by specific, I mean... Just what feels right to me. And I think that if I'm really following my gut on that stuff about what feels right in the moment, tonally, or energy-wise, or pacing-wise, then I think it'll lead to a movie that doesn't feel generic, you know. I probably, I'm not patting myself on the back because some of them might think this is really stupid, but I do think I'm probably the only person who would have put a Dave Matthews song in a strip club. And

• 2:20:42Sean Fennessey?

  I really enjoyed that as well.

• 2:20:43Speaker 05

  That's just, you know, it, I don't know, it seemed, it made me laugh really hard.

• 2:20:48Sean Fennessey?

  Uh huh.

• 2:20:49Speaker 05

  So it's like, I, um, I'll remember, I did a friends and family screening, uh, really early, uh, in New York before I like turned in my first cut to the studio, because I just wanted to show it to some people and just make sure nothing was confusing them and just sort of like get some feedback to be like, hey, does this thing track for you? And just ask some simple questions. But the main value of it was that when that song came on, everybody laughed. And I was like, okay. Well, at least I, at least I know that someone will be as amused by that as I was. And then, um, I, I think one of the only notes that I got from a really, really high up Disney person was, uh, just make sure he keeps that song in the strip club.

• 2:21:33Sean Fennessey?

  It does, I mean, it works. It definitely plays.

• 2:21:35Speaker 05

  It'll, if it works for you, it works. If it doesn't work for you, I don't know what to say. I, there was a, I saw a really funny thing that someone had posted where they're like, look, I want to love a movie with that many Gilmore Girls references, but I can't support a movie when they play a Dave Matthews song in a strip club. And, uh, I'm like, that's valid. That's, that's, I'm not going to argue with that take. But yeah, it's just all the stuff. What happens is, you know, you pick 29 songs, and then you have the worst time of your life trying to get all of them. And the amount of phone calls that I had, and, uh, and I then I brought in this supervisor, the music supervisor I'd used on Happily, and her job really is she's like a missile I aim at a problem, where she's like, all right, I'm gonna make some calls. And then, you know, 12 hours later, she's like, okay, so I talked to this guy at the label, and I talked to this person, but we're trying

• 2:22:20Speaker 05

  to show a clip to this guy in the band. And she's just, you know, she's really tenacious. Uh, and like, that was one where I'm like, if Dave Matthews watched this and said he doesn't approve it, I'm in trouble. And I don't know who watched it and approved it, but somebody, I guess he says know a lot to movies. In fact, I have a director friend who was at the premiere, and he's like, how'd you get that song? He wouldn't let me use,

• 2:22:43Speaker 05

  uh, a Dave Matthews song in my movie. And I'm like,

• 2:22:46Speaker 05

  I don't think that this is a huge leap to think that he must have thought it was funny.

• 2:22:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:50Speaker 05

  But I also don't ever want to know. Cause I don't want to get disappointed and find out he's like, oh, what's that? I didn't see that.

• 2:22:54Sean Fennessey?

  Well, there's the only story about him in that respect I've heard is Greta Gerwig writing him the letter to use Crash in Lady Bird. And that she wrote a very long and emotional letter to him about how important his music was. And this puts it in a different context than the way it's used in that film. But there's something actually nice about imagining Dave Matthews getting both versions.

• 2:23:15Speaker 05

  I gotta tell you the opposite of that story, which is what happens when you write that letter and you're not Greta Gerwig. I saw my first movie. You might be surprised to learn that it took like 11 months for me to clear all the songs. And it was like a real difficult thing because there was no money. But there was a song that I had, uh, Hospital by Modern Lovers. And I had to write a letter to the band and it was in the cut and it was in the sequence and it just worked perfectly. And like, I wrote him a letter and I kept waiting and waiting and waiting to hear back from him.

• 2:23:47Speaker 05

  I'm having a brain fart, but.

• 2:23:48Sean Fennessey?

  Was it John Richman?

• 2:23:49Speaker 05

  Yeah. And, um, and then I just ended up having radio silence and I had to mix the movie 48 hours later and I didn't have a song there and I like freaked out and like, I don't know what to do. And I like watched the scene and I called my music supervisor and I was like, the only other song that would ever work is like People Ain't No Good by Nick Cave. And she's like, well, like I know their manager or some shit. And she's like, hold on. And she calls me an hour later and she's like, I can get that. And I was like, I freaked out. I was like doing a victory lap. I was like, oh my God, this is like a scene out of a movie. I got this amazing song and I've never seen it in a movie before. I locked the cut, I mix it. I show the movie to someone and the first thing they say is, I like that you used the Shrek two song. And I was like, the what? I hadn't seen Shrek two.

