The Big Picture - The Mega-Mailbag Is Here, and the New Best Picture Front-Runner Is …

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Sean and Amanda react to the movie trailers that ran during the Super Bowl and give their broader thoughts about cinema’s role in football’s biggest broadcast (1:00). Then, they dig into the PGA and DGA Awards, including what they portend for the front-running films at the Oscars, like ‘Anora,’ ‘The Brutalist,’ and ‘Emilia Pérez’ (11:00). Finally, they open up the mailbag: Listeners sent in over 1,000 questions about watching habits, the state of theater-going, auteur theory, work-life-movie balance, and much more (37:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Video Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name is Matt Bellamy. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. With my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight,

which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again. Follow the town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. There's so many things I wanna do and see. Like redoing the basement without

having to do it all myself. Or doing absolutely nothing with a spectacular waterfall view of course. So I'm starting here investing with RBC. When it comes to reaching your goals personalized advice and performance matter. And now you can get $300 when you invest with RBC. Offer ends March 3rd, 2025. Terms and conditions apply. Invest with RBC today. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins.

And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about frontrunners and precursors and everything in between. Later in this episode, we called for your email and you responded with thunder. We'll dig into a mega mailbag for your enjoyment. We also need to talk about the Oscar race, which finally settled after what seemed like months of unsettled and it circled right back around to where it started. To be honest with you. I am just getting my concepts and Pinterest boards ready.

The garage is just gonna get a total makeover. Can't wait to see what you do. It is gonna be beautiful. Yeah, at your expense? Yeah, no, at Spotify's expense. We wrote that in. Don't know if you were aware of that. Didn't know about that.

I'm just, I'm very excited with this turn of events. Just a real weekend of winning in my household. Well, let's not count your chickens before they're hatched. We will talk about the Oscar race and where it stands at the moment. But first, let's talk about the other big win in your life. The Super Bowl was last night. The Philadelphia Eagles absolutely humiliated the Kansas City Chiefs.

Thank God, yeah. And absolute drubbing. Not the best Super Bowl to watch, to be honest with you. No, but it was good from the perspective of I had four native citizens of Philadelphia in my home watching the game, and anything less would have led to behavior that ruptured my family. So, I wouldn't say it was our greatest display as a family, but everyone made it through.

Great. Everyone was very happy. Happy birthday to my son, Saquon Barkley, and Cooper Jean, whose name I learned yesterday, and actually again this morning, but literally got a pick six on his birthday in the Super Bowl. He's also a white cornerback. I'd like to point that out as well. Just an extraordinary series of events happening

at the Super Bowl last night. Less extraordinary. Yeah. Commercials, I thought abominable, like genuinely dystopian. Really genuinely very bad. I was in and out because I had to take care of the two children that I had with a Philadelphia native, so that was my mistake. Okay. But the ones I saw were really bad. Really bad. Did you watch any of the trailers or the commercials?

I did. I saw a couple of them. We saw the Mission Impossible, like, teaser trailer, and very proud moment when my three-year-old son was like, Tom Cruise! Oh, wow. So that was beautiful. Okay. Did you watch the Tom Cruise introduction to the game? I didn't. I missed it.

Okay. I came into the room and they said, hey, Tom Cruise just introduced the Super Bowl. But I forgot until right now to go back and watch it on YouTube. Was it good? It was fine. A wildly portentous narration of haphazardly cut together clips

and awkwardly shot fake press conference imagery. You know, Tom was in good posture, I would say. Was Tom Cruise giving the press conference? No, it was sort of like he was in an odd room that had a series of screens in it, not unlike you might find Ethan Hunt. But then they would cut away to like a Patrick Mahomes standing before 300 microphones, having to answer questions.

Yeah, I bet he is having to answer some questions. And so is Brittany, finally. I don't think either of them will be forced to do anything, unfortunately, for us. That would be great if we never hear from Brittany, finally. I don't think either of them will be forced to do anything, unfortunately, for us. That would be great if we'd never hear from Brittany ever again. Tom was fine. That was completely... It was bland, but he tried his best. The final reckoning trailer, I just want to say

there are dozens of beautiful images in this trailer. I'm very excited. Including the biplane, which was... That was also very important because we're in a real, like, Richard scary,, like cars and trucks and planes phase. So lots of biplanes, triplanes, monoplanes. I mean, a biplane chase, the red and the yellow, like the red Baron of Old is gorgeous.

I'm very excited about that movie. Did you see the Thunderbolts trailer? I did. I actually watched that live and then I first, for some reason, I guess, because I hate myself, I watched the full trailer this morning on my phone. And you weren't happy? I thought it looked really bad. I thought, because I hate myself. I watched the full trailer this morning on my phone. And you weren't happy? I thought it looked really bad. I thought that it looked really bad

when I watched the teaser. Okay. You don't really like like a guardian suicide squad kind of situation. I mean, I like jokes, honestly. And so I saw that they were trying to do some like quippy, especially David Harbor. And I guess like, I don't mind that,

but it looked, you know, reheated. I was like, oh, okay. Like we are once again doing, we're like teaming up a group of unlikely people to save the world. And that's cool. And you and I do that every day, but like, you know, I have seen this before.

And then I truly thought it looked like garbage. Like I thought it looked like real garbage Like I thought it looked like real garbage and I thought it looked like garbage on my TV. I watched the trailer on my phone, which like people can scold me, but also what is the point of a trailer except to watch it on my phone? Well, in a movie theater as well.

Okay, but like I honestly- A Super Bowl trailer is for your TV. Like I think it literally, or at this point, they are trying to get you to watch it again as many times as possible. So like, this is meant for your, it's a product for your phone and it looked like, like gray computer like barf. So that seemed bad.

It does not, Sebastian Standen seemed particularly happy. I really liked Florence Pugh's like Black Widow performance, but this one just kind of had some, like, tinges of Felicity Jones' brutalist accent. So maybe that's just, like, out of context. Um, I... Wow, really going in on Thunderbolts. I just, I like, I thought it looked, like, quite bad, personally. Interesting. Don't agree.

But I also, I mean, that's funny, right? Because I thought to myself, oh, I think everyone likes this. But it's like... All the Marvel people decided to be in a bad mood for a while, and now you guys are like, okay, now think everyone likes this. But it's like, all the Marvel people decided to be in a bad mood for a while. And now you guys are like, OK, now I'm ready to open my heart again. So and it's like, I think, like, I accept a Red Hulk

and also I accept this thing. So that's fine. Like, that's good. You guys, like, took a break. I think you have a misapprehension of the situation, but OK. No, no, I mean, and like, it does the situation, but okay.

No, I mean, and like, it does seem like the... the acceptance of the stuff is just sort of cyclical. I think people are hopeful that it'll get better. Yeah. Thunderbolts, to me, I think I have maybe just like a little bit more forgive on that, because it's just like a low level thing. Now, the one... But it got a Super Bowl ad.

It did. Well, I mean, it's a big Marvel movie coming out very soon. I think, you know, did you know the asterisk in the title? Have you have you paid attention to this? I mean, I saw it. They seem to be really over emphasizing the asterisk recently. OK. And I think that the reason for that is many people believe this is the Dark Avengers, that that's actually what this group is, that they're not the Thunderbolts, the Thaddeus Ross group that pulls together. Anyway, it's really boring comic book stuff.

But the one thing that I thought would be amusing or interesting is if they actually change the name of this movie, maybe retroactively after the release, to Dark Avengers. Like, they're not using that name, but like sort of in the live-die-repeat edge of tomorrow way, will we come to understand that the name of this movie is actual? Or something like that. Yeah, sure. Doesn't that seem pretty stupid from a marketing perspective? Like, if you're gonna call it Dark Avengers, shouldn't you just call it Dark Avengers, like, in the Super

Bowl? It totally does, and that crossed my mind too. I think that they maybe don't want to give away too much of the game on where they're going with certain things. I don't know. I'm just speculating. Because otherwise, like, the asterisk thing is a lot of... It's a lot of noise about something very stupid. Yeah. Anyway, the movie seems fine to me.

Who is that guy in the back seat? Who's like, I hope we don't crash our car. It's Wyatt Russell. That is Wyatt Russell? Yeah, it's Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn's son. Butseat who's like, I hope we don't crash our car. Uh, it's Wyatt Russell. That is Wyatt Russell? Yeah, it's Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn's son. But then I was like, wow. Um, he is...

I guess the haircut. Yeah, he was, he was, um, prominently featured in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. He played a character named US Agent. He has a different name in this series, but he has the same character. Um, and he was like a vigilante. And this is like a group of vigilantes. They all come together.

And are they good? Are they bad? I don't know. Thunderbolts looks okay. I, you know, I didn't, it wasn't like, this is my favorite movie, but I, I really didn't think it looked as bad as you described it. Nevertheless. Um, I thought in general, pretty underwhelming collection of Super Bowl trailers.

We also saw an extended version of Jurassic world Rebirth. Yes. Which was fine. My daughter Alice got extremely excited about Lilo and Stitch. I was also very charmed by it. I thought that that was the best of the ads that I saw. Very clever to integrate the Super Bowl. Yeah. You know, having Stitch running around through the Super Bowl.

For some reason, I saw Lilo and Stitch, like, in theaters, the original. OK. It's kind of in your age range. And was, like, charmed by it. And then I thought it was cute. So I thought that, two thumbs up for that. I'm not by it. And then I thought it was cute. So I thought that two thumbs up for that. I'm not always a hater. I just have standards.

I thought it looked okay. We didn't see a ton from the movie, more of like a Super Bowl gimmick. There was a 30 second F1 spot where we just saw more images of Brad Pitt behind the wheel. Not really much else. Javier Bardem? Javier Bardem and there was one very quick shot

where he's just like lying on a couch and has been doing like a lot of bulking and cutting, I would say, Bobby. I don't know if you want to weigh in on that. Yeah, he's also been doing a lot of HGH. Yeah, I was going to, I was like, okay. You said it, not me, but I was like, okay, this is not exactly natural. And then also he's making out with a woman, but I didn't, I don't remember who that woman is.

Nor do I. Yeah. Kind of slow rolling F1, that movie's coming in June. We haven't seen a whole lot. I did note- Could it be a disaster? The trailer said this summer, not June. Oh, you think they're gonna push it? Well, I don't know.

Into that one battle after another PTA spot when they move that movie and break my heart. I just, you know, there was not a day and date on it. There was, there was... this summer. Okay, we shall see. Overall, one of the least fun to watch Super Bowls ever. There's really no two ways about it.

Unless you're an Eagles fan, of course, in which I'm sure it was incredibly delightful. I didn't have a very good time either, but I liked spending time with my son. So, both of them, I should say, because I traded off. Um, yeah, congrats to the Eagles. Cool. Okay, cool. Let's move on. Saturday night.

Oh, yeah. Totally different story. Yeah. I really, I told you this on the pod last week. There was a part of me that was like, we should just go live on Saturday night. Oh, yeah. Totally different story. Yeah. I really, I told you this on the pod last week. There was a part of me that was like, we should just go live on Saturday night because I just feel like we're going to know everything we need to know after this shit goes down. And Saturday night, of course, after the Critics' Choice Awards were on Friday, the Directors Guild of America and the Producers Guild of America held their ceremonies on Saturday

evening here in Los Angeles, one mile apart from one another, one hour between one another. So this was a fast and furious collection of precursors. One hour of schedule-wise, not traffic-wise. No, no. Well, you never know in LA. Right, that's what I was saying, but like my instinct was like, wow, that's tough. There were many intrepid reporters bouncing from one pavilion to the other trying to catch up on what happened. Let's start with the PGA's even though it came second in the night

because it is of course historically one of the most powerful predictors of the Best Picture winner and Enora won. Sure did. After also winning Best Picture at the Critics' Choice Awards, which respectfully I don't really acknowledge. I don't really think of them much either. I did think that it was interesting that Enora won that award show and this award show,

because the voting for these closed a while ago before the Amelia Perez drama. So that revealed a profound strength. I've got a lot of data points on this. Let's hear it. So seven of the last 10 winners of best picture at the PGA's went on to win. What are the three exceptions?

The three exceptions are 1917, which I think we should discuss as a potential circumstance we may find ourselves in here. La La Land, of course, also one of the most shocking best picture wins when Moonlight went on to win. And the Big Short, which was kind of an odd PGA win. Right, and what won the Big Short year? was kind of an odd PGA win. Right. And what won the big short year?

I believe that's the Spotlight year. Okay. So that was the year that sort of felt like maybe The Revenant was in contention. Spotlight's not going to be on 25 for 25, but I loved that movie. Spoiler. Jesus. Well, I mean... I mean, it wasn't one of the five best movies of that year. Sure. Yeah.

Anyway. Hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey.

Hey. Let's just go back to some menorah thoughts. Okay. I like it. No, it's wonderful, obviously. That's not a dispute. And if it does go on to become a Best Picture winner, that'd be fantastic. I mean, it would be very confusing and we would all have to like reassess how we spend six months of every year. I want to do, in this conversation I want to do, let's just go through the last nine Best Picture winners

and be like, I don't even know anymore. Like all of our expectations and the conventions of Best Picture wins have been thrown out the window. But in fairness to us and especially to me, because I've been the one doing this with Joanna and Katie Rich and recently you, you know, in September, we thought Nanora was number one. Yeah. In October, when you went on leave,

we started doing Best Picture Power Rankings, we had it at number one. In November, we had it at number one. In December, we had it at number one. And then in January, we had it at number three. Right. We would have had it at number two if we had recorded two hours later after the Amelia Perez thing kicked up.

