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The Big Picture
Best Picture Power Rankings and the Winners and Losers of Movies in 2024. Plus: ‘Superman’ Is Here.
02:12:10
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- [00:00]
Sean Fennessey
If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast the Town on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name is Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the what I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show the Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who'll eat lunch in this town again? Follow the Town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode of the Big Picture is presented by Walmart. Thoughtfulness matters during the holiday season. Walmart has a huge selection of great gifts at great prices. So you can find the perfect thing for everyone on your list, like a Samsung Sound Bar for action movie fans, the Lego Sorting Hat for those who queue up, a Harry Potter marathon every year or or the Fujifilm Instax camera for the aspiring cinematographers. Give the gifts that show you get them at Walmart.
- [01:08]
Joanna Robinson
The holidays are about spending time with your loved ones and creating magical memories that will last a lifetime.
- [01:14]
Sean Fennessey
So whether it's family and friends you haven't seen in a while, or those.
- [01:18]
Joanna Robinson
Who you see all the time, share holiday magic this season with an ice cold Coca Cola. Copyright 2024 the Coca Cola Company.
- [01:34]
Sean Fennessey
I'm Sean Fennesee and this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about the waning days of the movie year. Later in this episode, I have a conversation with Romel Ross. His new film is Nickel Boys. Listeners of the show know that the movie came in at number two on my Best Movies of the Year list. It's a staggering and bold work of art. Simply put, this was my favorite director interview of the year. Romel is easygoing and funny, but tremendously insightful and sincere. See this Movie Listen to this conversation. Nickel Boys is expanding over the holidays and next week we have a few more major releases, including Nosferatu, the Brutalist, the Complete Unknown, and Baby Girl among them, making their way into theaters. The very end of this sometimes dicey movie year is ending on kind of a strange note. It's high, but it's awkward. The last couple weeks have been rocky. My original plan on today's episode was to get into Kraven the Hunter, Mufasa, the Lion King, and maybe even Lord of the the War of the Rohirrim, the new animated Tolkien movie. And while I pride myself on spending time on major releases from the studios, especially when legitimate filmmakers whose work I have loved in the past, like J.C. shandor or Barry Jenkins, are involved, I'm not going to devote too much time to these movies today. I didn't really connect with these movies, and in the case of Kraven, I couldn't even really feel Shandor's point of view at all in the movie. Mufasa is more of an assignment for Jenkins, and while I was fascinated watching him integrate his deep focus, close ups and panoramic visual style applied to digitally created lions, the movie is another in a long line of genuinely mystifying live action Disney movies. I've seen almost all of them now, given my daughter's growing interest and as a huge fan of classic Disney animation, its diminishing returns on almost everyone, I've seen 16 of the 21, and really, none of them are good at all. As for Kraven, well, there's a hilarious episode of the Ringerverse with both the House of R and Midnight Boys crew weighing in on the movie and the end of Sony's extended Spider man universe. So tap into that if you want to hear a little bit more about it instead of exploring these IP extensions. Let's talk about the winners and losers of the year in movies. Has 2024 been a good movie year? We've been debating it a lot in the past couple of months on the show. Every year has good films. You already know what my favorites are. If you've been listening, a couple even transcend the typically entertaining or distracting variety. This hasn't been my favorite year, but there's been some special work. But in addition to whether or not this has been a good movie year, has it been a good year for movies? Is the big question I want to talk about right now. The case for yes, 2025 is nearly here. And we survived. Maybe even thrived, considering the circumstance. In the aftermath of the dual strikes, the box office has dipped just 10% year over year and could get closer to 5% or even 3% when it's all said and done this holiday season. Given the panic that set in back in May after Furiosa and the Fall Guy underperformed, and the unusual number of empty opening weekends at the movies this year, things could have gotten really bad. But then they didn't. Long Legs Surprised. Wicked soared inside out. Two exploded. Civil War made money. The Beekeeper made money. Movies are back. They're back. Well, maybe they're not back. Or they are. I'm not sure. The case for no is this the movies that performed well up and down the box office are a little dispiriting for cinephiles. Of the top 20 highest grossing US movies of 2024, only three are non sequels or prequels. Those are It Ends With Us the Wild Robot. And if compare that to seven of those originals in 2023, including the Barbenheimer behemoth. This year, seven of the highest grosses are at least the fourth installment in a franchise. And so while the box office performance has been surprisingly sturdy, there's something insidious in the stew. Movie franchises seem to be tanking on tv, but they're hanging in there at the movies at the expense of other kinds of movies, leaving streamers to pick up the slack with stuff like Rebel Ridge. Carry On. And it's what's inside on Netflix. Rock solid genre movies that we like to celebrate here, but they're not playing in theaters. So yeah, as always, I'm back. Movies are back, but at any minute it could be so over. We'll see what happens. That does take us to 2025 though, and arguably the most important movie of that year, which is Superman. We just saw the first trailer for Superman and I will say I am excited. I am a James Gunn fan, as listeners of the show know, and I like what I saw from the trailer. I liked the color grading, I liked how bright and beautiful and visibly and smartly lit the movie seems to be, obviously Gunn has a very spongy and visceral quality to his filmmaking. It's not a mistake that the first image you see of Superman in this teaser trailer is a bloodied Superman. James Gunn likes blood and guts. This is something that is featured in all of his movies. So while there is a kind of classic feeling and the interpolation of the John Williams theme from the Richard Donner Superman film, I get the feeling like this is going to be a very GUN type project, aside from those obvious nods to the past. Also, David Corenswet looks great. He is not hyper muscle bound like Henry Cavill was in the Zack Snyder films. Rachel Brosnahan looks like a perfect Lois Lane. I'm excited. I choose to believe I've believed in GUN in the past and it has paid off for me. In the meantime, let's go back to 2024. Let's bring in Joanna Robinson. She's going to help me talk about the winners and losers of the movie year and also Talk about some Best Picture contenders and how they stack up as we head towards 2025. Okay, Joanna Robinson is here. Joe, thank you for being here. We have a lot to get to.
- [06:51]
Joanna Robinson
I'm sorry I missed your monologue, but I'm glad to be here for the rest.
- [06:55]
Sean Fennessey
Don't mock my monologue, all right? I need you to support me.
- [06:59]
Joanna Robinson
You know I support you. I'm so supportive of you and your art.
- [07:03]
Sean Fennessey
My art, huh? Yeah.
- [07:04]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [07:05]
Sean Fennessey
As I, Lazlo, toss my way through movie podcasting one brutal episode at a time.
- [07:10]
Joanna Robinson
You're a misunderstood genius in your time, and eventually, we will celebrate you.
- [07:15]
Sean Fennessey
I know that's not true. I wanted to ask you very quickly. I'm sure you're making all manner of content about it, but I just shared a couple of thoughts about the Superman trailer as we look forward. Before Looking back at 2024, what was your vibe?
- [07:28]
Joanna Robinson
Are you. Well, first, let me ask you, are you all in on this? Are you?
- [07:31]
Sean Fennessey
I am. I am. I think if I didn't know anything about James Gunn's work, I would have some concerns.
- [07:37]
Joanna Robinson
But that's so interesting. I feel the opposite.
- [07:40]
Sean Fennessey
Oh, interesting. Why?
- [07:42]
Joanna Robinson
Well, here's what I'll say. It was a great trailer. Like a great vibes trailer. As you know, given many conversations we've had over the past few weeks. I'm a big Nick Holt fan, so seeing Nick Holt as Lex Luthor was wonderful. I thought he was kind of stole the trailer for me, but I have some questions, comments, and concerns about James Gunn as the right match for Superman, tonally. So I am reserving. I'm more skeptical than my fellow Ringerverse family. And they're all in and they're very excited. And there was a thing with a dog, and that really thrilled them, and they love that. I will say. And I said this to Mal. We talked about it briefly on House of R. And I said the shot of Superman in the snow, beaten and bloody and sort of unable to catch his breath, I thought was very effective in a way that the sort of brooding, gritty, Zack Snyder Superman stuff never was effective. For me, this was like a wounded hero, but it didn't feel like it was trying to be Grimdark at the same time. And then the bit with the kid and the flag, the Superman flag with the Superman logo on it, I thought that was really, really good as well. That's where I am.
- [08:58]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. I think deep down, James Gunn is kind of a SAP. So I think that this is gonna work out fine personally.
- [09:04]
Joanna Robinson
But maybe he's just the. You know, his whole brand is. Is snark and.
- [09:11]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, but it's also. If we work together, we can be a family, and if we are decent to each other, we can survive the struggle. Like, that's. The Guardians movies are all about that. Even the Suicide Squad movie is kind of about that. So I agree with you on the bloodied part. I mean, that's. The other thing is that he's just such a visceral filmmaker and he has roots in exploitation and horror. And so a bloodied Superman is an important issue. Yeah, it's an important, important vision for that character.
- [09:37]
Joanna Robinson
The stuff with Hawkgirl. Nathan Fillion in a wig. I have some questions about all of that. Rachel Brosnahan in a vest. I have no questions, no notes. Looks great.
- [09:47]
Sean Fennessey
It was an inspired casting. And she looks like a perfect Lois Lane.
- [09:50]
Joanna Robinson
She's perfect.
- [09:51]
Sean Fennessey
Okay, well, thank you for sharing a few morsels there. I'm sure you're.
- [09:55]
Joanna Robinson
You're welcome.
- [09:55]
Sean Fennessey
Getting into it even deeper in other spaces.
- [09:57]
Joanna Robinson
I'm guessing. I'm guessing you didn't expect that I would be the more cynical between the two of us about a Superman trailer, but, you know.
- [10:03]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, I think. I think you're. I think where you're coming from is reasonable, and it's possible that that's the case. I think I want to believe. You know, I think I want to believe in a little bit more of a. A standalone, optimistic superhero story that feels outside of where we've been for the last 10 years. Yeah.
- [10:21]
Joanna Robinson
And I think there's a lot about Gunn's plans at, like, the plan that he laid out for the films that he want to make. Wants to make, and the. The way they are not all, necessarily, like, burdensomely leading towards a team up is very exciting to me. I was just. As he was sort of assigning films, I was like, oh, you gave yourself Superman. I would give. I would have given you a different one. And that's the question I have. But I'm. I'm happy. Proven wrong in 2025. I'm off and wrong. So we shall see. Not about anything. I'm going to predict today. Everything I predict today is going to be bang on correct.
- [10:56]
Sean Fennessey
We'll see. The last thing you know, I was never a D.C. guy growing up. I was always more of a Marvel kid. But there were a handful of characters that I found interesting. In particular, I always thought Clayface was really cool, especially in the Animated series. So the idea of, like, James Gunn doing a Clayface movie written by Mike Flanagan and a Sgt. Rock movie directed by Luca Guadagnino, written by Justin Karitskis. I'm like, that's what I want superhero executives to be doing. Like, that's super cool. Those movies might not work, but at least try that and try to try to expand beyond what we've understood for the last 20 years.
- [11:32]
Joanna Robinson
I think their Batman pitch is really good. The. The prospect of a Swamp Thing property is really exciting to me. Yeah, there's, like, a lot that's coming out of there that is very exciting. This was, like, my one question mark. But, you know, everyone else seems really high on it and really excited, so I'm probably wrong about it.
- [11:48]
Sean Fennessey
Okay, well, we can't be wrong about the winners and losers of the year in movies, so let's. Let's go through some. I kind of threw this at you last minute, but it feels appropriate because it felt like such a tense movie year coming out of the strikes. There was a lot of concern, a lot of, you know, trolling about the box office, a lot of, I would say a lot of trade reporters, I think, in an attempt to bring some drama to this. This entertainment year, suggested that the sky was falling. When I did my little riff in May, my intention of that was actually not to not be doing sky is Falling. My intention was to say, like, just let's put our head down and keep going to the movies, and this is going to work out. Do you think that it did work out? Like, are you set aside whether or not the movies were good or not in general, the state of the business? You think it's healthy, in bad shape? Somewhere in between.
- [12:32]
Joanna Robinson
Before we started recording, we were talking about, like, just turn your brain off. Go to the movies, have a great time.
- [12:37]
Sean Fennessey
Check out the Brutalist and Amelia Perez. Don't think about the themes or the ideas.
- [12:42]
Joanna Robinson
Conclave. What a sick movie. I think this was actually like looking at what feels like it rose above in terms of stickiness and cultural conversation. This is a pretty tough year. I think, at the end of the day, like, there's some things at the top that are. That I'm excited. Are there. Like Dune 2, I think, is a really worthy, you know, exciting film that captivated people and made a lot of money. Definitely there were some huge box office that existed this year. You can't say that nobody went to the cinema. They certainly went, but they went for stuff like Deadpool and Wolverine, which I don't think either of us would say is like a cinematic classic. So looking at the offerings at the end of this Year, I think it was like a pretty tough year. You said to not talk about the quality of the movies, but I think quality wise, I think it was a tough year. But I don't think we can say let's close, let's, you know, board up all the movie theaters. It's over. We did it. You know, I think that's still alive and well. And I think as we rebound from the long ripple of COVID and the writer strike and all of that, I think 2025, we were, you know, Chris and I were having a similar conversation about television this year. I just really think we're in a lag year because of a lot of, a lot of circumstances. And I think what's on the slate for 2025 is quite exciting.
- [14:04]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, I, I tend to agree. I think it. There are a handful of movies that I was genuinely awestruck by, but not very many. And the franchise stuff seemed very weak. Obviously a lot of the big franchises are also in a bit of a reset phase. Marvel and Jurassic park and the fast movies and a lot of stuff that is kind of consistently there took a pause to reset. I think that it's safe to say that the biggest winner of the movie year is Ryan Reynolds and that that win is twofold. One at a time when the superhero industrial complex seemed to be at a pretty significant downturn. Yeah, he engineered, starred in, produced a billion dollar movie. That movie is basically a mad TV sketch, but it's a pretty funny mad TV sketch. And you know, between that and his wife Blake Lively starring in producing, it ends with us, which is arguably the biggest box office surprise of the year. Though maybe for non Colleen Hoover knowers, that's true. I don't know.
- [15:12]
Joanna Robinson
I thought that movie didn't do nearly what they wanted it to.
- [15:16]
Sean Fennessey
Is that true?
