The Best Picture Movie Draft

Summary

The Big Picture: The Best Picture Movie Draft – Episode Summary

Release Date: February 21, 2025

Hosts: Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins, Bill Simmons Guests: Chris Ryan (CR Pod), Van Lathan

In this engaging episode of The Big Picture, hosted by Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins from The Ringer, the team delves deep into the intricacies of the Academy Awards by conducting a comprehensive Best Picture Movie Draft. Joined by Bill Simmons and occasional contributions from Ringer colleagues like Chris Ryan and Van Lathan, the conversation navigates through decades of cinematic history, examining both winners and notable losers of the prestigious Best Picture category.

---

1. Introduction to the Best Picture Movie Draft

The episode kicks off with Sean Fennessey introducing the concept of the Best Picture Movie Draft, a strategic exercise aimed at selecting the most deserving Best Picture winners from various decades. The draft encompasses categories spanning the 1930s, 1950s, 1970s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, alongside a unique category called Best Picture Loser, which includes films that were nominated but did not clinch the award.

Sean Fennessey [02:28]:
"We are drafting from essentially half of the eligible Best Picture winners."

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2. Oscars History and Selection Process

The hosts delve into the evolution of the Oscars, discussing how the selection process and the nature of Best Picture winners have shifted over the decades. They reflect on the Decline of Box Office Influence and the Changing Dynamics of the Academy.

Amanda Dobbins [03:20]:
"I have rewatched Apollo 13. But I think really, like, they're Billy Crystal razzmatazz of it all."

Sean Fennessey [10:26]:
"Maybe the most flawed popular thing we have short of national elections."

The conversation highlights a noticeable trend where modern Best Picture winners often perform less robustly at the box office compared to their predecessors. From 1997 to 2004, every Best Picture winner grossed over $100 million domestically, a streak that has dwindled in the ensuing years.

Sean Fennessey [15:25]:
"From 1997 to 2004, every Best Picture winner grossed at least $100 million at the domestic box office. That's eight straight years."

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3. Draft Rules and Strategy

Bill Simmons introduces the drafting rules, emphasizing the inclusion of six categories, each representing a different decade, plus the Best Picture Loser category. A significant strategy element is the blocking mechanism, where selecting a film from the Loser category disables the selection of any other film from that year, including the winner.

Sean Fennessey [12:35]:
"Once that film has been taken, no other movie can be taken from that year, including the winner."

This approach adds a layer of complexity, ensuring that each pick is thoughtful and strategic, considering both personal preferences and the broader context of each film's impact.

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4. The Draft Picks: Best Pictures and Losers

Sean Fennessey’s Selections:

• 1930s: Mutiny on the Bounty
  Sean [56:33]:
  "It's one of my favorite screen performances of all time and one of my personal favorite Best Picture signals."

• 1950s: On the Waterfront
  Sean [55:35]:
  "Impacting the conscience of American movie making."

• 1970s: The Godfather Part II
  Sean [35:03]:
  "Clint Eastwood's supposed capstone on his career... yet he kept cranking them out."

• 1990s: The Silence of the Lambs
  Sean [31:10]:
  "Universally a wonderful movie... last movie to win the Big Five."

• 2010s: Parasite
  Sean [41:00]:
  "One of the best – truly original voice in cinema."

• Best Picture Loser: Barry Lyndon
  Sean [72:36]:
  "One of the most beautiful and striking movies ever made."

Amanda Dobbins’ Selections:

• 1930s: It Happened One Night
  Amanda [32:35]:
  "One of the great romantic comedies and one of the most influential movies."

• 1950s: All About Eve
  Amanda [50:53]:
  "One of the best and most influential movies in cinema history."

• 1970s: The Sting
  Amanda [66:26]:
  "A tremendous, entertaining movie with Robert Redford and Paul Newman."

• 1990s: Titanic
  Amanda [74:46]:
  "A beautiful film that changed the Best Picture landscape."

• 2010s: Moonlight
  Amanda [74:53]:
  "A beautiful film and a turning point in our understanding of Best Picture."

• Best Picture Loser: The Social Network
  Amanda [57:30]:
  "A great film, eligible, and deserves recognition."

Bill Simmons’ Selections:

• 1930s: All Quiet on the Western Front
  Bill [48:33]:
  "An epic anti-war film that's a historical masterpiece."

• 1950s: Bridge on the River Kwai
  Bill [55:35]:
  "Incredible performances and a profound cinematic achievement."

• 1970s: The Sting
  Bill [66:23]:
  "A classic caper that stands out in the decade."

• 1990s: Unforgiven
  Bill [34:41]:
  "One of my favorites, a true masterpiece of the Western genre."

• 2010s: Argo
  Bill [48:28]:
  "A classic Best Picture winner deserving of its acclaim."

• Best Picture Loser: Goodfellas
  Bill [69:26]:
  "One of the greatest crime films in Oscar history."

---

5. Personal Anecdotes and Experiences

Throughout the drafting process, the hosts share personal memories and experiences related to the Oscars and the selected films. For instance, Sean recounts his uncle’s detailed explanations of The Silence of the Lambs during childhood, which ignited his passion for cinema.

Sean Fennessey [06:38]:
"He explained the whole movie to me, I think maybe without some of the more evolved facility."

Amanda reminisces about watching Billy Crystal's hosting of the Oscars and the impact those early ceremonies had on her perception of the awards.

Amanda Dobbins [05:20]:
"Billy Crystal crashing the Oscars was such a memorable moment."

The conversation also touches on modern viewing habits, such as the decline in theatrical releases' impact on Oscar success, shifting towards streaming platforms and on-demand services.

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6. Current Trends and Future of the Oscars

The hosts critically analyze recent trends in Best Picture selections, noting a shift away from box office-heavy films to more nuanced and varied choices. They discuss the potential future directions of the Academy Awards and how evolving societal tastes might influence future selections.

Sean Fennessey [20:18]:
"The winners just don't make a lot of money at the box office because the Academy has kind of changed."

Amanda Dobbins [21:29]:
"We have to let go and let movies people care about what the Oscars are."

There’s also speculation on how Best Picture winners might perform post-awards in the current digital age, with considerations of streaming numbers and global viewership rather than traditional box office sales.

---

7. Light-Hearted Side Conversations

Interspersed with the main discussion, the hosts engage in playful banter about topics like skincare routines, comedic exchanges about deodorant brands, and humorous takes on maintaining focus during long podcast recordings.

Amanda Dobbins [72:16]:
"You're over exfoliating and making your skin weak. You only need to exfoliate once or twice a week."

Bill Simmons [76:42]:
"Stay in your lane. Chicks diggled Spice."

These moments add a personable and relatable layer to the episode, showcasing the camaraderie and dynamic among the hosts.

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8. Conclusion and Recap

As the episode wraps up, the hosts recap their draft selections, reflecting on the choices made and the reasoning behind each pick. They express excitement for future episodes, where they will explore these selections in more depth and continue to dissect the evolving landscape of Best Picture contenders.

Sean Fennessey [82:42]:
"In the 1930s I chose Mutiny on the Bounty. In the 1950s, On the Waterfront. In the 1970s, The Godfather Part II. In the 1990s, The Silence of the Lambs. In the 2010s, Parasite. And in Best Picture Loser, I chose Barry Lyndon."

Amanda Dobbins [83:05]:
"In the 1930s I took It Happened One Night. In the 1950s, All About Eve. In the 1970s, The Godfather Part II. In the 1990s, Titanic. In the 2010s, Moonlight. And in Best Picture Loser, The Social Network."

The episode concludes with a teaser for the next installment, promising an exploration of alternative Oscar choices and continued in-depth analysis of cinematic excellence.

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Sean Fennessey [10:26]:
  "Maybe the most flawed popular thing we have short of national elections."

• Amanda Dobbins [03:20]:
  "I have rewatched Apollo 13. But I think really, like, they're Billy Crystal razzmatazz of it all."

• Sean Fennessey [15:25]:
  "From 1997 to 2004, every Best Picture winner grossed at least $100 million at the domestic box office. That's eight straight years."

• Amanda Dobbins [32:35]:
  "One of the great romantic comedies and one of the most influential movies."

• Sean Fennessey [41:00]:
  "One of the best – truly original voice in cinema."

This episode offers a rich exploration of the Oscars' Best Picture category, blending historical analysis with personal insights and strategic drafting. Whether you're a cinephile or a casual movie enthusiast, The Big Picture provides a comprehensive and entertaining look into the films that have shaped, and continue to influence, the landscape of American cinema.

Transcript

[Bill Simmons]

This is Bill Simmons and I want to tell you about my movie podcast, the Rewatchables, where each week I'm joined by ringer movie lovers Chris Ryan, Sean Vanity, Van Lathan, Kyle Brandt, Matt Rubin. We have a whole bunch of people on. We talk about movies we can't stop rewatching. And now you can watch us cover these movies on video in the Spotify app. We have covered over 350 movies including Heat, Goodfellas, Boogie Nights, Pulp Fiction. We have some real heavy hitters coming up here in 2025. Make sure to follow us on Spotify where you can watch every new episode. Right now, just head to the rewatchables on Spotify now on video. Daredevil is born again on Disney plus.

[Sean Fennessy]

Why did you stop being a vigilante? The line was crossed. Sometimes peace needs to be broken. Chaos must reign. On March 4th, the nine episode event begins. I was raised to believe in grace, but I was also raised to believe in retribution. Marvel Television's Daredevil born again.

[Bill Simmons]

Don't miss the two episode premiere March.

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[Amanda Dobbins]

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[Bill Simmons]

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[Amanda Dobbins]

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[Bill Simmons]

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[Amanda Dobbins]

One offer per account.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm Sean Fennessy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm Amanda Davin and this is the.

[Sean Fennessy]

Big picture, A conversation show about best pictures. Chris Ryan, AKA cr, AKA the Pod Slut is here with us. We're drafting.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Can we talk about his layers?

[Bill Simmons]

I was. Should I not be wearing a jacket in here? It's really cold in this office.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It is cold and it's cold in Los Angeles. Do you think that you're gonna heat over time?

[Bill Simmons]

Maybe.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We'll see.

[Sean Fennessy]

You're wearing a. I'm heating up like this.

[Bill Simmons]

Oscar Reese.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Wow, look at you. A new seat and a new Segway King. Here we go.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is a slight.

[Bill Simmons]

It's my premier league manager coat.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Your Jose Mourinho look. Yeah. Okay, okay. Are you here to compete today?

[Bill Simmons]

I think so, yeah. My knowledge of cinema history goes back way before the Marvel Cinematic Universe does it now you know what I mean? Before heat even Maybe even back to the dawn of cinema itself.

[Sean Fennessy]

Would you say that? Because this is wellness week here at the ringer and we are technically off all this.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's another pre recorded classic. Everyone buckle up.

[Sean Fennessy]

Funny how we keep using drafts for that strategy. Do you think of the Oscars as creating a wellness for you?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I was thinking about this on the drive in. I'm back in on the Oscars.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, wow.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm excited. I have a positive attitude. I think it helps that the worst movie is probably not going to win. I think it also helps that we do have a week off kind of dangling in front of us unless I get selected for jury duty. And I know. Do you think if I talk about it a lot that that disqualifies for me?

