The Big Picture - Is 2019 the Worst Movie Summer Ever? 'Men in Black: International' Isn't Helping | The Big Picture

Episode Date: June 18, 2019

'Men in Black: International' is yet another in a series of disappointing and drab sequels to hit this summer. What went wrong with the alien comedy relaunch? And should young stars like Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson count on shaky franchises to brighten their careers (1:15)? Then, we examine what makes a great summer movie slate, and what—if anything—we can learn from the lineups of the past 10 years (36:40). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelley, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. Just wanted to remind you guys that every Sunday night after each episode of Big Little Lies, the Ringer's Amanda Dobbins and ESPN's Mina Kimes break down everything we just saw in our new after show called Big Little Live in partnership with Buick. And after you check that out, make sure to subscribe to the Mina Kimes Show featuring Lenny, a weekly NFL podcast with frequent contributions from her beloved dog and sidekick named Lenny. You can subscribe to the Mina Kaim Show with Lenny on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And make sure to watch Big Little Live every Sunday night on Twitter. I'm Sean Fenennessey.

And I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about what may or may not be the very worst summer movie season we've ever seen. Amanda, what's up? Hi, Sean. The reason we're doing this right now at this exact moment is we are coming off of a series of weekends in which we've seen what we would, I think, charitably describe as not great movies. You and I both separately took solo missions to see Men in Black International this weekend. And we're going to talk specifically about Men in Black International and what works about it and mostly what doesn't. But it is, I would say, an inspiring point to focus on what feels like a very bad time at the movies.

And there's been a lot of conversation in the last 10 or so days, especially in the aftermath of Dark Phoenix, about what the purpose of summer movie season is. So, you know, we'll start with Men in Black International. And then in the second half of the show, we'll do a little bit of movie history. We'll talk about maybe the last 10 years or so, summer movies. We'll talk about what summer movies used to mean to us as kids, as developing young people thinking about mass culture at large. And maybe we'll come to some conclusions.

Maybe we won't. Let's start though with M-I-B-I. Is that right? Maybe? Yes. I hadn't thought of it that way, but sure. Let's call it maybe. You and I have not said a single word to each other about this movie. What'd you think? I loved it. No, just, I'm kidding. That would have been extraordinary. I would have been up for that podcast. I know. I couldn't carry that bit like longer than a minute. This was not a good movie, but also I wasn't, it's not a disaster. It's not offensive. And I wasn't totally mad. And I think the most offensive thing about it was me kind of watching the various parts of it and being like, oh, actually, you could have made this better. I think it's a total waste of Chris Hemsworth, who I think is

one of the great box office revelations of the past five years. Maybe not in terms of money, but in terms of presence. One of the great box office quagmires, I would argue. Yes, which is sad. You know, you have Tessa Thompson, who's very talented. You've got Liam Neeson. You've got Emma Thompson. And you have Men in Black, which is a franchise that I have a lot of attachment to from being a child in the 90s. And it's really kind of a mess is how I would describe it. It is trying to bring together several different stories and several different motivations, and it just doesn't really ever sort it out. Yeah. So for anybody who is not alive 15 years ago, the Men in Black series starred Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. It was directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, very talented

former cinematographer of the Coen brothers who went on to a very pretty impressive comedy career directing of his own. And this movie doesn't really have anything to do with those movies. This is the first movie that does not star Will Smith. It's the first movie that Barry Sonnenfeld is not involved with. It's the same studio. It's still Sony, but Hemsworth, Neeson, Tessa Thompson, these are all new figures in the story. But it's basically the same story. There is an outsider who finds their way to the Men in Black organization, which I guess controls slash investigates alien occurrences on this planet. And then there is a seasoned pro who is the kind of guiding force for that newbie.

So, you know, this is a re-origin story. It's not a continuation of any kind. It sort of just feels like The Amazing Spider-Man to Spider-Man. You know, when they basically rebooted Andrew Garfield 10 or 12 years after Tobey Maguire was Spider-Man. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. So doesn't that already make this a sort of redundant and unnecessary movie? I think it is redundant and unnecessary in the way that all franchises and sequels are ultimately redundant or treading on the same material. But sometimes that works really well. And also, I think the idea of Men in Black as this secret

agency that you don't know about that deals with aliens, but in kind of like a fun, goofy way, I was thinking a lot about how much Guardians of the Galaxy owes to the original Men in Blacks while watching this, which maybe the original Men in Black owes it to the comic books of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Like, you know, it goes on and on forever. But like this kind of fun, goofy, alien, family-friendly vibe where it's not trying to freak you out. It's supposed to, it is supposed to be joyous. So there is clearly room for that still.

There are still audiences who really enjoy that. And I think people like a kind of fake James Bond aspect to their stories. It's like there's stuff to work with here. It's a pretty wide, pretty big tent. You pointed out that it's restarting the franchise and it's introducing the newcomer that is Tessa Thompson. But it is also it has to introduce new offices and it has to introduce But it is also, it has to introduce new offices and it has to introduce Chris Hemsworth and it has to introduce everyone.

And she's not the only newcomer. And I think the balance is a little off in this particular movie. Yeah, it's not just a re-origin, it's a reset. And we have to believe that the London office somehow also matters, which is not something that we thought about when we were watching Will Smith and his character. We thought that that was probably

the only men in black office of note. And it's fine. I think that this movie is not actively bad. I've seen a lot of summer movies in my lifetime. And I think that there's like a nadir quality to the fourth unnecessary men in black movie. But there's just a lot being held against it. One of the men in black movies I thought, I don't think that they were necessarily revolutionary, but they were, they felt innovative for their time. They were a good use of Will Smith. They were tonally an effective shift from a lot of the sort of like Independence Day style, you know, mega blockbusters of their time. And I'm just not sure that Tessa Thompson or Chris Hemsworth have the same power that Will Smith at that time did. And on top of that, there's just something not as sharp. Like

this actually feels more like a TV show in a way. It feels, you know, on the rewatchables, we always ask, could this be a 10 episode Netflix series? This is kind of a perfect Netflix series and not a perfect movie anymore. The actual stakes of the movie, I think, are a little bit curious. I mean, I guess we're going to spoil the movie somewhat, but let's just say that there is some sort of alien group that is trying to take over the world. And that group is called the Hive. Even though hives don't expand,

they keep everything inside. It's fascinating. I definitely was not thinking that hard during this movie. Can I ask you a question before we go any further? Yeah. Do you remember the plot of the original Men in Black? Have you rewatched it recently? I haven't rewatched it. Did you read their Wikipedia page? I do remember the giant bug that takes over Vincent D'Onofrio's skin.

Yeah, I didn't remember. I remember that now that you say it. Which was a great kind of creature effect at the time. It's a great Vincent D'Onofrio performance. And that was part of some of the conversation about the original movie compared to this movie is that Rick Baker did the creature effects and there was much more of a like tactile gremlins kind of feel to the first movie. And now we're just in a full-blown Kumail Nanjiani plays a six-inch character that sits on Chris Hemsworth's shoulder throughout this movie and he's all CGI. That's all CGI, that we've lost a little bit of the tactile charm, too. But have I thought deeply about the Men in Black universe? No. No, I was curious whether you recall it, because all I recall is Tommy Lee Jones being the serious

one, and Will Smith being the funny one, and then there's a large gun, and then there's the neuralyzer, and then Will Smith sings a song. that's like my kid memory of it but is also a pretty decent summary for what works in those movies which is it's about the interplay between those two characters and kind of the futuristic technology and then everyone leaves with a fun song well the thing that I remember specifically about the way that they told that story, aside from the song, which is very memorable, and aside from Vincent D'Onofrio,

was everybody in the movie takes the premise of the Men in Black and aliens and pretty much all the dialogue seriously, except for Will Smith, who is this, you know, surprise entrant into this world who's like,

yo, what the fuck is going on here? You know what I mean? He has like a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air kind of affect throughout the movie, which is part of what makes it work. So it makes it funny. He is our proxy. We're enjoying the movie through him. He's very funny. He's very dashing. This movie, I feel like everybody is kind of in on the joke except for like Rafe Spall. Yes. You know, the way that they're delivering the dialogue, the way that the story is told, the tonality of the movie. And so it feels like almost like meta commentary on men in black movies. I think that's right. And I think the tricky thing is that Chris Hemsworth is also doing the Will Smith character. And that's what he's very good at. He has emerged

in the Marvel movies. And I also think in Ghostbusters and a couple other as like a comedic talent and kind of wisecracking and that can you believe we're we're doing this kind of deprecating and self deprecating at the same time and they put him in the role of the enforcer or the the person who is upholding the institution and that doesn't totally work because that's not his style of comedy. Yeah, I agree with you. What do you think? Let's talk specifically about Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth and kind of what they've done by being a part of these movies.

