Five Burning Questions About Awards Season, and Our Golden Globes Predictions. Plus: The Ingenious ‘No Other Choice,’ with Park Chan-wook!

In anticipation of the Golden Globes, Sean and Amanda start the show by answering five burning questions about this awards season (1:05) before sharing their personal predictions for the Golden Globes (26:56). Then, they discuss Park Chan-wook’s ‘No Other Choice’, a clever and class-conscious black comedy, which they both absolutely loved (1:11:07). Finally, Sean is joined by director Park to break down what attracted him to the source material and why there was an incredible amount of intentionality behind every decision (1:33:25). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Park Chan-wook and Jiwon Lee Producer: Jack Sanders 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.

• 0:14Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Finacy.

• 0:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 0:16Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Picture Conversation show about No Other Choice and the Golden Globes. Today on the show, we'll dig into some Golden Globe predictions. We'll raise some serious questions about the award season as we are on the precipice of some dramatic news or not. We'll also talk about No Other Choice, which is the new film from Park Chan Wook, the South Korean writer-director who is a flat-out genius. This is one of my favorite movies of the year. He is a guest on this show. Very excited to chat with him again. The film is getting a wide release finally in January, so more people will be able to see it. We talked a lot about how he made this film and how he goes about making films. I mentioned on our year-end episode that he's extraordinarily detailed in how he explains the choices that he made. So if you like the movie,

• 0:59Sean Fennessey?

  you'll want to stick around for that conversation right after this.

• 1:04Sean Fennessey?

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. There's nothing better than having friends who support whatever you're into, like re-watching 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 arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after,

• 1:49Sean Fennessey?

  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.

• 1:58Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Amanda.

• 2:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yep.

• 2:01Sean Fennessey?

  I was working on the Golden Globe predictions last night. And I was getting a little bored.

• 2:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 2:06Sean Fennessey?

  And it was a sign that maybe I'm getting a little bored with award season.

• 2:10Amanda Dobbins?

  That's not good, Sean, because the Oscars are on March 15.

• 2:15Sean Fennessey?

  I, uh, something is happening right now that is interesting. The, the, for the third year in a row. The Best Picture race has been kind of done and dusted for like six months.

• 2:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:27Sean Fennessey?

  Oppenheimer in 2023, Enora last year.

• 2:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Though we were never, we assumed, you know, I guess we were trying to make it interesting, but we, I think our, our attitude was like, is it really going to be Enora? Really?

• 2:41Sean Fennessey?

  That was our attitude. You're right.

• 2:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, are, you know, are you guys sure? I would like it.

• 2:47Sean Fennessey?

  But there was no other really legible potential winner.

• 2:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 2:51Sean Fennessey?

  Out of the bunch. And so when it happened, there was very little surprise. And then, of course, this year, one battle after another has been steamrolling the competition. So as I mentioned earlier this week, I was like, maybe we don't know everything we think we do. Maybe, maybe this is overconfidence peeking its head up. And I want to hear some, some thoughts from you about potential surprises, how we could be off.

• 3:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I do also think that this is you, Sean Fennessey, trying to wrestle with having the movie you love be the clear winner. And you don't know what to do with those emotions, right? And you don't, you don't know what to do with positivity and the right outcome at, or like an, an outcome that you enjoy at the Oscars. And so you're looking for anxiety, you're looking for outlets to talk, to, to be in, you know, despair or uncertainty, which you're more comfortable in.

• 3:53Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe so, maybe so. I, I don't. It might also just be building a wall around that feeling. And also, I think there's just, there's clearly like an acknowledgement of age of like, you reach a certain point in your life and your taste, Yeah. which you once thought was interesting and transgressive is now middlebrow mainstream Academy Awards fair. Right. That's fascinating that that's happening to me, but it might be happening to me. I loved Oppenheimer, I loved Enora. All of a sudden, you know, this, I think this really started around Parasite where I was like, whoa, no, that's not true. It started at Moonlight. When Moonlight happened, I was like, what the hell? And then what that actually, what actually happened is, is I was in my mid 30s. And when you start to get into this certain place in your life and your taste sort of

• 4:35Sean Fennessey?

  aligns generationally with a lot of people that are in the same vein as you. So there might, maybe something to that. There may be some protectionary instincts. Yeah. kicking in here. But I also think that there are some surprises. So we're recording this on the precipice of all of the Guild news, essentially. You and I are both headed to New York this week. Yes. For a fun trip. And so we're not, we're recording early. So we don't know the Screen Actors Guild nominations. We don't know the Directors Guild nominations. We don't know the Producers Guild nominations, cinematography nominations. Right. This weekend, we'll see the BAFTAs long list. We'll talk about the results of all of these things with CR next week on the show, which will be interesting. But we don't know how any of that stuff's going to shake out. So this is kind of the last moment where the only thing that we have to go on is critics'

• 5:20Sean Fennessey?

  bodies, Golden Globe nominations. No one who really makes movies has voted on anything yet. So let me start with this question. Yes. Last year, Fernanda Torres came on fairly late to get a Best Actress nomination for I'm Still Here. We've talked a lot about the Brazilian voting bloc, the strength of that nation. But if you had checked in in, say, September of the awards race in 2024, you would have thought Angelina Jolie, Saoirse Ronan. If you had checked in in December, you might have thought Pamela Anderson, maybe Marianne Jean Baptiste, after the awards praise or the critics praise that she got. None of those people were nominated for Best Actress. Fernando Torres was.

• 6:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 6:05Sean Fennessey?

  So is there a sleeper acting nominee right now? Someone who we don't really see coming?

• 6:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, we've tried to, you know, protect ourselves against that by identifying that Wagner Mora is in fact, the Fernando Torres of this year to an extent that I, we see it coming.

• 6:21Sean Fennessey?

  But he's in, though. We already think he's in.

• 6:23Amanda Dobbins?

  He's in.

• 6:24Sean Fennessey?

  So there's nothing sleepy about Wagner. He's in.

• 6:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. But, you know, I take issue with the premise of your question a little bit, which is that we, we pick our nominees in a way that, so we aren't surprised.

• 6:38Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 6:38Amanda Dobbins?

  So, you know, so I guess maybe Inga Ibsen or Lilius, but like, we see her coming too.

• 6:46Sean Fennessey?

  I think she's in. This is what I'm saying. Like, who is a person that we don't really? I'll, I'll give you an example of, I don't think that I think this.

• 6:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 6:53Sean Fennessey?

  But I want to talk it out.

• 6:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 6:56Sean Fennessey?

  Emily Blunt.

• 6:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 6:59Sean Fennessey?

  In The Smashing Machine, who was not well reviewed.

• 7:03Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 7:03Sean Fennessey?

  I did not like her performance. It's the one thing in the movie that I really did not care for. But she is very admired.

• 7:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:11Sean Fennessey?

  She's an expert campaigner. She's one of the stars of the big movies of the summer, Disclosure Day. She's nominated for a Golden Globe.

• 7:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Excuse me. And also The Devil Wears Prada, too.

• 7:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Well, she's the third lead, I guess, in that movie.

• 7:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Memorable.

• 7:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Do you think they're going to pump up? If she had not gotten as famous, would they have made her as big a part? I guess it's an impossible question to answer because that's the movie that got her famous.

• 7:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's the, that's the breakout role.

• 7:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 7:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And I do think that, my understanding of the plot is that she, she plays a major, I mean, she should, but like, they, they've, they've acknowledged that Emily has come up in the world.

• 7:44Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 7:47Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not saying Emily Blunt's going to be nominated for Best Supporting Actress, but it's the kind of thing where.

• 7:53Sean Fennessey?

  A couple of names fall away.

• 7:54Amanda Dobbins?

  She's been on the maybe since the very beginning.

• 7:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but we've written her off. You know, we're like, oh, it's Amy Madigan's time now. Tiana Taylor, there's some frontrunners in that category. So, you know, Elle Fanning has kind of fallen away a little bit.

• 8:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's name it. So it's Amy Madigan, I think, yes. Tiana Taylor, yes. Inga Ibsdatter-Lilias, yes. We've got two spots. I think Emily Blunt is like very possible.

• 8:19Sean Fennessey?

  It's interesting. Obviously, part of the Fernanda Torres fascination was just very few people were familiar with her work. And so she came on quickly. I don't know if there's another international performer who we don't know as well. You know, someone from No Other Choice that I was thinking about when I was going through that movie. And I was like, that would have been a really cool campaign to have had Son Yee Jin, who plays Lee Byung-hung's wife in the movie. That would have been like a great campaign to see happen. And we've seen it happen a couple of times in the past. We saw the grandmother from Minari, for example, come through with like a kind of a surprise campaign in a year where there was an opening. But I don't know if I see one in either of the supporting categories from either.

• 9:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Tony Maria?

• 9:02Sean Fennessey?

  I know you're pitching that. You're pitching that from the secret agent. Yeah, that would be interesting.

• 9:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that's probably a little too niche. You never know.

• 9:11Sean Fennessey?

  So nothing else? Nothing else jumps out at you?

• 9:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Everything's, I think Ethan Hawke is someone that we thought like this could break, you know, this could break either way. But the critics have really boosted him and a press tour for the ages. So now it seems like that is definitely going to happen. And that's one where George Clooney, we would have said in, I think we probably did say in August and September was a lock. I think that's out. Ethan Hawke's in.

• 9:40Sean Fennessey?

  That's one, though, where if he got left out, I wouldn't be shocked.

• 9:45Amanda Dobbins?

  You're right.

• 9:45Sean Fennessey?

  Movies are smaller.

• 9:48Sean Fennessey?

  There's some, like, which Linklater movie am I supposed to watch for the kind of casual Academy voter?

• 9:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And which Linklater movie am I responding to? It's very interesting how many people are like, oh, but did you see all the black and white in Nouvelle Vague?

• 10:00Sean Fennessey?

  Totally.

• 10:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is, it's true. It's very beautiful.

• 10:01Sean Fennessey?

  It feels like a very 50/50, like, which is my favorite divide between the two of them. Yeah, that's an interesting one where, like, if you told me today that he won, I wouldn't be shocked if he just, like, charmed the pants off people for two months and worked so hard and Chalamet alienated people and Leo, you know, was kind of a little bit more in the background.

• 10:18Amanda Dobbins?

  On the yacht.

• 10:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that wouldn't shock me, but it also wouldn't shock me if a smaller dramedy about, you know, an old gay man in a bar in 1940s America, like, that wouldn't, that wouldn't shock me either.

• 10:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 10:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we'll come back to that.

• 10:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:34Sean Fennessey?

  Best Actor Race is really fascinating because, like, six months ago, it was Jeremy Allen White and The Rock and George Clooney, as you said, and all these people have all fallen away.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  What about Felicity Jones in Train Dreams? Could you see that possibly?

• 10:46Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 10:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:47Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 10:47Amanda Dobbins?

  She's Academy loved.

• 10:49Sean Fennessey?

  Uh huh.

• 10:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Very good in that film.

• 10:51Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 10:52Amanda Dobbins?

  So Train Dreams, Best Picture, yes.

• 10:55Sean Fennessey?

  I think so.

• 10:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Adapted screenplay nominee.

• 10:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 10:58Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not gonna win, but that's okay. Uh, what else is for sure?

• 11:03Sean Fennessey?

  Cinematography, I think.

• 11:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Cinematography, of course. So, that's not like a ton.

• 11:09Sean Fennessey?

  Score, maybe?

• 11:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so that's awareness across, like, above and below. But it doesn't seem like, I think that Joel Edgerton would also need a nomination to carry, like, her through as the supporting, and I don't really think that that's happening.

• 11:24Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think it is either, although we saw he was nominated at the Critics' Choice Awards earlier this week. He was cited several times by Timothy Chalamet.

• 11:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and, and the, an interesting reaction shot face.

• 11:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 11:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I, you know, listen, it seemed like they were just in an airplane hangar with, like, cheese and crackers. So, like, who can say what's going on? I'm not one to judge.

• 11:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 11:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I couldn't be happy either.

• 11:46Sean Fennessey?

  It's a really interesting thing, though, which films get acting nominations and which don't. You know, which Best Picture contenders are like, well, this is clearly an acting film, so we're gonna, you know, shower it with praise.

• 11:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 11:57Sean Fennessey?

  Frankenstein's an interesting version of that, where we talked after the Critics' Choice Awards about whether Jacob Elordi has a real chance to win there, but then there's really no discussion of Oscar Isaac or Christoph Waltz or Mia Goth or any of the other performers in the movie beyond him, so. I don't know. I feel like there's one, there's always one surprise, one thing. Sometimes it's a more lower level thing. Sometimes it's an editing category surprise or a best original song surprise.

• 12:22Sean Fennessey?

  It's been an acting one a lot in the past, and so I'm trying to put my finger on it, and I haven't quite landed on it. Okay. So I mentioned for the third straight year, it feels like Best Picture is kind of sort of settled. You could say the Everything Everywhere All at Once year was kind of sort of settled, you know, this has been happening. Coda was the last real surprise.

• 12:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And Everything Everywhere All at Once was just how many awards, like other Oscars, can it pick up along the way?

• 12:47Sean Fennessey?

  Correct. And it became ultimately a very big juggernaut and won several acting awards, which in retrospect, so strange. I like that movie, but it's so strange.

• 12:57Sean Fennessey?

  Is this a bad thing?

• 12:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I think Oscar season is too long. I think that we should not be having to stretch this out until March 15th. I don't think it's good for the, you know, award season, and I don't think it's good for the rest of the movies.

• 13:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I think, you know, we're now experiencing the two-month hole in January and February of anything like serious. And that's not totally fair, because like a lot of the international films and smaller films will be rolled out, which is, I guess, is like a proven release plan.

• 13:31Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's good for No Other Choice, which is kind of on the fringes of the Oscar race, but you know, it's not like Serat is going to make $25 million at the box office. So you're right that it gives a window to start releasing some of these movies, but none of these movies are going to play on 3,000 screens.

• 13:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 13:45Sean Fennessey?

  I find this year to be particularly strange. Last year, it started, the Oscars were the first week of March. And that was great.

• 13:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And they had been moving them back a bit.

• 13:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And so now we're back to March 15th. If the show happened on February 15th, what is lost? I'm not sure I understand. I know that there's maybe more money in the gears for F Y C to kind of keep building and building anticipation, but I don't know, it does, it's feeling like we're going to get too far away from the year in some ways. And we're going to be six full months out from the one battle release. And it's like, what will the celebration of that movie even look like? In the same way, you know, this is kind of mild nitpicking about the process, but I think when you, when you sense that these movies get this level of momentum where they can't be stopped, and in the case of Everything Everywhere All at Once, it came out the previous March. So you have one year of ceaseless domination.

• 14:37Sean Fennessey?

  It's just boring. It's even boring for the awards watchers.

• 14:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 14:40Sean Fennessey?

  And so if this were sports, the competition committees would come along and they would say like, what rules do we need to change? How do we mix this up to make this more interesting? You know, the NFL does this, NBA does this.

• 14:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. All of the NFL's rules are absolutely maddening, so.

• 14:57Sean Fennessey?

  And sometimes they get it wrong. Like, the NBA's end of game review process right now is a fiasco. It's a nightmare. It ruins the experience of watching games, watching fourth quarters of basketball games. But they will at least consider it. The Academy is obviously considering a lot of changes. They're going to YouTube. They're adding a category this year. They're adding another category two years from now. Some things are underway. I don't know if this is a solvable issue, but it's something that I have been thinking about as somebody who spends a lot of time thinking about this stuff.

• 15:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that, I mean, I just think they should move it up. I also think the Emmys should move to late January. And we just have award season. We like bracket it all, award show season. We bracket it all together. We schedule around the Super Bowl.

• 15:34Sean Fennessey?

  Country Music Awards as well.

• 15:35Amanda Dobbins?

  When are those? I don't know.

• 15:38Sean Fennessey?

  August.

• 15:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Every once in a while, there's like a, you know, it's like the Billboard Awards. And you're just like, oh, okay. Like, who showed up to the airplane hangar tonight?

• 15:44Sean Fennessey?

  Should The Ringer do an award show? I'm serious.

• 15:47Amanda Dobbins?

  We do. You and I do an award show alternative.

• 15:49Sean Fennessey?

  Sort of, you know. I'll be wearing like a black sweater and, you know.

• 15:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Would it be sports and pop culture?

• 15:54Sean Fennessey?

  I think so, yeah.

• 15:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Would you be the host?

• 15:56Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I didn't say that. Hopefully, we would hire a professional to do that.

• 16:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. You've always wanted to be a game show host. It's close enough.

• 16:03Sean Fennessey?

  Not quite the same.

• 16:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Would we reveal the vote tallies?

• 16:06Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, 100%.

• 16:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, 1,000%.

• 16:08Sean Fennessey?

  But who is the voting body?

• 16:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And then no one shows up. Me.

• 16:12Sean Fennessey?

  Then no one would show up. Yeah, we should do that. I'm sure people would. There would be no controversy around that.

• 16:18Amanda Dobbins?

  They need to move it up. And you know the reason I do, I feel that the late March, like February, March.

• 16:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Is old and is predicated on like the December 31st eligibility, eligibility, whatever you can say it window and the fact that for a long time and still the smaller films all rush in in the last two weeks before December. And so you needed to give air for all of the films to be released. But as you identified, you know, One Battle was September, Everything Everywhere was March, Oppenheimer was July. So now that the, the release schedule has changed and we're living with a lot of these movies for a lot longer, you don't have to give the room on the other side.

• 17:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I don't, I think this isn't something that's going to solve whatever the issue is with award shows in particular, but it is an interesting thing where the elongation, I think, has diminished some interest. Um, do you think there's a fake out happening at the Precursors right now? Someone who's been winning awards or who's been showing up. You know, you mentioned that the Kathleen Chalfant win for National Society Film Critics was a very critics' style pick, shining a light on an underseen film, even a film that even a lot of pundits really haven't spent any time with. And so that's what the critical bodies can do. That's not really a fake out. A fake out is like Rose Byrne wins nine critical awards and then is in fifth place in the best actress race because people have a hard time finishing that movie. You know what I mean?

• 17:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Extremely rude. And also, please, please finish that film. The ending is wonderful.

