We’re So Back for Good: ‘Backrooms’ and ‘Obsession’ Mania and 10 Movies We Missed!

Movies are so back! Sean and Amanda break down the remarkable success of 'Obsession' and 'Backrooms' and discuss the larger phenomenon currently unfolding in Hollywood (3:00). Then, they revisit their predictions in the Summer Movie Preview Game, examining where they were surprisingly spot-on and where they missed the mark entirely (33:00). Next, they catch up on 10 new releases they missed while traveling last month (39:45). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh, Sarah Reddy and Jamie Yukich 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.

• 0:15Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Finacy. I'm Amanda Diven. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the movies we missed in May. And man, we are so back. What we saw at the box office this weekend is nothing short of extraordinary. We will break down the remarkable sensations of obsession in backrooms. Amanda and I will also dig into 10 new movie releases that we overlooked while we were traveling last month. The movies are having a crazy return to relevance, but we don't want quality work slipping through the cracks, so we've got some recommendations for you today. But first, let's talk about what the whole movie world is talking about, right after this.

• 0:48Speaker 01

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• 1:48Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime.

• 2:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I take issue with return to relevance.

• 2:16Sean Fennessey?

  Well.

• 2:17Amanda Dobbins?

  To the rest of you.

• 2:18Sean Fennessey?

  From our perspective.

• 2:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:19Sean Fennessey?

  We never left.

• 2:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly.

• 2:21Sean Fennessey?

  But, well, that's not true. I have really waxed and waned over the years. I've had some real doubts post-COVID.

• 2:28Amanda Dobbins?

  You never left, but your emotions went up and down.

• 2:30Sean Fennessey?

  They did, they did, they did. I, as I've said recently, in 2024, after Furiosa did not perform well, I changed my mentality. I wasn't going to be doing this emotional roller coaster, but it's hard to not overreact to what's going on. And you know, this is, this is also amplified by a couple of other things. The New York Knicks are in the NBA Finals.

• 2:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. When does that start?

• 2:49Sean Fennessey?

  For the first time in 27 years, starts Tuesday. And that's, I don't know what to do with myself. I'm trying to not, no, not Tuesday. It starts Wednesday. I better get that date right. Right? Wednesday, Lucas, help me out.

• 3:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Why don't you have everything? You've not put them in the calendar, like in the family calendar?

• 3:06Sean Fennessey?

  I do actually have them in the calendar. I have and I did, yes. I have no screenings planned for any of the nights of any of the potentially seven games.

• 3:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 3:14Sean Fennessey?

  I would say I'm nervous. I fear Wemby. Are you familiar with Victor Wembanyama?

• 3:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, very tall and also something about the burden of carrying his emotions or anxiety around and that's other people. I saw half the quote.

• 3:27Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I don't, I don't know what you're referring to.

• 3:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know, he seems like a very evolved young man.

• 3:30Sean Fennessey?

  He, he is, and he's very young and he's very tall and he's very gifted. The Knicks did take two of three games from the Spurs this year.

• 3:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 3:37Sean Fennessey?

  So, anything can happen.

• 3:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 3:39Sean Fennessey?

  And if it does happen, this will be also a June for the ages, after a May for the ages. The other thing, of course, is that Steven Spielberg was on the rewatchables this week. And I would encourage people to check that out. We talked about 2001, A Space Odyssey, just one of the great times of my life.

• 3:54Amanda Dobbins?

  The Christmas card this year is just, it's coming together. It's really, really going to be beautiful, front and back.

• 4:01Sean Fennessey?

  Who's, who's, who's left? I mean, who are we going to pose with next? Really, honestly. Just a very, very special conversation.

• 4:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:10Sean Fennessey?

  And just letting Spielberg just extended vamp about that film for a long period of time was really cool. But for all those things to be happening alongside this thing that is happening with

• 4:21Amanda Dobbins?

  For sure.

• 4:22Sean Fennessey?

  With the movies, you know, for our purposes here is just genuinely thrilling. Now, when we recorded on Thursday, the conversation about Backrooms, we knew that the movie was going to be a big success and that it was going to far outpace the $20 million projected opening weekend.

• 4:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:38Sean Fennessey?

  I know you probably don't spend a lot of free time thinking about this, but were you thinking like this could happen, that obsession would go up again in its box office performance, that, you know, The Mandalorian and Grogu would come in third place this weekend, signaling at least, I don't know, metaphorically, a kind of shift in the movie culture?

• 4:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, yes, because in the Barbenheimer way, this narrative took on a life of its own. And so I think people became aware, even if they weren't like pre-ordering tickets for Backrooms, even if they haven't watched everything on YouTube, even if they're not 20 and like familiar with Curry Barker's, you know, internet work, they're aware that like something's going on and it's not Mandalorian and Grogu.

• 5:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 5:24Amanda Dobbins?

  And so it became the center of culture, right? And people who pay attention to like, ooh, what's the, what's the big thing, started looking in. And so it sort of has a self fulfilling prophecy. So, yeah, by Thursday, you could feel like, oh, this is, this is a phenomenon.

• 5:42Sean Fennessey?

  It definitely felt that way.

• 5:43Amanda Dobbins?

  And people like a phenomenon.

• 5:45Sean Fennessey?

  They do. And that's the thing is that there's, obsession is obviously a huge word of mouth hit.

• 5:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:50Sean Fennessey?

  Backrooms is a kind of internet discussion point hit. Mandalorian and Grogu is a heavily marketed Star Wars movie. So, you know, even though that movie is, I would say relatively underperforming at this point, it's still, it's still a big thing. And we were in a movie theater on Friday. We saw two movies on Friday in movie theaters. And when we walked in, it was, I would say, not very crowded. But by the time we walked out at the beginning of the afternoon, the lobby was buzzing.

• 6:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 6:12Sean Fennessey?

  And there's clearly something going on. Later that day on Friday, I was out with my family and my daughter and one of her friends and her friend's dad. And we probably talked about movies for an hour and a half. Now, obviously, part of that is because people are talking to me and they're like, this guy likes movies. But also, there's just- Something's, something's happening.

• 6:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I went out to dinner on Saturday night with friends I hadn't seen since college. And again, we were like talking about movies, but neither of them had seen obsessions in backrooms, but they both had opinions on which ones they wanted to see and why.

• 6:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 6:41Amanda Dobbins?

  And then I was in the position of being like, no, no, no, obsession's not that scary to all of the, the people at the other end of the table. But it's not.

• 6:49Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I would say, I would say to your normie, non-horror fan, you've been in your, to the experience.

• 6:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess so. I think that there are just, there are different shades and different flavors. And it's not Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's a little bit gross out and I think pretty funny. Now, you know, if you think emotions or emotional unavailability are scary, then I suppose it is a real nightmare. But for me, I was just like, I think this is insightful.

• 7:15Sean Fennessey?

  I'll tell you what I thought was really scary in that movie.

• 7:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:18Sean Fennessey?

  Early in the possession. When Nikki wakes up in the middle of the night.

• 7:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:24Sean Fennessey?

  And is just watching Bear. And then when she's in the, in the distance, in the corner of the room and watching Bear, that was actually scary to me. That was actually, you know, I wasn't like crying or anything, but I, I felt a kind of discomfort. And that had nothing to do with gross out, it didn't have anything to do with violence. It was more just that, that actress transformed me.

• 7:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Let's drill down a little. So does that make you afraid because you think that's going to happen in your own life?

• 7:49Sean Fennessey?

  No, well, I'm a married 43-year-old man, so no.

• 7:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know what Eileen is up to. I guess Eileen's a light sleeper.

• 7:56Sean Fennessey?

  She is a light sleeper. I would say staring at me, not something she's interested in these days. I think more specifically, there's something about being watched that is, that is very unnerving, especially if you're being watched by someone who's dangerous. And we don't really know what's happening with that person. And that's something you can experience in any walk of life. You know, you're just walking down the street and you encounter somebody who's clearly doesn't have it all together. That's a bit of an intense feeling. That's a scary feeling. So like, to me, the movie isn't, it does have some of those core horror strategies, but. I think that that's part of what is working. And now I've seen the movie go into the like, the take cycle, you know, where it's like, actually, it's misogynistic. Actually, it's this. And I'm like, I, I think when a movie gets that this big and this popular,

• 8:39Sean Fennessey?

  it tends to refract in a lot of directions. Before we get into any of that, I just want to put some of the numbers on the board for what happened this weekend because of how crazy it actually is. So Backrooms, which is in its first weekend of release, made $81.4 million domestic in three days. That is the highest grossing opening weekend in A24 history. It's almost, I think, in more than tripled Civil War. It already outgrossed Everything Everywhere All at Once in three days, which was, you know, kind of a landmark movie for that studio. On opening night, it made $36.4 million.

• 9:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 9:13Sean Fennessey?

  That's like Marvel movie shit. I mean, that's like, pretty crazy.

• 9:17Amanda Dobbins?

  A lot of people had the date circled on the calendar. And by people, I mean, young fans.

• 9:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 9:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Who are aware. And I pre-ordered their tickets.

• 9:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 9:27Amanda Dobbins?

  And good for them, you know?

• 9:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 9:29Amanda Dobbins?

  They deserve a night at the movies. They deserve to learn the magic of a night at the movies.

• 9:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I did. I saw plenty of reports on social media about very bad behavior in the movie theater during this movie.

• 9:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, say more.

• 9:39Sean Fennessey?

  Um, well, just that there were a lot of people, young people, talking and kind of talking through the lore and talking through what it meant and people having their phones out during the screenings. We didn't experience that. We went to a screening of the movie. I do like to see movies like this with people. You may recall my Minecraft experience last year. Just to kind of get a sense of what it's like. And I think I can push back against my own enthusiasm by saying, you know, maybe this Backrooms thing in particular is a kind of unreplicable one-off.

• 10:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Sean Fennessey?

  Because of the huge amount of people that are, were already interested in this, this IP that pre-existed. And then the movie, over the course of the weekend, went down. It went down on Saturday in terms of box office. It went down on Sunday in terms of box office.

• 10:20Amanda Dobbins?

  What do you make of the B minus cinema score?

• 10:23Sean Fennessey?

  I think for any horror movie, cinema scores are usually a little bit lower.

• 10:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but this is, you know, Obsession has an A. This is a movie with like a very, very passionate fan base and with expectations of lore. And I was thinking a lot about Chris's, you know, honorary nieces.

• 10:41Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Who knew everything about Backrooms and were kind of worried that Backrooms, the movie, would not honor their culture.

• 10:48Sean Fennessey?

  I think some people feel that way. I think some people feel like there's, and as we talked about in last week's episode, The more the movie tries to movie, the less successful it is.

• 10:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 10:58Sean Fennessey?

  And the more it backrooms, the more interesting it is. And I think most people are feeling that way, even those people who come to it without any experience, that there's something kind of singular about what he's capturing when he's inside of the experience of the idea. And then trying to build narrative around it doesn't totally work as well. And so I noted this morning that it has a 3.4 on Letterboxd. It's pretty low. Now, it's been viewed, like, I think, half a million times already. It's been logged on the app.

• 11:25Amanda Dobbins?

  OK.

• 11:26Sean Fennessey?

  Which in like, three days is just absolutely bonkers. Obsession, by contrast, has a 4.2 on Letterboxd and has also been logged, I think, in a somewhat similar vicinity. That movie made, actually, $27.5 million this weekend. It went up again on its third weekend of release. And this is the first film outside of the Christmas window since 1982's E.T., perhaps you've heard of it, to have second and third weekends bigger than the first. This is crazy.

• 11:55Amanda Dobbins?

  It's wonderful. Obsession, it's good.

• 11:58Sean Fennessey?

  It is good, but a lot of movies are good.

• 12:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, and it's interesting, the word of mouth actually leading to people going to the theater rather than earmarking it and being like, "Sure, I'll check it out when it becomes more available." Which I do think is aided by backrooms and the pre-sales and this kind of "we're going to the theater" moment, like, especially for horror movies. You're not gonna wait. But it is, no, it's wild and cool. And I'm glad that it's happening to a fun movie.

• 12:30Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. So it's made 105 million domestic now, 150 million worldwide. Seems like it could legitimately be a $300 million movie. This movie was made for $750,000. So it's gonna end up becoming one of the most profitable movies of all time. I think the real comp here in terms of how successful it is is weapons and that there are a lot, this kind of a movie now, if you can get, if you can create a story with a hook like this, with a couple of performances that are kind of unforgettable.

• 12:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 12:58Sean Fennessey?

  And you can build that word of mouth, and that's how you can find the success in this kind of a story. Looking at the films together. Do they feel like a Barbenheimer-style blip? Do they feel like something that will be heavily exploited and wrung out quickly? Do they feel like a guide path to a new era of movie going? Like, I'm genuinely curious what you think the impact of this is going to be.

• 13:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it has already, you know, been discussed and exploited, at least in a media sense. It was wonderful to watch everyone rushing out their think pieces over the weekend. Everybody who is even the tiniest bit related to either of these is hitting that media tour. And, you know, good, you picked a good one.

• 13:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 13:43Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess that's what you do in Hollywood, you take the credit. So.

• 13:47Sean Fennessey?

  So much credit claiming.

• 13:48Amanda Dobbins?

  So much credit claiming.

• 13:49Sean Fennessey?

  So many people who were not participating in the production of these movies, who didn't take the chance on these movies beforehand.

• 13:55Amanda Dobbins?

  But we see all of you. So that's, that's fine. And that's how certainly the, the trade industry works in this, in this town. But no, I think it will be a thing that is studied. And I do think it will become sort of a shorthand, like Barbenheimer was, for a certain type of, you know, theatrical event-going movie experience. And we talk more and more about how going to theaters is like an event, you know, activity now. And Barbenheimer has been the prime example. Like, this is another one. It's a different audience, different types of creators. It's not, you know, huge studio-led IP, multi-billion-dollar, you know,

• 14:37Amanda Dobbins?

  international press tours, but there is a formula for both of these.

• 14:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 14:42Amanda Dobbins?

  That people will certainly try to recreate and probably not as successfully. And I don't think that, you know, we always talk about like, what will the lessons learned be? And will the studios learn the right lessons?

• 14:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:54Amanda Dobbins?

  And, you know, probably not, but also it's not just about learning lessons. It's that phenomenons like this are sort of, are not replicable, you know?

• 15:05Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 15:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And that is part of, part of what makes it so amazing is that like, nobody saw it coming on this level. Nobody really engineered it on this level. And you can make all of the same decisions again. And not get to this particular moment.

• 15:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 15:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Because it's just, I don't know, it's, it's one of those things.

• 15:25Sean Fennessey?

  It is one of those things. I think Backrooms was a little bit more predictable, not at this scale, but as recently as a year ago, I had people who know things say, hey.

• 15:34Amanda Dobbins?

  This is gonna be a thing.

• 15:35Sean Fennessey?

  This is gonna be a thing. Obsession is completely different. Now, Obsession did play gangbusters at Toronto.

• 15:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 15:41Sean Fennessey?

  And it was acquired for $15 million by Focus. So it's, it's not like it was, it's not like nobody knew it had potential, but the fact that it is doing it opposite The Mandalorian and Grogu, which dropped 70% in, after two weeks, it's at $250 million right now, box office, probably gonna settle like between 350 and 400. I don't even remember what we picked for some movie preview game. We can talk a little bit about some of the things we got right and wrong there. But even Solo, which is the, the biggest bomb really of the Star Wars history, got to 393 seven years ago, eight years ago. And apparently it's losing IMAX screens to Masters of the Universe this weekend.

• 16:19Amanda Dobbins?

  First of all, congratulations to you.

• 16:20Sean Fennessey?

  I'm very excited. And you know what? The early reviews are very positive about Masters of the Universe.

• 16:24Amanda Dobbins?

  That's great.

• 16:25Sean Fennessey?

  And I'm seeing it tonight.

• 16:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm excited for you.

• 16:27Sean Fennessey?

  It's all coming up me. I agree with you that I don't think it's gonna like radically change things. I do think that when we talk about how the studios will react, we tend to just think of them as like faceless corporate morons, right? That's the, that's the perception of the people. Most of the people that I know who work in the kind of like middle class of movie executive.

• 16:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:50Sean Fennessey?

  Love when shit like this happens. They cheer. They're super excited. The, the problem with their jobs is they bring stuff like this to their bosses all the time and their bosses tell them no. And so it's like, it's more like, will this wake the bosses up? Will this wake the sort of like, the actual corporate overlords, the sort of like larger corporations that own these companies?

• 17:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 17:09Sean Fennessey?

