The Big Picture - The Top Five Movies of 2022

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

It’s here—time for year-end lists! Adam Nayman and Chris Ryan join Sean and Amanda to discuss Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time poll before diving into 2022 and sharing their top five movies of the year. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Chris Ryan and Adam Nayman Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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At participating restaurants in Canada. It's time for Tim's. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Davins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the best movies of 2022. CR, Chris Ryan, is here among us. Adam Naiman is on the call, ready to talk with us about the best movies of 2022.

Before we give our top five lists, which is becoming a wonderful annual tradition on this podcast, we're going to talk about another list, the 2022 sight and sound poll of the greatest movies of all time. I'm delighted that Adam is here. And I'm also delighted that Chris is here. Chris, you have been grousing to me via text about all of these filmmakers' lists for days now.

Sierra, what did you think of this site and sound poll? I thought it was great list-making and not a great list. Okay. It's a great list. You could pick 500 movies and put them in the 100 greatest movies list, and I'm sure you would have valid arguments for all of them. And I think that the top 10, which is where a lot of the focus has been as well as some of the omissions from the list itself is like a list of amazing movies and and I think that that it's just like wonderful

that so many people will probably be exposed to these titles it's as somebody who makes a list every once in a while you got to start some conversations. Now, this wasn't necessarily done by like one editor or Secret Cabal. And that's what we'll probably get to is the voting block here. But yeah, I thought it was a dynamite example of list making. That's what I want to ask you. Is it good list making or is it an interesting list and not good list making? Okay, so tell me what you mean. Well, and I want to bring Adam in on this because Adam, you know, in addition to knowing more about films than all the rest of us combined, also voted for this list. So you can tell us a little bit about the process and how this list is compiled. Right. So I signed a loyalty oath, right, that I was only going to vote for three hour films about cutting potatoes no i mean

this is so i was going to ask this because i wasn't sure sean did you not get a list i didn't get a list no you didn't get a ballot right so the system is broken right there as a as a tastemaker who you guys have been tweeting like how many minutes a year do people spend listening to this podcast there's people who spend like 20 it's a separate conversation and 27 000 27 000 minutes a year imagine how many ballots joe rogan deserves several several thousand ballots i think right um look i've done this twice right and when i did it in 2012 i sort of thought oh my god i've i've made it you know you get to vote for this list because you have to realize this is the canon, right? The only thing that's close to this is if you care about like Best Picture winners or Palme d'Or winners or Box Office or IMDb. But I mean,

this is where that idea that Citizen Kane is the best movie of all time comes for. It's this decennial every 10 10 year pull by sight and sound. And, um, you know, my thoughts always go to the Sopranos where Carmela and the girls are watching Citizen Kane. Cause it's at the top of this list, right? They go the list in reverse order and they're like, Oh, well we like the cinematography, right? Like this is a, a very famously kind of pretentious taste-making list. The first time I got asked to do it, I thought I really made it. This time I was like, not affronted by being asked, but it feels like a different kind of,

it feels like a different animal now because for all kinds of good, correct reasons, they've expanded it by twice as many people as did it last time. And I think that this list and this consensus and this group of critics means something extremely different than it used to. And I'm not going to say it means something worse. I just think it means something different. significantly lower numbers. We're talking 200, 140, 113, 65 back in 1962. So as we expand, you would expect that there would obviously be more diversity on the list because you're

getting more diverse critics, more voices in the critical space. But you're also getting a consciousness of past lists. And I think that that's a little bit of what Chris has identified is there is now a kind of, I don't think the word is reactionary, though that's a word I have seen thrown around over the list is of course directed by a woman and has appeared on many many of the filmmaker ballots that i've seen tweeted over the weekend um adam how did you think about the idea of what is quote unquote the greatest film of all time versus what is your personal taste versus what is something that you think of as an innovation or something that shatters a wall in the world of filmmaking? They're going to publish the individual critic ballots in January. And that's going to be when people are going to do like witness relocation program with their social media profiles.

Because already people have sort of been tweeting. And I tweeted my individual list and, you know, like private quote tweeting and dunking and bullying when it shouldn't be any of that. Right. private quote tweeting and dunking and bullying when it shouldn't be any of that, right? It's like I chose to say there's no such thing as the 10 best films of all time. I do know what my favorite movie of all time is, which is Don't Look Now by Nicholas Roeg, which made the top 100 of the director's list, not the top 100 of the critics. And then I just built a list, what are nine films that reflect that movie in some way? So whether it was The Shining or Meshes of the Afternoon or Duck Amuck, which is a Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck cartoon or Le Jeté. I mean, that was my list and I'm proud of it because when I look at it, I think they're all great movies and it's pretty diverse.

But I mean, they're not the 10 best movies ever made, right? So I just sort of tried to go by an honest subjectivity and speak to all the different genres and periods and types of filmmakers and directors who I care about. And even though some of my choices didn't make the top 100, some of my directors did. You know, I picked a Claire Denis movie that wasn't Beau Trevai. But the idea that Beau Trevai is now considered one of the 10 greatest movies ever made is stunning.

You know, going from so low to so high. You know, I had a Kubrick that wasn't in 2001. I had the shining, but like, I think that when you're looking at that top hundred list, there's other things you have to look at besides what's on and what's off and what fell out. It's like, which directors are represented? Which periods did people not feel obliged to stick up for most of the chats i've been having with friends about this offline have been about this weird omission of the late 90s to the mid 2000s right where you have these stunning entries by movies made in the last two or three years you know portrait of a lady on fire and get out in moonlight, maybe in the last five years. Parasite, yeah. And a couple of massive shooting up the charts

for a couple of early aughts, masterpieces. You knew it was going to happen with Mahal and Drive and In the Mood for Love. But there's a whole bunch of Gen X standbys. Coens, Paul Thomas Anderson, David Fincher, or in Asian cinema, you know, Zha Zhangke, Hou Xiaoshan, they didn't make it. And the reasons for that are fascinating. I think that they're too old, in a way, for people to be making a statement

by thrusting them onto their ballot, a statement of inclusion. But they're still also considered kind of gatecrashers by the really, really old guard. The most messages I got about any filmmaker crashers by the really, really old guard. The most messages I got about any filmmaker not being on the list in the hours after it came out was also because of my book, was people were asking about Paul Thomas Anderson. And I was saying that I

bet that if you look between 100 and 200, all of his movies will be there. Just not support behind one consensus masterpiece. and directors who have more than a couple of really good movies suffer as a result of this yeah it's a fascinating thing there's also a handful of other kind of movements and waves that were not as represented as they have been in the past the new wave for example the New Wave, is significantly weakened relative to his past history. Agnes

Varda's Cleo from 5 to 7 was quite high and Breathless was on the list. But in the year in which Jean-Luc Godard passed, he has a few films, but there's only one Truffaut film. There's a bunch of other directors who are, Howard Hawks famously not appearing on this list this year. Sam Peckinpah not appearing on this list this year. I do. I do like that John Carpenter tried to rectify the Hawks problem by putting four Howard Hawks movies. Hey, Adam, I was curious when you were voting, did they give you any stated criteria or was that idea of my favorite films of all time? That was yours. Cause I've also seen, I can't remember who tweeted this out, but they said that their criteria was films where I walked out of the theater a different person than the one who entered.

And I kind of find that fascinating that everybody sort of made up their own. Is that like when I entered, I was Clark Kent, and when I exited, I was Superman? Yeah, but if I was going to use that criteria, it would be different than favorite films of all time, which would be different than the 10 films that I think are the, or the hundred films that I think are the most important movies are of all time. When you think about doing this list in 1952, right? And people have been tweeting now comments from 1952.

I saw this morning, people were like, this is ridiculous. You can't make us pick 10 movies. And I mean, at that, and at that point, the medium is, I mean, it's not in its infancy, but you know, it's like, it's only half a century old. I think that in 52, there was maybe, because it was such a small elitist cabal of people, there really was this idea of like, let's build a canon, you know? And I think now Sean's point is correct to what you guys have said. It's more about let's re-approach or attack or kind of revise the canon but still consensus does prove something there is something about jean dillman that testifies to more than just that i don't think it's a movie that people overnight suddenly decided

was great i just think that when the when the voting you know constituency opened up and more people were asked what they thought i mean people had been predicting that that movie was going to debut kind of in the top 10. The fact that it finished at number one makes for a great story. And I say it with no sarcasm, but it's going to be amazing that there's going to be little viewing groups, you know, ad hoc viewing groups around the world in the next year are going to sit down and watch that movie. And I wonder what they will, I wonder what they will think of it. There's going to be a Vox explainer on John Dillman. I think it already exists.