[Bill Simmons]

As may recall, because you're sitting over here. Are you doing tik tok hands more or am I see?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, you're just looking at me more.

[Sean Fennessy]

To capture the attention of the camera.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. What?

[Amanda Dobbins]

What were my tik Tok hands Just like that.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, you know how girls like on Tik Tok?

[Amanda Dobbins]

They'll be like, I do because I listen to you recap it on the watch.

[Sean Fennessy]

So you love a gal on Tik Tok, don't you?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, some of my favorite gals.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So are you actually on TikTok or is I get six months later? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're also getting some like original to Instagram content, right? Yes. That's kind of your demo is people too old for TikTok.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Who are still trying to make short form videos. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

In the Academy Awards race this year, we're currently in the place where voting is closed.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

But the show is still over a week away, so we don't really know we're in that nether region. So in an attempt to make content during this period of time, we're doing a draft of best picture winners. Yeah. Now, Amand and I frankly, to an unhealthy degree, have devoted a lot of our lives and intellectual capital to the Academy Awards in the last seven years. Do you like actually care about the history of the Oscars?

[Bill Simmons]

No. The history of the Oscars and its sort of centrality in American culture for the first several decades of its existence is totally fun to me. And it's a great night of television. I like watching it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

What is the first Oscars that you remember?

[Bill Simmons]

What a wonderful question. It could very well be Rain Man. What year was that?

[Sean Fennessy]

1989 for 88.

[Bill Simmons]

That's the one I kind of remember.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. And you were Were you watching it at home?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, I mean, it was always, like. I think my dad used to go, if I remember correctly. Yeah, sometimes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, that's cool.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And like, it was a thing. Like, it was also like that this time of year would be, like, right before. I guess it would be before my spring break when I was a kid. But he would always be very busy. At least this is why he told me from Christmas from, like, winter break through, like, March or whatever, you know, because doing Oscars.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, I'm sure you said this before, but what is. What is your first Oscar memory?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I remember Billy Crystal crashing, you know, doing the English Patient plane, which would have been 97. 97. So we were 13. And then the year after that was the Titanic, Good will hunting year. 97 into 98. And that was also, like, the Matt and Ben press tour year. So, you know, like, I was, like, taping that Oprah special on vhs.

[Bill Simmons]

Driver in the audience.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes. Yeah, all of that. I'm sure that I watched the Oscars before then. Like, I remember, you know, I was very invested in Apollo 13. So that was 95. But I think really, like, they're Billy Crystal razzmatazz of it all.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. I think mine is probably 92 for 91, which is the Silence of the Lambs year. And I remember this vividly. And I'm sure I've said this before on the show, too, but I wasn't allowed to watch the Silence of the Lambs.

[Bill Simmons]

Is that Billy Crystal being brought out as Lecter? Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Wearing the Lecter mask and being rolled out. Great Oscars in many ways. An incredible lineup that year. But I wasn't allowed to see the movie. But it was such a phenomenon, and we've now done it twice on the rewatchables at this point that I asked my uncle, my mom's brother, to explain the entirety of the events of the film.

[Bill Simmons]

Is that the idea for explaining Barbarian to Amanda?

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, it was a precursor to podcasting. And he was a teacher, like so many people in my family. And so he was very comfortable being like, I will lecture you for 40 minutes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You were nine years old.

[Bill Simmons]

And he told me, just raft.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Really cute.

[Sean Fennessy]

He told me. I guess I must have been on the way to 10 at that point. But he explained the whole movie to me, I think maybe without some of the more evolved facility. Yeah. But he, for the most part, gave me the vibe, and I think I probably got excited about a movie like this being considered prestigious.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And probably made me really excited. And then also like when Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump happened, I was like, this is my whole life. Like, I have to build my entire life around this experience and being mad about it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I definitely remember watching Tom Hanks, except the Oscar for Forrest Gump. So, you know, the early 90s.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, sure. Doubling up. I still think it's fun. I still think it's very silly and flawed, but I like how it's actually evolved a lot. And we were just talking on an episode a couple weeks ago about how the winners in the last 10 years. I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Like, they're just. They're really throwing us a lot of curveballs recently.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you think you guys enjoy the night more or less, after beginning this sort of professional odyssey of covering it very day to day? Like, is it anticlimactic? I was thinking about this with the super bowl, you know, I mean, it is.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It is a little bit. We were talking with. With Jack making plans and the, you know, kind of the anticipation and everything up to the night.

[Bill Simmons]

You're Amelia Perez inspired wardrobe for the evening.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, I really need to return that. If I haven't returned that by the time this episode actually airs, then I guess I just own it now. So that's just putting a pin in. But I still do really like watching it. And you and I were talking about, you know, ideal super bowl watching setups and ideal Oscar watching setups, and I. It does feel it's my super bowl, you know, and like, my team is in the super bowl every year, except it's the Oscars, and they're like, very, you know, I need a very specific environment which somehow does actually include Sean. Sean's like, the only person who's allowed to talk to me during the Oscars.

[Sean Fennessy]

I actually really like how that has evolved.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you read his tweets while he's sitting next to you?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sometimes. But later this year, like, I'm probably not going. Going to. In addition to, you know, unelected coup or whatever. Like. Like that is a really bad user experience. Like, it is just impossible to see tweets at this point, especially on desktop.

[Sean Fennessy]

So I just don't use. For you. I can't use for. For you is. It'll make it crazy.

[Bill Simmons]

I only use for you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I just. Even my feed, I'm just like, what am I looking at?

[Bill Simmons]

In lots of other perspectives.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But, you know, most of the time he's working the material in the room, you know, and so.

[Sean Fennessy]

What do you mean?

[Amanda Dobbins]

You know, you'll.

[Bill Simmons]

You'll.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You Will. And you know what?

[Bill Simmons]

No, no, no, no, no.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Time out. That's not what I said. I was being nice. No.

[Sean Fennessy]

It may be sprung from a discussion we're having. Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Or. And I think this is actually a good way of using social media during a live event, which is it should feel like what's in your head. And so you'll say something and then you'll. And then you put it. And that's fine. You know, so I get it live. But I. But I don't feel like it's, you know, I don't feel betrayed by that. That's just part of the process.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. I'm not road testing material on Amanda, but I do. If I can make Amanda laugh, I do think I've said something funny. That is how I've been grading my life in recent years. I think that the show is still good and still matters. Each year, depending. Best Picture as a historical marker is deeply flawed. Like maybe the most flawed popular thing we have short of national elections.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

And we've talked about why that is the case for many years and campaigning and the changing of the academy and the way that the ballot works.

[Bill Simmons]

Now, should this picture be decided by the Electoral College?

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't think anything should be decided by the Electoral College, personally, but I don't even know how you would mitigate that. Maybe the share that each branch gets should be weighed differently. It's an interesting idea. I've not heard that suggested before. Who do you think should have the strongest weighting in their direction in the academy branches? Publicists.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, I was gonna make that choice. That's good. That's funny.

[Sean Fennessy]

To all the publicists listening, you guys are the least important. And thank you for all the words.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, they're the nice ones.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, they have to interact with us. The other ones don't have to. I think that we are not getting better at electing Best Picture, but we are getting more interesting. And looking back at this exercise, you've got big chunks of history that have a lot of really bland or off winners. Yes. That do say something about what the academy and the industry was at that time, but you really got to work hard to discover the context.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I'm sure that's true. I mean, you can kind of. I mean, should we explain what our kind of draft, what we're doing here today?

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, in an effort to elongate this project into a two year drafting strategy, we're drafting from essentially half of the eligible Best Picture winners. You see what I did?

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's really. Yeah. You didn't specify that.

[Sean Fennessy]

Just a thought I had. Which is good.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's smart.

[Sean Fennessy]

We're drafting from six categories, as always from this time, from decades of Best Picture winners. So the decades that are eligible for picks are the 1930s, the 50s, the 70s, the 90s, and the 2000 and tens. The sixth category is Best Picture Loser. Now, the only films that are eligible in that category are films that were nominated for Best Picture but lost in all of those five decades that we're talking through. One Wrinkle. This was developed collectively, and I really like this.

[Amanda Dobbins]

This was a Chris Ryan innovation, but it was good. He threw it out, and I was like, ooh, the magic is alive.

[Bill Simmons]

You guys were the Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar Jones of my storm.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, you tamed it.

[Sean Fennessy]

You were. You wore the twister.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Am I the who's who?

[Bill Simmons]

You're Glenn Pell.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Thank you so much.

[Sean Fennessy]

Honestly, I'll.

[Bill Simmons]

Influencer.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Who likes to drive around in a big truck.

[Amanda Dobbins]

A lot of good merch.

[Sean Fennessy]

So the one wrinkle is that if you. You can select any Big Picture Best Picture loser from that. Those given decades, but that can act as a blocker because once that film has been taken, no other movie can be taken from that year, including the winner.

[Bill Simmons]

I hadn't thought about it that far into it, but that's even better.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's really cool, because some years, the pickings are slim, and some decades later.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Wait, let's say that again, because I wasn't listening. Sorry.

[Sean Fennessy]

The whole enterprise is listening to each other when making a podcast.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I know, but I was doing a little prep. I'm sorry. I was getting my tabs ready.

[Bill Simmons]

Platoon in 86, which we will not.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Be doing because the 80s aren't. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

No other movie from 1986 would be out. Well, Platoon 1.

[Sean Fennessy]

But like Platoon 1, let's say you were a huge fan of Hannah and her Sisters. I am a fan of the wood man that you are. And you said, I want to take. And with my first overall pick, Hannah and Her Sisters in Best Picture Loser. That means not only are Children of a Lesser God, the Mission and A Room of the View off the board, but Platoon is also off the board.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Dang.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay, so, you know, it's somewhat complicated to play this way, and we don't have to for the spirit of collectiveness today and, you know, believing in each other and supporting each other. But it's a great idea.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And maybe it can be applied strategically.

[Bill Simmons]

Future drafts as well.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Are doing a little bit more of Blocking and counter. Counter programming.

[Sean Fennessy]

There was a question on a recent mailbag that we didn't get to about, like, what will we do when we run out of drafts? And my response to that is, we're good. Like, I got. I got a lot of ideas. Like, I'm not really worried about run just because we ran out of years.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You can't remember anything about, like, times that we've spent together. We were talking about our lovely trip to London last year.

[Sean Fennessy]

I couldn't remember anything.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And I was just like, going, bit by bit, you knew everything. It was a great time that we all had.

[Sean Fennessy]

Anything that's transpired in my personal life in the last five years is gone. It is like I can't hold it for more than eight minutes. But did it happen at the Academy Awards in 1938? I can remember it vividly.

