The Loss of David Lynch. Plus, Our Oscar Nomination Predictions.

Sean and Amanda are joined by Chris Ryan to reflect on the monumental loss of David Lynch, and try to take measure of the impact his films have made on them personally and the film culture at large (1:00). Then, they run through a number of guild nominations and assess the relative strength of the awards contenders (21:00). Finally, they review ‘Den of Thieves 2: Pantera’ and discuss its star Gerard Butler’s essential performance at the center and whether the overall movie lives up to the first in the franchise (1:08:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Chris Ryan Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Video Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hey, what's up? This is Chris Ryan. On Mondays and Thursdays, you can find me co-hosting The Watch with Andy Greenwald. We are still cranking it out. We talk about a lot of things in pop culture, music, movies, but most of all, our ever-changing TV landscape. So, check out The Watch for recaps of your favorite TV shows, updates on the streaming wars, and recommendations on what to watch, because there's a lot to watch on Mondays and Thursdays on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:26Sean Fennessey?

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• 2:09Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fantasy.

• 2:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 2:10Sean Fennessey?

  And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about David Lynch and other absurdist things in this universe. Chris Ryan is here. Hi, Chris.

• 2:18Speaker 00

  What's up, guys?

• 2:18Sean Fennessey?

  How are you?

• 2:19Speaker 00

  I'm doing great.

• 2:20Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, David Lynch has died. This is terrible, terrible, terrible news. I contemplated opening this show in my David Lynch voice, which is, "Hello, I am Sean Fantasy, host of The Big Picture." But I did not do that today because that would be disrespectful to, uh, one of my favorite filmmakers, one of the signature filmmakers of the 20th and 21st century, who has died. Perhaps not surprisingly, he was 78 years old. Last year, we learned that he had been diagnosed with emphysema. Um, I had actually heard from someone in the recent days that he had gotten, had escaped the fires and, uh, that have been, uh, in Los Angeles over the last few days here and, uh, was very happy to

• 3:01Sean Fennessey?

  hear that. And so this is very, very shocking and scary news. Um, we've talked about Lynch a bit over the years on the show, though he has obviously not made any films since we've been making this show. In 2022, I did do an episode with Adam Naaman where we talked about Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me and Lost Highway. And they both shared anniversaries in 22, and they had been issued on the Criterion Collection. And so we use that as an opportunity to talk about their work. If you want to hear a longer conversation about him, you can go back there. Amanda, you and I have not really talked about Lynch very much over the years. Um, what is your reaction to this terrible news?

• 3:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, first of all, it's just, it feels like loss on loss on loss right now in Los Angeles. And David Lynch, in addition to being one of the signature American filmmakers, and in many ways, like, the signature interpreter of, like, American psychosis.

• 3:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Was like a very Los Angeles figure and regularly did weather reports on KCRW, the public radio station. And at this moment, as you said, it just, it feels like an extra, even though he was ill, it feels like real loss. So that was my reaction. I mean, as far as his work goes, I do feel like he invented not just a visual language, but just like a new understanding of our own American psychology and what is lurking underneath and the way we see things and the way we experience real events that have a surreal quality, because often they do, as we've learned in certain weeks.

• 4:36Amanda Dobbins?

  But like, Lynchian is a word that comes to mind, not just to describe cinema, though obviously, like, his influence on cinema is vast. And I think, you know, some of the reason that you and I haven't talked about him that much, or that, I mean, he's a you and Naaman load star, and I hope you guys do, you know, many video essays or monopods or whatever, you know, in the weeks to come.

• 5:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 5:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Because I know that's how you process your grief and your enthusiasm. But I also, Lynch is so influential that a lot of times we talk about, we have talked about him in terms of someone else ripping him off is ungenerous, but there are a lot of Lynchian filmmakers and people who grew up with his work trying to recreate it. And no one ever could. And I often get, like, he was so singular and the touch and the vision and the weirdness, you know? Like, the mind was so specific that anyone trying to do Lynch, like, always falls flat for me, because it's not David Lynch.

• 5:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I agree. I think it's very well put. It's, you know, he has come up on your show, The Watch, Chris.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, we talked about it today on today's episode. I mean, he meant a tremendous amount to Andy. I think it was really formative. Andy's relationship to Twin Peaks really, like, got him started. As a person who thought about television, both critically and from a creative standpoint. So it was, it was a real blow. It's a blow for me. I would say, you know, this has been a period of time where we've talked a lot about our Lions in the Twilight filmmakers, who are kind of in their seventies and their eighties, making these capstone films, or perhaps keeping going on. And Heathrow no hitter. I think if you look at his filmography and if you look at his contributions to television, it's really hard to like find, I'm sure there are some that are rated highly, more highly than others.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  But every one of them has something to really think about. There are no bad movies in his filmography. And he, he made an enormous contribution to cinema and to popular culture. And it's like a little bit like you're saying, a hat on a hat for David Lynch to pass away the week of the LA fires. But we have a tremendous amount of work to treasure him by, and I hope people go back to it.

• 6:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we can talk about some of that here a little bit. It's been a long time since a famous person that I did not know died and I actually felt something. And, um, you know, I think it's important to honor artists, especially those who work in movies on the show when they die and recommend their work and get people to understand it and why it matters, or why it's just fun or worthwhile. As you mentioned, like he's, he's deeply formative for me and my taste. And basically better understanding myself through art. So yeah, I find it hard to talk about sometimes because also that surreality that you're talking about, that the dream state that is such a critical aspect of all of his work, is something that most people don't have language for or emotional access to.

• 7:42Sean Fennessey?

  And he's able to portray something that you otherwise couldn't put anywhere else. The fact though, like when I talked to Adam about it a few years ago, a thing that I kept circling back to that I think is, I don't know, I guess like meaningful to the way that we talk about things on this show is, he was Deeply avant garde, but not an outsider. I mean, he's basically a mainstream artist.

• 8:02Speaker 00

  He's a square.

• 8:03Sean Fennessey?

  Starting in like roughly 1982.

• 8:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:06Sean Fennessey?

  And he's from Montana and he represents that kind of American ideal and then the underbelly of that ideal all the time. And so his like, his character, his sort of public persona, the aw shucks-iness with that veneer of like agitation right underneath that the appearances on David Letterman, the eventually, you know.

• 8:25Speaker 00

  The weather reports.

• 8:25Sean Fennessey?

  KCRW aspect of it, the influence of transcendental meditation and the way that he brought that to the mainstream in some ways. The fact that he conquered television, like deeply conquered television and more or less invented prestige television.

• 8:38Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:38Sean Fennessey?

  With Twin Peaks.

• 8:41Sean Fennessey?

  And the fact that, I think it's a good point that you're making, Chris, which is that there's something kind of rock solid and compelling about every movie that he made. He made 10 feature films in his career and a lot of short films. Many of them were failures, quote unquote.

• 8:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:52Sean Fennessey?

  Commercial failures or critical failures upon their release and they've all been reclaimed.

• 8:56Speaker 00

  It's a, it's a really good note to ourselves about like how we think about the, the stuff we talk about and how time is really the only judge that matters on this stuff.

• 9:07Sean Fennessey?

  I think, when I, I think when I spoke to Adam, I was saying that I, Twin Peaks is probably the first thing he did that I saw. And I could remember hearing Laura's theme in the living room and my parents were watching it or my babysitter was watching it and wandering in there and trying to make sense of it. And that, that like, the abstract qualities of that show in a very familiar framework just imprint on you. And you're like, why is this different, but it looks the same? And the idea of like, a man comes to town and he's here to solve a crime. That's the framework of every movie and TV story for the last hundred years, but there just felt something that you could never put to words.

• 9:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I was just thinking about The Music Man, which Chris has been watching in 10 minute increments with my son recently. And it's, yeah.

• 9:52Sean Fennessey?

  A man comes to town.

• 9:53Speaker 00

  There's a lot of different readings of The Music Man happening in the Barrett household right now.

• 9:57Sean Fennessey?

  I'm, I'm sure, I'm sure that David Lynch has seen and thought about The Music Man. There's no doubt about it. And so I think that there's something interesting about using the familiar to upend our expectations that he did very, very well. I remember vividly thinking about how he was offered. I think it was Return of the Jedi and he turned it down to make Dune. And his Dune, of course, has been the topic of some discussion because we have new Dune films now. And I have never really made, I could never really make sense of Lynch Dune and the way that it was kind of chopped up and the way that he kind of compressed the story and. But the, the oddity of that, the writing in that novel, it actually makes him like weirdly a better fit than Denis Villeneuve.

• 10:40Sean Fennessey?

  The movie itself just doesn't totally hang together, but even in all the things that are sort of like, don't work. And that was a lot of what we discussed with Lost Highway, which got slammed when it was released.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:50Sean Fennessey?

  Was that the not working is sometimes the point, the sort of like, this is, this shouldn't be exactly what you wanted to be or expected to be. It's what it has to be, which is an impulse I really always respond to.

• 11:00Speaker 00

  There's a bunch of behind the scenes footage from the making of Twin Peaks, The Return. That is just amazing to watch him work, you know, he's essentially trying to get all this stuff that he's got left over inside of him out, right? But the things that he's concerned about are like, how black is the black? So he's like painted, you know, this soundstage, they're shooting, I think that big takeout episode where the.

• 11:26Sean Fennessey?

  Number eight.

• 11:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, number eight. And he's like obsessing over the tone of the black paint that's on the wall and how that's going to be conveyed and whether it's too black. Or starlight would illuminate it at all, so we need to bring it up a little bit. And watching his mind work in that way and watching him sort of be the kind of person who cares about how black, black is.

• 11:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 11:47Speaker 00

  Is like, I don't know how many people out there still do that or, you know, or how many people ever were that laser focused on. The way that images could make people feel, you know, and it's, it was, it's if you get a chance to look at any of the Twin Peaks, The Return stuff, you can see him. At work in a way that's really magical.

• 12:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm about to groan at myself because we use this term so much, but he was like a true artist in the, in.

• 12:12Sean Fennessey?

  He was a fine artist.

• 12:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. He was, he was a fine artist and he was just like a very one of one mind interpreting the world. Visually and in ideologically in ways that like everyone else like take from and, and, and like, and reframing it for all of us. And so, and a lot of that is visual, but it's like. You know, we, we call a lot of people artists who are creative and who make these, and that's awesome. I mean, I'm not an artist, but like, it's, it, it, what a brain.

• 12:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, no, I think.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  And the combination of the high and low.

• 12:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  It's like, it was like, to be able to like, interpret dreams and visualize them and then also be like, I like donuts and the radio, you know, and cigarettes and coffee.

• 12:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Like, it was, it was both the pop and the culture part.

• 13:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it was about living in the real world. It's just the way that it manifests sometimes doesn't seem necessarily practical. I think, to what you're, to the point that you're making, he was literally a painter and musician. He wasn't just a guy who told people what to do on a film set. He was someone who was desperately trying to get out whatever was in his head and manifest multiple ways. And, you know, big time collaborator, somebody who worked with his composer Angela Battlementi many times, worked with Laura Dern many times, worked with Kyle McLaughlin many times, like, was always kind of recurring with figures, was always trying to find these, these, I don't know, these like, conveyors of his ideas and his imagery and his sensibility.

• 13:41Sean Fennessey?

  But he's a, I still don't totally feel like I understand all of his work. Like, there's something kind of exciting about that, that, um, I spent a lot of time on the show being like, this is what this means, and having a certitude about it, and like, constantly circling back to themes and intention.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know, I know.

• 13:58Sean Fennessey?

  I'll vote for you. And there were definitely times when I was watching that series where you could simultaneously be like, this is a masterpiece and I don't understand what's going on right now. And that, that is actually what people who don't like critics think critics do all the time, you know, that they sort of like, are quick to make proclamations about things without fully investigating their relationship to them. But, there's, there's, like, Inland Empire is impossibly hard to watch, and ugly, and annoying.

• 14:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, like, I mean, that's the thing.

• 14:24Sean Fennessey?

  And also, deep, like, if there's a movie about the LA fires that exists, it's kind of Inland Empire. You know what I mean? Like, the, the idea of like, accessing the difficulty of tragedy and the, our lack of control in the universe, that's a movie that does it, you know? It doesn't always mean it's as fun as Top Gun Maverick, you know what I mean? Like, it's just a totally different thing, but they operate inside of the same medium, so we feel the need to kind of lump them together, and they should be lumped together, you know? Like, Lynch was in many ways like a mainstream artist. So, I, I like that he is part of both, that he can exist in both worlds very comfortably for us, or he could have. And.

• 15:01Sean Fennessey?

  The other thing in addition to being an artist is like, he's clearly like a spiritual person, not a religious person, but a spiritual person and somebody who thought about the world. You know, there's the tweet where he's like, I feel we're like, I am connected to the moon going around right now that he tweeted in like 2010. And I don't think he's doing a bit, you know, like he was legitimately thinking about his relationship to the moon.

• 15:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, we all are, but you know.

• 15:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 15:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Some of us more than others, but that's fine.

• 15:23Sean Fennessey?

  That's the thing, though. I mean, I think his persona predates online influencers, but he is like on to something, you know? He kind of had a knack for knowing how to develop a cult around himself, too.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  Should we have a hot cup of black coffee in his honor after this?

• 15:38Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like a fraud drinking herbal tea right now. I feel like this isn't what he would have wanted.

• 15:43Amanda Dobbins?

  We're just trying to get through a podcast with our voices and be able to talk about him. It's okay.

• 15:47Sean Fennessey?

  I'll smoke a cigarette with you today if you want.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 15:50Sean Fennessey?

  In his honor. Do you guys have a favorite thing of his that you'd like to cite?

• 15:55Speaker 00

  I think Twin Peaks is my favorite thing by him. Yeah, Twin Peaks and The Return.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  Kind of invented, like you said, invents the next 30 years of prestige television and auteur television and then shatters everything about it with The Return.

• 16:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  And The Return is like a really perfectly, it's a perfect example of like what you're talking about with Inland Two, where it's like challenging, dull, weird, like you're waiting for something to emerge that feels like a plot, you know?

• 16:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 16:26Speaker 00

  And or you're like, I can't believe this is about like a dumb version of Dale, you know, or whatever you're watching. And.

• 16:34Sean Fennessey?

  There's stuff in The Return where you're like, who is this character being played by this tremendously famous actor?

• 16:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:39Sean Fennessey?

  That showed up in episode 13? Like, he just like did not care.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:43Sean Fennessey?

  About the conventions of expectation when you were watching something like that. It's pretty crazy. Twin Peaks is hard to go back to because it's just so much. It was at a time when there were so many episodes of shows. So wrapping my head around like, I'll definitely, I have 60 hours.

• 16:57Speaker 00

  To watch.

• 16:57Sean Fennessey?

  To watch this.

• 16:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I've never done all of it. I've seen some of it, but I was too young.

• 17:02Speaker 00

  The second season, too.

• 17:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I was too young even to like dip in with The Babysitter, which you also talked about on that David Lynch episode with Adam Naaman and Rad Babysitter is all I had to say.

• 17:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I remember her well, Karen.

