The Big Picture - Top Five Summer 2021 Movies and Everything Sean Missed While He Was Out

Episode Date: August 27, 2021

Sean returns from his break and Amanda runs down the major story lines from the world of movies that he missed (0:31). Then, they share their favorite (and not so favorite) movies of the summer (48:30). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's time for Tim's. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the movies. I'm back. We're back. We did it. We did it.

Mostly you did it. Mostly your wife did it, quite frankly. My wife did everything. I'm back from We're back. We did it. We did it. Mostly you did it. Mostly your wife did it, quite frankly. My wife did everything. I'm back from a parental leave. Thank you so much, Amanda, for waiting out this long summer. Before we get into this conversation today about pretty much everything I've missed while I was gone, I want to start off by saying thank you so much to Brian Raftery for his amazing work on the Gene and Roger series that ran on this feed while I was out. And thank you to everyone who worked on it. Bobby Wagner, our producer on every episode here.

Noah Malalay, Isaac Lee, Craig Gaines, Kellen B. Coates, of course, Amanda, who is a story editor here. If you haven't had a chance to dig into the series this summer, please check it out. I'm sure you will dig it. Just search for Gene and Roger. It'll come up in your feed.

Okay, Amanda, movies. I was watching a lot of movies this summer I'm sure you were I've seen a lot of the movies I haven't been discoursing I haven't been engaging with anyone besides my six-week-old daughter about these movies and frankly she's not a very good conversation partner right now she her takes are weak she's not really ready for the big picture she'll get there it's early I believe in her I believe in her as well her so what did i miss like what should we talk about today you missed everything and nothing um and we'll go through some of it i i kept a list while you were gone and so kind of sweet kind of um just self-tormenting a list of things that were kind of happening that i thought

we might have talked about and instead of texting you while you were like doing important work, raising a child, I just put it in like my weird notes app on my computer. And so I put this list in our document and I'm going to be honest, some of these notes are from like two months ago and I barely remember what they're about. And so we can try to figure that out together but it is like a nice there's a snapshot of all of the talking points and arguments and kind of movie news that happened which as we all know at this point is completely separate from anything to do with like actual movies that were released like the the conversation and the arguing and then the art of movies just two different things.

Just two different tracks. Let's bifurcate this episode then. What we'll do is in the beginning half, we'll talk about the stuff that happened. The discourse that did not take place on this show. And then we'll talk about the movies that came out that are good. And like I said, I've seen almost everything. You've seen almost everything. We'll share what we liked, maybe what we didn't like.

I would say a pretty bad movie summer, all in all, as movie summers go. So probably a little bit more on the we didn't like this. But there was some stuff that I dug. I think there's some stuff that you probably dug too. But from like a storyline perspective in the movie game, like what? Okay, we'll just go in chronological order. Yeah, I got some opinions about some of this stuff. Okay, so here's the first thing that I wrote on my list, which was just ethics in documentary filmmaking.

We're going to launch back into the most accessible topic here in the world of movies. So this is obviously about Roadrunner, the Anthony Bourdain documentary, and the choice by the director, Morgan Neville, to re-record three quotes that he wanted that there were no recordings of them and so he used an AI program and a lot of different recordings of Tony Bourdain's voice in order to simulate these three quotes and and put them in

the movie and then kind of mentioned this offhand in a couple interviews and specifically in New Yorker interview. And then, and then the internet had a lot of opinions. And I don't know if we need to have like a full ethics and documentary filmmaking panel right here. And I, what I was really taken aback by was just the number of people who were able to see this movie versus the number of people who were able to see this movie

versus the number of people who were so angry about this. Because this movie wasn't released online. It was released in theaters. I believe it made like less than $2 million in its opening weekend. No one had seen this movie, but everyone was suddenly like, here's what I have to say about AI. It's just, it's, I don't know. What are your thoughts, Sean? I have a few thoughts about it. One, I spoke to Morgan Neville for this show. I did an interview with him.

I've talked to him a couple of times. I'm a huge fan of his as a filmmaker. I think he's very good at these kinds of films of these sort of like naughty, complex, you know, typically men in the world of the arts or in literature. And I had no idea that he had made this decision when I interviewed him. As you said, I think it was Helen Rosner was the person who wrote the piece for The New Yorker who unearthed this. And then that kind of stoked the debate along the way. I certainly don't think that Morgan Neville's intentions were malicious. There was some confusion, I guess, about who had approved or not approved this decision. There's also a lot of Anthony Bourdain passion and anxiety, I think, loaded into this debate because people have such a big relationship to him.

And also, he was such a rebellious figure and such an unpredictable figure in terms of his relationship to things like technology. I got to say, the story broke two days after my daughter was born. And when it broke, I was like, who could give less of a shit about this than me? Like, is there a single person on earth that cares less? Over time, I've given it a little bit more thought.

I don't have big ethical feelings about either artificial intelligence or the rights of people who are no longer with us when when making a film about them um i do think you know alex winter weighed in a couple of weeks ago the the documentary filmmaker and actor from the bill and ted series he didn't specifically cite roadrunner but he made a point that i thought was kind of interesting which is he noted that documentary is not journalism and you shouldn't look at documentaries as journalism they don't abide by the same ethics and codes and strategies that it's a presentation of ideas and i thought

about that in respect to the ai question i also thought about it in respect to you know the the choice that morgan neville made not to interview azia argento the woman who borgain dated and that has been considered you know controversial and some people don't think that that was a very good choice to not give her a chance to speak for herself. She's kind of cast as a, you know, a villain, really, in many ways in the movie. On the other hand, it's entirely Morgan Neville and the producers of that film's decision, and they're allowed to do that. disagree with the decision to render AI for three sentences that we know Anthony Bourdain believed because he wrote them. But I have a hard time getting my dander up for any of this debate. I think the AI aspect of it really also inflamed people because it was sort of like the robots are taking over or whatever. And frankly, my brain just turns off as soon as someone says AI. It's, it is cool. I suppose that people were starting to examine, okay, what is actually happening in a documentary. And it's not just the facts, but there is perspective and interpretation

and someone's version of something being told to you, which is true in every documentary. And I think perhaps we don't always engage with that as an audience. I just, I only saw the film after all of this. And so I knew that the quotes were coming. And if you know that they're coming, actually, you can pick it out. And I just thought you didn't need it, honestly. And which has less to do with ethics and more to do with, to me, to the extent that that film works. And I think it worked a little less for me than it did for you. But it was about all of the people in Anthony Bourdain's life who were so affected by him trying to figure out what happened and trying to figure out their relationship to him and

what he meant to them. And I think that's also true for a lot of the viewers and fans of Anthony Bourdain. And so to have those quotes in those people's voices themselves, like would have in many ways been more thematically consistent, in my opinion, I just kind of like, you didn't need to create this problem for yourself. But I don't know, I support ethics and documentary filmmaking in general. I think I'm pro ethics and not against them. I like what you said, though, because I think that's the right reading of the movie. This isn't the definitive document of Anthony Bourdain's life. It's shot

through the prism of these people who are still trying to figure out how they feel about having spent this time with him and about his loss. And the people in the movie, you know, his friend, David Cho, the artist, David Chang, our pal here at The Ringer, obviously the producers who worked on his shows over the years, close friends, fellow chefs, all the ringer um obviously the producers who worked on his shows over the years close friends fellow chefs all the people who talked for the documentary are mad and and sad and disturbed and confused and still kind of joyful when reflecting and that's like what the movie is about the movie is about these reactions that morgan was able to elicit from these people while piecing together this sort of like rough chronology

of his life as a well-known famous person and i think it's effective and interesting in that respect but i i i'm not i'm not like interested in the whirlwind of controversy honestly sure i mean and it was it happened so fast and it was so peak internet and this will be a recurring thing is just kind of the separation between the actual things that we're watching and then their performance or extracurricular content around them. It's completely divorced at this point. I mean, it has been for some time, but I think COVID has amplified it, especially as we get into like year two of COVID and we're like, okay, so everyone is really losing their minds every day.

And this is all they have is this discourse about something because they can't see anybody or do anything. I think that that's starting to poison the conversation even further. And I'm trying to do the opposite now. I've fallen prey to this many times on this show and in my life. And I'm actually trying to be like, you know what? This doesn't really matter that much. I need to chill. I mean, God bless. It's so lovely to hear you say that. I do also think that that's just how we've been trained as like content consumers now, which is a grim phrase, but also I mean it as a grim phrase, but you can't just watch the superhero movie now. Then you have to Google for 14 hours and what's

the next thing and how is this product tie in and yada, yada, yada. And we're all guilty of it in our own ways and our own interest levels or areas of interest. But it, this was just a very stark example of, of just the internet wilding out. So what, what, what else happened? What other,

what other movies? Okay. This is, I don't, I don't even have any notes for this. So I just wrote Corpus Energy in Space Jam 2. Gonna be honest with you. I watched about 20 minutes of Space Jam 2. I turned it off

and I don't remember what happened. They're stuck in the video game matrix that is also like Warner Brothers film catalog and they have to defeat people or do a move in order to save themselves but also Bugs Bunny or something. I don't know. You pretty much got it. I think that's how the film was sold, actually, in the room. I think that's how LeBron pitched it, exactly like that. I mean, number one, What on Earth,

which is a recurring theme as well in this podcast. But number two, it was definitely both for Warner Brothers and against Warner Brothers. And I don't understand what the marketing team thought that they were putting out into the world. So I watched this movie. I don't recall if I watched it before or after my daughter was born. But when I watched it, I was like, this is absolute trash. One of the worst movies I've ever seen.

The corporate synergy is obvious. It's almost like it's deeply uninteresting, I think, the way that they kind of worked this whole world

of Warner Brothers into the movies to the point of absurdity. You know, like literally the droogs from A Clockwork Orange are like on the villain side in this movie.