I think there was a New York Times explainer this morning, which is just mind-blowing to think about. Amanda, if you had a vote, what sort of tact would you take? Would you just do your 10 favorites? Would you do what you think the canon ought to be? I mean, this is kind of what I was getting at with Chris, which is asking Chris, like, this is a fascinating list and a really educational list and also great content. But I come to list making from a magazine editorial perspective of, you know, it has

to have a structure and you have to have included everyone. And so, and as I'm famous for saying in the ringer offices, list making is ultimately not democratic. You know, it's like one person has to, you have to put it all together and it has to read from front to back. So I, this exercise is something pretty different because it is so many people having their own interpretation. And I don't know whether I would be able to give up like the, I don't know whether I would game it out or not. Do you know what I don't know whether I would be able to give up like the I don't know whether I would game it out or not do you know what I mean like whether I would start thinking about okay well I need to vote for this director and I need to make sure that you know like my

romantic comedies from the 40s and Howard Hawks movies are on there and then I'm gonna want to get When Harry Met Sally on there because I think that's so but so I would I guess it would become like an Amanda activist uh list pretty quickly the personal is representational right so I guess it would become like an Amanda activist list pretty quickly. The personal is representational, right? So I think that there is something interesting about saying this is something that defines me. I saw one film in particular that a lot of people were frustrated or sort of lobbying for that they thought should have been included, which is Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Because that's a film that is very representative of the direction where lots of genre filmmaking went for 50 years. At least our guy Steven Spielberg could have had

like a shouting appearance in there. Yeah, well, I mean, that's the other thing is there are a handful of true doves who were shot down in this exercise too. And I think that there's some confusion if you're like a general moviegoer who goes to Hollywood films and you get handed a

list that says here are the 100 greatest films of all time and that list doesn't have Jaws there is I think an understandable reaction if that is your experience as a moviegoer to be like what this list is what how could this be well there's no Spielberg on the top 100 right and and I think to Adam's point like isn't that just because at some point if you're doing numbers and you have as many hits and as many critically esteemed films as Spielberg does, like, you split the vote. And a lot, I don't know what 100 to 200 is. And also, you know, I do think there is a trend in this list, certainly. And also just in, it's in vogue right now, I suppose, criticism to, like, resist the more mainstream spielberg-esque but in some cases yes but in some cases no like 2001 is still number six on this you have to figure that there that

jaws is in 100 200 and that there are also like the maybe raiders is on there that the movie the movie whose absence blows my mind and it's not because it would be in my top 100 but it's amazing that pulp fiction's not on there it's incredible and that's takes and i think that any responsible list of not the hundred best but let's say you have to make a list of a hundred movies and you narrate the history of the medium you're putting it on there because of the influence and because of the reception even if you're putting it on there as a negative example. But remember, people aren't making lists of the top 100 that then get consolidated into a top 100. They're kind of making their list of the top 10. And in some ways, people with a real historical responsible sense of the medium,

you know what? They're right to not put Pulp Fiction in the top 10 films of all time. It's actually correct to maybe not say it's in the top 10, but I guess enough people feel that way that it kind of drops off. So you got to look at passion and a sense of history as informing what some of these picks are, which conversely is why with no disrespect to Parasite or Moonlight or Portrait of a Lady on Fire, that's the stuff that's been driving the people that I know bonkers, right? Because it almost feels like it's been engineered in there. And you have people who probably shouldn't say stuff like this, but Paul Schrader on his Facebook page being like, this is bad.

That's probably the least offensive thing Paul You know, that this is a, this is a, this is a jerry rigging of history towards the present and the fashionable and a jerry rigging of history towards a progressivism that however admirable is not the canon. I mean, Schrader even came out and said that in a Facebook comment. He's like, if the, if the history of cinema is sort of like, you know, a history of white masculinity, you know, so be it. And there is some ugly- When I think of history, I think of Chris Ryan's white masculinity. But anyway, there's ugliness that can kind of be dislodged if people have this to fight over. And the last thing I'll say about it is, is anything better made to fight over on Twitter than this?

It's quite a brilliant subject for, for these kinds of conversations. It's perfect. Can I ask one more question? Yeah. And this is be free for this for anybody. Uh, how much do you think that the criterion channel of vacation and movie

of vacation and streaming of vacation of our ability now to have what was once like if you wanted to see jean dielman maybe there would be a specialty video store or maybe you had an art house theater that would play it once a year or once every five years and now you can watch it as much as you watch jaws so the fact that this stuff is all much closer to us and people can create this sort of like alternate canon because they just simply have access to it now. I think it's a very astute observation and a big part, particularly when you focus in on who the 1600 people are who are voting and what is the criteria for their being asked to vote and how, what has their film education been like?

Because if you are between the ages now of 21 and 40, it is so much easier to see films than it was when you were between the ages of 21 and 40 and voting in 1962 or 1972. Probably very few under 40 voters in those years. Even 2012. Yes. Sean, you who are always so prepared, do you happen to know how many of the hundred films have janice distribution ownership because it's a stunning number i believe it was 40 48 48 yeah so when chris asks about the criterion you know and then there's a lot of sarcastic tweets where people like boy i guess criterion actually are the best movies of all time which is a deeply sarcastic comment yeah not because it's

fully untrue but it's not fully true. Well, that was a strategy that Janice pursued. I mean, you know, that's. Absolutely. Right.

They pursued the licenses of as many canonical movies in the beginning, kind of as they could. And then that strength sort of, you know, holds. It really does not necessarily seem like a good thing that 50 of that list reverts to one rights holder but what could be more 21st century than that but what's really everything so consolidated in corporate what's nice to me about it and we can move on after this is this list

which in some places i find confusing or purposefully obtuse, is just a breaking of the conventions of the past. And that is the purpose that this list serves in a way. And by expanding the voting body, and if there's 3,200 people voting next time, there will be a kind of rejection of the 2022 list. And we can look forward to that. We can look forward to someone saying like,

I don't know, Moonlight or Parasite, how could you possibly put that on there? Or John Dillman at number one, that's absurd. We have to change the order. We need to redefine it. So it's very exciting. The good news is all four of us will be voting, but we will have to observe each other vote.

So I get to watch Chris write down his 10. Adam, we're going to fly you in from Canada. You're going to write down your names in front of us. How's that sound? It sounds good, but I know that Chris is just going to have Den of Thieves and then it's all reflect. That's right. Den of Thieves. Sicario. Den of Thieves deleted scenes. Midnight Run. Yep.

I can tame that to teens. I can get my... What's the most shocking addition to your list that people wouldn't see coming? Paul Schrader's Facebook pages. Animated like a film strip. I mean, Adam had a Looney Toney tune and a 14 minute film on his list so anything is possible i'm not sure that's a really i was not prepared for that but

that's a really good question okay the shocking what would your most shocking bf no no okay this is i've mined all of my surprises for content at this point you know so nothing would be shocking i don't know you always surprise me that's That's beautiful. Thank you so much, Chris. I like it when he's here. He's nice to me. Well, that must be nice for you. Let's mine for some more surprises. Let's talk about our top fives. Let's talk about 2022 in general. We've spoken about the past. Amanda, good movie year, bad movie year, mediocre. What do you think? This is a real asterisk year for me. 2022 as a year, personally, home life a plus great stuff really good that was not the question well that did affect my movie watching

um i i did have a child in february and let me tell you that just took me down for the count for a while in a positive way healthy but like you know that's just my priorities and my time were elsewhere so i didn't really get back on the- Momington Island, you might say. Yeah, that's, yeah, population me. So I didn't get back on the horse really until the summer, honestly, until Top Gun Maverick. And even then it was start and go. And then the way I watch movies has been different, just like in an honest physical sense of I'm tired.

And I do think that affects how I've been receiving things. So I didn't see as many movies and I will keep reminding people of that because I don't really feel like this is my best list. But I also didn't really connect to as many movies. Now, on the one hand, that meant that the movies I did connect to, I loved. And I am really passionate about a couple movies on my list and had that sense of being, you know, movies are back and being invigorated and excited to be in the theater and excited to talk about the movies with people. I was definitely searching around for the last couple movies on this top five list. And that is a reflection of the year that I've had, but I did also feel like it was sort of a top heavy year and then pretty thin.

CR, what do you think? Good year? Real, for me, it was a real like butter in my ass, lollipops in my mouth year, you know? Don't know what that means in this context. No, you know, like I just think that I can't tell if it was me or the movies, but I was looking for simple pleasures

and that I was looking for, that's a Boogie Nights line, by the way. I know you know that. What? And so my list is really, really, I wouldn't say populist, but the experiences that I had at the theater this year that were the most meaningful to me were the ones usually with friends, often with you, where I just felt that electricity that comes from the communal feeling of watching something on a big screen. There's very few films here that I saw, there's one or two on streaming in my top 10, but for the most part, it was big, big screen,

big entertainment, Hollywood theatrical experiences that really fired me up this year. And I can't tell whether that's because I didn't look as hard for the challenging, maybe more independent or art house fair, or whether or not I didn't connect with them this year, to Amanda's point. But it was a strange year of like,

I'm almost like at once defiantly excited about my list, but a little bit embarrassed by it. Yeah, you could get high in the tent this year, but it often felt like we were on the ground. Adam, what about for you? You, I think maybe view films slightly differently than we do typically on the show. Um, did you feel like it was an unusually good or bad year in any way? Certainly not unusually good. And maybe some of the ways that it was bad or some of the ways that it was uninspiring or just kind of just seems to be the way that it is now. You know, like good movies are kind of hard to necessarily see theatrically.

You're playing catch up, watching things on screeners, you know, without without putting too fine a point on it. Those movies that have been announced for years in advance and finally come out. I don't tend to enjoy those so i've kind of just skipped you almost started skipping them all together in terms of really really big studio superhero tent poles but then even the couple that i managed to see i didn't love but when i look at my top 10 list and found that i wanted to put 20 movies on it obviously there were things that i liked right and i think a couple of the movies I'm going to talk about today, as well as ones you guys are going to talk about, there's,

there's not just signs of life, but like signs of real artistry and mastery and stuff that I think is going to, is going to endure. So like not unusually bad, but certainly not unusually, unusually amazing. And also,

I, you know, I try not to talk the language of awards too much before January, but a confounding year in that sense. Cause when you look at what the New York film critics association just picked, I don't know if you circle just picked, I don't know if you guys have talked about this on this show yet.

Not yet. Like a world where tar is now a putative best picture front runner is a strange world. Yeah. Whatever you think of tar, you know, like they went with a very arty insular choice and we'll see what

happens to the field as a result of that. I have the good fortune of seeing as many movies as I want to as a professional obligation. And I get to see them

often in the best circumstances. I see them in really nice rooms. I see them with moderate crowds.. I see them in really nice rooms. I see them with moderate crowds. And I see them in LA where we have lots of movie houses. And reverence for the experience and all that. You're making the face at us that you make before you just like say something deeply vicious and like personally cutting, you know?

