‘A Minecraft Movie’ Is the Most Important Movie of the Year So Far. And These Flicks Are the Best …

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Big Picture

Episode Title: ‘A Minecraft Movie’ Is the Most Important Movie of the Year So Far. And These Flicks Are the Best …
Release Date: April 7, 2025
Hosts: Sean Fennessy and Amanda Dobbins
Produced By: The Ringer

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I. Introduction to the Episode

In this insightful episode of The Big Picture, hosts Sean Fennessy and Amanda Dobbins navigate the current landscape of the film industry, with a spotlight on the newly released Minecraft movie. They explore its significance, compare it with other major IP-based films, and delve into broader industry trends affecting both movies and television.

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II. The Significance of the Minecraft Movie

Sean Fennessy opens the discussion by highlighting the impressive box office performance of the Minecraft movie.

“It made $301 million globally. And, you know, I think I received just like a scintilla of credit for the it's so over, we're so back meme...” [01:57]

Fennessy emphasizes that the Minecraft movie, despite varying critical opinions, stands as a pivotal moment in cinema by introducing a major new intellectual property aimed primarily at younger audiences.

“It is wonderful news. I'm excited about what's happened over the weekend and I have so many reasons why, regardless of the qualitative aspects of a Minecraft movie.” [02:35]

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III. Comparison with Other Children's IP Movies

Amanda Dobbins and Sean compare the Minecraft movie with other recent IP-driven films like Barbie and Super Mario Brothers. They discuss the trend of refocusing children's films back to their intended young audiences rather than relying solely on adult nostalgia.

Amanda observes:

“Now there's a lot of references to childhood for adults, but now we're making movies for kids...” [13:37]

Sean adds that this shift allows the new generation to experience cinema tailored to their own interests, marking a departure from the recycling of older franchises.

“It is time for this generation to have their stuff... They have our stuff that has been regurgitated, reimagined, rebooted, reshared.” [10:33]

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IV. The State of the Film Industry: IP and Box Office Dynamics

The conversation transitions to the broader state of the film industry, focusing on the reliance on intellectual property (IP) and the impact of global markets, specifically China, on box office strategies.

Sean discusses:

“The globalization of movies... was further through the 1990s and then reached a kind of apex... These kind of wordless franchises.” [40:01]

He critiques how the industry's focus on spectacle and brand recognition has led to a dilution of storytelling quality and increased dependence on global markets.

Amanda concurs, noting the challenges:

“And also, at least the Chinese box office has completely disappeared because they learned how to make movies from Hollywood and now just make movies for their audiences that their audiences prefer.” [39:49]

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V. Transition to TV vs. Movies

Sean expresses a nuanced view that television may currently hold a creative edge over movies, despite overall industry struggles. However, Amanda counters by sharing her dissatisfaction with contemporary TV offerings.

Sean states:

“Creatively, TV is in a much better place than movies right now. Much better.” [29:03]

Amanda responds:

“I haven't liked any of it... That was bad.” [29:14]

They debate whether high-quality TV shows can compensate for the stagnant state of movie storytelling.

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VI. Additional Movie Reviews and Discussions

The hosts briefly review and discuss several other films:

• Black Bag by Steven Soderbergh: Sean questions its box office potential due to its swift move to VOD after release delays.

• Misericordia by Alain Gerard: Praised for its unsettling portrayal of human evil, aligning with Gerard's previous work on Stranger by the Lake.

• The Ballad of Wallace Island: Amanda describes it as a sweet, saccharine film starring Carey Mulligan, focusing on former couples reconnecting under unusual circumstances.

Sean highlights the importance of character chemistry and storytelling quality in these films.

“It's very Sundance y. I'm not saying it's not. It's very John Carney.” [65:07]

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VII. Personal Reflections on Parenting and Movies

The dialogue shifts to more personal territory as the hosts reflect on parenting in an era dominated by pervasive media consumption. They discuss concerns about the influence of video games and movies like Minecraft on their children’s development.

Sean shares his thoughts:

“Meeting strangers in strange places and them thinking they know things about you is something that I find troubling.” [78:04]

Amanda adds her perspective on avoiding burdening her children with certain media influences:

“I don't want to be a burden to them.” [80:37]

They explore the balance between nurturing children’s passions and protecting them from overly consuming media.

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VIII. Conclusion

Despite their concerns about the film industry's direction, Sean and Amanda maintain a blend of critical insights and personal optimism. They look forward to future episodes where they will continue to dissect new movie releases and industry trends, reaffirming their commitment to providing thorough and engaging film analysis.

Sean concludes on a positive note:

“The big thing to cheer about is a Minecraft movie, which I liked your positivity.” [37:49]

Amanda encourages continued discussions:

“You're doing great. That's my assessment. Thanks.” [71:58]

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Notable Quotes:

• Sean Fennessy on the Minecraft Movie’s Success:

  “It made $301 million globally.” [01:57]

• Amanda Dobbins on Children’s Movies:

  “Children have passions, as you and I know they do.” [17:09]

• Sean Fennessy on the State of TV vs. Movies:

  “Creatively, TV is in a much better place than movies right now.” [29:03]

• Amanda Dobbins on Gabby's Dollhouse:

  “I was like, how are they bringing in the parents? I guess Kristen Wiig, but also Gloria.” [17:34]

This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the episode, outlining the hosts' discussions on the Minecraft movie, trends in children's films, the evolving film industry, comparisons between TV and movies, and personal reflections on parenting amidst media saturation.

Transcript

[Sean Fennessy]

Hi, everyone, it's Amy Poehler and I'm launching a new podcast called Good Hang.

[Amanda Dobbins]

In preparation for that, I asked some.

[Sean Fennessy]

Of my friends to send in some videos and give me some advice. Just be yourself and the guests will come. Don't be the celebrity that this is their, like, sixth thing they're doing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I love true crime and cooking podcasts. Is there any way you could combine the two?

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, everyone has an opinion and a podcast, so join me for Good Hang. It's rough out there. We're just trying to lighten it up a little. This episode is brought to you by HBO's biggest series, the Last of Us Returning with a new season on Max. Starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, the show picks up five years after the events of the first season as Joel and Ellie are drawn into conflict with each other in a world even more dangerous and unpredictable than the one they left behind. CNN calls the Last of Us exquisite, fully realized and worthy of the hype. Based on the groundbreaking video game, the Emmy winning HBO original series, the Last of us premieres Sunday, April 13th on Max. And listen to the official the Last of Us podcast wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm Amanda Davins.

[Sean Fennessy]

And this is the Big Picture. A conversation show about a movie, State of the Union, and a Minecraft revolution. Are you ready, Amanda?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Minecraft or Minecraft?

[Sean Fennessy]

My mind is crafting a Minecraft revolution.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

How are you feeling?

[Amanda Dobbins]

How much coffee did you have this morning?

[Sean Fennessy]

Just one cup.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Just one cup? Yeah. Really?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Are you cutting back?

[Sean Fennessy]

No, that's just my natural effervescence is rising to the surface.

[Amanda Dobbins]

One cup is unusual for you at this time of the day. So are you, like, are you spacing it out through the day?

[Sean Fennessy]

No, I am buoyed by the return.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You're just trying to steer back so hard to Minecraft and I'm just like, anything but Minecraft. I know. How much money did it make, SEAN?

[Sean Fennessy]

It made $301 million globally. And, you know, I think I received just like a scintilla of credit for the it's so over, we're so back meme. You know, like, I was. I was there somewhat early in that story and I beat it to death over a number of years.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I'm not saying I'm returning to that bit, but we are so back. Like, we. The movies are back.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I think a lot of people are assuming I'm going to get on this podcast to talk about Minecraft and say this movie is terrible. This is a disaster. And I'm not going to say that because this is not a disaster.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You're happy.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is wonderful news. I'm excited about what's happened over the weekend and I have so many reasons why, regardless of the qualitative aspects of a Minecraft movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, brother.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay, you ready to walk through this with me?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes. Set the scene. Where did you see. Where and when did you see a Minecraft movie?

[Sean Fennessy]

I saw Minecraft. Ah, Minecraft movie. Yes, I saw a Minecraft movie at your beloved Regal Paseo on a Saturday night. I went to a 9pm screening after seeing a 7:30pm screening of the Woman in the Yard.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yom Kolet, Sarah's new horror movie, which I had high hopes for and was somewhat disappointed by. Um, but I felt like I'd been having some struggles with the movie world. It's been a pretty tough first quarter. We'll talk about some movies later in this episode that we did like that have come out this year.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But to find the good, it's been.

[Sean Fennessy]

A hard year for the good.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But then you found the good at nine.

[Sean Fennessy]

Not.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Not exactly Saturday night at the Regal Paseo.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, I did not find what I would describe as a good movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't think a Minecraft movie is a quote unquote good movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

It is an important movie. It is in some ways an essential movie because I went to a late screening thinking that I would be able to avoid the young crowd, that it might be too late for the 7, 8, 9 year olds who have been dominating the movie theaters over the weekend to see this movie. And I was wrong. I was surrounded. It was bedlam in the screening. I was in a lounger chair screening room. You know, the ones that go all the way back in the Regals. Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Did it have the desk?

[Sean Fennessy]

It had the desk, yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, they recently added the desk. I don't. It's a little constrictive, but you can.

[Sean Fennessy]

Move the desk to the side.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. But then you're moving it to someone else. It's sort of like a tray table situation on an airplane.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's not ideal, I would say, relative to some of the AMC experiences. I think I prefer those. Nevertheless. I was in one of those screening rooms and I was like, this is just going to be full of like burnt out 40 somethings, like me trying to. Trying to while away the hour. And to my right, there was a 40 something couple on a date and I watched a guy crush three Sam Adams's during the movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Wow.

[Sean Fennessy]

He was Having a great time. But the bulk of the people in.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That theater, like, married.

[Sean Fennessy]

Dating seemed like. Married.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Seemed like. I mean, they seemed close.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It wasn't a first date.

[Sean Fennessy]

Definitely not. They, like, were. They were kind of nuzzling during some critical moments of the movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Wow.

