The Big Picture - Ask Sean Anything Mailbag: ‘Avatar 2,’ 10 Exciting Under-40 Directors, and ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ at the Oscars

Episode Date: May 10, 2022

Let’s dig into the mailbag! Sean answers your questions about the year in movies so far, film book recommendations, what a producer actually does, and a lot more. Host: Sean Fennessey Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Dan Zastrzemski, host of the Ring of Gambling Show. You want to join my buddy, Joe House, and I every Tuesday and Friday. We break down all the lines, the leans, totals, props, and so much more for the NBA playoff action. And JJ, you never know when the podfather himself, Bill Simmons, is going to stop in. Plus, we are dropping special episodes in the feed around all the big events. We have some major golf coming up, JJ. You want to get in on all of it. So whether you fancy yourself as a sharp or someone who likes to just throw a few shekels down,

get on the action with the Ringer Gambling Show on Spotify. I'm Sean Phenasy, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about digging through the mail. We're doing a mailbag episode today. It's just me and Bobby Wagner answering your questions, talking about what's going on in the world of movies, talking about what's inside of my brain. Maybe what's inside of Bobby's brain. Bobby, what's inside your brain right now? The Mets, baby. The Mets are inside my brain. I don't plan on answering any of these questions. I plan on just asking them and allowing you to do all the hard work. Okay. Well, maybe we should just cut to the chase and let the hard work begin.

I appreciate that there is at least one Mets question in here. We may divert some of these conversations back to the Mets, but for the most part, we'll try to focus on movies. So where are we starting? Jay asks, why do you think Netflix gets the most shit for quote-unquote killing cinema tough one off the top what a tough one for netflix yeah yeah the stock price is struggling um people uh sadly have lost their jobs already it sounds like more jobs are going to be lost matt bellany actually wrote about this in his newsletter last night and i'm sure he'll be

talking about it on the town this week which i suggest people listen to. This is an old saw at this point about how Netflix killed cinema. I don't really think that that's the case. I think what it did do, though, is that it sped up the process by which people could accept the idea of not going to the movies, right? It made people feel more homebound. And it's really just a first mover kind of a thing. This was the first company to become a leader in the space of streaming. And so inevitably, once they started making original movies, which it took them a few years to do, they were making original TV series in 2013, 14. And then it was like 15, 16, Beasts of No Nation, a couple of other movies started coming

along that became Netflix original films. This is before they purchased a couple of movie theaters. It was before they were theatrically debuting their films. And that conversation started. So that's almost, that's got to be seven, six years ago now that we've been talking about this. I don't really think Netflix killed cinema. I think that part of the problem is, is that Netflix has made I don't probably 25 great films and a lot of the stuff that they make feels very below average and there's a huge disparity between the worst of what they make and the best of what they make and

the best of what they make feels like these hyper targeted award season films and then the worst of what they make feels like really schlocky, conglomerated BS. And so it doesn't really feel like a movie studio in the traditional sense. There's not really a lot of middle of the road stuff. And then on top of that, they haven't really been able to successfully launch any movie franchises, which is how I think most people think about movies. And so when you think about what their kind of film identity is, it's really all over the place and inconsistent and often unappetizing.

When people hear something is a Netflix original, they don't necessarily get excited about it. And so that contributes, I think, to the conversation about killing cinema. But, you know, some of this dovetailed with two plus years of pandemic non-movie going. And we're coming out of that a little bit. The box office of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness was very good. $185 million in America, $420 million around the world. It's going to be one of the bigger MCU movies of the last three years. That's significant.

I think also I'm just so stoked to see everything everywhere all at once. Crossing $40 million. This might end up being a $50 million movie in america which is so cool an original movie a genre movie movie with a lot of heart and sincerity and soul that's exciting we've seen like mediocre movies like the lost city creeping towards 100 million dollars that's another sign that things are back movies that are just okay are starting to perform so So I don't think cinema has been killed. I think like what the shape of a movie is, is evolving. And part of the issue there is something we talk about all the time that me and Amanda

have talked about many, many times, which is there's so many TV shows that just would have been movies 10, 20, 30 years ago. And this is actually going to contribute, I think, to some of my answer for the next question, which is about how many movies we can watch and how we're watching them. Maybe we should just jump right into that question, Bobby. Yeah, sure. Zach asks, how's the whole, quote, more economic in your movie viewing New Year's resolution thing going? If listeners don't recall, I think Sean made a proclamation on the podcast saying,

I'm not going to try to watch 500 new films this year. I'm going to be a little bit more selective now that I have a child. I appreciate someone following up on this and taking me to task. Now, I'll provide the data answer to start, okay? Okay. So last year, here are my stats according to Letterboxd. I watched 805 films. That's an average of 67.1 films per month and 15.5 films per week. So let's go to this year's numbers. Thus far through five months and

change, 248 films watched. That's 49.6 per month and 13.1 per week. So my numbers are down, right? That's good. I'm sticking to my word there. I have less time. I'm spending more time with Alice and I don't have as much time to watch movies. There's also fewer movies right now. I felt like last year, especially in the second half of the year, there was this deluge of films that were being released, many of which were held over from the pandemic,

many of which were going straight to streaming services so the access was much easier at the time. We haven't really reached that summer movie slash fall movie season threshold. I did watch a lot of movies

in January because of Sundance and then things slowed down considerably in February and March and April. The biggest factor, though, is I'm watching more television. I'm watching more shows. And a lot of shows like The Dropout or I did a Succession podcast. I'm in the middle of a Barry podcast right now.

I'm watching The Offer. I'm watching Winning Time. I'm watching The Girl from Plainville. I'm watching Survivor and Top Chef and on and on. I mean, literally five or six more shows in addition to that. And then there's a bunch of shows that I haven't even started yet that I want to start. There's an Elizabeth Moss show on Apple TV Plus called Shining Girls that I have not tried yet.

There's We Own the City I'm watching, which I'm loving. The new David Simon show about the Baltimore Police Department, which has been incredible. I watched an episode of The Pentavarite, the new Mike Myers show this weekend. It wasn't great. I watched The Staircase, which is the fictionalized version of a 12-hour documentary that I watched 15 years ago. I'm watching Russian Doll. I'm watching Better Call Saul, my second favorite show.

What I'm hearing right now is that now that Chris has proclaimed that cinema is back, that you two are just kind of like trading places a little bit? That would actually be fun to swap hosting roles. For like a month? Well, maybe for a day.

But I don't think Greenwald wants a month of me, candidly. Though I do think Amanda would want a month of Chris. I literally, I only named half the shows that I watched or I'm watching this year. so far it looks like i've either completed or i'm in the middle of 21 shows moon night we crashed atlanta i'm watching super pumped severance pam and tommy it's a lot of fucking tv shows yeah i think i think i completed 30 tv shows total last year we're only in may and i've got 20 plus going now i i'm doing this in part because a lot of my favorite filmmakers are living there.

You know, like we talked about Ben Stiller a few weeks ago on the watch and how much I like what he's up to. And he did severance. You know, we talked about, um, we just talked about Mike Myers on, on the Austin powers rewatchables. I'm checking out his show. I love David Simon. I didn't even mention gaslit, you know, co-produced by our pal Sam Esmail,

show about Watergate, another thing that probably would have just been a movie 10 or 20 years ago. So it's, my resolution is holding strong, but I'm still watching a lot of stuff. And the thing about the TV stuff is it still feels disposable. It still feels kind of meaningless.

