The Big Picture - 10 Movies We Missed This Year

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

Sean and Amanda dig into the year’s releases that they haven’t covered yet, including ‘Joy Ride,’ ‘Insidious: The Red Door,’ ‘Elemental,’ and more. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, media consumers. I'm Brian Curtis. And I'm David Shoemaker. We're the hosts of The Ringer's Press Box podcast. Twice a week, we have a free-flowing conversation where two old, old friends talk about media and sports and a little politics. Plus interviews with guests like John Krakauer

and Jamel Hill. Funny stuff like the overworked Twitter joke of the week. Join us every Monday and Friday on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I think that's right. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points.

Visit Superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Davins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about some movies we missed. Hi, Amanda. Hi, Sean. How are you?

I'm well. I'm glad to see you. I'm very happy to see you. I want to let you know something. Yes. I have my swagger back. I'm so glad to hear it. I'm back. you know something. Yes. I have my swagger back. I'm so glad to hear it. I'm back. What was the deciding event?

I'm at full health. Okay. We've had a breakthrough in child rearing. Amazing. And I am so excited for the movies that are coming out in the next few weeks that this, we need to turn the ship around on this show. We need to embrace positivity. We need to love one another.

We need to love Bobby Wagner. Okay. And we need to love movies. We need to love one another. We need to love Bobby Wagner. Okay. And we need to love movies. What's happening right now? I am turning the ship around. Okay. I am like the Titanic captain, but good. That's who I am.

Okay. Is this you feeling guilty about how you've behaved? Maybe a little bit. Okay. All right. How about this? Yeah. I'm sorry.

Oh, that's so nice, Sean nice sean thanks i kind of need that i as i told you this morning when i greeted you i i have a i'm excited about the next couple weeks i'm also a little nervous about the next couple weeks a lot of things going on here's what i need is i need everyone to do their jobs uh and i think is that a christopher nolan shot like who are we talking about? I need Christopher Nolan to do his job. Okay. I need Greta Gerwig to do her job. I need the studios to do their job and show in the movies to me. Okay.

I need my son to do his job and going to sleep on time. Okay. I need everyone we work with to do their jobs. And let me just say something. This is how I say I love you. Bobby and Sean, you always do your jobs. And I appreciate you. So thank you so much.

Thanks. Bob, you've been marooned here in Los Angeles for one more day. I sure have. The weather does not want me to go home. Maybe it's just trying to tell me something. We got to keep the band together over here. At a minimum, keep these shows cranking out. You know, we need you on the ground making episodes.

That's something that maybe God is telling you. Have you considered that? Yeah, we at the Big Picture Industries, we're job doers. We're frontline job doers of the podcast world. Bobby, you are podcasting from a family member's home and the wallpaper is just lovely. And there's some built-in cabinets here. I'm very envious of your setting right now. It looks like you're at an extremely luxurious bed and breakfast somewhere in the English countryside or near the beach. I'll pass those kind words along. It's a very comforting place to podcast from.

It's a really nice energy that you're bringing to this podcast. It is Nancy Meyers adjacent. Yes. Now that good vibes are flowing, shall we talk about movies? I'd love to. i've seen a lot of them recently yeah we were doing our job over the last few days seeing movies yeah joining joining the public at large watching the the televisual films um we're going to talk about a bunch of them there have been some that we came in a couple months ago that we didn't talk about

it was a very active weekend at the movies we saw a couple of those releases. Interesting box office race over the weekend. Indy 5, The Dial of Destiny, was supplanted by a film that we'll talk about shortly. Not supplanted by the first movie we're going to talk about. No. Which is currently in theaters. It's called Joyride. It is a comedy. What can you tell us about Joyride, Amanda? So it is directed by Adele Lim, and it stars Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Stu, and Sabrina Wu. And it is reminiscent of several raunchy comedies that you have seen in the last few years. Most notably, I would say Girl Strip. I would also describe this as a friend-com, if you will.

But it is definitely a filth-forward friend-com. In, honestly, I thought wonderful ways. I had a great time. I laughed. I cried. I had a giant soda and some Raisinets. And the other three people in the theater with me, which was tough, also laughed a lot. I was completely delighted by this.

I think many people who saw it were delighted by it. Unfortunately, not that many people saw it. A small sum of people saw it. I think in addition to Girls Trip, I thought quite a bit of The Hangover while watching this movie. It's a story about the Asian American women who travel to China, one of which Ashley Park goes for work, and she brings some friends along. They meet up with a friend along the way this work trip very quickly becomes a quest for Ashley Park's character to find her birth mother she's adopted by white parents in the United States and I thought the movie was kind of funny but weirdly emotionally powerful and there's like a very manipulative but incredibly effective third act move in the movie that I did not see coming at all because I thought it had a 50% hit ratio on the jokes.

I thought when the jokes were good, they were really, really good. And when they weren't good, I felt like a very quiet movie theater that I was in. And that's a tough thing with a comedy. I don't disagree with you. Again, the quietness of my movie theater was a little bit about the fact that there were four other people in it, which is a bummer. But when I did laugh, I laughed a lot. I thought there was a lot of creativity with the jokes and some of the set pieces. And I don't want to spoil the cameo in the third act, but that was very powerful. And then this speech, you know, the emotional moment, absolutely, landed and was really effective. And then there is also like the nice friend moment at the end, which I also

thought worked very well. I don't know. I liked it. I would like to talk about the marketing of this film, which to me, at least, was non-existent. Oh, okay. I was going to say, I feel like actually one of the concerns that I have with the movie is I feel like they were working too hard to show us how filthy it was. It comes from Point Grey, which is Seth Rogen

and Evan Goldberg's company. They actually have the best track record in terms of producing comedies that I like in the last 10 years. It's kind of amazing. I mean, they've really picked up the Apatow banner.

But the marketing on the movie, I think, was a little bit too obsessed with being like, this is a raunchy comedy. And not enough in terms of how uh thoughtful and emotional the movie is at times I agree with that I just also think there wasn't a lot of marketing it just you know it's Lionsgate and I understand that there just is not as much money behind it as you you know put behind Barbie but I just I'm probably the target audience for this. And I understand also marketing to, you know, late thirties, you know, women who use Instagram. You're in your late thirties?

I know. You don't look a day over 25, Amanda. Thank you so much. That's really nice. I understand that no one cares about me and that's cool. Like I get it. That's not true. And that's like probably financially prudent. At least seven people care about you. That's really nice. Thank you so much. But I just, I don't think there's an awareness of this movie. And I, you know, I was telling my friends about it this week and I was just like, oh, I had a really good time. You know, you should go see it. And I did think that the in-theater experience was also, because when, there was one gentleman

in my screening who loved this movie and laughed very loudly, and that encouraged me to laugh. So I don't know. I hope people go check it out. My screening was actually quite full. Oh, good. I went in the afternoon on Friday, and it was pretty crowded. Why didn't you come to my screening? Because I had to do a back-to-back, which we will get to momentarily.

Oh, okay. And they were next to each other in the same theater. Okay. Somewhat similar times, but we couldn't make it work, unfortunately. You wanted me there to laugh aloud to make you feel safe? No, I just, I thought it would have been a nice time on a Friday afternoon. It would have been. I didn't see you at all this weekend.

I was in a really good headspace. I even laughed at the trailers. Oh, good. What trailer did you like? Well, we're going to talk about one of them. Okay. But then also Theater Camp, I laughed like five times. You haven't seen it?

