Pod Insights The Big Picture Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein’ and the Best Frankenstein Movies. Plus: Jennifer Lawrence Is Ablaze in ‘Die My Love.’ About this episode Sean and Amanda are joined by Rob Mahoney to cover a pair of new releases, but before diving in, they react to two new movie trailers for ‘Michael’ and ‘The Testament of Ann Lee’ and the news that a ‘Miss Piggy’ movie from Cole Escola, Jennifer Lawrence, and Emma Stone is in development (0:53). Then, they unpack Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein,’ starring Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi. They talk through the divisive reception to the film thus far, explain why the second half of the film is much stronger than the first, and hypothesize what its awards chances are (9:26). Finally, they cover Lynne Ramsay’s new psychological thriller, ‘Die My Love,’ starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, which they all thoroughly enjoyed and view as Lawrence’s best performance of her career (57:53).
Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins
Guest: Rob Mahoney
Producer: Jack Sanders
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Transcript 16,637 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:11 Sean Fennessey? I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the big picture, a conversation show about fatherhood and motherhood. We're here with our large adult son, Rob Mahoney. On today's episode, we're going to talk about Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which is now streaming on Netflix. This is a massive spectacle of a movie and obviously tremendously personal to del Toro. So we will dig deep into his vision, I suppose. Sure. Later in this episode, we'll also discuss another vision. Lynn Ramsey's Die My Love, which is a searing new drama starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. And is about how being a mom is extremely cool.
1:47 Sean Fennessey? You guys excited? Oh, thrilled. Yes. All right, let's talk about some news before we talk about those two big feasts of a movie. The first thing that happened this morning is that there is a new trailer for Antoine Fuqua's Michael, which is a musical biopic about the life of Michael Jackson, who is a normal person.
2:05 Amanda Dobbins? No scandal.
2:05 Sean Fennessey? No controversy.
2:06 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
2:07 Sean Fennessey? And we don't have to explore any of those ideas.
2:09 Amanda Dobbins? No legal disputes.
2:10 Sean Fennessey? Nope. We need to see a great artist perform his music, as we must in all musical biopics. Amanda, what did you think of the Michael trailer?
2:17 Amanda Dobbins? Well, I watched it under duress. We watched it here together. And it was a little bit because I had seen a still photograph of Miles Teller's wig from this trailer on the internet.
2:29 Speaker 04 How would you describe it for the people who haven't seen it?
2:30 Amanda Dobbins? And I said, that's enough for me.
2:33 Amanda Dobbins? Well, it's very flat. I guess in that sense, it's sitting well on the head, better than some wigs that we see. It was shoulder-length-esque, right?
2:45 Speaker 04 Yeah.
2:45 Amanda Dobbins? Sort of like he was not unkempt enough to be in a, like, off-Broadway production of Hair the Musical.
2:54 Sean Fennessey? For context, Miles Teller is playing Michael Jackson's attorney in this film.
2:58 Amanda Dobbins? Sure.
2:58 Sean Fennessey? Which gives you some insight into what some of the movie will be about, perhaps.
3:01 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah. So I saw that wig, plus, I'm trying when I can to avoid trailers because I like to go in fresh to a movie. Plus, this just seems like a real big headache, you know? And we're gonna, we have a job. And if we still have this job in April 2026, like, I'll see it. I guess we'll talk about it. But I'm trying to wait, you know, for as long as possible.
3:24 Speaker 04 Keep it at bay.
3:24 Sean Fennessey? On the other side of the door, I think, as long as you possibly can. You had a very negative reaction to the trailer.
3:29 Speaker 04 It looks bad.
3:30 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
3:30 Speaker 04 Like, it looks low-rent. It looks like an extension of the Bob Marley into Bruce Springsteen, like, devolution that we're all going through with this stuff.
3:39 Amanda Dobbins? You have seen Deliver Me From Nowhere?
3:40 Speaker 04 You guys successfully steered me away from it.
3:42 Amanda Dobbins? So you didn't even go?
3:43 Speaker 04 I was like, the reviews coming off of The Big Picture are so scathing that I simply cannot be bothered to watch it before it goes on streaming.
3:50 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, it's not, it's definitely not worth showing up for. This movie, I do think people are going to show up for. There's a lot has been going on with this film over the last few years. I remember quite vividly at two CinemaCons ago, there was a presentation of footage from this movie because they've been working on it for some years. Graham King, the producer who produced Bohemian Rhapsody, came out and showed us some of the footage, including, you know, featuring one of Michael Jackson's relatives playing Michael in the film. And...
4:17 Sean Fennessey? In the room, the theatrical exhibitors were like, put it inside of me now. You know, that there was so much excitement because this was such a sure thing coming off of this wave of, you know, Bohemian Rhapsody, Elvis, movies like this really working.
4:31 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:31 Sean Fennessey? We're a little bit of a slide at the moment on this kind of film.
4:34 Speaker 04 Sure.
4:35 Sean Fennessey? As Matt Bellany reported, I want to say it was last year, there's been some critical legal issues around what appears in the movie. And some major errors were made in terms of what the story was even allowed to explore relative to the Jackson estate. And some of the settlements that were made with some of his accusers. So they kind of had to rip up the third act, apparently.
4:57 Speaker 04 Right.
4:58 Sean Fennessey? And push back the release date. Now, there's one interesting piece of context around that. We just came out of the worst October at the movies in like 25 years. One of the reasons for that is because this movie was supposed to come out in October.
5:09 Speaker 04 Hmm.
5:10 Sean Fennessey? And it got pushed because of this problem. And then the other thing that happened is the Mortal Kombat 2 also got pushed into May.
5:15 Speaker 04 You think that had like a huge ripple effect?
5:16 Sean Fennessey? Honestly, it would have been the biggest movie on Halloween.
5:19 Speaker 04 Yeah.
5:20 Sean Fennessey? And it didn't come out. So those two movies not coming out, I think contributed to what happened here. But it's probably good that Michael didn't come out because everybody who made it would have been sued straight to hell. And.
5:30 Speaker 04 Again?
5:30 Sean Fennessey? Yes. So those are just kind of like, that's some legal scaffolding around. It looks like a pretty mediocre movie about an artist that we already know quite a great deal about.
5:40 Speaker 04 Right. How are all those legal troubles sitting with you and your fellow capitalists who are so excited about the prospects of this movie financially?
5:47 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I want people going to movie theaters, but I'm much more interested in good movies than people going to movie theaters. And this looks pretty rote, you know? It looks very familiar. There is like a polish to the cinematography and production design that almost feels like AI.
6:03 Speaker 04 Yeah.
6:04 Sean Fennessey? You know, it really feels like it's like a Sora version of just recreating something that we watched in our childhood. You know, the rise of this massive pop star over time. So I don't, you know, artistically, what's this, what's this movie going to tell me that I didn't know about Michael Jackson?
6:18 Amanda Dobbins? Absolutely nothing. I've got to be honest, though. Like, if we are being as honest we can be, like, you know, like, Mama Say, Mama Say starts starting in the trailer and you're just like, okay, here we go. The music is still amazing. It's, it's
6:32 Sean Fennessey? You don't need this movie to tell you that.
6:34 Amanda Dobbins? That's true, and it's really, it's really, really hard to separate the art from the artist when you are making a musical biopic about the artist. Even though, as I understand it, it was the resolution of this legal dispute and the delay that this is Michael part one.
6:48 Sean Fennessey? So that isn't indicated in the trailer.
6:50 Amanda Dobbins? Right.
6:50 Sean Fennessey? So there was suggestion that they were going to break the movie into two, and that may still be the case.
6:54 Amanda Dobbins? Right.
6:54 Sean Fennessey? Famously, I saw Dune and didn't know what to say. So this could be a similar situation where it could be Michael Cullen part two.
7:02 Speaker 04 Oh, my god.
7:03 Sean Fennessey? I'm honestly not sure.
7:04 Amanda Dobbins? Then that they would have kicked some of the quote-unquote problematic aspects of the story.
7:11 Sean Fennessey? Right. Part one could have featured zero lawyers instead of at least one.
7:14 Amanda Dobbins? Right.
7:15 Sean Fennessey? We'll see what happens. There was a slightly less controversial trailer that was also released this morning for a film that Amanda and I have seen, you've not yet had a chance to see, Rob, The Testament of Anne Lee, which is Mona Fastfold's new movie, a, another biopic of sorts about the founder of the Shaker movement, who's portrayed by Amanda Seyfried in the film. So you haven't seen it. You didn't know what to expect.
7:37 Speaker 04 None. What's, I mean, based on talent, sure. And it just fucking rips. Very well-assembled trailer. Speaks to me very directly. I mean, anytime you can get a percussive rhythmic element of just like somebody slamming blacksmith steel into your trailer, you should do it, for the record. And anytime you can put Amanda Seyfried in your movie, you should also do that.
7:54 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, she's very, very just remarkable in this movie. Can't wait. It's a very interesting movie. I would say not a perfect movie, but a fascinating movie, and at times ecstatic.
8:04 Amanda Dobbins? Especially the first half. I really liked this movie. I liked not knowing what to expect from this movie, so I hope that this trailer is all that you watch.
8:13 Sean Fennessey? It's appropriately mysterious.
8:15 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah. Like, very cool, and I'm really excited that it got acquired and is going to be in the mix later this year for the, for the awards race.
8:23 Sean Fennessey? Uh, okay, the third and final piece of news which you guys shared with me this morning. There is a Miss Piggy movie happening.
8:28 Amanda Dobbins? Sure.
8:29 Sean Fennessey? This movie is going to be written by Cola Scola and we know because they told the Lost Culture, Lost Culture reads this podcast that Emma Stone and Jennifer Lawrence are going to produce the movie.
8:38 Amanda Dobbins? Jennifer Lawrence did, and then she went on one of the late night shows and gave a little more information on what's happening.
8:46 Sean Fennessey? What is happening?
8:47 Amanda Dobbins? Well, she said that it came to her during COVID lockdown when everyone was in their rooms and also everyone was being canceled and somehow they were talking about.
8:58 Sean Fennessey? Is this about the cancellation of Miss Piggy?
9:00 Amanda Dobbins? No.
9:00 Sean Fennessey? That would be an amazing idea.
9:02 Amanda Dobbins? She said that that is what sparked it. And then she turns to the audience, she's great, and she's just like, that is not entirely the plot.
9:09 Sean Fennessey? Entirely the plot.
9:11 Amanda Dobbins? But it's really, really good.
9:12 Sean Fennessey? That's a clever idea.
9:13 Amanda Dobbins? And then she said that she went to Emma Stone.
9:15 Sean Fennessey? After the hunt, colon, Miss Piggy.
9:16 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah. And Emma Stone, she's like, Emma Stone is a shark, so she's the, she's the business person, you know? And it was explaining their collaboration and then she mentioned that Cola Scola is writing it. Wonderful stuff.
9:29 Sean Fennessey? It's just thrilling. As a longtime Muppets dork, this is incredible news.
9:33 Amanda Dobbins? She also mentioned that Emma Stone is like the Muppets dork of the three. So that, once again.
9:38 Sean Fennessey? Just one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.
9:40 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
9:40 Sean Fennessey? And so unsurprising.
9:42 Amanda Dobbins? But you totally missed this on the internet.
9:44 Sean Fennessey? I didn't see it.
9:44 Amanda Dobbins? You know what I meant to ask you the other week and we should have talked about when we talked about the mastermind? So did you know that the Louvre got robbed?
9:51 Sean Fennessey? I did, yes.
9:52 Amanda Dobbins? You did, that did make it to you.
9:53 Sean Fennessey? I did, yes. How could that miss? Yeah, it didn't.
9:55 Amanda Dobbins? There's like a whole, like, personal interest or, you know, like weird news section of the world that Sean just regularly.
10:03 Sean Fennessey? If it's about like something crazy in the sea, I don't know what's going on. Okay, that makes sense. Has a whale done something? I don't know. I can assure you they have. You can't trust them.
10:10 Amanda Dobbins? Do you know what the password was at the Louvre?
