F---, Marry, Kill at the Movies: ‘The Housemaid,’ ‘Song Sung Blue,’ and ‘Anaconda’

Summary

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The Big Picture

Episode: F---, Marry, Kill at the Movies: ‘The Housemaid,’ ‘Song Sung Blue,’ and ‘Anaconda’
Date: December 29, 2025
Hosts: Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins
Special Guest: Craig Brewer (director of ‘Song Sung Blue’)

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Episode Overview

Sean and Amanda tackle a "Fuck, Marry, Kill" themed episode for three buzzy late-2025 wide releases—all movies that riff on familiar Hollywood genres but push in bent or meta directions:

• The soapy, erotic thriller The Housemaid
• The meta-creature action comedy Anaconda
• The musical, heartfelt biopic Song Sung Blue

The hosts dissect each film’s merits and flaws, debate the state of movies “for women,” reflect on the current IP obsession in Hollywood, and close with an in-depth interview with ‘Song Sung Blue’ director Craig Brewer.

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Major Discussion Points & Insights

Opening & Pop Culture Banter

(02:12–09:09)

• Sean and Amanda riff on The Odyssey trailer (the new Nolan epic starring Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway), the glut of 2026 blockbusters, and trailer fatigue.
  • Amanda: “I thought Anne Hathaway looked very pretty.” (02:20)
• They roast the endless cycle of Marvel teasers and reflect on seeing Zootopia 2 with kids.
• Amanda’s story of napping during Zootopia 2:

  “I had what I thought was like maybe the apex of my parenting when after I took a quick nap, my almost four year old son said, 'what's happening?' And I like startled awake. And what I said as I was half awake was, 'I don't know, but everyone's okay.' And that reassured him.” (06:00)

• Musings on kids’ reaction to “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and the inevitability of blockbuster culture.

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Review 1: The Housemaid

(09:36–39:05)
Tagline: Steamy, campy, trashy—soapy melodrama with a twist

Summary/Plot

• Sydney Sweeney plays a housemaid with a troubled past who is hired by Amanda Seyfried's character, and—amidst a sea of beige interiors—sex, violence, and deceit unravel.
• Co-produced/directed by Paul Feig; adapted from Frieda McFadden’s 2022 novel.
• Movie’s twist (spoilers!) and wild shifts in tone are dissected at length.

Notable Points

• Hosts use “fuck, marry, kill” to rank the trio of movies; this is the “fuck”—an imperfect, indulgent, horny thrill ride.

  Sean: “The housemaid is the obvious fuck, right? Because it’s like, you got to at least give this one shot.” (10:22)

• Amanda on genre cravings:

  “I want more of this. I want more good versions of this… I like that we're trying to make the Gone Girls of the world. You know, this doesn’t live up to it… the reveal itself is, like, fairly disappointing.” (11:37)

• Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried discussed at length:
  • Sweeney “miscast,” not given enough to do. “She is very beautiful. And yeah, they use that on purpose throughout.” (18:51)
  • Seyfried praised as “one of my favorites… a really interesting performer,” but this isn’t her best work. (16:11)
  • Brandon Sklennar: “He’s being marketed as your new guy… he’s always been a bit blurry faced.” (22:04)
• The hosts skewer the beige, soulless production design (“We have to talk about interior design in this country.” 12:30), killer color commentary.
• The twist is panned as drawn out and messy.

  “We spend a lot of time being like, why are they like that? And not a lot of clarity. And then this rush to give it all away in the final stages of the movie I think makes the movie feel pretty incoherent.” (30:25)

• Gender, trauma, and feminine-targeted thrillers:
  • Amanda: “There is a real strain in women's entertainment… very dark situations are sort of resolved and the woman in question finds some sort of peace. But it’s not really a happy ending. It’s like the work is marinating and enjoying the abuse or the dark aspects more than you would want.” (32:11)
• Ends with laughs about soundtrack choices (“Since You’ve Been Gone,” “Blue Bayou”, Barry Lyndon drop, Taylor Swift over credits—36:25), and a rundown of how movies “for women” are either IP romcoms, Colleen Hoover adaptations, or streaming dross.

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Review 2: Anaconda

(39:06–49:03)
Tagline: Meta-IP comedy—Jack Black & Paul Rudd remake their childhood favorite (and get hunted for real).

Summary/Plot

• Two lifelong friends (Jack Black, Paul Rudd) hit their midlife “crisis” and decide to remake Anaconda in the real Amazon, only to face an actual anaconda.
• Satirical, heavily meta, and self-aware about IP.

Notable Points

• Sean and Amanda saw it together; agreed it’s occasionally funny, but mostly “a cynical, depressing exercise in IP reinvention.” (40:09)
  • Sean: “I also laughed pretty hard about three or four times—which is a pretty good hit ratio for comedies for me in the 2020s.” (40:32)
• The casting is too old to sell the “midlife” premise—Paul Rudd and Jack Black are 56, not 42:

  “Why does this movie not star two people in their early 40s?” (42:47)

• Amanda: “Jack Black is black licorice to me.” (40:44)
• The “one-joke” premise wears thin quickly:

  “It’s kind of clever for two seconds. And then it’s supposed to be a feature-length film with one joke.” (44:45)

• Supporting cast wasted (Steve Zahn, Thandiwe Newton), failed attempts at action, and a setting that’s “insulting in its lack of depth.” (46:54)
• Verdict: This is their kill—“not a complete waste of time, but… disappointing” (47:11).

Memorable Cheesecake Factory Tangent

(47:41–48:10)

• Debate on best solo bar order after a bad movie (“Louisiana Chicken Pasta.” “Thai lettuce wraps.”).

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Review 3: Song Sung Blue

(52:07–62:39, and extended interview)
Tagline: Sincere, musical, working-class drama about obsession, marriage, and survival

Summary/Plot

• Biopic (adapted from a documentary) about a Milwaukee Neil Diamond tribute band couple—Mike (“Lightning”, Hugh Jackman) and Claire (“Thunder”, Kate Hudson)—who fall for each other, form a band, and weather devastating tragedy (Claire’s amputation) and addiction.
• Directed by Craig Brewer; not literally a Neil Diamond biopic, but a story “about what music does for people.”

Notable Points

• By default, “the marry pick”—charming, scrappy, and sincere, though not without problems.
  • Sean: “There is something so fantastic about seeing the way his music is affecting other people and that they're using it to transform their lives.” (76:31)
• The first hour—joyful and lightly meta (“I liked it in the way that The Housemaid is a movie that is only about opulence… This is really a movie about being lower middle class in the middle of the country...” 56:50), the second jaw-droppingly tragic ("amputation!”).
• Hugh Jackman praised for his charm and sincerity:

  “God, he’s really giving it his all. I just love how much he cares.” (53:00)

• Kate Hudson: "She's a good star... This is her trying to go to a second level. Sometimes she gets there." (59:45)
• Thoughtful attention to class, community, and the economics of “ordinary” performers.
• Conversation on why biopics feel formulaic; Amanda prefers this “inventive” spin that’s not about the actual artist, but about their impact.
• Fun tangent: Best Pearl Jam album? (“Phytology.” “No Code.”) (61:02)

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Interview: Craig Brewer (‘Song Sung Blue’ Director)

(63:37–116:39 MM:SS)

Key Insights

• Brewer’s origin story (64:13): “I just learned filmmaking really from books… my father passed away… gave me an inheritance, and I went out and got a digital camera from a pawn shop… made [my first] movie… That was the movie Stephanie Elaine and John Singleton saw… I was in an ampersand time in my life—there was Poor and Hungry, and this one was called Hustle and Flow.”
• Music as identity:

  “A lot of the plays that I was really into… always had kind of like a little bit of a… audacity to it… I found a rhythm with it… There was a time where all I did was buy books on Memphis music… and I learned everything I could about B.B. King, Sam Phillips… It informed how I direct.” (68:02–70:53) “There’s something about growing up a teen in the 80s—MTV had just started… movies had a music component…” (68:02)

• Why a story about a Neil Diamond cover band?

  “I made the movie for you. That’s what I wanted to hear. It got me actually interested in an artist I don’t have a relationship to.” (71:31) “He’s kind of that New York, you know, intellectual, but also a feeling artist that was really dealing with a lot of isolation and really dealing with loneliness…” (71:46)

• Subverting biopic conventions:

  “The point is, I’m hoping you don’t know anything about them… Is it okay to be artistically fulfilled just by staying in your community?... The power is not in becoming a supernova…” (77:16–78:47)

• On tonal balance:

  “If I could just get to the halfway point and then punch everybody in the gut, hopefully they would have invested enough time in falling in love with [these characters]..." (82:19)

• Casting Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson:

  “I needed two things. I needed Neil Diamond to sign off on the music, and I needed Hugh Jackman… He’s an entertainer… an unshakeable certainty in his earnestness… As someone who just went to Milwaukee with him—he really does care…” (85:52)

  • Hudson: “She’s good at comedy, but she’s not being considered for dramatic roles... I always tell people… give her a role.” (91:53)
• On filmmaking “middle class”/regionalism:

  “I prefer to stay in this space… the kind of content I'm attracted to exists better in this space… Are we kind of killing ourselves a little bit in the industry because we're making these assumptions of what the globe wants...?” (94:56–99:14)

• Personal note: On being the grandson of Mets great “Marvelous Marv” Throneberry. Some premium baseball nostalgia, heartbreak, and blue-collar metaphors. (99:14–112:08)

  “My favorite story about Marv is that they had like a couch store that put a bullseye on the left side… Marv hits it the most, but he earns a boat that he can't take home and has to pay taxes on." (109:16)

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Memorable Quotes

• Sean on ‘The Housemaid’:

  "The housemaid is the obvious fuck, right?... Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried in a steamy, campy erotic thriller. For all the straight boys at home. Sheesh.” (10:22)

• Amanda on genre expectations:

  “There is a real strain in women's entertainment and women's fiction right now... very dark situations that are sort of resolved and the woman in question is in danger and then finds some sort of peace or resolution or freedom." (32:11)

• Sean, about IP cynicism:

  “It's a metatextual joke… Hollywood is only interested in IP… The movie knows this. It's making fun of that idea but also participating in that idea and trying to have its cake and eat it too…” (40:52–41:44)

• Sean, on working/middle class in 'Song Sung Blue':

  “This is really a movie about being lower middle class in the middle of the country… If something like this happens to you, what are you going to do?” (56:50)

• Craig Brewer on regionalism & Neil Diamond:

  “Is it okay to be artistically fulfilled just by staying in your community and almost like, singing and performing for your community?” (77:52)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Odyssey/Blockbuster chatter: 02:12–08:44
• The Housemaid review: 09:36–39:05
• Anaconda review: 39:06–49:03
• Song Sung Blue review: 52:07–62:39
• Craig Brewer interview: 63:37–116:39

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Tone & Takeaways

• Conversational, irreverently intellectual, witty, occasionally cynical (especially on IP and streaming trends).
• The hosts continually ground discussion in personal experience (parenting, moviegoing, pop culture nostalgia).
• Each film is given both criticism and the benefit of their generous, genre-literate frames.
• The Craig Brewer interview is earnest, passionate, and full of filmmaking wisdom and personal storytelling about music, movies, and blue-collar life.

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For Listeners Who Didn’t Tune In

You’ll finish with an up-to-date sense of what’s happening at the movies this holiday, a sharp look at genre and “movies for women,” and a lovely, in-depth conversation about the emotional power of music and the importance of films about everyday people.

If you want hot takes:

• Fuck: The Housemaid—soapy, trashy, something to experience once
• Kill: Anaconda—one-joke meta-IP comedy that doesn’t deliver
• Marry: Song Sung Blue—sometimes corny, but sincere, surprising, and deeply felt

And, as always, plenty of Cheesecake Factory ordering strategy and New York Mets pain.

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Transcript

[Sean Fantasy]

Foreign. I'm Sean Fantasy.

[Amanda Davin]

I'm Amanda Davin and this is the.

[Sean Fantasy]

Big Picture, a conversation show about the final movies of 2025. Today on the show, we're discussing three 2025 wide releases that maybe you checked out with your family over the holidays. All three feel familiar with, with roots in traditional Hollywood sub genres. But all three are also a little bit different. I'm referring to the soapy, sexy melodrama the Housemaid, the meta action creature comedy Anaconda and the Neil diamond inspired true life biopic Song Tsung Blue. Which of these three did I like? Here's a hint. Later in the show, I have a conversation with director Craig Brewer who also wrote this movie and wrote Hustle and Flow and Dolemite is my Name directed that film. Song Song Blue is his latest. Little bit similar, a little different from his previous work. At heart, it's a musical, sincere and deeply felt movie. Stick around for our conversation. Craig is a wonderful guy and filmmaker. We'll talk about these movies right after this.

[Amanda Davin]

This episode of the Big Picture is presented by Amazon Prime. You know how in every great holiday movie there's that last minute scramble to make it all come together. From gifts to hosting essentials. Prime's fast shipping is always there for you during the holidays, especially when it's last minute and just can't wait. So if you need fast free delivery that saves the day, it's on Prime. Head to Amazon.comprime to shop now.

[Sean Fantasy]

Okay, last licks.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah, Here we go.

[Sean Fantasy]

This is the end.

[Amanda Davin]

So we're not going to do the Odyssey trailer because it's too late after everyone.

[Sean Fantasy]

I mean, it will have been a full week. So you want to talk about it? I mean, let's talk about it.

[Amanda Davin]

My review is it looked good.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, that's the problem with this discussion is I'm in.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

And I think the production design looks impressive. Yes.

[Amanda Davin]

Yes.

[Sean Fantasy]

The. I got particular chills watching the men rowing on the giant ship that spoke to me. That is very practical and beautiful looking.

[Amanda Davin]

I thought the Cyclops looked cool.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes. The brief glimpse we saw of the giant in the cave, I assume that was the Cyclops.

[Amanda Davin]

I think you're right. And I thought Anne Hathaway looked very pretty.

[Sean Fantasy]

Sure. Yes. That as well.

[Amanda Davin]

Once again, I found myself googling what I can do to try to look like Anne Hathaway.

[Sean Fantasy]

Well, these are high bars that we're setting for ourselves. Matt Damon, of course, playing Odysseus in the ancient Roman Greek text. Greek text. How dare you. Yeah, Lockdown. You know I've obviously been on a big upswing with Christopher Nolan in the last few years.

[Amanda Davin]

I thought you were going to say I've been on a big upswing with Homer.

