The Big Picture - ‘Inside Out 2’ and Pixar’s Mount Rushmore Movies

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

Sean and Amanda are joined by ‘Midnight Boy’ Charles Holmes to react to the movie business news that Skydance is no longer looking to acquire Paramount and that Sony has purchased the theater chain Alamo Draft House (1:00). Then, they discuss Pixar’s latest attempt to get back to its heyday with ‘Inside Out 2’ and their relationship to the franchise (23:00). Then, they build their own Mount Rushmore of Pixar films, including which films represent which presidents on the monument (1:00:00). Finally, Sean is joined by documentarian Lance Oppenheim to discuss ‘Ren Faire’ and his career thus far (1:35:00). To watch episodes of ‘The Big Picture,’ head to https://www.youtube.com/@RingerMovies. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Charles Holmes and Lance Oppenheim Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greetings, it's Mal. Call your banners because it's time to head back to Westeros for House of the Dragons Season 2. The Ringer's Dragon Riders will soar alongside you each week with a Harrenhal-sized slate of conversations. The Dragon has three heads, and on Sunday nights immediately after Hot D concludes, Chris Ryan, Joanna Robinson, and I will be with you for Talk the Thrones. Then on Mondays, two more shows await. Dan Laith and Charles Holmes, Steve Allman and Jomia Deneron, aka the Midnight Boys, pew pew, will head to the tourney grounds to share their reactions.

And of course, Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald will sip the Arbor's finest vintage on the watch. Then on Tuesdays, Joanna and I will head to the bowels of a pleasure den for our House of R Deep dives. Then on Thursdays, Joe, Neil, and Dave Gonzalez will gather the Ravens for Trial by Content. And this season, full episodes of Talk the Thrones, House of R, and The Midnight Boys will also be available on video on Spotify and the new Ringerverse YouTube channel.

Podcast episodes available on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture,

a conversation show about potting from the outside in. Later in this episode, I'll have a conversation with Lance Oppenheim, the preternaturally gifted documentary filmmaker whose second feature this year, Ren Faire, is one of the best things you'll find on TV this month. All three episodes of The Doc are available on Max now. Highly encourage you to check it out.

Please listen to our conversation. Lance is super smart and very cool. But today on the show, we are discussing Inside Out 2. And we're building Pixar's Mount Rushmore. It's our first time building a Mount Rushmore on this show. We needed to bring in the most controversial cultural critic in America. Let's go. Charles Holmes is back with us.

We better do the chyron again. It was really good. Woo! Also, I have to say, coming to the big picture is basically like me coming up to Hot 97. You're my funk flex. Okay. That's beautiful. You know? And I have to say. So, I'm dropping bombs?

Because I feel like you are the bomb dropper here. Oh, no. You have to drop bombs because I come bearing very, very good news here. Okay. Guys, I need everybody to like and subscribe. Ringerverse on fucking YouTube. Okay?

All right. Midnight Boys twice a week. House of R. Talk the Thrones. Also, Hollywood Homes and Key of the Receding Hairline

back June 27th. The Bear Prestige TV. Sorry, I gotta get the quotes in. Wow, that's exciting. All the pitches. Were you practicing that? No.

Okay. But here's the thing. I just to get the quotes in. Wow. Well, that's exciting. All the pitches. Were you practicing that? No. Okay. But here's the thing. I just realized we have video now. You guys have a massive audience. I'm just the little parasite trying to get some of the juices out. You are the world's most controversial culture critic. That's why you're here. You only get that kind of run when you come on the big picture, right? You're not allowed to use it.

Because I'm the nicest culture critic when I'm on the midnight plays. Definitely. Can I ask? Hold on. Yes. Potting from the outside in. Yeah. Can you break that down for me? So I paused.

We all are only having external experiences with each other. Oh, okay. What we're going to do is we're going to dive into our own psyches. Got it. As we have this discussion. As opposed to the film Inside Out, which shows us what's happening inside of Riley and her psyche and then projecting it onto the world. Okay. Got it?

Sort of. Big brain shit on me. So you expect me to be vulnerable on this podcast is what you're asking. You'd be nice for a change, you know? Are we going to, this might be too early. Are we going to get an Amanda Science Corner for Inside Out 2? Because I have a lot of science questions. Oh, I'd love to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yes, absolutely. We are also, so Bobby introduced something into the Mount Rushmore concept at the very end of the last episode. It's okay if you didn't make it all the way. So you're going to have to be able to assign a corresponding president to each movie. So you pick four movies and then you got to say this one is the George Washington. This one is the Thomas Jefferson, which I almost always forget.

This one is the Abraham Lincoln. And this one is the Teddy Roosevelt. That's right. I'm going to be honest with y'all. There's a reason I'm a podcaster now. I've forgotten what most of the questions are. I have like one sentence, like very, very shallow understandings of each of them. And also I spent some time on Teddy Roosevelt's Wikipedia recently. I have given this more thought than you could possibly imagine for what each film will represent relative to our American history.

So I come prepared for this discussion. I loved that wrinkle from Bob. Shout out Bob. Shout out, Bob. Okay, before we talk about Inside Out and Pixar, which is a pretty big conversation because they've been such an important studio in the 21st century, two huge pieces of news that feel vaguely related to one another.

We learned a couple of days ago that Sherry Redstone officially ended the talks with Skydance and David Ellison for the acquisition of National Amusements, which is the holding company for Paramount. What's going to happen with Paramount is something that's been discussed for years. It's gotten much hotter in the last six months. Paramount, of course, one of the last standing major American movie studios, in addition to all of its TV properties and everything else that they own. This story just seems strange because,

you know, our friend Chris Ryan said, is this just a negotiating tactic? But by all accounts, it's over. And now Skydance is not going to buy this company. And now it's unclear if there is a reasonable buyer for this company. And so, you know, this company, which could have been sold for like $10 billion five years ago, $5 billion three years ago, Now seems like the number is shrinking and shrinking. Sherry Redstone is holding onto this property. It matters because having a big major studio is just good for getting more movies made. It's good for the competition of Hollywood and it's good for more opportunity for people to make stuff. Now, if you think like, oh, well,

maybe Sony will step in or maybe NBC Universal will step in. That would shrink the number of studios we have. Or things just keep getting worse and worse for Paramount and their market share keeps shrinking and they have less and less capital. And they have a lot of debt, which in general, I don't really understand debt structures. But what has been made clear to me, and thanks to everyone doing a lot of reporting on this is that there is like a time limit on how long they can keep being paramount national amusements without any sort of outside help because they have some pretty sobering financial obligations. They do. On the one hand, you're like, this is the company that owns CBS, which has access to the NFL. You know, like this is still in a hugely important American media company. This is the company that puts out Mission Impossible movies.

You know what I mean? This is still, this is the movie that is dragging if over the $150 million mark, thanks to all of Charles's good works. So simultaneous to this news, just yesterday, we saw something that to me is incredibly fascinating. Okay, but you but you like you have to be rational i will be very rational i'll just i'll just say that there are potential highs and lows to what has happened here i don't really have a feeling about it because i don't know what's

going to happen but charles you are the lay person relative to the way that amanda and i talk about this stuff so yesterday sony bought althouse, which is the seventh largest theatrical movie theater chain in America. They have 35 theaters in 25 cities. They have gone through some difficult financial times since the pandemic. They were kind of recapitalized by private equity, but for years were owned independently based out of Austin. And they're well known, of course, for their dine-in options, for their kind of irreverent approach to movie experience, but they're also very reverential

towards watching movies, being quiet. I spent 24 hours in one, eating nothing but Alamo Draft House food. How did that go for you? Oh, I almost had a breakdown. I had to call my editor. I was on assignment,

and I was just like, I can't do this. It was just... 24 consecutive hours? I pitched Rolling Stone. I was just like, they were doing one of their movie marathons. And they're just like, we're showing every single MCU. Oh, right.

One of those. Yeah, yeah. I remember this piece. And I was literally like, yo, I'll just see them all. And I think I made it to like Avengers 2. And I literally just had like a break, a mental breakdown. I'm like, I've just been eating Alamo Drafthouse food. It smells in here.

Did you sleep at all? Or you also hadn't slept for 24 hours? No, I slept in the movie. Yeah, I know. During which films? Oh, I think Incredible Hulk, the original. Sure, yeah, that's a good choice. That's a slow one, yeah.

Yeah, but I will say, I bring that up. I am intimately aware of Alamo Drafthouse. And when I saw this news at first, I was like, oh, no. Because I was reading, I think, Oscar Wars. I think there's like a chapter in that about, you know, them kind of breaking apart the studios, being able to own movie theaters. Look at you setting up Sean's Film History Corner. Thank you so much.

That's beautiful. I'm paranoid. Oh, no. I was a little bit like, is this a monopoly? Not really because the studios are doing so bad and the movie theaters are doing so bad. But it's like, obviously, Alamo Drafthouse has been going through a lot of just places going in. Some of the franchise going into bankruptcy. A lot of just places going in, some of their franchises going into bankruptcy, a lot of other things.

Yeah, there's also controversial aspects of people who've worked for the company over the years who have not the best reputations. The Paramount decrees are pretty important. This was something that was established in 1948 that effectively eliminated the opportunity for movie theaters, or rather for movie studios to own the theaters that they are showing their films in. So it's sort of an antitrust decision that held for

more than 70 years. Sort of loosely enforced in the 80s because Reagan rolled back some of this legislation because they looked at all the decrees in American history when Reagan came into office. Really classic Reagan stuff. Notable. Yeah. Famously not a fan of the government as the president of the United States of America. But still, you know, so some movie studios were sort of like toying with movie theaters over time. And there were some acquisitions.

But in 2020, this was officially rolled back. And we saw Netflix acquire the Egyptian and the Paris in New York. Amazon owns its own movie theater in Culver City, where they have to actually show first run movies. They don't just show Netflix movies the way that Netflix does. But this is a big deal because it could signal what I think more movie studios may consider, which is if you own the space, you can favor your product in a very specific way. And I'm curious what your reaction to this is, because obviously we go to the movies nonstop.

We're in a lot of different kinds of movie theaters. Alamo is not your favorite, but it is an interesting option in the orbit of movie going in these 25 major cities. Well, I had a lot of different, which part do you want me to talk about first? Do you want to talk about the larger, like the threat to industry is it bad for movies i don't know i mean to me it really feels like an experiment and like alamo in addition to all of the issues that it's had over the past few years um which charles talked about and some of which

are specific to alamo and some of which are just part of the fact that movie theaters are like a very tough business and in some ways alamo is is better positioned than like an AMC because it has 35 theaters in 25 cities as opposed to like almost 10,000 theaters around the world and there's just like less of an investment in commercial real estate which is its own you know AMC and the and Regal and the really big chains have a have a lot of other business concerns and financial obligations. So this is just kind of like, there are 35 theaters. Let's see what happens if we kind of go direct to consumer just like, you know, like Aesop or Rothy's, like buying a store, like in a mall and being like, mostly you could get us online, but now you can get us buying a store like in a mall and being like mostly you could get us online but now you can get us in a store but it it's meaning like not a loss leader but to me this seems more

like a marketing experiment or a let's see how it goes and Sony is a studio that is already like that has associated itself with the theaters it does not have its own streaming service. It licenses that to other streaming services. They have been mostly more successful than other theater studios recently with the theaters. I mean, there is the Madam Web of it all, but otherwise, Anyone But You, Bad Boys 4. So it's in line with what they're trying to do in their press release. They specifically shouted out Crunchyroll, Charles, which is where you get to come into the conversation, but basically singled out that they would be using it sort of as a marketing thing. And so the smaller scale makes sense to me. And I was like, huh, this is interesting. Maybe it will be a sea change for movie theaters and

movies. But to me, this just more seemed like an experiment in two industries that need experiments. One aspect of those experiments I think is related to Crunchyroll. Because one of the questions that I have about this is, is it possible that Sony could create specialized experiences for their movies that would only be available at Alamos? So if there was like a 3D edition of a movie, for example, or if there was like a different way of like an extended cut of a movie for example or if there was like a different way of like an extended cut

of a movie that was only being shown in these theaters. Crunchyroll of course owned by Sony. They release a lot of anime films. In fact they've

kind of pumped up the number of films they're releasing in theaters in the last five years. That seems to be a big initiative for them. They presented at CinemaCon in April

and they had a huge slate of movies to talk about. Most of which I was like, what the fuck is this? This is a movie about volleyball. But nevertheless, I feel like this advantages them in a big way because they have these other products

within their studio system that they could favor. Is this like a good thing for Crunchyroll and for anime? So I think the funny thing about Crunchyroll, for people who don't know what Crunchyroll is, it's basically like a streaming service that is just anime, and it does a very good job of like this is new for me even in the last couple years is that when something premieres in Japan like One Piece or JJK or all of these huge um animes it'll come out on um Crunchyroll pretty much at the same time and I think what's interesting

for that is if you like walk into a barnes and noble something has like rapidly changed where it was like if you go to the u.s comic book section it is so small it is like one-fourth the size and like i've gone into like barnes and nobles where sometimes the manga section is it's the entire bottom floor of the americana yeah no it's massive and it's like except for the the blu-rays yes we have a criterion shelf and then otherwise it's the entire bottom floor of the americana yeah no it's massive and it's like except for the the blu-rays yes we have a criterion shelf and then otherwise it's just all it's just all manga anime and i do think if you're sony you're thinking why are we just going to put this movie that's made millions upon millions of dollars in japan just throw it on our streaming service

why don't we do something special in an Alamo? Because I do think if you're thinking of those hyper, just rabid fans, like MCU, Star Wars, I do think anime fans are getting to that point where it's like, if you're 10, 11, 12, you probably want to see Demon Slayer more than you want to see, I don't know, Blade. And I think that might be an investment of like, they're like, oh, we can do this in Alamo. We might be able to do this in other theater chains that we don't even own.