• 17:52Sean Fennessey?

  It's an imaginary example of something that can happen.

• 17:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think that that's a fake out, though. That is, I think, some, some, not even false confidence. I don't think that she's going to win. You know, I think you're probably right that it will be Jessie Buckley, but I do think she'll be nominated and we're going to do Golden Globes predictions later on. I think we may see her on Sunday night.

• 18:10Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that'll be interesting.

• 18:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Because of the category split. And so then maybe that's like a different fake, you know, maybe that's a, to me more, um, oh, look, maybe it actually can happen after the Golden Globe speech. True fake outs. I mean, I do think Jacob Elordi will be nominated. I don't think that he's going to win with respect to the Critics' Choice Awards. I think it's always a good idea to have Jacob Elordi at your awards show.

• 18:37Sean Fennessey?

  Elordi being the first Euphoria cast member to win an Academy Award would be interesting. Would be interesting. How many Euphoria cast members will win Academy Awards in their careers?

• 18:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Zendaya, Elordi.

• 18:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Hunter Schafer. I, I, do you think it's gonna happen for Sydney? You think that that's her trajectory?

• 18:57Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I don't, but the Housemaid sequel was just greenlit, so you never know. Could be 2027. No, I mean, you've got Maude Apatow.

• 19:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Who's gonna be in the sequel?

• 19:08Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, that's a really good question. I mean, the avenging housemaids, you know, it's gonna be like an Avengers style thing where they all team up.

• 19:14Amanda Dobbins?

  There's a new one? No, she goes to a new house, but so like, who's the new house?

• 19:18Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm, good question. Catherine Hahn?

• 19:21Amanda Dobbins?

  That'd be great. That would be really good. Yeah, don't like, you know, Catherine Hahn. I don't know whether she needs help, you know, but I guess she could.

• 19:30Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, like she could do it herself?

• 19:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I guess, I guess the setup is that she is.

• 19:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's Catherine Hahn and David Harbour.

• 19:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you watch Stranger Things?

• 19:41Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 19:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Me, I mean, I just.

• 19:42Sean Fennessey?

  I did watch the first two seasons. And I began the third season and I said, no, thanks.

• 19:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I watched a few episodes. I've just been checking in with people, just like a thumbs up, thumbs down.

• 19:51Sean Fennessey?

  It's actually quite nice for there to be a big cultural event happening that I have no part of. I feel a kind of a sense of relief. And I, I've never once heard someone discussing the show and thought, I really should catch up with that. No shots to anybody who made it, that just doesn't interest me at all.

• 20:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 20:06Sean Fennessey?

  I'm trying to think of who, I mean, Maude Apatow has a movie that she directed coming out in May. Poetic License, which played a Tiff, which people seem to really like. I haven't seen that yet. So she strikes me as someone who could legitimately win an Academy Award. She's an actor, she's gonna be a writer-director. Who else is in that cast? Who are the other, who are the other cast members?

• 20:22Amanda Dobbins?

  We've gone past my knowledge of Euphoria.

• 20:24Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Euphoria, great show. Honestly, I love it. It's insane. It doesn't seem like it's made under the safest circumstances. I quite enjoy it.

• 20:33Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if there's another big fake out. Is Timmy a fake out? Is, has this been Leo's Oscar all along? Is the thing.

• 20:39Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I, I mean, right now, what I'm operating under is Timmy and Leo cancel each other out and it's Wagner Mora.

• 20:45Sean Fennessey?

  You genuinely think that's gonna happen?

• 20:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Right now, that's what I'm thinking about. You gotta think about the international voter base and you gotta think about where the votes are going. And Timmy's trying to tile it, dial it down now. And like be a sweet guy and, you know, thank his foundation, which is a person and not an actual foundation, as Amanda Seyfried commented on Instagram, which is why she is number one forever.

• 21:08Amanda Dobbins?

  She was like, oh, she means, he means like her person. I was confused.

• 21:12Sean Fennessey?

  Who's his foundation?

• 21:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Kylie Jenner.

• 21:15Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, oh, like the foundation, she's my foundation as a human being.

• 21:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's what he said.

• 21:20Sean Fennessey?

  Right, not his charity.

• 21:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Anyway, so Timmy's dialing it down.

• 21:25Sean Fennessey?

  Amanda Seyfried said this on Instagram? She just went live on Instagram?

• 21:28Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, she just commented. She's just like, she just commented, oh, he means like a person. I was confused.

• 21:34Sean Fennessey?

  Commented where?

• 21:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Like in the Instagram comments, I think on someone aggregating it.

• 21:40Sean Fennessey?

  Why is she doing that?

• 21:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Get on high. I don't know, because people have fun. Women in their 40s, it's what we do.

• 21:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's, that's exactly what I was thinking. Women in our 40s, we have fun. That's what we do.

• 21:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Jennifer Worsley, she gets in fights on TikTok.

• 21:52Sean Fennessey?

  Jennifer Worsley's like 32.

• 21:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. That's why I said Instagram was for women in their 40s.

• 21:57Sean Fennessey?

  Amanda Seyfried cooking right now.

• 21:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Amazing stuff.

• 21:59Sean Fennessey?

  Testament of Ann Lee. I talked to Mona Fassbender on the show yesterday. Genius. Awesome, awesome conversation. And yeah, she talked about what Amanda Seyfried did for like 14 months making that movie is astonishing. While also, I guess, checking Instagram and commenting on Timothy Chalamet's speeches. Love her.

• 22:15Amanda Dobbins?

  That was, that was on Sunday.

• 22:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 22:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, Timmy's dialing it down.

• 22:19Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 22:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Leo is literally like vlogging from Jeff Bezos's yacht, you know?

• 22:24Sean Fennessey?

  He's not literally vlogging. What do you, this is being recorded. You can't just say shit like that. He's not vlogging.

• 22:31Amanda Dobbins?

  He said a video acceptance speech.

• 22:35Sean Fennessey?

  All right.

• 22:36Amanda Dobbins?

  There's an H.G. Wells book in the background of that.

• 22:39Sean Fennessey?

  Is that true?

• 22:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm pretty sure.

• 22:41Sean Fennessey?

  Which book?

• 22:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I, no, I think it just said H.G. Wells. I like zoomed in.

• 22:44Sean Fennessey?

  Like a biography of H.G. Wells? That's truly dystopian.

• 22:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 22:47Sean Fennessey?

  To be on that yacht and reading H.G. Wells.

• 22:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I, listen, it hasn't been confirmed to me that that was the yacht's library, but it sure looked like the yacht of a library, you know, the library of a yacht owned by a man who ruined the book industry. So.

• 23:05Sean Fennessey?

  HG Wells Power Rankings, go. Top 10 novels.

• 23:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I have not read any HG Wells novels.

• 23:10Sean Fennessey?

  War of the Worlds.

• 23:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, yeah, it's a good one. So...

• 23:12Sean Fennessey?

  Time Machine. Doctor Moreau?

• 23:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen.

• 23:16Sean Fennessey?

  That's three.

• 23:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 23:18Sean Fennessey?

  I can think of some more.

• 23:19Amanda Dobbins?

  That's good. Can't name 16 Austin novels, but can't name Pride and Prejudice, but that's okay.

• 23:23Sean Fennessey?

  HG Wells is a man.

• 23:25Amanda Dobbins?

  And they're, you know, they're both working with it, but I do think that they attract a similar kind of voter, but are you a Leo or are you a...

• 23:35Sean Fennessey?

  Women in their 40s?

• 23:41Amanda Dobbins?

  And then, anyway, I, I, right now, I'm not picking Tabe to win. So if you consider that a fake out, then yes.

• 23:49Sean Fennessey?

  It's a, it's a really, it's, it is the coolest race to me. Because you've got a ton of really worthy contenders. We haven't even talked about MBJ. You've got MBJ, Wagner Mora, Timothy Chalamet, Ethan Hawke, and Leo is a sick category. That's an awesome and incredibly deserving group. It's possible other people get in that we're not thinking of, but that feels like the five to me. And if that's the case, it'll be a fun one to talk about. Okay, number two, what movie will you be sick of discussing by March 15th? Because we do have two more months of this.

• 24:16Amanda Dobbins?

  You mean Frankenstein?

• 24:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Will we even discuss it that much, I guess?

• 24:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, I, I mean, I do think that it's gonna get a raft of nominations, right? Like, I don't think Jingle Lordy is gonna win, but the, you know, the support for Frankenstein is not fake. It's real.

• 24:30Sean Fennessey?

  Probably gonna be around eight, I would guess, yeah.

• 24:33Amanda Dobbins?

  And I did, you know, I thought all of their productions design and the creature design was like spectacular.

• 24:38Sean Fennessey?

  It is good.

• 24:39Amanda Dobbins?

  But I mean, like, how many times you can say, like, what they like, you know, he really, he looked like a tall monster, you know?

• 24:46Sean Fennessey?

  He looks like he belongs actually in a Spider-Man movie? But I thought that was kind of ingenious, that they just kind of dispensed with our expectations of what that monster was gonna look like entirely.

• 24:55Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I, I thought it was very cool. I like all of it, but like, I don't know if I have two and a half months of...

• 25:00Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 25:00Amanda Dobbins?

  They, they really did that.

• 25:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, that's obviously the movie that I like the least that is competing heavily. Although I don't really know what the Academy thinks of Wicked for Good. I don't know what I don't know what any of these bodies think. That's something that I think will be revealed to us over the next four or five days is, is that movie more in because it's so Hollywood because it's the conclusion of a big stage show? Because John M Chu is a real ambassador for Hollywood and he's got a lot of supporters. I don't know, I could see a world where like, the worm turns on that and everybody like us who thought they were so smart because they realized that this movie stinks. Like, sometimes it doesn't matter. Sometimes a lot of movies that we think are legitimately bad movies get nominated for Best Picture.

• 25:40Amanda Dobbins?

  True.

• 25:40Sean Fennessey?

  You know, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close or Incredibly Close and whatever the, Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud. What's the name of that movie?

• 25:46Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, well, I was about to say Up Close and Personal.

• 25:49Sean Fennessey?

  The Magician's Nephew?

• 25:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, those movies, movies like that get through all the time.

• 25:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 25:58Sean Fennessey?

  The Artist won like five Oscars.

• 26:00Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true. Do you think Nouvelle Vague is gonna get in?

• 26:03Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that would be a cool surprise.

• 26:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:05Sean Fennessey?

  That would be a cool, it was, did it make the international shortlist? It didn't, right? For France? Wasn't submitted as the French film for the international shortlist? I don't, I don't remember how that shook out. Am I losing my mind right now?

• 26:16Amanda Dobbins?

  No, but, but it was just an accident as the French pick.

• 26:19Sean Fennessey?

  You're right, excuse me. Yes, they tried to submit Nouvelle Vague, but France chose it was just an accident. Thank you. Okay, so here's the last one.

• 26:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:28Sean Fennessey?

  What movie should we do another episode about?

• 26:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 26:31Sean Fennessey?

  To celebrate ahead of the ceremony or to dig deeper ahead of the ceremony?

• 26:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Sinners? Just because it's been a while?

• 26:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. It's a good idea.

• 26:41Amanda Dobbins?

  And, you know, I can finally see the, the end credits. But I think there, there's just like been a lot more, I, I think we could talk about like, the history and all the references and, you know, a lot more about like production choices, the score, all of that stuff. And that seems, that's, it's, that was April.

• 26:58Sean Fennessey?

  It was April. It was April. It was a long time ago. Yeah, actually, even just hanging out with, Jack and Van yesterday after we were recording, like, we were just talking about, all the movies this past 12 months and. You know, some of his feelings about Sinners, and it was like a long time ago. And we had a conversation with him on the show. We talked to Chris on the show about it, but it was a lot of like the excitement.

• 27:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 27:18Sean Fennessey?

  When we first saw it, and then the weird, why is everyone pocket watching this movie?

• 27:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 27:24Sean Fennessey?

  And then it kind of faded away. And the movie has a lot of detractors, too. You know, that's the thing is it's critically acclaimed. There's obviously like a racist level of detractors, but even if you remove that, I think there are a lot of people who were like, this is kind of a mishmash of like three or four other movies, and they don't like it as much for those reasons. I obviously, I love movies like that.

• 27:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's, that's what is cool about it.

• 27:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's like, that's an amazing synthesis of styles. But I think kind of, you're right, digging through some of those details would be a lot of fun on an episode. Okay, you want to predict some Golden Globes?

• 27:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I told you before we started recording that I, I did my homework, but I haven't made any decision. There are a few categories where I haven't made the decisions.

• 28:00Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 28:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And I'm, so I'm gonna do it live, which you, you didn't flare an nostrils when I told you, so.

• 28:08Sean Fennessey?

  No, I think that's fine. We can talk it out.

• 28:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:11Sean Fennessey?

  Was one of them the Cinematic and Box Office Achievement Award?

• 28:14Amanda Dobbins?

  It was.

• 28:14Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. I, I have a pretty clean answer for this one.

• 28:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 28:18Sean Fennessey?

  Which is, I believe it will be Avatar: Fire and Ash.

• 28:20Amanda Dobbins?

  You do?

• 28:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 28:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 28:21Sean Fennessey?

  Because I think that this movie is once again extremely powerful and more powerful in both arenas than people expected. That it is still a great filmmaking spectacle and also is, you know, pushing towards 1.5 billion dollars. So I could be wrong.

• 28:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:39Sean Fennessey?

  But it now appears to be on the outside of the Oscar race. And because of that, this is a way to honor what is a movie that is like killing in theaters right now.

• 28:48Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a good argument. I wouldn't be surprised.

• 28:51Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 28:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I believe that the Barbie Oppenheimer year, this is the award that went to Barbie.

• 28:57Sean Fennessey?

  It is.

• 28:58Amanda Dobbins?

  So my instinct has thus been is this.

• 29:02Sean Fennessey?

  Sinners?

• 29:02Amanda Dobbins?

  This goes to Sinners.

• 29:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 29:03Amanda Dobbins?

  And the other, and listen, and I, I want to be clear, I'm not advocating for what I'm about to say, but if they give Sinners Box Office and Cinematic Achievement, then it opens up drama. To do one of the international features.

• 29:18Sean Fennessey?

  Oh.

• 29:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And there are so many.

• 29:21Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, you know, the discourse will be super obnoxious if that happens.

• 29:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course it will. But don't forget, they like quote unquote redid things, but it's the Golden Globes.

• 29:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:29Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think you just, you gotta look, we were both very surprised by the number of international features that made both categories, that made screenplay, that made, you know, a lot of,

• 29:42Amanda Dobbins?

  a lot of categories.

• 29:43Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 29:44Amanda Dobbins?

  So I am curious whether they do Sinners here and then do something else. So I'm just gonna say Sinners here and then I'll make my best drama decision later.

• 29:55Sean Fennessey?

  It's great that we're different on that and I think that's insightful. Would be an interesting outcome. It could also win both.

• 30:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's be very clear that I think this is an insulting category and.

• 30:06Sean Fennessey?

  Sorry, your movie wasn't good enough for us to nominate you in a best drama category.

• 30:09Amanda Dobbins?

  And that Sinners deserves best drama. It's also, it's ironic that like Frankenstein, because it was a Netflix film, is not eligible for this because this is the most Frankenstein shit of all time.

• 30:19Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great point. There's this whole raft of a certain kind of movie that should be eligible here. And wasn't Taylor Swift, the Eras Tour nominated last year in this category? Like there's a, you know, is that a movie even? You know, it's a concert film, I suppose, but this is all, I, you know, I think there's a strong case in this category for F1.

• 30:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought you might go there.

• 30:39Sean Fennessey?

  F1 is definitely, and F1 to me feels like a more fitting victor, you know, because it's an original film. It played huge internationally. It's Apple's first really big win.

• 30:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:51Sean Fennessey?

  And it's a way to kind of keep them involved in the Golden Globes game in a way too, because they're not going to really have any other wins going down the line here.

• 30:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Are we gonna do like some infographic of this where I pick Sinners and then, and whatever, and people yell at me and call me racist? Because I really, I don't want to do that.

• 31:05Sean Fennessey?

  It's all up to you.

• 31:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, great.

• 31:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Because I don't believe that that's what should happen.

• 31:10Sean Fennessey?

  I will personally draw the infographic. I will draw your portrait. I will write all the correct answers that are the most racist seeming for you.

• 31:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I do not agree with what I am predicting.

• 31:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I know. This is the problem with this. So, I mean, the other thing is K-pop Demon Hunters was a Netflix movie. Is clearly a huge achievement. It's one of the most streamed movies of the year. When they deigned to put it in theaters, it made a shitload of money. But it's not really a wide release movie. So this, it's a really interesting category. And then we're not even talking about Zootopia 2, which is gonna make $2 billion.

• 31:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:44Sean Fennessey?

  It's fucking crazy. Movies are back. Have you heard about this?

• 31:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:48Sean Fennessey?

  They're fucking back.

• 31:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. It's very exciting.

• 31:50Sean Fennessey?

  It's so good. You know what else was a big hit, actually, in the same vein as Sinners? And if Sinners was not here, Weapons would be a good case for this, too. This is a dumb category that does create some interesting discussion. How about that?

• 32:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I think this category is stupidly responding to a wish and a desire that we and many other people have, which is to see like, good, big-budget entertainment represented at awards shows.

• 32:16Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 32:17Amanda Dobbins?

  And if you, like, it can be done very poorly. It can be done very well. But when you do it very well and you pull it off, it is like an art of a kind. And it's a different type of art than One Battle After Another or Sinners. But, and you know, Sinners is like, does it all. And that is like a very special achievement. But I think we think that achievement is just like the best of achievement, rather than some asterisk category.

• 32:44Sean Fennessey?

  Where is a Minecraft movie in this category? Where is it?

• 32:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:48Sean Fennessey?

  Why is it not here? Is Wicked for Good so dramatically better than a Minecraft movie? I'm not so sure. I'm not sure you could convince me of that. And did it inspire the same fervor?

• 32:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 33:00Sean Fennessey?

  Than a Minecraft movie?

• 33:01Amanda Dobbins?

  You live in a Wicked for Good house.

• 33:03Sean Fennessey?

  Sure do.

• 33:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Or do you listen to the Wicked songs or Wicked for Good songs more right now?