[Bill Simmons]

The reason why I was asking for you to outline the decades is that it is fascinating to look at the arc of film history through the prism of Best Picture and see the exact moment where it spins apart. You know, maybe not the exact moment, but you go through the 90s and you're just like, the best and the brightest. And what a dogfight it was, right? The movies that won, the movies that lost, the movies that were nominated. It's centrality in American culture. And then you skip ahead to the tens and you're like, well, well, well.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, I think something. I have a notable statistic that is related to that that I think speaks to the broader discussion around the centrality of movies in our lives, which is that from 1997 to 2004, every best picture winner grossed at least $100 million at the domestic box office. That's eight straight years.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Since then, 20 years. Only five films have done that.

[Bill Simmons]

That's crazy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Let me name them.

[Sean Fennessy]

Go for it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Since. Since 2004. Four. Okay, so obviously Oppenheimer.

[Sean Fennessy]

Correct.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. I was doing this the other day in a movie that I thought was boring, which was just trying to get picture winners. Okay, so let's see. Avatar didn't win. What won in 2009 instead of Avatar. Yeah. No, no. Hurt Locker won instead of Avatar. What won the next year? This is great podcasting. There's King Speech that probably didn't.

[Bill Simmons]

That's in the tens.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, but he said for the next 20 years. So, yeah, the King Speech did it Did.

[Sean Fennessy]

Not only did the King Speech do it, I believe it is the third highest grossing best picture winner since 2004 is 100 mil. Argo did Argo. And the King Speech are two of the five. You've also got Oppenheimer, so you've got three of the five. So there's two left here.

[Amanda Dobbins]

One year did no country.

[Sean Fennessy]

No country for Old Men did not. And he earned $74 million at the domestic box office. Now, you've got to remember the interesting thing here is almost all of these movies have made over 100 million worldwide because the international box office was really strong for a long time until recently. We can talk about that too. But. So you've got two films that are left.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Is not Spotlight, not Boyhood, not Birdman.

[Sean Fennessy]

Nope. One very obvious one and one that I don't think you'll get.

[Amanda Dobbins]

2009, that was the God what won that year. Is that one of the years?

[Sean Fennessy]

The award given in 2009 is one of the years to 2008.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So it was for. Not for Hurt Locker.

[Sean Fennessy]

Nope. Hurt locker is the 2007 but lowest grossing best picture winner of all time, aside from Nomad Landing, Coda, which we.

[Bill Simmons]

Don'T count at that time or in general. Didn't Hurt locker make like $16 million?

[Sean Fennessy]

17 million.

[Bill Simmons]

It didn't make 60. It made $17 million in America.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. It also beat Avatar, which was one of the most financially successful movies I've read.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Crash in 2005 and then 2006. I don't remember what beat the Queen, but the Queen, Devil Horse, proudhorse.

[Bill Simmons]

That year.

[Sean Fennessy]

2006 and 2008 are the two years that we're talking about here.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Ah, okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

2006. Six is a momentous Academy Award win.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, is the. Is 2008 Slumdog Millionaire?

[Sean Fennessy]

2008 is Slumdog Millionaire. That is one.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And then I don't.

[Bill Simmons]

2006 didn't make 100 million, did it?

[Sean Fennessy]

It did not.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No. So what won best picture in 2006?

[Sean Fennessy]

Shame on both of you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Stop it. I am thinking, okay, so the Queen was nominated.

[Sean Fennessy]

You can remember the Queen and not this film.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Oh, the Departed.

[Sean Fennessy]

The Departed.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. There we go. See, I got there.

[Sean Fennessy]

The Departed.

[Bill Simmons]

Nice job.

[Sean Fennessy]

Slumdog Millionaire grossed $140 million in America and $385 million worldwide.

[Bill Simmons]

What happened there? What happened with us? We were just like, let's go. Slumdog Millionaire.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was a worldwide phenomenon. I mean, obviously an Indian story with Bollywood. A musical inspiring movie. Yeah, a variety of things. Most of these movies have been huge over the years. Even, you know, Parasite made $250 million worldwide. Winning best Picture often certifies your movie, Obviously, for the 50 years before the entire industry fell apart, you would make a certain amount of money all the way up until your nomination. And then if you won, you could then count on another 10, 20, $50 million at the box office. The movies would continue to play after they won or go back into theaters. They don't really do that very well anymore. Although it did help for, like Moonlight. Like moonlight made ended up making 65 million worldwide after, I think, originally opening to, like, 12 or 13.

[Bill Simmons]

So anyway, if something like Nora was, let's say, wins Best Picture and then had been in theaters for another eight weeks after that, do you think it would do really well?

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm wondering if that will happen.

[Bill Simmons]

Because the truth is, isn't it, like, On Demand?

[Sean Fennessy]

It's not streaming, but it is on vod. If a Nora wins and it is the the front runner to win right now, it will be the lowest grossing movie to win Best Picture, at least. Going back to the 1960s, like, movies like Oliver made $27 million. So Nora would be actually technically smaller than Hurt Locker.

[Bill Simmons]

It's probably the smallest.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Correct. Adjusted for inflation, it would definitely be the lowest grossing movie. That being said, it's been in the top five on VOD for weeks now. Yeah. And people are just watching movies differently, so we're taking that into consideration too. I just thought that was an interesting stat that, like, the winners just don't make a lot of money at the box office because the Academy has kind of changed. The movies that they award has changed.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And the way that people watch things.

[Bill Simmons]

And I think movies have changed too. Right. I mean, like, if you look at the 90s, these are some of the biggest movies of any those years. And now these are now, like, those movies now have become IP blockbusters. You can make the argument, like, why isn't Dune two more in contention or whatever, but, you know, I think I.

[Sean Fennessy]

Do see the Hurt Locker win as a real turning point for a variety of reasons. Not in a bad way.

[Bill Simmons]

You want them to come back down to five for Best Picture?

[Sean Fennessy]

It's a good question. What do you think?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't know. Because I do think even though I fight with Sean, a lot about the ratings are gone and we're never gonna get back to the 90s, and we have to let go. I think that at least having some movies you've heard of get nominated, I can't.

[Bill Simmons]

I just can't put myself in the space of somebody who's like, I'm gonna tune in because I watched Dune 2, and then I'm gonna Watch Dune to lose. You know what I mean? Like, if you were to be like.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't think it's gonna help ratings, but I think at, like, at this point, you just need people to, like, care what the Oscars are.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

To have, like, even the value of being the Best Picture winner. Give you any bi. Like, any. I don't know, just to. To. If people don't. Even if they're like, I haven't heard of any of those. So I just, like, it doesn't even matter. It's sort of like the me and the Grammys at this point. I'm like, yeah, yeah. Okay. I. I want to be clear that I have heard of both Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar and. And I congratulate them, but you know what I'm saying?

[Bill Simmons]

Have you heard of Chapel Run?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes, I told you about Chapel Road.

[Bill Simmons]

No, you didn't.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes, I did.

[Bill Simmons]

No, you did not. You told me about Chapel Roan. Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You were just like. You were like. You were like, I'm not. I'm out on the Pop Girlies. And I was like, you didn't check out Chapel Roan.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm not sure if I said it exactly that way.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And then can you imagine if music was the thing that broke the Chris and Amanda alliance on the draft episodes after all this time?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I was just, like, taking notes. I had, like. I remember when Chris was just like. I listened to half of Brat. I'm not brat. Which is fine. You aren't Brat. But I talk about this. Yes. On the Watch. And you did. You were not into the album.

[Sean Fennessy]

And you know who is Brad. Andy, Kamala. Nick Sirianni is Brad, bro. Nick Sirianni is about to have his Brad Summer. If we only had five best picture nominees this year, it's possible that those nominees could have been Anora, the Brutalist, A Complete Unknown conclave, and Amelia Perez. That would have not been super good for the Oscars, I think. I think not. Like, if Wicked was at six, which is not unreasonable, and then no. Dune Part two, and then all of a sudden, it's a lot of movies people haven't seen.

[Amanda Dobbins]

On the other hand, you and I would probably not have to sit through a Wicked opening number, which is allegedly what is gonna happen at the end.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, they denied it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They did.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, they did deny it. Now who knows? That was Matt Bellamy's reporting.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That I believe in the reporting of Matt Bella.

[Sean Fennessy]

Historically.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

So we'll see what they end up doing. But I think 10 is good. I like 10. The truth is, is that 10 is historically reasonable because that's how it started. You know, in the 1930s, when we talk about, you know, going back to 27, there were more nominees. They were trying to bring in as many titles as possible, and there are way more movies that are made right now. There's like, you know, 500 films that get released thousands internationally. So I think that the 10 is working well enough. It felt like its impact was felt in a strong way in a year like last year where you had Barbie and Oppenheimer getting over the line. And so the ratings went up a little bit because Oppenheimer was so strong the year before that. I mean, Top Gun made it into the 10. That's something you would have never considered 25 years ago at the Academy Awards.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So I consider it every day in.

[Bill Simmons]

My home using Lt. Pete Mitchell to get ratings. But they weren't ever really seriously considering honoring him, and that's why he didn't show up. They should have.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Yeah. Would you like to share some more thoughts about the American military right now?

[Bill Simmons]

You can check out my thoughts on Lioness on the watch. Yeah, I'm excited to do this. This is a fun exercise.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay, so reminder again. The categories are 1930s, 1950s, 1970s, 1990s, 2000s. And best Picture Loser. Bobby, we need to set the draft order. Yeah. Speaking of Pete Mitchell, bad news is I'm moving. And so I've packed away the Top Gun hat as well as the tiles, so we're going with random.org. i did clear the cookies. I went through great effort. I had to re sign into everything.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That does suck, especially when you work for Spotify. So I appreciate you.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, I did that. That's my face id.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, listen, that happened again in another movie. What movie was it recently where someone was just like face ID and stole, you know, someone else's as being?

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, it did. They were dead, right?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there I actually know what it is, but now I don't want it to be a spoiler. So anyway, don't use face id. They haven't secured it.

[Bill Simmons]

Was it Christopher Nolan's? The Odyssey Daily's on.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay, what is our order? The order will be Sean Fantasy selecting first overall. Jesus Christ. Amanda Dobbins selecting second and Chris Ryan will select third.

[Bill Simmons]

I was thinking I, I, I soft pitched this to these guys yesterday. I'm vamping for Sean to decide a strategy. Bob, do you think a rebel pod feed that's just Chris Ryan's Odyssey updates and is me reading updates about Casting locations, practical effects that no one is employing. The honor that he is bestowing upon Unios. Unios.

[Amanda Dobbins]

What is like the UNESCO World science UNESCO. You kept saying unios is the people.

[Bill Simmons]

Who own Manchester United. That's my bad. UNESCO. He is honoring UNESCO sites. He is honoring them.

[Sean Fennessy]

He is honoring them.

[Bill Simmons]

And I know all about them. You know what I mean? When I was inside the palace, I don't split.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I was like, it doesn't need to be rival. Okay? Like, you should just start, like, you know, reels. TikTok short. Short film only on this feed. I will light and shoot every single update. I will do it for you. Yes, I will. This is how much I believe my Catherine Bigelow.

[Sean Fennessy]

She's chasing you through backyard female directors. Wrong.

[Bill Simmons]

Can you imagine Mandala neckerchief on, like, framing me up?

