The Big Picture - The "Anything But Oscars" Mailbag! Plus: ‘Hoppers’

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

Sean and Amanda open up the mailbag and answer your "Anything But Oscars” questions! Before diving in, they cover a handful of movie news headlines, including a big opening weekend box office for ��Hoppers,' two of the final Oscars precursors with the WGA and the ASC awards, and the news that Christopher McQuarrie is directing a new ‘Conan the Barbarian’ movie for 20th Century Studios (1:37). Next, they open the mailbag and answer whether or not Bob Ferguson is into physical media, highlight some 2026 titles they hope to see premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, and share the most memorable movie theater experiences of their lives (17:51). Finally, they cover Pixar’s new animated movie, ‘Hoppers,’ and break down why they were ultimately mixed-positive on Daniel Chong’s new film (1:47:14). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producers: Jack Sanders, Chris Wohlers, and Kevin Cureghian Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan®️. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there®️. Drivers wanted. Learn more at vw.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Sean Fennessee. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the big picture, a conversation show about your questions and our answers. Today on the show, we are coming to you live on Netflix and otherwise in your standard podcast experience

to dig into your anything but Oscars mailbag questions. Then we will dive into the next Pixar film Hoppers, which just came out over the weekend. But first, we need to talk about some news, some box office, a new franchise announcement. We'll do it all right after this. This episode of The Big Picture is presented by State Farm. Sure, being an expert and movie trivia is impressive.

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There is such a thing as becoming too comfortable in your day to day, but our favorite films, with stories that make us change the way we think, that weren't made by people content to just sit back and watch the world pass by. This is your sign that you shouldn't either. From us, from VW and the other drivers out there, grab the wheel. Do what you love, even if it means taking the road less traveled. Learn more at VW.com. Okay, Amanda, we're alive.

We are also going live on Sunday night, right? Yes. It'll be first on Instagram live. What time? Before the show. This is very important. So everybody listen. So 3 p.m. P.T. Pacific time.

6 p.m. Eastern. That's on Instagram before the show. Before the Oscars, yes. The reason it's so early is because the Oscars telecast starts at 7 p.m. Eastern, 4 p.m. Pacific. Yes. Let me say that again. The Oscars Telecast, and I'm not being paid by ABC right now, just so you know, is at 7 p.m. And not the traditional 8 p.m.

I'm letting you know because I don't think anyone has done a sufficiently good job of broadcasting that. It's unusual. It's nice in that it starts a little earlier. Hopefully it'll be done a little earlier. But if you don't want to miss the first hour, join us at 3 p.m. 6 p.m. join the Oscars at 4 p.m. 7 p.m. And then join us again after the Oscars. Somewhere between 7.30 p.m. PT, 1030 p.m. ET based on how long the telecast goes,

where we will be back live on Netflix. You can watch our immediate reactions to all of the hopefully interesting results. And I have been waxing and waning on my predictions over the last few weeks. And we'll talk about those predictions later this week on the show. But not today. Today. That'll be on Wednesday. How do you feel about that? Can you hold it in until for two more days? I think a couple things will creep out, probably. But also, I don't feel that my predictions are yet locked in. Mine or not either. I'm going right down to the wire. So in that sense, it's fine, you know? Well, I agree.

Maybe it will feel it out. Let's talk about the precursors over the weekend quickly. This is not an Oscars podcast, but I at least want to note what happened on Sunday, which was two of the relatively big precursors based on how we've been tracking this. God forsaken award season for six months. One is the WGA Awards, which of course, much like the Academy Awards, splits between adapted screenplay and original screenplay. One battle after another one adapted, sinners won original.

We have learned nothing about the state of this race. Seems chalk. That seems like we know which to pick in those categories. Yes. The other major precursor was the American Society of Cinematographers Awards, which transpired last night, and Michael Bauman won for one battle after another, which means he now has the trifecta of cinematography.

precursors, which I think means this is over. I do as well, which is not, I think, what we expected and probably not even if I had filled out my predictions on Friday that I would have put down. Yeah. You know, there's always room for a surprise, but I do wonder, again, it's just a really tight race. One battle and sinners and things are just going back and forth. And every time you think, oh, maybe it's going to be over here, you get something else.

but I think one battle is very strong. People like this film. I completely agree with you. It has absolutely dominated the precursors in a way that almost like maybe we've never seen. And there's something in play that could be tremendously historic for that movie. But we'll talk about that on Wednesday. We have a lot more award season to come on Wednesday and then Sunday and then probably after that on Tuesday as well. So for now, let's talk about movies.

Movies, movies, movies. Pixar's back. Sure is. Over the weekend, Hoppers made $81 million worldwide, made $47 million. here in the United States of America. It is the second largest original opening movie, the second largest original movie opening this decade behind F1, which we can quibble about whether or not that's an original.

And then on down the list, you've got weapons, Onward and other Pixar film, and sinners. This is the biggest Pixar opening for an original since Coco in 2017. And I do feel like the thing that started happening around the Barbie time, around the Super Mario Brothers movie time where you could sense that audiences were a little sick of the hegemony

of the previous 15, 20 years of franchise movies was starting to shift and that the old was going out and that the new was coming in and then we had Minecraft last year and then we had movies like sinners and weapons last year. You know, I don't want to overreact, but what do you make of the hopper's success?

I see what you're saying and I think, yes, in the sense of there is a new generation of young audiences who are ready to get in on the ground floor of something instead of being handed whatever their parents were really into 30 years ago, even though that's also thriving in both our houses and at the world at large. But I think you're right.

I do also think that this just had a billboard with an animal at the center of it. And I really, you don't have to overthink it. And I know that was very powerful in my home. And there were many people who just, and I think by many people, I mean, many children under the age of 16 who were taken by that simplicity. You know, it is, it's effective. It's just, here's an animal. Maybe it's going to talk.

Yeah. Come to see what's going on. I've been thinking about this with respect to the last five years of Pixar, which has been a troubled period, I would say. In 2020 and 2021, Soul and Turning Red both went kind of day and date. They went on Disney Plus very, very shortly after their release or maybe it's a same time to their release. and I like both of those movies a lot. I think they were like a little bit disturbed by the moment. Since then, Pixar has been in a little bit of a rocky place.

Pete Doctor has come under some fire for some of his changes that he has made to stories to make them quote unquote less woke, less DEI, whatever you want to call it. There's been a lot of sense that Disney is maybe putting their thumb on the scale to change the point of view of some of the movies. But like if you just look at the movies themselves, if you look at like light ear, inside out to last year's LEO, there's a fourth one that I'm forgetting that is also in that kind of mid-tier. Luca? Luca precedes that, but there's another one. Onward.

Sure. You know, there's a handful of these movies from this time that have not quite hit. Elemental. Yes, which did decent business, but I don't think anybody would put it in the top five Pixar movies of all time. And so because the company is in this kind of transition, one, unsurprising that over the weekend they announced Monsters, Inc. 3 because they have come to rely very much on the sequel machine as like maybe the rest of the world is getting a little more interested in original stories. Pixar knows that like every two years there has to be a new toy story, a new Monsters Inc, a new Inside Out, a new when's Ratatoui coming?

Will there be a third Finding Nemo movie? Like all that that's kind of their business strategy at this point. I think that's good business. The monsters, you know, they're pre-merchandise. They're great. Monsters Inc. a classic, you know, at every pediatrician's office in the waiting room that I've ever been to. So that makes sense to have your baseline of things that we know work and things, Pixar movies that are made a little bit more in the mold of, this is slightly more at a child's level than some of the other experiments you just made in, and maybe also hoppers. We'll talk about it later.

And then, and repeatable. And that's, listen, if you repeat it well, that's not inherently an evil thing. I agree. I don't think there's anything evil about it. I think it is good business. I think creatively, I'm curious where the studio goes. It was once kind of the most successful bastion for original storytelling in not just animated features, but arguably in all feature storytelling in this country for the last 25 years.

I think you could make that case. There are roughly 10 original stories that this studio just built and created and made into individual franchises. Hoppers, I'm not sure if it's going to be a franchise. It seems like it's doing very well. going to do fine, but it doesn't, it's not a billion-dollar movie, right? So it's just maybe just the transition period, we shall see. But I do feel, I feel pretty good about what's going. A Project Hail Marys two weeks away. I'm psyched. The buzz is like definitely positive on that. And we've both seen it. We'll wait to share our thoughts, but I don't know, something's happening.

Listen, my child laughed multiple times during the Minions versus Monsters trailer. And I, you know, it's like, that was my, it's a wonderful life. You know, every time a bell rings, like, every time Knox laughs, magical things happen in my heart. So, yeah, it's looking up. I agree. Not such original news. Christopher McCoy, last seen completing his octology of Mission Impossible films with the final reckoning.

Is that a word? Octology? Probably not. He finished the Mission Impossible movies with Tom Cruise, and now he's making a Conan the Barbarian movie for 20th century studios with Arnold Schwarzenegger, reprising his role as Conan the Barbarian. How old is Arnold Schwarzenegger? Pop Quiz. Don't look it up.

Okay, 64? I think he's got to be older than that, no? Really? I don't know. It's very confusing now with all of the plastic surgery. Some people are way older. Some people are way younger. He's 78 years old. Really? Yeah. Well, okay. Well preserved.

Funny on Instagram. How did you think he did as governor of California? I have some notes. I have some notes. I enjoyed that documentary about him on Netflix. Netflix a couple years ago. Yeah. This is interesting for Macquarie.

I get it. This is for guys who like to work at scale and he likes to work with big budgets on big stories. Sure. You need to have IP. You actually need to have a known story to get your arms around. It seems somewhat similar to what 20th century studios, what their mandate is now, since they were kind of subsumed in the Fox Disney deal where, okay, we have Predator.

What are we going to do with Predator to make a new Predator movie to make it coherent? Okay, we've got Alien. What are we going to do with this xenomorph? And they've pretty successfully done movies like that. And so I suspect they'll have a pretty cool spin. Macquarie is great. I have had some concerns about the last couple of Mission Impossible movies about losing the plot and things getting a little bit too big to get your arms around.

Yeah. And also the process, the structure and the stentification of the movie getting away from what they're actually doing. I also, you know, another star of our childhood. trying to reinvent a phase of their career, but, like, I haven't seen Arnold Schwarzenegger run. Like, I don't know how he's doing, but 78 is different than 60 or whatever cruise is hovering around. Presumably there's some sort of baby Conan hanging around.

Yeah, they're going to, like, creed it? I assume so. Okay. I think, well, that would be interesting if what they did was they had James Earl Jones's character from the original Conan the Barbarian. If he had a son, then he could be the Adonis Creed. Now, now then we would be cooking with gas. Okay.

That's an idea right there. Now you're excited. Well, God, I got to remember what the name of that character is from Conan the Barbarian, because that character is a sick villain that James Joel Jones plays. It is Folsa Doom. That's cool. So what's the son's name? Doom, too?

Well, in the Apollo Adonis formulation, would it be like Thelor, Doom? Like something similar but different? Sure. Just, just honestly, put me in the room for this movie. Like, I, I worship the John Milliest original. Conan the Destroyer are not a big fan of. But, God, this is, I got interested again. Who's going to play baby Conan?

Nicholas Galletson, Austin Butler, Noah Centenio? Maybe. Could see that, right? Yeah. Will Poulter? I like Will Poulter. I'm just, I'm firing off names here. Yeah, yeah, you're just firing off the cast of warfare.

That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, maybe they should just bring the whole route back together together to do Conan O'Brien. Conan O'Brien.Roman the Barbarian. I'm excited. You're excited. Yeah. Conan, not really in your interest set. We asked Jack, Sanders, our producer, to break in if there was any breaking news during this. And with four minutes to go, he broke in and I was bracing for something, like, more exciting than a Conan the Barbarian reboot. But that's okay.

Jack, you are empowered to break in again if something dramatic happens again. Don't worry. I will. Okay. Any other stray thoughts? How are you feeling? You feeling good about the world of movies? You feeling good about your life? Those are two very different questions. Are they? I feel like they're intertwined for me. Feeling good about the world of movies. Yeah. Sure. Okay. I'm, I feel I had a great time with my son. I also recorded him watching the entire two-minute Mandalorian and Grogu trailer, which, I mean, I really feel Disney should be paying me at this point for this work. But he's, but he's, you know, He's excited. And we also had to switch theaters because Knox's first choice of theater was sold out when we could go. So that seems good. Yeah, it was a robust scene.

We ran into some school friends at the, at Hoppers. Hi, Lorelli, if you're listening. Nice. Incredible stuff. Yeah. Films, they're great. Everything else really don't want to get into it. You know, I'm about to make my first half picks for the movie Fantasy League I'm in.