[Sean Fennessy]

Not because it was scary, but because the joy of cinema brought them together.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's beautiful. Or were they bored?

[Sean Fennessy]

No. The fellow to my right and I sat on the end. Of course, the fellow to my right was deeply engaged in this story. Chuckling. Not chuckling nearly as hard as the 9 and 10 year olds.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So are you sure they were 9 and 10? Like, what's your radar for how old kids are? That's older.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm not going to pretend as though I'm an expert on. On clocking children's ages. I have some more credibility in that respect now that I'm an uncle and a father. That I do know general age ranges.

[Amanda Dobbins]

10 versus 12 to 14.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think there were 12 and 14 year olds in there as well, but there were a lot, A lot. A bunch of kids who just simply did not know how to act. Now, the last time I remember this experience was Minions 2 the rise of Gru. That was the last time where I was like, there is a rowdiness here in the movie theater.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

That I find very interesting. I'll come back to the Minions in a second.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, but that was mostly teenagers doing memes.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was. And this is sort of that in reverse. So Minecraft, for those of you listening at home who don't know what it is, if you've been living under a rock and. Or are in your 40s, this is a video game. It's the arguably the most popular video game, bestselling video game of all time. It was created in 2011, and there have been many additions in that 15 years. This is what we can safely call new IP. The movie is directed by Jared Hess, who is probably best known for directing Napoleon Dynamite, which I know is your favorite comedy of the 21st century. We'll get to it soon. On 25 for 25.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Napoleon Dynamite.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's fine. I mean, it's a little overrated, in my opinion.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. But, you know, if you were there in the moment, you chuckled.

[Sean Fennessy]

I chuckled for sure. Also the director of a film called Nacho Libre starring Jack Black. This is a reunion between Hess and Jack Black. And the movie is, like many video game adaptations, an attempt to, like, spin a narrative out of a story in which there is not a ton of narrative.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So what is the narrative that they spin.

[Sean Fennessy]

The narrative is that there's a human man who gets sucked up named Steve who gets sucked up into the world of Minecraft. This place where you can sort of create anything you imagine, where you have to kind of understand the laws of the land and you can kind of. Steve is a master of crafting. And somehow, because he's been captured by an evil pig and her series of pig minions, he needs to give up the orb and the cube that have allowed him to go to this magical Minecraft land. He sends it back to Earth. Many years go by. Eventually, two young children and a former video game champion played by Jason Momoa, discover this orb and cube, and it takes them to the world of where.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Do they find them?

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, I'm glad you asked that question. Thank you. Jason Momoa's character who is known as the garbage man.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. Is he a garbage man?

[Sean Fennessy]

No, it was his nickname when he was dominating the video game circuit in the late 1980s.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

He has gotten into the Storage wars game, and he's looking for rare artifacts in the world of gaming because he owns a store, like an emporium, where they sell gaming nostalgia stuff.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

So he's hitting up a storage situation. Jermaine Clement, also longtime collaborator of Jared Hess, is the proprietor of this storage facility. And he gives him a tip that there is something special that he's going to want inside of one of these storage facilities. He opens up the box, hoping to find an Atari, a rare Atari console, and in fact finds the Oregon or Changed. And then that eventually.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Where are the children?

[Sean Fennessy]

They've just moved to a new town. The older sister has gotten a job working on social media for a local company. The kid is going to school. He's a new kid in the class.

[Amanda Dobbins]

How do they know the garbage man?

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, the kid stumbles into the garbage man's store one day, and they make a connection.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

The kid needs to learn how to be a little bit cooler than he actually is.

[Amanda Dobbins]

All right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Eventually, this just leads to them going on a magical adventure.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is a participatory movie the likes of which I haven't seen in a while. A lot of people have been comparing the movie going experience to the Rocky Horror Picture show, where you're, like, participating, laughing, engaging with repeating lines. There was a moment in particular, and I didn't play this game, so I'm deeply out of the loop on this, but there was a moment where Jason Momoa's character has to have a fight with a baby Frankenstein. Hang with me on this, the baby Frankenstein gets on top of a smile. Small chicken. Chickens are a big part of this Minecraft world. And the baby Frankenstein rides a chicken and fights the Jason Momoa character. When the baby. When the baby Frankenstein gets on top of the chicken, the words chicken jockey are uttered. And when chicken jockey was uttered, the movie theater exploded as though everyone had just won the World Series. Like, it was pandemonium. Except for guys like me who were just like, what does that mean?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Do the words chicken jockey mean anything to you?

[Sean Fennessy]

Absolutely not.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, okay. I thought we were getting an absolutely. And I was excited. All right, okay. Well, I'm happy for all of those.

[Sean Fennessy]

People I use cite that example, because this happened five or six times during the movie. There were a series of things that were uttered, and I'll tell you what it reminded me of. It reminded me of sitting with you during Marvel movies.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Except I didn't have a you to turn to to be like, what is this? And I gotta be honest, I felt great about it for two reasons. One, I felt like I'm. I'm really. I'm coming into my age, you know, like it's finally happened. I don't have to be at the vanguard of stuff that is important to 12 year olds. You know, I can receive it in a different phase of my life for.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So it was acceptance.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's beautiful.

[Sean Fennessy]

I had 15 unabated years of all of my adolescent dreams coming true at the movies.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I was there.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. And I. We. I was gorged on it and I got vomitously sick. And now it's over. The other thing is, it is time for this generation to have their stuff.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

And one of the things that I think you and I have both complained about a lot is that they haven't had their stuff. They've had our stuff that has been regurgitated, reimagined, rebooted, reshared. I talked about this when the Teenage Ninja Turtles movie came out. I talked about it when the last Transformers movie came out. It's nice and fun for me, but it's not really for nine year olds. And when you look at Barbie, when you look at the Super Mario Brothers movie, when you look at a handful of, like, recent phenomenon like this movie, it's because it's new, it's adapted, it's ip, it's familiar.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They have a reference point.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, but they haven't.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's grandfathered in.

[Sean Fennessy]

It is grand. This one less so than the others, even though. Because it's only 15 years old.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, like Barbie is 80 years old.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Super Mario, the half lives are getting, are getting shorter.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, I wonder about that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. Or do they get longer? It doesn't matter. The point is, is that 15 years in this current moment with our, with our phones and our computers in our pockets is actually a long time. And it's long enough to capture an entire generation.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think that's the thing, is that it's long enough to make this a huge hit.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And it's not really iterating on anything other than itself. It feels like it's within the video game world as much as it can be. I've played Minecraft before, but I have no idea about any of the mythology. And you know, ultimately I'm willing to accept one mediocre borderline bad movie if it revives a kind of interest in going to the movies. That's the thing that I'm the most interested in Minecraft. Success pays for one battle after another. It is a subsidy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

So there have been bad movies that dumb people have been paying for for as long as we've been going to the movies. So this to me is a way different proposition than your fast X's or whatever, you know, or your fast elevens or what number are they on?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think it would be 11, I think, or fast X happened and they went to space in the car, Right?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So that would be 10. So then 11 would be next.

[Sean Fennessy]

So. And part of the reason why I had a complete meltdown when that movie came out is because I was like, we are circling the drain on something that we've spent a lot of time with characters who we've seen over and over again who are not really growing or changing in any meaningful way. It's all just the same thing over and over again. Minecraft is not Casablanca. And I'm not trying to say that it is, but it is something newish.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. An alternate take. Can I just propose to you that we finally, we've returned children's movies to the children and where they should be. And that's great. And children deserve movies as well. And children deserve movies that they care about and that they'll drag their parents to and I guess like spend a lot of money and all the tie ins if that's how their parents want to spend their time.

[Sean Fennessy]

Absolutely.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So. But we have been living in a world of movies that are using childhood references of adults to then extend the childhood of adults and make us all live in your adolescence for 10 to 20 years.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think that's, I think that's right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And now we're not as concerned about the adults and we're just making movies for kids and turns out.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, would you say Barbie is a movie for kids?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think Barbie's a little bit different. You know, the movie that I thought about this weekend was Super Mario Brothers because I mean very obvious video game and also like massive success. But even Super Mario Brothers is trying to bridge the generations because we all played Super Mario Brothers growing up. But then theoretically we could take our children, though neither of us did to go see and they could be like oh, Goomba or whatever, Princess Peach, you know. Also Jack Black is in both films.

[Sean Fennessy]

I want to get to that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So I. Barbie was a real. I mean Barbie's the exception to every single rule. And I think that like, I don't think so.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think it's really more of a trailblazer that is carving the way for this movie. Has a lot in common with Barbie. It is probably maybe like it is certainly less sophisticated in terms of some of the ideas that are in it, but the story structure and the way that it is using. You don't like Jack Black and Jason Momoa as much as you like.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Excuse me, excuse me, hold on, let me. I like Jason Momoa.

[Sean Fennessy]

Let me just finish my thought. My thought is you don't like Jack Black and Jason Momoa as much as you like Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, but using a 55 year old movie star and a 45 year old movie star as that same bridge. Like Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie drew in a lot of adults. This movie is drawing in adults because Jack Black has been making successful movies like this for over 20 years. Like it occurred to me, as I'm sure it did to many people when you go through the, through his career. You know, I love him from like High Fidelity and Tenacious D, but like Jumanji, Super Mario Bros, Kung Fu Panda, School of Rock, Goosebumps, Ice Age, Shark Tale. He's like arguably the signature kids movie star of the last quarter century and the guy who was sitting next to me who was crushing the Sam Adams has probably been going on a journey with Jack Black for a long time. And so he's like happy to be escorted into this world of Minecraft with a guy that he's very familiar with. So to me like, I actually think Barbie is like a template setter that is will be same studio to it, which is worth noting.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I see all of that, but I think, I think Minecraft movie is to Barbie as the Kool Aid Movie. From the studio is to Barbie, which is, you know, you're using IP and bringing people in. But there's, it's, I mean there's, it's not the, it's, you know, it's not Martin Scorsese's Kool Aid. It's.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, and I'm not saying a Minecraft movie should or will be nominated for an Academy Award. I think it's. Some of it is charming. It's mostly very stupid. Again, I think it's like, okay, it reminded me a little bit of like movies I saw as a kid like the Last Starfighter or Invaders. Like there's this like, you know, when a 10 year old boy is like needs to pick up a sword and like fight an evil pig. Like that's really what's going on there. And that, that is meaningfully different from Barbie. But the idea that people are so into it, that it is an event.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is really good.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Children have passions, as you and I know they do. And, and I think it's okay if they're like slightly separate from the grown up passions, you know?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, I think, I think it's okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

For kids to have their own stuff and us to support them and to spend money on it and then.