Yeah, I think Alamo is also a theater chain that actually has a personality and actually has a brand, which most do not. You know, AMC obviously has had an interesting turn with the Nicole Kidman ad in recent years and the meme stock aspect. But for the most part, like, these are anonymous corporations,

AMC and Regal and Landmark. And Alamo, you know, whether it's effective or not, it represents something. There is like a sense of humor about the place. There is a little bit of like a hip iconography, for lack of a better phrase, about the way that their theaters are set up.

Though LA One is not my favorite Alamo I've ever been to. I've been to a bunch of Alamos over the years. You know, the ones in Texas famously are really, really quite cool. You go to them during South by Southwest. And those are nice. All of the others that I've been to, I've been to the one in New York. They...

Not great. I mean, yeah, it's not great. And it's a good thing that they're not in the traditional mall space because malls might be back, but obviously, like, that's been... All of the rent that these chains have to pay is a real, real problem. because malls might be back, but obviously like that's been all of, all of the rent that these chains have to pay is a real, real problem. And I don't know how you solve it,

but it's not like Alamo has solved this by picking like great locations that you want to spend a lot. You're like always in a half office park. Yes. That's definitely the case in LA. I'm not, I just, I really don't like that building. Yeah.

Alamo is like, one is in like Wall Street in just a random building. And it was just like, it's like cool for what it is. But I do think even as I've just progressed, Alamo probably used to feel a little bit more reverent and used to feel like, oh, this is cool. I can get a beer or whatever. And I do think in the year since, I'm just like, I don't want to go to Alamo yeah so

I wonder can Sony keep that irreverent feel for Alamo while also maybe papering over a lot of I don't know the sliding quality that I've noticed over can we get better food yeah I don't yeah I don't situation I mean that's not something Sony's known for is their attention to cuisine. You never know. You never know. Maybe it's something that they've been wanting to get into. In general, dine-in, do you like it, Charles? I'm not a fan of the dine-in experience at a movie.

I'm just, I don't know. I think when I was a kid, I was like, I can eat chicken fingers. This is amazing. And now I'm more like. Oh, now I'm sad. Yeah. I was like, I can eat chicken fingers. This is amazing. And now I'm more like. Oh, now I'm sad. Yeah. I was like, oh.

They didn't bring the chicken fingers to your seat when I was a kid. No, they did not. That was, I mean, that was the thing. It was incredibly novel 10, 12, 15 years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And now it seems like almost, not every movie theater, but there are more movie theaters where I'm just like, they've just kind of encroached on Alamo's thing where I'm just like,

you can go to a lot of movie theaters and just get a lot of shit. Yes, it's true. It's really, really invasive. Like, Alamo spends all this time shaming you in ads that I don't find that funny about, like, not talking and not texting. But people are just running through and writing novels on their pieces of paper throughout the whole movie. It's a paradox.

You know, they really are pushing something that they can't. With. The thing is. Is that I like it. For something silly. Like. If we had done. Bad Boys 4. At the I pick. If the I pick.

In Pasadena. Could just. For the love of God. Please start showing movies. At noon. Instead of 3.30. On the weekdays. Okay.

I'm sure they're all listening. But I just like. I would be there. All the time. And I'd get a Chicken Caesar wrap. And I'd watch. So you do like dine-in? For certain experiences.

I agree with this so much. I saw Killers of the Flower Moon at an Alamo. Right, but that's insane. I was like, this is the worst theater to see this movie. And so like Alamo has aligned itself in some ways as like, I mean, they are always showing all of the movies and I give them a lot of credit for it. But it's like, you can't put like hallowed like cinema experience and like where are my ma's sticks you know yes where's like my crunchy buffalo cauliflower you don't want to see andre rublev in that yeah glass onion played amazingly at alamo killers of the flower

moon i'm just like this is quite literally one of the most awkward experiences of my life i should have picked any of well this is relevant actually to this this uh acquisition because one of the most awkward experiences of my life. I should have picked any of them. Well, this is relevant actually to this acquisition because one of the things that Alamo prides itself on, which you were indicating, is that they show more movies than any chain. Part of that is because they show every possible studio and many, many independent kind of films. It's probably the biggest theater chain that shows the most indie cinema. But in addition to that, they also do a lot of programming from the past. Right now, I think this whole summer, they're doing the films of 1984.

And so you can go see a variety of movies from 1984. Happy birthday to me. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's why, yeah. What will you see, Purple Rain? I'm not driving. Purple Rain solo? I'm not driving downtown.

That complex is also where my doctor is. Okay. And I actually really like my doctor. Is the doctor's office in one of the theaters? No. I'm wondering how I would feel about that. Is the doctor moonlighting as a chef at Alamo? No, I hope not. But it's like, I don't mind going there for the doctor twice a year, but then it brings on the extra associations of like, oh, I'm going to the doctor, but instead I'm going to the Alamo plus the parking lot. As you know, it's just one day we'll do our parking lot rankings of movie theaters in Los Angeles. That sounds like a really riveting episode. I'm sure you're eagerly

awaited. I'm asking about dine-in in part because I do, one thing that I want to do this summer is a, like a movie snack taste test episode. We did a liquor, movie star liquor taste test. And now I want to do the like you go to an AMC. This is what they have. If you go to a Regal this is what they have. If you go to Alamo

this is what they have. You go to look dine in. This is what they serve. Go to Landmark. If you go to let Amanda's beloved Landmark Landmark is my there we go.

Yeah. It's our local. It's a it's a nice it's a nice fucking time. They closed down the one where I saw all the worst movies near us in Highland Park

oh they did yeah I saw Madam Web there I saw Aquaman I'm like if I know that this movie's gonna be bad I'm going

I saw Super Mario Brothers there during spring break at 11am with all the children it was 5 bucks though and some mice yeah but then the children were like following the mice

down the aisle last time I saw there was Saw X by myself at 11am only guy in the movie theater definitely amazing I wasn't arrested, honestly. This is interesting. We'll see what happens. Like, I'm not freaking out about it because I don't know what it means. I think it probably is closer to what you're saying. It's

an experiment for Sony to see the fungibility of the theatrical experience. Yeah, and it's, I think that it could be a precursor to what other studios do with smaller chains or like a small group of theaters i don't think that this says anything about the future of amc or regal or the big chains just because they have so many other problems to solve i would not imagine disney is looking to buy amc for example you know like there's not a world really i think where universal buys regal that doesn't seem to make sense for their businesses. But, you know, the decree was put in place 70 years ago because at that time there were just a handful of film distribution companies and they were really trying to control the means of not just production but distribution. Right.

And because the business, as you said, is like in this weakened state. Everybody's like, whatever. They already also have control distribution because they all have their own streaming services. So it did become sort of moot. Yes. But, you know, pour one out if you're an AMC stockholder, I guess. Let's pivot to Inside Out 2. Are you an AMC stockholder, Charles? I am not.

Okay. That would be amazing. Do you? Yes. Okay. I just wanted to be a part of the experience, but I got in too late. Okay. Are you? No, no, no, no, no, no. But I mean. Would you mind just turning your computer to show your portfolio to the camera? What are you holding right now? As you know. How's your Netflix stuff? I have my camera taped over. I won't be sharing any sort of. Honestly, I was listening to the big pic. Yeah. I do want to say, I do agree with you.

I'm stopped. I'm not giving out my phone number anymore. You know, someone actually gave me an even better tip, and I haven't done this yet, but you can set up a Google Voice number that then you can use for all orders, and then it'll just... But I guess you'd have to start like a...

You wouldn't want it tied to your own Gmail account. Right. You would want to start like a burner Gmail account, get your google voice number and then you can use it sometimes i do think about the random person's phone number that i'm putting in instead of my own you would use your gmail account it's no no no no i would make up a new gmail okay yeah so you wouldn't use movie girl URL 4333333. That's right, yeah. I locked that down in 2006. Inside Out 2? Yeah. This is the big movie

this weekend, obviously. Big Pixar movie. It's the sequel to the 2015 movie, which is directed by Pete Docter. Pete Docter now, the creative overlord at Pixar, so he didn't direct this movie. It's directed by Kelsey Mann,

who is a veteran Pixar storyboard artist. And much like Pete Docter, who had an idea for this film while raising a daughter, Kelsey Mann also raising a daughter and has had an experience with a teenage girl. Here we go. Father of a daughter season starts now. Written by Meg LeFevre and Dave Holstein. And it stars some of the voices of the original film. Some have been replaced and we have some new ones.

Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Diane Lane, and Kyle MacLachlan are all back. Tony Hale is replacing Bill Hader as Fear. Liza LaPierre replacing Mindy Kaling as Disgust. Maya Hawke, Ayo Adebri, Adele X. Archopoulos, Paul Walter Hauser, Kensington Talman, all new voices in the mix. The last movie was a movie about a preteen, about a kid who moves from Minnesota to San Francisco and who is struggling to adapt. Because of Silicon Valley.

That's right. Because of Apple and Facebook. It's all big tech's fault. And we see the inside of her mind. We see the various emotions and feelings and memories and lost ideas that control her. This sequel is about a girl on the verge of 13 entering a critical stage of her life,

also known as puberty. She turns 13. She turns 13 in the film. Because she's officially a teenager. So let's start with this. What are your relationships to the original Inside Out movie? Charles, I'll let you start.

I promise I wouldn't, you know, do my normal hot take thing. I did not care for the first Inside Out. Wow. It is on my bottom rung of Pixar movies. Oh my God.

And I honestly think it was the beginning At least it's not me. of Pixar's midlife, like creative midlife crisis. Well, that's an interesting point. Yes, that is it. That may come up later

in the Blackout Rushmore rankings. I do think that it is, that if there's eras, it is probably among the best of its era, but was pointing towards some of the creative choices that I think has put Pixar in the situation that it currently finds itself in. I think this is a two things could be true situation, but I'm glad you're staking this claim. Amanda, what about you? Oh, I enjoyed it very much. I'm sorry. No, that's fine.

And I also, and I did emotionally connect with it. I saw it probably pretty soon after it came out. I actually remember watching it at home with my husband, like two adults in Fort Greene, just pulling up a film. Was it like the critical acclaim that got you interested? Because it's not usually the kind of thing you go for. I think so.

And maybe even it was Oscar season because we did watch it at home. Famously did win the best animated feature Oscar. I was very moved by it, like absolutely wept at the Bing Bong stuff. And to me, it is an illustration of why sometimes you tell something in animation and not with real people. I was like, oh, I get it. So you have some concept and you can't illustrate it in the real world. And so you're going to put it here. Some might say the 90s sitcom Herman's Head did actually use it with real people. Which is interesting.

Not a very successful sitcom, but a sitcom nevertheless. And it did also seem to me, it obviously worked for me, an adult. And I think that is maybe one of the knocks on Pixar as it has matured is that it's making cartoons for adults, not for children. But it did also seem useful for a kid. Maybe not a child as small as ours, but like a six, a seven, an eight-year-old. I thought it like did something, explained something like pretty profound about the world. And now that I'm in like kids, you know, literature and entertainment, hardcore, and you see how people start to explain things like feelings and who are you and putting words to it. It's really ingenious. So I really admire

it as well. I echo your thoughts very closely. I think it was probably in that like, right in the second tier of Pixar for me, but I really, really liked it, really responded to it. It did the classic thing of just, we're 39 minutes into the movie and I've just burst into tears for reasons that are completely unavailable to me when I'm not sitting in a movie theater.

I did revisit the movie with my daughter last week. And I think it's clear to me that the abstractions of the story are more challenging for really small kids to follow. Nevertheless, the filmmakers have created like a very visually appealing world that even if you don't get what's happening the way you do get what's happening in, say, Snow White,

you can still have a good time with it. She still enjoyed it. I would say one of the hardest moments of my parenting life was, Dad, what happened to Bing Bong? That literally happened. So we didn't quite get into the levels of life and death versus the disappearing nature of a childhood imaginary friend. I'm so glad you're back here after our If discussion to get into this. The new film... Can I ask one more Alice question? Did she

relate at all to like, okay, that person is joy, that person is angry, that person is or anger, that person is sad. Like, did naming those feelings, like you named crayons, do anything for her? Oh, interesting.

