The Big Picture - Five Ways We’ll Watch Movies in the Future and ‘The Idea of You’

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

Sean and Amanda share some exciting announcements about the show (1:00), then dig into their experience at four different premium large-format movie theater experiences over the last few weeks (4:00). They later discuss the weekend’s biggest streaming film, the Anne Hathaway vehicle ‘The Idea of You’ (1:00:00). Does the movie work, should it have been in theaters, and what does this signal for Hathaway—one of their favorite stars in Hollywood. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wake up, babe. Bandsplain is back. That's right. Your favorite extremely long music podcast has returned. And this season, we're talking grunge. As usual, there's goss, there's tea, there's an excessive amount of facts and info. And you know what? There's nine hours on a band that rhymes with schmurlschmam, plus much, much more. Listen to new episodes of Bandsplain with me, Yossi Salek, every Thursday. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings.

Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Davids. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the future of how we'll watch movies. We have a very interesting episode coming your way today. However, we have two critical announcements about the future of The Big Picture.

The first, we are hosting our first ever Ringer residency this summer in Los Angeles with a series of events at the El Rey Theater. And we're joining the fun for a live recording of The Big Picture. Are you excited about this, Amanda? I am really excited about this. So mark your calendars because me, Amanda, Chris Ryan, our special guest, will be doing a live show Tuesday, July 9th. When the three of us come together, what do we usually do?

We say respectful things to each other in a calm and civilized manner that honors our democracy. Yes, and sometimes we talk and even draft movies. Maybe we'll be drafting a movie at this live event. I'm very excited for it. Tickets go on sale next Tuesday, May 14th at 10 a.m. Pacific time. You'll be able to find all the details at ringer.com slash events early next week. For now, just consider this your advanced notice for the live episode of The Big Picture that is taping at the El Rey. You'll be wearing what? You'll be wearing a giant teacup? What will you be wearing?

I haven't decided yet. But I do hope that someone will present me with a cheesecake on stage. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Well, you know, maybe I shouldn't have stepped on it. Maybe I should have let you do it.

If you want to do that for like Mother's Day or something before the live event for the element of surprise, just seating that for you as well. I have so many mothers to consider. Gen Z mommy, the mother in my household. Here's my real question. Is that what do I have to do to get tickets to the other live shows as a part of the residency?

I think you just have to go to ringer.com slash events. There's no guest list. There's some very exciting shows that we'll be putting on events and I can't promise you we'll be saving you any because the people want them. No, I know, but I want them too. I mean, this will be fun also because we'll get to see other Ringer people. Speaking of seeing Rer people, we have another important announcement.

God, the segues. It's Monday morning and we're here. I feel great. Three and a half cups of coffee this early Monday morning, and we have great news. People have been begging, begging for years. When will I see Amanda live on video? Oh, God. And the truth is that- live is promising too much well i'll be going live i'll be going live every day um the news is that you know we've been indicating that we've been filming episodes we've been filming episodes of the rewatchables for months and months now and we are in fact years yes we're launching um a youtube channel ringer movies youtube.com slash at Ringer Movies.

You can subscribe right now. Kind of a soft launch this week. Okay. So this week, you'll find some of our previous content. Maybe you'll find 35 under 35 movie stars there. We're getting used to it. Yeah, you'll find the 1999 movie draft. We're figuring it out.

We've got a great team here executing every day. They're very kind and patient as we are more on. They're super mad at us but they're being cruel about it. what do I do if I have to sneeze? So that's where we are but they're putting up with us. They said just aim in Sean's direction.

This channel is officially launching with a very exciting live execution on May 13th. I encourage people to head on over on May 13th. More about that in the future. And then we'll have just a full robust slate of, I think, every episode of The Big Picture we're just going to publish video of. How do you feel about that? You know, like life moves forward

and you get on the train and you say hello to the children. I got a truckload of Ozempic the other day and I'm getting plastic surgery next week you and drake i'm excited i don't know it's too too soon for that van and i were we were discussing whether or not we should be going live on spaces or something last night to discuss that well it's gonna come up in terms of some of my movie watching oh interesting well because i watched one movie at a certain time that's an incredible tease okay so before we get into the episode proper, go to youtube.com slash at ringer movie. Subscribe now. A lot of good stuff coming there. Should I do it right now? Sure, go ahead. Subscribe. YouTube.com. Let's see if I'm signed in. You're a huge YouTube head. I actually, I do pay for premium. Oh, hi, Bill. Okay. All right. So Bill, Recapping Delta is available. Here we go. Click.

Subscribed. That was so exciting. We should have had it in. It did a nice little animation when I subscribed. That was the shittiest version of Tom Cruise and Chris McQuarrie turning off the motion smoothing example I've ever seen. I've got a whole other line of thought here prepared after these two announcements. I know. This is an unusually long monologue for you. Yes. I've created a monologue because I want to explain the premise of our episode today. Yeah. And it's unusual what we're doing, but it was a lot of fun. All right, this is really like CinemaCon Sean.

Yes. Is logging on right now. I was observing executives communicate about movie technologies. Did you prepare a deck for us? Yes. Here, because we have a screen behind us. Yeah, there's a 350 slide PowerPoint coming your way.

Do you know how to make a deck? I have done it. You do it, but okay. I don't do it anymore. I'm fortunate that I have reached the stage of my career in which I am no longer constructing PowerPoints. If I have to go back, so be it. It means I've made a huge error. But that's a skill that you have.

I do. I don't have that skill. I do. Well, I have. I could dictate. I have so many. I just have to look at so many PowerPoints every week. Literally.

It's just sincerely a huge part of my job. Yeah. Those are choices that you've made. They are. This episode will not feature any PowerPoints. It will feature a different P. The PLF. The Premium Large Format Screen.

That's the phrase I kept hearing at CinemaCon over and over again when I was there. I'm begging you to not say it that much on this podcast because people will just... Like, my brain turns off. Like, my brain, as soon as you went into jargon, I stopped listening to you. I'll try to de-jargonize in this episode as much as possible, but I think it's important when you hear. It's not important. It's all the different ways you can watch a movie now. Okay. That's fair. There you go. PLF's one of the ways that these large format screens, obviously there's the traditional movie theater screen, which most people have access to around the country, though fewer and fewer as time goes by. But PLFs are

important because they are bigger and different ways to experience them. And they're also pricier. You know, they cost more money to go see a movie in PLF. And that's very beneficial for the box office. We'll talk about the box office very briefly at the top of this episode, too. So we wanted to dig into all these new ways to see movies. Some of them have actually been around for a while, but I personally have never really explored them other than imax imax i think is the the signature plf format but i've never gone out of my way to see movies like this just because usually just a movie is enough for me but we're finding that maybe for movie going audiences it's not just enough this is the hope or at least what movie theaters and the movie industry think is like

the the hope the savior of of movie going is that in the same way we talk about you got to eventize a movie that's got to feel like you're going to the amusement park um they're like quite literally in one case at least like putting amusement park right park rides in the theater quite literally um and to some extent it's been successful thus far. Whether or not it's a short-term band-aid on a bullet hole is unclear. I don't really know. But across the last 10 days, we've seen five movies in five different formats, three of which were PLF, two of which were at-home alternatives. And the at-home alternatives, obviously, are what's threatening the movie- business something that like I think about certainly more than I should I don't know if

I think I've actually eased up a little bit on my angst you let go I've let go a little bit yeah because I just I think I know I see where we are now you've accepted reality I think so yeah this weekend is a good example actually as a tough yeah the fall guy opened this weekend we talked about the film last Friday on the show. We talked about box office potential. $35 million was the projection. Right. You said, yeah, I could see it.

That'd be great. $28.5 million. Yeah. And then a lot of people just bored on a Sunday in between diss tracks, losing their minds over this and theorizing. And it became sort of the film Twitter talking point. It was a flashpoint. Yeah. And I don't, I understand why, obviously.

I've been a person who has whinged extravagantly about this. People get bored on a Sunday. They do. They do. And this obviously was sort of notable in part because this is usually one of the biggest weekends of the year at the box office. You usually get a lot of Marvel movies. It's the kickoff of the summer, all these different things.

And the film underperformed Expectations, it still did pretty well, I would say, for a quote-unquote original action comedy romance. It's basically in line globally with movies like The Lost City that we talked about, Bullet Train, David Leitch's last movie. So I don't think it's going to be a disaster, but it's lower than you'd want your May 3rd movie to be. How do you feel about that? Plumbed, but not surprised and sort of resigned to this being where it is. I did six movies in 10 days because I went to see this movie

like a grown-up with my husband yesterday. Oh, you did? Yeah. I put this in the notes. You got to read my comments. Zach wanted to go see it and had not.

And so, like, on a Sunday afternoon, we went to the theater, just a normal theater, my beloved landmark Pasadena, and saw the movies, like saw the movie and both had a delightful time. And I think what I've learned is that when a movie is squarely pitched to me and my husband, like it's over, you know, like that's, that's just like making movies for me to have a good time on a Sunday afternoon is a surefire way to lose money. And I've known that for a long time. And in many ways, this podcast is an exercise in me, like working through that.

Um, but, but yeah, I get it, you know, and there were seven other people in the theater, including two individuals who I think qualified for the senior ticket price. Okay. And they just, like, they left with three minutes, like, to go in the movie because they didn't understand. They missed, like, you know, when it says the screen, like, the end, and then there is, like, another joke or two. They didn't understand that it kept going, and so they just went away, which I think, you know, is indicative of the type of people that are just going, wandering in to see the Fall Guy, not really, like, logged in.

Yeah. So, I mean, I'm trying to figure out specifically what it means, because what we're going to talk about in the episode today is the way to eventize. Right. But there's also this understanding, that I think was really underscored by the success of Barbenheimer, that in order to make your non-franchise, non-IP pre-branded movie successful, you have to find a way to make it an event. So the thing I've been trying to sort through as I look at basically like the next seven months of the podcast and the next five years of going to the movies and talking about them is what what's the difference between obviously barbenheimer which is a master

class in marketing and a collision of talent and storylines that are very fun to participate in and execution and also luck and then the right luck and then the movies living up to the expectations that we had versus something like um uh you having an eight week shelf life or elemental seeming like a failure and then living in theaters for three months. Like that's what is still hard to target. I actually I have a very short answer, which you and I sort of diagnosed on Friday's episode about the fall guy, which is this is a movie for 30 and 40 year olds, but not really for 20 year olds. And you, you just,

you have to make a movie that appeals to 20 year olds. Yeah. Is it because the stars are older? You think that's the issue? I guess so. And because they don't have the same nostalgia for the 500 movies that are name checked in the, in the movie itself.

