The Big Picture - Did ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ Just Save Movies? Plus: The Emily Blunt Movie Star Playbook.

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

Sean and Amanda discuss the somewhat surprising dominant movie at the box office, ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s,’ a horror adaptation of a popular video game series (1:00). Then, they review ‘Pain Hustlers,’ the David Yates–directed drama about the opioid crisis starring Chris Evans and Emily Blunt (27:00), before running through Blunt’s career to this point and laying out her “movie star playbook” (36:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What would you do if you got scammed? Would you suffer in silence, or would you do something about it? Well, I got scammed once, and this is the story of what I did. I'm Justin Sales, the host of The Wedding Scammer, a true crime podcast from The Ringer. And for seven episodes, we're hunting a con man. A guy with a lot of aliases. A guy who's ruined a lot of weddings. And with the help of some friends, I just might be able to catch him.

Listen to The Wedding Scammer on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Freddie and Emily doubling up two movies. Now, Amanda. Yes. We were going to talk entirely. Right.

About the film Pain Hustlers and Emily Blunt today on the podcast. We were going to have a new edition of the Movie Star Playbook, this new thing we started doing with Adam Driver earlier this year. And then Five Nights at Freddie's hit. Yeah, sure did. And so on Friday afternoon. Yeah. I texted you.

I think it was like 4.40. What did I ask you? Well, first you asked, do you have Peacock? That's what I was asking. Yeah. And your answer was what? It was yes, thanks to the Spotify Corporation. You are one of 28 million people in America that have Peacock.

Congratulations to you. Thank you so much. And what was the next thing I asked you? Can you please watch Five Nights at Freddy's? Now you did clearly based on texts I received last night, did not know what Five Nights at Freddy's was. Well, no, I did because I have seen posters for Five Nights at Freddy's. And also Chris Ryan has been making jokes about it, but based on just the posters and seeking out really no information on my own, only letting the information come to me, I had a different understanding of Five Nights at Freddy's. What did you think it was?

Well, I thought it was an animated movie because all I'd seen was what turned out to be animatronic characters in the posters. Didn't know that PETA, a.k.a. Josh Hutcherson, was starring in the movie. I didn't know that PETA, aka Josh Hutcherson, was starring in the movie. I didn't know that it was a film about generational trauma. And I didn't know that it was for anyone over the age of five.

Turns out it is... Turns out it's attempting to be a horror movie for teens, I guess. Truly. And is one of the blockbuster sensations of 2023. It is an incredibly successful movie. And it's an interesting thing for us to talk about.

Not because the movie is terribly good. We'll talk a bit about it. I thought it was actually quite poor. However, this is one of those occasions, probably not unlike Taylor Swift, The Heiress Tour, though I'm not sure if I gave that movie a ton of grace. That is just not for us. And it not being for us, I think, is actually quite a signal to what movies can become. So let's dig into it a little bit.

We were saying just before we hit record, this is going to be one of those podcasts in that Sean is working through some new theories. He promised that it wouldn't be too doomsday. It won't be doomsday, I promise. I do think it is very interesting to me as a close observer

of the movie industry and what movies are like and how they're made because this one is extremely unusual. Five Nights at Freddy's was actually a video game. It's a long-running

video game series launched in 2014 by a man named Scott Cawthon, who is the co-writer of this movie and was instrumental in getting it made. The video game itself is kind of a haunted Chuck E. Cheese game. It's sort of a first-person game about a security guard working in this fictional pizzeria restaurant arcade where the animatronic creatures from the Chuck E. Cheese style house

are coming to life and are dangerous. I didn't know anything about this game. I think if you're roughly between the ages of 9 and 25, you might have a big relationship to this game given how it's grown over the last decade or so. The game itself is really interesting. I watched some playthroughs. Have you ever watched a playthrough on YouTube? Sean, who do you think is sitting across from you?

Did you not prepare for this podcast like I did? I did! I watched the movie, but I did not watch the playthroughs. I did want to ask you some questions about the game. Okay. I mean, I still don't fully understand the game, I will admit. And I'm not a gamer, as I've said before on the podcast. But, you know, essentially, it's a horror video game, which is a subgenre that has grown in some estimation over the last 20 years. It was not huge when I was growing up, give or take a Castlevania, not a lot of horror video games. Nowadays, it seems much more popular. And this one is sort of like, it almost felt like found footage where you need to keep your eye on security cameras to make sure you're clocking where the various animatronic characters may or may not be. Oh, interesting.

And there are a lot of jump scares in the game. A lot of YouTubers kind of made their bones on playthroughs where they're, you know, they have a camera on them while they're playing this game and they're getting scared. Okay, but it's all mediated through screens. It's all mediated through screens. That's interesting. Yeah. So I think as the game has gone on, I watched a couple of newer iterations of it too,

where it's more of like your classic walkthrough game, you know, where you're sort of in the world. But, you know, the game itself is enormously popular. It's an independent game. It's not made by one of the big game makers. And the creator of the game has wanted to make this movie for a long time, has held the rights very tightly, has held his participation in the game very tightly. And so you've got this really weird thing where there are no big stars attached. It was originally supposed to be a Warner Brothers and Warner Brothers punted it down the road and they gave up the rights to it. Jason Blum, genius that he is, swooped in and grabbed it. And so this is a Blumhouse horror movie with all of the marketing materials and the expectations

around it. Plus this kind of built-in IP. Plus your boy PETA is back. Josh Hutcherson, who I haven't seen in a movie in some time. And, you you know a couple of very memorable faces from our childhood mary stewart masterson has a minor role in this movie matthew lillard absolutely cooking in this movie i don't want to spoil what he does in it well i think the movie does but anyway it does uh but it is this is a kind of generational sensation

operating right underneath our noses in a genre that historically does really well at the box office at the right time. Some would have said it's the wrong time, but October 27th, perfect timing for four to 14 year olds doing this weekend besides toilet papering houses, going to the movies and hanging out with their friends in malls. And so you've got this movie, which I'm going to say right now, I thought was bad. Like I thought it was actually quite poor. And it is a massive sensation. $78 million in the North American box office, $130 million worldwide.

I think the movie cost somewhere between $25 and $40 million to make all in. This is a huge success. And let me get your thoughts on the movie. What did you think of the movie? I mean, what on earth is happening? What? Like, okay, sure. Okay, so Josh Hutcherson is like having bad dreams

in the dungeon of the totally closed Chuck E. Cheese that, I mean, come on. From a basic storytelling, I have said before that I am one of the dumbest movie watchers alive. And that's fine. You know, we bring what we bring to the screen and every single beat of what was going on here at the at Freddy Fazbars or Fazbar bears or whatever I like it if it's pronounced fazbar that's dope I think it's fazbear but let's's go with Faesbar. Okay.

I'm sorry. I can't be bothered to learn his last name. I just, it was so obvious. So then the only thing that you're really interrogating is what happened to poor Peeta. And the creepy children were good. I liked the creepy children in the flashbacks. I liked that as a representation of who the characters are. Sure. I thought that was a clever stroke. And there's one scene, there are two dreams where Hutcherson's character is remembering the abduction of his younger brother. Right. When they're out at a sort of a picnic setting in a forest. And the first dream

is just the kind of revelation of what Hutcherson's character's trauma is. And then the second one is kind of an attack sequence where he's getting slashed and stabbed by these little kids. Yeah. And during that scene, I was like, now this is a horror movie. Yes, that was good. And if you're, if this is,

this is a PG-13 horror movie, and that's an intense scene. Right. For a gateway horror movie. And I think I kind of got my hopes up in the first 30 minutes when that sequence happened. And then it's kind of downhill. It's a real slog through the last two thirds of the movie.

Yes. What was happening in the end like what can we spoil yeah spoilers yeah spoiler spoiler spoiler two things about it one this movie is day and date so it's on peacock and it opened in movie theaters right and that's important to note so if you want to watch the movie before listening to this conversation go ahead spoiler spoiler spoiler don't yell at me i'm not gonna read your comment spoiler warning we've talked about gen z and whether or not they listen to this podcast i wonder what i don't know what gen gen alpha what is the new generation whatever like if you're 13 are you listening to this podcast probably not right no you're not gonna be mad if we're like your movie stinks uh well you might be amused by it.

Okay. I think there are some college students who listen to this, and they technically could be in the Freddy. Uh-oh, Bobby just logged on. The camera just came on. Hi, Bobby. Hey. I was just going to confirm that it is Generation Alpha. That's what I thought.

Which is an awful, it's an awful name. Okay, yeah. Awful name for a generation. Doesn't that indicate that it's the first generation? But it's like, Aren't we several centuries? No, we started back over. Oh, the reset. It's the reset, yeah.

Is Five Nights at Freddy's the first film of the new generation of humans on Earth? That's incredible. We don't need to give it that stake. You clearly have already attached some stuff to it that we don't need to add to. I have attached some stuff to it. Here's what happens in the movie. More or less, there is simultaneously a supernatural kind of haunted element with the animatronic bears and also a child killer who is portrayed by Matthew Lillard's character who also plays a dual role in the film and tricks and lures kids into this place and kills them.

Right. And then, okay, so how do the kids relate to the animatronic bears? Their souls are like inside the bears. Okay. I think that's the idea that they're trying to communicate.

That his victims are inside the bears. Like, but their souls, not their human remains or not the humans. I don't think so. Like walking around

as the bears. You know what's so funny about that? Yeah. A little sidebar here. Okay. Just go with me on this. Okay. Listen,

where else am I going? Me and CR, Saturday night. Sure. We went to the Horror-a-thon at the Arrow Theater. I'd never been before. This was the 18th annual Horror-a-thon. They show horror movies all night. There's a whole elaborate world building around this Horror-a-thon. Did you guys do R&D Kitchen before?