So Hemsworth is interesting. He is obviously Thor and has had great success as Thor. And in fact, he's one of the only comic book characters in a movie that I can remember who has gotten significantly more interesting and more fun over time. I'm not sick of Chris Hemsworth's Thor while I am sick of, I don't know, War Machine or whatever character you want to pick out from those movies that are just like, okay, we can go on to the next one. But he's not really done well in any other movie, like literally any other movie. Should we run some of chris hemsworth's performances here are his last 10 movies okay that are not marvel related yes bad times at the l royale in hindsight maybe better than i thought it was it bombed 12 strong do you remember that yes i do did you see that no horse soldiers yeah i mean i remember the horse soldiers okay bombed yeah ghostbusters didn't necessarily bomb but completely fraught can i

just say he's fantastic in it i this is so good in it this is not a critical judgment of chris emsworth in fact i think he's very talented yeah the huntsman winter's war they changed snow white and the huntsman to just the huntsman he got the movie himself bombed in the heart of the sea bombed vacation fine black hat world historical mismanaged bomb rush bomb red dawn bomb yeah that's chris hemsworth's movie career outside of thor and now he's in men in black international which earned just 30 million dollars this weekend which is also considered a bomb yeah so he's getting a lot of shots yes is he making movies like men and black international because this is a last respite for him where it's like i don't know what else to do because to his credit he's tried to do cool kind of stylish noirish drama with el royale

he's tried to do war movies with 12 strong he's tried to do big historical seafaring epics in the heart of the sea. He's done a sports movie in Rush. Like he's done a Michael Mann crime movie with Black Cat. Like he's really done every kind of leading man part. None of them have worked. Bad luck, a failure of his, state of the movie star. I think it's a little bit of everything. I was going to say, can you name an actor in the last five years who has had a run of box office successes outside of comic book movies?

Hmm. Glenn Powell? I mean, no. That's because that's Netflix. That doesn't count. Some of this, he's not making good choices. It is also a little bit, are there good good choices at least in terms of box office performance and that's a little bit of like if you're if you're in a bigger budget studio movie that's

being released at the box office there are expectations that are just kind of like out of out of whack with how movies perform now but it's very hard to pick a movie that isn't a Marvel or I guess a DC movie or a Star Wars movie or a live action Disney movie yeah or I suppose an animated Fast and the Furious I mean that's the other thing too is he hasn't necessarily hooked himself like somebody like The Rock has had his fair share of bad choices yes he's picked a bunch of movies that haven't worked but he's also affixed himself to a couple of things that always work right and that is, I think, part of the stratagem of being a movie star now is you have to choose the franchises correctly. So he's had Thor.

He picked Men in Black as another one. That one's not going to work. I don't think we're going to see another Men in Black movie for a while. And if we do, I don't think it'll be with Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson. Right. So it's this tricky thing where you're 100% right. There's no actor alive who has got hit after hit without comic book movies. I think, you know, somebody like Chris Pine tried for it in a way.

He had Star Trek, which is a kind of comic book of its own kind. Right. But there's precious few people who, precious few who've been able to make it work. And his successes have been smaller movies, right? He kind of goes the indie route. Right, Hell or High Water, stuff like that. successes have been smaller movies, right? He kind of goes the indie route. Right. Hell or High Water, something like that. Exactly. And or is the supporting character in Wonder Woman, and he's delightful in that.

But it's hard, and I do think it is a bit of a movie star problem. I think especially if you are, you know, brought up in one of the Marvel or DC franchises, if you're brought up as a character, as like Thor or Captain America, then it's going to be hard for you to exist outside of that character. So some of that is, I think, the case here is that to a lot of people, Chris Hemsworth isn't Chris Hemsworth. He is Thor. So why would they go see him in something else? It's an interesting point. What do you make about the same kind of issue for Tessa Thompson? because she has less of a big movie track record than Hemsworth, but she has long been tabbed as a big star. I first remember seeing her in Veronica Mars

12 years ago, a long time ago. And she has slowly but steadily amassed a really strong body of work. So she's got this trifecta of, I don't know, quote unquote, indie films or sort of smaller dramas in Dear White People, Selma, and Sorry to Bother You over the last five or six years. She's also one of the stars of Westworld. And she became very well known for the Creed movies. She had a significant part there.

And then the only really big movie role she's had besides that was Annihilation, which was a bomb, but she wasn't even really the star of that movie. So she finds herself as Valkyrie in the Marvel movies, and maybe there will be a Thor and Valkyrie movie, and maybe that's what this movie was, was a test run for that Thor and Valkyrie movie, which is plausible, I suppose. What if, if you're Tessa Thompson, like, what's your goal? What do you, do you, because it's interesting to watch somebody like her who's very outspoken, very political, very thoughtful, make a bid to be in a movie that is evidently not very good, like Men in Black International. It just does not feel road tested and doesn't really have a really whole lot to say about anything. It's just it's I think when you're deciding to be in Men in Black International and reboot Men in Black, which is a franchise that in part made Will Smith like an international star, some of that is just like you're hoping you're going to have the same thing.

And you can't know when you're like, yes, I'm going to be the new face of Men in Black International. You have to hope that it goes well. I mean, it's my understanding that that's true of any movie that you sign up to do or really like anything in life. You're hoping that it's going to go the way you want it to. And I think some of this is just that this did not go. This movie as a result was not, I assume, what anyone wanted. I agree. You have to figure that if you look at F. Gary Gray, who's the director of this movie, who we haven't mentioned,

his previous two movies before this were The Fate of the Furious and Straight Outta Compton. Huge hits. both very effective. Fate of the Furious, kind of whatever you think about it, really worked well, really sold well. And so you'd think I'm going to sign up with my buddy Thor, who I've worked with before.

I'm signing on to a very memorable 25-year franchise. Maybe I will be the next Will Smith, I guess is her calculus. Yeah. I mean, on paper, I think that's kind of, and maybe if I'm not the Will Smith, but it will put me on the path to be a similar type of star and have a similar type of career, which makes sense, especially if you're kind of basing it on how Hollywood has worked up until what, like five years ago, three years ago, two years ago. It is interesting now.

I don't know whether being like, yes, even if Men in Black International had turned out to be great, is being the star of a reboot franchise like Men in Black as valuable to a career as it was 10 years ago. I don't know. I just, the strategy-wise, I think it's interesting, and I understand what she was doing, but I'm like, I don't know if that is the advice that I would give other people in her position. I feel like whenever we discuss these things, we always see them through the prism of the past. We say, how do you become Tom Cruise?