10:12 Sean Fennessey? Oh, this is big. I read it, but I don't remember.
10:14 Amanda Dobbins? It was Louvre.
10:15 Sean Fennessey? It was Louvre. Just a step up from one, two, three, four. That's just not ideal.
10:19 Amanda Dobbins? Anyway, yeah, the Miss Piggy movie news was everywhere on my internet, but welcome aboard.
10:23 Sean Fennessey? Well, I'm happy to learn about it and I hope that film actually gets made. A film that has been made is Frankenstein. Let's speak of this film now.
10:31 Amanda Dobbins? It has.
10:31 Sean Fennessey? This, as I mentioned, is written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. This is del Toro's 13th film as a director. It's based on the Mary Shelley novel, which you may or may not remember, has the subtitle, Frankenstein. Semi-colon.
10:44 Speaker 04 It is semi-colon.
10:45 Sean Fennessey? Or comma, "The Modern Prometheus."
10:47 Speaker 04 Mm-hmm.
10:48 Sean Fennessey? Which should tell you a lot about this film's perspective.
10:51 Speaker 04 You don't think Frankenstein's a modern Prometheus?
10:53 Sean Fennessey? Well, is this Frankenstein a modern Prometheus?
10:55 Speaker 04 I can assure you not.
10:56 Sean Fennessey? Uh, it is, it stars Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Charles Dance, Felix Camerer, who people may remember from All Quiet on the Western Front. And let's talk about it right now.
11:09 Amanda Dobbins? Christoph Waltz.
11:10 Sean Fennessey? Oh, yeah, Christoph Waltz. Well, you can see.
11:12 Speaker 04 I forgot about him already.
11:16 Sean Fennessey? This is Frankenstein. It follows the life of a scientist who wants to reviveify a corpse and create new life.
11:23 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
11:24 Sean Fennessey? And the trials and travails he encounters along the way, learning how to be a dad of the undead.
11:31 Amanda Dobbins? Can I start with a question?
11:32 Sean Fennessey? Yes, you may.
11:32 Amanda Dobbins? Inspired by some, you know, pre-recording text messaging that the, that the two of us were doing while one person observed. So you guys are pretty big into Frankenstein?
11:42 Speaker 04 No.
11:43 Amanda Dobbins? Well, are you not? Could you?
11:44 Sean Fennessey? I wouldn't say that I am either.
11:46 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
11:46 Sean Fennessey? I know a lot about it.
11:49 Amanda Dobbins? All right. Could you please explain your complicated relationship to Frankenstein?
11:55 Speaker 04 This is not a character I care about a lot.
11:57 Amanda Dobbins? Okay. Why have you seen so many Frankenstein movies then?
11:59 Speaker 04 I mean, you just, they just kind of make their way to you.
12:01 Amanda Dobbins? I mean.
12:02 Speaker 04 But I think the problem is that many of them are not very good.
12:04 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
12:05 Speaker 04 Uh, it's a pretty limited list and they're like, the influence is wide, the parody is everywhere. Like you can't escape Frankenstein. But I don't care about Frankenstein in the way that I care about Dracula. Like, like the iconography is there, but there's not a lot of soul there, you know?
12:18 Sean Fennessey? Well, we, I, you know, me, Rob and Chris.
12:20 Amanda Dobbins? Or isn't there.
12:22 Speaker 04 They're, they're certainly trying.
12:23 Sean Fennessey? Me, Rob and Chris did an episode about Nosferatu.
12:25 Amanda Dobbins? I, I listened to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:28 Sean Fennessey? I think we had a lot of fun talking about the kind of long history of the vampire movie and the Dracula movie. And there, there is a very long history of Frankenstein films. This is a rare case where the original, or not, maybe not the original, but the James Whale version from the 30s looms very large over film history. It is widely considered one of the most critical texts in all of movie history. And the fact that we live in a time now when horror movies are so important to movies, it feels even bigger. There have been a lot of Frankenstein movies.
12:56 Speaker 04 Tons.
12:57 Sean Fennessey? There have been some adaptations of the novel. Most of them are using the novel as a kind of a springboard. And then there's been this whole group of movies, which I'll talk about after we talk about the Del Toro movie, that. Are basically curbing the core idea and then making a completely different kind of movie. Before we get to all that, I wanted to start with you to talk about Del Toro's version. Because Amanda and I have sort of briefly been a bit rude about the film coming out of festivals. And we both went to go see it a second time just to make sure that we saw what we saw.
13:27 Speaker 04 Still feel rude.
13:27 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, but so I'm very curious how you feel about it.
13:29 Speaker 04 I liked it. Again, this is not a character who I have a strong attachment to. But if you're going to make a Frankenstein story, this is the guy you go to to do it. And I think this is sort of the spirit in which you want to attempt it. Try to make it new, try to introduce some new wrinkles, try to find like some spark of life, if you'll allow it, like in the story beyond what we've already like worn into the ground. I think it kind of gets there and is mostly successful. And I like the movie, but don't love it.
13:57 Sean Fennessey? Okay.
13:57 Amanda Dobbins? Can I ask in what context you saw the film?
14:01 Speaker 04 I saw it in a full theater.
14:02 Amanda Dobbins? Oh.
14:03 Speaker 04 Here in Los Angeles, which I have many questions about why that's not a widely available experience. I don't know why this was not a movie released in October. Why any of that stuff was happening, very curious to me. But ultimately like a lively viewing experience.
14:17 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
14:18 Speaker 04 How did you see it?
14:18 Amanda Dobbins? But you did see, well, I saw it at the Venice Film Festival. And then I saw it again yesterday, also in a theater, a matinee with more people than are usually at this local theater for a Wednesday matinee.
14:31 Speaker 04 This is a very Venice vibe, though, this movie.
14:33 Amanda Dobbins? Yes, though I don't think.
14:35 Sean Fennessey? Or Switzerland, or the North Pole.
14:37 Speaker 04 Yeah.
14:38 Amanda Dobbins? I guess so. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely Venice is, there's more velvet in Venice.
14:44 Speaker 04 I can imagine.
14:45 Amanda Dobbins? As opposed to like whatever, you know, weird substances are going on here. And there are more colors.
14:50 Speaker 04 Yes.
14:50 Amanda Dobbins? The desaturation here is something that I'd like to discuss, but.
14:54 Sean Fennessey? Did your second viewing unearth anything new for you?
14:58 Amanda Dobbins? I think that it made me understand that I find, in addition to the fact that I do not like the way that it looks visually, and that I don't really care that much about Frankenstein, the story, I find the interpretation of this story a little facile, even like even within that context. I know this is a project that Del Toro has been wanting to make since he was a child and, you know, discovered the book and
15:32 Sean Fennessey? Been talking about it since the 2000s.
15:33 Amanda Dobbins? And it looms large over so much of his work and I feel that he has interpreted the Frankenstein story in much better ways in the movies that he made before this.
15:44 Sean Fennessey? So Eat Shit Mary Shelley, Eat Shit Childhood Guillermo del Toro, you're just like stomping on dreams and legacies out here.
15:51 Amanda Dobbins? I feel, I feel bad about it. I think that, I mean, I do just think that it looks bad. And, well, we can talk about it.
15:58 Sean Fennessey? We should explore the ways in which that, because I think that there will be, this is going to be, it already is a divisive movie.
16:04 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
16:04 Sean Fennessey? I think there are people who have been following Del Toro's work very closely that love it, and there are people who've been following Del Toro's work very closely that are, are kind of like a little sick of this. And a little, I'm a little bit worn out, I think, on some of this. And I think also the, the Netflix era of, of, of Del Toro's work has augured this curious visual transformation that I'm not stoked about. And this one is like, it's a, I don't hate this movie, but I definitely don't love it. And there's things I admire about it and things I really like borderline revile about it. And I, I'm curious what you mean by facile in terms of the interpretation of the story. Like, what are the changes or the things that he's reading into it that you think are not working?
16:45 Amanda Dobbins? I just, brother, you are the monster. You know, I groaned the first time, but it is
16:54 Amanda Dobbins? It like it is an adaptation of a novel, but he's been doing more complex work with these ideas, whether it's about, you know, humanity and creation and the God complex. And I don't know what it's like having a dad that's mean to you and like being obsessed with your mother and like just and feeling like an outsider from the world and what is family and what is love and like what is a human and like what is man and what is monster and how do they mix? And this is just like a real literal to the point that they have the brother say, you are the monster at the end. And I was like, yeah, you know, I did get that you were going
17:34 Amanda Dobbins? with that. There's no, there's no nuance and there's not a lot of thematic depth beyond. I mean, it is like, you know, a very Gothic pulpy story and like plot's great. Roger Ebert and I agree, but I've seen all that before and I don't think I saw anything more than the plot.
17:53 Speaker 04 Some of that is just Del Toro. Like there are, there are three lines in every movie he makes. It's like, did you really have to say that out loud?
18:00 Amanda Dobbins? Right.
18:00 Speaker 04 Uh, and I think the trade off is like, if you're dealing in archetype and myth, which he is doing, whether he's creating it or adapting it, do you need the cool line? Like, do you need to be less than obvious? Like, there is something about his movies that is elemental that when it works, it really, really clicks.
18:14 Amanda Dobbins? Right.
18:14 Speaker 04 And it feels like a story that's always been part of your life. This kind of does feel old at certain parts. I admire the ways in which he tries to make it new, but like, I think some of that is unavoidable for the way he makes movies and wants to make.
18:27 Amanda Dobbins? It's why he's never been like a huge, and you know, at some point, I don't really respond to monster stories in the same way. Like, I don't need it embedded in like archetype and myth. Like, the monsters are all around us in real life. See part two of this, you know, conversation for like another way in which I, I respond to different explorations of the human experience. But yeah, some of it was just a little silly.
18:52 Sean Fennessey? He's had this interesting evolution as a director where, you know, his first few films. Some of them are about actual monsters that don't have a lot of depth in terms of where they came from, you know, what they're, you know, Cronos and Mimic, his first American movie, these are like real classic monster movies.
19:11 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
19:11 Sean Fennessey? And over time, he's gotten increasingly fascinated by the idea of like, the monster is misunderstood.
19:15 Amanda Dobbins? Mm-hmm.
19:16 Sean Fennessey? He should be better, he should be looked at as just as human as you or I. And he keeps going back to that concept over and over again. With Pinocchio, he talked about how he wanted to make Pinocchio like a Frankenstein movie, and he wants to make this movie like a Pinocchio movie.
19:28 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
19:28 Sean Fennessey? And-
19:29 Amanda Dobbins? He made Pinocchio a fascist.
19:31 Speaker 04 Well, he was-
19:32 Sean Fennessey? He was existent of fascist times.
19:34 Speaker 04 I do think Pinocchio is a better Frankenstein movie than this is a Frankenstein movie, ultimately.
19:39 Sean Fennessey? Well, I think it's because that movie is pretty scary, and this movie isn't scary at all.
19:43 Amanda Dobbins? No, not at all.
19:44 Sean Fennessey? And I think that he has way too much empathy for the monster in this movie. And I, you know, it's probably a facile reading on my part to say like, he just sees himself as the monster. He had, the person that he's comporting his personality into is the person who is like, kind of been victimized but will rise above.
20:00 Speaker 04 Sure.
20:00 Sean Fennessey? And that has been very present in a lot of his films, in Nightmare Alley, in Shape of Water, like, that's in all those movies. And so he's kind of beating this drum. With some filmmakers who we like will say like, well, that's a, that's a theme that they return to.
20:12 Amanda Dobbins? Right, that's a Sofia Coppola movie, sure.
20:13 Sean Fennessey? Yeah. In the case of this movie, to me, it's ultimately because the movie itself is just not as good, so I'm not willing to allow it.
20:20 Speaker 04 Totally.
20:20 Amanda Dobbins? Well, also, he does identify with the creature, and this film is divided into two pretty unequal parts. Part one, The Creator's Tale, and part two, The Creature's Tale. Creature's Tale, for my money, is way more involving. You can tell that's where his heart is.