And that goes March through Austin. August on the slate. So I've been taking a longer look at what this show is going to be. It goes March through August, but you haven't done it yet? It's due on Wednesday. My picks are due on Wednesday. So Hail Mary is eligible. Hale Mary is eligible and I am likely to take it. Now, there's a price affix to every movie. How much? And I would, what I want to do is I want to introduce this game to the world at large. I want to make a, I want to make a big picture movie fantasy league. Okay. It's something I mentioned to Jack. It will require a lot of work. Yeah. Probably a little bit of back-end tech, but I think it would be really fun because it's kind of in the spirit of

everything that we do on the show, with the auctions and, you know, all of our previews. So I've been looking at the slate, and it's not the greatest first, like, next three months of the year. Once July comes around, we're cooking. Yeah. But up until about you, up until about Toy Story 5, it's not an ideal set of circumstances, which I think is pretty common, and that's usually when my panic starts to set in is like roughly April May.

Yes. I mean, we can annotate it, but like, we have a record of past years, but it is, I would say mid-April. Mid-April is when I get a little concern. And you know what? And or you go to see Minecraft by yourself on a Saturday night and we're like, the movies are saved. Minecraft right into sinners, that was a very special time for me. We kind of staved off my panic this past year. Yeah. I don't know if our April is going to look quite that good this time around, but I think that there's a lot to look forward to where we'll preview the summer stuff as we get a little further into the spring. But I think I'm feeling pretty good. The world at large, no.

Yeah. Bad. Real bad. Extremely bad. Also, I want to let you and Jack know that another international women's day has passed without your comment. So, thanks again for all the game. It was on a Saturday. It was on a Sunday.

Was it Sunday? Okay, there was a big banner. We can't even get a real day. What day is this? Yeah. It's the day of rest. I did turn to my wife and daughter when I saw that banner. And did you do it to your day?

Oh, no. Hey, before we start. Let me just say. One of the best memes of all time. Was this, I just clacked this bracelet halfway through this recording, which I love. Thank you. Thank you. Is she going to, is it a one of one? Is she going to be making any others? This was individually made. Can I place an order? I think so. Oh, I think she would love that. Or maybe I can come make one with her. Yeah. I mean, honestly, she would love nothing. Well, actually, in a bit, Alice in a big Amanda phase right now. Big like, will Amanda be there? What's Amanda doing? So, you know.

Thank you. That's very sweet. What color would you go with? I mean, I do like the blue. I guess I don't want to see the options. Red, maybe? All manner of bead. So make a choice. Maybe don't, maybe not to matchy-matchy. You might want to find some differentiation here at the table. Okay, red. Red is nice. Then we can be like Superman and Supergirl. Yes, that's exactly what we'll be. Do you think they put Supergirl so close to International Women's Day on purpose this year on the calendar? I was about to ask you what it is. Yeah. You're a Supergirl. I must tell you. Thank you so much every day. Should we do the mail bag? What do you think? How do you feel about these questions? Good. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. They're funny. Jack, are we opening up? Are people going to submit any while we're recording or not today? Not today. Not today. Not today.

All right. Should we just have them text? You read your number out loud right now. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. What if someone emails during the show? Sure. Listeners, email in to big pick mailbag at gmail.com. If you have anything truly special, I'll fire it in. Because the one thing I'll say, these are great questions. I'm excited. I love our community. Also loves that I, I, no longer really look at the Big Pick Mailbag account because there are a lot of unsolicited essays. There's people took anything but Oscars like pretty literally in a film sense, you know, and just one question of advice, you know, anything people need to check in on.

That's it, Amanda. If any of you live listening have advice questions to send to Amanda Dobbins, email them right now, I will try to get them in at the end. You want to be dear Abby. You don't want to be a podcaster. I just think I have a unique perspective. That I will not argue with. I can't say I feel good about that. That is definitely true. You are one of one. Thank you so much. You got it. All right. Let's begin the questions. Jack, where do we start? Well, I just want to say, if you email me your question nine times in a 24-hour period, I will not be reading it, not to name any name. but Philly's fan,

CR123 at AOL.com. Your question's not going to be read, and I'm sorry about that. Tough one. This first one is probably my favorite, and I'm guessing Sean moved it up to the front. From Paul, he's asking, in one battle after another,

we see a shot of Bob Ferguson watching the Battle of Algiers on his couch. I doubt that the local Fox affiliate and Backton Cross would be airing this film. So, does this mean Bob is into physical media? If he were invited into the Criterion Clause, what other films do you think he'd grab? What do we think he was doing? Did he have a VHS tape? Was he watching TCM?

It's TCM. But he really was like tucked in for the afternoon, you know, where he was like, this is what I'm doing today. I'm watching the Battle of Algiers in the middle of the afternoon. In the evening time, I guess his daughter went off to the dance. What time did she leave? It's still dusk? 4.30? Probably 5.30 because it's springtime. No one's wearing winter coats, so it's getting a little bit later in the day, but it's not like a 9 p.m. start for a school dance.

I'm only about daily savings, by the way. I'm thrilled. I went outside at 7.30 yesterday to take the trash out, and I just like almost started crying of happiness. I'm happy to hear that. It smells so good. It's, I love it. This is a two-part question. Yes.

And I'm going to let you have part two. Okay. But I'm going to take part one. Great. Does this mean Bob is into physical media? Fam, he does not have a phone. This guy is not investing in plastic. He is like a wash-up?

No, he's just, he does not know about like international, like, regional, like, region. free whatever's. He doesn't even believe in borders. Like, he's not investing. He's watching this on TCM. No. He's not a collector. It's nice. And also, are you... Incorrect. If you want, he's a wash-up. He's a loser. Do you want him, like, in your army? Fuck yeah. Okay. Bob Ferguson? Of the French 75?

He's got a good heart. Get a pet. I'm rooting for him. Rocket man. But I just, I don't... You fucking kidding me? First of all, is he, like, on the internet? Checking out new relationships? leases? Does he know about all the... No! No! But he has his old favorites. He's not. And that's why

if you were invited to the Criterion Clause, he would do wonderfully. That's why I said you can answer part two, because he's watching TCM. He has taste. He's just not like hoarding plastic. In the preceding scene, we hear him talking to his daughter, who could not give less of a damn,

about recording with his band, the old band. Sure. About, and getting that two sound from the Steely Dan records. This is an analog king. This is a guy who of course is into vinyl. Well, yeah. He cannot remember anything and is also

watching the Battle of Algiers at like 5.30 p.m. because he's lost contact with the rest of the world and he has nothing going on. I know. God love it. It's so fucking relatable. You know where you're just like, you just talk into a cinema classic on an afternoon after you send your daughter out for the evening? Yeah. God damn.

Bob does not have a letterbox. Bob is not. No, he does. And Bob is not, he's not into physical media. But I think he would have a lovely time and some very interesting picks in the Criterion Clause. So now you made Dreamcast for him. I've made five Criterion Clauseit selections on Bob's behalf, whether he owns these discs, laser discs, VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, 4K. We don't know. Probably not.

Bob isn't into ownership. That's very true. That's true. But the great works must be celebrated, even in a socialistic, experience. We still, we support artists. Listen, I believe, I believe in film preservation. Okay. I just don't believe that like you are the only person preserving film. You know what I'm saying? No, but I have a voice. Sure. And I'm using that voice to proclaim. You are making capitalism work for you. Well, that's very true. And you know what? Hopefully sending a positive message in doing

and you are supporting the work of other people who actually do this. That's right. You are a crazy person with a garage full of plastic. I am a creator. the five films that he would either pull from the Criterion Closet or maybe he has in his stash as follows. And all of these movies are in the closet and I would recommend all of them. It's actually technically I chose seven movies because he's pulling a box set off the shelf. One is Jean-Pier Melville's Army of Shadows. Nice little pairing about the paranoia of living in a revolutionary moment. Jean-Pier Melville, one of the great filmmakers about war and espionage and subterranean.

Korean societies. Number two, Pats of Glory, Stanley Kubrick's classic, about living in ethical rejection of awful fascism. Three revolutionary films by Usman Semen, the African filmmaker. Those films are Emiti, Zala, and Sedo. All three of those movies are amazing and underseen. Steven Soderberg's Che? Yeah.

That big double cardboard box. Yeah, great film starring Padisio Del Toro, of course. Does the film Chee exist in? in the one battle after another universe, because Benicio del Toro is in it, but so is Sensei. Sensei's also in it? Well, Sensei's in Bob's universe.

So does Che exist? And if Che exists, is it star a different actor? Interesting. You know, is it like Lou Diamond Phillips in Che? I'm trying to think of other in the universe. What else exists? Probably it exists,

and it's just a guy who looks a lot like Sensei. Okay, all right. But here's my question for you. Or does Sensei just look like? like Benicio del Toro. Is that the thing? Yeah. Okay. Here's my question.

What is Bob's second favorite Steven Soderberg film? Full frontal. What do you think it is? Let's see. The limie. You could see. Yeah. You know?

Tell them I'm fucking coming. Yeah. Although Terrance Stamp in that movie really has more Sean Penn vibes from one battle. Well, sure, but you've got to know your enemy. Good point. Good point. Number five, Eraserhead, right? a girl dad movie, you know,

and just like guy figuring out what it means to be a father. The absolute abject terror of bringing life into this world and having to protect it. Yeah, what we're doing every day. We are doing that every day. Thank you, Bob.

Thank you for that question. Thank you, Paul. I didn't move this question up. Was this question sent by Paul Thomas Anderson? That is correct. Yeah. Thanks, Paul. You think you would go for shortcuts

in film in the PTA world? Bob is like a real kind of single issue voter, I would say. You know, it doesn't really, he's kind of into revolution and not much else. And I guess Steely Dan, but we don't know a whole lot about him. I'd love to know what's on his, what's on his nightstand. You think he's doing a lot of reading?

Like anarchist cookbook? Well, I definitely don't think he has a Kindle, you know? No. So, um, I don't. How does Bob make money? Well, I don't know, but we don't know that, which means that we don't, where does the money come from to buy? the DVDs.

Sorry. Blue race. I know. I think it might just be VHS tapes. Okay. I think he might just be rocking.

I got to go back and look at that scene. Okay. I need to see that scene for a ninth time. Just a wonderful question. Incredible way to start this. Buy physical media.

That's my message to everyone watching right now on Netflix. What's the next question? Next question comes from Thomas. Frequently, we hear someone affectionately refer to a modern movie as something that feels like a 70s movie. In my heart,

I know what that means. If you had to describe a 2020's film, what would that mean to you? What did you think of this question? Do you feel that we know the character of the films that are happening right now, or do we need more space to determine that? I guess we know some of the visual signifiers and some of the mood. And I think when we say it feels like a real 70s film, sometimes that means the subject matter or the performance or the style of direction. but it can often mean that someone's just like ripping off Gordon Willis.

And that's good, by the way. It is good. All good artists, you know, great artists steal. So at this point, we have a sense of what it's going to look like. The tricky part is that all the examples of what we consider to be like good films made in the 2020s, we often compare to 70s films. And so I think our definition of 2020s would be just, because of subtraction, like, negative. Yes.

Which is unfair. I guess there are... But if I had to think of examples of, like, new cinema, like, visually, that I think is genuinely really exciting. I don't know. I mean, maybe that's a reflection of me that I am... I am yearn for the traditional. Yeah, I think, like, the signature movies of the century so far is probably in some

order... Top Gun Maverick, Barbie, everything everywhere all at once. Oppenheimer, you know? Right. You know, I'm sure there's a few others that you could throw in there, but just kind of off the top of my head, those are movies, and they're all different, right?

Those are mostly franchise stories. They're pretty heavyweight. This is a very American-focused point of view, obviously. I don't mean that those are the best movies. I don't mean that they're the most successful movies. There's kind of somewhere in between. They're kind of like, when you go back, when we get to 2030,

And we look back at what this decade represented, I do think that there's something about spectacle and about fusing genres together that has been pretty consistent. I think we're in a very, both a synthetic and a synthesis era where everything feels a little bit more. Like Barbie is a very kind of created world, right? Right. Everything ever it wants is a very created world. It's very hyper-styled world. Oppenheimer, even, is a very stylized movie. It's not a gritty, realistic, naturalistic movie.

I think when you think of, like, all the president's men or, you know, the Sydney Lumet films from the 70s, those are very, like, on-ground-level, hard-bitten, naturalistic films in the way that they're shot and in their performance style. Right now, everything is sort of like, there's a kind of extradectual mania in every movie. You know, the Mission Impossible movies that have come out in the last seven years. Minecraft, like these are kind of zany constructions. So I feel like that is a thing, and I feel like that is very much the influence of the internet. Yeah. In terms of people's attention spans and the stylistic things that

we've seen on like Instagram, Vine, Twitter, Facebook, all of these social media platforms over the last 15 years. I feel the influence there. I've personally been super excited by the YouTube influence on movies, and I feel like, it's really strong on horror, and we're about to have this stretch this year where you've got backrooms and obsession and Kyle Edward Ball, who made Skinnamarink, has another movie coming out, and there's like all of these new filmmakers. I know. I know. The Chris Ryan voice.

