The Epic Movie Draft

Sean and Amanda are joined by Chris Ryan for their first ever (and potentially last) Epic Movie Draft, in anticipation of Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’. Before kicking things off, they react to legendary actor Sam Neil’s passing, Moana’s opening weekend box office bomb, and the trailers released for ‘Digger’ and ‘Dune: Part Three’. Then, they debate what it is exactly that makes a movie “epic” and draft some incredible films from a myriad of different categories. (0:00) Intro (1:47) We went to Canada (3:27) Sam Neill’s passing (7:12) ‘Moana’ bombs at the box office (and Disney's live-action future) (17:04) ‘Digger’ trailer reaction (22:11) ‘Dune: Part Three’ trailer reaction (24:58) ‘Odyssey’-inspired epics series on the Criterion Channel (27:00) What makes a movie epic? (33:20) The Epic Movie Draft (1:39:15) Honorable mentions and draft recap Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Chris Ryan Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh It’s on Prime. 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:16Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Finacy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture Conversation Show about epic movies. CR is here and we are drafting again. In honor of The Odyssey, we are conducting the very first and maybe only epic movie draft. What does that mean? I'm so glad you asked, Chris. We're going to break it all down right after this.

• 1:35Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is presented by Amazon Prime. One of the best things about streaming is that you never just pick a title, you pick a feeling. And Prime makes that easy with great entertainment and fast shipping that brings the moment to life. Prime helps you experience the feeling you're craving, shows you can't wait for, and deliveries you don't wait for. One click away from streaming to fast shipping. It's on Prime.

• 1:55Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, we are going to draft epic movies today, but a lot of news has transpired. We've just returned.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  A lot of news.

• 2:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, a lot of news. Yeah, we've just returned.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  There's a lot of stuff in the news.

• 2:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, why don't you tell us your highlights?

• 2:06Speaker 02

  I mean, I just think it's an interesting time for the Senate.

• 2:10Sean Fennessey?

  That's what's on top of mind.

• 2:11Amanda Dobbins?

  But Patrick Dempsey will not be throwing his hat in the ring.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:15Sean Fennessey?

  Did he announce that?

• 2:16Speaker 02

  He said that he announced that he was not going to be running.

• 2:18Sean Fennessey?

  Can you believe Strom Thurmond had 50 some odd years of continuous service in that seat? And then Lindsey Graham came right up behind him.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  So there's been like two senators.

• 2:27Sean Fennessey?

  So like for 70 years, it was just those two guys. Pretty cool.

• 2:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Good riddance.

• 2:31Sean Fennessey?

  I don't live in that state. Yeah.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  What's what? It's kind of like the big pick.

• 2:35Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, so who do you think?

• 2:36Speaker 02

  When you die, she'll take over, right?

• 2:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  And then maybe I'm.

• 2:40Sean Fennessey?

  Who does that make you?

• 2:42Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 2:43Sean Fennessey?

  James Tellerico. Um, okay, enough politics.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  Beto.

• 2:47Sean Fennessey?

  So we, speaking of, of, of international intrigue, though, we, um.

• 2:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, sad. Now you're.

• 2:52Sean Fennessey?

  No, we came back from Canada. We went to Canada last week. And I just wanted to say thanks to the fine people of Canada and Toronto where we had a lovely 72 hours. We showed a Christopher Nolan film, Tenet. We did a live draft with some special friends that will air on this feed.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  I look at him instead of you.

• 3:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you so much for tuning in.

• 3:10Sean Fennessey?

  You're turning your back on me. Mid pot. We just started. You're already shunning me. I can't believe this.

• 3:16Amanda Dobbins?

  He just, he feels bad about his behavior in the car on the way to the airport. And so he's trying to, you were done with us by the end of the draft. And maybe we can get into that during the draft.

• 3:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And actually, Amanda and I were locking in. We were having the most fun and you were like, enough.

• 3:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Because you were like, this is where I get off the bus. Uh, and it was the green room after Tenet and you said, no more. And then.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  I don't think that's true at all.

• 3:40Sean Fennessey?

  It is 1,000% true.

• 3:43Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's okay. We're back. And also, you know, after the last draft, has the last draft aired yet?

• 3:49Sean Fennessey?

  The last draft, the draft we just conducted?

• 3:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 3:52Sean Fennessey?

  No, that will air next month.

• 3:53Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, no, no. The last one that we three did together with, you don't remember this? What was it? Can someone help me out?

• 4:01Sean Fennessey?

  You mean the auction?

• 4:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Oh, the auction. That's right.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Are you okay? The auction aired. Yeah.

• 4:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 4:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, we saw Tenet and I'm on board and space and time, right? I go backwards, I go forwards. I'm here in the moment. But he turned on me a little during auction, the auction as well. So we're healing right now. It's beautiful. But I've noticed that the chair is inching that way again.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  George Sean?

• 4:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:22Sean Fennessey?

  Come back to me, my son. Okay, let's talk about real news, real movie news. Sam Neill passed away, terrible news. He was 78 years old. And it struck me the minute I heard this news, just what an essential part of he was in my early movie-going and movie-loving life. In the 1990s, if you look around, you see Sam Neill everywhere. Now, obviously, he's had a full career, starting in the late 70s, that ran all the way up until the present day. But just in the 90s, Jurassic Park, of course, The Hunt for Red October, In the Mouth of Madness, The Piano, Event Horizon, a number of movies that we talk about with great frequency on this show. Amanda, when I say Sam Neill, what do you think about?

• 5:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I would like to have seen Montana, which is, you know. And to your point, that's from The Hunt for Red October. And then, obviously, he's one with the dinosaurs forevermore. And that's where I probably first saw him. But it's been fun, as we have been doing our various theme episodes, and also, as Blank Check has been doing.

• 5:31Sean Fennessey?

  Peter Weir.

• 5:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Peter Weir, thank you. I was like, Australia.

• 5:33Sean Fennessey?

  Aussie, yes.

• 5:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, Australia, it's like, Australia.

• 5:37Amanda Dobbins?

  To go back and discover him, he was obviously a big part of Australian and, you know, New Zealand cinema, and bringing that to the US. So getting to see things like Dead Calm, which I had not seen until a couple of years ago, maybe when we were doing.

• 5:52Sean Fennessey?

  Erotic thrillers, right? Was that it?

• 5:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I can't remember, or I would have said that it was the George Miller epis- no, it wasn't.

• 6:01Sean Fennessey?

  Something about boats?

• 6:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Nicole Kidman. Did we do a Nicole Kidman Hall of Fame? That's what it was, okay.

• 6:05Sean Fennessey?

  There you go.

• 6:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway.

• 6:07Sean Fennessey?

  We're really building a true temple here.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  She has an encyclopedic knowledge of the big pictures.

• 6:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's amazing.

• 6:11Amanda Dobbins?

  It's true, yeah. But so. Someone who was introduced to us blockbuster wise, but obviously had like a rich and varied career outside of the dinosaurs.

• 6:23Sean Fennessey?

  No doubt. Got his start in 1979 in My Brilliant Career, Gillian Armstrong's film.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  What was the, I think it's a New Zealand, I think it might be Roger Donaldson, the one that he made with like Warren Oates?

• 6:32Sean Fennessey?

  Sleeping Dogs. Yeah, that's a, that movie came before My Brilliant Career. It's like 76, 77.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  Vinegar Syndrome put that out, right?

• 6:38Sean Fennessey?

  There's an Arrow edition of that movie. It's a really, really cool movie. And yeah, I mean, he, he did have this kind of rich period in his career in Australia and New Zealand making films before coming over to Hollywood. But then when he, by the time he came to Hollywood, he just became a pretty entrenched leading man who could also go real crazy. You know, he was famously in, was it The Omen Four?

• 6:58Speaker 02

  He was, where he plays Damien, right?

• 7:00Sean Fennessey?

  Um, he plays Damien and, and, you know, obviously movies like Event Horizon and, uh, In the Mouth of Madness.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  You said it, not Damien.

• 7:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. Uh, just had great range and was a really talented actor. So.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think in some ways a less flashy version of careers of slightly younger actors, maybe, or probably actually contemporaries of like Malkovich and Defoe, who are capable of doing everything from Jim Jarmusch and, you know, a period piece to an action thriller to a sci-fi movie to Robert Eggers movies or what have you. And I just hope we continue to see actors who have careers as varied and rich as him. He was metronomic. You could just depend on him finding, like locating the, like, the best emotion for each scene, but also would be able to like take the handbrake off at any given moment and do something like he does in Event Horizon. That's a little bit more dramatic.

• 7:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, he, like even obviously Possession is a legendary film that he was a huge part of. And even as recently as Tycho I T D's Hunt for the Wilderpeople, where he's doing like a much more broad comic outsized performance. So he was just an amazing performer. So we honor him on the show. Um, from the sublime to the absurd, Moana. Moana was the big release while we were in Canada. I saw the film. It's a live action remake of the 2016 Disney animated instant classic. Film I love a great deal.

• 8:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Why don't you perform some of it for us live?

• 8:30Sean Fennessey?

  Moana. Make way, make way. I think that's, we're in copyright territory. I, I did see this live action remake with, with my daughter in 3D yesterday.

• 8:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow.

• 8:44Sean Fennessey?

  And.

• 8:45Amanda Dobbins?

  On purpose?

• 8:45Speaker 02

  Did she wear the glasses?

• 8:46Sean Fennessey?

  She did. I thought it would be an interesting experiment and she wore them and she enjoyed the 3D experience. She said, Moana is coming out of the screen, Dad.

• 8:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:53Sean Fennessey?

  And, and that was exciting.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  It's all that the 3D makers could ask for.

• 8:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, that was about the only exciting thing about Moana, which was just not very good, as you might imagine. And is a huge bomb. It made $43 million here in the States, $95 million worldwide opening. And it was reported that $125 million will be lost to the Walt Disney Corporation. You say what, Amanda?

• 9:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I was gonna turn it around on you. I was gonna say, and it inspired a new wave of hand wringing coverage of the box office. Is it up? Is it down? You say what?

• 9:24Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I think it's interesting. I think it kinda checks out with how everything's been going. Which is to say that we're, it's kinda out with the old and in with the new. This is the, well, there's two, there's two things about Moana specifically. One is that Moana 2 just came out a year and a half ago and it was a big hit, even though it was critically not acclaimed. And so this is just way too soon for another Moana movie. And this movie was paused to fast track the Moana 2 animated movie. They gave us this more quickly. The second thing is that it's only been 10 years since the animated Moana came out. Most of these live action remakes are films that were made at least 30 years ago and sometimes even 80 years ago. So, Chris, you saw the film four or five times this weekend. What do you think?

• 10:02Speaker 02

  That's probably why you guys were reacting to my mood in Toronto is that I was quite busy attending Moana screenings. Anytime I had a moment to myself and I come out of those, you know, multiple trips to the theater and I ask you this. Is The Rock dead?

• 10:18Sean Fennessey?

  I think this is an underreported component of this story. I have helpfully compiled the filmography for Dwayne The Rock Johnson, a professional wrestler, non-real, really one of the GOATs. Since 2016, since the original Moana was released, here are the films that Dwayne The Rock Johnson has made. The Fate of the Furious, Baywatch, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Rampage, Skyscraper, those are two different movies, Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw, Jumanji: The Next Level, Jungle Cruise, Red Notice, Animated DC League of Super Pets, Black Adam, Fast X, Red One, Moana 2, The Smashing Machine, Moana, and then later this year, Jumanji: Open World.

• 11:04Sean Fennessey?

  Woof.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  I was gonna be charitable and say, this happened to Schwarzenegger, this happens to lots of our great action stars, you have like a shelf life, people get tired of your moves, or people move on to the next thing, but he doesn't have anything in his filmography that even approaches like, lower mid-tier Schwarzenegger.

• 11:24Sean Fennessey?

  I agree, let alone a Terminator 2. There is no Terminator 2 in his, in his.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  So I don't know what to say here. I can never not think that I'm watching The Rock when I see him on screen. I also have to, unlike you, I would say that some of his charms are lost on me, but not necessarily am I, I'm not like anti-Dwayne Johnson, anti-The Rock, but.

• 11:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Nor am I, and I think I've only seen half of these movies.

• 11:48Sean Fennessey?

  I've seen every single one.

• 11:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, some of them I was on, some of them I was on leave for, and Skyscraper, I just, no, I think I saw Skyscraper, actually, they don't stay in your mind, but these are.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  What's your favorite?

• 12:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Critically, I was gonna say critically, these are just, this is maybe the worst list of movies ever made.

• 12:08Sean Fennessey?

  It's a, it's a rough list.

• 12:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Box office wise, it comes in.

• 12:11Sean Fennessey?

  The Jumanji films are huge, so there's that. Obviously, the Fast and Furious franchise was very sturdy for a long time.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  But his movies, I would have to go back and look, double check my work, his movies that are not Jumanji or Fast movies, have like a $150 million ceiling.

• 12:28Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's more or less right.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Like San Andreas and skyscraper.

• 12:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, he has obviously pivoted by going to do Red Notice and Red One. Those are more or less streaming movies. The Smashing Machine was more of a prestige play. I like The Smashing Machine. I thought, and I thought his performance in it was very good, but a lot of these choices are really bad. And this is like kind of a reckoning for somebody who has only pursued a certain kind of movie for such a long time. And he wasn't, he's not like, he was bad in the live action Moana. He originated Maui. He looks a lot like Maui. He's charming enough, but it's just a repeat of a movie we've already seen. And there's nothing in this live action remake that improves upon the original in any way.

• 13:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, he's also, everything you said is true and speaks to his career and also the way many big budget movies have made in the last 10, 15 years. And so it does speak to this moment that we keep coming back to of like, oh, are things changing? And are people tired of franchises? And you stick The Rock in some junky XYZ with bad CGI. And for a while that was enough and/or studios and businesses and The Rock thought that it was enough. And maybe now we are turning to a point where it is not.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  He's got to find a middle ground between probably 824 stuff and imaginary Scorsese movies and Jumanji. But I do want to point out that we have now entered a new era, that being so over in fact means we are so back. That movies failing.

• 13:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  Means that people have like higher taste standards or something like that.

• 14:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think there's some truth to that. I think it is not unanimous at the moment, but the success of movies from younger filmmakers and young people getting excited about those filmmakers is the thing that I think is, has turned.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 14:14Sean Fennessey?

  You know, because a lot of the people who were excited about Moana when it came out, let's say they were eight years old when it came out. Those people are 18 years old. Those people are not interested in going to see a live action Moana. Also, when Moana came out, most people who were parents at that time are like, well, my kids are grown up.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:31Sean Fennessey?

  So I'm not interested in that either. And that Pixar way where Pixar draws in a lot of parents. So the movie is really like neither fish nor fowl. I think it'll be interesting to see because a handful of movies have now kind of skipped. You know, we talked about Minions, skipped a beat.

• 14:43Amanda Dobbins?

  It held, sort of.

• 14:45Sean Fennessey?

  Is it okay?

• 14:46Amanda Dobbins?

  It held.

• 14:47Sean Fennessey?

  Is it okay?

• 14:47Amanda Dobbins?

  But even. Let me just, and let me say to you, I said this off camera. I said it off camera, but I'll say it to you and Andy right here. Next time, call me, you know? You have my phone number. I'm available.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  I don't like to bother you, you know?

• 14:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Why?

• 15:00Speaker 02

  You're a busy woman.

• 15:01Amanda Dobbins?

  You guys always say this and then you just never answer my texts and then you no sell me in the car.

• 15:06Sean Fennessey?

  I've been a sincere correspondent of late. I've made an effort.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  I think it's fair to say that a lot of younger people have, you know, but they, if you grew up with Moana, chances are you went and saw Obsession in the last six weeks.

• 15:17Sean Fennessey?

  Exactly.

• 15:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Your silence has been deafening about Indy Navarrete attending a Mets game.

• 15:24Sean Fennessey?

  Well, we were already cursed, so I'm not sure how much worse things could get.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  Do you think that's where she, her character was actually doomed to in the movie?

• 15:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's her ultimate fate is City Field forever. Yeah, that's where I'm going to be buried. So maybe she can join me there. The less said about the Mets, the better, but I am going on Mets Corner tomorrow and we will, we will say a prayer to the, to the demons who have overtaken that franchise. The Disney Live Action Future. So should they keep doing this?

• 15:55Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 15:55Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, Lilo and Stitch made a billion dollars, right? So that worked and that was in that sweet spot where the kids who liked it when they were kids are grownups and they have their own kids. That was a smart strategy. I counted, there have been 18 live action Disney remakes this century as part of this new initiative.

• 16:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 16:11Sean Fennessey?

  And they haven't done a couple of all time classics. Bambi is probably the most prominent. Pocahontas comes to mind as a movie they haven't remade and probably shouldn't.

• 16:21Sean Fennessey?

  You know, more, some more recent films, Hercules and Tarzan.

• 16:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Hercules, Hercules, Hercules.

• 16:25Sean Fennessey?

  The Nutty Professor you're thinking of.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  I never understand what you guys are talking about when these, when this topic comes up.

• 16:29Sean Fennessey?

  Have you seen The Emperor's New Groove?

• 16:31Speaker 02

  Is that a movie?