  That employ people who like movies, who get into the movie business to make movies, and then to get them off of the IV drip of only trying to make four quadrant, 250 million dollar movies that could potentially make two billion, but probably won't. That, to me, that is the issue. The issue is like, you, the whole strategy can't be maximize every single movie. If that's what you try to do, you're gonna miss. Like, you're gonna miss and it's gonna be more costly than. Finding 10 curry barkers and trying and being like, oh, we lost 10 million on this one instead of we lost $1 billion on the future of Star Wars because we misplayed our hand for 10 years.

• 17:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And honestly, playing the middle because obsession is a huge, huge hit, like Focus' biggest ever.

• 17:52Sean Fennessey?

  It is, yeah.

• 17:52Amanda Dobbins?

  And Backrooms is gonna be A24's biggest movie, but you know, Backroom still made less in its first weekend than Mandalorian and Grogu did in its first weekend. They're not playing-

• 18:01Sean Fennessey?

  $200,000, but yeah.

• 18:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah, but like, but still, and I think that there is, they aren't playing for a billion dollars. They're playing for, you know, 200 million and maybe they're gonna get to 500 million, which is, but most studios and the way they are organized, which unfortunately, it's not just wake up the studio heads, it's wake up the shareholders and/or the multimedia conglomerates that are being reorganized by, you know, hedge funds and private equity on a regular basis. They are constructed to only make the billion dollar or $2 billion play.

• 18:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 18:36Amanda Dobbins?

  And it takes a long time to unwind that. And we are not seeing that unwind. We are seeing that at least on a big studio level consolidate.

• 18:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 18:46Amanda Dobbins?

  In the form of, you know, Paramount and Warner Brothers.

• 18:48Sean Fennessey?

  That's totally right. And the other thing that is starting to happen this year, and one of the reasons why the box office is up is 11%, is because, not just because there's been new movies and exciting movies and movies that people like, and also franchise movies that people still like, and there will be this summer Spider-Man, Toy Story, like, those movies are still gonna be huge.

• 19:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Guess what Amanda's seeing tonight?

• 19:06Sean Fennessey?

  What are you seeing tonight?

• 19:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Minions and Monsters, baby.

• 19:08Sean Fennessey?

  Wow. Oh, wow. That's right. Oh, so exciting for you.

• 19:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, my God, Nancy's so excited. He's been reenacting the trailer.

• 19:14Sean Fennessey?

  That's also gonna be huge.

• 19:15Amanda Dobbins?

  He's so excited.

• 19:17Sean Fennessey?

  But it's about the double whammy of the COVID and the strikes slowing down production for a long period of time. And then the lack of movies being made, and in that interim time, a lot of movies going straight to streaming. Now, one of the things I was thinking about this weekend as I was watching a movie on Netflix was, this doesn't make sense. The idea of putting a $100 million movie directly on Netflix, it never made sense to me. I wrote about this as far back as like 2017 on The Ringer.

• 19:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 19:48Sean Fennessey?

  I never understood what this was all about. TV, of course. Netflix's desire to take over television completely, and now YouTube, I fully understand it. It's a great business model. They've been killing it. Their movie strategy for 12 years, I just don't, I have no idea what they're trying to do. They're trying to win Oscars, but they're also trying to make 350 million dollar movies. And now more than ever, seeing what a movie like Backrooms can do, and also seeing what a movie like Spider-Man: Brand New Day is gonna do.

• 20:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:12Sean Fennessey?

  That, that is the whole business model. That's the only business model that makes sense. And I think it's okay, like for documentary, it makes sense for stand-up comedy, it makes sense for, I don't, maybe like even an experimental kind of thing, and of course for licensing old movies.

• 20:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 20:27Sean Fennessey?

  But that period of time, that like eight or nine year period of time, where huge movies would go direct to a streaming service, is gonna, we're gonna look back on that as a complete oddity. Like one of the strangest choices in the history of the business.

• 20:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, also, none of them are very good.

• 20:42Sean Fennessey?

  That's been a problem as well.

• 20:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I was thinking a lot this weekend.

• 20:45Sean Fennessey?

  But we're more unforgiving of those movies when they go straight to streaming. That's the thing, is they immediately got kind of like tainted. They were like, oh, that's a streaming movie. That doesn't, that's not as special.

• 20:52Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it didn't help that they all looked like streaming movies, and they were all edited and scripted and put together aesthetically to, according to like streaming markers of how a movie should play, pacing, you know.

• 21:05Sean Fennessey?

  But, but Anyone But You did that. Chris talked about this last week. And they put it in theaters and it made 300 million dollars, right? So it's like, you can change your perspective if you just put a movie in a movie theater and see it with a crowd on a big screen. If you just put it on your TV, it's like, it feels less than.

• 21:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, Though Anyone But You also just became a TikTok sensation, and that's how it got people to the theaters, which that happens for, you know, Gentle Minions and One Out of Every 12 meetings, that, movies that help, that happens for Megan 1, but not Megan 2, you know?

• 21:32Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right.

• 21:33Amanda Dobbins?

  So sometimes, sometimes I do think that it's, we can tell when a streaming movie is made for streaming because it is made in a, in a different way.

• 21:41Sean Fennessey?

  That's true.

• 21:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I was thinking a lot about Stranger Things this weekend, in terms of Backrooms, and just, and really feeling at a, at a distance from. You know, a young person phenomenon, you know, just like a very, something that kind of hit instantly, well-made, plays on nostalgia, you know, separate worlds and clearly speaks to, to young people in a way that we're all trying to like, keep up with and be like, yeah, like, isn't that cool?

• 22:12Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 22:13Amanda Dobbins?

  But, and that was on Netflix, but that of course was a TV show. And there is just something about the basic building blocks of they have figured out how to make things in a, in a longer and stretchier and more immersive way at home, but it does not fit for movies. It just doesn't.

• 22:29Sean Fennessey?

  It, it really has never, it doesn't mean that there haven't been successful Netflix movies, there have been plenty of them. It's just they don't feel as baked into the long-term culture because of the way that we receive them and, and because a lot of them just aren't very good. And, you know, we see this year, Amazon is now putting all their movies in, in movie theaters and it's working, you know, Project Hail Mary, we'll talk about the sheet detectives. These movies are doing well. Masters of the Universe, we'll see, but nevertheless, they're trying. So I'm very curious to kind of chart in the aftermath of Cliff Booth and Narnia, what they end up doing, because it, it feels like they're on the outside looking in of something that is changing again in the culture. And it, this is maybe not a permanent shift. These things are always evolve and maybe the back rooms obsession thing will be over in three months and we'll never think about it again. That's in play. It might, we might just have a really bad second half of the movie here.

• 23:13Sean Fennessey?

  We don't really know, but I don't think so. And I, I do think that teenagers are switched on to going to the movies right now. You can tell based on all the market research and you can also tell just by going to movie theaters. That's the other thing I wanted to say is, we talk about this stuff all the time on the show. I think about it all the time. It's become a weird obsession of mine to chart this over the course of history. But I'm in movie theaters all the time and I also talk to people who make movies. Most box office analysts only talk to executives. You can't listen to those people. They don't know what they're talking about. They're only listening to what people who are financially motivated and are using their previous experience are telling them to talk about. You have to talk to real people who go see movies all the time. Cause that's actually what indicates where things are going to go ultimately. So it doesn't mean that we're without flaw in how we analyze it. I make mistakes all the time.

• 23:58Sean Fennessey?

  We can talk about our preview game, we fucked up a million things.

• 24:01Amanda Dobbins?

  A thousand percent.

• 24:02Sean Fennessey?

  However, you can, you can frequently tell when something is shifting, when you're in the space with people.

• 24:09Sean Fennessey?

  I was thinking about one other thing, too, which is like the young person component of this, making the movies, how Kane is 20, about to be 21, and Curry is 26.

• 24:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 24:20Sean Fennessey?

  And I was trying to think of who's the youngest person who ever made a movie for Disney? And the youngest I could think of was Domei Shi for Turning Red, which was just a few years ago. She was 33 when she made that movie. And I don't want to pick on Disney, but like it's about-

• 24:34Amanda Dobbins?

  When she, when it came out, when she started it, when she-

• 24:38Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. I would imagine she was probably in her late 20s when she started.

• 24:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, which is significant.

• 24:42Sean Fennessey?

  It is. I think those movies go through the like, long life cycles, too. So maybe it like, as she got to the point of it-

• 24:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I wasn't trying to age shame her. I was just trying to point out that those take a process and also the difference between, you know, 27 and 33, a lot changes.

• 24:55Sean Fennessey?

  It's very true. Saturn Return.

• 24:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, kids, it's gonna be okay.

• 24:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you guys will be fine.

• 24:59Amanda Dobbins?

  You guys got it.

• 25:00Sean Fennessey?

  So Kyle Buchanan noted in his profile of Kane that Josh Trank, who made Chronicle at 27 years old, was the previous youngest person to have a number one movie in America. Obviously Kane shattered that. I'm not, I'm not sure that we need to like, let every 20-something make a movie, but there is something also interesting about how will older executives, heads of production, even movie stars, open their mind to working with younger people? I, it's yet to be seen.

• 25:30Amanda Dobbins?

  How old was PTA when he made Boogie Nights?

• 25:33Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 25:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Definitely 20s, right?

• 25:34Sean Fennessey?

  27, 28.

• 25:35Amanda Dobbins?

  How old is your close, personal friend Spielberg when he started, you know?

• 25:39Sean Fennessey?

  He was famously very young.

• 25:41Amanda Dobbins?

  They're famously over time.

• 25:42Sean Fennessey?

  He lied. I think he lied about his age to get out of the studio lot, yeah.

• 25:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Lots of young people, and then there are the older people, like us, who are trying to hang and maybe not totally getting it and also trying not to be too embarrassing about it, you know? Like, I can't-

• 25:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 25:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I'm, I'm too old to be like, yes, I'm in the back rooms, you know? Like, I just, it's embarrassing for everyone.

• 26:05Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I just think if, if you're enthusiastic about this stuff, then it doesn't matter how old you are.

• 26:09Amanda Dobbins?

  But historically, there have been people- Who make movies and are willing to make movies, who will be, who will hang out with young people.

• 26:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you just cited like two absolute comets in the history of the movie business.

• 26:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 26:22Sean Fennessey?

  No disrespect to Curry Barker. I don't know if he's going to become Paul Thomas Anderson. He might, he might. But usually when this happens, it kind of augurs a really big change. It is the new Hollywood. It is the 90s Sundance auteurs arriving on the scene. This could be that. This could just be leveraging online fandom and a genre that is very applicable to the moment. But it's just interesting that there's not a lot of studio examples of people getting a chance to do this. It has to be more of a renegade thing. And you're right.

• 26:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Ryan Coogler's not 40 yet, right? Oh, he just turned 40.

• 26:57Sean Fennessey?

  Or maybe he just turned 40.

• 26:58Amanda Dobbins?

  May 23rd. Happy birthday, Ryan Coogler.

• 27:00Sean Fennessey?

  I think he was 28 when, or 27 when he made Fruitvale 2. Yeah.

• 27:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 27:03Sean Fennessey?

  Again, more along the lines of this.

• 27:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And Creed, he would have been much younger, so.

• 27:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. He was, I think, 30 or 31 when he made Creed.

• 27:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm just saying.

• 27:12Sean Fennessey?

  You've named three of the most amazing filmmakers in the last 100 years.

• 27:17Sean Fennessey?

  Like, part of the reason why they are who they are.

• 27:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I think this is another thing also to keep in mind and to like have some respect for both Kate Parsons and Curry Barker. Not everyone is going to be a genius, right? And we know that studios and producers and everyone who has any money to spend is going to be like hunting on YouTube or hunting on TikTok for the next great like Zoomer sensation.

• 27:39Sean Fennessey?

  They will.

• 27:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and many of those people are talented, but not everybody is going to be really great. And so I think to just reduce it to the age is unfair, you know?

• 27:50Sean Fennessey?

  I hear you.

• 27:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I also, I'm also just like, don't think that the next person you watch on YouTube is going to be a star. Like, it takes more than that.

• 27:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 27:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 27:57Sean Fennessey?

  Is that why we're not on YouTube anymore?

• 28:01Sean Fennessey?

  Couple of other things about this. I've given this quite a bit of thought. Just a pure horror movie culture moment. There's something very exciting as somebody who's spent his entire life obsessing over the genre, for it to be at the absolute center of movie culture. And this has been the case for about 10 years, I would say. It's been about a 10-year stretch where we had the quote unquote elevated horror moment, and that dovetailed into a kind of mass consumption moment. And I think that those two things are very connected. And a lot of it was kicked off by Studios like Neon and 824 taking chances on younger, more inexperienced filmmakers who hadn't done stuff before. I don't think this moment is necessarily like a problem for Universal. They have Blumhouse. It's not a problem for Warner Brothers. They have New Line.

• 28:45Sean Fennessey?

  I am really interested to see if like Disney or Sony or Paramount or Lionsgate or especially Apple and Amazon like start to care about this because it's a genre that most of those studios don't have not spent a lot of time on. Sony has, of course, with Screen Gems and some other things that they've done over the years, but Disney doesn't really make horror movies. They don't really make scary stuff at all. They have in the past, but not really very often. Paramount, it's kind of come and gone. They did make Smile, which is a really important movie to this moment. What does an Apple horror movie look like? I don't know. Widows Bay, their TV show, is fucking awesome. It's like one of the best horror things that's come out in the last 10 years. So I'm curious about that. And ironically, Neon and 824 are like maybe not as at the center of this right now.

• 29:28Sean Fennessey?

  Now, obviously Backrooms isn't a 24 movie, but I don't think they have any more horror movies planned for 2026.

• 29:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you and Chris talked about this a bit on Obsession. Why are there no more horror movies in October? What's going on?

• 29:39Sean Fennessey?

  I really don't know. I mean, I'm sure some stuff will also get slated in there at this point, but it's weaker now. Resident Evil is September.

• 29:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't understand what's going on with fall box office. I don't understand.

• 29:51Sean Fennessey?

  September is in January.

• 29:52Amanda Dobbins?

  The new Q4, whatever they're all doing is not according to the rules that we have learned in the last 10 to 20 years.

• 30:02Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 30:02Amanda Dobbins?

  And I don't, I don't know what to make of it. And maybe they have better information than we do, or maybe they're only talking to executives.

• 30:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I feel like last October was kind of soft too, last year, whereas October's past have been really strong. I'm not sure. I mean, 824 does have three movies on the slate, four movies on the slate that are all really exciting. I just don't know if they're coming out this year. One is Kyle Edward Ball's new movie. That's a Skin and Marink filmmaker. Called Land of Nod. One is Panos Cosmatos is Flesh of the Gods, which is a vampire movie, I think with Kristen Stewart. Charlie Paulinger, who made The Plague, who I met at Cannes, who's a lovely guy. His new movie, Mask of the Red Death, is coming. And Arkasha Stevenson, who made the first Omen, her new movie is also with 824. So like, they're still doing that thing, obviously.

• 30:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 30:45Sean Fennessey?

  But I made a quick list of the movies that had to happen for this, this to happen.

• 30:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 30:50Sean Fennessey?

  Here's what they are.

• 30:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 30:52Sean Fennessey?

  The first one is The Witch.

• 30:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:54Sean Fennessey?

  The Robert Eggers movie.

• 30:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I remember.

• 30:56Sean Fennessey?

  Which I think was a Sundance pickup for May 24. And I think probably kicked off this era. And then in in quick succession, you get Get Out and Hereditary. And Get Out wins an Academy Award. Hereditary is a box office sensation for May 24.

• 31:10Amanda Dobbins?

  How old was Ari Aster when Hereditary came out?

• 31:13Sean Fennessey?

  I think he was in his early 30s.

• 31:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Okay, I'm just saying.

• 31:16Sean Fennessey?

  20 years old, though. I mean.

• 31:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, listen, this is what I was trying to say.

• 31:20Sean Fennessey?

  Give me a year under 25.

• 31:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Is that like Kane is and the 20 year old thing. It's just the exception. We're not, you're not gonna get another one of those. It's amazing. Congratulations to him, but like, you know.

• 31:31Sean Fennessey?

  So but so so often, it's like, I think Barbarian is a movie that I wrote down. And I think Peel and Cragger are worth citing because they had entire careers as sketch comedy performers before they started making horror movies. And then Curry, who also was making sketch comedy, but then like cut out the eight years in between. It was just like, I'm just gonna make a horror movie right away. Mentioned Smile, Terrifier, Terrifier 2. Those movies are a huge part of this. Skin and Marang, Talk to Me, the Filippo Brothers, obviously being YouTube guys as well. Five Nights at Freddy's.

• 31:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I remember that.

• 31:58Sean Fennessey?