• 2:24:32Speaker 05

  And they're like, it was really funny that you decided to use the Shrek two song. I'm like, what's, what, what Shrek two song? And I hadn't Googled the song to see if it was in another movie. And then it was like, the first three people who watched the movie mentioned that they loved that I used the Shrek two song. I'm like, I didn't know it was a Shrek two song. You've ruined my victory lap. So now anytime I watch my own movie, I'm like, hey, here's the Shrek two scene.

• 2:24:53Speaker 05

  So if he had read that letter and said, yes, I'd have Hospital in my movie, but instead. I'm now forever haunted by the fact that I accidentally put a Shrek two.

• 2:25:02Sean Fennessey?

  Do you have to take that as a W based on the fact that people enjoyed that that reference?

• 2:25:06Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, I'm just not part of the, I, I miss the Shrek generation. I only end up seeing those movies like, uh, after I made that. Cause I'm like, well, let me go see what these Shrek things are about.

• 2:25:16Sean Fennessey?

  When our, uh, former producer left the show, we did like a tribute episode to him and what he wanted to do, and he's a bit younger than us, it was, was talk about Shrek because it's just, it's just an inch behind us. So you're, you're forgiven for not catching it.

• 2:25:29Speaker 05

  At that time, there's a thing people don't understand culturally is that in like 2001, two, three, or whatever, it was not cool to see animated movies if you're an adult. And then it shifted and like, you go see like the Incredibles and all this stuff. Then by then it's like, it's like this memory hole thing where I remember people being like, oh, those are like cartoons. And then everyone forgot that adults didn't go see those things. So like Shrek came out at that last gasp of people feeling like, yeah, I'm 19 and 20. I'm not going to go see a cartoon movie. And then, uh, so yeah, I miss Shrek. Um, but.

• 2:26:04Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't even ask you, why should I worry? But I almost don't want to ruin that. That's another, but speaking of animated movies and, and music and the way in which they infiltrate our minds at an early age.

• 2:26:14Speaker 05

  I, uh, the, I will say about that opening, um, it, it, you could easily read the script and not know that was what the opening of the movie was. Cause it was just, I wrote one paragraph and I mentioned that he's going around the lab and singing along with the thing. And then I had like, uh, this huge elaborate kind of thing that was super boarded and planned out and spent a whole night shooting it. And then I know that there was meetings where people are like, hey, we have like 40 hours of dailies of Ben Schwartz singing a song. Does anyone can, what scene is this?

• 2:26:48Sean Fennessey?

  That's very funny.

• 2:26:49Speaker 05

  But I can't believe I got that. And I'm still kind of waiting for someone to call me and say, hey, we just realized you put that song in the movie. And I'm like, yeah, uh, okay. But I also just think this is if only for people have already seen it or a second viewing thing. I think the lyrics of what he's singing, considering how that scene ends is kind of an added joke for me. Um, but yeah.

• 2:27:18Sean Fennessey?

  Let's quickly talk about the step printing shots.

• 2:27:21Sean Fennessey?

  So you talked about colliding influences, right?

• 2:27:28Speaker 05

  Can I say one thing though about those?

• 2:27:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 2:27:31Speaker 05

  Theo Von, is that how you say the guy's name?

• 2:27:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:27:34Speaker 05

  He did a Vince Vaughn thing and there's a point in it where he is trying to talk about the step printing but doesn't know what it is. And just one of the most charming things I've ever seen is him being like, there's like scenes when the camera and like it and he's like describing step printing and I'm just like, this is really charming.

• 2:27:54Sean Fennessey?

  Explain it and explain why you wanted it to be in your movie.

• 2:27:57Speaker 05

  Well, so there's been some really nice things that people said about the movie where they said, like someone said, it feels like if Juan Carwai made like a 90s buddy action movie. And look, I love Juan Carwai. When I was in London, I saw Chung King Express at the Prince Charles Theater. I think it's a masterpiece, but I have to be honest about my influences is I've been obsessed with step printing since I saw this movie called Warriors of Virtue. Because Ronnie You who did The Bride with White Hair, which I saw after, which is a perfect movie. I remember sitting in a theater and watching Warriors of Virtue and being like, what the fuck is happening? Where he was doing the step printing thing, which is what happens with step printing is some people who watch it think it's in something slow motion, but it's also just because I

• 2:28:40Speaker 05

  can't begrudge someone for not having a vocabulary for what it is because it is a weird thing. Is that you basically, there's 24 frames in a second. And so when you're shooting, it's like there's successive frames, you know, 24 in a row. But when you're doing step printing, it's like you repeat a frame for three times, like because I was doing it with eight frames within a second. So it'd be like a frame will be three seconds long, then three seconds long, I mean, three frames long. So you're basically getting these bits of motion where it's kind of becomes. See, I'm even explaining it poorly, but basically it creates this kind of surreal feeling for motion where everything is happening in normal time, but you're skipping

• 2:29:24Speaker 05

  frames. So it creates this sort of weird dreamlike thing.

