The Big Picture - The 2013 Movie Draft. Plus: Sofia Coppola and Rashida Jones!

Episode Date: October 30, 2020

The end of the month beckons, and with it another Movie Draft. Chaos agent Chris Ryan returns to join Sean and Amanda in a showdown selection of 2013 movies (0:40). Then, Sean and Amanda are joined by 'On the Rocks' writer-director Sofia Coppola and the star of her new film, Rashida Jones, to talk about their careers, their dads, and their label makers (1:07:08). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Chris Ryan; Sofia Coppola and Rashida Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the year 2013. Joining us as always is Chris Ryan to select the best possible collection of films for our 2013 movie draft. Later in the show, Amanda and I have two very special guests. We were joined by Sofia Coppola and Rashida Jones to talk about their new film together, On the Rocks. It's all coming up on The Big Picture.

C-R-A-K-D, we're here again. Are you guys ready for another movie draft? I'm pumped up. I'm pumped up i'm pumped up i feel like i've learned from my mistakes which is what life's all about chris you've gotten your ass handed to you in every single movie draft you are oh for three um i amanda is has won the two most recent drafts and um i'm i've been thinking a lot on strategy. What have you been thinking on? Oh, good. Me, Amanda Dobbins or Chris?

I want to hear from the champ. Oh, okay. This is going to be an interesting one. Uh, I reading through the list of movies of 2013, I spent a lot of time being like, oh, well that's a Chris movie. And like, oh, that's a Sean movie. And in a lot of ways, I'm excited for you is to shine. I feel like you got the raw materials here to build something great, but also something that reflects yourselves. And frankly, I think you've been missing a little heart from the lineup. Actually,

that's just for Sean. Chris has maybe too much heart, but this might be the year when your interests and a winning strategy can align. And I'm happy for you guys. That's what movies are about. Before we go into Total Combat, I do want to say that there were very many films this year that Sean and I saw together, walked out of, and we were like the Paul Rudd Hot Ones meme. We're like, look at us. Who would have thought? Place beyond the pines. Am I right? Yeah. I think, Chris, we were good friends before this movie year, but this was the year when we went full predator meme in this year. You know, we were just hands clutch, smiling at each other.

And I think all of these movies were about either decapitating movie stars or the decline of American masculinity. Yeah, as they should be. I mean, those are two of the great veins to mine, you know, in cinema history. Do you guys want to talk very quickly about some news before we get into our draft particulars? Because, you know, it's been a curious time. This has not been a very normal year for movies, as you may have heard. And we haven't seen many of the movies we expected to see. We've been having this ongoing conversation about what's going to happen with movie theaters. Are they going to open?

Are movies going to go to streaming services? What's going to go down? And I feel like things have set into a kind of new normal over the last four or five weeks where it's like we have just accepted that movie theaters are in absolute peril long term. And nothing made me think of this more than to see this new story about the idea of the new James Bond film potentially going to Apple. Now, it turns out that this movie is not going to go to Apple. No time to die. But the fact that this was even a conversation, I thought was kind of a Rubicon moment in terms of where we're going here. Chris, you pointed out

that you thought this would be interesting to talk about. What was your reaction when you saw that Apple made a serious bid to try to get this movie onto their service? I had a couple of reactions. One was the line that comes, and I believe this is a Hollywood Reporter piece, but way down in the piece, there's a bit about the Broccoli family and how the Broccoli family are sort of the wild card of this whole story, because you've got

MGM and you've got Apple and you've got a couple of other distributors. Universal, I believe, had some theatrical distribution rights, so they were a player in these conversations. But the Broccoli family was essentially like, James Bond is a movie theater property and James Bond is about scarcity and luxury. And we are going to maintain that in the face of these great odds that we're facing right now. But the bigger thing was, I think some anonymous exec or somebody, a consultant that they

spoke with for this piece said, once you dip your toe in it, you can't pull your foot out. Something along those lines. Essentially meaning you cannot undo this. Once you start putting James Bond movies up on streaming services, we have gone to the other place and we're not coming back. I thought that was interesting too. Amanda, do you want No Time to Die to come to a streaming service? Do you think that they're making the right choice by withholding this for what is scheduled to be April of 2021? But given how things are going, it could be much longer than that. I'm still not convinced that they'll be able to make it to theaters. I mean, at the end of the day, isn't this about money?

And isn't the reading between the line that MGM is not in a great place? And so I stand with the broccoli's in support of luxury, whatever that means. But I too would like to see James Bond in a movie theater. I wanted us all to make a pact on this podcast that if it comes out on a streaming service that we'll make some sort of event, someone will get a projector or something

so that we can all watch it not in my living perhaps a turkish beach bungalow sure um but you know and i hope that it works out and i again i hope movie theaters survive because i like going to the movies and i miss it very much. But in this particular case, it just seems like it's a financial issue and the finances are not in their favor. And very specific to Bond, right? Because the numbers that we're seeing thrown around for this movie were upwards of a half a billion dollars. I think that's what the price tag... I mean, it's almost like that's where it starts at because MGM and all these other parties were expecting this movie to be at least a billion dollar movie worldwide.

So they're saying like for us to even start to get well, we have to start the bidding at this astronomical price tag. there as we will probably no doubt see much that at a much lower price point that apple or netflix might start you know continue to just start being like you know what like we'll make the wonder woman play i guess that would be hbo max but you know what i mean it will be very interesting to see how that plays out specifically because here's the worldwide box office for the last four bond movies these have been the daniel craig bond Casino Royale made $594 million worldwide. Quantum of Solace made $591 million, almost exactly the same amount of money. And then Skyfall made $1.1 billion.

Yes, it did. And Spectre made almost $900 million. So I think the Broccoli's are well within their rights to say this is not a $400 million purchase. This has to be closer to an $800 or 900 million dollar purpose on the one hand on the other hand i don't think theatrical box office is ever going to be even close to 1 billion dollars for movies in the future i don't know if it will ever recover and go back to that place and i think the knock-on effect of that is going to be there are going to be fewer films like no time to Die that cost $250 or $300 million just to make. And so what

you have is probably somewhere between 10 and 20 movies now that are either in production or midstream or finished that had this expectation of being billion dollar box office or $500 million box office movies. And I think Wonder Woman falls into this category too, where you've got to say, you know, the first Wonder Woman movie made over $400 million in America. So hopefully the sequel will make 500 or $600 million in America. That's the trajectory of sequels historically. And now where will you settle? Where will you be able to cut off and accept? Now the Apple play in particular is important because Apple is a nascent streaming service that I think has had some trouble getting interest in its brand. And they need a noisy play like this. I'm not so sure that HBO or Netflix or any of these other series or streamers need this as much as someone like Apple does.

So it could just be like a moonshot, too. Like there may not be opportunities for these movies to get a massive payout in the future too. So I'm very curious to see if what you're suggesting, Amanda, plays out, which is that this was the public reporting of a negotiation that could still be ongoing here. Do you think, Chris, that this story could be updated in a week or two? I kind of halfway hope that it is because Bond dropping Christmas weekend, is that going to be like, that's the most attention Bond could possibly get. Because let's say that we're back in movie theaters

next late spring or summer. Let's just say. All the movies that have been stacked up waiting to get out, plus all the movies that were going to come out in 2021 anyway, you've got a really crowded landscape. Plus, you guys probably know better than I do.

The Rami Malek and Daniel Craig pieces and all the James Bond magazine coverage is over. They did it already. They thought it was coming out and all those covers happened and all those stories happened. Are they going to go back and do them again next year when the Bond movie is actually ready to come out? I think that actually there's an argument to be made that were it to come out. I think that actually there's an argument to be made that were to come out on Apple over a big holiday weekend, you would have the most attention you would ever get for a Bond movie. You would, but you might not have the most revenue. But I'm glad that you made that point about the sort of publicity and marketing that goes behind a movie like this. Amanda, I wanted to ask you, do you think that the public having a high level awareness of a movie like Black Widow

or a movie like Fast Nine or No Time to Die for more than two years and knowing that it is like a carrot on a stick for them, is it possible that people become less interested in these movies because they're playing this unknowable waiting game as opposed to the general version of anticipation we do where we read in the trades that there's untitled Marvel movie coming in 2024. I mean, I would get tired of it. I will get tired of it. So I can speak for everybody else, which I'm never afraid to do.

But I do think that without like some goal or some end date to build your anticipation towards, I mean, it's a little bit like Charlie Brown and the football, right? Like you keep yanking it away and then people are like, no, thank you. Also, there are some other things going on in the world and in 2020. And so like, does anyone remember Daniel Craig's first marketing push in April? Because what happened was that like all of the magazine pieces were already like to the printer by the time no time today was released so that was like phase one and then they got rami malik ready for phase two and then had to pull it again uh so i just i don't i think it's already so hard to hold

people's attention and harder than it was to get people to invest in a mainstream movie event um especially without all of the normal mechanics we have, you know, like sports games and the schedules of like all of the television advertising is kind of up in the air. And so I, I think that Chris is right in a way that doing, it would be a one-time stunt.

Now the flip side of that is that tenant tried that, right? They tried the one-time stunt, but, the flip side of that is that Tenet tried that, right? They tried the one-time stunt, but they tried it in theaters and that did not work at all. And they tried to use all of the marketing to their advantage and it didn't work. I think that that is because there were just logistical issues and people did not feel safe or care about going to movie theaters. And I think the opposite is true is that people love to stream. People just will really turn something on on their computer or in their home. But it is true that you can only use the event marketing once. We're going to have to keep a close watch on this because I feel like this stuff is going to change pretty radically over the next six months.

