The Mega-Mailbag Is Here, and the New Best Picture Front-Runner Is …

Sean and Amanda react to the movie trailers that ran during the Super Bowl and give their broader thoughts about cinema’s role in football’s biggest broadcast (1:00). Then, they dig into the PGA and DGA Awards, including what they portend for the front-running films at the Oscars, like ‘Anora,’ ‘The Brutalist,’ and ‘Emilia Pérez’ (11:00). Finally, they open up the mailbag: Listeners sent in over 1,000 questions about watching habits, the state of theater-going, auteur theory, work-life-movie balance, and much more (37:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins 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

  If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellini. I'm a founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again. Follow The Town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:46Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 0:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 0:48Sean Fennessey?

  And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about frontrunners and precursors and everything in between. Later in this episode, we called for your email and you responded with thunder. We'll dig into a mega mailbag for your enjoyment. We also need to talk about the Oscar race, which finally settled after what seemed like months of unsettled, and it circled right back around to where it started, to be honest with you.

• 1:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I am just getting my concepts and Pinterest boards ready. The garage is just gonna get a total makeover.

• 1:19Sean Fennessey?

  Can't wait to see what you do.

• 1:20Amanda Dobbins?

  It is gonna be beautiful.

• 1:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, at your expense?

• 1:22Amanda Dobbins?

  No, at Spotify's expense. We wrote that in. Don't know if you were aware of that.

• 1:27Sean Fennessey?

  Didn't know about that.

• 1:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm just, I'm very excited with this turn of events. Just a real weekend of winning in my household.

• 1:35Sean Fennessey?

  Well, let's not count your chickens before they're hatched. We will talk about the Oscar race and where it stands at the moment, but first, let's talk about the other big win in your life. The Super Bowl was last night. The Philadelphia Eagles absolutely humiliated the Kansas City Chiefs.

• 1:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank God, yeah.

• 1:48Sean Fennessey?

  An absolute drubbing. Not the best Super Bowl to watch, to be honest with you.

• 1:52Amanda Dobbins?

  No, but it was good from the perspective of I had four native citizens of Philadelphia in my home watching the game, and anything less would have led to behavior that ruptured my family. So this, I wouldn't say it was our greatest display as a family.

• 2:11Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 2:11Amanda Dobbins?

  But everyone made it through.

• 2:13Sean Fennessey?

  Great.

• 2:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Everyone is very happy. Happy birthday to my son, Saquon Barkley and Cooper Jean, whose name I learned yesterday and actually again this morning, but literally got a pick six on his birthday in the Super Bowl.

• 2:27Sean Fennessey?

  He's also a white cornerback. I'd like to point that out as well. Just an extraordinary series of events happening at the Super Bowl last night.

• 2:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:33Sean Fennessey?

  Less extraordinary.

• 2:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:36Sean Fennessey?

  Commercials, I thought abominable, like genuinely dystopian.

• 2:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Genuinely very bad. I was in and out because I had to take care of the two children that I had with a Philadelphia native. So that was my mistake.

• 2:48Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 2:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, but the ones I saw were really bad.

• 2:50Sean Fennessey?

  Really bad. Did you watch any of the trailers or the commercials?

• 2:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I saw a couple of them. Uh, we saw the Mission Impossible, like teaser trailer and very proud moment when my three-year-old son was like, Tom Cruise.

• 3:02Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, wow.

• 3:03Amanda Dobbins?

  So that was beautiful.

• 3:04Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Did you watch the Tom Cruise introduction to the game?

• 3:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't. I missed it. I came into the room and they said, hey, Tom Cruise just introduced the Super Bowl, but I forgot until right now to go back and watch it on YouTube. Was it good?

• 3:18Sean Fennessey?

  It was fine. A wildly portentous narration of haphazardly cut together clips and awkwardly shot fake press conference imagery. Um, you know, Tom was in good posture, I would say.

• 3:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Was Tom Cruise giving the press conference?

• 3:33Sean Fennessey?

  No, it was sort of like he was in an odd room that had a series of screens in it, not unlike you might find Ethan Hunt.

• 3:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 3:40Sean Fennessey?

  But then they would cut away to like a Patrick Mahomes standing before 300 microphones, having to answer questions.

• 3:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah, I bet he, I bet he is having to answer some questions and, and so is Brittany, finally.

• 3:52Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I don't think either of them will be forced to do anything, unfortunately for us.

• 3:55Amanda Dobbins?

  That'd be great if we'd ever hear from Brittany ever again.

• 3:57Sean Fennessey?

  Tom was fine. That was completely, it was bland, but he tried his best. The Final Reckoning trailer, I just want to say there are dozens of beautiful images in this trailer. I'm very excited.

• 4:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Including the biplane, which was, that was also very important because we're in a real like Richard Scary, like Cars and Trucks and Planes space. So lots of biplanes, triplanes, monoplanes.

• 4:20Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, a biplane chase, the red and the yellow, like the Red Baron of old is gorgeous. I'm very excited about that movie. Did you see the Thunderbolts trailer?

• 4:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I did. I actually watched that live and then I, for some reason, I guess because I hate myself, I watched the full trailer this morning on my phone.

• 4:34Sean Fennessey?

  And you weren't happy.

• 4:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought it looked really bad.

• 4:37Sean Fennessey?

  Really?

• 4:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought that it looked really bad when I watched the teaser.

• 4:40Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. You don't really like like a Guardians Suicide Squad kind of situation.

• 4:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I like jokes, honestly, and so I saw that they were trying to do some like quippy, especially David Harbour, and I guess like I don't mind that, but it looked, you know, reheated. I was like, oh, okay, like, we are once again doing, we're like teaming up a group of unlikely people to save the world, and that's cool. And you and I do that every day. But like, you know, I have seen this before. And then I truly thought it looked like garbage. Like, I thought it looked like real garbage, and I thought it looked like garbage on my TV. I watched the trailer on my phone, which like people can scold me, but also, what is the point of a trailer except to watch it on my phone?

• 5:26Sean Fennessey?

  Well, in a movie theater as well.

• 5:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, but like I honestly-

• 5:29Sean Fennessey?

  A Super Bowl trailer is for your TV.

• 5:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, I think it literally, or at this point, they are trying to get you to watch it again as many times as possible. So like, this is meant for your, it's a product for your phone, and it looked like, like gray computer, like barf. So that seemed bad. It does not, Sebastian Stan didn't seem particularly happy. I really liked Florence Pugh's like Black Widow performance, but this one just kind of had some like tinges of Felicity Jones's brutalist accent, so maybe that's just like out of context.

• 6:02Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, really going in on Thunderbolts?

• 6:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, I like, I thought it looked like quite bad, personally.

• 6:06Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting. Don't agree?

• 6:07Amanda Dobbins?

  But I also, I mean, that's funny, right? Because I thought to myself, oh, I think everyone likes this, but it's like, all the Marvel people decided to be in a bad mood for a while, and now you guys are like, okay, now I'm ready to open my heart again. So, and it's like, I, I think, like, I accept a Red Hulk, and also, I accept this thing. So that's fine, like, that's good. You guys like took a break.

• 6:28Sean Fennessey?

  I think you have a misapprehension of the situation, but okay.

• 6:31Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I mean, and like, it does seem like the-

• 6:36Amanda Dobbins?

  The acceptance of the, the, the stuff is just sort of cyclical.

• 6:41Sean Fennessey?

  I think people are hopeful that it'll get better.

• 6:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 6:44Sean Fennessey?

  Thunderbolts, to me, I think I have maybe just like a little bit more forgive on that because it's just like a low level thing. Now, the one-

• 6:51Amanda Dobbins?

  But it got a Super Bowl ad.

• 6:53Sean Fennessey?

  It did. Well, I mean, it's a big Marvel movie coming out very soon.

• 6:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 6:56Sean Fennessey?

  I think, you know, you have, did you know the asterisk in the title? Have you, have you paid attention to this?

• 7:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I, I, I saw it.

• 7:02Sean Fennessey?

  They seem to be really over emphasizing the asterisk recently.

• 7:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 7:05Sean Fennessey?

  And I think that the reason for that is, um, many people believe this is the Dark Avengers, that that's actually the, what this group is, that they're not the Thunderbolts, the, the Thaddeus Ross group that pulls to, anyway, it's a really boring comic book stuff.

• 7:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:19Sean Fennessey?

  But I was, the one thing that I thought would be amusing or interesting is if they actually change the name of this movie, maybe retroactively after the release, to Dark Avengers. Like, they're not using that name, but like, sort of in the live, die, repeat, edge of tomorrow way, will we come to understand that the name of this movie is actual, or, or something like that?

• 7:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, though, doesn't that seem pretty stupid from a marketing perspective? Like, if you're gonna call it Dark Avengers, shouldn't you just call it Dark Avengers, like, in the Super Bowl?

• 7:50Sean Fennessey?

  It totally does, and that crossed my mind, too. I, I think that they maybe don't want to give away too much of the game on where they're going with certain thing. I don't know. I'm just speculating because otherwise, like, the asterisk thing is, is, um, is a lot of, it's a lot of noise about something that's very stupid.

• 8:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:07Sean Fennessey?

  Um, anyway, uh, the movie seems fine to me.

• 8:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Who is that guy in the backseat who's like, "I hope we don't crash our car"?

• 8:13Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, it's Wyatt Russell.

• 8:14Amanda Dobbins?

  That is Wyatt Russell?

• 8:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn's son.

• 8:17Amanda Dobbins?

  But then I was like, wow.

• 8:18Sean Fennessey?

  Um, he is-

• 8:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess the haircut.

• 8:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, he was, he was, um, prominently featured in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. He played a character named U.S. Agent. He has a different name in this series, but he's the same character. And he was like a vigilante. And this is like a group of vigilantes. They all come together. Are they good? Are they bad? I don't know. Thunderbolts looks okay. You know, I didn't, it wasn't like, this is my favorite movie, but I, I really didn't think it looked as bad as you described it. Nevertheless, um, I thought in general, a pretty underwhelming collection of Super Bowl trailers. We also saw an extended version of Jurassic World Rebirth.

• 8:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 8:54Sean Fennessey?

  Which was fine. My daughter, Alice, got extremely excited about Lilo and Stitch.

• 8:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I was also very charmed by it. I thought that that was the best of the ads that I saw.

• 9:02Sean Fennessey?

  Very clever to integrate the Super Bowl and, you know, having Stitch running around.

• 9:06Amanda Dobbins?

  For some reason, I saw Lilo and Stitch, like in theaters, the original.

• 9:10Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. It's kind of in your age range.

• 9:11Amanda Dobbins?

  And was like charmed by it. And then I thought it was cute. So I thought that, two thumbs up for that.

• 9:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 9:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not always a hater.

• 9:18Sean Fennessey?

  I thought it was.

• 9:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I just have standards.

• 9:19Sean Fennessey?

  I thought it looked okay. We didn't see a ton from the movie, more of like a Super Bowl gimmick. There was a 30 second F1 spot where we just saw more images of Brad Pitt behind the wheel. Not really much else.

• 9:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, there was one. Javier Bardem. And there was one very quick shot where he's just like lying on a couch and has been doing like a lot of bulking and cutting. I would say, Bobby, I don't know if you want to weigh in on that. Um.

• 9:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, he's also been doing a lot of HGH.

• 9:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I was gonna, I was like, okay.

• 9:46Sean Fennessey?

  Too old to look like that.

• 9:47Amanda Dobbins?

  You said it, not me, but I was like, okay, this is not exactly natural. And then also he's making out with a woman, but I didn't, I don't remember who that woman is.

• 9:59Sean Fennessey?

  Nor do I.

• 10:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:00Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of slow rolling F1. That movie's coming in June. We haven't seen a whole lot.

• 10:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I did note.

• 10:05Sean Fennessey?

  Could it be a disaster?

• 10:06Amanda Dobbins?

  The trailer said this summer, not June.

• 10:10Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, you think they're gonna push it?

• 10:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I don't know.

• 10:12Sean Fennessey?

  Into that, that one battle after another PTA spot when they move that movie and break my heart.

• 10:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, you know, there was not a day and date on it. There was, there was. This summer.

• 10:24Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 10:24Amanda Dobbins?

  So.

• 10:25Sean Fennessey?

  We shall see.

• 10:27Sean Fennessey?

  Overall, one of the least fun to watch Super Bowls ever. There's really no two ways about it. Unless you're an Eagles fan, of course, in which I'm sure it was incredibly delightful.

• 10:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't have a very good time either, but I liked spending time with my son, so.

• 10:39Sean Fennessey?

  That's nice.

• 10:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Both of them, I should say, because I traded off.

• 10:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, congrats to the Eagles. Cool.

• 10:47Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, cool.

• 10:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's move on.

• 10:49Sean Fennessey?

  Saturday night.

• 10:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:51Sean Fennessey?

  Totally different story.

• 10:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:54Sean Fennessey?

  I really, I told you this on the pod last week, there was a part of me that was like, we should just go live on Saturday night. Because I just feel like we're going to know everything we need to know after this shit goes down. And Saturday night, of course, after the Critics' Choice Awards were on Friday. The Directors Guild of America and the Producers Guild of America held their ceremonies on Saturday evening here in Los Angeles, one mile apart from one another, one hour between one another. So this was a Fast and Furious collection of precursors.

• 11:21Amanda Dobbins?

  One hour of, um, schedule-wise, not traffic-wise.

• 11:24Sean Fennessey?

  No, no. Well, you never know in LA.

• 11:26Amanda Dobbins?

  That's what I was saying, but like, my instinct was like, wow, that's tough.

• 11:30Sean Fennessey?

  There were many intrepid reporters bouncing from one pavilion to the other, trying to catch up on what happened. Let's start with the PGAs, even though it came second in the night. Because it is, of course, historically, one of the most powerful predictors of the Best Picture winner. And a Nora one.

• 11:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure did. After also winning Best Picture at the Critics' Choice Awards, which respectfully, I don't really acknowledge.

• 11:53Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really think of them much either. I did think that it was interesting that a Nora won that award show and this award show. Because the voting for these closed a while ago before the Amelia Perez drama. So that revealed a profound strength. I've got a lot of data points on this.

• 12:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's hear it.

• 12:12Sean Fennessey?

  So seven of the last 10 winners of Best Picture at the PGAs went on to win.

• 12:17Amanda Dobbins?

  What are the three exceptions?

• 12:18Sean Fennessey?

  The three exceptions are 1917, which. I think we should discuss as a potential circumstance we may find ourselves in here.

• 12:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 12:27Sean Fennessey?

  La La Land, of course.

• 12:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 12:28Sean Fennessey?

  Also, one of the most shocking Best Picture wins when Moonlight went on to win. And The Big Short, which was kind of an odd PGA win.

• 12:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And what won?

• 12:36Sean Fennessey?

  I believe that's the Spotlight year.

• 12:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 12:38Sean Fennessey?

  So that was the year that sort of felt like, um, maybe the revenant was in contention.

• 12:43Amanda Dobbins?

  25 for 25, but I love that movie.

• 12:45Sean Fennessey?

  Spoiler, Jesus.

• 12:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I mean.

• 12:47Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, it wasn't one of the five best movies of that year.

• 12:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah.

• 12:51Sean Fennessey?

  But anyway.

• 12:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Hey, hey.

• 12:52Sean Fennessey?

  Hey, hey, hey.

• 12:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Hey.

• 12:55Sean Fennessey?

  Let's just go back to some Anora thoughts.

• 12:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I like it.

• 13:00Sean Fennessey?

  No, it's wonderful, obviously. That's not in dispute. And if it does go on to become a Best Picture winner,

• 13:05Amanda Dobbins?

  That's.

• 13:06Sean Fennessey?

  That'd be fantastic.

• 13:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it would be, it would be very confusing and we would all have to like reassess how we spend six months of every year.

• 13:14Sean Fennessey?

  I want to do, in this conversation, I want to do, let's just go through the last nine Best Picture winners and be like, I don't even know anymore. Like, all of the, all of our expectations and the conventions of Best Picture wins have been thrown out the window. But in fairness to us, and especially to me, because I've been the one doing this with Joanna and Katie Rich and recently you, you know, in September, we thought Anora was number one.

• 13:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:37Sean Fennessey?

  In October, when you went on leave, we started doing Best Picture power rankings. We had it at number one. In November, we had it at number one. In December, we had it at number one. And then in January, we had it at number three.

• 13:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 13:48Sean Fennessey?

  We would have had it at number two if we had recorded two hours later after the Amelia Press thing kicked up. So it's not as though, for us, and in our conversations since August, really since it won the Palme d'Or.

• 13:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 14:00Sean Fennessey?

  We were like, this feels, if not like a presumptive favorite, has all of the makings of a Best Picture winner.

• 14:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 14:08Sean Fennessey?

  Now, a couple of things happened. One, the Golden Globes happened, and it got blanked at the Golden Globes. And we really couldn't figure out, like, does this really mean anything? And I've heard a lot of people in the aftermath of the PGA and DJ results say like, the Globes don't mean anything. I totally disagree. For example, the Demi Moore win was confirmed at the Golden Globes, in my opinion.

• 14:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Agreed.

• 14:27Sean Fennessey?

  That can still happen. Someone can give a speech that concretizes a narrative.

• 14:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I think also even last year, the Globes and the Oscars were like a very direct match. And the more.

• 14:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Like confusing and diffuse the, the race and the award season gets.

• 14:46Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:47Amanda Dobbins?

  The more that prime, early January TV spot influences voters. It really does.

• 14:53Sean Fennessey?

  I totally agree with you. So I don't think that we should completely discount the Globes from the precursor conversation. It's just not like the surest signal of what's going to end up winning.

• 15:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 15:02Sean Fennessey?

  Nevertheless, Enora had been in basically a really good position. And when we talked about the preferential ballot, which the PGA also uses.

• 15:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 15:09Sean Fennessey?

  We talked about the fact that Enora is probably at number two and number three on a lot of ballots. And that it could be number two on a Brutalist ballot. It could be number two on an Emilia Perez ballot. It could even be number two on a Wicked ballot.

• 15:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, and that's the thing is that it really matters on the I'm still here ballot, the Wicked ballot, the, what, I mean, I, I'm sad to say Nickel Boys, but like Nickel Boys ballot.

