Pod Insights The Big Picture The 1976 Movie Draft About this episode We’re drafting again! Sean and Amanda are joined by potential third chairs Chris Ryan and Tracy Letts to draft their favorite movies from 1976.
Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins
Guests: Chris Ryan and Tracy Letts
Producer: Jack Sanders
Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh and Sarah Reddy
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Transcript 24,981 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 I'm pro-football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit MDDAllies.com to watch my story.
0:25 Amanda Dobbins? Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.
0:37 Speaker 02 I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplyta lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common.
0:57 Amanda Dobbins? Elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. Caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. Call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. Antidepressants may increase these risks. Report fever, confusion, stiff muscles, which may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High cholesterol and weight gain may occur, as can high blood sugar, which may be fatal. Monitoring is recommended. Common side effects are sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, feeling tired, and diarrhea. These aren't all the side effects.
1:24 Speaker 02 Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.
1:30 Amanda Dobbins? For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.
1:37 Amanda Dobbins? Tremfya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremfya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tremfya, proper training is required. Tremfya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis, serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems. Problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tremfya today.
2:22 Amanda Dobbins? Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more, or visit tremfyaradio.com.
2:46 Sean Fennessey? I'm Sean Fennessey.
2:47 Speaker 04 I'm Amanda Dobbins.
2:48 Sean Fennessey? And this is the Big Picture A Conversation Show about 1976. We are drafting again, and CR is here, of course, but we also have a special guest. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth Chair Tracy Letts. What number, Tracy? Remind us.
3:04 Speaker 05 You want to have this third chair discussion now?
3:06 Sean Fennessey? Let's save it for the end of the podcast.
3:08 Speaker 04 It tantalizes you.
3:09 Sean Fennessey? And then finally.
3:09 Speaker 04 People fighting over your attention, your affection.
3:13 Sean Fennessey? No, that's not what it's about. No, it's about who belongs, who gets to sit and canonize with us, really, in perpetuity, I think. That's the question.
3:21 Speaker 04 I think we're about one or two months away from me and him texting and just being like, why don't we just fucking ditch these losers, start our own podcast?
3:28 Sean Fennessey? I'll tell you what, give it a shot, see what happens. So we are here to draft. This is the third episode of Tracy that we've gotten this week. How are you feeling?
3:38 Speaker 05 Great.
3:39 Sean Fennessey? Yeah?
3:39 Speaker 05 I'm always happy to be with you guys, on the mics or otherwise.
3:43 Sean Fennessey? Oh, that's beautiful.
3:44 Speaker 04 Very nice.
3:45 Speaker 05 I made a little rhyme. I didn't mean to.
3:46 Speaker 04 Yeah.
3:47 Sean Fennessey? 1976.
3:48 Speaker 05 Yeah.
3:50 Sean Fennessey? You were alive?
3:51 Speaker 05 I was.
3:52 Sean Fennessey? What was going on? Tell us about it.
3:56 Speaker 05 You know, it was our bicentennial year.
3:58 Sean Fennessey? It sure was.
3:59 Speaker 05 And I'm born on the 4th of July, so I turned...
4:02 Speaker 04 I didn't know that about you.
4:03 Sean Fennessey? I didn't either.
4:04 Speaker 04 I should have Googled. I'm sorry.
4:07 Sean Fennessey? You went to say happy birthday.
4:09 Speaker 04 It's not the 4th of July yet.
4:10 Sean Fennessey? That explains so much about what you represent to this fine country.
4:14 Speaker 05 There you go. I turned 11 when the country turned 200. And I remember it very well. My dad had... He was a college professor and he'd become disenchanted with teaching or the institution he was teaching at, so he quit. And he and my mom built and operated a grocery store out at the lake. He became a gentleman grocer for a year. It was a disastrous experiment.
4:41 Sean Fennessey? I was about to say, this sounds like my dream.
4:43 Speaker 04 I know, I was gonna say.
4:44 Speaker 05 No. You never found two people more temperamentally unsuited to be, to run a grocery store than my parents.
4:51 Speaker 04 Sounds like a less exciting version of Mosquito Coast.
4:53 Speaker 05 I think that's very appropriate. We lived in a, in a trailer park and my birthday gift on our bicentennial was a Honda 50. I had got a little, yeah, a little mini bike to go scoot around the lake on.
5:09 Speaker 04 We used to really know how to raise kids back then.
5:11 Speaker 05 We, we used to go swimming in the lake, me and my friends, unsupervised. How did we not drown? I can't even fathom it.
5:19 Sean Fennessey? So you had a little dirt bike going around a lake?
5:21 Speaker 05 Yeah.
5:22 Sean Fennessey? That's one of the scariest things I've ever heard.
5:23 Speaker 05 Yeah, looked like a little ghost, right? Just like perennially sunburned.
5:28 Speaker 04 Like seriously out of gummo. Just like a little guy, right?
5:33 Speaker 05 And we were, you know, we were at the movie theaters, seeing a lot of these movies we're gonna talk about today. Afternoon Delight was playing on the radio. Songs in the Key of Life was on our turntable all year long.
5:47 Speaker 04 Hell yeah.
5:48 Speaker 05 It was a great time to be alive.
5:51 Speaker 04 CR, you were just a glimmer in my dad's eye.
5:53 Sean Fennessey? You were around the corner.
5:54 Speaker 04 Sure.
5:55 Sean Fennessey? You were not quite there.
5:56 Speaker 04 Yeah.
5:57 Sean Fennessey? You look at the, the landscape of 76, the cinema of 76, the culture of 76.
6:02 Speaker 04 Sure.
6:03 Sean Fennessey? What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel?
6:06 Speaker 04 Uh, I was thinking a lot about the pregnant moment before, you know, obviously Jaws is 75, correct? So we're living in a post-Jaws world and when you read like Pauline Kael from November of 76, she's still like grappling with Jaws. She's still reckoning with, with what the shark means for movies. But I think while all that nervousness is happening, like we get like an absolute diamond of a year, uh, that is maybe one of the last of its kind before all the big, we can make Jaws money kind of movies really start to come in. And this is one where.
6:40 Speaker 04 Even like the blockbusters are just really creative and interesting. And some of them are just throwaway like exploitation movies or whatever, B-movies. But it's just, it's decidedly free of franchises. It's decidedly free of premeditated blockbusters. And I think you can see that in like the variety of work that comes across here.
6:58 Sean Fennessey? What struck you? So I probably first came to this as an Oscars year, right? As an Oscars nerd. And you start doing the history and this year and the year before it are probably the quote unquote, two greatest Oscar best picture lineups in history. Yeah. Maybe both times with not the winner I would have chosen. But you, if you come to this moment by, you know, studying all of the Oscars, you see all of these movies. And then this is your introduction to what was going on in the seventies movie wise, which is, you know, what the Oscars taught me over the years. This is still my pick for the best year. So even, even over- For the lineup or for the year itself?
7:44 Sean Fennessey? For the, for the lineup. And I guess probably maybe for the year. But it's going to be interesting, right? Because there's, I mean, there's so much top line stuff. There is so much recognizable, great works of cinema, canonized in part, you know, by the Oscars, but also just because of what we reference. And then there's a lot of, there's not that much in the middle, I found at least while preparing for this. I was kind of shocked by the number of comedies I just had to turn off. And I was like, well, I'm not laughing. And also that is not an appropriate representation of that person in 2026.
8:19 Speaker 04 I would watch Amanda Watch, but I watched-
8:20 Sean Fennessey? So I was just like, I mean, not even that one. So I, can it be great if it's just like all the big names? The high end. All, all bold faced stuff? Is it the greatest? I mean, not to be Captain Obvious, but like, yes, you've got Network, you've got Taxi Driver, you've got All the President's Men. You've got Rocky, you've got, you know, it's, those are heavy hitters. But I, you know, it's, it was, it was interesting to see what else was going on because when you think about 76 and you think about Young Tracy-
8:53 Speaker 05 Going to the movies every week and like living like in the heyday of cinema. They're not all at work. No.
9:01 Sean Fennessey? Well, I.
9:03 Speaker 05 I was in the theater for In Search of Noah's Ark. I saw that in the movie theater.
9:07 Sean Fennessey? I wrote about that in the newsletter last week and just the idea that that movie was the, was it the number nine or number 10 grossing film for the year? Which was a documentary and did your parents bring you to go see that movie?
9:18 Speaker 05 No, I'm sure I went.
9:20 Sean Fennessey? By yourself?
9:20 Speaker 05 No, with my older brother, probably.
9:22 Sean Fennessey? And what, what spurred that? Was it just because it was a kind of phenomenon?
9:26 Speaker 05 We had one screen in town?
9:27 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, there you go. And that's part of how it works. And I think that's, I don't, I, I probably would disagree with what you're saying because I find the middle of this year very soft. And this makes for a very interesting draft because there is somewhere between seven and 10 extremely desirable titles this year. And then the way that we do the categories, they're a little weaker. We had to do a little bit of.
9:50 Speaker 05 Yeah.
9:50 Sean Fennessey? Navigating and managing around it. And just thinking back to 1975, we drafted for 1975, four years ago on the pod. And here are the movies that were taken, just among the three of us. I'll just list the 15 movies we took in 75. My, my slate was Barry Lyndon, The Man Who Would Be King, Jaws, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dolomite and Rollerball. Chris's was The Passenger, Night Moves, Shampoo, Nashville, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Race with the Devil. And Amanda got Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Stepford Wives, Three Days of the Condor, Dog Day Afternoon, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Grey Gardens. You just can't, that's not.
10:26 Speaker 05 Wait a second, I got Grey Gardens in 75?
10:29 Sean Fennessey? You did.
10:29 Speaker 05 Was that the? Well, I'm gonna have to, hold on, just Googling some release dates here. Grey Gardens was on the Letterboxd list that you made.
10:38 Sean Fennessey? It was. I think it's because we, we let it go through because it played the New York Film Festival in the fall of 75. That is American. And it was released in theaters February of seventy six. Okay, that's fine. Now, this is an ongoing issue that I think will be an issue in this episode, and we should probably talk about it.
10:53 Speaker 04 Up front, or do you want to?
10:54 Sean Fennessey? Let's just talk about it up front. Because. Deleting that from wildcard. There's a whole raft of, let's just say, international movies, movies that were made overseas. And the years in which they arrive in the nineteen seventies, sometimes it takes three or four years, or sometimes not at all, for a movie to be released. This is, there's been a lot of chaos with, like, Japanese animated movies in the eighties and nineties drafts as well, where it's like, I don't really know what year this movie should be eligible.
11:19 Speaker 04 For, like, Seven Beauties this year, or whatever.
11:20 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, well, at least Seven Beauties was nominated.
11:22 Speaker 04 December seventy five, right?
11:23 Sean Fennessey? Yes, but it was, but it was nominated for the Academy Awards for seventy six. But there, you know, there's a whole host of them. If you go, one of the fun activity to do when you're preparing for this is just go to the Criterion General and type in nineteen seventy six. I did do this, it was really fun. And there's a ton of things there.
11:38 Speaker 04 Yeah.
11:39 Sean Fennessey? Probably more than half of those things never even opened in America. So the, the rules that, that I created when we were talking about movies from the two thousands, which was, what was the US release date as the, the guide for what we can draft? It's a little squishier here. So Grey Gardens would have been eligible, but since you took it in seventy five, maybe not so eligible. It's okay. We don't want to repeat it. I don't know, what do you make of how we're navigating all this?
12:01 Speaker 05 I think, uh, I think we should just, uh, I think we should play with love and trust.
12:06 Sean Fennessey? Yes, do the best we can. That's beautiful.
12:08 Speaker 04 It's a fundamental belief system in this podcast.
12:11 Sean Fennessey? I would just say, when you're out in the world talking about the big picture, not on this podcast, is it all, it's maybe with love, but not trust, always. Hmm. Yeah.
12:23 Speaker 05 How do you mean?
12:23 Sean Fennessey? I, I would say that you have some feedback about our taste. Oh, yeah. That you've made, you've made public on Blank Check and other places.
12:32 Speaker 05 Look, I've made no bones about the fact that I disagree with you guys sixty to seventy percent of the time. But the, I've said it to Chris, that's part of the magic of the show, that you can disagree with you guys as much as I do, and listen to the show, and it's not a, it's not a hate watch, it's not a hate listen.
12:48 Sean Fennessey? Hmm.
12:48 Speaker 05 I don't listen to it because you piss me off.
12:50 Sean Fennessey? Thank you.
12:51 Speaker 05 I listen to it in spite of the fact that you piss me off.
12:53 Sean Fennessey? That's why you listen to the watch.
12:58 Sean Fennessey? Do you listen to the big picture?
13:00 Speaker 04 Do I listen to the big picture? Yeah, I do.
13:02 Sean Fennessey? What do you think of it?
13:04 Speaker 04 It's a, it's a, an interesting experiment.
13:09 Speaker 05 How often do you agree with their taste? Maybe more so than I do.
13:14 Speaker 04 Somewhere, I mean, I am usually in agreement with one or the other, if not both.
13:18 Speaker 05 See, I, I mean, I like a lot fewer things than you do, but I think that's the way it's supposed to be. I think, given the various jobs that we have, I think we like the right percentage of stuff.
13:29 Sean Fennessey? Well, you, I have found the more folks that I get to know who have worked in this business, the more you find that they don't like a lot of things, that they're actually quite critical of a lot of things. Of course, they will never, ever say that they don't like something for a variety of reasons. But it's always fascinating to me here, why someone who has worked in film, television, theater, thinks something is a failure.
13:51 Speaker 04 It's usually because like the director of photography on that is a jackass to be one.
13:55 Sean Fennessey? Sometimes, sometimes, but sometimes you get such fascinating, critical insight that I just wish I could share or which I wish could be broadcast in a way, but that's because folks like yourself understand how some of this stuff works in ways that we never will.
14:08 Speaker 05 Also, there, of course, there's also a generational component. And we've had this conversation that The Ringer itself, there's a kind of 90s love across, across platforms here at The Ringer that I don't share. I prefer the 80s to the 90s in terms of movies. That's a fight I love to have and keep having, you know, but it's not a, it's not a deal breaker.
14:33 Sean Fennessey? Not a deal breaker. This was proffered on the Robert Duvall Hall of Fame, that the movies from the 70s are better than the movies from the 80s, and movies from the 80s are better than the movies from the 90s, and so on and so forth.
14:42 Speaker 05 We found it both with Robert Duvall and Robert Redford.
14:46 Sean Fennessey? Very true. Yes. That, but I wonder if the, are the Robert Redford movies from the 90s better than his movies from the 80s? They might. It might be.
14:56 Speaker 04 Yes.
14:58 Sean Fennessey? Is Sneakers 90s? No.
15:01 Speaker 05 Look at our Hall of Fame.
15:01 Speaker 04 Sneakers is 90s.
15:02 Sean Fennessey? Sneakers is 92. We gotta start talking about stars who were in their primes in the 90s. That was the other thing, is who was in their prime at that time?
15:11 Speaker 05 Right.
15:11 Sean Fennessey? That's a factor. Anyhow. Up close and personal?
15:14 Speaker 04 Do you think?
15:16 Sean Fennessey? Never forget. Not a great one.
15:18 Speaker 04 Eastwood in the 90s better than Eastwood in the 80s?
15:21 Sean Fennessey? Oh yeah, no question.
15:22 Speaker 04 Yeah.
15:23 Sean Fennessey? Not even close.
15:23 Speaker 04 Yeah.
15:25 Speaker 05 I can't conjure the titles.
15:26 Sean Fennessey? I mean, Unforgiven.
15:28 Speaker 04 In the Light of Fire.
15:28 Sean Fennessey? Perfect World.
15:29 Speaker 04 Bridges of Madison County.
15:31 Sean Fennessey? Madison County. That's, some of his best movies are in the 90s.
15:34 Speaker 05 Yeah, the exception that proves the rule.
15:36 Sean Fennessey? Okay. Uh, I had a, I had a, I think we'll probably end up doing every year from the 1970s at some point, hopefully with you again in the future too. But, um, this year, and the point that you were making about Jaws had me thinking about an exercise, which is I find that because the 70s is so critical to shaping the future of cinema, not just in America, but worldwide. Each year gets a movie that I feel like is the movie that represents something meaningful. Box office wise, critically, cultural, cultural impact beyond both of those things, kind of what it means to the character of the country, the character of the business. And I just, this morning, just banged out what I think the movie of that year is.
16:18 Sean Fennessey? So for 1970, I thought MASH. It wasn't the number one movie at the box office, but it's a movie that kind of changed the tenor of what a movie could be and be a very successful film.
16:29 Speaker 04 And you think it captured like the, the anti-war sentiment that was growing in the country at the time?
16:33 Sean Fennessey? Something in The Zeitgeist, a little bit of the like pranksterism too, that I think came out of the 1960s. 71, I chose The French Connection. 72, I chose The Godfather. 73, I chose The Exorcist. That's two Friedkin movies. 74, I chose Blazing Saddles over things like The Godfather Part II. Right. Your anti-Godfather II agenda continues.
16:54 Speaker 05 We, we had some conversation about this on, uh, Robert Duvall.
16:57 Sean Fennessey? Okay. On my side.
16:58 Speaker 05 And did I hear you on the Talk Easy, uh, podcast, learn that maybe your father was not a-
17:06 Speaker 04 My father did not like Godfather II. At least he didn't when he was reviewing it, apparently.
17:09 Sean Fennessey? A cash grab.
17:10 Speaker 04 Yes.
17:10 Sean Fennessey? He called it.
17:11 Speaker 04 Yeah.
17:12 Sean Fennessey? But, you know.
17:13 Speaker 04 Can you imagine my dad now, like having wrecked with what cash grabs are?
17:17 Sean Fennessey? He would've been a great third chair.
17:19 Speaker 04 Yeah.
17:19 Speaker 05 I think there's a con, more conversation to, to have about Godfather Part II, but it's a 50-year-old movie and we don't have to have it now.
17:26 Sean Fennessey? Well, it's not the right year, but we'll get there. Okay. Um, 75, Jaws, of course.
17:32 Sean Fennessey? 76, the subject of our, our draft, is probably Rocky.
17:35 Speaker 04 Yeah.
17:36 Sean Fennessey? Yes. And, and we'll get into that when we go through the draft. 77 is obvious Star Wars. 78, I think is Superman. And 79, you can pick your poison. Apocalypse Now is the end of something. Alien is the start of something. What do you, what do you make of that? Do you feel like that's a little easy Monday morning quarterbacking?
17:54 Speaker 04 Do you want to talk about 76 specifically? Because I think the rejoinder to Rocky would be like, but what about all the president's men? And put a capstone on Watergate and you know, it's like this, but it, I'm curious to somebody who was there and also somebody who's obviously thought about this process, like why Rocky and not?
18:09 Sean Fennessey? Were you to Watergate at age 11?
18:11 Speaker 05 Oh my God.
18:12 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
18:13 Speaker 05 Very tapped in. My, my father, red faced and screaming at the television for two solid years. I, oh, no, incredibly tapped in.
18:23 Sean Fennessey? That's so interesting.
18:25 Speaker 05 It was some of my earliest memories, my parents screaming at the television. It was just total engagement and enragement.
18:34 Sean Fennessey? Did you, did he, did he read the Woodward and Bernstein book?
18:37 Speaker 05 Of course.
18:38 Sean Fennessey? Did he, did he, did you send anticipation for that movie in your household?
18:42 Speaker 05 Absolutely.
18:43 Sean Fennessey? Hmm, that is interesting. Not surprising, and I'm not trying to deride all the president's men, obviously. I just made a podcast about it two weeks ago.
18:49 Speaker 04 It's an interesting exercise to be like, you know, you, you might, might want it to be one way, but it's actually another way.
