The Big Picture - ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ and Top Five Blockbusters

Episode Date: April 1, 2021

‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ is the first major blockbuster movie event of 2021. Shea Serrano joins Sean and Amanda to discuss the winners and losers of the latest monster showdown, which is now in theaters and available on HBO Max. Then, they share their five favorite blockbusters. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Shea Serrano Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ringers' Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard are on a journey breaking down every single Taylor Swift album. For all you Swifties out there, this is the podcast for you. From her most famous moments to her most obscure references, every single album, Taylor Swift has it all. Check it out on the Ringer Dish feed, on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the king of all monsters. On today's show, we will be talking about what it feels like to see the first big movie of 2021.

Some might even call it a blockbuster. I'm talking about the monster movie showdown Godzilla vs. Kong, which dropped this week on HBO Max. Joining us to talk about Godzilla and Kong and to share his top five blockbusters it's our pal Shay Serrano Shay what up what up baby you ready for this man I'm super ready I'm extremely very ready Amanda you are well known at the ringer as our Godzilla historian so this is a huge week for you. Are you ready for this? Yes. I like fun, stupid things. This truly was a fun, stupid thing. So I want to ask you guys, before you sat down to watch this movie, this epic showdown, in your heart of hearts, who did you have? Were you a Godzilla

person or a King Kong person? Amanda, I will start with you. Well, Sean, Kong bows to no one. So I was a King Kong person based exclusively on the trailer for this movie, which I have seen more than any other trailer in recent memory. I think that's a combination of the Sixers being on my television in my home too much and getting the TV version of this and also just an optimized trailer for me personally in terms of really dumb expositional jargon that I cling on to. And I think even though Godzilla's out there hurting people and we don't know why, I mean, that's the other reason that I think that I sided with Kong because he bows to no one and Godzilla's hurting people. That is Dobbins energy, bowing to no one. I would agree. Shay, did the trailer for this film change your feelings about whether or not you were a Godzilla person or a King Kong person?

Yeah, there's nothing that could happen in my life that would make me stray away from King Kong's side of this argument. I love Kongong i love a good gorilla in any movie it doesn't matter what give me give me congo give me rampage give me whatever you want mighty joe young yeah sure if there's a gorilla in the movie i'm gonna watch that movie and i was fucking pumped for this one i didn't even care i don't care about the fight at all like i just know that godzilla is a way worse of a hang than king kong is and i don't want to i don't want to like be with godzilla i want to be with kong can i ask a follow-up question here that was posed after my own screening last night are you personally a kong or a godzilla oh oh i'm i'm a kong okay especially especially with regard

to this movie. Kong is entirely overmatched. He knows that. He knows there's no way to defeat this undefeatable thing. It's, the word God

is literally in its name and you're just like a monkey from an island. Like, you're overmatched. Yeah. But, but, he don't,

he don't back down. He fucking shows, he got an axe with blue energy and he's like let's fucking go i'm ready yeah amanda i i suspect i know the answer to that question for you but what what are you yeah some hard truths in my kitchen because i obviously do really like the water and also um you know i like to. I like being near the ocean and just like retreating. First of all, hearing that there's a mechanized version of you and going into a rage and attacking the fake version of you and then just sulking off to be alone again

is pretty much a manicure. Like that's just, I have to recognize that in myself. It's not what I want, but we have to be honest. Yeah, I think, unfortunately for me, I'm probably closest to Mechagodzilla. You know, robotic, I've been programmed, I'm probably being controlled by another human through a psionic link.

It's unfortunate for me. So, you know, this is a very stupid movie. It was pretty fun to watch and I was very grateful to have it. But as I was thinking about preparing for this and just thinking about Godzilla and King Kong as one does alone in their house at night, I was thinking about how Kong right now it's very much in the spectacle it's a fun night out um but you know kong started obviously as this like parable about colonialism and racism and and man's desire to control foreign lands and godzilla of course is this allegory about nuclear warfare and what happened to japan and post-world war ii and you know they're very post-World War II. And, you know,

they're very purpose-bound films. And so it's interesting the way that kind of kaiju movies and these giant gorilla movies have evolved over time to kind of like suck out all of the meaning and just become not even plot devices and not even devices for character, but just pure spectacle movies. So I thought that that was kind of fascinating. Amanda, I was hoping you could explain the entire plot of Godzilla versus Kong for listeners of this show. I would love to, especially since I did not see Skull Island or any of the other films in this iteration of, I guess, is this the Kong franchise,

but then Godzilla is joining? I believe it's a true union. I think it is truly too because there have been two Godzilla movies and one Kong movie Shay you love Skull Island right loved it loved it so I learned very early on in this movie that in the last Godzilla installment Godzilla saved the world somehow is that correct? Yes. He destroyed all the other monsters. Right. And Millie Bobby Brown and Kyle Chandler

helpfully explained that to me in one of Kyle Chandler's two scenes in this movie. I hope that he got paid. Dad, I'm telling you, there is something provoking him that we're not seeing here. Why else would Godzilla flash an intimidation display if there wasn't another Titan around?

That podcast is filling your head with garbage. You should be in school. So, Godzilla's a good guy. And then we also learned that King Kong is a misunderstood good guy. And he is living on Skull Island, but in sort of a Truman Show-esque habitat. And he is cared for there by Rebecca Hall aka the Kong whisperer we'll come back to that and her her small friend like an adopted child essentially I believe the child's name is Gia who has a special connection with King Kong that perhaps has something to do with

her family and where she grew up. And is she from Scott? You know, again, didn't see the movie, not cut up on that lore, but they have a nice bond and she has a little King Kong doll. And then Godzilla attacks a science industrial military complex in Florida and people, and we don't know why we don't know why he's hurting people. And we don't know why, because he's a good person. And, um, that causes some distress, you know, among the community and the world at large. And then Millie Bobby Brown, we have like literally two more hours for you to go. Okay. no, no, no. But the premise is always the hardest part. And you didn't tell me I was going to have to do this.

Okay, so Millie Bobby Brown is A, a teenager, B, really into this conspiracy theory podcast hosted by Brian Tyree Henry. And she and Brian Tyree Henry think that something's up and that Godzilla wouldn't just attack this facility for no reason because he's a good guy. And so they're investigating why Godzilla attacked it. Meanwhile, Damian Bashir, who is the head of the company that was attacked, is trying to, quote, build defenses against Godzilla.

But he's really trying to get unchecked power in a Bond villain sort of way you can tell pretty quickly and so he comes up with this cockamamie scheme to recruit Alexander Skarsgård who is quote a scientist in quote Philadelphia to help them lure King Kong to the center of the earth which is where all of the Alpha Titans powers come from. Oh my God. Are you not reading? You're doing an amazing job right now. Listen, Alpha Titan is another thing

that Rebecca Hall has to say in this movie. And they'll get King Kong to lead them to the source of the world's power, which will then animate the aforementioned mechanized Godzilla, who will then defeat the real Godzilla, but then hijinks ensue. That's pretty good. Shay, any open areas of interest there that you want to fill in?