And there's no indication that theatrical movie going is going to be recovering anytime soon, which is very upsetting. But it's frankly just a new reality, which is why we're talking about old movies here on The Big Picture. So let's talk about movies that were released somewhere between seven and eight years ago. 2013. I like to start these conversations by asking you both if you think this was an exceptional year for movies. Now, I think it was an exceptional year for Chris Ryan going to the movies. But Amanda, when you look at the slate of movies we're going to be

talking through here, did you think, oh, this was a good lineup? Yeah, I thought it was interesting. And I think it's kind of the, let me make sure I get this right. The floor is a bit higher in this year. Everything is the middle or the median movie is kind of better than usual. And you have a lot of things where you're like, Oh, that, Hey, that worked out.

That was pretty good. That made a lot of money. Like that was interesting. Um, there are possibly fewer movies that I personally connect to or think are like total masterpieces. There are some, you know,

I'm excited to talk about these films, but yeah, I think it's a little more even and a little more just like, huh, good movies. CR, what about you? What are your reflections on this year? A really consistently entertaining movie going year throughout the year. So I went back and looked at the releases by month. And I think I went to the movie theater as just a paying citizen 50 to 60 times this year. And the lowest amount that I went to the movies was two times in January, I think.

And then every other time, it was three to four to five times. There was just great stuff. Okay, let me revise that. Really entertaining stuff spread out across the entire calendar. And also a diversity of movie-going experiences. I laughed a lot this year. There were a lot of really solid comedies. And even though they were starting to get, I think, a little bit bloated and bigger, this is the sort of vapor trail of like, you got Melissa McCarthy comedies

and Seth Rogen stuff and Jason Bateman's in movies. And like a lot of those movies that feel like they were just pitches and then improvised in the, you know, on the set, but they were pretty like fun to just go kill two hours at. And so I just remember the year I, I was not a largely different person when I was 35 or whatever. So personally,

I don't have like a ton of different reflections, but I think that this was just one of those years where you found yourself making movie going a really huge part of your life. Remember your thirties, Chris, that was great. You miss those days. It's so weird.

When you said that, I was just like imagining Chris in his thirties. Very strange to me. He was the exact same person. I was there. I was there for it, but it's just, it's very dis to me. He was the exact same person. I'm the exact same. I was there. I was there for it, but it's just,

it's very disorienting. He was a wonderful guy then. He's a wonderful guy now. Always in the pocket of Big Bateman though. Have no idea why he just had a Big Bateman name drop there. Just love a Bateman where it's like,

Bateman's a guy with a job and then something goes wrong. Yeah, so I see this year um i agree that the floor was high um and that even the mediocre stuff i think was very entertaining and we were not yet totally in thrall to the comic book movement you know the mcu is picking up and there was dc stuff but it wasn't the only thing to talk about in movies as it often feels like now and there was still a very discernible middle um there was very clearly a lot of you know literary adaptations and and dramas and those comedies that chris is talking about where you know you you still felt like you could open a mainstream

movie comedy with a modest movie star and make 100 million dollars or 80 million dollars which is something that now feels virtually impossible and there there was also just a lot of really odd, prestige-y personal stuff that seemed to rise above the surface. So I think the year, when we look back on it, is probably ultimately best remembered for the 12 Years a Slave, which won Best Picture that year, and Gravity, and movies like American Hustle, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Those were the kind of the big filmmakers making their big important projects. And most of those movies were hits and they felt important.

But for us, I think there was this strand of, I don't know if it was necessarily like art house or independent or smaller movies that we've talked about a bunch of times on this show. You know, Frances Ha comes out this year, Inside Llewyn Davis comes out this year. Her, Before Midnight, Fruitvale Station. Like, it really did have either people

announcing themselves for the first time or people who had been kind of in that indie hall of fame making signature work. And I don't want to spend every single movie draft like lamenting what the recent past, but it does seem like as we debate whether, you know, the world is better or worse off with no time to die on on Apple TV plus. I got I got a little wistful for this this moment in history, but I don't know. What about what about you, Amanda?

Do you do you have any sentimental feelings about this time? Yeah, I absolutely do. This is when we share our personal anecdotes. I guess you guys already shared yours and that's very sweet. You both had already moved to Los Angeles in 2013. So Zach and I were back in New York just seeing a lot of movies.

And while I was moving recently, I found a piece of paper torn from a reporter's notebook. And I remember exactly where these lists were made, but they were, um, mine and Zach's 2013 top 10 lists, which we had made after seeing the wolf of wall street, uh, in midtown, we went to the King Cole bar, uh, which is a very fancy hotel bar where you can only afford one drink if you're me um and we sat at the bar and made these like wrote these lists it was very sweet um and i i just have the sense memory of it and of and of the excitement of still being like oh we've seen all this great art and now let's argue about

it together so i think of that does your list have just like a bunch of scratched out things where you keep moving the crudes around like you're like crudes top three i don't know no i so i found it and then i lost it again but if i find it i you know i'll put it somewhere on the internet um safe so it's because it is it's very sweet it's funny you tell that story because because chris and i did something very similar after we saw only god forgives we um we went to a bar and we ordered a $38 cocktail. We wrote a list of things about our mothers. You know, just what do we love

about our mothers? It was the bathhouse. Oh, sorry. Yeah, just to sweat it out. All right, that's fine. I told a nice story because I got some feedback in my house

that certain people didn't like their portrayal on this podcast. So I'm trying to be positive and you guys want to make it ugly. Zach comes out great in this story. I think Sean and I are the ones who just want to fight. Chris and I wrestled nude in a bathhouse

talking about the work of Nick Refn, okay? Who's coming out looking great now? You know what was easier about this time period too, this year, was the blockbuster stuff, Sean, that you kind of referred to a little bit when you were first talking there. I don't want to sound rude here, but it was easier to ignore.

It was the end of a YA dystopia wave. Several films were just like the last movie in a five-movie cycle, part two. And you're just like, okay, yeah. I actually enjoy the Hunger Games movies. I actually secretly enjoy Maze Runner, which isn't from this year. But of those movies, I'm fine with them if they come on. But they were very easy to just be like, yeah, I didn't read the book. Not really my thing.

And now it's more, it feels like if you want to get your ticket stamped, you have to have a working knowledge of the MCU. I think that's very true. I think, here's a brief accounting of the biggest movies of the year via box office. Iron Man 3, The Hunger Games Catching Fire, Despicable Me 2, Man of Steel, Monsters University, Fast Six, Star Trek Into Darkness. These movies are not terrible, but they are not, you know, Avengers Endgame, where it feels like in many ways that was the only movie that was released for three months. And I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing, but it does make this a more intriguing

prospect as a draft year for us. Amanda, I know you're going first pick overall Oz the Great and Powerful, but otherwise, what do you think about the blockbusters? Well, there are a lot of... It's kind of the last gasp of a traditional non-franchise, non-IP blockbuster that was good enough, that enough people want to see it, that it meets our $100 million box office qualification for this. You know, there are a lot of pretty good movies that you're like, oh, that did make enough money. I can count it as a blockbuster. And that's just very convenient

to me personally putting together this list and will maybe make our list more interesting. But you know, I think Chris's point is right. It's that there's always, there are always blockbusters you can ignore. Even now, I'm sure, you know, there are a lot of, there was a, there's a new Croods this year, right? I've seen some commercials for some Croods. Chris Ryan, what's up? Looking forward to watching that via like Zoom with you. Double feature with the Bond movie. Please respect to the Croods and Roger Deakins' contributions to the Croods films, okay?

Is that real? Did he also do the Croods along with Rango? Yes, he did. I had blocked that out. You're a nerd. Anyway, but there are still things that you can ignore, but you're kind of choosing between like things I can't ignore and things I kind of wish I could ignore in 2020.

And in 2013, there were things you can ignore and like, oh, this is still good. I am excited to go see this film. I think the same is even true for sequels. There were more unexpected and weird sequels this year than there had been in other years. Of course, there was stuff like Fast Six, which we can count on. But there were a bunch of sequels for movies that had, you know, their original installment had come 5, 10, 15, 20 years prior. So that makes this a little bit more of a fun year to draft as well. Does Rango have a voice? Like, what does Rango sound like?

What are you talking about? I'm working towards something. He's voiced by Johnny Depp, and it's kind of a sub Hunter Thompson slash Humphrey Bogart thing. Because I was thinking, why hasn't Rango gone on the Deacons pod yet? You know why, because he's voiced by Johnny Depp. Can we not? Let's just,

let's not go down this road. Do you volunteer as tribute to perform as Rango on the Deakins pod? I was thinking about making a Christmas present for you where me and Bobby take all these Deakins questions

and then I answer the Deakins questions as Rango. That's an easy win. Easy win. I'm happy to work on that with you, Chris. But I have to watch Rango. That's an easy win. Easy win. I'm happy to work on that with you, Chris, but I have to watch Rango first. That was a,

that was a going to be a Christmas present. You said, yeah, Merry Christmas. Okay. Please don't do that. Or, um,

you're, you're in a lot of your work. I'm going to recreate what happened in that Turkish bath house. I think it's a great idea. Thank you. Okay. Shame on all of you guys as usual. And shame on you, Bobby, for participating in this with them. God damn it. I will not be outnumbered on this podcast. Does Ringo have a voice? Okay. Tell me about how you got started in the industry. Were you just, you were an amphibian were you were you always interested in law enforcement or

chris here's the thing roger deakins does not sound like a 13 year old real deakins heads no and real mango heads will know this is me throwing to an advertisement to get away from this hellfire. We'll be back after a quick word from our sponsor. Bobby, we're ready to draft, which means we need to figure out our draft order. Let's do it. I have the Scrabble letters and a Top Gun hat. Shout out to Top Gun Maverick,

which we may never see. Put that out on a stream service, my guy. Come on, please. I don't know. Chris, I thought we were in on seeing this in a theater thing, though. I want you and me to watch this on VR together. I will do that.

Get our towers buzzed. I will participate. Okay, let's do this. The first pick is awarded to Chris Ryan. I was worried this was going to happen. Okay. You were worried you were going to go first? Yeah, because it's just too much choice.