Call out to the crayon book. That's a great book. Yeah. Do you know about this? Are there emotional crayons? Well, they just it's a box of crayons and they have various complaints about their professional lives. Oh, and like red is being used too much during the holiday season is pretty tired tired. And purple just wants you to color in the lines. And beige feels underappreciated, etc.

And they write letters to their user, Duncan. What's the name of the book again? I forget the name of it. The Day the Crayons Quit. That's it. But it's a whole franchise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, whoa, whoa.

They quit more? The Crayons quit more than once? They have a lot of problems. I mean, the danger is like you are really teaching a kid just to throw up any sort of whiny issue. Some like orange and yellow can't agree over who is the true color of the sun, you know, and are like writing to each other. Then green has to be the peacemaker. This crayon propaganda. Yeah, a little bit. But it does.

It is like assigning feelings and personalities to specific colors but this does it like more simply i was just asking because you know and charles like very sweetly he came to see inside out with two with us and then like listened to us talk about our kids for a while oh i was fascinated but we were telling you like we're sort of in the phase of you're trying to explain feelings to kids yeah and right now i'm trying to get my child to say I'm sad or I'm disappointed instead of screaming at me. But I did want to, I think Max is still probably too young

to be like, okay, that red guy, that's how I feel when I can't have a cookie. You know? I think Alice more or less was there too, even though there is something communicated pretty clearly about the emotions. You know, this new movie really complicates that question and i think it's probably even more confusing or even alienating for a three or four year old because i think it's just not for a three

or four year old that's okay it's not it is that's okay and that's that's kind of fascinating they have something in the movie that is making fun of what is for three or four year olds that's true i mean i was sitting next to a preteen and like he was talking to his mother and he was so excited talking about the original inside out and the movie ends and he goes that's the best pixar movie i've seen in a while and it was like wow it was like it was amazing because I had the same feeling too, where I was just like, I don't know inside out too. I don't know where it's going to rank ultimately, but it was funny that this kid was probably young enough to have seen the

original inside out, but now he's old enough to start critically ranking what Pixar, what Pixar has been going through. A Holmes in the making. Yeah. And I was just like, I was almost touched. I was like, damn, this little critic.

Like he's like, there's something about Inside Out 2 that I do think is either, maybe not a return to form, but a return to basics. And I almost felt a little bit calmer after the movie being like, oh, they can kind of still

just do something simple, even if the story is complicated. Did you agree with that? Do you feel like it's ultimately one of the better Pixar movies of the last five years? Because obviously there's been a lot of angst about where Pixar is lately. I guess so. Of the last five years. I don't think it's as good as the original.

It's not as good as the original. And I sat in between the two of you and I said at some point, I'm just going to like really ugly cry probably. And I need you guys to just not, I need this to be a safe space. I did not shed a tear. Now, part of that, I was like fairly anxious because this is a movie in large part about anxiety. And I think it communicates some of that very well. of it it does have the the concept's very clever and it is complicated but they communicate what they are trying to communicate to you at least to an adult or hopefully a preteen in like a in a clear way it doesn't seem it's not muddied if anything it's like pretty straight like we're

just making a movie about anxiety I kind of like my hot take is that this is sort of like the best example of like of therapy culture, like and therapy art that we have gotten in the last five years of therapy art, you know, and like all of the TV and movies and literature and songs, hi Taylor Swift, that we consume are now like from people who have been through like either a lot of therapy or have read some blog posts and are like, okay, here's how I'm supposed to think about myself. And here is like the self-empowering way that I'm supposed to go through the world. And I need to worry about my anxiety and my boundaries and all of this stuff. And this like didn't actually use any of the garbage words, but was a nice summary and a very helpful thing that you can give to a preteen, I guess, to deal with your feelings. I didn't feel it was that emotional. I didn't feel that it got me on, like, that primal level. And maybe it even knows that.

There's a very funny nostalgia character. It is knowing. So I thought it was really successful, but not as good as the first one. I more or less agree with you. I find the film really interesting for a very specific reason, which is that obviously the studio has been criticized for years for making movies that are more for adults than they are for kids, and they appeal to them in very specific ways. This might be the movie that most appeals to adults over kids in

part because it's not just that language that you're talking about, but it's our ability to look back on that period in our lives and clearly understand the feelings that the character is having. It's very rare that Pixar would make a movie about a teenager. Most of their movies are about either, you know, creatures, animals, or little kids. Andy in Toy Story, I guess, is probably like eight, seven, something like that. So by showing us a 13-year-old, which is a very psychological time in our lives, our willingness to like, the way that most people now look back on their teenage years and they're like, how did this help shape me or form me? It's doing the opposite of what I think a lot of kids' movies tend to do, which is that if you have a movie about a 13-year-old boy or girl,

young kids tend to like it because it's aspirational. It's like, I want to be as cool as that kid. Riley, because it's a really sophisticated emotional movie, is going through a really hard time in her life. Not just that she's hit puberty, but that she's also realized that anxiety is a powering time in her life. You know, not just that she's hit puberty, but that she's also realized that, like, anxiety is a powering force in her mind, that, like, the sense of self,

which is a big idea in the movie, is something that is sort of, like, breaking and forming nonstop at this time. If you're seven and you watch this movie, your takeaway will not be, like, I can't wait till I'm 13 when I alienate my friends and fail to fit in and struggle to feel like myself in my own body

which is all of these ideas so it's like weirdly a very honest movie about a very tough time in someone's life but it's doing something that like most kids movies

don't try to do you know there's not this isn't the Goonies where you're like he's my favorite Goonie and I want to be just like that guy this movie isn't really

interested in that at all but more so than the first film I feel like it is focused on showing Riley in the world I feel like more than the last movie the last movie I feel like it is focused on showing Riley in the world. I feel like more than the last movie.

The last movie, I feel like, was taking place in her head so much. And this movie, I feel like, we're as steeped in Riley and her friends are going to hockey camp. It's their last summer before they start high school and she's hitting puberty. And so we're pinging back and forth

between joy and anger and sadness and all the characters going through their adventure as you do in a Pixar movie. And then this 13-year-old kid who's like feeling bad about herself most of the movie. And how does that make us feel when we feel bad about ourselves? And what is it like to watch a movie like that? It's an interesting creative choice. It's kind of a bold creative choice if you think about it, even though there are still really cute characters and a lot of jokes and bits and things like that. So I find this to be like a fairly unusual installment of the Pixar appeals to adult story because it's a little different than like, oh, and Finding Nemo,

it's about a dad who's looking for his son, you know, like a loss. But like, really, it's about Nemo being so cute, you know, and going on an adventure. And lots of other fishies. Yes. I mean, I... And all the other fish in the fish tank who talk. The Riley stuff was probably my least favorite stuff because I felt like anxiety as a character was so funny to me.

I'm just like, yo, where's the little Muppet? Anxiety is an amazing character. That was the other part of it. It's like, so just the actual, the drawing. I was just like, this is art. This is visually like incredibly funny and menacing and memorable. An amazing performance by Maya Hawke. She's so good.

She's so good. And, you know, they stage everything that they do to create what anxiety is doing is like very post-therapy and perspective and funny. But I did also find like useful, like when there's an anxiety attack that happens. And I was like, oh, you could actually show this to a 10-year-old or a 12-year-old who's having an anxiety attack that happens. And I was like, oh, you could actually show this to a 10-year-old or a 12-year-old who's having an anxiety attack. And it would be like a helpful thing to help them understand.

Is it? I wonder. I don't know anything about psychology, so I'm not going to pretend like I have the answer to that. Listen, just as a person who has definitely had her share of anxiety in life and also her share of therapy, like at some point, part of the process

is just realizing like he's realizing like the anxiety is what happening what is happening instead of okay like i am a bad person or i fit you know all of these things putting a word to an incalculable feeling yes and understanding that it is it is separate from you know that the orange threads are different from the blue threads to give you, like, you know, to use the movie's language. So, and then, like, once you know that, then maybe you can, like, deal with the feeling. That's why, like, at some point, I'm like, why are people in therapy for 15 years? Like, maybe you can't get to that breakthrough, but, like, they basically, they give you some revelations, and then you got to go use it.

Right. So, I do think it's useful. I thought you were going to be vulnerable today on this episode. I thought that was vulnerable. That was very vulnerable. When you were like, you're in therapy too long. People, get out of therapy. Well, I've said before, we're not applying our therapy lessons in the most productive ways as a society right now. And it's definitely ruined most art.

But it did not ruin this, I thought. Okay, I agree. Vin yelled at me yesterday. right now and certainly and it's definitely ruined most art but it did not ruin this okay i agree yesterday i'm just like we have a whole therapy season of the boys i'm like bro is that what's going on in season four get out yes he's like everybody get out and the trauma thing that you complain about all the time is also like out of this because if you're if the thing you're identifying in therapy or whatever is is like a past trauma that's coloring thing you're identifying in therapy or whatever is like a past trauma that's coloring everything you're doing instead of anxiety, you know, or is causing the anxiety.

So it is like the awareness and we all need to deal with our demons through art is like definitely a problem writ large. The joke, big agree. It's good for people, bad for art. Yes, agreed. There we go. The joke that Chris and I have though, problem well writ large the joke big agree it's good for people bad for art yes agreed there we go the the joke that chris and i have though which this movie achieves is show me the trauma like i don't need i don't need a movie about someone coping with trauma like show me what happened

that's the stuff yes of narrative conflict right and that's mostly what this movie does this movie is showing us a time in riley's life where she's having some realizations and she's doing things that are going to live with her for a long time. She turns her back on her friends. You know, she like,

potentially hurts one of her friends in a pretty profound way. You know, she like, she changes who she is in a negative way and then has to reflect on that.

I felt like a little mixed on how much of Riley we got. I clearly am just much more open minded about the story of a girl coming of age at this stage of my life. Like there's just something I did. I was not blubbering in the movie theater, but there were a couple of moments where I was like, God, this is going to be so hard for my daughter. This is going to be so hard. I can't even imagine what it would be. I'm actually getting a chance to imagine what's happening inside of her head by watching this movie. And, you know, obviously it's just an animated film.

It's not real, but I think what you're saying is right, which is that both of these movies sort of profoundly and creatively communicate what's happening inside of a person in a way that I don't know that I've ever seen in a movie that doesn't make it like a five-star classic or whatever, but it's doing something that is very rare. And so I have to give it a lot of credit for its cleverness, its insightfulness. I think this one is maybe even two steps down from the original for me personally,

but its highs I thought were pretty high and its intelligence is still, the intelligence quotient is very high on the movie. So I generally really liked it. We were all laughing a lot. Oh, it's a funny movie. And I will say that even though it doesn't reach the heights of the first Inside Out, it's funny how much animated movies now are so preoccupied with anxiety.

Like, it's like they did a whole, like, fucking short. Because it's all parenting content, you know? It's also so are all is all parenting content you know it's like all just read the atlantic you know it's like just start the children they're dying of anxiety i don't mean to actually i think they are i think it's like a real problem and the pandemic exacerbated it but then you see everyone gets online it's like oh if we make anxiety content then they'll they'll click on it out of their own anxiety do children want it like i don't want to see miles morales spider-man having an anxiety attack that shit is so insane i agree i don't want to see like puss in boots like i like puss in boots as a movie but i'm like i don't want to see this little

fucking cat have a panic attack can we and i think inside out did the very did it in such a smart way where it's like because anxiety is such a funny character and it's beautiful, I almost was, like, I was going to be like, fuck this movie. And I was just like, it won me over because it does it in a very sophisticated and palatable place where a lot of the other ones, I'm like, to your point, I'm like, all right, I don't need to hear about your therapy session. Like, come on. Like, get past this. Did you think it was an accurate representation of that stage in a young girl's life? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think it's specific to, you know, it's interesting.

She's still, like, the star student of the class and, like, an amazing hockey player, you know, and is, like, very notably also that she's not the only white character, but like it's of the main people so she's she has like a very special place and so i i guess this is what even the privilege struggle you know yeah it's important to remember i mean it is true but it's like think of donald trump you know i didn't i didn't have the struggle of being like, am I going to make the hockey team? You know, I had different ones. And I guess it's like, I think it does better with the feelings of not communicating, like not knowing actually what's going on, both inside and outside your body, because she has to negotiate all these other social things.

And that, to me, was accurate, even if I can't relate to hockey. Do you want to apologize to any friends you might have backstabbed in your youth? It's not really Amanda's style, Charles. To backstab? No, to apologize. To have friends. You were like backstabbing is exactly. Can you remember any lifelong friends who were just like, yo, the popular table just wanted me and I was just like, sorry, guys, get the fuck out of here.