• 15:32Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's, I think it's, it's a movie that uses old Hollywood conventional storytelling style, but an independent framework and Sean Baker's particular point of view. So even though the subject matter of a movie like this with an ending like this.

• 15:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 15:46Sean Fennessey?

  Basically never has a chance at winning Best Picture. The Academy being as different as it is. I thought this was fascinating. A lot of people did seem to start to feel like this is where things were going. Maybe five, six, seven days ago, that when you really started doing the math in your head, you're like,

• 16:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, as.

• 16:01Sean Fennessey?

  Is the Brutalist really going to win PGA? That would be odd.

• 16:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. I mean, and, and, and once the Emilia Perez thing sort of clarified itself, uh, which, because we were all scratching our heads for a long time, being like, is this really happening? Are people really this excited about this movie that has minimal critical support? Vociferous opposition from every single group quote unquote represented in the film. And, you know, a lot of people with eyes and brains and ears and.

• 16:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And but it kept getting nominations, it kept getting critics, well, I shouldn't say critics, guilds, awards, and we couldn't make the math work. And that and then then that kind of seemed to overindex on, okay, well, maybe it's just the international group, but they also, you know, I think it was just drawing us down some roads that didn't make sense.

• 16:56Sean Fennessey?

  I totally agree.

• 16:57Amanda Dobbins?

  And now we see why, because it didn't make sense.

• 17:00Sean Fennessey?

  I think this is another sign that that Emilia Perez in general is really imperiled on Oscar night, other than Zoe Saldana, and even she is vulnerable.

• 17:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I was thinking, so I ordered a red velvet suit to wear on Oscar night, and now I'm like, should I return it? I do think that-

• 17:16Sean Fennessey?

  No, you should wear it.

• 17:17Amanda Dobbins?

  No, well, I mean, should I wear it?

• 17:19Sean Fennessey?

  Because you believe in the politics of that film.

• 17:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I do, exactly. And also, and the music as well, you know? I think it is an aesthetic as well as an ideological achievement.

• 17:28Sean Fennessey?

  We should do a cold open where you recreate El Mal before the episode starts.

• 17:32Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, I gotta do the one over the table, you know? And this-

• 17:35Sean Fennessey?

  That'd be good. I hope you have the shoes, too.

• 17:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I do think Zoe Saldana will still win, but I am probably gonna return the suit, to be quite honest.

• 17:43Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, man.

• 17:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, no, I've got another concept.

• 17:45Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I've got a costume.

• 17:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, I don't know whether I'm gonna go like, actual costume, I'm not gonna be wearing like, a Nora bandage dress, just-

• 17:53Sean Fennessey?

  I'll be wearing her outfit in the strip club, and I'm excited about it. I'm excited to show the world.

• 17:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Can we do the show live, the after show live?

• 18:00Sean Fennessey?

  We better get an intimacy coordinator.

• 18:02Amanda Dobbins?

  The rosewood, yeah. So I don't know where my concept is gonna go, but like, I'll still dress them, I just don't, I don't think that the red velvet suit, because the other thing is like, if I wear it, then the image can be divorced from the context-

• 18:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, of course.

• 18:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Very quickly.

• 18:16Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, Odeon is your favorite filmmaker. You've been saying this for months. So I think it's a great, I think you should stick with it. I wouldn't blink now. Speaking of filmmakers, DGAs.

• 18:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 18:25Sean Fennessey?

  So they happened, as I said, just before the PGAs. Now, this apparently is the critical race in our big Oscar bet, which is what you were referring to at the top of the show. I have Brady Corbeil and you have Sean Baker. Sean Baker won Best Director at the Directors Guild of America. Nine of the last 10 winners went on to Best Director. So we're now looking at, if Nora doesn't win Best Picture and doesn't win Best Director, this is a huge upset.

• 18:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 18:52Sean Fennessey?

  Statistically speaking.

• 18:54Sean Fennessey?

  Couple of things. The DGA ceremony is very strange. I'd like to go one day because all the directors who are nominated are presented with medallions.

• 19:01Amanda Dobbins?

  As or like they look like wrestling like belts as I understand it.

• 19:05Sean Fennessey?

  Intercontinental champions of directing.

• 19:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Very strange.

• 19:08Sean Fennessey?

  They get their medallions and give a speech before the awards are given out during the ceremony. During Baker's comments, when before he was awarded Best Director, he talked about a minimum 90 day theatrical window for movies, which is obviously something that I support broadly.

• 19:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 19:27Sean Fennessey?

  But understand completely to be impossible.

• 19:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Possible, yeah.

• 19:31Sean Fennessey?

  No, no movie studio will ever do this, but it's important, I think, for artists to fight for theatrical exclusivity and keeping movies in movie theaters.

• 19:38Amanda Dobbins?

  It's cool. I love going to the movie. I like, it's a great idea. I don't think it's ever gonna happen. And I, and I do also, I'm sympathetic to all the people who like, can't see movies until they are released on streaming and that, I mean, that's a problem with like theaters and like, mall, real estate values and like a lot of like business stuff that actually has nothing to do with the arts or movie making.

• 20:02Sean Fennessey?

  That's true.

• 20:03Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and it, and it sucks. And so I do want people who, who want to see movies to be able to see movies. I think that's really important for the industry too.

• 20:13Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:14Amanda Dobbins?

  But um, yeah, theaters are great. We have a, we have a mailbag question that we'll, we'll come back to this.

• 20:20Sean Fennessey?

  We will. So one cool data point coming out of PGA and DGA. We knew this when the Oscar nominations were announced, but we didn't really dig into it too much. No one in the history of the Academy Awards has ever won four Oscars in one night for the same film.

• 20:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 20:34Sean Fennessey?

  Sean Baker is in line to do that. He is nominated for Best Picture. He was the producer of the film. Best Director, Best Writer for Original Screenplay, and Best Editor, because he edited this film as he edits all of his movies. Now, this would be an extraordinary achievement that I think is legitimately on the table. I think it's probably least likely that he wins editing, but if there's gonna be a picture, director, writer sweep.

• 20:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 20:59Sean Fennessey?

  It might just be.

• 21:01Amanda Dobbins?

  It might just go all the way.

• 21:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 21:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you think that even extends to Mikey Madison? Because I don't.

• 21:06Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's worth discussing.

• 21:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 21:08Sean Fennessey?

  I don't yet.

• 21:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 21:10Sean Fennessey?

  But if, well, we have to see SAG. SAG and BAFTA are at least instructive on this. If Demi Moore wins SAG, it would be extremely surprising to see Mikey Madison win. Doesn't mean it hasn't happened before. There are versions where like SAG doesn't mean, you know, that's what's going to happen. But SAG and BAFTA, you could see a strong showing for Conclave. You could see. The only thing that I think could upset this really specifically is if Conclave overperforms those two shows or the Brutalist overperforms at BAFTA. If those, one of those two things happen, I feel like we still have a race here. If not.

• 21:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I don't disagree.

• 21:46Sean Fennessey?

  Um, can I give you one data point? There is one person who did win four Academy Awards in one night. Not for the same films. You don't, do you want to take any guesses?

• 21:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I read that. I read the outline. So, yeah.

• 21:56Sean Fennessey?

  I did this with my wife last night. I gave her like 10 minutes to guess. I said, this is one of the most historic people in Hollywood history. One of the most important creative visionaries, engines of movie making and imagineering, you might say. Um, Walt Disney. Walt Disney in 1954 won four Oscars in four different categories for four different films. The four categories were, uh, best documentary and then three of the then four short filmed, uh, categories. The best documentary is called The Living Desert. I watched it last night.

• 22:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 22:29Sean Fennessey?

  54 minutes, never seen it before. It's basically like Planet Earth in 1954.

• 22:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 22:34Sean Fennessey?

  It's about the landscape and the wildlife that lives, uh, in a stretch of land largely in Arizona. And it explores with like Disney style music cues and editing and jokey voiceover. Like here, here's how lizards live.

• 22:48Amanda Dobbins?

  So you watched this without Alice?

• 22:49Sean Fennessey?

  I watched it at like 11:00 PM, like a psychopath. Yeah.

• 22:52Amanda Dobbins?

  But would you watch it again with Alice?

• 22:54Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, yeah, I genuinely think she would like it. It has the kind of verve of Disney and it is just animals on screen. So, yeah, it was cute. Um, the documentary.

• 23:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Congratulations to Walt Disney, I guess. Yes.

• 23:06Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely, sir. Um. Also at the DGAs, Michael Apted, first time feature filmmaker, Ramel Ross won, which is great.

• 23:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Awesome. And, and, and great speech. Um, I finally got to listen to your interview with him, by the way. Um, he is just really smart.

• 23:21Sean Fennessey?

  He's very smart.

• 23:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, which you, which you can tell, but it was, it was awesome to hear it.

• 23:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, he's been an amazing advocate for his own film, obviously. Uh, a number of people pointed out on social media that when he won all five of the best director nominees, stood and applauded. I think there's a real recognition in, in the business.

• 23:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Like what he's doing.

• 23:39Sean Fennessey?

  He's done something very, very cool. So that's exciting. More people should watch Nickel Boys if they have not yet had the chance to do so. Um, Critics Choice.

• 23:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Again.

• 23:47Sean Fennessey?

  And, you know.

• 23:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Kind of feels made up. So you pointed out that the voting was done many weeks ago.

• 23:54Sean Fennessey?

  I think it closed 12 days ago, something like that.

• 23:56Amanda Dobbins?

  12 days ago?

• 23:57Sean Fennessey?

  Some.

• 23:58Amanda Dobbins?

  For Critics Choice? No, because Critics Choice was delayed.

• 24:00Sean Fennessey?

  It was delayed, but I think maybe the voting was extended.

• 24:02Amanda Dobbins?

  They reopened it. Yeah. This is what I was gonna say because.

• 24:04Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know what the dates were, to be honest with you.

• 24:05Amanda Dobbins?

  So Conclave won Best Ensemble.

• 24:07Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, and I just straight up don't believe that that was decided before the Amelia Perez debacle. Uh, and I don't know how things work at the Critics Choice Awards, and I have absolutely no basis. This is just me conspiring.

• 24:21Sean Fennessey?

  Just a wild accusation.

• 24:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I woke up this morning, just like, ready to go. But I'm like, come on. You know, like, I know they went back and tinkered with that, so they didn't give it to Amelia Perez.

• 24:31Sean Fennessey?

  Only one win for Amelia Perez at the Critics Choice Awards. For Zoe Saldana, the other winners in order for Best Picture, Adrian Brody for The Brutalist, Demi Moore for The Substance, Kieran Culkin for Real Pains, Zoe Saldana for Amelia Perez, you know, the Conclave Ensemble Award. And then Best Director went to John M. Chu.

• 24:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 24:46Sean Fennessey?

  This is his second Best Director win of the season?

• 24:48Amanda Dobbins?

  If you don't have anything nice to say.

• 24:50Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 24:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Keep it moving. That's what I'm doing.

• 24:52Sean Fennessey?

  We can keep it moving.

• 24:53Amanda Dobbins?

  That's not at all what I'm doing today, but I, you know.

• 24:57Sean Fennessey?

  Go Birds, I guess. Um, this is.

• 25:02Sean Fennessey?

  Not over and done with, but pretty close. Pretty close. After a season where I was like keeping my options open, you know?

• 25:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I would agree with you, but it has been a season of surprises and intrigue. And as you said, we still have SAG Awards and we still have BAFTAs. And those represent to like, the power of that voting block is decreasing, but it is still sizable.

• 25:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, those are, and those are two, in the expansion towards international, significant number of BAFTA voters have been added. And of course, SAG is still the largest body.

• 25:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 25:34Sean Fennessey?

  So could be some movement. If not, like I said, let's just go through very quickly the best picture winners of the last 10 years. Because since it mirrors perfectly the beginning of The Ringer, when in earnest, I was like, I'm gonna cover this stuff. Like this is what, I'm gonna spend a lot of time thinking and working on this stuff.

• 25:52Amanda Dobbins?

  How are you feeling about that 10 years in?

• 25:54Sean Fennessey?

  I've made a huge error. I mean, I feel, I, you know, sincerely feel very lucky to be doing this with you guys. And it's very fun.

• 26:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, but you're just like, this is how I spend my time.

• 26:04Sean Fennessey?

  I ruined my life and I made my hobby my occupation. And you know, that's dangerous. That's very dangerous. Uh, so going back to 2016, when Moonlight won, I was like, what is going on? This is, there's not, there's nothing in the history of the Oscars that tells us that this is how things should work. And it happened. The Shape of Water.

• 26:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:24Sean Fennessey?

  Won in 2017.

• 26:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Over Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread.

• 26:29Sean Fennessey?

  Call Me By Your Name, Dunkirk.

• 26:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:32Sean Fennessey?

  I will say will be remembered as a bit of an ignominious win. It did feel to me somewhat similar to what an Anora win would feel like. Which is that every, most people in the business have a big admiration for the way that Sean Baker works and how he makes his movies and sticks to his guns. People feel the same way about Guillermo del Toro. Guillermo del Toro loves movies. He's an amazing advocate for movies. He's made some great films. I do not think The Shape of Water is among his best. It felt like this, and also the sort of abiding message of the movie. The sort of like acceptance of people who are less than you and not less than you or different from you, or if they're fish, you know, and accept fish, I guess, was the takeaway there.

• 27:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I did think about Shape of Water when like doing Garbage Love. And I was like, what is this?

• 27:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's a horror romance. It is a horror romance. I mean, it's a creature from the Black, from the Black Ocean. The Shape of Water, though, is a very unlikely win. And actually, me and you and Chris and Andy did a video after the Oscars that year.

• 27:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, and you.

• 27:29Sean Fennessey?

  Pre-Picture.

• 27:30Amanda Dobbins?

  At the last minute, you picked Get Out to win over Shape of Water. And then you were like really mad at yourself on camera. That's what I remember.

• 27:38Sean Fennessey?

  And that was wish casting, and I've tried to stop wish casting of, in recent years. 2018, you know, we talked about this on the Sam Sanders Show this week, which we went on last Friday on KCRW, how there was a kind of a white lash, I think, to a lot of what had happened with Oscars so white. And Green Book's win in 2018 overcoming a number of interesting movies, though. No movies that I think are.

• 27:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 28:00Sean Fennessey?

  You know, rock, dead solid, clear Best Picture winners. 2019 Parasite, who fucks all that coming?

• 28:06Amanda Dobbins?

  What a year.

• 28:07Sean Fennessey?

  That was crazy.

• 28:08Amanda Dobbins?

  That was great.

• 28:09Sean Fennessey?

  That was the 1917 year where 1917 won at the PGAs and we all walked away and said, well, I guess this is over and done with. And then Parasite won at SAG. And everyone was like, hmm.

• 28:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 28:19Sean Fennessey?

  What's happening here? And then Bang Jun Ho went along. Now, he did actually theoretically win four Academy Awards that year because he won also for.

• 28:27Amanda Dobbins?

  International.

• 28:28Sean Fennessey?

  Director, writer, and international.

• 28:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 28:30Sean Fennessey?

  But international doesn't go to the filmmaker, it goes to the country.

• 28:35Amanda Dobbins?

  That category is really messed up.

• 28:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, so the country can choose to give the filmmaker the award. Bang Jun Ho may have.

• 28:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 28:42Sean Fennessey?

  The best international feature in his home.

• 28:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so they can choose to give like the actual statue.

• 28:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, or they can just put it in a museum in a government building.

• 28:49Amanda Dobbins?

  But they can't. They get the credit, like in the history book.

• 28:54Sean Fennessey?

  Correct.

• 28:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 28:55Sean Fennessey?

  So he, Bon Jovi doesn't claim that one.

• 28:56Amanda Dobbins?

  We gotta work on that.

• 28:57Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. We have to completely change the category. Uh, maybe something we can do in the off season. 2020, Nomadland.

• 29:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 29:03Sean Fennessey?

  You know, no, no movie like that ever won before.

• 29:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 29:06Sean Fennessey?

  That was very strange.

• 29:07Amanda Dobbins?

  That was a strange year.

• 29:07Sean Fennessey?

  It was a very strange year. 2021, Coda.

• 29:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:11Sean Fennessey?

  First win for a streamer.

• 29:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm. I was on leave. That was also when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock. So that was a, that was a different kind of year.

• 29:19Sean Fennessey?

  This is an interesting episode of the show, for sure. Um, Coda, nice movie. I like it.

• 29:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I cried, you know? I just.

• 29:26Sean Fennessey?

  I love to be a girl dad. I love to be a girl dad. It's actually the best thing in my life and this movie is a nice representation of that.

• 29:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you, you saw that like right after?

• 29:34Sean Fennessey?

  No, I watched it, uh, at Sundance and was like, this is, um, treacle crap.

• 29:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's right. Cause we saw it so much earlier and then Alice was born.

• 29:41Sean Fennessey?

  And then Alice was born and I was like, this movie is a touching declaration of love.

• 29:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I have a, a hole and beautiful heart and I saw it before I was even pregnant and.

• 29:49Sean Fennessey?

  No one in, in the world thinks you have a hole and beautiful heart. Um, 2022, everything, everywhere, all at once.

• 29:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that happened.

• 29:56Sean Fennessey?

  That is a science fiction, multiversal.

• 29:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:00Sean Fennessey?

  Mom, daughter, dramedy.

• 30:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 30:02Sean Fennessey?

  Which one best picture what?

• 30:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 30:04Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 30:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Lot of speeches from those guys that night.

• 30:07Sean Fennessey?

  There were. 2023.

• 30:09Amanda Dobbins?

  They kept going.

• 30:09Sean Fennessey?

  They, they talked a lot. Uh, I would have picked Tar. Didn't happen.

• 30:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 30:13Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, 2023, Oppenheimer.

• 30:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:16Sean Fennessey?

  Which in some ways reflects the like, we gotta recognize Steven Spielberg for Schindler's List thing where it's like, this guy's just been making movies we love for 20 years and it's his time. And he took on a subject matter that was right for the Academy Awards. On the other hand, I think Oppenheimer is a very strange movie. The way that it's organized, the way that it's shot, the first 10 minutes are this like montage. The final hour is in black and white and is a set 20, you know, 20 years in the future. For, as Oscar winners go, it's pretty unusual structurally, formally. It does have a great man quality, of course.