How do you become Julia Roberts? How do you become Julia Roberts? How do you become Harrison Ford or Paul Newman or Elizabeth Taylor? And we never look at the future. So if we look at the future, our franchise is the only answer to movies in the future. I don't think so. I think that things will change again

because they always change. Now, big 10-pole movies are always going to matter to Hollywood for obvious reasons. But actually the choices you make now when you're 34 and you're trying to become a star who gets to be a star until you're 54 are meaningful. So is it better to be gunning for Oscar right now if you're Tessa Thompson rather than gunning for international box office success? It's kind of hard to know. It's hard to know. In some ways, of course, everybody would envy being in the shoes of movie stars, but I think most movie stars and all of

their management and talent agencies don't exactly know how to position people if they are steadfastly either not interested in MCU work or already in the MCU. I think in both cases, it's kind of like, can there be a Tom Cruise? I don't know, but what is the 21st century? In 2030, what is the definition of movie star? Is it somebody who's super good at Instagram? Probably. That's certainly a part of it. I mean, what is the definition of a movie star right now? You know, I have had this conversation ad nauseum

on various podcasts, and there is the person-by-person definition, which is like someone with a star quality. But in terms of what is the definition, who is recognizable, who can open a movie, is opening a movie even part of a definition of a movie star anymore? I don't know if there's a single person who can open a movie right now. Maybe Leonardo DiCaprio. Maybe. He's the only person I can think of, and it's hard to know because he makes such good decisions for the most part.

I think with the exception of your occasional J. Edgar, he pretty much makes big, sellable movies that feel important even if they're not a part of a franchise. And I give him a lot of credit for being able to identify that, find the right talent to work with, develop those movies. He is one of the only people still using that like Steve McQueen-esque approach to movie stardom. Aside from him, is there anybody that you can think of? Is there a single woman that can make this happen? You know, I'm thinking because Julia Roberts is the first person who would jump out, but there have been... Julia Roberts is the star of an Amazon streaming series. Right. You know, it's like everybody has come to this different calculation about what stardom is.

And I think she and Sandra Bullock were in that movie together. Sandra Bullock was going to be the next person I said. Sandra Bullock is probably the closest we have to Leo. Sandra Bullock made Bird Box a phenomenon. I mean, that is admirable. That's true. But also Netflix made Bird Box a phenomenon and memes made Netflix Bird Box a phenomenon. I think more than Sandra Bullock. I don't think as many people would have tuned into that movie though if it did not star Sandra Bullock. Yeah. I do think that that was a significant factor, but it's a tricky thing. I mean, we're kind of down the road here a little bit on a conversation point, but it's relevant because as we look at summer's past and

kind of what worked about them and what didn't, I was surprised by how long we've been living through this franchise chokehold. Just looking back at the last 10 years, it's been quite a time. I mean, a huge part of my professional career has been defined by Transformers, Disney live action remakes, the Ice Age movies, all of this kind of like junky, forgettable, just kind of move the chains content.

Before we go too far down that road, let's just talk a couple more things about Men in Black. So, you know, the box office panic started this year in like February. Everybody was like, oh my God, it's not going to come close to what it did in 2018. There was a lot of pushback from people who were like, wait till Captain Marvel comes out. Wait till Avengers Endgame comes out. Everything's going to be fine.

Those movies came out. They did great. And then nothing else did great. And so, of course, the box office is doing very badly. Just this comparison point on Men in Black International. According to IndieWire, two summers ago when War for the Planet of the Apes opened to, quote, only $56 million, it was considered low enough to threaten the future of that series. This movie made half of that. That's terrible.

The box office is down 7% now over the summer. And X-Men Dark Phoenix is likely to lose $100 million, which is a lot of money. Yeah. Very fascinating. I don't know if you listen to Simon Kinberg on the Business podcast. Oh, I haven't. You pointed it out. I haven't gotten to listen to it yet.

Very interesting the way that he absorbed the bullet for that one. There's two definitions. I think there's two ways to see that choice. The one is magnanimous, powerful writer, director, producer, accepts blame for failure of series. The other is guy who is about to start making a movie at Universal, not a Disney Fox property, but wants to clearly be the bigger man and be seen as a progressive force inside the industry

and continue to work with the most creative people in the world, gets out in front of something wisely. You've almost never see the director of a failed movie talk about his failure right afterwards i i it's hard to get people on this show directors on this show to talk about failures two three five ten twenty five years after the fact because it's usually so painful and hurtful and kinberg went out of his way before the movie came out to talk about how much he cared about this story and he it sounds like he really cared about it he seems like a real fan of the comics and he seems like a real fan of

this whole universe and he's devoted the basically last 15 years of his life to x-men movies and this is like as bad a failure as i can remember in a franchise um nevertheless it it leaves it leaves the summer at a bit of a crossroads between Men in Black and Dark Phoenix. And it leaves like a podcast like this at a crossroads. You know, it's sort of like, what do we talk about if the summer isn't what we thought it was going to be? Well, it is what we thought it was going to be, sort of, because we knew that it was going to be. Here's the thing. So the box office is down 7%.

And we are both people who love movies and love going to see the movies. And we have a podcast talking about movies. And I, too, am worried about, like, the state of Hollywood and changes and et cetera. But, like, if you're surprised that the box office is down 7%, then you're just, like, not paying attention. That's the most capped and obvious statement. People watch things at home. They don't go to the movies. Like, it's just like the TV ratings, which have just been, like, cratering over the last, what, 15 years because

of DVR and changes in that industry. And it is also coming for the movies. And that just seems like the most, like if I were a studio and I paid a consultancy or whatever, millions of dollars to tell me the thing that a person on a sidewalk could tell you, of course it's down. And that's just, that's going to be a fact. I had a radical dissonant experience this weekend. Cut the cord this weekend.

Oh, right. Canceled cable. Delighted to cancel cable. Paying way too much money for cable. Very happy about the future. Then I fired up the streaming service I'm using to watch television. Service was not good.

Oh, great. So that was challenging. And then I paid actual American currency to go into a movie theater to watch a Men in Black movie, which is just the most 90s thing you can do. Yes.

And I think that consumption is just at this crazy crossroads. So we just don't know what the future of any of this stuff is. And the box office being down 7%, I agree, is completely unsurprising. And the sort of steady drop, even though theoretically theaters and studios are making more money than they ever have, they're making it because they're charging consumers more for tickets, inflation. There's a series of factors that movie going is basically in a tough spot. And it's probably only going to get worse from here. But when it goes down like this, it does radically inform what movies get made. And I don't think it's good to cheer the failure of anything, but movies like Dark Phoenix

and Men in Black failing are notable because maybe there won't be certain kinds of movies like that. Maybe there won't be a dour superhero movie ever made. Maybe there won't ever be a kind of zippy alien comedy ever made. You know, like... Okay, but like, I can think of the dour superhero movie that's coming out in october or whenever and that's a good point and i can also think of the zippy zippy alien movie that's guardians of the galaxy 3 like these you know these types of movies will continue to be made i do think also men in black was international was not that good and dark phoenix

was not that good and sometimes movies are. When we talk about movies past, summer movies, summer movie years past, we're going to talk about all of the amazing movies. And then we're just going to talk about lists of just terrible movies that we've forgotten, because that is a part of the game, especially with these big blockbusters of just bad movies, movies that didn't either never had a concept to begin with, or just didn't work out the way that people had hoped. A couple more things about this weekend's box office before we get to that.

