The Top 10 Movie Plot Twists and ‘The Drama.’ Plus: ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ Certainly Exists.

Sean and Amanda open the show by tackling some movie news headlines, including the green-lighting of a ‘Weapons’ prequel at Warner Bros., speculation that ‘The Adventures of Cliff Booth’ could premiere at the Venice Film Festival, and the first trailer for 20-year-old Kane Parsons’s highly anticipated horror film, ‘Backrooms’ (1:07). Then, they cover ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,’ which they found to be creatively and aesthetically bankrupt, and explain why they think it is an “evil movie” (13:56). Next, they unpack Kristoffer Borgli’s untraditional romantic comedy ‘The Drama,’ starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson (33:03). They break down why they anticipate a divided public reception, explain why they found the movie’s flipping of rom-com tropes to be hugely successful, and fully spoil the movie by analyzing its central “twist.” Finally, they share a list of their top 10 favorite movie plot twists of all time (1:08:15). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh Drivers wanted. Learn more at https://vw.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:15Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 0:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 0:17Sean Fennessey?

  And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about drama, mind games, Mario and yahoo! On today's show, we will dive into two new releases that could not be farther apart in terms of target audience, craft and cultural appeal. The first movie I'm talking about is Christopher Borgli's new Doomcom: The Drama, which stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as an engaged couple whose relationship takes a twist in the lead up to their wedding. The second movie is the Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which is the sequel to 2023's smash hit Super Mario Brothers Movie. One of these movies is for kids. One of them is for arrested development millennials. One hinges on a twist. The other is without a brain. We're also going to talk about our favorite movie plot twists ever, which is related to one of these two movies. I won't say which.

• 1:02Sean Fennessey?

  But first, we have some movie news to get into right after this.

• 1:07Sean Fennessey?

  I'm back from spring break.

• 1:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Welcome.

• 1:09Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks. There's been some news.

• 1:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:13Sean Fennessey?

  There's gonna be a Weapons prequel?

• 1:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. How logged on to the news were you while on spring break?

• 1:19Sean Fennessey?

  Not at all, really. Not at all. Some movie news?

• 1:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 1:23Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I was closely tracking the price of gas in this country, which seems to be a serious issue.

• 1:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, you're just logging on to that?

• 1:29Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I don't, I drive an EV, so I don't really follow that.

• 1:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, right. Yeah, welcome.

• 1:34Sean Fennessey?

  It seems to be a real issue.

• 1:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, the coastal elites with the EVs. Yeah, it's a nightmare.

• 1:39Sean Fennessey?

  EVs are spread across this fine country. And frankly, they're going to spread even more based on what's happening here in America. Okay, no, Weapons, there's gonna be a prequel, Gladys, which I think we understood was gonna happen after the breakout success of that movie. It's gonna be written by Zach Craig, who of course wrote and directed the original, and Zach Shields. I say Gladys, you say what?

• 1:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Is Amy Madigan involved?

• 2:00Sean Fennessey?

  I, maybe in like a-

• 2:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Or is it younger Gladys?

• 2:02Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe in like a bookended way, right? We see her like, at the beginning of the movie to situate the audience, and then we see her at the end getting her flesh torn off of her body.

• 2:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:10Sean Fennessey?

  But then in the middle, it is who? Phoebe Dinever? Is set in the 1940s?

• 2:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I believe in Zach Craig and his imagination and his relationship to the character Gladys and showing messed up funny things on screen. I'm very pro. Phoebe Diverner or Diverner in the 1940s, it doesn't on its face jump out to me as like the most exciting.

• 2:36Sean Fennessey?

  What if it goes back to the Salem, Massachusetts and the witch trials and Gladys is actually hundreds of years old?

• 2:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:44Sean Fennessey?

  That could be an option.

• 2:45Amanda Dobbins?

  It could.

• 2:45Sean Fennessey?

  And then we could.

• 2:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, anything could happen.

• 2:47Sean Fennessey?

  Misandry and misogyny across centuries of American existence. Would you be signed up for that?

• 2:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Because you're, so it's starting in the Salem witch trials and then we're jumping through various.

• 2:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, she's lived.

• 2:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Gender crises.

• 3:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the same way that sort of Vlad the Impaler, Dracula has lived for centuries.

• 3:04Amanda Dobbins?

  But so is, how does Gladys age is a, is a question I would pose to you in that context. Is it the same?

• 3:10Sean Fennessey?

  How does she not age is really the question.

• 3:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but she is aged in weapons. She is older. I mean, and if she sprung to life like that, then why can't Amy Madigan be at the Salem witch trials and then, or are you having a young Gladys who then ages progressively but more slowly over time?

• 3:27Sean Fennessey?

  I think Gladys is in a race against aging.

• 3:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 3:31Sean Fennessey?

  So that she does age. Well, I don't care, but some of us do. And I think that she, what her character is doing is that as each day goes by, she's trying to fight back the dawn. You know, she's trying to get a little bit of youth injected back into her system.

• 3:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 3:49Sean Fennessey?

  But there is a kind of like ultimate crone that is, that is.

• 3:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 3:55Sean Fennessey?

  Like that is unstoppable. Like she will eventually become 100 years old, but she can revert back to a younger form, the more souls that she's able to.

• 4:05Amanda Dobbins?

  The more young souls. So she's got to find various groups of children in, like in peril.

• 4:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 4:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Over the time. So I guess Salem witch trials is available, but you can really.

• 4:18Sean Fennessey?

  The Crusades?

• 4:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I was gonna say the plague.

• 4:20Sean Fennessey?

  The plague, sure.

• 4:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, let's see what else. I mean, you know, bad things have happened to children and adults throughout history in all forms.

• 4:27Sean Fennessey?

  We're, you know, we're on the brink of Easter and, you know, crisis risen. Like maybe she was there with Punches Pilot.

• 4:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Can I share, can I share a take with you unrelated to the films? Just since you've brought it up?

• 4:38Sean Fennessey?

  I can't believe you even asked if you could.

• 4:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Easter? Eh, I'm out. I'm like, I just, you know, I, everyone's real excited and I will come to the Easter egg hunt or whatever, but I, I guess it was just that Easter wasn't really big in my childhood.

• 4:51Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really know what you're saying. You mean like in the, in the practice of Christianity?

• 4:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I don't really practice Christianity and I, I don't super believe in any organized religions, but um, so that doesn't matter to me. But then the whole fanfare around Easter, you know, we've tried to Christmas-tize it. Everybody's like, here's a peep, here's an egg hunt, here's like some, you know, bunnies, here's like lots. I don't really, I don't think we've done a good job. I'm out. I just, I'm not into Easter. No, thanks.

• 5:18Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks for letting me know.

• 5:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:19Sean Fennessey?

  Um, other things that are happening in the news, Cliff Booth not coming out this summer, The Adventures of Cliff Booth, the forthcoming feature from David Fincher and Quentin Tarantino, uh, looking at a fall release, maybe theorized that theatrical release, if you just put a number on, how many movie theaters will The Adventures of Cliff Booth open in, in, in America?

• 5:39Amanda Dobbins?

  How many IMAX screens is Greta getting for The Magician's Nephew?

• 5:43Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know what the number is.

• 5:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Bought a copy of.

• 5:45Sean Fennessey?

  I did, over the weekend. Yeah.

• 5:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I rolled.

• 5:47Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I'm, we're, Alice and I are gonna read it together. Uh, I think there are 400 IMAX screens in America, maybe less. I don't, I, I could be completely wrong about that.

• 5:57Amanda Dobbins?

  And she's getting all, and, but she's getting all of them.

• 5:59Sean Fennessey?

  All the, the full, the full run.

• 6:00Amanda Dobbins?

  So when they want to, they can do a broader.

• 6:03Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:04Amanda Dobbins?

  But this isn't gonna be IMAX. Let's see, 800? Is that high? Is that low?

• 6:13Sean Fennessey?

  I, so I, that's around the number I've heard that movies like Frankenstein and the Knives Out films have gotten.

• 6:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 6:19Sean Fennessey?

  Sub 1,000, but still a very hearty amount. Um, I think they gotta go over 1,000 for a movie like this.

• 6:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 6:25Sean Fennessey?

  Why are you even making a movie like this? If you're, it's a Brad Pitt movie, according to Matt Bellany, who's paid $40 million to star in this movie. Why are you even do, for a streaming movie? That makes no sense. Anyway, maybe at the Venice Film Festival. We don't know. But Netflix does put a lot of movies there.

• 6:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Netflix does put a lot of movies there, including David Fincher's last film, The Killer. And David Fincher was not only there for that premiere, but then he was just walking around in like a cream suit at other premieres, just taking in films.

• 6:51Sean Fennessey?

  Did you say hi?

• 6:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't. I was seated pretty close to him and I was just like, oh, cool. That's David Fincher.

• 6:56Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you guys have a lot in common.

• 6:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I really appreciate everything I know about him, his filmmaking style, his view of the world, and his aesthetic choices, which include driving around in old Mercedes convertible, which I have, I've seen him spotted from time to time around LA.

• 7:11Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 7:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And I, and you do like a double take and you're like, holy shit, that's David Fincher. Good for him.

• 7:16Sean Fennessey?

  You should say hi to him if, if in fact you go to Venice.

• 7:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't really think that David Fincher wants people saying hi to him, which is one of the things I respect about him.

• 7:23Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, fair enough. Did you watch the trailer for Backrooms?

• 7:27Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 7:27Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Well, it's too late now.

• 7:31Sean Fennessey?

  Backrooms is a new horror movie for May 24.

• 7:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 7:34Sean Fennessey?

  Coming out at the end of May. It is directed by Kane Parsons. Kane Parsons is, how many years old do you think?

• 7:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm, 20?

• 7:43Sean Fennessey?

  He's 20.

• 7:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I saw this. I saw it alluded to. I just, I didn't click through.

• 7:47Sean Fennessey?

  He's 20 years old. This film stars Chouetel Ejiou for and Renata Reinsva. It is about seemingly a furniture store that beyond its walls, features an infinite number of rooms, is a very trippy, very Kubrickian, very cube-like mindfuck of a movie. Very good trailer. Genuinely depressing to be 43 years old and see that a 20-year-old

• 8:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 8:10Sean Fennessey?

  man has just created something so intriguing.

• 8:13Amanda Dobbins?

  How can I perk you back up? I, we were talking about this before the recording started. I just, I want you, I want you to feel happy. I want you to be restored. You were on spring break. And you feel, I feel like you came back with a negative outlook.

• 8:26Sean Fennessey?

  I can only respond to what's put in front of me.

• 8:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 8:29Sean Fennessey?

  And so what?

• 8:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe that's the problem.

• 8:31Sean Fennessey?

  What has been presented to me is my own mortality.

• 8:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 8:35Sean Fennessey?

  No, I, you know, I'm excited about this movie.

• 8:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:37Sean Fennessey?

  I'm impressed that it, that a young person has been given this opportunity. I hope this movie is great. I have a lot of plans for horror movie coverage over the next three months because we're at the dawning of a new era.