No, no, no. That's not at all what I understood from this movie when I went into it. What did you think it was about? All I knew was a giant lizard and a giant gorilla were going to fight. And that's all I was... You could have cut out every single scene

that didn't have them fighting. I don't need you to explain anything to me. I don't need you to come up with a way that these things exist or why they fight. All that I need to know is that CGI right now looks better than it has ever looked ever. These things look real. They don't look like they used to look. They look like actual real things. They do like really neat camera tricks during the fight where it's shooting around and then we'll like zoom in like if they're really trying to get focused on this thing that we're watching and that's all that i care about i don't care about the rest of it cut it all out just give me those two incredible level of fur detail on king kong this time around um the cgi is pretty good i don't know if i was totally

blown away by it um i will say so they're obviously a number of good fun there are a number of good like action sequences in the movie there's the that opening godzilla sequence that you talked about amanda there are is a big sequence in hollow earth which is the center of the earth that you talked about there's a showdown in the sea and then there's a showdown at the end and when we got to the showdown at the end i paused hbo Max to see how much time we had left. And it was 31 minutes. And I was like, okay, this is why this movie exists. We have a 31 minute fight sequence on our hands. And that stuff is good. I felt like it was satisfying. You fast forwarded through the absolute best one, which is when, because Shay, I know that we're

there for people fighting, but I do need a certain amount of blockbuster garbage to make fun of around the fight in order to invest which is how i remember everything about hollow earth and how dumb it is like i need for there to be an appropriately silly context for me to be able to cheer when king kong just absolutely decks godzilla on an aircraft carrier which absolutely fucking happened and i cheered like i just was like yes we did it and i thought that that was like the best marriage of this cgi and like it is the most legible and also the stupidest and the best i have so many questions about the water physics involved in all of those sequences how any of those vessels can support king kong's weight and you know and how things when he's climbing back out of the sea where is the tidal wave but whatever it ruled we did not ask a

scientist to appear on this episode nor did we ask a zoologist so i don't know if we're going to get answers to any of those questions um so here's the big question right there there's a such thing as a good bad movie there's maybe a such thing as a bad good movie but is there like a bad bad good good movie like is there a new kind of movie that is everyone knows going in that this is not a work of art everyone knows this may not even be like in the top five of this kind of film and yet there is this huge amount of anticipation because one, here's what we saw.

Last night at the box office, a ton of people went to go see this movie. $10 million worth of humans went to go see this movie after a worldwide pandemic. Two, the movie premiered on HBO Max and frankly, in my little corner of the universe, it seemed like every single person I knew was watching it. This seems like a genuine movie event,

which is exciting. It's exciting for this podcast. It's exciting for fans of Godzilla and King Kong like me. So is there a level of self-awareness about this movie experience? Or is it just that we've been starving for something and so this is a buffet of content? I think it's a little bit of both.

I mean, there has to be a certain amount of meme event to this. I mean, there's the meme event of Kongpaz to no one, which maybe I'm just creating that myself. But the minute this trailer came out, there were jokes on the internet. There's a self-awareness and then a self-evident stupidness to all of this that I think people are buying into. And then also, obviously, it's like vaccines are on the rise in the country and movie theaters are opening. And so there's this like, oh, we can go to the movies again thing that like maybe explains some of the box office, though, like, frankly, I was just surprised by that box office. And then also like it's on your TV at home. So it's really easy to watch.

And we haven't had events like this. So I think there's something about kind of the rarity of this moment in time for this movie. And then I do also think we've been starved for giant entertainment that, doesn't come with homework because so much of the the superhero stuff to be quite honest like let's just say it say it like it is comes with like okay this connects to this and this is about this and now i have to google it and we have to learn 4,000 things and sean is going to send me like a 12 page outline about like the comic origins of xyz and like obviously these characters do have cinematic history origins. But I don't care.

I haven't seen a single one of these movies. They punched each other on a giant ship in the middle of the ocean. I'm happy. Yeah, I think you specifically don't need it. If you don't know anything about any of the... Forget about the last three movies in this franchise. Even the history of these characters, you just don't need it. It's meant to be legible, even though there's so much exposition that is trying to explain why we're here um shay did this

movie check the boxes you you you had on your sheet yeah definitely once they do once they have that the fight in the ocean yeah and you're like all right i'm in i'm in for the right like i did again i just would watch any anything with Kong in it. You know how they do those, you can go on, like, National Geographic website, and they'll have a camera pointed at an eagle's nest, and you can just watch it in real time? For, like, I would do that with Kong. If there was a camera pointed in his habit all day long,

it would just be open because he's just so sweet and so charming. And just when he starts beating on his chest i'm happy i'm excited when he punched godzilla we're watching it we did this as like a family movie night normally we do friday family movie night we moved it up two days to have a special middle of the week wednesday family movie night so we're watching it and my youngest son the eight-year-old the baby he's sitting on the couch with with me Laramie. And when Kong punches Godzilla, he was just like, oh, yeah, like literally screaming. And I was doing the exact same thing. Just the two of us, the other three, the twins and Laramie were like, whatever.

But we were having the best time just watching these things fight. So, yes, it checked off the box for me amanda were you moved by the fact that um podcasters have taken the place of tv journalists newspaper journalists as the the animating force of stories and event movies in 2021 they have not taken the place because some of the fake news chyrons in this movie like belong in the MoMA. Like I just, and they're also trying to explain some of the Titan mythology by like the five words on the bottom of CNN. And I was like, I don't understand the real words on the bottom of CNN at this point,

let alone this weird stuff. But listen, love Brian Tyree Henry. And I thought they did a great job of making fun of conspiracy podcasters and podcasters in general I was delighted honored to be in his company he was a way better podcaster than the podcasters

from when they redid the Halloween movie oh yeah and they died immediately y'all are terrible at this we need Brian you know what I was thinking when I was watching this when the podcasters show up, this investigative conspiracy theory

podcast, is Rebecca Hall was also in, if I remember correctly, Frost Nixon. And I was like, man, she has been in movies with the two greatest investigators ever. Ever. Ever. Can we do a nitpick? Of course. Go.

He was posting the podcast after each episode, right? Because Millie Bobby Brown was listening to it. I just a note to any future podcasting whistleblowers. Perhaps don't give away all of your info and plans before you do it. I don't think in the real world you would make it to save the day as Brian Tyree Henry did. I just think you're blowing up your spot slightly. Were you concerned that maybe Godzilla was listening to the pod? He was definitely listening. Speaking of Rebecca Hall, this movie, like so many of these movies, is downright loaded with

gifted and widely celebrated performers asked to do stupid stuff. This might be the best example of it that I've seen in the last 10 years. There are a number of very talented people here. Rebecca Hall, chief among them, just no disrespect to her. I don't know what she's doing in the movie. I don't know if she knows what movie she's in. Her line readings are hilarious. And she is asked to say the most weird stuff. You know, someone like Damien Bashir in this movie, I think he knows what movie he's in. He's like, this is a big old piece of ham and I'm going to chew on it for as many minutes as I can. And I think Rebecca Hall is trying to bring, I think, her very elegant, classically trained sense of acting to Godzilla versus Kong.

Amanda, what'd you think of Rebecca's work here? I think she did a fantastic job. They make her say the most ridiculous shit. I made a list. I'm going to read. This is just a limited selection of the things that Rebecca Hall is asked to say in this movie. Here we go. Number one, there can't be two Alpha Titans.

Yes. When it comes to Kong, what I say goes. Incredible. Incredible. The aforementioned Kong bows to no one. Here, out of nowhere, depth charges. No context. Also, my husband seemed to know exactly

what a depth charge was and it's like explaining whatever. Okay. Because he's seen a lot of submarine movies. Yeah. So have I. Let me tell you, I've seen every submarine movie and I still do not understand anything about submarines, how they work or the rules of engagement. We'll come back to that. Here we go. This won't end until one of them submits. You know what? That's just like that's some good stakes and exposition, you know, work there. I like putting the movie in the context of like an mma fight you know like it's genuinely has rules and someone has to submit before this can be over it's fantastic okay and then finally just a great one from hollow earth this is a power beyond understanding just okay I don't understand it. Shay, what'd you think of Rebecca Hall?

Proud of her? Super proud. You need, listen, every good movie like this, because I think this is, with regard to monster movies, this is one that you can put back on. You need at least one actor in there who is a real actor, who is doing real acting. And she's really, she's taking everything very seriously.