• 2:29:29Sean Fennessey?

  Almost like a flip book motion a little bit.

• 2:29:31Speaker 05

  And it's just one of those things where it's like, I just, it just felt like a thing to do. And it also just felt like, you know, why not try it?

• 2:29:44Sean Fennessey?

  Or in such a homogenized time of content consumption, that when something like this pops up, I mean, we're not used to it. We don't understand it. That people are like, what the fuck? And I'm surprised that nobody was like, take this out.

• 2:29:58Speaker 05

  Well, there was discussions about it and there was more in an earlier cut. I would, I, being perfectly honest, I'm saying that the movie is like, the exact movie I wanted to make. There was definitely, I had pushed that a little bit further in a way that I understand that people maybe wanted a little bit more restraint with it. But I think that everything about the movie to me is I try to not think about, I try not to have that fear of, well, this might not be for everyone. Cause I think with movies like this right now, it becomes so like, well, we have to grab them and they have to know the plot at the two minute and 30 second mark. And we have to make sure we don't make any choices

• 2:30:38Speaker 05

  that might alienate a couple of people. And I just have to follow my gut. And my gut was I just thought it was aesthetically interesting and I thought it was additive and it made, it just, to me, it just felt right instinctually. And you just sort of keep chasing things that feel correct to you and then hope some other people will respond to it, or at least respond to the swing of it, you know?

• 2:31:02Sean Fennessey?

  Makes total sense. Couple more for you before we go. You see a lot of movies. I follow you on Letterboxd.

• 2:31:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, I do watch, I watch a little bit too many. I would actually, I came home and would watch a movie. I did 42 nights in a row and then I was, it was October in the second half of the shoot and I would get home at 8am and I was, I would watch a movie. So I'd watch all the Friday the 13th movies in a row because it was that. And I would throw on something that was like 90 minutes long and I would watch a movie, then go to bed, which is. Probably stupid, but.

• 2:31:34Sean Fennessey?

  I don't make movies, but that's what I do every night.

• 2:31:35Speaker 05

  Okay, well, that's fair.

• 2:31:36Sean Fennessey?

  No big deal.

• 2:31:37Speaker 05

  Wait, you watch movies? That's crazy. I've listened to this and I never picked up on.

• 2:31:40Sean Fennessey?

  I know, I know. You thought this was just a gardening show.

• 2:31:44Sean Fennessey?

  How are you feeling about the state of movie going? How are you feeling about your film being a movie that's going to streaming? Even though you've been able to show it in movie theaters? Like, how do you feel about the whole, the whole kit and caboodle?

• 2:31:52Speaker 05

  Well, look, there's two things that I really love. I love movie theaters and I love physical media. And I'm sitting here talking about a movie that's coming out on streaming. And

• 2:32:06Speaker 05

  that's the reality of it.

• 2:32:07Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:32:09Speaker 05

  But you can put that in a box and you can say, okay, yes, obviously I would prefer to see this movie in 4DX. Yes, I did make this movie for audiences.

• 2:32:20Speaker 05

  But I also

• 2:32:24Speaker 05

  got to make a movie that is a big action comedy where no considerations were ever made for any of that bullshit. No one ever came, like, I think the first big laugh is like 13 minutes into the movie. No one was ever like, oh, well, you know, someone's gonna turn it off if they don't know this by this point. There was never, ever a discussion about anything except how to make the best version of this movie. And I basically just put my whole brain into that, which is I was just thinking, I never thought about streaming. I never thought about even watching on their laptop. I never thought about even watching on their phone. I just tried to make the movie that I wanted to make and a movie that felt right and correct to me.

• 2:33:05Speaker 05

  And, you know, we can get into the state of the business and I think movie theater is the best thing in the world. And I think there's nothing better than seeing a movie with a crowd. And this is a really good crowd movie. But I also have to put all my energy into the work. And it's like, you know, when Soderbergh quit, he quit because he said he didn't like making movies anymore. And then he realized that he's like, no, I like movies, just the business is like stressing me out. And that's, I spent a long time, like, talking about the state of the business. And, you know, we have some mutual friends who like, like, you know, like Griff and I will just sit and like talk about shit for fucking hours about it. But I realized that if I just try as much as possible, put my brain into making a movie I'm proud of

• 2:33:50Speaker 05

  and try not to get in my head about any of those things, then that was just it. Because it's like. A big movie studio let me make a big action movie that has a very long scene with people discussing Gilmore Girls. So that's the win, you know?