• 8:46Amanda Dobbins?

  That's great. I'm excited for Chouetel Ejiou for, who is wonderful and I always think underused.

• 8:51Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 8:52Amanda Dobbins?

  When I rewatched The Martian, I was like, oh yeah, he's so great in this.

• 8:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Yeah. He was, um.

• 8:59Sean Fennessey?

  What is his character's name in the Doctor Strange movies? It's like.

• 9:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I, well, you're asking the wrong person on that one.

• 9:04Sean Fennessey?

  Come on, Jack, you've rewatched.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  Nope, no clue.

• 9:06Sean Fennessey?

  Mord- Mordock? Mordow?

• 9:10Sean Fennessey?

  Mur- Murda?

• 9:12Speaker 02

  Mordo, Mordo.

• 9:13Sean Fennessey?

  Mordo, Mordo.

• 9:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Also, just want to let you guys know that Chewatelle Edgofour is in the 2010 classic Salt. Anyone? Jack, you seen Salt yet?

• 9:22Speaker 02

  We've talked about this. We, I have not.

• 9:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  We need to get a, this should be like what we did with Avatar Way of Water. Watch along pod for Salt.

• 9:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Pretty good.

• 9:31Sean Fennessey?

  I honestly have no desire to revisit it.

• 9:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I had a great time and once again, I'm open to Salt 2, which they clearly set up and then abandoned.

• 9:39Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think it's gonna happen.

• 9:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't either, yeah.

• 9:43Sean Fennessey?

  Bong Joon-ho's next movie, Ally, we've just seen a first look. It's an animated feature film. There's a cute little squid-like piglet character.

• 9:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. He's good at creatures.

• 9:52Sean Fennessey?

  Very good at creatures. 2027 animated film. Your son says what?

• 9:57Amanda Dobbins?

  See you there. Though I was very cute when we went to see Super Mario Brothers Galaxy, normal film title,

• 10:06Amanda Dobbins?

  which we'll talk about later. When, when we got there, I realized he thought he was seeing Project Hill Mary, based on remembering the, like, the interactive, the big poster.

• 10:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 10:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Featuring Ryan Gosling for Project Hill Mary. And he was like, no, I saw the poster when we went to Hopper's and he's going to space and he needs a helmet. And I just thought he was describing Galaxy and Super Mario Brothers, but Ryan Gosling is not wearing a helmet in the Project Hill Mary poster. And so Knox was just worried about safety. So he's engaged.

• 10:35Sean Fennessey?

  The marketing of Project Hill Mary, which of course has been working stunningly well, is very appealing to young kids, which is interesting. Like, that standee that you're referring to with the local AMC.

• 10:45Amanda Dobbins?

  See Rocky. Like, he would love Rocky.

• 10:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. I think it would be a little hard to grasp most of the concepts of Project Hill Mary.

• 10:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:54Sean Fennessey?

  But that doesn't mean you shouldn't watch it if you're a little kid. We didn't, we didn't take Alice to see it.

• 10:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, he's, he's still too little and there's too many dead people and it's also two and a half hours long, but.

• 11:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, not ideal. Ally, pumped.

• 11:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 11:05Sean Fennessey?

  Pumped for another Bong movie. Next week. At this time, one week from now, we will know the lineup of the Cannes Film Festival.

• 11:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 11:15Sean Fennessey?

  And you know, it appears that the lineup will be relatively light on American filmmakers, which is not shocking per se, but there have been more and more in the last five or six years.

• 11:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 11:27Sean Fennessey?

  And this year, it seems like maybe James Gray is going to be there, maybe Jane Schoenbrun is going to be there, maybe the Zellner Brothers, and that might be it. Speculation that the Joel Coen movie isn't going to be ready. We know that stuff like Disclosure Day and Cliff Booth and all those movies are not going to be going. There will be a great number of international heavyweights probably among them. Asgar Farhadi, Christian Munju, Hamaguchi's new movie was announced. There was a teaser for that this week. All of a sudden, I'm pumped about that. Almodovar, Pavlikowski, whole bunch of Coreyeta.

• 11:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Nick Widing Refn?

• 11:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm excited about Refn. And if Refn is there, I will track him down. I will track him down and I'll give him a big hug and try to make him uncomfortable. Any pregame thoughts? We will break it down next week on the show when it's announced.

• 12:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I feel like this base of predicting what will be at the Cannes lineup is pretty crowded already, so I don't really need to insert my opinions. I'm just listening to the experts because we're new. I'm still excited. I'm excited to see what it's about. And, you know, obviously, Enora came out of Cannes and some American films do get a boost, but Cannes is also typically the place where we, you know, lowly Americans learned about the great international films of the year. So it's fine with me.

• 12:43Sean Fennessey?

  Me too. I'm curious what the noisy American, maybe Mandalorian Grogu, I'm not sure what the big messy, I guess John Travolta's directorial debut was just announced as playing at the film festival.

• 12:54Amanda Dobbins?

  How beautiful.

• 12:55Sean Fennessey?

  Have you been reading about that, following along? Were you on set for that?

• 12:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I was.

• 12:58Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, it's exciting. I'm pumped. I'm pumped. I'm pumped to find out what they're going to play. I hope there's a couple of surprises.

• 13:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:05Sean Fennessey?

  There is a very active industry of Cannes predictors.

• 13:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:09Sean Fennessey?

  In the trades, and there's plenty you can read about them right now. Shall we talk about Super Mario? Is there anything else that you want to get into? Any other holidays you would like to blaspheme?

• 13:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Just Easter. You know, like, I'm happy it's spring, but also spring.

• 13:23Sean Fennessey?

  But he has risen.

• 13:24Amanda Dobbins?

  In line. I really don't care.

• 13:26Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 13:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, like, that's cool, but, you know, it's just a.

• 13:30Sean Fennessey?

  Is it, is it his teachings?

• 13:32Amanda Dobbins?

  It's just a metaphor for, you know, the turn of the seasons and every religion has them, and that's nice.

• 13:38Sean Fennessey?

  I think, I think letting a little God into your life would be powerful.

• 13:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I had plenty of God in my life growing up, and look where it got me.

• 13:46Sean Fennessey?

  You had going to things that were organized around your parents' religion, but what about letting God into your life? Have you considered that?

• 13:53Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I'm good.

• 13:55Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 13:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm, I'm in charge.

• 13:56Sean Fennessey?

  What about Super Mario Galaxy movie? Have you let that into your life?

• 14:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I would like to nominate this movie for the big pictures coveted evil movie designation. Which is it rarefied air, right? Like, it's Free Guy, Fast X, Mercy, anything else I'm forgetting?

• 14:16Sean Fennessey?

  We've already had one this year.

• 14:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, evil movies. I took my four-year-old to see this at 9:30 in the morning on opening day for spring break, and we had the time of our lives in that we got to, he was so excited to get to go to the movies. He's really into trailers. I think he's a great movie watcher. It was his first credit sequence, which we almost missed because, once again, his mother refuses to acknowledge the existence of credit sequences. No, no, no, no, like the, oh, I'm sorry, the post-credits.

• 14:46Sean Fennessey?

  Post-credits.

• 14:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Post-credit sequence.

• 14:50Amanda Dobbins?

  And so I was glad to have that opportunity, and I, I don't begrudge anyone who is looking for to, like, who takes their child to see this movie. You should, I, like, I did too. But I found this experience, I found this creatively and aesthetically bankrupt in a way that I was kind of bummed to be sitting next to my kid and exposing my kid to it. And I could also watch him kind of power down. He just had that sort of sedated slop face that was going on throughout the movie. And that's, listen, there are plenty of different ways and, like, plenty of kids entertainment to do it,

• 15:32Amanda Dobbins?

  and I also put screens in front of my child to, you know, kill time so I can do the dishes or whatever. But. It bummed me out.

• 15:40Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 15:40Amanda Dobbins?

  It bummed me out a little bit more than the first one because it did feel even more, let's just, you know, combine as many different Super Mario things as we can into it. And, you know, it felt a little more commercial grabby. And

• 15:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, I know that it's a technical achievement or whatever, but I found it so depressing to look at.

• 16:06Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I'm pretty much with you.

• 16:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 16:10Sean Fennessey?

  Eileen joined me seeing the movie with Alice yesterday and I, as soon as it was over, first of all, Alice had the time of her life.

• 16:19Amanda Dobbins?

  That's great.

• 16:19Sean Fennessey?

  Delighted. She loved Rosalina, the new princess.

• 16:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 16:23Sean Fennessey?

  As voiced by Brie Larson, was very Elsa.

• 16:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, they were even wearing the same.

• 16:26Sean Fennessey?

  She may predate Elsa in the Mario lore.

• 16:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 16:29Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really know, to be honest, because.

• 16:31Amanda Dobbins?

  That can be settled between Nintendo's and Disney's lawyers.

• 16:36Sean Fennessey?

  She had a great time. She really enjoyed learning that, spoiler alert, Rosalina and Princess Peach are in fact related. They're sisters.

• 16:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 16:45Sean Fennessey?

  Nothing my daughter loves more than princesses who are sisters. Also very Frozen.

• 16:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 16:50Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, but I turned to Eileen afterwards and I said, I thought that was quite dire. And she said, that's one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life. And that's fascinating because this movie is clearly going to be a mega smash and make a shit ton of money. And even dramatically outperform things like Free Guy and Fast X at the box office. I have, actually have a lot of thoughts. These movies tend to bring out a lot of like ideas from me about kind of what, where movies are and what people want from movies. I think what you're saying is right, which is that this feels like a big agglomeration of a lot of Mario fan service and keys jingling and remember this character from this game and remember when you heard this sound effect and it made you feel like this?

• 17:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 17:35Sean Fennessey?

  And I think if you're anywhere from the ages of like four to 11, it's fun. It's a lot of fun. And if you're like 20 and you have a lot of nostalgia, or 30 and have a lot of nostalgia for Mario, you, you will get something satisfying out of this, but it is narratively brutal. There are, there are no characters.

• 17:54Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 17:54Sean Fennessey?

  There's no, no, no defining traits of any of the characters. I thought it, it is like this very flashy, fast moving 3D animation style that is increasingly.

• 18:05Sean Fennessey?

  Prevalent?

• 18:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 18:07Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if I thought it was ugly so much as I thought it was noisy.

• 18:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I would agree. Like I said, I understand that it is technically accomplished and it doesn't look bad or ugly the way that, you know, the third acts of many Marvel movies look bad. Or it's just like, we ran out of time and we just didn't have the resources required to achieve what was in our heads. I think it was noisy, frenetic. You know, as we mentioned, there are so many references and like, they're not even jokes, they're just like, sound cues that are supposed to take you back, jammed into this movie. But the pace was really, really shocking.

• 18:51Sean Fennessey?

  So fast.

• 18:52Amanda Dobbins?

  So fast. And the cuts are so fast and they move from one like, quote unquote, problem, like even faster than you can move through worlds in a Super Mario game.