It's straight up stupid. However, one of the first outings that I had with my daughter, just me and her, we went to the farmer's market to get some food. And she's in a small carrier and we're walking around. I'm listening to a podcast. And I was

listening to The Mismatch, our great NBA show with Kevin O'Connor and Chris Vernon. And they reviewed Space Jam A New Legacy. And I was like, I'm glad someone is reviewing this on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm glad somebody watched this movie and they have takes. And Chris Vernon, to his credit, who is a father, was like, here's the thing.

This is a kid's movie. Don't overthink it. Now that's something that you have said on this show many times. I mean, is this how it's going to be going forward? This is amazing. I'd like welcome. Not necessarily.

Maybe I'm just in a good place in my life right now. You are and it's really nice. I don't want to make fun of you. Like let's keep this. I support you. This movie has been I feel that even more deeply that point that Verna was making at after I saw another movie which I we will talk about in depth

as we get further into the show because there are some points of comparison to make between the two but I found this other movie to be even more cynical, even more craven, even more distasteful in a way. Trying to figure out what movie it is. I have softened my take

on Space Jam A New Legacy, which I think is quite poor. Don't get me wrong. From like a critical perspective, I really did not like that movie. Listen, I honestly don't remember what happened in it. So I just am reading the notes that I made that I sort of half remember.

Okay, here's the next one. Black Widow is a success, but also a failure? This is the bigger, this is the big conversation from over the summer. Yeah, well, this dovetails into the next note, which I'll also read. Scarlett Johansson sues, caps Disney for Black Widow back end, which like maybe the back end is not the correct financial term in regards to her agreement, which is its whole can of worms that the many lawyers at Disney and Marvel and Scarlett Johansson's various firms are litigating word by word right now. But she wants more money

from because of box office and because it was released on Disney Plus as well as in theaters. Yeah, I think with a little bit of distance from this, and we talked about the movie before we took a break, the movie actually didn't do that poorly. It did very poorly relative to other MCU entries, and it did not as well as F9. It did not as well as A Quiet Place Part 2. But given the arc of the box office over the last four or five weeks, it seems like it did okay. I thought Chris and Andy had a very thoughtful conversation about this whole hubbub on the watch. Scarlett Johansson obviously is in a position

where she's not coming back to Marvel and she obviously was, it sounds like she was lied to by someone who works fairly high up at Disney about whether her deal would be honored in the way it was originally agreed to. And so that's the,

that's what she's standing on here. The way that Disney conducted itself has been roundly criticized. I think the way that they characterized her, the way that they characterized the pandemic, the fact that no one has a bigger market cap in all of entertainment than Disney and they can afford to pay their talent properly. I, than Disney and they can afford to pay their talent properly. Do you think that this is ultimately correlated to the box office or about something about because it feels like no one knows how to act in the world of movies right now.

Do you know what I mean? It feels like producers don't know how to act. It feels like people don't know how to make deals. It feels like people don't know how to watch movies or when to see them. It feels like this is just a little tiny symptom, like a pimple on the back knee of flux that is movie going, movie watching, movie making. I think that's true. But I think for movie stars and for talent, this is kind of the summation of all of their anxieties over the last couple of years and things going forward.

Because the trades had a field day for this. I've just read a lot of content and a lot of anonymous lawyers just talking to good for them, you know, get those hours. I wonder who they're billing them to, but, but it, it seems like this case itself is kind of a product of a very specific moment in time, right? Like this deal was made obviously before the pandemic and thus really obviously before the full switch to we don't know how we're going to release and like exclusive theater is not the only option that we're considering. And so the deals were not in place.

And the word exclusive is not in Scarlett Johansson's contract, which may come back to bite her or to bite her lawyers, in the way that it just will be going forward because everyone's finally accepted the new reality, or the new realities is the case maybe. So in that sense, it seems like very specific and kind of applies to anyone in this middle zone who had a movie that was affected, who didn't get the, it's okay, we'll just give you $25 million that Warner Brothers gave, or presumably that Paramount gave to John Krasinski and Emily Blunt. Or if they didn't give them money, they gave them a guarantee of something else. Because there were rumors of discontent. Pretty much

everybody who had their movie moved from movie theaters exclusively to streaming and movie theaters. And most people got some sort of financial accommodation, according to the reporting. And it seems like Disney was like, no. And it seems like Disney didn't want to do that, possibly for precedent and possibly just because they were feeling a little Disney and feeling themselves in their market share the statement that they released was um quite personal it was hostile yes it was hostile very quick and so it but I do think in terms of how the deals get put together going forward, it seems like it's a big deal. And it seems like other talent and producers are looking at what happens here and how it's negotiated as a way to try to figure out how to protect their interests.

And listen, you may not care about whether movie stars are making $20 million or $70 million on a movie. And I mean, it's really hard to care given the state of the world, but just in terms of what movie stars can get, how these things are put together going forward and thus how people decide to do these sorts of movies, it seems significant. I late, at least it seems like a lot of people are watching. Yeah, it's, it's, I think you're right that it is one part precedential and one part snapshot of a moment in time, that there is all this carryover stuff based on everything that was negotiated two, three, four years ago.

But also, how people are compensated for their work in the streaming world is unsettled, especially with the rise of a handful of new services in the aftermath of Netflix. Netflix has always been very clear. It's been all upfront. There's no revenue generation. There's no backend. There's no international. There's no DVD. All that money that people like Scarlett Johansson, who have been in Hollywood for 20 plus years, have grown accustomed to receiving and has been shrinking over time, that money's gone. You got to negotiate for your dollar right away. Day and date is a weird thing. The idea of a movie opening in your house

and also in movie theaters at the same time is confusing. It's been confusing even trying to figure out why some movies have succeeded in that format, why Godzilla vs. Kong worked as a day and date release and made money at the box office, but the Suicide Squad did not. I actually, I don't have a really good feel for that. I think- I have some thoughts on that, but we can save them.

Okay. I think the other thing that's notable here is like ScarJo is probably one of the few serious, well-known actors in America who could make a move like this. It's also a pretty risky move on her part. I saw a lot of comparisons to what olivia de havelin did to kind of break up the studio monopoly and the way that they controlled um actress careers you know decades and decades ago and she was a trailblazer in many ways but also was blacklisted by some after that because what she did was considered um an affront to the structure of hollywood you know in all likelihood that this case is not going to trial. They're going to, they're going to find a way to settle. It's also not shocking

to me that Emma Stone came to a very healthy deal for Cruella too. I mean, that was a week after the reports quote leaked that she was considering also suing Disney, which those reports came from her just so you know, and you know what to Emma Stone who I love well good move good move um well I mean we'll see what happens but also I feel like the MCU is now like on to their next generation they're all you know we'll talk about Shang-Chi in the future we'll talk about Eternals these are all new characters they're they're evolving what their brand is and Scarlett Johansson knows that Black Widow is almost certainly not going to be a part of that brand so she took a shot, I suppose. What else?

What else happened? All right. This next one is all caps. The House of Gucci trailer! Oh, my God. I only care about this movie. I was honestly in a pretty dark place. And I was just like, I don't know what to do about movies. I'm really worried about movies.

It's really tough. And then this came out um and just the life force became rushing through me again and i i have to be honest i really did consider doing an emergency house of gucci trailer episode with chris chris was on vacation chris was still on vacation it was also released during an nba finals game yeah so and then i was going on vacation, like literally the next day. And I believe that Bobby was on vacation. So I, and the other thing is that I think like, probably we would have been sued by Italy by the time it was done, you know? And I just like, I want to say right now, before this fall, I respect and love Italy and the people of Italy and Italian Americans. And it was not my

idea for Chef Boyardee to star in this movie in the role of every single person in the house of Gucci. But like, there we are. So I'm sorry for any disrespect. It's that is it's not it's not you. It's the movie and it's Lady Gaga's accent. But I don't care. I can't wait, Sean. I can't wait. You just music is importanted Italy. You just said we love and appreciate Italy as a nation state. I really do love and appreciate Italy.

And if like as some sort of, you know, kind of exchange cultural understanding or like reparations program, the big picture wants to me to italy for the fall just to learn and report back and be like you know whatever the house of gucci says italy we respect you i'm really willing to do that i'm available does okay this is an important question about this trailer which i also greatly enjoyed it's uh it was a big old honey baked ham it's clear everybody in this movie like, it is time that we go for it. And we're going to slather on the camp. Does Lady Gaga think that Italy is in Russia? I don't know.

I don't know. She's Italian American. She actually is. She talks about it all the time in interviews. And as I said to like, listen, this accent is so bad that i'm going to be able to do voice work okay like father son and house of gucci i can do it too this is amazing

it's it's pretty strange though that she is doing rasputin i i i found that pretty fascinating um in addition to that i did not expect jared leto to look like this you know i did not expect the costume to be so extravagant yeah well come on it's about gucci which which is the nice part of this like i i don't know if this movie is going to be good it might not be good and that's okay but just like movie stars doing frankly like frivolous kind of scandal salacious escapist going for it. Big ticket nonsense. I need that. We're not getting any of that in the movies.

So, I mean, why are all of them doing weird Italian? Like English accents, you know, they could just be, it doesn't make any sense. It makes no sense,

but they're all except for Adam driver, maybe on the same page. And I love it. I like the idea of Adam Driver doing a very reserved interior performance in this movie with like 14 people putting on the clown paint. There's something appealing about that. Let me just point something out to you. House of Gucci comes out on November 24th.

Peter Jackson's The Beatles Get Back comes out on November 25th. Paul Thomas Anderson's Soggy Bottom comes out on November 26th. That's three days in a row that are... I mean, that's my Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year's Eve all wrapped up in one. Well, that is also actually Thanksgiving, right? That's the Thanksgiving weekend. And so instead of speaking with family members, we'll watch all six hours of Peter Jackson's Beatles documentary, which we are treating as a movie.