So it's not as though for us, and in our conversation since August, really since it won the POM Dora, we were like, this feels, if not like a presumptive favorite, it has all of the makings of a Best Picture winner. Right. Now, a couple things happened. One, the Golden Globes happened, and it got blanked at the Golden Globes.

And we really couldn't figure out, like, does this really mean anything? And I've heard a lot of people in the aftermath of the PGA and DGA results say, like, the Globes don't mean anything. I totally disagree. For example, the Demi Moore win was confirmed at the Golden Globes, in my opinion. That can still happen. Someone can give a speech that concretizes a narrative. I think also even last year, the Globes and the Oscars were like a very direct match.

And the more... like, confusing and diffuse the race and the award season gets, the more that prime early January TV spot influences voters. It really does. I totally agree with you. So I don't think that we should completely discount the Globes from the precursor conversation. It's just not like the surest signal of what's going to end up winning. Right.

Nevertheless, Enora had been in basically a really good position. And when we talked about the preferential ballot, which the PGA also uses, we talked about the fact that Enora is probably at number two and number three on a lot of ballots and that it could be number two on a brutalist ballot. It could be number two on an lot of ballots and that it could be number two on a Brutalist ballot, it could be number two on an Amelia Perez ballot, it could even be number two on a Wicked ballot. Well, and that's the thing is that it really matters on the I'm Still Here ballot, the Wicked ballot, the what I mean, I'm sad to say Nickel Boys, but like Nickel Boys ballot. I think it's a movie that uses old Hollywood

conventional storytelling style, but an independent framework and Sean Baker's particular point of view. So even though the subject matter of a movie like this with an ending like this basically never has a chance at winning Best Picture, the Academy being as different as it is, I thought this was fascinating. A lot of people did seem to start to feel like this is where things were going,

maybe five, six, seven days ago, that when you really started doing the math in your head, you're like, is the Brutalist really gonna win PGA? That would be odd. Right. I mean, and once the Amelia Perez thing sort of clarified itself, which, because we were all scratching our heads for a long time being like, is this really happening? Are people really this excited about this movie

that has minimal critical support, vociferous opposition from every single group, quote unquote, represented in the film and, you know, a lot of people with eyes and brains and ears. And, but it kept getting nominations, it kept getting critics, well, I shouldn't say critics, guilds, awards, and we couldn't make the math work.

And then that kind of seemed to overindex on, okay, well, maybe it's just the international group, but they also, you know, I think it was just drawing us down some roads that didn't make sense. I totally agree. And now we see why, because it didn't make sense. I think this is another sign that the, that Amelia Perez in general is really imperiled

on Oscar night other than Zoe Saldana and even she is vulnerable. I was thinking, so I ordered a, a red velvet suit to wear on Oscar night and now I'm like, should I return it? I do think that you should wear it., and now I'm like, should I return it? I do think that... No, you should wear it. No, well, I mean, should I wear it? Because you believe in the politics of that film. Yeah, I do, exactly.

And also the music as well. You know, I think it is an aesthetic as well as an ideological achievement. We should do a cold open where you recreate El Mal before the episode starts. No, no, no, I gotta do the one over the table. You know, in the... That'd be the table, you know? In the suit. That'd be good. I hope you have the shoes too. I do think Zoe Saldana will still win, but I am probably gonna return the suit, to be quite honest.

Oh, man. Well, no, I've got another costume. Well, I've got a costume. I know. I don't know whether I'm gonna go like actual costume. I'm not gonna be wearing like an Enora bandage dress. Just... I'll be wearing her outfit in the strip club, and I'm excited about it. I'm excited to show the world.

Can we do the show live, the after show live from... We better get an intimacy coordinator. Yeah. So I don't know where my concept is gonna go, but like I will still dress up. I just don't think that the red velvet suit. Because the other thing is like if I wear it, then the image can be divorced from the context very quickly.

Oh, Odiart is your favorite filmmaker. You've been saying this for months. So I think it's a great... I think you should stick with it. I wouldn't blink now. Speaking of filmmakers' DGAs. Yeah. So they happened, as I said, just before the PGA's. Now, this apparently is the critical race in our big Oscar bet,

which is what you were referring to at the top of the show. I have Brady Corbet and you have Sean Baker. Sean Baker won Best Director at the Directors Guild of America. Nine of the last ten winners went on to Best Director. So we're now looking at if Enora doesn't win Best Picture and doesn't win Best Director, this is a huge upset. Yeah. Uh, statistically speaking, a couple things. The DGA ceremony is very strange. I'd like to go one day because all the directors who are nominated are presented with medallions.

Or like they look like wrestling belts as I understand it. They are the intercontinental champions of directing. It's very, very strange. They get their medallions and give a speech before the awards are given out during the ceremony. During Baker's comments before he was awarded best director, he talked about a minimum 90-day theatrical window for movies. Which is obviously something that I support broadly, but understand completely to be impossible.

Like no movie studio will ever do this. But it's important, I think, for artists to fight for theatrical exclusivity and keeping movies in movie theaters. It's cool. I love going to the movies. Like, it's a great idea. I don't think it's ever gonna happen. And I do also... I'm sympathetic to all the people who, like,

can't see movies until they're released on streaming. And that, I mean, that's a problem with, like, theaters and, like, mall real estate values and like a lot of like business stuff that actually has nothing to do with the arts or movie making. And it sucks. And so I do want people who want to see movies

to be able to see movies. I think that's really important for the industry too. But yeah, theaters are great. We have a mailbag question that we'll come back to this. We will. So one cool data point coming out of PGA and DGA. We knew this when the Oscar nominations were announced, but we didn't really dig into it too much.

No one in the history of the Academy Awards has ever won four Oscars in one night for the same film. Sean Baker is in line to do that. He is nominated for Best Picture. He was the producer of the film, Best Director, Best Writer for Original Screenplay, and Best Editor, because he edited this film as he edits all of his movies.

Now, this would be an extraordinary achievement that I think is legitimately on the table. I think it's probably least likely that he wins editing, but if there's gonna be likely that he wins editing, but if there's gonna be a picture, director, writer sweep, it might just be... It might just go all the way. Yeah.

Do you think that even extends to Mikey Madison? Because I don't. I think it's worth discussing. Okay. I don't yet. But if, well, we have to see Sag. Sag and Bafta are at least instructive on this. If Demi Moore wins SAG, it would be extremely surprising to see

Mikey Madison win, doesn't mean it hasn't happened before. There are versions where like SAG doesn't mean, you know, that's what's going to happen, but SAG and BAFTA, you could see a strong showing for Conclave. You could see, the only thing that I think could upset this really specifically is if Conclave overperforms those two shows or The Brutalist overperforms at BAFTA.

If those, one of those two things happen, I feel like we still have a race here. If not... I don't disagree. Um, can I give you one data point? There is one person who did win four Academy Awards in one night. Not for the same films. You don't, do you want to take any guesses?

Oh, I read the outline, so. Oh, you read it, okay. I did this with my wife last night. I gave her like 10 minutes to guess. I said, this is one of the most historic people in Hollywood history. One of the most important creative visionaries, engines of movie making and imagineering, you might say.

Walt Disney. Walt Disney in 1954 won four Oscars in four different categories for four different films. The four categories were best documentary and then three of the then four short film categories. The best documentary is called The Living Desert. I watched it last night. 54 minutes, never seen it before. It's basically like Planet Earth in 1954. It's about the landscape and the wildlife that lives in a stretch of land, largely in Arizona, and it explores with like Disney style music cues and editing and jokey voiceover, like here's how lizards live. So you watched this without Alice?

I watched it at like 11 PM, like a psychopath. Yeah. But would you watch it again with Alice? Uh, yeah, I genuinely think she would like it. It has the kind of verve of Disney and it is just animals on screen. So, yeah, it was cute. Congratulations to Walt Disney, I guess. Yes, absolutely, sir.

Also at the DGA is Michael Abtett first time feature filmmaker Rommel Ross one, which is great. And great speech. I finally got to listen to yourel Rossman, which is great. Awesome. And great speech. I finally got to listen to your interview with him, by the way. He is just really smart. He's very smart. Yeah, I mean, which you can tell, but it was awesome to hear it.

Yeah, he's been an amazing advocate for his own film, obviously. A number of people pointed out on social media that when he won all five of the Best Director nominees, stood and applauded. I think there's a real recognition in the business. Like what he's doing. That he's done something very, very cool. So that's exciting. More people should watch Nickel Boys if they have not yet had the chance to do so. Critics' Choice. Again, it kind of feels made up. So you pointed out that the voting was done many weeks ago.

I think it closed 12 days ago, something like that. pointed out that the voting was done many weeks ago. I think it closed 12 days ago, something like that. 12 days ago? For Critics' Choice? No, because Critics' Choice was delayed. It was delayed, but I think maybe the voting was extended. Maybe, but yeah, this is what I was gonna say because... I don't know what the dates were, to be honest with you.

So Conclave won Best Ensemble, and I just straight up don't believe that that was decided before the Amelia Perez debacle. Uh, and I don't know how things work at the Critics' Choice Awards, and I have absolutely no basis. This is just me conspiracizing. Just a wild accusation. I woke up this morning, just like ready to go. But I'm like, come on.

You know, like I know they went back and tinkered with that, so they didn't give it to Amelia Perez. Only one win for Amelia Perez at the Critics' Choice Awards for Zoe Saldana. The other winners, An Order for Best Picture, Adrienne Brody for The Brutalist, Demi Moore for The Substance, Cured Culkin for Real Pain, Zoe Saldana for Amelia Perez,

the Conclave Ensemble Award, and then Best Director went to Jon M. Chu. This is his second Best Director win of the season? If you don't have anything nice to say, keep it moving. That's what I'm doing. We can keep it moving. That's not at all what I'm doing today, but I, you know. Uh-huh.

Go birds, I guess. Um, this is... not over and done with, but pretty close. Pretty close. After a season where I was, like, keeping my options open. I would agree with you, but it has been a season of surprises and intrigue. And as you said, we still have SAG awards and we still have BAFTAs. And those represent to like, the power of that voting block is decreasing,

but it is still sizable. Yes. Those are, and those are two in the expansion towards international, significant number of BAFTA voters have been added. And of course SAG is still the largest body. Yeah. So could be some movement. If not, like I said, and of course, Sagastelle, the largest body. So could be some movement. If not, like I said, let's just go through very quickly

the best picture winners of the last 10 years, because since it mirrors perfectly the beginning of the ringer, when in earnest I was like, I'm gonna cover this stuff. Like, I'm gonna spend a lot of time thinking and working on this stuff. And- How are you feeling about that 10 years in?

I've made a huge error. Um, I mean, I feel, I, you know, sincerely feel very lucky to be doing this with you guys. And it's fun. It's really fun. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, but you're just like, this is how I spend my time. But I ruined my life. And I made my hobby my occupation.

And you know, that's dangerous. That's very dangerous. Uh, so going back to 2016, when Moonlight won, I was like, what is going on? There's nothing in the history of the Oscars that tells us that this is how things should work. And it happened. The Shape of Water...

Yeah. ...went in 2017. Over, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread. Call Me By Your Name, Dunkirk. Yeah. Uh, I will say, will be remembered as a bit of an ignominious win. It did feel to me somewhat similar to what an Enora win would feel like, which is that

most people in the business have a big admiration for the way that Sean Baker works and how he makes his movies and sticks to his guns. People feel the same way about Guillermo del Toro. Guillermo del Toro loves movies. He's an amazing advocate for movies. He's made some great films. I do not think The Shape of Water is among his best. It felt like this, and also the sort of abiding message of the movie.

The sort of like acceptance of people who are less than you and not less than you or different from you or if they're fish, you know, and except fish, I guess, was the takeaway there. I did think about Shape of Water when like doing garbage love. And I was like, what is this? Yeah, it's a horror romance. It is a horror romance. I mean, it's a creature from the Black, from the Black At the last minute, you picked Get Out to win over Shape of Water.

And then you were like really mad at yourself on camera. That's what I remember. And that was wish casting, and I've tried to stop wish casting in recent years. 2018, you know, we talked about this on The Sam Sanders Show this week, which we went on last Friday on KCRW, how there was a kind of a white lash, I think, to a lot of what had happened with Oscars.

So white and green books win in 2018, overcoming a number of what had happened with Oscars so white and Green Book's win in 2018, overcoming a number of interesting movies, though no movies that I think are rock, dead solid, clear best picture winners. 2019 Parasite, who the fuck saw that coming? What a year. That was crazy. That was great.

That was the 1917 year where 1917 wanted the PGA's and we all walked away and said, well, I guess this is over and done with. And then Parasite won at SAG and everyone was like, hmm, what's happening here? And then Bong Joon-Ho went along. Now he did actually theoretically win four Academy Awards that year because he won also for Picture, Director, Writer and International. But International doesn't go to the filmmaker. It goes to the country.

That category is really messed up. Yeah. So the country can choose to give the filmmaker the award. Bong Joon-Ho may have the best international feature in his home. Okay. So they can choose to give like the actual statue. Yes. Or they can just put it in a museum in a government building.

But they can't, they get the credit, like in the history book. Correct. Okay. So Bong Joon-Ho doesn't claim that win. We gotta work on that. I agree. We have to completely change the category. Maybe something we can do in the offseason. 2020, Nomadland, you know.

No movie like that ever won before. That was very strange. That was a strange year. It was a very strange year. 2021, Kota. Yeah. First win for a streamer. Mm-hmm. I was on leave. That was also when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock.

So that was a different kind of year. This is an interesting episode of the show, for sure. Um, Coda, nice movie. I like it. I cried, you know? I just did. I love to be a girl dad. I love to be a girl dad. It's actually the best thing in my life. And this movie is a nice representation of that. Do you... You saw that like right after Alice was born? No, I watched it at Sundance.