No, I haven't seen it yet. Oh, it's fun. Well, I know, but that is a thing where the marketing is like five times. You haven't seen it? No, I haven't seen it yet. Oh, it's fun. Well, I know, but that is a thing where the marketing is like really off. And I guess if you watch the trailer,

then you learn. Well, my queen, Molly Gordon. I mean, she is truly... I do love Molly Gordon, but I thought it was like, you know, sort of like waiting for Guffman about like the adults,

you know? Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no. And it's like, it's about children. And it was really funny. Like I laughed at all of the things. Yeah, I thought it was pretty good. I mean, it's it's like that it's about children like children be and it's it was really funny like i laughed at all of the things yeah i thought it was pretty good i mean it's interesting like that movie is coming out theater camp was a sundance film is coming out this friday which is kind of a tough draw because it's going right into the teeth right

of mission impossible followed closely by barbie and oppenheimer and it might get lost a little bit it's a searchlight movie um that i people will really like. And I'm willing to bet when it goes to Hulu, it's going to be a nice streaming success. Nevertheless, Joyride is fun. I liked it too. I think we both recommend it. Another movie that it's sad to be like, please enjoy this on Starz when it hits Starz in nine months. It doesn't stop slandering Starz. Still the best movie library.

I canceled my subscription. I actually disagree about the movie library thing. I spent some time with it after your full-throated recommendations over the years. Because I subscribed for the Party Down revival, which I loved. Yeah. Which is like, that's like my favorite show. But I went tooling around and I couldn't find stuff. Did they give up a lot of stuff?

I mean, I haven't checked in on their licensing in a couple months. It may be falling back a bit. Yeah. Stars was absolutely clutch when I went to the hospital to have Knox because, you know, I needed to preload the iPad and it just like all of the Amanda classics, like the True Comfort. Venom, Let There

Be Carnage. Yes, yes. I've seen that multiple times. The original Venom. Sure. Yeah, I know who Venom is. The Venom deleted scenes. And I spent time talking about Venom with my friends. Behind the scenes interviews. Yeah, with their commentary withom is. The Venom deleted scenes. And I spend time talking about Venom with my friends. Behind the scenes interviews. Yeah, with their commentary with Tom Hardy. And I said, hello, your name is Knox, and I'd like to tell you about Venom.

You're mistaking that conversation with one I've had with him every time I've seen him. Knox, do you know about Venom? Eddie Brock and the power of investigative journalism is a very important lesson for Knox to learn. I have no shot at Lionsgate. I love Lionsgate, but all the important lesson for Knox to learn. I have no shot at Lionsgate. I love Lionsgate, but all the Lionsgate movies go to stars.

And so, unfortunately, sometimes we miss out on those. Joyride is worth checking out in theaters. It's a lot of fun. The reason that I think a lot of people

didn't go see Joyride is because they went to go see the film that I saw immediately before it, which is Insidious, The Red Door. Now, have you ever seen

any of the Insidious movies? Are they related to the, what's the clap clap? The Conjuring. The Conjuring? They are not except for the fact that they share a star in Patrick Wilson and a creative director in James Wan. Okay. Now, James Wan did not direct this fifth installment of the Insidious franchise. I know, Patrick Wilson did. Patrick Wilson, its star, directed it in his directorial debut. I really like the Insidious franchise. I know, Patrick Wilson did. Patrick Wilson, its star, directed it in his directorial debut. I really like the Insidious movies. Chris, Bill, and I did an episode on Insidious a few years back.

I think they are, I think this is the underrated horror franchise of its time. It is a little bit more handmade, a little bit more sort of like low stakes, lower budget. But the first film features truly one of the signature jump scares of the 21st century, like a very upsetting image. This new film is sort of a fast forward film. It kind of ignores what happens in the third and fourth films and really goes back to the core characters. Patrick Wilson, his son Dalton, who's played by Ty Simpkins, Rose Byrne, of course, who plays his wife, Lin Shay, who plays this sort of medium character who understands the further, which is this kind of nether region where ghosts and demons live.

Then they haunt the characters in this movie. The movie's okay. It's okay. It has a couple of very effective sequences. I'm a huge Patrick Wilson fan. As am I. Patrick Wilson, do you like Patrick Wilson as like a personality test? It's like, are we going to be friends test

because if you just think he's like the pretty guy you don't get it yeah you don't get it once again I'm recommending Morning Glory he's great in Morning Glory

he's great in Little Children you know what movie he's really funny in Aquaman he plays like a very like haughty underwater leader

like sort of like an insurgent general Patrick Wilson is a very clever and funny leading man who plays on this underwater leader, like, sort of like an insurgent general. Patrick Wilson's a very clever and funny leading man who plays on this sort of sense of dimness

that some people think he has. I think, I appreciate what he was trying to do here. It was an interesting reading in the deadline recap of why this movie

dominated at the box office and it did. It made $32 million and beat out Indiana Jones, which is just amazing to me. But they, after they shot the film they looked at the rough cut and the producers were like this movie is not scary

let's go do reshoots and do put a bunch of scares in it and you can kind of tell when you're watching the movie you can kind of see a movie that is trying to be this kind of thoughtful exploration of a father and a son growing apart from one another because of these traumatic circumstances they've had in their lives another issue with the with the movie, we're worried way too much about trauma in our horror films and in all stories, maybe. In all stories and possibly in culture at large. I think it's, you know, therapy and acknowledging experiences is important, but also it's just become a buzzword. It can't be the sort of mitochondria of every single story. And so this movie kind of suffers from that a little bit. But you can see Patrick Wilson trying to put a kind of emotional intentionality into the

movie that is then subverted by like a demon that can't stop vomiting on a college campus. Like it's a little ridiculous. Nevertheless, I had a good time. I just think it's, I think it's amazing what's happening with horror in the last 10 years in this country. It is so interesting to watch the entire industry fall down around this genre that I have been obsessed with since I've been seven years old. And for it to just keep chugging along, it's like nothing ever happened.

It's like this movie came out in 2006. It's just the same quality performance. The same thing was true of Evil Dead Rise. The same thing was true of Megan. All these movies, they just make $70 million. The fans show up. They love them. There's not that much critical discourse around them.

Sometimes the casuals like yourself come in. Sometimes they don't. We just, we move. We go forward as horror fans. It's fascinating. It's like a real, if it ain't broke, don't fix it type thing. Yeah, what's to fix? Right.

But like every single other aspect of of hollywood and maybe the world at large has changed and people have been like but what if we did it this way and it's like just make movies for a fan base at a reasonable budget and then make your money back so what do you make of that discourse because one of the things that i saw this was i think this is like a 10 or 15 million dollar movie a very low budget movie yeah and it has already made its budget back and then some in one weekend and i i saw a little bit of commentary about the fact that indiana jones costs 250 300 million a lot of the big tentpole movies have been very expensive there's some reason for that right of course like covet 19 really ramped up some of these budgets you love

to say covet 19 that is the name yeah you love a proper like full noun how what shall i be saying instead well i just say covet and people usually know which one I'm talking about. I just want to be accurate. Because we have to be very scientific on JMO when we talk about these things. That's really true. For legal reasons. It's just muscle memory for sure. Yeah, okay.

Exactly. I've also, since I've contracted COVID-20, I'm just trying to make sure we recognize the past. Because whatever I had over the last three weeks was absolutely vile. I think that the expense of these movies, I'm wondering if that will cause a little bit of a reset. I don't know. I personally don't care that much about how much corporations spend on movies if the movies are good.