• 19:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 19:04Amanda Dobbins?

  And it really did feel like it was edited in that, you know, that really nefarious, like, cocoa melon, things that just move so fast on the screen that your child's brain turns off.

• 19:15Sean Fennessey?

  I totally agree with you. The thing that this had me thinking about is, as the primacy of intellectual property shifts from things like superheroes to video games, and those movies are increasingly engineered for children, you have this pretty dramatic shift in what animated movies are. When we were growing up, they were kind of in the third phase of Disney adapting great works of literature, fairy tales, stories from around the world, and recontextualizing them, sometimes whitewashing them, sometimes stripping them of some of their sharper edges and reducing the stories down to very simple

• 19:56Sean Fennessey?

  ideas. But they were at least based in a certain kind of a work that had some archetypal and cultural value. The last 25 years, things have changed a little bit. The introduction of Pixar, the introduction of 3D animation has changed, I think, the tone of a lot of these movies, that they have gotten a lot more smart alecky, they've gotten a lot more adult sensibility forward. Right. But the stories themselves, there's always been a kind of gentle quality, I would say, to the bulk of children's animated movies. Sure, you're learning about yourself. Yes, they're like emotional, they're internal, they're often very moral, they have like, they have a kind of like a, an idea about family, or an idea about the self, or an idea about how you participate in a society, like, the movies are not perfect,

• 20:41Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not trying to valorize them at the expense of this other stuff, because there's always been junk and crap for kids. But what making movies around video games does, is it makes these movies, action movies. Because video games are action, they are driven by avoiding obstacles, defeating villains, eluding capture, and so that pace that you're talking about is right on, and part of the reason that it's right on is because it's mimicking what it's like to play a video game, where you're in a constant state of movement, going from one thing to the next. So now what we're doing is like, we're training, and I don't think I'm over-intellectualizing this, we're training five-year-olds, or nine-year-olds, to expect action, in a discreet and consistent way in these kinds of movies.

• 21:26Sean Fennessey?

  This isn't the first movie that ever did this, like, it has been happening slowly. How to Train Your Dragon is like this, that they introduced fantasy movies in animated form, Kung Fu Panda introduced martial arts movies in animated form, The Bad Guys, those are heist movies, the Lego Batman movie is a superhero movie, so it's not like Super Mario bears the weight of this responsibility, but it does feel like a culmination of 15 or 20 years of animated movies used to be the sanctity of a princess, or a prince, or someone who's attempting to...

• 21:57Sean Fennessey?

  Has a great journey of self-discovery. And now this is a movie about like five different characters in five different places at the same time. And they all are having like crazy adventure. And then they're all going to converge on each other and there's going to be a big fight. And that's what superhero movies are too. You know, that's kind of what most, that's what the Fast franchise does. They split the big groups up and they bring everybody together. And so it feels like very formulaic. And it also is like training us to enjoy a certain kind of a story structure at a very young age. I'm making this anthropological because I'm very interested in animation and what it does for kids and how they understand stories. But I do think that this is like kind of the bottom of the barrel version of this kind of thing. Like the bad guys, those movies are fine. They're not that bad. They have real characters.

• 22:41Sean Fennessey?

  They have like fun performances. The scripts are not that bad. They're iterative, but they're a good way to kill time. This, I agree with you, felt something more insidious here.

• 22:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I think you're right. And Fast X is probably, the Fast movies or Fast X is most apt comparison because that is also the bottom of the barrel of that execution of that idea. But it is that the only point of this movie is to watch things go really fast and then explode. And whether it explodes via some purple goo or whether there's like another spaceship, the really intense movement and the more, more, more in the palette is the point. I asked my son afterwards what Super Mario Brothers Galaxy was about. And he said, a ship that shoots lasers, which I think is a little bit the only thing that

• 23:34Amanda Dobbins?

  he could really like glom onto in his, in his mind because he, you know, recognized a ship that shoots lasers. He did also understand that Princess Peach had a sister, Rosalina. So he understood siblings and ships that shoot lasers. But that, he's not wrong. That's what it was about. There were many different ships that shot lasers. I kind of got bored watching. I was like, well, which ship is this? And what are you doing now? Because there's not enough to grab onto. And I did, I was sitting there next to my kid and I was like, I'm being a little bit of Goldilocks because we came out of Hoppers and we've been talking about like the later stage Pixar movies in particular and saying these are starting to feel like more like for adults than for children.

• 24:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Or, you know, all children's entertainment has now has to have this second layer of like winking reference for the adults to keep them entertained. But you've you're starting to like see the strings on that. And now I'm saying that this just has absolutely this children's entertainment has nothing for me to grab on to. And so, you know, what will make me happy? I guess what would make me happy is like a good movie that my my children and I could relate to that doesn't feel completely bankrupt of all like ideas and and human emotion. But that's just me.

• 24:57Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think it's an unreasonable request. I think it's.

• 25:02Sean Fennessey?

  The movie exists for obvious reasons. It actually is shocking how long it took Nintendo to adapt.

• 25:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 25:08Sean Fennessey?

  An animated Super Mario Brothers movie for wide audiences. And the first movie being a big success was not shocking. There wasn't a whole lot to say about that movie because they were introducing the key characters. You had a handful of very famous people supplying the voices. This is a sequel, as with all sequels, there needs to be more, more, more.

• 25:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:24Sean Fennessey?

  Right, there needs to be an expansion of the universe, more characters.

• 25:27Amanda Dobbins?

  And I remember laughing more at the first.

• 25:32Sean Fennessey?

  It seemed like a more modest film, maybe two. And so in that way, like, it just was trying to spin fewer plates. It felt very tightly focused on. There's Mario and Luigi, and then there's Princess Peach. She is the princess of this land that she doesn't even totally understand. She doesn't know where her family is. But, you know, they need to basically protect her from Bowser, who wants to marry her and and kidnap her.

• 25:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:51Sean Fennessey?

  That was the whole movie. And that's basically how we understand the Super Mario Brothers video game franchise. That doesn't encompass Mario Tennis and Super Mario Kart and all the Donkey Kong storylines and Mario Paint and Dr. Mario and the the myriad Mario games that have come out since I was playing video games in the 80s and 90s. So this movie is trying to have a lot of those things. It's trying to squeeze in a lot of those things. One, what my my dumb brain, my lizard brain, as it were, enjoyed Yoshi, enjoyed seeing Yoshi in the movie. Alice got a huge kick out of Yoshi, just doing the egg thing, you know, eating somebody.

• 26:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:28Sean Fennessey?

  You know, dropping an egg, that person that. Yoshi Aid was inside the egg. It's a good visual gag.

• 26:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:33Sean Fennessey?

  Um, but to do that for like 90 minutes.

• 26:37Amanda Dobbins?

  It also happened so quickly because this, I mean, this entire movie is on like 3X fast forward.

• 26:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 26:43Amanda Dobbins?

  And I, I didn't, it rushed the joke. Like the, the joke was almost, uh, um, stepped on, so.

• 26:52Sean Fennessey?

  There's no room to breathe. There's not a lot of room to laugh. It did feel very, felt very Michael Bay.

• 26:59Amanda Dobbins?

  You put that in the spreadsheet and you know, it's, you see Michael Bay everywhere, but I think that this is, I think this is correct.

• 27:06Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I think Michael Bay.

• 27:08Amanda Dobbins?

  But I.

• 27:09Sean Fennessey?

  Is usually doing things visually that seem impossible with humans on set. And sometimes they're dangerous. This is animation, so it's just not impressive. It's just sort of like, it's just a lot going on fast and loud.

• 27:20Amanda Dobbins?

  The, the mourness and the just like, how much can we do? And also perhaps, um, I, I disregard for emotion or like moral, uh, concerns of any kind.

• 27:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 27:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Does track with Michael Bay. I definitely see it. I think that Michael Bay makes, uh, more, if not beautiful, memorable images.

• 27:44Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. What's, what's your take on Bowser Jr.?

• 27:47Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, happy for, for Benny to get that check. And so, so did Bowser Senior or Bowser Junior put on the puppet show?

• 27:57Sean Fennessey?

  I was, I believe it was Bowser Senior did the puppet show.

• 28:00Amanda Dobbins?

  For Bowser Junior, who was a, you know, a wonderful audience member. I thought that was a lovely puppet show. And there is another moment, and it, and it's a completely different animation style, right? Or, and then there's another moment when Star Fox, who I didn't know about, but Zach was like very solemnly, yes, Star Fox.

• 28:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 28:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, he's very important. Voice by Glenn Powell, who I, I thought did a great job, you know, uh, being Star Fox Han Solo. Yeah.

• 28:28Amanda Dobbins?

  But his introduction is done in like an illustrated, you know.

• 28:32Sean Fennessey?

  Hand drawn animation style.

• 28:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Uh, old school style, which I thought was very compelling. But you know, both of those instances took me out of the movie because I was like, oh, you can do something visually interesting. You're just choosing this slop.

• 28:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but that is the lingua franca of the contemporary animation.

• 28:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I know.

• 28:50Sean Fennessey?

  I wonder if that will change. I wonder what the next phase of that even is because we've had, we've seen these various evolutions in style, or de-evolutions, as it were. I don't know. I'm curious to see. I think this movie is quite poor.

• 29:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Any conversation after the movie in your home?

• 29:07Sean Fennessey?

  We hit on the same issue. As I mentioned, the sister relationship was very impactful, and I think made the movie feel a little more coherent. Very clear that Bowser and Bowser Jr. are trouble. They're not good. I was doing bedtime last night, and Alice said, Dad, I think you might be a Koopa.

• 29:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay.

• 29:23Sean Fennessey?

  Which is not good.

• 29:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:24Sean Fennessey?

  You don't want to be that. You don't want to be a minion in service of Bowser. That's problematic for me.

• 29:29Amanda Dobbins?

  But what did Alice think of the Minions trailer for Minions God and Monsters? Is that what we're calling it?

• 29:35Sean Fennessey?

  Minions and Monsters.

• 29:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Minions.

• 29:37Sean Fennessey?

  Gods and Monsters is a Bill Condon film about the late filmmaker James Whale, as portrayed by Ian McKellen.

• 29:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 29:43Sean Fennessey?

  It was a 1990s Oscar-bait film.

• 29:47Amanda Dobbins?

  You can have it all in the big picture.

• 29:49Sean Fennessey?

  You certainly can. This is what we bring to the table. She, Man, learning Grogo trailer is pure crack. It is, it is like the rock star eyes exploding when that comes on. Minions, captive audience, you know what we saw?

• 30:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:03Sean Fennessey?

  And it was my first time seeing it, because as I said, I was not really following the news while I was on vacation, is the Supergirl trailer. And Alice saw that, and she was like, who's that? That's my new best friend.

• 30:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, good. Okay, that's good. We found the audience for the Supergirl trailer.

• 30:16Sean Fennessey?

  And she's the one.

• 30:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Not me, but Alice.

• 30:17Sean Fennessey?

  She's the one.