And I actually really, really thought about my strategy. And now I'm nervous that it's going to blow up in my face. You look so stressed. The second pick will be Sean Fennessey. It's what you want. It's what you want. It's what you want. Amanda, you're at the pivot. I actually, I'm pleased with that.

So we've got our draft order. For those of you who have never listened to a movie draft before, we each select one movie in three categories. We go in snake, style. The six categories are drama, comedy and horror,

blockbuster, animated and foreign language, wildcard, and sequel. So CR, you have the first pick. For my first pick, so I've done a lot of drafts here, a few drafts where I've gone with my heart. I'm trying to go with my head a little bit better today, and I'm going to find out that I'm not as smart as I think I am.

But my first pick is sequel, and it's Iron Man 3. What? What? What? What is happening? What are you doing? Well, I was going to go with. We just started. What are you talking about?

Chris, I love you so much. And you could have had that at pick six. I don't like any other sequels this year. Yes, you do, actually. That's insane. And when I pick the sequel, I'll let you know which one it is i i just i chris you never cease to amaze me this you are unusually bad at this it's amazing no i was gonna pick for my sequel short term 12 because i thought that they really did some interesting stuff that the 11 other

movies didn't I look through this year and I was like I honestly I'm not gonna get caught at the end of this podcast with like hangover 3 you know okay Chris I just said on the show that there were a handful of interesting and unlikely sequels this year I did not see this on the Amanda is gonna take care of this shortly. So it's OK. It's all good. Do you want to talk about Iron Man 3, which I think

is actually good? And I know there's a reason that you have a passion for it. What am I supposed to be picking grownups to hear? What are you guys looking at? No, you're going to find out. Let's not spoil it for Chris.

I mean, you know what? You might not actually because maybe you're going to pick this in another category. And I have love for you in my heart, so I might not take it away from you because I have another sequel category and I I have love for you in my heart so I might not take it away from you because I have another sequel yeah Iron Man 3 is probably like a top top three uh Marvel movie for me and uh directed written or directed by Shane Black I thought it

was like one of the most creative and interesting Marvel movies it's probably my favorite Downey performance as Iron Man is Iron Man 3 uh I'm very curious now to see how I've stepped in it now. I basically felt like drama, comedy, and wild cards were just bursting at the seams with picks. So I was happy to get this out of the way, pick the one that I actually liked, and then pick whatever. I'll take my third or fourth off the board

with those other sections. So let's see. Okay. So I have the second pick and I am not going to take the movie that we're talking about, but I think I know exactly what Amanda is circling and she's going to have two picks, but I'm going to take the Wolf of Wall Street just because from a pure experience perspective, this is the movie that i like re-watching the most and i'm taking it as a blockbuster because it cleared the 100 million dollar hurdle okay amanda you have to i what do i have to say about the wolf of wall street we did a whole rewatchables about it i think it's

actually underrated and probably the incredible and funniest movie of the decade probably yeah it's absolutely wonderful it's's like the great American novel. It's great. I really wanted The Wolf of Wall Street. Let me ask you guys, would you guys have accepted if I tried to slot it in comedy? Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I didn't do that. Watch Jonah Hill in this movie and tell me it's not a comedy.

Okay. I mean, it is a comedy that is hilariously funny when you're watching it and the end result is that it's a tragedy. But that's, you know, so is America. Anyway, I would have accepted it. I'm going to do a similar thing in my first pick in the comedy category and take Frances Ha.

My justification for putting it in comedy is the line, what time did Puss in Boots start? Which is really all you need. It's the did that makes it art. But this is, you know, we talked about this on the best movies of the decade. This is one of my favorite movies of all time. It is a strategic pick. And then I know it also means a lot to Sean. So I'm sorry, Sean. But it is a sentimental, sentimental pick. And then I just think it is bright and hopeful and about finding yourself and also about two people falling in love. And I watched it and found it while also falling in love.

So I literally couldn't live without it. So I will go with Frances Ha. And for number two, what am I going to do here I guess all right since you took Wolf of Wall Street I'm gonna do in drama I'm gonna do her Wow whoa is that is that surprising to you yes this is so not playing out the way that I thought it

would this is fascinating this is a have you guys seen her recently? Not since I, not since the theater, honestly. It's one of my favorite movies of the decade. Yeah, it's extraordinary. I don't know if you remember that it invented the AirPod, but it did. So, cause that's how he talks to Samantha is in like literally a thing that looks like an AirPod.

And it is really interesting to watch that this movie seven years later, because it's like a slight future Los Angeles. And now we are living in future Los Angeles. And, you know, but what I like about this movie is that the sci-fi is there, but it doesn't intrude. And it really is about a human trying to have feelings. And the way it executes the concept is so light of touch,

but also so emotional. I think it like the, the design, it looks beautiful. Thank you for all the colors, Spike Jones, which I love. And,

you know, we just did a whole podcast about Sofia Coppola and we talked a lot about loss and translation and it's impossible not to see this as a mirror of loss and translation in a lot of ways. And I think it's like a profound and, and very emotional movie, great Joaquin performance. is a mirror of loss and translation in a lot of ways and i think it's like um a profound and and very emotional movie great joaquin performance um if you haven't seen it in a while i recommend it you know two great picks two great movies but not movies in that like mainstream kind of lane

which is interesting you know you're you're going real pure quality here. Well, I told you that I have an interesting relationship to this lineup. Like, I literally wrote down a list of movies that are like core Chris Ryan texts and core Sean texts, like individual ones. I can read them to you afterwards. And I don't have that as much, but these movies do speak to me. The other thing is that there are some mainstream movies that are eligible for other categories. So there are some mainstream movies that are eligible for other categories. So there is a bit more flexibility. Yeah, there's a lot of...

There's a lot of flexibility among these movies, I think. But I was going to take Wolf of Wall Street and draw my shot until you did. Or no, I was going to do it in Blockbuster,

but it's gone, so... Okay. So I'm going to do something that I didn't think I was going to be doing. And I guess Chris doesn't even know what's happening, but I'm just going to do it. I'm going to do something that I didn't think I was going to be doing. And I guess Chris doesn't even know what's happening, but I'm just going to do it. I'm going to draft a sequel, and I'm drafting Before Midnight.

Yeah, that's it, Chris. Which, no disrespect to Iron Man 3, but Before Midnight is better than Iron Man 3. I guess I just didn't really think of it in that way. But it is a sequel, right? No, it is. Yeah, it totally is. I just don't think of that in the same franchise way as you'd think of Catching Fire

or something like that. But I get it. Yeah. There are actually other ones that I probably personally would have taken over Iron Man 3. I don't want to step on

any of those if they're coming up here in the future on the show. But, um, Before Midnight, beautiful film. You know, Richard Linklater III

in his trilogy with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Chris, when are we, when is that coming up on the rewatchables what year do you think bill will decide to break down and talk about his marriage on the show the reason why i love before midnight now the most i think is because i have aged into that age like i always basically i'm a couple of years behind the movies so when i was like at the end of high school, I saw the first one when I was in sort of like my, I guess, mid-20s, I saw the second one.

But now I'm kind of like aging into the Jesse age now. So it's really uncanny to watch that film now. I think in the same way that the final 20 minutes of Before Sunset are so emotionally tantalizing and romantic, the final 20 minutes of before sunset are so emotionally tantalizing and romantic the final 20 minutes of before midnight are terrifying and depressing yeah and very real great couple fights i've ever seen filmed maybe the best yeah incredible stuff okay so before midnight that's my pick all right so i fucked up it's okay uh you got two picks here chris i think i'll go for drama i'm gonna go lewin davis okay i'm really surprised that sean didn't take that

um and i commend you chris for seizing the moment. Thank you. It was next on my list. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, Llewyn Davis is a movie that I don't think I really understood when I saw it. I think that Coen Brothers movies, especially post-No Country Coen Brothers movies, have a tendency to sell themselves as one thing. And then when you see them, you're like,

this is a whole different scenario than I... And not a different story that I was expecting but maybe a different tone and I think I went into Llewyn Davis expecting kind of like a romp or a little bit more of a daffy ensemble dramedy and it is one of the saddest movies that I've ever seen

I think in a lot of ways and it's only grown in my estimation over the years so I'll do Llewyn Davis and then for Blockbuster I'm going to do... This is a personal pick. I'm going to do This is the End. What?

Christopher! What is happening? What? What is happening? What? I don't understand. do you guys think i literally i have a list of like 10 chris court core chris ryan text it's literally written i'll scream we're not drafting i think every time i draft and it's like drafting core chris ryan texts i get roasted for it if i'm drafting like these like regular i didn't know that this is the end was it like what did you pick this in comedy or blockbuster blockbuster okay all right have you

picked a comedy yet no okay it's comedy horror i haven't picked either oh right okay so you're keeping your powder dry for a horror movie here because that not putting this movie in comedy strikes me as an odd choice in a year full of so many good blood you know you know i'm saying like i chris you constantly keep me on my toes i love you so much i just it's can you tell us about your relationship to the film this is the end because i frankly didn't know you'd seen it until today it's it's a hysterical movie i agree with you this was my number one pick in the in the comedy or horror category so i i 100 agree i think it is maybe the the overlooked comedy of its time i just i'm confounded by your pick my genre okay yeah okay um amanda if you would like to listen to Chris and I talk about This is the End,

I think maybe just socially that's something we could do in the future. It's never come up. I also think it's a very funny movie. This is the one that I was like, I think that they actually got it right where it was like, what if we just made a movie over the weekend with our friends? Obviously, it wasn't made over the weekend. But in terms of like,

let's just put all these guys in a house together and give them a scenario. And I still am like trying to get over like Michael Cera in this movie is like one of the most powerful things I've ever seen. So yeah, I'll go with that for Blockbuster. Okay. So

I have one pick coming up here. This is kind of boring, but I think we've forgotten. We've lost sight of what an amazing experience gravity was. And I'm going with gravity in the drama category. Speaking of movies that were best served in theaters and that in theater, I remember specifically the, the sort of Sandra Bullock and George Clooney moment in which they are torn away from one another.