Like Ned Beatty and network. This is all of my monologues are constantly interrupted, Adam. Can you believe it? Why even host a show if I can't even get through one monologue? I was just going to say that because of that,

I think I had a very similar experience that you were both describing, which is that the highs I felt like were quite high this year and that the middle felt deeply middle. And I didn't have very many franchise entertainments that I enjoyed this year. I'm often advocating for those on this show. I have kind of lost touch in some ways with a lot of that stuff. Um, this year I felt even as I look

back on the big superhero movies, for example, I liked the Batman and I liked, um, uh, the Dr. Strange movie less than the Batman, but I liked that movie a little bit. There was like not even a second where I thought about putting movies like that on the list, you know, like I never even considered it. A couple of steal your breath films made my list and I think that that ultimately became

how I guided my list. That's not always the way I do it. Sometimes it is an intellectual exercise or something more about the canon or like when I look back on this in 10 years, how will I feel about what I put? Mostly what I put on my list is what made me go, wow, I've never seen that or I didn't see that coming. And that's slightly inarticulate, but it is how I felt when I was watching this stuff. So I don't know. I mean- Did you find, though, as it became more and more normal to see movies

with groups of strangers? I know that you just said that you get to see them in screening rooms. Well, a lot of screening rooms are often full movie houses. Yeah, right. We go to AMCs

to go see a lot of these screenings. Did you find that that was changing the way you were viewing movies this year versus in 2021? Same thing goes for you, Amanda. I mean, was it... We just saw fewer stuff in movie theaters Same thing goes for you, Amanda. Like, I mean, was it? We just saw fewer stuff in movie theaters over the last two years.

Yes. So being back in the theater for something and having that big experience definitely affected it. But that almost became separate from the quality of the movie. I had a lot of movies that I really enjoyed this year that I tried to justify putting on my list in some way and then I like couldn't with a straight face actually put one of these on my top five because they just like weren't good enough now that didn't mean I didn't enjoy I feel exactly the same way and that and a lot of that was like the experience like I was with Sean or with friends or just like back surrounded by people but when I was actually trying to sit down and think like, okay, what was actually good?

Like I couldn't commit to my bit enough, you know? Minions, Rise of Gru. I was thinking Ticket to Paradise, but also Minions that when they all sing, you can't always get what you want. That's really funny. Great sequence. But that is, she's literally just described

the 11th hour of me taking Ambulance off my top five. Yeah. So Adam, Ambulance, is that number five on your list? I wrote about ambulance for the site. I quite like ambulance. It's fucking good, right? Thank you. It's very good.

And it was in my top 20, but not in my top five. So am I kicking this off then? Yeah. Why don't we get started, Adam? Why don't you give us your number five? So my number five is a movie that i think sean and i discussed briefly at the at the halfway point and you know which i'm happy to to see kind of held up uh this uh end of the year which is crimes of the future and i'm giving cronenberg sort of

you know the beloved auteur bump where it was always going to be in my top 10 you could maybe make a case there were some other films bubbling just underneath it for me, like Earwig by Lucille Hadzahilovitch and All the Beauty in the Bloodshed, which I saw late, which I think is a really good film, you know, the Laura Poitras doc on Nan Golden, almost in my top five. But in this case, I'm going to give it to Cronenberg. There's just that mix of endurance and rigor and principle and humor. And a lot of the images and just the setups of ideas for scenes have stuck with me. I happened to profile him this year for The New Yorker, which meant a lot to me personally. And a lot was kind of riding on that film for me.

It's like, I hope it's good. So it's going to be pretty hard to interview him or profile him. And not only did I end up enjoying it, but when I caught back up with it a second time more recently to kind of see where it sat for me, I had just the same kind of happy, positive, grateful reaction. I don't know how often you guys put gratitude in your personal viewing matrix, but I'm just like, I'm so happy for his career and for his films and so happy that this far into the career

in a market that has not really treated certain auteurs of his generation very well commercially, that he was kind of able to make this thing on his terms. And I'm also happy that it's not going to be a valedictory film because he's already working on something else. I think in a lot of ways, it feels like a last film or feels like an end point. I'm just glad it won't be, you know, and that I'll probably get to put another Cronenberg film on my list. Speaking of which, my favorite sight and sound poll tradition is that Amy Talbin, no matter what Cronenberg movie has come last, always puts it on her list. So like in 2012, Cosmopolis made it.

I haven't seen her ballot yet to see if Crimes of the Future is on her top 10 of all time. But I think that's a really cool practice. Did you get a chance to see this yet? Whatever the last Cronenberg is, she just puts it on, which I think is great. This is in my top 10, not in my top five. Definitely one of my favorite films of the year. Definitely a good, strong case for best comedy of the year, though it may not feel that way.

It's very, very, I thought very funny and very late style. Him almost self-consciously saying, oh, you want a Cronenberg movie? I will give you one. Thousand percent. Very good film. Sierra, number five. Barbarian. Yeah, which we obviously talked about at length on this podcast and almost like can't even imagine

adding anything to that at least plot description wise but yeah Zach Kregers um out of nowhere horror movie uh starring Justin Long and Bill Skarsgård and um just one of those like not even uh not even like a return to the movies over the last couple years but actually felt more like going to see movies in the 90s where you just don't know anything about it yes and you walk in the theater and you kind of just have your mind blown by a movie which I'll be very curious to re-watch now that it's on HBO Max this is one of the films that I think has become a little bit of, um, like a test subject, this and confess Fletch,

actually, I would say are movies that have like kind of immediately moved into their second life, uh, of, of people sort of really warming to it and watching it over and over again and looking for little threads from the first section of barbarian that pop up in the second and third,

the same thing for confess Fletch with like, just, I think that that has become like a, oh, actually this movie is hysterical if you watch it four times kind of thing on Showtime. But yeah, this was,

this was probably, you know, one of those real, like, I'm so, I'm so glad that, that like the people still can make stuff like this and get it on a big screen.

Have you seen it yet? No. Is this your pick for the one movie you get to make me watch this year? Oh my God. We can circle back. Oh man. You've, you completely forgot about this opportunity movie you get to make me watch this year? Oh, my God. We can circle back? Oh, man. You completely forgot about this opportunity. We have to make that a segment for the years out.

Okay. I mean, if it's Barbarian, you can pick something else. It would be really funny if it made Crimes of the Future, but I won't do that. I have a feeling that you, not to refer to you as she, as I'm sitting two feet from you. I'm used to it. I have a feeling that you would be like, now that I know what happens. Yes. It was actually like mid. Okay. Like it didn't scare me. It wasn't unnerving. I know, but being like it's mid is such an annoying response. And I have more personal integrity. I would try to be more interesting. In 2023,

I want you to just be like it's mid. Okay. I mean, that's what I do to basically everything you like all of the time. But sure, we can codify that. This movie is also in my top 10. I think it is pure experience that is indelible for me. And I wonder when I go back a couple of years from now, how I will feel about it. I do think it incontrovertibly announces Craigor as a really ambitious dude who's making movies, which I really appreciate.

Whether you like his writing or his filmmaking or his storytelling, whatever, he did something and stuck to a vision that I thought was really fun in a kind of mainstream format that we don't see very often. Horror is one of the only places

you can take risks like this, and I appreciate that he took those risks. Also, just the most fun night I think I had at the movies, barring maybe Top Gun Maverick all year. So that's a great pick. Number five, Amanda. I'm going with The Eternal Daughter.

Oh, interesting. We haven't talked about this yet. I know. Adam, speaking of the beloved auteur project and the number five slot, Joanna Hogg, who wrote and directed this, is my gal. I think every time she has a movie, it's on my top five list.

I'm sorry for boring everyone. But I slept on this a little bit myself. I think in part because I saw it with Sean at the New York Film Festival, which was a really lovely experience, but Sean didn't really respond to it. I wasn't a big fan. I let the boys get in my head. But no more. This is...

Dikembe Mutombo, finger whack. I know. This is a COVID film. Not about COVID, but it was filmed during COVID. And one of the rare examples, I think, of using the constraints of COVID to the film's benefit. Stars Tilda Swinton. I don't want to spoil that much. But Tilda Swinton is a very crucial part of this film, gives an amazing performance. And it's about a mother and a daughter who you do learn during the course of the film.

I mean, I'm like, sorry about spoiling this, but I think it's OK. It's very subtly handled. And I was delighted when about halfway through the film, it's revealed that the character's name is Julie and that this is a part of her souvenir, I guess, trilogy now, or like the project. This sort of seems like a coda to that project, even though I don't think it's truly done. She might keep going, but it jumps forward a bit. Anyway, this is sort of a ghost story,

which is, I think, part of the reason sean didn't like it without speaking for him though i'm just gonna keep doing it um don't worry about me speak your truth but i because i'm not a horror enthusiast or a person who like really cares about ghost stories the way that it was using those tropes worked for me there's just kind of also a emotional and visual like you, you know, aesthetics, like literally wallpaper world that Joanna Hogg can create that I respond to. And this is a movie about mothers and daughters. And I realize I still watch movies as a daughter primarily, even though I guess I aged into the other category this year. And I thought that it was very.

It was beautiful and it's still a dynamic like I don't see explored in like very realistic ways, very often on screen. So I'm just into the Joanna Hogg project. I just hope she keeps, you know, making personal, reserved, very like formalistic movies about women of a certain age. Until she doesn't want to anymore. I'm pro. Well put. It felt to me, just felt to me like an interregnum. It didn't feel, and sometimes that can make for incredible art.

