The Big Picture - Bo Burnham’s ‘Inside,’ Five New Movies to Stream, and the First Couple of ‘The Big Picture’

Episode Date: June 8, 2021

On today’s episode, Sean and Amanda dig into Bo Burnham’s Netflix special ‘Inside’ ... or is it a movie? They talk about the songs, the production style, the themes, and that pesky "is it a movie?" question. Then, they share some new streaming movie recommendations (31:00) before opening up the mailbag for questions about ‘The Underground Railroad,’ movie book recommendations, and more (47:00). Finally, they’re joined by two special-guest lovebirds (1:20:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twice a week, Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay dissect the biggest topics in Black culture, politics, and sports on their show, Higher Learning. They discuss the most important and timely conversations while also frequently inviting guests on the podcast and occasionally debating each other. Check out Higher Learning on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about how the world works. On today's episode, we are discussing Bo Burnham's Netflix special Inside, or is it a movie? Then we'll make some streaming recommendations, dive into the mailbag,

and then introduce a couple of special guests at the end of the show, a duo I'm dubbing the first couple of The Big Picture. But first, let's talk Bo. Amanda, despite your stated disinterest in a certain brand of stand-up comedy and a certain kind of sad boy content, I asked you to check out Bo Burnham's Inside, which everyone seems to be watching right now. What is Inside? So technically, according to its stated descriptors,

it is a comedy special, or it's a special, that Bo Burnham wrote, Burnham in a single room doing a sort of like musical sketch comedy review about what it is to be inside both that particular room, but also your own mind and also the internet. So again, I don't usually think of this as your sort of thing. And yet I thought that there was so much to recommend about this show. We can talk about what happens inside of the show, how the show is constructed, what does or does not work about it. Did it work for you? It did. I really liked it. I think I slacked you on like Saturday morning, like surprise. I actually really, not only did I admire it and think that it was like an accomplishment, but I did enjoy it, which having, as you said, not liking mostly live

singing, anything having to do with the concept of comedy or certainly deconstructing comedy. And as soon as we get into boys being like, well, but actually here's what the joke did. And like, here's what he did with the craft in order to like set forward this something. I just like, you know, eject, eject, eject. And I also was not a fan of Eighth Grade, which was Bo Burnham's feature film that he directed. So it wasn't like, I didn't expect to love it. And I was really impressed by it as just like a singular vision and like a whole thought through thing,

even though it does have bits and sketches and viral moments that are now circulating on the internet. But as a concept and as a piece of art that is done from beginning to end I just like thought he succeeded at what he set out to do and I think he is pretty singularly talented both at you know the kind of musical comedy that he's trying to do and also the actual like making of a a And we're going to do the film. Is it a movie? Is it a comedy special thing?

But it looks good. He's trying a lot of different things inside that room with his limited resources. And I just also think he's really insightful about the internet and what it means to be on the internet and how it breaks our brains and more insightful than a

lot of people are, and that actually matters. So that part of it worked for me as well. Yeah, I think that's probably the ultimate crux of the piece, because it has a lot of component parts from a lot of things you've seen before. There is a bit of stop making sense in this film. There's a bit of Steve Martin's comedy from the 70s in this film. There's a bit of the Spalding Gray monologist performance in this film. Just the way that it's staged, the way that it's shot, the tone

that Bo is taking with it, which is a very kind of wry, ironic, self-aware, but also melodramatic, depressive, sincere collision of feelings and that's a bit of a dicey proposition i think especially for like a tall handsome white guy and he points out that he is a tall handsome white guy who has a lot of privilege a lot of times on this show and that's i will admit to adopting some of those same approaches in my life and trying to

use them as a shield and trying to make it clear like, hey, no, I'm one of the good ones. There seems to be like a I'm one of the good ones quality to a lot of what Bo is writing about, singing about, trying to communicate. And somehow he manages to thread that needle between speaking to people who know that he is someone who is like had a little bit more opportunity and is a little in a little bit of a better position than them but also feeling um a broader sense of empathy i think for what they're doing while also writing pretty funny songs and writing some really funny sketches are they the funniest songs of all time no are they the greatest sketches of all time no but. Are they the greatest sketches of all time? No. But when you take the special

into totality, it is, I agree with you, it's like a pretty amazing achievement. It's especially when you consider how it was done. I think I'm probably usually a little too obsessed with how things like this are done.

And so I don't want to necessarily overemphasize that because I think there's some kind of like magic in the creation. But this isn't easy to do. And he makes it seem kind of easy to do, even when you see the threading of the work that he's done. I also think that the,

how he does it and how well he does it is both what sets it apart from a lot of the things that's critiquing, because he is using like a lot of internet style and language and references and like things where you just have to like be familiar with the internet in order to really understand how his like brain is is working but the fact that he is adding in all of these other layers of you know both music but filmmaking technique and the self-awareness and the criticism within it, like the art and the filmmaking of it all is also part of the critique that he is advancing, if that makes sense. Yeah. There's a moment when I think it's in the second

or third song in the special where the aspect ratio starts to shrink and it moves into portrait mode and you can see i think it's this is uh facetiming with my mom the song that this that shrinks for and you see that he's doing exactly what you're saying that it is something that is kind of noticeable but not necessarily profoundly different it's just like that's a style of screen that we're used to looking at. And it's perfectly attuned to that song, which is about using FaceTime. And it's a very subtle choice,

but it's a really effective choice. And he does stuff like this over and over again. He shows us when he's constructing the lighting rig. He shows us when he's moving camera angles. He shows us at these incredible moments, what seemed like of non-performed anxiety or frustration. And it seems like he spent a lot of time shooting himself, filming himself,

and having to decide which of those moments, especially the moments when something is not perfectly manicured, to share with us and not share with us. In addition to these very delicately orchestrated musical numbers, you know, that have very oddly sophisticated lighting rigs that are often attached to his head that require him to like shoot light into a disco ball or to project

an image onto a screen behind him. Or, you know, there's that one sequence where he's sort of flashing a light behind himself on the snare hit on a song so that you see this like visual representation of the rhythm of the song so he's doing all these this little stuff and he's doing it to serve you know i think some pretty big ideas can i just say something it's it's so funny because i just instinctively assumed that every single interstitial

and even i think with the exception of the the one moment uh when he just starts crying in front of the camera um I assumed every everything was performed um everything scripted and performed and I don't mean that in like a negative it's not authentic way or I I don't mean to assume that performance is bad but but I, I think I just assumed it one, because I, like, I don't know how you would actually like, what if the lighting goes wrong at the exact moment that you're turning 30, like at midnight, you know, and like he had a digital clock that you can set for whatever time, time you want. I don't mean to, you know, be the annoying person I was just making fun of, but there's some like technical aspects of it of, I think some of this performed, but is performed, but there is also this idea that, you know, what is real and what

is performance on the internet? And aren't we all performing all of the time? And how do you get away from this exterior version of yourself? Or is this, this version of yourself that's online or on social media, the only you, and also, is that like the only world that exists? And is that the only way that we get to relate to the world anymore? Which is like certainly was a 2020 concern when we really only did have our screens. But he never says pandemic in the special.

And so I do think he's trying to get beyond that specific reference and just talk about how weird it is to only be a screen and I guess to be always aware that you have some sort of audience, even if you don't have an audience, which is sort of the animating principle behind this quote special. I think it's an animating principle behind a lot of his career. We find him at this really interesting moment where you mentioned eighth grade, and he had spent the last couple of years, you know, starting to take more acting roles and directing stand-up specials for other comedians, but Bo had stopped performing live. And he has been a very successful comedian on both YouTube and in live settings for

10 plus years. And because of panic attacks, essentially, he quit live performance. And it sounds like he was getting ready to get back into it in 2020, starting to prep some new material. And then, of course, this pandemic did hit. And that obviously repelled him down a kind of deeper analysis of what it means to have an audience. And he and I sometimes will address having an audience on this show. And it's a very strange thing to feel like anything you're doing is being paid attention to, let alone everything that you're doing. And it did feel like last year at times, with the rare exception of the interaction you would have with your partner on a day-to-day basis, if you were fortunate to live with a partner during COVID-19. Everything else was just for the outside world and could be interpreted and could be manicured and curated and overdetermined. And this is like a

real tree of teas on your overdetermined lifestyle and then how that affects you when you spend so much time looking at your screen. And none of that sounds very fun. You know, it's just, it seems like a pretty heavy load. And yet I found the show pretty fun. I found it was really well-paced. I thought the songs were sort of like nicely organized inside of this 87-minute bucket. And I thought it was a, it made me feel a little bit bad, not because I spend so much time on the internet, but because I felt like he did a better job

of using his time during COVID than I did. You know, he made such a you reaction to it. No, it made me feel bad because I have to spend time on the internet and live in the world with the internet. And I, he is a, you know, much more talented artist. And frankly, I think more insightful and better knows how to understand that terrible feeling and like turn it into art that everyone can appreciate. But I was like, oh, I actually do understand everything that you're saying here. And I agree with all of it.

And I would prefer not to have everything all of the time. I did find it funny as well. The Jeff Bezos recurring bit, just like just like it just really made me laugh. That, I guess, is my particular style of humor of just like this is so messed up. So let's just make a funny joke about it. I saw that some people didn't feel that it was funny and thus didn't feel that it qualified as a comedy special, which I think is a really lame vein of Internet discourse. Speaking of not wanting to be on the Internet. But is it a special or is it a film is sort of interesting to me? I mean, I suppose it can be both.