I was talking to a friend recently who made the very funny point, which is like it's really interesting how an interesting was used uh in a in a perhaps ironic way about how every five years someone comes in in any industry with a new business strategy which is what if we made money you know what like what if what if we arranged this so that we made money instead of losing money one of the core tenants of the ringer you know and i think like everything that we're seeing in terms of the quote-unquote streaming correction, and there's a lot of ugliness, and I don't mean to make light of it because it affects a lot of people and their lives and their livelihoods. But some of this is also, hey, the numbers weren't quite working, and so now we have to make numbers work. And I assume that it will apply somewhat to

giant blockbusters as well i think there will be a scale back in some budgets i think there will be a scale back actually in the budgets of the kinds of film that we'll talk about next yeah which is also i mean sort of victim to this this conversation uh the film we're gonna talk about now is elemental which is the new pix movie. Already, Amanda is shaking her head, just distressed. Like, what? I didn't text you afterwards just so I could save all of my confusion for this podcast. Are you about to pop off on Elemental? Just like, I found it unbelievably baffling.

Like, what was that about? I'm going to read the summary of the story for the listeners at home. This is probably the biggest, quote-unquote, you know, summer release that we didn't cover directly. Historically, I do like to center a Pixar movie in conversation, but after I saw this, I knew I didn't have to. Set in a world inhabited by anthropomorphic elements of nature, the story follows fire element Ember Lumen and water element Wade Ripple, who meet and fall in love after Wade is summoned by a plumbing accident at a convenience store owned by Ember's father, Bernie. This is, you know, Inside Out,

but with elements instead of feelings. That is sort of the soft pitch on the movie. Unlike Inside Out, it's not a story about one child's kind of coming to terms with their own internal crisis. It's about two characters falling in love after coming from different worlds. I have described this as Pixar's Jungle Fever. Perhaps Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is slightly more appropriate. But it's a romance between a flame and a water globule.

Right. So that's the movie. i understood the plot and and also i have to say it's not bad do you know what i mean it's not bad it is it is it looks like a pixar movie it's not incomprehensible it's not like a total misfire or, sorry, pun intended or not intended, I guess. I don't know. It's just, it feels. I have to cool you off, douse you with some water. I like, it didn't feel tied together.

The hot takes are blowing. All right. All right. I will say the element thing. I was just like, what's happening? You're heating up. I understand that we need to teach children about nature. They need to get into the Captain Planet archives.

And it stands in for race and ethnicity without bringing those concepts in. Sure, I get it. But I was like, they were also trying to develop some ecological awareness. Yeah. Everything felt half-baked. And it honestly felt like the incredibly talented people at Pixar have been sitting in a room together for 10 years and are brainstorming. And there is no one outside being like, okay, but let's like refine this. It's like there are no bad ideas in a brainstorm.

And then there were no bad ideas in the brainstorm. And it just all kind of wound together. And it just doesn't have any cohesion. I generally agree. I think this is a classic two out of four star kind of a movie where there is a base level competence because it is Pixar. But they landed on an idea and stuck with it, even though it was not the right idea. Of course, historically, Pixar does the exact opposite, that they have this council of creatives that they bring these ideas in rough stages to, and they evaluate them together. Sometimes movies get far along and they rip

them up and they start again. They're famous for firing filmmakers and restarting with new teams. They have this very laborious creative process that creates historical film franchises at this point. I mean, some of the movies that they've made in the last 25 years are some of the most memorable movies we have. But this felt a little scrape in the bottom of the barrel in terms of concepts. And it's just not on the level, even of some of the more recent and successful films that they've made, like, you know, like Turning Red, for example. I think one of the failures is like,

they just got stuck on this idea of anthropomorphic elements. Yeah. And they weren't willing to change it. And sometimes it's okay to tell a story about a kid. You know, it's okay to tell a story about like, you know, Asian American girl and a black boy. Like that would be fine.

That would actually be a good idea for Pixar to pursue that and to explore whether or not they could tell that story. I thought that was one of the great things about Turning Red is, you know, certainly there is like a kind of monstrous element with the transformation into the red panda, but it is grounded in the real world of a young girl. And I think they just overthought this one in a pretty big way. And it's interesting because when it first came out, its opening weekend was quite poor and that led to this big discourse. Oh my God, Pixar spends $250 million on their movies.

What a failure for Disney, yada, yada, yada. What a horrible year for Disney. And then, you know, cut to a few weeks later, no other movies for kids coming out. This movie keeps chugging along and is doing pretty well at the box office. I think that that is mostly circumstantial because there isn't a lot for kids to go see right now. Nevertheless, it isn't like this colossal mega failure that I think you could say something like The Flash actually is, where it like wildly underperformed its expectations. But still, there is, there's something, something is askew at Pixar right now and they need to fix it. I saw this at 10.30 on a weekday and the other people in my screening were parents with children. I would say between five and seven. Yeah, that was almost exactly the same as mine. And it was very cute. You know, I spent a lot of time, I was kind of bored.

So I spent some time checking and seeing how the other kids were doing. Because now I'm just like, oh, when will I be able to take Knox? And when will he understand? And the answer is probably like 10 more years because he doesn't sit still. But these children sat still and seemed to be having a nice time. I wonder what that, since we don't have five to seven-year-olds, I wonder if you are fully engaged in the film the entire time. Is that a measure of its quality?

Or is that a measure of... Your five to seven? The way it's sort of like making you somnambulant. You know, is it shutting you down? I assume if it's holding your attention, it's very good. From a child's perspective. I assume, though I will say anecdotally, Super Mario Brothers had a lot more audience engagement.

Right. That's sort of what I'm saying. Yeah. If there's a more antic feeling, not a distracted feeling, but an antic feeling. The kids were just like yelling. They were like, what's he doing? And where is he going? And Donkey Kong. Yeah.

You know? So my nephew, MJ, he turned three in June and he saw his first feature in theaters and it was the Super Mario Brothers movie. And he absolutely loved it and is obsessed with Mario. He's never played Mario. He doesn't know that it's a video game. He doesn't even know what video games are. But for his birthday, I then bought him like an entire set of every character from Super Mario Brothers. He sent me, well, he didn't send me, his mother sent me several videos of him saying, Mario, Donkey Kong, which is, of course, like the best thing you could ever see from a kid.

But I think it's that exactly what you described, that that movie gave him a kind of like energy, a kind of excitement. It's almost as if he powered up with a flaming flower. And Elemental is, it's kind of drab. It's thoughtful. Yeah. It's a little quiet and slow and, you know, of drab. It's thoughtful. Yeah. It's a little quiet and slow. And, you know, it's okay.

It's not bad. But I expect a lot from Pixar. They have raised the bar very high for me as a huge fan of animated films. And this is just okay. It was okay. We've got a lot of calls for Extraction 2. Now, Extraction, the original, came out in the height of the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic,

as I like to say. And I thought Extraction was pretty darn good for a streaming action movie. It was directed by a guy named Sam Hargrave, who had been a stunt performer and stunt coordinator in the past. I interviewed him on the show. I thought he was a really smart, really cool guy. And I liked the movie, and I was like, cool, great. We got a streaming movie. I enjoyed it. Let's move on with our day. But as with all things, we must, great. We got a streaming movie. I enjoyed it. Let's move on with our day. But as with all things, we must sequelize. We must sequelize everything that we do. We are guilty of it here on this show. We sequelize. We just had the movie auction part two for 2023. It's a damn shame what we've done to this country. Extraction 2, I think is

unnecessary. I think it is extremely competent and at times breathtaking in its action set pieces and everything else happening around it, I did not care about. I wouldn't say that this is a movie that's made for Amanda Dobbins, but I know that you watched it. I did watch it at home. The gunfights were just very long.