18:54 Sean Fennessey? Well, I think, I, what do you think? Cause Rocky is very different from most of the movies on that list. Right, and then it, and it wins best picture. So it's a little bit Oscar coded, your choice, but you're really doing more of what does this mean for the, the movie industry and the types of movies that are being made as opposed to personal favorites? Or even what you think the quote unquote, like best example of cinema is with all respect to Rocky, which is fun and I've been on the steps doing the pose myself.
19:23 Sean Fennessey? I think that makes sense. I mean, it's, it's good list making. I think that the list mostly favors, I mean, it, it is, it's an industry measurement list rather than an artistic list, but that's okay. Even though they're good movies on here. I'm looking to blend both with the idea that like, well, and the, and the popular imagination too. But in 1975,
19:49 Speaker 05 Nobody thought Jaws was gonna win Best Picture. It wasn't even a consideration. That movie was not gonna win Best Picture. You knew it was gonna be one of the other movies and Cuckoo's Nest obviously barreled through. The same way, that's why Rocky was such a shift. It was a real shift. You had these other, undeniably great films and then this Heart of a Champion movie. You know, it was a head scratcher.
20:16 Sean Fennessey? I think, I think there's a prevailing thought that the new Hollywood ends a lot earlier than people think it does. And that it's really, it's not Star Wars, but it's that double whammy of Jaws and Rocky that augurs the massive shift at the corporately held movie studios to push in a different direction.
20:33 Speaker 05 And Star Wars seals the deal.
20:35 Sean Fennessey? Right.
20:36 Speaker 04 There's a, so the Kale essay that I was referring to is this like November piece she writes that's, you know, it's a lot of it is about Jaws, but then some of it's about Clint Eastwood and some of it's about John Wayne and some of it's about Alfred Hitchcock.
20:48 Sean Fennessey? I've read this piece.
20:49 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's really amazing, like, kind of snapshot of a moment in cinema. But I was, I was struck by the fact that in November of 76, she's still kind of like turning Jaws over in her head and turning over like what it meant to movies for this to happen. Do you remember, compared to say now, because this is something that comes up every once in a while on this pod and others, how long things would stay in the consciousness and whether or not like something like Jaws just kind of like occupied more mind share for longer than say something now where it's like, man, that show's amazing for eight weeks. And then it just seems to like, nobody mentions it again until Emmys or nobody mentions it again ever. Or a movie, for instance, like Project, I use Project Hail Mary as an example where it's like
21:34 Speaker 04 a wildly hugely successful movie, but I don't know, like, it's never gonna have the footprint of Ghostbusters. You know, like, it's never gonna have the footprint of something that's like.
21:43 Sean Fennessey? No, but I think that there's a way, I don't mean to cut you off, but I think there's a way to read that movie the same kind of sociocultural way that Kale was so good at, which is that there's kind of like a hoptivism in that movie.
21:55 Speaker 04 Yeah, absolutely.
21:57 Sean Fennessey? That I think that people kind of desperately want right. Now, because of a lot of what's going on externally in the world. And it also reminds us of like earlier, more comfy times in movie culture. And so you kind of smash those two ideas together. I mean, that's my favorite thing to do is to kind of overread something in culture like that. In seventy six, though, like the fact that the two things are going hitting against each other. That like the kind of cynical or or more paranoid kind of film could be really popular. And also Rocky could be really popular. Like, what does that mean that they can coexist?
22:27 Speaker 05 Right? Yeah, I I don't I guess I don't have a good answer to that. Though part of the answer to that is has to do with accessibility. I mean, you had to go to the movie theater and pay money to see these movies. You couldn't watch them at home. You could wait until it showed up on broadcast television. But other than that, you had to go to the movie theater. So there's is something about that. Does something about that actually keep the ball in the air? In a sense, in terms of culture and conversation longer, because it's a it's a little harder to see. My kids watch the same movie every day, right? For a week or two weeks. It's like I didn't have that wasn't possible for me as a kid.
23:10 Sean Fennessey? Well, let me ask you one other thing about that, because when I was a kid, the longest period of time that could transpire was the period when I missed a movie in movie theaters and I was waiting for it to come to blockbuster. That was it felt like an eternity and it was often eight months, seven months. If you missed a movie in movie theaters, and it doesn't sound like you missed many. But if you missed a movie in movie theaters that you wanted to see, were you like, were you anticipating the opportunity to see it on TV? How did you find out it was going to play on TV? Like, can you talk about that gap in time?
23:41 Speaker 05 Well, I read the TV guide religiously. Oh, yeah. I looked for when those things were going to be on TV. I sought them out. And of course, with certain things, they'd bring them back. I saw most of the Bond movies, most of the Sean Connery Bond movies in the movie theater.
23:59 Speaker 05 On re-release, that's how you saw that stuff. Godfather also, right? You see Godfather, one of its biggest box office years is like seventy-four, seventy-five, when they re-released Godfather. But because again, we talked about this on the Hall of Fame, Duval Hall of Fame podcast. They didn't know how to put it on TV. It's an R-rated thing. It's like, and yet it was the most popular movie, you know, the biggest box office movie of all time. So how are we gonna see it?
24:26 Sean Fennessey? These kids don't know how good they have it. It's incredible how accessible everything is. I just the idea of Disney Plus like makes my brain melt.
24:34 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
24:35 Sean Fennessey? Because scarcity was the whole point for years and years. And now it's full-blown accessibility all the time. You think it has degraded the culture?
24:43 Amanda Dobbins? I do think it's degraded the culture. I mean, my child was just screaming to watch like box jellyfish videos before he went to school this morning. And I was like, you know, what's, what has my life come to? But it's, it's also degraded the business, right? I mean, the fact that nothing is a special means that the kids and we all expect that we can have whatever we want, exactly as we want it immediately. And we're not willing to go out of our way. We're not willing to go to movie theaters. Nothing feels quite as special.
25:10 Sean Fennessey? Mm-hmm.
25:11 Amanda Dobbins? So that's a bummer. Luckily, you guys have a lot of plastic and you're fighting that off.
25:17 Sean Fennessey? We're doing well with that, I think. Feeling, feeling good about it.
25:19 Speaker 05 You know, in the silent film days, they'd make the circuit. And then once the silent film was finished making the circuit, they threw it in the trash.
25:25 Sean Fennessey? Yes.
25:26 Speaker 05 Which is why only 10% of silent films have survived. It was like, well, this is done. And they just chucked it.
25:32 Sean Fennessey? That's Amanda proposed that for the MCU and they said, no, we're gonna hang on to those.
25:37 Speaker 04 Doomsday plays once in every city, they shoot it into the sun.
25:43 Sean Fennessey? Do you want to draft? Any other open thoughts? Okay.
25:46 Speaker 05 Well, the only thing I'll say is that there is a kind of. I like your list. I think your list is good. I think there's a, an answer to every one of the ones on your list.
25:57 Sean Fennessey? No doubt.
25:57 Speaker 05 That is, I mean, yeah, MASH 1970, but you could also say Patton 1970, which in some ways is the flip side of the same coin, but there are still some amazing, it's not all rah rah Patton, right? It's written by Francis Ford Coppola. There's, there's complexity there.
26:17 Sean Fennessey? Totally, yeah. The, the scene when he's, when he's scolding the officer who has PTSD is the most obvious, like the two generations misunderstanding each other seen in the movie from that year.
26:27 Speaker 05 And I think Patton probably made a lot more money than MASH at movie theaters, I'm guessing.
26:33 Sean Fennessey? Uh, I think they're pretty close.
26:34 Speaker 05 Really?
26:35 Sean Fennessey? I think they're, and that was part of what I was thinking was what movie is a box office hit, a critical sensation and got into the culture in a way that felt impactful. But, you know, everything is debatable.
26:45 Speaker 05 I mean, Star Wars and Jaws are inarguable. Clearly they're inarguable. They really changed, right? Hollywood movies in the eighties are very different as a result of not only those two films, but those two filmmakers. But, uh, yeah, there's, there's a flip side to all of those coins.
27:07 Sean Fennessey? Well, I welcome the feedback and I won't be looking at it.
27:10 Speaker 04 It's about, it's about community.
27:12 Sean Fennessey? Yeah. So for this draft, um, we do have six categories. I'm going to read those categories before we settle on our draft order. The categories are as follows. Drama, comedy or horror?
27:27 Speaker 04 Now we. Or sci-fi, right?
27:29 Sean Fennessey? Or sci-fi. Um, we've done that because as Amanda indicated, this is a tricky year for comedy. I think we could have pulled it off if we kept it tight.
27:37 Speaker 04 It would have been pretty funny if for, like to laugh at us, but not to laugh at these movies.
27:42 Sean Fennessey? That's right. Um, thriller or action is also a category. Blockbuster. Now the threshold here is $20 million and there are only 10 films that qualify for that threshold. Then Oscar, which means any film that was nominated for an Academy Award from that year. And then of course wildcard. Okay. I'm, Jack, is there, is there a Jack Sanders selection that we'll be able to hear?
28:08 Amanda Dobbins? Hello, it is I, Producer Jack, coming from the past to deliver the highly anticipated 1976 movie draft order. As always, I have denied Tracy Letts' bribe of a $100 bill for the first overall pick because I have integrity. Selecting first, Amanda Dobbins. Oh my god, I'm so happy. I really wanted it and I wasn't gonna say anything.
28:33 Speaker 04 You guys want the first overall draft pick?
28:35 Amanda Dobbins? Feels like a pretty stacked year. It feels like a deep year. I personally would want the turn. Selecting second overall, Christopher Ryan.
28:44 Speaker 05 Wow, so rigged. Wow, that's so rigged.
28:47 Amanda Dobbins? This is the first pick I've gotten in like six months. I do feel pretty bad. I feel like every draft Tracy's been a part of. I think I may have given him the last overall pick, so I'm selfishly hoping he's third overall here, but we'll see. God damn it. God fucking damn it. Sean Fantasy will be third, which means Tracy Letts will be fourth. The turn's good. The turn's good.
29:07 Sean Fennessey? Fascinating.
29:07 Amanda Dobbins? Okay, I know exactly what I'm gonna do, but I did just change categories because I was a little light. Yeah, so I think this makes sense. I think this makes sense.
29:21 Sean Fennessey? Hang in there, mama. Hang in there. We just, we haven't even started yet.
29:24 Speaker 05 You got this, motherfucker.
29:27 Sean Fennessey? I'm ready to start deleting.
29:28 Amanda Dobbins? Okay, I think in thriller, I will take All the President's Men. Okay.
29:35 Speaker 04 Ooh, interesting.
29:36 Amanda Dobbins? Which All the President's Men was gonna be my number one draft pick if I got the first pick. It is my favorite movie of this year, one of my favorite movies of all time. And also a movie educationally that certainly introduced me to Alan Pacula, William Goldman, and then, you know, all the backstage gossiping and fraught nature of production that William Goldman details in its adventures in screenwriting, right? I think this is probably where I learned who Gordon Willis is. It taught me about the power of gold chains as worn by Robert
30:20 Amanda Dobbins? Redford. It taught me, you know, this is how I learned Watergate. Because I wasn't around and I probably saw it before we got to Watergate in whatever truncated Republican American history course I I took in high school. You know, they never really made it past.
30:38 Speaker 04 I know. They never get to Vietnam.
30:39 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, they never get to Vietnam, or they didn't in our day. Maybe maybe they've gotten there.
30:43 Sean Fennessey? They did in my AP American History class.
30:45 Amanda Dobbins? You know what? Honestly, even in my AP, they were just like, yeah, yada, yada. And then Richard Nixon resigned. So but this is an amazing electrifying, like beautiful movie about a bunch of dudes sitting in rooms, talking, and it really did show to me like the power and the possibility of people talking smartly in rooms and everything that you can do with that, like visually and emotionally. And I did all of my research for 1976 and then I saved this. And this is the one that I picked to watch like right before I went to bed last night. I didn't even watch all of it. But then this morning I was like, oh, I got 30 minutes here while I gotta while I do my hair and I I set it up because I
31:30 Amanda Dobbins? just I wanted to watch the speech where Jason Robards as Brad Bradley comes out and you know, like from the from his house at night and tells him not to fuck up again. And it's, I don't know, it's an American classic. It's probably when I say that I think 76 is better than 75. It's just because I love this movie so much. And I think this and a couple others to me are like the highest of highs, whereas 75 is everyone being really, really good. But yeah, I'm thrilled to have it.
32:01 Sean Fennessey? Great pick. I don't know if I would have guessed that this would be the number one over. Was it consensus number one for you?
32:06 Speaker 05 Yeah.
32:06 Sean Fennessey? And for you as well?
32:07 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
32:08 Sean Fennessey? Interesting.
32:08 Speaker 04 This is also like a for for for draft nicks, a crucial crucial title to be taken off the board because of its flexibility across a couple of different categories.
32:17 Sean Fennessey? Yes, I think it would have been acceptable in four of the six categories.
32:19 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
32:20 Speaker 04 So you took it in thriller?
32:21 Amanda Dobbins? I did.
32:22 Sean Fennessey? Excuse me, five of the six categories.
32:24 Speaker 05 Yeah.
32:25 Sean Fennessey? Which is fascinating. In thriller, though, is really interesting to me. That is not what I would have done.
32:30 Amanda Dobbins? I will be honest, I didn't read the change.
32:33 Sean Fennessey? News that you made last minute until we were drafting. And so I, I didn't know that it was thriller or action. Got it. Okay. I didn't know that. I didn't, I didn't understand that horror and comedy were grouped together. Okay. So.
32:44 Speaker 05 I don't think it'll impact you that way.
32:46 Sean Fennessey? Okay, thank you. Well, Chris, you've got the second pick. Are you, are you excited? Are you reeling? How are you feeling?
32:53 Speaker 04 I don't think anybody's gonna have a bad movie in the first round of pick. Not a bad movie, but I don't think anybody's gonna be upset.
32:59 Sean Fennessey? Nothing soft.
33:00 Speaker 04 Yeah, nobody is like, god damn it, this is a three movie draft and I get the fourth pick or something. I'm gonna take Taxi Driver and Oscars.
33:08 Speaker 04 I'm, I would be happy to take it, or happy to take a bunch of other movies here with the second pick. But Taxi Driver's one, I revisited recently and.
33:20 Sean Fennessey? Pretty good.
33:21 Speaker 04 Yeah, and also like, I forgot.
33:23 Sean Fennessey? Taxi Driver, excellent film.
33:24 Speaker 04 Yeah.
33:24 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, one of my favorite movies ever made.
33:26 Speaker 04 I forgot how like, beyond being like sad to watch a man descend into hell. It's also melancholy and you know, it's like an incredible portrait of loneliness and an incredible portrait of like, a guy who doesn't know like how to relate to the rest of the world and how that drives him insane ultimately. But also obviously just like one of the great New York films. One of the most incredibly orchestrated movies when it comes to like the visuals matching up against the sound, the score. Always what kind of haunts me about this. And then some of the most virtuistic dazzling sequences, you know, that you can imagine from Scorsese and De Niro. Kind of in a, in a, in a zone that few people have ever gotten to. So Taxi Driver.
34:08 Sean Fennessey? You know, normally if I lost out on the Bakula movie and the Scorsese movie, I would be absolutely devastated. But you get your number one pick. The board played into my hands and I feel so comfortable.
34:21 Speaker 04 Thing is if I had taken this, what you're about to take, you'd probably be like, awesome, I get.
34:24 Sean Fennessey? I'm gonna go ahead and delete it. Yeah, I would have been, I would have been a little bit disappointed because this has been my number one, the number one on my board is coming. But any other thought, I mean Taxi Driver. It's on the list of movies that I watch every like 18 months or so. And I feel like it, what it's exploring and what you just described, kind of never goes out of fashion, unfortunately. It feels like it is right on top of the surface all the time. And a lot of that is due to Paul Schrader tapping into something that I don't think expires. Some of, a lot of it is the De Niro performance. A lot of it is the sense that like, there's always somebody who's unhappy in this country about how the politics is going. And that the movie really taps into that too in this, or at least they use their dissatisfaction with politics to project something from their own unhappiness.
35:10 Sean Fennessey? And that, just that idea alone makes it a timeless movie. I have, my favorite scene always changes with this movie, but it's always a scene where Travis is talking to someone and they're like, what the fuck is wrong with this guy? Peter Boyle outside of the diner, or any Sybil Shepherd interaction that he has. Or, you know, anytime he's got somebody in the back of his cab and they're chatting.
35:35 Speaker 04 Well, that, in those scenes, sometimes Travis is like, what the fuck is wrong with this guy in the backseat like Martin Scorsese?
35:41 Speaker 05 The way mental illness is portrayed in movies is interesting. We were talking about this with Captain Newman. The history of that's very interesting.
35:52 Speaker 05 You know, you want to be thoughtful about the way it's portrayed. And in Taxi Driver, he's, he's not only sick, he's not only ill, but he's scary. He's realistically scary. If you've ever encountered somebody who's having an episode or who is mentally ill, but also has, you feel in them the capacity for violence. There's a, something happens inside you, right? There's a kind of fight or flight impulse that takes hold. And, and De Niro just absolutely taps into that.
36:27 Sean Fennessey? But he's, it's not the strange unhoused person shambling down the street. He's very still in the movie. You know, he's that different kind of menacing that is even scarier, where you feel like he actually is in, at least believes he's in control. As opposed to someone kind of flailing their arms and going crazy. Still, just such an amazingly impactful movie.
36:49 Speaker 05 I saw almost every movie we're going to talk about in the movie theaters. My parents took me to see Taxi Driver when I was 10. Wow.
36:58 Speaker 05 Who would drive it?
36:59 Speaker 04 And they were like, here's your dirt bike. And here's your unsupervised link.
37:03 Sean Fennessey? Before you go any further, I have to ask you a question about this because I'm thinking about this with my own parenting. You know, I feel growing up, being exposed to things at a young age, got me where I am today.
37:14 Speaker 05 Yeah.
37:14 Sean Fennessey? For better and for worse.
37:15 Amanda Dobbins? Agree.
37:16 Sean Fennessey? I really, I liked the way that I was matured by the culture. But I'm now thinking a little bit harder about what the impact of that would be on my kid. And, you know, you turned out wonderfully, but you did also write Bug and Killer Joe.
37:31 Speaker 05 Yeah.
37:32 Sean Fennessey? And so.
37:33 Amanda Dobbins? And look how that worked out for him.
37:35 Speaker 05 Yeah.
37:35 Amanda Dobbins? And we're lucky to have those.
37:37 Sean Fennessey? And the thing about that is obviously touched by, by, by, you know, a, a genius quality. You gotta get, that's, that's, that's luck of the draw. That's just like, you got it or you don't got it. If you don't got it and you watch Bug, if I, if I showed Alice Bug at, at 11, the way that you saw Taxi Driver at 11, how would that go over? What would, how would that get into her bloodstream?
38:00 Speaker 05 Well, I saw Taxi Driver at 10. But remember, I had seen Serpico at six. I mean, my, my folks exposed me to a lot of the, and I really just think they just didn't want to pay for a sitter.
38:11 Sean Fennessey? That's another reason why I wanted to.
38:12 Speaker 05 And I have to say, I think differently about it with my own kids. I, I mean, I think my kids are going to have it tougher than I had it. I think the world is going to be a harder place. And so I'm trying to extend their childhood as far as I can.
38:26 Sean Fennessey? Oh, that's beautiful.
38:27 Speaker 05 So I'm, I'm not exposing them to stuff like this yet.
38:31 Sean Fennessey? Okay.
38:31 Speaker 05 Now, I did say to Haskell the other day, who was asking about something, I said, when you're 14, you can watch every, watch anything. Watch anything on the shelf. I don't care.
38:40 Sean Fennessey? Okay.
38:40 Speaker 05 But.
38:41 Sean Fennessey? Even Russ Meyer's Up?
38:42 Speaker 05 You can watch Russ Meyer's Up at 14.
