‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ Is Here. Plus: Our Fall Film Festival Preview.

Sean and Amanda react to a long list of fall film festival lineup announcements; highlight their main takeaways from Venice, Toronto, and Telluride; and create their way-too-early top 25 Best Picture contenders list (2:16). Then, they unpack the newest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps,’ starring Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby, which they found incredibly disappointing (23:23). They dive deep into spoilers, explain why they found a majority of the stars to be deeply miscast, and talk through what they think the MCU will look like going forward (40:23). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY THE STARBUCKS COFFEE COMPANY. ORDER NOW | STARBUCKS. COM/MENU Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is presented by Starbucks.

• 0:03Amanda Dobbins?

  The unofficial drink of summer is here and it's just as good as I remembered.

• 0:07Sean Fennessey?

  Starbucks Summer Berry Refresher is everything you'd want from a summer beverage.

• 0:11Amanda Dobbins?

  A blend of berry notes shaken with ice and poured over a layer of new raspberry flavored pearls. And personally, my favorite refresher is the Summer Berry Lemonade. It just tastes like summer in a cup and adds a whole other level of fresh flavors.

• 0:24Sean Fennessey?

  We are on the brink of a major heatwave here in Los Angeles and nothing would be more refreshing than a Starbucks Summer Berry Lemonade Refresher. Available for a limited time only, your Summer Berry Refresher is ready at Starbucks.

• 0:48Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 0:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 0:49Sean Fennessey?

  And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the Fantastic Four. In this episode, we'll break down the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, one of the biggest movies of the summer. As a quick programming update, we're doing a summer movie mailbag soon. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but sometime soon. We need questions from you, the listeners and watchers of this show. Email us at [email protected]. What's that email?

• 1:15Amanda Dobbins?

  [email protected].

• 1:17Sean Fennessey?

  You have until July 30th to send us questions. I guess ideally about summer movies, though we'll take anything.

• 1:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Do they need to be summer movies from this year?

• 1:25Sean Fennessey?

  Well, good question. Perhaps no. Because some of these summer movies suck. We'll get to that later. Before we dig into this movie, though, we need to talk about fall festivals. But before we talk about fall festivals, just wanted to say thank you to the fine people of the city of Chicago, the fine people of the Music Box Theater, the fine people of the Steppenwolf Theater. We spent three days in Chicago this weekend and had a magical time. How are you feeling?

• 1:51Amanda Dobbins?

  It was a blast. Thank you to everyone who came out to the shows. Thank you to everyone who made their own merch. Thank you to Tracy Letts.

• 1:58Sean Fennessey?

  Tracy Letts.

• 1:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Who showed us around Chicago and then like Dane to share the stage at the Steppenwolf Theater with us, which is like, it's still sort of disrespectful to him, but I had a great time.

• 2:10Sean Fennessey?

  We had a wonderful time. It was a great time. Maybe we'll come to a city near you at some point soon. 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.

• 2:55Sean Fennessey?

  Just go to LinkedIn.com/thebigpicture. That's LinkedIn.com/thebigpicture. Terms and conditions apply. Speaking of cities, there will be film festivals in cities around the world in the near future. And the fall festival landscape is shaping up. Now, this impacts both of us specifically because we will both attend the New York Film Festival. You will attend Venice Film Festival. I will. I will attend the Telluride Film Festival. Yeah. Adam Naaman will attend the Toronto International Film Festival. We're everywhere. And then that is when all of the powers unite and we discuss what does and does not matter. So Venice was the big news earlier this week. That's right. We were in Chicago when the news dropped. Yeah.

• 3:36Sean Fennessey?

  I'm going to run down the big titles that are hitting world premiere style in Venice. The Smashing Machine. Yes. Benny Safdie's new film with Dwayne The Rock Johnson. Frankenstein, Guillermo del Toro's retelling of the Mary Shelley novel. Yes. After the Hunt. That's right. Luca Guadagnino and Julia Roberts combining to tell a tale of sexual assault on campus. Begonia, Yorgos Lanthimos's new movie, yet another film with Emma Stone. Jay Kelly, Noah Baumbach's new movie about a fading movie star starring George Clooney and Adam Sandler. A House of Dynamite, Kathryn Bigelow's return to the screen via Netflix. No Other Choice. That's right. Park Chan Wook's new film. We just saw a teaser today, looks phenomenal.

• 4:19Sean Fennessey?

  Jim Jarmusch's long awaited Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, reportedly an anthology film, much to your chagrin. The Testament of Ann Lee, Mona Fastval's It's her time. New directorial effort. There's a number of other films I can talk through here, but that is a, that is a. Large slate of high-profile releases.

• 4:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:38Sean Fennessey?

  How are you feeling?

• 4:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I feel amazing. I've sent all my emails. I'm available for premieres. No, I'm incredibly excited. In addition to all of that, most of which you and I had kind of gamed out and guessed, there were a couple surprises, including a documentary directed by Sofia Coppola about Marc Jacobs, which that's all we know. And I've been doing the work. I've been, you know, hitting the phones.

• 5:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, pounding the pavement.

• 5:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Trying to find out as much as I can from all corners. This seems like it was a surprise to everyone. As of this recording, I still don't know who's distributing it, when it's premiering. If you know anything, please get in touch, because honestly, my travel plans personally sort of depend on when and how this is premiering. It's a doc, so I don't know whether it's going to get a grand world night premiere. But at the same time, Sofia has a major history with the Venice Film Festival.

• 5:32Sean Fennessey?

  She does. She was most recently there with Priscilla when you were last in Italy for the festival. Other docs from Werner Herzog, Laura Poitras, Ross McElwee, there's quite a good nonfiction slate this year. A lot of other movies that I didn't mention. Olivier Assais has a new movie.

• 5:46Amanda Dobbins?

  The Wizard of the Kremlin, yeah.

• 5:47Sean Fennessey?

  About Vladimir Putin and an imagined attache, who is played by Paul Dano. Jude Law plays Vladimir Putin. It could be silly, could be great. Gus Van Sant's first new movie in seven or eight years, I think. Dead Man's Wire, a film called Scarlet, which is going to be directed by Mamoru Hosoda, which is, I think, widely considered the frontrunner for the best animated feature of 2025. So maybe something you can check out while you're there. Maybe not. A short film from Charlie Kaufman?

• 6:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 6:17Sean Fennessey?

  My guy, not as much your guy?

• 6:20Amanda Dobbins?

  That's okay.

• 6:21Sean Fennessey?

  Will you see that one?

• 6:21Amanda Dobbins?

  If it's screening, here's the thing. Venice is very long, and it's 10 days, I think, maybe even longer. And they didn't release the schedule yet. So what I'm going to be able to see and what I'm not going to be able to see depends a little bit on how that falls. And some of the schedule, we can maybe guess or hypothesize because there are films that premiere at Venice and then show up at Telluride. So you and I, when the last time we did this doubleheader, Yorgos Lanthimos's Poor Things was at Venice and then at Telluride. And it seems like, I know nothing, but I'm guessing Begonia might make the jump. I'm hopeful for you that After the Hunt makes the jump.

• 7:04Sean Fennessey?

  I don't believe that will be the case.

• 7:05Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't think it will?

• 7:06Sean Fennessey?

  No, because After the Hunt was announced as the opening night film at the New York Film Festival.

• 7:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's right.

• 7:11Sean Fennessey?

  And I believe that is considered its North American premiere. So I don't think we're getting After the Hunt.

• 7:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Interesting.

• 7:16Sean Fennessey?

  We'll get to Telluride momentarily.

• 7:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I will note that After the Hunt is out of competition at Venice.

• 7:20Sean Fennessey?

  Apparently by Luca's request.

• 7:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 7:23Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know what that means.

• 7:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Me either.

• 7:25Sean Fennessey?

  It being the opening night film is interesting for New York. For example, do you remember what the opening night film was last year for New York?

• 7:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Not off the top of my head, but...

• 7:36Sean Fennessey?

  Nickel Boys.

• 7:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's right.

• 7:37Sean Fennessey?

  So sometimes that is a sign of a very strong, critically acclaimed film.

• 7:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:45Sean Fennessey?

  Sometimes it's just a kind of a linchpin. A couple of years before that, you and I were there for the premiere of White Noise. So White Noise premiered at Venice and then opened up the New York Film Festival. So we'll see. Other takeaways on Venice, no major studios have any films. The smaller studio, you know, the focuses of the world are there, but no Warner Brothers, which means of course no One Battle After Another.

• 8:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:09Sean Fennessey?

  Which we expected.

• 8:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 8:10Sean Fennessey?

  But no surprises on that front. Three movies from Netflix.

• 8:14Amanda Dobbins?

  We also expected that. They like the...

• 8:17Sean Fennessey?

  Tis a lot.

• 8:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, they do like the Venice Film Festival.

• 8:19Sean Fennessey?

  They do. They're not welcome at Cannes.

• 8:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:21Sean Fennessey?

  So they need Venice in many ways. That's pretty much it. I mean, the speculation is that Warner Brothers didn't want to bring One Battle because of the Joker.

• 8:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Joker fully, just absolutely fell apart.

• 8:32Sean Fennessey?

  You did, you did see that movie?

• 8:34Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, I never did.

• 8:35Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 8:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that was like the weekend that Si was born, was the weekend that that movie came out. So I just took a pass on that.

• 8:41Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe you guys could watch it together, just to kind of commemorate that moment in history. Very fun episode of Van that week, as I recall. Yeah, Venice.

• 8:51Amanda Dobbins?

  How are you feeling?

• 8:52Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's a very starry slate and it reminds me a lot of the slate from 23.

• 8:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:56Sean Fennessey?

  When you went.

• 8:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly.

• 8:57Sean Fennessey?

  Where it was Ferrari and Maestro and The Killer and a lot of movies that I really wanted to see, that I was very excited about, but that actually didn't totally like materialize in the Oscar race in the way that we had hoped.

• 9:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 9:09Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I did end up liking a lot of those movies that you saw. I really liked Priscilla. I liked a lot of the movies that were at the festival that year. But I sometimes think of these festivals as sort of like...

• 9:21Sean Fennessey?

  A critical stage in the professional box checking of covering the award season. And I, what I don't like to do is be out at screenings 19 out of 30 nights in a month in November and December. So going to the festivals usually is like a way to kind of go through what the slates are going to be. So in that respect, I wonder if this will be like a big collection of Best Picture nominees or just a series of interesting movies. It really could go either way. We don't really know enough about Frankenstein or Mergon or whatever.

• 9:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Movies that we'll discuss on the show, at least.

• 9:51Sean Fennessey?

  Hundred percent.

• 9:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And so in that sense, it's useful. And also I'm excited because in 23, it was still the actor strike. And so it would, they were big films and some of the films had waivers, but a lot of the stars were not in attendance.

• 10:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 10:07Amanda Dobbins?

  And then Luke Guadagnino and Challengers dropped out of the festival because they couldn't promote it. So I'm, I'm excited to have stars on the red carpet. I, I hope George will be there.

• 10:20Sean Fennessey?

