The Big Picture - The 10 Best Movies of 2022 … So Far

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

Sean invites an all-star cast of Ringer contributors to share their favorite movies of the year. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Rob Harvilla, Charles Holmes, Van Lathan, Rob Mahoney, Adam Nayman, Joanna Robinson, Mallory Rubin, Chris Ryan Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the best movies of the year so far. We're at the halfway point of 2022, so we're going around the ringer carousel to talk about our favorites this year. We are, of course, starting with Amanda Dobbins. Amanda, has it been a good movie year for you?

Kind of an unusual movie year for you? Yes, there are a couple of blackout months, you know, where I just I'm not completely caught up. I'm trying to decide now whether I will ever catch up or whether I should just declare, is it a mulligan? Is that the golf term? Will I ever see the Northman, Sean? It's really TBD. It's streaming on Peacock right now. Maybe the subject of conversation later in this episode. I'm not surprised.

So this is not a complete list from my perspective. This is kind of what I managed to see I also you've asked everyone to to recommend to pick their favorite movie of the year so far and obviously my favorite movie of the year so far is Top Gun Maverick but um the people have gotten their content from me on that one so I thought I would like clear the space let someone else speak about that so i i chose two other films that are movies that i've seen which is one important characteristic and are are my favorite do i feel like this is a comprehensive like official answer no i really don't but i've had i had a great time watching both of these films the two films that you've chosen, I would suggest, represent the polarity of Amanda.

Thank you. I try. That they are the full scope of your taste and point of view in the world. So what are they? You know, blogging isn't dead. It just lives on in this podcast.

The first is this serious, not even that serious, but the high art, I recommendation which is petit maman which is uh celine siama's latest film celine siama also obviously directed portrait of a lady on fire one of my favorite movies of the last five years um this technically was released in 2021 internationally but neon did its thing where it gives it like a short awards run and it was released in 2022. I saw it in 2022. So I am counting it. And you can stream it now as I did. I just thought it was an extraordinary 72 minute picture perfect film. And this is the kind of thing, it's like a short story version of movies. And I am obviously just philosophically opposed to short stories, um, as a form, but in this case,

I think it works perfectly. Um, and it's the short version is it's about a young girl who meets the young version of her mother in the forest, basically. That makes it sound a lot more fantasy, magical, you know, elfish than it is. It's actually just a really lovely story about a young girl and her mother and parents and kids and grief, I suppose. And also just like being a child and childlike wonder. But I have to say, it was just amazing to turn something on, on my TV and just be like,

Oh, just a very talented filmmaker just made this. Like it just, it looks good. The composition, the pacing, there's a real sense of place. I believe this is also a COVID-esque film just in the sense that it was made after March 2020. But you don't feel any of the limitations. You know, constraints make great art. It is sometimes said in this case, that was completely true. Amazing child performances. I just, it was delightful and surprising and refreshing.

And then I, you know, I have thought about it while also only having to devote 72 minutes of my life to it, which thank you for, you know, keeping things concise. So that's Petit Maman, which I do think you can rent wherever you rent stuff. You can rent it on iTunes, Amazon, et cetera. I did see it in 2021, though. It's legitimately a 2022 film.

I think U.S. audiences really didn't have an opportunity to see this unless they were on the award circuit. And it's like a beautiful, soft jab after the uppercut of Portrait of a Lady on Fire. It's an interesting way to follow up such a magnificent, swooning, gorgeous movie with something that is way more brought down to earth. But I love it.

I'm glad you picked that. What's your, you have a B side here. Yeah. It's the first 80 minutes of deep water. You ready? 80 is like, I mean, maybe for 60 minutes. I don't know. Everything before the last 30 minutes.

You're crazy if you didn't think that I was going to take this opportunity. To talk about my guy Adrian Lyon. Just making a movie about Ben Affleck. Being weird as shit. I just. And this is really. Every great director should just make a movie.

About Ben Affleck. That's what happened with Gone Girl. And it was just like tremendous. I just let's keep having all of our tours just look at ben affleck and then try to make a movie about what's going on there because it's always weird fascinating riveting results he is it's not too late for jean-luc godard he's 91 years old He can still make his Affleck movie. I just... This is extraordinary.

I don't... I think the first 80 minutes are really enjoyable. If not totally good, but enjoyable. And they scratch a lot of the Adrian Lyne, you know, itch,

both, I guess, in terms of erotic thriller, but certainly in terms of beautiful homes and people just living really well. How can I get access to the level of child care provided in this film? Move to Louisiana, I think. OK, first of all, has Adrian Lyne ever been to Louisiana with another thing that I wrote

down while watching this film? Whatever. But these people all have children and they are partying every night, all night long. I talked to my dad and my stepmom

over the weekend and we were talking about child rearing and they had a kid, Grace, my little sister who's been on the show before. And Grace was a little bit

like the kid in this movie. Obviously, my dad and my stepmom were not getting up to the same stuff that ben affleck and anna de armas are getting up to but like she was a party to many a party you know she she was present at the age of six at times where there were a lot of adults having a good time and that's just the parenting style you know that's just the thing that some people will do i'm just talking about the logistics of they all seem to be having like weekend sleepovers every weekend for, you know, midnight pool parties, which no spoilers where other things ensue. So I wasn't aware that you could just have all night babysitters every week.

I guess if you're a chip developer and have those kind of resources as Ben Affleck does. You just nailed it. But I think you and I, as we glide softly into our 40s, we should get that energy going. Just all night pool parties, just like Knox and Alice can figure it out. We got this. What's important is pot cookies and insane illicit affairs for no good reason and psychological damage and beautiful homes in the American South. I think it's all in play. You're going to get really into snails?

What the fuck, Dan? I forgot. The snails aren't for eating is a real thing that Ben Affleck said in a movie. Can you put any context on it for the listener who has not seen deep water um so ben affleck's weird character who is a retired chip developer who i think developed chips for drones is that right because there's like got it yeah there are like two sentences of unexplored drone politics uh in the in the middle of the film. And so with his retirement time, he divides it between having a just very unorthodox relationship with his wife,

wife, Ana de Armas and tending to his snails. Are they poisonous snails or is it just that someone could figure out how to use the snail poison against someone that could turn the snail ooze into poison or whatever? I don't know. It's just Ben Affleck in a creepy, like, converted garage, not unlike yours, Sean, tending to his snails. What if that would be so amazing if you just, like, opened up that little part of your garage unit and there were just, like, a ton of snails what if that'd be so amazing if you just like opened up that that little part of your your garage unit and there were just like a ton of snails in it that'd be so gross

you should get into it you really should i mean we'll see how uh how my wife treats me you know if i need to take up a hobby like that to eventually seek revenge you know we'll have to just wait and see this is a highly illogical, somewhat incompetently edited movie that I thought was a lot of fun. And it's the kind of movie that I saw a lot of people really like getting their daggers out to explain like why it's not good. I'm not really interested in that version of criticism. Like take a load off. Have some fun. This movie is an event.

It is an unusual circumstance. Try to have some fun this movie is an event it's it is an unusual circumstance try to have some fun with it i mean i have no idea who directed the last 30 minutes of the movie which i believe were part of the reshoots um i'm certain that it was not adrian line so i the the ending is and poor tracy letts who is asked to do some truly unbelievable things not poor tracy letts he's having the time of his life that That is true. I mean, it does look like a lot of fun. He's thriving as an actor right now.

This guy who was a playwright in Chicago for years and years, celebrated but certainly not wealthy, now he's just crushing it as a head coach in Winning Time. He's the foil to Ben Affleck in a major motion picture. He's having the time.

Married to Carrie Coon? What a king. No, it's true. Okay, you're right. His character makes no sense. The resolution of this movie makes no sense. I got to say, as a person who is not a euphoria person, I really get Jacob Elordi now.

It took about a minute on screen and I was like, oh, I get it. Oh, I totally get it. And I would say he does not have a huge role in this film, but he still made an impression on me. One of the least logical characters of all time. He's a hotel piano player? Sure, yeah. A jazz pianist.

Sure. Sure. Yeah, sure he is. Yeah, of course. He screams Louisiana too, Jacob Elordi, for sure. You know, Sam Levinson is a co-writer on this movie, the creator of Euphoria, and I suspect that Sam Levinson was involved in this film.

Well, I'm just going to say, Sam Levinson does have a way with picking out the next generation of stars. I was like, oh, I see. I see. And then I really don't want to spoil what happens with Finn Wittrock. But I, first of all, love Finn Wittrock. So I was really glad to see him. And then that gif, you know, the one I'm talking about, I just I can't. Is it a gif?