• 17:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't have a rad babysitter. I don't know if my parents watched it. So Mulholland Drive was my, my, my first and also given Amanda's set of interests. Like my favorite by far.

• 17:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 17:24Amanda Dobbins?

  And what I, I think I saw it probably pretty close to its release because it was in the Oscar conversation. You know, which is to our point about like the mainstream and like straddling both worlds. Like it was accessible to 17 year old me. Um, and it was like something I knew about and I was like, huh, I guess that I should check that out. Even as I'm also like learning about old Hollywood and learning about like what noir is. And so, um, you know, coming to a genre and the exploration and the upending of the genre at the same time. It was like extremely formative and being like, oh, there are different ways to look at these things and different ways to express them. And, and things can be really weird and also cool.

• 18:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  Have you guys seen Naomi Watts's David Lynch impression? That video where she, she did one of those like straight to camera New York Times interviews. I think pretty recently. And she was like, David Lynch once told me.

• 18:21Sean Fennessey?

  We can all coexist.

• 18:22Speaker 00

  Naomi, anyone who sits in the palm of King Kong is a movie star for life.

• 18:31Speaker 00

  She does such a good impression. I'm paraphrasing.

• 18:34Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that was one of the big jobs that she got in the aftermath of Mulholland Drive.

• 18:37Speaker 00

  We skipped over your babysitter being named Karen.

• 18:39Sean Fennessey?

  She, she is named Karen.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  She tell on you a lot?

• 18:41Sean Fennessey?

  No, she was, she was a cool Karen. Trust me. Uh, this was well before Karen came to be known as a, uh, an unfriendly term in this country. I think I probably talked about how in my adulthood, Twin Peaks Fire Walk with me is the movie that I'm feel is like the biggest achievement because it's the most, it's the biggest rejection and reexamination of the big thing that he did. And it's like, it really just makes you, similar to Inland Empire, it makes you just sit in the pain and terror of someone's life being destroyed and then watching it end. And then giving it like a very. A little bit of redemption, like just a little bit of redemption. And him like, almost like looking at the marketing of Twin Peaks and being like,

• 19:27Speaker 00

  You guys got it wrong.

• 19:28Sean Fennessey?

  It's not just that this is a dead body, like this was a person. And think about what that means to be a person. So that's a movie that has impacted me a lot. And then, this is true of many a man in America, but when you have a child and you watch Eraserhead, after having a child, you're like, oh, this is about having a baby. Like, I didn't realize that this is about having a baby. Like, obviously, the character, there is a baby in Eraserhead, but you're like, the actual mind state, the fugue state that you enter when you have a child.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:00Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe you should watch Eraserhead tonight.

• 20:01Amanda Dobbins?

  No. I mean, this is the thing, is that I deal with that very differently than you do. But, yeah, I mean, I guess it's about having a baby.

• 20:08Sean Fennessey?

  And they're all these like gnarled mutant creatures, you know? And you're hearing these sounds from the universe and you just feel completely haunted all the time.

• 20:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, you're the sounds from the universe, for me.

• 20:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, what an amazing artist. God, I loved him so much. If you haven't seen the work of David Lynch, listeners at home should absolutely explore them. I think many of those films are on the Criterion Channel right now. Most of them are widely available. There's also a lot of short films that are available. There's, I think there's a few short films on Netflix right now.

• 20:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I just came across something recently. I mean, I think, I don't know how I like blocked this out, but I want to try and find On the Air, which is the show he made in 92 that he made with Mark Frost. He directed one episode, but it's basically about like a 1950s radio station.

• 20:49Sean Fennessey?

  That's more like a sitcom, right?

• 20:51Speaker 00

  Is it? Okay.

• 20:52Sean Fennessey?

  He did two TV shows in the 90s that weren't Twin Peaks.

• 20:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, Hotel Room?

• 20:57Sean Fennessey?

  Hotel, yeah. I feel like On the Air is like more of like a 30-minute episodic TV show.

• 21:01Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 21:03Sean Fennessey?

  His autobiography was written with Christine McKenna. It's called Room to Dream from 2018. Sort of an autobiography, some huge swaths of autobiography. And then there's always a kind of like philosophical meditation going on in a lot of his work.

• 21:18Sean Fennessey?

  Any final thoughts on David Lynch?

• 21:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I think you should do a syllabus or something. I mean, there's an obvious syllabus of the feature films, but, you know.

• 21:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 21:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Do something else.

• 21:27Sean Fennessey?

  I gotta figure something out. I don't know what it would be. I mean, you know. He is poured over. That's the one thing about him is he is, he's the avant garde, avant garde auteur who cracked through in America, maybe more so than anyone. Can you think of another figure?

• 21:44Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 21:45Sean Fennessey?

  Who worked in such strange, beautiful ways, but who wasn't, never took a job.

• 21:50Speaker 00

  Not on, not with the level of his notoriety.

• 21:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, um.

• 21:55Speaker 00

  I had to transition from this into the Daredevil trailer on the watch. So I throw the hammer.

• 22:02Sean Fennessey?

  From the sublime to the absurd is how it should be.

• 22:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Who's in Daredevil?

• 22:06Speaker 00

  Bernthal. That's what we were talking about.

• 22:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, is he Daredevil?

• 22:11Sean Fennessey?

  You've encountered Daredevil before. Matt Murdock, he was, he's a lawyer. What, what film did he show up in recently?

• 22:17Speaker 00

  Spider-Man. He's Spider-Man's lawyer. He's blind.

• 22:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And I remember that because you turned to me and you were like, that's Daredevil.

• 22:26Sean Fennessey?

  It's so cool to go to the movies with me.

• 22:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Ben Affleck also played Daredevil.

• 22:29Sean Fennessey?

  He did.

• 22:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Right?

• 22:30Speaker 00

  And then you're like, this is about having a baby. Spider-Man is about having a baby.

• 22:36Sean Fennessey?

  Well, well, is it not?

• 22:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I'm gonna drop both of my babies off at your house. Yeah, you can deal.

• 22:45Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk about award season. I, I, we've asked Chris to join us here as we make predictions. There's so many precursors to talk about because of the fires. Many, much of this news was pushed back and I think all of it is here now. I think we've now gotten BAFTA, WGA, the cinematographers guild.

• 23:02Speaker 00

  Oscars is next week now?

• 23:03Sean Fennessey?

  Oscar announcement is next Thursday, the 23rd for the nominations. At 5 a.m.

• 23:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Did I just make eye contact with you every single, listen, the way the mic is positioned? You're part of Big Water Bottle now.

• 23:15Sean Fennessey?

  It's like an ancient Vikings Stein glass.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:20Sean Fennessey?

  But for water.

• 23:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Hold it, hold it, hold it. Like, just check out the ergonomics. That's pretty good, right?

• 23:26Speaker 00

  Is that heavy?

• 23:27Sean Fennessey?

  Um, it's, it's full, so I guess. I mean, it's a, it's a water bottle.

• 23:31Speaker 00

  Can you hold it out in front of you for two minutes? I had a question for you guys. Maybe you can help. Maybe this would be a useful way of doing this conversation. I know you want to get into the nitty gritty of these nominations and we're on a clock, but as someone who is interested, but not following the precursors, like religiously, what's like three headlines I need to know? Like, where is the race right now?

• 23:53Amanda Dobbins?

  You gotta see Amelia Perez.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  I, I watched half of it.

• 23:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well, you should probably watch the other half.

• 24:01Sean Fennessey?

  I sent Amanda a sort of panicked text yesterday, yesterday or two days ago.

• 24:05Amanda Dobbins?

  It was at like 7 a.m.

• 24:06Sean Fennessey?

  There was like, Amelia Perez is happening.

• 24:08Amanda Dobbins?

  This is just like having a baby.

• 24:09Sean Fennessey?

  Like Amelia Perez is happening. And I don't hate Amelia Perez. I'm gonna start by saying that. I don't hate it. I, I've seen it twice now. I think it's hugely flawed and kind of annoying. But there are things about it I do enjoy. But it would be one of the worst Best Picture winners of all time. There's no question about it. And it has strong, I'll tell you that the, what I'm feeling right now, very acutely, is Crash over Brokeback Mountain, Green Book over Roma. That to me will be

• 24:41Speaker 00

  We're so back.

• 24:42Sean Fennessey?

  Amelia Perez over The Brutalist, or over Enora, depending on, you know, your mileage may vary on those two. Well, we may look back on it in a similar fashion if that happens. So that to me feels like the kind of emerging headline out of all of these Guild nominations. Do you agree with that?

• 24:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, I do.

• 24:59Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 24:59Sean Fennessey?

  So

• 25:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Even though I haven't seen The Brutalist yet, but

• 25:03Speaker 00

  Well, other things came up.

• 25:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 25:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 25:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I re-bought tickets today.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  But The Brutalist is surging? Would you say The Brutalist is?

• 25:10Sean Fennessey?

  I'm getting a lot of, uh, I mentioned this earlier this week. I'm getting a lot of the opposite from people I know who are like, it's The Brutalist. It's gonna be The Brutalist. Buckle up. This is happening, for sure. Both voters and people who are in the, in the business have said that to me this week.

• 25:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 25:25Sean Fennessey?

  So I, and maybe I'm in a little bit of like protect myself mode, because I think it'd be really cool. A movie like The Brutalist has not won Best Picture in a very long time. An independently financed, big movie. Usually those movies are like Oppenheimer, and they have a huge campaign behind them, and they have old school studio stuff and a memorable filmmaker.

• 25:47Sean Fennessey?

  You know, to me, it's like, if you, the last time something like that happened was probably 12 Years a Slave, which was a studio movie, but felt like, you know, an auteur with a really strong, difficult story that is like a film that is hard to watch at times. Since then, there hasn't been a lot of that, and it's not the kind of thing that the Academy usually does. They don't like something that makes you feel like absolute fucking garbage at the end of it. And-

• 26:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, Oppenheimer.

• 26:14Speaker 00

  Parasite.

• 26:15Sean Fennessey?

  I wouldn't, I don't think Oppenheimer necessarily does that. I think it does have a down note, like a kind of like doom-like note at the end of it, but I don't think it makes you feel like garbage. Parasite, um, I think people have, uh, it feels a little misunderstood. I think it's a little misunderstood.

• 26:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:29Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 26:30Sean Fennessey?

  In my, I, I'm just, we're talking about 10,000 people, you know?

• 26:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah.

• 26:35Sean Fennessey?

  But I think that people saw the SAG win for the Parasite ensemble and how cool it was, how happy all those people were, and they were like, that's great, let's vote for those guys. And, and they weren't like, this is a deep examination of class and the violence that it imbues inside of us.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  Okay. So you're seeing it sort of start to crystallize of Emilio Perez versus brutalist.

• 26:56Amanda Dobbins?

  The brutalist.

• 26:57Sean Fennessey?

  And I think Enora and Conclave are kind of in third and fourth place, basically.

• 27:00Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 27:01Amanda Dobbins?

  But I, I, I agree with Sean, except to say that just Emilio Perez kinda is everywhere and the below the line and just like the sheer number of nominations and critics, you know, it's sort of relentless. So I agree that there is a lot of respect for the brutalists and all the brutal boys are texting Sean all the time, and that's beautiful and what a community you guys have.

• 27:28Sean Fennessey?

  Boys and girls.

• 27:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh huh. Um, and, but, uh, Emilio Perez, it's just like in every single-

• 27:37Speaker 00

  If you were a betting lady.

• 27:38Amanda Dobbins?

  In every single, I just, and also you have to remember the International Academy. So-

• 27:44Speaker 00

  Uh, the Jacques Odegaard, Odegaard, uh, apologizing thing, is that, is that gonna be?

• 27:51Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think anybody's gonna care. You mean just him noting that he, they, they didn't actually have, uh, enough Mexican representation and enough point of view from Mexican-

• 28:01Speaker 00

  Sorry if anybody was offended, it was, it's an opera, it's a fantasy and, you know, it's supposed to be reality.

• 28:05Sean Fennessey?

  I think, I think it's, I think that particular criticism- Is very valid, especially if you're a Mexican filmmaker or film artist. But I also don't think it's like the only way to understand why the movie doesn't work. It has problems. Um, I think the trans criticisms, which are are complicated, but in short, the idea that like there is something sublimated um in a person and that they need to like be violent and criminal until they become their true self is like a very bad and ugly metaphor. That is very regressive.

• 28:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:38Sean Fennessey?

  And um I cited that when we talked about the movie months ago, and it's very weird the way that the movie uh tries to complicate the character and actually makes the character seem more simple. The Amelia Perez character. Um, so it's one of those things where like 20 years from now, if a movie like this one's best picture, we're gonna be like, and and our understanding of gender and and emotional point of view changes over time, it's gonna look really, really bad. Um, I think.

• 29:05Speaker 00

  It's an incredibly weird year for gender at the movies and especially at the Academy Awards.

• 29:11Sean Fennessey?

  Did you get involved in any of the Enora Criterion cover art uh discussion on on Twitter yesterday? Where people were like.

• 29:18Speaker 00

  Believe it or not.

• 29:19Sean Fennessey?

  This this cover is too sexy and some the the tagline was like, bring her home. And it implied that you could like bring the sex worker home, you know, if you buy the Blu-ray.

• 29:29Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 29:31Sean Fennessey?

  We're in a dystopian state. Yeah, we're in a dystopian state. Um.

• 29:35Speaker 00

  Okay, so those are those are good.

• 29:37Sean Fennessey?

  Amelia Perez had 10 nominations at BAFTA.

• 29:38Speaker 00

  I can sound smart tonight when I go out and hang out with all my friends, you know?

• 29:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 29:43Sean Fennessey?

  Who are those? Are they not here at the table with you?

• 29:45Speaker 00

  They're all like guys who don't watch uh movies and are involved in the Oscar race, you know?

• 29:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, very cool. They are just in hardcore bands or?

• 29:54Amanda Dobbins?

  How far in Amelia Perez did you make it?

• 29:56Speaker 00

  Like six songs in.

• 29:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so what was the last song?

• 29:59Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 30:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 30:00Speaker 00

  I don't know. She did um the first one where she's just like, I'm writing my brief.

• 30:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm a lawyer and then all the people join in. I mean, that's another just under discussed.

• 30:10Speaker 00

  She dropped her credit card but went to Bangkok. And then there's like some other stuff. I was like, I started watching it right after the Globes. And then I was like, I think I, I think I'm good. Yeah. But I will complete my assignment if necessary, you know?

• 30:26Sean Fennessey?

  Solo Emilio Perez pod? I'll host it on this feed if you'd like. Would you be interested?

• 30:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that would really, that would go well.

• 30:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, but that was just one.

• 30:35Sean Fennessey?

  That's just one storyline.

• 30:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, Demi Moore is winning.

• 30:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 30:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, that's two.

• 30:39Sean Fennessey?

  Can I pitch one at you that we haven't talked about?

• 30:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:42Sean Fennessey?

  Jamie Lee Curtis is not only happening, but is like threatening to win best supporting actress right now.

• 30:46Amanda Dobbins?

  She's not gonna win. She's not.

• 30:48Sean Fennessey?

  She's not gonna win. I agree. She's not gonna win.