One, F. Gary Gray and Tim Story, the two directors of the big movies that were out this weekend, the other being Shaft, which bombed even harder, two African-American filmmakers with the two biggest wide-release movies of the weekend. There's not really necessarily a point to be drawn from that. It's unusual that that is the case for obvious reasons because of the way that

Hollywood is structured and organized. It's unfortunate. It's interesting that, you know, those two directors had been essentially shepherded very successful franchises before this, you know, F Gary Gravey mentioned the fate of the Furious. Tim Story did a series

of Kevin Hart Ice Cube cop comedies that were like very successful movies. And both of them failing simultaneously also has ramifications. What their next job is, it'll be interesting. I mean, they're obviously very seasoned and experienced and successful people, but there are fewer opportunities for black filmmakers, obviously. So who knows what the knock-on effect of that will be? Was that just a failure of story choice, basically? It's very hard to say. I had the same thought about Tessa Thompson, too, which is like she, you know, they don't, women of color don't get to be or have not in history gotten to be the lead of these franchises as often. And so that obviously, I think Tessa Thompson will continue to work.

But, you know, it is one of those things where it's a shame to see that particular aspect of it not work out. Yeah, the first Shaft was 48 years ago. The second was 2000 and it grossed $117 million. So this movie made $7 million. That's not good. No. That's really, really bad. Yeah.

I had a big question for you, which is, do you think that the most watched movies this weekend were the two that premiered on Netflix, Murder Mystery and the Rolling Thunder Review story about Bob Dylan? Well, I definitely heard about the Bob Dylan film from the men in my life the most. Sure. From my father, from my friend Gilbert, from you. So that's three people who watched it. Shout out to your dad. I did see the text that you shared on Twitter, which has just made my heart grow. I called my dad for Father's Day. I had mentioned the souvenir to him. I told him, you know, I encouraged him again to go in a theater and then God bless him. He went that very afternoon and loved it. Your dad got to see the souvenir and Rolling Thunder review in the same

weekend. What a blessed Father's Day. Yes. Should we talk about Murder Mystery just a little bit? Yes. This is, of course, the new Adam Sandler movie. There's a new Adam Sandler movie on Netflix that I feel like no one's even talking about. And not only is it an Adam Sandler movie, it's a Jennifer Aniston movie. Yes.

To our point about movie stars, 15 years ago, this is basically an event. This is definitely a movie that would come out on June 14th on 4,000 screens. And now it's in your home. And I remember when movie that would come out on June 14th on 4,000 screens. And now it's in your home. And I remember when the movie first came out, I sent the trailer along to you and you were like, it me. Yeah. So I'm a huge Agatha Christie fan, have read all of those books many times. I would love to talk to you about Agatha Christie because no one at work ever wants to

talk to me about it. Probably the saddest Slack I've ever sent. Do you remember this? No. I think it was in book Slack or something. I don't know, but I was just like, is there anyone else here who's an Agatha Christie fan? And it was just like crickets. I never heard from anyone else on the Ringer staff. No one cares. One of the saddest things I've ever heard. But I care.

So I was looking forward to this movie. I also like Jennifer Aniston. I like certain Adam Sandler movies. I like Adam Sandler. I don't know. I'm an American. I'm an American? I don't know.

I think the world likes Adam Sandler. That's so true. Must this be a jingoistic podcast? No, it must not. Anyway, and for some reason, my husband was also really excited about this trailer he sent it to me and he was like this is us can't wait for this movie which is not something that happens very frequently in my life so we sat down to watch it last night i was extremely disappointed oh no yeah i really did not enjoy it oh what a shame i thought it was fine i think it was probably fine

i think the premise is that jennifer aniston and Adam Sandler are a married couple, and they finally go on their European vacation that has been promised. And they make friends and wind up on a cruise ship, and it's a very Agatha Christie setting, like eight people in a room, and there's a murder. And it's definitely a commentary on those setups. It's somewhere between parody and genuine murder mystery. I couldn't really get that grab the sense of the tone.

Yes, exactly. Which is part of the problem because I kept thinking who wants to watch a parody of these types of things besides people who are really into them. I think if it were like

a Naked Gun style parody, I would be really into that. But like we already have Clue, right? So Clue, do you like Clue? It's okay. Oh, okay. That's just a terrible take.

No, I do. Yeah, sorry. Terrible take. I just, I don't, like I'm not, I don't have a connection to it. Okay. I do have a connection to it. My wife and I definitely do.

And that movie is really smart about being a movie based on a board game. You know, it is essentially mocking the premise of a lot of novels like the ones you're talking about while also being fully one of those movies. And it really goes for it. It's pretty over the top. It's silly, but it's very funny and it has a dynamite cast of talented comic actors. This movie in some ways does too. I mean, there's a lot of really talented and funny people in here. This movie was written by James Vanderbilt, who wrote Zodiac. Like, theoretically, this should be really smart and clever.

Yes. Something is kind of lost in translation. It doesn't lean enough into the parody thing, as you noted. And then it's also really trying to have kind of like sitcom Adam Sandler. But really, the first 20 minutes with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler talking about their marriage just felt like a bad CBS sitcom and I was kind of like depressed by it you know it was making like really really broad jokes about how husbands don't do anything in a marriage which like maybe they don't but it was like it is something that I saw on network TV in 1998.

Let me tell you something I do things. Okay That's great. Maybe not enough things, but I hope to never be in that sitcom execute that Kevin James sitcom. It had a real Kevin James feel to it. So, and I was so bummed out by that and then didn't feel like it offered anything sharp or that exciting. So this movie was filmed on location. That's amazing to me. I mean, that was exciting. i like i love the mediterranean part of a long history of adam sandler to his credit basically getting movies made so that he can go on vacation with his friends and family which i don't begrudge him at all i don't either but i was the man i was just surprised that at this point in that netflix is still willing to do that because a netflix movie as we have discussed, that's where they skimp. And so it

would be a... It's true. I do think Adam Sandler exists in a slightly different frame for them, though. He obviously was one of the early adopters to the Netflix model after his experience, I think with Sony, kind of ran dry when Amy Pascal left the studio. And he jumped on board, signed that big seven-picture deal. And at least according to Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos, a lot of people watch the Adam Sandler movies on their service. So if they expand

their budgets a little bit, I think it makes sense because they're getting a lot of return for the Adam Sandler movie experience. This one, by contrast, though, I just didn't

really see a lot of conversation about. And I don't just mean like film Twitter conversation, just kind of conversation in general. I didn't hear from like my siblings about this movie.

You know what I mean? I didn't really hear from people about it. And I think it's because it just kind of conversation in general. I didn't hear from like my siblings about this movie. You know what I mean? I didn't really hear from people about it. Yeah. And I think it's because it just kind of lands a little flat. It's not, I didn't think it was as troubled as you maybe, but it just doesn't, there's nothing wow about it. I think it lands a little flat and also there's no natural audience for it because the people who are like, yes, there's a new Adam Sandler movie, like don't really care about a parody

of an Agatha Christie mystery. And I don't really need the really broad Adam Sandler stuff with all respect to Adam Sandler, who is an American and international treasure. How many times did you watch Rolling Thunder review? I've not watched that movie yet. Can I just say my dad was like, this is my dad's review. It was interesting. That's exactly right. It is interesting. That means that it is not necessary for me to watch it. In addition to it being interesting. Okay. It kicks ass.

Oh, okay. That's my take. Wow. It's good. Light your light shine. Okay. A couple other final things about the box office this weekend. Late Night did worse than Booksmart.

I mean, of course it did. I was looking at Booksmart's box office this weekend and I was like, actually 20 million, not bad. They actually did okay. I really, we thought it was like the panic of all pan this weekend, and I was like, actually, 20 million, not bad. They actually did okay. I really, we thought it was like the panic of all panics. You and I didn't think that. Other people thought that. I know, you're right, you're right.

