The Big Picture - ‘Lightyear’ and Five Signs of the Streaming Movie Apocalypse

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

Sean and Amanda break down 'Lightyear,' the one new movie in theaters while a whole bundle of new movies are streaming at home right now, and what that tells us about the state of the movie business. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, it's Dave Chang here, host of The Dave Chang Show. You might hear me on with Chris Yang, Noel Cornelio, and a host of other guests. We've been on air for quite some time now, and it's changed over the years. But one of the things we always try to talk about is what's delicious, how to be a better eater, and you might hear me rambling incoherently, contradicting myself every five minutes. We talk about some sports and culture and all kinds of other things, too. I think we're the most expert opinions you'll ever hear about anything. Check us out if you haven't before on the Ringer Podcast Network.

Say hello to Tim Selects, Tim's everyday value menu. Enjoy the new spinach and feta savory egg pastry or our roasted red pepper and Swiss pinwheel starting at only $2.99 plus tax. Try one or try our full Tim Selects lineup. Terms apply. Prices may vary at participating restaurants in Canada. It's time for Tim's. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins.

And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show. And just to be clear, not The Big Picture, the podcast. This is the origin story of the humans that The Big Picture, the podcast, is based on. Today we are, of course, talking about one new movie in movie theaters and a whole bundle of new movies streaming at home right now and what that tells us about the state of the movie business. Let's start with the movie that is in theaters, the movie I'm joking about,

the movie Amanda and I have been joking about for months and months. It's Lightyear. Hi, Amanda. How are you? I'm well, Sean. How are you? I'm good. Lightyear? It's a movie. It came out.

It's not what Chris Evans told us it was. It's something different. Yeah. So I went to see this movie in a theater. I, you know, cashed in my co-parent points, went alone to the movies to watch a children's film, all because like a year ago, maybe more, Chris Evans sent out a tweet.

I'm going to read the tweet to you. This was, this accompanied like the announcement of the movie, I think, or one of the first look, I don't know. Anyway, and just to be clear, this isn't Buzz Lightyear the toy. This is the origin story of the human Buzz Lightyear that the toy is based on. Perfect tweet. You and I turned it into a bit, and this is what happens when you turn things into bits, is then you suffer the consequences. So I drove across the way only to find out this isn't about the human Buzz Lightyear. It's not.

It's not. He was wrong. God damn it, Chris Evans. This is about a character. It's not a human. It's a character. It's the movie that Andy liked that the toy it's just about merchandising. God damn it. I was so upset. And this happens in the first two seconds, right? They're like, honestly, like a spare, pretty elegant set of title cards, possibly the best part of the movie. You know, in 1995, there were let me read the title cards in 1995. A named andy got a toy from his favorite movie that was card one this is that movie okay fantastic except i'm mad 30 seconds into this movie and then i have to sit through the entire pixar movie which i am told that you have some feelings on would you like to share them well i just didn't think it was very good but i don't i don't want to go too far ahead of myself on that yet. I'd like to explore the complications of the Evans tweet versus the title card.

I agree that the title card is elegant. And if we never saw the Evans tweet, I'd be like, oh, pretty cool idea for a movie. However, we're seeing the movie in 2022. Now, is the movie an artifact of 1995 that has been released to our people in 2022, but Andy had a chance to see it 27 years ago? Are we in some sort of alternate universe in which the film has been revealed to us from a shoulder universe? What's going on here? Is Andy living in a traditional space-time temporal experience why are we getting to see them andy's favorite movie now 27 years after toy story

because that's a way to make money um primarily and it's i think that you can either see this with like really cynical eyes of this is just the 40th level of merchandising or maybe it's kind of a reverse put in heart back in the original merchandising that was toy story you know it's a little chicken and the egg there um i think that this is a movie that was released in 1995 or 1992 or 1980 whatever is the case may be uh and then we now like disney got rid of its vault program or whatever it's doing you know to make a lot of money by keeping things in the vault and is now cashing in i think that is at least the internal logic of Disney, the makers of Lightyear, and how we're supposed to receive it. It doesn't really feel like a 1987 movie entirely, although in some ways it is just ripping off both Star Wars and Top Gun. So in that sense, very 1987, but with updated politics,

which like, do we have to talk about this and how terrible everyone is? Yeah, I think we do. We don't have to talk about it yet, but I think we probably should get into it just a little bit. You're right, though, that it is it's unclear what year would have been when it was originally released. Andy definitely is falling in love with Buzz Lightyear when Toy Story is released.

That's sort of the premise of the movie is Buzz incurring upon Woody's territory. And so this movie attempts to explain, I think, why Andy fell in love with the Buzz character. And the Buzz character is a young astronaut. He's a space ranger. He's marooned on a planet with his colleague and friend. And they get stuck. And when they get stuck, they basically need to build a new life for themselves in order to rebuild their ship so they can get off the planet. And then, you know, things go awry. The plan to get off the planet

doesn't go very well. Every time Buzz tries to get off the planet, he gets into space and an extraordinary amount of time elapses. And so you do get this kind of traditional science fiction premise in a kid's movie. And I am a little bit cynical about the idea of expanding the Toy Story universe in the way that they did. I think that the four Toy Story movies are very precious, beautiful pieces of major pop culture corporate entertainment. Like as far as corporate entertainment goes, for kids, I think that's like as good as we've done in the last 30 years. And this movie doesn't really feel like

it's in the spirit of the Toy Story movies. It's not a bad movie per se, but you can read the cynicism right on top of the surface of it. And there's a couple things about it. I mean, obviously it's like, it's a very boy-centric movie, a surprisingly boy centric movie for the 21st century. Obviously there is a young female hero who kind of emerges in the second half of the movie,

but there's just a lot of time alone spent with the Buzz Lightyear character, who is of course not voiced by Tim Allen. I guess in this universe, what we're supposed to understand is that Tim Allen is the lowly voice worker who was hired to voice the toy that is based on the Chris Evans performance. Did you tangle with that as well, that concept? No, I didn't. But we do know that happens, right? It does happen for sure. And in fact, doesn't Tom Hanks use his brother for some of the Woody characters? I believe Jim Hanks, is that his name? I'm not sure of his name, but I do know that's a thing that happens. So I didn't really mind the end joke.

I have to be honest. I spent zero time thinking about Tim Allen's role in any of this. Apologies to the originalists. What did you think of the movie itself did you did you like it did you have a good time um i cried at one point because it's i'm not unable to do that at this point you know there is a 10 minute sequence in the first third of the movie as buzz is like traveling through time to try to get off the planet everyone else who stays on the planet is living their life. And so you get an up sequence, right? Which has just become a standard Pixar trope at this point. And I just cry at those every single time, even if I know that they're doing the up sequence and I'm being manipulated. I, like Chris Ryan, just can't resist these stories. Do you think Chris one day will watch the first 10 minutes of this movie on YouTube and then never finish it just like he did with Up?