They may not take it back from us. That's right. Like Chris doesn't care. Chris doesn't like the Beatles. So it won't be on the watch. It will be here on the big picture as an extended movie. The only time I will forgive breaking time limits. And it's fine.

It's just a holiday extravaganza. Just give me a good movie at this point or a movie I care about. I don't care if they're stacked up. We got to figure out something fun to do for House of Gucci because I think it's fine. It's just a holiday extravaganza. Just give me a good movie at this point or a movie I care about. I don't care if they're stacked up. We got to figure out something fun to do for House of Gucci because I think it's going to be a blast. Even if it's bad, who cares? Ridley Scott tends to rise and fall with the strength of his script. If he has a good script, he tends to make masterpieces.

If he has a bad script, the movies tend to not work. So this will be interesting. What else? This next thing you have here i also have a lot of opinions about so i'm intrigued to discuss this with you and this a little bit i'm alighting some things here frankly because i don't know what to say and this also does have to do with the movie itself so i'm just i wrote down these notes and we can discuss as much as you want or save it. So Stillwater slash Amanda Knox and also Matt Damon, which was a press cycle that I was on vacation for.

Okay. And I have to say, I was glad to be on vacation because that was just, it was not a great press cycle. It was confusing and dispiriting and very media-y in a way that I don't really have anything to add. Well, I mean, the Stillwater thing

is a little bit difficult to talk about if people haven't seen the movie. Right. It's now available to be rented on Amazon and iTunes and such. Obviously, Amanda Knox, who was accused of heinous crime many years ago while living in Europe

and has since been exonerated and now lives in the United States took issue with it because of some, it, the film resembles some of the beats of her life. And she pointed that out. And, and has also been whether or not Tom McCarthy, the director has been selling it as such in the pieces covering it has been compared to the shorthand

is an American Amanda Knox saga. And so her name has been sort of attached to it without her involvement. Yeah. The movie wasn't marketed that way, but if you've seen it, it's unmistakable by the time you get to the end of this movie, this is like a fascinating movie to talk about. I don't know when would be the right time to talk about it because I don't know when people will see it. It did modest business at the box office. It's a Matt Damon movie. It's immensely watchable. Parts of it are interesting and well-made. There are other parts of it that I found to be among the worst and most infuriating movie making in a while. It's a really, really mixed bag, and it feels like eight different people made it.

Did you, did you like it? No, I thought it was very watchable. I mean, I think Tom McCarthy for the most part makes really watchable movies. I was completely baffled by it. I was,

and especially baffled by the Matt Damon of it all, which is separate from, you know, whatever press he got into. But I just thought it was a very strange choice and performance from him. Do you think he was miscast? Either he was miscast or I don't, I don't know what that character is. So that's the other issue. And that does actually become an issue because to the extent that this movie is a character study, I'm really not sure what it was studying, but the parts of it are like very engaging.

You want to know what happens. It was a little, I was surprised at what happened and I was touched by parts of it. I, we put this in the movies we like and don't like, and I had another thing that I'll just do here. So my other review of this is just that I watched call my agent this summer,

finally, which I really recommend. And Camille camille katen who is this star well she's in a major part of stillwater and a star of comma agent is fantastic so my review is just watch call my agent instead if you haven't she's wonderful in stillwater i mean just very briefly stillwater is a story about a roughneck from oklahoma who uh whose daughter has been arrested and convicted of a crime while living in Marseille. And so he travels to visit her and to help her with the, you know, her attempts to change her circumstances to,

you know, perhaps get exonerated for a crime. And he comes to spend more and more time in Marseille. And the film transitions from a sort of like serious issues oriented drama to kind of like a love story, slice of life, European dramedy into a thriller. And it's a real Frankenstein movie that's kind of all over the place. And I found to be pretty much totally effective for the first hour and 45 minutes. And then I just despised the like final aspects of the movie. I just didn't think it worked.

I thought it was ill conceived. And I thought Matt Damon was okay. I didn't think he was bad. I think he was trying really hard for a part that he probably shouldn't have been playing. That's like John C. Riley would have been much more well suited to because you're watching the movie and you're like, you're Jason Bourne. Like you are not this guy and you can't convince me that you are this guy,

but he tried. He tried. I, I just also, I don't know what the movie thought that guy was. And I, I don't understand that character. I,

but I thought the middle part when they're in Marseille and just doing like a nice family drama. He was very lovely. That was great. They maybe should have considered carving that out into its own little standalone because it might've worked better. Okay. What's next.

Okay. The suicide squad tanks in theaters. I don't know why this happened. I'm delighted. So I'll just go ahead and say, I have not seen the suicide squad and I don't play it too, but I made it like a pretty conscious decision to not see it. Once I realized I didn't have to

because no one really saw it in theaters and the people who watched it at home and streaming that's great for them but they didn't really make a huge fuss about it and I was just kind of like oh this is niche entertainment for people who care about it and I don't have to care about it anymore so I'm not going to. And I think that's a disaster for Warner Brothers and for people who are trying to still make billions and billions of dollars off of superhero movies. But maybe for the rest of us, it's great because I think you sort of liked this movie, right? I liked it a lot. It's interesting the way that you're framing that, right? Because it's obviously it was not a success at the box office

relative to the IP, the filmmaker, James Gunn, the Warner Brothers slate. It's a DC movie. It's got a huge budget, all that stuff. It didn't do well at all. But did it drive a lot of subs to HBO Max? I don't know. The movie was only released three weeks ago.

But if it did, and it's possible that it did, and it's possible that a lot of people watched it there, then maybe it's a success. And maybe for a movie like this, which on the one hand is technically the most popular subgenre of movies of all time at the moment, but also is kind of niche. The Suicide Squad is the second film that has a very similar title connected to a film that was considered widely unsuccessful and critically lambasted, but also made $800 million at the box office. And now this movie, which has gotten great reviews,

has 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, and people seem to like, basically bombed at the box office. So you've got these two opposing kind of reputations and layers of success or not success in the world of movies. And it's like,

it's kind of confusing to figure out like what happened here. I'll be interested to see if say in the next like Warner Brothers earnings, if they're like HBO Max grew by 10 million subscribers

and the Suicide Squad is the most watched movie in the history of the platform because that seems plausible. But if they don't't say that that means that the movie is like an all-time bomb if they do say that that's great because what that means is that they figured out to make something for the fans and just get it to the fans and the rest of us like honestly don't have to be bothered and that i mean that probably that has negative ramifications in the sense that you know it's more likely that warner brothers will just make

movies that i don't care about for teenage boys and release them straight to streaming services but number one they were always going to sort of do that and number two at least we're you know being up front and we're not having to jam it into everything else because i'm not interested it's definitely not a movie that you're going to enjoy the reason that i liked it is because it felt much more true to the movies that i had hoped james gunn would make when he first started making independent movies which is to say it's not doesn't have that like marvel we're all just friends here, Sheen. It's like a pretty nasty, violent, goofy, strange exploitation movie

that just so happens to have this kind of like veneer of high budget comic book franchisery to it. But you know, it's also, it's a lark. It's like, it's not an important movie. It's not something that is like utterly meaningful to the culture. And you're right, this could be a signal of this thing that seemed indestructible. And the low box office of Black Widow is very much the same.

It's like this thing that we've been talking about over the last few years. At some point, superhero movies will not be the center of the culture. At some point, something else will come into its place in the movie and the world of television. I don't know what that's going to be. It will still probably be something for teen boys. It usually is things for teen boys. It has been for the last 35 years in Hollywood. But this indicates something is amiss. Something is softening. And maybe that means that everything gets to be sort of, forgive the phrase, but more quarantined where it's like, this is over here for this audience and this is over here and call my agent is over here for Amanda. And all of these other things

are, you know, it's all about parceling people into their own little boxes. No, it's really good. I've heard, I've heard it's, it's not about movies, but it is sort of about movies. Um, I mean, it's obviously just makes agents look like nice people, which, you know, your mileage may vary on that, but it's, it. I actually do recommend it. And it in some ways felt like I was kind of more in the world of movies and loving movies than I would have been if I watched Suicide Squad. I will check it out as soon as I finish my Sopranos rewatch, which is going so swimmingly. Okay. Everybody, I just want you to know that Bobby Wagner is finishing the Sopranos this weekend. And specifically, all he has is the finale left.

And he was a child when the finale originally came out. And he doesn't know what happened. Bobby, don't look at your mentions because people are evil and they're going to screw it up now. But I'm so excited for Bobby. I want you all to know what's happening for Bobby in the next 48 to 72 hours. It's really exciting.

It actually is a cultural miracle that Bobby doesn't know what happened. I mean, again, he was like 11. So that's cool. And we're happy for him. And but like, I know what happened at the end. I don't know.

What's something that you always knew what happened? You know, I don't know what happened at the end of MASH. That's sort of like a famous ending, right? I think it's more just the fate, like a famous finale because of how many people watched it. I don't know if the ending was actually well there's a war end how does mash in

i don't i don't know there are a lot of things in the 70s and 80s i don't know who shot jr you know like that's a different thing um but so it's you just don't wasn't it all a dream the who shot jr wasn't that i don't know i don't know. Should we do a Dallas pod? Dallas rewatch pod? It might honestly be really fun. Anyway, Bobby, I'm excited for you. Don't look at the internet until you watch the finale. That's incredible that you put that out in the world. Bobby, you got to watch this fucking fast before you post this episode.

I want people to support Bobby. And then he'll watch Casablanca, okay? Did anything else happen? I'm trying to think if there's anything that I missed that I want to talk to you about. Like my last entry is just, uh, movies because it, the storm clouds are gathering for the fall, both in terms of the Delta variant and theaters and are things going to be released? I, Sean, I'm sorry to break it to you and to Miles Suri that Venom might not be coming out in the fall of 2021. I don't know what's up with that.