• 16:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I saw that in theaters, I think.

• 16:34Sean Fennessey?

  It's an animated comedy.

• 16:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, I was a child once. What do you want from me?

• 16:37Speaker 02

  This is from when, back when we were kids.

• 16:39Sean Fennessey?

  It was like 2002. So you weren't a child.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 16:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I was graduating from high school.

• 16:43Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, but you went to see that in theaters. It's a movie I like. I saw it.

• 16:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 16:48Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I'm curious to see how much they keep pushing this. Tangled is being remade and is going to come out in a few years.

• 16:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Mandy Moore?

• 16:55Sean Fennessey?

  Is she the star?

• 16:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Wasn't she in the original?

• 16:57Sean Fennessey?

  She was the star in the original, but I don't think she'll be playing Rapunzel in the new film.

• 17:00Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't know, maybe they're updating it.

• 17:02Sean Fennessey?

  She's, you think it's gonna be about a 40-year-old former pop star? Yeah, that would be a weird Rapunzel. You know, Frozen's gonna happen at some point. There's gonna be a live-action Frozen. There's a billion, 2 billion, 3 billion dollars waiting for a live-action Frozen. But after that, I don't know, maybe, hopefully this is over.

• 17:19Speaker 02

  It's been kind of reported that these are all Iger mistakes. I thought that was interesting that they're like, these were all Bob's green lights and Josh Demore is not gonna, not gonna get fooled with the banana in the tailpipe again.

• 17:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think it was just, it's not, they weren't mistakes. These movies made 800 million dollars for years and years. They did a good job. It's just like they eroded what's special about Disney. Like Disney was a creative space that took pre-established stories that you knew and put their Disney touch on it and made, you see them in a new light. That was something exciting that they accomplished for 80, 90 years. And what they've been doing with these movies is taking movies they already made and making them again and making them less good with human actors. And so it should end, that's my take.

• 18:01Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 18:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 18:02Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks, guys. Speaking of human actors.

• 18:07Sean Fennessey?

  Tom Cruise will appear in Digger.

• 18:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and also on top of some random structure on the Warner Brothers lot during the trailer release event for Digger, because this man climbs on things.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  Does he not know how to just be like, I'm gonna let this movie sell itself? Or like?

• 18:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think it's gonna sell itself. I think he has to sell it.

• 18:26Speaker 02

  But don't you think there's like a cognitive dissonance from the showmanship of the way he's kind of presenting this movie to what this movie is supposed to maybe be about?

• 18:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Perhaps.

• 18:35Sean Fennessey?

  I think that they think the superpower of the movie is Tom Cruise. And so it has been Tom Cruise forward.

• 18:43Sean Fennessey?

  The trailer was released today, we're recording on Monday.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:46Sean Fennessey?

  Chris, what did you think of the trailer for Digger? Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu's new film.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  You know, it didn't deter me from seeing it. I was a little surprised by how much seems to be in it. You know, like that seems to be what Digger is about. Is about environmental crisis caused by this oil man who is also in the cabinet of John Goodman's presidency and has to go fix what the problem he started.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  I don't think I found it funny. Or like, I wasn't like, wow, Lev Grossman, but like, from Texas. This is incredible. Les Grossman. But I'm still gonna go see it. I just, this was, this was the one that felt like there was like a little bead of sweat coming down Mike DeLuca's forehead. And he was like, we need to make sure everybody knows what this movie is about. And there's been a lot of talk online today about how complicated and hard satire is for people to do well.

• 19:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure is. I mean, as soon as they put a comedy on the poster back in last year, I was like, oh, you guys are nervous. You need to tell people. And I mean, this is the trailer that we saw in, in cinema, in Vegas.

• 19:58Sean Fennessey?

  We saw like an extended two minute scene that led it right into this trailer that we saw.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 20:02Amanda Dobbins?

  But I would say my reaction was the same to yours.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  To mine.

• 20:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:08Sean Fennessey?

  That you thought it was not funny and you're concerned.

• 20:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that it didn't assrage any of my concerns, just from the basic shouting comedy really loudly with like bright lights to try to get you to laugh, which is, I think, a problem. You know, the cruise of it all in the trailer and in the extended scene that we saw is very funny. I'm excited for that. I like the rest of the cast. I think it's cool that people are trying things. Again, my Inari two history, you know, is hit and miss.

• 20:40Sean Fennessey?

  Checkered at best.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  Is that cat CGI?

• 20:43Sean Fennessey?

  Couldn't tell. Couldn't tell.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Honestly, it took me out.

• 20:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  I just think you just have a real cat.

• 20:50Sean Fennessey?

  You cat guy?

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 20:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Love cat content.

• 20:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Let me ask you something totally unrelated. You seen Disclosure Day yet?

• 20:57Speaker 02

  No.

• 20:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Let's, we'll circle back on that one.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  Are there cats in it?

• 21:04Sean Fennessey?

  Along with Tom Cruise and John Goodman.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  I don't have to see it because it made over 100 million.

• 21:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay. So you're you're good?

• 21:11Sean Fennessey?

  You're not in debt.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:12Sean Fennessey?

  So what else can we get you to spend your money on this summer? We'll figure that out.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  Fix US soccer.

• 21:17Sean Fennessey?

  They're gonna need more than that 5 million you were alluding for Disclosure Day. Riz Ahmed is in the film. Sandra Huler is in the film. Yeah, I would say I'm intrigued, but I have concerns as well. I think, not a big Inaritu guy either.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  You think it looked good?

• 21:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Why is it so washed out? Don't like it.

• 21:35Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's a very clear stylistic choice that they made. I don't think it's unintentional by any means. I joked when we were at CinemaCon that it looked like a Roy Anderson movie. And at times it kind of does, that big, kind of, almost like Colosseum sequence with all the men, the older men in one space, kind of recreating a strange Lovey and type of scene, does look like a Roy Anderson movie on speed.

• 21:58Sean Fennessey?

  You know, Inaritu is a great stylist who I think just like circles the drain with very similar ideas about bleakness every time he makes a movie. And he sometimes tries to undercut that bleakness by making comedies like Birdman. And those comedies are often not that funny. That could be the point, you know, that could be sort of something that he's trying to say that like, in the, you know, death rattle of life, the absurdity is the, is the struggle, is the, is the humor. But I wouldn't say that that's my favorite kind of movie to watch. And, but I am avowed to cruise, you know, I, I'm fascinated to see him reach back for something different. It's been a long time since he's done something different. So we'll be watching and covering on the show. Will you be watching and covering?

• 22:41Speaker 02

  On my show or on the show?

• 22:42Sean Fennessey?

  Which show do you mean when you say your show? You have so many shows.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  I talk the Thrones solo pod, just breaking down. No, I, I would love to come onto the Digger podcast.

• 22:51Sean Fennessey?

  You would?

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:51Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:52Sean Fennessey?

  We'll keep that in mind.

• 22:54Amanda Dobbins?

  You have to see the film.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  I will, I will. I do my homework assignments.

• 22:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  But during the World Cup, I have, I've fallen by, it's fallen by the wayside.

• 23:01Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not fair. You've had a lot on your plate and I support you.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 23:05Sean Fennessey?

  So when we were-

• 23:06Amanda Dobbins?

  You want to scooch back this way a little bit more?

• 23:07Sean Fennessey?

  That's nice. That's very adorable. You keep moving in and out of your shot, I think. Be careful there. Uh, while we were in Toronto, the Dune Part Three trailer premiered and onstage, after presenting Tenet, Chris asked us if we'd watched it and neither of us had.

• 23:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 23:18Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, have you since watched it?

• 23:20Amanda Dobbins?

  No, because I thought it was what we saw and I thought we saw it in Cinemark.

• 23:23Sean Fennessey?

  No, this was new.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  This is, uh, uncut Peruvian flake.

• 23:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Well, listen, let me tell you that what we saw in Vegas was just straight up fire.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  I believe you.

• 23:33Amanda Dobbins?

  It was unbelievable. I don't need to see anymore. Show me the movie.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  They did it right after Dune Two. We didn't have to wait five years. Timmy is Hemethy. Zendaya's doing Tyra Banks. Uh, like Pattinson is going for like, honestly, he's gonna fucking win the Triple Crown this year.

• 23:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  And two of his movies could be bad and he could still win the Triple Crown. He is out of his mind in this trailer. Anya covered in blood.

• 23:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh yeah, we saw that. And are you sure we didn't see this?

• 24:03Sean Fennessey?

  Um, it's possible. I don't think so.

• 24:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that we saw it.

• 24:06Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, but you haven't seen it since, so you don't, can't confirm.

• 24:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I had to drive.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  But you know what I'm talking about? Zendaya's like, "We trusted you!"

• 24:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, yeah.

• 24:15Sean Fennessey?

  There's a lot of Jason Momoa in this trailer, um, who has returned for some sort of vengeance. Is, is he what version of Duncan Idaho is he?

• 24:23Speaker 02

  I mean, it's a complicated-

• 24:24Sean Fennessey?

  Don't explain it. It's okay. It's fine. Don't worry about it. You're, you're gonna see this film?

• 24:27Speaker 02

  Guess I read Dune for nothing. Uh, yeah.

• 24:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Dune or the Wikipedia page?

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Can I get a hybrid? It's kind of how I like to roll these things.

• 24:36Sean Fennessey?

  You own a copy of Dune Messiah?

• 24:38Speaker 02

  No.

• 24:38Sean Fennessey?

  An audiobook?

• 24:40Speaker 02

  Uh, I've, I've, I've like picked it up. I picked it. My mom had one, I think. Like, I, I think I've like-

• 24:45Sean Fennessey?

  This is a real Bin de Prague, Bin de Prague situation here.

• 24:48Speaker 02

  This is like, I, I like literary criticism because I get both.

• 24:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Can I ask, do you do audiobooks?

• 24:54Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 24:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Me either.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  No.

• 24:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you, do you?

• 24:56Sean Fennessey?

  I was listening to it on the way here, yeah.

• 24:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, Dune Three. Dune Messiah.

• 25:00Sean Fennessey?

  No, not of Dune Messiah. No, no. Abel Ferrara's memoir?

• 25:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay.

• 25:04Sean Fennessey?

  Seen, read by Abel.

• 25:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  No days off for you.

• 25:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's beautiful.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  You're never like driving into work, listening to Lonesome Dove.

• 25:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you retain anything of what you listened to?

• 25:14Sean Fennessey?

  Of course.

• 25:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you listen to it at 2X?

• 25:15Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, 1.5.

• 25:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, that's better than 2X. He gave me a ride home from the airport and the podcast started playing on 2X when we got in the car.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  What pod was it?

• 25:24Amanda Dobbins?

  It was unfortunately the big picture, which was even worse.

• 25:27Sean Fennessey?

  It was autoplay.

• 25:28Amanda Dobbins?

  It was autoplay because he had been sharing. It's fine. That part is innocent, but that it was the most psychotic thing I've ever heard.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  Gotta get those numbers up.

• 25:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 25:35Sean Fennessey?

  I would sooner kill myself than listen to my own podcast, however.

• 25:39Amanda Dobbins?

  2X, I was, I, I, I had a physical reaction to it and I do think that I now understand you in like a slightly different way. It's important, you know?

• 25:47Sean Fennessey?

  I've been repping 2X for a long time.

• 25:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I know that, but I had, I had.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  You've never experienced it.

• 25:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I had never experienced it and that is unnatural.

• 25:55Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. And that's what makes me special.

• 25:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 25:58Sean Fennessey?

  Speaking of special, I co-programmed a series on the Criterion Channel.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Can I just tell you something?

• 26:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Really cool selection of films.

• 26:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 26:06Amanda Dobbins?

  It was great.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  I just was looking at that this morning.

• 26:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there's a seven films that are currently available and you know, the idea was how can a space like Criterion honor everyone being excited for what is clearly the movie event of the summer. It's clear that especially some of these bodies washing ashore of other summer blockbusters that are not totally panning out. It does seem like there are a lot of people who are kind of saving their coin for The Odyssey. And so the films that you can find on the Criterion Channel right now, which will be eligible in one of our categories here are The Searchers, The Darjeeling Limited, Sullivan's Travels, Walk About, The Straight Story, After Hours, No Brother, Where Art Thou? And all of those stories to some extent or another are inspired by Homer's The Odyssey and journeys home, journeys back somewhere. And I was very happy to do it. I love working with Criterion on stuff like

• 26:53Sean Fennessey?

  that. Speaking of Criterion, I was just there at the Mobile Closet at the Hollywood Bowl over the weekend where there was a huge Wes Anderson event where like they transformed the Hollywood Bowl into Wes Anderson world for a day where you could listen to music in a vinyl room for three days.

• 27:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Three days.

• 27:08Sean Fennessey?

  Excuse me, right, the whole weekend. And I didn't get a chance to go to the concert, but I know you did.

• 27:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I got to go last night, which was a delight and very charming, hosted by Bill Murray and you know, was a collection of the songs that have been featured on the soundtracks, performed by in some cases, the actual artists.

• 27:23Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, cool.

• 27:24Amanda Dobbins?

  And also the. The scores played by the orchestra and there was a children's choir at one point.

• 27:30Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, wow.

• 27:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Jackson Brown did These Days, which was like, pretty, pretty moving and like telling a story about how he, that song was not a thing until Tenenbaums.

• 27:40Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 27:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And he said he went to see the theater, see the movie in the theater and he was like, I'm sure I'd given approval, but didn't remember it. And then the song starts playing and he's like, I used to play guitar like that.

• 27:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, and then, and then perform the song. So it was really magical. It was very exciting to go. Yeah.

• 27:56Sean Fennessey?

  That's great. Um, so epic movies.

• 28:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:00Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think makes a movie epic, Sierra, as you were thinking about this, this project?

• 28:04Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, I could throw out like some definitions, but this is, this is a real pornography one. This is like, you kind of know it when you see it. And I think that there can be epic movies.

• 28:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Could have gone a lot of different ways.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  I know.

• 28:15Sean Fennessey?

  Is there epic pornography?

• 28:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 28:19Speaker 02

  That's a really good idea. Should we start making like four hour multi-locational?

• 28:24Sean Fennessey?

  Hundred million dollar pornos? Yeah.

• 28:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 28:26Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think? Good business model?

• 28:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. That seems great. Yeah.

• 28:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. You pay for your porn?

• 28:31Speaker 02

  Uh, well, morally and ethically, yes.

• 28:35Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. Yeah. You pay God.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:38Sean Fennessey?

  Sort of an Odysseus of porn.

• 28:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, boy.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Um, I think that this is the kind of thing where you, you know, an epic when you see it. And there are sometimes films that might kind of have the trappings of an epic movie, but fall short. And there are domestic chamber pieces I'm sure that you could call epic.

• 28:55Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  Uh, but to me, I'm very curious to see with our picks, how left field and how argumentative we get with each other about whether something classifies as a, as an epic. I, I thought that this was a very fun exercise to put them in their various categories.

• 29:10Sean Fennessey?

  I left it somewhat vague, so.

• 29:12Speaker 02

  I think you have to like, think about the scope of the movie though, to answer your question.

• 29:15Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with you.

• 29:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:17Sean Fennessey?

  How do you think about these movies?

• 29:19Amanda Dobbins?

  The, I think there can be a pretty literal definition, which is number one, um, like extras, the number of people actually in the film where you just get like a, a person count. Background actors. I'm sorry. I know that's the preferred terminology. Um, which is a way of measuring scope to your point. Um, but just the sheer number of crowd scenes, because they, they really went for it back in the day and that is one of the things that is diminishing uh, as we move to. CGI crowds, which they just, the technology is not there. The crowd scenes are like a huge tell.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  They were better like, it was better like 25 years ago.

• 29:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's really, really, really bad. So if you, if you have actual people in a crowd scene. And, and because that indicates also budget locations, you know, scope, all of these things. And then I think runtime, I think anything under two and a half hours is probably not on the scale.

• 30:15Sean Fennessey?

  I have been thinking about that because there is a category that speaks to that concern. But can a movie be two hours and eight minutes and be an epic? What do you think?

• 30:28Speaker 02

  I don't think it's durational. I think it's, I, I, I, I don't know that I have anything that that is that short. For instance, but I do think that it's about the multiplicity. For me, it's about the multiplicity of locations, the scope of the sort of landscape that you're covering. And then I think a lot of the genres that we think of as epic would be stuff like films about the Bible or films drawing from the Bible, Roman and Greek classical sword and sandals movies, King Arthur movies, knights, knight, like those kinds of things, and then westerns.

• 31:04Sean Fennessey?

  I would say war films.

• 31:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And war films.

• 31:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Yeah. I, so The Odyssey is, is 172 minutes. And we just had a chance to see it. And it is in the conversation for the most epic movie ever made. I, I don't know if it completely fulfills every single thing that you guys outlined there. For example, I think even just sustaining the same number of background actors as like the 1967 War and Peace. Like, I don't know if anyone will ever do that again. Like, there's certain kinds of movies where you just, they're not made in quite the same way. But in terms of just traveling the world, the scope of the, like, the way that the battle sequences are made and the intensity of the production design.

• 31:48Sean Fennessey?