That's a good point. And that, you know, just like going to the movies in the summer and having a grand old time being charred by people who fall in love while things blow up. Which, you know, is in itself like a tricky genre or genre hybrid to land. But I don't really think 20-year-olds care about Emily Blunt and even Ryan Gosling,

it pains me to say, in the way that they care about Sidney Sweeney's TikToks. I think for the most part, you're right. I think it's a movie that was kind of always destined to perform in the way that it did. I do wonder if it was a July movie

and there wasn't a lot of weight on it, if it might have done better. Or frankly, if it was a July movie and there wasn't a lot of like weight on it, if it might've done better, or frankly, if it was a December movie. And like, I think about the Anyone But You thing and I'm like, part of the reason why that movie succeeded is because there actually was just not a lot that was coming out between December 20th and January 20th. Right. So it could live for a while. But I know it's like the next few weeks I know are very exciting for you. And I know that like the Apes movies have like made a lot of money in the past, but it's, you know, are very exciting for you. And I know that, like, the Apes movies have, like, made a lot of money in the past.

But it's, you know, it's not like I'm building my season around that. I don't really know anyone building their season around Furiosa besides you. And that's great. And I'm going to watch... What about the Garfield movie? I know children who know who Garfield is. Matt Bellamy on The Town Today was talking about how his son is like, yeah, Garfield hates Mondays and loves lasagna.

And I was like, wow, that is brand awareness. Both of those things are true. I mean, that's for sure. Both of those things are accurate. Are you interested in the world of Garfield? We have not discussed the Garfield movie at all this year. I- You kind of have Garfield energy.

Yeah, I grew up like reading Garfield. Who among us? You know, I'm an 80s, 90s child. I have John Arbuckle energy. I don't know if you know that. That is true. You do. I wouldn't say, again, that I'm organizing my summer around it. The Chris Pratt of it all signals to me a disrespect for architecture and also that it's for children. Okay. So, and that's cool.

I have one of those. He likes cats. He likes dogs more. Yeah, I'm not sure if Garfield's going to make sense. I don't know if Garfield is really a Knox energy. No, Garfield is a lounger. Yeah. He's a lazy boy.

Let's talk a little bit more about the Fall Guy because we saw the Fall Guy in one of these formats. This is the funniest movie going experience that you and i have had in the many years of doing this show do you want to name all the formats or you want to roll them out one by one you want to keep people on there i want to i want people to listen all the way through because we i think we were creative that's a recurring theme that i see uh on the internet in the comments is people being like why don't you just give us a list of all the things so that we don't have to listen to it

and the reason is it's almost like we want people to listen this is how we feed our children okay it's this it's not you

on Reddit it's me it's listening to this so okay I would be happy to supply the list of every movie that we talk about

one full year after the publication of the episode. Yeah. Is that a deal? Sure. That's Bobby Wagner's responsibility going forward.

You keeping that list, Bob? Go back one year to write every movie down that you guys ever mention and publish it one year later. One year from now, I don't even know

if I'm going to know my own name. Like, I can't commit to that. Okay. Well, hopefully people will stick around and listen as we go through each format. But I thought we would open with the fall guy.

You want to start with 4DX. 4DX is the first one we went to. Now, 4DX has been around for a long time, actually. Movie phone voice is coming on strong on this episode. On this episode? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there are a lot of announcements. I'm trying to make some clear announcements.

You've included the marketing tagline for each of these technologies. First introduced in 2009, but growing in popularity since 2018, 4DX allows films to be augmented with various practical effects, including motion seats, strobe lights,

wind, simulated rain and snow, and scents. Yeah. This is a full-scale, physical, movie-watching experience. This is how we watched

The Fall Guy last week. We actually went to an early access screening. We paid our we watched The Fall Guy last week. We actually went to an early access screening. We paid our way. The ticket price was $20, which is really not that bad for LA prices. I can't speak to other prices

around the country, but LA movie ticket prices are usually somewhere in that, like, ranging from, like, $12 matinees to, like, $25 premium. So $20 is not crazy. I have never been to

a 40X screening in my life. I had been encouraged to go see Avatar the Way of Water that way, and I didn't do it. I would not say, this is not necessarily the first time an exhibitor or a producer has considered this. Like there's a long history of obviously 3D William Castle stunts with his horror movies in the 50s and 60s. You know, John Waters' smell-o-vision in the 70s. Like, this is something that we've seen over and over again. But you used the phrase amusement park ride. Yes.

And I didn't realize just what an amusement park ride experience it is to watch a movie this way. Yeah, neither of us did. So we walked in, full theater, on a Wednesday night, preview screening. And as we sat down, we noticed buttons on our armrest that just said water on or water off. And I was like, oh, okay. I mean, I knew that water was a part of it. I thought this would be interesting. And we both, like gamely, we kept water on. We sat in our seats.

We observed. And then the movie started. And it was honestly worse than being in a car with no suspension on like an unpaved road. It just started going crazy. And honestly, watching the other seats move looked like the commercials that they used to show for like the Disney World rides of I mean what what were the rides you're the Disney had not me I was at Disneyland on Friday and I intend to compare the experience to being on some rides on Friday um but I you know I remember you would watch you know in like 1990s and be like wow wouldn't it be cool if I could do Back to the Future that way too. But it was just constant, confusing, shaking.

Yeah, I mean, it's a series of four-seaters that are on a sort of hydraulic system that is set up. And every time there is a dramatic physical moment in the film, particularly in a movie like The Fall Guy, which is just riddled with stunts. The seats will lift, rise, shake, tumble, move around. And then also you'll have air being blown on you to indicate that you're moving fast or that there's wind flying through the sequence. There are strobe lights in the corners of the theater. So when there's a flash pop moment

or like a gunshot, for example, you'll get a strobe light. We didn't have a ton of water. There wasn't a lot of water and stunts in the film. And there was a little bit of smoke, but it was sort of only at the front of the screen. I remember getting very excited when I saw it and pointing down at the front of the theater like, look, look, look. Yeah. I didn't notice any smells. No smells. Okay. In general, I thought this just was wildly unpleasant. Like I honestly, and I don't mean to disparage these new and exciting ways to see movies

at the top of this episode, but I thought it was just terrible and not fun. And I'm also a man in my 40s with terrible posture and bad physical ailments. And I was like, this is dangerous. Like, I might get hurt

sitting here watching a movie. So, full disclosure, I, for a number of reasons, like, couldn't be sitting in the seat. And you and I turned to each other five minutes in and we were both like, no, like you can't do this. So I sat on the floor, which like, and I know people are going to be like, oh man, that's such a diva. She won't even do 40X. You got to help me out here. I was not being a diva in this moment.

It just like, it was not going to happen, but I needed to see this movie. So I sat on the floor right in front of the seat. Well, I actually had to position myself so that none of the seats in front of or behind me would kind of like rib me in the back or whatever. But there was a clearing and I had a pretty good view. And then I personally had a wonderful time turning around and watching you get jerked around on the 40X. So for me personally, very fun as a spectator sport because you looked miserable. I really didn't enjoy myself. I think I could see a world in which a movie like maybe Top Gun Maverick would be an interesting experience for something like this, where there was like a little bit more steadiness to the glide. Like the whole point of The Fall Guy is about cars flipping

and whipping car chases and this sort of like dramatic impactful energy. A lot of movies play in 40X these days. This is a pretty common thing. I definitely want to see at least one more movie

in this format just to see what it is that has a slightly different energy than The Fall Guy but man, people seem to be having a great time.

People were laughing, but it was, I mean, it was very funny to just watch all the other seats perking and jerking. And since I was on the floor, I was very close to the hydraulics, you know, so I could really like see them. It's sort of like in an accordion, just like going ham. It is. It is. Or like almost like a violently rocking ship, you know, where the tides are bringing you up and down.

And people were continually surprised every time it started really going for it again. Well, that's the other thing is I had already seen this movie. So I knew where every stunt was coming. I knew where every moment was. I could give you a heads up like, hey, watch out. We tried 10 minutes of you being like, okay, so right now a car is going to roll. So you should probably hop down. And I went in and out. And then at some point it was just like no it was too much i'll just be you

were an incredibly good sport on the floor um you i don't know if you would have had as good a time if you didn't get the chance to see me being so unhappy with the experience well i went back to fall guy in just a normal seat and also had a delightful time okay um but i my review of 40x is it's something funny to do to your friend if you like to watch your friend be miserable yeah that's that's not what they want um 40x is an interesting thing maybe it's what the listeners want yeah i didn't spend a lot of time learning about 40x at cinema con um there's a south korean cinema chain that developed the technology called cCGV, which also is the developer of another technology we'll talk about in this episode.

And they're kind of at the forefront of trying to leverage like a new kind of physical experience while watching movies. I was impressed that it wasn't more expensive. I did. As we walked out, I turned to you and I was like, how much was that it's pretty as you said it is in line or maybe a couple dollars more than a like a prime Los Angeles ticket I mean yes like we're paying a lot for movies everything is expensive here but um and relative to

the $400 ticket at Disneyland yeah it's cheaper Disneyland though is much more fun I gotta say yeah the pictures were very sweet I have nothing sarcastic to say. Yeah. The pictures were very sweet. I have nothing sarcastic to say about that. It was remarkable. Dumbo was the hit?

Dumbo, yeah. We went on Dumbo twice. That was a huge hit. We just watched Dumbo, too, so we were just cracked out on Dumbo. Dumbo, also a part of Fall Guy. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

There was one ride at Disneyland that recalled 4DX. It was called Mickey and Minnie's Railway. Oh, no. And it was a train ride. Goofy's driving the train, you might imagine. Not the best railmaster in the world. That ride had a lot of herky-jerky movements. Alice did great. God bless her. She seems to be enjoying rides, which is not something I would have guessed. Not me either. But that had the same kind of like whipping physical, like, whoa. Like, why is a ride for five-year-olds like this violent? Right, well, but she's also smaller.