  So Venice has premiered at least two Best Picture nominees in the past four years. Last year, Brutalist and I'm Still Here. Speaking of those movies that we weren't quite thinking about or didn't know about in, in the Oscar race, I'm Still Here is probably the best example of that recently. In 23, we had, as you said, Poor Things and Maestro. In 22, Banshees and Tar. In 21, Dune and The Power of the Dog.

• 10:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:39Sean Fennessey?

  So you're probably getting a couple.

• 10:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I'm not wasting my time.

• 10:43Sean Fennessey?

  No, certainly not. And you'll have a great time in Europe across the month. TIFF, we went through this lineup pretty fully. A bunch of stuff has been added. It's useful to look at what's been added in part because it helps indicate what else is going to be playing at future festivals and what we'll be seeing. You know, we knew that Soderbergh's The Christoffers and Rental Family and Hedda and Wake Up Dead Man and Roof Man were all going to be there. Now a bunch of non-world premieres were announced. Hamnet was announced as a non-world premiere. Ballad of a Small Player, which did not make the cut at Venice for Netflix. Dead Man's Wire, the Gus Van Sand film, Frankenstein, It Was Just an Accident, Nouvelle Vague, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, all holdovers from Cannes. The Smashing

• 11:24Sean Fennessey?

  Machine, The Testament of Ann Lee. As always, TIFF has a lot of films. That's kind of the most fulsome of all the film festivals. Only two Best Picture winners have ever premiered at TIFF.

• 11:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:37Sean Fennessey?

  And they're two of the best. Crash and Green Book.

• 11:41Sean Fennessey?

  Only eight Best Picture nominees have premiered at TIFF in the last 10 years, which is a fairly low percentage up against these other competitors in the festival space. And it is, it is a competition, really, for getting these titles. So this has me thinking about Telluride.

• 11:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 11:56Sean Fennessey?

  Now, Telluride famously does not announce its slate until roughly 12 hours before the festival begins. In the past, I have learned the festival slate on the charter flight to the festival.

• 12:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 12:08Sean Fennessey?

  Which, for an absolute control freak like me, is not ideal.

• 12:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 12:12Sean Fennessey?

  And yet, I think part of the reason why I keep getting drawn back is like the surprise.

• 12:17Amanda Dobbins?

  It's the gambling in you.

• 12:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. There's something cool about that.

• 12:20Amanda Dobbins?

  That seems terrible.

• 12:21Sean Fennessey?

  Now, sometimes, when you gamble, you lose.

• 12:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 12:24Sean Fennessey?

  And I am wondering if I lost this year, and maybe lost in a big way. So I'll just speculate.

• 12:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 12:31Sean Fennessey?

  Based on everything that we know about Venice and TIFF. So Hamlet is almost certainly going to premiere at Telluride, based on the delineations that we've gotten. That's the new Chloe Zhao movie.

• 12:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, and of course, she has a history at Telluride. It makes a lot of sense.

• 12:43Sean Fennessey?

  Ballad of a Small Player also almost certainly going to premiere there.

• 12:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 12:46Sean Fennessey?

  The other Netflix movie, Edward Burger had Conclave there last year. Speaking of gambling, I expect to at least enjoy that film. After that, I have no idea.

• 12:57Amanda Dobbins?

  You were having a full breakdown on that. We were not on the same flight home from Chicago, but you were just texting me just like paragraphs of guesses and thoughts on just like an irregular. It's like, and another thing, and maybe it'll be this. You're using emojis. You're going through it. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. What you have to remember is that you love going to Telluride.

• 13:18Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 13:18Amanda Dobbins?

  And you like the mountains.

• 13:19Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 13:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And you like wandering around.

• 13:21Sean Fennessey?

  I do. I like the festival. I like how I'm treated so well at the festival. The people there are very kind. We have a lot of listeners who go to the festival. So I, I love being there. It's not about that. But there is a, I have a competition in me, and I want to have great moments, you know?

• 13:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 13:35Sean Fennessey?

  Seeing Uncut Gems there was a great moment. Seeing Solburn there, a movie I didn't like very much, but seeing it there, that was a great moment.

• 13:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:41Sean Fennessey?

  So I want to have some great moments, and right now, I can speculate on what some of those moments might be.

• 13:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Tell us.

• 13:48Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think we're going to get it. I'm going to get any of them, but I'm going to speculate. So it's possible Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere premieres there.

• 13:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 13:55Sean Fennessey?

  It's the kind of movie that would probably be safe there.

• 13:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, and there are some older viewers.

• 14:02Sean Fennessey?

  Older patrons, music biopic, you know, safe landing spot for a Scott Cooper movie, a place where Jeremy Allen White could kind of launch his Oscar campaign. Then again, maybe not. Ella McKay, new James L. Brooks movie. It's coming out in December. It's possible it skips the festival circuit altogether, but this would be a nice place for it to go.

• 14:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah.

• 14:23Sean Fennessey?

  Is this thing on? Bradley Cooper's new film, which is currently undated, but it sounds like it's coming out this year.

• 14:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Do you think that's gonna happen?

• 14:33Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 14:34Amanda Dobbins?

  You think that's gonna happen at Telluride?

• 14:36Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, but it's possible.

• 14:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I was gonna say.

• 14:39Sean Fennessey?

  Perhaps at another festival. There's Anemone, which is the new film from Ronan Day Lewis.

• 14:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, right, of course.

• 14:47Sean Fennessey?

  Daniel Day Lewis's son.

• 14:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 14:49Sean Fennessey?

  And this film includes Daniel Day Lewis in its cast. He's come out of retirement.

• 14:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I read that.

• 14:55Sean Fennessey?

  I would love to see Daniel Day Lewis in Colorado.

• 14:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you think that that will be part of his retirement package?

• 15:01Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 15:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I don't either.

• 15:02Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, but I'm just, I'm just speaking ideas out. And then, of course, there's all the festival holdovers that will also play. I would be shocked if Sentimental Value and Nouvelle Vague, and it was just an accident and all those movies didn't play there, they will. And.

• 15:16Amanda Dobbins?

  So that's not, you know, that's not wasted time.

• 15:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I really need, I think Jay Kelly and Begonia to play at Telluride.

• 15:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 15:24Sean Fennessey?

  To feel okay about all this right now.

• 15:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 15:27Sean Fennessey?

  And there's gotta be one thing. What's the one thing I'm not thinking of that's gonna chill me out a little bit?

• 15:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know, Sean. Maybe, maybe it's a dinner seated next to Ethan Hawke. And then you'll just go see a really shitty movie instead.

• 15:42Sean Fennessey?

  One can only dream. Okay.

• 15:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I texted you months ago saying, you know, Venice, you can, you can apply. I'll, I'll look for an Airbnb and like know the ropes now. It was, it was available to you.

• 15:55Sean Fennessey?

  I don't want to go to Europe.

• 15:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 15:57Sean Fennessey?

  I want to go to the mountains.

• 15:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I know.

• 16:00Sean Fennessey?

  The, the Telluride Film Festival has.

• 16:02Amanda Dobbins?

  They do have mountains in Europe.

• 16:04Sean Fennessey?

  Well, yeah, then I would go to Switzerland, you know, my homeland. Telluride has premiered the most Best Picture winners of any film festival in the 21st century.

• 16:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, they were in a groove.

• 16:14Sean Fennessey?

  They were in a groove.

• 16:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Are they still in a groove?

• 16:17Sean Fennessey?

  To be determined. I'm excited to go and find out. Nowhere to be seen on the film festival slate right now. Marty Supreme.

• 16:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I mean, that's a, it's a Christmas release.

• 16:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, they're holding that tight.

• 16:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:27Sean Fennessey?

  One battle after another, almost certainly just gonna drop in theaters in September. Will we get invited to a screening even? I don't have absolutely no idea.

• 16:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I did at least get an email about a trailer this morning.

• 16:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, there was, there is a new trailer. I watched it.

• 16:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. I didn't. Well, I guess I have watched it before the screening of the film we're going to discuss later, but.

• 16:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, you tried to talk to me during that trailer so that you wouldn't watch it.

• 16:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, because I would just like to see the film.

• 16:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the film is also gonna have skins on Fortnite, which I'll be playing.

• 16:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I saw that.

• 16:56Sean Fennessey?

  Live on my Twitch account, which I will reveal shortly. Other films, nowhere to be seen. Big Bull Beautiful Journey. What'd you say to me when we sat down to watch the movie today?

• 17:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I said, so is that just a total mess? Like, I, you know, I don't, I don't know what to read because when they, they moved it from earlier this year to September and it seemed like, oh, so festival premiere. And then, you know, it's Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell. And it's not at any of the festivals.

• 17:22Sean Fennessey?

  Tough.

• 17:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 17:25Sean Fennessey?

  The movie slate, currently not really pegged anywhere. The History of Sound is out right after these festivals hit. The Mastermind, which premiered at Cannes, Kelly Records' new movie.

• 17:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 17:35Sean Fennessey?

  Not listed anywhere. Dime I Love, the big acquisition with Jennifer Lawrence, out in November, not listed anywhere. I'd imagine at least one of those, if not all three, will end up at Telluride, but that's interesting. Other films, probably 2026 movies. The drama, the Christopher Borgley movie with Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. Mother Mary, David Lowery's new movie with Anne Hathaway. I Want Your Sex, Greg Araki's new movie.

• 18:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you know who's in that movie?

• 18:01Sean Fennessey?

  Who's in it?

• 18:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Charlie XCX.

• 18:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's very exciting.

• 18:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 18:05Sean Fennessey?

  The Way of the Wind, Terrence Malick didn't make the cut at Venice again. How do you feel?

• 18:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, is it, is it, is it undated? Is it not done? Is it?

• 18:14Sean Fennessey?

  Well, apparently, uh, production ended some years ago.

• 18:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 18:18Sean Fennessey?

  He's deep in the edit.

• 18:19Amanda Dobbins?

  He's keep working.

• 18:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 18:20Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 18:20Sean Fennessey?

  Just keep.

• 18:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Who am I to tell Terrence Malick when something is done?

• 18:23Sean Fennessey?

  Keep chiseling, brother. Keep chiseling. Um, so as I said, New York Film Fest, a couple of things. After the Hunt, opening night, very notable. Father, mother, sister, brother. The Jarmusch film will be the centerpiece.

• 18:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 18:33Sean Fennessey?

  We don't know anything else yet. All that starts to come out in the next couple of weeks. We'll be there.

• 18:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 18:38Sean Fennessey?

  Excited about going. Um, I don't know, man. This is weird. I feel like there's one movie missing.

• 18:46Amanda Dobbins?

  But why does?

• 18:47Sean Fennessey?

  In the, in the big race.

• 18:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Why does that make you angry and upset?

• 18:51Sean Fennessey?

  It doesn't.

• 18:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Instead of excited? I know, but you are agitated right now.

• 18:54Sean Fennessey?

  No, I'm on a podcast.

• 18:56Amanda Dobbins?

  There's one more thing. I don't know everything.

• 18:58Sean Fennessey?

  Cause mama, I need you to help me out, you know? I need, I need to be soothed.