  Is a big deal in this because that also is kind of like, you know, Gen Z, young millennial online culture. I saw the TV glow you cited when we talked about the movies. Long Legs and just just the marketing campaign of Long Legs and getting people excited about that. And then last year, the double shot of Sinners and Weapons. And then this year, earlier this year, I think we're gonna get to the end of the year. We're gonna overlook Iron Lung a little bit, the Markiplier.

• 32:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Probably not because people are already putting together their end of year YouTube packages. So I I would hope that his phone is ringing.

• 32:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 32:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Or his, how do you message on YouTube?

• 32:33Sean Fennessey?

  His might be the craziest because it wasn't distributed by a studio.

• 32:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:36Sean Fennessey?

  And it crossed $50 million. But anyway, um, May was just amazing at the movies and we went to Cannes.

• 32:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Just loved.

• 32:42Sean Fennessey?

  We, you know, we just a lot has happened. Everything's going really well.

• 32:45Amanda Dobbins?

  It was great.

• 32:46Sean Fennessey?

  Do you want to check in on the summer movie game stuff? We have one month of receipts.

• 32:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think it's going very well for me because, well, listen.

• 32:53Sean Fennessey?

  We're about even.

• 32:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Not to spoil. The greatest film of May, Pressure. But as we learn, comps do not make for good weather.

• 33:03Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:04Amanda Dobbins?

  And they do not make for good box office predictions, or maybe for business in general, which like I kinda knew. I just didn't know where else to get numbers.

• 33:11Sean Fennessey?

  I think you had some major misses, but you had some hits. And same for me.

• 33:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, and the other thing that I did was I,

• 33:20Amanda Dobbins?

  my strategy in general, based on last year, was like either really big or really small. And, you know, back rooms is a sensation. Obsession is a sensation, but they're not Minecraft and Super Mario Galaxy numbers yet. So the middle, just in terms of like actual dollar amounts, is back a little bit more. And that was just not my reading of the situation. And I was wrong. That's okay. But luckily I've seen Pressure now, so I know.

• 33:49Sean Fennessey?

  Did everybody hear that? I was wrong.

• 33:51Amanda Dobbins?

  You know what? If we went back, I challenge you honestly.

• 33:55Sean Fennessey?

  Who are you challenging?

• 33:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Lucas, anyone at home.

• 33:58Sean Fennessey?

  Lucas doesn't have time for this.

• 33:59Amanda Dobbins?

  When I am wrong, I say it proudly and cleanly on the podcast. And every time you're like, did everyone hear that? And they did, because I do it.

• 34:08Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, okay, so the game we played.

• 34:09Amanda Dobbins?

  You, on the other hand, just turn really red in the face and get so angry, even when we know that you turned to me in Las Vegas and you said, Ray is not a Skywalker.

• 34:22Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, that didn't happen.

• 34:25Sean Fennessey?

  The Summer Movie Preview Game, how did, how do we play? Quickly, the rules. Domestic box office total, we guess. Metacritic score, we guess. If your guess comes within one point, if one point, if it falls within five points of the Metacritic prediction, five points if it's exactly right. One point if it's within $50 million of the box office prediction. Five points within 10 million. 10 points within 5 million. 20 points for an exact correct guess. Devil Wears Prada. Is, I don't think, I think it's the, it's not set, settled yet.

• 34:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 34:56Sean Fennessey?

  So, this is interesting. So you guessed 210 million for the box office. I guessed 184.

• 35:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:02Sean Fennessey?

  I guessed 57 for Metacritic, you guessed 68.

• 35:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:05Sean Fennessey?

  The Metacritic score was 63, so we're more or less right in the middle. You got a little closer.

• 35:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:09Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and then the box office get, total right now is 209 million. So you're almost right on the money. However, the movie made $6 million this past weekend and it's gonna keep making money.

• 35:19Amanda Dobbins?

  So, I could be losing points?

• 35:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, so you, you, you have 11 points for your, for your Devil Wears Prada guess, which is really great.

• 35:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and this is a game where we want points, right?

• 35:29Sean Fennessey?

  We wanna get points, yeah. I only got one point here, cuz I underbid, but it's gonna probably end up going on like 225, 230? So then you're gonna get a little further away. You'll probably be closer to 6 points.

• 35:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. How's it going at Coach?

• 35:45Sean Fennessey?

  Hocum, we talked about.

• 35:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 35:47Sean Fennessey?

  Feeling good about this one. Um, my box office guess was 18, yours was 10.

• 35:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:51Sean Fennessey?

  I guessed 78 for Metacritic, you guessed 62. It came in at 76 on Metacritic and it's at 16.8.

• 35:57Amanda Dobbins?

  That's great.

• 35:58Sean Fennessey?

  There's a chance that I'm getting right on the money here. I might, it might get to 18 with what's lingering in the, in the box office. Now, this is, this one's really, so I have 11 points, you have 5.

• 36:07Amanda Dobbins?

  This is fine. I screwed up.

• 36:08Sean Fennessey?

  This is the funniest one.

• 36:09Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, it's-

• 36:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's for both of us. It's very funny. Billie Eilish Hit Me Hard and Soft, the Tour Live, a movie we'll talk about momentarily on this pod. I guessed 42 mil, you guessed 160.

• 36:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Once again, I used the Taylor Swift comp because I am told, among the young people, that Billie Eilish is as important to the youth as Taylor Swift.

• 36:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Um, Metacritic 71 for me, 65 for you. It's currently sitting at 9.9 million dollars.

• 36:34Amanda Dobbins?

  That's tough. Here's the other thing, co-directed with James Cameron.

• 36:37Sean Fennessey?

  This is a brick for Cameron.

• 36:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Sean Fennessey?

  A brick. Uh, Metacritic score was 73, so I was pretty close on that one. I got 2 points, you've got 0 points.

• 36:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Congratulations.

• 36:46Sean Fennessey?

  Mortal Kombat 2, you know, this didn't do what I thought it was gonna do. I guessed 137, you guessed 60. I guessed 44 for Metacritic, you guessed 46. You nailed the Metacritic score. Exactly, well done. Uh, the box office total-

• 37:00Amanda Dobbins?

  There is no science to this. What's- So whatever, it's just yelling numbers.

• 37:03Sean Fennessey?

  It's a game.

• 37:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is much like most box office tracking.

• 37:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, so this is 77 million dollars total box office right now, which is like, fine, I think worldwide, it's the biggest Mortal Kombat movie for whatever that's worth. Is God Is, we talked about briefly on the show, I guessed 12 million, you guessed 11, it came in at 4.6. Metacritic 74 for me, 57 for you, it came in at 77, I got 6 points, you got 5. Obsession.

• 37:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:28Sean Fennessey?

  I guessed 42 million and I was nervous that that was too high. You guessed 15 million. I guessed 69 million for Metacritic, 69 for Metacritic, you guessed 66 for Metacritic. It's currently sitting at 105 and its Metacritic score is 77, we both get 0 points.

• 37:45Amanda Dobbins?

  But, we are rewarded with obsession in the world.

• 37:50Sean Fennessey?

  We are. In the Gray, this is a movie.

• 37:52Amanda Dobbins?

  What is this? Oh, right, you just told me what this is.

• 37:54Sean Fennessey?

  This is a Guy Ritchie movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Henry Cavill.

• 37:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow.

• 38:00Sean Fennessey?

  No humans have seen this movie.

• 38:01Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm learning about this, honestly, you predicted a 52 Metacritic score, I predicted 37. And I'm surprised to learn that In the Gray made it to 53.

• 38:10Sean Fennessey?

  It did, but the movie was in theaters for 2 weeks and now apparently it's coming to VOD on Tuesday of this week.

• 38:18Sean Fennessey?

  So yeah, I guessed 37, you guessed 18, it's sitting at 5.6.

• 38:23Sean Fennessey?

  I got 2 points, you got 1.

• 38:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 38:24Sean Fennessey?

  I love Boosters. Interesting one, a little early to be coming in on these next couple because these movies just came out a week ago. But I guessed 18, you guessed 19 million. Metacritic, I said 81, you said 64. Interestingly, it's only at a 70. I thought it was gonna do much better and the box office is at 7 million, so we both get a point. Passenger, haven't seen this movie, horror movie, that's actually doing okay business right now. Actually exceeded both of our guesses, I guessed 12, you guessed 9, it's at 15 million after 2 weeks. And I guessed 34 on Metacritic, you guessed 52, it's at 41. I got 10 points for this? I don't know if that's gonna hold.

• 38:58Sean Fennessey?

  Mando and Grogu.

• 38:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:01Sean Fennessey?

  Tough one, tough one. I guessed 275 for the box office, you guessed 421.

• 39:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Well.

• 39:09Sean Fennessey?

  It's at 137.

• 39:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I have already explained that I had a flawed strategy.

• 39:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. The Metacritic score is 53. I guess 52. You guessed 48.

• 39:16Amanda Dobbins?

  You know what was interesting? And this made more sense in Cannes, where it's about, you know, the power of highbrow cinema. But then I was in Paris afterwards, like, opening weekend of Mandalorian and Grogu, which you would think would be an international... I saw nothing. I saw absolutely no mention of Mandalorian and Grogu.

• 39:35Sean Fennessey?

  In Paris.

• 39:36Amanda Dobbins?

  In Paris, like anywhere in France.

• 39:37Sean Fennessey?

  Was it at the same time?

• 39:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I would assume so.

• 39:40Sean Fennessey?

  I know. Sometimes they open a little bit later.

• 39:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Still, you know, there was plenty of...

• 39:43Sean Fennessey?

  No marketing.

• 39:44Amanda Dobbins?

  No marketing whatsoever. And there was plenty of Devil Wears Prada leftover.

• 39:47Sean Fennessey?

  I assume that all those shows are streaming in France as well, but I'm honestly not sure. The next few are all May 29th, so like, a little too early to check in on them. Pressure, The Breadwinner, Tuna. I did just want to point out that our guesses for Backrooms are pretty crazy. You guessed 16 million total. I guessed 67 million. It has already exceeded that. I did guess 82 on a Metacritic score. It's sitting at 77. You guessed 64. So I've got two points, but we're definitely not getting any points on the box office on that

• 40:15Amanda Dobbins?

  All right.

• 40:17Sean Fennessey?

  Currently, the point totals, which will probably change pretty dramatically over the next few months. You've got 43, I've got 45. We'll check back in at the end of July on this. I just thought it was useful because Backrooms and Obsession just changed everything. And, you know, like, in my movie fantasy league that I'm in, which was a flutter with Conversation over the weekend.

• 40:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I'll bet.

• 40:36Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I didn't pick Obsession or Backrooms. And if you picked Obsession and Backrooms...

• 40:39Amanda Dobbins?

  You're winning now?

• 40:39Sean Fennessey?

  You're cooking right now.

• 40:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 40:40Sean Fennessey?

  And so I think I was in, like, third place, and now I'm in, like, eighth place because I just didn't have either of those movies. It happens, you know? What can you do? Okay.

• 40:48Amanda Dobbins?

  That's the closest we'll get to you admitting any sort of error.

• 40:51Sean Fennessey?

  I'm wrong all the time.

• 40:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 40:53Sean Fennessey?

  It's frequently, whenever I'm speaking to my daughter. Those are the times I'm most wrong. Dad, no. No, Dad. That's... I hear that a lot.

• 41:01Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

• 41:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, wow. Okay, let's take a quick break and then talk about 10 or so movies we missed.

• 41:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Great.

• 41:09Sean Fennessey?

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• 41:52Sean Fennessey?

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• 42:57Sean Fennessey?

  Do you want to start with the sheep detectives?

• 42:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 43:01Sean Fennessey?

  Some begging and pleading for a discussion of this film.

• 43:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Which we saw before we went to Cannes.

• 43:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 43:07Amanda Dobbins?

  And then, full disclosure, opted to save until we got back from Cannes.

• 43:10Sean Fennessey?

  We did.

• 43:11Amanda Dobbins?

  This is a nice movie that I think everyone is maybe losing the plot, just like a little bit.

• 43:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Well, OK, so let's describe the details of The Sheep Detectives, which has just recently crossed $100 million at the box office. It's directed by Kyle Balda, who you may recall is one of the directors of films in the Despicable Me and Minions series. It's written by Craig Mazin, who's, of course, the creator of Chernobyl and the adapter of The Last of Us and one of the most celebrated screenwriters in the game right now. It's based on Three Bags Full, which is a novel by Leanne Swann.

• 43:46Amanda Dobbins?

  A cozy mystery.

• 43:47Sean Fennessey?

  A cozy... Is that the subtitle of the film?

• 43:50Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, that's the genre, but that's a thriving genre.

• 43:54Sean Fennessey?

  Got you. A great number of stars in this film.

• 43:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 43:57Sean Fennessey?

  In human form, we meet Hugh Jackman, Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzin, Molly Gordon, Hong Chow, and your beloved Emma Thompson. In voice form, Julie Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Chris O'Dowd, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, and Brett Goldstein. Here's the plot. George Hardy is a shepherd who loves to read murder mysteries to his sheep, never suspecting that they can understand him. When George is found dead under mysterious circumstances, the sheep decide to solve the crimes themselves, even if it means leaving their meadow for the first time and facing the fact that the human world isn't as simple as it appears in books. Now, you and I saw this with a fear that we were not doing right by the show by having an immediate review of the film.

• 44:39Sean Fennessey?

  And then we both saw it on the eve of our trip to Europe. And we were like, I think this can wait.

• 44:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. We were like, this is nice, but...

• 44:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and it is nice. And I don't want to ruin anybody's good time. I had a perfectly pleasant time at the film. I thought of you a bit while watching it because of course you do, you love a mystery.

• 44:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm a connoisseur of this genre. But you know, even on the cozy mystery spectrum that I just referenced, I, I tend towards the, the Richard Osman's and the Anthony Horowitz's, those, and the little more real life based.

• 45:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 45:16Amanda Dobbins?

  A little bit harder edge, fewer talking animals.

• 45:20Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:21Amanda Dobbins?

  And the, the other thing about this is that this is a, this is a mystery that is also like, if not a parody, then a send up or a comment on the genre of the murder mystery and it's very self-aware and the sheep are making jokes about how a murder mystery works because they've learned all that from Hugh Jackman, the shepherd.

• 45:40Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 45:41Amanda Dobbins?

  And they learned their, they use their reading habits to apply the trades of like the detective craft to the mystery in question and to assemble everyone at the end to do the big reveal, you know, they hit all the beats and they are aware that they're hitting all the beats. You know, I, I appreciate the mettiness of it. They've definitely read a lot of murder mysteries. I, I don't need a comment. I still just like a murder mystery where it all happens and then at the end you, you are gathered together. And if you're gonna be meta, I think I prefer something like Anthony Horowitz, who in addition to writing like four different mystery series, he does the continuations of the

• 46:22Amanda Dobbins?

  James Bond novels and I think he makes British TV, he's, he's very busy. Um, they are, the, the mettiness is way more structural and self-congratulatory, but also clever as opposed to like whimsical.

• 46:42Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 46:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm not a whimsical person is I think what it comes down to.

• 46:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I, I understand that. I'm not sure if I saw this so much as a send up as much as a mashup. Like, I think it's really like.

• 46:55Sean Fennessey?

  Babe meets Agatha Christie. You know, like, that is really what it's trying to do. Now, it is very remedial in terms of its mystery quality. It's not the most sophisticated. I will say about halfway through, I was like, this is pretty clear what's happening here.

• 47:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's shocking for my, for my five year old. She had no idea that this was coming. And this was, and that, in a way, I appreciated hearing from her. I didn't see this with her. My wife took her while we were away, but I liked talking to her about it because I watched her get interested in this kind of storytelling. And she was very confused why a person would even be murdered, you know? And that's complicated to explain to a young kid. But the movie is very warm. It's very kind.

• 47:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:33Sean Fennessey?

  You know, even though it's about a murder. It made me think about, did you read or watch the adaptation of Encyclopedia Brown at all when you were a kid?

• 47:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Loved reading Encyclopedia Brown. I don't remember watching it.

• 47:44Sean Fennessey?

  There was a TV series as well, but the books were so good.

• 47:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Every single one of those.

• 47:48Sean Fennessey?

  And it brought me back to the feeling of reading Encyclopedia Brown where you're kind of like, so this is riffing on Arthur Conan Doyle.

• 47:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 47:56Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of like doing the kid version of it. And like, every kid needs that. And I think it's a cool movie for 14 year olds. And if you like a cozy mystery, it's nice, too. It's a very pleasant movie. The jokes are fine. It necessitates a kind of like goofy performance style that like Nicholas Braun is great at.

• 48:15Sean Fennessey?

  But I don't know.

• 48:18Sean Fennessey?

  It feels a little overstated, the enthusiasm for it. But I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to ruin anyone's day.

• 48:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm glad everybody had a nice time.

