The Big Picture - The 1975 Movie Draft

Episode Date: June 22, 2021

Yes, we are drafting again. It’s the Movie Draft: 1975 Edition. It was simply one of the best years in film history. Let’s get it! Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Chris Ryan Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Emmy award-winning producer, actor, and comedian Larry Wilmore is back on the air, hosting a podcast where he weighs in on the issues of the week and interviews guests in the world of politics, entertainment, culture, sports, and beyond. Check out Larry Wilmore, Black on the Air on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It's not my way to love you just when no one's looking. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. It's not my way to love you just when no one's looking It's not are you? I'm doing well. I'm thrilled to see both of you. I'm thrilled to hear some, you know, tales of his youth from Chris Ryan. So 1975, we've been planning this for many months. This is widely considered one of the greatest movie years in history. But before we get into that, Chris, who were you in 1975? Yeah.

You know, I mean, it's a weird time. I was on the road with the Allman Brothers and it was pretty hazy. I was working mostly with Greg and he was with Cher. You know, so there were a lot of Hells Angels around even after Altamont. But, you know, I managed to I managed to write the ship for myself, at least, not for the Allman brothers, and become the beloved podcasting personality that I am now. Obviously, none of the three of us were actually alive, though Chris, I'm sure, daydreamed about his time with the Allmans for many years.

I think my mom and dad were like, let's make a run at this in 1975. Lo and behold, a brief two years later, you came to this earth to bless us with your podcasting and insight. Amanda and I, we were- Many years later. But a twinkle, but a glimmer in the eyes of our parents at this time. And yet movies were truly glimmering. They were shining. They were thriving, especially in the American consciousness.

So why are we doing 1975? Amanda, why do you think we chose this year? I honestly don't know. Why did you? I mean, there is both breadth and depth in this year. And you noted in your outline, 1974 was also a great year. I would add 1976, pretty fantastic year. The 70s in general, pretty exciting pretty exciting and also i think for our generation growing up becoming movie nerds trying to learn more the 70s or like the hallowed that's when movies were really great but i think 75 has a lot of emblematic movies um especially in the categories that we've selected and then just also a lot of random stuff that's pretty fun to talk about. Chris, what about for you? Would the 75 represent something different

or more meaningful than 74 or 76 or some of these other iconic years that we've talked about on the show? Yeah, I think that the presence of some of the blockbuster movies in the year, along with the really, really high quality floor of the films that you see, it makes it just, first of all,

like a great movie year, but also a great inflection point for Hollywood, a great inflection point for movie making. And it's fascinating to go back and watch some of these movies and be like, I can see the bones of what we watch now. And maybe those bones are dissolving in front of our very eyes

with every Snyder cut. I don't know. But at the same time, films feel so different, you know, like the experience of watching a movie, the behavior in those films, what those movies are about.

And I think for me also, like, uh, you know, the relatability to the human beings in the movies just feels, I, I, I've never really felt myself to be like,

oh, I just wasn't made for these times or anything. But when you watch films from this era, and specifically this year for the purpose of this podcast, it's almost bracing how normal these people are and how normal the stakes are and how kind of relatable they are. So what do you mean by that? Because on the one hand, there's...

Look, I didn't ask for this job being a sheriff in a small island, you know? It's just like... There you go. You nailed it. That is where you truly relate to the men of 1975. Let's talk about how we did this. So I don't want to give any of the movie titles away necessarily.

I'm trying my best. There are five to ten that are genuinely iconic, legendary, will never be forgotten films. And then I think there's a second tier of films that are widely celebrated, though maybe we haven't seen some of them or we don't talk about them as frequently. And then there's this third layer

of quality and or successful film that maybe you have an awareness of, but you have never seen and have a big reputation. And it's not as easy to go back to them because they're not available on streaming services or what have you. So Amanda, to start, how did you prepare for this episode? I will not be naming films because I will not give my strategy away. I think I probably revisited mostly tier two movies out of the tiers you just outlined. You know, movies that I came to one way or another and are definitely like part of the quote unquote canon that we should talk

about the canon a little bit, but like great films handed down from one generation to another. Mostly things that I hadn't seen in a very long time. And my memory for some of these movies is a lot sharper than others. So I just had to go back and kind of remind myself of the performances and the pacing. And, you know, as I said, the 70s cinema kind of exists as like a real mood in my mind. And many of those characters that Chris relates to kind of blur together is one just like 70s guy just trying to figure it all out. Not a lot of movies about women this year, though I'll try my best, but that's fine. So I did mostly tier two with a sprinkling of tier one because there was one tier one movie that I hadn't seen since high school and I had some pretty astonishing takeaways

from that. And then I probably got to a couple tier three movies, not as many as I would have liked because there are a lot of them. And, you know, these movies are long at times. And they also the pacing is quite different than a modern cinema, I would argue for the better. But also my brain is completely addled by the way that we watch things all the time. So I really had to focus. Chris, did you find that as well? The engaging with the movies was different than what you watched today? It had to be a little bit more of a concerted effort. You know what I mean? I think that even watching some of the more recent releases from this year, whether it's

Conjuring or some films that are coming in the coming weeks that I got links to or something like that. It was striking that because of the pacing of those movies, I think you're used to just being like, something else is going to happen soon, so I never really wander too far astray. You really have to live with

these movies a little bit. I think that I have personally been so conditioned to be um tapping my fingers waiting for like okay when's the shoe gonna drop like when when do we find out like what this really means for like the entire mcu right like or did did mayor go back in time to find the killer or something like i am it was just even to watch some of the even the mystery films of this of this year you just have to kind of be like, it's not really a mystery. You know,

it's just, it's just guys hanging out, you know? And it's all about, uh, I will say to, uh, piggyback off something Amanda was talking about there with the tiers of

films that we were watching is that when you get into the two, three, four tier, um, it gets kind of hard to find these movies. Uh, you know, you guys just did,

you know, the, the pod with Alex Ross Perry talking about like forgotten films. A a lot of these movies they're available if you want to purchase them for rent or or whatever but there's a huge swath of these movies there you would just be like how is this not on max or peacock or whatever and they're just not yeah there was some hunting involved i probably a little bit predictably chose to spend most of my research time revisiting stuff I hadn't seen in forever and watching stuff for the first time. I didn't even get one fifth of the way through the master list that I wanted to get new stuff

I wanted to check out, partially because I feel like the iconic movies are so iconic that I know I've had at least three to four viewings of many of them under my belt already. That's not true of every single one. Like Amanda, to your point, there are a couple that would be considered tier A that I know I've had at least three to four viewings of many of them under my belt already. That's not true of every single one. Like Amanda, to your point, there are a couple that would be considered tier A that I've probably only seen once or twice. But there's a lot of like, did someone rip this movie to YouTube? Do I have to pay $6.99 to rent it from Amazon to watch it? Why is this film not available anywhere? I'll give you an example of a movie we're not gonna draft there's a movie that Joan Micklin silver directed called Hester Street that I had always wanted to see it's about Jewish community in New York I believe at the turn of the 20th century me Irving movie

no that's crossing Delancey which is a movie that was made like ten years later but is about a very similar kind of identity and that movie as far as i could tell was only available on an illegal vimeo link that i happened to stumble on and so i watched a really bad transfer of it and the movie was fine and i had no intention of drafting it i was glad to have seen it but it's interesting how some of this stuff is widely available and easy to watch it at the drop of a hat and a movie like that which actually isn't that obscure because one of the actors in that movie was nominated for an Oscar. Carol Kane was nominated for Best Actress for her performance in that movie. It's not as if it's this strange artifact of its time. It was a somewhat major film. So it's interesting what gets canonized and what