  I hadn't seen the movie when I came up with this idea, but it, it fits. You know, like it now, I think instantaneously kind of goes into that canon of these kinds of films. These kinds of films, though, I would say, as I've watched more and more of them as I've gotten older, you know, they're not always good. Like, just being big doesn't confirm any kind of greatness. It confirms grandeur, but.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  But I always kind of like them. You know what I mean? Like even like how the West was one, which has its ups and downs and is very, very long. I kind of marvel at it's just its simple act of being and I don't mind it being on in the background for long stretches. And I'll be like, oh, I can get up because they're doing this now, but it'll get back to the, to the, the part that I like.

• 32:30Sean Fennessey?

  Do you like them as much?

• 32:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I completely agree with Chris and I was doing some refreshes because many of these I have only seen once or twice because you see it. You're like, okay, they really did get all that, that many people in one place with some cameras. I like, I get it. But a funny way to kind of speed wash through a couple was just anytime it's two people in a room, you're like, okay, whatever. I can just forward to the next set piece. And the next time it's just like the camp, you know, you get the vast expanse. But yeah, I mean, I like, I am forever like begging people to feel film in real places and to pay attention to production design and to all of the, the,

• 33:11Amanda Dobbins?

  the finery, the frippery of, of a movie. And sometimes they went too far. And I agree with Chris that the, they're not always good or it doesn't live up to the amount of money put into it, but it's, it's really cool that they tried. I like it.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  I mean, I think that way, I feel that way about seeing, I'm sure when I see Odyssey on, on IMAX and I kind of feel that way about watching Ten Commandments on a small TV where I'm like, wow, this is really crazy that she's a big deal to do that. Yes. And I think it's fitting that we're probably doing this draft now because one of the things that's really been a theme of Matt Damon's rather extensive and globe trotting press tour.

• 33:50Amanda Dobbins?

  He is running.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  Is him saying, I think this is the last one. I think this is the last one of these movies.

• 33:57Sean Fennessey?

  That I'll try to do.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Or that may ever get made, you know?

• 34:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we, we'll touch that on the Odyssey episode. I do think that's a really interesting idea. And I think it's related a little bit to like, what is Christopher Nolan going to do next? Because the escalation run that he's on now is quite fascinating. His films, some of his films may be eligible here. We can discuss. The Odyssey will not be eligible though, because it has not yet been released. Okay. Well, I'll, I'll share the categories before we set the draft order. Okay. So for those of you listening along at home, as I said, Odyssey inspired epics, which includes the eight films that were programmed for the Criterion Channel, as well as other Odyssey inspired movies will be eligible there.

• 34:36Sean Fennessey?

  The second category is epic best picture winners. Now, this one could be interestingly fungible is what I'll say. There are, I would say about five, no doubt, full-blown epics that have won best picture.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  There's like 35 that you can have an argument about.

• 34:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's exactly right. The next category is biblical epic. The next category is romantic or war epic. Then we have biopic epic, which I think maybe undercuts some of your descriptors. I do think that there are some biopics that maybe don't traverse as many lands or feature as many extras, but could fit the bill. We can talk about that here.

• 35:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:15Sean Fennessey?

  The next category is movies that exceed three hours, of which there are many. And then the last category is wildcard. Okay, you guys feel good?

• 35:23Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:24Sean Fennessey?

  Shall we set the draft order?

• 35:25Speaker 02

  Um, yes.

• 35:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 35:27Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Jack, fire away.

• 35:28Speaker 04

  All right, proper back to our old roots Dungeons and Dragons style. Here we go.

• 35:33Amanda Dobbins?

  So the Toronto fiasco, well, people will catch up on that in a few weeks.

• 35:37Speaker 04

  Well, was it really a fiasco?

• 35:38Speaker 02

  I didn't think it was a fiasco.

• 35:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:39Speaker 04

  Uh, drafting first is Christopher Ryan.

• 35:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, wow.

• 35:42Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 35:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Once again.

• 35:46Speaker 04

  Drafting second is Sean Fennessy, Amanda Dobbins, third.

• 35:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 35:51Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting. I have no idea what the right, what the power rankings of this are, but you know what? Today's epic movie draft is presented by State Farm. Life is all about choices, like deciding whether or not to check out the latest release in theaters. At State Farm, their goal is to help you make decisions that you feel good about. Speaking of good decisions, it's time for the first pick of the draft. CR, you've got seven categories to plug into.

• 36:13Speaker 02

  And my movie could go into almost every one of them.

• 36:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  But I'm gonna put it in movies over three hours.

• 36:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, interesting.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  And I'm going to take what I think is the number one seed, which is Lawrence of Arabia.

• 36:23Sean Fennessey?

  Lawrence of Arabia, okay, we knew that.

• 36:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:26Speaker 02

  Uh, David Lean's masterpiece, one of my favorite movies ever made. If you get a chance ever, ever, ever to see this in 70 millimeter, do yourself a favor.

• 36:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Can I just send a personal plea to American Cinematheque? I know it's a long movie, but like the 2pm 70mm screenings of Lawrence Arabia? I just, I can't do it. It doesn't fit with my lifestyle. And all I want to do is go and see this film. I just can't abandon my children for like the eight hours required to get to Santa Monica and see this movie, but I'm desperate to.

• 36:56Speaker 02

  Some of the most awe inspiring shots and sequences in terms of, you know, real locations out in the desert, huge swaths of people storming Akaba, like amazing, amazing moments that you'll remember forever. But then these incredibly powerful intimate moments of people exchanging ideas and talking about their lives and going crazy out in the desert and blowing out matches and perhaps falling in love with one another in tents. And all the things that happen in this movie and like a lot of epics is really two or three films. So I think in some ways, like the older I get, the more appreciation.

• 37:39Speaker 02

  It's kind of like a second half of Goodfellas thing where I actually quite like the last hour of this movie now, whereas when I was younger, I was like, once they're done really fighting the war, I lose interest and, you know, I don't need to watch Anthony Quinn remind him of morality. But man, this film is, is one of the true heavyweight champions of the world when it comes to, to global filmmaking.

• 38:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Can I tell you something sweet? Knox watched a lot of this with me this afternoon. Yeah, because he got home from a birthday party, from Alice's birthday party, and then was like, what you watching? And just sat down and was transfixed for almost an hour. And I think, you know, it helps that there are like planes and camels and real things happening, which he responded to. But even through the parts where it's, you know, people talking in rooms, which those you shouldn't fast forward through. Those are amazing. Peter O'Toole forever. But yeah, it held his attention.

• 38:37Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like this is the movie that every generation has been trying to live up to since. Like, if you listen to the heavyweights of the new Hollywood, if you listen to the way that Spielberg and Lucas and Coppola talk about the movie, they're trying to live up to it. If you, Nolan screened this movie, or actually, I think Tom Holland screened this movie at their request.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  It's Sony's print, right?

• 38:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, because he had to go to Tom Rothman, who runs the studio that makes the Spider-Man movies, to screen this before they made The Odyssey. They're not, they're, I don't think they're similar movies. The Odyssey and Lawrence of Arabia, their scale and scope might be somewhat similar. I think they have different things on their mind to some extent, but it's interesting to have like a benchmark, you know, where you can look back at a movie that was made 65 years ago and say, "We're still trying to get to this."

• 39:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. I wonder if, I would imagine that for most people listening to this, if you close your eyes and I said, "Name an epic movie," this would be the first one that came to mind.

• 39:29Sean Fennessey?

  I think so, although I have a couple of other ideas that may or may not get drafted here, because I do think that each generation gets their own. You know, they get their own totemic classic, or maybe even a couple. If you're born in the 1910s, you might see a few of these movies as the most meaningful. We may not agree on who will win this draft, but with the State Farm Personal Price Plan, you can choose the right amount of coverage to help create an affordable price. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

• 40:07Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, second pick. I'm trying to figure out, what is the category of need, right?

• 40:15Speaker 02

  It's tough, because so many things can bleed into different categories that I don't really feel like there's like a...

• 40:21Sean Fennessey?

  And the one that feels the most limited is biblical epic.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  Depends on your definition of biblical.

• 40:27Sean Fennessey?

  Will you be stretching that definition later this draft?

• 40:30Speaker 02

  Depends.

• 40:33Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I don't mean to wound Amanda because I know she revisited this movie.

• 40:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, this is smart. I would have done it.

• 40:39Sean Fennessey?

  I think my best choice is to take The Last Temptation of Christ here, which is Martin Scorsese's adaptation of the controversial novel that portrays Christ in a more human-like fashion, which is very much an epic story, very much a biblical epic, but and told in a somewhat similar fashion to The Odyssey. It came up over the weekend in a piece in USA Today that Christopher Nolan said that he watched the movie and the way, for example, that Scorsese allows the actors to use their natural accents.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  Hey, Jesus.

• 41:09Sean Fennessey?

  Harvey Keitel giving you real outer borough Judas.

• 41:14Sean Fennessey?

  You know, the movie itself is beautiful and tremendously painful and a fascinating portrait of a, I think, a deeply spiritual person in crisis. You know, like Scorsese was roundly castigated by the Catholic and Christian community for this movie and it was supposed to be made in 1980 and then it was canceled and Paramount got cold feet and he had to fight and it's sort of the story of his career to get this movie on screen. But what he ends up making, I think, is not offensive at all, but is like a very sympathetic and sincere and deep portrait of what we imagine it means to be a faithful person, a person with deep moral integrity. And I've always thought it was a great movie. It's not, it's not the Scorsese movie that I've rewatched the most times, though.

• 41:57Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's one of the, to your point about like you watch it once or twice and you're like, okay, this is a very, it's a, it's a, literally a cross to bear and not always the most fun thing. But this is, I think, an outlier in this category insofar as the era in which it was made and the kind of filmmaker that made it.

• 42:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, and the tone and the, it was fascinating to rewatch it, having seen The Odyssey and knowing the influence, but you know, the interpretation of. The main character, the hero.

• 42:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Christ.

• 42:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Yeah, you've heard of it. Um, heard of him. No, it was great. It was definitely what I was gonna pick, but uh, that's okay. You know, you win some, you lose some.

• 42:36Sean Fennessey?

  I would have probably taken it even if you hadn't told me you just revisited it this morning.

• 42:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah, because biblical epics is a necessary but kind of annoying category. Once Last Temptation is off the board.

• 42:47Sean Fennessey?

  It was just such a, it's such a huge part of Hollywood history, you know? And it had a huge golden age, but how many of those films are actually good? Is this an interesting conversation?

• 42:56Amanda Dobbins?

  There are how many do you actually want to follow up?

• 42:59Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Mandy, you got two picks now.

• 43:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I have two picks and I guess I'm just gonna go with my heart here a little bit. Well, I know what I'm gonna do for the first one, um, because it means a lot to me and, and you've got a real soft spot for it. So in romantic epic or war epic, this is both. I will take The English Patient, much maligned by Seinfeld and Sean Finacy when I made him watch it.

• 43:24Speaker 02

  Very pregnant moment there. I thought you were saying Gone with the Wind.

• 43:30Sean Fennessey?

  Chris has been celebrating the 4K announcement of Gone with the Wind. It's a must add to his collection immediately.

• 43:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 43:37Sean Fennessey?

  Is your home also, is Terra 2? What's the name of your house?

• 43:42Amanda Dobbins?

  To anyone listening, Atlanta, we will not do a live show until the Terra Theater changes its name. Okay, so you guys organize. Anyway, uh, The English Patient is Anthony Mingala's, um, adaptation of the Michael Andaggi novel. Uh, and it famously, uh, beat Fargo and some guys were mad, but not me. Because I think this is an absolutely beautiful, um, like, and, and maybe one of the sexiest movies that I have ever seen. And I was of an impressionable age, uh, at this point, but the, um, there, there are two plotlines, but the Ralph Fiennes, uh, Chris and Scott Thomas profile. Herodotus, you know, by the fire, that's just what I'm trying to be and I'm never gonna get there.

• 44:23Speaker 02

  Are you though?

• 44:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but it's like.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  I feel like you would not be into a guy reading to you by a fire.

• 44:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I'm not, she's telling the story and she has everyone captive, you know? And she's got the blanket draped over just like so.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  What's erotic to you is having everybody's undivided attention?

• 44:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly. Thank you for understanding that. But then.

• 44:46Amanda Dobbins?

  But then also the bathtub scene.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 44:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. The Christmas party scene. Tough one. The naming of the winds.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  Gosh.

• 44:53Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, um, and then there's a time every year when it's daylight savings where daylight savings goes away and it gets dark very early and then the lights are all gone and I'm writing alone to you in the darkness. I mean, this, this movie just fucking gets to me. I love it. It's beautiful. It obviously is paying homage and or stealing and not quite living up to David Lane, depending on your point of view, but.

• 45:20Speaker 02

  I think it's a really good partner pick with Last Temptation. It's

• 45:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:23Speaker 02

  A very modern sensibility attached to a very classical filmmaker.

• 45:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, reactions to Hollywood history in some ways.

• 45:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 45:31Amanda Dobbins?

  But I think it's wonderful and I was not bored. Unlike Elaine, who is another person Elaine Bennetts does not like the English patient in Seinfeld.

• 45:40Speaker 02

  Do you not like the English patient?

• 45:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I aspire to her.

• 45:42Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's fine. I, I, I really like Miguel as a filmmaker. It's not my favorite of his movies.

• 45:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Partless. Yeah. You know, you don't know what it is to.

• 45:52Sean Fennessey?

  The romantic epic is a, is a tricky thing. It's a really tricky thing and I, it isn't, it isn't my preferred mode of film as listeners of this show. No.

• 46:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 46:01Sean Fennessey?

  The romance I, I, I kind of struggle with. Not that I don't love romance.

• 46:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:05Sean Fennessey?

  You know, many are saying.

• 46:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:06Sean Fennessey?

  I'm a romantic at heart.

• 46:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's what everyone says when they think of you. Um, yeah, this is beautiful movie. Okay. So I have a second pick and I'm trying, I don't know how many of the other things I think you guys are gonna like rip away from me at this point. That's my real passion and I wanted Last Temptation for technical, tactical reasons. But maybe, maybe I'll go with what I really want. Uh, and, and perhaps this will give us an opportunity to debate the definition of epic a little more, but in three hours or more, I'm, I'm, I'm going straight to the heart of both of you and taking JFK.

• 46:49Sean Fennessey?

  So I do have it on the list.

• 46:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it's, I think.

• 46:52Speaker 02

  I have it on the list.

• 46:53Amanda Dobbins?

  It's eligible.

• 46:54Speaker 02

  Sure it is.

• 46:54Amanda Dobbins?

  And.

• 46:56Sean Fennessey?

  Let me ask you this.

• 46:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:57Sean Fennessey?

  It's certainly eligible in three hours or more.

• 46:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:59Sean Fennessey?

  Is it eligible in biopic? But not as a portrait of John Kennedy, but is it a Jim Garrison biopic?

• 47:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I think certainly that's plausible. I'm taking it in three hours or more.

• 47:10Speaker 02

  I think this is a great pick.

• 47:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Because I think that while it could be eligible in biopic, it obviously is more lasting and more honest as a fever dream about an entire generation of people not understanding what happened and going slightly crazy, trying to figure out.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  Understanding it all too well.

• 47:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Understanding it all too well and teaching the rest of us their secrets. I see you, Mr. X. So I love this film. Maybe not quite as much as you guys do, but like a lot.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  I think we love it for different reasons.

• 47:44Amanda Dobbins?

  And I love this episode of the rewatchables more than that. This is my all time number one episode of the rewatchables.

• 47:49Speaker 02

  When Sean thought that the CIA was gonna kick down the door to arrest him.

• 47:53Sean Fennessey?

  I wanted to talk about the filmmaking.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  We got there.

• 47:55Sean Fennessey?

  I thought that was the most extraordinary part of the film.

• 47:58Amanda Dobbins?

  You did get there, but I mean, just Bill and, and Chris, just 30 minutes in.

• 48:04Sean Fennessey?

  And Brian.

• 48:04Amanda Dobbins?

  And Brian as well, but you know, I still have follow up questions for Bill about some of the things that he said. Anyway, Oliver Stone.

• 48:12Sean Fennessey?

  You think it was the mafia? Who do you think did it?

• 48:14Amanda Dobbins?

  What do you, you think that that's right?

• 48:16Sean Fennessey?

  The mafia was hired by the CIA?

• 48:18Speaker 02

  I think it was primarily.

• 48:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, this.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  A CIA operation.

• 48:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, you do now?

• 48:23Speaker 02

  Extended to Cuban dissidents and the mafia.

• 48:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 48:26Sean Fennessey?

  Extended to, can you define that?

• 48:28Speaker 02

  It brought them into the fold.

• 48:29Sean Fennessey?

  I see. How many?

• 48:31Speaker 02

  There's a lot of debate about.

• 48:33Sean Fennessey?

  Who, how many, how many men?

• 48:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Who was calling the shots?

• 48:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 48:36Sean Fennessey?

  And how was the?

• 48:36Speaker 02

  Or if that was even, if there was even a head of the snake.

• 48:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  It was, it was an idea that got out of control, which is the Deloilo.

• 48:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, I was gonna say, I have, I've read Libra a couple of years ago and like, points were made, you know? It's like, I understand. It's plausible to me.