• 33:08Sean Fennessey?

  You know what we're really enjoying, and honestly, I'm enjoying this as well, is the one night only performance of Wicked.

• 33:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, sure.

• 33:15Sean Fennessey?

  With Ariana Grande and Cynthia Arivo at the Dolby Theatre. And then I think they performed one song from Wicked for Good. And that, some bangers on that.

• 33:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Have you ever been to the Dolby Theatre?

• 33:25Sean Fennessey?

  Certainly.

• 33:26Amanda Dobbins?

  You have?

• 33:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 33:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I went for the first time this year because the Los Angeles Ballet performs The Nutcracker at the Dolby Theatre, took my son. I just, we could use a spruce up. Do you know what I'm saying?

• 33:38Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 33:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I was like, wow, they have, well, I just, they have the Oscars there. And I was like, I, you know, I can, we could use some upgraded chairs. I feel for these people a little.

• 33:48Sean Fennessey?

  The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was no great shakes either, you know? It's, it's an award show. It's not a, it's not a luxury home.

• 33:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I was just kind of like, everyone must be pretty uncomfortable.

• 33:59Sean Fennessey?

  That's actually one of the things that we didn't talk about with YouTube getting the Academy Awards is that the possibility of the show being even longer. But I think many pundits out there, I heard Katie Rich say this on Prestige Junkie, that she was like, you know, it is actually like an award show where you have to be seated. So like, they're not going to make the show seven hours. Like, they're not going to make, you know, incredibly famous people sit for that long, which was a really smart observation. That being said, make it seven hours. Just do it. I'd like to watch it. Best Original Song from a Motion Picture, the nominees in this category are Dream is One from Avatar: Fire and Ash, sung by your girl Miley Cyrus, Golden from K-pop Demon Hunters, I Lied to You from Sinners, No Place Like Home from Wicked for Good, The Girl in the Bubble from Wicked for Good, and Train Dreams.

• 34:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, which you performed on the soundtrack.

• 34:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, performed by Nick Cave.

• 34:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, Golden.

• 34:48Sean Fennessey?

  Golden.

• 34:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is great, deserving. I'm, I'm still outraged that K-pop Demon Hunters will not get multiple nominations in this category because Golden was the only song shortlisted.

• 34:58Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 34:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And generally, I think that this category is an abomination of songs played over credits by pop stars who need a check. And all the K-pop Demon Hunters songs are A, catchy, and B, woven into the film itself.

• 35:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, I agree. That is the strongest case for it, is that they are

• 35:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 35:18Sean Fennessey?

  essential to the telling of the story.

• 35:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but no one consulted me.

• 35:23Sean Fennessey?

  Best motion picture animated. Now, historically, you tend to rely on some friends of the show.

• 35:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, I didn't, I didn't text Griffin and David on this one, though. Hi, Griffin and David. I love you.

• 35:37Sean Fennessey?

  They, David was amused by your concern over Narnia. He let me know, just so you know.

• 35:43Amanda Dobbins?

  David, you have my phone number.

• 35:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I have seen three of the six films on this list already. Look at me.

• 35:53Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, so you've seen Demon Slayer, Kimetsu No Yaiba, Infinity Castle. Impressive. Uh, the nominees here are Arco, Demon Slayer, ELEO, K-pop Demon Hunters, Little Amelie, or The Character of Rain, and Zootopia 2. I'd like to take a moment to speak to you about Little Amelie.

• 36:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Or The Character of Rain?

• 36:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I watched this film. I watched it with my daughter. The film is in French.

• 36:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 36:15Sean Fennessey?

  She watched the whole movie.

• 36:16Amanda Dobbins?

  That's adorable.

• 36:17Sean Fennessey?

  Doesn't read. Doesn't, doesn't read subtitles.

• 36:19Amanda Dobbins?

  She's getting there.

• 36:21Sean Fennessey?

  Is it French or Belgian? I can't remember. I think it's about a Belgian family that moves to Japan. And, um, this two-year-old girl, like two-and-a-half-year-old girl, a young toddler, kind of experiencing the world, making this connection with her nanny in Japan. And, um, it is beautiful. I thought it was a beautiful movie.

• 36:42Amanda Dobbins?

  That's wonderful.

• 36:43Sean Fennessey?

  And I hope more people get a chance to see it. It was actually quite fascinating to sit with Alice and watch something and not talk, and not be in English and her to be completely mesmerized by it.

• 36:55Amanda Dobbins?

  What did she ask you afterwards, or like what?

• 36:58Sean Fennessey?

  Nothing.

• 36:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Nothing, okay.

• 36:59Sean Fennessey?

  She didn't feel the need to have it explained to her. I think she understood it well enough by observing it. It's really a beautifully made movie, a hand-drawn animation. And, um, I liked it. It has a 0% chance of winning in this category, and it would be the least seen film in this category by a wide margin. Arco probably next in line there, which is a cool movie, that Neon released. The others are really the big hitters, and I, I have to assume this is K-pop Demon Hunters.

• 37:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I do as well.

• 37:25Sean Fennessey?

  But there's a case for Zootopia 2.

• 37:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 37:28Sean Fennessey?

  Big hit, people love it. Demon Slayer would be really bold. Me personally, I would have gone Chainsaw Man.

• 37:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 37:34Sean Fennessey?

  But maybe an acknowledgement of the anime craze?

• 37:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:38Sean Fennessey?

  And what it means to theatrical movie going right now around the world?

• 37:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:42Sean Fennessey?

  Would be kind of a cool stroke.

• 37:43Amanda Dobbins?

  They-

• 37:44Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't seen Demon Slayer, by the way.

• 37:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Nor have I. W Mag released its best performances of the year issue and, you know, they do the accompanying videos with Lynn Hershberg.

• 37:53Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And Michael B. Jordan's answer to the last movie that made him cry were, was, first of all, Armageddon, which makes him cry every time, which is same, Michael B. Jordan. And then I don't remember the name of the anime, anime movie, but he explains it. And it was like, it was the fifth season and then a whole, I guess it was a show. It was very beautiful and it made me moved, even though-

• 38:13Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, we gotta find out what that was. It wasn't one of these movies? It wasn't Chainsaw Man?

• 38:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think so.

• 38:18Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, cool. Chainsaw Man's so confusing because it is a sequel to a season of television.

• 38:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. We've seen that before. Yeah, it's called Downton Abbey.

• 38:28Sean Fennessey?

  Great point. Although there were like four seasons of Downton Abbey.

• 38:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Can I just say to you, salute to you for Downton Abbey, the finale or whatever in your top 50.

• 38:38Sean Fennessey?

  Movie was great.

• 38:38Amanda Dobbins?

  It was great.

• 38:39Sean Fennessey?

  I had a ball. We had a ball.

• 38:41Amanda Dobbins?

  We did, but I just like, you know, real ones, no. And I, I dip, I tip my hat to you.

• 38:47Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you. Thank you for acknowledging it. And you know, we love what we love.

• 38:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Also, wherever you put Hamnet was really funny. It's sandwiched in between two things. I was like, that's my guy. Uh, you know-

• 38:56Sean Fennessey?

  I don't even remember being so surgical.

• 38:58Amanda Dobbins?

  You're crazy, but it was good stuff.

• 39:00Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I have strongly held beliefs. Best original score?

• 39:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:04Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting category here.

• 39:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:06Sean Fennessey?

  There's a big surprise in this one. The nominees were Alexander Desplat for Frankenstein, Ludwig Oranson for Sinners, Johnny Greenwood for One Battle After Another, Kang Ding Rae for Serat, Max Richter for Hamnet, and Hans Zimmer for F1. I don't think Hans Zimmer or Kang Ding Rae are getting in at the Academy Awards. I could be wrong about that.

• 39:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, I don't know. I, Serat was big on the shortlist, which surprised us both. And I think that is a bit of a reflection of the people who vote both on the shortlist and who watch all the international features are more disciplined than your average-

• 39:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 39:40Amanda Dobbins?

  voter. But, you know, it has awareness. And then it was on, I want to say IndieWire's survey of the director's favorite movies of the year. There was a lot of Serat and there was a lot of New Belvog.

• 39:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Serat episode coming. We gotta figure out when we're gonna do that.

• 39:58Sean Fennessey?

  I'd like to, there's a couple of scores from this year that I feel like are a little overlooked.

• 40:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 40:02Sean Fennessey?

  I kinda made fun of Furskin Hendricks, Jen- Jen- Jerskin, Fendricks's score from Poor Things a couple of years ago.

• 40:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:10Sean Fennessey?

  But I thought what he did with Begonia was amazing, and I listen to it quite frequently. I really like it. I've been listening to a lot of scores lately.

• 40:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 40:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Just being like, and now, let me cue up the Begonia score is another incredible insight into your life. What type of day are you putting on the Begonia score?

• 40:28Sean Fennessey?

  Any old time.

• 40:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 40:30Sean Fennessey?

  At dawn, at dusk, as I, as I go to bed?

• 40:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I read your, you know, top 100 movies of the year, like in my kitchen during breakfast, while my children scream, like we're banging measuring cups and the Marty Supreme score was playing.

• 40:47Sean Fennessey?

  Many people are saying that my list making is the soma of life and that we can get through the hard times by looking at lists that I have created. Nalys and Nefros' score for The Smashing Machine is unbelievable, is an amazing work of composition. And that movie got, has gotten kicked a lot in the last few months. I know a lot of people don't like it. I like it. I now think it's like underrated relative to the Marty Supreme craze. And I think one of the ingenious aspects of it is this score. I would love to see something like that around here.

• 41:16Amanda Dobbins?

  The score over the, the fighting sequences and it's, the way it's married to the way that those are shot.

• 41:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 41:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and, and cut. It's, it is beautiful.

• 41:25Sean Fennessey?

  Totally. I love that so much. I mean, obviously, we've been talking about Daniel Lopatton's score for Marty Supreme, which is not nominated here. I would love to see it nominated at the Academy Awards. Trying to think what are some other ones that I've really clicked on. Can you just vamp for a second while I open up my playlist that I built?

• 41:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:38Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you.

• 41:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Sue, would you like me to make my prediction here?

• 41:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, sure.

• 41:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Or just talk to, I mean, there's, there, I think it will be Ludwig Garenson for Sinners. But it could go Johnny Greenwood. I don't think it will, actually.

• 41:53Sean Fennessey?

  He hasn't won.

• 41:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but I don't really think that the Golden Globes care about that. And you could see Alexander Desplat for Frankenstein, because I keep, which, like, I don't agree with, but...

• 42:07Sean Fennessey?

  I really didn't like that score.

• 42:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't like it either, but it's, it's not, this is, again, this is not what we would do. It is what we think the Golden Globes would do, and I think they're gonna be looking for some Frankenstein opportunities.

• 42:17Sean Fennessey?

  Alexander Desplat and Ludwig Garenson are both two-time winners.

• 42:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Again, it's-

• 42:23Sean Fennessey?

  That's crazy. He won for Grand Budapest and Shape of Water, and Ludwig won for Black Panther and for Oppenheimer. So overlooking Johnny Greenwood again, even though this isn't my favorite Johnny Greenwood score, I personally much prefer, at times, There Will Be Blood and The Master and Phantom Thread. I think all three of those are superior to this, but it's the most different and the most varied-

• 42:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:47Sean Fennessey?

  -in terms of the different instruments that he applies, the different tones and moods that he's using. So, I don't know.

• 42:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I am thinking more about the entire ballad and where people- and I do think that one battle is gonna have enough representation in other places-

• 43:06Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 43:06Amanda Dobbins?

  -that people are gonna be like, I don't know, I should- I mean, you could make the case that Serat is so surprising that there's just like enthusiasm for it, and then they'll suddenly be onstage at the Golden Globes.

• 43:15Sean Fennessey?

  I know.

• 43:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think that that's gonna happen.

• 43:18Sean Fennessey?

  I don't wanna be smart to score too much, but it is like starter kit club music. You know, like, it's just, it's rave music. It's well-applied in the film, but is there anything like audacious or creative or overwhelming about it? I mean, to me, that's like, that would be a prize for the filmmaking choice, not for the actual composition of the score, but you know what? It's maybe everything all at once. Couple of other scores I wanted to shout out. Christopher Baer, your guy from Grizzly Bear, did the score for Roof Man.

• 43:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 43:42Sean Fennessey?

  Really good. David Holmes, as always, crushed it on Black Bag, working with Steven Soderbergh. Jung Ja Il on Mickey 17, working again with Bong Joon Ho. The Holiday Brothers on Weapons, a longtime friends of Zach Craigers. I love their work. I did like Bryce Desner's work. I'm not a National fan, but I did think his work on Train Dreams was really nice.

• 44:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, beautiful.

• 44:06Sean Fennessey?

  Vocal Birdman in House of Dynamite. You know, a movie that I'm really mixed on, but I think his score is quite good.

• 44:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, very good.

• 44:13Sean Fennessey?

  Daniel Pemberton for Materialist.

• 44:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 44:16Sean Fennessey?

  Lot of really good scores this year, so I just wanted to shout some of them out. Okay. Um, next category.

• 44:21Amanda Dobbins?

  You'll have another opportunity. We have two and a half more months of-

• 44:24Sean Fennessey?

  You're right.

• 44:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Who did you pick?

• 44:26Sean Fennessey?

  Sean, you need to make your pick. I'm gonna pick Johnny Greenwood just to mix it up. Because I think you're right that Ludwig is gonna win, but to me, we need to kinda see if the Johnny Greenwood thing can happen here.

• 44:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 44:35Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Best Motion Picture, Non-English Language. It Was Just an Accident, No Other Choice, Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Serat, The Voice of Hindra Job.

• 44:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I'm going with Secret Agent here.

• 44:45Sean Fennessey?

  I wrote it was just an accident.

• 44:46Amanda Dobbins?

  So here's the thing.

• 44:48Sean Fennessey?

  What is the thing?

• 44:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Secret Agent has one other nomination on this, on this page.

• 44:55Sean Fennessey?

  Smart.

• 44:55Amanda Dobbins?

  And It Was Just An Accident is everywhere else. Now, that suggests, I think I did have It Was Just An Accident. I think instinctively I wrote that and then deleted it and put Secret Agent because there aren't that many other places where they can reward Secret Agent.

• 45:09Sean Fennessey?

  It was just an accident has four nominations total.

• 45:12Amanda Dobbins?

  So I, but I think that there's such enthusiasm for The Secret Agent.

• 45:18Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I'll go with that.

• 45:20Amanda Dobbins?

  They're gonna pick the opportunity here and they can maybe like parcel it out to It Was Just An Accident somewhere else.

• 45:26Sean Fennessey?

  Sounds really smart.

• 45:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. I mean, it could, it could also, the other way to read it is It Was Just An Accident has four other nominations, so they really love it. So they're giving it to It Was Just An Accident. So maybe I'm being stupid.

• 45:38Sean Fennessey?

  Because The Golden Globes is such a smaller body relative to the Academy Awards or even some of the big guild votes. They can dole out awards to a variety of different films. So the way that you're thinking about it is, it makes a lot of sense. And they can be more strategic in terms of getting more people up on stage and more films spread around. Whereas at the Oscars, in the last four or five years, it's been a little bit more of like one film wins four, five, six Oscars. And you get this consensus building for films around, around that time. So I think that makes sense. That being said.

• 46:14Sean Fennessey?

  It Was Just An Accident is a huge statement.

• 46:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree. I mean, I think it is gonna show up. Like, I argued both sides of it.

• 46:20Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I'm going, this is good, we're splitting.

• 46:22Amanda Dobbins?

  And mine also like gives a lot more credit to the voters than perhaps they have evidence that they deserve.

• 46:28Sean Fennessey?

  I suspect that this thinking will come up again in this next category, which is best performance by a female in a supporting role. Nominees are Emily Blunt for The Smashing Machine, Elle Fanning for Sentimental Value, Ariana Grande for Wicked for Good. Inga Ibsdottir-Lilias for Sentimental Value, Amy Madigan for Weapons, and Tiana Taylor for One Battle After Another.

• 46:44Amanda Dobbins?

  We forgot Ariana Grande in our supporting actress discussion. I do think that will happen.

• 46:48Sean Fennessey?

  You do think it will happen, but you don't think Cynthia Erivo will happen?

• 46:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't say that.

• 46:52Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 46:52Amanda Dobbins?

  You were putting that into, I said that we would see how much she wants to work it, but I do think that Ariana Grande, the reviews for Ariana Grande were like the big. She's so great. And everyone thinks Cynthia Erivo is great, but they were very mad about her sex cardigan, or whatever. So.

• 47:09Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if mad was the word, but um.

• 47:11Amanda Dobbins?

  They had opinions.

• 47:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there's so then there's someone missing from this list right now. If we're assuming that Emily Blunt is not in and perhaps Elle Fanning is not in as well.

• 47:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 47:19Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know who that is. Winmi Masaku?

• 47:22Amanda Dobbins?

  That would be wonderful.

• 47:23Sean Fennessey?

  Who am I forgetting? I can't remember.

• 47:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Winmi Masaku would be great.

• 47:26Sean Fennessey?

  I picked Tiana Taylor.

• 47:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 47:29Sean Fennessey?

  Considering the way that you are analyzing this.

• 47:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:31Sean Fennessey?

  You might be right that it's gonna be either Amy Madigan or Inga Ibsen or Lilius.

• 47:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I have Inga Ibsen or Lilius.

• 47:37Sean Fennessey?

  Cause this is the way to acknowledge sentimental value.

• 47:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, because I think that she is a real breakout star and also because these are, these are, they are no longer the Hollywood Foreign Correspondence Association, but.

• 47:50Sean Fennessey?

  So Hollywood Foreign Press.

• 47:52Amanda Dobbins?

  For Hollywood Foreign Press Association, that's right. And then the other made up one is the Correspondence Dinner.

• 47:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 47:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 47:58Sean Fennessey?

  That's the White House.

• 47:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I know. Well, and.

• 48:02Sean Fennessey?

  I'm hosting that this year, by the way. Did I tell you? I'm super excited. I've got a lot of great stuff lined up, a lot of good ideas.

• 48:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Can you imagine? That is, that is maybe like the only thing where I would just be like, we're done. That's like, I think literally.