I guess anything can be anything it wants to be all of the time. And, you know, putting things in boxes is what we do to make content. I asked Sean if we could license Daddy Made You Some Content for this podcast. So once again, I just like, you know, Bo Burnham, I get it. But I do kind of think in the sense that it is like a whole piece of art, even if you can like splice it and dice it and put certain songs on the internet that is self contained, that to me qualifies it as movie status. That's sort of my evolving definition of what a movie is. Like, can it stand on its own as a thing? I think there's a lot of intentionality in the production, production design and editing

that most like firmly makes it feel like it's in that realm. However, you know, a lot of times when we're having this fake debate or kind of philosophical conversation around what, whether something is a movie or TV or a comedy special, for example. We're talking about them in these hidebound concepts that we were raised on. You know, the things that we saw when we were 16 years old and confirmed to us,

well, this isn't like Frasier, so it must be a movie. Or this isn't like George Carlin back in town, so it must be a TV show. But in this case, this special is really informed by YouTube and TikTok and Instagram and the way that a lot of those things look and feel and sound.

And so it does kind of, I don't want to use the word disrupt because that's an unfortunately overdetermined word, but it does relocate, I think, what the influences are going to be more specifically on movies. Eighth Grade was a film that was about

someone who was inside of this world and it used some of those tools, but it was mostly a conventional movie about a young woman. It was following her and shot the way that many coming-of-age stories are shot. This is parodying PewDiePie.

This looks like a Drake video. This looks like the kind of sad reflections of a disturbed person you might find on YouTube if you go looking deeply enough. So there are all these new and different sort of influences on it visually that I think also put it in kind of a new category. It's a little bit unlike

anything I've seen before. I don't think it's, I think the real answer is that it's just like a one-man show that is filmed. That's probably the closest traditional analog. But in terms of the way

that it pulls from social media, I agree with you. I often complain about how a lot of movies just go for Instagram aesthetic, you know, and they basically, they have the colors and like certain backdrops and they, it seems to me that they're just trying to get people like to post about it on Instagram and this sense of like, oh, if you like, look, if you're used to looking at things in this box in this way, then maybe this will also make sense to you visually this way. And I think Inside is much savvier about the ways in which all of the visual components of social media are changing the way that we see things and

actually what is cinematic about them basically, and then turning it into an actual movie, which is another reason that I think that it would qualify as a movie because it is making choices about all of the visual references that it's using. And again, understands and sort of critiquing them in real time, even as it's turning it into a movie. But if people just want to call that like an extra special special, that's fine. Like, I don't know. I guess, you know, the comedy world needs something.

So congratulations to you guys. Yeah. I mean, I wonder if a lot of comedians will look at this now too and say, I need to do something different. I mean, but can they? Well, Bo always, I've never, I wasn't a huge fan of Bo's standup comedy.

I have been a fan of almost everything else that he has done but he made his name as a teenager with these this sort of musical inflected parody inflected kind of I want to say confrontational kind of comedy where he had this kind of like blowhardy persona but it was clearly a very thin veil on a person who is like dealing with a lot. You know, that's a very, it was a very constructive personality very early on. But it never felt, it never felt as refined or as funny to me

as I clearly did to people who are younger than me. And if it was, he's one of the first people who came along who I felt a generation gap on culturally because I'm about nine or ten years older than he is there's in fact a song about how he is turning 30 in the film which you mentioned and you know it's what it was one of those classic things where if you are not yet 30 and you hear someone singing a song about turning 30 you're like 30 that is fucking old

and momentous and when you turn 30 you're like wow this is really momentous and then you get closer to 35 and you're like 30 is meaningless like it meaningless. It's just a fake age and it does not signal the passage of a meaningful moment in time. And so I have felt a little bit disconnected from him in the past. I've gotten more interested in him since eighth grade. And I find that this is a little bit of a realization of a lot of the things that I like about comedy, about standup comedy, about musical comedy. Um, and also about being on the older side of an internet generation,

you know, watching some of the things that are happening on the internet with curiosity, participating in some of them, but sitting out most of them, you know, and this is almost like his opportunity to participate in something that he's mocking at the same time, you know, his ability, almost like his opportunity to participate in something that he's mocking at the same time, you know, his ability, I think, to recreate the framework of an internet thing,

poke fun at it, but also use it to say something honest about himself is a pretty nifty trick. You know, there's, I can't really think of anybody else who could do this, but I do think to your point about comedy, a lot of comedians are going to look at this and be like, I have to figure out what my inside is now now because you can't just go on stage at the improv and tell jokes for an hour and expect to be patted on the back for it right but then do you think that affects stand-up comedy or do we just finally get some a new version of like comedy films because we don't really like comedy movies are dead now yeah yeah it's a good it's a good question they're done it's a good question they're

done it's a very good question i mean i think obviously he's very singular in terms of what he's able to accomplish like we saw a movie at sundance uh on the count of three a movie that was directed by gerard carmichael that i don't think either one of us thought was that successful i thought it was like a little bit of a an odd choice for gerard who you know is close friends with bow who is um whose last special was directed by bow and was very interestingly directed you know bow is really into these kind of close-ups and these unusual angles and comedy specials that you're not used to seeing and the film is very serious and very severe and not very funny at all and bow special is very serious and very severe but also pretty funny and i think it's going to be a challenge to a lot of comedians from that generation to say

like okay when you want when you're ready to evolve and go to the next stage of your career it used to be okay go make anchorman you know like you left snl you got to go make your broad mainstream comedy or go be the star of seininfeld. We watched John Mulaney go through this. John Mulaney, you know, was a writer on SNL. And then he launched a very traditional sitcom on a network because he thought that that was like the golden goose. It was something he aspired to and it didn't work. And then you watch him go back through the washing machine and find a new way to be creative.

And then he becomes a really successful and innovative comedian for his generation. I don't know. I think that this is going to be like a really, really, really influential thing. I think we're going to see a lot of stuff that is like probably a strained and watered down version of this in the future. And that's not necessarily great, but I, I, I, it just, I, everybody I know is like, did you, have you seen this? And that's how, that's how I know we should talk about something when people are asking me what I think about something. I think you're right. I also instinctively made an emoji, like, grimace face because also what is successful

about this is that it's so singular. And it's his particular insights and also abilities. And it puts them together in a pretty magical way. But part of the reason it works for you or works for me is that you get the sense that it is someone alone in their room dreaming up something so specific to them, but also making it accessible to many other people who have had some sliver of this shared experience. It has both things. But if you can't shoot a movie like this, write songs and have his particular internet insights, then like, don't try to make this particular formula. And people don't always see like a singular piece of art and think,

oh, I should go make my own singular piece of art. They're like, oh, I should try to remake that exact thing, especially in the world of comedy. And that's where we get into trouble. Yeah. Somebody is on the phone with CIA or WME right now and saying, I need my inside. What is my inside? So we can anticipate that. But then play that out. And then it's just like entire generation of people writing bad songs about the internet. And I have to walk off a cliff. I really do. There are a lot of those already. It's not like an entire generation of people writing bad songs about the internet. And I have to like walk off a cliff. Like I really do. There are a lot of those already.

It's not as though Bo necessarily invented that, but he refined it, right? He obviously improved upon it. Speaking of those songs, what, what, did you have a favorite? As I said, the just interlude of just being like Jeff Bezos, you did it. I just, just really, um, made me laugh. And then I think that's probably my favorite. Honestly, I enjoy all the ones that are just like, here is how the Internet is really messed up. Yeah.

And just listing a bunch of aren't on on the internet all day because it does rely on like a lengua franca of you know here's a meme and here's what happens when someone gets ratioed and you know blah blah blah no it's a very good point my favorite song is is welcome to the internet that's all you're talking about in which he's essentially listing everything that's on the internet from the absurd to the exciting to the utilitarian to the shopified. And he is speaking a language that is very familiar to me and that makes me feel safe in a way. But it's a joke that might not work for somebody who's 58 years old. And so what do people who don't live on the internet all day think about this special?

The truth is they're probably not watching it um maybe they are because they got it recommended to them by their nephew or something but i do think that beau is a very generational figure and is speaking very clearly to a certain a certain audience that maybe is even a little a little or a lot younger than us and it'll be interesting to see how that ports over. You walking away from this being like, I feel safer on the internet now and also I didn't do enough with my quarantine is, I mean, I guess this is a litmus test of a special as well. Well, you know, I'd like to honestly try to unpack that.

I mean, I made my career being on the internet. You know, I wanted to be a person who was outside of the internet. And that was never going to work for me. I don't think I was refined enough to exist outside of the internet. And so most of the work that I did early in my career and most of the way that I spend most of my time and most of the things that we do together are things that are executed on the internet. So there's a tonality.

There is a level of commitment and awareness and knowledge that one needs to be successful in this space. That sounds like a little ghoulish, I think, but I'm sincere about it. And I like it. And I like when the internet is good. And we've talked about this before, when someone's like, they did it right. They nailed it. That's the funny thing. That's the clever insight delivered in this space. And even though Netflix is quote unquote, not the internet, it basically is, it's a streaming platform. This isn't available on NBC.