• 30:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And I mean, and I think that that is what, it, it, to me, it lines up. It, I mean, it's innovating on a theme, you know? Which is like, kind of.

• 30:54Sean Fennessey?

  Well put.

• 30:55Amanda Dobbins?

  What you want a traditional best Oscar to do. And like, that, that's cool. I, I liked all of it until the Robert Downey Jr. started yelling, you know?

• 31:04Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 31:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, but.

• 31:06Amanda Dobbins?

  It, it, to me, to me, it's not surprising.

• 31:09Sean Fennessey?

  2024 if Anora wins.

• 31:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:11Sean Fennessey?

  This is a Fellini-inspired sex comedy about a stripper and a Russian oligarch.

• 31:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:20Sean Fennessey?

  And features several sequences in strip clubs.

• 31:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 31:24Sean Fennessey?

  And the music of Take That.

• 31:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 31:26Sean Fennessey?

  If it wins, that would be weird. I, I think it's a great movie. I love that movie, but.

• 31:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Everyone loves, like, I mean, that's the other thing is that I do feel like everyone who sees it is like, hey, great movie.

• 31:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 31:36Amanda Dobbins?

  It, to me, it would be weird in that, like, actually, one of the best movies of the year wins Best Picture, which seldom happens, according to the list that you just read.

• 31:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 31:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, sometimes it does, you know, but often it doesn't.

• 31:48Sean Fennessey?

  You're right. I mean, Oppenheimer and Parasite are really the only two where I'm like.

• 31:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And Moonlight.

• 31:53Sean Fennessey?

  And Moonlight, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm like, these are certainly among the best.

• 31:56Amanda Dobbins?

  But.

• 31:57Sean Fennessey?

  Represents something interesting about the Academy.

• 31:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Moonlight and Parasite, they were surprising in the context of the race and the punditry, but we also just had, like, visible moments of like, wow, the actual best movie won. Like, we don't know what to do with ourselves.

• 32:11Sean Fennessey?

  And, and in both of those cases in particular, La La Land in 1917 represented our expectations of the old Academy.

• 32:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 32:19Sean Fennessey?

  And neither of them won. I guess, I don't really know what the old Academy is here this year. Maybe Conclave, parts of The Brutalist, but not really.

• 32:27Amanda Dobbins?

  But not really, yeah.

• 32:28Sean Fennessey?

  You know, uh, I guess a complete unknown, but actually, a music biopic has never won Best Picture. So there's really not a lot here, and I think that that also tells the story, is that this is, in terms of this crop of movies this year, for the variety of reasons that we've talked about, strikes, what the movie schedule looked like, who got to make movies in 2023, et cetera, et cetera. This is what we have. Anora can win? What percentage would you put it at that you think it's gonna win?

• 32:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know, 51?

• 32:56Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, so not super confident?

• 32:57Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I, I mean, I still think, like, voting is still active. I think precursors in the last five years, like, have become less and less sure.

• 33:09Sean Fennessey?

  Because of this, there's so many of them?

• 33:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 33:12Sean Fennessey?

  Um, that it gets a little confusing.

• 33:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, and I think the, the voting gets weird. It's a weird year, you know? I'm trying to make peace with that.

• 33:21Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Should we go to the mailbag?

• 33:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Absolutely.

• 33:24Sean Fennessey?

  And no other thoughts on the, we got a couple more weeks of Oscar punditry here.

• 33:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I really am looking forward to redecorating your room.

• 33:32Sean Fennessey?

  What are you gonna do with all the Blu-rays, though?

• 33:35Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true. I mean, I was kind of like, Susan, because I know you have kind of like the the extra pile, you know, like you, the library has outgrown the space that I'm working with.

• 33:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, actually, Chris was over at the house on Friday and he was like, you know what? You are running out of room.

• 33:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, you're gonna need a bigger house?

• 33:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 33:51Amanda Dobbins?

  So I guess I just, will all of the materials be available to me to work with? You know? In terms of what I get to display and how I get to display it?

• 33:59Sean Fennessey?

  You're like Laszlo Toffler, "Concrete, concrete is good." Yeah, I mean, I encourage creativity.

• 34:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Honestly, I think that if we could model it on the reading room, the reading room is like my favorite part of that movie, like glorious.

• 34:12Sean Fennessey?

  I felt my body tingling when they opened the shelving unit in that home.

• 34:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. I mean, we could get some light in for you, you know, a little.

• 34:22Sean Fennessey?

  That could damage the materials inside the home.

• 34:24Amanda Dobbins?

  The plastic, you mean?

• 34:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we don't want any, you know, color grading shifts. You know, the sun can burn these out. You know, this is a book owner, you don't want the sun on books.

• 34:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I, that, sure, but that's made of paper and yours is like the plastic that's ruining our earth, so.

• 34:38Sean Fennessey?

  It changes the color, you know?

• 34:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Of what? The plastic case?

• 34:41Sean Fennessey?

  Of the spines, of the imagery, because it's a paper.

• 34:43Speaker 03

  Guys, that, that's the whole point of the design of the reading room is that it closes so that it just opens up.

• 34:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I understand that, but I'm.

• 34:49Sean Fennessey?

  We can't, it's nice to have natural light. If you can create some closable, brutalist-inspired shelving units for me, I would welcome that.

• 34:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 34:57Sean Fennessey?

  I would welcome that.

• 34:57Amanda Dobbins?

  They do kind of detail the measurements, you know, it means, like, it needs to be like about 12 inches like this, they're measuring, okay. I'm gonna need considerably more than $2,000.

• 35:11Sean Fennessey?

  Let's get Daniel Ek on the horn.

• 35:13Speaker 03

  Amanda just putting in an expense request for like $120,000 worth of shelving at Sean's house.

• 35:19Sean Fennessey?

  I spent a tidy sum on the original shelving units, I will say. That was the one present to myself in the last 10 years.

• 35:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Carpentry is expensive.

• 35:27Sean Fennessey?

  It is very expensive.

• 35:28Amanda Dobbins?

  And especially at the, the level that I expect. It's, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna pay people for their work.

• 35:35Sean Fennessey?

  You're gonna have to sell my treadmill, I think, just to get this expense.

• 35:38Amanda Dobbins?

  We are getting the treadmill. Do you ever use it?

• 35:40Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's so funny because I've been in physical therapy in the last couple of months.

• 35:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah.

• 35:45Sean Fennessey?

  And I have started using it again, in part because of that.

• 35:47Amanda Dobbins?

  What are you, do you like watch movies and, and just walk?

• 35:49Sean Fennessey?

  It's set up to watch movies.

• 35:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:51Sean Fennessey?

  I'll run sometimes.

• 35:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you do like an incline or is it just?

• 35:54Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really like that and I never have.

• 35:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 35:56Sean Fennessey?

  But I'll run, I can, I will sometimes run very fast.

• 35:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 36:00Speaker 03

  Sean doesn't know about the 12:30, he's not on that game.

• 36:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, yeah.

• 36:03Sean Fennessey?

  He's not with it.

• 36:04Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, we'll, we'll have a whole conversation about this. I honestly, I think walking on an incline would be better for your body and for your physical therapy. Bobby, you with me?

• 36:14Sean Fennessey?

  You may be right, but I have extremely sensitive hip right now. So any like

• 36:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, okay.

• 36:20Sean Fennessey?

  overt pressure on it could be a challenge.

• 36:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so, but you're running on a treadmill.

• 36:23Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't really been running of late. Historically, I will run on the treadmill, yeah.

• 36:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, I think like low impact, but you know, some resistance with the

• 36:32Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, sounds like you should call my B team.

• 36:34Speaker 03

  I think we've maybe underexplored the potential of getting the camera in there for the YouTube, you know, you walking while talking.

• 36:39Sean Fennessey?

  Have we underexplored it?

• 36:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:41Speaker 03

  I think we should talk about that. I don't know. Just, I'm an ideas guy. I'm the producer of the show, Sean. What do we say?

• 36:46Sean Fennessey?

  I definitely will stay on this call for sure when this episode's over to talk to you about it. I won't step out immediately and go eat a granola bar. I promise. I definitely will stay right here.

• 36:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm opening the water bottles, sorry.

• 36:57Sean Fennessey?

  Water bottle's open, which means it's mailbag time. Bob, how many emails did we get?

• 37:01Speaker 03

  There's so many emails. I read about 500 of the emails and I just looked at the inbox. There's like 563 still unread. So, you know, I'm making my way through them. A few of you got some responses from me if I didn't put your

• 37:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, I was thinking that I, I was gonna just log in and just like, maybe like do some magic.

• 37:20Sean Fennessey?

  You should have done, set up an auto reply that just Rebecca Go Birds. That would have been amusing.

• 37:26Speaker 03

  Amanda's setting up an auto reply being like, sorry, I'm out of office, but you can email and then your, your email address, Sean?

• 37:31Amanda Dobbins?

  That'd be great.

• 37:33Sean Fennessey?

  Please don't do that.

• 37:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 37:36Sean Fennessey?

  As you know, I care about inbox zero very deeply. All right. Should we start? What, how would you describe the emails? Chill vibes? Any crazy shit?

• 37:44Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 37:44Sean Fennessey?

  Any marriage proposals to Amanda?

• 37:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Everybody was so nice. That's how I would describe the emails. Thank you all for taking time.

• 37:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I am gonna, I'm gonna log in and read some of them.

• 37:54Speaker 03

  They came from far and wide, all over this great globe of ours. Australia, Ghana, Scotland, Ireland, Senegal, Italy, France, Canada, Germany, England, from everywhere. It was really amazing. Great stuff from everybody. They really showed up, showed out. Uh, really creative questions too. So let's just, let's get into it. Let's open it up. First question comes from Shawna. What movie duo do you feel best exemplifies your relationship?

• 38:21Sean Fennessey?

  Hannibal Lecter and Clary Starling.

• 38:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Fight Club.

• 38:26Sean Fennessey?

  Who's who?

• 38:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I think we all know I'm Tyler Durden.

• 38:30Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe, could be, could be.

• 38:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Godzilla versus Kong?

• 38:34Sean Fennessey?

  We've, we have discussed that in the past. I think the energy that we're going for is in your classic Hollywood rom com.

• 38:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Like the screwball.

• 38:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. You're, you're, um, uh, it happened one night or, uh, or what's your favorite with, um,

• 38:53Amanda Dobbins?

  His girlfriend.

• 38:54Sean Fennessey?

  Catherine Hepburn and Cary Grant.

• 38:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, Philadelphia Story?

• 38:57Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 38:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 38:58Sean Fennessey?

  Jesus.

• 38:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, um, oh, the.

• 39:00Sean Fennessey?

  Bringing up baby.

• 39:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Baby, baby, baby.

• 39:01Sean Fennessey?

  Bringing up baby, yeah. Or the Preston Sturgis movies.

• 39:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:05Sean Fennessey?

  You know, Wee Reap Art Day, Enmity at the for, at the foreground.

• 39:12Sean Fennessey?

  Intensity, humor, weirdness.

• 39:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Fast talking.

• 39:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, speed is really the thing, speed.

• 39:18Sean Fennessey?

  But there is definitely a little bit of like prisoner and captor thing going on here for sure. There's maybe a little bit of.

• 39:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 39:27Sean Fennessey?

  Dual persona.

• 39:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, crazy. And, and we flip, I think we flip roles in terms of who's crazier every week.

• 39:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Bob, do you have anything that you want to add to the mix?

• 39:37Speaker 03

  I think there's a lot of a few good men energy in this pod, but I'm trying to sort out who would be who. I think like maybe Amanda's bacon and Sean, your TC, or maybe flip those around depending on what the topic of the pod is. And that makes me Lieutenant Weinberger.

• 39:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, great.

• 39:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's pretty good. Who's, that makes Jack Joe?

• 39:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:52Sean Fennessey?

  In the booth?

• 39:53Speaker 03

  I guess so.

• 39:53Sean Fennessey?

  I strenuously object.

• 39:56Speaker 03

  Who's Nicholson in this analogy?

• 39:58Sean Fennessey?

  Bill.

• 39:59Speaker 03

  Is that like Bill Nicholson?

• 40:00Sean Fennessey?

  You want me on that wall? Um, okay, what's next?

• 40:04Speaker 03

  Um, Addie asks, I was wondering if you guys had any advice on how to best prioritize and or maximize your time at a festival? Which festivals do you recommend for a first timer? We actually got a ton of questions about film festivals in this mailbag. So many people interested in going.

• 40:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I mean, I really, I met, I met a lot of people at Sundance who. We're listeners of the show, but and you know, maybe that means they want to work in the industry at some point, but like people who are just there to see movies, which was awesome.

• 40:34Sean Fennessey?

  I have this experience every year at Telluride now where I meet anywhere from 10 to 50 people who are like, I'm here because I heard you talk about it on the show, which is obviously always so exciting because it means you've got young people getting engaged, not just in like going to AMC film culture, but real movie going culture.

• 40:51Sean Fennessey?

  It's different for every festival, you know, we've all, we've both been to probably like five or six at this point.

• 40:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 40:58Sean Fennessey?

  And they all kind of work a little bit differently. So maybe we can speak more specifically about the ways that certain ones work.

• 41:05Sean Fennessey?

  I'll say for Sundance, it's a, it's a little bit more challenging because you're often in the snow and you've got to bounce from venue to venue. So the thing that I like to do, which is like see as many movies as possible, is I find to be kind of challenging there because of, the transportation's okay as I recall, but weather conditions and the lines getting in is a little tricky.

• 41:31Amanda Dobbins?

  They changed it, um, transportation wise. So that's trickier. I mean, the shuttle's good, but yeah, it's really, you, you do spend a lot of time in lines.

• 41:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 41:43Amanda Dobbins?

  So I think for Sundance, it would probably be just like pick a theater and camp out there.

• 41:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 41:48Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, and just like see everything that is at that one theater.

• 41:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Or I, I guess you could do like the, I don't know, if you're, two movies a day is really doable. Five, you really have to stay in one place.

• 42:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I find when I go to Telluride, people say, I'm trying to do three a day and then it's a little hard because the lines are a little bit intense. And then also at a place like Telluride, this is true at some festivals, you have to buy a pass to go and it's hard to get individual tickets. And there is a tiering system to the passes. The patron passes I think are five grand.

• 42:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:24Sean Fennessey?

  So you have a lot of, you know, long time patrons who are going and who are getting right to the front of the line. And then you've got your kind of common pass, which is significantly cheaper, but doesn't guarantee entry. So you do spend a lot of time waiting. Lines. I think you gotta just be prepared to wait for the most part. Be very strategic about your days. Bring a lot of granola bars and snacks. It's hard to stop for meals. Make sure you have a bathroom strategy that is sound. Some theaters have good and helpful bathrooms. Some do not. For me, coffee is critical. I need to have at least two, sometimes three coffees a day when I'm powering through five movies. So you gotta make sure that the venues have coffee. If they don't, know your coffee shops in the area. I think it's probably easier on a first time basis to do something like the New York Film Festival, which is over thirty days.

• 43:08Sean Fennessey?

  And you can say, I'm going to New York for a week and I'm gonna catch what I can, you know, and I find tickets are pretty, not easy, but easier. Bob, would you agree with that to get your hands on?

• 43:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think it's a pretty like democratic way of acquiring tickets. Like if you're there and ready to buy something online. You know, I don't know for certain whether this is the best way to sell anything these days, but it at least is a way that you're probably accustomed to with things selling out quickly. For the showings that you want online. So you can get access to those screenings. The press industry screenings is more like you're describing. That's how you're right. It's like, be ready to wait in line. So if you're in press or industry. Like get there at least an hour early for, or maybe even more.

• 43:48Sean Fennessey?

  As we witnessed, we got shut out of the room next door this year, actually. Bob and I both. Yeah, we were in line, maybe.

• 43:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Turns out that that.

• 43:53Sean Fennessey?

  Didn't matter. Yeah.

• 43:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but New York also, like the city itself and, and Lincoln Center where it's kind of located, has the infrastructure. You know, I mean, it's kind of like the theaters, there is a place to eat. And I think you're right. I mean, it's really, are you gonna be a five movie a day psycho like Sean? And, and many other people. And I think that's one way to do it. I, I find that intense. Or you can be like a two to three a day movie person like me.

• 44:25Amanda Dobbins?

  And that turns out in addition to be a great way to see movies. It's also a great way to like travel and see a part of the world or be somewhere that you haven't been.

• 44:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 44:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is also like a nice way to live life and also like a nice way to like enjoy movies sometimes. So, you know, if, if, if five a day seems daunting, but if you've ever wanted to go to. You know, and have the resources to go to Telluride or New York or even some of that. We've never been to like the local film festivals, but there are so many of them from like.

• 44:55Sean Fennessey?

  I I'm kicking myself because I had a ticket to go see Horizon Part Two on Friday night.

• 45:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Why didn't you go?

• 45:01Sean Fennessey?

  And for a variety of reasons, childcare, etc., I opted not to go. And then our friend Griffin Newman was there, didn't tell me he was going.

• 45:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:11Sean Fennessey?

  And then he told me the movie rocked and I was like, god damn it. I'm so mad at myself that I didn't go see. So I've never been to Santa Barbara before.

• 45:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 45:18Sean Fennessey?

  And we've, I've been to Palm Springs kinda, like I've been in Palm Springs when it was happening and seen one movie. But I haven't actually spent time.

• 45:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly.

• 45:25Sean Fennessey?

  At the Palm Springs Film Festival.

• 45:26Amanda Dobbins?

  There's like the Mill Valley.

• 45:27Sean Fennessey?

  Mill Valley, yes, Joanna goes to that often. Rob Mahoney went to Mill Valley this year. There's a number of locals and then, you know, there's a contingent.

• 45:35Amanda Dobbins?

  There's like South by, there's my, you know, there are like lots of different places.

• 45:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, people, people really talk up the Savannah Film Festival now with SCAD. They talk up the Virginia Film Festival is, is growing in popularity. There's a number of festivals that are getting bigger and bigger around the country. You can really go to any of them and probably get a really cool experience if they're in that kinda top quartile of, of film festivals. But then also I have personally never been to Berlin, Cannes or Venice.