• 48:53Amanda Dobbins?

  But that's kind of everyone mingling together and taking advantage of.

• 48:58Sean Fennessey?

  I do think, I just feel like Mr. X was on to something, maybe not in the details of what he shares, but in the, the manner in which he shares it, the fact that there is some sort of larger conspiracy in the world at large, inside of government doors, I do believe in that. And this is not some QAnon thing.

• 49:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course.

• 49:16Sean Fennessey?

  I think for 200 years, this is how power operates. I've seen it up close and I'll never forget.

• 49:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 49:21Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, uh, I gotta make a pick.

• 49:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 49:24Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm, hmm. Now, do you feel the need to be selecting epic old heavyweights? Like, obviously you've chosen one and now we've chosen three fairly contemporary films here. Is it, is there something just more essentially epic about a movie that was made 75 years ago?

• 49:44Speaker 02

  I think the reason why they're still held, if not in high critical regard, like, oh, great film dude, is just sort of like, you have to respect real horses died during making this, you know? Like, you have to respect what we used to do. And we are losing the fine arts. We're, we don't throw cars off of cliffs anymore. Stuntmen don't get dragged behind, you know, carts. Like, that's when you watch these movies, you are watching people literally put their lives on the line to entertain you. And there's, it's like jackass, you know, you have to respect it, even if you don't like it.

• 50:18Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. With that in mind, then I will take Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai in movies that exceed three hours.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  There you go, big guy.

• 50:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, there you go.

• 50:26Sean Fennessey?

  One of the largest scale productions ever, one of the longest movies commercially released at the time.

• 50:30Speaker 02

  More like best movies ever draft.

• 50:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, this, this came to mind when I was thinking of this idea. I was like, how many of these will be all time mega classics? But like, we really haven't not talked about Seven Samurai that much on the show over the years. It doesn't fit.

• 50:42Speaker 02

  We did it when we did Kurosawa, right? Didn't you what I do with Kurosawa?

• 50:46Sean Fennessey?

  We did Mufune turning 100, so we watched a bunch of Mufune movies and talked about it. Of course, Mufune is one of the stars of this movie, Takashi Shimura, many of the major stars of the Kurosawa films. This is the biggest, it's not my favorite, but it is the most, it's the most movie I think that he's ever made. It's runtime exceeds 200 minutes, an epic story about seven men standing up against a massive army to protect a small town, been reimagined and retold many times over the years through Hollywood eyes and elsewhere.

• 51:18Sean Fennessey?

  Just. Just the feast, you know, an epic feast that is still being imitated to this day. And I don't, I really love a long movie. Like, I love a three and a half hour movie if I like the movie. If I hate the movie, I'm not as angry about it as other people are. Sometimes you get like a very hostile reaction if you've got a long film that doesn't live up. But I remember we talked about this a bit during the brutalist era, you know, where I was just like, just throw it on me, like, put another hour on it, I'm into it, you know? So, um, stuff like this when I was younger, you know, my friends would make fun of me for being like, I'm gonna watch Seven Samurai when I was in high school, but I don't regret it now.

• 51:57Amanda Dobbins?

  But the thing with, with an epic movie in particular is that it is told with the scale and intent for it to be large and have a lot of things and thus like be long. That is part of the proposition. I get frustrated when it's a movie that really just, it could have been a tight 150, you know? And because of people not making choices or things just getting a little bloated, it, the movie overruns its, you know, designated ideal time. But these are supposed to be big. And I, again, I like it when people try things.

• 52:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's funny how like the mechanics of like one of the Star Wars sequels, while having a lot of the trappings of what would be an epic film, like, didn't even occur to me to put in attention, you know? Not that I would pick, you know?

• 52:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean.

• 52:40Speaker 02

  But you know what I mean, yeah.

• 52:42Sean Fennessey?

  The Last Jedi, you say?

• 52:43Speaker 02

  Not that I would pick it, but that goes to multiple planets and has like huge scale.

• 52:47Sean Fennessey?

  Because that's not your Luke Skywalker?

• 52:48Speaker 02

  Why would you not choose it?

• 52:52Speaker 02

  What is it, Order 66? I'm gonna Order 66 truther.

• 52:57Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Sierra, you've got two picks.

• 52:58Speaker 02

  Okay, uh, for romantic epic, Stay Alive, I Will Find You. Last of the Mohicans here.

• 53:06Amanda Dobbins?

  That's beautiful.

• 53:07Speaker 02

  Uh, this is Michael Mann's 92, I believe, uh, adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's legend, legendary, like, it's a legendary book. It's, it's, it's one of the most sort of foundational. US texts and fiction. Anyway, also like is regarded, I think, well, or remembered more for its battle scenes, for Wes Dooty's incredible performance as Mogwah, but like, really, the heart of the film is this romance between Daniel Day-Lewis's character and Madeline Stowe's character. And, you know, this is a guy from, who's living out in the woods and

• 53:48Speaker 02

  is, has been raised by indigenous peoples, and this British aristocrat comes over this daughter of a British officer. And yet, they connect and have like this kind of primal star-crossed lovers thing. And he goes, goes over waterfalls and up mountains to make sure she's okay. And that's what it's all about.

• 54:07Amanda Dobbins?

  And that doesn't speak to you at all.

• 54:08Sean Fennessey?

  I will find you, love you, marry you. Yeah, sure, of course. Yeah, I'm a fan of this film.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:14Sean Fennessey?

  It's a, it's, it's an hour and 50 minutes.

• 54:18Speaker 02

  Well.

• 54:19Amanda Dobbins?

  It's okay.

• 54:20Speaker 02

  You don't think this is epic?

• 54:21Sean Fennessey?

  I do think it's epic.

• 54:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it counts. Rules are, you know, made to be broken.

• 54:25Sean Fennessey?

  It's why I asked that question.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  And Michael Mann drove people totally insane making this, where he was just like, you have to, you know, weave that, that quilt and cobble that shoe.

• 54:34Sean Fennessey?

  There's only one thing that could have made this movie better. Do you know what it is? Score by Audioslave. That would have, that would have really improved it. Otherwise, great film, great pick. You got another pick, CR?

• 54:46Speaker 02

  I have such a desire to mix it up in terms of era.

• 54:50Sean Fennessey?

  You did a nice thing there, but you both did. You weaved romantic and war epic.

• 54:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 54:54Sean Fennessey?

  Into the same. Do I have to do the same? Should it have been romantic, war epic?

• 54:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, which romantic epics don't involve war or great strife and loss?

• 55:07Sean Fennessey?

  That's a very interesting question.

• 55:08Amanda Dobbins?

  They are like intrinsic. Not all war epics have a romance.

• 55:14Sean Fennessey?

  Strife, yes.

• 55:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 55:17Sean Fennessey?

  Titanic, it's not a war.

• 55:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's true. Well, it's a class war, you know?

• 55:23Sean Fennessey?

  Well, amen, amen, sister. That's absolutely right. You were siding with Billy Zane. We all know it.

• 55:31Speaker 02

  For biographical epic.

• 55:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:34Speaker 02

  I'm gonna go Malcolm X.

• 55:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I wanted this. I was hoping it would still be there.

• 55:38Sean Fennessey?

  God damn it.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  So we're really.

• 55:39Sean Fennessey?

  That might have been my next pick.

• 55:41Speaker 02

  Smashing the 90s, but the reason why I was drawn to this, not only because it's just

• 55:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I should have done it.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  one of the great American films is also because of it pulls off the most difficult task of one of these movies, which is to convincingly take someone from a very young age to the end of their life and not have it feel boring or Wikipedia. And you are so rooted in Malcolm X's subjectivity throughout this movie. The film's color scheme and musical identity changed throughout the years and throughout the decades and throughout his change in consciousness. And it's one of the great performances, I think, in movie history from Denzel Washington.

• 56:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Absolutely.

• 56:21Speaker 02

  But it also actually feels like a story where someone starts someplace and ends someplace else on every possible level of humanity. And I had to grab this one here.

• 56:33Amanda Dobbins?

  That was a good pick. I was gonna do that. So, good job.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  It's interesting. I mean, we have so many films, but there are, there are some cream of the crop ones, I guess.

• 56:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there's gonna be a long list of honorable mentions. It's interesting. I mean, you know, we're betraying our, our generational favor, I would say, by some of these picks. I'll do it with my pick as well. I'm gonna choose in the same category, biopic epic, and I'll take Amadeus, which is a kind of a dual biopic in a way.

• 56:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Delete that from the list. It's okay. I got one more. It's gonna be okay.

• 57:01Sean Fennessey?

  Told in an unusual fashion, based on Anthony Schaefer's play, directed by Milos Forman. It's the story.

• 57:09Speaker 02

  The series is pretty good, by the way, the one that just came out.

• 57:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I haven't watched that yet. Who's the star?

• 57:13Speaker 02

  Bettany.

• 57:13Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, Paul Bettany. And he's, is he playing Soleri?

• 57:16Speaker 02

  Uh, yes.

• 57:17Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so.

• 57:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Ooh.

• 57:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 57:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:20Speaker 02

  And Will Sharp is, uh.

• 57:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, fun. Okay.

• 57:23Sean Fennessey?

  Is Mozart. So this is the. Story of Mozart and Salieri, two Viennese composers. Through the eyes of Salieri, sort of in the aftermath of, is he's just attempted suicide and he's survived. And so he starts telling the story of his life and career through the prism of watching Mozart rise to genius in real time in this complex battle between his admiration for Mozart's evident greatness and his jealousy and the way that the jealousy is sort of like he constantly is kind of working to undermine Mozart in the face of the court and failing. Very fun performance from Tom Hulse, as Mozart, you know, very ecstatic at a time when it seemed like Tom Hulse really had Hollywood in the grip of his hand.

• 58:07Sean Fennessey?

  And yeah, I mean, of course, F. Murray Abraham won an Academy Award for his performance of Salieri and maybe the biggest movie that Forman ever made. Forman, not, no stranger to an epic, but just an amazing film and one of those films that like you hear about when you're a young person and like actually lives up, you know, that like lives up to its AFI 100 films billing.

• 58:27Speaker 02

  Did you take this in bio or an Oscar?

• 58:28Sean Fennessey?

  I'm taking it in biopic.

• 58:29Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 58:30Sean Fennessey?

  Although you could take it in Oscar as well.

• 58:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. At the Hollywood Bowl last night, I saw that they're doing Amadeus live in concert this summer, which is would be very fun.

• 58:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 58:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And he's like, that's good. Okay.

• 58:43Sean Fennessey?

  Is it the LA Phil performing?

• 58:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I believe so. Yeah.

• 58:46Sean Fennessey?

  The Mozart.

• 58:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:48Sean Fennessey?

  Risen from the grave.

• 58:49Speaker 02

  AI Mozart, we brought him back.

• 58:50Sean Fennessey?

  AI Mozart. Wow. I'm sure millions of people are doing that.

• 58:54Speaker 02

  It's like a Waymo robot, be like.

• 58:56Amanda Dobbins?

  All right. Okay.

• 58:59Sean Fennessey?

  How long is Amadeus? Let's take a quick look. It is 161 minutes.

• 59:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, longer than I remember.

• 59:05Sean Fennessey?

  Pretty long.

• 59:07Speaker 05

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• 1:00:06Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:01:19Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so you have two taken away from you.

• 1:01:20Amanda Dobbins?

  So I've, I've learned that I gotta lock my biopic down. Uh, so in biopic epic, I will take Reds.

• 1:01:26Speaker 02

  Hmm, there you go.

• 1:01:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, the 1981 Warren Beatty film that we talked a great deal about on the Diane Keaton Hall of Fame, because it stars Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson. This also obviously would be eligible in romantic epic.

• 1:01:40Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 1:01:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Cause if you were mine, seen, uh, really very special. And then I guess could be eligible, well, romance and war are the same thing. So this is another one where it's political. Yeah.

• 1:01:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:52Amanda Dobbins?

  It's the same struggle.

• 1:01:53Sean Fennessey?

  I should have taken it. What was I doing?

• 1:01:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Not eligible in best picture winner because it lost to, uh, Chariots of Fire. But, um, does this count as modern? This feels, you know, newer than the 50s, 60s. But it is, uh, also feels a very different generation than ours.

• 1:02:14Sean Fennessey?

  It's an interesting pick because I think this, the conversation that we want to have about the Odyssey, well, like, we'll never be able to make movies like this again. I think there was some sense of that around a movie like Reds at the time. And one of the reasons it was so honored was because it was like, well, this is like the culmination of 10 years of greatness that Hollywood's been churning out with these kind of unabashed auteurs. And they're taking these huge chances on epic canvases. So, I don't know, can't, can't ever close the book on them, but this is an amazing movie.

• 1:02:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Incredible movie, um, and definitely over three hours long. So I guess it would have been eligible in many of the categories.

• 1:02:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I, I would like to see you featured 30 years from now in a similar fashion to the way Henry Miller's featured in this movie, testimonial style. What would you be taught, like, what would they be bringing you in to talk about? Henry Miller, the novelist, he's one of the witnesses.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 1:02:59Sean Fennessey?

  Who speaks about.

• 1:03:00Speaker 02

  Eugene O'Neill is in it, right?

• 1:03:01Sean Fennessey?

  He is a character in it, but Henry Miller is interviewed as one of the people who witnessed John Reed and Louise Bryant.

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  You two?

• 1:03:09Sean Fennessey?

  I'm, I'm asking you, what do you, what do you think you would be asked to speak about? Do you think it's gonna be a film?

• 1:03:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm gonna pack, pack through Russia as a solo.

• 1:03:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I would look great in those hats. I think that that would work out.

• 1:03:21Speaker 02

  Who made Brian hats?

• 1:03:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But which, I mean, Jahan Keaton is just like on the tundra alone for a good, solid point of 20 minutes of this movie.

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  She's unbelievable in this movie.

• 1:03:33Amanda Dobbins?

  She's so good.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  I didn't hear the Hall of Fame.

• 1:03:35Amanda Dobbins?

  It did. Yeah, Reds did make it. Don't worry.

• 1:03:38Sean Fennessey?

  Don't worry. What is it? Ushanka? What are those hats called? With the flaps and the big?

• 1:03:43Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:03:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I did. Did hers have flaps? I don't know about that. Anyway.

• 1:03:48Sean Fennessey?

  Could be a Cossack, but isn't a Cossack something else as well? Aren't they violent marauders?

• 1:03:53Amanda Dobbins?

  We did explore on that episode how our knowledge of Russian literature and culture is limited.

• 1:03:58Sean Fennessey?

  It is quite limited. Yeah. Yours is robust.

• 1:04:02Speaker 02

  It's really jagged, though. So like, I have about several tomes, half finished.

• 1:04:08Sean Fennessey?

  You're right. 12 19ths through Annika and then?

• 1:04:10Speaker 02

  Right. And then I watched Star City to completion.

• 1:04:16Sean Fennessey?

  That's good. Pushkin?

• 1:04:17Speaker 02

  Never, never dabbled. Turgenev?

• 1:04:20Sean Fennessey?

  Nope.

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  Brothers and Sons?

• 1:04:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, not so much.

• 1:04:22Sean Fennessey?

  Not done it.

• 1:04:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so I have a second pick here, and I don't know whether to be.

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  Pushkin, Turgenev, Drive By, by Amanda.

• 1:04:32Amanda Dobbins?

  It's like, I did, I didn't, you know?

• 1:04:34Sean Fennessey?

  Just haven't read it.

• 1:04:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Haven't read it. So I could be strategic, or I could kind of go with my heart here. And I think, I don't know. I think it's already been mentioned, so in epic Best Picture winners. Well, I don't know. What should I do here?

• 1:04:53Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, boy. Oh, my goodness.

• 1:04:55Speaker 02

  You rarely see the queen sweat.

• 1:04:57Sean Fennessey?

  A zigzag. Jeez. Unsure.

• 1:05:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I just, I guess I should do, honestly.

• 1:05:04Speaker 02

  What's your color story? What do you want to say about yourself at this pick?

• 1:05:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I've already said what I want to say with English Patient and Reds.

• 1:05:11Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 1:05:11Amanda Dobbins?

  And JFK, which just features a lot of really hot people, as some of them are solving conspiracies. And the others are having.

• 1:05:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's Tommy Lee Jones. Absolutely. Some of the hottest shit you'll ever see.

• 1:05:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Love triangles, you know, so.

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  Among other things, yeah.

• 1:05:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. That's true.

• 1:05:26Sean Fennessey?

  Insane wig work in there, yeah.

• 1:05:28Speaker 02

  Love triangle between the CIA and mob.

• 1:05:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Exactly, you know?

• 1:05:32Sean Fennessey?

  The greatest love affair of all.

• 1:05:35Amanda Dobbins?

  So I that's my that's my color story or love triangles. And this doesn't really.

• 1:05:42Speaker 02

  You should pick with your heart.

• 1:05:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, the my heart also does have a love triangle.

• 1:05:47Speaker 02

  Did you get biblical yet?

• 1:05:47Amanda Dobbins?

  No, that's the thing. Should I do biblical? I'm gonna do biblical. Yeah, so I'm gonna take Ben-Hur because whatever. But the chariot scene, yeah, is that's that's pretty awesome.