Just really, and I understand that was part of the point, but, you know, minute 45 of running around an anonymous Skyrise tower that is allegedly in Vienna. But, you know, like, okay, show me the Google map and maybe I'll believe you. I don't know. I just, you know me, I don't really thrill to gun violence in general. I thought it was cool when you shot that helicopter. That was cool. There are a couple of cool moments in this

movie. When he punches people for a while in a prison. Is that right? He does. Well, I mean, the challenge of it is there's some great action set pieces in the first film and there's a desire to one-up them. And one of the ways one can one-up an action sequence is by making it a one-er. See what I did there?

Yeah, I did. There is a long quote-unquote one-er inside action sequence is by making it a one-er. See what I did there? Yeah, yeah, I did. And there is a long quote-unquote one-er inside of this prison sequence, which people who've seen the trailer may have seen it if they haven't seen the movie. And it's just stitched together with digital photography and with bodies moving in front of the camera to create a shadow effect, which then allows for a cut. And I appreciate the ambition,

but I don't necessarily understand the purpose of that kind of filmmaking if you're not actually going to do it. And what I want to see is a movie about Tyler Rake, but like a little bit more grounded and with actions at pieces that feel like someone is actually doing them. And the first movie had more of that.

And the second movie in an attempt to one-up itself falls victim to, I think, what a lot of these movies fall victim to. A larger thing about this film, and particularly the sequel, I do remember the first one during the pandemic, watching it with my husband, who just, you know, had that sort of primal, like, to the action set. There is a, yeah. And it's like, you kind of can't deny that. But these films are also like extremely humorless yeah um and self-serious and i don't know that long term that serves chris hemsworth who is an incredibly

charming performer and i do also think that there is a very fun movement in like action movies right now that like brings like a little bit of levity and almost a screwball energy. And you can see that in John Wick 4. You can see it in Mission Impossible. You could see it in the best set piece in No Time to Die, the last Bond movie. And this really, really, this is serious gun battle for gun battles. It's not that exciting to watch, honestly. I'm not opposed to some self-serious exertions of masculinity by way of gun in a movie. Okay. I love heat.

Okay. You know, this is something I respect. Well, sure, but this is not heat. It's not even close to heat. I'm not trying to make that comparison. I just, full transparency, I do like a movie with a great gunfight. I do like a movie with a great long punching sequence. I think if you're going to make those movies,

I want the artistry to just seem either a little bit more real or to have what you're describing, which is like a sense of humor, a sense of fun. This is not a fun movie. It is brutal. Yeah. And if you're going to make something so brutal, it needs to at least be clever. It really

isn't that clever. And in the moments when it thinks it is being clever, say like when Indra's Elvis character is on screen, it's just a little bit hacky make work. Like, oh, we're just setting up the next sequel kind of stuff. And so I know a lot of people did like this. And I think a lot of fans of the original thought that this was actually a step up from the previous film. I didn't really feel that way.

I felt a little bit of despair imagining Extraction 4 and Extraction 6 and Extraction 6 and Extraction 12. So that's just me. The Netflix movie challenge continues, unfortunately. I'm glad you saw The Blackening because another movie

that we didn't get a chance to cover when it was first released, an interesting artifact of summer release, an interesting, a movie that felt like it was made maybe 10, 20 an interesting, a movie that felt like it was made maybe 10, 20 years ago,

a little bit. It is, it is sort of a comedy and sort of a horror movie, intended truly to be a comedy, but maybe at times works better as a horror movie. It follows a group of black friends

staying in a cabin in the woods targeted by a masked killer during Juneteenth. And they've got to kind of band together to figure out who the killer is and how to defeat the killer. And it feels like a real split almost in the middle

between Scream and its knowing sense of danger and satire and Scary Movie and its broad, spoofy comedy aspects. And it felt like they blended the two together. What did you make of The Black Knight? I went to see it

because it seemed to me to be the latest blended the two together. What did you make of The Black Knight? Well, I went to see it because it seemed to me to be the latest in the horror comedy that has been populating the box office. This year, I'm thinking of Megan. I am thinking of Scream 6, which obviously is a horror movie, but because it's a Scream movie, is also self-aware

and is kind of playing to the comedy aspect. And so I was curious about that as a trend and also since i knew it was a comedy i was like okay well this won't like totally freak me out so i can go see it um and i had a nice time i'm a scream fan so it played to me in that in that vein more i wouldn't say it was that i don't know if this i don't think the scares were meant to be that intentional or that scary, but they were not. It's not very scary. Even by Scream standards. And you know, it's hard to end movies, and I think this one

meanders a bit. But the cast of characters, the friend group, the setting, and the opening sequence, I thought were all great. Yeah, there's a great opening with Yvonne Orgy and Jay Pharoah at the beginning of the movie, which is very clever and very fun.

I love the cast. Melvin Gregg, X Mayo, Antoinette Robertson, Cinqua Walls, Jermaine Fowler, and then Dwayne Perkins, who co-wrote the movie, and Grace Byers. All really funny, all really game. It felt like a movie directed by somebody who'd never directed a horror movie. Tim Story's the director horror movie uh filmmaking is a very discreet style and you have to love it i think to do it really well and this felt like a comedy directed by a guy who's good at directing comedies like barbershop and anything that needed to scare you to make to hold you inside the story of the movie beyond

just enjoying the jokes and there are a couple of really good jokes in particular the board game when they're playing the board yes it's great really great um and there's some really clever writing in the movie but i just needed a little bit more realness to hold my expectations as i watch the movie um it's an interesting one like it's the kind of movie that I felt like 10 years ago would have been much bigger in the vein of a Wayans Brothers movie or a Tyler Perry movie that it's clear what audience it's targeting.

This does feel like the kind of movie, not unlike Joyride, not unlike No Hard Feelings, not unlike a bunch of movies that we've seen recently where it's just like audiences have been trained to expect this on their streaming service and so they're not going to show out to go see this movie on Juneteenth or July 4th or whenever to celebrate but then if you caught it at home you might be like oh I saw the blackening it's fucking funny you know like that it feels like that's kind of its destiny which kind of

bumps me out but it is what it is one more thing I'd like to say all-time great marketing in the poster which is just the tagline is, we can't all die first. And I was like, oh, I understand what this movie is. I understand the reference. I think that's the other reason I went to see it because I was like, oh, I get it. That seems clever. So good for them. Can I posit a theory related to this movie? Yeah. I don't know if this is going to be true, but it's something I was thinking about a lot. I do think that this movie could be seen as the final, the conclusion of the Get Out generation of movies. Now, there's a part of me that wants to do this as a bigger episode. Okay. Not with me, probably. I think you've seen a lot of these

movies, if not all of them. Get Out came out on 2017. Of course, Jordan Peele's directorial debut, just a massive cultural phenomenon. It won him an Oscar, one of our favorite movies of the last 10 years. And then in succession, in part from Blumhouse and smaller studios that were kind of leveraging this horror thing that we were talking about earlier, and then also colliding that kind of social thriller aspect with comedy that Jordan does so well, we got this succession of movies, and I came up with about 50 off the top of my head over the weekend,

that could loosely be associated with what I would call the get-out generation. You're going to read all 50 right now? I'm not going to do that. You do love to read lists of movies. One might say it's my passion, but there are quite a few that could fall into it. Some of these are really good,

and some of them are quite poor. You know, like Antebellum is a movie that is not very good that came out that is sort of in this mold. Ma is another movie that came out that was not very good. But like Black Klansman is in a way a kind of part of this.