What do you think? Maybe he could be doing it right now. Maybe Chris storyboarded this, you know? Maybe he has a second life in Burbank. That's what he's doing when he doesn't answer our text messages. So I liked that. And otherwise, I was just kind of of like I'm watching a child's movie and I'm afraid that this is too scary for children that was my other takeaway because I was seated

next to a seven-year-old ish I don't really know how old kids are that aren't my own and he was with his mom and it was very sweet but he did look scared during a lot of this movie. And I was like, what's the point of making a Toy Story spinoff movie that children are going to be freaked out by for like a large part of the movie? Yeah, it's unclear to me if kids are freaked out. My nephew, Jack's a huge Toy Story fan and for years was a Woody guy. And at some point, I guess he just went from two years old to three years old or three years old to four years old. And he's a buzz guy now. So he's been looking forward to Lightyear. This is his first movie in movie theaters. I talked to him about it over the weekend and he absolutely loved it. But when I asked him if he could kind of explain what he liked about it, or if he understood what happened in the movie, nada, nothing, because this is a tremendously complex

storyline for a four-year-old who loves Toy Story to follow. And you can obviously make your way through the story without necessarily understanding how time travel might work or how interplanetary science operates. But like the movie is weirdly in the nitty gritty of some of those things. And in doing so, I feel like it not only will confuse, will not only scare some kids, but also confuse them. So it's a very odd property. And it's come under some political fire, I guess. I'm like less interested in that part. Obviously, it's been long reported that there's a gay kiss in the film between two female astronauts,

one of whom is played by Uzo Aduba, who is, you know, she's basically Evans' character's best friend in the film. And then as time goes on, we see her raising her family and then her daughter becomes- That's the up sequence. Yes. And that is in the up sequence. And so, I mean, the kiss is less than three seconds. It's utterly meaningless. It's just a representation of a family, just like any other family. Anybody who's using this as an opportunity to like pole vault into the public conversation of being an asshole, I'm not super interested in um i find it silly i do think though i i wonder and if you think this is completely bad faith tell me if the controversy around this very very brief sequence

spiked some of the performance of the movie because it has quote unquote bad PR or bad energy or people are using it as a punching bag in the daily culture war? I hope not just because that's incredibly depressing. I don't think it's bad faith to raise the question because we live in hell, but I think it's probably because this is the first Pixar movie in two years that is not direct to streaming. And I'm really thrilled for Jack that he got to go to the movies for the first time. I also I can't believe he's four. Like, happy birthday, Jack. That's wild times. But also, it's still easier to show kids something at home and you can show kids something like four to five times at home.

And, you know, I just think that it's probably a logistical issue still, even though movies are, quote, back, I guess. And kids' movies have been successful. To me, that seems like the real issue. Yeah, kids' movies are not totally back at the box office. The box office is in an interesting place right now because we've had a handful of very, very big hits. Top Gun Maverick is probably going to out-earn

the Doctor Strange movie in America, which is pretty incredible. I didn't have that on my bingo card. And so there's been a lot of conversation about our movies back. You know, Derek Thompson, actually, the host of the wonderful Plain English podcast, and our podcast network,

was tweeting about this this weekend, how you know the business is very hits dependent right now and that it needs big movies because those little movies most of which we're going to talk about in the second half of this conversation are largely going to streaming or are not being made right now and so they're not represented at the box office so that means that Disney Pixar whatever is very reliant on a movie like Lightyear to power its year at the box office. It waited two and a half years. I think we've had four Pixar movies go straight to or almost straight to streaming, right?

We had Turning Red and Luca and Soul and then previous to that Onward, which opened in movie theaters, but then within days, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. And so that movie made its way to streaming fairly quickly as well. So it's been a long time. You know, I don't know if like parents are out of the habit of taking their kids to Pixar movies. Like, I don't know if they're like, should we do that again? Or should we just wait? It's possible that that's an issue. It's also possible that the marketing on this movie was very strange. It's very possible that the timing was not ideal.

Maybe kids are like not totally out of school yet. But it just didn't do as well as they thought. Usually we see films are projected to do a certain number heading into a weekend. And they exceed that number because that number is floated by studios to show overperformance when they go over. You know, Top Gun Maverick, a month before release, they were saying, maybe like 75 million opening weekend. And then it was almost twice that when it came out. This movie, they were projecting 70 million,

and it made 51 million. That's not good. It's really not good for a Toy Story movie, which is one of the most reliable franchises inside of the Pixar brand. So I don't know. I don't know. I'm not totally sure what to make of it.

It might just be that it's this movie. And that, you know, I walked out of the Pixar brand. So I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I'm not totally sure what to make of it. It might just be that it's this movie and that, you know, I walked out of that movie and I was like, that's pretty C tier Pixar. It's really, it's not bad. It's just like, it's fine. I think there's also you and I went to see this movie, I guess, cause it's our job, but our interest in it was meme driven, which is a different kind of marketing that take your five-year-old to see a movie. And I think even possibly parents who are aware of the joke aspects or the Chris Evans aspects probably aren't thinking of it in the same headspace

of now this is a great family entertainment. I do also wonder, is Jack an anomaly in terms of, are little kids really into Toy Story? Or is this like a... I think so. They are. So it just kind of keeps going and refilling. And at five years old, you're just like, hey, here you go.

Here's Toy Story. I think so. I mean, think about your relationship to, I don't know, Cinderella or, you know, like I loved The Jungle Book as a kid. And that movie was released in like the 60s, you know? So I think Disney is one of the few brands that doesn't age in that way and that they are able to keep... And there's Toy Story rides at Disneyland,

and those characters are kind of everlasting. And so I do think that there is a continued awareness among young kids and certainly among parents. We're literally now at the place where I was... I think I was 12 when Toy Story was released. And now I have a daughter that I will take to a Pixar movie at some point in the next five years. So that's, that's kind of crazy. I don't know. I just, I think it's probably a variety of factors.

It is interesting though, that a movie like this is not soaring. I, you haven't seen Jurassic World Dominion yet. Have you? No, I don't think I ever will will but I very much enjoyed Chris's recap um I I'm I'm honestly nervous I don't know I don't know not to like step on your bit what happened in the last one I just I only know what you guys told me the reason that I wasn't a part of that conversation is because you guys just started saying things I I know that there's blue is blue still alive I don't want to spoil anything for the dominion heads out there who have not yet had a chance to go with their children to that movie um but that movie despite not being very good and i would say also not being beloved is thriving at the box office

right now um i don't know what else is there to say i thought socks the cat was fun i thought i felt manipulated by socks the cat the robotic cat that is buzz's pal but also i i'm comfortable being manipulated in kids movie from time to time, just like you with the first 10 minutes of the movie. Did you like Sox? Yeah. He reminded me of my son. I think it's the really big eyes, but I was just like, I don't know. This kind of seems like, I feel like if Knox could talk, maybe that's what he'd talk. That's what he'd be delivering right now. Just sort of dry robot humor. Knox and Sox. I mean, that sounds like a future film. That's what he'd be delivering right now. Just sort of dry robot humor. Knocks and socks.

Yeah, right. There you go. That sounds like a future film. Yeah. Anyway, so sure, I was manipulated by it. Like, I didn't have on this podcast, do often transcend and speak to something larger. And this just felt like an animated kids movie. And children deserve entertainment too, but perhaps that's some of the drop-off that you were feeling.

Yeah. I think also following up Soul, which was this very sort of spiritual and cosmic story about a jazz musician, and Luca, which is this bold, beautiful Italian homage to Fellini, and Turning Red, which is one of my favorite movies of the year and is pretty mature thematically. And it's much more a movie for 11-year-olds than I would say 5-year-olds. This is an interesting follow-up. Now, in some ways, you could say that's actually good kind of brand maintenance to keep balancing what kind of movies and to stay unpredictable. But for us, maybe we're just not quite at the place in our lives where this one made sense.

Let's continue on. Let's leave the box office. Let's go into streaming. The first movie I want to talk to you about today that is streaming is called Cha-Cha Real Smooth. This movie is available on Apple TV+. This is the follow-up to Cooper Rife's 2020 movie, Shithouse. Now, Cooper, as you know, I love. I talked with him and Bill Simmons on Bill's show a couple of years ago when Shithouse came out.

That was a very charming debut. Very small movie made cheaply. He starred in the movie. He wrote and directed it. And I thought it was a very winning portrayal of a very, I don't want to say universal experience, but a common experience of being lonely at college at the beginning of college.