The only show that I'm watching right now that doesn't, that feels like it will have some lasting power in my mind as we own the city, because I feel like what David Simon does is so much different than what every other kind of television writer, director, creator does. And as I love Barry, obviously I'm, I'm doing that show with Bill Hader because I think it is the most cinematic TV show around. But even the plot machinations of that show won't stick in my mind as much as some of the things from We Own This City. But just a lot of the hours are going towards this stuff. You know, like The Offer. I'm watching The Offer, right? This is the show about the making of The Godfather, which I was greatly anticipating,

and which has been a real mixed bag so far. On paper, this is the most me thing ever. It's 10 hours of how a producer, a cunning producer, put together the package to make what is clearly one of the greatest American films ever made. From the mind of Sean Fennessy, we bring you the offer. I know. I know. It's like I would listen to a 30-hour podcast about this. And I'm finding it hard to get through the 10-hour version of the show. Maybe it should have been a 30-hour podcast. It might have been better. I think part of it is just not everything has to be a TV show. And that's something that we're going to keep banging on over and over again.

I think I'm probably going to watch fewer shows as the year goes on and more movies. Like once fall festival season starts happening. We've got an action-packed month on the show here. We've got a lot of cruise action going on. We've got Top Gun

coming up. So excited. So excited. Actually, I wanted to ask you since we're going to be talking about this so much. What is your plan for seeing Maverick?

Have you sculpted it? My plan is I'm going to rip about six espresso shots and I'm going to bring my entire family to a Dolby theater whatever closest Dolby theater I can find and I'm going to watch Top Gun Maverick and I don't care who sees me shaking and crying and throwing up

as the name goes. I don't think you should do the espresso shots thing. That seems really dangerous. The movie is very tense and I felt like kind of curled up in a ball as I was watching certain segments of it.

So be careful what you consume before you start the film. I would suggest a downer. I think just a tall glass of water. Oh, okay. Maybe some milk. Well, like six espresso shots and a tall glass of water

is kind of like my stasis at this point of like working from home that's like a wider world yeah it does it really does uh when you say i'm gonna bring my whole family you mean like like a hundred wagner's what are we talking about i'm gonna make the trip back to philadelphia and i'm gonna bring my entire immediate family top gun is very important a very important property for not just my immediate family but but specifically my sister and I. We'll do some full-on watch party Top Gun shit. What if you guys hate it?

I just don't think that's possible. Based on how you responded to seeing it, you didn't spoil anything for me, but it's Top Gun, right? Correct. Great. That's all I'll say until we start getting into it. But yeah, I really enjoyed it.

Okay, should we go to the next question? Yeah. Next question comes from Justin. You get to design a film class. This is a cool question. You get to design a film class and can require the class to watch any 10 films you want. Any theme, director, genre, doesn't matter. What do you make them watch and why?

I like this question a lot too. Thank you, Justin. Maybe one day I like this question a lot too. Thank you, Justin. Maybe one day I'll get to do this. That would be fun. I didn't want to do something as basic as great mystery movies or the films of Quentin Tarantino or whatever people imagine I would want to talk about. I tried to do something a little bit different than that. I've obviously taken a lot of film classes in my life and most film classes are about, you know, mise-en-scene

and how the camera moves and storytelling styles and great filmmakers. I wanted to do something that was related to expectations and the way that audiences interact with movies and what decisions

filmmakers and writers and actors make that influence those decisions. So I would like to do a class called The Art of Deception and the way that we build up and make viewers anticipate what they think is going to happen next and then pull the rug out from underneath them. Now, I don't just mean trick endings, though trick endings are obviously a part of this kind of conversation,

but this is a way to talk about the conventions of movie storytelling, which are always fascinating to me, and the way that those conventions can be subverted. So I'll just list 10 movies here. I guess 11, technically, because I cheated. I don't want to get too far into them, though, because if you haven't seen any of these movies,

you won't totally understand what I'm trying to say by them. So these are just blanket recommendations for movies. Some of them, most people will have seen, especially the more contemporary stuff that I'm talking about. But here are the movies. One kissed me deadly.

This came up in my conversation with Patton Oswalt in our noir conversation. I think it's essentially like the pure introduction of a classic storytelling trope. And it's irresolution. It's a like the pure introduction of a classic storytelling trope. And it's irresolution. It's a lack of resolution is part of what makes it so special. Psycho, obviously, well understood at this point. If you haven't seen Psycho, I'm sorry to spoil Psycho for you.

But essentially, the Marion Crane character who was murdered in the first 40 minutes of the film, the idea of killing off Janet Leigh's character, who was a movie star at that time, was so shocking to audiences and such an incredible subversion of what audiences expected a movie to be that I think theoretically, if you're in a film class and you're 18 years old, you don't necessarily know how that's important. And so you're not an avid listener of a movie podcast and you don't already understand some obvious things like that. So I have to include some obvious choices. I picked Bergman's Persona, which is a movie podcast and you don't already understand some obvious things like that so i have to include some obvious choices i picked bergman's persona which is a really confusing and beautiful film about identity and about these two women and what they share as they have this very

intimate and almost psychologically taught connection to each other and how they kind of swap roles and identities and it's a very complex movie to talk about if you have not seen persona i would recommend seeing Persona. But if you see it, you'll understand why I want it here. I put Kubrick's The Killing for a very similar reason to Kiss Me Deadly, which is a kind of like the shock of an ending.

I have David Mamet's House of Games here, which is a movie that my father showed me when I was very young. I would say 10 or 11 years old about con men and about the world of the grift and about poker players and about unsavory characters. Really set you on the course that you're on now, right? I mean, look at me. I'm a bottom-dealing, bottom-feeder. I'm just pure, dishonest grifter. I like that movie a lot and it's a movie about i think diving into a world

where you don't necessarily understand everything that's going on around you and you have to distrust everything that you see which is a storytelling style that i really really like i know i have another kubrick movie here why has wide shut i'm going through all the kubrick movies i think i mentioned this a couple of times but i'm re-watching all of them this year fucking amazing um eyes wide shut course, is in part fascinating because it's about one bizarre, fascinating nightmare of a night for a guy, but also is a dream movie and a movie about reckoning with whether or not something is really happening. And that's something that I think a lot of filmmakers do really well. I was thinking of

Terry Gilliam does this very well too. They're sort of trying trying to make sense of whether inside someone's head or actually experiencing a world that's been created. I have two kind of horror freak out. What's it's on the list. Audition UK is absolutely riveting and disgusting and scary nightmare of a movie. And then dog tooth Yorgos Lanthimos' kind of big breakthrough about a family that is raising their children in very discomforting ways and the power of language and the power of assumed, I guess, traditions. The idea that we call toothpaste toothpaste, toothpaste, and that we swim in swimming pools and that we drive around in cars to go to restaurants these are just things that we accept as common fact in our lives and some families live differently

um and then three very obvious ones but that i think would be fun to dissect in real time so imagine getting to spend three weeks talking about memento the sixth sense and get out and what we as audiences thought we were getting from those movies and then ultimately what we got you know memento worthy of like incredible dissection the kind of reversal of storytelling that christopher nolan does there the sixth sense as like reframing a lot of what hitchcock did with m night shamalan and storytelling and then get out which um you know one of our favorite movies on this show i think one of the most important movies that has been released since we started doing

this podcast. And I think one that basically like set a new trajectory in horror, thriller, storytelling. Would you,

would you, would you take that class, Bob? I'd take that class. Yeah. Okay. I think I've told you before that I had a film class

in college that was like similarly themed by genre and it was on dystopias, which I thought was a great idea for a film class, like an intro to film class. Unfortunately, the professor went out about halfway

through, so the dystopias kind of changed, but that's okay. I still enjoyed the class a lot. I learned a lot about the failures of society portrayed through film. We watched Blue Velvet. I i mean the desecration of the american dream right what what better way to understand it you know the dishonesty of the 1950s americana um and this was all before 2016 bob yeah i think it was incredible stuff uh

what's the next question isaac asks my daughter will be born at the beginning of August, and I need help formulating a list of truly cinematic children's movies. One I hope will shape her taste for years to come. I have some in mind, but would you be willing to share several non-negotiables before she turns five? Yeah, let's talk through this, right? Because we're not letting Alice watch any TV right now. She's not even a year old.