[Sean Fennessy]

I can. Yes, we all can. I can see that. I will say, form wise, I would prefer to hear you go long. I don't want short form.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, no. I'm thinking, like, it's like Barbero. Like, the daily. Like, every day it's like, I'm Chris Ryan. Today, Christopher Nolan shot Mykonos.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think it has to be done, though, like, not on any of our Spotify sets, though, because that's not the energy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So, like, I'll send two Mykonos and then my spinoff, Chris des Mykonos wins us all reality TV episodes in an.

[Bill Simmons]

Authentic Peloponnesian boat for two years.

[Sean Fennessy]

You're being tackled by the national security at the Parthenon. The only production detail that I've heard about this movie, which we did discuss at dinner last night, is that Christopher Nolan in a sacred ancient cave.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is having a paper mache puppet Cyclops built to scale.

[Bill Simmons]

I was. I was. I think I was conflating a couple of different reports and also random tweets that I read.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is the kind of content you can get from Peloponnesia. And me, the CR Pod.

[Bill Simmons]

I can even plot it out for, like, the first eight months. I'm, like, doing it really straightforward and earnestly. And then I go full project veritas and start, like, not believing when things. And I'm, like, showing up in Greece and trying to, like, doorstep. Chris Nolan. Sir. Sir.

[Amanda Dobbins]

This is. This is how you finally do the grease trip.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And I'll be free to, like, follow along as your. As your one woman crew, you know?

[Sean Fennessy]

And it's also finally time for your Mediterranean diet. Diet that we've been talking about. Oh, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Blue zone dog.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Is that what we're Dialing up.

[Bill Simmons]

We're talking about it.

[Sean Fennessy]

Chris and I have been talking about it for about 18 months. You know, we're sort of soft launching it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

There's a lot of how I eat.

[Bill Simmons]

There's a lot of different research on Blue Zone. It's like, you know, in Sardinia, everybody lives. So, like, they're 101.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Because they just.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Are you. Are you seriously just about to explain the Mediterranean diet to him for the first time and you've never heard.

[Sean Fennessy]

I know what that is. Yeah. But I didn't know there are parts.

[Bill Simmons]

Of the Earth where people live forever because they like good quality.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. Because they eat, you know, like, olive oil and. Yeah. And. But they smoke fish and. Yeah, that's true. And they have wine. Yeah, yeah. It's great.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is true in many societies that don't strictly consume processed food, though. I mean, across Asia, there is this little similar.

[Bill Simmons]

I was worried this was going to be boring, and it's not.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, no, I was. I'm never worried about that at all with the first. Let me. Let me just ask a question for the. For the room. I've already made my decision, so this won't influence it. But what do you think is the weakest of the decades?

[Bill Simmons]

It depends on your levels of familiarity, but I would say the 2010s, the 2010s.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's interesting. Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Really?

[Sean Fennessy]

Personally, Even more so than the 1930s.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know. There are some pretty good movies in the 1930s.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, there's pretty good movies in every year. Right. I get. The 2010s is interesting. I mean, I don't. I have my eye on a few movies, but as you know, I don't love, like we were talking Spotlight the other day. Right. A lot of people love that movie. You love that movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you think Spotlight's better than Gone with the Wind?

[Sean Fennessy]

Better. I promised you that I would dog walk you into a Margaret Mitchell conversation last night, and here you are trying to walk me into one. You know, Gone with the Wind. What an achievement in production. I love the music, incredible staging, costumes, a depiction of.

[Bill Simmons]

Of the South.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Please don't look at me.

[Sean Fennessy]

You were. You were born at Tara, right? You were the. The estate depicted in the film.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I wonder if they have renamed. There is literally at, like, an indie movie theater in Atlanta that was still called, like, the Terra something. I hope they have renamed that.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. I don't have Gone with the Wind on my board. Okay. I can admire its achievement.

[Bill Simmons]

There's a good crane shot.

[Sean Fennessy]

A good crane Shot coming down the stairs.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, of all like the Atlanta. Yeah, you know, the shot.

[Sean Fennessy]

You like that because you felt it honored the men gave their lives during that time.

[Bill Simmons]

No, I'm just a big frame it up, like, Dolly guy.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, Every frame painting. That's what you always say. Okay, well, with my first pick, just to honor the story I was telling, I'll take the Silence of the lambs in the 1990s.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's a good play.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's a good pick. Universally a wonderful movie. I think the 90s is weirdly a little weaker than I would have previously thought when I started doing this exercise. The Silence of the Lambs is both a very serious and compelling film and also just a lot of fun and goofy to talk about, as we've done multiple times over the years. One of Jonathan Demme's many masterpieces. Great performances. The last movie to win the big Five Best picture. Director, actor, actress, adapted screenplay. Do you think that Hopkins should have been in supporting actor? Where do you stand on that?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I do not care about category fraud. I'm like. I just. I have said this many times. It's fine. He. He holds the movie. You can't have the movie without him. So I'm fine with him an actor.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay, cool.

[Bill Simmons]

I wonder what would it take for you to get really upset about that? I think it would probably have to be somebody you really believed in losing to something that you thought was category fraud. Can't think of an example of that, though.

[Sean Fennessy]

You could say it's a little early to go. 1990s.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, but I want this to be harmonious.

[Bill Simmons]

It's also like. It's like in the process of the pod, there's picks that make sense because of where they're gonna go. But then when you see them in a graphic afterwards, you're like, why the fuck did you pick this? You know?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

That won't happen.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You're gonna be like.

[Bill Simmons]

People are gonna be like, yes. Silence of the Lambs rules.

[Sean Fennessy]

Right, Right. I won't have to explain why I've chosen Forrest Gump.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. Well, you're up. Number two. Pick.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I will absolutely be taking. It Happened One night in the 1930s.

[Bill Simmons]

God damn it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, you have to. That would have. I'm relieved. Thank you. Thank you for not taking it from me.

[Sean Fennessy]

I have a personal favorite in this decade.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, that's great. My personal favorite is one of the great romantic comedies and one of the most influential movies and also a winner of the big five.

[Sean Fennessy]

It is one of only Three.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I feel like there's one that we're forgetting. But anyway, okay. I rewatched part of this movie this morning just to have a nice time. And then I fast forwarded just for the Walls of Jericho.

[Bill Simmons]

Claudette Colbert only like to be photographed on one side of her face.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I sympathize. Now you understand why we switch chairs.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, what if I like to be filmed dead on? That's my preferred angle.

[Amanda Dobbins]

This is a magical movie.

[Sean Fennessy]

I love it. I was telling you about the series that you must remember this is doing right now about the old man is still alive. These sort of great filmmakers at the end of their career. Frank Capra was the first episode. And it's amazing what sweet and funny and profound films he made in the 30s and 40s given what a unkind fucker he seemed like.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Was it really?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, just some really unseemly stuff and a lot of public stuff. And you know, this is certainly in an era of pre cancellation and all that, but like. And he seemed like not that person when he was making these movies. And then later in life kind of soured on a lot of things. But, you know, this is the guy who made Mr. Smith goes to Washington and Gets a Wonderful Life. And Capra, one of the rare adjectival filmmakers. There are three, in fact, three big five winners Happen One Night. Silence of the Lambs, and another movie that is eligible today. Maybe we'll get to it. If we don't, I'll cite it at the end if I have a memory that is strong enough to do so, which is usually not the case. Okay, Chris, you've got two picks.

[Bill Simmons]

All righty. Kind of all over the place. I did not anticipate you taking it Happen one night, but congratulations. I'm gonna take unforgiven in the 90s.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Ooh.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay, good. There's a couple movies here that I still really like a lot, but Unforgiven is my second favorite best picture winner next to Silence of Lamb. So I'll grab that while it's still there. Clint Eastwood's supposed. Supposed to be a capstone on his career in some ways. And then he just kept cranking him out.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yep. It's been 33 years since this movie came out.

[Bill Simmons]

It's crazy. Are we like, how many? What's the time span between Unforgiven and the mule?

[Sean Fennessy]

That's 2019. So it's 27 years.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow, that's crazy. I love this movie still. We recently enough did it on Rewatchables, I think last year.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's probably like five years ago, but.

[Bill Simmons]

Perfect Western. Great performances from Hackman and Richard Harrison, Morgan Freeman and so I'll take that in the 90s. And then I gotta get. I guess I gotta take All Quiet on the Western front from the 1930s, which is not one that I jam a lot, but did watch in conjunction with Edward Berger's version of it that was on Netflix a couple years ago and was also a best picture in the Hunt. Best picture movie. And this is, you know, quite a good piece of cinema history, if maybe not like a moviegoing experience, but is thought of as one of the great anti war films of all time.

[Sean Fennessy]

I also rewatched it when we did that podcast and was blown away by it. I think it's an amazing movie. I think it's legitimately a five star classic and sets. Absolutely sets the template for war films made by Hollywood.

[Bill Simmons]

Why don't you trade Silence of the Lambs to me for All Quiet in the Western Front? You seem like a huge fan.

[Sean Fennessy]

No.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

But I do think it's a great movie. And I think if people haven't seen it, it's really interesting that even back in 1930 that writers and filmmakers and actors were able to like nail down the experience in that storytelling. Very good movie.

[Bill Simmons]

It's up. It's up to you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm going to take the Godfather part two in the 70s.

[Bill Simmons]

70S are rich.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, it's great. I feel weird that I'm getting the.

[Sean Fennessy]

Godfather part two better than Part one.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I. I guess so. Because I went for it.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Because obviously I'm. That's where I have. I will go next.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think with both, maybe. It's just. I have rewatched Part two a couple times more recently and I think you can. You can toggle back and forth.

[Bill Simmons]

Have you ever watched the. Was it the. The linear cut? What is that called?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

When it's like it starts with.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is it the Godfather legacy?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

I really enjoy watching it that way.

[Sean Fennessy]

Where we start with veto.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I haven't. Okay. I watched them as they were. As they were released as God. But probably the best single cinematic performance of all time. Pacino in this one, if you had to pick. Amazing. Even when he's against Diane Keaton, who is woefully miscast, screaming abortion. But that's okay. What are you gonna do? She's good at this.

[Sean Fennessy]

This must all end.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It was an abortion, Michael. She's very good. In the scene in the kitchen when that. When she comes back at the end. Spoiler, I guess.

[Sean Fennessy]

Would you say it's because she is a woman? Like, because it's a female character in a world where you feel they don't belong?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. I'm only watching for the dudes. I mean, the Godfather's great too, but I think.

[Sean Fennessy]

Very generous of you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, you know what? He did a good job. Ffc. Thumbs up.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes, The Godfather chronological cut is called the Godfather Saga. Saga. The Godfather Legacy is a TV movie about the making of. I believe. I haven't seen that.

[Bill Simmons]

I have not. We haven't really talked about the offer.

[Sean Fennessy]

I watched the whole thing.

[Bill Simmons]

Will you guys be talking about the studio and this podcast?

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, it's a TV show. I know. I've seen a few episodes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Be invited to talk about it on your podcast.