• 30:50Speaker 00

  Because she's like fundraising for the Palisades or like why?

• 30:52Sean Fennessey?

  She's just campaigning so hard for The Last Showgirl.

• 30:55Amanda Dobbins?

  And that like works.

• 30:55Sean Fennessey?

  And it worked. She got nominated at the Golden Globes. She got nominated at SAG.

• 30:58Amanda Dobbins?

  She won an Oscar for whatever the hell that was.

• 31:00Speaker 00

  Wouldn't that almost be like a bummer where it's like you're gonna win when Pamela Anderson is like the...

• 31:06Sean Fennessey?

  It happens all the time. Yeah.

• 31:08Amanda Dobbins?

  But I mean...

• 31:09Speaker 00

  You think Shipka's gonna get nominated?

• 31:11Sean Fennessey?

  For which performance?

• 31:12Speaker 00

  In The Last Showgirl, right? Isn't she in it?

• 31:14Sean Fennessey?

  She is in it, yeah. Have you seen it?

• 31:15Speaker 00

  No.

• 31:15Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 31:16Speaker 00

  Can you see it? I don't, where is it?

• 31:18Sean Fennessey?

  How often do you update Kieran and Shipka's IMDB per day?

• 31:21Speaker 00

  I think what she's doing is great. I just wanna say that. Honestly, it's just been a delight.

• 31:26Sean Fennessey?

  I think she should be nominated for Twisters.

• 31:28Speaker 00

  Me too.

• 31:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:29Speaker 00

  Me too.

• 31:30Sean Fennessey?

  You do? Okay, great.

• 31:31Amanda Dobbins?

  You didn't like the foam twisters, so you don't get to hand out nominations.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  There's no rules anymore?

• 31:37Sean Fennessey?

  Jamie Lee is nominated at BAFTA. That was one where I was like, hmm.

• 31:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And SAG Awards.

• 31:41Sean Fennessey?

  BAFTA, SAG, Golden Globes, that's a lot. We'll get into that when we talk about the nominees.

• 31:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Was she nominated at the Golden Globes?

• 31:47Speaker 00

  No.

• 31:48Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, no, she wasn't. Only Pamela Anderson was. You're right, you're right. But I guess the wave is happening in the same way that the wave is happening for the brutalist, this sort of like late game wave.

• 31:57Sean Fennessey?

  I'll throw another one at you.

• 31:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 31:58Sean Fennessey?

  Hugh Grant?

• 31:59Speaker 00

  Heretic?

• 32:01Sean Fennessey?

  Nominated at BAFTA.

• 32:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but he's...

• 32:03Sean Fennessey?

  Nominated at the Globes.

• 32:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but listen, two categories at the Globes and the BAFTAs are British.

• 32:10Sean Fennessey?

  There's a softness in best actor right now for Daniel Craig's campaign.

• 32:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I would agree with that. I don't know if it's gonna go to... You wanna do our thing?

• 32:19Sean Fennessey?

  No, not yet, not yet.

• 32:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay, sorry.

• 32:21Sean Fennessey?

  The number 10 spot in Best Picture is Wonky.

• 32:26Speaker 00

  Not Wonka, though. That's the important.

• 32:28Sean Fennessey?

  Not Wonka. That's a 2023 feature that was not nominated for Best Picture.

• 32:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Have you had to watch that at my house yet?

• 32:32Speaker 00

  No.

• 32:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 32:34Sean Fennessey?

  The PGA.

• 32:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yo, can they release Paddington in Peru already? I need someplace to take my child.

• 32:40Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's February 14th.

• 32:41Amanda Dobbins?

  It is Valentine's Day, which is not what I'm trying to do on Valentine's Day. I'm trying to let my child see Paddington in Peru this weekend, if anyone can help me. Thank you.

• 32:49Sean Fennessey?

  I think if you live in England, it's available to see.

• 32:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sometimes I wish I did.

• 32:53Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe you can get a VPN and you can get it streamed.

• 32:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 32:56Sean Fennessey?

  You're gonna torrent it? Just so we got that on the record. The PGA nominations, these are the 10 movies. This is important because this is an extremely predictive body. Enora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune Part Two, Emilia Perez, A Real Pain, September Five, The Substance, and Wicked.

• 33:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 33:12Sean Fennessey?

  Now, to me, here's what I think happened here.

• 33:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 33:15Sean Fennessey?

  One, A Real Pain is locked in at nine.

• 33:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 33:17Sean Fennessey?

  The Substance is locked in at eight.

• 33:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  Really?

• 33:19Sean Fennessey?

  I think so.

• 33:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree. Yes.

• 33:20Sean Fennessey?

  Which I never in a million years would have guessed, six weeks ago, that The Substance would get locked in at this stage of the race, but it does feel that way.

• 33:28Speaker 00

  Okay. What dropped out?

• 33:30Sean Fennessey?

  Quite a few things. Most notably, Sing Sing and Nickel Boys now seem to be on the outside. You agree?

• 33:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, yes.

• 33:38Sean Fennessey?

  So, one of those movies, or September Five.

• 33:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 33:42Sean Fennessey?

  Or I have one other theory.

• 33:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 33:47Sean Fennessey?

  There's a world where Nosferatu gets a Nightmare Alley-style what-the-fuck Best Picture nomination.

• 33:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I like it.

• 33:55Sean Fennessey?

  It's not out of the realm of possibility.

• 33:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I made a list this morning, Notes app, movies to see, and I forgot to put Nosferatu on there. Okay.

• 34:03Sean Fennessey?

  Nosferatu has been a huge commercial success, huge commercial success, probably bigger than they anticipated. I think Eggers has officially ascended to, this is a very important American filmmaker status.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  We knew that. I knew that when he avenge his father in the Northland.

• 34:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 34:21Sean Fennessey?

  And Nightmare Alley, one of, a CR favorite, of course, had a similar path where it was extremely strong, extremely strong in a few below the line categories.

• 34:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 34:34Sean Fennessey?

  And then came out of nowhere and got a Best Picture nomination. I don't think, I don't think Nightmare Alley had a single Best Picture recognition in any precursors. But it did have.

• 34:43Amanda Dobbins?

  So there is, there's priors for something coming out of nowhere.

• 34:46Sean Fennessey?

  And a similar kind of movie, right? Beautifully mounted movie, a movie that's a remake of a, of a, of a classic. A movie that is just steeped in craft. And a movie that isn't international, but kind of feels international. So I'm not predicting, I don't think Nosferatu at 10.

• 35:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 35:03Sean Fennessey?

  But Nickel Boys, Sing Sing and September 5 seem weak. And.

• 35:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that's true. Here's my explanation for September 5 at the PGAs.

• 35:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 35:13Amanda Dobbins?

  That is a film about producers.

• 35:15Sean Fennessey?

  It's very, very true.

• 35:16Amanda Dobbins?

  It is quite literally a film about people in a room being like, what are we going to do? And here is our play.

• 35:21Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great take.

• 35:22Speaker 00

  I have one, uh, Oscars, just keep an eye on it.

• 35:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 35:26Speaker 00

  Nine days out from Timothy Chalamet pulling double duty on Saturday Night Live, where he will be hosting and is the musical guest. And I am here to tell you that if he duets with the actual Bob Dylan on SNL that night, he will win Best Actor.

• 35:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I think that he's going to win anyway. But also, like, how, where and how is Bob Dylan right now?

• 35:46Speaker 00

  Uh, he's on TikTok. He signed up for TikTok.

• 35:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Did he?

• 35:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:50Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I haven't checked that. Just two days before it closes for good.

• 35:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:53Sean Fennessey?

  That's, that's a perfectly Dylan move. I love that. Do you think TikTok is actually gonna go away?

• 35:59Speaker 00

  No, that guy's going on the inauguration. The guy who owns TikTok.

• 36:03Sean Fennessey?

  The, the CEO of ByteDance?

• 36:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:05Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 36:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  Just keep an eye on that.

• 36:08Speaker 04

  Should we make this a breakout and post it on TikTok?

• 36:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I just want to put a circle around, listen, I just want to circle with some news about who's not going to the inauguration and a Friday announcement. And that's all I'll say. Google it, you can figure it out.

• 36:21Speaker 00

  I, we see, I don't understand what you're saying.

• 36:23Amanda Dobbins?

  There is someone who's not going to the inauguration?

• 36:25Speaker 00

  Oh, we know that, yeah.

• 36:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And it's, it's sad.

• 36:30Sean Fennessey?

  I, I literally have no idea what you guys are talking about. Um.

• 36:34Speaker 00

  Shalhoub.

• 36:35Sean Fennessey?

  My, my other note was, A Complete Unknown is way stronger than I realized.

• 36:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's a good movie. Open your heart.

• 36:41Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's got nothing to do with that. The thing is, is like,

• 36:44Amanda Dobbins?

  It's got a little bit to do with that.

• 36:45Sean Fennessey?

  I think if you take out Emilio Perez, pretty solid slate. Not the best ever slate of Best Picture nominees, but a lot of interesting movies. Um, nothing that like, really, really, really goes to that forever place for me, but it's a solid collection of movies. A Complete Unknown, also commercially successful.

• 37:03Amanda Dobbins?

  It's okay. It's an okay list.

• 37:05Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. What don't you like?

• 37:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not gonna go that far. I think,

• 37:11Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I don't like Wicked, obviously.

• 37:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, like, we've got, we've got like,

• 37:13Sean Fennessey?

  Wicked and Emilio Perez are, are, are my least favorite of the contenders.

• 37:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Six more weeks to talk about this and to let our feelings known bit by bit.

• 37:22Sean Fennessey?

  Is that your strategy usually?

• 37:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:24Sean Fennessey?

  Parcel it out.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  Mystery Box Podcasting.

• 37:27Sean Fennessey?

  What's your favorite of the nominated films? Civil War was not, is not gonna be nominated for Best Picture, Chris.

• 37:34Speaker 00

  Uh, Enora.

• 37:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 37:37Sean Fennessey?

  Did you notice that Alex Garland did receive a WGA nomination?

• 37:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Why don't you just,

• 37:42Speaker 00

  Touchdown!

• 37:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Why don't you just read the list of ineligible titles for the WGA?

• 37:48Sean Fennessey?

  Well, there are quite a few, Amanda. Thanks for teaming that up. Uh,

• 37:51Speaker 00

  Oh, you're saying by process of elimination, they had to give Alex Garland a nomination?

• 37:54Sean Fennessey?

  Let me just share with you the list of films.

• 37:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Why weren't these not eligible?

• 37:57Sean Fennessey?

  Because of the various rules that the W, that the Guild has around eligibility. Um, and there are quite a few WGA. This happened, this always happens. There's usually two or three notable movies that don't,

• 38:06Speaker 00

  Like Tarantino can't get it because he's not in the Guild.

• 38:08Sean Fennessey?

  Precisely, not a member of the Guild. Uh, these are the films. Conclave, Emilio Perez, I'm Still Here, The Room Next Door, Sing Sing, The Wild Robot, All We Imagine Is Light, The Brutalist, Dee Dee, A Different Man, Hard Truths, His Three Daughters, I Saw The TV Glow, The Seat Of The Sacred Fig, September Five, and The Substance.

• 38:23Speaker 00

  So those can't be nominated.

• 38:24Sean Fennessey?

  None of those were eligible for either WGA.

• 38:26Amanda Dobbins?

  So, so then here comes your man Alex Garland.

• 38:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Your number one boy. It's okay. You love Emerald Fennel too, you know? You're just, you're in the mix.

• 38:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:36Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, you like, you like to see some stuff on the big screen.

• 38:40Speaker 00

  Big ideas and big feelings. Yeah.

• 38:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you do.

• 38:42Amanda Dobbins?

  How do you feel about the Wuthering Heights adaptation?

• 38:44Speaker 00

  I'm into it.

• 38:45Amanda Dobbins?

  No, you're not. Let me just, let me help you right now. You're not.

• 38:48Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know.

• 38:49Speaker 00

  Saltwater was good. We're still talking about it.

• 38:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you are.

• 38:54Speaker 00

  She's still, she's still in your head.

• 38:56Sean Fennessey?

  That's true. That's true. Yeah. A true termite filmmaker. Um.

• 39:01Sean Fennessey?

  Original screenplay nominees were A Real Pain, Enora, Challengers, Civil War, and My Old Ass from the WGA.

• 39:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 39:07Sean Fennessey?

  Did you see My Old Ass?

• 39:08Speaker 00

  I did. Oh, sorry, you weren't asking.

• 39:10Sean Fennessey?

  Hey, dear man, did you see My Old Ass from female filmmaker Megan Park? You haven't seen that one yet?

• 39:15Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's on the list. I had to go to a matinee of Dead of Thieves Part II Pantera last night.

• 39:20Speaker 00

  If you talk about how all movies are about having a child and then for like, only Amanda can comment on My Old Ass, like, what am I allowed to talk about? Civil War and Dead of Thieves?

• 39:29Sean Fennessey?

  We're getting to Pantera, bro. Settle down.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  But Big Nick has kids, you know? It's really about fathers who are not in the film.

• 39:39Sean Fennessey?

  Eraserhead, Dead of Thieves II Pantera double feature. Who says no? Not a single person. Adapted screenplay nominees from WGA: Complete Unknown, Dune Part II, Hitman, Nickel Boys, and Wicked. Wicked, eh? Interesting. Um, it's, WGA is not very predictive these days because of all of these rules. The cinematography guild is interesting to me. The Brutalist, Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune Part II, Maria, Nosferatu, and Wicked.

• 40:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, this is, I think, literally the only guild that doesn't have Emilia Perez in its nominations, which it seems fine based on Emilia Perez, which, to be fair, I watched on my television screen.

• 40:22Sean Fennessey?

  You could see a world where Maria and Nosferatu get in at the Oscars in that category and not Emilia Perez. I could see that.

• 40:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 40:30Sean Fennessey?

  Seems plausible, especially Jaron Blasky, previously nominated, Ed Lackman, previously nominated. So there's a lot of admiration in those. Those are starting to be the best guilds.

• 40:39Speaker 00

  No, I will not be seeing Maria.

• 40:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Really nice apartment.

• 40:41Sean Fennessey?

  You will not be seeing Maria.

• 40:42Speaker 00

  I don't believe so, no.

• 40:43Sean Fennessey?

  At a silent protest?

• 40:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that they recreate her Paris apartment. It's really nice.

• 40:49Speaker 00

  Is it nicer than?

• 40:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I, listen, I see achievement everywhere, you know?

• 40:53Speaker 00

  Than Amy Brenneman's apartment in Heat, you know?

• 40:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, it's, well, maybe more my taste.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:00Sean Fennessey?

  I'm trying to think of other meaningful takeaways from these awards. Not too many. I think we hit all the big topics, right?

• 41:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:05Sean Fennessey?

  One thing that I noticed that the PGAs is doing is outstanding producer of televised or streamed motion picture. So these are just movies that go straight to studio.

• 41:14Amanda Dobbins?

  One thing that you noticed as a member of the PGA?

• 41:16Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I mean, I voted on the award, obviously, but, um... Carry On, The Greatest Night in Pop, The Killer, which is John Woo's American remake of The Killer, not the David, uh, Fincher film. Rebel Ridge and Unfrosted are the nominees in that category.