[Sean Fantasy]

No, no. I read the Odyssey in school like so many others. Never read the Iliad.

[Amanda Davin]

Really?

[Sean Fantasy]

Never read it.

[Amanda Davin]

I read it in the area. Did I read it? Yeah, I read some of it in Greek.

[Sean Fantasy]

In Greek?

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah, I think I did. Well, I just know that meinon is the first word of the Iliad, and that means rage, and that's what the Iliad is about.

[Sean Fantasy]

And that explains why you connected with it. I'm very excited about the Odyssey. I do think it's. It's probably the one battle after another of 2026 for us, where it's like you can count on somewhere between three and 12 episodes about the movie. It's just very exciting to see Christopher Nolan using his power for good. A big, grand story that is not. No capes, you know, different kind of heroism than what we're used to in this country. Right. About a man just trying to get home to his family.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah, that's right.

[Sean Fantasy]

And be a good guy. Why can't we make more movies about good guys?

[Amanda Davin]

All the. Yeah. The temptations along the way.

[Craig Brewer]

That's right.

[Amanda Davin]

It's hard out here for you guys.

[Sean Fantasy]

Got these sirens singing us songs, trying to get us to come sully ourselves. Odysseus says, no, no, thank you. I gotta go see Anne Hathaway. Who among us.

[Amanda Davin]

He sort of says no. Sort of after saying yes. You know?

[Sean Fantasy]

Well, they're very. They're tempting. You know, that's their whole thing. You think he'll zag. Like, you think Wonder Woman will be in this? Like, what do you think is gonna happen? You never know. Okay. I mean, will there be. I guess there's going to be an Avengers Doomsday trailer while we're out.

[Amanda Davin]

Oh, right. There were, like, six of them. Jack said he saw one, and he described it to me, and it was like, Chris Evans holding a shield.

[Sean Fantasy]

What? No, no, no, no, no. Chris Evans is holding a baby. And the camera slowly pans up from the baby to his face. And then it cuts to text. It says, steve Rogers will return in Avengers Doomsday.

[Craig Brewer]

And then a clock starts to kick.

[Sean Fantasy]

Down to when the movie will be played in theaters.

[Amanda Davin]

Is it his baby?

[Sean Fantasy]

Who knows? I'm not very. I'm not really caught up in that. Baby Thanos. He went back in time. Went back in time, got in the DeLorean, got baby. Thanos was like, I'm bringing this baby with me.

[Amanda Davin]

Was Thanos purple when he was born or did he take on powers that.

[Sean Fantasy]

I don't even have a joke. I don't know what you're talking about. He's an alien. Yes, he's an alien with purple skin.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay. And that is like. That's what he is like and not just how he appears to human beings.

[Sean Fantasy]

You know, Is this like a. Is Pandora a real place?

[Amanda Davin]

Question I'm trying to engage.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, I appreciate it.

[Amanda Davin]

You know, I'm getting involved in all the blockbusters for 2026.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think it's reasonable to be concerned about Avengers Doomsday.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay. I certainly am.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think it's reasonable. I would love to love it. I really would.

[Amanda Davin]

I would love to love it too. I would love to let joy back into my heart after my how many.

[Sean Fantasy]

Years now.

[Amanda Davin]

At the box office where I saw Zootopia 2 with my child. It's a thumbs down for me.

[Sean Fantasy]

Shameful act. A shameful act.

[Amanda Davin]

I took a brief nap during it as well. Once they went to Zootopia.

[Sean Fantasy]

Hard to believe you thought it was confusing.

[Amanda Davin]

Once they went to Zootopia, Burning Man. I was like, I can jump out of this for 10 minutes.

[Sean Fantasy]

You missed the Shakira song.

[Amanda Davin]

No, they performed it again at the end and my son said, I want to stay for this. But anyway, I had.

[Sean Fantasy]

Thank you.

[Amanda Davin]

I had what I thought was like maybe the apex of my parenting when after I took a quick nap, my almost four year old son said, what's happening? And I like startled awake. And what I said as I was half awake was, I don't know, but everyone's okay. And that reassured him. And then we moved on. Everyone was okay.

[Sean Fantasy]

Sometimes you have to lie when you're a parent and that's an amazing example of that. Well, it's just scintillating stuff. Thank you so much.

[Amanda Davin]

We saw the Mandalorian and Grogu trailer, which he was very excited about. So.

[Sean Fantasy]

So yeah, actually. So wait till he sees Star Wars. It's going to be fucking amazing.

[Amanda Davin]

I mean, I, you know, he was interested, but. Perplexed by Grogu.

[Sean Fantasy]

Aren't we all?

[Amanda Davin]

But you could see the wheels turning, you know, so maybe it's my year of blockbusters. Maybe I'll be really, really into Mandalorian and Grogu. Maybe I'll be really into Avengers Doomsday. Obviously I'm going to be into the Odyssey. You know, it's just going to be cinema Amanda with my popcorn.

[Sean Fantasy]

Me showing Knox like Captain Winter Soldier. Is going to hit like fucking crack. Like it might be like six more years, but it's going to be unbelievable when I'm like, that's Bucky Barnes, my friend. Let me tell you a little something about this Winter Soldier. It's going to be incredible.

[Amanda Davin]

Do you know how many Avatar questions he has for you? Like waiting for you when he sees you?

[Sean Fantasy]

Like, there's way too many guns in that movie. I. Oh, no, no, he can't.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah, no, he can never ever. He can never ever see it, but never ever. I. I'm trying to keep him away.

[Sean Fantasy]

From this 78 years old, some 10.

[Amanda Davin]

Year old Nerf guns to the playground. And I was like, what are we doing here? And Knox just sat down and just was like, I told him he couldn't have them, that those were for big kids, but not in our family.

[Sean Fantasy]

Those were for Navi.

[Amanda Davin]

And then he just sat down watching the Nerf guns for like 15 minutes.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, I mean, that's why they make them.

[Amanda Davin]

I very, I told Chris the story and he was like, yeah, of course he did.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davin]

So he can never. Who doesn't love a Nerf Avatar? But he has, through various advertisements, learned the, like, the full title. And so when anyone says Avatar, he says fire and ash.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's incredible how screwed you are. Like, it is astonishing. He's the most Avatar boy I've ever encountered in terms of like, he's an adventurous kid who wants to like run around and see the world. That's fucking Avatar, man.

[Amanda Davin]

This all started because he wanted to know about a movie with parachutes. And I was like, well, can I tell you about some jellyfish parachutes?

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davin]

And then he asked me the names of the creatures. I don't know.

[Sean Fantasy]

You gotta show them in order. Like, we have to start with Avatar. Let's set the world building up.

[Amanda Davin]

That is your problem. Okay. And I will refer him to you.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think we should just get him right in touch with Big Jim. Just see if they can connect. Big Jim just sold the hell out of that movie. He just did so much press. I've never seen him do so much press.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah, it's whatever. I mean, Leo was on podcasts this year.

[Sean Fantasy]

You know this podcast? Yeah, that's a fact. Leonardo DiCaprio in 2025 was on this podcast. True.

[Amanda Davin]

So listen, anything's possible. Dream big, as they say. Dream big.

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[Sean Fantasy]

Somebody was dreaming about the housemaid. I don't know who it was. It wasn't me last night after having seen it, but we should talk about it.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

A very interesting modern artifact, I would say.

[Amanda Davin]

I am going to be very honest with the listeners of the show. I did not have, like, a bad time.

[Sean Fantasy]

I'm not. I'm not. I. I'm not sure what kind of a time I had. I. I don't think it's kind of sorting through it.

[Amanda Davin]

I don't think it's good. But I was, at times entertained.

[Sean Fantasy]

Okay. So I have. I have decided to use the Fuck Mary kill delineation for this episode.

[Amanda Davin]

Oh, great. Okay.

[Sean Fantasy]

There are three movies, and we must decide which ones we will fuck, which ones we will marry, and which ones we will kill.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Now you can. You can decide to fuck all three if you really want to. I guess it would be in the.

[Amanda Davin]

Spirit of the housemaid.

[Sean Fantasy]

The housemaid is the obvious fuck, right? Because it's like, you got to at least give this one shot, you know? Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried in a steamy, campy erotic thriller. I mean, sure, for all the straight boys at home. Sheesh. Like, that's just crazy town on paper. So, you know. Co produced and directed by Paul Feig. The movie is set in a pretty similar register, I would say, to a simple favorite. A movie he had a big hit with like 10 years ago and made a sequel to very recently. It is based on a 2022 novel of the same name by Frieda McFadden. Are you familiar with the novel in any way?

[Amanda Davin]

I'm not.

[Sean Fantasy]

Okay. As I said, Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried. Brandon Sklennar.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Plays the husband figure in this movie. Elizabeth Perkins plays his mom. Nice to see her. The story is thus a young woman with a troubled past who becomes the live in housemaid for a wealthy family. Their seemingly perfect life unravels when she discovers their household hides dark secrets. We will be spoiling the movies in this conversation.

[Amanda Davin]

Yes.

[Sean Fantasy]

You haven't seen the movie the Housemaid? You don't want the twist spoiled for you. Do not listen to this episode. There would be no point in discussing this movie if you did not discuss the twist.

[Amanda Davin]

Correct.

[Sean Fantasy]

Did you? Did you like the Housemaid?

[Amanda Davin]

I again, did I do I want more of this. I want more Good versions of this. We were talking recently. I don't even know whether the episode has come out yet.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes. Is this thing on an Ella McKay? Is that what you're thinking of?

[Amanda Davin]

No, I'm thinking of Gone Girl, which is this movie owes a great debt to and obviously is quite poor in comparison to.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Amanda Davin]

But I like that we're trying to make the Gone Girls of the world. You know, this doesn't live up to it. And I think some of that is because the reveal itself is, like, fairly disappointing. And I do also just think that the performances are okay to. Good.

[Sean Fantasy]

I would agree with that.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah. I would say the script and the production design, which is a major part of movies like this, are not as good.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Amanda Davin]

We have to talk about interior design in this country. We have to talk about it and what we're aspiring to.

[Sean Fantasy]

You are the host of several shows on this network. Is anyone stopping you from speaking of interior design?

[Amanda Davin]

I'm saying I'm inviting you in.

[Sean Fantasy]

Okay. We've got the big tent, the interior design tent.

[Amanda Davin]

We've got to talk about the shiny gold door handles on the cabinetry. We've got to talk about great rooms. We've got to talk about, you know, the. The double floor. But then there's no walls and no doors. And where is anyone supposed to live? You know, where is anyone supposed to get any sort of private time?

[Sean Fantasy]

No. No idea what you're talking about.

[Amanda Davin]

We've got to talk about our choice of wallpaper. When we're going to use it, when we're not going to use it. Oh, what fun. You're also on notice for your choices in wallpaper.

[Sean Fantasy]

Haven't seen that yet.

[Amanda Davin]

I saw half of it after Jack texted me. And I just. We've gotta use color again. I mean, color is one of the great elements of art and life and certainly of visual cinema. So we need to just stop it with all the beiges.

[Sean Fantasy]

This is a black and white and beige film. The color palette of the movie is interesting. I mean, it's a very wintry movie, so it makes sense. Right. In the opening sequence, we see the Amanda Seyfried character, who is this aspirant housemaid, come to apply for a job at an elegant gated home in Great Neck. In Great Neck. Yes. This is a Long island film in some ways, and there is certainly a Long island rage at the core of this movie that is very recognizable to me. You know, it's a movie that I think wants to be very Gone Girl, but also wants to be an Adrian Line kind of movie. You know, it wants to be very sexy and steamy, but really feels more like kind of a post 50 shades of gray film where there's like kind of a polish and a sheen. And the way that these films are lit now doesn't really do a lot of favors to the mystery and the allure of the actors who are at the center of it. And I do think that the twist is very disappointing and the film makes you wait a very long time for the twist. Now, the Sydney Sweeney character applies for this job. And despite the fact that we learned fairly early on that she has a checkered past and in fact spent time in prison and has no experience working as a housemaid or in childcare, is able to get a job.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

In Amanda Seifert and Brandon Sklar's home. Clean their home and look after their seven year old daughter, sort of.

[Amanda Davin]

She. I would not say that she's tasked with a lot of childcare, pickup and.

[Sean Fantasy]

Drop off playtime at the Dollhouse. She's doing stuff. She's doing stuff.

[Amanda Davin]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's as you know, entrusting your child to a stranger.

[Amanda Davin]

I agree.

[Sean Fantasy]

You know, it's a stretch she gets this gig. It doesn't really make sense. We see that the Amanda Seyfried character is very complicated, erratic, Very erratic. We learn roughly halfway through the film that she has been diagnosed and prescribed medication for schizophrenia. She has a fascinating meltdown early in the movie that is like a waving signpost that something is wrong here where she blames Amanda Seyfried's character for throwing out PTA meeting notes.

[Amanda Davin]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

And that leads to this like rageful explosion in the kitchen.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah, she's breaking dishes.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's so fascinating that we're at the stage of our lives where Amanda Seyfried is playing the middle aged mom. Yeah, I don't really have a comment about it. It's just like, I can't believe we got there. Like we just got there. I don't know. We're there, we're there.

[Amanda Davin]

This whole year has just been a confirmation, a reminder that we're there. She looks great.

[Sean Fantasy]

She's beautiful. I mean, she's one of my favorites. I've talked about her many times. She was a guest on the show. I think she's really a fun and interesting actor. Really weird career, huge hits, huge bombs. Some movies that I think are incredibly cool and interesting and daring. And she's brilliant in Mank and First Reformed and she's got this Mean Girls, is iconic. She's Kind of done everything.

[Amanda Davin]

Mamma Mia. Which you still have not seen.

[Sean Fantasy]

Still haven't seen those movies. I'm sure they're great. She sings in Les Mis.

[Amanda Davin]

Well, she's in this movie. And then she's also in Testament Van Lee, which comes out on Christmas, which is a very cool movie. And a. And a.

[Sean Fantasy]

And.

[Amanda Davin]

But weird. Yes, and she sings in it as well. And a great performance by her. But so. But it is going to be. That's a searchlight release that they picked up after the festivals and that'll be small. It's an awards run. If anything at all. We hope she gets in, but she might not.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's going to be tough. This helps. This actually helps.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

But then she's the star of a movie that's ahead.

[Amanda Davin]

She's doing arty stuff about, you know, the Shaker movement and then she's doing, you know, campy, big budget. I thought this was a Colleen Hoover adaptation, but it's not stuff.