[Bill Simmons]

Do a crossover episode.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I never get invited to the watch.

[Bill Simmons]

That's not true.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Been a long time. I thank you for my shout out. I caught up a little something going on here.

[Sean Fennessy]

A little spikiness.

[Bill Simmons]

It's uncommon sometimes an actor and director.

[Amanda Dobbins]

There'S a lot of conflict. Yeah, we're keeping the energy alive.

[Sean Fennessy]

Absolutely. Yeah. Kind of Pacino and Friedkin. And on the set of Cruising here. I'll take the Godfather. The Godfather would have been my pick over two, but we're talking about 50.1% to 49.9% in terms of preference. I just think it sets the template for the storytelling type. And it's like if you do watch the offer, which I would say is a wildly slanted in the direction of the producer of the film, even then you can kind of suss out what an amazing and unlikely success story this is. And all of the things that Coppola was able to smuggle into the production and story of the film, not least of which is basically shooting it in the darkness and still making it feel incredibly beautiful and deep and.

[Bill Simmons]

Great shot, Gordo.

[Sean Fennessy]

Great shot, Gordo. Obviously inspired by Gordon Willis, the cinematographer of the movie. I think as somebody who believes that the 70s is the best decade in the history of American movies. I think the winners are like, really great and maybe the best winners ever, but still not as great as I want them to be. So I find this category really interesting.

[Bill Simmons]

Is not there or something or what is it that you feel like there's not. The best pictures don't wind up representing the mood of the.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, it's like not the freakin movie I would pick. You know, it's not the Jack Nicholson centerpiece that I would pick. It's not the. Even the sports movie that I would pick. You know what I mean? Like, there's. There's a few variations on what they do, but the Godfather picks are the right picks. Those are the dead on perfect pick in that decade. So that's my first one. Okay, I got another pick. Tough situation here.

[Bill Simmons]

What's tough about it?

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, there's two different decades that I'd want to choose from here.

[Bill Simmons]

Gone with the Wind and what else?

[Sean Fennessy]

That's not a decade. That's a film. I mean, I'll tell you, it's either the 2010s or it's the 1950s, right?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I've got a movie at the top of both of those lists that I absolutely love. And if I don't get them, it's going to be a little disappointing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

So I've got to make a choice.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And how's your time?

[Sean Fennessy]

I think I'll take Parasite.

[Bill Simmons]

That's what I was wondering if you were gonna do.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think I have to because of what you said about the 2010s and in the 1950s, there's a few movies that I have a strong love for. The 2010s is a pretty short list of movies. I genuinely love that one. For example, I really think 12 Years a Slave is a great film. It's not a movie that I'm like, is in my personal head canon. Parasite is. Parasite is one of the best.

[Bill Simmons]

It's also very strange to look at the 2010s, even the winners in a long list of all of these other best picture winners, and you're just like, these are not in the same cat like class.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is that just a function of time?

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think so. I don't. I personally don't think the winners in the tens could. Would be nominated in the 90s.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, wow, that's interesting. I think that's personal bias maybe, because I. I don't know. This came up on when we were on the Sam Sanders show, you know, and he was saying the same thing. He was just like, I remember in 1992, it was like, this is. These are the best movies and everybody agrees. And we all went to go see them and we love them together. And I think that's a little bit of what you're getting at too, where it's like, the shape of water was a recent point of discussion where we're like, what happened here? Why did this movie win over Lady Bird and Get out and Dunkirk? Why did this happen? Parasite not the case. Parasite is an interesting win because it was in a year that had a ton of awesome contenders. This is the once upon a time In Hollywood year 1917 was was the front runner all the way up until the moment when it was revealed that.

[Bill Simmons]

Parasite won one of the great big picture moments. Yeah, like getting excited when you were like, cut.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's right. And your voice cracked. Yes. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, it was really, really exciting. I think in some ways, the Parasite wind is sort of similar to the shape of water wind, which is that Bong Joon Ho, amongst film fans and people in the industry was really, really, really admired as a truly original voice and somebody who'd been working hard for a long time. But the movie also had that phenomenon quality of like, this came out of nowhere and a lot of people were like, I've never seen one movie made in Korea, let alone one of the greatest movies ever made. So a movie that still, I think resonates really deeply and is a lot of fun to watch and is back in the news with the forthcoming release of Mickey 17 next month.

[Bill Simmons]

So Godfather and Parasite.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

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[Sean Fennessy]

Treating yourself without cheating your goals.

[Bill Simmons]

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[Amanda Dobbins]

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[Bill Simmons]

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[Amanda Dobbins]

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[Sean Fennessy]

Indeed.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, So I have 50s, 90s and 2010s. And I have. And it's you that I'm up against. And whatever Sean says, I don't really feel the enmity that is percolating between you two.

[Bill Simmons]

He's just trying to be a divisive figure in our work together.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's not true.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I guess that. What else is left in 90s? Let me look at this really quickly, because there's one that I need.

[Bill Simmons]

How is this a conversation?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, I know what I want.

[Sean Fennessy]

But you're more like, can I pass on it now? Yeah, but we've already chosen 90s.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, you've chosen it too. Oh, okay, great. Then I don't need to do it right now.

[Bill Simmons]

I could kneecap you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, I. You know, if you do that. Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I feel like you're getting your board.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's a great point.

[Sean Fennessy]

Would you say I.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Probably. Yes. If he kneecaps me, then I still have another option.

[Sean Fennessy]

So it's not the best year to kneecap you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, I don't know which one. Which one you think is a kneecap?

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, interesting. I could kneecap you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You. Well, there are actually two options in which you can kneecap. So in. In that way.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, but.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So you can't really, because I have two options, so.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, but one is. One is superior to the other, I think.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, I do as well. Okay, fine. I'll just do. I'll do Titanic.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, I think that's.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, that's not what I thought you were picking.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, it isn't?

[Bill Simmons]

No. I thought she was gonna take English. Patience.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. And that would be my other option. But I. I agree that. But if you had taken Good Will Hunting to kneecap me, that would have been a really good pick by you. And also, I agree, that would have.

[Sean Fennessy]

Been a great draft by you.

[Bill Simmons]

Right, See, because I thought you guys were saying somebody could pick Fargo or Jerry Maguire.

[Sean Fennessy]

That would have been good too.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That true?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Anyway, but if she had passed and that had happened, she could have just taken Titanic.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes, exactly. And if he had taken good while hunting, I could have taken English Patience. So it was. It was okay. But I feel good about Titanic.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. And did you consider Braveheart?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I was big mad at Braveheart all year because that was the Apollo 13 year. And sense and Sensibility.

[Bill Simmons]

Is it my turn?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay, so I need 70s, 50s, and loser. Correct. And tens. 50s. I'll do bridge on the River. Choir David Leon's epic but intimate portrait of the war. Finding soldiers wherever they are, even in a prison of war camp. And the construction of this bridge from Burma to Thailand that Alec Guinness is overseeing and that William Holden is trying to destroy. And just incredible performances. Lean at his non Lawrence best. I would probably say this is the.

[Sean Fennessy]

First of his two best picture wins.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Love this movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Still so jealous that you got to see Lawrence of Arabia.

[Bill Simmons]

One of the greatest of my life. Was going to see it at the American Cinema tech.

[Sean Fennessy]

When the 70 millimeter festival comes around next fall, we should make some plans around.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I would like to go.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you think we could start recording from the van that's driving around all the reels of 70?

[Sean Fennessy]

We'll make some calls. As you know, I am associated with that movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You can drive it. You can drive. Once again, I'll be the GoPro in the. In the Passenger.

[Sean Fennessy]

It'll be a great opportunity for Peloponnesia and me since we know that several Nolan films will be playing at that festival.

[Bill Simmons]

So you have Parasite. You don't have a 2000 and tens?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, there are two good options for.

[Bill Simmons]

The 2000 and tens.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, you take one, I'll take the other. It's fine.

[Bill Simmons]

The Oscars, I guess I'll take Argo.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They're fine. What? What?

[Bill Simmons]

Wasn't that the 2010s? What are you thinking?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, I have a choice now. Okay. I. Listen. I love the work of Ben Affleck.

[Bill Simmons]

Spotlight.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I like Argo, and I love the work of Ben Affleck.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So that's great. I saw it several times.

[Bill Simmons]

Margot's fine. I mean, I. I don't have a lot of passion for these 2000 and tens movies.

[Sean Fennessy]

Interesting that you've been creating during this period.

[Bill Simmons]

What does that mean?

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, just that you. It's become the economy of your opinion in this era, you know, and so maybe you.

[Bill Simmons]

The tens. Yeah, I guess.

[Sean Fennessy]

So that's your rise.

[Amanda Dobbins]

My rise is really. No, no, no, no, no, no. It was the 2000, right. You were like indie season. When was Conclave so real?

[Bill Simmons]

Trump won is what I really started to.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, no, no, no.

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean like public facing, like Conclave so real was a great time for me personally and the nine guys who knew about it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. But like that. That's where the legend starts. Don't. Come on. You know, you were there on the ground floor.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think what I'm trying to communicate is that Chris became a well known public opinion haver about culture in the 2010s and, and so you think I picked Argo so that I can hardened your stance at that time, Our faces.

[Bill Simmons]

Are not becoming less kind of like.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, it's like, I've been covering the Eagles for 10 years. I'm no longer a fan of the team.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know. It was me. Or is it cinema?

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, what do you think?

[Bill Simmons]

I think it was cinema, man. I think it was. I think I got hurt too many times in the tens.

[Sean Fennessy]

We talked about this last night, too. About, was Iron Man a common good ultimately, or did it destroy everything?

[Bill Simmons]

Sat down and said that, yeah, yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, that's not.

[Bill Simmons]

Amanda was like, no.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I did some kids updates.

[Bill Simmons]

I'll have a whispering angel. And I want to talk about whether or not Tony Stark. And then we saw a guy at the movies wearing a Philadelphia Eagles Tony Stark jersey.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Really? I didn't see that.

[Sean Fennessy]

Chris and I saw that. Yeah. And then Chris befriended that man.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Really?

[Sean Fennessy]

No.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. And I was like, where was I?

[Bill Simmons]

He's doing Odyssey updates with me now.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Damn it. I'm the producer. You have to let me know.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So argo was your 2000 and tens.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I got Birds on the river, choir and Argo. I'm not. I'm okay. I'm fine.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. So I think I'm going to do 1950s. I'm going to take All About Eve.

[Bill Simmons]

Surprised you didn't take American in Paris.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That was my backup, and I love American in Paris. And we have especially. The I Got Rhythm scene is sort of like my fashion lodestar. In addition to being one of the great cinematic achievements, even though it did sort of steal all of the. You know, famously, American in Paris won Best Picture. Singing in the Rain was not even nominated.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh.

[Sean Fennessy]

So it's a bit of a controversial Oscar year because it's also the year that A Streetcar Named Desire and A Place in the sun were nominated, which are considered two of the great American movies that have, like, more of a dark core. So it's like they picked the wrong musical starring Gene Kelly. And also, you know, Streetcar changed movie acting forever.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, all of that is true. I didn't pick it, but I am like, I'm reclaiming American in Paris back. I think we're underappreciating it a little bit. It's like, I mean, it's so beautiful to look at. It's a good movie. And the choreography and it's a different style of dance that is filmed very beautifully, and you don't get to see that much. So, you know, J.D.