I did, Sean. Hello, Sean. What's happening? But I like that there is, there's like some peanut butter getting in the chocolate right now that is kind of messing with what a movie is a lot to look like on a big screen that I like. But for the most part, do you agree with what I'm saying about the big movies and kind of what their character is? Yeah. Both the hyper production, the spectacle of it all, and also, as you said, essentially, like, the meme or the one-shot influence reflected back into the movies.

And we know that this is going to be like parceled out image by image. so people are really kind of Wes Andersoning out, but in very specific ways. And that's, you know, that's not always a bad thing. I liked most of the movies that you just mentioned. The other thing I think about, and this is sort of related to the YouTube of it all, but just screens. Yeah. And, you know, very obviously, like phones in movies and how that affects on a plot sense.

But I mean more in terms of when you see people on their phones or you see the text messages, You see surveillance footage. You see, you know, monitors in, like, situation rooms, all sorts of just, like, the presence. You see recreations of YouTube and TikTok. All the ways that we spend our time looking at screens other than a movie screen now have to be reflected back into the movies themselves. And sometimes that's done in an interesting way. Sometimes it's done in an absolutely vile way. But the movies visually trying to get their arms around these.

the internet and all of the ways we're projected around ourselves all the time is certainly a visual signature. I agree. I feel like there's some filmmakers really have their arms around it. Park Chan-Woke in particular. I feel like it's done a really nice job with that. There was the Soderberg series that was on HBO a couple of years ago. It was a mini-series that Ed Solomon wrote.

I can't remember the name of it at the moment. Was it full circle? Something like that. Not mosaic. Mosaic, yes. Mosaic. Maybe, no, maybe it wasn't mosaic. Maybe there was another one.

Mosaic was the Sharon Stone one. That wasn't the one I'm thinking of. Full circle sounds. Yeah, full circle is right. Full circle, yeah. That also, I think, had an interest in this and this kind of idea of surveillance. And in that way, it kind of mimics the 70s and the sense of paranoia, right, that you'd find in films like the conversation. And I can feel that coming in a little bit in mainstream movies, not really in blockbusters.

It's a little bit more like in that second tier of size of film. But there's definitely some of the anxiety of the world is creeping in. we talked about a little bit with even just the Academy Award nominees this year, Secret Agent, One Battle, Sinners. These are all movies, but kind of like one group coming in to take over another group and doing it in subterranean ways.

But I think there's also just a little bit of a nostalgia porn pre-branded thing that is essential to it too. Like F1 is another movie that I think will be, if not memorable, like notable in the chain of big movies over the last 10 years. And that movie is kind of like a big hash of other stuff. And some of it works really well and some of it doesn't work as well.

But you never watch that movie and think like, never seen this before. Yeah. Like I've never seen racing like that before. But I've seen race car movies. I've seen old guys still got it movies. You know, I've seen reinventions of that, you know, hero dynamic.

Like, all of that seems very familiar. So it feels like Hollywood is kind of figuring, trying to figure out like what people want. And the only time when it really works is when someone truly original comes along and is like, I have an idea. You know? Yeah. And Jordan Peel comes along and he's like,

I got something. Or Daniels are like, we're going to try something. Like that is when things really shake a little. Hopefully that keeps happening. What's next? Before our next question, just want to let you know,

we probably have already 15 advice questions, two of which I've put at the bottom of the rundown. Wow. Just putting that on your radar. Incredible. Thank you, guys. You did it. Wow.

The next question comes from Michael. In honor of Send Help and Survivor 50, let's flip the classic Desert Island question around. Instead of what movie you'd bring, what movie would you force each other to have as their only option with the idea being they can't leave the

island until they finally get it? Hmm. Double worst part of. Easy. Over and over again. Is it that I don't get it? Yeah. I don't get it. And you're resistant to it as well. You don't want to get it, you know? And I think it's a good movie. On a desert island.

No, I think it's a good movie. It could really click for you. You want me to believe it is a five-star masterpiece, and you think repeated viewings will reveal that? You don't think I'll turn against it by being exposed to it so often, because I don't have negative feelings towards it. I don't think that you value it. I see. And by definition, this would make you value it in the sense that it's something for you to, it's the only thing you have. Also, Bill's Point Stintzance, you know, you go to Paris, you get a makeover, New York, King Colbar.

Tell you something. Devil Wars Prada, not available in 4K. What's going on there? What's up with that? I don't know. Maybe those people are just spending their money on other things, like close. Probably. It probably are.

The Devil Wars Prada 2 trailer ran before Hoppers. Curious, I would say, based on the audience in my movie theater. And Alice was like, what's this? I will let her know. I will take her and we will find out together. First of all, just a few words on Survivor 50. We're loving it so far. I think the three-hour premiere was an act of evil, and I don't support that.

Just making any episode of television three hours is not okay. However, I just love seeing all my old friends together again on an island. That's nice. Just fighting it out. It's a wonderful show. You should get involved. Has anyone been sent home? Oh, certainly, yeah.

Well, we've had two tribal councils and one injury evacuation thus far. Some poor guy who is a great player named Kyle. I believe he ruptured his Achilles in full. Which is not what you want. No, absolutely not. It was one of those things where they showed it and in real time when you watched it happen, you were like, no, no, no.

It was like watching sports, right? You knew immediately it was his Achilles. That was, it was very tough. Wonderful. For me, just in keeping with the Sam Ramey thing, I think I'll just give you Evil Dead too. And you can just sit with it. And you can look at the craft and the creativity,

the relationship to cinema history that it has, the wonders of Bruce Campbell's chin. There's so much. Also, Bruce Campbell diagnosed with a treatable but not curable cancer he announced last week. I want to send my love to him, one of my all-time favorite actors. That was very sad. Evil Dead, too, just fucking banger. Banger.

Okay. I can appreciate Kraft. What's your preferred format on a desert island? Streaming? Sue, am I building my own theater? Or does can, like, is my performance? Is this the Send Help Island? Or can we, like, you know, airlift in a full?

couch. Not sure that's how that's going to work. How would you remind me, you would do well in the send help environment? No, no, no, no. Because, first of all, I haven't watched Survivor. Okay. So when we saw Send Help, you kept turning me and being like, this is like they do on Survivor and they do this on Survivor.

And then afterwards, I was asking you, so, like, which skills did you recognize from Survivor? And, like, do you, and you have some practical knowledge, I guess? I don't think I'd do very well. I would know to like, I need to build a shelter. I need to stay out of the sun. I could build the shelter. I have some concerns about fire. I mean, also, spoiler alert for send help, I guess.

But, you know, if I had the knowledge that Rachel McThe Adams' character has and send help, I'd be great. Well, sure. That's called cheating. Okay, what's the next question? Our next question comes from Drew. With the Warner Brothers merger, I've been wondering, Why don't industry giants like Apple or Disney go after this storied studio and all it has to offer? I feel like they've got more than enough money and power to obtain it, so I don't get why they never threw their hat in the ring.

I actually invited Tim Cook and Bob on to join us. So Tim, Bob, come on out, guys. I was going to say I actually did just get my advanced degree in debt load management, and so I'm able to explain Disney's balance sheet to you in like great detail. Disney – I mean, Disney's just now digging out of the – Fox debt, so they were never really under consideration. And they have enough of their own stuff that they don't actually need it to compete. I'll tell you what, there was a lot of talk about Game Over if the Netflix deal went through.

If Disney bought Warner Brothers, that would really be IP Game Over, then they would really have the complete war chest of valuable franchises. I don't think Disney was ever on the table. And particularly because they're bringing in a Parks Chief to run their content business, which I think should tell you a little bit, something about how they intend to monetize over the next 10 years. Apple, did we talk about Apple as like, it might have been offline where we were just like, couldn't it just be Apple and make this a little bit more coherent? Yeah. That would have been just preferable. I do think a couple weeks ago, we were at least talking about, you know, Apple has a or has had a distribution deal with A24 in the past. And it was always rumored.

Maybe that was what we were talking about. Yeah. And it was maybe rumored, but that like has never really happened. And it's just sort of unclear what Apple wants. I think they are enjoying just kind of. ginning up their own stuff. Yeah. You know, like, they feel very proud of the F1 thing. I think their movie and TV strategy has been like a little hit or miss, but it's kind of hard to just start from nothing.

And they have built up like a very credible slate and you go to Apple TV now and you're like, there's a lot to watch here. There's a lot of shows. There's a lot of original films. There's a lot of kids content. And five years. And they can just keep doing it because it's a drop in the bucket for them, right? Structurally.

And I don't, you know, I'm very curious to see where they go with movies. I wish that they were throwing more behind theatrical movies because I think they could end up doing really good business. And even taking an L would not be that big of a deal for them. But some of it is just reputational in what can be seen. As far as acquiring, I mean, they've been very persistent. Actually, I think Eddie Q was on the town last year, Vement, that he was not, that they were not going to pursue Warner Brothers. So it was never really under consideration. Could they afford it?

Yeah. They would be a big, they would be doing it just to get the IP2, right? I mean, what... Yeah, but then it's like, what are they going to use the IP for? It sort of seems like a lot of distraction from, you know... Here's what I think it would be. They don't need to sell Mickey Mouse or Batman-branded iPads, you know? Like, they just have iPads.

I think it would be not for the tech and the hardware. I think it would probably be a big experiential shift where they would actually start exploring theme parks. They would start exploring different lines of business that are much more... experiential one-to-one person-to-person in the real world, which they don't really do. Yeah. And that's just a totally different kind of a business, and you have to build up a whole infrastructure to do that. That's the one thing with Warner Brothers.

And there was talk even of one of the studio lots being transformed into kind of like an experiential playground for people who love movies or TV shows. The Paramount Lot? And then they would move to Warner. There's some centrality there, but there's no fucking parking there. So I don't know how that would work. But if they wanted to get involved in that, business in addition to being able to just have Batman and Harry Potter, I guess I could see that.

And also, HBO obviously just matches very neatly with what Apple TV has been. Correct. You know, like just tonally the vibe of the shows, even some of the administration and people, like Richard Plepler advising on Apple content. So that, it would make sense. They just, they didn't want to do it. Yeah. So they didn't do it.

You know what I was wondering about the other day related to Apple? Whatever happened to the iPhone. Vision Pro. I was thinking about it because I went to the eye doctor. and was basically given a vision pro to do a test, a good version of AI. It's a pretty fancy eye doctor. And then it's our local eye doctor.

I recommend them. And then I was like, Jim, eye doctor? Yeah, exactly. And then I was like, oh, I haven't seen or heard from those things in actual years. And that was, I mean, I remembered it because that was another, like, not quite experiential, but their version of experiential, right? and also trying to merge in with video games streaming, whatever. And that just didn't happen.

It didn't happen. I tested one out. Van Leithen is the only person I know who actually bought one. And he enjoyed it. I watched some of a movie and a really unique kind of baseball game experience with the headset. And I thought it was very cool. I can't imagine wearing a headset for hours on end. That's just not something that seems fun to me.

Yeah. And it is, you know, I just rewatch Ready Player 1 to prepare for the Steven's Gilbert conversation that I'm having later this week. And, you know, that movie, which I think is pretty cool, actually, and a little bit misunderstood, is about the hellscape of, like, plugging yourself in and not unplugging. And so I think that there was some wisdom. Yeah. But I just, I thought of it because their version of experiential is still gadget-based,

because that's ultimately what they are. They are, you know, and the most recent iteration didn't work, but I do still think their business aim is to release another product that they can sell. rather than, you know, a Batman theme park. I think you're right. What's our next question? Next question comes from Skyler. My question is related to a comment Amanda made

in the alternative Oscars episode about how she visits the Rebecca Ferguson Deathbridge every time she is in Venice. I mean, it's been twice, but it is true. Every time. Every time. Maybe this year, too. My question is simple.

Is Venice the greatest film location in the world? If not, what is? I don't know. I mean, Paris, New York. It's New York for me. Yeah. But that's, you know, I've got some biases there. I just, like, I just want to put Paris in as a European location.

Sure. They've done good work. Absolutely. You know. No question about it. The light, just right. What's the name of that bridge? Oh, I don't know.

I don't speak Italian. Let's see. Venice Mission Impossible Bridge. What did you guess? Venizia Brezhia. Dead reckoning bridge. Let's see. The bridge of, hold on.

You got this one. Hang in there, Mama. But S-I-G-H-S, not. C-Y's size like like uh like I side S-I-G-H-S yes the bridge of size apparently wow that's dramatic um that was not what I was expecting I mean this is an AI I think so I was expecting like Mozilla Montepultiano sure you know that is not respectful of the of the Italian people is this are we on Netflix right now okay is this going out live I don't know let's see now I'm looking on Reddit and I don't, I don't, some people just talking about their opinions of this scene, which they didn't like.