• 48:14Sean Fennessey?

  Me and you?

• 48:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, literally anything else in the world you could go do. And I'm like, yeah, sure. And if you were like, what I need to do is I need to host the Correspondence Dinner.

• 48:21Sean Fennessey?

  I've been talking to Hagseth for months. It's gonna be great.

• 48:23Amanda Dobbins?

  We are on different paths and that is, I wish you well.

• 48:28Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, we gotta get our Avengers Doomsday episode in first though. Just we can't stop until I've hosted the White House Correspondence Dinner, which I don't think happens anymore. And also.

• 48:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not keeping up.

• 48:39Sean Fennessey?

  Um, nine hour pod on Doomsday.

• 48:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 48:42Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so you're going Inga Ibsen or Lilius. What happened to sentimental value? What happened?

• 48:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it's, it's coming back a little bit.

• 48:50Sean Fennessey?

  Is it?

• 48:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. You loved it. Paul Thomas Anderson loved it.

• 48:53Sean Fennessey?

  This movie's gonna win Best Picture in July.

• 48:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. I have the text message. My friend Lauren loved it, you know, so that's three people. I know.

• 49:00Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, that's quite a quorum. Um, I.

• 49:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I admire two of your, two of the three people's taste.

• 49:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I, I really thought it was gonna be stronger. And I think part of it is that Secret Agent and It Was Just an Accident have been so strong. And so there being this many international films is a relatively new phenomenon. And so the groups tend to kind of lean towards one or the other. Maybe a little bit is that it's somewhat similar to The Worst Person in the World. Maybe it doesn't feel different enough with Renate Renzve and the story of young women going in crisis and, you know, family trauma and. I don't, I don't know. I don't know. But I really, as I've said nine times now in the last three months, like, I really think that film is quite good. Particularly, it's a, it's a case where I try to not get like cranky about other critics taking movies down these days. I did that a lot in the past on this show. That's the one movie

• 49:50Sean Fennessey?

  where I read reviews of that movie and I'm like, this is such axe grinding. Like, this is such like, I can't understand it.

• 49:57Amanda Dobbins?

  There is, I mean, it's funny, there's axe grinding in the movie.

• 49:59Sean Fennessey?

  There is.

• 50:00Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, which is, which is interesting. And I think that is one of the reasons that I was, it's, it's three different movies and also one movie. And there are still moments in it. I mean, the house opening is so transcendent.

• 50:14Sean Fennessey?

  Beautiful filmmaking and writing.

• 50:15Amanda Dobbins?

  And the, and the, and the shot of the house towards the end, again, I'm a superficial person who was most affected by the, all the stuff about the house.

• 50:24Sean Fennessey?

  But that's part of the reason why it's such a great movie. I thought, I thought you were gonna love it. I was blown away that you were not that into it.

• 50:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I really, I really tried twice. But I like all the performances. Again, me and Scandinavians, you know, it's a dialogue.

• 50:39Sean Fennessey?

  It is. It sure is. That's right. You guys are figuring things out. So much in common and yet so different.

• 50:47Amanda Dobbins?

  So I just, I don't know. You know, I'm trying. I'm monitoring that situation.

• 50:52Sean Fennessey?

  If you had told me in August that the one way in which sentimental value could be honored at the Globes would be Inga Ibsdott or Lilius, I'd have been like, what the fuck?

• 51:00Amanda Dobbins?

  But like, but don't you think a little bit, maybe the award season issue is that, like, the being has become, or the robot has become sentient. And like, now all the things that we kind of talk about and, and, you know, game out or suggest, like, do you actually happen? Do you know what I mean?

• 51:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's what you were saying before. Yeah.

• 51:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess it's come online.

• 51:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Pinocchio is a real boy. Yeah. No, 100%. I think you're right. Best performance by a male actor in a supporting role. The nominees are Benicio del Toro, Jacob Elordi, Paul Meskell, Sean Penn, Adam Sandler, and Stellan Skarsgård.

• 51:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Now, there's a world in which you could do Stellan Skarsgård here for sentimental value. Is that what you're doing?

• 51:43Sean Fennessey?

  No, I chose Benicio.

• 51:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I chose Benicio del Toro.

• 51:46Sean Fennessey?

  But that doesn't, that logic doesn't really track, because this is a way to honor Frankenstein, this is a way to honor Jay Kelly, this is a way to honor other movies that aren't gonna get a look.

• 51:54Amanda Dobbins?

  It could be any of those things, but we have seen, like, the quote-unquote "new Golden Globes" is just sort of copycat. And I think Benicio is, one, just like such an incredible performance, just straight up loved it. And, two, so pervasive, like at every single awards ceremony from, you know, up till now, that they'll just be like, "Yeah, it's Benicio."

• 52:17Sean Fennessey?

  He's another one that's so interesting, because obviously, we adore what he did in the movie, and PTA and Leo have gone out of their way to talk about the ways in which he kind of brought kind of invention and creativity of that character into the structure of the movie. So I'm not, I don't, I hope this doesn't seem like I'm taking away any of his achievements, but it reminds me a little bit of the Renee Zellweger-Judy Garland win, where I'm like, "She has one." Like, why, why the rush to, I like, I like this performance in this movie a lot more than I like Judy. So I don't want to conflate the two.

• 52:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Ocean waves.

• 52:54Sean Fennessey?

  It gives me a similar feeling of like, Benicio did win in this category, a long time ago. And he's, he's obviously, like, beloved. There's, everybody thinks he's just, like, one of the great actors of our lifetime. And I'm, he's totally worthy of two. I'm just kind of like talking through an idea here, but it is interesting that someone like Stellan Skarsgård, who has also got this huge body of work.

• 53:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 53:14Sean Fennessey?

  Who's obviously very good in that film, and you can make the case that he's the lead of that movie, is like, not really even contending, it seems like, anymore? Or maybe that's one of those, like, tricks of the race right now that we're not seeing. And maybe he's stronger than we realize.

• 53:25Amanda Dobbins?

  He could be up there on Sunday. I wouldn't be surprised.

• 53:28Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 53:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess I would be surprised, but I wouldn't be like, "What?"

• 53:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. You don't hold against the kind of, like, thought process I was just going through there with Benicio, right? Like, I'm, I don't want to like-

• 53:36Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, no, not at all. I mean, I, I do- I think that we have been trained, watching these for so long, to think in the parlance and the ideology of the awards, which is like, now we gotta give someone out for this one, and it's their time, and it's all that stuff. And giving Benicio this Oscar would be, let's just give an Oscar to the best supporting performance. Like, which I think is good.

• 54:02Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 54:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's give an Oscar to the good thing, but we're not used to that. That's not how we've been brought up.

• 54:07Sean Fennessey?

  You're right. That's well put, and that is really jarring to me that we're in this new time. Best screenplay motion picture. The nominees are Paul Thomas Anderson, Ronald Bronstein, and Josh Safdie, Ryan Coogler, Jafar Panahi, Askil Vokt, and Joaquin Trier, Chloe Zhao, Maggie O'Farrell.

• 54:27Amanda Dobbins?

  So I have four different movies written here with double question marks.

• 54:32Sean Fennessey?

  There are five nominees. No, six nominees.

• 54:36Amanda Dobbins?

  So I don't think it's gonna go to Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie, though I absolutely love that movie. Josh was lovely on the podcast, by the way. I finally got to listen to it.

• 54:45Sean Fennessey?

  The man.

• 54:46Amanda Dobbins?

  And I don't think that it's going to Chloe Zhao and Maggie O'Farrell, for him.

• 54:52Sean Fennessey?

  Nor do I.

• 54:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is a screenplay I think less of. The other four, you could game, you could argue for all of them.

• 55:00Sean Fennessey?

  Plausible.

• 55:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Last year, Conclave won in this category, and the year before that, Anatomy of a Fall won in this category. So, and we really only have like-

• 55:10Sean Fennessey?

  Two pretty good screenplays, honestly.

• 55:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Two great screenplays, and two films that were nominated for Best Picture, but didn't win. One did go on to a screenplay Oscar.

• 55:21Sean Fennessey?

  Anatomy of a Fall.

• 55:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and did Conclave win as well?

• 55:23Sean Fennessey?

  Conclave did as well.

• 55:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, okay, so they both went on.

• 55:25Sean Fennessey?

  Peter Strawn.

• 55:26Amanda Dobbins?

  So I guess, in that case...

• 55:28Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's a good, those are good shouts, then.

• 55:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:31Sean Fennessey?

  So what do we think is winning here? To me, that's, I think Sinners is winning.

• 55:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I do as well.

• 55:36Sean Fennessey?

  And I think Sinners and One Battle are winning at the Academy Awards, and so if I feel that way, at least right now-

• 55:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 55:42Sean Fennessey?

  You gotta make a choice between those two.

• 55:44Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think they're probably gonna go Sinners here and PTA bigger.

• 55:50Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I agree.

• 55:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so I go with.

• 55:52Sean Fennessey?

  I chose Kugler, so you're choosing Kugler as well, okay?

• 55:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:55Sean Fennessey?

  Best performance by a female actor in a drama. This is an interesting category, and I like it. I like the nominees here. This is the best thing the Golden Globes has done this year.

• 56:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:04Sean Fennessey?

  The nominees are Jessie Buckley for Hamlet, Jennifer Lawrence for Die My Love, Renata Renzvi for Sentimental Value, Julia Roberts for After the Hunt, Tessa Thompson for Hedda, and Eva Victor for Sorry Baby. Now,

• 56:19Sean Fennessey?

  this is what I want award shows to be, which is like, absolutely. Jessie Buckley, Renata Renzvi, no doubt.

• 56:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:25Sean Fennessey?

  We've been talking about them for months. They are among the best performances of the year. Two really exciting, young actors, kind of rising. Jennifer Lawrence, big star. Julia Roberts, big star from a different generation.

• 56:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Also fantastic performances.

• 56:39Sean Fennessey?

  No doubt. I, I think they're both worthy. Tessa Thompson, someone who's like, kind of in that honorable mention category throughout this race, so I like this movie getting a little bit of shine, and she's a really good actor. And Eva Victor, this was probably the biggest surprise of the Golden Globe nominations. It's interesting that it's happening in a category where I'm like, there's no competition here.

• 56:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:58Sean Fennessey?

  And that's, maybe that's kind of the point.

• 57:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, so you can get a little creative.

• 57:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 57:02Amanda Dobbins?

  And you also have, you don't have any, you have a few extra spots because some of the surefire nominees are over in comedy musicals.

• 57:09Sean Fennessey?

  Exactly. So maybe my question is, should there all actually be drama and comedy and musical delineations in the Academy Awards?

• 57:16Amanda Dobbins?

  We need more, we need more categories.

• 57:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 57:18Amanda Dobbins?

  And we need more, uh, like, above the line categories, too.

• 57:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 57:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, or just like, quote unquote, recognizable, they, you know, to the layperson.

• 57:27Sean Fennessey?

  Creative people, some who are in front of the camera, some who are behind.

• 57:30Amanda Dobbins?

  We should show all of the awards, but it, yeah, we just.

• 57:33Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't realize the critics' choice was like, giving awards out during the commercials. What the hell is that?

• 57:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 57:37Sean Fennessey?

  All right. Uh, Jessie Buckley, I assume, we're united on that.

• 57:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:41Sean Fennessey?

  Best performance by a male actor in a drama.

• 57:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:44Sean Fennessey?

  Another very interesting category. The nominees are Joel Edgerton for Train Dreams, Oscar Isaac for Frankenstein, Dwayne Johnson for The Smashing Machine, Michael B. Jordan for Centers of Wagner-Morra for The Secret Agent, and Jeremy Allen White in Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, which of course was Paul Schrader's favorite film of 2025.

• 58:02Amanda Dobbins?

  What is it? The Basis of Philosophy? What's the movie called?

• 58:06Sean Fennessey?

  The Basics of Philosophy, which is the new name of this podcast.

• 58:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm going Wagner Mora here.

• 58:13Sean Fennessey?

  I went Michael B. Jordan.

• 58:14Amanda Dobbins?

  It could happen and it would be great.

• 58:17Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know.

• 58:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean.

• 58:19Sean Fennessey?

  What if it's Dwayne Johnson?

• 58:21Amanda Dobbins?

  What if it's Oscar Isaac?

• 58:22Sean Fennessey?

  I hope that doesn't happen. That's a performance I do not.

• 58:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I love Oscar Isaac. I absolutely love him.

• 58:26Sean Fennessey?

  That's not a performance I enjoyed. I, interesting race.

• 58:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, say.

• 58:31Sean Fennessey?

  You're really on the Wagner Mora train. You really think this is like very powerful.

• 58:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it's happening.

• 58:36Sean Fennessey?

  You could be right.

• 58:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Once, like, as we have said many times, Brazil, right?

• 58:41Sean Fennessey?

  And then, like, there are some Brazilian voters in the Golden Globes, but it's not like 10,000 Brazilians vote on the Globes.

• 58:47Amanda Dobbins?

  If Fernando Torres won last year, I don't know. You just gotta.

• 58:52Sean Fennessey?

  Well.

• 58:53Amanda Dobbins?

  You gotta know where you are.

• 58:53Sean Fennessey?

  Watch this space.

• 58:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess so.

• 58:55Sean Fennessey?

  Actually, watch this space at 4:30 PM.

• 58:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, we were supposed to do that. Yeah.

• 59:00Sean Fennessey?

  7:30 PM ET on Instagram. We're gonna go live right before the Golden Globes. Chit chat, take some cues.

• 59:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm looking up our Instagram handle, @TheBigPickPod. Chris Ryan is so good at this. He has everything memorized. He does it right at the beginning, the email address, the Instagram handle.

• 59:18Sean Fennessey?

  Fucking email. Like, he's looking at emails from listeners.

• 59:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I did that once and it was a wonderful experience. And then I saw a lot of, like, you know, unsolicited opinions and essays. And it's like, I don't, I don't have time for that.

• 59:34Sean Fennessey?

  Couldn't be me. But we will be going live on Instagram. And you go live every morning, right? 6:00 AM?

• 59:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I have thought about it. You know, Yasi Salak.

• 59:41Sean Fennessey?

  Wake up with Amanda.

• 59:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yasi Salak goes live from time to time.

• 59:43Sean Fennessey?

  I've seen it happen.

• 59:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I've thought about joining in from, from time to time.

• 59:46Sean Fennessey?

  Like in a FaceTime situation or like going to her house?

• 59:49Amanda Dobbins?

  No, there is, there is a feature where if you are friends with the person, yeah, you can join the live.

• 59:55Sean Fennessey?

  Real jumpscare. Maybe we should have Yasi on the Golden Globes Live. I would love that.

• 1:00:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:00Sean Fennessey?

  I remember she desperately wanted to participate when I was dressed as the Papal Conclave.

• 1:00:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know if she's gonna be in our time zone in any way she perform. Yasi, if you are listening, come home.

• 1:00:10Sean Fennessey?

  Where is she?

• 1:00:11Amanda Dobbins?

  She's in London, so that's fine. And I think she's having a great time and it snows.

• 1:00:15Sean Fennessey?

  The streets want Yasi back on the pod.

• 1:00:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yasi, I need you.

• 1:00:17Sean Fennessey?

  What movie is Yasi gonna come and talk about on the pod?

• 1:00:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, she's not going to be back in time for Testament of Ann Lee, which we saw together.

• 1:00:23Sean Fennessey?

  Oh.

• 1:00:23Amanda Dobbins?

  We went to the beach and then we saw Testament of Ann Lee. It was a beautiful evening.

• 1:00:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, talk about ecstatic devotion to hanging out and not doing your job.

• 1:00:33Sean Fennessey?

  Best performance by a, wait, you picked Fagin Mora, yes?

• 1:00:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:35Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, best performance by a female actor, musical, or comedy? Nominees are Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, Cynthia Revo for Wicked for Good, Kate Hudson for Song Sung Blue, Chase Infinity for One Battle After Another, Amanda Seyfried for The Testament of Ann Lee, and Emma Stone for Begonha. Emma Stone, bit of an afterthought.

• 1:00:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:52Sean Fennessey?

  Two-time Academy Award winner.

• 1:00:53Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 1:00:54Sean Fennessey?

  Biggest star in Hollywood.

• 1:00:55Amanda Dobbins?

  And maybe she's starting, she wasn't campaigning. You know, she hasn't really been out on the trail.

• 1:01:00Sean Fennessey?

  She wasn't at the Critics' Choice Awards.

• 1:01:01Amanda Dobbins?

  That's right, but I think she's in the, also in the Debbie Magazine Performances issue, and she clarified that neither she nor Jennifer Lawrence will be playing Miss Piggy. Miss Piggy will be playing Miss Piggy, so.

• 1:01:13Sean Fennessey?

  Does that mean Frank Oz will be playing Miss Piggy?

• 1:01:16Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, she didn't say that.

• 1:01:17Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:01:18Amanda Dobbins?

  But.

• 1:01:18Sean Fennessey?

  Frank Oz is on in years, a legend, one of my favorite people, but.

• 1:01:22Amanda Dobbins?

  And you can call another of your favorite people, Emma Stone, and ask her about this. I just, I'm reading.

• 1:01:27Sean Fennessey?

  Emma Stone and Frank Oz talking, I would give me, like, I'd go into cardiac arrest. That's, that is a pod I would listen to, two goats.

• 1:01:34Amanda Dobbins?

  We're learning a lot about you today.

• 1:01:37Sean Fennessey?

  I'm a normal man. I love the Muppets.

• 1:01:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:41Sean Fennessey?

  I love redheads.

• 1:01:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Muppet Christmas Carol didn't really take, yeah.

• 1:01:45Sean Fennessey?

  It's an L for Knox.

• 1:01:47Amanda Dobbins?

  It's okay, he just, he loves Star Wars and whispering Avatar, Avatar Fire and Ash to me. Just, he learned the title. He's very scared of Avatar Fire and Ash.

• 1:01:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:56Amanda Dobbins?

  He's never seen it, to be clear.

• 1:01:58Sean Fennessey?

  Just like all the other films that are being released around Christmas time, terrified of its box office power.

• 1:02:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I picked Rose Byrne.

• 1:02:03Sean Fennessey?

  I wrote Emma Stone.