doesn't. Amanda, was there a point you wanted to make about that specifically? I think we can go through it as we go through it. It did stand out to me, not to spoil our categories, but we've introduced a new category, which is Oscar winner. And if the film won any Oscar, then it fits in this category. But this is why we have the Oscars, because the Oscars are, it was a great movie year, obviously, but those movies are anointed. And those are the movies that you're taught and that get shown in high school classes, which is another thing I'd like to revisit with a specific

movie, but we'll get there. I wanted to ask you guys, when did you see most of these movies generally for the first time? How were you encountering them? Is it all film school for you guys? No, there was a couple that were really big staples for me growing up. I mean, it's hard to avoid mentioning them, but there was a couple as having a British father and also just a film critic father that they were around. And they were also movies that I feel like these are a lot of movies that I was not really allowed to watch or that I saw my parents rented

and I watched from the landing above the living room a little bit, whether it was because they were a little racy or because they were just intellectually just way out in left field and I couldn't understand them as a kid. But then there are movies about sharks that obviously I just watched 150,000 times. I think I've mentioned it in the past, but whenever AFI and CBS did the 100 years, 100 movies special, I think it was like 98, 99. Three of the movies from this year were on that list. I think there's only one other year that had more movies on that 100 years list. And so it was pretty clear that there was something very special happening.

And at that time, I basically made it my mission to go and watch as many of those movies as I could. So I don't know, 15, 16. And then yeah, you go to film school and you're like, okay, well, this is this filmmaker, this is that filmmaker. And you start to explore. But some of the things, like some things also just pass you by.

You know, some things you just, you think you know about, or you think you've seen, and maybe you haven't seen. And I felt that a little bit too. And kind of going back and doing research, there was some stuff that I hadn't seen before. I guess why, how this happened,

how this moment in movie history happened is really interesting to think about. Specifically in 75, there's a series of world events that are pretty significant and there seems to be some maybe reverberations in the culture. If you just look at 75 is when the Vietnam War ends.

It's when Margaret Thatcher is elected. There's this growing recession that's going to lead to the election of Jimmy Carter and ultimately this kind of economic freeze that happens in America. And then concurrently in culture, you've got things like Springsteen emerging as a superstar. You've got Saturday Night Live debuting in 1975. Obviously, the movie Jaws, I think everybody knows Jaws comes in 1975. It's the biggest movie of this year. And it's really the advent of the blockbuster and the idea of high art and mainstream consumer culture colliding specifically. I think somebody like Springsteen is also emblematic of that. SNL is emblematic of that. And so you have these interesting notions of counterculture

being very touchable, attainable, visible, and not necessarily feeling corporately controlled. You know, SNL felt like chaos inside of the NBC system. Springsteen feels like chaos inside of major label music. And Jaws is the same way. And so it's an interesting moment. I can't, you know, we've had conversations say in like the 2016 movie draft about whether or not the election of a president meaningfully impacted the kind of culture that we got. So, and I don't think that that was the case for the most part, but with 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 years of distance,

I think you can see that there is a relationship, a cause and effect between what's going on in the world and how people are reacting artistically, I guess, for lack of a better word. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's pretty squarely post Watergate, post Nixon at this point and has given time for the films to actually catch up. And you certainly see that reflected in a lot of them. I also think that there's like a certain, I don't know what the right word is. Is it adultness to a lot of these movies?

I was thinking about tons of films from the last 5, 6, 7, 10 years that I really like a lot, but how many of them can essentially be boiled down to a loser becomes a winner. A loser, a guy who's broke gets money. Something along those lines or a boy becomes a man.

Something that's about this sort of transformation and a lot of the times comes along with economic success or a solidifying of your participation in society in that way. So many of these movies are about people who are completely fucking disillusioned with society. Society has failed them. And the real transformation that they go

through is sometimes not even there. They start the movie in one place and they end the movie and they're like, I don't even know what I learned, which is probably why they're so relatable. It's why they seem so human, but it's also why sometimes they can be a little bit of a drag. It's because you're just like, so nothing happened. Like, you're not a better person. You didn't get back together with your wife.

You didn't get a better job. You didn't rob the Bellagio. Like what happened? Like, you know, like, and it kind of is a really different way of watching movies because I think we're just so conditioned now to go to things and,

and me and Amanda hit this all the time. And I know we sound like Grinches, but we go to movies that are made and me and Amanda hit this all the time, and I know we sound like Grinches, but we go to movies that are made for kids. And they're engineered to make children understand major themes with very basic ideas. And these are not that. I think the remarkable thing about this year and many other years, essentially through 1995, is you have this delicate balance between movies that are made for kids and movies that are clearly made for adults i mean five of the top 10 grossing movies of this

year are definitively adult existentialist kind of bummer politically minded american films and that does seem impossible these days that seems like it there I don't think is there anything in our culture in the mainstream that mirrors or in any way kind of resembles say Dog Day Afternoon because Dog Day Afternoon

is one of the most successful movies of the year of this year. No, I mean, I think the closest thing would be like the shows like

Mare of Easttown like the prestige TV anti-hero bummer dramas which usually end in a happy note. Right. And that's a fascinating thing. So Amanda, how did you strategize for this?

How did you plan to, do you have some big concepts as to how to win? Should I reveal our new categories? Because that's obviously, I do try to think in categories and we adjusted them a little bit because 1975 was a different movie landscape than the current moment. And also, I think, because everyone's tired of me and Chris bitching about animated films. So we have drama. We have comedy. We have action thriller together in one category. We have the aforementioned Oscar winner. We have blockbuster, which will be $30 million or more at the box office. And we have

wildcard. And so, you know, I start there. I start slotting things in, start slotting things in that I like. I revisit some things I haven't seen in a while. Try to think about draft order. And I also try to think about, I mean, I do think about winning, even though it's pointless. Like the game is rigged and that's fine. What do you mean? You know, we're all here just to support you and your 1500 people on Twitter who press buttons. And I think that's great. I think you found your community and then Chris and I have ours. But I try to, you know, try to think about the audience as well.

One day we'll do ranked choice voting, you know, like the New York mayoral election. Yeah, that seems to be going very well. I see the collusion happening between Yang and Garcia. And I wonder if it resembles a little bit of what's happening on this show from time to time. I don't really think Chris and I colluded enough on this one, to be honest. Chris, I almost texted you like 14 different times. But every single time was like during a Sixers game. I was like, not right now. he's in a touchy place so so I I have received some menacing

messages from members of the CR army about what they have quote-unquote planned for me for this draft um which I gotta say is worrying I can't I can't say I love that what like so if there's any funny business we know where it came from. That's all I'm saying. I didn't get any messages from the, from the Dob Mob, you know, they've been civil.

That's again, because they have hobbies and interests and life outside. They're watching films. Then they're checking on the garden, taking a walk, enjoying summer,

you know, trying to thrive, form relationships with people in real life. Once they're vaccinated, they're thriving. Yeah. Do the members of your team, Chris,

do they congregate at the Apple Store together when the draft episodes are published? Now that the Apple Stores are back open and rocking, watch out. Yeah. We're going to see an uptick. Chris, did you strategize against this year at all or are you going just full wild card um i think that the difficult part about this year is that there are are it's like basically like i think all of us want the same movies it's about

where to take them and like under what category like i think that there is a clear group of like six to eight that are just like, these will get drafted. It's really all about the order of the draft and like whether you want to cash it in here, here or here. I suppose there's every draft, but this one's just really felt that way where I was like, shit, I don't know where to take this movie.

If I get X pick any other stray reflections on the year 1975, before we get into it, grandpa, what do you remember? Are you referring to me? Yes, of course. No, I guess, you know what, the one thing, first of all, I just, I gotta say, salute to all the cars in these movies. I got a new car recently. I enjoy it. And God, I wish I had a 1975 like Jeep Pontiac.