No, I don't. That's not really how it shook out for me. It was more like I went to college and I was like, oh, people use their brains here. So I'm going to hang out with them. Which is, you know, it was a different being being the bookish girl at school, it's fine. I had friends, but, you know, then definitely in college, I was like, oh, but these are the real friends. But do I need to apologize? Because I graduated from high school, you know, life just pushes you along.

It seems like you need to apologize. Okay, well, then I'm sorry. It's okay. Do you want to apologize to anyone right now? Oh, no, I've never been wrong. Everybody on the Midnight Boys knows I've always been wrong. One other thing that is amusing and kind of fascinating about this movie is that it's a kind of mixed media movie. There's a segment in the movie where the core characters from the first film are, quote unquote, suppressed.

They are removed from Riley's main brain stem, the controls of her mind, and sent off to a vault. And in the vault, they meet some other characters who have been suppressed. And those characters are really more memories of media that she enjoyed. One of them was a sort of lead character of a show for four-year-olds, which you indicated. Pouchy. Well, there's Pouchy and then there's, I can't remember, the Bron Funch's character.

Which I wondered if that was a little pointed. A little bit of bluey energy. Is that Blue's Clues plus bluey? It felt like it. Okay. So we had Bluefy. We also had

a Final Fantasy-style, Street Fighter 2-style video game character that she had a big crush on, which I thought was very funny. That was some of the big laughs for me in the movie. And also he was a loser.

He was a big time loser. Yeah. And... I get it. I watch a lot of anime. I have a lot of crushes. So I was just like, I respond to this.

You responded to it. And then there was The Deep Dark Secret, which I thought was a little clever sprinkle in the story. Was there another one I'm forgetting? Another animated character? I think it was just those three.

It was those three. Which I thought was an interesting innovation. Also like a little bit complex also for like seven-year-olds to introduce characters with like different styles into the story.

That almost felt like to me when that happened, I'm like, oh, Pixar has gone from the studio that we were not brainwashed to think like they're on the cutting edge of everything. Look at that too. I'm like, oh no, they're doing stuff that I've seen in Wreck-It Ralph or the Spider-Verse films.

I had the same thought, Charles. And I was like, it was, I was like, oh, this, it didn't work for me because I'm just like, you guys are almost doing it worse than those films. I liked it, but it did feel like they were catching up. You may not know this because you may not have seen like some of these other movies that have done this.

I did honestly catch myself while you guys were talking just now thinking about like high school versus college friends and if there's anyone I need to apologize to. So,

did you come up with a candidate? I didn't get anywhere because I was like, oh shit, I got to focus on the podcast. But like, as soon as you said

Wreck-It Ralph, I was just like, doot-do-do just like this is my life um I think you're right though you said I'm being honest I think that's you know I think that's actually a good entree though to the conversation about Pixar because what that showed to me is what you just said which is like they're kind of behind now this was the most forward-looking um visually arresting digitally dynamic studio in animation for a long long time you know in the last 10 years you've had universal acquire dreamworks and then build up a big slate and then you've also had universal working with illumination

and illumination has gotten huge in the last 10 years they had huge success with the super mario brothers movie despicable me 4 is coming out in two weeks it's probably the first real challenger to inside out to his box office chances this summer as a kid's movie of the summer and so they're kind of like on the back foot they have gone through this period where before elemental last summer the previous three films were all released directly to disney plus which has now been pointed to by many kind of industry pundits as like one of the key errors in movies in the pandemic era. I mean, yeah, sure. Thank you, pundits. What about not having a national pandemic or an international pandemic? I agree. I don't know what the other response is. What were they going to do? I don't have an answer to that.

But I will say- We are somewhat screwed now, but... It is funny how it's like in retrospect, Disney Plus dented Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar pretty much all at the same time. And I think Pixar got the worst of it because if I'm correct, I was like reading an article like this is the first time in their history where they've had layoffs at the company. They laid off 125 people this year. Which is just like, I went to business school and like, when they give you all the Kool-Aid, they're like, all right, we're going to do a case study on how Pixar is the most creative place ever. And it was just like, oh, a couple years later, it's being like, oh, they're having layoffs. This is, it's just a different time. I mean, the book written by the longtime CEO and one of the founders is like one of the great

business books, business media, entertainment media books ever written. It's fascinating. And they have this kind of like dogmatic approach to creativity that had been proven successful for years and years. I would argue, as you indicated, the bloom was coming off the rose well before the pandemic hit. I think it hurt the business fortunes to put those movies on D+. You know, Onward came out before the pandemic hit. We talked about it on the show. It's at best mid. I was like, there are elves.

I saw it. There's elves. There's a Walking Pants, I remember, about that. I don't remember much about that movie at all. It was a movie that was playing on

modernized fairytale tropes. Medieval times? Kind of the Watchers of its era, you know? Oh, yeah. But they, and then, it was a dad and a son, and they had to, what did they have to do?

Wasn't it two brothers? It was two brothers, and like half of their dad comes back. Right, right, right. And so the point is, it was not a terribly memorable film. And it was in this moment where they were trying to figure out how to balance the continued successful nostalgia of, say, The Incredibles 2, for example, made $1.1 billion. Like, think about that. Incredibles 2. Now, it's directed by Brad Bird. He's one of the originating, most powerful voices in the history of the studio. Incredible movies are good.

$1.1 billion. It was really confusing. I didn't like Incredibles 2. I liked it. I liked it, but it was not the Incredibles. It's not. It's not as good as the... It's kind of in a similar zone as Inside Out 2, I think.

But they were trying to balance that by launching new films and trying to candidly diversify the kinds of stories that they were telling. They were trying to bring in filmmakers who were not

just this cadre of white guys, John Lasseter and Lee Unkrich and Brad Bird and Pete Docter and all of these guys who had the chance to really shape the creative identity of the studio. On the flip side, after John Lasseter was effectively removed from the company, he left of his own volition, but because of accusations of inappropriate behavior, he left. Yeah.

Brad Bird left in 2019 after Incredibles 2. Lee Unkrich left after Coco. And then, you know, you've lost, like, some of the signature animation filmmakers of the last 25 years, and so they're in this

complicated place where... I'll give you an example like turning red was one of my favorite movies of 2022 it's great the picture yeah i think it was wonderful it was not released in theater so i don't think it has quite the same reputation but i think a lot of people thought that movies stunk and that's on them i think but i think part of it is because like pixar's status in our collective imagination has also shrunk it's very very similar to what you're saying about the MCU and Star Wars, where now we're like, a new thing comes along, and we're like, this is probably going to suck.

Well, but I think also there are different Pixars, as I think maybe our Mount Rushmores will... Might indicate. Yeah. But, you know, there are a lot of people who are like, oh, great, I hope this will be another Cars. And Turning Red is not Cars but cars is like hugely successful and it has its broad audience as well as it's like omg ratatouille is the most important piece of cinema i see you josh o'connor

why does he have to pay a priest in i'm not convinced that he's actually a priest in the movie i think that's just the cost okay you think that's a ruse? Yeah. Okay. That's fine. It's a nice out movie. Yeah. I mean, that's a good one. Also, we have to bring up really quick, shout out Bob, Inside Out 2,

the most egregious thing about it, that motherfucker did not remind me of Uncut Gems at all. And I was looking for it the entire film. All right? Bob, shout out Bob. I was like,

when is this going to be Uncut Gems? At one point, I was like, oh no, Riley, don't do that. So, and you know, I spent a lot of time Uncut Gems, and I'm like, oh, no, Riley, don't do that. So, and, you know, I spent a lot of time on Contest. I'm like, oh, my God.

Wait, when she's about to steal the notebook. Yeah. I was like, don't do it, Riley. Riley, no. You're a good kid. Sounds like it did remind you of Uncut Gems, you know? That was director bullshit for sure. I got to rewatch Uncut Gems.

God, what a masterpiece You know For every WALL-E There's also Like a WALL-E fan And you know The The power of animation There's also like

Three kids running around In Buzz Lightyear costumes I know and love them All those kids There are levels Cause it's funny Like Jomie Shout out to Midnight Boys

Is like A couple years younger than me. And when I saw Cars, I was like, this is a stinker. And to Jomie, Cars is just like a transformational movie. And it just kind of shows that like Pixar has been around enough where even for me, I remember drinking the Kool-Aid of, oh my God, this is technology that we have never seen before. I would watch on ABC and Disney. They would have like specials being like, this is how we created the new technology for Monsters, Inc. It was like, you were indoctrinated into like,

we are doing something radical and special. And now it's kind of just like, oh, that no longer, for new kids, they're not thinking of that because we're living in a Pixar world. Yeah, I mean, the huge thing that shifted was one, when Pixar came along, it was the first kind of digital animation studio that was mainstream. And every Disney film was still 2D at that time.

And most of the competition was still 2D. Obviously, over time, most of the animated studios are now digital animation. And so I went on this trip in the summer of 2022 with my family, we went to the outer banks of North Carolina and I stayed in a house with, uh, 12 adults and nine children under the age of nine. Jeez. Actually at that time they were nine children under the age of seven. There was a movie, like a theater, like a screening room in this house. It was in the basement. It was just like a giant TV, but it had theater seating. And they all watched a movie every night. And the only

movies that they watched were Disney animated movies, not Pixar movies. Moana, Frozen. Moana, Frozen, Encanto. Those were the movies that they cared about the most. And so the kids were programming. They were picking, but I think Moana was fair, or Encanto

had just come out, basically. Like it had been like six months. Maybe it had just come to D+. And so there was a lot of Encanto in the house. And as a parent now, like I watch Moana and I'm like, holy shit, this movie is fucking amazing. Like I didn't pay attention to it, even though I'm a movie podcaster. I want to know more about how the kids decided which movie to watch. Like was there...

They just start yelling. There was no like voting? No. And so it's whoever can yell People were in a parliamentary circumstance, yeah. What is going on in France right now?

Like, what is going on? They're forcing an election, you know? It is very confusing. I don't believe it's the right thing to do, but Macron is doing what he's doing.

Frozen Encanto, Moana is interesting to me because I was growing up at a time where it was like, I was at the tail end of, like, the Disney Renaissance. I was like, Lion King, Aladdin, everything, Yay. And those movies had the feel of like, oh, these are famous actors. We're going to get sweeping music. Like I remember singing a Hakuna Matata. Pixar comes around and they're less like that. They're less like the traditional,

like we're going to have a big song that the kids are gonna sing and then disney animation is like what if we fuse this shit so it's like now like i'll talk to parents and like they'll be like fuck the school showed them frozen like and it's my greatest fear yeah so are you well no no like nox is starting school in the fall and so then he'll be exposed to kids who know other things and then he's going to come home and be like so do you know about paw patrol and i'm gonna be like absolutely i do not know about paw patrol we don't get that you don't want nox to have all that copaganda in the house i know well that yeah i don't actually i mean to be fair they seem annoying i'm like not not for the copaganda but i think it's all right if we let the puppies be police it's fine it's fine I have a slightly different parental

strategy because what you're describing will happen to not as it happens to all children because you just make friends and they have interests and you go to they go to their house

and they watch something I'm trying to form a guided taste so I'll give options but it's only in a certain category. So like if it's a Disney or Pixar animated film, there is a level of quality at play there that I really want to support. And I,

what I want her to do is to become kind of indoctrinated to, to the style and to the quality and lean towards that. So we're, and we have not yet really had to do much TV or Paw Patrol or stuff like that other than Bluey because she's got this taste and she wants to be around this stuff. But this is hard to do.

It's hard to maintain this. It's going to be a challenge. Are you saying the parents and the schools might fuck up Alice's taste level? I can't pick for her

what she wants but I can show her choices and she can make them and thus far she's been making very strong choices. Now is that because she is make them and thus far she's been making very strong choices now is that because she is my daughter yeah it's in play it's in play that she'll be a woman of great taste if she's not so be it if she's got garbage taste it'll be okay but

we're giving her the tools to choose well taste level at a place where you are happy sad about it uh i'm really proud of it i would say that i run a more of um a dictatorship in terms of what's offered so he has seen four movies they are uh singing in the rain mary poppins the sound of music and top gun maverick um and then he's seen the snoopy um the charlie brown christmas and all the peanut specials i don't know if you count that as movies or television. But my fear is, do you ever think that the first time Knox, I don't know, gets just like a taste of like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or something? It's going to be Spidey in front of you. It's just going to be like, oh, right, let's go.