38:44 Sean Fennessey? Exciting.
38:46 Speaker 05 But Taxi Driver is the first movie they ever took me out of. We were in the drive in.
38:51 Amanda Dobbins? Oh.
38:52 Speaker 05 And when they go back to Jodie Foster's place, which is fairly late in the movie.
38:57 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
38:57 Speaker 05 My mom said, Dennis, I'm very uncomfortable.
39:02 Speaker 05 And we drove out and they went back the next night and saw it.
39:05 Sean Fennessey? Oh.
39:06 Speaker 05 And I didn't see it until.
39:08 Sean Fennessey? Well, God forbid you didn't see the day you mom.
39:11 Amanda Dobbins? No, I thought that's when.
39:12 Sean Fennessey? That would have been a little tough to endure that final stretch.
39:17 Sean Fennessey? That's my, that's another thing. Speaking of the times, that's a wonderful detail that I think is in the Mr. Scorsese doc when they talk about this film. But just the way in which they changed the color tone of that final sequence because of concerns from the, the MPA board and the rating.
39:33 Speaker 04 Right, yeah.
39:33 Sean Fennessey? You know, that sort of fantasia of violence that Bickle goes on. And how just turning that more red and brown.
39:41 Speaker 04 Yeah.
39:42 Sean Fennessey? And making it seem like, it seems like a descent into hell, but it's also a little bit harder to tell what is happening.
39:48 Speaker 04 Yes.
39:48 Sean Fennessey? In each individual bullet hole and, you know. That's one of those things where some of that is chance, some of that is artistic, some of that is a product of the times and what was allowed and what was not allowed. But anyway.
40:00 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, I would just, the thing that haunts me about this movie, I think you're talking about this being a harder world to grow up in than the one that maybe Taxi Driver entered. But it's, it's gift and it's curses. I think it was very prescient about a sentiment of a great, you know, a rain will come and wash all this away. You hear that echoed in a lot of extremism now. And like a kind of just inhumanity and hatred for, for people that I think is sadly like very on the nose of like, when, when you read about like some of the stuff in the world and you just are like, Jesus Christ, like, you know, we've really fallen. So way to go, Paul Schrader. You got us nailed.
40:40 Sean Fennessey? Tapped into something.
40:43 Speaker 04 Okay. Do the thing, brother. Go for it.
40:46 Sean Fennessey? Well, I'll be taking Network in Drama.
40:51 Sean Fennessey? Which is a movie I've spoken about quite a bit on this show. And we just spoke about it on the Duval Hall of Fame and his scene in that movie, which is one of the most electrifying examples of acting that I've ever seen.
41:05 Sean Fennessey? I've been thinking a little bit about like, why I got into journalism and writing and broadcasting and all these things that I find myself in. This relates to All the President's Men, two of the, three or four best movies of the year being about these worlds. I never thought I would be having a camera in front of me while I speak.
41:21 Speaker 04 Sure.
41:22 Sean Fennessey? And yet here I am.
41:23 Speaker 04 Yep.
41:23 Sean Fennessey? Howard Beeling my way through this.
41:27 Sean Fennessey? I've said before, like, this is the movie that really, I think, made me feel like a grown up. It taught me a bit more about how the world really works, or I thought how it really worked. And it's been called prescient many times, Chayefsky's script being, having like.
41:41 Sean Fennessey? Such an eerily predictive quality and more so every year, similar to Taxi Driver. It kind of never expiring. The other thing about this movie, though, is that it's a lot of fun. It's very entertaining. I think that's a little bit lost in the discussion of it because it feels so powerful and so stoked by this kind of paranoia and corporate malfeasance in the work of journalism and in the work of telling the truth. But like Ned Beattie, when Ned Beattie's doing this movie is a lot of fun. What Faye Dunaway is doing in this movie is a lot of fun.
42:13 Speaker 04 Robert Duvall's a lot of fun.
42:14 Sean Fennessey? He's having a great time and that kind of like pop opera that Chayaski was so good at, that that really, really clever style of soliloquy writing that he was, he was best at is just really entertaining. And this is a movie that like shouldn't appeal to 13 year olds, given what it's about. But when I saw it, I was just taking, it was like on a magic carpet ride, a way into like the rest of my life, basically, which.
42:37 Amanda Dobbins? Well, it should. It understands that what it is talking about is that, that its subject is manufactured to be as broad as possible. And it's showing you the machinery, but also recreating the product.
42:50 Sean Fennessey? That's right. That's right. Especially once he is, not just when he's looking down the barrel of the camera and talking about how, you know, he's, he's had enough bullshit. But once he starts becoming the host of a variety show effectively, in which he is, you know, a tent revival preacher, speaking about how politics, God and the self operates in society, like we have so many examples of people who do this now. So.
43:16 Speaker 04 This one is also such an incredible mishmash of acting styles. I was re-watching some scenes from last night and I was like, how did they get Peter Finch and Ned Beatty on this side of like ham? And then Duvall and Faye Dunaway doing this very kind of like loose, but very present realism in their, in their performance. And then Holden is just fucking pickled and dying in front of you the entire movie.
43:41 Sean Fennessey? Yes. One of the saddest performances of the seventies.
43:44 Speaker 04 How do they, Lumet making all of that work in the same frame, same scene, same movie is just always amazing to me.
43:52 Speaker 05 Superb. You took it in drama?
43:54 Sean Fennessey? I did.
43:55 Speaker 05 Cause that's another one could go in several categories.
43:58 Sean Fennessey? Could be a comedy, could be, could be Oscar, could be a wild card. I certainly laugh a lot while watching it.
44:07 Sean Fennessey? Okay, you've got two selections.
44:09 Speaker 05 I knew those were gonna be the first three off the board.
44:12 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
44:13 Speaker 05 So I was just like, ah, just, just not last. Anything but last, as I was last time. It's very clear the fix is in. I understand.
44:22 Sean Fennessey? You think Jack Sanders has done something?
44:24 Speaker 04 You get, you get two picks here. You could really upset the apple cart.
44:26 Speaker 05 Yeah, I know. And I'm.
44:28 Sean Fennessey? You're about to do that.
44:29 Speaker 05 Do my best.
44:31 Sean Fennessey? Okay.
44:31 Speaker 05 I want to acknowledge that the best three movies of this year, to my mind, have been taken off the board.
44:36 Sean Fennessey? Is that a consensus opinion? I think so.
44:38 Speaker 05 I think those were always gonna be the first three picks.
44:41 Sean Fennessey? That, that's the argument that you're making, was that this year is this year. Those. Cause it's got these three movies. Those three movies are like, top of the top, all time. In like, still referenced, still, we could say, you know, both like reflective, but also predictive of where we are for all three of them.
45:00 Speaker 04 These would be on a list if we were doing a draft of our favorite movies.
45:02 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, the 100 greatest movies ever made, yeah. They would be in that conversation. And greatest performances, screenplay, you know, all of it, so. Agree.
45:12 Speaker 05 In Blockbuster, I'm going to take Rocky.
45:14 Sean Fennessey? Mm-hmm. Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay.
45:17 Speaker 04 A movie with personal residence.
45:18 Sean Fennessey? Yes. You want to speak about that? Deleting it.
45:21 Speaker 05 Uh, I saw it in movie theaters in 1976. It's a terrific, uh, experience to watch in the movie theater with people. It's such an exciting movie and such a, uh, it's such an excellent screenplay. You know, the moment when Rocky knocks down Apollo the first time is such a, in some ways now feels like such an obvious sports movie moment, but watching that film, something about the way that moment was disguised was such a surprise. I mean, people leapt out of their seat when they saw it. So a thrilling movie to see in the movie theater. Now, I'm, I've done this movie called, I Play Rocky, which is coming out later this year.
46:03 Speaker 05 So I revisited Rocky and I put it on for me and Carrie. And Carrie's like, oh, we're gonna watch Rocky, like, she's seen this, she knows it. And I asked her a question about the end of the movie, which she got wrong. So we watched the movie and she was like, again, like most things we watch, she was like, oh, I've never seen this.
46:22 Speaker 05 And we got to the end of the movie and she said, I thought it was a sports movie. I didn't realize. It's a character study.
46:28 Sean Fennessey? Mm-hmm.
46:29 Speaker 05 And, uh,
46:31 Speaker 05 See, this is why, this is why everybody dislikes me. Because I think they should have stopped making these goddamn movies after Rocky. I think the world would be a better place if they had stopped at Rocky. If they had stopped at Alien, I think they should have just stopped.
46:50 Sean Fennessey? Well.
46:50 Speaker 05 Now, did they make a billion dollars? Yes.
46:53 Sean Fennessey? That's an interesting opinion.
46:57 Speaker 05 And that's why people don't like you.
46:59 Sean Fennessey? You're beloved. Um, Rocky II is very good. And there is, there are people who believe it, it is better than Rocky I.
47:09 Speaker 05 They're wrong.
47:09 Amanda Dobbins? No.
47:10 Speaker 05 They're absolutely wrong.
47:13 Speaker 04 I prefer watching Rocky II.
47:15 Sean Fennessey? Rocky, Rocky I is extremely slow.
47:19 Speaker 05 Not slow.
47:20 Sean Fennessey? It is, it is deliberate in its character study in a way that I can't really find a little dull at times. And now the, the final 20 minutes.
47:30 Speaker 05 My wife did not find it dull. Never did she find it dull.
47:33 Speaker 04 Well, she also wouldn't have been excited by more boxing in it though. Right? Like she wouldn't have been like, oh, I thought, I thought that this was, there was gonna be more sports. Like she was like, I avoided this.
47:42 Speaker 05 So maybe it's a question of what you're looking for in a movie.
47:44 Amanda Dobbins? What was the question that she got wrong?
47:47 Sean Fennessey? Does Rocky win at the end?
47:48 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah. Oh, that's okay.
47:49 Speaker 05 Yeah.
47:50 Sean Fennessey? Presumably. And he does not, of course.
47:51 Speaker 05 Right.
47:51 Sean Fennessey? Spoiler alert for Rocky.
47:54 Speaker 05 50 years ago.
47:57 Sean Fennessey? You know, I was thinking about, as a person who likes Rocky and has never loved Rocky, would I have drafted it at all? Like, would it have been inauthentic to have drafted it? Before you, um, worked on I Play Rocky, would you have described yourself as a Rocky person?
48:14 Speaker 05 I would have described myself as a person who really loved and enjoyed the first film and diminishing returns for me after that. I saw two in the theater. I saw three in the theater or at home.
48:28 Sean Fennessey? Three's pretty fun.
48:28 Speaker 05 And I, four is Dolph Lundgren?
48:32 Sean Fennessey? It is.
48:33 Speaker 05 Uh, yeah, that, by that time I was out.
48:34 Sean Fennessey? He dies, he dies.
48:35 Speaker 05 I was out.
48:35 Sean Fennessey? That's how I feel about CR on these drafts. Philadelphia, Rocky, thoughts?
48:40 Speaker 04 I mean, he's, he's obviously a city icon. I, I probably care more about.
48:47 Speaker 04 At this point in my life, I care more about the Creed, the Creed character played by Michael B. Jordan than I do about Rocky.
48:52 Sean Fennessey? Interesting. He has supplanted Rocky as the, your Philly icon.
48:57 Speaker 04 Well, I just think it's like a, it's okay to move on. Like Tracy said, like we've made so many of these movies. Sylvester Stallone has refused to let go of it in a lot of ways, or did. And I just find myself like kind of being energized and stimulated by like a new take on it, you know, and a new take on the mythology of the boxer.
49:19 Speaker 05 I play Rocky. It's good. You're gonna like it. Uh, that's my selection. Shall I move on?
49:24 Sean Fennessey? Did you ask to do this draft just so you could promote your film?
49:28 Speaker 05 You know me. The reason I like to come on here is to tout, uh, to try to-
49:33 Speaker 04 It's to run up his numbers.
49:35 Sean Fennessey? I see your long-
49:36 Speaker 04 That's Rocky. You took first and your second pick.
49:39 Speaker 05 In comedy horror, I'm going to take Carrie.
49:42 Sean Fennessey? No. Ah, damn it. Come on. I mean, I knew that, I knew I wasn't gonna get it, but I'm bummed out. Don't.
49:50 Speaker 05 Oh, good. I'm glad somebody's upset about my-
49:51 Sean Fennessey? Yeah. If I were to get that, I would have felt very good.
49:58 Speaker 05 I think Sissy Spacek should have won best actress.
50:01 Sean Fennessey? Okay, listen, she's incredible in it, but like, don't, don't bring that to Faye Dunaway in Network, which is the most important-
50:09 Speaker 05 I think Sissy Spacek should have won best actress.
50:11 Sean Fennessey? Of my lifetime.
50:12 Speaker 05 And I think Piper Laurie should have won best supporting actress.
50:14 Sean Fennessey? I'm good with that, but Faye Dunaway, keep your Oscar. She does win for Coal Miner's Daughter, right? She, she gets hers.
50:22 Speaker 05 I think she's an underrated actress.
50:24 Speaker 04 Did you just try to get De Palma in director somewhere?
50:26 Speaker 05 No.
50:29 Speaker 05 I also think they should have stopped making jump scares after Carrie. I think jumps, because I hate jump scares. I think they should have retired them after Carrie. There's not been one as good as the jump scare at the end of Carrie.
50:40 Sean Fennessey? You know what's funny? The ju- this movie's jump scares are all editing tricks that were used before this and are now used after it. But for whatever reason, the De Palma cut-
50:54 Sean Fennessey? Just feels different than other directors' cuts. And you feel it in the, in the, in the prom scene. You feel it with the hand coming out of the grave. Like the couple of moments where you're just astonished by what's just happened. And you can be like startled. It's not the same as being astonished. There is something different in this movie. The kind of film grammar that he's working with that is so great. I'm really mad you got this.
51:16 Speaker 05 Uh, Amy Irving lives in my little town in New York. Hi, Amy. Does she listen to The Big Picture? I don't know.
51:22 Speaker 04 Okay.
51:23 Amanda Dobbins? Well, that's how you see her. You could say, hey, I said hello to you on a podcast.
51:27 Sean Fennessey? Amanda recently selected Crossing the Lancy, one of her best films.
51:30 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
51:31 Speaker 05 One of Carrie's favorite movies. One of Carrie's favorites.
51:33 Speaker 04 I wonder whether what you're reacting to is what he cuts to. Because like there's jump cuts, there's jump scares in the Conjuring movies. And it's like in the dark, it kind of like okay looking ghost. And just the cut is scary. Like you're like, oh.
51:48 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
51:48 Speaker 04 But when he cuts, he's like, and like, and now this goddamn image.
51:52 Sean Fennessey? Well, also like the use of split screen where you're seeing two things at the same time. And your mind is expected to process them both. And they're both scary.
51:59 Speaker 04 Yeah.
51:59 Sean Fennessey? It's the look on her face and the fire and something falling in the, in the gymnasium simultaneously. That just creates like an, an energy inside me that like most modern horror movies just can't really. They can't, they can't pull that off.
52:13 Speaker 04 Carrie, she just needed somebody to say, you got this, mama.
52:15 Amanda Dobbins? So true. This is still probably the best movie about high school ever made.
52:19 Sean Fennessey? Hmm.
52:19 Amanda Dobbins? I think in addition to obviously being like a technical.
52:23 Sean Fennessey? High school movies.
52:24 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, but it's a technical achievement. Yeah, a posing council and high school movies.
52:29 Sean Fennessey? You gotta explain that joke because we weren't recording when that was discussed.
52:32 Speaker 04 The great posing councils in, in movies.
52:33 Amanda Dobbins? In the bathroom. That's what happens when these three men go to the bathroom.
52:37 Sean Fennessey? Do you think we should start bringing the mics to the bathroom?
52:40 Amanda Dobbins? They all just, they were like, gonna go to the bathroom before I record. They came out and we're just being like, Kevin Bacon and a few good.
52:45 Speaker 04 He is very good in that, even though Tracy doesn't like that movie.
52:51 Speaker 04 Moving on.
52:52 Speaker 05 You're up, big dog.
52:54 Sean Fennessey? Okay, so.
52:55 Speaker 04 I want to carry, I'm bummed.
52:57 Sean Fennessey? Carrie and, and Rocky.
53:01 Sean Fennessey? And I'm up.
53:04 Sean Fennessey? Okay.
53:06 Sean Fennessey? Well, I know what two movies I'm going to take, and I don't know what.
53:10 Speaker 04 You only get one pick, right?
53:11 Sean Fennessey? Sorry, I know what one movie I'm going to take. I know what two movies I want. I gotta figure out what is the right category for them both.
53:21 Sean Fennessey? In blockbuster. I will take the Bad News Bears. Now, some of the, now, this is, in my opinion, the best comedy of this year. And also the, the last truly great to me blockbuster. This is a funky blockbuster year.
53:42 Speaker 04 It sure is.
53:43 Sean Fennessey? And Carrie, I was betting on Carrie there. That didn't, that didn't shake out too well for me. Bad News Bears.
53:53 Sean Fennessey? Top five sports movie ever made. One, one of the funniest and sweetest and sincerest, but also mischievous movies of its time. The great Michael Ritchie, Walter Mathau, Never Better, this butter maker. Hmm, elite stuff from, from Jackie O Haley and Daniel Monreal.
54:13 Speaker 04 Do you also believe they should have stopped making Bad News Bears movies after Bad News Bears?
54:16 Speaker 05 Yes.
54:17 Speaker 04 A thousand percent.
54:18 Speaker 05 I do. And I saw this in the movie theater and it was a fantastic time.
54:22 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
54:23 Speaker 05 For a little 10, 11 year old boy, it was a great time.
54:26 Sean Fennessey? Did you say you just checked, you just saw it the first time?
54:28 Speaker 04 Yeah, I remember that I, I watched it while we were in Vegas for CinemaCon.
54:31 Sean Fennessey? That's right.
54:31 Speaker 04 Um, and obviously, you know, I, I knew Bad News Bears because of the remakes and also just as kind of a reference point, like I.
54:38 Speaker 05 A thing that you say now, but I sat down to you and I said, hey, that was so charming. I was absolutely delighted by every minute of it and, and also genuinely funny, which as we've said, you can't say for many of, of these comedies.
54:53 Sean Fennessey? Yeah. And like a pretty good representation, I think of what Little League is like, to be honest with you.
54:58 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah.
54:58 Speaker 04 You know?
55:00 Speaker 05 Richie had such a great.
55:01 Sean Fennessey? As I recall.
55:02 Speaker 05 Richie just had such a great feel for that kind of middle-class suburban lifestyle. Smile was his movie right before this about teenage beauty pageants and that movie like this one has a similar kind of sensibility about just showing, showing people a very, very relatable milieu.
55:24 Sean Fennessey? Yeah. And he's really good at, at movies about competition, you know, like downhill racer, the candidate, smile, the bad news bears, semi tough. All that whole period of movies is all people competing with one another and what it kind of brings out in you and what it awakens in butter maker, what it reveals in these kids. It's a really, really fun movie.
55:46 Speaker 05 His five movie run downhill racer, the candidate.
55:50 Sean Fennessey? Prime.
55:50 Speaker 05 Prime cut, uh, uh, smile, and then bad news bears. For my money, it's the best five movie run of in American movies.
55:59 Sean Fennessey? Have you said that on this show? I know you've said that to me before. I don't know if you've ever mentioned that.
56:03 Speaker 05 I probably said it on Letterboxd.
56:04 Sean Fennessey? Damn.
56:05 Speaker 04 There you go, brother.
56:05 Speaker 05 We didn't, didn't we put downhill racer? We did. In the Redford Hall of Fame. You didn't say it then.
56:11 Sean Fennessey? One of our faves.
56:13 Speaker 05 You know, I'm an old man. I repeat myself a lot. It's okay.