• 30:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I think Knox kind of perked up. He liked the music cues in, in the Supergirl trailer. But, you know, I've never been prouder than when my child just started absolutely cracking up as soon as the Minions did anything. The exact same, like, physical comedy that speaks to me about the Minions speaks to him.

• 30:35Sean Fennessey?

  That's wonderful.

• 30:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:36Sean Fennessey?

  You guys can see that together. Maybe I'll skip it. This movie's gonna make...

• 30:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Knox did want to come do a podcast. I will do my own podcast with Alice. It's gonna be about space. But, and then maybe also Minions, God, and Monsters, and he can sit in that chair.

• 30:51Sean Fennessey?

  That's really exciting. Alice and I did once record a podcast, and by record, I mean she sat in that chair. We didn't record anything. It was about The Last Unicorn.

• 30:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 30:58Sean Fennessey?

  Wonderful animated film, featuring voice work from Angela Lansbury. It is about The Last Unicorn. If you want to show that to Knox and do a follow up, I'm sure that they would do great together. She also is fond of referring to Bill,

• 31:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 31:13Sean Fennessey?

  who is my boss.

• 31:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:15Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, our boss. And when we were making the podcast, she kept turning to the booth and kept saying, Bill, is that good?

• 31:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Where did she learn this behavior?

• 31:29Sean Fennessey?

  Actually, um, I don't know. I think she probably just heard me talking to Eileen and being like, oh, Bill's calling or whatever, you know? And she's like, Dad, who's Bill? So, uh, sorry, Jack, but I think she thinks that Bill, Yeah. in addition to being the boss, also produces the show. She does also know about Jack, though.

• 31:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, good.

• 31:47Sean Fennessey?

  And she does have questions about Jack and what Jack is doing.

• 31:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, Jack met both of our children at the K-pop Demon Hunters video screening.

• 31:55Sean Fennessey?

  That's why she was asking, yes.

• 31:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:57Sean Fennessey?

  Do you loom large?

• 31:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  That's great. I, I think it's a good question. What does he do? We don't exactly know.

• 32:02Sean Fennessey?

  We don't know.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  He just does stuff.

• 32:03Sean Fennessey?

  I'll never know.

• 32:06Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. How do we pivot out of Super Mario? Three hundred million dollars this weekend? Five hundred million dollars? Ten billion dollars?

• 32:13Speaker 02

  Made thirty-four and a half million domestic on a Wednesday.

• 32:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, we were there, you know?

• 32:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 32:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And nine thirty AM was not the first showing. I think it was maybe the third showing.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  Well, I believe there were Tuesday night midnight screenings.

• 32:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 32:26Sean Fennessey?

  Very cool.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:27Sean Fennessey?

  For all the little kids out there.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 32:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's gonna do very well. That's fine.

• 32:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, everybody needs something to do during spring break.

• 32:35Sean Fennessey?

  They certainly do.

• 32:37Sean Fennessey?

  This episode is brought to you by Volkswagen. There is such a thing as becoming too comfortable in your day to day, but our favorite films, with stories that make us change the way we think, that weren't made by people content to just sit back and watch the world pass by. This is your sign that you shouldn't either. From us, from VW and the other drivers out there, grab the wheel. Do what you love, even if it means taking the road less traveled. Learn more at VW.com.

• 33:03Sean Fennessey?

  Let's pivot to the drama.

• 33:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 33:05Sean Fennessey?

  This is our Super Mario Brothers Galaxy movie.

• 33:07Amanda Dobbins?

  It absolutely is. Let's, before you say another word.

• 33:11Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 33:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm going straight to camera for this one.

• 33:13Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 33:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Do not listen to this until you have seen the drama. I'm serious. It's not even like, it's not because I don't want to be yelled at. It's because I want you to experience the movie without spoilers. Turn it off. I mean it. And come back when you've seen the movie. Thank you.

• 33:32Sean Fennessey?

  You're absolutely right to set it up that way. This is the new movie written and directed by Christopher Borgley. He was a guest on this show a few years ago for his film Dreams Scenario. It's his fourth feature film. He's a Norwegian director. It stars Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Mamadou Athi, Alana Heim, Haley Gates, and Zoe Winters. The plot synopsis is as follows. Days before their wedding, a couple's relationship is shaken when one partner discovers unsettling truths about the other. There is a kind of a plot twist in this movie. And that's why you're setting the table in the way that you are.

• 34:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 34:07Sean Fennessey?

  But it is really more sort of like a piece of information that is shared.

• 34:11Amanda Dobbins?

  A reveal.

• 34:11Sean Fennessey?

  A reveal that influences the actions of the characters throughout the rest of the movie. It comes, remind me, about half an hour into the movie, somewhere in that vicinity? So I'll start with, what did you think of the drama?

• 34:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Absolutely. And on this, I loved it. It is, as you said, a doom come and it is not what has been portrayed in or suggested in the press tour that has been very heavily wedding focused. And there was the fake announcement in the Boston Globe and Zendaya's been wearing like something borrowed, something blue. They've been doing like wedding, romantic comedy.

• 34:52Sean Fennessey?

  Very materialist 2.0 marketing.

• 34:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly, which we'll talk about. But so it is, it takes a different turn. But in many ways, it is also kind of a classical romantic comedy. It knows the beats and it knows what it is working against, not just the audience's expectations, but also of what happens in these movies, but the actual form, the beats, the set pieces. I think it's very smart. This is my kind of. My kind of Scandi perspective, you know, like sometimes I, sometimes I have a block, but I'm really in line with this view of the world. And I, I think it pulls it off. I know many people will not think that. I, I understand that this is gonna be, um,

• 35:36Amanda Dobbins?

  this is gonna be a hot button issue, but I, I think it totally works.

• 35:42Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I, I thought it worked too. I told you that I saw it a long time ago. I think I saw it maybe six months ago, five months ago. And so I was seeing it very cold and quite enjoyed myself. I have a real affinity for Borgli's, um, court jester.

• 36:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:00Sean Fennessey?

  Little stinker attitude towards humanity. It is something that is like fairly consistent, I think with some other A24 filmmakers and he gets lumped in with them. There's a little bit of Ari Aster.

• 36:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, Ari Aster is a producer on this film and there's, that makes a lot of sense.

• 36:12Sean Fennessey?

  There is a sense of like, most people are very vulnerable, fallible, insecure, and bumbling and stupid.

• 36:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:25Sean Fennessey?

  And this movie is an interesting exploration of that from both perspectives. The movie leans more towards Robert Pattinson's character.

• 36:31Amanda Dobbins?

  It does.

• 36:32Sean Fennessey?

  Despite Zendaya being such a big star and such a big part of that marketing that you're describing. We could talk about the utility or lack of utility around that and whether or not this is really a movie about humanity or just an exercise. Um, as it, as an act of entertainment and kind of like provocation, I think it's very successful. And these are the kinds of worlds that you and I have walked in.

• 36:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:54Sean Fennessey?

  You know, we've lived in cities in America. We've worked these kind of like white collar computer jobs, you know, we have nice furniture.

• 37:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Creative gilding, but you know, they are still just emails and.

• 37:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 37:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Performance reviews.

• 37:08Sean Fennessey?

  Right. You can, you trick yourself into thinking that you have some sort of creative soul, but in fact you are a cog in a broader machine. And, you know, Borgli's very incisive and insightful about the vanity of these people, the frivolity of these people, and also that there is like a real genuine human frailty that it like, everyone's trying to understand about themselves, but that once you hear about someone else's frailty, you, it's how quick you are to judge them.

• 37:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:37Sean Fennessey?

  So. I think it's pretty clever. I think I could see it being like an amazing script to receive and be like, holy shit, while reading it, not knowing anything. The movie is wrong footing and the audience somewhat. And I'm quite curious to see how they respond to it. But I also think his filmmaking style and his command of tone is very specific and very strong.

• 37:57Amanda Dobbins?

  His observations, like it is, it is very tightly written, like recognizable. Both script and like the production design, all of the details are, um, when, when they want to be indict, indicting, very much are. This movie is also set in Boston, quote unquote. And like, I don't, I, I don't think this, I, I know they filmed in Boston, but like, has Christoph or Burgley like ever been to Boston?

• 38:21Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know.

• 38:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 38:22Sean Fennessey?

  Doesn't have the character of Boston, I would say.

• 38:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Like it's, you know, when it wants to attack something or, um, investigate an idea or do an exercise, it's really, really spot on. And then it does leave some other things totally to the wayside.

• 38:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Do you think, do you want to say more things about what works so well before getting into that critical piece of information that is revealed to us?

• 38:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, as you mentioned, it ultimately is a movie about Charlie, the Robert Pattinson character. And some of that is because of the, the structure and the reveal. And it is the Zendaya character, Emma, who has this shocking bit of information. And then, so you, the audience are put in the perspective, both like structurally, but in, in terms of the story of the movie into Charlie's point of view.

• 39:17Sean Fennessey?

  His psychology.

• 39:18Amanda Dobbins?

  What is he gonna do? Um, or how is he gonna handle this? So it is, it's a Pattinson movie more than this is Zendaya movie. And I think weird, bungling Pattinson, like who's still kinda hot is amazing. I, and I think he's wonderfully used and really funny in this.

• 39:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, agreed.

• 39:37Amanda Dobbins?

  And. Someone who was more or less confident would not be able to pull this off. Also, I think notably, he's not playing an American. Like, he's obviously not an American in real life. But he does get a little bit of distance from the more America-coded aspects of what's going on in this, in this film, which is definitely not an accident.

• 40:05Sean Fennessey?

  I never would have guessed that his most favorite screen persona would be Hugh Grant meets Albert Brooks. But like, that's sort of where he's going with these kinds of characters. There's a little bit of that in Mickey 17. There's certainly a lot of that in this movie. That's not, obviously not his Bruce Wayne, but it feels closest to the personality he shows us in the world, too. That he's a little bit, a little dopey, a little silly.

• 40:27Amanda Dobbins?

  But also very insightful. Did you watch any of the clips of, another of 824's great marketing gimmicks was that they had the four main actors. So that is Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Mamadou Attiy and Alana Heim, like, do a relationship hotline?

• 40:44Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 40:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And they had people call in and ask questions. And Robert Pattinson is the only person speaking any sense throughout the whole. And, and he's also sort of confronting that. One question that's posed is, I like, I'm supposed to be bridesmaid in a couple of weeks, and I don't really like this person. Like, what should I do? I don't want to be in the wedding. And the other three people are like, well, you need to have a conversation. You need to be upfront. You shouldn't do it. And Pattinson is like, you want to cancel this? You want to tell this person two weeks before she's getting married? I don't like you? Just say you're sick. Hundred percent the right answer, but...

• 41:21Sean Fennessey?

  It's obviously not what I would do.

• 41:22Amanda Dobbins?

  What would you do?

• 41:23Sean Fennessey?

  I would obviously just do it and accept it and pretend to perform and just be like, this is fine.

• 41:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure. But I think what we can all agree is that having like, an emotional heart-to-heart...