Is it on the Internet yet? Have people decided to spoil the movie so that we could have that? Because it's extraordinary. I just I burst out laughing, paused it, rewound, made Zach come into the room to watch it I can't believe it happened you just have to be grateful when people commit this stuff to film and you can watch it in your home I I'm so glad that the Ana de Armas Ben Affleck relationship was memorialized in this way I'm so glad we got a new Adrian Lyon film. I mean, I have a whole, you know, if this were rewatchables, I would do 20 minutes on what is the layout of this home? Like, do they have a guest unit? I don't really understand, you know, but I miss being able to nitpick a

fabulously designed, completely unbelievable home in a weird, not that erotic, erotic thriller. Like, awesome. Thank you so much for your time, everyone involved. Amanda, thank you for your time and for your sterling recommendations of Petit Maman and Deepwater. They are perfectly you. We'll see you soon on The Big Picture.

Okay. Okay, we're here with CR. Chris Ryan is going to share with us his favorite movie of 2022 so far. Was this hard for you? Easy for you? Honestly, pretty easy. When you really get down to brass tacks, did you have a better time at the movies than like the last five years in Top Gun Maverick?

It's a hell of a pick. You're getting in early. Okay, last five years in Top Gun Maverick? It's a hell of a pick. You're getting in early. Okay. Why do you, why did you love Top Gun Maverick so much? We didn't talk about it here on the pod. Yeah. I mean, I just felt like it made me exercise muscles. I hadn't exercised in a while.

And I think most of that is because with all due respect to a lot of those. Is that a reference to your crotch? What are you talking about? No, it's to my, my right wrist that has to always do all of the dog fighting, but I've ruined it with blogging. I can't dog fight anymore. I just felt like in this movie theater, it took me back to the feeling I had

when I was a kid first falling in love with the movies, which is not to say that you can't do that now anyway or that there aren't moments in Ragnarok where you're like, fuck, this is amazing, but I just felt like in in top gun maverick it kind of took me back to my favorite blockbuster movie theater experiences and that it was just a really simple if unbelievable story told very very well very cleanly and and as a central performance that's unbelievable. It's basically like a master class in movie star acting. It's sweet.

It's funny. And I thought that the action set pieces were like among the best of the decade. Yeah, so like I said, we have not had a chance to discuss this one

even really in real life. I'm not sure if we've spent much time talking about it. We even cracked a couple of Miller Highlifes and just been like, brother,

what did you think of Fanboy? It's so funny you say that because Miller Highlife, of course, is the champagne of beers. And I think it was the champagne of movie podcasters. Not every day.

And this is the champagne of blockbusters. That's right. It really is the champagne of blockbusters. So I, of course, nerd that I am, was most interested

in how they did it, how they put us in the world of the dogfighting pilot. What'd you think of the way that they created this movie i'm it's it's like one of the fucking coolest things i've ever seen i wish i could make it a little bit more interesting but like i i do feel like it was kind of like you know have you ever seen colors before getting to see these kinds of practical effects combined with obvious vfx stuff getting to see actors acting like they actually are in these zero g or however many g's like environments the kind of physical impact that kind of stuff must have on you i can't

i won't lie i did watch um a x top gun pilot reacts to top gun maverick youtube video uh what were the takeaways there they were like it's pretty good you know they were like it's hard to do some of this stuff like when they the the two inverted dive and then going back up and then diving again he's like that might be hard to pull off and i think this guy was it was him and an ex-navy seal talking and i think they both were like we have some questions about like the validity of this mission and like the enemy and why it's like the only two the only way that we can get to this bunker is these four planes flying a suicide mission but it was cool they they approved the message and um well let's just take a step back for a second i would like to challenge those men who i'm sure served honorably to say that to Tom Cruise's fucking face. All right. I dare them to question

his authority. As a captain in the United States Navy. That's right. Question Caffey at your own peril. Yeah. I think that the thing I loved also about this movie is because in a year and in a several year run here where I think I'm always thinking about what is coming next in a story and what came before and what do I have to know about going into a story? You can have never seen Top Gun before, have watched Top Gun the previous week, had seen Top Gun in 1992 on a VHS tape and haven't thought about it much since then, and have the same deeply connected emotional experience to what happens in this movie. I love that point. I think that's right on, which is that we don't feel like, even though there are lots of callbacks, we don't feel like

we need to be in this long chronology of storytelling. He rode the motorcycle in the first one. It's still fucking cool when he rides the motorcycle in this one. It doesn't matter. It's just a nice gesture. Completely agree. completely agree now that being said would you be excited by rooster and hangman go to have mission x in 2025 i would need to know a little bit more about the socio-political landscape that these guys are flying in because right now we just have the enemy and it you know in a non-distinct geographical location i'd love to get into a little bit more like the nitty-gritty you know yeah what you think they should take on like cancel culture what do you think they should do no but it's like if these guys can do that

with these two inverted dives like like is putin off the table what are we talking about what about space? Oh yeah. I mean, that's next for Tom, right? Do you think dead reckoning part two winds up in space? I think he's going to be on the astral plane. You know,

I think he's just going to be like in another existence entirely. Like he's going to leap dimensions. It's going to be incredible stuff. I can't wait for that. Uh, what else do you want to say about Top Gun? You know, you're a red blooded heterosexual American man,

Jennifer Connelly. How'd you feel about that? It was, you know, I've been-blooded heterosexual American man Jennifer Connelly how'd you feel about that it was you know I've been a huge fan of her work since career opportunities I thought she actually was a very plausible

romantic partner for Tom Cruise which is not something that you can say for every single person in a Tom Cruise movie especially the last 15 years yeah I

thought her performance was good as well I thought it was really sweet too honestly like I thought it was really sweet too. Honestly, like I thought it was like, it was like kind of like, this is nice.

Like they're not like, they're not embarrassing themselves, but they're not also being like, this is the bridges of Madison County. You know, this is like right age appropriate. I don't mean to seem too glib by asking you this question, but there was an expose quote unquote recently published about how this film

is military propaganda. Um, which I think a lot of people, even those who are inclined to agree with that point of view found to be kind of a joke do you have any misgivings no any at all entirely because i mean like i was joking about this socio-political landscape but like do you really even have to think about the world while you're in this movie it's the same thing as the last time with like, oh, the MiGs. It's like, it's not real. It's not like this isn't about like imperialism. Sure it is.

Maybe it's a product of that, but like no more so than some multinational corporation being like, wouldn't it be amazing if a caped crusader really brought crime down in the city? You know, it's like. Well, okay. With that in mind then, do you like the idea the theory that this is in fact maverick's death dream i love it i'm really into it and i think it actually like

if you map it onto this movie it's actually pretty flawless and i wouldn't put it past christopher mccorry to be like i'm gonna have my cake and eat it too. So the idea is basically that the reason why everything is so vague about who the enemy is, where this is, why only Maverick can do this. Why, despite the fact that Jon Hamm's like, you should be out of the Navy,

but here take the most important job in the history of the U S military is because he dies early in the film. And that this is his sort of purgatory dream to make amends with various characters throughout his life. And I love that. It's an extraordinary reading. And if there is even a shred of intent there, it makes it even more exciting.

If they had discussed that in the room, it's magical. That being said, I find it hard to believe because we know that Tom Cruise says that he will not and in fact will not die and so because of that I don't think that he would have signed off on this particular concept any closing thoughts on

Top Gun Maverick CR no I just can't wait I want to see it a couple more times in the theater before it leaves and one of the coolest things about it is just its legs and I'm glad that it's like kind of a throwback to like the summer movies that we grew up with where it's like you just know Top Gun is going to be in theaters till August. So, you know, like you can go check it out if you're bored on a Sunday. You know, one thing that I want to do with you this

summer is a little offense defense football, you know, shirts off striding across the beach. Yeah, but jeans on when I throw jeans, of course. Yeah. Well, I always wear jeans at the beach, don't you? Yeah, I only wear jeans when I play football now. Okay, Chris, Thank you so much. I like a real slim cut. Yeah. You want to protect but show off the joystick.

Thanks, Chris. Van Lathan is back. What's up, Van? What up, what up, what up? We're talking about the best movies of 2022. You chose a film that's on Netflix. What movie did you pick? Hustle, starring Adam Sandler.

I loved it. So tell me why. What'd you love about it? I'm to the point in my life where I want low concept, high execution movies. And I think this is one of those. I'm watching this film and I'm like, this is a movie they used to make all the time. There was an era, right? There was a movie called Heaven is a Playground.

It was a basketball movie. There was Blue Chips, which gave you some basketball people in the film, as well as being about the culture of basketball, right? There was the air up there, which this movie is very similar to. It is. In terms of go to a foreign country. White man goes to a foreign land, discovers a talent. Discovers a talent. Brings them back, right?