[Sean Fantasy]

And it's not like this is the first time she's done something like this. She's done Nicholas Spark style movies. She's done this stuff all throughout her career.

[Amanda Davin]

She did the movie she's in, not the hat movie, that's Emily Blunt, but the Justin Timberlake Time movie.

[Sean Fantasy]

In Time.

[Amanda Davin]

In Time, yes.

[Sean Fantasy]

Which I think is on paper an interesting idea for a sci fi thriller. That is a very bad film. I really think she is an interesting actor. She is incredible in the Elizabeth Holmes series. That's like one of the great performances of the century. And, you know, she doesn't look exactly like Elizabeth Holmes. It's a little bit of a transformation. There's a vocal intonation thing. So she has a lot of range and is a really interesting performer. This character is. Feels very constructed. Doesn't really feel like a real person. Now, there's a reason for that because she is constructing a performance inside of her own home in the movie. But even still, it's not her best work. I would say this is not the best material she's had to work with.

[Amanda Davin]

I think that she's meeting the material where it is.

[Sean Fantasy]

I guess so.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

I guess so. Sydney Sweeney, very beautiful. I've been defending Sydney Sweeney. Right. In recent years and just saying. I think with the right material, she's a very good actor. She usually needs to be kind of more chaotic and shriekish and intense. And if you watch her in Immaculate or in Euphoria, she has a knack for like a kind of like amusing mania. And you'd think that this Material would be really well suited to it.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

And I did not think she was good in this movie at all.

[Amanda Davin]

No, I mean she is. She is very beautiful. Yeah. And yeah, they use that on purpose throughout.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. She's meant to be like a visual echo of Amanda Seyfried because the character of Brandon Skinar plays has a type.

[Amanda Davin]

Yes. When she gets one moment to kind of act out and she's breaking dishes and I thought that she was funny. Breaking dishes.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's Cassie from Euphoria. That's what she's good at.

[Amanda Davin]

But she gets one moment and otherwise she's supposed to be sort of confused and. And muted and helpless and the damsel in distress until she's not.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davin]

She doesn't have much to do.

[Sean Fantasy]

I don't wanna say she's miscast. Cause one of the reasons why this movie is clearly working is like, frankly, this is like a sexy movie where she takes her clothes off, you know, and like people just wanna see that. And she is very artfully playing the Bombshell game in terms of the parts that she picks.

[Amanda Davin]

Absolutely.

[Sean Fantasy]

How she presents herself publicly. She's been entrenched in some controversies about her. The way that she presents and how she communicates about her beauty. This year I think this is a very smart play. The movie is obviously working because there is like, you know, this is one step removed from Colleen Hoover. And I do want to ask you a little bit about movies being made for women because even though I think, you know, partners on dates will enjoy some of the sexy stuff in this movie, it does seem to be a movie that is very much aimed at female audiences. Brandon Sklennar.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah. I'm glad you want to talk about him.

[Sean Fantasy]

I do want to talk about him.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay. So he, he's sort of. He's been ubiquitous. Speaking of Colleen Hoover, he was the other guy and it ends with us. Yes, he was in Drop, which I saw the trailer for many times and which you didn't care for.

[Sean Fantasy]

I watched it and I will say this movie feels like a. Like that movie set us up to be wrong footed in this movie because he's like a very nice guy in Drop and he's very accommodating despite the crazy circumstances of Drop.

[Amanda Davin]

He's the nice guy in It Ends with Us, which I have a hard time pronouncing.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Amanda Davin]

I don't know what he's doing on 1923 besides being a Dutton.

[Sean Fantasy]

I haven't seen the show, so I can't say.

[Amanda Davin]

I don't know whether he's good or bad, probably because, you know, he's a white man on a Taylor Sheridan show.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's very handsome, complicated. He's Diesel.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah. So this is.

[Sean Fantasy]

He's a very modern. He's a very. He's like a fair t catalog version of handsomeness. You know what I'm talking about?

[Amanda Davin]

No, I do, because, Sue, I identify him as. He is being marketed to me as like, Taylor Sheridan, like, Americana, contemporary masculinity. Yes. But, and, but like, he is very different from like the Timothy Chalamet or the, you know, the, the kind of artsy indie boys. Like, he is just absolutely jacked. There's one shot of his bicep early on that I, like, recoiled from. I was like, very grossed out by. Because it's not historically my type.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's not your thing.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah, It's a little more Wire, as previously discussed on the Marty supreme episode. That is, I'm just like a narrow.

[Sean Fantasy]

Boy from New York.

[Amanda Davin]

And because of the roles that he's taken and I can feel that he's being marketed to someone with different tastes than me as, like, this is your new guy. He's always been, like, a bit blurry faced. I'm just like, oh, sure, that guy.

[Sean Fantasy]

Like, he's always got 72% of a beard.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

You know what I mean?

[Amanda Davin]

But it's just, he's, he's.

[Sean Fantasy]

I say this as somebody with like, 48% of a beard right now.

[Amanda Davin]

Like, he is, I guess, I guess that he does. He's just, he's like soft muscle and is supposed to be the first half of the movie makes a big deal of like, oh, he's so handsome and, like, what a big smile, you know, great smile. And all the moms are, you know, fixated on him. And, you know, it feels like it's kind of being forced on me. And I will say that, like, halfway through the movie, I was finally like, okay, I, I, he is attractive. Like, I do. I see it.

[Sean Fantasy]

You relentless.

[Amanda Davin]

You know, I did. And it was like the, the movie's, like, kind of insistence, but I was finally like, I don't know if I'll ever totally. I'll always have a little bit of face blindness towards him. But, like, I get it.

[Sean Fantasy]

He's a thing now.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

I mean, this is three big studio movies in a row in which he is the male lead, effectively. I don't think he's up for this role. I don't think he's up for this role.

[Amanda Davin]

Well, it's not, it's not a Part like, what is it?

[Sean Fantasy]

The turn? I just don't. I. I mean, it's a failure of the writing, too, but I just did not buy him. I did not buy it. We can talk about it right now if you'd like. Yeah, but. So Sklenar's character does, in fact, kind of, I guess, fall in love with Slash, pursue an affair with Sydney Sweeney's character. Amanda Seifert's character is taking her daughter up to camp one weekend. So they end up having a tryst together. They go to a show, and then they have dinner together, and then they get a hotel room.

[Amanda Davin]

Was that the 21 together?

[Sean Fantasy]

I don't know. I've never been to the 21 time. And because Sydney Sweeney's character is using a cell phone that has been provided to her by her employer, her employer knows everything that she's doing. The jig is up. We learn that she's having an affair. There's going to be a big meltdown and a fight. Eventually, Praen Sklinara's character kicks Amanda Seyfried out of the house, says, this relationship is over. I'm with this gal now.

[Amanda Davin]

And then you get the Gone Girl twist, and it cuts to Amanda Seyfried in the hotel room, just as it cuts a hard cut in Gone Girl to Rosamund pike in the car being.

[Sean Fantasy]

Like, you know, it actually starts with Amanda Seyfried laughing in the car.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

In a similar fashion, before delivering the cool girl speech and explaining the movie to us. Everything that we've seen for the first hour and ten minutes of this movie is not what it seems. In fact, I was a young girl who slept with a college professor and got pregnant, and my legal career got derailed, and I was forced to become a paralegal. And. And I have, you know, daycare, taking care of my baby, and my. The milk is leaking from my breasts while I deliver files to a meeting.

[Amanda Davin]

Some of this is shown. It's even. It sounds even crazier when you're doing.

[Sean Fantasy]

I mean, I'm saying it out loud because it's.

[Amanda Davin]

I know. It is absurd, but, you know, they show her.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Amanda Davin]

In the. In the office, but she.

[Sean Fantasy]

And she enters an office.

[Amanda Davin]

Not just like, my boobs were leaking, you know.

[Sean Fantasy]

No, they show it to us, which is fine.

[Amanda Davin]

Which I think was brave.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's like. Yes, it was very brave. Wear a jacket.

[Amanda Davin]

You don't know what it's like.

[Sean Fantasy]

Of course I don't.

[Amanda Davin]

It was really fucked up.

[Sean Fantasy]

I'm not saying it isn't you're just.

[Amanda Davin]

Like, oh, it being like a critical.

[Sean Fantasy]

Plot device in this movie is nonsense. Anyway, this guy, Brandon Sklonar, is a client at this law firm, and he sees this woman who's walked in with these leaking breasts, and he feels bad for her because she's scolded by her employer. By her boss.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

And they meet cute and they fall in love. They sleep together in six days. They're engaged in six weeks.

[Amanda Davin]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

And then all of a sudden, she's moving into this wealthy guy's home and she's become a part of his world.

[Amanda Davin]

However, she yada yadas. The fiance for whom the house was built.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Amanda Davin]

But she never asked any questions.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Amanda Davin]

Because she just figured it was her loss.

[Sean Fantasy]

What does this guy like to do? Explain this to me. Why is. Why did he lose this previous relationship? What is his kink?

[Amanda Davin]

Well, this is the problem. His kink is, is, I guess, dominating and then subjugating vulnerable women. So he looks out for, like, quote, unquote, damsels in distress, endears himself to them, and then, you know, controls them and makes them act like his, like, perfect doll in the dollhouse. He has a real problem with your roots that are showing when your hair is dyed. He has a real problem with I can't remember what's in the dental care. Oh, sure, that's right.

[Sean Fantasy]

Smiles are very important to him. He obviously has been pathologized by his mother, who is a very controlling, specific kind of person. Her roots are never showing. Elizabeth Perkins character. Her teeth are always pearly white. She also clearly dominated him as a young child. And so he has brought this psychology to all of his relationships with women. So he does terrible things where he will lock women in rooms and force them to pull their hair out to punish them for not properly dyeing their hair. I guess this is, like, something that could happen. I. You know, I'm just kind of.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah, no, I don't know what. It's not well developed, and it's like.

[Sean Fantasy]

It just doesn't hit. You know, like sometimes you. You make a choice in a story and the storyline just does not hit. And it just feels silly. And I was watching it, I was just like, this just feels atonal from the rest of the movie, and it isn't, like, exciting or interesting. It doesn't really tell us anything. It's just a plot device.

[Amanda Davin]

Right. I mean, it also just. It doesn't make a ton of sense. Like, the punishment is, first you're locked in an attic until you have to pull out a Hundred hairs, which does seem painful, but, like, you could do it, you know, if I had to, to then get out of the closet and get out of that house.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right.

[Amanda Davin]

You know, but instead she doesn't. And which, you know, again, I like, I think I don't want to make light of, like, domestic abuse and the situations, and it, like, can be hard to leave. But the. The plot line of. Then suddenly she's just, like, in an asylum because he's called the cops on her for something. It happens very fast, I thought.

[Sean Fantasy]

Confusingly told.

[Amanda Davin]

Yes.

[Sean Fantasy]

The ways in which she endangered her child.

[Amanda Davin]

None of it, really.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's all very messy. And I haven't read the book, and I think that, you know, the book's a bestseller. People really like that book. It just feels. I found the plotting to be really junky in the last 30 minutes of just, like, trying to move very quickly through, like, here's why this happened, right? And you're like, well, why do we spend 75 minutes building to this? Like, could this film have been 30 minutes shorter, perhaps? Certainly felt like it.

[Amanda Davin]

Yes.

[Sean Fantasy]

There's a lot of, like, stewing in what is really going on here in the first half of this movie that I think actually wounds the big reveal because it feels like we've been waiting too long for it to be explained to us.

[Amanda Davin]

Right. And then the other half of the reveal is so that to escape with her daughter, Amanda Seyfried's character has hired Sydney Sweeney on purpose to replace her so that then she can get out of the house and be free. And so she's sacrificing Sydney Sweeney, but then her daughter, who is a character that is not at all developed, shows a moment of conscience, and it's like, don't we need to help her? The Sydney Sweeney house main character. So they go back, and around the.

[Sean Fantasy]

Same time, we get the dual explication of Sydney Sweeney's character, who went to prison for 10 years for murder because she discovered her college roommate being raped, and she bashed the rapist over the head with some sort of blunt object that killed him. And then for some reason, her. Maybe out of shame, her roommate denied what had transpired, which then led to the imprisonment of her roommate, Sydney Sweeney. Not saying it can happen.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

But it was like. So it's one of those things where it was just like, these two women have done nothing wrong. They have been completely victimized, and this guy is an insane maniac. But only in these very small moments in which we see it again, it happens. But the way that the information is delivered and the characterization of these two people, these two women, is not very strong through the first hour of the movie. We spend a lot of time being like, why are they like that? And not a lot of clarity. And then this rush to give it all away in the final stages of the movie I think makes the movie feel pretty incoherent.

[Amanda Davin]

Yes. And then the movie tries to, like, add on, you know, an avenging plotline for the Sydney Sweeney character where ultimately they do get rid of Brandon Skinar. And I think again, it is technically Sydney Sweeney who delivers the fatal push, but Amanda Seyfried is willing to take the fall. And then a woman copy is like, oh, it just so happens that you. My sister was the fiance that you mentioned once in narration like an hour ago, and she never came back the same. So I'm not going to investigate this. And then the last scene is Sydney Sweeney going to interview for another housemaid job. And it suggested that she was recommended to another woman who is like, in a dangerous household and experiencing abuse.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davin]

And so it's like, now she's the.

[Sean Fantasy]

Avenger, which the housemaid will kill. Again, just big post credits Marvel sequence energy to that scene where it was like, so she, this is her job now to like, become the housemaid for people so she can kill husbands.

[Amanda Davin]

I don't know.

[Sean Fantasy]

Is that like, empowering?

[Amanda Davin]

What does that even mean? I don't know. And there is like a real strain in like women's entertainment and women's fiction right now, which this is adapted from. And Colleen Hoover is a part of this of like, very dark situations that are sort of resolved and the, like, the woman in question is in danger and then finds some sort of like peace or resolution or freedom or like there is some improvement. Yes, but it's, it's not. Not what anyone would like, write out for themselves, you know, like, it's not really like a happy ending. And it always feels like the. The work of fiction is like marinating and enjoying the abuse or the dark aspects of it a little bit more than you would want.