All of the other people. Skarsgård is basically winking after he says every single line. Meanwhile, Ms. Hall is fucking, she's trying to get, you know, put this on her Oscar reel. She's really saying this stuff very sincerely. And I really appreciated that. Okay, important question. 35 years from now, when Rebecca Hall,

who, you know directed a film passing that we talked about earlier this year is going to be in another film later this year is set for a big 2021 but 35 years from now when she's being honored with an honorary oscar and they're doing the clip reel and they're like here are all the great works that she's been a part of will godzilla versus kong be featured in that clip reel it'll be the first one just the depth charges line that amanda mentioned it's all it's gonna be that's a whole clip okay so you mentioned brian tyree henry i think he also definitely knows what kind of movie he's in here um we get millie bobby brown and

julian dennison cool to see julian dennison in another big um american film you may people who've seen i like for the Wilder People will recognize him. I think he was also, was he in Deadpool 2? Deadpool 2. He was. He's the main bad guy. Why is that the second one

you mentioned? Well, I mean, Hunt for the Wilder People, that's great stuff. Deadpool 2 is better. Chandler, I don't know. Damien Bashir

and Isa Gonzalez as like the two worst people on earth. That was an interesting choice incredible end fate for isaac gonzalez in this movie it came out of nowhere that's the only part of the movie that surprised me when he was very oh no crushed it oh shit oh she's dead she's dead what my favorite performance by far in this movie though is from that magic monkey ox that uh that that she just mentioned that that axe is elite.

Can gorillas swing axes? Is that a thing? Yeah. Why wouldn't they? Are we talking about real gorillas? Definitely. Movie gorillas? Absolutely.

In Kong Skull Island, he uses several weapons. Several. One of which is like a giant ship propeller attached to a chain that he swings around. He knows what he's doing. He can swing an axe. I have a question for you guys. Go for it. I think some of the funniest

and in some cases most beautiful parts of this movie happen in the hollow earth section when they go to the center of the earth to discover Kong's sort of native lands and where all the energy comes from that Damien Bashir's character is after. And there's all this architecture. There's a throne room. There's a throne. There is a giant statue of Kong or Kong's relatives. Who made that stuff? Did Kong make like, is Kong into masonry? How did all that stuff come to be? The Kong family definitely made all of that.

You could tell, you could tell he just understood it implicitly, which means it comes from him is my guess. Amanda, if you could book a one-way ticket to hollow earth, would you go? No, this is,

I will say that that is the part of the movie. I like your wife just kind of stopped paying as much attention. No no I got my computer out and started like doing some work in this outline which was fine I could follow what was going on but it did have that real like CGI throne room fight vibe that like every blockbuster now just ends it's like a poorly lit totally fake room with a throne somewhere and like some evil character that you've never seen before also pops out. Like, I do feel like this happened at some point in Snyder Cut. Maybe it wasn't a throne room, but I was like, oh, okay, we're in this room. I thought about the bad Brides of Skywalker ending.

I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're checking this box. I don't have to pay as much attention. But, you know, I thought the outside parts of hollow earth really interesting wildlife yeah sure seems like they've been able to evolve uh without the terrors of uh the ozone layer being destroyed over time you know the greenhouse effect they're they're living their best life there in hollow earth why would you leave why wouldn't you just stay i, some of those animals seemed quite threatening. At one point, Kong almost dies, right? He's suffocated by the weird flying

velociraptor dragon. We've gotten you to say some extraordinary things on this pod so far, Amanda. I'm really glad you're here. You think I can't hang, but I can hang. It's just what I choose to. What interests me, what's fun. This is fun. It's stupid, but it's fun. Who do you guys think was the winner of this movie? It's Kong, unquestionably. He's who they pin everything around.

He's the most interesting person. He has the best story arc of everybody. He dies like three times, and they keep bringing him back. He just is so expressive in his face now he's a real he's like an actual actor and i love it he won for me amanda who won for you well kong and hopefully everyone's bank accounts yes yes yes this is uh this is a movie that um a lot of people are gonna see this feels it's going to end up being one of the most widely seen movies of the last five years

because of the way that it's being distributed, which is fascinating. I got to say my absolute favorite part of this movie was when Kong popped his shoulder back in a joint. Did you guys see that? I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. That was a nice touch. Are you serious? He looked like Derek

Coleman out there you know he was like I just gotta get back out there and get some boards with a with a skyscraper he pops it back into place and you know

what's funny is so that part happens there's one of the parts that the the baby didn't understand what's he doing there dad I was like hold on

I'll tell you in a second because we're watching the fight and then afterward I made him watch the scene from Best of the Best on YouTube. Oh, yeah. Where Tommy has to pop Aaron Roberts' shoulder back.

And he's like, pop it, pop it, Tommy. But I still didn't explain to him what was happening. I just made him watch another thing with a shoulder. And he's like, all right, I'm going to bed. This is fucking okay. Amanda, have you ever popped your shoulder out of its joint? No, but Zach, my husband, does this all the time. You know this. I've seen it happen on a golf course. It's terrifying. And it will happen sometimes with swimming. And then the way that he does it is he lies down on

the ground and then pops it back in. So anytime it pops out now, I just yell like, get down, get down, like an air raid. So this was a little close to home for me personally, but it was some nice color is that's wrong with with zach's shoulder he's got king kong energy you know sometimes his sister has it too they're fine but you know we just have to be careful we have to protect the shoulder the baron family weak shoulders i did not i did not i did not know that some people are ambidextrous some people can't keep their shoulders aligned it's tough guys i do think that this is a true blue blockbuster and so even though there is only 3 000 movie theaters and not 5 000 movie theaters open for this film i thought we should talk a

little bit more broadly about blockbusters and and just share our favorites this is a classic monster movie version of it but there are a lot of different types so i asked you guys to put together a top five i also as i often, made some very important but very fake rules for our lists. Amanda, are you on board with my rules at this point? I was. You let me make one amendment, I guess, or addition, which I appreciated. That was very gracious of you. But yes, I'm used to receiving emails with a lot of instructions from you at this point. I just go with it. It makes everyone's life easier.

You make it sound like I'm like the guy from Ikea. I'm trying to create an environment where we can have a fun pod. That's all I'm doing. Just set some boundaries. All right, I'm going to read the rules. So what is a blockbuster, at least for this list? Did your movie spend at least one weekend at number one atop the U.S. box office? If so, you qualify. Did your film earn at least $75 million at the U.S. box office? If so, you qualify. Does your film have a reported $100 million budget? If so, you qualify. Now,

not all of these films need a budget that high, but those at that number will automatically qualify. And finally, does your movie feature a monster, a dinosaur, a burning building, ship, or train, a president in peril, a magical beast, a superhero, an aquatic creature terrorizing people, an international hostage crisis, a James Cameron director's credit, a high-speed vehicle, or several, or a ticking time bomb on a bus or elsewhere? If so, you qualify. Shay, was this fun for you to make this list? This is the most difficult thing I've ever done. Because as I was going through my list,

it's 47 movies long. And I was like, fuck, I don't know where to stop. So I really love it. It was very hard. It's a really wide definition here. It could be any number of things. Every single movie. So I had a very personal decision in terms of what kind of movies i wanted to put here i don't have a lot of monster movies on my list i don't have

any superhero movies on my list i didn't want to get into that i was thinking almost entirely about personal movie going experiences especially in the 90. Because we are all 90s babies to an extent. And we spent a lot of time in movie theaters in the 90s. We love to talk about movies from the 90s. And there is a very specific brand. So at least for me, you'll hear a lot about that. I assume that's true for both of you guys too. Yeah. Ultimately, it was too like the parameters you set makes it so that 700 movies are eligible. And that becomes too difficult to choose. So I did the same thing you did. I said, well, which of these are the ones that I just remember being at the movies and