But also, look, a lot of the things in the film are very familiar the performances are good the movie moves at a good enough pace it's got that weird sports movie suspension of disbelief to where the moment in this film the moment in this film that people are even talking about uh the cruise missile as a potential 10 pick, his troubles in life are over. It's not about whether or not he goes number one or number two. It shows that the moment that he's going to get drafted, his life is over. He's already done it.

He comes from hooping in Spain, in Thames, to legitimately being a lottery pick in the NBA without having played organized basketball in a long time it is a fantastical story but still it's grounded in all the things that a good sports movie are grounded in it's sheldon-esque if i will um in the in the simplicity of the story and just how uh all the the things kind of come together to make a very simple yet powerful and moving story at the end of this you're happy for the cruise missile at the end of this you're happy uh for adam sandler's character and i think that you know i wanted

to be entertained by a movie and i was entertained by a movie so i'm saying that this is a great film like for me for what it was it's a great movie so i for what it was, is a good way to frame it because there's a version of this movie that is very bad, that features a lot of real life figures from the NBA giving bad performances. And one of the things that distinguishes it, I think, you know, it's well directed. It's pretty well written. Sandler is charisma machine. And when he's trying as an actor, he's actually one of the weirdly more reliable people we have now when he's giving that dramatic effort. But Wancho, Hernan Gomez, the other star of the movie, and Anthony Edwards, ostensibly the villain in the movie, are both pretty great. And Anthony Edwards, I was like, yo, this is kind of giving me like

Tupac in the 90s energy. I think I compared him to Bishop when we talked about it the first time on the on the show where did you i don't think i even knew anthony edwards was in this movie until it started did you know he was going in this direction i'd seen some clips on uh twitter of him being an absolute fucking menace and i'm like what is this from because i had no clue about hustle just to let you know i would see i would see these weird videos of adam sandler and pickup games with fucking trey young and all of these people and i would be like why like how did this happen now we know right they're making the movie and they're having some pickup games but i'm like why are they calling adam sandler to get these weird yet effective dimes in in these nba pickup games right um so i didn't know i actually saw a clip of of um of edwards on twitter which is what made me go seek out the

movie like i didn't have any yeah and that guy is going to be, in my opinion, one of the most interesting sports celebrities of the next 10 years, bar none. Definitely. Like bar none. And it oozed across in the movie. honcho he managed to give a performance that is slightly above the ray allen jesus shuttlesworth shaquille o'neal um sort of yeah deal right what about george marison and my giant where does he in that in that power rankings. Bite your tongue. Bite your tongue. You a fan of My Giant?

I don't know why that movie. My Giant and Eddie. My Giant and Eddie. Those movies both have very special places in my heart as far as the 90s are concerned. I don't know why I liked My Giant. I was a big George Mirorge miroslav fan though um but yeah so the movie it was just you know what it was sean it was just a cool little movie bro queen latifah in a very understated role she is literally one of the biggest stars in the whole goddamn town and she somehow managed to show up in this movie for four

scenes five at the most let me ask you one thing, though. Queen, obviously, she's extremely talented, very successful. She's the equalizer, as we know. I don't believe that she and Adam Sandler are married at all.

And there's a variety of reasons for that. But I did share this with some friends. I was like, if you just swap Queen with Nia Long, I'm like, I buy it.

I believe it. And I just, I wanted that. Like, I wanted to believe, because their marriage and his relationship to his daughter is the other kind of critical component in the story. It's this guy who's a scout and he's trying to kind of get his name back on the map

inside the Sixers organization because he's been pushed aside after the death of the owner. But also he's a family man and he's trying to balance the hard life of a scout on the road around the world with being a father and being a husband. And I'm watching the movie and I believed Adam Sandler throughout most of the movie. And then when I see Adam Sandler and Queen Latifah talking to each

other, I'm like, that's Adam Sandler and Queen Latifah having a conversation. That's not the characters in my movie. And that's not necessarily their fault, but it's the challenge of sometimes when you get these megawatt celebrities who are, frankly, almost more known for being celebrities than they are for their acting performances. Did you bump on Queen appearing as the wife in this movie? You're making an amazing point, and it's very true. I'll tell you what the thing is, though. I think, and this is not at all highbrow film critique here, I think that I was so far down the road

of this could never happen that I was just buying it at this point. You know what I mean? I like, they didn't work, but something about them not working made them work to me. The movie has this weird herky-jerky energy to it. He's getting in a car behind a guy making him run up a hill in the morning this little creed in this whole situation

that to me a neil long or an actor that he maybe had more chemistry with because there was no chemistry with queen latifah it would have been it wouldn't have been this film. This movie has a little weirdness. Ben Foster, bro, is weird in this movie. He's weird. His character, to be honest with you, doesn't really work. Like, not for me. He's in a different movie. He's doing a much more outsized comic performance in this very quasi-real sports movie.

But, you know, I didn't talk about this the first time we talked about the movie on the show, but I want to bring it up to you really quick now. You know, The Ringer, obviously, of course, is responsible for the original reporting

on the Brian Colangelo burner account story some years ago. The Ben Foster character in this movie, unmistakably, some Brian Colangelo energy, you know,

son of a very successful NBA figure, outsized collars. Perhaps a sense that he thinks he knows more than he actually does. Right. I feel like this might be the ringer signature accomplishment is that we contributed to a story that led to the inspiration in an Adam Sandler movie. I feel really good about this. Yo, this is a very ringer movie, bro. I know. I know. We should have done more with it. adam sandler movie i feel really good about this yo this is a very ringer movie bro i know i know

we should have done more with the guy the guy fucking ends up on the celtics i know this is bill's dream player like between the celtics and the sixers you got cr you got bill this is a very ringer i know movie bro the only thing this movie is missing, really, is Mark Wahlberg or Matt Damon. And then you got the all-time ringer movie. It's a very ringer movie, bro. Think about it. The way it talks about sports culture,

think about the juiciness, how it will be covered on our network how much of a jerk edwards is to him on the court oh yeah think about how what we would talk about how we would speculate about what was said this would be super duper juicy it's a very ringer film which is maybe why i like this so much because i'm so inculcated and so brainwashed by everything that's happening. Wait, what is your NBA team? The Lakers. What? The Lakers?

How? Yeah, the Lakers. Well. Not the Orlando Magic or the Dallas Mavericks, a team that is a bit closer to where you grew up? So there's a story. Okay. And so we lived out here in Hawthorne from 90 to like 92. The riots came and we literally left the next week.

My father was like, can't have it. Oh, I didn't know this. Like can't have it. Yeah. So, so the economy got bad in Louisiana. My dad was like, let's try California. We left, we came to California. We were here in 1990. Dude, I saw Boys in Louisiana. My dad was like, let's try California. We left. We came to California. We were here in 1990.

Dude, I saw Boys in the Hood in the movie theater in LA, which is still one of the most surreal experiences of my life. Just kind of the way things were. You told me that, but I don't think I realized you were living here at that time. Yeah. Okay, interesting. We literally left and went back. And while we were here, my dad had a business arrangement with some guy

and they couldn't come to terms on something. My father was a contractor and the guy threw in two Lakers tickets. And I literally went to the Great Western Forum and saw the Lakers play Seattle. And it was nuts. Like I looked at magic fucking Johnson, bro.

Like it was, it was, it was, it was insane. And since then I followed the Lakers, man, I was with the Lakers through the Siddell three years. I was with the Lakers when they put the four all stars together.

I've been with the Lakers for a while. I was a Nick Van Exel Jersey in middle school, the whole nine. You know what I mean? Okay. Well, I see you've come prepared to defend your Laker fandom. It's almost as if you've been interrogated about that in the past, considering where you're really from. Yeah, right. Okay. Well, I'm glad you liked Hustle. Maybe the sequel to Hustle will be about discovering an exciting young talent in Asia for the Los Angeles Lakers. That would be, there could be something to that. Maybe you should write that movie.

Probably, probably a better movie. Let me say something about Hustle real quick. Yeah. Real quick. There's like a good sports movie is, there's a comfort. It's like comfort food. It's comfort cinema. I'm with you. I agree. You see guys, it's a comfort. It's like comfort food. It's comfort cinema. I'm with you.