• 41:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 41:32Sean Fennessey?

  This is dystopian.

• 41:33Speaker 00

  I just, I just took eight helium hits.

• 41:35Amanda Dobbins?

  This is, this is buddies voting for buddies, you know?

• 41:38Sean Fennessey?

  Why do we need this award? What is it for?

• 41:41Amanda Dobbins?

  You, you speak.

• 41:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's like if Rebel Ridge is good.

• 41:43Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not on the board of directors of the producers guild. I mean, they obviously created it because they want to acknowledge more titles and there's, but it actually indicates that there is a meaningful difference in producing a film for streaming.

• 41:58Sean Fennessey?

  And that's kind of weird. That is, that is, that puts like, it puts words to something that we have sort of felt in the culture in the last few years where this sort of like, there is a difference between a streaming movie and a theatrically released movie. And the, like Rebel Ridge and The Greatest Night in Pop have nothing to do with each other. And the way that they were made have nothing to do with each other. What is a kival documentary with talking heads, the other is an action movie.

• 42:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. So. It was good. I watched it because you guys kept talking about it. Yeah.

• 42:25Speaker 00

  You enjoyed it?

• 42:26Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a good movie.

• 42:26Speaker 00

  Did you watch Carry On?

• 42:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Not yet. I mean, it's again, it's a, I'm still playing catch up.

• 42:32Speaker 00

  I don't know if that's one that you need to like prioritize.

• 42:35Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not on the top of the list.

• 42:36Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 42:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:37Sean Fennessey?

  I want a supercut of all the Bateman scenes so I can run those before every pod. Just to get fired up.

• 42:43Speaker 00

  JCS, has it got another one for us?

• 42:44Sean Fennessey?

  He does. The Woman in the Yard. Honestly, great trailer and it just like, you know, you could just tell it's like a real director made this just from looking at a trailer, like not some guy that they found on the street. Like JCS, he knows how to frame a shot, man.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:00Sean Fennessey?

  He knows how to make an image. Enjoyed that trailer. Uh, what do you think is going to win in this category?

• 43:06Speaker 00

  In this streaming thing?

• 43:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 43:08Speaker 00

  Carry On.

• 43:09Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. Carry On?

• 43:10Speaker 00

  What? So they fucking nominated Unfrosted. Like, I mean, what are we talking about?

• 43:15Sean Fennessey?

  You know, directed that.

• 43:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Jerry Seinfeld.

• 43:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 43:17Speaker 00

  Yeah. So like, but isn't it, Carry On's the most popular thing here? I could just.

• 43:21Sean Fennessey?

  That's true. It is. Although Rebel Ridge was very popular as well.

• 43:24Speaker 00

  But Carry On's much more popular than Rebel Ridge. Carry On's.

• 43:27Sean Fennessey?

  Is it going to be the most popular Netflix movie of all time?

• 43:29Speaker 00

  It's on its way, right?

• 43:31Sean Fennessey?

  How do you feel about the film Don't Look Up?

• 43:33Speaker 00

  Um. Well, I'll tell you, Sean, it's hard to comment. I.

• 43:39Sean Fennessey?

  Back in the news.

• 43:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I've noticed that it's back in the news.

• 43:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, because they predicted stuff and the producers are growing?

• 43:44Speaker 00

  I think some of the producers of the film have been.

• 43:47Sean Fennessey?

  Some chest.

• 43:47Speaker 00

  Taken a victory lap.

• 43:49Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think it's the right time to do that.

• 43:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I, I think everyone involved with Don't Look Up should have their access to the internet cut off. Because.

• 43:57Speaker 00

  Good point.

• 43:57Amanda Dobbins?

  That after.

• 43:58Sean Fennessey?

  Timothy Chalamet?

• 43:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Fascism.

• 44:00Sean Fennessey?

  He was involved.

• 44:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I'm, okay, you know, you know who.

• 44:03Sean Fennessey?

  Leonardo DiCaprio?

• 44:04Amanda Dobbins?

  You know who I mean?

• 44:05Sean Fennessey?

  Cate Blanchett?

• 44:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And you know what I'm talking about.

• 44:08Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that, but that's my, but the reason I bring that movie up is because I'm like, that is, certainly there are producers that are beating their chest about the world news and the climate. But, uh, the most famous actors in all of Hollywood were in that movie.

• 44:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 44:20Sean Fennessey?

  Tyler Perry's in that movie.

• 44:21Amanda Dobbins?

  He's good.

• 44:22Sean Fennessey?

  He is very funny.

• 44:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, when Tyler Perry shows up in a movie, you know it's gonna be good.

• 44:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:27Speaker 00

  Real like. Gone Girl.

• 44:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and there's another one where he's like a fixer and someone, who is it? What was it?

• 44:33Sean Fennessey?

  He's Alex Cross in a movie, right? It's not the idea.

• 44:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess so.

• 44:37Sean Fennessey?

  The James Patterson character. Did he ever play Alex Cross? I feel like he did. Maybe I'm misremembering something. Maybe he was up for Alex Cross. Uh, okay, I think that that's most of the precursor conversation.

• 44:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was Alex Cross in the movie, uh, Alex Cross.

• 44:50Sean Fennessey?

  There you go.

• 44:51Speaker 00

  In 2012.

• 44:52Sean Fennessey?

  How fitting. He did not direct that movie.

• 44:53Speaker 00

  No, Rob Cohen directed that.

• 44:55Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, Rob Cohen, he have XXX fame?

• 44:57Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:57Sean Fennessey?

  Have you seen XXX?

• 44:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course I have.

• 44:59Sean Fennessey?

  Where are you at on Vin these days?

• 45:00Speaker 00

  Uh, I don't really think I've liked a Vin since.

• 45:05Sean Fennessey?

  Man Apart?

• 45:07Speaker 00

  No, I was gonna say the one where he's blind on, on a, on a planet.

• 45:11Sean Fennessey?

  Pitch Black?

• 45:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, those are cool.

• 45:12Sean Fennessey?

  You haven't liked a Vin movie since Pitch Black? That was like 2001. Wow, tough. What about Find Me Guilty, the Sidney Lumet film?

• 45:19Speaker 00

  That's all right. It's not, it's not, it, he's not that great.

• 45:22Sean Fennessey?

  I stand with you and the Fast series is bad.

• 45:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:26Sean Fennessey?

  Ben, you're pro. You love Ben.

• 45:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I, listen, Fast Five. They take the vault. I liked it, you know? Yeah.

• 45:35Speaker 00

  This is a great segue.

• 45:37Amanda Dobbins?

  It is, but we're not there yet.

• 45:38Sean Fennessey?

  We're not there yet. We gotta do some predictions. Let us do some predictions.

• 45:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 45:41Sean Fennessey?

  You wanna make predictions?

• 45:42Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 45:43Speaker 00

  Well, cause I, I think that people come to this podcast for expertise.

• 45:47Sean Fennessey?

  I assure you, they do not.

• 45:49Speaker 00

  You two have the tea, you have the leaves.

• 45:51Sean Fennessey?

  We're gonna, we're, we'll, we'll predict the, the to- the top eight categories, the acting awards.

• 45:57Speaker 00

  So what do you predict, the winner or?

• 45:59Sean Fennessey?

  Just what will be nominated come next Thursday. Sound good?

• 46:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 46:03Sean Fennessey?

  And in addition to that, we'll do a hoping for. We'll do a, it'd be great if, it'd be cool if this happened.

• 46:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I almost texted you, but I'm just bringing this to you on the podcast now. You also have to take a nomination away.

• 46:13Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, great. Love it. Love it. Great. Um, let's start at the bottom. Let's start with screenplay.

• 46:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 46:20Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Best adapted screenplay. You wanna go first or you want me to go first?

• 46:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I'll go first. So, Jacques Audiard, Amelia Perez, Peter Strawn, Conclave, James Mangold and Jay Cox, A Complete Unknown, Ramel Ross and Jocelyn Barnes, Nickel Boys, and I forgot to look up the credits for Wicked, but Wicked. Hold on. Where is this in the document?

• 46:40Speaker 00

  Screenplay?

• 46:41Sean Fennessey?

  Winnie Holsman and Stephen Schwartzman.

• 46:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. For Wicked.

• 46:46Sean Fennessey?

  So you don't have, what do you not have from, from my, you don't have Sing Sing on your list?

• 46:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I, no.

• 46:53Sean Fennessey?

  Well, what is your hoping for?

• 46:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Sing Sing.

• 46:55Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, interesting. Okay. So I have Sing Sing on my list. So my list is-

• 46:58Amanda Dobbins?

  And then you're hoping for Wicked?

• 46:59Sean Fennessey?

  And I'm hoping for Nickel Boys.

• 47:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 47:01Sean Fennessey?

  I feel that, I feel that one of the sad things that is happening is that Nickel Boys did not get the awards camp, the awards run that it deserved.

• 47:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Nickel Boys is both WGA and BAFTA.

• 47:14Sean Fennessey?

  I hear you.

• 47:14Amanda Dobbins?

  So.

• 47:15Sean Fennessey?

  I hear you.

• 47:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I, okay.

• 47:17Sean Fennessey?

  I'm pretty-

• 47:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I also-

• 47:18Sean Fennessey?

  Well, BAFTA has six nominees, right?

• 47:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, but, mm, one, two, three, four, five. You're right, it does have six, but, no. In screenplay, it seems that it only has five.

• 47:30Sean Fennessey?

  BAFTA is so confusing. One thing that happened with BAFTA this year is that they changed, they used to have a jury system that would allow for additional films to get in that weren't based on the sort of popular voting for the nominees and they just did away with that now.

• 47:41Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 47:42Sean Fennessey?

  So they've changed their voting rules multiple times. And like, sometimes it's one of the most predictive award shows and other times it's way different. So it's kinda hard to know what BAFTA means to the Oscars right now.

• 47:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Screenplay-

• 47:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I feel like a broken record, but screenplay is a place where we often get to reward cool movies that are rewarded in other places.

• 48:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 48:02Amanda Dobbins?

  So I'm hoping that Nickel Boys comes in on that one.

• 48:05Sean Fennessey?

  For adapted screenplay, I have a complete unknown conclave, Emilia Perez, Sing Sing and Wicked.

• 48:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 48:12Sean Fennessey?

  I would like Nickel Boys to replace Wicked.

• 48:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 48:14Sean Fennessey?

  I don't get the Wicked nom thing like at all for screenplay.

• 48:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, that's who I'm taking it away from is Wicked.

• 48:18Sean Fennessey?

  Um, it's a, it's a stage musical. Obviously, some things have been changed, but like.

• 48:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Apparently a lot has been added.

• 48:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 48:25Amanda Dobbins?

  But they didn't get rid of the singing goat, so.

• 48:29Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Uh, best original screenplay.

• 48:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Have you seen Wicked?

• 48:31Speaker 00

  No.

• 48:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Did you know that animals start singing?

• 48:34Speaker 00

  I have listened to The Big Picture, yeah.

• 48:38Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, best original screenplay.

• 48:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:40Sean Fennessey?

  I'll go first.

• 48:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 48:42Sean Fennessey?

  I have Enora, The Brutalist, Hard Truths, A Real Pain and The Substance.

• 48:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I like that. I've got four out of five. Enora, A Real Pain, The Substance, The Brutalist and Challengers.

• 48:53Sean Fennessey?

  So Challengers is my hoping for.

• 48:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it was my hoping for, and then I decided to bump Justin Kritsky's up. Again, under the theory that this is a screenplay is a place where we honor things.

• 49:05Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm. Cool stuff.

• 49:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, cool stuff. Uh, I like that movie.

• 49:09Sean Fennessey?

  The Quentin Tarantino Wes Anderson Award.

• 49:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 49:12Sean Fennessey?

  The Sofia Coppola Award.

• 49:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly. Uh, the Jordan Peele Award.

• 49:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 49:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, and.

• 49:16Sean Fennessey?

  The Charlie Kaufman Award.

• 49:17Amanda Dobbins?

  And the WGA's are, it like, it's in the mix, at least at WGA's. And Challengers was like a, it was a phenomenon. Um, that also.

• 49:26Sean Fennessey?

  So what do you want that to replace?

• 49:28Amanda Dobbins?

  What I want Challengers to replace? Um.

• 49:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm. No, no, no, that's my fifth.

• 49:35Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, that's your fifth.

• 49:36Amanda Dobbins?

  And what I'd like, that also gives me room then to say that I'd like to see Aaron Schimberg for a different man.

• 49:40Sean Fennessey?

  Well, what is that replacing?

• 49:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, A Real Pain.

• 49:44Sean Fennessey?

  Damn.

• 49:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I, it, I, Real Pain was very nice.

• 49:48Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 49:51Sean Fennessey?

  I have challengers. I would like challengers to knock out The Substance. The Substance is spectacular in many ways.

• 49:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 49:59Speaker 00

  Not a great screenplay.

• 50:01Sean Fennessey?

  Screenplay is not my favorite screenplay. It did win Best Screenplay at Cannes. And obviously, people do like the screenplay. I would argue that the screenplay is a kind of agglomeration of a lot of ideas and movies that we've seen before.

• 50:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, but you know, it puts them together in memorable ways.

• 50:16Sean Fennessey?

  Execution is amazing. I love, I love many, many aspects of that movie. That is not my favorite. I would rather have challengers there. That would, however, make it an all male plus Mona Fastfold screenplay category, which is not ideal. Okay, let's do Best Supporting Actor.

• 50:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 50:34Sean Fennessey?

  This one is mostly easy.

• 50:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 50:39Sean Fennessey?

  You go first.

• 50:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yura Borisov for Nora, Kieran Culkin for Real Pain, Guy Pearce, The Brutalist, Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown, and Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice.

• 50:50Sean Fennessey?

  I don't have Jeremy Strong in. I have Clarence Macklin over Jeremy Strong.

• 50:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I would like to see Clarence Macklin over Jeremy Strong, and I would take the nomination away from Jeremy Strong, with all respect.

• 50:59Sean Fennessey?

  You haven't seen The Apprentice. You haven't seen Sing Sing?

• 51:02Speaker 00

  I've seen Sing Sing. I loved it. Yeah, that's great.

• 51:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, if Clarence Macklin doesn't get nominated, to me, that's the real crime of award season.

• 51:11Speaker 00

  You see that they're gonna be doing the play from Sing Sing?

• 51:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, really?

• 51:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, in New York.

• 51:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, cool.

• 51:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:16Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, so I don't know who I would take out here. I have Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice, as my hoping for.

• 51:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 51:22Sean Fennessey?

  As listeners of the Prestige TV podcast know, I love Jeremy Strong.

• 51:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, so do I, but like.

• 51:29Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know who I would take out. I might, I, Kieran Culkin or Edward Norton? I like both of those performances a lot. I'm not taking out Yura Borisov.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  I thought Kieran Culkin was like a lock.

• 51:39Sean Fennessey?

  No, but just like who I would take out. If I could replace Jeremy Strong with someone, I don't know that I could really do that, Amanda. He would still be in sixth place to me.

• 51:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Well. Okay.

• 51:51Sean Fennessey?