I was like, this is treacle crap. Oh, that's right, because we saw it so much earlier. And then Alice was born and then we watched it. And then Alice was born and I was like, this movie is a touching decoration of work. I'd like to say that I have a whole and beautiful heart and I saw it before I was even pregnant. And cried.

No one in the world thinks you have a whole and beautiful heart. 2022, everything everywhere all at once. Yeah, that happened. That is a science fiction, multiversal, mom-daughter dramedy. Sure. Which one best picture? What? Right. Um... A lot of speeches from those guys that night.

There were. 2023... They kept going. They talked a lot. Uh, I would have picked Tar. Didn't happen. Uh, 2023 Oppenheimer. Yeah. Which in some ways reflects the like, we gotta recognize Steven Spielberg for Schindler's List thing,

where it's like this guy's just been making movies we love for 20 years and it's his time and he took on a subject matter that was right for the Academy Awards. On the other hand, I think Oppenheimer's a very strange movie. The way that it's organized, the way that it's shot, the first 10 minutes are this like montage, the final hour is in black and white and is set 20 years in the future.

As Oscar winners go, it's pretty unusual structurally, formally. It does have a great man quality, of course. Yeah. And I mean, I think that that is what... To me, it lines up. I mean, it's innovating on a theme, you know, which is like kind of... Well put....what you want a traditional best Oscar to do. I mean, it's innovating on a theme, you know, which is like kind of what you want a traditional best Oscar to do. And like that's cool.

I liked all of it until the Robert Downey Jr. started yelling, you know? But to me, it's not surprising. 2024, Venora wins. This is a Fellini-inspired sex comedy about a stripper and a Russian oligarch. Yeah. And features several sequences in strip clubs.

Okay. And the music of Take That. Great. If it wins, that would be weird. I think it's a great movie. I love that movie, but... Everyone loves it. I mean, that's the other thing is that I do feel like everyone who sees it is like,

-"Hey, great movie." To me, it would be weird in that, like, actually one of the best movies of the year wins best picture, which seldom happens, according to the list that you just read. Yeah. I mean, sometimes it does, you know, but often it doesn't. You're right. I mean, Oppenheimer and Parasite are really the only two where I'm like... And Moonlight. And Moonlight, yeah. Yeah, I'm like, these are certainly among the best.

But for both... Represent something interesting about the Academy. Moonlight and Parasite, they were surprising in the context of the race and the punditry, but we also just had like visible moments of like, wow, the actual best movie won. Like, we don't know what to do with ourselves. Yes, yes. And in both of those cases in particular, La La Land in 1917 represented our expectations

of the old Academy. Yes. And neither of them won. I guess, I don't really know what the old Academy is here this year. Maybe Conclave, parts of The Brutalist, but not really. But not really. I guess a complete unknown, but actually a music biopic

has never won Best Picture. So there's really not a lot here. And I think that that also tells the story, is that this is, in terms of this crop of movies this year, for the variety of reasons that we've talked about, strikes, what the movie schedule looked like, who got to make movies in 2023, et cetera, et cetera. This is what we have.

Anora can win? What percentage would you put it at that you think it's gonna win? I don't know, 51? Oh, so not super confident. No, I mean, I still think, like voting is still active. I think precursors in the last five years like have become less and less sure. Because there's so many of them

Yeah. That it gets a little confusing. And I think the voting gets weird. It's a weird year, you know? I'm trying to make peace with that. Okay. Should we go to the mailbag? Absolutely. And no other thoughts on the... We got a couple more weeks of Oscar pundits who are here. I really am looking forward to redecorating your room.

What are you going to do with all the blue rays though? That's true. I mean, I was kind of like, cause I know you have kind of like the, the extra pile, you know, like you, the library has outgrown the space that I'm working with. Yes. Actually, Chris was over at the house on Friday and he was like, you know what? You are running out of room. Yeah.

You're going to need a bigger house. Yeah. So I guess I just will all of the materials be available to me to work with, you know? In terms of what I get to display and how I get to display it. You're like Laszlo Taufer. Concrete! Concrete is good! I mean, I encourage creativity. Honestly, I think that if we could model it on the reading room,

the reading room is like my favorite part of that movie. Like it's glorious. I felt my body tingling when they opened the shelving unit in that home. I know. I was ecstatic. We could get some light in for you, you know, a little. That could damage the materials inside the home. The plastic?

Yeah, we don't want any, you know, color grading shifts. No, the sun can burn these out. You know this is a book owner, you don't want the sun on books. I, sure, but that's made of paper. And yours is like the plastic that's ruining our earth. It changes the color, you know. Of what? The plastic case?

Of the spines, of the imagery, because the paper... Guys, that's the whole point of the design of the reading room is that it closes. I understand that, but I'm... It won't have light problems. It's nice to have natural light. If you can create some closable, brutalist inspired shelving units for me, I would welcome that.

I would welcome that. They do kind of detail the measurements, you know? It needs to be like about 12 inches like this, they're measuring. Okay. I'm gonna need considerably more than $2,000. Let's get Daniel Eck on the horn. Amanda just putting in an expense request

for like $120,000 worth of shelving at Sean's house. I spent a tidy sum on the original shelving units, I will say. That was the one present to myself in the last 10 years. Listen, carpentry is expensive. It is very expensive. And especially at the level that I expect. Mm-hmm. It's, you know, we're gonna pay people for their work.

You're gonna have to sell my treadmill, I think, just to get this expensive... We are getting the treadmill. Do you ever use it? You know, it's so funny, because I've been in physical therapy in the last couple months, and I have started using it again, in part because of that. What do you watch? Do you like watch movies and just walk?

I set up to watch movies. I'll run sometimes. Do you do like an incline or is it just... I don't really like that and I never have. Okay. But I'll run, I can, I will sometimes run very fast. Okay. Sean doesn't know about the 12, 330. He's not on that game.

I know, yeah. He's not what it is. I mean, we'll have a whole conversation about this. I honestly, I think walking on an incline would be better for your body and for your physical therapy. Bobby, you with me? You may be right, but I have an extremely sensitive hip right now. So any like, over pressure on it could be a challenge.

Okay, so, but you're running on a treadmill. I haven't really been running of late. Historically, I will run on the treadmill, yeah. I just, I think like low impact, but you know, some resistance with the... Okay, sounds like you should call my BT. I think we've maybe under explored the potential of getting the camera in there for the YouTube, you know, some resistance with the... Okay. Sounds like you should call my BT. I think we've maybe under explored the potential of getting the camera in there for the YouTube. You know, you walking while talking.

Have we under explored it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we should talk about that. I don't know. Definitely. I'm an ideas guy. I'm the producer of the show, Sean. I definitely will stay on this call for sure when this episode's over to talk to you about it.

I won't step out immediately and go eat a granola bar. I promise. I definitely will stay right here. Um... I'm opening the water bottle, sorry. The water bottle's open, which means it's mailbag time. Bob, how many emails did we get? There's so many emails. I read about 500 of the emails, and I just looked at the inbox. There's like 563 still unread.

So, you know, I'm making my way through them. A few of you got some responses from me if I didn't put your... I know, I was thinking that I was gonna just log in and just like maybe like do some magic. You should have done to set up an auto reply that just Rebecca Goberts. That would have been amusing. Amanda setting up an auto reply being like,

sorry, I'm out of office, but you can email and then your email address, Sean. That'd be great. Please don't do that. Okay. As you know, I care about inbox zero very deeply. All right, should we start? How would you describe the emails?

Chill vibes, any crazy shit? Oh my God. Any merit proposals to Amanda? Yeah. Everybody was so nice. That's how I would describe the emails. Thank you all for taking time. I am gonna log in and read some of them.

They came from far and wide, all over this great globe of ours. Australia, Ghana, Scotland, Ireland, Senegal, Italy, France, Canada, Germany, England, from everywhere. It was really amazing. Great stuff from everybody. They really showed up, showed out. Really creative questions too. So let's get into it. Let's open it up.

First question comes from Shawna. What movie duo do you feel best exemplifies your relationship? Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling. Fight Club. Who's who? I think we all know I'm Tyler Durden. Maybe. Could be. Godzilla versus Kong.

We have discussed that in the past. I think the energy that we're going for is in your classic Hollywood rom-com. Like the screwball. Yeah. Yeah. Your, um, it happened one night or, uh, or what's your favorite with, um, Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant.

Oh, Philadelphia Story? No. Jesus Christ. Oh, oh, the baby, baby, baby. Bringing up baby, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or the Preston Surges movies. Yeah.

You know, Wee Dee Repartee, Enmity at the foreground. Intensity, humor, weirdness. Fast talking. Yeah, speed is really the thing, speed. But there is definitely a little bit of a like, prisoner and captor thing going on here for sure. There's maybe a little bit of dual persona. Yeah, yeah.

Crazy, and I think we flip roles in terms of who's crazier every week. Bob, do you have anything that you want to add to the mix? I think there's a lot of a few good men energy in this pod, but I'm trying to sort out who would be who. I think like maybe Amanda's Bacon and Sean your TC or maybe flip those around depending on what the topic of the pod is. And that makes me Lieutenant Weinberger. Okay, great. Yeah, that's pretty good. Who's that makes Jack? Joe?

Yeah. In the booth? I guess so. I strenuously object. I strenuously object. Who's Nicholson in this analogy? Bill. Is that like Bill Nicholson? Yeah, I think so. I think that's right. Okay, what's next?

Addy asks, I was wondering if you guys had any advice on how to best prioritize and or maximize your time at a festival. Which festivals do you recommend for a first timer? We actually got a ton of questions about film festivals in this mailbag. So many people interested in going. I mean, I really, I met a lot of people at Sundance who were listeners of the show, but and you know, maybe that means they want to

work in the industry at some point, but like people who are just there to see movies, which was awesome. I have this experience every year at Telluride now where I meet anywhere from 10 to 50 people who are like, I'm here because I heard you talk about it on the show, which is obviously always so exciting because it means you've got young people getting engaged, not just in like going to AMC film culture, but real movie going culture. It's different for every festival. You know, we've all we've both been to probably like five or six at this point. Right. And they all kind of work a little bit differently.

So maybe we can speak more specifically about the ways that certain ones work. Um, I'll say for Sundance, it's a, it's a little bit more challenging because you're often in the snow and you've got to bounce from venue to venue. So the thing that I like to do, which is like see as many movies as possible, is I find it be kind of challenging there because of the transportation is okay, as I recall, but weather conditions and the lines getting in

is a little tricky. They changed it transportation wise. So that's trickier. I mean, the shuttle's good. But yeah, it's really, you do spend a lot of time in lines. Yes. So I think for Sundance, it would probably be just like, pick a theater and camp out there. Yes.

And just like, see everything that is at that one theater. Or I guess you could do like the, I don't know, if you're, two movies a day is really doable. Five, you really have to stay in one place. Yeah, I find when I go to Telluride, people say I'm trying to do three a day, and then it's a little hard

because the lines are a little bit intense. And then also at a place like Telluride, this is true at some festivals, you have to buy a pass to go and it's hard to get individual tickets. And there is a tiering system to the passes. The patron passes I think are five grand. So you have a lot of, you know,

long time patrons who are going and who are getting right to the front of the line. And then you've got your kind of common pass, which is significantly cheaper, but doesn't guarantee entry. So you do spend a lot of time waiting in lines. I think you gotta just be prepared to wait for the most part. Be very strategic about your days.

Bring a lot of granola bars and snacks. It's hard to stop for meals. Make sure you have a bathroom strategy that is sound. Some theaters have good and helpful bathrooms. Some do not. For me, coffee is critical. I need to have at least two, sometimes three coffees a day when I'm powering through five movies.

So you gotta make sure that the venues have coffee. If they don't, know your coffee shops in the area. I think it's probably easier on a first time basis to do something like the New York Film Festival, which is over 30 days. And you can say, I'm going to New York for a week and I'm gonna catch what I can. And I find tickets are pretty, not easy, but easier, Bob,

would you agree with that, to get your hands on? Yeah, and I think it's a pretty, like, democratic way of acquiring tickets. Like, if you're there and ready to buy something online, you know, I don't know for certain whether this is the best way to sell anything these days, but it at least is a way that you're probably accustomed to, with things selling out quickly for the showings that you want online.

So you can get access to those screenings. The press industry screenings is more like you're describing a tell-you-ride. It's like, be ready to wait in line. So if you're in press or industry, get there at least an hour early for, or maybe even more. As we witnessed, we got shut out of the room

next door this year, actually. Bob and I both. Yeah, we were in line. Turns out that was fine for you. Yeah, but New York also, like the city itself, store this year, actually. Bob and I both. We were in line. Turns out that didn't matter. Yeah. But New York also, like the city itself and Lincoln Center where it's kind of located, has the infrastructure. It's just a great part of town.

It's kind of like the theaters. There is a place to eat. And I think you're right. I mean, it's really, are you going to be a five movie a day psycho like Sean and many other people? And I think that's one way to do it. I find that intense. Or you can be like a two to three a day movie person like me. And that turns out, in addition to be a great way to see movies, it's also a great way to like travel and see a part of

the world or be somewhere that you haven't been. Yep. Which is also like a nice way to live life and also like a nice way to like enjoy movies sometimes. So, you know, if five a day seems daunting, but if you've ever wanted to go to, you know, and have the resources to go to Telluride or New Yorker, even some of the, we've never been to like the local film festivals, but there are so many of them from like... I'm kicking myself because I had a ticket to go see Horizon Part II

on Friday night. Why didn't you go? And for a variety of reasons, childcare, et cetera, I opted not to go. And then our friend Griffin Newman was there, didn't tell me he was going. And then he told me the movie rocked. And I was like, God damn it.