• 1:02:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I mean, sure, they.

• 1:02:05Sean Fennessey?

  She's super famous.

• 1:02:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:07Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I don't really feel like there's a lot of discipline in this category here.

• 1:02:10Amanda Dobbins?

  You could see Kate Hudson, because she sings.

• 1:02:12Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely possible. Beloved member of the Hollywood community, probably, probably campaigns quite well with the, the Globes organization.

• 1:02:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you know about Kate Hudson's New Year's Eve party?

• 1:02:22Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:02:22Amanda Dobbins?

  In Aspen?

• 1:02:23Sean Fennessey?

  Were you there?

• 1:02:24Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I wasn't because I, enough with Aspen. I, like, you can't.

• 1:02:28Sean Fennessey?

  Enough with Aspen?

• 1:02:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:29Sean Fennessey?

  I've not been.

• 1:02:30Amanda Dobbins?

  There's so much celebrity content. So the two locuses of celebrity content over the holidays. Oh, I'm sorry. Like, you look at the Knicks and this is what I look at, okay?

• 1:02:40Sean Fennessey?

  But you're like.

• 1:02:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Excuse me, it's relevant, it's your main.

• 1:02:43Sean Fennessey?

  But I've been to a Knicks game. Like, you've not been to Aspen and you're like, enough with Aspen.

• 1:02:47Amanda Dobbins?

  But listen, Kate Hudson was in Aspen, Leo was in St. Bart's. None of the Knicks are nominated here today. So what I'm talking about.

• 1:02:54Sean Fennessey?

  The Knicks are in a fucking tailspin.

• 1:02:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Is, oh no.

• 1:02:56Sean Fennessey?

  Losers are four in a row.

• 1:02:57Amanda Dobbins?

  What happened?

• 1:02:57Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know, the defense is falling apart.

• 1:03:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Um, I, Kate Hudson hosts a New Year's party, New Year's Eve party in Aspen.

• 1:03:06Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:03:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And they, like, there's a lot of drumming and there's a bonfire and all sorts of stuff.

• 1:03:09Sean Fennessey?

  A lot of drumming.

• 1:03:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, that's what, that's what she explained, a bonfire. So would you be interested in that?

• 1:03:16Amanda Dobbins?

  You like mountains.

• 1:03:17Sean Fennessey?

  I do like the mountains quite a bit. I, I would love to go to Aspen. I'm nothing against Aspen. Not really a bonfire guy. I'm not 18.

• 1:03:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:25Sean Fennessey?

  And that's something cool that you do when you light some shit on fire.

• 1:03:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I've never really, I just.

• 1:03:29Sean Fennessey?

  And run around and drink Natty Light.

• 1:03:30Amanda Dobbins?

  The, like, the logistics of it, I just, where are you supposed to sit? You know, because you're too close and then your face is just on fire, you're too far away, you're freezing cold, you can't see anything. Like, I just.

• 1:03:42Sean Fennessey?

  Hard to believe you didn't get invited to this party. Given all your bonfire ethics. Uh, uh, okay, so Emma Stone is my pick.

• 1:03:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:03:49Sean Fennessey?

  And Rose Byrne is your pick and it'll probably be Kate Hudson who wins. Best performance by a male actor, musical or comedy? Nominees are Timothy Chalamet for Marty Supreme, George Clooney for J. Kelly, Leonardo DiCaprio for One Battle After Another, Ethan Hawke for Blue Moon, Lee Byung-hun for No Other Choice, Jesse Plemons for Begonha, a name we have not been uttering very much these days. Who do you think is winning?

• 1:04:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I wrote down Chalamet.

• 1:04:10Sean Fennessey?

  I wrote down Leonardo DiCaprio.

• 1:04:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well, we'll find out.

• 1:04:13Sean Fennessey?

  I've chosen three acting winners from One Battle.

• 1:04:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Leo, stay in the country until Sunday.

• 1:04:19Sean Fennessey?

  He's not listening to the show.

• 1:04:21Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, I learned his Houston's order over the break, that's another thing.

• 1:04:24Sean Fennessey?

  What?

• 1:04:26Amanda Dobbins?

  It was posted on Domois. Can you guess his use?

• 1:04:28Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, well, then it's verified if it's posted on Domois.

• 1:04:32Amanda Dobbins?

  There is South Beverly Grill.

• 1:04:34Sean Fennessey?

  Uh huh.

• 1:04:34Amanda Dobbins?

  This is, it's honestly the most psychotic thing I've ever heard. They ordered the artichokes like a, you know, a seasonal Houston special.

• 1:04:40Sean Fennessey?

  Who's they?

• 1:04:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Leonardo DiCaprio and Vittorio Soretti.

• 1:04:43Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, and the administrators of Domois all sitting together?

• 1:04:46Amanda Dobbins?

  No, the tipster. They ordered the artichokes and took them to go, did not touch them.

• 1:04:53Sean Fennessey?

  This is not authorized content. Like, we are owned by a global corporation. You can't just be like, this happened.

• 1:05:01Sean Fennessey?

  You, what you meant to say was you read on the internet that a tipster may have erroneously shared what could or could not be the South Beverly Grill order.

• 1:05:11Amanda Dobbins?

  All right, mister, you know, suddenly your legal ethics, come on.

• 1:05:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, anyway.

• 1:05:17Sean Fennessey?

  A man's order at a restaurant is sacred.

• 1:05:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Artichokes to go is like on the level of you being like, I turn on the begonias soundtrack, whatever. Like, why are you taking a hot artichoke to go?

• 1:05:33Sean Fennessey?

  I kind of want to just put it on right now and just vibe out for the next 10 minutes before we make the final two picks. I don't, I have no idea what's gonna win. Emma Stone and Leo is like a really weird picks for me, but I just feel like we're, I'm just trying to make it interesting.

• 1:05:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, I went normie on these. You went interesting. You went normie on other ones. It's fine.

• 1:05:48Sean Fennessey?

  What if Jesse Plemons gets, gets up there and he's like, I won?

• 1:05:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, then we get a reaction shot to Kiki.

• 1:05:53Sean Fennessey?

  You know who would get knocked out of the Oscar race?

• 1:05:56Sean Fennessey?

  Probably Ethan Hawke.

• 1:05:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm, that would be sad.

• 1:05:58Sean Fennessey?

  So, I don't know, interesting race. Best director?

• 1:06:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:06:02Sean Fennessey?

  Paul Thomas Anderson, Ryan Coogler, Guillermo del Toro, Jafar Panahi, Joakim Trier and Chloé Zhao.

• 1:06:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I have Paul Thomas Anderson here.

• 1:06:11Sean Fennessey?

  I do too.

• 1:06:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, I, I think it's undeniable. I, I mean, it could be Panahi. You never know. Like Guillermo del Toro could be up there. It could be Coogler.

• 1:06:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think that it'll be Trier, but maybe you could see it.

• 1:06:25Sean Fennessey?

  I think Trier and Zhao are not in. I, I agree the other four are all in play.

• 1:06:29Amanda Dobbins?

  But I'm going with, I'm going with Paul Tom, Thomas Anderson.

• 1:06:33Sean Fennessey?

  How do you think he's gonna feel about having to give 19 speeches in the next three months? It doesn't seem like something he truly loves.

• 1:06:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I, I hope that.

• 1:06:42Amanda Dobbins?

  He'll spend some time, you know, with people who give him confidence.

• 1:06:46Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:06:47Amanda Dobbins?

  And, I don't know, then go write some, some really weird ass movies about his feelings.

• 1:06:52Sean Fennessey?

  Can I tell you what I would do if I was him?

• 1:06:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:55Sean Fennessey?

  I would, uh, bring a combination TV and VCR up to the stage. And I would pop in the VCR, the VHS copy of Boogie Nights. And it would be queued up to the scene where Dirk Diggler accepts the adult film star awards.

• 1:07:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:07:10Sean Fennessey?

  And I would just play that and then I would walk off stage.

• 1:07:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:07:12Sean Fennessey?

  And I would do that at every award show.

• 1:07:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. So is it like on one of those little roller carts that we had in elementary school?

• 1:07:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:07:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, they roll it out. But it's gotta be VHS.

• 1:07:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it a combo TV, VCR?

• 1:07:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's all one, it's all one machine. Yeah.

• 1:07:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, beautiful.

• 1:07:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you could probably get like, you know, one of those like straps that they put on at Target for diapers and stuff and just like carry it that way.

• 1:07:34Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, well.

• 1:07:34Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, you don't even need a cart.

• 1:07:35Sean Fennessey?

  You need a more heavy duty one than that, right?

• 1:07:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure. I mean, yeah, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be tape, but you could get some sort of-

• 1:07:41Sean Fennessey?

  He should just wear a backpack. Just put it in a backpack. Get on stage, unzip his backpack, pull out the TV, VCR.

• 1:07:46Amanda Dobbins?

  That'd be good. That would not be at all weird.

• 1:07:48Sean Fennessey?

  I do miss, you know what I miss?

• 1:07:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:51Sean Fennessey?

  Feeling loose. I just miss the 90s.

• 1:07:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And yet you won't let me talk about Artichokes.

• 1:07:55Sean Fennessey?

  You just got plenty of time on Artichokes. The ni- in the 90s, when the Beastie Boys were like, we're sending up some guy-

• 1:08:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:02Sean Fennessey?

  In a, you know, Teutonic yodeling outfit to accept our award.

• 1:08:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:08Sean Fennessey?

  That was fucking great.

• 1:08:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I too miss the Beastie Boys. It's one of the major reasons that I loved Marty Supriep so much.

• 1:08:15Sean Fennessey?

  But just in general, just that sense of-

• 1:08:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:18Sean Fennessey?

  Isn't that being so stuffed shirt about everything? Fucking around a little bit. It's why I liked that Timmy speech last year. He was just like, fuck it, I'm Steve Jobs.

• 1:08:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:24Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like, that was very funny. Um, okay. Best motion picture drama?

• 1:08:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:08:30Sean Fennessey?

  Frankenstein, Hamlet, It Was Just an Accident, Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, and Sinners.

• 1:08:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess I'm gonna do what I said I was gonna do and do It Was Just an Accident?

• 1:08:43Sean Fennessey?

  Bold.

• 1:08:44Amanda Dobbins?

  It is bold, but it's nominated in Best Motion Picture Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, uh, and International Feature, right? Like, it's, it's everywhere it needs to be. So, and they, and if they, they do Sinners and I think, you're gonna pick Sinners and I think that's right. And that's what I would vote for.

• 1:09:05Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:09:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. I could be wrong, but what if I'm right?

• 1:09:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's one way to go through life.

• 1:09:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:09:11Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I picked Sinners. I think it'll be Sinners.

• 1:09:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:09:15Sean Fennessey?

  I think this will confirm that the race will be Sinners versus One Battle.

• 1:09:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:18Sean Fennessey?

  It'll be interesting because they're from the same studio. And we can talk about musical or comedy right now, so then we can kind of cap with that.

• 1:09:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:09:25Sean Fennessey?

  Quick discussion. So for musical or comedy, Blue Moon, Begonia, Marty Supreme, No Other Choice, Nouvelle Vague, One Battle After Another.

• 1:09:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:32Sean Fennessey?

  One Battle.

• 1:09:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Correct.

• 1:09:35Sean Fennessey?

  Would be very surprising if One Battle After Another did not win here. If it doesn't win.

• 1:09:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:39Sean Fennessey?

  All bets are off because of the point that you're making where it's just like, this is on TV.

• 1:09:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:43Sean Fennessey?

  People are gonna see this. And if it doesn't win, it will be the first surprising thing, truly surprising thing that has happened in this stretch run.

• 1:09:51Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I don't think it's likely.

• 1:09:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think that's likely.

• 1:09:53Sean Fennessey?

  I don't even really know what would win. It feels like it's head and shoulders above all the other contenders. I guess Marty Supreme is closest.

• 1:10:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:00Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe the freaks out there push for Begonia? We, we didn't have Begonia on our last top 10.

• 1:10:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I, the amount of Begonia on this list was, I think, a surprise to all of us. And there was almost no Begonia on any of the shortlists.

• 1:10:13Sean Fennessey?

  Very true.

• 1:10:13Amanda Dobbins?

  So.

• 1:10:14Sean Fennessey?

  Very true. It's an interesting one. I know there was a lot of Serat. So we put Serat on there. Serat getting Best Picture would be nuts, but you never know.

• 1:10:19Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't.

• 1:10:20Sean Fennessey?

  You never know.

• 1:10:22Sean Fennessey?

  One Battle versus Sinners versus Hamlet, still the top three?

• 1:10:27Sean Fennessey?

  If Hamlet compete, Hamlet is not a critics movie, but it is an industry movie.

• 1:10:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:31Sean Fennessey?

  Is Hamlet gonna have a bigger night than we realize?

• 1:10:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, where would it win? It would, I, I think it will win in Best Actress. Do you, I don't think it's gonna win adapted screenplay over PTA.

• 1:10:45Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think so either, but who knows?

• 1:10:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, if it does, then like, you know, uh oh.

• 1:10:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you think, what else would it win? I don't, I think.

• 1:10:52Sean Fennessey?

  Drama?

• 1:10:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, you mean on, you know, I, I was just gaming out the Oscars.

• 1:10:58Sean Fennessey?

  Paul Mescal?

• 1:10:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe. Listen.

• 1:11:00Sean Fennessey?

  I'm just, just, just counterfactualing.

• 1:11:02Amanda Dobbins?

  The world is full of possibilities.

• 1:11:06Amanda Dobbins?

  We've explored some of them in our predictions.

• 1:11:10Sean Fennessey?

  Just trying to keep my energy up.

• 1:11:11Amanda Dobbins?

  What I have written down here at the bottom of all of this is no Frankenstein and 12 question marks. So it just seems weird to me that.

• 1:11:19Sean Fennessey?

  The no Frankenstein wins?

• 1:11:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:22Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, they don't really do a ton of below the line stuff here at the Golden Globes.

• 1:11:25Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 1:11:26Sean Fennessey?

  And that's really where it's going to dominate in production design, in costume design, in hair and makeup, maybe in visual effects. Like, those are the places where it's really going to show up.

• 1:11:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:35Sean Fennessey?

  It's there for score. And it could win, as you said. The spot could win.

• 1:11:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. But it's just, it was nominated in supporting actor, best actor, drama, director, and best picture drama. So I don't know. And it just feels like a Globes.

• 1:11:52Sean Fennessey?

  You're right. It'll probably sweep.

• 1:11:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. I'm just, I'm saying, I just, it feels like a Golden Globes thing. I don't know.

• 1:11:58Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:14:00Sean Fennessey?

  You know, No Other Choice has three Golden Globe nominations.

• 1:14:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is very cool.

• 1:14:05Sean Fennessey?

  It's also going more wide this Friday. I don't know how wide it's going. It had a very limited release on Christmas. I hope it's going into a lot of theaters. It's a little hard to say because it's a very entertaining movie. It's not, this is not a stuffy awards movie. And in fact, one of the reasons why I think it's maybe not going to do as well at the award shows is because it's, you know, black humor.

• 1:14:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:27Sean Fennessey?

  It's very violent and elaborate.

• 1:14:31Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk a little bit about it. So it's directed by Park Chan Wook. He's got three co-writers on the film, Lee Kyung Mi, Don McKellar, who he's been working with quite a bit in the last few years, and Lee Ja Hey. It's based on the novel The Axe by Donald Westlake. There actually has been another adaptation of this novel that Kostakovras made about 25 years ago. I've never seen it. I fascinated two-seed. It was hard to track down. I tried to track it down last night. The stars of this movie are Lee Byun-hun, Son Yee Jin, Park Hee Sun, Lee Sung Min. Abruptly laid off after 25 years at the same company, a desperate man goes to extreme lengths to eliminate the competition for the job that he wants. Now, I know you first saw this movie

• 1:15:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I did.

• 1:15:11Sean Fennessey?

  at the Venice Film Festival. And you revisited it last night. What'd you think?

• 1:15:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, this is just an excellent. Everything about it is so well done that you're just kind of like, I can't. Believe how good this is and that it's sustained so well over two and a half hours of what is like, it is comedy. It is very, very hard to hit this tone this consistently.

• 1:15:36Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, not to mention all of like the, you know, production design and that just like the shots, the beautiful shots, you know, everything that is done so beautifully within it. But there is a very specific understanding of the like, the attitude that this movie has about the world and the character in it that is consistent in a way that's like pretty amazing.

• 1:16:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I agree. It's such a tic tac toe movie for me. I loved it. I've talked about it a couple of times already on the show because it is both of those things. And over the years, if you read interviews with Parky and if you read reviews of his work, like Hitchcock comes up over and over again.

• 1:16:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:16Sean Fennessey?

  And I think even when we talked about The Handmaiden on 25 for 25, we were like, if they would have let Hitchcock get his kink out in the world, like this is kind of what he would have done. And this movie is another continuation of that. And like Lebien Hunt is in a Jimmy Stewart part in this movie. And this really fine grained combination of scary and violent and extremely strongly framed social commentary up against really funny sense, attitude is the word you use. And I like that word a lot. It's kind of like, everyone's a fucking idiot. We're all kind of screwed.

• 1:16:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:16:51Sean Fennessey?

  This, these are terrible systems that we've created for ourselves and we're all kind of trapped.

• 1:16:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:16:56Sean Fennessey?

  There's these like vagaries that get us through the day and we've, we've tricked ourselves into thinking like, oh, if I have the perfect nuclear family and if I have the perfect house, I'll be really happy.

• 1:17:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:06Sean Fennessey?

  But it can all be taken away from us so quickly. And then what do we do when that thing is taken away from us? But kind of constantly played where like the lead of the film is simultaneously sympathetic and a buffoon. And that's also really hard to do.

• 1:17:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:17:19Sean Fennessey?

  And we've talked about this a little bit with Bob Ferguson, a little bit with Marty Mouser, the lead character being like, is this guy good or bad?

• 1:17:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:17:28Sean Fennessey?

  Do, how much do I like spending time with him?

• 1:17:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Is, is the film rooting for him and am I supposed to be rooting for him? And this is like a very interesting twist on that. I don't think that this film is rooting for anyone.

• 1:17:40Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:17:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, and sort of rooting like for all of us in the sense that, oh, we like, we live, you know, in this nightmare that we've created.