being the most excited about before, during, and after? I tried to avoid 90s creep, but I couldn't help it. I think, you know, I am a child of the 90s and there is a very specific type of 90s blockbuster that informed not just all the movies that came after, but also our brains. And I, believe it or not, was actually overwhelmed by the number of choices. narrow definition of blockbusters and anything that could be sorted into another genre like James Bond movies which I absolutely love but didn't consider even though I think they for the most part would meet the qualifications um it won't surprise anyone to learn there are no superhero movies on my list even though I I really love Wonder Woman and I love Black Panther and I think those could have qualified,

but they're a good version of a different type of movie to me. So I think ultimately the Blackbuster had to be able to stand on its own. That was one of the main definitions that I made, even though most of my picks are part of a franchise or they have sequels. It's not that they do stand alone, but that it's not part of the extended universe. And then they're all movies that I have like a deep personal connection to. Should we share our lists? I'm surprised that nobody had any superhero movie. The closest I got to putting a superhero movie on

there, even closer than Avengers Endgame, which was a great deal of fun, is I almost put Joker on my list. Wow. Almost. Yeah. And I didn't enjoy this movie at all. I didn't. But I remember specifically what it felt like before going to watch it and then being like, I went to the theater and they were using the metal detectors

to make sure nobody had guns. And I was sitting in there half the time like, is somebody going to shoot this up? Because that was a big story that was happening. And then afterward, I just felt... Joaquin Phoenix is incredible in that. And I just felt so icky and gross. I couldn't quite bring myself to put it on the list. But I don't have any superhero movies either.

Well, you put your finger on something there, there though which is that i think all of these movies create this intangible um ephemeral sensation of we're all together at a moment you know we're experiencing something that is that feels profound even if it is a little bit silly i think they also have to be fun for me there's a moment in each of these definitely where people cheer well i guess there's one exception which we can talk about but even there i do think people sort of cheer um but this sense that you're having is requiem for a dream the one that you're talking about on your list yeah no but like to she's point joker which is a movie that i hate like was obviously a phenomenon and was really successful

and ticks all these boxes. But like, did you enjoy it? I think there has to be a certain amount of like, we're going to the movies and it's, we're like having fun and I'm not like super stressed out and I don't even have to worry about if I totally understand this, just like make stupid things happen and then I can leave. Yeah. I mean, to that superhero question, the one superhero movie I had a sort of an honorable mention was Spider-Man two, Sam Raimi's movie from oh five or six. I feel like, because that was before it felt like we were in like all of movies had

been encroached upon. What do you, what do you ask? Is that upside down kiss? That's one. That's the first one. The second one is, uh,

Alfred Molina as Dr. Octopus. Yeah. Dr. Octopus. All right. Yeah, Dr. Octopus. But that's just, it's a really, really good movie and it doesn't feel bound by all of this comic book movie convention stuff.

It's just, it's a great romance. It's a great adventure. It has as much in common with like Raiders of the Lost Ark as it does, I don't know, Endgame or whatever. Okay, let's go to our lists. Shay, you have not shared your list with us as is often your strategy here, which I appreciate.

Why don't you start us off with number five? All right. With number five. So this is like the hardest decision I had to make because I had, at this point, I have seven that are on there that I really want to pick. And I'm going to have to leave two of them off. Are we doing honorable mentions afterward? Yeah, we can. So I can at least say that?

Yeah, of course. All right. Okay, good, good, good. Well, then let me start with number five. The budget, $18 million, earns $125 million. I need Mortal Kombat. I need Mortal Kombat in the 90s. Oh my God.

This is one of my all-time favorite. This is my fifth best ever movie theater experiences because I loved Mortal Kombat the video game growing up. I was so excited when the trailer for this movie came out or when I even heard that they were making this movie. The scene in there where they introduce Scorpion and Sub-Zero, Shang Tsung is the one who does it, and he's like, Scorpion and Sub-Zero, deadliest of enemies.

But whatever, they have to work under my power. I fucking went nuts in the theater. It starts with the flames coming up and the guy screaming, Mortal Kombat! And I was just... You couldn't tell me nothing. You could not tell me this was the best day of my life

when I was a teenager. Goddamn, I love this movie. Shay, the best moment in my podcasting career was when I got to explain what a fatality was to Amanda about three months ago. And we have not instituted Amanda's fatalities on the show, but we're going to do it at some point.

I'm ready. I mean, now that I know what it is, I'm very excited by the idea. In three weeks, Shay, you get a new Mortal Kombat movie. You ready? We have been talking about it at the Serrano house for weeks. When the trailer came out for that one,

I gathered everyone around. Come watch this trailer with me. We turned the volume up super loud. I'm excited. I am real, real excited for that one. I genuinely don't think the first Mortal Kombat movie is good, but I really admire your chutzpah here.

You're fucking crazy. It's the best video game movie that's ever been made. Well, that may be true. There's no video game movie better. Yeah. That's a bit like saying, you know, he's the best video game movie that's ever been made. There's no video game movie better. Yeah, that's a bit like saying he's the greatest. It's not like saying that.

Amanda, what's your number five? Independence Day, which is basically on every list that I make on this podcast. This is certainly on top five Will Smith movies for me, which was a podcast that we did. And I just I can't overstate the importance of 90s Will Smith to me and my movie going and my cultural like I just the number one movie star to Amanda Dobbins in 1996.

Also, I believe in our apocalypse films, which that was a podcast that we made during the height of the pandemic and probably should not listen to again, but it also should maybe go into a museum of our personal histories that no one ever wants to visit. This movie rules. I guess this is filling

my disaster movie spot. And also I think ultimately my alien movie spot because there are other alien movies I love Armageddon is not on my list and Men in Black are not on my list and those are also two important 90s alien well one's alien and one's disaster slash alien but Independence Day and and the Bullhorn speech to me and and that image of the laser coming down and completely destroying the White House, which like in 1996 had a different valence. I mean, I guess it had a different valence than it does now.

I don't really know. It has informed my understanding of the visual language of disaster movies and things going very wrong. So Independence Day. The laser when you're a kid and you see it? Yeah. Because when you're a kid, the White House is like the most important place in the world.

And you see it get blown up and you're like, oh, shit. Anytime somebody mentions Independence Day, which I'm so happy you did because this is an outstanding movie. My favorite character in the whole thing is the alien who's working on the ship, who's doing the spaceship intake.

And he's just there doing his normal day job. This poor fucking guy gets blown up by Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum. Tough day at the job for the intake guy. It also has a line, when I rewatched it, I wrote down that they're using our own satellites against us, which I think has then been repeated in every

single TV show and blockbuster movie since then, but you need the satellites to be used against you in a blockbuster. That's how you know things are really dire. In the future, I would greatly appreciate it if y'all did a whole episode where you just pick out whatever the best line is

like the most ridiculous line from a ridiculous movie because this is great this is great content right here it's well timed to the Godzilla vs. Kong lines as well Independence Day is the first time I can remember being in a theater in which everybody just burst into applause

I feel like people burst into applause like two or three times during this movie. Welcome to Earth, definitely punching the alien in the face. I think the theater started levitating on opening night when I saw that movie. And certainly the Bill Pullman speech. People were like,

what we need to do together is destroy aliens. We all need to kill aliens. We're going to leave this movie theater and kill some aliens. Great pick. My pick number five is this movie theater and kill some aliens. Great pick. My pick, number five, is a little movie called Speed. Yes!

Attaway. Revisited this film last night. Jesus Christ. So good. What an exciting movie. Just genuinely perfect elevator pitch movie, right? There's a bomb on a bus. You go under a certain speed.