You know what I mean? Like it just, the cars just seem fantastic back then and, and gas guzzlers and they were all manual steering. And I'm sure, you know, a lot more accidents because people were drinking Narragansett while they were driving and stuff.

But I really, I like, I love the, I love the look of these movies and just all the accoutrement and just everybody smoking just constantly. You know what I mean? I just love it. You're a man out of time right now.

I really feel like you, do you feel like you missed your moment? No, I got to experience a little bit of that in the 80s. I saw it at least. My dad had a Pontiac. It was actually a piece of shit. But you weren't smoking behind the wheel had a Pontiac it was actually a piece of shit smoking behind the wheel of a Pontiac in the 80s are we sure about that that's a good point maybe we should

get to our draft order wags you want to come through and help us determine one of the most crucial spins of the wheel we've ever had it's too much pressure for wheel decide.com right there Chris please don't put too much pressure on wheel decide free ads. Bobby, no free ads. First pick is Sean. Fantasy. God damn it.

Wow. Wow. Have you cleared your cookies? I have cleared my, I opened it. Seriously, Bob, what do you want me to do?

You want me to put the, the, uh, scrabble tiles back in the hat and shake them up. Like top gun. Yeah, that was way, way more like, like, Yes! I do, actually.

Way more like, I don't know. It was just like, that was fair. Chris, you're picking second. God damn it! Some Belarusian. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

The next one. So Amanda, you usually get mad like that because you think that I'm going to pick something that you're going to pick. But you are. I know that you are. I had a whole strategy. Like the Pontiac,

for the next draft, I will go back to the manual version of choosing who goes first. God smiles upon thee once more. Unbelievable. No one likes you. The first pick in the draft. Amanda, you're really feeling hurt about this, huh?

You really were banking on one or two, and now you're going three? I would have much preferred it. Boy, how fascinating. I have a number of different categories I could choose from. Number of different

films I could choose from. I'm of course drafting Jaws, which is the most important film of this year. One of the most important movies ever

made. You know, I don't know if you guys noticed this, but Steven Spielberg recently signed a deal to make films for Netflix. Yeah, he just did today. After much speculation for

many years, he was not a fan of streaming movies. And in the same way that he resisted allegedly the changing of the guard, he also essentially presented the changing of the guard with this incredible blockbuster film. The category I'm going to take this film in,

I'm going to go with blockbuster this is my blockbuster naturally well I mean it could have gone into action thriller right that would have been a reasonable place for it

okay but just I mean what do you want me and Chris did one of the five most fun rewatch we've ever done with Bill on the on the movie if you want to hear some deep insight

city slickers is number two problem number two yep Chris relates deeply to chief Brody I relate to the shark on the movie if you want to hear some deep insight. City Slickers is number two, probably. Number two, yep. Chris relates deeply to Chief Brody. I relate to the shark because every time there's chum in the water in these drafts, I just go out and I get after it. You know, I find my prey and I attack. And also, Sean, sometimes when I look at you,

I'm like, Sean could be a Bruce. I could see you being named Bruce Fantasy. Why has Bruce fallen out of favor? I don't know. I don't know. I just really see like you seem like a guy and like you pull up and you're just like, hey, it's Bruce. Bruce.

Bruce brought some Coors Light. We're going to watch a football game. I'm going to take that as a compliment and not the perverted stray shot that I imagine it to be. CR, you're up. God damn it. Harder head here Amanda

harder head I just I really really honestly don't want you to totally screw me over wow Amanda you've put a lot

into this this is the this is the deepest I feel you felt about this whole circumstance I just order

increasingly matters on these go ahead go ahead Christopher it's your turn I'm going to take Nashville okay Order increasingly matters on these. Go ahead. Go ahead, Christopher. It's your turn. I'm going to take Nashville.

Okay. You didn't screw me over. That's just a crazy pick. I love that movie, but that's a crazy pick. A crazy pick? I just took a... Are you... What are you talking about? Okay.

It's one of the greatest American films ever made by one of the greatest filmmakers. Yeah, you don't get to be you and also shit talk Nashville, okay? Like you just need to sit in the corner. I know, but I just, you need to know that no one likes you when you do it. I pick Nashville and I'm going to pick it in.

Boy, I mean, this is the thing though, is if we get into some, how do we define comedy, right? Yes, I think there is some. I think Nashville's pretty funny. how do we define comedy, right? Yes, I think there is some... I think Nashville's pretty funny. I personally would not describe it as a comedy to anyone. That would probably be

the third or fourth genre. You guys like laugh-a-minute movies like Phantom Threat. Those are the kinds of knee slappers that we do on The Big Picture. I'm going to take Nashville and I'm going to put it in Blockbuster.

Okay. Nashville, in fact, it does qualify for Blockbuster. Does it qualify for Blockbuster? I believe it does. It does not qualify for Blockbuster. It doesn't? No, Chris, I'm sorry. Oh, okay. I will take Nashville and I will put it in Oscar winner. Oscar winner. Okay.

Okay. Okay. I'm considerably happier than i was three minutes ago so that's good news for everybody sorry for um being an only child but i can only quite a tantrum quite a tantrum i just like i studied really hard and i like it when you go full billy martin Martin and just kicking dirt on the home plate. Totally south. And I felt a little bit like one of the characters in the film that I am going to draft in the comedy category, which is Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Oh, okay. And that is what I really wanted.

And Chris, as soon as you started talking about, you know, watching things growing up with your British father, I was like, fuck, I really need Monty Python and the Holy Grail it's just a flesh wound um yeah but I feel like I felt a little bit like once he has no arms and he's just kind of kicking at Arthur for no reason um that was me but it's okay because I have this comedy I don't remember when I first saw this but and I didn't realize till I re-watched it how many times I have seen this or at least like the first 50 minutes of this. Let's be real. You know, you don't aren't always getting all the way through it. But obviously a film, a send up of the Arthurian legend by the legendary Monty Python troupe. I was not a person who had the like Flying Circus DVD set.

That was not what was handed to me. This film was, so this is how I was introduced to this absurdist, totally disrespectful type of comedy, which is the really only type of comedy that I enjoy known member of the community comedy community, Amanda Dobbins. But, you know,

obviously my Python hugely influential. And this was, I think a lot of people's introduction to it and just um deeply funny it's as chris said it's just a flesh wound it kind of lives on and the pieces of it have like entered our culture as references and just still still makes me laugh so monty python very relieved to get that one because I felt comedy was a little thin. Or it could be like, you know, you can slice and dice things,

but I wanted it in comedy. And then, I don't know. Do you guys want to talk about Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Do you like that movie? I love that movie. It's been a while since I've seen it. It's just, I would love to watch like,

like a 23-year-old watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Do you feel like you need to have it insinuated into your life at a young age? Because I think I probably was watching Monty Python on, I feel like PBS used to air it. Yeah, they used to do that in Fawlty Towers. Yeah, so I got hip to them as probably a teenager when I would see it on PBS. But I probably saw Monty Python and the Holy grail around the same time. And so it almost felt like it was part of an extended universe of some

kind. I watched it. I revisited it for the, for the pod. And I was like, still, still hilarious, still works,

still holds up. I mean, maybe part of that is just the nostalgia that is ingrained in me, but I would be curious if you've never seen it and you're an adult, how you would take it in. Right. Especially now that you have taken in all of the comedy that has stolen from it for however many years now.