We might even wait until two years old, which is very challenging for me on a couple of fronts. Let me, let me talk through them with you before I start recommending movies for children under five. One, one of the great joys of my life of being on the West Coast is watching sports at like five o'clock. Especially, especially during the pandemic when I'm in my office working and then the day is starting to wind down and I just turn on the TV and hey, there's the NBA playoffs.

Or more recently, hey, the Mets are on and I can watch every Mets game, at least the first four innings of every Mets game before my day kind of winds down and then I'm back in the house and helping out and we're making dinner. So when I go back in the house, if it's an interesting game, I can't turn the game on

because I'm caring for our daughter and can't watch any TV. And this is a very small first world problem, but it is something that is extremely confusing because invariably what I do is I then open up my phone and I have my phone open and game cast on ESPN is on and I'm well I'm tracking the game as I'm caring for this child and then she's watching me look at my phone which is teaching her that looking at your phone is the thing you should do with your time which is the same premise as her watching TV, which we don't want her to do. So obviously, I am diseased. And I'm not only by Mets fandom, but by my addiction to screens. I think that's one of the

underrated parts of all the TV and movies that you just listed off is that you also watch every Mets game. And like confirmed, you either watch or follow along with every Mets game, because I do too. And I know that if something bad shit happens and I slack you about it or whatever, you're going to know exactly what I'm talking about I can confirm that for the

listeners who are listening to this podcast right now I that is that is a fact I don't see every single game but I follow every single game in real time and that's a problem for both of us frankly for many reasons which we can get into later but I'm working on it

working on that but it does it it's obviously like affecting what i'm showing her which i'm not happy about what i would like to be doing is very soon hopefully in the next six months kind of getting her on like a mr rogers diet um so getting her in front of something that is very calm and sedate and kind of beautiful and instructive and thoughtful and whether it will actually be mr rogers i don't know but it could be and what it can't be is like the nba playoffs because that is fast moving and crazy and also eileen my wife just hates watching the nba and so the like that will not be in the house. Baseball is a little,

you know, it's bucolic and kind of has an elegance. Give me the Gary Keith, Ron exception, Sean. I know, I know. And they have a kind of a sultry tone and a calming,

soothing essence. But baseball is the cadence of life, brother. I mean, it is for me, especially when we're in first place, you know, especially when we're 20 and 10 at the top of the nl east but i think that as far as movies to show there's been one movie that has been recommended over and over and over again by my cinephile

friends and the people who are up on this world which is obviously my neighbor totoro which talked about on this show a few times studio ghibli film um hayami izaki's i for me that's his masterpiece some people would say spirited away some people would say princess mononoke i think all of those films would be great to show alice at a young age i think it does a variety of things right obviously they're beautifully drawn and they're incredibly creative and they take you inside of a world and their films about friendship their films about loss they have these complex themes that you can talk through young children with, but also they're just fun. They're antic and they're exciting. So I would probably put My Neighbor Toter on there. I've spoken many times on the show about

the power and influence that The Wizard of Oz had on me, and I would absolutely show her that at an early age. And Isaac, I suggest you do the same we listen to disney songs all the time in the house we listen to disney classics in particular which is like i guess an album that disney released that features like all the hits going back to 1935 and i had the album you know about disney classics yeah had it on myod classic. 128 gigs on that bad boy. So many songs. Come on. The one that,

the real banger to me, the one like, wow, they really, there's something like next level deep about this is Little April Shower. Are you up on Little April Shower? No.

So this is the song that plays in Bambi before the crazy storm happens and before everyone like thumper and bambi are like separated and bambi is without his mom and it's like a it's a moment of terror but it starts off very beautifully and very quietly and then it becomes this big orchestral wail and becomes very violent and scary and then it gets calm again you know it's like it's most supposed to represent nature and so bambi now is like a movie that i want to show her because when literally poor shower starts she she vibes out you know we listen while we're eating breakfast it's very calm so i would put bambi on the list um that also makes me want to put fantasia on

the list although i feel like most kids think fantasia is really boring because there's a story. I thought it was boring until I was like 17. And then I watched and I was like, oh, this is actually kind of clever. I think if you take an edible and watch Fantasia, though, you're like one of the top five movies ever made. No comment. Okay. Based on the age that I said that I thought Fantasia became fun. You know, I have to address something here, actually, because I really I would like to show this kid finding nemo and uh this is an opportunity to talk about the the last movie draft just

absolutely reprehensible comments were made just just shameful i i feel like speaking of shameful and misinformed yeah i agree and hurtful hurt. The voters out there, they hurt me. I thought they were extremely unfair to Mallory. I think Chris's coalition is getting a little fringy. I think there's some stuff happening now that concerns me greatly as one of the stewards of this show. And I think it's important that we keep the draft operating in good conscience and in good faith. You know, I don't want anybody... And maybe it was our mistake

to allow the Google form voting, you know, and maybe we can convene with David Lara, our lord of social on the big picture feed. But I don't know, people abusing the system. You just...

I hate to see it. You know, I'm raising this little girl. I'm trying don't know, people abusing the system. You just, I hate to see it. You know, I'm raising this little girl. I'm trying to show her what's right in the world. And meanwhile, the CR army is out here breaking the rules

and setting a terrible example. I'm ashamed. I'm sharing a wonderful film in the process. Yeah, Finding Nemo is beautiful. Finding Nemo is a good one to put on the list

because it's just so sweet, but also hilarious and just visually different than a lot of films, animated films, because it takes place all underwater. It's got it all. I watched Finding Nemo and Monsters, Inc. every time I was homesick from school until I was like 16. You're right in the sweet spot, too.

I mean, how old were you when those movies came out? Yeah, like six or seven for the early Pixar ones, like the masterpieces. Yeah, that's pretty sweet i don't know if i mentioned this when we did the draft but uh my nephews were around the same age and maybe a little bit younger than you and um same we watched it all the time you know it was just a huge part of their life and and they loved it so you know just shame on all those people who whoed that choice and who corrupted our system. You know, we're trying to build a beautiful, unencumbered, you know, ecosystem of love and sharing and celebration.

Large tent. Yeah. And me winning. Me winning is the other thing that we're trying to do. Large tent with you at the podium. Actually, this reminded me, I forgot to mention this on one of the earlier questions but um speaking about finding nemo and kind of going into a world and going underwater you know who loves to do that is james cameron and we saw we saw avatar the way of water trailer this morning

which i guess premiered at cinema con a few weeks ago and has now been premiering in front of dr strange in the multiverse of madness and. You can now watch it at home. I want to ask your opinion about this because ostensibly Avatar the Way of Water is the biggest movie of the year. It's the sequel to

the biggest movie of all time really. I mean by some metrics. James Cameron one of the probably the single greatest doubt me at

your own peril filmmakers we have. Every time he makes something, people are like, I don't know about this. Terminator 2? What is this weird technology? Home run. Titanic? Really?

Yeah. Biggest movie of all time. Avatar? Digital animation? Sam Worthington? Na'vi? Biggest movie of all time. So he's doing a sequel. and it definitely looks like Avatar.