20:34 Sean Fennessey? Yes, I totally agree.
20:35 Amanda Dobbins? It has the better performance from Jacob Elordi, but you sit through almost two hours of, like, Oscar Isaac is never bad. He's just sort of, he's cast in an island of, you know, a weird CGI tower and a very, very broad British accent, sort of like Morgan Spector on The Gilded Age, like, level. But, and Morgan Spector's great on The Gilded Age, but you know, like, we're, we're playing to the back of the theater.
20:58 Sean Fennessey? Completely.
20:59 Speaker 04 There's a lot of like, I shan't ever do that, sir!
21:01 Amanda Dobbins? Exactly.
21:03 Amanda Dobbins? And it's, but the movie just has to spend so much time with the creator first. And it's like, it's.
21:11 Sean Fennessey? The thing is, is that it didn't have to.
21:13 Amanda Dobbins? Well, I agree, but he makes that choice. And I, and so we have to, and I'm like, I don't, why didn't you just make the second half?
21:20 Speaker 04 He is in the who says no to this guy era of his career. Like, where is the edit that takes 10 minutes out of the creator part of the story? And I think honestly, part of the reason that section is as long as it is, because I agree with both of you, that he identifies with the creature on some level. He wants to tell the creature's story. There is like the self-flagellating, I am also Victor Frankenstein part of him. That's like, I think putting himself through the paces of making this guy miserable and terrible, almost inexplicably, that also appeals to a story he's trying to tell. It's just too long a story. And as you're saying, like, doesn't have enough going for it.
21:52 Sean Fennessey? It does do, here's one thing I'm very cynical about, about this movie. So the film opens with a prelude, which is a, a, a critical part of the Shelley novel as well, about the, the ship and the captain that are on a journey. And they eventually encounter Victor in the Arctic because Victor is chasing the monster to, you know, to kill the monster.
22:14 Sean Fennessey? But the film opens with that and, and it manages to turn what is represented in the novel as a series of letters from the captain into a big action sequence. Now, my, the cynical part of my brain says that we're about to have a 90 minute stretch of costume drama. So just to make sure that you don't turn this movie off, we need to have the monster throwing a bunch of sailors into a ship.
22:37 Sean Fennessey? That stuff doesn't look great. The CGI in this movie is not very strong.
22:40 Amanda Dobbins? No.
22:41 Sean Fennessey? And it sets you up for a certain kind of like adventure monster movie that this just is not. This is a sensitive drama about a scientist and his lost love. And a lot of that stuff is not rendered great and you can dispute it or not. But the, the movie does that thing that a lot of TV shows do all the time now, where they show you the end at the beginning and then they're like, how did we get here?
23:01 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
23:02 Sean Fennessey? And then they go back to the very beginning and then they start telling the story.
23:04 Amanda Dobbins? When they go back to that wide shot in the Arctic, I was like, this is the only truly beautiful thing in this movie. That's not true. There are a couple of other sequences.
23:12 Speaker 04 But they built the goddamn ship. Like, the ship looks great.
23:16 Sean Fennessey? Why is everything around it?
23:17 Amanda Dobbins? It looks, it looks like a set and the whole, you can see the set. And it's like very, like, I guess.
23:22 Sean Fennessey? I don't have a problem with that because, so.
23:23 Amanda Dobbins? They're going for like a soundstage thing?
23:25 Sean Fennessey? I, I think it's they're going for like the, um. The kind of fussiness of this time in history.
23:30 Speaker 04 Sure.
23:30 Sean Fennessey? You know, especially in more in the mansion and the homes.
23:32 Speaker 04 Yeah.
23:33 Sean Fennessey? That there is like an artificiality to a lot of it because everything is kind of bought and hung. But the thing that I kept thinking about this, even watching this the second time, is that this movie is actually just more interested in the depth of its sets than in the depth of its characters. That it is ultimately, it is beautifully adorned, not beautifully shot. I feel like there's something in the filmmaking style where Del Toro now is like really interested in the wide shot and showing you everything that he built. But then that detracts a little bit from what he's trying to say. And I felt that all the way up until El Lordi comes to life and we can talk about the merits of that part of the film too.
24:07 Speaker 04 For sure.
24:08 Amanda Dobbins? I don't know, I like, I don't know whether the cinematography, it's just, it's flat, it's flat. It has like almost the motion smoothing aspect to it. Um, and I don't know whether that's because it's being engineered for, you know, Netflix. I watched it on screens both times, but uh, I assume they were digital. How did it look on film? Did you go see it on film?
24:26 Sean Fennessey? Better.
24:27 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
24:27 Sean Fennessey? Didn't, didn't change the, particularly whenever the CGI comes into play. There's a series of moments, you know, there's a very big explosive scene in the middle of the movie where a tower is on fire. Just doesn't look good. I mean, for, it's a hundred and twenty million dollar movie, it just doesn't look good.
24:40 Speaker 04 I was, I just kept waiting for the crimson peak moment for me, which is like, that's a movie that I think is more style than substance in a lot of ways.
24:47 Sean Fennessey? Yep.
24:47 Speaker 04 But it has so much visual flair and so much love of like color and contrast. And this is so gray, like other than Elizabeth's dresses where they just have her styled to look like a big old bug in a way that I, I really do like.
24:59 Sean Fennessey? I think the costuming is very good.
25:00 Amanda Dobbins? The costuming is great and she, she, you know, she is wearing red as a motif where everyone else is like very purposefully washed out. And so she has this beautiful red dress, like in one wide outdoor shot, it's outdoors, thank you. And then the red umbrella that follows her, and then I, I think the sequence one spoiler alert, she dies. And the monster carries her into the tomb and her dress like becomes like a different red. Like this, this looks beautiful, you know, and this is, the image is matching like the themes and the setting. But otherwise, yeah, man, it just, it looks yucky.
25:39 Amanda Dobbins? And like, and like, kinda remarkably like the, like Wicked. And like, one of the rooms in Wicked, like even the windows, I was like, I've seen those before. And it's right before Elphaba and that guy do like a silent mime dance for 10 minutes.
25:53 Speaker 04 That's a bummer, though, because like, Del Toro is one of the few filmmakers who still gets the latitude and the budget to do, at least in a lot of cases, big, practical stuff, where it looks lavish, and they get hundreds of extras. Like, he has a leeway that many guys and women making films do not have.
26:08 Sean Fennessey? He's also very vocal about this. I mean, he talks about it constantly, about the necessity of physical creation. And he's been extremely vocal about AI in the last year or so. And to me, I see what he is attempting. I'm a, I'm a pretty big fan of his. A lot of his movies resonate with me. I do feel like he's kind of just like spinning his own wheels a little bit here in terms of the story. Now, I do want to talk a little bit about what does work in the movie, and specifically because you ultimately came out liking it. I think the first half is not very effective, personally. I think Lorde has been getting very high marks for his performance. I think very understandably, I think that's one of the first things that we said when we talked about it at the festivals.
26:56 Sean Fennessey? Why is that part so much more effective, do you think, than the first half of this movie?
27:01 Speaker 04 I think his, like, honestly, the creature, and you can tell that Del Toro cares about him so much by the fact that it's one of Del Toro's most emotionally well-developed characters. Like, he's not someone who spends a lot of time developing a lot of interiority. It's all visual, it's all, again, myth, it's like these very, everyone is kind of filling a role in his stories typically.
27:21 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, he was archetype, yeah.
27:22 Speaker 04 This feels like someone who, for better or worse, you spend a lot of time inside his head. And now narration from a creature may not be your cup of tea, and I wouldn't blame you if it wasn't. But like, they actually do dedicate a lot of time in understanding him in a way that they don't even with Victor Frankenstein. Like, why Victor Frankenstein makes the series of choices that he does, other than he's obsessed in the beginning of the story, and then ultimately doesn't even think about what he's gonna do if he gets the thing that he wants? Like, the next day, it's kind of like the, like, dog chasing the mailman kind of situation? Like, what would I even do if I caught him? But the story kind of stops there, and there's no other exploration of what Victor Frankenstein is about at all, really. That's not the case for the creature, and so I think there is something a little more well-articulated there.
28:07 Sean Fennessey? In the novel and in other adaptations of this story, the monster is more of a monster and more violent and more responsible for the tragedies in the story. This movie very purposefully shifts almost all of the blame, for lack of a better word, onto Victor.
28:23 Speaker 04 Yeah.
28:23 Sean Fennessey? That Victor is the architect of everything that is wrong in this world. And, you know, you identified this as daddy issues. I think that's not unfair.
28:32 Amanda Dobbins? I mean, his father is played by Charles Dance, who
28:36 Speaker 04 Tough typecasting for Charles Dance these days.
28:38 Amanda Dobbins? Can't name the right, you know, humors or whatever.
28:41 Sean Fennessey? You know, Charles Dance has already played Victor Frankenstein's father in a film.
28:44 Speaker 04 That's true.
28:44 Sean Fennessey? Yes.
28:46 Amanda Dobbins? And then it's just, so there's just a lashing to the face and then he loves his little brother more and then Charles Dance dies.
28:54 Sean Fennessey? Yes.
28:55 Amanda Dobbins? He's out.
28:55 Sean Fennessey? And so.
28:56 Speaker 04 Well, you did leave out the part where he is like gently fingering a model of a pregnant woman that is like the stand-in for his mom.
29:03 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, that was pretty weird. And then, you know, and that is like echoed as for coffin.
29:08 Sean Fennessey? And also Christopher Walt, the handle of Christopher Waltz's cane, Christoph Waltz's cane is also that same, I think that same figurine that he's toying with. We haven't even talked about Christoph Waltz because in the first half, for some reason, the film needs to introduce a character who is a benefactor that allows Victor Frankenstein to conduct his experiments, I guess. And that benefactor also wants to be placed into the body of one of his revived corpses.
29:31 Amanda Dobbins? He's dying of syphilis because we all know the stages of the disease.
29:34 Sean Fennessey? Yes.
29:35 Speaker 04 But this is, this is ultimately the situation is you can't have the Del Toro decrepit manner if Victor Frankenstein himself had money. So somebody has to have money to pay him. And apparently it needs to be in like a war, like a, someone who owns a war machine. A war profiteer of a kind who therefore can also provide the bodies to make the Frankenstein.
29:54 Amanda Dobbins? And you, and, and we learned that you got to take him from the middle of the pile.
29:57 Speaker 04 Yes, very important.
29:58 Amanda Dobbins? They've been crushed at the bottom and exposed to the elements up above. Listen, like, I, I learned a lot about how Victor Frankenstein puts his science projects together.
30:09 Sean Fennessey? Yes.
30:10 Amanda Dobbins? And, and they take really great care in like making all the gross muscles and the lymphatic system and everything looks real, you know, like it's.
30:20 Amanda Dobbins? I feel sad for everyone involved that we're talking so much about the CGI. That does look bad because it is clear that so much care went into making so much of this.
30:30 Sean Fennessey? Without a doubt. I completely agree, but they're working at cross purposes, unfortunately. I think that the challenge of this interpretation, and I welcome reinterpretation of any great work of art. I think film is a great medium for someone looking at a classic piece of literature and saying like, what if it was more like this and I turned the dial to the left? In this case, if you make the monster wholly sympathetic, not a little sympathetic, but also dangerous, wholly sympathetic, it kind of drains the juice from the story. And that makes it.
31:00 Amanda Dobbins? It makes it Twilight.
31:02 Sean Fennessey? There is a component of that. There is a component of that.
31:06 Amanda Dobbins? He just wants a companion, you know?
31:08 Sean Fennessey? And in fact, he's battling wolves, much like in Twilight. I think it just means that the movie's not going to be scary. Like Boris Karloff built his career on being terrifying. Is this supposed to be scary?
31:21 Sean Fennessey? An epic romance of Frankenstein, to me, is not very interesting. Sure. I think if it was going to spend more time with Elordi and more of a psychological character portrait, that might be like a less event-packed film. Yeah. And it might be more internal, as you're describing. But it would be different. It would be different enough, maybe, to justify it. And Elordi is in this interesting position. One, they've redesigned the monster, right? So the makeup effects, I think, are really good in this movie. They look awesome. His practical visualization is very different from the Karloff character. It's very different from the character that Christopher Lee played in the Hammer films. It's very different from even what's described in the Shelley books, which is like where the skin is like hanging off of the character and it's much more grotesque.