We didn't do anything. I had to watch Alice because I had to negotiate being able to go to a horror movie marathon. So anyway, we went to this horror movie marathon. First movie, Stuart Gordon's Dolls, an early 90s horror movie about possessed dolls. Some of the dolls, I think, are just dolls. They're like, they're possessed and they're, you know, they're using stop motion animation. And then other dolls, if they like get thrown across the room, they have some sort of human corporeal figure inside of them, like a little tiny person or a tiny creature with doll figurine shapes covering them. The mythology is a little confusing.

I would compare Five Nights at Freddy people wearing the animatronic costumes. Yes. Walking around. So it's sort of like if Goofy at Disneyland, you know, came to life. Should I show my daughter Five Nights at Freddy's? I did. I did think of Alice as I said Goofy. And I was like, oh, no, protect Alice.

Alice is in a real. Heavy Disney. Yeah. Heavy. Has she expanded beyond Mickey? Not really. I mean, oh no, protect Alice. Alice is in a real... Heavy Disney. Yeah, heavy. Has she expanded beyond Mickey? Not really. I mean, Mickey's friends. Okay, right. Mickey and friends.

Right, right, right. But it's not, we don't know about the princesses or anything. No, no, no. That's going to be a wild ride. So I wondered whether that was just, I mean, that was honestly, that's, who doesn't love practical filmmaking? I enjoy it. That part was good. That part was honestly that's who doesn't love practical filmmaking? I enjoy it. That part was good.

That part was pretty good. I agree. The animatronic creatures is actually the best part of the movie. Right because they just have human beings and like walking around.

But they actually built the things. But so I didn't know whether that was just you know filmmaking or whether I was also supposed to understand

that there are zombie children in the animatronic costumes. You know I don't you know, filmmaking or whether I was also supposed to understand that there are zombie children in the animatronic costumes. You know, I could be getting it wrong because I don't know enough about the mythology of the game. So I don't want to say definitively either way. And right now there is, there's a 13-year-old boy. This is what Generation Alpha wants.

It's a bunch of, like, two old assholes being like, I don't know about the zombie in the the chucky cheese costume did you spend a lot of time at chucky cheese as a kid i went yeah sure you did on long island chucky cheese was a big thing yeah i mean obviously it was a big thing in atlanta but it was another place and i understand this now in a new way where i didn't get to go very often and i think it's because my parents were like we we would rather die than spend too much time in a Chuck E. Cheese, which I get. My parents would not take me for the afternoon, but I would go for birthday parties.

Yeah. It was big for birthday parties. That was as well. But only a few people got to have their birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. It's just clearly a place where you just accidentally get meningitis or something. You know what I mean?

It's just like full of germs and coughing children and it just feels cursed. So the idea for the game actually makes quite a bit of sense. If you've ever been in a Chuck E. Cheese or Country Bears at Disney, the animatronic world is very creepy.

And as a culture, we've moved away from it. And it feels very ominous. So it does make sense to me that this would be appealing for a video game. I thought the movie was pretty substandard, but its success

is what is so interesting to me because, one, obviously a horror movie doing well, that's one thing. But we just saw The Exorcist Believer really underperform.

You have been talking about how it's a very bad year for horror movies. Very bad. I wouldn't say that this movie meaningfully improved the quality meter for horror movies, but it did show that there's still tons of life in the subgenre

because people still want to see this stuff. This one is the kind of movie, actually, that sets horror movies up really well for the next decade because you've just now introduced Generation Alpha to horror movies. It's a gateway horror movie. We can't.

We've got to come up with another name. I mean, okay. Let's just say the teens. Just the teens? Yeah. Oh, you mean just for this episode? You don't mean for like when we write our cover story for Newsweek? No, no, no.

Excuse me. We'd be doing Atlantic. Okay. Is Newsweek still extant? I believe so. Okay. Should we buy Newsweek? Tina Brown was the editor-in-chief of newsweek for a while i don't know if you remember that she is no longer okay uh she's free um she is no longer the editor-in-chief of newsweek tina's i thought

you meant that in like a kind of wizard style tina's with us i see yeah she's blurbing my friend's books it's very exciting yeah she gavebed Glossy. Marissa's book. Oh, Marissa Meltzer's book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, amazing. No, we just can't. We'll just call them teens for this podcast

because I can't say Generation Alpha. So when I was a teen. Yes. Oh, boy. These are the movies that I had that got me into horror. Okay. I had Gremlins,

which was on cable TV all the time. I had The Incredible Monster Squad, a movie I have always loved. It is an amazing movie if you're 11 years old and you love monsters and you love horror, but it can't be too scary. I had Return to Oz, Nightmare Before Christmas, Tremors.

You know, more recently, we got like Coraline, Monster House, like a lot of animated movies have done the gateway horror thing. It's actually like a really great, really creative, really fun way to get into this world. Especially if you don't want to show your 10-year-old

something that is authentically scary. Like you're not going to show your 10-year-old the thing. But when they're 15, they may want to seek it out. I don't know what you're going to do. I don't know either. I wonder with Alice.

Alice, I think she's going to be a little afraid. So is that good or bad? I'm not sure. Eileen's not really a big horror fan. Yeah. But it, you know, it may just not be in her interest set, which is kind of where I am. But you need these movies.

You probably didn't watch a lot of these movies. George Ghostbusters as a kid? Of course. Okay. But that's comedy. That's a gateway horror movie. It is comedy. It's funny.

Five Nights at Freddy's is not funny. It's pure horror. It's not great, but it is pure horror. But there's not even that much horror it's mostly like josh hutcherson is sad yeah well the thing is it's too long trauma these kinds of movies yeah need to be i think i think needs to feel a little tighter and you could have cut out a lot of the kind of moping that hutcherson's character is doing because that feels like the fat but you know what you get the impression that the creator of the game feels it's very important yeah to them

and so that's why it is that way. Nevertheless, this movie making $78 million at the box office while also being available on a streaming service, admittedly a small streaming service, is incredible because it's like it reveals what people want from movies. Like, look at the big movies this year. Super Mario Brothers. There's never been one before. People have a huge relationship to that, but there's never really been a big animated Super Mario Brothers. There's never been one before. People have a huge relationship to that

but there's never really been a big animated Super Mario Brothers movie. Oppenheimer. Haven't seen that story told in that way by a great filmmaker. Barbie, of course,

put those two movies together. You have this amazing thing that happened. Even just recently, what did we do? Taylor Swift, the Heiress Tour. Right.

You know, another thing that people desperately wanted that it was a true event. There's something about newness from the familiar that is really resonating this year that there's like a level of expectation set in there's a built-in audience but you haven't specifically seen this thing and that seems to be the story and i don't i don't know how replicable that is and when you think about like oh how can can you recreate Barbie or how can you recreate Super Mario Brothers? Those are two of the most hallowed brands

in childhood entertainment in the last hundred years. I didn't even know what Five Nights at Freddy's was a year ago. And they found something and they put their finger on it and they made an event out of it. And if you read anecdotally the stories about this weekend, it sounds like seeing this movie in movie theaters

was an absolute nightmare because it was just full of 12-year-olds screaming and pointing out the Easter eggs and laughing and talking. And that sounds horrible. But it also sounds a little bit like going to see the Minions movie. Or going to see Taylor Swift era's tour. Yes, same thing. Yeah.

And so, you know, are movies parties? Is that what movies are now? Yeah, a little bit. I mean, we have been talking. This is an evolution of a thing that we have been talking about for a while now, which is the movie as event. It's more like a concert and the way that you interact with the music

and the artist and the amount of time you spend and when you go and how much money you spend. It's like amusement park. It's like concert. It is this thing that you wait for. And when you go, you want it to feel like an event. Like you're doing something. As opposed to, you know, our kind of 90s.

What's out this weekend? Let me go every single day or every single weekend and just kind of check it out. And that the movie theater itself is the experience. You're right. It's the IP. It's the added stuff. So, yeah, I think for teens, for young people, party is appealing, you know?

I think it's a net positive. I don't think it's a bad thing. That's why I'm saying it's not a doomsday thing because it's great for movie theaters and it gets kids in the habit of knowing that the movies is an event, which I think is a good thing. I mean, I don't love the idea of every movie being like teenagers talking inside of them. And if that was the case in Killers of the Flower Moon, I would have walked into traffic. Right.

But if you're 10 and you equate going to the movies with having a great time, how wonderful for movies that is to just know that. Now, it's not what you described, which is every Friday I go to the movies because I just am obsessed with movies. But that's never going to happen movies with having a great time. How wonderful for movies that is to just know that. Now, it's not what you described, which is every Friday I go to the movies because I just am obsessed with movies. But that's never going to happen again anyway. So knowing that's not going to happen, I think this is fantastic. And it at least exposes a new generation to the concept of going to the movies. And then if they get curious, maybe they start going to rep screenings like Bobby. And then, you know, maybe the like Bobby and then, you know,

maybe the really deranged ones, you know, start buying their Blu-rays like you and Alex Ross-Perry. I have so many thoughts about that section of the mailbag that I'd love to bring up with both of you. No, no, no. It's, you know, I want Alex. He was wonderful. Hi, Alex. You were wonderful on the podcast um i think that you guys are confusing the retail experience and you know cinemas for everyone you're sean pop you know populist cinema thing with like your insane archivist collector brains um and that the the the fact that you can't buy a blu-ray at best buy has no reflection on anything having to do with movies in the world. It just, it doesn't. It has a lot to do with how people use the internet and how people buy things.

I generally agree with that. But, yeah, not everyone's going to become you, but they will at least learn about movies. And that is positive. This is not an invasion of the body snatchers thing. I don't need people to act exactly the way that I do. I do think what I care about most is that people want to go to the movies because that's what I love to do.

That's my number one pastime. So when something like this happens, it's pretty cool. And it is really contra to The Exorcist Believer, which is this big hallowed property that Universal paid $400 million for the rights to. They made a $30 million movie with the promise of at least two more movies in a trilogy. They brought back this filmmaker who had just done the same thing, which Alex and I talked about in David Gordon Green. And the movie pretty much bombed. And it wasn't day and date. It wasn't

available. And in fact, the Halloween movies that David Gordon Green made were day and date because they started coming out during the pandemic. That movie was only in theaters and it didn't do very well. This movie almost tripled up its box office, which is just fascinating. Yeah. An indication that people didn't want a new Exorcist movie. They didn't need a new Exorcist movie. They wanted something new.