- [15:17]
Joanna Robinson
Not necessarily in terms of like box office, but in terms of like impact. I just, I thought like, well, first of all, you know, just to get my sort of like celebrity gossip angle in, I will say that was a disastrous press tour for that film. It made money, certainly. But I, my, my belief was that Blake Lively thought this was going to be like a Golden Globe winner. Like, you know, just, just a sort of glossier thing than it wound up being at the end of the day. And I think they really whiffed the marketing on it. The, the quality of the movie aside. They whiffed the marketing on it. They whiffed that whole launch in a way that like, was interesting because I think it actually underlines your point about what Ryan Reynolds did with Deadpool is like he did that. They, they kind of tried to half Barbenheimer it because Deadpool and Wolverine came out and then it Ends with us came out a week or two later and you know, Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds were showing up to the various premieres of It Ends with us to sort of say, let's keep the party going. But the content of that film, which is about domestic violence, was just really not. Not the match made in heaven that Barbenheimer proved to be. And so it felt like that was a failure to replicate what works so well with Deadpool and Wolverine. But maybe not a financial failure. So maybe I'm sort of overstating the impact.
- [16:38]
Sean Fennessey
Well, it's clear that one, the movie. I just found the movie to be not very good and it feels very ham handed in its storytelling about a sensitive issue. My big concerns were, I think I was expecting a completely different kind of movie. So when I sat down, I was quite flummoxed by what it turned out to be. But most people who sat down had read the book or were interested in the story and had some sense of what it was going to be. And I think people liked it well enough, but not even close to being what you're describing, which is like a potential awards contender or springboard for some sort of elevation of Blake Lively's status as a movie star. But the movie made $350 million internationally. And it's a literary adaptation. I mean that's. In these times, that is very rare.
- [17:21]
Joanna Robinson
And it is. Colleen Hoover is like a juggernaut in publishing right now. She is unstoppable. And so that sort of like I that comes with her was a massive boost. It's, you know, it's similar to launching the 50 Shades franchise or something like that. It's not just like a literary adaptation. It is a genuine phenomenon brought to the screen. And I think you're right that like, of course I can't argue against $350 million. But looking at sort of, I don't know if this is fair, letterbox scores or other things like that, it's getting really panned. And so I don't think it's. I don't think it's something that began something, it was successful, but not something that when you take it around to people to say, here's what we do next, they're going to say, yes, yes, more of that necessarily.
- [18:03]
Romel Ross
That's.
- [18:04]
Sean Fennessey
I wonder. I'm not sure. I mean, I think it, I think it may have accomplished what Blake Lively needed it to. Even though the gossip around the movie was very. Not good and I would argue not good for Blake Lively in particular. Correct. But I'm not sure. We'll have to basically wait until she. Either she makes another one of these films in this Hoover series or does something else new. I guess she's doing a simple favor. Is that what it's called? Simple favor? Two.
- [18:30]
Joanna Robinson
Two. Yeah. More menswear. We can only hope.
- [18:33]
Sean Fennessey
Which, you know, that in and of itself was kind of a hit. The original.
- [18:37]
Joanna Robinson
I mean, I anticipate we will get more Colleen Hoover. Whether or not that means we'll get more Blake Lively plus Colleen Hoover, I don't know. So I think it was a win for Colleen Hoover, film adaptation or TV adaptation more than anything else. And I personally, this is like, this is my personal nemesis is the Hooververse. I'm just like really out on it. So we'll see.
- [19:00]
Sean Fennessey
I only put that it ends with us in that conversation because it's been reported that Ryan Reynolds did a bit of a ghost write on the it ends with us script. And so he really had his fingers in two of the genuine box office successes of 2024.
- [19:14]
Joanna Robinson
That was such a weird moment where she just started saying that on red carpets. And Justin Baldoni is the writer director was sort of like, okay, you know, she was just basically like trying to give Ryan credit for, I don't know, ghostwriting the film. Anyway, bizarre moment in celebrity culture, but definitely, inarguably, the, the Reynolds touch this year was, was very important. And I'm, I'm sure that Marvel is saying, whatever you want, sir, you can do with us, which is just a wild power imbalance. I mean, like, Downey obviously had a, had a strong grip over the Marvel apparatus, but I, but they were never as desperate as they are right now. They were never such a weak moment as they are right now.
- [19:58]
Sean Fennessey
So, yeah, I'm not sure if that's going to pay off long term. We shall see. The people do love them some Ryan Reynolds. I don't know. I don't really. I don't even know what to say anymore.
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Joanna Robinson
Pay off in what way?
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Sean Fennessey
What's that?
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Joanna Robinson
Well, meaning payoff in what way?
- [20:11]
Sean Fennessey
Deadpool will obviously find his way into whatever the secret war stories they tell are.
- [20:15]
Joanna Robinson
Right.
- [20:16]
Sean Fennessey
That is smart. Whether, like a Deadpool 4 movie could ever do what Deadpool and Wolverine does, I don't know. But then again, why would I bet against him and I should just stop talking about it because, like this people loved this movie. They fucking loved It.
- [20:28]
Joanna Robinson
They did.
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Sean Fennessey
They did. Did you have a backup for Power Couple if it's not Reynolds and Blake Lively?
- [20:33]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. Well, I mean, I would say Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, like, you know, similarly. The whole Wicked phenomenon is what it is because the. The movie, as much as you and I both agree on it, visually, is better than I expected it was going to be. I was really dreading this film, and I think they did a lot of things that I didn't expect them to do. But the power of the Ariana Grande, Cynthia Rivo story. Maybe more Ariana Grande story. Because Ariana Grande is like, here I am, I'm an actress. Take me, cast me in things. Cynthia Rivo's here I am a stage actress. Cast me in more of your films. That would be great. But their press tour, again, this is a film podcast. I don't mean to make it all about the celebrity stuff, but their press tour, as ridiculed as it was, was then turned around to. To become this great triumphant story. It was like an odd moment. Everyone was mocking it. Then they saw the movie and then they said, wow, look at what these women did. And look how important their friendship is and look how strong their brand is.
- [21:43]
Sean Fennessey
That's definitely what I said. Absolutely.
- [21:45]
Joanna Robinson
Oh, well, yeah, you're known for that. You love to talk about people as brands, so, you know, I know that about you.
- [21:51]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. I mean, look, obviously they have just been tremendously successful with selling this movie to the world. And really, the only review that matters in my life will be coming in this weekend because I have obtained a screener to Wicked and we'll be watching it in my home with my 3 year old. And this morning she demanded to see the trailer and said, I need to see the trailer for the movie where Elphaba is good. So I'll let you know next week.
- [22:17]
Joanna Robinson
Do you think it's going to. So you guys have been listening to the soundtrack in your home, right? Didn't you say that?
- [22:21]
Sean Fennessey
And we've pivoted to the movie soundtrack now too.
- [22:23]
Joanna Robinson
Okay. Do you feel like if your daughter loves this movie, will it change your opinion of the movie?
- [22:30]
Sean Fennessey
Yes.
- [22:31]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [22:32]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. I mean, I'm just a complete. Like, I'm just in the bag for my kid, you know, I'm just like, you know, I love the movie Wish. Cause she loved it. And Wish is widely considered one of the worst Disney animated features of all time. And I was like, pretty good. I like the songs. Yeah, I'm interested. I saw Moana too, and I didn't like it. And then I went to go see it with her, and I was just bumping the soundtrack driving her to school this morning. And then on the way home, I was like, I'm going to keep that song going in the car after I left school. It's a disease what happens when you get interested in stuff with your kids. It's great.
- [23:00]
Joanna Robinson
Okay, so Universal Pictures. If you want Sean to be pushing Wicked in the Best picture category, send a box of goodies to his house. You know where to find his child. The most influential presence in the awards race this year.
- [23:14]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, apologies to all the pundits out there, but Alice is the strongest voice. You know, I guess that does dovetail with the studio of the year conversation. You suggested when we first started talking about this that Universal has a really strong case. I think Disney also has a really strong case for which is the biggest. You know, the hierarchy has been pretty consistent over the last five years. It's more or less been Universal and Disney going back and forth with wb, Sony and Paramount picking up the slack. Yeah, there was obviously the Barbie phenomenon boosted Warner Brothers last year, but these are really the two major theatrical movie studios. It also feels like while Universal has been persistently very theatrical forward, Disney is now fully back to being theatrical forward. Moana 2 being the clearest sign yet that there's just. There's so much money in those hills, those exhibition hills, for them and, you know, for us, for the purposes of this show, I think that's wonderful. I do think that Universal probably had a slightly bigger challenge with getting Wicked. Right. And along with a handful of other films, you know, like the Wild Robot is a good example of a movie that they just, like, they got that right and it did pretty good business. And we'll probably.
- [24:28]
Joanna Robinson
The substance.
- [24:29]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, well, yeah, but they don't. Did they really get to benefit from that? Because they. So they, like, pawned it off on Mubi, you know, like, they backed it, but then they don't really get to claim it.
- [24:38]
Joanna Robinson
They do get to claim it, though. It's still in their stable, you know, along with Twisters and Nosferatu and the Bike Rider and my fave, the Fall Guy, you know, like, there's like, this was a really good year for them and targeting different demographics, too.
- [24:55]
Sean Fennessey
You know what I mean?
- [24:56]
Joanna Robinson
In a way that I don't think Disney is as expansive in there.
- [25:00]
Sean Fennessey
I agree with you. I mean, Universal already, I think, generally has the best reputation of the major studios for being simultaneously very filmmaker friendly and very audience friendly. Right. This is the studio that signed up Christopher Nolan after the WB fallout, they signed up Jordan Peele, they signed up Daniels. After everything, everywhere, all at once, you know, they're trying to bring in as many people into the fold that are creative and interesting, and they're also making Wicked and they're also making Twisters, you know, so they have a claim. That being said, Disney has Deadpool and Wolverine and Inside Out 2 and now Moana 2, and those are going to end up being the three biggest movies of the year. So, you know, how can you compete with that?
- [25:41]
Joanna Robinson
Well, what do you. What do you. Okay, when you say biggest, are you just talking about box office?
- [25:46]
Sean Fennessey
Interesting question. I don't know. How do you think we should measure it?
- [25:48]
Joanna Robinson
Okay, so I will say that over on this other Ringer podcast, I do trial by content. We've been tinkering over the years with this sort of, like, algorithm to try to capture what is the biggest, like this Q score for the biggest movie here. Because it can't just be box office, because terrible movies make tons of money and no one ever talks about them again. And that happens all the time.
- [26:08]
Sean Fennessey
Very true.
- [26:08]
Joanna Robinson
So it's like, so what is your Top Gun? Maverick? What is your Barb and Heimer? What is your. Like the movie of the year? And it has like, you know, there's again, letter. Like, letterbox is its own thing because that's a different audience, you know, that. That is making their voice known.
- [26:26]
Sean Fennessey
My brutal boys and girls. God bless you.
- [26:29]
Joanna Robinson
There you go. The Babylon Hive continues. Right. And then like, there's box office budget Multip is one that we've been adding to the algorithm. Just sort of like, how profitable was this? At the end of the day, there's not just like the letterboxd score, but there's like, how many people logged in on letterboxd is a metrics that were. Is a. Is a metric that we're tracking Metacritic score. Just trying to. And I really think we got it right this year. I think we got. We. It was a little janky last year. The Eras Tour movie came in at the end of the year like a wrecking ball and really destroyed everything. But I think this year we really got it. Do you want to HEAR Our top 10?
- [27:07]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
- [27:07]
Joanna Robinson
Which is box office in addition to other things.
- [27:10]
Sean Fennessey
Absolutely.
- [27:11]
Joanna Robinson
So number one, Doom Part two.
- [27:12]
Sean Fennessey
Okay.
- [27:13]
Joanna Robinson
Number two, Inside out two. Number three, the Wild Robot. Number four, Wicked. Number five, Deadpool and Wolverine. Number six, Challengers. Number seven. Stay with me. Number seven, Long Legs. Number eight, the Substance. Number nine, Furiosa. Number ten. Alien Romulus for stuff like Challengers and Long Legs and the Substance. I feel like these are films that are just going to stay alive in the conversation for years and years and years to come. Because when you talk to people who, like, love cinema, they're gonna say, have you seen the Substance this year? Did you watch Challengers? Whether or not those performed at the, you know, the box office multiplier obviously helps something like Long Legs, but, like, um, I think there's just like an interesting maelstrom that we need to consider that goes beyond what the box office can tell us these days, because the box office is so different. That is. That is just like. I saw there was something so big in this movie, I felt like I had to see it on the screen. And I don't know that people feel that way about the sexy tennis that is Challengers. I had to go to the cinema to see it. But if they see it at home, it's gonna linger with them. You know, that's my argument.
- [28:28]
Sean Fennessey
I love that you've put so much thought into the methodology. That's exactly the kind of dumb shit that I'm interested in.
- [28:33]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, yeah.
- [28:34]
Sean Fennessey
I don't. I don't know that I. I haven't looked at the numbers that you've collated, but I'm not sure if I fully agree with where you landed, in part because I think Deadpool and Wolverine being the second highest grossing movie of the year and also being a movie that essentially kept the seat warm for an entire wing of Hollywood is not measurable, but incredibly important. And I think really, like, undermined a lot of my suspicions about where culture was. It's incredible success. Well, because on the episode that we did with the Midnight Boys about it, I was like, is this what people want? I remember asking that question because, like, as I sat in the movie theater, I laughed. I got all the references. I was happy to have been on the journey with 20th Century Fox's superhero stories and all of the unmade movies. And it was great to see Gambit. And, you know, against my own sincere will, I laughed at Ryan Reynolds, but I couldn't. I was like, God, this is so up its own ass. I can't believe it. And it still was, like, monumentally big. I mean, it was. It's basically an old school box office success. You know, it's a movie. It's a remnant of 2018 and not of 2024. So I. I see a movie like that as being pretty significant in this measurement that we're having here.
- [29:47]
Joanna Robinson
It was Always going to be, though. Like when people were sort of spinning their webs about this is the end of Marvel. Last year, you know, those of us who might have been on a Marvel based book tour were saying they have one movie coming out next year, one movie, and it's Deadpool and Wolverine and it's gonna make an obscene amount of money and it's gonna give them the space they need to lick their wounds and figure out where to go from there. I think the writing on the wall for this has been happening since no Way Spider man, no Way Home. That was a similar sort of nostalgia play that worked way more than I even expected it would. And so there's this in the, I don't know, pause, superhero pause or die and gasp, however you prefer to call it. There is this clutching at nostalgia straws, which is why Downey and Chris Evans are coming back to the mcu. That is the space we're in, at least in that avenue of storytelling.
- [30:52]
Sean Fennessey
I was just on a text chain with friends last night about the Chris Evans coming back thing and we discussed it when you and I talked about redone. But what a disappointment that he just has done absolutely nothing with his Marvel capital and is now just going back after making three horrible streaming movies. It's just, it's a real drag, especially relative to what Sebastian Stan is doing where he's just like, absolutely, I'll go work with a Romanian auteur and try to elevate his work internationally. It's like, it's just such a. It sucks.