• 2:34:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 2:34:07Speaker 05

  Even though is a very good crowd movie and I think it really plays on the big screen. So both the things are true and the thing that is the most important thing is that I was supported creatively. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish it, didn't wish I could, everyone could see it in 40x, you know? So.

• 2:34:26Sean Fennessey?

  I can't really do 40x anymore. My back is too bad, honestly. I'm just, I wish I was built different, but I'm not.

• 2:34:31Speaker 05

  I just saw all three Lord of the Rings Extended Editions in 40x. So I did like four hours in the theater.

• 2:34:38Sean Fennessey?

  You're so real. I respect it.

• 2:34:39Speaker 05

  But it's part of the reason I ended up moving to New York is, well, the first night I was there,

• 2:34:47Speaker 05

  Griffin and I saw Red One in 40x. And I walked out, I'm like, that was really fun. The experience of that was really fun.

• 2:34:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:56Speaker 05

  And it became this thing where we had like a 40x group chat. And then we picked the one movie, new movies that seemed right to do it. Sometimes it's really great and sometimes it's like, what are we doing here, guys?

• 2:35:07Sean Fennessey?

  Before I ask you, what's the last great thing you've seen? Do you have a Keith David story for me? I really feel like your movie gets Keith David in a way that I appreciate.

• 2:35:15Speaker 05

  Well, let me tell you, as a guy who has a They Live tattoo.

• 2:35:19Sean Fennessey?

  Just drafted in a draft yesterday.

• 2:35:21Speaker 05

  The thing about casting this movie is sometimes, because like you're making a studio movie and what happens is you come to a table with a list of actors you want. And then they come to the table with a list of actors that if you cast, we will green light it. And then the joy is when there's overlap, you know? And with that one, there was a moment when someone said, I think it was someone at the studio, they're like, well, Keith Dave is available. Would you be willing to cast him? And I was like, hold on, hold on. Wait, you guys are saying like I could, I could, I could get Keith David for this? And I was like, the second I knew that that was like an approved actor for it, I'm like, let's fucking go. And I was like doing the Chris Farley show with him the whole time, like in between takes. Like I'd pull a chair up next to him, like, all right, so um, is it true that?

• 2:36:06Speaker 05

  The rumor that you had a fight scene in Roadhouse that got cut out? And he's like, well, and then he would tell me a story. And, you know, there's a line in the movie when he says Michael be street pizza by morning. And I put that in there because he's talking about gargoyles. He's like, you know what the best thing was about gargoyles? He's like, I like when someone called someone street pizza. And I was like, and I just was like, okay, interesting. And then I was like, by the way, I rewrote this scene. And he looks at it and he goes, huh? He's like, you added street pizza to my line? I was like, yeah. And he was like so happy. Dude, he, when he wasn't shooting, would call me and ask how it was going. And say, hey, I just miss you guys. What's going on with the shoot? And he's the only guy in the show, in the movie, who'd seen Gilmore Girls from beginning to end multiple times.

• 2:36:47Speaker 05

  And he has a cat who his daughters would call his son, like, oh yeah, your son's over there. So he's a cat guy, loves Gilmore Girls, and he's Keith David. So it was just this accidental perfect storm of perfect. And, you know, the thing about it that I love is I needed someone who could be imposing and someone who could be funny. And those are kind of contradictory things. And he has a lot of presence as a bad guy. And I think he's just really funny. I remember like Jimmy Tatro, like, on the end of the first day working with him, he's like, so he's like a comedy actor, right? Keith? And I was like, actually, you know, yes. I mean, but you get to like talking and stuff like, he's like, yeah, the first time people let me be funny was men at work. And it's like, all right, Keith David, can we talk about men at work? What that was like?

• 2:37:32Speaker 05

  And then you just talk about making men at work.

• 2:37:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:34Speaker 05

  The, the biggest reason that you should try to be a successful director or filmmaker is you can get away with that kind of shit. If I was just a dude on the street and you walk up to Keith David, I'm like, hey, can I talk about Roadhouse? Be like, get the fuck away from me. But it's like, hello, sir, starring in my movie. Can I ask you questions about shooting Roadhouse?

• 2:37:54Sean Fennessey?

  He honestly looks exactly the same as he did 40 years ago. And that's the other thing too, is like, he's kind of preserved in amber. So you've been able to port this presence from a lot of these movies that you feel so connected to. And to your movie, also, he and Jimmy are, are so funny together.