I agree. It's comfort cinema. You watch these films. You see guys that you recognize. And this movie was really good with all the NBA licensing as well and having the real players. It's this weird meta sort of cinema

that really works when it's done right. And to do it right, you done right and to do it right you don't have to do it good you just have to do it competently and this movie made a real sports story competently with authentic looking basketball which is incredibly important in these movies too there was one with common one time and this motherfucker can't hoop and you can tell by watching the movie that he shouldn't be on the same court with goddamn dwight howard so like this movie was able to this movie this movie was able to get that right and so i enjoyed watching this movie i enjoyed watching watching hustle commons game just catching strays van

thank you so much good to see you. I'll talk to you soon. No problem. Mallory Rubin is here. Hi, Mal. Hello. Mal, you haven't seen a ton of movies this year that exist outside of the ringer versus sphere. It's true. And you could make the case, I think, actually,

that this film that you're you're going to shout out here could have been covered on your show and on the shows on that feed but you guys didn't cover it and you know you and i have not had a chance to talk about this movie yet at all either off mic or on so what was your favorite movie of the year so far everything everywhere all at once what an incredible film which i only saw last week for the first time so it's it's the independent movie phenomenon of the year, a multiversal story of family through the multiverse. Why'd you like it? What'd you respond to?

I loved almost every single thing about it. I think the quickest summation I can give is just how inventive and fresh it was. And as you noted, we cover a lot of sci-fi and fantasy and multiversal stories on Ringiverse. And I think we really are in the era of multiversal storytelling right now in particular. And to be clear, I love those movies. I love those shows. I love the IP machine that generates them, right? But the amount of that that I consume, I think made me even more appreciative of just how vibrant and specific and truly original, this particular genre blend and multiversal tale felt. It was just sublime. So were you familiar with Daniels at all before this movie?

Only through consuming ringer content and existing on the internet, you know? So you had not seen Swiss Army Man? Hadn't. I had seen lots of pictures of the Daniel Radcliffe bloated corpse. That was why I asked because obviously you are a Harry Potter aficionado. I don't know if you consider yourself a Daniel Radcliffe aficionado, but his farting corpse, I feel like that's kind of in your zone of interest, no? It is, yeah. I'm excited to catch up on the full filmography. How did you think Everything Everywhere All at Once actually handled those kinds of storytelling choices? Because it's complicated to do a multiverse story. It's

complicated to wend in something that is as sincere and emotional and kind of family drama as the core part of the story with something as outlandish and big and expansive as this multiversal story. So what do you think about the blend of those two things? That was my favorite thing about it. And that's part of, I think, what made it feel overall so wholly... I think that it's hard for anything to truly feel unique. And so I try not to call almost anything unique. But this is as close to unique, I think,

as a genre movie could possibly feel. And that blend, that harmony of tone and intent is a huge part of why. So you have this like absurdist quality that's permeating the entire thing. You have sci-fi meeting martial arts, meeting fantasy, meeting comedy, meeting action. And all of that is soaring, not only because of the deftness that the Daniels are bringing to the actual craft of the filmmaking, as is everyone involved in the project, the editing is supreme, et cetera. The cast is obviously just phenomenal. But the way that the story centers on those relationships, it's a family story. It's an immigrant story. It's about

the bonds and the understandings across the generations within a family unit and then how a family unit interacts with the world around it. So I just love all of these different mixing and twined elements. boundless possibility, like a true, true, true multiverse. And the Daniels spoke to our Daniel, Daniel Chin, in his great piece on the film for the ringer.com about this, the idea that like a true multiverse has to be infinite, right? And stories that, that cap their interest in examining what the multiverse could be and how it would unfurl and all of the different permutations that, that might be on offer there aren't truly multiversal stories, which I really think is like sharp and insightful and pretty crucial to the task at hand. So you have this vast sea of possibility and then this like seed of nihilism at the center of it. And where do those two things meet? Where do those impulses diverge? How do you get to a point at the end where there's a lot of hope, not only for a central figure like Evelyn, but then the ability to share that hope

with other people. And I think like the, you know, you know, I love in a genre tale or elsewhere, stories that are interested in assessing choice and the impact that our choices have on our lives. And there are few more compelling contexts in which to do that than a multiverse tale, tale the sprawling. So you have Evelyn confronting all of these different versions of herself where she's made different choices and they have led to all of these different outcomes. And the idea that the Evelyn who hasn't experienced as much success and promise as all of these other Evelyns would be the one who could actually unlock something fundamental about existence and relationships. I just think that is so rich and interesting. So I love all that. And then all of it is taking place where? In an IRS building where

they found a secret sex toy chamber in the back of someone's office. This is great. This is inspired. I was about to say that's a very smart insight until you started talking about the sex chamber and then I blacked out. Let me ask you a wider experiential question. Do you believe in the concept of modal realism, the idea that there are, in fact, multiple worlds that are existing simultaneously, that we, in fact, exist in through different modalities, that there are different versions of us

living throughout these expanded and extended universes? My God, what a question. I don't know. I ask myself this a lot, whether I'm watching a movie like this or watching a show like Loki. I just read The Midnight Library, which is a book that is,

but not as good as everything, everywhere all at once, but does engage with a lot of the core ideas and including like sliding into other versions of yourself. You know, I thought about this a lot when watching Devs, a show from a creative mind

we both quite enjoy and admire. Alex Garland, yes. Alex Garland. And I find that the evidence that supports the idea of the multiverse, quantum mechanics, and anything like that,

pretty compelling and hard to refute. But I think that where I am in my life currently, at the age of 35, I have enough existential dread and haven't quite gotten to the point where I'm able

to land on exactly whether I believe in the multiverse or not. What about you? Do you think there's like a Sean? You're Sean 616. Is there a Sean 838 out there who's just like crushing it? It's in play. I think I have to wait until Secret Wars is released until I really know the answer to that, honestly. Anything else you want to cite about Daniels, everything, everywhere, all at once? What do you make of its success? Are you surprised that it's such a big hit? $87 million around the world.

Yeah, I mean, it's a critical darling. It's a box office smash. Certainly in this era of movie going, I know something that you care deeply about. It's like a real boon, right? To see something like this succeeding, not just finding an audience eventually on delay via streaming

or any number of other ways, word of mouth really led to like a theater boom, people going out to see it. something like this succeeding, not just finding an audience eventually on delay via streaming or any number of other ways, word of mouth really led to like a theater boom and people going out to see it. I was really, I really, really, really wanted to see it. And so many people you included who I, you know, trust on the, on the, on the matters of movies, uh, really just sung the praises in a way that I was sure I would love it. And I just didn't get to see it until it was on streaming and adored it. It was so delighted in retrospect to realize like how many people had gone to see it and support it in that way. So that's just awesome.

I mean, I think that, you know, look, I again, I spent an extraordinary amount of my time watching, you know, Marvel and Star Wars and all of these other things, DC. And it's like a thing I love and really enjoy spending my time on. But it's such a true thrill to see these indie sci-fi fantasy stories popping up. And not only popping up because there are people all over who have interesting ideas and a unique perspective and are excited to try something really bold. And to find that really bold interpretation, reaching people, and then thrilling people, that just gives me more hope that we'll see more things like this in the future. So, raccoon chefs for everyone.

Hot dog finger land for all. You know, I just can't wait to see more movies and read more stories like this. I really think as somebody who just loves, loves, loves genre stories, it's an exciting thing to see, to see the ambition on display here. I loved it. You promised a tight 10 and you delivered a nine. Thank you so much, Mallory. Thank you, Sean. What's in this McDonald's bag?

The McValue Meal. For $5.79 plus tax, you can get your choice of Junior Chicken, McDouble, or Chicken Snack Wrap, plus small fries and a small fountain drink. So pick up a McValue Meal today at participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. Prices exclude delivery. Well, Rob Mahoney's back. He's here to tell us his favorite movie of 2022. Now, Rob, you're an efficient scorer here on the show.

We've talked about your brevity, but I need you to give me 10 minutes. I need you to do it in a movie that is not about brevity, that is about depth, the soul of man, the true battle amongst us. What's your favorite movie of 2022? You want me to just go like one 10-minute block here just soliloquy this thing?

Yes, uninterrupted the way that the filmmaker might have imagined. Well, I am ready to ride with you, Sean, to the gates of Valhall. I'm ready to howl at the moon. I'm ready to turn the corpses of my enemies into a tableau of a horse. I'm ready to talk about The Northmen. Let's do it.

Let's do it. This is, of course, Robert Eggers' third film. Is it his masterpiece? I don't know. I'm not so sure about that. It could be. It's certainly his biggest movie ever. Not surprised to hear that you dig it. I, of course, dug it too. What did you like about The Northman? I think mostly that it takes this like really basic story idea, right?

Classic revenge kind of thing. And turns into something we've never seen before. And I would say if you think you know what this movie is about based on the trailer, based on the log line, you're very wrong. I think the execution of the movie will surprise you. I think the twists and turns of the plot will surprise you. And one of the best things about it, just figuring out how wrong you are, thinking this is going to be a by the numbers revenge story when there's a lot going on here. So would you describe yourself as a fan of Viking content? Is that something you have any affinity for? Is that a subgenre of people? Is there a

Viking con out there? There's a television show called Vikings that I think is very popular, though I've never seen a single second of that series. There's the Mads Mikkelsen film, Valhalla Rising. What else is there? I mean, I guess you could make the case that there is something Viking-esque about Game of Thrones and the rise of a certain kind of fantasy. And one of the things that's interesting about Eggers' movie is that he aspires to this kind of historical accuracy in his storytelling. And Bobby has just sent us a link to vikingscon.com. Is that a functioning link? Wow.