So we're going to go with bridge of size, which apparently also Lord Byron wrote about. Again, this is an AI answer, so it's wrong, most likely. Good to know. There are a lot of bridges in Venice. So, but there's a little bit of a crowd when I'm there usually. I have not been to Venice before. Yeah. I can't say how it matches specifically.

I think Rome, speaking of Italy is also a wonderful movie location. Rome, dynamite. Love Rome, the city. Had a wonderful time there. London, not bad. London is interesting. You know, we can just name large cities.

Chicago is a fine city. You know, think Oslo. I enjoy Oslo. Have you been to Oslo? No. Okay. But I've enjoyed the cinema.

Now I'm just thinking of all of the places where Bond did opening sequences. So Mexico City, that's a really good one. Yes, I love Mexico City. Let's see. I mean, we haven't said Los Angeles. I was just about to say that. It took about a dozen names to get to lies.

It was, and then they stopped letting us shoot movies here, you know? I'm dramatically overrated crime 101 because I'm like, I know what that is. That's very rare to be able to look at a movie and say, I know what that is in 2026. I don't know. I've got to get to Venice one of these days. When's that going to be? I don't know whether it'll be this year, but... It won't be.

I've already signed up for Tell You, Right? So I won't be going to Venice. Okay. We may me one year. It's great. Okay. What's the next question? Next question comes from Tim.

What is a movie you objectively know is flawed, messy, and maybe even chaotic, but you still defend with your whole heart? This comes right on the heels of the bride absolutely tanking at the box office. Like, far worse than anyone could have imagined. I think it was tracking for between $12 and $18 million. on Thursday and it finished it's $7 million. You know it's bad when just Jared does its Instagram card and says it's bad news for the bride at the box office. And I was like, damn, even just Jared is getting in on the bride. They're not regularly doing box office criticism.

Yeah. It's a very dramatic underperformance for that film. I skipped this question in my prep and was like, I'll come back to it that I forgot. So you got to go first. Because any time people are like, it's flawed, it's messy, but like you know it's perfect. Like, no, to me, it is perfect, therefore it's not flawed. Well, and that was actually at the center of... Me with the love actually cards.

To me, it is perfect. That's like, I think that I really cotton to a kind of insane, I went for it kind of a movie that doesn't totally come together. I really have a real, like, sentimentality about those kinds of movies. It's why I was defending the bride and pretty much enjoyed my experience watching it while also acknowledging it has a lot of problems. and we talked about Mickey 17, we talked about Babylon, we talked about these movies. Here comes the motherfucking bride.

I realized as I was falling asleep last night that I didn't say that on our podcast, but that's a real thing that she says. That's how she ends the prologue. And then it says the bride in, I liked the typeface, like the font that they use. That's my one nice thing about the bride. There's a somewhat similar question to this

about like disasters that we'll get to in a minute. And it feels like they kind of feel intertwined. because, I don't know, you know, like, my easy answer for this is always Congo, which is like the dumbest movie of all time that I think is a five-star classic. Well, I was about to say triple frontier. Yeah, that's pretty good. I mean, is it chaotic? I don't know. They're just like on the side of a mound for a while and I'm not really sure about any of the choices that Ben Affleck's making. Yeah, but that's just like guys being dudes. And I think Charlie Hunnam like has a breakdown in a Publix, you know?

I know. So relatable. Holy shit. You ever been to a Publix? I have, yeah. Okay. You don't need to say it like that. It's fine. How did I say? We were just like, that's the thing that you people in the South have and we don't really care

about it. That's not what I said. It was dismissive. You know what I, the shopping, the supermarket that I think of most when it comes to the South is Food Lion. Oh, yeah. This is Food Line when I would visit North Carolina. Oh, yeah.

We would always hit the Food Line on the first day. That is where my grandparents in North Carolina shopped always. Yeah. Is Food Lion still kicking around? I hope so. Okay, cool. You know what was elite going to college? in Ithaca was Wegmans.

And Wegmans is kind of spread now. I've heard a lot about Wegmans still have never been. Wegmans, Jack. It's where I first purchased alcohol under the age of 21 with a fake ID. Congratulations. Sam Adams Pumpkin Beer for October. Nice. Sure.

This is Sanders lore. I love it. I would really like to go to Wegmans because I really like grocery stores and I like grocery store like, you know, tourism. Sure. But I just, I've never made it to a Wegmans. I feel like it is expanding. And it was the first, it was, I don't know if it predates whole foods entirely, but it was the first time where I was like, this is a lot of fucking grocery store.

Like there are a lot of places to get, and being 18 and just being like, I'll just buy every bad junk food that I was not allowed to eat as a kid in my mom's house. Thrilling experience. Anyway, I don't know how we got here. What's the next question? Next question comes from Thomas. What are some upcoming titles that you hope will be world premiering at this year's Cannes Film Festival? Should we make an announcement? Sure.

We're booked for Cannes. It's happening. Yeah. Can, 2026, Sean and Amanda. We're going. We are going. We're credentials. Yeah.

We have a place to stay. Mm-hmm. I got to submit that expense report. That's a good reminder. Thanks so much. And I have some outfit concepts as to you. Yeah. So I'm pretty excited.

I am excited. I'm a little nervous. Why? Because this is kind of the last mountain. to scale in terms of like... And you don't feel you'll be, like, good enough? Well, I just don't know what to expect. It's a lot.

It's a very long festival. That is true. It's a 12-day festival. I want to do a good job being at the festival. Yeah. But just given what our job is, it's not really coherent for us to be out for 13 days. So I'm trying to figure out how we can pull that off. And I want to see as much as possible.

Like, that's my disease, right? It's trying to, like, knock everything off the list. And that's not totally achievable it can. So I want to just play chess properly. Well, it is, it's very different from, from what I understand Tellyright to be, which is just everyone convenes together for three days and does trust falls and then like we just see films. That's not what it's like, but continue. And I'm assuming that this is a little bit more like Venice. It is also ticketed like Venice.

Yes. So I look forward to us up at like 1 a.m. on the French ticketing website. But you'll be able to see a lot. You do also, bless you, you don't have to file reviews three times a day. I don't, but I want to try to find a way to cover it in realish time. Yes. You know, like realish. But that is different than having to go to three press conferences and then file.

So I think you'll be able to see a lot. You're right. We're very lucky in terms of the way that we cover the movies and cover the festivals. I'm really grateful that we've been able to figure that out in the way that we have. And I don't want to spoil actually what I think is usually a very fun episode where we convene. to talk about what we've seen. And I think we should also divide and conquer a little bit, too. Like, you should definitely see some stuff that I can't make and vice versa.

But there's a lot of potentially great stuff this year. I don't know if there's anything on the, like, I don't, you know, the like killers of the flower moon level. Right. You know, I don't know that that's sort of like it would be my hope and dream to see the world premiere of blank blank. Or even the year of Megalopolis and Horizon and a lot of other. things that turned out to be fairly disastrous. Right. Outrageous misfires. But were historic.

Yeah. See, that's a really good answer to the previous question. Like, Horizon is like kind of a mess, but I enjoyed it. Megalopolis is kind of a mess. But I really need to revisit it because I didn't like it very much. So. What is Kevin Costner doing opening? Zero Bond in Las Vegas.

What is Zero Bond? It's just the new. Listen, he was just at a club opening with Tom Brady and Alex Earl. Wow. This weekend. That's exciting. I have some, they really need to get that Horizon money back. Okay.

So Alex Erland Tumbry, that's officially happening. So they have been, they have been seen a lot of the same places. Cool. Sounds great. Movies at Cannes. Yeah. We did go through this a bit in January in terms of what we thought could happen, but here's the list that I made. Yeah.

Tell me if you have additions, any other thoughts. The Adventures of Cliff Booth, Netflix doesn't premiere movies there, so I assume that's not going to happen. Yeah. But it's QT and KT. Fincher? Well, it's this summer is the release. It is this summer. And it's not like September 15th,

which would technically be the definition of summer. I don't know either. Again, this is on Netflix, we don't know shit. I also don't have any information, so I'm not pretending like I do. I have not talked to Quinn about it. I don't know. Fincher has a history of Venice.

Yes, yes. And Netflix is very, very Venice forward. So if they wanted to do something splashing. But this would be my number one with the bullet in terms of anticipation. Are you kidding? That would be so exciting. I have to put the way of the wind, the Terrence Malick movie, which has been rumored for seven consecutive years. Some people seem to think this could be the year.

I think April 9th is the announcement date. So we have a full month until we find out what's coming. Jack of Spades, the new Joel Cohen movie, which I think I took in the auction. That sounds right. Nicholas Winning Reffins, her private hell will almost certainly be there. CR, come to Cannes. Yeah, that is. You think Chris is watching right now?

On Netflix? Yeah. I think he has to make his own podcast right now. I will, they're usually wrapped by now. That's true. I will say, you want them to burst in with Kool-Aid man? No, but the last time we went live, like I heard from a lot of friends and loved ones via text message,

just noting that everyone's silent right now. So. It's a good point. Would you say you have a lot of friends and loved ones? It depends on the day. That's exactly how I feel. Don't we all feel that way? Isn't that the mystery of life?

Yeah. You know, sometimes you're so alone and sometimes we're so together. Disclosure Day, perhaps? I'd love it. The new Steven Spielberg film, which I think it'll only come out maybe three weeks or four weeks after Cannes. So that seems definitely possible.

Spielberg has premiered five films out of competition. I think he has only competed for the Palm Door one time, and it was for his first theatrical feature film, The Sugar Land Express. I've been doing a lot of Stevens Billboard Rie Con recently. I'm excited for her disclosure day too. Oh, I'm also excited for you to talk to Steven Spielberg.

Oh, yeah, I'm nervous. Digger? I think that's a Venice. I think you're right. The entertainment system is down. Ruben Osslin's new film. This, to me, he's, you know, the Prince of Cannes, so that seems like a no-brainer. Also, that means that once again, Kirsten Denson and I would be sharing the same air.

Yeah. How do we get you guys together socially? I don't know, and I really don't want to force it, right? What if I pursue it? I have some contact. She's genuinely cool, so she's not, I don't want everyone to be like, hey, this. This person wants to be your friend. The one time I met her shoot, it's great.

We just talked about kid stuff. So she's lovely. But we don't know. Hey, this person wants to be your friend. No one would, you can't be introed that way. Well, I know. I feel like you guys would get along great. I do as well.

But like any of like the fake, the Hollywood bullshit set up is just not going to work. Okay. You know? So I got to, I got to think smart. Do you like her because she's real talk central just like you? Yeah. She's like, we're just cutting through it. Absolutely.

Yeah. Okay. I get that. That's nice. Do you think she has many loved ones and friends? I think she does. I think she probably does too. So she doesn't need it anymore. Okay. Paper Tiger. James Gray's new movie?

I hope so. Speaking of Big in France. I don't want to ask him. Shut up him right now. You think James is watching on Netflix? Probably not. Probably not. Does he have Netflix?

We should talk about that. 1949, Pavlovakowski's new movie? This would be really fun. there's a naturally a bunch of very exciting potential international films um fjord also with renata rindsva and oh my gosh what is bucky barnes's name sebastian stan thank you um hope nah hung jins new movie i haven't seen the wailing in like ten years i'm just going to rewatch the whaling before can just in case this movie is playing there alber sarah's out of this world which starring riley keio his first english language uh work

I'm pretty excited about. Is there anything else that you're thinking about that could be there? I mean, I think you took the big ones. You think Mando and Grogu will do a at a competition U.S. screening? That's the real challenge. And how am I going to see it with my child? I mean, it's fine. Chris Ryan's taking him, as he knows.

He says he's not seeing the film. And then I told him that he will be seeing it with Knox, who will be so locked in, who's so excited, has so many questions. You know, and maybe Joanna and Mallory, who have become kind of my, like, ask Jeeves, but instead it's ask howce Savar questions about the Manilorian. Interesting how you think of them as service people and not loved ones or friends. They're lovely, but when Knox asked me, is Grogu an animal or a human at 530 on a Thursday, what am I supposed to do? And then he follows up with, can you ask the director.

That's actually. And I'm like, I don't know, no, I can't, but these people know, they're close enough. Okay. So we'll ask Mallory and Joanna. I never had John Favreau on the pod. Should I pursue that? I guess so. On Knox's behalf.

And then I'll present the list of questions. Always been a fan of John Favro. I don't really, you know, his career has taken a turn that wouldn't be my first choice. But, you know, those early stretch of the Swingers story was iconic to me. One of the first screenplays I ever bought was John Fabro screenplay for Swingers. Have him on. It's a little personal. Maybe he'll be in can for the out of, you know, out of competition.

screening. Yeah. And we can all see it together. I think he's pumped for Fjord. You don't know him. You don't know. I don't. I know he loves movies.