But yeah, it's true. I don't remember how I saw Ministry of Silly Walks or Spanish Inquisition or all of those because it was before the internet when I saw them. I was like before YouTube. So I guess it was on PBS or whatever I think they were on PBS yeah you would just I think you would just like at 8 30 they would just be on and they would show like an episode and then they they would show uh are you are you being served is that the one in the department store yes yeah yeah yeah um and you

know I think this I also probably saw it around the time that I was like I can't believe I'm about to say this in public but like into like Holy Grail Arthur stuff, right? Yeah, why not? Like you read all of that stuff as a kid and then suddenly you're taught like, oh, you don't have to take this seriously. And there is a little bit of like anti-canon, like anti-authority, you know, just being like, actually, this can be really stupid or we can have fun with it as well, which was certainly influential to me.

Okay. Monty Python and the holy grail i'm stalling a little bit because i don't totally know what i'm going to do with my second pick because i really didn't anticipate being number three i guess hold on i'm scrolling down to box office to verify yeah all right in blockbuster i'm going to take dog day afternoon holy cow this movie's so good that's like you know saying the sky is blue but holy cow is this pacino's greatest performance wow well fortunately we have chris ryan on the line where does it where does it sit for you chris and the pantheon of Pacino? Well, it's actually not like any other Pacino performance

because it's so on 11 or 13, but what we all think of as, you know, whether it's heat or... God, what's the movie where he's the devil? The Devil's Advocate. The Devil's Advocate. Like, it's not hammy. It's actually like a person

who's been driven crazy by the city. You know? And so he's just out of... He's so far, far beyond the docks that it's hard to explain to people because I think you see Attica, Attica, and you think, oh, it must be just another one of those,

like, I'm taking a flamethrower to this place. But it's not. It's actually a very vulnerable, raw performance. Part of what stood out to me, in addition to Attica, Attica, which, you know, I yell around the house when I get asked to do things I don't want to do, but is the way that he interacts with all the supporting cast. And it's just a dynamite supporting cast all the way that he interacts with all the supporting cast. And it's just a dynamite supporting cast

all the way through. But the grounded moments in between the hostages, it's like kind of one of the only times I can remember Al Pacino really engaging with every single other person on the screen and the dynamic that they create in the bank is pretty incredible. And then obviously, you know,

all of the emotional scenes at the end. This movie is the best movie it's so good i do feel like it is it's the bridge between the two pacino's because shortly after this you get and justice for all and cruising and scarface and that is really the birth of that loud boisterous and like to your point amanda it doesn't even seem like he's necessarily interacting with any of the other actors on screen in those films. It is a one-man show.

And up until this point, Pacino as an actor is basically just this simmering pot. You know, Godfather and Serpico and Godfather 2 and Scarecrow. These are quiet, internal, sort of like mournful, depressive performances.

Panic Needle Park. Yeah. And Dog Day Afternoon is both of those things, right? It's this incredibly anguished and internal and pained and emotional performance,

but it's also him screaming Attica at the top of his lungs. You know, again, I'm sure there are most of the listeners of this show have seen Dog Day Afternoon,

but if anyone has not, it is definitively one of the greatest films of its time. So, Chris, I believe you are up now. I made two very, very good picks. Yeah, very good picks. I'm going to pick something and then Sean's going to take the two movies that I want

more than anything else. So this is how this is going to work. Why don't you take one of them? Because I need to... I just... It's strategy? It's not even strategy. It's just like I'm going to take Shampoo and Blockbuster. And Shampoo might be, pound for pound,

the best movie of this year. Shampoo could be in three or four different categories. Shampoo is one of the movies that we were probably all referring to when we were talking about how the mainstream popular culture of this time actually reflected the socio-political moment, almost down to a matter of months. This was made in the wake of Watergate. It's set over the course

of one day on election day in Los Angeles, mostly in Beverly Hills. It's about Warren Beatty, who plays a hairdresser, who's working with slash servicing a bunch of very, very, very wonderful actresses throughout the town. Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, and Lee Grant. Lee Grant. Won an Oscar for her work in this film. And it's hilarious. It's thought-provoking. It's wildly entertaining. won an Oscar for her work in this movie and is hilarious is thought provoking is wildly entertaining

and is probably the movie from this year that I have returned to most in this period of my life like over the last like 5 to 10 years I've probably watched Shampoo as much as if not you know not as much as Jaws but more than anything else so I'll go Shampoo and Blockbuster

also the idea that Shampoo could be a Blockbuster is awesome. Yeah. This is the number one example to me of how different things were. Obviously, Warren Beatty was a matinee idol, and it is ostensibly a kind of lighthearted dramedy, but it's also a movie that takes place on election day in 1968 and is obviously about it's it's similar to um some of these conversations we've been having about recent history on some of the drafts where seven years ago what does how do we see america and what does it mean for the kind of the sexual revolution to be happening what does it mean to be in america in la in 1968 um but it's also this kind of like rollicking, sexy, funny movie starring some of the most beautiful people on the planet.

You know, very young Carrie Fisher in this movie. Jack Warden, hilarious in this movie as kind of like the big wig that Beatty is, who, you know, he's sort of cuckolding. Really great movie. Hal Ashby in his bag. Robert Towne in his bag. I really wanted to pick this in comedy so I'm a little bit

frustrated but fortunately I have still have a bounty now after my picks I think is when things are going to start to get interesting that doesn't mean that there's nothing left but I think that there will be a less awareness of some of the movies that we get into and so it'll be a fascinating back half of the draft. So my first pick, I'm going to go with Oscar winner. And I'm going to pick the film that won best picture that year. And that film is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which is the kind of movie that I think, tell me if you guys agree with this, is sort of the wallpaper of great American movies at this point. It is so widely understood

to have been this massive, cinematically impactful movie. It's one of the very few movies that has, you know, won a number of the key awards. You know, Best Picture, Best Director,

Best Actor, and Best Actress all went to one film of the cuckoo's nest for Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Milos Forman, and the film itself.

And it's of course an adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel about Randall P. McMurphy and him entering a mental institution and the sort of rage and confinement that Americans were feeling at this time. And it's sort of broadly representative of the way that we are or are not controlled and can be controlled. Beautiful, hilarious, insane performance from Nicholson,

Louise Fletcher, one of the arch villains of certainly 70 cinema, maybe of movie history so much so that Ryan Murphy attempted to spin off that character into a Netflix series. It's great IP starring Sarah Paulson. That was one of the more absurd things that happened in 2020. It's a movie that I think still really works. You know,

I don't, I don't, I don't feel it is a little bit more deliberate and a little bit more evenly paced than it is pretty different from the book. But, uh, this is Foreman's sort of grand throat clearing, uh, as an American filmmaker, as a filmmaker in America, um, after making films in, in Czechoslovakia, his native Czechoslovakia. Um, so that's the Oscar winner. Wait, can I, can I share share because this is the movie that I

re-watched um and I don't think I'd seen it since high school and also being shown this movie in my like frankly very uptight high school I'm still surprised by but my main takeaway was just like oh Nurse Ratched's really young I like in my mind she was just like this incredibly old, scary, you know, film archetype. And then I was like, oh, she's basically like a little bit older than me and pretty hot. And I don't really know what to say about that. And I don't know how to feel anymore. And that's like it was interesting revisiting the politics of that movie at my age. And this time, as opposed to when I first saw it and kind of understood more of what was going on I mean it's obviously a masterpiece but um yeah she's definitely just

uh really young that's all um 39 years old when this film was made Louise Fletcher CR any thoughts on One Flip of the Cuckoo's Nest? I you know I haven't watched this movie in a really long time this is uh one of those that I think that I watched in and around film school, but then have not revisited in a really long time just because I felt like once I got it, I got it. Damn. Harsh words for Cuckoo's Nest.