[Sean Fennessy]

Absolutely. They already have a lot of their own stuff. I think they don't have a lot of stuff that are movies, you know, and Minecraft wasn't a movie until then.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. But Gabby's Dollhouse coming soon.

[Sean Fennessy]

I was going to bring this up. I mean, Gabby's Dollhouse is another example of this, which I have been kind of dreading because I think once Gabby's Dollhouse gets in the water in my house, we're going to be drinking it for years. But that's a. Did it come up on our podcast with Matt Bellani?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes, because that was my. What the fuck moment was learning about the existence of Gabby's Dollhouse.

[Sean Fennessy]

Gabby's Dollhouse. If you didn't hear our episode with the Town, we recorded an additional episode with Matt Bellany on Friday. And Gabby's El House was one of the big presentations by Universal. It's a show that has 11 seasons on Netflix. It comes from the creator of Blue's Clues. It's one of the most popular kids TV shows of the last five years. There's a movie adaptation starring Kristen Wiig coming this summer, I think.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And Gloria Estefan.

[Sean Fennessy]

And Gloria Estefan, sure.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That was my reaction.

[Sean Fennessy]

I get it. I'm not exactly a movie star. But she's a star in her own right. What are your favorite Gloria Stefan film performances? Should we do our hall of fame right now?

[Amanda Dobbins]

When I was sitting there being like, how are they bringing in the parents? I guess Kristen Wiig, but also Gloria.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. Gabby's Dollhouse is going to attempt to do the same thing and it probably will work. I don't think it's going to work at this scale. This is now going to be a billion dollar movie. Did not have that on my bingo card. Did not see that coming. I didn't think it was going to bomb or anything, but we just spent a month and a half post Mickey 17 talking about how Mike DeLuca and Pam Abdy are screwed.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

And Warner Brothers is in a terrible spot. Alto Knights. What a fiasco. This movie is now certified. Early reviews of Sinners are through the roof and people are extremely excited. And now there's like talk of over performance on that. And then, you know, there's like a bunch of horror movies from Warner Brothers this summer and then one battle after another, which I think might actually overperform a little bit too. And so now it's like, okay, Warner's is fine. Movies are fine. We're good.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's great. Oh, I'm glad. I'm glad that you went on that whole journey and that you feel good again because the take that you were bringing in that you tried on me in like the bleachers at Cinemacon was a garbage take, in my opinion.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, the take that I have that I will pivot to momentarily with you is still accurate because we're not having a qualitative conversation right now. We're having a business conversation.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, good. Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

We're talking about.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I didn't know that I needed to be wearing my town hat. Well, it is my. Here's my business response to you. Yes, movies for children work. When they work, they work great.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And they haven't had a lot of. There haven't been a lot of successes.

[Sean Fennessy]

I have much more. Like, I don't know if you pay attention to this as much since you've had kids, but I pay very close attention to kids movies now because I'm looking closely at what they can and can't see. I sent the Minecraft trailer to my wife on Thursday when we were in Vegas and I was like, can Alice see this, in your opinion? And she was immediately like, no. And not because of the content, but because of the speed with which the story is being told. Which I thought was smart on her part, having seen the movie. It's not for her. She's not even four.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

But if you're seven, it's kind of a no brainer if you're looking to kill an afternoon. The thing that I've noticed is, and I'm sure that this is something that is widely understood in the industry, but did not. I didn't really care much about this. There's winter break movies and there's summer movies.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. And there's spring break movies.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is the one spring break movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, Super Mario Brothers was also a spring break movie.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was, it was. So there's winter break movies, one spring break movie and then summer.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And so like this summer we've got. We've got how to Train youn Dragon, we've got Elio from Pixar, we've got Lilo and Stitch over the Memorial Day weekend. But there are these have been these, especially in the last 10 years, these big wide open areas where not a lot of movies have opened for children. And it's weird because it almost always works, you know, like if you get, you know, Inside out two being the biggest movie of last year, you know, Barbie obviously had a huge kid audience, a sort of sub 15 audience that drove a lot of box office, a lot of return receipts. It doesn't mean there aren't bombs. Obviously Snow White vastly underperformed, but we saw Mufasa the Lion King stay in theaters for like three months.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The greatest showman of 2024.

[Sean Fennessy]

It really was. It really was. And so it kind of makes you wonder, like, certainly you can oversaturate the marketplace, but why there are not like somewhere between three and five more of these a year. Any thoughts on why that is?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, I guess inventory and it's especially animation. It does. It takes longer to make them so. And I would say this and Super Mario Brothers are also like the first video game movies that they've really cracked. Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, Sonic the Hedgehog as well.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, sure, yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Of course.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Which is another. Right. Because there have been lots of video game movies for grownups.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Like, you know, whatever's going on.

[Sean Fennessy]

Mortal Kombat, World of Resident Evil Warcraft.

[Amanda Dobbins]

All of that stuff.

[Sean Fennessy]

That movie Bond.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But yeah, well, no, I mean, but most of those movies don't do well. They are not accepted in terms of quality. And also like, it's been a constant problem. Hollywood can't solve this. Hollywood can't solve this. Well, if you make the children's ones for children, they're very happy.

[Sean Fennessy]

So weird that it took that long to get their heads around that. We were Getting a lot of Assassin's Creed and all that stuff.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, Michael Fassbender was in that.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's tough now. He's just a spy all the time.

[Sean Fennessy]

So that's good. We're okay with that. We'll get. We'll get to that eventually, I think. So I was panicking last week. I wasn't. Yeah, I wasn't actually panicking, but I was kind of shaping the panic. We're trying to figure out like, what is really going on right now. What is happening.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Also we were surrounded by it in Vegas.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It was very anxious.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

In Vegas.

[Sean Fennessy]

Everybody and pretty much everybody you talked to in Vegas was like, things are not good and like actually getting a little scary. Yeah. And I don't want, I don't. I don't want to Fear Monger. I felt like I've been trying to get over all that stuff post Covid, but being confronted by it from other people, I think made it a little. Feel a little bit complicated. The other thing that happened is qualitatively, things are so weak right now. And I was thinking back to last year, which is that at this time last year, we had Challengers, we had Dune Part two, and we had Civil War. Now those were three really well, well received movies that also did good business. They weren't the only movies that did good business last year. We also had like the Godzilla movie, Godzilla vs. Kong movie, for example. Like, there were other box office drivers that came. So even just setting aside the fact that the business was more healthy, we were getting stuff right in the big picture world.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Challengers and Dune Part 2 both were postponed because of the stress.

[Sean Fennessy]

They were.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They were originally slated for end of the year, Q4, if you will, since we're wearing our business hats.

[Sean Fennessy]

They were Q4.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Q4, 2023.

[Sean Fennessy]

Correct. Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And then because of the strikes and because those are two movies that really need star promotion, specifically Zendaya, they were pushed too early last year. So I wonder if last year was sort of a fluke.

[Sean Fennessy]

It absolutely could be. And there may be some recency bias. You know, in years past, though there have been earlier. You know, everything everywhere, all at once. For example, was like a South by Southwest premiere which came out shortly after that. Like, we've been talk about how more and more kind of prestigious movies are getting released earlier in the year and there's not as much of a need to make your Oscar movie a December movie. For example, I think I was looking around through the first three months of the year and honestly, Black bag aside.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I thought, this is pretty grim, especially on the studio side. This is a really weak crop. And we'd been told by industry reporters who had been filtering takes from studio executives, like, wait till next year, survive till 25. That was the idea, right? I kind of neither. I didn't buy into that at all.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They didn't survive until September 2025. You know, that was like, exactly. Exactly the calendar tournament. We were like, okay, we're back. But, you know, and again, in the same way that Challengers and Dune Part two, they were finished before the strikes and, you know, got pushed back, we are still kind of living in that trough of, okay, things can get finished where, you know, inventory is low. Like, and, you know, we heard 25 and. And we expected things to get going. I got to say, Q1, just across the board in 2025, thumbs down.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was bad. It was bad. I would say Q2 not off to.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The best start in terms of movies or life. Oh, no. That was bad too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

The world is in a very perilous state.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That was like, you and I. You and I sat there once again in the balcony, and we're like, okay, so Q2, we're gonna turn things around. And then we opened the news apps. So that was bad.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. And I think just to put the cynical bracelets on for five seconds here, is there a better movie in the universe to come out and to distract us from what's going on? To purposefully sort of like SOMA US while Tariffgate 2025 is on than a Minecraft movie like that? This is a Paddy Chayefsky story that this, like, Brain Dead video game adaptation while I sit in my lounger chair on a Saturday night, like, I'm in Wally, you know, anesthetizes me to what is clearly like, a global financial crisis. We don't have to talk about terrorists on this podcast. I'm not an expert on that at all, but it couldn't help but resonate.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

That while things seem very frantic in the outside world, inside the movie world, people are almost like, I need to get away from whatever bad shit is going on.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

And it worked. Movies can be that, and I think that they should be that. I hope things in the real world sort themselves out fairly soon. But it's interesting because this came at the same exact time that the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood News hit too. And so, obviously, I'm tremendously excited about that movie as you are. Love the original film. Love Fincher. I don't love that it's being made for Netflix, but I also fully understand that if not for Netflix, this movie would not be getting made because Fincher is the kind of person who can get it made. In all likelihood, Brad Pitt handed a script to David Fincher. Fincher and QT know each other.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They all just said yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

They all just said yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Some text messages were exchanged. You think they're texters or emailers?