So she's not. Her spine has less curvature than mine does. No, she's more compact. So it's not getting flown as far in either direction. You know, she's not like one of the car machine, you know, car wash machines. In all, I just straight up would not recommend 40X.

No, I didn't enjoy it. I didn't like it. I don't know why someone would want that. As a person who likes swimming, I was curious about the water, you know, like, but I assume Avatar

would just be like, you know, the mist machines that they have. You know, Jim Cameron comes out, dumps a bucket on your head. That's what they do.

I mean, that, I would pay a lot a bucket on your head. That's what they do. I mean, that I would pay a lot of money for. Yeah. I don't, I don't fully understand why. You have to imagine it would be smoother,

right? Yeah, with the flowing waves. I guess until like all the guns come out. What about, you know, when they kill

those giant whales. Pacquiao, remember that guy? He was the best. Yeah. God, the way of water. What a beautiful film.

Haven't rewatchwatched it haven't seen it a second time uh the 40x thing is tricky because i'm sure that there are some people who do want this i don't think it's quite to the level of like generational anxiety where like kids will learn to watch movies this way and then they will expect that i don't think it's ever going to become that big but there's something about this that just feels desperate in a way that the other stuff doesn't feel as desperate to me this feels like we're concerned that our movies are not entertaining enough and we have to do something to provide an additional physical excitement thrill scare that the movies can't provide like if i was a filmmaker i would be like

really you know like you need to do this to get people interested in this thing I killed myself for? I mean, this is being developed by the theaters and the chains, not the people making the movies. It's the people who are displeased with the product that they're getting or think that that's not enough to get people to the theater. You just reminded me of like a mini rant I wanted to give very briefly about movie theater chains. Okay. This is a very modest complaint. Okay. But one of the biggest problems with movies is not going to the movies, in my opinion. Going to the movies, people very rarely

sit down in a movie and are like, I'm so mad right now that I'm in a movie theater. They've made a choice. Yeah. It's everything inside the movie theater that isn't the screen that sucks. Now, we can complain about concessions and the struggles, the prices, the lack of choice, all that stuff. That's obvious. I can't really fix that. Every chain has different ways of going about choosing their food. But everything else... Bring back Raisinets, AMC, you assholes. They discontinued Raisinets. Yeah, now they're trying to serve some frozen cherry thing.

I don't know what's going on. Okay, we can't speak to that. I am a Stubbs member. I'm going to be really honest. The machines that mix the soda, you know, what's like the magic soda machine? I don't know what it's called. But you know what I mean, right? Willy Wonka's confectionery soda machine.

Right, but you go and it will just give you like any soda that you want at the press of a couple buttons. The fountain? But you do it yourself and they have like 80 sodas, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The mixing is not up to quality. Generally, I agree with you okay thank you i tried to get a ginger ale recently a film that we'll discuss did not taste like ginger no it's just not there and it can be machine to machine and theater to theater but um i think they require

more mechanical management than is currently happening i agree with you here's my bigger complaint the only thing that you can that will really entertain you inside of a movie theater when you're not in the movie is a giant glass case with a costume on a mannequin. What the fuck is that? Why are we still doing that? That's what's meant to entertain us. Oh, like in the lobbies? Oh, I agree.

I mean, that's always been insane. What else can we do to improve the lobby experience? Let's make the movie theater a terrarium and not a tunnel. That's what we need to do. It needs to be an experience of wonder. We don't want to just be moving through it and then moving out of it. We want to stay inside and look around and feel like we're in a world.

Okay, so keep going. What else do you want to do? You just want to be an avatar? You want the whole thing to be? Maybe. That's an idea. Okay. That's something that could be an avatar you want like the whole thing maybe that's an idea okay that's something that could be done that seems like it's going to cost a lot of money

what about some interactive experiences what about there being a host in the theater who engages the audience in the lobby space what about you know that I don't really it's like very

suddenly it's just like you know Thor is like chasing me with a hammer through but this I'm just like I would pay for that that I would pay a $20 upcharge on my ticket to watch that.

Honestly, probably, like, when we've run out of options, like, me being chased by various characters, like, on video is how we can make money. I'll freak out every time. I think there's very simple things you could do, which is just, like, many small movie theater chains do stuff like this. Like, you could just have a trivia night

in the movie theater. There could be something that isn't just, I've got one hour and 58 minutes of movie. I'm going to wait online for six minutes for my popcorn and soda. And then I'm going to get the F out of here. That's actually the issue is that nobody wants to be in these spaces. They're not clean. They're not nice. A lot of them are old and people don't have the same emotional connection to movie going, you know, Julie Alexander who Puck, talked about this over the weekend. You know, she sees a real correlation between this idea of younger people not wanting to, like, significantly experiencing loneliness at a higher rate than older generations, but then also this lack of socialization, whether you say it's

pandemic, whether you say it's social media and the internet, furthering these things. I don't know. I'm not really like a sociologist with this stuff, but I do think that there's something to the fact that younger people are like, I'm good staying home. Got to find a way to engage people. Got to find a way to engage somebody like me who doesn't just want to like treat this like I put my AirPods in. I race into the prime AMC theater and then I race out as quickly as possible because I got to get home to go do something boring. Like there is a way to improve these things. I just don't think that any theater chain is really thinking about it in a meaningful way at all right now.

I agree with you that they're not. And they also just don't really need to see somebody's cape or helmet or whatever they just always also look so flimsy and depressing in the box you know it's really just the magic of movies is stripped from that plastic it just feels like the bare minimum you know i don't i don't know whether'd need like a rave in my local lobby. You'd keep that in your house, yeah. I just, you know. But imagine if the Challenger score was blaring throughout the lobby as you walked in and you better understood something about Challengers. That would be a spoiler going in.

I guess so. You know? I guess so. But on the way out, it would be fun. I mean, they should just have like saturday night dance party screenings of challengers there you go there you go obviously we have a lot of repertory theaters here in los angeles idea about renting a house like in claremont or wherever and then i think i said pomona okay yeah i'm still i i have not yet posted

the gofundme for that but um we are currently raising $25 million for my movie mansion. And then that's just where Chris retires, you know, and he's just collecting tickets. Yeah, he's just going to be Robert Prosky from Last Action Hero, just running the same Jack Slater movie over and over again. That's a good idea.

I mean, that's not where I would go, but it's a good idea. Do you think this next format will meaningfully draw in new audiences and retain current audiences in movie theaters? I don't think so. I mean, it needs to be improved. If 40X was like jarring and overwhelming and like who would want this,

then I felt this was sort of half-baked. I agree. So the next one that we went to was ScreenX. ScreenX is something I had not heard of before I was in Vegas. It's not a profound innovation. There have been formats like this before, thinking particularly of Cineramidome. But ScreenX, when I was in Vegas, when they displayed it, I thought it was going to be a kind of trifold screen,

so that there would be three connected screens. And I guess in a way that's true, but really more what it is, is your movie theater screen and then another screen slapped on the left wall and another screen slapped on the right wall. And then the film has been stretched and then projected in triplicate. So you've got three different projectors, one on one wall, one on the other wall, and then one behind you. So you're seeing a film in an expansive way. We saw Godzilla, Kong. What's it called? The New Empire? Sounds right.

Whose empire is it, by the way? Did we ever get to the bottom of that? The Moth. Moth or his empire? Okay, that's great. I respect that. So 270-degree screens projected on the walls. The forward facing screen is a typical movie theater screen. Right?

Yeah. The side screens. And in fact, you and I sat there through the previews just looking at a movie screen. And we were like, what is this? I thought we screwed up or something. I thought we were in the wrong theater. I couldn't tell because the commercials were not shot to be projected in ScreenX format. Now, there are a lot of movies, and this is what I saw when I was in Vegas,

that are now using this technology and the cameras that are needed to project this way. So, for example, Adam Wingard was one of the directors who gave a testimonial about how much he loved ScreenX. And so they shot it in this format. I guess they're using 35 millimeter projectors, deeply curved screens. No, that's wrong. That's what Cinerama was. I guess this is just a different camera format that they're using to communicate this. Anyway, we'd already seen Godzilla Kong. Yeah. I think it's actually helpful to have seen the movie before while you're

experiencing this. I thought one of the strange things about it was, I would say roughly 70% of the movie was not in ScreenX format. It switches back and forth. So when you get to a big panoramic action sequence, you get all three screens occupied. But then when it goes to a sequence where Brian Tyree Henry and Rebecca Hall are talking about podcasts, it's just the movie screen. And doing amazing podcast ad reads. Yes. Very accurate. You think he listens to the show, Brian Tyree Henry? I hope so. podcasts. It's just the movie screen. And doing amazing podcast ad reads. Yes. Very accurate. You think he listens to the show, Ryan Tyree Henry?

I hope so. Hi. He's great. One of our generation's finest. Huge, huge fan. I thought this was very underwhelming. Yeah. So when it is, when they are employing the three screens,

some of it is just like getting oriented to a new format and kind of like oh what's going on but some of it is that the two side screens are um not as high quality and i don't know whether that's because of like stretching and perspective or you know i had a very simple thought about this and i don't know if it's right or not but I thought that because they are mounted to a wall they're uh that's sort of like very opaque translucency you know that you get from the screen experience disappears because you've got something behind it whereas in a movie theater screen it's not mounted to a wall it's sort of like raised and affixed okay and there's space between behind it I don't actually know how screens are mounted these days. But it felt like you couldn't get the depth of focus or the depth of experience while seeing it against the wall.