The bomb blows up. Here's what you got to do. Keep the bus going also get people off the bus keanu reeves at the height of his powers at least in phase two of keanu reeves his powers we're now in i think phase five of keanu reeves um also one thing that this movie does i wouldn't say it's the first movie that did this a lot of movies like the poseidon adventure and others before that did it but it enlists incredibly gifted actors to say silly stuff just like godzilla versus kong the villain in this movie is dennis hopper the partner in this movie is jeff daniels and it ultimately

introduces us to sandra bullock major movie star incredibly fun movie intoxicating also so rewatchable is this the most rewatchable action movie it might be it's up on the list for me uh i love speed and also same thing i definitely saw this movie in theaters my dad took me i had an absolute blast and i remember feeling like we're all we're all at church together this is a true event yeah okay let me give my fourth number four for me budget 150 million earns 1.6 billion dollars i need it i need it this is this is my fourth favorite movie theater experience when blue comes running around the corner oh wow barking at barking at the indominus rex and the t-rex while they're fighting she's joining the fight i need i need jurassic world i gotta have it i gotta have i walked out that is a wild so happy so happy i love this movie

you're unbelievably good you're you're in a very special zone right now you almost put joker on your list you've now added mortal combat and jurassic world you are fearless. Let's go. It felt so good watching this. I swear to God, when Blue comes running around, because you thought she was dead at that point, because they had been in the fight earlier. And you're like, oh, shit, fucking Blue. After all of that, she's gone. She's out of here.

And then not only is she alive, but she comes back to keep fighting the biggest, meanest dinosaur we have ever seen, ever. Again, this was like a family theater experience we all went and we me and the baby especially because he loves dinosaurs we are just in each other's arms screaming and yelling at the theater teary-eyed when she comes this is like the sexiest thing i'd ever seen in my life was was boo showing up for the fight i'm like here we here we go i gotta have it

this has got to be it this got me on my list amanda this is tough for you because i know that was your number one so yeah too bad here's the thing i don't remember anything about jurassic world except that the raptor is named blue and chris pratt strikes up a friendship with her that ultimately allows him to save Jurassic World. Yes. That is a sign, actually, of a successful blockbuster to me. If I don't remember anything except some brief one-sentence motivation and then a lot of action happening, I think that works. I remember having a good time at Jurassic World as well. It has not stayed with me. It's not on my list but I support you it came it came out of

nowhere because Jurassic 2 was terrible Jurassic Jurassic 3 I really enjoyed but I understood a lot of people did not like it the the franchise was in effect dead nobody was excited about it and then this movie shows up everybody on the internet is doing the raptor training thing with the pictures. And like, you know, it was great. It was a great, great time. It's a bold choice. I'll say that. Thank you.

Amanda, what's your number four? Bobby, can you help me out here with some music? Yes, yes. My number four is a little film released in 1986 about a man and his friend and some planes and the need for speed. It is Top Gun. What a weird ass movie this is. I loved it so much. I still love it. It is essentially the Iliad, but with fighter planes and like a lot of grease and sweat. And it makes no sense.

I do not understand how fighter pilots or dog fighting work. I've watched this movie several times, but I don't care. It has Tom Cruise in the Navy, just number one prerequisite for a movie that I love. See also a few good men. I find the fighting scenes of everyone just like beautiful and it's outside and it's not CGI, like hollow earth land. Some great musical moments, including the theme song, which when I rewatched this, my husband was out running errands and I just turned the TV up to a hundred, just like a hundred.

And just, you know, danger zone. You've lost that love and feeling. Top Gun theme song blasting through the house. It's a weird movie and definitely way too excited about the american military military industrial complex which is a theme i'm gonna let you know in some of my other favorite blockbusters but uh i just i guess it caught me at the right time and i love this movie i can't wait for top gun 2 i realize like i will probably actually start crying when the theme song plays in the theater for Top Gun 2 like it will just be a really emotional coming home moment for me and that's the way it should be it's a good thing

that your husband was gone when you watch this because he would have blown both of his shoulders out I can't I mean I think in in three months we're getting a Top Gun movie I just can't believe it it's been it's it's how many years in the making is it 35 years in the making a lot a lot of years yeah unbelievable uh okay great great pick total no-brainer this is a this is good because aside from all of Shay's insane picks I think we can all agree that these are good movies. I have the best list so far. My number four, I feel like, is when I became aware of blockbusters. And it does not feature magical creatures.

It does not feature a bomb on a bus. It does not feature a fighter jet. It just features a man on the run. And I'm talking about The Fugitive. Now, I was 11 years old when the fugitive came out i had no idea it was based on a tv show all i knew is that indiana jones and han solo was wrongly accused of murder and i was like this is fucked up they're trying to get this guy for this crime that he did not commit is very emotional to watch the fugitive you know i think back like what animates you when you're watching a movie and this is the perfect example of something

where you're just like god damn it all of these people are trying to screw over han solo this ain't right and like forget about understanding all the nature of the the plot devices and big pharma being a big part of this story and it's just it's pure quality action movie making with a very simple to explain story at the center of it. And again, two tremendous actors at the height of their powers. Harrison Ford in that really great. I'm like 43, but I'm still quite virile. Sweet spot. And Tommy Lee Jones in an Academy Award winning performance as U.S.

Marshal. what is his name? Garrity? He's fantastic, hilarious in this movie. Similar movie where in the theater, you could really just tell that everybody was, their whole heart was with Dr. Kimball. They really just wanted him to get off. I'm really glad that you picked this because I almost did. And then I was like, is this too smart for my blockbuster list? And I think it's just because I didn't see it in theaters. I think that's where our slight age difference, just like I wasn't quite old enough. So this is probably like number one cable movie for me for at least like four years, which is why I still I haven't seen it in full that many times.

And I'm still always very confused when the actual solution of like who did it and how. But it doesn't really matter. It's this movie rules. When the train hits the bus and Kimball jumps, that's movie magic right there. That's cinema. I have a theory that nobody in Hollywood is better at hide and seek than tommy lee jones because he has so many movies where he's he's chasing someone in this one he's chasing someone in uh in men in black u.s marshals the hunted no country for old men jason bourne like that's who

you call when you need to find somebody who doesn't want to be found. That's the guy. That's a good pick. That's a good, safe Sean Fennessey pick. Okay, well, wow me. It's no Mortal Kombat. Wow me with your bold number three. Here's a number three, and this is another reinvented movie franchise that came out of nowhere. Fingers were crossed when the names

that were attached to it got released. Please let this be good. I just want this to be good budget 35 million earns 173 million starring michael b jordan directed by ryan coogler oh god yes fucking creed yes i got a great one creed has this the second best music needle drop in any movie ever at the end of the movie right before the last round of the fight when they finally as creed after he gives this big emotional like i don't want to be seen as a mistake speech and then rocky responds he's beat to hell he stands up and finally after an hour and a half of them teasing it ryan krugler drops the rocky theme in there the whole started crying the whole we were crying i was alone in the theater weeping you can't you can't not cry at that part i went

with my uncles two two of my uncles old mexican men when this happens i look down it's me it's laramie my uncle his wife my uncle and a niece all of them in tears. All of them. I'm in tears. We're just fucking cheering. It was, this is my third favorite ever movie theater experience. I fucking went nuts. I love this movie so much. It's perfect.

It's literally a perfect movie. That's a legit good choice. Love Creed. It's incredible and I'm kind of mad I don't have it on my list now. You know, there was a big story about Kugler and Shaka King and Charles King in The Hollywood Reporter this week. And great piece about the work that they did to get Judas and the Black Messiah on the big screen.

And I did not realize this, but I read Ryan Kugler declined his invitation to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2016. And in a very Frank Ocean-esque move, who also declined to participate in the whole Grammys. And I love the way that he talked about it. He was like, I'm just not interested in saying like, this is the best, this deserves to win an award. Now, obviously that's pretty much antithetical to what we're doing on this podcast,

but we're just having a good time. There's nothing official about what we're up to here. But he really is able to bring like a level of sophistication and thoughtfulness to his movies without sacrificing exactly those kinds of moments that you're talking about shay where you're just you're you're watching the movie and you're like this movie is in in my blood right now i i am animated by what he's able to put on the screen he is he's the one director that if you say his name it doesn't matter what it is. Okay. I know it's going to be good.