That horrifying first 40-minute sequence and having my breath stolen and feeling like this is why I like to go to the movies. So is it the best drama made this year? Have you watched it since then? I have. I watched it a couple of times, actually. It may not be the best pure drama made, but as far as filmmaking goes, I think it's one of the achievements of the year, no doubt.

And it's something that it's unfortunately not going to age as well because it's not something that you can, like the grandeur of the experience, I think is starting to slip away from people. But for me personally, I have fond memories of it. So I'm going Gravity Drama. I was going to take Gravity and Blockbusterbuster so now i feel a little put out um i'm gonna have to regroup there that's okay i guess what i'm gonna do now because i have two picks and you know because i'm goal oriented in addition to expressing myself and my feelings is, uh, go to the animated or foreign

film category and take frozen. Uh, because I know that there are people out there who love frozen and many of them are small children, but small children deserve happiness too. And also what else was I going to pick? Like despicable me too. They have, I love the minions. I don't know that the sequel was their best work. Minions still, by the way, just looking over the valley. Very strong. Yeah. Frozen.

Congratulations to everyone involved. You're very rich. And then what am I going to do? I mean, maybe you guys will have a lot of other takes in that particular category, but it was kind of stumping me. So what do I have left? I have wild card. I have blockbuster and I have sequel. And you guys have both taken blockbusters, right?

Yeah, that's correct. And you've both done dramas. I have. We've both done dramas. Yeah. OK, so I don't really have to do that right now. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go ahead and do my sequel, which is The Best Man Holiday, which was on the

list of the movies when I found it from 2013. And I still think it's great. Vivid memory of going to the theater with my father over Thanksgiving. Two of us watching Best Man Holiday. We laughed. We cried. Give me just a great ensemble, slightly soap operatic Christmas movie. I will love it every year.

Thank you. This was another one of the movies I was thinking of where I was like this. There was an unusual number of sequels to movies that had come out five or eight or 12 years prior to the original. And this movie was a huge hit and is pretty good. Yeah. Okay. We had a great time.

It is exactly what it is supposed to be. It's a good pick. You've really left me in a good position. I'm feeling very good about the picks I've been able to make. Let me just say. You're so normcore today, though. It's like, you're just like, you know what? You're like the New York Daily News critic. You're like normcore today, though. It's like, you're just like, you know what? You're like the New York

Daily News critic. You're like, Gravity, what a good movie. Well, shame on me, I guess, for having solid American taste. You know? Nothing wrong with that, Chris. Perhaps you should watch

Borat's subsequent movie film and figure out how you really feel about this country. Speaking of, I'm going to pick in comedy and horror. I'm picking The Conjuring. One of the besturing one of the best horror movies of the decade also a recent rewatchables a movie that created a an entirely

new franchise unto itself um and also uncomplicatedly good you know a lot of craft good actors strong story there's not that much to say. The Conjuring is good. Chris, I know you agree. Yeah, you stole that one from me. I was going to pick that. Wow, this is really shaking out. I was kind of hoping you would pick a Smurfs movie or something like that, but I just messed up. A Smurfs movie?

Now you're just getting mean. I'm still reeling from my wistful opinion of before sunrise or before midnight and not being able to conceive of that as like a quote unquote sequel. That's too bad for you. No, I know. You were genuinely shocked.

You saw our shock. No, I know. You picked something that was not before midnight. I planned my whole strategy around you picking before midnight in the sequels category. I had a big backup sequels pick that I was ready to fire off and I don't even know if that movie's going to get picked now. It's up to you, Chris. You're up.

He looks so sad. This is awful. Why are we doing this? Okay, so I'm up and I have, I did drama. I did, so I have comedy, horror, wild card and animated left right that sounds right

well I'll do horror and I'll do your next which is a big favorite of mine which Adam Adam Wingard's fucked up dinner party that turns into the strangers movie from from 13

and it was, uh, which Sean and I just talked about these movies, a bunch on the big picture a couple of weeks ago for horror, but really like was the kind of the apex of this indie horror insurgency that was happening around then. So I'll do your next for comedy horror. There's one movie that if one of the two of you don't pick it then i have like you know

i guess seven years of like grievances to file for having had to listen to you talk about it is this because you me and sean just won't stop talking about blue is the warmest color no no it's not that one thank god i'm gonna go prisoners for wild card okay uh my guy denny uh one of my favorite jake gyllenhaal performances incredibly dark fucked up movie i can't believe this was like kind of a hit you know like this was like a movie people were actively like i think it's like 60 some million domestic but if you watch this movie and it's got like a really fucked up ending obviously i don't necessarily agree with a lot of like the ideas it puts forward but i do really really respect like the execution and shout out to uh rango deacons on the on the on the shots in this

movie just paul dano standing in a torrential downpour in suburban Pennsylvania while Jake Gyllenhaal is doing the absolute most in this film. Obviously, I've talked about prisoners before, but this is my jam. Tell us more about the ideas. What ideas do you think that movie has propagated?

Taking the law into your own hands i guess yeah you love vigilante justice a torture dungeon and an abandoned um track home yeah what about detective loki's personal style look man if i could do collars that way i would okay so the next pick is mine then, right? Uh-huh. So I've got two categories open. Those categories are wild card and animated frozen language. Or it's frozen language. Frozen language.

Yeah, frozen was the, that was the alpha pick. Amanda took frozen already. Gosh, I got the four that I thought I would get, which is exciting. And now I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit trapped. I thought I would get, which is exciting. And now I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit. Can you remind us what those four are?

My four picks so far? Yes. Um, in drama, I got gravity in comedy horror. I got the conjuring in blockbuster. I got the wolf of wall street and in sequel I got before midnight. It's a great list.

Thank you. Don't fuck it up in the home stretch. Gosh. Well, I'm going to go. it's a great list thank you don't fuck it up in the home stretch gosh well i'm gonna go with animated foreign language first and i'm gonna take the wind rises the hayo miyazaki movie which was released uh let me just you know what let's pause let me just make sure that this was released in the united States in 2013. Okay. Because I know that it was released in the world.

Because there's going to be like six dudes on Twitter who are like, hey. Oh, no. It wasn't. It wasn't. It was released in February of 2014. My apologies.

I can't take that movie. God damn it. Okay. That raises some problems. Minions. Minions. No. I'm not.

I can't go Minion. I'm just... I just got to do it. Wild card. Iions, minions, minions. No, I'm not. I can't go minion. I just got to do it. Wild card, I'm going the counselor. I had to take the counselor. Thank you. Finally. I can't believe it took you guys this long. That was the movie.

You've been talking about this since it came out, since before it came out. I just wanted a dramatic finale. I wanted to pick that for my last pick before Chris's last pick. I wanted to make a big show of it. The counselor is Ridley Scott's absolutely incredible late period masterpiece based on a Cormac McCarthy idea. Screamplay McCarthy script featuring one of the all time great casts of that decade.

A truly violent, romantic, hilarious movie. Chris, who's in The Counselor? Who are the stars of The Counselor? Most importantly, Cameron Diaz. Absolutely. Shout out to her. Rumored to have tried to employ a Rihanna accent. Like, was mimicking Rihanna

on set trying to do her accent and they had to go back in and dub her dialogue. That is just like, I don't know if that's true if that's apocryphal, but I choose to believe it. Among other people, also just one of the great Bardem performances. Fantastic Brad Pitt

performance. Rosie Perez is in this. Gosh, who else? Penelope Cruz and obviously Michael Fassbender in the titular role. Not to mention Edgar Ramirez, Bruno Ganz, Ruben Blattis, Natalie Dormer, right? Natalie Dormer.

Dormer throwing a thousand miles an hour in this movie. Truly, Toby Kebbell at the racetrack? Holy shit. If you haven't seen The Counselor and you want to have your wig blown back, do it tonight. Just do it. Really a gruesome movie though, just a heads up. If you haven't seen The Counselor and you want to have your wig blown back, do it tonight. Really a gruesome movie, though. Just a heads up.

If you haven't heard of a bolito before, you're going to learn a lot about how they do it in this film. I'm going Counselor. Okay, Amanda, are you satisfied? I mean, if you guys want to know what it's like to know Sean and Chris over an extended period of time, that's it. I am actually really surprised you didn't pick something, a certain other movie for your wild card. You want to say it? Are you afraid Amanda's going to take it? No, I'll say it at the end. Okay. Okay. Is it the Croods?

Okay, Amanda, you've got two more picks, right? And then you're done. I have two picks. I have Blockbuster and I have wild card. and I don't mind saying I'm not really prepared in the blockbuster department because my movies got taken a little bit and that's okay. That's life in the NBA. So I'm freestyling here, but I think I'm finding out tonight. I guess for blockbuster, I'll go with Captain Phillips. Yeah, I think it's a good pick. Yeah, is that a good pick? I haven't seen it since 2013.

So that's why I, you know, I try to rewatch the things I'm going to talk about so I can say something intelligent, but I just remember it being effective. I like Tom Hanks very much. I also, when I watched the Greyhound, the Tom Hanks on a boat movie from this year, I was reflecting on how much more I understood Captain Phillips. So I'll go with Captain Phillips.

Um, and then wildcard, I am prepared. I'm going to take an upset, um, by Nicole Hollisner, which is just a beautiful talk about feelings. I have a lot of feelings, I guess, in this particular lineup or at least half of the lineup. And I have Frozen um but just a beautiful romantic comedy drama sort of um I never feel quite grown up enough for Nicole Hollis Center movies but uh this one I got and it's obviously James Galifiani in his last role and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. And they are just trying to figure things out. I guess this is the figuring things out year for me. That's what's motivating most of my picks. But it's very beautiful.