Well, and also especially that young people don't want old, reheated, old people stuff. And I do think that there is a real element of like this Five Nights at Freddy's comes from a video game that I don't understand that is very popular with this generation. As opposed to, you know, you and me pulling out like our Rolling Stones record and being like, hey, guys. Yes. Here's another thing that we really liked when we were, you know, it's like they don't want the hand-me-downs. I'm trying to just imagine for a moment. Yeah. Amanda in a beautiful home, mid-century modern home.

That's your style. And she's looking at a record collection. Yeah. And she pulls Let It Bleed off the shelf. And she turns and she looks at a group of adoring friends. And she says, hey, guys, want to listen to my Rolling Stones record? That has never happened. I don't know who that character was that you created there.

That actually did happen once in Palm Springs when we rented that house with the record collection and the record player. Yes, that was what I was referring to. Oh, but I guess I didn't say it like that. But didn't I pick a Rollings? I would just pick Blindly. So I think I did come out with a Rollings. Maybe you did. We listened to a lot of Zeppelin on that trip.

Fucking love Zeppelin. Yeah, no, I know. It was really fun. You're 100% right, which is they don't want this reheated stuff. And who can blame them? It's not even reheated. They don't want hand-me-downs. There is something I think very specifically that's for old people my parents

or frankly my grandparents like that which is horrifying yeah exactly and 1973 like why would i want anything to do with that yeah i think you know you could say oh well the exorcist movie isn't very good five nights at freddy's isn't very good it has nothing to do with that you know poorly reviewed films do well at the box office all the time. So it's not really about that. This is just a fascinating little thing. Now,

the question I think becomes, could other companies do well with a day and date strategy? And it's debatable. You know, like, so many more people

probably would have watched Killers of the Flower Moon if Apple did day and date. In fact, Apple probably could have really significantly boosted their subscriber base, at least for a month, if they made that movie available. Now, obviously, Martin Scorsese was never going to agree to that. He didn't even agree to that when he put The Irishman on Netflix. And Netflix has hundreds of millions of subscribers,

so that would have significantly dented the box office. But would as many people have watched it? Would five times as many people have watched it? It's really hard to say. I don't know. I think it's an interesting thought exercise. Also, I mean, what is the goal? You know, like, is it... For Comcast, it's make money. It's make money, not how many people will watch it.

So, but this is an interesting wrinkle. You had to text me, a person whose job it is to watch movies, to ask if I subscribe to Peacock, you know, because it was not a given. So, again, if this is on Netflix, I think it's, which is like sort of a public utility that, you know, or not quite, but a lot more people have access to it, then I don't know whether the teens go out in the same way. It does raise some interesting questions. You know, there's this understanding, I think, in the wider entertainment reporting world that kind of Netflix won the race, right? That they now have significantly lapped all of their competitors,

that Max and Disney are kind of resetting and reimagining what their strategy should be. A lot of these companies that were putting a lot of their films directly onto streaming services are now either going day and date or exclusively theatrical. And Netflix is holding their pace. They're not changing their strategy. They're doing the thing they've always said they want to do.

It has made me furious at times. It is remarkable that The Killer opened this weekend and that it's in an unclear number of movie theaters with no box office reporting. This is a new movie from David Fincher, one of the first big starring roles for Michael Fassbender in years. And it's a classic crime movie that 15 years ago would have done at least $80 million in the box office. Today, who knows? It could maybe significantly less, but it probably could have done some business.

It's not, it's, you know, it's going to be November 10th. It's going to become a new movie theaters. We're not even going to talk about it in a meaningful way probably until november 10th when it comes to theaters or netflix sorry um and it's everything is upside down and netflix insists that this is the right way for their business and they honestly might be right well i'm sure it's the right thing for their business which is you know a separate thing from it sure it's the right thing for their business which is you know a separate thing from it might also be the right thing for that movie for the killer which i'm sad to say but i i do think that there's a difference between five nights at freddy's which is a movie for

teenagers and the new david fincher crime movie for adults and how those two audiences eventize movies and how they consume movies and I think a lot of Fincher's audience right now is on Netflix or at home for for better and like maybe for worse I kind of so I have I I'm going to disagree with you about it okay and I'm going to do that by pivoting to the next movie we're going to talk about. Okay. Because the David Fincher movie is wonderful. You talked about it at Venice. I just, it's dynamite. Yes. It's so good.

I don't understand anyone who's like, I don't know. Then you don't like movies. I generally agree. I had a chance to see it on a big screen just like you did. And I think that that, I'm going to guess, and I've yet to stream it at home, but I'm going to guess that that was a much better way to experience a movie that is so meticulous in its craft and storytelling. So specific in its sound design.

Of course it is. So beautifully edited. That when you watch it at home with the Netflix gloss on it, and you have your phone in your hand, you're missing, you're missing. I know I'm a cliche when I say this hand, you're missing, you're missing. I know I'm a cliche when I say this, but you're missing the point of the movie. You're missing the essence of the movie when you do that. And so maybe it's good for the business of Netflix, but it's not good for the business of Netflix making movies. And so- Well, I mean, that's another question.

Right. And of course, David Fincher is a longtime partner of Netflix and he's done that for a very specific reason. But with Pain Hustlers, which is the movie we are going to talk about, I don't know what the point of this movie is on Netflix. Now, the movie is not awful. It's okay. It's not. It's watchable. It's a very familiar story. It's got very big movie stars in it.

Right. Chris Evans and Emily Blunt are the two stars of this movie, and they are very well-known people who've been able to open movies on their own merit and while it is number one on Netflix's top 10 did anyone have a single conversation about Pain Hustlers this weekend is there any is there any culture of this movie no so what did this movie do I don't know I, this to me seems like a classic. They tried it. It wasn't what they hoped it would be or it wasn't the intent. It seems like a very clear awards play for Emily Blunt. I guess to a lesser extent for Chris Evans. I think they're both not terrible.

I think they're both pretty good in the movie. I think that... They're both maybe a little miscast. I think that Emily Blunt is very miscast. And I think that Chris Evans is funny in it. And it's just sort of a forgettable movie that does not yield, that just is not going to play in the awards race. And they clearly timed it in a way where like, oh, maybe this will get some attention. We get many of these every year,

right? Where it's like recent history issue, you know, adjacent, big movie stars, transformation performance. Will it speak to the moment? Will someone like catch some buzz? Will it make an awards play? And this is just not going to make an awards play because the ingredients were there. And, you know, it's like Matt Damon said once on the Bill Simmons podcast, like the cake doesn't come out quite right. Right. You know? Right. It just.

I think you nailed it. Yeah. The movie is directed by David Yates, who's directed a great many Harry Potter movies. Not a lot of movies like this. It does star Emily Blunt and Chris Evans and Andy Garcia, Catherine O'Hara, Jay Duplass. Great cast. Brian Darcy James. Yeah.

High school dropout Liza Drake lands a job with a failing pharmaceutical startup in a yellowing strip mall in Central Florida where she soon finds herself at the center of a criminal conspiracy with deadly consequences. You mentioned this is kind of an issue-oriented story. This is very much on the heels of the Sackler family and the opioid crisis in America and looking at how pain medication was made widely available to too many people. It is highly addictive and has really, you know, torn apart families and ruined a lot of people's lives around this country over the last 15, 20 years. It's of course a very important and resonant story. It's also the fifth or sixth high grade miniseries or film about this topic that

we've seen. So there's not a lot of new territory here. There's also something really interesting happening. I got to give our, they've been coming up a lot, but I here there's also something really interesting happening I gotta give our they've been coming up a lot but I gotta give our our pals Griffin and David at Blank Check a shout out because they just did an episode

about the social network as part of their Fincher series and they pointed something out that I thought was really smart which is that it's not the big short that started this trend of movies like this

it's the social network that the social network which is of course a perfect film best film of the 2010s that has that slick, enjoyable, pretty funny, but serious execution of a thing that is happening in our culture that we have to better understand. And then the ball started rolling down the hill. And you get the big short. You get this wave of McKay movies. You get movies like Dumb Money,

which we watched earlier this year. These movies that are kind of funny, kind of serious, that have an underdog that you're rooting for, but what's really going on with that underdog and what is it that they actually did that was heroic?

Was it actually just trading stocks or was it actually just selling pain medication? Is it actually just shorting big companies? And trying to wrap our heads around, it almost feels like, in retrospect,

like movies' response to the anti-hero TV wave or something. Like, how can we get a little bite out of this apple? And there are now a lot of movies that are like this, and I get why they're appealing. Because the elevator pitch for every single one of them is the social network for X. Blank, yes. Yeah.

Completely. And, of course, that movie lives on in everyone's mind as a great film. Right. And also, I think the blank check point is really smart because it has affected how we understand. That to us now means a specific type of story, like the social network and a specific way of being told. And, you know, it has metastasized in the culture and in our minds. The problem with that, obviously, is that that is the perfect fusion of writing, directing, performance, and music smashed together into a diamond. And all of those individual parts counteracting and balancing each other in a way that rarely happens.

It's just magic. So trying to replicate it is really tough. Pain Hustlers is one of the least successful in recent years. Again, I don't think it makes it bad. It is watchable. It's just, it feels like its point has already been made, thus making it pointless. There's not any real like revelation here. The fun parts are perhaps not fun enough. There's a kind of grotesquery of you know daily human greed that is just it's not entertaining we're also like in a post-succession environment with stories like this where people with enormous wealth and we realize that nobody is really happy despite how much money they have like we we know all of this stuff and so you're right the movie just becomes i think the word

you use is forgettable and i i i think it's ultimately forgettable but that's weird because you know Emily Blunt is in the middle of this is about to be in the middle of this Oscar campaign assuming there's a SAG deal soon and I think is she the most flexible movie star that we have right now certainly female movie star like she maybe except I think this movie locates one area where the flexibility doesn't extend so what is that well listen this is not her fault but emily blind a very wry uh sort of classy british lady can't play florida yeah you know she just can't play florida and that's in part because we're so familiar with her. That's because Florida, in addition to all of the other things that it's well-trodden territory, is, like, very well-trod territory in movies.