I'm so mad at myself that I didn't go see. So I've never been to Santa Barbara before. And I've been to Palm Springs, kind of. Like, I've been in Palm Springs when it was happening and seen one movie, but I haven't actually spent time at the Palm Springs Film Festival. There's like the Mill Valley. Mill Valley, yes.

Joanna goes to that often. Rob Mahoney went to Mill Valley this year. There's a number of locals, and then, you know, there's a contingent. There's like South year. There's a number of locals and then, you know, there's a contingent. There's like South by, there's my, you know, there are like lots of different places. Yes, people really talk up the Savannah Film Festival now,

with SCAD, they talk up the Virginia Film Festival is growing in popularity. There's a number of festivals that are getting bigger and bigger around the country. You can really go to any of them and probably get a really cool experience if they're in that kind of top quartile of film festivals. But then also, I have personally never been to Berlin, Cannes, or Venice.

And I probably before I'm out of my 40s need to knock those off my list. So, 2026. I'm like so... Stake in the ground. I can't even look at you right now. I'm so angry. 2026. We literally, we had, you, you, Bobby find it like on camera. Last year after Cannes, you were like, you're right.

We should like, I'm really kicking myself. We didn't go to Cannes. Yeah. We should go this year. And then you scheduled some fucking. Bandon Dunes is calling. I've heard from a number of listeners who identify. Dan is listening.

Dan who organized this trip and I love Dan. I love you so much. And I know that... My dear friend, Dan. I just, we'll have a frank conversation, Dan. 2026, we'll go to Cannes and maybe Berlin too. Fuck it. I would love to go to Berlin.

I would love to go to all of them. I've always wanted to go to Berlin. Well, I've been to the city of Berlin, which is a city I love. I would love to go to all of them. Why not? I've always wanted to go to Berlin. Well, I've been to the city of Berlin, which is a city I love. I would love to go to Berlin. I think the link later, the Ethan Hawke, the Lauren's Heart Blue Moon is at Berlin this year. Yes.

And I think Newville Vogue will be a can. And listen, you can really only go to Venice if you're Italian and or have like a rail, you're a rail pass and or your company is paying for it. But we gotta go, it's so awesome. It's so. Venice is tough. Venice is hard for me because I have a made an emotional commitment to tell you, right?

No, I know, but I love it. Like your version of like coffee and granola bars and five movies a day is like me at the Golden Lion bar having my sprits before going to the premiere of whatever. Just seeing like Jacob Elordi just across the red carpet. It's like right across the street. You may never be able to recreate the quality of lineup

that you got for your specific interests. You got a great year. You got Sophia, you got your Bradley Cooper. You got a lot of stuff you liked. You got Fincher, you got some good stuff. Fincher was there. Fincher was awesome, walking all the carpets. That was kind of a dream year for that. You got Ferrari, you got a lot of stuff you liked. You got Fincher. You got some good stuff. Fincher was there. Fincher was awesome. Walk in all the carpets, but... That was kind of a dream here for that.

You got Ferrari. You got a lot of stuff. That was cool. It was really fun. Okay. I mean, look. It's very expensive. Treat it like a vacation. If you love movies. But that is the thing. Treat it like a vacation.

Like go... I had never been to Venice. And, you know, one of those places, otherwise you gotta go see at every church and every fresco. And churches and frescoes are beautiful, but I was just kind of like, wow, look, I'm in Venice. And then the day was programmed for me and it was so cool. I got to see some movies and then I got the local vibe.

It is a great way to travel and to see it a part of the world if you like movies. So that's a different strategy. Again, this is all predicated on having access to resources and we get to do this for work. So we're incredibly lucky. We are very privileged. Okay, Bob, what's next?

Abigail wants to know, my friends have never seen any PTA movies. Where do I start and what order should I show my friends the PTA movies? I think I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. I mean... It's a year for preparing for PTA movies, of course. We probably will build like two weeks of programming around PTA.

We've got another question, I'm sorry to jump ahead, Bob, about exploring filmmaker work and doing like most popular or chronological. And I'm just going to lump them together. Should we credit who is the person who asked that nice question? Yes, this comes from David. OK, so David, thank you. Yeah, he asked about picking out few directors

and taking a deeper dive into their filmographies and whether it's best to go in chronological order or go based on popularity or perception of how good the movie itself is. So I think in general, for most directors, starting with the quote unquote classics or like the widely accepted, there's a reason you know this director's name.

And then going like, and once you're kind of versed in the director's work to go back and start doing deep cuts, and then you could go chronologically, like then you can make it a project. But it's like, if you start with... If you're doing Ridley Scott and you start with The Duelists, which is like a good movie,

but you're gonna be like, what's going on, you know? I think it depends on the depth of the filmmaker. If they have only five movies, you could say I'm doing a chronic. If you want to do Terrence Malick, I would say start at Badlands and just go straight through. He's got eight movies, that's the best way to do it. It'll show a progression in a clear way.

It's a good question. Broadly speaking, I mostly agree with you. I have been thinking about this quite a bit because I've been really enjoying, you must remember this season. Yeah. And Corina's angle on it this year is the old man is still alive is the theme. So it's a look at the classic filmmakers, not just of Hollywood, but mostly Hollywood focused at the end of their careers, like their last movies. And I was just listening over the weekend

to the John Ford episode. And the John Ford episode is super interesting because it's about how some of his last four or five films are kind of like recriminations or reversals of what we thought John Ford movies were about. You know, Cheyenne Autumn, which is told with like a huge empathy for Native people, or Seven Women, which is an entirely female focused movie. He never had really strong female protagonists in his films.

So like you could say for John Ford, after you get past the silent stuff, Stagecoach is this huge breakthrough with John Wayne. You probably could just watch Stagecoach all the way through. It's like 35 movies, but you would watch a progression of theme in a really interesting way. It's just a big project.

So you could say, oh, actually what I really wanna do is I wanna watch Stagecoach and then I wanna watch My Darling Clementine and then they were expendable and then the searchers and then I'll kind of pick and choose from there. But it's, every filmmaker is different because every filmmaker reveals something different. And PTA, how do you do that?

Well, I was gonna say, I think PTA is the exception. I think you go, yeah through. Yeah, chronological. And it's a little bit because it's what, 10 or 11 at this point, but it is, sorry, my computer died, so I don't have it in front of me. So everything is off the top of my head. You're doing great. So it's digestible, even if that like 10 or 11 is like a lot of movies, but it is also, and there is a progression and it is also just like, you know, there are no skips.

So that's the other thing. If you're working with 35 or 40 or 45. You're not gonna like stuff. It's gonna be boring. It's gonna be redundant. Or even if it's like not redundant, I think that you do, if you're starting cold with someone, you wanna have at least like some sort of broader

understanding before you start doing the work of like, oh, I see the evolution from like this to this, or I see how you got here, you know? Like to be able to appreciate when you're watching the first three movies of like, oh, I see you're going to build towards this, or like this is kind of like X, Y, Z. I was having this conversation with someone recently about Paul.

You know, I've interviewed him with Bill a couple times now, met him a few times over the years. And the thing that I have noticed more and more, and this was in relationship to a conversation about the Oscar race this year, is that he has completely stopped telling people what his movies are about. He does not talk theme. He does not talk interpretive analysis. He talks about character. He talks about setting. He talks about story. But he doesn't do that thing that many filmmakers, when they're younger,

can't wait to do. And he couldn't wait to do when he was younger. He loved over-explaining his movies, talking about his influences, what he was pulling from. And... I mean, it's called being 27, but... 100%. Um, I mean... No disrespect. I think more specific, I mean, for him it was,

because he was such a young phenom, but most filmmakers it's their early 30s. And they're like, I did it, I'm desperate to be understood. And you can maybe make the case, Brady Corbet, who was like 36 or something is like, let me tell you everything. Yeah. And PTA definitely did that. And then just kind of stopped. And so what it means is the first half of the movie, the first half of his career, you're like, I have a pretty good idea of what this is. I get what he's going for. I get what he's paying homage to what the themes are, what it means to his childhood.

And then in the second half, especially with the master and then everything from the master on, he's like, you figure it out. What is this? You thought this was about Scientology. It's not, here's why. Sure. I think when you're Paul Thomas Anderson

and you've made the films that he's made, like you can do that. I did also get a chance to listen to your Nosferatu episode and listen to your Robert Acker's interview. And it was a little bit of like, yeah, we don't talk Theum. Like, because there is none. Like, you know... I was just hunted for him.

I know. I was so... I was doing the... And that is like, obviously he has like different intention like with his career and what, like... But he might... Filmmaking like means something different to him and that's cool. It's funny because in this conversation that I was just referencing, Eggers came up as well in this conversation about theme

and he has always been very reluctant to talk about those things. It doesn't mean that they're not there. It doesn't mean he's not thinking about them, but he doesn't want to talk about them. He doesn't want to make that a part of the narrative of the movie. The PTA thing, because there is a progression, you can go back and watch that making of Magnolia documentary that's on all the physical versions that is,

I think it's called That Moment, that's just so crazy, where you can like watch a guy and where he is emotionally in real time while he's orchestrating this big movie. Yeah, which is also like, yeah. His parents and his dad and boogie nights with his mom and all the stuff that is so evidently right on the surface. Anyway, I'm with you.

It should be in chronological order for his movies. It's only 10, so you can do it. Great. What's next? Can I add something really quickly? I think broadly chronological does work or if you have like a streaming service that you trust that curates like Criterion has most of a lot

of directors movies and they put them in chronological order for you, that's a good way to do it. Then you can go back and fill in the gaps if you end up loving that filmmaker. Or I don't know where you are writing in from Abigail, but if you live in a city that shows rep screenings of a director, just try to find one on the big screen first no matter where it is in the chronology of the director. Because then you build this relationship to that movie and you say, now I either want to go backwards or forwards from this point.

And that can change how you feel about being introduced to a director. That's what I like to do with a lot of old directors because for me, that means the first experience that I have with the director is the exact experience they wanted out of that movie rather than trying to get into someone's old filmography at home with all these different or like on the wrong TV or whatever. Right. That's, you know, that's 27 year old repertory theater privilege. Boy, love it.

Hey. But I love it. I love that for you, Bobby. I'm representing my people. It's a good intention that is harder for most people to reach. But if the option is there, you should do it. No, it's great. I mean, you should totally do it.

You should absolutely, if you're able to do it, go do it. And I think like our friends at Blank Check do directorial-themed seasons, and so a lot of people will fill gaps that way or watch for the first time that way. I think that's a really cool way to experience that show too. This is also a time issue. Not everybody has time to watch every single film directed by Steven Spielberg, for example.

Yeah, but these people are doing a project. So it's a good way to do a project. Shout out to Abigail and David, both of you guys. We love projects. You're doing the work. Thank you. Our next question comes from Alex. Could you identify your favorite movie or couple of movies that are in opposition

to your typical taste? Something that someone would be surprised to find out that you like. I had one movie pop into my head on this one. For me or for you? For me. I'm not sure what you would say. Guardians of the Galaxy 2. I was going to say Fast Five.

Oh, yeah, but everybody knows that. I was gonna say Fast Five. Oh yeah, but everybody knows that. Well, but you know. Okay. It's one of my zags, you know? It is one of your zags. Unfortunately, it's a Fast and the Furious movie. When I was 11, I went to the movie theater with my mom

and I saw Untamed Heart. Have you seen Untamed Heart? No. Are you familiar with this movie? No. Okay, it'samed Heart? No. Are you familiar with this movie? No. Okay. It's a simple romantic drama. Okay.

It's about a waitress working in a restaurant and a bus boy, very quiet bus boy. One night she's leaving work and two men attack her and nearly assault her. And she is saved by this very shy, retiring busboy. The waitress is played by Marisa Tomei. The busboy is played by Christian Slater. Rosie Perez is Marisa Tomei's best friend.

Wow. This movie is directed by Tony Bill, who was the producer of The Sting. Very, very modest hit at the time. As you know, romantic drama is probably my kryptonite genre-wise. It's got to be really good for me to love it. I wouldn't say Untamed Heart is really good, but it just dropped into my mind while I was thinking about this question. I had great experience singing with my mom. We had a lot of questions. The reason

it's called Untamed Heart is because the Christian Slater character has a defect in his heart. This is sounding familiar. It's just one of those like, you saw it on cable kind of movies, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's a very sweet movie, or at least I thought it was when I saw it 20 years ago. Sure, you haven't revisited?

No, gotta get it on Blu-ray. You think I was gonna ask? Is this on 4K, Untamed Heart? Anybody out there listening? Just a sweet, simple Hollywood movie, 1993. Yeah, I was 10 years old. That's beautiful. Yeah.

Six million dollar budget, 25 million dollars at the box office. Wow. Yeah, Christian Slater. In the same year, this true romance. Look at that. Pretty exciting. Okay, what's next? Next comes from Cory.

Have you ever used any architectural inspiration from films and brought it into your own homes or personal life? Cory is proud Dobb Mob, by the way. And I will say, so many people identified themselves as Dobb Mob. Like they went so far out of their ways, that was the first thing they said about themselves. Thank you all very, very much. You're very sweet. Many people saying that they took a break

from their hobbies, right into the Gmail. I think that's pretty good. I'm glad. Well, email, listen, writing, direct communication, interpersonal communication is very dot mob. Email is like the best tool that we have. Also, like not answering emails that you don't want

is also.bob. So I just want to give everyone that tip. A manifesto forms here. We're entering new territories and ethical.bob communication. Okay, so this is from Corey,.bob. Corey, you know, thank you for thinking that I have the budget to really

like follow my heart. We have the power to build anything. Yeah. So I don't think architects really like, you know, I think most people would think that my immediate design and spell would go towards Nancy Myers and I like do like hydrangeas and nice kitchens and kitchen islands. I don't have a kitchen island. I'd love to have one. I'd love to even have two as she has Instagrammed about. You know, one for cooking and one for the stuff.