Yeah. But I thought the souvenir part two was like an incredible statement. And those two films together i just think are major major ambitious stuff yeah and this just kind of felt like a downshift to like making a you know jack cardiff like 1960s british ghost story and i'm like i've seen this movie before like it maybe it wasn't about a mother and a daughter but like i just i'd never seen the souvenir before i i couldn't really even locate specifically what she was you know emulating and in in this case it just felt like a little bit of a slowdown it wasn't it's not bad it's actually available on vod right now i don't have you seen um eternal daughter yet i have i wrote about it in our in our ringer tiff dispatch where i like

that's right it's good and i think it's it's good i like what amanda said about it i think that hog i mean what both of you say but the the project the scope and the ambition of this souvenir project is very real and the movie was bumped up half a star for me by seeing it in the front row and then being less than five feet away from tilda swinton yeah i am not i am not starstruck by literally anybody i have like a weird habit of going up to really famous filmmakers when I interview them and treating them like I've known them for 10 years. It's just like a weird thing I have. I was sitting looking at Tilda Swinton. I was like, oh my God, that's Tilda Swinton.

I can't say or do anything. I'm just going to sit here quietly because she's really, truly an incandescent. She's like the washington monument yeah she's a she's an incandescent star and a true patron of art cinema who gets these movies made which would not otherwise exist without her so i'm very pro tilda and i liked i liked eternal adam that happened with me uh i saw a neon demon with l fanning in the in the audience oh wow yeah i thought you were gonna say that was how you felt about Nick Raffin. You just couldn't...

Copenhagen Cowboy is coming. I can't wait. I think you should have me on the watch. I've never said that in my life. But I think you should have me on the watch to talk about it. It's done. There you go.

It's my guy. My brother in Raffin for life. My number five is the ultimate in recency bias and I might come to regret this, but I'm just going to do it. I'm doing it. This is just because you sacrificed a Saturday night to it.

I was going to preface it with exactly that. So let's set the scene. Friday, Saturday night, the Amanda Dobbins household is having a very small, very small holiday gathering. Intimate. In fact, three of the people

in this room right now were in attendance. Adam, we would have loved to have you if you were in Los Angeles. And children. That's the other thing. The children were in the mix. Yes. So my daughter, Amanda's son, mixing it up together. Lovely evening. And I was in a really bad mood. I was in a really bad mood because I had to leave early to drive across town to go to a movie screening because this was the only time I could go see this movie before this episode. I was making a special cocktail. You were. Kids were climbing on me like a jungle gym.

It was a paper plane. That's what you were making. Amaro, Nanino, Aperol, lemon juice. What'd you do with the glasses in the freezer to get the frost? Wet them a little bit and you put them in the freezer to get frosty. Yeah. So I wasn't able to have one of those cocktails because I was about to drive. I had to take my family out of Amanda's home early.

And I had to drop my family off, leave my wife alone with an amped up child, drive all the way to Century City. And I sat down and I watched Damien Chazelle's Babylon and I was blown away. Now, this is not a film without flaw. This film has flaws. If it was really bad though, you would have motherfucked it to the end of the world. That's the point I'm making. This was already operating at a disadvantage when I sat down because I was not happy to be there. And this movie is three hours and eight minutes long.

It is a huge commitment. What the fuck is wrong with people these days? So to do that... You're like encouraging him at this point though. Well... He's your guy. I'll say this.

The critic Katie Walsh, I thought had an excellent letterbox review of this film. This was their review. Is this a love letter to cinema or a suicide note? And if this was the last movie ever made, I would say bravo. Because it is a movie that is trying to be every movie.

Roughly speaking, and I hate to do, I don't like doing this to the audience. I think it's obnoxious. The movie's not out until December 23rd. No one else here has seen it. But it is a portrait of Hollywood in the early 1920s, sort of moving from the silent era to the talkies. And it spotlights a handful of significant figures who are invented, but the comps are pretty clear to who they are in real life. The film is slightly anachronistic and

tonally in terms of the way the characters talk the filmmaking is bravura like out of this world it is i will do everything i've ever wanted to do in a movie all in this one movie the boogie nights comparison has been made frequently i think it's apt i don't know that the characterization is nearly as strong as in boogie nights movies i think that's kind of the point is there a floyd gondoli character in bab, there certainly is. There are more than a few figures of power operating puppeteer strings. I don't really want to say too much about it. I do want to say that Margot Robbie,

I think she deserves as much as she gets. I think she should be allowed to do whatever. She is one of the only truly fearless young stars we have. Maybe the only one. Because she, at times, is glorious in this movie and at times is absolutely disgusting in this movie. And it is marathon work that she's doing. It's kind of amazing.

I don't think she'll be recognized as best actress, but maybe she should be. Giselle, I genuinely can't tell if he thinks he's never going to make another movie. This is extremely bold and strange and honestly like

pretty uncommercial I don't I don't know how you this movie has Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie and I'm not it's hard to sell people on it to me

I was really grateful that someone just said fuck it and was like I'm going to spend all of this corporation's money and make something that really really matters to me

and that's what I'll say and we'll do an episode about it at the end of this year. Amanda might hate it. We shall see. Any questions you want to ask me? Yeah. Sean, how excited are you on a scale of one to 10 that I will be reviewing this movie? And also, would you like to bet a thousand dollars? On whether you'll like it or not? I have to say what you've said and what a few people i know who've said i am extremely i am extremely intrigued here's the thing i'm fascinated i

really i loved loved loved loved whiplash and first man and i really did not respond to la la land i i appreciated what he was going for and i i think there's a lot of grace in the filmmaking. This feels like him realizing that La La Land was a mistake, which I thought, I think is like a magnificent thing. Now, obviously you can contain multitudes. Adam, it's very plausible,

maybe even likely that you think we will think this is noisy trash, but I, I loved it. Honestly. So that's my number five. Okay. I'm excited. Number four,

Adam. Number four for me is Decision to Leave by Park Chan-wook, which is one of two movies in my top, and the next one will be my number three, that for what they are, and that's not diminishing them because I don't diminish films for being genre films. If anything, I elevate them. But for the kind of genre film they are,

this is my number three film. are perfectly directed right i don't know did am i the only one here who's seen the park sean's seen it i've seen it i saw it yeah i saw it i mean i've seen it a couple times um because he is not a filmmaker who normally fills me with a lot of affection it's more just like respect like he's very talented and i hadn't really liked any of his movies for a long time until The Handmaiden, which I liked for a lot of reasons. It's an unbelievably sleazy, prurient, sexy, lesbian, scissoring kind of movie, and also very clever and very sociopolitically apt. It was the first Park movie I'd liked in a while. And then I liked this one as like his basic instinct, you know, like this is a perfectly directed little romantic noir. I don't know how much worth I think there is in it, but the form of it is just flawless. I've watched it twice now and there is not a boring shot in two hours and

40 minutes. So it gets the vote for me just on how well put together it is, how spectacularly photogenic Tong Wei is. I mean, what a performance she gives. She just magnetizes the camera. And there's images in it that I think are stunning and that will kind of hold up and endure. I can't even say I was moved by it, but I was just impressed by it off the charts as craft. And I wonder if he will sneak into some critics group or even some big awards body for directing Nod. Because just you got to recognize the skill. I think that, so I spoke to Director Park last week in the interview we're on the show later this week. First time I saw the film,

I had a hard time wrapping my mind around it a little bit. I needed to think better, understand the plot so that I could appreciate everything else that was happening. We actually saw it together, Amanda. It's a real how did they do that kind of a movie. I think it's actually been interesting looking back at some of the making of and behind the scenes

and the blue screen and green screen work that he does that doesn't look like absolute garbage because there are a handful of like mind-blowing sequences chris i think you would really really appreciate this movie yeah i can't wait to see it um and i know you're a huge old boy fan you're you like his work anyway but um very very impressive movie and if you have movie you can stream it actually this friday amanda did you did you like it i had the same experience as Sean of that I needed to see it a second time, but I have not seen it a second time yet because I haven't had time. So I thought it looked beautiful.

I mean, that shot, that sushi takeout, I just, I think about that once a week. You know, the image that I'm talking about. Yeah, but I mean, it's glorious. So I just, I need to go back and kind of like make sense of the, what's happening to appreciate the rest, as Sean said. It's kind of disorientation is purposeful, right? Like, and so I think it does reward the multiple viewings. It's just a hard thing to ask for a film like that,

which is also quite a long film. But he is in a very rare class of filmmaker and was a good interview too. I thought he had some great insights into why he did the things he did. Okay, number four, CR. I thought he had some great insights into why he did the things he did. Okay. Number four, CR.

I'm going to go with Speak No Evil. Horror-centric thus far. It was horror-centric. I was thinking about trying to break that up, but this is just the way it shook out. You know,

I've obviously watched a lot of TV this year. My long list for television shows for like the watch year and list is like 51 shows. It's just obscene. Crazy. You'd be surprised

how many of those shows have absolutely nothing to do with being alive right now. Like they're period pieces or sci-fi pieces or they're set in their own little aquariums or whatever. And for some reason, Speak No Evil very much felt like it could only be made now, only be made in this world. Played on a lot of anxieties I think people have

about the connectivity they have to their fellow human being and also the distrust that they have of those fellow human beings uh it's probably the most effective horror movie i've seen this year i mean easily this is the most like terrifying scary uh mind-breaking film like one of the great endings of a horror movie in the century. And, uh, just one of those movies that comes out of nowhere and shocks and delights it's on shutter. It's a Danish film. So there's, uh, subtitles it's Danish and Dutch pretty much split. And for people who don't know the premise, it's essentially a Danish couple meets a Dutch couple on vacation in Italy. The Dutch couple is like, you guys should come visit us in the Netherlands sometime. And they're like, yeah guys should come visit us in the Netherlands sometime.

And they're like, yeah, maybe. That would be great. And then they get a letter from the Dutch couple like, you should come this weekend. And the Danish father is like, we need to do this. We got to do this.

So they drive their car to a ferry and they go to see this couple in the woods in the Netherlands. And then dot, dot, dot. When I described this film to Amanda, she balked at the concept of vacation friends, people that you meet on vacation. I think that she would balk at some other elements of the film. I've since been told the rest of the plot because I will never see this.