Those are just rumors. A lot of confusion about that right now. So they moved it back to October 15th. I and Miles Suri and a handful of other people in the known universe enjoy the Venom movies. There was a rumor that it was going to be pushed into January 22nd, 2022. But then, you know, the incredible reception

to the Spider-Man No Way Home trailer, which I feel like, I'm just speculating, but I feel like it's going to ultimately be related somehow. Yeah, obviously. Maybe they shouldn't. Right there in the dumb movie. But the fact that that's going to happen means maybe Venom has to come first. You know what I'm saying? Like, this stuff is all on this, like, daisy chain. And now, because of that Spider-Man trailer, like, they got to release that movie in December because people are losing, they're literally losing their minds.

It's now the most watched trailer in the history of movies online, which is really saying something. So given the anticipation for that, we'll see if it moves. But in general, you're right. I mean, No Time to Die is still on the schedule. Top Gun, Maverick is still on schedule.

CinemaCon is happening right now. And the studios are showing their films to exhibitors. It could happen. And there are movies that I'm'm excited about i think there's just kind of the uncertainty mixed with you know our general fatigue of you know everything it's been a long time mixed with i think we're we're running out of good movies like there's not a lot left in the can for them to to really give us and it does feel like this summer was a bad summer in large part because we got a lot of things that they're like, we don't care. We'll just give this to you now because it's not that good.

It did feel a little bit like lambs to slaughter at times. There was a little bit of like, you know what? Let's just put Reminiscence out on August 20th and just let it die. That movie, that's an $80 million sci-fi movie starring Hugh Jackman. It made $2 million last weekend. I mean, that's astonishingly bad. Now, obviously, we're going through a global pandemic. And so there's a reason why a movie like that, which is an original story that's confusing and science fiction and a little hard to explain, yada, yada, yada.

But that is scary. And it's also on HBO Max. It just is. And I don't know how often you've been going to the theaters this summer. I've gone, I think twice since, uh, since my daughter was born. I as well have gone twice and I've been trying to pick, you know, mid afternoon kind of abandoned times. I went at 9am both times. I went at 1pm to Pasadena to see Respect the Aretha Franklin biopic and not only were there

more people than I expected but it was primarily people who I think would qualify for the seniors discount refusing to wear their masks and coughing

and I was like what the hell I'm getting out of here so I haven't seen a lot of old people in the movie theater but maybe maybe that's partly the movies I've been seeing.

I mean, it is also, I went to Pasadena, you know, like never forget murder on the, not on the, yes. Murder on the Orient express,

um, where we brought the age group down by like 50 years. But I, I have been like, yay movies. And it was so exciting to be back. And then my experience has been like a little, I don't know. And it feels like other people might be having some of that experience or then it's combined with it's just so much easier for me to watch this at home plus there's

nothing that you really have to see in theaters yeah it's been a it's been a pretty radical um i don't know it's been a significant difference between going to screenings too, because the screenings that I've gone to, the handful that I've gone to in the last couple of weeks, you need to present your vaccination card. Every single person is wearing a mask. There's significant social distancing in these screenings. Now, obviously, that's a benefit that we have of working in the industry and getting to see these films in this way. But the movies that I bought and paid for is almost the exact opposite. Actually, let me give you a very quick story

about my Stillwater experience. Stillwater is one of the movies I saw in theaters that I paid for. The other is Free Guy. Classic. I wanted to talk about it on a podcast. So I went to go see Stillwater at a small theater in Burbank.

And I sat down and it was a fairly small theater, probably had fewer than 60 seats and they were lounger seats. And you can reserve your seat ahead of time. So I reserved my seat. I tried to pick a spot with not a lot of people around me. And I did. And I sat down in the movie and it was an AMC theater.

So there were 25 minutes of advertisements and trailers ahead of time, which is not something I love. And we got all the way through all the trailers and the three seats to my left were empty and I was sitting at the end of the row. And just as the titles came up, a fellow beelined directly for the seat right next to me.

The man sits down and he's got a giant popcorn and a giant soda. And he's a very trim, young, energetic fellow, sits down next to me, removes his mask, and for the next 40 minutes, shoveled popcorn into his head metronomically, which is to say he ate at the same pace and speed for 40 minutes. I know what a metronome is. Bite, bite, bite, bite, bite, bite, bite. It was psycho behavior and so distracting. And also, you know, like we were saying before, we're like, I'm not

socialized anymore. I'm not used to being around total strangers, especially not total strangers who are eating and don't have a mask on. And I'm watching a movie that is pretty frustrating. So that's also something that like for someone like me, I'm like, do I want to go to the movies and have this experience when I could just wait an extra two weeks and see Stillwater in my house? People are making that distinction right now, right? I mean, I certainly am. And I don't want to pretend like I'm a saint who just sits there. I definitely, when I went to see Old, got popcorn.

I got a giant soda. That theater was pretty empty. And so I was able to, you know know like you're on the plane which I've now done once and was really intense in the mask yeah you know you do the popcorn and I was like trying to be good about it but I'm a human being too there but there is a difference between the people who are pretty like flagrantly not abiding the spirit of the thing and then I you feel so bad because what are you supposed to do like pull in a poor theater worker who's just like has had two years of total job instability and is just like trying to not die at work yeah

i'm not no of course not but then what else are you supposed to do i mean but and at some point it just seems not worth it right yeah it's just like going to a store the vagaries of human interaction you know going to the grocery store or something like that you're just like i can't believe i have to be near this person yeah um and that's probably only going to get worse there were only really a handful of movies that um you couldn't see at home that were not available on hbo max or not available on paramount plus or any number of places and those were mostly universal movies like we're saying you know still water and old old one of the reasons I went to go see Old is because I read, and I don't know if this is true, but I read that M. Night Shyamalan

financed a significant portion of that film and thus had say-so over what the window for the movie would be, which means that it may be a significantly longer period of time before it's made available on premium video on demand. Unlike Stillwater, unlike even Free Guy, I imagine we'll see Free Guy made available on premium video on demand fairly soon. Old, they made it wait 90 days. And that's the other thing that's happened, I guess, is that the theaters have come to some agreements with some of the studios now where they're saying like, okay, we're locked into a 45-day window now. A couple of studios have now agreed to that window,

which seems a little nutty to me because if the box office keeps up at this pace, a 45-day window is a long time. On the flip side, HBO Max is still removing all of its movies after a month. So I really did,

before this podcast, try to go back and at least re-watch part of Space Jam to be like, what does this cryptic note mean and i was not able to do that thank you to all the people who really recapped it at great length so the wikipedia page is the most confusing thing i've ever read in my

entire life but it how are you there is no coherent way to know how you're able to see a movie right now there's like no logic in any of it and And I don't think it's serving anybody, right? Because you're just kind of guessing all the time, like, oh, this will be available. And there are a lot of competing interests. I'd super understand that. But it does seem like it would be in everybody's best interest to just have a little bit more order around it, at least in terms of like when you open the streaming service and be like, okay, what's new? What's actually available? What is this? It's very confusing. My new obsession is tracking what movies are going to be leaving the service at the end of

the month. So I make sure I watch it before it leaves because I don't know when any of these things are ever coming back. Here's what I thought was going to happen. I thought Paramount Plus and HBO Max and all these other services were going to launch. And then they were just going to happen i thought paramount plus and hbo max and all these other services were going to launch and then they were just going to be like here's our library here are all the movies that we have but they're like they're not doing that they're giving you the movie the old movie the movie from 1982 or 1957 and they're like here check out pt 109 this this incredible artifact of studio filmmaking but watch it now because we're taking it off in 30 days. Why? Why are they, is that in an attempt to avoid churn? Like, why are they taking off these

library essentials when they could just say full time, we have this amazing library for you to watch at any time? I literally don't get it. I have no idea, especially because like the only people who are really going to, for whom that's going to be a selling point is you. Yes. And you just believe in having access to everything and having the archive and having the physical DVD copy and just knowing you can watch it whenever. That's completely right. I mean, if it's in an effort to continue to get me to buy Blu-rays, I guess it's working. But all it does is create a sense of impermanence to the entire history of movies.

And I was hoping we were going in the other direction, you know, and not to keep for Spotify. And there is a whole aspect of, of that business that is complex too. And that has certainly has flaws and has their big debates about it. But one thing that's so fascinating about Spotify is like, if the music is licensed to the service,

it's all there. They don't say like, you know what, let's take Drake's Take Care off for six months and see what people say that's like me with this sign angrily at our own office just being like give me back yeah that would suck we would have to call Daniel I can speak with him about that but you know that's a key distinction between the way that the the bigger music services are happening and these essentially tribal studio assets that Universal and Warners and all of these companies have not consolidated. In many ways, it's so confusing to know where to go for them and most people are like it's a it's eroding movie culture ultimately that's the thing is it's eroding the sense that this stuff is important that's the problem because

if there's nothing keeping you nothing incentivizing you to seek it out and then it just disappears again it just less people know about it and you and i know about it and stress about it but like you know most of my friends just like haven't seen a movie in six months yeah they just don't care like my dad just doesn't care and he used to care and so that that's a fascinating thing that's been happening it doesn't mean that good stuff isn't being made though maybe that's a chance to kind of transition into what if anything we liked this summer. There has been some stuff. Most of the stuff that I've liked

has been small stuff. Very, very few franchise stuff. I did really like The Suicide Squad, as I said. I think that there was a really, really good conversation about that movie on the ringerverse with Mallory and Van and Charles.

I would encourage people to seek that out. I thought they really kind of like dug into what works and what does not work about it. And Charles very reliably noted some of the things that don't work about it. So if you want to hear more about that, I would encourage people to listen.