Obviously, Jordan Peele's Us. Movie like Justin Simien's Bad Hair. Run, the Sarah Paulson movie. This also doesn't just have to be movies about black characters or diverse characters. It could be just any story that is using a big social idea in a horror frame with a little bit of a sense of humor or camp around it. I think the most recent Candyman, Nanny, the most recent Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Bodies, Bodies,

Bodies, Last Night in Soho, In the Earth, Nope, of course, Men, Barbarian, all of these movies that have come out, and maybe I'll make this list public so people can take a look at it, strive towards, I think, the heights of Get Out, up to and including Note, the most recent Jordan Peele movie, which I think increasingly everybody is starting to recognize as a true masterpiece. I just want to say I feel good about that. This movie, when a movie like this comes along that is effectively satirizing that moment, when the spoof arrives for the kind of movie, that kind of means that the movie itself, the movie style itself, is going to go on the downturn. Everybody knows what to expect.

Midsommar, I think, is a movie that also fits this mold. Kind of funny, kind of terrifying. Right. Is it about trauma? Is it about can she have it all? Is it about male-female dynamics? Or is it just a crazy movie set in Sweden? it all is it about male female dynamics or is it just a crazy movie set in sweden yes the answer is yes to every question um i wonder if this a movie like the blackening coming along even though it hasn't been a massive hit pierces the bubble

on the get out generation what do you think it seems possible. On the flip side, it's nice that we have something to sort of satirize and engage with. We've talked so much about how the satire is completely dead. You can't make parody movies like this anymore. So it's a testament to, you know, to Jordan Peele and Get Out and this genre of films that we've reached the parody phase. All ideas get tired, sure. Yeah. I like these kinds of movies, though, so I parody phase. All ideas get tired. Sure. Yeah. I like these kinds of movies though.

So I don't want them to go away. Well, it's fine. Like they can take a break and then someone can bring it back. And you know, that's the history of, of art and life. It'll be okay.

Thank you for explaining the history of art and life. That's why you're here on the show. That's why I'm here. You're also here to explain movies like our next film. This is just an absolute i needed this what a w for me the next film is called amanda and i have to tell you listeners i was pretty wary of this primarily because i learned about it via sean sending me teasing text messages and will you let me read the description no i mean just just the one that

i'll read the short description that appears on letterbox which is what i sent you sure yeah i had not seen the film when i sent this to you but this is my favorite thing i've ever read amanda 24 lives mostly isolated and has never had any friends, even if it's the thing she wants the most. Amanda chooses her new mission as to convince a childhood friend to believe that they are still best friends.

Incredible. The history of Amanda's in popular culture, it's not a proud history on the whole. You know, we have our moments. I think the Waylon Jennings song, Amanda, is beautiful. The Boston song, Amanda, less so, but you know, you take what you can get. We have Amanda Peet.

We have Amanda Gorman. We also have just a tremendous number of Bachelor contestants named Amanda. You know, there's always an Amanda P and Amanda Z and Amanda W. Wait a second. Are Amanda Pete and Amanda Gorman the two greatest Amandas in our culture's history? I've only been made aware of Amanda Gorman like three years ago. I know, but it's been like the ranks are thin.

Do you know what I'm saying? Like who, what are your other great Amandas what about Amanda Plummer sure Christopher Plummer's daughter sure but it's like that's your third

it's what about the Barry Manilow song Mandy no and my parents almost didn't name me Amanda because they didn't want me to be called Mandy

you know it's a very 80s name it was popularized because there was a dynasty character named Amanda. What about Amanda Seyfried? She's great. Oh, of course. I apologize to Amanda Seyfried. She is great. But I mean, you see what I'm saying. Not very many here as I search letterbox for Amanda's in cast and crew. Exactly. Respect to Amanda Bynes, please. That's from my generation. Just a real quick respect to the variety show, The Amanda show i i do i you know respect and love to amanda you were an executive producer on the amanda show

were you not of course um every day i produce it every day so listen amanda representation has traditionally been tough going and i was just ready for another, you know, episode of Shame by Association. And I have to tell you, the Italian film Amanda, written and directed by Carolina Cavalli, is a fucking delight. It is so good. Carolina Cavalli has seen a lot of Wes Anderson and Greta Gerwig films just like me. And then she made a movie with an incredibly hot young Italian woman playing Amanda. This is the toughest thing. Not the toughest thing, but the hardest thing to get past is how beautiful Benedetta Porcaroli.

I hope I said it right. Benedetta Porcaroli? Benedetta Porcaroli. Yeah. I don't know porcaroli benedetta ports yeah i don't know i don't know how else you would say the name hell of a name i'm just stunningly beautiful chic stylish and hates everyone except for her uh eight-year-old niece who's obsessed with jesus as a person um it's incredibly funny i thought it looked beautiful i had a great time i'm just i'm so delighted to have this amanda in the world uh i i don't think this movie is getting like a very wide release so you'll probably have to wait for it to be available on demand but please seek it

out delightful comes to us from oscilloscope which is of course the movie studio uh that adam yauk founded and they consistently release really interesting independent films. I haven't seen this one. Happy to hear it's good. I don't think I'm biased. I mean, I am biased. But also, I think that my standards were probably higher. Interesting.

You think you hold all Amandas to a higher standard? Yeah, because if you're going to be associated with me, if only by name. What do you wish your name was? I don't know. or standard. Yeah, because if you're going to be associated with me, if only by name. What would you, what do you wish your name was? I don't know. Well, work with me

and we're on a podcast. Okay, so, sorry, that's true. We are. Well, then I was like, there's just, there's a lot under the surface

that we don't have to go down. I'll tell you. So my, my. Benedetta? Benedetta is a great name. My full name is Amanda Knox-Dobbins. Yeah son takes his name partially after me. And I wish that my parents had just gone for Knox for me, for a girl. I just thought that would have been like incredibly cool. You know, like I would have had to live up to it. You really have to sell that.

You could do when, if you have another child yes you could name that child Knox as well like George Foreman does where all of his kids are named George Foreman I think that would be a little confusing it's already my dad is also Knox and he's in town right now and little Knox seems a little confused by what's going on when I'm just like can you show this to to big Knox and he's like what are you talking about? You know, but he also doesn't really understand what his name is.

You know, there's like you, when you show him the mirror, I think there's some confusion between who Knox and you are, you know, pronouns. I specifically remember this.

Yeah. So. Alice does know her own name because she leads every sentence with Alice does. She does. Yeah, Alice does.

She speaks primarily in the third person. Anyway, I recommend this film. One time. Congratulations to all the Amandas. She does. Yeah, Alice does. She speaks primarily in the third person. Anyway, I recommend this film. One time. Congratulations to all the Amandas. Thank you. For finally having

some representation that matters. I am biased about this next movie, but I don't care. I'm going to celebrate it. It's called Biosphere. It's available on VOD right now.

It's directed by Mel Eslin. I worked with Mel on the Jason Isbell documentary that we were lucky enough to participate in with HBO earlier this year. It stars Mark Duplass and Sterling K. Brown. It's co-written by Duplass. Duplass and co were part of that production that we worked on. I know those guys.