• 19:03Amanda Dobbins?

  It's gonna be okay. You're gonna go to your happy place, you know? And you'll like, what do you wear at Telluride? Do you just wear this?

• 19:11Sean Fennessey?

  I dress like Galactus.

• 19:13Sean Fennessey?

  I kind of stomp through the city.

• 19:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you have hiking boots? Like, what's the footwear?

• 19:16Sean Fennessey?

  Sneakers.

• 19:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Well, you'll just, you'll be there.

• 19:18Sean Fennessey?

  It is a lot of walking.

• 19:19Amanda Dobbins?

  In your sneakers.

• 19:20Sean Fennessey?

  Walking all the way across the town and back several times.

• 19:22Amanda Dobbins?

  And.

• 19:23Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of a 20,000 steps sort of situation per day.

• 19:25Amanda Dobbins?

  But, but the rest of the time you're sitting, so that works out. You're gonna have a lot of granola bars.

• 19:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, granola bars, Cliff bars, popcorn lunch.

• 19:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:32Sean Fennessey?

  Should be good. Not worried about it.

• 19:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And you're gonna have a great time and you're doing what you like to do. And I will be figuring out how to pack 10 to 12 days' worth of, of clothing, plus some formal wear into a carry on.

• 19:44Sean Fennessey?

  Tell us what you wear.

• 19:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. I honestly, I haven't locked it down yet. Um, I, I have been.

• 19:51Sean Fennessey?

  Bjork's, uh, Bjork's swan dress?

• 19:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, exactly. No, I, in moments of movies that have, um, where my attention has wandered recently, I have found myself going through my Venice packing list.

• 20:01Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 20:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And what's out and what's in is kinda, it's a day to day situation. I'm getting close. I gotta drop the dry cleaning off soon, so, um, but I'll, you know, I'll let everybody know.

• 20:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 20:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Might also be a special guest. I don't want to spoil anything.

• 20:13Sean Fennessey?

  A special guest at the festival?

• 20:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:15Sean Fennessey?

  Will you be attending with Jacob Elordi?

• 20:18Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, we'll tune in for that. I've located 25 total Best Picture contenders right now.

• 20:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. I love it.

• 20:28Sean Fennessey?

  You want to hear them?

• 20:28Amanda Dobbins?

  You're just like deep in the release calendar. When was this? What time of day?

• 20:32Sean Fennessey?

  I was on a plane, as you know.

• 20:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I was. Is this Plan John?

• 20:35Sean Fennessey?

  Well, this is actually from our friend Sam, who's been helping us with research, but I also have my own separate document. It matches up fairly neatly with this.

• 20:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 20:43Sean Fennessey?

  Two Studio 10 polls that are obviously not playing festivals that are in the running. Wicked for Good and Avatar: Fire and Ash. We just saw the trailer.

• 20:50Amanda Dobbins?

  We did.

• 20:51Sean Fennessey?

  Ahead of The Fantastic Four. You seemed nonplussed.

• 20:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, there was not a lot of fire or ash. So then that made me think, oh, God, this is like only the first of eight hours, you know? And then.

• 21:03Sean Fennessey?

  It probably will be three hours.

• 21:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, listen, it looks visually spectacular. It's amazing. They built a whole lab and they took over New Zealand and they reimagined how we make movies. But like, I'm with Chris. They're losing my attention when it comes to caring about, I don't remember these people's names.

• 21:23Sean Fennessey?

  Here's my rejoinder.

• 21:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 21:24Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 21:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 21:25Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Studio Big Swings, Sinners.

• 21:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 21:28Sean Fennessey?

  One battle after another.

• 21:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's hope.

• 21:30Sean Fennessey?

  Both of those seem pretty likely. We'll see, based on the track record of the filmmakers. Cannes winners, we know sentimental value. The It Was Just an Accident, the Palme d'Or winner.

• 21:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Likely, yeah.

• 21:39Sean Fennessey?

  And The Secret Agent are all in contention.

• 21:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 21:42Sean Fennessey?

  Netflix has just a trundle, just a bowl load of titles.

• 21:45Amanda Dobbins?

  You gotta throw this spaghetti at the wall.

• 21:47Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't really.

• 21:48Amanda Dobbins?

  One of these years.

• 21:49Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't know this was going to be the Netflix year, but it is like, at least quality wise, got a good chance to be a Netflix year. We've got Frankenstein, Jay Kelly, House of Dynamite, Ballad of a Small Player, Wake Up Dead Man, and Train Dreams.

• 22:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not mad at any of these, even the logging movie, which I have not seen yet.

• 22:04Sean Fennessey?

  Train Dreams just got a trailer, one of my very favorite movies of the year. Fall Festival stuff. We talked Begonia, After the Hunt, Rental Family, Hamnet. A24's Safdie Double.

• 22:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 22:15Sean Fennessey?

  Benny Safdie with The Smashing Machine and Josh with Marty Supreme. Other wild cards, Deliver Me From Nowhere, A Big Bull Beautiful Journey, No Other Choice. Let's not count out No Other Choice.

• 22:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not counting it out. I am, I am sending emails about it.

• 22:30Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Anemone, Ella McKay, and then some wild cards. The Testament of Ann Lee, Is This Thing On?, The Wizard of the Kremlin, and then The Rivals of Amziah King, which won at South by Southwest, but does not yet have distribution.

• 22:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 22:46Sean Fennessey?

  And I'm wondering if that movie pops up at one of these festivals as well, because it got rave reviews. I've tried to not read too much about it. But seems like a very promising title. Anything else you want to say about award season, fall festival season? What we're going to be turning our lives to from roughly September 2nd through March 20th?

• 23:07Amanda Dobbins?

  It's March 20th? I thought it was March 6th. It's, it's later than it needs to be.

• 23:10Sean Fennessey?

  They pushed it back.

• 23:11Amanda Dobbins?

  This year, which I don't feel great about.

• 23:13Sean Fennessey?

  No, it should be in February, as you know, you know my stance on this.

• 23:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but then also they should move the Emmys to February. So we just, you know.

• 23:20Sean Fennessey?

  Couldn't care less about the Emmys.

• 23:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't really either, but like people, again, I just, there are a lot of newsletters about it. You know, I'm like, I unsubscribe.

• 23:27Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 23:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I'm excited. I'm excited. I am at the point in my summer movie season where I'm ready for the good stuff.

• 23:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 23:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I'm a little tired. I'm a little, I feel like I've seen it all and then some at this point. So I'm ready for like pure cinema to wash over me.

• 23:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I was feeling, I felt like I had hit a little bit of a high this summer with the double shot of Superman and Eddington.

• 23:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 23:55Sean Fennessey?

  Two very different movies, made completely differently, on completely different scales. But I was like, hey, for July, this ain't bad, you know? And, and F1 is okay, and Jurassic World Rebirth stinks, but you know, for the most part, it's a decent balance in the summer slate. That brings us to the Fantastic Four first steps. Now, as you know, this is my birthday movie this year.

• 24:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I, you know what? Driving here, I was like, oh, I forgot to stop at the grocery store to get Shauna birthday balloon and I was going to put it right here for the whole taping. And I just, I forgot to do that.

• 24:27Sean Fennessey?

  An imaginary honorary, what color?

• 24:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I was gonna get one of the ones that like said like happy birthday, you know, I wasn't gonna do a number. So I was thinking like a round one.

• 24:36Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Well, I'm turning 28 and I feel super good about it. Fantastic Four First Steps, directed by Matt Shakman. This is his second feature film after Cut Bank, a 24 movie from 10 years ago. He directed every Wandavision episode. We will come back to that as we talk through the film. It stars Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Evan Moss Bakarak, Evan Moss Bakarak, Joseph Quinn, Julia Garner, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Hauser, and the voice of Ralph Innocent. Scores by Michael Giacchino, shot by Jess Hall. This movie is about the four members of the Fantastic Four getting into an adventure. The world is threatened by Galactus, the planet conquering giant creature from outer space.

• 25:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 25:22Sean Fennessey?

  And they gotta stop him.

• 25:24Amanda Dobbins?

  They do.

• 25:25Sean Fennessey?

  That's the movie.

• 25:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Before he eats them and everything else in our world.

• 25:30Sean Fennessey?

  That's it.

• 25:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Cause that's what he does. Galactus eats planets. I've been hearing about this on the watch for three years now and here he is.

• 25:36Sean Fennessey?

  He eats planets.

• 25:36Amanda Dobbins?

  He eats planets.

• 25:37Sean Fennessey?

  Now, the Fantastic Four is one of the most legendary crews in Marvel history. This is the fourth feature film adapting the Fantastic Four story. It's the first in the proper MCU. And what did you think of it?

• 25:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I hated this.

• 25:57Amanda Dobbins?

  That's okay. All right. Jack said to me before we started recording that I had a little Hillary Clinton breakdown energy. I mean, and I don't have a breakdown. I, I thought the production design was good. Which is, I think, also the review I gave Guardians of the Galaxy Three. Some interesting textures. Yeah, I thought that this failed on several levels. Number one, on your basic, it's a, it's a Marvel movie with a villain who doesn't quite make sense. And so the stakes are silly and the CGI is quite poor. And it takes what I did think was impressive production design and just, you know, turns it purple for a third of the movie.

• 26:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought that there were some real issues with casting, which I want to talk about because I am not as familiar with Fantastic Four as, say, everyone else in this recording studio right now. And so I couldn't figure out what was the character and what was the actor. And it might be a little bit of both, but it doesn't really work. And then at the risk of spoiling the whole movie, which are we going to spoil right now?

• 27:08Sean Fennessey?

  I wasn't planning on it, but we could do it momentarily. Okay. You want to, you want to self censor your spoiler note?

• 27:14Amanda Dobbins?

  What does that mean? Like that I can just put a pin in it? I have, I have a third issue with sort of the takeaways from this film.

• 27:19Sean Fennessey?

  Hold on to that so that people can let us here talk through without spoiling. Although I will say that spoiling is an interesting

• 27:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 27:26Sean Fennessey?

  question here because this movie is doing something that we haven't seen a Marvel movie do in some time. It is a self-contained story. It does not require any homework. There are no characters in this movie that we have ever seen before in a Marvel movie, in an MCU movie. In fact, the movie takes place on Earth 828, which is not the Earth that we are used to seeing in the other films.

• 27:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, though, as someone who doesn't do the homework ever, when Earth 828 showed up on the screen, I was like, oh, God, which one is that? Do I have to know something else? So, and that, and that's just me being, you know, reflexively being like, oh, God, now there's something that I don't understand, but I didn't know what that meant.

• 28:13Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think it really matters if you know. I think it will matter. I thought it was going to matter or at least have some bearing on this movie.

• 28:21Amanda Dobbins?

  How they resolve the situation.

• 28:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and

• 28:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:25Sean Fennessey?

  I guess that is kind of a spoiler to say that it sort of doesn't. But I was only thinking that because of the way the Thunderbolts ended, which was the introduction of a rocket ship with a four on it entering the atmosphere in the movie Thunderbolts.

• 28:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:41Sean Fennessey?