The other thing is that he does, he watches a lot of sports, loves to watch basketball, loves, it's primarily basketball right now, but then he'll tolerate a baseball or tennis. But he also really loves the commercials. And sometimes he'll like run around and then he'll just be like commercial. But right now he's more interested in the truck commercials than say the despicable me for commercial because they showed one and i was like noxie would you like to see those and he didn't really understand what was going on i think nox needs to be introduced to the transformers because honestly trucks that can transform no i think that he would like it if it happens too fast i think he'd still be a little alarmed. He's pretty little. He's a

little... He's a big guy, but he's a little guy. Sit Chris Ryan next to him! I know. That's true. But Chris, you know, Chris is more interested in teaching him about the fundamentals of basketball. I'd be happy to show him Transformers colon Dark of the Moon if he's interested. Is that the JFK one? Not Transformers Revenge of the Fallen?

Yeah. Well, Revenge of the Fallen has some challenges. Honestly, he will come over to your house for two and a half hours anytime you like. If he'll sit quietly, that sounds great. Okay, let's do this exercise.

Okay. All right. We have four slots. The slots, as Amanda pointed out, George Washington, our founding father, one of our founding fathers,

our first president, a great leader. This is the only one to me that's very obvious it's obviously a toy story it's just gonna be a toy story yeah yeah yeah we're all in Washington of course um again we're not affirming all of the actions of these presidents who've been carved into stone not not at all as he says before he comes to top these are complex men. Yeah. They did great things. They did terrible things.

If you would like to hear someone affirm the actions, just head over to JMO. Chris has a whole stretch on Thomas Jefferson. It's like 15 episodes. Yeah, the Jefferson season is very good. I think it shows the light and the dark of the Thomas Jefferson experience. The Thomas Jefferson experience? Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. All of his time as a leader and a thinker, his years in Paris. Yeah. Loved Europe. So, you know, that was my contribution to the series. Oh, yeah. Jefferson in Paris. There's Washington, there's Jefferson, there's Lincoln, and there's Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah. Now, I haven't, like, over-strategized on this, so I want to fully talk it out with you guys. Okay. So are we, are we building one together? I think we should. Okay. Okay. How do you feel about that? Yeah. Good, good, good. Cause I want it to be representative of the show. Okay. Great. How do you feel about it? I feel very, very good about this. So Thomas Jefferson, you know, was a Renaissance man. He did a great many things. He was a complex leader you know was a renaissance man he did a great many things he was a complex leader he was

a writer he was uh an engineer really of a lot of the way that we think about our country and the way that we live together or don't live together for that matter um some might say he was a massive hypocrite i'm not saying that i'm saying some might say he was i don't i think his kind of ingenuity is what stands out about him as a leader. So when you look at the history of Pixar, and I don't know whether you guys think we need to stick with a chronological approach here relative to the chronology of the presidents. I don't think so.

More of a personality vibe. So what is the movie that best represents the Jeffersonian identity of America? I think if we're just throwing some movies out there, I do think we're talking about ingenuity. I think WALL-E probably has to be because I think the first half of WALL-E is a perfect film in terms of just like it was definitely a risk at that time to be like, hey, we're doing a silent film about a robot basically and falling in love with an iPod. And even when I saw it for the first time, I was like, I don't fucking get WALL-E. And then I watched it a few years ago, probably during the pandemic. I was like, this movie is way more beautiful and profound than I thought it was. And then kind of the obese people in chairs come and I'm just like, not as great.

So just for ingenuity, I'm not saying I'm picking it. I would probably put WALL-E in there. What do you think about that? You're a WALL wally skeptic because you don't like the film bros who appreciate it that's not true i was honestly i was just remembering i was so hung over at the day i went to see wally like and it was and it was one of those with your college friends no i had shed your bookishness i had graduated college and i was, I was a young person in New York, but I went to see it not as a, like a Pixar head, but as a, this serious movie, you know, and probably also, also like Oscar fan. And it was in the conversation. Um, went with my then boyfriend and at Court Street Theater, RIP. Um, and I, you know, I can feel how terrible I felt as I sat through it. But it was very beautiful. What were what was the the magical excerpt of cocktails that placed you in a hungover state? In 2008? That's a great question. Red Bull and vodka? No, I was not. Long Island iced tea? No, not really.

Mudslide? No, I was not one of those people. Come on. I think like senior year of college, we got really into Gimlets. Gimlets? Gimlets? You were a 65-year-old man? Well, I guess like at that point we were.

But, you know, and then, but otherwise I was drinking like gin and tonics or just like a tremendous amount of wine um that's different from know-how right that's what i'm saying like the woman you see before you is like is is she has always been yeah um i think wally is the right answer here i think there's a case for ratatouille ratatouille is my favorite that was the other that i was gonna that's the other that I was gonna Pixar film that's your other favorite Pixar movie

no it's my number one it's your number one I think it's I mean also just for the Paris vibes you know yeah

one of the most you're a gourmand you can appreciate that film one of the most funniest beautiful gone to Paris favorite city in the world

I think Ratatouille is probably when I was just like, this is not going to be, I even knew it watching it. I was like, this is not going to be the most popular film ever. But in terms of just like what they did with cooking, food. And it was one time where I felt like up to that point, all of the Pixar films had been very, very basic where it's like, this is our movie about toys and bugs and all this other stuff. And they're like, this is our story about a rat who can cook. And I'm like, how the fuck are they going to pull this off?

And they fucking did. Also, it's a movie for critics. There you go. A job that no one likes. Everyone hates you. And I was like, you guys got it. No one likes a critic. Yeah.

I mean, it's a movie about purpose and passion like those are two great ideas for a kids movie because it's a complex idea that you can communicate subconsciously like that's really

ultimately what the movie does it's a movie about critics it does satisfy you know Anton Ego satisfies a certain kind of writer's sense of not losing

what makes you feel warmly about the thing that you do every day but it's um it day but it's both. It's like an irreverent goofy kids movie that plays really well because it's an animated animal and it's

also a deep exploration of a big idea. I feel like we should do Ratatouille for Jefferson and then like WALL-E is maybe the John Adams. I would agree with this. Do you want to just carve a tiny little WALL-E? No, but I'm just saying it's like I don't think that Wally is mainstream enough. It's the film bros pick.

Yeah, I don't think like. Right, right. I hear what you're saying. You know. Also, half of Wally doesn't work. If we were doing our own Mount Rushmore, maybe it would be up there. But we are, you know, meeting the public's taste in the middle. Well.

Wally is an HBO prestige miniseries. I mean, Jefferson is the person who is like freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion. These are his big ideas that he is pushing. Like George Washington didn't seem to really care about that kind of a thing. You know what I mean? Like in the cracking of the ideas that define the country. He is the person who is considered most responsible for those things. Does Ratatouille? Like in the cracking of the ideas that define the country. He is the person who is considered

most responsible for those things. Does Ratatouille represent that? Yes. To the Pixar? If it does. Because here's the thing.

Remy, the whole idea is just like, yo, why can't a rat cook? Yes, you're right. Why can't a rodent follow his dreams? And I mean, the world of Paris.

And why can't a cooking rat make grown men cry? Yes. Yes, absolutely. What about women? Sure. You think that Pixar is an inherently male studio? Well, no.

It does skew that way. It does skew that way, but that's okay. It took how many years before a woman directed a film for Pixar? It started in 1995. Love it when you have to do math. And Brenda Chapman was the co-director of Brave in 2012. Okay. Oh, yeah, Brave.

Funny moment. We went to Disneyland a few weeks ago with my daughter, and the characters are sort of walking around the theme park, and we stumbled upon an actress playing the character from Brave, and my daughter straight up was just like, who is that? I was like, that is Brave's legacy. That's what the world says.

Was she comfortable interacting with all the people? When she saw Moana, she was like, is this fucking happening? Oh my God. Is this real? I've heard that this is how, and like audience interaction is one of my great fears, as you well know.

And so like Moana coming up to me would be fucking terrifying. But I like Knox meeting real Elmo would, I think. He would like it. Oh, I think so. Yeah.

Knox hasn't met real Elmo yet. Well, Alice was Elmo for Halloween last year and they trick or treat each other. But that was like, and Knox was like, not as early on. It was early. He had a really hard time understanding like not as it was a little early on it was early he had a really hard time

understanding like Elmo as Alice and Alice as Elmo you know and he went with it but was he just like you're fake Elmo

I don't like this vibe half the time he called her Elmo and half the time he called her Alice wait till this year when Alice is Beetlejuice for Halloween

that's really gonna blow his mind wait have you guys gone to what's it called Sesame Place y'all not on the east coast no that's what I'm thinking about no they have one here too. That's really going to blow his mind. Wait, have you guys gone to what's it called? Sesame Place? Y'all not on the East Coast. No, but so that's what I'm thinking about. No, they have one here too,

but it's like south, south, south of San Diego. But for the reason that you're talking about, like actually meeting the person. We should do it. Sesame Place is great.

I want to take that. I loved it. I got lost there when I was a kid. That's what I was about to say, Sean. That's my trauma. My Pixar movie is me getting lost in Sesame Place. The little emotions.

It was anxiety just running around. It's like crazy. It's probably the me getting lost in Sesame Place. The little emotions it was anxiety just running around. It's like crazy. It's probably the first time I realized what a damaged person I am was getting lost in Sesame. It's a very bad memory.

It was probably like three and a half minutes that I was lost but I was like it's been roughly nine hours and my parents have left me here. Well that was during the time

when I feel like we were a little bit more hey kids get lost all the time now it's just like we cannot do this. Yes, yes, yeah. My dad was like, you're fine. You know, like there was no...

Your dad was a police officer. He should have been the first person who was like, I hear some stories about missing children. No, he really was not worried at all. Anyway, Abraham Lincoln. Let's talk about him. Okay.

You know, ultimately, the great Redeemer, the great Uniter, the soldiered us through a very complicated time in our American history. Uh, also a man of great thought, a lawyer. I feel like he represents holding the fort at a critical stage in the, in the, in the country's history. You know, he really. As best he could.

As best he could. I mean, you know, until it didn't work out anymore there was a part of me that's true yeah well yeah i mean also he got assassinated so you know like he held the fort tune in for amanda's uh jmo series on reconstruction some of our best best work. I want to say that this is Toy Story 3, weirdly. Even though I don't want to have two Toy Story movies. Is that the one that Tarantino loves so much? It is. Yeah, really?

He thinks it's one of the best movies of the 2010s. What? Yeah. One of my favorites as well. Well, I love Toy Story 3, but I saw that in high school and I was very much like, that was when I started souring on them. Because I'm just like, you guys want it too much. You want me to cry.

And I did start crying, but I'm like, I feel manipulated right now. Well, it's really tricky because, I mean, let's just go through the years quickly. After Toy Story 2, from 2001 through 2009, here are the films that they released. Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E, and Up. That's seven consecutive original animated films, all of which are widely considered

at least good. Yeah, I'm not a big Cars fan either, Amanda, but it has a huge fan base. I mean... And the rest of these movies are like... It's coming soon to my house. Seriously, he's going to love Mater. It's coming soon to my house. Seriously, he's going to love Mater.

It's going to be crazy. Keep him at it. And then Toy Story 3 is the first sequel since Toy Story 2. And it's a big box office success. And it's critically acclaimed. And then from there

leads to like kind of a downturn. So if we're looking at the arc of everything, now I don't really want to pick Toy Story 3. We can maybe pick something that comes right before it. Maybe we could pick Up. Maybe we could pick WALL-E in this space. Oh, I was going to go forward.

I think you go all the way to Inside Out. I'm not against it. I mean, it could be because it's like things are rocky. Things are not what you want them to be. And so is the good dinosaur his assassination? But then for one moment, it's like, no, no, no, no, no. We believe that we can still do this. These are our values.

This is what we can achieve artistically and commercially um it's you know it's and it's also like standing out in the in the darkness of which as as abe lincoln did until he was assassinated at the theater let me spoiler alert for anybody who didn't know abe lincoln was shot and also it's like i do think inside Out has had a huge influence on and like represents the back half of Pixar and it's kind of like their greatest achievement. Like you would build a very large monument to it at the end of the, you know, the National Mall of Pixar or whatever. And then. So I'm going off popularity too. I want to throw in a movie that I think, if Abraham Lincoln, I would say,

if you're doing a vote, probably the second most popular president. After Trump, yeah. Very fatherly figure at a very important time in our history. Weirdly, I think this is a spot for Finding Nemo. Interesting. Because I think Finding Nemo to me was the moment where I was just like,

Toy Story was still kind of just like, everything is revolving around this. And Finding Nemo was the moment where I was like, this movie is so popular and so everywhere. And it almost sets Pixar up for that run where you're just like, I still don't know if they've reached the heights artistically and just like in the people's imagination of a Finding Nemo, where that is very much,

I remember the adults in my life weirdly getting emotional about this story, about this little dumb fish needing to be found. And I'm just like, that to me united the Pixar. Have you seen the first 10 minutes of Finding Nemo? As an adult? Yeah. I don't like it. I like it as

art as just like I don't want to be in this space. This is terrifying. It's honestly an incredibly brave choice how traumatic the beginning of that movie is. And the Civil War was one of the most traumatic moments in our history.