And, I mean, it's just so funny when, you know, her character has a come-up and gets access to a lot of money and is supposed to be dressing and, like, you know, gaudy. Yeah. Like, Florida realtor. Yeah. And, but Emily Blunt just looks and like, you know, gaudy. Yeah, she's on sheet. Like Florida realtor. Yeah. And, but Emily Blunt just looks like fucking amazing. I was just like, wow, you look like a million dollars.

You look like you just walked off the runway just because that's the only way she can wear the clothes. Yeah. There's like, obviously most movies, there is too much glamour

when they're recreating real events. But picture this. This movie is just Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons in the Emily Blunt and Chris Evans roles. Yeah. Isn't this like a thousand times better? Yes. So didn't Kirsten Dunst already kind of do that? That's why I bring it up. She already did a Florida girl. She did a low-rent Florida girl and she nailed it in a TV series. And Jesse, the other thing too is that Chris Evans is too handsome. Of course, he's like the big swinging dick, but he's a pharmaceutical salesman. Right.

This is not the king of the world. This is not Captain America. Kirsten Dunst is our most flexible movie star now that you're... That's interesting. I mean, you brought it up because she can do Marie Antoinette and she can do Teenager. Well, and... I'm not sure if she can do Action Hero. I think maybe that will be tested in Civil War.

The forthcoming Alex Garland movie she's in. I'm not sure if she's actually doing action heroine stuff. But Emily Blunt, I mean... She can do a lot. She can do a lot. Maybe they both need a little bit of what the other one has. Yeah. And they're about the same age.

I think this is kind of the best time to do this movie star playbook exercise because we did Driver. He's turning 40 this month. Emily Blunt turned 40 this year. You know, she's had a fascinating career. I just was kind of writing down all of the things that she has done

and she's accomplished a great deal considering we have observed the death of the movie star over the last 20 years. But she broke through in 2004 with this Pavel Pavlikovsky movie,

My Summer of Love. Terrific movie. Kind of mysterious romance thriller. And she's been to 30 films in about 15 years. She's been Mary Poppins. She's been the baker's wife in Into the Woods. She's played Queen Victoria.

She's been a damsel in distress, a femme fatale, an action hero, an acidic sidekick, a rom-com lead, a DEA agent, a final girl in a horror movie. She's gone toe-to-toe with Tom Hanks,

Tom Cruise, The Rock, Taylor Sheridan dialogue, The Wolfman, Aliens, and a Christopher Nolan part written for a woman. She has endured the gauntlet.

I think she's going to be nominated for Oppenheimer. Despite whatever predictions we may have made in our stupid episode last week, she might win. I told myself I wasn't going to do this again. So don't.

Well, I have six months worth of outrage over this. I know, but I do have six... Whatever. Let's talk about the rest of her career.

What does she do well as an actor, in your opinion? She has a... she's very funny. And she can make even, she can make absurd situations a little more real and a little more relatable. but her presence and her archness and her, I think groundedness, even as she's, even as she's doing Emily Charlton in Devil Wears Prada, which is one of my favorite performances for obvious reasons.

But she's both in on the, in on those jokes and giving everything that the performance needs at the same time. So she is, she's very actory in some ways, but also, um, can,

can take the guard down most of the time at the right moment. And maybe that's part of the problem with pain hustlers is that she's having to be having to go for it. Or honestly, maybe she's having to be too sincere in Pain Hustlers. There is a little bit of edginess to what she does. Yeah, I think whether or not she's great at pure drama is an interesting question because that's kind of how she gets her start. And it's up and down.

I think she has a knowingness in her performance style that is really, really impressive and I think you're right, like connects her to the audience in a meaningful way. She's very, I mean,

she's obviously just like very hot and appealing in that way. I mean, she's beautiful, yeah. But also, she doesn't have to use that wryness

that you're talking about to work, like in a quiet place, she's not very wry in a quiet place. No. You know, she actually like meaningfully conveys the terror in a great way.

She has an amazing scream. She has all the traditional versions of that. But she doesn't have to talk very much there. That's true. She's on the move all the time. But also communicating with her face, unspoken, because that's a very quiet film. But so I guess her physicality is another important part of it. Obviously, she's a great action star.

But, you know, sometimes when when capital A actors are doing physicality stuff, it's it converge on like pretend you're an orange. You know, I'm an orange. And there is something very natural about the way that she performs all of the very intense things she's asked to do. Yeah, and even in Sicario, which is, you know, one of the best movies she's appeared in, she's the rube.

She's the person who's being taken advantage of, who's been dropped into this situation and doesn't know exactly what's going on and needs to kind of find a way to figure out

how to survive inside of this environment and plays it beautifully and plays it against actors who are able to have a lot more fun in that movie. And Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro, even Daniel Kaluuya to some have are able to have a lot more fun in that movie and Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro

even Daniel Kaluuya to some extent gets to play like a slightly more fun part and she still the movie still sits on her shoulders really well so

on the one hand I'm like this is like one of my favorite actresses somebody I love seeing in a movie and on the other hand she's in so many fucking bad movies

it's just been a mixture of terrible luck and a couple bad choices so well i want to i want to know what your favorites of hers are okay but up until oppenheimer we were on this wacky run from 2019 to 2023 where she did mary poppins returns wild mountain time one of the most deranged movies of the 21st century a quiet place part two which was okay which i loved going back to the movies to see. But when you look at it again, it's like, it's all right.

And Jungle Cruise, which is a mess. And now Oppenheimer and Pain Hustlers. And she has the forthcoming The Fall Guy with Ryan Gosling coming next year. Wow, I can't wait for that. So that will be fun. Yeah. So here's the thing. Before that, The Girl on the Train, The Huntsman, Winter's War.

The Girl on the Train was a really tough one and i get why she did it i was thinking a lot about rosamund pike um as i was thinking about her and that's a little bit because i recently saw salt burn and rosamund pike is wonderful in it and also rosamund pike very beautiful british rye um secretly very funny. Who market corrected who here? Right, I don't know, actually. And that's why I bring it up. And the girl on the train made me think of it

because that's sort of, that's Emily Blunt's Gone Girl. You got to imagine Emily Blunt was up for Gone Girl, right? I think everybody was up for Gone Girl. Is Gone Girl better with Emily Blunt? No. In 2014, I think everybody was up for Gone Girl. Is Gone Girl better with Emily Blunt? No. In 2014, I think.

Because, no, because around there, yeah. In 2014, she made Edge of Tomorrow and Into the Woods. Well, Edge of Tomorrow is a classic. So you can't. So is Gone Girl. Right. So is Gone Girl. And I think that Emily Blunt, and maybe it's just like our collective history with her, is possibly a little too relatable for that.

Yeah. We know too much about her, maybe. And. That's John Krasinski's wife. Right. And you're just. Rosamund Pike is like, who is that? I don't, you know.

Right. She's a British lady from, was it Pride and Prejudice? Is that her like big breakthrough? Yeah. And she's very nice. And also in Education. Right. Right. Brilliant in that movie. Which, she's so good in that and and i think emily blunt like could play that one agreed um but emily blunt is

obviously a much bigger movie star right but rosamund pike is a very decorated actress right and yeah they have a lot in common i haven't thought of them together and i and some of it is just i think rosamund pike has for the most part, gotten better projects. But Emily Blunt has a lot of power to make these decisions. That's what's so fascinating. And that's really my point with your frustration about the Oppenheimer thing. It's like, nobody put a gun to Emily Blunt's head and said, you must appear in Oppenheimer. She wanted to.

I'm not mad at her. I'm just, I'm mad at the process where this is what gets an oscar you know which is like the the side part and like the drunk bitter woman who doesn't say anything except bring in the towels or sheets or whatever guys just reporting facts you know i think it's the sheets that they bring in um what are your favorite emily blunt parts i mean devil wears prada is one of the great just burst on the screen who is that scene stealing incredibly funny it was the same thing the first thing that popped into my wife Eileen's head yeah talking about her yesterday too is that you think that's true for most people because that's only her second movie

I think so but it is just one of those magic in a in a bottle oh like look it's happening in real time and I can see that person and I'm rooting for that person. And, you know, I think about every time I see a pudding cup, I think of her being like, you eat carbs! And she's like shaking and opening them. It's perfect. It's really good.

So Devil Wears Prada, I'm a huge fan of. I didn't count mine out. So Young Victoria, she's really good in. I think it's a very underrated film. She's really, really good in it. And for what this movie is, which is sort of like a pre-The Crown slice of, you know, young royalty. I mean, you know, listen, it's a costume drama.

It's directed right at me, but it's very good. I watched it on a plane in 2010. Yeah. And I was hooting and hollering yeah on the plane i thought it was really fun i didn't realize it was jean-marc valet yeah the late grape um who you know in some ways this movie kind of plays like big little lies yeah like it's a very kind of it's a much more fun version than you would expect of the costume drama so i think it's pretty good right so i'm not gonna pick this adjustment Bureau is another one where I'm like, it just didn't work. You made all the right choices and it just didn't work out.