Sean has recommended it a couple times, and I have actually, like, I have been confronted by people in my own life who listened to this podcast heard sean recommend it watched it and then were like what the fuck's wrong with you and i was like i gotta be clear that was sean and not me this is the the what the fuck is wrong with you movie it is if no one's ever asked you that then you probably won't like this movie yeah it's a great gut test for horror fans i love it i i've talked about this movie a few times. I think it's great. Okay. Number four, Amanda.

My number four is Happening, which is the French film directed by Audrey Dwan. So glad you picked that. It won the, well, so it won the Golden Line last year in 2021 at Venice. It just won international feature at the Gotham Awards. It's a really celebrated french french film um set in 1963 about and based on the novel the autobiographical novel um by any or no who won the nobel prize in literature this year and it said it oh yeah but yeah so i you know timely i guess i

don't know it's it's it's about a young college student who, in France in 1963, who needs an abortion. Sean said he was glad I picked it. I really tried not to pick this because I had this feeling of another year, another abortion drama in my top five list. And I didn't want to do that, not because the film isn't deserving, but just because that's where I am. And I will not be the first person to point out while talking about this movie that in America, Roe v. Wade was also overturned this year. Only a few weeks, I think, before this film was released in the United States. And I feel I have a lot of feelings about that. All of them bad.

And many of them like almost defeat, which you're not really supposed to say about these things because it lets the monsters win. But I just kind of didn't want to do it. And what I actually like about Happening and why I went through it was number one, it's just like better than the other movies that I saw. It is really good, but there is something, this is a very personal movie about a young woman who is a college student and has a lot in her future and who just wants an abortion. And there is something so clear eyed about it. And there's no doubt there's obviously panic and fear. And it's illegal in France at the time. And you can be put in prison even for helping someone and talking about it.

And she meets resistance and like, know moral judgment throughout it but in her and and it almost like becomes a thriller of her trying to get the abortion and it goes like week by week of what week of pregnancy she is which is just really harrowing even if you haven't just gone through that experience but she the the character herself is just like very clear and very resolved. And you understand exactly what needs to happen and why. And I think it's an absolutely extraordinary performance by Anna Maria Bartolomei. And I just found it something like the personal is political is political obviously but just like a very personal effective while still like very harrowing like putting a face on this issue um so i think it's

amazing i think that andrew dominic should be sentenced to re-watching the abortion scene in this movie for the rest of his life is penance for what he did in blonde which is still the most offensive thing that i've seen in movies this year um it's not without it's like really intense and difficult moments but um an amazing movie that i think will be an awards conversation this year this is a very very powerful movie yeah um i saw it earlier this year too the timing was eerie uh it's release date and uh i would have said almost exactly what you said. It's like a thriller. It is treated this like beat by beat

in a very tense and kind of like throat choking way and is very powerful and it features great performances. I like this movie a lot. Okay. My number four is a movie

that Adam mentioned earlier which is All the Beauty in the Bloodshed. This is Laura Poitras' new film that I think is somehow in keeping with the films that she's made in the past about outsiders and the way that media is disseminated and also an incredible like reimagining i think of what's important to her as a filmmaker um nan golden

photographer storyteller activist voice in the world she's been focusing on the opioid epidemic and the sackler family in recent years. The film starts out in what I thought was going to be a very conventional contemporary telling of how a very successful artist uses their power to deconstruct other reams of power in our society. And it is that, but the way that Nan Golden makes herself vulnerable to Poitras and tells her story, I thought was just remarkable. And the way that the film creates this DNA strand of storytelling about how you figure out how to become an artistic person and honest in that space. But then also do something that you believe in, that you think is decent, even after you could... You know, Nan Golden could just retire.

She could just go move to Massachusetts and hang hang out in cape cod and not do anything and she is so personally and emotionally committed to this activism and her work is amazing and the film like forefronts her work you know it literally puts her photography right in the center of the frame and it's like being in a museum watching her her photographs and hearing her voice talk about where she was or where the subjects of her work are at these various times. This is like a world-class documentary. And I thought it was an amazing movie. So I actually spoke to Laura on the show last week if you're interested and get a chance to see it. It's only playing in a handful of theaters around the country right now.

But it will expand presumably over the coming weeks. And, you know, eventually. Is it going to streaming? I'm sure it will. I thought it had like an imminent streaming date. I'm sure it will. I thought it had an imminent streaming date. I'm sure it will be on VOD very soon. But quite a good film. Adam, you saw it.

Any thoughts? Certainly, it'll be on... Spoiler, I mean, it'll be on the top 10 that I'm publishing for the site. It's a very good film. I'm by no means always sold on Poitras, although she's got such a good nose for subjects right and she always has a take she never directs passively she always finds ways to shape things you know sort of sort

of aggressively and smartly i mean emotionally i think this movie is quite devastating and it's devastating on two tracks right because there's the personal there's amanda was talking about the personal is always political but i mean here they are so intertwined as to basically be indivisible. And there's just a, there's a little bit that I obviously won't spoil, but Sean, you'll probably know what I'm talking about too, when there's a moment where Nan Golden comes to a realization maybe about why she became a photographer and it doesn't change her other reasons for being a photographer, which are very on the record, you know, that she's like part of these subcultures and she finds the people beautiful and she likes photographing them and she likes photographing herself

because it gives her confidence sexually and it gives her confidence artistically. But she comes to some realization about another reason that she might have become a photographer. And it's one of the most stunning bits I had in a documentary this year. It made me tear up on the spot when she has this one little moment of self-realization. And then because it's a good movie, it moves on and doesn't belabor it. It lets it sort of just come to her and you have to catch it along with her and then it proceeds forward. So no, I think it's a good film. Great observation on that. Adam, number three. Like I said, number three is a genre film. It's a movie that I pick because I think formally it's

just about perfect. And because on a rewatch, it was as fun as I remembered and a movie that I'm really glad it's as good as it is. And I'm glad that this director isn't just going to be an empty or convenient hype. And that's Jordan Peele's note, which is a movie where I thought Peele could have gone either way after us. I wrote about us for the site and some people got mad at me for what I wrote about where they said, you're not writing with due respect for the director. And I thought, you know, he's so talented. It's just what is he going to, what ideas is he going to put that talent towards the idea he had this time and how he realized it and how he executed it? I just got to give it up. I admire his humility on social media when people are like, oh, you know, you're the greatest horror director ever. You made three great horror movies in a row and feels like, what about John Carpenter? You know, like he's, he's not leaning too much into this genre savior status.'s too smart to but I mean this film I think is better than the other two

and I just think incredibly impressive coming around to that opinion and I will talk more about it soon okay Chris number three number three for me is Tar yeah I just kind of so I guess

let me start with the most obvious which is that this is this is like her this is like when you're watching a Daniel Day-Lewis movie

you're like I had to get front row seats I had to get front row seats to see this happen she's in like kind of a rarefied zone

in Cape Blanchett in terms of her control of her instrument which I guess is an apt way of putting it for this movie. And then just kind of bouncing around the walls of this film

and thinking about what is Todd Field trying to say? What is this character trying to say? What is it satirizing? What is it championing? And even just honestly the thriller aspects of it and the sort of weird supernatural overtones and the possible reveries, like dream sequence reveries that may or may not subsume the movie in the second half.

And I've loved reading about it. I've loved talking about this movie and it was just such a fantastic, fantastic showcase for somebody who I'm just like, oh, it's really cool to be alive and like watching movies when this person is at their peak. So that's, that's my number three.

Amanda, number three. Sick movie. My number three is The Fablements. Okay. Great. You don't need to make that face at me. I'm excited that the four of us will discuss it.

Yeah. The, Sean and i saw this together at the afi fest is that correct yeah you know and like big fancy premiere and you know steven spielberg himself was there wearing like a turtleneck or something um well i don't know that added to the to the vibe of it for sure um i is evidenced by eternal daughter number five and but i i like all of the director projects of let me just make a movie about myself yeah because like we're it's just being honest you know it's really all movies are guys and and women to the lesser extent just

make a movies about their childhood but we're just gonna call a spade a spade i appreciate that i think this movie is so well executed obviously obviously, because it's Steven Spielberg with his screenplay written with Tony Kushner. But this movie is also really weird. Like, this is a really weird movie that I kind of think gets buried in like the aw shucks, like Spielberg, like Amblin looking up at the, you know, stars or whatever. It's not what you think it is. No, it's gnarly and confessional. And I also kind of think like the self-mythologizing itself is like fascinating. Maybe even in ways that are not totally intentional in the project itself.

I mean, it is like an amazing document about Steven Spielberg given to us by Steven Spielberg while he's like still on his run. Yeah. You know, it's like going to your own funeral, but you also directed the funeral sort of. It's but that's fascinating. And that's like sort of messed up. that I watch movies still only as a daughter, but I did have the moment watching this film, which is dedicated to Steven Spielberg's parents and focused on them and their relationship. I was like, would I take the trade of having my son like be a successful and an amazing artist as Steven Spielberg if this is the movie he made about me?

Cause like, I don't know whether I could do it. Like this is, it's, it's- His parents passed away, right? Like he had to wait for them to pass away. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. me. Because I don't know whether I could do it. Like this is, it's, it's. His parents passed away, right? Like he had to wait for them to pass away. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But still, I don't know. I mean, it's a little gnarly. It's a little strange.

It's unsparing, I would say, about his parents. So I don't know. But could you be sitting on Jurassic Park money? I mean, I think probably I would take it. But there are moments, and I think this is a testament to the Michelle Williams performance as well, where I'm like, no, actually, uh-uh. Like, I don't keep this at home. No, thank you. This is not how I do it.