Yeah. It just, it didn't. So that was kind of jarring. But then, as you noted, it would just cut back to the normal screen sort of at random and it wasn't it wasn't consistent enough of okay all of the big action sequences or all of hollow earth will be panoramic and then all the humans talking will be one screen so you still felt cheated yeah of the panoramic even when even if you didn't like the way the panoramic looked and i did say to you about 15 minutes in if they don't do the pyramids in full panorama like we're leaving we didn't get

our money's worth and they did do that they did so at least that panned out but then we had to stay we saw the suplex and trifold which i appreciate that was pleasing very fun um the empire very silly still kind of enjoyed it. Thought we had a fun time. Yeah, we did. I don't know if this feels like a sustainable experience. The screening that we went to was very poorly attended,

but it was late in the film's run, and it was in the afternoon on a weekday. So, you know, I don't think you can really hold that against it. Again, the ticket prices were really not that bad. It was a matinee screening, but we paid $19. I don't know what a primetime screening would be. Probably a few more dollars. Okay.

That's not terrible. So this was first introduced in 2012, also by CJ, CJV. And they're working on something now, which is like an upgrade called the 40X screen. Oh, no. In which they're going to start projecting on the ceiling what do you think about that i mean i guess that would be cool i feel like for like 2001 or something you know something that is like immersive visually or like interstellar you know like something like a space film would work really well for something like this but anything i don't need

to see marriage story on... Yeah. No. Yeah, that would be different. That would be very different. Then, like, the fist punch is just, like, one entire panel of the screen. You know, sure. My main response to this was that I didn't think

the technology itself was developed enough to be impressive. So I was just kind of disappointed every which way they sliced it. Yeah, I was too. It's colloquially called sideways IMAX, but I think that does IMAX a bit of a disservice. In fact, Rich Gelfand, the CEO of IMAX, notes that the letter X appears in a lot of the names of these companies uh in an effort to piggyback on the success of imax imax is a much older company than most of these companies or at least this is a much older technology that they've been developing for a long time right into the

next one um just segue god this is what this is really my only skill at this point um we did see a movie in imax we sure did we didn't go to the best imax we went to a pretty in IMAX. We sure did. We didn't go to the best IMAX, but we went to a pretty good one. Oh my God. What is the best IMAX? What do you think the best IMAX is? It's Universal CityWalk. Right. We didn't go there

because the timing, the schedule was unclear. If you guys have ever been to Universal Studios, I think it's a place of wonder for a lot of people and also is a pretty traumatic parking experience.

Not the greatest parking lot I've ever experienced, no. And I think it's a place of wonder for a lot of people and also is a pretty traumatic parking experience. Not the greatest parking lot I've ever experienced, no. And I think our timing didn't allow for a trip to Margaritaville. So we nixed it in favor of a 1 p.m. matinee on a weekday in Burbank, which is like low-key one of the... That's where like the real movie heads in L.A. go to see. I ran into literally three big picture listeners the day we saw the movie. And anytime I'm going to see a movie that's kind of in limited release, like on a weekday at 1115, I think it's going to be just me. And like the theater is half full. That is where the people who care go.

So and also the parking is free. So put some respect on the Burbank 16. I like the Burbank 16. I do really like that IMAX screen. We also, look, I say it all the time

on the show, IMAX is amazing. Like, seeing movies in IMAX is consistently the best experience you can have, especially if the film

has been made with IMAX in mind, like Dune Part 2 or with Oppenheimer. Like, those movies are, they literally go up a level in my estimation when I see them in that format it was interesting to watch a movie like challengers that's the movie

that we watched we sure did and we should also we watched it your your wife came along which was great it was lovely to see Eileen also this is the second uh like movie date of yours this year that I've crashed that is true and Eileen like, this is my first movie of 2024. And I said, no, it is not because I have seen another movie with you and your husband

in this calendar year. That's right. We did go see Drive Away Dolls and you just showed up like right behind us like a shadow. I was like,

what the fuck is going on? This one obviously we planned for. for our professional obligations. That's what I'm doing. So we did, we went on a date

to see challengers and it's tricky because like challengers rips it's so good yeah okay but the two things that were awesome I mean number one that score is like on 27 or whatever it is like so loud and I really was just dancing along at some point and E Eileen was like, oh, it's going to be like this the whole movie. And I was like, yep. And then the sweat drops are probably the size of my head and so perfectly articulated. Yes, you can see the pores on everyone's skin. I mean, it was majestic.

You could see all the parts of the thigh, which is the quadricep, I think. In real, you know, that's the actual term, is that right? Sure, yes. I guess hamstrings too. In real, you know, that's the actual term. Is that right? Sure, yes. I guess hamstrings, too. I mean, beautiful. Great movie. It looked great and it sounded great. I mean, it was very loud.

Unusually loud, I thought, because of the energy of the score. We're not used to experiencing a score like that in a setting like that. But the movie looked amazing. And it's a movie somewhat similar to Oppenheimerheimer like of close-ups and of slow motion at times and of a kind of like conception of ideas as opposed to Doom Part 2 where you're just like

whoa I'm inside of a spaceship or I'm inside of a sandstorm or whatever that feeling is that they're trying to communicate to you. The movies like this are different and I think that the you could make the case that it's even more well suited

to a movie like this than to an action epic. Now obviously you know movie theaters are making a lot of money on action epics playing in IMAX. And the priority of the IMAX screen is a huge story in Hollywood right now. Who gets them and when? The Fall Guy was in IMAX this weekend. Only made $4.7 million. I saw somebody on Twitter today say, put Challengers back in fucking IMAX.

Take those Fall Guy screens away and put Challengers back because that's how we want to see it. Well, I mean, Challengers is not, like, an action adventure, but it is hugely, like, visually specific. Like, the style, the way it is shot, the cinematography,

like, everything, you want to swim in it. Yeah. So, it's great. IMAX is perfect for that. I feel like, also, IMAX is just more of a technology company rather than an exhibition company. IMAX makes cameras.

They create formats. They are trying to evolve how movies are seen. If you're a theater chain and you're building the technologies, your primary focus is the chains. Your primary focus is not the tech. IMAX is a tech company that delivers to uh exhibitors and works with distributors to make their movies in the best way possible it's a slightly different experience um screens are usually 59 by 79 feet they vary in la i have i don't really know i don't really remember like new york for example what were the best imax screens but in la there's now

this like almost like horse race for who has the best version of this. Yeah, that's all I'm specific. People start nerding out. Yeah, exactly. As the cinephile audience gets more and more excited about this stuff and they start thinking about 35 millimeter or 70 millimeter projection and how you're seeing a movie, this stuff gets more excited. Ticket prices for our screening were $21.98, the most expensive of the three movies you want to go see in a movie theater. In this case, I think worth it. It was also a newer release than say godzilla and it wasn't it was but it was a matinee yeah so it would go up if it were i don't know yeah i don't know what the top tier pricing would be i think that an interesting question we used to talk about this in the early days of the

pandemic is would you pay 50 for a movie that's only available on imax you know like would you how open would you be to a kind of tiered pricing for experiences? Because what we're talking about is, in some ways, expanding the potential profits for movie companies and exhibitors, but we're also talking about, like, kind of the narrowing of interest in movies.

Because needing to make up more money because fewer people go to the movies than ever is an issue. So, like, let's just say things keep getting worse just for the sake of conversation. Five years from now, Hollywood only makes, I don't know, 75 movies a year. And 25 of those movies are massive format eventized experiences in which you have to pay like $75 on opening night. They're only available on 300 screens around the country, but they're able to like maximize their profit because of this high ticket price. Like, is that a a solution should someone try to do something like that like should legendary be

like here's a hundred million dollars for a movie it's going to be made in a way that no movie's ever been made before it stars tom cruise but every ticket costs i mean you it just it has to be good you know like you can't control that exactly and i mean and that is like the, you know, enduring problem and exhilaration of movie making. But that requires just an absolute guarantee that the end product is going to start to see more variable experiences here where people are going to be looking for a way to fill in the gaps on a movie like The Fall Guy, not performing up to the standards that they wanted it to. IMAX, you know, they're great. It's great. A plus. It works. I'll be curious to see, will you be seeing If in IMAX? I don't know. Is the family screening that we're going to with Chris Ryan in IMAX? I don't know. Have you spoken with Chris about this? No, he's still in Europe. So I'm just going to spring it on.

You haven't been texting with him at all since he's been there? I texted him about Boeing and Brickin' for Chicken. And that was the last time that I heard from him. He sent me some selfies. Most recent note I got from him said, congrats on the Knicks with the skull emoji. So, hope he's doing well. The most recent note that I got from him was that he saw a woman in Oslo put two Zinn pouches in at once and he was in pure awe of her. Which is great.

Great observation. Did she instantly die? What happened? I think she was vibing out, dude. I think that that was not the first time she did that from the way that Chris relayed the story.

Zinn is worldwide? I guess so. I mean, at least it's made it to Oslo. Can confirm. Boots on the ground reporting from our very I guess so. I mean, at least it's made it to Oslo. Can confirm boots on the ground reporting from our very own Chris Ryan. I had one Tom Collins on Saturday and I was like, I'm the president of the United States of America.

I'm the most powerful man alive. So I can't imagine what Zinpac could do. Okay, let's talk about this next one. This is really good. This is really good stuff. A few months ago, I was invited by the Apple Corporation to come and try out an Apple Vision Pro. I'm sure many listeners know what an Apple Vision Pro is.

It's a headset that you wear that operates simultaneously as a kind of desktop or laptop computer, kind of like a phone, but also like a movie theater on your head. You can watch traditional movies. You can play games. You can participate in immersive experiences. I don't think I... Have I mentioned it at all on the show that I did this? A bunch of press have been doing it over the last few months

because they've been trying to compel people to buy this new tool since they've debuted it. I had a good experience with it, and I really liked it. I don't know if I liked it enough to spend $3,500 on it. But while I was using it at the Apple offices and having this experience where at times I was awed, I was like, I really want to see Amanda wear one of these. I really think this would be funny to make Amanda do this. Wish granted.

Fortunately, it happened. Courtesy of Van Lathan. I did not drive across town to the Apple offices. But I did. I was made aware that Van Lathan, our beloved Van, owns an Apple Vision Pro. Early adopter. He bought it like in the first week. Early adopter. And honestly, I mean, Van's an absolute hero. He brought it to the office this morning, like crack of dawn on a Monday morning and taught me how to use it and set it up so that I could try it out before this podcast.