She's got a bunch of these, man. I know. Gulliver's Travels is very similar. You know, Gulliver's Travels on paper, I'm like, oh, actually, that would be fun. We're at a place where the technology, we could make that work. We could do that story well. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, that's another one where it's like on paper you'd be like oh yeah ewan mcgregor they probably have chemistry together you know light-hearted story your sister sister which i like but is it great the five-year engagement which i like but it's like 300 hours long it's long and sour i don't i and also dakota johnson just kind of steals that movie from her the same way that Emily Blunt steals The Devil Recipes very interesting little inversion there

I know you're going to talk about Looper do you want to talk about do you want to go chronologically I think she's quite good in Looper but she doesn't show up

for like 45 minutes in the movie and has like an okay she's very good in it but her part is okay in a movie that I think is like beautifully rendered

like such a smart well executed movie that I hadn't seen in a long time until this weekend. It's a very interesting up and down. If you would have told me, after Sicario, I was like, we've never seen a female movie star like this. We've never seen someone who can do the five-year engagement, Edge of Tomorrow, Into the Woods, and Sicario in a three-year span. This has never been done. You keep saying Into the Woods. I hate the movie.

The only good part of Cat Person, the movie, was the roommates who just met in theater or whatever and just start singing Into the Woods a bunch. And it's meant to be a nightmare. And it's meant to be like a nightmare. And it was really funny. That's all. I mean, she's the lead of a hundred million dollar movie musical. I know.

Do I think it's good? Of course I don't think it's good. But I mean, it's just a really impressive collection of movies. I'm serious. Like who has been able to do that kind of balancing act in terms of the kinds of movies. I'm serious. Like, who has been able to do that kind of balancing act in terms of the kinds

of movies they took on? I'm trying to think of anyone else who has done... does not have a Sicario in her bag. No. Nor does she have musicals

because in addition to Into the Woods, we've got Mary Poppins, which didn't work out, but I actually thought she was pretty charming as Mary Poppins. She was good,

but it's bad. Yeah, it's bad, but you know. That was one of the classics likepins she was good but it's bad yeah it's bad but you know that was one of the classic like we're an hour into the movie and I was like this has got to be wrapping up soon right

and there was like an hour and 30 minutes left but she was good and she had an incredible burden to carry Julie Andrews to follow up that part which is of course the legendary part

right I just I think it hasn't gone exactly the way i had hoped wild mountain time is on the one hand i don't know how you read that script and are like yep and but then on the other hand all the other parts of it the john patrick shanley like the you know i assume that that's why she did it sure of course so i'm like again you just try it and sometimes they don't land you know know, sometimes things don't land. That's what I always come back to in these exercises. What are they supposed to do? us on Saturday morning and she noticed that there was a mug in our home and what did that mug say it said wild mountain time this is a true story I have a mug from the promotional campaign of wild mountain time that I've retained in our home and she looked at it and she was like why would you

ever have a mug of wild mountain time which is a fair point a movie I don't think works no here's the description of the opening setup for this movie. In County Mayo, Ireland, two introverted misfits in their late 30s have lived in adjacent farms their whole lives. Rosemary Muldoon is in love with Anthony Riley, but he fails to show interest. Lovely premise. Yeah. For a small drama.

Yeah. These two introverted misfits in their late 30s are played by Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan, who are two of the hottest people in the universe. Like, what in the world? And then obviously the movie goes in a wild direction. If you've never seen

Wild Mountain Time and you're looking for a laugh, final 30 minutes of this movie, deranged. Deranged. Absolutely. Insane. And in a way,

I respect Emily Blunt being like, you know what? Fuck it. Sometimes you gotta do a weird one. I kind of like that. Yeah. It doesn't, I respect Emily Blunt being like, you know what? Fuck it. Sometimes you gotta do a weird one. I kinda like that. Yeah.

It doesn't, it doesn't make up for the, like, doing Jungle Cruise, you know, which is just a blatant cash grab,

which is just like, we're doing a Disney theme park movie with The Rock. Like, that's just, that's unfortunate. So it's interesting

that she, she has talked a little bit about how superhero movies don't talk to movies don't speak to her. And so she's never done one. But she's done every other version of big ticket, let me get some money, which, you know what? Good for her if the opportunity is available to her. I never judge people for taking a big paycheck but

you you start to wonder whether actually doing a superhero movie would have been better for her because to be interesting because to be associated with something successful or at least with a fan you know acceptance then sets her up. Another person I thought a lot about was Scarlett Johansson who gets the Black Widow paychecks eventually after many lawsuits and then gets to go off and do the art movies when she wants to.

Scarlett Johansson turns 39 in November, so they are very much contemporaries. And maybe we need a ScarJo movie star playbook at some point in the near future too. But you're right that she has retained a kind of untouchable aura, ScarJo, even though ScarJo has plenty of mediocre to bad movies on her slate as well.

But she also has, frankly, more high art than Emily Blunt has. She does under the skin. You know what I mean? Emily Blunt doesn't do that. She doesn't really do arthouse movies. All of her movies open wide. Now, there are a couple here

that I have never seen Arthur Newman. That seems like one of the few small bids that she's taken. And obviously, Wild Mountain Time was in a non-COVID year, probably would have opened in a bigger way. But most of what she does here, especially in the last decade, once you get past your sister's sister, it's basically all bids for mainstream success. And who can blame her? A woman in her 30s in Hollywood, you know what happens to women in their 40s in Hollywood? They get discarded. I completely agree with the point that you're making, which is that if she, if that was what was most important, she probably needed to find one.

I'm glad she didn't. And she probably needed to find one tentpole project that could have been built around her. I guess A Quiet Place in a way filled that role. I mean, she's done a lot of different versions of it that aren't the superhero whether it's a quiet place i'm you know the huntsman winter's war those were very successful yeah but wouldn't you just rather she just slotted in like if she was just wonder woman wouldn't you be like oh that worked out better yeah i guess so though i don't i don't know if she could be godless enough to be wonder woman oh interesting are we sure we're not just reading

too much into what Gal Gadot does, which seems like she doesn't know how to read the script? Because that was not Linda Carter's portrayal of Wonder Woman in the TV show. Well, you know what? She's bringing a new interpretation. Isn't that what you want? Linda Carter, though, has kind of Emily Blunt energy. Yeah, that's true. So Wonder Woman, she's the smartest woman in the room.

That's the whole thing. Right. She's the Amazon queen. Okay. Listen, I saw the movie. You energy. Yeah, that's true. So Wonder Woman, she's the smartest woman in the room. That's the whole thing. Right. She's the Amazon queen. Okay. Listen, I saw the movie. I've, you know. Well, so. But I like what the movie yields from the sort of like daffy screwball nature of Gal Gadot's performance.

Yeah. That's interesting. I mean, I certainly wouldn't want her to go and do what ultimately happens to actors when they get sucked into the superhero machine which is then they only make those movies right for nine years you wouldn't want that to happen to Emily Blunt because if it does then maybe you don't get Oppenheimer maybe you don't get Edge of Tomorrow. Is Annette Bening in the new in the Marvels? She was in Captain Marvel right? I don't know I haven't seen it. She was in Captain Marvel right? I believe so. Captain Marvel is a film that I have attempted to uh I want like the Men in Black Neuralizer. And Jude Law is also in that? Jude Law is person? Captain Marvel is a film that I have attempted to, I want like the men in black neuralyzer.

And Jude Law is also in that? Jude Law is definitely in Captain Marvel. Annette Bening, I believe that's correct. Yes, she is. She's in the Marvels. How many more people

can you name that appeared in the film Captain Marvel? This is a fun game. So you've got Brie Larson, you've got Annette Bening, and you've got Jude Law. Who else was in that movie? I mean, three is pretty good,

isn't it? There are like 10 notable people in this movie. Sam Jackson's in it, right? He is. That's four. Okay. All right. So what happens in Captain Marvel?

So it's the 90s and she wears Doc Martens and she has a friend. Yeah, she goes to Blockbuster. Does she go to Blockbuster? I think there's Blockbuster shows up in the movie, yeah. And she has a friend who has a little girl who she needs to save, right? Sure. That's not who I'm thinking of in this list of 10 notable people. I got four.

That seems... Is Chris Evans in it? No, he's not in it. Okay. Well, I don't know. I'm just going to put this in the podcast title, just noting this for myself, that Amanda names characters from Captain Marvel episode. Should we just make that the title of the episode?

There's a cat, right? Or is that just in the Marvels? Couldn't tell you. I have not revisited Captain Marvel. Should I revisit it before we do our episode about the Marvels? That's up to you. We got to do an episode about the Marvels so that we can have Joanna on.

No, I know. And I'm reading the book. I'm not exactly looking forward to going to About the Marvels So that we can have Joanna On sell more books And I'm reading the book I'm not exactly looking forward To going to see the Marvels Nor am I You're in your non-fiction era You're reading MCU You're reading

You're reading Priscilla and me Or Elvis and me Elvis and me By Priscilla Presley Yeah Because I like to do the work Before we talk about My favorite artists

I'm gonna read MCUcu because i want to support joanna and also because it means that i'll have to spend less time talking about the marvels probably we should we should we should pitch the should emily blunt have done a marvel movie i mean emily blunt could have been captain marvel yeah well but then people didn't like that so and it seems like brie larson is pretty miserable and now just does weird Apple TV series and Nissan commercials. Man, Scar Jo just killed it. She dunked on all these people. Yeah.

It's pretty crazy. What do you want from her? I would like, well, what I want from her is Rosamund Pike type roles and careers. I think that she... You make like literally 1,100th the amount of money. Well, I think she has plenty of money now. John Krasinski is also directing and they seem to be doing well. She's doing voice work in John Krasinski's next film, If, which is coming out next year.

Okay. He's making an animated film? I believe so. All right. I believe there are elements of animation in the film. You know, I want roles like Salt Burn and an education and was it A Private War? Was that the recent? Very good movie. Yeah, and that's something that Emily Blunt could do very well.

I don't want her in the Amazon fantasy series. What's it called that my husband loves so much? He actually doesn't like the series, but he likes the books. The Wheel of Time. Here's the problem. she has done a tv series emily blunt oh the english right okay yeah yeah yeah i haven't seen it neither of you

it's just it's a western but i know i'll i'll watch it i guess no i won't it seems like six hours of dust i will watch it because it's from Hugo Blick, who made The Shadow Line and The Honorable Woman. Loved The Honorable Woman. Both of those shows were great. Why have I not watched The English? Because it was Amazon Prime. Oh, it was the end of the year last year.