But Marlon, Dory, see us through. And Pixar saw us through. Well, okay. I think who Roosevelt is then

influences our decision on Lincoln because I think you both made really great cases. And I like both of them. So why don't we hold off on deciding between

finding Nemo and... And then talk about Teddy. This is where off on deciding between finding Nemo. Okay. And then talk about Teddy. This is where I had to do the most research. Okay. Can you, I didn't do any Teddy research. I mean, I like,

you know, I know about Teddy. Same, but. And I, you know, he's really important to the history dads. Mm-hmm. You know,

Teddy and then also the railroads. I have like a great like running joke with my father-in-law about like at what point he's gonna like bring up the railroads and now he knows and he's like and the railroads amanda but it's like it's either railroads or teddy roosevelt so but but otherwise i don't you know he kind of got supplanted by the other Roosevelt. Well, I'm happy to go into that.

Yeah, there you go. He's an incredibly important figure because even though he was a member of the Republican Party, he's one of the most progressive presidents we've ever had. He is famously a soldier and a rough rider, but also a conservationist and was kind of obsessed with and fascinated by nature and the natural world. All the national parks. Thank you, Teddy. Thank you to Teddy. You know, he, I believe, fought in the battle in Spain in the late 1800s. He's highly decorated, also an intellectual. He, I think, represents a transition to the modern world.

He's ultimately the kind of leader that I think that he was, where he was applying the expectations of the first part of the American story and leading us into the 20th century. That's largely his legacy. And a lot of his ideas persist. We're going to get yelled at so hard by like history nerds. No, no, I know. But I didn't really like think about it until this moment of like what we're opening up in terms of history dads and anti-history dads, you know, being like you guys misread Mount Rushmore.

And so here are the real answers. I mean, that's OK. We're doing what we're going to do. But I'm going to be honest. I mean, that's okay. We're doing what we're gonna do, but... I'm gonna be honest. I'm podcasting for a living. If I wanted to be a fucking history nerd, I would have gone back to school, but fuck school. Alright? Kids stay

in school, but for the rest of y'all, fuck school. But you brought up something interesting. Finding Nemo probably makes more sense for Teddy. Natural world, progressive, and if we're honest, that to me thematically finding Nemo is some of the past where it's like the simpleness of Pixar which is like Toy Story, Bugs Life these are very simple films but Nemo is one of the first characters in Pixar that's telling a very like modern story of like what does it mean to have a disability?

What does it mean for the world not to accept you? What does it mean for your parents to die very young? That's like that first 10 or 15 minutes of Finding Nemo weirdly pushes Pixar in a corner where it's like now as an audience, we expect, like during Bugs Life, I wasn't crying, but after Finding Nemo, we're all as a nation kind of expecting,

we want our Pixar movies to tell us something about ourselves in life. And also, I remember watching the background of just how the animators made it. And that was when they're like, we needed to create a bunch of new technology for water and how people swim and technology. And that was when I was like, oh no, Pixar is for real. So maybe finding Nemo makes more sense for Teddy. I've got a pitch.

I've got a different one. Okay. Can I add one little droplet of flavor to the Roosevelt story? Yeah, absolutely. See if you still feel the pitch works. You can make the case that Roosevelt was the engineer of his own demise

because he groomed Taft to take over for him after he completed his second term. Also famously, Roosevelt not elected. He was McKinley's vice president.

McKinley was assassinated. But he groomed Taft and then as soon as Taft came in, he was like, ugh, it's kind of an Iger-Chapex situation

where he was like, Taft is too conservative. He doesn't have the right ideas for how to do his job. And then he starts the Progressive Party, kind of an RFK Jr. situation. And then that leads to Woodrow Wilson getting elected president in 1912 and Taft losing. And then the Republican Party's primacy kind of shifts and changes and falls over that time. And then we go to World War I and yada, yada, yada. Anyway, this has been, Sean is a history dad now.

What was your proposal? I was going to propose The Incredibles. Ooh, I like that. Immensely popular, which Teddy Roosevelt was both then and now. The historians, they love him. Reelected. Reelected. But then also if you are kind of,

as we have established in the dad history books, but also in the great polls and all these sorts of things, who are the people feel that Teddy was one of our great presidents or people who pay attention. Can be read as both a progressive film and also quite traditional, depending on how you want to read The Incredibles. So it's kind of you know reaching across because of the nature political aisles yeah and and also you know i've always the the

incredibles like they're incredible but then like everyone's incredible but you want to be special but you don't want to be you know i've never really totally understood what was going on there um but you're very special charles i just want you to know that. You know, we all, everyone is very special. You're controversial. I am controversial. And then, you know, it's very famously inspired

by Brad Bird, like having a hard time, you know, about like his trying to balance his family life and his work life. And so, and it has been used,

I think unfairly as that, as the inspiration for like all of the, well, I think all of this criticism is unfair, but there has been a strain of criticism that's like Pixar has become too autobiographical. And Pete Docter even gave that quote to Bloomberg of like, we're moving away from that. I think those are the wrong conclusions, but that is in the school of the Incredibles. So you could say it's moved towards the modern, it's moving towards the modern world of Pixar, but also maybe didn't set up its descendants in the way that you might've wanted them to. And I do think if we're going with Incredibles,

just in case. Thank you. It is a movie where it's like, once Incredibles 2 happens, I was just like, oh. They had already with Finding Dory and all this stuff. I was like, oh, we're in this era. Incredibles is kind of like an era defining thing where I'm just like, oh, these original movies aren't really going to be forever. And also Incredibles kind of points us to where we are now where it's like, oh, superheroes are just taking over.

It is just like, I even think a lot of directors still count Incredibles as kind of like a, oh, this is how you do a superhero movie, right? It does loom large over the culture, even outside of Pixar. It also did something very smart, which was very early on, it was iterating on the tropes of superhero movie storytelling

in an original way kind of like before the MCU predated I mean the only superhero movies that had come out that time were basically the Spider-Man movies in this modern era of superhero storytelling and

also I do really like The Incredibles despite not understanding all of the it's very good it's really good it's definitely one of the best it's very good. It's really good. It's definitely one of the best. It's the only good Fantastic Four movie. That's a great take. What's her name?

Edna? Edna. Edna Mode. Wow, Edna Mode. Iconic. She is. You have a little bit of an Edna Mode situation. Thank you, that's really nice. Thanks so much.

I should get the glasses. Kind of a tough exterior. Zach, you and No Knox should be the Incredibles I will not be wearing spandex for Halloween Edna Moe Edna Moe doesn't wear spandex oh okay

I could be and then you could be Edna Moe yeah Knox could be Jack Jack maybe oh yeah he does have Jack Jack vibes for sure

who would Zach be um I don't know the sad dad I was trying to remember what the villain's name is oh oh yeah that would be what the villain's name is oh

oh yeah that would be funny that guy's name is amazing yeah it's uh it's Syndrome Syndrome hell yeah

Syndrome come on I'm the Incredibles generation right here yeah I like Incredibles I like this pic well

here's something if we if we choose the Incredibles for Teddy and we choose Nemo for Lincoln, we have basically all first generation choices. That's why I have Inside Out for Lincoln. Right. So you think it's better to have the totality?

Because we don't have any presidents from the last hundred and... That's true. Because they built it. I'm going to be honest. I think it does tell the story of Pixar pixar oh that's also a good point that the movies that we've talked about the most come from their first generation and pixar is america yeah that's tough is it wow i will say i should make america great again i'm not gonna make it through the rest of the year on this podcast.

I just am absolutely not. Can't believe this is happening. I think we'll take one from Charles and one from Anna. Yeah, that's it. We'll do Nemo as Lincoln and we'll do The Incredibles as Roosevelt. If we left Nemo or The Incredibles as Roosevelt. If we left Nemo Nemo or The Incredibles off I

feel like that might just be like people like fuck this episode. Yeah. I think if if Mount Rushmore were to add John

Kennedy or LBJ or Ronald Reagan or whatever. What about FDR? FDR. FDR would be the obvious choice. Good call.

Is FDR inside out? FDR would be inside out. FDR would be inside out FDR would be inside out yeah that's right that's a good call okay

okay so our Pixar Mount Rushmore has been completed George Washington is Toy Story Thomas Jefferson is Ratatouille Abraham Lincoln

is Finding Nemo and Teddy Roosevelt is Being Incredible this is an absolutely insane hilarious concept to throw at us just like in the bumper

of an episode it's really really good producing good job for anyone who to throw at us just like in the bumper of an episode. But I will say it's really, really good producing. Good job. For anyone who gets mad at us, blame Bobby. I am not a history buff. All the history nerds.

Bobby, do you have anything to say for the history nerds? Do you want all the comments and angry messages? I just think everybody acts really normal about American presidents and history

and getting details right. I just think everybody does a really good job. And when you combine that with movie fandom, which definitely comes from a rational place, you get normal results. It's really good. Really, really good stuff. And one last question I have, because I was going to bring this up. Amanda's Science Corner. Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. Really quick question. Music, hold on. Welcome to Amanda Dobbins' Science Corner. Yeah, okay, go.

So, I was wondering, Riley goes through puberty very, very early on, but- She's 13. No, not early, like early on in the movie. Early in the movie, yeah. And it is very funny how they do that. It's very funny. It's amazing.

But at no part do we get to see like the anthropomorphized version of puberty. Right. You know, I did notice they do not mention like hormones are not brought to the table. Even though there is, she has zits. But there's no mention of period, no mention of body changes. Some of that is because this is like, it actually is like a three-day window, right? So she's going to summer camp. Do hormones reach the brain?

Is that why we didn't see them? Because maybe they don't reach the brain. Oh, this is a good question. I should know a lot about this. I mean, I definitely, they do. Whether or not science bears that out yet, I this i mean i definitely they do whether or not science bears that out yet i personally can tell you that they do so this is just your opinion reminder that this segment is called amanda hormones are really powerful um behavioral modifications

um but maybe they don't enter because here's's the thing. I was like, well, hormones affect the emotions, so therefore we should be seeing them during puberty. They should sort of be like... But would they be in the control center or are they changing... I think they should be like suction cups that attach themselves to the characters. Yeah, or who interrupts them

and they can't get a good night's sleep and that sort of thing they're basically like the minions of the inside out like universe yeah i smell a crossover yeah yeah then what were the good stuff then what were the blue guys oh they were the construction workers yeah but what are what part are they of the body are they like oh interesting they maybe they could be the hormones because they they come in knock everything down and then they're just like yeah we're gonna be

leaving this with like no schedule of return as well which is you know because the hormones do drop and and change quite precipitously

especially in a woman's body is that why they're bad at their job because sometimes the hormones are on sometimes that's a good idea wow

Charles's science corner sounds like you need to be in the room wow I'm learning a lot. Okay. Hell yeah. We've done amazing work here today.

History, science. History, science. Psychology. Art. Electoral politics. It's all here. I'm just really proud of you guys. Charles, thank you so much for returning to the halls of the big picture.

Hey, I'm glad. And guys, guess what? Don't forget. Ringiverse. Like and subscribe on youtube right now house of r talk the thrones midnight boys twice a week let's go to my conversation with lance oppenheim In 100 meters, turn right. Actually, no. Turn left.

There's some awesome new breakfast wraps at McDonald's. Really? Yeah. There's the sausage, bacon, and egg. A crispy seasoned chicken one. Mmm. A spicy end egg. Worth the detour. They sound amazing. Bet they taste amazing, too. Wish I had a mouth take your

morning into a delicious new direction with mcdonald's new breakfast wraps add a small premium roast coffee for a dollar plus tax at participating mcdonald's restaurants lance oppenheim is here you may have heard me talking about his movies during the pandemic uh he had an incredible premiere film, Some Kind of Heaven back then. Two movies in 2024. Lance, thanks for being here. Hey, wow. Thanks for having me.

This is awesome. Lance, where did you come from? You're only 28 years old. You've already made three feature documentaries. You've made a number of shorts. Where are you from? How'd you get into moviemaking? Tell us your story.

Anytime someone says that I want to do the mystery man thing from Lost Highway, I'm in your house right now, Sean lost highway, I'm, I'm, I'm in your house right now, Sean. No, I'm from Florida. I'm a, I grew up in South Florida and Broward County.