And so it feels like a summation in some ways of 15 years of existence in this place that we often define as terrible, but it's also given people extraordinary opportunity. All of that's true. And most of it, except for enjoying it, could be applied to me as well. And I think the internet has certainly shaped my sense of humor. So that sort of the pacing and the randomness of this special just made me giggle. Because once again, it is how my brain is wired at this point, how I see things, what I find funny. But there is also a strain in this special of it just being like deeply overwhelming and alienating that I also really related to. And I, you know, what else

are you supposed to do? That's why I actually, I really liked the ending of it because even if you try to take some sort of step back from it, it sort of feels impossible at this point. It's, it's how we live, but that's also's also, I don't know. I don't find that exhilarating personally. No, I don't think that I may find it exhilarating either. I think that this is ultimately extraordinarily critical of the internet. I'm not trying to say that it's a celebration by any means. I do think that the means through which it's made, though, is this acknowledgement of its power. Yes. think of also like the skill and the art that goes into being good at the internet and also how the internet has it inflected how we

watch things how we consume things how and and things like art like like movies visual mediums so i i thought it was really insightful in that way. It doesn't make me happy to log onto Twitter still. I mean, that sucks. That'll always suck. But I do think it at least understands the significance of the internet in our lives in a way that a lot of other non-internet works of art do not. So we can move on from this, but you just did make me think of something since you are not really on the internet as much or at least twitter as much a couple people hit me up about something that is meaningful to you which is the the um the minion catching on fire in burbank i didn't know about this what happened tell me right now i think i just summed it up for you the minion caught on

fire there is some terrifying tiktok video of the smoke rising across the la skyline and the minion engulfed when this is a few days ago i don't know i did i was not present for this personally hold on i'm googling minion caught on fire this is just great podcasting right this is but this is why you need to get on twitter every once in a while because the heads were like why don't you why don't you tell me about it we're like hey i i appreciate the dab mom i totally miss this it seems like everyone's okay so that's good when you say everyone are you referring to the minion as a sentient no actually i don't really have any info on the minion but it seems like no one was injured which is really the point so is the minion on fire i'm watching video from a local la news right now it doesn't seem like the minions on fire

it seems like there was a fire near the minion and the minion is okay and and no one was harmed so i just a prayer is up for the minion and for for everybody else. In the video, the Minion was looking like Belloc at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, just engulfed. It's good lighting, but it is dramatic. But I don't know. I wasn't there. I had not yet made my pilgrimage to the Minion. And hopefully I'll be able to at some point.

I need you now to write a Bo Burnham influenced song that we can release on this podcast called The Minions Minion that is your ode to the minions. What do you say? I don't write songs. We just talked about this. I have seen you perform on the kind of electric piano that Bo plays in this special. Yes. I did take piano lessons for many years.

I am trained in many aspects of music, but that doesn't mean that I have the creative spark in me. And this is what I need randos out there to understand. People who are just like, I'll make my own inside. Know your skills, know your limits. My limit is writing a clever song about the internet. I just don't got it. If someone wants to write it for me and send me sheet music,

that keyboard was stolen, but I can try to find another one and learn it. And maybe I'll perform it. But like only for charity. And just like an exorbitant amount of money for charity. Like $100,000 minimum. Wait, hold on. You're adding all kinds of parameters. You agreed to it if someone wrote a song and then all of a sudden $100,000 for charity showed up.

Yeah, because I believe in doing good in the world. I too am a child of the internet. And let's just raise some money while we can, okay? Bobby, please cut out the part where she talks about $100,000. If you're out there and you've written a clever song about the internet, Amanda will perform it on this podcast on a keyboard that I will purchase. Deal? Okay. But again, the video only goes to the public with a donation to charity. I don't know why you're suddenly being like, let's not do good works in the world, Sean. Yes. 50 bucks to Del Taco in my name. Do you think you could eat $50 worth of food from Del Taco if your life depended on it?

I do. I definitely do. Honestly, I've just- 50? That's a large number. I know, but so we've had a lot of sports on in the house, and I've just been thinking so much about all of the food commercials, but like, you know, any taco, but also any of the commercials where it's like a flatbread folded together with cheese on the outside, you know, like Papa John's is selling one. I'm sorry for all the free advertising I'm giving right now.

I'm bleeping out all these names. There are like a number of sort of like taco and flatbread like elements that I just think look delicious and I'd crush all of them. I can't believe we took a turn into the folded foods portion of this section, portion of this conversation. How do we get out of this? I don't even know. Can someone from Taco Bell please advertise on this show so that Amanda can eat well? And live mass.

Yes. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, let's move away from bow and folded food um i mean do people have been asking for more recommendations lately on the pod streaming recommendations trying to get a sense of the landscape new stuff that's sitting on vod i'm gonna give a couple of wrecks i think i've seen some of these oh you have okay yeah just so you know. But you send me a thing and you're like, here are the five movies I'd like to recommend. Are there five movies that

you'd like to recommend as well? And I'm like, well, I watched the ones that you watched because they're the movies that are out. I don't have any secret other movies that were released that no one knows about that you don't also know about. Do you think we're doing a good job of advocacy for new movies? I think we're trying. It's really hard. I find it really hard to keep up. And that's also because we're watching a lot of not new movies on this podcast. And there's a reason for it.

And I'm only a human being. So there's always going to be something that we miss. But I also like hearing when other people have seen something that they're excited about because you don't want to talk in a vacuum. If no one's going to watch the movie, then we can just move on to things people do actually have interest in. Yeah. So let's talk about some things that I was interested in, that maybe you were interested in too. I don't know if you got a chance to watch Riders of Justice. I did.

Which is quite an intense feature film. I'm glad to see that you watched it. This is a new film from Anders Thomas Jensen starring our boy Mads Mikkelsen, our beloved Mads Mikkelsen. This is a significantly different performance from the film Another Round. Really interesting movie. I don't want to give away too much about it, but it is essentially about a man who endures a terrible loss and then is somehow finds himself working with a group of people who think they have an answer to what caused that loss. And then they set off on a kind of revenge drama slash comedy. And the tone of this movie is so unusual. and i had a hard time putting my finger on it throughout the whole film i was like what is it that this movie is trying to accomplish what did you think about riders of justice i will watch anything with mads mickelson and be happy i

watched this because an old friend of mine told me that he's in new york and he said that he was going to the angelica to see this with another friend of mine who I haven't like seen in literally years and I was just like I would like to be at the Angelica with my friends watching this movie even though I would be able to hear the other three movies you know next door but like I missed that Angelica humor wow yeah have they renovated yet haven't gotten an answer still I just yeah why would they but I love the Angelica's so I checked it out I enjoyed the weirdness of it and the trying to understand what was going on I mean it obviously has some debt to like you know the Taken like world and everything that is going on there but also maybe if you started asking questions about what's happening in Taken which I like to ask questions of blockbusters I just

also really enjoy any movie where I kind of know the formula, even though in this case, you're right. I don't totally know the formula, but I don't, it's a new setting in this case, I believe Denmark and a new set of people. And you're just trying to figure out like all of the accoutrements.

And it's almost like, it's not quite a vacation, but it's something different, but also familiar because you know, generally where revenge movies are going to go. And so you can kind of investigate the bells and whistles, which in this case are, are the jokes or the questions that it poses. Yeah. Anders Thomas Jensen has an interesting career. He's primarily known as a screenwriter and he's written a lot of the more celebrated scripts for suzanne beer's films um this movie it does remind me a little bit of what a lot of quote-unquote action comedy is right now which is this like very curious line between severe violent almost like ethical crisis and also this infusion of broad comedy and you're never totally

sure like i look at like there's a bunch of movies that i just googled action comedy and here are the movies that came up the hitman's bodyguard the gentleman hobs and shaw birds of prey game night all of these movies riders of justice is a little bit more grim, I think, than those movies, but they have something similar in tone, where it's like, isn't it so funny that this guy's head just got blown off? It's like, it's an interesting evolution of

a genre that used to be Lethal Weapon, for example. This is not like Lethal Weapon in my mind. I was gonna say that if you say action comedy and then people watch this movie expecting, like, you know, Hitman's wife's bodyguard or whatever, it's really not what's going on. But I do wonder whether some of that is the Mads Mikkelsen performance. Like he is giving a very different Mads Mikkelsen performance, but he is also like in a different movie sort of. And I do wonder how much of it is he just rolled up

and it's like, I'm going to, I'm going to play it this way. And you guys can kind of play around it. And the, and the tone just comes from the, the, the dichotomy of those two things. Absolutely. That's exactly right. That's the thing that, that differentiates the movie is you're getting this intense Mads Mikkelsen performance surrounded by this buffoonery from this coterie of figures who come into his life. Interesting movie. I would recommend it. It's not like it's not going to be one of the five best films of the year,

but there is a lot of interesting stuff going on around it. I also thought plan B was pretty interesting. This is a new comedy that's available on Hulu. It's directed by Natalie Morales, the actress who some people may know from some of the Michael Schur comedies over the years. I think this is the first of two films that she directed that are going to be released this year. It's a very, very, it's almost a shockingly raunchy teen comedy about two young women in search of, you guessed it, the Plan B pill.

And I thought it was nice. I thought it was like fun and it disappeared quickly. What did you think? I agree. It was fun. It was nice. I really liked the two performances

by Victoria Morales and Kuhu Verma. I thought they were just like a winning teen pair. And, you know, to the raunchy point, sometimes in comedy starring women, the raunchiness can feel like girls can make dick jokes too. And it can be a little forced. And I thought that that was not the case in this one. It felt pretty lived in and kind of raunchy at times.

But in a way that made sense for these people, that was just the tone of the movie. So I liked it. And I won't spoil the ending. I'll say that I thought the ending was like sort of was sweet, but also I don't know. I don't want to be a killjoy. The politics of this one are like a little it's like a little tough. It makes a joke about and it's a good premise, right? Trying to get the plan B pill. You only have like that's a time sensitive thing.

And to some extent, like is a rite of passage for people of a certain age, like done it. It was great. But luckily, like I could walk up and I could like go to a pharmacy and I didn't have any of the complications, which is not a movie. So it's a good premise for a movie, but it's a premise for a movie that reminds you about a lot of things that are still kind of like not like not what you want and again hate being the killjoy but i was like oh okay i don't know whether i want this to be like the rite of passage for teenage girls everywhere even though i thought it was funny yeah it's tricky i think as the minute that you start uh using it as a moral valence tool then there's there are more challenges if you want to view it as a frivolous teen comedy on a streaming service, maybe a little bit easier to get away with.