  Which takes place in a different universe, an alternate universe. Anyway, I'll come back to that.

• 28:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Wait, an alternate universe?

• 28:50Sean Fennessey?

  No, it takes place in the proper MCU, the MCU that we know and we've seen all the other films in.

• 28:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, so the, so Fantastic Four is in the alternate universe.

• 28:58Sean Fennessey?

  Coming from the alternate universe to, yes.

• 29:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, I just wanted to make sure.

• 29:02Sean Fennessey?

  But we can come back to it because we have to.

• 29:06Sean Fennessey?

  I really did not think this movie was good. I, in fact, was kind of stunned while I was watching it. I wasn't angry or even frustrated. I thought that there was a general flatness to the drama of the movie. I agree with you about the miscasting. I said to you in like, with kind of a bemusement afterwards, that I swear they used to be good at this.

• 29:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 29:29Sean Fennessey?

  And I did really have a sincere passion. And I think like newer listeners of the show might think that I always hate these movies. But like, I really didn't. I really, really liked them for like five years. And I found the limpness of this movie kind of baffling. It is like kind of juiceless. And I, I don't know why that decision was made. Some of, I get why some of the decisions were made, which is that they were responding to a lot of the criticism that they had been hearing about having all of this baggage with every movie.

• 29:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 29:59Sean Fennessey?

  There'd been all these TV shows. They overloaded us with content and hours of content. We want something that's just a fresh origin story. And some people may be listening and disagree and say, I had a fun time. I like these characters.

• 30:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 30:11Sean Fennessey?

  But.

• 30:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I don't think the standaloneness is the problem.

• 30:15Sean Fennessey?

  It, it's not, but what it does is it, so look, I've been critical of the homework thing and I think it is a problem. Um, so I'm, I, I'm not trying to talk out of both sides of my mouth. But I think when a script is not strong, as I do not think this script is strong, and it does not have those breadcrumbs that kind of keep us going. And you'll hear me on, on old episodes in the last five years, I'll be like, I thought this stunk for 80% of it. And then at the end, they kind of dragged me in with some sort of like tease to the future.

• 30:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 30:44Sean Fennessey?

  And I didn't even have that feeling at the end of this.

• 30:46Amanda Dobbins?

  You said, once the credits hit and we sat for the, you know, the mid credits or the end credits, the, the stingers, you said to me, like, they really better have the goods in this to, to make up for that. And, but you said it in a way as if you thought it would be possible still for like 30 seconds of, you know, teaser footage would make up for just the limpness and the yuckiness of the past two hours, which like, that, that is, that's messed up.

• 31:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, I don't think it was necessarily successful to say introduce Charlize Theron at the end of a Doctor Strange movie and then

• 31:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Which one?

• 31:23Sean Fennessey?

  Have us go scratching her as multiverse of madness? Or introduce Harry Styles at the end of Eternals? And have us like excited about what could come or to hear Mahershala Ali's voice at the end of a movie? And think, oh, Blade is coming like, I think those are smart marketing techniques. But for my dumb lizard brain.

• 31:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:41Sean Fennessey?

  I was like, oh, cool. What's gonna happen next? And the whole movie feels like frankly, a response to shit I've said on podcasts.

• 31:51Sean Fennessey?

  Like, I know that that's not what it is, of course. But to be trolled in this way is interesting. I think the movie is very sincere. And it's trying to be

• 31:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:59Sean Fennessey?

  True to the classical construction of Fantastic Four. Which is a golden age story that is about family and is about coming together for a greater good. Like, it's very simple and in that way, it closely resembles Superman. And these movies coming out within two weeks of each other is fascinating. I think one movie takes the bedrock of story. And he's this old character and really plunges him into some current stakes high events. This movie, because of the retro futuristic production design that he talked about, because of the performance style that they're going for. And because of the kind of closed world nature of it. Just felt small to me and

• 32:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Even though it's literally about

• 32:44Amanda Dobbins?

  a villain who eats other planets and is supposed to be larger than the universe and is like a space god.

• 32:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 32:51Amanda Dobbins?

  That's what they keep saying.

• 32:52Sean Fennessey?

  Even though they traverse the galaxy, even though there is a silver surfin' woman who is a herald to this planet devourer portrayed by Julia Garner. Even though there's actors who are like, in theory, very likeable, have been successful in other projects.

• 33:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 33:10Sean Fennessey?

  Matt Shakman, I think Wandavision is one of the best things Marvel's done in the last five years. I

• 33:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, and it and this does have a lot of the bones of Wandavision in the Obviously, sort of like the throwback and the and the production design, but that was also about feelings and trying to find a family. And then, you know, the trauma and whatever. And I don't remember what the trauma was, but it was about people who aren't quite human trying to be human.

• 33:37Sean Fennessey?

  It was about vision being dead and then wanting to preserve her life with with vision and then creating a world.

• 33:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought it was her brother.

• 33:48Sean Fennessey?

  Well, her brother died, too. She's had a lot of trauma, the Scarlet Witch, and she explored that trauma to evil ends in the films Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. You should check it out.

• 33:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, she's evil?

• 33:59Sean Fennessey?

  She's the she's the villain of that film.

• 34:01Amanda Dobbins?

  But but then they bring her back around.

• 34:02Sean Fennessey?

  Starts by Sam Raimi, it's pretty good.

• 34:03Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I know, I was on leave. But they bring her back around, right?

• 34:06Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, since then, she's not come back.

• 34:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 34:10Sean Fennessey?

  In fact, I think Elizabeth Olsen is out of the MCU.

• 34:12Amanda Dobbins?

  She was good and then she went bad?

• 34:14Sean Fennessey?

  Correct.

• 34:14Amanda Dobbins?

  And then she became Megan 2.0?

• 34:16Sean Fennessey?

  She was driven mad by loss, as we all are.

• 34:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, OK.

• 34:20Sean Fennessey?

  And now it's time for a new segment, Summer Stars, presented by Starbucks. The summer 2025 blockbusters have well and truly rolled out, and we don't just mean on the big screen, just like this year's breakout stars. Starbucks summer beverages have stolen the show. But before we talk all things Starbucks, we want to take a closer look at the fresh wave of talent taking over the silver screen this summer. OK, Amanda, when you think of the stars of this summer, throw some names at me. Who has impressed you with the movies?

• 34:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, we can start with Vanessa Kirby from Fantastic Four, who has impressed me. She was the best part of the movie, in my opinion, in addition to being very beautiful. She, you know, makes big faces.

• 34:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 34:56Amanda Dobbins?

  And she was also a real champ on the press tour. So I, you know, I've congratulations to her, expecting a baby of her own. She looks great.

• 35:03Sean Fennessey?

  She stepped up. She stepped up.

• 35:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:05Sean Fennessey?

  She stepped up, just like Florence Pugh and Louis Pullman stepped up in Thunderbolts. It's not easy starring in a Marvel movie, you know? It takes a lot of work, takes a lot to sell these fantastical worlds. Florence Pugh, I don't know where Thunderbolts would be without her, honestly. I'm not sure that's a movie that would work as well as I would want it to without her. But she's great. And Louis Pullman, who has a kind of dual role in that movie, the spoilers, has a lot on his shoulders, too. We've always liked him and it's nice to see him getting some more to do. Who else did you like at the movies this year?

• 35:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Alfie Williams, who is the child star. That's not fair. He's a teenager, you know, 28 years later. And the movie starts with him having a sort of, you know, coming of age ritual. So I don't mean to call him a child. He's a teen.

• 35:46Sean Fennessey?

  From boy to man.

• 35:47Amanda Dobbins?

  From, yeah. And that movie hangs on him. And certainly the rest of the franchise hangs on him as well. And he was sensational.

• 35:55Sean Fennessey?

  Superman really hangs on David Cornsweat. Now, he was a relative unknown for most of us before we saw James Gunn's new version of this story.

• 36:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, not if you saw Twisters.

• 36:05Sean Fennessey?

  True, he was in Twisters. He was in the Netflix series Hollywood. He's been in some other stuff, but Superman was his big coming out party.

• 36:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:13Sean Fennessey?

  And honestly, he wore the cape well. He was, he was one of my favorite parts of that movie. The fact that they nailed that casting, I think, is a big reason why the film is a success.

• 36:22Amanda Dobbins?

  And tailored the movie to him.

• 36:23Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely.

• 36:24Amanda Dobbins?

  And it works. Two small parts for you. Tramell Tillman and Katie O'Brien, Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning. Lot of people in this movie.

• 36:32Sean Fennessey?

  There were.

• 36:33Amanda Dobbins?

  A lot of words said, some said better than others. Tramell Tillman and Katie O'Brien, who are part of this submarine segment, right? To, to, not to spoil anything, just steal the show. Tramell Tillman in particular, though Katie O'Brien has some, some great moments with the suit. That otherwise the movie, you know, it takes its time, but not when they're on screen.

• 36:57Sean Fennessey?

  It's electrifying watching Tramell Tillman say words.

• 37:02Sean Fennessey?

  We've got to give some love to your guy Jonathan Bailey.

• 37:04Amanda Dobbins?

  He's not my guy. I just, I understood the star power. It was him and a dinosaur, you know? And he was petting the dinosaur and the music was playing and he felt real emotion. And I felt it too. You, not so much, but I thought that it was powerful.

• 37:19Sean Fennessey?

  He's, he's obviously meant for big things. So I'm looking forward to seeing what he does next. Lilo and Stitch, mixed on the movie, but not mixed on the two key performances from Sidney Agudong and Maya Kialoa. And they were both very charming, I thought.

• 37:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, wonderful. It's everybody else in the movie who just won't help them, you know? But that's a credit to them that you just really want them to figure it out.

• 37:41Sean Fennessey?

  I did want to give just a little bit of love before we wrap to my favorite star of the summer, hands down, which is The Flaw in Death's Design.

• 37:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, absolutely.

• 37:49Sean Fennessey?

  That is the critical character in the movie Final Destination: Bloodlines.

• 37:53Amanda Dobbins?

  An international sensation.

• 37:54Sean Fennessey?

  It absolutely is. One of the biggest box office hits of the year. And thank you to The Flaw in Death's Design for making it such a fun time at the movies. Refreshing and bold, Starbucks' summer beverages are also unexpected stars of the season. Savor every drop of summer with Starbucks and the new Strato Frappuccino Blended Beverage. It's a crave-worthy iced blended beverage topped with creamy cold foam, making for delicious layers of silky flavor. Available for a limited time only, your Strato Frappuccino Blended Beverage is ready at Starbucks.

• 38:24Speaker 02

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• 39:08Sean Fennessey?

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. There's nothing better than having friends who support whatever you're into, like rewatching a director's entire catalog in the lead up to their latest release. And like those friends, State Farm is there to help you feel supported by helping you choose the coverage you need. With so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have help finding what fits for you. So you can check coverage off the list and spend more time debating movie rankings. Go online at statefarm.com or use the easily accessible app to get help from one of their local agents. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch

• 39:51Sean Fennessey?

  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.

• 40:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, you see my point.