And, you know, being a little bit lost as a young person. And it's an indie staple. The young man, the somewhat handsome somewhat awkward young man attempts to find his way in a complicated world and the only way he can do so is by meeting a nice nice guy or gal and um that movie worked on me in part because it reminded me of a lot of movies that i really liked when i was a kid and when i was in college um the follow-up is bigger and a little bit bolder it debuted debuted at Sundance, so we haven't had a chance to talk about it. I don't even know if I really mentioned it out of Sundance, but it's

about a guy who works as a bar mitzvah party host, and he strikes up a friendship with a young woman who's a bit older than him, who has a teenage daughter. And he's also a bit confused and trying to find his place in the world, and is also trying to use a relationship to kind of explain away his anxieties and frustrations and confusion. And this movie was bought for $15 million by Apple at Sundance. And now it's out in the world. I would say it's gotten good reviews, not great reviews. What do you think? start by saying that if Cooper Rife wants to keep making films in which the protagonist gives a speech in the third act about how much he loves his mother, I receive that in a new way now.

You got radicalized by CODA and I got radicalized by a son just being like, I don't know, mom. I don't understand everything, but I know I need you. Great. Thank you. Sold. That's what you want for your son no to be like cooper honestly and that might be part of the movie is that the problem with the movie or not a problem but i would love it if my son is like cooper who is incredibly charming and makes movies about trying to figure it all out while knowing how to make movies and getting 15 million dollars from apple and being like winning he is very winning he knows how to make movies and getting $15 million from Apple and being winning. He is very winning.

He knows how to make movies about himself. Does he know how to make movies about people outside of himself? He's learning. And I feel like this stretches. The Dakota Johnson character is completely unbelievable, even though

I really like Dakota Johnson, really come back around on her. It's been like a full circle. I'm with you 100%. She's now one of my favorite people in movies. And I didn't really get it at all when she first hit the scene. And I also like shooting your shot

and being like, I'm going to get Dakota Johnson to play a divorced mom in new jersey in my movie and also possible love interest you know like you gotta real flex you gotta dream big does the character make any sense no absolutely not do you just just the world and really anything outside the cooper rafe character being like, I don't know, but I'm gonna try to figure things out. In the meantime, I'm gonna skate on my charisma as a party starter at bar mitzvahs, which I really enjoyed that.

Also, I thought that was very funny. None of it totally comes together. It feels like Sundance Mad Libs for sure. And this movie was the subject of just a really dramatic review in the New York Times by Manola Dargis, one of my favorite working critics. And she did not care for the movie. And she uses the movie to talk about the state of indie cinema in not a positive way. And I think it's both fair and true because this movie got

$15 million from Apple and also asking the movie to stand in for a lot of things, some of which it does and some of which it can't. You know, I think it's a great work

of criticism. And also probably this is a slight movie, but does it totally work? No. But I didn't totally mind it. I don't mind that

this guy is getting opportunities. I just think probably other people should also get opportunities, which is always the problem in Hollywood. Yeah. I think it's an interesting artifact of Sundance 2022 because the film that won most of the prizes at that festival was called Nanny. And I talked about it a little bit at the time. Nanny was written and directed by Nikyatu Jusu and was about a young woman who was nannying for a family in New York City. And it was bought by Blumhouse and Amazon. And it's going to stream there and

this is a person who maybe would not have had the chance to have a movie you know streamed or showed by a major studio 20 years ago and so in some ways it's like a living example of what independent cinema can be and what Sundance can be and can do and it sold for a really good amount of money this is a script off the blacklist, really talented young filmmaker. So I'm a little bit like dubious about grand pronouncements about the state of independent film. But people like Cooper have been benefiting off of independent film because he's the kind of person that when you put him in a room in a meeting at Endeavor Content, which helped pay for this movie, they're like this this guy, he reminds me of a young me because there's a bunch of older white guys in the room and they're really excited to have an older white

guy who's the next Richard Linklater or the next Steven Soderbergh or the next Quentin Tarantino. And we valorized those people. And I valorized Cooper when he first came along because I really liked him. I don't want to say I see myself in his talent, but I see myself in the stories that he's interested in telling. And so there's something natural to that. This is a real work in progress movie. And this is like, it's too long and it's a little unfocused. And I think Cooper is going to make really great movies, but it's hard to make great movies. And it's hard when you've been given, not the world,

but given a lot of opportunity early in your career. He's still very young. And I had a very similar reaction. I didn't really believe any of the other characters that weren't him um I guess I mean the the sweetest thing in the movie is his relationship to Vanessa Burkhardt's character you know Dakota Johnson's daughter and the party starter person and this relationship with this young girl this this, this, I don't know what you would tell 11 years old, 12 years old. I thought it was quite beautiful and quite interesting and not necessarily something you see on in movies all the time. And then everything

else around it, romance, emotional crisis with parents, all that stuff. I was like, this is way undercooked. And I think it's a natural growing pain for like a person who had an incredible rookie season. That's really what it feels like. And I believe he will do better stuff in the future. It's always interesting though when a movie that is small

and that you had to discover that was like in the unsigned hype column is now literally as big and as boldly promoted as you can be on Sunset Boulevard and on the Apple TV Plus app. So it just raises the expectation. Which is not totally his big and as boldly promoted as you can be on Sunset Boulevard and on the Apple TV Plus app. Yeah. So it just raises the expectation.

Which is not totally his or the movie's fault. No. You know, it's like, I don't think anybody wants to be in the position of, or maybe they do, honestly. Maybe it's totally fine because he did get $15 million from Apple for this movie. But especially a year after Coda being purchased and then winning the oscar and from sundance this is like there's a lot of hype and there are upsides to the hype in terms of opportunity and money and there are downsides to the hype in terms of you know it's his second feature he's still figuring things out and you're figuring things out in front of everybody. And it doesn't always

go smoothly. No, it's like a wait and see for the next thing for me. I really like him and I like what he's after, but we'll see what the next movie is. The next movie is definitely a movie we've seen before. Maybe not exactly in the way that we're seeing it now, but one of your favorites is Father of the Bride. Did you do the Father of the Bride rewatch? Well, you did, right? I sure did. It was me and Bill a week before Christmas. I was eight months pregnant. That was a real emotional journey for the both of us. There's a new Father of the Bride. It's directed by Gary Alas-Rocky. And it's a Latino story. And it is not your typical Steve Martin Diane Keaton family but it is a traditional nuclear family kind of closely following a lot of the beats of the novel

and then the Elizabeth Taylor adaptation and then the have there been now been I guess two and a half Nancy Meyers adaptations right because they did the first two films and then they did like a COVID reunion Zoom film. So, you know, in this one, it's the same story. It's a father's got to come to grips with his young daughter being married and being, you know, connected to a new family and what that means for him and his personal crisis. Kind of an inverted cha-cha real smooth in some ways, you know, a nice man at the end of his life trying to figure out what it all means. In this case, that man is Andy Garcia. His wife with whom he is having marital trouble is Gloria Estefan. Adria Arjona is the daughter in the film. What did you think of this movie? I liked that they tried it. I would watch every single remake of Father of the Bride in every situation. I mean, it's just

it's a great setup, in my opinion. You have observed often that a movie with a wedding in it, just a great setup. It brings people together. There are familiar stakes, but kind of universal stakes really, but really like adaptable, um, specifics, which is to me the most comforting types of movies. I mean, that's also the romantic comedy in a lot of ways. It's like, you know exactly what the beats are going to be, but it's how you fill in around the time. I think in some ways this filled in really well. And I thought, um, both what it added in terms of Latino experience, it's a Cuban family

and a Mexican family marrying and watching those kind of cultural negotiations was fun and interesting to me. I have never gotten to go to a Cuban Mexican slash wedding, even though this one, spoiler alert, there are some hurdles, but looked really fun. So I enjoyed that aspect of it. I think some of the other innovations don't work as well. There are just too many subplots because to be fair, and I read an interview with the, I believe it was, well, with the filmmakers who said that one of the changes they wanted to make was that in the Steve Martin um Diane Keaton version written by Nancy Meyers directed by Charles Shire uh Diane