- [31:18]
Joanna Robinson
We talked about exactly this. And I, and I, as much as I hate that for Chris Evans and what's. What's even more disappointing is that he can do. We saw Knives out. He can do it. There's. There are things that he can do. He just doesn't have the taste or the advice that Sebastian Stan is getting.
- [31:35]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, but he does have the taste. He made Snowpiercer, he made Sunshine, he made Scott Pilgrim versus the World. Like he knows who good filmmakers are. He proved to us. So it's more like he doesn't care, which is obviously his right as a person.
- [31:50]
Joanna Robinson
But that's depressing.
- [31:52]
Sean Fennessey
That's depressing. Anyway.
- [31:53]
Joanna Robinson
That's depressing.
- [31:53]
Sean Fennessey
We don't have to spend any more time on Chris Evans. I tell you what, I love your case for Universal, the fact that they spoke to a lot of different kinds of audiences in an effective way. So let's go with Universal as the studio. Let's talk about the movie star now. I was chatting with our Friend Craig Horlbeck this morning about this, and he had a great comp that may be completely baffling to you, but I'm going to make an attempt to explain it. There's a famous football clip from the last couple years in which Buddha Baker intercepts a pass. He's a safety for the Arizona Cardinals, and he's running to bring that interception into the end zone for a touchdown. And while he's running, he doesn't realize that the wide receiver, DK Metcalf, is on his tail and is about to knock the ball out, forcing a fumble and halting that interception. Touchdown. That is what Timothy Chalamet is doing in Glen Powell in the movie Star of the Year race, where Glen Powell, up until about three weeks ago, I was like, well, this is the story. Huge streaming hit in Hitman that's going to get him a Golden Globe nomination. Plus Twister's cherry on top. This is a box office star. This is a guy who can carry a franchise. Everything that we've been saying on the show for the last five years, but everything that's been kind of in the ether of Hollywood for the last five years with Glenn, it happened. Anyone but you carried over from last year. He. He's the guy we. He's our pick. And then Chalamet showed up on game day, college game day. And I was like, holy shit. A complete unknown is gonna be a big hit on top of that Dune Part two phenomenon that you were citing earlier. And so my gut is like, wow. He DK Metcalf the button on Glenn, right? Does it feel that way?
- [33:38]
Joanna Robinson
Absolutely. I mean, you put a bunch of these sort of ideas in the doc, and I was trying to find alts for you just to keep the conversation interesting. And I could not make a good case for anyone else other than Timmy as the movie star of the year, the bookend of Dune Part 2, and a complete unknown again. The slightly different demographics they're serving in terms of Dune Part 2, obviously is in the Oscar conversation, but not the way in which a complete unknown has put him in the best actor conversation.
- [34:09]
Sean Fennessey
He can totally win, Joe.
- [34:11]
Joanna Robinson
He could absolutely win, and I think he might. And so. And we liked the movie, and we liked him, and more than anything else, we liked him in the movie. So there's all of that, and then there's like, the lingering fumes of one of our favorite conversations from last year, which is like, somehow Wonka worked, you know, and so Timmy at this point feels undeniable, which is exciting because, you know, in the age of Is the movie star dead? This young crop coming up of like your Zendaya's, your Timothee Chalamet's, your Florence Pugh, your entire cast of Dune Part two, let's say, like, that they can actually have movie stardom, not sort of the faint echo of movie stardom past is exciting and it's only good for, you know, the conversation about the impact of movies in general.
- [35:10]
Sean Fennessey
I would argue too that he is doing it in a way that perhaps no one has ever done it before, because he's got a big challenge, right? You can't become a movie star now just on the back of exciting action or drama features the way that Paul Newman did or Harrison Ford did or Tom Cruise did or Denzel Washington did. You know, obviously Hollywood is in a significant, significantly different state. You need to use franchises to elevate. And so he has very deftly chosen franchises. He's aligned himself with a couple of filmmakers and he's also taken traditional risks in terms of, you know, relatively big budget dramas. So if you look at like the full scale of his career, two movies with Greta Gerwig, you've got obviously the two Dune films with Villeneuve, you've got a Bob Dylan portrayal with James Mangold. All celebrated directors. You've got Wonka with another celebrated director in Paul King. But a much like playing to kids, not playing to adults, totally different. You've also got like, even the obviously Luca Guadagnino and Call Me by youy Name and getting an Academy Award nomination, an incredibly young age. Even the stuff that doesn't work like Beautiful Boy, I thought was like the right try the right attempt, Bones and All is like the right thing to try to have a well rounded CV as a young actor.
- [36:28]
Joanna Robinson
And so being someone that Wes Anderson calls, you know.
- [36:31]
Sean Fennessey
Exactly. Yes. And, and, and you know, now is obviously working with Josh Safdie, who he's wanted to work with for a long time. He's known those guys forever. That's a cool a 24 period piece. That's also a different. It's a different card in the deck. And so now it's like, you look at the arc of his career and it's like he's not Leo, he's not Brad Pitt, he's not George Clooney. He's not like, there's no 90s or 2000s archetype that he is really following. He's doing a little Daniel Day Lewis, he's doing a little, A little like, I don't know who's A young heartthrob. Like, he's doing a little Christian Bale. He's doing. He's kind of moving all over the place in terms of the role picks.
- [37:10]
Joanna Robinson
How is he not? It's interesting because I've heard him talk about the fact that, like, he wanted to do. He wanted to be Leo, but then he realized that that wasn't really exactly what he wanted or exactly what was available to him. But there is some Leo in there in the mix, for sure.
- [37:28]
Sean Fennessey
There absolutely is. But Leo would never go on college game day. He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't go on Theo Vaughn's podcast and hang out and talk about Bernie Sanders.
- [37:37]
Joanna Robinson
He wouldn't talk to Brittany Broski and know all the inside jokes.
- [37:40]
Sean Fennessey
Yes, exactly.
- [37:42]
Joanna Robinson
He might date a Kardashian, but, you know.
- [37:45]
Sean Fennessey
Yes, but even that is like, Leo hasn't had a very famous girlfriend in a long time. Maybe younger Leo the same way Chalamet is young.
- [37:56]
Joanna Robinson
He prefers to be the star of that relationship. Yeah, that's interesting. And I think what goes along with all of it, genuine talent. Obviously, that's in the mix. That's in the mix for plenty of people, but is in the mix for him. But then also the narrative around a complete unknown, the amount of sweat equity that went into that project, the. The, you know, the musical training, the footage of him, you know, rehearsing on the set of Dune. Nothing, nothing, I think, can match. Watching him rehearse to be Bob Dylan while dressed as Paul Atreides. That's just undeniable.
- [38:36]
Sean Fennessey
It's pretty cool. It's. It's just really a huge relief to actually have someone like this who I'm like, wow, I definitely will be thinking about this guy in 20 years. Like, there's just. Unless he's felled by some terrible scandal, I think he's here to stay.
- [38:49]
Joanna Robinson
Clip this and save it for the future. But let's hope we don't have to use it.
- [38:53]
Sean Fennessey
How many things can you clip from me at this point? How many times can I be dragged through the mud for my bad takes? Joanna, please don't draw attention to those things.
- [39:02]
Joanna Robinson
I'm not the one dragging you.
- [39:04]
Sean Fennessey
You had another great idea for a winner of the year, which is a genre winner. And it's. It's pretty clearly musicals, right? This seems to be. In the absence of huge action franchises, in the absence of studio comedies, in the absence of romance movies, musicals. When you look down the list, obviously Wicked springs to mind immediately, but let's not forget that we've got three potentially big musician biopics, of course. One love the Bob Marley movie, which did come out at the beginning of this year and was a big hit. Especially when you look at the list of movies that came out in the box office Returns like it did quite well. And then a complete unknown, which we were just discussing. And I just had a chance to see Better man last night, the Robbie Williams movie, which I don't know if it's going to do business, but it is certainly a unique thing. You liked it?
- [39:49]
Joanna Robinson
I liked it. Did you like it?
- [39:51]
Sean Fennessey
Parts of it. You know, obviously anybody doesn't know Robbie Williams is a huge British pop star. Was a member of the group Take that and tried to break through in America in the 2000s. It didn't quite take. But he remained a massive star in the. This new biopic, which is directed by Michael Gracie, who made the Greatest Showman, features your kind of standard issue musician biopic story, except that Robbie Williams is portrayed by a CGI monkey, which is a very thinly veiled, not even a metaphor. It's a literalization of the fact that all entertainers are like dancing monkeys.
- [40:27]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [40:28]
Sean Fennessey
And half of it is very stupid and boring and half of it is exhilarating. So kind of like the Greatest Showman.
- [40:37]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say. I would say this is better, I think, than the Greatest Showman was for me personally, for my taste. Is it cinema? Is it wonderful? No, but as a piece of pop art, I really enjoyed it.
- [40:51]
Sean Fennessey
The take, that sequence when they burst out of the store and dance in the street, I was like, this rocks. This is so fun.
- [40:57]
Joanna Robinson
It was so good. The. You've listed all these films. There's also Emilia Perez. Perez.
- [41:04]
Sean Fennessey
I completely forgot about Emilia Perez. Yeah. And Moana 2. And Mean Girls, which also did very well this year. The musical remake of Mean Girls. Yeah. It seems like musicals are doing well. What's your alt for this?
- [41:19]
Joanna Robinson
The only alt I could come up with. This is a good one, and it's an unserious one. Is in the vein of Betterman, Digital Monkeys, Better Man, Wicked, the Flying Wookies of Wicked. The Strange abominations in Gladiator 2. Mufasa's got plenty Rafique. Yeah, yeah. And there was a Planet of the Apes movie this year, lest we forget. So Digital Monkeys.
- [41:44]
Sean Fennessey
It's a great pick. It's honestly legitimate. This is the one part of Wicked 2 Wicked, that we'll have to fast forward through. In my House, by the way, I know a lot.
- [41:54]
Joanna Robinson
Someone was asking me if they could take their kid like a small kid to Wicked. I was like, those monkeys are they startled me.
- [41:59]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, me too. It's actually quite upsetting.
- [42:01]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. Yeah.
- [42:04]
Sean Fennessey
Okay. So, you know, I think that there's another nice confirmation that is on the back of the Chalamet thing, which is that Zendaya, now I think similarly as a movie figure, is not just Mary Jane anymore. Between Challengers, which you mentioned earlier, and the success that that movie had, and then the fact that Chani was so central to Dune Part 2, which was not promised necessarily. I guess if you've read the novel, the fact that Villeneuve made that decision, that great bit of press, when Spielberg interviewed Villeneuve and said, out of all the people in your cast, who do you think will be directing movies in 20 years? And he was like, oh, easily Zendaya. Easily.
- [42:40]
Joanna Robinson
She was the one that was upset with her camera. I loved that. Yeah, it was great. And I think that especially after the hue and cry after the first installment, when she's sort of barely in it, having her as the as and then like just storytelling wise, having her as the POV ish character was a massive adaptation improvement, I think actually on. On a novel that I love. Zendaya. It's funny because when. When I was looking at your power couple category, I was really trying to convince myself that I could put Zendaya and Tom Holland in there. And I simply can't because Tom Holland has not yet been anything other than Peter Parker or, you know, Zendaya's biggest hype guy. And so as much as I like, love and support them, I can't call them, you know, the power couple that one might call Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool. But Zendaya as a minted movie star, especially off the back of Challengers, a non franchise, real powerhouse turn, I think is exciting.
- [43:43]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. And the good news is that she gets to now make Euphoria for the next 18 months.
- [43:48]
Joanna Robinson
And I mean, one can only hope the Greatest Showman too.
- [43:53]
Sean Fennessey
Well, I have heard a little bit about the film that she's making with Robert Pattinson for a 24 with Chris Borgley, who made Dream Scenario. That movie sounds really good. I'm not at liberty to share too much about it, but what I heard about it sounded great. So I'm excited about that.
- [44:10]
Joanna Robinson
Wow, what a tease.
- [44:11]
Sean Fennessey
I think it's called the Drama. I don't know, don't quote me on that. Okay. My riser of the year, obviously was Glenn, because Glenn got bumped for Movie Star of the year, sadly. But he's A. He's. He's our riser.
- [44:23]
Joanna Robinson
Who's your alt front of the pond? Um, I was looking at it and I was. I think Glenn, the Glenn story is undeniable. But Cailee Spanny being in both Alien Romulus, though not the best part of Alien Romulus and Civil War, I think is a worthy narrative. I mean, she was already sort of on the rise because of Priscilla and all of that, but I think this is a really good year for her again in terms of like, she's in a franchise film and a film from a filmmaker that we both find very exciting at the same time. And so that was. I think it's a strong year for her. And then I think Margaret Qualley, even though she was very much in the conversation, there's something about the way that people have reacted to the substance that I think has locked her into a level of celebrity. She even as like Andie MacDowell's kid or after a really good performance in. In Maid or, you know, having a celebrity relationship or this, that and the other thing, being in a Tarantino film, I think this really pushed her into a different level.
- [45:25]
Sean Fennessey
I think that's a great call. I hadn't thought of that. But it does feel like she. She got famous for lack of a better phrase this year. So that's a good pick too. Indie Story of the Year to me is an absolute no brainer. It's Damien Leone and Terrifier 3. And the fact that that movie opened at number one in America and has made an extraordinary amount of money relative to the investment and the fact that Damian has been working on this project for over 10 years and Cineverse doubled down on expanding the movie onto thousands of screens and honestly has got people in studio horror shook because now that movie feels like a real pivot point, a real hinge moment now where everyone's looking for their terrifier 3. And the truth is it's not replicable, but it's got executives and producers looking all over the place for potential talents in a way that is so, so good for horror and that horror desperately needs. So for me, it's exciting. Terrifier three I thought was okay. I think Terrifier two is the superior of those movies. Not that it matters. Terrifiers, yeah, okay. But its success is very, very exciting. What's your alt?
- [46:32]
Joanna Robinson
Well, what else would you put under the indie horror umbrella this year?
- [46:37]
Sean Fennessey
I think In a Violent Nature and Late Night with the Devil, which were both IFC shudder films, both had theatrical runs that did Significantly better than I ever would have expected. Late Night with the Devil, especially kind of minting David Desmalchen as like a proper leading man. It was very cool, exciting, and then long legs, obviously. I mean, there's very rarely been anything like that from a, from a kind of a micro major like Neon to drive that much interest in a movie that I think actually ultimately most people were kind of mixed on, but that they just marketed the fuck out of it and it did so well. I liked it. So, you know, up and down year for horror in general. The majors, the major studios, I think did not have a good year for horror, but I also think they'll be back.