[Sean Fantasy]

I was tough on is this thing on, which is kind of like the flip side of the coin of this movie that's a movie about the challenge of modern relationships and how difficult it can be to kind of communicate and be in a partnership and still be your own person. I like that idea for that movie. I don't really think the way it explores it is very interesting to me. But I don't think that this trend is good either. Not that I have to be the arbiter of how we should portray relationships in movies. But this, like, you know, you must meet the black magic with dark vengeance is like, I. I don't. I'm not. What does that say about where we are in terms of what stories are exciting to us and kind of like, what is that manifesting about what's going on socially? I don't know. I'm not, like, catastrophizing it, but it's weird.

[Amanda Davin]

It's discomforting. And it's like, I don't think that you or I want to see movies that are about. That are just aspirational, or, like, here is how you should behave. And I think I at least get a little frustrated with this strain of criticism, that it's like, well, that was a bad person, or they made a bad decision. And thus, like, I can't like this movie because I'm not looking for, you know, like, a morality play every time I go to the films. But it is weird that this is. What is so appealing is just. That is something. I mean, like, in the end, the bad guy dies violently, and the women have, like, been tortured, but I guess are setting out on new lives. So I guess that's good. But I would have preferred to just not have anyone be tortured.

[Sean Fantasy]

I mean, everyone's life has been destroyed.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

The idea that this is, like, inspiring in some way is absurd.

[Amanda Davin]

I don't know.

[Sean Fantasy]

I. I think if you. If we accept it on its terms of its camp fun.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

I can get on board with that. And I don't want to ruin people's enjoyment of the movie. And definitely I was waiting and waiting and waiting to find out what was going to happen. So I was engaged in the movie. I can't pretend like I wasn't engaged.

[Amanda Davin]

I was like, is this just. Is this schizophrenia? Is there something else going on? I want. I thought there were two. Amanda Seifried. I did also wonder if there was, like, something. You know, there's a room in the attic that's, like, played very dramatically. And so I was like, is this gonna be a Jane Eyre thing where there's, like, another crazy one in the attic? She gets out sometime.

[Sean Fantasy]

Both of those would have been interesting, you know? Or two Amanda Seyfried's, like, same woman, split personality. Like a raising cane situation.

[Amanda Davin]

No.

[Sean Fantasy]

Or just, like, twins?

[Amanda Davin]

I thought that they were twins. Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

All three would have been interesting.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

We didn't get that.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay.

[Sean Fantasy]

Long island man.

[Amanda Davin]

I just have to say that this soundtrack just absolutely made me die laughing. Multiple times.

[Sean Fantasy]

I did catch the since youe've Been Gone drop. Yeah, I'm not sure I definitely caught Blue Bayou.

[Amanda Davin]

Absolutely. Barry Lyndon plays a small but important role in this film.

[Sean Fantasy]

Thank you. I forgot. I mean, I guess that this movie is, like, also, like, weird. Cinnaboys should be taken down a peg. I guess. I don't. I'm not sure what that take was. In what world is Brandon Sklnar really into Barry Lyndon?

[Amanda Davin]

The two pop cultural artifacts Brendan Scnar's character are passionate about. According to the housemaid, it's Barry Lyndon and classic episodes of Family Feud. And. No, no, I'm sorry, there's another one. And then there's like, a. A musical that's a hit that is, like, maybe like Hamilton, but it's not. It's just sort of implied that it's like Hamilton and it's hard to get tickets to.

[Sean Fantasy]

This is a fake movie.

[Amanda Davin]

There's a Renee rap drop in this that I laughed really hard at. I think it's, like, during their sex scene. And then there was one of the bad Taylor Swift songs over the credits.

[Sean Fantasy]

Oh, an actual Taylor Swift song?

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Didn't clock that. Not aware of that. Okay, I did ask you, what are movies for female audiences right now?

[Amanda Davin]

It's not ideal.

[Sean Fantasy]

What are they? Tell us what you wrote down.

[Amanda Davin]

Well, so I wrote down the theatrical releases that have worked, that reflect what people are going to the film, to the cinema, to see. And these are on varying scales of success. Right. But Wicked for Good. Materialists Regretting you and. And Freakier Friday.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Amanda Davin]

So that's your ip. That's your, like, indie Fake out rom com. That's your Colleen Hoover adaptation, and that's your nostalgia sequel play. So in some ways, they're the same things that are working for men, but, you know, just with girls in them instead. But then I. The thing that's really working. And then I just wrote down, like, 4,000 streaming movies. Okay. Because back in action, you're cordially invited. Kind of pregnant. Another simple favor. The woman in cabin 10, which I did watch half of. I'm. I have no Self respect. That's the Ruth Ware adaptation starring Keira Knightley.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes. I watched the first hour as well. And then Eileen continued watching it.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

And she was not a fan, but was so glad that she watched it.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay.

[Sean Fantasy]

Which is the inverse of how I felt. No, I didn't feel anything good about it. Did not even need to stick around for the twist.

[Amanda Davin]

I was like Keira Knightley and Guy Pierce on a cruise Ship. Surely I can find something on paper.

[Sean Fantasy]

Sure.

[Amanda Davin]

No. And then I wrote down all the holiday bullshit, which is just. It's not my bag, you know, including, oh, what Fun. And their Wallpaper that stars Michelle Pfeiffer and is directed by Michael Showalter. And I didn't think it was very good, but, you know, they've put all of our movies about people navigating relationships, aging and home design onto streaming, and then they spend less money on all of it. And most people just watch them there and don't go to the theaters, and it's depressing.

[Sean Fantasy]

When Amanda Seyfried was on the pod, she zoomed in during COVID from a barn. I hope this movie buys her another barn.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah, she did a great Architectural Digest tour of her New York apartment. A lot of ingenious storage solutions there.

[Sean Fantasy]

Exciting.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah. I also really liked her, her Vogue Get Ready with Me. So she's good at Internet content and I hope that she gets to keep doing as much as she wants. She gave an interview recently where she said she wasn't allowed to do Botox for Ann Lee. And that was a major sacrifice. But now she's back, so I hope she's doing whatever she wants. She looks great.

[Sean Fantasy]

Let's talk about Anaconda.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay.

[Sean Fantasy]

Housemaid's getting the fuck delineation from me, just so you know, for obvious reasons. For reasons that are not hard to understand. Anaconda, directed by Tom Gormican, written by Gormican and Kevin edn. It stars Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Steve Zahn, Tendiwe Newton, Daniela Melchior and Sultan Mello.

[Amanda Davin]

Yes.

[Sean Fantasy]

Here's the plot of this movie. Best friends Griff and Doug have always dreamed of remaking their all time favorite movie, Anaconda. When a midlife crisis pushes them to finally go for it, they assemble a crew and head deep into the jungles of the Amazon to start filming. However, life soon imitates art when a gigantic anaconda with a thirst for blood starts hunting them down. What'd you think of Anaconda?

[Amanda Davin]

We saw it together.

[Sean Fantasy]

We did. You insisted.

[Amanda Davin]

I did, yeah. Because there's just. There's nothing more depressing than going to the mall on December 17th by yourself to see Anaconda. It's just really not. It's not how this movie was intended to be seen.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's not.

[Amanda Davin]

I did chuckle a couple times.

[Sean Fantasy]

I certainly did as well.

[Amanda Davin]

And I. We. We have to say that up front before saying that this is just a. A cynical, depressing exercise in. In IP reinvention Sort of.

[Sean Fantasy]

I'd like to try to get to the bottom of it. Okay. Because I also laughed pretty hard about three or four times.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Which is a pretty good hit ratio for comedies for me in, in the 2000 and twenties.

[Amanda Davin]

But I mean, that's also just indicative of where we're going. I laughed less than you because Jack Black is black licorice to me.

[Sean Fantasy]

Right. Okay. So if you don't like Jack Black, you're not gonna like this movie that goes that same.

[Amanda Davin]

But when Paul Rudd was doing stuff.

[Sean Fantasy]

Well, I have a couple of problems with it.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay.

[Sean Fantasy]

It is a metatextual joke. Right. The metatextual joke is that Hollywood is only interested in ip. You can't get anything made these days unless you have access to that ip. If you look at the year end box office, everything is based on something. Unless you're weapons or sinners. That's just a fact.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

The film we just talked about is based on a novel that people know. The movie knows this. It's making fun of that idea, but also participating in that idea and trying to have its cake and eat it too. Sometimes it works. Sometimes there's a cleverness, or at least the presumption of cleverness in the way that the movie is constructed that is fun. However, like it's the same joke 40 times and you can only make it so many times before you lose interest in it. And I lost interest in the movie pretty quickly.

[Amanda Davin]

Yes.

[Sean Fantasy]

There's a couple of things about it that I found really hard to stomach that are not really a big deal. But in my head I just couldn't get over specifically the movie Anaconda, which is not good. But it's fun.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

And is like a relic of our youth. And was a big hit at the time or a modest hit at the time. And has a very memorable Jon Voight performance that is discussed frequently in the movie Ice Cube. Jennifer Lopez, Eric Stoltz. All these people are cited in the film. Just your classic mid tier creature feature from Hollywood has a long tradition of movies like that. And the characters in this movie apparently loved this movie when they were kids. Anaconda was released in 1997, two years after Clueless, which Paul Rudd starred in.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Paul Rudd is 56 years old. Jack Black is 56 years old. They're not at midlife crisis age. They're in their mid-50s. I know this. I've been spent the last 30 years with Jack Black and Paul Rudd in movies. I like them both a lot. I think they're both super talented. Why does this movie not star two people in their early 40s?

[Amanda Davin]

This is your problem.

[Sean Fantasy]

I mean it's just one very obvious thing that's just like, I just can't get my head around this movie. I'm like, Jack Black has like a 10 year old child. I mean this, I mean maybe he does, but like the whole. Because the movie orients itself around this quartet of friends who made movies when they were teenagers and they were inspired by the Hollywood blockbusters of their time and they really wanted to make something. Life got in the way. Jack Black stayed in Buffalo and he makes wedding videos and he's stuck. Paul Rudd moved out to California to try to make it as an actor and it didn't really shake out the way that he wanted to despite that great four episode run on swat. Like, you know, life happens and it's tough and the movie wants to be this kind of big chill esque sentimental like what happened to us man. And it also wants to be this rollicking funny, metatextual like the Player but for IP comedy film. And it's neither because it's both are incoherent together, they don't mix. It's kind of stupid. Everyone's trying and it's not awful or anything. Like it's not a fiasco, it's fake.

[Amanda Davin]

But you know, this is part of your winking action genre that doesn't always work. But there's also like a winking comedy to it. I mean there is a winking comedy to it and there is just something unfelt and a little, you know when you're watching behind the scenes footage, like anything that is about how comedy gets made and they keep like just going and going and going and going and going and they, and you know, they'll find the joke and eventually like find the endpoint. But the making of the comedy involves just please stop often. And this is a real like no one told anyone to stop and they had one joke and it just kept going and going and going and going and and going and it was kind of clever for two seconds. And then it's supposed to be a feature length film with one joke.

[Sean Fantasy]

Action comedy is also really hard. Yeah. Because there has to be a lot of action and if the action is just okay and the action in this movie is just okay, then and the laughs are not there in the action sequences, which they are a little bit but not enough, then you're just kind of watching another noisy, explosion filled gun violence movie that has a joke that is like, doesn't you don't really buy. And I thought the unbearable weight of massive talent was better than this movie. That was Gormican's last film, is a film about Nicolas Cage as Nicolas Cage and him being kind of, like, utilized. His fame and success being utilized as a prop and a kind of metatextual joke in that movie. I think part of the reason that movie works is that him and Pedro Pascal have really good chemistry together and they're pretty funny. I thought that script was smarter than this one. This one. I can't help but think about the executives being like, yeah, we could make this. We could get this one over the line.

[Amanda Davin]

I mean, they say Sony so many times, like, there is an actual Sony, like, boat joke that comes in. It's really, really. It's very inside baseball.

[Sean Fantasy]

Isn't this a really weird movie to release at Christmas? Isn't this a summer movie?

[Amanda Davin]

I guess so. I mean, people like Jack Black, I guess. I don't know. The holiday right into Anaconda. I mean, I got. God bless you if that's how you're spending your holidays.

[Sean Fantasy]

Maybe it was to get distance between Minecraft rather than release this in August. This just feels like August 2nd is when this movie should come out. Not on Christmas. I guess there's a little bit of counter programming up against whatever else is out there in the world. But I'm a little bit mystified. Do not understand Steve Zahn and tendiy Newton in this movie.

[Amanda Davin]

No, they don't get to do anything.

[Sean Fantasy]

They. They are really, like, really, really, really supporting players. Um, thought Sultan Mello was pretty funny as the snake wrangler.

[Amanda Davin]

Yes.

[Sean Fantasy]

Um, Daniela Melchior. I don't know. She's supposed to be. I thought she was French. She Spanish.

[Amanda Davin]

I'm she.

[Sean Fantasy]

They're in South American.

[Amanda Davin]

They're in Brazil, right?

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davin]

So. And I thought that they were infiltrating or not infiltrating, but they find themselves in the Portuguese.

[Sean Fantasy]

That. That explains it.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay. In the middle of a gold mining. You know, I felt this plot line was insulting and in its lack of depth, very thin.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, I agree. Movie is not a success. No, this would be my kill.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah. Absolutely.

[Sean Fantasy]

Not a complete waste of time. But yeah, if we had gone alone, to your point, it would have been disappointing.

[Amanda Davin]

We would have been angry.

[Sean Fantasy]

Exiting the Grove and seeing all those happy families. The wondrous winter wonderland that takes place at the Grove every year. So I would exit the theater if I was by myself, and I would think for like, seven minutes, should I try to go get a Seat at the bar at the Cheesecake Factory because I need to eat something. And it probably would have been nine straight hours since I'd eaten something.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

And then I would decide, ah, the line is too long, or I'm not gonna wait for a space to open up.

[Amanda Davin]

What would you order if you sat at the bar and the Cheesecake Factory by yourself?

[Sean Fantasy]

Louisiana Chicken pasta.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay, great.

[Sean Fantasy]

Just going to the access, which is like 38,000 calories.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

And it's honestly so good.

[Amanda Davin]

Went to Cheesecake Factory after Santa. I got the Thai lettuce wraps.

[Sean Fantasy]

Oh, yeah, those are good.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah. And then we also got, like, mozzarella sticks and pot stickers. Really? Just. Yeah. A classic experience.

[Sean Fantasy]

We're not even up to the last movie yet. We got to get to it quickly. But I. I just want to let you know, I'm going to drink so much alcohol over the break.

[Amanda Davin]

Me too.