And yeah, I guess I, I started making films in high school documentaries and short documentaries. And then I started making more of them in college and I would spam email, you know, people to try and get them on the Vimeo staff picks and, uh, you know, the New York times op docs. And, uh, yeah, you know, I guess I've always been, I never, like I grew up watching,

you know, movies, movies. And then later on I was exposed to a lot of great documentaries, like, you know, Terry's wig off stuff. The cr was such a big one for me, on the Bowery, Alan King stuff was amazing. But I really kind of grew up like loving, you know, probably all the shit that you love too, like Kubrick and, you know, Jonathan Glazer was a big one for me, Billy Wilder, like, Cameron Crowe, big, huge for me. And I always was just sort of like, how can I take some of the feeling, you know, or at least just the formal devices of fiction films and how, how can I sort of adapt that into a documentary used to see it more. Um, and forgive me for bringing his name up. I'm a, I'm a fan. So I'm going to say it, David Foster Wallace. I know

there'll be people that will be a role in their eyes. I don't know why that happens because he was so great. He was so great. But his nonfiction stuff was always so inspiring to me. He's a novelist who's entering these different worlds, like the Big Red Sun piece, the supposedly fun thing I'll never do again piece. I want to ask you about that, actually, because I was given a supposedly fun thing as a graduation gift from a high school teacher of mine. Very impactful book for me. I'd never, certainly never read nonfiction like that and never read that kind of immersive storytelling, but it's a really good comparison for the kinds of documentaries that you make.

And you make these movies with these incredibly resonant, specific characters in worlds that we maybe know exist but don't think about and have a lot of complexity. You know, your first film is about a retirement community. Your second film is about, I guess, effectively sperm donors. Is that the right phrase? And your third film is now, it's a three-part film, Ren Faire, on HBO coming soon, that is about a renaissance fair and a kind of quest for power in terms of who will manage it long term. So how do you figure out what is the right subject? What is the right world for a movie like this? How do you decide maybe the same way David Foster Wallace would say, I need to go on a cruise and write about that, or I need to go spend some time

with David Lynch and watch him make a movie and write about that. How do you figure out what is the right subject for your films? Well, I guess it's sort of, over time, I feel like certain things have emerged. And I think one of the things, it probably goes back to my childhood because my parents were both like foreclosure defense attorneys. And during the recession,

they would, you know, they were representing people who were losing their homes. And before that, they were real estate people. But there was this whole, I feel like universe I would see all the time of people creating these kinds of like fantasy worlds, especially in Florida, and then eventually becoming entrapped in them. And I would see this with my dad's friends who were like real estate developers who were trying to build communities that never happened. I'd see it with people who were losing their homes, but literally living in storage units with all of their stuff. It was like this extent to which you, yeah, you chase something until it basically entombs you.

And so I think, you know, even the short films I made, like there's one about this guy who was living on a cruise ship for 20 years and it's, you know, well, yeah, I guess it's like the Foster Wallace thing I was inspired by, right? I'm always interested in these, I guess, first in a setting and then trying to find something relatively like existential or something I deeply relate to and people I love and I love hanging out with and people who want to be kind of part of hopefully an artistic experience of turning their life over to me and letting me in and making a film together. And I think that collaboration is probably the second thing that's equally as important as the setting or the story.

Ren Faire is sort of an anomaly because it's the first time I ever worked really actively with journalists. David Govee Herbert and Abigail Rowe. David's a great long-form nonfiction writer. I've worked with journalists before who had given me an idea for a world and then I would kind of go off on my own and find the story. But David and Abby came to me with this idea of George, this guy who created the biggest Renaissance festival in America. It became so big, he became the mayor of the city that he incorporated around the fair. And then over time, he ended up kind of becoming like a Noah Cross Chinatown character. He's living in this literal kingdom. He has a house, a castle that he calls Stargate Manor. He owns the police. He owns the county, the judges. He is a self-made king, as someone calls him in the film. And so the thing to me that I was always interested with

this story, I started with sort of the character i kind of knew there was going to be this existential question of what happens to the festival uh once he decides you know to no longer run it and i was really interested in power and kind of like uh what it does to you when you have it absolutely uh in a system where no one can check you for so long and what it does to the people who want to have it but don't, but come so close to it. I mean, I have a couple of questions about that. Your films have incredible sense of visual flair.

They don't look like your typical verite documentary where you've just mounted a camera in a room and we're waiting to see what people do or you're not just having people do into-camera interviews, though you are doing that, like you have a real sense of filmmaking style. And also, there is something in the movies that I guess I would describe as performance style. It feels like the subjects of your films are in a fiction film, as you described, like that energy that you're describing because they are so well cast and they seem so unusual and interesting, but also like, how are you able to maybe make them understand what it is that they

are participating in when you're setting out to make a film? What do you tell people when you sit down to make one of your movies and say, I want you to be in this with me? Well now, because I've made a few of them, I usually start by just, you know, showing the previous films I've made and describe, you know, the process process. There's a reason this looks the way it looks and it feels the way it feels. And it's because I'm trying to basically capture something that couldn't be captured if I was just observing like a fly on the wall. I need to meld with you. I need to inhabit the same sort of headspace that you're in. And that's going to be extremely invasive and really time intensive and probably drive're in. And that's going to be extremely invasive

and really time intensive and probably drive you nuts. But do you want to do it? Do you want to make a film together? And then the next thing I usually say is like, look, this is what I find interesting about you. And I think, I'm not sure where this is going to take us. And we're going to be filming together for probably years. But the general

linchpin is this idea. And I think for Ren Faire, it was really about power again. It's, it's like, um, why do you want this? Why, why can't you, you know, one person says this, why can't you leave it when you go home? At what point does your work become everything to you? Um, and then also just the question of a real life fiefdom, you know, how do you navigate around someone who, I guess in a way there's kind of an uncanny similarity to like King Lear that starts going down there, but you're with a person that is losing his mind essentially and controls every facet of your life. And so that to me for this one was important for Sperm World and some kind of heaven, they were different, but Sperm World was a much more, another vast, like big,

but digital setting. So it was hard to physically just go down the street and meet a bunch of people. But that one was really, you know, Hey, there's something that draws you to sperm donation. What is it? What is the motivation there? Is it altruistic? I was really inspired by the movie Bringing Out the Dead and just like the questions of helping someone, but really in turn kind of helping yourself and searching for redemption somehow.

And I was really interested in people who I generally personally related to, just people who I thought were maybe a little bit at a crossroads in their lives. They didn't really know why they were doing what they were doing, but it made, it felt good. And that was an interesting feeling that I wanted to explore with that one. And then I guess with Some Kind of Heaven, it was really like, you know, I was in college when I made that movie. And I think. That's very, that's just mean the use said that. Well, at the time, it was just like every person who lived in the villages that made that film with me.

It was like we kind of met at this interesting intersection of our lives because they were there in the villages trying to get back to their college years. And I was exiting my college years and really freaked out about what was going to happen. And that film really started as a short that kept expanding. And I kept lying to people, telling them that I had enough material to make a movie. And that's how I got the financing. But I had no clue what I was doing. And I was freaked out the whole time.

There was one day where I was just crying in the shower because I was like, the the stress of uh like what the fuck do I how do I make a feature-length movie I mean Jesus Christ but you know again it was really the people like Reggie and Ann and Dennis and Barbara like you know when the films end it's the relationships they continue you know as I move on to things if I ever get the chance to make a fiction film or something, I, you know, my hope is to cast a lot of these people that I've worked with and, you know, continue the collaboration, but maybe in a different form, I guess. I'm curious what happens when you have an idea for a film where you've found what you think could be a compelling figure for the movie and they say no and they say i don't want to do this or i'm suspicious of you because you know you're really getting into extremely intimate settings with these people and renfair in particular by the end of the series is uh pretty emotionally pulverizing for some of the people who participate yes so like i people are smart they know that when you put a camera in front of their

face, like things will be exposed. So what do you say when they say no? Or have you had experiences where you've conceived of an idea and you just had to walk away from it because you couldn't get people to participate? Well, yeah, I mean, and with some kind of heaven, that was the, my first entry point was like trying to locate where the power in the community was, you know, was at. And that was where the Morris family who are very, they're billionaires because of their success in the villages. I tried as hard as I possibly could to convince or just even get to them. And it was impossible. You know, they had so many people blocking them. And eventually I just, I gave up. And I remember just thinking like, well, what do I do

now? And I just started going to some of the clubs. And then this feeling started to kind of emerge, which was like, everyone's having so much fun here. What if you didn't, what if you weren't having fun? What if you were going through something really intense? It kind of reminded me of like going to prom and high school. And I remember like, you know, my date went away with someone else and I was just stranded on the top of this boat and I was just looking at the water, just like, fuck. And I just looked around and everyone was kissing each other or laughing or dancing. And I just was like, oh God, I'm so miserable. And so it was like that feeling, yeah, that feeling, but imagine you're like 80 or like in your 70s and it's like the time is ticking and you're just watching everyone laugh over and over and over again. And you're just trying to get through it, trying to get by.

So I think everything happens for a reason. And with Ren Faire, the thing that was interesting was that because everyone there is a performer by trade, I think I was able to sort of heighten a lot of this stuff to new levels, I think. Like Jeff Baldwin, who's really the heart of the whole show, he's the general manager. He's been working for George and the Renaissance Festival for his entire life for four decades. His journey is really intense. He goes through a lot of change. In the beginning, in the first episode, there's this dimension to his engagement with the camera where he talks about how he isn't a method actor but he was doing a play called daddy's dying who's got the will and he says and the emotion i experienced my father dying when i

was doing that show um made everything feel a lot more real i'm paraphrasing here um and i think the same dimension of his engagement with that performance when he was doing that show a long time ago is very similar to what he does with his performance in Ren Faire. There's a degree to which what's happening is real. Every element of it is happening to him. But there's also this degree where he's a Shakespearean performer and that's where his roots are. And so it's hard to say, but I think like, it's part of the experience is it's like, it is sort of therapeutic maybe. I mean, that's like, I'm getting people to talk about things that maybe they have wanted to talk about for a while. Um, but then there's a creative dimension, which is like, how can we express those feelings in cinematic terms? Like, how do we

take, um, how you're feeling right now about something and rather than just sitting you down and doing a confessional interview or a talking head thing, how can we tell me what you're feeling, let's get to the bottom of it, and then let's figure out a way to actively shoot it. Maybe we'll bring in some talking dragons while we're at it. And if you don't like that idea, maybe we'll'll do something else or maybe in the case of the talking dragon

we'll get your brother who's a great voice actor to do the voice for it later so it's like this kind of grander collaboration he said something to me when he saw the whole thing recently jeff that he was he said thank you for making something so wonderful out of something so horrible. And I think that's kind of part of the weirdness, the discomfort, but also I think the importance that I guess I feel and my crew feels when we're making something like this is just being there and letting these experiences happen and try to hold people at least a little bit accountable for the way they treat other people, but also try and memorialize these things so they don't just happen again. And I think that's, you'll see in the story of Renfair,

that's really the, it's a very cyclical story. It's the cycle has been happening for decades. And I mean, I'm curious if by documenting just one cycle of it, it changes anything in that world. I'm fascinated by the fact that you seem to have a strong philosophical point of view on how to make something that you want to make. But in a world of nonfiction where there's a lot of dogma, there's a lot of rules, there's a lot of expectation of how something is being made. And I do feel, it feels like when I'm

watching your work, you're doing something a little different and that you're managing the way that you make something differently. And you don't seem to have any anxiety about that either, which I admire, but I'm kind of curious, like, are you, have you been confronted with people saying like, are you, how are you doing this? And how is it, why does it feel different than any old documentary I watch on Netflix about a murder? You know what I mean? Like, how is it that you're able to make this feel different? Like, what is your sensibility about that? Well, I think a big part of it is it, to me, it's like, I just think a lot of, that used to be that documentaries,

there was so much fertile ground for experimentation. And you look at these movies, again, you look at On the Bowery, like the main subject of that film was offered a movie deal by the time the movie was out. He wasn't acting, but a dimension, like in any great Kurosami movie, you look at those and it's like there's a much more fluid barrier between performance and being yourself. And of course, the moment you bring a camera and you start training it on someone, something changes and the way they start acting is different.