• 41:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, no, that's not a good idea.

• 41:33Amanda Dobbins?

  But I thought it was telling in the context of the film itself and what is considered like, correct social and emotional values versus what actually happens in life. What, you know, what you're valuing, what you, how you should conduct yourself. And, and Pattinson is kind of on the outside, both in this, in, in, in these videos and in the movie.

• 41:55Sean Fennessey?

  That's the right way to tee up the revelation, too, in the movie. So, in the film... Zendaya and Patton's characters are getting, are about to get married and they're going through the steps of potential marriage, which is, you know, they're preparing with photographers and they're, you know, they picked out a venue and they're doing food and wine tasting.

• 42:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Sean Fennessey?

  And they've invited friends to go along to do these tastings. And the quartet of people are taking their sweet time at the tasting. And they're asking for, is it one more glass of skin?

• 42:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, could we have another bottle of the skin contact? I haven't made up my mind.

• 42:33Sean Fennessey?

  Right, the sort of the, you know, petit bourgeois, you know, city dweller.

• 42:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I think skin contact is finally out, by the way, and I'm so happy.

• 42:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's finally out?

• 42:42Amanda Dobbins?

  That's another thing I'm, I was never on, but like no, no Easter and no skin contact wine.

• 42:47Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, that's sort of, sort of related, right? Like the blood of Christ. Well, I don't know if that was skin contact or not, as I recall.

• 42:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:53Sean Fennessey?

  When the transfiguration happened. Transubstantiation, that's what it was. Uh, so they're, they're having, they're getting drunk and they're hanging out. And there's a woman who's looking after them as they're trying these wines. And as is often the case when you're in social settings like this, people start creating these sort of like idea games to keep the conversation going. And I believe it's Alana Heim's character says, let's go around the table and say, what's the worst thing any of us has ever done?

• 43:19Amanda Dobbins?

  She tees it up, but she's also looking for, what she does actually is that she makes her now husband tell everyone the worst thing that he's ever done. But cause she's drunk and she explains that they did this before the wedding, but really she just wants, wants it out on the table.

• 43:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, she, she's a toxic character.

• 43:37Amanda Dobbins?

  She is.

• 43:40Sean Fennessey?

  And so they go around and they tell various-

• 43:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't remember what the worst thing he has ever done is. I remember what she did, but-

• 43:45Sean Fennessey?

  She would, she locked a boy with a, with, who was disabled in like a shack?

• 43:50Speaker 02

  He used his girlfriend as a human shield against a dog that was about to attack them.

• 43:54Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 43:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, you know.

• 43:56Sean Fennessey?

  Not, not ideal.

• 43:57Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's not good, but it's also just sort of, it's, the blame there is with the dog and the dog owner, really.

• 44:03Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  Well, they said he was a street dog. He didn't have an owner.

• 44:06Sean Fennessey?

  We're not, we're not attacking dogs right now.

• 44:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't attack dogs. I just attack dog owners that don't take responsibility for their dogs.

• 44:13Sean Fennessey?

  They go around the table and it stops it's Zendaya's character.

• 44:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 44:16Sean Fennessey?

  And she reveals-

• 44:19Sean Fennessey?

  The worst thing that she's ever done.

• 44:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 44:20Sean Fennessey?

  Which is actually not doing anything.

• 44:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. Once again, we're spoiling, so, you know, do your thing.

• 44:26Sean Fennessey?

  She reveals that she imagined, dreamed and planned a school shooting when she was a teenager in high school in Louisiana. And she did not go through with it, but that she did spend a lot of time thinking about it, scheming on it, fantasizing about it.

• 44:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:45Sean Fennessey?

  And the tenor of the drinks dramatically changes when this happens.

• 44:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 44:49Sean Fennessey?

  Because this is a, even though the two previous, or three previous stories that have been shared are like, a little scandalous, or a little like, oh, you shouldn't have done that, and moralizing about it.

• 45:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Like putting people in harm's way, in varying degrees.

• 45:04Sean Fennessey?

  There is obviously a taboo quality, a taboo aspect.

• 45:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 45:08Sean Fennessey?

  To school shootings and that level of violence, and anyone who's been associated with that kind of violence in our society. And so, obviously, the two friends are shocked. Alana Heim's character is very offended.

• 45:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:20Sean Fennessey?

  And Robert Pattinson's character is in this unusual position, in which the person that he is about to agree to spend the rest of his life with, considered engineering a violent mass murder when she was a teenager. Didn't do it, but she considered it.

• 45:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So the possibility theoretically is there.

• 45:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 45:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Lurking in this person, or is it?

• 45:43Sean Fennessey?

  Now, there's a natural human drama to this revelation, right?

• 45:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:46Sean Fennessey?

  About what's gonna happen. Should these people stay together? How is he feeling in the aftermath of this? And the movie then does spend about 40 minutes, kind of like getting close to his skin and like, trying to understand how he feels and how he's coping with this information, and what he should do, and whether or not he sees this person in the same light. The movie is also simultaneously doing something that I find movies are very, don't usually do very well.

• 46:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:09Sean Fennessey?

  Which is forcing you to think in real time about a moral paradox while a story is unfolding.

• 46:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:18Sean Fennessey?

  And the sort of like, well, what, how would I feel?

• 46:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 46:20Sean Fennessey?

  And what would I do if plunged into this situation? So I ask you.

• 46:23Amanda Dobbins?

  And even, and even what should these characters do? And how are you?

• 46:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, are you rooting, who are you rooting for in this? And what are you rooting for to happen? Like, what do you think the outcome should be? And how does that shift based on the new information that you learned? Because, as you mentioned, the first night she reveals, you know, the basic fact, but there are a lot of unanswered questions. And then she just vomits spectacularly. There's a lot of projectile vomiting in this film, which I enjoy. And underused, I think, as a visual gag.

• 46:58Sean Fennessey?

  Well, keep that in mind. Get some recommendations going for you.

• 47:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And then the next 40 minutes, he is trying to figure out what to do, but his first instinct is like, I need to learn more. So I need to learn, like, what do you really, what do you mean when you say you planned, like, a school shooting? And then, like, what do you, why didn't you do it? And what were the, like, what are the circumstances? And then the film, like, really digs in, in all of them. It uses both, like, flashbacks and hallucinations. And I thought, like, in impressive and, like, pretty fluid way. And you could also tell they spent a lot of time and money on the dream scenarios, forgive me, and the flashbacks, which some movies don't, you know?

• 47:46Amanda Dobbins?

  But so they show you in what I thought was, like, pretty surprising detail. They cast a teenage actor to be the teenage Emma character. She just has a rifle that she is using in the woods. She is, she's the whole, you are, you are seeing a lot of it. You are watching her do, like, several takes of a pre-recorded, like, manifesto that she is doing. So it's not just, like, a cute premise or a shocking premise that they toss off and then get into psychological. So you do have to live with the planning of the school shooting and the reality of it in a, in a way that I...

• 48:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I was surprised by, as I think I was intended to be, right? Like, they, it is a provocation, but they commit to the provocation.

• 48:34Sean Fennessey?

  Totally. I think also that the style of filmmaking changes pretty dramatically. Like, again, it's been some time since I've seen it, but I seem to recall the kind of tone and texture of the sequences when she is a teenager being a little bit grittier and feeling almost more handheld. His filmmaking has this kind of like airy, smooth quality to it, a very Scandinavian touch in terms of the grace with which he moves through these kind of anxious comedies that he writes. But in those sequences in particular, they felt certainly more period. And they're set in the South instead of in the East.

• 49:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 49:07Sean Fennessey?

  And the environment that he's shooting in, a lot of exteriors, her core bedroom, which is this kind of safe haven, even the school that she's in. And then there's like a thorniness to that, that aspect of the story that I would say is not fully explored, but maybe it's appropriate that it's not, which is that this young girl is a black teenager in a school and she feels very outcast.

• 49:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 49:30Sean Fennessey?

  And the reason, seemingly one of the key motivations for her planning a school shooting is that she wants to seek revenge on the people who have outcast her. And we see over time, we learn through these flashbacks and through Zendaya talking through the experience, that not only does she not go through with the school shooting, but that she actually finds community amongst a group of people who are anti-violence and anti-school shootings, and that there's a sort of like a group. And one assumes this is in the early 2000s in a post-Columbine America, where there's like a much more of a consciousness in high schools about this. And she pivots away from being this disaffected person with no friends to finding community

• 50:11Sean Fennessey?

  and improving her life and maybe having a, maybe a clearer head about some of these ideas.

• 50:17Amanda Dobbins?

  And also becoming an anti-gun activist.

• 50:21Sean Fennessey?

  An activist, yes.

• 50:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, which the Pattinson character does say, like, didn't you feel a little bit hypocritical? Which is kind of one of the only instances I remember in the script of someone actually trying to like push another, push judgment or emotion on another person, which I thought was notable because. You know, I think the criticisms, in addition to it being essentially race blind, is I think the way that it just doesn't, as you say, explore any of the American consequences, like the consequences of this being an American black teenage girl in the South, having this high school experience and responding to it in this way, or, you

• 51:05Amanda Dobbins?

  know, then flipping, and what puts her into it and what puts her out of it. But then it's, it doesn't explore that. And I, and it does not take school shootings or anti-gun activism seriously in the way that we Americans do. And there is even another line when Robert Pattinson is speaking to the two friends and, you know, trying to work through his feelings. And he says something to the effect of like, this is sort of an American thing, right? Like, this is something that, that, like, you guys are like, very touchy about, but the rest of us, you know, just understand. And he's trying to like, extract himself

• 51:46Amanda Dobbins?

  from all of the sociopolitical implications, which is definitely the approach that this movie takes. And so, like, you asked earlier, is it like an exploration or an exercise? I think exercise is too dismissive, but it is use, it is not exploring the ramifications of race in America or school shootings as, as something that is like a, a particular specific blight of this country and something we need to deal with.

• 52:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think it's short of treating them like chess pieces, but also short of really drilling down into them. But I, one thing I liked about the movie, and I think some critics will completely disagree with this, it didn't go out of its way to have that character give a big monologue about how she was mistreated, and this is why the way she is the way that she is. Because that isn't always how people think of themselves. And often, those are dramatic devices that are created in movies so that we can like, fully understand the psychological mapping of a certain character. And this movie is being a little bit more elusive about that. And why I think that's powerful is because this is a movie about a confused teenager. She's grown up, and she's about to get married, but it's about the psychology of a confused teenager and what the choices that she made and how they impacted the rest of her life.

• 52:59Sean Fennessey?

  And nobody knows anything when they're teenagers. And you think you know everything, but you don't know anything. And whether or not you should be held accountable for the feelings and the ideas that you had as a teenager is kind of the psychological crux of the movie.

• 53:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And the other psychological crux of the movie is from Charlie's side, which is, you know, the simpler, what can you know or not know about anyone?

• 53:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 53:21Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and it's about the terror of getting married in many ways. And it is the most provocative situation. Like, I was going through other lists of horrible things that I could imagine that someone did or not did.