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm not sure.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm not sure. I don't have Brad on text, so nor do I. I can't confirm. But I think in general, I'm thrilled that that movie is happening. I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to see it in a movie theater. I can't wait to be able to watch it whenever I want to on the Netflix streaming service. I'm not against that at all. But the movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is about trying to get out of the kind of like second tier pit of TV stardom. You know, like the Rick Dalton character is so desperate to be a movie star and to get elevated out of bounty law. He's happy to have bounty law, right? But he wants to be in the Great Escape and the irony of shifting this world and these characters where frankly, a movie star is saved at the end by a movie stuntman and a movie actor. It feels a little rough. It feels a little rough. And there are plenty of TV sequels that were born out of original films, this being a different version of that, but it furthered my take. And the take is this, creatively, TV is in a much better place than movies right now. Much better. And there are a lot of reasons for it, some of which are related to the global financial crisis that we are talking about.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, keep going. I don't think I can disagree with you, but I do think it's kind of a. A boring take.

[Sean Fennessy]

And, well, it's one that I usually historically resist hard. But I have watched a bunch of TV this year.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, I just think we're. I. Sorry to be the negative person, because I know this is like your therapy session and you had a religious experience at Minecraft or whatever, but neither of.

[Sean Fennessy]

Those things are true.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But, like, I mean, I think we're just in a really rough time. Like, shit's bad. Shit's bad in the world. Shit's bad on our screens. Shit's. It's just not like nothing.

[Sean Fennessy]

The TV is not bad, though. That's the point that I'm making.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I haven't liked any of It I.

[Sean Fennessy]

Caught up with what I.

[Amanda Dobbins]

White Lotus.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Thumbs down.

[Sean Fennessy]

I thought the season was okay. I thought the finale was pretty weak. Yeah, I'll give you my full take on everything. So my sense of things was that one of the reasons why TV was so bad was that one, it was trying to be more like movies, and two, it was expanding at a rate that was unsustainable. More new shows, more movie stars filtering into the shows, more people getting opportunities to write shows, which is great, but a lot of people were very untested or unseasoned. Seasons being expanded, episodes being expanded. A real dilution of the product. And it was just too much. A lot of the. Even the Prestige stuff, I thought over the last five years has been really, really thin gruel. This year, the lineup is this from stuff that has come out. Severance, the White Lotus, Adolescence, the Studio and the Pit. Those are probably the five biggest, most noisiest kind of in our universe shows. They're maybe not the most popular. Like Landman was huge, for example. There's plenty of stuff even on network TV and on the mainstream streaming services that is really popular. But for our purposes, which is like talking about quality work, that's probably the highest level. There's something to recommend about all five of those shows. You may not individually like all five of those shows, but very rarely am I watching five different shows and thinking to myself like, wow, they really kind of nailed this. The White Lotus might be the weakest of the five, which is kind of fascinating. I'm only just now getting into the Pit. Obviously you should listen to Chris and Andy on the Watch. You should listen to the Prestige TV podcast. They're covering these shows really closely. Joe and Rob are covering these shows really closely. I think I'm just a little surprised that the thing that didn't used to work, which is trying to jam high level movie talent into a TV format or would work like every once in a while. But you would forgive the Big Little Lies, where you would forgive some of the TV ness for the quality of having high leverage work.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

When you watch the studio or when you watch Severance, I'm like, this is as well directed as any movie that has come out in the last three months.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's true. I mean, the Studio is the only TV show I currently like on tv. And it's great. It is also leaning so heavily on movies and the myth making of movies. And it is. I mean, I do understand it's a TV show on a pretty episodic TV show. And then it's just kind of vignettes of, like, here's this day and here's what this experience is like. But, you know, both. Both the filmmaking language and the actual text, like, it's about movies. So it is tv, but it is, like, borrowing from what you know, it's somewhere in between adolescence is your classic, like, British miniseries. Somewhere between tv, somewhere between movies. I mean, I know that it's episodic.

[Sean Fennessy]

But it's four hours, though. You know, it's not 98 minutes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. And I understand that it couldn't be 98 minutes, that it wouldn't be effective in that way, but it is also. It's not the pit. It's not, you know, it's not. Which is like bringing back your beloved 90s, like, medical ER drama, but, like, with great filmmaking. And the puppet that recreates live childbirth, which is why I will never watch.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's a hard sit. Yeah, I haven't seen that episode. But just the show in general is incredibly challenging. But the point you're making is the. Is why I'm feeling this way, which is that there's different modes that are. That are successful right now. It could just be a blip. It could just be. You already described how, like, the calendar was such that it was hard for movies to get done in a certain period of time. So we had a dip. The first three months of the year, historically, is not usually a very good bellwether for the quality of the movies for the entire year. It's. There's Emmy windows to consider here for some of these shows. This is an unusually strong crop to me.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But also, I understand that White Lotus and Severance are, like, the most popular and the water cooleriest, and that's what, like, everyone's talking about. But those are both second and third season with a lot of time spent and a lot of frustration from the viewers of how that time is being spent. And it's like a very classic bullshit TV thing where it's just the longer you try to stretch something out, you keep, you know, going back. Like, how much more can we get out of this diminishing return?

[Sean Fennessy]

But that's the same thing that I was complaining about with movies and why a Minecraft movie works. But the problem is, is that the new thing that we're getting at movies is a Minecraft movie, and the new thing that we're getting on TV is, like, White Lotus Season 3, which is, like, maybe not ultimately as satisfying as you want it to be, but incredibly well made, well cast, pretty interesting. Through five and a half episodes I was like, this is quite good, right? So look, it is my life's mission to be the number one defender of movies. But I watch closely.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean that's apples and oranges because really what you're getting on TV that is comparable to Minecraft is Love is Blind and Traitors in terms of the number of people who are seeing it.

[Sean Fennessy]

And yeah, but production value is different. To me, I make this comparison because of budget and priority at the studio. The White Lotus is the most important thing happening at HBO until the last of us.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And it does have just a tremendous number of brand tie ins.

[Sean Fennessy]

So it does. It is very financially important to a streamer. Just like a Minecraft movie which is owned by the same company is very important to that. Now, eyeballs, you're right. There's so much dumb shit on TV that gets huge audiences, right? I'm not defending any of that stuff. I watch a little bit of it. But to me that when you're talking about the playing field, you're literally talking about like Chris Ryan always talks about how one of the problems with comic book movies is they've taken so many great actors off the board in the last 10 years. You know, like your Chris Hemsworth's just have not had a chance to even explore his potential as a movie star because he has so much commitment as Thor. This is the same thing. You know, there is something happening like Sam Rockwell being like, I'm going to Thailand for three months to go do two episodes and be with my wife on the White Lotus is beautiful and I love them.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That just seems like thriving. That just seems like great decisions for him.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm sure it's great. He's going to win an Emmy. He was outstanding on the show, he's always outstanding. But he wasn't in a movie. You know what I'm sure like there is like there is a give and take here. So obviously I make a big show of like don't watch tv. TV sucks a lot of the time. But for me, like when I see Adolescents and someone like Stephen Graham who's like is a big movie actor, making that the priority in his work and then that becoming. I don't know if that's. I think that's like among the most watched series that Netflix has ever.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Instant and you know, also like the power of just look what happens when you put something good on Netflix. I know you're very upset about the netflixification of Fincher and Tarantino.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm very upset, yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, you Just spent a lot of time just being like, I, you know.

[Sean Fennessy]

I would prefer it be in movie theaters. You know, I think Netflix does. Should be putting it in front of people and make frankly making more money that way. But. But you're right, you put a good show. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And so many people found it. And way more people found it than would have found it in a movie theater. It's not a movie also. So, you know, we're. I don't know what to say about the in between things and that there is sort of like this possibility of like a four hour at home streaming quasi TV, quasi movies sensation that 100 million people like watch and talk about.

[Sean Fennessy]

You almost can't plan for it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, but also it's like, I guess that's bad for movies, but also. Is it. I mean, at some point we're just. I don't know if people respond to it. Art. I don't know.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think ultimately what I'm trying to get at is not like, oh, this is so bad for movies. It's just that I rarely think TV is bad, better than movies. And at this exact moment in time, this past quarter that has sucked in the world at large.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, we're down bad.

[Sean Fennessy]

It feels notable and maybe things will bounce back shortly, honestly. We have Warfare on Friday and Sinners the Friday after that. And what is coming in the last week of. Oh, and havoc on Netflix, unfortunately, and a handful of other movies that are coming out in April that I've seen and that I really like and that I'm really excited for. I don't know if they're gonna be massive hits on the order of Barbie, but it's gonna be fine. I'm just noting that for one time in the seven years that we've been making the show, we're in second place, man. There's just no getting around it. We're in second. The big thing to cheer about is a Minecraft movie, which I liked your positivity.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Get back to it. You know, you started, you were in a happy place.

[Sean Fennessy]

I have to close the loop on the take. Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, it's, it's bleak out there. It's tough.

[Sean Fennessy]

The closed loop is one of the reasons why TV was so bad is that the comic book movie Machine and Star wars and IP kind of got sucked into TV during the pandemic, initially spurred on by Bob Iger, who then left and Bob Chapek pushed all those stories across. Nobody likes those shows for the most part. They have kind of messed with the timelines. Of a lot of the storytelling. And they kind of like pulled down movies from the inside because they kind of like the comic book movie apparatus, like basically started to go like this once they started going on TV all the time. And that clearly got me thinking that like something that is obvious, but I'm going to say it because of what's happening in the world right now, which is that the globalization of movies, which started in the 1970s when jaws went wide and Star wars became a phenomenon, was further through the 1990s and then reached a kind of, I guess a kind of apex in the parlance of Bill Simmons in the 2010s when the Chinese box office became so important to US movies. And what played in China was Marvel, Jurassic World, the Fast and the Furious, Avatar, et cetera, et cetera. These kind of like kind of wordless franchises. Movies that play spectacle. Spectacle, yes, beyond spectacle. Identifiable brand, minimum story continuity that keeps you on the daisy chain of content that built up expectation from a basically a stock portfolio perspective, Pushed out all the stuff that we like, all the middle stuff, and now it's just haves and have nots. It's just indie and spectacle stuff.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And also, at least the Chinese box office has completely disappeared because they learned how to make movies from Hollywood and now just make movies for their audiences that their audiences prefer.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. NI ZHA2 is the highest grossing movie in the world right now. It's a Chinese production, an animated film that has made over a billion dollars. Almost the entirety of its haul has come from China. So they picked up our tricks. They're doing our thing better than we are in their home country. They don't need our movies. In fact, they don't even show all of our movies anymore. It's like a battle to get onto a lot of screens there, Even though they have more screens than any nation in the world. We got fat on that money. Executives got fat almost literally off of that growth.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Mm.