• 2:38:09Speaker 05

  I, this is the level of responsible I am. I cut that stuff down, even though it's my favorite shit in the world, because it's just pacing matters. And I could have been really indulgent and kept every frame, everything those guys did, because I love every fucking frame of it. There's so much funny stuff with them that I couldn't justify keeping in, because you can only stay away from kind of the main plot so long. But I also could just watch a whole movie, those two guys being those two guys. So that becomes the real thing where it's like, I can't actually be indulgent. Like, the stuff, anything in the movie that is sort of quote unquote indulgent is also functional.

• 2:38:51Speaker 05

  That would, I can't justify having like six straight minutes of those guys just being father and son, even if it, just you'd play it for people and it would get bigger laughs than anything. But you also like, we gotta get back to the stuff.

• 2:39:04Sean Fennessey?

  You gave us enough.

• 2:39:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:39:05Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Ben David, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they have seen? As I mentioned, you consume a lot of movies.

• 2:39:13Speaker 05

  Uh, I had forgotten about this because I haven't had much sleep and I've been doing so much press this week. And then, um, uh, my assistant, who's also a producer on the movie, Mal, texted me and she goes, so what's your, what are you gonna say at the end about your favorite thing? I was like, oh, fuck. And then I immediately, for some reason, what I thought of, and it feels also connected to the movie, is I watched Wick is Pain again.

• 2:39:34Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:39:35Speaker 05

  Have you seen that?

• 2:39:35Sean Fennessey?

  I have.

• 2:39:36Speaker 05

  So when I was on my way to South by, I put it on my iPad.

• 2:39:39Sean Fennessey?

  Can you explain what it is?

• 2:39:40Speaker 05

  So Wick is Pain is this documentary about the making of the John Wick series, which, uh, I have like a lot of strong feelings about those movies and I could talk about them for like 10 hours. I was at Fantastic Fest at that first screening when like, people realized, oh, this is a thing, where everyone laughed when he said, oh. When I went to Paris, um, I guess this is a good, uh, uh, way to explain my insanity. I went to Paris for the first time and what I did was I went to all the shooting locations from John Wick four, uh, because, and someone's like, oh, this is where they shot Amelie. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's like, this is the church from the, the thing.

• 2:40:22Speaker 05

  Um, and I'm just really, really fascinated by those movies. I think four is truly a masterpiece, just all caps masterpiece. And I even remember when I heard what the running time was, I'm like, oh, they're, they're finally gonna fuck this up. This is just, there's no way they can justify it being that long. And then I remember walking out of the theater, I'm like, that was exact length that should be, if anyone complains about the length, I'm gonna get in a big argument with you. But anyway, the doc covers all of it and it is so candid in a way that I don't understand how it exists. It is so interesting and it's really, I just, I'm just, I think it's so cool that they're honest about, you know, conflicts and all these things.

• 2:41:05Sean Fennessey?

  How hard it was, yeah. How much, how much they fucked up and...

• 2:41:07Speaker 05

  And it, and I just, but I find it very inspiring, like, and I was like, watching it before I went to South by, it's kind of this trick you do, you're like, well, in case the screening doesn't go as well I want it to, or in case I get caught up on this, I kind of do things to remind myself, you know, like what I care about. So I'm like, I'm gonna re-watch Wicked is Pain. And I was like, sitting on a plane watching, and I was just like, these movies are so cool. So cool seeing how they shot them. Oh my God, a bunch of my stunt guys are in these shots. And it just like, it was very like, it's like very centering for me. But I think that if you like action filmmaking at all, or like those movies, I think it's really interesting. And I think it's a rare kind of candid look at kind of what, you know, you, all the hard work and interpersonal conflict, all these

• 2:41:51Speaker 05

  things that happen when you're making shit like this, you know?

• 2:41:54Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great answer. It's a really great documentary. Um, Ben David, thanks for doing this. Thanks for being here.

• 2:41:59Speaker 05

  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't, this was the interview I cared the most about. If anyone else who interviewed me hears this, I'm sorry. Uh, but I, I was so excited about this and this felt like the perfect way to end my promotional tour, then go to the airport. Um, uh, yeah, thanks for having me, man.

• 2:42:13Sean Fennessey?

  Congratulations.

• 2:42:15Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks to Ben David Grabinsky. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Thanks to Luke's Kavanaugh for production support. We'll be back on Friday to break down the drama and the other drama, the Super Mario Galaxy Movie, the Alpha and the Omega of April at the movies. We'll see you then.

• 2:42:51Speaker 00

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