But that makes for fascinating art. So I thought this was pretty successful i like your point which is that this is a very episodic fractured not almost satirical portrait of his own life at times particularly at the end this movie is like headed in a very specific direction i don't want to spoil it for anyone but when a certain segment of the film starts i was like what this is what how you're gonna wrap this up and then it goes way left and is way funnier and way stranger and uh yeah i like it it's kind of growing in my estimation i've only seen it the one time adam you wrote about it for the site you liked it with some reservation no i i i liked it

my my weird criteria for like late spielberg or later spielberg is um is it he's so good at making movies that didn't he makes like two movies every time he makes a movie there's like there's the movie that you watch and there's the movie that it actually is and like for me that was why i didn't like west side story because clearly the movie you watched is a brilliant tour de force technical musical i just didn't think there was anything inside that movie i like the other movie that's inside The Fablemans, which is like petty and thorny and not nearly so burnished or sentimental as people want to say. You know, I'm biting my tongue to avoid some of the writing on the film because in some ways a movie like this exposes how absolutely bad people still are at writing about Steven Spielberg. Like they still think that it's 1981 and you kind of have to treat him as the

enemy. It's kind of interesting to hear you guys talk about this. Cause I almost wonder whether this is a bit of a failure of marketing on the part of this movie. Oh, major. Look at that poster. That poster is not what this movie is.

Yeah. They have pitched. I mean, the trailer is so gloopy. I'm going to see this movie, but I was in kind of in no rush because I was like, I know what you guys are doing here. You know what I mean? But this is a very this movie, but I was in, kind of in no rush because I was like, I know what you guys are doing here.

You know what I mean? But this is a very, I wish this was on the poster. I wish, like. I think it's pitched at a good frequency for you and I, that you and I share,

which is like, let's make this a little more sharp elbow. Yeah. You know, like this isn't just like my dad was a hero and my mom was a hero.

It's complicated. Yeah. Okay. In a good way. In a way that I think you'll appreciate. Okay. Number three for me? Yes. Oh what is my number three my number three is a movie called top gun

maverick wow you're a traitor um it wasn't it wasn't my favorite film of the year it was close it was very close i re-watched it again this morning as i said to you before we started recording this is a film directed by josephaczynski. It's based on the previously existing intellectual property Top Gun. It's a film that was released in the 1980s starring Tom Cruise. This is an absolutely scintillating film. One of the most brilliantly engineered blockbusters

in the history of movies. It is extremely satisfying and very fun and does not necessarily require further examination. I'm okay with that i'm okay with the fact that it is a beautifully designed vehicle and every time i watch it i slip right into the passenger seat and i let it take me on a ride um amazing performance from tom cruise who is embodying the entire idea of stardom for the entire two hours. Wesley Morris wrote

an amazing piece about stardom in the Times and really wrote about Top Gun Maverick very well. Yes. And essentially indicates that the only person who really walked away

with 2022 in his pocket is Tom Cruise, which is true. This movie is one of the amazing box office successes of all time. It's also like a testament to his will

that he's just like, we're not putting this up on Paramount+. He held it and held it and held it and he was paid off and he will likely be paid off in more plaudits for the next few months and also a hundred million dollars quite a quite a large sum of cash a triumph of his will you might say you said it and not us adam it's it's on it's it's on my top 10 it's great it's great i mean as hollywood movies go i you can't do better in my opinion it's really really just uh pretty thrilling franchise entertainment um i'm sure others will speak about it more as we move forward through this list

adam number two uh well i mean just in in terms of Gun, while it didn't make my top, how can you not give Tom Cruise best actor for this movie? If this were 1948 or 1968 or 1988, the Academy would have. No matter what his, you know, his faults. You think he'll get nominated? I think it's not likely. I think it's possible. They're not campaigning yet. He's not campaigning yet.

I was told it will start imminently. All right. So hopefully that means. But he doesn't like to expose himself in big gatherings where he has to answer questions. Yeah, that's creepy. All right. He'd be tied for best actor for me with Johnny Knoxville in Jackass Forever, where I think they're kind of the same film. It is.

It is. Passing the torch to a new generation, but also sticking around. My number two is actually the film, I don't mean to do this to Amanda and Sean, this is actually France's Oscar submission, and it's the first time they've ever submitted a movie by a Black female director. So with all respect to Happening, which is a really good movie, I don't think France made a bad call. This is Alice Diop's Saint-Omer, which is, I guess, broadly described as a courtroom thriller, but is this fascinating exercise in identification.

Because usually we all kind of watch movies for a living, which doesn't mean we're not susceptible to them or that we watch them in a cold way. But usually, even with a really good movie, you're kind of of like you can get what your buy-in is with the film and i was watching this sort of going who am i when i'm watching this movie or where is this movie putting me because it's sort of just endless courtroom testimony it's very much like a fred wiseman movie except or a raymond deborah movie except real naturalistic trial sequences courtroom discussion which is all taken from very close to the real record of a case where a young woman for lack it's not a spoiler it's in the first 10 minutes of the movie you know she killed her child and she claims to be under like you know voodoo or witch, but she's clearly not. That's not the real hook of the

movie. That's a total fake out. And you're sort of watching this going, what's this movie about? Is it about this person? Is it about this system? Is it about this society? Is it about this observer character who also, like the defendant, is a black woman in contemporary France with a white partner. She's possibly going to become a mother. It plays such fascinating games with identification while being so straight down the line as it just camera pointed at people talking while sitting. And I found it just like the most stringent, rigorous,

kind of clear thing I've watched all year. It's very moving, but it's also so middle played straight down the line. It doesn't nudge. It doesn't push. It doesn't underline. It doesn't italicize. I mean, I'd heard good stuff about it at TIFF.

It played at the New York Film Festival. And I have a feeling it's going to show up in a lot of year-end lists and a lot of year-end discussions, but it doesn't open commercially till January the 13th. So I think there's a reason people haven't heard more about this movie yet. But, you know, I mean, I have it at number two. I think it's really something. I just saw this. I probably haven't had the chance to process it as much i find it i find the whole um exercise of the film very sad and very hard and heartbreaking in a way that maybe is not in the spirit of my wow experience of watching movies but it is extremely accomplished and you know uh alice

is documentarian and is using documentarian style to make a narrative film. And that is very effective in this case. The framing device character, I would say, is a little bit of what held this back for me, Adam, without giving away too much. I think when the film is in the courtroom, I'm like, this is one of the most captivating things I've ever seen. But we can maybe talk about it in the future when more people get a chance to see this movie. A very interesting film for sure. Okay, number two, CR. Banshees of Inishere.

We talked about this a ton. This is the Martin McDonagh film set on a small island off the coast of Ireland in 1923? Seven? I can't remember if it was 23 or 27. And it's about two friends who have a falling out, a backdrop of the Irish Civil War unfolding,

although that's kind of neither here nor there, depending on how much you want to read into it. To me, it's like a Martin McDonough's treatise on friendship. And it's his treatise on what makes a meaningful life. Is it about the connections you make and the relationships you have, or is it about what you leave behind as some sort of creative, artistic legacy or your work or your legacy? relationships you have or it's about what you leave behind as some sort of creative artistic legacy or your work or your legacy uh and i just felt like it stayed with me it made me laugh it

made me cry uh great animal acting great uh supporting performances from carrie condon and barry keegan and um you know his movies are a little bit hit and miss for some people but i think that this one's like a pretty it's pretty hard to argue with like the power of this film. I watched you try to convince my wife to watch this film on Friday night. Didn't work, yeah. I don't think it worked. I did bring the screener upstairs and said,

hey, here it is. And she looked at it and said, thanks. Good film. Love this one. Number two, Amanda. Tar. Yes. Lydia, my my gal do you know what if tar is a is an anagram for art really thanks so much also also rat yeah um this is my number two as well this is your number two as well yeah this my number two and my number one are just are all i almost did one and one and then I didn't do it because you got to dance with a girl that brought you.

But they're like very close and two like electric movie going experiences that I had. Would you say you have to dance the mask? Sure, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, I don't know. This is, as Chris said, a very controlled performance and movie about control. And as Sean and I discussed when talking about this film at greater length, this is also a Rorschach test film.

So it's not surprising that that is what I respond to in it, among other things. But I just, note by note, I'm the only person I think I know who doesn't even think it's too long I'm like sure why not I don't care about the 45 endings because they would all feel false and it goes on this just like remarkable calibrated journey every detail every second is just exactly right um just an absolutely astonishing performance from Cate blanchett um and i still like don't know if i know what i think the answers to all the questions in the movie is which is really cool uh and and i still like talking with people about it so same plus me as well um first time i saw this film i struggled with the ending quite a bit and was left a little bit frustrated by it.

While also being, I think, in awe of some of the things that Todd Field pulled off. Second time I saw it, I had a big old blast and was laughing a lot more and digging into it. Third time I watched it, I was like, here we are. Yeah. This is one of the great ones. I wonder how this movie will be remembered

because the apparatus that supports films like this from a box office perspective, among other things, as Adam indicated earlier in our conversation, is gone. Yeah.

Right? This movie will make less than $5 million total at the box office. That's not good for a film that is almost certainly going to be nominated for Best Picture, that will have the Best Actress winner. five million dollars total at the box office that's not good uh for a film that is almost certainly going to be nominated for best picture that will have the best actress winner this is

the kind of film it's too bad because like i think that there was probably as recently as five years ago if you were like hey this is kate blanchett is like in the bronze zone right now you gotta go see this no matter if she's reading the phone book or not like that would probably be worth 10 million dollars it would draw out moviegoers between the ages of 50 and 70. I guess it's not Lincoln where she's doing this historically sort of resonant part, but it's in that kind of level of performance, I think. So it's sort of like you'd think that people would be like,

here, Cate Blanchett's great in this horror movie. I got to see it. Well, I did have that conversation at Thanksgiving, but then I just think everyone is going to VOD it because that's now available. It also just has, at least is perceived as having that Kubrickian coldness, which I think is not very inviting as a movie going experience. It's length is a factor in that. And I think it's sense of humor is quite arched eyebrow. It's not laugh out loud funny.