• 48:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 48:26Amanda Dobbins?

  You know? And it's, it's funny, before we went to Cannes and before obsession and back rooms, this was like a wow, can you believe that people are going to the movies and like crying about talking sheep in a detective story? That's definitely either for 85 year olds or five year olds.

• 48:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Quite a few old people in my screening.

• 48:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. There was no one in my screening.

• 48:48Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, really?

• 48:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. At 2P, I texted you because there was no one else there. So I was allowed to get out my phone and say, there's no one here.

• 48:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 48:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, yeah.

• 48:55Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's doing, it's doing well. It's doing well. And once again, Hugh Jackman, undefeated.

• 49:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 49:01Sean Fennessey?

  He can do anything. Sheep, talking to sheep, believably, reading to sheep? I thought it was good.

• 49:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 49:07Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, any other thoughts on the Sheep Detectives? Will there be a second film?

• 49:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Probably.

• 49:12Sean Fennessey?

  Feels like, is this part of a series?

• 49:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, you know, I don't know because I have not read any Lee and Swan, even though I do own some because my husband, you know, when he travels, will go to the local bookstore and buy some like joke Amanda coded books.

• 49:28Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 49:29Amanda Dobbins?

  And I did get a Leonie Swan book brought back to me. I only realized this after the fact, not the last time in this list that I will say, oh, I didn't realize that I accidentally own or consumed part of this novel.

• 49:41Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's, um, let's stay firmly in your, your, your comfort zone here. Let's talk about pressure.

• 49:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm sorry, like you didn't have the time of your life.

• 49:50Sean Fennessey?

  I had a great time. I, I'm not, I didn't have as great a time as you did, though. I've not seen you vibrating out of a movie theater like this in some time. But we're talking about Pressure, which is in the new film directed by Anthony Maris.

• 50:01Amanda Dobbins?

  It's Pressure, colon, The Untold Story of D-Day.

• 50:04Sean Fennessey?

  Is that the actual title?

• 50:06Amanda Dobbins?

  That is the title. Well, no, Pressure is the.

• 50:09Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's a tagline.

• 50:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm. I, I don't know. What are we calling, it's like the subhead?

• 50:15Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think movies have subheads.

• 50:16Amanda Dobbins?

  It's on the poster as the subhead, okay? And also in all of the commercials running during the NBA playoffs. It is definitely on the, it is Pressure, The Untold Story of D-Day, just like it's Top Gun Maverick.

• 50:29Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, no, that's not correct, but okay.

• 50:33Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe they should have made it the title.

• 50:34Amanda Dobbins?

  They definitely have Untold Story of D-Day at the end of every single commercial shown during basketball.

• 50:40Sean Fennessey?

  I think they'd need to explain what it means because Pressure is a kind of a vague title, but it is an appropriate title and a kind of double entendre. The story of Pressure is as follows. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance as General Dwight D. Eisenhower and meteorologist Captain James Stagg face an impossible choice. Launch the D-Day invasion or risk losing World War II altogether. First of all. What a premise. Just absolutely just crack, you know? And if you like a certain kind of cozy dad movie.

• 51:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 51:10Sean Fennessey?

  This is the, the, the naples ultra of dad movies. It is so perfectly calibrated for what you want from a movie like this.

• 51:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly.

• 51:19Sean Fennessey?

  So it stars Andrew Scott, Brendan Fraser, Kerry Condon, Christmasine and Damian Lewis, and a whole horde of silver foxed stern British men having serious conversations in, in, in war rooms.

• 51:33Amanda Dobbins?

  They've, they've taken over a country home. I believe Suffolk House.

• 51:36Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 51:36Amanda Dobbins?

  And they, everything is wood paneled. I think there is actually like a spinning globe like there is in Inglourious Basterds. They don't open the top, but you, you know, you like to think at some point that'll happen.

• 51:49Sean Fennessey?

  Churchill invoked, but not seen in this film.

• 51:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. And there is a lot of yelling. There are a lot of weather maps.

• 51:56Sean Fennessey?

  Lots of maps.

• 51:57Amanda Dobbins?

  The most thrilling part to me was the first title card or within minutes, they give you like a time and place and they say 72 hours until D-Day. And then they yell, D-Day will be June 5th, like 45,000 times. And of course, we all know that D-Day was in fact June 6th.

• 52:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. You turned to me immediately.

• 52:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you not know that it was June 6th? I know that because it's also Ruthie Barron's birthday.

• 52:29Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 52:29Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's, and Rich Barron, father-in-law, would never let you ignore the fact that the birthday was also D-Day. So the date of D-Day.

• 52:38Sean Fennessey?

  Implication there that that's when she took over the shores of the Barron family?

• 52:41Amanda Dobbins?

  He's a history dad.

• 52:42Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Yeah. I mean, aren't we all? This film makes all of us history dads.

• 52:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Know that June 6th is also D-Day.

• 52:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, that's helpful to know because.

• 52:50Amanda Dobbins?

  The tension is there and they just yell about June 5th for at least 90 minutes.

• 52:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 52:55Amanda Dobbins?

  And then there is the climactic moment when.

• 53:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Ike, Dwight D. Eisenhower, as played by Brendan Fraser, who the first 10 minutes, I was like, this is an unmitigated disaster. And then by the end, I just, I was like, this is, this is a man in crisis who doesn't know what to do.

• 53:13Sean Fennessey?

  Let me just say, Brendan Fraser is not Ike. Like, that's just, this is not good casting. And it's not a bad performance.

• 53:19Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 53:20Sean Fennessey?

  It's a good performance because you're fully invested in the story and his

• 53:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 53:24Sean Fennessey?

  kind of frustration and confusion, but his, also his willingness to hear out Stag, who's played by Andrew Scott, is the centerpiece of the narrative of the movie.

• 53:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 53:32Sean Fennessey?

  It's the primary conflict, it's the primary relationship. But have you looked at a photo of Dwight D. Eisenhower?

• 53:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, I have, I've seen that.

• 53:40Sean Fennessey?

  He does not look like Brendan Fraser.

• 53:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree. And I also, you know, the accents against the very, like, uptight British accents. And Andrew Scott is playing Stag as British Miranda Priestly.

• 53:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 53:51Amanda Dobbins?

  He, he does like the no, no. He does, that's all. So there's, there's a clash, which is intentional.

• 53:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 53:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Because that sets up one of the major tensions of the movie.

• 54:01Sean Fennessey?

  Two pressure systems colliding.

• 54:03Amanda Dobbins?

  But, but also you're like, oh, no, this is gonna be really, really awful. And then they settle in and you become really invested in pressure systems and Northern Ireland and weather stations and balloons. And you need atmospheric pressure as well as, you know, they're not checking all the right data. And I just, I mean, just a couple electric moments, including when Andrew Scott yells, when he finally loses it in one of the great cabinet meetings. And he's like, what he's not mentioning is the summer of 1916. And I'm just like, yes. You're screaming about an unpredicted hurricane. It was great.

• 54:43Amanda Dobbins?

  And but that is like, the true peak of the drama is Andrew Scott just yelling about, like, a heretofore unmentioned weather system.

• 54:53Sean Fennessey?

  But why has he not mentioned it up until that moment in the movie? It's like his big reveal.

• 54:58Amanda Dobbins?

  It's called drama.

• 55:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 55:00Amanda Dobbins?

  And then also, I mean, I just.

• 55:03Sean Fennessey?

  And so Chris Messina's character just completely overlooks 1916?

• 55:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, he's cherry picking the data, as we know that statisticians do.

• 55:11Sean Fennessey?

  I know, I know. And that's what, that's what, obsession can go to number one. The Knicks can be in the finals. Like, this, this data is meaningless. All we need to do is follow our hearts and our instincts, as Stag does here. Andrew Scott, just one of the guys right now. Just will watch him do anything. This is a very odd part about a very recessed man who's having a lot of difficulty. His wife is pregnant, he's left her at home so that he can work as the chief meteorologist in Northern Europe during World War II. What a very strange job that is. I never would have thought you could build a movie here on this character. This movie very effectively does that.

• 55:44Amanda Dobbins?

  They sure do. And then, I have to be honest, when it's time to dramatize the weather, they dramatize the weather. That was another extremely exciting moment.

• 55:51Sean Fennessey?

  The big reveal of this movie is great. Is, is literally biblical.

• 55:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, it's beautiful.

• 55:56Sean Fennessey?

  This is a fun movie. It's a, it's a very particular flavor. You have to like this kind of World War II storytelling, this kind of men in rooms, kind of barking at each other about the fate of the world as we know it.

• 56:07Amanda Dobbins?

  You have to channel your inner history, Dad.

• 56:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 56:10Amanda Dobbins?

  And we did also see it at 1:00 PM on a Friday, which I think was-

• 56:13Sean Fennessey?

  Also with many old people, many retirees.

• 56:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Some young people who we met after.

• 56:17Sean Fennessey?

  We did, and they were, they were also fired up. It's, it's a fun time at the movies if you dig this kind of movie. I would recommend people check it out. Any other thoughts on pressure?

• 56:25Amanda Dobbins?

  No, but maybe I'll just yell, "What you're not mentioning!" throughout the rest of this. It's really, really good.

• 56:31Sean Fennessey?

  That is a Sorkinian moment in the movie. Carrie Condon, once again, playing the gal who makes sure the guys are okay, becoming a bit of a thing here. Banshees of Inisherin, F1. She keeps popping up as like, "Oh, you're, you're a wee fool, but you'll be all right."

• 56:44Amanda Dobbins?

  There's one more. Oh, Train Dreams.

• 56:47Sean Fennessey?

  Train Dreams, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's being typecast, my beautiful Carrie Condon.

• 56:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Why does she and the wife look so similar? And then they did, they did some- Cuts intentionally.

• 56:59Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's on purpose. He needed a kind of a female support system.

• 57:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 57:02Sean Fennessey?

  A woman who believed in him.

• 57:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, but the way that they edit it suggests for a little while that Carrie Condon is gonna replace the wife.

• 57:09Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I didn't see it that way.

• 57:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I was, I was.

• 57:11Sean Fennessey?

  You were shipping them?

• 57:12Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I wasn't shipping them. I was a little concerned that the editor was, and I was like, I don't know.

• 57:17Sean Fennessey?

  Let me ask you this.

• 57:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:18Sean Fennessey?

  A lot of these movies, they have this, this trope of the, the man.

• 57:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:21Sean Fennessey?

  Who has the answers, but he's so, he's so stormy inside.

• 57:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 57:25Sean Fennessey?

  He needs a woman who can look him in the eyes and say, I believe in you. Follow your, follow your light, follow your path. Do you feel that you need a man who believes in you to be great?

• 57:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I have one, yeah.

• 57:38Sean Fennessey?

  Knox? Who is it?

• 57:41Amanda Dobbins?

  But also, the other, the other half is that they need a woman to believe in them to be great.

• 57:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 57:47Amanda Dobbins?

  And also to like handle all plans and logistics.

• 57:50Sean Fennessey?

  That's true.

• 57:51Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, and, and she's just like, here's how you're gonna get from A to B. And I handle all the correspondence and I know when you need to eat and when you need to be where. And I don't have anyone doing that for me. I'm still the planner. I'd still, when it's, you know.

• 58:06Sean Fennessey?

  Not on this show.

• 58:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, no, not on this show, but when we travel.

• 58:09Sean Fennessey?

  That's true.

• 58:09Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, like where are you eating?

• 58:11Sean Fennessey?

  You ran shit it can.

• 58:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly. Like where do we go? What's gonna be the, you know?

• 58:15Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I believe in equality among genders.

• 58:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, that's beautiful.

• 58:19Sean Fennessey?

  That's how I, I see things. We both do things very well. Okay, let's talk about I Love Boosters.

• 58:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 58:24Sean Fennessey?

  So, um, this is the new film from Boots Riley, his first movie since Sorry to Bother You. Uh, Boots was on the show for that movie, a movie I really liked. Um, on my way to the office today, I was listening to The Coup, which is a Boots' hip hop group that he was in, starting in the early 90s. I was a huge fan of in the 90s and 2000s. And the first line of the first song on his first album is presto, read the communist manifesto. And. I love Boots and I've always loved Boots. I'm fascinated by his career and the way that he has like creeped into the mainstream.

• 58:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:59Sean Fennessey?

  In a way that I never would have guessed when he was making, his albums are called, Steal This Album, Genocide and Juice. Like, he, he really is like an on the edge, genuine progressive artist who has made a new movie with Kiki Palmer, Naomi Ackey, Taylor Page, Poppy Lou, Ayesha Gonzalez, Lakeith Stanfield, Will Poulter, Don Cheadle and Demi Moore. The movie is about professional shoplifters who embark on a wild adventure as they target a cutthroat fashion mogul. This movie has more creativity in its right thumb than in almost any movie you'll see this year. And yet, I don't think this movie works at all. And so it's like a fascinating.

• 59:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 59:36Sean Fennessey?

  Thing and I'm like, ready to pull apart with you. I say this as somebody who roots for Boots, but I was like, this didn't hang together for me.

• 59:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, that's the thing, right? It doesn't hang together. I think it works beautifully in, in details and in moments and whether it's a specific image or a color or a joke or a, you know, a political observation that are all threaded together, not even scene by scene, but really kind of 20 second clip within 20 second clip. There is so much that is smart and funny and insightful and unlike anything you've ever seen and like visually memorable, which is.

• 1:00:12Sean Fennessey?

  Very memorable.

• 1:00:13Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, respectfully to Pressure, not something that I can really say.

• 1:00:15Sean Fennessey?

  No. Pressure looks like every other movie made Just Like It. This movie looks like no other movie.

• 1:00:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but I would say like, much like Backrooms, the, what the more like movie it tries to be like the, you know, the basic plot of the, of the film and the character arcs, quote unquote, don't, don't really gel, don't seem to matter as much as all of the much smaller but bigger ideas nestled within the movie.

• 1:00:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:44Amanda Dobbins?

  And, um, I, you know, I didn't really understand like, it's, it's cool to make a movie about fashion and again, that offers a lot of visual possibilities, but I was like, why, why is Demi Moore as a fashion mogul, the? The villain of this weird movie.

• 1:01:00Sean Fennessey?

  Why is he the stand-in for this?

• 1:01:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:02Sean Fennessey?

  We should talk about that. I mean, I'm interested in it. So, you know, in the 90s in New York, like, boosting was a real thing.

• 1:01:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:01:08Sean Fennessey?

  And you had kids, um, kind of ripping and running polo gear and Tommy Hilfiger gear. And that was a huge moment, you know, in hip-hop culture that kind of spread out wide. And some of it was considered like this kind of mischievous rebellious culture. Some of it was considered a political statement.

• 1:01:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:01:27Sean Fennessey?

  Um, there's a long history of this. The movie has, like, I think, a lot of the mischief and the kind of blow-it-up detonation quality that a lot of Boots's music has. It's interesting that he, almost every character in this movie is a woman, and that he has completely repositioned this story to be about women seizing power, but against other women who are participating in a much wider culture of capitalistic brainwashing, effectively.

• 1:01:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:01:56Sean Fennessey?

  And I really want to know what you think. We didn't, we saw this together and did not say a word to each other about it, because I'm super interested in situating the world of fashion as the epicenter of the kind of misdeeds of capital culture.

• 1:02:11Amanda Dobbins?

  And I mean, it's perceptive, and in some ways, I do think, I mean, you know, literal, it's that Jeff Bezos, you know, started a retail operation and, you know, started with books and buying, like, all of the junk that you either don't need or could have previously gotten at Target. And now he's gotten a huge amount of money and is, like, buying his way into the Met Gala. And, um, you know, Devil Wears Prada 2 has a Bezos-like character. It was, it's sort of like the pinnacle of a certain kind of performative wealth.

• 1:02:49Amanda Dobbins?

  And that it is a, um, and also that it signifies, you know, quite literally, like, you can see the money.

• 1:02:59Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:03:00Amanda Dobbins?

  And it sets the expectations of how to spend money. And, you know, embedded within that is the idea that the money is the goal. So I think it's savvy in that sense. I didn't, but this is the thing, and obviously, like, you know, the boosting culture and the political implications of that are also.

• 1:03:21Amanda Dobbins?

  They're smart, but as the movie plays it out, it kind of like gets away from those ideas. I didn't really understand all the specificities of the particular fashion company that Demi Moore is running, which is like, you know, they do drops, but they're monthly drops and they're all one color. There's like a, it's a, it's not really a Supreme type theme. And there's also like an American apparel quality to it. I didn't really understand what it was trying to communicate in terms of the consumption and-

• 1:03:55Sean Fennessey?