And Van took some video of me trying to learn how to use the Vision Pro that I have authorized. I authorize him to release into the world because it's the funniest, stupidest thing that I felt like such a moron. And it was also, you know, I felt like, when you know when you're trying to help your parent do something on the computer and they're just like not getting there and you just you want to jump into the ocean but you know that like they kind of want to jump into the ocean too in a different way and I was like oh this must be what my mother feels like and Ben was so patient and so kind and also let me just apologize to the entire higher learning team that like their recording was 30 minutes late because I just like sat there just like clicking into air into nothing, you know, because I found it really intimidating to use. But he was so lovely.

And after a while, we got there and I watched some of Barbie on the Apple Vision Pro. It was very impressive. Van had to go do his job. So I was so petrified that by moving, I would turn off Barbie and not be able to turn it back on that. I would say I spent most of my time just like sitting very still, like looking straight ahead, like not moving my neck, just being like, okay, there's Barbie. I would, I like, I didn't even know how, if my eye movement would trigger anything so i was like i am just looking directly at the center of the frame here and i'm not like it was really it was very intense um but it looks good were you able to get over the that kind of anxiety to enjoy the movie at all yeah i mean barbie was your suggestion and it's a good choice because i enjoy the phone barbie um i also thought the construction of the

world yes and that and that was very smart i watched all the way um until they go to weird because I enjoy the foam Barbie. I also thought the construction of the world would be a good way to see it. I watched all the way until they go to Weird Barbie's house. But so I even got to see like the setup of Weird Barbie. But it was all in Barbie world. I watched the Dua Lipa dance sequence. You know. Your favorite. It was delightful.

Did you watch it in theater mode? Did you get a chance to see what that is? I don't know. So when I did the demonstration, I mean, you know, full disclosure, I had the same experience as you. It's very disorienting at first. You really have to be trained to use it. And the person who's helping you is so nice, but you want to make them happy. Yeah, you want to do it right. And I'm like, yes, I'm looking at it. I'm looking at the seven. Yeah. It's tricky to put a degree of difficulty, a bar for something that should be relaxing and engaging.

But I found within 10 minutes of the sort of presentation orientation of it, I was like, I 100% get this. Like, I don't know if I have the $3,500, but on an airplane, this would be unbelievable to be able to watch a movie this way, as opposed to on the back of a seat or even on a laptop. Once you can get comfortable with the headset sitting on your face you know it has to be sized to your head properly you know and vans wasn't probably exactly specific to your head we adjusted it and like and we had to go back and forth so it like it got there the headset is very heavy it is a little heavy um and i you know i was trying to keep my posture really still so I wouldn't fuck it up. But I found it uncomfortable after, you know, I think a whole movie. Yeah. What about if you were leaned back? Because I had the same instance. I was sitting on a couch straight up and trying to keep my head straight. But if you were in an airplane seat.

Right. Or you were just sitting on your couch. I did think like if I were just lying down and then I put this on but like at what point are we just becoming the pod people from WALL-E you know what I mean it's absolutely worth asking and I was kind of like I don't I don't know this is I don't know if I need this much and it was cool like it did feel a little futuristic and a cool way to and watching van actually be able to use it i was like oh wow it is like a sci-fi movie come to life but i don't know i i don't know if i need to be lying down on my couch and have like the whole world like blocked out so i can watch barbie or whatever

i'll give you two additive experiences that you didn't get a chance to do because something about dinosaurs yeah i'll tell you that one um well chance to do because of the way you were watching it. Something about dinosaurs? Yeah, I'll tell you that one. Well, this is the thing. The Apple Vision Pro is obviously, it is a way to watch movies. And there is a theater setting. So it feels like you are sitting in a movie theater seat watching the movie projected. That was pretty fucking cool.

I watched the Super Mario Brothers movie, a movie I don't really like very much, for about 10 minutes. And I was taken away. Did you pick that yourself? No, it was chosen for me. But I was taken away. I was like, like this is how much money do you think went down for that to be the movie that they put on oh I don't know that's an interesting question or like what maybe no money at all maybe it was like a gentleman's agreement like what is between the CEO of Nintendo and the and Tim Cook yeah I mean don't you just don't you want to know I it probably would be one of those like one dollar is you know between the CEO of Nintendo and Tim Cook yeah I mean don't you just

don't you want to know it probably would be one of those like one dollar bet kind of things I don't think it's an accident that that's the movie

being suggested so I just you know I wonder what the incentives are that's all I honestly don't know what do you think

they would have said to you if you were just like sir can you stop this movie and just put on heat for me like what do you think the person operating I'm surprised they didn't

tee up something like that a known beloved classic like why was there will be blood not lined up for me but so i was ill this weekend and after like a long day of caring for my entire family my husband like got a minute to himself on saturday night and i walked in like 10 minutes later and he was just like alone watching heat you know he's just like like, this is what I need to do. I mean, and he did everything all day. And then it was just like, now it is,

maybe he would have liked the Vision Pro and just lying there like a corpse watching Heat. There was a hot moment during the flurry of activity with Drake Kendrick over the weekend where someone, many people misheard

Kendrick say Wayne girl as Wayne grow. And they thought he was making a heat reference. And me and Chris got added a lot on Twitter about that. They wanted us to go live to discuss Kendrick's appreciation for heat. Who knows? Maybe he's never seen it. I'm really glad you guys didn't go live. I would never do that. I would not insert ourselves into this at any point. Agreed. I enjoyed myself all weekend, though. Sure.

It was great to have the content. I appreciated that. Did you watch the Tom Brady roast? No, I didn't. Okay. You missed out because it was really something. I would just like to say, Nikki Glaser, thank you for your service because you are talented. I watched some tweets, but I was doing work for this podcast throughout that entire segment.

I was as well. My Apple Vision Pro experience was months ago now. There is a part of me that is like, just get one so you've got it in case this is the revolution. But you were also just like, what we need

is to turn the movie lobbies into a plaza at the heart of the society. My paradox is my pride. You know what I mean? People will come together and then I will sit alone like a gremlin in my pod, stationary, watching movies with a large weight strapped to my neck. In the same way that it makes you feel better to tease me on this show, I feel better knowing that I contain multitudes.

You know, that there are many things that I want. And what I mostly want to be doing is to be watching movies. This would be another way to do it. But the two experiences that I thought were fascinating were I mostly want to be doing is to be watching movies. This would be another way to do it. But the two experiences that I thought were fascinating were one, there was an immersive experience. And I think there are only a few right now

that are available, but one in which you were in the world of dinosaurs and you're on a kind of like a granite platform. Like it seemed like molten lava had hardened and you're walking out. And as you walk out, dinosaurs emerge and start walking towards you.

How are you controlling your movement? I mean, you can just stand up and start walking forward if you want to. I mean, that's the thing. Did you? I did, yeah. That's the thing with this. I mean, you can have that kind of

virtual experience. How do they keep you from walking into the wall? Well, because there is a kind of transparency on the headset because it is also meant to evoke like a clear desktop almost, like a clear screen that you're seeing. So you can both see around you but not see.

You know, it is very much like a virtual reality experience. And it feels more like the virtual reality you saw in movies in the 90s, like virtuosity or disclosure or something like that than it does like Blade Runner 2049. Nevertheless, this dinosaur one, you walk out and you put your hand out and the dinosaur walks towards you

and starts licking your hand. Or if you like lean forward to its head. Did you feel anything on your hand? No. Well, that would be impossible. This is a virtual immersive experience. Okay. Well, not in 4DX.

You want to combine 4DX with this headset? I'm just, I'm asking. Imagine trying to wear a headset while getting rocked in 4DX. I don't think that would go very well. Anyway, I'll just say that combination of. They had a dog come in and just lick your hand at Apple headquarters. They had a little dog. I mean, that would be a good idea.

I'd probably be able to tell. But if you let them put your brain in a vice, because that's what they're doing. They're putting your brain in a vice. They're saying, we've got control of this now. If you let it happen... Why would you do that? I don't know. I don't know.

Let's test the limits. You know, let's Timothy O'Leary the movie game. Like, that's what we need to be thinking about here. Okay. And that really worked on me really well. Now, the other thing is a lot of this was preliminary, but there are certain cameras that they're going to use to start filming certain events, maybe like sports,

where you'll be able to see games from vantage points you've never seen them before. And you can only see them if you're wearing the headset. I don't, I'm not sure how much of this I can talk about, but one of the things that I saw, I was like, what the fuck?

Like, this is amazing to be able to watch this sporting event from this perspective. I don't know if that's like, like a game changing, forgive the pun, opportunity, but it's very rare for me to sit down and be like i've never seen this before i had no idea that it could be like

this or i've always at least wanted to see a game like this so that may be an over promise on something that is under delivered but there were a few times while i was watching the demos where i was like yeah man this is real this is really really impressive and cool it doesn't it doesn't eliminate or discount what you're describing though which is that you do run the risk of creating a society of people not even walking around like flying around on their hovercrafts with their headsets on never engaging with anybody ever again and that's not a good thing but it's a fun toy and it was a fun way to watch a movie yeah i mean it's another thing where it's like it's the first generation and you could feel that.

Definitely. Definitely. The next one will be lighter and cheaper. I'm sure. As all of them are. And I'm sure they'll get it to a point where it's just like, oh, this is pretty cool and not confusing and not heavy. And I guess if that's how you want to spend your time. Yeah.

I've yet to watch an entire film that way, too. That's the other thing is how would I feel after one hour and 48 minutes of it on my head? Right. Maybe bad. I'm not sure. Ben Thompson, the stratechery writer and podcaster, did actually have it for a weekend. And he talked about his experiences wearing it on a plane. And he said that that was by far the best usage of it.

You know, watching movies and even just doing work and doing that kind of, you know, you have to do this kind of snapping motion to click. Yeah. That once you've got nailed that, once you've gotten that down, it's a pretty sick tool. Should we talk about our fifth way of watching a film? Sure. The fifth way is the way that it's all going, which is to sit on your couch and fire up a new movie on streaming. It just so happened, I don't know if I even planned this on purpose, but it just so happened that on the same weekend that we were going to do this, a new movie was coming to

streaming that at any other time in the last 70 years would have been a theatrical release. It's a new movie called The Idea of You. It stars, maybe she's my favorite actress, Anne Hathaway. It's an adaptation of a big hit novel. Yes. Stars a rising young male lead. Yes. Nicholas Galitzin. I still don't know how to say his name.