32:04 Sean Fennessey? This is like, it's kind of like Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen. A little bit. You know, like a kind of a lean, powerful, sutured figure.
32:13 Amanda Dobbins? Is that the guy that has sex to Hallelujah?
32:16 Sean Fennessey? I think that's everywhere in Watchmen. Yes, it is. Thank you for knowing that.
32:22 Amanda Dobbins? Can we just say that the creature design is by Michael? Who works with Del Toro.
32:25 Sean Fennessey? Yes, and frequently does amazing work. And, you know, if you've seen Hellboy or, you know, even, I mean, what is the Shape of Water? The creature design is amazing in that movie. I mean, that's a very fuckable fish man, you know? Absolutely, and he got fucked. Canonically.
32:42 Sean Fennessey? I like how he looks. I like Elordi's performance, which is kind of in the tradition of a lot of silent cinema actors, where he has to be tremendously expressive. He basically only gets to say the word Victor for roughly 40 minutes of the movie. Yes. Before he is taught by a kindly blind man how to spell and read.
33:00 Amanda Dobbins? John Milton.
33:01 Sean Fennessey? Yes. He just turns out he's a visual learner. We're going about this the wrong way. He is. It's not my favorite shot in the movie, when David Bradley is holding a card that says I, and then the camera zooms in on his eye. And I was like, okay. Again, this is not the place you come for subtlety. It's just not. It's not. And then Elordi eventually, he learns the power of language, and he protects the kindly old man until he can.
33:26 Amanda Dobbins? And he learns about Paradise Lost.
33:28 Sean Fennessey? He does. And you know Paradise Lost, obviously, very important to Shelley, and I think is featured prominently in the novel as well, as like a signpost for the creature.
33:38 Sean Fennessey? But the movie does then ultimately just become kind of like a revenge drama in the second half, where the monster revisits his former home, reads some papers strewn about.
33:49 Amanda Dobbins? Right, they survived.
33:50 Sean Fennessey? After the fire. It's like there's a full-blown tower fire.
33:55 Sean Fennessey? And then there's some papers around, and he's like, oh, so this is how I aim to be a person. In the novel, I think, if I recall, the papers are in the clothes. It's a little more.
34:05 Amanda Dobbins? They're inside the computer.
34:12 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, I think there's a couple of like storytelling mechanic stuff that is a little wonky. And then it just becomes like the Anarchic Chase movie into the finale. And I don't know, I didn't think this was very good.
34:26 Amanda Dobbins? Mia Goth, innocent.
34:27 Sean Fennessey? Oh, yeah. Here's the problem.
34:28 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
34:29 Sean Fennessey? She, of course, to me, is a living legend. I will watch her do anything.
34:34 Amanda Dobbins? Right.
34:34 Speaker 04 I, she needs to be crazy to be really effective in a movie. And this is a very demure, empathetic character.
34:40 Amanda Dobbins? I mean, this is like, you know, manic pity pixie goth girl. She just like, she really likes insects, guys.
34:46 Speaker 04 Loves them.
34:47 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, and like, and weird things. And it's, you know, and she loves him too.
34:51 Speaker 04 I mean, Del Toro has a type, right? Like, two types, like, you're either pale and severe, or you're pale and naive. And she's in the pale, she's in the chastained mold.
34:59 Sean Fennessey? Yes.
34:59 Speaker 04 The Cate Blanchett mold of what he likes to do. Uh, she's perfectly fine in this, perfectly good. Uh, I was talking with Jack Sanders before. I'm curious about what the sex appeal of Jacob Elordi as the creature is in this movie? Because Elizabeth seems very cop, like, she meets him and within moments has grabbed his hands and put them around her throat. This is a woman who understands what she wants. But will audiences have a similar response? I honestly don't know.
35:24 Amanda Dobbins? He's tall, he's tall.
35:26 Speaker 04 Was, was there?
35:26 Amanda Dobbins? It's like, that is, I mean, that is Jacob Elordi. And actually, he's just like, very tall. And he just has tall energy wherever he goes. And it works.
35:32 Speaker 04 Was there any part of you that sees him as a mute, giant man in a diaper? And is like, I can fix him.
35:39 Amanda Dobbins? No, um, I don't know if I could fix him.
35:42 Speaker 04 Yeah.
35:43 Amanda Dobbins? I'm, you know, I've matured past that. You know, I, I, you can never fix, you can only meet them where they are.
35:49 Sean Fennessey? Would you agree to be made his undead companion as he demands at the end of the film?
35:54 Amanda Dobbins? No, because he seems pretty unhappy.
35:56 Sean Fennessey? You have bride energy, though.
35:58 Amanda Dobbins? Do I?
35:59 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, Elsa, Lanchester bride energy.
36:01 Amanda Dobbins? Not, not like, being a bride at a wedding. I famously hated that.
36:05 Sean Fennessey? No, you don't have that energy. No, you have, I am a shrieking undead monster.
36:10 Amanda Dobbins? Okay, that's fine with me. But it just, it does seem like a long time to just go around. Like, he seems pretty uncomfortable.
36:19 Sean Fennessey? You mean forever?
36:20 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, you know?
36:21 Sean Fennessey? He is indestructible.
36:21 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
36:22 Sean Fennessey? Is this Frankenstein a little too powerful?
36:25 Speaker 04 You, you want a power set him?
36:27 Sean Fennessey? He has Captain America's powers. I mean, he is indestructible, he can take bullets.
36:31 Amanda Dobbins? Right.
36:31 Sean Fennessey? He's pushing a ship all by himself to lose it free. I don't know.
36:36 Amanda Dobbins? Is Captain America more powerful than Superman?
36:38 Sean Fennessey? No.
36:39 Amanda Dobbins? Okay, why did you invoke Captain America instead of Superman?
36:42 Sean Fennessey? Well, I think you could probably burn the creature to death.
36:45 Amanda Dobbins? Can you? Well, he's, well, I guess he escaped the fire.
36:49 Sean Fennessey? I think he wouldn't heal.
36:50 Speaker 04 But he literally catches on fire and says, I feel my flesh regrowing.
36:54 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, but if he, if you burned him out before it could regenerate. Maybe. I feel like this guy's indestructible.
37:00 Amanda Dobbins? So we learned a lot.
37:02 Sean Fennessey? That's just magic.
37:03 Amanda Dobbins? Improv to Science Corner. Improv to Science Corner.
37:06 Speaker 05 Welcome to Amanda Doppens's Science Corner.
37:14 Amanda Dobbins? So we learn that there's some sort of electricity that they gotta plug into the double lymphatic system, which is just above the heart and you're going in through the spine.
37:26 Sean Fennessey? Yes, correct.
37:27 Amanda Dobbins? So you gotta short circuit the electricity.
37:30 Sean Fennessey? Uh huh.
37:31 Amanda Dobbins? Where was the electricity coming from?
37:34 Sean Fennessey? Lightning.
37:35 Amanda Dobbins? Lightning.
37:36 Sean Fennessey? They harness the lightning.
37:37 Amanda Dobbins? So.
37:38 Sean Fennessey? This is how it happens in every Frankenstein film.
37:40 Amanda Dobbins? I think I went to the bathroom.
37:41 Sean Fennessey? Twice? This is the most epic set piece of the film.
37:44 Amanda Dobbins? You think, I sure, it's just like really dark in there. And I was like, this sucks. You know, and I was like, that looks like wicked.
37:50 Sean Fennessey? When he gets into a dispute with Christoph Waltz's character. Yes. He, Christoph Waltz attempts to steal one of the tools that's going to attach that allows the electricity to run a current into the corpse's body.
38:01 Amanda Dobbins? Right.
38:01 Sean Fennessey? One of those tools, one of those prongs falls on the ground and bends.
38:06 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
38:06 Sean Fennessey? It bends ever so slightly to the right.
38:08 Amanda Dobbins? Yep. Okay.
38:10 Sean Fennessey? And when it's retrieved and screwed on, you see that somehow this tool, it's all very fallacy, doesn't totally work properly.
38:19 Amanda Dobbins? No.
38:19 Sean Fennessey? And because of this bend, this has somehow given the monster the powers of immortality.
38:24 Amanda Dobbins? I think that's a limited experience in a limited worldview, but anyway.
38:29 Sean Fennessey? What do you mean?
38:30 Amanda Dobbins? I'm just saying, you know, let it go, continue.
38:32 Sean Fennessey? Okay. I, the monster's very powerful in all of the stories.
38:38 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
38:39 Sean Fennessey? Has superhuman strength and everything, but he is legit a superhero. He is a superhero.
38:43 Amanda Dobbins? But I actually. So you don't think that if you caught the lightning again and like, you know, short circuited the lymphatic system?
38:52 Amanda Dobbins? I've sat through a lot of science in this movie, so now we're gonna discuss it.
38:56 Sean Fennessey? Honestly, the science is one of the best parts. The models, the like, the designs, again, like, the lymphatic notes.
39:01 Amanda Dobbins? I just am like, probably you could reverse the current if you had the right tools.
39:06 Sean Fennessey? Are you a physicist?
39:08 Amanda Dobbins? I wasn't very good at physics. Too theoretical.
39:12 Sean Fennessey? So, as you know, some of my heritage is Swiss.
39:16 Amanda Dobbins? We know. Every World Cup, we hear about it.
39:18 Sean Fennessey? This film features a bunch of Swiss people. This is very much what Swiss people are like. Swiss people are like, I know what the answer is. Like, they're just quite sure that they know how the lymphatic system will be re-energized with the current. And, uh, I'd like to salute them for acknowledging the Swiss for their hubris collectively. What else do you want to say about this movie? What else do you like about it?
39:37 Speaker 04 How much can we talk about, like, the ending ending?
39:39 Sean Fennessey? Well, let's put a, let's put a casing around it and say if you don't want to hear the end, I mean, it's Frankenstein. It's not that different from Frankenstein.
39:45 Speaker 04 It is a little different than Frankenstein. I would say one of the departures is changing it from the normal kind of climactic end of Frankenstein, in which, yes, the creature survives, to one in which the message of it ultimately is around forgiveness, right? And this is where the idea of him being superpowered, I think, is kind of compelling. A lot of Guillermo del Toro stuff treats eternal life as like an unbelievable curse, an incredible burden. And if you were burdened with eternal life, one of the great burdens would be forgiving every asshole, whoever does you wrong, including your kind of father who cobbled you together from respective corpses. And so you can see, like, the interest in telling a story about, like, the larger human
40:24 Speaker 04 command being to forgive. If you are tasked with living forever, the greatest thing you could do would be to forgive the people who have wronged you. And I think, I think that it's a moving sentiment that maybe doesn't quite get all the way there.
40:36 Sean Fennessey? To me, I read the very ending as, again, a somewhat simple-minded echo of something that Victor says to the monster earlier in the film, which is when he is exposed to sunlight.
40:47 Speaker 04 Yeah.
40:48 Sean Fennessey? He says, "Sunlight, go into the sun. Sun gives you life." When the movie ends, he's pushed the ship off, they take off on their journey, and he stands alone in the sunlight. And now, he's a creature that has life.
40:59 Speaker 04 Yeah.
41:00 Sean Fennessey? That's fine. That's like a little hallmark for me.
41:03 Amanda Dobbins? Where are they getting the brains? Like, is, are they wholesale or are they piecing together his brain?
41:08 Sean Fennessey? You mean, like, are they getting them from Ralph's or?
41:10 Amanda Dobbins? No, no, no. Is it like?
41:12 Speaker 04 Is it a Whole Foods situation?
41:13 Amanda Dobbins? Well, I'd like to know, I'd like to, I'm trying to understand his memory and functions.
41:17 Speaker 04 Trader Joe's brain is incredible.