Keaton who's one of the great comedic actors of her time like has nothing to do which is true that's 100% true so in this film the the parent couple played by Andy Garcia and Gloria Estefan are on the verge of divorce. And that's a separate thing that's happening. I think that's interesting. I don't really think it totally got pulled off a little bit. And also it just changes the dynamic because instead of it being like a comedic movie with a Steve Martin-esque character just melting down. There's like a lot more drama, which maybe plays to Andy Garcia's strengths a little bit more, but I don't know, just like feels a little different. And there are a lot of different stakes to horn in. So I thought

it was a little busy. The wedding planner character made me want to claw my eyes out, which is possibly the point, and possibly a personal reflection of experiences with the wedding industry. But I don't know. It wasn't quite as funny. It wasn't quite as sharp. I'll watch every single one of them. I did tear up at the end. So again, I'm a mark, but I don't know. Not hugely successful. It's too bad that you and I weren't doing this podcast when you were getting married. There would have been some interesting thematic episodes. And so I think you would have shared some interesting thoughts.

You're a complicated person. You're a person with a lot of depth, a lot of feelings and ideas. And you had a lot of depth in that period, as I recall. So I didn't want to have a wedding. You can read all about this. My husband turned this into content. Someone in the marriage has always got to turn it into content. We are all children of Nora Ephron. So if you want to read about that from his perspective, you can just Google groomzilla GQ. I didn't want to be the star of a wedding, but let me just say, I love being a wedding guest. I love it. I'm available. You guys are having a wedding.

You need someone like a seat filler pretty last minute. If I can secure childcare, I'm there. It's a great time. So that's why I'll watch all of these movies as someone who doesn't have to be in the wedding or dealing with the wedding planner. That just makes my skin crawl. Yeah, I mean, my rule about wedding movies is that if your film opens with a wedding, it bodes well. If it closes with a wedding, not a guarantee. That's not a very dramatic conclusion in many ways, because usually that just means people are at the start of something, not at the end of something. And if a movie starts at the wedding we got trouble well some would also

say that that's a great way to to end a film with you know possibilities still just not a big happy endings guys you know i like when things are a little bit more raw real and dramatic um i don't i don't understand why they didn't make this a comedy that was my confusion it's like it's not a comp it's not like chloe feinman plays that wedding planner who you're talking about, who is a deeply kind of cringe online social media influencer version of the Martin Short character from the previous films. And I think Chloe Fineman is really funny on SNL and not funny in this movie. And it might just be a function of the way that it's written or the fact that she's the only person trying to be funny in a movie that is otherwise not funny. Like Adria Arjona, Gloria Estefan, these are not comic actors. They're dramatic actors.

And Andy Garcia, especially, is, like, a very gifted dramatic actor. So, it's unusual to make this, like, almost a borderline melodrama. Which, I think, when you see Father of the Bride, is probably not what pops into your mind. So, as I was watching it, I was just a little bit confused. I think it's great that they're kind of like reviving and redefining what this series of films can be and what this story can be.

But I just, I kind of didn't get it. Like halfway through, I was like, why did they do this? I mean, you know, sometimes people try things and they don't work out. And we say that from time to time. We try to make meaning of things. And it's just they they tried

doing this again i think it's a great idea i hope they try it again honestly i would watch all of these i don't have any sort of anxiety about like the future of cinema or whatever just because they keep remaking father of the bride gotta be honest great premise uh and it just and it didn't it didn't land and that happens especially with comedy or, as you point out, like not quite comedy. It just didn't quite happen. But I don't know. I'm not mad that I spent those two hours. Let's talk about another movie.

So I already mentioned Sundance 2022, another movie we haven't had a chance to talk about, which premiered there, is Good Luck to You, Leo Grand. So we're kind of going through all of the various streaming services right now. We've talked about a movie in theaters. We've talked about a movie on Apple. Father of the Bride is on HBO Max. Good luck to you, Leo Grand. Debuted on Hulu this weekend and was released via Searchlight, formerly Fox Searchlight.

It's a little bit confusing. Another movie that had a solid sale price that stars Emma Thompson. Is she your number one movie hero? Where does she stand on the list? I don't know if she's a specific movie hero as much as just a life hero, a cultural hero, for sure. She's really up there.

I think that she is just tremendous and the right blend of smart and funny and determined and also just kind of overlaps with my interests as well. I just am usually, except for the whole Nanny McPhee thing, which, you know, maybe in five or seven years, I'll be into that. It's, you know, we all, it's coming for all of us. Maybe in five or seven years, I'll be into that. It's coming for all of us. But yeah, her sensibility, her powers just kind of speak to me in a way that few peoples do. So this is an interesting part for her. She plays a retired widow who's looking for romance, excitement, and frankly, an orgasm in the aftermath of a very dull marriage.

Many, many years of a very dull marriage. And so she hires a young sex worker to fulfill her desires, quite literally. And it becomes this two-hander, two people in a room throughout the entirety of this film for the most part. Daryl McCormick plays the sex worker. Emma Thompson plays the widow. And it becomes a series of conversations about aging and maturity and sexuality and confidence and femininity and masculinity and more of a chamber piece really than anything. And very much like a COVID production. And it's clear that it's a COVID production.

This movie was pretty acclaimed at a Sundance. It's directed by Sophie Hyde. It was written by Katie Brand. I definitely thought of you as I was watching it. Cause I was like, I'm very, I was very, very curious to know what you thought about it.

So what, what did you think of it? Well, it's an Emma Thompson showcase and it's a lot of the conversation I thought coming out of Sundance or the conversation that I picked up at least was, you know, another Oscar run for Emma Thompson already has to one is a writer and one is an actor. And I believe because the Academy updated its rules midstream and because of that Hulu via searchlight or searchlight via Hulu release, Emma Thompson will not be eligible for an Oscar unless they change it. But I think it's done.

That is correct. Yeah. So that's all a polite way of saying that this movie hangs on Emma Thompson and its virtues are Emma Thompson. And I think she was extraordinary in this. She's absolutely amazing. And she can turn what does at times feel like

an exchange of ideas in a movie format. I'm stealing that from Rob Harvilla, by the way, that phrase, movie format, which I think just says so much about the world that we are living in and she can really turn a lot of a somewhat developed character. But I would not say either of these are hugely developed characters on the page or not that they're not developed, but they are vessels for ideas and ideas about the people that they're playing and sex work and generations and mothers and sons and, you know, a lot of interesting ideas. But they are just talking a lot. And she has the extraordinary ability to turn those ideas into a person. It's like she really is magnificent, I personally think. Again, I'm really biased because she means a lot to me. But I thought she was fantastic.