Once again, it's like, here we are. No one YouTubed it. Okay. Didn't figure that one out. This movie played at South by Southwest. Got a very warm reception. A lot of people in the movie industry are confused why this movie was not released theatrically. Amazon opted not to.

So it went straight to Prime Video last Thursday. And so I thought this would be a great opportunity to just be like, what do you do? What is your exact experience when you are watching a new movie in your home environment that no one else has really seen before? You know, that you're just, we're all just getting ready to watch it together, that there's a kind of like community experience of it. And how is it significantly different from having a headset on or more likely sitting in a movie theater, whether that movie theater has shaky seats or not? So we'll talk about what we liked and didn't like about the idea of you after we get through the particulars.

But I gave you like a series of checkpoints to respond to. The first of which was how many times, if any, did you pause the movie? I did not pause this movie. So, I just want to set this up by saying, my husband surprised me by being like, yeah, I'll watch that with you.

And so... I didn't have this opportunity. Yeah, so this was on Sunday night. Very sweet, actually. We went to see the fall guy. We had dinner together and then

double movie day double movie day and then like we sat down on the couch together and we watched the idea of you from start to finish.

I forgot to ask him like why the hell do you want to watch this with me. I guess he likes knowing what's going on and there had been enough

references you know discussion about it over the weekend even if it was just like why wasn't this in movies um so we never paused it i do think he got up to go to the bathroom at some point without really needing it paused and we just when we we had things that we wanted to comment on we just talked you know so it wasn't like a pause to be like why did that happen we just we shared our feelings usually during the music segments so most of the my questions do not apply yeah i paused it twice but both times i paused it was only to get out my laptop to take notes about a

movie okay because i found myself enjoying the movie which i'm not sure i fully expected um i got my phone out a few times mostly to see whether drake or kendrick had posted something new um but it was always during musical breaks it was like any time that nicholas like galaxy and grabbed a guitar i was like ah because you know how i feel about that and so that was like a good time this explains your bob dylan problem i just figured it out. A man with a guitar. Let's not put these two in the same. Two titans. Two kings. But also the boy band performances.

Anytime there was like a musical interlude, I was like, okay, I can see what's going on here. But also I'm just going to check Twitter and see what's going on. I had the same thing. I asked, when was your first bathroom break? So you didn't have a bathroom break. No. I did have one bathroom break at 16 minutes and 57 seconds, which I think was a musical sequence. Yes, yeah. So I was like, I'm kind of checking out. Yeah. Yeah. How long before you first reached for your phone? Do you know what time it was? 16 minutes. That was when you first

reached. Yeah. Coachella. Mine was 39 minutes and 23 seconds. That's good. What time of day or night did you watch? 8.30 PM on a Sunday. So I watched it 9.57 Pacific on a Friday after an entire day at Disneyland. Okay. So I was very tired. Yeah. And I was fully expecting to be like grouchy and have like negative feedback on the movie. Right. And maybe even be like, I got to go to bed.

Did not happen. Was fully engaged. I waited until I was like rested enough because as I said, I had been like sick this weekend. So like Saturday night, I was like, I'm not going to make it through and I'm going to be miserable. It's going to be like another. What's the what's the bad Russo Brothers Ryan Gosling Netflix movie? The Gray Man. Gray Man.

Yeah, it's going to be another Gray Man COVID experience. So I waited until a time also. When I was at least like awake. I was like, I have a fighting chance here. So you didn until a time also when I was at least awake and I was like, I have a fighting chance here. So you didn't watch it alone? No. You sat on your living room? Yeah. On your couch? Yeah. I sat in the garage, laid down on the couch, had a blanket. Oh, that's nice. I had a blanket too. I felt very relaxed. I got 22,000 steps at Disneyland. That's a lot. I was pretty tired that day. Did you watch with any aides? No, and in fact,

I did have to turn them off because normally the downstairs, the living room TV in the evening is my husband's domain because we'll split up, especially if I have to watch stuff for work. He doesn't normally want to watch all the bullshit you make me watch.

How dare you. So he prefers closed captions. And so there was a moment, I guess I did pause it to be like, do um so he prefers closed captions and so there was a moment i guess i did pause it to be like do we have to have closed captions and he was like you don't need to be so aggressive about that you can just turn them off um so i did turn them off hmm what a reasonable man yeah um i did watch with closed captions didn't really need to at the beginning when i thought it was going to be more of a comedy i thought it would be a mistake i think that's the only time when i regret watching movies with closed captions, when I feel like the joke has been taken away.

But, for example, I had closed captions on for the first five minutes of the Tom Brady roast, and I was like, nope, got to get this off. No, no, no, yeah. And that's a terrible way to experience a show like that. But I did watch this movie with closed captions, and it was good. So, in general, and this dovetails very distinctly with what I thought about the movie, this is one of the best streaming movie experiences I've had in a while. I tend to be like very 75%, 65% engaged with a movie like this, like a new movie that comes out like this that goes straight to streaming. I agree. And most of the time when I was reaching for my phone, I was

either, as I said, checking Twitter to check on a specific ongoing breaking news situation. So when that would happen, you would just stop everything you were doing and click the YouTube link and just listen to a six-minute Kendrick Lamar song? No, no, no, no. I have to be honest, at some point, I just like reading summary like i guess friday night when both family matters and meet the grams happened and i was like getting in bed because i was very tired i was like i'm just gonna do this in the morning like i i can't be live for all of this um but by sunday night i was just kind of like who's gonna who's gonna do what you know but it was over by then.

I know, I know it was over, but they were still releasing things. So I just, anyway, I wanted to keep an eye on it. But the other thing I was doing was texting friends who had already seen the movie and who had already shared, you know, feedback about it. And two notable things. One, like having friends who aren't, you know, who have seen a movie before I have is like very notable yeah uh and number two you know I could just get out my phone during a boy band song and be like okay so here's what I have to say about like xyz um and that in a movie like this to me is additive you know there is something about it's like a totally enjoyable movie to watch and I think at home is the right pitch for it

honestly and also home streaming has gotten so comfortable and it's like how we all do it that I would have liked it anyway but the fact that I could actually that that I knew other people had seen it which again streaming and that I could be in touch with them about it in a down moment is, I think, part of what is enjoyable. I'm so torn about this. I know, I know. But this is a specific one.

I know what you're saying. There's a level of convenience and also you and I are in movie theaters all week, every week. So there's something really appreciated and I'm not having to make a four-hour day of it to go see a movie like this. But a movie like this being successful

and a studio saying, we're not putting a movie like this in theaters is bad long-term. No, I mean, it is. Of course it is. Of course it is. And, like, I understand that from a business perspective and also from like a

liking to go to the movies perspective but because of the way that everybody else watches movies and especially where we are in our lives like this made it a more collective experience you know and it's like i don't actually you know all respect to the sanctity or whatever but i'm not diminishing my watching this experience by like texting my friends, like a joke about the private jet, like during the, during a music thing. In fact, I'm, it's adding to my enjoyment because I'm sharing it with other people. Um, so it's, some of it is just like, it's done. You, it's a reality. It's how we watch all these things. I was at dinner with other friends the other night.

One of them had seen Challengers. And one of them, who has two children, has not yet seen Challengers. And she recounted a conversation with her husband that was like, I feel like 10 years ago we would have seen Challengers already. You know, we would have been that type of people. And she's like, thanks for making me feel terrible. But it just just what are you gonna do it's how everybody does it i don't know we're we're in this um slip stream in movie history like that's really what it is because netflix broke it yeah it's not going back the

toothpaste not going back in the tube it's never going to change there's always going to be probably a middle ground ultimately it will be more streaming movies than theatrical releases. I don't think that's the case right now. I still think that there are significantly more movies to get some theatrical run, but it's going to start to trickle. And a movie like this, I think, is pretty critical in that game. Pandemic times, set that aside. That's an anomaly.

A lot of movies went straight to streaming that never would have in a million years. We had the HBO Max thing. We had Universal putting movies on Peacock. They changed the windowing. All this other stuff that happened. But a movie like this, directed by Michael Showalter, who directed The Big Sick, which was really one of the last big rom-com hits

of the 21st century, Oscar-nominated movie. He just got Jessica Chastain an Academy Award for The Eyes of Tammy Faye. I mean, which is insane. But set it aside. He did. He just got Jessica Chastain an Academy Award for The Eyes of Tammy Faye. I mean, which is insane. But set it aside. Sure. He's like a real... Jessica Chastain got herself

that award, let me tell you. By just, you know, being Jessica Chastain on every single panel for 45 years. It's not a qualitative thing. It's just about what a person, like what a filmmaker's ability

to get a certain kind of movie made is. Michael Showalter is like well suited. I never would have guessed this when I was freaking out about the state when i was a teenager and i was like this is the funniest thing i've ever seen i never i never would have guessed that michael schultz would have directed a movie like this but actually this is exactly the kind of movie he should be making it's exactly the kind of movie i mean it's basically a nicholas sparks movie it's with a slightly fizzier energy it's like a little bit less maudlin yeah but well i mean i'd like to talk about the movie itself at some point, but you're right. But you know what I'm saying? Yeah, totally.

And Anne Hathaway, at least once upon a time, was a big star. One of the things we didn't pause for, which was like, and this was during like the Wang Chung Hotel scene. Yeah, yeah. My husband out of nowhere just goes, Anne Hathaway won an Oscar, right? For Les Miserables. And I was like, what in what's happening right now connected in your mind? Singing and dancing.

Like you wanted to make sure that this is, that this level of talent. Is it okay that she's doing this? Yeah, you want to, are you concerned that it's not going to happen after this?