41:18 Sean Fennessey? The frozen ones, come on.
41:20 Amanda Dobbins? Are they just taking a wholesale brain from some guy in the war?
41:24 Speaker 04 Yes.
41:24 Sean Fennessey? Because Christoph Waltz wanted it to be his brain.
41:26 Speaker 04 He wants it to be his brain.
41:27 Amanda Dobbins? Right, so why doesn't he have the brain of someone, you know, of that guy? Why doesn't he have those memories?
41:34 Speaker 04 I don't know how the human soul works, I gotta say.
41:37 Sean Fennessey? I don't know, you just circled back to Science Corner here, you know. Again, Science Corner is about asking or answering questions.
41:43 Amanda Dobbins? I said it's a robust dialogue.
41:44 Speaker 04 Okay.
41:45 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
41:45 Speaker 04 This is the scientific method at work. We're not coming in saying this is what Tylenol does to you. We're saying we're gonna try to prove it through science.
41:52 Amanda Dobbins? We're all gonna put on wigs like those people sitting in the bleachers when he reanimates people.
41:55 Speaker 04 Hell, yeah.
41:55 Amanda Dobbins? And we're just, we're gonna discuss.
41:57 Speaker 04 Honestly, that would be great content. We have someone standing in the middle of an auditorium, a bunch of bringer staffers around them in powdered wigs, shouting them down, encouraging them, just like a real yay or nay situation based on takes a look.
42:07 Sean Fennessey? I have a note about that sequence, which features the great Ralph Ennis, who I love, one of the great voices in movies. He's very effective in this movie too, as one of the sort of like science judges who's telling the doctor to leave immediately. But what Dr. Frankenstein in that sequence shows them with the, you know, top half of the human, you know, the head and the chest and that functioning hand, when he throws him the ball and that corpse catches that ball, everybody in that room, in what is the story taking place, 1855?
42:36 Speaker 04 Yeah.
42:36 Sean Fennessey? Would be like, what? This is the single craziest thing that has happened in the history of the world, that this man revived a body and made it react? And these three old men, I understand that they would be afraid.
42:50 Speaker 04 Yes.
42:50 Sean Fennessey? And that there is something against God in the work.
42:53 Speaker 04 Undoubtedly.
42:53 Sean Fennessey? But to just like scuttle it and be like, we'll never talk of this again? The craziest thing that has happened in the history of civilization?
42:59 Speaker 04 Yep.
43:00 Sean Fennessey? You guys buy that?
43:01 Amanda Dobbins? You sound a little bit like a tech bro defending AI right now, just like to put it on record.
43:05 Speaker 04 He's changing the world.
43:07 Sean Fennessey? That's not, that's not very nice. That's not how I feel about AI at all. Okay. I think that this movie, what you said earlier is very true, which is that despite our many complaints and grouchy attitude about this, people do like this movie and they would have gone to see it. It probably would have been, I don't know about a massive hit, but it would have been successful.
43:27 Speaker 04 Something.
43:28 Sean Fennessey? I also saw it in a movie theater yesterday at the Chinese, which is a huge room, the IMAX theater at the Chinese theater. And it was about three quarters full in the afternoon on a Wednesday?
43:41 Amanda Dobbins? Los Angeles is a unique town.
43:42 Speaker 04 Absolutely so.
43:44 Sean Fennessey? I thought it played well with the crowd, not great, but I'd like to tell you a crazy story. I sat down, I got there a little early for the movie. And I sat in the front row of the upper section so that I could stretch my legs as much as I wanted. And watched-
43:58 Speaker 04 Just the height of privilege for you.
43:59 Sean Fennessey? Yes, truly. I watched the previews and then just as the film was starting, a very tall person walked past me to sit down two seats next to me. This person was wearing a black hoodie and boots and it was Jacob Elordi.
44:13 Speaker 04 Wow.
44:14 Sean Fennessey? And I had some-
44:15 Amanda Dobbins? Honestly-
44:16 Sean Fennessey? I had some reservations about sharing this because I don't want to put this guy on Front Street.
44:20 Speaker 04 Sure. I thought for certain you were gonna say LeBron James.
44:23 Sean Fennessey? No. And, and, and I had really nothing else to say, other than he watched this movie and he seemed to admire Oscar Isaac's performance. Because he was like, kind of like laughing at some key moments.
44:32 Speaker 04 Yes.
44:33 Sean Fennessey? But it was fascinating to be watching the movie, sitting beside the monster.
44:38 Speaker 04 Wow.
44:39 Sean Fennessey? And I felt a little uncomfortable.
44:42 Sean Fennessey? And it also was like, it was humanizing, you know?
44:44 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
44:45 Sean Fennessey? He's an artist. I just saw this morning some images of him taking photos out of costume during the production of the movie. Because, you know, one, I think he's an aspiring photographer, and two, he obviously was kind of blown away by the world that they had created.
44:57 Speaker 04 Yeah.
44:58 Sean Fennessey? And it gave me like, maybe a little bit more empathy for the, the process of this film.
45:04 Amanda Dobbins? Did he have a bag with him?
45:06 Sean Fennessey? I don't know.
45:07 Amanda Dobbins? God, it's just, all of these experiences are wasted on you.
45:10 Sean Fennessey? I mean, I was sitting in the dark.
45:11 Amanda Dobbins? Still, I think he would be able to spot the potato, you know? Oh, okay, that's good.
45:16 Sean Fennessey? He ate popcorn.
45:17 Amanda Dobbins? Right, I mean, it's fine.
45:19 Sean Fennessey? He was very polite when he walked past me to go to the restroom.
45:22 Amanda Dobbins? Okay, great.
45:22 Speaker 04 I realize this is the social clip that's getting pulled from this episode. It's just you saying, "I saw Jacob Elordi one time and he ate popcorn." And people want that. That's, this is the catnip.
45:32 Sean Fennessey? But I didn't just see him, I saw him during the film Franken-dod.
45:35 Amanda Dobbins? I like how that now you're like, "Well, I sat there because I wanted to stretch my legs out because I too am tall like Jacob Elordi." I know, I, yeah, nice try. Well, you're not as tall as Jacob Elordi.
45:45 Sean Fennessey? I'm not as tall as Jacob Elordi, but I'm tall enough to need to stretch my legs. I'm not even as tall as Rob Mahoney.
45:50 Amanda Dobbins? Right.
45:50 Sean Fennessey? We're doing our best, the tall guys of America.
45:52 Speaker 04 We truly are. It's our burden, you know?
45:54 Sean Fennessey? Yes. So anyway, I just thought I would share that.
45:57 Amanda Dobbins? Okay. That's nice. That's very sweet that he wanted to do that. Yeah.
46:00 Sean Fennessey? I was wondering how many times, if at all, he had seen it. Of course, he's been to the premiere of the film, but you know, a lot of filmmakers and actors can't watch their work or don't want to see themselves on screen.
46:11 Amanda Dobbins? They tend to, they're front and center, so they don't leave. So if you're there at the premiere, you're there for it.
46:16 Sean Fennessey? He might have had the same mentality that I had, and I assume you had too, which is like, I want to see this on the big screen before I can't see it on the big screen anymore.
46:24 Speaker 00 This episode is brought to you by Nasa Energy. Every ounce of dirt, sweat and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised, every lap, every race, every hard fought place. They're all jammed inside every can of Nasa Energy. High performance energy for burning the midnight oil in the garage and pedal to the metal human horsepower for the streets. Go ahead, crack open a can of Nasa Energy and get after it.
46:47 Sean Fennessey? Awards chances. Now, Rob, on the show-
46:50 Amanda Dobbins? It's like 4,000.
46:52 Sean Fennessey? In recent weeks, we have been noting that it's been rising in the estimation of festival goers and seemingly some voting bodies.
47:00 Speaker 04 Yeah.
47:01 Sean Fennessey? We've kind of firmly planted it right smack in the middle of our Best Picture power rankings for Best Picture. I know you're not an expert, but you're assuming that this movie is going to make it into Best Picture?
47:10 Speaker 04 On a gut level, that still sounds surprising to me.
47:13 Sean Fennessey? Why do you say that?
47:14 Speaker 04 I don't know. Like, I guess, to me, it is so like mid-level Del Toro. It does have an audience, but is it going to be enough of an awardsy audience and that kind of pull? And ultimately, I think whether it gets in is going to depend more on how the Allardy performance in particular sits with people. And if that's one that people are championing and feels like something that is rising to the top of the pile, then all of a sudden Frankenstein just gets into the mix in a totally different way.
47:39 Sean Fennessey? What do you think at this point?
47:40 Amanda Dobbins? I think there's a huge amount of affection for Del Toro, and there's a huge admiration for all of the production design and costume design and physical work that did go into this movie. So despite the CGI of it all, I think you'll have below the line, you know, categories stacking up. And that will, that kind of brings the movie to more people's attention. Film, it's getting, you know, audience favorite awards at festivals. Jacob Allardy is pretty good and also has a significant following of, you know, me and many other people.
48:11 Sean Fennessey? He's a good person you want to see at the Academy Awards. You want to see a young star like him at the Academy Awards.
48:16 Amanda Dobbins? So- I am just because of the weird Best Picture year, which we say every year now. There's no, there's no normal year. But the weird Netflix slate, where it's just, it's a little early and it's hard to see how it's gonna shake out, but they've got House of Dynamite, they've got J. Kelly, they've got Frankenstein, and they've got Train Dreams, which I'm gonna see this weekend. And it's, this seems like the grabbiest at this point.
48:45 Sean Fennessey? I agree with that. So, let's talk about Best Supporting Actor.
48:49 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
48:51 Sean Fennessey? Very interesting slate of potential nominees here. We've got Benicio del Toro for One Battle After Another. Banger. Adam Sandler for J. Kelly. We've got Delroy Lindo for Sinners.
49:02 Amanda Dobbins? Mm-hmm.
49:02 Sean Fennessey? We've got Stellan Skarsgård for Sentimental Value. We've got Sean Penn for One Battle After Another.
49:06 Amanda Dobbins? Right.
49:06 Sean Fennessey? We've got Paul Meskell for Hamlet.
49:08 Amanda Dobbins? Oh, yeah.
49:09 Sean Fennessey? It's a loaded category.
49:10 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah. Yeah.
49:11 Sean Fennessey? And if you wanna throw Miles Keaton in from Sinners 2, you can do that as well. Sure. Deserving. If you wanna throw Jeremy Strong in for Springsteen, maybe don't do that.
49:19 Sean Fennessey? That is...
49:23 Sean Fennessey? It's gonna be, not be easy for Alordi to get in.
49:25 Amanda Dobbins? No.
49:26 Sean Fennessey? I think there has to be a really strong appreciation for him, cuz I feel like at this point...
49:33 Sean Fennessey? I feel strongly about Sean Penn and Benicio. I feel strongly about Sandler, even though he's never been nominated before. And I'd feel strongly about Stellan Skarsgård. That fifth spot is kinda where he would go. And Delroy Lindo was overlooked for The Five Bloods recently. Maybe there's a sense that he needs to be recognized before it's too late. He's so fabulous in Sinners 2. He's really great. Great. They need to run a really good campaign for him, I think, for that to work out. So you're saying Alordi needs to run a campaign? Did it ever occur to you that he followed you into that theater? And was like, you know what? I need to get a little word of mouth going. I need to get a little goodwill. It's very sweet of you to say. I'm just saying. I think we all know that that's not true. If in fact he has a chance there, then you do need to see Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling,
50:18 Sean Fennessey? score, visual effects, even if you don't like it, it's in play.
50:23 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah. Okay.
50:24 Sean Fennessey? Editing, maybe if there's a ton of support. Director, if there's an overwhelming amount of support. As you said, he has a lot of friends and has really liked. And he does a thing, when I saw Nosferatu last year, he conducted the Q and A with.
50:40 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, he's the champion.
50:41 Sean Fennessey? Yes.
50:41 Speaker 04 Yeah, he's the ombudsman of horror, basically. And I guess anything kind of horror adjacent.