  Amanda Dobbins, dropped on by here at the big picture. Sing a little tune for us. Did you bring your guitar?

• 51:57Speaker 00

  Last night she made her own ice cream.

• 52:01Speaker 00

  Oh, Alison, what was the recipe for chili?

• 52:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I did. That's a really, really good recipe.

• 52:06Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, here's a very difficult category.

• 52:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 52:09Sean Fennessey?

  Best Supporting Actress, arguably the most wide open category at the moment. You want me to go first?

• 52:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's your turn.

• 52:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Monica Barbaro, a complete unknown.

• 52:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, wow.

• 52:19Sean Fennessey?

  Jamie Lee Curtis, The Last Showgirl. Ariana Grande, Wicked. Felicity Jones, The Brutalist. And Zoe Saldana for Amelia Perez.

• 52:27Speaker 00

  That's your predictions of who's gonna get nominated for Oscars?

• 52:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Ariana Grande, Wicked. Isabella Rossellini, Conclave. Zoe Saldana, Amelia Perez. Felicity Jones, The Brutalist. And Jamie Lee Curtis, The Last Showgirl.

• 52:40Speaker 00

  What is going on?

• 52:41Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, I-

• 52:42Sean Fennessey?

  Some crazy precursor stuff going on is what's going on.

• 52:46Amanda Dobbins?

  And like, I mean, I agree with you, but listen, actors, we love them. We can't always trust them, you know, and they fall for this.

• 52:54Speaker 00

  Oh, man.

• 52:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I love you, Tim, but, you know.

• 52:59Speaker 00

  Tim.

• 52:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Simons, yeah.

• 53:00Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 53:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 53:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Cause not all actors, you know?

• 53:02Sean Fennessey?

  He's one of the supporting actresses in Amelia Perez. He just didn't get to the second half of the film, unfortunately.

• 53:07Speaker 00

  He's the person leading the Jamie Lee Curtis nominee. I'm not trying to be nasty about Jamie Lee Curtis. I think possibly-

• 53:12Amanda Dobbins?

  She's wonderful!

• 53:12Sean Fennessey?

  Cause she's just one. She's actually good and she's, it's a very memorable performance.

• 53:16Speaker 00

  Is The Last Showgirl, like, available to watch?

• 53:18Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, it's not on stream. It's not available on VOD at the moment, I don't think. I do think it's probably playing in some movie theaters in LA. It opened in LA at the end of the year.

• 53:26Speaker 00

  Some AMC theaters.

• 53:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. So you can go see it.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:28Sean Fennessey?

  Um, she has a very noisy performance. Not dissimilar from her work in The Bear. And she's just extremely active in the community. And hosts events, attends events, does tons of Q and As, has really supported the movie. I listened to a conversation between Gia Coppola and Francis Ford Coppola, her grandfather, on the DGA podcast, which was interesting and mostly became a Francis Ford Coppola monologue. But when Gia did speak, she talked about how she had a very, very short window of time with Jamie Lee Curtis. I think she had four days with her. And there are a bunch of big names in that movie. Dave Bautista's in that movie, obviously Pamela Anderson, you mentioned Kieran and Shipka. It's a relatively stacked cast for a movie that was made in like 19 days.

• 54:12Sean Fennessey?

  But in those four days, Jamie Lee Curtis does a lot. One might argue too much. She plays really big these days, but I think that's gonna happen. Could be wrong. Might not be widely seen enough, but her getting nominated at two precursors.

• 54:24Speaker 00

  Who's the biggest person on the outside looking in here?

• 54:26Sean Fennessey?

  I have four people where I'm like, I don't think they're gonna make it. I have multiple people I'd like to see.

• 54:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I'd like to see Monica Barbaro.

• 54:33Sean Fennessey?

  I think she's getting in.

• 54:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, that would be great.

• 54:36Sean Fennessey?

  A Complete Unknown has gotten in a lot of places. James Mangold at DGA, it did really, really well at BAFTA. You know, a movie like A Complete Unknown is not guaranteed to get in a place like BAFTA. And Mangold movies, he, there's a lot of respect for the performances that he gets out of actors. He has two actresses who've won Academy Awards, another who was nominated. I could see it.

• 54:56Amanda Dobbins?

  That would be great. I would, I would take it away from Jamie Lee Curtis, respectfully.

• 55:00Sean Fennessey?

  I would take it away from Jamie Lee Curtis. I would put Daniel Dedwyler in.

• 55:03Amanda Dobbins?

  That's great.

• 55:04Sean Fennessey?

  Cause I already have Monica Barbaro in for the panelists. And I won't be stunned if Daniel Dedwyler makes it in.

• 55:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I won't either.

• 55:09Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's possible. I don't think Angelina Ellis Taylor's gonna happen for Nickel Boys. I don't think Margaret Qualley's gonna happen for The Substance. Could, but I don't think so. Isabella Rossellini I have out.

• 55:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 55:19Sean Fennessey?

  We'll see.

• 55:20Speaker 00

  Is that cause she keeps saying that her mom was in bourbon?

• 55:24Sean Fennessey?

  Lot of, lot of nepos in this category. Isabella Rossellini, you got Fernando Torres over there, you know, she's nepo. Obviously Jamie Lee Curtis nepo. It's pretty tough. Ariana Grande, she's a mother.

• 55:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Is she?

• 55:36Sean Fennessey?

  She's mother.

• 55:37Speaker 00

  She's giving.

• 55:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, she's mother. Okay.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  She gives mother.

• 55:39Amanda Dobbins?

  All right.

• 55:39Sean Fennessey?

  Glenda's giving mother to my daughter.

• 55:44Sean Fennessey?

  Best actress, not for me. That's for you and Alice. None of that for me.

• 55:49Speaker 00

  Best actress.

• 55:51Sean Fennessey?

  See, Ar, who, what's your favorite female performance at the movies in 2024?

• 55:55Speaker 00

  You ask like I don't have any.

• 55:57Sean Fennessey?

  Have you seen any films featuring women?

• 55:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, that's a.

• 56:01Sean Fennessey?

  Mikey Madison?

• 56:02Speaker 00

  I think it's, it's Mikey into me. Yeah, two of my favorites.

• 56:07Sean Fennessey?

  What do you, so what's, what's your roster, Amanda?

• 56:09Speaker 00

  And Marianne Jean-Pierre Baptiste, I thought was incredible in Heart Truths.

• 56:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, so Marianne Jean-Pierre Baptiste in Heart Truths is my, that's, that's the swing I'm going for, but I think it's gonna happen.

• 56:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 56:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm seeing Heart Truths tomorrow. Cynthia Erivo, Wicked, Carlos Sofia Gascón, Emilio Perez, Mikey Madison, and Nora, and Demi Moore of The Substance.

• 56:25Sean Fennessey?

  We match on all five.

• 56:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 56:27Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I also think Marianne Jean-Pierre Baptiste is getting in. Not as many indicators as you'd like to see, but previously a nominee. Something that a lot of the hardcore pundits have pointed out recently is that Marianne John-Baptiste, while she is an English performer in a Mike Lee movie, is like very much a working actor in Los Angeles, who is on like a procedural CBS television show for many years, who a lot of people have worked with over time. She's a part of the community of Hollywood.

• 56:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 56:52Sean Fennessey?

  So that felt very compelling to me. Now, that would leave out Fernanda Torres, Pamela Anderson, and I would like to see Nicole Kidman.

• 56:59Amanda Dobbins?

  That's also who I have down.

• 57:00Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 57:00Amanda Dobbins?

  You coming around on Baby Girl?

• 57:02Sean Fennessey?

  I like it. I always liked it.

• 57:04Amanda Dobbins?

  You didn't want to put it in the Hall of Fame.

• 57:06Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 57:07Sean Fennessey?

  But I acquiesced.

• 57:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I know.

• 57:08Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 57:09Speaker 00

  You find it too sexually confrontational.

• 57:10Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like it didn't go far enough.

• 57:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:13Sean Fennessey?

  I felt like, yeah, I feel like Harris thinks it needed to do more.

• 57:17Speaker 00

  I didn't.

• 57:17Amanda Dobbins?

  When are you, I guess you should probably see it, wait for Phoebe.

• 57:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, do you think I should go as a solo man to Baby Girl?

• 57:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Probably not.

• 57:23Sean Fennessey?

  A camera on you, Clockwork Orange style, whilst you watch Baby Girl? And the only time you're able to open your mouth is when I feed you milk?

• 57:31Speaker 00

  Okay, I heard about that.

• 57:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I bet you'd like that. Uh, Nicole Kidman would knock out for me Cynthia Erivo.

• 57:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Me as well.

• 57:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 57:42Amanda Dobbins?

  And let me say, that's just because of the wicked performance. Incredible press run.

• 57:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 57:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Really appreciate and support all of it.

• 57:51Sean Fennessey?

  Is this the first category that we match on?

• 57:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I think so. I mean, we're like four for five on basically every single one.

• 57:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. As unpredictable a year as it has been, I think the precursors have started to calcify a lot of this stuff. Best actor?

• 58:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 58:04Sean Fennessey?

  I'll go first.

• 58:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 58:05Sean Fennessey?

  I believe the nominees will be Adrian Brody for The Brutalist, Timothy Chalamet for A Complete Unknown, Coleman Domingo for Sing Sing, Ralph Fiennes for Conclave, and Sebastian Stan.

• 58:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Me too.

• 58:16Sean Fennessey?

  For?

• 58:17Amanda Dobbins?

  The Apprentice.

• 58:18Sean Fennessey?

  The Apprentice.

• 58:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:19Speaker 00

  Really?

• 58:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you are aware of what's happening on Monday, but I think that people are, are working through their feelings.

• 58:27Sean Fennessey?

  Never seen a guy turn a campaign around by sheer will, too, the way that Stan has publicly talked about the way that this movie was received and drawn people.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  Basically called everybody cowards for not supporting it.

• 58:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 58:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:42Sean Fennessey?

  And it worked, and it was very smart. And from my perspective... Totally worthy nomination. I think he's excellent in that movie.

• 58:52Sean Fennessey?

  You know, that's not a fun movie to watch these days for a variety of reasons, but he's an exceptional actor. It's very brave to take on this part and for a variety of reasons.

• 59:03Sean Fennessey?

  If I had to do a hoping for.

• 59:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 59:04Sean Fennessey?

  It would be Hugh Grant.

• 59:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Me too. Because it would just be fun.

• 59:08Sean Fennessey?

  It would just be fun.

• 59:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 59:10Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really know who I'd be knocking off here.

• 59:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Can I be honest? Now that I don't think he's, it's, it's, he's gonna win. For his It's Time Award.

• 59:19Sean Fennessey?

  You'd knock off Rafe?

• 59:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and we can come back another time. He's very good in Conclave. I enjoyed that movie. Pretty silly.

• 59:25Speaker 00

  You guys feel like Conclave in general has kind of plateaued?

• 59:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it got the most BAFTA nominations.

• 59:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it got 11 nominations, but All Quiet on the Western Front got 14 nominations.

• 59:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, it got a ton of Oscar nominations too. It didn't win.

• 59:39Sean Fennessey?

  It didn't win. Well, it did win international, but it won't be eligible for that this year. They like Edward Burger movies, but I don't know that what that.

• 59:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I like Edward Burger movies too.

• 59:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I think if, like, an actor in particular, if Shalhoub wins.

• 59:53Speaker 00

  Sorry.

• 59:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is helpful since I'm moving to England to see.

• 59:57Speaker 00

  Every time you stare into my eyes as you take a giant.

• 1:00:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you said that you.

• 1:00:05Speaker 00

  Like a real love?

• 1:00:09Sean Fennessey?

  You think it was because I directed her to look in your direction to hit the microphone?

• 1:00:13Amanda Dobbins?

  He also just keeps talking about how he misses sitting like right across from someone in the semicircle is unnatural.

• 1:00:19Sean Fennessey?

  It's not, it's not natural.

• 1:00:20Speaker 00

  I like.

• 1:00:20Amanda Dobbins?

  So I'm trying to, I'm trying to include Chris.

• 1:00:23Sean Fennessey?

  Well, are you having a hard time locking eyes with me?

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  No, I can see you. She's just in my periphery. So I don't like that.

• 1:00:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you're like a leopard, you know? Don't get behind me. I might turn around and claw your face off.

• 1:00:37Amanda Dobbins?

  You want to hold it? You want to just check the ergo?

• 1:00:40Sean Fennessey?

  I guess I don't, I don't want to.

• 1:00:41Speaker 00

  It's pretty heavy though.

• 1:00:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well.

• 1:00:44Sean Fennessey?

  Woman buys water bottle at Target, makes lots of content out of it. This is what's been happening, two consecutive episodes of the show.

• 1:00:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's 2025, we're all doing the best we can.

• 1:00:55Sean Fennessey?

  I don't want to knock anybody off for Hugh Grant. No, no offense to Hugh Grant.

• 1:00:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:00:59Sean Fennessey?

  So, that's twice I've not totally played your game, I apologize.

• 1:01:02Amanda Dobbins?

  That's fine. I just, I think Ray Fiennes should have won for A Bigger Splash. And I want to come back to A Bigger Splash, uh, for another project of ours.

• 1:01:09Sean Fennessey?

  We have a deeper conversation to have about that.

• 1:01:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:12Sean Fennessey?

  Best director, you go first, Amanda.

• 1:01:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Sean Baker and Nora, Brady Corbe, The Brutalist, Edward Berger, Conclave, Jacques Odegaard, Emilia Perez, and Corleone Farja, The Substance.

• 1:01:23Sean Fennessey?

  We match, five out of five.

• 1:01:26Speaker 00

  What do you guys wish for?

• 1:01:27Sean Fennessey?

  Ramel Ross.

• 1:01:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Me too, even though I haven't even seen it yet, but it sounds cool.

• 1:01:31Speaker 00

  Not Alex Garland.

• 1:01:33Sean Fennessey?

  I think that'd be cool.

• 1:01:36Sean Fennessey?

  I would like to, there's always one surprise. There's always one thing.

• 1:01:39Speaker 00

  Villeneuve?

• 1:01:40Amanda Dobbins?

  No, that's not happening. I guess that was a takeaway, that we should have held your hat and you and it, and, and it's not happening.

• 1:01:46Sean Fennessey?

  He's actually being retroactively nominated for Sicario. It's gonna be very exciting that morning. I don't think it's happening either.

• 1:01:52Speaker 00

  Who do you think will win the Thalberg Award first, Stefano Salima?

• 1:01:58Sean Fennessey?

  Or Jeremy Songe?

• 1:01:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:02Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I have Ramel down as my hoping for. I would probably take Edward Berger off.

• 1:02:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I would take Odegaard.

• 1:02:10Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, Odegaard, yeah. I didn't even think of Odegaard. Yeah, no, I definitely would take Jacques Odegaard. Sorry, you're right, that's the right move. Dini or James Mangold, wouldn't be, wouldn't be stunned if either of them made it. Also, wouldn't be stunned if Corleone Farja missed.

• 1:02:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I wouldn't either, but they're getting better about being like, we should probably nominate a woman, you know?

• 1:02:29Sean Fennessey?