[Sean Fennessy]

A number of things happened. Movie theater attraction, Covid, all this stuff that went down in the. In the process of that, appetites lost interest in going out to a movie theater for a movie like Black Bag. Movies like Black Bag become streaming movies. Now the streamers make them directly. There's no box office incentive. I'm obviously rehashing like the basically the long 10 year arc of the book that I'm going to write at some point in my life. But it's interesting that like, we really need a Minecraft movie or Barbie or Sonic the Hedgehog to revive. And you'll get An Oppenheimer every once in a while. Yeah, that can still happen. And when it happens, I'm going to sing it from the rooftops. But it's not reversible without intellectual property at the moment. Without eventization, without familiarity, without chicken jockey.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

And even though I'm very happy that Gen Alpha has their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, that's really what this is. This is when? 1990. We'll be doing a 1990 movie draft next week. In 1990, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie came out. I was there. I saw it in the theater, having the time of my life. The turtles were, like, relatively new at that time. They were created in the 80s and I was really into the Animated series.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I had an action show first, though.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, they did. Yeah. But when they made that live action series, like a live action Minecraft movie, I was like, this is amazing. Adult critics who saw Teenage Turtles were like, we're so fucked. We are so fucked that this is what kids want. But it did help, and it did become, like, kind of a pathway to a certain kind of storytelling over the next 25 years. So this is our version of that, and I want to mark it in time, even though I have some regret about it. I've shifted my doomsday feelings a little bit in this conversation.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I was going to be like, really? A negative Nelly.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We're screwed.

[Sean Fennessy]

A real Debbie Downey.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And now Chicken Jockey has given you life.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, it's just. It's just changed my state of mind about it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

And it has made me maybe accept my middle agedom.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, that's good. If we've achieved nothing, you know, we've at least achieved personal acceptance. On the fact that you're 42, do you think, you know, September, October hits, we get Mission Impossible. We get, you know, Superman, whatever that may be, plus or minus. We get one battle after another. We get some actual movies that we care about that people maybe want to see in the box office. I don't know whether, like, sinners hits or warfare hits, but some things that aren't Minecraft hit at the box office.

[Sean Fennessy]

What's our version of Nosferatu and a complete unknown in December?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. Then are you just going to be like, I was freaking out for nothing?

[Sean Fennessy]

No, because I think I'm right. It doesn't mean that there won't be middle ground. Cool movies that make $100 million. That's not. I'm not saying that's over. It's not over. In fact, I hope there are more of them. I hope There are more Nosferatu's where they're like, we're going to give a really interesting filmmaker $50 million because we think it can make $200 million. But what I am nervous about, what I've been nervous about, is we're going to give a perfectly fine comedy director $180 million with the hope that we make a movie that makes $700 million. Those are the gambles that have it feeling like you did it in the casino last weekend of just, I'm so anxious and so uncomfortable. And that's what it's like working in a movie studio, right? You're just like, so anxious and uncomfortable.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I mean, I would not want to be them. That scene at the end of the first episode of the Studio where the Seth Rogen character is just like, I'm miserable all the time and I want to throw up. And the Catherine O'Hare character is like, yeah, it seems like the worst job in the world. They apparently still want it in a million years. You couldn't get me to do that. It sounds, like, awful. And it does really just seem like the numbers are fucked. Like, as you said, you know, early 2000 and tens, everything got so out of control and you can make billions of dollars global. And now everyone's stocks and corporate structures and ownership and debt, whatever, arranged in such a way where you have to go make 700, 800, 900, a billion dollars. I thought it was very funny. At Cinemacon, every executive would come out and they all had made up stats trumpeting how well their movies had done. And it was like, we made almost 1.3 billion. And we were the second studio to do 1.6 billion. And they were all just doing, like, the point somethings because no one could get to two. But one wasn't good enough anymore.

[Sean Fennessy]

One number, that was that. It was 4.5 billion. And I'm like, that's not a round number. That's not a meaningful number. It's a number.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's just like, it's the most that we could get to. To sound significant because those are the expectations now, and I don't envy anyone. And so we're in a world of, yeah, like Minecrafts or nothing.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Familiar, but new. Yeah, that's. That's the whole ball game.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And that stinks.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, it can be okay if. If. If it's Barbie, you know, like, Barbie wasn't my favorite movie of that year, but I liked it and I'm glad. I'm really glad it happened. I'm Not. I'm certainly not mad that a Minecraft movie happened. When. When we're here in nine years reviewing a Minecraft movie. Seven. Then I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna bleed out. Like, that's just. I'm just gonna. Movie bleed out. It's gonna be a bad scene.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's okay. Because the four Beatles movies will have saved cinema.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You think they'll be out in nine years?

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, they better be.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

They better be. Yeah. I don't know. I'm trying to not do, like a meltdown, because it's not a meltdown. It's like.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't think it's a meltdown. I think it's a therapy session. I think it's you observing and accepting things in real time.

[Sean Fennessy]

I give this a lot of thought.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And paying penance a little bit for just your 10 years of superhero gluttony and just been like, I love it. It's awesome.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, you weren't like that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You were very critical.

[Sean Fennessy]

I was individually critical when I felt it was necessary. But when I liked something, I tried to say, here's why I like it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

And then it got way more cynical than I had realized it was going to get. But you're right that I am kind of paying a penance because my enthusiasm contributed to leading us to this place.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. As did everyone's. And it's a real. You get what you want, and then it just has to keep going.

[Sean Fennessy]

Buyer's remorse.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. There you go.

[Sean Fennessy]

Do you think you'll see a Minecraft movie?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Maybe I'll check it out on streaming.

[Sean Fennessy]

It will be on the Mac service, but probably not for a while.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Because I think there will be a firm window on this one.

[Amanda Dobbins]

By the window. Um, I don't know whether I'll. I'll go to the theater.

[Sean Fennessy]

What's your thought on your kids, your boys playing video games?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm gonna hold it off for as long.

[Sean Fennessy]

Do you think it will happen?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Um, I don't know. I like. I, you know, try to be realistic. But also I have been surprised by how much we've been able to avoid stuff I'm not interested in thus far. I know. I mean, I know he's only three, but I know at some point they're going to be surrounded by it, and I don't.

[Sean Fennessy]

Kindergarten is really the where it sets in.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Video games start in kindergarten.

[Sean Fennessy]

I just mean getting exposed to things that other kids really like and then them talking about it and then it coming home.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. So, you know, if they go to someone else's house. What am I going to do? But I think probably not in our house for as long as I can possibly do it.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, I ask because obviously the success of this movie is informed by this kind of, like, legacy. Love this thing. Like, I got exposed to this when I was 6. I've been playing it right, and I'm 16 now. And look what we got. We got my thing that I like. And, you know, like, there was news this morning that it's just, like, we're going to put a Fortnite movie in development. You know, like, everything that is kind of in this rich terrain will then get developed and put out into the world. I was very fond of saying when I was at the beginning of my. I don't know, about the beginning of my career, at a time in my career where I was like, I'm not going to go hungry. I was really grateful to my parents that they let me indulge my interests, that they let me watch a lot of television, they let me watch a lot of sports, that they pushed me to play sports, that they let me collect VHS tapes, and that they bought me an NES when I was, like, seven. Because spending all that time in those worlds, it not only bolstered my enthusiasm, but it, like, prepared me for my professional life.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I think if there were, like, strong guardrails around that I maybe would not have been able to find something that I really care about. And it's hard to get a career in something you really care about. That's like a. That's like a mass psychosis.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

In Inside of the American Dream is like, as long as you love something and work hard at it, you'll get it. Which is, of course, not true. So setting aside my good fortune, I'm always at war with this now that I'm a parent.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. I don't think you can set aside your good fortune. I think it's actually insane how much we lucked out and that our job is seeing and watching, you know, And I try to think about that every day. And even as I bitch about having to see all of these movies that I wouldn't. It's not how I would choose to spend my time on my own. Like, that's my job. And I think, you know, I hope that our kids get to do something that they're passionate about. But, like, I don't know if I can. I don't know. I think I'm trying to prepare them to have, like, a rich and, you know, In a, in an enjoyment sense, a spiritual sense. Not a financial sense though that would be great. But doesn't look good out there.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's not a good week for that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

A fulfilling life. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And you don't think sitting in a movie theater at Saturday at 9pm is a fulfilling way to spend your time?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Not sat in a movie theater at 9am like many times it's actually 11 because that's when the Academy does its family screenings and that's compatible with nap time. Thank you so much. To the Academy or the Academy museum. So yeah, he's done in a movie theater plenty of times. I don't know whether I think like five hours a day in front of a video game. Is this set up to a fulfilling life and maybe he'll become a video game designer. I read what's the movie? Not everything Everywhere all at once.

[Sean Fennessy]

What's the book?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Didn't really like it, but that's okay because many people did and those people had a rich life building video games.

[Sean Fennessy]

So that would be quite a turn if one of your children is a video game designer. I would enjoy that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. You know what? Size is like very responsive to, to, to like the graphics in a book. He's just like really clawing at them. He is also trying to get everything in his mouth right now. But I do feel like there's something visual going like artistic going those Legos.

[Sean Fennessy]

Away from him right now.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, how do people do this where you have the three year old toys with all the parts and then you have like a six month old who's just like, let me jam everything into my mouse?

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't know. And you know what?

[Amanda Dobbins]

You're never gonna find out. Yeah. Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Let's talk about some good movies. Thank you for indulging.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You're welcome.

[Sean Fennessy]

Do you feel these big ideas?