It doesn't look like significantly different than Avatar. I do think that it's very, very, I think it's wrong to judge anything Avatar related if you watched it on your TV or on your laptop. Right. Because that's obviously not what it's been made for. And I will say that when I saw the original Avatar in theaters, I saw it on an IMAX screen

and it absolutely did what it was supposed to do, which just took my breath away. But for you, I don't know what kind of relationship you have to the original Avatar, but do you find yourself

anticipating a new Avatar movie? I don't like Avatar. I didn't like the first one. It just, I'll pull an Amanda card out while she's not here just wasn't for me you know it's so funny

because it really aligns I think closely with your politics is that right? I think so yeah speaking of movies that align closely with my politics

that you should show Alice A Bug's Life let's go oh overthrow the system how does that align? I don't know the ants

they take back power from the grasshoppers oh socialist read of A Bug's life anyway back to avatar uh i think i was like 12 when it came out and i understood that it was supposed to be cool but the technology i was like not quite old enough to appreciate the pushing the boundaries of the technology and then to me i was just like i've been playing video games since i was like seven this doesn't really seem that different than that to me although obviously it was but I was too stupid to realize it my brain was not developed enough to realize it and the story felt like a little bit

tropey to me like it felt like Pocahontas and I was like I already watched Pocahontas when I was a kid didn't really love it either so absolutely right I didn't really like Avatar and I'm not like super psyched about Avatar 2 though I'll probably see it because you know like you said when james cameron makes a film and it's like enough of an event in the wider world i'm sure i'll have friends will be like let's just go see it just because it's avatar and it took him 12 years to make this other one more now yeah yeah 14 years i think it's been four was it was it oh eight oh nine when the original came out yeah i think so uh the other thing is that there's a third one coming certainly maybe a fourth and a fifth they've all been promised i don't know that the world wants five avatar movies

but we're gonna find out what they want with two. I think you make a great point about the story. When you're 12 and a story feels tropey, you hold it against it. You're like, I've seen this before. I know what this is. I'm bored by this. When you're 40, like I'm going to be this summer. It's the reinvention of a trope. Yeah, you see the Northmen and you're like,

Hamlet, I like Hamlet. That's good. Famously, you're underwhelmed by shakespeare well you just you don't hold it as against it as much um and so i mean the pocahontas story the idea of like you know the the lone white savior coming into a world of of native peoples obviously is extremely fraught i think the movie came under fire in some respects for criticism at that time this is a little bit different because we're like fully situated in the world of the navi and in the second movie but um i don't know i kind of don't know what to expect it's really hard to judge i didn't see the trailer in a big movie theater um i only saw it

on youtube on my tv this morning which uh was not as God himself, James Cameron intended. Do you think we should have like trailer theaters just like on every few corners or so? You can just pop in like a single viewing trailer theater. I'll tell you what, as a member of the lamestream movie media, I was invited to a screening

of the trailer at a movie theater. Now that's just, that's a lot. Which I'll go to, I'll go see any movie in a movie theater, but I'm not going to see a trailer, just a trailer. I'm going to drive out to just see a trailer. I I'll go to. I'll go see any movie in a movie theater, but I'm not going to see a trip. Just a trailer. I'm going to drive out to just see a trailer. I can't do that.

As I'm trying to think of what movie I would have done it for licorice pizza. Because actually that's something that they see. But even then I didn't do it because of licorice pizza before was coming out. I don't know if you remember this. They started showing the trailer in front of like random screenings at the american cinema tech yeah or you know into you know independently owned theaters around la um and so you would could would just have to get lucky and show up at the right screening to see the trailer ahead of a movie and i could have just gone to the new beverly five nights in a row to check it out it's certainly something i did in the past pre pre alice i did that um and i didn't do it sorry lean trying to see the licorice pizza trailer that would that

that's a that's a surefire way to get divorced is is to try to see a trailer in front of them and that i don't know let's not even go into that um okay so avatar i'm the way of the water i'm gonna i'm gonna see i'm gonna see that movie i am excited about it maybe james cameron week on the big picture what do you think yeah hell yeah that would be fun people are really excited about the the honing in on individuals which brings us to our next question by the way but preemptively i want to say people are really excited about a potential tom cruise lens of the big picture. Yeah. We have a big episode planned. Maybe our longest episode ever.

The Running CAS asks, Sean, the Nick Cage Hall of Fame pod was brilliant, but also seemed to be the hardest to build. In the future, which actor or filmmaker would you predict as being as difficult or even harder than Cage? Good question. I had so much fun on that episode

because I thought Van and Rob were so good and so good together. The Halls of Fame are fun. They're completely made up and people get very mad about them. Actually, more mad than the draft. The comments that I got on the internet from people about whether or not we should have

included National Treasure, you would have thought I kidnapped someone's child. People were really, really, really mad and they were like, just so you know, Van should be elected president and you should be sent to

hell immediately. I don't know why people feel so strongly. It's a fun fake premise. He stole the Declaration of Independence.

I know. I know. It's great. What's what's his name? Benjamin Franklin Gates. That's right.

That's cool. That's creative. I Tom Cruise is going to be tough, but I don't think as tough, strangely, as Nick Cage because we're going to have passion points. We don't have to pick

three Mission Impossible movies. He's become such a franchise machine recently that it may be easier than we suspect. That's a good point. has like such long eras yes and he also he had these clumps of like you know we had this problem with the con air the rock and um what was the third one con air the rock and there's another big action movie right in that time face off face off Face Off, thank you. We sort of felt like we had to acknowledge the power of all three of those. Tom Cruise will have some of those for sure. There will be fights about whether or not

the color of money has to be in. Yeah. Chris will fight for it if he's with us on that pod. But I'm not as worried about Cruise. He's dangling a sanction over Chris's head like if he doesn't get to see our army under control then he's not allowed on the the cruise hall of fame pod?

Chris is invited to any pod he wants to join. However if things continue to unravel there will be there will be consequences. I'm not saying

there will be consequences against yeah that's right exactly. We're going to start treating him like the Oakland Raiders.

Yeah exactly. That was that was our deflate gate. It kind of was. that's brutal uh okay i think meryl streep would be really hard really hard uh i think if you have like i think jack nicholson would be really hard like tremendous like if you have 50 years of movies to choose from it would be very very difficult you know we did this for Deacons, and that was obviously, by our standards, a historic episode of the show,

which are not very interesting standards. And I think there are a few people like that that we haven't done. Like, we've mostly done movie stars in Hall of Fame conversations. I think it would be interesting to treat someone like Spielberg in a Hall of Fame way. I don't know if we did Scorsese in a Hall of Fame.

I think we've just done top fives. So we should start thinking about a couple of people like that. We did do Denzel, I believe. And that was a pretty tough one to do. Hanks was pretty hard too. Hanks was very hard. Another person who has, what does he have?

Six, seven, eight Oscar nominations. When you have that many nominees. He has different strokes for different folks too. So it's hard to narrow out and balance out between two people making the haul. Cage is just so unusual because he was so prolific. You know, he was like an actor from the 1930s. Like he's in a hundred movies and he's 60.

Like he's not that old, you know? Like he's made a hundred movies. It's just crazy. And so there are just not very many people we can say that about and so i'm trying to imagine anyone being that difficult you know like we did cooper a few weeks a few months ago and people some people thought that it was too soon like his cv wasn't long enough and so we were kind of grasping for a couple of movies and i think that's fair but we still have a couple of white whales out there that we'll have to figure out i don't want to spoil but um those are fun games and it was fun to do it with van and rob too we'll have to

bring that back to do it soon yeah okay nate asks so i know you worked as an executive producer on the music box docs but i don't totally understand what an ep actually does can you share a little bit about your role and responsibilities with that project? Do you want to be an EP again in the future? Sure. That's a nice question. What does an EP do? I can only speak to my experience doing this. There are a number of different things that you can do in a role like this. In our case, Bill and I started talking about the series, I want to say back in 2018. And so we started conceptualizing ideas. We started talking about filmmakers that we wanted to work with. Noah Malalay came onto the team shortly thereafter. We started working together, the three of us in particular, casting around. I spent a lot of time as a music journalist in my life. I have a huge, a vast amount of music knowledge, arguably more than film knowledge. And so I

probably put together north of 40, 50 ideas just for Bill to see. And so we would start working through that. Bill obviously had tons of his own ideas, some of which made it into the series, some of which didn't. That's kind of like at the earliest germination stage. We partnered with Universal Music Publishing Group. We partnered with HBO. And that requires a lot of meetings, a lot of conversation, a lot of definition around the

series, figuring out how many films should we make? Should they be real films? Should they be an hour long? Should they be 90 minutes? Who are the right directors? Who are the right partners? Who are the right... What's the right production house who's the right music supervisor um there's a laundry list of things i mean noah is really like the point person on our team who does all this work and he's amazing at his job and mostly it's about taste it's about finding the right people to collaborate with i'm not the artist on this the executive producer is not the artist that's why they have the word executive in the title um it's a lot about decision making and suggestion and guiding a project in the right way and connecting people, I think, ultimately is the thing that I've learned is how do we make this

filmmaker work with this editor, work with this producer, work with this distributor, work with this rights holder, for example. In the world of music documentaries, licensing music is such a significant part of that story. It's not just about finding the right subject. It's not just about getting the subject to agree to participate. It's not just about finding all the archival material that you need. It's about making sure that everyone works together properly. And you get to hear the music in the film that you're seeing about a certain kind of music. So there's all these little component parts that go into the work. Some of it, I'm in the nitty gritty. Most of it, I'm not in the nitty gritty. Most of it,