56:16 Sean Fennessey? You know, also Wildcats, Digstown, like he kept making movies in this world.
56:20 Speaker 05 I love Wildcats.
56:21 Sean Fennessey? He, he is the great sports movie maker of our time. Anyway, um, feel good about that.
56:27 Speaker 04 Is that me now?
56:27 Sean Fennessey? Now it's your turn.
56:29 Speaker 05 Don't fuck me.
56:30 Speaker 04 Well.
56:30 Speaker 05 Don't fuck me. I'm gonna take, go ahead.
56:34 Amanda Dobbins? It's okay. It's fine. You can.
56:36 Speaker 04 No, no, no, no.
56:37 Amanda Dobbins? It's, it's okay. It's all right.
56:39 Speaker 04 I'm gonna take.
56:42 Speaker 04 I'm gonna look deep in your eyes right now.
56:43 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
56:43 Speaker 04 And I'm gonna take the Omen in Blockbuster.
56:45 Amanda Dobbins? Okay, good. That's good. Okay.
56:47 Speaker 04 Um, because this, we're running out of-
56:49 Amanda Dobbins? I've heard of this, but I- It's all for you, Damien! Right. And this is also, so his name isn't Damien Omen.
56:56 Speaker 04 It's not Damien Omen.
56:57 Amanda Dobbins? But that's what Bill calls him.
56:58 Speaker 04 Yes.
56:59 Amanda Dobbins? And they recently redid it.
57:01 Sean Fennessey? Son of Jim Omen.
57:02 Amanda Dobbins? Sure.
57:03 Sean Fennessey? Jim and Judy Omen.
57:04 Amanda Dobbins? Okay, that's good.
57:05 Speaker 04 Yeah.
57:06 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, thank you.
57:06 Speaker 04 Still a pretty disturbing movie, you know? Like, I enjoy this film. I, I think, I like to laugh with this movie more than I am afraid of it. Um, but there's some great set pieces. It's got a pretty good backbone of story. Um, Gregory Peck's decent in it.
57:20 Sean Fennessey? Wonderful score.
57:21 Speaker 04 And there's, there's the, the-
57:25 Speaker 04 Woman throwing herself out the window is still fucks, fucks at you a little bit.
57:28 Sean Fennessey? Plate glass window, that's great kill.
57:30 Speaker 05 I think it won the Academy Award for score. Am I wrong about that?
57:33 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's a really good score. Um, I, I, um, a franchise I don't quite understand. I've, I've tried to. I think I got pretty deep into the, the Omen franchise when we did Omen on rewatchables and I was like, watching the Sam Neill version of Grown Up Damien.
57:49 Sean Fennessey? Yeah. Have, have you seen the first Omen? Do you know about this?
57:53 Speaker 04 I did.
57:53 Sean Fennessey? The movie that came out a few years ago.
57:54 Speaker 04 Oh wait, that was good.
57:55 Sean Fennessey? That's terrific movie.
57:56 Amanda Dobbins? That's when-
57:57 Sean Fennessey? It came out a few years ago.
57:57 Amanda Dobbins? That's when I became aware of Damien Omen.
57:59 Sean Fennessey? From the first Omen?
58:01 Amanda Dobbins? Yes. No, yeah, yes. Cause it was back in the news.
58:04 Speaker 05 This was a terrific night at the, with the big bucket of popcorn in the movie theater in 1976. Yeah, remember it very fondly.
58:11 Sean Fennessey? And you got it in Blockbuster, right?
58:12 Speaker 04 I did, yes.
58:14 Sean Fennessey? Um.
58:16 Sean Fennessey? Never one of my movies, as somebody who's really obsessive about the history of horror. I don't, for whatever, I feel, I, my thing, I was-
58:22 Speaker 04 I don't really know how scary it is.
58:23 Sean Fennessey? I think it's because it's made by Richard Donner, who's clearly like not that interested in horror. And there are things about the movie that he's interested in, obviously, like this kind of like uptight, elite couple having something come into their lives that disturbs their gentle, upper middle-class lifestyle, but- It just kind of feels like everybody's slumming it a little bit. It's like Gregory Peck's slumming it a little bit.
58:44 Speaker 04 You say that, but I will say that I like when like actors of his generation, like him, Burt Lancaster, like guys who are just like, yeah, I like working and I'm gonna try this out and I'm gonna play with like my image and I'm gonna play, you know, he's, he's made some pretty provocative stuff over the course of his career. He's kind of, I don't know if he's like held up as like still like one of the great Hollywood actors, but-
59:07 Sean Fennessey? That's a good question.
59:08 Speaker 04 Gregory Peck.
59:09 Speaker 05 Well, not only that, but I mean, obviously it's made in the wake of The Exorcist, which just made so much money. Now, we can cite a thousand examples of low budget, low rent Exorcist knockoffs. Here was an example of a studio going, we want some of that Exorcist money too.
59:26 Speaker 04 Yes.
59:26 Speaker 05 And it's just big budget Hollywood filmmaking. Get us big stars. You know, the kids will come see it for the demonic possession, but we're gonna get the adults to come see it because Gregory Peck and Lee Remick are in it.
59:39 Speaker 04 Right. And it's parental anxiety.
59:40 Speaker 05 And we went as a family. I remember, my folks wouldn't have gone, my folks did not go to see The Exorcist in the movie theater.
59:46 Sean Fennessey? And it's in a tradition of like the haunted child going back to the bad seed in movies like that too. So there's some tradition there.
59:53 Speaker 05 I'm flaking.
59:55 Sean Fennessey? And I noticed you're wearing the Steely Dan Gaucho sweatshirt. If you wanted to be on time with 76, I think it would have been the Royal Scam. Do you have a Royal Scam sweatshirt?
1:00:05 Speaker 05 I don't.
1:00:06 Sean Fennessey? Okay, well, so much for that.
1:00:08 Speaker 05 I did have a Grizzly t-shirt.
1:00:10 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:00:10 Sean Fennessey? The film Grizzly?
1:00:11 Speaker 05 Yeah, but I didn't wear that.
1:00:12 Sean Fennessey? Oh, too bad.
1:00:13 Amanda Dobbins? One of my favorite traditions is when you correct people and or movies for having anachronistic movie, a music cues or references in the film world.
1:00:26 Speaker 05 Since you brought it up, I should.
1:00:27 Amanda Dobbins? Oh, yeah. Please show the pants.
1:00:28 Sean Fennessey? Show the back, yeah.
1:00:29 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:00:30 Sean Fennessey? Oh, yeah.
1:00:30 Amanda Dobbins? And.
1:00:32 Sean Fennessey? Nice. That's really nice. All right, now are you purposefully evoking the era right now with your garb?
1:00:38 Speaker 05 I'm not.
1:00:38 Speaker 04 Oh, like he's like, like he's like the guy in Gaucho, like try again tomorrow?
1:00:42 Speaker 05 Like I'm dressing for the, for the 1976 podcast?
1:00:46 Sean Fennessey? I'm just asking.
1:00:46 Speaker 05 I did not dress for the 1976 podcast. Sorry.
1:00:50 Speaker 04 You got two now.
1:00:51 Amanda Dobbins? I do. Okay, I know what I'm gonna do.
1:00:53 Speaker 05 Whoa.
1:00:55 Amanda Dobbins? Ian, Oscar.
1:00:58 Amanda Dobbins? Because many of my Oscar picks are already off the board because again, of the, of the way this draft worked. So I will be taking Marathon Man.
1:01:08 Speaker 04 Mm hmm.
1:01:08 Amanda Dobbins? In Oscar. I'm sorry.
1:01:10 Speaker 04 No.
1:01:10 Amanda Dobbins? Were you gonna take it?
1:01:11 Speaker 04 Well, I just didn't. I honestly just don't like any of the other blockbusters. And I'm trying to take movies that I at least like feel like I have a relationship to. But this is one of my favorite. This would have been like my second pick, maybe like honestly.
1:01:23 Amanda Dobbins? It's it's so good. And it is really is where our interests meet. You know, a spy thriller.
1:01:31 Speaker 04 Roy Scheider in Paris.
1:01:32 Amanda Dobbins? The movie for me does drop off slightly in quality spoiler alert. Once Roy Scheider is no longer in the picture.
1:01:38 Speaker 04 It becomes a movie about dentistry, which you're not a fan of.
1:01:40 Amanda Dobbins? But it's true. I think Marathon Man is probably why, you know?
1:01:44 Sean Fennessey? What a zag for you, a movie about a dentist.
1:01:46 Amanda Dobbins? Right, sure. But is he using the dentistry for good?
1:01:50 Sean Fennessey? Well, he's a Nazi. So, you know, not really.
1:01:54 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, Roy Scheider in Paris, spy thriller, really, really delightful. And Olivier was nominated in supporting actor, I believe. So then in drama.
1:02:06 Speaker 05 Hold on, can I tell a quick Marathon Man story?
1:02:08 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, please.
1:02:09 Speaker 05 So.
1:02:10 Sean Fennessey? It's me and William Goldman.
1:02:11 Speaker 05 My friend TJ Jagodowski, do you know him?
1:02:14 Sean Fennessey? No.
1:02:14 Speaker 05 He's a great improviser, one of the greatest improvisers alive. You might know him from the Sonic commercials. He was on them for a long time. Very funny guy. Anyway, he's a Chicagoan. He's on the train in Chicago. And he's on the train and there's a young couple on the train, 20 years old. And the boy is explaining to the girl the plot of Three Days of the Condor. He's watched the movie and he's telling her the story of Three Days of the Condor on the train.
1:02:42 Amanda Dobbins? Right.
1:02:43 Speaker 05 TJ has us back to them and he's fascinated not only that this 20 year old kid has watched Three Days of the Condor, not only that he feels the need to describe the entire plot to his girlfriend, but that he's so good at it. It's a really replete summation of the plot points of Three Days of the Condor. TJ is kind of fascinated to hear this kid, because you know, there's some, it's a convoluted.
1:03:10 Amanda Dobbins? Sure, yeah, absolutely.
1:03:13 Speaker 05 Takes her all the way through it until he gets to the climax of Three Days of the Condor. And he says, and then homeboy made him eat a bunch of diamonds.
1:03:32 Speaker 05 TJ so wanted to turn and ask why he was like, did you fall asleep on the couch? Watching one and wake up at the end of the other one?
1:03:42 Speaker 04 That is amazing.
1:03:43 Sean Fennessey? That's the most like I plagiarize this from AI I've ever heard.
1:03:48 Speaker 04 Can you imagine if you just took every movie with a twist and then Brad Pitt gets out into the desert and then homeboy makes me a bunch of diamonds? That's crazy.
1:03:58 Sean Fennessey? How strange.
1:04:01 Amanda Dobbins? That's funny.
1:04:01 Speaker 05 I think of it every time I think of Marathon Man. We just watched recently, me and the nanny. Great fun. Terrific movie.
1:04:07 Sean Fennessey? Good movie, yeah.
1:04:07 Amanda Dobbins? Delightful movie. Okay. What I'm gonna do here in, and I, this is taking a little bit of risk, but I think that this is what would probably go next if I know my audience. So in drama, I'm gonna take Mikey and Nikki. Uh, the Elaine May masterpiece that, that explained men to me, you know? And I spend a lot of time with them, even though I'm not privy to the bathroom conversations.
1:04:36 Sean Fennessey? If you watch Husbands and Mikey and Nikki in succession.
1:04:39 Amanda Dobbins? It's true.
1:04:39 Sean Fennessey? Those are all the boys in your life.
1:04:42 Amanda Dobbins? You know, and now I'm raising the next generation. So I'm trying to study, I'm trying to learn, I'm trying to avoid the mistakes of the past, which are enumerated in excruciating detail in Mikey and Nikki and um.
1:04:55 Sean Fennessey? At least none of them are gangsters.
1:04:57 Amanda Dobbins? Sure. Yeah, that's, you mean that in Mikey and Nikki or in?
1:05:02 Sean Fennessey? In our life.
1:05:02 Amanda Dobbins? In our life. Yeah, as, as far as I know, but we don't, we don't know what's gonna happen to, to my sons. So.
1:05:08 Sean Fennessey? It's a great point.
1:05:09 Speaker 05 You took that in drama?
1:05:10 Amanda Dobbins? I took it in drama.
1:05:11 Speaker 05 Okay. Great, great, great movie.
1:05:13 Sean Fennessey? Wonderful movie.
1:05:14 Amanda Dobbins? I would just add that, uh, Cassavetes is very powerful to, to me personally.
1:05:19 Sean Fennessey? He's your speed, huh?
1:05:20 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, even, you know, given despite all the problems, very evident in this film and everything else. I just, I really, really get it.
1:05:28 Speaker 05 Your, your board is very strong.
1:05:29 Amanda Dobbins? Thank you.
1:05:30 Speaker 05 She's looking very solid.
1:05:32 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:05:32 Sean Fennessey? Um, a good, good picking spot, I would say. It'd be nice to have the number one pick. I think.
1:05:41 Speaker 05 Yes, but she's chosen well.
1:05:43 Sean Fennessey? Completely.
1:05:44 Amanda Dobbins? Thank you.
1:05:44 Speaker 05 I'm not gonna just put it all on the spot. She's chosen well.
1:05:47 Sean Fennessey? It's not over yet.
1:05:50 Sean Fennessey? Um, this movie is, I think a lot of like our guys
1:05:56 Amanda Dobbins? Uh huh.
1:05:56 Sean Fennessey? are very influenced by this movie.
1:05:57 Amanda Dobbins? Yes.
1:05:58 Sean Fennessey? And a lot of the tone where this movie doesn't have the tone of a gangster movie, even though it's about gangsters and it makes a lot of choices.
1:06:05 Speaker 04 Men on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
1:06:06 Amanda Dobbins? It is.
1:06:07 Sean Fennessey? It's a lot of like the personal anxieties.
1:06:09 Amanda Dobbins? Philadelphia men also on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
1:06:11 Sean Fennessey? Even down to Ned Beatty as the hitman, who is the most unlikely of hitmen. Um, who's kind of bumbling and not suave and not cold blooded.
1:06:21 Speaker 05 Big year for Ned Beatty.
1:06:22 Sean Fennessey? Awesome year.
1:06:23 Speaker 05 Network, Mikey and Nikki and Silver Streak.
1:06:25 Sean Fennessey? That's right. We may get to Silver Streak. We'll see. You grabbed two?
1:06:29 Amanda Dobbins? I did.
1:06:30 Sean Fennessey? Um, alright.
1:06:31 Amanda Dobbins? Marathon Man and Mikey and Nikki.
1:06:32 Sean Fennessey? Very good picks. CR, you're up.
1:06:33 Speaker 04 In action thriller, I'm gonna take outlaw Josie Wales.
1:06:36 Sean Fennessey? God fucking damn it.
1:06:38 Speaker 05 God fucking damn it.
1:06:39 Speaker 04 Uh, one of the great Clint Eastwood movies, uh, one of his best performances. Um, a very interesting film to read about the making of Philip Kaufman's involvement with it. Uh, the Eastwood rule that came in because you're not allowed to get rid of a director and replace yourself, replace the director with yourself if you're the star, apparently.
1:06:59 Amanda Dobbins? Okay, yeah.
1:07:00 Speaker 04 Um, which I think, I wonder if this has happened kind of behind the scenes a couple of times, but at least officially this became like a DJA thing, I think. A story about a Confederate soldier who tries to run to Texas after a huge confrontation with, with the Union and disappear from the war and disappear from a life of violence. And the violence and the war just won't let him go away, get away. So, um, absolutely gorgeous movie to look at and to think about. His style evolving out of his experiences with Leon and his experiences on TV and everything, and really starting to find his own voice and his own, his own editing rhythm, his own photography. Is this Surtis shot this?
1:07:45 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
1:07:45 Speaker 04 Fucking incredible looking movie and, and a beautiful 4K.
1:07:50 Speaker 05 I'm so glad somebody said it before I did. I'm so glad I did not have to break.
1:07:54 Speaker 04 A beautiful, like honestly, get that steelbook? Uh, just, I just got the Warner one. Uh, just. You just couldn't let it go, could you?
1:08:04 Sean Fennessey? I think that this is in the conversation for his best performance, too. Because he's asked to play something that he very rarely plays in movies where he literally breaks down crying in this movie.
1:08:13 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:08:13 Sean Fennessey? When his family is killed. And he resisted that a lot of times as a star.
1:08:19 Speaker 05 Sure.
1:08:19 Sean Fennessey? He didn't really let himself get into that. And he's also got, what is the name of the Native American actor in this film?
1:08:24 Speaker 05 Chief Dan George.
1:08:25 Sean Fennessey? Chief Dan George. And their chemistry is so wonderful in this movie. This was, God, I really, I maybe should have taken this in the first go around because it's definitely one of my favorite Clint movies.
1:08:35 Speaker 04 Yeah, and I was, you know, you can also feel, this is a guy who's watched Carisala movies, like this is a guy who actually has like a kind of international sensibility when it comes to applying it to Western. So it just, and this is also one I used to watch with my dad all the time. This would be on TBS, this would be on movie channels, or we had it on tape, and it would just kind of be on a lot, this and Pale Rider.
1:08:58 Sean Fennessey? Little bit of a pickle here.
1:08:59 Speaker 05 Yeah, you are.
1:09:03 Speaker 05 You are, because I got two picks coming down the track.
1:09:06 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, you sure do. I don't think there's, there's not, I don't think there's anything that could be taken away from me that would devastate me at this point. So I need to just follow my truth for the rest of this draft, which means I will lose this draft, but have a slate that I enjoy.
1:09:23 Speaker 04 Okay.
1:09:23 Sean Fennessey? Just going to foreground that.
1:09:24 Speaker 04 Okay.
1:09:25 Sean Fennessey? Because there's a couple of movies I wanted to get coming in here.
1:09:27 Speaker 05 Has everybody picked Blockbuster?
1:09:29 Amanda Dobbins? I have not.
1:09:30 Speaker 05 You have not. You have?
1:09:31 Speaker 04 I did.
1:09:32 Speaker 05 You have?
1:09:32 Sean Fennessey? I have.
1:09:32 Speaker 04 I picked, that's why I picked The Omen so early.
1:09:34 Sean Fennessey? Got it.
1:09:38 Sean Fennessey? Boy.
1:09:39 Amanda Dobbins? It's okay, you have network.
1:09:41 Sean Fennessey? No, no, I'm very pleased about that.
1:09:43 Amanda Dobbins? It's not a disaster. And you have Bad News Bears, which is incredibly charming.
1:09:46 Sean Fennessey? In thriller and action, I will take Assault on Priest and 13.
1:09:52 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
1:09:52 Speaker 04 I'm so glad you did this.
1:09:53 Sean Fennessey? Which is John Carpenter's second feature film, and among his best.
1:10:01 Sean Fennessey? Directly inspired by Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo and is a kind of trapped in one place shootout movie that is absolutely scintillating and like an example of
1:10:12 Speaker 04 Terrifying in some places, yeah.
1:10:14 Sean Fennessey? And like a great example of what can be done on a modest budget.
1:10:20 Sean Fennessey? And is definitely the skeleton key for I think a lot of where his movies are going, even as they got bigger in scale, the like style, tone, smart alecky.
1:10:28 Speaker 04 And morphic, yeah.
1:10:29 Sean Fennessey? The wide style that he looks at. Great performances in this movie, underrated performances. And just the announcement of like a major genre filmmaker who is one of my all time faves.
1:10:43 Speaker 04 Watching this last night and I forgot how unnerving those opening scenes with the gang driving around LA with the rifle with the silencer pointed out the car window and they keep stopping at different people and eyeing them up and then they fuck up that ice cream, man.
1:11:00 Sean Fennessey? What?
1:11:02 Sean Fennessey? Who is, what is the actor's name? Is it Austin Stoker? What happened to Austin Stoker? Is he still with us? Did he pass?