[Amanda Dobbins]

So you've never really been in therapy, so like.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, that's not true. I was when I was a teenager.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, well, all right. What do you feel like you learned about?

[Sean Fennessy]

What?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, like what's your takeaway from this session that we just did?

[Sean Fennessy]

I wouldn't say you were like a very generous therapist. That's the first thing I would say. I.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's a different school. I'm pushing back.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is, this is more like academic study for me. It just, I just happen to have like a little bit of a manic personality on the podcast when we talk about this stuff. But I'm, I'm really trying to understand how everything fits together because I'm. I'm hopeful for a long term future. So what did I learn? I. It's mostly a positive takeaway, which is that, like, I saw a ton of kids losing their minds in a movie theater, which is something I really value. You know, I actually, I think that's great.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And it wasn't a Minecraft movie is not awful. It's not evil.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's good.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know what I mean?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's kind of. It's lighthearted and fun and silly and. Right. It's not that craven thing that Free Guy is where by the time you got to the end of that movie, and I know a lot of people felt that movie was very fun and I overreacted. But the end of that movie to me was the most cynical thing you could do, which was just like this original story is not enough for your dead brain. So let me put something in front of you that makes you feel like, I know what you really want. It's not me, but Captain America. I hated that. Anyhow, I think it's ultimately a positive. What did I learn about myself? I'm over indexed on caring about movies. You know who.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Can you identify these five people for us?

[Sean Fennessy]

Sure. This is Danielle Brooks. She plays a real estate agent slash portable zoo meister. She carries. She drives animals around.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. So there's like, there's a big animal farm element in Minecraft.

[Sean Fennessy]

There are a lot of Minecraft creatures. Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Among pink sheep, for example, these evil pigs.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Chickens.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Are there any just like nice animals?

[Sean Fennessy]

Most of the animals are nice. Okay. The guys that are bad are those pigs in the other dimension. And then also at night, the evil Frankensteins and skeletons come out and you have to battle them.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Honestly, I thought some of the effects work was pretty good.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, cool.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. There's Jack Black. He plays Steve, sort of the Christopher Columbus of the Minecraft world.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I would say that's not problematic, which.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is to say he is an interloper who has arrived into a quote unquote new land that he is going to colonize in his own mind. But he is not the originator of that land. Jason Momoa. That's a garbage man. He wears a pink leather jacket with fringes throughout the entire film.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Honestly. Looks cool.

[Sean Fennessy]

That is Henry. Henry is the young boy and that's his sister, whose name escapes me. The actress's name is Emma Myers. Um, she's supposed to be like 24.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. She's. Yeah, she's doing social media.

[Sean Fennessy]

She looks like company 14 in the movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Again, this is why I was like, are you sure it's 9 to 10 year olds in your screening? Is it teenagers? It's probably like 53 year old movie.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I just couldn't tell because they were hooting and hollering, okay, Minecraft movie is not going to make the best movies of the year so far List.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I did do a lot of work here. Yeah, I tried to this expanded and.

[Amanda Dobbins]

There are several movies that I. I've heard of. Most of these, one or two I hadn't though. The shutter stuff, you know, that's your time.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, yeah. And grain of salt for everything here. We've mentioned Black Bag a couple of times already.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's been the easy one to point to. There it is. It came out just two and a half weeks ago in cinemas and it's already on vod.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

So if people want to rent it there, they can. This is Steven Soderbergh's second feature film this year. You know, we didn't have the in depth conversation about the plotting of the movie, I think because it was such a twisty movie and I had my doubts about its potential box office performance. So what I didn't want to do is do an hour of conversation about the movie and then people would be like, you fucking ruined this movie for me. Is there anything in this movie that we didn't get into that you want.

[Amanda Dobbins]

To talk about in terms of reveals?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, just the way it's structured, how it's done.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Um, you know, I think it's both very twisty turny and also ultimately like an Agatha Christie. Like we're all around a dinner table and you know it's gonna be I accuse you, I accuse you. Which is, which is very fun. It has. Even though it ultimately is the dinner room scene, it does have that like Soderbergh. Ocean's Eleven had it all, you know, flashback, putting the pieces together, which is so satisfying. Also the lie detector stuff. That entire sequence is just absolutely elite filmmaking. Acting, editing, Very funny. So I guess maybe plot wise. Well, I'm not sure I expected the solution necessarily. I don't know whether it was like the most naughty and the satisfying plot wise conclusion. With respect to Pierce Brosnan, you know, I think that we knew that we knew something was up there, but I just. It was so well made and acted that I didn't really care. I did feel like for a movie that's so plot, I didn't care about the plot that much.

[Sean Fennessy]

Do you think that matters? Like. Cause Soderbergh is the king of the exercise.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, the movie that is being reclaimed of his right now and is being released on 4K is a good German.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Which is a movie that I don't think is very good works at all. It is a kind of exercise in a post Casablanca style of filmmaking. And one of the things that the movie got dinged for was like, this just kind of feels like a guy moving magnets on a refrigerator. You know, these are just pieces that are being moved around and not actually human experience. And yet I do feel that Soderbergh is very romantic as a filmmaker, very intellectually probing as a filmmaker. Presence is, like, very upsetting at times in terms of what it's exploring. So the exercise is tricky because I agree that there was, like, the final five minutes of Black Bag might have been my least favorite part of the movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well.

[Sean Fennessy]

Maybe that's. Maybe that's a writing issue and not a directing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I honestly think it might be a performance issue. There's, you know, that's a table of heavyweights. And then there's one person who.

[Sean Fennessy]

Are you saying R. Jean Page is not up for?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, he's no Reservela. You know what I'm saying? By the way, just casting her as the coder is still the funniest thing that's ever happened.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Or the coder or the satellite tech expert, whatever. Really, really, really good sense of humor. So for me, that was kind of the. You know, both he and Pierce Brosnan are, like, showing their hand. A little bit.

[Sean Fennessy]

A little transparent. Yeah. Early in the film. I agree. I wonder how purposeful that is. You know, sometimes you're watching a Vincent Price movie and you're like, well, Vincent Price is in this movie. He's gonna do some bad shit.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, yeah. But I don't know. I think this is a great movie about marriage. I found it ultimately to be a very romantic movie, and I think that's what it's about. So that. That they kind of yada, yada, the end of the. The murder mystery, like, who cares?

[Sean Fennessy]

I think people should watch it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think it's awesome.

[Sean Fennessy]

I do think that, you know, Universal needs how to train your dragon to be a big hit so that we can get more black back.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. So I thought the dragon knows how.

[Sean Fennessy]

To train your dragon pretty real relative to the real dragons you've encountered.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't know. Just like, what's. What's in my head?

[Sean Fennessy]

You had never seen a How to Train youn Dragon animated feature, right?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I hadn't.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. I. I mean, I like shot for shot.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. They did actually in the. In one of the reels, they started with the animated film and then, like, faded into the exact shot recreation in the last.

[Sean Fennessy]

You were moved by that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I was like, oh, I get it. I feel like I got the lay of the land pretty quickly without having seen the animated version. And.

[Sean Fennessy]

And is that land you'd want to live in?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't know. I don't. I'm not like a. I don't. I don't think I would like to drink mead, you know? So anywhere where they're serving mead is.

[Sean Fennessy]

Not a Viking gal, you know? Okay. What about a Norse goddess riding a winged Pegasus?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't think so. I mean, I have dark hair, so I think that that excludes me from whatever's going on.

[Sean Fennessy]

You're more of a witch, right? In that. In the. In that. In that Norse mythology.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But the dragon. When they were fighting the dragon. Sure. If that's, you know, if that's how you get your kicks, go for it.

[Sean Fennessy]

Absolutely. I'm going to give you a couple of movies that I enjoyed.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

With varying degrees of mixed.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Misericordia is new French film that's probably the most acclaimed movie of the year. I believe it debuted. It was definitely at the fall festivals. I can't recall which fall festival it was at. I want to say that it was a cantu, but it's Alain Gerard's new film. He made Stranger by the Lake, which is a very eerie, upsetting serial killer queer thriller that came out in 2014. This is very much in the same lineage as that movie. It's about a strange guy who comes back to his hometown to see what's going on after there's been a death of someone that he knows in. In his hometown. I'll spoil it for you right now. He just starts killing people in often extremely brutal and emotionally dead ways.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Cool.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is a deeply upsetting very.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But it's not like probing, cheering. When he's killing people, you're like, oh, that's fucked up.

[Sean Fennessy]

I would say that these are not earned deaths.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

That there's something deeply wrong with this guy who's played by Felix Kyle.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, I just meant sometimes you go see a movie in order to watch, like, really brutal kill scenes and like. And be like, yeah, yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

There's movie death, and then there's. There's movie murder, and then there's real murder. Movie murder is often elegant and thrilling and cut. To make you excited. Or titillated.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Or. Or to scare you and to be shrieking, like, make you shriek. And real murder is blunt.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And kind of quiet and upsetting and emotionally distancing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

This movie is getting closer to real murder.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, well, that sounds upsetting.

[Sean Fennessy]

So I don't know if that's a huge recommendation. It's a movie for the sickos in many ways, but I thought it was extremely effective. I think people should check it out. He's not. As a filmmaker, he's not really like a question answerer. He's just sort of like, there is. There is evil in the world. And I. I tend to agree. Much like me, you are the evil in the world.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. If you want.

[Sean Fennessy]

Total flip side of that coin. This is a movie that I want you to watch. And if you don't like it, it's okay. But I want to know what you think about it. It's called the Ballad of Wallace Island.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. It stars Carey Mulligan.

[Sean Fennessy]

It stars Carey Mulligan. I'm gonna read the names of the folks who also stars because that's relatively important because they're also the writers. So it's written by Tim Key and Tom Basdin, and they are the stars. Carey Mulligan is a supporting character. Here's the premise of the movie. Tom Basden plays a early forties singer, songwriter, English guy who's been called to a remote island to give a performance for a very small crowd. He's being paid a large sum of money, and there is a desire for him to play some of his old stuff, not just the new stuff. He's greeted at the shore of the island. There's not even a. There's not even a port of any kind. He's greeted at the shores of the island by this guy played by Tim Key, who is shepherding him, housing him, clearly a big fan of his. And he leads him to his estate, which is essentially a castle, which he's treating as a hotel for this guy played by Baston. It becomes very clear very quickly that this guy is paying entirely for this artist to come and perform for him and him alone, and that there are no people on this island and that he is a super fan.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So is this a horror movie?