• 1:17:49Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I saw this movie maybe a day after I saw Begonia at the Venice Film Festival, and I thought that they were a very interesting doubleheader.

• 1:17:58Sean Fennessey?

  Totally.

• 1:17:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Because they're both about men of slightly different ages, and certainly like different sociological settings. But men who have been cast out of the world and like the social system by like basically, you know, like the global corporation and are realizing that they're upon, have like are realizing that they've lost their sense of place and are kind of losing it in the way that they respond to it. Now, who's right and who's wrong and what's real and what's not? And who's supposed to, who's the hero and who's the villain? Kind of gets turned on their heads in different ways. And one of them is a kind of like a gotcha thriller.

• 1:18:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And this is No Other Choice is sort of a thriller, but it is more like a man on a mission. And then ultimately, like what the mission is, the last shot of No Other Choice is as depressing in its own way as the coda of Begonia is in its way as well. And it's sort of like you got, these men are like validated almost? And then like you get what you wish for?

• 1:19:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, right, but alone, you know, like right, but defeated, you know? Like, and it was sort of like, we're all defeated. It's a really good comparison. And I do think there's something very Spartan about Begonia. Like, it's a very stripped down movie, and No Other Choice is the opposite. No Other Choice is so ornate and elaborate, and like honestly, a little bit confusing at times. And it was very helpful to see it a second time, just to kind of understand the mechanics of the quote unquote kills. So just, I mean, we'll talk, we'll spoil the movie a little bit, because I spoiled it a little bit with Park Two, and we talked. But after he's laid off, he tries to get another job. They have this big, we see him in this family life early in the film, and he's very happy. He's barbecuing, celebrating with his family.

• 1:19:49Amanda Dobbins?

  He got some eel from the company.

• 1:19:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, he's been able to touch like upper middle class lifestyle, right? That's, that's sort of what the movie is showing. It's like, once you reach this status. And what happens when it gets taken away from you? And what does it mean? And how do you account for the loss? And so-

• 1:20:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And what did that, what was that status in the first place?

• 1:20:08Sean Fennessey?

  Right, it's ultimately fairly meager.

• 1:20:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:10Sean Fennessey?

  But at the time, you think you're on top of the world. And this is a very common thing that is in the movies this year all throughout. It's like, it's in One Battle, it's in Mark Kerr in The Smashing Machine. You know, it's in a lot of these men who are like, I've reached a certain level of achievement in my professional life and in my personal life, and I now am like king of the world. I'm like master of my domain. And then one guy checks one spreadsheet on one laptop at the company you work at, and you're out.

• 1:20:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:36Sean Fennessey?

  And then you have to figure out where to go. It's very, the satire is very broad in the movie, but the, the construction of the story is so elaborate that I think it kind of overwhelms the simplicity of like corporation bad, like we know.

• 1:20:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:20:49Sean Fennessey?

  So, he figures out, after working this basically physical labor job in a giant department store, that he's got to find his way back into the world of paper. He worked in a paper company.

• 1:21:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, which is also, you know, a, a perfect metaphor that starts from the very, very first scene.

• 1:21:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, it's like something from the earth that is made tactile by human hands, but that is also going out of fashion in the way that we experience the world in this world of screens. That's all in the Westlake book, it's in the Kostakover's movie as well. Like, it's, it's a, it's a paper company that he works for.

• 1:21:23Sean Fennessey?

  And he realizes that there's only so many jobs because of all this consolidation. His company that laid him off was acquired by an American company. This globalization is affecting everybody. This is a movie that originally Park wanted to make in America, but he couldn't really get it going, and so he had to make it in his native Korea. And he decides he needs to start eliminating potential contenders for the very few open positions in the job, which is such a funny idea. But he's a regular, middle-class guy. He's not, he's a, he's, has a greenhouse and he has some-

• 1:21:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:21:53Sean Fennessey?

  You know, utility with his hands, but like, he doesn't really know what he's doing. And so he goes through these series of kills. Kind of like bumbling his way through every single murder. But he is successful, like he does kind of pull it off. And so to your point about like, is this guy good? Is he bad? Is he successful? Is he not successful? It's like, he does kind of do what needs to be done in this movie. And he does ultimately-

• 1:22:16Amanda Dobbins?

  What he believes needs to be done. What he believes or what he set up for himself. And there is, in almost every, like in every kill scene, there is like a moment where he's like, wait, what am I actually doing? And is this really, really gonna happen?

• 1:22:31Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:22:31Amanda Dobbins?

  And the mania kind of catches out like on, and he becomes more convinced of his own plan as it goes on. But I hadn't realized until my rewatch, there's a, like the still that's being used in the movie, which is of-

• 1:22:46Sean Fennessey?

  The pot.

• 1:22:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, the pot being held up is actually, he chickens out.

• 1:22:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:22:50Amanda Dobbins?

  And he doesn't, that is not actually the first kill. That is sort of where the idea or part of the idea comes from. But he's holding up a plant that he then uses, like to start a fake company to trap everyone. So it is, it's the beginning of the like, the illusion as much as it is of the, this, like, I'm gonna like kill people.

• 1:23:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and it's a perfect little thing too, right? It's like, the whole movie is all about a person who cares for trees and living things. There's a lot of time spent with him caring for a bonsai tree and showing the kind of nature in which you have to kind of like bend and contort the bonsai to take care of it and to, to allow it to grow, which is obviously a very latent metaphor for the way that we have to kind of like bend ourselves around the system so that we can survive inside of the system. And then the idea of a tree, paper is made from trees, being used as this inspiration point for this plan, where he like sets up a job at a paper company with a catalog all from paper and trees to bring in these three men who are effectively like middle managers, like he was at paper companies and are out of work, or at least two of them are out of work.

• 1:23:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:23:57Sean Fennessey?

  And he is, needs to get rid of these guys so that a job can open up, so that he can fill in that spot. These other men are more qualified than he is too, which is a nice testimony like to the ends that these, this world drives us to, where it's like, I'm in desperate competition with this other loser guy who lives one town over.

• 1:24:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:24:14Sean Fennessey?

  Because that's just the nature of, you know, an aggressive capitalist system. So you've got like all of that stuff, which is very fun and rich and often very funny.

• 1:24:25Sean Fennessey?

  And you've also got this family drama about a guy who's like, lost his sense of masculinity because he's lost his job and he feels like his wife, who's beautiful.

• 1:24:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:33Sean Fennessey?

  And she has to go to work to backfill for the lack of income in the home. And then she's working for a hot dentist as a dental hygienist and a dental assistant.

• 1:24:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:24:44Sean Fennessey?

  And he's worried about that she's cheating on him. And then that is also dovetailing with one of the murder, potential murder victims, who's also being cocked.

• 1:24:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:24:52Sean Fennessey?

  At this time.

• 1:24:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:53Sean Fennessey?

  And like, it is, this is an elaborate movie with a lot of twists and like, a lot of wrapped ideas.

• 1:24:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And he's got a huge toothache throughout that he won't get, you know, fixed, which is, I'm, I, like, I know is symbolic in Freudian psychology or whatever, but is also relates to the actual dentist. And then when it is finally quote unquote fixed, is somewhat climactic and grotesque.

• 1:25:15Sean Fennessey?

  He's gonna do it himself.

• 1:25:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. That's the only way through, is to just push through. So, there's lots of kinds of fun stuff and I probably will watch this movie again because it revealed a lot on my second watch. And then the other thing is, while I'm watching it, it's hard to not be overwhelmed by the technique.

• 1:25:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:34Sean Fennessey?

  That he's using camera angles and camera placement.

• 1:25:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:25:37Sean Fennessey?

  And transitions and wipes. And he's using a lot of super impositions where he's like, mapping one image onto another image. So, you can see like, the duality, the mask that people are wearing, the secret truth hiding beneath them, like, all these very traditional.

• 1:25:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, what's around the corner, what's around, like, the, you know, and, and that gives you juxtaposition of, like, this house that is an amazing house and, you know, so idyllic, but just like, seems to be, when you look at it from another direction, is like, just like, off a random highway and there's like, an office park nearby and all sorts of, you know, you, like, the.

• 1:26:14Sean Fennessey?

  But this is the house that he grew up in.

• 1:26:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:26:16Sean Fennessey?

  So, he has also idealized it.

• 1:26:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly.

• 1:26:17Sean Fennessey?

  Even though it's like, it's a middle-class house off a highway.

• 1:26:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:20Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like, so many of us, like, I grew up in, you know, like, so many people grew up in, but you tend to think that these are these, like. Totems of accomplishment. I think that a lot of those visual choices that he makes throughout the movie are really smart. He talked a lot about the selection of the house and why and how they built it. And, you know, it's a really interesting and unusual style. Again, like, I thought I was asking a good question and he was like, I have a 30 minute answer to your question about a house. You know, he's like, he's really put a tremendous amount of thought.

• 1:26:44Amanda Dobbins?

  The house plays a like, a huge role and is also like designed in a way, not just to allow for like the certain setup of the shots. And, you know, where the kids are standing on the stairs as you hear something in the like, you know, the kitchen or the, et cetera, but also like where the tree is outside the window and the tree obviously has a lot of, is that a real red pine? I'm gonna be hurt, a white pine, I'm sorry.

• 1:27:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:27:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm gonna be heartbroken if it's not.

• 1:27:07Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know.

• 1:27:09Amanda Dobbins?

  And how the tree is also set, but then there are some shots where I'm just like, I can't believe you got the clouds to look like that.

• 1:27:14Sean Fennessey?

  True, there is CGI in the movie and I think he uses CGI very artfully as a filmmaker. There was a lot of CGI in Decision to Leave as well. And another movie that I think is really rewarding on a rewatch, much like Decision to Leave, also a great movie that's screens. One of the things that's really funny is when he meets, I think it's, is it, uh, Seung Chul, the manager at the paper company? And then he leaves and he realizes that he's also, um, this kind of rival manager is also an influencer. And he's constantly looking at his social media.

• 1:27:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:43Sean Fennessey?

  And the movie really effectively renders that sense of like jealousy, aspiration, the kind of like ugliness of performing for social media, but also the like, this is getting this guy somewhere and I don't know how to do this.

• 1:27:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:27:57Sean Fennessey?

  All unspoken. None of it is really communicated. We just watch him watching another guy. Just a good idea, you know?

• 1:28:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Even the way that he's watching it, that particular scene, he's lying on the couch and holding the phone like directly above his head, which is not.

• 1:28:14Sean Fennessey?

  Just like Bob Ferguson.

• 1:28:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's right. Yeah.

• 1:28:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:28:16Amanda Dobbins?

  But it is. But, you know, and allows like a lot of different setups. It's cinematically interesting, which, you know, most people would just have their phone up like to their face.

• 1:28:26Sean Fennessey?

  He does have that when he's in the bar.

• 1:28:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:28Sean Fennessey?

  When he's in the bar and he's kind of discovering him talking about like paper and trees and things like that. The other thing I really liked was a really funny Netflix joke in the movie where they're talking about like what they have to cut out of their budget. And in the background, you can hear the tadaum hit when the kids are firing it up. And there's like, the movie is very much about what happens when you go from upper middle class to middle class to lower middle class. And the panic that sets in, which is a very, I mean, this is something that has been happening in America for the last 25 years. You've kind of hollowed out a whole class of people who felt like they were in very stabilized, industrialized spaces. And whether those jobs have been moved overseas or have been moved into, you know, AI assisted robotics, which is really what this film is ultimately focused on. That, this is a very relatable movie.

• 1:29:12Sean Fennessey?

  It's an absurd, arch Hitchcockian thriller, but

• 1:29:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:15Sean Fennessey?

  its core idea is very up with people. And yet it also has a real Coen Brothers, like everybody's a moron energy.

• 1:29:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:29:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:29:27Sean Fennessey?

  Tasty stew.

• 1:29:28Amanda Dobbins?

  A lot of, there's, we didn't mention ballroom dancing.

• 1:29:30Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, God.

• 1:29:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Which also sets up a whole, I mean, there is a lot of, the, the, the young daughter is a cellist. And that's like the, the emotional, like very sad part about it. She's a very gifted cellist.

• 1:29:40Sean Fennessey?

  Neurodiversion, it seems.

• 1:29:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, she only speaks in, you know, repeating other people's words. And they have to give the dogs away, which like, I'm not a dog person, but that's really sad.

• 1:29:50Sean Fennessey?

  Brutal.

• 1:29:51Amanda Dobbins?

  And so, but so there's a cello plotline. There is a whole thing about stolen phones, speaking of screens.

• 1:29:57Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 1:29:58Amanda Dobbins?

  And then just, you know, some really baroque and gross deaths or what we do with bodies after death.

• 1:30:08Sean Fennessey?

  There's one kill in particular where he folds up a cadaver.

• 1:30:11Amanda Dobbins?

  It's so fucked up.

• 1:30:12Sean Fennessey?

  Fucking crazy. That is great. This is just great imagery and obviously is a callback to the bonsai bending and, you know, you're meant to see and the recognition of his son through the greenhouse in the same way that he saw him through the greenhouse early in the film. A lot of echoes throughout the movie, a lot of repeating and recurring images. Lee Byung-hun, I want to talk about him quickly. Really interesting actor. Probably best known for these kind of like intense Korean thrillers. Really charismatic and handsome guy. He's older than I thought he was. He's 55. He's been around for a while. The last time he worked with Park was in Park's first film, Joint Security Area. So this is a reunion for them. And he has been in a bunch of American movies and he's always been used in this really like po-faced,

• 1:30:52Sean Fennessey?

  like exoticized, like Asian assassin kind of way. He was Storm Shadow in the G.I. Joe movies. He was in the Magnificent Seven remake, which is a big CR movie.

• 1:31:05Sean Fennessey?

  But in this movie, he really plays this like physical comedy, like it's almost like a Jim Carrey part.

• 1:31:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. He's twisting his face a lot.

• 1:31:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, a lot of, yeah, contortion.

• 1:31:13Amanda Dobbins?

  It's malleable, yeah.

• 1:31:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. I really, really like him. And then I mentioned earlier in the episode, Sun Yee-jin, who plays his wife.

• 1:31:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:31:19Sean Fennessey?

  Who is dynamite in this movie where like she's secretly the one running the family. She probably could have saved his job if he had like included her more in like the execution of his career. One of the funnier scenes in the movie is when he's like early on preparing his, I'm getting axed speech.

• 1:31:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:31:37Sean Fennessey?

  To his American, new American boss. And he's just like being cheered on by four other guys who are about to get fired. I'm in front of the logs. And very quickly, the American, when he gets one second with him is like, there was no other choice. And he gets in a car and leaves. But she is the, simultaneously the most decent, but the craftiest. And when the moment arrives where she needs to like, use her wiles to get the family to safety. It, without her, that he would not be safe, despite all this insane shit that he does.

• 1:32:11Sean Fennessey?

  The Kills?

• 1:32:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, my favorite is, I guess, the first.

• 1:32:19Sean Fennessey?

  Cause he doesn't really do it.

• 1:32:20Amanda Dobbins?

  He doesn't really do it, but really just because of the music, absolutely.

• 1:32:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. So I did not know this. Park said this is that's one of the most popular songs in Korean.

• 1:32:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I had no idea.

• 1:32:29Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's, I think it's like playing, uh, My Heart Will Go On or something.

• 1:32:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's, I mean, that's even funnier, but I didn't, I, it's Italian. Is it? No, it's not.

• 1:32:38Sean Fennessey?

  I thought it was a Korean song.

• 1:32:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it in Korean?

• 1:32:40Sean Fennessey?

  Jack, I don't know if you can help fact check that one for us.

• 1:32:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I saw it in Italy. So I was like, oh, are you doing, and, and I think the Italian subtitles came on to explain what it was saying. And I was like, oh, is this an Italian?

• 1:32:51Sean Fennessey?

  Gotcha. Okay. I think it's a Korean. I think it's a Korean pop song.

• 1:32:54Amanda Dobbins?

  That would make more sense. Anyway, it was great. I mean, also seems like a banger to me. I understand why it's My Heart Will Go On in, uh, um, in Korea.

• 1:33:02Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe not the most perfect comp I've ever made.

• 1:33:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, okay, whatever.

• 1:33:04Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe it's Dude Looks Like A Lady, you know, for in, in South Korea. I'm not actually sure. Uh, I like that one the best too, although I do think that entire stretch where he goes to Sinchul's house and they drink. And the tooth.

• 1:33:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:21Sean Fennessey?

  And then the very gross scheme to make it seem as though he's choked on his own vomit.

• 1:33:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:27Sean Fennessey?

  It's just like, it's pretty out there, man. Like you gotta remember, this is the guy who made Old Boy, you know? And I think he's, he started, he's become like world cinema master and making, you know, celebrated US streaming services, films or television shows and, but he's, he's a freak.

• 1:33:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:33:46Sean Fennessey?

  He's a big time freak.

• 1:33:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:33:48Sean Fennessey?

  And he's into some really kinky weird shit and he is really good at rendering it on screen. Just confirming that song is Korean. Thank you. Okay.

• 1:33:58Sean Fennessey?

  The ending.

• 1:33:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean.

• 1:34:01Sean Fennessey?

  So he gets away with it.

• 1:34:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 1:34:04Sean Fennessey?

  For a variety of reasons, but one of the reasons is that the first victim's wife was cuckling him. Kind of sort of takes the fall in some ways. Her husband takes the fall for a series of events. And he gets, he gets the job. He gets a job. And when he gets to the job, he realizes he no longer really has any colleagues, that he's just managing an AI operated station.

• 1:34:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:34:31Sean Fennessey?

  And his trusty wooden stick that allows him to check the, I don't, I don't, the virility of the paper.

• 1:34:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I guess.

• 1:34:40Sean Fennessey?

  Is no longer necessary because there are tools that do that. And then is the final shot that you're referring to, the, the, uh, in the, in the, in the forest? With the lumber and the?

• 1:34:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, first, it's him celebrating alone in the, in the robot warehouse. And he's the only person there and it's a wide shot. And he's like almost dancing.

• 1:34:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:34:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And then it cuts to the robot cutting, cutting down trees while you got the credits.