But this is a really fun movie. And in a mold of movie that I like quite a bit. It's soft science fiction. In the not too distant future, the last two men on earth must adapt and evolve to save humanity. Sterling K. Brown and Duplass

play longtime childhood pals who have been effectively marooned together at the end of the world in this geodesic dome. There's a lot to this movie that I do not want to spoil because it goes to some very far and amusing places, emotionally and physically.

I'll spoil one particular aspect of it, and if you don't want to hear anything about it, just fast forward. But in the movie, Mark Duplass plays a puppeted president. He was the president of the United States of America, and his right hand man was sterling k brown who is a brilliant scientist and thinker okay so not an actual puppet no like a meat puppet he's been puppeteered right okay i thought i thought that you were saying because you said it has some physical surprises there are and i don't want to spoil those okay um so maybe he is a puppet and you just don't want him.

Not exactly, but you're not too far off. Okay. What their relationship and their dynamic and the resentment between them as a very smart man and a less smart man

is wonderful. Sterling K. Brown, listeners of the show may know, one of my favorite actors. I feel, I cannot believe he does not get more chances to appear in movies in general.

And I think he's really gifted in a movie like this. Really funny, really emotionally powerful at times. And Duplass, of course, is Duplass. He's just one of the most reliable indie movie stars that we have. Just a fun, thought-provoking, strange movie. And worth your time.

So I recommend it. Will you watch Biosphere? Sure. Okay. How can I see it? I believe you can just rent it on the Apple or Amazon or wherever you get your streaming films. Wonderful. Did you see Flamin' Hot? I did. What'd you think of this? Well, it's tough. On its surface, for what it was, which is yet another feature film adapted from a product.

I didn't hate it. It's okay. It's serviceable. It's okay. It's serviceable. It has a bit of fun energy to it and is very winking and knowing. It's directed by Eva Longoria. It stars Jesse Garcia,

Annie Gonzalez, Dennis Haysbert, and Tony Shalhoub, and is about Richard Montanez, who was a janitor at Frito-Lay when he came up with the idea for Flamin' Hot Cheetos. And that is the story that it tells, and it is very capitalism forward, but at least in a way that is like honest about money. Financially aspirational. Yes, exactly.

But there is something that is just kind of like all the cards are on the table. The tricky thing is that I don't believe that this story is actually true. It is not true. So that's where it falls apart for me. It's an interesting line of conversation for us because I agree. I think the movie is perfectly fine. Directorial debut by Ava Longoria. There's not interesting line of conversation for us because I agree. I think the movie is perfectly fine. Directorial debut by Ava Longoria. There's not a lot of Latino representation at the movies. This is

a person who is thought to be like a real up from the bootstraps kind of success story and Flamin' Hot Cheetos are good. So in general like no problem here. I wonder if we have some outside right now um we we almost certainly do that's one of the snacks on offer i'm wearing white though so

uh well one of my favorite jokes in joyride actually was you know eating the cheetos with chopsticks yes so as to avoid getting cheeto dust on your finger something i might employ in the future as someone who does not like to have cheeto dust on their fingers however this movie which is fine it's streaming on Hulu right now. It does have a kind of record scratch, I bet you're wondering how I got here, kind of energy throughout its telling. Like the entire movie is kind of that meme,

which you can take or leave depending on your interest in that kind of storytelling. But whether or not a movie is true shouldn't matter to how much you like the movie. But when the movie is premised upon the can you believe this true story then it really undermines some of the telling of the story i'm not really i don't go to the movies for a kind of historical accuracy and i wonder how much i started reading american prometheus over the weekend the robert j oppenheimer biography which is just fascinating

like an incredible book so far boy here we, here we go. No, but apparently the film reportedly is, according to one of the authors of the book, the script that he read of Oppenheimer is will be what he believes to be one of the most accurate, you know, fictional tellings of a real person's life in movie history. Okay.

Which I thought was an interesting declaration to make before the movie's even been released. Sometimes we care about that kind of fealty to the truth. Sometimes we don't. Or fealty to facts. But you want a movie to feel true so like did flame and hot feel true to you even though it is an erroneous tale i i think so but i think also this spidey sense that I have about being sold, you know, consumer corporate goods then like comes back on when the the meta-ness of this of the corporate intervention and this isn't even true. So now I'm being sold something with a story that isn't quite, you know, like I. I'm with you.

It kind of goes off for me again. Gustavo Reino at the Los Angeles Times wrote a great column about this movie and the real story and why it didn't sit well. And I would just recommend people to that. It kind of summed up my feelings. Even though watching it, I had a perfectly... It's diverting. Yeah. I had a perfectly fine time. Yeah.

I feel very similarly. If we want to be aspirational and tell stories like this and platform stories that we don't see that often and we want people to be inspired by them, let's find some true ones. That would be helpful.

What's our next film? Oh, well, this is, I don't know if this is inspiring necessarily, but this is actually a really valuable piece of documentary, which is Sam Pollard's

new movie, The League, which, Bobby, I don't know if you've had a chance to see this, but I think it would be of great interest to you as well. It's really the most complete telling I've seen of the sort of history of the Negro Leagues in baseball and the black experience in baseball in the first half of the 20th century. And there, of course, I'm a huge baseball fan. I know a lot about baseball. I've read a lot of books about baseball

when I was a teenager. And there's a lot I didn I've read a lot of books about baseball when I was a teenager and there's a lot I didn't know that's in this movie it's told in a very straightforward often dry fashion it's a lot of talking head interviews

there's some archival that has been revealed that people haven't seen before some conversation with Buck O'Neill with Satchel Paige with you know figures that you may

have heard of if you've heard of the Negro Leagues Willie Mays and Hank Aaron are interviewed for the film and we hear their voices and they talk about their experiences before coming to major league baseball and absolutely dominating uh it is a it's a necessary movie it's strange actually that there has not been

a movie that this strongly like wraps its arms around the history sure ken burns is baseball and there have been some some examinations of it over the years but this is probably the most kind of coherent telling that points out not just who the good players were and what the league what major league baseball lost by not seeing those players in the big leagues but also how the arc of the sport has changed so much because of how the negro leagues operated versus how major league baseball is operating so i thought it was just a valuable film. It's on VOD right now, I believe, as well. I think people should check it out. I don't know, Bob, do you guys ever on your show, do you ever talk too much about this period in time?

We've done a few episodes devoted just to this. And then back when we were doing Baseball Barbecue, we did a whole episode devoted to this too, as well as R2C2 did an episode with Bob Kendrick, who is the president of the Negro Leagues Baseball um in kansas city which is like for baseball fans a real bucket list journey to take one that i've never gotten to do so far and really would love to um i think that the thing to recommend like a film like this but really just like any books about this period of baseball is that that feeling where you discovered everything past in major league

baseball you just get to rehab that you don't you don't often get to re-experience a feeling of discovery like in your 20s and your 30s and it's a testament to like how poorly mlb handled this entire situation that most big baseball fans like yourself and me don't know a lot of this stuff already um but now that it's sort of been, we've sort of broken down some of these walls, like in the public discussion about the Negro leagues and they've been officially like brought into major league baseball. I think it's just like an incredible feeling to discover all of these players who you hadn't heard of or who,

you know, were as good or better at the time and have just like a completely different like relationship to the game of baseball than the very like sanitized version of Major League Baseball's history. Very well put. For a sport that is obsessed with its own history, it took 60, 70 years for it to acknowledge a whole other part of its history.

Anyhow, movie worth seeking out. In 100 meters, turn right. Actually, no, turn left. There's some awesome new breakfast wraps at McDonald's. Really? Yeah, there's the sausage, bacon, and egg, a crispy seasoned chicken one. Mmm. A spicy end egg. Worth the detour. They sound amazing.

