The Big Picture - Was 2019 the Best Movie Year of the Decade? Plus: 'The Rise of Skywalker' Aftermath. | The Oscars Show

Episode Date: December 30, 2019

Sean and Amanda close out the year by breaking down the tepid reception and complicated franchise future of 'Star Wars' in the aftermath of 'The Rise of Skywalker' (1:10). Then, they look at former president Barack Obama's picks for his favorite movies of the year and the Christmas season box office winners (34:47). Finally, they debate whether 2019, which has featured so many exciting movies, is the very best the decade has had to offer. Amanda presents the case for three other candidates, and Sean decides (51:05). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelley, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. Over the holidays and into the new year, we'll still be publishing new shows to keep you up to speed with the NFL playoff race, the NBA, and awards season. We've published some great episodes in the month of December, including two rewatchables on Happy Gilmore and The Godfather Part II, Chris interviewed Watchmen showrunner Damon Lindelof on The Watch, and the Ringer NBA show ranked the top 25 players of the 2019-2020 season so far. Lastly, happy holidays from The Ringer. I'm Sean Fennessey.

And I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about getting lit with Emperor Palpatine. Amanda, we're here. It's the end of the year. There's only one big movie we haven't talked about together. And that movie is Star Wars, The Rise of Skywalker. I've heard of it. You saw this movie.

I did. I saw it as well. We've yet to discuss it. And there's so much to say about it. There's been a lot of fallout. There's been a lot of aftermath. What was your honest emotional reaction to The Rise of Skywalker? Yeah, this is not a good movie. Just on like a very surface level. I think that's what was

interesting about it to me. I'm obviously not a Star Wars nerd. That's not to say I don't like Star Wars. And I know I've been making a joke on the last couple months being like, I want to know what happens. But you know what, I did want to know what happened. And I do like going to the movies and listening to John Williams really loud for two hours. That's just like, it is kind of a primal movie experience. So I was looking forward to it. I felt like I also felt very offline. Like I went to the movies as a civilian because I don't really have that much skin in the game about Star Wars except for finding out what happens and being a moviegoer. And listen, I really enjoy listening to John Williams loud for two hours.

And I can't say that I had a bad time necessarily. I wasn't mad. For example, I listened to your podcast with Mallory, which was very informative. I think I understood about 70% of it, which is a pretty good ratio for me. And I didn't feel betrayed maybe in the way that a lot of people do and which we'll talk about. But yeah, that movie didn't have any stakes, had no respect for like basic plotting or how stories or characters work. It was just so obviously stupid. Well, yeah, I mean, I've been thinking about it a lot.

I obviously had a very negative reaction. If you heard the episode that Mal and I did, you know that I was really disappointed by the movie, I think one of the things that happens when you get to the end of a long journey in a saga like this is you want it to end not necessarily the way that you envisioned, but in a way that you deem satisfying. And I think there are a lot of fans who actually were really satisfied. I know because they're in my mentions. They have let me know that this was a very happy making movie for them. They were not disappointed. The idea of the no stakes didn't frustrate them. The idea of Palpatine returning to be the big bad of this series, even though there was no indication that he was a part of this story, didn't seem to bother them. All the things we talked about in the analysis, I thought the episode that Chris and Andy did on

the watch also did a great job of kind of underlining some of the struggles that we are all having with the movie. It just felt like a situation where all movies are the product of a corporation needing to make decisions to make money. But this one in particular, it just felt like there was a little bit of panic from, from Kathleen Kennedy, from Disney and Lucasfilm and the team that runs all that stuff. And that they felt like they had to, to bring it on home comfortably, safely, and also just arrive at somewhere between one and $1.5 billion and not do anything that would jeopardize that specifically. And I think when you do that, you get stuck with a lot of fan servicey, everything gets tied up neatly in a bow and there are smiles on your face when you walk out of the

movie theater decision-making. There's not as much care for people who are more interested in, say, cinematic risk taking or redefining storytelling in these formats. So, I mean, I remain disappointed by it. I still can't really get a feel for if the general population is disappointed by this movie. Yeah, there's so many things that I want to respond to with in what you just said. Number one, I think there's like, you know, cinematic risk taking, and then there is like, killing and unkilling Chewbacca within five minutes, which even a person who is not paying attention to, you know, whatever screenwriting tropes can understand. It's just they're taking away all consequences of a movie so rapidly.

They do that 15 times within the movie. So it's not even just fan service, though obviously there are certain amounts of that. I gotta be honest. I mean, we're doing full spoilers here. Yes, we're doing full spoilers. When Harrison Ford showed up, I was like, oh, hey, it's Harrison Ford.

I don't give a shit. And it was so so dumb and I know that that's fan service and it made no sense but I was like oh I just you know I turned to my husband I was like oh it's Harrison Ford so I even understand like being stupid and having that pleasure sent you know center activated it's a lizard brain thing brain thing. And any franchise at this point has to do that. And the last of, it's very hard to end a series like this. And there are going to be moments like that. You and Mallory talked a lot about franchises that have good endings. And there aren't really any. Very few.

It's very hard to land it. So I will give the Rise of Skywalker. Yeah, Rise of Skywalker. Yes! I did it. It's a yellow lightsaber. I don't know what that means, but they're back. I'll give them some leeway for that. movie of it's not just fan service but like a very specific group of fans and trying to restore like a very specific type of star wars experience and you could really feel the imprint of like the quote bad fan fan base like all over this yeah and i don't even think that this movie honors like the actual fans of star wars because like you and mallory talked for 90 minutes about like a lot of stuff i don't know about you guys are like genuine enthusiastic fans and it did not honor your experience and i don't really think it honored my experience as someone who like just likes to go to movies and listen to

you know some loud stuff and then there's like a cute little guy that makes a joke i did like that um babu frick yeah we failed to discuss babu frick on our first podcast and he's great very funny they crushed it with that yeah well let's let's use that as like a way to pivot to a couple of things that we liked because it it it was easy to to shit on the movie honestly there were a lot of things that i was disappointed by i think the stakes thing in particular that you brought up a couple of times, I think is really what irked me the most because there wasn't, everybody just seemed afraid to kill a character for fear that you could no longer sell their merchandise, which just made me nervous.