I mean, I feel similarly about movies like the next one that I'm going to talk about very quickly, which is called Skull colon The Mask. Okay. Amanda, you will never watch this movie. No, of course not. Not in your wildest dreams. The Conjuring the Devil Made Me Do It is a nice horror movie Skull the Mask is a brutally severe funny grotesque Brazilian slasher movie

it's directed by Cable Furman and Armando Fonseca and I don't know what else to say other than like it is gross and clever and extremely well executed and a little bit ridiculous and the kind of horror movie that we don't get enough of now i think because of the rise of a certain kind of quote-unquote this like junkier, you know, non CGI bound by the sort of like mythological sense of place sort of storytelling that is really, really, really good.

And they're like inelegant in the best way possible. That's Skull the Mask. I watched another movie. Did you get a chance to watch this happily? I didn't. Okay. That's Skull the Mask. I watched another movie. Did you get a chance to watch this Happily? I didn't. Okay, so this is an interesting one because it led to my fifth recommendation. Happily comes from a person named Ben David Grabinski

and it has kind of an interesting, I don't know if star-studded is necessarily the way to describe the cast, but a really good cast that includes Joel McHale and Carrie Bechet as a couple who are very, very, very much in love with each other to the extent of frustrating and annoying their friends. They're very hot for each other 14 years into their marriage, and they are demonstrative in their love. They're surrounded by a lot of cool people. They're surrounded by

Paul Scheer, Natalie Z, Natalie Morales, the aforementioned director of Plan B, John Daly, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Shannon Woodward, Charlene Yee, Breckin Meyer, tons of like, oh, that person, I like that person throughout this movie. And essentially, they are visited by a man played by Steven Root and they are told that something has gone wrong in their relationship and they can take a shot and then that will change the way that they live and operate in the world. It's a

very kind of like weird, fantastical, disorienting premise and I don't want to spoil really anything else that I've said because the movie takes a very hard turn about 30 minutes in. It's not always successful, but it's pretty entertaining and much of the movie takes place in a shared

Airbnb rental among six couples. You and I have been in environments like this before. You know that there is a unique social tension that comes with sharing space with close friends. This movie takes that concept to an extreme, sometimes disquieting extreme.

And it also features a lot of really great music. And one of the songs, actually the song that it ends on is one of the core themes of a 1984 movie that is just, just tearing up film Twitter right now called streets of fire. I don't know. I assume you have not seen Streets of Fire before. No, I haven't.

This is like, this might be the vanishing difference between my birth year and your birth year. But Streets of Fire, it's on TV a lot when I was a kid. It's a Walter Hill, kind of like rock musical slash Western starring Michael Paret and Diane Lane and Amy Madigan and Willem Dafoe, all of whom are very young, seem like babies in this movie. Incredibly strange movie that fuses like 80s pop songs with 50s style and this kind of post-apocalyptic futurist production design.

It is a wacky movie. And for some reason, I don't know why and I don't know how these decisions are made. It's on Netflix. It just got added to Netflix. I probably haven't seen streets of fire in 20 years Checked it out after hearing one of its key songs at the end of happily I was like this movie kicks ass still kicks ass. Walter Hill movies still kick ass Um, it's just really fun. So if people have never heard of streets of fire, you can watch that on Netflix right now

I highly recommend it Anything else any other films that you you want to shout out or anything else that's streaming out there that you care to recommend? I don't want to give away my 1975 movie strategy right now. I would remind people that we're doing that in a few weeks, the 1975 movie auction. And Sean made one of his lists that if you would like to do some research, some watching, fantastic movie year, just really good. So do that. Do your homework.

I'm trying to do mine. And I honestly, when are we doing that? I don't know. I haven't checked the spreadsheet in a while, but it's soon. So get ready. I think it's in two weeks.

I think we're doing it in two weeks. It should be a very fun episode. It's a year where the classics, of course, Jaws and Barry Lyndon and those films are incredible and we talk about them all the time. But it's also a film year in which that sort of second tier

of movies is also really great. So I think it will be a perfect opportunity to talk about stuff we love that everyone can get excited about and also recommend a bunch of stuff that maybe people are not as familiar with. Should be a fun conversation.

Speaking of the 70s, I wanted to just give a quick shout out to something that you and I did with Chris Ryan and with our producer, Bobby Wagner. We all participated in this thing. We were asked by the good people at the Criterion Collection to contribute a commentary to the film Visions of Eight for a new DVD Blu-ray release that they're doing. This is a 1973 film. It's a documentary. It's a documentary about the Olympic Games in 1972, made by eight filmmakers, hence the title Visions of Eight. So of course, in true commentary fashion, and we've done a couple of those on this podcast, we watched the film with Bobby Wagner, with Chris Ryan, me and you, and we talked about it. We talked about the filmmakers. We talked about the events that are portrayed. We talked about the incredibly fascinating

and upsetting aspect of the 72 games. We talked about the extraordinary filmmaking in the movie. How was your experience with Visions of Eight? It was an extreme honor to get to do something with Criterion to the point that I think we were all pretty anxious about it. We were like, what are we doing here? Like some real imposter syndrome, but thrilling. And I received a copy of the DVD last week

and that was like pretty exciting to actually a physical thing with all of our names on it. It was actually a real thing that we did. So, and a really interesting film and a film to be clear, I had not seen before we got asked to do this, but an interesting way to think about the Olympics and sports movies, but also interesting way to think about the Olympics and sports movies, but also just like how you tell the story of a big event and just how eight different,

very talented people can see one thing very differently. So I recommend it, even if you don't listen to us talking. Yeah. You can just watch the film. You don't have to listen to the commentary. It comes out on June 22nd. You can order it wherever you order your Criterion Collection Blu-rays or DVDs. I hope you do. It was, like you said, Amanda, it was a true honor and really fun and also like a genuinely great film

that has really nothing to compare it to. Not even the other Olympics films over the years, which are so radically different from what they did with Visions of Eight. So please check that out. You guys are really burying the lead that Chris did the whole commentary track in Al Pacino voice. If only that were true, Bobby.

If only that were true. We'll have to find a movie to do the commentary track on with Al Pacino voice, though. But not an Al Pacino movie. What should we do? Rango, probably. Rango, perfect. That's it. Book it.

Okay, we're going to get into the mailbag but first let's take a quick break okay wags let's do this what do the people want to know okay jacob asks you've got an unlimited budget to make a film but if you don't win an oscar you can never watch a movie again what is your strategy okay so how specific are you because i have like a broad strategy but i honestly i don't have a log line i I don't have the entire, you know, cast and crew lined out.

Well, this is a kind of a vague question. I don't have a lot of specifics at all. Okay. Is it just one Oscar in any category? Yes, any category. Seems like it. I mean. But you have an unlimited budget.

So you can do whatever you want. My answer is just you got gotta stack in all the technical categories yeah um hire deacons i mean i actually would hire deacons because i love him even though you know with someone like deacons because he's won and because it's such a small pool it's not that small of a pool but i think he's lost what like 17 times? He's lost more times than he's won. So with someone who always gets nominated, is familiar, has won a couple times, is it going to be a guarantee that he wins? I don't know. So that's why since you have an unlimited budget, you got to hire deacons. You got to hire across the board, just all of the greats and trust

that someone will bring it home for you. Yeah, that's what I was going to say is, do you hire somebody who has an incredible batting average? Like Dennis Murin, the visual effects coordinator, he's eight of 15 in his nominations. I can't imagine there's anybody else who's got that high a percentage with more than five nominations. I'd actually like to know. Right, but also at this point in the Oscars,

if you're already eight for 15, that sort of does count against you because someone else is going to have like an it's time or should we get excited about this? It's not always a guarantee. So I think you kind of have to diversify across the categories. That's a fair point.

I think you could do a couple of things. Here's something you could do. You could just hire Daniel Day-Lewis. You could compel him to come out of retirement and you are almost certainly going to win an oscar almost every movie that daniel day lewis has appeared in has won at least one oscar yeah because if they don't give it to him for acting because he's won already they'll just feel bad and give it to somebody else like costume or something yeah exactly i mean and obviously the kinds of films that he takes on

are usually fairly elevated projects that are appealing to Academy voters. I mean, the same goes for, you know, not necessarily like Steven Spielberg vacillates wildly between the kind of more prestigious material and more popcorn entertainment stuff. But I think looking specifically at both below the line and above the line talent and who, you know, like Meryl Streep spreads herself too thin once upon a time it felt like Meryl Streep was being nominated for everything she did last 10 years not as much the case she's she's having she's having some more fun these days so I don't know who who is another person that could guarantee a win Tarantino probably don't at this point both because there's

like a real it's time for him even though you, you know, he has one for screenplay. But he does also tend to make movies that get nominated across the board because that's the other thing with someone like Meryl. She always gets nominated. But like, does the rest of the crew for Florence Foster Jenkins really get nominated? Like, no, they don't. And are they going to win? No, they're not. It's a very good point quentin

would be a good one um okay well so quentin tarantino directs daniel day lewis in a biopic of uh about the polio vaccine um ddl plays jonas salk and you do need the period element i think because the like the period elements for set design costume usually like when more frequently than the but but think think about the way that a an old story about a vaccine could reflect our times totally no I think that's a that's a smart strategy okay and who well hold on hold. And not to bring the ridiculous, but there is like a culture war element looming there. Yeah. You could have a, well, which sometimes works, but sometimes it doesn't work.

Let's go. Oscar's so vaccine. Let's do it. I agree. We're going to need to workshop that hashtag. That's not great. I'm just saying. Love to get the vaccine.