If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. Hmm. Okay. Good picks. I'm torn I'm just trying to make sure I've got my release dates right here things have gotten so complicated okay yeah

I think I have to go with blue is the warmest color foreign language and animated let me just say if you are hungry don't watch blue is the warmest color that's one thing i would have a meal first then i would watch that film because um it does something to people it creates a ravenousness in them and adele exarchopolis's performance i think as the hungriest gal on earth uh i think i'll just say it was

transformative for me you know i think she does some fine work in this film and um leah say do of course does some incredible work as well controversial movie um controversial for a number of reasons but i think quite beautiful definitely a long film say an epic three-hour drama about two women falling in and out of love with each other. And I feel comfortable owning it. I'm good with it. How do you guys feel? Blue is the warmest color?

Chris, you loved it. I remember you were getting emotional. I was rapturous after I saw this movie, but I haven't seen it since. And yeah, it's obviously one that's like reputation has suffered a little bit from, I think, several of the people who were disavowing it or disavowing the process through which it was made and and some of the harassment they felt

was coming from the director uh but it's it's quite a fucking movie i remember when that trailer dropped with a beach house in it i was like what is this is an incredible vibe right here i remember when that trailer dropped with beach house in it is just that's a 2013 sentence that's the most do that remember when the blues the warmest color trailer dropped with beach house uh i had to see this movie by myself because everyone had already seen it so i just remember vividly seeing it alone at bam um i mean there were other people in the theater that that was a very strange way to see this film and certain parts of this film in particular. That's all I have to say.

You saw the movie? I saw it, yeah. We do not approve of Abdelatif Kashish's filmmaking methods, but we do celebrate great art in this show. Chris, two picks. So I have...

Final pick, excuse me. Yeah, it's my final pick. It's just animated foreign language. I'm going to go with Drug War, the Johnny 2 movie. This was not one I saw in 2013, but I've since come to adore some of my favorite action sequences of the decade are in this movie.

This is basically his riff on a heat style, like one cop, one gangster come together, but it kind of takes that and runs with it. It's basically like the gangster is bringing the cop into the underworld to go undercover, but it's

just a phenomenal look at the underworld there. And yeah, some of the shootout sequences here are like, they're pretty transcendent. They're really hardcore and they're pretty like visceral but they almost like arrive at that balletic level but not in the overly slow mode repeat cut john woo style like they are very very beautifully shot and orchestrated and and some of his like action filmmaking is like is like kind of mctiernan

good in terms of of of the way he is able to execute large scale set pieces so uh if people haven't seen drug war and they're like a fan of crime films i definitely suggest they go check it out okay there are a lot of good there's so many i just that we have not picked so like if i had done midnight first or if i had done wolf first i don't know necessarily that i would have wound up with a wildly different list but i'm like really mad that there are like 10 movies on the board that i would have rather had than some of the films that i would have picked you know that i picked do you want to delete this pod and redraft yeah let's go again but just but just punch me in into like little breaks in the Sophia Rashida conversation.

Okay. Like director's content. You know, so I was thinking back. Here's what I would have done. Just going to get to Sophia in just a second. Here are some movies that went unselected.

You guys ready? Mm-hmm. Best Picture winner, 12 Years a Slave. Yeah. Very tough because it fits only very into the drama category, perhaps wildcard,

but otherwise would not be really be eligible for the other categories. We choose Steven Soderbergh side effects untouched. Kind of a tough hang. If that was like awesome that he made it and it was definitely like a cool thriller, but like if you, if you go back and watch side effects, it's.

I haven't, I remember where I saw it and having a nice time and then I have not revisited it. It's a grind. Yeah. Okay. I, you I saw it and having a nice time and then I have not revisited it. It's a grind. Yeah. Okay. You know, I'm not a big,

a huge fan of this movie, but American Hustle was one of the biggest hits of the year and tons of movie stars. You both shook your heads at the same time. That movie is dog shit.

Yeah. It's not good. That's the thing. It's like, it really does not work at all. It's actually interesting to hear you guys say that so clearly.

I felt that way too when I saw it. It's one of those movies I think that has like fascinating performances kind of up and down. And as a movie, I don't get it at all. No, it's just like everybody got into a costume and then they were like, wait, what should the movie be about? Yeah, yeah, it does feel like that. Nebraska, Alexander Payne's Nebraska, undiscussed here. All is Lost, the Robert Redford movie, great movie. Fruitvale Station, you know,

Ryan Coogler's debut. Didn't get a chance in similar circumstances to movies like Nebraska or All is Lost in that they basically only fit into one or two of these categories that we choose from. The Purge, Chris, I thought you might have leaned into The Purge here. I was thinking about

that for horror comedy, but yeah, I thought you might have leaned into The Purge here. I was thinking about that for horror comedy, but yeah, I think I've like, your next continues to reward, whereas The Purge is like, wow, cool movie, and then they made nine of them or whatever. Yeah, big year for mainstream comedies. There were two big

Melissa McCarthy movies this year, The Heat and Identity Thief, neither of which I've seen, honestly, if I'm being really real. I'll shout out, also, there was a very funny movie with Rose Byrne and Rafe Spall called I Give It a Year,

which I really enjoyed. Oh, right, and Anna Faris is in that too? Yeah, I think so, yeah. Chris is the only guy I know who refers to Rafe Spall as Rafe Spall. That's a thing that people would be excited about hearing. He just consistently believes that Rafe Spall is in in the orbit of brad pitt it's pretty

impressive i heard spall was up for world war z but uh he had scheduling difficulties would i give it a year world war z is the next one on my list you We did not mention that. Chris, you were a huge World War Z guy. Yeah. Well, I just think that what they wound up doing with that movie, against all odds, because it was apparently being rewritten as it was being edited, and I don't know if they ever actually took it away from Mark Foster, but that was a disastrous,

the guy shows up to set and there's another dude sitting in his chair, in the director's chair kind of movie. But very, very interesting what Lindelof tried to do with that and then the kind of anti-climax climax of that film is kind of unprecedented

in terms of what we think about for these modern huge blockbuster franchises where it goes from these massive zombie attacks to like, can Brad Pitt walk down this hallway? And like, that's, that's the climax of the film. So I,

I actually really love world war Z, but there's one Sean that you haven't mentioned this one yet that I think I'm kind of surprised you didn't, you didn't make a, make a, make room for in your list. What is it? Oh no.

I was going to say the spectacular now. Oh yeah. I also have that on the, yeah, in your list. Upstream Color, right? Oh, no. I was going to say The Spectacular Now. Oh, yeah. I also have that on the... Yeah, your core list. Yeah, you know... Thanks for bringing that up, Chris. I'll just be real. I forgot it was this year.

Everybody makes mistakes. You know what I mean? Like, I think that we've all learned a lot this podcast. Yeah. I'm actually not... I'm not a huge

Upstream Color fan. I was more interested in his previous movie. that we've all learned a lot this this podcast yeah i'm actually not i'm not a huge upstream color fan um i was more interested in in his previous movie um but yeah spectacular now worked on me really well and this was this was the a24 year this was the year i think in which a glimpse inside the mind of charles swan the third came out a year in which spring breakers came out in the year in which the spectacular now came out and the year in which The Spectacular Now came out. And kind of just changed arthouse movies, I think, for the years to come. And The Spectacular Now

is a very straightforward, sentimental movie. I don't think James Ponselt has come even close to making anything as good as it since. But as a person who had a very meaningful relationship in high school, it's a it is a very lasting text for me it's kind of it has like james brooks vibes uh the way that they they pull it off

and it's uh i've definitely was like this is the start of where i'm like oh miles teller is just gonna be tom cruise they're the two guys who were just like i was like these guys will be the biggest stars of the rest of my life were Miles Teller and Ryan Gosling. And they have both done a lot of different things with that capital. Ryan Gosling obviously kind of, in some ways, destroys his own stardom this year by being in the movies that he's in. Place Beyond the Pines, he's incredible, but he is very much like, I mean, no spoiler, he's not in most of that film. And Miles Teller has obviously gone on to do what he's done. But I definitely thought like,

I was like, Oh, these guys are going to be like gigantic superstars. And they've both had really interesting careers since then. Yeah. The, um, the absence of like the only God forgives place beyond the pines, like desiccated bro category of movie which i feel like is actually not much of

a thing anymore um i felt like that there was a very particular strain of you know hipster movie bro movie between 2012 and 2016 that just does not feel like it exists as much um i'm just looking at the spectacular now cast holy shit i know miles teller, Shailene Woodley, Brie Larson, Mary Elizabeth Winsett, Bob Odenkirk, Jennifer Jason Lee, and Kyle Chandler. That's the murder team.

This is a good movie. If people haven't seen the spectacular now, I would recommend it. It's very sentimental, but it's very good. Amanda, what else? What else didn't we mention that you thought might have come up?

I think that's it at this point. We've talked about all of them. Yeah, because you guys did your might have come up. I think that's it. At this point, we've talked about all of them. Yeah. Because you guys did your 20 minutes on the counselor. Oh, no. You know what we forgot? Well, I just can't believe

Chris didn't bring up Lone Survivor at any point, even in jokes. So I asked earlier if a movie had to make 100. I have seen Lone Survivor more times than anybody should have seen Lone Survivor more times than anybody should have seen Lone Survivor definitely

like we had a Grantland screening of that movie and then I think for some reason I went again I don't know why but Chris talk about the Grantland screen we saw with Pete Berg who explained the entire methodology of making the movie his mentality about

honoring the troops. It was an extraordinary experience. And I think it's okay to say, for some reason, Lala was there. Lala Anthony was there. She sure was. And multiple people in our screening were deathly afraid of snakes.