That's really next level. But I don't have room for a single kitchen island in my home. And I like a bit more color in my aesthetic and in my home life than Nancy seems to to work with. So I think I would I would be drawn more to like Sophia or Luca Guadagnino interiors and once again not really able to realize that. So I would say more that it's been like fashion stuff. I recently bought myself a pair of the, I saw they were purple Chuck Taylors, the high rise, which if the real heads will know there's a shot of them in the I want candy montage in Marie Antoinette, you know, and it's like anachronistic and people got mad, but whatever.

So they were on sale and I was like, oh, I'd like to have those. So I will do stuff like that, but in the home, you know, we can only dream and hope and save. That's great. Um... You're just like, I have nothing to say. No, I'm happy for you.

I mean, I, no, I don't really work this way. Yeah. I am happy for you. I mean, I don't really work this way. Yeah. I am an extremely simple person when it comes to both style and design. I don't define myself by those particular things, but I have no problem with anybody that does. I was wildly, almost neurotically minimalist for a long time, and that's over because I have a child. So I have to just let go of that and all of my deep diseases

inside my brain that are pushing me towards clean aesthetics. You do a lot of movie posters. I do, but very few of them are hanging right now. I mean, I actually at this point, I own dozens and dozens of cool ones. But I think I'm kind of waiting for... What I really want to do is have like a house and just turn a bedroom into a real screening room, for real.

And actually like devote authentic resources to it. And in that room, I will break out some of the very special posters. I have a few nice ones. I have a lot of first run ones. I had a listener from, who works at Warner Brothers, come to an event that I did and sent me some original first run ones. I had a listener from, who works at Warner Brothers, come to an event that I did and sent me some original first run posters that are amazing. One was a Spanish

poster from Deep Red, the Argento movie, and the other was an original first run poster of a candidate, the Robert Redford movie, one of my favorite movies of all time. You know, they're folded up, so like, I want to get those framed and put those up somewhere because those are two of my favorite movies. But that was an amazing thing. I can be bought with vintage movie posters, so it's a good call, you're right. Okay, what's next?

Austin wants to know, in honor of the Brutalists- Sorry, can I say one more thing? Yeah, of course. I just want to go back to the Nancy Meyers kitchens for a second. So like, and I love Nancy, and she's an answer to another question that is on this rundown. But the open cabinetry, you know, where you instead of cabinets, like the open shelves where you can see everything on display is very big in her work. And I think that that's ruining society

because we can't be organizing all our stuff all the time. Like cabinets that close, speaking to your minimalism. Sort of like everyone cut yourself a break, you know? We can't be merchandising our kitchens all the time. You're saying this is the number one thing ruining society? No, I just like, it is one of many, but I wanted to speak to it. Power rank it. Four?

Six? I was like, and then like the dust is everywhere. Like what are you doing? How are you living? I like, cut yourself some slack, you know? We all can't be that organized. Get a cabinet door that closes. Love your passion.

Thank you. What's next? It was about questions that are aspirational. You know, like when I watched Perfect Days, I was like, that's hella aspirational, but I'm never gonna live in a space that looks like that. You too can have an eight track. Think about it.

I suppose I could, but then I would have all the cassettes everywhere and they would not be that organized like he is. That is a disciplined man and I am not that way. It's true Austin asks in honor of the brutalist and the brutal boys and girls everywhere my question for you both is if Amanda was a benefactor and could direct Sean to create something at her discretion Doesn't have to be a building. What would she have Sean create and conversely if Sean were the benefactor? What would he have Amanda create?

And conversely, if Sean were the benefactor, what would he have Amanda create? Okay, well, I didn't read that closely. So I didn't get that doesn't have to be a building part of this, but that's fine. You have a building idea. I would like you to reimagine and resuscitate the Cinerama Dome and its entire environs. I'm well suited to this.

Okay? So it's going to be like a, but you know, because there's that weird, like almost like shopping center thing. Like that whole block is yours. And so, so you get not only the movie theater and the Cinerama Dome, which you need to build. And so my, my requirements are that that does have to be a movie theater, but you can do whatever you want with, like you can make whatever movie theater you want. And then-

It's so obvious to me what it should be. It should be, it should be- I'm not even done with the commission. Okay. Okay. Continue, continue. So this is like, you know, and I'm not asking you to do drawings. We're on the hilltop.

Let me keep speaking. Okay. Keep going. And then I also- I'm like Stacey Martin, like daddy, it's very cold out here. Let me keep speaking. Okay, keep going. And then I also... I'm like Stacey Martin, like, daddy, it's very cold out here. It's very cold. Um, and then I need you to...

That first half is awesome. The rest of the retail space, I need you to turn into, like, I mean, I guess it like can be retail if we're going to be gauche and speak in like real estate terms. I have ideas for it. You know, but it all needs to be to my aesthetic and use standards as well. So that's tricky for you. But I would like a bookstore as part of it. Okay. You know, but it can be like a book and physical media, like a physical media

store. How about that? When I moved to Los Angeles, we had it all. We had the Arclight, a pizza joint, and Amoeba within a hundred yards, 50 yards. We don't have a bar though, so that's the other thing that we need. So the thing I was going to say was that what that section, that corridor needs very clearly is a corner pizza joint, a taco spot, a bookstore and physical media store, and that movie theater. We basically had it.

And a bar. And a bar. Excuse me. Yes, well, maybe a speakeasy in the movie theater, which is something that I think should exist. Yeah, but I do think also that you need a place to go before after. Where are you at on noisy bars, though?

At this stage of your life? I've been in bars recently, and I'm like, whoa, I'm old. This is loud in here. This is, why is everyone yelling at each other? It's really quite, as somebody who fucking loved bars for 20 years, who was like, I'll be spending my life in bars, I can't believe how not bar suited I am anymore. Talk to me about the kind of noise

that you're having a problem with. Is it like music? 28 year old women screaming next to me? Well, I do think that the women need to take the, and the men, you know? I mean, the men are yelling too, you're having a problem with? Is it like music? 28 year old women screaming next to me? I do think that the women need to take the, and the men. I mean, the men are yelling too, but the women are yelling. Yeah, we have sort of like reached a reality TV show like pitch, you know, that I think everyone does need.

So I'm with you on that. I was in Sam's place in Highland Park with our friend Nick on a Tuesday night. And I was like, this will be great. Oh, the wine bar, like the, oh, like also we serve some crudite or whatever. Yes. No, no, it's not crudite.

It's, there's one, what's it called when you marinate the fish that starts with a C? Help me out here. I don't have my computer. Ceviche. Oh, ceviche. Is there a ceviche? I just get steak. There's a steak.

Yeah, but there's like one ceviche. There are like some olives. There's a steak. Yeah, but there's like one ceviche, there are like some olives, there's a salad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, I was at Sam's and everyone was yelling at each other. And I was like, my friends, it's Tuesday. I think that like volume-wise, we could be... We could all help each other. That's why speakeasies are kind of lame culturally,

but they're just not as loud. Sure. So, no, it would be like a nice place where you could... I would like to be able to get a drink. I'd like to be able to get a cocktail. Do you like to drink alcohol in the movies? Not really. Because I do find that I like to focus on the movie. And then...

Many people say that about you. And... I do find that I like to focus on the movie. And then... Many people say that about you. I do find that I like to focus on the movie. And then I also don't want to have to pee 45 times. That's a challenge. So one before or a couple after while talking about the movie. And this is the thing really is that like, I would like to be able... We also got to work on movie times. Okay? So that's another thing that would be a requirement of the movie theater is that either like four or seven,

well, when am I eating? You know? Cause I'm not eating at the theater, respectfully. Where I'm not- I long thought 8 p.m. would be a great time to have a movie. Sure, or 5 p.m. or 5.30, and then I can go to a 7, 7.30, 8 dinner afterwards.

I'm okay with both. That's great. Sounds like you're going on a lot of dates. I don't really go on many dates these days. I'm trying. We have my, my in-laws are in town, so we're going on several dates this week. How blessed. I feel like you guys are really good

with like having like a child care rotation. We go on a lot of 2 p.m. dates. Yeah. Yeah, Zach and I need to do more of that. That's really the only way they'll survive these days. Sometimes they feature movies. Not always. Yeah, so I would like a place separate from the movie

theater that I can go before or after. Bar, bookstore, pizza joint, taco spot, the Cinerama Dome, and a multiplex with six theaters. This is the way. Great. I would love to do that. For me, you've already answered it. Mm-hmm.

I have a kitchen large enough for a kitchen island. We don't have a kitchen island. Oh, so you'd like me to do your kitchen? I'd like you to come in and do our kitchen. I'm like really, that's really, that's lovely. That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me. Wouldn't that be great? I'd love to do your kitchen.

Yeah, that would be amazing. Whether Eileen wants that, you can talk that out with her. I feel like I could work with Eileen. I think Eileen and I could have a constructive process. I'll be in the garage watching movies while you work. That's really nice. I'd love to help you. I think you might have to be out of the state, potentially. Like, we might just have to get you out of here.

Well, Eileen is such a great cook, too. So it would, you know, we would... We have to fit her accommodations. ...functional, but also aesthetic. Yeah, and I'm sure she has, like, very specific things that... But we need to refresh. Yeah. We need to refresh.

Well, the thing is, is like, you and all people really need two kitchen islands. And again, I'm speaking from a place of none. There's a big open area in my kitchen. When Nancy is right, she is right. I know, and I know what you mean, but it's like... There's just a lot of unused dead space. Well, the problem is, but that's like also-

The railway, yeah. Yeah, that's the railway. That's how you, and we have the same issue- For my daughter, exercises every day. I mean, yeah, but like we have the same issue in our living room, you know, where there was just like that space, but it's like, that's how people get anywhere.

So you can't do anything. So we would probably have to do an extension, but that's okay, because you- Let you've put another screening room in there instead. Okay. That'll be fine. It's fine. Well, we'll, we'll, we'll make it work. Cause once again, we have unlimited resources as provided by Spotify.

Right. Uh, I think it's our readers. I think our readers are in listeners are going to send in some, some funds. Right. Bob, you've set up the GoFundMe. I've been reaping those rewards for years. You guys don't even know about it. Okay. Um, what's next?

All right. Our next question comes from Sahil. Which directors in your mind have the most unimpeded vision? As in which directors are the best at getting their idea in their head as close to perfect on screen as possible? So not necessarily the directors that you like the most, but that you think are most faithful to what they imagine. I mean, I think they are the directors that we like the most, but that you think are most faithful to what they imagine. I mean, I think they are the directors

that we like the most, because I think that's just like the definition of a good director. And the directors that we like the most are the ones who we think are the best. And we also respond to their specific vision, right? Yeah, I mean, I think Fincher is the clearest example of this for me. Yeah, Sofia Cop Fincher is the clearest example of this for me.

Yeah, Sofia Coppola is the clearest for me. And they achieve their greatness with different aesthetic intention, but you often get similar results. I think when you see continuity in their work across movies, you get the sense that that is the definition of style. And that when you have a style,

then you can manifest a weird idea. And like you pointed out the purple Chuck Taylors is a perfect example of like a weird idea that only she would think of, that she could make work in that environment. Or the story from that is actually that her, I think Roman Coppola like put them in or they were just kind of there and then they photographed and she's like that her, I think, Roman Coppola, like, put them in or they were just kind of there and then they photographed it and she's like, oh, I like

that. But even like a found image that reflects a very specific sensibility. Right, right. So yeah, I think those are probably our best examples. I mean, look, it's pretty clear that Christopher Nolan knows how to get what he wants on screen. You know what I mean? There are certain people who, they have strong, strong visual aesthetics and the ability to interpret unusual ideas.

Like Memento, really early on, you could just be like, he had an idea of something that was odd to look at and technically profound on like a small budget. I'm sure there's a number of examples. I mean, I was thinking about Bong Joon-Ho who like storyboards like literally every single frame. Yes. Right. And it's like he just he's like, this is where this is how it will look. I mean, the single most

most often cited example of this is Spielberg, who understands staging and blocking better than anybody on earth. So he can kind of see a chase scene play out in full in his mind and then can corral the right people to help execute it. So it's like a million examples, but I agree with your point that it's like, the people we like, the best are the people

who we think are doing this the best, specifically. What's next? The truck going down the hill on Licorice Pizza, there's no way that that's not exactly what that looked like in his mind. I'm sure he knew the location he wanted to shoot it. It's so harmonious, yeah. I mean, it's sort of cheating, but Miyazaki,

that's exactly what it looks like. And budget be damned, production demands be damned. We need five people drawing this to try to see who can do it the best, be damned. I finally watched the documentary about him, Miyazaki and the Heron, that Charles recommended. And poof. Talk about like someone who is there for their specific vision and none of the other shit matters at all. That's incredible stuff. So that would be my cheating. Speaking of Miyazaki, Porco Rosso, big hit in the home. I mean, I told you, I do want

to let you guys know that like, my son is three and it opens with like a bunch of pirates kidnapping very funny, independent little girls. And then there are like lots of like guns everywhere. And I was like, oh, this is an interesting recommendation from both of you. But your son watches Top Gun. Yeah, well, it doesn't have guns. It is like weirdly...