My life is so much better since I got it. Or it could be so important that it could become the Irishman, right? Should we just call it the Irishman, even though I don't believe Jonas Salk was Irish? The Irishman 2, directed by Quentin Tarantino. That didn't win an Oscar, you know? So maybe historically significant is not the approach to take. Okay. I got an idea.

Dances with Wolves 2. Okay. Great. That's good. Yeah. That'll go well for everyone. Everyone wants that. Written and directed by Taylor Sheridan.

Let's go. Dancing harder. Oh my God. With wolves. Have you ever seen Dances with Wolves? No. And I don't think I'll be tuning into that one. I think that's smart.

You shouldn't program that one for me, please, Amanda I don't think I'll be tuning into that one. I think that's smart. You shouldn't program that one for me, please, Amanda. It's only about seven and a half hours long. So just carve out a nice Saturday afternoon. I did watch part of it on a plane again in the last five years because it was on a plane. And I was like, I wonder, is this what I remember that it is? And let me just tell you, it is. And it's more than you remember. And it's really wild that it won all of those Osc just tell you, it is. And it's more than you remember. And it's really wild

that it won all of those Oscars. It's everything and more. That's what they should put on the poster of Dances with Wolves. Amanda Dobbins comic, the big picture.

I'd like to keep Kevin Costner in the exact box in my brain that he's in. You know? Field of Dreams, nostalgia, that's it. Love Kevin Costner.

Love him to this day. Do not love every film he's ever made. Okay, next question is from Hannah. What member of the Apatow universe is closest to winning an Oscar? What are the odds on a great 40s and 50s runs for any of those guys as actors?

So I think there's an obvious answer to this, but I want to just question the premise a little bit. Is the Apatow universe still a thing? Is there still a frater a fraternity of, of guys who are part of that? Cause that feels kind of antiquated. Now there hasn't been a movie with all those guys together in like six or seven or eight years.

I think you're right. I think they're just trying to identify like a generation of guys who have now actually graduated in their own ways to careers because it was a school for a generation of comedians and male actors. And many of them have had continued success and success in different ways, which is, I guess, notable. I mean, Apatow did have a gift for finding talent. No doubt. So I don't know.

I don't think it exists anymore. I think you're right i'm not really sure that that technicality is going to keep me up at night tonight i'm just i'm going to answer this person's question with jonah hill that's the answer yeah jonah is obviously the answer um he i guess is next appearing in don't look up the next adam mckay movie that's a pretty star-studded cast so it's a little hard to know what level of, how big that role is necessarily. I also just think Seth Rogen

is kind of sniffing around the edges of prestigiousness all the time as well. I think some people felt like he should have been recognized for his work in Steve Jobs. I thought he was quite good as Steve Wozniak in Steve Jobs. So I wouldn't be surprised

by either of those guys. You know, Jason Segel has probably made more bids for seriousness out of any of those guys in the last four or five years but it's been mostly in television um and I don't know we'll see who any like what what about some shockers you know what if Martin Starr just came through and gave like an incredible performance as Jonas Salk in the polio vaccine film that we just described I mean, if Catherine Hagel really just has a renaissance, which would, I think, have to be at this point her third renaissance and quite frankly seems

really unlikely, would you allow her to be part of the Apatow universe or would you say Shonda universe first? I don't think she'd allow herself. She has talked about her discontent with that experience in particular. But I don't know know heigl i've never been a fan what about steve carell i wonder about who he belongs to you know does he belong to the daily show cohort does he belong to mckay more so than apatow does a 40 year old virgin make him an apatow guy forever um he also is a person who has made a lot of bids over the years to be recognized for that kind of work and seems to have pulled back from that a little bit i do think he's a really really good actor um i think maybe more than some of my peers think he's a good actor like i was really fond of

um i'm fond is a weird word to use about this film but i really thought bennett miller's fox catcher was really accomplished you were gonna say And most people are like, this movie is terrible. So, I don't know. I think Carell is good. I feel like he's Office Universe. Oh, Office Universe.

What universe? Is that the Greg Daniels, Mike Schur universe? Probably. Right? I don't know. I don't know. Do you think that those guys,

you think, you know, Greg Daniels and Mike Schur, Judd Apatow, Adam McKay, you think they, you know, when they get home after work at the end of the day, they turn to their wives and say, honey, another person in my universe succeeded today. I did it again. All my sons are thriving. Do you think that's how they talk about their colleagues and their friends?

That's definitely what you do. That's how I talk about the Mets. Honey, Francisco Lindor is thriving today. Okay, next question. Let's move on before we go too far off the rails. Matthew asks, should recent works like Mayor of Easttown or the Underground Railroad

be more a part of film discourse or should they stay within the realm of television? Really appealing to a recurring theme of this podcast right here with this question. Well, it's a very relevant question, I think, for those two projects in particular. Because in the case of Mare of Easttown, you've got arguably the actor of her generation

who made her name in movies. And you've also got a filmmaker, Craig Zobel, who directed the series, is primarily a movie director. And then the Underground Railroad, which we have not talked about one iota, maybe we'll have to find a time to carve out to discuss that series on the show,

is from Barry Jenkins, who's like one of our favorite directors and is one of the most important filmmakers the last 10 years. I don't know. I don't know how to do it on this show in the same way that I see Chris Nandy struggle with doing it on the watch, which is to say, when are people watching these things? With Mare, it was easy.

Mare was a Sunday night cliffhanger show. Show up when the show ends and talk about it. Underground Railroad's 10-hour series that is incredibly expansive and deep and serious and beautifully made. But do people care about the plot and if they do or that do they not want to have the plot spoiled for them um so that's one factor about the way that we should be kind of like just analyzing it on this show more broadly i don't know man i don't know i increasingly don't know what to do i'll give you an example um i fired up a new series this weekend that launched on friday i mean i don't even let me know if you're aware of this series launching. It's called Lisey's Story.

I became aware of it on Thursday and texted Chris Ryan. I was like, wait, there is a Stephen King written series directed by Pablo Lorraine starring Julianne Moore and Clive Owen that I am finding out one day before it debuts on Apple. Correct. That is exactly how I would have phrased it to you too. Not just those two, but Jennifer Jason Leigh and Joan Allen and a number of really celebrated and wonderful actors are in this series. And it's not just created by Stephen King.

Every episode is written by Stephen King. This is a huge deal. I did not think the first episode was terribly successful, if I'm being honest. But it's the sort of thing that just comes and goes now. And movies increasingly are coming and going too. And now we're kind of swarmed by all of this quote unquote content. And it's hard to make space for having the right kind of conversation about it. It's not hard to make the space. It's hard to feel like you're not yelling into the ocean. That's really the thing because there is so much and because it's coming so quickly and it's arriving in so many different train stations. You got to hope that you're

speaking to somebody who is going to be at that station. So it's a challenging moment. I mean, as far as like filmmaking goes, I think Mare and the Underground Red Road are very well made and worthy of the same level of discourse that other lesser stuff gets on this show. So it's not about that. It's much more about how do we organize our thoughts around things and how do we,

what those buckets that you talked about around Bo's show, how do we affix titles to these things? So I have an easy answer and a complicated answer. The easy answer is Mare is a really good TV show. Like we don't have to worry about it. Mare of Easttown was like a very good plot driven, texting your friends, being like, who did it?

But also there are some nice character elements kind of draped around it, like a Christmas tree TV show. It's kind of TV show that like, they never really quite made in the way before, but it has like slightly more in common with like the CSI that your parents watch every whatever night it's on or however, every night that it's on. No shots. Loved Mare. Love that Kate Winslet went on the watch twice. Like shout out Kate Winslet. You know, that's really exciting. Underground Railroad is kind of more complicated just because, went on the watch twice like shout out Kate Winslet you know that's really exciting Underground

Railroad is kind of more complicated just because it's like a feels like a new form of things and it as Sean said has all of the cinematic qualities it was released all at once is plot the animating factor when are people watching it are they watching it more like they're watching a film or are they watching it like a tv show i'm watching it more like a tv show i i have not finished it yet um but i don't know whether how people consume it should be the way that dictates what it is also does it really need to be in a box or can it be a new box? And can we just accept that Barry Jenkins is very talented and we want something new from him? I think that's possible. It does also create the anxieties of like, when do you talk about it and who do you talk about it

with? And, and how do you talk about it? Because we are all watching it at like different times and we don't have a schedule of, of how to, to receive it, I guess. So I think there will probably be more things. I mean, not like the underground railroad, because Barry Jenkins is a pretty singular talent, but things that don't quite fit into a box. And I guess we'll kind of have to get used to that. But it does also present the anxiety of if it's not in a recognizable box, does it get lost now because there's so much? It does a little bit feel like it gets lost though. So I don't know what, you know, for me, I memorialize my fandom of things often by buying those things. You know, like I try to own a physical copy of stuff that I really, really like and want to return to. Now, obviously it's not

possible with most TV shows. It's illogical at this point, but with books and movies, if there's something I really like, I want to have a record of it of some kind. Now I've got spreadsheets and bad tweets and all kinds of shit on the internet that, that memorialize it. But for the most part, what makes it more real is I can reach over on to my shelf grab it off the wall and pop it in and say i love this i absolutely love brian de papa's blowout let's watch it tonight and i'm not going to watch it on the streaming service i'm going to watch the hard copy underground railroad produced owned operated by amazon they are unlikely to release a physical version. Maybe they will.

Hopefully they will. But they are unlikely to. And so I think when that happens, there is a sense that this thing is slipping away a little bit. It's been interesting watching Netflix allow some of their films to be released on the Criterion Collection, for example.