[Sean Fantasy]

I have cut out alcohol so much from my life because we record all the time, and I just don't ever want to be hungover when we're recording. I find it very hard to do the show effectively when I'm, like, either extremely tired or my head hurts. Makes sense.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

So I don't. I just don't. I just don't drink any. Like, I. I was very comfortably a three cocktail person, and now that never happens. This. I'm going fucking hard this week.

[Amanda Davin]

Listen, I've got a date tonight at the Houston's bar with my husband.

[Sean Fantasy]

Great.

[Amanda Davin]

I, like, there are cocktail themes for both Christmas Eve and Christmas at my house, just so you know. Yeah. I've planned out. I've planned out the drinking menu. I've planned out the dessert menu. The regular menu, too. No, I'm excited about that. I do think we would have had more fun had we been drinking for.

[Sean Fantasy]

I know that was the original idea. And then it was like, we got a pod tomorrow, we got a pod on Friday. You know, violin play for podcasters.

[Amanda Davin]

Like our version. Sorry, Jack. You were already traveling when I came up with the concept for the big picture Holiday Party, which was seeing the housemaid of the IPIC at 3pm and getting hammered. Um, but we couldn't make that work.

[Sean Fantasy]

Let's do it in January. There will be something bad that we can go see.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay. That's great. So you're taking.

[Craig Brewer]

I'm eight.

[Amanda Davin]

What?

[Sean Fantasy]

Right. I think I'm going to a screening. I do want to. What? What's. What? What? They moved the date on the new Colleen Hoover movie with Michael Monroe.

[Amanda Davin]

It's in March now. Yeah, I just saw that. Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Okay, we'll figure it out.

[Amanda Davin]

So you're taking all the drinking into January?

[Sean Fantasy]

Probably not. Okay, once we start recording again, I'll stop.

[Amanda Davin]

I know it's hard because then you don't want to have the face bloat.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, I don't care about that. I don't care about how I look. I literally care about how I feel. And hangovers are getting harder as I get older.

[Amanda Davin]

I mean, you don't have to tell me about that. The. The post holiday party one is absolutely brutal.

[Sean Fantasy]

Mercy. That's the one. Mercy. Mercy. That's it. That's it.

[Amanda Davin]

Oh, I was pretty drunk when we saw that trailer at Cinemacon.

[Sean Fantasy]

Seth Pratt in a gamer chair being trial with AI Rebecca Ferguson.

[Amanda Davin]

Judge only on FaceTime. Yeah, let's do it.

[Sean Fantasy]

Dude, that's perfect.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay, great.

[Sean Fantasy]

Oh, I'm fired up for that.

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[Sean Fantasy]

Last movie song Sung Blue.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Okay.

[Amanda Davin]

So by default, this is what we're marrying, which I understand, but also, I'll just say this film took a turn that I didn't really.

[Sean Fantasy]

It wouldn't be the happiest marriage in the end.

[Amanda Davin]

There is something beautiful in it. It's an honest portrait of marriage. And also, spoiler alert, amputation, which I just did not see coming. I didn't know the Million Dollar Baby was going to be a part of this.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's a good point. It is a similar. Similar move. I didn't know really anything about this movie sitting down. And I'll be honest, I was dreading it. Yeah, I didn't want to watch it. I don't have a huge relationship to Neil Diamond. I do quite like Hugh Jackman.

[Amanda Davin]

I was gonna, as I was watching.

[Sean Fantasy]

It, pretty consistently winning in everything he does.

[Amanda Davin]

You have a real soft spot for Hugh Jackman. I don't dislike him, but you come out of every Hugh Jackman movie and you're kind of like, hey, Hugh Jackman.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think I forget. And then I sit down and I'm like, God, he's really giving it his all. Like, I just love how much he cares and is trying and he's. He really. You know, in the opening segments of this movie, where he is just immediately singing with an acoustic guitar and Neil diamond song.

[Amanda Davin]

Great opening.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. He's in an AA meeting and he is.

[Amanda Davin]

But you don't know. And then it cuts to. I Thought I loved it.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. The first hour of this movie has real charm as it's about these two people who are. They're kind of like celebrity impersonators who sing at state fairs and carnivals. And Kate Hudson is a Patsy Cline impersonator. Hugh Jackman sometimes works as Elvis, sometimes works as someone named Lightning, who is like his own kind of concoction. And he has this abiding affection for Neil Diamond. Hudson's character and Jackman's character meet at one of these fairs. They fall in love very quickly, and they form a band. And their band, which is a Neil diamond tribute band, Neil Diamond Experience, becomes, like, relatively successful in their home state of. Remind me. Is it Wisconsin? Wisconsin. Thank you. And they're kind of the toast of Milwaukee, and they're having some success. And we see a lot of great performances of the two of them singing. You know, Kate Hudson can sing. She just released her first album in the last year. Even though we've known that she can sing for some time.

[Amanda Davin]

And talk about having it all Fabletics singing career, acting career.

[Sean Fantasy]

She is a 1 of 1. We can talk about her briefly as well. But they're really performing in this movie together and singing these songs. And I have a relationship with some of these songs, but not all of them. So I didn't feel like I didn't have that experience that you have when you're watching a musician's biopic where you're like, okay, and now it's time for the song Rocket man in the film Rocket Man. Like I just don't, you know, they.

[Amanda Davin]

Even make a running joke about how they don't want to do Sweet Caroline and.

[Sean Fantasy]

Which is clever.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah, the Hugh Jackman character was like, no, there's so much more. You know, it's so. There is still that music biopic feeling I like of when they sing, when they perform a song that you recognize, you're like, oh, they're doing it. But they've constructed it in a way that it doesn't feel quite as rote.

[Sean Fantasy]

I agree. I mean like a song like Sulaiman, like that's not a song I know at all, really. And to see Jackman's character have such a commitment and dedication to like defending sincerely something that he loves, I just like. That's something that I try to do. I just like that in a character. I think he's a very cool representation of a very specific kind of person. The movie though, as you said, takes a very severe turn where the Kate Hudson character, who is a single mom with two kids, she falls in love with this guy Mike and they move in together and they start this band and then a car drives up on their lawn and hits her and she's in a severe accident and has her leg amputated and she very understandably slips into a depression and becomes addicted to medication that she's been prescribed to cope with the pain and anxiety of this loss. And the movie becomes more like a redemption drama about recovery and about sticking together and what really matters. And then it takes another hard turn in terms of what happens to the Mike character and his struggles with heart condition and his ability to balance his performance life, which means everything to him, with his physical struggles. And the movie becomes very severe and very melodramatic. I think pretty knowingly. I don't think it's doing anything that it like doesn't understand what it's doing. But it is a real record scratch moment that never relents. Right.

[Amanda Davin]

And it is going from these exuberant and well performed but pretty Sunny performances of these songs, and they spend a lot of time on them to. Oh, and now something absolutely terrible has happened.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, I liked it in the way that the Housemaid is a movie that is only about opulence. And whenever it's trying to show us what Sydney Sweeney's hardscrabble life is, where she sleeps in her car, you're like, this is complete nonsense. Is really a movie about being lower middle class in the middle of the country, like, then. And, like, if something like this happens to you, what are you going to do? How are you going to get out of it? How are you going to survive if you lose your primary income, what happens? What do you do?

[Amanda Davin]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think it's, like, pretty sincere about looking at that. That's pretty consistent through a lot of brewers movies. Hustle and Flow is also a movie about, like, basically economics being in economic straits and then having to find a way to create your way out of it. So it's something that obviously interests him.

[Amanda Davin]

It does it. It's totally about that because it stars Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson. And they are also given, like, all which are true to the character, which we should say is based on a true story.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yes.

[Amanda Davin]

You know, adapted from a documentary that they. So they get all these, you know, glowing performance moments, and then the rest of the time, it's like a little bit Kate Hudson in Midwestern drag, you know, and she is doing the accent. And it's not that she's doing a bad job, actually.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think she's doing a good accent, but it's kind of a campy performance.

[Amanda Davin]

Right, Exactly. You just. You are aware that it is Kate Hudson wearing, like, these unflattering sweaters and. And haircut and what have you.

[Sean Fantasy]

But the movie, she's like, letting her belly roll over a little bit. She's like doing some things that you.

[Amanda Davin]

Wouldn'T see a star, like a real belly, but. Yes, a false belly.

[Sean Fantasy]

What if she just gained 10 pounds that week?

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah, that's. That's totally how it works. So it's. I was thinking a lot about the eyes of Tammy Fay when watching this.

[Sean Fantasy]

Interesting.

[Amanda Davin]

And I like this a lot better than the eyes of Tammy Faye. And because, you know, because it is an inventive. It's not a bio. It is a biopic, but not of the musicians of other people. So it is taking that genre and doing something more interesting with it. I think it's a bummer that that's what Jessica Chastain won for and that this probably won't I don't know if I think Kate Hudson should win an.

[Sean Fantasy]

Oscar for this, but she's nominated for a Globe, right?

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah. But, you know, this. This also felt to me very vintage. Like 20 years ago Oscars fate.

[Sean Fantasy]

It does. And, you know, 20 years ago, hustle and Flow came out and Craig Brewer won an Academy Award in part for working on that movie. So there is a conventionality to it, though.

[Amanda Davin]

I didn't say that in a bad way.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, no, I know what you mean. Because there are versions of this that don't really work. I did find this comforting as a bit of a throwback. I think in part, I'm just so worn down, as listeners of the show know, by the traditional music biopic. But I love music and I love hearing music performed loud, and those are the best parts of those movies in the first place. So, like, getting even a little interested in Neil Diamond's music for me was cool. That was a good takeaway. And then, you know, Jackman, as you said, is just a star I like being around and I think is a really fine actor. Kate Hudson, I don't usually think of as a very good actress. I think she's a good star.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think she's very good on screen and carries weight. I never thought she had the same depth as her mom. You know, I always thought her mom had, like, a screen Persona that she was always really good at undercutting very cleverly Kate Hudson. I never really felt like there was the second tier. This is her trying to go to a second level. Yeah. Sometimes she gets there. I agree with you. Sometimes she doesn't always get there.

[Amanda Davin]

It's just. She's burdened with that character's arc is true, but surprising and sort of like, wait, what? There is the million dollar baby twist of just like. Excuse me.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. Literally waking up in the hospital.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah. What's happening now?

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, it's a. It's a lot of movie. It's a lot of. It's asking a lot. It's a bit. It's both grounded and absurd at the same time, and you kind of got to get your head around that. But I was charmed.

[Amanda Davin]

I wasn't uncharmed. I really did like the performances, and I do. And I like that it is a new way of getting these types of musical performances on screen because watching the biopic version of stuff is just unrewarding at this point.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. I don't think I would be excited about the pure Neil diamond biopic. Quick final question for you about this. Eddie Vedder Yeah, just.

[Amanda Davin]

I mean, he's there.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's all based on a true story.

[Amanda Davin]

That's nice.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. Eddie Vetter. You're a fan.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah, Listen, I was there.

[Sean Fantasy]

Favorite Pearl Jam album?

[Amanda Davin]

Phytology. Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Not for me.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay.

[Sean Fantasy]

No code.

[Amanda Davin]

Wow. Okay. That's fine.

[Sean Fantasy]

I mean, 10.

[Amanda Davin]

Well, sure, yeah. What is it?

[Sean Fantasy]

That. Is it. Is it alive? That hits in this movie? I can't remember what the Pearl Jam needle drop is. It's a first album needle drop.

[Amanda Davin]

Remember the Pearl Jam cover of Last Kiss that came out, like, when we were in high school. I don't. I've listened to that upwards of 200 times.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davin]

What I. What was that about?

[Sean Fantasy]

It was a, I believe, a charity recording.

[Amanda Davin]

No, no, I. I know. Like, what. But why did I have been obsessed with that? Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

I can tell you from New York. They played it on Z100 nonstop.

[Amanda Davin]

I mean, I think they did in.

[Sean Fantasy]

Atlanta, too, but I think it was because it was a crossover song for grunge rock.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay.

[Sean Fantasy]

Where you. It was not like a pure rock station song because it had that, like, kind of 50s do OPI quality to the song construction. So it was like Eddie Vedder pure, doing a pure heartthrob song.

[Amanda Davin]

Right.

[Sean Fantasy]

And those stations were kind of confused about what to do with popular music when CNC Music Factory and Michael Jackson went out and Kurt Cobain and Smashing Pumpkins came in. So this was a way to kind of get a little bit of that before, like, the Dave Matthews Bands of the worlds came along and kind of like, gave them new ballast to make rock pop.

[Amanda Davin]

Thank you for that extended answer.

[Sean Fantasy]

Not bad, right? I think that was pretty legitimate. I used to be a music writer.

[Amanda Davin]

I know.

[Sean Fantasy]

Given this period, a lot of fun. Okay, well. Fuck, marry, kill, you know, it's a dangerous game. You gotta be careful out there. You never know what you could contract from a schizophrenic wife in a beautiful townhouse in Great Neck.

[Amanda Davin]

That's true. I do think that the song Sung Blue People had a lovely marriage. It had its ups and its downs.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davin]

I hope none of that happens to me. But except for the love and happiness.

[Sean Fantasy]

You and I could do well in a musical duo.

[Amanda Davin]

Who would we be?

[Sean Fantasy]

Who would we perform as Captain And Tenille is right there.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay. Sure. I'm on keyboard. Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah, you're on keyboard.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay.

[Sean Fantasy]

I don't know. Let's give it some thought. Wings.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah. Oh, that's rude to me.

[Sean Fantasy]

What do you mean? Linda is an icon, sure.

[Amanda Davin]

But I can sing better than that.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's not very nice. I love Lindsay.

[Amanda Davin]

I'm so. But let's be real. It's not like people were supportive of her.

[Sean Fantasy]

All right, well, you think about it. Whoever you want to be.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay.

[Sean Fantasy]

I'm going to go talk to Craig Brewer. Okay.

[Amanda Davin]

All right.

[Sean Fantasy]

Let's go to my conversation with him right now. Well, for the first time on this show, Craig Brewer, welcome. Thank you for being here. Noted.

[Craig Brewer]

Thank you for having me.

[Sean Fantasy]

I'm a filmmaker, Mets fan, among other things. We have a lot to discuss. Since you haven't been on the show and you've been making movies for this entire century, I was hoping you'd tell me just a little bit about yourself and getting into the game. For anybody who doesn't really know, because you've had a very successful career, but I don't know if, as many people know, your background in filmmaking.