[Sean Fennessy]

No. And that's the thing is, when I explain that setup, your first instinct will be, that sounds creepy as fuck. But it's not. In fact, it's probably the sweetest movie I've seen this year. Arguably too sweet. It's quite saccharine, but very effective. And the turn of the key on the story is that this guy that Bazdan plays was a member of a duo in the 2000s, and Carey Mulligan was the other half of his duo. They were a male female singer songwriter team, and they were also a couple. They have since split. They're not in touch. She shows up the next day at the island with her new husband. They live in Oregon together.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

And they have to figure out how to make it work on the island because they're being paid a vast sum of money, and she really needs the money. He maybe doesn't need the money as much, and he's quite dismayed by this circumstance.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

The chemistry of these actors is great. It's very Sundance y. I'm not saying it's not. It's very John Carney.

[Amanda Dobbins]

How is the music?

[Sean Fennessy]

Pretty good.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Pretty good.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But in what flavor?

[Sean Fennessy]

It's not transcendent.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, it's not my favorite genre of movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Of music?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Sorry. Of music? Yeah. It is a genre of movie that I like quite a bit. It's not my favorite genre of music. There's a kind of. It's like lollipop folk.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I just came up with that in my head five seconds ago. But that's. You know what I mean?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Listen, I know what you mean, and I knew what you meant before I even asked the question, which is why I asked it.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. And I'm not saying that the reason to go is to watch Bazdin play full guitar.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. Jesus Christ.

[Sean Fennessy]

But it doesn't happen as much as you think it does.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

And what's interesting to me about the story is kind of what happens to a person who's an artist and really famous, and then, like, life goes on. Like, 10 years go by, and you're still that guy from 2009 when I was writing about music and covering music. I'll give you an example. One of the best experiences I ever had with a band was Franz Ferdinand. I spent an afternoon with Franz Ferdinand right when they were hitting after their first album, leading into their second album. I profiled them, I think, for Spin. I can't remember. And I just had the best time. They were incredibly cool guys. They were very inviting to me. I was hanging out in the lead singer's apartment for the day. And I'll always like that band, not just because I like their music and I wanted that assignment because I like their music, but because I liked them and I had a nice connection with them. And so when I listen to those songs, I feel Good.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

The Tim Key character has an even deeper connection to the music by the artists that Basdn and Mulligan play in the movie. And I got it. Music matters.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's beautiful.

[Sean Fennessy]

It carves a little niche into your life.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, I just have Take Me out just like playing in my head.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Banger. Incredible song. You might watch it and be like, sean, you should be shot publicly. But maybe not.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Probably won't.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay, let me tell you about the assessment. This is an interesting one. Not really your bag, but very important conversation topic for us. So it's soft science fiction.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

It stars Elizabeth Olsen, Alicia Vikander and Himesh Patel. Almost entirely them. Although we do have Indira Varma and Minnie Driver and a handful of supporting characters set in the future. They live. They're scientists and they live in kind of like a remote locale near the water, but it also has a kind of mountain terrain. I know you don't like the mountains. Stick with me.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I like the mountains when they're near the water.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Like Los Angeles.

[Sean Fennessy]

Interesting. The movie is directed by someone named Flor Fortun. Never heard of this person before. The assessment that is transpiring is in this near future, you need to be assessed as to whether or not you're fit to have a child.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Vikander is the assessor. Elizabeth Olson and Himesh Patel are the couple. She visits them in this remote locale and she's meant to spend a week with them to assess whether or not they are fit for childbearing. The way in which she does this is she essentially becomes a child in the house and monitors their ability to navigate the experience of the child.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So, like, does Alicia Vikander take over an animatronic baby?

[Sean Fennessy]

No, she's. She as an adult, acts like a three year old.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'll just say the movie is very stylish. The production design's great, it's well shot, performances are good. Elizabeth Olsen is clearly working very hard to put Wanda in the rear view. His three daughters is another example of this where she's just trying to. Totally different performance style. The movie is worth seeing because Alicia Vikander is a three year old girl in the movie. And I know because I have a three year old girl in my house. And the tantrums and the defiance and the love and the confusion, the emotional confusion that she shows is crazy. Now, Alicia Vikander is also a mother of young children, and so that's obviously very informed by being a parent. If it was not, I would be stunned. It would be impossible to give this performance if you do not have kids. You might not even like where the movie nets out. But I was like knocked out and kind of terrified by her ability to become a tiny child while also still being. That sounds cool, beautiful Alicia.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But then it does veer into the night bitch conversation of like, do you want to spend your spare time exploring this deeply traumatic part of it does.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's the same terrain. Yeah, it's like the same terrain.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. I, I put the three year old to bed and then.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, the one of its conclusions, and this isn't a spoiler I don't think is just that like no one is fit to do this. That no one is suited to handle these circumstances that like feeling bad and the experience of parenting is a feature and not a bug. You know, that like the idea that you're, you're never going to be perfect at these things. But then what if you were confronted by someone who told you your imperfection makes you invalid.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is. Is hard. Is hard information to hear. Anyway, I thought it was a really interesting movie. I think it could have been better, but it hit me at the right time in my life is what I'll say. I think maybe it's helpful that I'm like, as you know, I kind of like exited a hard era of parenting.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I'm in a positive era of parenting.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right, right, right. So have you found that like the whole numbers or like the three and a halfs are easier?

[Sean Fennessy]

I find I found two and a half to three to be great. I found three to three and a half to be impossible.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So you're finding the whole numbers to be difficult and.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. And I'm finding three and a half to four to be wonderful.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I think that was similar when she was 1 to 2. What do. Are you having a different experience?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I, I just, I. People feel very strongly about like that ones like the halves are tough and the holes are, you know, but I can never remember which one. I, I mean, I just, you know, I have a three year old boy who is like Sonic the Hedgehog, you know, so it's. Yeah, it just is what it is.

[Sean Fennessy]

I never forget a conversation I had with a parent who is like the daughter of a neighbor of mine who came outside, she had two young boys and she came outside and she was like. And her boys were running around and being crazy and she was like, they tell you it's terrible twos. Is not terrible twos. They tell you it's 3. Najr it's not 3. Najor. The thing is 4. NATO Fornado is the thing that they don't tell you about. Cause you get through three, and you're like, I did it. I have a big kid.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

And then four.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

So I have been protecting myself. Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Just in case. Now I have a girl. Girls are different.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I'm hopeful that we got through the worst of it. But this movie conjured those feelings in a very specific way.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Anyway, I think you're doing great. That's my assessment. Thanks.

[Sean Fennessy]

Thanks. We're doing our best. Seven Veils. I'm mixed on this movie, but I want to recommend it. This is a new movie from We Live in Hell. I know. I know. It's not great. New movie from Adam. Legendary Canadian filmmaker. Sweeter after exotica. Number of other movies. He made a movie in 2013, I want to say, called Chloe with Amanda Seyfried and Julianne Moore, you may remember, as kind of an erotic thriller about a young woman who's obsessed with an older woman. This is a reunion with Amanda Seyfried, who plays a theater director who's trying to navigate a complicated relationship in her life. Her ability to have power. This movie has a podcasting element that I found very amusing. She's confronted by an interviewer on a podcast who's raising some challenging questions for her. The reason to see it, I think, is Seyfried, who's, like, favorite of mine. I don't know if you watched the clip of her on Jimmy Fallon playing the musical instrument, singing Joni Mitchell.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, I did watch that. And then I thought you were gonna say, I don't know if you watched the clip of her on Vogue doing her Get Ready with me talking about her eczema. It was great.

[Sean Fennessy]

She has eczema.

[Amanda Dobbins]

She does. And so. And shout out to her. She just starts, like, absolutely nothing on the face. And so you can see some of the eczema. So I watched it. Cause I was like, oh, I'm also dealing with some postpartum stuff. And, you know, obviously an incredibly beautiful person. But I saw both clips.

[Sean Fennessy]

Interesting. I really enjoy how she uses her fame to make stuff like this pretty continuously. And then we'll do a Hulu crime show that stinks. And then be like, okay, I gotta get this Adam McGoyne movie made. But she was on stage at Cinemacon during the Lionsgate presentation because she's gonna be in that movie, the Housemaid, directed by Paul Feig, and it was Brandon Sklnar from It ends with us and the forthcoming Drop, which opens this weekend. Sydney Sweeney and Paul Feig and Amanda Seyfried. And Sydney Sweeney was treating her like she was Katharine Hepburn. She was like, this is my goat. This is the actor for whom I want to have a career. Like. Like she was hailing her.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Which is interesting because, I mean, Amanda Seyfried, even 40, she's 39.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, yeah. She's. Sydney Sweeney's very good at selling things. So that's. That's one thing to keep in mind. But I mean, as I rules.

[Sean Fennessy]

Big fan of hers.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You ever seen her Architectural Digest home tour?

[Sean Fennessy]

No. Oh, yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Upstate New York.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, this was the one of the New York apartment. And so it just like. And so they have just like a lot of closets and stuff where she's, you know, hidden things. And then she's like, yep, here's another place where I hid some stuff when.

[Sean Fennessy]

She was on the pod. She was zooming in from her barn.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, I think they spend a lot of time in the barn.

[Sean Fennessy]

She's pretty great. Okay, next one on Becoming a Guinea fowl Again, a little mixed on this movie, but it has a lot to recommend. A24 released earlier this year. It was at Cannes last year. Rangano Anyani is the director. This is a Zambian production with clearly some US financing. It's about a woman who is driving one night on her way to a party and discovers her dead uncle's body in the street. The ramifications of her uncle's death, like, hit like a bomb in the community that she lives in. It sounds very serious, and at times it is, like, gravely serious. But there is, like an oddball absurdist quality to some of the filmmaking. I solicit vidiots in a packed with a packed house and had a really good experience seeing it. I think the performance of Susan Shardy as the lead character, Shula, is really, really good. This is a real, like, I want to see the next filmmaker's next movie, but wanted to give it a quick shout out. One of Them Days, which is now one of the most popular movies on Netflix. Netflix streamers.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So definitely one of the best movies that we have seen this year in theaters.