Marriage Story, Roma, The Irishman. These films can be purchased. But for the most part, most of their films cannot be purchased. And I do think that there's a phenomenon on the internet called link rot when things that have been untouched that were published many years ago essentially start to fall away and no longer work or no longer can be seen. I've worked at many places that have experienced severe link rot. A lot of the work that I've done over the years is no longer available to be seen, not just in

magazines, but on websites. And on the one hand, it makes it feel like everything is meaningless and that any contribution you've made doesn't matter. On the other hand, you can just appreciate the work that you put into something and be proud of that. There's no government agency of preservation. These things exist for as long as they can until somebody starts to ignore them and then they go away. So my suggestion for us and for everybody else is if you love something, share your love for it. Talk about why you like it. Why is it meaningful to you? And make it clear to the people that pay for it because those people will continue to pay for it if enough people care about something. Right. But that's how we only get DC movies

and MCU movies. So it is like the flip side of it. It cuts both ways, unfortunately. You know, that does result in a lot of bad culture, but it's the best we got right now. And so if we love the Underground Red Road, we should just talk about it more on this show. Okay, the next question is significantly less serious.

It's from Nick. It says, who plays Jacob deGrom in his eventual biopic? Okay, so can just share some a quick thought with you amanda about baseball movies yeah go go right ahead i don't love baseball movies and i'll tell you why i have a very specific opinion i'm sure bobby will have a take on this i think that the skills exhibited in the game of baseball are the most unique and unable to be replicated skills in all of sports. That does not mean that a pitcher like Jacob deGrom is a better athlete than LeBron James. But what he does, the smallest number of people on earth can do, in my opinion, which is to say consistently throw the ball a hundred miles an hour and strike people out. So trying to recreate that in a movie feels ridiculous.

It's more exciting to watch Jacob deGrom pitch than to watch a movie for me. So I don't really want to see the Jacob deGrom movie. I want to watch him pitch. That's my take. Can I suggest someone to make it a slapstick comedy style movie? Sure. About how terrible the Mets have been around his greatness. Nicholas Braun from Bethpage, New York. Oh, that's really good. That's really good. Cousin Greg. He's also like tall and lanky and awkward. Yeah. Kind of like

Jake. He could grow his hair out. He's not as beautiful as Jake though. I mean, few are. Jake is a handsome man. I thought of Dylan O'Brien because he's a real Mets fan and is a movie star and has kind of a similar... Are you familiar with Dylan O'Brien, Amanda's a real Mets fan and is a movie star and has kind of a similar, you know, are you familiar with Dylan O'Brien, Amanda? No, I really stopped listening to you a while ago. As soon as you were like, the thing is, is that Jacob deGrom is throwing the ball at a hundred miles per hour. Like, I agree with you that baseball is not the most visually compelling of sports. And so to watch someone, that's not what he said. That's not what he said. It's not.

I mean, it's like... Hold up. If you need to give me like a five-page backstory about how he holds the ball a certain way and that means that like the ball is going like... Like, no thank you. Like, that's boring.

But I can understand someone like an amazing catch or an amazing dunk or, you know, like the more like demonstrative athletic feats lend themselves to a visual medium. And I do also understand I was like, I stopped listening to you so much that I was thinking about like tennis biopics and like who would play Roger Federer. And can you like really communicate what Roger Federer is doing like, you know, physically and what's beautiful about it. And I wouldn't want someone else to like try and fail to do what Roger does. So like, I guess I get it. But then I was just thinking about the French Open. So that's where I am.

Amanda, one of your most important jobs here at The Ringer is to just listen to me for three hours a week. Just listen. All you have to do is just sit there, just listen to what I say. And then even if you have to fake it, just fake it. But you started asking me about who random people who aren't Jacob Jagrom are on the Mets. I don't know any Met except that hot guy from like 15 years ago.

What's his name? I have no idea what you're talking about right now. They're all hot. All the Mets are hot. Who like, Katie Baker would know who I'm talking about. Anyway. You're talking about David Wright? Yes, that hot. All the Mets are hot. Who like Katie Baker would know who I'm talking about. Anyway. You're talking about David Wright?

Yes! That guy! Yeah, that's the last Met I know about. Congratulations. Shame on you for a variety of reasons. Let's go to the next question.

Natalia wants to know can you do predictions on what will be the top five movies at the box office for 2021? I think it's reasonable to assume

that the three Marvel movies are the three biggest movies of the box office for 2021 i think it's reasonable to assume it's that the three marvel movies are the three biggest movies of the year right you think so even though at least black widow will be released simultaneously on disney plus i guess domestic versus uh international is probably a question here i mean i think f9 is is on the table here since it's going only to theaters um dune is going to hbo max but also feels like a big ticket thing right now what i don't know what else what time today which is gonna be theaters only and international yeah top gun two top gun two i i guess a quiet place is going to paramount plus pretty soon but i i do wonder about like its place as the first one back, you know,

people do seem excited about it. I'm curious to see if in the fall, the box office is popping. You know, we talked about that big week in October that's coming up soon. I think there's, you know, there's like another Venom two is coming out.

That was a huge movie. The first Venom movie and the second one will probably also be huge. So there's a few films like that. I'm not sure. Black Widow is an interesting proposition, right? Because I think that there are a lot of people who are going to be grateful that they're able to watch it on Premiere Access

on Disney Plus and pay 30 bucks for it and stay home. But like all movies, the Marvel movies are better in theaters. The scale of those movies is much, much better in a movie theater and makes way more sense. And I felt that when I watched Falcon and Winter Soldier, for example, where I was like, this probably would be better on a big screen and sitting and watching these action sequences at home feels pretty silly so we shall see but i

think it's safe to bet on the the superhero movies and the james bond movie and the top gun movie um speaking of theaters there's a question in here from jordan i know theaters are back but can you briefly talk uh quality and affordable home theater setup for those unable to venture out often having a solid home setup seems vital. Sean, I just want you to note, he said briefly. Yeah, but here's the thing.

I'm not an expert in this. You know, like I have only my experience. So I can only say that what I do is working well for me now, which is to say I have a 75 inch Q90 Samsung 4K TV. And I use a- Do you know that off the top of your head or did you Google it before?

No, I know it. Okay. I know it. And I have a Sonos beam that is attached to it. And it's a beautiful piece of machinery. I explored getting a projector in the space where I watch movies. The setup is just not right

to have a projector in here. I would have had to like drill it into my ceiling and it wouldn't have worked. So I got a regular television and it's going great. And it's not some like, this isn't, it's a really, really, really nice TV

and I feel very grateful to have it. But I didn't spend like a year figuring out like what is the exact right specifications i need to have to have a good movie experience it's just a nice tv with a with a soundbar so that that that should work for most people i don't know what else people need beyond that i will add one thing i don't know what type of tv we have my husband bought it and he was maybe supposed to text Sean about it, but I don't know if he did. It's a nice TV. We do have a sound beam though. At the moment, it's not set up because there are some shelving issues. So, you know, keep in mind, you gotta adapt to the logistical realities of your space and that's really okay. But a TV and then Sean

finally prevailed on me to get an Apple TV. And I just, in terms of being able to find everything, access everything, I mostly know what streaming services I subscribe to at this point, because they're all there in one place. And I have found it just the ease of use in finding stuff, buying stuff, keeping track of stuff, like all of it, just being there in one place. I do actually recommend it. That's a really, that's actually a really good tip i hadn't considered that i have never used roku i have used the fire stick before i find apple tv to be vastly superior to all of those other services just in terms of how you can like organize what you're watching and as we pointed out earlier like it's harder than ever to organize what and when to watch stuff i just just watch everything on my 2006 Motorola Razr.

Dan asks, I've been getting into a lot of movies from the 1970s lately, and I was wondering, what's the best book you've read on new Hollywood? I know Easy Riders, Raging Bulls gets a lot of attention, but there seems to be some controversy about its accuracy.

Well, there are a lot of books about this. There's not a lot of great books about this. There was a book that came out, I want to say either last year or late 2019 that was about Chinatown called The Big Goodbye that Sam Wasson wrote, which we may have mentioned on the show in the past, which is- Which is Ben Affleck is allegedly adapting it into a movie. Yeah, you guys, you and Chris talked about it. And that book is fantastic. Now, it's not necessarily a book about the new Hollywood per se. It's about a very discreet moment in time in the making of this film and the people who made it.

So, you know, Nicholson, Roman Polanski, John Houston, Robert Towne, the screenwriter, and kind of this convergence of talent at a very specific moment in history. But Chinatown is often cited as one of the two or three signature achievements of the new Hollywood, this kind of like total cinema experience. And so it's a really great scene center. It's a really good picture of storytelling at that time. I don't know. What's another book? Should I just look at my bookshelf really quickly? Well, I have a few.

I mean, our friend Mark Harris's Pictures at a Revolution. Oh, of course. Is a great one. That's about basically like the kickoff. Exactly. But, you know, and in terms of, I don't even want to say like correctives to easy writers, Raging Bulls, but like a good companion piece is actually not a book, but it's the Polly Platt season of Karina Longworth's podcast, You Must Remember This, which I really recommend.