  But like a high fashion quality too, where it was like Christie Smith, I think is the name of the brand. And Moore's label is like the most expensive label, which is why they target her label for all this boosting, which is like one part kind of social terrorism, one part statement making, one part couture acquisition. You know, like, and it's kind of all of these things. And so he's kind of digging into, I think, a really interesting psychological collision, which is even if you want to make dramatic change in the world, you still like fly shit. Like, that's a cool idea, you know? That there's something that even, even for Boots, who we ran into in Vegas, right? And still like, you know, he is a very fashion forward person. Like, he is somebody who's thinking about the way that you present,

• 1:04:39Sean Fennessey?

  and that's baked into this idea. But he's, everything that he does is undergirded by the power of collectivist social change. And the movie ends with like a very literal explanation of the way in which he wants to see the world change. And I would say that I found it a little boiled down ultimately, like what, how he saw the world changing. But, and a little bit like, kind of oversimplified to communicate the message. I agree with what you're saying, which is that in the, in the minor moments, like in Kiki Palmer's performance-

• 1:05:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:05:09Sean Fennessey?

  The movie's a lot of fun.

• 1:05:11Amanda Dobbins?

  And like in the grace notes of all of the, the media coverage of Christie Smith and the boosters and just, you know, the political, social world at large. Are very funny and it's a media, you know, media criticism baked into like B-roll within a movie, within a movie. So it's, there is so much, there's so many ideas, right? And, and it's jam packed and there's always something to look at. But I agree that like on a macro level, it falls a little flat.

• 1:05:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think there's like a couple of movies I thought about, like John Carpenter's They Live, I feel like was a huge influence on this movie that has like a big reveal kind of in the second half of the film that I thought was very clever. And that's certainly not a subtle movie either. Like the move, the message that that movie is sending to you is pretty profoundly like, we're all being tricked and there's only one way to break the code here. But as a movie watching experience, I just felt myself outside of it a lot of the time. And it wasn't because I disagreed with its political point of view or anything like that. It was more like, you know what a movie is trying to have a tone, like there's an app and there's an absence of pacing and you can feel it kind of moving in a shambolic way. When Poppy Lou's character comes into the film, it opens

• 1:06:24Sean Fennessey?

  up this other huge global perspective on what is actually transpiring in this world. But it also introduces a technology that is like sort of confusing and a bit elaborate. And we don't quite know what this kind of MacGuffin type machine does. And it does a lot of different things and maybe too many things to make the movie as coherent as I want it to be. I will say, Ayesha Gonzalez in the movie as Rory Cochrane from Days of Confucius was amazing. I loved her doing this. It was so nice to see her not just be like, I candy bombshell girl holding a gun, like to be a complete stoner was very entertaining.

• 1:06:59Sean Fennessey?

  I just, I walked away feeling like a little limp.

• 1:07:03Amanda Dobbins?

  I completely agree. I will say, the clothes are, are good and interesting and creations on the run, which is not always true in a movie about fashion. And this for being a movie about the line between fashion and as art or commodity, or you know, how that intersects. It had ideas, I thought it like looked really good and also was done in a way that it understood, like the color tones and everything really did speak to, speak to each other compositionally, which I thought was great. And then,

• 1:07:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Like a lot of the effects were practical, which

• 1:07:38Sean Fennessey?

  I enjoyed that.

• 1:07:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I appreciated.

• 1:07:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it felt very handmade, felt very Jim Henson-y at times. Lot of the stop motion animation being used. That's what was cool. Toon Yards' score, I thought was really cool. It was like, I don't know if that score totally worked in the movie, but I liked that he made that choice to do something that is like, that has sonic cues that are wildly different from any other movie. Like, it does feel like a completely different kind of a thing, and I have to tip my cap to it, even though while I was watching it, I was like, God, this is such an on paper thing that didn't totally convert. Sort of speaking of, Billie Eilish hit me hard and soft, colon, the tour, parentheses, live in 3D. That's a lot of words for one movie. I didn't see this movie in 3D.

• 1:08:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:08:16Sean Fennessey?

  I did. You saw it in 3D?

• 1:08:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I did.

• 1:08:18Sean Fennessey?

  No kidding?

• 1:08:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, let's, listen, I did the work.

• 1:08:21Sean Fennessey?

  Wow, you really showed out.

• 1:08:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm the guy who does his job. You must be the other guy.

• 1:08:24Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I think we know that's not true.

• 1:08:27Sean Fennessey?

  So I saw this movie with my daughter.

• 1:08:29Amanda Dobbins?

  That's cute.

• 1:08:30Sean Fennessey?

  Who likes Billie Eilish, but I wouldn't say is like overwhelmingly familiar with her work. She's not a scholar.

• 1:08:35Amanda Dobbins?

  When I was sitting there watching this in 3D, I did think a lot about how you said that your wife and daughter are both big Billie Eilish fans. And I was like, I wonder how this is gonna go down with Alice.

• 1:08:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Eileen loved it.

• 1:08:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, great.

• 1:08:46Sean Fennessey?

  Because she loves Billie Eilish's music. So she had a great time, but, I mean, this movie is very standard. So the idea of like James Cameron being attached to a dramatic, mind-blowing Billie Eilish movie, like, it isn't. It's a concert movie.

• 1:09:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:09:00Sean Fennessey?

  It's a very straightforward concert movie. This seemed like a cool concert.

• 1:09:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I thought it was well filmed. I liked that there was a little bit of like, that when she was offstage, you went with her. And so, you know, you spend a decent amount of time under the stage as she's moving back and forth, and you either are the camera sometimes, or you're, you know, following closely with her. I thought that was a cool way

• 1:09:26Sean Fennessey?

  It was, it was.

• 1:09:27Amanda Dobbins?

  To film, and also, especially since there is like no choreography to film at this show.

• 1:09:32Sean Fennessey?

  That's true. Well, I thought especially at the very beginning of the film, when you see her in the box before the bigger reveal. That was very cool. And I was hoping for kind of more moments like that.

• 1:09:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, is it a debt to Katy Perry part of me?

• 1:09:42Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, is that featured in that, where she's?

• 1:09:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah, you don't remember, and then she gets the text from, I mean, now she must be very thrilled that she got a text that Russell Brand was divorcing her.

• 1:09:52Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, right, right, right, right.

• 1:09:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And then she, and then she like puts on her Katy Perry face and rises up.

• 1:09:57Sean Fennessey?

  But she doesn't go into a box.

• 1:09:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but she's like down below.

• 1:10:00Sean Fennessey?

  Did Charli XCX go in a box in the moment? I feel like she might have also done something like that. Or maybe I'm just thinking of a harness.

• 1:10:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that she's like in some sort of below the stage thing and then she has to rise.

• 1:10:11Sean Fennessey?

  Well, this is a tricky one because Billie Eilish was the subject of a pretty long and expansive documentary about her life five years ago that R.J. Cutler made that Apple put out.

• 1:10:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:23Sean Fennessey?

  So like she's already had what I think would have been the most interesting component of this. And, you know, we just talked about Madonna and Madonna movies on our friend Yasi Solak's show, Bantzway, which is coming out, I guess, later this month. And we talked about Truth or Dare. And

• 1:10:38Amanda Dobbins?

  One of the all time greats.

• 1:10:39Sean Fennessey?

  Truth or Dare has what this movie has, which is like incredible live performances. And then the backstage stuff is amazing. It's what makes the movie.

• 1:10:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:10:47Sean Fennessey?

  This movie's backstage stuff is okay. It's fine.

• 1:10:50Amanda Dobbins?

  It's nice. I thought it was amusing when Billie Eilish taught James Cameron about eyeliner.

• 1:10:55Sean Fennessey?

  True.

• 1:10:56Amanda Dobbins?

  When she's like, see, when you go out like this, he's like, wow, you can really see it from a different distance. Like, yes, James Cameron. That's

• 1:11:03Sean Fennessey?

  Something tells me he knows about makeup, having been making movies for roughly 40 years. I think I wanted a little more from this. I think I was hoping for a little bit more depth and it's ultimately just the concert film. It's not a bad concert film. It was okay to see in a movie theater, but maybe the 3D was the, was it that, did that impact you in a big way?

• 1:11:20Amanda Dobbins?

  No, and in fact, I thought it was, it was cool in the concert moments, but everything behind the scenes, it was kind of, I was sitting on the side, so, and not the best 3D technological projection. So everything was a little blurry.

• 1:11:33Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:11:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I, as someone who is lightly familiar with Billie Eilish, appreciated it just as a primer of like, what's going on here?

• 1:11:41Sean Fennessey?

  Oh.

• 1:11:42Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, I mean, I know some of the music, but it was interesting to think about her in relationship to all the other pop stars who are, who have made these types of movies and even what they're putting on stage is so very different from what she is. So that's cool. I mean, that also means that my brain had the time to be thinking about those things. But that's fine. You know, we like an intellectual exercise. I will say that I noticed, I immediately came alive the second her Charli XCX collab started playing. And I was like, oh, right. So I'm just a Charli girl in a, in a Billie world.

• 1:12:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I was, Eileen and I were talking about this. Do you think Char- Charlie is in the number two spot generationally behind Taylor Swift where it's, you know.

• 1:12:22Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I don't think so. I would love for her to be.

• 1:12:25Sean Fennessey?

  Statistically, I think she is.

• 1:12:26Amanda Dobbins?

  You think so? You think Brad was that big?

• 1:12:29Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, no. I meant Billie Eilish.

• 1:12:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, you said Charlie is number two. And I was like, no, I wish. Um, yes, I do. I mean, that's why I guessed however much money I guessed, which it made none of. What happened there? No one went to.

• 1:12:42Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I don't know. I just don't think that the, um, maybe the audience just went to the show and were satisfied with that. Maybe the, the love for the most recent album is lower than where she was before. I mean, if you, her Spotify numbers are bonkers.

• 1:12:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. That's why I just, I don't understand.

• 1:13:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Maybe this isn't just something people wanted. Maybe it was the time of year when it was released. I don't know. The movie goes out of its way in a very similar way to the Taylor Swift movie to spend a lot of time on the faces of the young women at the show singing along.

• 1:13:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:13:13Sean Fennessey?

  And obviously Billie is very inspirational to a lot of girls because she kind of rejects a lot of the expectations of a traditional pop star. Which I, I liked my daughter being exposed to that too. I like the idea of showing that like, Billie dresses the way that she dresses and does what she wants to do in that respect. But the songs are still like pure pop songs. Like they're pretty, working in a very similar tone and style as, you know, some combination of Charlie and Taylor and Chapel Rohn and Sabrina and Dua Lipa. And like, you know, it's all these kinds of things mixed up in a, in a blender. So, I don't know why it didn't hit, but it didn't really hit that hard. Okay. We're going to introduce a new segment of the show. This is Amanda's geopolitical corner.

• 1:13:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:13:54Sean Fennessey?

  Are you ready?

• 1:13:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Born ready. Okay. So I have seen two films that you have not. The first I saw nine months ago in Venice, Italy while jet lagged with Yasi Solak, speaking of fans playing. It's called The Wizard of the Kremlin. It's directed by Olivia Assas, screenplay by Olivia Assas and Emmanuel Carrère, based on a novel, The Wizard of the Kremlin, that I bought in a bookstore in, I believe, Charles de Gaulle Airport and read three chapters of in translation. Let's, let's be real, I'm not reading in French.

• 1:14:25Sean Fennessey?

  When was this?

• 1:14:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I must have bought the book in 2024.

• 1:14:29Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:14:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Because it was, it was a sensation. And so then it was translated and then it was sold at like the, you know.

• 1:14:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Metro whatever store and that terrible terminal.

• 1:14:40Sean Fennessey?

  And you thought to yourself, I want to read a fictionalized account of Putin's Kremlin?

• 1:14:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it was billed as a thriller, a political thriller. It was sort of the Tom Clancy of, you know, France, Germany.

• 1:14:52Sean Fennessey?

  And is that something, do you read Tom Clancy novels?

• 1:14:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I, I don't think I've read any, but I've seen all of the films. We'll get back to that. When you were like, excuse me, have you seen the film Jack Ryan? And it's like, well, I checked out a couple, I mean, the series, Jack Ryan. And I said, I checked out a couple of episodes because I like to know what's going on with Jack Ryan.

• 1:15:08Sean Fennessey?

  You do like these movies.

• 1:15:09Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, Hunt for Red October, Harrison Ford, Clear and Present Danger.

• 1:15:12Sean Fennessey?

  Shadow Recruit, of course.

• 1:15:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. That's the Ben Affleck one?

• 1:15:14Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:15:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, Ben Affleck was Jack Ryan.

• 1:15:17Sean Fennessey?

  Shadow Recruit is Chris Pine.

• 1:15:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Chris Pine, right. All our guys have been Jack Ryan. So sometimes.

• 1:15:22Sean Fennessey?

  Krasinski, one of your guys?

• 1:15:24Amanda Dobbins?

  No. I mean, I liked The Office, you know?

• 1:15:27Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's go back to The Wizard of the Kremlin.

• 1:15:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I feel like you and Krasinski were like, pretty close in like 2015 and it's gone a different path. And I have to say, you should be happy, you know?

• 1:15:37Sean Fennessey?

  You mean, like, because people said I resembled him in some way?

• 1:15:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And you were also doing like the direct to camera like, rrr thing?

• 1:15:42Sean Fennessey?

  We had a tonal vibe.

• 1:15:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. And you've diverged a little and.

• 1:15:46Sean Fennessey?

  I'll tell you what, John Krasinski, very complicated reputation in Hollywood. He was on this show once for A Quiet Place. He was lovely and actually completely upended a lot of what you hear about him out in the world.

• 1:15:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:15:55Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe he was just performing, you never know, but he's still a big star with this show.

• 1:15:58Amanda Dobbins?

  A Quiet Place, good.

• 1:16:00Sean Fennessey?

  I like it. I'm a fan.

• 1:16:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Anyway, that's the next movie. This is Wizard of the Kremlin, which is a film in which Jude Law plays Vladimir Putin and Paul Dano plays his spin doctor, who is loosely, his name is Vadim Barnaf in the movie and the book, but he's loosely based on a real person.

• 1:16:18Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:16:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And it is about his time working for Putin and really working in Russia after the opening of the Soviet Union and the rise of Vladimir Putin. And it's from the perspective of the guy who, the cynical kind of left-hand man who, or right-hand man, who makes everything happen and then kind of sees Putin getting beyond his grasp. You know, I've created this beautiful monster and then, and then here's how it goes. So, once again, it features Jude Law as Vladimir Putin in terrible orangish, short, like cropped wig and shirtless, if I recall, a fair amount.

• 1:17:05Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought Jude Law was great in this. And I-

• 1:17:10Sean Fennessey?

  Is that not just your Jude Law bias?

• 1:17:12Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I mean, part of it is, it's the only exciting part of an otherwise kind of weirdly paced Olivier Assas movie, where people just like explain things to you in large blocks of text in questionable accents. And I just want to say that this came out before the whole Tarantino, Paul Dano thing. And I, or I saw it before the Tarantino, Paul Dano thing. And I thought then to myself independently that Paul Dano was miscast in this. But that does not mean that I don't value his work other places. And we've all learned that many people appreciate Paul Dano. In this one, it's a weird accent. I don't know what's going on.

• 1:17:48Sean Fennessey?

  That's so funny, because that's the most exciting thing to me about this on paper is Paul Dano doing a Russian accent. I texted you last night, I was just, I'm just downright mad I haven't seen this. This is a, this is a very specific kind of thing that I enjoy.

• 1:17:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:58Sean Fennessey?

  Which is like a preposterous political docudrama.

• 1:18:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. The, the problem is that it is more, it's not as preposterous as you want it to be, or it's preposterous in the wrong ways.

• 1:18:09Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:18:09Amanda Dobbins?

  It is a docudrama, it's not a thriller. And, and some of it is, it is plotting and is now, let me read you this, you know, political text. It's been translated through like four different languages by the time it's being spoken to you.

• 1:18:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I had a decent time. I don't think it totally works.

• 1:18:29Sean Fennessey?

  Weird situation here where-

• 1:18:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:32Sean Fennessey?

  Olivier Assas, I think really one of the great European filmmakers of the last 50 years.

• 1:18:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:37Sean Fennessey?

  Has been in a real downswing since this show started. And so we haven't had as much opportunity to talk about his work. We did, we both liked nonfiction, which we talked about in 2018. And then in 2019, he made WASP Network, which went to Netflix, which I don't think we ever even discussed. And then he made a film in 2024, Suspended Time, that I haven't seen, um, which is, uh, I think an animated movie.

• 1:19:00Sean Fennessey?

  But you know, this is someone who he made Irma Vep and Boarding Gate, Summer Hours, you know, Clouds of Sills, Maria, Personal Shopper.

• 1:19:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Right before we.

• 1:19:09Sean Fennessey?