Yeah. I hope he likes Fjord. Any other thoughts on Kahn? You're excited. I'd like to go to the cap. Okay. So if you're having a party, just think of me. You probably also we should go on a boat.

How are you on sea? Fine. I'm from Laland. You're never ever sick at sea? No. Okay. Then we'd like to go on a boat. I didn't say I want to.

Because if you're out there, you're going to be a can, let us know. Are there movies playing there? That's the thing I'm most excited about. Mornings are for movies. Then the evenings are for boats. Is that how it works? I would hope that, I mean, I'm just basing this on the Venice of it all, but that all of the, you know, that the big movies at least get press screenings in the morning

so then you can do the press conference and then they have like the premiere later at night. That's what I would assume. Do you feel that you'd like to go to press screenings or premiere? Press screenings as much as I can. I mean, it would be fun to do one premiere, you know, and just see all the hoopla. But it's inefficient. I see. Good question.

Thank you for asking. All right, Jack, what's up? Next question comes from Brandon. Every March, especially after the Oscars happen, I like to watch a bunch of baseball movies in the lead-up to opening day. What are your favorite garbage sports movies and why don't we get them anymore? Opening day in my house on Saturday. Yes. Little League has begun.

That's right. I saw the Instagram clip. The line drive up the middle. Yes. There we go. This is a nice tradition. I like baseball movies. I like sports movies.

These were important to my childhood. Like bad movies about sports that aren't regularly broadcast on American television. I have a bunch of these as well. I didn't write mine down. I will just say they don't happen anymore because audiences don't show up for them. And that this was like, stock and trade Disney strategy for 30 plus years that almost every year without fail, there would be a new kind of like high concept, low execution movie for nine-year-olds about sports. And you've listed some of them here.

Others not listed include like the Little Giants, for example, angels in the outfield. You know, there were a lot of movies that were like that when I was, you know, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, where you could kind of count on them at all times. And there was definitely a generation. Our generation had our stretch of these. And they, I think that they really carried on and extended to people who were in their like 30s, even their 20s. And now it feels like if you're like 15, what are the sports movies of your life? Like, Creed? I mean.

Warrior? You know, like, what are the- Creed? Creed would be great. If the youth are embracing Creed. Yeah. The way back? I mean, that would be exciting.

I do remember taking- F-1? Our littlest cousin Max on Thanksgiving to Creed 2. Hi, Max, if you're listening. And the lights went down, he said, so what happened in Creed 1? So I don't think that, you know, that generation, 18-ish, is embracing greed. Does Max listen to the show?

Sometimes, but listen, he's in college. She's got a lot of obligations. What makes you more concerned, loved ones of which you have many listening to the show, or famous people that you've heard listen to the show? Because we've now heard some prominent famous people are listening. No famous people or no people who work in cinema should ever listen to this podcast, okay? Why? Because they know things.

Like, they, first of all, they know where, they know all the secrets. But like, they know how things work. And this is, this is not, this is a, this is a fan thing. This is a celebration. You know, I think there should be some distance. Would you say this is a fandom podcast? No, because I think we're often too mean. But I also don't really feel that artists should.

read criticism of their work, positive or negative. I disagree. I don't know how you can preserve that. Well, let's see. I think people should be themselves. And if they are neurotic and need to see that feedback, I think they should. I think that obviously artists are different from people engaged in a commercial enterprise that pass to make money, which movies also are.

And you kind of do have to take some of that feedback. But, no, I don't think filmmakers should be listening to what we have to say. You can just go and create and make your thing. And there's listening, right? Sure, but I don't know. We don't look at the comments. I hear a lot of feedback, but do I listen? This is what I'm saying.

So famous people, good job on everything you're doing. And I would say to you what I say to the rest of the daubbob, go outside. Okay. What were your garbage sports movies? Cutting edge, essential. Yep. Just absolutely dynamite. Related, Mighty Ducks.

the sandlot is not garbage but it's for children I don't think any of these first three movies are garbage I don't either they're garbage in the in the classical like we love this Edge written by Tony Gilroy The Sandlot is an A plus masterpiece

So is the next film Bring It On which is a straight up masterpiece and is also about a competition cheerleading Charrots of Fire which my parents tried to show me when I was like 10 and

great you know the theme song and the guys running on the beach. It's very good. It's not really garbage, but also it won best picture over that's 1980, right? Yeah, so it won over a raging bowl. So I don't know whether we can defend that. No, no. That was ordinary people. Oh, that's right. So what did it went over? I think Cherries Fire is 84? 81. 81. Okay. And what did it win over there? Well, I just Google Charades of Fire. So 198882 Oscars, we got to really standardize this. Okay. It won over Reds.

Yeah. Yeah, that's tough. For me, that's a same. Yeah, and that was a split. Bady won for directing. Anyway. I don't like that. It is really funny to follow people around who are running or exercising with the Chariots of Fire.

Do you like the Vangelis, the theme? Yeah, of course. It's very beautiful. Do you run to it? No, but like sometimes when Knox is on the playground and I'm trying to get him to run somewhere, I'll play it on my phone, and then we run along. And it gets him from A to B. Can I tell you something?

I've been preparing for. for the To Live and Die in LA rewatchables, which is recording immediately after this. Oh, normal day for me. Congratulations. And I used to think that the 80s sucked, and I used to think that the pop music from the 80 was not interesting,

and I didn't really like the cinema. I'm coming around. Listen, Harold Faltermeyer, a god in our house. Wow. I don't know what, I know nothing besides his music, so I don't, and his contributions to cinema. So, like, I don't, like, don't, like, bring the politics to me. I don't know.

I haven't done that research. Yeah, powerful stuff. Okay. A couple of others. Wait, I'm going to say, Wimbledon. Speaking of Kirsten-N-Undust. Yeah, Wimbledon stinks, but okay. Excuse me.

Tin cup. That's more of your alley. It also stinks, but whatever. Stop, please stop. Please stop. Molly's game? She was a competitive skier. That is garbage sports.

If I've ever seen it. We should go a Molly's game watch along. Garbage bus. Oh, my God. We should. That would be good. That's so fun. Yeah.

Okay. No one watches those, but it would be great. Yeah. And then Blue Crush? Yeah. I don't know if I've seen that. That was, that. Oh, yeah.

Cape Osworth. Yeah. That was a thing when we were young. Jack, Blue Crush, ever heard of it? No. Yeah. There we go. I mean, a few others, like, Miracle is just good, you know?

Like, but that's kind of in the same zone. Remember the Titans is a famous version of this. Sure. This isn't a list of, like, good sports movies. Those are mainstream sports movies. What about... Cool running? Sure.

Yeah. That's kind of a... The big green, the soccer movie. You ever see that one? No, I never saw that one. You're kind of anti-socer, aren't you? No, I'm at soccer practice every Saturday. Except when it's my turn to stay home with a sleeping baby.

Thunderstruck starring Kevin Durant? I haven't seen this. Came out like seven years here. Starring Kevin Durant. It was when he was still on the Oklahoma City Thunder. Thunderstruck is a play on words. And he's the star? He's the co-star, along with a young boy.

But like how much... screen time. How much does the movie rest on Kevin Durant's shoulders? Inadequate amount. A teenage clutz becomes the star of his high school basketball team when he magically acquires the abilities of his hero NBA star Kevin Durant. But the switch leaves Durant unable to score. Oh dear. It's kind of a body swap. Okay. With NBA. I haven't seen it. How did I turn out? What's the body swap movie? It's terrible. What's the Body Swat movie with Kirk Cameron and Dudley Moore? That's that movie called?

I don't. I think that's Who's like father like son? Yeah Is that, are that, is that it? Is it, no, is it Judge Reinhold with Kirk Cameron? What is this? Let's see. No, this is, the father and son are switching minds in this. Yeah, okay. Like father like son. Yeah, that movie's a banger. What's the, is there

a Judge Reinhold body swap movie too? I feel like there is. Yeah, vice versa. Fuck yeah. Vice versa is actually the superior film. Okay. Vice versa is Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage, and they body swap. Wow. And it is fucking good. Let me tell you. Okay.

We're talking about sports movies right now. Are we? I said Thunderstruck. People were screaming at the TV. I mean, cry kid. Sure. But, like, is that garbage? I guess it is.

I don't know whether. What's the definition of garbage here? Ralph Machio, the pride of Long Island. Yeah. Thank you to Ralph. noted Mets fan. Okay, what's the next question? Next question comes from Patrick from Ghana.

What recent underseen or underappreciated movies do you see becoming a cult classic in the future? What do you think about my theory of the Holy Trinity of low wattage, late 2010's early 2020s rom-coms of Palm Springs plus one and set it up? These are good. Key attributes are that they have If not the next generation of movie stars, but like young stars, we really like Glenn Powell, Andy Sandberg, Christina Milotti, Zeroy, Deutsch is the other, and set it up.

And then plus one is Jack Whedon, Maya Erskine. Plus one, like, barely seen at all. So if anyone has not seen that, what a delight. I feel like we should do a new rom-com canon. Okay. I was thinking about this and I was like, because these other movies, that I listed here, and I'm not saying these are the best answers ever, but I'm like, these already kind of have their own cults.

They already, like, they had like instant cults because of the filmmaker who was attached or whatever. And I remember when set it up came out and set it up, it's like 2016. It was a long time ago now. But when it came out, I was like, what the hell is this? It was one of the only times I can remember in the last 10 years where I was like, where did this come from? Who made this? Whose idea was this? And probably because it was like based in Barton Grantland.

But, you know, still, there was something in it where I was like, how did this get over the line? given what was happening in movies at that time. And I do feel that the same vibe as in Plus One in Palm Springs, where it's like it's dromedy. There's like real world stakes, but it's kind of silly. You know, in Palm Springs' case, it's more elevated because of the time travel concept. The tricky thing is that these are all direct to streaming. That's the other thing.

Which there's been no shortage of direct to streaming romantic comedies. Films and TV shows, but like a lot of movies in the last. 10 years. Yes. Many of them starring our greatest former movie stars. And most of them, like, quite bad. Mm-hmm. But it does seem like the high-profile, not very good streamers still get all of the, like, the attention and where things are, where things are directed.

Yeah, yeah, no, I think you're right. There's, I think there's, like, I think those three movies I listed are kind of like the hidden bridge. Yeah. To the kissing booth to all the boys I loved before the Colleen Hoover Wave, like. They're not, those movies are not really that funny. They're much more in the sort of like romance kind of teen obsession. And the other movies are more calm than ROM, I would say. Yeah.

No, they're pretty... Like more vibey? I guess so. They're just, they're the best word I can come up with. They're traditional rom-coms where the people are like opposed and at war until the very last moment when they like kiss and makeup. That's it. And so much about what's going on is the world that it's set in, like the premise. Palm Springs being like, oh, we're Groundhog daying it.

But at a wedding. Also, many of these two out of three wedding based, they both start at weddings. Do they end, they don't end at weddings. Plus one is such a banger because it's so good. It deploys this really, really well. I know, but your wedding rule is, would you like to state it? If your film opens with a wedding, good, if it ends with a wedding bad. Right.

Palm Springs does end with a wedding, but it's not... Well, it's kind of a continuous loop of wedding. Okay, so it's allowed. And the other things, those are just different genres. Like the kissing booth, it's the teen thing, which is very different. And the Colleen Hoover stuff is a romance, weird, whatever. So I think part of the reasons that these work is because they are just really traditional structured rom-coms. I agree.

If they don't have a cult, I'd love it. like to inspire one. Okay, good idea. The rest of your list is good. So some other ideas I had for this pearl, which I do think is basically a cult movie already. I think, you know, that the Tye West trilogy is well known and well covered, but like that movie in particular, I think has like a cosplay quality to it where people are just obsessed with that character. Bottoms? I just saw that Alex Ross Perry put a question in here. Yeah, I put it in there for him. No, bottoms is great. Bottoms is great, but not not super well seen. Yeah. But I think generationally well seen by younger movie-gowers.

And also it has like Iodebri and Rachel Senate and Molly Gordon and Ty Gerber. Yeah, like everybody, all the people who have then a whole generation. Yeah.

Bo is afraid? Great movie. That I think will be dramatically reclaimed in the next 10 years. Okay. Red Rocket. Loved it. Honestly, this is the one that I would have picked

for all the Oscar Hosanna's for for Sean. I feel like this is like maybe his best movie. Salburn? Yeah, but it was also It was reclaimed as soon as it hit Amazon Prime. It was watched.

Was anybody like this is actually good? I think a lot of young people? What do you think, Jack? I don't know if a lot of young people were saying it's good, but I feel like it did penetrate like the Gen Z pop culture stream. Chris Ryan? He enjoyed it.