• 53:35Sean Fennessey?

  Is it a list you keep on the regular?

• 53:36Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 53:37Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 53:37Amanda Dobbins?

  But there's no particular permutation where, you know, because if someone does something like truly horrible, like kills someone or something, then there's no gray area. And, but if it's something with too much gray area, then you're not going to be as like drawn in and as stressed out about what should you do? Should you forgive this person?

• 54:04Sean Fennessey?

  So impossible to be definitive, yeah.

• 54:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, they're like literally not knowing what to do and, and knowing that as an audience member as well as the, the character on screen. So I, you know, I, I agree that the ethics or the morality of the topics involved are not super like explored. Neither really are the characters. Like, these are all, if not archetypes, then they, chess pieces is unfair because that would suggest that they're not scripted out.

• 54:39Amanda Dobbins?

  They're not serving their purpose. But I think everybody is moving around these issues and sort of like a, a flat.

• 54:52Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, tense way.

• 54:54Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's very consistent with the three, the two previous Borgley movies with Sick of Myself, which is a Scandinavian film that is very funny and very dark dream scenario in this movie. And all three of those movies, I think, have this underlying idea that most people going through life are kind of performing, you know, that like the real self, and this is Borgley's point of view, I suspect, that you're doing things that you think are expected of you, whether that's society's pressures or individual pressures, or how you were raised and the way in which that is kind of impeding upon your true self, and that very few people

• 55:37Sean Fennessey?

  are able to kind of live comfortably and specifically the way that they want to live. There's like a kind of stymied quality to a lot of, a lot of his characters. And I, you couldn't really tell a movie with Borgley's sensibility through the eyes of Zendaya's character, because it would necessitate a little bit more vulnerability and understanding of what was happening there. Charlie is the person who is like, well, shit, what do I do now? And how does this affect me and my performance of my perfect life? And the, the movie starts so interestingly, I, even though I've seen it a while ago, I can't forget, it's that moment where he's observing her in a coffee shop, and he's like, looking at her and waiting for his in to go make a move because he's drawn to her.

• 56:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 56:19Sean Fennessey?

  Because she's Zendaya, she looks like Zendaya, she looks like the kind of person who you're like, now that's the kind of person I should be married to. And his anxiety and his concern and his kind of overthinking of having the right social experience, like that defines the tone of the movie.

• 56:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 56:34Sean Fennessey?

  And his character.

• 56:35Amanda Dobbins?

  And then ultimately, what he does is looks up the title of her book and lies about having read it.

• 56:41Sean Fennessey?

  Hence the performance.

• 56:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, now, what's interesting is that character then like reveals the pretense pretty quickly on the first date, so there is.

• 56:52Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, how much people are willing to perform is sort of an inverse ratio into how much Borgley values them or likes them in the, in the film, which I relate to. But this is another,

• 57:06Amanda Dobbins?

  this is another reason why a wedding is such a perfect, perfect choice for the setting of this movie. And it really is more of a wedding movie than the whole school, school shooting of it.

• 57:16Sean Fennessey?

  Breaks my rule.

• 57:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Would, it does break your rule. But I guess it, it starts like the choose, like the week of the wedding. So it does technically start with a wedding and it ends after the wedding.

• 57:32Sean Fennessey?

  It does.

• 57:32Amanda Dobbins?

  So in that sense, it could barely hold on to your role, which is weddings, it's movies that start with a wedding are good and movies that end with a wedding are bad.

• 57:42Sean Fennessey?

  Movies very rarely end with weddings this disastrous.

• 57:45Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true, but I, they're so funny, but everything in the, in the lead up to the wedding about the wedding itself and the performance of the wedding and the people in the industry. It's, is one of the great wedding bullshit movies. There's like a dance instructor who is just so mean to them.

• 58:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 58:04Amanda Dobbins?

  And also, why are they learning a dance to perform at their wedding? I know it's a thing that people do, but.

• 58:11Sean Fennessey?

  A lot of this stuff is very true, though.

• 58:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course it is.

• 58:13Sean Fennessey?

  Very sharp satire about this world.

• 58:15Amanda Dobbins?

  The, the shot list that Zoe Winters plays the wedding photographer, that scene is absolutely incredible. The tasting menu you mentioned, there's a wedding DJ who shows up because the original wedding DJ gets fired because she was doing heroin on the streets.

• 58:28Sean Fennessey?

  I love that bit. That side bit was so good when they're watching. But that wasn't, that was, that, there are a number of moments like this where

• 58:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:35Sean Fennessey?

  how we judge other people that we don't know very well.

• 58:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:39Sean Fennessey?

  Is this one of the central conceits of the film. And that one in particular is so interesting. And the idea of that woman who. Denies it, denies that she is doing what was so clear to them that she was doing. And the idea of like, everyone kind of trying to protect something and not being comfortable being who they are.

• 58:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:58Sean Fennessey?

  Is like the subtext of the entire movie. But the wedding stuff is the inversion of that because it is the most public act. It's the place where you invite all of your loved ones, everyone who really knows you, to see you do something that everyone believes you should all do to be truly happy in this society.

• 59:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 59:17Sean Fennessey?

  Invariably, it's like, the people who are in this industry are just like the biggest ghouls in the world, which is clever. I didn't have that experience. I had a perfectly nice wedding. But, you know, I know you have some conflicted feelings.

• 59:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought that this was extremely well observed. And then there is a structural element where, for the first part of the movie, the Pattinson character is trying to write his perfect wedding speech. And like, what would be the performed ideal version of his declaration of love for this person? And then, you know, it kind of gets ruined several times, times over. But also, the most performative and the worst person in the movie is the Alana Heim character, who ultimately gives one of the great Nightmare Maid of Honor wedding toasts, which I think we should just, and I can say this because I'm a woman, though I've never been a maid

• 1:00:14Amanda Dobbins?

  of honor, we should outlaw these. It just, it honestly, it goes very badly most of the time.

• 1:00:19Sean Fennessey?

  Have you ever given a toast at a wedding?

• 1:00:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Well, the rehearsal dinner.

• 1:00:24Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:00:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, but yes. And I did a great job. But.

• 1:00:28Sean Fennessey?

  Good for you.

• 1:00:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, don't worry about it. Um, you did too, when you gave one at our wedding.

• 1:00:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I've given a few.

• 1:00:36Amanda Dobbins?

  In general, you know, unless you're really ready to give the toast, as my sister-in-law, Ruthie Barron, was at our wedding, like, you know, don't do it. You know, come with the goods, or just.

• 1:00:47Sean Fennessey?

  Agreed.

• 1:00:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Say I love you and go home. But this one, purposely for the, for the film.

• 1:00:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Is is just a absolutely cringey nightmare. And she is putting on the performance of being outraged that people like aren't being honest, even though she's doing it in a wedding speech. It's it's great stuff. It's really good.

• 1:01:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's just another nice little snapshot of an idea, too, which is that the thin line between beloved eternal friendship and mortal enemy is very thin. And that one simple revelation can also fracture that relationship profoundly. You know, it does make you wonder like why Alanaheim is even at that wedding, you know, like why she's continued to participate in that friendship in any meaningful. It's a little confusing.

• 1:01:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:01:34Sean Fennessey?

  But I, you know, I think the movie has like three different sets and tones. One is what seems to be a kind of frothy rom com at the beginning, very quickly pivots to almost like a social thriller with some kind of anxiety ammo baked inside. And then the the the final third of the movie is like borderline slapstick comedy. I mean, the wedding in particular is very outsized and big in a way that the first half of the movie isn't. And it starts with Pattinson pursuing in a bungling fashion this kind of impromptu office affair with Haley, Ben Gates' character, which I thought was so funny and so strange and so off kilter in the way that like some of the best stuff in this movie is, which

• 1:02:17Sean Fennessey?

  then culminates in like a big thrashing moment in the finale.

• 1:02:23Sean Fennessey?

  The movie seems to lose a little bit of interest, I think, in some of that like provocation and like, who are we really idea as it goes into the final third. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing because I think of the movie. I think Dream Scenario had a hard time tying up its loose ends. And this movie is seems more tightly focused on making sure that we get to the end of this movie in a clean way, perhaps too clean. Um, I don't know. What do you what do you think about that?

• 1:02:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I I appreciated the very classical romantic comedy ending turned on its head, uh, which, you know, is satisfying in that real puzzle sense of we get to where we're going and you, as soon as it starts, the callback, you're like, oh, I see you put the piece here and you put the piece here. And there is something both soothing about that as a viewer and then also because this entire movie has been. A rejection of not just romantic comedies, but also, you know, the idea of love and marriage and weddings and the ability to know someone else.

• 1:03:31Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:03:33Amanda Dobbins?

  It works because it's tied in a bow, but also is it at all? And then you wonder, you know, what's going to happen next? And it's a neat ending that is also not neat. And I appreciate that. I agree that it completely just drops the ethics of the school shooting of it all. And if there are people who watch this and are just like very offended by that segment of the film and don't think that it's addressed appropriately or, you know, borne out respectfully, I completely understand that.

• 1:04:05Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm. I just think that.

• 1:04:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't agree.

• 1:04:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that level of piousness doesn't necessarily appeal to me in terms of a movie like this. This is a movie that is certainly talking about serious subjects, but it's attempting to have fun with.

• 1:04:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:16Sean Fennessey?

  Individual human foibles, which is something that I enjoy. I think it's really good. I think it's impressive.

• 1:04:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally agree.

• 1:04:25Sean Fennessey?

  Hold of a certain kind of tone.

• 1:04:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I have to talk about the apartment.

• 1:04:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:28Amanda Dobbins?

  For a little. I mean, I just, and you mentioned like the slick Scandi quality, and I suppose there is a Scandi mid-century modern element to the design of the apartment. But it is, it's so knowing. It was like Sofia Coppola level of detail, like there are like 14 different Akari lamps, you know, in each structure. It's really, really funny, like the Zellig tile in the kitchen, obviously the spiral staircase. They just, everything that Zendaya is wearing, the details are like, are playing into the film and spot on and tell a story all their own. I was very amused.

• 1:05:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I get the impression he walks through these worlds pretty consistently. And I think he's also kind of an auteur for our times insofar as.

• 1:05:23Sean Fennessey?

  We live in a time when people will fight online about the dumbest bullshit for hours and hours and hours and hours. But when something genuinely culturally, socially dangerous or scary comes up, everybody's like, fuck. Like, I don't know what to do. Like, in person, I don't even know how to have this conversation without either hectoring someone about it or completely turning off. And if there's no middle ground, there's no ability to kind of talk about our feelings about things or mistakes that we have made in a productive way, which is a very European sensibility to bring to an American setting. And I think he's very good at it. I like this movie. Now, I don't know if this movie's gonna be a hit. I think it's cool that Zendaya and Pattinson are throwing their weight behind stuff like this. I think this is what you're supposed to do.

• 1:06:06Sean Fennessey?