And so if you are able to appreciate the humor, you're probably already aware of this and you're going to find a way to see it. And if you're not, you may be surprised

when you dig into it. You know, I just think it's, in addition to it being remarkably well made, it's just a great story about Field not making a movie for a long,

long time. And then I read this morning, who has Todd Field been talking to but none other than Adam Sandler? And they may be making a movie in the the future together and wouldn't that just be delightful tar too with Sandman yeah I would watch 10 out of 10 times you like tar Adam I don't think

we talked about this one wrote about it for the site I thought it was okay I'm a I'm a I'm a big fan of a Twitter user uh Mr. Otterlake's Lydia Tarr fan cam, which I suggest you all watch afterwards, which is fantastic. It really distills the strange sexiness and also just like incredible physical like nuttiness of Blanchett's acting. I will say that in the spirit of talking about film criticism, Tarr has been a movie, maybe more than almost any movie this year, that has been interesting to read about. Because there are some negative reviews of Tar that are quite devastating, unless you think they're written in totally bad faith. Big Rick, which mystifies. I can't say that I'm fully on board with certain of these reviews, but I don't find them mystifying. I think that they speak to, they're kind of playing into when we say the movie's a rorschach test it's like well there

are some ways to read rorschach tests that are not flattering that's true what it's in terms of what it's saying but i mean look i mean what chris is saying about her being in the little the lebron zone or stuff like that's where she lives you know i mean i mean kate blanchett is price of admission no matter no matter what and that scene, as I wrote in the ringer piece where she's taking questions from, from Gopnik, from the New Yorkers, like that is how you use Cate Blanchett. You're just like, I'm going to show 10 minutes of movie. That's just Cate Blanchett basically talking about things she kind of likes and she's, and she's, and she's, she's amazing.

And then the Juilliard scene afterwards, you're just like, and, and even, I think the Juilliard scene was a make or break part of that movie for a lot of people where they're just like, this movie is like a Twitter timeline experiment versus like, nope, this woman is absolutely balling out right now. She's got triple double in the second quarter. And it also, yeah, and I'm kind of offsetting my like mixed response to the movie by trying to say it's a good movie movie to have this high on a list it is a meme monster movie oh yeah in a way that reminds me in a way that reminds me actually more than anything of something like phantom thread where you're not that's not really what you would expect to be a huge discourse meme movie that people are using on tiktok or on or on twitter but there's something about there's something with the performance and something about i guess just the naked embarrassment of it that goes pretty hard

because that movie has just dominated my feed in that sense there's also the fact that so many people seem to think lydia tar was a real person it's a wonderful thing yeah which is a wonderful twist uh yeah i mean just wait until it is widely distributed and people are ripping the screen caps. Phantom Threat is a perfect comparison, Adam, because that's also a crypto comedy. You know, not a comedy, not crypto, but secretly a comedy. And the architect of your soul appears to be social media. Imagine how brilliantly that will be shared

over the next five years on the internet. Like the movie is designed to do that. And that's part of why i admire it okay number one i'll be doing that in lydia tar mastodon i'm sure there are many accounts that already exist with that name on mastodon adam you on mastodon i'm not on mastodon yet no nor nor will i ever be i will stay on twitter until it explodes. That's how I feel. Where the John Dealman heads hang. That's where we get it all together. Yeah, right.

Okay, Adam, number one. My number one film is a film that I have a hard time talking about, but will not have a hard time talking about here. I'll have an easy time talking about it, which is After Sun, which there are some films that I think you can acknowledge things about them that are flawed or that are imperfect. You know, Charlotte Wells given some interviews about this film,

about certain needle drops or certain formal things that she does. She, she told me when I interviewed her, the one, the other, like big swings, you know, and I've seen some people think that certain of those swings don't make

contact. It's a memory piece about a father taking his daughter on a trip, you know, to a Mediterranean resort in the 90s. A lot is very clear that he's not with her mother anymore, but they're on good terms. He doesn't see her all the time, but they get along well. He's a good dad, but he's also kind of a goof and she's, you know, coming of age. And I mean, you know, there's no sophisticated critical vocabulary for it. The movie just destroyed me, right? And we get destroyed by movies for different reasons.

And it's not a one-to-one ratio. It's not like seeing the movie and being like, oh, it's about me. That's not what it is that destroyed me about it. There's something that it seems to understand about how kids look at their parents and how hard it is for kids to look at their parents and see that they might be unhappy right like how do you how do kids process the idea that parents are unhappy how do parents process the idea that their kids might be worried that they're unhappy what do people keep from each other and what do people reveal from each other

and then how do you remember things like that? The movie just absolutely killed me dead. And I think that it has scenes in it that you can take them apart formally or technically why they're so good. I think Paul Mescal might be a great actor based solely on this movie, just this factory of British actors who turn out to be terrific in the right material,

like a Tom Hardy or something. Irish, Irish, sorry. But yeah, I mean, he is, uh, he's phenomenal. You know,

it's a phenomenal physical performance and it's a movie that, I mean, everyone has their kind of litmus test movies. I've had some friends, good friends tell me they didn't like the movie or they didn't get it. And I haven't held them against it. But for me, that's baffling.

I'm baffled and mystified by how someone might watch this and not feel it very, very deep in their bones. But that's why there's different, we all bring a different subjectivity to the movies. Unfortunately. But it's my number. Amanda and I were kind of in that category. We were like a little mixed on it Adam yeah when I was like worried that I don't have a heart and listening to you talk about it unlocked for me I guess what my maybe not my block but maybe why I didn't respond to it and it does go back to I think that I was watching it still as a as a child

of parents rather than a parent of a child if that makes it because that's just where my mindset is right now and and your point is that it's not a one-to-one thing and, oh, they captured something about me, but I don't have that emotional register quite yet. And maybe that was part of the explanation. Interesting pairing with the Fablemans this movie. Yeah. I think I agree with how you described it and how it made you feel feel i think that there was something slipping through my fingers about it as i was watching it which is not necessarily a bad thing i think that's actually the sensation that she's trying to create i i think it's i think it is the sensation she's trying to create and in some ways what i'm responding to is i'm in in in very happy

that there's a movie that's willing to seem like less than the sum of its parts will willing to under explain and under conceptualize and almost kind of under impress but the bits in it that for me that land are like well you know hey hey hey makers so but but i mean it's a movie that i've been fascinated to hear what everyone i know thinks of so a couple interesting things about it too one it's the number one movie that i've been fascinated to hear what everyone I know thinks of. A couple of interesting things about it too. One, it's the number one movie that I heard from people about after we did a best picture power ranking. That was the one film that we didn't note that has a lot of sincere fans. My wife loves this movie.

People who love it, love it. And so when you're in a preferential balloting kind of experience, it's the kind of movie that could be a little bit more successful, I think A24 will push the movie. If they did not have an Everything Everywhere All at Once this year, you could see them really pushing a kind of Moonlight-esque campaign behind this film. And Paul Muskell is a bit of a dark horse, I think, for best actor. about the movie is it's so interesting that most of the films that are telling these kinds of stories this year are from James Gray and Steven Spielberg and, you know, going back Cuaron and, you know, this, this trend of memory movies about your childhood and Charlotte Wells, is Charlotte Wells even 30 yet? She's quite young. And so it, the idea of telling a story when it's much fresher in your mind, I think is kind of a fascinating contrast to a lot of what's out in the world right now.

It's a good pick. I'm glad it's on someone's list. CR number one. Top Gun. Top Gun. Okay. Amanda and Chris. Let's do it together.

Top Gun. They just shook hands like Mav and Rooster. Saw it twice in the theaters. Once in its entirety on a plane, one and a half, another halftime on a plane. Once watching two ex-naval pilots do commentary across the entire film on YouTube,

and then several times sequences from the film on YouTube, and it still fucking rocks. Like there's no degradation to the quality of this movie. I can't believe how much it delivered and we talked about it for two years. Adam mentioned in the beginning, it was like I'm kind of

tapped out on these project movies where we're just like, oh we're anticipating this, anticipating this. I can't believe how much it delivered. It's better than the first one. Oh, for sure. I also just like, sometimes, you know, you hear us talk about like the experience of seeing movies in the theater with other people.

I'm never going to forget like the screenings I saw of this, especially the dude at the end of this movie who went, great job, Jon Hamm! At the end of the movie. And what's more cinema than that? Amanda? They fucking did it. You know?

They just did it. Bobby, hit the music, okay? I just wanted this to be what it was. And so much. And I needed it. And it was. and it was more than I dared to imagine and it was more than America dared to imagine and you know large pockets of this show are about the movies of you know Top Gun is technically late 80s but like the studio blockbuster movies of the 90s which is where where Sean and I and Chris are like movie watching. Our enthusiasm was really forged.

And this is a perfect love letter to that. It's a perfect love letter to Tom Cruise. It's an amazing theater experience when you don't get those anymore. I watched it again last night. I was just texting people like, Tom Cruise just threw the rule book in the trash can you know like i don't know what else to say that's so stupid and so amazing and perfect and it's a relic and also fresh and exciting again and i i just i love it

thank you can we get a a real shout out to jennifer connelly for this yes of course we can she's great and the idea that she just acts like she's been there the whole time is the funniest Can we get a real shout out to Jennifer Connelly for this movie? Yes. Of course we can. She's great. And the idea that she just acts like she's been there the whole time is the funniest thing. Yeah. Admiral's daughter. I've just been at this bar. Yeah. Ever.

I love it. It's like, you know, Maverick, ever since we met three seconds after the first movie ended. Yeah. Most important person in your life. She's amazing. I noticed last night she parks that Porsche on the street. Yeah. Well, it's a nice San Diego hamlet.