  I believe there is a clause in the voting for BAFTA that you need to include a woman.

• 1:02:33Amanda Dobbins?

  There is, yeah. I mean, they, they have all sorts of things, which-

• 1:02:36Sean Fennessey?

  How do you feel about that?

• 1:02:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I, it's very complicated.

• 1:02:39Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Feel free to share.

• 1:02:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, let's keep it moving.

• 1:02:45Sean Fennessey?

  Are you, are you holding space because you want to be able to move to England without being, coming under fire from the British Association of Film and Television?

• 1:02:53Speaker 00

  You want to move to England because-

• 1:02:55Sean Fennessey?

  So she can see Paddington in Peru.

• 1:02:56Speaker 00

  Oh, okay, yeah. Did he ever use the, uh, postcards that we brought back for him? The book with the letters?

• 1:03:01Sean Fennessey?

  Paddington?

• 1:03:02Speaker 00

  The Paddington book that we brought back?

• 1:03:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, but then we lost one in the postcard, you know, so.

• 1:03:07Sean Fennessey?

  It's always funny to watch you guys getting into a conversation about Knox and you only refer to him as he, as though he were Christ.

• 1:03:16Sean Fennessey?

  Best Picture.

• 1:03:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:03:18Sean Fennessey?

  Here's what I've got. Did I just go? No, I go now.

• 1:03:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Why don't, yeah. What if we alternate? And then you could say yes or no.

• 1:03:26Speaker 00

  That keeps it, that keeps it fun for me.

• 1:03:28Sean Fennessey?

  I'll start, Anora.

• 1:03:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. The Brutalist.

• 1:03:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. A Complete Unknown.

• 1:03:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:03:33Sean Fennessey?

  Conclave.

• 1:03:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I was supposed to go again, but yes, I have Conclave, Amelia Perez.

• 1:03:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:03:37Amanda Dobbins?

  And Wicked.

• 1:03:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Dune Part Two.

• 1:03:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:03:41Sean Fennessey?

  A Real Pain.

• 1:03:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. Uh, The Substance?

• 1:03:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:03:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm gonna go with Nickel Boys.

• 1:03:47Sean Fennessey?

  I have Sing Sing.

• 1:03:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, mine is I'd like to see Sing Sing, but I'm not taking it away from, uh, Nickel Boys. A film I literally haven't seen yet that's on my list. Um, I would take it away from Amelia Perez.

• 1:03:58Speaker 00

  Can I ask a question?

• 1:04:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Speaker 00

  Why is Dune Part Two a Best Picture nominee if it's not getting any other recognition?

• 1:04:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that Dune Part Two might fall off. That could be a surprise.

• 1:04:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's possible. It's possible. It is very widely seen and has huge support for Below the Line and will probably have somewhere between four and seven Below the Line nominations. You gotta think about sound, visual effects, uh, production design, costumes, hair and makeup, cinematography, like, these are all in play. Plus, plus directors in play, plus Best Picture. You know, I think Dune Part One had 10 nominations and won, I think, four Oscars. So there's big appreciation for the mounting of that movie. There's not a lot of appreciation for being considered a Best Picture-worthy masterpiece, uh, which I think is a darn shame and is kind of the last.

• 1:04:55Sean Fennessey?

  If The Substance is getting nominated for Best Picture, um, a science fiction movie winning Best Picture? I guess Everything Ever All At Once was kind of that, but not really. Um, but like a true hard sci-fi movie winning Best Picture is like...

• 1:05:10Sean Fennessey?

  That's the last step. That's the last stage. Because sci fi is not superhero. Like superhero is a much more modern thing. Science fiction movies, Metropolis is 100 years old. Like this has been happening in movies for a long time and it is still not accepted in the same way that virtually every other genre is. So I, I think it's interesting that it has no chance right now, even though it's one of the 10 highest grossing movies of the year. Many people agree. It's terrific. Villeneuve has also ascended to very rarefied air as a director.

• 1:05:38Speaker 00

  I'm fairly certain that it will not get the, the Return of the King will get you on the last one. Because Dune Messiah is quite odd.

• 1:05:48Sean Fennessey?

  I'm wondering how many modifications wicked style will be made to Messiah to make it seem more praise worthy?

• 1:05:55Speaker 00

  Whatever they do, it's still gonna be tougher. I think it's still gonna be a tougher watch.

• 1:06:01Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:06:01Speaker 00

  It's gonna be a tougher. I don't think it's gonna be as broadly popular.

• 1:06:04Sean Fennessey?

  It's on the calendar, right? For, is it 2027?

• 1:06:07Speaker 00

  It's Villeneuve's next film.

• 1:06:08Sean Fennessey?

  For 26? It might be for 20, it might be end of year 26? No, that can't be right. It'll look really quickly.

• 1:06:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, look, I mean, I'm just thinking through. Is everyone available? Like what else do we know about everyone else's next project?

• 1:06:20Sean Fennessey?

  It's a very good question, specifically because you've got Chalamet, Florence Pugh.

• 1:06:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Zendaya and Florence, but Austin Butler's dead, right?

• 1:06:28Sean Fennessey?

  I believe it's, I think it's dated for December 18th, 2026.

• 1:06:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:06:32Sean Fennessey?

  But I think it's just untitled Denis Villeneuve film. And then there was, there was news that he was gonna make the nuclear devastation movie, but now I guess that's not at the front of the line anymore. Anyhow.

• 1:06:41Speaker 00

  Kathryn Bigelow is like, I got this.

• 1:06:43Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, yeah. Will you be joining us for the Bigelow pod next year?

• 1:06:47Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:06:47Sean Fennessey?

  This year?

• 1:06:47Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:06:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah? You're interested?

• 1:06:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:49Sean Fennessey?

  Great. Um, my alts are Nosferatu, All We Imagine is Light and September 5, but I'm, I'm hoping for Nickel Boys. Any other movies you think could get in there? Any other like, like random Seed of the Sacred Fig nomination out of nowhere, something like that?

• 1:07:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, though I think it would be all we imagine as light, as the kind of international.

• 1:07:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I could see that happening. I could see that happening.

• 1:07:10Amanda Dobbins?

  My reasoning for Nickel Boys is that it's like, it's everywhere, you know, it like, it was not in the DGA 5, but Rommel Ross did get like first picture, right? It was at, it was not in BAFTA's 5 Best Films, but it was in screenplay. Like it's, there are, it was on the AFI list, you know, there are like bits and pieces.

• 1:07:32Sean Fennessey?

  You know where it missed?

• 1:07:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Where?

• 1:07:33Sean Fennessey?

  Cinematographers, which is weird.

• 1:07:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:36Sean Fennessey?

  That wasn't a good sign to me.

• 1:07:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:07:38Sean Fennessey?

  In missing, because Jomo Frey, I believe the cinematographer's name is, is, uh, his work has been very celebrated for what they do in that movie and not being there is a bit suspect. Um, those are our predictions.

• 1:07:51Amanda Dobbins?

  What do you think?

• 1:07:51Speaker 00

  I'm riveted. I mean, I thought that that's a very complete picture. The complete picture should be the new name of the spot.

• 1:07:57Amanda Dobbins?

  What, so what are your viewing priorities now that you've had to sit here and listen to us talk for 45 minutes?

• 1:08:04Speaker 00

  Well, I think I probably owe it to the culture to watch a little bit of, like, Watch Wicked.

• 1:08:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:08:09Speaker 00

  Uh, and other than that, I haven't seen September 5. And that's it, I think. Otherwise, I'm pretty up to date.

• 1:08:18Amanda Dobbins?

  And the other half of Amelia Press.

• 1:08:19Speaker 00

  And the other half of Amelia Press.

• 1:08:20Sean Fennessey?

  Are you prepared to address the fact that you watched and loved Flo?

• 1:08:24Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:08:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw it. I haven't seen it.

• 1:08:27Speaker 00

  That cat. Uh, you know what? Can I tell you something about Flo? Not to spoil it.

• 1:08:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:32Speaker 00

  That bird reminded me of you.

• 1:08:33Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you. Appreciate that. I was thinking of, you're more the Capybara to me.

• 1:08:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:38Sean Fennessey?

  That's your energy.

• 1:08:38Speaker 00

  No, I don't nap that much.

• 1:08:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, there's a Capybara? I'm into Capybara. I like those moods.

• 1:08:43Speaker 00

  It's a very enjoyable, surprisingly sad in places film with a lot of swimming.

• 1:08:48Sean Fennessey?

  Terrific movie.

• 1:08:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I like swimming. I don't need more sad right now, but okay.

• 1:08:54Speaker 00

  How about that, though? My wife really wanted to watch it and I was like, whatever.

• 1:08:56Sean Fennessey?

  She texted me and I, my heart grew 10 sizes when she saw it. Um, I still have not shown it to my daughter and I would really like to. Do you think she would be interested?

• 1:09:04Speaker 00

  I think it's a little too dark. And I think you're gonna have to explain something.

• 1:09:07Sean Fennessey?

  No dialogue.

• 1:09:08Speaker 00

  She's not ready to.

• 1:09:09Sean Fennessey?

  No dialogue in this film. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype? Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions, reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that, bull spend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO? LinkedIn Ads generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. Reach the right buyers with LinkedIn Ads. You can target by company, industry, job title and more. So cut the bull spend, advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com/thebigpicture.

• 1:09:53Sean Fennessey?

  That's LinkedIn.com/thebigpicture. Terms and conditions apply. This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. There's nothing better than having friends who support whatever you're into, like rewatching a director's entire catalog in the lead up to their latest release. And like those friends, State Farm is there to help you feel supported by helping you choose the coverage you need.

• 1:10:37Sean Fennessey?

  With so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have help finding what fits for you. So you can check coverage off the list and spend more time debating movie rankings. Go online at statefarm.com or use the easily accessible app to get help from one of their local agents. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Okay, well, it's time to pivot to the 2026 Best Picture winner. I'm referring, of course, to Dead of Thieves 2 Pantera.

• 1:10:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:00Sean Fennessey?

  Which is the number one movie at the American box office right now. This is a sequel to the surprise 2018 cult classic that was co-written and directed by Christian Gudigist. This is a not one, but two-time appearer on the Rewatchables podcast, including a recent episode recorded live in front of a studio audience.

• 1:11:19Speaker 00

  Including Christian Gudigist.

• 1:11:20Sean Fennessey?

  And Christian Gudigist.

• 1:11:23Sean Fennessey?

  This, the first film is very fun and

• 1:11:27Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:11:27Sean Fennessey?

  very, um, quickly gained a strong reputation within the, the annals of the ringer as exactly the kind of thing we need.

• 1:11:36Speaker 00

  The male community.

• 1:11:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. This is more and more people are saying Den of Thieves. Uh, Chris and I, because of our, our lot in life, our wonderful lot in life, have been hearing about this movie for a very long time. From both people, both behind the scenes and, uh, people who just wanted it in their eyeballs. Um, Big Nick is back. This is a Gerard Butler project. He and O'Shea Jackson Jr., Ice Cube's son, are the two key stars. And perhaps two of the only survivors of the original film.

• 1:12:05Speaker 00

  I believe, uh, there were a couple of members of Big Nick's sheriff's squad.

• 1:12:10Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:12:10Speaker 00

  But, uh, I don't know. They're not referenced in this film.

• 1:12:13Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 1:12:14Speaker 00

  To my knowledge, we will get into that.

• 1:12:16Sean Fennessey?

  Was Brian Van Holt one of those guys?

• 1:12:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:12:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, he's great. He wasn't back in this new one, unfortunately.

• 1:12:21Speaker 00

  I think he lived.

• 1:12:22Sean Fennessey?

  I think you're right.

• 1:12:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:23Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Den of Thieves, you're not really on the record about Den of Thieves, the original film.

• 1:12:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, that is because despite, you know, living and working alongside you guys for many years, I had not seen it.

• 1:12:33Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:12:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Until this week. It was more like I got all the, like, I knew about Benihana, you know? I knew about, uh, like, I, I knew it was in the Heat tradition.

• 1:12:44Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:12:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh.

• 1:12:45Speaker 00

  Did you know this much Atlanta would be in Torrance and Gardena?

• 1:12:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I come, I've come to accept, expect it at this point. Uh, so I had a real treat of watching Den of Thieves and then Den of Thieves 2. And I have to tell you, when Benihana shows up, it's just electric. I was like, Benihana, here we are.

• 1:13:02Sean Fennessey?

  One of the best scenes in the movie.

• 1:13:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Ceiling location.

• 1:13:04Sean Fennessey?

  Gerard Butler confronting Pablo Schreiber.

• 1:13:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Despite knowing so much about Den of Thieves, without having seen Den of Thieves.

• 1:13:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I was like, oh, wow, they're really going for it. I, you know, I got it. I really understood it. I thought parts of it were absolutely ridiculous, but on purpose. And that is the point. And I, I had a fantastic time.

• 1:13:27Sean Fennessey?

  We commonly use the word garbage to describe a certain kind of movie that feels similar to a more classical or celebrated version of a movie.

• 1:13:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:39Sean Fennessey?

  This is the truest Garbage Heat movie that exists.

• 1:13:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:13:42Sean Fennessey?

  And I say that with a lot of affection. I really, really like the original Den of Thieves. It's on streaming on Max right now, if you're interested in checking it out. Seems like a lot of people are checking it out. I think it's a number one on their movie chart at the moment.

• 1:13:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I saw it all over Letterboxd last week.

• 1:13:53Sean Fennessey?

  This new movie, you could make the case doesn't need to exist. And I think that's part of why I greatly enjoyed this movie. This sequel is very, very different. It takes us away from eastern Los Angeles and creates an international journey of heistery. Big Nick is back. See, I thought, before we get into your feelings about the movie, do you just want to talk about your experience of watching this film?

• 1:14:19Speaker 00

  So obviously, as Sean has mentioned, this was, it's an international crime caper. It's mostly set in the south of France. It pulls from the legendary and infamous Balkan jewel gang, jewel heist gang, the Pink Panthers. There is a Pantera is why that's the name of the film.

• 1:14:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:14:38Speaker 00

  The Panthers. There is Italian spoken in this film. There's French spoken in this film. There's assorted Balkan languages.

• 1:14:45Sean Fennessey?

  Quite a bit of Serbian.

• 1:14:46Speaker 00

  Yes, a lot of Serbian. And I went to a Friday night showing of this film at an AMC theater and like thousands of men across this country. I was apparently one of the people who saw what was, according to the man in the lobby who worked for the theater, a corrupted file. And so they needed to re-download it at the last second. And that version of the movie that we watched did not have subtitles. So I watched Den of Thieves with no subtitles. Now, you guys saw it, I imagine, with subtitles.

• 1:15:19Sean Fennessey?

  I did.

• 1:15:20Speaker 00

  How much of the movie had subtitles?

• 1:15:23Sean Fennessey?

  So much.

• 1:15:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, like a good amount.

• 1:15:25Speaker 00

  Like, so it's fair to say that 60% of this film is in a language that I didn't really understand. Like, I can sometimes pick up some French broadly.

• 1:15:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:15:36Speaker 00

  But I got what this movie was going for.