I'm a person that says like, you know, it'd be good ideas to do this. Or, hey, I know somebody who can help you with this. And I'm learning that that is the work of being a producer. I think I knew that in an abstract way. And then you see things come together. And I saw Noah Hustle and I saw Bill have big ideas and you know it's fun of course I would like to continue doing it I mean I am doing it we're doing a second season of Music Box we're in the midst of putting together the next group of films right now which is very

exciting we have a couple of other films that are in production at Ringer Films at the moment which is great I love it I mean everybody who listens to the show knows how much I care about movies and so the idea I watching the music box movies in particular come together was very special. I had, I had EP to a couple of,

or produce a couple of other films, but in a very tangential way, you know, just giving notes and, and meeting with filmmakers, this, this, that was,

this was much more immersive and it's just a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. And it's very special when people see something and like it and you know truthfully like i had a i had a dawning last summer which is very obvious it happens to many people and i feel very comfortable with this one i do not identify as a film critic i've never identified as a film critic on this show i do not think of what we do here as film criticism. I think it is film conversation. I think there are aspects of criticism that go into the conversation, but film criticism is an art unto itself. And what has always interested

me about movies is beyond the aesthetics and thematic ideas of film. It is about the experience of movies. It is about how audiences understand movies. It is about how audiences understand them. It is about how the business works. It is about how they make me feel emotionally, which is an aspect of film criticism. But I don't want, I don't do specifically what Adam Neiman does. Adam Neiman is a skilled scholar.

I think I can be scholarly, but I'm trying to do something that maybe doesn't have pure definition. And working on movies is changing my relationship to those things even more. I can be scholarly, but I'm trying to do something that maybe doesn't have pure definition. And working on movies is changing my relationship to those things even more. And so when you learn about how hard it is to make one of these things, and we just worked on documentaries, which are completely different from $75 million productions happening around the world. You didn't have $75 million for each Music Box

documentary? We didn't. I can't disclose the budgets. But we did not have $75 million. And you see the sacrifices that people make. You see the churn and the difficulty and being told no and thinking you would do one thing one way and then learning it was impossible for reasons that are completely out of your control and the incredibly collaborative nature of things. And, you know, me being drunk on auteur theory for 40 years and then realizing like,

hey, it was like 5,000 people who worked on this and everybody worked really hard and we tried to make something cool. And it just, it warps your relationship in many ways to seeing this this medium and this art form in these kind of pure analytical ways and so part of the reason why i don't like to talk about movies that i hate on the show unless they star ryan reynolds i guess um it's because i don't i don't know what the upshot of that is i don't have a problem saying i didn't like something or it didn't work for me but shitting on something doesn't i don't i don't get anything out of it i think that there are some shows that do that very well i think that can be very entertaining it's the same reason i don't try to own people on twitter like i'm sure i could do that if i really tried you know if i just constantly was like a sick pivot for you just quote tweeting

people and being like except you burnt you know about like everything but i don't off to a great start there uh maybe i shouldn't try because i wouldn't know how um but it's just not it's not it's not a vibe that i'm after and it's not something i'm interested in it's not even something that i necessarily would be great at i think if i tried to be like a skilled formal critic i might not be any good at it um i'm trying to do something a little bit different and a little bit more holistic. Maybe not as thoughtful, but hopefully entertaining and insightful. So the EPing stuff, to just bring all that back around,

has just changed my relationship to it even more. And hopefully I won't go soft on things that I don't think work. I think that's something I'm trying to avoid. I want to be honest as much as possible. But what I don't want to do is just rag on something that I know isn't effective or didn't work for me because people tried and sometimes you get it wrong.

And there are a lot of reasons why you get it wrong. Now, there are instances where people are operating in bad faith. When people are operating in bad faith and making art very cynically, I will call that out. I will say, hey, treat me with respect as an audience member. And if you don't, I'm going to get mad about that I take seriously the time investment that I put into it as you heard from me talking about my stats and how much shit I watch. I watch a lot of stuff. So I know from where I speak. Next question, Taylor wants to know, you often talk about how movies are no longer at the center of culture, which begs the question, what is? In the last five years, it feels like politics is the only thing everyone in the United

States cares about. And sports, TV, music, and books are becoming just as niche and tailored by algorithmic interest as movies are. I wouldn't even say politics is at the center. Yeah, I don't think so either. No. Most people I know are disinterested in politics right now. There are some issues that are important to them but the idea of politics and now that we don't have like a sideshow circus freak aspect in the white house i don't people i don't know people who are like i what i do is i read the washington post cover to cover every day um

i don't think when i say think something like movies were at the center of culture i don't mean that they were the most important thing in the world what i mean is that i think people defined their leisure time yeah by spending them going to see et or going to see terminator 2 or going to see terms of endearment you know they were the sun with which all of the other pop culture planets revolved around exactly and and it's not that as evidenced by the 30 television shows that i'm watching right now um i think movies will still be the noisiest event there's a reason that the oscars is still the highest rated award show there's a reason that spider-man no way home is a more powerful piece of popular culture

financially and even culturally than even game of thrones to me you know i think i like the biggest version of that on television or the biggest or drake or taylor swift or i don't know whatever whatever other form of popular culture i think there's nothing still more mass than movies but i don't see anything replacing it i think we get a lot of anxiety bound conversations about like tiktok and how kids are spending their time and all that just feels like wheel spinning from boomers you know what i mean like it's just i i don't really i don't want to pretend to know what 14 year olds are doing with their time i will say i hear from a lot of people who listen to this show sincerely people who are like somebody just hit me up over the weekend.

It was like I started a film club because I got really into this podcast. And now me and a bunch of people in my high school watch movies all the time. And we listen to the movies that you recommend on the show. We watch them. That's fucking awesome. That's the coolest thing I've ever heard. Someone actually did that. If that's real and that's not just somebody trying to get me to like smash the heart button on Twitter.

That's amazing. Army at it again. I know. I know. They're trying to pull the rug out from under me. But if that's real, if that's sincere, and people are digging movies, that's really all that ultimately matters to me. I think I get bent out of shape about this stuff because I want everyone to feel the way that I feel because I'm I'm a narcissist I want everybody to understand my perspective and my perspective as movies are absolutely incredible and when they take you away when they take you on a journey that's the best feeling I have as a pop culture consumer um but that's not possible and it's not coming back it's just like sliced and diced way more and that's true of everything

but I feel like people who are in their slice maybe put even more effort into that slice than they ever did before because they're not being pulled in as many directions anymore because of this sort of like as taylor described algorithmic way that we go about consuming the things that we consume so people are like in harder on fewer things i i think that's very smart I think you're absolutely right about that. I think in some ways I probably have veered even harder into movies because of that, because I feel like the world around me... I saw a movie a month ago that is not coming out until later this summer. I don't want to say the movie because I don't want to give anything away. I may

have even mentioned this on a pod, but it's the first movie I ever saw where I was like, wow, I'm old. Wow. Every joke and reference point. And I got it all. I understood everything. But it was the first time when I was in a generation past the target demo. And that hasn't been true for MCU stuff. That hasn't been true for millennial comedies. That hasn't been true for a lot. That hasn't been true for, you know, millennial comedies. That hasn't been true for a lot of things. And there have been films made by young filmmakers that I have really connected to. This movie was not necessarily made by an older filmmaker,

but it was clearly written by someone younger than me. And that is an interesting thing to kind of work through too, is like, at what point is the art that I'm consuming as I enter truly middle age? Can I look at it in a way that feels inclusive and understandable and doesn't feel alienating for me? And the same way that I think many people are alienated by the world of movies, because they're like, there's so many, it's so vast, it's not the most important thing anymore, I don't have to get invested in it. Where do I even start? Who's important? The idea of individual stories giving me that feeling was a new sensation.