• 46:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 46:00Sean Fennessey?

  And I probably before I'm out of my 40s, need to knock those off my list. So 2026.

• 46:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm like so, I can't even.

• 46:08Sean Fennessey?

  Stake in the ground.

• 46:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I can't even look at you right now. I'm so angry.

• 46:12Sean Fennessey?

  2026.

• 46:13Amanda Dobbins?

  We literally, we had, you, Bobby, find it like on camera. Last year after Cannes, you were like, you're right, we should, like, I'm really kicking myself. We didn't go to Cannes.

• 46:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 46:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, we should go this year and then you scheduled some fucking.

• 46:26Sean Fennessey?

  Band in Dunes is calling. I've, I've heard from a number of listeners who identify.

• 46:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Dan is listening. Dan, who organized this trip and I, and I love Dan, I love you so much and I know that.

• 46:39Sean Fennessey?

  My dear friend, Dan.

• 46:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I just, we will have a frank conversation, Dan.

• 46:44Sean Fennessey?

  2026, we'll go to Cannes and uh, maybe Berlin too, fuck it, you know?

• 46:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I would love to go to, I would love to go to all of them.

• 46:51Sean Fennessey?

  I've always wanted to go to Berlin. Well, I've been to the city of Berlin, which is a city I love.

• 46:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, I would love to go to Berlin. I, I think the Linklater, the um. The Ethan Hawke, the Lauren's heart.

• 47:01Sean Fennessey?

  Blue Moon.

• 47:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Blue Moon is at Berlin this year.

• 47:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And I think New Vlog will be at Cannes.

• 47:07Amanda Dobbins?

  You can really only go to Venice if you have, if you're being, if you're Italian and or have like a rail, Euro Rail Pass and or your company is paying for it.

• 47:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 47:19Amanda Dobbins?

  But we gotta go. It's so awesome.

• 47:20Sean Fennessey?

  Venice is tough. Venice is hard for me because I have made an emotional commitment to tell you, right?

• 47:25Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I know. But I love it. Like, your version of like coffee and granola bars and five movies days, like me at the Golden Lion Bar, having my spritz before going to the premiere of whatever, just seeing like Jacob Elordi just across the red carpet. It's like right across the street.

• 47:41Sean Fennessey?

  You may never be able to recreate the quality of lineup that you got for your specific interests.

• 47:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. It was so, so good.

• 47:48Sean Fennessey?

  You got your Bradley Cooper. You got a lot of stuff you liked. You got Fincher. You got some good stuff.

• 47:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Fincher was there. Fincher was awesome. Walk in, all the carpets. But.

• 47:56Sean Fennessey?

  That was kind of a dream year for that. You got Ferrari. You got a lot of stuff. Yeah.

• 47:59Amanda Dobbins?

  It was so good. It was really fun.

• 48:02Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. I mean, look, it's very expensive.

• 48:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:05Sean Fennessey?

  Treat it like a vacation, if you love movies.

• 48:08Amanda Dobbins?

  That is the thing. Treat it like a vacation. Like, go. I had never been to Venice.

• 48:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 48:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And, you know, one of those places, otherwise you gotta go see at like every church, you know, and every like fresco. And like churches and frescoes are beautiful, but I was just kind of like, wow, look, like I'm in Venice. And then, like, the day was programmed for me. And it was so cool. Like, I got to see some movies and then I like got the local vibe. It is like a great way to travel and to see it like a part of the world, if you like movies. So that's a different strategy. Again, this is all predicated on having access to resources. And we get to do this for work. So we're incredibly lucky.

• 48:42Sean Fennessey?

  We are very privileged. Okay, Bob, what's next?

• 48:45Speaker 03

  Abigail wants to know, "My friends have never seen any PTA movies. Where do I start and what order should I show my friends the PTA movies?"

• 48:54Sean Fennessey?

  I would like to hear your thoughts on this.

• 48:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean.

• 48:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's a, it's a year for preparing for PTA movies, of course. We probably will build like two weeks of programming around PTA.

• 49:03Amanda Dobbins?

  We got another question, I'm sorry to jump ahead, Bob, about exploring filmmaker work and doing like most popular or chronological. And I, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna lump them together. Should we credit, who was the person who asked that nice question?

• 49:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, this comes from David.

• 49:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so David, thank you.

• 49:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, he asked about picking out few directors and taking a deeper dive into their filmographies, and whether it's best to go in chronological order, or go based on like popularity or perception of how good the movie itself is.

• 49:32Amanda Dobbins?

  So I think in general, for most directors, starting with the quote unquote classics, or like the widely accepted, there's a reason you know this director's name. And then going like, and once you're kind of versed in the director's work, to go back and start doing deep cuts, and then you could go chronologically, like then you can make it a project, but it's like, if you start with, if you're doing Ridley Scott and you start with The Duelist, which is like, a good movie, but you're gonna be like, like what's going on, you know?

• 50:15Sean Fennessey?

  I think it depends on the depth of the filmmaker. If they have only five movies, you could say I'm doing a chron-. If you, if you want to do Terrence Malick,

• 50:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 50:23Sean Fennessey?

  I would say start at Badlands, and just go straight through.

• 50:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 50:26Sean Fennessey?

  He's got eight movies, that's the best way to do it. It'll show a progression in a clear way.

• 50:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 50:31Sean Fennessey?

  It's a good question. Broadly speaking, I mostly agree with you. I have been thinking about this quite a bit, because I've been really enjoying You Must Remember this, this season.

• 50:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 50:39Sean Fennessey?

  And Karina's angle on it this year is, um, the old man is still alive, is the theme. So it's a look at the classic filmmakers, um, not just of Hollywood, but mostly Hollywood-focused.

• 50:52Sean Fennessey?

  At the end of their careers, like their last movies. And I was just listening over the weekend to the John Ford episode. And the John Ford episode is super interesting because it's about how some of his last four or five films are kind of like recriminations or reversals of what we thought John Ford movies were about. You know, Cheyenne Autumn, which is told with like a huge empathy for native people. Or Seven Women, which is, which is an entirely female focused movie. He never had really strong female protagonists in his films. So like you could say for John Ford, after you get past the silent stuff. Stagecoach is this huge breakthrough with John Wayne. You probably could just watch Stagecoach all the way through. It's like 35 movies. But you would watch a progression of theme in a really interesting way. It's just a big project.

• 51:35Sean Fennessey?

  So you could say, oh, actually, what I really want to do is I want to watch Stagecoach and then I want to watch My Darling Clementine, and then They Were Expendable, and then The Searchers, and then I'll kind of pick and choose from there.

• 51:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 51:44Sean Fennessey?

  But it's, every filmmaker is different because every filmmaker reveals something different. And PTA.

• 51:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I was gonna say, I think PTA is the exception. I think you go.

• 51:53Sean Fennessey?

  Straight through.

• 51:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, chronological. And it's a little bit because it's what, 10 or 11?

• 51:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 51:58Amanda Dobbins?

  At this point, but it is, sorry, my computer died, so I don't have it in front of me. So everything is off the top of my head.

• 52:05Sean Fennessey?

  You're doing great.

• 52:06Amanda Dobbins?

  So it, it's digestible, even if that like 10 or 11 is like a lot of movies. But it is also, and there is a progression and it is also just like, you know, there are no skips. So.

• 52:18Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 52:18Amanda Dobbins?

  So that's the other thing. If you're working with 35 or 40 or 45.

• 52:22Sean Fennessey?

  You're not gonna like stuff. It's gonna be boring. It's gonna be redundant.

• 52:25Amanda Dobbins?

  But, and it, or even if it's like not redundant, I, I think that you do, if you're starting cold with someone, you want to have at least like some sort of broader understanding before you start doing the work of like, oh, I see the evolution from like this to this, or I see how you got here, you know? Like to, to be able to appreciate when you're watching the first three movies of like, oh, I see you're gonna build towards this. Or like this is kind of like XYZ.

• 52:58Sean Fennessey?

  I was having this conversation with someone recently about Paul. You know, I've interviewed him with Bill a couple of times now, met him a few times over the years. And the thing that I have noticed more and more, and this is, this was in relationship to a conversation about the Oscar race this year, is that he has completely stopped.

• 53:16Sean Fennessey?

  Telling people what his movies are about. He does not talk theme. He does not talk interpretive analysis.

• 53:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 53:23Sean Fennessey?

  He talks about character. He talks about setting. Talks about story. But he doesn't do that thing that many filmmakers, when they're younger, can't wait to do, and he couldn't wait to do when he was younger. He loved over explaining his movies, talking about his influences, what he was pulling from, and-

• 53:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's called being 27, but uh-

• 53:42Sean Fennessey?

  Hundred percent.

• 53:44Amanda Dobbins?

  No disrespect.

• 53:45Sean Fennessey?

  I think more specific, I mean, for him, it was because he was such a young phenom. But most filmmakers, it's their early 30s. And they're like, I did it. I'm desperate to be understood. And you could maybe make the case Brady Corby, who was like 36 or something, is like, let me tell you everything.

• 53:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 54:00Sean Fennessey?

  And, and PTA definitely did that. And then just kind of stopped. And so what it means is the first half of the movie, the first half of his career, you're like, I have a pretty good idea of what this is. I get what he's going for. I get what he's paying homage to, what the themes are, what it means to his childhood. And then in the second half, especially with the, with the master, and then everything from the master on, he's like, you figure it out. What is this?

• 54:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I-

• 54:24Sean Fennessey?

  You thought this about Scientology. It's not. Here's why.

• 54:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I think when you're Paul Thomas Anderson and you've made the films that he's made, like you can do that. I, I did also get a chance to listen to your Nosferatu episode and listen to your Robert Eggers interview. And it was a little bit of like, yeah, we don't talk theme, like because there is none. Like I, you know, I-

• 54:44Sean Fennessey?

  I was just hunting for it.

• 54:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I know.

• 54:46Sean Fennessey?

  I was, I was doing the-

• 54:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, and, and that is like, obviously has like different intention, like with his career and what like-

• 54:53Sean Fennessey?

  But he might-

• 54:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Filmmaking like means something different to him and that's cool.

• 54:58Sean Fennessey?

  It's funny that, because in this conversation that I was just referencing, Eggers came up as well in this conversation about theme. And he has always been very reluctant to talk about those things. It doesn't mean that they're not there. It doesn't mean he's not thinking about them, but he doesn't want to talk about them.

• 55:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 55:09Sean Fennessey?

  He doesn't want to make that a part of the narrative of the movie. The PTA thing, because there is a progression, you can go back and watch that making of Magnolia documentary that's on all the physical versions. That is, I think it's called That Moment. That's just so crazy where you can like watch a guy and where he is emotionally in real time while he's orchestrating this big movie.

• 55:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, which is also like, yeah.

• 55:29Sean Fennessey?

  His parents and his dad and boogie nights with his mom and all the stuff that is so evidently right on the surface. Anyway, I'm with you. It should be in chronological order for his movies. It's only 10, so you can do it.

• 55:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 55:40Sean Fennessey?

  What's next?

• 55:42Speaker 03

  Can I add something really quickly? I think broadly chronological does work and or if you have like a streaming service that you trust that curates like Criterion has most of a lot of directors' movies and they put them in chronological order for you. That's a good way to do it. And then you can go back and fill in the gaps if you end up loving that filmmaker. Or I don't know where you are writing in from, Abigail, but if you live in a city that shows rep screenings of a director, like just try to find one on the big screen first, no matter where it is in the chronology of the director, because then you build this relationship to that movie and you say, now I either want to go backwards or forwards from this point. And that can change how you feel about being introduced to a director. That's what I like to do with a lot of old directors, because for me, that means the first experience that I have with the director is the exact experience they wanted out of

• 56:25Speaker 03

  that movie, rather than trying to like get into someone's old, you know, filmography at home, you know, with all these different distractions or like on the wrong TV or whatever.

• 56:34Amanda Dobbins?

  That's, you know, that's 27 year old repertory theater privilege boy locking on, but I love it. I love that for you.

• 56:42Speaker 03

  I'm representing my people.

• 56:43Sean Fennessey?

  It's a, it's a good intention that is harder for most people to, to reach, but if the, if the option is there, you should do it.

• 56:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you should totally do it. You should absolutely, if you're able to do it.

• 56:52Sean Fennessey?

  And I think like our friends at Blank Check do directorial themed seasons. And so a lot of people will fill gaps that way or watch for the first time that way. I think that's a really cool way to experience that show, too. This is also a time issue. Not everybody has time to watch every single film directed by Steven Spielberg, for example.

• 57:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but these people are doing a project. So it's a, it's a good way to do a project.

• 57:12Sean Fennessey?

  Chat to Abigail and David, both of you guys.

• 57:14Amanda Dobbins?

  We love projects.

• 57:14Sean Fennessey?

  You're doing the work. Thank you.

• 57:16Speaker 03

  Our next question comes from Alex. Could you identify your favorite movie or couple of movies that are in opposition to your typical taste? Something that someone would be surprised to find out that you like.

• 57:27Sean Fennessey?

  I had one movie pop into my head on this one.

• 57:29Amanda Dobbins?

  For me or for you?

• 57:30Sean Fennessey?

  For me. I don't, I'm not sure what you would say. Guardians of the Galaxy 2.

• 57:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I was gonna say Fast Five.

• 57:34Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah, but everybody knows that.

• 57:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, but, but, you know.

• 57:37Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 57:38Amanda Dobbins?

  That's, it's one of my zags, you know?

• 57:40Sean Fennessey?

  It is one of your zags. Unfortunately, it's a Fast and the Furious movie.

• 57:45Sean Fennessey?

  When I was 11,

• 57:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 57:47Sean Fennessey?

  I went to the movie theater with my mom and I saw Untamed Heart. Have you seen Untamed Heart?

• 57:52Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 57:53Sean Fennessey?

  Are you familiar with this movie?

• 57:54Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 57:55Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, it's a simple romantic drama.

• 57:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 57:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's about a waitress working in a restaurant and a bus boy, very quiet bus boy. One night she's leaving work and two men attack her and nearly assault her. And she is saved by this very shy, retiring bus boy. The waitress is played by Marisa Tomei. The bus boy is played by Christian Slater. Rosie Perez is Marisa Tomei's best friend.

• 58:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow.

• 58:27Sean Fennessey?

  This movie is directed by Tony Bell, who was the producer of The Sting. Very, very modest hit at the time. As you know, romantic drama is probably my kryptonite, genre wise. It's gotta be really good for me to love it. I wouldn't say Untamed Heart is really good.

• 58:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:45Sean Fennessey?

  But it just dropped into my mind.

• 58:48Amanda Dobbins?

  That's nice.

• 58:48Sean Fennessey?

  While I was thinking about this question. I had a great experience seeing it with my mom. We had a lot of questions. The reason it's called Untamed Heart is because the Christian Slater character has a defect in his heart.

• 58:57Amanda Dobbins?

  This is sounding familiar.

• 58:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's just one of those like you saw it on cable kind of movies, you know?

• 59:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 59:04Sean Fennessey?

  But it's a very sweet movie, or at least I thought it was when I saw it 20 years ago. No, gotta get it on Blu-ray.

• 59:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I was gonna ask.

• 59:12Sean Fennessey?

  Is this on 4K, Untamed Heart? Anybody out there listening? Just a sweet, simple Hollywood movie, 1993. Yeah, I was 10 years old.

• 59:20Amanda Dobbins?

  That's beautiful.

• 59:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, $6 million budget, $25 million at the box office.

• 59:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow.

• 59:25Sean Fennessey?

  Christian Slater in the same year as True Romance.

• 59:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Look at that.

• 59:30Sean Fennessey?

  Pretty exciting. Uh, okay, what's next?

• 59:33Speaker 03

  Next comes from Corey. Have you ever used any architectural inspiration from films and brought it into your own homes or personal life?

• 59:43Speaker 03

  Cory is proud dob mob, by the way.

• 59:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you so much.

• 59:46Speaker 03

  And I will say, so many people identified themselves as dob mob. Like, they went so far out of their ways if that was the first thing they said about themselves.

• 59:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you all very, very much. You're very sweet.

• 59:54Speaker 03

  Many people saying that they took a break from their hobbies to write into the Gmail.

• 59:59Amanda Dobbins?

  That's great. Good. I'm glad. You know, like, and while, while email, listen, writing, direct communication, interpersonal communication is very dob mob. Email is like the best tool that we have. Also, like, not answering emails that you don't want is also dob mob. So I just want to give everyone that tip.

• 1:00:19Speaker 03

  A manifesto forms here.

• 1:00:24Sean Fennessey?

  We're entering new territories in ethical dob mob communication.

• 1:00:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so this is from Cory. Dob mob.

• 1:00:31Speaker 03

  Cory, yes.

• 1:00:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Cory, you know, thank you for thinking that I have the budget to, to really, like, follow my heart when it comes to...

• 1:00:40Speaker 03

  We have the power to build anything.

• 1:00:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, like, so I don't think architecturally, like, you know, I, I think most people would think that my immediate design inspo would go towards Nancy Meyers. And I, like, do like hydrangeas and nice kitchens and, and kitchen islands. I don't have a kitchen island. I'd love to have one. I'd love to even have two, as she has Instagrammed about, you know, one for cooking and one for the stuff. That's really next level. But I don't, I don't have room for a single kitchen island in my home. And I like a bit more color in my aesthetic and in my home life than Nancy seems to, to work with. So I think I would, I was, I would be drawn more to, like, Sofia or Luca Guadagnino interiors.

• 1:01:26Amanda Dobbins?

  And once again, not really able to realize that. So I would say more that it's been like fashion stuff. I recently bought myself a pair of the, um, I saw they were purple Chuck Taylors, the high-rise, which if the real heads will know, there's a shot of them in the I Want Candy montage in Marie Antoinette, um, you know, and it's like anachronistic and people got mad, but whatever. So they were on sale and I was like, oh, I'd like to have those. So I have, I will do stuff like that. But in the home, you know, we can, we can only dream and hope and save.

• 1:02:06Sean Fennessey?

  That's great.

• 1:02:09Amanda Dobbins?

  You're just like, I have nothing to say.

• 1:02:11Sean Fennessey?