Bet they taste amazing, too. Wish I had a mouth. Take your morning into a delicious new direction with McDonald's new breakfast wraps. Add a small premium roast coffee for a dollar plus tax. At participating McDonald's restaurants. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. Shall we talk about Earth Mama? Yes. I don't think this is playing on very many

screens right now in America, which is kind of a shame. I hope it plays more. What did you think of this? I thought it was incredibly moving at times, quite difficult to watch, but I think intentionally so. This is a film directed by Savannah Leaf, who is a former Olympian turned filmmaker,

which is just more than I'll do in a lifetime. Just putting that out there. And it's about a young woman named Gia, a pregnant single mother pitted against the system. And she is trying to reclaim her two children who are in foster care while she is pregnant with her third um she's a young black woman in the in the bay area uh this you know i'm like reluctant to make a such a direct comp but it did remind me of never rarely sometimes always in the sense that it is about two young women

desperately failed by a system and it's sort of like a sort of process oriented way of the um of the way that this these systems fail people and has just a tremendous grounded performance at the center that kind of reminds you who the person is this is a bit more impressionistic it is um and i i would say that the further it gets from the from gia the main character the the less connected to it i felt but with the exception of some of the testimonials that kind of book in the movie that i thought were very moving. I mean, it is just excruciating sometimes because of how sad it is and how much this character has failed, but I also thought really like effective and beautiful. Kind of a fascinating pairing with Joyride because there's this question

of whether or not Tina Moore's character should be giving up her child in the film. And she kind of grapples with that. And she works with a woman played by Erica Alexander, who people probably remember from Living Single or The Cosby Show has been around forever. And whether or not she should help a family that wants to have a young child but can't in a kind of, in a sideways fashion. And this kind of crisis that her character faces,

that she has to make this decision while also trying to rebuild her life so that she can, you know, take care of her other two children who are in foster care. Really incredible performance, the Mittenhall, the movie. Kind of one of those, like,

this is a calling card movie for a filmmaker who I feel like is going to do something special down the road. Very deeply felt, really earned. It's based on a short film that she made with Taylor Russell a few years back. Just like a one-to-watch

kind of a movie. Yes, totally. And when it does come to VOD, assuming it's not going to open wide, I don't think it will open wide, people should give this one a shot. I just should also say, shot by Jodi Lee Lipes,

who's becoming one of my favorite cinematographers, typically works with Sean Durkin on Martha Marcy May Marlene and the new Dead Ringers series, which I thought was just phenomenal. Manchester by the Sea and shot most of Girls. A lot of the cinematography and even directing some of the episodes of Girls. Jodi Lee Lipes, if you don't know her work, she's amazing.

Okay. That's 10 movies that we've given. Yeah. Do you, do you feel like now that we've kind of hunkered down and seen these movies and we've gotten a total sense of the summer landscape, has it actually been good? You know, like the conversation we were having a week and a half ago? I don't know, man. It's, these were all appetizers. Right.

You think, you know, we still... Is it three straight steaks coming for us? It is. It is. I mean, this is what we've been training for. This is what we have been trying to prepare the world for. And it seems like the world is sort of paying attention. Tracking for both Barbie and Oppenheimer is good.

And I think Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning, Part 1... Well done. Thank you so much. Will do well, in large part, thanks to Tom Cruise jumping out of planes and posing in front of movie posters. So, this is why we do what we do, to go see blockbusters in the summer. It's coming. It's time. Do you remember our birthday celebration for the last Mission Impossible film?

Of course. It was incredible. How do we get even close to that again at this stage of our lives? Well, we find babysitters. Step one. Well, what did we do? Recount what we did. We went to see Mission Impossible Fallout at the Arclight Dome.

So I guess step one is we reopened the dome. Okay, can't do that. Keep going. Then step two, we find babysitters. Then we get a reservation at a sushi restaurant because after the movie, we went to Matsuhisa, which is the only time I've ever seen Gwyneth Paltrow in the flesh. Not at this birthday dinner, unfortunately. I was just going to say she wasn't there that night, was she? No, but the only other time I've been to Matsuhisa because I'm not a person with an unlimited budget I saw Gwyneth Paltrow the weekend when he was dating Selena

Gomez and James Gray I see yeah what a time interesting yeah I don't think we can recreate our fallout experience I don't either how do we get close I've already bought tickets so I am planning to see screenings of all three of these films. Okay. Well, actually, I've seen a screening of Mission Impossible already.

And I have also already bought opening night tickets for every movie. Okay, so. For a second viewing. So Wednesday night, you're going to the 12th. Tuesday night.

Oh, Tuesday night, the 11th? Tuesday night, I'm seeing Mission Impossible in Dolby. Wow. Okay. And then next week. The only way.

The only way. The only way. And then next week, I have IMAX tickets for Oppenheimer and Prime tickets for Barbie. On Thursday night? On the 20th. Okay. So how are you doing that time-wise? I don't know.

Well, no, no, no, no, no. I don't mean like in terms of your life and responsibilities. I mean in terms of for the Thursday night previews, they don't normally start before 6 p.m. So are you just... For all three of these films, they do. Listeners out there. What time?

In Los Angeles, all of these movies are starting to screen, I believe, at the latest 5 p.m. Okay. And in the case of Mission Impossible believe, at the latest 5 p.m. Okay. And in the case of Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning, 2 p.m. On Tuesday. 2 p.m. on Tuesday, the July 11th, when this episode, shortly after this episode hits, you can go see Dead Reckoning. And we will come to you probably on Wednesday, maybe on Thursday, with our review of the movie.

And for Oppenheimer and Barbie, I'm seeing a 6 p.m. screening of Oppenheimer. Okay. For three hours. Yeah. And then I have a 9 p.m. ticket to Barbie. At the same theater. At the same theater. I will be bouncing theater to theater, which is exactly what I did last week to go see Insidious and Joyride.

What's your eating strategy? You need to remember to eat. Well, that's a note for you. You have to eat something. Yeah. Just in general. Do I have to start bringing snacks for you like Knox? I'm glad you guys are mentioning this. This is like the only space where I don't have to have four clementines in my bag. Let me tell you something about last Friday, what I did.

This is important for the listeners. We're kind of we're pushing forward to one hour on this episode and I feel good about it. So I saw Insidious the Red Door and I didn't eat anything beforehand. And I also didn't get any snacks before going inside the movie. The movie ended. I went out and I was like, should I get a snack?

My movie starts in 20 minutes, my next movie, my joyride screening. I thought, no, I'm going to go outside and see what's going on out at the Americana. I'm going to walk around. It was a beautiful day on Friday in Los Angeles. Magnificent weekend. It really was.

It was a real like postcard for why we live here yeah i loved it anyhow walking around the americana i walked past nordstrom i was like i need a belt went into nordstrom bought a belt from rag and bone uh nope i thank you bobby i think it's hugo boss makes the belt i wasn't really brand shopping, but nevertheless. Can I tell you something though? Sure. And I don't, I'm Googling this right now to be sure. For some years, Ryan Reynolds was the face of Hugo Boss. Well, I don't want to spoil future episodes, but my Ryan Reynolds allegiances are shifting in profound ways. This was over a decade ago, but it's just really funny.