Polly Platt was the wife and then ex-wife of Peter Bogdanovich and has a perspective and this season and also a collaborator of Peter Bogdanovich and the podcast investigates that. But the podcast is based on an unpublished memoir that she wrote. And so another really great trick is just read memoirs from people at that time because they have a lot of great stuff to say. I mentioned on a recent podcast that I recently read Angelica Houston's second memoir, Watch Me, which has a lot to say about new Hollywood from her front row seat to Jack Nicholson. And it's amazing. And obviously she's also the daughter of John Houston. So there's, I mean, there's a lot of Hollywood there. Another really great one, Jane Fonda's memoir, just let me tell you, you want an insight into a lot of Hollywood and also other things. Um, read that one, but, but there are many and they obviously are not um i don't want to say

filtered but they're from a personal perspective but cobbling them all together at least gives you a sense of of these people and who they were and what it was like to be there and there's a lot of gossip too which i really enjoy maybe you don't want that with your new hollywood but i do well i'm i that is also something Easy Riders Raging Bulls obviously does. Yes. One of the things that makes it such a fun read, but it's also a little bit of a scurrilous read at times is it's very gossipy, very tabloidy. And it's been, there's some questions about some of the legitimacy of some of the stories that are told. The movie that popped into my mind that does some of this that I think is really entertaining and maybe people have not seen since it's about 10 or 12 years old now is,

um, Mitchell Zukoff's Robert Altman, the oral biography, which is basically like a 500 page oral history of the life and career of Robert Altman, which, you know, obviously he is one of the architects of the new Hollywood and it goes into the making of all of those great movies in the seventies, you know, Long Goodbye, MASH, California Split, Images, Three Women, et cetera. And then two books that I read last year that I loved, and I don't remember if I talked about them on the pod or not, and they're pinned together

and they represent, I think, some of the best critical perspective on everything around the new Hollywood are two Jay Hoberman books, one that is quite old called the dream life movies, media, and the mythology of the sixties, which is like maybe one of the 10 best books ever written about film from an ideological and intellectual perspective. It's just absolutely amazing. It's not entirely about the new Hollywood, but it does, it leads into it.

It leads into Bonnie and Clyde, the wild bunch shampoo, stuff like that. And then he released the followup to that book in 2019, which is called Make My Day, Movie Culture in the Age of Reagan. It is all about movies in the aftermath of the new Hollywood that, again, is such a sophisticated understanding of the way that politics influences culture and culture influences politics. So if you're looking for something slightly headier but incredibly rewarding, both of those jay hoberman books are great jim hoberman's you know one of the best film critics who's ever done it okay next up is matt if you could have an hour to do a podcast with one filmmaker dead

or alive big question here nothing is off limits and you can talk about whatever you want who would it be and why who do you pick nora efron, go. If you've never read the blog post about Nora Ephron being like, I knew who Deep Throat was and tried to tell everybody and no one would listen to me. It was published without having to post after Deep Throat's identity was revealed. Go read it and then just imagine everything else that Nora Ephron was willing, knew and has on people and would tell you. That's all I want is just off the record gossip. So, but that's, you want that on a podcast though, right?

Like you don't want to just like get drunk. Oh, I have to do a podcast with them? It's right there. You could have a question. I want to do a podcast. Sorry, I just immediately was like, I just have an hour with Nora Ephron. You're like, I want to be friends with Nora Ephron. Who slept with who? And I'm like I want to be friends with Nora Ephron who slept with who and on like what yeah but sure I bet that she would do more

on the record gossip than than you would think I mean please look at her career and also she was the best and she would have a lot of like Hollywood gossip as well she's a very um insightful and also opinionated particular person who has a long career her parents were also in the industry so yeah nora efron just tell me whatever you want for an hour um that's that's good whatever i say will seem like stupid and film bro after that right you know if i'm like i would love to have an hour of stanley kubrick's might have seemed film bro before she said that right i mean that's yes um yeah i mean there's a whole host of people who are no longer alive that i would love to talk Stanley Kubrick's time. Might have seemed film bro-y before she said that. Right. I mean, that's, yes. Yeah.

I mean, there's a whole host of people who are no longer alive that I would love to talk to. I would love to talk to Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks and Kubrick. I would also like to go shoot guns with Sam Peckinpah and drink whiskey. That would also be fun. Shooting guns as an audio guy here. That's going to be a no for me. I don't know. That could be a new venture in podcasting um is there anybody who's alive that you'd want to do no because i get nervous you know i don't really like meeting people and so if they're alive then then i have to speak with them and i get really anxious what can i put out in the world like the secret that i could i really want to talk to Brian De Palma.

I'm really hoping to talk to Brian De Palma at some point in the next year of my life. So I'm just going to put that out in the world. Brian De Palma, one of my absolute favorite filmmakers. We got a 40th anniversary of a blowout coming soon. Maybe, maybe, maybe a podcast about that.

We'll see. There are a lot of living filmmakers though that I've never spoken to. Never. I interviewed Steven Spielberg once for a Michael Bay story 10 years ago. Gave great quote. Seemed like a nice guy.

I don't know. We'll see. I'm starting to check some names off the list, though. You know, I've gotten some FaceTime with some of my faves. We're happy for you. Thanks, Amanda.

Final question. Joshua, if someone were to take jaws and without changing anything other than making the shark more believable through cgi would you be okay with it no absolutely not i re-watched jaws last night and i have to tell you the best part of the whole movie is once the shark gets up on the boat and it's just kind of like gnawing you know and i was just wandering around our house afterwards just doing that and and giggling no way don't change a thing i agree it's magnificent never change jaws We're welcomed by two young lovers, Ben Crew and Erica Marquis. Guys, how are you doing? Doing great.

Like I said, this is a dream for her to be on this. And a dream for me as well. It is a little surreal to hear your voices coming out of this laptop because that is what happens like every Tuesday and Thursday. But now you're actually, I mentioned to her that like I'm promoted the podcast and everything you guys do, but you know, y'all are the reason why she has a letterbox and you Sean are the reason why

I'm in a relationship now, technically. So that's a very like it's equal parts make an equal parts Sean Tennessee that I'm in a relationship. So of how we met, I know'm in a relationship of how we met. And I know we need to get into how we met. Yeah, so why don't you guys explain it? And that's a heavy burden for me, candidly.

Erica, you can take this. Yeah, definitely. So it's quite a story, but I guess the best place to start is back in January, Ben wrote a spec script for The Muppets Great Gatsby that ended up going viral. And I ended up coming across that script organically. But when I saw his name, I realized not only do I follow this guy on Letterboxd, we follow each other. We have been flirting on that app as much as you can on Letterboxd. We would leave comments on each other's reviews. Sometimes we would go back and forth in the comments as you might know there's no dm feature um but because the script went viral his email was on the script so i had a direct line i reached out we started going back and forth

and um he actually he and i were talking and i made a joke saying well pre-smartphone we would have had to meet in a blockbuster and that inspired him again and he started maybe a great screenplay idea so yeah he started to write a um a rom-com meet queue that he would like send to me which i loved and um the characters were about to meet in the script and then when they were about to meet he said would you want to have me fly you down to new orleans and then we can meet in real life it's basically method screenwriting so that i'd send her like five pages a day this rom-com set in a blockbuster in 2000 she'd tell me what she thinks it'd be like little things that sneak into there like they talk about david fincher 7 in the script but it's like it's from the perspective of people post fight club talking about it so it's very cool from us connecting over mank and david fincher love

they're writing something that was like set in 2000 and having those characters talk about it so uh but yeah it was we had this basis for movies that um i've told her that i've just i've never dated someone who was in the movies and that's just how it's been and i've never you know i'm not one of those guys on the first dates it's just like what do you mean you haven't seen ghostbusters that becomes the whole date you know because that like that nukes the relationship when you do that so with erica that was you know she talks about us flirting as much as we could it's very funny with that that um i watched sicario because it's one of her favorite movies you know and that was like a little hint you know and she this is very funny i reviewed chris rocks i think i love my wife and that movie review mentions i'm

single on it and she thought that was a hint like when she was thinking about should i message this guy i reviewed that movie and i was like as a bachelor. And she thought that was a hint. Like when she was thinking about, should I message this guy? I reviewed that movie and I was like, as a bachelor, she's like, Oh, it's a hint. He wants me to message him. And I was just like,

and it was, no, no, I, that there were like, I watched Sicario on purpose. I watched Sicario. I learned all of this afterwards,

but you watched the cardio on purpose. I thought it was a coincidence. And then he watched briefing counter on Valentine's day and wrote a really nice review. That apparently was like a signal for him. I thought it was a coincidence. And then he watched Brief Encounter on Valentine's Day and wrote a really nice review that apparently was like a signal for him. I thought nothing of it. You put it on your watch list right afterwards. I was like, oh my man.

Yeah, yeah, I just thought it was good. We all, we thought about this. Like, I mean, I thought like, wouldn't it be cool if there was like a resource for people who like movies? You can tell, like that was, when she talks about us flirting, it was like, oh, she has the same opinion on Malcolm and Marie as I do. You know, I was like, we talk in the comment section for that. And so talks about us flirting it was like oh she has the same opinion on Malcolm and Marie as I do you know I was like we talk in the comment section for that and so I would think I was like if this was a girl at a bar like this you know you don't walk up to a girl

and say like hey what are your opinions on make you know like that's not you should never do that actually I was about to say I regret to tell you that 10 to 15 years ago. That's all they did. I need to go back to flirting on Letterboxd. I'm very old and married and don't flirt. So I wouldn't say I was very good at flirting before when we were in real life. But on Letterboxd, which is just a social media app for logging movies for those of you who are listening

who are not aware of that, Is it all about indicating and reflecting on your potential partner's taste and what they like? Is there something else that you can do aside from liking a review that indicates like, hey, maybe we should have a relationship beyond this social media app? Even pre-pandemic, with being on dating apps, it is, it's like you have the same conversation a million times. So no, when I first started messaging Ben back and forth, I could tell he was like my age, you know, I thought he was cute, but we were just kind of going back and forth because we had a lot to say to each other. I would have liked a DM feature or something where I could just chat or meet up with people on letterboxd, um, because I was enjoying the conversations. Um, but when, so obviously like