But so you were not inherently like, this is a Norse mythology that I need to better understand. No. And I think that's honestly part of what makes it really effective. Because as you mentioned, the historical accuracy, or frankly, I'm not a scholar in the field, even if it's not technically accurate, just the specificity of what Eggers has created here is really commendable. And I think it's something that jumps out in this era of legacy IP that we're in where sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad. But regardless, we forget a little bit what world building looks like. And it looks like this. It's not something that's predicated on a movie that came out 30 years ago. It's not really even predicated on your familiarity with Viking lore.

They're going to immerse you in this world of ritual, of mysticism, of intense violence, of obviously this drive for revenge and desire to achieve some kind of immortality or everlasting life. But the specificity of all of that, I think, is what makes this movie such an achievement and how effective it is on screen. Even when you're not really sure what's happening, like why people are smearing blood all over their bodies, but the characters are so convinced of it that you're into it. Is that something that you do before the NBA playoffs begin or at the conclusion of the finals? When you become a bear, when you channel the gods and tap into your inner warrior, what stage of the season is that? Well, see, I do the bear dance before the playoffs for strength, and then leading into the finals, I do the blood smearing with a soothsayer for guidance as I'm making my pick.

You picked so well this year. You picked the Warriors and the Warriors won. Alexander Skarsgård, interesting figure in the world of movies and television, has not actually had as many opportunities as you would imagine to lead a movie like this. He was the star of a Tarzan movie about six years ago that was mostly unsuccessful. He's probably best known for his work in series television, True Blood, Big Little Lies, things like that. Were you a fan of his before this movie? Yeah, I watched the early True Blood seasons. I liked his work there as kind of the other guy, alternative, slightly menacing

figure. I think he's really effective in those kinds of roles. But you can totally see based on The Northmen why someone would talk themselves into a Tarzan movie starring Alexander Skarsgård. It's not just the abs. There is a primal capacity there that he really taps into. And I mean, it's what makes some of those transformational scenes where he and these other berserkers as they're like raiding villages and revving themselves up and like pretty much literally turning themselves into animals as they go. It's what makes the scene so effective is you just see Skarsgård just like full spittle mode,

howling again, literally howling, literally barking, becoming more and more of an animal. He goes to some places in this movie that are really impressive. And I think that a lot of actors are reluctant to go. They want something a little more textured or human, but what he taps into here is distinctly inhuman. Were you a big fan of The Witch and The Lighthouse? Was Eggers,

did he become a person that you closely follow? I actually haven't seen The Witch. I love The Lighthouse though. And I think obviously, if you're a fan of The Lighthouse in terms of the language of that movie, the sense of humor of that movie, it will not surprise you to know that there are multiple fart gags in this movie played to great effect. But I think that kind of translation is very appealing to me of, you see this movie the first time, and the language is so dense, the communication is so dense.

As we talked about, the ritual and the detail of the world is so dense, you're just trying to kind of wade through it and understand what's happening. And it really does reward digging back into it. In this movie, especially the way the plot unspools and unveils itself from beginning to end. When you go watch it a second time, you see everything so, so differently.

And I think there's a really magical, transformative quality to that. So a little bit of concern trolling here at the end of our chat. This film costs nearly $100 million. A big part of the conversation about this film in the run-up to it, including a New Yorker profile of Eggers, was about whether or not this movie could make its money back or whether movies like this could be made in 2022. In fact, it did not make its money back. It made $68 million worldwide. It made less than $50 million in America. And I would imagine that most of the people

that are seeing it are seeing it the way that you just watched it for a second time on Peacock, the streaming service owned by the Comcast Corporation. I assume that this is the last time that Eggers will get a chance to make a movie of this scale. In fact, he sounds kind of excited

to not have to make a movie on this scale again. But I'm curious what your perspective is on it in terms of like these big visionary auteurs who aspire to make their own, you know, who aspire to get a Heaven's Gate budget without necessarily a Heaven's Gate outcome. What do you make of that in the way that we don't see this very often anymore? Well, the way things are going, it seems like these kinds of projects are very rarely commercially successful. Like, I mean, that's much more the exception than the rule. And I guess what the studios are hoping for

is that the exception you get is that big transcendent, all quadrant, word of mouth kind of success. And for whatever reason, the Northmen didn't really get it. I tried to get lots of people to see this movie. I will say there is a slightly higher barrier to entry for this than like a talky drama or something more family oriented because the level of violence in this movie is not

for the faint of heart. Like if you're expecting Thor, Love and Thunder levels of violence, I think you might have a heart attack watching this movie. And so that's limiting the audience as it is on top of, as you're saying, it's inaccessible in some ways. It's intentionally obtuse in some ways. It is a hard sell. But God, I'm glad it got made. I'm glad he got this shot.

I'm glad, you know, whoever great directors need to bamboozle to get movies like this made, I'm glad they're able to do that. Rob, thanks so much for this recommendation. It's a great one. Thank you. Charles Holmes is back. It's been a minute. Host of the Ringer Music Show. One half of the Midnight Boys.

Pew pew. How you doing, Charles? Yo, I'm doing amazing. I'm ready to talk about anime. Yeah. As the people on the Ringiverse tell me all the time, like, Charles, here he is telling us about anime again. So what movie did you pick, and why did you pick it? I cheated a little bit, but this movie did come out in January.

In the States, I'm picking Belle, directed and written by Mamoru Hosoda, and I can't speak highly enough of this film. I love this movie. So I've seen this too. Tell me what you responded to. Well, tell me what it's about and tell me what you responded to about it and why people should check it out, even if they're not hardcore anime heads like you are. So this movie is about, and what I'm about to describe is going to sound like I don't want this but the movie is essentially a Beauty and the Beast tale about the metaverse that's kind of a musical and essentially about what it means to lose people you love what it is to love someone what it means to let go it's very very heady and i'm

always i'm the first person to always say i think most art about the internet is generally bad because most art like most movies tv shows albums cannot be as weird as the internet is in real life and this is the rare movie that felt as chaotic as the internet feels to me every day but was also had this weird earnestness about what technology is doing to us and how it's not all bad uh that it just really it sat with me i love this i love this movie so one of the things that recommends it to me is not just the way that it treats the internet and life online as not just a hellscape like it so often is portrayed as these days, but that is very beautiful. You know, the animation style is so explosive and colorful and unpredictable and obviously anime that's that's kind of inherent in the execution, but this one in particular, like the color palette of this movie is wild. And it renders an internet that doesn't really look like my phone, you know, like, and I think

there's something to that, that just because something is the way that it is, the purpose of a film is to, you know, is to animate our dreams in a lot of ways, right? It's to put ideas that are in our head onto the screen. And so the idea of almost like refracting our experience of the internet into this animation style, I thought was so cool. Like that opening sequence in the movie, like the first 10 minutes of the movie

are just so gobsmacking, so beautiful. Oh, the opening has this song, You by Millennium Parade. And when I tell you it is like a sensory overload, the first time I was in the theater, I was like, what is happening to me? And when you said dreams just now, the best way I can describe it is if you've ever,

what Paprika, another anime film, did for dreams or what Spirited Away did for like death in the afterlife, Belle kind of does for the internet in terms of i generally hate 3d animation in anime but what it does is real life is 2d this internet space is 3d but the way they animate it is so beautiful and so chaotic and the colors are so crisp and so overloading that you're when you're watching it your eyes are darting everywhere kind of like when you're on your phone and you're on twitter one minute then instagram the next and then on google it does have whenever they go into this metaverse type place it kind of does give you that chaotic feeling of being on your phone

it absolutely does i mean you mentioned his soda is the the filmmaker um i guess some people will know him from mirai which is a 2018 film that he made that got some some some recognition here in the states like do you have a big relationship to his work are you are you a big fan of his not a honestly the first movie i saw from him this is the only time time that somebody will probably bring these movies up, but he's known for the Digimon movies. Can you explain what that is? Because this is where I'm a real old head, and I'm like, this is not my generation.