Can I tell a personal anecdote about the Chewbacca incident? There was a, I went to like a 12 o'clock screening on Friday and there was like a, maybe a five rolled in our aisle. And the, the thing happens where Ray blows up the ship and you think Chewie's dead and the five-year-old is uh leaving with his dad and he it took him a while to get out of the aisle and so he's like literally in front

of me when Chewie shows back up on the screen because that's how quickly but but then it was very clear that the kid was upset and was leaving because Chewie was dead and that was too much for him and then Chewie was on the screen and he I just heard him be like and gasp and then they stayed and they stayed and watched the rest of the movie and I was like oh that's why you did this yes that's it that is why they did it which is you know what kudos to them like they don't have to make me happy I'm 37 years old they don't need to make me happy but the five-year-old they need need to keep on the line for the next 30 years and interested in these characters and in this world. And there's already been talk that like maybe the Skywalker saga isn't over and maybe all these characters are going to come back.

And so they need to keep all this stuff alive, which I understand. I'm not stupid. I know how this stuff works. I just think as a standalone moviegoing experience, it was not ideally what I wanted for what was thought to be the final version. Let's, let's use this as an opportunity to talk about the big pictures, big picture. This is a problem in the big picture. Do you know what I mean? The thing that is most interesting to me is not like, do we like the rise of Skywalker or not? It's is the rise of Skywalker successful? And if it is successful, why and what does that mean?

Because the way that we define it is so complicated because you talked about the quote unquote bad fan. Yeah, I got more on that, by the way. We should discuss that. I mean, I think that's an important thing because essentially Star Wars is a lot like being on politics Twitter. You know, it's a lot like following angry people who are dug in on their positions, who are quite certain that the

way that they see their world, and that world might be Alderaan, it might not be Earth, but the way that they see their world is the only true way to be alive. And it brings what might gently be called passion, but is probably more accurately like mania to any conversation around any of this stuff. And so it's a little hard for me to know, is the Rise of Skywalker not just a hit, but successful? What do you make of the way that we've been communicating about this movie? Well, you mentioned politics, Twitter, and how talking about Star Wars on Twitter is like similar to politics, Twitter. At some point they actually converge.

And I think it's, we have to talk a little bit about the response to the last Jedi, which became certainly a culture war. And definitely there were, and this is a small, small fringe group. And by the way, we're not denigrating most Star Wars fans. This is a small group of bad,

bad actors with outsized influence because and whatever but but the last jedi conversation you know became like racist and and gross and there was a lot of um vitriol directed at the at the rose character and the actor who played her and so and it's very clear that The Rise of Skywalker is a direct response to that vitriol. And they are trying to get rid of most of what happens in The Last Jedi. And I understand, you know,

some of that is like, I guess for story reasons. And even before this movie came out, J.J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy were in the New York Times kind of seeding the ground of, you shouldn't disrespect Star Wars fans and letting people know that they were going to be retrofitting some of this stuff. But they certainly did that.

And so it's hard not to see all of the, it's hard not to, it's hard to separate Rise of Skywalker from like all of those Twitter eggs who were so mad and saying terrible things. And then for whatever reason, a giant corporation was like, what we're going to do is listen to the Twitter eggs and make an entire movie based on that. Yeah. I think that there's also an aspect of this that is JJ Abrams making decisions about things that he just didn't like that. Rian Johnson, which is his right as a filmmaker.

And obviously he's the person who got this all started again with the force awakens. And I assume that the idea of Ray being no one, which Rian Johnson propelled into the storyline, he just did not like that at all. And in fact, he and Chris Terrio, the co-writer of the movie just canceled that whole concept and made her related to the most powerful person in the entire universe.

Which is, it feels like a middle finger. I just don't know. It might just actually be an underlining of the differences in storytelling styles between those two guys. The one common denominator between them is that Kathleen Kennedy hired J.ams and she hired Ryan Johnson and then she hired JJ Abrams. You know, Ryan Johnson's been very honest about saying they didn't give me like a guidebook. They let, they said, do whatever you want with raised parentage. You know, there's no, there are no boundaries here. And so inevitably there are like master producers who have theoretical control over all of this stuff, but they, because there was no guidebook from the very beginning, you get this movie experience.

If you watch these three movies together, it feels like they're ping-ponging between sort of the blue and the red, you know, the left and the right. And I think that that culture war that we're talking about is so representative of that thing because it is literally between two poles of storytelling style. One about ambiguity, one about class, the other about history, legacy, ultimate power. And those two things don't fit together. They're actually, they operate against one another in a profound way. And so it's kind of impossible to know. Like there's no right answer for Star Wars. Like the last time we had a trilogy,

it was from the guy who created these movies and they were terrible. Yeah, they were incredibly dull and badly made and wouldn't. So there's no right way to do it. And I do think that there are a lot of things that people walked out of The Rise of Skywalker with really liking.

Babu Frick being one of them. But I think even just the way that Kylo and Rey were handled and the arcs of those characters. Okay, we'll come back to that. We're going to come back to that. Nevertheless, the movie, it has been, it's not a tepid reception. It's a vociferous reception from some people, many of whom, at least anecdotally, have said to me over the internet that they felt that Rian Johnson wrote the series into a hole and that JJ made a

lot of creative choices because it was stuck in this hole. So the movie moves so fast and it cuts off the character arcs for certain people and it raises the stakes on other people very quickly because there was nowhere left to go. Now, that's obviously debatable. But the movie did get a B-plus cinema score, which if you're in middle school is a perfectly fine grade. But if you're a movie franchise, it's not great. And I believe it's the lowest since the last trilogy for any of the Star Wars movies, which is not great. Yeah. And the movie is slightly flagging at the box office.

Yes. It is not performing as well, even as The Last Jedi. It's behind The Last Jedi by a couple of ticks right now. Now, from your perspective, is that fatigue? Is that bad reviews influencing people going out to see the movie? Is it something about the general mismanagement of this franchise and that being an open secret to readers in the world? Is it just that the movie is not that great? I think it's a little bit of both because at this point you have to have, you have to hit all four

positives in order to get people to go to the movie theater. Like we have created a world and it's a little bit Disney's fault for over subscribing the Star Wars of it all. And, you know, it's not as special an event, even if it's the ending, even though whatever they did, everything they could to undermine the fact that it's an ending, even before the movie came out, because that's not how business works anymore. But so people are not going to go see it unless it's the biggest deal in the world. So and that's a little bit because people don't go to movie theaters. I think it is a little bit because of the reviews. I think it is a little bit of just like too much Star Wars. There's Star Wars you can get at home.

And I think it's just kind of the way that people go to the movies, even since Force Awakens, has really changed. But I do think that if it were amazing and their word of mouth was great and everyone was like, oh, my God, you're never going to believe how it ends or it was so satisfying. You need to go see this, that it would probably be doing better. I think so. But if you look back at the recent trilogies, so if you look at the Lord of the Rings movies, the Hobbit movies, even the Hunger Games, they all basically have the same trend, which is that the first movie is a big hit. In some cases, the second movie is an even bigger hit, but most of the time it goes down a little

bit. And then the third one goes down a little bit. And then the fourth one, if there is a fourth one, goes down a little bit incrementally. And I think there's just a general fatigue that happens there, no matter what, even if the reviews are tremendous. I feel like the reviews of the final two Harry Potter movies were very good. And there still was like a little bit of a downward trending line on those movies. So I think some of it is just when there's so much recent, like so much that's available to you about this thing, which is what you're saying with the oversubscription of star wars and the culture the people were kind of like okay i there's another star wars movie i'll give you an example i haven't seen the movie for a second time i've seen every star wars movie in theaters twice except for solo and now this movie and yeah but

that's because you didn't like it i know but i but I feel even not liking it. I feel like sense. But I have been told that if you watch it a second time, it makes much more sense. Whatever. Like, here's the thing. There are two things going on here. There are people who, you know, there is like the philosophical what should Star Wars be? Right. Which is actually probably the more fraught fight.

But there are people who, you know, believe in hierarchy and, you know, all of this Palpatine nonsense. And so that's satisfying to them. But there is also the basic like how to make a movie, which this movie is terrible. It's like they wrote it on set every day. It doesn't make any sense. And you can separate that from the experience of watching the movie and seeing all the plot holes

and not knowing what's happening or people disappearing or never seeing Kerry Russell's face or, you know, whatever the hell they're doing from the fact that you didn't get the ending that you want, you know? Well, I mean, I guess maybe you can't because The Last Jedi is a perfect example of a really well-made movie that didn't give some people the exact story that they wanted. And then they had a tantrum for three years. Yeah. I don't know what to do about that long- wanted. And then they had a tantrum for three years. Yeah, I don't know what to do about that long term. I don't know what to do about the idea of giving people exactly what they want.

I think if it's Lord of the Rings and there's a source text, you know where you're going, right? And I was going to say for every franchise example that you just named, Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings, Twilight, Harry Potter, the ending was out there. The ending exists. And so people are going to have an interpretation or comfort food or kind of what they know already fed to them. This was an opportunity.

We didn't know what was going to happen. I mean, we all know Joseph Campbell, so we kind of knew what was going to happen, but we didn't have to know everything. I know. And it reminded me a lot of Game of Thrones this season. Yeah. And the decision and in similar fashion to the compression of the storytelling, the frantic nature of the decision making, the lack of understanding of the motivations of

characters, the introduction of characters that we don't really care about that much, playing significant roles in certain scenarios. It's very tricky. And like Game of Thrones, Star Wars did not have a defined ending there was no source text and so i'm trying to think if there was anything in rise of skywalker as bad as the like the speech about the power of storytelling at the end of game of thrones do you remember that that's a real thing that happened all of us gave like eight years of our lives to this television show. And then the ending was Peter Tinklish being like,

the real friends were the stories we heard along the way. That's the thing. And ultimately, the Rise of Skywalker is still way better than that. Because it still ends with Rey, who was a great character. Yes. Giving her like a good storyline. Ultimately, where I think they took that character, was worth it,

and part of the reason why the movie is mostly making people happy is because they like the idea of going forward into the future with her, of getting Daisy Ridley back in their lives, of figuring out what the yellow lightsaber is going to do for her, of figuring out what kind of Jedi she's going to be.

All of that storytelling machinery, I think people liked liked it they liked her claiming the Skywalker name at the end of the movie even though it was very hokey and obvious and if you just look at the title of the movie you could have seen it coming but somehow they landed that plane well enough whereas Thrones I mean I do remember the dialogue that we were having at work about Thrones at the time? We were like, holy shit, they screwed this up. They really blew it. This feels more like the movie isn't very good, but maybe they got the story at the end to where it needs to be so they can go forward and do more story. But what's amazing is they honestly could have just thrown away the first two hours and 15 minutes of Rise of Skywalker and just shown her like bearing the two lightsabers

and being like, I am Rey Skywalker and then started there. Or that's all you need. Yeah, I think they felt like that would have been too easy a cheat to just go right to Skywalker. They still had to subvert. So we got all this Emperor Palpatine nonsense. What do you think is going to happen with Star Wars? Do you think there's going to be because it seems like they're taking a little bit of time off on the movies to, to, to recharge. We still don't know what's going on with the Rian Johnson trilogy.

If that's actually going to be a set of movies that we'll see. Rian Johnson notably having a wonderful holiday because Knives Out is a huge hit and is across the a hundred million dollar mark and it's a great movie. And so, you know, I think he has done an effective job of not gloating, but there are a lot of people gloating on his behalf over the last couple of weeks i i don't i'm very fascinated i just still can't believe i'm sorry the crawl i like it they just the the first five seconds of

this movie they're like everything you just saw didn't happen. Fuck that. That happened. That is the coldest thing that's ever happened. And a major, so many people signed up on, signed off on that. Like a major corporate entity was like, we're just going to disown everything that just happened. Should we read the crawl? It's the first sentence is incredible. It's like literally Emperor Palpatine is back, exclamation point. It's like I fucking wrote the summary for what's happening. The dead speak is the first line. The galaxy has heard a mysterious broadcast, a threat of revenge in the sinister voice of the late Emperor Palpatine. Yeah, it was not ideal.

That's how we knew that we were in trouble right away. There are a lot of people have noted that. If you want to read more about this film series i would encourage you to check out specifically what ben lindbergh has been doing on the ringer.com he's been writing really really really intelligently and passionately ben knows as much about star wars as anybody i've met and is very smart on the subject and he also cited if you take one good look at that crawl you know you're in for tough sledding. Um, I still think though that it's, it's going to be fine. They're going to wait 18 months. Then they're going to announce a new trilogy.

Well, will it be a trilogy? Well, Chris, Chris Ryan has suggested that he thinks maybe it won't be that. Maybe it'll be much more like an MCU experience where you get phases with multiple films inside of them. Yeah.

The key there. And maybe this will have something to do with Kevin Feige, is Kevin Feige had a very clear idea of what story he was going to tell. Now you can take issue with whether it was bad or good or whether it's destroyed movies or you could take Martin Scorsese's position on it. He had a plan.

He had a very clear, like 30 movie plan that he pulled off. So he's leading the fans as opposed to the Star Wars, which is just following its fans wherever it wants to go. That's exactly. That's the best way to describe it is he was in charge the whole time and you can take it or leave it. Most people took it. Whereas it felt like this movie was actively working in response to what the

feedback that they got, which is, is not how you want to be creative. It's not how you want to get great stuff. But just to go back, I agree with Chris, and I think Chris and Andy were very smart about this on The Watch, but they have already been seeding this in public that trilogies are an outdated model and, you know, like endings are outdated. That's honestly in that New York Times piece where they throw The Last Jedi under the bus.

They're just talking multiple times. They're just like, we don't believe in endings anymore, which which is how tv works and i know it's how comic books works and to an extent it's how the mcu works because with every ending there's also you know a seed for eight more things to come i i genuinely think that that is how star wars will work going forward and maybe it'll be it'll be tv that does most of that of the work and people will accept kind of like Mandalorian level things of the Star Wars. And every once in a while you'll have a big ticket, like a vendor style Star Wars movie. But I would be really surprised if they do a trilogy again, because they can't also. Just the hero's journey is too limiting at this point for the amount of content that they have to do. The one thing that the MCU has been able to do that I'm not yet sure if these movies can do

is they can get a lot of people to go see a movie about a character like Ant-Man. And Ant-Man does not have any place in the public consciousness. It stars Paul Rudd, who's kind of famous, but not a mega movie star. And there's still a lot of attention and adulation around that. If you just made a movie about Chewbacca, I don't know if that would work. And Chewbacca is much more famous in his constellation than Ant-Man is in his. We've seen obviously Solo struggled, Rogue One did very well, but it was a very fraught production. Now, your point about TV is smart because the elegant segue is this movie just really made me appreciate the Mandalorian

that much more like the choices that they made on that show, which I thought ended pretty brilliantly and was directed in its final episode by Taika Waititi of all people who really should just be making things like this, who is a kind of a genre genius and not a Jojo Rabbit genius, but that show and what they were able to do with that show by letting one person be in control of it. Jon Favreau directed a couple of episodes and wrote every episode he conceived of the whole thing with Dave Filoni. And it had like that auteurist vision. So he's working like one part Kevin Feige, one part, I don't know, Francis Ford Coppola or something. And then you get a very clear story. You don't have to like the story,

but there was never a doubt where the story was going the whole time and you felt like you were in safe hands and every episode was 35 minutes so it wasn't even like a huge commitment of your life it was four and a half hours of tv ultimately and i think that their stories might be best told in in that strategy yeah and correct me if i'm wrong because again i'm not the star wars genius but the the Mandalorian is essentially, it's someone of the universe, but it's not a character that you have a lot of backstory or knowledge or connection to. For somebody like me who doesn't play the video games and who doesn't read the books and didn't watch Clone Wars, I don't know anything about that character at all. But that's sort of Ant-Man-y, right? But it is the people making the show actually setting the stakes and creating your relationship to the character as opposed to, I mean, the Star Wars fans just feel like they own Chewie.

They feel like they own Han Solo. They feel like they own all of those characters. And anything that you try to do in that, if it's not exactly what they want, creates a backlash. And it's too fraught and i feel like feel like the mcu is you know has mostly created characters that you didn't really unless you were a nerd like you growing up like didn't have a huge connection to no i i just um versus you know the other one where people are like release the snyder cut because i didn't get the batman or whatever i wanted i don't really know what's going on but fans being in control of the content is a little scary on the one hand, you know,

they do dictate what gets made because, and that's the reason why I always want to talk about box office on the show. Cause I'm like things that do well, it's going to predict what we get in the future. So keep an eye on what performs well, because that is why we're going to discuss it. If we, if we break down movies every week on this show,

if more people go to see the rise of Skywalker, they went to see the last Jedi. You're going to get more movies in that tone, in that vein, in that approach. If fewer people go, they'll realize that this wasn't perhaps the right path. The Mandalorian, we're not going to know ratings, but it's a huge critical success. And it seems like a lot of people signed up for Disney+, basically primarily for this show and to watch The Lady and the Tramp or whatever. So it feels like they'll go that way i would like to see

a new trilogy it does not have to be made by ryan johnson it can be made by some other person some a woman perhaps or or a person of color that would be interesting or another white guy for that matter but just not about any of these characters not about this time in Star Wars, not Palpatine, not Skywalker, not Han Solo, not Chewbacca, not Boba Fett, not the Sarlacc pit, not all of these words I could say to you that you don't understand. No Jabba the Hutt, no Ewoks. I know who those are. Let's go to other universes or other solar, other galaxies for that matter, and tell a different kind of a story with the same sort of sense of invention. Let's create something new. That would be nice. I don't think we're going to get that. I think that they're afraid to do that. And there's a lot of money on the line, so who am I

to say? But I would like to see something that has the spirit, but not the replication of the last nine Star Wars movies. Yes, that's true. The whole time that you were saying that, though, I was just thinking about, like, the luckiest thing that happened to all of us is that john williams was able to score this movie and it's still around yeah he's still alive and he did great work he i i really enjoyed it i like for 90 minutes i was like i'll put up with this and then and then some things happened but i you can you have a star wars movie without john will? Would it be the same thing? Like what in your mind is that sense of invention? And like how can you create some continuity? Well, I will say, to go back to The Mandalorian,

Ludovic Arantzen does the music for that show. And it is awesome. It is so good. It is like old school. It's like a modified western it's science fiction western theme music it sounds like if a spaghetti western collided with starship troopers it's really really good what he did with it and it gave me hope now it made it makes that show feel different than star wars like john williams makes star wars feel like star wars i totally

identified with what you're saying at the top of the show because there is like a, there is a grandeur, a sense of something huge and special happening when he is writing the music for these films. He's going to die at some point. No, I know. But I think I just raised that to say the line of like, how do you, what makes something Star Wars and how do you do it without some of the essential elements? I'd like to see someone break it over their knee. I really would like to see someone break it over their knee. This might be an opportunity to transition to hark. Hark! Hark! Frighten! Hark! Amanda, you have a hark. Yeah. The kiss between Kylo Ren and Rey is the most offensive thing I've seen in the movies. What are we doing?

Why? Like, why was that necessary? What do you mean? You predicted on this show that they were going to kiss. I know because I read some reports about some fan fiction and I said that I was really upset. Listen, they had a psychic connection and they were dealing with like large forces of power and who they are as people. And they were intertwined on a much deeper level than making out. Like, why do they need to make out on top of it? We've spent so long on this podcast talking about, you know, all the movies about

women and with the women getting paired off. That's what we spent all of Little Women talking about. And Rey was great because she got to be a jedi and she got to do whatever and she wasn't trapped in some stupid love thing and they even they never let what's his name declare his love to her thin yes but apparently that's not what he was going to declare okay good what he was going to declare was that he was force sensitive. Do you know what that means? Unsubscribe. Okay. I don't care about that. Here's the point is that she was not in a love story that she was like a female character who is the star of a franchise and got to do all this cool shit and was not defined by her romantic interest. And that is very exciting. And that's

very important. That's what made the character cool. And they made it through this entire movie. And they had like a very intimate, emotional connection in that moment. And then they're just like making out. And it's not even a real makeout. And then he died. It was more of a soft kiss, really. Like, why? That sucks.

No one needs that. Well, of course, that's what people want. They want. That sucks. That's what people want. They want- That sucks. That's what I have to say. So you want her to be celibate? What is the- No, they don't have to be in love.

Like, why does that have to be the nature of their relationship? Why can't they, like, the fact that they're joined by the force and each battling, like, the most primal forces of good and evil and be enough. And also wearing athleisure together. Like I, that's plenty. I'm not going to defend it, but here's what I'll say. No,

no, don't say anything. Don't like it. Okay. It's hard to, it's hard to meet people in the world. It's hard to meet people in other galaxies. And sometimes you meet somebody.

She has other shit going on. She's like not concerned with making out with sad emo boy okay this has been hark let's take a quick break now to hear a word from our sponsor today's episode of the big picture is brought to you by Bose. Bose AR is a first-of-its-kind platform that is an audio-first approach to augmented reality. Bose AR-enabled products have motion sensors embedded inside that can detect your head orientation and body movement while you wear them. AR-enhanced apps can then use this information to offer you tailored audio content. Disney and Bose are working together to bring fans a new immersive audio experience based on the beloved Star Wars movies.

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to celebrate this partnership, Bose will also be releasing a limited edition Star Wars QC35 headphones too, visit Bose.com backslash big picture to learn more okay Amanda we've got a lot of feelings on the table about Star Wars. We need to pivot to the only thing more important in Star Wars. Let's go to Stock Up, Stock Down. If it goes bust, you can make 10 to 1, even 20 to 1 return, and it's already slowly going bust. Amanda Stockup, the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama.

He shared a list of his favorite films of 2019. And this is very, very useful internet content. It sounds a little bit like he may have been listening to the big picture this year based on some of his selections. One thing I have to say, I'm going to take a couple of shots at Obama in this conversation. I mean, he doesn't really have a job anymore and Jessica can like watch movies and read books and make lists all the time. So everyone is just like, yo, what a great list. So go ahead. Come work at the ringer, Barack Obama. You want to watch movies and make lists? Love it. Interesting list. I'm going to name all the films on the list.

American Factory is the first film on the list, which is not cool because he produced American Factory. His production company produced that film, which was acquired by Netflix and is likely to be nominated for Best Documentary. That's not cool. Amazing Grace, the wonderful Aretha Franklin concert documentary.

Apollo 11, the space documentary that you loved from earlier this year. Ash's Purest White, which I believe made it to Adam Neiman's best films of the year list. Netflix's Atlantics, Birds of Passage, Booksmart, Diane, The Farewell, Ford vs. Ferrari, The Irishman, Just Mercy, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Little Women, Marriage Story, Parasite, The Souvenir, and Transit. So, first question. Did he actually watch these movies? Yes. What else is he doing? I'm just trying to picture. My man is golfing and watching movies and reading books and being like, I'm not going

to deal with the other stuff. Did Barack and Michelle watch Marriage Story together? Yes. And did they think we're stronger? Yeah, I do. I think that they could be nuanced about it. Like, oh, this is interesting. I guess I do wonder whether they watched it together or he watched it alone.

You know, his eldest daughter is also very into movies. So I wonder whether some of these are her recommendations. Though I don't know whether you want to be watching Marriage Story with your, you know, eldest daughter either. How did my man get his hands on Birds of Passage and Diane? Is he getting screeners probably? I don't know. People just being like, I know you produce movies. I know you make these lists. I might as well send you stuff. I guess so. Was he a big film fan when he was in the Oval Office? There's a lot of stories historically about presidents, what films they screen and what movies they like and why.

And over the years, Ronald Reagan loved a Western and certain presidents love High Noon because I think President Clinton loved High Noon because it was sort of a one man against the world uh approach to things but this is a these are like a lot of borderline obscure films some of them are quite good i mean atlantics and diane those are great movies they're brilliant but they're just very small and you think he's just got a plug of some kind yeah and maybe he follows a24 on twitter and then i i don't know. I think that he seems online. He's got young daughters. Maybe he's just watching stuff to, you know, hang out. He's got some dad movies on this list as well.

Well, that's allowed. He's dad. You know, Ford vs. Ferrari is right here on the list. There it is. That's a movie that I could see him enjoying for obvious reasons. Just Mercy, I get that. It's a movie that I could see him enjoying for obvious reasons. Just Mercy. I get that. It's a very civilly minded film.

You know, it's about a big idea that he cares about. I don't know. The souvenir. Yes. He has he has daughters who are in college. OK. And he is. Oh, yes.

Oh, I see. Yeah. He has empathy for their experience dating a heroin addict. No, he just wants to be able to talk to his two daughters. They won't think he's cool at all. My dad also watched The Souvenir because I told him to and he loved it. Your dad is a cinephile. So Barack Obama could be a cinephile.

He was pretty smart. He wrote some books, you know? Sure. I think our standards have been lowered somewhat in the last couple of years. I'm just saying, I think that Barack Obama can sit through the souvenir and understand the nuances. What do you think is on Trump's list? Joker.

Joker. As we know, he saw it, loved it. He loved Joker. He probably slept through it. Whatever. Pikachu. You think you checked out Pikachu? No.

You think you watched Booksmart? No, I don't. People, I posted my top 100 movies of the year list. Yeah. And people were mad that Booksmart was really low on my list. I'd like to talk about that for a minute. Okay. So you wrote a beautiful essay and it listed 100 movies.

And what you want to do now is re-litigate what people who didn't consider anything in context and just started bitching about the writing. You want to give them that attention. You are JJ Abrams right now, turning this podcast into the Rise of Skywalker. Well, I don't want to talk about the essay, but I do want to talk about where things go and what we've talked about in the past on the show.

So we talked a lot about Booksmart. We saw it at South By. We had a lot of fun. We talked very positively about it. That was in March. Then the movie came out. It bricked. We talked a lot about why the movie

shouldn't have gone into wide release, why it would have been a great Netflix film. It would have been much better served by a new mode of viewership. When I revisited the movie, I was like, this actually isn't as good as I thought it was. I'm not having as much fun as I hoped I would. It's not as rewatchable as I wanted it to be. And if your teen comedy is not rewatchable, you're not doing it right. So I moved down the list.

Okay. This happens. Yeah. What do you think Barack's list would look like if he went back and revisited some of these movies? What do you think is getting the chop? You think he would sit through The Irishman again, three and a half hours? Yes, I do. I don't know whether Ford vs. Ferrari hangs on second time around.

Damn. It's, well, I guess it's fun to watch. Parasite stays. Yeah. Marriage Story stays. Yeah. I bet Little Women stays. You think so yes okay um i i don't know how many times you're gonna watch apollo 11 if you're not watching it on a big screen i don't know what

you're doing yeah how do you watch that movie at home last black man in san francisco is such an interesting movie that we barely talked about this year i interviewed the director joe talbot earlier this year great guy really interesting conversation with him. I feel like the movie, which actually did fairly good business, was a little bit lost in the awards race. And I wonder if you had released it in November instead of in July, if maybe it would have been able to compete for some more stuff because it gives people a kind of uplifting feeling. There's not that many uplifting movies in the Oscar race this year. Yes. So that might actually, it might be that uplifting movies don't have a chance right now because everyone wants to be really angry. But I do agree with you that I think in over the summer,

it just kind of gets lost in the shuffle. Let's go to another stock up. I'm saying the box office is up. It's not up over the year. It's down about 5%. But it's kind of bounced back in the last few weeks, thanks to Endgame, obviously, and The Lion King, and Captain Marvel, and Joker, and Frozen 2, and now Rise of Skywalker. Seven of the top 10 movies of the year are Disney movies. And that's notable because they have a borderline monopoly on the theatrical movie going business. Yes. I have heard a couple of people speculate that 2020 is going to be a full-blown apocalypse for the box office. Now, there are a lot of Disney movies coming out next year. There are Marvel movies. There are Pixar movies.

There are no Star Wars movies on the deck. And a lot of the movies that are coming out are not exactly hugely anticipated. You know, The Lion King is that might be the biggest Disney movie of all time. So they remade it. There's a lot of awareness of that. Aladdin might be the second biggest Disney movie of all time. And they remade it. This year they remade Mulan.

You and I are too old. That's the only thing that I'll say on this one is that I have like I have walked through the ringer offices and looked at people who I respect and love like Mallory Rubin and said to her face Mulan doesn't matter. And she's like, that's the most important Disney movie of all time. And that's just because you and I were too old. And Mallory is like two years younger and knows every word. That's a good point. So there is, it's the next generation, but I think there are a lot of people who do care a lot about it. Okay, so maybe- If anyone ever tries to sing me that song again, I will never speak to them again. I thought the trailer from Mulan looked good. Yeah, I'm sure it'll be fine.

The Pixar movies this year, Onward and Soul, I think both have the potential to be good, but they're also not based on a previously existing story like Toy Story 4 was. So the guarantee of success is not there. The two Marvel movies are Black Widow and Eternals. Yo, I just saw the Black Widow trailer. Yeah.

It's all my favorite people. Yeah. And also David Harbour, who I like very much. But why do they have to have the Hellboy in this? Why can't it just be Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh and Rachel Weisz or really just Florence Pugh and Rachel Weisz? How about that? Well, you need Scarlett Johansson because she is Black Widow. So she would have to be in the movie. Okay. Unless you just want like a lesbian comedy starring Rachel Weisz and Florence Pugh. Yes. Okay. Let's do it. And if they want to punch people, great. Okay.

I think Black Widow might be good. I'm open to it, but I like really didn't. I kind of knew that Florence Pugh was a part of it. I also thought this was maybe a TV show. Yeah. I'm pretty interested. I'm interested too. I think, unfortunately, we know that Black Widow is dead because she sacrificed herself so that they could get all the stones so they could kill Thanos.

I am inevitable. RIP to Thanos, whom I love. Oh, really? She died? I actually had forgotten that. Yeah, she sacrificed herself. This is like back in time? It's gotta be a flashback movie of some kind. I presume, unless they're reviving her somehow. One of the beautiful things about film, Sean, is that it can

skip time. That's not necessarily one of the beautiful things about it, because I just saw The Rise of Skywalker. Artemis Fowl, are you familiar with that movie? No. Okay, we'll keep it moving. Jungle Cruise? That's a ride, isn't it? It's a ride that is now a film.

Yeah. Much like Pirates of the Caribbean. Yeah. But with The Rock and Emily Blunt. I really enjoyed the Jungle Cruise ride. Some great photos of me on Jungle Cruise in like 1993. Okay, cool. That's your contribution to this conversation?

I don't know, you're talking about everything. I'm a grown adult. Yeah, but we got to talk about these movies. I know, but it's like, we'll go see them. But all of this is just like you wrote Maleficent 2 like eight times. Did you, are you excited about the New Mutants? Angelina Jolie's in that. No.

Which one is she? An Eternals. She's in Eternals. Okay. The New Mutants is about a young teenage band of mutants in the X-Men universe. This movie was shot 18 months ago and has still not been released. And there's some concern that it's not good. We'll find out soon. The Woman in the Window, which was a Fox movie and now is a Disney movie. Yeah.

Tough trailer on that one. That was really wild. I have read that book. Yes. I can't say that I recommend it. The book has come under some fascinating uh scrutiny because of its author which we'll save that conversation for when the movie comes out i look forward to breaking that one down free guy which i thought actually

looked quite clever which is a ryan reynolds comedy as you know i'm a sucker for ryan reynolds in which he plays a an ancillary character in a video game world who i stopped listening but keep going okay he becomes actualized and he realizes that he's in a game and that he then knows what to do in the game and has power okay can we talk about the next movie on the death on the nile yes except it's already screwed up because they we did this we know what you think about this let's wait for the movie to come out then we can address it okay oh i'm excited about the last duel Last Duel is the most exciting one here. Yeah.

This is Matt Damon and Ben Affleck reuniting in a complex. Is this a Ridley Scott film? Yes. I believe it is a Ridley Scott film. So we'll see what happens with that. Raya and the Last Dragon is a Disney animation movie. It's not a Pixar movie. And West Side Story from Steven Spielberg will be coming on Christmas Day 2020.

Now, that theoretically seems like a good slate, but it doesn't seem like a good slate if you just released Endgame, Rise of Skywalker, and The Lion King, which are huge movies and really kept the box office afloat. And there's not a lot of big movies coming out next year that are going to keep the box office afloat in that way. I know you don't care, but it's fascinating to me.

No, I do care. I just, it does seem like this will be the year that the actuality of all of the business structures and technological structures that we've been living in, like the chickens come home to roost. And the way that we talk about box office and the way that people see movies and the way that studios are run, like next year is when it changes. And it will be ugly. And there will probably be a lot of consequences that we will not appreciate.

It is fascinating to, to be living through it and to watch what happens in real time, but yeah, it's going to be messy. Yeah. I suspect that it will be a big topic of conversation for us next year. Just about the number of existent theaters there are in the world right now. And the success that Netflix had with the Irishman and Marriage Story rollouts and the way that the people responded to those films

when they hit the service, I feel like that really truly is going to be the paradigm next year. And Netflix has a huge slate of movies coming out next year too, which will be interesting to talk about. Stock down, speaking of troubles at the box office, I don't we could not have predicted this quite this accurately. But Jesus Christ, Cats is a bomb. Yes. This is a world historical movie failure. Yes, of course.

You saw this movie. So did I. What the hell? Deadline reported this morning that it's it's likely to lose $71 million at a minimum. I just can't believe how much it costs. And I understand. I've read a lot about the fur technology and they sent the wrong cut. And so Tom Hooper sent an updated whatever.

And it's like, I'm a fixed wolves. Okay, sure. burns like Helen Mirren's exposed hands okay sure but like I cannot believe they spent this much money on an adaptation of a musical where people just sing about what kind of cats they are for like eight hours these cats are no wolves like even wolves in its bad version was still so much better than cats yeah um up there's a bunch of movies that are just doing really well little women had a great opening weekend, which is exciting to see. It made $30 million over the Christmas holiday. Jumanji The Next Level, which is a movie we have not discussed ever, may not really discuss

much more than this coming sentence that I'm about to utter, but it is crushing it. It is making a shitload of money. And then My Precious Uncut Gems. That's great. Uncut and wealthy. Fantastic. Broke the A24 record for opening weekend box office, which is just delightful. Yeah. There's a small part of me that's like uncut gems, Oscar

wave. Let's go. You ready? Why can't it happen? It's a hit now. A lot of people have seen it. Everybody loves it. That is true. Not everybody has seen it. I love it. Everyone loves it. I did have a lot of conversations where it's like, can I take my parents to see Uncut Gems? And everyone was like, no, probably not. So I wonder about the elders. Sad. Well, it is sad, but there is always one surprise. There is always one thing that the Oscars give like, you know, hipster film, Twitter or whatever to make them happy.

And maybe this year it could be Uncut Gems. Stock up to heaven sue lion star stanley kubrick's lolita an actress whose image is burnished into my brain permanently um sad that she died at the age of 73 over the holiday weekend before we go to the big race there's four movies that we have just not spent very much time on and we're gonna have to find time to talk about them. Some of them are competing at the Golden Globes. But if you're wondering why we haven't talked about 1917, why we haven't talked about the two popes, why we haven't talked about just mercy or clemency in any way,

other than maybe just where people fit into nominations, stay tuned. We'll find a way to talk about them. They're important. I think 1917 is probably the one out of the four that we'd be most excited to talk about. You went on two popes. I want to talk about them. They're important. I think 1917 is probably the one out of the four that we'd be most excited to talk about. You went on two posts. I want to talk about it.

Okay. Um, I, did you convert to Catholicism? I am Catholic. We've talked about this. Are you practicing Catholicism? No,

I'm not practicing it. And that like might honestly be my problem with not my problem. But at some point I was just like, all right, this is just like, you know, hearing some people lecture me, but I, I, we might end up talking about it depending on how a bit more depending on how it does

at the Golden Globes. It feels like a very Globes-y movie to me. And then that changes the race a bit. I agree. Speaking of the race, let's go to the big race. Well, mama, look at me now. I'm a star. A little bit of a change of pace here on the big race this week.

We're not going to talk about one of the active races. We'll have plenty of Golden Globes talk coming in the future. I want to know, and this occurred to me over the holiday, I really feel like this was the best year for movies in this decade. Now, I know what you're going to say. Recency bias, too many Sean things. I did, in fact, say all of this to you when you proposed this for the podcast. Right. So that's why I said I know what you're going to say. I'm trying to cut you off at the pass here so that I can make my points and win whatever fake argument I've created.

It's not an argument. It's a discussion. But you know, there's a Tarantino movie and there's a Scorsese movie and there's a Bong Joon-ho movie and there's an Uncut Gems and there's all of these little women and you know, all of these wonderful films this year. It really feels like we're headed towards a five-way race for best picture

and all five of the movies that could win are good. Like actually good. Like actually you would recommend them to a stranger on the street. You can't say that about 80% of Oscar years. Now we're seeing it through the Oscar prism. Now it's possible that the second tier movies this year were not as good. Is that what you're going to say to me?

Well, you didn't say that it's the best Oscar year of the decade. I know, but this is how my brain works. Yeah, but it's really interesting because when we went and did the movies of the decade, I don't think that you, Chris, or I had a single Best Picture winner on any of our lists. That's right. Because that's just... I think you're right. That's not how the Oscars work. That's right.

But a lot of those movies that compete... That's true. And it could be the best Oscar year. Okay. That's true. And it could be the best Oscar year. I had a couple alternate years that I just felt that we should discuss. Pitch away. Okay. But you didn't say Oscars.

So that's okay. I think that's okay. I would say that you're right that the second tier stuff, it has not necessarily, you know, you could make a case that Midsommar and The Lighthouse and a lot of other movie waves, all those A24 movies that I loved from this year. You know, movies like Us, movies like The Souvenir, Ford versus Ferrari. You know, there were a lot of really great films. Portrait of a Lady on Fire, we barely talked about that this year. You know, Hustlers. There was a lot of stuff in that second tier that was also very good.

A lot of which did very well. Knives Out, we didn't even utter Knives Out. That's like 15 movies. Yeah. That I would say I greatly enjoyed to loved. That very rarely happens. No, I agree with you. So what are some other years that you think are in contention here?

So I think there's really only one other year that is in contention. Okay. But a couple worth discussing. I think 2012 and 2013 are both notable. So share for me what is in those years. Okay. 2012, you have The Master. Yes.

I'm a big fan of that one. Started with your thing. Django Unchained, Magic Mike. You're not allowed to say this anymore, but Zero Dark Thirty. And then you have Skyfall, which we all know that I love. That's the Hunger Games starts as a franchise. Okay.

The Avengers makes the most money of the entire year. That's a pretty good. I would take the top five best movies from this year over that. I know, Sean. This is a runner up. Okay. The other one. This is the one you

think is better no 2000 i also mentioned 2013 which is another runner-up but 2013 is an interesting year okay because you got wolf of wall street great frances ha gravity inside lewin davis shout out to you these are good these are good yeah that's the earth frozen uh that's spring breakers and her just for some fun stuff. And also enough said a lovely movie. Huh? That's a pretty good list. The rise of Annapurna and a 24.

Exactly. You've got the biggest Disney animation hit in a century. Okay. I buy that. Is there another one that you think is actually better than those two? Yes. I think the only actual challenger to this year was 2017. Okay. Explain why. Okay. So that year and the Oscars themselves were a train wreck because that was the year of the shame of water one. And we had to talk about three

billboards and blah, blah, blah, whatever. That was tough. But among the nominees, you had get out, you had lady burn, you had Phantom Thread, you had Dunkirk. Here's some other movies. I don't even want to call them tier two, but smaller movies. You have Good Time, Call Me By Your Name, The Big Sick, Mother, Sean's favorite movie of 2019. Fucking love Mother. Okja, I, Tanya. Here are some of the superhero movies for you. Okay.

Logan, Thor Ragnarok, and Wonder Woman. And two other franchises, It and The Last Jedi. Wow. It's a strong case. It kind of covers a lot of the bases and does a lot of things really, really well. I think also, I loved Little Women so much. Go see it if you haven't. Still think Lady Bird is better Gerwig than Little Women. Okay. I think Get Out is better Jordan Peele than us. Yes. Phantom Threat is, you know, tremendous. And all of the superhero

stuff is better. The franchise stuff is better. This is tricky. Would you rather have The Last Jedi or Knives Out? I mean, those are just different boxes. I understand that they're both Rian Johnson movies. Would you rather have Parasite or Okja? Parasite. Would you rather have a Quentin Tarantino movie or no Quentin Tarantino movie?

Yeah, no, I get that. Would you rather have a Quentin Tarantino movie or no Quentin Tarantino movie? Yeah, no, I get that. Would you rather have a Martin Scorsese movie or none at all? Hmm. Would you rather have Uncut Gems or Good Time? Yeah, I think that those are all true. But then I would rather have Get Out the Nest. I would rather have Lady Bird. I would rather have Phantom Thread.

If I had, if I'm picking Phantom Thread or The Irishman, I think I'd pick Phantom Thread. I would too. Because that's like, you know, it's like two great, two great directors and I'm picking between them. I think I, you know. This is a fun game. The movie showdown game. Right.

Choosing the years. Like this year, I accept this year. I think 2017 is like the only real challenger. And it's an interesting one i think it might be like slightly more well-rounded this year might be no i think 2017 in terms of the blockbusters in terms of you make a compelling case with the superhero movies in particular yeah because while i found endgame to be satisfying i don't think it's a better movie than logan right for example um and i don't think it's even as much fun as Thor Ragnarok.

So that's, you got something there. You haven't given me any horror movies or like exploitation movies. Is it a horror movie? Yeah, I guess so. It was good. It chapter one is good. It's not great.

Okay. It's good. It's very good. And it was better than chapter two. I don't know. You guys seemed to like it at the time. I know. And then you were very, very mad about chapter two.

Well, I wasn't very mad. It was just slightly disappointing to me. Man, I'm still going time. I know. And then I was very, very mad about chapter two. Well, I wasn't very mad. It was just slightly disappointing to me. Man, I'm still going 2019, I think. I still think it's superior. But you're taking 17 because of the strength

primarily of Get Out and Lady Bird dominating ultimately. And Phantom Thread. And also all of the blockbusters. You know, I like to have fun at the movie shop. You loved Wonder Woman.

It was in your top five. I did. I loved Wonder Woman. I hope they're still listening so you can get mad again about the fact that I put Wonder Woman in the top five. Well, good food for thought. It's just worth thinking about. I think that Amanda would love to hear in her mentions from you about whether or not 2017 was the best movie year of the decade.

So feel free to add AK Dobbins with your feedback. Okay, thank you. Very exciting for all of us to see. I'll be watching it from afar. Anything else before we close out the big picture for 2019? Amanda, what do you what do you want to say to the listeners to the world? I thought it was a very fun year. I don't want, you know, my advocacy for 2017 to diminish all of the great movies. And, you know, we've had fun talking about them. It's, it was delightful. I'm, I'm very appreciative of doing the show with you. I want to thank you for working on it with me this year. Thank you for listening to the big picture all year. Thank you to Bobby Wagner, who produces every episode of this show and does a great job. Thank you to Juliette Littman. Thank you to Liz Kelly and

Kate Halliwell, who also really helped the show a lot. Thank you to the many guests from the Ringer universe who come through. Thank you to the filmmakers who show up time and again to talk to me on the show. I appreciate their contributions. And thank you to you for listening. If you haven't already, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcast. We'll be back later this week to predict the winners and the losers of the Golden Globes. We'll see you in the new year. you