• 40:04Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 40:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is that it's there about not quite human people trying to explore like human emotions and like instead of found family, it's like pretty literal nuclear family.

• 40:17Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 40:18Amanda Dobbins?

  And that part I think is both the most successful part of the movie and also the thing that ultimately made me got the biggest reaction, negative reaction out of me. But it is, they're not trolling you, you know?

• 40:36Sean Fennessey?

  I know they're not.

• 40:37Amanda Dobbins?

  They're like, they're seriously trying to like do something nice with this. And then I guess Galactus is like a historical comic book.

• 40:44Sean Fennessey?

  He's the second most significant villain to the Fantastic Four.

• 40:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. And is the first one, the person that we saw at the very end?

• 40:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 40:50Amanda Dobbins?

  So that's an interesting question. Why do they start with number two?

• 40:53Sean Fennessey?

  I had the same question.

• 40:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 40:55Sean Fennessey?

  I know the answer to that question, which is that the their their primary villain, primary enemy is Doctor Doom. And Doctor Doom is the villain of the next movie.

• 41:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I know that.

• 41:06Sean Fennessey?

  Avengers Doomsday.

• 41:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Robert Downey Jr. Is going to be Doctor Doom.

• 41:09Sean Fennessey?

  He is going to be Doctor Doom.

• 41:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I like that happened at a Comic Con.

• 41:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, there is a subtle moment where the table in the United Nations from Latveria, the name card is empty, which is of course Doctor Doom's nation.

• 41:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I actually did, I noted that, but I did not know that that was Doctor Doom's nation.

• 41:29Sean Fennessey?

  That's where Victor Von Doom would be sitting under normal circumstances. He's the ruler of that nation.

• 41:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I was gonna, yeah, like, what's his title?

• 41:35Sean Fennessey?

  Um, podcast host. And he is obviously going to be a big part of the MCU. And there's, this is meant to be a sort of build up to him. Galactus is a more high stakes villain, but Doctor Doom is the primary enemy.

• 41:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 41:49Sean Fennessey?

  One of the cool things that the movie does that would have gotten a lot more credit if Superman didn't just do it is it starts in media res and it gives you this kind of newsreel flash montage explication of who these characters are at the beginning.

• 42:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:01Sean Fennessey?

  I thought a lot of that was very successful.

• 42:03Amanda Dobbins?

  All of it is really good.

• 42:04Sean Fennessey?

  It looks good. Um, it's like.

• 42:06Amanda Dobbins?

  It's like kitschy in a good way.

• 42:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 42:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:08Sean Fennessey?

  It's got, it's got energy. Um, they recreate the cover of the first. Issue of Fantastic Four with that monster coming up out of the ground. That's like a nice nod to fans. A couple of cool moments like that, you know, Mole Man shows up, who's played by Paul Walter Hauser, who's kind of a funny, you know, B tier Fantastic Four villain. There's some fun stuff in the first 10 minutes and when it was going, I was like, okay.

• 42:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 42:30Sean Fennessey?

  I get where dude, there's like an Ed Sullivan show stand in that we're getting. All of that made sense. And then when the movie starts to become about the family that you're describing. It really slows down and it becomes very sincere.

• 42:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And sincerity, I don't mind.

• 42:47Sean Fennessey?

  Well. Okay.

• 42:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, okay.

• 42:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Go ahead. Are we spoiling now?

• 42:55Sean Fennessey?

  Sure, let's spoil the movie.

• 42:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 43:01Sean Fennessey?

  Reed Richards is a strange character.

• 43:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 43:04Sean Fennessey?

  You turned to me and asked me, so he's.

• 43:07Amanda Dobbins?

  A stretchy nerd.

• 43:09Sean Fennessey?

  And that's not incorrect, but he is also the smartest man in the world.

• 43:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 43:15Sean Fennessey?

  And that's the way that he is presented to comic book readers. And that intelligence cuts both ways. It makes him an amazing problem solver and an incredible leader. But at times his intelligence drives him mad and it makes him very arrogant. And the latter part of that character is not really present in this movie.

• 43:34Amanda Dobbins?

  This was just Gumby.

• 43:36Sean Fennessey?

  It was just Gumby.

• 43:38Amanda Dobbins?

  It was like Gumby in with suspenders or, you know, whatever. I was so confused.

• 43:45Sean Fennessey?

  I, you know, we've, we've been having a lot of Pedro Pascal conversations. Seems like a good guy.

• 43:51Amanda Dobbins?

  So I.

• 43:53Sean Fennessey?

  He is way miscast as Reed Richards to me.

• 43:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't understand why someone with such natural charisma. Like as Pedro Pascal has, keeps getting cast in these roles where he's just inert. Like I, it's, it's not that he's a bad actor. It's just that what he's doing in this movie does not allow him to have any of the charm, any of the like.

• 44:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Reed Richards, is that his name? He's got no mojo. And like, it's just, it's really very strange. And he doesn't even seem that smart. You know, he's like doing equations a lot, but it, no confidence whatsoever.

• 44:30Sean Fennessey?

  Well, as we know from Good Will Hunting, that is how you, you know, show us, demonstrate that you are smart.

• 44:34Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true, but he's still using numbers and letters. You know, like Good Will Hunting, they're doing like drawings. You know, that's a level of, of math that I don't even understand, but he's, he's with us in the numbers.

• 44:44Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, you really need to be with, with Mr. Fantastic, as he is known, to be in on this movie. And I wasn't. And that's a huge problem. And I think some of that sincerity, that desire to kind of create an intimate, emotional and psychological atmosphere for these characters, which I think they're kind of going out of their way to try to present, ultimately kind of weirdly drains them of some of their humanity. And again, like, I just think the writing is not strong in this movie. There's a lot of dialogue that in WandaVision, it was winking at the modes of entertainment from the 50s, 60s and 70s on sitcoms. In this movie, it's just like, kind of 1962 in an alternate universe.

• 45:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:26Sean Fennessey?

  So how do those people, how are they supposed to act? Like, in that world, the song Monster Mash exists because we hear it when they're getting ready for a Halloween party, but Ed Sullivan doesn't exist, it's Ted Gilbert. So that's kind of confusing. And I don't know if we're meant to be watching the TV show version of the Fantastic Four, because we see the TV show version, the animated cartoon within the movie. So there is this kind of like.

• 45:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And there's a running joke in the movie that the, the thing is not his cartoon character.

• 45:59Sean Fennessey?

  And he doesn't say it's clobbered in time.

• 46:01Amanda Dobbins?

  He doesn't want to. And in fact, he all, he just, you know, has a crush on Natasha Lyonne, who's the teacher at the school next door.

• 46:07Sean Fennessey?

  Among Us, you know, redheaded Natasha Lyonne.

• 46:10Amanda Dobbins?

  She looks great.

• 46:10Sean Fennessey?

  Living in New York. Yeah, she looks great.

• 46:14Sean Fennessey?

  So Pedro, that didn't click for me.

• 46:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and then also, he then is married to Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm. And it's the in media arrest thing does not work if the people don't have any chemistry because the whole time I was just like, why are you with him? Look at this woman, like, what's going on here? They didn't explain anything in the little newsreel. And I was just like, man, this is, this is the hottest woman alive. And you are just really nervous, you know? I don't understand how this, I don't know why this is happening. I don't know. I don't, I didn't get it.

• 46:53Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't get it either. And I didn't get Joseph Quinn either.

• 46:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Me either.

• 46:58Sean Fennessey?

  As Johnny Storm, the Human Torch. I think he has an interesting part in this movie and the movie puts a lot on his shoulders. He is the one who is meant to engage with the Silver Surfer when she comes to the planet. And then he is meant to be sort of a detective of the movie.

• 47:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 47:13Sean Fennessey?

  To determine, you know, why Galactus is coming, how the Silver Surfer became who she is, how to save the day in the safest possible way.

• 47:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, and he also has to like decode a new language.

• 47:25Sean Fennessey?

  He does decode a language.

• 47:26Amanda Dobbins?

  But he's doing all of that in a different tone than everyone else in the movie. And he's sort of goofy, antique, quippy Marvel MCU one or 2.0. Um, but like his timing doesn't add up with the other people. And so, and then you're right, that this script is just kind of jumping around. So he's like playing this language all over again, but you don't actually see him decoding anything. They also have to like do a lot of math and science and thankfully the movie doesn't show it, but it means that then there's just a lot of announcing like, oh, we fixed this problem and oh, now we can teleport and oh, now we can do this. And you're like, uh huh, okay, like, sure.

• 48:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, the whole movie is kind of one long Amanda Science Corner. I'm just being like, can we? Is it? Is it okay? Well, you know, the movie is, I think, meant to be, in the spirit of Jack Kirby, the longtime illustrator and creative genius behind Marvel, an intergalactic fun saga, you know? And the characters do, at a certain point, traverse into outer space to go find and stop Galactus. Let's talk about Galactus.

• 48:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay.

• 48:38Sean Fennessey?

  So Galactus.

• 48:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:39Sean Fennessey?

  He's voiced by Ralph Ineson, who's the amazing English actor who people may know from The Witch, The Green Knight, many other movies.

• 48:48Sean Fennessey?

  He's a giant space god who is wearing a giant purple helmet.

• 48:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, he looks like-

• 48:56Sean Fennessey?

  Lives inside of like a ship.

• 48:58Amanda Dobbins?

  He looks like-

• 48:58Sean Fennessey?

  There's also a drill.

• 48:59Amanda Dobbins?

  A Viking statue that you would build at a junkyard.

• 49:03Sean Fennessey?

  Uh huh.

• 49:03Amanda Dobbins?

  And he lives inside of a drill. Yeah.

• 49:07Sean Fennessey?

  So, that's just a, that's a tough beat, you know? Like, that's a tough fate. You get the impression, the movie turns on the fact that Sue Storm is pregnant when the Silver Surfer arrives on Earth to herald Galactus's coming to the nation. And so they gotta go into space.

• 49:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 49:26Sean Fennessey?

  Seven months pregnant, nine months pregnant, she goes into space to go stop Galactus.

• 49:29Amanda Dobbins?

  So they go faster than the speed of light, and so-

• 49:32Sean Fennessey?

  And ages the pregnancy?

• 49:33Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no. I mean, let's, are you ready for Science Corner? You want to start it now? Let's go, hit the music. Okay, all right. Science Corner.

• 49:40Speaker 03

  Welcome to Amanda Doppens' Science Corner.

• 49:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you turned to me, so we'll start with anecdotal evidence. You turned to me and you said, would you go into space seven months pregnant? And, you know, I like hemmed and hawed because, you know, mamas can have it all, but also, like, probably it's something that they could have zoomed in for. You know what I'm saying?

• 50:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, mamas can defeat Galactus seven months pregnant.

• 50:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but like, probably, like, just a FaceTime would have sufficed. So, I'd just say, you know, like, we can- We can, we can, we can solve, um, you know, near where there are doctors. And like, no one had any sort of like hospital, like, protocol on board. You know what I'm saying? I just, they don't really, they do let you fly.

• 50:28Sean Fennessey?

  Where was that pod bay from Prometheus?