• 1:05:57Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:05:58Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, speaking of horses who died, R and P to them.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  So many.

• 1:06:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, it's really insane that they did that and for how long they did that. And it's incredibly memorable.

• 1:06:09Speaker 02

  Do you think Cecil B. DeMille would recognize Hollywood today? And it's woke culture?

• 1:06:15Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting question.

• 1:06:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:06:21Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I watched Ben-Hur for the first time during COVID.

• 1:06:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:06:24Sean Fennessey?

  I'd never seen it before. And um, I say this with respect. I was surprised how gay it was.

• 1:06:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:30Sean Fennessey?

  Like, it's like, it's a shockingly homoerotic film about men sort of returning from war to be reunited. And they're sort of like, brother, it is I. And like clutching each other in very dramatic fashion. And obviously, there's something in a lot of biblical storytelling that has that.

• 1:06:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And they parade around with horses.

• 1:06:46Sean Fennessey?

  But there's a lot of sort of their epic passion for lost love amongst men. It's a huge part of the film.

• 1:06:52Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't relate to that?

• 1:06:53Sean Fennessey?

  I get it. I get it. You know, as somebody who has deep bonds with with with with male friends. Yeah.

• 1:07:02Sean Fennessey?

  Ben-Hur, I would say intermittently great, but it's when it's great. Well, it's greatness is like the ceiling, right? In terms of like epic Hollywood filmmaking.

• 1:07:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Of course. Yeah. So you fast forward through to get the vistas and the chariot race. And then when it's Charlton Heston in a dark room, kind of recreating a Rembrandt with someone else. You're like, I'm like.

• 1:07:23Sean Fennessey?

  He's in a stable and he's got his hand on a man's shoulders. And you're like, you guys are really close to each other right now.

• 1:07:28Speaker 02

  What's so great about it being on during the holidays, when it would just be on TNT for 24 hours. Because it was completely like, I have no recollection at all of what the narrative is. And whenever Chuck would go into a dark room, I'd just get another turkey sandwich.

• 1:07:43Sean Fennessey?

  Um, okay.

• 1:07:45Amanda Dobbins?

  So I was strategic.

• 1:07:47Sean Fennessey?

  So is it back to me?

• 1:07:49Amanda Dobbins?

  It is.

• 1:07:49Sean Fennessey?

  Sheesh. Well.

• 1:07:55Sean Fennessey?

  I'm really betwixt in between. I guess for romantic or war epic, I'll take The Deer Hunter. Which I, I think is, is a war epic, is it not?

• 1:08:06Speaker 02

  Of course it is.

• 1:08:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:07Speaker 02

  It's very romantic.

• 1:08:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it has romance too.

• 1:08:10Speaker 02

  Category, do we?

• 1:08:11Sean Fennessey?

  I have romantic or war.

• 1:08:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Or war.

• 1:08:12Speaker 02

  Or war.

• 1:08:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, you didn't have to do romance, but you did anyway.

• 1:08:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's, that's why I was saying when you chose Last of the Mohicans, you kind of fused the category nicely.

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  The romantic part of Last of the Mohicans is when he tears his fucking heart out and shows it to everybody.

• 1:08:24Sean Fennessey?

  That's true love. Um, Michael Chimino's Best Picture winning would also be eligible in Best Picture. Story of, um, four friends from a steel town in Pennsylvania who, um, all in love with their girlfriends. One of them gets married and then they go to Vietnam and terrible things happen there. And they're forced to live with the, uh, trauma and PTSD of what they did there and what happened to them. And some of them don't really come back. Some come back, but none of them really come back. Um, and beautiful movie, Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken, John Savage. Uh, yeah, I mean, it's, I think also sort of similar to Amadeus, like sort of redefines how you might think about a war movie.

• 1:09:05Sean Fennessey?

  This isn't a movie that is like defined by its battlefields. It's defined by everything surrounding those experiences. Um, but very much of its time, very much commenting on a group of young men who were just coming back from Vietnam. And it's sort of like the flip side to other big epic movies like Apocalypse Now, which may come up in this conversation. Um, and a movie that I've always really loved and is kind of the end in a way for Chimino. Cause he makes Heaven's Gate next and that augurs the end of that Reds era that we're talking about. And, um, you know, I did just pick up his film Desperate Hours in Canada.

• 1:09:35Speaker 02

  Is that the Mickey, Mickey Rourke kidnapping movie?

• 1:09:38Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 1:09:39Speaker 02

  I like that film.

• 1:09:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I do too. I got it on Blu-ray.

• 1:09:41Amanda Dobbins?

  What did Van say about Mickey Rourke on the draft that we did?

• 1:09:45Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I was just, no, it was funny. Anyway.

• 1:09:49Speaker 02

  Bad boxer? Well, good boxer. I really have no idea.

• 1:09:50Sean Fennessey?

  He was probably a good boxer.

• 1:09:52Speaker 02

  Was he?

• 1:09:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:52Speaker 02

  And he boxed, which is more than I ever did.

• 1:09:54Sean Fennessey?

  He was also the Pope of Greenwich Village.

• 1:09:55Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 1:09:56Sean Fennessey?

  Were you ever the Pope of a neighborhood?

• 1:09:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Hillhurst, right now.

• 1:10:00Sean Fennessey?

  You are the Pope of Hillhurst.

• 1:10:01Speaker 02

  No, I don't have that kind of sway on Hillhurst.

• 1:10:03Amanda Dobbins?

  You're Elvis.

• 1:10:04Speaker 02

  It's not like they see me coming in there like, here's your table, sir.

• 1:10:06Amanda Dobbins?

  There is nothing more fun than walking downhillhurst with you.

• 1:10:09Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. It was 2015.

• 1:10:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Other men in chore jackets, sir, sir.

• 1:10:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:10:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Such a big fan. I never do this.

• 1:10:14Sean Fennessey?

  It was early, it was January 2015.

• 1:10:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:18Sean Fennessey?

  We went to Little Dom's, me, you, Eileen and Phoebe. The Ringer had not even started yet. And, you know, I think we had a couple of penicillins. You know, I like to have the penicillin at Little Dom's. And, uh, maybe, maybe some meatballs, maybe some arancini. And we walked out and, and three of those chore-coated men that Amanda was describing came out. They all had beards of some fashion.

• 1:10:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:40Sean Fennessey?

  You could tell they were really into craft cocktails.

• 1:10:41Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 1:10:42Sean Fennessey?

  And...

• 1:10:43Amanda Dobbins?

  As if you're not.

• 1:10:43Speaker 02

  In 2015?

• 1:10:44Amanda Dobbins?

  You just name checked a penicillin.

• 1:10:46Sean Fennessey?

  They rewatched Band of Brothers like every two years. And they were named like Tyler, Lyle and, um...

• 1:10:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Keith.

• 1:10:55Sean Fennessey?

  Keith, perfect. And they, they grabbed you by the shoulders and they said, "Sir, your great works will live on in me. Thank you for everything you've done." And low...

• 1:11:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Here you are.

• 1:11:09Sean Fennessey?

  We've launched so much around that.

• 1:11:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:10Sean Fennessey?

  You know? You are, you're a beautiful shit.

• 1:11:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:11:15Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, you got picks.

• 1:11:16Speaker 02

  Uh, okay.

• 1:11:17Amanda Dobbins?

  You just have one pick.

• 1:11:18Speaker 02

  No, I have several, really.

• 1:11:19Sean Fennessey?

  Two, right?

• 1:11:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm just really sitting on the issue.

• 1:11:23Sean Fennessey?

  You gotta, you gotta wait for a little while, Amanda. What categories do you have, Chris? Do you know?

• 1:11:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have Oscar, well, remaining, you mean? Oscar, biblical and wild card.

• 1:11:33Amanda Dobbins?

  And what about Odyssey-inspired epic?

• 1:11:35Speaker 02

  Oh, not it. So we have, I have four more picks left?

• 1:11:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:37Speaker 02

  Well, for Odyssey-inspired, um, I'm gonna go with The Searchers. Which is John Ford's western.

• 1:11:43Sean Fennessey?

  Heard of it. Yeah.

• 1:11:45Speaker 02

  That, uh, is about the cost of going home or the cost of trying to get back home. This is a film about John Wayne's character Ethan, who, uh, is not really fit for the increasingly modernized and...

• 1:12:01Speaker 02

  Civilized Wild West, going to quote unquote rescue his niece from Apaches, I believe, when she's been, when she was kidnapped as a child. And it's, it's an incredible epic tale of, of going out and coming back. But the, what it costs the people who do it and the, um, the myths that they tell themselves about why they're doing what they're doing. And I know it's like a somewhat, you know, controversial film in, in some ways, but is honestly, one of the most amazing things to look at that I've ever seen on a screen. Great 4K.

• 1:12:41Sean Fennessey?

  Was back in the news and for one battle after another, of course, many overt acknowledgements of, you know, kidnapped young girl. And there's an Apache figure who figures prominently in the story. Huge framework for the movie.

• 1:12:54Speaker 02

  So I'll take that in movies inspired by the Odyssey. And then in Best Picture epic, I'm going to go double lean and I'm going to take Bridge on the River Kwai.

• 1:13:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, look at you.

• 1:13:05Speaker 02

  So 57, and this is.

• 1:13:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Double lean.

• 1:13:08Speaker 02

  This is David Lean's World War II epic.

• 1:13:16Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think DJ Screw liked David Lean films?

• 1:13:19Speaker 02

  I don't see why not.

• 1:13:20Sean Fennessey?

  Probably, right? Just leaning back on some Promethazine.

• 1:13:23Speaker 02

  I wish he would have sampled some William Holden dialogue from this movie. Alec Guinness and William Hawk, uh, William Holden and Jack Hawkins, uh, playing prisoners of war in World War II. And they gotta build a bridge, you know? And some, sometimes that's a, that's a foolish thing to do.

• 1:13:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you think you'd be good at building a bridge?

• 1:13:45Speaker 02

  I think I would be good at getting people excited about the project. The engineering aspect, I, and honestly, you know what? I think I, I do feel like this is probably my last couple of years that I can.

• 1:13:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:13:59Speaker 02

  Carry planks of wood and stuff like that before I enter, you know?

• 1:14:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:14:03Speaker 02

  My wife keeping me propped up in a hospital bed with a newspaper to prove that I'm alive.

• 1:14:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:10Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 1:14:13Speaker 02

  Now he's alive.

• 1:14:15Sean Fennessey?

  I love Virgin River Quay.

• 1:14:17Speaker 02

  I love this film.

• 1:14:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Were you gonna take it?

• 1:14:21Sean Fennessey?

  I forgot to write it down.

• 1:14:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I just forgot.

• 1:14:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, so here's, so let me bring you.

• 1:14:27Sean Fennessey?

  I probably would have taken it three rounds ago.

• 1:14:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Let me, let me bring you up to speed, Chris. So.

• 1:14:33Speaker 02

  So you guys, I get out of the van on Friday.

• 1:14:36Amanda Dobbins?

  You dropped us, that's where I was starting. You dropped us off. First terminal. You continue on your way to, to live your east coast life.

• 1:14:44Speaker 02

  Terminal three.

• 1:14:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And we sat in the lounge and like sort of talked to each other, sort of looked at our phones. It was a nice time. Yeah. And then we get on the plane and we, and I think like plane Sean is about to be upon us. You know, I've prepared the inbox. I've prepared my mental state to get ready for plane Sean. He held it at bay while we waited for the plane, which I appreciated. And then we get there and, and I'm getting ready to, do you want me to prep for this draft? No wifi. No wifi to be had. Five hours. Nothing but my own brain.

• 1:15:22Speaker 02

  Small talk?

• 1:15:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, we weren't sitting together. Yeah, we didn't, we didn't really. So no, I slept.

• 1:15:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I just raw dogged it the whole time, hands in my lap.

• 1:15:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, so that means.

• 1:15:34Sean Fennessey?

  No, it's not true. What I did is, um, I watched the Guy Ritchie film In The Gray.

• 1:15:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:15:38Sean Fennessey?

  I had a nice time.

• 1:15:39Speaker 02

  Was that on the like?

• 1:15:40Sean Fennessey?

  No, I downloaded it on my laptop for just this, just this occasion.

• 1:15:43Speaker 02

  Case of emergencies.

• 1:15:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:45Speaker 02

  And what, and did you read?

• 1:15:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I read it's fine. No, I've already read the Rad and Keith. It's really good. Yeah. Uh, I tried to have a whole conversation with you about it. I know this is what, what happened to us.

• 1:15:55Speaker 02

  I don't, we just, we were off sync. That's all.

• 1:15:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, but we talked about this and I was like, it really helped me understand London, you know? I know it's just like one person's story. I guess it's when you were giving me the news digest about Captain Pinhead or whatever.

• 1:16:07Speaker 02

  Captain Bin, Count Binface. Yes.

• 1:16:12Sean Fennessey?

  Pinhead from Hellraiser? Is he figuring into?

• 1:16:15Speaker 02

  I don't understand what I did in the van ride out there that was so controversial.

• 1:16:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it's you just, at some point, you didn't think we were funny anymore.

• 1:16:22Sean Fennessey?

  Here's what I remember. We were talking about things that would be on each other's family crest.

• 1:16:26Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:16:26Sean Fennessey?

  And the things that would be on my crest that I described sincerely were chicken. I love chicken. Um, remembering the good times that would be represented somehow. And then a third thing of indiscriminate memory.

• 1:16:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't remember what that was either.

• 1:16:39Speaker 02

  You know what it is? Is I think before a live show, you guys have to be 1,000% yourselves. And you're like, I must buy media. And you're like, I have to buy a Celine dress.

• 1:16:46Amanda Dobbins?

  That's so nice you remember that.

• 1:16:49Speaker 02

  As soon as it's over, you're like, I'm a fucking goofball. And I'm like, well, I've still got work to do out there.

• 1:16:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:54Sean Fennessey?

  You do. You do.

• 1:16:55Speaker 02

  I'm Chris Ryan 24/7.

• 1:16:57Sean Fennessey?

  You gotta shake Tyler and Keith's hand and look them in the eye and make their day. Um, okay. Uh, you have another pick, right? You took Bridge on the River Kwai.

• 1:17:04Speaker 02

  And, uh, what was the other one?

• 1:17:06Speaker 04

  The Searchers.

• 1:17:07Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, The Searchers. Wonderful. Those are good films.

• 1:17:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:09Sean Fennessey?

  Good job. I've heard of those films. Um, okay. Odyssey-inspired epics. I'll take Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? Which is a film I feel like I keep overlooking. You know, I'm gotten.

• 1:17:17Amanda Dobbins?

  It's kind of becoming your brand, though, when we talk about Wes Anderson is to be like, and what about the D'Arceeling Limited? So it's good that you did this here.

• 1:17:23Sean Fennessey?

  That, well, this is sort of my D'Arceeling Limited for the Coens, right? The, the movie that like I overlooked and maybe didn't take as seriously.

• 1:17:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, but real ones know D'Arceeling Limited is, is like, kind of high up there for Wes.

• 1:17:34Sean Fennessey?

  But that took years to happen. Upon release, it was, everybody was like, oh, actually Wes Anderson? Are we sure? And now you go back, you look, you know, Claire de Lune drops, Let's Get High, and they're on the fire. Like, that's the real shit. Wes is the man. Like, I, I gotta say, when I was at the bowl thing, everybody wandering around was like, we all know Asteroid City is the one. Like, there was like a lot of that going on, which is nice. It's nice to be amongst your people. Um.

• 1:17:59Speaker 02

  From men crying, whispering.

• 1:18:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, talking to my five-year-old.

• 1:18:05Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? is of course not Wes. It's the Coen Brothers.

• 1:18:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, wait. I thought you picked D'Arceeling Limited. Sorry. I was looking at my list. I'm sick. It's still available.

• 1:18:12Sean Fennessey?

  It's still available.

• 1:18:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, great.

• 1:18:13Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? is, is the Odyssey in many ways. It's also the tale of the soggy bottom boys and the, uh, trio of aspirant, um, how would you describe their music?

• 1:18:24Speaker 02

  Bluegrass, right?

• 1:18:25Sean Fennessey?

  Hillbilly, bluegrass? Yeah.

• 1:18:27Speaker 02

  Gospel tinged bluegrass, I guess.

• 1:18:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Uh, hysterical movie.

• 1:18:32Sean Fennessey?

  Ingenious construction around Homer's epic poem, but with a very specific Coens set of humor and pathos, I guess. George Clooney, never better.

• 1:18:44Speaker 02

  Tim Blake Nelson, incredible in this.

• 1:18:45Sean Fennessey?

  John Turturro.

• 1:18:47Speaker 02

  Goodman.

• 1:18:48Sean Fennessey?

  Wonderful cast all around.

• 1:18:49Speaker 02

  Goodman's in this, right?

• 1:18:50Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:18:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's.

• 1:18:51Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, he's like the Cyclops-esque figure. And yeah, I love this movie. It's a great one. Um, it's honestly probably worth a revisit after seeing The Odyssey and just seeing just how close it is in the episodic fashion of the Nolan film.

• 1:19:05Speaker 02

  The Coens really robbed us because when they broke up, I feel like we haven't really gotten to pot about them as much as we would have.