  No, I'm happy for you. I mean, I, no, I don't really work this way.

• 1:02:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:15Sean Fennessey?

  I am an extremely simple person when it comes to both style and design. Don't have, I don't define myself by those particular things.

• 1:02:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:24Sean Fennessey?

  But I have no problem with anybody that does. I was wildly, almost neurotically minimalist for a long time. And that's over because I have a child. So I have to just let go of that and all of my, the deep diseases inside my brain that are pushing me towards

• 1:02:44Amanda Dobbins?

  You do a lot of movie posters.

• 1:02:47Sean Fennessey?

  I do, but very few of them are hanging right now. I mean, I'm, I actually, at this point, I own dozens and dozens of cool ones. But I think I'm kind of waiting for, what I really want to do is have like a house

• 1:02:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:57Sean Fennessey?

  And just turn a bedroom into a real screening room, for real. And actually like devote authentic resources to it. And in that room, I will break out some of the very special posters. I have a few nice ones. I have a lot of first run ones. I had a listener from, who works at Warner Brothers, come to an event that I did and sent me some original first run posters that are amazing. One was a Spanish poster from Deep Red, the Argento movie. And the other was an original first run poster of A Candidate, the Robert Redford movie, one of my favorite movies of all time. You know, they're folded up. So like, I want to get those framed and put those up somewhere because those are two of my favorite movies. But that was an amazing thing. I, I can be like, I can be bought with old, with, you know, vintage movie posters. So it's a good call. You're right.

• 1:03:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:43Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. What's next?

• 1:03:44Speaker 03

  Austin wants to know, in honor of the Brutalist-

• 1:03:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Sorry, can I say one more? Sorry, sorry, sorry. Can I say one more thing?

• 1:03:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:03:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, I just want to go back to the Nancy Meyers kitchens for a second. So like, I, and I love Nancy and, and she's an answer to another question that is on this rundown. But the, the open cabinetry?

• 1:04:06Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, where you, instead of cabinets, like the, the open shelves where you can see everything on display.

• 1:04:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Is, is very big in her work. And I think that that's ruining society because we can't be organizing all our stuff all the time. Like cabinets that close, speaking to your minimalism.

• 1:04:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Sort of like, everyone, cut yourself a break, you know? We can't be merchandising our kitchens.

• 1:04:29Sean Fennessey?

  You're saying this is the number one thing ruining society?

• 1:04:32Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I just like, it's, it is, it is one of many.

• 1:04:36Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:04:36Amanda Dobbins?

  But I wanted to speak to it.

• 1:04:37Sean Fennessey?

  Power rank it.

• 1:04:40Sean Fennessey?

  Four?

• 1:04:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I was like, and then like, the, the dust is everywhere. Like, what are you doing? How are you living? I like, cut yourself some slack, you know? We all can't be that organized. Get a cabinet door that closes.

• 1:04:54Sean Fennessey?

  Love your passion.

• 1:04:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you.

• 1:04:56Sean Fennessey?

  What's next?

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  It was about questions that are aspirational, you know? Like, when I watched Perfect Days, I was like, that's hella aspirational, but I'm never gonna live in a space that looks like that.

• 1:05:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:06Sean Fennessey?

  You too can have an eight-track. Think about it.

• 1:05:08Speaker 03

  I suppose I could, but then I would have all the cassettes everywhere and they would not be that organized like he is. He's a disciplined man and I am not that way.

• 1:05:15Sean Fennessey?

  That's true.

• 1:05:16Speaker 03

  Um, Austin asks, "In honor of the brutalists and the brutal boys and girls everywhere, my question for you both is, if Amanda was a benefactor and could direct Sean to create something at her discretion, doesn't have to be a building, what would she have Sean create? And conversely, if Sean were the benefactor, what would he have Amanda create?"

• 1:05:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well, I didn't read that closely, so I didn't get the "doesn't have to be a building" part of this, but that's fine.

• 1:05:41Sean Fennessey?

  You have a building idea.

• 1:05:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I would, I would like you to reimagine and reassuscitate, resuscitate the Cinerama dome and its entire environs.

• 1:05:54Sean Fennessey?

  I'm well suited to this.

• 1:05:55Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's gonna be like, uh, but, you know, because there's that weird...

• 1:06:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, almost like shopping center thing. Like, that whole block is yours. And so, so you get not only the movie theater and the Cinerama Dome, which you need to build. And so, my, my requirements are that that does have to be a movie theater. But you can do whatever you want with, like, you can make whatever movie theater you want.

• 1:06:22Sean Fennessey?

  It's so obvious to me what it should be. It should be, it should be.

• 1:06:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not even done with the commission, okay?

• 1:06:27Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, go, go, continue, continue.

• 1:06:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Alright, so this is like, you know, and I'm not asking you to do drawings. We're on the hilltop, let me keep speaking.

• 1:06:32Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, keep going.

• 1:06:32Amanda Dobbins?

  And then, I also.

• 1:06:34Sean Fennessey?

  I'm like Stacy Martin, like, daddy, it's very cold out here.

• 1:06:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, and then, I need you to work with like.

• 1:06:43Sean Fennessey?

  It's so good, you're done!

• 1:06:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that first, the first half is awesome. The rest of the retail space, I need you to turn into, like, I mean, I guess it like, can be retail if we're gonna be gauche and speak in like, real estate terms.

• 1:06:59Sean Fennessey?

  No, I have ideas for it.

• 1:07:00Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, but, um, it all needs to be to my aesthetic and use standards as well. So that's tricky for you. But I would like a bookstore as part of it. You know, but it can, like, it can be like a book and physical media, like, like a physical media store. How about that?

• 1:07:15Sean Fennessey?

  When I moved to Los Angeles, we had it all. We had the ArcLight, a pizza joint, and Amoeba within a hundred yards, fifty yards.

• 1:07:24Amanda Dobbins?

  We don't have a bar, though, so that's the other thing that we need.

• 1:07:26Sean Fennessey?

  The thing I was gonna say was, that what that section, that corridor needs very clearly is a corner pizza joint, a taco spot, a bookstore and physical media store, and that movie theater. We basically had it.

• 1:07:37Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and a bar.

• 1:07:38Sean Fennessey?

  And a bar, excuse me, yes, well, maybe, yeah, maybe a speakeasy in the movie theater, which is something that I think should exist.

• 1:07:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but I do think also that you, you need a place to go, like, before or after.

• 1:07:48Sean Fennessey?

  Where are you at on noisy bars, though? Can you do, and you, and at this stage of your life? I've been in bars recently, and I'm like, whoa, I'm old. This is loud in here. This is, why, why is everyone yelling at each other? It's really quite, I, as somebody who fucking loved bars for 20 years, who was like, I'll be spending my life in bars? I can't believe how not bar-suited I am anymore.

• 1:08:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Talk to me about the kind of noise that you're having. Having a problem with. Is it like, is it like music?

• 1:08:12Sean Fennessey?

  Eight year old women screaming next to me?

• 1:08:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I do, I do think that the women need to take the, and the men, you know?

• 1:08:18Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, the men are yelling too, but the women are yelling.

• 1:08:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that, we have sort of like reached a reality TV show like pitch, you know, that I think everyone does need. So I'm with you on that.

• 1:08:27Sean Fennessey?

  I was in Sam's place in Highland Park with our friend Nick on a Tuesday night and I was like, this will be great.

• 1:08:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Which one is, oh, the wine bar, like the, oh, I'm like, also we serve some crudités or whatever.

• 1:08:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:08:37Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, it's, um, it's not crudités, it's, uh, there's one, um, what's it called when you marinate the, the fish? It starts with a C. Help me out here. I don't have my computer. Um, ceviche.

• 1:08:49Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, ceviche. Yeah. Is there ceviche? I just get steak. There's a steak.

• 1:08:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, no, but there's like one ceviche. There are like some olives. There's a salad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:58Sean Fennessey?

  Anyway, I was at Sam's and everyone was yelling at each other and I was like,

• 1:09:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I know.

• 1:09:01Sean Fennessey?

  My friends, it's Tuesday.

• 1:09:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I think that like,

• 1:09:03Sean Fennessey?

  I'm 42.

• 1:09:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Volume wise, we could be, um, we, we could all help each other.

• 1:09:08Sean Fennessey?

  That's why I, speakeasers, speakeasies are kind of lame culturally, but

• 1:09:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:13Sean Fennessey?

  they're just not as loud.

• 1:09:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. So no, I, it would be like a nice place where you could, I, I would like to be able to get a drink. I'd like to be able to get a cocktail.

• 1:09:22Sean Fennessey?

  Do you like to drink alcohol in the movies?

• 1:09:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Not really. Um, because I do find that I like to focus on the, on the movie.

• 1:09:32Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:09:32Amanda Dobbins?

  And then,

• 1:09:33Sean Fennessey?

  Many people say that about you.

• 1:09:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I do find that I like to focus on the movie. And then I also, I don't want to have to pee 45 times.

• 1:09:41Sean Fennessey?

  That's a challenge.

• 1:09:42Amanda Dobbins?

  So one before or a couple after while talking about the movie. And this is the thing really is that like, I would like to be able, we also got to work on movie times. Okay. So that's another thing that would be a requirement of the movie theater.

• 1:09:55Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:09:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Is that either like four or seven, well, when am I eating? You know?

• 1:09:59Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:00Amanda Dobbins?

  And I'm, because I'm not eating at the theater respectfully.

• 1:10:02Sean Fennessey?

  I long thought 8:00 PM would be a great time to have a movie.

• 1:10:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Or 5:00 PM or 5:30 and then I can go to a 7:00, 7:30, 8:00 dinner afterwards. I'm, I'm okay with both.

• 1:10:13Sean Fennessey?

  That's great.

• 1:10:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 1:10:14Sean Fennessey?

  Sounds like you're going on a lot of dates. I don't really go on many dates these days.

• 1:10:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm trying. We have my, um, my in-laws are in town, so we're going on several dates this week.

• 1:10:23Sean Fennessey?

  How blessed.

• 1:10:24Amanda Dobbins?

  I feel like you guys are really good with like having like a childcare rotation.

• 1:10:27Sean Fennessey?

  We go on a lot of 2pm dates, yeah.

• 1:10:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, Zach and I need to do more of that.

• 1:10:31Sean Fennessey?

  That's really the only way to survive these days. Sometimes they feature movies, not always.

• 1:10:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, so I would like a place separate from the movie theater that I can go before or after.

• 1:10:42Sean Fennessey?

  Bar, bookstore.

• 1:10:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:45Sean Fennessey?

  Pizza joint.

• 1:10:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:46Sean Fennessey?

  Taco spot, Cinerama Dome, and a multiplex with six theaters.

• 1:10:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:10:51Sean Fennessey?

  This is the way.

• 1:10:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 1:10:52Sean Fennessey?

  I would love to do that. For me, you've already answered it.

• 1:10:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:56Sean Fennessey?

  I have a kitchen large enough for a kitchen island. We don't have a kitchen island.

• 1:11:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, so you'd like me to do your kitchen?

• 1:11:02Sean Fennessey?

  I'd like you to come in and do our kitchen.

• 1:11:04Amanda Dobbins?

  The, the, I'm like really emo- that's really, that's lovely. That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me.

• 1:11:09Sean Fennessey?

  Wouldn't that be great?

• 1:11:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I'd love to do your kitchen.

• 1:11:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that would be amazing. Whether Eileen wants that, you can talk that out with her.

• 1:11:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I feel like I could work with Eileen.

• 1:11:15Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:11:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I think Eileen and I could have a constructive, uh, a process.

• 1:11:19Sean Fennessey?

  I'll be in the garage watching movies while you work.

• 1:11:21Amanda Dobbins?

  That's really nice. I'd love to help you.

• 1:11:23Speaker 03

  I think you might have to be like out of the state potentially. Like, we might just have to get you.

• 1:11:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, Eileen is such a great cook too, so it would, you know, we would.

• 1:11:33Sean Fennessey?

  We have to, yeah, we have to fit her accommodations.

• 1:11:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and I'm sure she has like very specific things that.

• 1:11:39Sean Fennessey?

  We need a, we need a refresh.

• 1:11:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:40Sean Fennessey?

  We need a refresh.

• 1:11:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, the thing is, is like you and all people really need two kitchen islands. And again, I'm, I'm speaking from a place of none.

• 1:11:47Sean Fennessey?

  There's a big open area in my kitchen.

• 1:11:49Amanda Dobbins?

  When Nancy is right, she is right. I know, and I know what you mean, but it's like.

• 1:11:53Sean Fennessey?

  Unused dead space.

• 1:11:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, the problem is, but that's like also.

• 1:11:57Sean Fennessey?

  The railway, yeah.

• 1:11:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that's the railway. That's how you, and we have the same issue.

• 1:12:01Sean Fennessey?

  My daughter exercises every day.

• 1:12:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but like what's, we have the same issue in our living room, you know, where there's just like that space, but it's like, that's how.

• 1:12:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:12:09Amanda Dobbins?

  People get anywhere, so you can't do anything. So we would probably have to do an extension, but that's okay, cause you've.

• 1:12:15Sean Fennessey?

  Let's just put another screening room in there instead.

• 1:12:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:12:17Sean Fennessey?

  That'll be fine.

• 1:12:18Amanda Dobbins?

  It's fine. We'll, we'll, we'll make it work. Cause once again, we have unlimited resources as provided by Spotify, right?

• 1:12:24Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I think it's our readers. I think our readers and listeners are gonna send in some, some funds, right? Bob, you've set up the GoFundMe?

• 1:12:31Speaker 03

  I've been reaping those rewards for years. You guys don't even know about it.

• 1:12:36Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, what's next?

• 1:12:36Speaker 03

  All right, our next question comes from Sahil. Which directors in your mind have the most unimpeded vision? As in, which directors are the best at getting their idea in their head as close to perfect on screen as possible? So not necessarily the directors that you like the most, but that you think are most faithful to what they imagine.

• 1:12:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I think they are the directors that we like the most because I think that's just like the definition of a good director. And the, our, the directors that we like the most are the ones who we think are the best. And, and we also respond to their, their specific vision, right?

• 1:13:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, I think Fincher is the clearest example of this for me.

• 1:13:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:15Sean Fennessey?

  Where his brain-

• 1:13:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Sofia is the, Coppola is the clearest for me.

• 1:13:18Sean Fennessey?

  And they, they achieve their greatness in different, with different aesthetic intention. But you often get similar results. I think when you see continuity in their work across movies.

• 1:13:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:32Sean Fennessey?

  You get the sense that that is the definition of style. And that when you have a style, then you can manifest a weird idea. And like you pointed out, the purple Chuck Taylors is a perfect example of like a weird idea that only she would think of, that she could make work in that environment.

• 1:13:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Or the story from that is actually that her, I think Roman Coppola, like put them in, or they were just kind of there and then they photographed it and she's like, oh, I like that. So, but, but like even like a found image that like reflects a like very specific sensibility.

• 1:14:04Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right. Um, so yeah, I think those are probably our best examples. I mean, look, it's pretty clear that Christopher Nolan knows how to get what he wants on screen. You know what I mean? There are certain people who, they have strong, strong visual aesthetics and the ability to interpret unusual ideas. Like Memento, really early on, you could just be like, he had a, had an idea of something that was odd to look at and technically profound on like a small budget.

• 1:14:35Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sure there's a number of examples that he could say.

• 1:14:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I was thinking about Bang Jun Ho, who like-

• 1:14:39Sean Fennessey?

  Another great example.

• 1:14:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Storyboards like literally every single frame.

• 1:14:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:14:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Right? And it's like, he just, he's like, this is where- This is how it will look.

• 1:14:46Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, the, the, the single most, most often cited example of this is Spielberg, who understands staging and blocking better than anybody on earth. So he can kind of see a chase scene play out in full in his mind, and then can corral the right people to help execute it. So there's like a million examples, but I agree with your point that it's like, the people we like the best are the people who we think are doing this the best specifically.

• 1:15:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:12Sean Fennessey?

  What's next?

• 1:15:13Speaker 03

  The, uh, the truck going down the hill and licorice pizza. There's no way that that's not exactly what that looked like in his mind.

• 1:15:19Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sure he knew the location he wanted to shoot it.

• 1:15:20Speaker 03

  So harmonious. Yeah. I mean, it's sort of cheating, but Miyazaki, like, that's exactly what it looks like. And budget be damned, production demands be damned. We need five people drawing this to try to see who can do it the best, be damned. I finally watched the documentary about him, Miyazaki and the Heron that Charles recommended. And poof, talk about like, someone who is there for their specific vision, and none of the other shit matters at all. That's incredible stuff. So that would be my sort of cheating.

• 1:15:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Porco Rosso, big hit in the home. I mean, I-

• 1:15:53Speaker 03

  I told you.

• 1:15:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I do want to let you guys know that like, my son is three, and it opens with like, a bunch of pirates kidnapping very funny, independent little girls. And then there are like, lots of like, guns everywhere. And I was like, oh, this is an interesting recommendation from both of you, but-

• 1:16:10Sean Fennessey?

  Your, your son watches Top Gun.

• 1:16:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, it doesn't have guns. It is like, weirdly, I mean, I understand that the whole thing is like around a box. I know, but you don't see any of it. Do you know what I mean? Like, I, it is-

• 1:16:22Sean Fennessey?

  Men die.

• 1:16:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, not in the hour that we watch. So, there's that. Anyway, those, those little girls are very feisty. I like them.

• 1:16:31Sean Fennessey?

  Porco Rosso is good. This is just the very beginning of a beautiful story of Miyazaki films.

• 1:16:37Amanda Dobbins?

  He just asked me to fast forward to any time there's a plane flying.

• 1:16:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, that pig smokes cigarettes, so.

• 1:16:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and he drinks wine.

• 1:16:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, which is great. That's a great lesson.

• 1:16:47Sean Fennessey?

  Bit of a lush, that pig. What's next, Bobby?

• 1:16:50Speaker 03

  Uh, the next question we got, we've been asked this question so many times over the years, so I wanted to throw this one in to maybe get an update from you all about your input on this one. Thea wants to know, what is our fandom's name? Like, for people who listen to The Big Picture, Who Weekly has the hooligans and us cultureistas as the readers? The psychos.

• 1:17:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, big pick psychos.