But the way that it's been positioned to us, and late night is going to probably make less money. Late night will be great on Amazon Prime when you can all watch it there, which is presumably why Amazon spent $13 million on it at Sundance. You're right. In addition to the sequel fatigue, we saw The Secret Life of Pets 2,

Precipitous Drop. I haven't seen that film. Can I just say, the commercials really make me laugh. The first one's funny. You know, it's my no cartoon thing, but if they'd released The Secret Life of Pets 2 as just like three minute clips that I could watch on my phone,

I would have seen all of Secret Life of Pets 2 by now. I think it's pretty funny. Okay, I'm going to try to exploit that opinion in the future for future podcasts. I'm just going to store that away. I'm going to think about the best way to get you to watch animated movies. It has to be funny and also in three minute clips that I can watch on my phone. Okay. Deal. Toy Story 4 comes out this weekend, Friday. Rob Havrila and I are going to talk about the movie later this week on the podcast we're also going to talk about the power of Pixar Rob will talk about

being a father perhaps that's great Toy Story 4 is absolutely brilliant I'm really happy for you I'm just I can't believe what it's like

you have such a black heart it's extraordinary to me that you can't open that that blackness that bleakness to something as inventive and powerful

and joyful as Toy Story 4. Okay. But The Secret Life of Pets 2 is basically cooked because of that movie's coming out this weekend. The only other thing is The Last Black Man in San Francisco, which is doing nice business. And feels like an old school for, as old school an A24 hit as there can be. An old school A24 hit. Got great word of mouth. Got phenomenal reviews.

Beautiful trailer. Slowly but surely, they're going to go from four theaters to 36 to 300 to 600. Maybe this movie will make a couple million dollars. And then all of a sudden, those guys have a career. That is one of the only old school indie specialty

successes that we've seen all year. It's pretty wild. Well, it's just like they're making that an event for the audience that treats a movie like that as an event. It's very specialized and targeted. it's just like they're making that an event for the audience that would, that treats a movie like that as an event. It's very specialized and targeted. They know who their audience is. They know how to get those people to go see it in the same way that Disney knows how to get people to go see The Avengers.

It's exactly right. It's the same thing. It is event viewing. That's very smart. And it's a great segue to talking about the worst movie summer ever. I don't think this is the worst movie summer ever, especially because there's a couple of things coming out that are going to be really good. Not next week, but the week after that, we have both Midsommar, which you won't be seeing,

but I'm very excited about, Ari Aster's A24, follow-up to Hereditary, and Spider-Man Far From Home, a movie that, for all intents and purposes, will be good. At least in the container in which it comes. He's very cute. Tom Holland's great. John Watts already did this once before with a movie. Jake Gyllenhaal's Mysterio. Yes, a thousand percent. I'm ready for that. Sign me up. It takes place in Italy.

There's all kinds of things here. Oh, it does? Yes. Oh, great. School trip. Oh, wow. What a fancy school trip. Great. It'll be adorable. I hope Gwyneth is in it. That'll be great. After that, we get Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. After that, we get Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. After that, we get Hobbs and Shaw. Yes.

There's some good stuff coming. So this is probably not going to be the worst summer ever, though it is in a very bleak stretch. But I want to know from you, what makes a good movie summer? What are the component parts that you need to feel satisfied? Because I felt like last summer, I was pretty satisfied. I think this is an interesting question, and you kind of lined out outlined your version of it yeah I want to hear yours which is interesting I think for me I do have this classic 90s kid imagination of big blockbuster fun dumb theater movies for me things that are not gonna be Oscar fair, things that I don't have

to have a serious intellectual conversation about afterwards. Though, you know, it is better if there are things in it to keep discussing. But comedies, fun action movies like Mission Impossible, Fallout, it's not really the franchise stuff that stays with me. It is just, I still have an association of going to the movies in like 98 and 99 and 2000 and 2001 and seeing a great romantic comedy, a big budget studio romantic comedy. It's the enjoyable movie. It's like you don't have to go to school and there's air conditioning and you can go with your friends or your parents and crowd pleasing is probably the through line. I think that's right. I wonder how much of this is informed by the fact that you and I are both summer birthday kids. Oh yeah. And so we associate I'm sure birthday parties with going to the movies. It's just the

general sort of like that sort of like getaway feeling where like a movie is a respite from whatever else is going on. It's obviously extremely hot where you and I both grew up in the summers, extremely muggy where we grew up. So the air conditioning in a movie theater, especially in the 90s, that was sweet salvation. And to me right now, it's a lot different than what it was as a kid. As a kid, I really liked to go see like Mel Brooks movies in the summer. You know, there was a certain kind of comedy. And even like the Jim Carrey stuff started happening in the 90s when I was a kid. Those movies were summer movies in some ways.

Right now, it's a little bit different. Right now, I feel like there is, there has to be kind of one great tentpole franchise movie. And that can be an Avengers movie. It can be a Pixar movie. It can be Mission Impossible, like you mentioned. The Fast and the Furious movies sometimes fill this role. Mm-hmm. They don't require much thought. You get some thrills. You get some laughs. You go home happy. Good $16, $18 spent. Then there's the out of nowhere comedy, which I like as a part of this equation. So your bridesmaids or your girls trips or neighbors, a movie that like could be good, but you maybe haven't heard that much about. And then all of a sudden, within the span of a week, the buzz gets so loud about a movie that like it feels like a phenomenon and everybody's going to see it. I don't think we have one of those this summer.

No, which is a real shame. I mean, that could have been a long shot. That could have been Booksmart. I think that's what we wanted for Booksmart because Superbad was sort of a similar situation and it just didn't happen. Yeah. it's hard to know where to hope for those things like yesterday is coming out in a couple of weeks i don't think it's quite the same thing but i think it aspires to that kind of role the kind of like high concept low execution fun movie for everybody it also kind of has a larger generational appeal i have had conversations about the premise of Yesterday with strangers at a party. Older people, younger people, everyone can kind of hook their mind around it. I'm fascinated to talk to you about that movie. Very curious to see what you think. It hits a lot

of boxes for both of us, but still has some challenges. I think the below-the-radar action movie is something I always look for. So in recent years, Atomic Blonde, Baby Driver, The Shallows, movies that are maybe also similarly high concept, but feature a person who is not quite a movie star, but close. You know, you're sort of your Blake Lively's, your Ansel Elgort's, and they're asked to do something extraordinary. I'm a big fan of movies like that. I feel like they really make summers better.

And then in recent years too, the sneaky Oscar contender, you know, if you look back at the last 10 years, you've got Dunkirk, you've got Boyhood, you've got Fury Road, perhaps the tic-tac-toe of all these movies. Fury Road basically does everything that we're talking about here. Hell or High Water, we mentioned. So it's nice to have one of those. I don't think we have one of those right now. No. Is there anything that you can see that is Oscar-y? I guess Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? Yes. I was also going to say we discussed Rocketman in that context.

I don't know if that works. That's true. Maybe. You know, I kind of, this is a little chicken and egg because it does feel like the Oscars have made a point of making one of these types of movies a sneaky Oscar contender. Like that we need something a little more with a broader appeal, with a little bit of box office, whatever. It can't all be costume dramas released in November. You're right. So in the same way that I think the Oscars have retrofitted it, maybe they'll retrofit

Rocketman. Or Endgame. Okay. Keep talking. Okay. I'm not acknowledging that. I think another thing that i can remember specifically realizing things had changed when a lot of great indies started

getting major summer releases 2013 felt like a real turning point 2013 here's the list of indies that were released your next jobs which is not an indie per se but had a kind of indie oscar aspirational appeal phenomenal movie i think i know i was just thinking about i need to re-watch jobs jobs rules great stuff uh fruit vale station the bling ring yes spectacular now 20 feet from stardom and francis ha all in the same summer yeah that's definitely more good movies than have been released this year in full they all came out basically in july and august and that's rare and some of this is just circumstantial you know that's true i think also this is a good time to talk about like the definition of summer summer especially with summer

movies has really changed even in the last five years because all of the marvel movies have started creeping up and it you know summer movies used to start like may mid to late may and even june in my mind it was june yeah though i was looking back and it's like i was looking back at 1995 and what's what's happening in 95 95 the top five the top 10 movies are die hard with a vengeance which was the number one movie i love that movie and that came out on may 19th happy birthday to my husband okay uh toy story was number two wow apollo 13 was number three golden eye pocahontas batman forever seven casper at number eight casper was very important to my generation yeah uh water world and jumanji what a fascinating slate right and also kind of really relevant to right now but

those all started die hard was may casper was, Braveheart also came out in May, just FYI. And then Batman Forever, Pocahontas, Apollo 13 are all in June. So it's all kind of clustered earlier. So is that actually a better slate of movies than we have right now? Or is it just that the nostalgia swoop is so powerful that you and I were... I mean, I'm reading the highlights. I'm just looking at the Wikipedia page right now also. So, you know, some of these dates may vary.