1:11:08 Speaker 05 I don't know.
1:11:10 Sean Fennessey? Let me take a look. Yeah, I guess he passed in 2022.
1:11:14 Speaker 05 Have you seen the remake of this?
1:11:15 Speaker 04 I did. It's Ethan Hawke and Morin Fishburne and I kind of liked it.
1:11:18 Speaker 05 Oh, who made it? Do you know?
1:11:21 Sean Fennessey? I'm not sure.
1:11:23 Speaker 05 And while we're on the topic, have we seen the remake of Bad News Bears?
1:11:27 Sean Fennessey? Oh, sure. Richard Linklater. It's not very good.
1:11:29 Speaker 04 Yeah. Disappointing.
1:11:31 Sean Fennessey? Billy Bob.
1:11:34 Sean Fennessey? Interesting that both of these movies have been remade.
1:11:36 Speaker 04 Jean Francois Richet.
1:11:39 Speaker 04 Who also made
1:11:42 Speaker 04 no other movies that I've ever heard of.
1:11:44 Sean Fennessey? Not a movie that needed to be remade. Assault and Precinct 13.
1:11:50 Speaker 05 Good pick.
1:11:51 Sean Fennessey? Thanks. Was that in your realm of interest?
1:11:53 Speaker 05 Absolutely.
1:11:54 Sean Fennessey? Okay.
1:11:54 Speaker 05 I certainly had it on my list.
1:11:56 Sean Fennessey? Wasn't trying to take anything from you per se, but you know.
1:12:00 Speaker 05 All right, I'm gonna take a bit of a category, category reach. But I think it qualifies. In action thriller, I'm going to take The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.
1:12:14 Sean Fennessey? This was my other, yeah, it was literally either Assault on 1313 or this.
1:12:21 Amanda Dobbins? I chose Myki and Nikki instead of this for my.
1:12:24 Sean Fennessey? There were two Cassavetes on the board this year.
1:12:26 Amanda Dobbins? But this is the one that my husband was willing to watch with me. He was like, hey, I heard you're doing 76. What do you got to watch? And then, and then he picked Killing of a Chinese Bookie.
1:12:37 Speaker 04 Which cut?
1:12:41 Speaker 05 The longest one.
1:12:43 Sean Fennessey? See, I don't, I disagree.
1:12:44 Speaker 04 I like the shorter one.
1:12:45 Sean Fennessey? I do too. I think those, the, well, there's a great story, right? Is Gazzara's is the long one? Who's like, this is too fucking long.
1:12:53 Speaker 04 Oh, no, I thought it was the reverse. I thought it was Gazzara was like, I gotta, you gotta show me when I'm doing this. And, and then Cassavetes.
1:12:59 Amanda Dobbins? Cassavetes is shorter.
1:13:00 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:13:00 Amanda Dobbins? The direct, yeah, the director's cut is shorter.
1:13:02 Speaker 04 It's 108 minutes versus like 100.
1:13:05 Sean Fennessey? No, I thought it was that the theatrical cut, I thought they screened the movie at 135 minutes and Gazzara didn't like it.
1:13:13 Speaker 04 Oh, and he made him cut it more.
1:13:14 Sean Fennessey? He said, maybe I'm wrong, maybe, maybe it's the other way around.
1:13:17 Speaker 04 No, I think, now I think you might, I thought he wasn't done editing and they were like, you have to put this out.
1:13:22 Sean Fennessey? But then the edit, the 108 minute version, he moves those scenes all over the place. Like, the movie is very different.
1:13:27 Speaker 04 Very different opening.
1:13:28 Sean Fennessey? And there's a lot less stuff, I guess, in the nightclub.
1:13:30 Speaker 05 I've just got a lot more patience for a Mr. Sophistication than I did as a younger man. Now I could sit and watch Mr. Sophistication all night long.
1:13:41 Sean Fennessey? This is a, man, fucked up this draft.
1:13:46 Sean Fennessey? This movie, I think is one of the better movies about where the, the lead character is like a stand-in for the filmmaker, where like the idea of a person who's like, what I'm really interested in is like the design and the world and the artistry that I'm putting into this nightclub and everybody's there to watch girls dance and to be entertained.
1:14:05 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:14:05 Sean Fennessey? Um, and that you come to show business for the pomp and the circumstance, you don't come for the artistry and Cassavetes being totally tortured. I love that idea that's in the movie that's so at the forefront of it.
1:14:15 Amanda Dobbins? All the scenes of him just calling the club, being like, no, no, who's on stage right now? What song are they singing? Why is she out there alone?
1:14:22 Sean Fennessey? Really, really, really good.
1:14:24 Speaker 04 Great movie about Los Angeles public transportation.
1:14:25 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
1:14:27 Speaker 05 Best use of Playboy Playmates, I think, ever in a film.
1:14:31 Speaker 04 Over Apocalypse Now.
1:14:33 Speaker 05 Oh, you got me. You got me.
1:14:35 Sean Fennessey? But those are not real. Are they real Playmates?
1:14:37 Speaker 04 Like Colin Camp said, right? What a week for Colin Camp on the big picture.
1:14:42 Sean Fennessey? That's right. Happy for her.
1:14:47 Sean Fennessey? Oh, there's the other great story about this where he asked a whole bunch of studio heads to come sit and be in the crowd of the club, but then he like blurred all their faces purposefully so you can't see them, which is just like with the way that the lighting is set up. So they thought they were being gratified by being able to appear in a movie and then he fucked them over, which is such a little, he's such a little fucker.
1:15:08 Speaker 04 I love when Seymour Sel and all the guys take Gazara to like the deli on Sunset and they're just like all like huddled in this deli drinking beers and like are like, so let's take out a third mortgage on your house or whatever, pay off your poker debts.
1:15:26 Speaker 05 I always am happy to see Timothy Carey in a movie and he's great in here. And I also have special affection for this because I saw it at, I saw it in Dallas, Texas with a Q and A with Cassavetes afterwards.
1:15:40 Speaker 04 Oh, shit.
1:15:41 Speaker 05 Excited to hear Cassavetes.
1:15:42 Sean Fennessey? What do you say?
1:15:44 Speaker 05 A guy trying to get money together to make a movie. It was all he was, all he was about.
1:15:50 Sean Fennessey? So interesting. Okay. You got another pick?
1:15:53 Speaker 05 Ew. Does everybody have drama?
1:15:57 Speaker 04 I don't.
1:15:58 Sean Fennessey? I do. I do. So interesting that thriller or action is all filled up. I feel like that's a healthy category. No?
1:16:06 Speaker 04 It is.
1:16:07 Sean Fennessey? It was a little bit about the last minute category shift. So I just wasn't as. It may have worked out for you really well.
1:16:19 Speaker 05 In drama, I'm going to take lifeguard.
1:16:22 Sean Fennessey? Phew. You are the number one lifeguard fan on this podcast. You've brought this film to so many people. No, I haven't.
1:16:30 Speaker 05 You should watch it.
1:16:30 Sean Fennessey? I think you would like it.
1:16:32 Speaker 05 I think you would too.
1:16:33 Speaker 04 I'm sure that I would. This is the.
1:16:38 Sean Fennessey? Sam Elliott.
1:16:39 Speaker 04 Sam Elliott. I was just thinking, I was thinking about the pants, which is, has that episode come out yet? That has not come out. Oh, yeah. Has, has physical media come out by the time people have heard this? Okay, so complimenting people on their pants and complimenting Sam Elliott on his pants is what kind of, I was just thinking about pants.
1:16:54 Sean Fennessey? Story, yeah.
1:16:55 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:16:57 Sean Fennessey? I forgot about that. It's been a long week.
1:16:59 Speaker 05 I just, it was just a terrific movie. Carrie and I were just, we watched it together. We'd never seen it. We were both just kind of knocked out by what a, what a good film it is. And a film that, that as Tim was saying the other day on the podcast, it kind of gets deeper as you get further into it. It seems to be a very light thing when you start and by the end of it, it's actually, it's actually gets kind of deep. And it's a, it's a great Sam Elliott performance. Early Ann Archer and maybe first Kathleen Quinlan appearance in Lifeguard. I think I'm done.
1:17:34 Speaker 04 Okay. Fenrock.
1:17:37 Sean Fennessey? I've got another pick, huh? So I'm currently missing comedy and horror, comedy or horror Oscar and wild card.
1:17:46 Sean Fennessey? Oscar, what a fascinating Oscar year. Most of the big dogs were taken up front. There's also, there's some good movies left, though.
1:17:53 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:17:54 Sean Fennessey? Some movies I really like.
1:17:59 Sean Fennessey? I think, I think what I'll do is, I'll just take a movie I really love, which is Harlan County, USA in Oscar.
1:18:08 Speaker 04 You fucking dick.
1:18:09 Speaker 05 You fucking motherfucker.
1:18:10 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:18:11 Speaker 05 You fucking prick.
1:18:13 Speaker 04 Fuck shit.
1:18:14 Speaker 05 Fuck you and the horse you fucked. Sorry. Sorry. Now, you guys did that 900th show and that little boy listens to the.
1:18:22 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, not anymore, he doesn't.
1:18:24 Speaker 04 Nico. And if you're listening, I just want to say, fuck you, Sean.
1:18:30 Sean Fennessey? You fucking dickhead. Nico, it's just me and you here. I thought his name was Nico. He's so sweet. He made Sean cry. Unpleasant. I was so touched by that. I really was. It was really so lovely.
1:18:40 Speaker 04 It's real factory owner shit right here for him, you know?
1:18:43 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, I mean, I have probably said on the pod before, I think this might be the greatest American documentary ever made. Barbara Coppel's film about what happens in a Kentucky coal mine and the company that owns it and the folks who work in it and the way in which they organize and stand in the face of the corporation. A movie about real people that shows real people as they are in a direct way, which is very hard to do. And this movie, being recognized in its time, I think is really fascinating and really powerful at winning Best Documentary Feature. It's that collision of social impact and filmmaking artistry. And, you know, Coppel's made a lot of really great movies over the years,
1:19:26 Sean Fennessey? but this one, similar to some of the movies that we took at the top of the draft, also feels as though it is not expiring, still very relevant.
1:19:34 Speaker 05 Oh, very much so.
1:19:35 Sean Fennessey? Still very...
1:19:37 Speaker 05 Maybe more so that it hasn't been a long time.
1:19:39 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, yeah. And very watchable.
1:19:42 Speaker 04 I mean, there's sequences in this. I mean, even just the descending into the mines in the beginning. I mean, like where you're like, well, this is as good as anything in any action movie from this year. And some real, like, I don't really understand, like, there are moments where you're like, I can't believe there was a camera here for this.
1:19:57 Sean Fennessey? Yeah. She also just, there's a, there's just a filmmaking style where you could have made this movie as purely observational, but she gets this just into camera testimony from people on the scene frequently, where you see them, and they don't feel like blinkered by the idea of media. It's not like a performance that they're giving because they're being asked a question with someone holding a camera. It feels, authentic is seems like an insufficient word to explain. The way in which they're communicating about what's going on and some of that is the trust that Koppel has built with the people in the community. Some of that is just people not knowing how to be any other way. But um, yeah, this movie is like a, is a 101 for documentary filmmaking.
1:20:37 Speaker 05 I was gonna re-watch it for this draft and didn't and then realized, oh, it's okay. It's pretty, it's pretty imprinted on my brain.
1:20:44 Sean Fennessey? In your mind, yeah, I feel the same way. I watched it in college. I've probably watched it one time since, but um, definitely one of my faves.
1:20:50 Speaker 05 I think on DVD on, in the Criterion Collection, but I don't think it's been upgraded.
1:20:57 Sean Fennessey? Not on Blu-ray. No, not on Blu-ray. I would love a Barbra Koppel box set, actually.
1:21:00 Speaker 05 I only say this for the kids out there who might want to check this movie. Yeah, no, it's important, yeah. I just didn't want you to think I was turning this into a physical media podcast, I recognize.
1:21:11 Sean Fennessey? Um, all right. CR, you have a pick here, bud.
1:21:15 Speaker 05 What do you have left, Chris?
1:21:16 Speaker 04 I got drama, wild card, and comedy, horror, sci-fi. And in drama, I'm gonna take Kings of the Road.
1:21:22 Sean Fennessey? Hmm.
1:21:23 Speaker 04 Uh, this is, Vim Venders is rather epic, but also very intimate road movie about a very depressed therapist and a film projection repairman, driving around Germany and talking about stuff, about their lives and, you know, going to hang out with exes and their dads and really just trying to, you know. It's, it's basically a blueprint for Linklater, it's a blueprint for Jarmusch, it's shot by Robbie Mueller in an extraordinary black and white photography. Uh, it's a hangout movie and it's a thinker, but it's, it's kind of just like you can just kick back and watch these guys wash their clothes and walk around in circles and fill up the tank with gas and stuff like that.
1:22:06 Speaker 04 It's very durational, it's very, just, just watching life unfold. But for me, it's, it's the cinematography that I really come back to. Mueller winds up, you know, obviously shooting stuff like Repo Man and To Live and Die in L.A. and Jarmusch movies like Down by Law, I believe, and, you know, is one of my favorite cinematographers in film history. So to watch him kind of cook and, and watch him just really get like an expansive canvas like this, it's just, just a really lovely movie.
1:22:33 Sean Fennessey? The long movie is our call.
1:22:35 Speaker 04 Three hours, almost, I think, yeah.
1:22:36 Sean Fennessey? And it's kinda, it's the last...
1:22:40 Sean Fennessey? Pure German movie that vendors makes, right? For a long period of time, American Friend comes right after this and then he kind of goes on the, his sagas of America and makes Hammett with Coppola and Paris, Texas and whatnot.
1:22:55 Sean Fennessey? Great movie. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype? Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions, reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that, bull spend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO? LinkedIn Ads generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. Reach the right buyers with LinkedIn Ads. You can target by company, industry, job title and more. So cut the bull spend, advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash the big picture.
1:23:39 Sean Fennessey? That's LinkedIn.com slash the big picture. Terms and conditions apply. This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime. This episode is brought to you by the Autograph Journey Credit Card from Wells Fargo. The Autograph Journey Credit Card from Wells Fargo is built for travel. You can earn rewards wherever you book, your favorite hotel site, your go to airline and more. You get five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants
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1:24:41 Amanda Dobbins? Yes. I have two picks. In blockbuster, I will take a movie that I like, even if the rest of you are being snobby, A Star is Born, the 1976 version. starring Barbra Streisand. I don't know why I always have to come on this podcast and be like, Barbra Streisand is important.
1:25:01 Speaker 04 Barbra Streisand.
1:25:02 Amanda Dobbins? Barbra Streisand is important. And the movies that she makes that made millions of dollars at the box office are also important. And you all just kind of like stare at me. What? I like, it's, but it's true.
1:25:15 Sean Fennessey? Not a good movie, but okay.
1:25:17 Speaker 05 Here's why I'm staring at you.
1:25:19 Amanda Dobbins? It's pretty good.
1:25:19 Speaker 05 I've never seen any version of A Star is Born.
1:25:22 Amanda Dobbins? Really?
1:25:23 Speaker 04 I haven't seen this one.
1:25:25 Amanda Dobbins? You know what?
1:25:25 Speaker 04 I don't mean that in a cocky way. I just.
1:25:26 Amanda Dobbins? Christopherson's kind of bringing it in this, in my opinion.
1:25:29 Speaker 05 Well, this is.
1:25:30 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah. Well, that's what he's doing. And so, and they. And, you know, they have some heat that I responded to at the age that I was.
1:25:41 Sean Fennessey? Such a boring movie.
1:25:42 Amanda Dobbins? That's fine. You can say that. And I had a nice time. And it was the second most, second highest earning movie of the year. So there.
1:25:51 Sean Fennessey? It was a very big hit.
1:25:52 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:25:53 Sean Fennessey? You've not seen a single A Star is Born film?
1:25:55 Speaker 05 No.
1:25:56 Amanda Dobbins? Let's unpack that.
1:25:57 Speaker 05 I don't have a good reason.
1:25:59 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
1:25:59 Speaker 05 There's no, it's not, it's not like I'm boycotting A Star is Born.
1:26:03 Sean Fennessey? I mean, Judy Garland in the second one is.
1:26:04 Amanda Dobbins? The Judy Garland one is lights out.
1:26:06 Speaker 05 I'm told that's the one I have to see.
1:26:08 Sean Fennessey? I mean, that is one of the great screen performances, in my opinion. You really should watch that. Amanda and I both absolutely love Bradley Cooper's version.
1:26:16 Sean Fennessey? You might disagree with us, as you often do on contemporary films.
1:26:17 Speaker 05 I haven't seen it. How can I disagree with you if I haven't seen it?
1:26:21 Sean Fennessey? Is it because you hate films that center women? Like, what's the issue?
1:26:23 Speaker 05 I'm not responding to your tyrannical questions. Good.
1:26:27 Amanda Dobbins? Good for you. Good.
1:26:28 Speaker 05 It's nice to see.
1:26:29 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:26:30 Sean Fennessey? But you will, and you do hate films that center women, as I understand it. Is that correct?
1:26:34 Speaker 05 Do not submit to the tyranny.
1:26:38 Sean Fennessey? Okay, that's one that's in blockbuster.
1:26:40 Amanda Dobbins? Yes, blockbuster. And then in comedy horror, this is one of the international ones where, depending on where you are, you get a different year. But this, this film, performance from this film was nominated for the Oscars that we keep referencing. And it was released in the US in 1976, so I will be taking Cousin, Cousine?
1:27:00 Sean Fennessey? Oh, yeah, sure.
1:27:00 Amanda Dobbins? Which I had not seen until preparing for this and was completely delighted by. It's a, it's a French Four Weddings and a Funeral. And, you know, and it's organized, it's romantic comedy.
1:27:12 Sean Fennessey? Organized around two people who who are our cousins, but by marriage. So there's no kind of bloodline issues going on here. And it is France. They are also married, unlike in Four Weddings and a Funeral, both of them.
1:27:26 Sean Fennessey? And they keep meeting over a series of family functions. And then ultimately decide that, you know, it's a happy ending that they want to be together.
1:27:40 Sean Fennessey? They are believable, but the all of the family functions and sort of the weird slice of French seventies life is so funny and memorable. And every weird character is like gets a moment and makes you laugh. And I, you know, they're not a lot of, not a lot of great comedies and certainly not a lot of romantic comedies. I love this pick. Yeah, it's really good. Terrific, but is it Marie-Christine Barone? Yes, yeah, and she was nominated for Best Actress. Anyway, delightful movie.
1:28:12 Speaker 05 Did you know there's an American remake?
1:28:14 Sean Fennessey? I did, but I've never seen it.
1:28:15 Speaker 05 It's called Cousins, and I believe it's made by Joel Schumacher.
1:28:18 Sean Fennessey? Sure.
1:28:19 Speaker 05 Bill Peterson and Sean Young and a bunch of other people.
1:28:24 Sean Fennessey? This was discussed when we spoke about To Live and Die in L.A. on the Rewatchables, because this was one of the movies that Peterson chose as he was kind of dawning as a movie actor that didn't really hit and and making that choice instead of some other, he was, he was offered in this exact same timeframe, the film Goodfellas, reportedly turned it down to do this Joel Schumacher movie. Didn't work out.
1:28:49 Speaker 05 Good pick, though.
1:28:50 Sean Fennessey? Thank you. Very good pick. This film was nominated for not one, not two, but three Academy Awards.
1:28:54 Speaker 05 Thanks.
1:28:56 Sean Fennessey? C R is back to you.
1:28:57 Speaker 05 Wait a minute, didn't you have two? Did you make?
1:28:59 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, I did A Star is Born, which you've never seen because you don't.
1:29:02 Amanda Dobbins? You know, care about a life in the arts.