• 1:17:10Sean Fennessey?

  The psychos, I agree. I love the psychos. Because so many people listen to the-

• 1:17:14Speaker 03

  To be clear, it's psychos but not sickos, right? It's psychos.

• 1:17:17Sean Fennessey?

  We have sickos, but they are the psychos.

• 1:17:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:20Sean Fennessey?

  The psychos are the people who listen to every episode and watch four movies a year. Those are like the real psychos.

• 1:17:25Speaker 03

  I heard from any of them.

• 1:17:27Sean Fennessey?

  We have a lot of them. I hear from a lot of those people, and that's nice. And people are like, why do you talk about your kids? Why do you talk about your kitchens? I'm like, trust me, people are here for all of it. You may not like it, but they're here for all of it, I promise. The psychos are also the people who are like, I heard Sean say I should watch every John Ford movie, and so now I will watch every John Ford movie. And those people are also psychos and should be saluted. And there's the vast, you know, there's an in-between. You can be both. You can be the person who only sees Smile 2.

• 1:17:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:17:59Sean Fennessey?

  Or you can be the person who sees every horror film ever made.

• 1:18:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:18:03Sean Fennessey?

  You're both great. We appreciate you both.

• 1:18:07Speaker 03

  Drew wants to know, if 2024 was the year of no partial credit, according to Amanda, what will be the focus of 2025 from a critical viewpoint?

• 1:18:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know whether that was all critics or just me. And I would argue that not-

• 1:18:21Speaker 03

  I think it was just you.

• 1:18:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, not all critics really lived up to partial credit.

• 1:18:25Sean Fennessey?

  I don't agree with your partial credit theory at all.

• 1:18:27Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I know. But, I mean, because partial credit is also the, it's the brutalist thing at some point. You, you celebrate the act and I celebrate the result.

• 1:18:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Well, I mean, we both do both, but yes.

• 1:18:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, yeah, but I, but I think like if we, the ideological divide-

• 1:18:45Sean Fennessey?

  You mean result, yes, exactly.

• 1:18:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, which is, you know, why it's so great to be in my life at all times.

• 1:18:50Sean Fennessey?

  Again, many people are saying this. I've been hearing this nonstop. All of the people who know you are constantly contacting me. Why isn't it great to be in Amanda's life? Doesn't it feel so true and deep?

• 1:19:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, so I, I'm just, I'm sticking with publicizing no partial credit, you know?

• 1:19:08Sean Fennessey?

  You're holding the line.

• 1:19:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is just an extension of like, we have standards, you know, are, did you, did you meet the standards? Um, it's a, it's a yes or no, and the, the standards are personal and my standards can be different than yours.

• 1:19:19Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, but did, but, you know, no partial credit.

• 1:19:25Sean Fennessey?

  I won't dispute it. I, the focus of a critical viewpoint in 2025. I don't know if there is a theme that has emerged yet. I do think that there's going to continue to be a really wide divide between movies that Hollywood makes for money and then all other movies. And, um, I don't know, IP filmmaking dominating at the box office last year and probably dominating at the box office this year. Uh, it's gonna break at some point, you know? Like, I think people are getting really burnt out.

• 1:20:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I sure am. I mean, you heard me talking about Thunderbolts.

• 1:20:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:07Amanda Dobbins?

  But, but you're not burnt out, so.

• 1:20:10Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I'm, I'm trying.

• 1:20:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Your heart's open.

• 1:20:12Sean Fennessey?

  In part for the purposes of this show, but also because I was once 11, you know, I'm trying to keep.

• 1:20:16Amanda Dobbins?

  My heart's open to Mission Impossible, you know, I, there's other IP that, Megan 3.0.

• 1:20:22Sean Fennessey?

  Well.

• 1:20:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Meg Thregan.

• 1:20:23Sean Fennessey?

  I was thinking about this recently, like, Universal slate this year is mostly big movies. It's Jurassic Park 7, it's Wicked 2, it's Megan 2, it's, um, there's a couple of other really big ones. And then Universal slate in 2026 is original Steven Spielberg UFO movie, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, new Jordan Peele movie, new Daniels movie. I know you're not a big fan of the Daniels, but regardless, like, it's the complete opposite. Where it's like, all the big bets this year are on big noisy tent poles and all the big bets next year are on original stories from great filmmakers. So.

• 1:21:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you think that's just like, why is that? I mean, is that just sort of like production and various things because?

• 1:21:11Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, the credit to the studio is that they are investing in working with filmmakers like that, right?

• 1:21:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally, but.

• 1:21:15Sean Fennessey?

  So, that's fucking awesome. Um, the, this year though, I think is because, um. Not as much stuff was in motion.

• 1:21:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:21:22Sean Fennessey?

  Plus, this group of people, like Jordan Peele's movie, I think was supposed to be out this year, and then they pushed it to the next year.

• 1:21:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:21:28Sean Fennessey?

  Nolan is on a basically every three year cycle, so his third year is coming up.

• 1:21:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Plus, he has to go make The Odyssey. Where, so.

• 1:21:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Who is, is, is it Tom Holland or is it Matt Damon?

• 1:21:39Sean Fennessey?

  It has not been communicated to us.

• 1:21:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:21:41Sean Fennessey?

  I have heard Tom Holland is.

• 1:21:43Amanda Dobbins?

  That's what I assumed as well, and then.

• 1:21:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:21:46Sean Fennessey?

  Which I'm not sure who Damon plays there.

• 1:21:50Amanda Dobbins?

  The, the old guy?

• 1:21:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Lairdys?

• 1:21:54Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not up to date on my, on my Odyssey. I gotta probably revisit.

• 1:21:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. I mean, I do.

• 1:21:58Sean Fennessey?

  We originally thought that he was gonna be Telemachus Holland.

• 1:22:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:02Sean Fennessey?

  But it sounds like that's not the case.

• 1:22:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:22:04Sean Fennessey?

  But that cast is insane.

• 1:22:06Amanda Dobbins?

  It's.

• 1:22:06Sean Fennessey?

  It, it looks like the presenting team of the Academy Awards.

• 1:22:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:09Sean Fennessey?

  It's wild how many people are in that movie. And I'm very excited about that movie. I hope it's good.

• 1:22:14Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. What's next?

• 1:22:16Speaker 03

  We now just got two straight mentions of Megan 2.0, M- Mithrigan. It's been called many things, but Mariana wants to know. I need to know what Amanda thinks of the feminomanon Megan 2.0, the bitch's back trailer.

• 1:22:29Amanda Dobbins?

  They're very good.

• 1:22:30Speaker 03

  With the Chappelle Ron song.

• 1:22:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I, excuse me, excuse me.

• 1:22:35Speaker 03

  I'm just making sure that Sean knows what we're talking about.

• 1:22:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, oh, oh, that was directed at Sean. Oh, okay.

• 1:22:40Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:22:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, did you ever listen to that album? It's good.

• 1:22:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's budget Kate Bush, but I know, I understand why people like it.

• 1:22:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, you know, we, we have to meet the children where they are sometimes, okay?

• 1:22:50Sean Fennessey?

  Relative to other pop phenomenons right now, it's awesome.

• 1:22:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, great.

• 1:22:55Speaker 03

  They woke up. That's what you asked? They woke up.

• 1:22:57Sean Fennessey?

  She's up, she's up.

• 1:22:58Amanda Dobbins?

  She's awake.

• 1:22:59Sean Fennessey?

  She's definitely up. She is drinking all the coffee.

• 1:23:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it's great. I think that Megan 3, 2.0, whatever, is, is universal, right?

• 1:23:10Sean Fennessey?

  It is.

• 1:23:10Amanda Dobbins?

  They're ve- they're very good at marketing their films.

• 1:23:12Sean Fennessey?

  They are.

• 1:23:12Amanda Dobbins?

  They were very good at marketing the last one. I still think that Amy Donald should have been allowed to perform, and that Megan should have been at the Oscars, but maybe this year.

• 1:23:23Sean Fennessey?

  I have heard it is the T2 of female robot movies, so I'm very excited about it.

• 1:23:29Speaker 03

  Who have you heard that from? T2?

• 1:23:32Sean Fennessey?

  I'm very connected, as you know.

• 1:23:35Speaker 03

  People on the streets walking up to you saying, sir, sir.

• 1:23:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, pre-party, you know, they're doing, they're doing some of the early work here before Vegas.

• 1:23:43Sean Fennessey?

  Plugged in.

• 1:23:44Speaker 03

  Damn, I really wish I got a text message that was like, just heard Megan 2.0 is gonna be the T2 of female robot stories. Does this track for you guys?

• 1:23:54Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. This is 20 years of journalism showing right now. Building sources.

• 1:24:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:24:01Sean Fennessey?

  Making relationships.

• 1:24:02Speaker 03

  I believe it's gonna be good.

• 1:24:03Sean Fennessey?

  Watching T2 a lot.

• 1:24:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:24:06Sean Fennessey?

  First one's good. First one's fun.

• 1:24:07Speaker 03

  These are the tenants.

• 1:24:07Sean Fennessey?

  First one is like more an incredible act of marketing. Movie is fun, it's fine. It's like, it's gateway horror sci-fi.

• 1:24:15Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't need to be snotty.

• 1:24:16Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not, I'm.

• 1:24:17Amanda Dobbins?

  You don't need to be snotty.

• 1:24:19Sean Fennessey?

  If, if it's gonna live up to its T2 billing, it needs to be better.

• 1:24:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Here's another critical viewpoint that I'm, I'm projecting into 2025. Let fun things be fun. It's okay just to enjoy something sometimes.

• 1:24:30Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:24:31Amanda Dobbins?

  So.

• 1:24:31Sean Fennessey?

  So you just dropped a let people enjoy things while also shitting on Thunderbolts?

• 1:24:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I thought Thunderbolts looked bad.

• 1:24:38Sean Fennessey?

  That's not letting people enjoy things.

• 1:24:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, no, no, no, no.

• 1:24:41Sean Fennessey?

  What are you talking about?

• 1:24:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't enjoy it.

• 1:24:44Sean Fennessey?

  Your own very specific standards. That isn't what you believe. I think it's a nice thing to say on a podcast, but it is not what you believe. In fact, you like to historically yuck people's yums. You like to be like, the thing you like sucks.

• 1:24:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm, that's true. But I think what I'm saying is I don't enjoy it.

• 1:25:02Sean Fennessey?

  You don't enjoy Thunderbolts?

• 1:25:03Amanda Dobbins?

  And I actually, I do often, instead of saying the thing that you like sucks, I mean, sometimes I know I say that, but I do try to be like, this was not for me. I do not like this. This is not an abandoned movie.

• 1:25:12Sean Fennessey?

  Which I think is typically the right way to approach these things, so that people are not like, I'd like to stab the person on the, on the other end of my AirPods.

• 1:25:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 1:25:19Sean Fennessey?

  But sometimes that happens too.

• 1:25:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:25:21Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I've been on, on the receiving end of those too.

• 1:25:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I, I did not enjoy the Thunderbolts trailer on the TV or on my phone.

• 1:25:28Sean Fennessey?

  Definitely. Shoot, you wanna break it down again? What were the things you didn't like about it?

• 1:25:32Amanda Dobbins?

  And also, if it really is called Dead Avengers or whatever, like, they should just call it that.

• 1:25:38Sean Fennessey?

  I think it was Dark Avengers, but alright.

• 1:25:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you know what? Maybe if their marketing were on point, first of all, maybe if they'd used Phenomenon, like, I would have liked it more.

• 1:25:48Sean Fennessey?

  They've gotten plenty of airtime here today, so maybe they're doing something right.

• 1:25:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:25:52Sean Fennessey?

  What's next, Bobby?

• 1:25:53Speaker 03

  I agree with Amanda. That trailer stunk. Next question comes from Alyssa. Where do you want to see Tom Cruise go next in the post-Mission Impossible era of his career? Who would you like him to work with? Should there be a Top Gun 3?

• 1:26:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, there is gonna be a Top Gun 3, right? Or there were rumors of it, but...

• 1:26:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's not been announced, but...

• 1:26:12Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not been announced, right?

• 1:26:13Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's safe to say it will happen at some point.

• 1:26:15Amanda Dobbins?

  With Teller and Glenn Powell. How's Miles Teller doing today? I hope he's great. Go Birds!

• 1:26:21Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sure he's very happy. A real, a series of highs and lows for him.

• 1:26:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah.

• 1:26:25Sean Fennessey?

  You know, right now, we've got a Super Bowl victory. He's one of the biggest, well-known Eagles fans in America. His new film, The Gorge, arrives on Apple TV Plus on Friday.

• 1:26:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so...

• 1:26:35Sean Fennessey?

  It's not a good situation. Is what I would, is how I would describe that movie. I can't say I would recommend the film.

• 1:26:44Sean Fennessey?

  So...

• 1:26:46Sean Fennessey?

  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times for Miles.

• 1:26:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Don't you think Miles Teller, where they're like, like, remember when Bradley Cooper was campaigning for Maestro, I guess? And they were like, "Do you want an Oscar?"

• 1:26:58Sean Fennessey?

  Howard Stern asked him this.

• 1:26:59Amanda Dobbins?

  "Super Bowl win?" And he was like, "I want a Super Bowl," which I did not believe, but that's like the only answer you can give in that situation.

• 1:27:06Sean Fennessey?

  I've got great news for him. No Oscar.

• 1:27:10Amanda Dobbins?

  But I do, I honestly do wonder if Miles Teller were given the choice between Super Bowl win and The Gorge being like, a $300 million, like, Block's Office sensation, he like, might still pick Super Bowl.

• 1:27:24Sean Fennessey?

  I think so, too.

• 1:27:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and honestly, respect.

• 1:27:26Sean Fennessey?

  Bully for him, yeah, I agree. That's dope. Uh, I would, I would literally kill, I would kill, I would probably kill a man for a Super Bowl. I'm not kidding. Like, I really, I can't even imagine what it would be like to win the Super Bowl.

• 1:27:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Aaron Rodgers is no longer a Jet?

• 1:27:39Sean Fennessey?

  We are, we're about to restart on yet another Jets rebuild. This is like the 18th Jets rebuild of my lifetime.

• 1:27:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Aaron Rodgers is no more. Good, fuck him. See you later. Um, that whole thing was an absolute nightmare.

• 1:27:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Sucked, yeah. Seemed really bad.

• 1:27:53Sean Fennessey?

  All Jets fans were like...

• 1:27:54Speaker 03

  Super Bowl or World Series?

• 1:27:56Sean Fennessey?

  World Series is my number one choice.

• 1:27:58Speaker 03

  I think so, too.

• 1:28:00Sean Fennessey?

  World.

• 1:28:00Speaker 03

  It's just so much harder to guarantee, you know?

• 1:28:02Sean Fennessey?

  The problem with World Series is we've gotten close a few times and so it feels touchable. Super Bowl, the Jets have not been to the Super Bowl since 1969.

• 1:28:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:28:11Sean Fennessey?

  They haven't had a winning season in 10 years.

• 1:28:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Is that the longest drought in professional football?

• 1:28:15Sean Fennessey?

  No, because there's a couple of teams that haven't won any Super Bowls. Can't think of, like the Chargers, I don't think have ever won a Super Bowl. There's a couple of teams that have never won.

• 1:28:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, but they're expansion franchises, though.

• 1:28:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Have the Lions?

• 1:28:24Speaker 03

  So they haven't even, so a lot of them have been around that long.

• 1:28:26Sean Fennessey?

  The Lions haven't won a Super Bowl. Maybe they won a title in the 60s. I'm not, I'm not as strong on

• 1:28:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:28:32Sean Fennessey?

  football history, but that's the other thing with football, too. It's like in the last 25 years, like eight teams have won a Super Bowl, maybe 12 teams, like not a lot. It's like, it's pretty. We got two Eagles.

• 1:28:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Go Birds.

• 1:28:41Sean Fennessey?

  We got three Chiefs, you know, we got, uh, six, was it six for the Patriots, two for the Bucks?

• 1:28:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, six, because then he won one with, uh.

• 1:28:51Sean Fennessey?

  Tampa Bay, yeah.

• 1:28:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, and it said seven super, seven time Super Bowl champion, Tom Brady, which was, is the only positive thing that can be said about that broadcasting experience.

• 1:29:00Sean Fennessey?

  He's, you heard it everywhere except on the big picture. He's so bad.

• 1:29:04Amanda Dobbins?

  It's unbelievable.

• 1:29:06Sean Fennessey?

  It's painful to listen to. He, the, the most obvious, inauthentic and dull commentary I've ever heard. Now, obviously, I despise him as a Jets fan and I hope he falls down a well, but I, I can't believe I have to listen to him for the next five years on the broadcast.

• 1:29:18Amanda Dobbins?

  But he's not even selling the, the like garbage fake stuff. Like he's, he's so stilted. Anyway.

• 1:29:25Sean Fennessey?

  It's bad. Okay. Lot of Super Bowl takes today. Let's do, let's do like five more?

• 1:29:31Speaker 03

  Sure. Yeah. Five of the 120 questions that we have here in the mailbag.

• 1:29:35Sean Fennessey?

  Circle back. Do you think it would be good to do these live on YouTube?

• 1:29:39Speaker 03

  I do.

• 1:29:40Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think people would want that?

• 1:29:42Speaker 03

  Then people could get really mad at you in the comments in real time as opposed to just, you know, stabbing you on the street.

• 1:29:47Sean Fennessey?

  That's always gonna happen.

• 1:29:48Speaker 03

  No, I think it would be a lot of fun. Also, people could ask follow-up questions or break news to you in real time. Just think of the moment.

• 1:29:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, we wouldn't be able to, to prepare in the same way.

• 1:29:56Sean Fennessey?

  I wouldn't say to put a ton of preparation into this.

• 1:29:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I did, like, I, I did a little bit.

• 1:30:00Sean Fennessey?

  You read the questions. Yeah, yeah. We wouldn't have that.

• 1:30:01Amanda Dobbins?

  But sometimes.

• 1:30:02Sean Fennessey?

  But it's better, I think, actually. But you can't just have the thing that you always hate, which I don't like too, which is just like recast this movie for me with actors from 1952.

• 1:30:09Amanda Dobbins?