[Craig Brewer]

Yeah, well, I guess my filmmaking career started here in Memphis, Tennessee. I was kind of a guy. I didn't really go to. I didn't go to film school or anything. I just learned filmmaking really from books that I bought at Barnes and Noble. When I. When I was working there. I had a 35 discount. And it was the 90s, and there was like a lot of books on. On filmmaking during the. During the 90s. Seems like all the filmmakers started writing their books, like Robert Rodriguez, and there was even a great book, Sidney Lumet Making Movies. And. And so that's. That's kind of how I did it. And I. I came from the theater a lot. I wrote a lot and directed theater a lot of my life. But really, it was kind of like a big transformation, really, here in Memphis. My father passed away kind of unexpectedly, and I got about $20,000 of inheritance. And he had read the script that I wrote. It was called the Poor and Hungry, and it was about car thieves here in Memphis. We have a car theft problem here in Memphis. And it was about, like, a car thief who falls in love with one of his victims who was a cello player. So music was like a big part of it. And I went out and got a digital camera from a pawn shop and I bought a Sennheiser mic. Had a crew of two. I was one of them and made this movie. And it played in my local theater for a good six weeks, six week run. And it was like the biggest movie to see. And I made back my Money, and that was the movie that Stephanie, Elaine and John Singleton saw. And I had a sequel ready to go. I was in an ampersand time in My life where I was like, so there was poor and hungry. And this one was called Hustle and Flow. And it was kind of in the same world. Same like, strip club, pawn shop, chop shop type of Memphis underworld. And then John decided, after we went everywhere with Hustle and Flow that he was gonna have to finance it himself. And so he put his house up for collateral. Stephanie put her house up for collateral. I was sleeping on couches for, like, four years in Hollywood, flying back and forth from Memphis to Los Angeles. And finally we got going here in Memphis with Hustle and Flow. And then Hustle and Flow happened, and my life kind of changed. But up until then, I was writing in bars and trying my best to kind of figure out a way to get into it all. But it really took me living in Memphis, to kind of figure myself out a little bit. I had to kind of struggle to figure it out. And that's kind of how I got in. And then Hustle and Flow led to Blacksnake, My Own and, you know, other other movies. And kind of. I lived in that Paramount world for a while, you know, after. After Hustle and Flow and, you know, eventually. Eventually moved on to other films.

[Sean Fantasy]

I appreciate you sharing the story in that way because it's really inspiring. And it is increasingly unusual, I think, to come up in that very specific way of basically making regional cinema and being able to transfer something about where you're from to national audiences and getting, like, buy in from the business, the system, and having people who believe in you. And the strain of music obviously runs through all your films. Can you speak about it coherently at this point, why music plays such a profound role in the films that you decide to do?

[Craig Brewer]

Well, I think that what it was is that there was this. I mean, there really was kind of like an education that I had here in Memphis.

[Sean Fantasy]

There was.

[Craig Brewer]

There was a time where all I did was just buy books on Memphis music. I'd learned everything I could about B.B. king. I learned everything I could about Sam Phillips, who kind of discovered Elvis and Howlin Wolf and Johnny Cash and also Big Star, which is kind of a very. A famous band, but not incredibly famous. But all of these people were around me, and I could have really good connections with them. And I found that it was just something that I had already really responded to. And I've been doing a lot of thinking about this lately. But I really do think it was kind of special to grow up being a young teen in the 80s, because I'm really now looking back on that time where MTV had just started, and. And movies had a music component to it that seemed very unique. Now, looking back on it, like. I mean, I know I could look at, like, Footloose and Purple Rain and all of those movies, but I mean, even just, you know, movie Working Girl, you know, had a. Had a very specific theme, you know, that Carly Simon did and even Breakfast Call, all of John Hughes movies kind of had this music part of it. But it didn't stop there because you really. You couldn't watch the movie over and over again like you could today. So you went out and you bought the soundtrack and you kind of experienced that movie again just through the. Through the music. And I. I just think in my adult life, when I started, like, really studying blues and studying rock and roll, but also studying how the producers worked, it really kind of informed a lot of. Of how I direct, you know. And I'm not talking about, like, camera movements necessarily. I'm talking more about, like, editorial rhythms, but I'm also talking about, like, how to deal with actors. You know, I would see producers work with musicians, and they were trying to, like, capture something in the room. They were trying to capture something kind of honest and real, but somewhat goosed. And that. That always kind of like, appealed to me because I. I felt like a lot of the plays that I was really into, Tennessee Williams and August Wilson, you know, all of these playwrights, always had kind of like a little bit of a.

[Sean Fantasy]

Of a.

[Craig Brewer]

Almost like an audacity to it. You know, they just kind of pushed it a little bit, and I just found a kind of a rhythm with it. And I. I'm. Especially on this last movie, it's been. It's been fun to kind of, as you know, now being in my 50s, kind of looking back a little bit more and kind of going like, what's all this about? It's interesting.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. It strikes me, just going back and looking at some of the films. So, you know, a lot of your films seem to be about this really interesting exploration of the roots of black music and black culture and the origins of American identity, and then kind of how it spiders out over time. Right. And the way that it affects people and, you know, reflects communities and relationships. Neil diamond is not an artist that you would think is in the same tradition as some of the other artists and worlds that you've explored. Now, I will tell you, I was a little bit dreading seeing this movie because I have no relationship to Neil Diamond's music.

[Craig Brewer]

I made the movie for you. That's great. That's what I wanted to hear.

[Sean Fantasy]

I mean, it really worked on me in that way. It got me actually interested in an artist that I don't have a relationship to. So I'm curious to hear you talk about your relationship to him and maybe even how you see him reflected in the lineage of films that you've made.

[Craig Brewer]

Well, I think that what I get out of Neil diamond is something that I kind of came to later because I always knew his music growing up because my dad and my mom listened to his music. It was always that. And I would say people of my generation can kind of like, to some extent they make fun of Neil diamond because that is who he was. He was that person that your parents listened to. But you also, you kind of begrudgingly like, yeah, I like that Forever and Blue Jeans song. I, you know, it's like, you know, it's a Sweet Caroline is obviously the big favorite right now, but, you know, you know, back in the day it was really kind of like, you know, I'm a Believer was like, you'd see it on the Monkees all the time. And, you know, so I had an idea of his music, but it wasn't really until I got a little bit older that I started really listening to his music, but also just hearing interesting stories about him. And also I started like really kind of like actually reading the lyrics and listening to his music differently. And what I realized is that he is kind of that New York, you know, intellectual, but also a feeling artist that was really dealing with a lot of isolation and really dealing with loneliness and longing and wanting to have love in his life. And even songs that I thought I knew what they were about, like there's a song Cracklin Rosie. And I thought, okay, well, this girl Rosie sounds amazing. You know, I don't quite know what she means by store bought women, but you got me, you know, like a guitar humming. And then I found out, oh no. Neil would get together with all his buddies when they didn't have any dates and they would get a, you know, they'd get a bottle of Rosie and drink and get drunk and that was the love. And so even the song that I thought was about some girl was actually about no not getting one. And so it wasn't until like this one day that I read this article and I had seen the documentary that I was inspired by for a while. But it was always that thing that I just showed my friends. It wasn't something that I really thought I'd have an actual possibility of making a movie like this. But I had read this article about Neil diamond coming out to Los Angeles to audition for the movie Lenny, the Bob Fosse movie with Dustin Hoffman. And he bombed the audition. And then he went back to his apartment and he began writing. I am, I said. And I was listening to the lyrics now with this idea of trying to do something in Hollywood, failing at it, and wondering if you should even be out there in the first place. And I'd been really experiencing that by having to go back and forth between Memphis and Los Angeles. And there was a lot of times that I just kind of felt a little bit lost. And it's one of those moments where I've had this twice now. One was the karaoke moment in Lost in Translation when Bill Murray is singing the song. And I remember just crying in the theater and just going like, craig, what is up with you right now? And then this moment, I just put on I am, I said, and just had a good cry. And I was like, well, Neil, you found me. Like, it took me a while. I guess I needed to feel some loneliness and feel some doubt. And here you are knocking on my door with a song that I never really thought of much of before. And I think that's kind of where he. You know, when I was younger, I mean, it's great to listen to three six Mafia and eight Ball and mjg, but I was a younger man. I was in a much more hungrier place. And sure enough, I guess you can get to a point in your life where and no one hurt at all, not even the chair is something that resonates with you. It's just where I guess I am right now.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think that there's connectivity to that, though, too. There is. As a kid who was raised on hip hop and loves eight Ball and mjg, I also am finding myself maybe a little bit more emotionally connected to a contemplative kind of singer, songwriter, music at this stage of my life. But those are artists that are weirdly talking to each other. That idea of isolation that you're talking about, that's not uncommon in a lot of the music that you've portrayed in the films or in the blues music you've portrayed in the films. And I think it's cool the way that you're able to move between these eras, but you did it in a way that is like, frankly, for me, as a person who sees everything, it's so exciting for this to not be a Neil diamond biopic. There is something so fantastic about seeing the way that his music is affecting other people and that they're using it to kind of transform their lives. And I was wondering if you could just talk about that a little bit of, like, maybe using some of the power, some of the tools of a music biopic, but not the conventions.

[Craig Brewer]

Yeah, I think that what it was for me is. And look, I love biopics and music biopics. And it's funny, I think I saw an article recently where it's now kind of like a genre that. It's almost like a genre that is. When you're comparing money returns, they're going, well, there's horror, there's music biopics. And I never really thought that it was that big of a thing, but now I'm seeing that. I mean, even this last year, it.

[Amanda Davin]

It's.

[Craig Brewer]

It's still a thing that's. That's very popular. But I think what it was for me was how can I get an audience to. To love and fall in love with somebody that they don't know who. Who they are, you know, and there's been many people that have come up to me and said, I thought you were doing a Neil diamond biopic. I even went into the movie thinking that's what I was seeing. And I was like, well, you're half right. I mean, it's a biopic. It's just. The point is, is that I'm hoping you don't know anything about them. Like, because that's kind of the point that I'm trying to make about kind of what you pointed to earlier. Regionalism, you know, is can you be artistically fulfilled and can you be fulfilled as a. As a person just by, like, staying in your community and almost like, singing and performing for your community? And can that ultimately be a better way to get a global lens to look at you and to find yourself and to find your happiness and find your. Your wor. More through thinking that, you know, playing in bars or like, even having your movie playing a bar, like I used to do back in the day, is. Is perhaps more meaningful than what usually biopics go to, which is like, well, when do they break big and when do they get to that place that they're now supernova? And then it starts getting into the usual things of like, okay, but when do they ruin that? You know, when do they. When do they start succumbing to their. Their.

[Sean Fantasy]

Their.

[Amanda Davin]

Their.

[Craig Brewer]

Their, you know, nightmares or they're succumbing to their. Their personal problems? And I guess what I always loved about this story is that, you know, he was a recovering alcoholic and he. He died sober. He. He went 25 years of. Of being sober. And I thought, well, that's kind of interesting. Like, maybe there is something that.

[Amanda Davin]

To.

[Craig Brewer]

To do here that doesn't necessarily need to go in those usual directions with biopics where they make it and then let's have them destroy themselves and, and have the other elements of life be the things that are trying to destroy them. You know, random tragedies, you know, if someone's sick in your family, like, the things that are very relatable, I think, to a lot of people that aren't necessarily, you know, a Bob Dylan or, you know, you know, another. Any. Any, you know, biopic where there's always that moment where, okay, now. Now they've all got to, like, have it destroy them. And I mean, I'm. I'm dealing with it now, even working on the Snoop Dogg movie. Like, okay, well, how can we think of it a little bit differently and not try to get into that usual thing? So I, I felt it was just an opportunity to get into something that. It's just been very close to me, which is just, you know, can. Can we elevate people that aren't necessarily famous and. And say that it's okay and that, you know, your. Your worth is grand and grand enough to have, like, a big Hollywood movie made of it?

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah. I liked what you said about the Mike character being in recovery. The whole movie is sort of about recovery of a kind for all the characters and in different. The different ways that certain things have affected each person. But the movie does, as people who are starting to see it now, realizing it really is like a tale of two halves. There is a first half that is this exuberant rise, and then the second half that is quite tragic and shocking in ways. I hadn't seen the documentary before this. I didn't know anything about their story, and that's a hard tonal balance to keep an audience on the rails for the two halves of this movie. Maybe. Can you talk about how you thought about doing that and making us feel safe throughout the story?

[Craig Brewer]

Well, it's definitely something that was on my mind throughout the whole thing because I, you know, there's so many different ways you can go into that, you know. You know, and. And I don't mind, you know, talking about it. You know, it's. It's, you know, the movie's coming out in two days, and I'm sure people are going to know that, you know, Claire Sardina, who Plays thunder. You know, there's lightning and thunder. So there. Mike. Mike is. Is lightning, and Claire was thunder right at the moment when they were. Everything was kind of going great in their life. A car, uncontrolled, you know, lost control and hit her while she was just gardening in her front yard. And she lost. She lost her leg. And. And it. I knew that I really. I mean, I wanted to tell the movie because of this, because I. It wasn't like I wanted it to just be, you know, this one element of. Because I personally feel that that's really where true love is tested. You know, you. You get into a relationship and everything's fantastic. You know, for those first three months, you know, there's emojis and, you know, you're. You're still. You're still sleeping in bed and holding on to each other and you're not getting hot and, you know, saying, hey, that's your side of that. You know, there's a. There's all that.

[Amanda Davin]

That.

[Craig Brewer]

That. That. It just couldn't go any better, right? And. And then something happens that really kind of tests, you know, the love and test the commitment. And I just. I knew that the only way that I was really going to do it was to just get people to fall in love. Like, it's not something that I wanted to do. The usual. I mean, they do it a lot in television and some movies do it where it's like you kind of start and tease the tragedy and you go back and. How did we get to this point? Because I don't really think that the movie completely is about this one tragic moment, because there's a. There's a few things that come at this couple in this family that's just trying to. You know, they're just trying to live. They're trying to pay their bills, but they're also trying to make music and play in bars and entertain you. But at the same time, it's like, you know, how many bad things can happen to this couple? But I still found their. Their story rather inspiring. And so I. You know, for me, I guess I just. I. I knew that I was. If I could just get to the halfway point and then punch everybody in the gut, that hopefully they would have invested enough time in falling in love that they couldn't just immediately go like, okay, I didn't really sign up for this. But at the same time, I didn't want to get too gratuitous in the area of it, because I do think that the whole purpose of this was to see that you can actually pull yourself out of this. And that usually the thing that pulls people out of trauma is a community, is a family realizing that you can't really do it on your own. And you need to hold on to your passion. And for some people, it's holding onto your faith. And for me, in this story I saw with this documentary that I saw about this couple, their faith was singing. Their faith was singing Neil diamond. And everybody's got their own thing. I know every. Every year here in Memphis, everybody comes here to mourn Elvis Presley. And we could laugh at it, seeing everybody with their candles. But until you see like somebody from another country who's weeping and telling you, you don't know what Elvis's music did. For me, like, it's hard to be cynical about that kind of love and passion for something. And for this couple, it happened to be the two of them singing together and singing these songs. There's a song, Holly Holy, that I just knew, like, okay, I knew at the beginning of this whole process, like, if I can get to this moment where they return to singing the song, if I can do what I can to earn this moment, then we will have succeeded. And I think we did.