• 1:19:13Sean Fennessey?

  No, we did, I did Buster Scruggs with Adam, I remember.

• 1:19:16Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:19:16Sean Fennessey?

  And then that was the, that's their last film. So, yeah.

• 1:19:19Speaker 02

  Did we do Hail Caesar? Was that out?

• 1:19:21Sean Fennessey?

  Before that, it came out before, before the show started, 2016, right?

• 1:19:24Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:19:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:19:26Sean Fennessey?

  Hail Caesar. I think it was like first year of The Ringer when it came out.

• 1:19:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Thought at the ArcLight, when that still existed.

• 1:19:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:31Sean Fennessey?

  Um, they're the greatest. I'm, I'm, I got my fingers crossed on Jack of Spades. The Ethan films hasn't been going so well. Joel, we've really only gotten Tragedy of Macbeth.

• 1:19:39Speaker 02

  But when are we gonna get EPMD back together?

• 1:19:41Sean Fennessey?

  Great question. I mean, hopefully soon. Um, is that Ethan and Joel making dollars? EJMD? Yeah, that would be pretty good. Uh, all right, Amanda, you've got two picks.

• 1:19:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 1:19:51Sean Fennessey?

  So Darjeeling is on the board for you.

• 1:19:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, good. I was looking at my list, but so in Odyssey-inspired epics, I would like to put forth The Wizard of Oz.

• 1:20:02Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 1:20:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, which is about a girl getting home. So, you know, maybe not, it doesn't speak as much to the other people on this table.

• 1:20:10Sean Fennessey?

  Are girls allowed to be in these movies?

• 1:20:14Speaker 02

  Does Daniel Day-Lewis save her?

• 1:20:17Amanda Dobbins?

  But, I mean, otherwise has all of the, the hallmarks. It's like she's, there is no place like home, gets waylaid, waylaid by various weird people and drugs and, um, a mythology of a world that she is not, um, totally familiar with, but learns over time with the help of various deities. So.

• 1:20:34Sean Fennessey?

  Cambellian hero's journey.

• 1:20:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So there we go. The Wizard of Oz, pretty good movie. Don't, uh, go to the Sphere version. See the whole thing, please.

• 1:20:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think watch it in full and then go to the sphere.

• 1:20:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:20:46Sean Fennessey?

  It would be interesting.

• 1:20:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:48Sean Fennessey?

  But don't, don't start there.

• 1:20:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly.

• 1:20:49Sean Fennessey?

  That would be a weird way to start.

• 1:20:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Correct. But I, you know, Darjeeling Limited was gonna be my backup. Okay, and then.

• 1:20:57Sean Fennessey?

  That's all you gotta say about The Wizard of Oz, huh?

• 1:20:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I think we've talked about it once or twice. I've, I have compared it to The Odyssey, which was the parameters of my pick in this one. Yeah, what a beautiful movie.

• 1:21:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I love it. It's my favorite movie.

• 1:21:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. Why didn't you pick it?

• 1:21:10Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't think about it. Do you think? I didn't have Wi-Fi on the plane.

• 1:21:14Speaker 02

  You just didn't, you forgot all the Oscar nom, like, winners?

• 1:21:17Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't have Wi-Fi on the plane. I don't know what you want me to say.

• 1:21:19Speaker 02

  Do you think that this movie was robbed by Gone with the Wind?

• 1:21:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I, like, I understand the accomplishment of Gone with the Wind. It is, it is a great film.

• 1:21:31Sean Fennessey?

  It is made in hateful history, no doubt.

• 1:21:34Speaker 02

  There's a lot of really rich clipping material you're providing people today.

• 1:21:40Sean Fennessey?

  You're probably right.

• 1:21:40Speaker 02

  Your bible is gay.

• 1:21:43Sean Fennessey?

  Gone with the Wind is great. I mean, both things can be true.

• 1:21:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, I agree. There's, there's lots of really amazing stuff in Gone with the Wind.

• 1:21:53Amanda Dobbins?

  But, but The Wizard of Oz, you know, this single moment of it going from black and white to color is just like, you know. And it has become a stand-in for, or like a shorthand for like a transformative experience. But that's what it was for movies as well. So, and, you know, it's beautiful.

• 1:22:13Sean Fennessey?

  It shares, they share a director, sort of. Victor Fleming is the credited filmmaker on both films, right? Even though The Wizard of Oz had like four filmmakers attached to it. Okay, so you have Gone with the Wind. Did you take a second one choice as well?

• 1:22:24Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:22:24Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:22:24Amanda Dobbins?

  So epic best picture winners.

• 1:22:29Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 1:22:30Speaker 02

  You may have backed yourself into a bit of a corner here.

• 1:22:32Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I don't think so.

• 1:22:33Speaker 02

  No?

• 1:22:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I'm gonna do, so are we not counting Godfather Part Two as an epic?

• 1:22:38Sean Fennessey?

  It is an epic for sure.

• 1:22:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, so I'm gonna take Godfather Part Two.

• 1:22:41Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:22:42Amanda Dobbins?

  What, you're just nodding your head?

• 1:22:44Speaker 02

  I was kinda hoping you would have to take Patton.

• 1:22:47Sean Fennessey?

  There's a lot left, I think.

• 1:22:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, there's a lot. I'm picking from other good things, but um, this is, I still think the single greatest screen performance Al Pacino in Godfather 2 that I have seen. I mean, there are many good ones out there, but I picked this one. And.

• 1:23:04Sean Fennessey?

  I thought you were gonna say Abe Vigoda.

• 1:23:08Sean Fennessey?

  Also a good performance.

• 1:23:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:09Amanda Dobbins?

  But I think, you know, as to its epic qualities, it's multi-generational, multiple locations.

• 1:23:15Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:23:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Jumps time. Yeah, jumps international things, crisis of, of, of family and of life and death. And also the CIA or the, or the mob is somewhat involved. So, um.

• 1:23:32Sean Fennessey?

  Go over the Godfather.

• 1:23:34Amanda Dobbins?

  We have this conversation every time we talk about this.

• 1:23:37Sean Fennessey?

  But in this, like, in this format, you would take it over the Godfather?

• 1:23:41Speaker 02

  I actually think she's right because it has the flashback.

• 1:23:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:44Sean Fennessey?

  That doesn't, you think it makes it more epic?

• 1:23:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I do, yeah. Because of the, the time quality.

• 1:23:48Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, he goes to Italy.

• 1:23:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:23:50Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:23:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but it's like, you know.

• 1:23:52Sean Fennessey?

  They blow up that car.

• 1:23:53Amanda Dobbins?

  They do. That's very upsetting.

• 1:23:54Speaker 02

  And who is in the car?

• 1:23:56Sean Fennessey?

  No. Well, you, you and, you and Bill spoke very specifically about that young actress.

• 1:24:01Speaker 02

  I don't think we were aware of what we were saying at the time.

• 1:24:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:24:04Speaker 02

  I can neither confirm nor deny that I was aware.

• 1:24:05Sean Fennessey?

  I see. All right. Continue on.

• 1:24:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, I feel for the purposes of this exercise, part two is more epic. And I, I, part two is really good. I, I listen.

• 1:24:18Sean Fennessey?

  Hades will remember.

• 1:24:19Amanda Dobbins?

  So, so is part one. You know, they're both really good.

• 1:24:23Speaker 02

  What about part three?

• 1:24:25Sean Fennessey?

  What is the longer runtime? I don't know the answer to that.

• 1:24:28Speaker 02

  I think two.

• 1:24:29Sean Fennessey?

  Two? Probably two.

• 1:24:30Speaker 02

  Is three longer? No, right?

• 1:24:33Sean Fennessey?

  255 for the Godfather.

• 1:24:35Amanda Dobbins?

  And 322 is what I'm looking at for Godfather part two. So there.

• 1:24:40Speaker 02

  And what's three? Just out of curiosity.

• 1:24:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Didn't Google that?

• 1:24:42Sean Fennessey?

  Three is nine hours.

• 1:24:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Two hours, 40 minutes.

• 1:24:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:46Sean Fennessey?

  As you know, three. Is good.

• 1:24:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not bad.

• 1:24:49Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not really, I really enjoy it. And it has flaws, sure.

• 1:24:53Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:24:53Sean Fennessey?

  You know, you know what else has flaws? The Bible. These things, these things have flaws.

• 1:24:56Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, you're so right.

• 1:24:58Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you. Nice to hear that out loud.

• 1:25:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:25:01Speaker 02

  Clip that.

• 1:25:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I say, I say I was wrong. I say you were right. When those things apply.

• 1:25:08Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, which is frequently. Okay. You've gotten two films.

• 1:25:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:25:12Sean Fennessey?

  So I'm gonna take a film.

• 1:25:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Wizard of Oz and The Godfather Part Two. Just really slumming it over here.

• 1:25:16Sean Fennessey?

  Crazy, crazy draft. Uh, epic best picture winners. I'll tell you what I'll take. The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King. The rare fantasy film that neatly fits into this.

• 1:25:26Amanda Dobbins?

  So in that one, he gets the ring? Who's he?

• 1:25:28Speaker 02

  Who's he?

• 1:25:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Gollum.

• 1:25:29Sean Fennessey?

  The ring goes, no, the ring goes into the, into the volcano.

• 1:25:34Speaker 02

  Well, he touches the ring for one second. Nope.

• 1:25:36Sean Fennessey?

  No, Sauron is the, he's the villain.

• 1:25:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Tree people.

• 1:25:39Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:25:40Speaker 02

  I don't think you're being serious. I think you know more than you're letting on.

• 1:25:44Sean Fennessey?

  Isn't this a great movie?

• 1:25:45Speaker 02

  This movie?

• 1:25:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:47Speaker 02

  It's the third best of the trilogy.

• 1:25:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow. He's turning it back.

• 1:25:52Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's right. I think that's right. I, I, I am most swept up in The Fellowship of the Ring. I think Two Towers has the most epic battles.

• 1:26:02Speaker 02

  That's got homes deep.

• 1:26:04Sean Fennessey?

  But Three, Three is really satisfying until you get to the third ending. And then they're like, hold on, two more endings. Do you know how long the extended version of The Return of the King is? The extended version that, you know, people now.

• 1:26:16Speaker 02

  It's like four hours long, right?

• 1:26:16Sean Fennessey?

  Four hours and 13 minutes. She's never seen it.

• 1:26:19Speaker 02

  Do you know which?

• 1:26:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, I have.

• 1:26:21Speaker 02

  Do you know what the towers are?

• 1:26:23Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:26:24Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:26:25Sean Fennessey?

  Don't tell her.

• 1:26:26Amanda Dobbins?

  You're just so mad. I saw, I saw Two Towers into Return of the King, like in college. And it wasn't for a boy also, because that was not the flavor that I was going for.

• 1:26:36Speaker 02

  Why were you doing that?

• 1:26:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 1:26:38Sean Fennessey?

  Why are you crying?

• 1:26:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Because I was trying not to laugh as you guys just said Lord of the Rings words to each other.

• 1:26:44Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, we didn't even geek out.

• 1:26:45Speaker 02

  Would you have made Fellowship of the Ring available for, um, movies inspired by The Odyssey?

• 1:26:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 1:26:56Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think so, because it doesn't complete it. You can't pick the trilogy, right? It would need to be the trilogy.

• 1:27:01Speaker 02

  That's when those guys start whining about going home.

• 1:27:03Sean Fennessey?

  That's true. If you were given prime real estate in the Shire, would you take it?

• 1:27:08Speaker 02

  Oh, the Shire is an incredible investment opportunity.

• 1:27:13Speaker 02

  And also, not for nothing, I would feel like Wendy at the Shire. Cause those guys are all four feet tall. So I'd be like, you guys want to play pickup?

• 1:27:25Speaker 02

  You had to be dunking on Frodo. You're like, I bet you wish you fucking fell in that volcano, dog.

• 1:27:35Sean Fennessey?

  That's good.

• 1:27:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:36Sean Fennessey?

  That's funny.

• 1:27:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Remember the photo of, I think it was Paul Meskell and Andrew Scott and like our greatest British.

• 1:27:45Amanda Dobbins?

  The Hobbit's after Shire opened to Zara's. Really very good. Good job. Who serves it now?

• 1:27:51Sean Fennessey?

  Your turn.

• 1:27:53Speaker 02

  I have.

• 1:27:54Amanda Dobbins?

  How's no laptop going?

• 1:27:55Speaker 02

  Pretty well. I mean, I feel definitely like I'm just hanging on your every word.

• 1:27:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:28:00Speaker 02

  And not getting distracted by.

• 1:28:01Sean Fennessey?

  Laptop, you've drafted three minute, a little lady and heartburn in the epic movie draft.

• 1:28:09Speaker 02

  Here, let's, let's spice it up a little bit. Let's throw a little cayenne in here and let me see how much you guys like me because in biblical epic, I'm going to take Kingdom of Heaven, the director's cut. Not technically about the Bible.

• 1:28:21Amanda Dobbins?

  But Crusades and in defense of, I wondered whether you would do this.

• 1:28:25Speaker 02

  If you don't have the Bible, there is no Kingdom of Heaven. You say what?

• 1:28:28Amanda Dobbins?

  The Crusades are though, are not enumerated in the Bible, which is a point of contention.

• 1:28:35Sean Fennessey?

  I, I will allow it because I did not define biblical epic by saying it must be stories of the Bible represented on screen. It is a war over the Bible.

• 1:28:45Amanda Dobbins?

  That's just because he likes you and also because he thinks the Bible has a lot of, you know, homoerotic tendencies and showing his love.

• 1:28:54Sean Fennessey?

  All the filmic representations of the stories, you know?

• 1:28:58Amanda Dobbins?

  But I mean, biblical is right there in the title, but I, I think it's fine.

• 1:29:02Speaker 02

  Well, I had said, do you, I texted you and said, do you think we should put, make this religious epic? Because that way it's more non-denominational.

• 1:29:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:29:12Sean Fennessey?

  So you could choose one.

• 1:29:13Amanda Dobbins?

  You say that to old Hollywood.

• 1:29:14Speaker 02

  Kingdom of Heaven, you know, it's a, it's a spiritually religious epic, you know? It's not necessarily a book of the Bible, but.

• 1:29:22Speaker 02

  Rooted in it.

• 1:29:23Sean Fennessey?

  Um, yeah, I think it's okay. I the extended version, I don't think you should be able to choose.

• 1:29:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Why?

• 1:29:31Speaker 02

  Why not?

• 1:29:31Sean Fennessey?

  Cause that was just like, that wasn't released theatrically, right?

• 1:29:34Amanda Dobbins?

  What? That's the what you're standing on right now?

• 1:29:37Sean Fennessey?

  We're not choosing extended editions.

• 1:29:40Amanda Dobbins?

  First of all, you're just absolutely, you're stabbing Joanna in the heart right now. And I say that as someone who saw it that is like.

• 1:29:46Speaker 02

  Because of the easy egg controversy.

• 1:29:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I was, I thought that you made the correct decision. I thought it was very, very apparent.

• 1:29:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's kind of like sending this Swiss guy off for simulation. It's like, it hurts, but you have to do it.

• 1:29:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:29:56Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, we're not talking about that.

• 1:29:58Amanda Dobbins?

  But then you're gonna allow him to.

• 1:30:01Sean Fennessey?

  After Flop Central from Argentina for five straight matches.

• 1:30:04Speaker 02

  We know it would be a fun wrinkle for this podcast if we gave you yellow and red cards. And you could start showing them.

• 1:30:10Sean Fennessey?

  You'd be sent off in five minutes in every episode.

• 1:30:13Speaker 02

  And maybe like if we like disagree with it, you would go to VAR.

• 1:30:16Amanda Dobbins?

  But just me, only I get the yellow and red cards?

• 1:30:19Speaker 02

  You're the most referee of us, I think, yeah.

• 1:30:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean.

• 1:30:21Speaker 02

  I think you would get the biggest thrill sending me off.

• 1:30:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I would, I mean, I would, I've been begging for props, you know? And yellow and red cards have become a big deal in my house, but they're, for whatever reason, Knox thinks of them as tickets. So he just, he's like, Sa gets a red ticket and then just like runs away. So yes, I think that's great. Um, the thing here is, I mean, biblical epic is very clear. You know, this, this folds like.

• 1:30:47Speaker 02

  I don't know, let's see the Peacock gallery.

• 1:30:48Amanda Dobbins?

  There's no appeal process here, like in a court of law. Like, I don't, like, I don't know what we're doing, but I like that he wants to give it to you because of friendship. But then that.

• 1:30:58Sean Fennessey?

  That's not why.

• 1:30:59Amanda Dobbins?

  That the reason that he's gonna disqualify it is because of theatrical runs rather than the very obvious title.

• 1:31:05Speaker 02

  The directors had a roadshow.

• 1:31:07Sean Fennessey?

  Is that true?

• 1:31:08Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:31:08Sean Fennessey?

  Where?

• 1:31:09Speaker 02

  At theaters, at some theaters.

• 1:31:11Sean Fennessey?

  Which theaters? Name them.

• 1:31:12Speaker 02

  I think like it was at like the Arrow.

• 1:31:16Sean Fennessey?