Okay, my next pick is in the drama category, and I am selecting Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. Damn it. So what to say about Barry Lyndon? One of the most extravagantly staged movies in Kubrick's career. One of the funniest movies in Kubrick's career. One of the more unlikely movies in Kubrick's career. It's, of course, very well known for its astounding lighting, costume design, production design, capturing this fascinating period in history. It's based on a

Thackeray novel called The Luck of Barry Lyndon, written in 1844. Quick personal reflection on Barry Lyndon. I think I've shared this in the past, but I'm going to share it again. First time I ever saw this film, it was 2006. I did not see it in film school or in high school or anything like that, even though I really, really liked the films of Stanley Kubrick.

This was the one that I avoided because it was a period piece. It was very long. It was well known to be a slower film. And for whatever reason, I waited till 2006 to get to it. I got to it on the weekend that I had my wisdom teeth removed, got my wisdom teeth removed,

uh, and got some Percocet and sat down, took a Percocet, had some, uh, banana pudding and some ice cream. Cause that's all you can really eat when you've had your wisdom teeth removed and just,

uh, let Barry Lynn pour over me like a warm bath. And it's one of the greatest viewing experiences I've ever had. High as a kite, crushing pudding, and watching the cinema of Kubrick. And so the movie lives on in me and that experience. And so it's almost hard to revisit it because I had such a peaceful and enjoyable and funny viewing experience watching the movie. You know, it features incredible performances by Ryan O'Neill and Marissa Berenson and just majestically photographed movie by John Alcott has an incredible score.

It is challenging, I think, to your kind of everyday movie viewer, especially now, given some of the pacing conversation we've been having around 1975 films, but well, well, well worth your time. It's definitely one of Kubrick's masterpieces. Barry Lyndon. Just an astonishingly beautiful movie about Ryan O'Neill's beautiful

dumb face. That is reducing it and not giving enough credit to the amazing filmmaking, but also just the close-ups of that face and how how to frame that face what it says about that face just high art he's he's incredibly well cast really uh formative erotic film for me and i remember seeing it like really young this and excalibur were both just like is this what sex is like and i was dissuaded of that later but you know it was a weird weird year there where i was just like, huh. So you never encountered a Marissa Berenson or Helen Mirren

in your sexual conquest, Chris? No. It's too bad. But the day is so young, you know? Okay. So those are my two picks. Ciara, you're up. I'm going to go for action thriller.

I'm going to go with Night Moves. So this is the one that I was hoping I would get that Sean passed on, but then he actually tried to win the draft. So he got these other movies. And so I'm going with Night Moves. It's Arthur Penn's take on a Dashiell Hammett-style

detective noir starring Gene Hackman, who plays a ex-football player turned private eye down on his luck living in Los Angeles who gets hired by a sort of fading, never really was movie star actress to find her runaway teenage daughter played by Melanie Griffith. And Melanie Griffith played a series of roles during this year where she plays the same person who is like a runaway teenager who is at the center of a mystery.

This movie is set partially in LA, partially in the Florida Keys. And it's probably like a top five, top 10 detective film of all time. It is just so, so, so lived in and great. It kind of gets like, it starts to collapse a little on itself towards the end. But I was kind of remarking to Sean when I was,

I was saying like, you know, multiple people die in seaplane accidents in this movie. And I just didn't care. Like, it's not like, Oh, like this doesn't make any sense.

Like they, you guys got to explain the rules of, of seaplane travel. It's like, it's just such a vibe. the dialogue is sparkling. It's, it's,

it's, it's ripped right out of like a kind of updated Chandler style and I adore it so Nightwaves incredible movie truly I mean has some some complicated sexual politics I would say as do most of these films

yes and to this point not many films that are very good on female characters I would say just generally across this year I was about to say it's sort of like a quintessential chris film to me yeah like just but i was gonna say that right after the weird sexual politics so that's not what i meant by that i'm sorry chris quintessentially weird sexual politics okay chris has selected arthur penn's fascinating night moves amanda you've got two picks coming up. Here's the thing. And I don't like saying this,

but I have to be honest, I fucked up. Oh, wow. Oh, I fucked up too. Can we have like a, we fucked up? Yeah, but I like, there are not that many Oscar winners and all the Oscar winners are gone. I was going to say something about this before we started, but then I thought like I would just start

to sound like I was complaining about not getting equal airtime at the debates. Yeah. Well, I just didn't count. So I'm moving for a point of order, which is may I move Dog Day Afternoon to Oscar winner? I mean, no. Okay.

That's not how this works. We've never done it before. What if I actually wanted to move a movie to a different genre too? Yeah. Wait a minute. Hold on a second. So it's designations, basically.

Changing the designations. But there are still Oscar winners on the board. It's literally only the Sunshine Boys, which I have not seen. That's it. The rest are like live, short, whatever. Because Cook has won so many. Yeah.

There's a great film from from akira kurosawa dersu uzala when he traveled to the soviet union to make one of his great late career and you can have it if you'd like but i have dog day afternoon which did win an oscar it's a new category but what about what about the man who skied down everest okay this should be your this should be your djk slay drop it's just like there's a great film by akira kurosawa um that was but okay i'll allow it for the sake of peace on the podcast but okay to me that was actually part of the appeal of the oscar winners category was that there were vanishingly few so you had to be tactical in how you chose well thanks for the lecture sean i really really appreciate it we watched a lot of movies and put a lot of thought into it i admitted that i fucked up

in public people are still gonna vote for you you'll You'll win. I don't care. Like, I don't give a fuck. Just let me move Dog Day Afternoon to Oscar winner. It's not about winning, Amanda. It's about decency. It's about respect for your colleagues. I respect you. I said I screwed up and I'm asking for, you know, some adjustment. Chris needs it too.

This is a game of integrity. And if we corrupt that integrity on this episode, we will never get it too. This is a game of integrity. And if we corrupt that integrity on this episode, we will never get it back. That's all I'm saying. So are you willing to destroy what we have built together? Amanda, we only have so many more drafts to do. Yes, of course I am. Okay, I'll allow it.

But I will say just that there's clearly a domino effect here in a variety of directions. I would not have done the last two things I had done if that was something that could have been done. Oh, interesting. I would not have taken One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in Oscar winner if I could have at the last minute swapped something else into the spot. So just so you know, this is a gift I'm giving to you and to Chris. I'm going to keep going with the way I have it. I think Amanda should get to change

because I think that it's true. I looked at the Oscars at the last second and I was like, so you can only get Cuckoo's Nest here or one of these others. Amanda, go for it. Go ahead, Amanda. I can also just not have an Oscar winner

if you want that. No, go for it. That's fine not have an Oscar winner if you want that switch it up whatever you want I don't have anything else to put in that category so you're switching categories and now you're picking for what so

I was going to take this movie anyway, Three Days of the Condor. I'll put it in Blockbuster. Yes. We talked about this movie a lot on the Spy podcast. A great Robert Redford just not trusting anybody and running around New York trying to solve things. And, you know, like the classic post Watergate,

slightly, not slightly, very paranoid, fun thriller. So that will be my blockbuster. And then what do I have left? In drama, I will do Picnic at Hanging Rock. Awesome pick. Yeah. Awesome pick. Which is a um peter weir film who went on to direct everything from dead poet society to truman show and is a very strange

movie set in victorian australia so kind of 1900s, about a girl's boarding school and three girls who go missing. And that is like basically more plot than the movie itself gives you or as much resolution. Sorry if I'm spoiling things. Are we spoiling movies on this I just did um but it's like a very famous tone mood visual uh creation as well as kind of a like kind of it's not actually a true crime story but you could argue or it is there's like a lot of they really leaned into it the novelist says that it was based on something that happened but then there can't be any records that are found. So obviously for marketing purposes, they've leaned into it. And there has become like a whole cottage industry of like what happened at Hanging Rock and all this stuff still to this day.