[Sean Fantasy]

I think you did too. I just recorded a conversation with my co host Amanda about the movie and I started talking about it and I said something to the effect of, gosh, you know, Hugh Jackman is so winning in this movie. He's so great. And she turned to me and she was like, you always say that, like you're surprised about a Hugh Jackman performance, but it is pretty amazing that he through a lot of different kinds of parts in a lot of different kinds of movies. It really feels like he's working hard and selling the movie in a way, but you don't feel the artifice of performance either. It's this very interesting thing where he does have this entertainer's quality and he's really got the movie on his shoulders, especially for the first act.

[Craig Brewer]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

And I was hoping you could just talk about casting him and why he was right for this and what he brings.

[Craig Brewer]

It's interesting what you bring up. I'd love to hear what Amanda says about this because I think that there is something about Hugh as an entertainer. He loves to be on stage. He loves to sing songs and get everybody going. But I love find that there's also an unshakable certainty in his earnestness in his life. I mean, as much as everybody says, oh, he's such a dream, he is. I mean, because he really doesn't have any of that. He really is a kind man, and he cares. And I. I think on this movie, I just knew I had to have him. I mean, I always tell people, it's like he was at the top of my list. There wasn't a list. It was Hugh. And, you know, I needed. I needed two things. I needed Neil diamond to sign off on the music, and I. I needed Hugh Jackman because he's. I think he was going to be the only one that could understand that. That kind of. I mean, yes, he could sing, but that kind of showmanship, you know, make jokes that he's the greatest showman, but. But. But he does have that, and I think he understands it. And also. And as someone who just went to Milwaukee with him, and so he's hanging out with, you know, like, we serve, like, frozen custard to 500 people that waited two to three hours in the snow to see Hugh Jackman. And he was only supposed to serve about a hundred. And there's this moment where they said, okay, Hugh, we're supposed to go. And he's like, well, what about all these people? Like, they've all been out there, and they're like, yeah, but we only said 100, you know, and he's like. And he turned to me, and I was helping. I was serving with him. And he's like, craig, I can't. I can't. I can't leave him out here like this. I just can't do it. I'll pay for it all. And. And I just looked at him, and I was just like, you're having such a Hugh Jackman moment. If only people knew this was you. Because he does care. And I think he's very subtle in the movie, and he's subtle, really, in a lot of his movies. I mean, I look at prisoners, but it's just when that rage comes forward or when that performance comes forward, it's really. It's hard to take your eyes off of him. It's powerful. And I think it's that Ozzy in him that felt very comfortable in Milwaukee, talking with people. He's kind of a guy's guy. He can talk to you about sports. He can also talk to you about singing Godspell when he was a teenager. And so he's a very interesting person that traverses this world of kind of like a very interesting position of masculinity. So I knew I had to have him.

[Sean Fantasy]

I want to hear you talk about Kate a little bit, too, because she is an Unusual star to me, where she has been truly iconic in a few movies, feels like she has not made as many movies in the last decade as you would have thought based on the way that her career launched and what a star she was in the aughts and 2010s. And I'm sure there are a variety of reasons for why she chose to step back or didn't do certain things. But you've kind of tapped into a very different approaching middle aged version of Kate Hudson in the film. And you've kind of asked her to do some very unglamorous things. She's doing an accent, which is very risky and I think she pulls it off very well. So why did you want her to be in that part?

[Craig Brewer]

Well, I didn't until I did. And I think it's important for people to hear this and I'm sure Kate's fine with me saying this, but when you decide you're gonna cast somebody, suddenly there's these lists that start going around and usually it's 30 deep, but there's really just, there's the 10 and then there's the 5. You know, like these are the actresses that mean something right now. And Kate wasn't on that, you know, and I'd known Kate for like 20 years. I, you know, I think I met her for Black Snake Moan, went over to her house and we started playing like, you know, blues music that she was really, you know, fluent with. She just really knows music knows. I mean, she was at the time, you know, with a musician. And then I met with her a couple of other times over at her house and I was always trying to find something for us to do. But over the years she had moved on and I had moved on as well. But then Hugh saw her on a TV show on, I believe CBS Sunday Morning and said, you know, you gotta check her out. And I went on and I watched the episode and there was something about just seeing Kate now, like close to like 10 to 15 years later after I was hanging out with her and she was talking about her son going off to college and I was like, wait a minute, that can't be the boy that was like the toddler that was in the room, like when I was there. And then it kind of hit me. It's like, yeah, Craig, word, we're older. Like you have teenagers and, and, and yet then Kate would like tear up about it and, and then she would say like, I'm kind of getting tired of Hollywood trying to make up their mind about me. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna write music, and I'm gonna go in the recording studio and I'm gonna go and I'm gonna just play venues, and I'm gonna. I'm gonna, you know, be a. Be in a band. And I just thought, oh, my God, this is, like, perfect for her. Just absolutely perfect. And so I got. We got on the phone with her, I had a zoom with Kate. It was like no time had passed. And she said something to me. She goes, look, Craig, I know that there's going to be plenty of people that are going to give you the notes that I've got to have agency and I've got to have, like, you know, that I've got to be about, like, my dream and all this kind of stuff. But I'm just telling you, I think she just loves them. I think she just loves. Loves him and loves him and wants to be married to him and wants to be backing him up in his band and is totally happy doing that. And I was like, I'm so happy that I have, like, this really confident woman telling me this very important thing that I think is going to be crucial because she has to do that, because in the end, she ultimately rescues him as well. And so I don't even think we went to the studio. I mean, what you're supposed to. It's kind of like once I had Hugh, he was like, well, we're doing it with Kate, and we were just off and running. And so I agree with you that.

[Sean Fantasy]

She.

[Craig Brewer]

You know, I tell people, Kate's kind of been in her own prison, you know, because she's really good at comedy. She's really good at that, you know, effervescence. When that smile hits, you know, it's huge. It's bigger than life. But I have always felt that she was not being considered for dramatic roles when every time she's done something interesting, like, people are always like, oh, God, she's so good. And I was like, yeah, but give her a role. There's so many roles over the last 10 years. I was like, you know, she'd be really good in that. I just don't think that people are thinking about her for the same reason. She's kind of good in that romantic comedy. You know, she's your best friend. You know, she, you know, for women, they see something in her that doesn't necessarily separate her from them. They feel closer to her in some way. But I think that that was in this role, kind of crucial because they feel that, and then she has this moment that changes everything. And now you have. You have an entire audience that is now going through it with her because of that kind of accessibility that she opens up in people. It's been interesting to watch women and men, but I mean, particularly women talk to me after seeing the movie saying how much they felt like her, even though the exact thing did not happen, that they couldn't help but feel this connection to specifically Kate Hudson going through it. And I found that very interesting.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's fascinating too. Cause she's so soulful and almost famous. A music movie. A movie about what music does to you. And that's a very dramatic part. And you'd think that that would have set her up for a lot of parts like this. But she has not done a lot of work like this. And I thought she was quite good. One thing that really struck me about the movie that I quite liked, that I'll use as kind of a segue to asking you a broader question about your career, is it's a really good movie about class. There's not a lot of studio Hollywood films that are about being at that station in America, in the middle of the country or in a place like where you live that, you know, there's just not a lot of time for being lower middle class and what that looks like on screen. Because it's not glamorous, not fun. It's hard. It makes people think about what's hard about their lives sometimes too. And that's one of the reasons why we don't see it as often. But that did have me thinking about a slightly different version of class. Where you are in, like, a class of filmmaker that is pretty tricky that, like, has gets defined as like the middle class of filmmaking, right? Where you make totally, you know, dramas and films with a lot of music and they have stars and they get released in theaters and they have, you know, they have heft. But they're not $350 million movies, right? And the expectation is not for them to be that. And we're in a time where, like, that's really being encroached upon, as I'm sure you know better than anybody. So, like, I was hoping you could talk maybe about, like, living in that space and wanting to make those kinds of movies in this time in moviemaking.

[Craig Brewer]

Well, I find it such a interesting topic that I wish more people would talk about, because I think we're heading there in a. In a real substantial way. Like, I. I can't help but think, look, focus has been absolutely amazing. They, they really empower their filmmakers. They, they stay out of their way to some extent. And, and, and, and when I say stay out of their way, they're there to help me. You know, there have been times where it's like, I need just a little bit more. And they were like, of course you need a little bit more. It makes sense for what you're talking about. They're incredibly reasonable. But we started at Universal, it was Donna Langley and Peter Kramer who kind of like said, we think we see what you're doing here when everybody was saying no. But then it moves to focus. And in doing so, I think what it was is that universal makes huge plus $100 million movies, really, and focuses in a different bracket. And, and I, where some people would have said like, oh, it's too bad that you have to, to do that. And I was like, no, actually I really want to make this work because I think this is kind of where Hollywood is going. We've got to make movies for less. I mean, it's just, it's just, we can complain about it, but it's just true, you know, So I, I'm not saying that I probably one day couldn't do a hundred million dollar movie, I don't know. But I prefer to stay in this space because usually the kind of content that I'm attracted to exists better in this space. You know, you talk about working class. I think there's even something else going on which is like, there really is this. As someone who's, you know, lived in. I have a, I have to live in LA a lot because of work sometimes. But there is kind of this Hollywood bubble, you know, and it is existing within itself until something tells you that it's different. So just today I was watching the latest episode of Landman. I don't know if you all are watching.

[Sean Fantasy]

I don't watch it, but I'm aware of it based on many people here at the Ringer.

[Craig Brewer]

Okay, so I'm sure everybody at the Ringer talked about. But, but I'm watching like a whole sequence that takes place like at like this, this expo of like, you know, people that are working in the oil industry and also like, you know, just, you know, trucks and expos that I've kind of been to here in, in Tennessee. And I remember turning to someone and saying like, you know, no one's showing this part of the country in anything. Like, I mean, when was the last time you saw anything remotely like this in a movie or television? And it's really because Taylor Sheridan is doing it. But I remember being at Paramount at a time when they were saying, like, you can't do anything with cowboy hats. You can't do anything that's remotely Southern. And I was like, why? And they're like, it's the same reason that every other studio doesn't want to do it. It's specifically middle America, and that's harder to sell internationally. And I was like, okay, but people like in New York and Jersey can have New York, Jersey accents, and that can sell internationally. And they're like, it's easier because it's less American and more accessible to global audiences. And the same reasoning goes into movies with predominantly black casts. So I'm doing movies with, like, southern black people in it. And, like, it's just a boom, boom, you know? But I find it interesting that, like, now huge deals are being made with Taylor Sheridan and everything, because he just. He took the space. And then you look at. I mean, I've made two pictures at Tyler Perry's studio. So there's people that kind of, like, go to that place in Class and Country, and. And they decide just to start making. Making stuff. And then the money starts rolling in and everybody starts kind of scratching their head going like, well, wait a minute. How did this happen? And I think that there's something to that. And I. And I'm hoping that again, kind of like what. Like you said earlier about regionalism, Like, I do think that there's a conversation to have about, like, are we. Are we kind of killing ourselves a little bit in the industry because we're making these assumptions of what the globe wants to. And no one is necessarily coming from a place of real authenticity.

[Sean Fantasy]

Couldn't agree more. I'm going to use that as an opportunity to pivot to my regionalism, which is New York and the New York Mets. I read. Tell me if this is true, but I read that your grandfather was marvelous. Marv Thornberry. Is that true?

[Craig Brewer]

It is true. It is true.

[Sean Fantasy]

It's true. What was that like? And what did that do to you?

[Craig Brewer]

I'm so glad we're talking about this. You're the only person I really wanted to talk to about this. I grew up knowing my. Here's the first memory I have of my grandfather. My mother crying on the phone. I think I'm like, six, and she's saying, don't do it, Daddy. They're gonna make fun of you. She's crying, don't do it. Don't do it. And then she starts talking to my dad. It's like they're flying him to New York. They said that they're gonna buy him a suit. Now, looking back, my granddad is not in baseball anymore. He is an overweight, bald, you know, guy that, that is. That goes fishing in his cabin. But Light Beer from Miller wanted him to be in a commercial where he kind of talked about how, you know, at times, bad of a baseball player. He was, you know, and he kind of had these spectacular bungles. But as you. If you know anything about the Mets history, like, he was beloved. He was, he. They were shirts, you know. Yes. I mean, he was an icon.

[Sean Fantasy]

Franchise.

[Craig Brewer]

Yes, absolutely. Some. I mean, I think it was Jimmy Breslin said he's the, he's the first Met. He's, He's. He's really what the Met experience is about. So then later on, I think I was, like, watching the Olympics, like, like next year, like a year later. And there's. There's Marv. There's my granddaddy looking right at the camera going, you take four Marv Thornberries, just get one Carl for a baseball card, you know, but, like, Beer from Miller called me, you know, and, and I, I couldn't believe it. But then it spawned this whole light beer gang where Billy Martin and, and, and Madden and. And then. And then Mickey Spillane, you know, I don't know if you remember these commercials where, like, they would argue, it tastes great, less filling. Tastes great, less filling. And at the end of every commercial, there'd be Marvin turning right to the camera going, I still don't know why they asked me to do this commercial. And so, granted, Marv was, like, flying everywhere being a celebrity. So I did not grow up with him being a baseball person. I grew up where I knew that he was going out and basically making his money opening up car shows. So all my life growing up in theater, I was always kind of, like, encouraged that, oh, you're going to be big in sports. And, like, everybody in my family went to UT Knoxville, so every picture I'm bathed in orange. And, and, and I just wasn't good at sports, but I was good at dancing, hence the Footloose. Right? But I got into children's theater, and I felt really awkward about sports. And I, I. And I remember even growing up with kind of this chip on my shoulder that I'm not into sports, I'm into theater, I'm into movies. And, and movies even became that thing that I think that people do with sports where it's like, you're going to really sit here and tell me that ET Is the best Steven Spielberg movie over Raiders Lost art. You're really going to tell that?