I thought the movie was pleasant. You know, I felt its COVID-ness. I felt not so much its limitations, but kind of its constraints. You know, it's just it is two people talking in a room. And sometimes that can be really electrifying. And sometimes you aware of, I'm watching two people talking in a room and they're exchanging ideas. I mean, there are worse things in the world than people exchanging ideas. Perhaps we could all use more of it. But I do, I'm grateful for Emma Thompson every day. Yeah, I think it's, I think all these movies need to be graded on a curve

that are coming out in this period of time. Chris and I talked about this a little bit about Spider-Head as well, that there was something kind of inherently COVID-esque about Spider-Head because not just, in part because of the construction of the story and George Saunders' original idea for the story,

but also because it was accomplishable in a time and this feels like a very accomplishable in a time. And this feels like a very accomplishable movie. I had mentioned Richard Linklater's tape on the pod a few weeks ago, actually, which is a movie starring Ethan Hawke, Robert John Leonard, and Uma Thurman. And it's kind of similar to that movie, actually, which is a series of kind of slightly overwritten speeches that actors are kind of like furiously or charmingly delivering at each other and I love Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf as much as anybody and sometimes if you do that really well and the blocking is great and you've got Mike Nichols's vision you've got Albie poetry on the

page and you've got Elizabeth Taylor you know twisting up a hurricane in the room like that kind of movie can work. I, this one, I kind of like lost me halfway through. Cause it's just like a little bit inert. And I think that there is like something very interesting and powerful that the final 15 minutes of the movie, but it felt like we had to wait a long time to get to the final 15 minutes of the movie. I don't really want to spoil,

I guess the ending, which is kind of dramatic and it's in its own right. I thought the last image of the movie, it was like pretty extraordinary. And like, and a pure like cinema is about images that are powerful and it's something that you haven't seen before and that I have like thought about it a lot.

So I will give it that and give it that in terms of like actual visual cinematic value. I mean, I thought a lot like okay this is like a this is a play a filmed play that i'm sort of watching you sometimes like filmed plays which i do i maybe i just don't like this play that much or i was just kind of like this is a little bit of like a pair of dueling slate essays talking back and forth at each other you know which i which you know and that doesn't take away from the performances and i think the intention and a story like the one about this character is valid and is not you know we don't see a lot of women over 60 get to talk about how they feel about their lives

on screen that's obviously that has something that has a strength to it but just in this format i was like i wonder what this movie would be not during covid yeah it's also a play that wants to be provocative but i think is not at all provocative and plays it pretty safe and some of that is just that the ideas or the philosophies are sort of stated rather than explored in in the film and i felt i felt those limitations you know i kind of wanted to not maybe not argue with it but you want a movie if you're if you're going to do an exchange of ideas like there should be some friction and there's not really any friction in this um so I don't know.

I still think Emma Thompson's great. But she has two Oscars, so we don't have to feel that bad. She's going to be fine, I think. Let's talk about another movie. This movie is also on Hulu, but it is not through the Searchlight brand. Or is it through the Searchlight brand? It might actually be. I think it is because they do that funny bit with the singing,

the da-da-da-da, da bit with the singing that of course which I have been doing at home um since um the movie is Fire Island which I did recommend I guess a couple of weeks ago and it was first released um on a solo pod directed by Andrew Onn who you and I talked about two and a half years ago yeah for Driveways um and written by Joel Kim Booster who is a stand-up comic of some rising acclaim and he's also the star of the movie and what'd you think I thought this was a great Jane Austen adaptation which I people are like everyone just turned off the podcast whatever guys I don't care um so this is a pretty obvious Pride and Prejudice adaptation to the point that you can point out character for character. Okay. Like, oh, that's Mr. Darcy. Okay. That's Caroline Bingley, which, you know, and, and

there is that sort of one for one matchiness that I, as a consumer of all Pride and Prejudice adaptations of which there are many, it's sort of a father of the bride zone. I'll watch all of them and enjoy all of them. But I thought this was really clever in understanding something about Jane Austen that Sean, I think you sometimes bump on, which are sort of the the stakes and the the social dynamics of a group of historically marginalized people, which again, everyone just turned off the, the, the podcast. And I really apologized,

but you know, like things that maybe don't matter outside of the world, especially with social mores, et cetera, but that matter very much to a group of people and why those things matter. And the, the, the costs and like the highs and the lows

and people trying to to navigate these intensely fraught social worlds is very much a jane austen experience and i thought it was transposed really well onto the the world of fire island and um or that specific that milieu yeah milieu like the gay part of Fire Island you were saying you have been to Fire Island but not this part of Fire Island same I don't think they'd have me I'm hideous relative to the beautiful men in this film

exactly so I just I thought that was really clever and I just it revealed something to me or reminded something to me about like the original text which i don't really feel all jane austen adaptations do so i thought that was really cool i also like i liked all the bits i thought the the rom-com bits in this were like very funny from like the opening searchlight thing to the sunset and like cheering for the sunset that's very funny the the dance off um

there were a few oh also like two guys just talking about the benefits of an alice monroe short story like awesome i just like there's a lot to really like in this movie so i do i wish that it they had more money you know do i wish it like looked a little bit better? Yeah, sure I do. Do I wish that like, oh, Bo and Yang did get to sing Britney Spears. And that was really beautiful. And I thought, you know, and I liked that bit. And I thought he was very good. I also think he's very funny.

So I liked that he got to do more emotional stuff. I also would have taken some more comedy from him. But I don't know. Pretty good time. I didn't mention this when I talked about it the first time, but I was, I was pretty taken with Conrad Ricamora, who I had never seen before,

but he's the Mr. Darcy character that you're talking about. And he's a certain, you know, sort of the will they or won't they love interest for Joel Kim Booster's character. And he had some, he had something. Yeah.

I was like, I've never really seen an actor quite like this. He was really interesting. I thought it was fun. I thought it was a... It felt weirdly like a 90s movie in a good way. The same way that Clueless was a modern spin on an old story. This was a modern spin on an old story,

done faithfully, done with verve. Maybe not the most profound movie of all time but like who cares you know it's like literally a movie about summer vacation with your friends um i i'll be curious to see now if that this team of people kind of continues on and gets to make a bigger and bigger project like will andrew on get 40 million dollars to make a movie will joel kim booster continue to be a kind of like, frankly, like an Albert Brooks-esque figure, you know, who's like writing parts for himself,

for him to play to build like a comic persona on screen? I think that would be really cool if he had the chance to do that. So we'll see. It's so hard to know. This kind of dovetails with the back half of this conversation. Like, is Fire Island a success?

I really don't. Everybody I've talked to that saw it was like, oh, it's pretty fun. But is that a hit on Hulu? I have no clue. I don't either. I, most people I know have either seen it or I have a lot of people being like, oh yeah, I keep meaning to watch that, but I haven't gotten there yet because once again, it just kind of gets lost in the, the streaming searchlight by aulu, via whatever mix. So who can say? But it's nice that it's there. You know, as someone who is a little bit more homebound these days,

really appreciated it. Please keep making movies to my interests that I can watch on a streaming service. It's so interesting that there's this really huge rash of them. And I'm wondering what the slingshot effect is going to be on something like this. Because I don't know if Fire Island necessarily was going to make $100 million at the box office. It doesn't really have any truly bankable stars in it. But there are not enough movies in movie theaters right now. I saw that in the top 10, numbers 6, 7, and 8 didn't even make a million dollars at the box office over a holiday weekend, Father's Day and Juneteenth. A lot of people, you know, it was a bank holiday yesterday. So, you know, the highs are very high and the lows are a little ignored.

I'm using like kind of complimentary or ancillary New York Times features to determine whether or not a movie is relevant to the culture. There was a feature this weekend. There are many about Fire Island, for example, multiple people profiled. I think Joel Kim Booster had a big spotlight on him for this movie. He's been on a very winning press tour, I would say. Yes. He's a charming guy. Maybe like less charming, but certainly interesting to me is Phil Tippett, who the movie nerds listening to this podcast will know for his work on Star Wars and Robocop and Jurassic Park. One of the more famous kind of like animator creature effects people in the history of the second half of the 20 20th century and early part of the 21st century he's been

working on this movie called mad god for 30 plus years he is like animating with like figurines and clay and physical objects basically by himself for 30 years. And it's an insane movie. It is animated, but it is not for kids. This is not a light year double bill by any stretch of the imagination. It's like real doom content. It's like literally about a guy who has dropped into the middle of like a hellscape and has to wander his way through a terrain of darkness and evil to get somewhere. And it's like the vision of a person who's struggling, you know,

it's really kind of a messed up movie and not at all. Like the movies that we're talking about here, or these like these frothy, like, I just need to kill one hour and 42 minutes what can i do it with this is more like if you watch this you will have a dark night of the soul but it's made by a guy it's made by the guy who created the chess board scene that luke skywalker plays on the millennium falcon you know the sort of like hologram chess figurines. You remember, have you seen Star Wars, man?