  You may be right. You might be right. I'm looking it up right now.

• 1:31:21Speaker 02

  What happened to you on that plane? You really lost your fastball?

• 1:31:24Sean Fennessey?

  It's been an insane five days.

• 1:31:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Honestly, but it started when you were just like, I don't care what's happening to Leos and the planets.

• 1:31:31Speaker 02

  Oh, that was just, well, really, can I, I'll just say, I don't remember you ever talking about astrology this much.

• 1:31:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think- Well, that's because the planets were not aligned in our favor until yesterday was the day, July 12th, was when we were supposed to start taking action. I don't remember what I did to take action, but it's a long process until 2028, sometime.

• 1:31:54Speaker 02

  So you guys are gonna be taking action until 2028?

• 1:31:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and then, and everything is aligned for us. And I was trying to tell Sean about that, my fellow Leo, and you were like, get out of here.

• 1:32:04Sean Fennessey?

  If I haven't been taking action before, I don't know what else I can do. I feel like I'm at the end. I feel like I gotta wrap this shit up. The Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut was released on December 23rd, 2005, at the Lemley Fairfax Theatre in Los Angeles, eligible. It was unsupported by advertising from 20th Century Fox. They didn't want people to see Ridley's vision.

• 1:32:24Speaker 02

  Okay, too bad. I saw it.

• 1:32:25Sean Fennessey?

  You saw it. Did you see it in theaters?

• 1:32:27Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:32:27Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:32:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you see it at the theater at which it was released?

• 1:32:32Sean Fennessey?

  It's unclear if it played in other theaters. Do you, you have that steelbook?

• 1:32:36Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I don't have any steelbooks.

• 1:32:38Sean Fennessey?

  Not a single steelbook?

• 1:32:39Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:32:41Sean Fennessey?

  Got to get on that.

• 1:32:41Speaker 02

  I bought Huntford October on steelbook.

• 1:32:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, that's, that seems valid. That's beautiful.

• 1:32:45Speaker 02

  It may have been a hundred Canadian dollars. I didn't really understand the transaction.

• 1:32:49Sean Fennessey?

  Well, steelbooks are expensive, you know, that's the problem with them. Okay, so did you take two films? You got a wild card, right?

• 1:32:55Speaker 02

  Oh, I took, so I took Biblical.

• 1:32:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Kingdom of Heaven.

• 1:33:00Sean Fennessey?

  Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut to you.

• 1:33:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, justice for Joanna, but Kingdom of Heaven.

• 1:33:08Sean Fennessey?

  I mean Joanna can have her revenge and she will.

• 1:33:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I, you know, I agreed with your ruling then and I support the spirit of this ruling now, but I would note that we are not applying the same consistency of spirit to, to Chris as to Joanna.

• 1:33:22Sean Fennessey?

  We didn't define biblical epic beforehand. We did define.

• 1:33:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. I mean, I think we did in the word biblical, you know, it's a, it's a text. I mean, are you bringing in, are you bringing in the unrecognized gospel?

• 1:33:34Sean Fennessey?

  Why you're fighting me? Is it just because you just like, I sided with Chris? Cause I love Chris dearly. Like, what is the issue?

• 1:33:41Amanda Dobbins?

  He's making decisions. You yell at me to vamp every single time. Now I'm vamping, you know?

• 1:33:45Sean Fennessey?

  I appreciate that. Make a decision for Christ's sake. You're the one who gave us the heart out. God damn it.

• 1:33:51Speaker 02

  I'll take Carlos in Wild Card.

• 1:33:56Speaker 02

  Biographical.

• 1:33:57Sean Fennessey?

  Uh huh. Sure. Great.

• 1:33:59Speaker 02

  You don't like this movie?

• 1:33:59Sean Fennessey?

  No, I do.

• 1:34:00Speaker 02

  This movie is fucking incredible.

• 1:34:01Sean Fennessey?

  Olivier Assas, yeah, sure.

• 1:34:03Speaker 02

  Edgar Ramirez is Carlos the Jackal, one of the most infamous, you know, revolutionary slash terrorists of the 20th century and one of the most breathtaking hybrids of mini series and film. Uh, I believe this was released in theaters for, for those who wanted to plant themselves in there for that long amount of time.

• 1:34:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:24Speaker 02

  But can be viewed, I think it's on, there is a Criterion version of it, right?

• 1:34:28Sean Fennessey?

  There is. You can buy a Criterion edition.

• 1:34:30Speaker 02

  It was on Netflix forever. I don't know if it still is. And.

• 1:34:33Sean Fennessey?

  It's basically two films.

• 1:34:34Speaker 02

  Yes. And an amazing soundtrack that's largely made up of British post punk from circa that era. And it's just, it's just a fucking phenomenal film about the post, I would say like the, the sort of rolling out of the sixties and into the seventies.

• 1:34:52Sean Fennessey?

  So, speaking of Assas, I started to watch The Wizard of the Kremlin on that same plane flight.

• 1:34:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:34:59Sean Fennessey?

  Fell asleep.

• 1:35:00Speaker 02

  Because of the perform, like because of the film or because?

• 1:35:03Amanda Dobbins?

  You see what I mean about the, the Dano accent?

• 1:35:06Sean Fennessey?

  I was enjoying it, but I, I think.

• 1:35:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you get to Putin?

• 1:35:09Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, no, I didn't.

• 1:35:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Well, then you haven't seen it yet.

• 1:35:13Sean Fennessey?

  I, you know.

• 1:35:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Putin as portrayed by Jude Law.

• 1:35:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm aware that that was coming. Um, I was, I will watch it. I was excited about it. And the way you'd be excited about like a honey baked ham, you know, where I was like, this is my one honey baked ham of 2026. I'll be watching one two hour and 20 minute preposterous biopic of world figures, but it wasn't compelling enough to stay awake.

• 1:35:37Speaker 02

  Was it better than Michael? No, I guess you didn't. I guess it wasn't.

• 1:35:40Sean Fennessey?

  It will be, I think.

• 1:35:41Speaker 02

  It will be.

• 1:35:41Sean Fennessey?

  It will be. But you know what Michael had? Michael Jackson's music.

• 1:35:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:44Sean Fennessey?

  Which is inherently entertaining.

• 1:35:47Speaker 02

  I wonder if Wizard of the Kremlin ever thought about adding some Michael Jackson type tunes.

• 1:35:51Sean Fennessey?

  Probably expensive to license. All right.

• 1:35:53Speaker 02

  He didn't get afford it.

• 1:35:55Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think he paid for the film. I have a wild card pick, right?

• 1:35:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I think so.

• 1:36:01Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, this one's newly eligible because this was also recently released in theaters. It's called Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair. It's the entire Kill Bill saga, which is just about one of my favorite things ever. Quentin Tarantino is originally conceived as one movie, movie that then became two movies because Harvey Weinstein had an idea about splitting it in half to make more money. That I think made maybe the production a little bit easier on Tarantino. But seeing the movie together, which I saw last year on my birthday, before it was like officially re-released, the version that I saw was the version that played at the Cannes Film Festival 20 years ago and still had the French subtitles

• 1:36:42Sean Fennessey?

  hardcoded into the print. But now they made it available earlier this year and it's going to be, I think you can stream it on Peacock now and it's going to be available on home.

• 1:36:50Speaker 02

  That's my preferred way to watch films.

• 1:36:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I mean, most content, really. That's where I watch everything, Peacock. But yeah, I mean, just an epic Samurai story, shades of the Odyssey about a woman, you know, traveling to retrieve her daughter and go back home. Spoilers, I guess, for Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair. Just an amazing movie. Recently at, um, at Videotech, local video store in our neighborhood, I screened Shogun Assassin, which is a movie that is basically the first two Lone Wolf and Cub films spliced together and then like edited together and then that has like a synth score attached to it that was released in 1980. I bring it up because in the fateful scene where Beatrix Kiddo meets her daughter at the end of Kill Bill, Volume Two, which is now just part of The Whole Bloody Affair.

• 1:37:37Sean Fennessey?

  The movie that she watches with her daughter to go to sleep is Shogun Assassin, which is insane.

• 1:37:42Speaker 02

  That's awesome.

• 1:37:43Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and my daughter turns five today, no longer four, but I often think of what it would be like to show her Shogun Assassin, which is incredibly violent. But Kill Bill, the whole bloody affair, huge, huge, huge movie.

• 1:37:56Speaker 02

  Your daughter so far shown.

• 1:37:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I was gonna say Alice would be like, this rules.

• 1:38:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, nothing but interest and openness.

• 1:38:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Previews complimentary.

• 1:38:03Speaker 02

  That's gotta be the worst thing is like, you don't know how far is too far.

• 1:38:08Sean Fennessey?

  We've never done viscera.

• 1:38:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay. Yeah.

• 1:38:12Sean Fennessey?

  You know, where someone's like stemmed to stern sliced with a.

• 1:38:16Speaker 02

  This is the whole hot and watching Jaws, which she has to watch.

• 1:38:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, yes. Like we can do Ghostbusters and Godzilla and monsters destroying things. We've never done bloody stuff. I feel like that's.

• 1:38:26Speaker 02

  I think also that there's something they need, they should learn about like that, you know.

• 1:38:33Sean Fennessey?

  On the battlefield.

• 1:38:34Speaker 02

  No, but like the first time I saw like a not eighties action violence, I was like, oh my God, this is, this is.

• 1:38:40Amanda Dobbins?

  This is very upsetting. Yeah.

• 1:38:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think so. I think it would be, it's way too early for stuff like that. I think.

• 1:38:45Speaker 02

  Get home, she's gonna be watching Saving Private Ryan.

• 1:38:49Sean Fennessey?

  Undrafted here, although it's not too late. You've got one more pick, Amanda.

• 1:38:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Believe it or not, I'm not gonna take Saving Private Ryan in wild card. I'm gonna take Barry London, which is still on the board.

• 1:38:58Speaker 02

  I don't think you should be allowed to pick this.

• 1:38:59Amanda Dobbins?

  If you, why?

• 1:39:00Speaker 02

  Because when he picked it in the best pictures draft, you went eh.

• 1:39:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Why did I do that?

• 1:39:05Speaker 02

  True. Because I think it was two and a half hours into a podcast and you were just like, you're being boring.

• 1:39:10Sean Fennessey?

  You were trying to score points. That's what was happening.

• 1:39:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't understand that. I don't, yeah, with who and with what?

• 1:39:16Speaker 02

  It's one of your funniest things. Like you were just like out of nowhere, just you just went eh. But.

• 1:39:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I don't.

• 1:39:23Speaker 02

  It just goes to show.

• 1:39:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess so. People change, you know, people grow.

• 1:39:28Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 1:39:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Why are you mad about something that happened in a draft?

• 1:39:31Sean Fennessey?

  It was very extremely rude. It was extremely rude.

• 1:39:36Amanda Dobbins?

  You're still so angry.

• 1:39:38Sean Fennessey?

  It was untoward.

• 1:39:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:39:39Sean Fennessey?

  It was indecent.

• 1:39:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't remember it, which is what you say after every other conversation we've ever had.

• 1:39:45Speaker 02

  That is true.

• 1:39:45Sean Fennessey?

  It wasn't in the spirit of the game, you know? If I have to deal with embolo being sent off.

• 1:39:49Speaker 02

  I was also recently served a clip of when you and me and Zach and Amanda potted together and you were quite rude to me.

• 1:39:57Sean Fennessey?

  What did I say?

• 1:39:57Speaker 02

  Because I took Once Upon a Time in Hollywood over Moneyball and you were like, get your fucking shit together.

• 1:40:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:02Speaker 02

  We have to kill her.

• 1:40:03Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you know what? We all have weak moments.

• 1:40:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I was also, I think, eight months pregnant at that point, just, you know.

• 1:40:09Sean Fennessey?

  Exactly my point. We're testing your mettle.

• 1:40:11Amanda Dobbins?

  You were, you were really mean.

• 1:40:12Sean Fennessey?

  You had something big coming up in your life. I needed to make you stronger.

• 1:40:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I was wondering whether Once Upon a Time in Hollywood would be eligible for this.

• 1:40:19Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think so.

• 1:40:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:40:20Sean Fennessey?

  It's close.

• 1:40:20Amanda Dobbins?

  You can make the case as like a Hollywood epic, but, you know.

• 1:40:24Sean Fennessey?

  They do travel to Europe.

• 1:40:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:25Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 1:40:26Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not sure it has the scale.

• 1:40:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I mean, The Ranch. Yeah. Okay. The Overhead, I, listen, I think there's a case to be made.

• 1:40:34Speaker 02

  Beautiful Eight is an epic?

• 1:40:35Sean Fennessey?

  No, I don't.

• 1:40:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:40:37Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's beautiful, but I don't think it's an epic. Django, I think, is an epic.

• 1:40:40Speaker 02

  Any, I want to hear you talk about Barry Lyndon.

• 1:40:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I just.

• 1:40:41Speaker 02

  I actually just rewatched it as well.

• 1:40:43Amanda Dobbins?

  If you can't shoot in candlelight, don't bother shooting at all, is what I have to say.

• 1:40:46Speaker 02

  Wow, there's like four movies then.

• 1:40:49Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I mean, didn't, you know, one of our greatest filmmakers making one of the most beautiful photographic painterly, whatever you want to call it. It's just astonishing to look at and I think very funny.

• 1:41:00Sean Fennessey?

  The Abel Ferrara book that I was talking about, that I was just listening to on the way here, he was talking about it because in the run up to making The Driller Killer, he said that Barry Lyndon was made, everyone went out and saw it. And he said, because of the way that Kubrick shot the movie, that essentially invented independent film. Because he, you did not need these massive lighting rigs to make a movie. And that the movie kind of taught you, even if you were making a down and dirty exploitation movie like Driller Killer, that you could figure out with a photochemical process and how they figured out how to make that look good on film, that like it changed movies forever in a very, I never heard it put quite that way, that like it made things actually easier. You don't think of Kubrick as somebody who like.

• 1:41:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:39Sean Fennessey?

  Simplifies things.

• 1:41:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:41Sean Fennessey?

  So I really loved that insight. Obviously Barry Lyndon is wonderful. Barry Lyndon on the rewatchables, what do you think?

• 1:41:46Speaker 02

  Unlikely.

• 1:41:47Sean Fennessey?

  Unlikely. Okay, what's going to be the next Kubrick movie that gets in? We've had Eyes Wide Shut.

• 1:41:51Speaker 02

  I think Full Metal Jacket.

• 1:41:52Sean Fennessey?

  2001.

• 1:41:53Speaker 02

  Well.

• 1:41:54Sean Fennessey?

  The Shining.

• 1:41:56Sean Fennessey?

  Full Metal Jacket into Clockwork Orange?

• 1:41:58Speaker 02

  I could also see like a, you know, Hollywood gray beard being like, I want to do strange love. I think we could do strange love when Digger comes out.

• 1:42:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Do you think Bill likes strange love?

• 1:42:08Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 1:42:10Sean Fennessey?

  Strange Love is 10 star masterpiece. That's the problem with Digger and any movie like it's like, you're, you're aiming for the moon, you know, like you're aiming for the moon, man. The moon exists. Anyway, I'm just predicting that's, uh, that's the end of the draft, right?

• 1:42:25Speaker 02

  I think so, yeah.

• 1:42:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:27Sean Fennessey?

  So millions and millions of honorable mentions here.

• 1:42:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, not millions.

• 1:42:32Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. I'll give you some of mine.

• 1:42:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:42:34Sean Fennessey?

  Well, let's, let's start with epic best picture winners and we can say whether or not we think these, these are eligible. Gone with the Wind.

• 1:42:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:42:41Sean Fennessey?

  The Godfather.

• 1:42:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:42:42Sean Fennessey?

  Gandhi.

• 1:42:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:42:44Sean Fennessey?

  Out of Africa.

• 1:42:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:42:45Sean Fennessey?

  The Last Emperor.

• 1:42:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:42:47Sean Fennessey?

  Dances with Wolves.

• 1:42:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:42:48Sean Fennessey?

  Titanic.

• 1:42:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh huh. I almost did it.

• 1:42:50Sean Fennessey?

  Gladiator.

• 1:42:51Speaker 02

  Braveheart.

• 1:42:51Sean Fennessey?

  Braveheart. The Sound of Music.

• 1:42:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Wondered. I mean, I think so. I think that there is, I, you know, I noticed as people were writing about this, that once you are a, once it's a musical, then it gets put into a different classification.

• 1:43:04Sean Fennessey?

  I've thought about musical epic as a category because there are some movies that have real huge scope.

• 1:43:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. Isn't it, uh, American in Paris, like three plus?

• 1:43:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think it's that long, but it is wonderful and underrated.

• 1:43:19Sean Fennessey?

  Gene Kelly film that is very long. Funny Girl is very long. You know, there's like some films and Singing in the Rain is not, is under two hours as well.

• 1:43:25Speaker 02

  Would you have put best years of our lives in this?

• 1:43:28Sean Fennessey?

  That's interesting. Emotional epic is like, is something to think about.

• 1:43:31Speaker 02

  I think it could have gone a romantic epic.

• 1:43:33Sean Fennessey?

  It could have. I agree. Um, other best picture winners. What about A Man for All Seasons?