So a forerunner of true crime for sure. But in terms of the movie itself of not knowing what happens and that being like part of the mystery and the thrust of the experience. A great creepy movie. I really like this pick. I also think it must have been an amazing experience to see a movie like this at this time because the world didn't feel this necessarily connected. So international cinema were these kind of messages brought by carrier pigeon

of how things were being seen in Australia or how things were being seen in Italy or how things were being seen in Italy or how things were being seen in France. And it must've been a really exciting time to go to like really good movie theaters and see films like this and, and see stories like this get told. It's interesting too, how long it took for Peter Weir to become a Hollywood filmmaker.

Master and commander guy. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like this guy. Yeah. If you had made this movie today in Australia, Hollywood would fly you out ASAP, you know, because it's so well made and so powerful and it takes him like a full 10 years before we get to witness, you know, he had, he makes Gallipoli in the year of living dangerously, but these, that's, those still feel like

international films. Um, great, great pick. Great movie. Um, definitely recommend it's on the criterion channel actually right now, if you are interested in checking it out okay CR you've got to pick okay I was going to do move things around but I actually now I've talked myself into this so I need a comedy I believe I have

comedy drama and wildcard remaining and for comedy I am going to pick one of the great movie theater movies of all time. And that is Rocky Horror Picture Show. A couple of anecdotes. First of all, this was played every Friday at midnight in Philly for my entire childhood. It was basically one of the few adult things that you could get your parents to let you go do would be like

drop you off i can't remember if it was like the ritz or where it used to play but they would play this like they would be late night showing as a rocky heart picture show i think it was one of the first school dances i've ever been to was like sixth grade i think it was i think it was six but it might have been like seventh you know standing in the corner, smoking a cigarette, working on my motorcycle or whatever, just kind of chewing gum, playing with my switchblade. And Time Warp came on, and all the girls knew the dance. And I was like, holy shit, girls are amazing.

What is happening right now? And it was just like, i think i saw time i think i was like i gotta see this rocky horror picture show that everybody's talking about i don't know if i saw it in a theater until later but if you ever have had the chance to go see rocky horror picture show in the theater whether you think it's funny or ridiculous or if it's aged poorly i don't know it is one of the most enjoyable collective experiences you can have watching a movie in a theater. Revisited it yesterday in preparation for this podcast with the expectation that I would be able to select this movie because I did not think either of you liked it. And here we are.

Amanda, are you a Rocky Horror Picture Show person? So I have seen it in a theater, but the circumstances of going to see it in a theater, it was in college. And I was one of those people who stayed together with the high school boyfriend until i don't even think we made it to thanksgiving um but but i mean i don't know i had to thrive but in those first early two months went to visit him at college and we went with like a group of his friends to like a one of the like friday night midnight like costumes and i had to like one of the like Friday night midnight like costumes and I had to like borrow some weird rich girls costume stuff and I like felt very awkward and things were not going well and so that's colored my experience of Rocky Horror Picture

Show in person forever yeah since I don't know I was just like I don't know that was pretty awkward don't want to be associated with any of that anymore. Okay. Sean, you seem like you love just to get dressed up. Yep. And just go sing songs with a bunch of people. Yeah, lip liner, pancake makeup, get my fishnets out. Fishnets, yeah. I got to say, I think the reputation of this movie is still accurate, which is that it's a lot of fun.

It's not a great movie movie but it has great songs and it has one of the alt like literally one of the all-time best leading performances in a movie ever tim curry in this movie is fucking amazing and he seems to totally get the tone the joke everything about this movie he's totally in sync with what the what the story is going for. Everyone else seems to be like almost in a parody of another movie that they think exists. And as fun as like Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon

and a handful of other people are, I was, again, blown away by Tim Curry. I wouldn't say that this is a movie that I saw in theaters like 100 times. I think it's something you've got to see in theaters. If anybody is listening to this podcast, if they have a chance

as theaters start opening up again, if you live in a town where they're doing one of these, you could do worse on a Friday night. It's a great movie and it puts me in a real pickle here

because I don't know where to go in one of these categories. I'll start with a category where I know where to go. That's action thriller and the movie I'm going with, which, you know,

I think you could make the case this is a comedy, but I'm not going to try to make that case which is the man who would be king is John Houston's incredible 1975 epic starring Michael Caine and Sean Connery about two men who travel

to a land in which they have never seen Caucasians and attempt to become the rulers of this land Kfiristan I believe that the nation is called and it's a rollicking adventure movie based on the Rudyard Kipling story it's also um it feels like real-time deconstruction of persona it feels like John Houston deconstructing what he likes about movies it feels like Sean Connery deconstructing

his own kind of hyper cool hyper masculine identity as a movie star uh features a wealth of great performances we talked about it a little bit after Christopher Plummer passed away. He plays Kipling in the movie. Unbelievable scope on this movie. It's amazing. Not just what it is that's in the frame, but the amount of people that Houston is putting in the frame, the amount

of extras needed, the massive production design and the location shooting. It was a time when all of this stuff was done practically and it was you know between that sort of cecil b demille we need to create like we need to paint a a a billboard essentially behind a massive sequence and today where we have cgi it's when everything was real and amanda you might have mentioned this during the making of this film when you're reading angelica houston's memoir but just a breathtaking movie that, again, I would not say necessarily has always aged

in the best ways. There are certain aspects of the story and the way that the story is told that are a little bit gross. On the other hand, I do feel like it's one of those classic movies that, you know, like Big Trouble in Little China, for example, where the white man is the clown. You know, the white man is the fool. He's the person who's reaching for too much. And that's a big part of telling the story, too too is the overreaching into worlds and into cultures that

you don't totally understand amazing movie i highly recommend you check it out any reflections on the man who would be king just one of the best endings of any movie i've ever seen yeah absolutely i think also it's worth noting at least according to the angelica houston memoir which i just really recommend reading to know about this moment in time from her perspective, but how sick John Houston was at this point in his career and that he still manages to pull off like the scope that this movie has. Pretty remarkable. Okay. So I'm left with comedy. Comedy? I guess I also have wild card. Hmm. What have I picked so far? Am I confused? I just did this myself but it's okay I'm gonna recap myself quickly I've got a film and drama that's Barry Lyndon I've got a film in comedy

no I don't have a film in comedy I've got an action thriller the man who would be king I've got an Oscar winner run for the cuckoo's nest I've got a blockbuster. A little movie called Jaws. In Jaws. And then I have a wild card open as well. Okay, so comedy, I'm going to go with a movie that I watched recently for a very specific reason. And that movie is Dolomite. Dolomite is a blaxploitation movie

from Rudy Ray Moore and Derville Martin that was recently depicted in a making making of a film starring eddie murphy on netflix um that is one of the more subversive and bizarre and funny and confusing artifacts of its time um it's sort of like the blaxploitation films of the time like this year there are some interesting pam greer films friday foster sheba baby um sort of post shaft moment in in movie history but it's also rudy ray moore is obviously a stand-up comedian and a comic has a comic persona and it's attempting to use the format and the structure of

these kinds of movies derville martin for example i believe appears in sheba baby and he directed this movie um but it's also so shoddily made and humorous and it's effectively like real-time satire, something that was happening in the moment. It's not nostalgic at all. It's literally just reflecting on a kind of persona. And it's a very cool movie. And it's a very important movie in the history

of black cinema. It's a very important movie in the history of independent cinema, a very important movie in the history of exploitation cinema. And it's worth a look, even if it is not necessarily up to the standards of, say, The Man Who Would Be King.