Like how did we get there? And he's like, I don't know. I just, you know, I just wanted to know. Yeah, I mean, I think, but I think that says something about the experience oscar winning actress we're like how did this oscar winning actress find herself in this streaming romance with this kid that nobody knows with this kid that only 14 year olds know and there are a lot of reasons for that a lot of the the business concerns that we're talking about um you want to talk about the movie yeah uh i thought this movie was pretty great very charming i have structural notes like

and and this goes really to all romance things which is like you know what's the problem here is that like in hathaway the most beautiful person on the screen by like a 20 mile radius, like feels bad about herself and then like can't get over it and then finally gets over it. I mean, even within romantic movies, the stakes are very low because he's just like, sure, I love you forever from like minute five. I fully agree with you. I'll just give the listener if they're not familiar with the idea of you, which I guess, I think we should actually spoil

now that we're at the end of the show. And I think the ending is worth discussing. But it follows Selene, a 40-year-old single mom who begins an unexpected romance with 24-year-old Hayes Campbell. He's the lead singer, is he the lead singer? Of August Moon, which is the hottest boy band on the planet. He's one of five.

He's Harry Styles's he's Harry Styles he's Harry Styles for sure yeah or he would like to be Harry Styles yes Selene is only there

because she's chaperoning a trip to Coachella with her daughter and her daughter's friends and they go to a meet and greet they have a meet cute at the meet and greet and

lo and behold like very quickly this single mother is in a whirlwind romance with an international pop superstar and then it's like a real question of like well what would happen if this happened right and it's a movie that i thought was going to be like i said more commie than rami and is very rami and

not very commie it's not a very funny movie at all um it's a movie that almost entirely rests on in hathaway's shoulders um the movie with a lesser act like a lesser actress in this movie is kind of a bad movie and terrible and she and i thought nicholas gallatin was like solid he was he was fine he was fine um and i know i've been hard on him and i think like he does not quite have the it charisma factor of a harry styles or you know know, Ryan Gosling has obviously been on my mind and many others this weekend. But someone who can believably make anyone just absolutely fall to pieces just with like pure charisma. It's not quite there, but he's charming. I thought the first 30 minutes or so where he is openly flirting with her and kind of like really making his advances and she's trying to fathom like, is this really happening and trying to protect herself, but also really engaged. I thought really worked.

Once they were in the romance, I was like, why would either of these people want this? Which is not really what you want. Other than just like they clearly had some animal attraction. That there was just something, that primal thing that happens between two people. And you have to believe that and accept that throughout the entirety of the movie. Another problem there is that like once they are together, I didn't find the sex scenes that sexy. Though the first one worked, then all the others didn't. Yeah.

And the first one like is preposterous. And that's why it works i mean she just she watches a boy band video alone in her beautiful craftsman in los angeles that does not come up anywhere in los angeles none of this movie was filmed in los angeles in los angeles well that looks just like a pasadena house i mean it does but like the block does not look like a LA house. Certainly, the gallery is not in Silver Lake. Okay. We did get a lot of aerial shots of Sunset Junction, though, just to situate us. Yeah.

This is a hell of an LA movie, reference-wise. I mean, and that's the thing. Yeah, lots of Glendale stuff, but that was not Glendale. There's literally a joke about All Time, like our favorite restaurant. On Hillhurst. They even specify that. Thank you. Shout out All Time. Wonderful. Get their. On Hillhurst. They even specify that. Thank you. Shout out All Time.

Wonderful. Get their cookbook. Great spot. Great stuff. But like that warehouse was not in Glendale. But that's fine. It doesn't really matter. Okay.

So she watches like a boy. You talk like you've been to every location in Los Angeles. Like you've only lived, how long has it been? Seven years? Eight years? I just, I've been to a lot of Glendale. Okay. And there's. That's very ominous. just, I've been to a lot of Glendale. Okay. And there's just.

That's very ominous. Well, I don't know if it's my favorite place. And the trees, like the foliage and the parking lot and all sorts, it just doesn't add up. That's okay. That's okay. Doesn't matter. She watches one boy band video and then gets on a plane and is sitting like in the back in the middle which is not consistent with anything visually that we've been presented about this character

and her resources she has some wealth and then shows up in a trench coat and like a see-through dress at the essex hotel where he's staying is let in and he has no other obligations despite being a member of... I'm waiting for a bad thing to happen. It's so silly that... She looks great. I was like, this would be very exciting if this happened to me. Here's another thing. Anne Hathaway

she turns 40. They celebrate her 40th birthday. I think that was a poor nose cake, but it looked delicious. Her character in the movie, you mean. Yeah, her character in the movie is. And she, you could tell me that she and the actress who plays her daughter are the same age. There's a joke about this in the movie, that they're sisters.

Right, but like, that doesn't get around. Like, the fact that everyone is just looking and dressing 26, even though the age difference is a major part of this movie. And at some point, Anne Hathaway has to go to her daughter's summer camp, where at least I think she's a counselor. But still, I was like, this woman should be arrested if she's attending the summer camp. Like, this is what is going on.

Because everyone just looks exactly the same age. And that's confusing to me. Yeah, I think you put your... The true trick of the movie is that the movie wouldn't be very good if it didn't have Anne Hathaway. Looking incredible. But having Anne Hathaway in the movie makes the movie implausible completely. Right. Because Anne Hathaway, you know, is actually more attractive now than she was 10 years ago.

Yes. And. She also, like, owns a successful art gallery in Silver Lake and is incredibly stylish. Yeah. Like. But there's a certain kind of L.A. woman that resonated with me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've definitely met women like her in the city.

But I think the thing that is tricky is Anne Hathaway's persona as a movie star over the years has often played on this. The Princess Diaries is about a girl who makes a transformation. You know, The Devil Wears Prada

is about like a frumpy girl relative to the supermodels or the stylish women who are, you know, Emily Blunt in the film. But like...

This woman is not frumpy at any point in the movie. She's not. not frumpy at any point in the movie she's not and even like one of the like the major hurdles in the relationship is when she just leaves everything and goes on european tour with a bunch of 25 year olds in the smallest private jet i have ever like one direction had to have a larger jet than that they're like it's like a six-seater and they're all crammed in and And I was just like, what are we doing here? You know, could the budget not afford like larger interiors?

It is so small. Is it like a metaphor? Whatever. So they still, they go to all the hotspots and then they rent a house in the south of France, you know, an Airbnb classic. And there are like younger girls hanging on and she feels uncomfortable wearing what I assume was a Gucci one piece in front of them even though she looks absolutely incredible and then they say a couple mean things to her and she's like now i have to like give up everything i'm just like

this woman would not be intimidated by these dummies sitting behind the pool being like how's my tiktok she just wouldn't care she's so successful and beautiful and self-possessed but you're she's at a moment in her life where she's just been like significantly betrayed by her ex yeah but i mean, he's dipshit. But she has a fragility that that is the point of the movie. That something has happened at this time in her life. Well, everything

surrounding... Everything that the movie puts in surrounding that contradicts the fragility in a way that I found a little hard over time to buy into. I mean, you know look at me I'm a beautiful young man who married young you know like sometimes it happens sometimes somebody just goes off the market you never know what they're going to become no in 10 years later

they show up on the market and they're like oh my god where you been all my life I'm single now right and she gets scooped up immediately by a pop star like maybe maybe it is logical maybe it's just that she was never looking and she was focused on her family and she was not focused on being a fabulous woman and she's made this kind of transformation

but inside she's still a person who's been hurt. I think this is a very credible frame for the movie. I think Anne Hathaway is just a little too hot. Right.

So it makes it hard. That's what I'm saying. She's nervous about being in a one piece but literally one scene earlier there was a montage where she's in a bikini in the ocean with the,

with, uh, Nicholas Galton. And you're like, man, Anne Hathaway, she looks amazing for being a mom in her forties. So it's,

the movie does kind of like undercut itself a little bit. I think the story, the frame of the story works in general for me. Like I really bought the emotional arc between them. The thing that I thought was really interesting, and we'll get into, like, some spoiler territory more specifically, was I haven't read this book,

which was written by Robin Lee. Uh-huh. But apparently the book ends in a distinctly different way than the movie. So if you don't want to hear the ending of the book

or the movie, you can turn the episode off. We'll see you later this week. You know, the movie ends with Nicholas Galton and Anne Hathaway after a five-year break after this very upsetting breakup

that they have at the end of the film because Anne Hathaway's daughter is being exposed to too much of like the travails. Yes. Another great L.A. moment.

I was very funny. I mean, are there mean kids at Campbell Hall? I bet there are. She's been exposed to this world of paparazzi and being picked there mean kids at Campbell Hall? I bet there are. She's been exposed to this world of paparazzi and being picked on by kids at school because her 40-year-old mom is dating a pop star

who they all know. So they break up, but they say, in five years, this is what the Nicholas Galison character says, maybe we're both still single. Maybe your daughter's in college. Maybe there's still a chance for us. We cut to the five years.

We see the character perform on Graham Norton. What a glove for Graham Norton in this episode. Jesus. Not one, but two spots. That's true. But then no one ever sits on, he sits on the Graham Norton couch alone afterwards, which doesn't happen.

Adele did that too in the episode, but I assume that that was a real episode. But I think that's a COVID episode. And if you go wide, because she's in an individual chair and for a while during covet they were like spaced out oh interesting will you sit and just watch graham norton quietly on your couch uh no i didn't know that i had the opportunity to watch the full episodes but i watch clips all the time that was another thing i was like what's up with her bbc america subscription and are they airing that i couldn't figure that out yeah is. Is it an acorn thing? What is that? Anyway, she's watching Graham Norton and she watches her ex perform and

he sings a song that is very clearly written about her and their inability to be together. And then lo and behold, one day she goes to work and they hear a knock at the door. Someone comes into the gallery and it's him. Right. And he's there for her. Yeah. And they embrace and then the movie's over. the book they break up and then they just they've broken up yeah and that's the end of the book

and then five years later she like sees him I guess on TV but that's that they don't get back together and that's an interesting choice

now that's a real movie ending yeah that they've chosen for the movie would you have been satisfied with that book ending I what does that even what does that say

telling us about why we experience this story in the book ending would we does that even what does that say telling us about why we to experience this story in the book ending would we have seen her watching i don't know i'm not totally sure how it goes well i i did have a revelation about this story and this book and romance novels in general where i was like oh it's not actually really about the guy or even like the romance it's it's about this character yes and what she's figuring out about herself and the will they won't they is really the will she won't she like get through

whatever emotional shit she needs to get through which i suppose is like an empowering and you know like good development for stories but doesn't grip me in the same way yeah um so i guess that ending would be true to that idea of this is this is really about this woman getting over her divorce and all of that stuff it might have made it slightly harder you know because i don't really buy that the woman played by ann hathaway on screen whatever it was ever that down and out you know it might have situated that but she did look incredibly beautiful so i like her coachella shirt a lot if anyone can source that for me i would wear it have you ever been to coachella no no interest is that just one direction regularly play at

coachella that's another question i think harry styles has played coachella yeah but i don't think one direction has played coachella there's a little bit of five seconds of summer going on with that band too i'm not totally sure that's totally One Direction. I think just my understanding of the book. I have friends who really love this book, who are very into romance, who are really anticipating this. And I've always heard about this as the Harry Styles book. Interesting. Yeah. But it was fun to watch.