  You can make Batman and you can make Dune, and you should also make these kinds of movies. If it's successful, it's going to be entirely on their shoulders, right? That like, we want to go spend time with them for two hours in a movie theater? I don't know.

• 1:06:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And also, the A24, you know, hide the ball strategy, which you invoked Materialists. And this is maybe not the same week, but the same time of the year, last year, that Materialists got its release.

• 1:06:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:06:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And many people felt that they were getting, or expected, a romantic comedy and instead got, you know, a man shortening his legs.

• 1:06:47Sean Fennessey?

  A leg-shortening farce.

• 1:06:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And didn't respond. And there was a mismatch between the marketing and what audiences got that they-

• 1:06:54Sean Fennessey?

  Purposeful.

• 1:06:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Purposeful. And people still went to see The Materialists.

• 1:07:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Materialists, you know, we had a ball talking about it on the show. I think we both thought it was very, very mixed bag of stuff. I think this movie is a little bit more successful creatively and will be a little bit less successful culturally, because I do think you have more people who are gonna be like, what the fuck is that about this movie?

• 1:07:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:17Sean Fennessey?

  Whereas Materialists was sort of like, huh, that was weird.

• 1:07:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally.

• 1:07:20Sean Fennessey?

  But not in a way that could offend, really, unless you're really short.

• 1:07:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess.

• 1:07:25Sean Fennessey?

  Um- In this movie.

• 1:07:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, Zoe Winters also had a questionable plotline in that.

• 1:07:31Sean Fennessey?

  Very true.

• 1:07:32Amanda Dobbins?

  In that film as well.

• 1:07:32Sean Fennessey?

  She's really become a kind of.

• 1:07:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, she's amazing.

• 1:07:35Sean Fennessey?

  Sixth man of the year for A24.

• 1:07:36Amanda Dobbins?

  In all of them. In some ways, I think you're right that this is more of a like, oh, what? This is not what I was promised. In other ways, I do actually think it is. It is a romantic comedy. It's just a completely upside down one.

• 1:07:54Sean Fennessey?

  You're right. You're totally right. Do you think this is a big twist? Because certainly this is available to people out there. And some people have had it spoiled for them.

• 1:08:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:05Sean Fennessey?

  I think the way that you set this up is right, which is the movie just does not really work as well. If you know what the twist is, and you didn't know going in.

• 1:08:15Sean Fennessey?

  I was, you know, going through the list of like, all time classic movie plot twists. And almost all of these twists happen in the final 30 minutes of the movie. And this one happens in the first 30 minutes.

• 1:08:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:28Sean Fennessey?

  And so this is a little different than your standard fare, but we haven't really talked about plot twists that much on the show over time. Well, do you have a favorite?

• 1:08:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I, you know, I'll always remember being 12, no, 15 and seeing Sixth Sense. And I made it to Sixth Sense without knowing what was going on.

• 1:08:48Sean Fennessey?

  For me, unfortunately.

• 1:08:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's brutal, but that was, that was incredible. And I was also the right age. I mean, historically, I am not a very smart movie watcher in that I will just kind of go along with it and then give myself over and be surprised. But that one, I really, I obviously didn't, I didn't know what was going to happen.

• 1:09:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that really ruined a great movie for me in some ways. You can go back and watch it and enjoy the film in different ways now. Um, The Usual Suspects, I think, was the big.

• 1:09:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:09:16Sean Fennessey?

  Keyhole for me, the one where I was like, oh, you can, you can do this in a movie. And I thought very cleverly showed us flashing images that hadn't been presented throughout the movie as all the little clues, summing up the Kaiser Soze revelation about Kevin Spacey's character, Verbal Kent. You know, there's a, there's a couple of like all time classics, a few all time classics that we can talk about. There's Psycho and the idea of Mrs. Bates, Norman's mother actually being dead and learning that Norman is in fact the killer. You cited Casablanca, which I would not have thought as a, as a movie plot twist.

• 1:09:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, this is, well, you know, Victor Lazo is my husband and was even when we knew each other in Paris, which is like, I call this the Jane Eyre, but the like, in all romantic dramas, like the oops, actually I'm, I'm married. Yeah. There's a, there's a secret spouse somewhere else. And this comes, that comes fairly early.

• 1:10:11Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Planet of the Apes is one that was spoiled for me by attendant cultural media. You know, like if you just watched The Simpsons, you could have a lot of movies spoiled for you as a kid growing up. But that one, and also just remember my dad saying Soylent Green is people, which is the big revelation of the Charlton, other Charlton Heston movies, Soylent Green from the seventies. But we've gotten a lot in recent years. I've noticed that a lot of recent movie history is defined by, oh shit moments in movies. Old Boy has a, has a few of them, but the one in particular that's the most upsetting is when we learn that Day Sue has been tricked into sleeping with his own daughter. Not ideal.

• 1:10:51Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:10:51Sean Fennessey?

  Not what you want.

• 1:10:52Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:10:52Sean Fennessey?

  Park Chan Wook, what a little freak. Arrival, I had not read that short story before I saw the film.

• 1:10:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, nor had I.

• 1:10:59Sean Fennessey?

  And very devastating revelation at the end. If people haven't seen these movies, they're going to be really mad at the, I hope you've turned the pot off by now. We're talking about movie plot twists here. Crazy Stupid Love, if you Google movie plot twist, this is one of the most cited plot twists in recent movie times. Do, do you feel that this is a plot twist?

• 1:11:19Amanda Dobbins?

  When do we learn? Is it really just at the barbecue at the end?

• 1:11:24Sean Fennessey?

  I think, yeah, I think it's more than an hour into the movie.

• 1:11:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:11:27Sean Fennessey?

  That Ryan Gosling is in fact dating Steve Carell's daughter, who is played by Emma Stone, and that this swath.

• 1:11:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Do, they learn that, but we don't know? Like, we don't see Emma Stone talking to Steve Carell beforehand?

• 1:11:41Speaker 02

  I don't think it's, I think it's what Sean's saying. I think it's closer to around the hour mark. It's not like right at the end of the movie.

• 1:11:46Amanda Dobbins?

  And then, but the barbecue at the end is when they all find out and they do the sign.

• 1:11:50Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yep.

• 1:11:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:11:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, okay. Listen, whatever the younger generation needs. I like, I like that movie. I like it when they do the Dirty Dancing lift.

• 1:11:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's a good film.

• 1:12:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:01Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, The Prestige?

• 1:12:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:03Sean Fennessey?

  They're twins?

• 1:12:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yep. You're just, you're just naming them all off.

• 1:12:07Sean Fennessey?

  Sorry. If you haven't seen The Prestige, or Old Boy, or Arrival, and Crazy Stupid Love. Weird podcast to be listening to, one and a half hours in. Uh, The Others is one that I like quite a bit. You seen that one?

• 1:12:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm, that's a, M Night Shyamalan?

• 1:12:22Sean Fennessey?

  Nope.

• 1:12:22Amanda Dobbins?

  No, which one is that?

• 1:12:23Sean Fennessey?

  That's Alejandro Amenabar.

• 1:12:25Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:12:25Sean Fennessey?

  Spanish filmmaker. Nicole Kidman is the star of this film. You haven't seen this film? I'm, I'm, oh my God, don't even look at what I've written down. And you should, I don't want to spoil this for you.

• 1:12:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I already read it. Have I not seen this?

• 1:12:35Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, it's a very good film.

• 1:12:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, no, I've seen this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen, I just didn't remember. Yeah, of course. We did, because we did Kidman Hall of Fame.

• 1:12:42Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 1:12:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:43Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, that is the, is a great twist there. Primal Fear was one year after The Usual Suspects.

• 1:12:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:12:49Sean Fennessey?

  And, uh,

• 1:12:50Amanda Dobbins?

  It's good.

• 1:12:51Sean Fennessey?

  Good for you, Marty. You know, the revelation that Aaron Stampler is not a split personality, but is in fact a sociopath and knowing murderer. There's a whole-

• 1:13:01Amanda Dobbins?

  It's also, though, Primal Fear then ruined a lot of crime fiction afterwards.

• 1:13:06Sean Fennessey?

  How so?

• 1:13:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Because, because it, the, he's a sociopath, is, or he's a psychopath, or she's a psychopath, is only a satisfying reveal once, you know?

• 1:13:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:13:16Amanda Dobbins?

  And then it's, it's only like, oh my gosh, in Primal Fear. And then the next time it's like, well, there's actually no rhyme or reason to what's happened here because this person was just a psychopath.

• 1:13:25Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Um, I didn't know that. I don't read a lot of contemporary crime fiction.

• 1:13:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I get mad when it's, you know, every, every writer does it once, you know, but when you're in the book and you realize like, oh, this is the psychopath novel, it's just not very satisfying. Yeah.

• 1:13:38Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think I quite realized that this was David Fincher's stock and trade purely for a period of time. Seven doesn't have a twist so much as a shocking revelation at the end of it, but The Game and Fight Club are both pure twist movies. And Gone Girl is also a pure twist movie.

• 1:13:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:54Sean Fennessey?

  And-

• 1:13:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, based on a book with a, a twist, but-

• 1:13:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, of course. Um, I mean, so was Fight Club. Uh, The Game and Fight Club, we don't learn the twist until the very end of the movie.

• 1:14:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:14:07Sean Fennessey?

  But Gone Girl, we learn, is it less than an hour into the movie, that we learn that this is all a scheme?

• 1:14:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, or maybe the halfway mark. I mean, it's kind of bifurcated. The first half is Affleck, and then the second half is-

• 1:14:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't remember her name, Rosalind Pike. Amy.

• 1:14:24Sean Fennessey?

  Amazing Amy. Yes.

• 1:14:25Amanda Dobbins?

  The cool girl.

• 1:14:27Sean Fennessey?

  The Crying Game?

• 1:14:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:29Sean Fennessey?

  How do you think that's aging?

• 1:14:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Really, really great, I'm sure.

• 1:14:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I haven't seen it. I've never seen the movie.

• 1:14:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I remember my parents talking about this.

• 1:14:37Sean Fennessey?

  It was a flashpoint for movie discussion. There are a great many examples of this in horror movies over the years that have shocking revelations. I just wrote down a handful that popped into my mind as I was thinking about them last night, but Saw is one. There have been 10 Saw movies now, and I think they're kind of like, you know, not taken very seriously. But the first Saw was shocking. I think the first Saw played Sundance as an independent horror release from James Wan and was shocking to people. The Mist was an adaptation of a Stephen King story, but that has a crazy twist in the film adaptation. Sleepaway Camp, that's another wild one. Orphan, Cabin in the Woods. Have you seen 10 Cloverfield Lane? Do you know about that one?

• 1:15:16Amanda Dobbins?

  That's not the original.

• 1:15:18Sean Fennessey?

  No, it's the second Cloverfield movie.

• 1:15:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, no.

• 1:15:21Sean Fennessey?

  Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman.

• 1:15:24Amanda Dobbins?

  You're gonna spoil it for me now?