[Sean Fennessy]

Kelly forever.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But I picked All About Eve because that's one of the best and most influential movies of in cinema history ever made. Yeah, just very, like, I don't know, like, performances. The concept of Eve, you're still doing All About Eve esque stories, the screenwriting, like, everything. You can just say All About Eve and everyone understands what you're talking about in terms of a person in the world, character development, it's all time. So there we go.

[Sean Fennessy]

I love All About Eve. I definitely had it on my list. So you both have films in the 1950s, you both have films in the 1930s?

[Bill Simmons]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

You both have films in the 1990s?

[Bill Simmons]

Yes. And 10. I have a 10.

[Sean Fennessy]

And you have a film in the tens. Amanda does not. I have a film in the tens. So I need 30s and 50s or I need a blocker. It doesn't really make sense to block anything in the 2010s for Amanda because she's got two picks. Because you chose Argo. Oh, that's out. Let me just work through this here.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

Your two picks.

[Sean Fennessy]

Never mind Amanda. Yeah. You're missing 1970s right now.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm not worried about that because it's either Butch and Sundance or Woodman. So I'll just jump in there. You guys already picked.

[Sean Fennessy]

Butch and Sundance are not eligible for that category.

[Bill Simmons]

I meant the guys. I meant the guys.

[Sean Fennessy]

Do you want to vamp about Woodman while I game theory out the rest of my draft? No, you don't. Okay, well, for 1930s, I'll take a movie that I was telling you about that I really love, which is Mutiny on the Bounty, which I think is one of the most underrated of the best picture winners that features, like, one of my favorite screen performances of all time and Charles Lawton's performance as Captain Bly. When I was a kid, AFI did 100 years, 100 movies where they ranked according to the American Film Institute and the people that they pulled the most important American movies this much like that Silence of the Lambs Academy Awards is a signal event of my life because it got me on the path of, like, absorbing film history and trying to go through the list and watch as much as I could. And I wish I had a copy of that special, which I think aired on cbs, because the clips that they showed of Lawton yelling at Clark Gable after he is marooned off the ship is just electrifying shit. And I always like this adaptation. There have been many adaptations over the years. I guess the most recent one is probably Mel Gibson. Oh, no, that's Kay Mutiny.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, That's Kay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Mutiny. Sorry. I think it's. Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins in the late 80s did a version of this called the Mutiny, which is not that great, but I really love this one, so that'll be my 1930s pick. Thought about yout Can't Take it with youh, another movie that I really like. Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You know, it's good. But I also rewatched it as, like, a backup. And then I was like, I would prefer to be watching it happen one night.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And it got better.

[Sean Fennessy]

The Superior Capra.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. And it does feel like the Academy was just sort of in a groove of like, okay. The Frank Capra romantic comedy.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I guess that this is what we're doing.

[Sean Fennessy]

Mutiny on the Bounty. I guess it was the 1950s, so I need 1950s. To me, there's only one pick, and it's on the Waterfront, Celia Kazan's incredible adaptation of Bud Shulberg's story about a boxer and some gangsters in Hoboken, New Jersey, and the loss of the soul of America. Wouldn't you say?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Incredible Karl Malden performance as the priest. Right. He gets really upset on behalf of.

[Sean Fennessy]

Do you think, in our relationship, am I more of the Steiger and you're more of the Brando?

[Bill Simmons]

I hope so.

[Sean Fennessy]

But you're older than me.

[Bill Simmons]

Steiger's older than Brando.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. He's the big brother.

[Bill Simmons]

I think I have a more youthful spirit than you, though.

[Sean Fennessy]

Interesting.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Don't you?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I, I, I do. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm still out here doing stuff, you know what I mean?

[Sean Fennessy]

Like what?

[Bill Simmons]

Like going to Cameron Winter, you know what I mean?

[Sean Fennessy]

You've cited your attendance at the Cameron Winter concert this week. Nine times. Nine times. One man goes to one concert, wants his hand shaken for that attendance. On the Waterfront, I do think kind of changed the conscience of American movie making. Ilia Kazan also, somewhat, unfortunately. I think using that film to communicate about why he did certain things in terms of House on American activities and what it means to be a rat and what it means to be an informer and what it means to be.

[Bill Simmons]

He still doesn't get cornered. Applauded. Right?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. He's a very controversial figure.

[Bill Simmons]

Ed Harris still is. Just like. Nope.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. But he was a hell of a movie maker, and it's a great movie. Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Amanda in Best Picture, Loser, I will take a film called the Social Network, which is available.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's great.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, this one, like, the best picture, like Loser. There are so many good ones, and we didn't really explore the blocking Thing. So then it's just kind of like so many of our favorite movies that got nominated and did not win, but the Social Network is eligible. And that's a good film.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a great movie. Do you like it more than Inception?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I do. You do?

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Do you?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's pretty tight.

[Sean Fennessy]

Pretty tight?

[Bill Simmons]

It's pretty tight. You don't think it's pretty tight? Oh, you don't like Inception? That's right.

[Sean Fennessy]

How would you.

[Bill Simmons]

That was like you were.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I love you so much. I am. I am producing, filming, editing, directing it.

[Bill Simmons]

Have you taken your lighting?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Directing. I'm doing all of it. But, you know, you're. You're Christopher Nolan. Mini, bit, series. I was about to say miniseries. But why limit it? I think Inception is good.

[Bill Simmons]

It's not.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And I. And I stand. And I have stood with you for the most part against his insanity.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm just saying. You take a phone call.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

You have the meeting.

[Sean Fennessy]

With whom?

[Bill Simmons]

It's a bill. As you have the meeting about whether Inception is better than the Social Network.

[Sean Fennessy]

Who are you?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I can't give you my answer right now.

[Bill Simmons]

And. And like the grand poobahs of Hollywood, we just sit down and we talk it out.

[Sean Fennessy]

Those poobas are sitting right here.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Pta, Spielberg, QT has weighed in on this.

[Bill Simmons]

He likes Inception.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Not as much.

[Sean Fennessy]

Social Network is the best movie of the decade.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm just trying to throw an idea.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's good content. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Inception. Could you just explain it to me just from the very beginning?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. You want me to explain it from the very beginning right now. Dom, do 90.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Do it in 90 seconds. And then. And this will be.

[Bill Simmons]

I can't do that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes, you can. Go. Come on.

[Bill Simmons]

But that's not. Has anything to do with whether it's better social. Dom is a dream thief.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't have a second hand on the top.

[Bill Simmons]

People's subconscious, while they're dreaming, extracts their secrets, usually for corporate gain. Okay. And then he reveals that he has been, like, basically exiled from home, wherever that is presumably America, because of some job he pulled and the death of his wife. Mal. Mal. Mal, right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Mal.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. He died in limbo.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Which is a layer of the subconscious. Dreamscape. But one last will get him home to his children.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Thank you.

[Bill Simmons]

Who are being raised by Michael Caine.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, yeah. And then there's the meme of, like, why can't Leo, like, Michael Caine just bring the children to France?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, also. But the kids don't have faces. What's up with that? You know, What?

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, what is up with it? Could you explain it?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, well, they might not be. They might not exist.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, did they die or were they never alive?

[Bill Simmons]

They're figments. They're figments of his subconscious.

[Sean Fennessy]

But were they ever alive?

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think so, personally.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I think they were children born in limbo and thus not real. You know, And Joseph Gordon Levitt and Tom Hardy are wearing incredible jackets and doing amazing stuff with gr.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And the world folds over on yourself, your majesty. Yeah, yeah. They do the skiing. Yeah, but shooting and then skiing and social networks. And then I didn't chase it at all. Slow down. La Vie en Rose. Or is it Jean Gret Rien?

[Bill Simmons]

I think it's. You're just getting your pee off confused. Because of Marion.

[Amanda Dobbins]

La Vie and Rose was also. The biopic was released around this Oscar time.

[Bill Simmons]

She was cooking.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. And she gave the great Oscar speech. But it's true that there are angels in the city tonight.

[Bill Simmons]

Did you see that she recently apologized for her performance as Talia.

[Amanda Dobbins]

All ghoul. I thought you were about to say she apologized for something.

[Sean Fennessy]

What were her thoughts on 9 11?

[Bill Simmons]

She said that she realizes now that her death scene was not adequate.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, not adequate.

[Amanda Dobbins]

She was just like, sometimes you just can't find the right position. And because you got her neck broken, it doesn't happen. She's like, it sucks.

[Bill Simmons]

I sucked in that scene.

[Sean Fennessy]

Could you do an impression of her apologizing for that scene? Okay. What is unsuccessful?

[Bill Simmons]

Bob, do you think Inception is better than Social Network?

[Sean Fennessy]

No.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sweet.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, I am.

[Bill Simmons]

I am.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

How do you say? I do think Inception is good, though. I'm with you on that. Very brave.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, I know. It's good.

[Sean Fennessy]

I would take the call, however, I would not. Nico Harris in the Situation.

[Bill Simmons]

I think Patrick Dumont convenes his. His decision makers to. To talk about whether or not Inception is better than Social Network.

[Sean Fennessy]

You. You taking Inception over Social Network does have strong ad for Luca vibes. I like how we're just retconning it. He didn't actually.

[Bill Simmons]

I didn't do that. I fucked up and took Argo, but I didn't really even fuck up. I just took it too early.

[Sean Fennessy]

You liked Argo because it was about Hollywood. Is that what it was?

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, this. It's a classic best picture winner, isn't it?

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's about the beauty of a classic best picture speech.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Marriage is hard.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Two 18 months later, divorced. Argo is based on a true story. It's about getting a team together to make something.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

And it is.

[Bill Simmons]

It also pushes the boundaries of fact or fiction.

[Sean Fennessy]

Let me ask you this. What'd you think about Ben Affleck not being included in the five directors for best director that year? Year. Did you think it was a crime?

[Bill Simmons]

Who else was in? Who was nominated that year?

[Sean Fennessy]

Maran k for her YouTube comments.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Steven Spielberg for Lincoln, which did not win.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, that's crazy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Argo.

[Bill Simmons]

I've been trying to get Lincoln on rewatch.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I know. You picked Argo instead of Lincoln.

[Sean Fennessy]

Did you hear Chris and I tell the story about us being at Ye Rustic on like a Wednesday night and there were like 40 TVs in the bar?

[Bill Simmons]

Was it after Romulus?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. No. We went to go see Gladiator 2.

[Bill Simmons]

That's right.

[Sean Fennessy]

And then Chris at God bless him at like 10:15pm after the 2 hours and 40 minutes of Gladiator 2, he was like, you want to go get a drink?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I was like, I really shouldn't because I'm going to be up in six hours.

[Bill Simmons]

But he did it.