What did you like? Was there anything that really stood out to you? Well, you made this list and I mostly agree with it. I'm going to go down your list. We're going to start with The Green Knight, which I think was probably like the best movie that I saw. I would like everyone at A24 to know that I ultimately spent $60 watching this movie.

What? Because, goddammit, if you guys want to send me some money back. I was not, this was not one that I made to see in theaters. And then A24 made it available for one night. And I was like, oh, that's good. Then I can just see it at home and I won't have to worry about the you know elderly of Pasadena and then um I started it late and I'll just be really honest like the Green Knight is beautifully made and and interesting and looks beautiful but the the pacing is not, you know, Suicide Squad, which I'm just guessing.

I haven't even seen Suicide Squad. And like, I just, my husband was also really into it. God, Zach loved this movie so much. And Zach also just spent the first hour being like, Dev Patel is the most handsome man alive. Which like, is definitely true. I don't really quibble with that statement. But I was just really surprised to learn how much Zach felt that, which is great. I learned a little bit more about Zach's taste, I guess.

Anyway, so Zach had to leave. So we stopped. And that meant that I lost that. That was our viewing window for the first night. So we go back the next night to finish Green Night. We're going to give it another 20 bucks. But then Zach rented the 4HD or what is it? 4K.

4K, the 4K. 4K UHD. And I just, we have the TV, we have the cord, we have the right Apple box and it just wasn't working. It was glitching. We have all of the cords, but it was just not where we needed to be. So then we said,

like in the NASA control room right now, we have all the cords, the cords are attached. And so then we rented the regular. So that took the total up to $60 for Dev Patel, most handsome man alive. So I really, I think I admired this movie more than I enjoyed it.

I thought it was very interesting and cool. It did kind of meander a bit for me. And I think I admired this movie more than I enjoyed it. I thought it was very interesting and cool. It did kind of meander a bit for me. And I think my thing ultimately is like, if this movie is just kind of not even on the fringe, but you know, like a small wonder for people to discover while also getting to see all the other delights of cinema, then that's amazing.

But it like bearing the brunt of like the quote best movie released in the summer, which I don't know if it's the best, but one of the best. That's a lot for it to carry. Do you know what I mean? And that's not even that it's not deserving, but it's just kind of like,

I don't know if that's how we're going to get everyone back to movies. Yeah. In my like sad lizard brain letterbox experience, I noted this a couple of times last year, but I just didn't think that there were any quote unquote five star movies last year. And there have not been any five star movies this year either.

That includes big expensive studio movies. And it also includes smaller independent stuff. I don't think the green night is a five-star movie either, but it is a four-star movie. It's incredibly well-made. It's from a filmmaker who I really admire. I think even its meandering is very purposeful and is part of the kind of confusing...

Yes, sort of like what is my life and what am I supposed to be doing with myself and why do I feel so to be doing with myself and why am i so um why do i feel so destined to not figure things out is sort of like a big part of the interpretation of the sir gowan uh you know chivalric poem that lowry's uh interpreting but to me it's much more i did see this movie in a movie theater and it's an amazing movie theater movie it's so gorgeous it's shot so beautifully the costumes are incredible it's a amazing movie theater movie. It's so gorgeous. It's shot so beautifully. The costumes are incredible. It's a movie that was not made for a shitload of money.

And it looks like it was made for a lot more money than it was. You know, I think it was shot in Ireland. And the landscapes are so incredible. You know, I think Lowry is taking some storytelling liberties and maybe trying to push the envelope in some ways that is not going to work for some people not just in terms of the pace but like the choices that the character is making who the dev patel character is and how he doesn't conform to what our expectations are of an arthurian hero um but i still i still liked it and it's the kind of movie that i it is very much in the in the realm of movies i wish there were more of you You know, I wish that there were more movies that were trying to push the envelope of genre,

trying to like redefine genre instead of being stuck to, you know, Guy Ritchie's King Arthur, for example, which is like, you know, trying to commoditize and MCUSI something that we already understand yeah it hadn't even really occurred to me that this would be like a fan culture type artifact that then fans could get mad about because that's not how it is in the canon or whatever although obviously like

arthurian legend is in many ways the original canon and just get at me if you want to talk about the formative experience that was Mists of Avalon. But, like, do you know about Mists of Avalon? No. Yeah, that's kind of like how... Is that a romantic novel about Arthurian times? It's an erotic novel about... Yes, I do know it.

Like, for some reason, a lot of young women ages, I don't know, 10 to 13, it's like a core text. Gotcha. At least for my generation. But, I mean, you, 10 to 13. It's like a cortex. Gotcha. At least for my generation. But I mean, you're right that it is genre and has a lot of precedent in that way. And I think that's one of its achievements that it completely exists or creates its own world that is in conversation with all of that stuff, but on its own terms. I just, I think that's what's great

about it. And then I was also like, this isn't the most accessible movie, which it doesn't need to be, except if you're in the position of just being like, hey, movies are still cool. Check this out. You know, do you know what I mean? I do. That's a big burden for it. Yes, exactly. And it has nothing to do with the movie itself, but just kind of the film landscape. Yeah, I think we wouldn't even necessarily be putting it in those terms if we had been podcasting for the last two months. You know, like if we had just been doing shows,

we wouldn't be like, God. But then when you look at this list that I've made of movies, and once we get past like the third or fourth movie, even then it's kind of like a little bit of a tepid endorsement on some of the stuff that we'll talk about. Yeah.

Can I just tell you my story of the Night House really quickly? Sure. Have you had a chance to see this? No. Okay. I would not recommend it for you. It's not, I haven't seen it, but I'm excited for you. This is a film that debuted at Sundance 2020, which you and I attended and I didn't get a chance to see it. In fact, Chris Ryan saw the movie there and he liked it. And for whatever reason, I just didn't get around to it. I missed a couple of screenings. I ultimately got a link on July 11th. Okay. So I understand the significance of that date. Yes. So our daughter was born on July 13th and I had not watched the link. And I actually got an email from the publicist while we were in the hospital.

You know, when you have a child, you sleep overnight in the hospital, at least I did. And at a certain point after you've had a kid, you realize just like how utterly powerless you are in the world. And like the amount of things that I didn't know about how to look after a child and also what to do with myself when not looking after the child. Right. Was incredible.

So it's three o'clock in the morning. I can't sleep because I'm on like a reclining chair. Oh no, you did not watch this in the chair, did you? And I watched it in the chair. Oh my God. Within 24 hours of my child's birth. And this is a very upsetting movie. This is on par with watching,

what's the terrible J.D. Vance? I was just thinking that. Thank you for knowing that I was going to be like, is this better or worse than when you watched Hillbilly Elegy on election day 2020? Very similar vibes. Just for anyone who doesn't know, The Night House is ostensibly a horror movie

about a woman who has lost her husband and then feels a kind of like haunting and as she tries to piece together what happened to her husband and it is a on the one hand very supernatural movie on the other hand very sort of like grief defined portrait of someone in the aftermath of tragedy and rebecca hall is wonderful in this movie it's a very very, sometimes very hard to watch movie. It has some twists and turns. This was not the right movie to watch in the hospital at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Oh, my God. I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know. Once I was like 68 minutes in, I was like, well, I can't turn around now, even though all I want to do is not be doing this. I watched it on an iPad, which is not something that I like to do.

Nevertheless, I got to the end of it and I was like, that was a very strong film. And if it wasn't, you would know because I was pretty nervous and scared and confused and frustrated. But I did watch a movie that day. That's technically my daughter's first movie, I guess, even though she was mostly being cared after by nurses

who knew how to swaddle and change diapers and all the things that I didn't know how to do. And to protect her from what was happening on your iPad screen. Correct. I did wear AirPods, if that's okay. That's good. I'm horrified by that story, but it's okay. I've seen photos of her since she's doing okay. She's great. She's thriving. We're going to keep her far away from the night house going forward. The next movie is probably the number one movie people asked me to talk about on Twitter. That makes total sense.

I don't know if you watched Pig. I did. Pig is, there's a phenomenon among what seems like a certain type of man, I would say. Perhaps I'm one of those men. I actually watched Pig before I took a break. And I was, I would say, distracted by the imminent arrival of my child. And so I don't think I really locked into it.

I was trying to, you and I, you remember, we were, you and I were both very, very busy. Trust me, I remember that period. I'll never forget it. Very hectic. So anyway, I revisited the movie, especially because people were asking, like, have you seen this?

Why don't you talk about this? When are you going to talk about it on the pod? I rewatched it and I thought it was absolutely amazing. It's a story about a, I guess, retired chef played by Nicolas Cage who has devolved into a kind of hermetic lifestyle where he spends all of his time with his truffle pig who finds truffles on their daily trips. And then he sells those truffles to, I guess, rare foods dealers. And then his pig is pignapped and he goes on a quest to rescue his pig. That sounds like a fun,

rollicking adventure movie. And that's not what this is. Right. It's not a Liam Neeson movie, but with a pig. Not at all. It's much more grim and deliberate and mournful and strange but I will say I think incredibly well made I was kind of blown away I've never heard of the filmmaker Michael Sarnosky I'm going to talk to him next week on the show because I just

was so impressed by what he did the Nicolas Cage thing too your mileage may vary on Nicolas Cage I think he his version of acting works one out of every four movies at this point in his career, but this was one that worked for me. What did you make of it? Yeah. It's like a nice addition to the Anguish Chef genre, of which there have been many at this point.