Okay. But I am only reading the good things and there are a ton of terrible movies that I don't even remember. So I have to assume that the Sean Fennessey or Amanda Dobbins of 1995, who was not hosting a podcast, but perhaps doing a radio show, a local radio show, about what's going on in movies today

or is a columnist in a newspaper or something. Yes, at 11, they let me do that. Yes. Was looking, not actually us, but the version of-

Oh, I thought you meant 1995 Amanda and I was like, yes. No, no, the sort of college-educated journalist that is talking about movies

in a hopefully sophisticated way, looks at a movie like Die Hard with a Vengeance, despite the fact that it's very good, and looks at it with some degree of resignation. There's a sigh around the third Die Hard movie after the second Die Hard movie sucked. Not knowing that three was going to be good, and that it was going to put Samuel L. Jackson in a position to succeed so shortly after Pulp Fiction and be a much more clever movie. And there's actually a great reason why it's so clever do you know why no so Die Hard with Vengeance was

originally based on a script called Simon Says it was not a Die Hard movie and they just put John McClane into Simon Says oh clever very smart yeah anyway that's neither here nor there I think that in 1995 you might similarly have been like seriously a Casper movie this is what we're doing or seriously Waterworld for God's sake and in some cases you'd be right in some cases you'd be wrong jumanji also seems it's like a stupid idea right we feel that way about the new jumanji you know yes everyone has received jumanji movies the same way across space and time every generation gets the jumanji they deserve yeah and it's interesting to think about this because there's this desire every summer to be like, oh, this didn't live up. I'm so cranky. But also to like valorize and create nostalgia content

around the summer of your youth. So, you know, you talked a little bit about what summer movies represented to you before. I think to me, they mostly represent like Entertainment Weekly. I just have so many memories of just going through the entertainment weekly summer movie preview yeah i guess probably came out in like early may or late april i would guess so and then it would start in may june july yes and you go through it i would literally circle stuff i would earmark everything and be like this this this my my life spent making lists probably begins with looking at magazines like this yeah and those were always oriented around movie stars they were not oriented around franchises now inevitably there were franchises on the cover and they were talking about them but it was like

julia roberts on the cover denzel washington on the cover of this issue you know keanu reeves on the cover of this issue um now the cover of entertainment weekly which is now no longer going to weekly, is becoming a monthly, which feels like a significant changing of the guard. Yes. Has been largely a Game of Thrones magazine

for all intents and purposes for the last three months. Not unlike The Ring in some ways. Yeah, I was going to say. With Marvel and with other franchises. Event movies. Yes, event movies. And we're all kind of

tipping towards event coverage because that's the only thing that we know that everybody is kind of looking at at the same time. It felt like magazines back then set the agenda for young people to figure out what to check out. And things have become inverted. Like fans set the agenda now. Yes. And that has kind of shattered our perception of what we should expect in these seasons. Yeah, I think that's true. And I think to the, I was saying that this, the big movies keep getting earlier and earlier in the year. And I think that those are all dictated. Those are all fan movies because those are the Avengers and the Captain Marvels and the Black Panthers.

I mean, all MCU movies, but that those are all engineered 10 years in advance as a part of a larger schedule of when are we dribbling out information to these fans and in what ways are we giving them the information and how can we sustain this fan base over, they're not even thinking in seasons, they're thinking in, I guess, phases and years. So it has completely changed and the summer movies feel like an afterthought in a way. And what's interesting is that August, which used to be the dumping ground of the truly terrible movies, is now where all of the good movies are and it feels like June is kind of the dumping ground. It does feel that way. There's like a little bit of a market inefficiency with August that has been roundly corrected.

Hobbs & Shaw coming out August 2nd is very strange to me, but by the same token, brilliant. Booksmart should have come out August 15th. That was the time to release Booksmart. Yes. And that is kind of fascinating. I mean, this year, you know, you mentioned Rocketman. We mentioned Endgame, Toy Story 4, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood's coming out. I think John Mc3 is probably the best quote-unquote summer movie we've gotten thus far. Kind of does what its fans want.

It has been bigger than the previous movie and bigger than that previous movie before that. Relative to the bad movies, though, it's been a tough slate. Godzilla, King of the Monsters, which we just straight up did not talk about on this show. Yeah, that's because I didn't see it. Because you were like, eh. But even when I know you're not going to check it out, I would still endeavor to find somebody to talk to me about a movie that is theoretically that big. But

even then, I was like, eh, we're good. Which is a... That's all you need to know about Godzilla, King of the Monsters. Men in Black 4, Aladdin, Dark Phoenix, Ma, which has actually done pretty good business and is not good. The Hustle, which you talked about. Oh, God.

I was like, what? I literally didn't remember what The Hustle was, even though I saw it in theaters. Detective Pikachu. Ugly dolls. Oh, yeah. We're in kind of a tough... It's not great. Yeah.

It's not great. How does it stack up to years past? Here's what I did. Last night, I went back and I compiled the last 10 years of summers. We got the good category and the bad category. What does that mean? Does good mean quality film? Does it mean financial success?

Probably somewhere in the middle. Some of these movies are The Incredibles 2 last year. Some of them are Sorry to Bother You or Black Klansman. We got both of those movies. Last year's slate, if you look at it in full, pretty interesting. This goes for me and you. Incredibles 2, Mission Impossible Fallout, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Crazy Rich Asians, Mamma Mia 2, haven't seen it.

I've heard you rave about it on Jam Session. I had a lovely time with my mother. Book Club. Oh yeah, I saw that. Yeah, yeah. You know, like it's just kind of an effective success for its demo Club. Oh, yeah. I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like it's just kind of an effective success for its demo. Sicario Day of the Soldado.

Oh, boy. Won't You Be My Neighbor was a summer movie last year. I saw it in theaters in the summer. That's right. It was great. Sorry to Bother You. I mentioned Black Klansman and Hereditary. That's a pretty stellar lineup.

But then if you look at the bad movies. Yeah. Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom. Now, what does bad mean? Was that a terrible movie? It wasn't terrible. It was, it's fine.

It's a completely okay, mostly forgettable installment in an action franchise that's moving the chains, like I mentioned earlier. Deadpool 2. I actually love Deadpool 2,

but I think it does fall into that, like, another one of these comic book movies where, like, it's not interesting enough for someone like you to check it out. But the serious fans are like, I will dutifully see it. And the Deadpool fans will be like, I like this a lot. And that's almost feels like it's shrinking movie audiences and not expanding them in its own weird way.