I trust him creatively so much. Like there's not, there's not one single moment in that movie where you could like, oh, they should have said this or done this or shot it this way or done that. It's, it's perfect. Every single piece and all of his movies end up being like that. I'm never going to watch fruitvale station again but i'm but it was great uh black panther is of course like this is a magic movie that you're watching ryan coogler fucking gets it done amanda number three what do you got so this is probably too low on my list, if we're being honest, given everything that we've just discussed.

My number three is Fast Five. I've spoken at great length about this movie as honestly like religious experience to me. I put it on my top 10 films of the decade. And here's why. I went to this movie in the theater with some work friends, had never seen a single Fast and the Furious movie. I've since remedied that for everybody at home. But let me just say I wasn't there for the mythology or the family, even though I support the family. I'm a fan of Fast 5 and family is really important. But I had no idea what was going on. And I could follow everything. I, it was very simple, overly dumb dialogue telling me

exactly what was going on. I could just watch the pretty scenes and then it has the greatest final set piece in a movie in, in my memory. You know what happens? They want to steal some money and it's in a safe. So they just remove the safe and then they drive the safe through Rio. It is the stupidest thing. It's that is so unsophisticated. It is like, well, we need this. So let's just take the whole safe. It's beautiful. And then you just watch them just drag this safe through Rio for like 20 minutes. It's so, it's just like, you know, the simple things are the best things. And it's just perfect in its obviousness, but not.

And its accessibility and its beauty. I love it so much. Shay, 10-year anniversary of Fast Five coming up. Three weeks. What are you doing to celebrate? It's on my calendar. We're all getting tattoos. And my family.

Across our back, the scene that Amanda's describing, Laramie's in the front. She has the two cars tattooed on her back. Each of the three children. It's the cables. And then I'm the last one, and I have the safe. So when we stand together for family photos, shirts off to the camera that's what we see you truly are you're the fast five you know you're family first great pick amanda great you know what's really what's sneaky

good about this one is so many heist movies are like we want to get in and get out and nobody knows that we were there we're gonna going to Ocean's 12 this shit. You know what I'm saying? Which I love. Which is great. It's fun. So they do the opposite of that in this one. They're just like, yank the safe through the wall, and let's go.

But then still, they still trick you at the end when the rock opens the safe, and it's a different safe, and you're like, oh, they fucking, they're brawnier than I am and also smarter than I am. Great pick. Great pick. This is your best pick so far. Thank you. Okay, I'm going to share my number three pick.

My number three pick is the only recent film that I've got here. It was released in 2015. I'm talking about Mad Max Fury Road. Now, I wouldn't say that I saw Mad Max Fury Road in exactly the way that it was meant to be seen. I did see it at a great movie theater. Actually, Amanda, you just mentioned this movie theater on a pod recently, the Vista here in Los Angeles, which is one of the great old movie

houses on the east side of Los Angeles. It's got many seats. It's huge. The screen is massive. They're real classical kind of movie house. But I went by myself and I went in the morning and there were probably 39 people in the morning and there were probably 39 people in the theater and they're probably seats somewhere north of 500 people and uh i don't for whatever reason i didn't feel like i was excited about the movie i wasn't in the right headspace maybe i had some shit going on in my life i sat down 10 a.m. Giant bag of Sour Patch Kids as one does in the morning. That's disgusting.

And I ate all of them before the movie started, which is something I frequently do. There's like 80 Sour Patch Kids in there. Yes. I honestly probably bought two boxes and ate all of them before the movie started.

And increasingly getting more and more sugar high jacked up as the trailers are playing. And I'm kind of getting out of my bad mood. I'm getting into the good mood. I'm getting into the movie mood that I need to be in. And then the movie starts. And then for two straight hours, the movie is like, what I'd like to do is strangle you while feeding you cocaine.

That's what watching Mad Max Fury Road on a giant screen is like. And it was absolutely glorious. It turned a bad day into an amazing day. We've obviously talked about this movie many times on this show. It's one of the signature movies of this show. But it's one of the few times when I felt like I went back to that 90s feeling that I wanted, where I just was excited, joyful. The highs were so high and they feel so untouchable. They're unlike any other movie going experience. And even though I didn't experience it with a packed house, my mind was a packed house full of sugar. So great movie, Mad Max Fury Road.

That's a good one. I went and saw that with my homie Ant in Houston. Laramie didn't want to go see it. She saw the trailer and she's like, no, this is not for me. So we went and watched it. And the part in there, the flaming guitar guy is obviously like, that's the one everybody remembers. But for some reason, the thing they were doing where they had the guys attached to the rubber poles on the cars and they're bouncing back and forth and they're real people on real, like, this guy's a fucking genius.

He's a genius. He's a genius. Yeah. The lore is undeniable, but obviously, the fact that he shot most of that practically is the wildest shit of all time. I mean, people as brilliant as Steven Soderbergh

have gone on the record about how unimaginable the production of that movie is to him. So that just tells you the accomplishment that George Miller and the team of people who worked on that movie pulled off. Okay. Shay, you're up.

Number two. I forgot to mention this. Sean, I don't know if you know this or not. Mortal Kombat, my fifth pick, directed by Paul Anderson. Did you know that? Paul W.S. Anderson. Still Paul Anderson.

I know Paul Anderson's your guy. There is no relationship between Paul W.S. Anderson. You know what? There are plenty of Paul W. Anderson. Still Paul Anderson. I know Paul Anderson's your guy. There is no relationship between Paul WS Anderson. You know what? There are plenty of Paul WS Anderson movies I like. I like Event Horizon. I like a couple of the Resident Evil movies. Paul Anderson is a good kind of like action video game movie director. He ain't no PTA.

You like PTA. I like P WSA. That's it. That's that's me and you right there. That's us, buddy. No Paul and Thomas Anderson movies ever made over like $75 million, $76 million at the box office. But if I could afford it, I would give him $75 million. Key distinction there.

My number two pick, my number two pick. I had to have this in here. This is a movie. We went and saw it. I mean, I went to the theater. We saw the trailer when it came,

it popped up on Facebook and we were both like, is this a real movie? Is like a sketch what's happening here budget four million earns 255 million dollars it has a scene in it where everybody in the movie theater starts cheering like literally like it's one of the few times they were like we were clapping we were so excited i need i need jordan peels get out wow i gotta have it yeah i gotta have it at the end of the movie when when chris is strangling rose and then the police lights show up and everybody after having watched chris fight his way out of the house we're like oh my god he's about to get killed by the police right now everybody is just

it's dead silent in there. We're all holding our breath as the police lights are flashing. Daniel Kaluuya is, I thought he was the best actor on the planet for this year when this movie came out. The door opens and we see the TSA sign and we all realize it's Rod. And everybody's like, yeah, yeah, it's so great. And then Chris gets in the car and Rod fucking a perfect line reading. He's just like, I told you. I tried to tell you.

It was great. Oh, God. This movie is one of the few times I can remember being in a theater where you have to stop guessing at what you think is going to happen because you're wrong every single time. You have to give yourself to Jordan Peele completely because you have no idea what's happening. And then he finally explains everything at the end. And it's so, so, so good.

Every single part, every actor, every line, every like note in this movie, untouchable. I love it. I love it. Great pick. It's amazing to think about what the reputation of this movie would be if Jordan got to do the original ending he wanted,

which is that Chris would be arrested and then the film would end with him in prison and Lil Rel visiting him there. And I wonder. I wonder if it would have been as big of a hit. I wonder if it would have been Academy Award nominated. I wonder how the movie would have lived on if he had done that original ending.