1:29:04 Sean Fennessey? Having, having heard those picks, do you still feel that Amanda is winning this draft?
1:29:08 Speaker 05 Uh, yeah, I do.
1:29:09 Amanda Dobbins? Okay. I mean, it's fine. We did let women into the frame, but you know, it's okay. It's okay.
1:29:14 Sean Fennessey? I have Faye Dunaway as in.
1:29:17 Sean Fennessey? I respect women.
1:29:19 Speaker 04 In horror, comedy and sci-fi, I am going to take The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Which is, uh.
1:29:27 Sean Fennessey? Intriguing.
1:29:29 Speaker 04 You know, it has a mixed reputation for a very good reason. It's a very scary film that then has a very stupid B-plot of the law enforcement trying to capture this serial killer called The Phantom, who's terrorizing Tex Arcana, I believe.
1:29:44 Sean Fennessey? Yes.
1:29:44 Speaker 04 Uh, it's made by Charles Pierce, who's from Arkansas and made a bunch of really interesting seventies genre movies set in and around the Southwest.
1:29:52 Speaker 05 And used to distribute them out of the back of his pickup truck, driving around theater to theater and made fortunes.
1:29:59 Speaker 04 Uh, but when you watch Town that Dreaded Sundown, it's just kind of like, especially the opening is really inventive with this voiceover of, uh, almost like you're watching a documentary about, you know, people getting back from World War II and this town that's thriving and then this killer that starts terrorizing couples. But when the cops, the Texas Rangers, I think, come into this, it kind of turns into Smoking the Bandit a little bit. And there's a lot of like, gee, Wilikers, where are we going to get the gas for this car? And, uh, I, he was just really playing to a lot of, a lot of different kinds of audiences, but The Phantom is a really scary slasher. And I think you can see elements of like Zodiac in this, you know?
1:30:43 Speaker 04 I don't know if Fincher likes this movie. This was actually remade this century. I don't remember what year the Town that Dreaded Sundown remake came out, but it's pretty good. And it's, uh, in the movie, the remake, it is about how they made the first movie about The Phantom and the town. So it's a little bit like.
1:31:02 Sean Fennessey? It was like 2017 ish around that time.
1:31:04 Speaker 04 Pretty decent movie though.
1:31:04 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
1:31:05 Speaker 04 And, uh, yeah, so I'll do that for horror.
1:31:08 Sean Fennessey? Nice. Interesting how many movies were remade from this year.
1:31:10 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:31:12 Sean Fennessey? Um, all right. That's a good, good, good film. A good pick. I think I need to, do I need to pick from that category? I think I do. I'm missing wildcard and comedy and horror. And you tell me if you think this is a comedy, because I do. Um, I'll take Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull's history lesson.
1:31:31 Speaker 04 That you're gonna say in the room with the sets.
1:31:32 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
1:31:33 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's a comedy.
1:31:34 Sean Fennessey? It's a comedy.
1:31:34 Amanda Dobbins? Sure.
1:31:35 Speaker 05 I think so.
1:31:35 Amanda Dobbins? Uh, yeah, sure.
1:31:38 Sean Fennessey? What, what do you think it is?
1:31:39 Amanda Dobbins? I, I don't remember a lot of like laugh out louds on that one. It's a, it's a cynical view of, of the world and I guess entertainment.
1:31:52 Sean Fennessey? An embittered satire of the, the falsity of the American myth.
1:31:56 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
1:31:56 Sean Fennessey? Um.
1:31:57 Speaker 04 It's, uh, what would the, it's not LOL. It's like laughing silently to myself as a satire.
1:32:04 Sean Fennessey? Chins stroking amusement. This is a movie that we did speak about on the Paul Newman Hall of Fame episode. This is the first of two collaborations that he had with Robert Altman, one of my faves. Um, a movie about Buffalo Bill Cody in the later stages of his life after hiring a publicist and a producer and putting on a big old circus show in the middle of the West where he reenacts some of his quote unquote greatest achievements, along with a whole cast of characters. Unbelievable cast in this film, um, that includes Burt Lancaster, Joel Grey, Geraldine Chaplin, um.
1:32:37 Speaker 05 Big Harvey Keitel year.
1:32:39 Sean Fennessey? It sure is. I might try to grab, well, maybe you'll try to grab another Harvey Keitel movie before we're done here. Um. I think this is one of the great underrated Altman movies and like very much in keeping with this obsession that he has with people who put up a front and don't reveal the truth about themselves.
1:32:57 Speaker 04 Do you still have comedy?
1:33:00 Speaker 05 I, uh, took Carrie in comedy horror.
1:33:03 Speaker 04 Okay. Just out of curiosity.
1:33:06 Sean Fennessey? Mm-hmm.
1:33:07 Speaker 04 If, if we started throwing things all over the studio and saying you can't have this in comedy, I'm curious what your comedy would be.
1:33:13 Sean Fennessey? It would either be up. The Russ Meyer movie.
1:33:17 Speaker 04 Okay.
1:33:17 Sean Fennessey? Which actually came up on the physical media episode and I watched for the first time yesterday. Had a nice time, did it without my family at home.
1:33:23 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:33:26 Sean Fennessey? It is very, it's very funny.
1:33:28 Speaker 05 I'll bet you laughed more it up than you did out loud at Buffalo Bill.
1:33:31 Sean Fennessey? Certainly.
1:33:32 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:33:33 Sean Fennessey? I was titillated as well.
1:33:36 Speaker 05 That's a topic for another time.
1:33:38 Amanda Dobbins? It's great.
1:33:41 Amanda Dobbins? The physical media high council, which is really, all that's, all those guys are up to.
1:33:47 Sean Fennessey? There are some horror movies that I like that are left on the board. But I probably would also consider Silent Movie, the Mel Brooks film, which I think is not like one of his best, but it's one that I enjoy.
1:33:57 Sean Fennessey? But you know what, there's more picks to be made, so you're, you're up for two.
1:33:59 Speaker 05 I, I saw Buffalo Bill for the first time in preparation for this draft. I'd never seen it before.
1:34:05 Speaker 05 Little on the nose. I, I love this Altman style. I love all the cast. I love, I think that Newman is fantastic in the movie.
1:34:13 Amanda Dobbins? It's cool that they did it, but also it's, they, they are belaboring the point.
1:34:18 Speaker 05 A little bit.
1:34:19 Sean Fennessey? Wow.
1:34:20 Speaker 05 God damn.
1:34:20 Sean Fennessey? Not like a Star is Born. Really subtle piece of filmmaking.
1:34:24 Speaker 05 Joel Grey, man. Joel Grey was a standout for me in that movie. I thought Joel Grey was superb.
1:34:28 Sean Fennessey? He's really great. Burt Lancaster hated making the movie and did not like Robert Altman.
1:34:33 Speaker 05 I'm not surprised by that at all.
1:34:35 Speaker 04 Smokin' doobies while we're supposed to be shooting my scenes.
1:34:39 Sean Fennessey? Is that your Burt Lancaster?
1:34:40 Speaker 04 No, my Burt Lancaster would be different. I love this dirty town.
1:34:46 Speaker 05 I have Oscar and I have Wild Card left and I'm making both of those picks right now, aren't I?
1:34:50 Sean Fennessey? Certainly are.
1:34:51 Amanda Dobbins? You are.
1:34:51 Speaker 05 Those aren't the last two picks, then we go back up.
1:34:53 Sean Fennessey? We sure do.
1:34:55 Speaker 05 What do you guys have left?
1:34:56 Amanda Dobbins? We just have Wild Card.
1:34:58 Speaker 04 Wild Card.
1:35:00 Sean Fennessey? Wild Card.
1:35:00 Speaker 05 Oh, it's like that, is it?
1:35:03 Speaker 04 But I would have used my Wild Card for Harlan County if.
1:35:06 Speaker 05 Right. It was on my list.
1:35:07 Amanda Dobbins? Greg Gardens was my Wild Card pick, but it was apparently also my Wild Card pick for 1975, so.
1:35:14 Speaker 04 Was the 75 draft when he took Barry Lyndon and you went, "Eh."
1:35:21 Speaker 04 Was that that?
1:35:22 Amanda Dobbins? Did I do that for Barry Lyndon?
1:35:24 Speaker 04 Yes.
1:35:25 Amanda Dobbins? Why?
1:35:26 Speaker 04 I don't know.
1:35:27 Amanda Dobbins? No.
1:35:28 Sean Fennessey? I'll tell you why, because you're a brat.
1:35:31 Amanda Dobbins? But why, why did I, I don't remember this.
1:35:33 Speaker 04 Or maybe it was an Oscars draft or something. It was more recently. We were in this room. And you were like Barry Lyndon and you just went meh. Like it was really one of the funnier. Anyway.
1:35:44 Amanda Dobbins? But I liked Barry Lyndon.
1:35:46 Speaker 04 Well, perhaps I got the moment, the film wrong. I'd have to go back and see.
1:35:49 Sean Fennessey? Some other gal on movie drafts.
1:35:53 Speaker 05 I'm going to take in wild card, The Man Who Fell to Earth.
1:35:59 Sean Fennessey? What category would this movie be eligible in?
1:36:01 Speaker 04 Sci-fi.
1:36:02 Speaker 05 That's why I asked about sci-fi.
1:36:03 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
1:36:06 Speaker 05 I have to say, there are some movies, your relationship to them changes over the years as you watch them. And sometimes you go back to a movie, Godfather Part Two, and you go, I'm not liking this as much as I used to like this.
1:36:19 Amanda Dobbins? Absolutely.
1:36:20 Speaker 05 But what's thrilling is when you see a movie and you don't like it, and then you go back and you revisit it and you go, oh, there's more there than I thought. And then you see it a third time and you go, how did I miss this?
1:36:29 Speaker 04 That's how I felt about Michael Mann's black hat.
1:36:32 Speaker 05 There you go. Well, that's how I feel about The Man Who Fell to Earth. My third viewing of this, kind of knocked my socks off. Perhaps due to the beautiful 4K presentation on the Studio Canal Steel.
1:36:46 Speaker 04 Is Studio Canal in the room with you now?
1:36:50 Amanda Dobbins? I appreciate all the work that Studio Canal does. I haven't seen this particular 4K transfer.
1:36:56 Speaker 05 Do you guys know The Man Who Fell to Earth?
1:36:57 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, certainly.
1:36:58 Speaker 05 Nick Rogue.
1:36:58 Amanda Dobbins? No, I haven't.
1:36:59 Speaker 05 You haven't seen it? David Bowie, Rip Torn.
1:37:01 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, I know that.
1:37:04 Speaker 05 Candy Clark, great performance. So that's my wild card. And in Oscar, I'm going to take.
1:37:10 Sean Fennessey? You've been really stumping for Nick Rogue on these pods since you came back here.
1:37:14 Speaker 05 He, he, he, there was a pocket. There's a Nick Rogue pocket. It didn't last long, but it's great.
1:37:20 Sean Fennessey? I'm fascinated by those later ones, though. In Significance and Eureka. And those movies are interesting.
1:37:26 Speaker 05 Right. The Witches.
1:37:28 Sean Fennessey? The Witches, indeed.
1:37:29 Speaker 05 Angelica. When do you introduce your kids to The Witches? Pretty scary, right?
1:37:33 Sean Fennessey? I saw it very early on and it fucked me up. I was a big role doll reader.
1:37:37 Amanda Dobbins? I, The Witches is my.
1:37:38 Sean Fennessey? My favorite of the Roald Dahl books. And so I will probably start with that.
1:37:43 Speaker 05 But it's pretty scary.
1:37:44 Sean Fennessey? It is pretty scary. And that's, I would say that my kind of line for my kids right now is, is it gonna cause a nightmare that I have to deal with? You know, at like 2am. We've had a lot of like, I had a dream about a scary robot recently because of Star Wars. So, which is, would be, would be intense. But amazing movie. I think maybe Danny, the champion of the world is my favorite Roald Dahl book. Have you read that one?
1:38:08 Speaker 04 I was not a big doll guy.
1:38:11 Sean Fennessey? Really good movie about a boy and his father, who was a mechanic.
1:38:15 Speaker 05 Because you like, because you like Doll's views on.
1:38:20 Sean Fennessey? No, he was an anti Semite. And I reject that about him.
1:38:26 Sean Fennessey? I can play the game. I know how to respond to these questions. I've been writing them my whole life. I, no, he was a, he was a wretched anti Semite, but a wonderful writer and creator of stories for children.
1:38:35 Speaker 04 Did you get to see Giant yet?
1:38:38 Speaker 05 No.
1:38:39 Speaker 04 The, the, the stage play with John Lithgow, where he plays Roald Dahl.
1:38:43 Sean Fennessey? Oh, interesting.
1:38:44 Speaker 05 Probably gonna win the Tony Award for Best Actor.
1:38:47 Sean Fennessey? Lithgow's gonna win that. Have you seen it?
1:38:49 Speaker 04 No, I will not be going to see it when I go back to New York next week. I'm going to see a different play.
1:38:53 Sean Fennessey? In protest of Doll's views?
1:38:55 Speaker 04 No, just out of my own personal curiosities.
1:38:59 Sean Fennessey? What are you seeing instead?
1:39:00 Speaker 04 Becky Shaw.
1:39:01 Sean Fennessey? Oh, okay.
1:39:02 Speaker 05 I hear it's great.
1:39:02 Speaker 04 Alden Ehrenreich.
1:39:03 Speaker 05 I hear it's great.
1:39:05 Speaker 04 Patrick Ball from The Pit.
1:39:06 Speaker 05 I hear Alden's great in it too.
1:39:07 Speaker 04 I can't, can't wait.
1:39:08 Sean Fennessey? You've, you've always supported Alden.
1:39:10 Speaker 04 I have.
1:39:12 Sean Fennessey? In the theater?
1:39:13 Speaker 04 I do.
1:39:14 Speaker 05 In Oscar, I'm going to take Seven Beauties. Lena Vertmiller's movie starring Giancarlo Janini. Was he nominated for Best Actor, Giancarlo Janini?
1:39:26 Sean Fennessey? Do not think he was. He, was he? He was nominated.
1:39:32 Speaker 05 He was nominated for Best Actor. Uh, great, funny, horrifying, hilarious, upsetting, all those things, and a great performance. He's really great in this movie. I put this sort of in the bucket of, this is a movie you kids should see if you haven't seen it. Kids ought to go, have you seen Seven Beauties?
1:39:54 Amanda Dobbins? No.
1:39:54 Speaker 05 You ought to go out and see Seven.
1:39:55 Sean Fennessey? One of the great things about this year to Amanda's selection of, is it Cousin, Cousin?
1:40:01 Amanda Dobbins? Cousin, cuisine. Get ready for Cannes, my guy.
1:40:05 Sean Fennessey? It's never been one of my skills. I'll do my best.
1:40:10 Sean Fennessey? Just like now, a lot of international films would find their way into the nominations across the 1970s and were pretty solidly represented throughout that, those years. So that's, that's it for you. You're done.
1:40:23 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:40:24 Sean Fennessey? How do you feel?
1:40:26 Amanda Dobbins? You have Carrie, though. I think that's pretty important.
1:40:29 Speaker 04 In more ways than one.
1:40:30 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, that's true.
1:40:32 Sean Fennessey? In some ways, that's all you have.
1:40:37 Speaker 04 What did you pick, Tracy? Just you?
1:40:41 Sean Fennessey? I got a wild card here, huh? Gosh. Well, I don't know. I don't know what I want to choose.
1:40:51 Sean Fennessey? What's my favorite movie that's left on the board?
1:40:54 Amanda Dobbins? I don't know, Sean. Tell us.
1:40:57 Sean Fennessey? I will momentarily.
1:40:58 Amanda Dobbins? Okay. Do you know what you're gonna do for wildcard, Christopher?
1:41:01 Speaker 04 I'm trying to decide between three things.
1:41:03 Amanda Dobbins? Oh, wow. Look at you.
1:41:05 Sean Fennessey? I'm wondering if you've seen a movie that I just watched and how you would feel about it.
1:41:09 Speaker 04 Bernardo Berlucchi's 1900.
1:41:12 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
1:41:12 Speaker 04 All five hours?
1:41:13 Sean Fennessey? I don't know. Was 19, is 1900 eligible in this year?
1:41:16 Speaker 04 Why? Because it lasts longer than the year?
1:41:21 Sean Fennessey? I don't really know. Didn't it come out in 77 or 78?
1:41:25 Speaker 04 I don't care for that film, so it's got some lovely music.
1:41:28 Sean Fennessey? You weren't considering it? Because it was not in the English language, or what was the reason for that?
1:41:31 Speaker 04 No, because I, I find it to be quite dull and somewhat offensive.
1:41:36 Sean Fennessey? I'll tell you what, I'll just keep some consistency with my all-in affection.
1:41:41 Amanda Dobbins? You're just really on your principles today.
1:41:42 Sean Fennessey? And I'll take Alan Rudolph's Welcome to L.A., which is not his first film, but his first film under Altman's guidance. One of the first films, the first film released by Lionsgate, not the Lionsgate that we know, but the production company that Robert Altman launched on his own and released a handful of films. Only four that he did not direct, this was the first of them. It's a movie, a kind of arch-drama about vapid people in Los Angeles gathering and thinking that they have problems, when in fact, they do not. It is, features many of the players from the Altman classics, Keith Carradine, Geraldine
1:42:26 Sean Fennessey? Chaplin, Harvey Keitel appears in this movie.
1:42:29 Speaker 04 Lauren Hutton's in this?
1:42:30 Sean Fennessey? Lauren Hutton, Sally Kellerman, Sissy Spacek is in this movie. It's kind of centered around this songwriter musician, played by Carradine, who-
1:42:38 Speaker 04 Can I just stop you for one second about this? One of the things that stopped me from seeing this film for such a long time is, on the cover of the video box, Carradine has the worst facial hair, perhaps in American history.
1:42:50 Sean Fennessey? Well, in the film, he does.
1:42:51 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, like, it is, it is a really, like, an abomination of a, of like, a chin whisker that he's got going.
1:42:58 Sean Fennessey? It recalls Shaggy from Scooby Doo.
1:43:00 Speaker 04 Yeah. But he's supposed to just be, like, the coolest guy moving through L.A.
1:43:05 Sean Fennessey? Yes, but he's also, the movie is also very cleverly, like, this is the nepo, right? Like, his father is a powerful music executive, has kind of put him in position to be this much-sought-after songwriter. Richard Baskin, speaking of your girl, Barbra Streisand, who has dated Barbra Streisand for years, plays a singer in the film and wrote the songs that are performed in the movie. Just a really, kind of, acidic, seemingly soft, but very jagged portrait of, honestly, a million that's very familiar to me. I just feel like I know a lot of the people in this movie, even though it was made 50 years ago.
1:43:42 Speaker 04 Cool. My turn?
1:43:44 Sean Fennessey? Your turn.
1:43:47 Speaker 04 So wildcard, gosh.
1:43:50 Speaker 05 We all feel a little grim here in the later rounds.
1:43:53 Speaker 04 I just like, you know.
1:43:54 Sean Fennessey? That's the thing is these lineups cannot stack up to the 75 lineups. That's why there's not as much.
1:43:59 Amanda Dobbins? I don't know. I've got all the president's men.
1:44:02 Speaker 05 Yeah, we know what.
1:44:03 Amanda Dobbins? And marathon man.
1:44:04 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, you've got a Star is Born.
1:44:05 Amanda Dobbins? And Mikey and Nikki.
1:44:06 Sean Fennessey? Cousin, cousin.
1:44:07 Amanda Dobbins? Cousin is great. I had the fucking Stepford Wives in 75, which is.
1:44:12 Sean Fennessey? Incredible film.
1:44:13 Amanda Dobbins? I'm sure, but also kind of belabor is the point. We get it.