- [47:22]
Joanna Robinson
Okay, yeah, yeah, I, I, I, I have an alt here, but I actually, I need, I need your feedback on this because I thought maybe Sundance as a whole, and the only reason I obviously, Sundance often lingers across the year, but I feel like in recent years it's felt like diminishing. Its power has been diminishing. And I just know that in the conversations you and I have had over the past couple weeks, I felt like I kept hearing you say, and obviously that was a movie. At Sundance earlier this year, I felt like I heard that more than I usually do. And I couldn't tell if that was just my imagination, but some titles, A Real Pain, Different Man, Mild Ass, Dee Dee, Will and Harper, I Saw the TV Glow Kneecap between the Temples, like that seems to me, and especially as we're in the middle of the awards conversation and a Real Pain is here and Dee Dee is still like hanging around. Different man is hanging around. I Saw the TV Glow is sort of burbling around a bit in some award circles. And Will and Harper just got shortlisted in the docs. Like, it's, it just seems like a more impactful Sundance here than usual.
- [48:26]
Sean Fennessey
I think there's actually a whole slate of documentaries too. I mean, most of the documentaries that are on the short list premiered at Sundance. I think over half of them, including Sugar Cane was there. Soundtrack to A coup d'etat, was there a number of other films. Like, we're all really good films. You know, I've done Sundance virtually the last two years. I'm doing it again this year virtually. And it's candidly better for me because I feel like I need to see roughly 30 movies so that I can be prepared for what you're describing. But I think it's a great insight because it was. The studios did not have the ability to either be in production or do the reshoots that they needed to do during the strikes. So there were tons of empty weekends over the years. And that created opportunity for movies like the ones you just listed to have a little bit more breathing room to get into the conversation this year. And you're right, they made the most of it for the most part. None of these movies did really as well commercially as you would want. Even a movie like A Real Pain, which I think 10 or 20 years ago would have been playing at the Angelica for like three months, totally is not quite doing that. But they are in the conversation for sure, right?
- [49:29]
Joanna Robinson
I mean, like, Kieran Culkin's about to win an Oscar for it, right? And I saw the TV Glow keeps coming up as like, your favorite filmmaker's favorite filmmaker. You know what I mean? Like, a lot of filmmakers are talking about, I saw the TV Glow as something that felt really impactful to them this year.
- [49:44]
Sean Fennessey
So that movie, to me is the one that probably will be the most influential on people who are in their early 20s who will go out and make movies. Because what Jane did in that film, the hallmarks are so obvious for what they were after. But there had never really been that kind of synthesis before. And so I expect that movie to be a big calling card. If I'm interviewing directors in 10 years who are 30 years younger than me, they'll be citing something like that. Hopefully. That's a wonderful movie. So I see that as a good thing. Okay. Comeback of the year. To me, this was an easy one. I like your alt as well, but Demi Moore, in the substance and the fact that she has not headlined a studio movie in almost 20 years and delivers, I think, a brilliant and deeply committed performance and did it in an incredibly strange movie. There's not. Even though Demi Moore is known for taking chances, there's not a lot in her career that suggests she would be a part of a movie like this. So I was blown away.
- [50:47]
Joanna Robinson
Charlie's Angels 2?
- [50:48]
Sean Fennessey
No, no. But even, you know, even movies like GI Jane or Striptease where she, like, kind of transformed herself, never anything this kind of genre bound. So I think it's really cool and great and it's been great to see her through the award circuit the last few months.
- [51:05]
Joanna Robinson
And I think also, I mean, I don't want to throw a parade for the beautiful people of the world when they decide to get unglamorous for a role because, like, okay, listen, great. Good for you. But her brand has. And her personal brand has been so tied up in her beauty for so long that there's something Incredibly profound and sticky about what she did with the substance. And I remember that, you know. I know you do, too. Just the conversations about it coming out of Cannes. And it was like, sometimes these conversations happen. It was at Cannes, right? No, it was not Venice. It was Cannes anyway. Like, yeah, it was Cannes. Some of these festival conversations, you hear it from afar and you're like, that's everyone just trying to make a story or, you know. And this one sounded so improbable that I was like, all right. You know, my pals at Vanity Fair or whatever it is, like, I don't believe that this is going to be what you're saying it's going to be. And then, lo and behold, it absolutely was. And actually, even more than, I think a lot of people, even in the various profiles on Demi that was coming out of the festivals, this was just even bigger than that. My alt is Adrien Brody as a bonafide leading man. And this is for you, my favorite Brutalist fan. Cause I was talking to someone about the Brutalist, and I was like, yeah. And Adrien Brody's, like, really, really good in it. You know, I'm not as high on the movie as you are, Sean, but I was like, adrien Brody's really, really good in it. And in, you know, 95% of the movie. And she was like, well, when has he ever not been good? I was like, I don't have an argument for you about that. But I will just say that, yes, we get excited when he shows up in succession. Or, yes, he's been a great part of the Wes Anderson players. But, you know, he won the Best Actor Oscar. And then his career as a leading man did not really continue from there the way that we thought it would with love and respect to King Kong. And so the fact that he did this is so good in it will, I hope, encourage people to cast him as, like, the real leading man that he definitely can be. He's so captivating in the Brutalist and something that, you know, Brady Courbet and his lens knew how to do was just like. There were just shock. Like, just the way his, like, body was just sort of, like, arced around in this. It was like its own piece of architecture in this movie. It was just like a really, really. This is a star. Remember, he won an Oscar for a reason sort of moment for him.
- [53:43]
Sean Fennessey
So, yeah, I think one of the reasons why he resonated so deeply in the early 2000s is. Cause he reminded a lot of Academy voters in the Pianist of a certain kind of 70s star of a Pacino, a Cazale, a Gene Hackman, you know, like, beautiful in his own way, but unconventionally appealing. And his choices as a leading man in the aftermath I always thought were pretty interesting. You know, he made the Village, he made the Jacket, he made King Kong, he made the Darjeeling Limited, the Brothers Bloom and Cadillac Records. That was. Those were like. That was his run. And I love those. I love a lot of those. Really interesting. Unfortunately for him, they're all like the fifth or sixth best movie from a lot of good filmmakers.
- [54:31]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [54:31]
Sean Fennessey
So he kind of got some bad luck in there too. You know, it's like he got the one Rian Johnson movie that didn't totally hit. You know, he got the fifth best M. Night Shyamalan movie. You know, like, it just didn't really totally happen. And I mean, of course, I agree. I think he, obviously, the movie rests on his shoulders in the brutalist. We are with him almost the entire film. And it's hard to look away from him. I've always liked him as an actor, and it is a good story. It's a good story. It's so interesting to me that he is competing against Chalamet in best Actor because he, once upon a time was Chalamet. Maybe not as much of a heartthrob or didn't have quite the. That Chalamet has at this point, but he was the youngest ever winner. And if Chalamet wins this year, he will be the youngest ever winner for best actor. So it's an interesting race and it's a great pick. Let's try to do the losers as quickly as we can. I know that you just recorded an episode of the House of Midnight about Kraven and Kraven ends now. I believe this experiment in Sony's Spider man extended universe. Even though we'll still get the, you know, the next animated spider verse movie and.
- [55:39]
Joanna Robinson
And Spider Man Noir and Spider Man.
- [55:41]
Sean Fennessey
Noir, the Amazon series, which I guess Nic Cage is going to star in Live action.
- [55:46]
Joanna Robinson
Nick Cage, Spider Man Noir.
- [55:47]
Sean Fennessey
Cool.
- [55:47]
Joanna Robinson
A lot of questions.
- [55:48]
Sean Fennessey
Interesting.
- [55:49]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [55:49]
Sean Fennessey
And we'll get another Tom Holland appearance in a Spider man movie, I think. Is it Dustin Daniel Cretton is making that. Right. But this world. Isn't there going to be a Venom 4 too? I mean, Venom just made like $400 million.
- [56:04]
Joanna Robinson
I don't know how exaggerated the reported death of this universe is, but this year we had Kraven The Hunter, Venom 3, and Madame Web. Three of my worst times at the movie theater, personally, Kraven really stinks, Joe. It's real bad.
- [56:24]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
- [56:24]
Joanna Robinson
And Madame Web is perhaps even worse. And I would say Dr. Michael Morbius is perhaps even worse than all of those combined. And so Venom 3, I had a good time because we were all together. That was, like, fun. But I. But I did feel like a moment of sanity with you when, like, some of our pals were like, that was so fun. I had a great time. And you were, like, laughing and you were like, yeah, that was a disaster. And I agree with you. I think that film is a disaster. It's pretty bad, narratively a disaster.
- [56:53]
Sean Fennessey
And you know me, I love to love a Venom movie.
- [56:55]
Joanna Robinson
I do. I think this might be a. A pause more than an obituary moment, but a pause they really need to take and figure it out.
- [57:07]
Sean Fennessey
Well, I don't think it necessarily signals too much about the comic book movie industrial complex. We're obviously going to keep getting those. We spent some time talking about Superman. We're talking about Downey and Evans coming back. I do think that I wanted to make an observation.
- [57:25]
Joanna Robinson
Please.
- [57:25]
Sean Fennessey
You've been covering a lot of these shows, mostly on House of R. Sometimes on Prestige, but I didn't watch a ton of new shows this year that, in theory, are right in my sweet spot. I didn't really watch Agatha. I watched a couple of episodes and gave up on it. I only watched two episodes of the Acolyte. I watched one episode of Dune Prophecy. I haven't watched Creature Commandos. There's a couple more that were, like, bigger. What are some other big franchise TV titles that came out?
- [57:55]
Joanna Robinson
House of the Dragon.
- [57:56]
Sean Fennessey
I did watch House of the Dragon. I did not watch Rings of Power.
- [57:59]
Joanna Robinson
Skeleton Crew.
- [58:00]
Sean Fennessey
We're in the movie. We did not watch Skeleton Crew right now.
- [58:02]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [58:02]
Sean Fennessey
You know, these are all things that are deeply important to my childhood and that in the movies, I have kept up with very closely. And I used to do this for the TV shows when the streaming boom happened. And I just don't have the energy, time, or interest at all for this stuff anymore. And I think what it means is a retrenchment into the movies, because I think a lot of these studios and streamers understand that TV is not necessarily the best place for all of these things. Some of them it is. Oh, the Penguin is another one. Which, in theory, I think I would like the Penguin.
- [58:32]
Joanna Robinson
I think you will like the Penguin.
- [58:33]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. But, like, for whatever reason, I never was compelled. Maybe I will now that I have some time over the break to watch it. But it's so interesting to me that with the exception probably of the Penguin, that all of those other properties are like either critically a little middling or audience wise were a little middling or some combination of both. I know you had a lot of affection for Agatha, but I wouldn't say it was a breakout smash.
- [58:57]
Joanna Robinson
That was more personal affection. I'm clear eyed enough to say that that was personal affection. And though it was, I think a bigger hit than a lot of people thought it was going to be, I'm not saying it was like it didn't do what WandaVision did and sort of cross outside of the Marvel faithful or anything like that. I think that it was a tough year in terms of like acolyte was tough. I think Dune Prophecy is rough, that sort of stuff. I really liked Rings of Power personally and Rings of Power is a sneakily hugely popular show. A show that I skipped, that people love is Fallout and I need to catch up on it. But that was a massive hit.
- [59:35]
Sean Fennessey
I think that's their biggest show ever, right? Amazon?
- [59:37]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, Massive, massive hit. And then next year we're gonna have, we're gonna have stuff like the Last of Us, season two. There is gonna be a Game of Thrones universe show, Knight of Seven Kingdoms, that I actually think has a possibility of being better than House of the possibly better than House of the Dragon. Interesting. Just because of the source material. I think that, you know, like Severance, if you're asking about. You were asking more about a franchise more than genre. But like, but I think, I think what everyone is doing is retrenching and just sort of try to figure things out. And so like for Marvel Television, for example, like you're gonna watch Daredevil. Like that's, that's.
- [60:15]
Sean Fennessey
Am I?
- [60:15]
Joanna Robinson
You're. Yeah, you are. You are.
- [60:17]
Sean Fennessey
I'm getting old.
- [60:19]
Joanna Robinson
No, no, no, no. You are not that old, Sean. But also what's true is that while Marvel has definitely tarnished their own brand by putting out very middling to bad TV shows like Secret Invasion, one of the worst things I've ever seen. Right. And so you're like, how can I trust again? How can I love again?
- [60:37]
Sean Fennessey
That is how I feel.
- [60:37]
Joanna Robinson
You burnt me. You burnt me so badly.
- [60:39]
Sean Fennessey
I was the guy yelling on the movie bro podcast about how Endgame is a meaningful work of art. You know, like I was one of.
- [60:45]
Joanna Robinson
Those people and it is. And I think Daredevil is going to be genuinely great. I genuinely do. I really do. I'm not, I'm not just saying that so that people will listen to House of our. I think they have pressed pause, retrenched this year and are really trying to make sure because I actually think the most critical time. Lucasfilm is a mess right now. So I don't even want to talk about how we can fix Star wars because I actually don't know. But in terms of Marvel, next year is going to be so pivotal for them, because if they do Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four and Daredevil and land all of those with the breathing room that Deadpool and Wolverine gave them financially, then you can't say that Marvel's in trouble anymore. Right?
- [61:29]
Sean Fennessey
I noticed you did not include Captain America 4 in that.
- [61:32]
Joanna Robinson
We don't need to talk about. We don't need to talk about.
- [61:35]
Sean Fennessey
We need to talk about Red Hulk.
- [61:37]
Joanna Robinson
We don't need to talk about the Red Hulk at all.
- [61:39]
Sean Fennessey
Should I do a solo video about Red Hulk breaking it down when the film comes out?
- [61:43]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [61:43]
Sean Fennessey
Yes. Into camera.
- [61:45]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [61:46]
Sean Fennessey
Why Red Hulk? How Red Hulk Taught me to be weird.
- [61:49]
Joanna Robinson
Get the teleprompter out and just really do it for the. The real sickos out there.
- [61:55]
Sean Fennessey
Okay.
- [61:55]
Joanna Robinson
What else do you want to talk about on the losers list?
- [61:58]
Sean Fennessey
I mean, Apple had a bad year. You know, they did have a lot of TV shows that I think people liked. And I think a lot of those shows are actually underseen relative to the quality. And I like. I really admire the swings that they take on the TV side and being able to grow shows like Silo, which is not a show I watch, but the handful of episodes I watch, I was like, okay, this is kind of like hard sci fi and well made. And I appreciate that. I appreciate that they're making stuff like Bad Monkey and I didn't get Sugar at all. But I think it's cool that they tried, that's all on the TV side. On the movie side, they're a mess. It was just the mess of a year. It's Argyle, Fly Me to the Moon, and Wolf's. That's not Good.
- [62:38]
Joanna Robinson
Three of the biggest sort of, like, punchline movies of the year. Unfortunately, I think Fly Me to the.
- [62:44]
Sean Fennessey
Moon is not an embarrassing movie by any means. It's just a perfectly fine movie that got rolled out in the middle of July.