Do you know what Pokemon is? I do, but explain Digimon. So Digimon came out in the States around the same time Pokemon was but Digimon was just like the more extreme version of Pokemon where they were digital monsters and a bunch of kids

were transported into the internet and had to raise these digital monsters but they made two movies of them and the movies animation wise-wise, are some of the most beautiful things I saw as a kid. So it's weird seeing Digimon, which is essentially a story about kids in the internet directed by Hosoda, and then seeing Belle, which is also about kids in the internet, but is way more mature. Digimon came out at a time when like, yeah, they wanted to sell a bunch of Japanese toys and animation to dumb American

kids like me. So see coming to bell as almost a 30 year old. I was like the thing that I will say, I can tell people were like, I don't know if I should check it out. Is that I think it is one of the more smarter movies about what it means to not only be online, but how you take kind of those emotions and really deal with them in an important way. How do you take incels or how do you take internet bullying or all of these things that a lot of

teenagers face and how do you deal with it in the real world? I don't think this movie is perfect with all of that, but some of the things that they do with some of the characters I thought was very, very smart. That's interesting. I mean, great filmmakers all have core themes that they were turned to. And so if, uh, if Kubrick was about the inherent alienation of humanity and Hosoda is about, uhoda is about being on your phone, I guess. I guess that's his métier. And being on your phone isn't always bad. I mean, 99% of it is bad, but sometimes you meet people

that can open your life in ways you never thought of. And there's a twist in this movie that I did not actually see coming. I was just like, this is going to be a dumb love story about Beauty and the Beast and what they do with kind of the relationship between the Beauty and the Beast, Belle, and this dragon type character I didn't see coming and was actually quite affecting at the end of the movie for me. It's a great recommendation. Charles, thank you so much, dude.

Yo, thank you so much, Sean. Woo! Adam Neiman is here to tell us about his favorite film of 2022. Is it the best film of 2022? I'm so glad you're finally going to talk to me about this movie. What is it? I want to talk about Crimes of the Future. And this is a movie that consumed a certain portion, a certain part of my waking life.

I wrote about it, not for this particular outlet. I profiled David Cronenberg for The New Yorker, which is still up on their website. Fancy, right? The only qualification being, I think, that I'm also from Toronto. But we all have those filmmakers. And I have some sense of who they are for you. You have some sense of who they are for you. You have some sense of who they are for me. Our Venn diagrams overlap somewhat. Those filmmakers where it's like it's not a question of good or bad.

It's just when they make a film, it's like you just drop everything and you drop everything to see it and you think about it and you read the reception and you're curious about what people think and then you see it again. And for a lot of reasons cronenberg's one of those filmmakers for me and this film came with an awful lot of hype and then at can it was somewhat anticlimactic that's not me saying it's bad i've chosen to talk about it on this podcast as one of my favorite movies of the year but that expected like shock controversy about how violent or explicit it was didn't really manifest and it didn't win any awards and it's so like bristlingly uncommercial anyway that it's like anticipation anticipation anticipation then it comes out and it like did not set the world on fire

but i've also thought about it a lot since watching it and and re-watching it and i think i'm kind of scraping the surface of what i find so so compelling about it now you i think you loved it right you really liked it i did yeah i think i messaged you as soon as i saw it yeah um i think i think i loved it for a couple of obvious reasons that i probably even a little bit unexplored which is that it felt like as many people have noted like old school cronenberg you know that there was that not just the body horror tropes but the idea of the kind of physical production around the movie, you know, the fact that it felt kind of seamless, the fact that all of the, um, the creature work for lack of a better phrase was sort of so elegant. And the fact that the idea of how the body intersects with the mind and the fact that,

you know, technology is kind of simultaneously pushing us forward, but also poisoning us. Like it, it really felt like in the vein of my favorites of his films. And so it was just nice after a really long time to go back to a story like that, because he hasn't made a movie even close to that since, um, since I guess existence. I mean, it's been a long time. Yeah. And the other thing with it in existence is that it's an original script, right? So, I mean, you know, Cronenberg always shapesberg always shapes his movies and even when he's doing what are considered jobs for hire that didn't originate with him like not just literary sources but like literally history of violence could have been a graphic novel adaptation that someone else could have directed you know eastern promises and movie

someone else could have directed he always shapes it to his stuff and he would say he does so unconsciously but very passionately. He knows what he's interested in. And I guess one of the things people have said about Crimes of the Future that I agree with, it's not just that it's a callback to earlier movies, but it's an illustration of that idea of late style, right? Which is, you are so confident and set in your ways and determined and principled it's like the movie just kind of comes out of you you are not trying to impress i would argue no matter how gooey the premise is like people taking their own organs out on stage and and all that i don't think he's trying to shock anybody i just think that this is his own internal interior logic about as

you say that idea that you know as our bodies, our fate, our bodies might start failing us in sync with our environment. And where do we go in this future that we're living in where everything seems to be again, you know, falling apart. Um, I just think it comes out of him in a way that's very subdued, but also very masterful. And his collaboration with Viggo Mortensen continues to be one of the great miracles in, in recent cinema. They are just so good for each other. They should always work together. I am not bored. Yeah, I completely agree. One, I'll just say, if people have not read your New Yorker piece, it's A+. It's brilliant. And it's such an incredible portal, not just into what makes his work special, but where we find him as a person now.

You know, I mean, is he, he's in his, is he 80? He's close to 80. Very, very close. And, you know, to be doing this kind of work at that age and also the way that this work, I think in like the way that his life thus far informs the work and vice versa

and what it says about aging, I think is really fascinating. I mean, the Viggo Mortensen character is in extraordinary pain throughout this entire movie. The way that you can sometimes feel in pain as you feel yourself getting older. There are sometimes some very obvious ways to read these movies. And you can't help but think as a man enters his ninth decade that he is feeling the agony of aging and the agony of the way that we have lived and the way that the environment is affecting us is informing some of this stuff. And also, like all Cronenberg movies, it's hilarious. I mean, there's some incredible

jokes in this movie. The Kristen Stewart performance is deliriously amusing to me. And it is genuinely unique in a way that only he can be i don't know i i guess it's like a kind of an odd movie to think about in the landscape of movies because as you say like there is something there's something discomforting about it but it's not like brutal in the way that dead ringers is brutal in the way that it's told you know it's and there was all this talk ahead of the can premiere about people you know are going to be walking out and they're going to be sick to their stomachs. And that's not really what it is. I, at least I didn't think so. No, not really. And it, it heads those things off at the past by having multiple scenes that him about his films that he does not know. And he's pretty gracious about that. People have been spending 40 years doing the Chris Farley

show to him. I did it earlier this year. Remember when your movie was about the decay of all things and biological impermanence? He's like, yes, I do know that. But I pointed out to him that he has lots of scenes where there's like amphitheaters in his movies where people go and then something awful happens like scanners and it happens in The Brood and it certainly happens in this. And he, whether it was a good performance on his part or not, he was actually like, yeah, that's true. I hadn't thought of that. And that, you know, I love in Crimes of the Future that we've gotten to the point in a way where entertainment has now just debased itself all the way down to just like people will tear themselves apart on stage. I mean,

performance are like, this is the final frontier and this is what the new avant-garde looks like, but it's also everyone's so over it. Like no one is upset. No one is appalled. No one is scandalized. They all just kind of like want to film it and then have drinks afterwards.

And I think that when you're saying it's a funny movie, that thread of it is particularly funny to me. We should also give a shout as some people have to the fact that nobody, this side of Thomas Pynchon, who he should be compared to more has better character names than David Cronenberg. The names in this movie are off the charts. Great. Like Saul Tenser, Caprice, Whippet, Timlin. The multiple ear guy is called Klinek. I just, I love his names.

I love people, you know, addressing each other by the name Don McKellar's character. Don McKellar, axiom of Toronto cinema, gives a great performance opposite Kristen Stewart in this. I hope that the Kristen Stewart hive, that Kay hive is like, who's her co-star? He's great. Because as a Torontonian, we stand on McKellar for decades now. I just love that people are like, hey, whip it. It's great. The movie that this also reminded me of quite a bit is The Card Counter. In that, that movie, in a way, was sort of Paul Schrader doing Paul Schrader. You know, almost an homage to himself, all the way down to the ending that we've seen in his films before. And I loved it. I loved it for it.