I mean, I understand that the whole thing is like around a box. I know, but you don't see any of it. Do you know what I mean? Like, it is... Men die. Well, not in the hour that we watch. So, there's that. Anyway, those little girls are very feisty. I like them.

Progo Aroso is good. This is just the very beginning of a beautiful story of Miyazaki films. He just asked me to fast forward to any time there's a plane flying. Yeah, I mean that pig smokes cigarettes. So yeah, and he drinks wine. Yeah. Which is great. That's a great lesson.

Bit of a lush, that pig. What's next Bobby? The next question we got, we've been asked this question so many times over the year, so I wanted to throw this one in to maybe get an update from you all about your input on this one. Thea wants to know, what is our fandom's name? Like for people who listen to The Big Picture, who weekly has the hooligans and the Nazgul Charistas as the readers.

The psychos. Yeah, Big Pick Psychos. The psychos, I agree. I love the psychos. Because so many people listen to the- And to be clear, it's psychos, but not sickos, right? It's psychos. We have sickos, but they are pic psychos. The psychos, I agree. I love the psychos. Because so many people listen to the... And to be clear, it's psychos, but not sickos, right? It's psychos. We have sickos, but they are the psychos.

Yeah. The psychos are the people who listen to every episode and watch four movies a year. Those are like the real psychos. I heard from them. We have a lot of them. We do have a lot of them, yeah. I hear from a lot of those people, and that's nice.

And people are like, why are you talking about your kids? Why are you talking about your kitchens? I'm like, trust me, people are here for all of it. You may not like it, but they're here for all of it, I promise. The psychos are also the people who are like, I heard Sean say, I should watch every John Ford movie, and so now I will watch every John Ford movie.

And those people are also psychos and should be saluted. And there's a vast, you know, there's an in-between. You can be both. You can be the person who only sees Smile 2. Right. Or you can be the person who sees every horror film ever made. Right. You're both great. We appreciate you both. Sick of dreaming smaller?

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Drew wants to know, if 2024 was the year of no partial credit, according to Amanda, what will be the focus of 2025 from a critical viewpoint? I don't know whether that was all critics or just me. And I would argue that not- I think it was just you. Yeah. Not all critics really lived up to partial credit.

I don't agree with your partial credit theory at all. No, I know. But I mean, because partial credit is also the... It's the brutalist thing at some point. You celebrate the act and I celebrate the result. Yes. Well, I mean, we both do both, but yes. I mean, yeah, but I think, like, if we... The ideological divide...

Yes, exactly. Which is, you know, why it's so great to be in my life at all times. Again, many people are saying this. I've been hearing this nonstop. All of the people who know you are constantly contacting me. Why isn't it great to be in Amanda's life? Doesn't it feel so true and deep? Um, so I, I'm just, I'm sticking with publicizing no partial credit, you know,

you're holding the line, which is just an extension of like, we have standards, you know? Or did you meet the standards? It's a yes or no. And the standards are personal and my standards can be different than yours. But, you know, no partial credit. I won't dispute it. The focus of A Critical Viewpoint in 2025, I don't know if there is a theme that has emerged yet.

I do think that there's going to continue to be a really wide divide between movies that Hollywood makes for money and then all other movies. And, um, I don't know, IP filmmaking dominating at the box office last year and probably dominating at the box office this year, uh, it's gonna break at some point, you know? Like, I think people are getting really burnt out. I sure am. I mean, you heard me talking about Thunderbolts. Yeah.

And so I don't know where we're going. So, your heart's open. In part for the purposes of this show, going. But you're not burnt out. Well, I'm trying. Your heart's open. In part for the purposes of this show, but also because I was once 11. My heart's open to Mission Impossible. There's other IP that, Megan 3.0, Meg Threegun. I was thinking about this recently,

like Universal Slate this year is mostly big movies. It's Jurassic Park 7, it's Wicked Two, it's Megan Two, it's, there's a couple of other really big ones. And then Universal Slate in 2026 is original Steven Spielberg UFO movie, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, new Jordan Peele movie, new Daniels movie.

I know you're not a big fan of the Daniels, but regardless, like, it's the complete opposite. Where it's like all the big bets this year are on big, noisy tent poles, and all the big bets next year are on original stories from great filmmakers. So... Do you think that's just like... Why is that?

Luck and circumstance? I mean, is that just sort of like production and various things because... I mean, the credit to the studio is that they are investing in working with filmmakers, is that just sort of like production and various things because... I mean, the credit to the studio is that they are investing in working with filmmakers like that, right? Yeah, totally, but... So that's fucking awesome.

This year though, I think is because not as much stuff was in motion, plus this group of people, like Jordan Peele's movie, I think was supposed to be out this year, and then they pushed it the next year. Nolan is on a basically every three year cycle, so his third year is coming up. Plus he has to go make the Odyssey.

So who is, is it Tom Holland or is it Matt Damon? It has not been communicated to us. Okay. I have heard Tom Holland is Odysseus. That's what I assumed as well and then. Yeah. Okay. Which I'm not sure who Damon plays there.

The old guy? Laertes? I'm not up to date on my odyssey. I gotta probably revisit. Okay, I mean I do too. We originally thought that he was gonna be Telemachus Holland. Yeah, yeah.

Sounds like that's not the case. Okay. But that cast is insane. It looks like the presenting team of the Academy Awards. Yeah. It's wild how many people are in that movie. And I'm very excited about that movie. I hope it's good. Okay. What's next?

We now just got two straight mentions of Megan 2.0. Mithregan. It's been called many things, but Mariana wants to know, I need to know what Amanda thinks of the Feminomenon Megan 2.0, the Bitches Back trailer. They're very good at my point. The Chappell Rhone song. Yeah, excuse me, excuse me. I'm just making sure that Sean knows what we're talking

about, just making sure the listeners are. Oh, oh, that was directed at Sean, oh, okay. Yes. Did you ever listen to that album? It's good. Yeah, it's budget K Bush, but I understand why people like it. Listen, you know, we have to meet the children

where they are sometimes, okay? Relative to other pop phenomenons right now, it's awesome. Okay, great. They woke up. That's what you asked. They woke up. She's up. She's up. She's definitely up. She is awake. No denying. She is drinking all the coffee. I think it's great. I think that Megan 3, 2.0, whatever, is universal, right?

It is. They're very good at marketing their films. They are. They're very good at marketing their films. They are. They were very good at marketing the last one. I still think that Amy Donald should have been allowed to perform and that Megan should have been at the Oscars, but maybe this year.

I have heard it as the T2 of female robot movies. So I'm very excited about it. Who have you heard that from? The T2? I'm very connected, as you know. People on the streets walking up to you saying, -"Sir, sir." -"Sean Henson and McCaughn, like, pre-party." You know, they're doing some of the early work here before Vegas.

Plugged in. Damn, I really wish I got a text message that was like, just heard Megan 2.0 is going to be the T2 of female robot stories. Does this track for you guys? I don't know. This is 20 years of journalism showing right now. Building sources, making relationships.

I believe that's gonna be good. The first one was good. Watching T2 a lot. First one's good. First one's fun. First one is like more an incredible act of marketing. The movie is fun, it's fine. It's like it's gateway horror sci-fi. You don't need to be snotty.

I'm not... You don't need to be snotty. If it's going to live up to its T2 bill, it needs to be better. Here's another critical viewpoint that I'm projecting into 2025. Let fun things be fun. It's okay just to enjoy something sometimes.

Okay. So you just dropped a let people enjoy things while also shitting on Thunderbolts. Well, I thought Thunderbolts looked bad. Okay. That's not letting people enjoy things. Well, no, no, no, no, no. What are you talking about? I didn't enjoy it. Your own very specific standards.

That isn't what you believe. I think it's a nice thing to say on a podcast, but it is not what you believe. In fact, you like to historically yuck people's yums. You like to be like, the thing you like sucks. That's true. But I think what I'm saying is I don't enjoy it. You don't enjoy thunderbolts.

I do often, instead of saying the thing that you like sucks, I mean, sometimes I know I say that, but I do try to be like, this was not for me. I do not like this. This is not an Amanda movie. Which I think is, which is typically the right way to approach these things so that people are not like, I'd like to stab the person on the other end of my AirPods. But sometimes that happens too.

You know, I've been on the receiving end of those two. I did not enjoy the Thunderbolts trailer on the TV or on my phone. Definitely. Shoot, you want to break it down again? What were the things you didn't like about it? And also, if it really is called Dead Avengers or whatever, like they should just call it that.

I think it was Dark Avengers, but alright. Well, you know what? Maybe if their marketing were on point, first of all, maybe if they'd used Phenomenon, like I would have liked it more. They've gotten plenty of airtime here today, so maybe they're doing something right. Okay. What's next, Bobby?

I agree with Amanda, that trailer stunk. Next question comes from Alyssa. Where do you want to see Tom Cruise go next in the post-Mission Impossible era of his career? Who would you like him to work with? Should there be a Top Gun 3? I mean, there is gonna be a Top Gun 3, right? Or there were rumors of it, but... It's not been announced, but...

It's not been announced, right? I think it's safe to say it will happen at some point. With Teller and Glenn Powell. How's Miles Teller doing today? I hope he's great. Go birds. I'm sure he's very happy. A series of highs and lows for him. Sure, yeah.

You know, right now we've got a Super Bowl victory. He's one of the biggest well-known Eagles fans in America. His new film, The Gorge, arrives on Apple TV Plus on Friday. Okay. So... It's not a good situation. That's what I would describe, is how I would describe that movie. I can't say I would recommend the film. So...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times for Miles. But like, don't you think Mouse Teller, where they're like... Like, remember when Bradley Cooper was campaigning for Maestro, I guess? And they were like, do you want an Oscar? Howard Stern asked him this. Super Bowl win. And he was like, I want a Super Bowl, which I did not believe, but that's like the only answer you can give in that situation.

I've got great news for him. No Oscar. Right. But I do, I honestly do wonder if Miles Teller were given the choice between Super Bowl win and the Gorge being like a $300 million like blocks off his sensation. He like might still pick Super Bowl. I think so too.

Yeah. And honestly, respect. Bully for him, yeah. I agree. That's dope. I would, I would literally kill, I would kill, I would probably kill a man for a Super Bowl. I'm not kidding. Like, I really, I can't even imagine what it would be like to win the Super Bowl. Aaron Rodgers no longer a Jets? We're about to restart on yet another Jets rebuild.

This is like the 18th Jets rebuild of my lifetime. Uh, yeah, Aaron Rodgers is no more. Good, fuck him. See you later. Um, that whole thing was an absolute nightmare. Yeah, seemed really bad. Uh, that whole thing was an absolute nightmare. Yeah. It was really bad. Uh, all just super bowl or world series.

World series is my number one choice. I think so too. Well, it's just so much harder to guarantee, you know, the problem with the world series is we've gotten close a few times. And so it feels touchable. Superbowl, the jets have not been to the super bowl since 1969. Okay. They haven't had a winning season in 10 years.

Is that the longest drought in professional football? No, because there's a couple teams that haven't won any Super Bowls. Like the Chargers, I don't think have ever won a Super Bowl. There's a couple teams that have never won. Yeah, but they're expansion franchises though. Have the Lions? So a lot of them haven't been around that long. The Lions haven't won a Super Bowl. Maybe they won a title in the 60s.

I'm not as strong on football history. But that's the other thing with football too. It's like in the last 25 years, like eight teams have won a Super Bowl. Maybe 12 teams. Like not a lot. It's like, it's pretty... We got two Eagles. We got three Chiefs. You know, we got six.

Was it six for the Patriots? Two for the Bucs. Yeah, six because then he won one with... With Tampa Bay, yeah. Right, and it said seven times Super Bowl champion, Tom Brady, which is the only positive thing that can be said about that broadcasting experience. He's, you heard it everywhere,

except on the big picture, he's so bad. It's unbelievable. It's painful to listen to. The most obvious, inauthentic, and dull commentary I've ever heard. Now, obviously, I despise him as a Jets fan, and I hope he falls down a well, but I can't believe I have to listen to him for the next five years on broadcasts.

Wait, he's not even selling the garbage fake stuff. Like, he's so stilted. Anyway. It's bad. Okay. A lot of Super Bowl takes today. Let's do like five more? Sure. Yeah. Five of the 120 questions A lot of Super Bowl takes today. Let's do, let's do like five more. Sure. Yeah. Five of the 120 questions that we have here in this mailbag. Let's circle back. Do you think it would be good to do these live on YouTube?

I do. Do you think people would want that? Because then people could get really mad at you in the comments in real time as opposed to just, you know, stabbing you on the street. That's always going to happen. No, I think it would be a lot of fun. Also, people could ask follow-up questions or break news to you in real time.

Just think of the moment. I mean, we wouldn't be able to prepare in the same way. I wouldn't say I'd put a ton of preparation into this. I mean, I did, like, I did a little bit. You read the questions, yeah, yeah. We wouldn't have that. But it's better, I think, actually. But you can't just have the thing that you always hate,

which I don't like too, which is just like, recast this movie for me with actors from 1952. That's one thing. I love everyone and I love movie stars, but like the casting questions and the recasting questions, we've used all our ideas, you know? Everybody loves fantasy sports. At this point I would like to see like,

you know, money in exchange for having the movie made if I'm gonna keep doing it. Oh, interesting. You want producer credit. Good to know. What's next Bobby? We got a question from Jules and we honestly got a ton of questions about at-home viewing setups. Whether they've changed. We've answered questions like this in the past but it's obviously been a couple years. So here's Jules' question. My question is about the method of watching movies.