Yeah. And then Hotel Transylvania 3, The Meg, Ocean's 8, Equalizer 2, Skyscraper, Tag, Mile 22, Uncle Drew, and The Happy Time Murders. Not good. Not really a good movie in the bunch there. I'm not going to run through every single movie from every single summer. But I read 2018 to kind of put 2019 in perspective, which is to say there's always 15 movies that you're like, this is pretty poor. And then there's always about four or five movies where you're like, this is pretty poor. And then there's always about four or five movies where you're like, this is pretty good. And sometimes there's some variance. And how we judge it, your mileage may vary. They're maybe the biggest Deadpool 2 fan on the other line of this

podcast going like, fuck these two people for not acknowledging the challenges of the Deadpool universe. I respect that person and I hope they keep that opinion to themselves. But anyway. Based on what I've got here, was there any year that jumped out to you as particularly insightful or that taught us something or even just seems impossible now 2014 is an interesting year okay because it's the guardians which was like a really big deal, right? That was kind of when the possibilities of the MCU and the expansion kind of clicks in. It really didn't matter if you knew anything about the characters. Right. They managed to make that movie successful.

This was not a core Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, X-Men kind of thing. Whereas like any 13-year-old boy knows what that is. Most 13-year-old boys didn't know what the Guardians of the Galaxy were. Right. And they blew it up. Yeah. Anyway. Then you've got Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and X-Men Days of Future Past,

which are both, I think, like workable installations of those franchises. Neighbors. Edge of Tomorrow, which kind of took on a cult status totally uh 22 down street which is just an actually good sequel fault in our stars which is a really interesting kind of that was when ya still mattered at the movies i've thought i thought about this movie a lot when i was putting this together and how a movie like this maybe can't be a hit anymore. Yeah. Doesn't it feel that way?

Which is so strange because the YA thing was such a big, it was so dominant. And it's also like, there are always going to be teenagers. This was the only one, though, that didn't have the fantasy component. It didn't have the Hunger Games, Divergent, Twilight, kind of mystical expanded universe quality. That's true. It was a love story. Yes. But such a maudlin love story that you have to think teenagers would, you know, I don't know. I wept during that movie for the record.

I think almost everybody who saw it wept. Yeah. And then also Boyhood. Great film. And Chef, which is just funny that you put it at the end of the good column. I know. I just think it's funny that that's the last one it just goes fault in our stores

boyhood Chef I'm a fan of Jon Favreau yeah that's a very uncomplicated opinion but I think that for the most part he's trying to make

the kinds of things that we think J.J. Abrams is trying to make but Jon Favreau is actually making them yeah that's a good take I support that

thanks okay well what about the bad of that year does anything stick out well it's interesting that you put Maleficent in bad

I just don't think it's very good sure but it doesn't matter it doesn't matter this is my list no I know but it's like

they're making another one it didn't hurt them it didn't hurt Angelina Jolie's career it didn't you know it's fine it didn't

Transformers 4 do you know what the subtitle of It didn't. Transformers 4. Yeah, do you know what the subtitle of that movie is? Oh, I was going to say Crystal Skulls, which is a totally different franchise. That's Indiana Jones. Yeah, no, I know. I think it's Age of Extinction. Okay, sure.

I'm just guessing. Amazing Spider-Man 2, which, is that the Branzino one? Or is that the first Amazing Spider-Man? That's basically all I remember about the- This is the one where Jamie Foxx is blue I don't know if I saw this movie anyway it doesn't matter because they fixed it like that's the thing is that they've already in five years that's gone and they have a new Spider-Man franchise and it's charming so that's already fixed uh a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies yeah you've seen've seen all of those, right? Yes. I really did like those.

When is your TMNT podcast launching? I actually vividly remember waking up early before school to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because it was the only time my parents would let me watch it, and I really needed to make a point that it was important for me to watch this show. Yeah, you were an American child. Yeah, we have established that in this podcast. Hercules. Remember that? That's the Disney one?

No, I believe that's Brett Ratner's Hercules. Oh, no. I thought we were talking about the Disney one that all the children loved the soundtrack. All of the Ringer Generation one year, like one below us, really loves the animated Hercules soundtrack. Yeah, that's fine.

Brett Ratner's Hercules, it's not what you want. Okay. Well, that's fine. Let's Be's Hercules, it's not what you want. Okay. Well, that's fine. Let's Be Cops. I don't remember what that is. I would recommend people read Wesley Morris' piece, but Let's Be Cops from Grantland. Don't watch the movie.

Right. It's kind of there in the title. The Storm, A Million Ways to Die in the West. Woof. Yikes. Expendables 3. Didn't know they made a third one of those. This is my favorite coming up.

Jersey Boys. Clint Eastwood directed Jersey Boys. Never forget. Can't win them all. Just amazing. I mean, what is there to learn? I don't know. It's an interesting year.

And it's a sign that some of these things are good and some of them are bad. Yeah. And we're always in search of like a grand theory. There's no grand theory. There was a bad Spider-Man movie. You know what they did? They were like, actually, we shouldn't make them like this anymore we should make them like this like kevin feige but he knows what he's doing right there was a bad teenage mutant

turtles movie okay let's do something different we're going to change it up guardians works we get more guardians it's true dawn of the planet of the apes works we get more of those but then war for the planet of the apes comes out and people like actually i'm not as into this right they stop making those that's is that is is there any bigger lesson that we can take away from these movies? Just no. I think it's like some movies are good and some movies are bad. And that has some impact on the future of movies. And sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn't.

And I think that that has always been the case. And that's just a really separate conversation from how people watch movies and right and the the worst summer movie worst year ever is conflating two things that are pretty different so the year that was most interesting to me is the the oldest year i looked at okay that's 2010 yes so here are here are the quote unquote good movies. This is a really long list. The good movies are Toy Story 3, which it has been interesting to watch the critical reception of that movie now

in the aftermath of 4, where a lot of critics are coming forward and saying, actually, Toy Story 3, it wasn't good, which was not what people were saying when it came out. In fact, I think Toy Story 3 was nominated for an Oscar. So Toy Story 3 is good. We're just going to leave that there. Inception. Listeners of the rewatchables know my feelings about Inception, which I think is a very flawed movie. Oh, right. That's the one that everyone was really mad about you.

What are you going to do? I just don't think it's, I think it's very flawed. For the record, I had a lovely time in Inception. I wasn't invited on that podcast, but it was great. I felt that Tom Hardy was very charming and he should be Eames in every movie. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. I have no problem with Eames. Perhaps what we should do is incept a podcast inside of the Rewatchables Inception in which you talk about Inception instead of me. Okay. That might work. Great.

But we'll say Inception, big hit. People loved it. Yeah. Summer movie, Christopher Nolan doing some important stuff. If Inception came out this year and you got to go see it you would have a great time and then we would do a million things about being like

I have some questions about the something. I love when you project what the media takes on things would be. That's like one of your corners where you're like if this happened

this is what we would do. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to do my job. It's great. Every day I show up and I try to do my job. Okay? I love it.

You're doing a great job. Here are two other movies I put on this list. Very, very charitable. Incredible stuff by you. The American, which is a George Clooney drama about an assassin that was very little seen and considered a bomb, though, I guess, kind of beautifully shot and interesting and slow, I believe is a Sam Donsky classic. Yeah, that sounds right.

Shout out to Sam Donsky. And Scott Pilgrim. Yeah. Edgar Wright's movie, which shout out to sam donsky and and scott pilgrim yeah egg rights movie which shout out to bobby wagner who just left a note for us in our outline that says fuck yeah i will agree with that fuck yeah i love scott pilgrim but scott pilgrim is way ahead of its time and perhaps mismarketed and there are myriad things going on in scott pilgrim that led to it not being the major success that people wanted it to be. The bad list is bad. Yeah.

This is the bad list. I'm going to go through all these movies. Just hold your breath. Or make comments after I say a title. I'll probably do a little of both. Okay. Iron Man 2. That's the...