And in many ways, slightly less ridiculous. We won't be making any like pig jokes the way we made burnt joke that's right what 10 years and running that's right it's significantly better than burnt yeah um i liked the nick cage performance a lot and i like it obviously the entire movie depends on it because it's him going through this like portland food world that I think some parts parts are portrayed kind of more interestingly than others but he's like quiet presence in all of it he really picks a tone and maintains it the whole way and it's it's very impressive I agree it's so funny too because I've watched a couple of movies with him this year I think Prisoners of the Ghost Land was one at

Sundance and then there was um one about like a chucky cheese-esque like a horror movie that he appeared in both of which were not very good movies and featured performances by him that i thought were kind of all over the place and it feels like a feat of not just his ability as an actor because we know that when nicholas cage is on he's like legitimately can be the greatest actor in the world, but that he also, he swings so wildly that if he swings wrong, he reminds me of the, the active New York Met shortstop slash second baseman, Javi Baez,

who was acquired at the trade deadline. We weren't going to talk about this. I thought the season was done and you guys were just moving on. You were healthy and exploring other passions. I haven't really been leaving my house. I've never watched more Mets baseball in my life. This is the worst movie I've seen in my 39 years of life. This is the worst season I've watched. I'm miserable. Anyway, I bring up Javi Baez because he either dramatically and aggressively strikes out or dramatically and aggressively hits a home

run that changes my life. And yeah that's kind of that's kind of nick cage and in this case i think you're right i think he chose a speed tempo a kind of like a stillness that works really really well they really build a whole movie around it's pretty amazing very cool movie so you know i'll talk to sarnoski hopefully next week about it on the show speaking of revisiting movies i revisited codaoda, which I watched out of Sundance, which I didn't like, which I was like, this is sappy,

dramedy, Sundance crap. And then we had a baby and then I watched Coda and I was like, all movies about daughters are the best films ever made. Oh my God.

I can't believe that this is your girl dad moment. I really wanted us to do like another Molly's Game podcast so that you could just be like, let me tell you about Kevin Costner. And I get it now. But that's, it's nice.

I like, I swore to myself, I swear to God, earnest moment. I like sat down before we did this podcast and I was like, I'm not going to make fun of Sean because he, it's like, it's such a beautiful thing. You love your daughter so much. And I was like, I'm not going to be an asshole. I'm not going to be an asshole

except to say that it's like really funny. Here's the thing. Coda made me cry the first time. What's wrong with you? I've been changed. There's nothing wrong with me. I think that is actually beautiful. Even though I think this is like a good, like totally functional family movie that just

like really manipulates you at the end but in a way that works totally like my critical faculties still work you know the the movie is quite hackneyed and we've seen movies like this many times before there are bad versions you know on the hallmark channel and and there are a lot of good versions made in the 80s and 90s and we grew up on them the classic family tearjerker with an inspiring uplifting beautiful kind of like reunion moment of exaltation at the end still worked worked on me i'm just a human a very well done version of that incredible performances let's talk about annette quickly okay so. So I put it on the best movies, but I'm not sure if I think it's actually any good.

No, I think it's good. And I think I like, it's one of those things you can't deny the ambition. I think the execution, the performances, the commitment to this weird idea, it's not a world I want to spend time in.

That doesn't mean that it's not good. Right. Well, I think that's right. And normally when you say something like that, I tend to disagree and then defend the movie. In this case, I'm not really interested in defending it. I'm a huge, huge fan of Leos Carex, the director of the movie. It's a musical with music written by Sparks. It stars Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. On paper, it's a lot of music written by sparks. It stars Adam driver and Marion Cotillard on paper. It's a lot of things I really, really like. And I'm really excited about the thing that happened for me with this movie,

which I understand one of the reasons why it's not a world you want to be a part of, which is it's about a standup comedian. And that's not necessarily your favorite thing in the world. I want the gift of like him from his first performance where he's just like doing laugh and kind of like swinging the the mic around just that that's like me on this podcast every single time hanging yourself with the microphone before not and not when it gets really grim when it's just like adam driver

doing weird physical like body movements it's like this is i relate to this please you're supposed to be nice to me on this episode remember well this that was about me that wasn't about you um the thing that about the movie and this might seem like a small quibble but i think actually movies like this kind of live and die by this sort of thing i don't think the songs are good and i think if the songs were better it actually would change the way i felt about the movie a lot so i'm glad you brought this up here's the thing i'm not a sparks person i just like absolutely not i my husband encouraged me to watch the Sparks documentary that Edgar Wright released earlier this year. Is that right?

Because I wouldn't say that Zach is a huge Sparks fan either, but he was like, it's a really interesting compliment because you understand their world and they are definitely like a very much a part, not just in the music, but the story and the sensibility. And I was like, no, I'm not going to do that because i just don't it's not my vibe and that's okay like not all artists have to be my vibe um but that to me was kind of a major breakthrough is that i can only go so far with their kind of their world building i think i think if you struggle with sparks in general you would struggle with this movie i i wouldn't say I love sparks, but I like them. And I liked the Edgar Wright movie quite a bit.

But I just don't think this is their best work. I don't think it's... Just in a very elemental level, I don't like what the earworms are trying to be. You know when you write a melody or you... Not you, but if someone writes a chorus and in a musical like this, this there are these kind of signatures these motifs that are kind of recurring throughout the film and you get to our you know minute 114 in this movie and they're still kind of returning to these motifs and i'm like i don't like the way that this sounds or feels i don't i don't to your point like i don't want to be in this world anymore and even though it's really essentially

a movie about a father and his daughter which is played by a doll but is still his daughter and their relationship and the way maybe he doesn't appreciate it's not the american sniper doll it's a puppet just really and it has like and it can move and stuff it's a very strange film uh it's the kind of film that has drawn incredible admiration and defense of, because it's such a curio and so unusual and so clearly from a real singular mind. You know, Carex is such an individualist auteur, but it just didn't click for me

like Lovers on the Bridge did or Mova Song or Holy Motors. I just didn't really dig it that much, unfortunately. But it's cool that it exists. That is verbatim what I was about to say. Somebody else might like it a lot. And for them, that's wonderful. Okay, a couple more things.

I wanted to just recommend something. I was one of the jurors on the documentary South by Southwest competition this year. And the movie that we chose to win, best documentary, was called Lily Topples the World, which is a documentary about a young woman who creates like domino art. You know, those like the toppling dominoes

that are sort of aligned, which you may have seen on YouTube before. It's incredible. Young woman named Lily. This movie is available on Discovery+. I don't have Discovery+. If you do, that's great great it's also in theaters today lily topples the world i thought it was really really really entertaining and interesting and about like help me kind of redefine what creativity is and not necessarily discard just because somebody has a youtube

account doesn't mean they're like a lower form of creative filmmaker that's one thing you put val down here let's talk about val i really liked val and i saw it um pretty soon after i saw roadrunner and so i was thinking a lot about how you make a documentary about someone and how someone speaks for themselves um which is a major part of val because val kilmer um as you may know, was diagnosed with throat cancer and has lost his ability to speak. You know, he has the intervention that many people do. But so the movie itself is a compilation of archival footage and, you know, home video footage that Val Kilmer himself shot throughout the years and family members as well. And then narration that he wrote, and I believe his son narrates and, and, and then present day

Val Kilmer and his family are also interviewed and, and in the film as well. But so it's, it's a mix of sources of Val Kilmer trying to make sense of his own career and communicate. And, you know, at times it is a little bit like an actor talking about their career. I wouldn't say that the narration that he wrote, I mean, everyone, I believe that everyone deserves like an interlocutor or someone else to help them get to insights about themselves. You can only see yourself so much. But I thought it was very moving, him trying to make sense of how he wanted to communicate about himself and the use of his family.

And just also that it did actually really confront you with the idea of how do you tell a story about yourself and how to communicate in a very direct way. and i was actually thinking about the mechanics of the documentary um which i think you're kind of supposed to that's one of the ideas in it so i liked that a lot i just also i mean val kilmer what a career seeing a lot of that old footage and like the physical presence as well um it was nice i enjoyed it the latter part specifically is what I liked. I can't believe he filmed himself his entire life. That's so rare. It's such an unusual document in that way. And there are so many great moments that he was able to capture. The thing that held it back for me, one, I struggle with kind of biopic documentaries that are executive produced by the subject.

Sure. This is very much that. Particularly in the case of someone like Val Kilmer who at times reveals the kind of mercurial nature that he has. But I don't want to be too raw about this,

but Val Kilmer has a reputation as a legendary asshole. Sure. And you would not get that impression by watching this movie. You would get the impression that he is this kind of knife figure who's kind of wandering through the creative world and figuring out his place. Now, maybe he is that, and maybe this is the film that actually

corrects the record, but there are so many stories about the productions of the movies that he worked on, not just the Island of Dr. Moreauau which is kind of captured in this movie in this interesting sequence with him and john frankenheimer but many many other movies in which he's basically like in shouting matches or he disappears or he's impossible to wrangle and i just wanted to hear more of that i would actually would have been really interesting to your point about interlocutor like to have someone engage him in his reputation alongside sort of reckoning with it relative to what his life is now and the vulnerability that he has

after his sickness. And he seems like such a great father and someone that his kids are so close to and so affectionate with. And he obviously is just an amazing screen actor. I mean, anybody who's seen

Tombstone or Heat or any of the movies that he was so phenomenal in, he was such an awesome movie star. I just wanted something that interrogated him a little bit more about that period of his life. And I think that's valid. documentary or biopic series, just being EP'd by the person itself and just being a hagiography and the agent being quoted in the first eight minutes, which is always a warning sign. I do think at least this addresses that in the concept of the thing itself. Right. It's the text. Yes, it is the text. And so you don't feel like you're being sold a bill of false goods. If you're not getting the dark side of Al Kilmer,

if you're not getting the most introspective part, it's because of the limitations of the person itself. And you can kind of see that on the screen. And I, I do think that's interesting. I do too. I mean, you're a very discerning viewer when it comes to that sort of thing.

So it's easier, I think for you to interpret that. My sister actually texted me last night, my older sister, Kara, and she was like, did you see Val? And I said, I have seen it. And I think, for you to interpret that. My sister actually texted me last night, my older sister, Cara, and she was like, did you see Val? And I said, I have seen it. And I said, have you seen it? She said, no.