Do you know the movie Star Wars? Yeah, I have. Yeah. I remember the holograms. I'm not sure I specifically remember the chess scene, but that's okay. Do you remember the giant robot that blows up the board in RoboCop?

No. Okay. But it's fine. It's really, it's very funny. Do you remember the Raptors in the kitchen in Jurassic Park? Yeah, yeah. They're good.

Okay. He did that. Wow. Those are really good. Yeah, he's really good. When you and Brian were talking about Jurassic Park, I mean, I guess the T-Rex and the water, that's like the iconic scene and shot for sure. But the raptors in the kitchen, you guys really undersold that. That's one of my notes from home.

Okay. Well, we appreciate all your feedback. This is a good opportunity for you to talk about how your favorite podcast is the one that you have been hosting for many years now, but you listened to, I think, for the first time? No. Well, I don't really like listening to myself on a podcast. So as I texted you recently, no one responded, by the way.

This is so rude. I sent you guys a compliment. This is why I don't say nice things to you, because I texted you recently, no one responded, by the way. This is so rude. I sent you guys a compliment. This is why I don't say nice things to you because I texted you and Chris and said, it's really annoying when I'm on the podcast now because then I don't have a podcast to listen to, which is true. And no one responded. There are 4 million podcasts and The Ringer has like 1.8 million of them. I know.

But as Zach put it, I now have a parasocial relationship with my actual friends. And so I don't know, I feel more comfortable in, you know, being grateful for our friendship when it's mediated through a podcast. You know, I can't tell you right here, right now. But when I listen, I'm like, oh, I love those guys. I can't wait. A new episode of The Big Picture. So yeah, I really get podcasts now i i listen to them i engage with them i have a lot of thoughts you had to listen to me monologue about mad god streaming now on shutter yeah was it like you were listening to the show hearing me advocate what i was thinking about and i really honestly don't want to be rude um to anyone who dedicates their life to their art

but a man in a room playing with figurines for 30 years and then making a movie is how I imagine like every animated film that you like. You know what I'm saying? That's just- No, that's not true. I know, and I know that's not true. It's a collaborative art form, except for this genre.

And that is very rude to like large teams of very talented artists. But when you're talking about these nerdy things, like when you're talking about how Roger Deakins made Ringo, I'm just like imagining Roger Deakins alone in a room with a puppet, you know, it's just, that ain't how it goes.

Yeah, I know. That just isn't how it goes. Mad God is not for you. I don't think I would not recommend that you check it out. But if you like that kind of thing, imagine like Coraline gone to hell. That's kind of what the story is like.

It's pretty intense stuff. And it's really, really good. It's nice that they make movies for you. And it's nice that they make movies for me. Yeah. The movies are not the same. Did you see Jerry and Marge Go Large? Did you end up watching this?

No, I didn't. I did watch it. It was on Paramount+. And it's another example of a movie that is a little bit out of our culture or has been pushed aside or has been pushed to streaming. This movie is on Paramount+, right now, which is increasingly adding to its new movie library. And as opposed to Scream or Jackass Forever, it went straight to this streaming channel. And it stars Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening. And it's directed by David Frankel,

who I think directed The Devil Wears Prada, did he not? Yes. And is a pretty successful director in his own right. And it's about this retired couple who find a loophole in the lottery system in Michigan and make millions and millions of dollars. Now, I just kind of spoiled the movie for you, but it's a true story.

And there's a great Jason Fagone story about how they went ahead and did this. And I watched it last night and I was like, this is pleasant, very similar to a lot of the other movies we were talking about. And I'm like,

this doesn't really mean anything to my soul. I'm kind of distracted by my phone thinking about what the matchup's going to be in the Mets game tomorrow. You know, who's going to be on the hill for them? You know, is Seth Lugo going to have to go

on paternity leave? That's what I'm thinking about. Like, is everything going to be okay the hill for them? You know, is Seth Lugo going to have to go on paternity leave? That's what I'm thinking about. Like, is everything going to be okay with this club? How's Jeff McNeil's hamstring? But hey, there's Bryan Cranston being a nice retiree, winning mills. And it has me a little bit distressed. That distresses you? Yeah, because like Annette Bening and Bryan Cranston, two geniuses.

David Frankel, a successful person. Paramount Plus, a fairly small streaming service. They've been just kind of like pushed into the cupboard of content. And it's like, discover it if you like. You don't know what this is. We're not promoting it really. Hope you like it if you know about it or you listen to this pod. It's true. And I honestly don't know whether I pay for Paramount Plus right now. I just don't know. So I have no idea whether I can watch this film. This is the type of movie that we do moan a lot about

not having access to anymore. But what we moan about is not having access to the literal rewatchable version of it. We want a lot of movies where you really love it the first time and engage with it and then can have it as background noise the second the third the tenth the twentieth time but that comfort comes from the revisitation not from just kind of the low lowest common denominator ambitions of the first watch.

So I guess I agree with you. And I think that's what's getting lost is actually trying to make these things really good, the first watch. Yeah, I think people want them to be good. I don't think the intent is bad and I don't even think it's necessarily laziness. I think it's possible that there's just not a system in place that allows for it to be as good as you want it to be.

Every movie that we've talked about so far today, even the ones we like, they're not going to the rewatchables. You know what I mean? There's nothing here that is legendary stuff. You know, Spider-Head, we talked about that last week. You checked it out as well. That's not going to the rewatchables.

Yeah, they did not stick the landing on that one. Yeah, yeah. This also felt called the rewatchables. Yeah, they did not stick the landing on that one. Yeah, yeah. This also felt a little bit like, you know, do a bit for a while and then pay the consequences of the bit. Which, these are the lives we lead, I guess. I wasn't mad for the first 45 minutes, necessarily. I watched it on Friday night, you know, at home. It was it was kind of like my version of going out to the movies to check something out. But I was at home instead of at the theater. And just the quality of everything was just a little bit lower. Again, I know this is a covid movie. I also just want to ask you, when will we solve the 4K TV problem? Meaning?

Like, Juliette has been going on a lot about this. Just that filmmaking has not caught up with the quality of our TVs and how we're watching the TVs. And it just, everything looks terrible all of the time. And I do feel like some of it is just, it's not my setting. If you want to DM me about my setting, please do. But I just, some of it, it just gets lost. I don't know if it's your setting. And I did watch Spiderhead both in a theater and at home, as I mentioned. I think a lot of it is about the compression technology via the streaming services. And I think that the way that the image is rendered when you're using a streaming service particularly Netflix is a bit ugly and a bit flat and I found one of the reasons why I think maybe Chris and I were a little bit more positive on spider head than the critical consensus

at large or even just the general consensus is because we did see it on a big screen and it does have a kind of beauty to it and we talked about Kaczynski's like composition and there are some there are some things in it that are really impressive. Um, I agree with you at the ending. It does not stick the landing at all and kind of veers pretty far away from the way that the Saunders story ends. Um,

but I don't, I don't know how to solve that issue. You know, I think it just looks junky. You know what I mean? Even things that aren't junky. The, this was a problem in movie theaters and continues to be,

I don't know if you saw Mick Garris, the horror filmmaker attended a screening of the thing that was part of the Fathom events situation this weekend. And apparently the image that they projected was just garbage. And it was like skipping and like a digital image that just did not look at all like the film. So in movie theaters, we have this problem too. Some theater chains are better and some are worse in terms of the kind of images that you see. But on streaming, it's tough because you're trying to serve hundreds of millions of people who all have different equipment. And so there's no way to kind of perfect the image

that everyone is going to see at the same time. I agree. It's tricky with a movie like Spiderhead, you know, although like, I don't know, Game of Thrones made it work. You know, like it can be done. It looked terrible. I couldn't fucking see a single last season the last two seasons were very bad i thought everyone was just like oh my god battle of the whatever and i was like literally that i couldn't see also can we skip ahead you may have a settings issue if you couldn't

see battle of the bastards no i don't it was in our old house you remember we didn't have any shades like it was oh yeah it was like 6 p.m. Yeah, you have some shades. You have a shades issue. I know, but I don't like living in darkness. I like the sunlight. That's the other thing. Can we skip to Old Gun really quickly? Or Old Man? Sorry. The Old Man! Why do I keep thinking that it's called The Old Gun? Because you're thinking of The Old Man and the Gun, which was the Robert Redford film.