For some reason, I feel like there's a lot of documentaries I see now that, you know, they all sort of subscribe to the same visual language and philosophy of how to express a story. And look, there are certain stories like I wouldn't know how to do. Like, I don't know if I would know how to make a retrospective story. I don't think that's, I've tried and I failed miserably. And likewise, I've also tried making things. And, you know, when I was kind of learning how to just do stuff I made short documentaries and I made a few where you know it's really just kind of being a fly on the wall and discovering a story that you can edit together later and those were also

difficult for me because I most of the time I made those types of things I feel like people the people in them related to them a lot less. They were like, you were with me for six days and you edited this thing for six months and this is the story? What do you mean? The way I like working now is it's like, if I can let the people into the process that are in it,

if I can sort of explain the lens of the production, why we're shooting things, why I'm trying to shoot the thing I'm trying to shoot. If they don't like that, then maybe we can find another thing to sort of have a way to express it. But I think it leads to much better cinematic results, but I also think it leads to a much more

kind of worthwhile experience for myself as a filmmaker and for the people in the films. It's, I think, a little less extractive than other documentaries, maybe. But you're right. I mean, look, I think there's going to be a lot of people that watch the Renfair thing and they'll say, this is all fake. It's all, you know, there's talking angels and dragons and what the fuck is this? And that's fine. I don't think that's what I was saying, but I think it's subverting some expectations of what you would get in something like this. But you mentioned before we started recording

that you showed the finished three episodes of the film to the folks who participated in the film. Like I said, it's a little hard to watch for somebody who's not involved at times because it is so raw and frankly very painful for a couple of the participants and it sounds like at least one of them ultimately is okay with what you did

but what do you do when you've actually asked these people not just to participate but to like collaborate in the way that you're describing and then they see something that's hard I think I mean look they all they lived, what happens in it is something they all lived through and experienced. And I think our presence there in a way

was maybe a little bit of a solve that there was this thing that we bore witness to a lot of the erratic kind of decisions that the king, King George, would make. And in the first episode, it's, I mean, look, to me, this whole project really started, I mean, look, to me, this whole project really started, I thought it would be a comedy and it would be something, there would be a lot of fun and to sort of the kind of back dealings and corporate drama of a succession story that's set at a Renaissance festival. But by the end it became a tragedy. And I felt a lot of onus and responsibility to show all of that

and show how the magic is sucked away from a lot of the storytelling, but also from these people as their lives are literally robbed. The lives that they give to the festival, the lives that they give to George, these things are just blown up, um, very, very easily by this one person. Um, but in showing, I mean, look, I'm showing it. I think watching yourself on screen is always going to be a strange experience and with sperm world and some kind of heaven and with Renfair, it's like, I'm always, I want to show these things to the people that are in them well before. And usually when we're shooting, I'll, you know, I'll, I'll have little clips edited together and stuff and I'll show them like, okay, that sequence from, you know, day 60. Now we're on day 95. I wanted to show

you how that feels. Do you like it? And there was this sort of a feedback. It's not like it's a complete surprise when they see the full thing, what's going down in it. But with this one, you're right. I mean, it's like there are some extremely just painful, raw things that do happen in turn. And I mean, I think every person who's seen it, the three leading participants,

Jeff and Darla and Louis, it's their life. And I think the most painful part of it is the fact that, well, I don't want to get too far into it because I feel like I'm spoiling some stuff. But I think this is a cycle that a lot of them still belong to. And it's almost like a Stockholm syndrome thing where you're... But it's also more complicated because if you give your entire life to a renaissance festival, what can you do with your life? Can you leave? Can you find another job somewhere else? Maybe not. withstanding like a flow of invective over an extended period of time that is like one of the more haunting things I've seen in a movie, honestly, because without explaining it,

explains exactly what you just described, which is that she has no recourse but to just accept this and try to power through it as best as she possibly can so that she can survive inside of this life that she has built for herself in this man's kingdom so yeah it's amazing but it does that's one of the few moments too where in the film you're like how did you like how how did you get in the room for something like this transpiring which is very magical and feels very different in some cases from the construction of putting on the show

or watching someone talk about what it means to be a performer. So when you're in a sequence like that or a moment like that, are you emotionally involved? Or are you thinking to yourself, like, I can't believe we're getting this right now. This is just so amazing. How does it feel when something like that is happening? Well, I had a great professor in college once who said this, and it's like the emotional weirdness of making a documentary is that most of the time when the lives of your participants

are going worse, things aren't working out, the better the film will likely be. And so there is this kind of nastiness to that. And I think I feel all of it when I'm shooting I mean that I lead I think with uh my heart I you know and and I and it my heart breaks in these moments and I'm also knowing that these moments are also uh powerful but I also think ultimately like the scene with Darla or most of these things, like the fact that we were there to capture it, we were, you know, in a way like George is such a fascinating person that I think he was just, we were there so often that I think eventually it just kind of our presence did sort of melt away. And he liked showing that he was in control.

And I think that's a big part of who he is. He controls everything. He doesn't control us, but he likes to show us when he can drive and steer the car a little bit. And I think Darla felt maybe a little bit protected, actually, by having us there. I remember after that meeting ended, she said, I was like, Jesus Christ, that's not okay for someone to say all those things to you.

And she's like, honey, you don't even know. She's like, this was way, he was way nicer to me here than he was when you guys aren't here. And so, you know, I'm always sharing sort of my things and opinions and feelings because all of those things are in the project too. And I think in a way, every artistic choice and piece of sound and music and all the bells and whistles and things we're trying to cram in there, it's an expression of myself. But really, I'm trying to express emotionally what is happening to these people. And I think that's also why it's so hard, even for you, who's not a part of that world, to watch. Because you're not just observing these things. You're emotionally engaged, hopefully enough, with it,

where you're experiencing it on a level that you maybe wouldn't necessarily with another nonfiction Netflix true crime thing. thing i mean not that this is any of that but but yeah so it sounds like maybe you want to direct scripted films as well based on what you've just said like do you know what you're doing next i have a few things yeah i have a few ideas i'm kicking around um you know i mean i like if I can keep kind of operating in this liminal space where I can collaborate with you know people who have real stories real stories to tell and they're interested in being seen and I think that's a big part of why all these people want to do this in the first

place is I think they're looking for purpose in their lives I think every person that's in Renfair is looking, especially for someone like Jeff and for Darla and for George even, they're looking for meaning. And I think the experience of making this was extremely meaningful to all of them. And especially for me, when I'm not shooting stuff and I'm at home,'m depressed I don't really know what to do why I'm what am I doing here what's what's my you know life's purpose is it is it uh I remember like Cameron Crowe was talking I was reading him talk about making I think it was Vanilla Sky which is one of my favorite movies uh I think he made Almost Famous in between it right and then he did Jerry Maguire before and he kept talking about wanting to keep like his band back together and or band together in general and continuing to make films

and i think uh it's the same thing for me i make these films with really mostly the same people over and over and over again and it feels like we're just charting these great adventures together and that is like an unbeatableable feeling and bringing people into the process is like the other part that just makes us all better storytellers and better artists. And even someone like George, again, it's like Chinatown and, you know, I was looking at Demon Lover a lot while I was working on this because I always loved the like corporate espionage story that's set in the world of hentai. This isn't quite corporate espionage. Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, something's going on in Demon, whatever they're doing. This weird sex. Slightly inscrutable movie, but yes. Sex stuff. But the, you know, with Chinatown, I was always just like,

Noah Cross, he's, George is like a fusion of Noah Cross and he talks like David Lynch playing John Ford, I guess. But with Noah Cross, you see this guy who seems like an older, amiable, kind of nice guy. He's warm, awesome.

You want to hang out with him. And then there's that scene that's just so nightmarish and haunting in Chinatown where he reveals people are capable of anything. And that snarl, that experience, that was exactly what it was like to be with George. There was the same dimension of him being this playful, fun person to be around who's such an anachronistic, really iconic person who just lives in his own universe, his art, his Rococo bathroom, his toilet paper dispenser, his shower with no shower curtain on it. It's just like his golden, it looks like the Hobbit's version of the Playboy mansion.

It's like this crazy fucking thing. And then there's this other dimension to him, which is just rage, just unspeakable rage, and this quest for kind of infliction of pain on others to stave off his loneliness. He enjoys playing with people like pawns on a chessboard. And to him, he feels nothing when they are destroyed. He kind of just moves on and forgets about it. And so to me, that was ultimately like, you know, I'm sure the experience of seeing something like this is shocking, but, you know,

I want, if this story wasn't told now, I think, and it's already, you know, it's going to keep happening in that world forever. And so maybe there was, I felt, and it's already, you know, it's going to keep happening in that world forever. And so maybe there was, I felt like a little bit of a responsibility to document it all, document all of the pain, but also try to capture the magic and the romance of the setting and the festival and the love that these people have for that culture and kind of mix it all together. And then, you know, see what happens, I guess. You did an amazing job with that. Ren Faire is pretty, pretty special. Lance, we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they

have seen? Wow. You're a cinephile. What have you seen recently? The last great thing I have seen. Well, I've been watching a lot of reality TV lately. So I feel like, you know, there's this one episode of Bar Rescue that I can't get out of my head. With John, Mr. Taffer? John Taffer. He goes into this. You may have seen this if you're a Bar Rescue fan. I haven't. I'm not a Bar Rescue guy.

This is one of the rawest episodes of reality television I've ever seen. There's a bar, I'm forgetting the name of it, but the owner's son is the guy who runs the bar, and he shot a pornographic film in the bar on a couch that's still in the bar. And John Taffer is watching this clip, the pornographic clip in his car as he does, you know, he goes in for like the sting operation. And he goes in and he just absolutely humiliates this guy in front of everyone in the bar. And he makes him drag out the couch and throw it outside. And it's this, I couldn't believe it when I saw it.

So there's something cruel about it but also just fascinating that you're watching you know a lot of that like this just raw expression of sadness and humiliation and pain but presented in like the the funniness of in the conventions of bar rescue but yeah I don't know beyond that I guess I'm trying to think of what else I saw lately. That is in the upper quartile of weird recommendations from filmmakers. So congratulations for cracking the barrier there.

It's not quite at Damien Chazelle saying the last great thing he's seen is the Colosseum in Rome. Oh, wow. That was a good one. That's a great one. Now I'm trying to think of what else.

I mean, I saw Lawrence of Arabia when it was playing at the Vista Theater. Yeah, Vista, yeah, yeah. And I was just blown away. Good movie, huh? Fucking wow. Yeah.

Holy shit. I know I'm a little late to the party, I guess, right? Where have I been? But no, it was amazing. It was amazing to see it projected and to experience it and how weird so much of it is. I know we were talking about this the other day, but it's amazing when you look at movies like that and you look at movies, I don't know, like Midnight Cowboy, these great films and so many people have riffed off of them and you get whiffs of it in pop culture, you know, Dune with Lawrence of Arabia and whatnot.

But the strangeness and the subversiveness of that film, you know, the, the, the scene where he's getting flogged by the, by the guy and his addiction to pain, you know, those are like,

those are things that they just stick with you forever. And that's like, yeah, I don't know. It's still in my head. And, and, and in one best picture at that. So, you know forever. And that's like, yeah, I don't know. It's still in my head. And it won Best Picture at that. So, you know, just think about where the question was. And Midnight Cowboy did too, right?

Yeah. Well, that's what I mean. Oh, yeah. Okay, okay. Lance, thanks for doing this. Congratulations. Thank you. It's a great honor to be here.

I love the show so much. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming on. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Thanks to Lance. Thanks to Charles. Thanks to Amanda. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, Alea Benares, Jack Sanders. We're drafting again next week.

Are you ready? I've got to be honest. I looked through your letterboxd list that you assemble. I'm not ready. 2002 is the year. My response to the list you sent was, is this an upside-down draft? Because other days I don't know what I'm going to be doing. Not quite an upside-down draft. Do you know about the upside-down drafts?

No. Maybe we'll get you on one one day. I hate her that you are. But it's where you pick only movies that have low ratings, like sub-50% on RT. This isn't quite, but we might have one category that addresses the dearth of greatness. 2002, tough year.

What were some of the movies that are in contention? Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers is that year. That's probably the biggest movie. There's like seven or eight movies. You know, E2 Mama Matambien, for example,

is a great movie. It was released that year. Right. But Chicago won Best Picture for the Oscars of this season. I remember that this was not a good year. Wait, so just for the audience, I'm going to ask you guys really quick. Comparatively, Sean, how much time do you spend preparing for the drafts versus Amanda?

Well, I think I tend to have a more robust knowledge of the movies of that year because I make these lists. So it's almost like just taking the notes during class where I just like have more of a synchronized memory but I don't re-watch a lot of stuff for the drafts typically that's not really my approach especially for years where I was alive um so I would say it's probably not that not that there's not a big chasm between how much we prepare for yeah right amanda are you are you locked in or no you're just like i think no i do lock in the thing is is that sometimes kind of my memory of the year or my knowledge of a film year doesn't map onto the chosen categories in the way that one might hope. And so I do have to like scramble to rewatch an action movie or two or something

just to like make sure that I have enough options. To be fair, I want to say this as one of your biggest supporters in the Dob Mob. Yeah. I just think it's a sausage factory most drafts. And I feel like unfairly you get maligned because we're not thinking outside of the box. Right. And like, you know

what? That's life. And you gotta just hoe your own road, you know? And you can't worry about what all of the people who read Sean's letterbox have to say. I need you to have some dignity. Stop trying to white knight for Amanda at the end of this podcast. No, no, no, no.

Because the CR heads are fucking out of control out here. No, no, no, no, because the CR heads are fucking out of control out here. I love CR. Fantasy, your Letterboxd Larrys are all just like, oh, Fantasy, the god of movies. And I'm like, alright, guys, let's chill, okay? So, Dom Mob,

stand up. There we go. Thanks for listening to The Big Picture. We'll be back next week.