And I said, I'm not going to say anything to you. My sister is not as obsessed with Hollywood. She doesn't watch a ton of movies. She might watch this movie, the Val movie and be like, Val Kilmer is the man. What a nice guy. It's a shame that he got throat cancer. And that is all true. But I'm just not sure that that's the total story of Val Kilmer is the man. What a nice guy. It's a shame that he got throat cancer. And that is all true. But I'm just not sure that that's the total story of Val Kilmer.

No, of course not. And again, to go back to the Roadrunner thing, it's interesting when people start trying to have these conversations because for the most part, an audience is only having part of it. And I think it's cool to watch movies this way. It's how we try to do it. But you're right that it's not always a nuanced, full picture of everything that's going on. Absolutely. It's like I said before,

and like Alex Winter pointed out, it's not journalism. It's just a presentation of ideas and you can take them or leave them. I'm going to talk to you now about the movies that I didn't like, but most especially one movie. Okay.

Yeah. Let me see if I can deliver this in the way that I feel comfortable with. I went to see Free Guy a few days ago. Free Guy is the new, I don't know, original comedy action thriller drama from Sean Levy starring Ryan Reynolds. I have noted in the past that I'm a fan even against my own better judgment of Ryan Reynolds. This is a movie about a NPC. An NPC is a non-playable character in a video game. Ryan Reynolds' character exists inside of a video game, but he is one of those figures who you see just wandering around you're not in control of him he's just living wallpaper inside of the video game and in this story inspired in part by seeing a real woman whose avatar is playing inside of the game who's

played by jody comer he becomes sentient this ai which you typically are so disinterested in begins to get smarter and begins to get more real and i i hated this movie so much and um even though it is presented as original ip and an original story it is the most recycled cynical fake inspiring bullshit that i have seen in movies in a long, long time. This movie made me actively angry. And I want to tell you one other thing that happened. While I was watching the movie, I got up to go to the bathroom.

That's one way you know I'm not necessarily enjoying the movie. Got up to go to the bathroom. I'm in the bathroom. I'm standing at the urinal. And this is what I hear in the bathroom. I thought I was in there by myself. But from the stall next to me,

I hear that clicking sound that an iPhone makes when somebody opens something up. And then a man's voice in the stall said, existentialism. And then Siri started defining existentialism for this person in the stall. Oh no. This is a true story. Oh my God. Whether this person was in the free guy screening or not, I don't know. But if that is not a microcosm for the fucked up nature of our life, where I'm going to a movie theater wearing a mask to see Free Guy at four o'clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday, and this movie is inspiring people while waltzed in the bathroom

to search out the meanings of existentialism. I don't know what it is. You'd think that would be a good thing. But in fact, this movie is doing the exact opposite of that work. I obviously haven't seen this movie. I never will. I object.

It's so depressing. It's like the concept of it, of just, it's everything about it makes me want to peel my skin off and that is before you get to the fact that this has now been defined as like quote a success at the box office because it hasn't made that much money but it's made more money than i think other like quote original quote comedies at the quote box office right now. So we're just going to have to do more of this nonsense. Let me just underline some of the kind of contradictory, hypocritical, downright offensive aspects of the movie for you.

I'm going to spoil a little bit of this movie. I apologize if people really want to see it. Just fast forward one minute if you don't want to hear this. The story focuses on the Ryannolds non-playable character but there is this bigger story outside of that about two video game developers played by joe joe kiri i think his name is the actor from stranger things yes yes steve from stranger things and jody comer and they were video game developers who created this utopian video game in which it was not about action.

It was not about this sort of Grand Theft Auto-esque world in the free guy world. It was more about, more like The Sims, more like a slice of life, kind of like, what happens if you just lived in a world and observed existence

and felt, you know, inspired by that? And an evil video game developer portrayed in a very bad performance by Taika Waititi steals some of the coding and compels joe kiri's character to come work for him and implants some of that into his very stupid grand theft auto style game that is very very popular so the movie is about this quest

by jody comer to effectively sue the taika waititi character because he has done something that is not original and has essentially corrupted their pure intent for his awful capitalistic enterprise. So this is a movie that ostensibly is about the power of originality, the power of creativity, of coming up with something on your own and seeing it to the finish line and sharing it with the world. But at the end of the movie, when the Ryan Reynolds character is endeavoring in the video game world to fight all of the villains that Taika Waititi is throwing his way to get to the end of the quest to discover this original bit of coding that will prove Jodie Comer right and get this movie over with. Ryan Reynolds' character, from his arsenal of weapons that he finds because he's a playable character now in a video game, pulls out Captain America's shield, which elicited the hollowest

form of audience excitement I've ever seen in a movie theater, followed by the incredible Hulk's fist, followed by a lightsaber. This is a movie that did not acknowledge the Disney or any other intellectual property worlds until this moment and waited until the final 10 minutes of the movie to just get people to be like I know what that is and falsely get excited and completely undermine itself and it takes stuff like Star Wars like Marvel which which can seem frivolous, which can seem incredibly cynical and aggressively capitalistic to the point of absurdity. And when we talk about it on this show, I'm usually the person defending those movies, and you're usually the person like,

are we sure this is good? Are we sure this is good for our society? This is the nadir. This is the endpoint. Putting that stuff in a movie that has nothing to do with that stuff just to get people to say, I know what that is, is the end point so we were talking about the suicide squad you know we were talking about what's been happening with black widow how maybe some of that stuff is falling back in the culture now it's possible that this movie is thriving because of that insanely cynical choice that they made at the end of it because here's the thing i while i was watching it i was so mad especially in the final 30 minutes of the movie. And I turned and looked to my right and there was a family, four people, a father and three kids who went to go see this movie. The kids seemed to be between

the ages of six and 14 and they could not have been happier. They were delighted to be at the movies. Now, even though I'm having my girl dad moment and I feel warmer towards everything and I'm excited about the future of movies and sharing movies with her and all that stuff, this movie still made me so fucking angry. And I don't even know really what's at the bottom of it. I don't even know. Maybe it's just realizing that I've been complaining about which is not always the movies themselves even though like some of these movies I enjoy and never think about again and some of them I don't enjoy and never think about again but it's the way that it's training people to consume what I used to consider art and is now

just considered content and just to expect okay it's going to be in this thing and it's going to be in this thing and then I'm going to go find something else and I gotta like collect all the things and then they gotta be in something else and it's and then I gotta google some more things and argue with some people about whether it's right and whether the thing is going to be in the next thing and it just like goes on and that like those kids don't know any better they've just been trained to be sitting there and be like really excited because captain america shield and they know what that is and they want to be captain america for halloween and it's like not their fault but it's just purely corporatized and that's that's kind of what this movie is it's the logical conclusion it is and it's literally a

movie about a corporation so it's fitting in that way in the past though it was it's very it was very easy and it is very easy for me to defend some of those other things because I can be like, oh, the world building, the amount of patience and the strategy that they deployed to sell this thing to people for years and years is actually quite impressive. But why on God's earth would a video game character pull a lightsaber out of a weapons arsenal when he doesn't live in the world of star wars he's not a real person like it's just a kind of like illogical we're not even pretending to give a shit about the logic or the sincerity of this story it's just like here dumb animal take lightsaber i i thought it was insulting i'm sorry to be so sanctimonious about it i try to not do that ever

on this show honestly but. But I felt like something broke a little bit in me when I was watching it. Yeah, it feels like the lowest common denominator of a lot of bad trends that are just the way that we have to watch

popular entertainment now. It makes a lot of the other movies that we otherwise put on this list seem kind of harmless by comparison. I mentioned that Space Jam A New Legacy, which previously I thought was kind of frustrating and annoying, didn't seem as bad relative to the Free Guy experience.

We did talk about Stillwater. I thought Jungle Cruise was kind of a bummer. Did you watch it? Yeah, I did. And I was like, you know, I too like The Lost City of Z, but I don't know if children need their own version of it. That's exactly what it is. Why hire Yom Kolet Sarah to make your movie and then just like slather it in CGI? He's like one of the best action directors in America right now. And you can't even tell what's going on in any of the action. I don't know. I don't really know what the script is. I want more for Emily Blunt, even though I think she's making lots of money and it's fine. And her press tour was amazing of just being like, well, they paid me a lot of money and I don't really care.

I thought she was very winning in the movie. She's always very winning. She's one of our great actors, like free emily blunt to do cool stuff what did you think of uh respect yeah that's not a good movie though let me tell you what i mean it's so staid and traditional and it's so long it's two and a half hours long i know and it you know and it's like cradle to what 1972 1973 which is like a funny choice um it ends right at everything recording of amazing grace yes even though everything that you care about is really happens not everything that you care about but like they could have done 1967 which is when respect is released to Amazing Grace and done a lot of the family and childhood stuff, which is like quite upsetting. And, you know, does establish the character to the extent the character is established, which is another thing that I have some questions about.

I think that you could have done it in a more interesting way. And I say that as a true lover of biopics. It was like way too formulaic. That said, any scene, any scene in a movie where it's like a bunch of people around a piano or a guitar or whatever, and they start plucking out chords and they're just like writing one of the greatest pop songs of all time.