There's always been a debate about theater versus home viewing, especially recently with the rise of streaming and better home setups. Where do you personally prefer to watch at home on a screen or a streamer or in the theater and what's your at home viewing setup like nowadays? I mean theater 1000%. Much prefer to watch a movie in a theater. I just had this experience with virtual Sundance where there were at least a few films I would have liked to have been in a theater for. There are a lot of times when I'll read reviews of films.

The logging one? Yes, the logging one, which is called Train Dreams, a beautiful film that Amanda has chosen to mock on this podcast. I sometimes read criticism of a movie that I watched at home and I'm like, maybe I missed something because I didn't see it in the way it was meant to be seen as Bobby was saying with the rep screenings, because it is harder and not because I'm distracted even necessarily at home.

It's just, it's just different. It's just less immersive. Uh, so I would rather not watch a screener, but in our line of work, time is a serious consideration. And so I have to watch some things on screeners. I have to experience movies that way because I just can't see everything while also navigating my life. So for my house, I have an 85 inch, 4K Samsung television. I have an ARK Ultra Sonos. I was just imagining me trying to guess what type of TV and like, keep going.

Everybody always asks me what Blu-ray player should I get. This is the number one question I get from people. Well, I think that's awesome. You do Blu-ray players and I'll do Kitchen Islands. Okay. That's, I mean, that's, that is us to a T. It's Sony. This is my only rec on this.

Sony UBPX700 4K Ultra Blu-ray region free player. You can play any disc from around the world on this player. It's very easy to toggle between regions. I have four of these in my house. Four? Yeah. Okay. Bedroom, living room, garage. Where's- Bedroom, living room, garage.

Bedroom, living room, garage. No, three, you're right. Okay. I used to have one in the spare bedroom. Oh, okay. It's not plugged in because I don't have a table there anymore, but I do own four. Okay. Oh, so can I have one? You can borrow one. Okay.

It's retailing for $200 right now. That is pretty cheap. I would also say it's probably not a bad idea to have a few of these, because who the fuck knows when they're going to discontinue making these things? Because this is not- I mean, but this is where, like, you have me

until you get to, like, your prepper mode of it, you know? Where you're like, I have to own, I have to create, like, my own mode of it, you know? Where you're like, I have to own, I have to create like my own library of Alexandria and I have to have like 45 DVD players in my closet for when they break. Bill Simmons is completely 4K-pilled. He's been acquiring 4Ks and we talk about it every week. Right.

Chris Ryan has discovered Radiance Films and is getting excited about buying Blu-rays. So you're gonna be left behind. So here's the thing, is that you've just described two men who I love with all my heart. Two great men. Two of the greatest to do it. I love them both dearly. I like them both a lot more than you.

But, like, you know, Bill is transferring at like a collectible habit from, like, sports stuff to something. He has a collector's mind... He does. ...to go with his, like, stat mind and his sort of, his baseball card mind for his lack of a better word. His extremely powerful brain... It's very, very powerful.

...that has created extraordinary success. But in many ways, he has been thinking this way for a long time, and he's just finding a new venue for it. Yep. And then, you know, Chris can do whatever he wants. Chris is my guy for life, I don't care. Okay. So, that's how he wants to spend his money.

I'm just saying, you're going to be left behind, like in train dreams. You know? You'll be stuck in that Logan Valley all by yourself forever. Okay. Reading books. I mean, you know, books are also hanging on, okay? Okay. Just like in the history of time and art. More and more people are reading and seeing that every day. Uh, so that's my setup at home. Okay, cool.

It's perfectly fine. I tell you what is not good is my couch. It's not that comfortable. Oh, I like your couch. Well, it's like, it seats a lot of people. Oh, in the living room. The living room is perfect. Yeah. It's perfectly fine. I tell you what is not good is my couch. It's not that comfortable. Oh, I like your couch. Like, it's giving you a couch. Well, it's like, it seats a lot of people. Oh, in the living room.

The living room couch is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the garage is not good. Oh, okay. I haven't said that. I just got to get movie theater seats in there. That's what I got to do. Okay.

Well. That's what I'm going to do. Not if John Baker wins Best Director. Oh, boy. I think you should just get like a poker table folding chair and you should just strap yourself into it. You know, clockwork orange style in the garage. Yeah, and just get the Gatorade right here in the helmet, right?

Get the red vines over here like in Wayne's World. I had red vines yesterday at the movie theater. I saw Follow That Bird after your son's birthday party. NVIDIA-TES was fucking sick. Oh, that's nice. You guys went straight from the party to the- I movie theater. I saw Follow That Bird after your son's birthday party. NVIDIATS. It was fucking sick. Oh, that's nice. You guys went straight from the party to the... I should have soloed to Follow That Bird. Did you? I'm just kidding. I took Alice.

Yeah, we just went straight from the party. His recap of the party. My son had a birthday party yesterday, because it was his literal birthday. And the... His three-year-old recap involved walking around with Sean and Alice and juice boxes. So those were the things that stuck with him.

Was Sean and Alice... I think I supplied him with two juice boxes. Here's the thing, every single adult at the party supplied Knox with juice boxes. So my guy had like 45 juice boxes. Speaking of train dreams, we were playing on a train, me and Alice and Knox, and he was fired up. He was the most enthusiastic man that's ever been on a train.

It was like, it was Richard Gere and I'm not there and then it was Knox. It was really something. He was super happy. We had a lot of fun. It was a great party. Yeah. Okay, now what's next?

All right, this is a funny one. I don't know how we could ever even guess this, but it's funny anyway. Skylar asks, on just a quick estimate, how many times do you think you visited the movie theater in your lifetime? I wanted to keep track of this on a yearly basis. Okay.

Like now. All right. Like how many times am I in the theater per that question about at home screenings in my lifetime? A thousand? You think that's all? Well, let's just do the math. So once a week, probably.

And I think you can probably average it out for you anyway, because the... It's probably twice a week for me at this point. Yeah, but there were some years where you weren't going every week. So you want to average it to once a week. Yeah, so 52 times 42. Let's do 50 times 40, because I can do math without my head. So that's 2000 times. Okay, 2000 times.

I've been to the movie theater 2000 times. Okay. That sounds right. I think I've probably been closer a thousand to 1500. Right? Yeah, probably. I mean, in the last seven years,500. Right? Yeah, probably. I mean, in the last seven years, we go to the movies a lot.

I would say it's probably ultimately more than both of our estimates, because I also go to film festivals. That's five a day. So it's way up there. Honestly, I still love it. I was in the movie theater on Saturday and Sunday over the weekend.

Saw Paddington in Peru, the I-Pick, which was great. Saw Follow That Bird, which was great. These are two movies that were made for like eight-year-olds. I was having the time of my life. Just loved going to the movies. It's the best. I agree. I'm excited. Okay, what's next? How about you, Bob? How many times you've been to the movie theater?

I would say I'm probably closer to like your first guess, a thousand. I do log how many times I go to the theater now because I tag it on Letterboxd when I see it in a theater versus when I watch it at home. And my goal last year was to go more than a hundred times and I hit that goal. One, one ten. A hundred times, ten times the theater last year. So I don't think I've been at that pace my whole life though. So no, there was a couple years there. Yeah. Yeah. So probably more like a thousand.

We got a lot of questions about the theater going experience and how it's changed in the course of doing the show. Obviously this has been a constant conversation of the show and something we get asked about a lot, but Matt wrote in to say, I'm curious and hearing a conversation around the future of the theater going experience. I go see movies on the big screen as much as I can and find myself thinking about what the experience will be like in Five years you both have discussed this off and on throughout the years, but it's been a while since you reflected on that

I think one of the interesting outcomes of some of the brutalist conversation Has is a follow-up on the Oppenheimer conversation, which is a follow-up on the Oppenheimer conversation, which is a follow-up on the Avatar conversation, which is that large format, unique experiences is where a lot of both the business and the fandom is going. And so in five years,

I think you won't necessarily see less movies because there are a lot of people trying to make movies to catch people's attention right now, but you'll see more eventizing around movies and I think the studios are kind of getting hip to the kind of film bro-y thing that has happened and not just bro-y, obviously a lot of women as well, but this is the cinephilia amongst young people and trying to lean into it. We're seeing a lot of re-releases recently and people showing out. Like the Interstellar success is really notable.

And there were a couple versions of that last year as well. And so I think kind of just turning it, like I've said in the past, a little bit more like record store day, you know, and the vinyl craze where you're like, this is more rare and this is like a cool thing that is more expensive but worth it for the experience. And you're doing something with people, you know, it's not quite going to Disneyland,

but like the popcorn buckets and everything is about, you know, how it feels to be in the movie theater. I think we've, you know, we have compared it to amusement parks often. And we've also used the, like the concert comp, but I do kind of think that that is the model for, and really just kind of how you consume music and how you make money off of music,

which is, as we know, in the touring, the event aspect of it. Right, and like, you know, you have the Eras Tour and now everyone's gonna try to do their giant, like, event IMAX version of that. But then there are, you know, smaller acts who you go see, like, you know, at different places. And you don't go as frequently as you used to, I think.

You know, concerts you don't go every single week, probably, which is, I mean, unless you're 27, and that's awesome for you, Bobby. Once again, congratulations on, you know, concerts, you don't go every single week probably, which is, I mean, unless you're 27 and that's awesome for you, Bobby, once again, congratulations on, you know, living your life. So it's rarer, but there's a range of experiences, a range of price points. You spend time with the art or the art around the art in one way or another before you go.

Like you have to have some sort of relationship to get you to the venue. And then yeah, like the merch and all of the the extracurricular stuff is also part of the financial equation. Yeah, it's weird. Movie culture is both cheap and expensive. Like tickets are,

they're getting more expensive by the year, but they're still cheap relative to a live concert. But then a lot of times, if you don't like a are, they're getting more expensive by the year, but they're still cheap relative to a live concert. But then a lot of times, if you don't like a movie, you don't really know what you're sitting yourself down for. Part of the purpose of this show is to help you figure out what you should and shouldn't see based on what you like. And so it's still a risk. And so what you might find is what's been happening culturally

across the world, which is people kind of only leaning into the things that they know they're gonna like. And The Brutalist and Oppenheimer is kind of like the MCU in that way. It's kind of like those streaming romance movies that we were talking about last week on the episode where you're like, I like this kind of thing and that's it. So a real challenge for movies is how do you get people

interested in something that they don't know anything about that they might not like? That's really hard. We have way too many, not just options, but way too much personal freedom in terms of entertainment right now. So I don't know. When you hear people doom and gloom about it, it's partially because of those things where I could literally just sit at home with a criterion channel until I die if I so chose.

I don't, but you could and still have a great movie watching life. So it's tricky. I'm not totally sure what's going to happen to the multiplex stuff. It kind of seems like a lot of that stuff has evened out. Doesn't seem like AMC and Regal and all those companies are in the same financial straits, although there's talk of you potentially joining me at CinemaCon. And if you do join me, you're gonna hear a lot about this.

And you're gonna hear a lot of exaggerated enthusiasm, I would say, for the future of theatrical. Sure, yeah. As you know, I love to hear from movie theater owners. Yes. So, but I've never been to Vegas, so it would be a funny. Gotta put a GoPro on your head for the whole trip. I know, well when do I just get to...

The GoPro would be best, like me following you around playing poker at like 4 AM. It would be so boring. Do you think you could ever recover from that? It's just me listening to Illmatic quietly with my head down. I know. And not making eye contact with anyone. It's like, I've actually never seen it. I've heard tell so many times.

But I think I would be... It's just, Sean Fantasy is Michael Fassbender, is the killer in The Killer. Really alarmed, yeah. It's good though. But it's, again, good to have your hobbies. Anything to pull $400 off the table. Sure, yeah.

It is my hobby. We'll put it towards the kitchen island. You think I should flip and make that hobby my occupation and then turn movies back to my hobby? I don't know. Would that be more financially advantageous? Probably not. Okay.

Not at this point. Especially considering how weak my poker game has been the last five years. I think it would be good for the pod though. If you took like a two-year Michael Jordan style hiatus and went to play minor league baseball, but it was really just you grinding at the poker table rounder style. Yeah. You think everyone would keep listening if I was talking about all my hands?

What's the most, the only thing more boring than people talking about their fantasy team is people recounting hands that they had and they played in poker. Yeah. And God bless my wife, I haven't listened to that a lot. I think in this version, you go away for two years and someone takes over the feed with Amanda,

like Chris or something. No, I'm not doing it. And then you come back storming through. No, I need him to, no, I would need like the live, because we have to chronicle the disintegration of Sean's like mental and emotional factors. I live at the win. Yeah, I move into the win full time.

We could get him on the phone, WFAN caller style, while he's live betting at the table. I think we could do that. That reminds me of a... And then he puts all the winnings towards the DVD collection instead of, you know, his like life responsibilities. Yeah, and so then it's both like, you know,

it is like the unboxing videos, but also is like a Sundance drama about a dad, just like, you know, abandoning his family. Today we're unboxing my draining of my 401K. but also is like a Sundance drama about a dad, just like, you know, abandoning his family. Yeah, today we're unboxing my draining of my 401K. We're unboxing me realizing I'm acting like Oscar Isaac in the card counter. Yeah.

OK, let's do two more. All right, we got a question here from David, but also from many, many, many people about this exact thing, because I think there's a lot of new parents judging off the people who wrote into the show. God bless all of you. How exactly do you balance the podcasting, preparing for the podcasting, watching all the movies, go into the screenings, doing the interviews and everything else we don't

know about while also having families, children, partners and giving everything equal time and attention or or your days just scheduled to the minute or what? I need answers. Yeah. I mean, the big top answer is that we have a ton of help. And like, I mean, like that's my answer. We have an incredible nanny.