  That's, that's one thing. I, I love everyone, um, and I love movie stars, but like the, the casting questions and the recasting questions, we've, we've used all our ideas, you know?

• 1:30:21Sean Fennessey?

  Everybody loves fantasy sports.

• 1:30:22Amanda Dobbins?

  At this point, I would like to see like. You know, money in exchange for having the movie made if I'm going to keep doing it.

• 1:30:29Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:30:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:30Sean Fennessey?

  You want producer credit.

• 1:30:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:31Sean Fennessey?

  Good to know. Uh, what's next, Bobby?

• 1:30:36Speaker 03

  We got a question from Jules and we honestly got a ton of questions about at home viewing setups. Whether they've changed. We've answered questions like this in the past, but it's obviously been a couple of years. So here's Jules' question. My question is about the method of watching movies. There's always been a debate about theater versus home viewing, especially recently with the rise of streaming and better home setups. Where do you personally prefer to watch at home on a screener, streamer or in the theater? And what's your at home viewing setup like nowadays?

• 1:31:02Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, theater 1,000%.

• 1:31:04Sean Fennessey?

  Much prefer to watch a movie in a theater. I just had this experience with virtual Sundance where there were at least a few films I would have liked to have been in a theater for. There are a lot of times when I'll read reviews of films. Yes, the logging one, which is called Train Dreams.

• 1:31:22Sean Fennessey?

  A beautiful film that Amanda has chosen to mock on this podcast.

• 1:31:30Sean Fennessey?

  I sometimes read criticism of a movie that I watched at home and I'm like, maybe I missed something.

• 1:31:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:31:36Sean Fennessey?

  Because I didn't see it in the way it was meant to be seen, as Bobby was saying with the rep screenings, because it is harder. And not because I'm distracted even necessarily at home. It's just, it's just different. It's just less immersive. So I would rather not watch a screener, but in our line of work, time is a serious consideration. And so I have to watch some things on screeners. I have to experience movies that way because I just can't see everything while also navigating my life. So for my house, I have an 85 inch 4K Samsung television. I have an ARC Ultra Sonos.

• 1:32:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I was just imagining me trying to guess what type of TV and like pretend, keep going.

• 1:32:17Sean Fennessey?

  Everybody always asks me, what Blu-ray player should I get? This is the number one question I get from people.

• 1:32:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I think that's awesome. You do Blu-ray players and I'll do Kitchen Islands.

• 1:32:25Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, that's, I mean, that's, that is us to a T. It's Sony. This is my only rec on this. Sony UBP X700 4K Ultra Blu-ray Region Free Player. You can play any disc from around the world on this player. It's very easy to toggle between regions. I have four of these in my house.

• 1:32:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Four?

• 1:32:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, bedroom, living room, garage.

• 1:32:52Sean Fennessey?

  Bedroom, living room, garage. No, three, you're right.

• 1:32:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:32:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, well, I used to have one in the spare bedroom.

• 1:32:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:32:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's not plugged in because I don't have a table there anymore. But I do own four.

• 1:33:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Oh, so can I have one?

• 1:33:06Sean Fennessey?

  You can borrow one.

• 1:33:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:33:08Sean Fennessey?

  It's retailing for $200 right now. That is pretty cheap. I would also say it's probably not a bad idea to have a few of these because who the fuck knows when they're going to discontinue making these things? Because this is not.

• 1:33:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, but this is where, like, you have me until you get to, like, your prepper mode of it. You know, where you're like, I have to own, I have to create like my own Library of Alexandria and I have to have like 45 DVD players in my closet for when they break.

• 1:33:39Sean Fennessey?

  Bill Simmons is completely 4K-pilled. He's been acquiring 4Ks and we talk about it every week.

• 1:33:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:33:45Sean Fennessey?

  Chris Ryan has discovered Radiance Films and is getting excited about buying Blu-rays. So you're going to be left behind.

• 1:33:51Amanda Dobbins?

  So here's the thing is that you've just described two men who I love with all my heart.

• 1:33:58Sean Fennessey?

  Two great men.

• 1:33:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Two, two of the greatest to do it. I love them both dearly. I like them both a lot more than you. But, like, you know, Bill is transferring, like, a collectible habit from, from like sports stuff to something. He's, he has a, he has a collector's mind.

• 1:34:19Sean Fennessey?

  He does.

• 1:34:19Amanda Dobbins?

  To go with his like stat mind and his, and his sort of, his baseball card mind, for lack of a better word.

• 1:34:26Sean Fennessey?

  Extremely powerful brain.

• 1:34:27Amanda Dobbins?

  It's very, very powerful.

• 1:34:28Sean Fennessey?

  Created extraordinary success.

• 1:34:30Amanda Dobbins?

  But in many ways, he has been thinking this way for a long time and he's just, he's finding a new venue for it.

• 1:34:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:34:37Amanda Dobbins?

  And then, you know, Chris can do whatever he wants. Chris is my guy for life. I don't care. So that's how he wants to spend his money?

• 1:34:46Sean Fennessey?

  Train dreams.

• 1:34:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm.

• 1:34:49Sean Fennessey?

  You'd be stuck in that logging valley all by yourself forever.

• 1:34:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:34:53Sean Fennessey?

  Reading books.

• 1:34:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I, you know, books are also hanging on. Okay.

• 1:34:57Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:34:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Just like in the history of time and art.

• 1:35:00Sean Fennessey?

  More and more people are reading and seeing that every day. Uh, so that's my setup at home.

• 1:35:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, cool.

• 1:35:07Sean Fennessey?

  It's perfectly fine. I tell you what is not good is my couch. It's not that comfortable.

• 1:35:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I like your couch. I, well, it's, it's like, it seats a lot of people.

• 1:35:15Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, in the living room. The living room couch is good. In the garage, it's not good.

• 1:35:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay. I haven't.

• 1:35:19Sean Fennessey?

  I just gotta get movie theater seats in there. That's what I gotta do.

• 1:35:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, well.

• 1:35:22Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I'm gonna do.

• 1:35:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Not if Sean Baker wins best director.

• 1:35:28Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, boy.

• 1:35:29Speaker 03

  I think you should just get like a, like a poker table folding chair and you should just strap yourself into it. You know, Clockwork Orange style.

• 1:35:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and just get.

• 1:35:38Speaker 03

  Garage.

• 1:35:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, get the Gatorade right here in the helmet, right? Get the Red Vines over here, like in Wayne's World. I had Red Vines yesterday at the movie theater. I saw Follow That Bird after your son's birthday party at Vidya's. It was fucking sick.

• 1:35:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's nice. You guys went straight from the party to the.

• 1:35:54Sean Fennessey?

  I just went solo to follow that bird.

• 1:35:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you?

• 1:35:56Sean Fennessey?

  I'm just kidding. I took Alice. Yeah, we just went straight from the party.

• 1:35:59Amanda Dobbins?

  His recap of the party, my, my son had a birthday party yesterday because it was his literal birthday. And the, his three-year-old recap involved walking around with Sean and Alice and juice boxes. So those were the things that stuck with him was, was Sean and Alice.

• 1:36:15Sean Fennessey?

  I think I supplied him with two juice boxes.

• 1:36:17Amanda Dobbins?

  And every, here's the thing, every single adult at the party supplied Knox with juice boxes. So my guy had like 45 juice boxes.

• 1:36:23Sean Fennessey?

  Speaking of train dreams, we were playing on a train, me and Alice and Knox, and he was, he was fired up. He was, he was the most enthusiastic man that's ever been on a train. It was like, it was Richard Gere and I'm not there. And then it was Knox. It was really something. He was super happy. We had a lot of fun. It was a great party.

• 1:36:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:42Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, okay. Now what's next?

• 1:36:44Speaker 03

  All right, this is a funny one. I don't know how we could ever even guess this, but it's funny anyway. Skylar asks, on just a quick estimate, how many times do you think you've visited the movie theater in your lifetime?

• 1:36:57Sean Fennessey?

  I wanted to keep track of this on a yearly basis.

• 1:36:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:37:00Sean Fennessey?

  Like now.

• 1:37:01Amanda Dobbins?

  All right.

• 1:37:01Sean Fennessey?

  Like how many times am I in the theater per, per that question about at-home screenings? In my lifetime.

• 1:37:10Sean Fennessey?

  A thousand?

• 1:37:12Amanda Dobbins?

  You think that's all? Well, let's just do, let's do the math. So, once a week, probably.

• 1:37:18Amanda Dobbins?

  And for the, and, and I think you can probably average it out for you, anyway, because the-

• 1:37:22Sean Fennessey?

  Probably twice a week for me at this point.

• 1:37:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, yeah, but there were some years where you weren't going every week.

• 1:37:27Sean Fennessey?

  So you want to average it to once a week?

• 1:37:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, so fifty-two times forty-two. Let's, we'll just, let's do fifty times forty, because I can do math without my head. So that's two thousand times.

• 1:37:41Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, two thousand. I've been to the movie theater two thousand times.

• 1:37:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:37:44Sean Fennessey?

  That sounds right.

• 1:37:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I've probably been closer a thousand to fifteen hundred. Right?

• 1:37:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, probably.

• 1:37:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:51Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, in the last seven years. We go to the movies a lot.

• 1:37:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:55Sean Fennessey?

  I would say it's probably ultimately more than both of our estimates, because like, I don't know, I also go to film festivals. That's five a day.

• 1:38:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:38:02Sean Fennessey?

  So, it's way up there. Um, honestly, I still love it. I was in the movie theater on Saturday and Sunday over the weekend. Saw Paddington in Peru, the I-Pic, which was great. Saw Follow That Bird.

• 1:38:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:15Sean Fennessey?

  Which was great. These are two movies that were made for like eight-year-olds. And I was having the time of my life. Just loved going to the movies. It's the best.

• 1:38:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree. I'm excited.

• 1:38:24Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, okay, what's next? How about you, Bob? How many times have you been to the movie theater?

• 1:38:28Speaker 03

  I would say I'm probably closer to like your first guess, a thousand. I do log how many times I go to the theater now, because I tag it on Letterboxd, when I see it in a theater versus when I watch it at home. And my goal last year was to go more than a hundred times, and I hit that goal. One, one-ten, hundred times, ten times the theater last year. So, I don't think I've been at that pace my whole life, though. So-

• 1:38:48Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:38:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:49Speaker 03

  There was a couple of years there where-

• 1:38:50Amanda Dobbins?

  So.

• 1:38:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So, uh, probably more like a thousand. Um, we got a lot of questions about the theater-going experience and how it's changed in the course of doing the show. Obviously, this has been a constant conversation of the show and something we get asked about a lot. But Matt wrote in to say, "I'm curious in hearing a conversation around the future of the theater-going experience. I go see movies on the big screen as much as I can and find myself thinking about what the experience will be like in five years." Both have discussed this off and on throughout the years, but it's been a while since you reflected on that.

• 1:39:22Sean Fennessey?

  I think one of the interesting outcomes of some of the brutalist conversation has is a follow up on the Oppenheimer conversation, which is a follow up on the Avatar conversation, which is that large format, unique experiences is where a lot of the both the business and the fandom is going. And so in five years, I think you won't necessarily see less movies because there are a lot of people trying to make movies to catch people's attention right now. But you'll see more eventizing around movies. And I think the studios are kind of getting hip to the kind of film bro-y thing that has happened. And not just bro-y, obviously a lot of women as well, but the cinephilia amongst young people and trying to lean into it.

• 1:40:07Sean Fennessey?

  We're seeing a lot of re-releases recently and people showing out, like the Interstellar success is

• 1:40:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:14Sean Fennessey?

  really notable. And there were a couple of versions of that last year as well. And so I think kind of just turning it like, like I've said in the past, like a little bit more like Record Store Day, you know? And the vinyl craze where you're like, this is more rare and this is like a cool thing that is more expensive, but worth it for the experience and you're doing something with people. You know, it's not quite going to Disneyland, but like the popcorn buckets and

• 1:40:38Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I mean, I

• 1:40:39Sean Fennessey?

  everything is about, you know, how it feels to be in the movie theater.

• 1:40:41Amanda Dobbins?

  We've, you know, we have compared it to amusement parks often. And we've also used the like the concert comp, but I do kind of think that that is the model for, and really just kind of how you consume music and how you make money off of music, which is, as we know, in the touring,

• 1:41:05Sean Fennessey?

  Live format.

• 1:41:06Amanda Dobbins?

  the event aspect of it. Right. And like, you know, you have the Eras Tour and now everyone's going to try to do their giant like event IMAX version of that.

• 1:41:13Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:41:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, but then there are, you know, smaller acts who you go see like, you know, at different places and you don't go as frequently.

• 1:41:24Amanda Dobbins?

  As you used to, I think, to, you know, concerts you don't go every single week, probably, which is, I mean, unless you're 27 and that's awesome for you, Bobby. Once again, congratulations on, you know, living your life. So it's rarer, but there's a range of experiences, a range of price points. You spend time with the, the art or the art around the art in one way or another before you go. Like you have to have some sort of relationship to get you to the venue. And then, yeah, like the merch and all of the, the extracurricular stuff is also part of the financial equation.

• 1:42:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's weird. Movie culture is both cheap and expensive. Like tickets are, they're getting more expensive by the year, but they're still cheap relative to a live concert. But then a lot of times, if you don't like a movie, you don't really know what you're sitting yourself down for. Part of the purpose of this show is to help you figure out what you should and shouldn't see based on what you like. And so it's still a risk. And so what you might find is what's been happening culturally across the world, which is people kind of only leaning into the things that they know they're gonna like.

• 1:42:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:34Sean Fennessey?

  And the brutalist in Oppenheimer is kind of like the MCU in that way. It's kind of like those streaming romance movies that we were talking about last week on the episode where you're like, I like this kind of thing and that's it. So a real challenge for movies is how do you get people interested in something that they don't know anything about that they might not like? That's really hard. We have way too many, not just options, but way too much personal freedom in terms of entertainment right now. So, I don't know. When you hear people doom and gloom about it, it's partially because of those things where, you know, I could literally just sit at home with a Criterion Channel until I die if I so chose. I don't, but you could and still have a great movie watching life. So it's, it's tricky. I don't, I'm not totally sure what's gonna happen to the multiplex

• 1:43:18Sean Fennessey?

  stuff. It kind of seems like a lot of that stuff has evened out. Doesn't seem like AMC and Regal and all those companies are in the same. Financial straits, although there's talk of you potentially joining me at CinemaCon.

• 1:43:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:43:31Sean Fennessey?

  And if you do join me, you're gonna hear a lot about this.

• 1:43:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 1:43:34Sean Fennessey?

  You're gonna hear a lot of

• 1:43:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:43:37Sean Fennessey?

  Exaggerated enthusiasm.

• 1:43:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:40Sean Fennessey?

  I would say for the future of theatrical.

• 1:43:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Yeah. As you know, I love to hear from movie theater owners.

• 1:43:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:43:45Amanda Dobbins?

  So.

• 1:43:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:43:48Amanda Dobbins?

  But I've never been to Vegas, so it would be a funny.

• 1:43:51Sean Fennessey?

  Gotta put a GoPro on your head for the whole trip.

• 1:43:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. Well, when do I just like get to, the GoPro would be best like me following you around playing poker at like four a.m.

• 1:44:01Sean Fennessey?

  It would be so boring.

• 1:44:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you think you could ever recover from that of?

• 1:44:04Sean Fennessey?

  It's just me listening to Illmatic quietly with my head down.

• 1:44:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I know.

• 1:44:08Sean Fennessey?

  And not making eye contact with anyone.

• 1:44:09Amanda Dobbins?

  It's like, I, I've actually never seen it. I've heard tell so many times, but I think I.

• 1:44:16Sean Fennessey?

  It's just Sean fantasy is Michael Fassbender is the killer in The Killer.

• 1:44:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Really alarmed. Yeah.

• 1:44:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:22Amanda Dobbins?

  But you know, but it's again.

• 1:44:24Sean Fennessey?

  Anything to pull $400 off the table.

• 1:44:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Yeah.

• 1:44:26Sean Fennessey?

  It's, it is, it is my hobby.

• 1:44:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Towards the kitchen island.

• 1:44:29Sean Fennessey?

  You think I should flip and make that hobby my occupation and then make, turn movies back to my hobby?

• 1:44:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. Would that be more financially advantageous?

• 1:44:36Sean Fennessey?

  Probably not, not at this point. Especially considering how weak my poker game has been the last five.

• 1:44:41Speaker 03

  I think it would be good for the pod, though. If you took like a two-year Michael Jordan style hiatus and went to play minor league baseball, but it was really just you grinding at the poker table rounder style.

• 1:44:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. You think everyone would keep listening if I was talking about all my hands? What's the, the, the only thing more boring than people talking about their fantasy team is people recounting hands that they had and they played in poker?

• 1:44:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:00Sean Fennessey?

  And.

• 1:45:00Speaker 03

  No, I think in this version.

• 1:45:02Sean Fennessey?

  Listen to that a lot.

• 1:45:03Speaker 03

  I think in this version, you, you go away for two years and someone takes over the feed with Amanda, like Chris or something. And then you come back storming through.

• 1:45:13Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I need to. No, I would need like the live, because we have to chronicle the disintegration of Sean's like mental and, and emotional.

• 1:45:23Sean Fennessey?

  I live at the win. Yeah. I move into the win full time.

• 1:45:26Speaker 03

  We could get him on the phone WFAN caller style.

• 1:45:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:29Speaker 03

  While he's live betting at the table. I think we could do that.

• 1:45:33Sean Fennessey?

  That reminds me of.

• 1:45:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And then he puts all the. Towards the DVD collection instead of, you know, his like

• 1:45:40Sean Fennessey?

  My child's scholarship.

• 1:45:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And so then it's both like, you know, it is like the unboxing videos, but also is like a Sundance drama about a dad, just like, you know,

• 1:45:51Sean Fennessey?

  Today we're unboxing my draining of my 401k.

• 1:45:58Sean Fennessey?

  We're unboxing me realizing I'm acting like Oscar Isaac in the card counter. Yeah. Okay. Let's do two more.

• 1:46:06Speaker 03

  All right. We got a question here from David, but also from many, many, many people about this exact thing. Cause I think there's a lot of new parents judging off the people who wrote into the show.