• 50:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I just listen, it would have come in handy. But so then at some point, they dock the, you know, they take off. I felt that their rocket launch pad was far too close to the city.

• 50:42Sean Fennessey?

  Agreed. I think Reed put it there.

• 50:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, but I just like, that is not good for everybody else and the air quality.

• 50:48Sean Fennessey?

  Let's say you're living in Earth 828. You're going about your day, you know that the Fantastic Four are taking off that day from the Times Square of Earth 828.

• 50:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 50:58Sean Fennessey?

  Are you just taking your lunch break to go watch them send them off, say, hey, see you guys later? Good luck.

• 51:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, some people were watching it on TV. I might stream it.

• 51:05Sean Fennessey?

  You love, you love space, like a space launch.

• 51:08Amanda Dobbins?

  So that the launch sequence and then the, the docking of the ship into the like light year thing, like light year time warp. Fast, like fast boats go, um, thing was reminiscent of, that's what they do in Apollo 13.

• 51:25Sean Fennessey?

  Uh huh.

• 51:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, you know, and everybody goes to want to launch an Apollo 13 and then they have to like, get the command module out and dock it with the lunar module. And Kevin Bacon like didn't have enough practice because he was the backup because Gary Sinise got the measles. They're re-releasing Apollo 13 and IMAX in September and I'm incredibly excited.

• 51:45Sean Fennessey?

  That's great. Do you want to describe the entire plot of Apollo 13 to me right now? You can if you'd like.

• 51:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, so, but then they're in a light, that ship that they dock in, that's just like floating in space, apparently, waiting for them.

• 51:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 52:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Helps them travel faster than the speed of light, which is like a real throwaway that line, like Eben Mars Backrack just like dials up faster than the speed of light or something. Traveling faster than light. So they go and then they come back and, but when they're giving the disastrous press conference, which I definitely have some like PR media notes for Reed Richards.

• 52:20Sean Fennessey?

  We will get to that.

• 52:22Amanda Dobbins?

  They're like, they talk about a month-long journey. So while a month has not passed

• 52:29Sean Fennessey?

  I see.

• 52:30Amanda Dobbins?

  in our viewing, or maybe even in the experience of the Fantastic Four, it has on Earth, and we're not, I'm not clear how that affects gestationally what's going on, and whether the baby is back on Earth time, or whether it's also traveling at the speed of light. Some things that we learn about the baby might also influence that. Anyway, she goes into labor in space.

• 52:55Sean Fennessey?

  Wait, hold on.

• 52:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, sorry.

• 52:56Sean Fennessey?

  Let's go officially into spoiler territory. Effectively, everything that happens all the way up until the gang goes into space to meet Galactus is roughly the first 35, 40 minutes of the movie.

• 53:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 53:06Sean Fennessey?

  And then the real conflict arises. It's not just that Galactus wants to eat Planet Earth,

• 53:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:12Sean Fennessey?

  828. It's that he's willing to make a trade, and here's where the spoilers come in. And the trade is that he would trade eating Earth for getting Sue Storm and Reed Richards' baby.

• 53:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 53:25Sean Fennessey?

  The unborn baby inside of Sue Storm is his price.

• 53:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 53:28Sean Fennessey?

  They, of course, say no. They get into a fight in the giant drill where Galactus lives.

• 53:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 53:34Sean Fennessey?

  And Johnny Storm, I thought acquitted himself very well in that fight.

• 53:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I was pretty bored because it was all CGI.

• 53:40Sean Fennessey?

  A lot of CGI.

• 53:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, again.

• 53:41Sean Fennessey?

  This movie is full of CGI.

• 53:43Amanda Dobbins?

  But what we're learning, when the superheroes have to go to space to fight a space monster, it's just, it looks bad. Let's keep it. Maybe we don't need to be so galactic. I understand that his name is literally Galactus, but you know, the same thing was a problem with Superman. So, yeah, but they make it out, right?

• 54:00Sean Fennessey?

  They make it out, they survive, and then during their escape, Sue Storm gives birth.

• 54:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, she goes into labor, yeah. And then, as they, once they've made it out, they have to slingshot around a star, which is another thing they do in Apollo 13. That's how they get them home, because they also ran out of gasoline, you know?

• 54:16Sean Fennessey?

  You'll be able to add Apollo 13 to your Fantastic Four syllabus.

• 54:19Amanda Dobbins?

  It's the moon's gravitational pull. It slingshots them around. Science is amazing. And so, yeah.

• 54:27Sean Fennessey?

  Not my strongest subject, historically.

• 54:28Amanda Dobbins?

  So then she gives birth. And I did appreciate that Reed Richards brought up gravity, and like, needing gravity to push. And so he's kind of like, holding her down. And, but then she goes invisible at the moment that the baby is born, which, some questions about that.

• 54:45Sean Fennessey?

  I thought that was an incredibly profound metaphor for the invisibility of motherhood. That's cinema to me.

• 54:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Baby's very clean and doesn't have to eat once throughout the entire film. So, once again.

• 54:59Sean Fennessey?

  Not really crying too much.

• 55:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:01Sean Fennessey?

  One moment where it wakes up crying a little bit and then.

• 55:04Amanda Dobbins?

  But I mean, there's just like, there is, it is not given any sustenance at any point. This is a real plot hole in all Hollywood films. I mean, you know that for like the first six months.

• 55:15Sean Fennessey?

  Your son needs a lot. So I think you might be over indexing on this as a plot hole.

• 55:21Amanda Dobbins?

  He's a very large baby, but you know that like those phrase, look, he's, he's a wonderful kid. And he's really big, but you know, all babies, the first three months, all you're doing.

• 55:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 55:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Is just feeding them.

• 55:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Well, Franklin Richards in this film is, uh, continues to be key because he becomes part of the bait to lure Galactus into the trap that they're trying to set. But before that happens, you mentioned this press conference.

• 55:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:48Sean Fennessey?

  Now, the Fantastic Four return to Earth. There are now the Fantastic Five. We've got baby in tow and the world wants to know, how'd you do it? How'd you defeat Galactus? And rather than lie or filibuster or invent excuses. Reed Richards comes right out and says, didn't do it. Didn't, didn't, didn't beat him. He was a tough negotiator and he wanted my baby and I said, no. And so he's coming to Earth to eat everybody. And, and Earth is not happy about this.

• 56:22Amanda Dobbins?

  This is the point at which you're like, not only is he not the smartest man ever, like he's actually just a dummy, you know? And I understand there are different forms of intelligence and that he could be math smart, but not.

• 56:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Not strategic smart. But this is a really, really big.

• 56:42Sean Fennessey?

  You're more street smart.

• 56:43Amanda Dobbins?

  This is a party foul.

• 56:45Sean Fennessey?

  It's a huge error. Yeah. It's the kind of thing in a movie, you're like, oh, don't do that. Like it was kind of a horror movie moment. What? So the whole movie hinges on this because you just opened your fat mouth. Yeah, not ideal. And so Earth is like Fantastic Four. We're like, fuck these four.

• 57:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:00Sean Fennessey?

  Am I right?

• 57:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:01Sean Fennessey?

  And so they turn their back on him. There's a very funny moment where the thing is walking down the street, wearing a hat and a trench coat, carrying his groceries home. And two kids drive by and they're like, what about us? You ever think about us?

• 57:14Amanda Dobbins?

  We have families too, man. Yeah.

• 57:17Sean Fennessey?

  Weird movie.

• 57:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, we should also say that in case you were wondering what happened to the umbilical cord, the thing was there to cut it.

• 57:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, he had the, what is that, what is that instrument called?

• 57:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I was out most times.

• 57:29Sean Fennessey?

  The forceps, he had the forceps.

• 57:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 57:31Sean Fennessey?

  Um, which, you know, like you do, you just have forceps on your rocket ship headed to Gomikolactis.

• 57:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:38Sean Fennessey?

  I'd like to take this moment to just stop and say, I looked at a couple of reviews of the movie and people seem to like this movie and I'm a little confused. Cause it's not terrible. It's not like incompetent.

• 57:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:49Sean Fennessey?

  But it isn't anything special at all.

• 57:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:52Sean Fennessey?

  And a series of things keep happening where you're like, okay.

• 57:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 57:56Sean Fennessey?

  You could have done it the other way and you don't want to have that feeling when you're watching a movie, even if it's a comic book movie where you have to suspend your disbelief and allow yourself to be thrown.

• 58:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:06Sean Fennessey?

  Into the narrative.

• 58:08Sean Fennessey?

  This goes on, you mentioned teleportation.

• 58:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 58:10Sean Fennessey?

  That gets invented by Reed Richards, even though he doesn't know how to conduct a press conference and that leads to him thinking he's got the perfect idea to teleport the entire planet.

• 58:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 58:21Sean Fennessey?

  To another place.

• 58:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Another location in the galaxy.

• 58:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, and he's able to focus on these things because the only real kind of major theme of the movie is arising at this moment, which is that what does it mean to be a hero? Does it, is it selfish to try to protect your family in the face of protecting what you have said you stand for, which is standing up for humanity? And I really couldn't find, like locate another idea in the movie.

• 58:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:47Sean Fennessey?

  Beyond that idea.

• 58:49Sean Fennessey?

  Not, not great relative, at least with Superman, even if not all the, the threads are knotted. I was like, this is a lot of threads.

• 58:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 58:55Sean Fennessey?

  Stuff here.

• 58:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 58:56Sean Fennessey?

  Some, some stuff on this guy's mind. This movie just kind of feels like.

• 59:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, even the.

• 59:02Sean Fennessey?

  The story of a comic book.

• 59:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Galactus doesn't have any.

• 59:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Motive because he doesn't make his own decisions.

• 59:12Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it seems like.

• 59:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Except he's drawn to the baby.

• 59:15Sean Fennessey?

  He's drawn to the baby, I think, because he feels he is kind of trapped.

• 59:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Is this a QAnon movie?

• 59:21Sean Fennessey?

  Could could be a QAnon movie. Um, he feels trapped in the fate of having to eat all the time.

• 59:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 59:28Sean Fennessey?

  So.

• 59:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I I'm not sure that I got that level of emotion from him.

• 59:31Sean Fennessey?

  And he needs relief from that. And I think he sees the baby as his relief because of the incredible potential power of Franklin Richards.

• 59:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Baby is gonna.

• 59:41Sean Fennessey?

  Take his mantle, relieve him of his burden.

• 59:44Amanda Dobbins?

  He doesn't have to eat planets?

• 59:45Sean Fennessey?

  I I think that's what we're meant to understand.

• 59:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I'm I that I that didn't make its way to me. But the the other thing they say is that Julia Garner, the Silver Surfer, is there because she decides which planets get eaten.

• 1:00:01Sean Fennessey?

  Well, she's she's like a scout.

• 1:00:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, she finds she finds the planets because she herself was once someone who had to sacrifice her life to save her planet.

• 1:00:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:00:11Sean Fennessey?

  And she turned her life over to Galactus and she would serve as the herald, this person who locates where what planets need to be eaten next to to sate his hunger.

• 1:00:19Amanda Dobbins?