It's fighter town USA. Sure, but I don't know. Bill was like, that Porsche costs like $45 million or whatever. I know, but I don't think that they're lifting catalytic converters. That's true. In Miramar, you know.

Pointing it out. I think she belongs to a protected class. Sure. As the daughter of an admiral. Top Gun Maverick is great. Last night when I was watching, or this morning when I was watching it, I was thinking about how one of the things I really like is the Won't Get Fooled Again sequence.

The dog training sequence. Push-ups. Which is, you know, just dumb as hell. And that song is dumb as hell, but it's also one of the greatest rock and roll songs of all time and it's just been festooned away

on car commercials and on CSI for years and I was like this is what this song is for it's not for a fucking car commercial this movie is what happens when the second half of Stairway to Heaven hits

which is once out of every 137 times you listen to Stairway to Heaven you can watch 136 movies that are blockbusters and then on the 137th fucking tom cruise plays two football football very normal stuff okay i don't know how i can um match the energy of top gun maverick but my number one is no which uh i've been circling the way mav might circle a mig uh for a long time and i i liked what you said about it adam i i'm kind of amazed that jordan peele is sticking with this that he's not he's getting more weird and more daring as a director and more willing to sacrifice

i think audience in a way this is the least successful of his three films. In some ways, it's tremendously obvious and accessible because it's just a pure Western. In other ways, it's tremendously obvious because it's a pure UFO movie. In other ways, it has nothing to do with either of those things and is very idiosyncratic and idea-driven in a way that virtually no blockbusters are.

It is like, I loved Top Gun Maverick, but it doesn't ask you to think about a single goddamn thing. It does not, like, do not think about the military. Do not think about how relationships work. Do not think about what the hell Maverick's been doing for the last 30 years. Just go on this ride.

You can love Nope without taking down Top Gun Maverick. No, it's just a different experience. Don't project onto us. Do you have an intellectual thought about Maverick? Just because you are at war with your two selves and you're never going to resolve it. I'm not at war. And you feel jealous that Chris and I felt peace.

Popcorn Sean versus Kaya Dufenecy. You can have them both. And you're just working through it in real time. And that's fine, but don't put it on me. I'm not working through it. I'm representing it. I'm exposing it to the world. I don't need an intellectual thought about Top Gun Maverick

because we threw the damn rule book out, okay? I'm sure you know this front to back. So does your enemy. Nope, it's a very, very accomplished and stunning movie. It looks as good as a movie like this can look. Hoytavan Hoytma's cinematography is out of this world. It's fascinating that this is a year in which Spielberg

made a movie about how he figured out why he wanted to make movies and that Nope is as much a Spielberg movie as any movie I've seen in a long long time. And I haven't really heard Jordan talk about this. I don't even know. I don't think I've failed to ask him about this. But Close Encounters is a movie that people keep pointing to in this one. Adam, I don't think I failed to ask him about this, but Close Encounters is a movie that they, people keep pointing to in this one. I don't,

I don't know how much you've thought about this with the relationship between Spielberg and Peel. Someone was writing about how the paradox of Nope is that it's about wanting to get an image of something, but you also can't look at it. And the only way to sort of stay safe is to not make eye contact. And that's sort of the Spielberg thing is interesting because Spielberg is all about raising your eyes, whether it's to the screen or to the sky. I mean, that's the close encounters. Yes. Trying to see it. You know, trying to see it.

I mean, this is what I meant when I was sort of not struggling, I think. But what I was trying to say earlier about Peel is I'm so glad it's not just hype because it could have gone either way, I think, after after us which is there's a mantle that gets thrust upon filmmakers like this it's what happened to shamalin who by the way has come out the other end to me better and m nightier than than ever and i i i love that guy but it's like when people are like you are the next spielberg or you are the next something man like what does that do to a filmmaker you have to live up to the that mantle us was a movie of someone trying to live up to that to me and this is a movie where he just lives up to it through force of talent and the originality of the idea and you don't want to overuse words like guts because he's a big budget

filmmaker getting carte blanche like he's not a war hero or something but there's a certain guts in making this movie and casting it this way and pacing it this way. And as you say, being willing to maybe lose, being willing to maybe lose some of that audience. I just, just hats off to, to a guy who I think is an even better filmmaker than we thought he was when he, you know, seemed to be the next big thing. It also doesn't hurt that it is tremendously modern because he's a black filmmaker making movies about representation,

but making them entertaining genre movies. This movie's not a lecture, you know what I mean? It's really thrilling, but if you think about what he's doing, which is originating a family that is or maybe is not related to the black jockey that we see in the edward weybridge you know original film strip and then use that as the launch point for 100 years of film history and all the people whose names we don't know who participate in it it's like a that's a genius idea for a drama let alone a ufo movie yeah so i i'm just i'm kind of amazed by him and

like the way that he is pushing himself to try to do something beyond because like really no one else does this now like maybe christopher nolan is the only person you could say who's like okay you have a hundred million dollar check blow my mind it'll be kind of interesting in 10 or 15 years whether or not jordan peele is making his phantom thread or jordan peele is making his the visitread or Jordan Peele is making his The Visit or Jordan Peele is still making Inception. I'm hopeful that it's a Spielbergian approach, which is that he sticks close to the things

that fascinate him with occasional divergences, but tries to do it on a grand scale all the time because that is what will draw the most people. And so balancing that spectacle, which is of course the theme of the film, with something that is personal and daring and that he's never seen before, I think is amazing. Now, Top Gun 3, I'm in. I'm in. I'll be there.

Opening night. But nope, nope. I want more nopes in the world. That's something I'm going to say. Any closing thoughts? Adam, you feel good about your list? I do. And if Jordan Peele, who is listening to this deeply influential podcast, what he needs to be

asked is why are there two 80s Canadian rock staples on the soundtrack? Not just Corey Hart, but Gowan's Strange Animal, which is my favorite thing about the movie. Jordan Peele must answer, was he on a Canadian cottage trip? Because we mandate these songs get played on our national radio. There's quotas.

So that Canadian artists get on the radio. Like was he trapped at someone's cottage on Canada day? I need to know. Other than that, I've got nothing intelligent to say. So are you proud of your list? I am, but I like,

I have more fun making my six through 10 list. Do you want to share those? Uh, well, it's great. Yeah. It's a jackass forever. It's Jackass Forever. It's Confess Fletch.

And it is X. Ty West did not come up here. I like Pearl more than X personally, but I know that's a divisive take. Do you want to do six through ten? Do you have six through ten in front of you? I don't have six through ten. I have just a list of movies that I didn't put on my list.

Okay. And, like, basically, I have all the Beauty and the Bloodshed, which I guess would be number six. And then I have a list of movies that I wouldn't even put on six through ten, but I really had a lot of fun at, which are The Woman King, She Said, Ticket to Paradise, as previously discussed, Bros, and Jennifer Lopez, Halftime. Oh, yeah, the documentary. That was pretty good. That's a pretty good documentary. Yeah. What was your favorite movie set in Los Angeles

where a drone flies under an ambulance? I'm going to have to go with Ambulance. I'm looking at my list right now. I've got Ambulance at 20. I'm going to have to bump that up. To what? I've got Armageddon time fableman's barbarian banshees and then an open 10 slot that i'm trying to figure out i like crimes of the future

i like pearl i liked turning red quite a bit the animated film everything everywhere at once that's a movie i liked okay nobody else here liked that movie i guess uh adam you're on the record about it i and i was not and actually i should say the best thing i saw a year which i are not argued but i couldn't put on because it's not technically a movie but it's more of a movie and other things is the kingdom the large country yeah king king kingdom exodus which is the funniest thing i saw all year and probably you can make a case more of there's a movie than like Irma Vep, which I also loved, which is pretty clearly a TV show. Anyone else watch Kingdom yet or no? No, I actually just revisited the second installment on movie to prepare, but I haven't watched Exodus yet.

It's extremely funny. You will laugh. You spoke to lars i spoke to lars for for for the new yorker which was a pretty big encounter because he's lars von treer and uh you know uh people have been using him as a pretty easy way to take shots at all kinds of bad attitudes and behaviors among certain auteur filmmakers but they will miss him they will miss him when he's gone i think we'll miss you when you're gone adam which is imminently um thank you so much for joining us uh thanks adam you can read adam on the ringer.com among many other places and you can also go to twitter.com and dunk on

him for his sight and sound poll you can hear cr on a myriad of ringer podcasts. The BFI podcast mostly. Oh, interesting. Have you filled in there? Yeah. The John Dielman Show, which is hosted by one straight white man. Peel the potatoes with CR.

Amanda, you're here on The Big Picture. As is Bobby Wagner, our producer, who does such great work on this show. Later this week, special podcast.

Timothy Simons, Tim Simons, our friend and occasional golf partner and aspirant Blu-ray collector is coming on the show to talk to me about Blu-rays. We're going to do like a gift guide kind of episode about men in their 40s buying plastic. And frankly, I'm very excited and I don't even know where it's going to go. We're going to put Tim right in that chair and we're going to say, take us on a journey through plastic. How do you feel about that, Amanda? I'm still disappointed that you are not doing your own version of the Criterion

Closet videos in the ADU, which is what I suggested. But in the see you at the movies voice. Yeah. I've been, I've been, I've pulled that back. Oh, why? I needed to be on the bench for a little while. Okay. Can't let something like that get too big. Yeah. And the Blu-ray tour will happen for charity. Okay. In the next 10 years. Really? Okay. But the highest bidder.

What charity? This is like the Wu-Tang album. One person can come over. Well, maybe not him. But we can't film it. It cannot be filmed. What about on TikTok? And if you come into my home and you film it,

you'll be banished from this podcast. Why are you looking at me? Thanks for listening to The Big Picture. We'll see you later this week. Thank you.