- [62:51]
Joanna Robinson
A perfectly fine movie with, like, two genuine movie stars in it who should together have have produced something a bit splashier than that. I remember when you guys recorded your Wolf's episode and you were essentially, like, angry. What are we. Not just what are we doing here? But, like, why are we wasting talented people's Time with this, that. That was real tough. And then Argyle Argylle is one of the most baffling things I've ever encountered.
- [63:20]
Sean Fennessey
So it's a fiasco. I mean, Apple original films, let's see what they. I mean, I know for a fact that they have the Gorge coming early next year, which is the new film from Scott Derrison, starring Miles Teller and Anya Teller. Joy. Let's see what else they have cooking up in 2025, because they do need a bit of a bounce back. Oh, F1, of course, which is in theory a very big deal, the Brad Pitt film. But we shall see beyond that. There's a few things that have been announced. The thing that they have going that I'm most interested in is the studio, the Seth Rogen series.
- [63:51]
Joanna Robinson
I am very curious. I have been told, at least on the TV front, that again, we're in a bit of a retrench because Apple was just throwing anything at the wall, right. Like throwing buckets of money at anyone who will take it to make a TV show. And the tap is drying up a bit there. But it is wild because there will be all these shows on Apple TV that have incredibly famous people in them and nobody knows they exist. And that is a wild thing that Apple has done in an understandable effort to catch people's attention, but they just don't know how to market their own material for the most part. It's baffling.
- [64:34]
Sean Fennessey
It feels that way. Let's do one more Loser. And I think it's an interesting discussion point, which is the Legacy sequel.
- [64:41]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [64:42]
Sean Fennessey
Now we've got a bunch of these.
- [64:44]
Joanna Robinson
I'm not sure. I'm not sure about this. And I want to just talk to you about it.
- [64:48]
Sean Fennessey
Well, okay. So you've made the list of Legacy sequels from this year. Twisters, obviously, which is more or less a shadow remake of the original Twister.
- [64:58]
Joanna Robinson
Correct.
- [64:59]
Sean Fennessey
Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Furiosa and Bad Boys Ride or Die, which is, I think, a debatable Legacy sequel. I think the third film is probably more of a Legacy sequel than this one. But we're in that kind of that lineage.
- [65:12]
Joanna Robinson
It's the same with. Same with Furiosa. Like, those are sort of like drafting.
- [65:16]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, nine years is a good gap.
- [65:19]
Joanna Robinson
And then. And Gladiator 2, of course, and Gladiator 2.
- [65:22]
Sean Fennessey
But yeah, yeah, it's tough because I would say with the exception of Furiosa, all of these movies were financially successful. Gladiator 2 is gonna kind of chug its way, I think, to profitability. Over the holidays. And so Twisters, Beetlejuice, Bad Boys, Ride or die and Gladiator 2 made good money. I think all of these movies are disappointing creatively, with the exception of Furiosa, which you and I are both like, it's good. We agree. It's good. We're not gonna fight with anybody about it. I know people disagree with us. That's okay. There's nothing negative, really, to say about the movie, but it wildly underperformed at the box office. So I think we were.
- [66:03]
Joanna Robinson
I think. Weren't we? Like, I think good is. Is higher than we landed. I think we said, like, mixed like, that. There were parts of it that were really, really good.
- [66:12]
Sean Fennessey
I said, this week on the show, it's a 7 out of 10 for me. That's like, I can't.
- [66:16]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [66:16]
Romel Ross
You know.
- [66:16]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, it's.
- [66:17]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, it's good.
- [66:18]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [66:18]
Sean Fennessey
That's not a bad movie by any stretch, but it is a movie that I thought was flawed nevertheless. Like, all of these movies, they're all kind of different, you know, Like Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. I got kind of hyped up on at Cinemacon.
- [66:31]
Joanna Robinson
Thank you.
- [66:32]
Sean Fennessey
The hype was right, which is that it was gonna be a big hit, and it was a big hit, but I thought it was a pretty mediocre movie. Even though I was glad to see Tim Burton back with practical effects and in that world and kind of being weird. Tim. The script is real bad.
- [66:48]
Joanna Robinson
I would just say, not like this Tim. I've also been asking for that. But not like this Tim.
- [66:52]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. And Twisters, I think, is a lot of fun and a good blockbuster, but deeply iterative. You know, I just.
- [67:00]
Joanna Robinson
I just don't want to fill in for Amanda and speak ill of Twisters, but I did not have a good time with this movie.
- [67:08]
Sean Fennessey
That's interesting. Yeah. I mean, I've heard some people say the same. I think Amanda and I had a lot of fun with it, but it's not.
- [67:13]
Joanna Robinson
I really wanted to. It was like. I was really excited for this movie. Really, really excited for it. I was like a true believer. Love Daisy. Love Glenn. I think it was just. It was just too. It was similar to what we were. Yeah. What we were saying about Gladiator 2, and you just said iterative. Like, it upset me that a filmmaker that I admire so much in Lee Isaac Chung, was just, like, uninterested in making something that didn't feel like beat for beat. In a way. I was disappointed by that, even more so than I would be in Ridley Scott. Because Ridley is so up and down over the years. Who's to say? But, like, I was excited for this. You know, this exciting, innovative filmmaker gets a franchise that we wasn't. It was a. Was a massive blockbuster in the 90s that we loved and put really interesting people in it. And I was like, this is gonna be amazing. And then I just thought it was aggressively fine. You know, at the end of the.
- [68:10]
Sean Fennessey
Day, yeah, I hear that, and I've heard many other people say it. I don't know if it's like. I don't know if you can call the Legacy sequel a loser. It's more of like a hold, you know, like, these movies made enough money that it's gonna. It means there's gonna be a lot more of them over the next 10 years. But I'm not sure that I look forward to them.
- [68:27]
Joanna Robinson
Nobody fury wrote it. This year is the thing. No one took a property and did something really exciting. And I would even. I mean, I would put Romulus in here too, though. You can't really call that a Legacy sequel. But like, that. That was one that has some really exciting sequences to it and then some baffling choices as well.
- [68:45]
Sean Fennessey
It is kind of a Legacy tweener, right? Because I think it happens between 1 and 2. Isn't that the timeline? Another movie that. I feel very similarly about Romulus as I do to Twisters, which is like, in the theater, had a great time. The more I thought about it, the more I felt I could pick it apart. But the in theater, and I probably won't watch it again, you know, Whereas I usually like to rewatch movies I really, really enjoy a second time in the same calendar year. And I won't be doing that for either of those. But, yeah, I think you're right. I think that's a good call. Any other losers you want to hit? Should we pivot out of losers?
- [69:17]
Joanna Robinson
Enough with the negativity. Let's give people the highest honor that Hollywood has to offer, shall we? We're giving out Oscars on this podcast.
- [69:25]
Sean Fennessey
What honor is that?
- [69:25]
Joanna Robinson
Did you know that?
- [69:26]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
- [69:27]
Joanna Robinson
Did you know that we were awarding Best Picture right now?
- [69:30]
Sean Fennessey
Best Picture. Me and you and Katie Rich did this, right? Did we do the last one? We did, yeah. And we did. This was the top 10 best picture power rankings. The Substance, Sing Sing Blitz, A Real pain, Dune Part 2, Wicked Part 1, Emilia Perez, the Brutalist Conclave and Anora. I don't think this has changed a lot, but it has changed a little. What do you think?
- [69:56]
Joanna Robinson
I don't think we should be embarrassed by it, which is good news.
- [69:58]
Sean Fennessey
Agreed.
- [69:59]
Joanna Robinson
I think it's 80% right in the films that should be on here.
- [70:02]
Sean Fennessey
Me as well.
- [70:03]
Joanna Robinson
And, you know, and then we just need to shuffle the order a bit.
- [70:07]
Sean Fennessey
Do you think anything has unseated Anora at number one? No, no, there's not a case for Wicked here.
- [70:15]
Joanna Robinson
I mean, that would flatter my ego since I'm the one who argued Wicked onto the list last time and your big pick listeners were like, she's wrong.
- [70:22]
Sean Fennessey
Well, you were right. You were 100% right at that time.
- [70:27]
Joanna Robinson
I would definitely put it way higher than it is currently, but I don't know that I would put it as the front runner, mostly because of the John Chu situation.
- [70:34]
Sean Fennessey
Just meaning that you don't think he'll be recognized. So it's unlikely that it's likely it's going to win.
- [70:38]
Joanna Robinson
There's. There's also the screen, the screenplay question. Do you think it's getting nominated for screenplay? Because if it's not getting nominated for screenplay, I think it's been like over 20 years since we've had a best picture winner that didn't get nominated for screenplay.
- [70:51]
Sean Fennessey
I'll tell you what, if it gets nominated for screenplay, you can watch me put it at number one in January.
- [70:55]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, for sure.
- [70:58]
Sean Fennessey
I don't think it's as strong as number one.
- [71:02]
Joanna Robinson
I think it's like two or three. Maybe three, but I don't think it's one yet. But I think it could definitely get there.
- [71:09]
Sean Fennessey
The box office being a little soft internationally is interesting to me. It's done very well. It's obviously not done super well with the critics groups. Most of the critics groups, with the exception of nbr, are not really recognizing it. It's done very. It did very well with Critics Choice Awards.
- [71:24]
Joanna Robinson
My. My voting body.
- [71:25]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, it's probably going to do well with sag. I guess that's probably it. Right.
- [71:31]
Joanna Robinson
Globes and Globes. It's on the AFI list and the AFI list is the strongest predictor we currently have in the awards.
- [71:39]
Sean Fennessey
I mean, it's definitely getting nominated for Best Picture. To me, it's more about the strength, like where the totality and. I don't. I don't know. I mean, I. I think three is a good place to put. Put it. What comes in at number two behind Anora is a good conversation for us to have, though. So let's do Wicked at three and Anora at one. Yeah, I think that's about right. Now tell me what you Think should be cut. And let's see if we agree.
- [72:02]
Joanna Robinson
Oh, with love and respect to Katie Rich, it's Blitz and the substance.
- [72:09]
Sean Fennessey
I'll definitely give you Blitz. Blitz, I think is gone.
- [72:11]
Joanna Robinson
Blitz is definitely gone. Substance I'm willing to have a conversation about, but Blitz is definitely gone.
- [72:16]
Sean Fennessey
What do you think is going in where Blitz was.
- [72:21]
Joanna Robinson
A complete unknown, which hadn't come out yet when we made this list, so wasn't in the conversation.
- [72:27]
Sean Fennessey
And I would suggest that a complete unknown is currently at number nine.
- [72:33]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. Maybe higher. Just because of A, it's such a traditional. I know we're talking about the new Academy and not the old Academy, but it is such a traditional best picture winner type of thing. And B, Timmy being like leaping to the front of the best actor race, I think is really pushing it up the list.
- [72:54]
Sean Fennessey
The challenge for it is it's possible it only has two nominations for Timmy and for Norton.
- [73:02]
Joanna Robinson
Oh, for picture.
- [73:03]
Sean Fennessey
Now, Norton could get in.
- [73:04]
Joanna Robinson
Obviously Norton could get in, but I.
- [73:07]
Sean Fennessey
Don'T think it has a chance at. At any below the line. No, I mean it's. It's been shortlisted for Sound. Musicals usually do well there.
- [73:18]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [73:19]
Sean Fennessey
But it's also competing against Emilia Perez and Wicked in that respect. Plus you've got kind of bigger tent movies like Dune Part 2. You got Joker Foliadou competing there as well. Another musical like.
- [73:31]
Joanna Robinson
Okay, yeah, let's leave it at. Let's leave it at 9, but I feel like it's going to go higher. But I'm happy to put it at nine right now. That's fine. It's on the list.
- [73:41]
Sean Fennessey
The substance. Let's table that for a minute. Is Conclave still at 2? Conclave has not been the streaming icon that I thought it was going to be.
- [73:50]
Joanna Robinson
Well, I think it's either Conclave or the Brutalist.
- [73:53]
Sean Fennessey
I don't think the Brutalist is as strong at the moment. I think the Brutalist is still. I will say I just scoped out the Vista screenings. It starts screening tonight, Thursday night, and I think has like a two or three week run in 70 at the Vista here in Los Angeles and many of those screenings are already sold out, which is very exciting. Obviously that's a honey trap for the boys. You know, there's gonna be a lot of the boys are showing out and the girls, of course, the boys is a non gender associated phrase.
- [74:21]
Joanna Robinson
I was sure that you meant it in a non gendered sense. Do you think it's gonna be the intermission that breaks them or.
- [74:28]
Sean Fennessey
No, nothing will break anyone we're thriving. I think they can only really run it twice a day because it's three hours and 40 minutes of hang time. But I don't. I just don't. It's missed in a couple spots, you know, like at the Spirits. Like, it almost blanked. I think it only got one nomination at the Spirit Awards, which is just weird because it's like the definition of an independent film. Like, it was financed by a multiple. Multiple number of organizations over a number of years and scooped up by a 24. And that group was just like, no. Which is so interesting. So, you know, it's divisive.
- [75:00]
Joanna Robinson
It's divisive. But isn't it, like, especially as we talk about the international voting body at the Academy, isn't it the sort of. Exactly. We've been talking about this. Like, what statement do we send when we call the Brutalist the best picture of the year? We send a statement of art is the most important thing. Capitalism is crushing art. America is a disease is sort of some of the big takeaways.
- [75:30]
Sean Fennessey
I got news for you. We don't do that anymore.
- [75:33]
Joanna Robinson
Okay?
- [75:33]
Sean Fennessey
That's not what coda is. That's not what everything everywhere all at once is. That's not even what Oppenheimer.
- [75:38]
Joanna Robinson
It's a bit what Oppenheimer is.
- [75:39]
Sean Fennessey
Oppenheimer is like, look at all these movie stars. Look at this master craftsman who made superhero movies who he didn't recognize when he was working in genre, you know? Like, is it really the core messaging of Oppenheimer that got it Best Picture, or is it the craft and the scale?
- [75:52]
Joanna Robinson
I think it's the story of a capital G, Great capital M, man. And I mean that kind of, in an ungendered sense, this great figure sort of story. And I kind of see that the Brutalist stands in for that.
- [76:06]
Sean Fennessey
That's a fair point. You're right in that respect. I do think that they get to that place in different ways as our.
- [76:15]
Joanna Robinson
Most cherished and most brutal of boys. Where would you put the Brutalist on the list?
- [76:21]
Sean Fennessey
God, if I could just have that on, like a nameplate outside of the.
- [76:26]
Joanna Robinson
Most brutal of boys right here on.