Continue. I bought the belt. I went back outside and I was like, I should really get something to eat. Kind of running short on time here. That was eight minutes for belt buying. I did it really fast. I started walking around. I'm looking at food options, the Americana, tons of restaurants, tons of little kiosks

where you can buy stuff. And then I walked past a Barnes & Noble and I was like, I want to go see what Criterion's they have in there. Walked in there, looked at Criterion's for nine minutes. Yeah. They're on the bottom floor, right when you walk in. Bottom floor, right when you walk in. Incredible display.

Right now, barnesandnoble.com, 50% off of the Blu-rays. I thought that would be the case in the store. Was not? Not the case. This is how they get you, bro. I didn't buy anything. I held strong. The consumer out there on foot is just getting shafted.

Well, malls are just powerful. I mean, they really draw you in and then they force you to spend. I exit Barnes & Noble. I've got three minutes before the film starts. I walk into the movie theater. What do I do? Two boxes of Sour Patch Watermelons. That's all I ate. Actually, no, that's not true. I also got a regular size drink, which was the size of my head. And I put inside of it a zero sugar peach lemonade made by Minute Maid. Two packages of Sour Patch Watermelons, one peach lemonade from Minute Maid, and then

I just felt violently ill for the next six hours. Yeah. How are you upright? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking. We need to work on that. They should serve like ham sandwiches in movie theaters. I agree. Next week. Just like a big old

hoagie roll, you know? Or protein. No. 40 to 60 grams of protein. We're going to do some scheduling. Okay. But I need you to have a full mid-afternoon meal with me before we go see Oppenheimer. And I need that for sustenance and for a healthy living and also because I'm going to need a break from childcare.

I do have a window from 2 to 3 p.m. Okay. On Tuesday the 18th. Okay. Can you put me down right now? Yes. Great.

Thanks so much. Lunch with Amanda. Great. Shall I even color code it? What if you just canceled 3 to 5 and we just had a long working lunch

and then went straight to the movie? It's very possible. Okay. But there are issues of childcare. to the movie um it's very possible okay is there are issues of child care okay so if it's your child i'll i can make an excuse for alice but anyone else i have a check-in with mallory rubin at 3 p.m on this day all right you want to cancel that we'll check in with you i do not want to spend any time with you and mallory together for a long long time individually i love youually, I love you both. Okay. Yeah, we'll have lunch.

It's a challenge. I mean, this is something that we will probably walk people through experientially when we do our Barbie and Oppenheimer podcast, which is you've seen Oppenheimer, now what? How to avoid barfing.

How to avoid feeling the intense physical destruction inside of your body. Yeah. And then entering Barbiebie land i have purchased tickets to oppenheimer at noon noon that's great i think that's on the 20th right in the middle of my day no i'm actually waiting until saturday oh my god bob because my partner is going to be out of town and i want to wait to watch it with her that's how committed i am that is really nice

but you're a fucking no i think you're a loser and nolan rejects the premise i love it i love a noon i'm there opening weekend i'm part of the box office numbers that's true that's true you're part of the receipts i uh i like you in the media elite seeing it seeing it ahead of time you convincing yourself you're not a part of the media elite one of the funniest things that's ever happened yeah i spent like 80 on movies in the last eight days um i just bought tickets to to see amanda at the ifc center did you yes during the course of this recording yes bobby thank you what a delight that's a testimony how not hard your job is you can just sit there and click purchase while we're here grinding away on takes yep i sit here i here, I don't do anything, nothing. Is there anything else in July that you're pumped for?

Because we're like, we're going to take some time off. Well, apparently, Theater Camp now. Yeah. Laughed at that trailer. You might hate it, but you might love it.

I would guess probably somewhere in the middle. I think, you know, maybe three minutes is like the best delivery system for that, but very effective trailer. Did you know that

there's a Nick Cage movie coming out in July called Sympathy for the Devil in which he plays the devil? I didn't know that. That means in this calendar year, he will play both Dracula and the devil. Ever since- That's awesome. The Nick Cage incident in a recent blockbuster, which I feel like I can't be more specific. Okay.

I just don't believe that anything that's happening with Nick Cage is real or not real, you know? I see. That's where I am. All respect to Nick Cage, who I like very much. And once again, national treasure should have been in his Hall of Fame. That's right. Everybody just give it up.

You know, just relax. The Hall of Fame. Give what up. What do you think that means? Do people just love the show so much? What's interesting is like in a lot of ways, National Treasure is like an Indiana Jones, Grail set up. I got this feedback.

I got this feedback. I know. I get it. All right. I'm sorry. I'm not tut-tutting you. I'm tut-tutting the people who told me this. We started from like a place of peace.

We did. National Treasure, the movies just aren't that good. You know? The idea is great, but everyone who saw it when they were six is like, this is by Indiana Jones.

Invisible ink, lemon juice, hair dryers. Come on. Yeah. This is a generational divide. I wish you well. I wish all the

national treasure heads well. I feel like, is it better or worse if a movie month is defined by only three movies in the middle of the summer? I think that this is

the first time that movies are going to be the center of cultural conversation in like maybe years. Well, Maverick. I think Maverick was. It was, but. Maverick was a real like we're at the barbecue and everyone has seen it. But Maverick has now trained everyone that like once a year you still, you know,

go get excited about something. And it's going to be one of these movies. Like people are aware. I know that all the Barbary marketing has grossed out

and exhausted everyone, but like it's working. People know about movies. Yeah. Which they don't always. So we need to be respectful of that. I don't really get that

i'm grossed out by the marketing like what are they supposed to not market the movie i mean the fuck are people talking about it is it is a lot at this point and i what does that mean so i i think maybe um i'm not attacking you like i'm genuinely curious so i think for like people like me you know the internet that i live on is slightly different than the internet and the world that you yeah live in just because of our interests. It's just Tyler Rick throat punching guys for me. Well. And just like where to buy green pants.

But I do feel like if this is what it's every Marvel movie is like for you, where they just find you everywhere, you know, but I, it's like, you know, there's several different different barbie like product immersions that i just everywhere i go in my life they have found some sort of tie-in and they're like hey barbie you know and i because i don't live in fan world don't experience that with marvel movies or you don't have the thick skin that we've built up. We've been calloused to be able to ignore that stuff for the last 15 years.

Well, I just, yeah, haven't experienced it in the same way. Because I see it all the time and I don't care. I'm just like, what else are they trying to do? I want you to see the movie.

Everyone is like, even you and I who see, you know, live the same damn lives, like have slightly siloed like media experiences, right? Right. So my experience of this

and particularly all of my civilian friends, like, you know, who just use Instagram a lot and and group chats like, you know, God fearing millennial women are like, wow, this is really this is a lot. Well, they should take it up with Greta Gerwig. But but I don't think they're mad at it. And I'm not mad at it either. It's an interesting complaint I've seen floated, but it doesn't bother me. I think the people who are complaining are primarily men, which they can shove it, in my opinion.

I feel so differently about that. More Barbie marketing. I'm so excited for the Barbie movie. You guys are allies, you know? Girl dads and allies. Greta Gerwig is like in the top five. I'm just kidding. Okay. I think that's enough.

Okay. Enough riffing. I was kidding. Okay. I think that's enough. Okay. Enough riffing. Bob, any final thoughts? Do you have your Mission Impossible? Oh, you saw Mission Impossible

already. With me. Yeah, we had a lovely time. It was very cute. Okay, well, I look forward to hearing

both of your thoughts on that because we're going to be talking about the movie soon. It was a real step forward in Amanda and I's friendship. Oh, that's very sweet. That movie

fucking rocks. We will be talking about it on the podcast in just a couple of days. And until then, Bob, thanks for your work as the producer of the show. And we'll see you with Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One. you