And the end of the year. That's what it was. Right. Because, you know, when we get to December, and I'm like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to see everything before the year is out. That was actually the issue. I'm going to watch that.

Perhaps I should have watched it before this podcast. Apparently that was a lot of fun but didn't really get a ton of traction. I feel like maybe she got some... Did she get an... Is she going to get any Emmy love for that? Quite possibly.

We could Google it. Those nominations are out. But it's not... The ceremony's not till January now. Why do you think she hasn't been nominated for an oscar before has she really not never she was nominated for she won a sag award for a quiet place i remember that she's been nominated for sag globe and bafta i think three baftas in fact and yet no academy award now i remember when Devil Wears Prada came out, many people felt that was a big, a snub, so to speak, that she was not recognized. That whole movie was snubbed. Meryl should have won an Oscar for that. She has not made

a lot of Oscar-y movies before now. She, as we've discussed, she goes big ticket. She just doesn't go superhero big ticket. In 2006, here are the best supporting actors. Can you name any of these? 2006? Yeah, the year of the Devil Wears Prada. Right. I'm trying to think.

Very famous win in this category by a person who had never appeared in a movie before. Okay. I don't remember. That's a really good clue. That is, hold on. People are screaming into their car stereos. I'm thinking, okay. We played an amazing trivia game with Chris and Phoebe a couple of weeks ago that they picked up called the Blockbuster Movie Trivia Game.

Oh, yeah. And we are 100% doing like a round of the game on the episode of the show. On the episode of the podcast. When it's February and movies suck. You know another thing that we should do? Have you ever played Heads Up? Oh, yeah, sure. Sure. Well, my sister-in-law, Ruthie, really loves to play Heads Up,

but playing movie Heads Up and blockbuster Heads Up. Yeah. Yeah, but just the clues and it's extreme. But we have to film that then. Okay, well. Right, because you want people to be able to see. Okay, I just wanted to say it was really fun and pretty deranged. And the shorthand also that you and I could have would be...

We would crush. Would absolutely be psycho, though. Should we make a big picture heads-up league where we travel around the country and we challenge people to play heads-up? That would be amazing. Hold on. Okay, so 2006. I'm trying to think of other movies. So Little Miss Sunshine

Was that year I'm just remembering All the movies that I saw There was a nominee From Little Miss Sunshine Did not win Abigail Breslin Correct

Okay Had never won an Oscar before Had never appeared In a film before Had never appeared In a film before You want another clue? Is this the year

Of Dreamgirls? It is Is it Jennifer Hudson? That's correct There we go Well done I got there Very good you want another clue is this the year of dream girls it is is it Jennifer Hudson that's correct there we go well done I got there

very good so that year the nominees in best supporting actress were Rinko Kikuchi and Babel a movie that people are just watching

every day that they just love Babel is like before Barbenheimer there was Babel sure we can all agree also from Babel

Adriana Baradza two nominees from Babel listen that's when. We can all agree. Also from Babel, Adriana Baradza. Oh, okay. Two nominees from Babel. Listen. That's when people were Iñárritu-pilled. When they were like, Iñárritu is the next Spielberg. That was truly insane.

And she's really not. So there's a Cate Blanchett nomination this year. Do you know what movie it's from? This is a tricky one. This is the last of the five. Notes on a Scandal? That's exactly correct.

Yeah. Well done. Thank you so much. Very good. I didn't Google. Bobby was watching the computer. He can confirm I didn't Google. You impressed me.

Thank you. That was really good. Thanks so much. And so, of course, we get no Emily Blunt for Devil Wears Prada because we had to recognize Babel. That's really stupid. How many nominations did Babel get this year? This is an interesting question. Babel had the second most nominations with seven.

You know what had the first most nominations? Little Miss Sunshine? No. 2006. Okay. This is shocking to me. I don't remember. I'm trying to remember what won in 2006.

The Departed. But that's not the one. That did not have the most nominations. I don remember dream girls oh interesting okay very few wins for dream girls but eight nominations babble was seven departed one that year emily blunt empty-handed empty-handed i mean she did make she took parts i'll give you some parts that could have been oscar projects over the years. Dan in Real Life. The Steve Carell dramedy that was made a bid to be a kind of James L. Brooks style movie.

Right. You know, a sweet, funny, sad movie about a man. It didn't work. Sunshine Cleaning. A big Sundance hit opposite Amy Adams. About two young gals cleaning hotel rooms. Yeah. Trying to make a better life for themselves.

Didn't hit. The Young Victoria, we already mentioned. Did that get any Golden Globe nominations? I don't recall. That seems very Globes-y. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Yep, that did get a Globes nomination. That I remember.

Your Sister's Sister. No love. The five-year engagement, not really an awards play, but again, the closest we would get to a James L. Brooks kind of movie, you know, because there is, as you said, a kind of sourness in it. Into the Woods. Sicario. Yeah. The Girl on the Train. Not unreasonable to think a movie like that would get some Oscar love.

Until you saw it. Agree 100%. Mary Poppins Returns. Yeah. She got a Golden Globe nomination for that, right? Oh, yes. And richly deserved. You know what?

She was not the problem. Yeah. And now Oppenheimer, of course. Right. Okay. So she's had her bites at the apple. The reason that I get so upset, I don't think it's a great part in Oppenheimer, but it's not the type of performance

that I like from Emily Blunt. It is just like angry drunk lady in a corner. She doesn't get to do any, you know, there's no sparkle, there's no life to it. It's just, it's a bummer. And I'm not saying that she's bad in it. It's just that the performance requires. Is there an actress in Hollywood who you think would have better portrayed a bitter, drunk lady in the corner? No, I just, it's like, why is bitter, drunk lady in the corner like a frontrunner for Oscars? It's not about what it could have been. It's about what it is. You got to accept this. This is life. That's who Kitty Oppenheimer was.

Okay. I think. As far as I could tell, I read that book. That sounded like how she was. She was like, I don't want to take care of these kids. I'm giving these kids away. I don't know. That's fine. I just, you know. Why are we celebrating that? I'm not entirely sure. Still a lot of men in the Academy, you know? I guess so. Is there an, okay, this is actually a good prompt. Okay. Is there a recent Academy Award nominated or winning performance that you think Emily Blunt could have done a better job in? Oh, interesting. You almost want to just look right at Best Actress over the last 10 years.

Okay, I'm pulling it up. Best Actress, Oscar. Okay. Because if you think about it, you know, she has that thing that I think Katharine Hepburn had, that I think Barbara Stanwyck had, that a lot of actresses in the new Hollywood had, Faye Dunaway, that she can do icy, she can do funny, she can do tough. She can do a lot of different kinds of parts.

But what kinds of parts are recognized by the Academy? I mean, you want to go through the winners in the last few years? Yeah. It's winners only? No. Could be any part. She could have been good in La La Land. It would have been different.

Interesting. But she could do that, you know? Well, that's the thing is Emma Stone is just dominating all of these people that we're talking about. Right. Yeah, that's true. Let's see. That's pretty unlikely to me that Emma Stone would turn out to be the victor over Emily Blunt and Scarlett Johansson. Another, speaking of Emma Stone, I don't think that Emily Blunt could have played the

Olivia Colman part in The Favorite, but she could have been very good at the Emma Stone part or maybe even the Rachel Weisz part. But I want Rachel Weisz forever. I don't think that Rachel Weisz has done anything wrong in The Favorite. She is perfect

for that part. However, the movie works just as well in my opinion if it's Emily Blunt. Let's see. I mean,

I guess she could have done Judy. I don't know. What a car crash. I can't believe Judy won. I'll never get over that. The Renee Zellweger thing. One of the dumbest

things I've ever seen. This was, you know, admittedly not the greatest year of all time for female lead performance. But Jesus, I mean, ScarJo or Saoirse Ronan, I would have taken a heartbeat. Oh, this is interesting. So, Carey Mulligan didn't win Promising Young Woman. But there's another one. Aha. Where.

Maybe a little too old. A little too old. How old is Carey Mulligan? She's, I want to say she's mid-30s old. How old is Carey Mulligan? I want to say she's mid-30s. Carey Mulligan is 38. Wow, is she really? That makes me feel good.

All of these women are all in the same stretch. That makes you feel good? Yeah. Why? I don't know, because she's out there and on the cover of Vogue just doing stuff. I'm just like, you know, a 30-year-old can still matter. 38-year-old lady draft. We got Scar Jo. We got Carey Mulligan.

We got Emily Blunt. We got Kiki, you know. Yeah. We got so many women thriving. Right. It's very powerful. Just before they are completely rejected by this hateful industry. Thank you so much.

Yeah, thanks. You have to stop it. You have to write them great parts that have to be made. Okay. But they all have to take place inside the MCU.

Once again, Amanda's original idea for the Marvels is still available. What is your original idea? When they're a girl group like the Supremes. That's a great idea.

I know. I always forget. It's really good. It's always a really good idea. That's what I thought it was. They can still have the cat if they need it. Any other parts

that Emily Blunt needed? Let's see. What if she played Jacqueline Kennedy? Sure. Here's the thing though. She is like a known British person

and we have to stop doing the thing where we cast like very british people or what about go the other way because because kristen stewart right played diana i did look at that and i thought about that but i think that she's a little old now which is emily blunt is a little yeah to go Diana because Diana died I want to say at like 36 or 37 years old so but our image of her is a 20 something

person how old is Kristen Stewart 29 what she's 33 okay these movies are pretty bad huh just like you look down

the list of all the nominations this category is a disaster yeah it's a disaster horrible movies on here you know there's a there's a trope that like I think the fewest number of correlations in all

of the Oscar categories are between actress and best picture because usually it's movies that people quote unquote don't respect but they have to nominate women. Right. This year, that will not be the case. Or the flip side where it's they only respect the movies about the men. Yes, exactly. That's a better way of putting it. And also,

people also, a good movie and the money goes towards the movies that the men. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And also, and like people also, a good movie and the money goes towards the movies that are about dudes. Yeah. I think she could have played almost any of these parts except for the parts

that Viola Davis and Olivia Colman played. Like over the last five years. Yeah. I mean, she could have been Michelle Williams in The Fablemans. She could have been

Andrea Risborough into Leslie. She could have been Anna de Armas in Blonde. She could have been Cate Blanchett in Tar. Now, that's interesting. I did think about that.