- [76:29]
Sean Fennessey
A copper nameplate, and I could record in that fashion for the rest of my life. I'd be so excited. I think it's at 4, and I think it's in a kind of a battle with Emilia Perez in the sort of divisive knife fight.
- [76:42]
Joanna Robinson
We're putting conclave at two, then I.
- [76:43]
Sean Fennessey
Think conclave at two, and then maybe brutalist at four. And Emilia Perez, Amelie Perez might be even stronger than that. I don't know if you saw this shortlist, but like six showing up six times on the shortlist is a big deal.
- [76:53]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [76:53]
Sean Fennessey
That movie's going to get 11 Oscar nominations.
- [76:55]
Joanna Robinson
Wasn't two of it for. Two of them were for song, right? Yeah, yeah. Yes. The short list was quite telling. I think Conclave people keep bringing up as this sort of like in terms of second place here. Second place in a lot of people's. The, the consensus second place on the ranked ballot in. In that. You know what I mean, that it could. That it's going to be mid high on everyone's ballot and that could just push it higher than you than if we did do ranked voting. What else do you. What, what do you want to put Next?
- [77:33]
Sean Fennessey
We've got four slots left now. 10, 8, 7 and 6.
- [77:37]
Joanna Robinson
I think 6. Sing Sing is way higher than it used to be. Especially as we're talking about Clarence and Coleman and screenplay all in conversation.
- [77:48]
Sean Fennessey
I think you're right. I think Sing sing is at 6. We'll see what that January reissue does for it. But you know, news of the Academy screenings has been very warm.
- [77:58]
Joanna Robinson
We know that I'm in the tank for Sing Sing, but I, I feel like I'm being clear eyed here.
- [78:02]
Sean Fennessey
Did you see that the Sing Sing account used your commentary to. Our commentary?
- [78:09]
Joanna Robinson
Our commentary. Yes, I did see that.
- [78:11]
Sean Fennessey
So great to make marketing materials with you as always, Joanna.
- [78:15]
Joanna Robinson
Love to do unpaid promo. It's my whole fucking life for the studios.
- [78:21]
Sean Fennessey
Gosh. So I don't. So that leaves us with potential contenders. I'll give you all the contenders right now. Last time around, the substance blitz and A Real Pain And Dune Part 2 filled out our list. I believe Dune 2 is still competing. I believe a real pain is still competing. I have my doubts about the substance. I'm a little. A little iffy on a real pain at this point. Just a little bit.
- [78:45]
Joanna Robinson
Well, that's why I think it should go. I think that's. I think that's why you need to bump a complete unknown up and put a real pain lower on the list.
- [78:52]
Sean Fennessey
Oh, okay. So you think a complete unknown is at 8, a real pain is at 9.
- [78:56]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [78:56]
Sean Fennessey
And then we have to figure out what 10 is.
- [78:58]
Joanna Robinson
Yes. And dune part two at 7.
- [79:01]
Sean Fennessey
And you would put dune part two at 7. I think that's right. Dune part two is a little bit shaky as well right now, Joanna. Yes, Denis? I don't think is getting into director at the moment.
- [79:11]
Joanna Robinson
I agree with you, that's fucked up. It is fucked up. But I guess we're all just believing the narrative that we're saving it for Dune Messiah. Just keep your powder dry for Dune Messiah, I guess is what's happening really sucks.
- [79:27]
Sean Fennessey
Okay, so let's talk about number 10, the coveted number 10 slot. This is very challenging. There's quite a few films that could make it here. We had the substance last time, but also contending, I suppose. Gladiator 2, September 5th, Nickel Boys, the Room Next Door, the Wild Robot, the Seed of the Sacred Fig, all we imagine as light challengers and Nosferatu. Now, as an elegant throw to my conversation with Rommel Ross, I will make the case for Nickel Boyce.
- [79:57]
Joanna Robinson
I was gonna. You don't have to make the case. I was gonna agree with you and I was not intending to pander to your guest, but I genuinely think it's Nickel Boyce. But make the case.
- [80:06]
Sean Fennessey
It is a movie that I think for folks who work in craft and in writing will be incredibly impressed by the decisions that are made. I think Rommel has a chance in director because of the decisions he's made. That being said, for the body at large, I think it's going to be a very challenging watch. I moderated a conversation with Rommel and Anjanu Ellis Taylor over the weekend at the Arrow theater in Santa Monica and people were locked in. Locked in. I will also say Ingenue and Rommel are great advocates for the movie. So smart, so charming. The Rommel interview is my favorite of the year. So I. I think on the strength of that, plus that this is the movie that MGM Amazon is pushing hardest, I feel like it's gonna get there. If you told me it was September 5th or you told me it was Seat of the Sacred Fig, I wouldn't be shocked. I wouldn't be shocked. But it feels like Nickel Boys to me right now.
- [81:01]
Joanna Robinson
But it's probably not gonna be Challengers. And I just wanna. I just wanna say it a couple times because people were so bummed that we didn't even like talk about it last time. And I agree. I think it's. I think Challengers belongs on this list. What I would bump for it. I couldn't tell you. But I do believe in terms of long lasting impact. Challengers is a really important and wonderful film that came out this year. I think people have just forgotten and I couldn't tell you why.
- [81:29]
Sean Fennessey
I think it's a little too pop, to be candid. It seems a little too airy and light.
- [81:34]
Joanna Robinson
I think.
- [81:36]
Sean Fennessey
I'm not calling it that. I think that's how people perceive it.
- [81:39]
Joanna Robinson
I feel like, queer, sort of split the focus. You know what I mean? Like, I just. Anyway, but I think that Nickel Boys, as the focus of the Amazon campaign and as like a formal, an exercise in form, has really excited a lot of people, you know, in terms of the big swings that Rommel took in the construction of the story. So I think people really want to reward it as an attempt. An attempt makes it sound unsuccessful. But what I just mean is, like, yeah, we tried something. We really tried something with this movie and has great performances in it. And, yeah, I definitely think it's on the list.
- [82:23]
Sean Fennessey
Okay.
- [82:24]
Joanna Robinson
And this list, like, I don't want to be unimaginative, but this is the AFI list. But the AFI list is our best bellwether. So I'm not mad that we're in lockstep with it.
- [82:37]
Sean Fennessey
Many pundits, myself included, when I saw the AFI list were like, this is it. This is the best picture. And that's where I stand at the moment, too, especially because now we've seen everything. There isn't anything I haven't seen that has been competing here. So let's run it down quickly and then we'll exit this chat. Joe at number 10, Nickel Boys at number 9, A Real Pain at number 8, A Complete Unknown at number 7, Dune Part 2 at number 6, Sing Sing at number 5, Emilia Perez at number 4, The Brutalist at number 3, Wicked at number 2. Conclave and still holding at number 1. Can it go until Wicked gets that.
- [83:16]
Joanna Robinson
Until Wicked gets that screenplay nomination, Nora.
- [83:19]
Sean Fennessey
Is sitting at number one. Until. Until. Until. Joanna, thank you. You're just the best.
- [83:23]
Joanna Robinson
Oh, you're just the best. Thanks for having me.
- [83:26]
Sean Fennessey
Great chatting with you. Let's now go to my conversation with Romel Ross.
- [83:40]
Romel Ross
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Sean Fennessey
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Romel Ross
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Sean Fennessey
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Romel Ross
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- [84:10]
Joanna Robinson
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- [84:39]
Sean Fennessey
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Joanna Robinson
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Romel Ross
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Sean Fennessey
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Romel Ross
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Sean Fennessey
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Romel Ross
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Joanna Robinson
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- [85:10]
Sean Fennessey
3, 2, 1. So happy to have Romel Ross here. Your second feature film. Your first scripted feature. I've read quite a bit about you, but I also feel like there's a lot I don't know because I feel like you had a full life before you became a filmmaker. I know you were a college basketball player. Georgetown. And then what happened? What led you to filmmaking?
- [85:30]
Romel Ross
Am I allowed to talk while you're talking? Like, could you say that? And I'm like, yeah, cool. A couple of laughs. I don't wanna. I don't. Obviously I respect you here.
- [85:37]
Sean Fennessey
It's a conversation.
- [85:38]
Romel Ross
Yeah, but like, stealing the mic is not cool when, like, the mic is your thing.
- [85:43]
Sean Fennessey
I want you to feel like we're chatting, not like I'm drilling you with questions.
- [85:46]
Romel Ross
Yeah, yeah. So we're not. It's not a volley. We're like tugging for the ball productively for people to watch.
- [85:52]
Sean Fennessey
No, this is more of the triangle offense.
- [85:53]
Romel Ross
Yeah, Cool, cool, cool. I like a good Phil Jackson reference. I. Yeah, I don't know when I started to make photos and become interested in film around my senior year, my fifth year at Georgetown. And then when I started to pursue it as a true desire vocation, maybe it was funny. I look back at my life and I'm like, oh, maybe I've always been this person that I am now, but maybe it's laden. Or maybe it was transferred through sports. But to me, it was quite a natural transition given the way that the camera deals with space and time and predictability and the future and the way in which you deal with those same things as a basketball player, specifically a point guard, in which you're dealing with space and time and relativity.
- [86:40]
Sean Fennessey
So when you use the word vocation. So were you thinking when you were taking photographs, this is gonna be My job, like, this is a way I'm gonna make money in my career, or was it just, this is something that helps me better understand myself, something I feel natural doing? And so I'm just gonna pursue it as, like, a creative act. Like, do you see those two things as connected?
- [86:58]
Romel Ross
Yeah, I see them as separate, completely separate. And I tried to keep them separate after, I think, recognizing some of the pitfalls of having work and creative pursuits too tightly aligned with all the industries which are necessary to, one could say, to support them. And maybe I'm using vocation wrong. I was trying to use vocation in terms of a sort of calling, but I think vocation has more to do with career than obviously, is it a vocation? Is that the one that's.
- [87:28]
Sean Fennessey
That sounds right. But you went to Georgetown and I didn't, so you can tell me.
- [87:32]
Romel Ross
Well, I didn't read much in high school. I was a scholarship basketball player and found the language quite late in life, let's say.
- [87:39]
Sean Fennessey
I think a vocation sounds right and yet, like, it did become your career eventually.
- [87:45]
Romel Ross
Yeah.
- [87:45]
Sean Fennessey
So how.
- [87:47]
Romel Ross
Because it's a career in the sense that I do make money from it and I do have the opportunity to support my life, but I teach full time at a university, and that's my, one could say, bread and butter. I don't have to make art and make films. I do that separately, intentionally, not tied to money, so that I can experiment or, you know, follow. Follow my own sensibility without being too much guided too much by the powers that be.
- [88:15]
Sean Fennessey
What. So what led to that? What led to you deciding that you wanted to teach, you teach college? So what went into that decision making?
- [88:22]
Romel Ross
Well, I think I've always taught. I coached basketball, and I immediately worked for the State Department and taught kind of American values in nutritional health around the world, while using basketball as a sort of connection point for those abroad. I think, you know, the secret aim of this Culture Connect program through the State Department was to, like, sort of outsource American values and to, like, you know, boost America's image. But simultaneously, you were a propagandist. Oh, I was. And I. Gonna be honest, I enjoyed it. You know, Just kidding. But then I started to. I worked in Northern Ireland and I played professional basketball there, which is cool. But I also worked for an organization that was using basketball to bridge social divides in conflict in regions. So we would go into a Catholic school and a Protestant school, bring the kids together with sports, and I really enjoyed that tie to youth. So I went to Alabama and was teaching there and so it just kind of became natural to be involved with those who are learning, you know. And so I had an opportunity when I graduated from RISD's MFA program in photography to teach at Brown. And I had so much teaching across so many different places that I think they were attracted to a non academic, traditionally academic way of communicating information.
- [89:48]
Sean Fennessey
Interesting. So that time you spent in Alabama, is that directly what led to Hale County?
- [89:52]
Romel Ross
Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. I went there randomly with a friend and for a week to teach a photography course. Job opened up in a youth bill program, Department of Labor funded program, and was already hitting the point where I was getting a bit. A bit frustrated with my pursuits as a photojournalist, with my pursuits as a sort of fashion photographer, with my pursuits as a photo illustrator photographer. Like, sort of all of the individual genres of photography, like each one kind of wasn't doing it for me.
- [90:25]
Sean Fennessey
In what way they. Like creatively.
- [90:28]
Romel Ross
Yeah, it's like. I don't want to say they became. They didn't become easy, but they just. They became dead ends. Like they. They had ceilings of communication to me. And then you were just saying the same thing in different ways. And then I was kind of understanding myself as I think under understanding myself as a person in. As a reflection of society and being in the historic South. For people of color. I would argue there's no better place to be in dialogue with. With whatever the black diaspora is in the US and so conceptual photography and like drawing from all of these other genres just like sort of collapse into me photographing there. I don't know, it's never, I guess there is like a light bulb moment. I love the cartoon light bulb. It's like. It's like probably the most accurate illustration of human experience where you're just like, wait, there's something new, illuminated. I had one of those moments when I'm photographing and I think I understand something about black visuality as general as that is, which is something that was something along the lines of. Almost all images I've seen of people of color seem to be utilitarian. They have like a very strict purpose and they seem to be in conversation with historical dialogue and requires an analysis that is not multifaceted. And while that's general, to me, I was like, I haven't seen images of people of color in which there's three distinct modes of narrative analysis in which none of them are true, but all of them are true. And to me, that's like a way of sort of liberating black People from the tyranny of the camera. And so with that sort of like photographic revelation that I had, I also wondered in terms of film, like, what does that look like? And is there a version of that that is more time based?
- [92:32]
Sean Fennessey
So as you're making Hale county, which goes on to be like, incredibly acclaimed and probably much more widely seen than you would have expected as you were embarking upon it.
- [92:41]
Romel Ross
Oh, my God, yes.
- [92:42]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. And so it's this fascinating, I guess, serendipitous and hard earned achievement. Is there any part of you that is thinking, like, I'm gonna make scripted feature films very soon? Like, was that on the Roadmap for you in any way?
- [92:57]
Romel Ross
No, it wasn't though. I've always wanted to make films and I was always interested in film. You know, I grew up in like a sort of fight club and a Sawshank Redemption and just like hardcore classics that are astounding but very commercial. And then as mentioned, like, once I start to, like, look into myself and my relationship to it, I start to sort of develop ideas that are a little bit more on the periphery of what's mainstream. And so I think my desire to actually participate in that economy just became impractical given the way I wanted to experiment with things. And, you know, the stuff that I made became very self satisfactory. And if you're working at that scale, self satisfactory is not necessarily the right path. So never really thought about it after Hale County. I just knew that I had things I was interested in and was trying to put myself in a position through teaching and other means, through grants, to be able to like, pursue these really individual interests.