I made the first move, I guess, um, when I, yeah, when I found his email and at the time, hopefully no one who I was talking to at the time is listening, but I was talking to like three other guys from different dating apps and was just bored and felt like again i can only talk about my favorite happy hour deals in the city so much and i thought screw it like you know who i really want to like have a conversation with is this guy who i've been talking to movies with i bet he had stuff to say well so we both had that thought about it like okay there's a meme i made back in like last summer that was like it's a picture of a letterboxd dating app that has uh the two leads from before sunrise you know ethan hawk and julie depley and it just it's their dating profiles and

it's just like you match based on your opinion on like joker you know but um i made that thinking like oh this would be funny if there's a letterboxd dating app and then so eric and i'm you know thought each other after mank and i thought like oh she's really cute she has really good taste in movies you know which is like isn't it a shame really cute. She has really good taste in movies. Isn't it a shame that she lives in Chicago? I live in Mississippi and there's no DM feature. There's no possible way for this to work out. But with the pandemic

being so bad during dating, we both said that where she talked to three guys in hand and she's like, this is not working. And me with my own thing where I was just like, this is just so depressing in the current dating scene. I was just like, what if I watched Sicario and that's a hint to this girl that maybe it could work out. And that did work out. So it's just like this is just so depressing the current dating scene i was just like what if i watched sicario and that's a hint to this girl that maybe it could work out and that did work out um so it's just such a strange string of like mink then kermit the frog and then chris frock you know uh that just brought us together for that that we have this basis for and we always

have movies that um that's the best thing about this relationship was i went to chicago to work in my documentary a couple weeks ago i was out there for two weeks and just finding movies to watch with her and having a good flow uh was just one of the best things i've been learning about this relationship and also that we like respect for their own relationship that you know she falls asleep and i can watch a soft movie on my phone you know whenever i'm still like i'm up well i was gonna ask since you're you're still in separate cities right yes and what is the movie watching relationship now and also what's the the letterboxd relationship now are you both like maintaining your own letterboxd profiles

yeah we're unique no i mean i know you're not gonna like merge profiles that's insane but it's just those old facebook couples that have just their combined names like sharing a bank account yeah oh my god never do that but are you are you watching things together i assume that's like kind of a major part of the relationship what have you been watching like what have been the the finds what's the new mink in your relationship i don't want to say bowfinger is a new mink but we watched bowfinger last night that's a good question so we'll do like zoom night sometimes we'll watch the same movie um but it was kind of funny so we've talked like if we are living in the same city if we're like say living together at some point we should still

have two tvs so we can watch separate things because great relationship to have part of it yeah okay i'm glad to see that two successful married people have this no it's essential yeah because there are the things that you like together and the things that you don't like together but what are some of the things you've liked together now that you are together um god the ones we've watched together i feel like we watched the more impressive stuff when we were actually physically in the same our first movie we watched together was uh how to house you know the japanese movie um and that was that was five stars from both of us so yeah but based on zoom when we're not in the same city it's been under siege oh yeah under siege was our first date i have one

last question i'm assuming that when you guys were scoping each other out you did the thing where you go through every single thing the person has ever liked on it on letterbox uh just normal dating behavior worse um so ben what is erica's worst movie opinion and erica what is ben's i asked her permission on telling this before so she had to know we were gonna ask no she asked she thinks that kill bill volume one is bad but she thinks kill bill volume two is good and i do not understand she gets volume one two out of five stars in volume two four out of five stars and so immediately this is very early on the relationship i was just like explain this and uh she just she she jumped into it you can give you you can give you defense right now if

you'd like i think that uh the first one not a lot draws you in it. You can only watch so many like fight scenes, but then the second one has a really compelling narrative that it has all the heart. I know exactly what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

I haven't thought of it in that way before, but I get it. I stand with you. All right. What's what's, what's his worst opinion. Don't say some of these. Those are mine.

You can't criticize. Yes, you can. That's the big those are mine you can't criticize yes you can that's the spirit of the big picture is that you can absolutely criticize whatever you want it's good for a relationship i feel like it's probably if i could get up here i will say amanda i feel like you're always the winner of the movie drafts and people disregard you because you know what it's because you have a life and a full relationship and are watching movies of your own so you don't have to like spend time on reddit and i appreciate it and i'm just happy that you are out there living a life and finding love and not

worrying about whether you're voting for me see this is how this is what we need dare you wow i invite you into the big tent of the big picture i know i'm on a six game winning streak and you would dare cast dispersions on my reason he's the one who plugged letterbox he's why we're in our relationship and there you go i just speak my truth uh okay so this is actually a mailbag episode of the show is there anything that you guys want to know from us anything Anything you're curious about? Anything movie related? Are there any directors? I ask this because I know this director, Anna Biller, is coming out with a movie soon. And she's so interesting to me. I wouldn't say she's necessarily my favorite, but she's fascinating. Her work is fascinating. And I feel like she gets next to no recognition but everything she makes is so different and I'm

surprised that there's not more coverage of her are there any people or stories I guess in the film industry that you would like to see more of or you're like I don't know why this isn't getting more attention that's a very good question we probably needed a little bit of prep for that one yeah Anna Biller

is an interesting one yeah I tried to talk to her for the release of the love witch a few years ago and we exchanged exchanged a few emails um and she was very nice and then she was like set some um difficult to achieve parameters for the interview so we were not able to pull it off but i agree she's very interesting filmmaker i don't know amanda does anybody pop to your mind that you feel like is underserved or underrepresented well since we were on the topic of the movie draft i i was just thinking about how i thought when i drafted lost city of z in whatever year that was what was that 2017 was that the movie draft i was like oh i got it i nailed it like everyone loves this movie

sean and chris love this movie and i do do know that Sean and Chris love that this movie. And I was just like cinematic masterpiece. Amanda wins. And of course, like no one cares because Sean got like Thor Ragnarok or whatever. But, you know, the James Gray thing is always interesting, right? Of that there is a devoted group of people, including us on the big picture. And Jim Gray has been on the big picture speaking with Sean, but who loved his work. And he's like big in Europe, but not here.

So I really thought that I like had that one nailed. God, who else? I just had someone and it went away. I mean, Mank is a great example. We also loved Mank. You guys loved Mank. And then everybody in the world. I mean, David Fincher is not uncelebrated.

I'm trying to think of somebody that I haven't had a chance to talk about on the show ever that I really like. Cause that's really. The show is for talking about. That's the thing is. You're like inner catalog. Well, I mean,

there are filmmakers like Terry's Wygoff. Interesting example of somebody that I probably never have talked about on the show. Director of ghost world director of famous, our crumb documentary crumb director of Ghost World, director of the famous R. Crumb documentary, Crumb, director of Bad Santa. He's a pretty diverse, humorous, clever filmmaker who's made a lot of different kinds of movies,

some hugely celebrated, some mainstream. And he doesn't have a project going right now and he hasn't made a movie in a long time. And so he just doesn't come up on a ongoing conversational podcast about movies. But Ghost world is like a core text for my wife and i i think the tone of that movie is like the tone of our relationship and that is how i think in many ways we see the world which is like kind of utter disgust and cynicism but also we really want to love things and we want to find what we care about so that's a that's a he terry's white office

a great filmmaker there's a person i've got a question this is sort of like relating to uh like do you think there's like an exploitation of nostalgia in movies that's with the blockbuster thing that's what we were talking about 20 years ago was there's a 20-year gap with nostalgia like you look at days confused that's 20 years later and you're gonna have late 90s o's nostalgia in the future i honestly think it's sort of been awkward with the time of the early o's you're having the iraq war 9-11 it's sort of awkward to reflect back on only like ladybird's done it well i think i think um well yes i mean it is it is happening and it is going to continue to happen there's a movie coming out soon called fear street 1994 it's the first in a trilogy of fear street movies that all are set in different

times 94 78 and 1666 and 94 is doing exactly what you're describing it is like it is a meta homage to scream which is a meta homage to 70s horror movies and there are 100 needle drops in that movie, and they're all exactly what you think they are. Rob Zombie and the Fugees and things that are pure 1995. So I think that's definitely true. I got a dirty little secret for you guys. It's just fantastic for Amanda and I.

This is just, it's just steering directly into our zone. You know, as frequent co-hosts of the rewatchables, we see that the 90s is a very resonant period. And frankly, like a lot um our peers are making movies like that's the thing that is so fascinating and so cool is people in their 30s are now finally getting a chance to filter their influence do i want them to like abuse that nostalgia no that's always pretty corny when someone does that but it's not a bad thing to me that i might hear sound gardener de la soul in a movie because somebody really loves them because i really love them so i'm i don't really have a

huge problem with it and and to your point about it was certainly a grim era in a lot of ways but i we were discussing future movie drafts and i was like wouldn't it be fun to have like a bad movie draft year and i i think i threw out like 2003, 2002, 2004. And, you know, Sean rightly pointed out, but actually there are really great movies in all of them. Yeah, Holes is in 2003. That's like our little bit, like, that's a little bit our shtick here, right? Of being like, well, actually, Jackass is like the center of culture. Which like, it actually is sort of the center of culture. Shout out Johnny and Locksville, just looking great in GQ magazine.

But, you know, those are the years that shaped us. And there is always something to be excited about. It takes the passing of time. Yeah, sure. And also you want it to be in the right hands, you know,

I'm very, I'm very happy for you both. Amanda and I are both very happy that you guys found each other. I'm glad that you're users of letterbox. I wish you guys all the success. Thanks for coming on the show. It's nice to meet you guys. Yeah.

Thanks so much. Bye. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. And thanks to Ben and Erica for sharing their story. And thanks to you for listening to The Big Picture. We'll be back later this week to discuss the new film In the Heights, which is available in theaters and on HBO Max on Friday. And we're going to share our top five favorite movie musicals.

We'll see you then.