I hated that when I watched it because you go, you watching the director's cut. I'm so glad that they didn't do that. After everything that you have been put through in that movie, for him to be like, here's a little bit of relief. Isn't this great? Oh man, forget about it.

This was the best movie of like the 10 years in either direction is get out for me this is this is my number one pick amanda what's your number two titanic have you heard of it i don't add away yeah you gotta have it you gotta have it so i have to be honest i feel a little bit obvious in my picks but also blockbusters are obvious like that's the thing is that it should be accessible and down the middle and billions of dollars of worth of people should have seen it and there is like a noisy ship breaking you know two and a half hours in um which definitely happens it's you know a nice love story a little more you know sex or references to sex than i typically expect in a blockbuster i but certainly more romance

more classical music more jewelry but it still has enough dumb stuff i mean don't forget that the beginning and ending of the movie are um it's bill paxton right in the little underwater robot correct um r.i.p james james cameron machines just like going to investigate titanic in order to find a necklace that the little old lady dropped into the ocean which is then remixed into one of the great Britney Spears songs. So we're operating on every level here. And then gives us Leo officially and Kate Winslet and makes a tremendous amount of money and actually wins best picture. So kind of,

it's like the most obvious and also not an obvious blockbuster. And it's still very good. Seen it a billion times. James Cameron, really the goat. Yeah. Avatar 2, let's go, baby. I'm ready. Ready to see more Na'vi.

Again, I have not seen Titanic again recently. I feel like we should do a Titanic episode at some point. We should just talk about it. Please do. Yeah? Please, please do. I mean, I would love to. I need a Cameron rewatch in full anyhow. We'll get to more cameron later on on my list

but my number two i'm making a swap i share i shared on the list uh my number two is going to be die hard but i've changed my mind here's the thing i didn't see die hard in a movie theater i was too young to see in a movie theater i saw it at home now when i saw it at home i was like this is how you make a movie right here. Very exciting, very fun movie. Obviously, once upon a time, Bruce Willis seemed like the coolest guy in the world. Brilliant premise,

brilliantly executed, terrific screenplay. But I want to stick with movies I saw in the movie theater. And so this was right on the outside in my honorable mentions. And I'm going to talk about it. It's called Mission Impossible, 1996.

I get Cruise on my list. Obviously, Cruise was an animating force and movie going in the 90s. And this movie did something that I wish more movies did, which is that it's a very conventional IP kind of action movie. Someone's like, here, we have this property. Can you reinvent it for a new audience? This is obviously, movies are plagued by this concept right now. But what we should do is hire 55-year-old Brian De Palma to make it. Nobody's better in the world at making movies than Brian De Palma. We're not hiring some young guy, 28 years old, never had a chance. We'll see if he can make a big tent action movie.

They're like, let's get an old hand. Somebody who knows what to do with $75 million, who will fight the fights to get the sequences that he really wants into the movie, who knows how to handle Cruise, who knows how to handle multiple screenwriters, David Koepp and Robert Towne, both working on this movie. And also, let's make a sequence like the break-in to Langley and the hanging from the harness sequence with Cruz, which is not loud. It's the opposite of loud. Opposite. It's quiet. Toast. Toast.

That isn't an applause sequence. It's a everybody shut the fuck up in the theater sequence. If you were talking during that sequence, you would be ejected from the theater. I love Mission Impossible. I love Brian De Palma, of course. And I love Tom Cruise. So I'm making a late last minute swap, Mission Impossible. I love Brian De Palma, of course. And I love Tom Cruise. So I'm making a late last minute swap Mission Impossible 1996. That's a smart swap. Yeah,

I'm glad you traded it in because Shay, maybe this is your number one, but Mission Impossible Fallout is not on my list. And that was a great in theater movie going experience that Sean and I shared with hundreds of people at the Arclight dome. But it's great night. Yeah. It was a great birthday night, but it's not on the list. So at least mission impossible,

which I also love is on there in some capacity. I really liked in a, in mission impossible six or whichever one it was before fallout. I always forget the name ghost. No, no protocol. Is that what it was? Whatever it was.

They recreate the silent heist moment, but they're underwater this time. And that was another one where it was like, I don't know if y'all do this thing, but every once in a while I do this thing where if like the boat capsizes and somebody goes underwater, I hold my breath to see if I can survive

as long as however they're going to be underwater. And then that scene, he holds his breath for like four or five minutes or some shit. I hold my breath to see if I can survive as long as however they're going to be underwater and then in that scene he holds his breath for like four five minutes or some shit but he ends up getting rescued

at the very end by the one woman who jumps in behind him fucking this is a great this is a great pick Sean you gotta somebody's gotta have

Mission Impossible in here somewhere very important blockbuster stuff Amanda actually has been doing that training session for that five minute hold your breath thing

ever since quarantine started I don't know if you know that she's been underwater for most of quarantine she only comes up to record the pod She actually has been doing that training session for that five-minute hold your breath thing ever since quarantine started. I don't know if you know that, Shay. She's been underwater for most of quarantine. She only comes up to record the pod. Ready to save the day whenever needed. Okay. So, number ones.

Shay, what do you got? Number one. Gotta have it. Another billion-dollar movie. Budget $200 million. Earns $1.5 billion. This movie does all of the things i need for a movie to do it's smart it's funny i have a guy running up the side of a bus as it falls off of a cliff

and then he jumps and michelle rodriguez fishtails a car across the edge of the cliff and he grabs the fucking fender or whatever the back of the car i gotta have furious seven i gotta have vin wow saying goodbye to to paul walker in this beautiful beautiful moment like a legitimately beautiful moment a bunch of people make a bunch of jokes about the fast and furious franchise and the jokes are great i have a great great time with those jokes. But this actual real Tinder moment where this man is saying goodbye to his friend who has passed away, this movie character, goddamn, fucking Wiz Khalifa made me cry. We're actually crying in the movie theater when this scene happens. Oh, God.

I could barely even talk about the whole beach scene when they're all there watching him play with his kid. And they're just like, it's not going to be the same anymore, is it? And they're zooming in on each other's face. And they're telling each other, I think it's Tyrese is telling Ludacris to be quiet and just look. Fucking art. This is art. This is my number one. This movie put me through the ringer.

I had to get that in there I gotta have it this is it it doesn't get any better than this as far as movie theater experiences for me Shay not a Fast and Furious guy I don't know if you know that about me

I do know that about you it's your worst trait it's your worst trait I've said many bad things about it I'm sorry I don't know what to say this never clicked for me but I admire both you and Amanda going to a fast place Dobbins what's your number one Jurassic Park

I had to I had to go to you went with the new version and I went with I think 8 or 9 year old Amanda in the theater just being like oh my god dinosaurs are real. Like the dinosaurs are they came back to life. And that that moment when they first see this, it's like it's a brachiosaurus and not a brontosaurus.

I don't know. Dinosaur nerds like don't like I was one, but also I don't really need you to hear from you. But when they see it and the theme song plays, like I again, teared up last night, rewatching it just like in terms of wonder and in terms of like, oh my God, this thing happened on like that. The movies gave us, that is number one for me in terms of movie going moments.

And then, you know, it is an incredibly well-made tense like monster action movie yes listen the raptors in the kitchen oh my god again last night i was like hey do you zach the raptors in the kitchen do you want to come watch it's like starting right now i thought i would only watch like an hour to remind myself and then i was like no i have to see the whole thing to see every single moment i will also say you know i picked best blockbuster and not best Spielberg movie. And there is like a little bit of bloat to this movie. There is a little bit of silliness and also just

the basic premise. Like we brought dinosaurs back to life on an Island. What could go wrong? Again, that simplicity of is essential to me and a blockbuster but i think it does its stupidity really well and just i mean obviously like a historic large hugely influential very moving movie thank you to jurassic park might and they look they look so good the dinosaurs like they still do yeah they still do oh. This is what dinosaurs look like. Yeah. So, you know, I think the Spielberg episode is going to be really fun when West Side Story comes out. That might have to be a two-parter to do the, how do we, I don't know, maybe we rank every single Spielberg movie.