Like I will watch that 10 out of 10 times. Like I don't care. It took them an hour and 45 minutes to finally write Respect. And I was like, oh my God, it's Respect. I'm so excited. And the parts when they were around the piano and in the studio, I very much enjoyed. That is a cliche I'll love forever. The trouble then is that they then go to uh Jennifer Hudson who plays Aretha Franklin as Aretha Franklin doing respect at Madison Square Garden to their credit they give you a full run of respect possibly the greatest pop record ever in like in my opinion because it's the greatest pop record ever it's like Jennifer Hudson who isn't has an incredible voice is still not Aretha Franklin singing respect and I just I you know

I applaud people who sing in movies but that that's a tough one you can't be Aretha doing respect unless you're Aretha so it's funny that you say that about respect too because I think in some of the other songs it actually is fine she's actually a very credible mimic but the vocal performance on respect is so singular and you just can't we all know it like that like you know every single or i do anyway no it's tough it is it is super formulaic there are things about it that work it's not i didn't think it was bad i just thought it was so predictable and for someone like aretha who really is like one of the well i don't know one of the 10 or 20 signature artistic figures in america in the 20th century i mean she really is like one of the well i don't know one of the 10 or 20 signature artistic figures in

america in the 20th century i mean she really is you know in on the mount rushmore of kind of like rock and roll r&b soul and signifies so much and came of age and came of artistry at such a critical time in history she just deserves something bigger and better and deeper and you know the movie that movie wasn't vibrant i think totally i'm more creative you know it's it's ultimately i mean it's faithful and um it's very sincere and people everyone's working really hard to make a good film but it's not inspiring you know reetha was inspired reetha is a is it an artist that gives you chills and this movie doesn't give you chills really so that's too bad um anything you want to touch on any of these other movies before we talk about candy man quickly yes you have old

under the not so good list and i would like to defend old i had a great time at 3 30 p.m on a random i don't know what day of the week it was with my giant soda. I've gotten really into fountain soda this summer. There's nothing better and, and my popcorn and really no obligations and just watching old. I had a great time. I like, it was the, it is what it is. Perfect experience for me. Was it a perfect movie? No. Was I ultimately a little disappointed about the explanation for why they couldn't leave the beach, which was a question I, like many Twitter users, had been asking myself for months on end?

Yeah, it wasn't the greatest explanation. But, and then the twist is not actually an M. Night Shyamalan twist, but just a weird coda, you know, with some issues added on at the end. So I didn't love that, but I didn't really care.

I had a lovely time. I thought the first hundred minutes or so were amazing. I was like, I can't believe we don't get one of these a year. I missed this M. Night Shyamalan, the one who wasn't worried about building out the unbreakable expanded universe and who was like, you know what I do is I make standalone movies that have really high concepts that are twisty with tremendous

actors and i'm a great director of actors he's always gotten great performances out of his actors same thing here he's like gail garcia bernal vicky crapes ken lung you're all going to be in my movie and you're all going to be incredible. My idea, my, my premise is really goofy and the themes are right on the surface, but it's very entertaining. It's very well made. I thought the ending of this movie was really bad and it kind of ruined the experience for me. I talked about it a little bit with Van on the show last week, but I just wish it was 10% more thought through 10%. He really could just use a co-writer when it comes to endings, isn't it? I mean, you just wish it were an actual twist, you know?

It's not really a twist. I'm sorry to say, everybody. There's an explanation, but it's not a twist. And I won't spoil it because we don't know when people will actually be able to see it. But if the explanation was cool, that would be fine. It doesn't have to be a twist to me. It's like, the Twilight Zone has

unusual, you know, explanation endings cool that would be fine it doesn't have to be a twist to me it's like the twilight zone has unusual you know explanation endings that are satisfying and clever and tell us something about the world and this one didn't this one it's yada yada is over it it totally did so that's the only reason i put it on the not so good i really liked it i would encourage people to watch it i just it bummed me out at the end okay okay let's talk about candy man did you go see candy man no okay i thought i thought so i thought you were indicating that maybe you did no no no i didn't i have seen the trailer and i don't normally actually watch horror movie trailers and i thought the trailer looked excellent um and i was like oh maybe i should

see this but then you know i'm pretty nervous about horror movies and also as you know sean and as maybe I mentioned on the podcast but like in some ways like I have been living parts of Candyman in the sense that their bees took over my house and this was sort of like an extended battle that primarily my husband was fighting with the bees that were living in the wall of our house and really thriving there and he can send you a lot of really disturbing videos if you'd like to see them. I actually like couldn't even watch the videos. I was like, please.

He showed me one photo of what was happening. I had to vacate the home when the beekeeper finally came after Zach's own personal attempts at beekeeping failed, by which I mean, he got stung several times and had to jump off the ladder. But so, you know, I didn't feel that I needed to invite more bees into my life. But you seem to have really liked it. And also, maybe it's something I can handle. I did not really like it. Oh, you didn't really like it. No, unfortunately, I didn't. I don't know if this means that Zach is now also part of like the Candyman lineage now that he's been stung many times. How can I summarize this

quickly? So Candyman is a big movie released this weekend. It's the film is produced and co-written by Jordan Peele, who of course is an incredible horror filmmaker. It's directed by Nia DaCosta, who made an indie called Little Woods a few years ago and is going to be directing the Marvels, which is the new Captain Marvel sequel. so she's got a big career in front of her i thought this movie was pretty disappointing um the original the original candy man is um one of the great 90s horror movies i think it's based on a clive barker story it's directed by this english filmmaker named bernard rose and it's not perfect but it is you know this story about the cabrini Green projects in Chicago and the kind of like the displacement and the way that, you know, the residents of that project were ignored and the kind of manifestations around it. idea of ostracizing a people and then ignoring them into neglect and then neglecting them into disappearance and then paving over their history to build high rises, right? So the premise of the

movie is very good and it talks a lot about black trauma. It feels very timely given everything that's happened in this country over the last year and then over the last 350 years. It's a very stylish movie. Nia DaCosta has a great eye. She gets good performances out of Yahya Abdul-Mateen. I think Coleman Domingo is particularly really good in this movie, but it's so didactic and so thematic and not idea-driven. And every character says every idea

that the movie is trying to be. And then that subsequently makes it not scary and makes it not scary and makes it feel like an essay and not like a movie. And horror movies are fun and they're exciting and they certainly have big ideas in them and they always have. And I wanted to like this movie because I like the Candyman mythology. It's really scary. There's so many good actors. And I was so disappointed by it. And I realize I'm now like negging three or four movies and this movie might end up being a big hit, but I was actually really surprised by how

not controlled it was. And this is really an art is saying like, my movie is about something, but I don't have to tell you exactly what it's about. You have to understand what it's about. And I wonder as our film, as like our, our, our culture, our film culture gets more and more sophisticated about what notions of power are in the world, right? And more people get a chance to make movies that should be making movies, that deserve to make movies, that have stories that are untold. It's going to take some time, I think, to find a way to make those movies not feel like looking at Twitter. And this was a movie that kind of a little bit felt like looking at Twitter. And this was a movie that kind of a little bit felt like looking at Twitter. It's so funny. I read a book this summer that is basically the plot of Get Out, but set at a publishing house. And it had a similar experience of there were a lot of interesting ideas there. But number one, I've seen Get Out. And number two, it did have that I'm looking at Twitter

vibe, which we've all learned a lot on Twitter, I guess. Sometimes we learn things we don't want to. And then sometimes we actually do learn other things. But it is an interesting moment of seeing that intersect with art and figuring out the tonality and the balance. Yeah, you never know why that is. It's like, was that the director's vision? Is this something that the studio is pushing for? Is it something that the producers want?

This movie feels like it was kind of recut and cut a little bit. There's some pieces missing. It doesn't totally, it's not coherent really in the last 30 minutes in some ways. But I'm so fascinated to watch artists try to figure out how to say the thing that is really meaningful and important to them emotionally, intellectually, philosophically, especially when they have a point of view that just has not been a part of mainstream movie going for the most part. But you still have to make an entertaining movie. That is actually ultimately the purpose of studio filmmaking is to get a lot of audiences to get excited about your movie. There have been a lot of, I think, really good pieces about this movie that are kind of underlining some of the same things that I'm saying and probably saying it a lot more deftly than I am. But I was surprised that this wasn't as good as I wanted it to be.

Can I add one more movie to the best movies of the summer that I forgot? Yeah. Because you and I both saw it in Sundance 2020, which is Zola. And this turns out to be the movie that I've talked the most about with civilians and people in my life who aren't actually on Twitter, but both in the way that it did incorporate the internet, because that is famously the original story is a Twitter thread. But that that point of view and the way the internet is used, and just the the energy and the stylistic, obviously, like the stylization, it looks very beautiful and very specific, but that um that madcap unpredictable sometimes uncomfortable energy that is definitely part of the internet and also part

of that story it definitely communicates that i was very stressed out watching zola like very very stressed out but it does manage to um to to borrow a lot of those ideas or that you know that source material and really make something new out of it and it seems like a lot of people actually did respond to it like i said like the people i know who don't care about movies like saw this movie and were remarked upon it and it stayed with them that's interesting to hear and also they're they're interesting counterpoints they're both from black women filmmakers. And while I said that Candyman feels like looking at Twitter, it actually feels like reading Twitter.

And Zola feels like looking at or hearing Twitter. It feels more like the experience of being on it. And it is a cool movie. I like that movie a lot. And again, not a perfect movie. You could certainly quibble with certain ways that that story is told and that Twitter thread is recounted, but I thought more immersive and more effective and,

and frankly, um, more suspenseful than, than Candyman, which is just bizarre to think about. But nevertheless, um, I think we're going to get a lot of good movies this fall.

There's a lot of stuff, you know, we got a double Ridley Scott. We got James Bond. We got Tom Cruise in a Top Gun movie. We got Paul Thomas Anderson. We got Wes Anderson. We got Dune.

I'm just going off the top of my head here. There's a lot of stuff coming. Jackass 4. Some stuff going down this fall. Get excited. Get involved. Get involved with the big picture. Amanda, it's really good to see you again.

It's nice to see you. Thanks for everything today. Thanks our producer bobby wagner uh he's crushing it as usual next week we're we're gonna open up the mailbag so if you heard us say something on this episode that you disagree with or that you agree with or if you didn't hear us say something that you wanted us to say shoot us a question hit us up at the big pic on twitter um and we'll dive into your questions and we'll see you then.