Maybe not old enough. Not quite old enough, but she could channel a bit of the severity. She would not have been as good. No. That's a world-class A-plus performance in Tar. But still, she obviously could not have been Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once. But Kristen Stewart and Spencer. Nicole Kidman being the Ricardo

is your favorite movie that you've been referencing quite a bit lately Penelope Cruz in Parallel Mothers don't think she could have pulled that off no I don't either

Olivia Colman in The Lost Daughter I thought about it for a second oh actually you know what she probably could have she could yeah

because she didn't have to be that character didn't have to be a defined age she needed to have a son but that's it. Right. Interesting. And Chastain in Eyes of Temmie Faye, I mean, she definitely could have done that.

Yeah. Shout out to Chastain, though. Still killing it. Yeah, Carey Mulligan, Vanessa Kirby in Pieces of a Woman. I mean, she could have been in all these parts. Yeah. Definitely not Andra Day in the United States versus Billie Holiday. Do you remember that that was a film?

I do. I believe I watched it on Hulu. It was on Hulu. What a time to be watching movies. What's going on with Lee Daniels? He has a film coming out. What's he cooking right now? Does he have a film coming out?

I believe he does, yeah. It's called The Deliverance. It's a supernatural horror thriller. Okay. You know who it stars? Andra Day. Okay, well. As well as Monique.

Oh. She famously got an Oscar nomination for her work in a lee daniels film there we go precious which is based on sapphire the story the novel by sapphire could emily blunt have been scar joe in marriage story well here's the thing scarlett johansson is my favorite right right? Like, I think that she's great. You have a little bit of, you have ScarJo blindness. I do. Sometimes I'm like, is she a good actress? Right. But I think she is very good. She's also in some of my favorite films of all time, so.

And she's really good at picking parts where her kind of blankness raises the stakes in a weird way. Like in Ghost World and Lost in Translation. Yes. In this movie, that kind of like flat affect. Yeah. I mean, even in the Woody Allen movies, you know, like she,

that like, she has like a knack for figuring out how her weird personality will work in a movie by great filmmakers. That's, that's totally true. As Bill explained this best to me, where it's like, I'm a, I'm a kiki girl in a ScarJo world. And that's why's totally true as bill explained this best to me where it's like i'm a i'm a

kiki girl in a scarjo world and that's why marie antoinette is my favorite of the sofia movies over lost in translation just because it's there is that there is the pointiness as opposed to the blankness of yeah scarjo i've always liked scarjo that's great she's very talented yeah it worked out for her she's incredibly rich she has a skincare line, you know. Is that true? Yeah. I get Instagram ads for it, but I've never tried it. Okay, here's an important one. Could Emily Blunt be Allie Mayne in A Star is Born? No, but I thought you were going to say, could Emily Blunt be Glenn Close in The Wife?

And the answer is yes! Not in the present day. Isn't Glenn Close like 70 years old i guess so but you know just in terms of could she play the woman behind the scenes doing all the work in fact she has in a film called oppenheimer she brought in the sheets yeah could she have played tanya harding and i tanya oh again america that's an American role. Margot Robbie's not American. I know, but listen, she also played Barbie.

You know what I mean? And there's something about- So you're saying Australians are more American than Brits are American? No, I'm saying that my interactions in cinema with Margot Robbie have been her playing Americans pretty exclusively. Interesting. Margot Robbie have been her playing Americans pretty exclusively. And I, meanwhile, have an awareness of Emily Blunt as a British person in cinema, basically informed by Devil Wears Prada. But that like so crystallizes her in my mind that when she's suddenly trying to be Florida girl or like skater Tanya Harding skater girl it doesn't quite work I don't

think that's what skater girl means no it doesn't I don't think they call ice skater girls um could she have been Joy Newsome in room Brie Larson's role. Probably. I don't know. You can barely see her in the film. Yeah, I barely remember. I mean, I remember it. Mm-hmm. I guess she's not as vulnerable. And I mean that in, I don't mean that

in like a negative way. No. Brie Larson's very good in that film. There's something very fierce about. The final 30 minutes is very...

Right, but there's something very flinty about Emily Blunt that I really like. Could she have played Philomena Lee, played by Judi Dench in Philomena? Jesus, no. Could she have played Joy in Joy instead of Jennifer Lawrence? She would have been more appropriate for that part. Yeah, that's true. She definitely would have been... Well, how old of Jennifer Lawrence. She would have been more appropriate for that part. Yeah, that's true.

She definitely would have been. Well, how old is Jennifer Lawrence? That's a great question. 33 to 35. She's 33. Yeah. So that's seven years I think actually is really

the difference in the joy part. But joy, is it Joy Mangano? Is that her name? Joy Mangano, you know, the essence of Long Island.

Yeah. Good hangers. Can Emily Blunt Island. Yeah. Good hangers. Can Emily Blunt pull that off? Good hangers. Interesting. That's still a going concern? The joy business? I had the hangers a few years ago, and I believe she also has a steamer.

I see. Okay. Great. I don't know. I redid my clots recently. I mean, I just reorganized them. I didn't, like, redo them, you know? Thanks for the update.

I got new hangers. It was pretty life-changing. No, I don't know if she can fully do Long Island, but then could Jennifer Lawrence? It's hard to tell

because that movie is such a mess. What do you, what, what, okay, so she's got another action movie coming out next summer with Gosling.

A plus. I'm excited. Even though it's David Leitch? I don't know. I want David Leitch to be so great. He was on the show. We talked about Atomic Blonde.

I loved Atomic Blonde. Yeah. He obviously is the co-director of the first John Wick movie. He is really, really great at action. Really great. I thought Bullet Train stunk. It wasn't very good. But I wasn't, like, mad at it.

No, it's not. It didn't seem pointless. It was just kind of like the, again, it was the ingredients are here and it's okay. But like, it had so many,

it's one of the greatest on paper movies of all time. It's Brad Pitt, Aaron Taylor Johnson, and Brian Tyree Henry as brothers. And it all takes place on a train.

And it's assassins on a train. No, I get it. I mean, that's like a put it in my neck kind of a movie. Right. And I did not put it in her neck. No, I kicked it to the curb. Yeah. I reject my body, rejected it.

I went to a party where Brad Pitt was supposed to be last week. Allegedly, he was there, but I missed it. What? Yeah. I went to the launch of his bespoke cashmere line. Oh, okay. This wasn't like a house party. No.

No, it was like an event. That's not... I don't care about that. I could go to events like that all the time. I want to go to a house party where Brad Pitt is just vaping. Do you? I would be. Fuck yeah.

That's another one where I don't know whether I would want to meet him. I'm in this tricky spot here where I'm now starting to get invited to things by people who are lovely people who work in the industry. Yeah. But I'm like, how? I'm just going to run into somebody who's like, you shit on my movie, and I'm going to get punched. Oh, that's your concern? It's an infinity issue. You think you're going to get punched?

I mean, maybe. Are people punching people? I think I'm pretty punchable. I don't think that you are. Thank you. But are people really punching people at parties in Hollywood now? Yeah. Still? Absolutely. Okay. Well,

that would be interesting. They're like, you're the new Jean Shallot, and I'm going to throat punch you straight to hell. Well, then I guess you can't go to parties. All of my interactions are always lovely, and for the most part, people just bite their lip if they think I've said something annoying,

which I'm sure I have. But I don't know. We're in a danger zone. Yeah. I mean, you really shouldn't meet people just in general. Not you. Me personally. One should not meet people is kind of where I am with it.

Post-40, it's tough. Yeah. Because post-40, it's like, are we going to be friends? I'm into it if we are going to be friends. But if we're not going to be friends, what is the purpose of this? Is that how you're starting every interaction? Are we going to be friends? I don't actually say that. Should I start saying that anytime I meet someone for the first time? Should I say that to every filmmaker who comes down? Yeah. You know, a really funny thing was when Alex asked if you

ask everyone on the playground, what's the last great thing you've seen? You should start doing that as a bit. I genuinely laughed at that. It's really funny. Maybe I will. I was on the playground yesterday. I think the fall guy will be fun. I don't know if it'll be great. I didn't realize Stephanie Shue

and Aaron Taylor Johnson also in this movie. Lovely. That seems great. What do you want her to do? Who's the director you really want Emily Blunt to work with?

I mean, David Fincher? 100%. Yeah. If the girl on the train were directed by david fincher right i mean that's the that's the gone girl thing that's if the fall guy were directed by david yeah when can we how do we get david fincher at a netflix jail maybe it's not jail to him it's the golden prison of his own design maybe it's really convenient to his house what i want is for him to abuse the shit out of a Hollywood executive at like Columbia

and be like, I need two more days and 12 million more dollars. Maybe that seems like a real pain in the ass. I mean, of course it does. You know? But you know what it got us? Great works of cinema. But you know what? I also think his Netflix movies are great.

It is great. So, and he's living a nice life. Okay. I saw him at All Time once. So he's just, he's chilling, you know? That seems great. If you can just like make movies near your house with unlimited budget and then go to All Time.

That's how I would love to live. Starring in a new film from David Fincher, Emily Blunt and who? Hmm. Do you have, do you have an idea? Hmm. Do you have an idea? Yeah. It's about two FBI agents who are on the run because there's a conspiracy inside the FBI. And it's her and it's John David Washington.