• 1:43:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I mean, I guess it is long and they were, you know, from another time.

• 1:43:47Sean Fennessey?

  It doesn't have the scope.

• 1:43:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. It's more, I mean, it's courtroom to me more than it is epic. And I think, you know, a courtroom can be part of an epic. See, you haven't said Oppenheimer yet.

• 1:43:58Speaker 02

  I was gonna say our last two best picture winners, I think qualify.

• 1:44:01Sean Fennessey?

  Those were the last two on my list. Oppenheimer and one battle after another, both of which I think really fit the scale. And honestly, what those two movies have done, which I've noticed, and we can talk about this a little bit with the Odyssey as well later this week, is they have complicated. What the trend had been for Best Picture winners, which was much more modestly scaled movies for like 15 years. You know, if you think of Parasite, Shape of Water, Green Book, Moonlight, Nomadland, Coda, like all the, so many of the movies that had been winning Best Picture for 10 plus years were these lower scaled intimate dramas and comedies. And now Oppenheimer and One Battle are huge. Okay, other movies that I made on my list, biblical epics. Nobody took the Ten Commandments.

• 1:44:42Speaker 02

  Nope.

• 1:44:42Sean Fennessey?

  I would, I would prefer The Robe. That's the one that I like the best. If you're gonna go with those Technicolor 50s and 60s films. Pasolini's Gospel According to St. Matthew.

• 1:44:51Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 1:44:52Sean Fennessey?

  The Passion of the Christ.

• 1:44:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:54Speaker 02

  I'm saving that for the next one.

• 1:44:57Sean Fennessey?

  Nicholas Ray's King of Kings, I think is a good one. Greatest story ever told. I don't think that one's very good. Darren Aronofsky's Noah.

• 1:45:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:45:04Speaker 02

  Great New Yorker article about it.

• 1:45:06Amanda Dobbins?

  The, the New Yorker article that, that broke Darren Aronofsky.

• 1:45:09Sean Fennessey?

  Quavodis is another one.

• 1:45:11Speaker 02

  Barabbas.

• 1:45:12Sean Fennessey?

  Barabbas, yeah. What else?

• 1:45:14Speaker 02

  Is that a Bodhisattva thing? Barabbas?

• 1:45:17Sean Fennessey?

  Barabbas?

• 1:45:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I wasn't around, so.

• 1:45:19Sean Fennessey?

  The Bar?

• 1:45:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 1:45:21Sean Fennessey?

  Any other biblical epics?

• 1:45:23Speaker 02

  Uh, guys get crucified in Spartacus, but I don't think that's what they made.

• 1:45:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Samson and Delilah. There's, there's Bathsheba. There's a lot of those kinds of movies. I looked at a lot of those and we were doing the programming, the Criterion thing. We were like, well, should we do it as these like Odyssey inspired Swords and Sandals movies like a Virginia, like stuff like that? Or should we do this kind of story? And we ended up going in that direction, obviously. Romantic or war epic? Saving Private Ryan, All Quiet on the Western Front, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?

• 1:45:52Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:45:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:45:54Sean Fennessey?

  Platoon?

• 1:45:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:55Sean Fennessey?

  Once Upon a Time in China? Doctor Zhivago?

• 1:45:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:45:59Speaker 02

  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

• 1:46:01Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, interesting. I didn't think of that.

• 1:46:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I did think of that one, yeah.

• 1:46:03Sean Fennessey?

  That's a good one.

• 1:46:03Speaker 02

  Not a movie I like, but romantic and long.

• 1:46:07Sean Fennessey?

  My, my least favorite of The Finchers.

• 1:46:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, you guys gotta open your hearts. Dunkirk?

• 1:46:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:12Speaker 02

  Well, for war, yeah, for sure.

• 1:46:14Sean Fennessey?

  Definitely.

• 1:46:14Speaker 02

  Longest Day, Bridge Too Far.

• 1:46:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:18Sean Fennessey?

  Out of Africa? Not a movie I like either.

• 1:46:20Speaker 02

  Would you consider Great Escape epic or just like a really long, good World War?

• 1:46:25Sean Fennessey?

  More of an adventure movie, I feel like, right?

• 1:46:28Speaker 02

  Any other Westerns? How the West Was Won, Once Upon a Time in the West. I think I'd probably.

• 1:46:32Sean Fennessey?

  I have Once Upon a Time in the West in another category. Yeah, yeah, there's more. What are the other Westerns that I'm not thinking of right now? We already mentioned Dances with Wolves.

• 1:46:43Sean Fennessey?

  God, there's gotta be a couple of three hour westerns. I'm not thinking Wyatt Earp for sure. Lawrence Kasdan's Wyatt Earp.

• 1:46:51Sean Fennessey?

  Geronimo, the Walter Hill film.

• 1:46:53Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:46:55Sean Fennessey?

  Biopic epic. Is Lincoln up there?

• 1:46:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I wondered whether you guys were gonna do this.

• 1:47:00Speaker 02

  I was thinking about it. I had that if Malcolm X had been taken.

• 1:47:04Sean Fennessey?

  The Aviator.

• 1:47:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:47:06Sean Fennessey?

  Ali, recently on the rewatch.

• 1:47:08Speaker 02

  Shay, part one and two.

• 1:47:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:10Sean Fennessey?

  Definitely.

• 1:47:13Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Is Goodfellas a biopic epic?

• 1:47:17Speaker 02

  I can't really complain because you let me get Kingdom of Heaven and Bible, but I personally just think of it as a crime film.

• 1:47:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that there are other Scorsese movies that would be eligible in other categories, but I didn't have this one down. I mean.

• 1:47:35Sean Fennessey?

  It spans a great deal of time.

• 1:47:36Amanda Dobbins?

  It does.

• 1:47:37Sean Fennessey?

  It's a huge cast. It is a real person, story of a real person's life.

• 1:47:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:43Sean Fennessey?

  You could make a strong case, I think. I didn't choose it, but I think.

• 1:47:46Amanda Dobbins?

  No one did.

• 1:47:47Speaker 02

  You had After Hours in your collection.

• 1:47:49Sean Fennessey?

  I did. I did. Yeah, that's very Odyssey coded.

• 1:47:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, but if you're gonna do Goodfellas in biopic, then Wolf of Wall Street would also be.

• 1:47:57Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I was gonna also, speaking of Leo, ask about Catch Me If You Can. Is that an epic?

• 1:48:01Amanda Dobbins?

  They go a lot of places.

• 1:48:02Speaker 02

  Certainly, The Aviator is, right?

• 1:48:03Amanda Dobbins?

  But not that many people.

• 1:48:04Sean Fennessey?

  The Aviator for sure.

• 1:48:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you know, there are people at the airport or whatever, but.

• 1:48:10Speaker 02

  What about The Revenant?

• 1:48:12Sean Fennessey?

  I think so.

• 1:48:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:48:14Sean Fennessey?

  I think so.

• 1:48:14Speaker 02

  I don't know what category I would put it in, but.

• 1:48:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:16Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's a war epic, really, right? There's so much battle.

• 1:48:19Speaker 02

  Man versus nature. Man versus bear.

• 1:48:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. The Revenant?

• 1:48:24Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:48:24Sean Fennessey?

  No, me neither. Schindler's List?

• 1:48:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:28Sean Fennessey?

  The Right Stuff?

• 1:48:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Marginal, but I think yes.

• 1:48:32Speaker 02

  The double VHS. I mean, this is the problem is like, I have like this association with the word and like the giant brick VHS two tape release. But that would put like Prince of the City in there. And it's like, was Prince of the City an epic?

• 1:48:45Sean Fennessey?

  Crime epic. I think so. The Right Stuff, Irishman?

• 1:48:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I had it on it. I was gonna do it in wild card or three hours if I didn't get JFK.

• 1:48:55Speaker 02

  Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900, which I don't care for, but.

• 1:48:58Sean Fennessey?

  I don't either. It's like five hours long. RRR?

• 1:49:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:03Sean Fennessey?

  Definitely a recent epic. We don't get them as much these days. What about Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet?

• 1:49:09Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:49:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I've

• 1:49:11Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:49:11Sean Fennessey?

  The scale of that movie is extraordinary.

• 1:49:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure. I mean, I guess that's true.

• 1:49:14Speaker 02

  Did you go with Henry V over Hamlet? Is Henry V an epic?

• 1:49:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, then we kind of get into, because you're adapting a play, and if you're doing like the unabridged version or close to unabridged, plays are just really long, so are musicals, so, you know, is Wicked an epic? I don't know.

• 1:49:33Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe if they made it one movie.

• 1:49:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:49:34Sean Fennessey?

  You chose Gone with the, or Wizard of Oz.

• 1:49:36Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 1:49:37Sean Fennessey?

  Right? Um, a couple of other ones to round us out here. Uh, Tarkovsky's Andre Rublev, for sure. Chris, you actually drafted Carlos, you crazy son of a bitch. Speaking of Leoni.

• 1:49:48Speaker 02

  Should I not have?

• 1:49:49Sean Fennessey?

  No, you did.

• 1:49:49Speaker 02

  No, but I should, should I not have taken?

• 1:49:51Sean Fennessey?

  I had it here. Um, Once Upon a Time in America, as well as Once Upon a Time in the West, I think also qualify. Anything else you want to list?

• 1:49:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, if we're doing Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon.

• 1:50:01Sean Fennessey?

  I skipped over it, you're right, I had that here too.

• 1:50:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Or then Leo's.

• 1:50:03Sean Fennessey?

  Um, okay.

• 1:50:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Dune, yes or no?

• 1:50:07Speaker 02

  I think Dune 2.

• 1:50:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Put them together.

• 1:50:10Sean Fennessey?

  You know, Dune.

• 1:50:11Amanda Dobbins?

  And then it would be one.

• 1:50:11Sean Fennessey?

  Dune, Dune does more world hopping, doesn't it?

• 1:50:14Speaker 02

  I guess you're right.

• 1:50:14Sean Fennessey?

  Don't we see three different planets on Dune?

• 1:50:17Amanda Dobbins?

  But then, Dune 2.

• 1:50:18Speaker 02

  Dune, could Dune 2 be, uh?

• 1:50:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Dune 2 is more biblical. I was, I was like, can I do a, can I do Dune as biblical? But it's not literal.

• 1:50:27Sean Fennessey?

  Princess, Princess Erilon or Chani? Do you decide right now?

• 1:50:32Speaker 02

  Uh, what I want to know is why he has to decide at all.

• 1:50:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:35Speaker 02

  He's God Emperor.

• 1:50:36Sean Fennessey?

  You want him to have like an invite situation?

• 1:50:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:50:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:39Sean Fennessey?

  It's a good idea. Um.

• 1:50:41Speaker 02

  Dune 2, two chicks.

• 1:50:44Sean Fennessey?

  At the same time.

• 1:50:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:50:50Sean Fennessey?

  God, it's so good. Yeah, it's great. Uh, let's recap our draft so Chris can go. See, you chose first, why don't you tell us what you chose?

• 1:50:59Speaker 02

  In Odyssey-inspired films, I took The Searchers.

• 1:51:03Speaker 02

  What's wrong with that?

• 1:51:05Sean Fennessey?

  You pivoted so elegantly from

• 1:51:07Speaker 02

  She does that, she does. You'll throw on, you're like, I'm doing a voiceover voice. And it's very, it's very funny. In epic best picture winners, I took Bridge on the River Kwai. Biblical epic, you guys were nice enough to allow me to have Kingdom of Heaven, the director's cut, which played in one theater. In movies over three hours, I took Lawrence of Arabia. And in wildcard, I took Carlos.

• 1:51:30Amanda Dobbins?

  You forgot romantic epic and biopic epic.

• 1:51:33Speaker 02

  In romantic epic, I took Last of the Mohicans. And in biopic epic, I took Malcolm X.

• 1:51:38Sean Fennessey?

  Sounds like the phone era is off to a rocky start.

• 1:51:41Speaker 02

  No, I'm not trying to be like the guy on his phone. What I want is to have, be the guy who doesn't need any devices.

• 1:51:47Sean Fennessey?

  That's, that's the problem.

• 1:51:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:49Sean Fennessey?

  Is you, even with the phone, you are flawed. This is why there's nothing wrong with a laptop.

• 1:51:53Speaker 02

  But you guys don't make room for me. Get a bigger table.

• 1:51:56Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:51:56Speaker 02

  Or get a smaller microphone.

• 1:51:57Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not doing the set design here and I take no responsibility for it. Anything that happened here was designed by the wonderful people at Spotify or this person.

• 1:52:09Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, for my picks.

• 1:52:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I've heard your request and the answer is no.

• 1:52:11Speaker 02

  Okay, well then you guys are gonna have to deal with me forgetting multiple categories.

• 1:52:16Sean Fennessey?

  In odyssey-inspired epics, I took Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? In epic best picture winners, I took The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King. In biblical epic, I took The Last Temptation of Christ. In romantic or war epic, I took The Deer Hunter. In biopic epic, I took Amadeus. In movies that exceed three hours, I took Seven Samurai. And in wildcard, I took Kill Bill, The Whole Bloody Affair. Amanda?

• 1:52:34Amanda Dobbins?

  You could also just get a smaller laptop, you know? You like, you just have like a Cadillac of a laptop for no reason at all.

• 1:52:41Speaker 02

  You should get a really normal sized laptop.

• 1:52:44Sean Fennessey?

  You should get a Skytel pager.

• 1:52:46Speaker 02

  I wanna get the Zero Dark Thirty, like Dell Toughbook.

• 1:52:53Sean Fennessey?

  Just for all your, your roughhousing?

• 1:52:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, just in case.

• 1:52:55Sean Fennessey?

  In case you get on a Bell helicopter to fly somewhere.

• 1:52:58Speaker 02

  I'm just gonna get a much bigger computer.

• 1:53:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that's a good bit.

• 1:53:01Sean Fennessey?

  I'm gonna set up a monitor.

• 1:53:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Great, okay. Okay. In odyssey-inspired epics, I took The Wizard of Oz. In epic best picture winners, The Godfather Part Two. In biblical epic, Ben Hur. In romantic or war epic, The English Patient. In biopic epic, Reds. In movies that exceed three hours, JFK. And in wildcard, Barry Lyndon.

• 1:53:20Speaker 02

  She did the voice.

• 1:53:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I do, yeah.

• 1:53:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. We all have a voice like that. Um, this was fine. This was good.

• 1:53:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:53:29Speaker 02

  I think this was a lot of fun and we picked some great movies. But this was, this speaks to, um, this, this genre that we've sort of invented being interwoven into the fabric of the greatest films of, of cinema history. So.

• 1:53:43Sean Fennessey?

  Now, in the future, do you want these categorical drafts to be more narrow? Would that be better to focus in more clearly on?

• 1:53:52Speaker 02

  I mean, I think a swords and sandals draft would have been boring, but probably more.

• 1:53:57Amanda Dobbins?

  We just drafted like the best movies ever made. So I don't, I don't really have a huge problem with that.

• 1:54:01Sean Fennessey?

  Many are saying Carlos is one of the greatest movies ever made.

• 1:54:04Speaker 02

  Honestly, you see me on Hillhurst, talk to me about it.

• 1:54:10Speaker 02

  Buy me a $22 cocktail and I'll tell you all about Carlos.

• 1:54:13Sean Fennessey?

  Jonathan, thank you for your work with Carlos.

• 1:54:17Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, well.

• 1:54:19Speaker 02

  Sorry for trying to spread the word.

• 1:54:21Sean Fennessey?

  I want to say thanks to Jack Sanders for his work on this episode, our producer. Thanks to Lucas Cavanagh. Um, on Thursday night, you will be able to hear Amanda and I speak about The Odyssey. It's a film we've now seen twice.

• 1:54:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Just us, no one else, really what the people want.

• 1:54:36Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, no, they do.

• 1:54:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you're, you're, you're the best. You're gonna come back. You're gonna come back, right?

• 1:54:43Speaker 02

  I'll come on Monday when we can go full spoilers.

• 1:54:45Amanda Dobbins?

  All right. By then I'll have taken lots of action.

• 1:54:48Speaker 02

  And audience theories. Yeah. We never discussed, uh, the doomsday concept art with Amanda.

• 1:54:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 1:54:54Speaker 02

  I gotta go, but I'm just saying we didn't.

• 1:54:56Sean Fennessey?

  You should keep bringing up topics.

• 1:54:59Sean Fennessey?

  Is that real? That can't be real.

• 1:55:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, looking at images. Oh dear.

• 1:55:04Speaker 02

  Isn't Gambit in that?

• 1:55:06Sean Fennessey?

  I think he's gonna be in the film.

• 1:55:08Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 1:55:08Sean Fennessey?

  Did you see Deadpool and Wolverine?

• 1:55:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:55:10Sean Fennessey?

  You did? You like it?

• 1:55:11Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:55:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Chris Evans wearing like a mock neck shirt here? What's going on?

• 1:55:15Speaker 02

  Uh, thanks for, uh, joining us on the big picture. We were brought to you by State Farm, right?

• 1:55:20Sean Fennessey?

  Don't you just say that? Don't say things like that. Okay. We'll see you next time. Bye.

• 1:55:46Speaker 06

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• 1:56:17Speaker 07

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