  But so he's. He's not really making any emotional decisions one way or another. She's doing it and she's doing it under the the same question that everybody else is operating under, which is like, you know, who are you gonna save? Who are you, you know?

• 1:00:35Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think the movie would be better if it was just Daniel Day Lewis played Galactus?

• 1:00:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:00:39Sean Fennessey?

  Like, would we feel more deeply for him, his struggle? There is something about making him this kind of Titanic figure. And, you know, he the teleportation scheme doesn't work. Silver Surfer intervenes. Galactus arrives. This is something people have wanted in movies. Comic book fans have wanted in movies for a very long time. Galactus, I think, in the last movie, the Josh Trank version, I think he was like a cloud. I haven't seen this movie in some time, but they didn't actually render the giant space god walking on Earth. So for comic book fans, this is a big thing. I thought he looked okay. Um, I didn't think it was terrible.

• 1:01:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I mean, there were just some serious scale issues, right? Because I mean, he is large, but he he he shows up somewhere in the.

• 1:01:24Amanda Dobbins?

  The Hudson River, I think, well, or the Bay. He's near the Statue of Liberty. He's larger than the Statue of Liberty. That's your first focal point. But then he, and he's larger than all of the buildings in Manhattan. But I would say he picks up a handful of earth and several trees. But so his palm is like, you know, three large trees worth of earth. So not insignificant. I can't do that. But like, this is a person who's supposed to be able to contain entire planets? And his hand is only like that, you know, three trees big?

• 1:02:02Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, he might have like an incredible intestines. We don't really know enough about the physiology of this character.

• 1:02:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. But I'm just, I'm saying like, you know, it doesn't pass the eye test.

• 1:02:12Sean Fennessey?

  That's fair.

• 1:02:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:02:13Sean Fennessey?

  I won't, I won't, I won't quibble with that whatsoever.

• 1:02:18Sean Fennessey?

  Nevertheless, the Fantastic Four come up with a scheme to draw him into a black hole.

• 1:02:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:02:25Sean Fennessey?

  Or to kind of teleport him out.

• 1:02:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:02:27Sean Fennessey?

  Because they can't teleport the entire planet out.

• 1:02:29Amanda Dobbins?

  And they have enough uranium left for one.

• 1:02:32Sean Fennessey?

  Thirty seven seconds worth of time for sucking him in.

• 1:02:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Of power and something.

• 1:02:36Sean Fennessey?

  So they fail when they first try because Galactus is super smart.

• 1:02:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:40Sean Fennessey?

  But then he basically mid battle falls prey to Sue Storm's incredible ability to put her hands out and send beams of power into Galactus's direction.

• 1:02:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:02:53Sean Fennessey?

  Vanessa Kirby doing a tremendous amount of face and grunt acting. We've seen this from many actresses over the years. You know, Scarlet Witch, known for this kind of, how would you do with this kind of acting? Where you had to gesture to the power coming out of your fingers?

• 1:03:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I haven't like done my whole warm up process yet and my exercises.

• 1:03:10Sean Fennessey?

  Is that not one of the solid core steps? You have to learn how to shoot beams.

• 1:03:15Amanda Dobbins?

  My pre-stage routine in order, you know, to be a super mama. It like, it takes a little more work. I didn't have time for it today.

• 1:03:21Sean Fennessey?

  She did super mama her way to victory.

• 1:03:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Mamas are the real superheroes. And then, so she, she gets it most of the way. Cause like, you can't stop a mama. And then she, he like pokes his hand back out or something. And there are 11 seconds left and we know that because they check the human torch's Apple Watch. And then. In, what did they do? I saw it. And then in comes the Silver Surfer, who we have learned in flashback was once upon a time a mama herself. If not in actuality and spirit, she's seen with a small child doing mama-like things with flowing dresses.

• 1:04:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, Johnny Storm reveals her,

• 1:04:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:04:05Sean Fennessey?

  You know, intergalactic humanity.

• 1:04:07Amanda Dobbins?

  So she comes in to knock Galactus back through the wormhole, or whatever the hell it is. So in the end, it's the two mamas who save the day.

• 1:04:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:16Amanda Dobbins?

  And, you know, here we are.

• 1:04:17Sean Fennessey?

  Those two mamas team up and Sue Storm dies, but then she gets brought back to life.

• 1:04:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, by her magic child.

• 1:04:22Sean Fennessey?

  Reed Richards puts a baby on her chest.

• 1:04:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Because once again, the power of being a, you know, like, what you do as a mom is the most powerful thing of all.

• 1:04:30Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, yeah. So then she comes back to life.

• 1:04:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:35Sean Fennessey?

  And then the Fantastic Four, they did it.

• 1:04:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:38Sean Fennessey?

  And, hooray.

• 1:04:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And then...

• 1:04:40Sean Fennessey?

  And then I was like, okay, now we're gonna get like 10 minutes of cool stuff is gonna happen. Cause this was just an issue of the Fantastic Four. That's all this was. It was just one issue of a comic book.

• 1:04:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:04:49Sean Fennessey?

  Now, that isn't bad, per se. But the MCU has been down bad for a long time.

• 1:04:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:56Sean Fennessey?

  And this movie has a lot riding on it. And in my head, I was like, okay, time to break out the big guns. What are we gonna do, guys? What's gonna happen with Fantastic Four? And then, the credits hit.

• 1:05:11Amanda Dobbins?

  No, they did a bit about a car seat first.

• 1:05:12Sean Fennessey?

  Oh yeah, there was a car seat joke.

• 1:05:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, the three, you know, the dads don't have it, but the mamas, they're super mamas.

• 1:05:18Sean Fennessey?

  Right, so the super mamas figure it out. Franklin goes in the car seat. They fly off to another adventure.

• 1:05:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:05:24Sean Fennessey?

  And credits hit. Mid-credit scene happens.

• 1:05:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:27Sean Fennessey?

  Four years later.

• 1:05:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:29Sean Fennessey?

  Sue is...

• 1:05:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Ish, they don't say that. You're just guessing that.

• 1:05:32Sean Fennessey?

  It said four years later.

• 1:05:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, it did?

• 1:05:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. That's why I said four is a great age.

• 1:05:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I just thought you were looking at Franklin and, you know, it was like one mama to another, being like, I'm, I'm right there.

• 1:05:41Sean Fennessey?

  It said four years later and Franklin's getting ready to read. He's already read Darwin for the day. So she's going to look for some board books that he might enjoy. And she steps away from her son for a minute, only to return and we see from behind a man holding a metal mask.

• 1:05:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:58Sean Fennessey?

  With a green cloak. Invariably, it is Doctor Doom, getting ready to take Franklin.

• 1:06:03Amanda Dobbins?

  And Franklin looks intrigued. So, a baby or a child in peril is like a major feature of Fantastic Four?

• 1:06:10Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really know.

• 1:06:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:06:12Sean Fennessey?

  I can't remember.

• 1:06:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't love it in general, you know, it was fine.

• 1:06:16Sean Fennessey?

  The baby is in a lot of trouble.

• 1:06:17Amanda Dobbins?

  The baby is really, and they've got like a bulletproof car seat or whatever.

• 1:06:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:06:23Amanda Dobbins?

  But they're using the baby as bait. Went not feeding it, but just putting it in.

• 1:06:29Sean Fennessey?

  Nothing will.

• 1:06:30Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, harms way.

• 1:06:30Sean Fennessey?

  Ever be worse than the.

• 1:06:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Flash.

• 1:06:32Sean Fennessey?

  Sequence in the flash.

• 1:06:33Amanda Dobbins?

  No, you're right.

• 1:06:33Sean Fennessey?

  That was the worst. The flying babies out of the hospital windows was the worst.

• 1:06:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, this, I was like, I don't, I don't love it, but I see why you're doing it.

• 1:06:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:42Amanda Dobbins?

  And the baby is okay.

• 1:06:44Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:06:45Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 1:06:46Sean Fennessey?

  When I said that Superman was like a Saturday morning cartoon, I think I meant like a nineties Saturday morning cartoon.

• 1:06:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:06:51Sean Fennessey?

  This is like a sixties Saturday morning cartoon and they are different. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but I prefer the nineties. And I prefer not every scene having like a wink, wink, nudge, nudge, inside joke at you. Or like, get a load of this guy.

• 1:07:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:07:06Sean Fennessey?

  Conducive humor, but I'd like a little bit of it. And I found this movie to be surprisingly not funny.

• 1:07:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I would see you would like humor of some kind.

• 1:07:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:07:14Amanda Dobbins?

  And they do try and there are some jokes and like.

• 1:07:17Sean Fennessey?

  It's tough.

• 1:07:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Backrock innocent, in my opinion.

• 1:07:19Sean Fennessey?

  He's trying, but the.

• 1:07:20Amanda Dobbins?

  But there's nothing.

• 1:07:20Sean Fennessey?

  So unexpressive that you don't get as much from that character as you want. I've actually, I just think that the, the representation of the thing in the previous two Fantastic Four movies is actually better than it is in this movie, which feels strange to say, cause those movies are not good. So that stuff isn't great. Um, it leaves us on this cliffhanger of, you know, Doctor Doom is coming, which is cool, but we knew that already. You know, the last Comic Con, this was all revealed to us. We know RDJ is coming back. There's a Spider-Man movie one year from now and then Doomsday.

• 1:07:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:07:51Sean Fennessey?

  Now, I'm fond of saying that Endgame is good. One of the reasons why Infinity War and Endgame were so good was because they had spent 10 years building up to this incredible story and this huge stakes. And they presented Thanos and all of these situations over time and got to hear more about him over time and get, figure out why he was the villain of this major story.

• 1:08:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Didn't James Gunn recently give an interview where he said he thought of the Infinity Stones in like 15 seconds?

• 1:08:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I saw that quote.

• 1:08:22Sean Fennessey?

  Well, he didn't invent them. They were a part of the-

• 1:08:24Amanda Dobbins?

  The plot line. Yeah. Well, that's what he said. I don't know.

• 1:08:28Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not sure. I don't know. I mean, that the Infinity Gauntlet pre-exist before James Gunn. Maybe just the idea to use it as the, as the, the MacGuffin to tell the story there.

• 1:08:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm reading an Instagram caption. James Gunn explains how he wrote the Infinity Stones in three minutes. There you go.

• 1:08:44Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, interesting. Um, I, I don't, I guess I just don't know where we're going. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but the Marvel movies unto themselves, I don't feel like were great works of art. I thought the great work of art was the push towards the conclusion of the story. That was the thing that I always wanted to celebrate as an interesting kind of evolution in movie storytelling. Never really seen anything like that. I thought they nailed it with a bunch of the storylines.

• 1:09:15Sean Fennessey?

  Now we're headed towards the big event, the big new Avengers movie, the first Avengers movie since Endgame. What's even on the line here? Like, I don't even know what we're heading towards. I know you don't know. I'm just, I'm like, kind of bewildered by how they've set us up here.

• 1:09:28Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not the secret wars? What are the secret wars?

• 1:09:31Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's like a, that's another run from the eighties that's about a lot of alien figures and the collision of worlds. And there's going to be characters from other universes fighting each other.