Actually, maybe that's a three-parter. Jesus. But Jurassic Park would be pretty high on my list. This is probably the first I read the book before the movie experience in my life. Did you? Yeah, my parents were like, you need to read the book before you go see the movie.

Like, shout out to my parents and parenting, whatever. I did get to see the movie. It ruled. Great page turner, though. Good, like, entertaining book, especially for a teenager. I was probably 11 or 12

when this movie came out. I mean, brilliant pick. Jurassic Park is phenomenal. It's better than Jurassic World, Shay, I'm sorry. it's not that that's the crazy thing is it's not it's not okay time for my number one before Amanda keeps singing it's beautiful we mentioned James Cameron earlier with Titanic I'm going with Terminator 2 Judgment Day, which I think of in my mind as the quintessential blockbuster.

When I hear the word blockbuster, I think of T2. I think of Arnold's face turn becoming the protector of John Connor. I think of Robert Patrick liquefying into some sort of metallic form.

Speaking of special effects CGI that has aged extraordinarily well, T2 still looks phenomenal. And I think of James Cameron basically going from the mountaintop to outer space. He's already made the Terminator and Aliens

and now he is going to a stratosphere that is unlike any other where he is in control of world building and audience excitement like he is one of the few people who and this was true in titanic as well people were jazzed to go to the movies to check out this movie there was a lot of conversation you could spend all night at dinner at drinks at in the boudoir late at night talking about the movie you saw shay i know that's what you did after you saw T2, right? Yes.

We spent a lot of time in boudoirs in the south side of San Antonio. Big boudoir community. I love T2. It's a very easy movie to watch. It's a very fun movie to watch. I did see it in the theater. And I admit to not necessarily understanding all of it.

I think I was eight years old at the time. But I was grateful to my dad for bringing me to the movie. So that's it. That's my list. Honorable mentions. Should we shoot through some quick? Yes. Yeah, definitely.

Amanda, you go. Okay. Well, there are just a couple categories. So Vessels in Peril is both a theme and something that I'm drawn to. So obviously, Nevermind Apollo 13, which I do think qualifies. But again, it's like, there's a little bit too much prestige Oscar attached to Apollo 13 in order for me to put it on this like dumb blockbuster list,

but really love this movie hunt for red October. Same, but, but, but, but not, but same related crimson tide say you know again i just someday someone is gonna have to sit me down and be like this is why we need submarines and this is actually a good idea for these people to just be in tubes like you know playing chicken underwater for you to be able to watch these movies but i do really like them um and then i mentioned armageddon men in black alien et i like i do actually like alien movies uh mission impossible fallout we talked about speed you did we didn't do a single indiana jones movie raiders is on my i just just keep in keeping with my movie going experiences i didn't see

raiders in theaters but you know as far as blockbusters, one of the absolute best. Bond movies I mentioned, my obligatory Skyfall reference here right now. The Fugitive you got. Black Panther and Wonder Woman would be the superhero movies that I would have included,

but I'm glad we just put them in a different category. That's sort of clarifying for me in terms of how I relate to superhero movies, which is not very much. Um, and the born trilogy. That's, I mean,

that's a lot. I just named like 20 movies. I really like blockbusters. Shay, you want to throw in a couple more? Uh, I'll give you two, the Meg,

Jason Statham versus the giant shark. You, you know, what would have, what would have got this on the list this is the only part of the movie I was disappointed in of all of the things this is the only part is that they set it up so that this giant shark is aimed toward this massive pool of people hundreds and hundreds of people all out in the water swimming and the shark starts swimming

toward it and I'm like here comes the big butcher massacre scene and then at the last second we don't get it it doesn't happen and it just that that's why i couldn't put it on my list but i really had a good time as we we did the thing where you pay like we went and saw it at the special imax where it's like 17 a ticket and it's a special speakers or whatever it was like a hundred dollars for us to go watch the meg as a family and it was totally worth it uh and then the the only other one my sixth place finisher was the matrix i i i couldn't talk myself into putting it over mortal combat which should tell you all that you need to know about me that's really true that was my sixth place finisher. You know, I was thinking about what it is to be a blockbuster,

what it means. And I thought of a couple of movies that don't necessarily, wouldn't qualify in most people's minds, but at the time for me, I thought of as blockbusters. One of the biggest ones was The Cable Guy. Now-

Attaway! Get T2 out of here. Cable guy number one. The cable guy was considered not a success and it was on the heels of these huge Jim Carrey movies. Ace Ventura, Dumb and Dumber, The Mask. He was really at the center of movie culture in the mid 90s

and the cable guy was his follow-up to this incredible unbroken streak of success. And then people saw it and they were like this isn't funny why isn't jim carrey talking out of his butt the way that we want him to but for me i was like well this is probably the most important movie ever made um this is a movie about a person who's been poisoned by popular culture and uh been driven crazy by it and frankly i relate to this day cable guy wonderful movie going experience for me in the mid-90s uh a couple of other more obvious ones well speaking of jim carrey i also felt like the it and frankly I relate to this day Cable Guy wonderful movie going experience for me in the mid 90s

a couple of other more obvious ones well speaking of Jim Carey I also felt like the Truman Show you guys remember when the Truman Show came out and there was like a major energy of excitement around that movie I think because it was so high concept but easily understood had a great set of trailers we didn't talk about trailers here but I feel like they're really important to

getting people fired up to get into the theater which then makes the experience that much better unlike godzilla versus kong in many ways which i feel like kind of spoiled the best moments of the film particularly kong bows to no one um and then there's a whole raft of movies that i think we were all a little bit too young to see in theaters but that easily qualify many of which are directed by spielberg You know, you mentioned Raiders, Amanda, E.T., Jaws, Aliens from Cameron. I think Ghostbusters is a pretty great one.

Pretty undeniable experience for people seeing it for the first time. Face-Off, Shay? Remember when Face-Off popped? That was both Cage at the height of his powers and Travolta at the height of his comeback. And I mentioned Spider-Man 2. That was the only other one that I had written down

that is from that superhero ilk. That was the only other one that I had written down that is from that superhero ilk. That's it. We did it, guys. We talked about blockbusters for an hour.

You feel better? I feel great right now. I love to celebrate some stuff that I like. And I'm really proud that Amanda and I

have almost identical lists, just different versions. And that makes me feel like we won. Like, Sean clearly lost. Amanda won. I'll take a solid second place finish. Let's go. different versions and that makes that makes me that makes me feel like we won like sean clearly lost amanda won i'll take a solid second place finish let's go she we can share all right i'm with it you know winning together you know just like godzilla and kong there you go it's nice

that you guys are able to tell yourself that story while it's quite evident that i have won yet again i've never lost a podcast here on the big picture and I'm proud of that fact. Shay, thank you so much. Amanda, thank you as well. Amanda, what are, what are we, what else is happening on the big picture? What's coming up in the future? Oh, I, my mind went blank for a second, but we're doing a Wong Kar Wai episode next week. Very, very exciting. Actually, when you were talking about Top Gun, I thought of Take My Breath Away, which appears in As Tears Go By as well. Yes, it does. Incredible crossover event there.

Maybe some of the characters from As Tears Go By will appear in Top Gun Maverick. That would be a great outcome. Shay, thank you again. Thanks to Bobby Wagner. Thanks for listening to The Big Picture. We will see you next week. Bye.