- [93:56]
Sean Fennessey
So then what happens? Like, what happens to your life and work after Hale County? Obviously many more people know about you. Are you doing like the water bottle tour in Hollywood? Like, what actually happened to your life?
- [94:07]
Romel Ross
Yeah, well, my life for a short period of time was like, very fast paced in terms of, you know, promoting the film and sharing the ideas. The film lends itself to film studies and lends itself to the history of documentary and the history of documentary photography. And so a lot of speaking at universities and talking with students who are interested a lot in research, but are also just interested in ethnography and anthropology and how to ethically engage with the community. But I think the true turning point was halfway through the process of Hale County, I met a woman named Jocelyn Barnes, who was also a co writer on Nickel Boys and a producer. And she was one of the only people, and there were a couple people, but like, really kind of understood and was interested in my ideas. And we kind of, you know, continued. We started to collaborate on Hale county. But she opened my world up, honestly, to kind of independent film. I knew of independent film in quotation marks as a thing because I kind of got my film education through the RISD library. I would just go and, like, look at titles I liked and then watch. Try to watch two films a day. And then you come across random things. They're not collecting the most box office things. It's a lot of, like, really solid, idiosyncratic stuff. And she, you know, works Jocelyn, that is, works with like Lucretia Martell and Apiciponguera Sethical butchering his name. And they're people who have really specific means of making, but yet they found ways to garner the support to make really big things. And so that actually kind of shifted the space and also the reception of Hale county because, you know, really small team. It was like, you know, myself, Robert, Rob Moss, Maya Krinsky, Jocelyn, and a woman named Sue Kim. We finished the film in obscurity. You know, we had a couple of grants, but not many people knew about us. And we were like, we really like this. We're unsure if anyone will, like, legitimately unsure. I'm submitting to Sundance. I'm asking Rob Moss. He's a brilliant filmmaker himself. He teaches at Harvard. He was like, rommel, I don't want you to get your hopes up. You know, like, the film's good, like, I like it, but like, these films don't. They don't get into these festivals because the festivals are beholden to the audience and all these other things. And the programmers may like it, but can that fill the seats? You know, and he's saying this as an independent filmmaker. He's not making commercial films, but he's just trying to manage my expectations. And so we genuinely thought that the film would be something that was like on the library shelf inside the RISD library, that in 10 years someone comes across and it gives them something to work with, inspiration wise or visual wise, and affects them, and then maybe someone will know about it later in life.
- [96:58]
Sean Fennessey
So then why do you think that didn't happen? Why do you think it did get programmed at those festivals? It did get awards attention from your perspective, obviously you're deep inside of it. You made it. But why did it click?
- [97:10]
Romel Ross
Well, I'd say there's a couple reasons. I think the practical reason, the traceable reason, is that Sundance program camera person, KJ's Kirsten Johnson's camera person, the Year before in New Frontier. Now, that film was radical in its consolidation of documentary footage. Edited by Nails Bangerter, amazing editor. They wanted to put that in the main competition, but they didn't think that people were ready for it. So they put it in New Frontier and it kills. Amazing film. So then my film comes along, and then they're like, well, maybe this is the film that we can put into the competition. And so. And I'm kind of unsure. I mean, I know, like, the Ross brothers made a film, like a zip code film that is similar only because there's not many examples of, like, the sort of longitudinal collage of moments to make a sort of singular piece. And I don't know if I think it made it. I'm not sure if it made it into Sundance, but that's almost a predecessor to Cameraperson.
- [98:11]
Sean Fennessey
Is it Chupitalis or was it.
- [98:12]
Romel Ross
No, no, it was like, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9.
- [98:15]
Sean Fennessey
Oh, yeah, right.
- [98:16]
Romel Ross
Was the number. And so if, like, those who are interested, you can kind of trace the lineage of how films get to places and how they're accepted. Like, Hale county seems to be an anomaly, but it's on the back of, like, many other films that, like, chipped away at people's expectations of a film to do a certain thing and then chipped away again. And then. And I'm sure that there are films that are in places because Hale county was able to break through, and now people are able to take more risk on these sort of poetic views of the world.
- [98:46]
Sean Fennessey
I think that's really right. I think everything is operating on this kind of continuum, and sometimes it's invisible, but, yeah, totally, that there were some people who were kind of kicking indoors very slowly so that certain things can come through. It's interesting, too, that you cite that Jocelyn was, you know, had worked with Apichapong and Lucretia Martell, because I feel like Nickel Boys is really in the tradition of those kinds of films, these kind of durational, deep, kind of probing stories, but that don't follow the conventional rhythms of certainly, American movie storytelling. So I'm fascinated by this movie. I really like Nickel Boys a lot. What led to making the decision then to try to adapt a work of fiction after making a documentary?
- [99:28]
Romel Ross
Well, the idea to do it wasn't mine. I don't typically, like. I don't read a book, and I'm like, that would make a great film. Maybe. Maybe I should adapt it. Like, I don't think that way. You know, we got a call. Jocelyn got a call from Dee Dee Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner from Plan B that they wanted to chat with me. We both go, have a long conversation, goes away over time. They asked if I read Nickel Boys asked if I was interested in adapting it. I wasn't so much interested. I took the meeting because Dee Dee. And once Hale county came out, I've gotten asked to make tons of films, and I don't see my. I'm like, I'm not a filmmaker in that sense, you know, so this was along those lines. But Dee Dee made Tree of Life, and Tree of Life is, I think, just. It's one of my lodestar or whatever you can tell.
- [100:25]
Sean Fennessey
Watching Nickel Boyz, there's a couple of moments where I was like, oh, man. Okay. I know that exact perspective from that character's eyes is, yes, okay, that's great.
- [100:32]
Romel Ross
To hear so many times. And it's inexhaustible to me. It's like everything, the ambition, the aesthetic, the risk, the payoffs, the non payoffs, all of it works to me. And so I told Josh that I definitely didn't want to make a film unless I had creative control, obviously. And because GD had made that film, I was like, maybe no one makes that film. You know, like, you realize, talking to Jomo, who's the DP who's made many films and made many commercials, he says a thing. He's like, most people can't make the decisions to make the films that they love because all of those decisions are anthetical to the way in which we're taught to participate in the industry, you know, which is pretty eye opening. It's hard to take those risks because you're putting your career on the line to some degree. So the fact that dede had made Tree of Life was, you know, worthy of the conversation. And then just meeting those two, they seemed to just be open to something fresh. They loved Hale county, and it appeared to be a match in Made in Heaven. And then from there, started to develop.
- [101:42]
Sean Fennessey
Because you're not pursuing your career the way that other young filmmakers are, do you feel then that you are more able to take those risks that you were told most filmmakers can't take? Because you're like, I have a teaching job. I just keep making documentaries. I can shoot photos. Like, is that so? Do you feel safer in that way?
- [102:00]
Romel Ross
I think that's my cheat code.
- [102:01]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
- [102:02]
Romel Ross
But it doesn't work for everyone. And I feel bad, like, genuinely, almost like I'm misleading people. You know, like the rich person that's like, you can make money all you gotta do is. It's easy to say that when you're rich.
- [102:14]
Sean Fennessey
Take a chance. Why not?
- [102:15]
Romel Ross
Yeah, it worked for you, bro. But, like, I don't have the same circumstances as you. Like, I think because my logic or my reasoning as to how I got to where I am is. Basketball was so important to me. I was supposed to go to the league. I was on track. Like, all the stuff. So many injuries. I've always felt like photography, art, and filmmaking and writing are like a second life. And I know the mistakes that I've made. Though injuries set me back in basketball. I know the sort of intellectual mistakes I made. And I take photography and art as something that's way more spiritual and way more. I just have a different relationship to it. Like, there's no. I don't really compromise. I'm not in it for. I don't want to go to the NBA in terms of film. That's not my interest. Like, I'm trying. I'm, like, trying to fill the void that was produced when I failed at basketball. Wasn't my fault. And, like, my mom died around the same time. So it was like a double, huge, gaping hole in me. And I don't know if it's fillable, but that's what the craft or that's what the art is doing for me. So I'm just not interested, genuinely not interested in anything that isn't working on that in. In that space.
- [103:30]
Sean Fennessey
You're very evolved, I gotta say. Like, most people don't have that. Like, willing. Willing to accept their own definition of success and not others, I think is something that is super complicated. And I think the same goes for this movie, which I saw in a festival setting. And I would say half the people I talked to were like, I've never seen anything like it. It blew me away. And then the other half were like, I've never seen anything like it. I didn't get it.
- [103:51]
Romel Ross
Yeah.
- [103:51]
Sean Fennessey
And so you really have this very rigorous approach to telling this story in a way that, despite even being inspired by something like Tree of Life, like, I've not really ever seen a movie like this. I've not seen a movie that uses first person in this particular way, that has, like, a kind of fungibility with it, but also sticks to its own rules. Can you just talk about developing the idea of shooting the movie this way and then maybe also some of the practical consequences and upsides of shooting this way?
- [104:18]
Romel Ross
Well, we're gonna go conceptual first.
- [104:19]
Sean Fennessey
Okay.
- [104:20]
Romel Ross
And I'm gonna forget your question.
- [104:21]
Sean Fennessey
Okay. I'll come back to it.
- [104:23]
Romel Ross
I've wanted. I thought about this one in particular as to why I make images in the way I do. And whatever voice that people say that I have with art and with language as it relates to the art that I make is that I think, and this is a huge general statement, like the history of people making work is so deeply tied to their identity that it's invisible. And so the easiest comparison is just music. You think about when people get instruments and they're learning how to play and they're from an Anglo background, they're doing classical stuff, they're doing whatever. You give it to a black person who has had a completely different experience in the same culture. And then you have something like jazz, which is mind blowing, Right. Like, how can you use that same thing that we've been using for hundreds of years and just do something so wild? Because, like, the way that that person has been forced to relate to the world, channeled through their instrument, produces different use. And so coming. Looking at film and photography, I like, I don't believe in the way in which the camera's been used historically. It just doesn't work for me. I just don't. I don't understand why people use it that way. It's confusing to me.
- [105:45]
Sean Fennessey
But when you were watching Fight Club or Shawshank, two movies that you cited, did you also feel that way? Did you feel like this isn't right, like this should be different?
- [105:53]
Romel Ross
No. But I wasn't. I wasn't self interested spiritually. I wasn't. I wasn't trying to find myself. There was no, there was no internal gaze at all. It was all external. I was, I was, I was programmed, you know, I was working in American culture, which is how we are and some could argue how we, we need to be to have this, this experiment go on. That's another conversation. But I'd never looked back at myself and the loss, the two losses in my life, just forced reflection. And that kind of opens up a sort of like a sort of just. You're more disappointed with what you took for granted, you know?
- [106:32]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
- [106:32]
Romel Ross
And so coming to use the camera for this film in pov, which I say, and which we say for people to understand it, but we actually called it on set, synthiate perspective. Because POV is not what we're doing. POV is Action Cam. It's GoPro, it's Lady in the Lake, it's Enter the Void. Sentient Perspective is using the camera as an organ. It's using the camera as a way to align the audience's perceptual encounter with the film world with the characters, which is one that is not the same as the objectivity that is used in pov or the traditional objectivity of the camera, while having subjective moments in many different ways across many different films in many different genres.
- [107:20]
Sean Fennessey
So when you use the word organ, like, what do you specifically mean by that meaning?
- [107:24]
Romel Ross
Like, I like to call it observational logic. And it's kind of taken from observational footage or using a camera observationally in documentary space. But observational logic is, to me, an issue with shooting at 24 frame. I'm sorry, at 24 millimeters or 17 millimeters. And having the whole thing be cleared in focus is a person's eye gets to wander the frame. Right. But that's a good thing because human beings can see at that scale. But the thing is that without trying to be one to one with human vision, human beings, our attention is always focused within there. And having everything clear and allowing the audience to look around undermines our sensorial perceptive attention moment. So if you get a narrow lens and you shoot really shallow and you use the camera in a way that mimics the attention of consciousness, then to me, that's observational logic. You're not observing, but you're using the logic of observation in a human. And that's a different way of using the camera. And I do that in Hale county, which was the. I use as a proof of concept when like, talking to the producers and those about the film.
- [108:35]
Sean Fennessey
It is. It's stupid to say stuff like revolutionary, but as I was watching the film, I think I had a similar experience as some other people I saw it with, which is in the first act of the movie. It takes a moment to adjust. It takes a moment to like, understand and I think even more so accept that you have like broken a rule, an expectation for how you tell a story. But if you accept it, then it kind of rewires your brain for what all movies should be.
- [109:00]
Romel Ross
You gotta accept it though.
- [109:01]
Sean Fennessey
You have to.
- [109:02]
Romel Ross
That's the thing. Yeah. It's hard for people to accept because if you accept this, you have to look at yourself differently, I think, because you're. You're not looking from you anymore.
- [109:12]
Sean Fennessey
Right.
- [109:12]
Romel Ross
But the camera, what the camera always does is it allows you to maintain a distance. But. And it's not even that what we're doing in Nickel Boys is also not a distance. It's just one less level of abstraction and adjacent. So it's just a little bit different.
- [109:26]
Sean Fennessey
So. So I mean, that was my exact experience was. I found that it was literally distancing at first and then the opposite afterward. It was, it was like the. The portal to empathy as soon as you accept it. Yeah, but that's a really. It's a. It's a heady and bold choice. Like, did you find. Was anybody, like, pushing back on this? Were they like, don't do this.
- [109:46]
Romel Ross
It's never going to work.
- [109:47]
Sean Fennessey
Like, what, what. What are the conversations like? Cause you're obviously, you're working with, you know, Plan B is very accepting of creative people and they support creative people historically, but still.
- [109:57]
Romel Ross
But this is the thing. No one could make the film but them. I didn't know that until we're in the process. And then I see them calling on others to trust them. Don't worry about it, okay? We got it. You know what I mean? Like, I was talking to Muncher, who it was about the sort of powerhouse of folks that we had. We had Alana, Mayo, Orion, Jeremy, Dee Dee and Jocelyn and David Levine from Anonymous Content. And like, it's gonna be hard to another collection of people if they're behind the same idea. Who's gonna say no to all of them? You know, and they like, you know, they fought for the film at all and they didn't have to do much fighting. Like, they're the ones that are in control and so they. Yeah, I don't think the film could have been ushered into pre production, to production and through production with all the conversations we had with anyone else, because I don't know if they'd be willing to, like I said, make the decisions to make the thing possible.
- [111:00]
Sean Fennessey
What about the actual physical production? Because, you know, actors are not necessarily trained to perform in this way. I don't know what your. If your crew had worked on things that had, you know, similarly been done this way. But I imagine, like, the performance style's gotta be different, you know, if you're performing to the camera in that specific way. Like, were there hiccups? Was it hard to get people to kind of get on board with this strategy?