• 1:15:25Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, they're trapped in like a subterranean space during what we think is possibly a post-apocalyptic moment. But we don't know. The John Goodman character is very paranoid.

• 1:15:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:15:40Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe schizophrenic. Check it out. I think it's really worth watching.

• 1:15:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:15:44Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's darn good. Barbarian?

• 1:15:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:47Sean Fennessey?

  You know about that because we spoiled it for you on this podcast. Malignant, another James Wan movie. Parasite?

• 1:15:53Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a good one. It also comes about an hour in, right?

• 1:15:57Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe a little. Well, the third family revelation to me is the big twist of the movie. That's the like.

• 1:16:03Amanda Dobbins?

  In the basement?

• 1:16:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and that amazing shot of the husband coming up the stairs.

• 1:16:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:16:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, maybe you're right that it's only, that it's like an hour 15 or something. But then there's a while of, because they banish her and then they all work their way in and then.

• 1:16:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Where they're, they've all worked their way in, but I, I don't know. There's at least another 30 minutes when you know, so it's not the very end.

• 1:16:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you're right. There's a lot of incident after that. Uh, do you want to speak about your personal trauma?

• 1:16:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. So, uh, was recently at home watching Return of the Jedi. With, with my son, with both my children, you should hear Si say, yub yub. It's quite, quite cute.

• 1:16:48Amanda Dobbins?

  And I'm, I'm sitting there, Zach's in the other room. And Knox, my older son, out of nowhere goes, hey, mama.

• 1:16:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you know that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's dad?

• 1:17:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And that is true, and I did know it, but what I knew is that my son had not seen Empire Strikes Back because my husband decided to skip from no, from A New Hope to Return of the Jedi because he thought Empire Strikes Back is too scary. And then I learned that my son, he told my son. He was like, well, he needed to know for plot purposes. He needed to under, to understand Return of the Jedi. He needs to know what happens in Empire Strikes Back. So I told him. I'm, I'm still so angry. I cannot believe this. My son doesn't understand, my son thought that the Super Mario movie was about like a ship, guys. Like he doesn't, he doesn't need to know.

• 1:17:47Amanda Dobbins?

  He can just watch the movie and when the time is right, we'll show him Empire Strikes Back. Why are you ruining this perfect moment?

• 1:17:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Really, really angry about it.

• 1:17:58Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's just something that wouldn't happen in my household.

• 1:18:03Sean Fennessey?

  I'm very sorry.

• 1:18:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't have anything to say about Zach made the executive decision that we were going to go A New Hope and then Return of the Jedi. And I, I, you know,

• 1:18:11Sean Fennessey?

  I understand the impulse.

• 1:18:12Amanda Dobbins?

  You have to, you have to let both parents parent, you know? So I was like, I was like, that is fine. I'm not going to get involved. But Knox says this out of nowhere and I was sort of like, who told you that? Like, how did you, were you on Wikipedia? He was like, dad, dad told me.

• 1:18:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's just, um.

• 1:18:34Sean Fennessey?

  That's just a very sad story. It's a very sad story about snatching wonder from the mind of a child.

• 1:18:40Amanda Dobbins?

  He maintains that he did the right thing and then.

• 1:18:43Sean Fennessey?

  Now, I will say Empire Strikes Back is scary and, you know, it was not an issue in our home, but I have heard many parents that I've talked to about this, especially because when we were watching the Star Wars movies, I was telling a lot of parents, like, oh, yeah, we're doing the Star Wars movies. And some were like, oh, it's great. This, this, this works, this doesn't work. And some were like, we did A New Hope. I tried to do Empire and they couldn't do it because it was too intense. So I understand the motivation. The spoiling couldn't be me. That's not something I would do.

• 1:19:07Amanda Dobbins?

  He stands by it. And then as like a rejoinder, he keeps throwing back the fact that I allegedly told Knox that it's a grown up in the Mickey Mouse suit, which first of all, I don't remember saying that. And I don't think that that's true. And second of all, I think that that is really different.

• 1:19:24Sean Fennessey?

  You should tell him it's a grown up, but that it's always Uncle Chris. That would be the way to make that okay, I think.

• 1:19:30Amanda Dobbins?

  And Zach thinks that is worse than spoiling Empire Strikes Back. I just, I couldn't disagree more. This is a fundamental issue in our marriage.

• 1:19:40Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you know, life is tough, you know, and you got to learn the hard way that you're not going to get things exactly the way that you want them all the time. You're learning it now as you parent. Knox is learning it now as he has the magical wonder of The Empire Strikes Back, one of the greatest moments in movie revelation history, taken from him cruelly. One day he'll be able to come here and do a podcast with Alice about how his father ruined his life. Now he can't ever have that. It's a real shame.

• 1:20:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:06Sean Fennessey?

  But that is, that is among the greatest plot twists of all time.

• 1:20:09Amanda Dobbins?

  It is.

• 1:20:10Sean Fennessey?

  Is learning that Anakin's Skywalker. You know, I'll be curious to see if as Knox gets into the prequels, if you guys allow him to see the prequels, if he develops the same affection and interest in Anakin as, as my daughter has, because I think Anakin might now be one of her, if not her favorite characters. She really feels. Like, he's misunderstood.

• 1:20:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:31Sean Fennessey?

  And we watched Rogue One the other day, which is really not for kids at all. But at the end of Rogue One, Darth Vader shows up.

• 1:20:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:38Sean Fennessey?

  And he just rec-shot. He's got his red lightsaber and he's just going to town, trying to get the map to the Death Star that leads into A New Hope, right? That movie ends right where A New Hope takes off. And she was like, kind of pumped that he was kicking ass and killing rebel soldiers. So, you know, we understand these things differently than when we were kids, where Darth Vader was the ultimate embodiment of evil.

• 1:21:05Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a little cool.

• 1:21:06Sean Fennessey?

  He's kind of a sad kid.

• 1:21:08Amanda Dobbins?

  That's, no, that's, that's the millennial shit right there.

• 1:21:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. There's a historic Patton Oswalt bit about that, but when you watch the movies as a young person and you have all this context and backstory, it changes your definition of it. But your son will never really understand. You had to take in from him.

• 1:21:24Amanda Dobbins?

  It's too bad. At least he has Mickey Mouse. I told him that that was wrong, that it really is Mickey Mouse. And he was like, and he has a tummy and everything, so.

• 1:21:33Sean Fennessey?

  Good question. Yeah, we all do.

• 1:21:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Why does the Mandalorian wear a helmet?

• 1:21:38Sean Fennessey?

  It's a part of the, uh, the ancient religion that he follows, that you always have to have your head covered. That is a sign of respect.

• 1:21:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:21:48Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's right.

• 1:21:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you.

• 1:21:49Sean Fennessey?

  I could be completely wrong.

• 1:21:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:21:50Sean Fennessey?

  You want, well, I mean, maybe Easter would be a good time to talk to him about ancient religions.

• 1:21:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm gonna let you do that?

• 1:21:55Sean Fennessey?

  I would be happy to.

• 1:21:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. We know, we know that you love to explain.

• 1:21:59Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 1:21:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Complicated things to the small children.

• 1:22:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Well, it's one of my skills, you know? I've been doing it here on the show for years.

• 1:22:04Amanda Dobbins?

  This is what happens when I let other people parent, you know? Is that Empire Strikes Back gets killed and suddenly, you know?

• 1:22:10Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you can trust me with all things Star Wars. Other stuff, very debatable. That's not, may not be my, my true skill. I think that's it for us.

• 1:22:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. How are the Mets doing? Good, bad?

• 1:22:21Sean Fennessey?

  Oh.

• 1:22:23Sean Fennessey?

  It could be better.

• 1:22:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:22:24Sean Fennessey?

  It could be better. I just recorded in a

• 1:22:26Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I know, but I just

• 1:22:27Sean Fennessey?

  this morning.

• 1:22:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I saw that, but I, to be candid, won't listen to that with all respect to Zach Lowe, who I also love and admire.

• 1:22:34Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:22:35Amanda Dobbins?

  So I just

• 1:22:36Sean Fennessey?

  Listen, why?

• 1:22:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't have that kind of time, you know?

• 1:22:39Sean Fennessey?

  I see.

• 1:22:39Amanda Dobbins?

  But I, I'm watching, I'm doing the Meryl Streep tape, you know?

• 1:22:42Sean Fennessey?

  I know, me too. I'm really digging in.

• 1:22:44Amanda Dobbins?

  So I just wanted to check in with you.

• 1:22:48Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, they're three and three.

• 1:22:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:22:49Sean Fennessey?

  They are, um, 29th in the league with runners in scoring position, batting average wise.

• 1:22:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Okay. That's not, that's not good.

• 1:22:56Sean Fennessey?

  Some struggles.

• 1:22:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:57Sean Fennessey?

  But we're gonna bounce back.

• 1:22:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:22:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's gonna be okay. Uh, next week on the show.

• 1:23:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:02Sean Fennessey?

  Speaking of statistics and data.

• 1:23:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:05Sean Fennessey?

  We're, we're going back to 35 under 35, our patented movie star ranking. We've been doing this for many years. I think this will be our fourth 35 under 35.

• 1:23:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow. Yeah, cuz when we started it, I was 35 and I wanted to be eligible and you said no.

• 1:23:20Sean Fennessey?

  Well, sad.

• 1:23:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Those days are long gone.

• 1:23:23Sean Fennessey?

  Nope. You're, you're eligible for 35 over 35 now, but we're not doing that. We're doing 35 under. I thought we were gonna be short on some names.

• 1:23:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:30Sean Fennessey?

  Because we have had a lot of people graduate.

• 1:23:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:33Sean Fennessey?

  But then I've discovered a great many new names that have been added since the last time we did it. So this will be a fun exercise. We haven't even started yet. We gotta, we gotta

• 1:23:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. Well, we, you know, we had to do this.

• 1:23:42Sean Fennessey?

  Cracking. Um, thanks to Jack Sanders for his work on this episode.

• 1:23:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Do we spoil any movies for, for you and for Lucas?

• 1:23:49Speaker 02

  Hmm, uh, not really. I don't think so.

• 1:23:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Lucas?

• 1:23:53Speaker 02

  He's never seen Crazy Stupid Love.

• 1:23:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well.

• 1:23:56Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 1:23:56Amanda Dobbins?

  So Ryan Gosling is friends with Steve Carell and then dating his daughter and they don't know. I'm sorry.

• 1:24:03Speaker 02

  Amazing playing movie. Great playing movie.

• 1:24:05Sean Fennessey?

  Good call. Uh, speaking of Lucas, thanks to Lucas for his support on this episode. And we'll be back Monday with this ranking, which I think will be received very well.

• 1:24:15Amanda Dobbins?

  People are always kind, supportive. They listen. I would say listening comprehension very high among our audience.

• 1:24:26Sean Fennessey?

  They have respect.

• 1:24:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:27Sean Fennessey?

  And sophistication. And they are committed to this project like we are. And I love them.

• 1:24:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:37Sean Fennessey?

  See you next time.