Yeah, yeah. Well, he identified with the lead character. Also, like me more than any other Emerald Fennell Fennell movie? Yes. your favorite of the three. Yeah. Okay. Um, Better Man? We tried instantly. Yeah. Yassi's favorite. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Malignant. Have you seen Malignan? No, which one is that? Malignant is a good movie swap. Oh, M.G. Holy cow. Just look up the log line. Actually, don't. Don't. Actually, don't read anything. I didn't. I looked at the

poster and then I closed it. It's a James Wan movie that came out during COVID. Yeah. When he was like, I'm just going to put, set aside the major franchises that I work on for one minute and just make this bonkers. original horror movie and it's crazy. Yeah. I added a couple. Game Night. I think it's there. I do think it's there, but it's like we aren't, we aren't saying it out loud yet. Every single time it comes up, everyone's like, oh yeah, remember how Game Night was the funniest

movie ever made and it still is. It was funny. The first time I saw it, it's funny on rewatch. How can that be profitable for Frito Lay? Oh no! Died. Which I realized when we saw a... Sent help. I accidentally, I did that, like, an homage by accident. It was just kind of in my head.

Yeah. So, challengers, I think, also. Yes. A hit, though. Sure, but a modest hit. Yeah. And then I was wondering whether Marty Supreme counts for this. I think the last two are too big, and I think that they're great examples of a legitimate power of a handful of people who are under the age of 35. Yeah. And we're doing 35 under 35 in April.

And I'm excited for it. I'm a little concerned about it given the like some of the new audience we've discovered in the last two years. We haven't done this project in the last couple of years. A lot of haters come out for this episode. It's usually like a really controversial episode that we do. So you think it's going to be, you mean that just because of the negativity or because we have young people who are going to be like, okay, mom and dad. Both. You know, I think it kind of is kind of.

in all directions. I mean, it's really good, honestly. I like it when it's really noisy like that. But, you know, we had a debate about Margot versus Timothy Shalameh the last time we did that episode. And you've held tightly to Margo. Understandably, because she was coming right off of Barbie. I think I was pushing for Timothy.

But it was, once again, it's reflective of what they've done versus what they're going to do. So it's like, are we forecasting or are we marking the moment in time? Because now, yes, you're right. It's Timmy. And did Margo Robbie cross the 35 threshold? Yeah, she's not eligible. So.

Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Oh, she's 35. She just turned 35. Yeah. Okay. What's the next question?

Next question comes from Day. What would you like to see in the new X-Men movie coming from Jake Schreier? P.S. The outfits go hard, Amanda. Thank you. Well, I want something that feels familiar but new. Okay. I want the Chris Claremont era, yellow and blue costumes.

I want the classic team. I want Storm and Cyclops and Gene Gray and Wolverine and Beast and Professor Xavier. And I want to see Rogue. I want to see some of the, like, Tier B characters, you know, Jubilee, Archangel, be interested in that. I want to see them fight Magneto. Okay. You know, I want to see like a classical X-Men story, and I don't want them to have to redo any of the stories they've previously done.

It would be interesting to see them trying to do something brand new. That would be risky. Comic book movies don't usually not use source material. I imagine they are because, one, it like pats the fan on the head, you know, where they're like, oh, good, the age of apocalypse, you like this, you know, Dark Phoenix, you'll enjoy this. And it's also like, because they're usually big epic stories, it's very legible. for Normie Amanda. That's pretty much it.

You know, I think I could probably personally do 12 consecutive episodes, wish casting, like fan casting, who should play the X-Men. Actually, I made an offer to the legendary news and deals text thread, which includes the blank check guys and Alex Ross Perry and a few other friends, where I'm like, if you guys are all in L.A. at the same time, we will do an X-Men fan casting episode, but they'll never all be in L.A. at the same time, so we'll never actually make that episode. What do you want from the X-Men movie?

I'd like for you to be happy. And I think I mean that both sincerely. And also in the sense that I don't know if I can deal with the level of the breakdown. The fallout. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because this, you know, this will make many waves. It's not just that this movie is bad, but they've besmirched this legacy. And then they, you know, killed a whole studio and lots of people.

lost their jobs and all for what? For this. For an X-Men movie that does not, you know, make the X-Men happy. You nailed it, man. That's actually it. It's like when you boil down the Fox deal to its barest essential, it's barest essential as X-Men. It's gotten other stuff, right?

We just talked about getting Conan and getting to do Alien and Predator and getting to do Deadpool versus Wolverine and Fantastic Four and all that stuff. But getting to do. Yeah. Remember, I don't want to talk about Fantastic Port. Anyway, I think, yeah, there will be a crash out amongst Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z alike, because X-Men is very, very sacred and very inspiring to young people who discover that comic book, because it's a story about outcast, people who are trying to find each other.

Found family. Your favorite. But it actually literally is that. It's nice to find a family. Yeah, and it's about figuring out, like, what makes you special instead of what makes you different. And that's a beautiful way of telling a story. I really think X-Men is very, very intellectually deep in a way that is uncommon for a lot of comic books and also very legible for young kids. So I like it.

After seeing Thunderbolts, do you think Shreier has the right sensibility for the material? I do. I, you know, I think that movie is now maybe a bit underrated relative to what comic book movies have been since 2019. It's by no means perfect, but I do think he has a background in Y.A. and X-Men is Y-A You know It's about young kids Going to school

And figuring out their powers I like that I obviously prefer Spider-Man to all the other The kid Teens are the right entry point Also, Sy can say Spider-Man Now just so you know The problem is

You can't have teen Wolverine Why not? Because he's just not a teenager You know like Logan Weapon X He was like a man Oh I see When they put the Adamantium in his body

Okay And they don't Time travel? They do time travel. Well, there you go. You want old, well, they did old Logan and younger X-Men, right? Didn't they already do that? No?

You guys don't remember? Yeah, there you go. Days of future past, right? Isn't that what happens in that? I'm fairly certain that's what happens in that. Okay. Did you see that one? Is that the one where they go to Argentina or whatever?

No idea what you mean. Anyone? Are you thinking of... Michael Fastbender? Oh, that's first class. No. not that one. All right. They go to Argentina and that one?

I don't know where they go somewhere. All right. What's the next question? That's a generous question. Thank you, Day. Next question comes from Tom from England. On longer journeys, I have started downloading a movie I have seen many times and then play the audio only through my car speakers. If you were to do this, which movie would you choose? Probably network, because I can do network word for word. I was going to say a few good men. Another movie I've memorized large chunks of. Exactly. And also you don't.

really need the visuals. Yeah. It's a lot of, there's not a lot of empty air. There's something to a movie that you can listen to. I shared this with you recently. I don't think I said this on the show. I watched the movie Nuremberg

on December 24th, 2025. Right. And here's why I did it. One, I was obviously cramming for the year-end movies. I think Nuremberg is on Netflix. Now you haven't seen it yet? No, I keep forgetting.

It's probably worth a chat at some point. You keep saying this, but then there are all these other movies. movies. Can we put it on the movies we missed episode? Yeah, that's a great idea. I won't say anything about it, but here's how I watched it. I was building a five-foot-tall tall

dollhouse for my daughter. Spoiler alert, Alice, Santa is not real. She's not listening. So I'm building this dollhouse on Christmas Eve, and it was an ornate, complicated act. It's quite impressive. It is a very large edifice. Does it close, or is it...

It does not. It's open. Yes, so it's just kind of like the... Tony Colette and Hereditary. You know, the miniatures are there. And, you know, we have a demon who obviously is living in our home. And so, you know, I couldn't really see the TV while I was building it because it was so tall. But I had Nuremberg on. And I found Nuremberg to be an amazing movie to listen to. Because it's just people yelling at each other in rooms and over-explaining the state of the world led one another.

And so what I heard, I found an enjoyable way to pass the time. When I was seven or eight, I got really, And we would drive a lot to see both my grandparents lived in Tennessee and North Carolina. And so this was in the olden days before iPads kids. And I would get books on tape. But what I liked was not just the narrated audiobook. They were like audio plays of Agatha Christie mysteries that the, like, I think it was the BBC. They're amazing.

And they can still, you can get them on Libya or whatever. I really recommend them. But they had the same, you know, there were people. It was kind of like a prey home companion. And they had people doing sounds and people doing like enough of a theatrical to set the vibe. And it was sort of like listening to a movie. They're great. I recommend that.

But I guess you could also just listen to Miss Marple on without looking at it. Semi-related. Have you read Saicho Matsumoto's Tokyo Express? I don't think so. Eileen was eyeing this recently. And it's sort of an Agatha Christie-esque Japanese detective novel that apparently is very good. Oh, no, I haven't read this one. Okay.

I figured if someone had read it, you would have read it. Okay, what's the next question? Next question comes from Brandon. What is your most memorable movie theater experience ever? I vividly recall seeing there's something about Mary, which I did with 10 friends. Oh, that's cute. And we were huge, huge, huge, fairly brothers and Jim Carrey and Jim Carrey and

you know, like super slapstick comedy fans. And I don't know if Buzz worked differently at that time in history, but the pre-release buzz on there's something about Mary, probably powered entirely by trailers and commercials, was like this will be the funniest movie that ever touches your soul. And at the moment it was, like it was, it was like going to see fucking Led Zeppelin or something. Were you reading Entertainment Weekly by then? I was.

Yeah. So that's part of it. I probably was like the plug for all that stuff. Yeah. So, but then you start it. And then you're like, no, we really got to, we got to do this. It was pretty, pretty electrifying. Got to be honest.

I was a teenage boy living on Long Island, you know. What do you want? That's beautiful. I'm trying to think. So as a child, I remember going to see Clueless Atlantic Mall with my mother. I was 11, 10, turning 11. And just remember being like, wow, I'm allowed to get to see something this quote-unquote grown up. and also movies can be like this.

I also remember seeing a year later Jerry McGuire with my mother, which was a pretty scarring experience because of the sex scene. I remember seeing the American president with my dad multiple times in theaters, so that's sort of a, I think we saw it four times in theaters.

Four times you both went together? Yeah. Wow. We really liked it. That's very sweet. Well, yeah. He likes movies. That's when a centrist liberal America

was still possible. That's true. 1895. That was the end of it. So I guess 95, big movie year. Let's see. And then as a grown up, I'm trying to think. I think a lot about the Irishman premiere that we went to.

Yeah, which was great. At the Chinese theater in Hollywood and was like a big deal and very fancy and everyone was there. And then wound up being one of the last big premieres that we went to before COVID. So. It's a great call. But I also just remember like the end of that movie and in the still of the night like playing through the Chinese. It really, really works. So and then I remember taking my son and your son to sing it in the rain and your daughter to sing in the rain at Vidas.

It's going to say, where is my son? Give me back my son! And then they all started dancing in the front during the actual song singing in the rain. That's very sweet. It was really very special. More recent adult ones for me, I mentioned this on our 25 for 25, but I was at the New York Film Festival premiere of the social network in September 2010, which was incredible. I took Alice to see Wish when she was barely two years old, and I watched something happen that happened to me that is just unforgettable and is like a huge part of our relationship right now, which is very special. I don't know.

More recent fare, I'm trying to think of what's... an exciting festival to greet. Oh, uncut gems at Telluride. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was fucking electric. And it was amazing because 25% of the people were there left, because they were like, this is disgusting to me. And the other 75% of us sickos were

absolutely vibrating. Good question. One plus one equals more of the greatest stories. The Hulu-on Disney Plus. Stories about... Our survivors. The most dangerous planet. Family, retribution. Murder. Prophecy.

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Next question comes from our good friend, Alex Ross Perry. He asks, I wanted to know if you and Amanda have to take those passport-style photos that serve as the banner for every episode by looking at the camera and giving a big old smile. every single episode. And if so, do you do it at the beginning or end of the recording? What?

You think AI is doing this? You think we're just changing our little outfits with the AI every time? No, of course we do it. We do it at the end. Here's the alternative, Alex Ross Perry. It's a thumbnail that is of a screen grab, a view frozen, at the most heinous, facial expressive moment that you possibly could make. And then the green goblin photoshopped into everything.

Every single, like, around you, like five of them trying to eat you. And then it just shows up. And it, like, pops out at you, like, YouTube or Spotify. You're just going about your business. You're trying to hit Rafi, you know, to please your children. And then your face being eaten by the green goblin going like, ah! It's just frozen there. Please make that the screenshot.

Yeah. We do a direct-to-camera thumbnail, Alex Ross Perry. We're going to do it after this one. I don't do a big old. smile. Sometimes on NBA group chat, you know, they're getting like snazzy with the little. Finger guns. Yeah, everything.

Should we do like this like one time, you know, just some dance moves? Oh, like Pulpiction or whatever? No, because then immediately once the photo exists, it gets taken out of context, right? Very good point. So when I have enough out of my control being live on Netflix as we are right now. So that's my one attempt to art direct this. What should we do with our thumbnails? Anyone have any thoughts?