I love that this is what we're talking about what did you what did you think about the framing of like Fiona Apple and St. Vincent and like all of these artists as being the fascination of the young daughter character

and like that and Anne Hathaway and that being like their connection point and this being kind of like passe but then yeah I guess just like I thought it was an interesting

representation of music taste you know that like music taste is very generational just like movie thought it was an interesting representation of music taste you know that like music taste is very generational just like movie taste and that you can be obsessed with Harry Styles but then also be like

but what I really like is St. Vincent now and I don't know it felt like a little bit more honest or accurate about how that works as you get older

I was just so discombobulated anytime the daughter and the two friends who were lovely were on screen and I was just like Are you afraid

they're listening? No no no it's like it's not their fault that they don't look like teenagers but they just like do not look like

teenagers at all so I was like it's cool that you have a pack of like young friends to teach you what's cool you know This is a tale

as old as time I know but 90210 just populated by 32 year olds Sure but like in a movie that is so much about age discrepancies like that is what everyone is like so upset about and i'm like no no no like we're all here in one little pot together it's a really good point uh do you think that there's a double standard in our society about older men and young women sure i really don't care um I also didn't think that he looked 24

so how old did you think he looked like 28 okay you know right

and she kind of looks 35 so it's really like if that yeah you know so it's it's again

yeah I had a great time I was like some of some of the the stakes do you think the movie works better if it's Faye Dunaway and Jacob Tremblay? Faye Dunaway and Nicholas Gallatin.

I would enjoy that. Sure, yeah. That would be really funny. I mean, Faye could have some fun. Recast it. What's a better representation of this? I mean, I think Anne Hathaway does, though, as you said, have the ability to just make you want to watch the whole movie. So I get that.

But she was never down on her luck for a second in this movie. The only thing she's down on her luck on is that that painting is not to my taste. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Oh, I thought it was cool. It's not to my taste. Okay. And she has to live with it now. To see Frank Stella died, really one of my faves. Yeah. Oh, I thought it was cool. It's not to my taste. Okay. And she has to live with it now.

To see Frank Stella die is really one of my faves. Yeah. That was tough. It's not. Is he like in your Hall of Fame? He's a big Zach. Yeah. I think.

I think Zach and I have discussed his work before. Yeah. R.I.P. Any other closing thoughts? What's Anne Hathaway up to? What's like her mission right now as an actor? I don't know. She was on TV.

What else is she? Yeah, she was on your favorite Apple TV Plus show. Did you watch any of it when you were wearing the Vision Pro? No, because I didn't know how to get there. Okay. You know, I would have watched plenty of things. I just, I couldn't really get the click. You have to understand, I was like sitting completely ramrod straight still hands to myself like don't touch anything

don't look the wrong way because if I turn it off then Ben had to go to work you know there was nothing I could do to get it back well it worked out you got to see 20 minutes of Barbie yeah of these five options what was the best um I mean IMAX or at home what was the worst well i guess 40x just by you know that's like a did not finish for me so tough for 40x in this episode what do you think is gonna last probably some combo of at home and apple vision pro and and then and then im Pro and then IMAX. And I think like the idea of a fancier, more expensive, quote unquote, premium experience will be the way that people go to the theater if they go to the theater. I don't know that it'll be ScreenX or 40X necessarily. It might just be fewer

and you know IMAX occasionally and then at home the rest of the time. I think we're on the same page. Yeah. Was this a worthwhile experiment? I had fun.

Do you want to give any snack reviews at the end? You had a wide variety. I don't remember what I ate when. I had pretzel bites during Challengers.

That was an A plus. What flavor were they? I didn't have what I ate when. I had pretzel bites during Challengers. That was an A+. What flavor were they? I didn't have any. Just salt. Okay, just salt. You didn't go with like salty. You also got the thin Kit Kats. For my wife.

Yeah, but I got to sample those. They were individually wrapped, which. I think is very sanitary, but not very enjoyable as an eating experience. Well, I just didn't eat as many because, you know, the barrier to entry, but also it made you like count each one that you're eating. You know, this is not sullen energy you're describing. It was too hard to open the wrappers on the individually wrapped Kit Kats. It wasn't that it was too hard. It just wasn't like reaching in for a scoop full of M&M's you know what I'm saying

or a popcorn. I'm more of a pour into your hand guy from the back. Sure. You guys also got Junior Mints I think at that time.

Yes. At Godzilla Kong you had sweet tart ropes. They're pure poison and I love them. There was a real

textural choice that they made. They have a chalkiness. Just the interior so it's like a it is like sort of like a licorice twizzler-esque like a straw slightly more pliable than a twizzler i would say i've gotten those i've eaten those roughly 100 times in my life yeah just that package of like 10 ropes that are you know lined up next to each other and every time i've regretted it every time i'm'm like, I'm in hell. Like 18 minutes later. But they taste so good.

The chalk finish. Once it hits your lips. That was like surprising in a way that I didn't revisit. You gave me two and I put the other one away. I did a lot of peanut M&Ms. Yeah. As usual. Yeah.

Your go-to. And I tested the found sodas at a variety of establishments across theMs. Yep. As usual. Yeah. Your go-to. And I tested the fountain sodas at a variety of establishments across the Los Angeles area. Quite poor. And I just got to say we really got to fine-tune our, you know,

our mix and match soda guys. Yep. My big takeaway. The best fountain soda is at the new Beverly Cinema. I did have one there the last time I was there and that was good.

It's an old school machine and you can tell. That's another one we didn't do. We didn't do any rap cinema as a part of this. And we didn't do any dine-ins because honestly they don't start their weekday screenings until 4 p.m and we have children so that was i would have loved to do a lunchtime i pick yeah maybe we'll do a sequel this episode there are other ways to see movies these aren't the only ways um dine- is complicated. I like it, but I have some notes.

So maybe we'll talk about that in a future episode. I feel good about this. Okay. I think we did the right thing. Do you agree with my assessments? Do you want to add anything? I completely agree with you in terms of like the higher. I was recently told I don't ask enough questions.

By whom? So do you like IMAX more? You want to, like, what do you? No, yeah. IMAX was, that was, what do you no yeah IMAX was that was I mean at least for the kinds of movies that we're talking about that's the way to go it'll be interesting to see if more and more movies are like we're an IMAX movie when they're not an IMAX movie I think that's something that is bound to continue to happen but I thought that was the best way to see it do you think that you'll continue to dress like in Hathaway's ex-husband uh in the idea of you did you feel did you feel targeted by that at all

honestly that guy's doing mergers seems like he's making a lot of money feel good about his what he's up to i would never treat women the way that he treated women i just want you to know that the one true laugh line of that movie for me was when the the new wife is like oh i'm leaving him or whatever and then she's like do you want to go get thai food sometime and anne hathaway just nails the no perfectly it's very good it was very good yeah uh i think that's it i think we're

good okay more questions next time though yeah speaking of questions oh our next episode will be a mailbag please send your questions to uh i don't know what bob should we put them in

other places besides twitter at this point x probably yeah there's probably a way that we could do like a google submissions form for I don't know what. Bob, should we put them in other places besides Twitter at this point? Probably. Yeah, there's probably a way that we could do like a Google submissions form for questions that we can circulate into other places. But I don't know where those places are. Just the JMO forums.

What if people don't want to leave their email? On the dark web? I think the email thing is optional. You can make it optional. You've been managing the JMO Discord. Do you think that's a safe space for big picture questions? It's definitely a safe space for freeing the mind. We're growing bigger and bigger every day at JMO.

I'm very proud of all of our work there. Mailbag will also be talking about I Saw the TV Glow. And I think that's it. Ask some questions about this discussion. Do you want to plug the YouTube one more time? Yeah, I do. I do. Thank you, Amanda. Thank you for about this discussion. Do you want to plug the YouTube one more time? Yeah, I do. I do. Thank you, Amanda.

Thank you for asking that question. You're so welcome. Ringer movies. Should I just have my own Ringer submissions and just send you a bunch of mailbag questions? Well, you know I would love that. That's just called a text message, I think. I think you could just fire those off.

He doesn't answer those. That's true. That's true. YouTube.com slash at ringer movies. Okay. And when do the live event tickets go on sale? Well, thanks for that prompt that I was not prepared for. The answer to that question is May 14th at 10 a.m. Pacific.

Okay. Today is May 6th when we're recording. Right. It'll be May 7th when people can hear this. What other live shows do you want to go to? Do you know? Like Theo Vaughn? Joe Rogan? Today is May 6th when we're recording. Right. It'll be May 7th when people can hear this. What other live shows do you want to go to? Do you know? Like Theo Vaughn?

Joe Rogan? I honestly, only if I can sit next to Chris. I don't know what the full lineup is. I do. This is the power I wield. Yeah. Congratulations. How many PowerPoint presentations did you have to sit through to find out?

At least one. I have no regrets i'd like to see my friends okay um i'd like to go on the watch at some point just to offer my feedback on their show selections over the last go on the watch podcast yeah and the i just like show up at the end for just like listener feedback and it's just i'm sure they would love that it sounds like something they'd be really excited about we'll we'll figure that out uh definitely for sure 100 yeah uh thanks to our producer bobby wagner for his work on this episode thanks to our incredible video team yeah for the work that they've been doing these last few weeks anything else you want to say

um if harry styles approached you and said leave zach for me, you say what? Does he have the Jordan Peterson listener beard or not? He does. And then it's an easy no thanks. Zach has saved another day. Thanks for listening.

We'll see you later this week.