I have a partner who shares things like truly 50 50. Our kids go to a great school. Um, do you know, like Bobby and Jack. Like we just, we have like a lot of help, both in childcare and professional stuff, which is I think the only way that anyone gets anything done. And I really feel for all the parents in the world who don't have this kind of help.

And it is, you know, it should not be a privilege. It should be a right to everyone. So that's where I am. Nitty gritty, there were several months where I didn't get to watch that many movies because I was totally sleep deprived. I mean, like, I don't know what else to, you know, and you have a superhuman ability to not sleep.

So now I put the kids to bed and I try to do one movie a night. That's like kind of my goal. And if you can hit it right where dinner is cooked and like Knox agrees to go to sleep instead of needing like three water refills and like I, you know, and I showered already, you know, because like I have to time my showering because I have to like look decent on YouTube because I once again, I'm 40 on YouTube. So if I hit that right, I can watch a movie and then still be embedded a decent hour.

So that's one a day. And then I have the privilege of being able to like schedule in either a screening or okay, I'm going to disappear and watch this movie from this time to this time while other people are taking care of my children. But like that is everything that it takes. So you know, all working parents have some version of this that mine is to get to watch movies is awesome.

But like, I feel you guys. You're doing great. All of you are doing great. It's really hard being a new parent and you're doing great. I don't really know how I do it at this point. You do like 45 things at once. Can I ask you something actually? Sure.

Because this is, so not this past Saturday, but this Saturday, like a week ago, you were not on a plane, but you were just like a plane, Sean level, like mode of like communication and productivity in a nice way. It's always nice to hear from you, Sean. But from like three to six on Saturday,

you were just like, you were in the matrix. And I had the thought to myself of like, where are Eileen and Alice? Like, what is going on and how were you able to achieve that? It was virtual Sundance. And so I had negotiated and done a lot of childcare in the previous days to allow for as much Sundance consumption as possible.

So I was very much locked in on work and also virtual Sundance gave me a chance to be like thinking about work and the way that I used to when I didn't have a kid and I worked every weekend and had millions of ideas and was super engaged in everything in a way that's just not possible when you have a family. Um, I mean, look, last Thursday, I'll just read you my schedule. Um, we had a conversation with our, uh, I guess our chairman's Daniel Eck from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. Yeah.

Drove my daughter to school from, uh, eight to nine. Then I had a call at nine to nine 30. Then I had a call at nine 30 to 10. Then I had a meeting at 10 and a meeting at Then I had a call at nine 30 to 10. Then I had a meeting at 10. Then I had a meeting at 10 30. We recorded Garbage Love at 11 15. I had a call at one. I had a call at one 15. I had a site strategy meeting at two.

I had to check in with Juliet at two 30. I had a doctors appointment at three. Drove home at four. I had to watch Alice because I only went out from five to seven 30. And then she went to bed and I watched two movies. That's what I do. That's what I do most days. I will have a mental breakdown. I will legitimately be institutionalized because to go from 7 to 10 every day is hard. But it's more or less what I do.

And that's on a day where I only watched two movies. No, I was going to say, yeah. It's easier on non-record days. But invariably on a non-record day, I have more wringer work to do. So, and that's a day where I didn't have to travel. I just had a local doctor's appointment. Right, right, right, right. But when we have screening days, it's not just driving to the screening,

it's one hour in the car, one hour back. Yeah, and the reality is, like, that is where I've chosen to, like, I just can't go to screenings. So if anyone who schedules screenings in Los Angeles is listening, like, since we're making this personal, like, you guys gotta do Eastside. Like, we just, please, I'm begging you. It would help us so much.

I can't drive to Beverly Hills, because it is an hour to, like, an hour and a half to two hours. Yeah, it's annoying. Um... On the flip side, you foregrounded the conversation properly. I'll end it properly. I have the coolest job in the universe. Yeah, I mean, it's like... And I'm very fortunate to have found my career in this position.

And so I'm not complaining when I say I'm gonna have a mental breakdown. I've put myself in this position. No one's forcing me to do any of this position. And so I'm not complaining when I say I'm gonna have a mental breakdown. I've put myself in this position. No one's forcing me to do any of this stuff. I also have a ton of help. And I think I heard Chris Berman on the press box say that only 15% of people in America get to work in the field that they want to and be happy, let alone do the thing that they want to. I get to hang out with you all the time and talk about my favorite thing. And we get to make a show that people

listen to, which is amazing to me. And I also get to work at the ringer, which is something that I couldn't have even imagined when I was 20 or 30. So very, very lucky. But self-care is not one of my skills. No. So I was going to say, can we, cause it, it's new parents that were asking this, Bobby. Many, many people wrote in saying they had kids under three years old. Right. And how do you get to- And that they're mirroring their life experiences through what you guys talk about. Totally. And so what I would say to the parents with, with love and respect and, and deep gratitude for you,

is don't put the pressure on yourself that Sean puts on himself to watch, you know. Watch, if you can get one in every once in a while. One a day is great. One a day is very healthy. One a day or one every, like every few days. I think that I watched several movies like over the course of a couple nights, especially when Sai was, like, figuring his sleep out, you know?

Zach and I haven't had, like, a date night in a long time, but we have managed to independently, like, to the movies, I mean. But we have managed to independently see a few movies and then talk about them afterwards, which, you know, that's one thing that you can do. Um, be, be, be kind to yourself. And also if movies, if, if it's not your line of work, if movies can be just like a, a nice thing that you do for yourself. Mm-hmm. It's a great hobby.

Yeah. Let it, let it be that hobby. It's a great passion. It's a great personal thing. It's a great entire career if you have Restraint and if you don't yeah, it's not you you you will be a brutal boy like me Let's do one more All right. We got one final question here from Harry Sean and Amanda always impressed me with how quickly they can articulate what they think the intent of a filmmaker is I want to Ask how you guys watch movies Are you constantly thinking about the intent?

And where did you learn the skills to decipher these ideas? How do you train the eye or ear to pull out the idea that the artist is smuggling in? Well, I think that's giving us a lot of credit personally, but thank you. That's very nice. I think it's one part practice, one part either you see it or you don't see it. I mean, I very vividly remember being in English class and reading novels and participating because I loved to hear the sound of my own voice, obviously.

And thinking I understood where a story, what a story meant or where a writer was going with something, I was always interested in theme and subtext. Right. And so it's natural when you get really invested in movies and you start thinking about things on these continuums of experience that the way that everything is all connected to each other and why are they connected to each other and what movies has one filmmaker scene and you know it's not a game so much but it kind of it just deepens your experience of watching the movies but you know you you're a classics major and you read all the time.

I feel like they're connected. Sure, I guess some of it is not even the work of criticism, but just when you are, how you consume art. And do you enjoy consuming art and what do you look for and respond to in it? And why are you watching or reading or looking at what you're looking at? And so I guess that is sort of, at some point,

what we respond to. And when we're talking about it, when we're talking about the themes of the movie, it's because that is what we took away from it the same way that if you look at a painting and you really like the color blue that they figured out, and that speaks to you in some way. In terms of intent, I mean, you know, sometimes I think that...

Who knows if we're right, you know? Because we are not in a filmmaker's brain. It's almost never confirmed. Yeah, it's never confirmed. I'm sure we're wrong 80% of the time. Right, and also, like maybe we rely too much on it because I think we're interested in filmmakers as well. We think that they are cool people and so,

and to make a film is to us, like an incredible artistic achievement and you know, also a feat of organizing and diplomacy and like and and financial manipulation and many other things. So I don't know if we're always right and I don't know if we're always if that's how they want the movie even if like their intent is their intent you know even if like their intent is their intent, you know? Or the intent for the film.

But I guess, I think it's just how we respond to it. And we respond to it by the way that we've learned that is just by watching a lot of movies. And I guess like we had some formal journalism training as well. Yeah, I mean... That it does affect how we think about it. Like we were magazine babies, the last magazine babies.

And so we definitely bring that. But, um, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I edited lots and lots of criticism over the years. So that's part of it. I think the other thing too, is that for me at this stage of my life, intent engenders sympathy and or empathy. And maybe that's not the right thing. If you are a hard line, ink stained,

wretch film critic, but I'm interested in what artists are thinking and what they want to achieve. Like I, it's just something I've always been interested in. I'm increasingly interested in as I get older. I'm way less worried about like, here's why this sucks. It's just not, it's actually not, I don't find it to be a very like rewarding use of my time

and where I want my head to be when I'm spending all this time on movies. So it's a very personal thing, but when you start thinking about what someone was trying to accomplish, it gives you a sense of like, if they did err, why or how they aired more clearly to me. It's part of the reason why I like doing the filmmaker

interviews is because sometimes they'll just say, this is what I wanted this to be. What I wanted to do something formally this way. I wanted to use this tool or I wanted to work with this actor and then you better understand what they were going for and then you can better understand the movie. So it's basically understand it because I obviously have said many times like understand myself through understanding

the movies and most artists are putting so much of themselves, most directors are putting huge parts of their lives into these movies. There's that hilarious James Lipton quote where he talks about his parents and like how they are representative as characters in his movies. And Steven Spielberg is like sitting there dumbfounded by the insight that James Lipton has discovered into his life based on this one question on Inside the Actor Studio. And it's like, these people are doing it consciously.

They're doing it subconsciously. So I think actually to kind of seek and search for those things has real value in movie enjoyment. So whether we're good at it or not, I mean. Yeah, I don't really know. You know, I'm sure. Movie to movie, who the fuck knows, right? We're doing our best.

Yeah, we're doing our best. We did our best today. Bob, you did your best. You found a lot of questions. I want to thank you for that. Bobby, are you in fact still 27? Bob's 28. I'm 28.

Have been. Almost 29. Yeah, coming up. Really? Coming up in a month and a half. You're 27 forever in my heart, you know? That's great. I'd love to stay 27 forever in your heart

and in real life, yeah. I would take your 27 year old physique. Maybe not that mine though. There's so much to learn. Did we get any questions about protein, flexibility, no one's coming to us for that kind of insight yet. There's a very real possibility that we got about 400 of them in the next 600 emails that I haven't had the time to read yet. So I'm going to go through them. I'm going to sort through.

You and I are really exploring new frontiers and you've been very supportive in all of my journey. And I want to thank you for that as well, as well as for being 28 and working hard. Yes, it makes me happy to see people committing, doubling down on protein flexibility and extending our musculoskeletal forms, corporeal forms. That's what drives me here at the Big Picture Incorporated. I just remembered that if I won the Big Bet

that maybe I was gonna have you do a podcast with the weights. Mm-hmm. And I should really explore that, you know? Because it's on the table now. But what's going to happen? I'll do it for 30 seconds and then it will be over. I'll have to put them down.

Yeah, but that's, I mean, that's a good insert clip. That's like sometimes all you need in life, you know? It's like one good reel. So... It's true. Sometimes all you need in life is one good reel. That's what many all you need in life, you know, is like one good reel. So... It's true. Sometimes all you need in life is one good reel. That's what many filmmakers have been saying for 120 years in this country.

Uh, thanks to Jack Sanders. Thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on this episode. What are we doing later this week? What do we have? What are we doing later this week? We're recording a lot of things. But I'd, oh, next, this, oh, Paddington in Peru.

I'm taking Knox. Paddington in Peru, yeah. But I'd, oh, next, this, oh, Paddington in Peru. I'm taking Knox. Paddington in Peru, yeah. And also Bridget Jones, Mad About the Boy. Yeah, but isn't that on Monday's episode? That's next week. Yeah, that's next week. We have a conversation about Captain America. Oh God, I totally forgot that I have to go see that tomorrow night.

Red Hulk, Red Hulk. Like I'm seeing Mickey 17 today. You know sometimes it's just like you could hit forward on the email. It's for editorial purposes so. Oh okay. All right. Very excited. That's great. Captain America Brave New World. My heart is open. I'd like to enjoy it. I guess sure my heart's open too. Okay, Red Hulk and Sam. That reminds me that I gotta see, what's the one that's like the conversation or whatever,

or just like, oh, 70s amazing. I believe they used that to sell Captain America Winter Soldier. Yeah, I gotta see that one. Which is a perfectly fine film, but does not resemble Three Days of the Condor in any way. Okay. Nor does it resemble all the President's Men. Clute or any of the other movies that were

cited as inspirations for it. Okay. But it's fun. I watched it and I thought it was a dead ringer for Parallax View though. Yeah, it's not quite in that zone. Those guys should not talk about, they should not compare their work to Antonioni or any of the other cinema masters. They should say, we've made a cool Marvel movie.

I hope you like it. I would be good with that, personally. Okay, so Captain America... Brave New World. Which is, of course, an adaptation of the Al Jusuf novel, which I'm really excited about. One of my favorite works of mid-century sci-fi. Goo, right?

They turn into goo? Don't they turn the humans into goo that, what am I thinking of? I think you're thinking of the substance. No, no, no, no. What's happening here? We were so close to being wrapped. Sean did the outro already.

Then he asked me what's next. That's true. There's not like, isn't there some sort of substance in Brave New World or am I thinking of a different book that they made you read in elementary school? Oh, isn't Brave New World Soma? Yeah. Soma is the, you know, the narcotizing.

There we see, there we go. Well, it's not a goo. I think it's more of a pill, right? Happiness producing drug. Yes. Yeah, it's kind of precursor to antidepressants. I think it's the intention there. So it's sort of like, okay, defuses the intention there. So it sort of like... Okay.

...defuses the impulses that would make you want to be free. Okay. Again, you know, English student in ninth grade, you can imagine me reading Brave New World, having consumed lots of science fiction, and being like, sir, sir, I have some thoughts on Huxley's thoughts. We'll have some more thoughts on Brave New World later this week. See you then. Thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time. Bye.