I don't care. You know, I've been on The Rewatchables on video for some time now. And every single photo of me promoting an episode of The Rewatchables is me awkwardly laughing at something Chris has said. Every single time, they're like, this is going to be gold, guys. We'll just put Sean right in the middle and he'll look like a freak. And you know what? That's showbiz, baby. You know, like what can I say?

That's just how it works. Okay, what's next? Thanks, Alex. Next question comes from Jeffrey. Joffrey or Jeffrey? I apologize. It's Jeffrey. I recently saw Charlie Kaufman speak at Cinectody New York screening at Yale and was reminded of how much his work changed when he started directing his own screenplays with every

best director winner dating back to the 2013 Academy Awards, having written or co-written their films, and all five nominees writing their own films this year, is something being lost in the old way of a great screenwriter turning over a script to a great director? This is a great question and a wonderful observation about how things have changed. We, I personally, I think you too, we're otorists. We love people who conceive and imagine and build all from whole cloth. However, well, the reason that we're so excited about that is because we came of age and came to love cinema in like the great heyday of our favorite, of wonderful directors taking great scripts from screenwriters. and turning them into this classic,

they don't make them anymore, like this anymore, studio fair. So we were excited by what was new and what the younger generation was doing. And, you know, I think we'll all still really feel that way. And there's nothing, I think, both of us, more exciting than someone who just has, like, who has it all in their head.

They see it. And they've written it. They know what it's supposed to look like. They understand it, that it is kind of the closest you can get to film as a sculpture or a painting or as like fine art. So I do really value that. But also like Aaron Sorkin is directing the social reckoning.

Like why? God help us. And that is that is someone who wrote the screenplays for some of my favorite movies that were then directed by Rob Reiner and David Fincher. And it's like, and now he's just doing it by himself. I think there's two reasons for this. This is a very interesting question to me. I've given this some thought in the past too.

One of the reasons is because obviously the studios are not taking the chances on those kinds of stories that you were talking about that are written by screenwriters. And it's just much harder to submit. It was much harder up until about two years ago to just submit a spec script and hope that anything could happen. The idea of a movie like Send Help Getting Made is super exciting because that just came from two veteran screenwriters who'd been writing movies for decades. And that's a movie that they'd written, you know, I don't know how many years ago it was, 5, 6, 7. And Ramey was like, I'll do this one. And that's kind of how the business should work like 30% of the time. Yeah.

Where there's just a good idea floating around and someone grabs it who has a lot of skill and they can transform it into something. It feels like that business is coming back. We were raised, you know, in like the Shane Black era, right? Where Shane Black was like writing these mind-blowing screenplays and selling them for a million dollars. And that person was venerated in the same way that, like, William Goldman was venerated before. William Goldman never directed a movie. Sorkin, obviously working in the same tradition. I think it's coming back a little bit.

The sales are up this year, which is really cool. Kaufman's a really good example. I like his films as a director, but I do not like them more than when he's working with Spike Jones. And him and Spike Jones together to me is as magical as it gets. In fact, I was listening to the How to Live and Die in L.A. Commentary track with William Friedkin last night. And he was talking about his favorite films of all time and what they all did. And he listed a handful of movies.

All About Eve was certainly one of them. But there were a couple of others, and he said, the things that these movies do is you have no idea where the story is going and they surprise you. They upend your expectations, and they surprise you. And he said, the best modern example of that is when Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jones get together. And I was like, that's such a random coincidence that that was part of that question. I think sometimes great screenwriters, one, they're not as trained in the art of film making. So when they try to take their hand at it, like someone like Aaron Sorkin,

he didn't train as a film director. And a film director is an artistic craft. And I find that he's a little bit lacking stylistically to those who have worked on his films before. There's also just like something going on with the marketing and primacy of the one guy or the one girl. And like movie studios have latched on to this very wisely where it's like this is a Christopher Nolan movie. And that is the selling point. As our friend David Sims wrote recently. I mean, and as we have been discussing, you know, movie stars are long gone, replaced by Batman and Spider-Man and Harry Potter.

And so David observed that now it is the director that gets sold as like this is the, it's a star vehicle, but it's a star vehicle for Christopher Nolan or Greta Gerwig or Jordan Peel. This is not a mistake. This is something that movie studios have learned through market research and looking at the audiences because as movies get smaller, the people who go. consistently are sickos, and they are signing up for brands. And those brands are not as frequently stars. They're much more these people who create. It's like being really interested in an author and buying any book that they write. It's the same kind of fandom. I'm obviously one of these fans too, so I relate to it. But it has come at the expense of the stock and trade screenwriter. And that's a little sad. Yeah. What's next?

Next question comes from Raina. After watching the studio, I rewatched the player, and I was wondering, What are some of your favorite Hollywood satire movies? There are a lot. I know. You made a long list of many of the classics. I added a couple. The top three classic Hollywood editions of this are Sullivan's Travels, singing in the rain and Sunside Boulevard.

Presumably, if you're listening to the show, you've heard of those movies. They're three of our favorite movies. We talk about them all the time on the show. They all, I think, operate in a different register of satire when it comes to Hollywood and achieve. their ends in different ways. We should also say that since the player

was mentioned in the question, it's not also on the list, which would be, it would be a top four. It would be a Mount Rushmore situation. Yes, no question. Handful that I'm thought of, Hail Caesar, Tropic Thunder,

the Hollywood Shuffle. The loved one is a little bit of an underrated one. It's a Tony Richardson movie from the 1960s that has a lot of fun. Albert Brooks is the muse, Bowfinger. Speaking of Criterion, there's a great addition of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter starring Jane Mansfield. That I think is very funny.

State and Maine. Blazing Saddles, especially like the last 20 minutes of Blazing Saddles, when it becomes clear that they're inside of a movie. I've been thinking about Blazing Saddles a lot because I'm thinking about Mel Brooks, who's turning 100. And, you know, his career really deserves as much acclaim as it can get while he's still with us. What else did you add? Speaking of Spike Jones and Charlie Kaufman, Adaptation, which is. the satire of many things, but screenwriting is certainly one of them. And then Notting Hill, which may have a sweet ending, but is pretty acidic about movie stars and certainly about Alec Baldwin as a movie star.

Yes. Did we ever do an episode about Hollywood satires? I think so, but maybe during the pandemic. Okay. But we could go back. Okay. Let's keep going. Yeah.

Are we going to talk about hoppers? Yeah. Let's keep buzzing. We're going to do two more questions. Okay. Should I make one of them life advice? Yes. Okay.

Last movie-related question comes from Kyle. What films really capture the people or culture of the city or state you grew up in? There's a whole history of Long Island cinema, many of which get it very, very right. No movie gets it more right than the Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah. Which doesn't take place entirely on Long Island, but it captures the Long Island Agro Bro. better than any movie I've ever seen. Married to the Mob and Goodfellas are sort of antecedents for this.

They are like much more in the sort of like the production design, the vocal intonations of people, the relationships that they make, first half of Married to the Mob, second half of Goodfellas, you know, sort of like when they're in the suburbs moments of those movies. Steve Bouchemey's film Trees Lounge is an all-time Long Island classic

and as somebody who's spent a lot of time in bars with his dad as a kid. That's what it's like to be in a bar. Hal Hartley's trust. It's unforgettable. It was Frank Oz's In and Out, starring Kevin Klein, was shooting in Northport, which is one town over for me when I was a teenager. And there was a huge flurry around that movie when I was a kid.

And I remember very well, and it takes place on Long Island. No Hard Feelings in Montauk, which I think is a really good, like, the locals in the beach town, you know, in the in the in the, in the, in the, the, in the, Tourist Town representation. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. A lot of Long Island Railroad in that movie. Final Destination 1. Yeah.

You know, just sad Jets fans, getting annihilated by death. And then the cinema of Ed Burns. Sure. You know, especially the Brothers MacBallin. Have you seen the family McMullen? I haven't, but I will watch it. I'm a Burns completest.

I'm a fan. Of the film. No, of Ed Burns. Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah. And of his choice to marry Christy Turlington. I'm a fan of that choice as well. They put Tracy Ellis Ross in the mix there too.

She's joining the McMullen family. Oh, wow. Okay, I'm going to see it. I'm intrigued. It's on HBO Max. Okay, what's Atlanta? So the thing about Atlanta is that now every movie is filmed there, but not that many, like, good movies are set there.

Yep. So to get the vibe and to movies actually that represent Atlanta, I'm sorry to say that Gone with the Wind represents, well, listen, it happened there, and Atlanta is, like, has been. And you feel that was when it was at its best. Can be a very racist city. And then the other historical one I thought of was Selma, which obviously is in Alabama, but Dr. King was from Atlanta, like a very important part of the fabric and history of Atlanta. And also John Lewis is featured pretty prominently in Selma. and that was our congressperson for many years growing up

and like an absolute Atlanta legend. So those are Atlanta historical. Then present day, drumline. Yeah. You know, and the like HBCUs. And I believe that it's like a made up one in Atlanta. The canon. Contagion, which the CDC back when it existed.

Yes. CDC is important. It's there. I went to summer camp near the CDC for many years. And I'm healthy and thriving. and I believe in vaccines. Yes, and you have many friends and close love games, yes. And then, I mean, every Marvel movie, I guess.

I don't know. So Black Panther starts with a heist at the High Museum of Art. And it's not identified as the High Museum of Art, of course. I grew up two blocks from the High Museum of Art. And I went there all the time and played in the front lawn all the time. And then the library where I went to Storytime was right across the street. Wow. So I didn't witness any heists in my time, nor did I meet any superheroes.

Okay. But. Eric Kilmonger, not exactly a superhero, right? Well, thwarted, I guess, you know, and he's angry about it. He's trying to steal it back. That's true. I don't know, Atlanta, it's good. It's good and it's bad.

Okay. You had a tough experience, but you weren't properly in the city of Atlanta, so. No. Long Island is I feel the same way. Yeah. It's good. It's bad. It's like any place.

Okay. What's our last question? before chatting hoppers a little bit. Last question. Live life advice with Dustin. He writes in, I recently ordered an engagement ring for my long time girlfriend,

but I've been struggling to come up with a fun and meaningful way to propose. We're both cinephiles and are going to Tiff for the second year in a row this fall. Should I work our love of cinema into my proposal? What do you think?

I mean, yes, absolutely. It's like, I don't think, where are you on a public proposal? It's not what I would do. It's not what I would do either. It's not what happened to me. And I don't think, I'm a big fan of Tiff, excited that you guys are going. But we shouldn't be trying to run out like a screen, you know, to do some sort of will you marry me public sort of thing.

I just, I wouldn't. How would it work? Let's just game it out. Well, I don't know. I've never been to Tiff, right? I've never been to Canada. You book a friends and family only mass screening of Maggie Jellen Hall's the bride. The greatest love story ever told.

And then... You and your gal come out. You introduce the film. You know, you say, hey, my name's Dustin. This is Maggie Jr. We're madly in love with each other. Yeah.

This is an expression of our love. Two monsters trying to make their way across the United States of America or Toronto, I guess Toronto and Canada. This is a Canadian story. And I guess Niagara Falls figures prominently in the film of Bride. Oh, yeah. That's right.

That looked real fake. And after the film is over, stick around. We've got a special surprise for you all. No, no, no, no. No, no. I mean, what you have to do is you either have to get in touch with Jesse Buckley's people and or film your own drop-in. And instead of, here comes the motherfucking bride or...

Wait, you want to cut the film? Yes. Yeah. And then you either... Listen, you've already rented out of friends and family screening for the bride in Canada. I can't recommend any of that. No, I don't, you know. I don't know.

I don't think public. But what's like a small thing that you could do for movie night? I mean, let's see. I don't, I don't, I honestly, it's great that you have shared interests. A gimmicky proposal, you don't really have to do it. Do something from the heart. I still don't remember anything my husband said to me during the proposal because I was so surprised and I like sort of blacked out. Wow.

He says it was nice. I'm sure that it was. I said yes. Did you fear dying alone? I didn't. But you know. Me either. You know the story of this is that we didn't really, we didn't have a conversation about it.

It's not like I picked out a ring or anything. We had one conversation about my very ambivalent feelings about the institution of marriage because of, you know, previous events, child of divorce. World War II? Like, I don't know what you mean. Sure, all of that. And nothing happened and six months went by and then just like out of nowhere. So I didn't remember. And that was nice. I thought it was very romantic.

One of the most romantic things that you can do, even though I think marriage is like a pretty weird institution and primarily a business arrangement. One of the most romantic things you can do is ask someone to marry you. So just do that. Just do it like do it meaningfully. Probably not in public. I don't know if you need a photographer hidden. But that's up to you. you and then you can go see a movie. That's good advice. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for all of these wonderful questions. We had a bunch more, but we just didn't have time to get to them.