1:44:18 Sean Fennessey? Oh, my God. Since when is subtlety so important to you? This is not something you've expressed in previous episodes of this show.
1:44:24 Amanda Dobbins? Just saying, I can speak my truth, which is, you know.
1:44:28 Speaker 04 I think I'll just for the hell of it, take Logan's Run.
1:44:30 Amanda Dobbins? Sure.
1:44:31 Speaker 04 Okay. Which probably winds up influencing more stuff that I liked than me loving Logan's Run itself, but is a real head fuck of a movie when you think about like, you know, some of the things that the character goes through. It's basically about a guy who, you know, it's like a sort of Hunger Games-y society where after a certain amount of time, people get like sort of farmed out into a competition to see if they can still live, keep going and living.
1:45:00 Speaker 05 Let me tell you all about it.
1:45:01 Speaker 04 And yeah, I believe Michael York plays the main character, who is one of the hunters of those people, but then becomes the hunted and learns a lot of truths about society in the process.
1:45:14 Sean Fennessey? To Tracy's point about the Rocky films, do you think that we should all tap out at 30, that at 30 years old, we should be eliminated from society?
1:45:22 Amanda Dobbins? No, I'm thriving.
1:45:23 Speaker 04 It would be an interesting way to start, you know, thinning out the amount of chairs in this draft is to, is to, you know, it's like, once you hit a certain amount of drafts, you're done.
1:45:33 Sean Fennessey? The bad news would be that this show would never have existed.
1:45:38 Speaker 04 So yeah, I'll go with Logan's Run for last, last one there.
1:45:40 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
1:45:41 Sean Fennessey? Okay, Amanda, you've got one final pick.
1:45:42 Amanda Dobbins? I have wildcard and I'm going to do a discovery, another discovery. That I made while watching this and also another documentary. My original plan was to do Grey Gardens in wildcard, which is also what I did in 1975. So maybe I think the lineups are comparable because for me, they were going to be sort of the same.
1:46:00 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
1:46:01 Amanda Dobbins? Anyway, I'm going to do a different documentary, Degare au Teep, which an Agnes Varda film that was 75 in France, 76 in the UK, in the US, so it's eligible. And is a very charming and interesting snapshot of life on the Rue Degare, which is the street where Agnes Varda lived for decades. And it starts with the perfume shopkeeper.
1:46:33 Sean Fennessey? Shopkeepers, yeah.
1:46:34 Amanda Dobbins? And it is mostly about the shopkeepers, but it starts with one perfume-esque shopkeeper and his wife.
1:46:40 Sean Fennessey? Goes in.
1:46:41 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she's interested in them and how they got there and starts following everybody else along the street and asks them, you know, when they came to Paris and what they do. And follows them along and follows some pretty disgruntled shopgoers. But, you know, it's the 70s, so they don't think to just be like, no, no, you can't record me. And is idiosyncratic in the way that all Varda's films are. At some point, she starts asking them about their dreams, like literally what their dreams are, not like, what do you hope to be? And not, it's not an American thing, it's a French thing. And, you know, it's just a way of looking at the world that only Agnes Varda can.
1:47:26 Amanda Dobbins? And so the documentary communicates that and you can experience it from anybody else's camera. And I liked it a lot. That's awesome.
1:47:34 Sean Fennessey? It's a really good movie. I don't know that movie.
1:47:36 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:47:36 Sean Fennessey? Don't know it at all. Definitely worth checking out. Great. Very short, as I recall.
1:47:40 Amanda Dobbins? Just like 80 minutes or something?
1:47:43 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
1:47:44 Amanda Dobbins? And it's streaming. Criterion right now.
1:47:47 Sean Fennessey? Bang. Um, honorable mentions.
1:47:50 Speaker 04 I already regret my wild card because there are some good honorable mentions.
1:47:54 Sean Fennessey? Well, let's talk about them.
1:47:55 Speaker 05 Yeah, I'm looking at my honorable mentions and thinking it looks better than my lineup. It's like, how the hell did that happen?
1:48:00 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
1:48:00 Speaker 04 Uh, Roman Polanski's The Tenant?
1:48:02 Sean Fennessey? Mm-hmm.
1:48:03 Speaker 05 Just re-watched it recently. Excellent.
1:48:05 Speaker 04 That guy knows how to shoot an apartment.
1:48:06 Sean Fennessey? There he does.
1:48:08 Speaker 04 Cars at Eight Paris?
1:48:09 Sean Fennessey? Yep.
1:48:09 Amanda Dobbins? Mm-hmm.
1:48:10 Sean Fennessey? Was this 76?
1:48:11 Speaker 04 I thought so.
1:48:12 Sean Fennessey? Okay. I don't, I don't, I honestly don't remember.
1:48:13 Speaker 05 I think so, yeah.
1:48:14 Speaker 04 Um, two pulpy crime-ish movies, one of which, or maybe both of which I got off of Tracy's Letterboxd. Um, Small Town in Texas and Jackson County Jail. Oh, yeah. Jackson County Jail with Tommy Lee Jones, right? That is a fucked up movie. Uh, and Police Python 357, which is an Alan Cornell movie that is basically French Dirty Harry with Yves Monten and is in a great Radiance box set.
1:48:48 Sean Fennessey? I was expecting you to take Yakuza Graveyard, which is also 76. No?
1:48:53 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:48:55 Speaker 04 I like to expand beyond the Yakuza, you know, that sometimes I, I want to, you know?
1:48:59 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
1:49:00 Sean Fennessey? You know, there's another, uh, Brian De Palma movie from this year called Obsession, which is a movie that I think is bad that I love.
1:49:06 Amanda Dobbins? Well.
1:49:07 Speaker 04 One of the crazier plots that I've ever heard or seen is Obsession.
1:49:12 Amanda Dobbins? Why don't you recap it right now?
1:49:13 Sean Fennessey? Quite a turn at the end of this movie.
1:49:14 Speaker 04 Was that?
1:49:14 Amanda Dobbins? Why don't you recap it in three sentences right now?
1:49:17 Sean Fennessey? Don't spoil it.
1:49:18 Amanda Dobbins? Okay, well, people can-
1:49:19 Speaker 04 And then he made him eat the diamonds.
1:49:23 Speaker 05 Then the homeboy made him eat a bunch of diamonds.
1:49:25 Sean Fennessey? The Ebert quote around Obsession is, "I don't just like movies like this, I relish them. Sometimes overwrought excess can be its own reward."
1:49:34 Amanda Dobbins? Hmm.
1:49:35 Speaker 04 Hmm.
1:49:35 Speaker 05 That's both.
1:49:39 Speaker 05 More honorable mentions? Well, we should probably mention King Kong, which, uh, is not a very good movie, but certainly had delights for a boy who turned 11 in 1976.
1:49:51 Sean Fennessey? Okay. That was one of two more remaining blockbusters that were not selected. The others are Silver Streak.
1:49:58 Amanda Dobbins? Mm-hmm.
1:49:59 Sean Fennessey? The prior, and nope, the prior and Gene Wilder film.
1:50:02 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:50:02 Sean Fennessey? With Jill Clayberg.
1:50:03 Amanda Dobbins? Which opens with just like 30 minutes of Gene Wilder seducing Jill Clayberg in a way that I did not find to-
1:50:11 Speaker 05 Be credible. Did you re-watch it? I did. Or watch it? I did.
1:50:14 Sean Fennessey? On a train?
1:50:15 Speaker 05 Yes, on a train.
1:50:16 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
1:50:16 Speaker 05 It was a big hit.
1:50:17 Sean Fennessey? Huge movie.
1:50:18 Speaker 05 I saw it in the movie theater. And I'm telling you, when Richard Pryor appears, he shows up about halfway through the movie, the movie theater just became electric. He just electrified the crowd. That's why that movie was such a big hit.
1:50:31 Sean Fennessey? One of two movies in which he did that exact thing, because he shows up about halfway through Car Wash, and the movie Car Wash Comes to Life. The other movie was The Enforcer, the other Clint Eastwood movie from that year, which is the third Dirty Harry movie.
1:50:42 Speaker 05 Not my favorite.
1:50:43 Sean Fennessey? I don't like it.
1:50:43 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's not very good. Time Daily? Early Time Daily, yeah.
1:50:47 Sean Fennessey? Uh, what else you got?
1:50:49 Speaker 05 Fellini's Casanova.
1:50:50 Sean Fennessey? Yeah. Never seen it.
1:50:52 Speaker 05 Not for all tastes. Uh, obviously Fellini, there's amazing things in it. The Front.
1:51:00 Sean Fennessey? I just watched, watched this again yesterday.
1:51:02 Speaker 05 Uh, Martin Writ's movie with Woody Allen about, uh, Blacklist, right? Blacklist, people naming names. Very good movie. Zero Mostel, very good.
1:51:12 Sean Fennessey? I like it a lot.
1:51:13 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's very good.
1:51:14 Sean Fennessey? It's, um, you know, I think because of everything with Woody in the last 30 years, it's maybe doesn't have the same place it does, because it's just effectively a pure drama.
1:51:23 Speaker 05 What's, what, what happened with Woody?
1:51:26 Sean Fennessey? You gotta check out some, uh, check out the newspapers.
1:51:29 Speaker 05 Uh, Face to Face, Ingmar Bergman from this year, uh, which I watched for the first time yesterday. It's not Bergman's best, but Liv Ullman, goddamn, man. Very good. Just. She's very good. I agree with you. Really something. Uh, Hollywood Boulevard, uh, terrific drive-in movie. I mean, it's no more than a drive-in movie. It's an 85-minute, uh, comic romp, very low budget, very, very, uh, Roger Corman.
1:51:57 Sean Fennessey? Mm-hmm. Alan Arkes, right?
1:51:58 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:51:59 Sean Fennessey? Edited by Joe Dante.
1:52:00 Speaker 05 Uh, you mentioned Up already, but I think Up is really fun and really funny. My wife liked it a lot, so.
1:52:07 Sean Fennessey? That makes you seem like not a pervert, but all right?
1:52:08 Speaker 05 Yeah. Uh, Mr. Klein, I think was made in 76, but wasn't available to us because it wasn't released until later. But it's, it would have been my drama choice for sure.
1:52:18 Sean Fennessey? Alon Doan.
1:52:19 Speaker 05 Had it been available.
1:52:19 Sean Fennessey? Yeah. Joseph Losi.
1:52:21 Speaker 05 Uh, Heart of Glass, uh, Werner Herzog's movie I watched last night for the first time. Do you know this movie?
1:52:29 Sean Fennessey? I do.
1:52:29 Speaker 05 In which all the actors are under hypnosis. They've all been hypnotized. For how? Uh. Uh, to what end? And? It's about a 17th century Bavarian community and they are known for their rose colored glass. They have a glassworks and they're known for their rose colored glass. But the guy who has the secret formula to the rose colored glass has died and the town has gone into shock. And so to create this very sort of eerie feeling of a townspeople in shock, they're all hypnotized before every take.
1:53:06 Speaker 04 Is this what Asteroid City was taken from? Remember they all get hypnotized and asked, yeah?
1:53:13 Sean Fennessey? Could be. That could have been the inspiration.
1:53:16 Amanda Dobbins? But you don't get to see them.
1:53:17 Speaker 05 You don't see them. You see them. Yeah, you see them acting under hypnosis, which mainly means they they talk kind of slow and they have some very odd gestural language. It's quite a beautiful movie, really. Next Stop Greenwich Village. Some people don't like this. They're wrong. It's a really terrific comedy. And it's a Paul Mazursky movie who I'm always championing on this show. You should watch Paul Mazursky movies and Next Stop Greenwich Village. Really good.
1:53:48 Sean Fennessey? Why didn't you draft it?
1:53:49 Speaker 05 Huh?
1:53:50 Sean Fennessey? Why didn't you draft it?
1:53:51 Speaker 05 Well, because we combined comedy and horror and I had Carrie out there and I had to get Carrie.
1:53:56 Speaker 04 Had to do it. Yeah.
1:53:58 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, I wanted Carrie. You could have taken Next Stop Greenwich Village.
1:54:00 Speaker 04 Like 7% solution. You ever seen that?
1:54:01 Amanda Dobbins? I I watched it for this. It was entertaining, you know, in the way that I found myself reading and learning about a lot of like gripping mystery thrillers from from this year. And then I watched all of them with my dumb 2026 brain. And I was like, well, this is not that exciting. This is kind of taking a while, but it's has fun.
1:54:23 Sean Fennessey? We just we just had the exact same conversation about it when we did the Duval Hall of Fame.
1:54:27 Amanda Dobbins? Also, that accent is not with respect to Mr. Duval. It's not what you want, especially for the voiceover.
1:54:34 Sean Fennessey? And he's opposite Olivier and Nicole Williamson. It's tough.
1:54:37 Speaker 04 Do you find Murder by Death amusing?
1:54:39 Amanda Dobbins? I turned it off because I was first of all, it was yeah, because Peter Sellers, it's not what you want. And then it was also really boring. And not, you know, I I like
1:54:50 Speaker 04 Some racializing from Peter Sellers. You know, when you do the voice, please.
1:54:53 Amanda Dobbins? Please don't. Please don't.
1:54:55 Speaker 05 I saw that multiple times in the movie theater when I was 11 years old. That was the height of comedy.
1:54:59 Amanda Dobbins? Did you think it was funny?
1:55:00 Speaker 05 When I was 11 years old.
1:55:01 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
1:55:01 Speaker 04 Is there a Pink Panther this year?
1:55:03 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
1:55:03 Sean Fennessey? Strikes again. Strikes again.
1:55:04 Amanda Dobbins? It's that's that would be my Peter Sellers.
1:55:07 Sean Fennessey? Preference and it was on my long list, but um.
1:55:09 Speaker 04 I used to cry with laughter watching those when I was a little kid.
1:55:12 Sean Fennessey? I thought they were so funny.
1:55:14 Speaker 05 We went to the movie theater to see those.
1:55:16 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
1:55:17 Speaker 05 My mom loved dumb comedy. That was her favorite kind of movie.
1:55:20 Speaker 04 When they would fight and destroy whatever room they were having a fight in, I was just like, this is the dream in life.
1:55:26 Sean Fennessey? More, I've got, I've got quite a few. You want to keep going?
1:55:29 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:55:29 Sean Fennessey? Anybody else got more?
1:55:30 Speaker 04 Rip it.
1:55:32 Sean Fennessey? Alice, Sweet Alice and the House with Laughing Windows are two horror movies that I would love to love and are very important in the Jallow movement, but they're not movies that I do love. There are wonderful four Ks available from Arrow for both of those movies.
1:55:46 Speaker 05 I watched Alice, Sweet Alice, Getting Ready for This. Yeah, it's didn't make my list.
1:55:50 Sean Fennessey? Not, not the best. Um, I really love Larry Cohen's God Told Me To, which is a, you haven't seen this?
1:55:59 Sean Fennessey? A paranoid thriller about a society that has become violent and turns against one another because of some sort of premonition that they are receiving.
1:56:09 Speaker 05 That's weird.
1:56:09 Sean Fennessey? Really cool movie. Um, Burnt Offerings. You guys seen this horror movie?
1:56:14 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:56:14 Sean Fennessey? About a couple that or family that moves into a new home. You haven't seen this?
1:56:18 Speaker 04 I think I keep going. Who directed it?
1:56:21 Sean Fennessey? Uh, I think it's, is it Dan Curtis?
1:56:25 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:56:25 Sean Fennessey? Right? Who made, um.
1:56:28 Speaker 05 Who then became TV guy and made Night Stalker and.
1:56:31 Sean Fennessey? Show Shadows. Come help me out. What's the other?
1:56:33 Speaker 05 Dark Shadows.
1:56:34 Sean Fennessey? Dark Shadows. Thank you. Yes. Dark Shadows. And he directed a bunch of TV movies over that time. This is one of his few theatrical feature films. Um, but very, very good. And is it?
1:56:42 Speaker 05 Oliver Reed.
1:56:43 Sean Fennessey? Who is the old?
1:56:45 Speaker 05 Betty Davis.
1:56:46 Sean Fennessey? Betty Davis. Thank you. Um, what else is on that list?
1:56:52 Sean Fennessey? You know, Lipstick is a movie that I watched for the first time when I did the Unboxing Boy for 1976, which helped me start to prepare for this episode, uh, which stars Margot and Marielle Hemingway and Chris Sarandon. And is genuinely upsetting film about sexual assault and the aftermath of it and rendered very realistically in a way that you just don't see. Lamont Johnson directed it. I would recommend it, but it's really hard to watch.
1:57:19 Speaker 05 Bonkers ending. The last five minutes are just like, what is going on?
1:57:23 Sean Fennessey? The movie goes crazy. Yeah. And kind of in a pretty entertaining, it just like turns into an exploitation movie. Um, Missouri Breaks, Arthur Penn, Jack Nicholson, Marlon Brando. You'd think would be better.
1:57:34 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:57:34 Sean Fennessey? It's not better.
1:57:34 Speaker 04 It really has been one of the movies that has like followed me around for my whole life. And I only watched it in the last couple of years. And I was like, this, this wasn't very good.
1:57:42 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, it's all right.
1:57:44 Speaker 05 I think Nicholson, he spoke about it, that he was very intimidated by Brando on the set. He was really, he was freaked out that he was working with Marlon Brando.
1:57:52 Speaker 04 Brando also like did his like, I've decided I have a new character. I, you know, like, it's like, yeah.
1:58:00 Speaker 05 I think he's.
1:58:02 Sean Fennessey? In the movie.
1:58:03 Speaker 05 Brando, I, yeah, it doesn't matter. He, I'm, I always find him entertaining, watchable, hilarious and, and sort of more interesting than everything else going on.
1:58:12 Sean Fennessey? Even in Guys and Dolls.
1:58:15 Speaker 05 Guys and Dolls, that's the one I put on when Carrie needs some sleep.
1:58:17 Sean Fennessey? Okay.
1:58:18 Speaker 05 She hates Guys and Dolls.
1:58:20 Sean Fennessey? One of the very last Hitchcock films, Family Plot. Not a very good film. Don Segal's The Shootist, pretty good, pretty good, late period John Wayne movie.
1:58:30 Speaker 05 Last John Wayne.
1:58:31 Sean Fennessey? Is it his last film?
1:58:31 Speaker 05 It is his last film.
1:58:33 Sean Fennessey? I'll tell you, one of my favorite Kung Fu movies, Master of the Flying Guillotine. Have you guys seen that one?
1:58:38 Speaker 04 Probably. I have.
1:58:39 Sean Fennessey? I haven't. Pretty sick movie. I mean, what you've just described there in the title seems compelling. It's in the tradition of the one armed swordsman films.
1:58:48 Speaker 05 If you're, if you have a flying guillotine, it would be good to be the master of it.
1:58:52 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
1:58:52 Speaker 04 You don't want to be the novice of the flying.
1:58:54 Sean Fennessey? The yeoman of the flying guillotine, not ideal.
1:58:57 Speaker 05 The target of the flying.
1:58:59 Sean Fennessey? You know, a movie I haven't seen, but was Oscar nominated and popped up on a bunch of lists is Voyage of the Damned. You seen this film?
1:59:06 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's of another era.
1:59:08 Sean Fennessey? Okay.
1:59:09 Speaker 05 It does, I mean, it of an earlier era than 1976, little old fashioned.
1:59:14 Sean Fennessey? Stuart Rosenberg?
1:59:16 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:59:17 Sean Fennessey? There's some, there's some international films I didn't know where to put Carlos Sora's Criacuavos, Lino Braca's In Shung.
1:59:26 Sean Fennessey? I don't know, I don't know what to do.
1:59:27 Speaker 04 Isn't your In the Realm of the Cents is 76?
1:59:29 Sean Fennessey? In the Realm of the Cents. Now, the one movie that I wanted to bring up to you guys, I don't know if any of you have seen it. I presume you have, is Robin and Marion.