  Some great films. So I'm still holding a candle for him.

• 1:19:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I think, me too. And when you're able to watch this at home, it'll be like a, it'll be a real little, it'll be a pressure type treat for you in a different way.

• 1:19:21Sean Fennessey?

  I'm looking forward to it. All right. So you've already teased that you did see.

• 1:19:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan colon Ghost War.

• 1:19:27Sean Fennessey?

  Now, Ghost War, now there's two ways to think about Ghost War, right? Now presumably Ghost is sort of like a, like a spook, like a, like a, like a spy.

• 1:19:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:37Sean Fennessey?

  Who disappears.

• 1:19:37Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a Ghost Protocol situation.

• 1:19:39Sean Fennessey?

  Which I understand, but what, what this made me think of is like, what if ghosts had a war? Like, what if there was like a Lord of the Rings style movie about warring clans of ghosts? Wouldn't that be great?

• 1:19:49Amanda Dobbins?

  That seems like a very you thing that I would support you in. And.

• 1:19:53Sean Fennessey?

  Wait, I have to tell you a story. I'm gonna Amanda you right now. I went shopping with my family yesterday. We're having just like a lovely afternoon.

• 1:20:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, where?

• 1:20:01Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, well, we went to get, we were gonna get brunch at a restaurant in Pasadena. Forty minute wait. We went across the street to a breakfast burrito place called Be Bad. It was fucking amazing. Order our breakfast burrito, walk to the back to wait for our order. It is revealed that Be Bad is connected to the Pasadena Hotel. And then you can just sit in the lobby or in the, in the atrium of the Pasadena Hotel and eat your burrito there and play chess with your family, as I did.

• 1:20:27Amanda Dobbins?

  That's for a kid.

• 1:20:28Sean Fennessey?

  We had a wonderful time. Anyway, just went a mile down the road after we did that, went to H and M, just got some clothes for Alice, you know, going to school next year, some summer stuff.

• 1:20:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, at the, uh, the Paseo?

• 1:20:37Sean Fennessey?

  At the Paseo, near the movie theater.

• 1:20:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I walk by that H and M often.

• 1:20:40Sean Fennessey?

  So we're sitting in the, in the plaza area outside of the H and M.

• 1:20:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Recently redone, nice benches.

• 1:20:45Sean Fennessey?

  Which is very beautiful. Alice is jumping off of things and terrifying me. And behind us come three men dressed up. One man is dressed as Jason Voorhees. He's got a hockey mask on. One man is dressed as some sort of axe murderer. And another man is dressed as the.

• 1:21:03Amanda Dobbins?

  unspecified axe murderer.

• 1:21:04Sean Fennessey?

  unspecified. Or maybe I just didn't catch the reference. Now, the third guy was wearing the Heart Size mask. I don't know if you remember Heart Size, the horror movie that came out last year?

• 1:21:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:21:12Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and he was dressed as that killer. And I was like, that's weird. What are these people doing here? Why are they terrifying my five-year-old daughter in the plaza of the Regal Paseo? And we get in the car, out of the parking lot, we're pulling out and I see in the, in the local convention center to the right, Monster Palooza is happening. It's been a three day convention, full of monster stuff.

• 1:21:35Amanda Dobbins?

  And you only found out?

• 1:21:36Sean Fennessey?

  And I didn't know it was happening and I missed it. And then that led to a long conversation about ghosts and what are the best kinds of spooky things in movies with my daughter that was great. And now I'm thinking about Ghost War and I want to see a war of ghosts.

• 1:21:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Well, maybe this could be, just be Jack Ryan colon Ghost War without Tom Clancy and it could be the ghosts of all the people that Jack Ryan has killed over the years.

• 1:21:55Sean Fennessey?

  Incredible idea.

• 1:21:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, listen, amazing things are happening on the big picture, always. Anyway, this was not that. This was sort of like the Downton Abbey movie version of Jack Ryan, which after four seasons of Jack Ryan, which I did not see and did not know that there were four seasons.

• 1:22:11Sean Fennessey?

  Nor I.

• 1:22:12Amanda Dobbins?

  They've, they've made a film. Wouldn't you, you will be shocked to learn, so Jack Ryan, as played by John Krasinski, since we last met him, has left the CIA. He's, he's a civilian, he's on Wall Street, he's trying to make it work as a normal person, but they need him for just one more job.

• 1:22:30Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:22:31Amanda Dobbins?

  So he's drawn back in. It turns out that the job that they need him for is that it's, it's basically a Bourne Identity in reverse, where there is like a, a task, what was the Bourne program called? Taskmaster something? Do you remember this?

• 1:22:46Sean Fennessey?

  I don't.

• 1:22:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, the program that creates Jason Bourne's, it's a similar thing, one of those exists, and has gone rogue.

• 1:22:53Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:22:54Amanda Dobbins?

  But you're on the side of Joan Allen, trying to get everybody down.

• 1:22:58Sean Fennessey?

  I see. I feel like I'm watching Spielberg talk about 2001. Let the master cook.

• 1:23:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, at some point, Sienna Miller shows up, because she's MI6, and it's a joint task force to defeat whatever this program is called.

• 1:23:11Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:23:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And this guy who's just running around London, Dubai, New York. I forgot to say, guys, that the way that Jack Ryan is recruited back into the CIA is that he is on a jog on their West Side Highway.

• 1:23:25Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:26Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's all, this is clearly all, they shut down many parts of New York City in order to film him running outside. He crosses the West Side Highway, is sprinting, he's on Greenwich Avenue for some, at some point, and then he does an evasive maneuver through Bookmark, the Marc Jacobs bookstore in the West Village.

• 1:23:43Sean Fennessey?

  Of course.

• 1:23:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Just featured prominently. And then it turns out that it was just Wendell Pierce and the, and the CIA trying to get him back. Uh, things, things work out. You know, there are some setbacks. There are some ghosts added and then, um, I think that, I think John Krasinski is gonna, and Jack Ryan are gonna stay in the CIA again. Civilian life, not for him.

• 1:24:05Sean Fennessey?

  He's working on Wall Street?

• 1:24:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:24:07Sean Fennessey?

  Is that canon for, for, for Jack Ryan?

• 1:24:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I actually didn't look that up. I was too busy because there's an allusion to like a relationship that didn't work out. So then I went back and read all of the descriptions of episodes for season four to find out if there was like more to the love interest story.

• 1:24:24Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:24:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Couldn't pin that down on Wikipedia, so I moved on.

• 1:24:27Sean Fennessey?

  Sounds like you should watch all four seasons of this series. Uh, I'll, I'll never see this. I'll never see it. It's not, no shots, anybody involved?

• 1:24:34Amanda Dobbins?

  So, but you know, so I saw one, I, I, I saw what's going on in Russia. I saw what's going on in the US, um, London, and then the, you know, various global communities that they terrorize. Just in general, not great, you know? That's my geopolitical report.

• 1:24:51Sean Fennessey?

  You know, there's-

• 1:24:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Times are tough.

• 1:24:52Sean Fennessey?

  There's a real one-to-one here with The Mandalorian and Grogu though, because that is also a movie that is based on a streaming series and that very much, I assume that this movie feels akin to the series.

• 1:25:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:25:05Sean Fennessey?

  Having seen episodes of the show, that it doesn't feel dramatically different. Maybe the stakes feel a little higher.

• 1:25:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Not really.

• 1:25:10Sean Fennessey?

  There's a little more action.

• 1:25:12Amanda Dobbins?

  It, the, the opening set piece is a bunch of actors, you know, in a gun battle, who all look just enough like more famous and more expensive actors that I kept being like, wait, is that, you know, is that so-and-so? And it's, and it's, it's nobody. They're just a bunch of-

• 1:25:31Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe it's at the point-

• 1:25:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Hardworking men.

• 1:25:33Sean Fennessey?

  That I was making about, um, streaming movies and movies going straight to streaming. Like, maybe, maybe this continues to be a coherent way to do this?

• 1:25:40Amanda Dobbins?

  This is a TV movie.

• 1:25:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's a TV movie, exactly. That, in The Mandalorian and Grogu, in many ways, is a TV movie. And that it's probably gonna do really well on Disney+.

• 1:25:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but we say that, but you and I saw all three Downton Abbey movies in theaters and loved them.

• 1:25:55Sean Fennessey?

  I, I did love them, but I don't, I don't know if they were cinema. Like, they would have hit just as well.

• 1:26:00Amanda Dobbins?

  The second one was cinema, because you aren't gonna get to the French Riviera on that PBS budget, you know?

• 1:26:07Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:26:08Amanda Dobbins?

  But...

• 1:26:09Sean Fennessey?

  What do you... I guarantee you Ghost Work costs a shit ton more than any of the Downton Abbey movies.

• 1:26:13Amanda Dobbins?

  They filmed everywhere. It was so crazy, and poorly. It looked quite bad.

• 1:26:18Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm, it's too bad.

• 1:26:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway.

• 1:26:20Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks for watching this, for this episode. You shocked me last night when you told me you watched this. Shocked me.

• 1:26:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I texted you while I was watching it, because again, I had some time for other things. Went real deep on the real rail. So, I'm up to date on all my things, and I know what's up with Jack Ryan.

• 1:26:39Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, you're not up to date on Powerball. I'll tell you about it quickly. Interesting movie. Not a successful movie. Directed by John Carney, probably best known for Once, a musical that I like quite a bit. This is a movie that he and Peter McDonald, I think, wrote some years ago, and that was in a drawer, and got pulled out of a drawer, and they were able to sell it and make it. And it's about a guy named Rick Power, who's a wedding singer living in Ireland. And he is at a wedding one night, and he meets a kind of aging, sort of washed-up boy band singer, who's played by Nick Jonas. He's not playing himself, but maybe politely inspired by some of his experience. And they're buds. They become quick buds, and they have a little jam session together. And while there, Danny, who's played by Paul Rudd,

• 1:27:21Sean Fennessey?

  in a very likeable performance, starts playing one of his songs that he's written. And it's an undeniably catchy song. And Nick Jonas, who's trying to kind of relaunch his career, goes back to the States, and he effectively adopts the song. He takes a piece of what the Danny character, or what the Rick character has done, and he expands upon it, and it relaunches his career, and it becomes a huge hit. And then Rick, who has no documentation of this moment, and no documentation of this song recorded anywhere in the past, tries to reclaim ownership and reclaim his own sense of personal grace.

• 1:28:00Amanda Dobbins?

  So Yesterday in reverse?

• 1:28:03Sean Fennessey?

  Sure. Yeah. There's something to that. A little bit less fame.

• 1:28:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Nobody else remembers. Well, but, yeah.

• 1:28:10Sean Fennessey?

  Including, you know, the song... There's a beautiful component of the movie, which is who Rick wrote the song for, and what it means to him.

• 1:28:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:28:18Sean Fennessey?

  And what it means for the song to be taken from him. That I won't spoil for people who haven't seen it.

• 1:28:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it a girl dad thing?

• 1:28:23Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not gonna say yes or no.

• 1:28:30Sean Fennessey?

  And I liked that.

• 1:28:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I bet.

• 1:28:32Sean Fennessey?

  But this is not really a movie. And like, the way that it resolves is not satisfying, I don't think.

• 1:28:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so copyright does not revert back to Paul Rudd?

• 1:28:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's complicated.

• 1:28:44Amanda Dobbins?

  That's, that's, it always is.

• 1:28:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I, I will say, it's really sold by the fact that Paul Rudd is just winning. He's just, he's just fun to be around. It's nice to see him not in Spandex. It's nice to see him not in an anaconda movie. Just being like a normal person, for the most part, even though there's some curiosity about why this American guy is heading up an Irish wedding band.

• 1:29:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:29:03Sean Fennessey?

  But they kind of sell it, you know, as he fell in love with an Irish girl, moved there and had a kid.

• 1:29:07Amanda Dobbins?

  That's better than asking him to do an Irish accent.

• 1:29:10Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with that.

• 1:29:11Amanda Dobbins?

  People do-

• 1:29:12Sean Fennessey?

  As someone who attempted one 12 minutes ago and failed.

• 1:29:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, in general, with movies that are set in the present day, I think we could just be a little more, you know, understanding and accepting of this global community we've built.

• 1:29:24Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 1:29:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, people do move other places and they can just keep their normal accents.

• 1:29:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:29:30Amanda Dobbins?

  It's okay.

• 1:29:30Sean Fennessey?

  Sure, I agree. So you're pro-immigration, is what you're saying?

• 1:29:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:29:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:29:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, this hasn't stuck with me.

• 1:29:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:29:38Sean Fennessey?

  I saw it a while back-

• 1:29:39Amanda Dobbins?

  How is the song?

• 1:29:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's honestly really-

• 1:29:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Sing it right now.

• 1:29:42Sean Fennessey?

  No, I can't, I don't remember how it goes, but I honestly really like it. And it's kind of like the only reason to see the movie.

• 1:29:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:29:49Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, what's next? Yeah, Remarkably Bright Creatures.

• 1:29:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yep, watched this this morning.

• 1:29:53Sean Fennessey?

  This is a Netflix original film.

• 1:29:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. Do you know the premise of this?

• 1:29:57Sean Fennessey?

  I don't.

• 1:29:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, so here's, here's the premise, which is that Sally Field is an older woman and living in the Pacific Northwest and down on her luck in life. Things have not gone her way.

• 1:30:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:30:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And then Louis Pullman comes to town. Things have also not gone his way in life.

• 1:30:18Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:30:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And they, not, it's not a romantic thing, don't raise your eyebrows like that. They just, they strike up a friendship and they teach each other things about the world, you know, in like, a quirky, small town in the Pacific Northwest. Here's the twist, it is narrated by an octopus. It is straight up-

• 1:30:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Which I did not know until I kicked play. Big play, so she works at an aquarium and she's friends with this octopus named Marcellus. And then obviously Louis Pullman's character also comes to work at the aquarium and becomes friends with Marcellus.

• 1:30:53Sean Fennessey?

  Obviously.

• 1:30:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Who is voiced by Alfred Molina and narrates everything that's going on. So you are watching this from the perspect- not, the movie's not shot entirely from the perspective of an octopus, obviously.

• 1:31:10Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:31:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Because, but he does escape his cage, or I'm sorry, his tank more than I thought it was capable for aquarium creatures to get out of their tanks.

• 1:31:20Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:31:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Um, but yeah, he knows a lot about the town and the world because as you have, well, what is the title of this movie, Sean Fennessey?

• 1:31:29Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I, I respect his, the octopus's intelligence, but is he absorbing the conversations that are transpiring in the aquarium?

• 1:31:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, and Sally Field as the older woman.

• 1:31:39Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of a ghost war situation.

• 1:31:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Is having a lot of conversations with him. He's sort of like a silent but supportive therapist. You know, it's like an emotional support octopus.

• 1:31:46Sean Fennessey?

  Is this based on a novel?

• 1:31:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:31:49Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:31:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, yes, 2022 novel, I haven't read it. Um, anyway, I watched this film. You know what? Parts of it were like the town and the little characters were a little funnier and sweeter than they needed to be.

• 1:32:06Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:32:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Once again, this is a movie narrated by an octopus as performed by Alfred Molina. So, you know, I don't know.

• 1:32:14Sean Fennessey?

  What, um, Louis Pullman watch?

• 1:32:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:18Sean Fennessey?

  How's it going with him as a leading man?

• 1:32:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I thought he was, he was charming in this. This I kind of put in the I love chem- lessons in chemistry box of.

• 1:32:29Sean Fennessey?

  Streaming Pablo that no one will talk about in three years?

• 1:32:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and things that he signed on to probably before the, you know, the glow up, but.

• 1:32:38Sean Fennessey?

  See.

• 1:32:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And maybe that's wrong.

• 1:32:39Sean Fennessey?

  Before he became the future of the MCU.

• 1:32:41Amanda Dobbins?

  I guess so, but he wasn't bad.

• 1:32:45Sean Fennessey?

  Uh.

• 1:32:45Amanda Dobbins?

  He performs a Radiohead song.

• 1:32:47Sean Fennessey?

  What?

• 1:32:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, because he's a, he's in a band. He's in a, hold on, it's from Pablo Honey, I forgot to, um, I, I forget the name.

• 1:32:56Sean Fennessey?

  He performs a Pablo Honey song?

• 1:32:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Pablo Honey song at the open mic night? No, it's not Creep. Um.

• 1:33:03Amanda Dobbins?

  And hold on, the internet's out. Anyway, so he's in a band called Mash Sausage, or something with a sausage.

• 1:33:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:13Amanda Dobbins?

  But they, um...

• 1:33:14Sean Fennessey?

  Many such names.

• 1:33:15Amanda Dobbins?

  They, they dumped him, you know, so his band's done. His family life is not solid. But, but he does like the local, he meets a local woman who runs a paddle boarding shop.