And I'm kind of intoxicated by it. I thought it was kind of funny. I sat there like marveling at the fact that I was like, this ain't for me and it's not in the bad way. You know, like it's in a totally new vector of experience as a movie watcher. I'm kind of excited by that. I might get a little worn out by it. I can't wait for my daughter to tell me like,

you've got to see this thing that you've never heard of. And then I look at it and I'm like, you're an idiot. This is terrible. Like that will definitely happen because that happens to all parents. But it's all related.

The algorithmic interest thing, I think that's temporary. I don't think that that's life forever. Honestly, I don't think that that's cultural consumption forever. I think that we're actually moving away from that. I think that's temporary. I don't think that that's life forever, honestly. I don't think that that's cultural consumption forever. I think that we're actually moving away from that. I think the Netflix downturn at the moment is representative of the fact that people don't only want to be fed stuff and that that is only a sector of culture.

I think what you said is more insightful, which is that actually people are, they dive deeper into their worlds than they ever have because there's more information available to them. Their experiences may be more narrow, but they won't be shallow. They'll be deep. And there's something exciting about that that does lead to some I think toxic thinking.

It does make people a little bit it distorts their reality in some ways. The same way that my reality as someone who watches 800 movies a year is distorted. It makes people really defensive of the things that they've dived so deep into because they know so much more about it than the person who's sharing a different opinion about it. A hundred percent.

Look at the reception of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. I thought the guys on the Midnight Boys had a really interesting conversation about that movie about what worked and what did not work. Had some of the reflections of the conversations that Joanna, Chris, and I did, but they had a long two-hour conversation about it. And people online were fucking mad at them.

They were really mad that they weren't like, praise be to Lord MCU. And it's because of what you're saying. It's because people are so deep inside of their relationship to these Marvel films, a lot of which are good and I like,

but many of which are deeply flawed. And even ones like the Doctor Strange 2, which I liked, there's so many flaws. There's so many things that don't work in that film, but people are unwilling to accept criticism in all walks of life right now. That's something that is happening in all strands of culture. We see it on the political stage. We see it, social media has fucked people's brains up when it comes to these things. Anything negative that people hear, they feel they need to fire back and to dig deeper and to retrench and to tell everyone how wrong they are it's a weird impulse you know it's a weird it's something that i don't want to really participate in which is circling back to that other thing but i don't know movies ain't coming back in the way that they were that's

that's for sure yeah it's an interesting question that we have here from connor based on what you were talking about with feeling like you were not the target demo um connor says they've been thinking a lot about how sam esmail said at one point that the millennial generation of directors haven't made a truly great movie yet that was sam's opinion i think like over a year ago on this show now at this point um connor asks but what's your favorite film made by a gen z filmmaker so i was thinking back on sam's proclamation. And I can't remember if that's right, what Connor is quoting here.

It may be right. I think we probably even debated it at the time if that was what he said. But as I think about it, I think I remember him saying he was unsure what the millennial, like truly great film that was going to make it, like push its way into the canon was

that's a good question it could be like a matter of perspective uh-huh and it also could be a matter of are we even the people who are going to decide that that's a very good point too i it i think if sam is suggesting that we have not yet seen the 2001 A Space Odyssey from the millennial generation. Maybe that's fair, but in my mind, I'm like, well, here are the directors we have right now who are under 40, who are basically my cohort of people, people born

after 1981 and further, which is essentially the millennials. You've got Greta Gerwig working. You've got Ryan Coogler. You've got Damien Chazelle. We got Robert Eggers. We got Ari Aster. We got the Safdies. We got Amy Simons. We got Lulu Wong. We got the Daniels just now with a huge movie. We got Chloe Zhao, Emerald Fennell, Olivia Wilde. You can take or leave any of those filmmakers I just listed. These are people I came up with

in five minutes off the top of my head. Have those people made utter masterpieces, indisputable, iconic films that will last the test of time? Maybe not, but maybe. I mean, maybe Lady Bird will do that. Maybe Fruitvale Station will do that. Maybe La La Land will do that for people. I know The the lighthouse will do that for me you know there are uncut gems indisputably will do that for me um so i would take issue with with what sam said now as i think back on it as far as the gen z filmmakers much harder i mean they're much younger right i mean i don't even know if i'm in gen z am i i'm 26 no you're not i think 24 i think so yeah so who has made a a canon level movie by the time they're 24 well connor suggested two films that i believe are made by gen z filmmakers both of which were covered on the show i interviewed both filmmakers uh shithouse which is cooper rife's first feature

and shiva baby which is emma seligman's first feature i think they're both 24 i want to say yeah um cooper has his second movie coming out this summer cha-cha real smooth which i saw at Seligman's first feature. I think they're both 24. I want to say, yeah. Um, Cooper has his second movie coming out this summer. Cha-cha real smooth, which I saw at Sundance. Hopefully we'll talk to Cooper on the show. Cooper's great. Obviously it's very smart.

I think part of what people like me like about him is he just kind of feels like Richard Linklater or Sofia Coppola. And so it's like, he's kind of doing something that we've already seen before. And similarly, like Emma Seligman, if you watch her first movie, it feels like this weird combination of Elaine May, Woody Allen-ish comedy mixed with this sort of like Roman Polanski,

Dario Argento, like anxiety horror. And so that's also very familiar stuff. And so we're looking for familiar stuff in young people so that they confirm or reaffirm our taste and our point of view from our generation.

I haven't seen a movie yet that I would say is like indisputably Gen Z. Partially because I don't know what that is. I mean, you and I get along great. We talk all the time. You're not even in Gen Z.

And I'm like, Bobby is a lot younger than me. He's having a very different world experience than I am. So I probably just need to get to know more people who are 23 to understand. I'm sure there are films out there. I would love to hear about films from young filmmakers. The truth is, is that young people are not entrusted with the kind of money that is needed to make movies.

And films are more DIY than they ever have been. You can make a movie on your phone, yada, yada, yada. But even still, it's hard for people to get things going until they get into their mid-late 20s because people who work at movie studios or film financiers or producers don't trust young people to do anything right. I know this from experience. I've worked in corporate media for 20 years. They don't trust young people. They don't think they know what they're doing. And so it takes a little bit longer for those people to get the opportunities that they deserve to make the films that they want to make. And frankly, a lot of the people who are heroes on this show didn't start making their movies until they're 28, 29, 30, 31, 32. Soderbergh, Tarantino, all these people, they had to wait.

They had to wait years and years. And I I think a lot of people there's probably someone listening right now who's like I'm waiting but in five years I'm gonna get to make my blank it's interesting Zola is an interesting proposition for this kind of question because it feels like it occupies a Gen Z space but it's made by Janick Zabrava who's 41 so she's like firmly millennial but that film kind of lives in like a netherworld between millennial and Gen Z that it can kind of go back and forth amorphously between the two of this. So like it's so arbitrary.