[Sean Fennessy]

But I did go out. We went to Ye Rustic Inn, which we used to go to all the time in the 2010s and never go to anymore. We walk in, 40 televisions on. They're all playing NBA games except for one television in the center of the bar, which is attuned to TCM showing a screening of Lincoln. And Chris and I stopped talking and.

[Bill Simmons]

We were just like watching watch Tommy Lee Jones cook with a wig on.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I honestly so moved.

[Bill Simmons]

Get amendments passed.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I understood everything with no dialogue. I couldn't. We couldn't hear the film.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

But I knew exactly what was happening and where we were in the movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Front test. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And we were so touched. And then like four or five days later, we were on the rewatchables and we just started bullying Bill about Lincoln. But then he didn't say.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I did. I did hear that.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. And we really.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The 40th anniversary of Witness has come and gone, so.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, no. Did you send your note?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I asked you to pass the message along.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, I didn't do that. Sorry about that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Technically, we're still in the. No. Now it's two weeks when this airs.

[Sean Fennessy]

Do you like Witness?

[Bill Simmons]

I love Witness.

[Sean Fennessy]

Do you think it's great?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I think it's really good.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. I think I said to Amanda, it's top eight Peter Weir.

[Bill Simmons]

So is it better than Mosquito coast, do you think?

[Sean Fennessy]

I love that movie. But it is better than that movie. But I love that movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you Think it's better than Master and Commander?

[Sean Fennessy]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you think it's better than White Squall? Is that pure work?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. No, that's Ridley Scott.

[Bill Simmons]

That's Ridley Scott.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

He had a boat movie, though.

[Sean Fennessy]

Mosquito Coast. Let me see if I can do it off the top of my head. Picnic at Hanging Rock. It's not better than Waves. The Last Wave. Fearless.

[Bill Simmons]

I love Fearless.

[Sean Fennessy]

Great movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Just drives into a wall, listening to you two. Because he can't die.

[Sean Fennessy]

Dead Poets Society.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

The Way Back. The Truman Show. There's one more. Oh, Master and Commander.

[Bill Simmons]

Did he make a. Didn't make another boat movie.

[Sean Fennessy]

Then for me comes Witness. I'm not.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You were doing that ranking.

[Sean Fennessy]

That was the ranking. But those are the seven in front of it.

[Bill Simmons]

Except for a weird jump he made. And then he was like, witness is not as good as these. A bunch of these.

[Sean Fennessy]

Those are the seven that I would put.

[Bill Simmons]

If we starred Paul Giamatti. Would you think it was that?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, but it is. Listen, when this is in the world, our thoughts about Red Hulk will also be in the world. And I spent some time last night watching my wonderful Harrison Ford.

[Sean Fennessy]

Your beautiful boy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

My beautiful boy. And just being like, this is a.

[Bill Simmons]

Disgrace on a peloton.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, I mean, that was kind of funny. It wasn't that funny.

[Bill Simmons]

It was the only funny part of.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It, but it wasn't even that funny. They just put him on a peloton. Anyway, you know what? Once, once upon a time, like, Harrison Ford is a movie star. And if you don't know how to use him, you fucked up. And Peter Weir didn't fuck up.

[Bill Simmons]

Is it my turn?

[Sean Fennessy]

I believe it is.

[Bill Simmons]

I agree with you. I think Witness is great. It's a.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's.

[Bill Simmons]

It doesn't depict Philadelphia police in the greatest of lights.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, maybe it's just honest filmmaking.

[Sean Fennessy]

Witness, of course, nominated for best picture.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Teaches you how to build a house. But in the 80s, it's not eligible.

[Bill Simmons]

70S in 1970s, I'm going to take the Sting.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Interesting.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's a real cockpit.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Because my parents tried to make me watch the Sting when I was like 8.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you not like the Sting?

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I love the Sting. But once again, eight is too young to watch Sting.

[Bill Simmons]

I just watch the Sting the most out of all these movies.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Just like, show me Star Wars.

[Sean Fennessy]

So you think this is really interesting. The Sting is obviously a great, like a lot fun, tremendously entertaining movie. And, you know, you get why it was sort of like they didn't totally recognize Butch Cassidy and they Needed to maybe go out of their way to acknowledge this movie that everyone agreed was a great time at the movies, but.

[Bill Simmons]

Was not, like, important.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's not really about anything, you know, it's just an adventure movie. And the Oscars often, though not always, attempts to.

[Bill Simmons]

I think I'm picking movies I like rather than movies that are like, the best, best pictures.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm not. That's true.

[Bill Simmons]

I, I, I would say Annie hall and Deer Hunter are probably more important films. French Connection even maybe is a more important film.

[Sean Fennessy]

That was going to be. My question is, do you think this over the Deer Hunter?

[Bill Simmons]

I've definitely seen this 20 times more than the Deer Hunter. I think I've seen the Deer Hunter like, five times. I've seen they sting like a whole.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Deer Hunter is quite long.

[Sean Fennessy]

It is quite long.

[Amanda Dobbins]

My dad just likes to watch the.

[Sean Fennessy]

First half not an easy sit.

[Bill Simmons]

Your dad just likes the, the Pennsylvania stuff.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Seriously. For his 70th. Better than saying, I 70th birthday, he watched the first half of the Deer Hunter and had pancakes for dinner.

[Bill Simmons]

That's cool. Shout out my Streep's great.

[Amanda Dobbins]

What a legend.

[Sean Fennessy]

Again, the Deer Hunter. Another movie that I'm like. When you're making comparisons to the Brutalist, these movies have so much in common. They're so similar. The bifurcation, the crazy stuff in the second half.

[Bill Simmons]

Denying him that the Deer Hunter is important to the brutal.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, because I think I'm always been.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He's, no, he's just like the brutalist. The Brutalist, you know, and he knows I got him a little.

[Sean Fennessy]

So no, I, I like the, I like the pushback. I think, I think when I said.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That, I said that the first half of it was transcendent and then I had some.

[Sean Fennessy]

What was, what did we quote you saying? I haven't been able to. No living red frame in my head.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Which I think users of the Internet will understand. That isn't like 100% an endorsement.

[Sean Fennessy]

And Brutalist Industries has commodified that whole quote.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's fine. You know.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, the point I was gonna make with the Deer Hunter is whenever people are like, did that character really have to do that? At the end of the Brutalist, I'm like, have you seen the end of the Deer Hunter? The guy's playing fucking Russian roulette and he won't leave Vietnam. Like, this is what talking about this is what movies do. Crazy happens in the second half of movies that makes us have emotional catharsis. Anyway, that's why I find, like, all of those criticisms, super lame. I digress. That was not a criticism of your criticisms. I would have taken the Deer Hunter over the Sting. But the Sting's great.

[Bill Simmons]

The Sting is great. Robert Redford and Paul Newman and George Roy Hills caper about a con they're pulling in the 1920s. Well, I'm not the roaring twenties. I think it's depressions, the thirties, when's. When's the prohibition happening?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Twenties until set in 1936.

[Bill Simmons]

There you go. Eddie hall is very high up there. French Connection is very high up there. I like Kramer vs Kramer, but for my loser.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, quickly, before you move on. The third film that won the Big Five is also in the 1970s. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

For Louise Fletcher Nicholson, Milos Forman picture screenplay for a loser.

[Bill Simmons]

I'll take Goodfellas, 1990.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's a good pick.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's a good one.

[Bill Simmons]

Among my favorite two or three films. And tragic that this did not win.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's an abomination.

[Bill Simmons]

Maybe the Great even. I'd say. I think it's a good pick because it's one of the greatest crimes in Oscar history.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's particularly amusing now because both Open Range and the Horizon films are going to end up being better than Dances With Wolves. And we really rushed to anoint Kevin as the great seminar. Open Range is fire.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I know. We can't go back to the Kevin Costner thing right now. We can't really.

[Sean Fennessy]

Not only fire, it's hot fire.

[Bill Simmons]

Did you see all the streets? They're just. They're talking about Horizon Part 2.

[Sean Fennessy]

I know.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I was with you on the night when I was like. I had.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, but that was, like, original, like, oh, people are too close to this. But the reviews are strong.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, it's gonna be great. I'm so pumped. And it's never coming out.

[Bill Simmons]

What if this is, like, the true reinvention of avant garde independent cinema is like taking our files or our reels of Horizon Part 2 and going around the country and showing it in people's, like, garages and stuff?

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Road. Showing it.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Independently. That sounds good to me.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Is that your next podcast?

[Sean Fennessy]

I would like to.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Are you hoping. Are you hoping for me to direct and light that for you?

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't think you have respect for my face, so I'm not sure that I want you to light me. I.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's not true.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You don't have respect for your face. I'm trying to get you to cut back on exfoliating, you know, you think.

[Bill Simmons]

You exfoliate too much?

[Amanda Dobbins]

He exfoliates every time he's in the shower, which is every day.

[Bill Simmons]

You're not too supposed to do that, right?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. I mean, my skin is clear. I don't know what you're talking about.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, no, it's not just about like, I moisturize. Everyone, like, everyone who is listening who knows about these things is screaming a little because we want what's good for you.

[Sean Fennessy]

What actually is happening to me, like, what is.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You're. You're damaging your skin barrier. Yeah, you're over. You're over. You're over exfoliating and you're making it like, you know, weak and. And sad. And you could have. You only need to exfoliate once or twice a week.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, like, what is actually what's bad that I'm doing? Like, what's.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You're just like literally putting your scraping off your skin at an aggressive rate.

[Sean Fennessy]

What's going to happen that's bad?

[Amanda Dobbins]

You.

[Bill Simmons]

You ever see scanners?

[Sean Fennessy]

I think I'm. I think I'm just waiting for like a medical issue here.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

Does it make it more exposed to the sun?

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm not. I don't care how I look anyway. So what is really, why are you exfoliating but I don't go in the sun?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Like, but why are you exfoliating?

[Sean Fennessy]

Because I want my skin. I want to be clean. Like, I don't want to have like blemishes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. But actually your scent, your skin can be over exfoliated and then like start over producing oil as to try to rehydrate it in order to tell you.

[Sean Fennessy]

Something that's not happening.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. I just.

[Sean Fennessy]

I've beaten the system too much.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Irritation, redness.

[Sean Fennessy]

We should consider that I am the skinfluencer in this equation.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that's true.

[Sean Fennessy]

And that I have landed on a new methodology.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Are you using like, say, Ives?

[Bill Simmons]

Like, what are you a little bit of like a. Like a. You look down your. Your nose a little bit at some of our favorite drugstore brands.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You know, St. Ives.

[Bill Simmons]

I feel like you took a shot at me for using Old Spice once and I was like, old Spice got me a.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, Old Spice is like, is, you know, I got laid Spice.

[Bill Simmons]

Stay in your lane. Chicks diggled Spice. Right?

[Sean Fennessy]

I. I think it's. I think it's Nivea is the brand.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, that's. I mean, St. Ives is like notorious. That was like a product of our use, but that is like actually just like plastic beads that are Just, like, scratching your skin and scar them. So that's bad. I use drugstore products every single day. I use Cetaphil and I use therapy.