I used to, when I was younger, and I was kind of going through the filmographies of some of these filmmakers, and I would see these echoes or these repetitions in the stories that they were telling, I would somehow get frustrated. I'd be like, why are you doing this again? And as I get older, I completely understand that core themes are what define you as an artist. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's actually something beautiful about kind of returning to those ideas and slightly tweaking them and shifting them and making them a little bit more modernized. But I thought this was a really great movie. In fact, I think it's like downright underrated given the climate of movies

in 2022. So I'm really glad that you're giving it a shout here. And it would make if we're talking about other films that would be on my top 10, probably not by the end of the year. Crimes might be. I mean, the one I'm going to mention won't be in my top 10 by the end, but at the halfway mark it is. What a great double bill this would be with jackass forever absolutely we're all dying slowly that's the story of the movies i'm salt i'm salt tensor welcome to jackass basically you know i mean the the the the aging johnny knoxville in jackass and mortensen in crimes of the future i think would have a lot to talk about about this idea of just like you know what what more can we do to ourselves? What more do you want from our flesh pod bodies? You know, Johnny Knoxville and Jackass Forever's performance of the year for me so far,

I know you didn't ask, but I'm saying I think he's incredible. I have been singing his praises and the work of that film throughout the year since it was released. So I'm with you 100%. Adam, thank you so much. Both great reps. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thanks. Joanne Robinson is back. Joanne, I'm glad you're here. You're going to tell us about your favorite movie of the year so far,

but with a caveat, I think, right? Like that's, it's always a hard prompt, isn't it? Like, can you pinpoint just one best, best your favorite movie of the year so far but with a caveat i think right like that's it's always a hard prompt isn't it like can you pinpoint just one best best movie so far of the year um but of of the plethora of options here um i picked the batman because i thought i should bring some ringer verse representation over into your uh elite movie snobs fear here sean um but actually i think there's a good argument for the batman here um because in and i want to know what you think about this i think the batman sort of similar to dune makes a really good argument for why it still really matters to see movies in the theaters because, um, if you feel safe and you feel comfortable to do so, obviously. But I think what we saw in the release of the Batman,

which hit theaters and then just in that short window, then hit the HBO max streaming is a real gulf between, uh, the people who saw it in the theaters versus the people who saw it at home in terms of enjoyment. Uh, and I think it's because Batman is an admittedly quite a long film, quite slow in parts. And I think that's a hard watch at home. If you're second screening, if you've got kids running around, if you've got things going on, if there's daylight streaming in through your windows,

I heard from people who watched it at home that they couldn't see it. They had trouble with the sound design, all sorts of things and issues I did not have in the theater, despite the fact that I went into this movie saying, do we really need another grim, dark Batman? I'm not really sold on what the DCEU is doing these days, all that sort of stuff. And I came out, you know, as I discussed on this podcast, loving it. So is it a movie that you have to see in theaters to enjoy, Sean? What do you think? It's notable that I haven't watched it a second time. And I almost always see movies this big and that I like this much a second time. And especially when the window is 45 days before they arrive on streaming services. How nice that we live in that world. I would

prefer that this is actually how things go, that movies open in movie theaters. We have a shortened window from the one that we had when we were growing up and that we can revisit them in the near future. Yeah. But I think I had a satisfying experience with the movie and I didn't feel the need to like investigate its its inner life or outer worlds in any deeper way after I saw it and so I have not yet seen it on my home screen my tv my laptop whatever however people watch things now your phone your apple watch I would I would never do that but some people do and hey to them that's fine I suppose I I agree with you I had a great time with it in a movie theater and I thought it was, it's clearly designed

to be seen in movie theaters. And so that gulf that you're talking about is so interesting. The idea of like the public consensus on a movie shifting in such a short period of time and the idea of people saying like, actually, was this good? Was this as good as I remember? Oftentimes, as time goes by, we find the opposite with films. We find that we were like, oh, actually, there was more there than I initially realized. And I'm developing a deeper affection for it.

And that may still happen with the Batman. I know that when I saw it in theaters, I really liked it. I understood very clearly what Matt Reeves was after. And I think for the most part, he nailed it. I definitely think the movie is about 25 to 30 minutes longer than it needs to be in terms of the story that they set out to tell. But you can make the case that that immersion that he's going for in that world is part of the point of it just being that long and that deep.

So I don't have any frustrations about that. And I guess I don't ultimately have to care about how the world at large thinks about it. But I like that you're stumping for it in a continued way you know like do you think at the end of the year this is a movie that will hit year-end lists because when it when it came out it had really strong critical scores and and there was a obviously did incredible business in the face of another grim dark batman and the dceu fumbling the bag over and over again this movie is a big success and yet has something shifted in the last couple

months with it i think that i mean i do think you're unlikely to see it in a lot of critics list because i think for the most part um and i understand why critics don't tend to put superhero films on their list with some few exceptions this could be this could be an exception i think maybe if it came out at the end of the year it might be an exception that some critics would have picked but i think over the you know over at the end of the year, it might be an exception that some critics would have picked. But I think over the, you know, over the long arc of the year, I doubt it's going to stick around that long in people's affections. And I think that I understand why superhero films don't make it on top 10 know, any sort of boosting from a critical list the way that some of the other movies that are mentioned on this episode might need a boost. And so I don't begrudge that absence. But I don't know. you know because they're going to make a sequel in this universe right if the second film hits in a way that even more people going to the movie theaters enjoy if this one will be reconsidered by

the folks who watched it at home maybe they'll watch it again with the curtains drawn and the phones put away but it's so hard to to get people i try to encourage people to not second screen it but it's just it's just the reality of how people watch things at home. And I'm, you know, you can't, can't hold back the tide, but I don't, I don't know how, how, how to share my love of this thing in a full way with people who didn't see it under the same circumstances that I did. And I of course understand why people aren't going to the theaters right now in general. I of course understand why people aren't going to the theaters even outside of the pandemic, you know, understand why people aren't going to the theaters, even outside of the pandemic.

You know, you can't find a sitter, whatever the case may be. But I don't want to sound too much like our Lord and Savior Tom Cruise, but, like, thank you for coming to the theaters, folks. I've seen Tom Godden in the theaters, well, twice in the theaters, and then I went to the drive-in this last weekend. Because there is, like, something about that experience of being. Yeah, Americana. Yeah. Oh my God.

Fireworks are going off. There was a brass band playing nearby because we were near a fairgrounds. And then we were in the flight path of the San Jose airport. So like planes were flying overhead. It was so America, you wouldn't believe it. So just, you know, if so just you know if you feel safe if you feel ready please come back to the theaters because it's so fun to share these things with other people and that's why i felt watching the batman where i was just i felt like i saw it

at a press screening but then i saw it again with with the the gen pop and like it casts a spell it's a movie that really just sort of lulls you into something. And I know, I think I loved it a little bit more than you and Chris did, but I think we all felt that spell cast over us that Matt Reeves did with a beautiful design, just really thoughtful nature of the film. So yeah, the Batman. That's a great rec.

I like it a lot. I'm not sure what it needs, but I'm here for it anyway. Thanks, Joe. Really appreciate it. Thanks, John. Okay, we're here with Rob Harville, our beloved host of 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, frequent guest on this show.

Rob, you watch 900 movies a year 100 movies how many movies you watch a year nine i think the actual number is nine i i'm going to blame my kids for that quite frankly uh it is the fault of my children that i see far fewer movies that i would that i would care to when this was brought to me it's like what's your favorite movie that you've seen this year and i looked at the movies that i've watched this year i was like oh no like my number two pick was uh the chippendale yeah rescue rangers yeah right right and that was solid it was solid solid solid exactly i you know like the batman movie right comes on hbo max and my wife you know we we sit down at 9 30 it's like's like, how long is the movie?

It's like, it's five hours long, right? It's like five and a half, six hours. Like, I don't want to watch Batman for six hours. We still haven't seen Batman. Don't tell anybody that I said that, but I just, I'm not in my, I'm not in my peak fighting form as far as movie watching. And I'm very self-conscious about it is what I'm saying to you. And yet you come to us with a solid recommendation. So what is the movie that you came to? I came to Kimmy, directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Zoe Kravitz. I believe it was an HBO Max day one job, right? Okay, good.

Because I have not been in a theater since... It was either sonic the hedgehog or harley quinn i forget i think sonic was the last movie i saw with my kids and harley quinn was the last one i saw without my kids and whatever early 2020 these are those are the last movies that i saw in a theater i am still not a theater going person I am all for this new streaming chaotic universe that we live in And I'm all for movies that are 90 minutes long As I believe that Kimmy is That is also, it's shorter than several episodes of Stranger Things

This season is my understanding I appreciated this movie very much First of all for the logistical pleasures of it. I could watch it immediately and it did not last forever. What else did you like about it? Because it's Soderbergh, Zoe Kravitz. These are very exciting figures to be making a movie just for streaming. Absolutely, yes.

I've enjoyed the Soderbergh streaming. High Flying Bird is the movie he made, the basketball. It's a great one. I'm enjoying him doing streaming movies, doing these experimental ones. That one was on an iPhone, right? Wasn't that a deal with High? Correct. I just enjoy Steven Soderbergh

in streaming mode, inventing new ways of doing this. It's a stressful movie, movie kimmy but it's exactly stressful enough it's not too stressful it's exciting you know she's being pursued you know by shadowy forces like it's a it's a mystery that she has to unravel it's very claustrophobic of course but it's not like oppressively, you know, I midsummer, you know, or have you pronounced that like, ah, like it's just, it was, it was the exact, it was pitched at the exact right, like level of intensity for me. I want to say that my brother-in-law and his wife were here, you know, and so we got six kids running through the house all day.