Who's the bad guy? Mickey Rourke is a Russian. Yeah. Terrible. Saw that at Cabo Hill Cinema. That's the movie that threatened the future of the MCU. Okay. Twilight Eclipse. That's the second one? I guess. I think it goes eclipse and then new moon if we're just going by

the lunar phases great uh despicable me not a bad movie per se but has spawned that's the minions right it is the minions please respect the minions uh the minions make me laugh that's not in my contract i've never seen a single one of these movies, but I just love the Minions commercials. And you know the giant Minion that overlooks the 101? Yes, I do. There's like a giant Minion at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. That's like, how tall do you think it is? Like 40 feet tall?

Probably 40 million feet tall would be my guess. And it just kind of looks over the valley like the eyes of TJ Ekelberg and I love it and it makes me laugh every time I drive by it. Shrek Forever After. This is the last Shrek movie.

No bueno. The Karate Kid remake with Jaden Smith. Oh. It's not what you want. Yeah. Grown Ups. Speaking of Adam Sandler

and the Green Doggles. The Last Airbender. M. Night Shyamalan's failed adaptation. Okay. The other guys, not a bad movie. It's a Will Ferrell,

Mark Wahlberg comedy. Okay. Pretty good, but I would say not in the top five, maybe even not even the top 10 Will Ferrell comedies. Agree. Salt. That's Angelina Jolie's.

I enjoyed that. It's okay. But that's like a classic. I went to the movies, had a nice time, didn't see one of the twists coming and never thought about it again. But like, that means to me, it's bad. But in I went to the movies, had a nice time, didn't see one of the twists coming and never thought about it again. But like, in the summer.

That means to me it's bad. But in the summer, if it's not actively bad and I had a nice time, it's fine with me. Robinhood. Do you remember this Robinhood? There have been like 15,000 Robinhoods at this point. I can't confirm it because I won't look. I believe this is Ridley Scott's Robin Hood starring Russell Crowe as Fat Robin Hood.

Oh, yeah. Featuring Oscar Isaac as a French prince. Sure. Okay. It's got some problems. Yeah. I seem to recall

Chris Ryan trying to defend it when we saw it together 10 years ago. But I don't recall it working very well. Okay. This is the first Expendables movie.

Perhaps the worst movie on this list, Sex and the City 2. An abomination. Perhaps the second worst movie on this list, Sex and the City 2. An abomination. Perhaps the second worst movie on this list, Prince of Persia. Yeah. The movie that pushed Jake Gyllenhaal far outside of franchises, only to return to them in Spider-Man Far From Home coming in July.

Eat, Pray, Love, just not a fan of this movie. Okay. I know you love Julia Roberts. I don't know what to tell you. I love Julia Roberts. I think also you're underestimating, like, the cultural significance of this movie, which is not, it doesn't have a cultural significance, but Eat, Pray, Love has just, like, become a shorthand joke. Sure. Like, you just go, like, on Eat, Pray, Love.

It, like, really wormed its way into the. Wasn't that because of the book? I don't know. I kind of feel like the movie took it from kind of Oprah core to everyone core, you know, made it a thing. I'm not justifying that. I'm not telling anyone to go on an Eat, Pray, Love thing at all or justifying the cultural conclusions within the book. I'm just saying the movie created a phenomenon. Do you remember who wrote and directed Eat, Pray, Love?

No. Ryan Murphy. Wow. Okay. Well, that's also interesting. We're only about halfway through this list, which is just remarkable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The A-Team.

Tough. Bradley Cooper. Remember that? Uh-huh. Night and Day. Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. I actually ride for this movie. Okay.

But you have put this in the bad column. But I did put it in the bad column. Okay. Because it didn't really work well. It kind of failed. Right. Dinner for Schmucks. Okay.

Just. Yeah. Okay. Doesn't work. The Sorcerer's Apprentice no nick cage oh yeah but isn't it a thing now isn't it like a cult no no that's not one of the ones vampires kiss i can't really keep all of the the nick cage good bad favorites straight you know i've got get him to the greek here i like get him to the greek we didn't didn't we do a rewatchables about it no that was forgetting sarah marshall oh okay well which is in the aldous snow expanded universe but maybe not related to that movie okay takers do you remember takers nope okay letter to juliet

i have no idea what this is isn't that like an amanda seyfried nicholas sparks experience sounds right yeah predators that's the bad one, aren't they? I think this one's actually pretty good. Oh, okay. Again, you made this list. Yeah, but these movies were not really super successful. Killers, I believe that's a Katherine Heigl comedy that didn't work. Oh, yeah.

There's a Cats and Dogs movie in here, The Last Exorcism, and Vampires Suck. That's a lot of movies on a list. That's a tough year. And here's the reason why I went through all these movies. This is nine years ago. Movies are still bad.

Ten years ago. Yeah. Things are not changing as radically as we think they are. Now I think that more people are watching stuff at home and you're

consistent edging on a year long point about the way that we see stuff has changed dramatically and changing movies dramatically is still true. But in terms of the big studio movies that get made,

it's pretty much the same. I agree. There are good movies and bad movies. It's just, that's how life shakes out from time to time. When you look back on this conversation we've been having for the last 70 minutes, what did we learn? We learned to take a deep breath. We learned to try to find joy in summer movies where we can,

to not sweat the small stuff, and to also— This is very E-Pray Love. Recognize some basic financial and systematic truths about the industry and separate them from our anxiety about whether we had a nice time at Men in Black International. Thank you for my talk. That was good. You had two TED Talks in this one episode. I did, yeah, I did Men in Black International. Thank you for my talk. That was good. You had two TED Talks in this one episode. That was impressive.

Thank you. Is there anything else you want to talk about with the whole concept of the summer movie and what it means to be a summer movie? We'll have to delete this podcast after I see Midsommar and say it's the best movie of the millennium. Yeah, I think that that's an interesting point. Just that smaller movies and indie movies and what, you know, because you and I are 90s kids who think of it as a if it is really the result of the people who still go to the movies,

who have been trained to go to the movies in the summer, are looking for actually good movies. I think that's right. I think the thing that some studios have figured out is the summer is sneakily a good time to super serve audiences. And Rolling Thunder Review is super serving an audience. It's hard to know how big that audience is going to be. We'll never really find out because Netflix won't tell us. I watched Toni Morrison, The Pieces I Am, which is a documentary about Toni Morrison's life,

directed by Timothy Greenfield Sanders, who shoots this very head-on style, interview style. And, you know, it's not the most formally dynamic movie I've ever seen in my life. It comes out this Friday. But it's people talking about Toni Morrison's novels, which I love and have always loved, for probably almost two hours.

And it's an entire movie devoted to literature. And her story, which is so fascinating, working as a teacher, working as an editor, and then ultimately becoming an author. Is it like a wow you movie? No. Is it like an excellent iTunes rental? Yes.

That's kind of where we're going in a lot of ways. I feel like there's a chance here for smaller studios to retrench and to figure out how to just find the right audiences and scale their budgets in that way and figure that out while the big studios keep biting the bullet on Men in Black International and Men in Black International to colon local police or whatever it's going to be called. I don't know, right? No, I agree. I mean, I think that we talk a lot about the industry is in free fall and all of these things are changing and a lot of people are losing money. But as a person who likes to watch movies, it is a pretty exciting time. You can find a lot of things that are exactly what you want to watch. That's, I'm not complaining about that. I'm not complaining either. Amanda, thank you for not complaining for this extended podcast conversation about summer movies. Please stay tuned to The Big Picture later this week. As I mentioned, Rob Harville and I are going to

review the very, very, very, very sweet and effective Toy Story 4, which Amanda will not watch. And then next week, I'll be chatting with a man named Gary Dauberman, who is the writer and director of the forthcoming Annabelle Comes Home, which is a part of the Expanded Conjuring Universe. We've been talking about Expanded Universes all episode on this show. And Gary has written almost every movie in that universe. We'll be talking about how to make a horror franchise in 2019. See you next week for that. Thank you.