It is. I mean, part of it is that that story originated in a social media space and it felt like, you know, it was written by a young person. Zola was very young when she wrote that thread. I think part of it is that Janixa is just is tapped into maybe that universe in a way that i'm not and is a very skilled filmmaker cast very young actors and so it felt very young um but even still like that is her interpretation of what that time in history was like what was that like 2015 when that was

when that thread first came out um and so now that is almost an artifact of its time that's not even what contemporary digital social media sex worker life is like it's totally different so it's an interesting question I would love to keep finding people I love talking to Emma last year you know I thought you

I could tell Emma was like so not impressed with my bullshit and it was actually really fun it was really fun for me to be talking to a young person who was like you're old and corny I love like observing interviews where after the first couple questions you're like okay now I have no idea where this interview is going yeah it's pretty rare like in the you know press cycle for like when these direct when you catch these directors are like coming out of the movie so like kind of know what kind of mood they're going to be in but it's not always the case and that was one of the movie. So like kind of know what kind of mood they're going to be in, but it's not always the case. And that was one of the interviews

that was like that. Yeah, I think because I, I'm like anybody else. I want people to feel like I've done my homework and that I'm really interested and that my questions are good. And I also,

I want to flatter their sensibilities, but also here's something that I've never heard, that no one's ever heard them say before about why they do what they do. But, and that's easy for me to do for men that are 10 or 20 years older than me I've been doing that my whole life I know exactly how to do that a young woman who like could not give less than a fuck about the big picture or whatever it is that we're doing here at the ringer fascinating so worth it so interesting and I hopefully we'll have more conversations like that in the future

um okay next question here comes from Simon. Do you think a film like Everything Everywhere All at Once has a shot at Oscar nominations? A lot of people want to know about this movie. A lot of people have seen this movie. I know. I know. Gosh, I hope so. Not because I think it would be great for the Oscars or whatever.

I could care less about that. I think it's good for more and more people to see it. I think it's doing what I want movies to do, which is that it is authentically inventive and features great performances, great filmmaking style. It's a very individualized story. It has a real point of view. And I think it would be an opportunity to celebrate a bunch of people who don't necessarily get celebrated all the time you know i i think that someone like kiwi kwan getting to go to the oscars is that would be amazing that would be so fun michelle yo has obviously been a staple of world cinema for 25 30 years at this point um but like jamie lee curtis is one of the most important people that's been in movies for

40 years but she doesn't really get celebrated by the Academy Awards. You know, James Hong has been in every cool 80s and 90s action movie and genre movie that you can think of, but he doesn't go to the Oscars. He's not a part of that Hollywood. And so I always want genre movies at the Oscars because I think it really represents like most of what people know about movies. You know, people don't really watch what people know about movies. People don't really watch The Power of the Dog. That doesn't make it less of an achievement,

but it has a very small angle of viewership. And Everything Everywhere All at Once being a box office success at a moment like this, independently financed, conceived by two weirdos who I really like, who are super sincere about all their weird ideas, featuring people who don't always get their stories told. Also, it's a movie about people with hot dog fingers and multiverses. When I first saw that scene, just one of the funniest things

and most unexpected things I've seen put on a screen in quite a while, actually. It's so weird. And I know that's a banal way of describing it, but it is weird. And I just wish that the Oscars were willing to be a little less stayed. And that goes back to all my requests to nominate even stupid comic book movies where I'm just like, just change it up. Let's just change it up. Let's just stop being so damn dignified all the time. There's going to be plenty of room to be dignified on this award show. Let's break it up from time to time.

And that would be one way to do it. I think part of it is because we just haven't really seen anything else that feels like serious enough or sincere enough in the, in the movie calendar yet to suggest that. And it's a 24. They have a lot of history with the Academy Awards. I think it, this,

this sort of question is always dependent on two things. It's dependent on what does the slate look like in the fall when the big movies start coming out? And if it's a softer year, a movie like this can trickle through. And secondarily, what kind of story does the studio and the people who made the movie tell throughout the year? What is the lifespan of

this movie? When it streams, is it a streaming success? Are people returning to it? Are they reopening the movie in theaters in November to celebrate this incredible achievement? Or is it just like a movie that comes and goes, a fun, goofy

movie, and then it's over? I will have to wait and see. It's kind of hard to be like, I'll be lobbying for it. I mean, I don't know if

I care that much, but it would make the award show a lot more interesting. Okay, next question comes from I'm the Owens. Was MJ right when she said

the Mets are going to go all the way this year can't can't trick me into jinxing Bobby on this podcast you will not jinx me

I'm not I don't make proclamations about my teams I'm notoriously pessimistic about all the teams I root for I will say and I know you will agree

with me there's some different energy this year oh yeah I think that the way that I put it was the Mets are good asterisk being a Mets fan my whole life gives me the

the express written right to retract this statement for any or no reason at all at any time it could go bad at any minute yep but something's different they've already won a bunch of games that they always lose yep they i'll tell you what it was i'll tell you exactly the moment it was when they traded for chris bassett and i was like wow oh wow i was like this is this this

is the move you make where you're like we we actually need six starters. And the Mets for years would be like, we'll do like 4.35 starters. And we'll see how it works out. And then variably three guys are on the DL in June. Now that's still plausible this year too. But I just like it. There's a bunch of guys who were 32 years old on the team. You know, a bunch of guys who know how to be professional baseball players and not a bunch of guys who were like really hoping to get it together.

You know, like, God, if only they could turn the corner they're 26 second year of arbitration such an interesting person to hone in on because it's like he's just so competent and so we love him so much it's like it's like a dog that you've just been yelling at for being on the couch you finally let him up on the couch and it just wants all of your affection that's like Mets fans seeing Chris Bassett yep six. Six innings, two runs, six strikeouts, two walks. Tight. The funniest part of it too is that he was like, I didn't really expect to like it here, but I love it.

Well, it's because the fans this year, obviously, that's the other thing too, is just like the vibe around the team. The idea that they have an owner who is willing to spend and spend mightily to give success. I mean, every Mets fan i know is just in just in this year we're like this is awesome to root for a team that is like has the highest

payroll it has a bunch of badasses on the team it's like we have the best power hitter in the national league we have two power arms assuming jacob de grom comes back edwin diaz looks like not a house of cards at least this. The pieces of the puzzle are there. The Mets actually have the second highest payroll behind the Dodgers. The Dodgers eclipsed them. Well, they are better than the Mets. Tough beat yesterday when I realized

that the Dodgers are also like 20-7 and the best team, maybe the best team ever. The Mets finally decided to be good and they're like, the Dodgers will just put together the best team ever. That's the other thing too. One of the reasons I'm not predicting anything is because they're not the best team

in baseball. They're just a lot of fun to root for right now. Anyway, there's our five minutes of Mets talk. We did it. I'm not affirming MJ's prediction, but if it happens, the writers of the script of Spider-Man No Way Home should get rings. I agree.

I agree too. Okay, Kane wants to know, do you have any up-and-coming directors that we should be aware of? I'll give you a quick list. This is also off the top of my head. Speaking of Gen Z millennial filmmakers, I mentioned Hannah Marks a couple times on the show. She wrote a movie called Banana Split that I really liked.

She directed a movie this year called Mark and Mary and some other people. It is okay. It is promising. I think she's the kind of person who I hope gets more opportunities. There was a movie that came out this past weekend called Happening. It's a French film by a young filmmaker named Audrey Dewan. Incredible film. It's about a young woman who becomes pregnant and goes in search of an abortion. Incredibly resonant movie for what is happening in the world right now. Powerfully told,

hard to watch, candidly, especially given what's going on. If you feel addled by the news of the supposedly forthcoming Supreme Court decision, then you may not want to spend your time with this movie. I saw it at Sundance. I thought it was tremendously powerful and well done. So I would recommend it to people and look out for what Dewan does in the future. Nikiatsu Jusu made a movie called Nanny, also at Sundance, that I thought was amazing. I don't think I even got a chance to talk about it with Amy Nicholson when we did our Sundance episode.