50:45 Sean Fennessey? Yes, so I won't be surprised if this ends up getting six or seven or eight nominations, honestly.
50:52 Speaker 04 Well, the design makeup stuff is a lock, I would think.
50:54 Sean Fennessey? I totally agree. As far as where he's at, so he's now made his fable, his vampire movie, his kaiju movie, his Gothic romance, two comic book films, his noir, his Universal monster movie, another Universal monster movie, his Pinocchio, and his ghost story. He's kind of touched all sides of the Dungeons and Dragons die of genre filmmaking. I mean, he really has explored kind of the farthest reaches. And one thing that I have been a little bit disappointed by, even though I really liked Nightmare Alley, is it's been a long time since he's made an original movie.
51:33 Speaker 04 Yeah.
51:33 Sean Fennessey? And I feel like he's a little lost in the sauce and not leaning into what really animates him. Like, the guy who made Cronos and Devil's Backbone, like, I want to see that guy.
51:45 Amanda Dobbins? Sure.
51:46 Speaker 04 Well, and Pan's Labyrinth. Like, that's his masterpiece, as far as I'm concerned. And that's like, that's an original tale that doesn't feel original. I would also love to see him make something contemporary for the first time in like 20 years. Like, everything is period all the time. And I know you love, again, like, a Victorian manner and a certain kind of like buttoned up dress. And you want like the butterflies and the moths everywhere? Like, that's cool, but can we do something set in the present day?
52:09 Amanda Dobbins? No, it is hard to have original ideas. You're describing things that he had when he was younger. And I think that there is something to the idea he's been wanting to make this movie his whole career. And because he couldn't, and/or for whatever reason, he got forced into other ways to interpret it. The projects that you wait forever for
52:31 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
52:32 Amanda Dobbins? are sometimes a little labored. And so, you know, I don't know. He's done a lot. Give him credit for that. But like, I agree. I mean, I don't, I don't want another monster movie. I'm sure I'll get one.
52:43 Speaker 04 There's going to be a monster in it.
52:44 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah. The monster is us.
52:46 Speaker 04 I mean, every time, no matter what.
52:49 Sean Fennessey? The movie of his that I have always longed for is At the Mountains of Madness, which is a H.P. Lovecraft adaptation that he was going to make in the 2000s with Tom Cruise. It is like an epic cosmic horror monster movie that would have been on the same scale as Pacific Rim, but would have been more of a period kind of adventure story. That also is not original, but it would have been a little bit outside of the realm of a lot of the stuff that he's been doing in the last few years. You know, I want the best for him.
53:19 Speaker 04 I do, too.
53:20 Sean Fennessey? I hope he's happy, and he shouldn't take any notes from me. He should do whatever he wants, but it's just something that I'm saying that I want.
53:25 Speaker 04 Well, I do think we zeroed in on it, which is if we thought of the film more favorably, then the through lines would feel different. It would feel like something that's like part of a scholarly text of it. Like, the line from Nightmare Alley to Pinocchio to here, you can see the daddy issues, you can see the interest in investigating like, you know, post-war or simultaneous war implications. Like, all that stuff is kind of there in a way that is interesting. And this just feels like, to me, between the three of those, like, kind of the relative dud at the end of the line. But there's an arc there that I can see what he's driven by and see what he's interested in. And maybe that arc has closed, and now we're on to something new and something interesting in a way that, like, at a certain point in time, Pacific Rim felt like a huge departure. And that, like, that movie is like as good as that kind of movie as you can make.
54:08 Sean Fennessey? See, to me, that was like his attempt and success at like a general crowd-pleasing blockbuster.
54:14 Speaker 04 I was very pleased.
54:14 Sean Fennessey? It was like a summer movie, and there's big robots and monsters, and he's having fun. And it was effective. They didn't have the weight of expectation and artistry that comes with a Frankenstein. Just give me five minutes to talk about the Frankenstein movie, okay?
54:28 Amanda Dobbins? You go, girl.
54:28 Sean Fennessey? So there have been so many of these kinds of movies over the years. And even right now, there is an animated film that I have not seen that is in theaters called Stitch Head, which is just a riff on the Frankenstein story because it's Halloween time.
54:42 Speaker 04 Yeah.
54:43 Sean Fennessey? In March, Maggie Gyllenhaal's movie, The Bride, comes out. Christian Bale is playing the monster.
54:48 Speaker 04 Yep.
54:49 Sean Fennessey? Jessie Buckley. Moments before grabbing her first Academy Award will be appearing as the bride. I think the best Frankenstein movies is pretty consistently usually a boring list. Because the original whale film and then his follow up, The Bride of Frankenstein is often cited as like the best and the most important and are taught in film schools the world over and still work if you show them to a seven year old, they're still effective, they're still scary, they still have this incredible sense of atmosphere that is undeniable. And then Hammer films from England, the best one I think is The Curse of Frankenstein. New Warner Brothers archive 4K out there. You gonna check it out?
55:28 Amanda Dobbins? Good job. Congratulations.
55:30 Sean Fennessey? Flesh for Frankenstein, Paul Morrissey's adaptation. I know Rob's seen it, he's a fan. It's really good. It's sort of a double Frankenstein story, a man and a woman are simultaneously revived.
55:40 Speaker 04 This movie could have used a little more flesh for Frankenstein. Like you have to let the monster and Victor be depraved. Like the best way Amanda to harness the lightning is to let the freak flag fly. Like you gotta really raise it up there and let these guys be weirder and weirdly enough for Guillermo.
55:56 Amanda Dobbins? You know what I was thinking about during this movie yesterday? Do you remember there was sort of a frankly disrespectful meme format about five to 10 years ago when someone would die, a notable person would die, everyone would treat like so and so taught me how to be weird. And this is sort of like Frankenstein taught me how to be weird, the movie. I just, you know, and there we go. I also just scrolled down on your list and there's an X-Files episode on here, so I'm gonna need you to.
56:23 Sean Fennessey? I'm gonna get to that.
56:23 Amanda Dobbins? That's okay. Let's just, let's keep it moving.
56:28 Sean Fennessey? Two quick ones. Depraved is Larry Fessenden's reimagining of this where a US soldier who dies is revived. This is a very clever take on it. I did watch Mary Shelley's Frankenstein this morning, the Kenneth Branagh adaptation with Robert De Niro as the monster. A fascinating piece of movie history because the script that Frank Darabont wrote for that before he went on to make The Shawshank Redemption is considered one of the great movie scripts and one of the great adaptations in movie history and Kenneth Branagh kind of fucked it. And Guillermo del Toro himself said, I read that script and that made me want to make Frank's movie, his vision for the movie. The version that we got is like way operatic and crazy. And Brana is like shirtless through half of it and is like really showing off those abs.
57:13 Sean Fennessey? Not a successful movie. Interesting movie.
57:14 Speaker 04 The list of movies that Kenneth Branagh kind of fucked is.
57:17 Amanda Dobbins? Listen, I mean, this is like right during the Emma Thompson, Helen Bottom Carter of it all. It's just, it's not what you want.
57:25 Sean Fennessey? Helen Bottom Carter featured prominently in Frankenstein.
57:28 Speaker 04 Can't imagine why.
57:29 Sean Fennessey? Okay. To me, Frankenstein is better for the inspired by movies. So very quickly a list. Edward Scissorhands is Frankenstein. The Spirit of the Beehive, the great Spanish film is all about young kids seeing Frankenstein and then being changed forever. Robocop is Frankenstein.
57:46 Speaker 04 Yeah.
57:46 Sean Fennessey? The Rocky Horror Picture Show is Frankenstein. Phantom of the Paradise, De Palma's movie, Frankenstein. Re-Animator, one of the greatest horror movies ever, Frankenstein. Poor Things just came out recently.
57:56 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
57:56 Sean Fennessey? Frankenstein. Gods and Monsters, the biopic about James Whale, Frankenstein. Gothic, the Ken Russell movie about a bunch of horror writers getting together and scaring each other, Frankenstein. The X-Files, the postmodern Prometheus.
58:07 Amanda Dobbins? I see what they did there.
58:08 Sean Fennessey? Of the X-Files, I think.
58:10 Speaker 04 It's a legendary episode.
58:11 Sean Fennessey? Black and white episode.
58:12 Speaker 04 Super funny.
58:13 Sean Fennessey? Features tons of riffs from the Whale movie.
58:15 Speaker 04 Yes.
58:15 Sean Fennessey? Really good.
58:16 Speaker 04 I mean, it's like, what if there were a version of Frankenstein that were obsessed with Cher? And could you save him by taking him to see Cher live? That is the, that's the textual plot of the episode.
58:25 Amanda Dobbins? I appreciate that.
58:26 Sean Fennessey? Yeah. Frankenstein is also ripe for comedy.
58:29 Amanda Dobbins? Mm hmm.
58:29 Sean Fennessey? Young Frankenstein, the Mel Brooks movie, one of the funniest movies ever made.
58:32 Speaker 04 Frankenstein, but okay.
58:33 Sean Fennessey? Frankenstein, thank you. Frankenhooker, have you seen that, Amanda?
58:36 Amanda Dobbins? No, but you have talked about it many times.
58:38 Sean Fennessey? It's about a prostitute.
58:39 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
58:40 Sean Fennessey? Who is killed in a lawnmower accident and then revived.
58:44 Speaker 04 Why are you talking about this so many times?
58:46 Sean Fennessey? It's an interesting film. Weird Science, also kind of in the Frankenhooker zone. Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein.
58:51 Amanda Dobbins? Knox and I have seen this.
58:53 Sean Fennessey? Oh.
58:53 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, we, because they were showing it in like an academy museum.
58:56 Sean Fennessey? Was he scared of the monster?
58:57 Amanda Dobbins? No, he was laughing. He like, he picked up on the funniest.
59:00 Sean Fennessey? It's good. It's funny.
59:00 Amanda Dobbins? It was, I think it was last year, so it was before he had learned that things are scary.
59:04 Sean Fennessey? Yes, we'll do that now too.
59:05 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
59:06 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
59:06 Amanda Dobbins? But, um, no, loved it. It was great.
59:08 Sean Fennessey? And Tim Burton, again, Frankenweenie is a very overt riff on this.
59:13 Sean Fennessey? Frankenstein is forever. This Frankenstein? We'll see. Yeah, we'll see. So let's talk about Die My Love, which is, is it a movie about monsters?
59:24 Sean Fennessey? Amanda, I ask you.
59:25 Amanda Dobbins? It's a movie about the process of creation and creating a life.
59:28 Sean Fennessey? Undoubtedly. Absolutely true. We have inadvertently thematically nailed this episode. So this is the new film from Lynn Ramsey. It stars Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, Lakeith Stanfield, Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek. Perhaps you've heard of those actors. It is about a young couple who moved from New York to Montana. I guess they're in search of a quieter life. They are about to be parents. Are they parents already when they arrive? It's kind of flickering across the spectrum, I think.
59:52 Amanda Dobbins? She might be pregnant, but you know, things are not really communicated in a... They're literal, but plot details are sparse.
1:00:01 Sean Fennessey? Yes, this is not a traditional literal narrative film. It is very much a film about experience. And in this film, we see the relationship between this couple. They have a child. And then everything that unfurls from there. So I will start with you, Amanda.
1:00:15 Amanda Dobbins? Thank you so much.
1:00:16 Sean Fennessey? What did you think of Die My Love?
1:00:18 Amanda Dobbins? I think as we near the end of the year, that this is one of my favorite movies of the year. It is catered directly to me. In fact, I saw a woman outside of a different screening. Jack and I ran into each other after I saw Die My Love and they, and he was there for something else. And someone overheard, hey, I just heard you saw Die My Love. And I, what'd you think? And I said, I loved it, but I am also 11 months postpartum at this moment. Hilariously, I also went on a date with my husband. So we were sitting there watching this couple in a very serious, similar and serious phase of life, go through these experiences. And I have a pretty fraught relationship with like mom culture, not just mom movies, but mom books and mom.
1:01:02 Sean Fennessey? Mommy emails.
1:01:03 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, just like mommy emails, mama.