• 1:15:39Amanda Dobbins?

  But like also, in many ways, this is a silent film.

• 1:15:42Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 1:15:43Speaker 00

  And so. Kind of a remarkable experience. So we, I had seen the first 10 minutes when Christian Gudigas came for the first, the Den of Thieves podcast. He showed the first 10 minutes of Pantera to the crowd.

• 1:15:54Sean Fennessey?

  Which is a heist.

• 1:15:54Speaker 00

  And has subtitles, which is what made my alarm bells go off. I was like, why? No, it's weird. Did they, wonder they took them off after like, they screen tested it with us or something? And then as we got further and further into it and guys are just having full conversations in French. I was like, this seems wrong. So I ran out to the lobby and I was like, is there, do you guys have to hit like a button to turn the subtitles on? He's like, oh no, it's the file, sorry. And if you go online, lots of people were like, I went to go see Den of Thieves Friday night and there were no subtitles. It was so fucked up. And I think actually also maybe the way in which it was projected that night was off. Like there were some people complaining about some visual stuff. It sounds like they've righted the ship. It sounds like America voted with their wallets and said, we're here for Big Nick, no matter what language it's in. So, very strange.

• 1:16:38Speaker 00

  Uh, we can get into the, the film itself.

• 1:16:41Sean Fennessey?

  Well, what you're talking about though, is an amazing test of whether or not this movie is total cinema baby. Because the plotting, as with the original film, quite arcane. Sometimes deeply confusing. And that may not matter. I did text you as I was revisiting the original this week, Chris, and I was like, why is the last hour of Den of Thieves the way that it is? Which is to say so long and complicated and almost like the slow cinema of heist movies? Where you're sort of like, what point are you trying to make by dragging this out in the very specific way that you are? I think ultimately I came to understand something that's very clear in this movie too, which is that this filmmaker is just like, it's so fucking cool what these guys do.

• 1:17:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:23Sean Fennessey?

  And it's hard and it takes a lot of work. And I'm gonna spend time focusing on all the little details, even if you think it's like a little bit boring.

• 1:17:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and definitely confusing.

• 1:17:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And this movie, I think, is somewhat similar, but it does an inversion of that, which is that the first hour of Den of Thieves 2 is basically a hangout movie.

• 1:17:45Speaker 00

  It's like Midnight Run.

• 1:17:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and there's been a lot of comparisons to Ocean's 12.

• 1:17:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Like.

• 1:17:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's not.

• 1:17:50Speaker 00

  It's a buddy comedy.

• 1:17:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:17:52Speaker 00

  It's like two guys fish out of water in south of France.

• 1:17:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:56Speaker 00

  Doing Molly.

• 1:17:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yes.

• 1:17:58Speaker 00

  Getting to know each other.

• 1:17:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:00Sean Fennessey?

  What's your?

• 1:18:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I almost went to the bathroom during the Molly scene. Can you imagine?

• 1:18:03Speaker 00

  Can you imagine?

• 1:18:03Sean Fennessey?

  That would have been a mistake.

• 1:18:04Amanda Dobbins?

  And I will say this for the film. After that point, I was like, well, I don't know when I can go to the bathroom because like I'm gonna miss them doing Molly. And it took like a really long time. And I'll tell you that I finally went to the bathroom during the heart-to-heart scene, but I had to get through.

• 1:18:23Speaker 00

  After they swim back to shore? Or no, when he's like, I need this brother.

• 1:18:27Sean Fennessey?

  When they're having shawarma and.

• 1:18:28Amanda Dobbins?

  When they're having shawarma, which I guess is like not that long after the Molly scene. The Molly scene goes on for a while. Well, I sat through. I was like, I really have to say because I need to hear what O'Shea Jackson Jr.'s like motivation. Like, what is the, what's the explanation? What's the motivation? Like, help me understand this character. And then, sort of, that happened. And then Gerard Butler was like doing some Big Nick relating stuff. And I was like, yeah, I get it. I can, I can pee during this.

• 1:18:56Sean Fennessey?

  You don't understand men. That's my takeaway.

• 1:18:57Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I know. Well, so.

• 1:19:00Sean Fennessey?

  Sometimes a man has to walk to a magnet school. And that explains why he is an internationally known criminal felon.

• 1:19:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I watched that part.

• 1:19:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:10Amanda Dobbins?

  And then.

• 1:19:10Sean Fennessey?

  That was great.

• 1:19:10Amanda Dobbins?

  And.

• 1:19:11Sean Fennessey?

  It actually wasn't great. And, you know, the flaw of the movie, obviously.

• 1:19:14Amanda Dobbins?

  They can act.

• 1:19:15Sean Fennessey?

  That's, it's hard to get that stuff, the motivational, emotional connectivity to characters. That's not really what Den of Thieves is about. I liked that they tried to go for it to give us a reason to better understand Nick.

• 1:19:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:26Sean Fennessey?

  And, um, and Donnie. But, and I liked watching that scene. But I wasn't like, oh, I see now why these men are this way. Like, men are that way because they're animals. Like, that's what the movie is about.

• 1:19:37Speaker 00

  There's a. It's weird, you know, we just went through this whole process of you guys doing what you wish had happened with nominations and who you would replace. And I will be candid and say that if I was given my pick of any guy to live through Den of Thieves and get into Den of Thieves 2, it would not have been the Donnie character.

• 1:19:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:19:57Speaker 00

  His sort of naivete is a twist in the first one where you're like, how's this guy get hooked up with these absolute hitters?

• 1:20:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:20:05Speaker 00

  And then you find out, well, he's like kind of the Kaiser Sose of the whole thing.

• 1:20:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but even when, like, what does he have to say? Like, I'm very aware of my entire environment or whatever. And but like, that's not delivered in a confidence inspiring way.

• 1:20:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's not as, it's not as super believable.

• 1:20:21Sean Fennessey?

  You think he should have been recast with Spacey?

• 1:20:23Speaker 00

  No, but we did tease out like the idea of like, couldn't Merman have had like a twin somewhere that we could bring back? That Pablo Schreiber could play. In any case, uh, if you, I think that this is a really fun and cool crime film. It's not necessarily the spiritual inheritor of the Den of Thieves mystique for me. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:20:47Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 1:20:48Speaker 00

  Um, I thought it was totally much different. It asked us to kind of imagine this guy seven years later. Is that what it is? Like, cause like he's looking at pictures of himself. He's like, that was years ago, right? Like.

• 1:21:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, although his daughter didn't seem that much older. I couldn't remember.

• 1:21:03Speaker 00

  Do we see his daughter in this?

• 1:21:05Sean Fennessey?

  I thought we saw, we saw, yeah, when she's getting in the car when they're leaving in the first film.

• 1:21:09Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:21:10Amanda Dobbins?

  But we don't see her in the second film. He's just at family court.

• 1:21:13Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, you're right. We don't see her. We don't see her. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I can't remember how much time is supposed to have transpired.

• 1:21:18Sean Fennessey?

  He visits her at school in the first film.

• 1:21:20Speaker 00

  Yes, that's where he goes before the shootout at the end. Um, I thought it was like a really, really cool movie as like a caper that's separate from Den of Thieves.

• 1:21:30Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:21:31Speaker 00

  When in this film, Big Nick says, and this time no one gets hurt. There was like a real like, oh.

• 1:21:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:39Speaker 00

  No one's gonna get hurt in this movie.

• 1:21:41Sean Fennessey?

  No, that's not entirely what happens.

• 1:21:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, but like, the whole, the reason Den of Thieves, you stand at attention is because the first scene of the movie is the climax of any other movie.

• 1:21:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Really true. It's really, really intense. And I was like, oh, so like, they're, they are shooting people in this movie.

• 1:21:59Speaker 00

  And there's this very cool moment where Paul Schreiber's character is like looking in the back of an armored truck and he goes, we're cop killers now. And everybody's just.

• 1:22:06Amanda Dobbins?

  You guys all did good jobs.

• 1:22:08Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:22:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Of recreating that on the Rewatchables podcast, which I enjoyed.

• 1:22:12Speaker 00

  That pipe hitting moment is absent from this film.

• 1:22:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and I.

• 1:22:16Speaker 00

  And that's okay.

• 1:22:17Amanda Dobbins?

  But the opening is really, first of all, at some point, they're just driving around in the dark with various warehouse hangers. And I, I guess my attention span is not what it was, but I got a little, I got a little bored at some point.

• 1:22:30Speaker 00

  Oh, and they're stealing the diamonds.

• 1:22:32Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, and that's a high bar.

• 1:22:34Sean Fennessey?

  You got a little bored in Tudor during the heist?

• 1:22:37Amanda Dobbins?

  At the beginning.

• 1:22:38Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah, okay. The, the Antwerp heist you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:41Speaker 00

  Oh, and they're driving.

• 1:22:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Because, but, and, and also having just seen Den of Thieves, I was expecting it to start with a banger like Den of Thieves. And I was like, okay, you guys are just driving around, but you're not even exploding the plane.

• 1:22:54Sean Fennessey?

  It's really more to set up the Cleopatra character and how she connects with Donnie and this kind of new den. That's what they're showing us is the new den. And I think what the movie is trying to do is say, the Den of Thieves has nothing to do with Merriman. Or even in some ways, Big Nick, what it has to do is, is like a coterie of people who take, who steal things. That's what it is.

• 1:23:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree with Chris that that misunderstands what's appealing about Den of Thieves.

• 1:23:16Sean Fennessey?

  Could be, could be.

• 1:23:18Speaker 00

  But maybe what this is, and I think that this is going to be a long running franchise, it can be many things. And maybe what will happen now, can Big Nick keep it going? Can Big Nick keep showing up?

• 1:23:30Sean Fennessey?

  I, I don't think you can do one of these without him.

• 1:23:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree with that.

• 1:23:34Sean Fennessey?

  So how do they get him back in the fold after the events at the end of this movie, which we don't necessarily have to spoil for this episode?

• 1:23:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 1:23:44Sean Fennessey?

  He has this like-

• 1:23:45Amanda Dobbins?

  He's halfway in the fold. I mean, he's always been in and outside of the law at the same time.

• 1:23:49Sean Fennessey?

  I know. It's part of what makes him a great character.

• 1:23:50Speaker 00

  He's so deep. He's so deep, he doesn't know which way is up.

• 1:23:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:53Sean Fennessey?

  I know. It's such a good aspect of that part.

• 1:23:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I found this. So, I found Big Nick. This was, obviously, Big Nick has entered my life in the last week. Just like an incredibly repellent character in like such a powerful way, but I was like, no, no, this is good. Cause like I am like, I am allergic to all of that.

• 1:24:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:24:13Amanda Dobbins?

  But they, they commit to it so much that I-

• 1:24:16Speaker 00

  And the first one especially, yeah.

• 1:24:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. But I was just like, wow, this is like, if I had to write out my definition of a true fucking loser, like the type of person in the world that I'm just like, yuck, it would be that. And they nailed all of it. So that's really beautiful, you know?

• 1:24:33Sean Fennessey?

  It's weird because-

• 1:24:33Amanda Dobbins?

  If anything, Dennis leaves too, softens him.

• 1:24:36Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's the thing. At the beginning of this film, you're like, this is very much the same loser that you're talking about. And even all the way up until the moment when he gets to France and he encounters Donnie, you're like, this guy's still a piece of shit.

• 1:24:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:24:49Sean Fennessey?

  He's drinking the Johnny Walker. He's so sweaty. His hair is like wet the whole time in this movie, which is just disgusting. I don't know, is he putting product in there or why is it always wet?

• 1:25:00Sean Fennessey?

  And you think that he's gonna break better than anybody's ever broken before.

• 1:25:06Speaker 00

  Which would have been hard as shit.

• 1:25:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And they've chosen to do the opposite, which is, you pointed it out, but they like weirdly make him very ethical.

• 1:25:13Speaker 00

  He's like Batman now. Yeah.

• 1:25:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:16Sean Fennessey?

  I think is obvi-

• 1:25:17Amanda Dobbins?

  He like goes to a church?

• 1:25:18Sean Fennessey?

  Does go to, does go to church.

• 1:25:20Amanda Dobbins?

  And have like a moment of-

• 1:25:20Speaker 00

  Go specifically, I think, to see that cop, but yeah.

• 1:25:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure, but like his moment of revelation is like literally in church.

• 1:25:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I think only three guys die in this movie?

• 1:25:32Sean Fennessey?

  Well, there's an epic aerial assassination at the end of a long car chase.

• 1:25:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:25:39Sean Fennessey?

  It's amazing. The car chase is sick.

• 1:25:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Incredible.

• 1:25:42Sean Fennessey?

  It is worth the price of admission.

• 1:25:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:44Sean Fennessey?

  The car chase at the end of the movie. It was so cool, driving through the mountains of Nice in France.

• 1:25:51Speaker 00

  In Porsches that have been like, basically like doctored to not have any safety measures.

• 1:25:56Sean Fennessey?

  Totally blacked out with the NOS all the way up.

• 1:26:00Sean Fennessey?

  So there's some, there's some extreme violence there. There's a little bit of like- There's a Serbian gang that is running all of the heist work in Europe stuff that is like a little, I would say a little vague.

• 1:26:11Speaker 00

  Well, sure. Those guys are Sardinian, right?

• 1:26:13Sean Fennessey?

  They're in Sardinia, but my, my man's name is Slobodan.

• 1:26:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah, then.

• 1:26:18Speaker 00

  No, Slobodan's different than the guy at the end of the movie.

• 1:26:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, that's true, but.

• 1:26:22Speaker 00

  There's the, I think there is the.

• 1:26:24Sean Fennessey?

  But Slobodan is like the target.

• 1:26:26Speaker 00

  And then Slobodan is the guy who is the leader of the panther.

• 1:26:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that was my understanding as well.

• 1:26:30Sean Fennessey?

  That's but, right. What I'm saying is Slobodan, that the Serbian gangs?

• 1:26:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:35Sean Fennessey?

  Run the heist game?

• 1:26:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:26:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:37Sean Fennessey?

  Whereas the Italian mafia runs the diamond exchange.

• 1:26:40Speaker 00

  And they get, they, they steal the wrong diamonds.

• 1:26:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:26:43Speaker 00

  And that, yeah, I mean, all that stuff was very cool to me.

• 1:26:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:47Speaker 00

  Um, did you notice this one thing? Either of you. Was there a drone shot every five seconds in this film?

• 1:26:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, of course. Yeah.

• 1:26:54Sean Fennessey?

  I actually thought, I usually get so annoyed by this and my single biggest annoyance in, in American movies right now is a film either opening or moving from its second act to its third act with a drone shot moving through a forest in a lonely road.

• 1:27:09Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:27:09Sean Fennessey?

  Following a car.

• 1:27:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:27:10Sean Fennessey?

  This is the most overdone shot in American movies and TV right now. It should be over. We should never see it again. We do not need to see that there is a desolation and an isolation in the forest and in the American experience. We get it. However, if you're in the mountains of Sardinia.

• 1:27:24Speaker 00

  It's very cool.

• 1:27:25Sean Fennessey?

  You should have a drone shot.