I think Robert Mays, especially. And there's just a terrifying snake scene in Lone Survivor. So that was like a real real energy coursing through the theater at that time but um yeah this is the beginning of pete berg's loose trilogy of uh lone survivor patriots day and deep water horizon which i think will probably be sealed in a vault and never spoken of again um the only other sequel that i was going to say is anchorman 2 which i I think also is kind of overlooked.

I was like, if I get jammed up on sequels, I'm going to wind up picking that. And way happier to do that than Hangover 3. But I remember seeing Anchorman 2 and just kind of feeling a little bit sad. Because you wanted to be a part of cable news? No, because this was the first one. This was the first. The first one is obviously one of the movies I've seen the most in my life.

And then I think we had all been kind of like, when are they going to do it? They could just do this. And it just didn't feel very well formed. But maybe I'd have to go back and check it out again. There's some very funny parts in it I can remember too. But there's also a lot of cameo service. Good YouTube scene movie. Amanda, you've

spoken many times of Smaug, the dragon from the Hobbit films, and I'm surprised to not hear you bring him up. Voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch. Is it really? I had no idea that it was... Why does the dragon need a voice?

What's he talking about? He does a lot of chatting with Bilbo man he's a chatty dragon yeah he sure is he's sitting on his gold and he's just like come come come rap with me so he is he like a friendly dragon no oh okay well then why is he talking so much what's he talking what like he's just he's kind of a sassy dragon. He's like a little bitchy. He's a little bit like, what do you think you're doing here with all my gold?

Nice try, Hobbit. There is a reason that I did not watch the Hobbit films, and that is why that is baffling to me. Amanda, let's do a smog pod in quarantine. Come on. Who says no? I refuse. Can you do that while i'm on vacation that's just one of the worst film trilogies or however the fuck many movies

okay so the first hobbit movie because this is not the first hobbit movie right it's not no the first hobbit movie is just them just like they're eating hobbit food for like two hours yeah they're they're like cleaning dishes and singing. Yeah, that's not what happens in the movie, but okay. Right. So they eat a lot in the first movie. And then there's just a sassy dragon in the second movie. He shows up at the end of the first one. And you're like, damn smogs here.

And then they get to the second one. And there's a lot of sitting around in a pile of gold talking to smog. Okay. This is the one that I went to see in theaters thinking that it was the completion of The Hobbit and I realized like- Now there's a third one. Five minutes left in the movie that there was more movies.

Do they slay the dragon? There's a lot of like traveling party beef that needs to get settled between like dwarves and men. And then, but they work it out. They work it out they work it out Chris and Amanda let's please recap our drafts very quickly

so we can get on to Sofia Coppola and Rashida Jones and stop talking about the Hobbit movies do you guys think in retrospect I did okay

well we're about to find out because we're going to retrospect it right now can I just say like the energy shift from like

does Rango have a voice to like your sadness when we yelled at you about Iron Man 3? I felt really bad. Like I felt complicit in it because you looked so upset and that's not how I want you to feel. And I'm sorry. I stepped on a mine.

It was my bad. But I have now learned a new strategy, which is to just relentlessly mock my opponents early in the draft and lower their spirits. So thank you for giving me that opportunity, Chris. Here's what happened on this draft. Drama category. Amanda selected her. I selected Gravity. Chris selected Inside Llewyn Davis. That's okay. Comedy. That was solid. I think we all did well there. Comedy or horror category. Amanda selected Frances Ha. I selected The Conjuring.

Chris selected You're Next. It's a reach, but we'll allow it. Blockbuster. Blockbuster. Chris selected This is the End. I selected The Wolf of Wall Street. Amanda selected Captain Phillips. I really like This is the End.

Okay. Okay. Cool. Animated foreign language. Amanda selected frozen. I selected blue as the warmest color. Chris selected drug war. Okay. That's a weird category.

What can you say? Imagine that is a triple feature. That'd be quite an evening. Wild. Wild card. Chris selected prisoners quite an evening. Wild. Wild card. Chris selected Prisoners. I selected The Counselor. And Amanda selected Enough Said.

Sequel. Chris selected Iron Man 3 with the number one overall pick. The Anthony Bennett. I selected Before Midnight. And Amanda selected The Best Man Holiday. So, please, please, please vote in this draft. Here's the thing.

I got thrown off a little early. First of all, I still have not seen a voting mechanism that I trust for these drafts. Like there's a lot of sentiment. Not this week, Chris, not this week, but let me tell you this.

I got thrown off with the, with the early mistake. I now understand why GMs make bad trades. But in retrospect, I love my list. I feel like I've got great movies that I really enjoy watching. So even though it's a little bit offbeat, even though I'm like your crazy uncle who shows up with a couple of pops already in them to Christmas dinner, I feel like I bring the right energy to the party here. Chris, what you just did

was the most Trumpian thing I've ever heard from you. You were just like, I don't, voter fraud is real. I don't trust these mail-in ballots, but also we're having some of our best rallies. Only the best people are coming.

We look at our list of movies and it is only the best people. And shame on you, Chris, for these diversion tactics. Okay. This has been fun, guys. Thank you very much as always. Thanks, Bobby. Let's now go to me and Amanda's conversation with Sofia Coppola and Rashida Jones.

I apologize, Sofia Coppola. Sophia, thank you so much for being here. Hi, thanks for having me. I'm glad to join you. Sean and I have a lot of specific questions about on the rocks, your new film and about Bill Murray and Ellsworth Kelly

and label makers. But first, I want to start with just a fairly general question, which is why and when did you decide to make this film? Yeah, I just found some notes realizing that I registered the title and the synopsis like seven years ago ago so it's it's taken me a while I I for a while ago I wanted to do um do kind of a father-daughter buddy espionage kind of story based on a friend's a story where she actually spied on her husband with her like playboy dad and I was like that sounds that sounds like a premise for a movie and then um and how to kind of put in the things I was thinking about and the the quotes I've overheard and um and also thinking about this moment of having at that point having little kids and trying to figure out how to

be creative and work in this kind of new role and kind of new world of school life and living in New York. So I guess I was just trying to express what I was thinking about at that moment. And then I was working on other projects, and off and on, I always wanted to get back to this one. And someday I'll get through this script and hopefully make it so it's still surreal that I got to film it

with Bill and Rashida. Yeah, tell us about Bill. You have this amazing creative partnership with him. I feel like you get him more than anyone gets him as a performer. How has that evolved over the years? That's so nice. I mean, I'm such a fan of his heart into the film and, you know, shows it, the vulnerable and tender side. And then, of course, he's always magical and makes everything fun and surprising and does things you wouldn't imagine. And part of his spirit I wanted to have in that character that kind of, I wanted him to be, you know, someone that was really full of life and really engaged and he doesn't just smell the flowers he engulfs them and you know because she's

sort of paralyzed and not in touch with herself and life and the fun side and he kind of wakes that up in her um in his in his way um and bill bill has has that quality too there's a very famous story from lost in translation of um getting bill murray to be on the in the film and i you call a hotline i think or maybe a voicemail 800 number yeah i found myself wondering whether you still have to call the hotline these days no luckily, luckily now I know where to find him, but he's still a man of mystery. I can't always, I can't always find him when he wants to, but. That's, that's reassuring in a way that Bill Murray is so Bill Murray.

This film is obviously a very specific milieu. She's a writer and she has like a certain type of New York apartment and certain career goals and certain aspirations. And I was wondering why did you decide to set in that particular world? You know, I have to make a world that I can relate to and that isn't so far off from my reality. So, so, you know, she's based on something familiar to me and and just all those little details, like Stacy, the costume designer.

She's like, I'm giving her a strands book bag and a, you know, and a Chanel bag. She's a writer, but, you know, we know that she's a little bit of a spoiled background. And it's all these little clues that kind of tells you who she is. And so, yeah, I just try to make her someone that I can relate to and also see in the world around me. Amanda and I are both ex-New Yorkers, and I feel like this is also kind of an amazing ode to New York. Like, is it because you're living there? Why did you decide to set it in that space?

Yeah, I just, yeah, because i've been living here and so i wanted to you know i guess you end up writing about what what what you're experiencing and what's you know around you and also i have a fondness for those kind of movies i grew up with that showed me more in the 80s and glamorous and tootsie and all that jazz and kind of the energy of the city and and um and also because spiel Felix is this kind of old world character of kind of encapsulating a bygone era. And I feel like those places like 21 and Bevelman's Bar in the Carlisle that he, that that would be his, his world. And to kind of show the contrast between her world downtown and his kind of romantic um uptown world and just that fondness and just a romantic look at New York and I remember coming as a kid and

going to the Russian tea room you know to have some of that um that glamour and then they go to like we shot in Indochina and Raoulina and kind of these places that that are iconic that we remember you know i remember going to over the years um watching this new york as former new yorkers but also in 2020 uh was also like particularly nostalgic i wonder whether you feel the same towards the movie now just in terms of maybe not lost worlds, but. Definitely. No, I mean, I couldn't, we finished it in March right before everything closed down. And I felt like so lucky that we got to finish it, but I know she and I were like, I can't believe we made a period movie.