[Bill Simmons]

So I like as well. No, I like those products both, but I just feel like sometimes I'll be like, oh, yeah, I use this. And you're just like, oh, my God, Chris. Like you're going to die tomorrow.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, it's just Old Spice. Like, you are no longer 17 or whatever in terms of age you were when you got laid for the first time, which I don't need to know.

[Sean Fennessy]

Why don't you recap that night for us? So a man wakes up.

[Bill Simmons]

I would do incredible numbers if I did that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Never mind. You know, at some point, we need to act our age, but that's okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I act my age. I have like.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But you're still wearing Old Spice. Yeah, if it ain't broke, that's fine.

[Bill Simmons]

But I switch. I switch up to the scent every once in a while.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I go like volcano, but.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So you're not. You're not into. What's wrong with that? What was today?

[Bill Simmons]

I think I'm on a Fiji run.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And how would you describe it?

[Bill Simmons]

You think I smell bad? I also, like, sometimes I put on a little bit of, like, a tobacco cologne, but then I overwhelm myself with the scent.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, my God.

[Bill Simmons]

You okay?

[Sean Fennessy]

Sort of circling back. We have another pod to record immediately.

[Amanda Dobbins]

After this, so did you make a pick?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I took Goodfellows.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. No, what are you doing?

[Amanda Dobbins]

What am I doing? Oh, 2010. I'm gonna take Moonlight.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Which as, like, when we talk about the history of Best Picture, we talk about the last 10 years. Sean writes, like, a whole thing. That was mean. And I'm not trying to be mean. I really still am stuck on Fiji. Old Spice.

[Sean Fennessy]

Sean writes a whole thing. What are you talking about?

[Amanda Dobbins]

You. The night that Moon Line won Best Picture, you wrote a piece that was like, this is a new academy. This is changing the way that we understand Best Picture. And that has been just kind of a turning point, I think, in our understanding. And this shows.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think that's true.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think that's true. And I agree with you.

[Sean Fennessy]

Not always.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

But that time I was.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We talk about it in the historical terms so often that I think we forget what a wonderful movie it is. Agreed. And beautiful. And the experience of. I mean, that Mahershala Ali scene in the water, the first time, you know, and giving us Barry Jenkins as a filmmaker. It wasn't his first film, but that kind of, you Know, sets him on his path to Beale street and to Underground Railroad and to other fossil live action Poland.

[Sean Fennessy]

The Lion King.

[Bill Simmons]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessy]

Which I'll have you know, has turned out to be quite a box office success. After its initial underperformance, it is kind of the greatest showman of this year.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. Anyway. Moonlight. Beautiful film.

[Sean Fennessy]

I love it. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Augustus Bader was that cream.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, Augustinus Bader.

[Bill Simmons]

I used that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Do you. Which one?

[Bill Simmons]

The one that comes in like the little like.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You use the rich cream? Yeah, I mean they all come in the dark blue. That's the packaging. So you use the rich cream?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I think so.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Really?

[Bill Simmons]

On my face.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Do you like it? I have been thinking about. I'm almost done with my vent nurse daughter. And I was thinking about upgrading.

[Bill Simmons]

Sometimes I use Drunken Elephant.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, you. You use that a lot. That's like your product. But is the. The rich cream. Are you borrowing it from Phoebe or.

[Bill Simmons]

My wife. Gay keeps all this stuff.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, it's just like you can drink.

[Bill Simmons]

That'S not yours in a bottle, but.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The drunk elephant is yours.

[Bill Simmons]

Yep.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Okay. That's exciting. Augustine Spader was the cream in Challengers.

[Sean Fennessy]

I recall the name.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And they also made the Sofia lip balm.

[Bill Simmons]

So I'm done.

[Sean Fennessy]

You're done. And you're done.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And you have the loser. And you have like all this cinema to pick from.

[Sean Fennessy]

You have the entire history of movies to choose.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm sure you'll be very cool about it. And not a read a list of 85 to 100 films.

[Sean Fennessy]

I only have 26 listed here. What do you mean?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, okay, 26. You can read them. Read them.

[Sean Fennessy]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

Can I guess?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I was getting comfortable. I was ready. Go ahead.

[Sean Fennessy]

You can guess.

[Bill Simmons]

Get out.

[Sean Fennessy]

Nope. Well, now I feel the 2000 and tens has been taken. So I'd like to choose something from an era that was not already selected. So you chose 1990 and she chose 2010s. So maybe I should go to a different decade. Right. So 30s, 50s, 70s, all day long.

[Bill Simmons]

Let's go network.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's on the long list.

[Amanda Dobbins]

All the President's Men. That was almost what I did.

[Sean Fennessy]

Would have been a good one.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Thank you.

[Sean Fennessy]

Perfect film.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I agree.

[Sean Fennessy]

If I had to choose a Nicholson movie from this era, it would be Chinatown.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But you can have Chinatown because I did Godfather Part two.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's right.

[Bill Simmons]

Apocalypse Now.

[Sean Fennessy]

Apocalypse now is on the list. Mash. Are there other Altmans I would have nominated for Best Picture?

[Bill Simmons]

Sorry, Big shot. Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think MASH is cool. I think it's a cool Movie. I know why. It was a phenomenon. I get it. It is just. It's not in my upper crust of almond favorites, personally.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, Jaws.

[Sean Fennessy]

Jaws.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, you could. Now I'm going 50s.

[Sean Fennessy]

What about dog Day Afternoon? Coming Home. Coming Home, like the. My favorite. My favorite ending in the 1970s.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, I know what you should do.

[Bill Simmons]

What about the gay divorcee?

[Sean Fennessy]

No. You know what I should do?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

What should I do?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, why don't you make a decision, and then I'll tell you whether it was the right one.

[Bill Simmons]

Fellowship of the Ring.

[Sean Fennessy]

I don't think that's eligible.

[Bill Simmons]

Is it not?

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, it's 2000s, isn't it? Fellowship of the Ring was 2001, so we're not drafting from that time. Do you think you and I should do a Lord of the Rings pod?

[Bill Simmons]

A lot of people are asking for.

[Sean Fennessy]

It, but, I mean, like, every film, like, it's just me and. Just me. Nothing personal. Just me and you. That's really fine because of what those films have meant to our friendship, but.

[Bill Simmons]

What if we just.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You can't do it this year. Listen, I just. I'm. I'm sorry. I'm stepping in to just marshall you.

[Sean Fennessy]

Because I have a lot of pods planned.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, because you were, like, panic texting yesterday about the number of podcasts. And also, you keep being like, I need a. I need a, you know, sabbatical. I need a sabbatical.

[Bill Simmons]

Sabbatical will be recapping the Hobbit movies with me.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

That would be a joy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Once again, I'm available to light and direct.

[Sean Fennessy]

I wanted. I just want to spend somewhere between 1 and 14 hours talking about the desolation of Smaug with Chris.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Is that Smaug? Is that how we're pronouncing it?

[Sean Fennessy]

I think so.

[Bill Simmons]

He has a little vulnerability right here on his belly.

[Sean Fennessy]

Benedict Cumberbatch, his best performance.

[Bill Simmons]

And who's that guy? The guy's the river dweller. Who's that dude?

[Sean Fennessy]

Not sure. I saw Becoming Led Zeppelin yesterday, as you guys know. And there's, like, a pretty extended period where Robert Plant talks about writing the lyrics to Ramble On. And during the film, it cuts to archival footage of a man opening the Lord of the Rings and showing us a pencil drawing of Mordor, which, of course, is cited in the song. Anyway, I think I will choose Barry Lyndon. Okay. That's what I wanted. Barry Lyndon, directed by Stanley Kubrick. One of the most beautiful and striking movies ever made. Amanda's never seen it, so she doesn't know What? She's talking about Barry Lyndon.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I like painterly things. You used real candlelight. Awesome. Okay, what about the fucking wizard of Oz? Put your money where your mouth is.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you think that Inception's better than Barry Lyndon?

[Sean Fennessy]

No, I thought about the wizard of Oz.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

You can come see. It's on my list. Yeah, I love the wizard of Oz. One of my favorite movies of all time. But I didn't want to give Wicked any more shine, so I opted against it. I feel like we need to quiet the wicked people right now.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Tell them to settle down. So that's it. Graph's done. We agree we learned a lot about deodorant in this discussion. We learned a lot about skincare agent, Greece, Chris's virginity.

[Bill Simmons]

No, we didn't really learn anything about that.

[Sean Fennessy]

We did. We learned a lot about it.

[Bill Simmons]

I just said that.

[Sean Fennessy]

That you said you still have your virginity. What did you say?

[Bill Simmons]

I said had a significant. I guess I have a signature scent. Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And it's just Old Spice.

[Bill Simmons]

Variations on Old Spice. Powerful antiperspirant deodorant.

[Sean Fennessy]

Your Allspice brand is testicular musk. Is that what you say?

[Bill Simmons]

Honestly, that's fucking beneath you.

[Sean Fennessy]

What's beneath me? What? What do you mean?

[Bill Simmons]

No, mine is. You said it's a timber or Fiji or volcano or there was some, like, Northeast Passage.

[Amanda Dobbins]

What are the scent notes in volcano?

[Bill Simmons]

Smoke.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, yeah. Well, sure, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It's made of real lava.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Does Old Spice do a natural deodorant yet?

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know. I'm way past that point.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, guys, let's recap. I had the first pick, so I'll recap first. In 1930s, I chose Mutiny on the Bounty. In 1950s, on the Waterfront in 1970s, The Godfather. In 1990s, The Silence of the Lambs in 2010s, Parasite. And in Best Picture, Loser, I chose Barry Lyndon.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I just remember his little vulnerability.

[Sean Fennessy]

Smell good.

[Bill Simmons]

1930S, I took All Quiet on the Western Front. In 1950s, I took Bridge on the River Kwai. In 1970s, I took the Sting. In 1990s, I took Unforgiven. In the 2010s, I took Argo and got shit for it. And for Loser, I took goodfellas. I initially was like, I fucked this draft up, up. Maybe I should get myself a little bit more serious about these things. And now I think I did a good job.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Came all the way back around.

[Sean Fennessy]

I see.

[Bill Simmons]

And I also think I introduced a lot of ideas to the show.

[Sean Fennessy]

Cool. Very proud of. Very proud of you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I have to do this without laughing and I really had the giggles. Okay. In 1930s I took in It Happened One Night in 1950s I took All About Eve in the 1970s, the Godfather Part 2 in 1990s, Titanic in the 2000 and tens moonlight and best picture loser. The Social Network.

[Bill Simmons]

I think you probably won.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, who can say, you know.

[Sean Fennessy]

We let you have your board.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's okay. Not. Not personal.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You know what? You don't.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's out of love.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You don't.

[Sean Fennessy]

You don't. You don't know what you need which is to sometimes be calm on a two recording day. Thank you so much to Jack Sanders for his work on this episode episode and to Bobby Wagner, our producer. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. You are the best.

[Bill Simmons]

I. I try to just contribute where I can across the board.

[Sean Fennessy]

Next week on the show we're running back the alternative Oscars. Wesley Morris will return. We'll see you then.