So that's my comedy pick. I used to listen to Dolomite Records a lot. I wasn't allowed to watch the Dolomite movie. I feel like the records are even more salacious. I know.

Did you have your own little record player? Like, I'm imagining Tiny Chris in those sweaters on one of those Fisher Price. I remember when like Robin Harris was really big and we would like trade tapes of like different, you know, and Eddie Murphy. And like I would just, I just remember like Dolomite being also in the mix of like, you gotta listen to this comedy album. Chris, you are up.

Oh, okay. Well, for drama, I'm going to take Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger, which is a really, really beguiling movie about a journalist in Africa played by Jack Nicholson who basically decides to take on the identity of another man who is staying in the hotel that he is in.

I think it's Chad. I can't remember what country in Africa he's staying in. He just basically decides he wants to be someone else it's um typically antonioni is like very um sort of uh i guess i would say mannered i would not not even manner but just patient it's a very patient exploration of of uh identity but just in terms of a sense of place it's stunning, it's stunning. Visually, it's stunning. Maria Schneider is also in it. And Nicholson gives a really good performance in this.

I just always loved that Nicholson, at this time, was just trying stuff with different directors. It's always amazing to see the biggest actors also take chances on different filmmakers. And I think a lot of it had to do with his reverence for the form and for antonioni as a filmmaker if you watch on criterion i think for the if you one of the extras and either lenote or one of the or laventura like you can see basically a video essay of just Jack Nicholson talking about Antonioni for like seven minutes. And it's, it's incredible. But yeah, I just,

I really liked the passenger. I think it would actually, and I think it just, it plays really well now. I think like a lot of our ideas about the fluidity of, of like who we are and how we can change those things using certain identifiers is really, it it's it's really cool also one of the most famous kind of like long take final shots ever very similar to the man would be king I kind of like make sure you stick around for the last few minutes of this movie because it's very important good pick one of the last movies Antonioni ever made yeah okay Amanda you've got your final two picks. Mm-hmm. So in wild card, I think it will surprise no one that I'm taking gray gardens, um, which is the males brothers, um, cult classic cinema, very Tay documentary about big Edie and little BD little Edie Bouvier Beale, um, who lived at, uh, the Hamptons home of sorts

called Gray Gardens and is a startling look at two women and identity and communication and a mother-daughter relationship and also fame and how people relate to a camera and to their sense of selves. I referenced this documentary a lot during my personal lockdown. Felt a little bit like we were turning into a little Grey Gardens of our own in communication style, if nothing else.

You know, it can be a little queasy making this documentary. It's certainly hard not to watch it now and not think of every single reality show that came afterwards in terms of these people who agree to be on camera and are being, I would say, exploited and celebrated simultaneously. Like they have become pop cultural icons, but maybe not in the way that they would have understood it when they agreed to be a part of the documentary, but you know, just a landmark, fascinating, um,

entertaining, if sometimes difficult or uncomfortable film to watch. Yeah. I find, I still find it to be a tough sit. Uh, it is unsparing in its intimacy. Um,

but you know, it is, it's also like gray gardens itself is just like a pop culture phrase and reference point and kind of took on a life of its own. So that's Grey Gardens. And then you know what, I forgot that I didn't have action thriller. So it's okay. I have a backup. But as Chris noted at the beginning of this, there are a lot of things that could be moved around, even if certain people are really mad about that. And it was confusing, keeping the category straight. But it's fine. I have a backup. An action thriller. I'm going with a very broad

definition of thriller. And I'm taking Stepford Wives, the original. I think that's legit. I like it. Yeah. Directed by Brian Forbes and written by William Goldman, starring Catherine Ross. And, you know, Stepford Wives, another kind of pop cultural idea and phrase that was introduced in this like, like pretty schlocky, but still kind of fun, somewhat, you know, very political commentary on the sort of the women's movement or really just, you know, housewives in the 70s in um connecticut and in the u.s and and funny and the the last scene in the grocery store in terms of like a visual representation of like a lot of my fears and fears of many other you know women and what can happen it's pretty memorable so steppard wives cr that lines up perfectly for you

to take solo with your wild card get in there buddy shout out to everybody who asked me what when i was taking solo uh okay so there's a bunch of b movies right here for wild card that i think uh each one of them has like their merits and on a different day i would pick a different one but i gotta go i gotta respect the brand here and pick a movie about Peter Fonda and Warren Oates being chased by a satanic cult across Texas. So I'm going with race with the devil, which you might be asking yourself, CR,

how do they not remake this movie? And let me tell you, they did. It's basically the plot of like nocturnal animals. It's the plot of wrong turn. It's the plot of so many movies where it's like four people who think they're just having a cool weekend drive across Texas. And no, they, they happen to pause upon a satanic ritual.

And then it turns out like everybody's in on it. So it's a schlocky as hell. It's, it's pretty raw. It's, it's, it is, is, you know, kind of came out. It's interesting to look at it as like a post script to easy rider, which in and of itself is not exactly a bright and sunny movie, but this is sort of like, what if the American heartland is hell?

So I, I just, this is a great, this is a great midnight movie. And if people haven't checked it out, I recommend that they do. I revisited this as well you you may recall a sequence in Kill Bill volume 2 in which Uma Thurman's character discovers a

snake in a trailer let me tell you that that sequence is ripped straight from Race with the Devil because there is an absolutely horrifying sequence in which Peter Fonda is face to face with a cobra for like five minutes in this movie that is very, very effective. Super fun movie. CR, I feel like you and Warren Oates, you have a kinship. I mean, he's just one of my favorite character actors for sure.

But there are a couple of movies that are kind of like in and around this vibe that I was like taking a look at. And I'll be curious to see, Sean, if you pick any of them for wildcard. Did you already take a wildcard? I haven't taken my wildcard yet. It's my last pick.

It's the last pick of the draft. Solo, not solo. Um, I'm not taking the apple dumpling gang. Um, I'm not taking the return of the pink Panther. Um,

I'm not taking a Russ Meyer, super Vixen. I'm not taking the happy hooker or Emmanuel too. But as much as Chris would like me to take Emmanuel too, so he can expound upon its virtues. I'm going to take roller ball. Oh, cool.

Yeah. Roller ball. Frankly, one of the greatest sports movies ever made. One of the greatest movies ever made about the challenges of being an athlete inside of a corporately controlled sporting atmosphere. This is a Norman Jewison movie starring James Kahn. Fascinating movie. I think I revisited it this week as well. Interesting to see similarly to the concept of pace. This is like a two hour and 10 minute movie that should probably be about

95 minutes. Nevertheless, it's this interesting existentialist drama about effectively the LeBron James or the Tom Brady of rollerball, which is this new, modernized, futuristic game in which a metal ball is sent across a kind of like rolling roller rink style platform

and teams from various countries and cities battle on motorcycles and on roller skates to scoop the ball and to score the ball on a goal. It's a spectator sport. It's a vicious sport. It's incredibly violent. Khan is at the center of the game, and he is being pressured by the corporate influences who effectively run the world in this dystopian future to retire. They want him out of the game.

It seems like they want him out of the game primarily because he's becoming too popular. He is becoming bigger than the game in some ways and they can't have that. And so it isn't just a cool sports movie, but it's a, you know, very similarly, just like movies like Stepford Wives or movies like Barry Lyndon or movies like even Jaws that seem like they are contained stories, but are effectively commenting on what's going on in the world. And Rollerball is insanely prescient. And, you know, it's from Jewison, the director of Tom's Crown Affair, but also in the heat of the night, you know, he's a very well-rounded filmmaker.