• 1:33:28Sean Fennessey?

  A paddle boarding shop?

• 1:33:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Sally Fields helps.

• 1:33:31Sean Fennessey?

  Paddleboard?

• 1:33:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, and it is, a point of contention is that they are paddleboards and not surfboards, and it's embarrassing that he doesn't know that. Sally Field facilitates a romance between them.

• 1:33:42Sean Fennessey?

  Is the paddleboard the one you stand on?

• 1:33:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, what do you think it is?

• 1:33:45Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, I don't know, I'm just double checking. I don't want to get into a Lewis Pullman situation.

• 1:33:50Amanda Dobbins?

  It's apparently like a great core workout.

• 1:33:52Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, great. Okay, cool.

• 1:33:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, because you have to, you know.

• 1:33:54Sean Fennessey?

  I'll get right on that. Uh, okay, so you would recommend Remarkably Bright Creatures?

• 1:34:02Amanda Dobbins?

  That is my report of Remarkably Bright Creatures.

• 1:34:05Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Uh, that's interesting that we spend time on that. Um, you saw Propeller One Way Night Coach?

• 1:34:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I did, yeah.

• 1:34:14Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's talk about that. I, I want to talk about Mortal Kombat 2, but let's talk about Propeller first.

• 1:34:21Sean Fennessey?

  This movie is directed by John Travolta, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

• 1:34:24Amanda Dobbins?

  We didn't go. You talked a big game about going.

• 1:34:27Sean Fennessey?

  No, I, I, I fucked up because I went with you to the Steven Soderbergh, John Lennon documentary, which I shouldn't have done.

• 1:34:35Amanda Dobbins?

  But like, we were there to hold Steven accountable, okay? So now we can say...

• 1:34:40Sean Fennessey?

  I guess so.

• 1:34:41Amanda Dobbins?

  The AI experiment did not work. Don't do that again.

• 1:34:44Sean Fennessey?

  I, of course, I agree with that. Uh, John Travolta directed a movie. This is his first film as a director.

• 1:34:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I Can't is the Pablo Honey song.

• 1:34:53Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, I can't?

• 1:34:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:54Sean Fennessey?

  That's not a bad song.

• 1:34:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought he did a very nice job with it.

• 1:34:57Sean Fennessey?

  I would have never guessed that in a million years. Uh, Travolta wrote and directed this movie. It's based on his children's novel, which is called Propeller One Way Night Coach. This film is 62 minutes long. It's on the Apple TV Plus streaming service right now.

• 1:35:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's about a little boy who goes on a couple of flights one night with his mom.

• 1:35:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:15Sean Fennessey?

  That's the whole movie.

• 1:35:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh huh.

• 1:35:17Sean Fennessey?

  He just keeps going on planes and talking about what it's like to be on a plane and talking to people on planes.

• 1:35:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:35:22Sean Fennessey?

  What was this?

• 1:35:26Sean Fennessey?

  It is actually very sweet and kind of well made, but this is a new form of entertainment.

• 1:35:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Again, a lot of attention paid to production design.

• 1:35:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, there was. It looks good in a way.

• 1:35:39Amanda Dobbins?

  At least part of the exteriors of the TWA Hotel at JFK, which

• 1:35:44Sean Fennessey?

  You stayed at.

• 1:35:45Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I will be staying at in August.

• 1:35:48Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 1:35:49Amanda Dobbins?

  With my two airplane obsessed little boys. So I did watch this with Knox in mind.

• 1:35:56Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, but not with him.

• 1:35:57Amanda Dobbins?

  No, not with him. He was asleep.

• 1:35:59Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:36:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And

• 1:36:01Sean Fennessey?

  This would be way more appropriate than most things you show him. This is about a boy being dazzled by being on a plane.

• 1:36:07Amanda Dobbins?

  You just said that as if I'm just like showing.

• 1:36:10Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you're showing him hardcore porn and then you could be showing him this beautiful film directed by John Travolta.

• 1:36:15Amanda Dobbins?

  All we watched was Center Stage. Are they dancing at home? Yes. Anyway, this, but it's just really a little boy being like, which Boeing do you like the best and why? And I was like, I relate to this and he doesn't want to eat the chicken. But, and so there's a lot of

• 1:36:31Sean Fennessey?

  Chicken cordon bleu.

• 1:36:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, there's a lot.

• 1:36:33Sean Fennessey?

  You like chicken cordon bleu?

• 1:36:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think I've ever had chicken cordon bleu.

• 1:36:35Sean Fennessey?

  What in the world?

• 1:36:36Amanda Dobbins?

  But I do like fried chicken and cheese. Where would I have it?

• 1:36:39Sean Fennessey?

  See, the chicken cordon bleu preparation in this movie is not, to me, I've had it as grilled chicken, not as, as fried or even like baked with the breadcrumbs. But I guess there are multiple preparations, but I, my stepmom makes a wonderful chicken cordon bleu. I've had it many times.

• 1:36:55Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's dairy, but the dairy is baked, so it's going to be okay for you.

• 1:36:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's dairy? What do you, no, no, it's cheese. It's like melted cheese.

• 1:37:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I, I'm just checking in, you know, like weekly status reports on where we are.

• 1:37:07Sean Fennessey?

  Chicken cordon bleu on pro. That's what I'll say.

• 1:37:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I've never had it. Would love to try it. So this, this just felt like a movie made by my four year old with like slightly better artistic vision. Though he's really, he's really coming into his own, drawing bunnies with eyebrows now.

• 1:37:23Sean Fennessey?

  Your son.

• 1:37:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:24Sean Fennessey?

  Not the kid in this movie.

• 1:37:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Not the kid in this movie.

• 1:37:26Sean Fennessey?

  Played like Clark Shotwell. First of all, Shotwell, that's a, that's a hell of a last name. Is that a real name?

• 1:37:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know.

• 1:37:34Sean Fennessey?

  Sean Shotwell? Could you imagine? Should I pivot at 43?

• 1:37:37Amanda Dobbins?

  That's like, it's a little too much alliteration.

• 1:37:39Sean Fennessey?

  Shotwell, like a filmmaker?

• 1:37:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I get it. Yeah.

• 1:37:42Sean Fennessey?

  Or Shotwell, like Jalen Brunson?

• 1:37:45Amanda Dobbins?

  That's great. I saw while I was running around the Rose Bowl this weekend, I saw a woman in Jalen Brunson shirt and I like almost, and it was a very cool Jalen Brunson shirt and I almost like, you know, did a what's up, but then, you know, I'm not allowed to hop on the bandwagon and that's what it would be.

• 1:38:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you're welcome as far as I'm concerned.

• 1:38:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I'm not, it's just, it's very complicated in my house right now. Yeah. The, the appeal of the Knicks to a four-year-old who also likes airplanes.

• 1:38:09Sean Fennessey?

  Would be despicable. Absolutely despicable. If I find out that that's the case, we're gonna have big problems.

• 1:38:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen.

• 1:38:15Sean Fennessey?

  The Spurs have plenty of titles. They don't need another title. Wemby is 23. He's gonna have plenty of time to win. This, this may never happen again for the Knicks. I'm fucking in my 40s.

• 1:38:26Amanda Dobbins?

  This is like in Cannes, remember when I told you another Philly sports related fact that was just my husband doing something Philly sports related and you started yelling at me for 25 minutes?

• 1:38:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, well, these feelings run deep. Anyhow, uh, one-way propeller, propeller, one-way night coach?

• 1:38:45Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a, it's a good movie for children.

• 1:38:47Sean Fennessey?

  Is it?

• 1:38:48Amanda Dobbins?

  No, because it's, uh...

• 1:38:50Sean Fennessey?

  It's just a kid who keeps going, and then this happened, and then this happened. And it's kind of sweet.

• 1:38:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And so Travolta is narrating the, much like Alfred Molina, remarkably bright creatures narrated by an octopus, propeller, one-way, uh, whatever, is narrated by John Travolta just reading his own book.

• 1:39:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's a very, a very curious thing. I've been thinking about Travolta, you know, obviously his beret and mustache combo that he was rocking in Cannes was, was memed very quickly. Travolta has kind of occupied this really strange place in the culture for the last 15 years where he's kind of become like kind of a meme, kind of a punchline, and he's already gone through, he's already had his renaissance and his return to greatness in the 90s. And now if you look at his CV, he's made more movies since 2010 to today than I think he made in the 1970s and 80s combined, but the movies that he made in the 70s and 80s were so iconic, especially in the 70s. And most of what he does now is this kind of red box, straight to DV, like action thriller stuff. And I don't, I don't know. It's like we were back to thinking about him the same way

• 1:39:53Sean Fennessey?

  that we did before Tarantino resuscitated him with Pulp Fiction, where he's like kind of a punchline. But he is a very winning character, and even just hearing his voice narrating the movie, something calming and nice about that. But he's just got such an insanely uneven filmography, perhaps the most uneven filmography in major movie star history. And yet I still want to do a Hall of Fame for him. I still want to go back and watch all the movies. When are we gonna do that?

• 1:40:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Including all of the Redbox movies?

• 1:40:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I don't know.

• 1:40:19Sean Fennessey?

  This is what it's all about.

• 1:40:20Amanda Dobbins?

  You're gonna have to, that's gonna be, like, maybe after the podcast ends, you start another podcast that's just John Travolta Hall of Fame.

• 1:40:28Sean Fennessey?

  That's a whole separate other show?

• 1:40:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I just, I'm not gonna have any time until after the Four Beatles movies, you know? That's a lot of movies.

• 1:40:36Sean Fennessey?

  So we'll do it in 2029. We'll do the John Travolta Hall of Fame. What, how old will he be then? Um, okay, let me tell you about Mortal Kombat 2.

• 1:40:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:40:44Sean Fennessey?

  Like the first film directed by Simon McQuaid, written by Jeremy Slater, Carl Urban is here as Johnny Cage. Are you familiar with Mortal Kombat at all? Do you know any, can you name any characters besides Johnny Cage, now that I've said his name?

• 1:40:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Isn't there something about like the finisher or something?

• 1:41:00Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you're thinking of fatalities.

• 1:41:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Fatalities?

• 1:41:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:41:03Sean Fennessey?

  Fatalities are here. That's when you win a match and you get to kill someone, kill your opponent.

• 1:41:07Amanda Dobbins?

  What I know, I have learned from you talking at me like this on previous episodes.

• 1:41:14Sean Fennessey?

  First Mortal Kombat movie is all about like establishing the lore in the world of Mortal Kombat. Movie is a complete waste of time. Just, who gives a shit? Mortal Kombat is a fighting game about killing people.

• 1:41:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it in this?

• 1:41:25Sean Fennessey?

  That's what the movies should be.

• 1:41:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it in this world or another world?

• 1:41:28Sean Fennessey?

  It's in like an outer world and they travel all over the place. There's like all kinds of experience. I don't, let's just, there's realms. There's all kinds of realms.

• 1:41:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. But no humans?

• 1:41:38Sean Fennessey?

  No, there are humans. Johnny Cage is a human. Johnny Cage is a, an action movie star, kind of a Jean Claude Van Damme meets Keanu Reeves type figure, who is brought into the Mortal Kombat world to use his movie-only martial arts skills and becomes a great warrior. And that's kind of the pitch on this movie. Johnny Cage was not in the first Mortal Kombat film. He's in this one. Carl Urban's kind of the star of the movie, and he gets thrust into this tournament of battle. And every time the characters that I know and love from 1997 are fighting in the movie, I was like, this movie is a 10 out of 10. Anytime anything else is happening, it's a zero out of 10. Like anytime characters are speaking to each other, I want to throw myself off of a bridge.

• 1:42:21Sean Fennessey?

  But if they're not, if they're throwing razor tinged hats at each other and slicing each other's heads off, it's the best movie ever made. That's my review of Mortal Kombat 2.

• 1:42:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I was gonna ask like a clarification question, but I'm not. Keep it moving.

• 1:42:34Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Mortal Kombat 2, I highly recommend it. Also, never watch it. That's my review. Okay, let's talk about Lorne.

• 1:42:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:42:41Sean Fennessey?

  Lorne is the second Morgan Neville documentary about a world Titanic pop culture American figure this year. He's getting into the habit of-

• 1:42:49Amanda Dobbins?

  He's infiltrated a friend group of sorts, as I understand it. Well, aren't, aren't Lorne and Paul McCartney friends?

• 1:42:55Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, well, they certainly are. And I wonder if there's, you know, some, some, some connectivity going on there.

• 1:43:02Sean Fennessey?

  The Paul McCartney documentary we talked about a couple of months ago, Man on the Run, about his life in the 1970s after the Beatles. Maybe Morgan will make one about our life after the Beatles and what happens when this show ends. This new one is about Lorne Michaels, who is the famed Canadian producer who created Saturday Night Live and has been at the helm of that show for most of its 50 years, though not all. I know a lot about Saturday Night Live.

• 1:43:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:43:28Sean Fennessey?

  Read all the books, seen all the documentaries, loved the cast, all the casts. I have affection for every, every era of the show.

• 1:43:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:37Sean Fennessey?

  Big shared passion of Bill Simmons and I. Big early connecting point for us when I started working for him.

• 1:43:43Sean Fennessey?

  Lorne, famously impossible to know. Don't really know much better after this movie.

• 1:43:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:47Sean Fennessey?

  I didn't dislike watching it.

• 1:43:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I completely agree. And the, the movie, I think wisely and cheekily makes the unknowability a part of the, the movie within the first five minutes and, you know, uses a lot of funny constructs in order to get around the fact that most of the footage that you have of Lorne, both sitting for multiple interviews and wandering around both his office and his like main blueberry farm, is him just avoiding the camera and being like, I don't want to do this and, and, and doing- His own version of the Lauren impression that we have gotten from every single Saturday Night Live cast member for 50 years.

• 1:44:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:44:29Amanda Dobbins?

  So I, like, I thought it was funny. I thought it was clever.

• 1:44:35Sean Fennessey?

  It's definitely entertaining, and it's, I think if you're more of a surface level fan of this stuff, then I think it will probably be enjoyable and informative. And there's a couple of moments that are amazing. John Mulaney explaining Lauren telling him why he always receives material from people.

• 1:44:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I was about to say that.

• 1:44:51Sean Fennessey?

  That's, that moment is amazing.

• 1:44:52Amanda Dobbins?

  So funny.

• 1:44:53Sean Fennessey?

  You know, where he's like, Terry Milcher failed to accept Charles Manson's demo tape.

• 1:44:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I understand.

• 1:45:00Sean Fennessey?

  And that's why he was murdered. That's why Sharon Tate was murdered. That, and they kind of like, how you interact with people. And the various people that Lauren has mentored and have been on the cast of the show, they're talking about their experiences with him. That kind of thing is just crack to me, and I always enjoy it.

• 1:45:14Amanda Dobbins?

  And pretty much everybody is in it, except for Will Ferrell.

• 1:45:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's weird.

• 1:45:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:19Sean Fennessey?

  Why wasn't Will Ferrell in it?

• 1:45:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. And I guess McKay is also not in it as well.

• 1:45:24Sean Fennessey?

  But the vast majority of Lauren, and his famous friends, Steve Martin, Paul Simon, they all sit for it. They all kind of tell different versions of like, Lauren's never gonna tell you that. Which is, it's entertaining, but it's also kind of annoying. There was a Lauren biography by Susan Morrison that came out last year that is amazing.

• 1:45:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And she is, like, very briefly in it.

• 1:45:42Sean Fennessey?

  She is. And that is, that to me is like, as definitive an account as you can get. She doesn't get so much farther beyond the surface, but there's so much detail in the book. A movie like this is so weird, because Neville is really good at getting underneath the cultural meaning of someone. Even if he doesn't explore truly who they are and their soul, because it's hard to do that in a documentary, he has been, most especially, I think, with Mr. Rogers, but he's done it many times in his career, capturing why a person, how a person cracked through to something deeper to what we love.

• 1:46:13Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if this movie does that.

• 1:46:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:15Sean Fennessey?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:46:16Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I, I agree with you.

• 1:46:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe its thesis is just ultimately that it's a Lorne thing. The funniest of all the interviews is the Steve Martin interview because it's Steve and Lorne together at one of the three restaurants that Lorne Michaels goes to, but it's filmed like at a distance, basically like across the restaurant.

• 1:46:39Sean Fennessey?

  It's like a TMZ video.

• 1:46:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, so it's absolutely, it's like, it's honestly not that much farther from this if we were sitting there and they are.

• 1:46:45Sean Fennessey?

  If we were talking like this.

• 1:46:46Amanda Dobbins?

  They are seated together like this and Steve Martin is like asking sort of perfunctorily, like ex positional questions, but also being Steve Martin about it.

• 1:46:57Amanda Dobbins?