I was only last summer and you know, no one could have expected in this situation shot drastically. And I am happy that we have kind of a little capsule of, of New York and hopefully again soon but I hope in the meantime while we can't go out that it's a nice experience to be with Bill and in 21 and having a martini element and kind of just the ease of being around the city that we all miss but I you know when we watch we watched it at the drive-in for the new york film festival and um and i yeah i got a little teary when i saw the cityscapes of new york and you know the city that we all love

your your last two films were adaptations of a sort and this is clearly a return to something more personal was that a very specific choice that you wanted to make at this point in your life you know it took me a while because i i wanted to make another original screenplay but it's always much harder it's always it's easier to adapt something and it takes me longer and looking back i feel like it's always 10 years in between that i have to like live enough to have something to talk about or, but, um, so yeah,

I think it just, it takes a lot more out of me and it's hard. It's more challenging. And, um, and so after this, I will, I'll adapt something because that's,

that's more like a puzzle, but when it's, when it's personal, originally you have to put yourself into it so much in a different way. And it's, yeah, it's just a lot harder it's harder the writing is always the hardest part for me because you do it alone and um and it's hard to

you get a fight procrastination and self-doubt and then when you get to the set it's you know you get to collaborate and be with your friends and team and make it together but the writing part is always challenging for me. Was it meta to be writing a character who is experiencing that exact thing to reflect your process? I think writers like to write about that because we always complain about it with other writers

and talk about how hard it is to write. And yeah, so it's indulgent too. But yes, I could, I could, I could relate to that struggle. Has anything changed about your writing process or your filmmaking process? Um, now that you've been doing it for 20 years now, I would, I believe. Yeah. Wow. Um, no, I think, um, yeah, I guess I I've i've learned that um you just have to build the procrastinating into part of it and that's that's okay and and that also the self-doubt is all part of it like like i try not to read it while i'm going because you know it's i think it's terrible so just to

kind of charge ahead and get through it and then look back on it. So yeah, I guess you just having that experience, you know that it's going to be awful until somehow it turns into something and you can kind of go with it a little bit more. And I've had to, I used to write at night and having kids, I've had to learn more during the daytime. So that's been a transition. But then I was talking to a writer friend and he only writes at night. And I was like, I'm just a night writer. I just have to learn from more during the daytime so that that's been a transition but then I was talking to a writer friend and he only writes at night and I was like I'm just a night

writer I just have to figure it out so then then sometimes when I'm in a writing mode I'll go into those hours and retreat and sleep during the day and I think you have to find whatever your your writing rhythm is the idea of writing during the day is terrifying to me i can't even i'm a night writer as well um it's sort of you're in this different realm where it's not really like you're not part of the working world it's like people are asleep and it's it has a different feeling you mentioned that you like to have 10 years of life experience before rappelling into something more personal do you then like do you chart where you want to go in those 10 years in between if you're going to look at another adaptation or another kind of genre approach like do you know what what comes in the

future no you know i don't really plan it out just looking back i've realized it just it just worked out that it's been 10 years in between and i realized, Oh yeah, I guess I had to take that long to, to change enough to have something new to write about, but I don't really plan so far in advance. I, um, usually after I finished a project, then I try to just sort of be open to what, what I'm drawn to and in the mood for. Um, but I don't really have a bigger plan than that. I want to ask one pretty specific On the Rocks question

but it's also about your larger work. I was very taken with the Jenny Slate performance and the character and it also kind of had echoes of like maybe a recurring character in your work. I'm thinking of like Anna Faris in Lost in Translation and the court in Marie Antoinette and Lost in Translation and The Court and Marie Antoinette and like maybe Leslie Mann and The Bling Ring but um it's extrovert is that I was

gonna ask how would you classify it first of all because extrovert is is generous but yeah they um they're very confident uh and they they tend to talk more than other people in your films. And I was wondering whether you noticed that and where that comes from. That's funny. I think it's being an introvert in a world that expects everyone to be extroverted. I remember when I lived in LA, there would be like billboards for like some medication

to make you more extroverted. And I was like, why does everyone have to be extroverted? And so I don't think it's just that you encounter that kind of personality. And I love people like that too, but that character is special. But it's true, there is a connection to Anna Faris, like that bubbly extroverted person, especially when the character is not feeling bubbly you know so it just exaggerates that the inner feeling of um of our main character is not not feeling it

but um and then that yeah the character of school i mean like it's such a it's such a weird world to go into when you have little kids in school because you're all of a sudden in this whole new world you've never been around and you know people that don't have things in common except for your kids and it's um it's fun but at first it's weird and um and there's definitely i don't know i've always encountered people that um you know everyone does that are kind of in their own world and yeah and jenny's like really fun to work with because i would there were there were written lines that were like real quotes I had heard and then she would just go off on these tangents but it was it was making it off and I would just have her do more and more takes because it was so fun

to watch is it difficult to write introverted characters I feel like very few filmmakers focus on that and like the roles that Kirsten has played in your films and obviously scarlet's role in lost in translation and now rashida like these are very you know women who keep things close to the vest and don't necessarily they're not extroverted yeah i never really thought about it i just i guess i relate to that because i'm more like that and i think you know i'm interested in like the interior life of of a person or a woman and maybe we don't see that as much film but we I think everyone has that side and also when you're writing I'm more in that mode because I'm you know looking more internally in this time alone so it is more reflective of that mode I'm in when I'm writing um because I'm not and I and I kind of come out

and interact with the world I'm not always like that but but I tend to be in that moment I'm not, and I kind of come out and interact with the world. I'm not always like that, but I tend to be in that moment in writing so the character is in touch with that side, I guess. But it's also the overly confident people, which I... Yes. It's portrayed well. I don't think I ever would have termed it in terms of introversion until you said that, but it clicked in. I've been learning a lot about my introversion in quarantine, but that's a different podcast.

What has it been like to release this movie in this particular time in the world and on a streaming service? Yeah, I mean, I miss the theater communal aspect of watching things together and feeling people's emotions together and laughing together. But right now, I just am so happy that it's out, that Apple really put it out there and people can watch it at home. And I feel like it's the kind of movie that suits itself to being cozy at home to watch. And I'm happy when people watch it in bed the other night. And I feel like that's what I want right now and even when I was thinking about it like in the past couple years like oh I was like I'm I want to see like romantic comedy like something that's you know sophisticated and hopefully fun charming so it was just kind of what I was in the mood for but I'm happy that

feels like it can be a nice time for people to, if we can't travel. So to get to have a little moment with Bill Murray in New York, I hope is, is, is welcome. Has the world of streaming come calling for you otherwise? Like do they, do people want you to make a TV show? I feel like things are changing so much in the movie landscape right now.

Yeah, I get TV projects and, and, and it seems like it's such a, you know, vibrant time with so much production and resources. And so I think it's exciting, but there's, there's so many sort of and yeah. So I'm working on a, there's an Edith Wharton book that I love,

Custom of the Country that I'm working on adapting and it was written in five parts as a magazine serial. So I'm excited about doing it in five parts um for streaming because you couldn't fit it all into a movie and so it's fun for the first time to think about how you break things into segments and yeah curious we'll see see how that goes but yeah so that's i've thought about it but not i haven't ever thought about doing an ongoing series because the idea of not having a an end you know beginning middle and end but like i can't quite wrap my head around i want to ask another very specific question about on the rocks which is um i guess it's not a unique opinion, but, um, Sean and I are

both huge fans of Ellsworth Kelly. And, uh, I was very struck and excited to see that particular painting leading and Felix's. Oh, hi. Hi. Welcome. Hi. Oh my gosh. Twins. You guys are twins and we are twins. That's so funny. Check this. Amanda and I are wearing all white and Sophia and Rashida are wearing all black for those of you listening out in the world. And glasses. And glasses. Wow, this is synchronized incredibly well.

Amanda was just asking Sophia something about the film I was just I wanted to ask about the Ellsworth Kelly painting in the film because that was very exciting for me personally and how you how you chose that particular work of art so impressed that you noticed that it was she has seen with the Manzanilla scene at the mantle well well his character is a is an art dealer and um you know I just love that that print so I have I have um a drawing a flower print oh yeah Magnolia I think so I just called the gallery and said can we borrow um a print and and Ann Ross our art director you know put that put it all together but um but we thought you know she she put together this office that would show his past as an art dealer so I'm so glad you liked that thank you for the the easter egg the personal easter egg um Rashida this is actually I have a

opening question for both of you about Rashida since you are here now we'll start with you um there is it's obviously a high concept premise but at the same time this is a film about a woman and specifically your character who's in a very recognizable phase of her life and yet i feel like it is a phase of life that we don't often see in film at least not with this level of sensitivity um why do you think that is well i think it it's probably has something to do with like this, this, there's like a perpetuation of, of perfection or like the striving for perfection for women. And, and in order for that to, to travel, you kind of have to like pretend like things are okay and manageable and easy all the time. And, you know, I, I think this character specifically, what I like is that it does,

you do get that sense. You think that she is, her life is kind of perfect and the, and the malaise and the discomfort and the self-esteem issues are, are like, they're so subtle, you know, and it takes a while to really grab a hold of her and then actually, you know, maybe damage her, you know, potentially damage her life. But I think, I think it's because people, I think they depend on women to be great and on it all the time in a way that we, where we don't talk, we just don't talk about it. You know, I think there's more, I feel like now, especially in this moment in time, there's a lot of talk about self-care and feeling and self-reflection and stuff more than there ever has been. But I do still feel like even the women that I know who are doing the most and badasses and being everything all the time, there is this weird thing where it's like you can't complain about it because you just have to do it and you have to be strong, you know?