That was, yeah, very charming. Yeah, I know you guys all love this i tried it and i just the last 20 minutes when they're just fighting in silence in the dark of the yes that's the best part i was so i was so angry i just was like angrily looking at my phone and zach looked over at me and i was just scowling like looking at my phone really enjoyed it until that moment. So Bill just asked me to do the prestige TV pod about the old man. So I don't want to say too much about it. I put it on this list because, you know, Chris accused me of favoring a television show in the form of severance over

spider head. And now the old man is here. This is a new show on FX on Hulu starring Jeff bridges and Amy Brenneman. And it's really good. It's like exactly what I want from a TV show. Like it's like really strong lead performance, slow trickling out of information that is part of some grand conspiracy and very good set pieces. And I'm just, I'm hooked. I'm hardcore hooked in a way I haven't been on a TV show in a while. So I liked it a lot. I liked most of it.

I got exasperated at the end. And I also do think it feels a little COVID-y as well. It does, no question. There's a lot of scenes of people on the phone with each other. Yeah, and they're wonderful actors and I enjoy them talking on the phone. But I've only done the first episode

because I was so exasperated by that, that last sequence. So I thought about keeping, keeping it up. Episode two is a little different. Um, I also just like Jeff Bridges, man,

I've never had a bad time with the guy. I'm never on when he's on screen. He's wonderful. Yeah. Okay. Um, let's make one more, one more,

one more film for conversation. I watched this film last night as well. I thought it was a fascinating object of our culture. Loved it. Just absolutely loved Jennifer Lopez, Halftime. I was nervous that you were going to come out against it because it is obviously produced by Jennifer Lopez. And it is, in many ways produced by Jennifer Lopez and it is in many ways a Jennifer Lopez infomercial. But if you know that and we encourage people

in your consumption of celebrity news as well as everything else to know, check your sources, know where you're getting information, know why you're getting your information. That's part of living in a civilized world and a functioning democracy. Anyway, if you know that J-Lo is managing all of this, then it's completely fascinating because what she gives away and what she means to give away and what she doesn't mean to give away but is still there on tape is pretty astonishing. I thought it was really interesting the the things that she allowed us to see versus the things that she didn't allow us to see yeah is a real rorschach test yeah for her as a celebrity because so this

it tracks a very specific period of time from i guess guess, was that, that was 2019 into 2020, right? Yes. So it was the period between effectively the production and release of Hustlers all the way through awards season. And then simultaneous to that, her preparing to be one half of the star of the Super Bowl halftime show alongside of Shakira. And it is, in some respects, kind of a look back at her life, her family, her career, how she's been understood as a celebrity, but really kind of more closely focused on this period in time in which she is at the center of movie culture.

At the same time, she's at the center of kind of like our popular sports and entertainment culture. And you very deftly noted that alex rodriguez who was her partner at the time has been completely cut out of this film so if you're if you're watching really closely which i obviously was um because this is peak a rod and and jlo together you can see him in a crowd shot as i as they're leaving a performance. I can't remember which one. And then I honestly, there's a scene at the Thanksgiving dinner, which is like clearly staged for, you know, the cameras or whatever.

There's a joke about a dog and there's a man holding the dog. And you can see the shoulders. You can see the person's torso holding the dog. But you cannot see who it is holding the dog and i was like is that literally alex rodriguez holding the dog and they're not showing his face i don't know but i think it's possible that that that's what happened because he's just been completely excised from the movie was there one sentence of into camera interview from ben affleck in this film yes it was only one appearance right yeah just one quote and it says ben affleck no nothing

identifying who he is and it's and it's great it's about ben affleck has been extraordinarily insightful about the media coverage of his relationship with Jennifer Lopez. And he's a great media critic. If you are interested in this, please listen to Just Like Us, which is Clara Malone's podcast on the Ringer Dish feed that opens with an episode about Bennifer and Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. So he has been really smart about how the media covers her and the sexism and racism involved in it but yeah so he does that one quote and that's it that's all I thought that was so interesting to only feature him in that very discreet way um the thing that is most interesting to me about this movie it will probably come as no surprise to people listening right now, is that it really tracks her investment in the awards campaign for her performance in Hustlers,

which at the time, you can go back and listen to the episodes, you and I were like, this is a no-brainer, just nominate this person for an Oscar. This is a great performance, it's a pretty solid movie, there's not going to be a ton of performances that are significantly better than what she is asked to do in this movie, lock it and then they didn't reward her in fact they gave scarlett johansson like a second nomination that year for jojo rabbit for reasons that are lost on me completely one of the stupidest things that the academy has done in recent memory and as we know they have done a lot of tremendously stupidest things in the last five years but what's so fascinating about this documentary is that it was clearly conceived as a movie about her coronation about doing the show and getting an oscar nomination and being at the center of culture in the same time and

jennifer lopez ready made a narrative about herself at the center of culture but really like also movies being at the center of culture which But really like also movies. Being at the center of culture. Which the Oscars desperately need. And they had someone doing all of the work for them. And then just fucking left it at home. I'm so angry. Also she's fantastic in that movie. Who's so stupid.

The Academy stinks. But I agree with you. That it was so fascinating. To watch the behind the scenes machinations. And the scene that really stuck with me is the golden globes play an outsized role in this film because she actually did get that nomination and so she goes and she loses to laura dern and they have that scene of her coming back to her team having lost the golden. You and I spend a lot of time certainly making fun of and dismissing the Golden Globes, which are a nightmare organization, but talking

about how this is made up and these are just fancy people handing each other trophies and like, who cares and yada yada. And I don't spend a lot of time thinking about how people who lose these awards feel. And I'm not sure that Jennifer Lopez is like representative of how everyone feels when they lose an award, but it was fascinating to watch her respond to it, to watch everyone like really think it was going to happen for it to matter to them, for her to not get it, for her to process it. I was like, wow, I've never seen this. This is amazing that this is on tape and being released on Netflix. I had the same reaction as you. It is a remarkable artifact of awards campaigning, of the way that we think about how these people feel. And she externalized

something that many people believe to be true, which is these people really want to win things. If you've ever been nominated for anything, you know, like you want to win. There's no downside to winning, period. And Jennifer Lopez, you know, she's now in her fifties. She wants to be recognized for the good work that she's done over the years. She obviously worked very hard to make hustlers very good, but she did something something and i think some people in the industry will consider this a sin that she committed which is that she showed how much she wanted it and then she put it in a documentary and you're not supposed to do that you are supposed to keep that inside you're supposed to say it would be an honor and i would be so grateful but there's so much good

work out there and you know we'll see the chips will fall as they may. And I don't think she'll ever get nominated for anything after putting this in a movie because you can't show them that weakness because they don't want to reward that. It reminds me so much of like Burt Reynolds and Sylvester Stallone, these sort of like older actors who've been nominated, who seemed a little bit desperate and a little bit aggrieved by the way they have been overlooked by this part of the business. And she really put that out there. Now, obviously, Jennifer Lopez, they're showing us this entire kind of industry, this cadre of supporters that she has, her manager and her producing partner and her assistant and her makeup person and this whole world of humans who just exist to support JLo.