1:59:35 Speaker 04 Yeah, I've seen it.
1:59:37 Sean Fennessey? Which I thought was pretty good.
1:59:38 Speaker 04 It's lovely for me.
1:59:39 Sean Fennessey? I liked it.
1:59:40 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:59:40 Sean Fennessey? Um, it's a, it's a kind of a late period reimagining of the Robin Hood myth with Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn. This is the movie I mean, I was saying, I wonder if you've seen it because you might like it. I was just reading the ending of The Voyage of the Damned, which is really upsetting. And apparently they handle it all in footnotes.
1:59:56 Amanda Dobbins? What the, what the fuck?
1:59:58 Sean Fennessey? I haven't seen it.
1:59:59 Amanda Dobbins? And I'm really, I'm not going to, but excuse me.
2:00:01 Sean Fennessey? Can I tell you, I bought it on Blu-ray, didn't watch it. Um, Robin and Marion is Richard Lester in the aftermath of the Three Musketeers movies. Kind of in this, he's in this moment where he's making these kind of historical dramedies, these swashbuckling movies, but I thought Connery and Hepburn were phenomenal together.
2:00:21 Speaker 05 Yeah, lovely, really lovely.
2:00:22 Sean Fennessey? And it's a nice movie, kind of about like.
2:00:24 Speaker 05 Robert Shaw too, right?
2:00:25 Sean Fennessey? Robert Shaw, Richard Harris, a great Richard Harris performance as King John.
2:00:31 Sean Fennessey? And who, somebody else, there's one other. Oh, Ian Holm, so funny as, um, who's King John's brother? Or maybe it was.
2:00:40 Amanda Dobbins? No, Ian Holm is King John.
2:00:42 Sean Fennessey? Prince John, yes.
2:00:42 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, and Richard Harris is Richard the Lionheart.
2:00:45 Sean Fennessey? Yes, that's right. I don't know, I thought it was really good.
2:00:49 Speaker 05 Yeah.
2:00:49 Sean Fennessey? Thought about drafting it, feels a little lost in time, a little baggy in the middle, but.
2:00:52 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
2:00:52 Sean Fennessey? Very sweet.
2:00:53 Amanda Dobbins? I've never seen this, but obviously I would like it. This is in my interest set.
2:00:56 Sean Fennessey? I think you would enjoy it.
2:00:57 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
2:00:58 Sean Fennessey? Well, that's all I got.
2:01:00 Speaker 05 Shall we recap?
2:01:01 Sean Fennessey? Let's recap. Well, Amanda, you selected first, so you can read your.
2:01:06 Amanda Dobbins? That's so exciting. I did, in drama, I have Mikey and Nikki. In comedy or horror, I have Cousin Cousine. In thriller or action, I have All the President's Men. In blockbuster, A Star is Born, which Tracy Lutz has never seen in any iteration. In Oscar, I have Marathon Man. And in wildcard, Daguerreoteeps.
2:01:28 Speaker 04 Can't believe you got Marathon Man and All the President's Men, that's tough.
2:01:30 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
2:01:31 Speaker 04 Uh, in drama, I took Kings of the Road. In comedy or horror, I took The Town That Dreaded Sundown. In thriller or action, I took The Outlaw, Josie Wales. In blockbuster, I took The Omen. In Oscar, I took Taxi Driver. And in wildcard, I took Logan's Run.
2:01:51 Sean Fennessey? In drama, I selected Network. In comedy or horror, I selected Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull's history lesson. In thriller or action, I took John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. In blockbuster, I selected the Bad News Bears. In Oscar, I chose the documentary Harlan County, USA. And in wild card, I chose Welcome to LA.
2:02:12 Speaker 05 In drama, I took Life Guard. In comedy or horror, I took Carrie. In action or thriller, I took the killing of a Chinese bookie. In blockbuster, I took Rocky. In Oscar nominee, I took Seven Beauties. And in wild card, I took The Man Who Fell to Earth. You know, when we read them all out loud like that, it's more even than I thought. Everybody's got good stuff and everybody's got marginalia.
2:02:40 Sean Fennessey? Weird year. Your claim at the top fascinates me.
2:02:44 Amanda Dobbins? It's just three of the all timers, which to me, you know, it matters.
2:02:50 Sean Fennessey? It says something about how you organize taste.
2:02:53 Amanda Dobbins? It's true. Be the best. That's what I ask.
2:02:57 Speaker 05 Shall we talk third chair? Is this the time?
2:03:00 Sean Fennessey? Speak now.
2:03:01 Amanda Dobbins? Go ahead.
2:03:01 Speaker 05 Okay, so I got on the plane to come here and record. Is this the last one to air?
2:03:07 Sean Fennessey? It is.
2:03:08 Speaker 05 So I came to record three podcasts for the big picture. And I want you to know that when I got on the plane to come here, I had decided to concede.
2:03:17 Speaker 04 Concede third chair.
2:03:19 Speaker 05 To concede third chair.
2:03:20 Speaker 04 So that would suppose that you, it was yours to concede?
2:03:24 Speaker 05 To concede the fight.
2:03:25 Speaker 04 This is a race that we were both running.
2:03:27 Speaker 05 Just concede the fight. Because I'd listened to the 900th episode. I had sent in a voicemail for the 900th episode, which was not played. Instead,
2:03:37 Amanda Dobbins? How did that happen?
2:03:38 Speaker 05 I don't know.
2:03:39 Sean Fennessey? Well, that's Jack's fault.
2:03:39 Speaker 05 It was not played, but instead.
2:03:41 Speaker 04 Jack's tossing Tracy Lance voicemails out.
2:03:44 Speaker 05 Yeah, he's tossing out my voicemails and he's always putting me forth in the draft.
2:03:48 Sean Fennessey? How convenient that Jack also went on vacation the week you arrived.
2:03:50 Speaker 05 Did you notice that?
2:03:51 Sean Fennessey? Yeah. What do you think that means?
2:03:53 Speaker 05 So in that episode, not only did you not play my, my voicemail, but you then took, what, 10 minutes to sing heroic poems to Chris Ryan. Later in the episode, Amanda suggested that we should take Teddy Roosevelt off of Mount Rushmore and replace him with Chris Ryan. That we should replace-
2:04:17 Amanda Dobbins? Did I actually do that?
2:04:18 Speaker 05 You did, in fact, do that. You decided we were gonna replace TR with CR.
2:04:22 Amanda Dobbins? I think in general, my relationship to the people-
2:04:26 Speaker 05 The hero of San Juan Hill.
2:04:27 Amanda Dobbins? Represented on Mount Rushmore is disinterest, right?
2:04:31 Speaker 05 But if I was on it, wouldn't that make it more interesting?
2:04:34 Amanda Dobbins? Sure, but I think the-
2:04:36 Sean Fennessey? I think it would lower the interest in it as a historical monument.
2:04:39 Amanda Dobbins? The conversation was about what Teddy Roosevelt did to earn being on Mount Rushmore. And neither of us were particularly clear on that.
2:04:47 Sean Fennessey? That's absolutely untrue.
2:04:48 Amanda Dobbins? What if he, go ahead. I said national parks a lot.
2:04:51 Speaker 04 Spanish-American War, right?
2:04:52 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, yeah, also led the country through a time of extraordinary tumult in the aftermath of the Civil War.
2:04:57 Speaker 05 The Trust Buster, I mean, he was essential.
2:05:00 Sean Fennessey? Crusaded on behalf of the, the individual in this country, one of the great individualists.
2:05:04 Speaker 05 Amanda would like to replace him with Chris Ryan. So it's very clear to me that the fix is in. I'm Al Gore, he's W, and you're the Supreme Court. So it was like-
2:05:18 Amanda Dobbins? Now watch me hit the trust stuff.
2:05:21 Sean Fennessey? It sounds like Jackie Sanders is the hanging chad in this equation.
2:05:24 Speaker 05 So I was like, you can't, you can't fight City Hall, so I was ready to concede.
2:05:29 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah.
2:05:30 Speaker 05 But I've decided to redouble my efforts.
2:05:32 Amanda Dobbins? Oh, how exciting.
2:05:33 Speaker 05 And I'm gonna tell you why. My constituents.
2:05:36 Speaker 04 Who are they?
2:05:37 Speaker 05 They are the people of America, my friend. They're the people in the streets.
2:05:42 Sean Fennessey? I'll dub them right now. Are you ready? You know what they're called? The Let's Lads.
2:05:47 Speaker 04 You think they're men?
2:05:48 Sean Fennessey? Well, frequently, yes.
2:05:49 Speaker 04 Yeah.
2:05:51 Speaker 05 And they want to see more of what I'm cooking. And so my hat is still firmly in the ring. You guys can try and block me out if you want, but I am playing for key.
2:06:04 Speaker 04 Now, I can't believe I'm even entertaining this because of the work I do for this pod and for the other pods on the Ringer Podcast Network where I have a perspective Saturday night spent podcasting about the fucking Sixers. But here's what I'll do with you.
2:06:19 Amanda Dobbins? That doesn't have anything-
2:06:19 Speaker 04 Because I'm interested in content.
2:06:21 Amanda Dobbins? This is a no Sixer zone, so that's not going to be taken into consideration.
2:06:24 Speaker 04 Should we have a November 6th election for third chair? And Tracy and I can make our cases?
2:06:31 Sean Fennessey? Now, this is, this is a man with great confidence in the aftermath of CR month-
2:06:36 Speaker 04 No.
2:06:37 Sean Fennessey? Who is willing to put it to a public vote, it sounds like.
2:06:40 Speaker 04 I didn't say that. I'm just saying, we can use an electoral college system if you want. Like, we can have each, different states have different weights, you know? But if, if this is what you want, if you really want to drop, drop gloves and go fisticuffs?
2:06:54 Sean Fennessey? Well, here's the thing. I'm not sure that there are only two contenders. I mean, there are other people-
2:07:00 Speaker 04 Okay.
2:07:00 Speaker 05 Who could, who could potentially- Come on, who the hell are you even talking about?
2:07:04 Sean Fennessey? You know, there are a great many beloved guests in the history of this show. You know, the, the high me, the Physical Media High Council did not start with either of you gentlemen. It started with Timothy Simons.
2:07:12 Amanda Dobbins? Oh, dear.
2:07:13 Speaker 05 Well, he is not available. And second of all-
2:07:18 Speaker 04 He's quite literally not available.
2:07:19 Sean Fennessey? He's a busy man.
2:07:20 Speaker 05 This is part of my point about Chris. Chris is already the first chair on the watch. He is Chair 1A on the re-watchables. He is a basketball expert. He's, he's not watching 56 Robert Duvall movies because he's got to watch the goddamn basketball.
2:07:41 Speaker 04 It's about, it's about-
2:07:42 Sean Fennessey? Now, this, this must be said because you haven't heard this yet.
2:07:44 Speaker 04 Yeah.
2:07:45 Sean Fennessey? But I'll say what Tracy Letts did for the Robert Duvall episode is among the most Titanic acts of scholarship that have been applied to this program.
2:07:57 Speaker 04 What did you do? Did you watch like all his TV appearances or something?
2:08:00 Speaker 05 I watched a bunch of those and I watched 56 Robert Duvall movies.
2:08:03 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
2:08:04 Speaker 04 If I only had to do five pods a year, I'm sure I could do the same thing.
2:08:07 Speaker 05 This is my point!
2:08:08 Amanda Dobbins? Okay.
2:08:10 Speaker 05 He's making my point for me!
2:08:13 Sean Fennessey? What would be a better life? Would it be to be?
2:08:16 Speaker 04 Tracy Letts?
2:08:17 Sean Fennessey? Have.
2:08:17 Speaker 04 Yeah. It would be pretty cool.
2:08:20 Sean Fennessey? Tony Awards. Married to Carrie Coon.
2:08:22 Speaker 04 If I was married to Carrie Coon and I got to swan in here five times a year, that would be pretty awesome. Fucking show up in a Katherine Bigelow movie and go, yeah, that would be awesome. Instead, I'm out here watching fucking Joel Embiid walk back to the locker room, come back onto the court.
2:08:40 Sean Fennessey? 7:30, 8:15, when are we gonna start? Amanda, what are your thoughts?
2:08:44 Amanda Dobbins? Yeah, um, you know, I don't think we have to decide today.
2:08:48 Sean Fennessey? Okay.
2:08:48 Amanda Dobbins? You know, I think that it can.
2:08:50 Sean Fennessey? But you think it should be decided at some point?
2:08:51 Amanda Dobbins? I, well, I don't know. You know, there is, there's a will they, won't they element to this that keeps, that keeps the podcast going over time. Yeah, and I think what we all learned from that is, is don't make the decisions.
2:09:02 Speaker 04 Who you think H. Ross Perot is in this equation? Who is the outsider insurgent candidate?
2:09:08 Sean Fennessey? Well, I, I always love talking Alex Ross Perry. He brings a completely different energy than either of you ever could.
2:09:13 Speaker 04 Yeah.
2:09:13 Sean Fennessey? Um, and he's, you know, he's a bit of a villain in a, in a way that I always find appealing. And he's been on the show many times over the years. And he also, to his credit, if I ask him for an act of scholarship, he will bring, bring it.
2:09:25 Amanda Dobbins? He does, yes.
2:09:25 Sean Fennessey? When it comes to that sort of thing.
2:09:26 Amanda Dobbins? He also makes a lot of memes, so he's been very crucial.
2:09:29 Sean Fennessey? Memes, yes.
2:09:30 Amanda Dobbins? Mostly of Sean.
2:09:31 Sean Fennessey? Yes.
2:09:31 Amanda Dobbins? So he's been very crucial.
2:09:33 Sean Fennessey? You're not on text with him, right?
2:09:34 Speaker 04 Publicly share these memes?
2:09:35 Sean Fennessey? No.
2:09:35 Speaker 04 No, okay.
2:09:36 Sean Fennessey? He privately generates several memes featuring photos of me from the void recordings.
2:09:41 Amanda Dobbins? Mm-hmm.
2:09:42 Sean Fennessey? Um, and then takes literal quotes that I share on episodes.
2:09:46 Amanda Dobbins? And now also that one South by Southwest photo of you with your card, you know, like you're preparing for a presidential address.
2:09:52 Sean Fennessey? I did not approve the posting of that photograph.
2:09:54 Amanda Dobbins? I know, I'm sure. I can't believe you sat for it, but that's okay.
2:09:56 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
2:09:57 Speaker 04 Are there any good Kyra Gerber hands memes that I, I should check out?
2:10:00 Sean Fennessey? Are you aware of this lore?
2:10:02 Speaker 05 Yes, I saw the picture.
2:10:03 Amanda Dobbins? Okay, good. Yeah, but you're not on Instagram. How'd you see it?
2:10:06 Sean Fennessey? As a person who's frequently.
2:10:07 Speaker 05 I don't know. I heard you guys talking about it, so I looked for it.
2:10:10 Sean Fennessey? As a person who's frequently surrounded by attractive people.
2:10:13 Speaker 05 Yeah.
2:10:13 Sean Fennessey? When you're in a photo op, do you just hand on the back, go for it?
2:10:19 Speaker 05 Yeah, there's a photograph somewhere of a bunch of us at that screening of House of Dynamite. And it looks like, is her name Willa Fitzgerald?
2:10:30 Sean Fennessey? Yeah.
2:10:30 Speaker 05 The strange darling?
2:10:31 Sean Fennessey? Yes.
2:10:32 Speaker 05 It looks like we are a couple with everybody else around, you know, just like we, we, yeah.
2:10:38 Sean Fennessey? You put your arm around her.
2:10:39 Speaker 05 I put my arm around, I was just like, oh, this feels unfriendly, I'll put my arm, you know. And now the photo makes it look.
2:10:44 Sean Fennessey? How did she respond?
2:10:45 Speaker 05 You know, she was not threatened by me, I don't think.
2:10:48 Sean Fennessey? Okay, interesting. You think I should have done that with Kaia?
2:10:51 Speaker 05 I don't know. I met Kaia, we're both in Saturday Night, and so I met her at a screening of that. And as we met, you've never seen two people who had less to say to each other in such a short amount of time.
2:11:02 Sean Fennessey? She's a woman of letters herself.
2:11:04 Speaker 05 And, and apparently you guys hit, not that we didn't hit, it was all totally pleasant. I'm just saying, she, she, she didn't have anything to say to me.
2:11:12 Sean Fennessey? Interesting. I wouldn't say she had things to say to me, but she did say things to me.
2:11:16 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's right. Like it's, it's Wednesday. Yeah. Hi, Sean. You're a person. The sun is out.
2:11:22 Sean Fennessey? You're alive. Yeah, okay. I mean, listen, I appreciate all of your efforts. I've got, you know, 17 more years, 18 more years of experience with Chris.
2:11:36 Speaker 05 Sure.
2:11:36 Sean Fennessey? But you've entered our lives like a, like a, like a shot.
2:11:41 Speaker 05 Let's face it, I forced you all to be my friends. I forced my way in here and forced you to be my friends.
2:11:46 Sean Fennessey? Absolutely ridiculous. Um, I feel maybe there's an, like a turmoil.
2:11:53 Speaker 04 Well, I don't like, you know, I admire Tracey very much.
2:11:58 Sean Fennessey? I'll bet. I'm waiting for the butt.
2:12:00 Speaker 04 Like, I gotta let the dogs off the leash in this fight, you know, like, is that gonna be pretty? So I'm begging you. Yeah. Don't, don't make me go to the mattresses here.
2:12:13 Speaker 05 Regardless of how this works out,
2:12:18 Speaker 05 I love all of you. I love being on this. It's been a real pleasure. I've had a great week.
2:12:21 Sean Fennessey? This has been an excellent week.
2:12:23 Speaker 04 Thank you for coming.
2:12:23 Sean Fennessey? Thank you for participating, as always.
2:12:25 Speaker 04 I don't think I've ever, I don't think I have laughed harder than I did during physical media in a long time.
2:12:29 Speaker 05 Oh, my God, I've been laughing all week just thinking about it, just really.
2:12:33 Sean Fennessey? It was a very good time. Thank you to Lucas Cavanagh and Sarah Reddy for their production support on this episode. Thanks to Jack Sanders.
2:12:40 Speaker 05 Thanks for nothing, Jack.
2:12:41 Sean Fennessey? Yeah, Jack was not here today, but he did do the selection and excitedly shared the results, which fucked me and Tracy over pretty badly in this draft.
2:12:51 Sean Fennessey? At this time, what is happening? When is this? I think this episode is airing while we're in at the Cannes Film Festival.
2:12:57 Speaker 04 God willing, yes. This is also, just like I said, the opportunity for us to do a coup.
2:13:04 Sean Fennessey? What would you guys even talk about?
2:13:06 Speaker 04 Tracy and Chris at the movies? Come on. Okay, great. Good luck.
2:13:10 Sean Fennessey? I wish you guys luck. What feed will you be posting this show on?
2:13:13 Speaker 04 I'll figure it out.
2:13:14 Speaker 05 Chris loves to remind us, he is an editor at theringer.com.
2:13:18 Sean Fennessey? That's right. So I've heard. Thanks to everyone for participating in this draft. I hope you've heard of some of these movies and we will be back. I think our next episode, we will be covering the Cannes Film Festival. We'll see you then.
2:13:48 Amanda Dobbins? This is US Bank's Cozy Cash Formations with your chief financial playmaker, Fernando Mendoza. You are worthy of financial security. Budgeting is not restriction, it's freedom. You are smart. You are capable. You are giving your money a purpose. You are learning the language of saving, of growing, now streaming.
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Previous The 10 Best Horror Movies of the Year … So Far. Plus: The New Scary Movie Royalty, and ‘Obsession,’ With Curry Barker! Next We Went to Cannes! These Are the 10 Best (and Worst) Things We Saw. Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated