The Big Picture - We’re So Back for Good: ‘Backrooms’ and ‘Obsession’ Mania and 10 Movies We Missed!

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

Movies are so back! Sean and Amanda break down the remarkable success of 'Obsession' and 'Backrooms' and discuss the larger phenomenon currently unfolding in Hollywood (3:00). Then, they revisit their predictions in the Summer Movie Preview Game, examining where they were surprisingly spot-on and where they missed the mark entirely (33:00). Next, they catch up on 10 new releases they missed while traveling last month (39:45). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh, Sarah Reddy and Jamie Yukich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dibbon. And this is the big picture, a conversation show about the movies we missed in May. And man, we are so back. What we saw at the box office this weekend is nothing short of extraordinary. We will break down the remarkable sensations of obsession and backrooms. Amanda and I will also dig into 10 new movie releases that we overlooked while we were traveling last month. The movies are having a crazy return to relevance, but we don't want quality work slipping through the crack.

So we've got some recommendations for you today. But first, let's talk about. talk about what the whole movie world is talking about right after this. I take issue with return to relevance. Well, to the rest of you. From our perspective, we never left. Exactly. But, well, that's not true.

I have really waxed in the wind over the years. I've had some real doubts post-COVID. No, you never left, but your emotions went up and down. They did. They did. They did. As I've said recently, in 2024, after Furiosa did not perform well, I changed my mentality. I wasn't going to be doing this emotional roller coaster, but it's hard to not overreact to what's going on. And, you know, this is also amplified by a couple of other things.

The New York Knicks are in the NBA finals. Yeah. When does that start? For the first time in 27 years, starts Tuesday. And that's, I don't know what to do with myself. I'm trying to not, no, not Tuesday. It starts Wednesday. I better get that date right.

Right? Wednesday? Lucas, help me out. Why don't you have everything, you've not put them in the calendar? Like in the family calendar? I do actually have them in the calendar. I have and I did, yes. I have no screenings planned for any of the nights of any of the potentially seven games.

Okay. I would say I'm nervous. I fear Wembe. Are you familiar with Victor Wembe Yama? Yes, very tall. And also something about the burden of carrying his emotions or anxiety around and that's other people. I saw half the quote. Okay.

I don't know what you're referring to. I don't know. He seems like a very evolved young man. He is. And he's very young and he's very tall and he's very gifted. The Nicks did take two of three games from the Spurs this year. So anything can happen. Sure.

And if it does happen, this will be also a June for the ages after a May for the ages. The other thing, of course, is that Steven Spielberg was on the rewatchables this week. And I would encourage people to check that out. We talked about 2001, a Space Odyssey. Just one of the great times of my life. The Christmas card this year is just, it's coming together. It's really, really going to be beautiful front and back. Who's left?

I mean, who are we going to pose with next? Really, honestly. Just a very, very special conversation and just letting Spielberg just extended vamp about that film for a long period of time was really cool. But for all those things to be happening alongside this thing that is happening with the movies, you know, for our purposes here is just genuinely thrilling. Now, when we recorded on Thursday, the conversation about backrooms, we knew that the movie was going to be a big success and that it was going to far outpace the $20 million projected opening weekend. Yeah. I know you probably don't spend a lot of free time thinking about this, but were you thinking like this could happen that obsession would go up again

in its box office performance that, you know, the Mandelorian and Grogu would come in third place this weekend, signaling at least, I don't know, metaphorically a kind of shift in the movie culture? I mean, yes, because in the Barbenheimer way this narrative took on a life of its own. And so I think people, became aware, even if they weren't like pre-ordering tickets for backrooms, even if they haven't watched everything on YouTube, even if they're not 20 and like familiar with Curry Barker's internet work, they were aware that like something's going on and it's not Mandalorian and

Grogu. And so it became the center of culture, right? And people who pay attention to like, ooh, what's the, what's the big thing started looking in? And so it sort of has a self-fulfilling prophecy. So yeah, by Thursday, you could feel like, oh, this is, this is a phenomenon. You know? It definitely felt that way. And people like a phenomenon. They do. And that's the thing is that there's, obsession is obviously a huge word of mouth hit. Backrooms is a kind of internet discussion point hit. Mandelorian and Grogu is a heavily marketed Star Wars movie. So, you know, even though that movie is, I would say, relatively underperforming at this point, it's still a, it's still a big thing. And we were in a movie theater on Friday. We saw two movies on Friday in

movie theaters. And when we walked in, it was, I would say, not very crowded, but by the time we walked out at the beginning of the afternoon, the lobby was buzzing. Yeah. And there's clearly something going on later that day on Friday. I was out with my family and my daughter and one of her friends and her friend's dad. And we probably talked about movies for an hour and a half. Now, obviously, part of that is because people are talking to me and they're like, this guy likes movies. But also, there's just something's happening. I went out to dinner on Saturday night with friends. I hadn't seen since college. And, Again, we were like talking about movies, but neither of them had seen obsessions in backrooms,

but they both had opinions on which ones they wanted to see and why. And then I was in the position of being like, no, no, no, no, no, obsession's not that scary to all of the people at the other end of the table. But it's not. Well, I would say to your normy non-horror fan, you've been in your, to the experience. I guess so. I think that there are just, there are different shades and different flavors. And it's not Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's a little bit gross out, and I think pretty funny.

Now, you know, if you think emotions or emotional unavailability are scary, then I suppose it is a real nightmare. But for me, I was just like, I think this is insightful. I'll tell you what I thought was really scary in that movie. Yeah. Early in the possession, when Nikki wakes up in the middle of the night and is just watching Bear, and then when she's in the distance in the corner of the room and watching Bear, that was actually scary. in me. That was actually, you know, I wasn't like crying or anything, but I felt a kind of discomfort that, and that had nothing to do with gross out. It didn't have anything to do with

violence. It was more just that that actress, let's draw that a little. Let's drill that a little. So does that make you afraid because you think that's going to happen in your own life? No. Well, I'm a married 43-year-old man, so no. I don't know what I lean is up to. I guess I lean is a light sleeper. She has a light sleeper. I would say staring at me, not something she's interested in these days. I think more specifically, there's something about being watched that is very unnerving, especially if you're being watched by someone who's dangerous, and we don't really know what's happening with that person. And that's something you can experience in any walk of life.

You know, you're just walking down the street and you encounter somebody who's clearly doesn't have it all together. That's a bit of an intense feeling. That's a scary feeling. So, like, to me, the movie isn't, it does have some of those core horror strategies, but I think that that's part of what is working. And now I've seen the movie go into the, like, the take cycle, you know, where it's like, Actually, it's misogynistic.

Actually, it's this. And I'm like, I think when a movie gets that this big and this popular, it tends to refract in a lot of directions. Before we get into any of that, I just want to put some of the numbers on the board for what happened this weekend because of how crazy it actually is. So backrooms, which is in its first weekend of release, made $81.4 million domestic in three days. That is the highest grossing opening weekend in 824 history. It's almost, I think, in more than tripled Civil War. It already outgrossed everything everywhere all at once in three days, which was, you know, kind of a landmark movie for that studio. On opening night, it made $36.4 million.

Yeah. That's like Marvel movie shit. I mean, that's like pretty crazy. A lot of people had the date circled on the calendar and by people, I mean, young fans who are aware. And I pre-ordered their tickets. Yes. And good for them, you know. They deserve a night at the movies.

They deserve to learn the magic of a night at the movies. Yeah, I did. I saw plenty of reports on social media about very bad behavior in the movie theater during this movie. Say more. Well, just that there were a lot of people, young people, talking and kind of talking through the lore and talking through what it meant and people having their phones out during the screenings. We didn't experience that. We went to a screening of the movie. I do like to see movies like this with people.

You may recall my Minecraft experience last year. Just to kind of get a sense of what it's like. And I think I can push back against my own enthusiasm by saying, you know, maybe this backrooms thing in particular is a kind of unreplicable one-off. Yeah. Because of the huge amount of people that are, we're already interested in this IP that pre-existed. And then the movie over the course of the weekend went down. It went down on Saturday in terms of box office. It went down on Sunday in terms of box office.

What do you make of the B-minus cinema score? I think for any horror movie, cinema scores are usually a little bit lower. Right, but this is, you know, obsession has an A. This is a movie with like a very, very passionate fan base and with expectations of lore. And I was thinking a lot about Chris's, you know, honorary nieces who knew everything about backrooms and were kind of worried that backrooms the movie would not honor their culture. I think some people feel that way. I think some people feel like there's, and as we talked about it, in last week's episode,

the more the movie tries to movie, the less successful it is. And the more it backrooms, the more interesting it is. And I think most people are feeling that way, even those people who come to it without any experience, that there's something kind of singular

about what he's capturing when he's inside of the experience of the idea. And then trying to build narrative around it doesn't totally work as well. And so I noted this morning that it has a 3.4 on Letterbox. It's pretty low. Now it's been viewed, like,

I think half. a million times already. It's been logged on the app. Okay. Which in like three days is just absolutely bonkers. Obsession, by contrast, has a 4.2 on Letterbox. And has also been logged, I think, in a somewhat similar vicinity. That movie made actually $27.5 million this weekend.

It went up again on its third weekend of release. And this is the first film outside of the Christmas window since 1982's ET. Perhaps you've heard of it to have second and third weekends bigger than the first. This is crazy. It's wonderful. Obsession. It's good. It is good.

A lot of movies are good. Right. And it's interesting. The word of mouth actually leading to people going to the theater rather than, you know, earmarking it and being like, sure, I'll check it out when it becomes more available. Which I do think, you know, is aided by backrooms and the pre-sales and this kind of going to the theater moment. Like, especially for horror movies, you're not going to wait. But it is, no, it's wild and cool.

And I'm glad that it's happening to a fun movie. I agree. So it's made 105 million domestic now, 150 million worldwide. Seems like it could legitimately be a $300 million movie. This movie was made for $750,000. So it's going to end up becoming one of the most profitable movies of all time. I think the real comp here in terms of how successful it is is weapons and that there are a lot, this kind of a movie now, if you can create a story with a hook like this

with a couple of performances that are kind of unforgettable. Yeah. And you can build that word of mouth, and that's how you can find the success in this kind of a story. Looking at the films together, do they feel like a Barbenheimer-style blip? Do they feel like something that will be heavily exploited and wrung out quickly?

Do they feel like a guide path to a new era of movies? movie going? Like, I'm genuinely curious what you think the impact of this is going to be. I mean, it has already, you know, been discussed and, uh, exploited at least in a media sense. It was wonderful to watch everyone rushing out there think pieces over the weekend. Everybody who is even the tiniest bit related to either of these is hitting that media tour. And, you know, good. You, you picked a good one. I guess that's what you do in Hollywood. You take the credit. So, so much credit claiming. So many people. were not participating in the production of these movies

who didn't take the chance on these movies beforehand. So that's fine and that's how certainly the trade industry works in this town. But no, I think a thing that is studied and I do think it will become sort of a shorthand like Barbenheimer was for a certain type of, you know, theatrical event-going movie experience. And we talk more and more about how going to theaters is like an event, you know, activity now. And Barbenheimer has been the prime example. Like, this is another one.

It's a different audience, different types of creators. It's not, you know, huge studio-led IP, multi-billion dollar, you know, international press tours. But there is a formula for both of these that people will certainly try to recreate and probably not as successfully. And I don't think that, you know, we always talk about like, what will the lessons learn to be? And will the studios learn the right lessons? And, you know, probably not. But also, it's not just about learning lessons. It's that phenomenons like this are sort of are not replicable, you know?

And that is part of what makes it so amazing is that like nobody saw it coming on this level. Nobody really engineered it on this level. And you can make all of the same decisions again. and not get to this particular moment because it's just, I don't know, it's one of those things. It is one of those things. I think Backrooms was a little bit more predictable,

not at this scale, but as recently as a year ago, I had people who know things say, hey, this is going to be a thing. Obsession is completely different. Now, Obsession did play gangbusters at Toronto, and it was acquired for $15 million by focus. So it's not like it was,

it's not like nobody knew. it had potential, but the fact that it is doing it opposite the Mandalorian and Grogu, which dropped 70% after two weeks. It's at $250 million right now, box office. Probably going to settle between $350 and $400. I don't even remember what we picked for some movie preview game. We could talk a little bit about some of the things we got right and wrong there. But even Solo, which is the biggest bomb, really, of the Star Wars history, got to 393, seven years ago,

eight years ago. And apparently, it's losing IMAX screens to Masters of the Universe this weekend. First of all, congratulations to you. I'm very excited. And you know what? The early reviews are very positive about Masters of the Universe, and I'm seeing it tonight. I'm excited for you. It's all coming up, me.

I agree with you that I don't think it's going to, like, radically change things. I do think that when we talk about how the studios will react, we tend to just think of them as, like, faceless corporate morons, right? That's the perception of the people. Most of the people that I know who work in the kind of like middle class of movie executive, love when shit like this happens. They cheer. They're super excited. The problem with their jobs is they bring stuff like this to their bosses all the time and their bosses tell them no. And so it's like it's more like will this wake the bosses up? Will this wake the sort of like the actual corporate overlords, the sort of like larger corporations that own these companies that employ people who like movies who get into the movie business to make movies.

And then to get them off of the IV drip of only trying to make four quadrant, $250 million movies that could potentially make $2 billion, but probably won't. That, to me, that is the issue. The issue is like the whole strategy can't be maximize every single movie. If that's what you try to do, you're going to miss. Like, you're going to miss, and it's going to be more costly than finding 10 Curry Barkers and trying and being like, oh, we lost $10 million on this one instead of we lost $1 billion on the future of Star Wars. because we misplayed our hand for 10 years. And honestly, playing the middle because obsession is a huge, huge hit, like, Focus is biggest ever. It is, yeah.

And Backrooms, this is going to be 824's biggest movie. But, you know, Backrooms still made less in its first weekend than Mandalorian and Grogu did. And it's first weekend. They're not playing. Like $200,000, but yeah. Well, yeah, but, like, but still. And I think that there is, they aren't playing for a billion dollars. They're playing for, you know, 200 million and maybe they're going to get to 500 million, which

which is, but most studios and the way they are organized, which unfortunately, it's not just wake up the studio heads, it's wake up the shareholders and or the multimedia conglomerates that are being reorganized by, you know, hedge funds and private equity on a regular basis. They are constructed to only make the billion dollar or two billion dollar play. Yes. And it takes a long time to unwind that. And we are not seeing that unwind. we are seeing that at least on a big studio level consolidate in the form of, you know, Paramount and Warner Brothers.

That's totally right. And the other thing that is starting to happen this year and one of the reasons why the box office is up is 11% is because not just because there's been new movies and exciting movies and movies that people like and also franchise movies that people still like. And there will be this summer Spider-Man Toy Story. Like those movies are still going to be huge. Guess what Amanda's seeing tonight? What are you seen tonight? Minions and Monsters, baby. Wow.

Oh, wow. That's right. Oh, so exciting for you. Oh, my God, Knox is so excited. He's been reenacting the trailer. That's also going to be huge. But it's about the double whammy of the COVID and the strikes, slowing down production for a long period of time. And then the lack of movies being made, and in that interim time, a lot of movies going straight to streaming.

Now, one of the things I was thinking about this weekend as I was watching a movie on Netflix was this doesn't make sense. The idea of putting a $100 million movie directly on Netflix, it never made sense to me. I wrote about this as far back as like 2017 on The Ringer. I never understood what this was all about. TV, of course. Netflix's desire to take over television completely and now YouTube, I fully understand it. It's a great business model. They've been killing it.

Their movie strategy for 12 years, I just don't. I have no idea what they're trying to do. They're trying to win Oscars, but they're also trying to make $350 million movies. And now more than ever, seeing what a movie like Backrooms can do, and also seeing what a movie like Spider-Man Brand New Do, is going to do, that is the whole business model. That's the only business model that makes sense. And I think it's okay like for documentary. It makes sense for stand-up comedy. It makes sense for, I don't know, maybe like even an experimental kind of thing. And of course for licensing old movies.

Right. But that period of time, that like eight or nine year period of time where huge movies would go direct to a streaming service is going to, we're going to look back on that as a complete oddity. Like one of the strangest choices in the history of the business. Yeah, well also, none of them are very good. That's been a problem as well. I was thinking a lot this weekend. But we're more unforgiving of those movies when they go straight to streaming.

That's the thing is they immediately got kind of like tainted. They were like, oh, that's a streaming movie. That's not as special. Well, I mean, it didn't help that they all looked like streaming movies, and they were all edited and scripted and put together aesthetically to, according to like streaming workers of how a movie should play, pacing, you know, opening. But anyone, but you did that. Chris talked about this last week. Yeah. $300 million, right? So it's like, you can change your perspective if you just put a movie in a

movie theater and see it with a crowd on a big screen. If you just put it on your TV, it's like it feels less than. Yeah, though anyone but you also just became a TikTok sensation and that's how it got people to the theaters, which that happens for, you know, gentlemenians and one out of every 12 meetings, movies that happens for Megan 1, but not Megan 2, you know? So sometimes, sometimes I do think that it's, we can tell when a streaming movie is made for streaming because it is made in a different way. That's true. I was thinking a lot about stranger things this weekend in terms of backrooms and just,

and really feeling at a distance from, you know, a young person phenomenon. You know, just like a very, something that kind of hit instantly, well made, plays on nostalgia, you know, separate worlds and clearly. speaks to young people in a way that we're all trying to keep up with and be like, yeah, like, isn't that cool? And that was on Netflix, but that, of course, was a TV show. And there is just something about the basic building blocks of. They have figured out how to make things in a longer and stretcher and more immersive way

at home, but it does not fit for movies. It just doesn't. It really has never. It doesn't mean that there haven't been successful Netflix movies. There have been plenty of them. It's just they don't feel. has baked into the long-term culture because of the way that we received them

and because a lot of them just aren't very good. And, you know, we see this year, Amazon is now putting all their movies in movie theaters. And it's working, you know, Projectile. We'll talk about the sheet detectives. These movies are doing well. Master of the universe, we'll see. But nevertheless, they're trying.

So I'm very curious to kind of chart in the aftermath of Cliff Booth and Narnia what they end up doing because it feels like they're on the outside looking in of something that is changing, again, in a culture. And this is maybe not a permanent shift. These things are always evolve And maybe the backroom's obsession thing

Will be over in three months And we'll never think about it again And that's in play It might we might just have a really bad Second half of the movie year We don't really know But I don't think so And I do think that

Teenagers are switched on To go into the movies right now You can tell based on all the market research And you can also tell just by going to movie theaters That's the other thing I wanted to say is We talk about this stuff all the time on the show I think about it all the time It's become a weird obsession of mine

To chart this over the course of history But I'm in movie theaters all the time and I also talk to people who make movies. Most box office analysts only talk to executives. You can't listen to those people. They don't know what they're talking about. They're only listening to what people who are financially motivated

and are using their previous experience are telling them to talk about. You have to talk to real people who go see movies all the time because that's actually what indicates where things are going to go ultimately. So it doesn't mean that we're without flaw in how we analyze it.

I make mistakes all the time. We can talk about our preview game. We fucked up a million things. A thousand percent. You can frequently tell when something is shifting when you're in the space with people. I was thinking about one other thing too, which is like the young person component of this,

making the movies, how Kane is 20, about to be 21, and Curry is 26. Yeah. And I was trying to think of who's the youngest person who ever made a movie for Disney. And the youngest I could think of was Domeschi for Turning Red, which was just a few years ago. She was 33 when she made that movie.

And I don't want to pick on Disney, But, like, it's about... When it came out, when she started it, when she... I don't know. I would imagine she was probably in her late 20s when she started. Which is significant. It is. I think those movies go through the, like, long life cycles, too.

So maybe, like, as she got it to the point of... I wasn't trying to aid shame her. I was just trying to point out that those take a process and also the difference between, you know, 27 and 33, a lot changes. It's very true. Yeah, Saturn return. It's going to be okay. Yeah, you guys will be fine.

You guys got it. So, Kyle Buchanan noted in his profile of Kane, that, Josh Trank, who made Chronicle at 27 years old, was the previous youngest person to have a number one movie in America. Obviously, Kane shattered that. I'm not sure that we need to let every 20-something make a movie, but there is something also interesting about how will older executives, heads of production, even movie stars,

open their mind to working with younger people? It's yet to be seen. How old was PTA when he made boogie nights? Definitely 20s, right? 27, 28? How old is your close personal friend Spielberg when he started? He was famously very young. They were famously over time.

He lied. I think he lied about his age to get out of the studio a lot. You know, lots of young people. And then there are the older people like us who are trying to hang and maybe not totally getting it and also trying not to be too embarrassing about it, you know? Like I can't. I'm too old to be like, yes, I'm in the back rooms. You know?

Like, I just, it's embarrassing for everyone. I just think if you're enthusiastic about this stuff, then it doesn't matter how old you are. But historically, there have been people who make movies and are willing to make movies who will be, who will hang out with young people. Yeah. You just cited like two absolute comets in the history of the movie business. Sure. No disrespect to Curry Barker. I don't know if he's going to become Paul Thomas Anderson.

He might. He might. But usually when this happens, it kind of augurs a really big change. change. It is the new Hollywood. It is the 90s Sundance O'Tors arriving on the scene. This could be that. This could just be leveraging online fandom and a genre that is very applicable to the moment. But it's just interesting that there's not a lot of studio examples of people getting a chance to do this. It has to be more of a renegade thing. And you're right. To me, Ryan Coogler's not 40 yet, right? Oh, he just turned 40. May 23rd. Happy birthday, Ryan Cooghler. I think he was 28 when, or 27 when he made Fruitvale too. Yeah. Again, more along the lines of this.

And then Creed, he would have been much younger. Yeah. Yeah, he was, I think, 30 or 31 when he made Creed. I'm just saying. You've named three of the most amazing filmmakers in the last 100 years. Like, part of the reason why they are who they are. I mean, I think this is another thing also to keep in mind and to like have some respect for both Kate and Parsons and Curry Barker. Not everyone is going to be a genius, right?

And we know that studios and producers and everyone who has any money to spend is going to be like hunting on YouTube or hunting on TikTok for the next great like zoomer sensation. They will. And many of those people are talented. But not everybody is going to be really great. And so I think to just reduce it to the age is unfair, you know? No, I hear you. I'm also just like don't think that the next person you watch on YouTube is going to be a star. Like it takes more than that.

Yes. Right. Is that why we're not on YouTube anymore? A couple of other things about this. I've given this quite a bit of thought. Just a pure horror movie culture moment. There's something very exciting as somebody who spent his entire life obsessing over the genre for it to be at the absolute center of movie culture.

And this has been the case for about 10 years, I would say. It's been about a 10-year stretch where we had the quote-unquote elevated horror moment and that dovetailed into a kind of mass consumption moment. And I think that those two things are very connected. and a lot of it was kicked off by studios like Neon and A-24 taking chances on younger, more inexperienced filmmakers who hadn't done stuff before.

I don't think this moment is necessarily like a problem for Universal. They have Blumhouse. It's not a problem for Warner Brothers. They have new line. I am really interested to see if like Disney or Sony or Paramount or Lionsgate or especially Apple and Amazon

start to care about this because it's a genre that most of those studios have not spent a lot of time on Sony has, of course, with screen gems and some other things that they've done over the years. But Disney doesn't really make horror movies. They don't really make scary stuff at all. They have in the past, but not really very often. Paramount, it's kind of come and gone.

They did make smile, which is a really important movie to this moment. Like, what does an Apple Horror movie look like? I don't know. Widows Bay, their TV show is fucking awesome. It's like one of the best horror things that's come out in the last 10 years. So I'm curious about that. And ironically, Neon and 824, like maybe not as at the center of this right now. Now, obviously, Backrooms isn't a 24 movie, but I don't think they have any more horror movies planned for 2026.

Well, you and Chris talked about this a bit on obsession. Why are there no more horror movies in October? What's going on? I really don't know. I mean, I'm sure some stuff will also get slated in there at this point, but it's weaker now. I think in general... I don't understand what's going on with fall box office. I don't understand...

September is the new January. The new Q4, whatever they're all doing, is not according to... to the rules that we have learned in the last 10 to 20 years. I agree. And I don't know what to make of it. And maybe they have better information than we do, or maybe they're only talking to executives. Yeah. I feel like last October was kind of soft too last year, whereas October's past have been really strong.

I'm not sure. I mean, 824 does have three movies on the slate, four movies on the slate that are all really exciting. I just don't know if they're coming out this year. One is Kyle Edward Ball's new movie. That's a Skinnamaring filmmaker called Land of Nod. One is Panos Cosmatos is Flesh of the God. which is a vampire movie, I think, with Kristen Stewart. Okay.

Charlie Pollinger, who made The Plague, who I met, a can, who is a lovely guy. His new movie, Mask of the Red Death, is coming. And Arcahya Stevenson, who made the first omen, her new movie is also with A24. So, like, they're still doing that thing, obviously. Right. But I made a quick list of the movies that had to happen for this to happen. Okay. Here's what they are.

Okay. The first one is The Witch, the Robert Eggers movie. I remember. Which, I think, was a Sundance pickup. from May 24 and I think probably kicked off this era. And then in quick succession you get Get Out and Hereditary.

And Get Out wins an Academy Award. Hereditary is a box office sensation for 824. How old was Ari Aster when Hereditary came out? I think he was in his early 30s. Yeah. Okay. I'm just saying. 20 years old though. I mean...

Well, listen. This is what I was trying to see to you. You're under 25. Is that like Keene is and the 20-year-old thing. It's just the exception. You're not going to get another one of those. It's amazing. Congratulations to him. But like, you know. So, but so often it's like, I think Barbarian is a movie that I wrote down and I think Peel and Craigar are worth citing because they had entire careers as sketch comedy performers before they started making horror movies. And then Curry, who also was making sketch comedy, but then like cut out the eight years in between. It was just like, I'm just going to make a horror movie right away. I mentioned smile. Terrorifier, Terrifier, too. Those movies are a huge part of this, Skinnamarink. Talk to Me, the Philipo Brothers, obviously being YouTube guys as well. Five Nights at Freddy's.

I remember that. It's a big deal in this because that also was kind of like, you know, Gen Z, young millennial online culture. I saw the TV glow you cited when we talked about the movies. Long Legs and just the marketing campaign of Long Legs and getting people excited about that. And then last year, the double shot of sinners and weapons. And then this year earlier this year, I think we're going to get to the end of the year. We're going to overlook Iron Lung a little bit, the Markiplier. Probably not because people are already putting together their end of year YouTube packages.

So I would hope that his phone is ringing Yeah, I mean Or his, how do you message on YouTube? His might be the craziest Because it wasn't distributed by a studio Yeah And he crossed 50 million dollars But anyway, May was just amazing at the movies

And we went to Cannes You know, just a lot has happened Everything's going really well It was great Do you want to check in on the summer movie game stuff? We have one month of receipts Sure, I don't think it's going very well for me Because, well, listen,

We're about even Not to spoil the greatest film of May pressure, but as we learn, comps do not make for good weather. Oh, yeah. And they do not make for good box office predictions or maybe for business in general, which, like, I kind of knew. I just didn't know where else to get numbers. I think you had some major misses, but you had some hits. And same for me. Listen.

And the other thing that I did was I, my strategy in general, based on last year was like, either really big or really small. And, you know, backrooms is a sensation. Obsession is a sensation. But they're not Minecraft and Super Mario Galaxy numbers yet. So the middle, just in terms of like actual dollar amounts, is back a little bit more. And that was just not my reading of the situation. And I was wrong.

That's okay. But luckily, I've seen pressure now, so I know. Did everybody hear that? I was wrong. You know what? If we went back, I challenge you, honestly. to find me, Lucas, anyone at home. Lucas isn't that time for this.

When I am wrong, I say it proudly and cleanly on the podcast. And every time you're like, did everyone hear that? And they did because I do it. Okay, so the game we played. You, on the other hand. Just turn really red in the face and get so angry. Even when we know that you turned to me in Las Vegas and you said, Ray is not a Skywalker.

That didn't happen. The summer movie preview game, how do we play? Quickly the rules, domestic box office total, we guess. Metacritic score, we guess. If your guess comes within one point, if it falls within five points of the Metacritic prediction, five points if it's exactly right, one point if it's within $50 million of the box office prediction, five points within 10 million, 10 points within 5 million,

20 points for an exact correct guess. Devil Wears Prada is, I don't think, I think it's the, It's not settled yet. Okay. So this is interesting. So you guessed $210 million for the box office. I guessed $184. Yeah.

I guessed $57 for Metacritic, you guessed $68. Yeah. The Metacritic score was 63, so we're more or less right in the middle. You got a little closer. Yeah. And then the box office total right now is $209 million. So you're almost right on the money. However, the movie made $6 million this past weekend and it's going to keep making money.

So I could be losing points? Yeah. So you have 11 points. for your devilware's product which is really great. Yeah. And this is a game where we want points.

We want to get points. I only got one point here because I underbid but it's going to probably end up going on like 225, 2.30. So then you're going to get a little further away. It'll probably be closer to six points. How's it going at coach?

Hocum, we talked about. Feeling good about this one. My box office guest was 18. Yours was 10. I guess 78 for Metacritic. you guess 62. It came at at 76 on Metacritic and it's at 16.8. That's great. There's a chance that I'm getting right on the money here. It might get to 18 with what's lingering in the box office. Now this is, this one's really, so I have 11 points there. You have 5. This is fine. I screwed up.

This is the funniest one. It's for both of us. It's very funny. Billy Elish hit me hard and soft the tour live. A movie we'll talk about momentarily on this pod. I guessed 42 mil, you guessed 160. Once again, I used the Taylor Swift comp because I am told among the young people that Billy Elish is as important to the youth as Taylor Swift. Yes. Metacritic 71 for me, 65 for you. It's currently sitting at $9.9 million. That's tough.

Here's the other thing. Co-directed with James Cameron. This is a brick for Cameron. Yeah. A brick. Metacritic score was 73. So I was pretty close on that one. I got two points.

You've got zero points. Congratulations. Mortal Kombat 2. You know, this didn't do it. I thought it was going to do. I guessed 137. You guessed 60. I guessed 44 for Metacritic.

You guessed 46. You nailed the Metacritic score. Exactly. Well done. There is no science to this whatsoever. It's just yelling numbers. It's a game. Which is much like most box office tracking.

Yes. So this is $77 million total box office right now, which is like fine. I think worldwide, it's the biggest Mortal Kombat movie for whatever that's worth. Is God is. We talked about briefly on the show. I guess 12 million. You guessed 11. It came in at 4.6. Metacritic 74.

for me, 57 for you, came in at 77. I got six points, you got five. Obsession. Yeah. I guessed 42 million and I was nervous

that that was too high. You guessed 15 million. I guess 69 million for Metacritic. 69 for Metacritic. You guess 66 for Metacritic. It's currently sitting at 105 and its Metacritic score is 77. We both get zero points.

But we are rewarded with obsession in the world. We are. In the gray. this is a movie This is the Guy Ritchie movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Henry Cavill

No humans have seen this movie I'm learning about this Honestly You predicted a 52 Metacritic score I predicted 37 And I'm surprised to learn that in the grade Made it to 53 It did but the movie was in theaters for two weeks

And now apparently it's coming to VOD on Tuesday Of this week So yeah I guess 37 You guessed 18 It's sitting at 5.6 I got two points, you got one. Okay. I love boosters.

Interesting one. A little early to be coming in on these next couple because these movies just came out a week ago. But I guess 18, you guess 19 million. Metacritic, I said 81, you said 64. Interestingly, it's only at a 70. I thought it was going to do much better. And the box office is at 7 million. So we both get a point.

Passenger, haven't seen this movie. Horror movie that's actually doing okay business right now. It actually exceeded both of our guesses. I guess 12. You guessed nine. It's at 15 million after two weeks. and I guess 34 on Metacritic, you guess 52, is it 41? I got 10 points for this.

I don't know if that's going to hold. Mando and Grogu. Yeah. Tough one. Tough one. I guess 275 for the box office. You guessed 421. Well, it's like 137.

I have already explained that I had a flawed strategy. Yeah. The Metacritic score is 53. I guess 52. You guessed 48. You know what was interesting? And this made more sense in Cannes. where it's about, you know, the power of highbrow cinema.

But then I was in Paris afterwards, like opening weekend of Mandalorian and Grogu, which you would think would be an international. I saw nothing. I saw absolutely no mention of Mandalorian and Grogu. In Paris. In Paris. Like anywhere in France. Was it at the same time?

I would assume so. I don't know. Sometimes they open a little bit later. Still, you know, there was plenty of, no marketing whatsoever. And there was plenty of Devil Wars Prada left over. I assume that all those shows are streaming in France. as well that I'm honestly not sure. The next few are all May 29th,

so a little too early to check in on them. Pressure, the breadwinner tuner. I did just want to point out that our guesses for backrooms are pretty crazy. You guessed 16 million total. I guessed 67 million. It has already exceeded that.

I did guess 82 on a Metacritic score. It's sitting at 77. You guessed 64. So I've got two points, but we're definitely not getting any points on the box office on that one. Currently, the point totals, which will probably change

pretty dramatically over the next few months. You've got 43. I've got 45. Well, check back in at the end of July on this. I just thought it was useful because backrooms and obsession just changed everything. And, you know, like in my movie fantasy league that I'm in, which was a flutter with conversation over the weekend. I bet.

You know, I didn't pick obsession or backrooms. And if you picked obsession in backrooms, you're cooking right now. Yeah. And so I think I was in like third place. And now I'm in like eighth place because I just didn't have either of those movies. It happens, you know. What can you do? Okay.

That's the closest we'll get to you admitting any story. of error. I'm wrong all the time. Okay. It's frequently whenever I'm speaking to my daughter. Those are the times I'm most wrong. Dad, no. No, dad. That's, I hear that a lot. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, wow. Okay. Okay, let's take a quick break and then talk about 10 or so movies we missed. Great.

Do you want to start with the sheep detectives? Yes. Some begging and pleading for a discussion of this film. Which we saw before we went to Cannes. Yes. And then full disclosure. opted to save until we got back from Kim. We did.

This is a nice movie that I think everyone is maybe losing the plot, just like a little bit. Yeah. Well, okay, so let's describe the details of the sheep detectives, which is just recently crossed $100 million in the Vod's office. It's directed by Kyle Balda, who you may recall as one of the directors of films in the Despicable Me and Minion series. It's written by Craig Mazen, who's, of course, the creator of Chernobyl and the adapter of The Last of Us. and one of the, you know, well, celebrated screenwriters in the game right now.

It's based on three bags full, which is a novel by Leonie Swan. A cozy mystery. A cozy mystery. Is that the subtitle of the film? No, that's the genre. Oh, I see. Okay. But that's a thriving genre. Got you. A great number of stars in this film.

Yes. In human form, we meet Hugh Jackman, Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Gallatin, Molly Gordon, Hong Chow, and your beloved Emma Thompson. In voice form, Julie Louis-Dreyfus, Brian Cranston, Chris O'Dowdowd, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, and Brett Goldstein. Here's the plot. George Hardy is a shepherd who loves to read murder mysteries to his sheep, never suspecting that they can understand him. When George is found dead under mysterious circumstances, the sheep decide to solve the crimes themselves, even if it means leaving their meadow for the first time and facing the fact that the human world isn't as simple as it appears in books.

Now, you and I saw this with a fear that we were not doing right by the show by having an immediate review of the film. And then we both saw it on the eve of our trip to Europe. And we were like, I think this can wait. Yeah. We were like, this is nice, but. Yeah. And it is nice. And I don't want to ruin anybody's good time. I had a perfectly pleasant time at the film. I thought of you a bit while watching it because, of course, you do, you love a mystery. I'm a connoisseur of this genre. Yes. But, you know, even on the cozy mystery spectrum that I just referenced, I, I tend towards the Richard Osmans and the Anthony Horowitz's, those are, and the little more real life-based.

Okay. A little bit harder edge, fewer talking animals. Mm-hmm. And the other thing about this is that this is a mystery that it is also, like, if not a parody, then a send-up or a comment on the genre of the murder mystery, and it's very self-aware, and the sheep are making jokes about how a murder mystery works because they've learned all that from Hugh Jackman, the Shepherd. Right.

And they learn their, they use their reading habits to apply the trades of like the detective craft to the mystery in question and to assemble everyone at the end to do the big reveal. You know, they hit all the beats and they are aware that they're hitting all the beats. You know, I appreciate the metanus of it. They've definitely read a lot of murder mysteries. I don't need a comment. I still just like a murder mystery where it all. happens and then at the end you you are gathered together. And if you're going to be meta,

I think I prefer something, like Anthony Horowitz, who in addition to writing like four different mystery series, he does the continuations of the James Bond novels. And I think he makes British TV. He's very busy. They are, the metanus is way more structural and self-congratulatory but also clever as opposed to like whimsical. I'm not a whimsical person is I think what it comes down to. Yeah, I understand that. I'm not sure if I saw this so much as a send-up as much as a mash-up. Like I think it's really like Babe meets Agatha Christie.

You know, like that is really what it's trying to do. Now, it is very remedial in terms of its mystery quality. It's not the most sophisticated. I will say about halfway through it. I was like, this is pretty clear what's happening here. It's shocking for my five-year-old. She had no idea that this was coming. And that, in a way, I appreciated hearing from her.

I didn't see this with her. My wife took her while we were away. But I liked talking to her about it because I watched her get interested in this kind of storytelling. And she was very confused why a person would even be murdered. You know, and that's complicated to explain a young kid. But the movie is very warm. It's very kind, you know, even though it's about a murder. It made me think about, did you really?

read or watch the adaptation of Encyclopedia Brown at all when you were a kid? Loved reading Encyclopedia Brown. I don't remember watching it. I think there was a TV series as well, but the books were so good. I read every single one of those. I know. And it brought me back to the feeling of reading Encyclopedia Brown where you're kind of like, so this is riffing on Arthur Conan Doyle. Right. Kind of like doing the kid version of it. And like every kid needs that. I think it's a cool movie for 14-year-olds. And if you like a cozy mystery, it's nice too. It's a very pleasant movie. the jokes are fine it necessitates a kind of

like goofy performance style that like Nicholas Braun is great at but I don't know it feels a little overstated the enthusiasm for it but I don't want to I don't want to I don't want to ruin anyone's day

I'm glad everybody had a nice time you know and it's it's funny before we went to canon before obsession and back rooms this was like a wow can you believe that people are going in the movies and like crying about talking sheep and a detective story that's definitely either for 85 year olds or five year olds. Yes.

Quite a few old people in my screening. Right. Yeah. There was no one in my screening. Oh, really? Yeah. I texted you because there was no one else there. So I was allowed to get out my phone and say there's no one here.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's doing well. It's nice. It's doing well. And once again, Hugh Jackman, undefeated. Sure. He can do anything.

Sheep, talking to sheep, believably. reading to sheep? I thought it was good. Any other thoughts on the sheep detectives? Will there be a second film? Probably. It feels like it. Is this part of a series?

I don't, you know, I don't know because I have not read any Leonis Swan, even though I do own some because my husband, you know, when he travels, we'll go to the local bookstore and buy some, like, joke, Amanda Coded books. Okay. And I did get a Leone Swan book brought back to me. I only realized this after the fact. Not the last time in this list that I will say, oh, I didn't realize that I accidentally own or consumed part of this novel.

Okay. Let's stay firmly in your comfort zone here. Let's talk about pressure. Oh, I'm sorry. Like, you didn't have the time of your life. I had a great time. I didn't have as great a time as you did, though. I've not seen you vibrating out of a movie theater like this in some time.

But we're talking about pressure, which is the new film directed by Anthony Maris. It's pressure, colon, the untold story of D-Day. Is that the actual title? That is the title. Well, no, pressure is the... I think that's a tagline. I don't know. What are we calling?

It's like the subhead? I don't think movies have subheads. It's on the poster as the subhead, okay? And also in all of the commercials running during the NBA playoffs. Yeah. It is definitely on the... It is pressure the untold story of D-Day, just like it's Top Gun Maverick. No, that's not correct.

But okay. Maybe they should have made it the top. They definitely have untold story of D-Day at the end of every single commercial show during basketball. I think they'd need to explain what it means because pressure is kind of a vague title. But it is an appropriate title and a kind of double entendre. The story of pressure is as follows. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance as General Dwight D. Eisenhower and meteorologist Captain James Stagg face an impossible choice, launch the D-Day invasion or risk losing World War II altogether.

First of all, what a premise. Just absolutely Just crack You know And if you like a certain Kind of cozy dad movie Yeah This is the

The Nepluse Ultra Of Dad movies It is so perfectly calibrated For what you want From a movie like this Exactly So it stars Andrew Scott Brendan Fraser

Carrie Condon Christmas scene and Damien Lewis And a whole horde Of silver-foxed Stern British men Having serious conversations In war rooms They've taken over a country

Home, I believe Suffolk House. Okay. And they, everything is wood paneled. I think there is actually like a spinning globe like there is in Inglorious Bastards. They don't open the top, but you know, you like to think at some point that'll happen. Church Hill invoked but not seen in this film. Yes. And there is a lot of yelling.

There are a lot of weather maps. Lots of maps. The most thrilling part to me was the first title card, or within minutes, It's, they give you a, like, a time in place and they say 72 hours until D-Day. And then they yell D-Day will be June 5th, like 45,000 times. And of course, we all know that D-Day was, in fact, June 6. Yes, when you turn to me immediately. Did you not know that it was June 6?

I know that because it's also Ruthie Barron's birthday. Okay. So it's, and Rich Barron, father-in-law would never let you. ignore the fact that the birthday was also D-Day. So the date of D-Day. What's the implication there? That that's when she took over the shores of the Barron family? He's a history dad.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, aren't we all? This film makes all of us history-d-dads. You've got to know that June 6 is also D-Day. Yes, that's helpful to know because... So the tension is there and they just yell about June 5th for at least 90 minutes. Yes.

And then there is the climactic moment when Ike, Dwight D. Eisenhower, as played by Brendan Fraser, who the first... 10 minutes, I was like, this is an unmitigated disaster. And then by the end, I just, I was like, this is a man in crisis who doesn't know what to do. Let me just say, Brendan Fraser is not Ike. Like, that's just, this is not good casting. And it's not a bad performance. No.

It's a good performance because you're fully invested in the story. And his kind of frustration and confusion, but his also his willingness to hear out Stag, who's played by Andrew Scott, is the centerpiece of the narrative of the movie. Right. It's the primary conflict. primary relationship. But have you looked at a photo of Dwight D. Eisenhower? Yes, I have. I've seen many.

I agree. And I also, you know, the accents against the very like uptight British accents. And Andrew Scott is playing stag as British Miranda Priestley. Yes. He does like the no-no. He does, that's all. So there's a clash, which is intentional. Yes.

Because that sets up one of the major tensions of the movie. Yeah, two pressure systems colliding. Exactly. But also you're like, oh, no, this is going to be really, really awful. And then they settle in and you become really invested in pressure systems and Northern Island and weather stations and balloons. And you need atmospheric pressure as well as, you know, they're not checking all the right data. And I just, I mean, just a couple electric moments, including when Andrew Scott yells, when he

finally loses it in one of the great cabinet meetings. And he's like, what is not 1916? And you're just like, yes! You're screaming about an unpr predicted hurricane. It was great. But that is like the true peak of the drama is Andrew Scott just yelling about like a heretofore unmentioned weather system. But why has he not mentioned it up until that moment in the movie? It's like his big reveal.

It's called drama. Yeah, I guess so. And then also, I mean, I just. And so Chris Messina's character just completely overlooks 1916. Yeah, well, he's cherry picking the data as we know that statisticians do. I know, I know. And that's what, that's what happens. Obsession can go to number one.

The Knicks can be in the finals. Like this data is meaningless. All we need to do is follow our hearts and our instincts as Stag does here. Andrew Scott, just one of the guys right now, just will watch him do anything. This is a very odd part about a very recessed man who's having a lot of difficulty. His wife is pregnant. and he's left her at home so that he can work as the chief meteorologist in Northern Europe during World War II.

What a very strange job that is. I never would have thought you could build a movie here on this character. This movie very effectively does that. They sure do. And then I have to be honest, when it's time to dramatize the weather, they dramatize the weather. That was another extremely exciting moment. The big reveal of this movie is great. It's literally biblical.

It's beautiful. This is a fun movie. It's a very particular flavor. You have to like this kind of World War II storytelling, this kind of men in rooms kind of barking at each other about the fate of the world as we know it. You have to channel your inner history, Dad.

Yes. And we did also see it at 1 p.m. on a Friday, which I think was... Many old people, many retirees. Some young people who we met after. We did, and they were also fired up. It's a fun time with the movies if you dig this kind of movie.

I would recommend people check it out. Any other thoughts on pressure? No, but maybe I'll just yell, what you're not mentioning? Throughout the rest of this. That's really, really good. That is a Sorkinian. moment in the movie.

Carrie Condon once again playing the gal who makes sure the guys are okay. Becoming a bit of a thing here. Vanties have into Sharon, F1. She keeps popping up as like, oh, you're a wee fool, but it'll be all right. There's one more. Oh, train dreams. Train dreams? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. She's being typecast, my beautiful Carrie Condon. Okay. Why did she and the wife look so similar? And then they did some cuts intentionally. I think that's on purpose where he needed a kind of a female support system. a woman who believed in him.

Right, but the way that they edit it suggests for a little while that Carrie Connan is going to replace the wife? I didn't see it that way. You were shipping them? I wasn't shipping them. I was a little concerned that the editor was. And I was like, I don't know. Let me ask you this.

Yeah. A lot of these movies, they have this trope of the man who has the answers, but he's so stormy inside that he needs a woman who can look him in the eyes and say, I believe in you, follow your light, follow your path. do you feel that you need a man who believes in you to be great? I have one. Yeah. Knox? Who is it?

Yeah. But also the other half is that they need a woman to believe in them to be great. Yeah. And also to like handle all plans and logistics. That's true. You know? And she's just like, here's how you're going to get from A to B. And I handle all the correspondence.

And I know when you need to eat and when you need to beware. And I don't have anyone doing that for me. I'm still the planner. It's still when it's, you know. Interesting. Not on this show. Well, no, not on this show, but when we travel. That's true. You know, like where are you eating?

You ran shit it can. Exactly. Like, where do we go? What's going to be the, you know. Well, I believe in equality among genders. Okay, that's beautiful. That's how I see things. We both do things very well.

Okay, let's talk about I love boosters. Okay. So this is the new film from Boots Riley. His first movie since, sorry to bother you. Boots was on the show for that movie. movie I really liked. On my way to the office today, I was listening to the coup, which is a Boots' hip-hop group that he was in starting in the early 90s that I was a huge fan of in the 90s and 2000s.

And the first line of the first song on his first album is Presto Red the Communist Manifesto. And I love Boots and I've always loved Boots. I'm fascinated by his career and the way that he has like creeped into the mainstream in a way that I never would have guessed when he was making. His albums are called Steal This Album, Genocide and Juice. He really is like an on the edge genuine progressive artist who has made a new movie with Kiki Palmer, Naomi Acki, Taylor Page, Poppy Lou, Aiza Gonzalez, Le Keith Stanfield, Will Polter, Don Cheadle, and Demi Moore.

The movie is about professional shoplifters who embark on a wild adventure as they target a cutthroat fashion mogul. This movie has more creativity in its right-threat. thumb than in almost any movie you'll see this year. And yet, I don't think this movie works at all. And so it's like a fascinating thing. And I'm like, ready to pull apart with you. I say this is somebody who roots for boots. But I was like, this didn't hang together for me.

Well, that's the thing, right? It doesn't hang together. I think it works beautifully in details and in moments. And whether it's a specific image or a color or a joke or a, you know, a political observation that are all threaded together, not even. scene by scene, but really kind of 20 second clip within 20 second clip, there is so much that it is smart and funny and insightful and unlike anything you've ever seen. And like visually memorable, which is, you know, respectfully to pressure, not something that I can really say.

No. Pressure looks like every other movie made just like it. This movie looks like no other movie. Yeah, but I would say like much like backrooms, what the more like movie it tries to be, like the, you know, the basic plot of the, of the film and the character arcs, quote, unquote, don't really gel, don't seem to matter as much as all of the much smaller but bigger ideas nestled within the movie. And, you know, I didn't really understand, like, it's cool to make a movie about fashion. And, again, that offers a lot of visual possibilities. But I was like, why is Demi more as a fashion mogul? the villain of this weird movie.

We should talk about that. I mean, I'm interested in it. So, you know, in the 90s in New York, like boosting was a real thing. Right. And you had kids kind of ripping and running polo gear and Tommy Hill figure gear. And that was a huge moment, you know, in hip-hop culture that kind of spread out wide. And some of it was considered like this kind of mischievous, rebellious culture. Some of it was considered a political statement. Right. There's a long history of this. The movie has, like, I think a lot of the mischief and the kind of blow it up detonation quality

that a lot of boots is music has. It's interesting that he, almost every character in this movie is a woman and that he has completely repositioned this story to be about women seizing power, but against other women who are participating in a much wider culture of capitalistic brainwashing effectively.

And I really want to know what you think. We saw this together and did not say a word to each other about it. Because I'm super interested in situating the world of fashion as the epicenter of the kind of misdeeds of capital culture. I mean, it's perceptive. And in some ways, I do think, I mean, you know, literal. It's that Jeff Bezos, you know, started a retail operation and, you know, started with books. and buying like all of the junk that you either don't need or could have previously gotten a target. And now he's gotten a huge amount of money and is like buying his way into the Met Gala.

And, you know, Devil Wars Predator has a Bezos like character. It's sort of like the pinnacle of a certain kind of performative wealth. And that it is a and also that it's signify. you know, quite literally, like you can see the money. And it sets the expectations of how to spend money. And, you know, embedded within that is the idea that the money is the goal. So I think it's savvy in that sense. I didn't, but this is the thing.

And obviously, like, you know, the boosting culture and the political implications of that are also, they're smart. But as the movie plays it out, it kind of like gets away from those. ideas. I didn't really understand all the specificities of the particular fashion company that Demi Moore is running, which is like, you know, they do drops, but they're monthly drops and they're all one color. There's like a, so it's a, it's not really a supreme type theme. And there's also like an American apparel quality to it. I didn't really understand what it was trying to communicate in terms of the consumption. And. But like a. But like a.

High fashion quality too, where it was like Christy Smith, I think, is the name of the brand. And Moore's label is like the most expensive label, which is why they target her label for all this boosting, which is like one part kind of social terrorism, one part statement making, one part couture acquisition. You know, like, and it's kind of all of these things. And so he's kind of digging into, I think a really interesting psychological collision, which is even if you want to make dramatic change in the world, you see. still like fly shit. Like that's a cool idea. You know, that there's something that even, even for boots, who we ran into in Vegas, right? And still like, you know, he is a very fashion forward person. Like, he is somebody who's thinking about the way that you present and that's baked into this idea. But he's all, everything that he does is undergirded by the power of collectivist social

change. And the movie ends with like a very literal explication of the way in which he wants to see the world change. And I would say that I, I found it a little boiled down ultimately, like how he saw the world changing, but and a little bit, like, kind of oversimplified to communicate the message. I agree with what you're saying, which is that in the minor moments, like in Kiki Palmer's performance, the movie is a lot of fun. And, like, in the grace notes of all of the media coverage of Christy Smith and the boosters and just, you know, the political social world at large are very funny. And it's a media, you know, media criticism baked into, like, B-roll within a movie. Right. So it's, there is so much, there's so many ideas, right?

And it's jam-packed and there's always something to look at. But I agree that, like, on a macro level, it falls a little flat. Yeah. I think there's, like, a couple of movies I thought about, like, John Carpenter's, they live. I feel like it was a huge influence on this movie that has, like, a big reveal kind of in the second half of the film that I thought was very clever and that's certainly not a subtle movie either like the message that that movie is sending to you

is pretty profoundly like we're all being tricked and there's only one way to break the code here but as a movie watching experience I just felt myself outside of it a lot of the time and it wasn't because I disagreed or that's political point of view or anything like that it was more like you know what a movie is trying to have a tone and there's an absence of pacing

and you can feel kind of moving in a shambolic way when Poppy Loo's character comes into the film, it opens up this other huge global perspective on what is actually transpiring in this world. But it also introduces a technology that is sort of confusing and a bit elaborate. And we don't quite know what this kind of McGuffin type machine does. And it does a lot of different things and maybe too many things to make the movie as coherent as I wanted it to be. I will say, Aiza Gonzalez in the movie as Rory Cochran from Days to Confuse was amazing.

I loved her doing this. It was so nice to see her not just be like eye candy, bombings. shell girl holding a gun, like to be a complete stoner was very entertaining. I just, I walked away feeling like a little limp. I completely agree. I will say the clothes are good and interesting and creations on the run, which is not always true in a movie about fashion. And this, for being a movie about the line between fashion as art or commodity or, you know, how that intersects. It had ideas.

I thought it looked really good and also was done in a way that it understood, like the color tones and everything really did speak to speak to each other compositionally, which I thought was great. And then like a lot of the effects were practical, which I enjoyed that. I appreciated. Yeah, it felt very handmade, felt very Jim Hensonie at times. A lot of stop motion animation being used. That stuff was cool. Tune Yards' score I thought was really cool. It was like, I don't know if that score totally worked in the movie, but I liked that he.

made that choice to do something that is like that has sonic cues that are wildly different from any other movie. Like it does feel like a completely different kind of a thing and I have to tip my cap to it even though while I was watching it was like, yeah, it doesn't hang together. God, this is such an on paper thing that didn't totally convert. Sort of speaking of. Billy Elish hit me hard and soft colon the tour parentheses live in 3D. That's a lot of words for one movie. I didn't see this movie in 3D. Okay.

I did. I did. No kidding. Well, listen, I did the work. Wow. You really showed out. I'm the guy who does his job. You must be the other guy.

Well, I think we know that's not true. So I saw this movie with my daughter. That's cute. Who likes Billy Eilish, but I wouldn't say it's like overwhelmingly familiar with her work. She's not a scholar. When I was sitting there watching this in 3D, I did think a lot about how you said that your wife and daughter are both big Billy Eilish fans. And I was like, I wonder how this is going to go down with Alice. Yeah, Eileen loved it.

Okay, great. Because she loves Billy Eilish's music. So she had a great time. But, I mean, this movie is very standard. So the idea of, like, James Cameron being attached to a dramatic, mind-blowing Billy Isish movie, like, it isn't. It's a concert movie. Sure.

It's a very straightforward concert movie. This seemed like a cool concert. Yeah. I thought it was well-filmed. I liked that there was a little bit of, like, that when she was off stage, you went with her. And so, you know, you spend a decent amount of time under the stage as she's moving back and forth and you either are the camera sometimes or you're

following closely with her. I thought that was a cool way to film and also especially since there is like no choreography to film at this show. That's true. Well I thought especially at the very beginning of the film when you see her in the box before the bigger of the deal. That was very cool. I was hoping for kind of more moments like that. Oh, is it debt

to Katie Perry part of me? Oh, is that featured in that where she's... Well, yeah, you don't remember and then she gets the text from I mean, now she must be very thrilled that she got a text that Russell Brand was divorcing her. Oh, right, right, right. And then she, like, puts on her Katie Perry face and rises up.

You don't remember this? But she doesn't go into a box. Yeah, but she's, like, down below. Did Charlie X-EX go in a box in the moment? I feel like she might have also done something like that. Probably. Probably. Maybe I'm just thinking of a harness.

I think that she's, like, in some sort of below the stage thing, and then she has to rise. Well, this is a tricky one because Billy Eilish was the subject of a pretty long and expansive documentary about her. her life five years ago that R.J. Cutler made that Apple put out. Yeah. So, like, she's already had what I think would have been the most interesting component of this. And, you know, we just talked about Madonna and Madonna movies on our friend Yossi Solic show, Bansplay, which is coming out, I guess, later this month. And we talked about Truth or Dare.

And one of the all-time great. Truth or Dare has what this movie has, which is, like, incredible live performances. And then the backstage stuff is amazing. It's what makes the movie. Right. This movie's backstage stuff is okay. It's fine. It's nice. I thought it was amusing when Billy Elish taught James Cameron about eyeliner.

Sure. Yeah. When she's like, see, when you go out like this, he's like, wow, you can really see it from a different distance. Different distance. Like, yes, James Cameron. That's... Something tells me he knows about makeup, having been making movies for roughly 40 years. I think I wanted a little more from this.

I think I was hoping for a little bit more depth. And it's ultimately just the concert film. It's not a bad concert film. It was okay to see in a movie theater. But maybe the 3D was the... Did that impact you in a big way? No. And in fact, I thought it was, it was cool in the concert moments, but everything behind the scenes,

it was kind of, I was sitting on the side. So, and not the best 3D technological projection. So everything was a little blurry. Okay. I, as someone who is lightly familiar with Billy Eilish, appreciated it just as a primer of, like, what's going on here. Oh. You know, I mean, I know some of the music, but it was interesting to think about her in relation.

to all the other pop stars who are who have made these types of movies and even what they're putting on stage is so very different from what she is. So that's cool. I mean, that also means that my brain had the time to be thinking about those things. But that's fine. You know, we like an intellectual exercise. I will say that I noticed I immediately came alive the second her Charlie XX collab started playing and I was like, oh right. So I'm just a Charlie girl in a in a Billy world. Yeah. I was, Eileen and I were talking about this. Do you think Charlie is in the number two spot generation? behind Taylor Swift where it's, you know. No, I don't think so.

I would love for her to be. Statistically, I think she is for me. You think so? You think Brad was that big? No, no, no. I meant Billy Eilish. Oh, you said Charlie is number two. Sorry, I'm in.

And I was like, no, I wish. Yes, I do. I mean, that's why I guessed however much money I guessed, which it made none of. Which, what happened there? No one went to, I don't, I don't know. I just don't think that the, um, maybe the audience just don't, won't went to the show and we're satisfied with that. Maybe the love for the most recent album is lower than where she was before. I mean, her Spotify numbers are bonkers. I know. That's why I just,

I don't understand. Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Maybe this isn't just something people wanted. Maybe it was the time of year when it was released. I don't know. I mean, the movie goes out of its way in a very similar way to the Taylor Swift movie to spend a lot of time on the faces of the young women at the show, singing along. Right. And obviously, Billy is very inspirational to a lot of girls because she kind of rejects a lot of the expectations of a traditional pop star, which I like my daughter being exposed to that too. I like the idea of showing that like Billy dresses the way that she dresses and does what she wants to do in that respect.

But the songs are still like pure pop songs. Like they're pretty working in a very similar tone and style as, you know, some combination of Charlie and Taylor and Chapel Rhone and Sabrina and Dula Lipa and like, you know, it's all these kind of things mixed up in a blender. So I don't know why it didn't hit, but it didn't really hit that hard. Okay, we're going to introduce a new segment of the show. This is Amanda's geopolitical corner. Yes.

Are you ready? Yeah. Born ready. Okay, so I have seen two films that you have not. The first, I saw nine months ago in Venice, Italy, while jetlocked with Yossi Salek, speaking of fans played. It's called The Wizard of the Kremlin. It's directed by Olivia Assas, screenplay by Olivia Assias, and Emmanuel Carrere, based on

a novel, The Wizard of the Kremlin, that I bought in a bookstore in, I believe, Charles de Gaulle Airport and read three chapters of in translation. Let's be real. I'm not reading in French. When was this? I think I must have bought the book in 2024. Okay. Because it was a sensation.

And so then it was translated and then it was sold at like the, you know, metro whatever store and that terrible terminal in Charles de Gaul. And you thought to yourself, I want to read a fictionalized account of Putin's, Kremlin? Well, it was billed as a thriller, a political thriller. It was sort of the Tom Clancy of France, Germany. And is that something? Do you read Tom Clancy novels? I don't think I've read any, but I've seen all of the films. I will get back to that when you were like, excuse me, have you seen the film Jack Ryan? And it's like, well, I checked out a couple, I mean the series, Jack Ryan, and I said I checked out a couple episodes because I like to know what's going on with Jack Ryan.

You do like these words. You know, Hunt for Red October, Harrison Ford, Clear and Present Danger. Shadow Recruit, of course. Sure. That's the Ben Affleck. one? No? Listen, Ben Affleck was Jack Ryan. Shadow recruit is Chris Pine. Chris Pine. Right.

All our guys have been Jack Ryan. So sometimes. Cresinski, one of your guys? No. I mean, I liked the office, you know. Let's go back to the Wizard of Cremont. I feel like you and Krasinski were like pretty close in like 2015 and it's gone on different paths and I have to say you should be happy, you know?

You mean because people said I resembled him in someone. And you were also doing like the direct to camera like, we had a tonal vibe. Yeah. And you've diverged a little. I'll tell you what, John Krasinski, a very complicated reputation in Hollywood. He was on this show once for A Quiet Place. He was lovely and actually completely upended a lot of what you hear about him out in the world. Right.

Maybe he was just performing, you never know. But he's still a big star with this show. A Quiet Place, good. I like it. I'm a fan. Yeah. Anyway, that's the next movie. This is Wizard of the Kremlin, which is a film in which Jude Law plays Vladimir Putin.

And Paul Dano plays his spin doctor, who is loosely. his name is Vadim Baranov in the movie and the book, but he's loosely based on a real person. Okay. And it is about his time working for Putin and really working in Russia after the opening of the Soviet Union and the rise of Vladimir Putin. And it's from the perspective of the guy who, the cynical kind of left-hand man who, or right-hand man, who makes everything happen. and then kind of sees Putin getting beyond his grasp. You know, I've created this beautiful monster and then, and then here's how it goes. So once again, it features Jude Law as Vladimir Putin in terrible orangeish short, like, cropped wig.

And shirtless, if I recall, a fair amount. Oh. I thought Jude Law was great in this. And I... Is that not just your Jude Law bias? No, I mean. Part of it is it's the only exciting part of an otherwise kind of weirdly paced Olivia Asse-Ass movie where people just like explain things to you and large blocks of text in questionable accents.

And I just want to say that this came out before the whole Tarantino-Paul-Dano thing. And I saw it before the Tarantino-Pol-Dano thing. And I thought then to myself independently that Paul Dano was miscast in this. But that does not mean that I don't value his work other places. And we've all learned that many people appreciate Paul Dano. In this one, it's a weird accent. I don't know what's going on. That's so funny because that's the most exciting thing to me about this on paper is Paul

Dano doing a Russian accent. I texted you last night. I'm just downright mad. I haven't seen this. This is a very specific kind of thing that I enjoy. Yeah. Which is like a preposterous political docketrama. Right.

The problem is that it is more, it's not as preposterous as you want it to be or it's preposterous in the wrong ways. Okay. It is a docu-drama. It's not a thriller. And some of it is plotting and is now let me read you this political text

that's been translated through like four different languages by the time it's being spoken to you. Yeah. I had a decent time. I don't think it totally works. Weird situation here where Olivia Aaseas, I think really one of the great European filmmakers

the last 50 years. Yeah. Has been in a real down swing since this show started. And so we haven't had as much opportunity To talk about his work we did we both like nonfiction Which we talked about in 2018 And then in 2019 he made Wasp Network

Which went to Netflix which I don't think we ever even discussed And then he made a film in 2024 suspended time that I haven't seen Which is I think an animated movie But you know This is someone who he made Irma Vep and Borgingate, summer hours You know clouds of Sills Maria personal shopper Right before we Some great film

So I'm still holding a candle for him. I think, me too. And when you're able to watch this at home, it'll be like a, it'll be a real little, it'll be a pressure type treat for you in a different way. I'm looking forward to it. All right. So you've already teased that you did see. Sure. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, Colin, ghost war.

Now, ghost war. Now there's two ways to think about ghost war. Yes. Now, presumably ghost is sort of like a, like a spook, like a, like a spy who disappears. It's a ghost protocol situation. Right. which I understand, but what this made me think of is like, what if ghosts had a war? Like, what if there was like a Lord of the Rings-style movie about warring clans of ghosts?

Wouldn't that be great? That seems like a very you thing that I would support you in. Wait, I have to tell you a story. I'm going to Amanda you right now. I went shopping with my family yesterday. We were having just like a lovely afternoon. Well, we went to get, we were going to get brunch at a restaurant in Pasadena, 40-minute wait. We went across the street to a breakfast burrito place called B-Bad.

It was fucking amazing. Order our breakfast burrito. Walk to the back to wait for our order. It is revealed that B-Bad is connected to the Pasadena Hotel. And then you can just sit in the lobby or in the atrium of the Pasadena Hotel and eat your burrito there and play chess with your family as I did. That's very cute. We had a wonderful time. Anyway, just went a mile down the road after we did that.

Went to H&M. Just got some clothes for Alice, you know, going to school next year, some summer stuff. Sure. At the Pseo? At the Paseo. Yeah. I walk by that H&M often. So we're sitting in the plaza area outside of the H&M.

Recently redone. Nice benches. Which is very beautiful. Alice is jumping off of things and terrifying me. And behind us come three men dressed up. One man is dressed as Jason Voorhees. He's got a hockey mask on. One man is dressed as some sort of axe murderer.

And another man is dressed as the... Unspecified. Unspecified. Or maybe I just didn't catch the reference. And the third guy was wearing the heart's eyes mask. I don't remember heart's eyes, the horror movie that came out last year. And he was dressed as that killer. And I was like, that's weird.

What are these people doing here? Why are they terrifying my five-year-old daughter in the plaza of the Regal Paseo? And we get in the car out of the parking lot, we're pulling out. And I see in the local convention center to the right, Monster Paloosa is happening. It's been a three-day convention full of monster stuff. And you only found out. And I didn't know what was happening and I missed it. And then that led to a long conversation about ghosts and what are the best kinds of spooky things in movies to my daughter that was great.

And now I'm thinking about Ghost War and I want to see a war of ghosts. Okay. Well, maybe this could just be Jack Ryan, colon, ghost war without Tom Clancy. And it could be the ghosts of all the people that Jack Ryan has killed over the years. Incredible idea. I know. Listen, amazing things are happening on the big picture. Always.

Anyway, this was not that. This was sort of like the Down Abbey movie version of, Jack Ryan, which after four seasons of Jack Ryan, which I did not see and did not know that there were four seasons. They've made a film. So wouldn't you, you will be shocked to learn. So Jack Ryan, as played by John Krasinski, since we last met him, has left the CIA. He's a civilian. He's on Wall Street.

He's trying to make it work as a normal person, but they need him for just one more job. Okay. So he's drawn back in. It turns out that the job that they need him for, for is that it's basically a born identity in reverse where there is like a task. What was the born program called taskmaster? Something. Do you remember this?

I don't. Anyway, the program that creates Jason Boren's, it's a similar thing. One of those exists and has gone rogue. Okay. But you're on the side of Joan Allen trying to get everybody down. I see. I feel like I'm watching Spielberg talk about 2001. Let the master cook.

Anyway, at some point. Sienna Miller shows up because she's MI6 and it's a joint task force to defeat whatever this program is called. And this guy who's just running around London, Dubai, New York. I forgot to say, guys, that the way the Jack Ryan is recruited back into the CIA is that he is on a jog on their West Side Highway. And this is clearly all they shut down many parts of New York City in order to film him running outside. He crosses the west side highway, is sprinting. He's on Greenwich Avenue at some point. And then he does an evasive maneuver through Bookmark,

the Mark Jacobs bookstore in the West Village, which is featured prominently. And then it turns out that it was just Wendell Pierce and the CIA trying to get him back. Things work out. You know, there are some setbacks. There are some ghosts added. And then I think that I think John Krasinski is going to. and Jack Ryan are going to stay in the CIA again. Civilian life, not for him.

He's working on Wall Street? Yes. Is that canon for Jack Ryan? I actually didn't look that up. I was too busy because there's an allusion to like a relationship that didn't work out. So then I went back and read all of the descriptions of episodes for season four to find out if there was like more to the love interest story. Okay. Couldn't pin that down on Wikipedia. So I moved on. Sounds like you should watch all four seasons of this series. I'll never see this. I'll never see it. It's no shots, anybody involved? So, but you know, so I saw one, I saw what's going on in Russia.

I saw what's going on in the U.S., London, and then the, you know, various global communities that they terrorize. Just in general, not great, you know? That's my geopolitical report. Times are tough. There's a real one-to-one here with the Mandalorian and Grogu, though, because that is also a movie that is based on a streaming series. and that very much, I assume that this movie feels akin to the series. Yes.

Having seen episodes of the show. That it doesn't feel dramatically different. Maybe the stakes feel a little higher. Not really. There's a little more action. The opening setpiece is a bunch of actors, you know, in a gun battle, who all look just enough, like more famous and more expensive actors that I kept being like, wait, is that, you know, is that so,

And it's nobody. They're just a bunch of... Maybe to the point... Hardworking men. That I was making about streaming movies and movies going straight to streaming. Like, maybe this continues to be a coherent way to do this. This is a TV movie. It's a TV movie.

Exactly. In the Mandelorian and Grobu, in many ways, is a TV movie. And it's probably going to do really well in Disney Plus. Yeah, but we say that. But you and I saw all three Downabby movies in theaters and loved them. I did love them, but I don't know if they were cinema. Like, they would have hit just as well. The second one was cinema, because you aren't going to get to the French Riviera on that PBS budget, you know?

Okay. But... I guarantee you ghostwork cost a shit ton more than any of the down-nabby movies. They filmed everywhere. It was so crazy. And poorly. It looked quite bad. It's too bad.

Anyway. Thanks for watching this for this episode. You shocked me last day when you told me you watched this. Shocked me. Well, I texted you while I was watching it Because again, I had some time for other things Went real deep on the real real real So I'm up to date on all my things

And I know what's up with Jack Ryan Okay, you're not up to date on Powerbell I'll tell you about it quickly Interesting movie, not a successful movie Directed by John Carney Probably best known for once Movie musical that I like quite a bit This is a movie that he and Peter MacDonald

I think wrote some years ago And it was in a drawer And got pulled out of a drawer and they were able to sell it and make it. And it's about a guy named Rick Power, who's a wedding singer living in Ireland. And he is at a wedding one night and he meets a kind of aging sort of washed up boy band singer

who's played by Nick Jonas. He's not playing himself, but maybe slightly inspired by some of his experience. And they're buds. They become quick buds, and they have a little jam session together. And while there, Danny, who's played by Paul Rudd in a very likable performance,

starts playing one of his sons. songs that he's written. And it's an undeniably catchy song. And Nick Jonas, who's trying to kind of relaunch his career, goes back to the States, and he effectively adopts the song. He takes them a piece of what the Danny character or what the Rick character has done, and he expands upon it, and it relaunches his career, and it becomes a huge hit. And then Rick, who has no documentation of this moment and no documentation of this song

recorded anywhere in the past, tries to... reclaim ownership and reclaim his own sense of personal grace. So yesterday in reverse? Sure. Yeah. There's something to that. A little bit less fame. Nobody else remembers.

Yes. Including, you know, the song, there's a beautiful component of the movie, which is who Rick wrote the song for and what it means to him. Okay. And what it means for the song to be taken from him. Okay. Well, that I won't spoil for people who haven't seen it. Is it a girl that thing?

I'm not going to say yes or no. And I liked that. Yeah, I bet. But this is not really a movie. And like the way that it resolves is not satisfying. I don't think. So copyright does not revert back to Paul Rudd? It's complicated.

That's what it always is. Yeah. I will say it's really sold by the fact that Paul Rudd is just winning. He's just fun to be around. It's nice to see him not in Spandex. It's nice to see him not in spandex. Anaconda movie, just being like a normal person for the most part, even though there's some curiosity about why this American guy is heading up an Irish wedding band.

Sure. But they kind of sell it, you know, as he fell in love with an Irish girl, moved there and had a kid. That's better than asking him to do an Irish accent. I agree with that. As someone who attempted one 12 minutes ago and failed. I just, I mean, in general with movies that are set in the present day, I think we could just be a little more, you know, understanding and accepting of this global community we've built. Sure.

People do move other places and they can just keep their normal accents. Yeah, it's okay. Sure. Sure. I agree. So you're pro immigration is what you're saying. Yes. Yeah, me too. Yeah. This hasn't stuck with me.

I saw it a while back. How is the song? It's honestly really good. I don't remember how it goes, but I honestly really like it. And it's kind of like the only reason to see the movie. Okay. Okay, what's next? Oh yeah.

Remarkably bright creatures. Yep. Watch this this morning. This is a Netflix original. No, original film. Sure. Do you know the premise of this? I don't. Okay.

So here's the premise, which is that Sally Field is an older woman and living in the Pacific Northwest and down on her luck in life. Things have not gone her way. Okay. And then Lewis Pullman comes to town. Things have also not gone his way in life. Okay. And it's not a romantic thing. Don't raise your eyebrows like that.

They just, they strike up a friendship. And they teach each other things about the world, you know, in like a quirky small town in the Pacific Northwest. Here's the twist. It is narrated by an octopus. It is straight up, which I did not know until I could play. Big place. So she works in an aquarium. And she's friends with this octopus named Marcellus.

And then obviously Lewis Pullman's character also comes to work at the aquarium and becomes friends with Marcellus. Obviously. who is voiced by Alfred Molina and narrates everything that's going on. So you are watching this from the perspective. The movie's not shot entirely from the perspective of an octopus, obviously. Right. But he does escape his cage or I'm sorry, his tank more than I thought it was capable for aquarium creatures to get out of their tanks. Okay.

But yeah, he knows a lot about the town and the world because as you have, well, what is the title of this movie, Sean Fetty? Well, I respect his octopus's intelligence, but is he absorbing the conversations that are transpiring in the aquarium? Well, in Sally Field as the older woman is having a lot of conversations with him. He's sort of like a silent but supportive therapist. You know, it's like an emotional support octopus. Is this based on a novel? Yeah, I think so. Okay.

Yes, 2022 novel. I haven't read it. Anyway, I watched this film. You know what? Parts of it were like the town and the little characters were a little funnier and sweeter than they needed to be. Once again, this is a movie narrated by an octopus as performed by Alfred Molina. So, you know, I don't know. Lewis Pullman Watch.

Yeah. How's it going with him as a leading man? But he was charming in this. This I kind of put in the I love lessons in chemistry box of streaming Pablam that no one will talk about in three years. Yeah, and things that he signed on to probably before the, you know, the glow up. But. And maybe that's wrong. Before he became the future of the MCU.

I guess so. But he wasn't bad. He performs a radio head song. What? Yeah. Because he's a, he's in a band. What song? Hold on. It's from Pablo Honey. I forgot to, I forget the name.

He performs a Pablo Honey song? He performs a Pablo Honey song at the open mic night? No, it's not creep. And hold on. The internet's out. Anyway, so he's in a band called mashed sausage or something with a sausage. Yeah. But they, many such names. They, they dumped him, you know? So his band's done. His family life is not solid. but he does like the local, he meets a local woman who runs a paddle boarding shop. A paddle boarding shop? Yeah, and Sally Fields helps. Paddleboard? Yes.

And it is a point of contention is that there are paddle boards and not surfboards, and it's embarrassing that he doesn't know that. Sally Field facilitates a romance between them. It's a paddleboard the one that you stand on? Yes. What do you think it is? I don't know. I'm just double checking.

I don't want to get into a Lewis Pullman situation. Apparently like a great core workout. Oh, great. Okay, cool. Yeah, because you have to, you know, you have to stay. I'll get right on that. Okay. So you would recommend remarkably bright creatures.

You've seen it. That is my report of remarkably bright creatures. Okay. That's interesting that we spend time on that. You saw a propeller one-way night coach? I did, yeah. Okay, let's talk about that. I want to talk about Mortal Kombat, too, but let's talk about propeller first.

This movie is directed by John Travolta It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival We didn't go You talked a big game about going No, I fucked up Because I went with you To the Stephen Soderberg John Lennon documentary

Which I shouldn't have done But like we were there to hold Stephen accountable Okay, so now we can say I guess so The AI experiment did not work Don't do that again Of course I agree with that John Travolta directed a movie

this is his first film as a director. I can't is the Pablo Honey song. Oh, I can't. Yeah. That's not a bad song. Okay. I thought he did a very nice job with it. I would never have guessed that in a million years.

Travolta wrote and directed this movie. It's based on his children's novel, which is called Propeller One Way Night Coach. This film is 62 minutes long. It's on the Apple TV Plus streaming service right now. It's about a little boy who goes on a couple of flights one night with his mom. Yeah. That's the whole movie.

Uh-huh. He just keeps going on planes and talking. and talking about what it's like to be on a plane and talking to people on planes. Right. What was this? It was actually very sweet and kind of well made, but this is a new form of entertainment.

Again, a lot of attention paid to production design. Yes, there was. It looks good. In a way. At least part of the exteriors of the TWA Hotel at JFK, which I know. Oh, you're staying at. in August

with my two airplane-obsessed little boys. So I did watch this with Knox in mind. Okay, but not with him. No, not with him. He was asleep. Okay. And...

This would be way more appropriate than most things you show him. This is about a boy being... Well, excuse me. Be dazzled by being on a plane. Excuse me. You just said that as if I'm just like showing... Yeah, you're showing him hardcore porn.

And then you could be showing him this beautiful film. Directed by John Travolta. All we watched was center stage. Are they dancing at home? Yes. Anyway, this, but it's just really a little boy being like, which Boeing do you like the best and why?

And I was like, I relate to this. Yeah, sure. And he doesn't want to eat the chicken. But, and so there's a lot of... Chicken Corton Blue. Yeah. There's a lot. You like Chicken Cort on Blue? I don't think I've ever had chicken cordon.

What in the world? But I do like fried chicken and cheese. Where would I have it? See, the chicken cordon blue preparation in this movie is not... To me, I've had it as grilled chicken, not as fried chicken. not as fried or even like baked with the bread crumbs. But I guess there are multiple preparations. But my stepmom makes a wonderful chicken cordon blue.

I've had it many times. But it's dairy, but the dairy is baked, so it's going to be okay for you? It's dairy? No, no, it's cheese. It's like melted cheese. Well, I can eat melted cheese. I'm just checking in, you know? Like weekly status reports on where we are.

Sheking cordon blue on pro. That's what I'll say. I've never had it. Would love to try it. So this just felt like a movie. made by my four-year-old with like slightly better artistic vision though he's really he's really coming into his own drawing bunnies with eyebrows now um your son yeah even not the kid in this movie not the kid in this movie played like clark shot well first of all shot well that's a that's a hell

of a last name is that a real name i don't know i'm sean shotwell could you imagine should i pivot at 43 that's like a little it's a little too much alliteration shot well like a filmmaker i get it yeah Or shot well, like Jalen Brunson? I did. That's great. I saw while I was running around the Rose Bowl this weekend, I saw a woman in Jailen Brunson, like, a shirt. And I like almost, and it was a very cool Jalen Brunson shirt, and I almost like, you know, did a what's up. But then, you know, I'm not allowed to hop on the bandwagon.

And that's what it would be. Yeah, you're welcome as far as I'm concerned. I'm not. It's just, it's very complicated in my house right now. Yeah. The appeal of the Knicks to a four-year-old who also likes airplanes. Your household, read for the Spurs would be despicable. Absolutely.

If I find out that that's the case, we're going to have big problems. Listen. The Spurs have plenty of titles. They don't need another title. Wemby is 23. He's going to have plenty of time to win. This may never happen again for the Knicks. I'm fucking in my 40s.

This is like in Cannes, remember when I told you? Another Philly sports-related fact that was just my husband doing something Philly sports-related and you started yelling at me for 25 minutes. Yeah, well. Okay. These feelings run deep. Anyhow. One way propeller.

propeller one-way night coach? It's a good movie for children. Is it? No, because it's... It's just a kid who keeps going, and then this happened, and then this happened. And he's kind of sweet. So Travolta is narrating the...

Much like Alfred Molina. Remarkably bright creatures narrated by an octopus. Propeller One Way, whatever, is narrated by John Travolta just reading his own book. Yeah, it's a very curious thing. I've been thinking about Travolta, you know, obviously his beret and mustache combo

that he was rocking in Cannes was memed very quickly. Travolta has kind of occupied this really strange place in the culture for the last 15 years where he's kind of become like kind of a meme, kind of a punchline, and he's already gone through, he's already had his renaissance and his return to greatness in the 90s. And now if you look at his CV, he's made more movies since 2010 to today than I think he made in the 1970s and 80s combined. But the movies that he made in the 70s and 80s were so iconic,

especially in the 70s. And most of what he does now is this kind of red box, straight to DV, like action thriller stuff. And I don't know. It's like we're back to thinking about him the same way that we did before Tarantino resuscitated him with Pulp Fiction where he's like kind of a punchline. But he is a very winning character

and even just hearing his voice narrating the movie, something calming and nice about that. But he's just got such an insanely uneven filmography, perhaps the most uneven filmography in major movie star history. And yet I still want to do a whole thing. Hall of Fame for him. I still want to go back and watch all the movies. When are we going to do that? Including all of the Red Box movies? Yeah. I don't know. This is what it's all about.

You're going to have to, that's going to be, like maybe after the podcast ends, you start another podcast that's just John Travolta Hall of Fame. That's a whole separate other show. Well, I just, I'm not going to have any times until after the Four Beatles movies, you know? That's a lot of movies. So we'll do it in 2029. We'll do the John Travolta Hall of Fame. How old will he be then? Okay, let me tell you about Mortal Kombat too Okay Like the first film directed by Simon McQuid Written by Jeremy Slater Carl Urban is here as Johnny Cage Are you familiar with Mortal Kombat at all?

Do you know any, can you name any characters besides Johnny Cage Now that I've said his name Isn't there something about like the finisher or something? Well, you're thinking of fatalities. Fatalities are here That's when you win a match and you get to kill someone, kill your opponent. What I know, I have a...

learned from you talking at me like this on previous episodes. First Mortal Kombat movie is all about like establishing the lore in the world of Mortal Kombat. Movie is a complete wasted time. Just who gives a shit. Mortal Kombat is a fighting game about killing people. That's what the movies should be

are. Is it in this world or another world? It's in like an outer world and they travel all over the place. It's like all kinds of experience. I don't, that's just, there's realms. There's all kinds of realms. Okay. But no humans. No, they're humans. Johnny Cage is a human. Cage is an action movie star, kind of a Jean-Claude Van Dam

meets Keanu Reeves type figure, who is brought into the Moral Combat world to use his movie-only martial arts skills and becomes a great warrior. And that's kind of the pitch on this movie. Johnny Cage was not in the first Mortal Kombat film. He's in this one. Carl Urban's kind of the star of the movie, and he gets thrust into this tournament of battle. And every time the characters that I know and love from 1997 are fighting in the movie, I was like,

this movie is a 10 out of 10. Anytime anything else is happening, it's a 0 out of 10. Like, anytime characters are speaking to each other, I want to throw myself off of a bridge. But if they're not, if they're throwing razor-tinged hats at each other

and slicing each other's heads off, it's the best movie ever made. That's my review of Mortal Kombat 2. I was going to ask like a clarification question, but I'm not. Keep it moving. Okay. Moral Kombat 2,

I highly recommend it. Also, never watch it. That's my review. Okay. Let's talk about Lorne. Okay. Lorne is the second Morgan Neville documentary about a world titanic pop culture American figure this year. He's getting into the habit of... He's infiltrated a friend group of source, as I understand it.

Well, aren't Lauren and Paul McCartney friends? Oh, well, they certainly are. And I wonder if there's some connectivity going on there. The Paul McCartney documentary we talked about a couple months ago, man on the run, about his life in the 1970s after the Beatles, Maybe Morgan will make one about our life after The Beatles and what happens when the show ends. This new one is about Lorne Michaels,

who is the famed Canadian producer who created Saturday Night Live and has been at the helm of that show for most of its 50 years, though not all. I know a lot about Saturday Night Live. Read all the books, seen all the documentaries, love the cast, all the casts. I have affection for every era of the show.

Big share passion, Bill Simmons and I, big early connecting point for us when I started working for him. Lauren famously impossible to know, don't really know much better after this movie. Yeah. I didn't dislike watching it. I completely agree. And the movie, I think, wisely and cheekly makes the unknowability a part of the movie within the first five minutes and, you know, uses a lot of funny constructs in order to get around the fact that most of the footage that you have of Lauren, both sitting for multiple interviews and wandering around both his office and his main blueberry

farm is him just avoiding the camera and being like, I don't want to do this. And doing his own version of the Lauren impression that we have gotten from every single Saturday Live cast member for 50 years. So I thought it was funny. I thought it was clever. It's definitely entertaining. And I think if you're more of a surface level fan of this stuff, then I think it will probably be enjoyable and informative. And there's a couple of moments that are amazing.

John Mullaney explaining Lorne telling him why he always receives material from people. I was about to say that. That moment is amazing. So funny. You know, where he's like, Terry Melcher failed to accept Charles Manson's demo tape. I understand. And that's why he was murdered. That's why Sharon Tate was murdered.

And it kind of like how you interact with people. And the various people that Lauren has mentored and have been on the cast of the show that are talking about their experiences with him, that kind of thing is just cracked to me and I always enjoy it. And pretty much everybody is in it except for Will Ferrell. Yeah, that's weird. Yeah. Why wasn't Will Ferrell in? I don't know. And I guess McKay is also not in it as well.

But the vast majority of Lorne and his famous friends, Steve Martin, Paul Simon, they all sit for it. They all kind of tell different versions of like, Lauren's never going to tell you that. Which is, it's entertaining, but it's also kind of annoying. There was a Lorne biography by Susan Morrison that came out last year that is amazing. And she is, like, very briefly in it. She is. And that is, that to me is like as definitive an account as you can get. She doesn't get so much farther beyond the surface, but there's so much detail in the book.

A movie like this is so weird because Neville is really good at getting underneath the cultural meaning of someone. Even if he doesn't explore truly who they are in their soul because it's hard to do that in a documentary, he has been, most especially, I think, with Mr. Rogers, but he's done it many times in his career, capturing why a person, how a person cracked through to something deeper to what we love. I don't know if this movie does that. Yeah. You know what I mean?

No, I agree with you. Maybe its thesis is just ultimately that it's a Lauren thing. The funniest of all the interviews is the Steve Martin interview, because it's Steve and Lorne together at one of the three restaurants that Lorne Michaels goes to, but it's filmed, like, at a distance, basically, like, across the restaurant. It's like, it's like, it's honestly not that much farther from this if we were sitting there. And they are, we were talking like this. They are seated together like this.

And Steve Martin is, like, asking sort of perfunctorily, like, expositional questions, but also being Steve Martin about it. But I think Lauren says, to him, I think it's Steve Martin who asks him you're going to retire and Lauren says no. He's like, because this show, the show's from another time and as soon as I go, like, it will not.

It won't be what it is anymore. Which is something that many people have suggested would be true. Yeah. But it was interesting to hear him say that. Exactly. Yeah. But, you know, but that is delivered as a matter of fact, aside, at a at a weird dinner and a turquoise dining call filmed from across the way

with Steve Martin. Yeah. You know what? I'll take back what I said somewhat. The one thing that I thought was revelatory, which I don't think I'd really seen before in any of the other documentaries about Saturday Night Live, was the camera being trained on him while every sketch is playing out and the way that he reacts. His kind of restlessness and the exhaling, which indicates, you know, a sense of unsuccessful in a moment. That stuff I thought was really insightful, and that's for the real super fans who pay close

attention to this stuff. I wanted more of that. Maybe that would not have made for his entertaining or. or coherent a movie, but a little bit more of that observational stuff, I think would have gone a long way. And it's interesting that he did let them film in that way, but he also wouldn't talk specifically about his childhood

or what informed his comedic taste. They still spent too much time on his childhood, but whatever. Yeah, I guess I don't usually like that as much in movies anyway. I don't like that. Also, you know, it's the third section of the New Yorker profile. I know. I don't care about the grandparents. Lauren is one of those people who just feels like he just landed on earth.

Yeah. He doesn't feel like a person who, like, had experiences. that then informed who he became. Right. And that those alien people are very special. They usually tend to make something very amazing. And their lack of internality is very powerful. And I don't relate to it. You know, I feel differently.

So I guess I'm always going to be interested in them, even if it makes for ultimately an unsatisfying portrait. But it had enough. It had the observational stuff. It had enough candy. Like the talking head stuff. It had so many people. I thought the Chris Parnell narration was funny.

It was funny. You know. It felt like papering over like, oh, we didn't really get Lauren to tell us what we wanted. Sure. But like in a clever way at least, you know. I agree.

I agree. It was kind of like the Feral Lego doc, which I also thought was kind of fascinating and fun candy, but I'm still like, I don't understand what makes Feral tick at all after seeing this. But I had a lot of fun watching him be in a world of creativity. So, you know,

I love like Morgan's old project. I think it's really interesting. It's just so funny that you have to watch him like contend with the subject that he agrees to take on. And they're all... Right. Because they're so powerful. They're all so... They're fighting a battle, even though they've agreed to be portrayed.

And it's an interesting thing. Okay. I just want to give a quick shout to a tuner. Which I would love to see, and I just didn't make time. I had to watch Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Ghost War. Yeah, maybe we can talk about it more after you check it out. I feel like it's a movie that people are going to really find on streaming. It did pretty good this weekend, actually.

It was in semi-limited release, like in 1,000. screens and it made a few million bucks. I had Daniel Rohar on the show last week to talk about it. It's a movie about a piano tuner who is identified by a criminal outfit because his piano tuning skills, which are extraordinary, allow him to crack safes. And he enters a criminal world doing that work and then things naturally go awry. Leo Woodall, Dustin Hoffman, Leo Roz, Havana Rose, Havana Rose Lou. Very old-fashioned and wonderfully entertaining movie that I think people are

should check out. Leo, what all? I don't, you think that's going to happen? It's been percolating. This would have been a nice breakthrough if it were bigger. What else to see, what else is on the... On the docket coming out? Well, he's in Tony.

He's got a supporting part in Tony, which is coming in August. He's in a film called Nomad, which is about a mysterious loner who has a bizarre condition that takes him to another place on Earth every 12 hours. with no ability to control his destinations. Okay. That's right up my alley. Oh, yeah, he's in custom of the country with Sidney Sweeney. Wow.

Yeah. What? Yeah. Oh, and also he's apparently, uh... Wait a minute. He's joining the hunt for Gullam? Sydney Sweeney's going to be in the custom of the country. I told you about this on a podcast before.

Yes, Sophia was to... What? What? For years? I know. For Apple. And then basically she was like, there's not enough money to do this the way I want to do it or this is too depressing. She's going to be doing an English accent?

So now Sidney Sweeney has taken it on. I don't know. So this is directed by Josie Rourke, long time theater director who made Mary Queen of Scots. Yeah. But customer of the country is Wharton, so it would be an English accent. That's what I said, an English accent. Oh, no, an American accent. Oh. Sorry.

American accent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. Got it. Got it. My mistake. Still, I have some questions. I think seeing Leo Woodall and Matthew Good and Hugh Dancy in the cast made me think that this is going to be.

Are we sure this is not going to be like at least like kind of mid-Atlantic, you know, that kind of upper crust? Well, sure. I mean, it's of the time, but it's Edith Wharton. And she's Undeensprag, who I believe is American. I mean, I know she's American. Let's find out where in the United States she's from. Okay. Midwestern young woman.

Okay. Okay. I mean, I wish her well. Did you happen to check in on the series finale of Euphoria? No. Thumbs up, thumbs down. I haven't seen it. Okay.

I watched two episodes this season and I checked out. I know what happened in the penultimate episode. And then I saw that Sam Levinson went on Popcast to say that there will be no more euphoria. Yes. Is that where he announced it? Apparently, yes. Or at least that's, you know, I follow Joe Coscarelli on Instagram. I think that's probably also because of what happened in the finale.

Okay. Maybe it didn't need to be explained. Sure. But I'm no spoilers here. Okay. Wish those people well. The cast of Euphoria? Yeah.

I think they're doing great. They are. It seems like they're doing wonderfully. They are the future of movies, quite frankly. And this has been the future of movies, this entire conversation. How do you feel? Great. I love cinema.

Yeah, I do too. What you're not mentioning is the summer of, I hope it was 1916. If it was 1917, I'm going to feel really bad. But I think it was nice. I think you got it right. You know. It's just... Did you see the breadwinner?

No. I follow me anymore on Instagram. How's that going? Well, so she's... East side mom. She's an east side mom. But she's, you know, she's part of the viral mom chat. Did you follow this at all at the beginning of the year?

No. So... The viral mom chat? Yeah. Is that like a zombie movie situation? No, but once again... That's an idea. Listen, keep making the movies that you want.

No, this was... Okay. So who Ashley Tisdale, is that right, everyone? Yeah, thank you, Sarah in the booth. Ashley Tisdale wrote an essay for the cut, well, first for her own blog and then for the cut about how she was excommunicated from a mom group chat, friend group. Yeah, I remember this. And she felt that it was very mean. And then everyone realized that it's the mom friend group featuring Hillary Duff, who is incredibly famous.

Do you know this? Well, I certainly do. And I'll tell you why. Sure. Yeah, Lizzie McGuire. No, she's insanely hot. That's why. That's a whole thing.

Yeah, that's a whole thing. No, I mean, not, you know, but like that's your flavor. This is a little bit... Historically, no. This is just like a little bit of like a Kaylee Quoco situation for, you know, me, but okay, that's... A beautiful young woman. You're mistaken. I'm not going to get into describing people's personas in that specific way.

Okay. However, you got to learn up on Hillary Duff, right, in her 40s right now. What's happening there? Oh, no. Listen, I am aware... There's a lot happening. Because she keeps being re-blogged on Manny Moore. group chat because what happened is, is that... Reblogged?

Yeah, because I'm not following Hillary Duff because I'm... What do you mean reblogged? Well, re-like posted on Instagram. They all went to her opening in Las Vegas. They had like a girls weekend. Basically, so the mom chat that was identified as the mean mom chat has responded by just doubling down on like being out in public and posting and doing girls trips and being like, we love our life without Ashley Tisdale and Hillary Duff has an album and

Hillary Dups in Las Vegas and Mandy Moore's in the breadwinner and Mandy Moore is doing this. So I'm up on what they're doing. Yeah. But I did not see the breadwinner. We can really do anything on this show. There are no boundaries. It's extraordinary. And you got to wait until you get to a minute 112 before you can get into this kind of conversation.

But I'm really proud of us. Proud of the movies. Yeah, good job. Good job. Good job to the youth for going to see it. You have no regrets about sitting out the next episode? Well, I can't go tonight to see the film. And I do feel...

It's going to be the nerdiest episode of all time. But like I don't... I don't want to infringe on your time. You know, it's going to be a safe space for the two of you. The real question is, will I listen to it? I think I will. I think I will. But I still got to do Spielberg-Rew watchables.

That's a fair question. I got a prep for Mondays up, you know? Yeah. Like, I got movies to see this. Yeah. So we're going to do a disclosure day. episode obviously in June. And then there's another episode that will come after Disclosure Day comes out where we'll talk about Spielberg. Now, we've done top fives, right? I think we did a full,

did we do a full ranking or no. Did just me, you and Joe did our top fives? I thought that we did a ranking, but I thought we did too. I thought we did both. Yeah, because I just remember having to be like E.T and Jurassic Park should be higher. What's wrong with both of you? Over and over and over again. I know, but you're not an AI person and this is a big problem for us historically with the film. or the technology. You're not into the technology, nor am I. The film, though, which is a five-star masterpiece. Well, I was assigned at a summer school.

Not summer school homework. Let's be clear. I do not go to summer school, but I went to school during the summer. God forbid. Someone ever went to summer school, everybody. Listen, I have a homework, you know, reputation to maintain. So what are we going to do with Spielberg? What are we going to talk about?

Not with him, the man. So we're not re-ranking. I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out. We've seen Disclosure Day, and I love the idea of putting it in the context. of his career for sure, but we'll probably do that in the episode that we do. Yeah, I would imagine. It would be hard not to.

Very hard. Let's give that some thought. Okay. What would be the best way to do it? Okay. But anyway, later this week, Griffin Newman will be joining me to talk about Masters of the Universe. Perhaps you've heard Griffin on the Blank Check podcast, one of our buds. He knows a lot about He-Man, and he knows a lot about toys.

Yeah. And he knows a lot about fantasy films. And those are the things we'll be talking about in this episode. And I think that's beautiful. I need this movie to be good. Because if it's bad, and then I'm going to be not happy. I'm going to be sad.

I'm going to be mad. You're just going to be sad. I'm just going to be sad. Okay. I'm having such a happy time in my life, and I want it to continue. Do you think it will? I'm rooting for you.

Okay. Early buzz is good. Maybe you can just, your heart is open right now, you know, you're entering from a space of positivity. Yeah. And that's,

if you were already dead in the ditch, if like if we had to talk about the Mets for a while, then you would... Oh, congratulations. Things are looking fine. Okay. I don't think they're going to go to the playoffs, but they're fine. It's again.

Juan Soto is him. It's June 1st. It is June 1st. You're right. I'm rooting for you. Thanks. I appreciate your support. There was a tweet that I saw on the internet.

An X.com post that said, damn, really seems like Travis Knight loves Jane Schoenbrun's movie after seeing Masters of the Universe. Okay. So I just want to let you know that that's the vibe. Okay. Cool. We'll see.

See you at the movies. See you at the movies later this week. And thank you so much to Lucas Kavanaugh and Sarah Reddy for their work on this episode. We'll see you later this week to talk about Masters of the Universe.