And so that showed us like that a team does have to make her feel better as opposed to, I don't know, if you were Florence Pugh that night and you're a rising star, maybe you have two people like that in your life at this point. And Florence Pugh five years from now will have 20 people as well. But there is differentiation and she has, Jennifer Lopez lopez come a long way and so the idea that she had done exactly what you described which is sort of like prepare her moment and literally have cameras capturing her and then for it to not happen in that exact way and to watch benny medina the famed manager like borderline in tears because the hollywood foreign press

association which is made up of like criminals and fools, not rewarding Jennifer Lopez, who's like a multi, multi, multi, multi-millionaire genius, brand icon, you know, hero to Latino women and all people, person who's like accomplished more than almost anybody in the 21st century. And also just like a, in addition to everything that you just said, is an incredibly savvy industry, like person who has built this entire career and even built this documentary and this narrative,

this, but like understands the media. And sometimes it's gotten away from her, but I was shocked that she was so disappointed. I genuinely was like, I can't believe that you didn't understand that this might go another way because you are someone who is so in control of so much, not just of what you're doing. And she works so hard. And I think it's just so cool to see someone as successful as Jennifer Lopez being like, yeah, because I worked really hard because this is, because you have to try. But she also does seem to understand how so much of this plays out.

And I, like, I was so surprised, honestly, that she was like, oh, I'm really sad. I really cared about this. It revealed to me that she was not native to those waters, that she had not been talked about as a potential nominee for anything in a long time. Yeah. That she lost sight of maybe how that game is played.

And there's a moment in the movie where she's reading something on her phone and she uses the phrase prestige film outlets, I think. And she's like seeing herself situated. She's reading a review from Glamour magazine, which is a place that I worked and loved working there. But, you know, it's not like the number one film. It's not Coyote Cinema. Sure. Yeah. And they just don't focus on film.

And she is so moved by this like one random blog post that is talking about how she's finally getting her due. She's overcome with emotion. And I thought that was really beautiful. And then I was also just like really alarmed because I just wanted to get in a room with her and be like, you know, we gotta have some perspective here. Like just not, you know, not just the one blog post.

I thought it was fascinating how many like media clips even about her Oscars campaign made it and like and literal blog posts screenshots of who will win jennifer lopez like i you know it makes you think a lot about what you're saying out in in the world or at least made me think about that i was very afraid i'm i you know i yeah it's your fault yeah i know you ruined i know the winter of 2020 for jennifer you know what it's the Academy's fault. I mean, you know, it's not a homogenous body, but the voters there, you got to know better.

Like to not put Jennifer Lopez at your ceremony. That was just incredibly stupid. Anyhow, I thought this was a really interesting film. It is very much an infomercial for Jennifer Lopez's brand, but we just don't see, I mean, Jennifer Lopez is like wearing no makeup and just waking up in the morning and talking about her life in seemingly honest terms. as his brand, but we just don't see, I mean, Jennifer Lopez is like wearing no makeup and just waking up in the morning and talking about her life in seemingly honest terms.

And she's managing those terms, but she, it's unusual. We don't get something like this very often. So I appreciated it. That's it. I mean, like this, the fact that all of this stuff that we just talked about, this agglomerated stuff, this pile of streaming material these all just movie formats these movie formats are all just like in our lap is it and the world is like you know open yeah we're back you know yeah certainly covid is not gone i'm not suggesting

that but in los ang, there's no mask. You don't have to wear a mask anywhere. So is it good now that we just shifted this whole entertainment apparatus? Now, I know you, a new mother, there's a convenience factor here that you appreciate. But think outside of your personal experience for a second. Well, we've talked about this before that COVID, it obviously did change some things, but it also accelerated what were already existing viewing habits in the sense of it's just easier to watch stuff now with all of the streaming services. And they just,

they really do just keep dumping stuff at you. And so if you become used to watching stuff at home, then it changes your calculation of when and how you go to the movies. See also Lightyear to circle back that we love to circle back at the end of a podcast. So like, is it good? Is it bad? I don't know. It's done. I like I really do. I think it's done. And I don't think that even as everything opens up and Top Gun makes like $100 billion, many of which are my dollars. Just kidding. I've only seen it twice. I'd love to see it again if anyone's offering.

You need someone to pay for you to see Top Gun Maverick a third time? You can afford it. No, I need someone to watch Knox. Oh, I see. Or I need to bring Knoxx to do you think nox would like top gun bring nox over to our house okay nox and i'll watch mad god and you can see top gun maverick okay that sounds great i don't know i just it's things are different and people have streaming services in their lives and i understand that the business models of all of that... That's what I'm saying.

That's where I was headed with this, which we're learning very clearly that all the stuff that we freaked out about in 2020 and Jason Kylar's plan to do Day and Date for HBO Max original films, which has been completely reversed, and now HBO Max, when they make films, they will be more like Father of the Bride, which would be directly for the services.

The quality is a little bit lower than a theatrical release, which is what would have been the theme of this conversation. The entire business has shifted towards streaming. We realize that streaming is not necessarily as financially solvent as theatrical was, but we've also changed viewer habits. I'm kind of regurgitating this conversation from the last three years, but this weekend, it really dawned on me as I was thinking about this episode. And I was like, oh, all this stuff is here now. Like it's June 20th

and there's only one new movie in theaters. One new movie? Yeah. What? Like what? Surely there's more money to be made in movie theaters. Like, come on. Yeah, but doesn't this also feel like the COVID glut moment?

Like both the COVID glut and the COVID hangover, I guess, of these a lot of things that either were made in COVID or got, you know, didn't quite pin out or don't make sense in theaters. We have access to those, but we've also run out of the big budget, you know, pre-COVID stuff. It does. You're right about that. But I think that that's separate and distinct from the patterns of production and release that we may see in the future. So...

No, everything's changed. I, you know, and we're not going to get as many high quality, expensive, hundred dollar, a hundred million dollar movies. Yes. I think that's really what I'm, what I'm, we knew, we knew this. I apologize for kind of repeating a point we've made many, many times, but it is, it is official. You know, it's like, it's Spiderhead.

It's Father of the Bride. It's Good Luck to You, Leo Grand. It's, you know, Fire Island. It's Cha-Cha Real Smooth, all of these movies, varying degrees of quality, varying budgets, some of which feature notable names, some of which feature rising stars, all of which 25 years ago would have been films that were released in movie theaters, none of which were released in movie theaters this weekend. And so it's a marking of time and the changing of the way that we consume this stuff. And some would say for better, some would say for worse, there's a lot of time and like the changing of the way that we consume this stuff.

And some would say for better, some would say for worse. There's a lot of availability for some of this content. There's a lot of opportunity for people to tell stories now that we didn't have before. But I like going to the movies. Yeah. And the execution is still lacking, you know? It is. It's not. It's which, to be fair, a lot of really bad movies were released in theaters in the 80s and 90s and 2000s.

No doubt about it. We're going to talk about a new movie. I'm not going to reveal whether it's a good movie or a bad movie quite yet. Oh, yeah. Later this week. I couldn't remember, but yes. We're talking about Baz Luhrmann's Elvis. We sure are.

One of the more fascinating documents of movie culture in recent times we're going to talk about music biopics we're going to talk about Walk Hard I think I think we have to talk about Walk Hard

Adam Naiman's going to come by so please stay tuned to the show thanks to Bobby Wagner for his work on today's episode appreciate him as always

and we'll see you next week Thank you.