We will be doing another mailbag immediately after the Academy Awards, so maybe some of these questions can float into that mailbag. That will be about the Oscars, though. Almost entirely, yeah. But, you know, maybe we'll just sprinkle in some other stuff for fun, you know, just to keep it loose. How are you feeling about your 2027 Oscar picks? It's only 11 and a half months away. It's going to be great.

Hoppers. Have they announced the date for the 2027 Oscars? Yeah, it's July 18, 2027, which I think is a really good idea. And they should keep pushing it back. Hoppers is directed by Daniel Chong. It's his first feature for Pixar, though not his first feature film. It's written by Jesse Andrews and the story is by Chong and Andrews. The voice cast includes Piper Curta, Bobby Moynihan, John Hamm, Kathy Nejimmy, and Dave

Franco. The story is as follows, when scientists discover a way to transform human consciousness into robotic animals, Mabel uses the new technology to uncover mysteries of the animal world that are beyond anything she could have ever imagined. What did you think of hoppers? I had a nice time, as did my four-year-old son. It was a little convoluted, is it not? It is. It's a little, and I would say the most succinct review, was delivered by my son, 20, maybe 25 minutes into hoppers when he just said very loudly,

this is not hoppers because he had not seen any of the animals advertised on the billboard just yet. And very shortly thereafter, King George, the beaver, and all the other animals of the animal kingdom showed up, and he was very excited.

I don't think he could tell you reliably anything that happened in the film hoppers afterwards. But spending time with animals and trying to, you know, be a force for good in the world, I'm pro. Mm-hmm. Yes.

I'm with you. I like this movie. Yeah. I thought it was perhaps the most laugh-out-loud funny Pixar movie in a long time. I thought it had really good jokes. Yes. It had a couple of real gasp moments. There's one in particular where one character is eliminated.

But I was like, oh, my. That was funny. It was great. It was a great moment. There's a handful of moments like this that are surprising and played for laughs. And the slapstick of it is very good. I think the voice performances are great in this movie. I thought Dave Franco and Merrill Streep in particular were excellent.

It's crazy to just be saying Merrill Streep and Hoppers, but she's in there. It is ornately plotted. And I would say, I don't want to say it's challenging for. a little kid, but I'll tell you this in the same way that Knox had a reaction 20 minutes in, about an hour in, Alice, who I would describe as a high-level

plot understander, given that she has like a real mastery of the Star Wars universe at four and a half years old, turned to me one hour in, she said, Dad, what is this movie about? And I couldn't answer that succinctly and quietly for her in the movie

theater, but I think, and you know what, maybe for 80-year-olds, it's super easy to understand. But because of the experience that we find ourselves in, as parents going to see these movies, I'm watching it through her eyes a little bit more, and it's okay for them to not understand every plot detail. But this is a wacky plot. Yeah.

To be fair to Hoppers, my son can't really recount the plots of anything that he sees. But it is it's a hat on a hat on a hat on a hat on a animatronic beaver. Or a robot beaver. You know, I don't want to get the technology

wrong. It's a robot with the power to accept consciousness? In a real battle with my son over whether robots are good or evil, and really about drones. And whether drones are good or evil, I'm obviously anti-drones in all cases. But and he is a contrarian opinion. It's just like drones. Yeah, I'm into it. I like them.

You don't like them, but I do because I think he likes that when they're flying around at the park. Of course. And then robots, he's very interested in Siri. That's very complicated. You know, he likes to talk to Siri. So I didn't love it when robots were lionized in this film But but but but it was so Confusing it like it was a robot for such a short period of time

That I think it really just passed over Knox's head I didn't I personally didn't find the actual plot confusing to understand like as an adult I don't think it's I think most people will understand the movie I think for young kids it's a it's just a lot of information It's just a lot of jumps Yeah and it's also I mean it's like it's also a few different kinds of films. Like, it is kind of a body swap body horror movie in a way.

It's also like a conservationist comedy. You know, it's very thorough Ralph Waldo Emerson in terms of how it thinks about, like, the transcendental relationship to nature and how fulfilling and powerful that can be for the young Mabel character and her relationship with her grandmother. I found that's like to be very touching. Yeah. Very classical Pixar. You know, very similar to... There's a 10-minute, very moving prologue about loss.

Yes. that animates the, sorry, that does animate the rest of the film. Literally. Pun intended, I guess. I also, like, especially young Mabel, I loved. I really would have liked a whole movie about young Mabel. Yes. She, then she turns into a teenager, which I guess you have to be to have access to the research lab

where they're turning into, I get it from a plot place, but I was really into angry seven-year-old Mabel trying to free all the reptile pets in her classrooms. Yeah. I think there's something interesting, too, about how old is the kid in the story that you're telling for a Pixar film? You know, in Elio, I think he was maybe like eight or nine. And this movie, Mabel, is a teenager. Yeah, she's 19. She's an activist teenager.

And that is got to be the oldest lead for a Pixar movie, short of soul, I guess. She goes to school. She goes to college in Beaverton. She doesn't always attend her classes, but she's college age. Yeah. And so that choice, I think, leads to kind of a naturally little bit more elevated experience where this kind of like this collision of science and the real world and politics. Initially, the villain of the film is a Gavin Newsom-esque mayor named Jerry, voiced by John Hamm, who is up to no good. He's trying to build a bridge.

And in doing so, he is sending the wildlife racing away from their natural habitat. And so that's really what Mabel is trying to preserve. and there's like a couple things about this movie that I didn't totally click with. Clearly like Mabel is trying to make some chaos to transform the human world to let the animals return to their safe place because she believes that they should have their own sanctuaries

and they shouldn't be disrupted by humans and also she has this emotional connection to her family and the way that she kind of came to understand herself and be more at peace by being in that world herself. So then she's like kind of setting up an animal plot to undermine the humans. But then she accidentally kills the queen of the insects. And when she does so, all the creatures want to go kill a politician and Mabel. And they go on a mad spree.

And then one of the butterflies' son grows up to be an evil butterfly king. Titus, yeah. Titus, and then he goes into the robot body of Jerry once they've been cat. Like, it's a very, like, it's just going in a lot of places, and it's a lot of, it's a lot of plot in the final 40 minutes of the movie. And then the movie has a naturally, like, sweet conclusion, like the bad guy was eliminated and the other bad guy learned a lesson. And then we're going to clean up this place after a forced fire, which is a little, a little much to see. Yeah, I was thinking about when the, when they finished, like, script development on this. Yeah.

Because. I mean, these movies take years to make, obviously. Yeah, I assume. But just we're a year out of the wildfires here in Los Angeles. And that was unfortunate to see. My wife said something about it immediately afterwards. And then Jerry's just, like, cleaning up the forest and he hasn't lost office despite all of the terrible things that he's done.

And it's like, okay, we got this. You guys, we can conserve the environment. I don't know. I was left a little like, I guess this is solved then. Thanks, hoppers. And like, and you get a job at the local research thing, but we can't be animals anymore. So instead, the professor has a whole whiteboard of other ideas of things. So science continues, but like in harmony with nature.

Yeah. I don't, I don't know. I mostly just laughed at the animals like my child did. Yeah, the jokes are good. Yeah. And it's very entertaining. Like in the, I did think it was notable that to me the funniest joke was about an iPhone and about using voice, like voice to text or text to voice. And emojis.

And but we've, you know, a lot of, yeah. But like, and that's the only thing that Knox remembers is as soon as I start going beaver, beaver, beaver, he remembers the potato punchline. So it works. Yeah. I thought Bobby Moynihan was really funny. He was. And the, like, the George character has the classic, like, I would buy, you know, a stuffy, merchandisable. I'm rooting for this person, very funny, endearing.

I thought the ways that their expressions and their eyes changed, depending on whether they were, like, talking between animals. I love that. Yeah. And so the thing, the innate child thing of, wouldn't it be fun to be an animal and be able to talk to animals, which, you know, all children or, most children do feel, I thought they realized really well. I just everything else was involved. I say that, but we sat next to like two grownups on a date to see the Pixar movie in the middle of the afternoon, which is really cool. And I was mostly nervous about making sure that my child, you know, behaved appropriately.

But it did remind me that these movies have the burden of like a much wider audience now. They have to support both audiences. Yeah. They really do. It's a very good point. Yeah, I think, so Chong shared a kind of like 2D animation preview of what the film looked like at an early stage. And it was a pure Miyazaki style, hand-drawn experience of two beavers going up the river. And it was beautiful.

And we don't know how the movie would have poured it over in that way. But I do think that there's something in the like hyper mania of kids movies. And that extends to good kids movies like this, like Sutopia 2. These are pretty good movies. But there's something like really antic about them that you don't find in a Miyazaki movie. And I wonder what this movie would have been if it had removed a little bit of the like robot chaos mania

and been a little bit more ground level, like a little bit more panyo if it would have been a better movie. And frankly, if Chong might have been like almost more well suited to that, I can kind of feel just the like, Pop-Tamist Pixar stuff going on in the film at times. It's not like, it doesn't make it bad,

but it did make me wondering about the alternative. Well, you can feel it in the pacing, and it both just, it does have jokes every few minutes, but it's almost like it's the kid version of the Netflix, make sure that you have something that you have to look at the screen at every five seconds because people are going to be looking away. And so it's just over here, over here, over here. And it worked.

You know, my kids sat happily, but it felt overstuffed. And it kind of just, you can really feel the divide between, okay, we're putting this stuff in for the bigger kids and the grownups. And we're putting this stuff in because we know we have to get a new younger audience. They are not cohesive. Yeah. I find with a lot of these movies, I can hear the noises of 15 adults in a room like negotiating between what's going to work at what time in the movie. And that's just a product of having seen every single one of these multiple times. really liking a lot of them,

but it's very hard to go back to a more innocent viewing experience of seeing Toy Story for the first time where even though I was like probably 13 at the time, there just felt like something extraordinary that had never been done was happening,

but just the use of that 3D animation style at that time felt so novel. And now, that has been the experience we've lived in for 30 years as animation consumers. And so when I saw that 2D image, I was like, there's a reason why a Miyazaki movie still feels special

and still feels different. And there's a reason why Spider-Verse still feels special because that's different than this. That is that the texture of those movies is unlike just what every Pixar movie looks like. You mentioned Luca earlier. Luca is one of the few Pixar movies that looks totally different.

Like the visual palette is so dramatically different. I don't mean to dump on the movie. I think it's very good and I'm glad that it's successful in doing well. But I had some, and I've seen it twice now. So I had some time to kind of mull it over and kind of work through, like, how much did this really follow through on all of its intentions? Yeah. I don't know that it has real lasting power in the mind of the people in my house either. Like, it has not been brought up several times.

But like once since we saw it. But Mandalorian and Grogu lives Renfrey. And I did also forget that the movie theater we went to had like Zootopia to. popcorn buckets still out. They just have them all. They're making popcorn buckets for everything apparently. Yes, they do. Yeah. And... About to get that scintemoree popcorn bucket.

My son was, like, begging me. Like, please, please, can we have this? Please, he was holding it. You know? Because it's just a friendly snake. And that's... And you did it. That's where he is. No, of course not. No. Where am I going to put that?

On his head. After our consumption. We got popcorn. And then when the movie ended Alice... said, can I have M&Ms? So we just got M&Ms after the movie. Oh, that's really nice. Knaug's trying to buy me peanut M&Ms because he knows I like them. And he kept being like, Mama, I really want to get these for you. Mama, can I get them? And I was like, this is a generous. Yeah, but it's self-serving. But I appreciate the creativity. Yeah.

Of trying to think that he can buy it for me. And then, yeah, it's smart. Anyway, he had a nice time. How did you feel our live experience went? Did this break two minutes in and we don't know? Jack? No, it's good. It's all good. Nothing broke. We're still on Netflix? Who's watching? My mom, my girlfriend. Is President Trump watching?

I really, really hope that. This has been a great episode of the Big Picture. Thank you to Jack Sanders, Lucas Kavanaugh. Yeah. Yeah, thank you to our producer, Jack Sanders, for navigating these live waters. Thanks to Lucas. Thanks to everybody here at Spotify, who helps make this happen for us. We appreciate it.

This was a road test. Yes. for next Sunday's episode. Sunday night. That's not our next episode. Our next episode is on Thursday. We're going to be making our final Oscar predictions. You're going to wait until Thursday to put it up?

Are you sure you're not going to say put it up as soon as it's ready? Jack? Because I want my wisdom to be out. There's a reason why I can't do that. That I will reveal to you on the episode. Okay. How exciting? Jack, how did you feel about this?

Good? Home run. Okay. Come see us on the next Thursday. Thanks. Thanks to everybody. buddy for watching at home all dozen of you. We'll see you next time.