- [111:22]
Romel Ross
It wasn't hard to have people get on board. I think in general, just the language of the production was different. And the language of. Yeah, the language of the film is so specific to itself that everyone just had to come in and learn at the same time. I'd never directed actors in this sense before. I directed in other ways. I had really experienced production heads, though. I had like the best AD in the game, James Rock. You know, we had Nora in production design, had Joe Mode. Amazing. DP And I can name every single person, but they're experienced in getting the job done. And I know what the images look like. I know what it should. Around, what it should feel like. And then the rest is kind of everyone always being honest with if something isn't working or isn't working and trying to. Honestly, trying to pick out, like, a lot of the small ways that can undermine the performance. Like, we had, like, a very specific point in the camera in which we wanted the actors to look. Sometimes they would forget and look three inches to the right or left because they've never been asked to do this before. That destroys the shot. Yeah, because the person is looking past the person. And those subtle things are easy to miss because we're worried about so many other things. Like, we. You know, we had a manifesto that myself, Jomo and Sam. Sam was the other operator, would read. And one of the lines on it was something along the lines of the camera has. There are no scenes. There's no direction for the camera to face. There are no. Essentially that it's a single point perspective in which no action is oriented in any direction. The camera, as the character, finds what the world will be and the world exists before. And so that's really hard to design. That's really hard to. You know, most of the actors in the scenes are not even on camera because the character's eyes never get to them. But they're vital for the scene to feel alive so that you just sense that off screen something is happening. Like, those types of things were the difficult. Cause we didn't get to rehearse. You don't get to rehearse that. We don't get to rehearse telling the extras. You know, when Elwood gets called to be off of the labor duty, I want you to look into the camera as if you're looking at Elwood, who now you're pissed off that he doesn't have to work as hard as you anymore. Like, they've all been trained never to look into the camera. But now we need them to look into the camera as if they're looking at the character. So that the camera. If people glance around a little bit, they actually feel like they're still that center.
- [114:17]
Sean Fennessey
Right.
- [114:17]
Romel Ross
You know?
- [114:18]
Sean Fennessey
Right.
- [114:18]
Romel Ross
And those things. We learned that on set. Oh, yeah. We actually need people to be looking. We need more movement over here because it actually feels empty. And that's the kind of learning process that everyone was open to.
- [114:28]
Sean Fennessey
I want to ask you about the moments when you're not using that strategy, there's one that is sort of a version of that, which is that the film goes out of its way to not shy away from the violence that is incurred upon the characters in the story. But it's not explicit about showing that violence. It feels like a very purposeful choice. But it's unmistakable that something awful is happening while you're doing that. But that in a way seems to almost be like a comment on the comment that you're making by seeing the world through these characters eyes. Like, I was wondering if you could talk about that decision a little bit.
- [114:59]
Romel Ross
Yeah, it. I think it emerges from, you know, like Hale county is a responsive film. I kind of pseudo think that almost all films that are, for lack of a better word, don't even know why I'm saying this. Black films are responsive. Films are responding to the history of cinema and the history of photography. Right. The problem that it has been the technology of racism, I say. And so looking like watching people suffer is something that has been happening in cinema over time. I'd say it's been a dominant narrative for people of color, specifically American film history. And so one has to wonder how that produces our version of a person, how that changes or ignores or desensitize our relationship to seeing those people suffer. But also to me, it doesn't seem right or real. And not that cinema is right or real. I think people think that it is right and real. When in fact, this sort of mana. Monocular consolidation of space is probably one of the most dangerous things that's happened to our brains as it relates to images, human beings, consciousness, time, space.
- [116:21]
Sean Fennessey
I'm very guilty of this, of believing that this is how things are. Yeah, I watch a lot of movies. Yeah, it's true.
- [116:25]
Romel Ross
It's so dangerous. Like, what is it doing to our brains? Like, to look at the world photographically, to say, whoa, that's photographic, or that's cinematic. That's not good. That's not a good way to see the world.
- [116:37]
Sean Fennessey
Well, it depends on what you're looking at or what you're trying to portray.
- [116:40]
Romel Ross
True, true.
- [116:41]
Sean Fennessey
So depending on the subject matter. In this case, I think I felt like I understood your intention.
- [116:46]
Romel Ross
But like we were walking down the street and something happens and we're like, whoa, that was photographic. That means we see the world as photographs. What else does that mean? I don't know. I'm not smart enough, but I don't think that it's talked about enough.
- [116:58]
Sean Fennessey
This is worse than it's ever been. Though, because we have phones in our pocket that allow us to all feel like we can make cinema magic. Yeah, it's complicated. But what about. So then there's a related matter, which is.
- [117:09]
Romel Ross
Oh, wait, but wait, but wait. Let me continue. I remembered what you. What you asked, and I wanted to finish. Because when we're thinking about trauma in its variety of forms, one has to wonder, having gone through traumatic moments ourselves, what one looks at during those moments. We're used to watching people go through it. We see the big picture. But I don't know, when I broke my bones and had my shoulder sticking out and all these things, I'm not looking at my shoulder like, damn, that's traumatic. I'm, like, looking up at the ceiling, like, oh, God, I don't want to look to my left and I'm looking at the wind on the thing being like, don't think about your shoulder. Don't think about your shoulder. And so taking that into a film in which a moment in which someone's being violence is being enacted on them, like, what's their experience of it? I believe that we focus, from my experience, we focus in on details which become the sort of icon of the moment. And then we go back into the world. And so just trying to one respond to being overly. It being overly visualized in the past, but also just try to be more realistic.
- [118:21]
Sean Fennessey
That's interesting. So I feel like the film style is operating on this slipstream of using both, maybe inspirations from directors like Malick, but then also taking the tools that you have learned as a documentarian and filtering them into narrative feature filmmaking. So there are moments where we see found documents or we hear something, or there's, like, abstractions. There's this idea of the sky and the stars. There we see alligators, you know, like, and very metaphorical choices at times. These are really also really bold strokes in an adaptation of a novel. Yeah, you don't have to, like, address every single one of them. But the documentary elements in particular, I found interesting in the way that you included them in the telling of the story. So what goes into making those decisions? When do you think this is the right time to show us this headline from this story or this image, this historical image that is referencing something that truly happened as opposed to the narrative world that we're living inside of?
- [119:19]
Romel Ross
Yeah, I think I love the question. It was an intuitive process for Jass and myself because, as you're mentioning, we have our ties in nonfiction, but I think in particular, the film in its first form was an edit of the film in images and camera movement, the final film. If you compare those two, they're not far apart. 80% overlap, you know, like in the edit, you have to use what works. And just because you said archival image goes here doesn't mean that it would go there if it's not functioning. But the idea was always specifically for Coulson's narrative. It's so tied to the real world, and the way in which dramatic narratives traditionally exist in this rarefied space of cinema makes it feel in the cinematic, otherworldly sense where we leave. And it was something we experience in the theater, and it's not something that we would encounter in the world. And when I look at the Nickel Boy story as it ties to the Dozier School for Boys, the reason why the Dozier School for Boys existed in Florida, North Florida boys being murdered and the reason why Colson's novel existed is partly because of the visual language, America's visual constitution. They're inextricable. You can't treat black boys the way that they did at the Dozer School for Boys without. Without the language of photography pushing forth a stereotypical idea of black folks in the late 1800s, in the early 1900s, in the history of the Southern documentary photography. They're inextricable. And so how do you not allow. How do you remind people that Coulson's narrative is not only based on an actual school, but that actual school is part of a system of visualization that still exists today and should not be separated from the production aesthetics of, like, high quality film.
- [121:23]
Sean Fennessey
Do you see making the movie as breaking and reconstituting that visual history or just representing it or somewhere in between?
- [121:30]
Romel Ross
I hope it's doing. I hope it's doing five versions of that. You know, I think that it is, because I think that that reminder isn't often done. I think that it's not useful for the industry always to have people have to reflect on the complicity of this story and the way in which their community's been redlined, you know, or have to think about the documentary images, the nonfiction images from the black family archives of the 70s and 80s, and that these joyful boys under a Christmas tree or jumping outside could be a Dozier boy or might be their neighbor who had, like. I don't think that those. Those direct ties making someone emotionally, not intellectually, because you can read this in, like, a. A short story or in a New York Times piece, but to have it happen through images is just a different relationship to the brain. I don't think that that's normal.
- [122:33]
Sean Fennessey
I want to ask you about one scene. There's a scene that takes place in the future in a bar. It's an amazing, incredible, Unbelievable.
- [122:41]
Romel Ross
Right?
- [122:42]
Sean Fennessey
I mean, you made it, like, just.
- [122:43]
Romel Ross
I mean, I made it with a whole bunch of people, but also watching this shit unfold in real life. Everyone. Everyone. See, the actors are, like, doing their thing. There's not no one that's in that bar that is not like, oh, my God. This is. Isn't this unbelievable? It's not just me.
- [122:59]
Sean Fennessey
You know when you're watching a movie and you're. You're like, this movie is having a moment, right? Yeah. You know, it's obviously, it's. It's incredibly a pained sequence, and it is very revelatory about what's in the story and what the story has been about and who these characters are. But I haven't read the novel, so I don't know even how to compare what Coulson wrote and maybe how some of these things are revealed in the storytelling. But I was just hoping you could maybe talk to me a little bit about staging that sequence and why it's in the place that it is for how you wanted to tell the story.
- [123:27]
Romel Ross
Yeah, well, that was a centerpiece, although it's not in the middle centerpiece scene. There are a couple. And as you know, the film is very rhythmic and very musical in its use of images. And so it, like, ebbs and flows. And it doesn't sit very often, though it does sit, maybe more than I'm giving it credit to in this moment. That.
- [123:51]
Sean Fennessey
But that sequence is almost stationary.
- [123:53]
Romel Ross
Yeah, true, true. That's true. It probably is the longest one as well. Yeah. What to say? That was the one that. There are a couple things where we're like, if we can. Things that we knew we had to nail if. Or had to do. 80% if we can do. If we can nail this. We're like, if we can get Anjanu. Anjan's our first. If we get Angenu to be Hattie, if we can nail the Chicky Pete bar scene, if we can integrate the archival as imagined so that it's abrupt, but it's not. You don't question it in the way in which you would. When things have a little bit of a seam in between them, then we think that the movie can work. This one in particular, because it's. It does the thing that everyone experiences in life, which is running into someone that you knew from the past and having to reconcile the gap of information between them. Them remembering their face as they are younger and there not being. There being like a sort of distance between who you are, who you want to be, and what you think each of you think of each other. Just that really complicated. And then in the context of the dojo, School for Boys is really profound because there's so much trauma that is spoken but never really experienced or seen in the film. We just knew. It just had so much power. So much power. And we had to. We had to do it right. And Craig Tate is. I mean, David's in that scene. And I don't want to give it away for people who haven't seen it to know how it's shot and whatnot. But what a blessing, if that's the right word, a secular blessing, to. For Craig Tate to have been. He was actually cast very late, um, and blew everybody.
- [125:57]
Sean Fennessey
It's kind of shattering.
- [125:58]
Romel Ross
Performance out of the water. I've never. I've never experienced anything in cinema. This is a oner. The entire film is conceived as oners. This is like a 15 minute, 20 minute take and just. I don't know. There's nothing realer. There was nothing. He was that.
- [126:14]
Sean Fennessey
As I was watching it, I was like, okay, we are. We are truly having a moment. So congrats on that. It's really great. One last question. I love that Ethiopian jazz record at the end of the song. And I was wondering why you chose that song.
- [126:27]
Romel Ross
Because of what you felt. Yeah, yeah. The film was very, very, very, very, very conceived, you know, similar. I say it's similar to Hell county because people look at Hell county and I remember some of the early comments, like, whoa. It was just like, so random the way that this thing, like you put this here, then that was there, and I was like, yeah, random. That's. I just. I just. This is just. It's a collage. That's all that it is. It's a big, long montage. There's nothing strategic about any of it. Yeah. And I almost think that I would, like, mockingly say that and hope that they knew I was joking, but also, like, come on, man.
- [127:02]
Sean Fennessey
Like, you were concerned about those comments. You will also get them about, you know, you gotta brace yourself for some of that.
- [127:08]
Romel Ross
Yeah, the montage. I made a proof of concept of that montage before we wrote the script, because Joss and I were trying to figure out if the, like, how to. How to build this thing out. We needed something to get to, you know, And I heard. I heard that song and it just, you know, logged itself as an earworm, as some people say. It lodged itself in my head and just never forgot it. And then once I read the Nickel boy script, I was like, if I make this movie, I know how it ends. It ends with this wild, you know, flood of psychic images from one of these characters. And this is the song. And so many conversations about, well, what about this song? What about this song from all the people who are rightfully stress testing the idea. Right. It's not a song that you would normally put at the end of a film that's dealing with this content or a film that even looks like this because it's just not it.
- [128:15]
Sean Fennessey
But the dissonance works so well.
- [128:16]
Romel Ross
Yeah.
- [128:17]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, it's a great choice.
- [128:18]
Romel Ross
Yeah.
- [128:19]
Sean Fennessey
Ramil, this has been great. We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen? Have you seen anything good lately?
- [128:26]
Joanna Robinson
Wow.
- [128:27]
Romel Ross
I've seen so many good things. I'm gonna say the thing that I watch the most and I've seen the most, which people are gonna be like, I can't believe you said that. La Jetee. Chris Marcus. La Jete.
- [128:41]
Sean Fennessey
Wow. That seems to be an inspiration on your work.
- [128:43]
Romel Ross
Yeah, it's only 30 minutes long or so, but, you know, I probably watch it once a month.
- [128:48]
Sean Fennessey
Do you remember when you first saw this is Chris Marker's documentary? Sort of.
- [128:52]
Romel Ross
Exactly. Whatever it is.
- [128:53]
Sean Fennessey
Whatever it is. Yeah.
- [128:54]
Romel Ross
When did I see that first? I think it was probably grad school. It was like 32, 33. Yeah, it just like one of the pieces where you watch it and you're like, oh, I understand something different about the world. And this. I don't know how he does it, but this form and all of its concentric pieces is a proxy for whatever it is. It gives you access to something else. And so I'm sorry I couldn't say anything more contemporary, but I have, like, my go tos and that's just one of them.
- [129:23]
Sean Fennessey
It's a great recommendation. Thank you so much for doing the show. Congrats.
- [129:26]
Romel Ross
Thank you. Thank you.
- [129:35]
Sean Fennessey
Thank you to Romel Ross. Thank you to Joanna Robinson. Thanks to Jack Sanders. Thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on today's episode. Next week, it is time for Bob Dylan. It's time for Timothee Chalamet. It's time for a complete unknown. Is it time for a meltdown from yours truly? Tune in and find out. We'll see you then.