• 1:09:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, we didn't, we didn't talk about how this, the, the dropped plot of the other universes and how they could have just teleported everyone to a different earth, right?

• 1:09:52Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I think they were just going to move the entire planet.

• 1:09:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but then if the move, if you move him to a different earth, then is Galactus going to come looking for that earth? You know?

• 1:10:01Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think the idea was to move to a different earth.

• 1:10:03Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I know, but what if that I'm just, I'm offering a solution. Yeah.

• 1:10:07Sean Fennessey?

  All of humanity to a different planet?

• 1:10:09Amanda Dobbins?

  To a different earths because so there are lots of earths exist as we know, this is eight to eight. What about eight to nine? What's going on over there?

• 1:10:15Sean Fennessey?

  Does Reed Richards know there are other universes?

• 1:10:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you tell me.

• 1:10:19Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I mean, in some comics, yes.

• 1:10:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Isn't he supposed to be the smartest man alive?

• 1:10:24Sean Fennessey?

  He's supposed to be.

• 1:10:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Well.

• 1:10:26Sean Fennessey?

  He's not supposed to be the greatest soy boy alive, but that's what he was, you know?

• 1:10:30Amanda Dobbins?

  We would not say great problem solving to this one.

• 1:10:33Sean Fennessey?

  No, this is a weird movie. I, I-

• 1:10:39Sean Fennessey?

  I was confused.

• 1:10:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:10:41Sean Fennessey?

  And sometimes when I see a movie like this and I'm confused, I'm like, I should go see that again.

• 1:10:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:48Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe I missed something. What did I miss? But I don't, I don't think I did.

• 1:10:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I, I didn't really feel either. I was confused because I did feel that the reviews and the reception that preceded us was more positive.

• 1:11:02Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I do, I, I sensed that a lot of critics were relieved to not have to know a lot going in.

• 1:11:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:11:08Sean Fennessey?

  That doesn't, um, that wouldn't significantly improve my opinion of a movie. If that's the first thing that you're noting in why you thought the movie was kind of successful, that's not really a success to me.

• 1:11:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:11:21Sean Fennessey?

  It's something that is helpful to, to potentially telling a good story, but it's not enough. Beyond that, performances are okay at best. The story is really comic book 101.

• 1:11:35Sean Fennessey?

  And the effects are not great, which has been an issue for Marvel for years now. And it doesn't even move the ball forward that intriguingly. So I'm, I'm, I'm baffled. Now, the tracking for the movie.

• 1:11:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:11:49Sean Fennessey?

  Is, I would say mid.

• 1:11:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:11:53Sean Fennessey?

  It's roughly 100 to 110 million dollar opening. That would come in behind the Superman opening. I'm not, I'm quite fascinated to know what the word of mouth will be. You know, we had an interesting conversation with Jack after this and Jack pointed out, Jack, feel free to speak up on this. Because you were much younger when the first two Fantastic Four movies came out with Owen Grufford and Jessica Alba and Chris Evans. When I was, I was in college when those movies came out and I watched them and thought they were trash. But you, what was your relationship to those movies?

• 1:12:23Speaker 04

  I absolutely adored them. I rewatched the original one today. It is not good. But I think a comparison point here is like, Chris Evans in the original movie, although it be bad, he has chemistry. He is engaging.

• 1:12:39Speaker 04

  He has charisma, sexual energy. Joseph Quinn doesn't really have any of those traits as an actor. And I like him. I think he's good, but it goes back to being deeply miscast. And I agree with your point in the original Fantastic Four. When you are watching The Thing, you see Michael Chiklis. And even though he's in The Thing costume, you are saying, I'm looking at Michael Chiklis. In this film, I do not see Evan Moss-Bachrock performing. I see a CGI orange monster performing, and it lessens the humor of the character.

• 1:13:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's definitely true. And so the whole spirit of the characters that we know and love are kind of gone. I think it makes sense if you saw those early movies, regardless of their quality, and then you have a little bit more of an emotional connection to the characters. And this feels like an elevation of those characters, this one extent or another. But I didn't, and I don't.

• 1:13:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:26Sean Fennessey?

  Is it gonna do well? People gonna like it? Is the word of mouth gonna be good? I'm confused.

• 1:13:30Amanda Dobbins?

  The gentleman who's sitting next to us at our 2:00 PM screening today, Matt, Matt didn't like it either.

• 1:13:38Sean Fennessey?

  Matt introduced himself to us and said, guys, that wasn't good.

• 1:13:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, so that's our one man on the street. I was surprised by our reaction as well. Not because I thought like, oh, you know, this is gonna reinvent my relationship to comic book movies, but just because it was positive. And also, people were so excited for this. And I guess some of that is like Jack's, you know, Jack's peers and a lot of people who have been waiting for, these characters mean a lot to them. I only remember the disastrous Josh Trank Fantastic Four, which I never even saw, but I just know that that was not successful. And so I think I went in being a little, I didn't think it looked that great either.

• 1:14:19Sean Fennessey?

  But you asked a critical question on the way out of here, which is, which was what?

• 1:14:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is, are we sure the problem isn't just the Fantastic Four? And that the characters are pretty tough? Because, you know, your answer to, is he a stretchy nerd? Was, yes, but, like, but there is more.

• 1:14:38Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, I don't really know what's going on with Sue Storm besides she can, you know, do a force field.

• 1:14:44Sean Fennessey?

  She turns invisible.

• 1:14:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah, that's cool. But you know what I didn't, you know what I didn't realize until I saw this movie is that so The Incredibles is just like the Fantastic Four, but good.

• 1:14:53Sean Fennessey?

  This was gonna be my final note.

• 1:14:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:55Sean Fennessey?

  The Incredibles is kind of obviated.

• 1:14:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally.

• 1:14:58Sean Fennessey?

  These characters.

• 1:14:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think I understood like to a character that the powers are the same, like Jack, Jack lights up into flames, Violet does the force field and the invisible. There's no dash.

• 1:15:12Amanda Dobbins?

  But, you know, Mr. Incredible, he can, he does all sorts of things, but he can stretch.

• 1:15:18Sean Fennessey?

  He's sort of like super.

• 1:15:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, no, no, no, Elastigirl.

• 1:15:19Sean Fennessey?

  Elastigirl stretches. But it is like an amalgam of all of the powers of Fantastic Four, and it's a family formulation. And the success of that, those two movies makes it harder for Fantastic Four, even though it's clearly like a big homage to Fantastic Four. Yeah. I think you're definitely on to something. There's just something G. Willikers about Fantastic Four that is very outmoded. And there was an attempt to kind of make this a period piece.

• 1:15:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:15:46Sean Fennessey?

  To make this like a Phil Spector pop song. And it's, they didn't, I didn't feel they caught the tone. They didn't catch the wave. Like the rhythm is off. And so I was, I was disappointed. Um, I don't, the last few Marvel episodes, I've been presenting them to you as like, if they strike out, it's over. If they strike out, it's over. And now it's like.

• 1:16:08Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not over. It's just different.

• 1:16:09Sean Fennessey?

  It's way different.

• 1:16:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is what we say about everything, certainly about movies. But this just seems like this is gonna be for a subset of people who enjoy these things. I don't think they're gonna be, you know, billion dollar spectacles going forward. It's, I mean, it sets up, it's Doomsday is an interesting question.

• 1:16:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. The Spider-Man movie will probably work. Every Spider-Man movie has worked. Doomsday will, has Avengers in its title and will have Robert Downey Jr. selling it. So it's gonna, it's gonna do well.

• 1:16:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:16:39Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know how much lower the bar gets in terms of what is well when you're on your third or fourth consecutive movie that isn't cracking $500 million. This movie probably will, almost certainly will internationally. But I think long gone are the days of 800 million guaranteed. And.

• 1:17:02Sean Fennessey?

  I'll watch it with interest. We'll talk about it next week, how well it does.

• 1:17:08Sean Fennessey?

  X-Men? It's only like five years away.

• 1:17:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it really?

• 1:17:11Sean Fennessey?

  Can I hold on for that long?

• 1:17:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it really five years? What's so?

• 1:17:13Sean Fennessey?

  At least 2028. At least.

• 1:17:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm honestly just doing the math of how old you'll be, and that's pretty old.

• 1:17:21Sean Fennessey?

  I'm probably gonna be able to get Knox into X-Men and get him into the movies with me.

• 1:17:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I liked the one X-Men movie with James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender.

• 1:17:29Sean Fennessey?

  First class.

• 1:17:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Jennifer Lawrence, sure, which was sort of like in Glorious Bastards, but X-Men.

• 1:17:33Sean Fennessey?

  Generous, but sure.

• 1:17:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you know, it's, it's period piece. I, is X-Men what we choose? He knows about Spider-Man. He knows about Batman.

• 1:17:45Sean Fennessey?

  Well, definitely, you can't go see the Batman with him. He's not gonna be able to see that until he's like 12.

• 1:17:49Amanda Dobbins?

  No, that's true.

• 1:17:50Sean Fennessey?

  Spider-Man, maybe. We watched Spider-verse, Alice and I, and she was into it. She loves Miles.

• 1:17:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:56Sean Fennessey?

  And Spider-Gwen.

• 1:17:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:17:59Sean Fennessey?

  But yeah, X-Men is a very, you know, he'll be like seven. When he's seven and I show him Logan.

• 1:18:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:18:08Sean Fennessey?

  You know?

• 1:18:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:09Sean Fennessey?

  I show him Wolverine, me and CR showing him Wolverine. That's gonna fucking-

• 1:18:12Amanda Dobbins?

  You can't show him Logan at seven. That's not okay.

• 1:18:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we can. Fuck, yeah, we can.

• 1:18:17Amanda Dobbins?

  He's a sensitive little guy.

• 1:18:19Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:18:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I love him.

• 1:18:20Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:18:20Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 1:18:20Sean Fennessey?

  He's a, he's a, he's a manimal, like Wolverine himself, and he will, he will rise once more.

• 1:18:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Adamantium? Is that what his claws are made of?

• 1:18:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:18:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank, wow, I'm so glad that that is a fact that's stored in my brain. I learned that from the Red Hulk.

• 1:18:36Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. Adamantium and vibranium.

• 1:18:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:18:40Sean Fennessey?

  Are in a death race.

• 1:18:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:18:42Sean Fennessey?

  To see what is the more powerful, naturally occurring element.

• 1:18:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Is there another element out there that trumps all of them that they haven't?

• 1:18:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, cocaine.

• 1:18:53Sean Fennessey?

  That just about does it for us. Any, any last thoughts?

• 1:18:57Amanda Dobbins?

  It was fun to go to the movies with you.

• 1:18:59Sean Fennessey?

  It was, it's always fun to go to the movies.

• 1:19:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:01Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Next week, we're actually going to come with our 25 for 25 first. We were originally going to do, I know what you did last summer, but I haven't seen it yet. So 25 for 25, we presented it to the Chicago crowd. Not going to reveal it here, even though I think most people know what it is already. We had a wonderful time presenting it. Hope you enjoy the episode. We'll see you then.

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