And then we sit down again, it's like nine 30, 10 at night. We're exhausted. Like we want to do an adult thing. We want to watch something. I think we watched severance the entirety of the first season of severance on Apple TV plus, but we wanted to watch one movie and we picked this again for its brevity. And because as you say,

like Steven Soderbergh, Zoe Kravitz, like these, it's awesome to have these people making a movie that goes right to streaming. But I just found it. I love her apartments you know I love how self-contained it is and just the style of it and I the music something about the music like at its most stressful moments like it doesn't go for like stressful movie music right like it's very orchestral there's just a nice

dissonance in the forum and people talk about rear window right because it's very orchestral there's just a nice dissonance in the forum and people talk about rear window right because it's like a woman in her apartment who's mostly afraid to leave her her apartment and just what she sees people in other windows people on the streets you know she's talking on the phone she's talking on facetime you know it it feels it felt like a covid movie that i believe acknowledged covid right like she says she's she's really scared to leave in part because of covid but it didn't it didn't overdo that like when when covid was happening and people started talking about making covid movies you're like please don't do that like i i feel like it it hinted it got what's really stressful and weird about this time in our lives

without overdoing it you know and still offering escapism even from within this new normal for us. Like I really liked that element of it as well, but I was just struck by Zoe Kravitz. Like I keep thinking about individual sort of movements that she makes. There's a point when she's on the phone, like she's talking to somebody and she's stressed out and she's like walking across her apartment and like hitting the floor with her toes she's walking in this really specific way like i just the choices that she makes it's just a really fascinating character you know who's basically carrying at least half the movie right again like she's talking to people on the phone you hear voices there's facetime you know there's all

this multimedia but it's her it's just her in a fancy apartment like carrying this almost like it's a play but just this this mixture of of elements and this mixture of tones just was really appealing to me yeah i liked it a lot too you know soderbergh student of film history that he is he's a huge fan of alan pakula and that paranoia trilogy and this movie has a lot in common with Clute. It has a lot in common with these ideas of surveillance and people being tracked over time. And he loves the conversation. You can feel a little bit of that in there. And then there's also a rear window quality to this movie too, where you've got this person who

is cooped up in their house and who's observing everything that's going on out in the world, not necessarily just through their window, though the window is an important part of the story, but also on their computer and what happens inside of these surveillance technologies that they work with. So it's a really cool modern Like it's, it's, it's such a cliche to reach for that as a reference point or to aspire to be like the 2020s version of that. And I feel like this movie, as you say, does that without like telling you it's doing it. It just does it. And it's because it's Steven Soderbergh. And because every year I read like his crazy list of everything that he's watched and read,

you know, I love that every year it's like you you know you know that you're in good hands with this person you know that he he gets it you know he has the reference points he knows everything about history and he can synthesize it still in these innovative ways that are distinctly him like you can just tell this is a steven soderbergh movie not because because there are specific references to other movies he's made necessarily, but just the care in it and the scholarship to it, but also the fun. And zippiness is not the word I want to use,

but that's the word that came to me. But I just- The energy, the pace. The energy and the pace. And I don't want to spoil it, but the mark of a great movie for me or a great TV show or whatever is when I want to re-watch

a scene from it afterward and like i keep going back to it in a loop and i did that for a while with the end of this movie with like the last five ten minutes of this movie from the point where she says kimmy play sabotage forward if you've seen the movie then maybe you know what i'm talking about i'm not going to spoil it but like this movie ends really well and this movie ends with like a really fun sequence that's like sort of outlandish right like it's a little bit it it it's a little bit surreal almost and gets a little it sort of turns her into an action hero you know and maybe not a way that makes total sense based on everything that's come before other than like her resourcefulness right but like this movie just

ends really well and it's just fun in a way again that's like stressful and like engaging and like i'm not looking at my phone while i'm watching this and like that's the mark of a great movie in 2022 unfortunately is that it it grabs you enough to keep your attention, but is not totally stressful for me. It's a great recommendation. If you haven't seen Kimmy, check it out. It's on HBO Max, where I guess that's where all movies are going, the streaming services. So that's great for you, Rob, and it sucks for me.

But nevertheless, it's always a pleasure to see you, my friend. Good to see you. Thanks a lot. Okay, but what about me? What is my favorite movie of the year so far? I'm going to pick two. I love to cheat in these situations, but what's the downside of having two recommendations?

Two movies that I have talked about in two different recommendation episodes this year, but maybe you haven't heard those or maybe you haven't had a chance to check these movies out yet. Fortunately, you can stream both of them. They are somehow very different, but also somehow very the same. They're both coming of age stories in a way. The first one is called Turning Red. This is Domei Shi's directorial feature length debut. It's a Pixar movie. You can watch it on Disney Plus right now. This is the movie that probably hit me the hardest this year. Some of that is some father-of-a-daughter stuff, which I apologize for the cliche, but there is a profanity in seeing the story of Mei-Lin Li, a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian kid who, due to a hereditary curse, transforms into a giant red panda when she experiences any strong emotion. This is a rambunctious, delightful, high-spirited adventure movie that is also a classic Pixar tearjerker about the challenges of getting older and the complexities of parenthood and childhood. And I was just really, really knocked out by this. And I feel like because it went

straight to Disney+, it didn't get necessarily the fanfare that a movie like this deserves. I see it in stark contrast to Lightyear, which I thought was just very mediocre, but of course was widely celebrated, not just because it's extended IP in the Toy Story universe, but because it went to movie theaters. And there is a little bit of damage that happens to these movies when they go straight to streaming, as we've talked about ad nauseum on the show. And I hope people give Turning Red a chance. I thought it was really, really beautiful. I watched it with my wife. We had an incredible time with it, just thinking about all of the challenges ahead as parents and also the things from our childhood that

were really meaningful as we went through some changes. And so please check it out. I think it's beautifully animated. I think it's really inventive. And I think it's a step forward for Pixar in a cool way. The other film that I want to recommend is another movie that I talked about a couple weeks ago called RRR, which is SS Rajmoli's Tollywood action drama. This is a truly epic movie. It's a three-hour movie starring N.T. Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan. They play real-life figures in 1920, Indian revolutionaries Raju and Bhima.

And they are two people who maybe don't have the exact relationship in real life that this film imagines they do. The poster for this film features one of these guys on the other guy's shoulder while holding swords.

That is the kind of movie this is, though. It is an imagined, expanded, overwhelming, historical fantasy epic that features flying tigers and extraordinary train bridge sequences,

death-defying stunts. It is maximalist in every sense of the word. A lot of people have used Michael Bay to describe some of the sequences in this film. A lot of people have used the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A lot of people have used Stanley Kubrick. All of those things I think can be true. This is a truly singular movie experience. It's streaming on Netflix. I would encourage people to check out Rajamouli's other films, including Baobali and Baobali 2, and also other Tollywood movies. I've been getting more into Tollywood films since I've seen this movie, and there is a whole world of cinema that I didn't know that much about but that is incredibly exciting and very approachable and commercial and i guess for lack of a better word mainstream um and that's the thing is the world of movies is is ever expanding and our

access to different kinds of movies is ever expanding the idea of a movie like this being available on netflix in the way that it is now is exciting. You know, we give Netflix a hard time on the show sometimes, but I think this is really exciting that they're willing to share this kind of global cinema at scale. So that is RRR and Turning Red. And that's actually secretly 11 movies that we've given you on this episode today. The 11 best movies of 2022. It's been actually a really good movie year. I have some concerns about the actually a really good movie year. I have some concerns

about the second half of the movie year. We're going to see what the fall festival season brings us. We're going to see what Oscar season brings us. We're doing an auction episode later in July that will reveal that the Pickens are maybe more slim than we had hoped.

But there's always good stuff that we don't know about. And that's part of what this episode was about. A nice combination of movies we were hugely anticipating like Top Gun and also movies that caught us by surprise.

You know, certainly RRR is one of them. So thank you so much for listening to this episode. Thank you to Amanda, to Chris, to Van, to Mallory,

to Charles, to Rob, to Joanna, to Adam, to Rob, the other Rob. Thank you to our producer, Bobby Wagner,

for his work on today's mega episode. Have a glorious 4th of July weekend. Please relax. And when we return next week, Amanda and I are going to discuss, at long last, the new Minions movie. We've been talking about talking about Minions for well over two years.

We're finally going to do it after seeing a movie. We'll see you then. Stay safe.