[Sean Fennessy]

Probably the second best studio movie of the year year.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I chuckled throughout.

[Sean Fennessy]

Did great business. Another movie. Why? I don't understand why there are not more movies like it. Lawrence Lamont directed. It's produced by Issa Rae. Stars SZA and Kiki Palmer.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Very funny.

[Sean Fennessy]

No other thoughts.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We talked about it with Yassi and We were like, this is really great. Every single one of the bits works. Incredible chemistry between Kiki Palmer and Sza Sza in her film debut.

[Sean Fennessy]

Crazy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Really, really, really funny. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Reminds me a lot of Chris Tucker showing up in Friday. Obviously, Friday is a huge inspiration for that movie, but when Chris Tucker showed up on Friday, I want to say I was 12 when that movie came out. I was like, what the fuck is that? I know who Sza is, but you know what I mean?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Presence.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Steven Soderbergh, also on VOD right now.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Two for two.

[Sean Fennessy]

Two for two. This is a ghost story about a house and a family that moves into a new house and the ghosts inside their past and the literal ghost inside their house.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I enjoyed your interview with my friend Steven, but he talks about. Cause he does all the camera work for this, which is essential to the film. And so just imagining him, like, tiptoeing around in grippy socks really changes the. Like, you should see it again once you have that image in your head. Cause it's really, really quite amusing.

[Sean Fennessy]

I was so glad that I thought to ask him that question and he had such a specific answer.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But also, like Steven Soderbergh as the ghost of this family with the camera is an amazing, amazing concept. An exercise all its own, isn't it?

[Sean Fennessy]

Also a perfect metaphor for how he sees himself in the world, you know, as this, like, ghost haunting humanity as he tells his stories. I really enjoyed that. A couple of Quick Shutter ones. I wanted to give some love to the Dead Thing, which is my friend Elric Cain's directorial debut, which is on Shutter right now, which I won't spoil it for anybody who hasn't had a chance to check it out yet, but is a fascinating parable about the perils of dating apps and the challenges of meeting new people in the world in 2025. I am very grateful to be married.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It does seem tough out there.

[Sean Fennessy]

Meeting strangers in strange places and them thinking they know things about you is something that I find troubling. I guess the only time you would have had that when we were younger would have been if you were going on a blind date and a friend told you some information about that person. I guess maybe you could respond to a classified ad and go on the date.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Did you ever do that? No, I don't know.

[Sean Fennessy]

I was. By the time I was out of college, I was on my way.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I do know that. But, you know, did you. No, of course not.

[Sean Fennessy]

Did you ever place a classified.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, of course not.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm not. If you did? What would you say?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, absolutely not.

[Sean Fennessy]

Gen Z mommy seeking a baby to take care of.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Great. Really good.

[Sean Fennessy]

So the Dead Thing is kind of like a very ambient, anxiety provoking thriller with horror elements. The Rule of Jenny Penn is a wildly unpleasant movie. Okay, let me make sure I have the filmmaker's name right. But it stars John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush. That's star power for you in a James Ashcroft movie about two men in a retirement community, one of whom is a judge who has had a stroke and is physically unable to move half of his body. And so he's bedridden for a lot of the time and in a wheelchair, he's played by Geoffrey Rush. Another guy, Dave, is evil and possessed by something, presumably Jenny Penn, which is a little girl's doll that he uses to communicate and torture this bedridden judge, who is a very angsty person himself. John Lithgow. Really, really channeling the Raising Cain, you know, Dexter era, like, monster mode. He's fucking terrifying and weird in this movie. Also surprisingly limber for a man in his 80s. He's got a dance sequence that is quite notable. This movie is also on Shutter right now. Pretty good. What are your thoughts on going into a retirement community at some point in your life?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Me? Yeah, like this. This has already been a depressing podcast. Like, do we really need to talk about it?

[Sean Fennessy]

I'd like to know. Yeah. What's your. What are your thoughts on elder care? Because this is a parable about the evils of elder care.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I.

[Sean Fennessy]

And the whole time watching this movie, I was like, where the fuck are the nurses and the orderlies that are supposed to take care of these people? People? Where are they?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I am grateful for caregivers around, you know, and we need more of them.

[Sean Fennessy]

Are you afraid to offend someone right now?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I just, like, it's very fraught. I don't know. I don't want to, like. I don't want my kids to have to deal with me, so.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, that's the whole point of having kids.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't want. No, I don't want to.

[Sean Fennessy]

You don't want your kids to have to take care of you?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, my God.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Can you imagine how you are?

[Sean Fennessy]

What's wrong with this country? We have family first, Amanda.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, my God.

[Sean Fennessy]

Family first.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Go away.

[Sean Fennessy]

Wait, so you want to go into a community when you're older?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean. No, I don't want to join any community ever. As you know. That's like one of my main issues. And, like, they have all Those activities, you know, and I like, I'm not a joiner. Like I'm pickleball.

[Sean Fennessy]

Canasta.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I like.

[Sean Fennessy]

You want me gin rummy. The talent show.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right, the talent show. Like, can you imagine me doing any of this?

[Sean Fennessy]

But you're a musician.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I'm not.

[Sean Fennessy]

You're an artist.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I'm not.

[Sean Fennessy]

You're an orator.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I just sit somewhere and read, you know, But I guess I don't really care where.

[Sean Fennessy]

Maybe you should go to that island from the assessment.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, that sounds good.

[Sean Fennessy]

In this giant wooden box that they live in. Okay. So you're out on elder care and particularly people who take care of older people.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I appreciate them. I just don't listen. My kids are going to be so annoyed with me and then they have to like.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is really your perspective on this. I'm actually quite surprised.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. I don't want to be a burden to them.

[Sean Fennessy]

Wow. We see the world very differently. That's revealing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Not that you haven't been revealing another commentary earlier. But if my daughter doesn't take care of me, we're going to have big problems. I'm putting that out there right now. Right now. Alice Mickey 17. Good movie. Yeah, I liked it. Yeah. It's not Bong's best. It was surrounded by a lot of Warner Brothers release delay. David Zaslav.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. General angst and anxiety. Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Also and bad vibes. A big filmmaker following up his Academy Award winning film always brings a lot of dread and undermining. I think it's a fun sci fi comedy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Robert Patton's in Forever.

[Sean Fennessy]

He's great.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I still have not watched the final choice.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. Kind of pregnant.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Co written by and starring Amy Schumer. Gotta be honest, I thought it was pretty good. So did Yassi. For what it is. I mean it is as we said on Garbage women, bridesmaids. But for pregnancy. The Amy Schumer character steals a fake bump from a hatch story. Familiar with Hatch?

[Sean Fennessy]

Hatch the noise machine.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. I think it is of the same company. Yeah. They also make a lot of pregnancy clothing for. But it's like pregnancy clothing that only fits models wearing bumps, not actual pregnant people.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, they do fine work in noise machine technology.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. People like it a lot. And then it turns into like the red light, green light thing. Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is how we handle wake ups in the morning.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, we, we, we have like a different brand because I can't really. Hatch calls people mama a lot and so I'm out on that, you know. If you're trying to sell me something, you can't call.

[Sean Fennessy]

They don't actually call you. They're just sending emails.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, they're the package. Well, listen, I get an email with it and I'm not happy anyway. Or if it's on the packaging, I'm not happy.

[Sean Fennessy]

You're. You're very, very chill.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You spent two hours talking about Minecraft and I'm just telling you the plot. Kind of pregnant. Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I was podcasting.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So she steals a bump and then she pretends to be pregnant to, like, keep up with her friend Jillian Bell, who we really like.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And then she makes other pregnant friends and like, develops a romantic relationship with Will Forte even though he thinks she's pregnant.

[Sean Fennessy]

I love Will Fortune.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He's really funny. She's really funny. You know, she does all of, like, the body humor and stuff that she normally does, but with pregnancy, it's like a very rich text. I would say that. You know, it's a ridiculous story that wraps up very quickly, but all the bits are very funny.

[Sean Fennessy]

Over under 1.5 sex scenes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I can definitely think of one. So I don't know if there's a second one, but the one that she has is very funny.

[Sean Fennessy]

So is it hardcore or no?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, it's harder than you might expect. It's funny.

[Sean Fennessy]

Got it. Not an ideal year for us. It will be an ideal week. I'll tell you why. 25 for 25. A very special Amanda coated episode.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Looking forward to having that conversation with you very soon. We're also getting the Cannes lineup on Thursday. So we're gonna record on Thursday morning.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. And that's just gonna be just a list of films that we're not gonna be able to see. Cause you wanted to go golfing.

[Sean Fennessy]

Why don't you go? What's stopping you?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Because I'm taking care of my two children while you take my husband golfing.

[Sean Fennessy]

You're doing all that and they're not gonna take care of you? How does that make sense? It don't Cannes lineup, which is gonna basically be like an Oscar preview for us in many ways.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You're such an idiot.

[Sean Fennessy]

What do you mean?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I just. It's whatever, go ahead, keep talking.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, you got to take care of your own life. You got to figure out your own.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I was trying to. When you guys booked this, I said to both of you, I don't like.

[Sean Fennessy]

To live in your house. This is literally your husband's birthday weekend. Literally. Literally. So show him some respect and love as I will. When we are in Oregon together, golfing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

All right, so just a podcast about Oscar movies we're not going to get to see.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, there's also going to be a warfare conversation, which you won't participate in, probably because it's extremely upsetting.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. You also didn't invite me.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, after your Civil War performance, you've been disinvited from all future Alex Garland Convos. You know, many people are saying Civil War was right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Many people that look just like you. So that's fine.

[Sean Fennessy]

Handsome, masculine. Okay. Thanks to Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. We appreciate you. And like I said, later this week, number 23 on 25 for 25. We'll see you then.