Oh, that's fun. Yeah, because he also deserves the venture treatment. Yes. Somebody who knows how to cut together his performance. Yeah. That's great. It's called The Bureau Adjustment 2 okay speaking well speaking of tenant she's older but i think she would also be great with robert pattinson i agree maybe yeah oh interesting no

no i don't trust christopher nolan with her ever again. I feel like she also needs she needs to do a movie with a great master. Okay. And you think David Fincher doesn't qualify for that? Like an older

like a Francis Ford Coppola. Yeah. Okay. Or Sophia. I thought about Sophia. What happened? She's got too expressive? Sophia got too expressive?

No. Or Emily Blunt. Too expressive. Yeah. I think Emily Blunt's too expressive. I don't Emily Blunt too expressive? Yeah, I think Emily Blunt is too expressive. I don't know if she can like go full.

I don't think if she can turn I don't know if she can turn it off like Kiki can turn it off. See, I'm going to save this discussion point for our Priscilla episode, but I have I really want

to interrogate your emotional connection to the leads of Sofia Coppola films. I feel that they are antithetical to the Amanda Dobbins brand. They mostly are, with the exception of the Kikis. Even still. Kiki and the Beguiled, that's not you.

Well, we've talked about the Beguiled. You know, sometimes you gotta try. Sometimes you gotta, I mean, they're all good, but sometimes you got to try things. And sometimes it doesn't work out. Do you think Emily Blunt's going to win? Well, neither has picked her. I still have not seen the holdovers. Really?

You see it's a bang up limited release box office. Yeah, yeah. Listen, everyone's losing their mind. I'm going to go see it. And I really liked if I joined Randolph. I think you dumping on the holdovers would be a big mistake. Just one of my takes. You're Team Pain.

Are you not? I am Team Pain. Listen, I just haven't seen it yet. Okay. You know, I'll see it. I know, but you came in, you got Adam Naiman pilled. It was distant Cat Stevens. I did not get Adam Naiman pilled.

That was a pure Amanda reaction to everything about it. I'm not saying it's the greatest movie in the world, but I liked it. I'm sure that it is a very charming movie and I'll probably like it. Okay. Or I'll be like, okay, cool. And then sometimes it's not that I dislike something. It's just I want to spend my time elsewhere, you know? In theory, November could rock.

I love the positivity that you're bringing today. Was it just a good weekend? Was it the horror festival? Was it the Jets win? The Jets win. Three-game winning streak, Amanda. We did it. Let's go.

We're paving the road to the playoffs for the first time in 10 years. There's a really chilling part of every Sunday, which is when I noticed that you are tweeting about the Jets again. And for me, it's always in a vacuum because I don't know how the Jets are doing. It's my only vice. No, it's not. It is. It's my only vice.

You have many more vices. What are my vices? I don't abuse alcohol. I don't smoke. Physical media? That's not a vice. That's a collector's dream. Okay. But that's also... I'm living my truth.

You're just spending a lot of money on plastic. Yeah, I feel good about that. Yeah. There's nothing... That's not hurting anyone. Candy is a vice. I've scaled it back. Well, that's not true.

I watched you devour a movie theater-sized version of Reese's Pieces before Killer. That's true. Well, I always eat all the candy before the movie. Not once did you offer me a Reese's Pieces, by the way. I was going to accept it. And you just didn't. And there was just something. I didn't want to share any with you.

No, I know you didn't. It was your birthday all over again. And that's fine. What's up, Bob? The way that vices work is not like you get a vice pointed out to you and then you just be like, no, I don't really do that anymore. Once a vice, always a vice. I think that's how that works. I don't really do that anymore. Once a vice, always a vice. I don't smoke crack anymore except

on Thursdays. What are you talking about? I have a relative... My vices are modest. Why were we talking about them again? Competition. Competition is your vice. Yeah. Life is a competition. Oh, the Jets. Yeah. You're probably right, Bobby.

That is probably my vice. I need to just, I need to disentangle myself from a sports media adjacent circumstances. I think that that feeds bad habits. Okay. Like tweeting about the Jets. The Jets are just insane. It's making me crazy. Yeah. Truly crazy.

It's been 15 years of just sad insanity. It's really a shame. Why can't any of the New York sports teams figure it out? It's been a really bad year for them. I know. Exceptionally bad. Knicks are 1-2. Might be a little bit of a rocky regression season.

Let me just say right now, I can't with the NBA until 2024. It's just... I mean, you don't have to worry about it too much. You got the Eagles in your house, so you're going to be fine. I know, but it's already just nipping at my heels. Is James Harden on the bus or not? And you know, just like NBC Philadelphia being turned on at 4 p.m. Wait till Joel Embiid gets traded to the Knicks next summer. Is that happening? I think it was a decent chance. And then you're going to be crazy? And then? I'm going to be excited. I mean, I would love to root for Joel Embiid. I'm a little worried

about getting him on the second, on the downside of his career. But he's an incredible player, reigning MVP of the National Basketball Association. I'm a huge fan of Joel Embiid. He's sick. He's hilarious. He's awesome at basketball. He also would be the king of New York. He would own New York.

With his Ben Simmons trade tweet? Elite. Elite. That was when. No one is good at being on the Internet. And simmons trade tweet yeah it was elite elite that was when no one is good at being on the internet and he's so good at it i just also i'll always remember it because that was like the day nox was born and so i was just in the hospital with like nox on one side just laughing it was born the day that ben simmons was traded yeah it was a very very amazing emotional time and cr to some extent but it was also because you know how there's like a lot of dead time in the hospital even like so zach was just like on it you know what i'm saying he was like dialed in and then the trade happened and then the tweet happened and zach has like three screens up like explaining it all to me and to his newborn son i I'm trying to imagine a world in which I was allowed to talk about the NBA

while I was being born. I mean, no, it was after. I would not have had that. It was after. Remember, because I stayed at the hospital a little longer. That's right. So that's, we were, no, no, no. If you're on day two or three, you're running out of stuff to talk about.

Well, while I was in labor, I think it was also during the Olympics, and I think we tried like watching some like ski tobogganing for a minute. And I was like, we're going to have to turn this off. Should have watched the night house. November. Let me just lay it out for you really quickly. Okay. We start the month with Priscilla, the new film from Sofia Coppola.

The following week. So have you guys thought about like. I was doing a thing. When you present me with the Sofia Coppola coffee cup, like have you thought about whether you're going to be filming that? Only the world could see my face. Absolute derision directed at you. I'm not buying you shit, especially not a $900 coffee cup.

It was not $900. $275. Yes, $275. I wouldn't spend $11 on a coffee cup unless it said like Michael Clayton is your lawyer or something like that. Those are the only kinds of coffee cups I want. I'm buying it and I'm expensing it and I'm

telling my manager that you approved it live on the show. Yeah. That will be rejected. I'll holler at Bickham and be like, absolutely not. Reject this for Bob. That's a personal expense. Okay. Priscilla. Yeah. or Bickram be like absolutely not reject this for Bob that's a personal expense um okay Priscilla yeah

The Killer the following week the following week after that Holdovers Goes Wide Napoleon sick Salt Burn

I had a great time May December can't wait to see it it's gonna be and then and then Beyonce the Beyonce movie can't wait could be could. It's going to be... And then the Beyonce movie. Can't wait.

Could be. Could be a good time. This is always the way. October, there's like one big weekend. NIAID. Oh my gosh. The Hunger Games, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Rustin.

Next Goal Wins. Oh my God. No? Oh my God. Wow. Does Chris still have Next Goal Win! Oh my god. No? Oh my god. Wow. Does Chris still have Next Goal win in his movie auction? Or did he surrender rights to it? I think he drafted it in 1974.

So the movie's been gestating for a while, but it's coming out. Okay. Amanda, this was fun. Thank you. Did we figure, did we solve Emily Blunt's problems? Yeah, totally. Do you think she listened to this whole episode? Yeah, and we also

solved movies problems and certainly streaming services and distribution. And it's all going to work out great. This podcast is free. You can just get on

one of your services, just fire it up, listen, and this is what we do. We save the careers of fledgling movie stars and streaming services hollywood they should throw us a party you're welcome you're welcome thank you to bobby wagner for his work on

this episode happy halloween to all the listeners out there yeah what are you going as for halloween this year a handler of a small child yeah frazzled mother a frazzled mother uh bobby what are you going have you did you dress up this weekend i did yeah when is uh vincent vega oh shit wig you know had a little bolo tie action that's cute pulp fiction huh 30 years of pulp fiction coming will you do rewatchables and then retire no i don't i mean i i couldn't say what i want to do is i want to do a three-part episode on this show about the history of pulp fiction with like all listeners out there don't steal my idea like okay with quentin i don't know yeah but with something about not just what the movie is which of course is one of my favorite movies of all time right we

screened at my 40th birthday party i wasn't there uh. I know you had COVID. Yeah, I had COVID. Yeah. I FaceTimed in. That's incredible. But I think the movie that changed movies for about five or 10 years. Absolutely. And so that's what's interesting to me

is like what happened to people trying to replicate that phenomenon. Thinking about it. Okay. Maybe next, after the quote unquote Cannes premiere anniversary would be my time.

Oh, that's fun. Yeah. Next summer? Okay. Pulp Fiction fucking rocks. Great job, Bob. I did it. I made Pulp Fiction. What are we doing?

Oh, speaking of Fincher, later this week we have the David Fincher movie and other things draft. how wide is other things? Now, cr and i have been brainstorming on this is this is this just on saturday night no it's because we went to go see the killer together

oh right okay so you guys have really had a week we have it's nice love chris i chris i'm a huge fan isn't he the greatest i love that guy um we we have a couple of ideas. Do you want to share them with me at any point before the draft? I'll think about it. Thanks. One category at least will be music video or commercial. Oh, yeah, of course. Right? Yeah.

But then there's going to be one more at least that I think is going to be challenging and will require some brainstorming. Okay. I'll share it with you shortly after this recording. Okay. Thanks to the listeners of this show for tuning in. Please tune into the David Fincher draft. Yes. Coming later this week. We'll see that. Thank you. Oh, I was going to think

Generation Alpha. Well, the good news is they definitely finished this episode because their attention spans are long and they love movies. See you Friday. Thank you.