• 1:27:26Speaker 00

  I, I found it in the first half a little bit more distracting. If the car chase in the mountains, the drones going everywhere, it's awesome. In the first half, when you're like, we're like 80 seconds into a scene and then it's like a drone that goes like flying out the car window. I was just like, alright.

• 1:27:40Sean Fennessey?

  There's a lot. There's a lot.

• 1:27:41Amanda Dobbins?

  To me, it's just also, it has become now this sign of, oh, we didn't actually go here. We just sent a drone to take a shot. And, you know, and I know that's not actually true in this case, but.

• 1:27:51Sean Fennessey?

  This was shot on location though, right?

• 1:27:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but now my brain, whenever I see one of the shots, I'm like, okay, establishing shot.

• 1:27:55Speaker 00

  This is a fix for something.

• 1:27:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and then you're, you know, and I get mad.

• 1:27:59Speaker 00

  It's essentially two movies though. I mean, that's worth talking about. Like the first movie, the first half of it is this. Kind of like shaggy dog buddy cop, like two guys opposites attract, having fun. He is, Big Nick shows up and is weirdly welcomed into the most notorious jewel gang in all of Europe. They're like, oh, you being a sheriff is an advantage.

• 1:28:23Sean Fennessey?

  Quite dubious.

• 1:28:23Speaker 00

  Uh, and Cleopatra, who is this woman who runs all of this stuff is like seduced easily by Big Nick's charms. Even though you are not. And then, uh, that goes on for a bit and then we get one full, like hour and 10 minute set piece. Two set pieces, really, that are just fantastic.

• 1:28:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:47Speaker 00

  The actual jewel heist and then the cartoon.

• 1:28:51Sean Fennessey?

  The escape. So the heist itself, I, I found a little wanting, a little wanting.

• 1:28:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I agree.

• 1:28:59Sean Fennessey?

  Given the standards and given, I think there's like a real ingenuity and weirdness to the one, the first one. Where it's like, explaining why they stole the armored truck that was empty in the first place. And then the setup of entering the bank, but using that as a, like a false flag for getting to the Federal Reserve. And then the idea of the money that is not yet shredded. It was, it's all very, even though it takes a long time and at times it's sort of annoying to wait to get through. Its construction is very cool to think about. This one is similarly ornate, where sort of like Donnie makes a deal to sell diamonds. And then he's to steal back those diamonds. Is that more or less how it works?

• 1:29:40Speaker 00

  The Italian mafia's diamonds.

• 1:29:42Sean Fennessey?

  Right. He steals the diamonds.

• 1:29:43Speaker 00

  And the Italian mafia is like, you have to get our diamonds back while in the process of stealing all these other diamonds.

• 1:29:49Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:29:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Or it will kill you. Yeah. And they're the Italian mafia. So you don't, yeah. Um, no, I agree. Despite. The elaborate setup at the end of the day, the second half of the movie, the heist. The tension is just like, oh no, now we have to do, we have to do this thing and it's not going well. Okay, but then we fixed it and then we have to do this other thing. It's as, instead of puzzle pieces coming together, you know, and it's like, oh no, we can't find this special pink diamond that we need because the Italian mafia is going to kill us. And then, okay, we found it, like, and oh no, Gerard Butler is like too swole to get off the roof, you know? And then, which is like a thing that happens.

• 1:30:28Sean Fennessey?

  Or fat.

• 1:30:28Amanda Dobbins?

  And then.

• 1:30:29Speaker 00

  He blew his ACL out somewhere in the, in the last couple of years and that was hindering his.

• 1:30:34Sean Fennessey?

  In real life?

• 1:30:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:30:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 1:30:36Speaker 00

  And so I'm working on some.

• 1:30:37Amanda Dobbins?

  But so then he just gets off the roof another way, you know?

• 1:30:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And then.

• 1:30:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's so interesting. I mean, I, part of the challenge is that they're wearing masks. And so there are plenty of times during that heist where I was like, is that Jerry Butler? Or is that some other guy? Is that a Serbian thief? Um, and so that inability, like he's obviously, he's the comms man through the heist. So that's how we kind of know that we're tracking him as he's talking to Cleopatra about, why were all of the rooms named after the beers? I forget.

• 1:31:04Speaker 00

  I don't know, Bex and Corona, like, or whatever it was.

• 1:31:06Sean Fennessey?

  You know, and each space needed to go green during the heist sequence. And they're like, Bex is clear, Corona is clear.

• 1:31:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:31:12Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I don't know, just an interesting code word. We started at Cleopatra and then we got to Bex.

• 1:31:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:18Sean Fennessey?

  It's a little strange. And still.

• 1:31:19Speaker 04

  Um, do you think that that was some more creative product placement like the rest of the film? Featuring La Croix and Pepsi very conspicuously.

• 1:31:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:31:27Sean Fennessey?

  And Stella.

• 1:31:28Amanda Dobbins?

  At the end of the, um, of the vodka that they.

• 1:31:33Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:31:33Amanda Dobbins?

  That one was just like a close up on a bottle of vodka.

• 1:31:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:36Speaker 00

  Look, you have to, art, art's not free, man. You gotta pay for it somehow.

• 1:31:40Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I hear, you know, that's what I hear. Um, I still had a great time watching this movie.

• 1:31:45Speaker 00

  Me too.

• 1:31:46Sean Fennessey?

  I had a really, really fun time.

• 1:31:47Speaker 00

  I mean, I saw it, I, I literally did not get 55 to 60% of the dialogue and I still really enjoyed myself.

• 1:31:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you did get O'Shea Jackson Jr.'s French English accent.

• 1:32:00Sean Fennessey?

  What'd you think of that accent?

• 1:32:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I would say that was a low point.

• 1:32:03Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:32:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I will say in terms of knowing your actors and pivoting to their strengths, the buddy comedy aspect at least moves him towards comedy, which I think he's very adept at.

• 1:32:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I would say voice work, he's not at C R's level.

• 1:32:18Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:32:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And, um, like emotional, you know.

• 1:32:22Sean Fennessey?

  What if he played it more like Pete Seeger? You think that would've worked?

• 1:32:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that'd be good. You know.

• 1:32:27Sean Fennessey?

  There with my friend Big Dick.

• 1:32:29Amanda Dobbins?

  He's, but he's great.

• 1:32:30Speaker 00

  Capo to the capo, our tails. But we're gonna steal that pink diamond for him.

• 1:32:37Sean Fennessey?

  On the flip side, Gerard Butler, who's never lost a day in his life. He's one of the most compelling, watchable slabs of meat.

• 1:32:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32:47Sean Fennessey?

  In, in, in cinema.

• 1:32:48Speaker 00

  They just don't make, make them like him anymore.

• 1:32:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it is, it is something to behold. It was really, really fascinating.

• 1:32:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I can smell him watching this movie. Like, he really, he has an energy that is unique and just extremely well deployed. I think he's very good also in movies where he is just sort of like, keep your nose clean hero type. Like, he has an, like, an ability to pull that off.

• 1:33:09Speaker 00

  Plain?

• 1:33:10Sean Fennessey?

  Plain, Greenland, like, those, he's very good in those kinds of movies too, where he's just like a regular guy who just happens to be a little beefy. But him, like, stinking to high heaven while bedding down a stripper, very believable.

• 1:33:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:24Speaker 00

  Did you, have you, have you been following the discourse about Den of Thieves 2? That it is a spiritual and cinematic inheritor to Jean Pierre Melville's legacy? And even some, I think, have compared it to Robert, Robert Bresson?

• 1:33:37Sean Fennessey?

  There is a little bit, here's the thing. You must feel this acutely because you're extremely influential, not just on the world at large, but your friends. But like, at a certain point, you have to acknowledge that something that you've worked on has infiltrated in a bad way. And so, all the boys on Letterboxd being like, this is Rafifi to me about Den of Thieves 2, means I have, I have transgressed. And that I need to apologize for my sins.

• 1:34:04Speaker 00

  It's, yeah.

• 1:34:05Sean Fennessey?

  This is like, the influ, the anxiety of influence.

• 1:34:09Speaker 00

  You've gotta put on your prayer belt from first report.

• 1:34:12Sean Fennessey?

  Truly, I need to start, you know, whipping myself, Paul Bettany style. I'm a little concerned about that. That's not what this movie is. There, there is admiration.

• 1:34:20Speaker 00

  I think that there is definitely, like, he's like, I love French gangster movies and this is supposed to be a mood piece.

• 1:34:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:26Speaker 00

  I totally think that. I don't want to sound like a crazy, like caveman. It's just that part of the joy of Den of Thieves is the feeling that like, anyone could go, it's, anything could pop off at any moment. It could go down at Benihana, it could go down at the donut shop, whatever. And Gerard Butler being like, it's important just to like, make sure guys get shot in their bulletproof vests and that nobody gets hurt is boring.

• 1:34:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, yes.

• 1:34:53Speaker 00

  I want, I want it.

• 1:34:53Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not eating a donut that doesn't have blood on it, you know?

• 1:34:57Speaker 00

  It's not.

• 1:34:58Sean Fennessey?

  Honestly, this is such a perfect circular moment because of course, one of the great David Lynch quotes of all time is focus on the donut, not on the hole. That that is the way of thinking about the philosophy of life. It's about what's there, not about what's not there. It's not about the void. It's about the treat. It's about the exploration of what exists. And Den of Thieves is a very similar product. What exists is our movie set in Nice, in which Big Nick doesn't shoot people in the face.

• 1:35:21Speaker 00

  And I'm like, why, where's Torrance? Where's?

• 1:35:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. You want a dingy, nasty state that you reside in. You want to be able to drive to the exteriors that are captured in the film Den of Thieves.

• 1:35:31Speaker 00

  Not the, not the exteriors. They're all in Atlanta.

• 1:35:35Sean Fennessey?

  Are they all in Atlanta?

• 1:35:36Speaker 00

  I think a lot of it is in Atlanta.

• 1:35:37Sean Fennessey?

  That's too bad. How do you feel about that?

• 1:35:39Speaker 00

  Big Nick's wife's house is definitely in Atlanta.

• 1:35:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. Yeah.

• 1:35:43Sean Fennessey?

  How do you guys know that?

• 1:35:45Speaker 00

  Well, I, I know that because I researched it. It's also like, like Mark Anthony Green was like, that's, that's down the street.

• 1:35:53Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, good to know. Any closing thoughts? Den of Thieves 3, will you be there?

• 1:35:56Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:35:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:35:58Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. What if Big Nick's not in?

• 1:36:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I think that would be a mistake, but who am I?

• 1:36:03Speaker 00

  What side of the law is Big Nick on now?

• 1:36:05Amanda Dobbins?

  The Den of Thieves universe. He's.

• 1:36:07Sean Fennessey?

  I believe he's on the fence.

• 1:36:09Speaker 00

  Is he affiliated with any kind of law enforcement organization at this point? Is he part of Interpol? Is he part of the L A S D?

• 1:36:15Sean Fennessey?

  It's unclear if he's been ejected from the Sheriff's Department of Los Angeles.

• 1:36:19Speaker 00

  That one FBI agent is his homie now.

• 1:36:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:22Speaker 00

  Who he's always just like, lobbing Bob, playing tennis.

• 1:36:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Some of the best stuff in Den of Thieves 1 is him being like, you fucked this up! Like really, really mad at the FBI guy, like really mad. Um, I wish that there was more of that in this movie too. Uh, okay. Any other closing thoughts?

• 1:36:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I enjoyed it. It's just, sometimes it's nice to be a part of your world, sometimes, you know?

• 1:36:42Speaker 00

  Don't be furious here, it's awesome.

• 1:36:44Sean Fennessey?

  It's the right kind of January movie, I think.

• 1:36:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:46Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think this will end up being the Beekeeper of 2025?

• 1:36:50Speaker 00

  I definitely, Den of Thieves itself

• 1:36:52Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:36:53Speaker 00

  really stood up to multiple viewings, so I, I look forward to seeing Den of Thieves 2 and, and getting more dialogue.

• 1:36:58Sean Fennessey?

  With some subtitles, yeah, that'll be helpful. And you know, there is an actual kind of spiritual sequel to The Beekeeper coming in March called A Working Man.

• 1:37:06Speaker 00

  Yes, I'm aware of that.

• 1:37:07Sean Fennessey?

  In which David, uh, Jason Statham stars as a construction worker turned vigilante hero.

• 1:37:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, no.

• 1:37:14Sean Fennessey?

  Directed by David Ayer.

• 1:37:15Speaker 00

  Written by Sylvester Stallone.

• 1:37:16Sean Fennessey?

  Written by Sylvester Stallone.

• 1:37:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, dear. Okay.

• 1:37:19Sean Fennessey?

  Buckle up for that one.

• 1:37:20Speaker 00

  When does that come out?

• 1:37:21Sean Fennessey?

  March 28th.

• 1:37:22Amanda Dobbins?

  They're gonna be, they're gonna be really into that on the Ninja Creed Reddit, I can tell you.

• 1:37:26Sean Fennessey?

  Good luck with all your boys on Ninja Creed Reddit.

• 1:37:30Speaker 00

  Hi, guys, new to this community.

• 1:37:32Sean Fennessey?

  Are you guys excited about A Working Man? Uh, well, thanks to Jack Sanders. Thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on today's episode. CR, thank you. It's just so nice, so nice to be with you.

• 1:37:42Speaker 00

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:37:42Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I'd like to say thank you to David Lynch for everything that he has contributed to art and the world of movies, because he is a one of one. We will be back next week, the three of us, with our, our first movie auction of 2025.

• 1:37:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:37:56Sean Fennessey?

  How are you feeling about that?

• 1:37:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Should we, can we offer an apology for the Noah Baumbach film that we forgot?

• 1:38:02Sean Fennessey?

  Alright, well, you could just, you could just buy it next year.

• 1:38:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I'll try to, I'll try to buy it, but I just, I'd like to apologize to, to Noah Baumbach.

• 1:38:08Sean Fennessey?

  We made a big mistake in our anticipated movies episode. Did you clock that?

• 1:38:11Speaker 00

  I was in the control room when you guys were talking about Kelly Riker, and I didn't want to be in there anymore, because I didn't want to, I, I was so upset on behalf of Noah.

• 1:38:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you were like, it should be a man on this list and not a woman. Where is Noah Baumbach? Kelly Riker's contemporary? Yeah, we forgot about J. Kelly, which is the new movie starring George Clooney. And who's the other male lead? There's another huge male lead in the movie. Can't even remember at this point. Is it Adam Sandler?

• 1:38:32Speaker 00

  You know, George Clooney claims he cuts his own hair.

• 1:38:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Really?

• 1:38:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:38:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, what's the process? Is he using, like, electric?

• 1:38:39Speaker 00

  He says it takes him five minutes. He's been cutting his own hair for 25 years.

• 1:38:42Sean Fennessey?

  Trying to wrap this episode up, CR.

• 1:38:44Amanda Dobbins?

  But is it, is it scissors? Is it a, what do they call this?

• 1:38:47Speaker 00

  We'll talk off, Michael.

• 1:38:49Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you.

• 1:38:49Speaker 00

  Listen, he's David Lynch.

• 1:38:51Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, goodnight. See you, guys. Bye.

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