• 1:35:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I, I asked Park about that too. And I was just like, did you shoot that? Like, where did that come from? And he's like, that's stock footage. So like he ended his film on stock footage, but it's the most chilling footage you've ever seen in your life.

• 1:35:14Amanda Dobbins?

  It's so messed up.

• 1:35:15Sean Fennessey?

  It's like a giant machine that is controlled by robots, cutting down trees in the natural world. And that's just what, that's, that's where we're at.

• 1:35:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:23Sean Fennessey?

  That's, that's what's going on.

• 1:35:24Amanda Dobbins?

  It's bad.

• 1:35:24Sean Fennessey?

  That's not good.

• 1:35:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Bad news. I learned a lot more about logging this year than I thought that I would.

• 1:35:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Train Dreams.

• 1:35:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:32Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, No Other Choice. Um, what else?

• 1:35:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, those two, but that's two more movies about logging than I thought I would experience and engage with.

• 1:35:42Sean Fennessey?

  Did you end up seeing the Ken Kece Sometimes A Great Notion movie that Paul Newman directed?

• 1:35:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think so.

• 1:35:49Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, that's also about logging.

• 1:35:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, but I don't think that was on my watch list last year.

• 1:35:53Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:35:55Amanda Dobbins?

  In fact, I think you tried to be like, ooh, Train Dreams again, logging. And I don't know if Train Dreams is really about logging.

• 1:36:01Sean Fennessey?

  And what happened in your top five of the movies of the year?

• 1:36:02Amanda Dobbins?

  That's right, but I'm just saying, I don't know if I would have led with the logging.

• 1:36:06Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Any other thoughts on Park?

• 1:36:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, dynamite movie, really good.

• 1:36:11Sean Fennessey?

  Really good. Let's go to my conversation with Park Chan Wook.

• 1:36:18Sean Fennessey?

  Director Park Chan Wook and his interpreter Ji Won Lee, very happy to have you both here to talk about this film. I wanted to start by hearing, what led you to reading Donald Westlake's The Axe? What led you to that book in the first place?

• 1:36:31Speaker 03

  제가 Point Blank은 Lee Marvin 나온 영화에 진짜 열렬한 팬이거든요. 그런데 이제 그 영화의 원작 소설을 쓴, 물론 이제 필명으로서 쓰긴 했는데요. 그 소설을 쓴 작가의 다른 작품이 번역이 되었다라는 얘기를 듣고 빨리 구해서 봤죠.

• 1:36:58Speaker 04

  I'm a diehard fan of the film Point Blank starring Lee Marvin. And as soon as I heard that this writer who wrote the original novel for the film, although for Point Blank he used a different pen name, as soon as I heard that he had other works that he had written, I immediately looked for that novel.

• 1:37:14Sean Fennessey?

  I know the film started out as a potential American adaptation and shifted to South Korea. So what specifically needed to change by shifting it to a different country?

• 1:37:23Speaker 03

  뭐 본질적으로 바뀐 건 없는 것 같아요.

• 1:37:27Speaker 03

  일단 그 무도회가 미국 역사를 컨셉으로 한 것이다. 물론 그 원작엔 없고요. 이제 미국 영화로 만들기 위해서 각색을 했을 때 들어갔던 건데, 그래서 뭐 에브람 링컨이라든가 이런 미국 역사 주요 인물들로 꾸며서 입은 그런 사람들이 나오죠. 그런데 그중에 한 명이 이제 포카운터 셋 된 거고요. 그런 컨셉을 한국 영어로 할 때는 더 이상 유지할 수 없었기 때문에 그것을 바꾸고 포기하게 된 것은 좀 약간 아쉬운 점이 있습니다.

• 1:38:09Speaker 04

  I don't think there were any fundamental changes, but there are more detailed differences between the two versions. So for instance, the dance party scene was initially US history themed. This was not something that was in the novel. We decided to include this in the adaptation process. So there were people dressed up as US historical figures like Abraham Lincoln. And Pocahontas, which was included in the film, was one of those characters initially. And we couldn't keep that same theme in the Korean version of the film. So we had to give that up, which I was very sad about.

• 1:38:41Speaker 03

  그리고 그건 이제 빠진 부분이고, 들어온 부분은 새로 들어온 부분은 분재라는 설정이죠. 만수의 식물 내 호 취미라는 것의 연장선상에서 그냥 정원만 가꾸는 게 아니라 온실에 들어박혀서 분제도 한다라는 것입니다.

• 1:39:08Speaker 04

  That was something we had to take out as we changed this into a Korean film. As for things that we added, it was the element of bonsai. And this was the extension of 만수's love and hobby for plants. So he's not just working in his garden. He's also stuck in his greenhouse, working with his bonsai.

• 1:39:25Speaker 03

  그것은 처음의 시작은 그 아이디어의 시작은 프로덕션 디자이너가 온실을 꾸미는 그런 소품으로 분재를 이용하면 어떻겠느냐라고 제안을 했던 건데요. 그것을 좋다라고 동의하면서 이제 그냥 그냥 장식으로만 두는 것이 아니라 그걸 가지고 좀 더 영화적으로 이용하면 어떨까? 그런 발전시키고 싶은 욕심이 생겼어요. 그래서 그걸 가지고 막 질투심에 사로잡혔을 때 힘을 줘가지고 나무를 부러뜨리는 장면도 만들고,

• 1:40:05Speaker 03

  또 시체를 처리할 때 전기 도보로 잘라서 묻는 것이 아니라 분재 이용하는 철살로 묶어가지고 부피를 축소시켜서 묻는다든가 그런 것들. 특히 그 재밌었던 것은 악몽 장면. 아들인 시원이의 악몽 장면에서 잘 써먹을 수 있었죠.

• 1:40:33Speaker 04

  The start of the idea was initially a suggestion from a production designer about using bonsai as a prop in the greenhouse. And I said I liked the idea, but thinking further upon it, I realized that we could use this more than just decor. We could use it cinematically. So I continued to develop this idea further. And it was featured in scenes where Ban Su was overcome with jealousy. There's the moment when he breaks the branch of the bonsai. Or for this moment, when he's taking care of his victim's body. And instead of using a chainsaw to take care of the body, he uses a wire and ties up the body like a bonsai. And of course, the bonsai was also featured in the scene where Man Su's son, Si Won, is having a nightmare.

• 1:41:15Speaker 04

  And he's also included in that little bonsai world as well.

• 1:41:19Speaker 03

  그래서 점점 의미가 확장되면서 분재는 이제 만수가 자기 가족을 어떻게 생각하는지 그거에 대해서 그것을 드러낼 수 있는 그런 중요한 소품이 되었죠. 그래서 꿈 장면에서 보셨듯이 하나의 자기가 군림하는 자기가 디자인해서 갖고는 하나의 세계처럼 자기 가정을 생각한다.

• 1:42:01Speaker 03

  그것이 정말 온갖 정성으로 그걸 돌볼 때는 아름다운 모습이겠지만 또 거기에 어두우면 조금은 자기 마음대로 하려는 그 분재 나뭇가지를 막 구부러뜨리면서 하는 그런 인위적인 그런 인공적으로 가하는 힘, 힘을 가하는 것처럼 만수가 자기 가족을 그렇게 대하고 있는 것은 아닐까 하는 상상을 일으키게 하죠.

• 1:42:33Speaker 04

  And as the meaning and significance of the bonsai expanded, the bonsai became an important tool to show how Mansu thinks of his family as well. Just like in that nightmare scene, Mansu considers his family as this world that he designed and tends, just like how he tends to his bonsai. And of course, there's a beauty in the way that he pours his heart into tending his family and the bonsai. But if you look at it from a darker side, there's that artificial force that he's using to bend the branch of the bonsai to a shape of his liking. That's also very similar to how he treats his family as well.

• 1:43:09Sean Fennessey?

  He talks in the film too about how he's built the home and built all of these particular aspects of the home, and that would make it difficult for him to leave the home. I'm curious, how did you find that house? Was it constructed? Did it already exist? And what were you looking for in it?

• 1:43:25Speaker 03

  그 집을 찾는 일이 아주 험난한 시간이 오래 걸리는 일이 되리라고 예상을 했기 때문에 프리프덕션을 본격적으로 시작하기도 전에 이미 로케이션 스카우팅 팀, 그 집을 찾는 일만을 맡은 로케이션 스카우트 팀을 출발시켰고요. 그래서 한국, 남한의 전국을 돌아다니면서 저희가 원하는 집을 찾도록 했습니다.

• 1:44:00Speaker 04

  I immediately knew that finding that house was going to be a very arduous process. So even before we started pre-production, there was a location scouting team designated to find the right house. And they immediately started touring the entirety of South Korea to look for the right house.

• 1:44:16Speaker 03

  제가 어렸을 때, 70년대 초에 한국에 많이 지어졌던, 똑같은 도면으로 여기저기 지어졌던 당시 유행했던 건축 양식인데요.

• 1:44:33Speaker 04

  And this structure of the house was something that was often seen back when I was younger, in the early 70s. They used the same blueprint to build that same cookie cutter house all across the country.

• 1:44:45Speaker 03

  당시 가난했던 한국이 경제 성장을 막 시작할 때

• 1:44:53Speaker 03

  중산층에 어떤 동경하는 그런 양식이 부동산 개발업자들에 의해서 그렇게 촉발됐는데

• 1:45:08Speaker 04

  And this was initiated by the real estate industry. So because Korea was a poorer country at the time, just as economic growth was just beginning to start, the real estate people tried to utilize the envy that people had towards this middle-class lifestyle.

• 1:45:23Speaker 03

  음 당시 한국인들이 어떤 유럽의 세련된 생활양식을 흉내내고 싶어 한 그런 욕망에 편승해서 개발업자들이 분란서주택, 프랑스주택이라는 전혀 어울리지 않는 이름을 붙여서 유행을 시켰습니다.

• 1:45:49Speaker 04

  And this structure of a house became popular under this faux title, the French-style house. And this was trying to utilize the Koreans' dream and envy to emulate the modern European lifestyle.

• 1:46:02Speaker 03

  물론 보셨다시피 전혀 프랑스 스타일은 아니죠. 그렇지만 이제 그렇게 이름을 붙여서 팔았는데 그것이 당시에 세련된 눈을 가진 사람들, 특히 건축가들에게는 좀 악몽 같은 일이었습니다. 너무나 한심한 양식이었죠. 그리고 그것을 똑같이 지어서 팔았으니까 수없이 많은 집들을. 근데 지금 와선 다 없어졌고요. 일부 남아 있는 것은 지금 와서는 오히려 좀 재미있는, 어디에서도 볼 수 없는 혼합 스타일의 흥미로운 건축이 되었습니다.

• 1:46:46Speaker 04

  As you have seen from the movie, the structure of the house, the architecture style isn't French at all. It was really just a marketing trick to sell this type of houses. And of course, that design was a nightmare to architects with refined taste at the time. And it was all the more pathetic, especially because of the fact that they built that same design all across the country. So today, because that structure of the house is mostly gone, it's very hard to see that style of a house today. It actually feels more interesting to see a style like that, to see those fusion of different cultural architecture styles in one house.

• 1:47:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, so we found the right house, redesigned the existing house. So something that we added was this wavy patterned concrete exterior to the house, inspired by the brutalist style. So that made it even more confusing in terms of the cultural architectural style.

• 1:47:45Speaker 04

  So after we found the right house, the production designer and I continued to redesign the existing house. So something that we added was this wavy patterned concrete exterior to the house, inspired by the brutalist style. So that made it even more confusing in terms of the cultural architectural style.

• 1:48:05Sean Fennessey?

  The film features what feels like a scene from my life, where a father is prone on his back watching an influencer video and a young daughter is watching television. When we talked for Decision to Leave, you talked about the use of cell phones. This film features AI as a component. A character in the film literally says, "A phone contains all of a person's life." You're consistently interested in showing the way that this technology invades our life. Why is that important to you?

• 1:48:38Speaker 03

  제가 영화를 만드는 데 있어서 스타일적으로 좀 고전적인 그런 방향을 고수하고 있다고 저는 스스로 생각하는데

• 1:48:56Speaker 03

  그 나쁘게 말하면 구식이라는 얘기겠죠. 근데 그건 그거고 그것은 제가 어떤 스토리를 또 캐릭터들을 정확하게 묘사하기 위한 저 나름의 방법이고요. 그것과는 별개로 아무리 제가 구식의 스타일을 갖고 있다고 해도 현대인의 삶에서 특히 현대 한국인의 삶에서 이런 테크놀로지는 굉장히 밀접하게 우리 삶에 들어와 있죠. 그런 리얼리티를 외면하고 싶지 않다는 것입니다.

• 1:49:38Speaker 04

  In my filmmaking style, I always strive for a more classical style or to put it more crudely, an old-fashioned style. And I believe that is the method that best accurately portrays the story and the characters that I want to portray. So even though my style is old-fashioned, in portraying the lives of the modern person, especially a modern Korean person, technology is inevitably tied to all of their lives. And I didn't want to turn away from portraying that accurately.

• 1:50:08Sean Fennessey?

  You say you use an old-fashioned style, but the film feels very maximalist. And where you put the camera, the sound design, the color is very explosive even for one of your films.

• 1:50:19Sean Fennessey?

  I was thinking of the shot through the boiler maker, the glasses. Why did the movie demand all these gestures?

• 1:50:26Speaker 03

  제가 헤어지게 심을 만든 거 나서 바로 이어진 작품이라서 물론 중간에 TV 시리즈 심파타이저가 있긴 했지만요.

• 1:50:39Speaker 03

  영화로서는 바로 이어지는 것이라서.

• 1:50:42Speaker 03

  그것에 좀 다른 그것과 다른 스타일을 좀 하고 싶었어요. 늘 제가 버릇처럼 그렇게 합니다. 바로 전 영화에서 했던 것과는 좀 많이 되도록이면 많이 다른 영화를 만들고 싶어 하죠. 그 결과 해지가심이 좀 미니멀한 방향으로 가는 영화였다면 이 영화는 좀 이렇게 된 거죠.

• 1:51:11Speaker 04

  This was my film right after my previous film Decision to Leave. Of course, I also made the TV series The Sympathizer in between those projects. But in terms of just films, this was my next project after Decision to Leave. And I knew that I wanted to try a different style from my previous movie. That's actually a habit of mine, always trying to do something different from what I had just done. So because Decision to Leave had such a minimal style, that's why no other choice ended up looking that way.

• 1:51:39Speaker 03

  그리고 컬러에 대해서 특정하게 말씀을 드리자면

• 1:51:46Speaker 03

  저는 막연하게 필름룩을 재현하고 싶은 그런 욕심을 항상 갖고 있었는데요. 그것만 봐도 제가 얼마나 구식 사람인지 알 수 있겠죠. 구식 취향을 가진 사람인지 필름룩에 아주 집착을 하는데 그 필름룩은 무엇일까 막연하게 생각하고 있던 것을 그것이 뭐지? 나는 그냥 뭔가 요즘 디지털의 그 쨍한 느낌과는 다른 뭔가 약간 그레인이 많고 또 그런 결과 좀 뿌옇고 색깔 채도도 조금 약간 낮고 그런 것을 막연히 떠올렸었는데

• 1:52:31Speaker 03

  이번에 일부러 아주 제대로 테스트를 한번 해봤어요. 똑같은 조명 똑같은 비사체를 놓고 필름으로 찍어보고 디지털로 찍어보고 해서 비교를 해봤는데 필름이 훨씬 더 채도도 높고 컨트러스도 높고 더 뭐랄까요 더 강렬하더라고요. 그래서 이번 영화의 DI 과정에서 또 렌즈 선택에서도 항상 그런 방향으로 시도를 했습니다.

• 1:53:02Speaker 04

  And since you mentioned color, to discuss color specifically, my goal for the film was to recreate the film look. And just from that statement, you know how old fashioned my taste is. So I've always wondered and had an obsession with that film look. In contrast to that saturated feeling of the digital footage that we see today, I've always believed that film has more grain, it's more foggy, and it's less saturated. And to really test that out, we actually set up the same lighting and used the same subject and filmed it with film ones and on digital ones. And then what I actually learned was that film has higher saturation, higher contrast, and felt more intense in general.

• 1:53:43Speaker 04

  So in the DI process and in the lens selection, that was a direction that I was striving for.

• 1:53:49Speaker 03

  그리고 말씀하신 그 맥주잔 리깅한 카메라 그런 것도 마찬가지인데요. 그것이 좀 독특한 앵글을 보여주긴 합니다만은 저는 그것도 뭔가 신기한, 어디서 못 본 것 같, 못 본 듯한 그런 독특하기 위한 독특한 그런 앵글을 시도한 것은 아니에요. 당연히 아시겠지만 만수에게 있어서 이 폭탄주 한잔이 어떤 의미인지 관객도 잘 알고 있기 때문에

• 1:54:29Speaker 03

  그것이 그 만수의 입으로 목으로 넘어가는 그 한순간 한순간 한모금 한모금이 정말 숨막히게 긴장되게 만들고 싶었기 때문에 고심 끝에 그런 리깅을 만들었죠.

• 1:54:48Speaker 04

  And as for that beer glass moment that you mentioned, it's a very unique camera setup since the camera is rigged right on top of the glass. But it wasn't an attempt to create this cool, never seen before, unique setup just for uniqueness sake. The audience knows the significance of the bomb shot, the significance of 만수 drinking in this moment. That's why I wanted each gulp, each moment to feel breathlessly nervous for the audience.

• 1:55:17Speaker 03

  그런 것이 뭔가 뭐 현대적인 그런 카메라처럼 느껴질지는 모르겠는데 70년대 영화들을 보면은요 그것보다 훨씬 더 독창적이고 대담한 카메라 사용을 얼마든지 볼 수 있거든요. 요즘은 관객한 때는 70년대 영화라면 정말 무슨 선사시대 영화처럼 느껴지겠지만 그렇습니다.

• 1:55:43Speaker 04

  And this setup might feel like a modern camera setup to audiences perhaps, but you can actually find more creative and bold setups in 70s film. I'm guessing that 70s film might feel prehistoric to modern audiences, but you can explore them and see it for yourself.

• 1:56:01Sean Fennessey?