[Sean Fantasy]

So.

[Craig Brewer]

So it kind of occupies that same thing that I think people have with like, baseball players or pitchers or basketball players. And. And it really wasn't until I started filming Song Sung Blue that I was going through, like, because the movie's about this. I was like, craig, you gotta have a real, like, honest talk with yourself about you and your relationship to sports and why you feel this way. And maybe you gotta, like, get over this and you need to take a big bite into something. So for a good two months, I was on a research level exploration as to should I be a Yankee or should I be a Met? And I was like, yeah, but my granddaddy played for both teams. And everybody in New York was like, because I edited the movie. They're like, no, no, no, no, that's not how this works. You got to declare. And I had, like, people going like, yeah, but look at the. Look at the Yankees history. And I read everything about baseball. I really dove in. You know, watch the Ken Burns documentary over and over again. And there was this moment, and it's interesting because you kind of brought it up a little bit earlier where I think that I was listening to some podcast and somebody was talking about me and they go, you know what? Let me tell you something about Greg Brewer. He's not like an Academy Award winning guy. He hasn't had that big hit, but he's a good, solid, hits the ball right over second. He's a good get on base type of player. And I was like, yeah, I'm a Met. It hit me so clear where I was like, wait a minute, Craig, you live in Memphis. You constantly are dealing with almost getting there with things. You're not Nashville. You know what I mean? Like, even three six Mafia is like, not Jay Z. You know what I mean? They're incredibly important. I think that they have. So I spent the season diving into the Mets. I went to 12 games and it was fascinating. Like, I would read every day. I was like, wow, people really are booing Soto. I mean, at the top of the season, then August hit and it's like, what happened? It's like I even was thinking, like, oh, they just needed me. Like, everything's going great. And then like, August hit and like, Soto was the only one really, that people were like, cheering him. But then everything started to kind of fall apart. And so. And then I got to the end of this and people that were like, you know, Fans that had worked on my crew, they were like, this is what we told you. This is that heartbreak that we were talking about. And I have to say, though, I still prefer the heartbreak and uncertainty than if I went with a different team. And I'm beginning to understand my granddaddy more. Like, my granddaddy actually is known for kind of being a loser, even though he wasn't. He actually has a really good record. I urge you to look it up. But it's like. But he himself kind of embraced those elements in himself. And when people made fun of him, especially people from New York would make fun of him, he was really good at one, upping them on making fun of himself in kind of that Dolly Parton, self deprecating Southern way that suddenly everybody just fell in love with. And so for the first time in my life, like, I was thinking, am I closer to Marv than I ever thought I was? When I thought I was like, distant from him? And especially being in New York and thinking like, man, he was 18 playing the polo Grounds. Can you imagine stepping up to the plate? 18, especially, especially from where I knew he was from, which is like the country. I mean, he was from Fisherville, Tennessee. You know, he didn't like, have. And I started to go like, yeah, it's kind of like, what happened to you? You know, it's like I started to feel this connection to them and just feeling this connection to baseball and especially the Mets and going to the games and like, there's nothing better than taking that seven line in and seeing everybody like, getting on and you're going like, oh, man, this is like a different energy than anything else. It's. And it's just. I've been to both stadiums, I've been to both games. There is a working class feel, no doubt, at Citi Field and Citi Field. That's just different.

[Sean Fantasy]

Yeah.

[Craig Brewer]

And so that's my. The Mets kind of oddly rescued me this last year, even though there's plenty to. Plenty to complain about.

[Sean Fantasy]

I mean, you're incredibly brave for signing up for this. I would love to know. Let's cut to five years from now. If you have had to endure five seasons like the one we just had, how you're feeling about the choice you've made, I'd be curious to know because it is a hard fandom. It actually is quite. And I know that you are drawn to this and the characters that you portray are people who have to earn it and there's no handouts. Right. It's like, you gotta go through some shit to get to the other side. But, boy, it feels like we've been going through some shit for 40 years, Craig. It's been a hard time.

[Craig Brewer]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, just take comfort that it's been that since the beginning. I know, it really has with Marvelous Marv. And he wasn't called Marvelous Marv until he was a Met. Like, it was a funny thing that he wrote on his locker because he did not feel particularly marvelous, and yet it rescued him. I mean, even when he was kind of, you know, didn't have money. In Fisherville, Tennessee, after his baseball career ended, suddenly the Mets came to his rescue by way of being kind of a known loser to some extent. You know, it's wild. He's got the famous story with Casey Stangle, you know, or when, which is also another. I mean, this is really the movie that should be made. I love that Casey Stangle is, like, fired from the Yankees for basically being old. You know, I mean, he was winning. You know, you're telling the story of.

[Sean Fantasy]

The Breslin Book of can anybody here play this game?

[Craig Brewer]

Can play this game. Yeah. Yeah. And then he puts together this team that's just resoundingly bad, and yet they're selling out. They're selling out their stadiums, and the Yankees are struggling to do that at theirs. And people are scratching their head just going, like, what's going on? Why is it that this team that is really, really in the record books, is fighting for the record books to be like, the worst team ever is connecting with this crowd. And there's the famous story that I think is Marv tripled, brought in two runs that, that, that won the game. And then he was called out for not touching second. And then Casey Stangle goes out to the ump and says, like, what are you doing? And the ump's like, casey, he didn't touch first either, you know, and it's like.

[Sean Fantasy]

And.

[Craig Brewer]

And so it's like it. It's just like it couldn't write itself better. I. My favorite story about Marv is that. That they had, like. I can't remember. I think it was like a. A couch store that put like, a bullseye on the left side of, like, thinking left field. And then if you hit that, then they were going to get a free boat, right? But then Jimmy. But then Casey didn't like that because he was like, no, all my hitters are going to start trying to hit left field. And so they're like, we're going to put one in right field, too. So they now have two bullseyes. Marv hits it the most. And he didn't even try to. And they're like, congratulations, Marv, you won this boat. And then he's like, okay, well, you know, I live in Fisherville. How am I going to get it out there? They're like, so you're going to need to rent a place in New York to store the boat. And he's like, and I have to do this. So. So now he's in for renting this storage facility to house the boat. And then they come up to him and say, and you need to pay taxes on it. And he's like, what do you mean it's a gift? And they go, no, you earned it. You earned it. Because he's like, let me get this straight. I just want a boat that I can't take home. I'm paying for it and I got to pay taxes on it. So even when he won as a Met, he lost. So you'll have to give me some advice as to like, how to handle it, because how long, I mean, I mean, how long have you been.

[Sean Fantasy]

My entire life. My father grew up a Giants fan and when the Giants left, he jumped right on board in that year, in that first year of the Mets, very willingly, very happily. I think he was nine years old. And so he was a Marv fan and told me all about those teams and obviously got to live through as a teenager. 69. 69. And was a die hard fan for my entire life. And he is like really starting to give up on the team in his, you know, approaching his late 70s. I'm still in. I'm still in. I. It is my favorite sport, it is my favorite team. But I do, I feel a little beat up, Craig. I do feel a little beat up. This has been a tough couple of months with the way that things have unfurled. And we're talking on the day when Jeff McNeil has been salary dumped. So, you know, it's. We're going through like a real exorcism.

[Craig Brewer]

Right now and, and we're learning all kinds of like juicy stuff. Like I'm learning about like, like Lind and Soto having beef. And am I hearing this right? That Trump was actually like a thing with McNeil and like an odd.

[Sean Fantasy]

So say Mike Francisa. Yeah. The famed radio host says that he was told that what came between Brandon Nimmo and Francisco Lindor was Donald Trump. So, you know, again, these are all ripe fodder for your films. Like, just think about how you could really Extrapolate the lives of ballplayers and the way the things that come between them when they're in search of greatness.

[Craig Brewer]

Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, if there's definitely gonna be a sports movie I should do, I mean, this is definitely it because it's so wild how much misery is around.

[Sean Fantasy]

It is, is around this team.

[Craig Brewer]

And everybody that's a fan seems to embrace it in this kind of like, interesting badge. But I kind of love it. I feel, it feels. I mean, the Memphis look, I do follow the Memphis Grizzlies and they're kind of a little bit like that. They're always like the, like that team in the playoffs that's kind of like that fly that's just bothering the team that you know is going to be moving on. They're like, would Memphis just please just die? Would you leave us alone? Stop. Like, we'd like to just win this and move on. But until you. Until you're in a. In. In the FedEx forum at a Memphis Grizzlies game and you hear 20,000 people, including like blue haired old ladies chanting, whoop. That trick from my movie Hustle and Flow. You don't know what. You don't know what fury is.

[Sean Fantasy]

That's magic. Yeah. I wish we had our version of that at Citi Field, Craig. We end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen. Have you seen. Have you been watching movies? You're an Academy voter, I assume.

[Craig Brewer]

I am an Academy voter. Let's see the last great thing that I've seen. I really love sentimental value.

[Sean Fantasy]

What did you like about it?

[Craig Brewer]

Well, maybe it's hitting. I think there was something about the fact that I have a 17 year old daughter that is. I just. It's so funny. She came to me at the top of the year and she said, you're not going to make it to my high school graduation, aren't you? And I was like, why would you say that? She goes, because you're doing Snoop Dogg. Like you're going to be doing this movie next year and you're probably going to be shooting while I'm graduating. And I was like, that may be possible, honey. And like, I didn't. She suddenly has this like agency and knowledge about things that just kind of rattles. I don't know if you have a daughter. Not. But like I do, but she's four.

[Sean Fantasy]

So she doesn't know and I'm not going to be around.

[Craig Brewer]

Just wait. Because they Just can look right into your soul. It's like they're every wife, mother and girlfriend you've ever had, but there's just nothing that, that's going to stop them from being honest. And, and it's just, it's amazing, but startling. And she said, I want you to direct the play that I just got cast in, in the high school. It's 12 angry men, which is called 12 angry jurors. And I was like, honey, I owe two scripts. I got like a movie that's coming out in December. And she just kind of like said, yeah, but, you know, I need you to do this. And so I, you know, I directed the play and to be a director where your daughter is the lead and knowing that you're seeing things in them where it's like, yeah, I'm so sorry that, like, this is kind of what we do. We kind of take our pain and misery and we do things, things with it. You know, we, we act with it, we write with it, we direct with it and it, and it creates kind of like this. I mean, I have a much better relationship obviously, than, than the one in that movie, but I, I couldn't help but feel, oh, that's the horrible thing about the, the multi generational connections and trauma that, that that family kind of was going through. And yet at the same time, everybody's using it. You know, even the opening scene where she's just like, it's taking everything for her to get up out on that stage. Like, that's what I love about actors is that, you know, I know that we treat them as if they've got this privileged life, but we want them to stand on this mark and we want them to cry sometimes all day. And then everything that they're committing to us is forever. And I see the toll that's taken on them. And so there was something about that movie that I think just kind of spoke to that relationship. And it's almost like you mourn the fact that your child is doing something that's kind of similar to what you're doing, or they have the same kind of passion and you almost want to miss, you almost want to direct them in another way. But so I found that movie and then I'm stumping for. I keep on saying, I'll say it till I'm blue in the face, but I just thought that Weapons was one of the great movies of this year. And I think we all need to start having a conversation about horror, that it's still being kind of segregated a little bit in awards talk. And so, yeah. Yeah, I would say that's sentimental. Was the last thing I saw that I really liked. But I've got to see some more now that the holidays are here.

[Sean Fantasy]

Two great picks. Two of my favorites of the year. What a pleasure talking to you, Craig. Thank you for doing this.

[Craig Brewer]

Oh, thank you. Thank you.

[Sean Fantasy]

Okay. Thank you to Craig Brewer. Thank you to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. We will be back later this week with the final film in our 25 for 25 series, which I'm excited about. This is our last recording.

[Amanda Davin]

This is it.

[Sean Fantasy]

Of 2025.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah. Barring, like, I don't know what I. Chris Ryan, over the weekend was trying to imagine situations in which we'd have.

[Sean Fantasy]

To do an emergency. Eileen asked me about this.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

So what. What could. What. What would have to happen?

[Amanda Davin]

I feel like, you know, if. If, like, Trump seizes Warner Brothers, then I guess we. I really hope that doesn't happen for a multitude of reasons.

[Sean Fantasy]

Oh, my God.

[Amanda Davin]

But that would be pretty bad.

[Sean Fantasy]

That would be bad. Gosh.

[Amanda Davin]

And then, you know.

[Sean Fantasy]

You know what my go to is?

[Amanda Davin]

Go ahead.

[Sean Fantasy]

My go to is always when Jack Nicholson dies.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fantasy]

When Jack Nicholson dies. And I have to just record for 12 strai hours. And I. I'll tell you something. I've been thinking about this. I have been, like, reluctant in the last few years to not even, like, think about doing episodes about Jack. Like, not locate movies of his that are important. Like, when we get onto a movie of his. Like, we didn't. We didn't talk really about as Good as It Gets. When we talked about James L. Brooks. Yeah, we didn't really talk about him. We talked about Anger management with Adam Sandler. I'm kind of, like, storing it up, you know? Like, he was my first favorite actor. Actor.

[Amanda Davin]

Okay.

[Sean Fantasy]

And I'm not trying to will anything.

[Amanda Davin]

Negative into his existence to, like, do it now.

[Sean Fantasy]

I know. And it's like, have I. Have I even really talked about him on the rewatchables? I guess on A Few Good Men, we talk about him, but, like, we.

[Amanda Davin]

Talked about him on Something's Gotta Give.

[Sean Fantasy]

Something's gotta. I mean. And he's magnificent. Something's Gotta Give. But you're. I. I feel like there's a lot inside me about him.

[Amanda Davin]

An emergency podcast?

[Sean Fantasy]

No, no, it's.

[Amanda Davin]

Yeah, but we.

[Sean Fantasy]

We would build out a suite of coverage.

[Amanda Davin]

Exactly. Well, that's an uplifting note to go on. Thank you so much for bringing that to us.

[Sean Fantasy]

You did a great job. This year.

[Amanda Davin]

Thanks. You too.

[Sean Fantasy]

Thank you so much. Yeah, we'll see you in two days.