And it's still really, really good. And it's still really, really unnerving. And also similarly features an iconic final shot that speaks to the absolute bottomless depravity of man. So that's that's rollerball. That's the final pick of the draft. Yes. And we see rollerball lately. I haven't seen rollerball lately, but I do. I do remember enjoying the hell out of it when I saw it. Quality flick. Guys, we're done. Should we recap? Sure. What, what, what,

what, what didn't we talk about? There are a bunch of hangout movies like Rancho deluxe or, you know, 92 in the shade, which were both related to the novelist, Thomas McQueen. Uh,

he wrote and directed 92 in the shade and he wrote Rancho deluxe, which is, they're just like kind of like burnout hangout movies that i really enjoy um there's a lot of a lot of b movies that we didn't really touch on yeah i feel like we also it's a big year for the 70s musical you know you mentioned rocky horror but oh yeah tommy there's tommy ken russell makes three movies in this year list of mania and mahler all all in the same year those movies are released then funny lady comes out this year the sequel mania and mauler all all in the same year those movies are released then funny lady comes out this year the sequel to funny girl also starring james conn at long last love peter

bogdanovich's famed disaster of a musical um what else anything else amanda that you were eyeing that you didn't get a chance to speak on no i mean you took the man who would be king which i i do feel like most of these were like in the pot that we were all shared from and picking together, except for the kind of the weird eccentric wild cards or the films that you sort of encountered along the way. I have not seen as many of the B-horror movies of 1975. It won't surprise you guys. Yeah. Probably the best movie that we didn't take from my point of view is Deep Red, aka Profundo Rosso, which is Dario Argento's, I want to say his fifth film. I still think it's arguably his best, maybe with Suspiria as number one or two. Incredibly violent, beautiful, gory, bright, bright, bright red movie.

I was just looking at the box office top 11, which is where we pulled our $30 million threshold from. So we got Jaws. We got Cuckoo's Nest. We got Shampoo. We got Dog Day Afternoon. We got Three Days of the Condor. And then here's what we left on the table. The Return of the Pink Panther.

Never been a big Pink Panther movies guy. I don't know about you guys. When I was a kid, I used to watch them a lot. Yeah, of course. Mentioned Funny Lady. That's also in the top 11 there. How about the other side of the mountain?

Have either of you seen that? I have not. I have not. Neither have I. That's so fascinating. The movie like The Other Side of the Mountain, $35 million it made that year.

Just does not feel like it has much of a cultural reputation whatsoever. And then, of course, Disney's The Apple Dumpling Gang, which we hit on. So let's recap. The 1975 movie draft. Here's what we got. In drama, Chris took The Passenger. I took Barry

Linden. Amanda took Picnic at Hanging Rock. Interesting how we use that category as a safe space for secondary picks. For comedy, Chris took Rocky Horror Picture Show, much to my chagrin. I took Dolomite and Amanda took Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In action thriller, Chris took Night Moves. I took The Man Who Would Be King. Amanda took The Stepford Wives. In Oscar winner, Chris has Nashville. I have One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Amanda has Dog Day Afternoon. In blockbuster, Chris has Shampoo. I have Jaws. Amanda has Three Days of the Condor. And in Wild Card, Chris has Race with the Devil. I have Rollerball. Amanda has Grey Gardens. Now, I would say that this is a fairly evenly distributed collection.

I agree. Sort of, but you have Jaws. I do have Jaws. It's like, it is a little bit like... But do you think everybody voting would be like... I feel like if anybody listens to this podcast and votes i mean maybe you could get some like drive-by people being like oh yeah jaws is on this i'll just pick this but in terms of voting i think that if you're listening to this podcast you're probably like yeah well like jaws is kind of like a given you know what i mean like isn't that why jaws is the number one pick is

because it's like not a given it's jaws it just like changed movies you know like i like i don't know what to say um it's very good i'm very pro jaws i'm even pro the shark don't change the shark let me see if i can understand what you're trying to say you're saying i should be given no credit for the acquisition of jaws it's like it's like being the gm who gets to draft LeBron or Zion. I don't know. Well, if I don't get credit for one, then maybe you guys

shouldn't get credit for your first picks either. I am not trying to take credit away. I'm just like, you have Jaws. Like this, you know, this was over

before it started. Was doing 1975 too hard? No, it was fun. I liked it. You know, I definitely screwed up all the categories like eight times but that's okay and then you know felt a little tight roping on like i didn't have a third backup for comedy you know comedy was the tough one because you there was a you know it's like shampoo could

have been a comedy you that that's where you tipped the scales there by putting shampoo where you put it chris when you did so i was gonna put shampoo and comedy and when i was like oh i'm gonna move things but then i was like i want i kind of want to talk about rocky so i i took rocky horror so definitely reordered that my trajectory where i thought we were going with things i thought there would be three solid i thought it would be rocky horror monty python and shampoo would live in the comedy category right nevertheless um So this was hard. I think Oscar winner actually created more hurdles than it did more ease, which is not to say that animated film would have made a whole lot of sense in

this year. I'm just going to come out and say what the next draft is. The next draft will likely be in August and it's going to be the year 2007, which has a very similar reputation to the year 1975 which is to say it is one of the best quote unquote Oscar years it is also one of the best years in the history of American movies. Is it the

last great year in American movies? We've debated that in the past on this show. I think Amanda what did you say? Was it 15? No 17. 17. Which we just drafted. 17 and also 19 I think think, is also pretty amazing. I mean, 2017 was a crappy year, which I think colors our perception,

but it was a great movie year. 21 so far, though, is putting 2007 to shame, if you ask me. Yeah, where would you say... What pick number do you think Godzilla vs. Kong would have gone in in the 75 draft, if it were released that year? Fourth? Third? Number one, but for

drama. For Oscar winner, probably. Can you imagine showing King Kong vs. Godzilla as it exists in 2021 to a person in 1975? I think it would have gone over really well. I think they would have been impressed. Amanda noted...

To the guy next to you, just be like, holy just watching godzilla deck this shit out it's like on an aircraft carrier it's dope it's really good quality content they'd be excited you know about the advancements in water technology also so later tonight if you could fire up one of these two movies amanda which would you pick uh godzilla versus kong which you've seen recently or or the 187 minute epic barry lyndon just to watch by myself listen barry lyndon's really good i like just because i made some jokes about ryan o'neill's face does it mean that i don't like absolutely i that was said with love because of what it encapsulates barry lyndon when i re-watched, I did do it in two sittings in the year 2021. I'll be honest.

That doesn't mean that I didn't take, wasn't any less amazed by it. It doesn't make it any less erotic. Totally appreciation. Yes, exactly. That's why I took a break, Chris, because I just needed to spend some time with that. You know, so I guess I could turn on half of barry lyndon i find barry lyndon also it's obviously critiquing the costume drama format which is one of my favorites but um it's so beautiful also that i just find it soothing to watch so maybe i just like put it on and be like

oh look at that look at all those sheep imagine him having to just like marshal all those sheep there's a livestock budget on barry lyndon you know just more than I make in a year in 2021 but so I could turn it on but it does have different pleasures than watching two CGI animals fight each other Chris any closing thoughts on the sexual mores of the films of 1975 no I'm just ready to do the time warp do you know it now it's did you I get confused between honestly now it's like the moves for the time warp are kind of like

mixed in with YMCA you know but the instructions are in the lyrics of the song yeah but I don't remember the lyrics of the song oh that's too bad okay well thank you guys very much please do not

forget to vote on Twitter where the rightful winner always emerges. That's where truth lives on Twitter and you can find the truth of this draft there. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Amanda. Thank you to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. Later this week on The Big Picture, Amanda and I will be joined by Shea Serrano to talk about the movie Fast 9 and rank every movie in the Fast and Furious franchise. We'll see you then.