1:01:06 Sean Fennessey? Can I just tell you?
1:01:06 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:01:07 Sean Fennessey? Hang in there, mom.
1:01:09 Amanda Dobbins? But not even just the like, you got this mama bullshit. But like, there have been a lot of novels and like quote unquote, attempts at like, high art to talk about what it is to be a mother. And I seldom connect. That's probably a me thing. I'm not a joiner, but I just, they don't, well, they, they speak to someone else's experiences, not to mine. And for everything that is like similar about a large percentage of this world population, everybody has a different experience. This spoke to me. This is about, it is about the weird and terrifying experience of postpartum. It is about depression.
1:01:53 Amanda Dobbins? It is about postpartum depression. It's like, you know, it is the things separate and apart. And I think if you've experienced one, you'll relate to some of it. If you've experienced both, you'll relate to it more. But I found the, like, the vignettes and the presentation of this phase of life and like new life, essentially, to be just so accurate of all of the emotions and just wildly weird dissociative, isolating feelings that go on in this moment. I found it like very funny. Both my husband and I were like laughing a lot and like shout out to him for going and
1:02:37 Amanda Dobbins? being like, yeah, that was good because Robert Pattinson is portrayed just like a really, you know, he's basically not there. And that's part of the thing, and I think he does a great job in it. But so I, I thought it was, like, I'll stop talking. Did you guys like it?
1:02:55 Speaker 04 I'll let you go, Rob. I spent most of this movie wanting to throw up.
1:02:59 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:03:00 Speaker 04 And I loved it. Loved every second of it. I mean, it's like, it is very my shit in that experiential, like, impressionistic kind of way. And I think it gets at something, like, it's so weird that this and If I Had Legs I'd Kick You are coming out so close together.
1:03:15 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:03:16 Speaker 04 Because they're both kind of reaching for something similar, both really effectively. But it gets into this like very primal thing that... Like, there's a part of all of us that is hanging the wallpaper and baking the cake and trying to participate in society. And then there is the voice at the back of your head that just is telling you to run into the woods and never look back. And my understanding, again, very secondhand, is that postpartum mothers maybe experience that like more acutely than basically anyone else.
1:03:41 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:03:42 Speaker 04 And so like, turning that into this very visceral feeling over the course of this movie is just overwhelmingly effective.
1:03:49 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, I think it's a pretty great movie. It's very much in the tradition of all of Lynn Ramsey's movies, which are about these experiences of like profound alienation and feeling completely disconnected and unable to really like be seen and understood, right? Jennifer Lawrence's character in this movie is experiencing something that millions of mothers experience, but that feeling is like, why can't anyone understand how I feel right now? And why won't they accept how I feel as being normal?
1:04:18 Amanda Dobbins? Right.
1:04:19 Sean Fennessey? And that is a really hard thing to translate into a film. And it's really interesting that, you know, you said the Mary Bronstein's movie, this is even in One Battle After Another, the Perfidly Beverly Hills character expresses this. And there have been a lot of movies about the challenges of motherhood. What was the Amy Adams film that we talked about on the show?
1:04:35 Speaker 04 Night Bitch. It's just impossible to watch this and not think about Night Bitch.
1:04:39 Sean Fennessey? I know, which is like...
1:04:40 Amanda Dobbins? So funny, I did not think about Night Bitch once, even though you guys had a great episode.
1:04:43 Sean Fennessey? I appreciate that.
1:04:44 Amanda Dobbins? And I did think that Night Bitch portrayed some of like the difficulties of having a toddler in like, I've been there and I see it sort of way.
1:04:53 Sean Fennessey? But that movie was more about a certain vision of parenting, maybe, than... Because I don't see this movie as entirely about motherhood. I feel like it's much more about the female psychology, like the expressions of it, because she does spend time mothering her child in the film.
1:05:10 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:05:11 Sean Fennessey? But I wouldn't say that that is like the thrust, that like it's much more about the ways in which she is seeking like relief from her experiences or like, and the movie very complicatedly explores what is like a desire dream, what is a nightmare, and then what is the practical reality of what is happening to me? And it's not really too worried about you understanding which is which at any given time in the film.
1:05:37 Amanda Dobbins? Right, which I think the implication is that she also doesn't totally know. I mean, I think that it communicates a very specific feeling postpartum, which is that...
1:05:50 Amanda Dobbins? You are like physically and emotionally tied to this other thing that was was was you.
1:05:58 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
1:05:58 Amanda Dobbins? And that you did create. I mean, it is about like the consequences of creation. And now it exists.
1:06:05 Sean Fennessey? It's like when your baby looks at you and says, you are the monster.
1:06:08 Amanda Dobbins? But now it exists outside of you, but but still there's like there, there are still physical, like biological and emotional connections.
1:06:17 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
1:06:17 Amanda Dobbins? That are and and things that are messing with your head and your body that are like of you, but are also completely separate and and sort of random and come from nowhere. And so one minute you can be like really happy and then you are very angry and then you're very stressed out and then and then and you like love this baby, but also like you're you feel like you're gonna throw up because you don't know what to do about it. And it like it really like is dissociative. That's the only way that I can describe the experience and it feels like it is coming from from somewhere else, like the call is not coming from inside the house, even though it is. And I thought that this the disconnected
1:07:00 Amanda Dobbins? style of this movie and also like the very feral.
1:07:04 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
1:07:04 Amanda Dobbins? Physical performances like really communicate that kind of person who's lost, not just in her body, but in the world.
1:07:13 Sean Fennessey? Yes.
1:07:13 Amanda Dobbins? Um, and and and how much of it is animalistic, like it really is.
1:07:19 Sean Fennessey? Totally.
1:07:19 Amanda Dobbins? It's so fucked up. The whole experience is so.
1:07:22 Sean Fennessey? This is the thing. Yeah.
1:07:23 Amanda Dobbins? I mean, I guess it's like amazing or whatever, like mama, look what you did, but like also.
1:07:28 Sean Fennessey? You did, girl.
1:07:28 Amanda Dobbins? I know, but but it is, but it's just, it is really, you feel like you're in a nature documentary, you know?
1:07:35 Sean Fennessey? It's not a miracle, you're a miracle.
1:07:36 Amanda Dobbins? It just, it's, it feels so, um, it's, it is really, really bizarre. So I loved it. I found myself a little disappointed when it got more literal.
1:07:47 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
1:07:48 Amanda Dobbins? And I mean, this is a person with like serious postpartum depression, uh, which is real and also which I had. So, you know, like, and it happens to many people and there's no shame around it. And also getting help is really good. But I found that once the character like is hospitalized and they pin down like, this is what's going on here. And this is, it's less a statement of fact and more like something to be solved.
1:08:11 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
1:08:12 Amanda Dobbins? Which I guess like is. That's what we want in life, you know? And like, that's what's good for the character. And I guess is maybe the only like, story arc that's possible, you know? But, and I guess it's a movie, so it has to have a story.
1:08:29 Speaker 04 But it does it? Like, I think that's why.
1:08:31 Amanda Dobbins? I don't think so.
1:08:32 Speaker 04 I struggled with that a little bit, too, just because I feel like it breaks the spell of the movie a little bit. Like, it does ground it in a way that isn't just like uncomfortable, but I feel like it's just kind of spinning its wheels until we can get back to the experiential bits. I, I, I get why it happens logically. Like, I'm sure there are some audiences who would just watch this and think like, why aren't you checking this woman in somewhere?
1:08:52 Amanda Dobbins? Right.
1:08:52 Speaker 04 And I think the movie actually does a good job of that through the lens of Robert Pattinson's character, where yet, that guy is like feckless and absent. And interesting in a way that some of the other analogues in some of these other movies about parenthood, the husbands are not. So like, there's something there. And there are scenes genuinely where it's like, my wife just ran headfirst through a glass door? Like, what am I supposed to do? In a way that is understandable, and yet, I just don't want to see the hospital sequence. I just want to stay with Jennifer Lawrence, because like, everything she's doing in this movie is fucking electric.
1:09:23 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, I definitely want to talk about her and what she brings to this movie. The thing that you're saying, which is like, this movie's attempt to kind of wrangle itself into a narrative film, is a real challenge. There is, we were talking about Frankenstein, there's another 19th century piece of literature that this reminded me of, The Yellow Wallpaper, I'm sure you've read it, that is also very much about kind of like, female alienation, loneliness, and mania. The Bell Jar is about this. Like, there's, there are other, and it's, it's hard to make those stories cinematic, because they're taking place in someone's mind.
1:09:56 Amanda Dobbins? Right.
1:09:57 Sean Fennessey? And this movie, I think, probably gets about as close as you possibly can, because it ha, Lynn Ramsey creates these series of surrealist images of what may or may not be happening inside of this person's head, which is largely effective. We don't know, like, our empathy is with Lawrence, but she's also doing things that we're just like, why did you do that?
1:10:18 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:10:19 Sean Fennessey? And- It makes the movie like, it's not on a track. It's an experience and it's not, if you sit down and if people listen to this show and they're like, oh, new Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson movie? It's like, reset your expectations from what you're going to witness. And I think if you're a mother or a parent or child who has some empathy for this experience, you'll understand it a little bit better. But it is an audacious piece of filmmaking. The story is, is that Martin Scorsese read this book in a book club. And he thought Jennifer Lawrence should play this woman, which is an interesting thing to think.
1:10:52 Amanda Dobbins? Isn't she also in the book club?
1:10:55 Sean Fennessey? I don't think so.
1:10:55 Amanda Dobbins? Oh, she's not?
1:10:56 Sean Fennessey? I don't think so.
1:10:57 Amanda Dobbins? I thought that they were in the book club together.
1:10:58 Sean Fennessey? I think she was contacted by him and said, I just, he said, I just read this book. And I think you should, you should do this. And her production company optioned the book. And I'm just gonna, I gave away some of this when we talked about No Hard Feelings a couple of years ago. But I'm not done a 180 on a performer so dramatically, like probably in my life. In 2015, 14, 13, when she was winning Academy Awards and was the toast of Hollywood. I was very vocally like, this girl is a bumpkin. This, this performance style is no good.
1:11:29 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:11:29 Sean Fennessey? This is not interesting to me at all. This is the most like affected, like older men, like putting a 22 year old in a position and like not protecting her and letting her just be like frivolous and weird. I was pretty mean spirited about it. I don't feel good about that. But I do think that she has transformed herself into an amazing and fearless actor. And she takes parts, now we talked about this with Emma Stone last week on the show. She too is now like, I made The Hunger Games, like I'm good. It's time to try something that is significantly more audacious and, and bold. And she's really great in this movie. And I did not know this until I listened to her on the New York Times interview podcast. But she was pregnant while she made this film. Unbelievable. Which is quite crazy.
1:12:11 Amanda Dobbins? I could tell. But that's only because I, I mean, cause she is like extremely naked. And it was more about the breastfeeding scene where I was just kind of like, what's going on here? And how is this physically possible? And then I was like, oh, that, that must be. But she, I mean, she's just like, she is quite literally tits out, but not in a sexual way. In a, this is like my body is leaking sort of way. And I loved it. She's, it's, there was an Emma Stone quote in the New Yorker piece that I think the Martin Scorsese anecdote comes from. And it's like, there's a. Old dear Anadag, if an actor is onstage with a cat, who are you going to watch, the actor or the cat? The audience would watch the cat, Stone explained,
1:12:56 Amanda Dobbins? because it's going to respond genuinely in the moment, while the actors are still acting. It's that quality, Jen's the cat. I think, I mean, you know, Emma Stone is very good at giving quotes about the nature of acting and other things. But I was like, that is true. She just turns on or like turns off her Jennifer Lawrence and is in the moment of wherever she is in a way that is astounding.
1:13:19 Sean Fennessey? If you listen to her talk on this, well, first of all, Jen's the cat certainly recalls Bill Simmons as Paul George.
1:13:25 Amanda Dobbins? Sure.
1:13:25 Sean Fennessey? Famous, famous line in podcasting. Paul George and Jennifer Lawrence, two 34-year-olds who are transforming their identity every day.