  But I think Lorne says to him, I think it's Steve Martin who asked him, are you going to retire? And Lorne says, no, he's like, cause like this show, this show is from another time and as soon as I go, like it will not, it, it won't be what it is anymore.

• 1:47:11Sean Fennessey?

  Which is something that many people have suggested would be true.

• 1:47:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:14Sean Fennessey?

  And it was, but it was interesting to hear him say that.

• 1:47:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly.

• 1:47:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:15Amanda Dobbins?

  But, but you know, but that is delivered as in a matter of fact aside at a, at a weird dinner in a turquoise dining call filmed from across the way with Steve Martin.

• 1:47:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. You know what? I'll, I'll take back what I said somewhat. The one thing that I thought was revelatory, which I don't think I'd really seen before in any of the other documentaries about Saturday Night Live was the camera being trained on him while every sketch is playing out and the way that he reacts, his kind of restlessness and the pff, the exhaling, which indicates, you know, a sense of unsuccessful in a moment. That stuff I thought was really insightful and that's for the real super fans who pay close attention to this stuff. I, I wanted more of that. Maybe that would not have made for as entertaining or, or, or coherent a movie, but a little bit more of that observational stuff, I think would have gone a long way. And it's interesting that he did let them film in that way, but he also wouldn't talk specifically about his childhood or what informed his.

• 1:48:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:48:12Sean Fennessey?

  Which comedic taste.

• 1:48:13Amanda Dobbins?

  They still spent too much time on his childhood, but whatever.

• 1:48:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I guess I don't usually like that as much in movies anyway, but there's still.

• 1:48:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't like that. And also, you know, it's the third section of the New Yorker profile.

• 1:48:21Sean Fennessey?

  I like. I know.

• 1:48:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't care about grandparents.

• 1:48:23Sean Fennessey?

  Lorne is one of those people who just feels like he just landed on earth.

• 1:48:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:26Sean Fennessey?

  He doesn't feel like a person who like had experiences that then informed who he became.

• 1:48:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:48:30Sean Fennessey?

  And.

• 1:48:32Sean Fennessey?

  That those alien people are very special. They usually tend to make something very amazing. And their lack of internality is very powerful. And I don't relate to it, you know? I feel differently. So I guess I'm always going to be interested in them, even if it makes for ultimately an unsatisfying portrait.

• 1:48:47Amanda Dobbins?

  But it had enough. It had the observational stuff. It had enough candy. It like the, the talking head stuff. You had so many people. Thought the Chris Parnell narration was funny.

• 1:48:57Sean Fennessey?

  It was funny.

• 1:48:58Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 1:48:58Sean Fennessey?

  It was, it felt like papering over like, oh, we didn't really get Lauren to tell us what we wanted.

• 1:49:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. But, but like in a clever way, at least, you know?

• 1:49:05Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. I agree. It was kind of like the, the Pharrell Lego doc, which I also thought was kind of fascinating and fun candy. But I'm still like, I don't understand what makes Pharrell tick at all.

• 1:49:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:49:15Sean Fennessey?

  After seeing this, but I had a lot of fun watching him be in a world of creativity. So, you know, I, I, I love like Morgan's whole project. I think it's really interesting. It's just so funny that you have to watch him like contend with the subject that he agrees to take on. And they're all, because they're so powerful. They like, they're all so, they're fighting a battle, even though they've agreed to be portrayed. And it's an interesting thing. Okay. Um, just want to give a quick shout out to Tuner.

• 1:49:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Which I would love to see, and I just, I didn't make time. I had to watch Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Ghost War.

• 1:49:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, maybe, maybe we can talk about it more after you check it out. I feel like it's a movie that people are going to really find on streaming. Um, it did pretty good this weekend, actually. It was in semi limited release, like in a thousand screens and it made a few million bucks. Um, I had Daniel Roar on the show last week to talk about it. It's a movie about a piano tuner who is identified by a criminal outfit because his piano tuning skills, which are extraordinary, allow him to crack safes. And he enters a criminal world doing that work. And then things naturally go awry. Leo Woodall, Dustin Hoffman, Leo Roz, Havana Rose Liu. Very old fashioned and wonderfully entertaining movie that I think people should check out. Leo Woodall, I don't, you think that's going to happen?

• 1:50:33Amanda Dobbins?

  It's been percolating. I, this would have been a nice breakthrough if it were bigger. What else to see? What else is on the?

• 1:50:44Sean Fennessey?

  On the docket coming out? Well, he's in Tony. He's got a supporting part in Tony, which is coming in August. He's in a film called Nomad, which is about a mysterious loner who has a bizarre condition that takes him to another place on Earth every 12 hours with no ability to control his destinations.

• 1:51:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:51:01Sean Fennessey?

  That's right up my alley.

• 1:51:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah. He's in Custom of the Country with Sydney Sweeney.

• 1:51:08Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 1:51:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:10Sean Fennessey?

  What?

• 1:51:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Oh, and also he's apparently, uh,

• 1:51:14Sean Fennessey?

  Wait a minute.

• 1:51:14Amanda Dobbins?

  He's joining the hunt for Gollum?

• 1:51:16Sean Fennessey?

  Sydney Sweeney is gonna be in the Custom of the Country?

• 1:51:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I told you about this on a podcast before. Yes, Sofia was, Sofia Coppola was developing it for years.

• 1:51:26Sean Fennessey?

  I know.

• 1:51:26Amanda Dobbins?

  For Apple. And then basically she was like, there's not enough money to do this the way I want to do it, or this is too depressing.

• 1:51:33Sean Fennessey?

  She's gonna be doing an English accent?

• 1:51:34Amanda Dobbins?

  So now Sydney Sweeney has taken it on. I don't know.

• 1:51:37Sean Fennessey?

  So this is directed by Josie Rourke, longtime theater director who made Mary Elena Scott's.

• 1:51:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but Custom of the Country is Wharton, so it would be an English accent.

• 1:51:47Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I said, an English accent.

• 1:51:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, no, an American accent.

• 1:51:49Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:51:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Sorry, American accent.

• 1:51:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, got it, got it, my mistake.

• 1:51:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Still, I have some questions about whether.

• 1:51:57Sean Fennessey?

  Seeing Leo Woodall and Matthew Good and Hugh Dancy in the cast made me think that this was gonna be, are we sure this is not gonna be like, at least like, kind of mid-Atlantic? You know, that kind of upper crust?

• 1:52:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure. I mean, it's of the time, but it's Edith Wharton, and she's Undine Sprague, who I believe is, I mean, I know she's American. Let's, let's find out where in the United States she's from. Okay. Midwestern young woman.

• 1:52:23Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, okay. I mean, I wish her well. Did you happen to check in on the series finale of Euphoria?

• 1:52:30Amanda Dobbins?

  No. Thumbs up, thumbs down.

• 1:52:33Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't seen it.

• 1:52:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:52:34Sean Fennessey?

  I watched two episodes this season and I checked out.

• 1:52:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I know what happened in the penultimate episode. And then I saw that Sam Levinson went on PopCast to say that there will be no more Euphoria.

• 1:52:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Is that where he announced it?

• 1:52:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Apparently, yes.

• 1:52:48Sean Fennessey?

  That's great.

• 1:52:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Or at least that's, you know, I follow Joe Coscarelli on Instagram.

• 1:52:52Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's probably also because of what happened in the finale.

• 1:52:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:52:55Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe it didn't need to be explained.

• 1:52:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:52:58Sean Fennessey?

  But I'm, no spoilers here.

• 1:52:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Wish those people well.

• 1:53:02Sean Fennessey?

  The cast of Euphoria?

• 1:53:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:04Sean Fennessey?

  I think they're doing great.

• 1:53:04Amanda Dobbins?

  They are.

• 1:53:05Sean Fennessey?

  Seems like they're doing wonderfully. They are the future of movies.

• 1:53:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:53:08Sean Fennessey?

  Quite frankly. And this has been the future of movies, this entire conversation. How do you feel?

• 1:53:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Great. I love cinema.

• 1:53:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I do too.

• 1:53:17Amanda Dobbins?

  What you're not mentioning is the summer of, I hope it was 1916. If it was 1917, I'm gonna feel really bad, but I think it was 1916.

• 1:53:25Sean Fennessey?

  I think you got it right.

• 1:53:26Amanda Dobbins?

  You know. There's just...

• 1:53:29Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I, did you see The Breadwinner?

• 1:53:32Amanda Dobbins?

  No. I follow Mandy Moore on Instagram.

• 1:53:36Sean Fennessey?

  How's that going?

• 1:53:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, so she's-

• 1:53:38Sean Fennessey?

  Eastside mom.

• 1:53:39Amanda Dobbins?

  She's an eastside mom, but she's, you know, she's part of the viral mom chat. Do you, do you follow this at all at the beginning of the year?

• 1:53:44Sean Fennessey?

  No. The viral mom chat?

• 1:53:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:47Sean Fennessey?

  Is that like a zombie movie situation?

• 1:53:48Amanda Dobbins?

  No, but, once again-

• 1:53:50Sean Fennessey?

  That's an idea.

• 1:53:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, keep making the movies that you want. No, this was, okay, so, who, Ashley Tisdale? Is that right, everyone? Yep, thank you, Sarah, in the booth. Ashley Tisdale wrote an essay for The Cut, well, first for her own blog, and then for The Cut about how she was excommunicated from a mom group chat, friend group.

• 1:54:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I remember this.

• 1:54:10Amanda Dobbins?

  And she felt that it was very mean. And then everyone realized that it's the mom friend group featuring Hilary Duff, who is incredibly famous. Do you know this?

• 1:54:18Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I certainly do, and I'll tell you why.

• 1:54:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, yeah, Lizzie McGuire.

• 1:54:21Sean Fennessey?

  No, she's insanely hot, that's why. That's a whole thing, yeah, that's a whole thing.

• 1:54:25Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I mean, I know, but like, that's your flavor? This is a little bit-

• 1:54:28Sean Fennessey?

  Historically, no.

• 1:54:29Amanda Dobbins?

  This is just like a little bit of like a Kaley Cuoco situation for, you know, me, but, okay. That's-

• 1:54:33Sean Fennessey?

  No, you're mistaken.

• 1:54:34Amanda Dobbins?

  A beautiful young woman.

• 1:54:35Sean Fennessey?

  You're mistaken.

• 1:54:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Um.

• 1:54:36Sean Fennessey?

  I'm, I'm not gonna get into describing people's personas in that specific way.

• 1:54:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:54:40Sean Fennessey?

  However, you gotta learn up on Hilary Duff, right? In her 40s right now. What's happening there?

• 1:54:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, no, listen, I, I am aware-

• 1:54:48Sean Fennessey?

  There's a lot happening.

• 1:54:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Because she keeps being reblogged on Mandy Moore's group chat, because what happened is, is that-

• 1:54:56Sean Fennessey?

  Reblogged?

• 1:54:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, cuz I'm not following Hilary Duff because I'm-

• 1:54:59Sean Fennessey?

  What do you mean, reblogged?

• 1:55:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I, well, re, like, posted on Instagram. They all went to her opening-

• 1:55:05Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:55:05Amanda Dobbins?

  In Las Vegas, they had like a girls weekend. Basically, so the mom chat that was identified as the mean mom chat has responded by just doubling down on like being out in public and posting and doing girls trips and being like, "We love our life without Ashley Tisdale and Hilary Duff has an album and Hilary Duff's in Las Vegas and Mandy Moore's in The Breadwinner and Mandy Moore's doing this." So I'm up on what they're doing, yeah. But I did not see The Breadwinner.

• 1:55:32Sean Fennessey?

  We can really do anything on this show. There are no boundaries. It's extraordinary. And you gotta wait until you get to minute 112 before you can get into this kind of conversation. But I'm really proud of us. Proud of the movies.

• 1:55:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, good job. Good job. Good job to the youth for going to see it.

• 1:55:49Sean Fennessey?

  You have no regrets about sitting out the next episode?

• 1:55:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I can't go tonight to see the film.

• 1:55:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:55Amanda Dobbins?

  And I, I do feel-

• 1:55:58Sean Fennessey?

  It's gonna be the nerdiest episode of all time.

• 1:56:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. But like, I don't, I don't want to infringe on your time. You know, it's gonna be a safe space for the two of you. The real question is, will I listen to it? I think I will. I think I will. But I still gotta do Spielberg Rewatchables.

• 1:56:13Sean Fennessey?

  That's a fair question.

• 1:56:14Amanda Dobbins?

  I gotta prep for Mondays Up, you know? Like, I got, I got movies to see.

• 1:56:17Sean Fennessey?

  Let me ask you this. So, we're gonna do a Disclosure Day episode, obviously, in June. And then there's another episode that will come after Disclosure Day comes out, where we'll talk about Spielberg. Now, we've done top fives, right? I think we did a full, did we do a full ranking or no? Just me, you, and Joe did our top fives?

• 1:56:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I thought that we did a ranking, but-

• 1:56:38Sean Fennessey?

  I thought we did too. I thought we did both.

• 1:56:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, because I just remember having to be like, ET and Jurassic Park should be higher. What's wrong with both of you? Over and over and over again.

• 1:56:46Sean Fennessey?

  I know, but you're not an AI person, and this is a big problem for us historically with this thing.

• 1:56:51Amanda Dobbins?

  The film?

• 1:56:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Or the technology?

• 1:56:54Sean Fennessey?

  You're not into the technology, nor am I. The film, though, which is a five-star masterpiece.

• 1:56:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I was assigned it as summer school. Not summer school homework, let's be clear. I did not go to summer school, but I went to school during the summer.

• 1:57:03Sean Fennessey?

  God forbid someone ever went to summer school, everybody.

• 1:57:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, I have a homework, you know, reputation to maintain.

• 1:57:10Sean Fennessey?

  So what are we gonna do with Spielberg? What are we gonna talk, not with him, the man?

• 1:57:13Amanda Dobbins?

  So we're not reranking?

• 1:57:15Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out. We've seen Disclosure Day, and I love the idea of putting it in the context of his career, for sure. But we'll probably do that in the episode that we do.

• 1:57:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I would imagine. It would be hard not to.

• 1:57:25Sean Fennessey?

  Very hard. Let's give that some thought.

• 1:57:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:57:28Sean Fennessey?

  What would be the best way to do it?

• 1:57:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:57:30Sean Fennessey?

  But anyway, later this week- Griffin Newman will be joining me to talk about Masters of the Universe. Perhaps you've heard Griffin on the Blank Check Podcast, one of our buds. He knows a lot about He-Man, and he knows a lot about toys.

• 1:57:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:45Sean Fennessey?

  And he knows a lot about fantasy films. And those are the things we'll be talking about in this episode.

• 1:57:49Amanda Dobbins?

  And I think that's beautiful.

• 1:57:51Sean Fennessey?

  I need this movie to be good. Because if it's bad, then I'm going to be not happy. I'm going to be sad.

• 1:57:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:58Sean Fennessey?

  I'm going to be mad.

• 1:57:59Amanda Dobbins?

  You're just going to be sad.

• 1:57:59Sean Fennessey?

  I'm just going to be sad. And I'm having such a happy time in my life, and I want it to continue. Do you think it will?

• 1:58:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm rooting for you.

• 1:58:08Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:58:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Early buzz is good. Maybe you can just, your heart is open right now. You know, you're entering from a space of positivity.

• 1:58:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:15Amanda Dobbins?

  And that's, if you were already dead in the ditch, if like, if we had to talk about the Mets for a while, then

• 1:58:21Sean Fennessey?

  Four-game winning streak.

• 1:58:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, congratulations.

• 1:58:23Sean Fennessey?

  Things are looking fine.

• 1:58:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:58:25Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think they're going to go to the playoffs, but they're fine.

• 1:58:27Amanda Dobbins?

  It's again.

• 1:58:28Sean Fennessey?

  Juan Soto is him.

• 1:58:29Amanda Dobbins?

  It's June 1st.

• 1:58:30Sean Fennessey?

  It is June 1st, you're right.

• 1:58:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm rooting for you.

• 1:58:33Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks, I appreciate your support. There was a tweet that I saw on the internet, an X.com post that said, "Damn, really seems like Travis Knight loves Jane Schonbrunn's movie after seeing Masters of the Universe."

• 1:58:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:58:45Sean Fennessey?

  So I just wanted to let you know that that's the vibe.

• 1:58:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, cool.

• 1:58:51Sean Fennessey?

  We'll see.

• 1:58:52Amanda Dobbins?

  See you at the movies.

• 1:58:53Sean Fennessey?

  See you at the movies later this week. And thank you so much to Lucas Cavanagh and Sarah Reddy for their work on this episode. We'll see you later this week to talk about Masters of the Universe.

• 1:59:51Speaker 04

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