Sophia, did it feel like you were putting something like rare on screen or something that you hadn't seen? No, I didn't really think about that. I was just kind of thinking about what was on my mind and what I talked to my friends about and kind of all these different roles. And so I just tried to express that in an honest way. And I felt like I haven't seen like a father-daughter buddy story that felt like that sure but um but as far as as her I was just trying to kind of express that kind of that moment and

struggle of kind of identity crisis after having little kids and being a creative person and and um all yeah all the expectations to do all these different roles um perfectly and kind of what i was talking to my friends about and so putting that into yeah and there's always yeah there's always the worry of being self-indulgent but um you hope that it's something universal and and um that people can yeah that you can relate to and she and the character had to be vulnerable enough to to go along with um his crazy adventure and believe it slightly but i remember my my husband seeing like a scene or a cut and saying like she's got the perfect life her husband and his great body and there's a scene to him it's just funny and then um of course

there's it seems like everything's perfect but of course there's her her inner turmoil and then hopefully by the end of the story she's more in touch with herself this movie is um about a woman with a larger than life father and um you both have larger than life fathers i was wondering i have a few questions about larger than life father and you both have larger than life fathers. I was wondering, I have a few questions about that, but I mean, did you talk about your experiences with your fathers before doing this film and how much of that made its way into the film? Yeah. I mean, we talked about the kind of cross-generational conversation about men and women and relationships and and that was something that i wanted to explore and and um and yeah of course we could talk about that especially having

kind of bigger than life charismatic um dads and also yeah just how just how those conversations are and how there's there can be clashes and also affection and I'm looking at just the other kind of men from that era and the complication and the and the fun side of them and I think I mean I think so I'm not going to speak for Sophia but I certainly I I spent a lot of my younger years being a daddy's girl. And I say that with pride, but there is something about that where it makes it more difficult to really figure out who you are through that without the relational aspect of your dad, loving you so much and thinking you're the best thing ever. And also imposing all of his wisdom

and life on you, you you know like to really come out of that it took me till I was adult an adult to to just to decide to individuate in a way where I could like just let his POV be his POV and not feel like I needed you know his like attention and love and his own specific way to, to live my life, you know, which is like complicated. Cause obviously I love my dad so much. I just want to have my own life that has nothing to do with my dad, you know? Yeah.

Have you, I assume your fathers have seen this film. Yes. Yes. What's the feedback like? It was very sweet. My dad was like, Sophia's a good lady. I was like, she is a good lady, dad.

Yeah. And they know each other, so it must be funny to see their girls working together. But yeah, of course, they're proud dads. And it's such a, yeah, it's such a unique relationship. And I'm with Rashida on the daddy's girl thing. And I was like, I remember my twenties, like asking my dad about, you know, a guy's perspective and stuff. I would never, obviously, I mean,

that was a different when I was younger and I'm trying to put that into elements of that from different parts of your life all in this in this story is this a film that you've showed to to your children and and what is that like being on the other side of the the parent-child exchange yeah my daughters love it which made me so happy and they and they laughed um Felix's lines and they um and they loved the family it was fun to watch with them and that they they were into it it does really seem like a family movie because if you're if you're like a 10 11 12 year old kid you probably have a grandfather or an uncle who has a lot of theories about life and and instead of having to explain every

thanksgiving and christmas like listen guys this is sort of like a very generous tender empathetic portrayal of like the older family members in your life that like you know the kids can probably relate to that be like oh yeah yeah yeah i know that i know that guy you know yeah yeah it's true yeah it's true yeah it's funny my daughter's totally laugh at some of the things he says that in a way that um it's just it's not part of how anyone is talking at school i hope not she did did you go on a lot of adventures with your dad did you find yourself tapping into that like excited but exasperated feeling that your character has yes in the sense that like you know my dad is a completely

nocturnal person so he goes to sleep at 8 a.m and you know i made a film about him a documentary and worked on it for six years so there were some times where I had to really like take a deep breath and also train myself to hang with him because he travels all over the world and he is the last person at the party and he can hang, like he can just hang better than anybody else at any age. So that feeling of like, here we go, here we go tonight with my dad which is so fun obviously but it is like you you kind of have to suspend some reality you know of your own life to to go on that adventure so that was very relatable to me yeah. Rashida I had a specific question um you talked a bit about this with Sophia but um you know, the set design and the costume

design and the world around your character is so specific and develops that character. And I was wondering whether what you brought to that or whether there's a particular item or, or thing that helped crystallize the character for you. Well, I love, you know, I loved our apartment and just, I love living in Sophia's world, the aesthetic of Sophia's world. So I really was so happy to just be like, you know, like build it and I will, I'll be, I will be there. But we did talk about little specific things like, um, label makers, for instance, which I spend a lot of time with. I was actually just having a little, a little powwow with my label maker earlier this morning. It is my,

it is my favorite way to procrastinate. And like we talked about that and you know, there's just like little touches in the apartment things that like spoke to me and, and a lot of like the t-shirts and stuff. I think Sophie and I both kind of spending time you know our young our young lives in New York and like you know being in the city when it was just like fun and culturally so um exciting so to have like you know Run DMC

t-shirts and Beastie Boys t-shirts and all these things that really like did influence me in my young life was made it more personal. I like that she had a life before her. Yeah, which we desperately try to grasp onto. I certainly do as I become middle-aged. I wanted to ask you about that I think Amanda and I are probably also coping with the same thing and you know when we talk about your film Sophia we talk about how just how cool they are you know the characters are cool they look cool that sounds like shallow but we mean that in not like the most sophisticated way possible but this felt

like a movie that was kind of coping with okay losing my cool am i losing my edge you know it's definitely it's definitely not cool and i was okay with that putting that out into the world as part of being vulnerable and sensitive and looking at that moment but yeah i was like this is so boring a movie about like middle age but then i feel like the french do it so there is some glam there can be some glamour in looking at like middle-aged domestic life I tried to console myself with that idea but um yeah did you guys look at any of those movies no but I think of marriage conchigal is that the um truffaut movie there's a the cover of the dvd they're like in bed reading books and and when you're younger like I'm never gonna be that and it's just funny but there I just like the french talk about that in a way that still has a

little mystique and glamour but um i'm sorry i got you off for sheet what were you saying oh no i was just going to say like there is still you know we talked a lot about my clothes and it's i'm still you know it, it's like malaise chic. Like I still managed to, you know, not look like I haven't left my house in months and months and months like I do now. Um, like I put things together, but there's still this feeling that like, I'm, I'm not quite in myself. It except for the few times that I go,

go hang out with Felix and I can be on an adventure and put on a pretty dress or whatever and feel good about myself. But I think the idea that your clothes and your surrounding reflect what's happening in your inner life is super interesting and cool. I think it's helpful because you're trying to let the audience know

about the character in a short amount of time so all those little clues help tell you about what kind of you know, tell you something about who she is and yeah, and Stacey is so good at putting all those little details together to help

convey that but also you want it to be, because it's a movie I feel like you want it to be a little more a fantasy version of reality because it's a movie i feel like you want it to be a little more fantasy version of reality because it's a movie i don't want to be too but still naturalistic the fantasy world of label makers i was gonna say i do think it is it's the top of the line label maker i noticed it was a good one no it's a good one it was a brother and it was good after i thought i was like i have to treat myself to a new label maker because mine's like 15 years old or something. You know what I just got into not to divert too much,

but I went back to like the typewriter, like the push the ones where you literally can just push the thing like a typewriter. Oh, yeah. And I'm loving it. I'm loving it. I'll send you a link.

As we have with the kids that spun around and that busted. Yes. Yeah, totally. Thank you. Black tape, red tape, all of it. I'm boring. Sorry, guys. No, it's great.

We're learning about the inner life. Yes. I like that the character is um is a little uptight and we both have that aspect that we can tap into and in contrast i feel it's being this free spirit who who makes her loosen up a little and takes her for a ride on this show the last question we ask every filmmaker is what is the last great thing you saw so sophia why don't we start with you um the last great great last great movie i saw sure i mean usually yes but you know if you saw something great on the sidewalk we'd love to hear about that too oh um seven samurai over over our break here and um it was really great i loved it so much everyone needs to see that and um yeah kurosawa i wouldn't think to watch yeah kurosawa samurai movie but all the

characters are um incredible it's really fun did you show the kids yeah yes did they did they like it did they get it so they complain about old movies but um but they got into the film because it's fun what about does it have to be a movie no it really can be a tv show or anything okay okay good okay i would say i would say the last the thing that's really stuck with me it's not the last thing i watch but it's the last really great thing i watch is i may destroy you i just thought everything about it was so um expectation violating and and complex and funny and and like genre pushing and it just was such a complete journey and it like it just like lives inside me now because it's I feel like it's it's just

changed the whole way you can make tv I mean I don't think everybody's capable of making something that great but it just it's it's such it travels through so much in terms of comedy and trauma and drama and, and like, you know, uh, changing narrative structure. And I just, it was so good. It's so ambitious and so successful in its ambition. I loved it. It was too rough for me. I have to, I have to keep going. It is rough. It's it's that have to keep going it is rough it's that's the other thing

it's harrowing but the payoff is it gets really harrowing in the middle and then it lightens up like it almost rewards the audience for

having to deal having to be a part of that experience with the character and then it's like kind of makes fun of itself which is awesome

oh really well I didn't get I didn't get past to the other side yeah yeah it's worth it it's definitely worth it that's good to know my word is meaningless but i also recommend it yeah yeah no it's not meaningless oh this is rough okay that's good yeah yeah it's it's worth sticking with it it's worth yeah the the last episode is like-blowing, I thought. It was really cool.

I'm glad you told me. Those are great recs. Just to see Jason. Of course. Is it weird to see or to just watch your family members on screen at this point? Does it just seem normal?

I don't know if that many actors, but a few. It's always fun does it just seem normal uh i mean i don't know that that many actors might have been up well a few but he i know it's just it's always fun to see to see jason so he's having fun on fargo this year it seems like yeah i love seeing him yeah i'm gonna watch it my he's my my um my husband my my merry christmas special husband Merry Christmas special, husband. It all comes back to Bill. Always, yeah. Well, guys, thank you so much for taking the time. We're such big fans.

Amanda is really doing a great job of containing herself, I must say. I thought you weren't going to embarrass me. It's okay. I'm glad you waited to the end, but I am. I'm a huge fan. Thank you so much. It's a complete delight to speak to both of you. Thank you. It was fun. Thank you to Sophia Coppola. Thank you to Rashida Jones. Thank you, of course,

to Amanda Dobbins and Chris Ryan and Bobby Wagner. This has been an action-packed episode of the big picture. If you want another one, please Amanda Dobbins and Chris Ryan and Bobby Wagner. This has been an action-packed episode of The Big Picture. If you want another one, please tune in next week. We will be picking out 10 of our favorite election-focused movies. Why are we doing that? Well, there's an election coming up. Hope to see you then.