I can't recall if I did. It was roundly praised. I think it won many of the audience and jury awards. I'm sure it's coming out later this year. I really look forward to what she does in the future. Nanny is like kind of, sort of a horror film, but mostly like a domestic thriller about a nanny who moves in

with a privileged family or who goes to work for a privileged family and things start to go awry. Staying on the same track, Remy Weeks made a movie called His House a couple of years ago that debuted on Netflix. It was also a kind of horror film about origins and where you come from. And I thought it was very effective. I talked about about origins and where you come from and i thought it was very effective i talked about shatara michelle ford's test pattern last year one of my favorite movies of the year i also talked about lauren hadaway's the novice last year one of my favorite movies of the year a lot of female filmmakers on this list by design a lot more women are getting a chance to make movies now in hollywood and around the world which is an amazing thing that is

happening they cannot be oversold honestly i wrote a column i think on the ringer at the end of 2018 that was like hey this is a really fun year of movies we got a mission impossible movie we got a couple of cool horror movies also like only 13 of movies are directed by women in hollywood that is actually starting to legitimately change um so that bodes really well and then the last one is not a woman but i talked to michael sarnoski about pig the nicholas cage movie that i really like that we didn't put in the hall of fame and um he's really good and he's directing a quiet place sequel next prequel which i wouldn't be my number my first choice for him but he's an unusual filmmaker and i hope he gets to make his version of a story like that i kind of like the

quiet place movies so i think 23 is 23. I love that all the people made the jokes about a quieter place. Is this one not as quiet place? Yeah, loud place. Yeah. I think it's about

the arrival of the creatures. I think it's like, here's how we got here. Gotcha. Which is not what I would have expected for Sarnoski, but I'm going to put

my faith in him. Those movies are good. I thought the second one is sort of underrated. People were like, oh, it's the same movie. Well, the first movie was good. That's okay.

You want to do a couple more? Yeah, let's do two more. A couple people, Lish and Saul asked, do you have any movie book recs? Yeah, I have a stack in front of me right now of the four movie books

I'm reading. Here's the bottom one. Memo from David O. Selznick this is i guess selected and collected by rudy bellmer it is a series of memorandums written by the famed tyrannical film producer who is behind many classics and they're a good lesson in how to not be a shithead um they're they're written with an an extraordinary amount of passion and insight. He was obviously a terribly intelligent man, but he's such a jerk and he's so mean to people.

But also he saw things in films and in film productions where he would look at dailies or he would look at casting and he had a sense for what audiences wanted. He produced Gone with the Wind and Rebecca and a number of other legendary movies. He was recently featured in that Twitter thread of Orson Welles dissing people. I don't know if you had a chance to see that. Bobby, if you haven't, I'll send it to you after we finish recording. It's very funny where Orson Well Wells is basically just dismissing 15 of the most iconic people in movie history and how they suck and Oselznick is on the list

Oselznick was great and awful and he's indicative of a lot of the history of Hollywood so I'd recommend that book I'm also reading In Fitz and Starts Naming Names which is Victor Nowosky's history of the house on American activities and the Hollywood blacklist and people who spoke out and testified and people who declined to testify during the McCarthy trials. And it's a riveting book because I feel like moral conscience is at the center of some of the best storytelling in the fifties and sixties.

And it's so influenced by a lot of this actually speaking of that Wells thread, there's him speaking a bit about Elliot Kazan and his decision to out some of his colleagues and friends as communist or, or having an interest in communism and the, like the burden that he carried for the rest of his life in the way that someone like wells had no quarter for him whatsoever he was just like he is a he he betrayed the essence of friendship and collaboration in this industry and

he should be reviled for it even though he tried to make art afterwards it was about it and kind of reckoning with his decisions um so that's called Naming Names. That's a great book. Similarly Heavy is a book that I'm really behind on that I probably should have read back when I was in film classes, but was never put in front of me, which is From Reverence to Rape, The Treatment of Women in the Movies by Molly Haskell. Molly, one of the great independent-minded film critics of the 20th century. And it's just, it's basically a step through of the way that women are portrayed in cinema uh over 100 years and probably could use a new edition at this point but um it's just

riveting incredibly insightful and a perspective that i don't have as a dude who grew up being fired up about james cameron so uh that's valuable and then one other one i don't know if i ever recommended this this was recommended to me seven or eight years ago by a friend when I got it in a used bookstore. It's called Suspects. It was written by David Thompson, who is also an amazing film critic

and film historian. And his film Bibles are worth buying. This is one of his few works of fiction, but it features movie characters, features famous movie characters from Chinatown and Psycho and Casablanca. And it basically like sketches out the history of characters from these movies that we didn't know. And then the characters that he sketches out start to meet and start to interact and he creates it's kind of like extremely accomplished fan fiction um and i really like going into the imagined worlds of hollywood character history um that's

called suspects so there's some recommendations great wonderful recommendations um do you have a preference for which question we close on here? Any of these strike your fancy? I'm not doing the one about if you could pick one director to make a film about your life or a storyline of your life. I'm not. There's my movie. My life is not interesting. It should not be a movie.

My home film watching setup. People ask this all the time. I have a giant TV in my garage and it has a sound bar and it's like nice, but not a movie theater and doesn't resemble. I'm pretty regular person when it comes to these things. What I do have is a lot of great shelving in my home for all of my physical media. That's the thing that is extravagant.

Much discussed on the big picture. Yeah. Have you ever considered writing a book, whether it be on some aspect of film history? I will. Yeah, I will. I will.

I will write a, I will write a book about film. I have an idea. Detailing your personal feelings every time Chris made a selection in the movie draft. It's a 500-page... Contemporaneous notes.

Yep. Me versus the CR army. A memoir. No, I'm going to write about what's happened... I want to write about what's happened to movies in the last 25 years

and just how it's changed. I just feel like it's an incredibly important topic. I've basically devoted huge parts of my creative life to it and understanding it and reckoning with it and trying to understand why it happened um I'd like to write something about that so when that will be I don't know I have a lot of day jobs at the moment but yeah one day uh final question from Dave do you have a dream actor you'd like to see in Quentin Tarantino's next, potentially last,

allegedly last film? Hmm. Not really. You know who sprung to mind? Richard Gere? Hmm. What's Richard Gere doing? Just continuing to be

a favorite of moms who are around the same age as my mom. Did you know that Richard Gere is like the biggest movie star in America for like two years? Yeah, I've heard about it. Yeah.

But you'd never, I don't, it's weird how he's just gone. He was huge, huge and gone. I thought about him when William Hurt passed away. They were sort of contemporaries. They had the same kind of delicate mannered,

rugged, but smooth handsomeness. And Richard Gere's just off the radar. away they were sort of contemporaries they had the same kind of delicate mannered rugged but smooth handsomeness and uh richard gear's just off the radar so i'll say i'd love to see quentin write some clever dialogue for him not that i think it will happen i don't even know what quentin thinks of gear but that would be a good one okay we did it should we wrap we should wrap okay so we decided movies are fucked but they're fine. There's a lot of TV. Mets are going to

the World Series. Richard Gere is making a comeback. And that's it. You feel good? I feel pretty good. Yeah. Okay.

Well, I'm going to say thank you to Bobby Wagner. In case you didn't know, he's not just the reader of questions but the producer of this show. Later this week, quite one at the box office, not a ton of new movies coming out.

There is one. There's a new adaptation of Stephen King's novel Firestarter starring Zac Efron, which is not just coming to movie theaters, but also coming directly to Peacock. One of the last day and date major releases of its kind as we slowly, slowly exit this pandemic era. So we're going to talk about the best Stephen King movies. We're going to do it with two very special guests, two guys I've been wanting to have on the show who host a very fun show that I really like called With Gorley and Rust. And I'm talking about Paul Rust and Matt Gurley.

So stay tuned. We'll see you later this week talking about Stephen King. Thank you.