  The film becomes a series of one-on-one encounters with Mansu and his potential victims. And each time he confronts them, we see that he's not such a skilled assassin. I wanted to hear you talk a little bit about conceiving the oven mitt glove encounter with the blaring music, because it's so striking and so funny. And I wanted to hear you explain how you came up with all of that.

• 1:56:27Speaker 03

  처음에는 당연히 총성을 죽이는 소음기가 필요하다라고 만수가 생각했을텐데 만수는 그런 프로페셔널 살인자도 아니고 그런 장비가 있을 리가 없고 권총은 뭐 아버지의 유품이기 때문에 그냥 어떻게 이용할 수 있지만 다른 것을 어떻게 얻을 수가 없으니까요. 그래서 나름대로 자기 주변을 둘러보다가 그냥 발견한 것이 아닐까 그래서

• 1:57:08Speaker 03

  만수는 나름대로 자기 그 조건 하에서는 생각을 많이 한 사람이다. 근데 관객이 볼 때는 정말 굉장히 어설프다. 그래서 오븐용 장갑 안에는 크리스마스 때 사용한 그 아이들 즐겁게 해주기 위해서 산타클로스 옷을 입었을 때

• 1:57:33Speaker 03

  사용했던 그런 장갑도 들어있고 그리고 권총과 자기 손이 분리되지 않게 너무 너무 긴장하고 무서워서 총을 놓칠까 봐 또는 방아쇠를 제대로 못 당길까 봐 땀에 젖어서 손 손이 그런 여러 가지 생각을 해서 막 그 비닐랩으로 꽁꽁 감싸가지고 총과 자기를 하나로 만드는 자기 손을 그런 처절한 노력까지 하는 사람이다라고 만들어 만들고 싶었어요. 그런데 보는 사람이면 굉장히 웃기죠.

• 1:58:10Speaker 03

  심지어 그 산타클로스 옷 입고 찍은 소품 가족사진도 영화 어딘가에 잠깐이나마 구석에서 등장을 하긴 할 겁니다.

• 1:58:21Speaker 04

  So the oven mitt in moment came from Mansu's attempts to use it as a silencer to kill off the sound of the gunshot. And because he's not a professional assassin, he doesn't have the professional tools to do that. Of course, he got the gun from his father, but he doesn't have anything else. So I think that was the result of him looking around his house, seeing what he has and discovering this idea. So even though it might look foolish or funny to the audience, we can tell that Mansu has actually put in a lot of thought under the circumstances that he's in. So he has the oven mitt and below the oven mitt, he also has this glove from a Santa Claus costume that he probably bought to entertain his kids.

• 1:59:03Speaker 04

  And below beneath that, his hand is wrapped up in a plastic wrap. And he did that because he was scared that when he's too terrified or nervous in the moment, his hands might get too sweaty. So he wanted to make sure that he's not gonna let go of the gun and that he'll be able to properly pull the trigger. So that's how much of a desperate preparation went into this moment for Mansu. So even though Mansu is very desperate and well-prepared for himself, it might come off as very funny to the audience when they're watching it from afar. And actually, if you watch the movie again, you might be able to find a family picture of Mansu dressed up as a Santa Claus.

• 1:59:44Sean Fennessey?

  As someone who's been making films for more than thirty years, how much do you relate to the men in this story who have turned their life over to a vocation that doesn't always love them back?

• 1:59:56Speaker 03

  바로 그 점이 제가 언저 소설을 읽을 때

• 2:00:02Speaker 03

  저와는 참 완전히 다른 업종 종사하는 사람인데도 불구하고 만수에게 주인공에게 감정 입을 할 수 있었던 이유입니다.

• 2:00:15Speaker 04

  That is the very reason why I was able to emphasize was the main character of the novel when I was reading it, despite the fact that he works in a completely different industry.

• 2:00:26Speaker 03

  그리고 시조라는 인물 중에 한, 빅팀 중의 한 명도 일종의 예술이라고 생각합니다. 종이 만드는 일을 그렇게 말을 하죠.

• 2:00:38Speaker 04

  And 시조, one of the victims in the film, actually says this line about how he considers making paper as a form of art.

• 2:00:45Speaker 03

  이 직업을 그냥 돈벌이 수단으로 여기는데 그치는 게 아니고 그것이 나의 삶 자체다. 범모의 입을 통해서도 그런 말을 하죠.

• 2:00:58Speaker 03

  이것이 없으면 자기는 아무것도 아니다.

• 2:01:02Speaker 03

  그런 직업적인 자부심을 넘어서서 그냥 그것 자체가 나다라고 생각하는 것이

• 2:01:13Speaker 03

  많은 그 필름메이커들의 사고방식이잖아요.

• 2:01:18Speaker 04

  So this job isn't just to make a living. They consider this job as life itself. And 범모 also says this in the dialogue about how he's nothing without this job. So it's not just simple pride for what they do, but they consider the job to equate to the sense of self itself. And I think a lot of filmmakers will be able to relate to this.

• 2:01:38Speaker 03

  그래서 만수가 자기가 버리는

• 2:01:44Speaker 03

  이런 범죄 행위, 이런 도덕적인 전략이라고 하는 것에 대해서 가족을 위한 것이다라고 합리화하고 그러므로 어쩔 수가 없다라고 생각하는 것이 조금 위선이다. 그렇게 볼 수 있다라고 생각합니다.

• 2:02:08Speaker 04

  So how Man-su's criminal acts and his moral downfalls, he justifies all of this as acts for his family, that he has no other choice. And I could see how this would come off as in genuine.

• 2:02:22Speaker 03

  왜냐하면 그 사람은 가족을 먹여살릴 수 있는 다른 수단이 주어진다고 해도

• 2:02:34Speaker 03

  자기가 이 제지업에서 제지업에 종사하면서 얻고 싶은 그런 성취감을

• 2:02:46Speaker 03

  그것을 잊을 수 없기 때문에 그것만을 위해서라도 살인을 할 수 있는 사람이라는 거죠.

• 2:02:55Speaker 04

  And what I'm trying to say through that is, Man-su is a man who would have murdered for this job even if he had other options or other jobs that were able to feed his family. The truth is, perhaps he was really chasing for that sense of achievement that he felt from his paper making job.

• 2:03:12Speaker 03

  심지어는 그에게 처자식이 없었다고 해도 이런 일을 할 수도 있지 않았을까? 이 살인 생각을 그렇게 상상해 볼 수도 있죠.

• 2:03:25Speaker 04

  You can even imagine if he had no wife and no kids, I could still see him as a man who would have done the exact same things.

• 2:03:35Sean Fennessey?

  The most chilling image to me is the final sequence with the automated logging machinery. The movie seems to have a strong point of view about AI. And I'm curious to hear your perspective on it. And not just in terms of it taking over per se, but whether it could be helpful or harmful in what specific ways in the future for filmmakers.

• 2:03:55Speaker 03

  음, 예. 일단은 제가 가진 즉각적인 감정은 두려움입니다.

• 2:04:05Speaker 04

  My immediate emotional response to that would be fear.

• 2:04:10Speaker 03

  구체적으로 AI가 우리 삶을 어떻게 지배할지에 대한 두려움도 있겠지만, 그 발전 속도가 너무 빠르기 때문에 뭐가 어떻게 돌아가는지, 어떻게 변화하는지 미처 파악도 하기 전에 바뀌어버려 변해져 있을까 봐.

• 2:04:32Speaker 04

  And it's not just fear towards how AI is going to dominate our lives. The speed of its technological development is so fast that I think the fear stems from this thought of how it might change our lives even before we realize that it's changed it.

• 2:04:49Speaker 03

  이 소설에서는 당연히 끝이 되는 이런 개념이 없었기 때문에

• 2:04:57Speaker 03

  AI 관련된 장면들은 다 이제 영화를 만들면서 제가 집어넣은 것들인데요.

• 2:05:03Speaker 04

  And obviously, back when the novel was first written, there was no such concept back then. So any scenes involving AI was something that I added in in the adaptation process.

• 2:05:13Speaker 03

  영화를 위해서는 확실히 도움이 되었다고 생각합니다, AI 테크놀로지의 발전이.

• 2:05:21Speaker 04

  But I think for this film, it was certainly helpful to have that AI technology development.

• 2:05:27Speaker 03

  왜냐면 제가 원작에 없는 요소를 추가해서 아내와 아들이 만수가 무슨 일을 하는지 눈치채는 그런 설정을 만들었잖아요.

• 2:05:41Speaker 04

  Because I added a new element that was different from the original novel, which was that the wife and the son find out about what the main character has been doing.

• 2:05:50Speaker 03

  만수가 자기 가족을 위해서 이런 일을 한다고 했는데, 그 일을 하는 과정이, 그 일을, 그 일 자체가, 이 가족을 위해서 한다고 한 이 일 자체가 만수의 영혼을, 내 영향을 주었고, 만수의 영혼이 파괴되었고, 그것이 그들, 이 가족들에게도 알려지게 되어서 결국은 만수 자체가 가족들로부터 배제되는, 그래서 이 가정이 붕괴되는 결과를 만들었잖아요?

• 2:06:23Speaker 04

  Because Man Su says he's doing everything for his family, but it's precisely what he does for his family that affects his soul. It destroys his soul. And when that is known by his family, Man Su becomes an outcast of the family and the family is shattered.

• 2:06:38Speaker 03

  그래서 이것 자체가 그냥 거대한 파라독스가 돼버렸어요. 가족을 위해서 했는데 그것 때문에 가족이 망가졌으니까.

• 2:06:46Speaker 04

  So all of this becomes a large paradox. He did it for his family, but it's precisely those acts that destroyed it.

• 2:06:52Speaker 03

  그런 것처럼, AI도 마찬가지입니다. 만수는 인간 경쟁자들을 하나씩 하나씩 처리를 하는 일을 정말 큰 결심을 하고 어렵게 어렵게 해서 결국은 정말 천신만고 끝에 그것을 해냈고, 그래서 이 자를 차지했는데 와보니까 더 무서운 상대, 결코 이길 수 없는 상대가 거기 버티고 있는 거죠.

• 2:07:25Speaker 04

  And it's just like that. It's very similar to Man Su's association with the AI technology as well. So the film portrays Man Su's journey of how he destroys his human competitors. And this was a very difficult process for him. It took a lot of big determination. And it was a very arduous journey that he had to survive through in order to make it through that journey and find the job that he desperately wanted for himself. But at the end of that road, he realizes that there's a scarier competitor that he can never win.

• 2:07:56Speaker 03

  그래서 자기가 의기양양하게 이 공장에 들어와서 새 공장에 새로 취업한 공장에 들어와서 불을 하나씩 켜죠. 공장 기계들이 알아서 돌아가는 이 공장, 소등 시스템으로 깜깜한 공장에서 자기가 이제 내가 인간이 왔다. 이제부터 내가 건축을 할 거다라고 하는 선언을 하듯이 불을 하나씩 켭니다.

• 2:08:20Speaker 04

  And he confidently enters this factory. And in this dark factory where the machines are working on their own, he turns on the lights as if to make this statement that the humans will be controlling the factory now.

• 2:08:32Speaker 03

  그러나 그렇게 막 혼자서 환호성을 올리고 그런지 얼마 되지도 않아서 만수는 자꾸 자꾸 이상한 기분에 사로잡히게 되죠.

• 2:08:48Speaker 04

  But shortly after his joyful cry, he is encapsulated by this strange feeling.

• 2:08:53Speaker 03

  그 거대한 종이롤, 완성된 종이롤을 몽둥이로 하나씩 두들겨보면서 그 밀도를 감각하는 샷을 보면 알 수 있습니다.

• 2:09:04Speaker 04

  And you can tell that in the moment where he taps on that large paper roll with his stick to sense the density of the paper roll.

• 2:09:12Speaker 03

  분명히 그 면접 장면에서 면접관 중의 한 명이 이제는 그렇게 하는 시대는 끝났다라고 말을 했고, 만수는 거기에 대해서 격하게 공감을 했는데도 그 버릇을 예전 버릇을 고치지 못하고 아마도 그 스틱은 집에서 가져왔겠죠. 온실에 우리가 한번 소개한 적이 있는데 그 스틱을 집에서 굳이 가져와서 그걸로 똑같은 일을 하고 있는 것입니다.

• 2:09:40Speaker 04

  Because if you remember in the previous interview scene, the interviewer has actually told the man to that that age of using this manual method is over. And at the time, man's emphatically agreed, but he still couldn't let go of that old habit. And that's why he brought that stick. He probably brought it from his home. There's actually a moment where we see the stick in the greenhouse as well. So he bought, he took in the effort to bring that from his home and to necessarily use it in a factory that doesn't need it anymore.

• 2:10:06Speaker 03

  그런데 동시에 만수 더 머리 위에 더 높은 곳에서는 로봇이 그걸 똑같은 일을 하고 있죠.

• 2:10:13Speaker 04

  And at the same time, we witness how this robot that's working above his head is doing the same job that he's doing.

• 2:10:19Speaker 03

  그리고 만수가 종이로를 운반하는 그런 운반 차량들하고 부딪칠까봐 일로 갔다 저로 갔다 우왕좌왕하는 그런 모습도 굉장히 가련해 보이죠.

• 2:10:37Speaker 04

  And Man Seo also looks very pitiful as he tries to avoid these vehicles that are transporting the paper rolls.

• 2:10:45Speaker 03

  그리고 결정적으로는 만수가 영화에서 퇴장하는 마지막 샷에서 저 멀리 뒤에서부터 불이 하나씩 하나씩 꺼지는 것을 우리는 볼 수 있습니다.

• 2:10:56Speaker 04

  And most importantly, in the very last shot of the film, we witness how the lights are beginning to go off one by one behind Man Seo.

• 2:11:03Speaker 03

  소등 시스템이 또다시 가동되는 거죠.

• 2:11:07Speaker 04

  It's the lights-off system being activated.

• 2:11:10Speaker 03

  말하자면 AI가 불을 끄는 행동을 통해서 만수에게 메시지를 전하는 것이죠. 너는 이제 필요 없다.

• 2:11:21Speaker 04

  AI through the act of turning off the lights is sending a message to Man Seo that we don't need you anymore.

• 2:11:28Speaker 03

  그리고 이어지는 장면은 벌목 장면인데요. 그 장면은 사실 저희가 찍으러 갈 생각을 했다가 아주 좋은 스톡푸티지를 발견할 수 있었어요. 그래서 그걸 사용했는데 그때도 그냥 쓴 게 아니라 거기 그런 중장비들, 나무를 베고 운반하는 그런 장비들의 운전석이 있고 운전자가 다 찍혀 있었는데 그걸 VFX로 다 지워서 스스로 움직이는 로봇처럼 만들었습니다.

• 2:12:05Speaker 04

  And the very next scene is when we see the trees getting cut down. We almost consider shooting that ourselves, but we found very good stock footage, so we used that instead. But for the stock footage, there was originally the video of a seat in that heavy equipment and a driver driving that equipment. But we used VFX to erase any traces of humans, almost as if robots are moving on their own.

• 2:12:28Speaker 03

  그 장면은 무엇을 떠오르게 하냐면 영화의 전반부에서 만수가 스피치할 때 해고라는 것은 영어에서는 X라는 표현을 쓰지만 한국어에서 모가지를 모가지라고 한다. 모가지를 도끼로 댕강 자르는 거나 다름없다. 결국 해고는 한국과 영어와 한국어를 의미를 합쳐서 말하자면 그런 연설을 하잖아요. 그것을 시각화한 그런 이미지라고 할 수 있죠.

• 2:12:58Speaker 04

  And what this scene is supposed to remind us of is a moment earlier in the film when Man-su is practicing the speech that he wants to tell the American executives. And then he talks about how in America, getting fired is like getting axed. But in Korea, we say off with your heads when we're getting fired. And then he combines those two phrases and says, getting fired is like using an axe to cut off somebody's head. And this moment is actually a visualization of that speech.

• 2:13:24Sean Fennessey?

  Director Park, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what is the last great thing they have seen? Have you seen any films recently that you really responded to?

• 2:13:34Speaker 03

  아직 끝까지 읽지는 못했는데 나보코프의 소설을 거의 다 읽어가요. Pale Fire라는 작품인데요. 너무나 화려하고 복잡하고 유머러스한 그런 정말 대단한 작품이라고 생각합니다.

• 2:13:57Speaker 04

  I haven't finished it yet, but I'm currently reading Nabokov's novel called Pale Fire. It's very fancy, full, but complex and humorous. It's really a great piece of literary work.

• 2:14:09Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you very much. Congrats on the film.

• 2:14:11Speaker 03

  Thank you very much.

• 2:14:17Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you to Park Chan Wook. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Remember, 4:30 PM, Sunday night, PT, 7:30 ET. Amanda is going live on Instagram, maybe with Yasi to talk about the Golden Globes. I'll be there.

• 2:14:34Amanda Dobbins?

  At the Big Pick Pod.

• 2:14:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And if you want to, what do people want to know? What kind of candy did I buy to eat on Sunday night?

• 2:14:42Amanda Dobbins?

  We're gonna eat actual food.

• 2:14:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Why did we go to New York, maybe?

• 2:14:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Oh, that'll be exciting.

• 2:14:47Sean Fennessey?

  Anything else?

• 2:14:49Amanda Dobbins?

  We could do some red carpet cues. It depends on whether we have, are they doing the red carpet? I mean, like, coverage? I assume they will be.

• 2:14:56Sean Fennessey?

  Who's are they? CBS News?

• 2:14:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 2:15:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I forgot that it's on, I, God, I don't want to deal with that. I forgot that it's on CBS. That's so weird. Because it was NBC for so long.

• 2:15:10Sean Fennessey?

  It was.

• 2:15:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. We didn't even talk about Nikki Glaser, one of my goats.

• 2:15:14Amanda Dobbins?

  She was very good last year.

• 2:15:15Sean Fennessey?

  She was funny last year.

• 2:15:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So she'll be good again.

• 2:15:17Sean Fennessey?

  We'll also talk about the results of the show immediately after the show, and that episode will get posted, and you'll listen to it and you'll love it. I promise. See you then.

• 2:15:43Speaker 02

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• 2:16:11Speaker 05

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