1:13:34 Amanda Dobbins? He's in the garage.
1:13:34 Sean Fennessey? No one in common. It's a great moment.
1:13:40 Sean Fennessey? Don't know where to go from there. Pick me up, where am I supposed to go?
1:13:43 Speaker 04 Um, how about this? You know, I'm gonna go from cat to dog. A dog plays a very prominent part of this movie. I will say, there is a perspective shot moment in which it is not exactly clear who Jennifer Lawrence is pointing a gun at. And the like, physical discomfort in my theater at the prospect that she could be pointing it at this dog, I think taps into some of the power of this movie. Like, there is a very feral place that this movie takes you to. There is Ablaze that is kind of like, not judgmental of Jennifer Lawrence's character, but is making you actively question everything about her. It's completely ugly. And it's like, I don't even know that she's like, losing her grip so much as her grip on like, the person that she thinks she's supposed to be. And so it's like, it's this very fine line.
1:14:27 Speaker 04 It's like, the whole movie's on that razor's edge of challenging you to stay there with it. And it's so good at keeping you there to the point that if you played, "Hey, Mickey," for me in this room right now, I might have a nervous breakdown. Uh, so it's like, there's just like, a Pavlovian thing that happens with this movie that is just incredible.
1:14:42 Sean Fennessey? Some very good needle drops in this film.
1:14:44 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah. Him showing up with the dog is really, really. I like this husband character in the the recent history of unhelpful husbands and absent husbands, which if I had legs, I'd kick you, also does very well.
1:14:59 Sean Fennessey? We never talked about the reveal of who the husband is also in that movie, which is quite good. I don't want to ruin it for anybody who hasn't seen that movie.
1:15:04 Speaker 04 He's doing less. Like Jackson in some ways is absent and in some ways is trying and I don't think is very good at it.
1:15:11 Amanda Dobbins? No, I mean, he should never show up with a surprise dog is just like a free marriage advice from me to you. But um, some of it is that he can't get in to help her either, right? And so he is presented not as, you know, an outdated father or someone who is like checked out, but that there is like, like a barrier between what's going on with her and what's going on with everyone else. And though he would like to help, he just like can't.
1:15:43 Sean Fennessey? He has no idea how to access, how to make her feel better or yeah, he, it's tricky, right? Because the film also, I don't know if you could call the character an unreliable narrator, but we don't actually know what's happening. So like in her mind, she's imagining that maybe he's being unfaithful, but we don't know if that's just a manifestation of her feelings of doubt and like low self-esteem. Or is it actually something that's really happening in the text of the story? And the movie resists, I think that like the neatness, you know? Because it's a time in your life when nothing is neat, right? Every day you're like, fuck, like, I don't know what I'm doing.
1:16:16 Speaker 04 It also doesn't matter, like if her decision-making and actions are being driven by that fear, then the fear is real, right? Like then that's the reality of her situation.
1:16:25 Sean Fennessey? It's a very interesting, accomplished movie. I think it's also pretty smart about um, who your parents are and like what's going on with them.
1:16:34 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:16:34 Sean Fennessey? You know, Nick Nolte and Sissy Spacek and them as like manifestations of their sons' foibles. And then what you're passing down to your children is something I think about all the time. It is like a constant obsession of mine and me thinking about what my parents have given me and how I'm passing it on to another person.
1:16:52 Amanda Dobbins? That's your Frankenstein coming out.
1:16:53 Sean Fennessey? Well, you know, I'm trying to not literalize it. I'm not trying to be the monster.
1:16:57 Speaker 04 What do you think you're passing to this podcast? Like this is your baby too.
1:17:00 Sean Fennessey? That's true. Uh, hopefully. Thoughtful takes.
1:17:04 Speaker 04 Okay.
1:17:04 Sean Fennessey? Yeah. A dollop of sincerity. Some stern authority at times.
1:17:09 Speaker 04 No doubt.
1:17:10 Sean Fennessey? A talking to.
1:17:10 Speaker 04 You'll tell a young Jennifer Lawrence, that's not what you should be doing.
1:17:13 Sean Fennessey? Discipline. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, this is a really interesting film. So this film was picked up at the Cannes Film Festival for quite a large sum by MUBI. I saw the most recent trailer for this movie is pitched as from the studio that brought you The Substance.
1:17:28 Amanda Dobbins? Substance, yeah.
1:17:28 Sean Fennessey? Which feels like maybe not the best way to sell the movie because it's not entirely in the same register, but it does have some thematic cores.
1:17:35 Speaker 04 Yes.
1:17:35 Sean Fennessey? That are similar. And they're releasing this movie wide. We're talking about it now in detail because it's going in like 2,800 theaters. That's pretty bold for what I would call basically an experimental film starring two of the biggest movie stars on earth. And I don't know, I don't think a movie like this is gonna make a lot of money, but that doesn't really matter.
1:17:55 Speaker 04 Not concerned with it. Ultimately, I think the appeal of it being that wide is Jennifer Lawrence is giving not just one of the best performances of her career, but of this year full stop. Like, this is.
1:18:05 Amanda Dobbins? A thousand percent.
1:18:06 Speaker 04 This is an arresting display that I think will catch you and catch you off guard in so many ways. And like, if you could say one, if I would say one negative thing about this movie, it's that it is kind of the one note, right? Like, we're in this state of chaos perpetually, but everything that she's doing is so surprising and keeps you on the edge of your seat to the point where like, I don't even care if that's the one note. Like, just keep giving it to me over and over and I will live in this place because she's demanding that I pay full attention to every movement of her body.
1:18:33 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah. I mean, this is a Lynn Ramsey film about postpartum depression, shot in an impressionistic style. You know, it's, it is true that the people who go to the movie theater because Katniss Everdeen and what's his name? This is like our fifth Twilight reference of this podcast.
1:18:50 Sean Fennessey? Edward.
1:18:50 Amanda Dobbins? Edward, yeah.
1:18:51 Sean Fennessey? Edward Cullen.
1:18:52 Speaker 04 Is that number one on the big countdown? Is it gonna be one of the Twilight?
1:18:56 Amanda Dobbins? Were those this century? I guess they were. They gotta be.
1:18:58 Sean Fennessey? Certainly were, for sure.
1:18:59 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:19:00 Sean Fennessey? You just spoiled Saturday's live show. I'm sorry. How dare you?
1:19:03 Amanda Dobbins? That'd be so awesome.
1:19:04 Sean Fennessey? It's a new moon, right?
1:19:05 Amanda Dobbins? If we just, I was gonna say Breaking Dawn, when Dakota Fanning shows up as one of the Voltery and then that baby, Renesmee.
1:19:12 Sean Fennessey? Renesmee.
1:19:13 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, never forget.
1:19:14 Sean Fennessey? One of the great achievements. Who's Renesmee in Die My Love? I forget. Who played the baby? Could have been. I think it was Renesmee.
1:19:22 Sean Fennessey? Let's do best actress quickly, since we were talking best supporting actress, or supporting actor, I should say. So Jessie Buckley is currently leading the Heisman race.
1:19:31 Amanda Dobbins? Another mom.
1:19:32 Sean Fennessey? Another mom. Renata Renzve in Sentimental Value, another story about your parents fucking you up.
1:19:37 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:19:38 Sean Fennessey? Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You.
1:19:40 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:19:40 Sean Fennessey? Another mom. Cynthia Revo in Wicked for Good, she is of course, mother. And Amanda Seyfried in The Testament of Emily, also mother. Plus, you've got Chase Infiniti. Plus, you've got Emma Stone.
1:19:53 Amanda Dobbins? Whatever, we won't get into spoilers.
1:19:55 Sean Fennessey? Okay.
1:19:58 Sean Fennessey? And I guess you've got Kate Hudson in Song Song Blue, a movie I haven't seen, and Sydney Sweeney and Christie.
1:20:03 Amanda Dobbins? Everyone's trying for Kate Hudson. I think that'll be like a very nice Golden Globes red carpet, you know?
1:20:08 Sean Fennessey? She will be nominated for being musical or comedy, for sure.
1:20:11 Amanda Dobbins? Maybe they'll let her perform and I think that's fine.
1:20:17 Sean Fennessey? You think Jennifer Lawrence is getting in for this movie?
1:20:18 Amanda Dobbins? I don't, and I wish she were.
1:20:20 Sean Fennessey? No.
1:20:20 Amanda Dobbins? I think, I think that Rose Byrne and Jessie Buckley are gonna like lead the mom contingent. And I, I would pick this over Emma Stone in Begonha, but I don't think voters will.
1:20:36 Sean Fennessey? This is heartbreaking to hear.
1:20:37 Amanda Dobbins? I think it's just a little small. It didn't have a great reception at Cannes, even though it was, you know, picked up. And I, I do think it's the best performance of her career, definitely since Mother. And I'm really excited, once all the mommy movies come out, for us to have, you know, moms versus dads. I mean, this episode was it a little bit. And it is, I just...
1:20:59 Speaker 04 Who do you feel like is winning?
1:21:00 Amanda Dobbins? I just think men need to get hobbies, you know, because I like...
1:21:04 Sean Fennessey? I have an extraordinary hobby.
1:21:05 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:21:06 Sean Fennessey? Isn't that one of the great hobbies?
1:21:08 Amanda Dobbins? You guys actually, you can't create life. And so then you just, you know, you make aliens and like create psychological dramas for yourself. And it's like, not that kind of...
1:21:15 Sean Fennessey? What's wrong with that?
1:21:16 Amanda Dobbins? There are other things that are way more complicated than like, oh, did I do a good thing by making this monster? Didn't, will my dad love me now? Like, grow up.
1:21:24 Speaker 04 You won 15 minutes in this movie of Robert Pattinson, like, playing pickleball?
1:21:29 Speaker 04 That would have solved it. Everything's fixed.
1:21:31 Amanda Dobbins? How do we know that he's not? You know, they've got a lot of land.
1:21:34 Speaker 04 He's off camera a lot.
1:21:35 Sean Fennessey? So funny, because before I had a child, I did have a hobby. It was called drinking, and I drank all the time. And I don't really drink that much anymore. So, you know, I've replaced one hobby with life.
1:21:47 Amanda Dobbins? That's, that's beautiful.
1:21:48 Sean Fennessey? That's what it's all about.
1:21:49 Amanda Dobbins? That's beautiful.
1:21:49 Sean Fennessey? Truly.
1:21:50 Amanda Dobbins? And you're holding it together so well, you know?
1:21:52 Sean Fennessey? What do you mean? I feel that I gave a Sterling performance today in the act of movie podcasting. Hey, Rob Mahoney, you're the man. Where can we find you?
1:21:58 Speaker 04 You can find me on The Ringer NBA Show every week. You can find me on the Prestige TV Podcast most weeks, including, we got Pluribus coming up. There's a lot happening.
1:22:06 Sean Fennessey? I heard this is good.
1:22:07 Amanda Dobbins? What is Pluribus?
1:22:08 Speaker 04 A show that, according to Joanna Robinson, is one of the best pilots she's ever seen that I still need to watch.
1:22:13 Amanda Dobbins? Do you know the logline?
1:22:14 Speaker 04 I don't. It's crazy. But it is a mystery-type show I'm consciously trying to avoid.
1:22:18 Sean Fennessey? Vince Gilligan's new show starring Ray Sehorn from Better Call Saul.
1:22:23 Speaker 04 That's a better pitch.
1:22:23 Sean Fennessey? Yes.
1:22:24 Amanda Dobbins? Okay. I'm gonna watch the Emma Thompson detective series instead.
1:22:27 Speaker 04 Oh, that's, I mean, that also seems very worth your time.
1:22:28 Sean Fennessey? Okay. Well, thank you to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Next week, CR and I are going to the Badlands, where we're gonna be talking about Predator, the Predator movies, whatever's going on in England with him.
1:22:38 Speaker 04 Is Chris gonna be on your back, cut in half like an android?
1:22:42 Sean Fennessey? That is how I think of us all the time. Uh, thank you, guys. We'll see you soon.
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