• 1:46:16Amanda Dobbins?

  God bless all of you.

• 1:46:17Speaker 03

  How exactly do you balance the podcasting, preparing for the podcasting, watching all the movies, going to the screenings, doing the interviews and everything else we don't know about, while also having families, children, partners, and giving everything equal time and attention? Or are your days just scheduled to the minute or what? I need answers.

• 1:46:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, the, the big top answer is that we have a ton of help and like, I, I mean, like, that's my answer. We have an incredible nanny. I have a partner who shares things like truly 50 50. Our kids go to a great school. Um, you know, like Bobby and Jack, like we just, we have like a lot of help, both in childcare and professional stuff, which is I think the only way that anyone gets anything done. And I really feel for all the parents in the world who don't have this kind of help. And it is, you know, is it, it should not be a privilege. It should be a right to everyone. So that, that is, that's where I am. Um, nitty gritty.

• 1:47:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, there were several months where I didn't get to watch that many movies because I was totally sleep deprived. I mean, like, I don't know what else to, you know, and I, you have a superhuman ability to not sleep. So, um, now I put the kids to bed and I try to do one movie a night. That's like kind of my goal. And if you can hit it right, where dinner is cooked and like Knox agrees to go to sleep instead of needing like three water refills and like I, you know, and I showered already, you know, because like I have to time my showering because I have to like look decent on YouTube because I, once again, I'm 40 on YouTube. So if I hit

• 1:47:59Amanda Dobbins?

  that right, I can watch a movie and then still be in bed at a decent hour. So that's one a day and then I have the privilege of being able to like schedule in either a screening or okay, I'm gonna disappear and watch this movie from this time to this this time while other people are taking care of my children. But like, that is everything that it takes. So, you know, all working parents have some version of this, that that mine is to get to watch movies is awesome. But um, I like, I feel you guys. You're doing great. All of you are doing great. It's really hard being a new parent and you're doing great.

• 1:48:39Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really know how I do it at this point.

• 1:48:42Amanda Dobbins?

  You you do like forty five things at once. Can I ask you something, actually?

• 1:48:45Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 1:48:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Because this is, um, so not this past Saturday, but this Saturday, like a week ago.

• 1:48:56Amanda Dobbins?

  You were not on a plane, but you were just like a plane Sean level, like, mode of like, communication and productivity in a nice way. It's always nice to hear from you, Sean. But from like, three to six on Saturday, you were just like, you were in the matrix. And I had the thought to myself of like, where are Eileen and Alice? Like, what's what is going on and how were you able to achieve that?

• 1:49:21Sean Fennessey?

  It was virtual Sundance. And so I had negotiated and done a lot of childcare in the previous days

• 1:49:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:28Sean Fennessey?

  to allow for as much Sundance consumption as possible. So I was very much locked in on work. And also, virtual Sundance gave me a chance to be like, thinking about work in the way that I used to, when I didn't have a kid and I worked every weekend and had millions of ideas and was super engaged in everything in a way that's just not possible when you have a family.

• 1:49:49Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, look, last Thursday, I'll just read you my schedule.

• 1:49:55Sean Fennessey?

  We had a Conversation with our, I guess, our chairman, Daniel Eck, from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m.

• 1:50:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:02Sean Fennessey?

  I drove my daughter to school from 8 to 9. Then I had a call at 9 to 9:30. Then I had a call at 9:30 to 10. Then I had a meeting at 10. And I had a meeting at 10:30. We recorded Garbage Love at 11:15. I had a call at 1. I had a call at 1:15. I had a site strategy meeting at 2. I had a check-in with Juliette at 2:30. I had a doctor's appointment at 3. Drove home at 4. I had to watch Alice because I only went out from 5 to 7:30. And then she went to bed and I watched two movies. That's what I do.

• 1:50:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:31Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I do most days. Yeah, I will have a mental breakdown. I will legitimately be institutionalized.

• 1:50:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:42Sean Fennessey?

  Because to go from 7 to 10 every day is hard. But it's more or less what I do.

• 1:50:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:50Sean Fennessey?

  Like, and so, and that's on a day where I only watch two movies.

• 1:50:54Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I was gonna say, yeah.

• 1:50:55Sean Fennessey?

  It's easier on non-record days.

• 1:50:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally.

• 1:50:58Sean Fennessey?

  But invariably, on a non-record day, I have more wringer work to do. So, and that's a day where I didn't have to travel.

• 1:51:06Sean Fennessey?

  I just had a local doctor's appointment.

• 1:51:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 1:51:09Sean Fennessey?

  But when we have screening days, it's not just driving to a screening. It's one hour in the car, one hour back.

• 1:51:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and the reality is, like, that is where I've chosen to, like, I just can't go to screenings. So if anyone who schedules screenings in Los Angeles is listening, like, since we're making this personal, like, you guys gotta do East Side. Like, we just, please, I'm begging you. It would help us so much. I can't drive to Beverly Hills because it is an hour to, like, an hour and a half to two hours.

• 1:51:32Sean Fennessey?

  It's annoying. On the flip side, you foregrounded the conversation properly. I'll, I'll, I'll end it properly.

• 1:51:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:40Sean Fennessey?

  I have the coolest job in the universe.

• 1:51:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, it's like.

• 1:51:42Sean Fennessey?

  And I'm very fortunate to have found my career in this position. And so, I'm not complaining when I say I'm gonna have a mental breakdown. I've put myself in this position. No one's forcing me to do any of this stuff. I also have a ton of help. And I think I heard Chris Berman on The Press Box say that only 15% of people in America get to work in the field that they want to and be happy, let alone do the thing that they want to. I get to hang out with you all the time and talk about my favorite thing. And we get to make a show that people listen to, which is amazing to me.

• 1:52:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:52:18Sean Fennessey?

  And I also get to work at The Ringer, which is something that I couldn't have even imagined when I was 20 or 30. So, uh, very, very lucky, but self-care is not one of my skills.

• 1:52:30Amanda Dobbins?

  No. So I was gonna say, can we, cause it, it's new parents that were asking this, Bobby?

• 1:52:36Speaker 03

  Many, many people wrote in saying they had kids under three years old.

• 1:52:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And how do you get to-

• 1:52:40Speaker 03

  And that they're mirroring their life experiences through what you guys talk about.

• 1:52:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Totally. And so I, what I would say to the parents with, with love and respect and, and deep gratitude for you is don't put the pressure on yourself that Sean puts on himself to watch, you know? Watch, if you can get one in every once in a while.

• 1:52:59Sean Fennessey?

  One a day is great. One a day is very healthy.

• 1:53:01Amanda Dobbins?

  One a day or one every, like every few days.

• 1:53:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I think that I watched several movies like over the course of a couple nights, especially when Si was like figuring his sleep out, you know?

• 1:53:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Zach and I haven't had like a date night in a long time, but we have managed to independently, like to the movies, I mean. But we have managed to independently see a few movies and then talk about them afterwards, which, you know? That's one thing that you can do.

• 1:53:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:53:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, be, be, be kind to yourself. And also if movies, if, if it's not your line of work, if movies can be just like a, a nice thing that you do for yourself.

• 1:53:42Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great hobby.

• 1:53:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Let it, let it be that hobby.

• 1:53:45Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great passion.

• 1:53:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:47Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great personal thing. It's a great entire career if you have, uh, restraint. And if you don't.

• 1:53:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:54Sean Fennessey?

  It's not. You, you, you will be a brutal boy like me. Uh, let's do one more.

• 1:54:00Speaker 03

  All right. We got one final question here from Harry. Sean and Amanda always impress me with how quickly they can articulate what they think the intent of a filmmaker is. I want to ask how you guys watch movies? Are you constantly thinking about the intent? And where did you learn the skills to decipher these ideas? How do you train the eye or ear to pull out the idea that the artist is smuggling in?

• 1:54:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I think that's giving us a lot of credit personally, but thank you. That's very nice.

• 1:54:26Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm. I think it's one part practice, one part either you see it or you don't see it. I mean, I very vividly remember being in English class and reading novels and participating, cause I love to hear the sound of my own voice, obviously. And thinking I understood.

• 1:54:41Sean Fennessey?

  Where a story, what a story meant, or where a writer was going with something. I was always interested in theme and subtext.

• 1:54:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:54:49Sean Fennessey?

  And so it's natural when you get really invested in movies and you start thinking about things on these continuums of experience that the way that everything's all connected to each other and why are they connected to each other and what movies has one filmmaker seen and, you know, it's not a game so much, but it kind of, it just deepens your experience of watching the movies. But, you know, you, you're a classics major and you read all the time.

• 1:55:12Amanda Dobbins?

  You know.

• 1:55:12Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like they're, they're connected.

• 1:55:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. I guess some of it is not even the work of criticism, but just when you are, how you consume art and do you enjoy consuming art and what do you look for and respond to in it and why are you like watching or reading or looking at, at what you're looking at? And so I guess that is sort of at some point what we respond to and when we're talking about it, when we're talking about the themes of the movie, it's because that is like, is what we took away from it the same way that if you like look at a painting and you like really like the, the color of blue that they figured out. And, and that speaks to you in some way.

• 1:55:59Amanda Dobbins?

  In terms of intent, I mean, you know, sometimes I think that, who knows if we're right, you know, because we, we are not in a filmmaker's brain.

• 1:56:09Sean Fennessey?

  It's almost never confirmed.

• 1:56:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's, it's never confirmed.

• 1:56:11Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sure we're wrong 80% of the time.

• 1:56:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And also like maybe we rely too much on it because I think we're interested in filmmakers as well. We think that they are cool people and so, and, and to make a film is to us like an incredible artistic achievement and, you know, also a feat of organizing and diplomacy and like, and, and financial manipulation and many other things. So I don't know if we're always right and I don't know if we're always. If that's how they want the movie, even if like their intent is their intent, you know?

• 1:56:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Or the intent for the film. But I guess, I think it's just how we respond to it. And we respond to it by, the, the way that we've learned that is just by watching a lot of movies. And I guess like we had some formal journalism training as well.

• 1:57:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:57:09Amanda Dobbins?

  That, that it does affect how we think about, like, we were magazine babies. The last magazine babies. And so we definitely bring that, but um, yeah.

• 1:57:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, I edited lots and lots of criticism over the years. So that's part of it. I think the other thing too, is that for me at this stage of my life, intent engenders sympathy and, or empathy. And maybe that's not the right thing if you are a hardline, ink stained wretch film critic. But I'm interested in what artists are thinking and what they want to achieve. Like I, it's just something I've always been interested in. I'm increasingly interested in is as I get older, I'm way less worried about like, here's why this sucks. It's just not, it's actually not, I don't find it to be a very like rewarding use of my time and where I want my head to be when I'm spending all this time on movies. So it's a very personal thing, but when you start thinking about what someone was trying to accomplish,

• 1:58:04Sean Fennessey?

  it gives you a sense of like, if they did air, why or how they aired more clearly to me. It's part of the reason why I like doing the filmmaker interviews is because sometimes they'll just say, this is what I wanted this to be. Or I wanted to do something formally this way. I wanted to use this tool or I wanted to work with this actor. And then you better understand what they were going for and then you can better understand the movie. So it's basically understand, because I obviously have said many times, like, understand myself through understanding the movies. And most artists are putting so much of themselves. Most directors are putting huge parts of their lives into these movies. There's that hilarious James Lipton quote where he talks about. His parents and like how they are representative as characters in his movies.

• 1:58:48Sean Fennessey?

  And Steven Spielberg is like sitting there dumbfounded by the insight that James Lytton has discovered into his life. Based on this one question on Inside the Actor's Studio. And it's like, these people are doing it consciously, they're doing it subconsciously. So I think actually to kind of seek and search for those things has real value in movie enjoyment. So whether we're good at it or not.

• 1:59:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I don't really know.

• 1:59:12Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I'm sure movie to movie, who the fuck knows, right?

• 1:59:15Amanda Dobbins?

  We're doing our best.

• 1:59:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we're doing our best. Um, we did our best today. Bob, you did your best. Uh, you found a lot of questions. Well, thank you for that.

• 1:59:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Bobby, are you in fact still 27?

• 1:59:26Sean Fennessey?

  Bob's 28.

• 1:59:26Speaker 03

  I'm 28, have been, almost 29. Yeah, coming up, coming up in a month and a half.

• 1:59:31Amanda Dobbins?

  You're 27 forever in, in my heart, you know?

• 1:59:34Speaker 03

  That's great. I'd love to stay 27 forever in your heart and in real life. Yeah.

• 1:59:39Sean Fennessey?

  I would take your 27 year old physique. Maybe not that mind, though. There's so much to learn.

• 1:59:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Did we get any questions about protein, uh, flexibility, straight? No, no one's coming to us for that kind of insight yet?

• 1:59:54Speaker 03

  There's a very real possibility that we got about 400 of them in the next 600 emails that I haven't had the time to read yet. So I'm going to go through them, I'm going to sort through.

• 2:00:01Amanda Dobbins?

  You and I, you and I are really exploring new frontiers. And you've been very supportive in all of my journey and I, and I want to thank you for that as well, as well as for being 28 and working hard.

• 2:00:13Speaker 03

  Yes, it, it makes me happy to see people committing, doubling down on protein flexibility and extending our musculoskeletal forms, corporeal forms. That's, that's what drives me here at The Big Picture Incorporated.

• 2:00:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I just remembered that if I won the big bet, that maybe I was going to have you do a podcast with the weights.

• 2:00:33Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 2:00:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And I should really explore that, you know? Cause it's on the table now.

• 2:00:39Sean Fennessey?

  But what's going to happen? I'll do it for 30 seconds and then it will be over? I'll have to put them down?

• 2:00:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but that's, I mean, that's a good Instagram clip. That's like, sometimes all you need in life, you know, is like one good reel.

• 2:00:50Sean Fennessey?

  So true. Sometimes all you need in life is one good reel. That's what many filmmakers have been saying for 120 years in this country. Uh, thanks to Jack Sanders. Thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on this episode. What are we doing later this week? What do we have?

• 2:01:05Amanda Dobbins?

  What are we doing later this week? We're recording a lot of things.

• 2:01:08Sean Fennessey?

  We are.

• 2:01:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, next, this, oh, Paddington in Peru. I'm taking knocks.

• 2:01:11Sean Fennessey?

  Paddington in Peru, yeah.

• 2:01:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And, uh, and also Bridget Jones, Mad About the Boy.

• 2:01:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but isn't that, um, Monday's episode?

• 2:01:18Speaker 03

  That's, that's next week. Yeah, that's next week. We have a conversation about Captain America.

• 2:01:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, God, I totally forgot that I have to go see that tomorrow night.

• 2:01:27Sean Fennessey?

  Red Hulk. Red Hulk. Like, I'm seeing Mickey 17 today.

• 2:01:34Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, sometimes it's just like you could hit forward on the email.

• 2:01:38Sean Fennessey?

  It's, uh, it's for editorial purposes, so.

• 2:01:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay. All right.

• 2:01:42Sean Fennessey?

  Very excited.

• 2:01:43Amanda Dobbins?

  That's great.

• 2:01:44Sean Fennessey?

  Captain America Brave New World. My heart is open. I'd like to enjoy it.

• 2:01:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess, sure, my heart's open, too.

• 2:01:51Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Red Hulk and.

• 2:01:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I, that reminds me that I gotta see, what's the one that's like the, you know, the conversation or whatever? You're just like, oh, 70s, amazing.

• 2:02:00Sean Fennessey?

  I believe they used that to sell Captain America Winter Soldier.

• 2:02:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I gotta see that one.

• 2:02:04Sean Fennessey?

  That's it. Which is a perfectly fine film, but does not resemble Three Days of the Condor in any way.

• 2:02:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:02:09Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, nor does it resemble All the President's Men.

• 2:02:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:02:12Sean Fennessey?

  Or Klute, or any of the other movies that were cited as inspirations for it.

• 2:02:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:02:17Sean Fennessey?

  But it's, it's.

• 2:02:17Speaker 03

  I watched it and I thought it was a dead ringer for Parallax View, though.

• 2:02:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's, it's not, not, not quite in that zone. Those guys should not talk about, they should not compare their work to Antonioni or any of the other cinema masters. They should say, we've made a cool Marvel movie. I hope you like it.

• 2:02:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:02:34Sean Fennessey?

  I would be good with that, personally.

• 2:02:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so Captain America.

• 2:02:38Sean Fennessey?

  Brave New World.

• 2:02:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:02:40Sean Fennessey?

  Which is, of course, this is an adaptation of the Algeus Hudson novel, which I'm really excited about. One of my favorite, uh, works of.

• 2:02:45Amanda Dobbins?

  They turn into like.

• 2:02:46Sean Fennessey?

  Mid-century sci-fi.

• 2:02:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Goo, right?

• 2:02:48Sean Fennessey?

  They turn into goo?

• 2:02:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Don't they turn the humans into goo that, what, what am I thinking of?

• 2:02:53Sean Fennessey?

  I think of the substance.

• 2:02:55Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, no.

• 2:02:57Speaker 03

  What's happening here? We were so close to being wrapped. Sean did the outro already.

• 2:03:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Then he asked me, what's next?

• 2:03:05Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 2:03:06Amanda Dobbins?

  There's not like, isn't there some sort of substance in Brave New World? Or am I thinking of a different book that they made you read in elementary school?

• 2:03:14Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, isn't Brave New World soma?

• 2:03:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:16Sean Fennessey?

  Soma is the, you know, the narcotizing.

• 2:03:19Amanda Dobbins?

  There we see, there we go.

• 2:03:20Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's not a goo. I think it's more of a pill, right?

• 2:03:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 2:03:23Speaker 03

  Happiness producing drug. Yes.

• 2:03:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:03:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's a, it's kind of precursor to antidepressants. I think it's the intention there. So it's sort of like.

• 2:03:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:03:31Sean Fennessey?

  Defuses.

• 2:03:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:03:33Sean Fennessey?

  The impulses that would make you want to be free.

• 2:03:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:03:36Sean Fennessey?

  Again, the, you know, English student in ninth grade, you can imagine me reading Brave New World, having consumed lots of science fiction and being like, sir, sir, I have some thoughts on Huxley's thoughts. We'll have some more thoughts on Brave New World later this week. See you then.